Class J] Q_y '^ \ Book ^^ ^Ji:.!^ THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF ROME THE ROMAN EMPIRE. THOMAS KEIGHTLEY, AUTHOR OIT " THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF ENGLAND," ETC., ETC. TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. NEW YORK: THE WORLD PUBLISHING HOUSE, 21 ASTOR PLACE AND I42 EIGHTH ST. 1877. ^ A "b PREFACE Encouraged by the success of my History of Greece, 1 now present to the pubUc, and particularly to those who are engaged in the task of education, that of Rome simi- larly executed. The inadequacy of Goldsmith's and other compilations to convey correct historical knowledge is now generally felt and acknowledged, and works of a higher order are required for education. Most readers are aware that in consequence of the labors of Niebuhr (a man of whom I never can either think or speak but with admiration and respect) the history of the early centuries of Rome h.as assumed an entirely new char- acter. These new views should be known, and I have therefore introduced them ; but as every one may not be disposed to acquiesce in them, I have, though convinced of their general soundness, kept them distinct from the common narrative, which I have given in all the fulness that my limits would allow ; and teachers will use their discretion with respect to the chapters which contain them. In the Second Part of this work I have followed this writer's nar- rative, as it would have been presumption in me to do otherwise. The study of Niebuhr's own work I however most strongly recommend to every one ; and I can answer with confidence for the correctness and fidelity of the trans- lation of it by MM. Hare and Thirlwall. It may startle some readers to find so much of the early Roman history treated as fabulous, and Rome's first two kings presented as the mere creations of imagination. Their surprise I can assure them arises entirely from ignorance of mythology as a science ; for were they well acquainted with its principles, it would probably be of another kind, and they would wonder how such palpable fictions ever came to pass for realities. I have labored, and I hope with success, to raise mythology from the contempt in which it has long lain iV PREFACE. in this country, and I look forward to its enjoy.r^ h3 full share of consideration which it deserves. As I find that my other works have already made their way into some highly respectable ladies' schools, and know- .ng to what ridicule, though unjustly, the wrong accentua- tion of classic names exposes people, I have followed the Greeks in circumflexing the penultimate syllables when long otherwise than by position or the union of consonants, The apex which I have employed is constantly used in marking the long vowels in Oriental words, and it is more agreeable to the eye than an accent, or the mark of long quantity. Thus Cethegus and Perpernn have both the accent on the penultimate syllable, while in Catulus, Han- nibal, and others, it is on the antepenultimate. I take this opportunity of informing the heads of schools, that if life and health are spared me I propose writing a volume of Roman Antiquities as a companion to the present work. I shall feel most grateful to those who will point out to me any defects or omissions they may discover in my works, and I now return my thanks to those who have done so in my Greece, and assure them that their suggestions will be attended to in the next edition. I would finally request that my History of Greece should be always read befoie that of I^me ; for as I regard these works as one whole, it is frequently referred to in the following pages. T. K. London, Dec. 15th, 1835. In this Second edition a few corrections and improve ments have been made. I am happy to be able to add thai the First volume of my History of England, containing the history from the earnest tunes to me end of the House of Tudor, is in the press, and will be published before mid- summer. The Second and concluding volume will follow It with all convenient speed. London, April, 1837. CONTENTS. PART I. THE REGAL PERIOD. CHAPTER 1. I AGE. nKsCRiPTioN of Italy. — Ancient Inhabitants of Ita!}'. — The Pelas^ans. — The Oscans. — The Latins. — The Umbrians. — The Sabellians. — The Etruscans. — The Ligurians. — The Italian Greeks. — Italian Reli^on. — Political Constituiion 1 CHAPTER II. /Eneas and the Trojans. — Alba. — Numitor and Amulius. — Romulus and Renins. — Building of Rome. — Reign of Romulus. — Roman Con- stitution. — Numa Pompilius. — Tullus Hostilius. — Ancus Marcius. ... 8 CHAPTER III. L. Tarquinius Priscus. — Scrvius Tullius. — L. Tarquinius Superbus. — Tale of Lucretia. — Abolition of Ro3'alty. — Conspiracy at Rome. — Death of Brutus. — War with Porsenna. — Battle of the Regillus 20 CHAPTER IV. The Regal Period of Rome, according to the views of Niebuhr 37 CHAPTER V. The Origin and Progress of the Roman Constitution according to Nie- buhr 49 PART II. THE REPUBLIC — CONQUEST OF ITALY. CHAPTER I. Beginninfr of the Republic. — The Dictatorship. — Roman Law of Debt. Distress caused by the Law of Debt. — Secession to the Sacred Mount n CONTENTS. PAGS. — The Tribunate. — Latin Constitution. — Treaty with the Latins. — War with the Volscians. — Treaty wilji the Heniicaiis tl CHAPTER n. Tin- public Land. — ACTarian Law of Spurius Cassius. — The Consulate. — \'olscian Wars. — V eicniine War. — The Fibii at the Crcmera. — SicM of Rome. — Murder oflheTril)UMe Genucius. — Rogation of V'olcro PuD- lilius. — Defeat of the Roman Army. — Death of Appius Claudius 60 CHAPTER in. Volscian War. — Legend of Coriolanus. — The Tcrcntilian Law. — Sei- zure of the Capitol by ihe E.\ilcs. — Dictatorship of Ciiicinnatus. — The first Dcccmvirale. — The second Deccmvirate. — Siciiiius Dentatus. — Fate of Virginia. — Abolition of the Di;ccinvirate 81 CHAPTER IV. Victories of Valcpus and Horatius. — Canuleian Law. — Censorship a. id military Tribunal!;. — Feud at Ardea. — Sp. Ma-lius. — .^^ouiaii and Volscian War. — Ca)>turc of Fidenie. — Volscian War. — iNlurder of Posluniius by his own Solilicrs. — Veientine War. — Capture of Veii. — Siege of Falerii. — E.\ilc of Camillus 9!) CHAPTER V. The Gauls. — Their Invasion of Italy. — Siege of Cliisium. — Baltic of the Alia. — Taking of Rome. — Rcbuildinir 131 CHAPTER VII. Third Samnite and Etruscan Wars. ^Rattle of Seniinum, and Self-de- voiion of Decius. — Hatilc of A(]uilonia. — Reduction of the Saiuniies. — Hortensian Law. — Wor>5hip of ./Ksculapius introduced.—- Lucanian ^^^^r. — Roman Embassv insulted at Tarciitum. — Gallic and Etruscan War .' 15! CHAPTER VIIL Arrival of P rrlius in ItaU'. — BatUe on the Siris. — Cineas at Rome. — Approac a( Pyrrhus to Rome. — Battle of -Asculum. — Pyrrhus •a Sici- ! ! CONTENTS. Vil PAGE. y. — Battle of Benevent m. — Departure of Pyrrnus. — Italian Allies. — Censorship of Ap. Claudius. — Change in the Constitution. — The Roman Legion. — Roman Literature. 16t PART III. THE REPUBLIC — CONQUEST OF CARTHAGE ANf MACEDONIA. CHAPTER L Carthag-e. — First Punic War. — Sic^e of A^rigentum. — Roman Fleet. — Naval Victory of Duilius. — Invasion of Afrir-a. — Defeat and Capture of Reguhis. — Losses of the Romans at Sea. — Battle at Panormus Death of Regulus. — Defeat of Claudius. 1 — Victory at the iEgatian Isles. — Peace with Cartilage. — Eflects of the War 174 CHAPTER II. Civil War at Carthage. — Illyrian War.— GaHic Wars ,.190 ! I CHAPTER in. I i I J Conquests of the Carthasinians in Spain. — Taking of Saguntum. — I I March of Hannibal for Italy. — Hannibal's Passage of the Alps. — Bat i tie of the Ticinus. — Battle of the Trebia. — Battle of the Trasimene I Lake. — Hannibal and Fabius Cunctalor. — Battlo of Camia?. — Prog ress of Hainiibal 191 CHAPTER IV. Hannibal in Campania. — Defeat of Postnmius. — Affairs of Spain. — Treaty between Hannibal and King Piiilip. — Hannibal repulsed at Nola. — Success of Hanno in I'ruttium. — Affairs of Sardinia, — of Spain, — of Sicily. — Elections at Rome. — Defeat of Hanno. — Siege of Syracuse. — Affairs of Spain and Africa. — Taking of Tarentuni. — Successes of Hannibal 21 J CHAPTER V. Taking )f Syracuse. — Defeat and Death of the Scipios. — Hannibal's March to Rome. — Surrender of Capua. — Sripio in Spain. — Taking of IVew Carthage. — Affairs in Italy. — Retaking of Tarentum.— Defeat of Hasdru'bal in Spain. — Death of Marcellus. — March of Has- drubal. — His Defeat on the 3Ietaurus 22S Vlll CONTENTS CHAPTER VI FAGB Successes of Scipio in Spain. — Mutiny in his Army. — Carths^nians ex- pelled from Spain. — Scipio's Return to Rome. — His Preparations for invading- .Vfrica. — Invasion of Africa. — Horrible Destruction of a Punic Army. — Defeat of the Carthnginians. — Attack on the Roman Fleet. — Deatli of Sophonisba. — Return of Hannibal. — Interview of Heumibal and Scipio. — Battle of Zama. — End of the War 231 CHAPTER VII. Macedonian War. — Flig-ht of Hannibal from Carthage. — Antioclius in Greece. — liivaijoM of .A.sia and Defeat of Antiochus. — Death of Han- nihal. — Ijnst Days of Scipio. — Characters of Hannibal and Scipio. — War with Perseus of Macedonia — Conquest of xMaccdonia. — Triumph of vEmilius Paulas 253 CHAPTER VIII. Affairs of Carlhnsrc. — Third Punic AVan — Description of Carthage. — 111 Succe-ss of thp Romans. — Scipio made Consul.— He saves Man- cinus. — Restores Discipline in the Army. — .All.ick on Carthage. — At- tempt to close the Harlior. — rnpturc and Destruction of Carthage.— Recluction of Macedonia and Greece to Provinces 2G4 CHAPTER IX. Affairs of Spain. — War with the Lusilanians. — Treaclicrv of Lucufius. — Viriathian War. — Murder of Virinihus. — INumaniine War. — Capture of Numanlia. — Servile War in Sicily. — Forciirii Relations of Rome. — Government of the Provinces. — The Publicans. — Roman Superstition. Roman Literature > 275 PART IV. THE REPUBLIC — CONQUEST OF THE EAST, AND DO^VNFALL OF THE CONSTITUTION. CHAPTER I. State of Things at Rome. — Tiherins Gracchus : — his Tribunate and Laws : — his Death. — Death of Scipio Africanus. — Caius Gracchus: — his Tnbunatcs and Laws: — his Death. — The Gracchi and their Measures. — Insolef cc and Cruelty of the Oligarchs. — Conquests in Asia and Gaul 296 CC^NTENTS. IX CHAPTER n. PAGK The Jugurthine War. — Defeat and Death of Adherbal. — Beslia in Africa. — Jugurtha al Rome, — Defeat of Aulus. — Metellus in Africa. — At- tack on Zama. — Negotiations with Jugurtha. — Taking of Thala. — Caius Marius. — Taking of Causa. — Taking of the Castle on the Mulu- cha. — Sulla and BoccTius. — Delivery up of Jugurtha. — His End. — Cimbric War. — Victory at Aquae Sextiae. — Victory at Vercellae. — Lisurrection ci" the Slaves in Sicily 309 CHAPTER HI. Slate of Rome. — Tribunate of Saturninus. — His Sedition and Death.— Return of Metellus. — Tribunate and Death of Drusus. — Social orMarsic War. — Murder of tl\e Praetor by the Usurers. — Sedition of Marius and Sulpicius. — Sulla al Rome. — Flight of Marius 324 CHAPTER IV. State of Asia. — First Mithridatic War. — Sulla in Greece. — Victories of Chaeronea and Orchomenus. — Peace with Mitliridates. — Flaccus and Fimbria. — Sedition of Cinna. — Return of Marius. — Cruelties of Marius and Cinna. — Death and Character of Marius. — Return of Sulla. — His Victories. ^- Proscriptions of Sulla. — His Dictatorship and Laws. — He lays down his Office, and retires. — His Death and Funeral. — His Character 357 \ CHAPTER V. Sedition of Lepidus. — Sertorian War in Spain. — Death of Serlorius and end of the War. — Spartacian or Gladiatorial War. — Defeat and Death of Spartacus. — Consulate of Ponipeius and Crassus. — Piratic War.— Reduction of Crete 353 CHAPTER VI. Second Mithridatic War. — Third Mithridatic War. — Victories of Lucul- lus. — His Justice to the Provincials. — War with Tigranes. — Defeat of Tigrnnes. — Taking of Tigranocerta. — Invasion of Armenia. — Defeat of a Roman Anny. — Intrigues of Lucullus' Enemies at Rome. — Man- ilian Law. — Pompeius in Asia. — Defeat of Milhriciatcs. — Pompeius in Armenia : — in Albania and Iberia : — in Syria and the Holy Laud. — Dea'.h of Mithridates. — Return and Triumph of Pompeius 302 CHAPTER VH. Cati'ina's Conspiracy. — Arrestand Execution of the Conspirators. — Defeat and Death of Catilina. — Honors given to Cicero. — Factious Attempts at Rome. — Clodius violates the Mysteries of the Bona Dea. — His Trial.. 375 CHAPTER VIII. P )mpeius and Lucullus. — C. Julius Caesar. — M. Licinius Crassus. — M. Porcius Cato. — M. Tullius Cicero. — Pompeius at Rome. — Consulate b : CONTENTS. of Ctesar. — Exi e cf Cicero — Robbery of the King of Cyprus. — Kecdll of Cicero. — His Couduct after bis Return 384 CHAPTER IX. Second Consulate of Pomncius and Crassus. — Partliian War of Crassus. — His Defeat and Dealli. — Anarchy at Rome. — Death of CJodius. — Pompeius sole Consul. — Trial and Exile of Rlilo. — Gallic Wars of Csesar 399 CHAPTER X. / Commencement of the Civil War. — Csesar at Rome. --^ Caesar's War in Spain. — Surrender of Alassilia. — C»sar's civil Regvifations. — Military Events in Epirus m 415 CHAPTER XI. / Patlle of Pharsalia. — Fliclit and Death of Pon^peius. — His Character. — Cwsar's .'Viexandrian War. — The Pontic War.' — Affairs of Itome. — Mutiny of Cfpsar's Loffions. — ACriran \Var. — Death of Cato. — His Character. — Cwsar's Trium[>hs. — Keformalion of the Calendar. — Sec- ond Spanish War. — Battle of Ahuxla. — Honors bestowed on Ccesar. — Conspiracy against him. — His Death. — His Character 428 CHAPTER XH. Affairs at Rome after Csesar's Death. — His Funeral. — Conduct of Anto- nius. — Ociavius at Rome. — Quarrel between him and Antonius. — Mu- tniensian \\'ar. — < Vsar made C'<)nsul. — Tiie Triumvirate and Proscrip- tion. — Death of Cicero. — His ('haractcr. — Acts of the Triumvirs.— War with Hrutus and C'assitis. — Haiile of Philippi. — Death of Brutus and Cassius. — Antonius aiitl Cloopaira. — Cspsar's Distribution of Lands. — I'crusi.TJi War. — Return of Antonius to Italy. — War with Sex. Pompeius. — Parihian War. — Rupture between Csesar and Antonius. — Battle of .\ciium. — Last ElTorts of Antonius. — Death of Ai tonius and Cleopatra. — Sole Dominion of .Csesar. — Conclusion 446 CHR050LOCIC1L TaBLE OF CoNTEMPOKART IIlSTORT. .. . , 478 PRELIMINARY NOTICES Roman Chronology. The taking ot the City bj' the Gauls is the event which was usen to connect the Grecian and Roman chronology, from which 360 years A'ere reckoned back to the foundation of Rome. By some that event was placed in Ol. 98, 1, B. C. 388 ; by others in Ol. 98, 2, B. C. 387. Fabius, taking the former without a necessary correction of four years, placed the building of Rome in 01. 8, 1, B.C. 747 j Cato, from the same date with the correction, in Ol. 7,1, B.C. 751; Polybius and Nepos, taking the latter date with the correction, in 01. 7, 2, B. C- 750; while Varro placed it in Ol. G, 3, B.C. 753. The eras in use are the Catonian, Varronian, and that of the Capitoline Marbles, (as they are called,) which is a mean between those two; the date of the commencement of our era being 752 Cat., 753 Cap. Mar., 754 Varr The Catonian is that used in tlie following pages, and the year B.C. may always be obtained by subducting any given date from 752. Roman Money. The lowest Roman coin, the .^s, was originally a pound weight of brass, (as,) but it was gradually reduced to half an ounce. The Ses- terce (sestertius, i. e. semis-lertms) contained 2^ asses, and was usually expressed by HS. (an abbreviation of L. L. S. Libra, libra, semis, or of 1.1.^.) The Denar (denarius) contained JO (deni) asses. As the Greek talent was equal to 24,000 sesterces, four sesterces (that is, ten asses or one denar) were equal to one drachma. The As is usually said to be equal to 3^^q., and the sesterce to Id. 3|y. of our money ; but if the Greek drachma be worth 9|;'. Junius Brutus, when adopted by Jspio, became C^. Servilius Ctep ? Brutus. THE HISTORY OF ROME. 1 PART I THE REGAL PERIOD. CHAPTER I. DESCRIPTION OF ITALY. ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF ITALY. -— THE PELASGIANS. THE OSCANS. THE LATINS. THE UMBRIANS. THE SABEl.LIANS. THE ETRUSCANS. THE LIGURIANS. THE ITALIAN GREEKS. — '■ ITALIAN RELIGION, POLITICAL CONSTITUTION. The peninsula named Italy, the seat of the mighty re- public whose origin and history we have undertaken to relate, is separated from the great European continent by the mountain range of the Alps, and extends about five hundred miles in a south-eastern direction into the Medi- terranean Sea. The part of this sea between Italy and the Hellenic peninsula was named the Adriatic or Upper Sea, {31(/rr, SupcJ-um ;) that on the west toward the Iberian peninsula, the Tyrrhenian or Lower Seaj [Mare Inferum.) A mountain range, the Apennines, commences at the Alps on the north-western extremity of Italy, and runs along it nearly to its termination, sending out branches on either side to the sea, between which lie valleys and plains gene- rally of extreme fertility. The great plain in the north, extending in an unbroken level from the Alps to the Apen- nines and the sea,* and watered by the Po [Padus) and • Now called the Plain of the Po, {La Pianura del Po.) 1 A K HISTORY OF RC IE. Other streams, is the richest in Europe; and that of Campa- nia, on tlie west coast, yields to it in extent rather than in fertility. The rivers wliich descend to water these plains and valleys are numerous ; and many of them, such us the I'o, the Adige, (Atcsis,) the Arno, and the Tiber, are navigable. The mountains of Italy are composed internally of gran- ite, which is covered with formations of primary and sec- ondary limestone, abounding in minerals, and in ancient times remarkably prolific of copper. The white marble of Carrara, on the west coast, is not to be rivalled. Forests of timber-trees clothe the sides of the Apennines and their kindred ranges, among whose lower parts lie scattered lakes of various sizps, many of them evidently the. , craters of ex- tinct volcanoes. The western side of Italy has been at all times a volcanic region, and Mount Vesuvius, on the Bay of Naples, is in action at the present day. The fruitful Isle of Sicily, with its volcanic mountain yEtna, lies at the southern extremity of Italy, separated from it by a channel five miles in its greatest, two in its least, breadth. It is by no means unlikely that, as tradition told, Italy and Sicily were once continuous, but that, u' a point of time long anterior to history, a convulsion of nature sank the solid land, and let the sea run in its place Besides Sicily, there are various smaller islands attached to Italy, chiefly along its west coast, of which the most re- markable are the volcanic group of the Liparean isles anc the Isle of Elba, {llva,) which has at all times been produc- tive of iron. The magnificent region which we have just described, so rich in all the gifts of nature, has never, so far as traditior and analogies enable us to trace, been abandoned by Prov- idence to the dominion of rude barbarians living by the chace and the casual spontaneous' productions of the soil without manners, laws, or social institutions. To ascertain, however, its exact condition in the times anterior to history is beyond our power; but by means of the traditions of the Greeks, and the existing monuments of the languages and works of its ancient inhabithuts, wc are enabled to obtain a view of its ante-Roman state, superior perhaps in definite- ness to what we can form of the ante-Hellenic condition of Greece. Under the guidance of the sharp-sighted and sagacious investigator whose researches have given such an aspect of ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF ITALY. 3 clearness and certainty to the early annals of Rome,* we ,vill now venture to pass in review the ancient peoples of Italy. In the most remote ages to which we'can reach by con- jecture, Italy was the abode of two distinct portions of the human family, different in language and in manners; the one dwelling on the coasts and plains, the other possessing the mountains of the interior. The former were probabl)i a portion of that extensive race which we denominate the Pelasgian, and which dwelt also in Greece and Asia ; t the latter were of unknown origin, and no inquiry will enable us to ascertain any thing more respecting thein, than that they belonged to the Caucasian race of mankind. We cannot, by means of language or any other tokens, trace their affinity to any known branch of the human kind, or even make a conjecture as to the time and mode of their entrance into Italy. They may therefore, under proper re» strictions, be termed its indigenous inhabitants. The Pelasgians, it is probable, entered Italy on the north- east. Under the names of Liburnians and Venetians, thev possessed probably the whole plain of the Po and the easf coast down to Mount Garganus ; thence, as Daunians, Peu cetians, and Messapians, they dwelt to the Bay of Tarentum and inlands ; as Chones, Morgetes, and QEnotrians, they then held the country from sea to sea to the extreme end of the peninsula; and finally, as Tyrrhenians and Siculans, dwelt along the west coast to the Tiber and up its valley, perhaps even to the Umbro (Ombrone) in Tuscany. Italians was the name of the people, Italia that of the country, south of the Tiber and of Mount Garganus. | The Pelasgians of Italy seem to have been similar in char- acter to those of Greece. We find various traces of their devotion to the pursuits of agriculture ; their religion ap- pears to have been of a rural character ; and Cyclopian walls are to be seen in some of the districts where they dwelt. If they entered the country as conquerors, it was probably their superior civilization which gave them the advantage over the ruder tribes which occupied it. At length, in consequence of pressure from without, or from internal causes, such as excess of population, the * G. B. Niebuhr, with whom K. O. Mailer, In his Etruscans, {Dit Etrusker,) in general agrees. t See History of Greece, Part I. chap. ii. t Those skilled in etyinology will easily see that Italus and Sieulus are but different forms of the same word. ; i 4 HISTORY OF ROME. tribes of the interior came down on and conquered the peo- ple of the coasts and plains A people named Opicans, o; Oscans, overcame the Daunians and other peoples of the east coast, and the region thus won was named from them Apulia; they also made themselves masters of the country thence across to the west coast, and along it up toward tiie Tiber. Here they were divided into the Saticulans, Si- diciuians, Volscians, and iEquians, while Auruncans, or Ausonians, was the more general appellation of the whole people.* Another tribe, named Cascans and Priscans,t who are supposed to have dwelt in the mountains from the Fucine Lake to Reate and Carseoli, being pressed from behind by the Sabines, came down along the Anio and subdued the Siculans, named Latins, who occupied the country there- I { abouts. A part of this people retired southwards ; and 1 I this movement gave, it is said, occasion to the occupation of the Island of Sicily by the Siculans ; the remainder coa- lesced with the conquerors, and the united people Was named Priscans and Latins, {Prisci Laiini,\ ) or simply Latins, and their country Latium. Further north, a people named the Umbrians descended from the mountains and conquered the country to the Po ; they also extended themselves to the sea on the west of the Apennines, and down along the valley of the Tiber. The Latin language, which we have still remaining, is evidently composed of two distinct elements, one akin to tlu; Greek, and which we may therefore assume to be Pe- lasgian, the other of a totally ditferent character. § Tho * According to etymoloiry, the root being op or \t .Opici,Osci, .ipvli, l^olsci,J£qui, are all kindrt'd terms. We ntigiit perhaps venture to add Umliii. and Safiini, Jluso7irs\s l)ie Greek foriii of .iiiriini, wiieoce ,■?!/- ruvici, .^iirunri. 'Phe Latin language luxuriates in adjectival termi- nations. See Niebuhr, i. G9, nn/e; and Butimann's Lexilogus, in v. itnltj yaia, note. t See Niebulu, i. 7b and 371. This writer (i. 79. JrO) says that it is to the Latins that the term .■ihoiiiriucs, annwenng to the ^'lutorJithuucs of the Greeks, belongs. The general usage of ancient and modern writers names the people of tho interior the Ahnrisrhits. X It was the old Roman custom to omit the copulative between words wliicli usually apjjeared in union, as cm/iti rtmliti, locali con- durti. socii Latini, acccnxi nlati. Like Gothic au)ong ourselves, Cusctis and Priscus came to signify old or old-fashioned. § In the Latin, the terms relating to agriculture and the gentler modes of life are akin to the Greek ; those belonging to war and the chase are of a different character. Of the former we may instance THE SABELLIANS. 5 existing monuments in ».he Oscan and Umbrian languages present exactly the sam^; appearance, and the foreign element seems to be the sarn*? in all. Hence it may without pre- sumption be inferred, that kindred tribes speaking the same, or dialects of the same language, conquered and coalesced | ! with the Pelasgians, and new languages were formed by inter- ! { mixture, just as the Englisii arose from the Anglo-Saxon and 1 \ the Norman-French. ' i The people who are supposed to have given totheCascans ' 1 and Oscans the impulse which drove them down on the ■ | Pelasgians, are the Sabines, who dwelt about Amiternum in | the higher Apennines. The Sabellian race (under which ; name we include the Sabines and all the colonies which ( I issued from them) was evidently akin to those above men- ( | tioned, for there can be little doubt of their language being ■ | the non-Pelasgic part of the Latin and Oscan. This race ■ \ spread rapidly on all sides. The Sabines, properly so called, | | having occupied the country of the Cascans, gradually [ \ pushed on along the valley of the Tiber into Latium ; the i Picenians settled on the coast of the Adriatic; the four I allied cantons of the Marsians. Marrucinians, Vestinians, | { and Pelignians dwelt to the south of them and the Sabines ; ] | and below them were the Samnites, divided into the cantons \ j of the Frentanians, Hirpinians, Pentrians, and Caudines, who conquered the mountain-country of the Oscans, hence- forth named Samnium. At a later period, (about the year \ \ of Rome 314,) the Samnites made themselves masters of [ Campania and the country to the Silarus. Under the name [ \ of Lucanians they also conquered, much about the same f [ time, the country south of Samnium, the more southern \ part of which was afterwards wrested from them by the . i Bruttians, a people which arose out of the mercenary troops i employed by the Lucanians and Italian Greeks in their ^ wars, and the CEnotrian serfs of the latter.* Another Sa- \ \ bellian people were the Hernicans, who possessed a hilly region south of Latium in the midst of the iEquian and | Volscian states. j , Different in origin, language, and manners from all the bos, tniirus, sits, ovis, agnus, cards, ager, silva, vinufn, lac, tnel, sal, oleum, \ malum ; of the latter, arma, tela, hasta, ensis, gladivs, arcus, sagitta, \ clupeus, cassis, halteus. (Niebuhr, i. 62. Mailer, i. 17.) * In Oscan, and perhaps in old Latin, brutus signified a runaway slave, a inrToon. Names of reproach have often been acquiesced in Dy peoples and parties ; witness our Whig and Tory. 1 * i !. i 1 b HISTORY OF ROME. tribes already enumerated were the people named by them selves Rasena, by the Romans, Etruscans and Tuscans, who occupied tiie country between the Tiber and the Arno, and also dwelt in the plain of the Po. The common opiin I ion was that they were a colony from Maonia or Lydia j in Asia, who landed on the coast of Etruria, where they re- ; duced the inhabitants to serfship, and, afterwards crossing the Apennines, conquered the country thence to the Alps. Against this it was urged * that there was not the slightest \ sin:-|arity in manners, language, or religion between them • and the Lydians, and that the latter retained no tradition i whatever of the migration. It has been further remarked t j that the Rx'tians and other Alpine tribes were of the Tus- ; can race ; and it is so highly improbable that the owners j of fruitful plains should covet the possession of barren ) mountains, tliat it is more reasonable to suppose them to have J dwelt originally among, or northwards of, the Alps, and I that being pressed on by the Germans, Celts, or some other I people, they descended and made concpiests in Italy. J Their language, as far a.s it is understood, has not the slightest resemblance to any of the primitive languages of Europe or Asia; their religious system and their science were also peculiar to themselves ; the love of pomp and I J state also distinguished them from the Greeks and other European peoples. Taken all together, they are perhaps the most enigmatic people in history. The Tuscan political number was twelve. North of the Apennines twelve cities or states formed a federation : the same was the case in Etruria Proper.^ Eacii was indepen- j ! dent, ruling over its district and its subject towns. The « Tuscan Lucuraones or nobles were, like the Chaldaeans, a * Dionysins, i. 28. I Nil'buhr. This author is inclined to extend the original seals of the Tuscans far north even to Alsatia. * MolUr would fain reconcile the two opinions. He regards the Rasena as an original Italian people of the Apennines and plain of the Po, who, when they proceeded to conquer P'.truria from the Unibrians and Liwurians, leagued themselves with tJie Tyrrhenian Pelasgians fVom the coast of Asia who had settled on the coa.st. Hence he ex- plains the use of flutes, trumpets, and other usages, common to the Tuscans with the people of Asia. § These last, Niebuhr says, are Ctere, Tarqiiinii, RusellcD, Vetulo- niuin, Volaterrae, Arrelium, Cortt'ina, Clusium, Volsinii, Veil, and Ca- pena or Cossa ; of the former he can only name Felsina or Bononia, Melpum, Mantna, Verona, and Hatria. "He denies that the Tuscans ever settled in Campania, as waa asserted by the incients. MuUcr maintains the convrrse. THE ITALIAN GREEKS. ^ sacerdotal military caste, holding the religion and govern- ment of the state in their exclusive possession, and keeping the people in the condition of serfs. In some of their cities, such as Veii, there were elective kings. The Lucumones learned the will of heaven from the lightning and other celes- tial phenomena ; their religion was gloomy, and abounding in rites and ceremonies. Both the useful and the orna- mental arts were carried to great perfection in Etruria. Lakes were let off by tunnels, swamps rendered fertile, rivers confined, huge Cyclopian walls raised round towns. Statues, vessels, and other articles were executed in clay and bronze with both skill and taste. These arts, however, i I may have been known and exercised by the subject people | \ rather than by the Tuscan lords. \ The Ligurians, a people who dwelt without Italy from | I the Pyrennees to the maritime Alps, also extended into the [ j peninsula, reaching originally south of the Arno and east \\ of the Ticinus. They were neither Celts nor Iberians, but i of their language we have no specimens remaining. 1 | Such were the peoples of Italy in the ages antecedent to ( history. About the time of the Dorian migration, the \ Greeks began to colonize its southern part. The Chal- \ \ cidians and Eretrians of Eub(£a founded Cuma3, Parthenope, | and Neapolis on the west coast, and Rhegium at the strait; I | Elea (Velia) was hi'ilt on the same coast by the Phocaeans. | \ On the east coast, Locri was a colony from Ozolian Locris; I and it founded in its turn Medma and Hipponium on the | west coast; the Achajans were the founders of Sybaris, Cro- i ton, and Metapontum ; and Sybaris having extended her I dominion across to the Lower Sea, founded on it Laos and \ Posidonia : the Crotonians built Caulon on the Upper, Terina I on the Lower Sea ; and Tarentum, in the peninsula of Japy- I gia, was a settlement of the Lacedajmonians. The ancient CEnotria became so completely Hellenised, (its original population being reduced to serfship,) that it was named Great Greece — Magna Grcscia. The flourishing period, however, of these Grecian states, was anterior to that which our history embraces, and we shall have occasion only to speak of them in their decline. The religion of the two original portions of the Italian I population was, as far as we can conjecture, of a simple, rural character. It does not seem to have known the hor- rors of human sacrifice; and though polytheistic, it related UD tales of the am lurs of its gods, and no Italian princes 8 History of rome. boasted an affinity with the deities whom the people wor- shipped. Partly from this, partly from othe;* causes, the tone of morals was at all times higher in Italy, especially among the Sabelliau tribes, than in Greece. A remarkable feature of the old Italian religion was the immense number of its deities;* every act of life had its presiding power; a man was ever under the eye, as it were, of a superior being : the true doctrine of the omnipresence of the one God was thus, we may say, resolved into the separate presence of a multi- tude, the moral effect, though far inferior, was, we may hope, similar. Finally, the ancient Italians are perhaps not to be esteemed idolaters, as images of the gods were unknown among them till they became acquainted with Grecian art. The prevailing political fbrm of ancient Italy wa^ that' of aristocratic republics united in federations. The hereditary monarchy of the heroic age of Greece was unknown, and the pure democracy of its historic period never developed itself in Italy. Political numbers are to be found here as in Greece and elsewhere ; four, for example, was the Sabellian number ; thirty, or rather perhaps three subdivided by ten, that of Latium.t This principle e.xtended even to the Tus- cans, whose number, as we have seen, was twelve. CHAPTER Il.t ^NEAS .\ND THK TROJANS. ALU A. NUMITOR AND AMULIUS. ROMULUS AND RKMUS. UUILDINU OF ROME. REIGN OF KOMULUS. ROMAN C0NSHTUTION. NUMA POMI'lLIUS — rTULLUS HOSTILIUS. ANCUS MARCIUS. On the left bank of the river Tiber, at a moderate distance from the sea, lies a cluster of hills, § which were the destined * Wlicn, therefore, Varro spoke of 30,000 goda, he must have meant the ItaHai). not the Grecian system ; for tlic Olympian deities, even including the Nymphs, never extended to any such number. t The thirty Latin and tliirty Alban towns, the thirty patrieiaa curies in three tribes, and the thirty plebeian trih«es at Rome. X The principal authorititjs for this Part are Dionysius and L'Vj , %Cd Plutarch's lives of Romulus, Numa, and Poplicola, § They were seven in number, lying in the following order : the iENE4.S AND THE TROJANS. 1^ seat of the city whose dominion gradually extended until it embraced the greater portion of the then known world ; and whose language, laws, and institutions gave origin to those of a large portion of modern Europe. The origin and early history of this mighty city have been transmitted to us by its most ancient annalists in the following form.* When the wide-famed Troy, after having held out for ten years against the Achaean arms, was verging toward its fall, ^neas, a hero whom the goddess Venus (Aphrodhe) had borne to a Trojan prince named Anchises, resolved to abandon the devoted town. Led by the god Mercurius, (Hermes,) and accompanied by his father, family, and friends, he left Troy the very night it was taken, and retired to Mount Ida, where he remained till the town was sacked and burnt, and the Achaeans had departed. The god, con- tinuing his care, built for them a ship, in which they em- barked : an oracle (some said that of Dodona) directed them to sail on westwards, till they came to where hunger would oblige thenTi to eat their tables, and told them that a four- footed animal would there guide them to the site of their future abode. The morning-star shone before them, day and night, to guide their course, and it never ceased to be visible till they reached the coast of Latium in Italy. t They landed there on a barren, sandy shore ; and as they were taking their first meal, they chanced to use their flat cakes for platters; and when, at the conclusion of their repast, they began to consume their cakes also, vEneas' young son cried out that they were eating their tables. Struck with the fulfilment of a part of the oracle, the Trojans, by order of their chief, brought the images of their gods on shore ; an altar was erected, and a pregnant white sow led to it as a victim. Suddenly the sow broke loose, and ran into the country, .^neas, with a few companions, followed her till Tarpeian or Capitoline, the Palatine, and the Aventine along the river ; the Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, and Cselian, behind the Tar j>cian and Palatine. The hill named the Janiculan was on the oppo- site side of the Tiber. * " I insist," says Niebuhr, " in behalf of my Romans, on the light of taking the poetical features wherever they are to be found, when they have dropped out of the common nari'ative." The circumstances in the following narrative, differing from those in Livy and Virgil, will be found in Dionysius, Cato, (in Servjus on the iEneis,) and Ovid, and other poets. 'Ar.t yu' • ''' ,"i:^' ' 1 Varrd in Servius on iEn. ii. 801 ''' "' '"' ';j '■ ' ' '"- 10 HISTORY OF ROME. she reached an eminence about three miles from the sea, where, exhausted by fatigue, she laid her down. This then, *^neas saw, was the site designated by the oracle; but his heart sank when he viewed the ungeiiial nature of the sur- rounding soil, and the adjacent coast without a haven. He lay that night on the spot in the open air; and as he pon- dered, a voice from a neighboring wood came to his ear, directing him to build there without delay; broad lands, It was added, awaited himself, and wide dominion his de- scendants, who, within as many years as the sow should i'arrow young ones, would build a larger and a fairer town. In the morning he found that the sow had farrowed thirty white young ones, which with herself he offered in sacrifice to the gods. He led his people thither, and commenced the building of a town.* The country in which the Trojans were now settling was governed by a prince named Latinus, who, on hearing that strangers were raising a town, came to oppose then). Jle was, Jiowever, induced to allow them Ho proceed, and he granted them seven hundred jugers of land around it.t The harniony which prevailed between them and the natives was, however, soon disturbed by the Trojans' wounding a favorite stag of King Latinu.s'. This monarch took up arms; he was joined by Turnus, the Rutulian prince of Ardea ; but victory was with the strangers; Latinus' capital, Laurentum, was taken, and himself slain in the storming of the citadel. | ^lis only daughter Lavinia becai^e the prize of the victor, who made her his wife, and named his town from her La- vinium.§ Turnus now applied for aid to Mezentius, king of Caere in Etruria. The Tuscan demanded, as the price of his as- sistance, half the produce of the vintage of Latium in the next year, and the Rutulians readily agreed to his terms. * According to Cato, (Serv. on JF.n. i. G. vii. l.">8,) the town first built by yEneas and Anchises (who also reached Italy) was not on the future site of Laviniuiu, and it was named Troja. In Latin, troja is a sow, hence probably the legend ; alba (white) refers to Alba ; the thirty youn?>?/.<,) an animal sacred, like the wolf, to their sire ; and other birds of augury hovered round the cave to keep off noxious in- sects. At length, this wonderful sight was beheld by Faus- tulus, the keeper of the royal flocks : he approached the cave; the siie-wolf retired, her task being done; and he took home the babes and committed them to the care of his wife, Acca Larentia, by whom they were carefully reared along with her own twelve sons in their cottage on the Palatine. When the two brothers, who were nanied Romulus and Remus, grew up, they were distinguished among the shep- herd lads for their strength and courage, which they dis- played against the wild beasts and the robbers, and the neigh- boring swains. Their chief disputes were with the herds- men of Numitor, Mho fed their cattle on the adjacent Aven- tine, and wliom they frequently defeated ; but at length Remus was made a prisoner by stratagem, and dragged away as a robber to Alba. The king gave him up for punishment to Numitor, who, struck with the noble ap- pearance of the youth, incjuired of him who and what he was. On hearing the story <>( his infancy, he began to suspect that he might be his grandson; but he confined his thoughts to his own bosom. Meantime, Faustnhis had re- vealed to Romulus his suspicions of his royal l)irth, and the youth resolved to release his brother and restore his grand- eire to his rights. By his directions liis comrades entered Alba at different parts, and there uniting under him, fell on and slew the tyrant, and then placed Numitor on the throne of his ancestors. The two brothers, regardless of the succession to the throne of Alba, resolved to found a town for themselves on the hills where they had passed the happy days of child- nood. Their old »')stic comrades joined them in their pro- " Conon, Narr. 48. BUILDING OF ROME. IjSj ject, and they were preparing to build, when a dispute arose between them, whether it should be on the Palatine and named Roma, or on the Aventine and called Remoria.* It was agreed to learn the will of heaven by augury. Each at midnight took his station on his favorite liill, marked out the celestial temple, and sat expecting the birds of omen. Day came and passed ; night followed ; toward dawn, the second day, Remus beheld six vultures flymg from north to south; the tidings came to Romulus at sunrise, and just then twelve vultures flew past. A contest arose ; though right was on the side of Remus, Romulus asserted that the double number announced the will of the gods, and his party proved the stronger. The Palatine was therefore to be the site of the futuro city. Romulus yoked a bullock and a heifer to the plough, whose share was copper, and drove it round the hill to form the pomcerium, or boundary line. On this line they began to make a ditch and rampart. Remus in scorn leaped over the rising wall, and Romulus enraged slew him with a blow, exclaiming, " Thus perish whoever will leap over my walls I " t Grief, however, soon succeeded, and he was not comforted till the shade of Remus appeared to their foster- parents, and announced his forgiveness on condition of a festival, to be named from him, being instituted for the souls of the departed. J A throne was also placed for him by Romulus beside his own, with 'he sceptre and other tokens of royalty.^ As a means of augmenti«g the population of his new town, Romulus readily admitted any one who chose to re- pair to it ; he also marked out a spot on the side of the Tarpeian hill as an asylum to receive insolvent debtors, criminals, and runaway slaves. The population thus rap- idly increased, but from its nature it contained few women, and therefore the state was menaced with a brief duration. To obviate this evil, Romulus sent to the neighboring towns, proposing to them treaties of amity and intermar- riage ; but his overtures were every where received with aversion and contempt. He then had recourse to artifice ; * Another account says at a place four miles further down the river Ennius makes Romulua take his augury on the ATcntine. t Those who would soften the legend said he was slain by a man named Celer. t The Lemuria, Ovid, Fasti, v. 461—430. § Servius on JE.n. i. 276. O M HISTORY OF ROME. he proclaimed games to be celebrated at Rome on the fes- tival of the Consualia, to which he invited all his neigh- bors. The Latins and Sabines came without suspicion, briiiL^ing their wives and daughters; but in the midst of the festivities, the Roman youth rushed on them with drawn swords, and carried off a number of their maidens. The parents fled, calling on the gods to avenge the perfidious breach of faith, and the neighboring Latin towns of Ca?- nina, Cru^tuinerium, and Anternna', joined by Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines, prepared to take up arms. But the Latins, impatient of the delay of the Sabines, and acting without concert among themselves, singly attacked and were overcome by the Romans. At length, Tatius led his troops against Rome. The Saturnian or Tarpeian hill, op- posite the town, was fortified, and had a garrison ; but Tar- peia, the daughter of the governor, having gone down to draw water, met the Sabines, and dazzled by the gold bracelets which they wore, agreed to open a gate for them if they would give her what they bore on their left arms. She kept her promise ; but the Sabines cast their shields from their left arms on her as they entered, and the traitress expired beneath their weight. The hill thus became the possession of the Sabines. Next day the armies encountered in the valley between the two hills. The advantage was on the side of the Sa- bines, and the Romans were flying, when Romulus cried aloud to Jupiter, vowing him a temple under the name of Stitor, {Staj/er,) if he would stay their flight. The Romans turned; victory was inclining to them, when suddenly the Sabine women came forth with garments rent and disliev- elled locks, and rushing between the two armies, implored their fathers and their husbands to cease from the impious conflict. Both sides dropped their arms and stood in silence ; the leaders then advanced to conference, a treaty of amity and union was made, and Romulus and Tntiiis became joint sovereigns of the united nation, the Romans taking the name of Quirites from the Sabine town of Cures. As a mark of honor to the Sabine women, Romulus named from ihem the thirty curies into which he divided his p(!ople. Some years after, when Laurentine ambassadors came to Rome, they were ill treated by some of Ta4ius' kinsmen; and as he refused satisfaction, he was fallen on and slain at a national sacrifice in Lavinium. Romulus henceforth reigned alone ; he governed his people with justice and ROMAN CONSTITUTION. 15 moderation, and carried on successful wars in Latiurn and Etruna. At length, when he had reigned thirty-seven vears, the term assigned hy the gods to his abode on earth being arrived, as he was one day reviewing his people at the place named the Goat's Marsh, (Palus Copra;,) a sudden storm came on ; the people fled for shelter; and, amid the tempest of thunder, lightning, wind, and rain, Mars descended in his flaming car, and bore his son off" to the abode of the gods.* When the light returned, the people vainly sought for their monarch; they bewailed him as their father,''as him who had brought them into the realms of day ; t and they were not consoled till a senator, named Procnlus Julius, came forwards, and averred that as be was returnina by moonlight from Alba to Rome, Romulus had appeared to him arrayed in glory, and charged him to tell his people to cease to lament him, to cultivate warlike exercises, and to worship him as a god under the name of Quirinus. As the founder of the state, Romulus had necessarily been its lawgiver. The chief features of his legislation were as follows : — He divided the whole people into three Tribes, (Tr/bti^,) named Ramnes, Titienses, and Luceres, each of which con- tained ten Curies, (Curia;,) and each cury consisted of a decad of Houses, {Gtntes.) The tribe was governed and represented by its Tribune, {Tribumis,) the cury by its Cu- rion, {Curio,) the house by its Decurion, (Decurio.) The territory of the state, with the exception of what was set apart for religion and the public domain, was divided into thirty equal portions, one for each cury. Romulus again divided the whole people into two orders. The first °was composed of the persons most distinguished for merit, birth, and property: these were called Patres, (Fathers,) and their descendants Patricians, as a mark of reverence, or as tliev resembled fathers in their care. The other order was named the Plebes or Plebs, (People ;)f they were placed under the care of the patricians, whence they were also called Clients, (Clientes, i. e. Hearers, or Obei/ers.) § All the offices of the state were in the hands of the patricians; the plebeians served in war, and paid taxes in return for the protection * Horace, Carm. iii. 3. 1.5. Ovid, Fasti, ii. 496. Dionys. ii. 50. t Ennius in Cic. de Rep. i 41. t Plehes is probably akin to the Greek ttX>-j»oi;. § These relations, and their lru> nature, will be explained in Chap- in 1 16 HISTORY OF ROME. they received. A hundred of the elders of the p* -e formed a Senate, {Senatus,) to deliberate with the niiijj in affairs of state. Tliree hundred young men, selected Irom the curies, and named Ce4eres, guarded his person ; and twelve Lictors {Lictorcs) * or sergeants, bearing axes in bundles of rods, {fmcts,) attended to execute his commands. Romulus also gave dignity to his royal authority by splendor oi attire and iu)perial ensigns. After the assumption of Romulus, Rome remained aii entire year without a king; the senators, under the title of Interreges, {Brtween-kings,) governing in rotation. At length the people becon>ing impatient, they proceeded to elect a king. It was agreed that the Ron)ans should choose from among the Subines; and the choice fell on Nunia Pompilius of Cures, who had married the daughter of Ta- tius, and had been the pupil of the Grecian sage Pythagoras. He was brought to Rome, and as Romulus had learned the will of the gods by augury when founding the city, this pious prince would not ascend the throne without obtaining their consent in the same manner. Led by the augur, he mounted the Saturnian hill, and sat on a stone facing the south. The augur sat on his left, his head veiled, and holding the litiius'f in his right hand; then marking out the celestial temple, he transferred the lituus to his left hand, and laying his right on the head of Numa, prayed to Jupiter to send the signs he wished within the designated limits. The signs appeared, and Nuina came down, being declared king. The new monarch set forthwith about regulating the state. He divided among the citizens the lands which Rom- ulus had conquered, and founded the worship of Terminus, ihe god of boundaries. lie then proceeded to legislate for religion, in which he acted under the direction of the Ca- mena t Egeria, who espoused him, and led him into the grove which her divine sisters frequented. Numa appointed the Pontiffs to preside over the public religion ; the Augurs, to loam the will of heaven ; the Flamens, to minister in the temples of the great gods of Rome ; the Vestal Virgins, to guard the sacred fire ; and the Salii, to adore the gods with hymns, to which they danced in arms. He also built the temple of Janus, which was to be open in time of war, c /KflU I .1-1,1 - n * That is, Liaratorcs, (Binders,) from their office of binding criininala t A staff with a croolicd head, hke a bishop's crosier, t The Camcnee answer to tlie Grecian Mujes. TULLUS H0STILIU5. 17 cloFcd when Rome was at peace. At a time when the anger of heaveii was manifested by ♦.errific lightning, Numa, in- structed by the rural gods Piciis and Faunus, whom he had caught by pouring wine into the fount whence they drank, caused by cotijnrationp Jupiter to descend on the Aventino to tell him how his lightnings might be averted. The god, thence named Elicius, also sent from heaven the Ancilc* as a 1 ledge of empire. Thirty-nine years did Numa reign in tr K.-qtiillity, and then the favorite of the gods fell asleep in derub, full of years and of honors. After an interreign of a short time, the royal dignity was ■-■-. -.ferted on Tulkis Hostilius, a Roman, and more allied in acter to Romulus than to Numa. He sought and soon d an occasion fdf war. The Roman and the Alban ,itry folk had mutually plundered each other ; envoys e sent from both towns to demand satisfaction ; but the ans, beguiled by the hospitality of the Roman king, re- \ed idle at Rome, while the Romans had made their de- d, and been refused. As, by the maxims of Italian law, Romans were now the injured party, war was formally ared. Preparations were made on both sides, and at th the Alban army came and encamped within five miles lome, where the deep ditch, named the Cluiliaii, (from name of their King Cluilius,) long informed posterity of site of their camp. Here Cluilius died, and Mettius etius was chosen dictator. Meantime King Tullus had red the Alban territory, and Mettius found it necessary lit his entrenched camp, and advance to engage him. two armies met, and were drawn out in array of battle, n the Alban chief demanded a conference. The leaders ooth sides advanced to the middle, and Mettius then ving how the Tuscans, their common enemies, would ^ advantage of their mutual losses, and destroy them h, proposed to decide the national quarrel by a combat '■bampions to be chosen on each side. The Roman ; larch assented, though he would have preferred the slv>ck of two numerous hosts. '^hcre were in each army three twin-brothers, whose noftiers were sisters ; the Romans were named the Horatii, he! \IbaiiS the Curiatii.t To these the fates of their respec- *' '1%' sacred shield borne by the Salii ; lest it should be stolen, NtJWife Ufl several others made lik° it Sen Ovid. Fasii, iii. 259 — 392. I Ac&tf cling 10 some, iht Horatn Wfce the Albans. The Horalian gefts at ivio-i<» heioi>,(/od to the Luceres. 2* c 18 HISTORY OF HOME. #' live countries wore conirnitted The ireaty was made in due form, aud that state, whose champions were vanquislied, was to submit to the rule of the other. The brothers ad- vanced on each side ; both armies sat down in their ranks to view the important combat ; the signal was given, the champions drew tlieir swords, and engaged hand to hand ; dread and expectation bound ti»e spectators in silence. At length, two of the Romans were seen to fall dead, the third was unhurt; the Albans were all wounded. A shout o triumph rose in the Albatj army; hope fled from the Re mans. The surviving Horatius, unable to cope with hi three adversaries, though enfeebled, feigned a flight. Th^^ pursued, but, owing to their weakness, at different interval \ Soon he turned, and slew the first, "i-ii Albans vainly called to his brothers to aid ; they fell each in turn by the swora of the Roman, and Alba submitted to Rome. When the dead on both sides had been buried, the two' armies separated. Horaiins, bearing the spoils of the slain Curiatii, walked at the head of the Romans. At the Ca- pene gate, when about to enter the city, he was met by his sister, who had been betrothed to one of the Curiatii, and recognizing her lover's surcoat, which she had woven with her own hands, she let fall her hair, and bewailed his fate. The victor, enraged, drew his sword and struck it into her bosom, crying, " Such be the fate of her who be- wails an enemy of Rome ! " Horror seized on all at the atro- cious deed : the murderer was taken for trial before the king ; but Tullus shratik from the office, and the affair was committed to the ordinary judures in such cases, (the Duum- virs,) by whom he was sentenced to be scourged, and to be hung with a rope from the fatal tree with his head cov- ered. The lictor approached, and was placing the halter on him, when, at the suggestion of the king, he appealed to the people. His father pleaded for him with tears ; the people were moved, and let him go free. Purgative sacri- fices were performed, and he was made to walk with covered head under a beam placed across the way. The treaty, thus sealed with kindred blood, did not remain long unbroken. The Albans, weary of subjection, sent se- cretly to excite the people of Fidens to war against R<>me, promising to go over to them in the battle. The >-' ide- nates, joined by their allies, the Veientines of Etrur.a, de- clared war, and Tullus, having summoned an Alba» army to his standard, crossed the Anic and took his pot at its TULLUS HOSTILIUS. 1-6 confluence with the Tiber. The Romans were opposed to the Veientines, the Albans to the Fidenates. Mettius, cow- ardly as treacherous, would neither stay nor go over to the enemy. He gradually drew ofF to the hills, and there dis- posed his troops. The Romans, finding their flank thus left exposed, sent to inform the king, but Tullus telling them that the Albans were acting by his order, desired them to fall on. The Fidenates, hearing these orders, and deemincr that Mettius was a traitor to them, turned and fled. Tullus then brought all his forces against the Etrurians, and drove them with great slaughter into the river. The Albans came down, and their general congratulated the king on his victory. Tullus received him kindly, and directed that the two armies should encamp together, and a lustral sacri- fice be prepared for the morrow. Next morning he called a general assembly ; the Albans, with affected zeal, came first, and stood unarmed around the king, by whose direc- tions they were encompassed by the Romans in arms. Tul- lus then spoke, reproaching Mettius with his treachery, and declaring his intention of destroying Alba, and removing the inhabitants to Rome. Resistance was hopeless ; Met- tius was seized, and to suit his punishment to his crime, two chariots were brought, to which his limbs were tied, and one driven toward Rome, the other toward Fidenre, and the traitor's body thus torn asunder. Meantime the horsemen had been sent to Alba to remove the people to Rome; the infantry followed, in order to demolish the town The people, yielding to necessity, quitted with tears the homes of their infancy and the tombs of their fathers ; all the buildings, both public and private, were destroyed; the temples of the gods alone were left standing. At Rome the Albans were favorably received, and their nobles ad- mitted among the patricians. The Cfelian hill was added to the city for their abode, and the king himself dwelt on it among them. The warlike king next engaged in hostilities with the Sabines, on the pretext of their having seized some Roman traders at the fair held at the temple of Feronia. The Sa- bines hired mercenary troops in Etruria, but victory was on the side of Rome in a battle fought at the Evil Wood, {Silva Malitiosa.) Tullus was now at peace with mankind, but a shower of stones on the Alban Mount announced the dis- pleasure of heaven. At the mandate of a celestial voice heard on the mount, a nine-day festival was instituted, and 20 HISTORY OF ROME. the pro(|igy ceased ; but soon after a pestilence came on^ and TuUus, broken in mind and body, gave himself up to superstition. Having read in the books of Nunia of the sacrifices to Jupiter Elicius, he resolved to perform them ; but erring in the rites, he offended the god, and the light- nings descended and destroyed himself and his house. Tul- lus had reigned thirty-two years. The next king, Ancus Marcius, v^as of the Sabine line, being the son of Nuina's daughter. His character was a mean between those of his grandsire and Ronnilus. Like the former, he applied himself to the revival of religion; and he had the ceremonial law transcribed and hung up in public. But the Latins, despising his pacific occupations, soon pro- voked him to war, where he showed a spirit not unworthy of the founder of Rome. He took the towns of Politorium, Tellcna, and Ficana, and having given the Latin army a ' I total defeat under the walls of Medullia, he removed the people of this and the other towns to Rome, where he as- signed thein the Aventine for their abode. Ancus also won from the Veientines some of the land beyond the Tiber, where he fortified the .laniculan bill, and united it to the city by a wooden bridge, {Pons i^i/blirii/i;.) To secure Rome on the land side he dug a deep ditch {Fossa Qiiirituuii) before the open space- between the Coelian and Pahitine hills. He extended his dominion on both sides of the river to the sea, where he built the port of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, After a useful and a prosperous reign of twenty-four years, King Ancus died in peace. CHAPTER HL L TARQUIiNIVS PRISCl'S. SERVIUS TULLIU8. L. TARQUIMUS 8UPER1JUS. TALE OF LUCRETIA. .\ROMTION OF KOVAL- TV. CONSPIRACY AT ROME. DEATH OF BRUTUS. WAR WITH PORSENNA. BATTLE OF THE REGILLUS. Hitherto the kings had been Romans and Sabines alter- nately ; the sceptre now passes into the hands of a strnnger. When Cypseius overthrew the oligarchy of the Baciyiuads L. TAR^UINIUS PRISCUS. ^ at Corinth,* a member of this family, named Dtmaratus, resolved to emigrate. He fixed on Tarquinii, in Etraria, for his abode, as, being an extensive merchant, he had formed many connections in that city ; and he came thither accom- panied by the sculptors, Euchir, {Good-hand,) and Eugram- mus, {Good-drawer,) and the painter Cleophantus, {Deed- \ \ displaycr,)\ whose arts and that of writing he communicated { to tfie Etruscans. He married a woman of the country, who j bore him two sons, named Aruns and Lucumo. The former \ \ died a little before him, leaving his wife pregnant ; but \ \ Demaratus, unaware of this fact, bequeathed the whole of his I wealth to Lucumo, and the new-born babe, who was there- i. \ fore named Eg'erius, {Lacker,) was left entirely dependent on his uncle. I Lucumo espoused an Etruscan lady named Tanaquil, and finding, on account of his foreign origin, all the avenues to honor and power closed against him, he listened to the \ suggestions of his wife, and resolved to emigrate to Rome, | where there was no jealous aristocratic caste to contend with, | He therefore quitted Tarquinii, and set out for that city. \ As he and Tanaquil were sitting in their chariot, taking \ their first view of Rome from the top of the Janiculan, an [: eagle came flying, and gently descending took off his bonnet, | and with a loud noise bore it into the air ; then returning 'i placed it again on his head. Tanaquil, as a Tuscan skilled | in augury, joyfully received the omen, and congratulated 'i her husband on the fortune it portended. Elate with hope, | they crossed the Sublician bridge and entered Rome, where | Lucumo assumed the name of Lucius Tarquinius Prisons, ji and, by his polished manners and his liberality, soon won | the affections of the people. He became, ere long, known ] to the king, Ancus, who employed him in both public and private affairs of importance, and when dying appointed him guardian to his sons. But Tarquinius now deemed himself sufficiently strong in the favor of the people to aspire to the vacant throne. Having sent the young Marcii out a-hunting, so that they should be away at the time of the election, he offered him- self as a candidate ; the people unanimously chose him king, and the senate confirmed their choice. To gratify his friends, he forthwith added one hundred members to the senate, and then to augment his fame engaged in war with the Latins, • See History of Greece, p. 68. t Pliny, xrxv. 5. 22 BISTORT or ROlklE. from whom he took the town of Apiolse ; and with the plunder, whose amount exceeded what might have been expected, he gave the people a spectacle of horse-racing and boxing superior to any they had yet seen. A war with the Sabines soon followed, and, before the Romans were aware of it, the Sabine army had crossed the Anio. The battle that ensued was bloody, but undecisive ; and Tarquiuius, finding that his deficiency in cavalry h^d alone prevented the victory, prepared to add three new tribes, to be named from himself and his friends, to the tribes or equestrian cen- turies of Romulus. But the augur Aitus Navius forbade to change without auspices what had been instituted with them. The king, annoyed, to put him to shame desired him to augur, if what he was then thinking on could be done. Attus, having observed the heavens, replied in the affirmative. " Then," cried the king, triumphantly, " I was thinking that you should cut a whetstone through with a razor." Attus took the razor and stone, and cut it through ; the king gave up his project, but he doubled the amount of the old centu- ries without interfering with the original names. The Sabines meantime remaining on the hither side of the Anio, Tarquinius had a large heap of thnber which Jay on the banks of the stream set fire to and cast into it, and it floated along and burned the wooden bridge behind them ; he then attacked and routed them with great slaughter, and their arms being carried alojig the stream into the Ti- ber gave the first tidings of the victory at Rome. Tar- quinius passed the Anio and received the submission of the town of Collatia, over which he set his nephew Egerius. He afterwards made war on the Latins, and reduced seyeral of their towns. We are also told that all Etruria was forced to submit to his supremacy. Tarquinius, at peace and abounding in \v< alth, now de- voted his thoughts to the imi)rovement of the city. As the valleys between »he hills were mostly under water from the overflowing of the Tiber, he embanked that river, and built nuge sewers to drain the swamps and pools it had formed. The ground thus gained between the Tarpeian and the Palatine hills he laid out a.s a place for markets and the meetings of the people; the, space between the Palatine and the Aventine was made a race-coucse, and named the Circus Maximus. Tarquinius ^l60,,P0Wfiienced, building a wall of hewn stone around the city, and he levelled and enlarged bj extensive substructions thenrea of one of ♦•".e suramita SERVIUS TULLIUS. 23 of the Saturhian hill for a temple which he had vowed to Jupiter. The king had reigned thirty-eight years in glory. 'Svhen his life was terminated by assassins hired by the sons />f his predecessor. The occasion was as follows. When the Latin town of Corniculum was taken, one of the captives, named Ocrisia, was placed in the service of the queen. As she was one day, according to usage, placing cakes on the hearth to the household gods, an apparition of the fire-god ap- peiared over the fire. She told the king and queen, and Tan- aquil had her instantly arrayed as a bride and shut up alone in the apartment. She became pregnant by the god, and in due season brought forth a son, who was named Servius Tullius. One time, the child fell asleep during the heat of the day in the porch of the palace, and suddenly, to the sur- prise of the beholders, his head was seen enveloped in flames, which played innocuously, and departed when he awoke. Tanaquil, who saw in this the favor of his divine sire, had him brought up with the greatest care. When he attained to manhood, he displayed the utmost valor in the field ; the king bestowed on him the hand of his daughter, and intrusted him with the exercise of the royal authority, and it was expected that he would appoint him his successor The sons of Ancus had hitherto borne patiently their exclu- sion from the throne, expecting to obtain it on the death of Tarquinius, who was now eighty years old; seeing, how- ever, the favor shown to Servius, they resolved to wait no longer, but to kill the king and seize the throne. They therefore engaged two ferocious peasants to accomplish the deed, and these ruffians proceeding to the palace pretended to quarrel ; the noise they made attracted the attention of the royal servants, and as they mutually appealed to the king for justice, they were led before him. Here, as Tar- quinius was listening to the one, the other gave him a deadly wound with an axe on the head. The murderers fled, but were pursued and taken. The dying monarch was brought ^ into the palace, which Tanaquil ordered to be shut, and then telling Servius that now was his time to secure the succes- sion, went up to a window, whence she addressed the people, telling them that the king's wound was not fatal, that he would soon recover, and that meantime Servius was to ex- ercise the functions of royalty. The gate was then opened, and Servius issued forth with the royal insignia. He took his seat, and administered justice, in some case* f»* onc^ in. 64 HISTORY OF KOHE. Others he feigned that he would consult the king After some days the death of Tarquinius was made known, and without an interreign the royal dignity was conferred on Servius. Tlie Marcii, haying gained nothing but infamy by their crime, retired in despair to the town of Suessa Pometia. Tlie reign of Servius was, like that of Numa, one of peace, and only distinguished by internal legislation. Like Numa, too, he was favored with the love of a deity. The goddess Fortuna loved him and used to visit him in secret; and when, one timo at a later period, the temple which he had raised to her was burnt, the Harries, mindful of his origin, spared the wooden statue of the king which stood rn it. Servius, the poor man's friend, paid out of his royal treas- ure the debts of such as were reduced to poverty ; he re- deemed those whose labor was pledged for debt, and he assigned the people portions out of the conquered lands. He also divided all the people into classes, regulated by property, so that each person should contribute to the sup- port and defence of the state in proportion to the stake he had in it.* This able prince, moreover, brought about a federal union with the thirty Latin towns in which the su- premacy w;ls accorded to Rome ; and, as was usual in such cases, a common temple was built to Diana (the moon-god- dess) on the Aventine. The Sabines also joined in the worship at this temple. Among the cattle of a Sabine husbandman was an ox of prodigious size, and the sooth- sayers declared tirat the supreme power would be with that people, by one of whom this ox was sacrificed to Diana of the Aventine. The Sabine drove his beast to the temple on a proper day, and was preparing to sacrifice, when the Roman priest, who had heard the response, crjed out, " What, with unwashed hands ! The Tiber runs down below there." The Sabine, anxious to perform the sacrifice duly, went down to the river, and the crafty Roman otTered up his beast while he was away. The huge horns were nailed up in the ves- tibule, where they remained the wonder of succeeding ages- Warned by the fate of his predecessor, Servius endeav- ored to disarm the resentment of those who might fancy they had a claim to the throne. The late monarch had left two sons,t Lucius and Aruns, and Servius gave these youths * Thia constitution will be developed in Chapter. V. ♦ Those who saw the difficulty in tlie poetic narrati soni. larrative said grond SERVIUS TULLIUS. 5<5& his two daughters in marriage. But the youths were differ- ent in temper, one being mild and gentle, the other proud and violent ; the king's daughters likewise were of opposite dispositions, and chance or the king's will had joined those whose tempers differed. The haughty Tullia soon despised her gentle mate Aruns, and placed her love on the haughty Lucius. An adulterous intercourse succeeded, which was speedily followed by the sudden deaths of those who stood in the way of their legal union, to which a reluctant con- sent was extorted from the king, now far advanced in years. Urged on by his unprincipled wife, Tarquinius now openly aspired to the kingdom. A large portion of the Patricians, offended at the wise and beneficent laws of the king, readily entered into a conspiracy against him, and Tarquinius, in reliance on their support, at length ventured one day to enter the market surrounded by armed men, and placing himself on the royal seat in the senate-house, ordered the herald to call the senate to King Tarijuinius. The senators came, some through fear, others already prepared for the event ; and he addressed them, setting forth his claims to the throne. Just then Servius arrived, and demanded why he had dared to take his seat ; the rebel made an insolent re- ply ; a shout was set up by their respective partisans. Tar- quinius, seeing tiiat he must now dare the utmost or fail, seized the aged king by the waist and flung him down the stone steps. He then returned into the senate-house ; the king, whose adherents had fled, rose sorely bruised, and slowly moved toward home ; but at the foot of the Esquiline (on which he resided) he was overtaken and slain by those sent after him by the usurper. Tullia, regardless of female decorum, drove in her chariot to the senate-house, called her husband out, and was the first to salute him king. He prayed her to return home ; as she drove, she came to where the corpse of her father was lying ; the mules started, the driver paused in horror and looked his mistress in the face. " Why doyou stop? " cried she. " See you not the body of your father ? " replied the man ; she flung the footstool at his head, he lashed on the mules, and the wheels passed over the monarch's body, whose blood spirted over the garments of the parricide. Ever after the street was named the Wicked, ( Vicus Scele ratus.) When, some time afterwards, Tullia ventured to enter the temple of Fortune, the statue of her father was ;3 D 26 HISTORY OF ROMK. seen to place its hands before its eyes, and cty, '* Hide my face ! that I may not behold my impious caughter." * Thus, after a reign of forty-four years, perished this best of kings, and with him all just and moderate government at Rome. L. Tarquiaius, named the Proud, (Stipcrbus,) resolved to rule by terror the empire he had acquired by crime. He deprived the people of all the privileges conferred on them by Servius; he put to death or banished such of the sena- tors as he feared or disliked, and like the Greek tyrants, surrounded himself with a body-guard of mercenaries. He rarely called together the diminished senate. To strengthen himself by external alliances, he gave one of his daughters in marriage to Octavius Mamilius of Tusculum, the leading man among the Latins. As the head of the Latin nation, Tarquinius summoned a congress to the grove of Ferentina (the usual place of meeting) to deliberate on matters of common weal. The deputies met at dawn, and waited all the day in vain for the appearance of the Roman monarch. Turnus Herdonius of Aricia, one of them, then loudly inveighed against the in- solence and pride which this conduct denoted, and advised them to separate and return to their homes. In the evening, however, Tarquinius arrived, and excused his delay under the pretext of his having had to make up a quarrel between a father and a son. Turnus treated this as a flimsy excuse, and the council was put off till the next day. During the night Tarquinius, who was resolved to destroy Turnus, had his slave bribed to convey a great number of swords secretly into his lodging, and a little before day he summoned a meeting of the deputies. His delay the precedmg day he declared had been most providential, for he had since dis- covered that Turnus had planned to kill both him and them, and thus become the ruler of Latiutn. He had, he under- stood, collected arms for that purpose, and he now prayed them to come and try if the intelligence was true. Their knowledge of Turnus' character induced them to give credit to the charge ; they awoke him from his sleep, the house was searched, the arms were found, Turnus was laid in chains and brought before the council ; the swords were produced, he was condemned untried, taken to the fount of Ferentina, cast in, a hurdle placed over him laden with stones, and • Grid, Fa»ti, vi. 613. L. TAB^UINiUS SUPERBJS 2X thus drowned. The league with Latium w \s then solemnly renewed, and Tarquinius declared head of die confederacy, which was also joined by the Heruicans ; and a common festival, to be annually held at the temple of Jupiter Latiarit on the Alban Mount, was instituted. The arms of the confederates were soon turned against their neighbors, and Suessa Pometia, a flourishing town of the Volscians, was the first object of attack. The town was taken by storm, the inhabitants sold, the tithe of the booty reserved for building the temple of Jupiter, and the remainder distributed among the soldiers. The city of Gabii, which lay about twelve miles from Rome, relying on the strength of its walls, would not be included in the treaty of federation with Rome. It gave an asylum to the Roman exiles, and for some years the Romans and Gabines carried on a harassing warfare, wasting and plundering each other's lands. At length, treachery effected what force could not achieve. Sextus, the youno-est son of the tyrant, in concert with his father, fled to Gabii to seek a refuge, as he alleged, from his father's cruelty, which menaced his life. The simple Gabines believed the lying tale ; they pitied and received him. Soon they admitted him to their councils ; at his impulsion they renewed the war, which had languished ; Sextus got a command ; fortune every where favored him; he was at length made general ; the soldiers adored the chief who always led them to victory, and his authority in Gabii finally equalled that of Tarquinius at Rome, He now sent a trusty messenger to his father to ask him how he should act. Tarquinius received the mes- senger in his garden, and as he walked up and down he struck off the heads of the poppies with his staff, but made no reply. The messenger returned and told of the strange behavior of the king, but Sextus knew what it meant ; he accused some of the leading men to the people, others he caused to be assassinated, others he drove into exile; in fine, he deprived the Gabines of all their men of talent and wealth, and then delivered up the city, void of defence, to his father, Tarquinius now turned all his thoughts to the completion of the temple on the Saturnian hill. As, since the time of Tatius, it had been covered with the altars and chapels of various deities, it was requisite to obtain the consent of each for their removal by augury. All, save Terminus and Youth, readily gave it, whence it was inferred that R'iMne Would 28 HISTORY OF ROME. flourish in perpetual youth, and her boundaries never re- cede. The fresh-bleeding head (caput) of a man was alsc found- as they were digging the foundation ; whence the tem- ple, and from it the hill, was named the Capitoliuin,* and It was aimounced that Rome would be the head of Italy. Artists came from Etruria, task-work was imposed on the people, and at length the united fanes of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, crowned the summit of the Capitolium. One day a strange woman appeared before the king with nine books, which she offered to sell for 3U0 pieces of gold. Tarquinius declined the purchase ; she went away, burned three of them, came back and demanded the same price for the remainder. She was laughed at ; she burned three more, and still her price was the same. The king, suspecting some mystery, consulted the augurs, who blamed him for not having purchased the whole, and advised him to hesitate no longer. lie paid the money, the woman delivered the books and vanished. These books, which contained Sib- ylline oracles, t were placed in a stone chest in an under- ground cell in the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, under the custody of two men of noble birth, and were directed to be consulted in emergencies of the state. But prodigies sent by Heaven soon came to disturb the tyrant's repose. While a sacrifice was being offered one day in the palace, a serpent came out of the altar, put out the fire and seized the flesh that was on it.| Tarquinius, appalled at such an event, sent his two eldest sons, Titus and Aruns, to Greece to consult the Delphic oracle, then so renowned. The royal youths were accompanied by their cousin L.Junius, surnamed Brutus, (Fool ;) (or when the tyrant put the elder brother of the Junii to death for his wealth, Lucius, to save his life, had counterfeited folly ; eat- ing, in proof of it, wild figs and honey. § The Pythia, on hearing the prodigy, replied that the king would fall when a dog spake with a human voice. || * The Satumian or Tarpcian hill had, on the end furthest from the river, two euniniits separated by a hollow. The one was the Arx or citadel ; the other, being enlarged by substructions or walls built round it and filled up within, so ns to give an area of 800 feet in compass, was the site of the temple. t That is, of the prophetic women, named Sibyls by the Greeks The Sibylline books jf the Romans were in Greek. t Ov. Fasti, ii. 71 . § Macrobius, Sat i. 16. {| Zonaras, ii. 11. TALE OF LUCKETIA. 29 The Tarquinii then asked which of them should reign at Rome. " He who first kisses his mother," was the response. They agreed to keep this a secret from Sextus, and to de- cide by lot between themselves. But Brutus, who had oifered to the god his staff of cornel-wood, which he had secretly filled with gold emblematic of himself, divined the meaning of the oracle ; as they came down the hill he pretended to stumble and fall, and as he lay he kissed the earth, the common mother of all. In the palace garden stood a stately plane-tree in which two eagles had built their nest. One day, in the absence of the parent birds, vultures came, threw the eaglets out of the nest, and drove off the old birds on their return. The king also dreamed that two rams were brought to him at the altar, he chose the finer for sacrifice, the other then cast him down with its horns, and the sun turned back from east to west.* In vain was the tyrant warned to be- ware of the man who seemed stupid as a sheep ; fate would tread its path. Tarquinius had laid siege to Ardea, a city of the Rutu- lians built on a steep, insulated hill. As from its situation it could only be reduced by blockade, the Roman army lay in patient inactivity at its foot. The king's sons diverted their leisure by mutual banquets, at one of which, given by Sextus, they and their cousin Collatinus, son of Egerius of Coilatia, fell into a dispute respecting the virtues of their wives. Collatinus, who warmly maintained the superiority of his Lucretia, proposed that they should mount their horses and go and take their wives by surprise. Warm with wine, the youths assented ; they rode to Rome, which they reached at nightfall, and found the royal ladies revelling at a ban- quet ; they thence sped to Coilatia, and, though it was late in the night, Lucretia sat spinning among her maidens. The 'prize was yielded at once to her, and with cheerfulness and modesty she received and entertained her husband and his cousins. Unhappy Lucretia ! thy simple modesty caused thy ruin. Sextus, inflamed by the sight of such virtue and beauty united, conceived an adulterous passion, and a few days afterwards he came, attended by a single slave, to Coilatia. Lucretia entertained him as her husband's kinsman, and a chamber was assigned him for the night. He retired; and * Attius in Cic. de Div. i. 22. so HISTORy OF ROME. when all was still he rose, took his drawn sword, and sought the chamber of his hostess. He awoke her, told his love, prayed, besought, then menaced to slay her, and with her his slave, and to declare that he had caught and slain her in the base act of servile adultery. The dread of posthumous disgrace prevailed where that of death could not, and she yielded to his wishes. In the morning Sextus, elate with conquest, returned to the camp. Lucretia rose from the scene of her disgrace, and sent trusty messengers to Ardea and to Rome to summon her husband and her father Lucre- tius. The latter came, and with him P. Valerius ; Colla- tinus was accompanied by L. Junius Brutus, whom he met by chance on the way. They found her sitting mournful in her chamber ; she told the direful tale, she implored them to avenge her, she declared her resolve to die. They sought to console her, urging that she was stainless in thought, and therefore free from guilt ; but she drew a concealed knife, and, ere they were aware, she had buried it in her heart. The husband and father gave a loud cry of grief; but Brutus, bursting forth from the cloud of folly which had hitherto enveloped him, drew the reeking weapon from her heart and swore on it eternal enmity to Tarquinius and his race. He handed the knife to the others, and all, amazed at the change, took the same oath. Grief gave place to rage; the body of Lucretia was brought out into the market; Brutus, pointing to her wound, excited the spectators to vengeance ; the youth ranged themselves at his side, and leaving a sufficient number to guard the town he hastened at their head to Rome. By virtue of his office as Tribune of the Celeres, he called an assembly of the people; he told his own story ; he told the more af- flicting t:ile of Lucretiti'a fate ; he dwelt on the crimes, the cruelty, and the oppression of the tyrant. The multitude took fire ; they declared royalty abolished, and Tarquinius* and his family exiles. Leaving Lucretius to take charge of the city, Brutus then hastened with a select body of men to the camp at Ardea. Tarquinius meantime, hearing of what had occurred, was on his way to Rome ; Brutus avoided meeting him, and was received with acclamations by the troops ; the tyrant finding the gates of Rome closed against him, retired with his family to Caere. Sextus went to Gabii, which he esteemed his own ; but he was there slain by the relations of some of those whom he had caused to be put to death. CONSPIRACY AT KOMR. 83 Thus after a duration of twenty-five years, ended the reign of L. T arcuinius, the last king of Rome, in the 244th year from the building of the city. The anniversary of it, under the name of King's-flight {Regifugiuvi,) was till remote times celebrated on the 24th oi' February in each year. A truce was made with Ardea, and the army led back to Rome. An assembly was then held, the city was purified by sacrifices, and the people all swore upon the victims never to readmit the Tarquinii, or to endure a king in Rome. Two annual magistrates, under the name of Consuls, were placed at the head of the state, and the just laws of Servius were restored. Brutus and Collatinus were appointed to be the first consuls. Tarquinius, meantime, had not resigned all hopes of recov- ering his power. The exiles of his party were numerous ; many in the city were in his favor, and if he could obtain the aid of some powerful state, he yet might enter Rome a conqueror. He therefore applied to the Tarquinians, as his family had originally come from their city. They re- ceived him favorably, and ambassadors were sent to Rome to demand his restoration, or at least the property there belonging to himself and his friends. The senate would not listen to the former proposal ; but they agreed to give up the movable property. The ambassadors tarried at Rome under the pretext of collecting the property and getting vehicles for its conveyance, but in reality to organize a plot in favor of the tyrant. They had brought letters to that effect from the exiles to their friends and relatives ; and a great number of the young nobility, who could ill bear the authority of law and the power given to the people, and who regretted the license of the days of the tyrant, readily entered into a conspiracy to restore him. Among these were the two Aquilii, the nephews of Collatinus, and the Vitellii, the nephews of Brutus, whose own two sons, Titus and Tiberius, were induced to engage in the foul conspiracy to undo the glorious work of their father. The ambassadors required from them letters to the tyrant sealed with their signets. They met for this purpose at the house of the Aquilii under pretext of a sacrifice. After the solemn banquet they ordered the slaves to retire, and then with closed doors composed and wrote the letters. Sul one of the slaves, named Vindicius, suspecting what they were about, remained outside and through a slit in tho 33 filSTORY OF ROME. door beheld all their proceedings. He sped away and gave uifoi^mation, and all the conspirators were ' seized in the feet. Early in the morning the consuls took their seats of jus- tice in public ; the conspirators were led before them ; Bru- tus, in right of his paternal authority, condemned his sons to death ; the lictors stripped and scourged them according to usage, the consul's features remained unmoved, and he calmly saw the axe descend and deprive his offspring of life. No mercy could be expected for the others; all bled in turn. Liberty, a gift from the treasury, and citizenship were the reward of the loyal slave. The rights of nations were respected in the ambassadors ; but the properly of the tyrant was given up to pillage to the people. A large field which he possessed outside of the city, by the Tiber, vvas consecrated to the god Mars. There was on it at this time a ripe crop of spelt • religion forl)id(ling it to be used for food, it was cut and cast into tlie Tiber. As the river was then low, the corn stopped on tiie shallows, and from the addition of other floating matter it gradually formed an island before the city. The jealousy of the people now extended to the whole Tarqiiiiiian house, and even Collatinus had to yield to the remonstrances of his colleague and quit Home. He re- tired with all his property to Lavinium, where he ended his days. Valerius was chosen consul in his stead, and a decree was passed declaring the whole Tarquinian house exiles. Tarquinius, convinced that his return could only be ef- fected by force, addressed himself to the Veientines, whom by large promises he induced to arm in his cause. Their troops, united with those of the Tarcpiinians and the Roman exiles, entered the Ronian territory on the Tuscan side of the Tiber ; the Romans advanced to meet them, Valerius commanding the foot, Brutus the horse. The enemy's horse was led by Tartjninius' son Aruns, who, recognizing the consul, spurred his horse against him. Brutus did not decline the combat ; rago stimulated both ; (hey thought not of defence ; the spear of each pierced his rival's shield and body, and both fell dead to the earth. A general engage- ment, first of tne horse, then of the foot, ensued ; the Veien- tines, used to defeat, turned and fled ; the Tarquinians routed those opposed to them. Night ended the conflict ; neither side owned itself vanqaished ; bnt at the dead hour of night DEATH OF BRUTUS. 33 the voice of the wood-god Silvanus was heard to cry from the adjacent forest of Arsia that the Tuscans were beaten,, as one more had fallen on their side. At dawn no enemy was to be seen ; the Romans counted the slain, and found 11,300 Tuscans, 11,299 Romans on the field. Valerius collected the spoil and returned in triumph to Rome. Next day the obsequies of Brutus were performed : the matrons of Rome mourned a year, as for a parent, for the avenger of violated chastity. In after-times his statute of bronze, bearing a drawn sword, stood on the Capitol, in the midst of those of the seven kings.* Valerius delayed the election of a successor to Brutus; he was moreover building himself a house of stone on the sum- mit of the Veliia,t above the Forum, and a suspicion arose that he was aimitig at the kingly power. When he heard' of this, he stopped the building,; the people then gave him a piece of ground at the foot of the hill to build on, and the privilege of having his doors to open back into the street. The honor of precedence at the public games was accorded to him and his posterity, as also was that of burying theii dead within the walls. These honors were the reward of the public spirit of Valerius, His object in delaying thq- election had been that he should not be impeded by a col-, league in the good measures he proposed. He convoked^ the curies, I before whom he lowered his fasces in acknowl- edgment that the consular power proceeded from them,,§, and proposed a law, outlawing any person who should usurp, the regal power. He assembled the centuries, H and had the right of appeal from the consuls,^ which the patricians had to their peers in the curies, extended to the plebeians in their tribes, and, as an evidence of this right, directed that no axes should be borne in the fasces within the city. He then held the ,cQn§ujar,^lpctio;ii,§p,. ^UjCf;9^ii|s,\y^xhj9^|n, ' ■ ur.ii ,jllr.y7 fdth.ii K (I'nii : <)'.r.i hi vlivrMd * Plutarch, BtutUkl. See also Dion dassiHS, xliii; 45;' ^ Ovid, Fasti- VI 624. • _ • ' : t The Velia was a ridge running fr">m the Palatine to the Esquiliiie. t " Vocato ad coiuiUum popul.o," Llv. ii. 7. For the meaning of populus, see helow, Ch. V. ' § Henee he was named Poplicola, i. e. Publicus. <' The rififht un* derstanding of .the word pnpuhis dissipates tlie fancy that Fo/ilicol, it The right of appeal for both on!\r extended to a mile from tha city ; the unlimited iinperium began there E 34 HISTORY OF ROME. but he dying shortly after, M. Horatius was elected. As the temple of Jupiter was now finished, the lot was to decide which consul should dedicate it : fortune favored Horatius Valerius went to war against the Veientines, but his kinsmen, vexed that such an honor should f;dl to Horatius, sought to impede the ceremony. He had laid hold of the door-post, according to usage, and was pronouncing the prayer, when one came crying, " Thy son is dead, thou canst not dedicate it;" one word of lamentation had broken the ceremony. " Let the corpse be brought forth," replied he calmly, and concluded the prayer and the dedication. The banished tyrant now applied to Lars Porsenna, lord of Clusium, the most powerful prince of Etruria. The Tuscan, fired at the idea of extending his sway beyond the Tiber, set his troops in motion. He suddenly appeared at the Janiculan ; those who guarded it fled over the Sublician bridge into the city ; the Tuscans pursued ; they reached the bridge ; but Horatius Codes, who had the charge of guard- ing it, and two other heroes, Sp. Larcius and T. Herminius, there met and withstood them. At the command of Hora- tius those behind broke down the bridge ; he forced his two brave mates to retire, the Tuscans raised a shout and sent a shower of darts, which he received on his shield; they rushed on to force the passage, a loud crash and a shout behind told that the bridge was broken; Horatius, calling on Father Tibrr to receive his soldier, plunged into the stream, armed as he was ; in vain the Tuscans showered their darts ; he reached the fiirtlier side in safety. Though suffering at the time from famine, the citizens gave him each a portion of his corn, and the republic afterwards bestowed on him as much land as he could plough round in a day, and erected his statute in the Comitium. Porsenna encamped along the Tiber ; the famine pressed heavily at Rome: then a noble youth, named C. Mucius, conceived the thought of delivering his country. He went to the senate, and craved permission to pass over to the Tuscan camp. Leave was granted ; he concealed a dagger beneath his garments, and crossed the Tiber. He entered a crowd collected around the king, who was issuing pay tr> his troops : at the side of Porsenna, habited nearly as the king, sat his secretary busily engaged. Mucius, fearing tn inquire which was Porsenna, struck his weapon into the secretary, whom he took for the king. He turned, and tried to *orce his way through the throng but he was seized WAR WITH PORSENNA- 35 and dragged before Porsenna's judgment-seat. He told his name and country boldly, adding, that many noble youths were prepared to act as he had done. Porsenna, terrified, threatened to burn him alive if he did not make an ample confession. There was a fire on an altar close by ; Mucius thrust his right hand into it, and held it there with an un- moved countenance. The king in amaze leaped from his seat, had him removed from the altar, and gave him his life and liberty. Mucius then told him that he was one of three hundred youths who had sworn his death ; the lot had first j fallen on him, but that each would take his turn. He re- turned to Rome, and he was afterwards rewarded by a grant of land, similar to that of Horatius Codes. He and his t posterity bore the name of Scaevola, {Left-handed,) to com- i memorate his daring deed. Ambassadors from Porsenna came soon after to propose a j peace. The interests of Tarquinius were neglected by his j ally, who only required that the Romans should give the j Veientines back their lands. These terms were accepted, ' and ten patrician youths, and as many maidens, were sent ' as hostages into the Tuscan camp. But Clcelia, one of the \ maidens, urged her companions to attempt escape ; and she | and they, eluding their guards, plunged into the Tiber and \ swam across. Porsenna sent to demand their restoration : I the senate sent them back, and the admiring monarch gave \ Cloelia leave to select such of the hostages of thp other sex I as she wished, and presented her with a horse anu trappings; | and the Romans afterwards raised an equestrian statue in | her honor. When Porsenna was departing, he presented the Romans with his well-stored camp on the Janiculan. The senate in return sent him an ivory throne, a sceptre and crown of gold, and a triumphal robe, such as their kings were wont to wear. Some time after Porsenna sent his son ArUns with an army against Aricia, one of the chief towns of Latium. The Aricines were aided by the other Latins and by the Greeks of Cumae in Campania: the Tuscans were defeated, and their general slain. The fugitives met with such kind treatment at Rome, that many of them remained there, and built the Tuscan Street, [Vicus Tuscus ;) and Porsenna, not to be outdone in generosity, gave back the hostages and the lands beyond the Tiber. Tarquinius had finally taken refuge with his son-in-law at Tusculum, and he at length succeeded in inducing the Latin 36 HISTOKY 01 ROME. federation to arm in his cause. As the two nations had long been closely Qonuected, a year's truce was agreed on to ar- range all private affairs; and permission was given to the women of each .people, who had marr-^ed into the other, to return to tlieir friends. All the Roman women came to Rome, and but two of the Latins departed from it. The shores of tlie Lake Regillus, in the lands of Tuscu- lum, witnessed the last effort in the cause of the Tarquinii. The Romans were commanded by the dictator, A. Postu- mius> and the master of the horse,* T. /Ebutius ; the Latins were led by Octavius Mamilius. King 'J'arquinius, regard- less of his advanced age, headed the Roman exiles; and as soon as he beheld the dictator, he spurred hia.horso against him, but a wound in the side from the spear of Postumius forced him to retire. On the other wiiig, yli^butius ran against Mamilius; the former had an arm broken; the Latin was struck iu the breast, but, uninjured by the bh)w, he brought up the corps of exiles, and the Romans began to give way. M. Valerius, the brother of Poplicola^ ran at the younger Tarcjuinius; the prince drqw back, Valerius ru.shed among the exiles, and fell piercc4 by » spear; tlie two eons of Poplicola perished iu Uic attempt fn recover his body. The dictator, now falls Oil the exiles,. ;i;»d routs th^nj ; RLi- milius brings troops to tlieir aid; he ,ia 'iiiet,and slain by T. Herminius, who himself receives a mortal wound as he is stripping th^ body of the slain. The dictator Uies to the horse, and implores thcni to dismount and restore the battle; they obey; ftred by. their example, the foot clrarge once more; the, Latins turn and fly ; Uie Romnn /horse remount and pursue, .and the., Latin cjiti(ip is takqn. During the battle, the dictator vowetl ,a tpjnple to .Custor and Pollin. Two youths of great size were seen ip,iountcil on white horses in the van of the fight, and ere the pursuit, )v,as over, they appeared at Rmno, covgrcd with blood and dirt, washed themselves and tV^ir arms at the fount of Juturna, by the templje of Vesta. i and having announced the victory, dis- appeaTcd. After-ages beheld on a basaltic rock,'by Uie Lake Regillus, the print of a horse's. hoof t Tarquinius fled to Cumoe, whose tyrant Aristodtynu? gav« him a friendy reception. . He died in that town, and ,wjtll aim expired ail hope^s^pfreij^t^hli^hing- royalty a^ Rome. , . r .■■••■ ,■ ,' ',, ! • These offices will be explamed in the sequel-' t Cicero de Nat. Deor. ili. 5. THE REGAL PERIOD OF ROME. 37 CHAPTER IV. TUB REGAL PERIOD OF ROME, ACCORDING tO TH& TIEWS OF y , . ' .'.i .'Nffl:»C»R.li'' : ^'-y '.i. ..:' ,u::i <:',- .1; lii jnu lu; u; Such are the earlier events of the history of Rome, aa they were sung in the poetic Annals of Ennius, and related by Fabius Pictor, the father of Roman history. That they are mythic and semimythic must be at once discerned by every one who is acquainted with the character of early home-sprung liistory ; but we are not thereby entitled to view them with contempt, and fling them away as useless. They have been closely interwoven into the institutions and literature of the state, and therefore must be known; and it is only by means of them that the real history can be divined ; nor should the deligbt which they afford the imagination, and the exercise which they furnish for the powers of the mind in general be overlooked. We therefore make no apology for having lingered among thern. Nearly a century ago, this character of the early Roraar history was discerned by Beaufort, who, however, carried his scepticism somewhat too far. The fullest and most satisfac- tory examination of it was reserved for our own days; and the learning, the labors, and the sagacity of Niebuhr have altered the whole face of the early Roman story. We will now briefly give his views of the portion of the history above narrated.* The war of Troy is so corapleitely mythic, that we cannot with safety regard any portion of it as strictly historical. The voyage of iEneas to Latium' is therefore entitled to little more credit than the tale of his divine birth ; yet, in the opinion of Niebuhr, it is no Grecian invention, but a domestic Roman tradition. It is, he thinks, indebted for its origin to the circumstance of the original population of both Troy and Latium being Pelasgian. As the religion of the whole of this race was the same, and the sacred isle of Samothrace a place of common pilgrimage, those who met there, such, for example, as the Lavinians of Latium and the Gergethians of Mount Ida, may have easily accounted * In the text of this and the next ehitpter we confine ourBelves to Niebuhr's views. Our own remarks and those of others will be placed in the notes. 4 38 HISTCHY OF ROME f<)r their siniiltrity '^f faith and institutions, by supposing the more distant oi.es to be colonies from Asia ; and the destruction of Troy and dispersion of its inhabitants offered a ready derivation of the colonies. It was, then, no diffi* cult matter to make an ignorant people, like the early Romans, believe in an origin thus calculated to do them honor. The succession of Alban kings* from lulus to Numitor is a pure fiction, intended to fill up the space which the Greek chronology gave between the fall of Troy and the building of Rome. Alba stood at the head of thirty towns, [Populi Albenses,) and was in union with the confederation of the thirty Latin towns. She had the supremacy, and all shared in the fiesh of a victim, annually slain on the Alban mount. Lavinium was founded by settlers sent from the thirty Alban and thirty Latin towns, (ten from each,) and, like the Panionion, it was so named as being the: seat of cougress of the Latins, who were also called La- vines.t The Siculans, Tyrrhenians, Aborigines, or however the early P«lasgian inhabitants of Latium may have been named, dwelt in villages on eminences which might be easily de- fended. Tluis beyond the Tiber there was Vaticum, or Vatica.l and another, whose name is unknown, stood on the summit of the Janiculan. On the Palatine was a town named Roma, and on the Cselian another, which we have reason to think was named Lucer or Lucerum ; and further down the river >§i probably anotlicr called Remuria ; while on the Quirinal and Tarpeian above Ron)a, being separated by a swamp and marsh from the Palatine, was anotlier town named Cluirium. This last belonged to the Sabines, who had extended themselves thus far along the Tiber. Roma was probably one of the towns that acknowledged the su- premacy of Alba, and warfare of course was frequent be- tween it and Quijrivipi, and the former would appear to k .U'.i * The names of these kings in Livy are, SilviuB, ^ncas, Latfnus, Alba, Atvs, Capys, Capetus. Tiberinus. A^rippa, Romulus, Aven- tinus, Proca», Numitor. and Amutius. The lista in Dionysius and Ovid (iMet. xir. 609: F^sU, iv. 41) difer slightly from this. t Turr.us, Latinus, and Lavinia are nothingr but personifications of Tyrrhenians, Latins, and Lavines. t For there was an ag sr , jVutuanufi, aJB^, as nunoerous examplm rfio\%'.4his infers a town. , ;• • '^ § Not on Uie Aventine, jr then Roma could have had no territonr THJi REGAL PERIOD OF ROME. 39 have at length become subject to lie latter. The tale of the rape of thj Sabine maidens,* jnd the consequent war, may represent how at one time there had been no right of intermarriage (connubhim) between the two towns, and how the subject one, by force of arms, raised itself to an equality in civil rights, and even acquired the preponderance. When the two were united^ they built the double Janus on the road leading from the Quirinal to the Palatine, with a door facing each. It was open in time of war for mutual suc- cor, shut in time of peace to prevent quarrels, or in proof of the towns being distinct, though united. For some time each town had its own king, senate, and popular assembly, and they used to meet on occasions of common interest on the Comitium, in the valley between the two towns. At length, as the two peoples coalesced more and more, and the danger from Etruria or Alba became more pressing, they agreed to have but one senate, one assembly, and one king, to be chosen alternately by one people out of the other. On all solemn occasions the two combined peoples were now styled Populus Romdnus et Quirites.f In early antiquity, almost every state was divided into tribes, resulting from conquest or from difference of origin. We might therefore expect to find this the case in the present instance ; and accordingly we learn that the Ro- mans formed a tribe named Ramnes, and the Sabines one named Titienses. But we meet a third, the Luceres, whose origin it is much more difficult to ascertain. Another form of the name, however, Lucertes, leads to the supposition of their being the inhabitants of a town named Lucer or Lu- cerum, which is to be sought on the Cselian, which be- longed to Roma in the time of Romulus, that is, befdre its union with Q,uirium ; for it was here that Tullus Hostilius placed the Albans, and a branch of the Roman people is * In the more ancient form of tlie legend there are but thirty maidens, who are, therefore, nothing but personifications of the names of the Curies. t Or, after the old Roman manner, Populus Romanus Quirilcs, which was afterwards corrupted to Populus Romanus Quiritium: see above, p. 4. The fixedness of the Roman character showed itself even in the retention of old names and forms ; a name was never let go out of U3e so long as an object to apply it to could be found. Thus, when the distinction between the two original component parts of me Rom!in jeople had ceased, the term Quirites was retained, and applied .0 th \ Plebs ! assT^'e(i to TuIIiis, as the Ranines and Titienses are to Romu lui^' atid Numa, and the Plebs to Ancus, and none remains foi" him but the Luceres. These were of" Latin origin, and were siubject to the Romans. They long continued inferior to the otlier two, and were not admitted to the deliberations on the Comitium. The whole legend of Romulus and Remus is purely hiy- thic. When Rome became a state of some importance, its people naturally looked back and sought to trace its origin. It is probable that at this time they had some knowledge of Grecian literature ; and a^ the Greeks had adopted the practice of deriving the names in their topography from those of supposed kings and princes, the Romans inferred that their city must have "been founded by a Romus or Rom- ulus.* If, as is above hinted, there was a town named Remuria in the neighborhood, whose people were of the s&m'e race as thetnselves, and had been sometimes at peace, sometimes at war with them, and had finally been overcome, they might have inferred that Remus, its founder, had been the twin-brother of Romulus, and was slain by him in a fit of anger. The notion of their city having been founded by twins would gather strength from the circumstance of their state having all along developed itself in a double form. That the legend grew up on the spot is proved by the wolfs den, the Ruminal fig-tree, and the other local circumstances. Gradually, as is always the case, the story received various additions, and the legends of other countries were perhaps transferred to it, and it thus assumed the form in which it hcis been transmitted to us.t U^ i i I !<• Hit. * One acquaiiiU'd willi mythologj^ will not bo easily led to believe that, in remote antiquity, countries and towns were named from per- sons. The Greek logographerB gave vogue to litis notion, of which no trace appears in Homer or liesiod ; but the first town really named after a man was Philippi, after Philip of Macedonia. (See History of Greece, p. ikT) t The tale of the exposure of the twins, and tlieir preservation, re- lYiinds us at once of the legend of Cj'rus, and of those of Asclepifis, Paris, and others in Grecian mythology- ^^ niore closely resembles the fberian legend of Habis, (Justin, .\liv.) which last is e.\treniely similar to that of Orson in the romance. It is remarkable that many name? in the early Roman legends seem to be of Greek origin. Thus we have Evander, (GonH-vwn.) Ct\c»s, {Bnd.) Amulius, (Cunninir, aii0^Xoc.) Numitor and Numa, (LaTrful, rvftoc.) It does not, how ever, hence follow that the legendary history of Rome was the inven tfon'of the Greeks ; the Romans themselves may have had a fondness, oven in the eaily ages, for using Greek names. THE REGAL PERIOD OF ROME. 41 Numa, like Romulus, is an ideal personage, the symbol of the early religious institutions of the state. As these were chiefly Sabine, he was made to be of that nation, but ill the original legend he must have been a native of Q,ui- rium, not of Cures. v^ The purely mythic portion of Roman story terminates with Numa. The dawn of reality begins to glimmer with the reign of Tullus Hostilius. That Alba was destroyed, and that a portion of its population migrated to Rome, are liistofic facts ; but the probability is, that the Romans and Latins in conjunction took Alba and divided its territory and people ; for it was the Italian law of nations that the lands of the vanquished became the property of the con- queror, and we find the territory about Alba belonging to the Latins, not to the Romans. Or Alba may have been destroyed by the Latins alone, and its people have sought refuge at Rome. The reign of Ancus offers none of the features of poetry ; the events which it contains are all historical, though they may not all belong to that time. With Tarquinius Priscus the poetic history reappears. The Corinthian, and even the Etruscan, origin of this prince is apparently mere fiction ; while his surname of Priscus, Caia Caecilia the name of his wife in an old legend, and the fact of there being a Tarquinian house at Rome, testify strongly for his Alban, that is, Latin origin. For, as has been shown above,* the Pris^ans were a people united with the Latins, like the Quirites with the Romans ; and as the names Auruncus, Siculus, and others, afiixed to those of per- sons in the early ages of Rome, denote from what people they sprang, that of Priscus could only have been attached to a person of Priscan origin. t Moreover as the Servilii, with whom Priscus was a surname, were one of the Alban houses on the Cfelian, and therefore belonged to the Lu- ceres, it seems to follow that the Tarquinii also belonged to this tribe, and of this sufficient proofs appear. Caia Cecilia's name, for instance, refers us to Praeneste, said to have been built by Caeculus the Eponymus, or heroic fc under of her house. ,, lii .flftorepver,. Tarquinius ,, was pf ,41)^^1 * See p. 4. •' '■"- "'' • ■■'•' f To ns it appears more probable that PrLcus nnd iupfrbns were filfst used in after-times, and after the former haa gotten the significa- tion oi old, to distinguish the Tarquinii. If Priscus was a cognomen it would have adhered to the family. 4 * F 42 HISTORY OF ROME. extraction, the wo-ship of the Greek gods at the Roman games, said to have been introduced by him, and so inex- plicable on the theory of his being an Etruscan, becomes easy of solution ; for the Albans, though mixed with Pris- cans, were mainly Tyrrhenians, and the religion of Rome had been hitherto chiefly Sabine. The poetic legend of Servius Tullius is utterly at variance with the following passage in a speech of the Emperor Claudius, who was well acquainted with Etruscan litera- ture.* " According to our annals," says he, " Servius Tul- lius was the son of the captive Ocrisia ; if we follow the Tuscans, he was the faithful follower of Ca;les Vivenna, and shared in all his fortunes. At last, being overpowered through a variety of disasters, he quitted Elruria with the remains of the army that had served under Caeles, went to Rome, and occupied the Caelian hill, calling it so after his former commander. He exchanged his Tuscan name Mas- tarna for a Roman one, obtained the kingly power, and wielded it to the great good of the state." Still the truth of this statement is not to i)e at once acquiesced in. Clau- dius was a man of no judgment ; Etruscan annals contin- ued to be written down at least to the time of Sulla, when Elruria lost her independence; each annalist, without having any new sources of knowledge, expanded and en- larged the accounts of his predecessors; there may have been an old tale of a chief named Mastarna retiring to and settling at Rome, and some annalist may have chosen to assert that he was Servius Tullius. It moreover does not: follow that this account gained general credence even in Etruria. It is to be remarked, that among the Luceres there was a house of the Tullii, which would seem to make Servius, like Tarquinius, one of them. t " The legends of Tarquinius and Servius, however," saya Niebuhr, " ckarly imply that there was a time when Rome received Tuscan institutions from a prince of Etruria, and was the great and splendid capital of a powerful Etruscan * It was on two brazen tables, found at Lyons in the 16th century. t There is something very strjng'e in a leader of mercenary troops, like the Charid/imuses of Greece, the Sforzas and Braccios of modern Italy, being the author of a wise and beneficent system of legislation, ■ucii as that of Servius Tullius. Is there any other instance of the total rejection of a foreign, and the assumption of a Roman name, in the early ages .'' The change of Atvus Clausus to Appiuf Claudius, even if real, is of quite a different kind. J THE REGAL PERIOD OF ROME. 43 Btate." Perhaps Veil, or one of the adjoining Tuscan sta es. conquered Rome; perhaps Cseles or Mastarna, or some other Tuscan leader, got the government .nto his hands ; * possibly it may have been the transient dominion of Por- senna, presently to be noticed.! The tragic fate of Servius and the crimes of TuUia are, perhaps, purely imaginary events ; this much, however, is certain that the noble system of legislation which bears his name was rendered abortive by a counter-revolution ; wheth- er it was attended with bloodshed and atrocities or not, is a matter of little importance. The whole poetic tale of the last Tarquinius is full of inconsistencies and contradictions. Thus Brutus, we are told, was of the same age with the king's sons, and was re- garded as an idiot. We may therefore suppose him not to have been more than five-and-twenty at the time of the rev- olution, yet he had grown-up sons at that time, and though a natural, was invested with one of the highest of- fices in the state, the tribunate of the Celeres, and could therefore convene assemblies and exercise sacerdotal func- tions ! His name probably gave occasion to the tale of his idiotcy, which tale knew nothing of his office, and the an- nalists, as usual, heedlessly combined the two accounts. The narrative of the taking of Gabii is evidently made up from two stories in Herodotus,^: and is quite irrecon- * Sforza, from a leader of mercenaries, became duke of Milan by marrying the daughter of the last of the Visconti. t Niebuhr is certainly perplexed about the Tuscan dominion at Rome, especially as he rejects the Tuscan origin of the Tarquinii. Mailer (i. 118 — 123) thinks that at a time when the city of Tarquinii had extended her supremacy over all Etruria, she also ruled over Rome and a part of Latium. Hence he explains the walls, sewers, Capitoline temple, built on the Tuscan scale of magnitude, and the Grecian games, &c., for Tarquinii was intimately connected with Corinth. Mastarna, at the head of an army from Volsinii, the enemy of Tarquinii, conquered Rome, and gave it a new constitution ; but his government was overthrown by the Tarquinians, and finally Lars Por- senna of Clusium put an end to the dominion of Tarquinii, conquering Rome among other places belonging to her. This writer, therefore, supposes the Tuscan dominion at Rome to have lasted a century. After all, we may ask, is there any absolute necessity for supposing it at all ? t That of Zopyrus, (iii. 154,) and the counsel given to Periander by Thrasybillus, (v. 92.) A Spanish abbot gave the same counsel to Ramirez king of Arragon, (Mariana, x. 16,) and Pope John VIII. gave it to Charlei) the Bald, of France, and Theodoric, count of Holland. (Scriverius Batavia Vetus.) The pope and abbot had no doubt rea^ Livy. 44 HISTORY OF ROME. cilable with the fact of the treaty with that town which RX isted even in the time of Augustus, written on a bullVhide stretched on a shield. In like manner, the war with Ardea rnust be a baseless fiction ; for, as will appear, it was at the lime of the expulsion a Latin town subject to Rome. The tale of Lucretia rnay or may not be a fiction ; but the oath of the four Romans is plainly symbolical of the union between the three Patrician tribes and the Plebs against the tyran ; Lucretius being a Ramnes, Valerius a Titiensis, Collatinus a Lucer, and Brutus a Plebeian.* The consulate of Collatinus, a Tarquinius, looks like a compromise with the powerful house to which he belonged, allowing that one of them, to be chosen by the people, should share in the supreme power : but the-' whole house was banished shortly afterwards. t Of the war with Porsenna, not a single incident can be t^gnnled as a portion of real history , Porsenna himself was a mythic hero of Etruria, probably belonging to the ante- Historic times, possibly connected in the Roman tradition with the war in which Rome fell before the Tuscan arms. For Rome actually had to surrender to a Tuscan power, to give back all the lands beyond the Tiber, and her citizens were prohibited the use of iron except for agricultural pur- po^es.j: But when the Tuscans were defeated before Aricia, the Romans rose and recovered their independence, but not the ceded lands. Then it may have been that property be- longing to the Tuscan lord in the city was sold by auction, which may have given rise to the symbolic custom of selling ♦he goods of King Porsenna. The battle of the Regillus is thoroughly Homeric, with its single combats of heroes, and gods sharing openly in it. It closes the Lay of the Tarqtuns;^ thevvbole generation who had been warring with each other since the crime of Sextus II perish in it; " the manes of Lucretia are appeased, and tjhe men^of the heroic age depart out of tAe world, be- — .■,,■; r. :.,,..■.. •i'-!,.,i'';,/ '>,'',."■'., * The Jcnii were always a plebeian house. Nicbuhr (iii. 41, Ger- man) would seem to have regarded Brutus as the tribune of the ple- beian knights. •f The atory of th« slave Vindicius is aiiction, to give a historical origin to the custom of emancipating slaves by tiie Vindicla. X TaoUus. Hist. iii. 72. Pliny, H. N. xx.xiv. 3D § So Niebuhr names it after the Kihelungen Lied,i. e. Lay of the Nibelungs, a celebrated German poem. II According to one account Sextus was killed in this battle. THE KOMAN CONSTITUTION. 45 fore injustice begins to domineer, and gives hirth to inaurr rection in the state which they Jiad delivered." -._■,. CHAPTER V. THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OP THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION ACCORDING TO NIEBUHR. In the preceding chapter we have given a sketch of Niebuhr's views of the history of Rome in the regal period. We now proceed to give some of his ideas on the origin alid development of the constitution during the same time. No institution in ancient times was more general than that of the division of a people into tribes.* These were either genealogical or local; the former were the more an- cient kind, and mostly arose from a difference of origin ante- cedent to their political union. These tribes were divided into a certain number of Houses, (G&ntes,) each of which again was composed of a greater or lesser number of Fami- lies, (FamilicB.) The territory of the state was divided among the tribes, and thus the genealogic tribes must have been local ones also at the time of their formation : but this local position was not their bond' of union. ,'' To apply this principle to Rorae. When :Roma and Qui- rium united, their inhabitants, under the name of Ramnes and Titienses, formed two tribes, equal in all respects, save that the former had the precedence in rank ; the third tribe (for there must have been three)t was the Luceres, who, as previously subordinate to the Romans, were not yet placed on an equality with the former two. This inferiority of the Luceres is proved by the circumstance of the original nunibec of the Vestals, the Pontiffs, the Flamdns, and the lagurs * For both Sparta and Athens see History of Greece, Part 1. c. v. and vii. • > : . t The word trihus, equivalent to the Greek •7>Ayie, eyidentlyi comes from tres, and,' like the Attic to/tti;?, indicated the original number of the tribes of Rome. In like manner cenlurij originally indicated 100 (centum) houses or individuals. They both became in the courge of time mere terms of division, and we read of 20, 21, 30, 35 tribes, and centuries of even 30 persons. ■■ . , • 46 HISTORY OF ROME. being four, two for each of the superior tribes, and by other similar divisions in the state. Hence the members of tlie first two tribes were called those of the Greater Houses, {Majorum Gentium,) — those of the latter, of the Lesser Houses, [Minorum Gentium.)* Each tribe was divided into ten Curies, {Curia;,) and each Cury contained ten Houses, {Ginfcs.) Each tribe was pre- sided over by its Tribune ( Tribunus) who was its leader in the field, its priest and magistrate at home. Each Cury had in like manner its Curion, {Curio,) whose title in the field was Centurion, as he commanded a hundred {cciituni) men in the original Roman armv. The members of a house, though bearing the same name, are not to be regarded as kinsmen. t Their union was solely a political one ; it was kept up by common sacred rites, at stated times and places, to the expense of which all its members contributed. The Gentiles (?. e. the mem- bers of the house or gens) were bound to aid one another in paying fines, ransoms, etc. ; and if a man died without kin and intestate, his property wont to his Gentiles. These members of the houses of the three tribes formed the burghers or original citizens of Rome. Their common names seems to have been Celeres : J they were also called Patres, Patroni and Patricians, from the following cause. The states of antiquity were extremely jealous of their civic rights, and slow to commimicate them to strangers; there moreover was not in them that equal law for the cit- izen and the stranger, to which rrc are accustomed. When therefore for the sake of trade, or from some other cause, a man wished to settle in a town which was at amity or in a federal relation with his native place, he was obliged to choose some citizen of his new abode as his legal protector and guardian. In Greece a sojourner of this kind was named a Metocc, at Rome he was called a Client ; the me- toec relation however might be dissolved at will, that of clientship descended to the posterity of the first client. The relative term to client was patron, with which Pater * The equpstrian centuries of Tarquiniiis, or the Con^crtptt of Brutus, were thought by some to be the Lesser Houses. f Thus the Lentuli and the Scipiones were both of the house ot the Cornelii, but they were never regrarded as kinsmen. t Celer seems to be akin to the Greek >rf/t>/c, a race-horse or riding- iunse. The Roman Celeres or Patricians answered to the Inniit or innofoxai of the Greeks. THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. 47 [Father) and P.itricius (homo) may be regarded as synony- mous, and denoting the paternal care which a Roman burgher exercised over his children, servants, and clients. If the client did not exercise a trade, keep a shop, or so forth, the patron usually granted him on his estate, two juffcrs of arable land, with space to build a cottage on, which he held as tenant at will. The patron was bound to relieve his client when in distress, to expound to him the law, both civil and religious, and to appear for him in courts of justice.* The client on his side was to be obedient to his patron, to aid him in paying fines to the state, and in bear- ing public burdens, to contribute to ransom him if made a prisoner, and to help to make up the marriage-portion of his daughters. Altogether this relation has a striking similar- ity to that of lord and vassal in the feudal times, which in all probability was derived from it. The Patricians or burghers formed the general assembly or Populus.f They met on the place called the Comitium, and they voted by curies, whence the assembly was named Comitia Curidta. The votes taken in the curies were those of the houses, not of individuals. No state in antiquity was without its senate ; that of Rome was composed of representatives, one for each of the houses, and consequently contained at first 100, then 200, and finally 300 members. It was divided into decuries, corresponding to the number of the curies, and therefore gradually increasing in number from ten to tnirty. The Ramnes had the superiority in the senate also ; ten persons, one from each of their decuries, were named the Ten First [Decern prinii) of the senate. On the death of a king, these ten formed a board, each member of which enjoyed for five " Hence lawyers still call those who employ them their clients. \ The following passages of Livy prove that the populus was distinct from the plehs. " A plebc, consensu jmpuli, consulibus negotiiim mandatur," iv. 51. " Non populi scd phhis magistratum," ii. 56. " Prajtor is qui populo plehiqiir, jus dabit summum," xxv. 12. In Cicero's Epistles we meet the following superscriptioiis, (Ad Divers, x. 8:) Pl-ANCUS IMP. CONS. DES. S. D. COSS. PR. TRIB. PLEB. SEN. POP. PL. q. R., and (Id. x. 3.5) Lepidus imp. iter. pont. max. s. d. senat. POP. PI-. Q. K. Fabius and Dion Cassias, as appears from Diodorus nnd Zonaras, used i^ifioc for ■populus, nifj&oc for plehs. SeeNiebuhr, i. 117, and ii. 1G8, note. We think that these passages ait ijuite demon- strative on the subject. It js impossible to explain them on tiie theory of the populus being the whole, the plebs a part of the people. See also Cic. Muren. 1. Verres, v. 14. Ad. Divers, viii. 8. Dion. lii. 20., liii. 21., Iv. 34. 48 HISTORY OF HOME. days, as Interrex, {Between-kin^,) the royal power and dig- nity. If al the end of fifty days no king was elected, the rotation of Interrexes commenced anew. ■! When the King (Hex) was to be elected, the senate agreed among themselves on the person whom the Interrex should propose to the curies. If they accepted him, the sanction of the gods was sought by augury, and the signs being fa* vorable, the new king had himself to propose a law for investing him with the full regal power (imperiv/n) to the curies who might tlien if they pleased annul their former decision.* It was probably thought, that in a matter of such importance it was prudent to deliberate twice, or, like the Athenian magistrates, the Roman king may have had to undergo a Dokimasy,t or scrutiny. The regal office at Rome very much resembletl that of the heroic ages in Greece, hut it differed from it in being elective, not hereditary. The king had the absolute com- mand of the army ; he offered the sacrifices for the nation ; he convoked the senate and people, and laid laws before them ; he could punish by fines and corporal penalties, but an appeal from his sentence lay for the citizens (that is, the patricians,) to the assembly of the curies ; his power over sojourners and others not belonging to the houses was un- limited. The king moreover sat every ninth day, and ad- ministered justice himself or assigned a judge. He could dispose of the booty and the land acquired in war, and a large portion of the contiuered territory belonged to the crown, which was cultivated by tlie king's clients, and yielded him a large revenue. Such was the constitution of Rome in the period desig- nated by the first three kings. With Ancus the state re- ceived a new element, the Plebes, or Plebs. In every stafe regulated on the principle of houses, there naturally grpws up a Demon, P/tbs, or commonalty, the members of which are free, under the protection of the law, mav acquire real property, make by-laws for themselves, but though 'bound to serve in war, are excluded from the government.| This commonalty is composed of various elemeute, and in some cases, as at Athens, it acquired * Cicero de Rep. ii. 13. 17, 18,20, 21. For the general principle oP a double election of ma^strates see Cicero, Rullns ii. 11. ' > < t History of Greece, p. 65. ' \ Compare the Perioecians of Laconia and the Demos of Altica before the time of Solon. THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. 49 such a preponderance of strength as to draw all political power to itself, and thus convert the state into a democracy. But destiny favored Rome in this respect ; for though her. Plebs was the most respectable commonalty that ever ex- isted, the Popolus always had sufficient strength to balance it, and thus the development of the constitution was grad- ual and beneficent.* - I ' ; . . '/ The Roman Plebs was thus formed. In the period whiQh; we have just described, there was probably at Rome some kind of a commonalty, consisting of. emancipated clients and of pfersoris who hadTlot entered into the client-relation, but it was of no accouhu -When, however, on the destruc- tion 'of Alba, a division of conquests and a new arrangement of territory took place between the Romans and the Latins, the Plebs, which had been already augmented by the inhabi- tants of those Latin towns whioii had been conquered before that time, now received a'great accession to its body. King Ancus assigned the Aventine' for the abode of such of the Latins as chose to t-emove to Rome, and it became the site of the plebeian city.t The greater part of the Plebs,; how-' ever, who were mostly land-owners, staid on their lands, away from Rome. It was, moreover, the Italian law of, nations, that when a town was taken or surrendered, its territory fell to the conqueror: the Roman kings had always reassigned a part of it to the old possessors, and the Plebs therefore contained all the people, gentle and simple, of such Latin towns as fell to Rome : many of its members might consequently vie with the patricians in nobleness of descent, and equalled them in wealth ; though the jealousy of these last would not allow them to intermarry with them, and most legal relations were to the disadvantage of the plebeians. The Romulian constitution, which we have been descri- bing, received its complete developrrtent by the calling iup of the Luceres into the senate, but the time when this oc- curred is uncertain. The great change of this constitution commenced with Tarq'uinius Priscus in the following' man- ner. ■ :.. r ■'• ' It is the nature of ah ejfclusive aristocracy to diminish with great rapidity, and eventually to die away, if it refuses • >•; 'Vj-t ..(it )(.ft ,^w,VnX ffi >.'> ".frf< -, r.rniii.»,A' * * The real cause of this difference was probably that the Aptnvia wefe an agricultural, the Athenians a trading people. ' ' . . t The Aventfne was noi included within the walls of .S«tiHui» Tullius : the plans of Rome which so represent it are wrong. ., ■, 5 G 50 HISTORY OF ROM£. to replace the houses which become extinct. Such appears to have been the case with that of Rome at this time ; the curies did not on an average contain more than five houses apiece. Tarquinius therefore proposed to form three new tribes of houses out of his own retainers and the plebeians, and to name them from himself and his friends. As this would be making six instead of three tribes, and thus be al- tering the form of the constitution, the augur Navius was put forward to oppose it, and even Heaven, as we have seen, called to aid. It would appear that a compromise was ef- fected between the king and the patricians, as he in reality did what he proposed, for he doubled the number of the houses, but left that of the tribes untouched ; each tribe therefore now consisted of two parts or centuries. The Plebs, meantime, advanced daily in numbers, wealth, and power by the various accessions which it received. The legislator whom we name Scrvius Tullius saw the advantage of giving it more organization than it had yet obtained, and he accordingly divided it into local tribes. The number of these tribes was thirty, answering to that of the patrician curies and of the Latin towns ; four of them were civic or in the city, the remaining twenty-six were rural ; of these, ten lay beyond the Tiber in Etruria. These tribes being local, each had its separate rrgivn, which bore the same name with itself. Each tribe had its tribune, who was its captain in war, its chief magistrate in peace; he apportioned the tax {tributum*) which the tribe had to pay among the tribesmen, {tribnhs,) regulated their con- tingent in the army, and inspected the condition of every family. The plebeian tribes when met in assembly elected their tribunes and other magistrates, made laws for their own regulation, imposed rates for common objects, etc. Rome now consisted of two united but distinct peoples, governed by one prince, with a common public interest, but yet without even the right of intermarriage. These were the Populus or burghers, and the Plebs or commonalty ; equally free, but with the advantage in point of honor on the side of the former. t But the legislator saw danger in * Trihutum comes from tribua, not the reverse. f Tlio assemblies (com/tw) of the Populus were held on the Comi- tiUm, those of the Plebs in the Forum ; the Rostra, a long stage from which the magistrates spoke in public, separated these two places, which lay on the same level, and which were, in common use, in- eluded under the name Forum. THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. 51 this sepaiation, and he sought to obviate it by an institution in which both should be comprised, and by which birth and wealth should have their due and full influence in the state. This he proposed to effect by arranging the whole popula- tion in Classes, subdivided into Centuries. The form in which we must conceive the people in this arrangement is that of an Army, {Exercitus,) as it was called, composed of cavalry, infantry, artillery, and its baggage-train, and it met on the Campus Martius without the city. The three original tribes or centuries of Romulus, with the three of Tarquinius, contained all the patricians without distinction of property : they were named the Six Suffrages, (Sex Suffragia.) To these Servius added twelve centuries of plebeian notables, or men of superior wealth, a kind of plebeian nobility, whose honors descended to their posterity ; these centuries were open ; any plebeian might be raised to them. The eighteen centuries, under the name of Knights or Horsemen, (Equites,) formed the cavalry of the Roman army. If any member of them was so reduced in circum stances as not to be able to purchase a war-horse for himself, and a slave and horse to attend and follow him to the field, the state assigned him a sum of 10,000 asses for that pur- pose, and for their maintenance an annual rent-charge of 2000 asses on the estates of single women and orphans, who were thus made to contribute to the defence of the state which gave them protection. If a knight was degraded, as sometimes occurred, his horse was sold to reimburse the state, and his pension was assigned to another. After the eighteen equestrian Centuries came the infan- try, composed entirely of plebeians, arranged in five Classes in the order of their property, and armed in the same pro- portion, as the following table will show : Cntturi'ef. doss . Property. I. 100,000 asset and upwards, 40 of old, 40 of ywung men JJrnu. Helmet, Shield. Corselet. Greaves. Sword. Spear. Helmet. Shield. U. 75,000 asses and upwards. 10 of old, 10 of young men = 20-<| Greaves. I Sword. I. Spear. 2Q < Helmet, shield III. 90,000 asses and upwards. 10 of old, 10 of young men IV 25,000 asses and upwards. 10 of old, 10 of young men V. 12^500 asses and upwards. 15 of old, 15 of young men ' Sword, spear. : 30 Spear and dart : 30 Slings. '62 HISTORY OF ROME. ' 'tfThose vhose property was under 12,500 asses were ar '>Bsngerl in centuries out of the classes. Of these centuries there were four, as will thus appear. All in the centuries taken together were divided into Asssiduan or Locupletcs and Proletarians, the former containing all down to those who had 1500 asses, the latter those who had less than that sum. Now the Assiduans below the classes were divided into Accensi, or those who had from 7000 to 12,500 asses, and Velati, who had from 1500 to 7000; and the Pro- letarians were again divided into Proletarians, or those who had from 375 to 1.500 asses, and Capite Ceusi, or those who had lesrthan 375 asses, thus making four in all. The cor- porations of carpenters, {^fahri,) trumpeters, (liticenes,) and horn-blowers, (rornichtps,) formed tiiree centuries, of which the first stood and voted with the first class, the last two with the fifth. The entire' of centuries therefore waB-105,* vizu n -.. ; , M . • .-, ,r. . ' iii<»il rtili l«> yi I/, /fio Equestrian.. :...18 -Kill in •li'i iti bo-Tnlfft >riufl iri't tavtii-v ft Assiduans ,.^.,.,.,,1.2 ^,j ^,, ,,,j, ^^ vo'uinJ?! ">tt 9il» «»» fruM ""''"Mechanist*'.'. .'!'. ^3"" ""*= '>'ti\\' i, bnr -iifq Jcrll lot i-yf-r. 000,1(1 ti hm - »r-Hiiii h')nvi»fr, '*Uii^. 'i;-,;ii-ai -.r 12,500 : t 24 : 3 -■ -loiinK lo (nmiuv Three of the first must have had as mu,?h property as four of the second, six of the third, and so on; while the centu- ries of the third, for instance, must haye contained twice, those of the fifth eight times, as many citizens as those of the first. In like manner, the property of each of the three classes following the first must have been a fourth, that of the fifth three eighths, of its propefty.*, JVIultiplying, then, the centuries by the relative numbecsi p^,th^vproperties of the classes, we find .^ „..i . i 80 X 3 == 240 i hi-.il ii!3(ii .oiol'JiodJ ,ci»oJ>^« sidJ »il -"; "IS i t-mi<^^ ^1-ding'by 4o^h.ir)i';i^i;H;^::; '"'""'20 V 12 = 240 i •=^'»™*'" measure, \ *' ''' "'"^I .i)j<|flii»p'« tlluul 9V3V/ v;iiCL«c ,v.i^^i^r.\> ,,i, ,!>•!!.. u:.'i!> hdi; [>■»>•. lodiiU -vr^i-'i ■85)^/ ^ijri: ■-. So that of thirtp6vi'<^iti5iferts;'sik were in the'lirs^ class) and had more influence in the state than the remaining twenty- '■■ '. '■:•■■. ■ '^ '''l^or Soj S!oi 2b, 20, 30, (the numbers of the centuries,) are to each •therasl.i, i, ii. 6* i ; 5|4 HISTORY OF ROME. nine ; the number of citizens in the second class was a thira of those in the first; that of the third a half, and so on. If then, as there is reason to suppose, the first class contained 6000 citizens, the whole five contained 35,000 — the number of plebeians (exclusive of the knights) possessing property above 12,500 asses. As we have above observed, the Centuries, when assem- bled on the Field of Mars, formed an army; the eighteen equestrian centuries were the cavalry ; the Classes the in- fantry ; the Proletarians the baggage train ; there were also the artillerists (fabri) and the musicians. The first class usually sent forty centuries of thirty men each, (one from each tribe,) or 1200 men, to the field ; the second and third together gave the same number, as did also the fourth and fifth ; making a total of one hundred and twenty centuries, or 3600 men, consisting of three divisions of 1200 men each, one of hoplites or men in full armor, one of men in half ar- mor, and one of light troops. This body, named a Legion,* was drawn up in phalanx after the manner of tlie Greeks, each century composed of the first two divisions being ■drawn up three in front and ten deep, the men of the first class forming the first five ranks ; whence we see why the quajitity of armor was diminished as the classes descended, those who stood behind being covered by the bodies and armor of those in front. The light troops, forming what was called a caterva, stood apart from the phalanx. The Accensi stood apart from both ; it was their duty to lake the arms and places of the killed or wounded, and as in such cases the man immediately behind stepped into the gap, and he was succeeded by the man behind hiin, the places of the Accensi were always in the rear, where they acted merely mechanically in giving weight and consistency to the mass. In this system, therefore, men had to encounter danger in exact proportion to the stake they had In the state, and to the political advantages which they . enjoyed ; for the knights also purchasecJ their precedence by being exposed to greater danger, as they were badly equipped, and riding without stirrups were easily unhorsed and disarmed, and were ex- posed to the missiles of the enemy's light troops. * From lego, to select. We are not to suppose that one legion foe-^d the whole army. This was only the rule by which the legiona w - '. raised. THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. 55 Another part of this legislation was the establishment of a regular system of taxation by the Census. Every citizen was bound to give an honest return of the number of his family, and of his taxable property. A registry of births was kept in the temple of Lucina, one of deaths in that of Libitina ; the country people were registered at the festival of thie Pagan&lia. All changes of abode and transfers of property werie to be notified to the proper magistrate. The tribute was paid by the Plebs ; it was so much a thousand on the property given in at the census, varying according to the exigencies of the state, but unfair, inasmuch as debts were not deducted from the capital, so that a man paid in proportion to his nomindl, not his actual property. This property consisted of lands, houses, slaves, cattle, money, and every other object of what was called duiritary prop- erty, or res mancipiii None but Assiduans were thus taxed ; the Proletarians were exempt from taxes. Sojourners and others, who were not in the Classes or Centuries, paid, under the name , of ^rarians, such arbitrary sums as the state imposedTor licenses to carry on trades, etc. The patricians paid, like the plebeians, for their property of the same kind with theirs, and they yielded the state a tithe of the prod- uce of the public lands, which they held exclusively as tenants. Though Servius thus gave form and consistency to the revenue, we are not to suppose that most if not all of these taxes did not exist before his time ; there were these and port-duties and other charges, from which and the manubiee^ or spoils of war, the kings derived a large revenue, as is proved by the great works which they executed. These works were the Capitoline temple, with its huge substruc- tions, the sewers and the city wall. Of the first we have already spoken : the Cloaca Maxima, or great sewer, which still exists, is composed of three vaults within one another, all formed of hewn blocks of the stone named peperino, each 7^ Roman palms long, and 4^ thick, put together without cement ; the innermost vault is a semicircle eighteen palms in width and as many in height. Other sewers carried the waters of other parts of the city into the Cloaca Maxima, which opens into the river by a gate-like arch in a quay ; which quay, being of the same style of architecture, is evi- dently coeval with it. The wall of Servius, from the Col- line to the Esquiline gate, a distance of nearly a mile, was the third great work of the kings. This consisted of a SB^ HISTORY or ROMS. i j] ,.M, 1, .■..,;!:.. - ■,.. . i--!,!' ) -.iij II. )i a -ii 1 ./ i)i: .. , > ■< * PoItVicw m,2z 96. Tbe coniuu nataied in it m fimtoa uid 111 , Mill- -nil Id /lTj(|oi nriJif B 'ili.JK oill Icthlfuy ^aill hjUi ,/-t IiImI V nil if.-jiih/ .-hnjil oildiMi fidl T .:-.lli( r. :.i{\ o} ftii^t-tPAurt \>iu: (UMii ^vrj» Kiiil) f'liivTiH jf>ri I'! 9»!Mrll 'lo llii Joii li )»^<»in \i.iii 'MiMppM <•» )«Mi yir. ov/ , i. Ii .. .• Mil .T.J. .-..;• ; •lidil «id '>io1'>d lhii'» »<»ri l)»!) ,il W MUn'l ,H9J;1iillo iarll<» i)ll|t fiilllb-JK" r h'}vji')li nyniJ sril ,i».w *}•> -'">"-' i i) iI'Mil// cJiiii/ )n')i;; 'III; ' ';.Mii II III)// ,i!*|iiinl r>iiili)ni|ji3 oilj ■' II Jriil •lid '\() .llii'w /li') 'jilJ \u\r. M»i»;-i. r.jii(*.' ,v>n->^ iirny lo ,uiiii/i;l/. i.-u'w*!') ftil) : Ji-i/l' ,1'Mllonii '>iii> iitilli// itlliiity 'i'liilt lo li'MOijiiKi') r.i il:)i;(i ,tu»rv»»\>^\ !>'Jifii u •jiik)-'. :>ilt lo i>i(->iiid jiwod'lo .■ it- : ii' jiimlhM i'idl»«^()t liKj ,>i'iiilt ^t Iiiiii ,viir> '(ti:* ■•ill 1u K)lAq T)ilj«i *}<. , ni li-iii, fi (il I'tvii ')ill oliii t!irj(]o li I ,'Hiii'iMiii|-iiu l«. AiU '•riiiiK 'ifli 'lo jiHi'^d ,^r.it|> . -I''> lij iiK.Vl .ftinvtri III llr.v/ ftil'r ti Htt7/ lr/"''-i .-jlim jt yhn'Mi lo o.-ninlsfib « .oii i: Tv' l"'''i>iu>'j JiilT .f-'jniA 'nl) "1< . hui'j bin; diiiiiii a i.-)jlj'.,ti:>A, lo't b-nuooKj yino hjii (■•ili ('Kpi oi «itiji-jMvn->> i HISTORY OF ROME/ i; -tiij lo bi;;>(i :j(ii m ljru.U[ OTjy/ ,>fiii)|j->iiiil b:J<.iirj 11=! I'll-) .Ti-iv/ y >ilj j^riil )); }»;ih yliiiilj »>j no;;i;.-;i ai yT»ili bin OJ iiiiili;'jq<{K 10 l il^jii n.l'i' — t.h i ot)io 'j ill ')o lioD'j (iioil yno B^UV/liJ .bL'll f;Ml;i-)J 1^.<| 'iiIj li-Jl!!;.' ,' ,>-)illl.O Oil)) ,«1M«1 IIMiit ,en/!i-jd!>lq oif) oJ .v 1 nriioi,; / ^;(i.■ y.J b)b»ioly» ^/iv/ ,b')7/ tiblod'cjii Ijcrii^ I!, 1. i;iii)ii; ,17/ <\)inA ')ii>-.')iii;>b U:(of TttE RfiPUBBT^.'^'CONQUESt OF''rDAE.¥;"" .Jll!,-, /' ■ .' ' :. I,: .•.■-■•'I l.i.li iIjmIv/ )iju b-jii.!iiiii 'i-ni'ii )<) Tt.i.i'.,ii ,:.in;'.i,l(|iiio-) Ki;v/ eiadiii'iiii y/y«t f)-'n{'V . •(n;)Jii'>> iiiin)«'>ijj)fi niiioil-jbi ;>ii) "io 111) ijv.iuynii-Ji *>1|^TT A p'pr'T^ fJ*!'"' ■'*'•"" -^ b')aij;ii -fiTJ '/ |. ;. ii'iliu} ^^> ,>!'rf)r.*l 'wO nii'''i BEGINNING OF THE REPUBLIC. THE DICTATORSHIP. RO MAN LAW OF DEBT.- — DISTRESS CAUSED BY THE LAW OP DEBT. SECESSION TO THE SACRED MOUNT. THE TRI- BUNATE. LATIN CONSTITUTION. — TREATY WITH THE LATINS.^ WAR WITH THE VOLSCIANS. —r- TREATY WITH Itifi'.'.v ;• r h ''(f.'li-Hjiiii iljiy/ \> •■mn'^ift ^ni'jti ,>!UHiHil'J '•lu)/. N the preceding Part we have earned the history down beyond the point at which the Regal Period properly speak- ing terminates; but we wished to give the poetic narrative complete and separate "rom that which may claim to be re- garded as an approxniiation to the truth. We'raiist now therefore go back to the origin of the Republic. Be the acts recorded of the last Roman king true or false, there can be little doubt that he was & tyrant in the bad sense of the word, and as bad as the worst of those in Greece and her colonies at that period. The patricians who aided him to usurp the throne, in order, that they might deprive the plebeians of the rights and liberties sci- cured to them by the constitution of Servius, soon felt that • Livy. Dionysms, (to the year 312,) and the epitomators Zonairas, Orosias, Eutropius, Florus, and Aurelius Victor, are the consecutive authorities for this Part. There are also Plutarch's lives of Poplicola, Coriclanus, Cam-llus, and Pyrrhus. H 58 HISTORY OF ROME. they had only procured for themselves a harsh and cruel master, and they gladly joined with the plebeians to expel tiini, (A. IJ. 244.) A return was made to the constitution of Servius. In agreement with the commentaries of that prince, two annual magistrates, at first named Praetors, afterwards Consuls,*. pogpessed of all the, regal authority, saving only the Bacerdotal functions, were placed at the head of the state ; and there is reason to think that at first they were chosen one from each of the orders. t The right of appealing to their peers, (the curies,) which the patricians had always enjoyed, was extended by the Valerian law to the plebeians, who were nov/ empowered -to appeal to their tribes. The royal demesne lands were also distributed in small freeholds among a portion of the more needy plebeians. The senate^ which had been greatly reduced by the cruelty of the tyrant, was completed to the original number of three hundred out of the plebeian equestrian centuries. These new members were named Conscripts, {Con&criyti,) to distinguish them from the Patres, or patrician senafors.| The loss of the lands beyond the Tiber, in consequence of'the Tuscan cohquiest of Rome, greatly crippled the state. Advantage was taken of this by the Volscians and Sabines ; but if we credit the annals, the arms of Rome met with uni- form success against them. On occasion of a war with the latter people, (250,) a man of rank among them, named Attus Clausus, being menaced with impeachihent for having opposed the war, resolved to go over to the Romans. Quit- ting Regillus, where he abode, he came with his gentiles and clients, to the number of five thousand, to Rome, where he took ihe name of Appius Claudius, and was admitted into the body of the patricians ; land beyond the Anio was assigned to his followers, and they formed a tribe named ,')^i.'; 1(1 -nni 111. - II. 1.1 ' • . ^'liiv;ili(. !55. Dion) liii. -13. Zonara*, vii. 19. Pr t(i3i> ,•; 'ii : The dictatorship was ostensively instituted against the public enemy, but the oppression of the plebeians was its real object. It was a part of the plan which the patricians had now formed for depriving them of all their rights and advantages, and reducing them to the condition of the Etrus- can serfs, and thus, though its authors thought not so, of depriving Rome of all chance of ever becoming great. The plebeians had been already justled out of the consulate : it was proposed to elude by the dictatorship the right of ap- peal given by the Valerian law, and reestablish the un)jr> ited authority of the chief magistrate even within the city and the mile round it ; and finally, by a rigorous en- forcement of the law of debt, to reduce them to actual slavery. At Rome, as in the ancient world in general, the law of * Niebuhr thinks that as by the peace which the consul Sp. Cassius concluded (252) with the Sabines, (Dionys. v. 49,) a portion of territory was ceded to Rome, it was thus that the Claudian gens and tribe were formed in lieu of the Tarquinian, which had been broken up. The tribes were but twenty till the year 259, when the Crustunaine was formed. ,t,That is, the patricians ; the plebeian family of the Marcelli were of a far better character. t That the Latins had dictators is quite certain. It is not equally BO that they gave them such power as is here spoken of. The Romans probably borrowed only the name to avoid that o^ rex. § " Dictatoribus Magistri Equitum vnjungebantur : «c quomodo Regu bus Tnbuni Celerum. — Pomponius Dig. lib. i. tit. ii. 1, quoted by the learned translators of Niebuhr's Hist, of Rome i. 515. 60 HISTORY OF ROMB^/ijsuio/i oil'l' .'to o'tJi'iqK 'n'<«i nta Trw<.«i xiiub iii'ir , u .T't'to fei'f h-'ir (>} "(I'ffi -H.* v'f • Beriiles the ordinary lunar year of twelve months, the Romana used, for partic\ilar purposes, the cyclic year of ten months, borrowed from the Tuscans. KOMAN I.AW OF DEBT. 61 consuls, an old man, covered with filth And rags, with squalid hair and beard, pale and emaciated, rushed one day into the Forum and in^plored the aid of the people, showing the scars of wounds received in eight-and-twenty battles. Several, recognizing in him one who had been a brave cap- tain, eagerly inquired the cause of his present wretched appearance. He said that while he was serving in the Sabine war his house and farm-yard had been plundered and burnt by the enemy ; the tributes had nevertheless been exacted of him; he had been obliged to borrow money; principal and accumulated interest had eaten up all his prop- erty; the sentence of the law had given himself and his two sons as slaves to his creditor. He then stripped his back and showed the marks of recent stripes. A general uprpar arose ; all, both in and out of debt, [next and soluti,) assembled and clamored for some legal relief. With dif- ficulty a sufficient number of senators (such was their ter- ror) could be brought together. Appius proposed to employ force, Servilius was for milder courses. Just then news arrived that the Volscians were in arms; the people exulted^ telling the patricians to go fight their own battles, and re- fused to give their names for the legions. The senate then empowered Servilius to treat with them. He issued an edict proclaiming that no one who was in slavery for debt should be prevented from serving if he chose, and that as long as a man was under arms no one should touch his property or keep his children in bondage. All the pledged (nexi) who were present then gave their names, the bound (addicti) hastened on all sides from their dungeons, and a large army took the field under the consul. The Volscians were defeated, their town of Suessa Ponietia taken, and the plunder given up to the army. An Auruncan army which came to the aid of the Volscians was routed a few days after near Aricia. Servilius led home his victorious army full of hopes ; but these hopes were bitterly deceived, when the iron-hearted Appius ordered the debtor-slaves back to their prisons and assigned the pledged to the creditors. But the people stood on their defence, and repelled the officers and those who went to aid them, at the same tinie calling on Servilius to perform his promises. The consul, by attempting to steer a middle course, lost favor with both parties, and the year passed away without any thing being done. The next year, (260,) when the consuls, A. Virginius and 6 62 HISTORY OF ROME. T. Vetusius, attempted to levy an arm)', the people refused to give their names. They now also held nocturnal meet- ings in their own quarters on the Aventine and Esquiiine, to concert measures of resistance, and even went so far as to demand a total abolition of debts. A portion of the pa- tricians were willing to purchase peace even on these terms , others thought it might suffice to restore their liberty and property to those who had served the year before : Appius averred that wantonness, not poverty, was the disease of the people, and that a dictator, from whom there was no appeal, would soon cure them. It was resolved, therefore, to try the effect of the dictatorship, and the more violent party would have risked the very existence of the state by placing Appius himself in the office ; but the milder and more pru- dent succeeded in appointing M. Valerius, in whom they knew the people would confide. The dictator issued an edict similar to that of Servilius , the people, in reliance on his name and power, readily gave their names; ten legions* were raised, four for the dicta- tor, three for each consul. Valerius marched against the Sabines, one consul against the ^(juians, the other againtst the Volscians. Victory was every where with the Rotnans. Valerius, on his return, lost no time in bringing the affair of the pledged before the senate, and finding he could get no measure of relief passed, he laid down his office. The people, satisfied that hr had kept his faith, received him with acclamations, and attended him in token of honor from the Forum to his hout^e. The dictator's army had been disbanded, but either one or both of the consular armies was still under arms. The plebeians who formed it, seeing no chance of legal relief, made L. Sicinius Bellutus ilieir leader, crossed the Anio, and encamped on an adjacent eminence in the Crustumine dis- trict ; the con.suIs and the patricians who were among them were dismissed without injury. The plebeians of the city kueantime occupied the Aventine, and there was every pros- pect of affairs coming to civil war and bloodshed. For we must bear in mind that the patricians, the original populus of Rome, must have been still a numerous body ; they were of a martial character, like every body of the kind, and their numerous clients stood faithfully by them on all occa- sions; they were also the government, and had the means * Thk is incredible ; at the Alia the Romans had but four legrions. ROMAN LAW OF DEBT. 63 of negotiating foreign aid. Moreover, the hills of Rome were all fortresses, like the Capitol, their sides being made steep and abrupt, and any attempt to carry the Palatine or the Quirinal, for instance, might have cost much blood. Both sides were aware that the issue of the conflict might be doubtful, and that the yEquians and Volscians or the Etruscans might take advantage of it to ruin Rome. A mutual wish for accommodation, therefore, prevailed ; and the patricians, having strengthened themselves by an alli- ance with the Latiiis, deputed the First Ten of the senate to the plebeian camp to treat of peace. One of these, named Agrippa Menenius, is said to have addressed on this occa- sion the following apologue to the people : — " In those times when all was not at unity, as now, in man, but every member had its own plans and its own lan- guage, the other members became quite indignant that they should all toil and labor for the belly, while it remained at its ease in the midst of them doing nothing but enjoying itself. They therefore agreed among themselves that the hands should not convey any food to the mouth, nor the mouth receive it, nor the teeth chew it. But while they thus thought to starve the belly out, they found themselves and the whole body reduced to the most deplorable state of feebleness, and they then saw that the belly is by no means useless, that it gives as well as receives nourishment, dis- tributing to all parts of the body the means of life and health." Having propounded this fable, the meaning of which was obvious,* ^enenius and his colleagues proceeded to treat, and a peace was made and sworn to by the two orders. By this treaty all outstanding debts were cancelled, and all who were in slavery for debt were set at liberty ; but the plebs neither regained the consulate nor any other honors ; for the senate, with the usual wisdom of an aristocracy, contrived to separate the interests of the lower order of plebeians from those of their gentry, by making individual sacri6ces in the remission of debts, while they retained the solid advantages of place and power for their order. They * By the belly must be understood the moneyed men, not the government; this would have been the head. T. Quinctius Flami- ninus seeing Philopoemon, the Achiean general, with plenty of hoplitei and horsemen, but without money, said ('alluding to his make.) " Phil- opoemon has legs and arms, but no belly. ' (Plut. Apoph. Reg. et hnp. Opera, vol. viii. p. 144, cd. Hutten.) 64 HISTORY OF ROME. also managed to have no alteration made in the law of debt The plebeians, having offered sacrifice to Jupiter on the mount where they, had encamped, which thence was named the Sacred Mount, {Mons i^accr,) returned to their former dwellings. ij. . JJut the real , 'gain of thp plebeians, and a? it proved, qS the patricians also, was the making the tribunate an invio^ lable magistracy. Hitherto it was with danger to them- selves, that the tribunes of the plebs had attempted to give the protection secured to the people by the Valerian law ; now, in the solemn compact between the orders, it was de^;- clared that any one who killed or injured a tribune should be accursed, {saccr, i, e. outlawed,.) and any oi)e might slay him with iinpunity, and his property was forfeit to the temple of,, Ceres. The house of the tribune stood open night aaid day, that the injured might repair to it for suc- cor. , The number of; tribunes in the new-modelled trib- unate^ and who were elected on the Sa9red Mount, was two, C, Liciuiue and L. Albinius ; t,9 these, three more, among whom was Sicinius, were afterwards added, and there thus was one for each of the Classes. It is remark- able, as an instance of the efforts made by the patricians to keep up their power, that the election of the tribunes re- quired the confirmation of the curies. ; The tribunes were purely a plebeian magistracy, the, rep- resentatives of their order, and rts protectors r^ainst the supreme power. They could not act as judges, or impose penaltie$ oil offending patriciatis ; they could only bring them before the. court of the commonalty. And here it must be remarked, as a peculiarity of the national law of ancient Italy, that a people who had been injured, either collectively or in the person of one of its members, had tl;e ight of tryiijg the -offender, whom his countrymen, if there .vaa a treaty with theur, were bound to give up for the pur- pose. ' ,F or it was expected that sworn judges woul^ be more Jikplj)'. to acquit him, if innocent, than his gentilep, tribesman, etc. to condemn him if guilty.*, , ,• ' Anothejr plebeian office, said to have bqeii instituted (more probably modified) at this time, was the ^dileship. The .aidiles ,aptQ4 as judges mi^er. .jthje tribmies, apd they ' ■ ■■ '■ .'. 1 " ■ ■ ■ . /. I' . '. (-1 , • , , . *.'How much pore consQiiant to Ju^t^ce oui o^f^ pf,^ctice of trying by a mixed jury of natives and foreigners.! .,lfei pernaps it would no! have answered in those times. m.,i , 'i 1 1 THE trii-.:nate. 65 kept the archives of the plebs in the temple of Ceres, whicl; was under their care. The time of the consular election having come on during the secession, the populus had appointed Sp. Cassias Viscel linus and Postumius Coniinius, who had already been con suls, and a treaty was forthwith concluded with the Latins, the existence of which enabled the patricians to make such advantageous terms with the plebeians. A sketch of the Latin constitution may here be useful. We have more than once had occasion to notice the pred- ilection of the ancients for political numbers. That of the Latins, the Albans, and the Romans was thirty, or rather three tens ; and therefore, as Rome had her thirty curies and tribes, so Latium consisted of a union of thirty towns. Each of these towns had its senate of one hundred members, | | divided into ten decuries, the decurion or foreman of each i | of which was deputed to the general senate of the nation, ) | which assembled at the grove and fount of Ferentina, and j j thus, like that of Rome, contained three hundred members. The union among the Latin towns, though less close than that among the Roman tribes, was much more intimate than the Greek federations in general, and they always acted as one state, with a common interest. Each city had its dictator, one of whom always was dictator over the whole nation, and its head in war and in the performance of the great national religious rites. The treaty, now made on terms of perfect equality be- tween the two nations, shows how Rome had faHen from her power under her kings. It was to this effect : " There shall be peace between the Romans and Latins as long as heaven and earth shall keep their place; and they sliall neither war themselves against each other, nor instigate others to do so, nor grant a safe passage to the enemies ; and they shall aid one another, when attacked, with all their might ; they shall share equally between them the spoils and booty gained in common wars ; private suits shall be decided within ten days, in the place where the engagement was made ; nothing may be added to or taken from this treaty without the consent of the Romans and all the Latins.* Among the spoils of war mentioned in this treaty waa the territory won from conquered states, which was usually * Dionys. vi. 95. 66 HISTORY OF ROME. added to the public land, and the Latins had a cfemesne of this kind as well as the Romans. The Latins also had iheir equal share in the colonies which were planted. Theso Roman, or rather Italian, colonies were of a totally different nature from those of the Greeks ; * they were garrisons placed in a conquered town to keep it in subjection. To these colonists, who were usually three hundred in number, a third of the lands of the conquered people was assigned, and the government was placed in their hands, they be- ing to the original inhabitants, who retained the rest of their lands, what the populus at Rome was to the com- monalty. The Volscians, after the defeat they had sustained in the year 2G0, remained quiet for some time. Their elective king Attus Tullius, however, deeming that advantage might be taken of the divisions at Rome, which would prevent effectual aid being given to the Latins, resolved, if possible, to rekindle the war, and he used the following occasion for that purpose. In the year 203 the Great Games at Rome were cele- brated anew. For, some time before, when they were com- mencing, and the procession of the images of the gods was about to go round the Circus to hallow it, a slave, whom his master had condemned to death, was driven through it and scourged. No attention was paid to this circumstance, and the games went on; but soon after the city was visited by a pestilence, and many monstrous births occurred. The .soothsayers could point out no remedy. At length Jupiter appeared in a dream to a countryman, named T. Lalinius, and directed him to go tell the consuls that the pra^luder (prfTsultor) had been displeasing to him. Fearing to be laughed at by the magistrates, Latinius did not venture to go near them. A few days after his son died suddenly, and the vision again appeared, menacing him with a greater evil if he did not go to the consuls. The simple man still hesitated, and he lost the use of his limbs. lie then revealed the matter to his kinsmen and friends, and they all agreed that he should be carried as he was, in his bed, to the con- suls in the Forum. By their direction he was brought into the senate-house, and there he told the wonderful tale ; snd scarcely had he completed it, when lo ! another miracle • See History of Greece, Part I. chap. iv. WAR WITH THE VOLSCIANS. 67 look place ; vigor returned all at once to his limbs, and he left the senate-house on his feet. The games were now renewed with greater splendor than ever. The neighboring peoples, as usual, resorted to them; for in Italy, as in Greece and Asia, all solemn festi- vals were seasons of sacred peace.* Among those who came were numbers of Volscians. Attus Tullius went secretly to the consuls, and, reminding them of the unsteady nature of his countrymen, expressed his fears lest, imboldened by their numbers, they should disturb the sanctity of the feast by some deed of violence. The senate in alarm had proc- lamation made for all the Volscians to quit Rome by sun- set. They departed in deep indignation: at the spring of Ferentina they were met by Tullius, who had gone on be- fore ; he exaggerated the insult which had been offered them in the face of so many Italian peoples, and they re- j tired to their several towns breathing vengeance. The Volscians were joined by their kindred nation the vEquians, who were at that time more powerful than they. The Roman and Latin colonists were driven out of Circeii, and their place taken by Volscians. The country thence to Antium (of which place the Volscians also made themselves j masters) was conquered. The combined armies entered the Roman territory, (266 ;) but here a quarrel relative to the supreme command broke out between them, and they turned their arms against each other. In the year 26S the consul Sp. Cassius concluded a league with the Hernicans similar to' that with the Latins. As the political number of the Sabeilians, to whom the Her- nicans belonged, was four, and they were to receive a third of conquests and booty, it follows that four f Hernicans could only receive as much as three Romans or Latins. This * Hence the Israelites are assured (Exodus xx.xiv. 24) that no man should '• desire their land " when they went up to their three great fes- tivals. t The cohorts of the Hernicans contaired 400 men, (Liv. vii. 7,) those of the Samnites the same number, (Id. x. 40;) the Samnite legion had 4000 men, (Id. viii. 23 ; x. 38; xxii. 24.) The Marsian confederacy (see above, p. 5) consisted of four states, so also the Samnite ; and that the Hernicans were so divided, may be inferred from the 1000 colonists sent to Antium by the three allied nations, (Liv. iii. 5,) that is, 400 Hernicans, one hundred for each canton ; 300 Romans for the three tribes of houses ; 300 Latins for the three decuries of their towns. 68 HISTORY OF ROME. close union among the three states was caused by their common apprehensions from the Ausonian peoples, who were now at the height of their power. CHAPTER 11. THE PUBLIC LAND. AGRARIAN LAW OF SPURIUS CASSIU3. THE CONSULATE. VOLSCIAN WARS. VEIENTINE WAR. THE FAHII AT THE CREMERA. SIEGE OF ROME. MURDER OF THE TRIBUNE GENUCIU6. ROGATION OF PUBLILIUS VOLERO. DEFEAT OF THE ROMAN ARMY. DEATH OF APPIUS CLAUDIUS. The year 268 is also memorable in the annals of Rome as that of the agrarian law of Sp. Cassias Viscellinus, Ihe demand for the execution of which proved for so many I years a source of bitterness and anger between the two { orders. To understand tliis matter aright, we must view the origin and nature of the Roman public land. The small territory about the Palatine belonging to the I city of Romulus was, as there is reason to suppose, equally I divided among the ten curies of the Ramnes. The house- I holders, of whom there were one hundred in each cury, had '. each a garden of two jugers, (one of arable, one of planta- i tion land,) which was termed a hfrrdiiiin, and one hundred ; of these hrcdict, or two hundred jugers, formed the century i or district of the cury. But these ten centuries did not compose the whole of the land ; a part was assigned for the service of the gods and for the royal demesnes, and an- other portion remained as common or public land,* Tiiis last was all grass-land, and every citizen had a right to feed hi^ cattle on it, paying so much a head grazing-money to the state. We may suppose the two communities which formed the remaining tribes of regal Rome to have had their lands similarly divided, if not originally, at least subsequently, for it was the rule in ancient Italy, as all over the East, and even among ourselves,! that all landed property proceeded * See above, p. 15. < Blackstone, Book iL ch. 7 THE PUBLIC LAND. 69 fi om the sovereign ; and therefore whenever any community received the Roman franchise, it made a formal surrender of its lands to the state, and then received them back from it. Hence we hear of assignments of land by the early kings to the three tribes and to the plebs ; for the Latin commu nities, which in the time of King Ancus began to form this last body, of course surrendered and received again their lands in the usual manner. The original property * of the three patrician tribes there- fore consisted of the six thousand jugers which formed their hercdia, of their original common land, and of all that had been acquired previous to the formation of the plebs ; this was their property, and could not be affected by any law. But when the plebs was increased, and, as the infantry of the legion, was a chief agent in the acquisition of territory, it was manifest that they had a right to a share in what was won. Servius therefore enacted, that after every conquest a portion of the arable land which had been gained should be assigned in property to such plebeians as required it, in lots or farms of seven jugers apiece, and they were also to have the use of the public pastures in common with the patricians on the same conditions. The remainder of the arable land was the property of the state ; the use or enjoy ment of it under the name of possession (subject to resump- tion at any time) was given to the patricians exclusively ; for this they were bound to pay the state annually a tithe or tenth of the produce of the corn-lands and two tenths of that of vine-yards and olive-yards.t These possessions were transmitted by inheritance, and transferred by sale, as it was only in extreme cases that the state exercised its power of resumption ; and though the plebeians could not originally occupy the public land, they might buy the use of portions of it from the patrician occupants. To gain the commonalty, at the time of the expulsion of Tarquinius, the patricians decreed an assignment of seven jugers apiece to the plebeians out of the royal demesnes But as soon as the cause of the tyrant had become hope- less, and they had monopolized the supreme power, they turned out of the public land those of the plebeians who had acquired the use of it in the way above described ; and, * The property of the patricians all lay within the circait of five miles round the city. f Appian, B. C. i. 7. 70 HISTORY OF ROME. what was still more iniquitous, they ceased to pay the tithes I 1 off the lands which they themselves possessed ; so that the j 1 tribute of the plebeians had to defray the expenses of wars, j etc., while the booty acquired was usually sold, and the produce diverted to tlie public chest of the patricians, {in I j publicum.) Hence, as we have seen, came the distress of the plebeians and the secession. It was to prevent the recurrence of this state of things that that excellent citizen and truly great man Sp. Cassius, 1 who in his first consulship had overcome the Sabines, in ! his second formed the treaty with the Latins, and in his I third that with the Ilernicans, in this third also brouglit ; forward an agrarian law, directing, that of the land acquired • since the time of King Servius, a part should be assigned to I the plebeians, the portion of the populus be set out, and I tithe paid as formerly off all the occupied land. This law I was passed by the senate and the curies, but the execution \ of it was committed to the consuls of the following year, j and the ten oldest consular^ * of the greater houses, — men ! ': the most apt to make it a dead letter, as they actually did. I ; At the expiration of his office Cassius was accused of !l treason before the curies, by the quajstors Ca;so Fabius and I L. Valerius, and was condemned to death and executed ii more majorum, that is, scourged and beheaded ; his house ■ was razed, and its site left desolate,+ but his law remained, I ; and, as we shall see, avenged him on his murderers. I .' It is a remarkable circumstance, (but one which seems j ^ to be clearly ascertained,) that the Ran)nes and Titienses 'j '• among the patricians seem to have aimed at excluding the • I Luceres as well as the plebeians from the government ; for I ; from the institution of the consulate to the year 253, M. Horatius is the only consul of the third tribe. In this year, however, they recovered their right, and when we call to mind that Sp. Cassius was consul the preceding year, we may feel inclined to regard that eminent man as the author of the change. The consul of the greater houses was named the Consul Major, and he took precedence of his colleague. This inferiority of the Luceres was marked on all occasions. * That is, tliose who had been consuls. The proper term here would be ■pratorians. See above, p. .'>8. t The common account of his being condemned by the people ^tlie Plebs) is quite erroneous. He had committed no offence against them ; the people who tried and condemned him was, as Livy says, the Populus. THE CONSULATE. 71 III the senate none of them but tlie consulars were author- ized to speak. The consulars of the greater houses were called on first to give their opinions, then those of the lesser houses, next the senators of the greater houses, and finally those of the lesser silently voted.* The year 269, that of the execution of Sp. Cassius, was also that of an attempt on the part of the major houses again to monopolize the consulate. During seven successive years, (269 — 275,) we find one of the consuls always a Fabius; a thing which can hardly have been the result of chance. [t is therefore probable, that in reliance on their allies, the Latins and Hernicans, the elder houses thought they might venture on extending their power ; and as the house of the Fabii was by far the strongest among them, they agreed to let them have for their cooperation one seat in the consu- late in perpetuity. t As by one of the Valerian laws the cen- turies had the right of choice among the patrician candi- dates, which choice was then to be confirmed by the senate and curies, and as this course would never suit their present design, and they moreover feared the election of some one who might be disposed to avenge the murder of Sp. Cassius, the senate and curies in 269 boldly nominated Cebso Fabius and L. ^milius to the consulate, and then convened the centuries to confirm the election ; but these refused to con- sent to the abolition of tlieir rights, and quitted the field without voting. It was fortunate for the commonalty that the grasping ambition of the patricians sought to exclude the lesser houses, the larger portion of their own body, from the * Cicero de Rep. li. 20. Niebuhr (ii. 112—114) has, we think, made this quite clear. It is this writer's opinion, that tlie mino- res and juniorcs Patrum of Livy are in reahty the lesser houses, and not the y-ounger patricians. (See his History of Rome, vol. ii. note G68, and the places there referred to.) It is certainly very re- markable that the distinction oi' major es and juniorcs " Appears very frequently down till about the year 310, and never after; though the contest between the patricians and plebeians lasted more than a century longer ; the young men were, no doubt, just like those of earlier times ; and the chronicles became more and more copious." When in future we use the phrase lesser houses, it is the jxniiores Patrum ; and those who reject Niebuhr's -theory may substitute young patri- cians for it. t A similar agreement would seem to have been made with the Valerii at the beginning of the republic, as (oniitting, as Livy does,, the consuls of 248) there was one of them in the consulate in each of the first five years. The Valerii and Fabii were both Titienses. See also p. 44. 72 HISTORY OF ROME. coriL jiate, and thus forced them to make common cause with ilie plebs, which gave these last time to discover their own .(irength, and to put it forth. Though the patricians had passed the agrarian law, nothing was larther from their tlioughts than to' let it be executed, and tuey sought to keep up a continued state of war ; for while the legions were in the field the Forum was empty, and the tribunes had no auditors. The consul, Q,. Fabius, therefoie (269) led an army against the Voiscians and iliquians ; but he withheld the plunder from his victorious troops, and had it sold, and the produce brought into the patrician chest. Next year (270) the consul, L. iEmilius, fought With indifferent success against the Voiscians. The following year, (271,) when the consul, M. Fabius, went to enrol troops for the war, the tribune, C. Majnius, forbade the levies unless the agrarian law was executed. But the consuls went to the mile from the city, at the temple of Mars, where the tribunician power ended, and erected their tribunal ; they then summoned all who were bound to serve, and they seized the property and burned and plundered the farms of such as did not appear. These forced levies were led by the consul L. Valerius against the Voiscians ; but the soldiers, though they fought with courage, would not gain a victory and booty for the consul and the patricians, whom they hated, and Valerius returned without fame. It would appear that the greater houses had now become aware of the danger of division in their order, and that they effected a permanent union with the lesser houses ; for we find the senate in 271 appointing Appius Claudius,* with one of the Fabii, to the consulate. But the tribunes and the plebs were to a man against Claudius ; the tribunes would noi suffer the curies, the consuls would not allow the tribes, to assemble for the elections, and die year expired without any consuls being created. In the beginning of the next year (272) A. Sempronius Atratinus, the warden oi the city, {Ciistos Urbis), as interrex, assembled the centuries, who elected C. Julius, a member of the lesser houses, as the colleague of Q.. Fabius, who was perhaps also their choice. A war with the Veientines commenced this year, but no event of importance occurred. The year 272 was marked by a formal compromise be- tween the patricians and the commonalty, securing to the * The Claudii, though of Sabine origin, were among the Locerei. VEIENTINE WAR. 73 centuries the choice of one of tlie consuls, and leaving the appointment of the other with the senate and the curies, wliose nominee was now the Consul Major* The patri- cians made Cebso Fabius consul for the ensuing year, (273,^ and the centuries gave him Sp. Furius for his colleague. The tribune, Sp. Licinius, attempted to stop the levies on account of the agrarian law, but the patricians had adopted the prudent expedient of procuring, by means of their cli- ents in the classes, and by their own influence, the election of tribunes favorable to their order, and Licinius was op- posed by his own colleagues. Two armies were levied : one was sent under Furius against the ^quians, the other under Fabius against the Veientines. The former army, under the consul of their choice, fought cheerfully ; and tlieir gen- eral, in return, divided the booty among them. The case was widely different with the army of Fabius. They engaged the Veientines and put them to flight, but they would not pursue or attack their camp; and in the middle of the night they broke up, and abandoning their own camp to the enemy, set out for Rome. The consuls of the next year (274) were M. Fabius and Cn. Manlius ; the former, of course, the nominee of the houses. But the Fabii had now seen the folly of attempting to govern the state on oligarchic principles, and they were become sincerely anxious to conciliate the commonalty. The tribune, Ti. Pontificius, vainly attempted to oppose the levies, on account of the agrarian law; his four colleagues were unanimous against him; the armies were raised, and led by the two consuls into the Veientine territory ; but, warned by the example of the preceding year, the consuls, fearing to engage the enemy, kept their men close in their camp. The Veientines, who had been largely reenforced by volunteers from all parts of Etruria, seeing the inactivity of the Romans, and aware of the cause, increased in confi- dence ; they rode up tc the ramparts of their camp, daring them to come forth, and upbraiding them with their cow- ardice. The Romans were filled with indignation ; they sent their centurions to the consuls, entreating to be led to battle: the consuls, secretly well pleased, affected to hesi- tate, and declaring that the proper time was not yet arrived, forbade any one on pain of death to leave the camp. Thia * He was first the consul of the Ramnes.then of the greater houses See p. 70. 7 J "14 HISTORV OF ROME. served, as tliey liad expected, but to augment the ardor of the soldiers; tlie Etruscans grew more and more audacious; the patience of the Ron)ans could liold out no longer; they pressed to the consjls from all parts of the camp, demand- ing the battle. " Swear, then," cried iM. Fabius, " that }e will not return but as conquerors." The centurion, M. Flavoleius, took the oath first, the rest followed him ; they seized their arms, issued from the camp, and soon stood displayed in array of battle. The Etruscans had hardly time to form when the Romans fell on them sword in hand. The Fabii were foremost in the attack. Quintus, the consul of the year 272, received a mortal wound ; his brother, the con- sul, rushed forward, calling on his men to remember their oath ; a third brother, Ca:so, followed ; the soldiers man- fully obeyed the call, and drove back the troops opposed to them. Manlius was also victorious on the other wing; but as he was ])ressing on the yielding foe he received a wound, which obliged him to retire. His men, thinking him slain, fell back ; but the other consul, coming with some horse, and crying out that his colleague was alive, restored the battle. Meantime a part of the Tuscan troops had fallen on the Roman camp ; those left to guard it, unable to re- sist them, fell back to the pratvrium, and made a stand there, sending to inform the consuls of their danger. Man- lius hastened to the camp, and placing guards at all the gates fell on the invaders, who, driven to desperation, formed into a close body and rushed on the consul. Manlius re- ceived a mortal wound ; those around him were dispersed ; a gate was then prudently opened, at which the Tuscans gladly hurried out, but they fell in with the troops of the victorious consul, and were most of them cut to pieces. The victory was complete ; the honor of a triumph was decreed to Fabius, but he declined it on account of the death of his brother and his colleague ; he distributed the wounded soldiers among the patricians, (his own gens taking the larger number,) by whom they were tended with the greatest care. So perfect was the reconciliation now between the Fabii and the plebs, that at the next election (275) Caeso, the accuser of Sp. Cassius, was the choice of the centuries, the patricians nominating T. Virginius. Without waiting for it to be urged by the tribunes, Caeso Fabius called on the senrte to put the agrarian law into execution ; but he and his house were reviled as traitors and apostates from THE FABII AT THE CREMERA. 75 their former principles, and his proposals treated with scorn. The plebeians, gratified by his conduct, cheerfully took the field under him against the ^quians, and having invaded and ravaged their territory, hastened to the relief of the other consul, who had been defeated and was surrounded by the Veientines. The Fabian house, finding that there was no chance of inducing their order to act with justice towards the plebs, and that they were themselves become objects of aversion to their former friends, resolved to abandon Rome, and to form a separate settlement, where they might still be of service to their country. The place they fixed on was the banks of the Cremera, a stream in the Veientine territory. Led by the consul CcEso, to the number of three hundred and six, accompanied by their wives and children, and fol- lowed by a train of clients and friends, said to have amount- ed to four thousand, they issued on the ides of February through the Carmental gate,* attended by the prayers of the people ; and coming to the Cremera raised their fortress, whence they scoured without ceasing the whole Veientine territory, destroying the lands and carrying off the cattle. After some months the Veientines assembled a large army to assail the fortress of the Cremera ; but L. ^milius, one of the new consuls, (276,) led his troops against them, and gave them a defeat which was followed by a truce for a cyclic year. On the expiration of the truce the Fabii resumed hostilities. The Veientines, unable to cope with them in the field, had recourse to stratagem. They laid an ambush in the hills round a small plain, toward which they caused herds of cattle to be driven in view of the fortress. The Fabii instantly sallied forth, and while they were dispersed in pursuit of the oxen, the Tuscans came down on them from the woody hills, where they lay concealed, and surrounded them. The Fabii fought with desperation, and finally, breaking through the enemies, retired to the summit of a hill : but here they were again environed, and every one of them slain. Their fortress, deprived of its defenders, was taken and dismantled. Another account said that the Fabii had set out unarmed for Rome to perform the annual sacrifices of their gens on the Quirinal. The Veientines collected a large army, and lay in ambush on the way ; the Fabii, who were proceeding * In after times it was considered unlucky to go out at this gate. eople received into a ' municipal relation. He gave then> thirty days to consider, and led off his troops for that time. When they were ended, the Ten First of the senate waited on him; he gave them three days more, driving them from his camp with threats. Next day the flamcns, the aug\irs, and the other ministers of religion came in their sacred robes to try to move him, but they too sued in vain. And now the third day was come, and were its sun to go down on his wrath, he was to lead his troops against the defenceless city. But again Rome owed her safety to her women. A procession of her noblest matrons, headed by the exile's venerable mother Veturia and his wife Volunmia leading her two young chil- dren, was seen to approach the Volscian camp. They en- tered and came to his tent ; the tears of his wife and the other matrons, the threatened curse of hia aged parent, bent " Banishmont wfts unknown to the Roman law during the Republic. An eziil, ihiit is, one who is out, (see above, p. .58.) a fuonis-.lln, wa? a person who lefl his native city to reside in one with which it had n municipal relation. The j»/.s exiihtndi might be used by any accused person up to the moment of the very last tribe voting his condenina tion. He wastlien no longer a Roman citizen, and the interdiction of fire and water prevented his return. t See p. 07. , t The patrician lands lay vithin side of it. See above, p. C9, liot* LEGEND OF CORIOLANUS. 85 his haughty soul. He burst into tears : " Mother, " cried he, " thou hast chosen between Rome and thy son ; me thou wilt never see more : may they requite thee ! " He embraced his wife and children, and dismissed them, and next morn- ing he led off his army. He lived among the Volscians to a great age, and oftpn was heard to say that exile was most grievous to an old man ; * when he died, the Roman matrons inourned a year as they had done lor Brutus and Poplicola ; and his praises, as those of a pious and upright man, were handed down to posterity. We have called this tale a legend, and said that it is in its wrong place. The following are a few of the reasons for our so doing. There was no famine at Rome in 262 ; there was no prince, that is, tyrant, in Sicily at that time; the tribunes had not the power here ascribed to them till after the year 2S0 ; the practice of naming persons from conquests they had made began with Scipio Africanus, t On the other hand, there was a famine in 278, at which time Hiero was reigning at Syracuse ; and soon after there was a violent dissension between the orders, when the proposal ascribed to Cn. JVfarcius may have been made, and the plebs were then strong enough to punish any one who attempted to do away with any of the fundamental laws of the state Finally, the conquests ascribed to Coriolaniis are mostly the cessions made to the Volscians at the peace of 295. Yet the story of Coriolanus is no mere fable. It is probable that he was at the head of a body of Roman exiles, | serving in the Volscian army in hopes of reentering Rome as victors, and that he demanded their recall as well as his own. But as these would have reclaimed their property and have sought vengeance of their enemies, nothing could have been more dreaded l^y all parties than their return. If then Coriolanus, to save his country from this affliction, consented never to see it more, and return to exile when he might have entered Rome as a conqueror, he was every way vyorthy of the fame he acquired, and his name should ever be held in honorable remembrance as that of a true patriot. * Fabius in Liv. ii. 40. Some said he was assassinated by the Volscians; otliers, (Cjcero, Brutus 10,) that he put an end to himself like Themistocles. t Liv. XXX,. 45. X The tfvyuSf<; of the Greeks (see History of Greece, Part \\. passim) the funrusciti of the republics of middle age Italy. The above is only Niebuhr's hypothesis, but it is so extremely probable that it is diiBcult not to embrace it. 8 36 HISTORY OF ROME. We now return to the internal history. The pestilence of 291 had committed dreadful ravages ; it had carried off the two consuls, three of the tribunes and a fourth of the senate, and, as is always the case, had produced great dis- soluteness of manners. The patricians, as being a close j body, suffered more loss of political strength than the ple- I beians ; many of their houses seem to have died off, whose clientry mostly joined the plebs. Internal and external calam- ities combined to make men aware of the defects of the exist- ; iug institutions, and to induce them to favor a constitutional \ reform. j In the year 292 the tribune C. Terentilius Arsa took the I opportunity of the absence of the consuls and the letriotis I to propose a bill of reform, of which the object was three- \ fold; to unite the two orders, and place them on a footing ! of equality; to substitute a limited magistracy for the con- I sulate ; to frame a code of laws for all classes of Romans ': without distinction. This bill was passed by the plebs on \ the return of the consul Lucretius, but it was r(!Jected by ; the senate and the curies. The next year (298) the Terentilian Ihw was brought j forward by the whole college of the tribunes. The consuls to impede them commenced a levy ; the tribunes resisted it; the patricians and their clients on their side prevented by their usual manosuvres* the voting of the tribes. They were headed in these attempts by Cajso Quinctius, a young man of great bodily size and strength, equally distinguished by valor and eloquence, and they frequently beat the ple- beians and drove them off the Forum. At length A. Vir- ginius, one of the tribunes, impeached Caeso under the Icilian law. The patricians now awoke from their dream and saw their danger, the leading men among them de- scended to the humblest entreaties to sate their champion, but all was in vain. To augment the odium against him, M. Volscius Fictor, a forn>er tribune, came forward and de- clared that in the time of the plague as he and his brother, a man in years, and but just recovering from it, were pass- ing through the Subura they met a party of riotous youths headed by Cseso, who picked a quarrel with them ; his broth- er was knocked down by Ca?so, and he died shortly after of the blow; he had himself applied to no purpose for justice to the consuls of the year. This tale roused the people to fury, and it was with difficulty that the tribunes could save the accused from them. Caeso, who had given ten sureties * See above, p. 78. SEIZURE OF THE CAPITOL Bl THE EXILES. 87 ^each bound in 31)00 asses,) seeing his condemnation certain, retired secretly that very jiight into Etruria, and his sureties had to pay the money to the temple of Ceres.* The elder houses began now to think that resistance was useless, and they were anxious for an accommodation : not so the juniors ; they were more imbittered than ever, but they adopted a new system of tactics. On court days they and their clients occupied the Forum and impeded the meas- [ ures of the tribunes in the usual way, taking care that no I one should make himself conspicuous ; on other days they i vied with each other in kindness and courtesy toward thq j individual plebeians. The tribunes, however, saw or affected | to see a conspiracy against themselves and their order, .and I in the next year (294) a report was spread that Caeso had { been in the city, and that a plan was laid for murdering | them and the leading plebeians, and bringing back the re- ? public to what it had been before the secession. While the minds of the people were thus kept in a state of uncertainty, i cries of To Arms ! and The enemies are in the city ! were heard ) one night, raised by persons who were flying for their lives | down from the Capitol to the Forum, and averring that the | citadel was seized by a body of men who were putting to ! death all who would not join them. Terror prevailed all | through the night, and guards were placed on the Aventine | and Esquiline, and the streets leading to them. \ The morning revealed the truth. A body of exiles and | runaway slaves with the clients of Appius Herdonius, a powerful Sabine who had placed himself at their head, had come down the river by night in boats, and entering the city j by the Carmental gate, (which, from a religious motive, was | never closed,) had mounted to the Capitol, that was at hand, \ and made themselves masters of it. At dawn Herdonius ; called aloud on the slaves, but in vain, to rise for their \ liberty ; the consuls, on their side, having secured the gates jmd walls against an attack from without, which they ap- prehended, wished to assail the Capitol at once, and began to administer the military oath. But the tribunes, who maintained that the whole was only a device of the patri- cians, and that those on the Capitol were nothing but their friends and clients, opposed the levy, saying that now was * " The money," says Livy, " was cruelly exacted from liis father." If 80. it must have been by the sureties ; but this is a mere fiction to .iccount for the narrow circumslr.ices in which we shall find Cincin- n/ituB. 88 HISTORY OF ROME. the time to pass the bill, while the plebs were under arms and that then those above would go off as quietly as they came. In this confusion the consul P. Valerius saved his country; he implored the people to consider the danger if their enemies were to learn that the Capitol was occupied, and he pledged himself that when the danger was over no hinderance should be given to the voting of the assembly, and that if the bill was passed it should be made law. The word of a Valerius sufficed ; the plebeians took the oath, but the day was far spent, and the assault had to be deferred to the morrow. In the morning, being joined by the Tusculans, whom their dictator L. Mamilius had brought to their aid, they began to ascend. The outlaws fought with desperation, but they were driven back; a part of them defended the temple, and the consul Valerius, who led the attack, was slain in forcing the vestibule. At length all were killed or taken. Ilerdonius, and most probably Cteso Quinctius,* was among the slain ; all the prisoners were executed. The plebs assessed themselves to defray the ex- penses of a solemn funeral for the patriotic consul. The tribunes now called on C. Claudius, the remaining consul, to perform the promise of his deceased colleague; but he refused to act by himself, and the senate and curies made L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, the father of Ca?so, consul, who breathing vengeance against the plebeians, resolved to take advantage of the military oath they had taken to Va- lerius, and leading them away from Rome force them to pass what laws the senate pleased. He ordered them to re- pair in arms to the lake Regillus, whither the augurs were sent to consecrate a field for the comitia.. But the courage of the patricians again failed them; the measure was aban- doned, on condition of the law not being agitated that year ; they tried also, but to no purpose, to prevent the reelection of the tribunes, and they were obliged to give up an attempt at making Cincinnatus consul for the ensuing year. The following year (29.')) was that of the peace with the Volscians. The J^quians were still in arms, and in 296 the consul Minucius was defeated h\ them and besieged in his camp on Mount Algidus. An army sent from Rome relieved him ; but as he had lost the battle through hia owr fault, he was obliged to resign the command to Q. Fabius. This event was transmitted in the poetic legendary form, -n * Two years after (I/ivy iii. 25) he is spoken of in a manner whica ^ows that he was not living. DICTATORSHIP OF CINCINNATUS. 89 and being associated with a celebrated name, it has come down to us in the following manner. The ^quians, who had been parties to the peace of the preceding year, now broke out, and led by Gracchus Cloelius ravaged the lands of Latium. They encamped with their booty on Mount Algidus, whither Roman ambassadors came to complain of this. breach of faith. The /Equian general insolently desired them to make their complaint to the oak beneath whose capacious shade he was seated. Tlie Ro- mans took the oak and the gods to witness of the justice of their cause, and departed. The consul Minucius led his army to the Algidus; but fortime favored the misdoers, and he was shut up by them, with a rampart raised round his camp. Five horsemen who escaped ere the enemy's lines were completed, brought the tidings to Rome; it was resolved to create a dictator ; the choice fell on L. Quinctius Cincin- natus, who was living on a small farm of four jugers in the Vatican land beyond the Tiber. The officer {viator) sent to inform him of his appointment * found him guiding his plough with nothing on but an apron, t it being summer time; he bade him clothe himself to hear the message of the senate and the Fathers. Cincinatus called to his wife Racilia to letch him his toga out of the cottage. When he was dressed, the officer saluted him as dictator ; a boat lay ready to convey him across the river; at the other side he was received by his three sons and several of his friends and kinsmen and a number of the patricians, and was conducted by them to his house. Before dawn next morning he entered the Forum, and having appointed L. Tarquitius, a man brave but poor, to be master of the horse, he ordered all the shops to be closed, all business to be suspended,| and every one able to serve to appear by sunset without the city, with food dressed for five days, and with twelve palisades. While those who were to march were cutting their pales and preparing their arms, those who were to remain dressed the victuals for them. At night-fall; all being ready, the dictator set forth at their head, and at midnight they had reached the Algidus, where they halted near the camp of the enemy. The dictator, havmg ridden forward to take a view of it, directed his officers to make the men lay down their baggage, and with their arms * Pliny, H. N. xviii. 4. f A'lidus ara, sere nudiis, Virg. Geor. i. 1^99. X This was called a Justitium. 8» L 90 HISTORY OF ROMK. and palisades alone to resume their order of march, and having surrounded the enemy to raise a loud shout and begin to cast up 1 ditch and rampart. His orders were obeyed the shout psaled over the camp of the .-Equians to that of the Romans, filling those with terror, these with joy and hope The besieged burst fortli from their camp, and fought with the iEquians till the dawn. Meantime tjie dictator's army had completed their works, and the ^Equians, thus shut in and nuw assailed from within and without, sued for mercy. The terms granted were tlte surrender of Cloilius and the principal officers, and of their town of Corbio with all the property in it; the rest, having passed under the yoke might then depart unarmed. Cloilius and his officers were then laid in chains; an opening was made in the Roman line; two spears upright and one across (thejM^4'"«/M, or yoke) were set up in it, under which the ^Equian soldiers, with nothing on but their tunics, marched out, their camp and all in it remaining in the hands of the victors. The spoil was divided among the liberating army; the liberated called the dictator their patron, and gave him a golden crown of a pound in weight. He entered the city in triumph ; tables were spread with provisions before all the doors as the soldiers passed, and joy and f(;stivity every where prevailed. The dictator at tli£ end of sixteen days laid down his office, and declining all the gifts that were offiired him returned to his farm. Pity that so pleasing a legend will not pass the ordeal of criticism ! Five palisades being counted a heavy load for a soldier used to duty, how could men called out on a sudden levy carry twelve ? and how could they march thus laden twenty miles from sunset to midnight ? Each soldier, to use so many, must have had a fathom of ground to intrench, and would the ^quians make no effort to break through so thin a line 1 The manner in which Cinciuatus learned his ele- vation to the dictatorship is also told of his consulate, and twenty ye.irs after Cla?lius is taken just in the same way near Ardea ; the giving up of Corbia is a pure invention of the annalists; and finally, the /Equians were not included in the peace of 21)5, and so could not have been guilty of perjury. But the dictatorship of Cincinatus appears in reality to have had a much less noble origin. In 29.> the quaestors, A. Cornelius and Q.. Servilius, accused M. Volscius before the curies,* for having by perjury caused the ruin of one of their * Soe above, p. 62. DICTATORSHIP OF CINCINNATUS. 91 order; the tribunes, however, prevented the patricians from going on with the trial, and nothing could be done in that year. Next year the tribunician power had to give way before that of the dictator, and Cincinnatus had the satisfac- tion of seeing the accuser of his son driven into exile. He then laid down his office, and retired to his farin. Under the mild and equitable form of government which we enjoy, it is difficult for us to conceive the bitter, ruthless spirit which animated the oligarchies and democracies of antiquity. On the present occasion^ the patricians scrupled at no means of offence ; they not only impeded the assemblies of the plebeians, but they caused the most active and daring of them to be assassinated.* But all would not avail ; the same trib- unes were reelected every year, and in 297 their number was increased to ten, two from each of the classes; and the lext year the senate and curies were obliged to confirm a law, proposed by the tribune Icilius, for assigning the whole of the Aventine to the plebeians. At length, (300,) the patricians gave way on the subject of the Terentilian law, and agreed to a revision of the laws ; and three senators were sent to Athens, then flourishing under Pericles, to gain a knowledge of its la'fvs and constitntion. In the year 301 Rome was again visited by the pestilence, and one of the consuls, his successor, four tribunes, an au- gur, one of the three great flamens, many senators, half the freemen, and all the slaves are said to have died of it. It fell with equal fury on the Volscians, iEquians, Sabines, and other peoples of Italy, t At length (392) the plague ceased, afld the envoys having returned from Greece, a board of ten patricians, one half to be elected by the centuries, (the plebeians having given up their original demand of a share in it,^) was appointed to draw up and enact a general code of laws. As in cases of this kind in antiquity the lawgivers were intrusted with all the powers of the state, '^s the consulate and the other magis- tracies were all merged in the decemv irate, and the decem- virs were thus invested with nearly absolute power. Being * Dion Exc. de sent. 22., and Zonoras, vii. 17. t It was probably connected with the plague at Athens, which broke out some years after, and with the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions which prevailed at this time. + Terentilius had required that of the ten commissioners to be ap- pointed, five should be plebeians. § As in the case of Solon and the Thirty at Athens. See History «f Greece. 92 HISTORY OF HOME. in effect a decury of interrexes, they exercised the uprx.ue power by turns: he who held it was named CusUs Urbis ; he was attended by the twelve lictors, and presided over the senate and the whole republic ; his colleagues acted as judges, each being attended by a beadle, {Acccjisus.) It was not the desire of the Romans to have an entirely new constitution ; a selection was to be madp out of their existing laws and usages with such improvements as might be derived from those oi other nations. The decemvirs ap- plied themselves sedulously to their task, and having drawn up a code in ten laws or tables, they made them public, in order to receive such suggestions as might be offered for their improvement. After some time they laid the amended code before the senate, and, on their approval, before the centuries, whose assent was solemnly ratified by the curies. The laws were then cut on tables of brass, and hung up in the Comi- tiura. By this celebrated code the two orders were placed on an equality, as far as was possible at the time. The patricians, with their clients and the agrarians, were admitted into the plebeifin tribes, and all thus united in one civic body, in which the patricians were to form a numerous nobility. The supreme power was to be annually confided, not to con- suls, but to a board of ten civil and military officers, one half of whom were to be plebeians. Among the patricians the old distinction of greater and lesser houses .«eems to have been done away with, for we find soon after the votes taken in the senate without any certain order. * The law of debt enacted or retained was rigorous in the extreme. In case of a nrxum, the creditor could arrest his debtor after thirty days, and if he did not dischnrge his debt or t^ive security, he might take him home and put him in irons, which at the most were to weigh fifteen pounds ; if he could not supply himself with food, his creditor was to allow him a pound of corn a day. If after sixty days no arrangement had been made, the debtor was brougiit before the prrtor on three successive market-days, and the amount of his debt proclaimed, and if no one came forward to pay or secure it, the creditor was authorized to kill him or sell him beyond the Tiber. If there were several creditors, they might divide his body among them, and no one could be punished for cutting off more or less than his exact share, t * Dionys. xi. 16. See above, p. 70. t Gellius XX. 1. Si plus minusve secuerunt se frawde csto. Thw THE FIRST DECEMVIRATE. 93 When the time for creating the new magistrates came, ihe patricians, doubtless with a design of enfeebling, if not overthrowing, the new constitution, sought to have L. Cin- cinnatus, T. Quinctius, and C. Claudius elected. But Ap- piu3 Claudius the decemvir, who, from the moment the re- form was resolved on, had courted the people, and had now completely won their confidence, was determined to retain the power he had acquired. His colleagues, to impede him, chose him to preside at the election, thinking he would not have the hardihood to put himself in nomination. But they were deceived; he did so, and was elected with four patrician and five plebeian colleagues. On the ides of May, (304,) the day they were to enter on their office, the decemvirs, to the amazement of the people, came forth, each preceded by twelve lictors with the axes in their fasces. Appius, by his force of character, gained a commanding influence in the college : the government was despotic, but during this year not unjust; no assemblies were held ; the senate had little or nothing to do, and most of the senators retired to their farms ; externally, there was peace. Toward the end of the year the decemvirs pro- mulgated two new tables of laws, making the whole num- ber twelve, and these, under the name of the Twelve Tables, became the source and foundation of the future Roman law. The decemvirs, like most men when possessed of uncontrolled power, soon began to abuse it. They at first oppressed both orders alike, but they speedily tyrannized almost exclusively over the plebs, now divested of the pro- tection of the tribunate. In this they were supported by the patrician youth, who were eager to gratify their feelings of hatred against the people. In the second year of the decemvirate (305) the ^Equians and Sabines renewed hostilities ; the former encamped as usual on the Algidus, the latter at Eretura. The decemvirs convened the senate to give orders for the levies ; when it met, L Valerius and M. Horatius, the grandsons of the liberators, boldly but to no purpose inveighed against their tyranny. The senate did as they required ; the plebeians having nowhere to appeal to, gave their names though «ith reluctance, and two armies were formed and led by proves that it could not have been a sectio bonorutn, as some humane critics suppose. Shylock would have found no diffi;ulty here. The r?al object of the law was to conquer the avarice and the stubbori^ fl hslinacy of the Roman character. 54 HISTORY OF ROME. the military decemvirs against the enemies. But each army 'et itself be beaten ; the one on Algidus even abandoned its camp and sought refuge at Tusculum, the other fled by night from near Ert-tum and encamped on an eminence be- tween Fidenae and Crustumeria. In this army there was a distinguished veteran named L. Siciiiius Dentatus, formerly a tribune of the people. It is said * that he had fought in one hundred and twenty battles, had forty-five scars in front, had gained spears, liorse-trap- pings, and other rewards of valor without number, and had attended the triumphs of nine generals under whom he had served. This man awaked itj the army the remembrance of the adjacent Sacred Mount, where, forty-five years before the people had gained their charter, and chid them for not imitating their gallant fathers. The generals, being resolved to put him out of Uie way, sent him with a party to choose a spot for encampment, giving orders to those under him, who were their own creatures, to fall on and slay him. These executed their mandate ; in a lonely spot they assailed the veteran hero, who, placing his back against a rock, perished not unavenged, for fifteen were slain and double the num- ber wounded by his hand. The rest fled back to the camp, crying out how they had fallen into an ambush of the enemy, who had slain their leader and several of their comrades. A party was sent to burv the slain ; but they could perceive no traces of an enemy ; the body of Sicinius lay unspoiled in his armor ; all the slain were Romans, and were turned toward him, and consequently nuist have fallen by his hand ; that he perished by the treachery of the decemvirs therefore was evident. The soldiers were incensed, but a splendid military funeral given to Sicinius by the generals pacified them in some measure. But a more atrocious deed was done in the city. Appius Claudius, as he sat in the Forum to administer justice, was in the habit of seeing a lovely and modest plebeian maiden go daily, attended by her nurse, to one of the schools which were held about it, to learn the art of writing. She was named Virginia, and was the daughter of L. Virginius, one of the noblest plebeians, and betrothed to L. Icilius, who had been tribune. The decemvir cast an eye of lust on the innocent maiden ; he vainlv tried the effect of promises and bribes : difficulty only augmented his passion, and he scrupled at no means to gratify it. He therefore directed • Pliny, H. N. vii. 28. FATE OF VIRGINIA. 93 M. Claudius, one of his clients, to claim her as iiis slave : his orders were obeyed ; and as Virginia was crossing the Forum on her way to the school. Claudius laid hold on her as his property. At the loud cries of her nurse a crowd collected to oppose him ; Claudius coolly said he needed not force, as his claim was a legal one. All went before the tribunal of Appius, who was sitting in the Comitium. The plaintiff, as had been agreed on, averred that she was the offspring of one of his female slaves, who had given her to the childless wife of Virginius, and he now claimed her as his slave. The friends of Virginia prayed that as her father was absent on the affairs of the state, being a centurion in the army on the Algidus, a delay of two days might be given, and that meantime, by the decemvir's own law, security should be taken for her appearance. Appius, pretending that his law did not apply to the present case, decided that she should be delivered up to the claimant, on his giving security to produce her when required. A cry of horror was raised at this iniquitous sentence, and P. Numitorius and L. Icilius, the uncle and the lover of the maiden, came forward and spoke with such firmness, and the people seemed so deter- mined, that Appius gave way and deferred the decision of the matter till the following day, leaving Virginia meantime in the hands of her friends. It was the design of the tyrant to send off to his colleagues in the camp, directing them to confine Virginius, and to surround himself next day with a strong body of his parti- sans and their clients, and carry his point by violence if needful. To conceal his share in the present transaction, he sat some time longer in court ; and Icilius, and his friends, who having seen through his design had secretly directed two active young men to mount and ride off with all speed to the camp, purposely wore away the time in arranging the securities. Their messengers therefore ar- rived long before the one sent by Appius ; and Virginius, pretending the death of a relative, obtained leave of absence and came to Rome. At daybreak the Forum was full of people ; Virginius and his daughter in the garb of woe came among them imploring their aid : Icilius also addressed them : the women who were with them wept in silence. Appius came forth attended by an armed train and took his seat : the plaintiff, as instruct- ed, gently reproached him with not having done him justice the day before. Appius, without listening to him or Vir- 96 HISTORY OF ROME. ginius, ga\e sentence that Virginia should be consigned to the claimant till a judge should decide the matter. This horrible decree filled all with silent amazement. M. Clau- dius advanced to lay hold on the maiden; the women and their friends repelled him. Virginius menaced the de- cemvir : Appiu-s declared that he knew there was a con- spiracy to resist the government, but that he would put it down by force ; then, " Go, lictor ! " he thundered forth, " dis- perse the crowd, and make way for the master to take his slave." The people fell back ; Virginius, seeing no hope, apologized for his vehemence, and craved permission to take his daughter and her nurse aside and examine them about the matter. Leave was granted ; he drew them near a butcher's stall, and snatching up a knife plunged it into his daughter's bosom. Then waving the reeking blade " With this blood," he cried, " Appius, I devote thee and thy head." The tyrant called out to seiae him : but, bran- dishing the knife, he reached the gate, no one daring to stop him, and proceeded to the camp, followed by a number of the people. Icilius and Numitorius harangued the people over the corpse of tiie hapless maiden ; Valerius and lloratins joined in the call to freedom ; the liciors were repelled, and their fasces broken. Ajjpius vainly called on the patricians to stand by him ; then in terror for his life he covered his head, and fled into an adjacent house. His obsequious colleague Sp. Oppius, seeing that force would not avail, convened the senate, but it came to no decision. Some zealous patricians were however sent to the camp to try and keep the army in its duty. But vain were the hopes of the oligarchs; the soldiers, at the call of Virginius, plucked up their standards, marched for Rome, and posted themselves on the Aventine. The senate sent three deputies, charging them with rebellion, and offering pardon to all but the ringleaders on their return to their duty. They were told to send Valerius and Horatius if they desired an answer. These, on being required to go^ uisisted that the decemvirs should previously abdicate ; this the patricians, still relying on tlieir strength, refused to .il- low. Meantime M. Duilius, a former tribune, convinced the •)eople that as long as they staid in Rome the patriciaus would never believe they were in earnest ; but that if, like their fathers, they retired to the Sacred Mount, they would soon bring them to reason. Instantly the army was in mo- ABOLITION* OF THE DECEMVIUATE. 97 lion ; leaving a sufficient number to guard the Aventine, they marched unmolested across the city, out by the CoUine gate, and, foilowe 1 by numbers of men, women, and children from the Esquiline and other parts, they encamped on the Sacred Mount. Here they were joined by the other army, who had revolted at the call of Icilius and Numitorius. They acknowledged twenty tribunes, one for each tribe, as their tiagistrates, at the head of whom were M. Oppius and Sex- tus Manlius. The patricians seeing themselves left nearly alone in the city, found that they must yield. Valerius and Horatius came from them to the camp, to learn the demands of the plebeians. Icilius as spokesman required that the tribunate and the right of appeal should be restored ; that no one should be accounted criminal for having urged the people to the se- cession ; that the decemvirs shovdd be given up to be burnt alive. The deputies replied, that the two first conditions were so reasonable that they should have proposed them them- selves: they prayed them to recede from the last demand. All was then left to their own discretion ; and on their re- turn, the senate passed a decree, that the decemvirs should abdicate and consuls be chosen, the chief pontiff preside at the election of the tribunes, and none be molested for their share in the secession. The plebs then returned, ascended the Capitol in arms,* and thence proceeded to the Aventine. The Pontiff presiding, the people chose their tribunes, among whom were, as they well merited, Virginius, Icilius, Numitorius, and Duilius. On the motion of Duilius, the plebs then ordered that the interrex should hold the elec- tion of patrician consuls,! with the right of appeal ; and the centuries when assembled bestowed the consulate on L. Valerius and M. Horatius. These popular consuls forth- with passed laws for the security of the plebs, the senate and curies giving a reluctant consent. The first was that a meisure pass'ed by the tribes should be of equal force with one pissed by the centuries, and if confirmed by the patri- cians, should be the law of the land; the second menaced with outlawry whoever procured the election of a magis- strate without appeal; the third enacted the penalty of out- lawry and confiscation of property against any one who * Cicero for Cornel. 1. 24 ; probably to worship the gods. For a somewhat similar act at Athens, see History of Greece, p. 303, 2d edit. t It was on this occasion the word consul was first employed. (Zona ra;. vii. 19.) The office now was only provisional. 9 M 98 HISTORY OF ROME. injured the tributes, the sediles, the judges, or the plebeian decemvirs. The legislation was terminated by a bill of the tribune Duilius denouncing death by fire against any one who should leave the people without tribunes, or create a magistrate without appeal Vengeance for Virginia was now to be exacted. Virginius summoned Appius and his client Claudius before the tri- bunal of the tribes. Instead of seeking safety in exile, the haughty decemvir appeared in the Forum surrounded by a band of patrician youths. Virginius ordered him to be seized and laid in chains ; the officer approached ; Appius claimed the protection of the tribunes ; no one stirred ; he appealed to the people : the officer dragged him away to prison. His uncle, C. Claudius, who having vainly sought to induce him and his colleagues to lay down their office in the hands of the senate,* had retired to his paternal abode atRegillus, came to Rome, and with his gentiles and clients all in mourning went about the Forum supplicating for his release. Virginius, on the other hand, called on the people to remember his and their wrongs. The prayers of the Clandii were of no avail. Appius died in prison, probably by his own hand, before the day of trial came. Numitorius then impeached the plebeian decemvir Sp. Op- pius for not having given protection to Virginia. A veteran who had served in seven-and-twenty campaigns came for ward and exhibited the marks of a scourging inflicted on him by Oppius without a cause. He too was sent to prison where he died also by his own hand. The other decemvir;- were suffered to go into exile, but their property was confis cated. iM. Claudius was tried and found guilty; but Vir- ginius remitting the capital punishment, he was allowed logo into exile to Tibur. " The manes of Virginia, more happy in her death than in her life, having roamed through so many houses exacting vengeance, rested at length when no guilty person remained." To calm the alarms of the patricians, Duilius now declared prosecution to be at an end, and that no one should be molested for his acts -during the decemvirate. VICTORIES OF VALEltlUS AND HORATIUS- 99 CHAPTER IV. VICTORIES OF VALERIUS AND HORATIUS. CANULEIAN LAW. CENSORSHIP AND MILITARY TRIBUNATE.^ FEUD AT AR- ! f" DEA. SP. MtELIUS. iEQUIAN AND VOLSCIAN WAR. CAP- TURE OF FIDEN^, VOLSCIAN WAR, MURDER OF POSTUMI- US BV HIS OWN SOLDIERS. VEIENTINE WAR. CAPTURE OF VEIL SIEGE OF FALERH. EXILE OF CAMILLUS. When all was settled in the city (305) the consuls raised their levies for the ^quian and Sabine campaigns. The young men gave their names readily, the veterans came for- { \ ward as volunteers. Valerius marched to Mount Algidus; j \ and after a series of manoeuvres to raise the confidence of j i his men, he fell on and defeated the ^.quians, and took | their camp. Similar good fortune attended Horatius, who ! ] had gone against the Sabines : and the two armies returned \ to Rome at the same time. The consuls, as was the usage, : ; sumn.oned the senate to the temple of Mars without the • | Capene gate, to give an account of their campaign and de- j | mand a triumph. The senate, alleging that they were there under the control of the soldiery, adjourned to the temple of | Apollo, where they refused them the honor, as being trai- j tors to their order. The plebs hearing of this indignity, on | I the motion of Icilius overstepped their legal powers, and i voted them a triumph; and thus the patricians by their ma- \ | lignant folly lost one of their privileges. The victory of Horatius over the Sabines is memorable for having put an end to the wars of this people with Rome. | For a century and a half amity prevailed between the two | r states, grounded probably on treaties, of which no memorial i remains. The cause which inclined the Sabines to peace appears to have been the emigration of their warlike youth, who went to join their kindred tribes of Samnium, who were | | now beginning to appear as conquerors in Campania. Four years now passed away without any event of much importance. In 310, nine of the tribunes concurred in bringing in a bill for electing one of the consuls from each order; and C. Catiuleius, the other tribune, one for granting the connubium., that is, legalizing marriage between the two orders. Both these propositions gave great offence to the patricians ; the usual expedient of foreign war and levies was recurred to, but in vain ; the tribunes were resolute 100 HIS" ORY OF ROME. At length the patr'cians agreed to pass the Canuleian law For their good sense must have shown the n)ore prudent, that the patricians as the smaller body were the real suf- ferers by the prc'iibition ; and in fact these mixed marriages had all along prevailed,* and the families arising from them, and therefore belonging to the plebeians, were the most violent enemies of the })atricians. From the debate on this I subject we learn that the tribunes were now admitted into ' the senate-house, but without the right of voting. Their seat was on benches before the open door.t I The other bill was altered, so as to allow of tlie consuls being taken from the two orders without distinction. Though this was a concession to the patricians, it did not content them. Scenes of violent altercation took place : ) the heads of the senate held secret deliberations, in which \ C. Claudius is said to have actually proposed the murder of the tribunes; but even to the two Quinctii this seemed too violent a course, and it was resolved to come to an ac- commodation with them. By this compact the constitution assumed a new form ; I the decemvirate was resolved into its three component parts, which were separated from each other — the censorship, the quncstorship, and the military tribunate with consular author- ity, — of which the former two were reserved for the patri- cians, the one to be conferred by the curies, the other by the centuries ; the tribunate was open to both orders, and came in place of the considate. Tiie business of the censors, who were two in nundjer and were elected every five years, was I I to manage the revenues of the state, and to keep a registry of the citizens according to tiieir ranks and orders. They let the tolls and customs and other taxes, and they enrolled members in the senate, the equestrian order, and the tribes, or excluded such as were unworthy. The power of the censors was therefore very considerable. By the power which the censorship gave them of packing, as we may term it, the cent iries, the patricians were in gen- eral able to keep the militaiV tribunate in their own order ; nevertheless at the fir.st election, L. Atilius Longus, one of three chosen, was a plebeian. On account of this it was pre- tended that the election had been irregular, and they were obliged to resign before the end of three months It is not i \ * Heirp so many patrician and plebeian families of the same mine. ♦ Valerius Maxinius, ii. 2, 7. FEUD AT ARDEa. 101 unlikely that they may have refused to resign, for T. Quinc- tius was created dictator, who, having held a consular elec- tion, laid down his office on the thirteenth day. In the year 3SJ9, the people of Ardea and Aricia, who had been long disputing about the lands of Corioli, which had been lying waste since the time of its ruin by the Volscians, agreed to submit their differences to the decision of the Romans. The curies [concilium populi *) adjudged that the disputed lands belonged to neither of them, but had devolved ; j to the Roman people. We know not how this decision was \ 1 received, but in 311 an alliance was made between the Ro- ■ man patricians and the corresponding party, or the old Rulu- j lian houses, at Ardea, who were on ill terms with their plebs, i i with whom they came to open war the following year. The ', i occasion was this : a beautiful plebeian maiden was wooed by ; one of her own order, and also by a member of the houses ; j her guardians, for she had ho father, were in favor of the i j former; her mother, urged by female vanity, of the latter. \ I The aflfair at length came before the magistrates, who, though i the right to dispose of their ward plainly lay with the guard- | i jans, decided in favor of tl>e patrician. The guardians car- | ried the maiden by force from her mother's ; the patricians I ! took up arms ; a violent fray arose, and the plebs was driven | out of the town : they encamped on an adjoining hill, whence \ they ravaged the lands of their enemies : the artisans came 1 out of the town and joined them, and Cloelius,- an yEquian \ \ general, led a body of troops to their aid. The houses called • | on their Roman allies, and the consul, M. Geganius, came \ |« and circumvallated the yEquian army that was investing the > town. The yEquians had to surrender their general, and to 1 ' pass under the yoke.t To strengthen the Rutulian houses, 1 | colonists were sent thither from Rome. ( I All was now quiet at Rome, till in 315 a dreadful famine, 1 l in consequence of the failure of the crops, came on. L. I Minucius, who was created prefect of the corn market, made 1 every exertion to purchase corn, but could only obtain some ,( [ small supplies from Etruria : all persons were obliged to j ' deliver up what corn they had beyond a month's consump- ' \ tion ; the allowance of the slaves was diminished ; the corn dealers were prosecuted as regraters and engrossers. Still * So it is expressly called by Livy, ii. 71. It could not have been the plebs, who had nothing to do with the public land, 1 See above, p. 90. 9* 102 HISTORY OF KOME. the famine was so sore that numbers of the plebeians .hiew themselves into the Tiber. In this universal distress, Sp. Msehus, a wealth} plebeian knight, made extensive purchases of corn in Etruria, which he sold at low prices, or distributed gratis to the poor of his order. This gained him great favor ; the patricians became suspicious of him; and Minucius, it is said, accused him to the consuls of the next year (316) of designs against the government: the senate sat a whole day in secret delibera- tion; the Capitol and other strong posts were garrisoned; and L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, now eighty years of age, was created dictator. Next morning the dictator entered the Forum with an armed train, and set up his tribunal. At his command, C. Servilius Ahala, the master of the horse, went to summon before him Majlius, who was present. Ma'lius hesitated : the officers advanced to seize him ; he snatched up a butcher's knife to defend himself, and ran back into the crowd. Ahala, sword in hand, and followed by a band of armed patrician youths, rushed after him ; the people gave way, and he ran Ma-lius through the body. The murder, for such it undoubtedly was, was applauded by the venerable dictator.* The house of Maelius was pulled down, and its site left desolate, (the ^quimelium :) and posterity, following the traditions of the Quinclian and Servilian houses, had no doubt of his guilt, or of the public virtue of Ahilla. Their contemporaries, however, thought differently. When the terror of the dictatorship was removed, three tribunes de- manded vengeance for the death of JMailius; an insurrection broke out, Ahala had to go into exile, and the patricians were obliged to allow the election of military tribunes, to appease the people. The year 317 was distinguished by the revolt of FidensB. This town, which lay five miles up the Tiber, beyond the Anio, had received a colony about sixty years before ; a part of the colonists were now expelled, a part probably shared in the revolt. An alliance \yas formed with the Veientinea and Faliscans, and their united forces appeared more than once before the CoUine gate. Dictators were appointed against them, and in 320 the dictator A. Servilius Priscus * Plutarch (Brutus, 1) gives a novel view, of ihe a,ct of Ahdla. Ho W with l»i n another Brutus. " ' '''; VOLSCIAN WAR. 103 conquered the town. The ringleaders were beheaded, but no further penalty was inflicted on the people. In 322 the pestilence again spread its ravages at Rome : and in 324 the truce with the ^Equians being expired, they and a part of the Volscians raised two armies of select troops, bound by oath to conquer or die, and encamped on the Algi- dus. In this emergency the senate resolved to create a dicta- tor ; the consuls, however, refused to proclaim him, and the senate having appealed to the tribunes, they forced the con- suls by a menace of imprisonment to submit. The person appointed was A. Postumius Tubertus. The dictator, aware of the magnitude of the danger, called out all the forces of the state. Four armies were formed ; one, the city legions, was left at Rome under the consul C. Julius ; the reserve, under the master of the horse, L. Julius, lay without Uie walls. The dictator and the consul T. Q,uinc- tius marched with the remainder to the Algidus, where they were joined by the Latins and Hernicans. They encamped within a mile of the enemy, the consul on the road to Lanu- vium, the dictator on that to Tusculum. Skirmishes took place daily, in one of which the dictator's son having left the post assigned him to engage the enemy, was on his return victorious, put to death by his inexorable sire for his breach of orders. At length the enemy made a combined attack by night on the consul's camp ; but meantime that of the ^quians was stormed by some cohorts sent against it by the dictator, who himself came by a circuitous route into the rear of those who were assailing the consul's camp. The troops of the dictator and the consul attacked them simul- taneously ; at break of day the exhausted foe gave way ; a brave man named Vettius Messius placing himself at their head, they broke through and made their way to the Volscian camp, which still was safe ; but they were soon followed and surrounded there also : the camp was stormed, quarter wr»3 given to those who threw down their arms, but all were sold except the senators. The dictator having triumphed.laid down his office. The following year a truce for eight years was made with the ^Equians. Among the Volscians there was a peace and a war party, and the former seems to have boen the stronger, as during these eight years all was quiet on this side. In 327, a conspiracy being discovered at Fidense, the heads of it were relegated toOstia; more colonists were sent to Fidense, and the lands of those who had been executed or had fallen in war were given to them. This year also was 104 HISTORY OF ROME. one of pestilence The next year (328) war was formally declared against Veii, on which occasion a furtlier progress was made in the constitution, as the tribunes succeeded in having the question brought before the centuries, instead of being decided by tiie senate alone. One good result of this was tjiat the levies were never again obstructed. Consular tribunes being elected for 329, they led their forces against Veii, but from their want of concord they gave the enemy an opportunity of falling on and routing them. Mamercus ^milius was immediately made dictator, and he named A. Cornelius Cossus, one of the tribunes, his master of the horse. The Veientines, elate with their success, sent to invite volunteers from all parts of Etrurii' and they tried to induce the Fidenates to revolt once more. Envoys were despatched from Rome to warn them of their duty ; but the envoys were detained in custody, and the revolt resolved on. Lars Tolumnius, the Veientine king, led his army over the Tiber, and encamped before Fidens. He was playing at dice when the Fidenates sent to inquire what should be done with the Roman envoys. Without interrupting his game, he cried, " Put them to death ! " His mandate was e.xecuted ; the col- onists were butchered at the same time, and all hopes of pardon thus cut off. The Roman army soon appeared to exact ven- geance ; the skilful dispositions of the dictator and the valor of his troops gained a complete victory. Lars Tolumnius fell by the hand of the master of the horse, who dedicated his spolia opiiiia, the first since the days of Romulus, in the temple of Jupiter Ferctrius. Fidenae was taken, its inhabit- ants massacred or sold for slaves, and it dwindled into utter insignificance. A truce with Veii for twenty, and with the ^quians for three (cyclic) years was the only event of the year 330. In 331, as territory had been gained in the late wars, the trib- unes demanded that assignments out of it should be made tc the plebeians, and the tithe be levied off what was possessed by the patricians for the payment of the troops. In 332 the Volscians took up arms, being convinced from i},s growing power of Rome that they must either make a bold and decisive effort, or part with their independence. Their troops were numerous and well disciplined. The con- sul, C. Sempronius Atratinus, who commanded the Roman army, evinced neither skill nor energy : the soldiers had no confidence either in him or th-»mselves. In the battle they were giving way, when Sex. 1 Bmpanius, a plebeian knight VOLSCIAN WAR. 105 sailing on the horsemen to dismount and follow him, and raising his spear as a standard, advanced against the foe, who, at the command of their leader, gave way and let them through, and then closed to cut them off from the Roman army. The consul seeing his cavalry thus isolated redoubled his efforts. Tempanius, having vainly essayed to break through again, retired to an eminence, where a part of the Voi- scians surrounded him. Night ended the conflict : each army, thinking itself conquered, abandoned its camp and wounded, and retired to the mountains. In the morning Tempanius and his comrades, finding the two camps deserted, returned to Rome, where their appearance caused great joy, as the whole army was supposed to be lost. The tribunes were loud in their accusation of the consul, but Tempanius spok£ in his favor ; and when next year (333) he and three of his brother officers were elected tribunes, and one of their colleagues impeached Sempronius before the people, they protected him, and induced the prosecutor to forego the charge. During the next seventeen years (334 — 351) the internal disputes respecting the public land continued, and the pa- tricians, by their old tactics of gaining a majority of the trib- unes to their side, prevented any thing being done. But the plebeians were slowly and surely gaining strength. In 334 the consuls proposed that the number of the qu.-estors of the treasury, which had been two, should be doubled ; the trib- unes insisted that the new places should belong to the ple- beians, and it was agreed that they should be chosen promis- cuously out of both orders. This, as in the case of the con- sular tribunate, was no immediate gain to the plebeians, but they trusted to the sure operation of time. Henceforth a quiEstor attended every army to superintend the sale of the booty, the produce of which was either divided among the soldiers or brought into the JElrarium, the common treasury of the state, not, as heretofore, into the Publicum of the pa- tricians. The wars with the ^quians and Volscians were con- tinued also throughout this period ; but the power of these peoples was greatly crippled by the conquests which the Samnites were now making on their southern frontier. In 337 the .-Equians and the Lavicans entered and ravaged the lands of Tusculum, and then encamped on the Algidus. An army was sent against them, which sustained a defeat. Q,, Servilius Priscus was then created dictator : he routed the enemies, took their camp, stormed the town of Lavici, and N 106 HISTORY OF ROME. then laid down his office on the eighth day. In 340 tlie for- merly Latin, now ^quian, town of Bolae wat taken, on which occasion the Roman soldiers connnitted a crime unknown to their history for centuries after. The consular tribune M. Postumius, who commanded, had promised them the plunder of the town, but when it was taken he broke his word. He had also been summoned by liis colleagues to Rome, where the tribunes were clamoring for a division of the conquered land; and when the tribune Sextius spoke of the rights of the soldiers, "Woe to mine," said he, "if they do not keep quiet!" These words soon made their way to the camp, and still further exasperated the men. A tumult broke out when the quaestor was selling the booty, in which he was struck by a stone. Postumius sat in judgment on this offence, and ordered the most severe pun- ishments. The men became enraged, and losing all respect stoned their general to death. This event was advantageous to the oligarchs, as the plebeians had to allow of the election of consuls for the next year, (342,) and to permit them to institute an inquiry into the death of Postumius. It was con- ducted with great moderation : the condemned terminated their lives by their own hands. In 347 the Antiates, seeing the danger which menaced their kindred, engaged in the war. A combined army en- camped before the walls of Antium, where it was attacked and totally defeated by a Roman army, led by the dictator P. Corneliiis. The campaign of 349 was more important ; three Roman armies took the field : one, led by the consu- lar tribune L. Valerius, approached Antium ; his colleague P. Cornelius advanced with another against Ecetra ; while N. Fabius with the third laid siege to Tarracina, which lay on the side of a steep hill over the Pomptinc marshes. A part of the army having gotten to the summit of the hill over the town, it was forced to surrender : the pmnder was divided among the three armies, and a colony sent to the town. A war, the last, with Veii succeeded At the expiration of the truce the Romans demanded satisfaction for the crime ofTolumnius; the Veientines, who feared war, applied for aid to the other peoples of Etruria, and various congresses >l'ere held at the temple of Voltumna to consider the matter. Aid, however, was refused, perhaps through jealousy, more probably in consecjuence of the pressure of a foe soon to appear on the north of the Apennines; it may also have bee» VEIENTINE WAR. 107 thought that tha strength of its walls would enahle Veil to resist any attack made on it by the Romans. The city of Veii, which lay twelve miles from Rome, was encompassed by strong walls four miles in circuit. The Tuscans, who possessed it, ruled over a population of sub- jects and serfs much like the Spartans in Gweece ; their own numbers were small, they could not rely on their subjects, and it was only the aid of volunteers from other parts of Etruria that enabled them at any tirne to wage war with advantage against the Romans. The Romans, on their side, saw that though they might ravage the lands of Veii, yet so long as the town remained unconquered, retaliation would be easy ; whereas could it be conquered, the advance of the power of Rome might be rapid and permanent. This, however, could only be effected by keeping a force constantly in the field ; but to do this it would be necessary to recur to the old practice of giving the troops pay, for which purpose the tithe must be paid honestly off the domain-land. This the senate, rising above the paltry, narrow considerations which used to influence it, resolved should be done, and pay be given to the infantry as well as the cavalry ; and as mutual concessions were usually made between the orders, the people seem to have agreed that the veto of one tribune — not that of the majority, as heretofore, in the college — should suffice to stop the proceedings of the tribunes, the patricians reckoning that they would be able, in most cases, to gain over one of them. War, therefore, against Veii was declared in the year 349. The campaigns of the years 350 and 351 seem to have been little more than plundering excursions into the Vei- entine territory ; forts (castella) like that on the Cremera were raised and garrisoned to prevent the cultivation of the lands and the passage of supplies to Veii. In the third year (352) siege was laid to the town, a mound advanced against its walls, and the gallery under which the battering rams were to play had nearly reached the wall, when the besieged made a sally, drove off the besiegers, burned the gallery and the sides of the mound, which they then levelled. The news of this reverse only stimulated the Romans to greater exertions : the knights to whom no horses could oe assigned offered to serve with their own ; a like zeal was manifested by the classes, and the campaign of 353 was opened by the appearance of a gallant army under the consular tribunes L. Virginius and M'. Sergius before Veii. 108 HISTORY OF RCWE. The Veientines on their side were aided bj their nei^hborg the Capenates and Faliscans, who now saw that the danger was a common one. Tlie Roman generals, who were at enmity with each other, had separate camps ; that of Sergius, which was the smaller, was suddenly attacked by the allies, while the Veientines made a sally from the town ; the pride of Sergius would not let him send for assistance to tlie other camp ; while Vir- ginias, pretending to believe that if his colleague wanted aid he would apply fur it, kept his troops under arms, but would not stir. At length the camp of Sergius was forced : a few fled to the other camp, himself and the greater number to Rome. The other camp had then to be abandoned ; and the whole of the tribunes were obliged to lay down their office on account of the misconduct of Virginius and Sergius. Among those chosen to succeed them was M. Furius Ca- m ill us, afterwards so famous, whose name now appears for the first time. A large force was brought into the field, with which Camillus and one of his colleagues ravaged the lands of the Capenates and Faliscans up to the walls of their cities The internal history of this year (354) was remarkable for a hold attempt of the oligarchs to get two of themselves chosen into the college of the tribunes of the people.* They were, however, utterly foiled; the college was firm and unan- imous: a heavy fine was imposed on Sergius and Virginius for their ill conduct, and an agrarian law was passed, which put an end to the frauds by which the payment of the tithe had been eluded. The next year (3;55) the patricians were forced to allow one plebeian among the military tribunes and the following year (356) all but the prefect of the cit) were plebeians. A severe winter was succeeded by i pestilential summer still the armies took the field, and formed, as in 354, a double camp before Veii. The Faliscans and Capenates repeated the manoeuvre which had succeeded in that year; but the Roman generals were at perfect amity, and they met with a complete defeat. The territories of Capena and Falerii were ravaged again the next year, and in 358 the Tarquinians, who had taken arms and made an incursion' into the Roman territory, were waylaid on their return and routed with great oss. In 359, the last year of the war, the tribunes being * For the patricians were now in tlie tribes. It, however, continued to be the rule that none but a plebeian could be a tribune. CAPTURE OF VEIL 109 all plebeians, two of them, L. Titinius and Cn. Geniicius, in- vaded the lands of Capena and Falerii ; but conducting them- selves incautiously, they met with a defeat. Genucius fell in the action, Titinius broke through the enemy and got off, the troops before Veii were hardly restrained from flight, and Rome was filled with alarm. Camillus was now raised to the dictatorship; he exerted himself to restore confidence and discipline to the troops : the contingents of the Latins and Hernicans arrived, the dictator took the field, and hav- ing given the Faliscans and Capenates a complete defeat at Nepete, he sat down before Veii with a numerous army. So far the narrative of the Veientine war is historical ; in what is to come a poetic tale, of the same kind with those we have already noticed, has usurped the place of the sim- ple narrative of the annals. Various portents announced the fall of Veii. Among others the waters of the Alban lake rose in the midst of the dog-days, without a fall of rain or any other natural cause, to such a height as to overflow and deluge the surrounding country. Fearing deceit from the Etruscan augurs, the senate sent a solemn embassy to consult the Pythian oracle. The news reached the camp before Veii, and as there was then a truce, and those on both sides who were previously acquainted were in the habit of conversing together, it also came to the knowledge of the Veientines. Impelled by des- tiny a soothsayer mocked the efforts of the Romans, telling them that the sacred books declared they should never take Veii. A Roman centurion some days after, pretending that a prodigy had fallen out in his house which he was anxious to expiate, invited the aruspex to meet him in the plain between the town and the Roman camp. Seduced by the prospect of the proffered reward he came out; the centurion drew him near the Roman lines, and then suddenly; being young and vigorous, dragged the feeble old man into the camp. He was instantly transferred to Rome ; by menaces the senate forced him to tell the truth, and he declared that the books of fate announced that, so long as the lake kept overflowing, Veii could not be taken, and that, if its waters reached the sea, Rome would perish. The envoys arrived soon after from Delphi with a similar reply, the god prom- ising the conquest of Veii if they spread the waters over the fields, and demanding a tithe of the spoil. Forthwith a tunnel was commenced in the side of the mountain to draw off* tlie water of the lake and distribute it over the ad- 10 110 HISTORY OF ROME. jacent fields.* It advanced rapidly : the Veientines, seeing tlieir impending fate, sent an embassy to sue for favor; mercy was unrelentingly refused : the chief of the embassy then warned the Romans to beware, for tiie same oracles foretold that the fall of Veii would be followed by the cap- ture of Rome by the Gauls. He warned in vain, no mercy was to be obtained. Meantime the work by which Veii was to be taken went on : the Romans appeared to be waiting the slow effects of a blockade ; but their army was divided into six bands, each of which wrought for six hour.'^, by turns, at a mine, which was to lead into the temple of Juno on the citadel. When it was completed, Camillus sent to inquire of the senate what should be done with the spoil. Ap. Claudius advised to sell it, and reserve the proceeds for the pay of the army on future occasions; P. Licinius, a plebeian military trib- une, insisted that it should be divided not merely among the troops before Veii, but among all. the citizens, as all had made sacrifices. It was so decreed; and on proclamation being made, old and young flocked to the camp. When the waters of the A I ban lake were dispersed over the fields and the mine completed, Camillus, having made a vow to celebrate great games to the gods, and dedicate a temple to Mother IMatiita, and also ])romised high honors to Queen Juno, the patron goddess of Veii, and a tenth of the spoil to the Pythian Apollo, entered the mine at the head of his co- horts. At the same moment the horns sounded for the as- sault ; scaling-ladders were advanced. The citizens hastened to man their walls; their king was sacrificing in the temple of Juno; the aruspex, when he saw the victim, cried out that those who offered it to the goddess would be the vic- tors. The Romans, who were beneath, hearing this, burst forth; Camillus seized and offered the flesh ; his men rushed down from the citadel and opened the gates to those with- out; and thus Veii, like Troy, was taken by stratagem, after a ten years' siege. t The spoil was immense, and no part of it, except the price of those who had been made prisoners before orders * The tunnel was actually made at this time, though we are not to ■uppose it had any thing to do with the fate of Veii. It is 6000 feet long, '.Vi wide, and highenough for a man to walk in it, wrought through the lava, wliich is as liard as iron. ■( Tlie mine is as evident a fiction as the Trojan horse. In all ancien) history there is no authentic account of a town taken in this way. CAPTUKE OF VEIL 111 were given to spare the unarmed, and who therefore were Bold, was brought into the treasury. It is related that as Camillus looked from the citadel down on the magnificent city he had won, he called to mind the envy with which the gods were believed to regard human prosperity, and prayed that it might fall as lightly as possible on himself and the Roman people; as he turned round to worship, he stumbled and fell, and he fondly deemed this to have ap- peased the envy of the Immortals. He dared then to enter Rome in triumph, in a car drawn by white horses, like that of Jupiter and Sol, (Sun,) a thing never witnessed before or after ; and the wrath of Heaven fell erelong on himself and the city. The statue of Q,ueen Juno was now to be' removed to Rome, according to the dictator's vow ; but as only a priest of a certain house could touch it, the Romans were filled with awe. At length a body of chosen knights, having pu- rified themselves and put on white robes, entered the tem- ple. The goddess being asked if she was willing to go to Rome, her assenting voice was distinctly heard, and the statue of its own accord moved with those who conveyed it out. The tithe was to be sent to the god at Delphi ; but the spoil was mostly consumed and spent ; the pontiffs de- clared that the state was only accountable for what had been received by the qusestors, and for the land and buildings at Veii, and that therefore the sin of those who kept back their share of it would lie at their own door. Conscience made all refund; but much ill will accrued to Camillus for his not having reminded them in time pf his vow. It was resolved to make a golden bowl (crater) to the value of the tenth, but there was not sufficient gold in the treasury; the matrons then came forward, and proffered to lend the state their ornaments and jewels of gold : their offer was graciously accepted, and in return the privilege of going through the city in chariots was granted them, — an honor hitherto confined to the principal magistrates. The bowl was made, and a trireme and three envoys despatched with it to Delphi. But the ship was captured and carried into Lipara by some cruisers, who took it for a pirate. Timo- sitheijs however, the chief magistrate of the place, released it, and sent it with a convoy to Greece, for which the Ro- man* granted him the right of proxeny to the state. The bowl was deposited in the treasury of the Massalians J 12 HISTORY OF ROME. whence, not many years after, it was taken and melted down by Oiioinarchus the Phocian.* The year after the capture of Veil, (360.) the Capenatca were compelled to sue for peace; and a colony of three thousand plebeian veterans were sent to the yEquian country, the patricians hoping to be able to keep the rich Veientine lauds to themselves. But the tribunes insisted that the lands and houses there should be assigned to the two orders alike. As this, by dividing the Roman people into two parts, would be the destruction of the unity of the state, the patricians opposed it most warmly : by gaining over two of the tribunes they .staved it off for two years ; and in IJ()2, when the tril)unes were unanimous, and the two who had opp6sed before had been heavily fined, the senators, by addressing themselves to their plebeian tribesmen, and showing the evil of the measure, got it rejected by a ma- jority of eleven out of the twenty-one tribes. Next day a vote of the senate assigned a lot of seven jugers of Veientine land to every free person who needed it. In 301, Camillus, being one of the military tribunes, en- tered the Faliscan territory. The Faliscans had encamped in a strong position about a mile from the town ; hut he drove them from it, and then advancing, sat down before Falerij. While he was beleageuring this town, the following event is said to have occurred. It was the custom at Falerii, as in Greece, to place the hoys of different families under one master, (.-tkcVkjo/; o,-,) who always accompanied them at their .sports and exercises. The master of the boys of several of the noblest families, continuing to take them outside of the town to exercise as before the siege, led them one day into the Roman camp, and taking them to Camillus declared that he thereby put Falerii into his hands. The generous Roman, disgusted with such treachery, ordered his hands to be tied behind his I)ack, and giving rods to the boys, made them whip him into the town. Overcome by stich macrnanimity, the Falis- cans surrendered, and the Roman senate was satisfied with their giving a year's pay to the soldiers. The year 304 saw Rome at war with two more states of Etruria, Vulsinii, and Salpinum; but tlieir resistance wa? brief, eight thousand Vulsinians laying down their arms al- * Diodor. xiv. 93. Appian, Ital. Fragm. 8. See History of Greece Part HI. chap. i. For pr ox eny, see same, p. 48, note, 2d edit. THE GAULS. 113 most without fighting, and the Salpinates not daring to leave their walls to defend their lands. A truce for twenty years was made with the Vulsinians, on their giving a year's pay for the Roman troops. But this year was rendered still more notable by the impeachment of Camillus by the tribune L. Apuleius, for having secreted a part of the plunoer of Veii. The evidence appears to have been clear against him, (two brazen doors from Veii, it is said, were found in his house,) and the people were exasperated. When he applied to his clients in the tribes to get him off, they replied that they could not acquit him, but that, as in duty bound, they would contribute to pay whatever fine might be imposed on him. Finding his case hopeless, he resolved to go into exile. When outside of the gate of the city, he turned round, and regarding the Capitol, lifted up his hands, and prayed to the gods that Rome might soon have cause to regret him. A fine of 15,000 asses was laid on him by the people. CHAPTER V. THE GAULS. THEIR INVASION OF ITALY. SIEGE OF CLU- SIUM. BATTLE OF THE ALIA. TAKING OP ROME. REBUILDING OF THE CITY. DISTRESS OF THE PEOPLE. M. MANLTUS. THE LICINIAN ROGATIONS. PESTILENCE AT ROME. M. CURTIUS. HERNICAN WAR. COMBAT OF MANLIUS AND A GAUL. GALLIC AND TUSCAN WARS. COMBAT OF VALERIUS AND A GAUL. REDUCTION OF THE RATE OF INTEREST. The ruthless prayer of Camillus was accomplished ; am- bassadors arrived soon after from Clusium in Etruria, pray- ing for aid against a savage people come from the confines of the earth, and named the Gauls. The people named Celts or Gauls were the original in- habitants of Europe west of the Rhine, where they were spread over France, the British Isles, and a great part, if not all, of Spain. They were in a state of barbarism, far exceeding any that could ever have prevailed in Greece or Italy, having hardly any tillage or trade, and living on the milk and flesh of their cattle. In manners they were tur- 10* o 114 HISTORY OF ROME. bulent and brutaf. easily excited, but deficient in energy ana perseverance. Toward the time of tbe last Veientine war, want, or tlie pressure of a superior power, (perhaps that of the Iberians in the south,) seems to have obliged several of their tribes to migrate. One portion pushed along the val- ley of the Danube; another crossed the Alps, and came down on northern Etruria, whose chief town, Melpum, they are said to have taken .on the same day that Veil fell, and they rapidly made themselves ma.sters of the whole plain of (he Po. They then crossed the Apennines, and laid siege to the city of Clusium in Etruria, (364.) We are told that it was a Clusine who had invited tbem into Italy. A citizen of Clusium, named Aruns, had been the guardian of a Lucumo, who, when he grew u|>, seduced, or was seduced by, his guardian's wife. Aruns, having vainly sought justice from the magistrates, resolved to be revenged on then) as well as on his injurer. He loaded mules with skins of wine and oil, and wiili rush-mats fUled with dried figs, and crossing the Alps came to the Gauls, to whom such delicacies were luiknown. He told them that they might easily win the land that produced them ; and forthwith the whole people arose, with wives and children, and marched for Clusium.* When the Clusines called on the Romans for aid, the senate sent three of the Fabii, sons of AI. Ambustus, the chief pontiff, to desire the Gauls not to molest the alliefs of Ilonic. The reply was, that they wanted land, and the Clusines must divide theirs with them. The Fabii enraged went into the town, and then forgetting their character of envoys, and that no Roman could bear arnis against any people till war had been declared and he had taken the military oath,t they joined the Clusines in a sally ; and Q,. Fabius, having slain a Gallic chief, was recognized as he was stripping him. Forthwith Brennus, the Gallic king, ordered a retreat to be sounded ; and selecting the hugest of . his warriors, sent them to Rome, to demand tbe sur- render of the Fabii. The fetials urged the senate to free the republic from guilt: most of the senators acknowledged their duty, but they could not endure the idea of giving up men of such noble birth to the vengeance of a savage foe. They referred the matter to the people, who instantly ere • It is scarcely necessary to mention tliat tiiis is a mere legend t Cicero, Offic. i. 11. BATTLE OF THE ALIA. 115 flted the offenders consular tribunes, and then told the en- voys that nothing could be done to them till the expiration of their office, at which time, if their anger continued, they might come and seek justice. Brennus, when he received this reply, gave the word " For Rome! " The Gallic horse and foot overspread the plains ; they touched not the prop- erty of the husbandman ; they passed by the towns and vil- lages as if they were friends; they crossed the Tiber, and reached the Alia,* a little stream that enters it about eleven miles from Rotrie, They would have found Rome unprepared, says the le- gend, f but that one night a plebeian named M. Caedicius, as he was going down the Via Nova at the foot of the Pala- tine, heard a voice more than human calling him by name; he turned, but could see no one; he was then desired- by the voice to go in the morning to the magistrates, and tell them that the Gauls were coming. On these tidings, the men of military age were called out and led against the j : foes, whom they met at the Alia. r [ According to the real narrative, J when the Romans heard of the march of the Gauls, they summoned the troops of their allies, and arming all that could carry arms, took | a position near Veii ; but on learning that the enemy were ,' making for the city by forced marches, they repassed the I river, and advancing, met them at the Alia, (July 16.) The t Gauls were 70,000 men strong ; the Roman army of 40,000 \ was divided into two wings or horns, (corntta,) the left of | 24,000 men rested on the Tiber, the right of 15,000 occu- [ pied some broken ground; the Alia was between them and j the enemy. Brennus fell on the right wing, which was j chiefly formed of proletarians and aerarians, and speedily | routed it; the left then, seeing itself greatly outflanked, I was seized with a panic, broke, and made for the river : the i Gauls assailed them on every side ; many were slain, many < drowned; the survivors, mostly without arms, fled to Veii. \ The right wing, when broken, had fled through the hills to | * Virgil, for the sake of his verse, spelled it A Hia ; the true word la Alia. Servius on ^n. vii. 717. t Zonaras, vii. 23, from Dion Cassius. Livy and the other writers place this legend niiich earlier. + The true account of the battle and the taking of Rome is given by Diodorus (xiv. 113 — 117) from Fabius. Livy and Plutarch follow the legend. of 'Camillus. 116 HISTORY OF ROME. Rome, carrying the news of the defeat ; ere nightfall the Gallic horse appeared on the Field of Mars, and before the Colline gate; but no attempt was made on the city; and that night and the succeeding day and night were devoted to pkindering, rioting, drunkenness, and sleep. Meantime the Romans, aware of the impossibility of de- fending the city, resolved lo collect all the provisions in it on the Capitol and citadel, which would contain about one thousand men, and there to make a stand. The rest of the people (juittcd Rome as best they could, to seek shelter in the neighboring towns, taking with them such articles as they could carry. A part of the sacred things was buried ; the Flamen Cluirinalis, and the Vestal Virgins crossed the Sublician bridge on foot, with the remainder, on their way to Caere. As they ascended the Janiculan, they were ob- served by L. Albinius, a plebeian, who was driving his wife and children in a cart ; and he made them instantly get down, and give way to the holy virgins, whom he conveyed in safety to Ca^re. About eighty aged patricians, who were priests, or had borne curule offices, would not survive that Rome which had been tb.e scene of all their glory : having solemnly devoted themselves, under the chief pontiflT, for the republic and the destruction of her foes, they sat calmly awaiting death in their robes of state, on their ivory seats in the Forum. On the second day the Gauls burst open the Colline gate, and entered the city. A death-like stillness prevailed^ they reached the Forum ; on the Capitol above they beheld armed men ; beneath in the Comitium the aged senators, like beings of another world : they were awe-struck, and paused. At length one put forth his hand, and stroked the venera- ble beard of M. Papirius ; the indignant old man raised his ivorv sceptre, and smote him on the head ; the barbarian drew his sword, and slew him, and all the others shared his fate. The Gauls spread over the city in quest of plun- der, fires broke out in various quarters, and erelong the city was a heap of ashes, no houses remaining but a few on the P.ilatine reserved for the chiefs. The Gauls, having made divers fruitless attempts to force their way up the cfims of the Capitol, re.^olved to trust to famine for its reduction. But provisions soon began to run short ; the dog-days and the sickly month of September came on, and they died in heaps. A part of them had TAKING OF ROiME. Ill marched away for Apulia ; the rest ravaged Latium far and wide.* Meantime some people of Etruria (probably the Tarquin- iaris) ungenerously took advantage of the distress of the Romans to ravage the Veientine territory, where the Roman husbandmen had taken refuge with what property they had been able to save. But the Romans at Veii, putting M. Caa- dicius at their head, fell on them in the night, and routed thein ; and having thus gotten a good deal of arms, of wliich tliey were so much in want, they began to prepare to act against the Gauls. A daring youth named Pontius Comin- ius swam one night oa corks down the river, and eluding the Gauls clambered up the side of the Capitol,t and having given the requisite information to the garrison, returned by the way he came. But the Gauls soon took notice of a bush which had given way as Cominius grasped it; they also observed that the grass was trodden down in various places ; | the rock was therefore not inaccessible, and it was resolved to scale it. At midnight, a party came in dead silence to the spot, and began to ascend. Slowly and cautiously they clomb up ; no noise was made, the Romans were buried in sleep, their jj ', sentinels were negligent, even the dogs were not aroused. ji i The foremost Gaul had reached the summit, when some i geese, which as sacred to Juno had been spared in the i| famine, being startled, began to flutter and scream. The Ij noise awoke M. Manlius, a consular, whose house stood on \ the hill ; he ran out, pushed down the Gaul, whose fall ] caused that of those behind, and the whole project was baf- \ fled. The negligent captain of the guard was flung down j the rock with his hands tied behind his back ; and every man on the citadel gave Manlius half a pound of corn, and ', a quarter of a flask of wine as a reward. ! Still famine pressed ; the blockade had now lasted six | months, and the garrison had begun to eat even the soles I * Among the wonders of this period is the following. While the j Gauls surrounded the Capitol, the time of the annual sacrifice of the j Fabian ^eres on the Quirinal arrived. C. Fabius Dorso, who was on i the Capitol, then girded himself with the Gabine cincture, took the ] requisite things in his hands, went down the clivus, ascended the \ Quirinal, performed the sacred rites, and returned, the Gauls, mover ' either by awe or by religion, offering him no opposition. [ t Under the modern Ara Celi, (Nieb. ii. 544,) that is, at the part of the ( liill farthest from the river, and by the Carmental Gate, (Plut. Camill. 25 ) ,< } Plutarch, tU supra, 26. ^. J 18 HISTORY OF ROME. of their shoes and the leatlier of their shields : the (rauiS, on their side, found their army melting away, and tidings came that the Venetians had invaded their territory ; tliey therefore agreed to receive one thousand pounds of gold, and depart. At the weighinif of the gold Brennus had falee weights brought ; and when Q,. Sulpicius complained of the injustice, he Hung his sword into the scale, crying, " Woe to ilic vanquished ! " ( Vce victis!) The Gauls then departed and recrossed the Apennines with their wealth.* (3Co.) It is thus that history relates the transaction; the legend of Caniillus tells a different tale. Camdlus, an exile at Ardea, had, it says, at the head of the Ardeates, given the (iauls a check ; the llonians at Veii passed an ordinance of the plebs, restoring him to his civil rights, and making hitn dictator ; to obtain the confirmation of the senate and cu- ries, Cominius ascended the Capitol. Camillus, at the head of his legions, entered the Forum just as the gold was being weighed ; he ordered it to be taken away : the Gaals pleaded the treaty ; he replied that it was not valid, being made without the knowledge of the dictator. Each side grasped their arms ; a battle was fought on the ruins of Rome : the Gauls were defeated, and a second victory on the Gabine road annihilated their army. Camillus entered Rome in I '{ trium|)h, leadmg Brennus captive, whom he ordered to be j put to death, replying Vcd victis ! to his remonstrances. >. But to return to history. •J Nothing could exceed the miserable condition of the Ro- 5 mans after the departure of the Gauls ; their city was one ] heap of ruins, their property was nearly all lost or destroyed, . their former allies and subjects were ill disposed toward i them.t We are told in a legend, that the people of Ficu- \ lea, Fidena;, and some ol the adjacent towns, came in arms \ against Rome; and so great was the panic they caused, I that a popular solemnity | kept up the memory of it to a j late age. 'i'hey demanded a number of matrons and maidens \ of good families as the price of peace. The Romans were 5 in the utmost perplexity, when a female slave, named Phi- I lotis or Tutula, proposed a plan to avert disgrace from the , ladies of Rome. She and several of her companions were > * Polybius, ii. 22. Suetonius, Tiberiu3, 3. t Compare the account of the return of the Jews to their city, given in the Book of Ezra. i Populifugia, or Kance Caprolinoc. Fhit. Rom. 29. Camill 33 Macrok iSat. i. 11. H DISTKES3 OF THE PFOPLE. 119 dad ill he jjrcetrxta, ixnd aimid the tears of their pretended relatives delivered to the Latins. The slaves encouraged their new lords to drink copiously ; they fell into a deep sleep, and Tutula, mounting a tree, raised a lighted torch toward Rome. The Romans fell on and massacred their slumbering foes, and Tutula and her companions were re- warded with their freedom. Another tradition* told, that !, at this period the scarcity of food was such that the men past sixty were thrown into the river as being useless. One old man was concealed by his son, through whom he gave such useful counsel to the state that the practice was ended. The people shrank fronn the prospect of rebuilding their ruined city, and it was ehemently urged that they should remove to Veii. Against this project, which would have probably quenched the glory of Rome forever, the patri- cians exerted themselves to the utmost, appealing to every feeling of patriotism and religion. A word of omen, casual or designed, was decisive. While the senate was debating, a centurion was heard to cry in the Comitium as he was leading his men over it, "Halt ! we had best stop here." The senate allowed every one to take bricks wherever he found them, and to hew stone and wood where he liked. Veii was demolished for building materials ; and within the year Rome rose in an unsightly irregular form from her ruins. As a means of increasing the population, the civic fran- chise was given (366) to the people of such Veientine, Faliscan, and Capenate towns as had come over to the Ro mans during the Veientine war ; and two years after (368) four new tribes (which raised the whole nuniber to twenty- tive) were formed out of them. The wars for some years offer little to interest. The Etruscans are said to have failed in attempts to take Sutrium and Nepcte ; the Volscians of Antium and Ecetrae went once more to war with Rome, now enfeebled; Hernican and Latin mercenaries fought on their side, but the valor of the Roman legions was still triumphant. The Pnenestines also measured their strength with Rome, but the banks of the Alia witnessed their defeat. (375.) The internal history of this period is of far more im- portance. It was indeed a time of distress, augmented by the cruelty and harshness of the ruling order. In order • Festus, 5. V. Sexagenarios. 120 HI?rORV OF ROME. to build tlieir houses, procure farming implements!, and other necessary things, the plebeians had to borrow money to a considerable extent. The rate of interest being now raised at Rome, the money lenders {argentarii) flocked thither, and under the patronage of the patricians, for which they had to pay high, they lent to the people at a most usuriofs rate; interest speedily multiplied the principal; there were also outstanding debts to the patricians themselves ; the severe law of debt, which tbe Twelve Tables had left in force, but which, owing to the prosperity of the following years, had rarely been acted on, was again in operation, and freebori; Romans were reduced to bondage at home, or sold out of their country. To augment the distress of the people, the government (urged most probably by superstition) laid on a tribute to raise double the amount of the thousand pounds of gold c'ven to the Gauls, to replace it in the tem- ples whence it had been taken. In this state of things M. Manlius, the savior of the Capitol, came forward as the patron of the distressed. In birth and in valor, and every other ennobling quality, he yielded to no man of his time, and he ill brooked to see liimself kept in the background, while his rival Camillus was year after year invested with the highest ofiices in the state. This feeling of jealousy may liave influenced his subsequent conduct; but Manlius was a man of generous mind, and when one day (370) he saw a brave centurion, his fellow-soldier, led over the Forum in chains by the usurer to whom he had been adjudged, {addictus,) his pity was excited, and he paid his debt on the spot. Once in the career of generosity, Manlius could not stop; he sold an estate beyond the Tiber, the most valuable part of his property, and saved nearly four hundred citizens from bond- age by lending them money without interest. His house on the citadel now became the resort of all Classes of plebeians ; and he is said to have hinted in his discourses with them, that the patricians had embezzled the money raised to replace the votive offerings, and that they should be made to refund and li(|uidate with it the debts of the poor. The proceedings of Manlius seemed so danger- ous to the .senate, that, by their direction, the dictator A. Cornelius Cossus had him arrested and thrown into prison. Numbers of the plebeians now changed their raiment, and let their hair and beard srow neglected, as mourners; day and night they lingered abou'. the prison-door; and the M. MANLIUS. 121 Bcnate, either alarmed or having no real charge against him, set him at liberty. It is likely that the injustice of the senate may have ex- "cerbated Manlius ; at all events he was now become a dangerous citizen, and two of the tribunes impeached him oefore the centuries for aiming at the kingdom. His own order, his friends and kinsmen, and even his two brothers, deserted him in his need ; a thing unheard of, for even for the decemvir all the Claudian house had changed their rai- ment. On the Field of Mars he produced all whom he had preserved from bondage for debt, and those whose lives he had saved in battle ; he displayed the arms of thirty foes whom he had slain, and forty rewards of valor conferred on him by different generals ; he bared his breast, covered with scars, and looking up to the Capitol implored the gods, whose fanes he had saved, to stand by him in his need. This appeal to gods and men was irresistible, and he was ac- quitted by the centuries. But his enemy Camillus was dic- tator, and he was arraigned before the curies, {concilium po- puli,) assembled in the Poitilian grove, before the Nomentan gate, who readily condemned him to death. Manlius was either already in insurrection, or he resolved not to fall a passive victim. He and his partisans occupied the Capitol ; treachery was then employed against him ; a slave came, feigning to be a deputy from his brethren ; and as Manlius was walking on the edge of the precipice in confer- ence with him, he gave him a sudden push, and tumbled him down the rock.* The house of Manlius was razed; a decree was passed that no patrician should ever dwell on the Capitol ; and the Manlian gens made a by-law that none of them should ever bear the name of Marcus. The people mourned him ; and the pestilence with which Rome was shortly afterwards afflicted was regarded as a punishment sent by the gods to avenge the death of the preserver of their temples. Meantime the misery of the plebeians went on increasing; day after day debtors were dragged away from the pra;tor's tribunal to the private dungeons of the patricians ; the whole plebeian order lost spirit; and the greedy, short-sighted patri- cians were on the point of reducing Rome to a feeble, con- temptible oligarchy, when two men appeared, who by their * Di')n. frafrni. xxxi. Zonaras, vii. 24. In this manner Odyaseua, one of the Greek chiefs in the late war, wsis killed at Athens. , , t t 11 P i22 HISTORY OF ROME. wisdom end firmness, changed the fate of Rome, and with it that of tlie world. These were the tribunes C Liciniiia Stolo and L. Sextius Lateraniis. In the year 378 they proposed the tliree following roga- tions. 1. Instead of consular tribunes, there shall in future be consuls, one of whom shall of necessity be a plebeian. 2. No one shall possess more than five hundred jugers of arable or plantation land in the do\t\,\m, {ngrr publims,) nor feed more than one hundred head of large and five hun- dred of small cattle on the public pasture. Every possessor must pay the state annually the tentli bushel off his corn- land, the fifth of tlie produce of his plantation-land, and so much a head grazing-money for his cattle. He shall also employ freemen as laborers in proportion to his land. 5). The interest already paid on debts shall be deducted from the principal, and the residue be paid in three equal annual instalments. There is no reason to suppose that the authors of these measures, whi-h were to infuse new life and energy into the state, were influenced by any but the best motives ; but patrician malignity, and that ignoble spirit which loves to as- sign a paltry motive for even the most glorious actions, in- vented the following tale. M. Fabius Ambustus had two daughters, one of whom was married to Ser. Sulpicius, a patrician and consular tribune for the year 378; the other to C. Licinius Stolo, a wealthy plebeian. One day, while the younger Fabia was visiting her sister, Sulpici is returned from the Forum, and the lictor, as was usual, smoie the door with his rod that it might be opened. The visitor, unused to such ceremony in her modest plebeian abode, started, and her sister smiled in pity of her ignorance. She said nothing, but th(; matter sank deep in her mind ; her father, observing her dejected, in- quired the cause ; and having drawn it from her, assured her that she should be on an equality with her sister; and he, Licinius, and Sextius forthwith began to concert measures for effecting what he proposed.* The struggle lasted five years.t The patricians had not * Fabius had been a consular tribune within tiie last four years. How then could his dauirhter be ignorant of the pomp of the office.' Moreover, there was nothing to j)revent Licinius from being one him- self, as the ofHce was open to plebeians. t Livy makes it last ten years, and the city in consequence be in « THE LICINIAN ROGATIONS. 123 now as heretofore, the Latins, Hernicans, and Volscians to call to their aid ; neither had they large bodies of clients at their devotion. They therefore sought to gain the other tr?b unes, by representing the mischievous nature of the bills ; and they succeeded so well, that eight of the college forbade them to be read. Licinius and Sextius retaliated by impeding the election of consular tribunes. They were themselves re- elected year after year, and they never permitted the election of consular tribunes, unless when the state was in danger from its foreign enemies. In 381, the opposition in the col- lege was reduced to five, and these wavering: the next year (382) the tribunes were unanimous, and the only resource of the oligarchs lay in the dictatorship. Camillus was appoint- ed : and when the tribes were beginning to vote, he entered the Forum, and commanded them to disperse. The tribunes calmly proposed a fine of 500,000 asses on him if he should act as dictator. Camillus saw that the magic power of the dictatorial name was gone, and he laid down his office. The senate appointed P. Manlius to succeed ; and he named C. Licinius, a plebeian, master of the horse. It was agreed to augment the number of the keepers of the Sibylline books to ten, one half to be plebeians ; and, the dictator not impeding the people, with their wonted short-sightedness and ingrati- tude were beginning to vote the two last rogations, which con- cerned themselves most nearly ; but Licinius, telling them they must eat if they would drink,* incorporated the three bills in one, and would have all or none. In 383 (388) the bills passed the tribes ; but Camillus was again made dictator against the people. The tribunes sent their officers to arrest him ; he saw the inutility of further resistance, and the senate and curies gave their assent to the law. L. Sextius, being ap- pointed plebeian consul, a last effort was made by the curies, who refused to confirm him. The people lost all patience, state of complete anarchy, without any supreme magistrates, for five years, — a condition of thincrs which is utterly impossible. The cause of this is, that the capture of Rome by the Gauls, which really occur- red in Ol. 1)9, 3, was supposed to have happened in Ol. H8, 1, the date which the Greek clironologers gave for the descent of the Gauls into Italy ; and to reconcile the Roman Fasti witl this, it was necessary to suppose that five years had passed without magistrates ; and it was assumed that this must have been during the dir,putes on the Licinian rogations. Another year was put m on another occasion, so that the dates henceforth are five, from 439, six years in advance , the death of Caesar, therefore, was in 702, not 708 ; the b'rth of Christ in 740 not 752. See Niebuhr, ii. 553—567. Dion, fragm. xxxiii. 124 HISTORY OF ROME. seized the-r arms, and retired to the Aventiiie.* The ven- erable Cainillus, weary of civil discord, became the mediator Df peace, and vowed a temple to Concord. The people consented that the city^^rtetorship should be confined to the houses, as a curulc dignity coordinate with the consulate.t The office of curule aediles, to be filled in alternate years by two patricians and two plebeians, was instituted; and one day for the plebeians, as being now an integrant part of the nation, was added to the three of the Great Games. The centuries, to reward tiie illustrious Camillus, elected his son M. Furius the first city-priEtor. The passing of the Licinian laws may be regarded as the termination of the struggle which had been going on foi nearly a century and a half between the orders. In the whole course of history there is perhaps nothing to be found more deserving of admiration than the conduct of the ple- beians throughout the entire contest ; no violence, no nnir- ders, no illegal acts on their part are to be discerned, though the annals whence we derive our knowledge of it were drawn up and kept bv the op[)osite party. One is naturally led to inquire into the causes of this moderation; and they will perhaps be found to be as follows. In the first place, that steadiness and spirit of obedience to law and authority, which seems to have belonged to the Roman character while the nation continued pure and unmixed ; next, the fact that the plebeians were, at this time, composed of small landed pro- prietors, living frugally and industriously on their little farms, and visiting the city only on market-days. But the chief cause was, that they acted under the guidance of their nat- ural leaders, their nobility and gentry, and not of brawling demagogues; for the Licinii, the Icilii, the Junii, and others were, in birth and wealth, the fellows of theQ-uinctii and the Manlii, who excluded them from the hi^h offices in the state. It was, in fact, a part of the fortune of Rome, that she never was afflicted with the scourge of the selfish, low-born, lying, arrogant demagogues, the curse of the Grecian republics. When she was dootned to have her demagogue? dso, they were beasts of prey of a higher order, of her noblesi and most ancient patrician houses, the Cotnelii, the Julii, the Claiidii, who, disdaining to fawn on and flatter the electors whom • Ovid, Pasti, i. 643. t The cutiile magistrates were so named as'being allowed to go tc the senate-house in a chariot, (currus ;) their movable seat (sella eu- rulis) was taken out, and carried in after them. Gelliiis, iii. 18 THE LICINIAN ROGATIONS. 1-2 ihey despised, purchased their venal votes, or terrific * tliem and carried their measures by the swords of armed bandits But these unhappy times are yet far off; two centuries of glory are to come before we arrive at them. To return to our narrative. In the two foUowinor years, (309, 391,) Rome was severely afflicted by a pestilence, which carried off numbers of ail orders : among them was the venerable M. Furius Canullus, the second founder, as he was styled, of the city, a man who though his deeds have been magnified by fiction, must have been really one of the greatest that even Rome ever saw. As a means of appeasing the divine wrath, a Ircthtfrniuin* was made for the third time, and stage-plays were celebrated, the actors being fetched from Etruria. The Tiber also rose at this time and inundated the city. It had been an old custom at Rome, that, on the Ides of September, the chief magistrate should drive a nail into the right side of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol. The rea- son of this practice was, that a regular account might be kept of the years. It had, however, been for some time intermit- ted ; but it being given out (392) that a plague had o;ice ceased when a dictator drove the nail, the senate seized the opportunity of making an attempt to get rid of the late laws, and L. Manlius Imperiosus was named dictator. Having driven the nail, he commenced a levy against the Herni- cans ; but the tribunes forced him to desist and abdicate ; and the next year (393) the tribune, M. Pomponius, im- peached him for his harshness and cruelty in the levy. One charge on which the tribune dwelt was his keeping his son, merely for a defect in his speech, at work in the country, among his slaves. The young man, when he heard of this charge against his parent, armed himself with a knife, and coming early one morning into the city, went straight to the tribune's house. On telling his name he was admitted ; at his desire all were ordered to withdraw, the tribune nat- urally thinking he was come to give him son.-", important information. Manlius then drawing his knife, menaced him with instant death if he did not swear to drop the prosecution. The terrified tribune swore ; the charge against Manlius was not proceeded in ; and the people, to show their admiration of his filial piety, elected the young man one of the legion- ary tribunes for the year. * That is. p.xposing the imaores of the gods in public. 11* 126 HISTORY OF ROME. The following romantic act is also placed in this year. A great chasm opened in the middle of the Forum ; to hll it up was found to be impossible ; the soothsayers announced that it would only close when it contained what Rome pos- sessed of most value, and that then the duration of the state would be perpetual. While all were in doubt and perplexity, a gallant youth, named M. Curtius, demanded if Rome had any thing more precious than arms and valor. He then mounted his horse, fully caparisoned, and while all gazed in silence, regarding now the Capitol and the temples of the gods, now the chasm, he solemidy devoted himself for the weal of Rome; then giving his horse the spurs, he pliniged into the gulf and disappeared; the ]>eople poured in fruits and other otFerings, and the yawning chasm at length chjsed.* A war, the cause of which is not assigned, being now de- clared against the Hertiicans, the plebeian consul L. Genucius invaded their territory. But he let himself be surprised, his soldiers fled, and he himself was slain. The victorious Her- nicans advanced to assail the camp : but the soldiers, en- couraged and headed l)y the legate C. Sulpicius, made a sal- ly and drove them off. At Rome the news of the defeat and death of the consul gave the utmost joy to the patricians. " This comes," they cried, "of polluting the auspices: men might be insulted and trifled with, not so the immortal gods." Ap. Claudius was forthwith created dictator, and having levied an army he went and joined that under Sul- picius. The Ilernicans on their side strained every nerve ; all of the military age were sumnioned to the field; eight co- horts, of four hundred men each, of chosen youths, with double pay and a promise of future in)munity from service if victorious, stood in the front of their line. The courage, skill, and discipline of the two now adverse peoples were ecjual. The battle was long and obstinate: the Roman knights had to dismount and fight in the front. The conflict end- ed oidy with the night; a dubious victory remained with the Romans, who had lost one fourth of their men and several of their knights. Next day the Hernicans abandoned their * Tlie legend was evidently invented to give an orijjin to the Laeus Curtius. as .1 part of the Forum was named. The historian Piso, wlio soiiirht to rationalize all the legends of the old history, said that it was so named from Mettus Curtius, a Sabine, who in the war between Roinulijs and Tatiuj, plunged with his liorse into the lake ^vhich then occupied that place GALl IC AND TUSCAN WARS. 127 caiiijj ; the liomans were too much exhausted to pursue, but line colouists of Signia i'ell on and routed tlieui. 'i'he follow- ing year (394) tlie Romans ravaged their lands with impuni- ty, and took their town of Ferentinum. As the legions were returning, the Tiburtines closed their gates against them, whicli gave occasion to a war with this people. The Ciaufs, owing most probably to the in'flux of new hordes from home, had for many years spread their ravages to the very utmost point of Italy. Lutiuni sulTered with the rest ; and a Gallic army is said to have appeared at this time on the Anio. T. QuinctiusPennus, the dictator, led an army against them. While they stood opposite each other, a Gaul of srinranlic stature advanced on the bridge, and challencred any Roman to engage him. T. Manlius (he who had saved his father) then went to the dictator and craved permission to meet the boastful Coe. Leave was freely granted ; his com- rades armed him and led him against the huge Gaul, who put out his tongue in derision of the pigmy champion. In the combat the Gaul made huge cuts with his heavy broadsword ; the Roman, running in, threw up the bottom of the foeman' great shield with his own, and, gettingvinside of it, stabbed him again and again in the belly, till he fell like a mountain. He took nothing from him save his golden collar, [torquis,) whence he derived the nameof Torquatus.* The Gauls, dis- Hiayed at the foil of their champion, broke up in the night and retired to Tiber. The following year (395) the Gauls again appeared, and, united with the Tiburtines, committed great ravages in La- tium ; they even advanced to the walls of Rome, where Q,. Servilius Ahala was made dictator, and a battle was fought before the Colline gate. The loss on both sides was consid- erable, but the Gauls were driven off, and as they approached Tibur they were attacked by the consul C. Poetelius and the victory completed. Two years after (397) the Gauls came again into Latium and encamped at Pedum. The common danger caused a re- newal of the ancient alliance between Rome and Latium, and a combined army, under the dictator C. Sulpicius, took the field. The dictator, loth to* risk a battle when the enemy might be overcome more surely by delay, encamped in a strong position, which the Gauls did not venture to attack ; * The legend, wliicli reminds one of David and Goliath, was ap patently invented to acconnt for the name. The tale how our own Cwiir de Lion '• robbed the lion of his heart," is a iv.sre modern instanco c-l'this nractici!. 128 HISTORY OF ROME. hut his own soldiors grew impatient, and demanded to !ic Jed to battle. Sulpicius, fearing he might not be able to ree^train them, complied ; but the event justified his caution; the le- gions were driven back, and but for the eflTorts of despair .vhich they made at the call of the dictator, and a stratagem which he had devised, they would have sustained a delbat. He had the night before sent off all the horse-boys, armed and mounted on mules, into the woods on the hills over his cainp, and directed them when he made a signal to show themselves and advance toward that of the enemy. He now made the signal ; the Gauls, fearing to be cut off from their camp, fell back ; the Romans pressed on them, and they broke and made for the woods, where great numbers of them were slain. The gold found in their camp was walled up in the Capitol, and the dictator triumphed as he deserved. But while the arms of Rome were thus fortunate undet the dictator, they sustained a disgrace under the consul C. Fabius in Etruria ; for the Tarquinians, with whom there now was war, gave him a defeat; and, having taken three hun- dred and seven Roman soldiers, they offered theni as victims to their gods. The Roman territory to the south was also ravaged by the Volscians of Velitraj and Privernum ; but the next year (393) the Privernates were defeated under their own walls by the consul C. Marcius. This year was rendered memorable by the condemnation of C. Licinius for the transgression of his own law. H(; wa.s fined 10,000 asses for having one thousand jugers of the pub- lic land, one half being held in the name of his son whom he had emancipated for the purpose of eluding the law. By a rogation of the tribunes 1\I. Duilius and L. Majnius, the rate of interest was reduced to ten per cent., (fcenus vnciarlum ;) an attempt was made also by the patricians to have laws passed away from the city, by the soldiers when under the military oath. The consul Cn. IManlius held in the camp at Sutrium an assembly of the tribes, and passed a law, impo- sing an rid valorem duty of five per cent, on the emancipation of slaves. The law was a good one; the senate readily gave it their sanction ; but the tribunes saw their ulterior ob- ject, and made it capital to hold s'uch assemblies in future. In 000 the consul M. Fabins engaged a combined army of the T;irq;iinians and Faliscans. The Tuscan Lucumones, we Kre told, ruslicd out in front of their Hue, shaking serpents ;md waving iirrjited torches. This novel apparition at fir'y fifit THIRD SAiyiNITE AND ETRUSCAN WARS. 151 CHAPTER VII. THIRD SAMNITE AND ETRITSCAN WARS. BATTLE OF SENTI- NUM, AND SELF-DEVOTION OF DECIUS. BATTLE OP AQUI- LONIA. REDUCTION OF THE SAMNITES. HORTENSIAN LAW. — -WORSHIP OF jESCULAPIUS INTRODUCED. — LUCA- NIAN WAR. ROMAN EMBASSY INSULTED AT TARENTUM. OALLIC AND ETRUSCAN WAR. Four years (450 — 454) passed away in tolerable tranquil- lity. In 4-54 Lucanian envoys appeared at Rome, praying for aid agriinst the Samnites, who had entered their country in arms, given them various defeats, and taken several of their towns. The Romans, in right of their supremacy, sent orders to the Samnites to withdraw their troops from I I Lucania : the Samnites' pride was roused at being thus re- I I minded of their subjection ; they ordered the fetials off their | I territory, and war was at once declared against them by | \ the Romans. As the Etruscans were now also in arms, ji I the consul L. Cornelius Scipio went against them, while f | his colleasrue Cn. Fulvius invaded Samnium. I | Scipio engaged -a numerous Etruscan army near Vola- \ « terriB. Night ended a hard-fought battle, leaving it un- | I decided. The morn however revealed that the advantage | I was on the side of the Romans, as the enemy bad aban- | I doned their camp during the night. Having placed his || baggage and stores at Falerii, Scipio spread his ravages || over the country, burning the villages and ham>tets; and no army appeared to oppose him. Fulvius meantime carried on the war with credit in Samnium. Near Bovianum he defeated a Samnite army, and took that town and another named Aufidena. The rumor of the great preparations which the Samnites and the Etruscans were said to be making caused the peo- | pie to elect Q. Fabius to the consulate, ag^anst his will ; and at his own request they joined with him P. EXecius. As the Etruscans remained quiet, both the consuls invaded Samnium, (455,) Fabius entering from Sora, Decius from Sidicinum. The Samnites gave Fabius battle near Tifer- num • their infantry stood firm against that of the Romans; the charge of the Roman cavalry had as little effect. At length, when the reserve had come to the frojit, and he 152 HISTORY OF ROME. contest WHS most obstinate, the legate Scipio, whom the consul iiad sent away during the action with the Hastates of the first legion, appeared on the neigliboring hills. Both armies took them for the legions of Decius ; the Samnites' courage fell, that of the Romans rose, and evening closed on their victory. Dacius had meantime defeated the Apu- lians at Maleventum. During five months both armies ravaged Sanmium with impunity; the traces of five-and- forty camps of Decius, of eighty-six of Fabius, bore witness to the sufferings of the ill-fated country. The next year (450) the Samnites put into execution a daring plan which they had formed in the preceding war, namely, sending an army, to be paid and supported out of their own funds, into Etruria, leaving Sanmium meantime at the mercy of the enemy. The Sanniite army, luider Gellius Egnatius,- on arriving there, was joined by the troops of most of the Tuscan states; the Unibrians also shared in the war, and it was proposed to take Gallic mer- cenaries into pay. The consul Ap. Claudius entered Etru- ria with his two legions and twelve thousand of the allies, but he did not feel himself strong enough to give the con- federates battle. The consul Volunniius, probably by com- mand of the senate, led his army to join him ; but Appius gave him so ungracious a reception that he was preparing to retire, when the officers of the other army implored him not to abandon them for their general's fault. Volunmius then agreed to remain and figlit : a victory was speedily gained over the Etruscans and Samnites, whose general Egnatius was unfortunately absent; 7300 were slain, 2120 taken, and their camp was stormed and plundered. As Volumnius was returning by rapid marches to Sam- nium, he learned that the Samnites had taken advantage of his al)sence to make a descent on Campania, where they had collected an immense booty. He forthwith directed his course thither : at Cales he heard that they were en- camped on the Volturtuis, with the intention of carrying their prey into Samnium to secure it. He came and en camped near them, but out of view ; and when the Samnites had before day sent forward their captives and booty under an ^'scort, and were getting out of their cam]) to follow them, they were suddenly fallen on by the Romans: the camp was stormed with great slaughter; the captives, hear- ing the tumult, unbound themselves, and fell on their escort: THIRD SAMNITE AND ETRUSCAN WARS. 15-3 the Sainnites were routed on all sides; 6000 were slain. 2500 were taken, 7400 captives, with all their property, were recovered. The union of the Saninites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls, which had now been formed, caused the greatest apprehension at Rome, and the people insisted on electing Q,. Fabius consul, to which he would only consent on con- dition of his approved mate in arms P. Decius being given him for colleague. His wish was complied with. The four legions of the former year were kept on foot and com- pleted, two new ones raised, and two armies of reserve formed. The number of troops furnished by the allies was considerable : among them were one thousand Campanian horse, for as the Gauls were strong in this arm, it was ne- cessary to augment its force. During the winter Fabius set out, with four thousand foot and six hundred horse, to take the command in Etruria. As he drew nigh to the camp of Ap. Claudius he met a party sent out for firewood ; he ordered them to go back and use the palisades of their camp for the purpose. This gave con- fidence to the soldiers, and to keep up their spirits, he never let them remain stationary, but moved about from place to place. In the spring (4.57) he returned to Rome to ar- ranore the campaign, leaving the command in Etruria with L. Scipio. The consuls led their main force to join the troops left with Scipio; one army of reserve under Fulvius was sta- tioned in the Faliscan, another in the Vatican district. But the Gauls, pouring in by the pass of Camerinum, had annihilated a Roman legion left to defend it; their numerous cavalry spread over Umbria and got between Scipio and Rotne ; and as they rode up to the consular army, the heads of the slain Romans, which they carried on spears and hung at their horses' breasts, made the Ro- mans believe that Scipio's whole army had been destroyed. A junction however was formed with him, and L. Volum- nius, who commanded in Samnium, was directed to lead his legions to reinforce those of the , consuls. The three united armies then crossed the Apennines, and took a po- sition in the Sentine country to menace the possessions of the Senonian Gauls; and the two armies of reserve ad- vanced in proportion, the one to Clusium, the other to the Faliscan country. The confede'-ates came and en- camped before the Romans; but the} avoided an action^ T 154 HISTORY OF ROME. prohnhly Walttng for reinforcements. The consuls, lenniing by (le^^ertors tliat the i)lan of the enemy was for the Gauls and Saiuuites to give them battle, and the Etruscans and Umbrians to fall on their camp diiring the action, sent orders to Fulvius to ravage Etruria : this called a large part of the Etruscans home, and the consuls endeavored to bring on an engagement during their absence. For two entire days they vainly sought to draw the confederates to the field ; on the third their challenge was accepted. Fabtus commanded on the right, opposed to the Samnites and the remaining Etruscans and Umbrians ; Decius led the left wing against the Gauls. Ere the fight began, a wolf ciiased a hind from the' mountains down between the tXvo armies; the hind sought refuge among the Gauls, by whom she was killed ; the wolf ran among the Romans, who made way for him to pass; and this appearance of the favorite of Mars was regarded as an omen of victory. In the hope of tiring the Samnites, Fabiiis made his men act rather on the defensive, and he refrained from bringing his reserve into action. Decius, on the other hand, know- ing how impetuous the first attack of the Gauls always was, resolved not to await it ; he charged with both foot and horse, and twice drove bSick the numerous Gallic cavalry ; but when his horse charged a third time, the Gauls sent forward their war-chariots, which spread confusion and dis- may amoUg them ; they fled back among their mfantry ; the victorious Gauls followed hard upon them. The battle, and with it possibly the hopes of Rome, was on the point of being lost, when Decius, who had resolved, if defeat im- j>ended, to devote himself like his father at Vesuvius, de- sired the pontiff M. Liviu?, whom he had kept near him for the purpose, to repeat the form of devotion ; then add- ing to it these words, " I drive before me dismay and (lisrht, slaughter and blood, the anger of the powers above and below ; with funereal terrors I touch the arms, weapons, and ensigns of the foe ; the same place shall be that of my end and of the Gauls and Samnites," he spurred his horse, rusheti into the thick of the enemies, and fell covered with wounds. The pontiff, to whom Decius had given his lictors, encouraged the Romans; a part of Fabius' reserve came to their support : the Gauls stood in a dense mass covered with their shields the Romans, collecting the piVa that lay on the ground lurled them on them ; but the Gauls stood unmoved, til Fabius, who by bringing forward BATTLE or AQUILONIA. 155 his reserve and causing his horse to fall on their flank, had driven the Samnites to their camp, sent five hundred Cam- panian horse, followed by the Principes of the third legion, to attack them in the rear , they then broke and fled. Fabius again assailed the Samnites under their rampart ; their gen- eral, Gellius Egnatius, fell, and the camp was taken. The confederates lost 25,000 men slain and 8000 taken ; 7000 was the loss in the wing* led by Decius, 1200 in that of Fabius. This was one of the most important victories ever achieved by the arms of Rome. ' ' The following year the war was continued in Etruria and Samnium, and a bloody battle was fought at Nuceria. The next year (459) the consuls, L. Papirius Cursor and Sp. Carvilius, took the field against a Samnite army, which all the aids of superstition had been employed to fender formidable. All the fighting men of Samniam were ordered to appear at the town of Aquilonia. A tabernacle, two hundred feet square and covered with linen, was erected in the midst of the camp. Within it a venerable man named Ovius Pac- tius offered sacrifice after an ancient ritual contained in an old linen book. The Imperator or general then ordered the nobles to be called in separately; each as he entered beheld through the gloom of the tabernacle an altar in th6 centre, about which lay the bodies of the victims, and around which stood centurions with drawn swords. He was required to swear, imprecating curses on himself, his family, and his race, if he did not in the battle go whithersoever the Impe- rator ordered him, if he fled, or did not slay any one whom he saw flying. Some of the first summoned, refusing to swear, were slain, and their bodies lying among those of the victims served as a warning to others. The Impe- rator selected ten of those who had thus sworn, each of whom was directed to choose a man till the number of sixteen thousand was completed, which was named, from the tabernacle, the Linen Legion. Crested helmets and su- perior arms were given them for distinction. The rest of the army, upwards of 20,000 men, was little inferior in any respect to the Linen Legion. The Roman armies entered Samnium ; and while Papir- ius advanced to Aquilonia, Carvilius sat down before a fortress named Cominium, about twenty miles from that nhce. The ardor for battle is said to have been shared to such an extent by all in the Roman army, that the Pul* 156 HISTORY OF ROME. larius, or keeper of the sacred chickens, made a false report of favorable signs. The truth was told to tne consul as he was going into battle ; but he said the signs reported to him were good, and only ordered the Pullarii to be placed in the front rank; and when the guilty one fell by the chance blow of a pi/um, he cried, that the gods were present, the guilty was punished. A raven croaked aloud as he spoke ; he ordered the trumpets to sound and the war-cry to be raised. , The Samnites had sent off twenty cohorts to the relief of Coniiniutn; their spirits were depressed, but they kept their ground, till a great cloud of dust, as if raised by an army, was seen on one side. For the consul had sent off before the action Sp. Nautius, with the males and their drivers, and some cohorts of the allies, with directions to ad- vance during the enj/agement, raising all the dust they could. Nautius now came Ln view, the horseboys having boughs in their hands, which they dragged along the ground ; and the arms and banners appearing through the dust, made both Romans and Samnites think that an army was ap- proaching. The consul then gave the sign for the horse to charge; the Samnites broke and fled, some to Aquilonia, Bome to Bovianum. The number of their slain is said to have been 30,340, and 3S70 men and 97 banners were captured. A(]uilonia and Cominium were both taken on the same day. The consuls remained in Samnium, ravaging the country, till the falling of the snow obliged them to leave it for the winter.* In the next campaign, (400,) the Samnite general C. Pon- tius gave the Roman consul Q,. Fabius Gurges, son of the great Fabius, a complete defeat. A strong party in the senate, the enemies of the Fabian house, were for depriving the consul of his comnvand ; but the peoph; yielded to the prayers of his father, who implored them to spare him this disgrace in his old age; and he himself went into Samnium as legate to his son. At a place whn.^e name is unknown, the battle which decided the fate of Samnium was fought. Fabius gained the victory by his usual tactics, of keeping his reserve for the proper time. The Samnites had twenty thousand slain and four thousand taken, among whom was their great Imperator C. Pontius. In the triumph of Fabiua * Livy's first Docad ends here. We have only an epitome of the next, which contained the history to the year 534. We are now for some years left to the guidance of the epitomatore, and th(! fragments of Appian and Dion. WORSHIP OF ^SCULAPIUS INTRODUCED. lo'l Gurges, his renowned father humbly followed his car on horseback ; and C. Pontius was led in bonds, and then, to Rome's disgrace, beheaded. Q,. Fabius Maximus, one of the greatest men that Rome ever produced, died it is prob- able shortly afterwards.* The Samnite war, which had lasted with little intermis- sion for nine-and-forty years, was now terminated by a peace, of the terms of which we are not informed. The Sabine?, who, after a cessation of one hundred and fifty years, fool- ishly took up arms against Rome, were easily reduced by the consul M'. Curius Dentatus, and a large quantity of their land was taken from them. Much larger assignments than the usual seven jugers might now be made, but Curius deemed it unwise to pass that limit ; and when the people murmured, he replied, that he was a pernicious citizen whom the land which sufficed to support him did not satisfy. He refused for himself five hundred jugers and a house at Tifata which the senate offered him, and contented himself with a farm of seven jugers in the Sabine country. The length of the Samnite war, its consequent great ex- pense, the destruction of property in the invaded districts, the neglect of agriculture on account of the incessant mil- itary service, and other causes which will easily suggest themselves, caused considerable distress at Rome, and it even came to a secession. The people posted themselves on the Janiculan; but the dictator, Q,. Hortensius, induced them to submit, either by an abolition or a considerable reduction of the amount of their debts. This is the last secession we read of in Roman history. On this occasion the Hortensian law, which made the plebiscits binding on the whole nation, was passed; a meas-. ure probably caused by the obstinacy and caprice of the patricians, but pregnant with evil, from which however the good fortune of Rome long preserved her. It was as if with us a measure which had passed the Commons were to be- come at once the law of the land.t Among the events of this period, the introduction of the worship of iEsculapius deserves to be noticed. In the year * The reason of his surname Maximus will be given in the noxt chapter. t Niebiihr says that the language of the law must have been ut quod trihiitim picbes jussisset popuium tencret. He thinks (Hist, of Ro ne ii. 3()t)) that the Hortensian law did awa\' with the veto of the senate, ■js the Publilian did with that of th? curies. 14 158 HISTORY OF ROME. 459 an epidemic prevailed at Rome, and the Sibylline books being consulted, it was directed to fetch yEsculapius tu Rome. A trireme with ten deputies was sent to Epidaurus for that purpose. The legend relates, that the senate of that place agreed that the Romans should take whatever the god should give them ; and that as tiiey prayed at tiic temple, a huge snake came out of the sanctuary, went on tu the town five miles off, through the streets, to the harbor, thence on board the Roman trireme, and into the cabin of Q.. Ogulnius. The envoys, having been instructed in the worship of the god, departed, and a prosperous wind brought them to Antium. Here they took shelter from a storm ; the snake swam ashore, and remained twined round a palm- tree at the temple of Apollo while they staid. When they reached Rome he left the ship again, and swimming to the island, disappeared in the spot where the temple of the god was afterwards built.* Rome now rested from war for some years. At length (468) the Tarentines, who had been the chief agents in 3xciting the Samnite war, succeeded in inducing the Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls in the north, and the Lu- canians, Brutiians, and Saranites in the south, to take arms simultaneously against her. The commencement was the hostility exercised by the Lucanians against the people of the Greek town of Thurii, who, despairing of aid from any other quarter, applied to the Romans ; and a Roman army came and relieved the town. In 470, a Roman army under C. Fabricius came to the relief of Thurii, which was again invested by a united army of Lucanians and Bruttians. The spirits of the Romans sank as they viewed their own inferiority of force : wher} lo ! a youth of gigantic stature, wearing a doublo-crestefj helm, like those on the statues of Mars, was seen to seize a scaling-ladder, and mount the rampart of the enemies' camp. The courage of the Romans rose, that of the foes declined, and a signal victory crowned the arms of Rome. When, next day the consul sought that valiant youth, to bestow on him the suitable meed, he was nowhere to be found. Fabricius then directed a thanksgiving to Father Mars (as it must have been he) to be held throughout the army.t ** The simple truth probably is, that the Romans obtained one of the tame sacred snakes that were kept at the temple of Jlsculapius : the details are of course legendary. t Val. Max. i. 8. G. This, says Niebuhr, is t.ae last poetic legend in ROMAN EMBASSY INSULTED. 151) Many other victories succeeded ; and no Roman general had as yet acquired so much booty as Fabricius did in this campaign. When the Roman army retired, a garrison was left for the defence of Thurii. As it was only by sea that a com- munication could be conveniently kept up with it, a squadron of ten triremes, under the duumvir L. Valerius, was now in these waters. Some years before, it had been an article in a treaty with the Tarentines, that no Roman ship of war should sail north of the Lacinian capej but as they had taken no notice of it now, and there was as yet no open hostility between them and the Romans, Valerius entered the harbor of Tarentum. The people unluckily happened at that moment to be assembled in the theatre, which com- manded a view of the sea; a demagogue named Philocharis, a man of the vilest character, pointing to the Roman ships, reminded them of the treaty; the infuriated populace rushed on shipboard, attacked and sunk four, and took one of the Roman vessels. The duumvir was among those who per- ished. The Tarentines then sent a force against Thurii, where they plundered the town and banished the principal citizens: the Roman garrison was dismissed unmolested. The Romans, as they had an Etruscan war on their hands, were anxious to accommodate matters amicably in the south. Their demands therefore were very moderate ; they only re- quired the release of those taken in the trireme; the restora- tion of the Thurians, and restitution of their property ; and the surrender of the authors of the outrage. Audience was given to the envoys in the theatre. When they entered, the people laughed at the sight of their purple-bordered prcB- textce, and the faults of language committed by L. Poslu- mius, the chief of the embassy, redoubled their merriment. As the envoys were leaving the theatre, a drunken buffoon came and befouled the robe of Postumius in the most abom- inable manner : the peals of laughter were redoubled ; but Postumius, holding up his robe, cried out, "Ay, laugh, laugh while ye may; ye will weep long enough when ye hnve to wash this out in blood." He displayed at Rome his unwashed garment; and the senate, after anxious de- 'iberation, declared war against Tarentum. (471.) The the Homan history. He is mistaken ; the Tyndarids appeared in 584, mounted nn their white horses, to one P. Vatienus, to announce the defeat of Perseus. Cic. de N. J) ii. 5i 160 HISTORY OF ROME. consul L. yEmilius Barbula was ordered to lead his army thither, to offer anew the former terms, and if they were refused to carry on the war with vigor. The Tarentines however, would listen to no terms ; tliey resorted to their usual system of seeking aid from the mother-country, and sent an embassy to invite over Pyrrhus, the renowned king "of Epirus. Meantime .^miliiis laid waste their coun- try, took several strong places, and defeated them in the field. We will now turn our view northwards. In 409 a com- bined army of Etruscans and Senonian Gauls having laid siege to Arretium, the prrctor L. Metcllus hastened to its re- lief; but his army was totally defeated, thirteen tliousand men being slain, and nearly all the remainder made pri.son- ers. When an emba,ssy was sent to the Gauls to complain of breach of treaty, and to redeem tlie prisoners, the Gallic prince Britomaris, to avenge his father, who had fallen at Arretium, caused the fetials to be murdered. The consul P. Cornelius Dolabella instantly marched through the Sa- bine and Picentian country into that of the Senones, whom he defeated when they met him in the field: he then wasted the lands, burned their open villages, put all the men to death, and reduced the women and children to slavery. Britomaris, who was taken alive, was reserved to grace the consul's triumph. The Boians, who dwelt between the Senones and the Po, were filled with rage and apprehension at the fate of their brethren, and assembling all their forces they entered Etruria, where being joined by the Etruscans and the remnant of the Senones, they pressed on for Rome ; but at the lake Vadimo the consular armies met, and nearly an- nihilated their whole army; the Senones, it is said, in the frenzy of despair put an end to themselves when they saw the battle lost. The Gauls appeared again the next year (470) in Etruria; but a signal defeat near Populonia forced them to sue for peace, which, on account of the war in the south, the Romans readily granted. The waj- with the Etruscans continued till 4*<2, when, in conseqtience of that with Pyrrhus, the Romans concluded a peace with them on most favorable terms. This peace terminated the conflict, which had now lasted for thirty years, and converted Etruria into Rome's steadiest and most faithful ally. ARRIVAL OF PYRRHUS IN ITALY. 161 CHAPTER Vm. ■nm: -.ill ■)■■, i ■ ARRIVAL Ot". PYRRHUS IN ITALY. —BATTLE ON THE SIUIS. • CINEAS AT ROME. APPROACH OF PYRRHUS TO ROME. BATTLE OF ASCULUM. PYRRHlis IN SICILY. BATTLE OF BENEVENTUM, DEPARTURE OF PYRRHUS. ITALIAN AL- LIES; CENSORSHIP OF AP. CLAUDIUS. CHANGE IN THE CONSTITUTION. —THE ROMAN LEGION. ROMAN LITERA TURK. Pyrrhus, the ablest and most ambitious prince of his time, lent a willing ear to the invitation of the Italian Greeks which held out to him such a prospect of extensive dominion.* He sent his minister, the orator Cineas,t back with some of the envoys, to assure the Tarentines of aid ; and shortly after- wards Milo, one of his generals, landed with 3000 men to garrison the town. Having assembled an array of 20,000 foot, 3000 horse, 2000 archers, 500 slingers, and twenty elephants, the king himself set sail (472) for Italy ; but a storm came on and dispersed his fleet; several ships were sunk or cast away ; and Pyrrhus, who had escaped with dif- ficulty, reached Tarentum with but a small force. He did not seek to exercise any authority till the rest of his troops were arrived ; but as soon as he found himself sufficiently strong, he began to employ the dictatorial power with which he had been invested. The Tarentines had thought they would have nothing to do but pay money, while the king's troops were fighting; but Pyrrhus let them know that they also must share in the toils and dangers of war. He set guards at the gates to prevent them from running out of the town, as they were doing; he shut up the theatre, forbade ail public meals and banquets, ordered the young men to practise military exercises in their gymnasia, and sent, under various , •'■• .,h ■■, * Wor the war with Pyrrhus see the ep'tomators and Plut., Pyrriiuy. ' ! CiuvR^ v,"3? a Thessaliati "by birth, an able, eloquent, and noble minci 14 * u 162 HISTORY OF ROME. pretexts, the principal men over to Epirus, that they might serve as hostages in cjise of any conspiracy against his au- thority. The consul P. Valerius Lajvinus having led his army into Lucania, Pyrrhus, who had not yet been joined by his alliea, wrote to him, offering to arbitrate between the Romaii» and the Tareutii>€s, which last he said lie could compel to give satisfactioii. L.-Dviaus replied that the king must first atone for having entereanced and receded ; thei consul thought to decide the battle, by a charge of hor.se ott the rear ; but the elephai;it3 were n^w brought into action, and at the sight of tlies^ un- known animals horse and man were filled with terror ; the Thessaliau horse charged and scattered them; they drew the infantry with them in their flight over the river, and none perhaps would have, escaped, were it not that a wounded ele- phant tnrnc^ hi? rage agaiii^f his own side. The remnant of the Roman army fled to Vcnusia : their loss had been 7000 sjain, and, about 2000 taken. On the side of the vic- tors 4000 had fdicn. When Pyrrhus, on the following day, viewed the field of b-ittle, he cried, " With su^^h soldieis the world were mine, And were I their general tne j^omana would have it !" To those who congrafj'aied him on his success he replied, " One sucn victory mor , and I go back to Epirus." He ordered the bodies of the Romans to be CINE AS AT ROME. 163 burned and buried like those of his own men. He proposed Ic »1 o viisoners to enter his service,* and on their refusal fr ;r J. ."^^hein from fetters. The whole south of Italy now joined Pyrrhus ; but this prince, who disliked long wars, and had had experience of Roman valor, preferred an honorable peace, which he thought might now be obtained, to a prolonged contest. He de- spatched his friend Cineas to Rome, to propose a peace, on condition of the independence of the Italian Greeks being acknowledged, and all that had been taken from the Samrtites, Lucanians, Bruttians, and Apulians being restored. Peace being made on these terms, the Roman prisoners, among whom were six hundred knights, would be released without ransom. The eloquence and the winning manners of Cineas, though his gifts were refused, had a great effect on the minds of many ; the relatives of the prisoners were anxious on their account ; the Etruscan war was not yet ended. The prof- fered terms seemed likely to be accepted, when Ap. Claudius, who, on account of the blindness with which he was afflicted, had long abstained from public affairs, had himself carried in a litter to the senate-house. His sons and sons-in-law came out to receive him, and lead him in, and his indignant elo- quence banished all thoughts of peace from the minds of his auditors, and Cineas was ordered to quit Rome. On his return to his master he told him that Rome was a temple, the senate an assembly of kings. While he was yet there, two letrions had been rai.sed to reinforce Laevinus, and volunteers had crowded with the utmost eagerness to be enrolled. Laevinus, who was now in Campania, was there joined by these legions, and he baffled the attempts of Pyrrhus on Capua and Neapolis, The king, as he could not bring him to ac- tion, resolved to push on for Rome, and form ajunction with the Etruscans. Instead of taking the Appian or lower road, on which there were several strong towns, he moved by the Latin road over the hills. He took Fregellse, entered the Hernican country^ where the people declared for him, pushed on to Praeneste,t and advanced five miles beyond it, to ' The Grecian mercenaries at this time constantly changed sides after a defeat. The san e was the case in Italy in the middle ages, and in Ge-many in tiie Ihi-^y years' war. ' He had a view o' Ilome from the citadel of the town. (Floru« i. 18.) 164 HISTORY OF ROJ?E. within eighteen miles of Rome ; but here his course ended. Peace had just been made with the Etruscans, and the army employed against tiiem was now in Rome. La;vinus dis- turbed the communications in his rear : to take Rome by storm or blockade was hopeless. Heedless of the prayers oi the Prsonestines and Hernicans, he resolved to retrace his steps. On reaching Campania he found Laevinus at the head of six legions : " What ! " cried he, " am I fighting \ with the hydra ? " He drew up his troops, who raised the i war-cry, and clashed their arms. The Romans replied in I such cheerful tones that he did not deem it prudent to attack ithem, and he dismissed his allies and went to Tarentum for the winter. At Tarentum Pyrrlius was waited on by throe Roman ) ambassadors, C Fabricius, Q. /Emilius Papus, and P. Cor- ; nelius Dolal)ella, all- consulars, to treat of the ransom or i exchange of the numerous prisoners who were now in his f hands.* He rejected their offers ; but he gave the prisoners [ permission to go wi^h them to Rome to keep the Saturnalia, 5 on their promise to return if the senate did iK>t make peace : [ and, as all their efforts proved vain, they returned every one I • into captivity. In the spring (473) Pyrrhus opened the campaign in Apu- lia. He was besieging Venusia when he heard that the con- suls P. Sulpicius and P. Dccius were advancing to its relief; he therefore raised the siege, and prepared to give them battle at a place named Asculum, on the edge of the moun- tains. As the ground here was against Pyrrhus, the advan- tage was on the side of the Romans in the first engagement; but he mancEUvred so as to dr<*iw:them down into the plain, where by a sudden attack of the elephants and light troops on their flank, while they were exhausting themselves by fruitless efforts against the solid phalanx, he put them to flight. As their camp was at hand, their loss was but 0000 men ;^ that of the king was 3<>05. "One such victory more, ■ fOnithii occasion, wo are told (Plut., Pyrrhus, 20) that the king, having learned the poverty of Fabricius from Cineas, tried to induce him to accept a present of gold. The Roman declined ; and next day, as he and Pyrrhus were conversing, a curtain behind them suddenly drew up, and an elephant, which had been placed there by the kina a 3.'ders, stretched his trunk out over them, and gave a loud roar. Fa bri^ids. who had never seen one of these huge animals, only stopped dttiCa, btid said with a smile to the king, " Your gold did not move ma Yesterday, nor your beast to-day- PTRRHUS iN SICILY. 165 ! and I am undone," cried Pyrrhus, who returned to Taren- 1 turn withoHt making any attempt on the Roman camp. '• The situation of Pyrrhus was now rather precarious : he i had lost the flower of his troops ; he could not reckon on his Italian allies, who had even plundered his camp during the ! last action ; the Gauls had invaded Macedonia and menaced ' all Greece, and he could not draw any troops from Epirus ; I while the Romans had concluded an alliance with the Cartha- ginians, and a Punic fleet of one hundred and thirty triremes ; was now off" the coast of Italy. On the other hand, strong ; inducements were held out to him to pass over into Sicily, ! and deliver it from the yoke of the Carthaginians. The j Romans, on their side, owing to the heavy burden of taxation t consequent on the war, were extremely desirous of peace. ! Just at this time, (474,) we are told,* Pyrrhus' physician sent secretly to the consuls C. Fabricius and Q,. yEmilius, offering I for a reward to poison his master. The consuls, abhorring > the treason, gave information of it to the king. Pyrrhus ' immediately despatched Cineas to Rome with his thanks to 5 the senate ; he gave gifts and clothes to all his prisoners, and f sent them home with him. Cineas was also the bearer of I rich presents to the principal persons of both sexes at Rome. | These presents were, however, all rejected; the friendship [ of the Romans was to be had without gifts, it was replied, if I Pyrrhus quitted Italy. The prisoners of his allies, however, I were released in exchange, and a truce concluded. ! Pyrrhus was now at liberty to accept the invitation of the j Siciliotes. He left Italy, where he had spent two years and j four months; and, passing over to Sicily, remained there ;• three years, and made himself master of nearly the whole' island. During his absence the Roman arms, under Fabri- ; cius and other leaders, w^ere directed with success against his i Italian allies. At length, finding fortune becoming adverse i to him in Sicily, and being urged by the prayers of the Ta- \ rentines and his other allies, he returned to Italy (477) with f an army of 20,000 foot and 3000 horse, a portion of which j he sent into Lucania against the consul Lentulus, while, with 1 the remainder, he advanced to engage the other consul, | M'. Curius Dentatus, who was encamped near Beneventum, » in Sainnium. r 1 Curius occupied a strong position on a height, intending^' s • There is great contradiction in the various accounts of this trans- .iction, Niebuhr says that it was a mere iiction to open communica' tions, and was so understood by all parties. f 166 HISTORY OF ROME. to await the arrival of his colleague. It was the intention of Pyrrhus to attack him at daybreak with some elephants and picked troops. A dnmrn, it is said, which he had us he slumbered in the beginning of the night, terrified him, and he wished to give up the project ; but his officers urging on him the impolicy of allowing the two Roman armies to join, he sent forward the troops. To reach the heights behind the Roman camp, they had to go a round through dense woods, guided by torch light. They lost their way, their torches burned out, and it was broad day when they reached their destination. Being wearied with their march, they were easily put to flight. The consul then came down into the plain to engage the main army ; the Romans were victo- rious on one wing, but the other was driven back to the camp by the phalanx and the elephants. Here a shower of arrows, bearing burning wax and tar, was hurled on the beasts, which growing furious carried confusion into the ranks of the phalanx. The rout was now complete, and Pyrrhus' camp was taken. The king soon after (478) (juitted Italy with but (jOOO foot and 500 horse, and two years later he lost his life in an attempt on the city of Argos.* In the course of the succeeding nine years the Roman dominion was established over the south and east of Italy, but few of the particulars have been transmitted to us. The Italian states stood in different relations to Rome. In general they held all iheir lands in full property, paying no land-tax ; but in a number of cases a portion of their territory had been converted into Roman public land, and assigned to colonists or occupied in the usual manner. 'J'hey were governed by their own laws and magistrates; but they had to supply troops, in rated proportions, when Rome was at war, and arm and pay, and perhaps feed them. They were named Allies,t (.S'oci/,) as distinct from the Latins, {No- men Lalinum,i) who stood on a somewhat different footing. The infantry of the Latins and Allies in a Roman army nstially equalled that of the legions in number ; the cavalry * History of Greece, p. 43'J- t It seems probable tha^the term Alljfs ^plie4 only tQ the Sabellian p&oples and those of Southern It^aly, and that it did not include the Tuscans, Uinbrians, or Italian Greeks; perhaps not even the Brut- tians, as being half-Greeka None, thnrefdre^ but genuine Italians could serve in the Roman armies. t, Thepioper expressicHi vraa sodi et (ot ae) ■nomen Latinum, as in Salhut and other accurate wtitcrs; the' sodi HOfhinis Latini of Livy ia quite incorrect. M ' CENSORSHIP OF \P. CLAUDIUS. 167 was thrice as numerous. Their contingfipts wq^e gijlways commanded by their own officers, fi v^od o".> vli^.i-.a {r.iii ^ ;i'"!! K 'rr ;i-)-inii,t .oiganx.-i'I 'lo «uioinA .P fj:// ')ut)j; )llo.> ^i During the period it the end 6f whidh we are? now arrived, considerable alterations were mcide in the political and mili- tary systems of the Romans. These we will novy proceed to ex'plain. t In the year 442, Ap. Claudius, afterwards named the Blind, {C(Bcus,) from the misfortune which befel him, was made censor with C. Plautius. He distinguished his censorship by commencing the celebrated Appian Road, which was gradually extended from Rome to Capua, and th/qnce across the peninsula to Brundisium, a distance of thre^ hundred and sixty miles, paved the whole way with square blocks of stone, and justly named the Q,ueen of Roads. He likewise made the first aqueduct, the Aqui Appia, at Rome ; the water being conveyed under ground from some springs near the Prienestine road, about eight miles from the city. But the changes which Appius attempted to make in the constitution are of more importance in a! political point of view. When selecting the senate, in virtue of his office, he omitted his enemies, and put in their place the sons of freed- men ; but all united against this innovation, and the consuls of the nklmed Pilani frtJtn their weapon, the pibim.i The Antesignani consisted eiich of fifteen maniples or thirty centuries; and in the plan, which supposed thirty tribes, each century' con- tuined thirty men with the cfenturion ; and the cohort there- fore 91)0 men and 30 officers. As every thing in the Roman institutions was regular and uniform, we must suppose the remaining cohorts to be of equal strength; and this gives a total of 4;">1>0 common men for the legion ; of which 240() (viz. GOO Hastats, 900 Principes, and 900 Triarians) were troops of the line; 1200 (viz. 300 Hastats and 900 Rorarians) light troops ; f the 900 Accensi were merely a depot-baitalion that followed the legion. Two legions thus composed formed a consular army. The Hastats derived th^ir name from the spears [hastie) * 'livy, viii! a*. ' " '•'/ "''-■' -^ .m i!|,!i.;l (ir.iili.ii''I iiri-il.|.'l ,■!• ... f The 7;£/Mm was '« T^eiftiftW cttHi'iJoj^H oFa Hki^dfe'inf Wbd* 'thVtee cubits long, and an iron head of the satne length, one half of which projected beyond the wood. t N'tpbuhr tfives these tiumbers 2^00 and 1100; but in t.iis case 300 Hastats remain unaccounted for. THE BOaiAN LEGION. 171 which they bore; the Frindpes were so called as being of fhe first class;* the Triarians as being formed out of the first three classes,! for the Romans in the period of this «gion, still served according to the classes; the Rorarians, ■;r Sprinklers, from their task of showering (rordre) their missiles in the beginning of the action.| The 40 centuries of the first class gave 30 for the. Principesj 10 for the Tri- arians ; the second and third class gave each 10 for the Triarians, their remaining 20 being the Ilastats of the line. Of the forty centuries of the last two classes, 10 were light Hastats, and 30 Rorarians. ;: , The maniples of the three cohorts of troops of the line were drawn up in quincunx, thus ; n n n j^,^;^c:i'xi.'n u n n n n ;r1q[J,,'&.-VnE. n n n n u n n ^,)p;,j,„fi,,,,;Q, ..,f^,^( ^,,,.,. with lanes or intervals befweeh' theni. !£!ci6h iri'ariipl^ as consisting of two centuries, had two centurions to command it, and a standard-bearer. The maniples of the Hastats ('contained 40 shielded men, that is, men of the second and third class, § 20 armed only with spear and dart, that is, of the fourth class; the Principes bore spears and lonor cut-and-thrust swords; the Triarians pila; t\\e Rorarians slings, as being of the fifth class. When in battle array, the light troops were in front, and began the action ; they then retired through the lanes : the Hastats succeeded, and when they were wearied, they fell back through the Prin- cipes, who then came into action ; and if the enemy still resisted, the Triarians, who had hitherto been sitting under their standards, rose, the Principes and Hastats retired through the; inteijyals pf their maniples, which then closed; and the Triarians, having hurled their j>/Za.,Qn the>.)veAried foe, fell on them sword in hand. |, ,,v,,, .,,,,1, ,,,,..,. About the middle of the fifth century the legion under- went a further modification, ajid became such as it was w^i^p opposed to Hantji.ib^., and as it is describee by Polyb- * " Scutati omnes, insignibus maxime armis." (Livy.) This shows that they were men of property. >. ■ t Not from their position, for then their naiAe would hav^ been Te?- iiariaivs. ! ^ I " I^eoi quod ante rorat qu^rp,p{Hi|." ^..yarco^li. vi. p. 92. Bip. ed, § See th? system, p. 51. -l -. . ,i,.'T. .yS- Gf It ,8ui']vIo'l 172 HISTORY OK ROME. ius.* Fabius MaximuS and Decius were probably the au thors of this change also. As the class system was no longer suited to the levies, they were now made from the tribes, from each of which four centuries, or l^O men, were selected for each legiori ; so that when the tribes were thirty-five, the legion contained 4200 common men. These were all armed by the state, and classified according to their age ; the youngest being the light troops, or Velites, who began the battle; the next in nge the Hastats, and so on, the Triarians being the oldest men. The Ha.stats and Principes carried pila and swords, the Triarians were armed with spears. Of the 4200 men of the legion, 1200, or twenty maniples, were Has- tats ; the same number Principes ; one half of it, or GOO, Triarians ; the remaining 1200 Velites. The cavalry of each legion consisted of 300 men divided into ten troops, (turmep,) each of 30 men, and commanded by three deciirions. Its station in action was on the wings. Each Jcgiou had six tribunes, each maniple two centurions and two ensigns . legates {hgdti) or lieutenants, commanded the legions under the general. The array of battle still continued to be \n quimunx. j^., . As the century continued tp, be drawn up three in front and ten deep, a question ari^ses how it vvas to act; and it can only have been in the following manner. The century also was drawn up in quincunx. thus fotniing ten lines, each man being allorttd a space of three feet every way. When those in the first line had thrown their p?7o, they fell back, and the second line step- ped forward and took their place, and on so till the whole ten lines had engaged; and if there was a supply of ^?7a, the same course may have been gone through over again; the same was the case when they came to employ their swords.' •'■''' '':.;::""'.:,■'• ..,.,■;':';,■„ „ What the literature of Rome was at iiiis period we have not the means of ascertaining. Brief, dry chronicles of pub- lic events were kept ; the funeral orations made over men • PolybiuB, Ti. 19—26. xviii. 13—15. nOUAN LITERATURE 173 of rank weic prese.>'c-J by their families; a moral poem of App. Claudius the Blind, and his speech against peace with Pyrrhus, were extant in Cicero's days. Cato and Varro* say that it was^lhe custom of the Romans to sing at their ban- quets old songs containing the praises of the illustrious men of former times. It is the opinion of Niebuhrf that the poems from which he supposes the history of the kings and of the early days of the republic to have been framed, were the production of plebeian poets, and composed after the time of the capture of the city by the Gauls ; the middle of the fifth century, which was the golden age of Roman art, he thinks may also have been that of Roman poetry. The measure in which the Romans composed their poems, and which is named Saturnian Vers^, continued to be used to the middle of the seventh century of the city ; but we have very few specimens of it remaining, and its nature is but imperfectly understood. * The former in Cicero, Tusc. Qusest. iv. 2. Brutus, 19 ; the latter in Nonius, s. V. Jissavoce. From the passage of the Brutus " (jucb multis scBculis ante suam (Catonis) mtaCem" it would seem to follow that the custom had gone out of use long before Cato's time ; yet Dionysius (i. 79) plainly speaks of Ballads of Romulus and Remus as being still sung in his time ; and Horace (Carin. iv. 15, 25 — 32) seems to speak of the practice of singing the praises of the renowned of ancient days aa •till continuing. t Hit'.ory of Rome, i. p. 257 15» THE HISTORY OF ROME. PART III.* THE REPUBI.IC — CONQUEST OF CAR- THAGE AND MACEDONIA. CnA?TER I. ,„ . ' ■■ . • i.;iM<| ^.r,.i . .r ! LARTIIAGE. FIRST iPONtC -WirAlR/U- 8lE»li OF AQRlGENTrM. — ROMAN FLEET. NAVAL VICTORY OF DI/ILltTS. -r— INVASION OF AFRICA. DEFEAT AND CAPTURE OF REGULUS. — LOSSES OF THE ROMANS AT SEA. BATTLE AT PANORMOS. DEATH OF REGULUS. DEFEAT OF CLAUDIUS. VICTORY AT THE iEGATIAN ISLES. PEACE WITH CARTHAGE. EFFECTS OF THE WAR. The present portion of our history will be chiefly oc- cupied by the wars between Rome and Carthage ; we will therefore commence it by a brief sketch of the political con- stitution and history of the latter state. Carthage was a colony of the Phcenicians t founded on the north coast of Africa, about a century before the build- ing of Rome. The colony was led, it is said, by Elissa, or Dido, the sister of the king of Tyre : a spot of land under payment of tribute, was obtained from the original inhabit- " The authoritios for this Part are eo various that we must mention lliem at each chapter. Livy (partly in epitome) and the epitomators ire tlie only consecutive ones. The first Punic war is related in detail b}' Polybius, i. 1 — 64. t The Greeks called the Tyrians and Sidonians oii(xtc,on accoMnt »1 their red or purple garments ; hence the Latin Pani and vuninm CARTHAGF,. 175 ants of the country, and a town built,* which rapidly in creased in size and wealth. Tlie people first freed them- selves from the tribute, then reduced the adjoining tribes, and gradually extended their dominion over the coast of Africa from the confines ofCyrene to the Atlantic. The Balearic isles and Sardinia also owned the dominion of Car-, thage, and she early had settlements on the north coast of . Sicily. ■■J The constitution of Carthage obtained the praise of Aris-' totle. It was, like those of the most flourishing commercial states of antiquity, a mixture of aristocracy and democracy, with a preponderance of the former, which was composed of the families of greatest wealth and influence, from whom the persons were chosen who were to fill the chief offices in the state, and who all served without salary, 'ihe senate was formed out of the principal families, and its members had their seats for life. It was presided over by the Suffttcs,f magistrates who are compared to the Roman consuls and the Spartan kings. If the suffetes and senate disagreed, the matter was brought before the people, whose decision was conclusive, on which occasion any one who pleased might speak and give his opinion. The suffetes frequently went out in the command of the armies, but the office of general was distinct from theirs. There was a magistracy of one hundred judges, to whom the generals had to give an ac- count of their conduct in war; and nowhere does the Punic character appear in a more odious light than in the cruel punishments inflicted on those whose only fiiult had been their ill fortune; nothing was more common than to crucify a defeated general. These Hundred, who resembled the Spartan Ephors, became like them in course of ti»^e." Niebuhr, iii. 660 (German.) w ITS HISTORY OF KOME. lively engaged in naking preparations for a vigorous cam- paign. They hiied troops in Liguria, Gaul, and Spain, which, joined with their African troops and the light Nu- niidian cavalry, they sent over to Sicily (490) under Han- nibal the son of Cisco, while another army was collected in Sardinia for the invasion of Italy. Hannibal made Agrigentuni his head-quarters. Leaving the defence of Italy to the praetor, the two consuls, L. Pos- tumius and Q.. Mamilius, passed over to Sicily, and came and encamped within a mile of Agrigentum. Having re- pelled an attack of the enemy, they formed two separate camps, united by a double ditch and a line of posts; their magazines were in the town of Erbessus, which lay at no great distance in thei,r rear. They remained thus for five months, when, at the urgent desire of Hannibal', whose troops were beginning to suffer from hunger, Hainio was sent to Sicily with a force of 50,000 foot, 6000 horse, and sixty elepliants. He advanced to Heraclca, and took the town of Erbessus: the Romans were now reduced to great straits for provisions; an epidemic also broke out among them, and tlie consuls were thinking of giving over the siege ; but Iliero, whose all was at stake, made every effort to sup- ply them, and they resolved to persever". Hanno now en- camjied within little more than a mile of them, and the two armies remained for two months opposite each other. At length, urged by repeated signals and messages from Hannibal, descrii)ing tlie distress in the town, Hanno re- solved to hazard an engagement ; the Romans, who were .suffering nearly as much, eagerly accepted it, and after a hard-fought battle victory remained with thorn. Hanno fled to Heraclea, leaving his camp in the hands of the victors, thirty of his elephants were killed, three wounded, and eleven taken. During the battle Hannibal made a fruitless attack on the Roman lines ; but he soon after took advan- tage of the darkness of the winter nights to break through them, and get off with what remained of his army. The Romans then stornicd the town, and sold such of the in- habitants as survived into slavery. Several of the towns of the interior now came over to the Romans, but those on the coast stood too much in awe of the Punic fleet to follow their example : the coast of Italy also sutfered from its descents, and the senate saw that they must meet the Carthaginians on their own element if they would end the contest with advantacje. But the Punic NAVAL VICTORY OF DUILIUS. 119 ships of war were quinqneremes , and as the Romars and their Greek subjects had never had larger ships than tri- remes, their carpenters could not build the former kind j \ without a model. At length (492) a Carthaginian ship of \ \ war, having gone ashore on the coast of Bruttium, fell into j | their hands, and with this for a model, in the space of sixty ! ! days from the time the timber was cut, they built a fleet of I | one hundred and thirty ships. Meantime stages had been j i erected, on which the destined rowers were taught their art. When the fleet was ready, the consul Cn. Cornelius Scipio j ; sailed over to Messana with seventeen ships, and the rest ; followed along the coast as fast as they could get to sea. j While he remained at Messana envoys came, inviting him to j take possession of the Liparjean isles, and he inconsiderately sailed over to them : the Punic admiral Hannibal, who was 1 at Panormus, hearing he was there, sent twenty ships after I him, which closed him up in the port during the night. \ The Romans in terror left their ships and fled to the land, 1 \ and the consul was obliged to surrender. Hannibal now : \ conceived such a contempt for the Romans as sailors that he thought he might easily destroy their whole navy. He therefore sailed along the coast of Italy with fifty ships to reconnoitie • but happening, as he doubled a cape, to fall in with their fleet in order of battle, he lost the greater part of his ships, and escaped with difliiculty with the remainder. ) f The Romans were well aware of their own inferiority as ( seamen, and they knew that their only chance of success | \ was by bringing a sea to resemble a land fight. For this \ \ purpose they devised the following plan. In the fore part i \ of each ship they set up a mast, twenty-four feet high and \\ nine inches in diameter, with a pulley-wheel at the top of .' \ it ; to this mast was fastened a ladder thirty-six feet long and ( four broad, covered with boards nailed across it, and having \ on each side a bulwark as high as a man's knee ; at the end \ of it was a strong piece of iron with a sharp spike and a \ \ ring on it, through which a rope ran to the mast, and over j the wheel, by which it could be raised or lowered. This j Corvus or raven, as the machine was called, was to be let j fall on the enemy's ship, which the spike would then hold fast, and the soldiers holding their shields over the bulwarks, 1 | to protect them, could board along it. The other consul, C. Duilius, took the command of the fleet, and hearing that the Carthaginians were plundering the lands of Mylae, he sailed to engage them. As soon aa 180 HISTORY OF LOME. t^ey saw him, they came out with one hundred and tiiirly sl^lps, , as to a certain victory, not even condescending to form in line of battle. At the sight of the ravins tiiey paused a little, but they soon came on and attacked the foremost ships. The ravens were then let fall ; the Roman soldiers boarded along them : the Africans could ill with- stand them, and they took thirty ships, among which was that of Hannibal, the admiral, a scptinmc which had be- longed to king Pyrrhus. The rest of the Punic fleet ma- noeuvred, hopmg to be able to attack to advantage; but they either could not get near the Roman ships, or if they did, 1 were caught by the ravens. They at last fled, with the loss of fourteen ships sunk, three thousand men slain, and seven thousand captured. The joy of the Romans at this their first naval victory >vas evinced by the permanent hono! assigned to Duilius; he was permitted for the rest of Im life to have a torch carried before him and be preceded by d flute-player when returning home from supper. After this victory the Romans divided their forces, and the consul L. Scipio sailed (493) with a fleet to make an attack on Sardinia, where he destroyed a Punic fleet and n)ade a great number of captives. Meantime the Carthaginians were recovering their power in Sicily; but the consul of the next year, (494,) A. Atilius Calatinus, restored the Roman pre- ponderance there. The towns of Mytisiratum, Enna, Ca- marina, and others, which had gone over to the Carthagin- ians, were taken, and tlieir inhabitants massacred. The following year (49-5) little was done on land ; the Carthaginians had, however, reestablished iheir sway over one half of the island. A naval victory j^ained by the con- sul C. Atilius Regulus off the port of Tyndaris inspirited the Romans to make a bold attempt to terminate the war by an invasion of Africa. They therefore (49G) collected 330 ships, each carrying 300 seamen, which sailing round Pelorus and Pachynus, took 40,000 soldiers on board on t/se coast of Sicily. The Carthaginians had assembled at Lily- bf-Eum a fleet of 3o0 ships, carrying 150,000 men to oppose them. It was the greatest military effort that the ancient world ever saw.* The Roman fl^et was divided into four squadrons ; the * The plan of invading Africa during a war with the Carthaginians had been successfully put in practice by Agatliocles about fifty years before this lime. (01. 117, 3.) See Diodor. xx. 3, et seq. It wa» thi» kbat doubtless suggested the idea to the Romans. INVASION OF AFRICA. 181 first iwo were commanded by the const s M. Atilius Reg- ulus and L. Manilas in person. The two admiral-ships Bailed side by side; each was followed by his squadron, in a single line, each ship keeping further out to sea than the one before it, so that the two lines formed an acute angle ; and the triangle was completed by the third squadron sail- ing abreast, and having the horse-transports in tow; the fourth squadron closed the figure, being in a single line, and extending on each side beyond the base. The Punic admirals, Hanno and Hamilcar, likewise divided their fleet into four squadrons, which sailed parallel, Hanno com-^ manding the right, Hamilcar the left wing. The two central squadrons, by a feigned flight, drew the first two Roman ones after them, and thus broke the triangle ; the Punic left wing then attacked the third squadron, while the right wing sailed round and fell on the fourth. As the Punic ships which had fled now turned round and fought, there was a threefold engagement. At length the first two Roman squadrons, having beaten those to which they were opposed, came to the aid of the third and fourth, and the Carthaginians were forced to retire, with the loss of thirty ships sunk and sixty-four taken ; that of the Romans was twenty-four ships The consuls returned to Sicily to repair the ships they had taken, and to complete the crews of the whole fleet. They then made sail for Africa ; and as the Punic fleet was too weak to oppose them, they landed safely on the east side of the Hermaic cape, (Cape Bon,) whence advancing southwards they took the town of Clupea, which was de- serted at their approach, and made it their place of arms. The country thence to Carthage was like a garden, full of cattle, corn, vines, and every natural production, and studded all over with the elegant country-seats of the citi- zens of Carthage. The whole of this lovely region was speedily pillaged and destroyed, and thousands of captives were dragged to Clupea, the Carthaginians not venturing out to the defence of their property. It was the usage of the Romans for at least one consular army to return to Rome for the winter and be discharged, and they would not depart from it on the present occasion. To the messenger therefore whom the consuls sent home for instructions, it was replied, that Manlius should return with his army and the greater part of the fleet, while Regulua should remain in Africa. It is said that Regulus earnestly 16 . 1S2 HISTORY OF ROMSU applied for Jeave to return, as his little plebeian farm was going to ruin for want of his presence ; but that tlie govern- ment undertook to bear the expense of its cultivation, and to support his family while he was away in the service of tlie slate. He therefore remained, with 15,000 foot, 500 horse, and 40 ships. The Carthaginians having recalled Haniilcar from Sicily, he brought with him 5000 foot and 500 horse ; and being joined in command witli Hasdrubal and Bostar, he advanced to oppose Reguius, who was now (497) besieging a town named Adis, close by the lake of Tunis.* Instead of keep- ing to the plain, wliere their elephants and cavalry could act to advantage, the Punic generals took their post on the hills, and were in consequence defeated, with the loss of 17,000 men killed, and 5000 men and 18 elephants taken. Reguius now conquered Tunis ; seventy-four other towns submitted to him; he ravaged the country at his will; the Numidians revolted ; the country people all fled into Carthage, where famine began to be felt. Reguius, fearing that his successor would come out and have the glory of taking Carthage, sent to propose a peace. Some of the principal men came to his camp to treat, but he offered only the most humiliating terms. He required that Carthage should acknowledge the supremacy of Rome, pay a yearly tribute, retain but one ship of war, give up all claim on Sicily and Sardinia, release the Roman prisoners, and redeem her own. The Punic envoys retired without deign- ing a reply. But the haughtiness of the Roman proconsul was to meei its due chastisement. The Carthaginians had sent to Greece to hire troops, which now arrived ; and among them was a Spartan named Xanthippns, an officer of some distinction. When Xantliippus viewed the condition of the Punic army and saw its force, he told his friends, that it was not the Romans but their own generals that had been the cause of the preceding defeats. The government on learning his * On the banks of the Bagrada, said the legend, (Plin. H. N. viii. 14. Zonarag viii. ItV Silius Pun. vi. 140,^ abode a serpent of the enormoua letifftli of I'iO feet; and when the soldiers came h ther for water, he killed or drove them off. It was found necessary to employ the bal- lists and other artillery against him, as against a town, and at length he was slain. His skin and jaw-bones were brought to Rome, where they remained in one of the temples till the time of the Numantine war. We must recollect that the first Punic war was th? subject of Nevius' poem. EFEAT OF THE ROMANS. 183 sentiments conceived so high an opinion of his alents, that it was resolved to give him the command of the army ; and he speedily infused confidence into the minds of he soldiery, who readily observed his superiority over their former com- manders. In reliance on 100 elephants and a body of 6000 horse he ventured to offer battle to the Romans, although he had but 14,000 foot, and theirs now amounted to upwards of 32,000 men. He placed the mercenaries on the right, the Punic troops on the left ; the elephants were ranged one deep in front of the line, the cavalry and light troops were on the flanks. The Romans put their light troops in advance against the elephants, and drew up the legionaries much deeper than usual ; the horse were on the flanks. The left wing of the Romans easily defeated the mercenaries opposed to tliem, and drove them to their camp ; but the Punic horse routed that of the Romans, and then fell on the rear of the fight wing, against the front of which the elephants were urged on ; and when the Roman soldiers had with great loss forced their way through them, they had to encounter the dense Carthaginian phalanx. Assailed thus on all sides, they at length gave way ansi fled ; the battle being in the plain they were exposed to the elephants and horse, and all were slain but five hundred men, who with the proconsul were made prisoners. The left wing, (about 2000 men,) which had pursued the mercenaries, made their escape to Clupea. Xanthippus, having thus saved Carthage, prudently went home soon after to avoid the envy and jealousy which as a stranger he was sure to excite. We are told * (but surely we cannot believe it) that the Carthaginians rewarded him richly, and sent some triremes to convey him and the other Lacedtemonians home, but gave secret orders to the captains to drovvn them all on the way, which orders were obeyed ! The Carthaginians laid siege to Clupea, but the Romans defended it gallantly. When intelligence of the defeat reached Rome, it was resolved to send a fleet without delay to bring off the survivors, and the consuls M. iEmilius Pau- ius and Ser. Fulvius Nobilior put to sea with three hundred and fifty ships. The Punic fleet engaged them off the Her- maic cape, and was defeated with the loss of 104 ships sunk, 30 taken, and 30,000 men slain or drowned. The Romans then landed, and having defeated the Punic army obliged them to raise the siege ; but seeing that the country was so * Zonoras, viii. 13. Appian, Punica, 3. Silius, Pun. vi. 680 184 HISTORY OF lOME. exhausted that no supplies could oe had, they prepared to reenibark and depart. It was now after the summer solstice, a stormy and peril- ous season in the Mediterranean. The pilots earnestly advised to avoid the south coast of Sicily, and rather to sail along the north coast. But as this was chiefly in the hands of the Cartluiginiaus, the consuls would not attend to the advice of their pilots. They set sail, and got safely across; but on the coast of Caniarina the fleet was assailed by so furious a tempest that but eighty ships escaped. The whole coast thence to Pachynus was covered with wrecks, and with the bodies of drowned men. Hiero acted on this occasion as a faithful ally, supplying the survivors with food and rai- ment and with all necessaries. The remaining ships then sailed for Messana. The courage of the Carthaginians rose when they heard of this misfortune ; they got ready two hundred ships, and sent Hasdrubal with his army and one hundred and forty ele- phants over to Sicily. The Roman senate, nothing dismayed by the loss of their fleet, gave orders to build a new one ; and in three months they had one of two hundred and twenty ships afloat; with which the consuls Cn. Cornelius Scipio and A. Atilius Calatinus (498) sailed to Messana, whence, being joined by the ships there, they went and laid siege to Pauornms. The new town being taken by storm, the old town capitulated; those who could pay a ransom of two pounds of silver were allowed to depart, leaving their property behind ; those who could not pay that sum were sold for slaves; of the former there were 10,000, of the latter 13,000. Tyndaris, Soloeis, and some other towns on that coast, then submitted. The consuls of the next year, (499,) Cn. Servilius and C. Senipronius, sailed over, and made various descents on the coast of Africa. But their ignorance of the ebb and flood in the little Syrtis was near causing the loss of the whole fleet ; the ships went aground on the shoals, and it was only by throwing all the burdens overboard that they were got off. They then sailed round LiljbjEum to Panormus, and thence boldly stretched across for the coast of Italy; but off.Cape Palinurus they encountered a fearful storm, in which they lost upwards of one hundred and fifty ships. The senate and people, quite cast down by this last calamity, resolved to send no more fleets to sea, but to keep only sixty ships tc convoy transports and guard the coast of Italy. DEATH OF REGULUS. . 85 Nothirg of importance marks the next two years ; but in 502, Hasirubal, encouraged by the want of spirit shown of late by the Romans, led his army from Lilybseum toward Panormus. The Roman proconsul L. Csecilius Metellus, M'ho was lying there with an army to protect the harvest, fell back to the town. He set his light troops, well supplied with missiles, outside of the ditch, with orders if hard-pressed to retire behind it and continue the contest; and directed the workmen of the town to carry out missiles for them, and lay them under the wall. He kept the main body of his troops within the town, and sent constant . reinforcements to those without. When the Punic host came near, the drivers urged on the elephants against the light troops, whom they drove behind the ditch ; but as they still pressed on, showers of missiles from the walls and from those at the ditch, killed, wounded, and drove furious the elephants ; and Metellus, taking advantage of the confusion thus caused, led out his troops and fell on the flank of the enemy. The defeat was decisive ; some were slain, others drowned in attempting to swim to a Punic fleet that was at hand ; the whole loss was twenty thousand men ; one hundred and four elephants were taken, and all the rest killed. After this defeat the Cartha- ginians abandoned Selinus, whose inhabitants they removed to LilybsBum, which place and Drepana alone remained in their lands. An embassy to propose a peace, or at least an exchange of prisoners, was now despatched to Rome, and Regulus, who had been five years a captive, accompanied it, on his promise to return if it proved unsuccessful. The tale of his heroism, as transmitted to us by the Roman writers, is one of the most famed in Roman story. Unhappily, like so many others, it passes the limits of truth. Regulus, we are told, refused, as being the slave of the Carthaginians, to enter Rome ; with their consent he at- tended the debates of the senate, whom he urged on no account to think of peace, or even of an exchange of pris- oners ; and, lest regard for him should sway them, he affirmed that a slow poison had been given him, and he must shortly die. The senate voted as he wished ; and, rejecting the embraces of his friends and relatives, as being now dis- honored, he returned to his prison. The Carthaginians, in their rage at his conduct, resolved to give him the most cruel death; they cut off his evelids, and exposed him to the ravs of the sun, enclosed in a cask or chest set full of sharp 16* X l86 HISTORY OF ROMK. spikes, where pain and want of food and sleep ternnnated his existence.* Regnlus, there can be no doubt, died at Carthage, but probably of a natural death. The senate had put the Punic generals Bostar and Haniilcar into tiie hands of liis family as hostages for his safety; and, when his wife heard of his death, she attributed it to neglect and want of care, and in revenge treated her prisoners with such cruelty that Bostar died, and Hamilcar would have shared his fate, but that the matter came to the ears of the government. The young Atilii only escaped capit.d punishment by throwing all the blame on their mother ; the body of Bostar was burnt and the ashes sent home to Carthage, and Hamilcar was released from his dungeon. t After their victory at Panormus the Romans proceeded with an army of forty thousand men and a fleet of two hun- dred ships to lay siege to the strong town of Lilybaeum. But it was gallantly defended by its governor Himilco, and re.sistetl all the efforts of the Romans, aided by the artillery with which the Syracusans supplied them, during the re- mainder of the war. In fact, the remaining nine years of the war (502 — 511) were years of almost constant misfortune and disgrace to the Romans; and had the Carthaginian system been the same as theirs, mid the same obstinate perseverance been mani- fested, the final advantage would probably have been on the side of Carthage. In the beginning of the war the Roman generals, for instance, had had a decided superiority ; now the case was reversed, and Himilco, Hannibal, and above all Hamilcar Barcas {Lightning 1^) far excelled those opposed to them. We will pass over the details of the events of these years, only noticing the following, as it relates to the internal his- • Cicero against Piso, m. Off. iii. 27. Fin. v. 27. Gellius, yii. 24. Horace, Carin. iii. .'>, 41. Appian, Pun. 4. According to Silius (ii. 'M'A) Re<.'uliis was crucified. Zonaras, (viii. l.""),) following perhaps Dion, givi's the common account, but speaks dubiously, (o>s' i,

',ini iiy"-) Perhaps all this lestinionj is more than outweighed by the significant silence of Polybius, who narrates the war in detail. t Diodorus, xxiv. 1. Zonaras as above. If this story be true, the preceding one can hardly be so. i From the Punic or Hebrew word Barak. Hence perhaps Barak, the lieutenant of Deborali, (Judges, ch. iv.) had his name ; the Scipioa were called fulmina belli. Yilderim (Lightning) was a surname of the celebrated Turkish sultan Bayazid. DEFEAT OF CLAUbltf. 187 tory of Rome. In the year 503 the consul P. Claudius Pulcher sailed with a fleet and army to Sicily, and leaving Lilybaeuni he went with one hundred and 'twenty-three ships to make an attempt on Drepanum. He hoped to surprise it by sailing in the night, but it was daybreak when he arrived, and Adherbal, who was there, had time to get his fleet out to give him battle. The pullarii told the consul that the sacred chickens would not eat ; " if they will not e-at," said he, " they must drink ; " and he ordered them to be flung into the sea.* . A battle thus entered into in contempt of the religious feelings of the people could not well be prosperous ; the Roman fleet was totally defeated ; ninety-three ships with all their crews were taken by the enemy ; the consul fled with only thirty. Claudius on coming to Rome was ordered to name a dictator ; with the usual insolence of his family he nominated his client M. Claudius Glicia, the son of a freed- man. The senate in indignation deprived the unworthy dictator of his oflrce, and appointed A. Atilius Calatinus, afterwards named Serranus, (Soiffer,) because he was found by those, who came to inform him of his elevation, sowijig the corn with his own hand in his little plebeian farm.t Claudius was prosecuted for violation of the majesty of the people, and he did not long survive the disgrace, dying probably by his own hand, like so many of his family. The Romans were so disheartened by this last defeat that for five years they reected. The invitation was readily accepted ; and in the eighth year after the divis- ion of the Picentine land, (527,) the G^esatans crossed the Alps and descended into the plain of the Po, where they were joined by all the Gallic tribes except the Venetians and the Cenomanians, w^hom the Romans had gained over to their side. With a host of 50,000 foot and 20,000 horse and chariots they then crossed the Apennloes and entered ^•]truria. * Tlie Rouvins afterwards (533) made war on Demetrius for breach of tills treaty, and he had to seek refuge with Philip II. of Mftcedoni^ n whose service he spent tlie remainder of his life. GALLIC WARS. 103 The terror caused at Rome by this irruption of the Gauls was great. All Italy shared in it, and prepared to resist the invaders. The number of men actually under arms on this occasion was 150,000 foot and 6000 horse, and the total amount of the fighting men of Rome and her allies (the Greeks anil Etruscans not included) was 700,000 foot and 70,000 horse. One of the consuls, C. Atilius, was at this time in Sar- dinia ; his colleague, L. yEmilius, had encamped at Ari- minum ; one of the pra;tors commanded an army in Etruria. The Gauls had reached Clusium, in their way to Rome, when they learned that the praetor's army was in their rear. They returned, and by a stratagem gave this army a defeat : six thousand Romans were slain ; the rest retired to a hill, where they defended themselves. The consul yEmilius, who had entered Etruria, now came up; and tlie Gauls, in order to secure the immense booty which they had acquired, by the advice of one of their kings declined an action, resolving to return home along the coast, and then to reenter Etruria, light and unencumbered, ^milius, being joined by the re- mainder of the praetor's army, followed their march, in order to harass them as much as possible. Meantime Atilius had landed his army at Pisa, and was marching for Rome. His advanced guard met that of the Gauls, and defeated it. 4- general action soon commenced, the Gauls being attacked in front and rear: they fought with skill and desperation; but their swords and shields were inferior to those of the Romans, and they were utterly defeated, with the loss of 40,000 slain and 10,000 taken ; that of the Romans is not known. Atilius fell in the action. vEmilius, having made a brief inroad into the Boian country, returned to Rome and triumphed. The consuls of the succeeding year (528) reduced the Boians to submission. Heavy rains and an epidemic in their army checked all further operations. Their successors, P. Furius and C. Flaminius, (the author of the war,) carried the war beyond the Po, and ravaged the lands of the Isumbrians, who having assembled a force of fifty thousand men pre- pared to give them battle. The Roman consuls, who were devoid of :».'. military skill, fearing to trust their Gallic allies, placed them on the south side of the Po, the bridges over which they broke down, and drew up their troops so close • o its td4,'fc as to leave no space for the requisite movements. K) thAt their onlv hopes of safety lay in victory. Fortunately i7 y 194 HISTORY OV ROxHE. for the Roman irmy the tribunes possessed the skill the consuls wanted. Knowing that the long Gallic broadswords Dent after the first blow, and must be laid under the foot and straightened to be again of use, they gave /lila to their front ranks, and directed them, when the Gauls had bent their swords on these, to fall on sword in hand. These tactics succeeded completely; the straight, short thrust- swords of the Romans did certain execution, and their vic- tory was decisive. After this defeat the Gauls sent an embassy to Rome suing for peace ; but the new consuls, M. Claudius Mar- cellus and Cn. Cornelius Scipio, (5lJ(),) fearing to lose an occasion of distinguishing themselves, prevented its being granted. The Isumbrians hired thirty-three thousand Gajsatans ; but all their efforts were unavailing ; they were every where defeated, their chief towns Acerra; and Medio- lanum (Milan) were taken, and shortly afterwards the colo- nics of Mutina, (Modcna,) Cremona, and Piacentia founded, to keep them in obedience. Marcellus at his triumph bore on a trophy the arms of the Gallic king Viridomarus, whom he had slain with his own hand, and suspended them, as the third ■iS'/;rt//rt opium* to Jupiter Feretrius, on the Capitol. The Roman dominion now extended over the whole of Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, lllyria, and Corcyra, and the towns of the coast of Epirus. CHAPTER in.t CONQUESTS OK THE rARTIIA^ilNf.^NS IN SPAIN. TAKING OF SAOUNTUM. MARCH OF nANNMBAI, FOR ITALY. HANNI- IJAI.'s PASSA(;E of the AI.PS. BATTLK OF THE TICINUS. BATTLE OP THE TREBIA. BATTLE OF THE TRASIMENP, LAKE. HANNIBAL AND FABIHS CUNCTATOn. BATTLE OP CANNiB. PROGRESS OF HANNIBAL. While the Romans were thus extending their dominior in Cisalpine Gaul, the Carthaginians were equally active in ' riuf. Marcellus,?. The other two are the fictitioiis ones of Romu- lus, the real of Cossns. Spe above, p. KM. < Fc the second Punic war we have the third do ad of Livy, who f^^ CONq,UESTS »F THE CARTHAGINIANS IN SPAIN. 195 forming an empire in Spain. Tiie loss of Sicily and Sar- dinia, and the heavy sum of money exacted from tliem liy i 1 the Romans, had increased their enmity to fhem ; and Ha- milcar, conscious of his great talents, and that by the fault of others he had been obliged to give up his hopes of re- covering Sicily, and filled with hatred to the Roman name, burned to possess the means of waging war with them once more. The possession of Spain he saw would give abun- dance of men and money, and the divided state of the nations and tribes who held it would make the acquisition of do- minion easy. As soon, therefore, as the civil war was ended, and the Numidians who had shared in it were reduced, he embarked his army, (-514,) and landed atGades, (Cadiz.) He was attended by his son-in-law Hasdrubal and his son Han- nibal, then a child of nine years of age. As he was offering sacrifice previous to embarkation, he made those who were present withdraw a little ; then leading his son up to the altar, he asked him if he would go with him; and on his giving a cheerful assent, he made him lay his hand on the flesh of the victim, and swear eternal enmity to Rome. During nine years Hamilcar carried on a successful war in Spain. He reduced the modern Andalusia and Estra- maditra, and penetrated into Portugal and Leon. Hamilcar fell (523) in an engagement with the people of the country. The army chose Hasdrubal to succeed him, and the Cartha- ginian senate confirmed their choice, and sent him addi- tional troops. Hasdrubal, by his talents, his mildness, jus- tice, and good policy, won, the affections of the Spaniards, and extended the dominion of Carthage to the river Iberus, (Ebro;) and he founded on the coast the city of New Car- thage (Carthagena) for the capital, which soon nearly rival- led Carthage itself in extent and wealth. This able general perished by the hand of an assassin in the eighth year of his command, ('5-31,) and the army, as before, assuming the right of appointment, set Hannibal, the son of Hamilcar, who had been second in command to Hasdrubal, in his place, and their choice was confirmed by the government. Hannibal, who was now twenty-five years of age, felt that the time for executing his father's projects against Rome was at hand. He proposed to march a veteran army into Italy, and he ho.ped that one or more decisive victories there tollowed Polybius; also this last writer's own narrative to the battle of CannaB consecutively, and, for the corvclusion, Appian's Piinica ana Hannibalian War; Plutarch's livesof Marcellus and Fabius Maximus. 196 HISTOHY : F BOMB. would induce the Samnitea and other Italian peoples to rise and assert their independence. In order to extend the Punic dominion still further in Spain, to enrich his troops, and to give them confidence in themselves and their general, he Jed them into the country of the Olcades, on the Anas, (Guadi- j aua,) and took their chief town, natned Althaea or Carteia. J The following spring (532) he entered the country of the f Vaccaians, and took their towns of Elmantica or lierman- { dica, and Arbucala ; and as he was on the way back to New i Carthage, he defeated on the banks of tiie Tagus an army I of more than one hundred thousand Spaniards who came to j oppose him. The whole of Spain south of the Ebro, with { the exception of the city of Saguntum, now obeyed the \ power of Carthage. The people of this town, who claimed • a Greek origin, ami the other Greek towns on the coas^of I Spain, had put themselves under the protection of Rouie, and I a Roman embassy was sent to Carthage, in the time of Has- \ drubaJ, to stipulate for their independence, and to recjuire ! that the Tunic power should not be extruded beyond the [ Ebro. The Saguntsnes, aware of the ultimate designs of } Hannibal, sent pressing embassies to Rome, praying for aid, as Hannibal, having caused a quarrel between them and the Torboletans, menaced their existence. An embassy was therefore sent to Hannibal, who gave a haughty, evasive reply, and sending to Carthage for instructions, he received power to act as he deemed best. Under the pretext of aiding the Torbolctans, he therefore came and laid siege to Saguntum with an army of 150,000 men. The conijuest of thi.«?town was an object of the utmost importance in hia eyes; he would thus deprive the Romans of the place of arras which they had in view for carrying on the war m Spain ; he would strike the Spaniards with a salutary dread of the Punic power, and leave no enemy of importance in his rear on his proposed way for Italy : and he would acquire vast wealth for the prosecution of the war. During eight months the Saguntines made a most heroic resistance. Their applications to Rome for aid were vain, as they produced nothing but fruitless endiastries to Hanni- bal and to Carthage. At length the town was stormed, aU vvithin it slaughtered or enslaved, and the immense booty sent to Carthage or reserved for the war. The Romans, when tliey heard of the capture of Saguntum, issued a dec laration of war unless Hannibal was given up to them, and sent an. embassy for this purpose to Carthage. The chief MARCH OF HANNIBAL FOR ITALY. 191 of the embassy, Q,. Fabius Maximus, simply stated the, de- mands of Rome ; the Carthaginian senate hesitated, not willing to surrender Hannibal, and as little inclined to say that he had acted by public authority. Fabius then, holding up his toga, said, " In this I bear peace or war, take which I ye will." <* Give which you please," replied the Suffes. ' " War, then," cried he, shaking it out. " We receive it," ; was shouted forth on all sides. The embassy returned to ' Rome, whence the consul Tib. Sempronius was already ' gone to Sicily, with 160 ships and 26,000 men, in order to \ pass over to Africa, while his colleague P. Cornelius Scipio had sailed for Spain with sixty quinqueremes and 24,000 i men, and the prnetor L. Manlius commanded a third army ! of about 20,000 men in Cisalpine Gaul. ! During the winter Hannibal made all the requisite ar- rangements for the defence of Africa and Spain, and he '• formed treaties with the Gauls on both sides of the Alps. In ) the beginning of the spring (534) he assembled his army of \ 90,000 foot, 12,000 horse, and 37 elephants, at New Car- \ thage, and committing the government of Spain to his ] brother Hasdrubal, and leaving him a force of about 15,000 !i men and fifty-seven ships of war, he crossed the Ebro on j his way for Italy. In his progress thence to the Pyrenees \ he overcame the various peoples of the country, in which he ; left Hanno with 10,000 foot and 1000 horse. Desertion i and other causes reduced his army, but at the foot of the ! Pyrenees it numbered 50,000 foot and 9000 horse, all | steady and well-disciplined soldiers. Having passed these mountains, he marched without delay for the Rhodanus, : (Rhone,) on the further bank of which he found a large ! army of Gauls assembled to dispute his passage.* He col- '■ lected, and had constructed, a great number of boats and j rafts, but it seemed too hazardous to attempt to pass a broad, ; rapid river in the presence of so large an army. He there- i fore sent at nightfiill a division of his troops under Hanno up the river, with directions to cross it a day's march off, | and then to come down the left bank and take the enemy [ in the rear. Hanno did as directed, and having halted a \ day on the other side to refresh his men, marched down the ' stream. When he made the fire signal agreed on, Hannibal, \ who had every thing ready, commenced the passage. The Gauls rushed down to oppose him ; but they soon saw the * Opposite Beauvaise. 17* 193 HISTORY OF ROME. camp behind them in flames, and after a short resistance turned and fled. The remainder of the Punic army then passed over.* Meantime Scipio, having coasted Etruria and Liguria, on his way to Spain, was encamped at tlie inouth of the Rhone, four days' march from the phice where Hannibal was lying. He sent forward a party of horse to reconnoitre, who fell in with and drove back five hundred Numidian horse sent out by Hannibal for the same purpose. When they returned, and told the consul where the Punic arniy was, he embarked his troops, and sailed up the river to attack them ; but on coming to the place he found them gone. He then returned with all speed, and sending his brother Cn. Scipio to Spain with the greater part of his forces, embarked for Pisa with the remainder to meet the foe on iiis descent from the Alps. Hannibal, urged by an embassy from the Boian Gauls, had resolved to lose no time in advancing into Italy. He marched four days up the left bank of the Rhone, to its junction with the Isara, (Isere.t) The country between these rivers was named the Island, and two brothers were at this time contending for the regal authority over it. Hanni- bal sided with the elder, who in return supplied him with clothing and provisions for his army, now IJ8,000 foot and j SOOO horse, and gave him an escort through the country of j the Allobroges to the foot of the Alps. j Hannibal went for ten days about one hundred miles up 1 the Isara ; J he then turned to the mountains. But here ] difficulties began to assail him. The Gauls occupied the J passes, but as they did not keep their plans secret, he learned . that they were there; and also finding out they only kept I guard by day, retiring to their town by night, he set out in the night with some select troops and seized the heights they used to occupy. In the morning the army set forward ; * He adopted the following plan to get the elephants over the river. Broad rafts were attached to the bank, and other rafts to these on ti)e outside, and the whole covered with earth ; the elephants readily went on this, two females being placed at tiieir head. The outer rafts were then loosed, and towed over by boats, the eleplianls in general remain- ing quiet on them ; some however jumped into the river, but they were saved. (Polyb. iii. 4<).) t Polybius calls the other river the Scoras or Scaras , Livy the Arar, (■Saon?,) but the confluence of the Rhone and Saone is too far ofl", and i\¥> land between them does not agree with PolvWus' description of th* I.-i'md. 'J'o MoBtmelian and Bourgneuf. HANNIBAL £ PASSAGE OF THE ALPS. 199 but the Gauls assailed them in the pass, where they had to proceed along a narrow path over a deep ravine, and did n uch mischief, especially to the horses and beasts of burden. Hannibal, however, at the head of his select troops, drove them off. He then took and plundered several villages and their chief town. The march now lay for three days in a fruitful valley, where there were numerous herds of cattle. On the fourth day the people who dwelt at the other end of the valley sent to propose a peace with him, offering host- ages and guides. Hannibal, though he distrusted them, agreed to the treaty, but he prudently remitted none of his precautions. After two days' march the troops entered a rugged, precipitous pass leading out of the valley, and here the Gauls had made preparations to overwhelm them. But Hannibal had wisely put the baggage, and horse, and ele- phants in advance, and kept his troops of the line in the rear, which foresight saved the army. The loss, however, in men and beasts was considerable, as the Gauls showered stones and rolled down rocks from the heights above them. Hannibal was obliged to pass the night separate from his cavalry. In the morning, finding the Gauls gone, the army joined and moved on, though still harassed by their desul- tory attacks. It was remarked that they never assailed the part of the line of march where the elephants were, as the unusual appearance of these animals inspired them with terror. On the ninth day the army reached the summit of the. Alps. Here they made a halt of two days to rest, and to enable those who had been left behind to rejoin. The snow which now fell, it being late in the autumn, and the prospect of the further difficulties they would have to encounter, dis- pirited the troops ; but their leader, by pointing out to them the rich plain of the Po, and assuring them of the facility of conquest, soon raised their spirits, and they commenced the descent. Here however, though there were no enemies to attack them, the loss was nearly as great as in the ascent The new-fallen snow made the path indiscernible, and those who missed it rolled down the precipices. They still how- ever advanced, till they found themselves on the edge of a steep, which it was plain the elephants and beasts of burden could never get down. Hannibal tried to take a round to escape this steep ; but the thin crust of ice which had formed on the snow gave way under the feet of the beasts, and held them impounded, and even the men could not get along it. 2!0G HISTORY OF ROME. lie therefore cleared away the snow on the edge :f the steep, iind encamped there for the night. Next day he set hid men at work to level a way down ; * and they made it that day passable for the horses and nudes, which they brought down to the parts where there was pasturage ; but it took three days to make a way for the elephants. The descent now offered no further difficulties, and the army was soon encamped in the country of the Isumbrian Gauls.t Five months had now elapsed from the day they had set out from New Carthage, fifteen days of which had been oc- cupied in the passage of the Alps The army had in that time been considerably reduced by its various losses, and it now numbered but 'iiGjCXJO men, i. e. r2,000 African and 8000 Spanish foot, and (iOOO horse. Having given his army sufficient rest, Ilaniiibal advanced into the country of the Ligurian tribe of the Taurini, (Pied- mont,) whose capital he took by storm. This struck terror into the surrounding tribes, and they all joined the invaders. Hannibal, finding that those in the plains were only withheld from doing the same by their fear of the Roman armies in their country, resolved to advance at once, and deliver them from their apprehensions. Scipio had meantime advanced from Pisa, and collecting what troops there were in Etruria and Cisalpine Gaul, crossed the Po with the intention of giving Hannibal battle at once. The Punic general was equally anxious to fight; both armies approached the river Ticinus, (Tessino,) which the Romans crossed, and came to within five miles of Victumvite, (Vige- vano?) where Hannibal lay. Next morning Scipio went out to reconnoitre with his horse and light troops; Hannibal did the same, and the two parties met. An action ensued : the consul put his light troops and the Gallic horse in front, sup- ported by the heavy horse; Hannibal set his bridled horse |: * According to Liv}', Appian, and others, Hannibal, in order to be able to cut down the rocks, )>ad large trees hewn into pieces, and piled around them, and set fire to, and, witen the rocks were glowing liot, vinegar poured on them, which rendered them soft and easy to cut. The truth of this circumstance (which is unnoticed by Polybius^ has lieen disputed in modern times. t Some critics make Hannibal come over the Great, others over the Little St. Bernard; some are for Mt. Genevre, the Simplon, or Mt. Viso ; others, (who we incline to think are right,) for Mt. Cenis. According to these last, his roulo was Montmelian, Maltaverne. Aigue- belle, La Chapelle, St Jean de Maurienne, St. Micliel, Modane, Verney, Lans-le-llourg, Summit of G^nis, La Novalcse, Suee, S\ Ambroise, Rivoli. t The Numidians did not use bridles. BATTLE OF THK TREBIA. 201 in the centre, the Numidians on the flanks. At the first shock the Roman light troops gave way and fled; the heavy- horse maintained the conflict till the Numidians fell on their rear. Scipio himself received a severe wound, and is said to have been indebted for his life to his son, afterwards so famous, then a youth of seventeen. The Romans dispersed and fled to their camp ; and Scipio, now aware of the enemy's great superiority in cavalry, resolved to retire without delay beyond the Po, where the country was less level. He reached this river, and got over before the Carthaginians came up, and he also had time to loosen the bridge of rafts. About six hundred men who remained on the other side fell into their hands; the rest of the army reached Placentia in safety. Mannibal went two days' march up the river, and passed it in a narrower place by a bridge of boats; he then came to within six mites of Placentia, and offered battle, but to no purpose. The Gauls now readily joined him; and a body of 2000 Gallic fool and 200 horse, who were in the Roman service, cut to pieces the guard at one of the gates, and came over to him. Scipio, thinking his position no longer safe, led his troops out in the night, in order to occupy a stronger one on the hills about the river Trebia, wher6 he might wait fi)r the arrival of his colleague, who had been recalled from Sicily. When Hannibal found Scipio gone, he sent the Nu- niidians after him ; but they fell to rummaging the deserted camp for plunder, and the Romans got safely over the river, and encamped. Hannibal then came and sat down aboftt five miles off*, where the Gauk supplied him with abundance of provisions. Sempronius, on receiving his recall, embarkv.*, his troops, and sailed up the Adriatic to Ariminum, where he landed, and lost no time in joining Scipio on the Trebia. The con- suls differed in opinion : Scipio, who was still disabled by his wound, was for delay, which must be injurious to the enemy, and would probably cause the fickle Gauls to change their minds; besides which he himself when recovered miglit he of some service to his country : Sempronius was for in* mediate action, as the time of elections was at hand, and moreover the illness of his colleague woufd afl'ord him the occasion of gaining the sole glory Of victory. An occasion of action soon presented itself , i - The Gauls who dwelt from the Trebia to the Po, wishing to keep well with both parties, declared openly for neither Hannibal, to punish them, sent a body of 2000 foot and lOOfl z 202 HISTORY OF ROME. Numidian liorse to plunder their lands. They came to the Roman camp imploring protection, and Sempronius sent out some horse and light troops, who drove off those of the enemy. Elate with this success, he became still more anxious for battle, and Hannibal, who wished for an engagement for the very same reasons that Scipio was opposed to it, prepared to take advantage of Sempronius' ardor. Having observed in the plain between the two armies a stream whose banks were overgrown by bushes and briers, he placed in ambush in it during the night his brother Mago with 1000 foot and as many horse, and in the morning he sent the Numidian horse over the Trebia to ride up to the enemy's camp and try to draw them out ; he meantin»e ordered the rest of the army to take their breakfast, and get themselves and their horses ready. Sempronius, when he saw the Numidians, sent his horse to drive them off; his light troops followed, and he then led out the rest of the army. It was now midwinter, the day was bitterly cold and snowy, and the troops hud not had theii breakfast ; the Trebia was swollen by the rain that had fallen, and it was breast high on the infantry as they waded through it. Cold and hungry, they advanced to engage an army that was fresh and vigorous, for Hannibal had directed his men to anoint and arm themselves by the fire in their tents. When he saw the Romans over the river, he led out his troops, and drew them up about a mile from his camp. His advance guard consisted of 8000 dartmen and Balearic slingers ; he drew up his heavy infantry, Afiicans, Spaniards, and Gauls, about 20,000 in one line, with H),00(i horse, one half on each wing, and the elephants in front of the wings. Sem- prcjnius drew up his army of 10,000 Romans and 20,000 allies in the usual manner: he placed his horse (about 4000) on the wings. ']'he Roman light troops being already fa- tigued, and having spent their weapons in the pursuit of the Numidians, were easily beaten ; and while the troops of the line wore engaged, the Punic horse charged and scattered that of the Romans; the light troops and Numidians then advanced nnd fell on the flanks of the Roman line; the troops in ambush *rose at the same time, and attacked them in the rear. The Roman wings, assailed in front by the elephants and in flank by the light troops, gave way and fled ; the centre, about ten thousand men, drove back the Punic troops in front of it, but it suffered from those in its rear. At length, seeing their wings driven off the field, and fearing ii HANNIBAL ENTERS ETRLHIA. 203 khe nuinbei of the enemy's horse if they attempted to aid thein, or to recross the river to their camp, tliey made a desperate effort, and breaking through the adverse line forced their way to Placentia. Most of the remainder were de- stroyed at the river by the horse and the elephants ; those who escaped made their way to Placentia. The victors did not venture to cross the river : all their elephants but one died in consequence of the extreme cold and wet. Scipio the next night led the troops in the camp over the Trebia to Placentia, and thence to Cremona. Sempronius sent word to Rome that but for the weather he should have obtained a complete victory. The truth, hdwever, was not to be concealed ; but the Roman spirit only rose the more in adversity. Cn. Servilius and C. Flaminius * were created consuls, Sempronius having gone to Rome tc hold the elections. Hannibal, having made an ineffectual attempt on a maga- zine near Placentia, and taken Victumviae, gave his troops some repose. Early in the spring (535) he attempted to cross the Apennines, but a violent storm of thunder, hail, wind and rain, forced him to give over his project. He then gave Sempronius a second defeat near Placentia, after which he led his troops into Liguria. Flaminius went to his prov- ince in the spring, and having received four legions, two from Sempronius and two from the prjetor Atilius, crossed the Apennines and encamped at Arretium, (Arezzo.) Hanni- bal, finding the Gauls so discontented at his remaining in their country that he was obliged to change his dress frequently, and to wear various wigs in order to escape their attempts on his life, resolved to enter Etruria without delay. Of the various routes into that country he fixed on that through the marshes formed by the river Arno,t as he could thus elude the Roman consul. He placed his African and Spanish in- fantry with the baggage ir advance ; these were followed by the Gauls, and last came the horse. He himself rode on his only remaining elephant. For four days and three nights they had to march through the water, enduring every kind of hardship. Most of the beasts of burden perished, several of the horses lost their hoofs, and Hannibal himself lost the sight of one of his eyes. * This was the Flaminius who had caused the Gt lie war. See above, p. 192. i Livy, xx'n. 2. They were on the rigl t bank of the Lower Arno. (Nieb. i. 126.) Micali and some other moderns maintaia that they v/en the marshes formed by the i. ppt; to. 204 HISTORY OF ROME. ' ' Hav .ng learned the character of the Roman consul, a "ain rash man, utterly unskilled in military affairs, Hannil)al re- solved to provoke him to a battle before the arrival of his col« league. He therefore proceeded to lay waste the fruitful country between Fsesulae and Arretium. The sight of the devastations he committed enraged Flaminius, and he would not be withheld by his officers from giving battle. Hannibal had now reached the vicinity of Cortona, and when he found that Flaminius was following him, he prepared to select the mo.st advantageous position for engaging. He therefore ad- vanced, with the hills of Cortona on his leil, the Trasimene lake on his right, till he came to a spot where the hilla approach the lake, leaving a narrow path, and then recede, forming a valley closed at the end by an eminence. He stationed his line-troops at the further end of this valley, placing his light troops on the hills on the right side of it, and his horse and the Gauls ot) those on the left. He thus awaited Flaminius, who arriving in the evening, encamped on the lake without the pass, into which ho led his troops early the next morning. A dense fog happening to rise and spread over the valley concealed the enemy from the view of the Romans; the head of their column had just reached the place where the Punic troops awaited them, when Han- nibal ^ave the signal for attack, and they were assailed at once in front and flank. Not having time to form, they were cut down in their line of march. Flaminius himself was killed by the Gauls early in the action. Numbers ran up to their necks in the water; but the enemy's horse charged after them and cut them to pieces.* The number of the slain was 15000; a body of 6000 broke through in front, and made their way over the hills to a neighboring village, whither they were pursued by Maharbal and forced to sur- render, on promise of being allowed to depart without their arms; but Hannibal, denying the right of Maharbal to grant these terms, assembled all his prisoners, to the number of upwards of 15,000, and separating the Romans, whom he re- taincd, he dismissed the allies, declaring, as was his wont, that he was come a& the deliverer of Italy from Roman tyranny. His own loss was about fifteen hundred men. * According to Livy (xxii. 5) and Zonaras (viii 12.5,) the ardor of thp combatants was such tliat th«'y did not perceive the shock of an earthquake wliich occurred at that time, and threw down large portions df several towns, sank mountains, and turned rivers from their course Of this Polybius says nothing', t ■'*'•• HANNIBAL AND FABIUS CUNCTATOR. 205 chiefly Gauls, on whom he generally contrived to make the loss fall most heavily. Tliis defeat was of too great a magnitude for the govern- ment at Rome to be able to conceal or extenuate it. In the evening of tlie day the news arrived, the pretor mounted the Rostra and said aloud, " We have been overcome in a great battle." The people, unused to tidings of defeat, were quite overwhelmed; but the senate remained calm and resolute as ever in adversity. Soon after, another piece of ill news arrived; a body of four thousand horse, which the consul Servilius had sent on from Ariminum, were cut to pieces or forced to surrender by the Punic horse and light troops. It was now resolved to revive the dictatorship, an office for some time out of use, and Q,. Fabius Maximus was appointed,* with M. Minucius for his master of the horse, Hannibal marched through Umbria and Picenum, wasting and destroying the country on his way. On reaching the sea he sent home word of his successes; and having halted some time, to give his men and horses rest, he advanced through the country of the Marsian League into Apulia. The dictator, having received the two legions of the consul Servilius, and added two newly raised ones to them, ad- vanced with all speed to Apulia, and encamped in presence of Hannibal near Arpi. The Punic general vainly offered battle ; it was the plan of Fabius, thence named the Delayer, (Cuncfator,) to give him no opportunity of fighting, but to wear him out by delay. He accordingly kept on the hills above him, followed him whithersoever he went, made partial attacks under advantageous circumstances, and thus raised the spirit and confidence of his troops. Hannibal, having exhausted Apulia, entered Samnium, where he plundered the district of Beneventum and took the town of Telesia, Fabius still following him at a distance of one or two days' march, but giving no opportunity for fighting. It is re- markable, that though the Romans had suffered such defeats, not one of their allies had as yet fallen off. Hannibal hoped that by an irruption into Campania he should be able to force Fabius to give battle, or if he did not, that this con- fession of the inferiority of the Romans in the field would have its due effect on the minds of the allies. He there- fore marched by Allifas and Cales to Casilinum, wasted the * As there was no consul at Rome to nominate him, he was created Pro-dictator. 18 206 HISTORY OF ROME. Falernian district to Sinuessa, and encamped on the Vul- tuinus. Fabius moved along the Massic hills ; but neither tlie sight of the burning villages in the valley beneath, nor che reproaches and entreaties of Minucius and the other offi- cers, could induce him to change his system and descend into the plain. Hannibal, seeing there was no chance of a battle, pre- pared to retire, by the way he came, into quarters for the winter. Fabius hoped now to take him at an advantage : having pfaced a sufficient force to guard the pa.'ss near Tar- racina,* he occupied the town of Casilinum and the hill of Callicula, and posted his army on an eminence on the road ^^y which the enemy must move for the pass. Hannibal, seeing the way thus impeded, and despairing of being able to force it, had recourse to stratagem. He had two thou- sand of the strongest oxen in the booty collected, and bun- dles of brushwood tied on their horns. In the latter part of the night, he directed the baggage-drivers to set fire to these bundles, and drive the oxen up the hill close to the pass ; and the light troops to hasten and occupy its summit. The oxen, infuriated by the heat and flame, ran wildly up the hill ; the Romans, who guarded the pass, thinking from the ninnber of lights that the enemy was escapit)g that way, made all the speed they could to occupy the summit; but they found the Punic light troops there already; both re- mained inactive waiting for the daylight. Hatmibal mean- time had led the rest of his army through the pass, and he sent some Spanish troops, who speedily routed the Romans on the hill. He then marched leisurely through Samnium into Apulia, where he took the town of Geronium, before which he pitched his camp; Fabius, who followed bin), en- camped at Larinum. The dictator, being obliged to return to Rome on some religious affairs, committed the command of the army to the master of the horse, imploring him on no account to give battle. But Minucius little heeded these admonitions ; he quitted the hills where he was posted, and came nearer to the Punic camp ; and he had the advantage in some slight actions which ensued. These successes were greatly mag- nified at Rome ; and the people, who were weary of the sal- utary caution of Fabius, were induced to pass a decree for making the authority of the master of the hcrse equal with * Probably the pass of Lnutuisr See above, p. liA HANNIBAL AND FABIUS CUNCTATOR. 20" that of the dictator. Fubius, who had returned to the army, made no complaint ; he divided the troops with Minucius, and they formed two separate camps, about a mile and a half asunder. Hannibal, who was informed of all that occurred, hoped now to be able to take advantage of Minucius's impetuosity. Tliere was a valley between their camps, in which, though it contained no bushes suited for an ambuscade, there were sundry hollows where troops might lie concealed, and in these he placed during the night five hundred horse and five thousand foot ; and that they might not be discovered by the Roman foragers, he sent at dawn some light troops to occupy an eminence in the middle of the plain. Minucius, as soon as he saw these troops, directed his light troops to advance and drive them off; he then sent his horse, and finally led out his heavy infantry. Hannibal kept sending aid to his men, and meantime led on his horse and heavy fbot. His horse drove the Roman light troops back on those of the line, and he then gave the signal to those in ambush to rise; the Romans were now on the very verge of a total defeat, when Fabius led his troops to their relief Hanni- bal, when he saw the good order of the dictator's army, drew off his men, fearing to hazard an action with fresh troops. As he retired, he observed that the cloud which had lain so long on the tops of the mountains had at last come down in rain and tempest. Minucius candidly acknowledged his fault and the superior wisdom of the dictator, and the whole army encamped together again. The winter passed away, only marked by some slight skirmishes. At Rome, when the time of the elections came, the consuls chosen were C. Terentius Varro, a plebeian,* and L. yEmilius PauUus, a patrician. Instead of the usual number of four legions, eight were now ~aised, each of five thousand foot and three hundred horse, md the allies gave as usual an equal number of foot and thrice as many horse. King Hiero sent a large supply of corn, and one thousand slingers and Cretan archers. As soon as the season for the ripening of the corn ap- proached, (536,) Hannibal moved and occupied the citadel * From Livy's account of Varro, we are to suppose that lie was a vul- gar, low-born demagogue. He says (xxii. 2")) that he was ihe son of a butcher; yet we find him continued in command for some years aftof his defeat, which can hardly be ascribed to mere popular favor 208 UlSTOIiy OF ROME. of a tow n named CaiuiJE, where the Rpmans had their mag • azines. The consulo of the former year, who commanded the army in these parts, finding their situation hazardous; and tlie all es inclined to revolt, sent to Rome for instruc- tions, and It was resolved that battle should be given without dela). /Emilius and Terentius set out from Rome with the new-raised troops, and their whole united force amounted to eighty-seven thousand liorse and foot. Fabius and other prudent men, placing their only reliance on Emilius, who liad distinguished himself in the lllyrian wars, anxiously im- pressed on him the necessity of caution, and of restraining liis vain and ignorant colleague, as this army might be m a great measure regarde<] as Rome's last stake. As Hannibal was greatly superior in cavalry, it was the advice of Emilius not to risk au action in the plain ; but Vaj-ro, ignorant and confident, on his day of command (for the Roman consuls when together took it day and day about) led the army nearer to where the enemy lay. Han- nibal attacked the line of march, but was driven off with some loss; and next day -Emilius, not wishing to fight, and unable to fall back with safety, encamped on the Aufidus, placing a part of the army on the other side of the river, a little more than a mile in advance of his camp, and equally distant from that of Hannibal, to protect his own and annoy the enemy's foragers. Hannibal, having explained to his troops the advantages to be derived from an immediate action, led them over the river and encamped on the same side with the main army of the Romans, and on the second day he offered battle, which /Emilius prudently declined. He then sent the Numidians across the river to attack those who were watering from the lesser camp. The patience of Varro was now exhausted, and next day at sunrise he led liis troops over the river, and joining with them those in the lesser camp drew them up in order of battle. The line faced the south;* the Roman horse were on the right wing by the river side ; the troops of tJie line, drawn up deeper than usiKil, extended thence; the horse of the allies were on the left wing, the light troops in advance of the line. Hannibal, having first sent over his light troops, led his army also to the other side of the river. He set his Spanish " Liry says that the arid wind, named the VnUurnus,blew clouds of dust in the faces of the Romans. This is not noticed by Polyhius, and If it was the case it was probably the fault of Varro. not the ski'l of Han- nibal H8 some suppose, that placed them in this positiou. BATTLE OF CANN^. and Gallic horste on his left wing, opposite tl at of the Romans; then one half of his heavy African infantry;* next, the Spaniards and Gauls, after them the rest of the African foot, and on the right wing the Numidian horse. When his line had been thus formed, he put forward the centre so as to give the whole the form of a half-moon. His whole force, inclusive of the Gauls, did not much exceed 40,000 foot and 10,000 horse, while that of the Romans was 80,000 foot and about 6000 horse. On the one side, ^^milius commanded the right, Varro the left wing, the late consul Servilius the centre; on the other, Hanno led the right, Hasdrubal the left wing, Hannibal himself the centre. The battle was begun, as usual, by the light troops; the Spanish and Gallic horse then charged ; the Roman horse, after a valiant resistance, overborne by numbers, broke and fled along the river; the light troops having fallen back on the heavy-armed on both sides, these engaged : the Gauls and Spaniards who formed the top of the half-moon, being borne down by the weight of the Roman maniples, gave way after a brief but gallant resistance. The victors heed- lessly pressing on, the African foot on either side wheeled to the right and left, and surrounded them. Jilmilius, who had commanded on the right, now came with a party of horse to the centre and took the command ; here he was opposed to Hannibal himself The Numidians meantime kept the horse of the allies engaged ; till Hasdrubal, having cut to pieces the Roman horse which he had pursued, came to their aid : the allies then turned and fled ; Hasdrubal, leaving the Numidians to pursue them, fell with his heavy horse on the rear of the Roman infantry. yEmilius fell bravely fighting; that part of the Roman infantry which was surrounded was slaughtered to the last man; the rest of the infantry was massacred on all sides; the Numidians cut to pieces the horse of the allies. The consul Varro escaped to Venusia with only seventy horse. A body of ten thousand foot, whom ^-Emilius had left to guard the camp, fell during the battle on that of Hannibal, which they were near taking ; but Hannibal, coming up after the battle, drove them back to their own caqip vvith a loss of two thousand men, and there forced them to. surrender. ■ * Hannibal had armed his African ajid Spanish infantry aflrr tlie tioman manner, with the Horrjan armawJuc-h h,a4 fallen into iiishanda. 18* AA 210 HISTORY OF ROME. This was the g. eatest defeat the Roman arms ever sus- tained. Out of 81 ,000 foot, according to Polybius, only JJOOO escaped, and 10,000 were made prisoners ; of 0000 horse there remaiiud but 3V0 at liberty, 2000 were taken Among the slain were two quxstors ; twenty-one tribunes; several former consjls, praetors, and a)diles, among whom were the consul /Emilius, the late consul Servilius, and the late master of the horse Minucius; and eighty senators, or (hose who were entitled to a seat in the senate. The loss of the enemy was 4000 Gauls, 1500 Spaniards and African?, and about 200 horse. A part of the Roman troops, who escaped to Canusium, put themselves there under the command of Ap. Claudius and P. Cornelius Scipio, wiio were military tribunes ; and as these were consulting with some of the other officers, word came that L. Caicilius Metellus and some other young noblemen were planning to fly to the court of some foreign prince, utterly despairing of their country. Scipio rose, and followed by the rest vent to the lodgings of Metellus, where the traitors were a.' sembled : and there drawing his sword made them, under tjrror of death, swear never to de- sert their coujitry.* When tidings of this unexampled defeat reached Rome, the consternation was such as cannot be described. Grief and female lamentation was every where to be heard, but the ujagnanimity of the senate remained unshaken. By the advice of Fabius Maxinms, measures were taken for pre- serving tranquillity in the city, and ascertaining the position and designs of the victorious and the condition of the van- quished army. On account of the number of the slain, a general mourning for thirty days was appointed, and all public and private religious rites were suspended ; Q,. Fabius Pictor t was sent to iniiuire of the god at Delphi ; the Fatal Books were consulted, and by their injunction a Greek mnn and woman and a Gallic man and woman were buried alive in the Ox-market. Measures being thus taken to appease the wrath of Heaven, they proceeded to employ the means of defence. C. Claudius Alarcellus, the proprietor, was sent to take the command at Canusium, where about ten thousand * Liv. xxii. .^3. Tlje censors of the year 538 deprived Metellus and his companions of their horses, and made thcin a;rarians, on acconnt 9f their conduct on this occasion. * This ifi the earliest ^man hiatorian. 1, I:. I niiir't hno ^i^i^lwa•l • PROGRESS OF HANNIBAL. 211 men were now assembled. M. Junius was made dicta*' r, and by enrolling all above and some under seventeen years of age, four legions and one thousand horse were raised; eigbt thousand able-bodied slaves were, with their own con- sent, purchased from their masters and enrolled in the le- gions ; the arms, the spoils of former wars, which hung in the temples and porticoes, were now taken down and used. It was apprehended at Rome that Hannibal might march at once for the city, and it is said that Maharbal had urged him to do so, and, on his hesitating, told him that he knew how to conquer, but not to use his victory. But the able general knew too well the small chance of success in such an attempt, and was well aware of how much more importance it was to try to detach the allies of Rome; and in this he soon had abundant success. The Samnites, Lucanians, Bruttians, most of the Greek towns, great part of Apulia and Campania, and all Cisalpine Gaul_ turned against Rome, whose power was now thought to be at an end. Yet never was Rome's steadfastness greater than at the present moment. Hannibal, being in want of money, offered bis Roman prisoners their liberty at a moderate ransom. Ten of them were sent to Rome, with Carthalo, a Punic officer, to consult the senate, on their oath to return. When they drew nigh to Rome, a lictor met Carthalo,ordering him off the Roman territory before night ; the senate, though assailed by the tears and prayers of the families of the captives, were swayed by the stern, rigid sentiments of T. Manlius Torqua- tus, and replied that they should not be redeemed. One of the envoys had, when leaving the Punic camp, returned to it on some pretext, and thinking, or affecting to think, him- self thereby released from his oath, remained at Rome ; but the senate had him taken and sent back to Hannibal. When Terentius Varro returned to Rome, all orders went out to meet him, and thanked him for not having despaired of the republic. How different, as Livy remarks, would have been the recep'tion of a defeated Punic general ! Hannibal, having entered Samnium, and made himself master of the town of Compsa, advanced to Campania, where the popular party in Capua, under the guidance of a dema- gogue of noble birth, named Pacuvius Calavius, had made an alliance with him, and took up his quarters in that lu.xu- rious city. About this time he despatched his brother Mago to Carthage, with an account of his successes and a demand of men, money, and supplies Mago, it is said, emptied ou^ n li 212 HISTORY OF ROME. before the senate a bushel full of gold rings, the ornament of the equestrian order at Rome, to prove the magnitude of the losses of the Romans; but Hanno and the anti-Barcine* party still opposed the war, and advised to seek peace. The opposite party, however, prevailed ; it was voted to send him 4000 Numidians, 40 elephants, and a large sum of money ; and Mago and another officer were sent to Spain to hire a body of 20,000 foot and 4000 horse. CHAPTER TV. ; HANNIBAL IN CAMPANIA. OKFEAT OP I'OSTUMTUS. AF- FAIK8 OP SPAIN. TREATY BET\yEEN HANNIBAL AND KING PHILIP. HANNIBAL REPULSED AT NOLA. SUCCESS OF HANNO IN BRUTTIUM. AFFAIRS OF SARDINIA, OF SPAIN, OF SICILY. ELECTIONS AT ROME. DEFEAT OF HANNO. SIEGE OF SYRACUSE. AFFAIRS OF SP.^IN AND AFRICA. TAKING OF TARENTUM. SUCCESSES OR HANNIBAL. In the city of Nola, as at Capua, the popular party was I adver.se, the aristocratic favorable, to the cause of Rome. : Hannibal, therefore, hoping to get this town as he had gotten 1 Capua, led his troops into i'.s territory. The Nolan senate ' instantly sent off to the praetor MarcelUis,f who was at Casil- innm with an army, and he immediately set out, and keeping mostly to the hills, reached the town; Hannibal having just departed to make an' effort to gain Neapolis, for he was ex- tremely anxious to get possession of a good seaport on this coast. Failing, however, in his attempt, he went to Nuceria, which he forced to surrender ; and he then returned and en- camped before the gates of Nola ; Marcellus, fearing treach-' ery on the part of the people, retired into the town. Each day the two armies were drawn out, and slight skirmishes, but no general action, took place. At length the senators gave Marcellus information of a plot to i^hut the gates behind him when he had led his army out, and to admit the enemy. • * The' party who supported Hannibal at Cartfirge wis named Bat cine, from his fatfier's epithet Barcns. ' The conqueror of the Gauls. See above, p. 194. HANNIBAL IN CAMPANIA. (213 He therefore next day, instead of leading out his forces as usual, stationed them within the town; the legionaries and Roman horse at the middle gate, the recruits, the light troops, and the allies' horse at the two side ones ; and he gave strict orders for no one to appear on the walls. Han- nibal, when he drew out his army as usual and saw no one to oppose him, judged at once that the plot was discovered, and he resolved to .ittempt a storm, in reliance on a rising of the people in his favor. Having sent a part of his troops back to the camp for ladders and the other requisite imple- ments, he led his army up to the walls. Suddenly the gates all opened, the trumpets sounded, the Roman army rushed out on all sides, ^jid he was forced to retire with a consid- erable loss, Marcellus then closed the gates again, and having instituted an inquiry, put to death seventy persons whose guilt was proved. Hannibal, hjtying retired from Nola, went and laid siege to Acerra;, the people of which town, despairing of being able to defend it, fled from it in the night. He then advanced and laid siege to Casilinum, which was gallantly defended by a small but resolute garrison; and finding he had no chance of taking it, he led off his army to winter at Capua. Here, as was to be expected, his troops indulged in all kinds of luxury and debauchery ; and ignorant, rhetorical writers, who could not discern the real causes of the subsequent de- cline of Hannibal's power, ascribe it to this wintering in Capua. When the weather grew milder, Hannibal again invested Casilinum. The dictator Junius was at hand with an army of twenty-five thousand men, but he was obliged to go to Rome on account of the auspices, and he charged his master of the horse, Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, not to attempt any thing during his absence. Gracchus, therefore, though the garrison were, suffering the extremes of famine, could not attempt to convey them supplies. All he could do was to send barrels filled with corn down the stream by night, whicii the people watched for and stopped ; quantities of riuts were in like manner floated down to them. Unfortunately the Vulturnus happening to be swollen one night, overflowed, and some of the barrels were carried out on the bank where the enemy lay. The river now was strictly watched; and the garrison, having eaten the leather of their shields and every species of vile food, at length capitulated. Most of the towns of Bruttium which remained faithful to Rome were soon after forced to surrender. 914 HISTORY OF R05IE. But a Still greater misfortune befell the Romans in tlie north of Italy ; L. Postumius, the consul elect, as he marched with an army of twenty-five thousand men, througli a wood in which the Gauls had sawn the trees on the way-side so as to be easily thrown down, was attackeils of enemies or a civic crown. I It is remarkable that there were now two dictators at a time, and that i Fabius had no master of the horse. TREATY BETWEEN HANNIBAL AND K7NG PHILIP. 215 tidings that the Celtiberians, instigated by the Romans, had invaded the Punic province and taken three towns ; he hastened back to its defence, but was defeated in two battles, with the loss of 15,000 men slain and 4000 taken. In this state of aflairs P. Scipio, whose command had been prolonged, arrived with thirty ships of war, eight thousand troops, and a large supply of stores. The Romans now crossed the Ebro, and advanced to Saguntum, as it was here that the hostages which Hannibal had required from the Spanish princes were kept, and the garrison was not strong, and if the hostages were released those princes might be more easily induced to join the Romans. Fortune here fa- vored them; a Spaniard named Abelux persuaded Bostar, the commandant, that his wisest course would be to send the hostages back to their friends, whose gratitude might then be relied on ; and he offered to be himself the agent in the business. Bostar gave his consent ; Abelux went that night secretly to the Roman camp, and engaged with Scipio to put the hostages into his hands ; and the following night, when he left the town with them, a party of Romans, as had been arranged, took him and them and brought them into the camp. The hostages were forthwith sent off to their friends, and this apparent generosity produced a great effect in favor of the Romans. The approach of winter put a stop to all further operations. The following year (536) Hasdrubal had to turn all his forces against a people named the Carpesians,* who had risen in arms. When he had subdued them, he received orders from home to lead his army into Italy to join his bro- theT. At his earnest desire, Himilco was sent with a fleet and army to succeed him, as otherwise, he assured the senate, all Spain would be lost. He then marched for the Ebro; the Romans, learning his intentions, crossed that river, and an engagement ensued, in which Hasdrubal sus- tained a total defeat. This victory decided those who were wavering, and nearly all Spain now joined the Romans. In Italy, at the commencement )f the ne.xt campaign, (537,) the two main armies remained long inactive. The Romans were encamped at Suessula; Hannibal at Tifata, over Capua, During this time the Romans found that a contest with a new and powerful enemy awaited them, Philip, king of Macedonia, having ended the Confederate " This people dwell on the Tagus; their capital wasTolctum, (Toledo.) 216" .HUV.A'l ;).•./. HISTORY Of ROMt. iT \y^ar,* resolved to join his arms with those of Hunnijal, to whom he sent an embassy : and a treaty was made, by which the king engaged to invade Italy witii a fleet of two hun dred ships; and that country being reduced under the do- minion of the Cartliaginians, tliey were to pass over and aid in bringing Greece and the islands under that of Philip. t Fortunately for the Romans, the ship in which the envoys were returning fell into their hands, and the summer was gone before a second embassy readied the Punic camp and returned, so that the season of action was lost. P. Vale- rius Flaccus was stationed with fifty ships at Tarentum to watch the progress of events beyond the sea, and the prjelor M. Valerius Lasvinus had orders, in case of any hostile move- ments there, to go to Tareutum, and to land his troops on the opposite coast, and transfer the war thither. The consul Fabius at length put his troops in motion, and having pa-ssed the Vulturnus, and taken some of the re- volted towns, marched between Hannibal's camp and Capua to Vesuvius, where Marcellus lay, whom he sent with his troops to the defence of Nola. Marcellus while here made frequent incursions into the adjoining parts of Samniurn ajid laid them waste, and at the earnest desire of the Sam- nites Hannibal led his troops against Nola, where he was joined by Hanno with his forces from Bruttium. Marcel- lus having drawn up his troops, as before, within the town, made a sally ; but a sudden storm of wind and rain came on and parted the combatants. The rain lasted all that night and part of the next day. On the third day a general engagement was fought, and Hannibal, it is said, was re- pulsed with the loss of 5000 men and si.x elephants ; and the next day 1272 Spanish and Numidian hor-^^e went over to the Romans, whom they served faithfully all the rest of the war. Hannibal having dismissed Hanuo went into Apulia for the winter, and fixed his camp near the town of Arpi. Hanno meantime endeavored to reduce the Greek towns in Bruttium, which, chiefly out of fear and hatred of the Bruttians, remained faithful to Rome. Hid attempt on Rhegium failed ; but ilie Locrians were forced to form an J. J • I* History of Greece, Part III. chap, vi . ^ t Livy, x.xiii. 33. Pnlybiiis (vii. 9) gives a copy of the treaty which is a very curious document. It only spraks however of an alfi- ancc offensive and defensive, and of oblicrinir the Romans to give up all their possessions on the farther coast of the Adriatic. AFFAIKS OF SARDINIA. 2-17 alliance with Carthage. The Bruttians, enraged at being balked of the plunder of these two towns, collected a body of fifteen thousand men, and resolved to win the wealthy city of Croton for themselves. In this, as in almost every other town, the men of property were for, the lower orders against, the Romans. The latter put the town into the possession of the Bruttians ; the ojjtimatcs retired to the citadel, and the Bruttians and the people being unable to take it applied to Hanno. As the circuit of the town greatly exceeded the wants of the inhabitants, Hanno proposed to those in the citadel to receive a colony of Bruttians into the town ; but they declared that they would sooner die: at last they con- sented to emigrate, and retire to Locri. In these parts Rhegium alone now remained to the Romans. In Sardinia a man named Hampsicora had, at the insti- gation of the Carthaginians, raised the standard of revolt against the Romans. The ill health of the pro-prajtor, Q,. Mu- cius, prevented active operations against him ; but the prae- tor P. Manlius, who now came out as his successor, finding himself at the head of a force of 22,000 foot and 1200 horse, advanced, and encamped near the Sardinian army. Hamp- sicora had left the command with his son, and the inexpe- rienced youth venturing to engage the Romans was defeat- ed, with a loss of 3000 men killed and 1800 taken. This victory would have ended the war, but that Hasdrubal landed with a Punic army. Having joined Hampsicora, he gave Manlius battle. After a conllict of four hours vic- tory declared for Rome: the enemy had 12,000 slain, 3700 taken, among whpm were Hasdrubal and two other Carthagin- ians of rank, Hanno and Mago. Hampsicora put an end to himself a few days after, and the whole island then submitted. In Spain the Scipios gave a decisive defeat to the three Punic generals Hasdrubal, Mago, and Hamilcar, who were besieging the town of Illiturgis, (near Andujar.) It is said that with but sixteen thousand men they routed sixty thou- sand, killing more men than were in their own army. Shortly after they gave them another great defeat at a town named Intibili. Several more of the native peoples now declared for the Romans. The steady ally of Rome, the good king Hiero, died this year, after a life of ninety, a reign of fifty years. He was succeeded by his grandson Ilieronymus, a boy of; but fifteen years of age. A party in Syracuse, adverse to Rome, per- suaded this giddy, profligate youth to seek the friendship of 19 nB iilS HISTORY OF ROML. Carthage, and he sent an embassy with that view to Han nibal. His overtures were eagerly accepted; a treaty was formed, l)y which the island was to be divided between them, and Hieronymus commenced hostilities. He was iiowever assassinated shortly afterwards at Leontini ; but the anti-Roman party still maintained the superiority at Syra- cusie. 'J'he time of the elections at Rome being arrived, (538,) the consul Fabius returned to hold them. The prerogative tribe (/. f. the one allotted to vote first) having named T. Otacilrus and M. ^Emilius, the consul addressed them, and reminding them of their bounden duty in the present con- dition of their country to eJect none but the ablest men, de- sired them to vote over again. They then chose himself and M. Marcellus; and all the otlier tribes followed their ex- ample, in selecting the only men fit to oppose to Hannibal ; and old men called to mind the similar consulates of Fabius Maximus and P. Decius in the Gallic, and of Papiriua and Carvilius in the Samnite war. It was resolved to have eighteen legions this year, (for which purpose six new ones were to be raised,) and a fleet of one hundred and fifty ships of war. One hundred new ships were built, and every citi- zen whose fortune had been rated at 50,000 asses and* up- wards in the last census was obliged to furnish one or more sailors, according to his property, and to give them a year's pay. The consul Fabius having returned to his army, the Cam- panians, fearing that he would open the campaign with the siege of Capua, sent to Arpi to implore Hannibal to return to their defence. He therefore came and resumed his posi- tion on Mount Tifata, whence he moved down to the coast ; and after making an ineffectual attempt on Puteoli, which the Romans had fortified, he, at the invitation of the popu- lar party, approached Nola. But Marcellus had thrown hint- self, with a force of six thousand foot and three hundred horse, into it. An action, as before, was fought under the walls, rather to the disadvantage of Hannibal, who, giving up all hopes of taking the town, broke up in the night and marched for Tarentum, where he had a secret understand- ing with some of the citizens, who had formerly been hia prisoners. As the Roman power was annihilated in Bruttium and Lucania, Hanno led his army of seventeen thousand foot and twelve hundred horse, composed of Punic, Lucanian, DEFEAT J3F HANNO 219 and Bruttian troops, into Samnium, to occupy the impor- tant town of Beoeventum. But Fabius had sent orders to Tib. Gracchus, who was at Nuceria with two legions, prin- cipally composed of Volones,* to hasten to preoccupy it. Gracchus had executed his orders, and when Hanno came, and, encamping on the river Calor about three miles off, be- gan to lay the country waste, he led his troops out against him. As the Volones, when leaving their winter quarters, had begun to murmur at not having yet received their free- dom, he had written to the senate on the subject, and had received authority to act as he deemed best. He now as- sembled his troops, and told them that whoever next day brought him the head of an enemy, should have his freedom. At sunrise he led them out ; the enemy did not decline the proffered battle. They fought for four hours with equal ad- vantage, when Gracchus, being told by the tribunes that the condition on which he had promised freedom, greatly retard- ed the men, gave orders for them to fling away the heads and grasp their swords. The enemies were soon driven to their camp with great slaughter ; the victors entered pellmell with them, and of the whole army but two thousand, (the number of the slam on the side of the Romans,) and these chiefly horse, escaped. Gracchus conferred the promised boon of freedom on the spot, and led back his triumphant army to Beneven- tum, where the people all poured out to meet them, and craved the proconsul's permission to entertain them. Leave was granted ; tables were then spread in the streets ; the Volones feasted, with caps or bands of white wool on their heads. Gracchus had this scene afterwards painted in the temple of Liberty, which his father had built on the Aventine. The two consuls meantime had laid siege to and reduced Casilinum ; Fabius then entered Samnium and laid it waste; Hannibal's plans on Tarentum were foiled by M. Valerius, who put a garrison into the town. On the other hind, Gracchus having sent some cohorts of Lucanians to plunder the hostile territory, they were fallen on and totally cut tn pieces by Hanno. . In Syracuse, after some of the atrocities familiar to the Greek democracies, the supreme power was transferred from the hands of the party who were for moderation and remain- ing faithful to Rome, to the rabble and the mercenary sol- diers. War was resolved on, and the chief command given * Thart is, the volunteer slaves, who had been armed. See abore, p. 211. S20 HISTOKY OF ROME. to Hippocrates and Epic^'des, tvvp Carthaginiaia of Syra- cusari descent, whom Hannibal had sent to Hieronynius. Marcellus, to whom the conduct of the war against Syracnse was committed, took Leontini by assault, and then came and encamped at the Olympium before Syracuse,* while his fleet assailed the wall of Acradina on tlie sea-side. Quinqueremes were lashed together, and wooden towers erected on them and engines plied, while light troops kept up a constant dis- charge from vessels ranged behind them. But Archimedes, the greatest mechanist of the age, was in Syracuse ; and in the time of Hiero he had placed engines along the walls, which now baffled all the skill and efforts of the Romans, + and Marcellus found himself obliged to convert the siege into a blockade. Himilco, with a Punic army, having gained over Agrigentum and some other towns, came and encamp- ed on the Anapus, about eight miles from Syracuse; but finding it in no need of aid, he led off his forces to the town of Murgantia, which the people i)ut into his hcinds, with the Roman garrison and magazines which were in it. The peo- ple of Emia, in the centre of the island, being suspected by the Rojuan commandant of a similar design, he fell on and massacred them as they were sitting in assembly; and Mar- cellus,so far from blaming the deed, gave the plunder of the town to the soldiers. As Enna was sacred to the goddesses Ceres and Proserpina, the horror of this impious deed made most of the remaining towns declare for the Punic cause. JNlarcellus now fixed his winter camp at Leon, about five miles north of Syracuse. The Romans commenced this year active operations against the king of Macedonia, whom LiEvinus defeated near the town of Aj)ollonia in Epirus.| In Spain, the advantage was on the side of the Romans, who gained some victories over their antagonists. The consuls for tlie next year (539) were 0.. F.abius Max- imus (son of the late consul) and Tib. Sempronius Grac- chus. The year is remarkably barren of events. Hanni- bal remained jnactive in the neighborhood pf ^'^s^regtum ; "I ■ ■ - i^- v!,. • ■ .. i" I , • • ■ ys •■' * See the description and plan of Syracuse, History of Greece, p. 235. 2d edit. t We are told that Bome of his mscliinos were iron hands, which ■eizing' the ships by tlie prow turned them up on the poop, and tlien let theni fall ; and that by means of burning-glasses he set fire to seve- ral of the Roman vessels. (Livy, xxiii. M. Zonaras, ix. 4.) t The whole of the wars between Philip and the Romans will b« found in the History of Greece, Part III. chap. vii. and ^m. TAKING OF TARENTUSr. 221 Marcellus lay before Syracuse ; the consul Fabius recovered •.he town of Arpi. In Spain the Scipios were still suc- cessful ; they began to follow the example of the Cartha- ^/inians by taking the natives into pay, and a body of Celii berians served under their standard. They also extended tlieir views to Africa, where a Nuinidian prince named Syphax was at war with the Carthaginians. They sent three ceiitmions to him to propose an alliance; their offer was gladly accepted by the Numidian, and at his request one of the centurions remained with him to form and disci- pline a body of infantry, an arm in which the Numidians had been hitherto very deficient. But the Carthaginians formed an alliance with Gala, the king of that portion of the Numidians named Massylians ; and his troops, led by his son Masinissa, a youth of seventeen years of age, being joined with theirs, they gave Syphax a total defeat. He fled to the Maurusians and collected another army ; but Masinissa pursued and prevented him from passing over to Spain as he had intended. The following year (540) was one of the most eventful of the war. Q.. Fulvius Flaccus and Ap. Claudius were chosen consuls, and the army was raised to three-and-twenty legions. Early in the year Tarentum fell into the possession of Hannibal, in the following manner.* A Tarentine envoy at Rome, named Phileas, persuaded his countrymen who were retained there as hostages to make their escape. They were pursued and taken at Tarracina, and being brought back were scourged and cast from the Tarpeian rock. This piece of cruelty irritated the minds of their friends and rel- atives at Tarentum, and thirteen young men entered into a plot to give the town up to Hannibal. Going out under the pretext of hunting, they sought the Punic camp, which lay at a distance of three days' march ; and two of them, named Nico and Philemenus, giving themselves up to the guards, demanded to be led into the presence of Hannibal. The plan was soon arranged, and Hannibal desired them, as they were going away, tcf drive off the cattle which would be sent out of the camp next morning to graze, as this would give them credit in the eyes of their countrymen, and help to conceal their dealings with him. They did as directed, arid, by sharing their booty, gained great favor and manv ** Polybius, viii. 26. Livy, xxv. 7 — 11. 19* 222 HISTORY OF SOME. imitators They thus went backwards and forwards seve- ral times and it was arranged that the rest should remain quiet, wliile Philemenus, whose passion for the chase was well -known, should keep going in and out under the pretext of liunting. lie always went and came at night, alleging his fear of the enemy, and always returned loaded with game, partly killed by himself, partly given him by Hanni- bal. A portion of this he took care to give to Livius, the llomaa commandant, and another part to the guards at the gate by which he used to come in. At length he won their confidence so completely, that as soon as his whistle was heard outside in the night, the gate was opened, without any incpiiry. ,,. II:innibal judged that the time for action was now arriv^, lie had hitherto feigned illness, lest the Romans should wonder at his staying so long in the one place; and he now did so more than ever. Then selecting ten thousand of his boldest and most active troops, both horse and foot, and di- recting them to take four days' provision, he set out with them before dawn ; a party of eighty Numidian horse pre- ceded them in order to scour the country, and prevent in- formation of their approach from being conveyed to Taren- tuni. Philemenus was with him as his guide, and the march was arranged so as to reach the city by midnight. The day fixed on by the conspirators was one on which Livius was to be at a banquet at the place nanicd the Mu- seum, close by the market. It was late in the evening when tidings came of the Numidians being seen, and he merely directed a party of horse to go out early in the morning and drive them off; ^it night he returned home without any suspicion, went to bed, and fell asleep. The conspirators remained on the watch for the signal arranged with Hannibal, who, when he drew near to the gate which had been agreed on, in the east part of the city, was to kindle a fire on a certain spot, and when those within had re- plied by a similar signal, both fires were to be extinguislved. The sitjual was made and returned in due time; the con- spirators then rushed to the gaie, killed the guards, and admitted Hannibal, who, leaving his horse wit^iout, moved on with iiis infantry, and took pos.session of the market. Meantime Philemenus was gone round with a thousand Africans to the gate he was used to enter at. He had the carcass of a huge wild-boar prepared for the purpose, and giving a whistle as -usual, the wicket was opeaed. He him SUCCE^^SES OF HANNIBAL. 223 sell and three others bore the carcass on a barrow, and while the guard was handling and admiring it, they killed him : they then let in thirty Africans who were behind them, and cutting the bars opened the gates and admitted all the rest, and they joined Hannibal at the market. He divided a body of two thousand Gauls into three parts, and sent them through the town, with orders to kill all the Ro- mans they met ; and the conspirators, who had gotten some Roman trumpets and learned how to sound them, stood at the theatre and blew, and as the soldiers hastened on all sides to the signal, they were met and slain. Livius at the first alarm had run down to the port, and getting into a boat passed over to the citadel. As soon as it was daylight Hannibal invited all the Ta- rentines to come without arms to the market. When they appeared he spoke to them kindly as their friend, and dis- missed them with directions to set a mark on their houses. He then gave orders to pillage all the houses not marked, as belonging to the Romans or their friends. As the citadel lay on a small peninsula, and was secured on the town side by a deep ditch and wall, there were no hopes of being able to take it. To secure the city, there- fore, Hannibal began to run a rampart parallel to that of the citadel ; the Romans attempted to impede the works, hut were driven back with great loss. The rampart was then completed, and a ditch also run between it and the town ; and Hannibal retired and encamped on the Galaesus, about five miles off. When all was finished, some works were carried on against the citadel ; but the Romans, hav- ing been reenforced from Metapontum, made a sally by night and destroyed them. Hannibal saw that unless the Taren- tines were masters of the sea, there was no chance of re- ducing the citadel. But their ships which were in the har- bor could not get out, as that fortress commanded the entrance; he therefore had them hauled along a .street which ran across the peninsula into the open sea on the south side. The fleet then anchored before the citadel ; atid Hannibal, leaving a garrison in the town, returned to winter in his former camp.^ * Livy says that his authorities differed as to the year of the revolt of Tarenlum, some placing^ it in iiSO, but the greater number, and nearest to the events, in 540. If this last be the true date, it must have been early in the spring ; yet Livy himself says Hannibal went into winter quarters immediately after it ; and Polybius (viii. 36, 13) says that he 224 HISTORY OF ROME. In the beginning of May the Roman consuls and praetors set out for their respective provinces. The two consuls, Q,. Fulvius and Ap. Claudius, encamped at Boviahurn, in Samnhim, intending to lay siege to Capua. The Campa- nians, being prevented by their presence from cultivating their lands, sent to Hannibal, imploring him to supply them with corn before the Romans entered their country. He ordered Hanno to attend to this matter, and this general came and encamped near Beneventum ; and having collectec^ there a large supply of corn, sent word to the Campanians to come and fetch it. With their usual indolence and negligence, they came with little more than forty wagons, and Hanno, having rated them well for it, appointed another day. But the Beneventines now heard of it : they sent to inform the consuls; and Fulvius set out with his army, and entered Beneventum by night. The Campanians came this time with two thousand wagons and a great crowd of people; and Fulvius, hearing that Hanno was away to get corn, came before daylight and assailed the camp. As thi.s lay on a hill, it cost the Romans much labor and loss to reach it; and the consul having advised with his officers, ordered the call for retreat to be sounded ; but the soldiers heeded it not ; they rushed on with emulative ardor, car- ried the rampart, and made themselves masters of the camp and all it contained. The consuls shortly after, having sum- moned Gracchus from Lncaniato the defence of Beneventum, proceeded to lay siege to Capua. But Gracchus was drawn by the treachery of a Lucanian into an ambush laid for him by Mago, and he and all that were with him were slain. When the consuls entered Campania and began to lay it waste, the Campanians, aided by a body of two thousand horse whicli Hannibal had sent them, sallied forth and killed about fifteen hundred of the Romans. Hannibal himself soon appeared, and gave the consuls battle; but the en- gagement was broken off by the sudden appearance in the distance of the army latelv commanded by Gracchus, which each supposed to be coming to the aid of the other side. The consuls in the night divided their forces, Fulvius going toward Cumi-e, Claudius into Lucania. Hannibal pursued this last, who gave him the slip and returned to Capua. CInnce however threw a victory into the hands of the Pu- remainod there the rest of the winter. It seems therefore most mryh- »\Je that the true time was the autumn or beginning of the winterer rvSO TAKING OF SYRACUSE. 225 nic general; for a centurion named M. Centenius having boasted to the senate of all the mischief he could do the enemy, from his knowledge of the country, if they would let him have five thousand men, they had the folly to give him eight thousand, half citizens, half allies, and so many volunteers joined him on the way as doubled his army. With this force he entered Lucania, where Hannibal now was. But it was a far different thing to lead a company, and to command an army opposed to such a general as Hannibal, who speedily brought him to an action ; and of his whole force not more than one thousand men escaped. Hannibal moved thence into Apulia, where the praetor Cn. Fulvius lay with an army of eighteen thousand men at the town of Her- donia. The Roman general was rash and unskilful, and his army completely demoralized by laxity of discipline ; they therefore yielded the able Carthaginian an easy victory, and but two thousand men escaped from the field. CHAPTER V. taring of syracuse. defeat ann death of the scipios. — Hannibal's march to rome. — surrender of capua. SCIPIO IN SPAIN. taking OF NEW CARTHAGE. AFFAIRS IN ITALY. RETAKING OF TARENTUM. DEFEAT OF HAS- DRUBAL IN SPAIN. DEATH OP MARCELLUS. MARCH OP HASDRUBAL. HIS DEFEAT ON THE METAURUS. While the war thus proceeded in Italy, Marcellus urged on the siege of Syracuse. Taking advantage of a festival of Diana, (Artemis,) which the Syracusans were wont to cele- brate with abundance of wine and revelry, he one night scaled the walls and made himself master «. f the Epipolse. He encamped between Tycha and Neapolis,* to the inhab- itants of which he granted their lives and dwellings, but both quarters were given up to plunder. The commandant at Euryalus surrendered that important post on condition of the garrison being allowed to reenter the town. Mar * Part of the Temenites. See History of Greece. cc 226 HISTORY OF ROME. cellus then formed three camps in order to blockade Acra- dina, while a Roman fleet lay without to prevent succor? or provisions from being broug.it by sea. After a few days, Himiico and Hippocrates came to the relief of the town ; they encamped at the Great Harbor and it was arranged, that while they attacked the divisior under the legate T. Crispinus at the Olympiuni, Epicydes should make a sally from Acradina against Marcelius, and the Punic fleet in the Harbor get close in to shore,. to pre- vent any aid being sen* to Crispinus. The whole plan however miscarried, for they were repulsed on all sides. It being now the autumn, fevers, produced by the moisture of the soil, broke out in both armies • the Sicilians in the army of Hippocrates returned home to escape it ; but the Punic troops having no retreat all perished, and an)ong them their two generals. The Romans suflTered less, as they were in the city, and had the shelter of the houses. Bomilcar, who had run out of the Great Harbor after the capture of Epipolai, was now at Cape Pachynus with one hundred and thirty ships of war and seventy transports, but the easterly winds kept him from doubling it. Epicydes, fearing he might go back, gave the command at Acradina to the leaders of the mercenaries, and went to him in order to induce him to give battle to the Roman fleet, which was inferior to his in number. The two fleets were now lying one on each side of the cape ; and as soon as the wind ceased to blow from the east, Bomilcar stood out to sea in order to double it, but seeing the Roman ships in motion he lost courage, and sending word to the transports to go back to Africa, made all sail for Tarentnm Epicydes then, giving up Syracuse for lost, retired to Agrigentum. A surrender of Svr.acuso, on fivorable terms, was now near being effected. Some of the inhabitants, learning that Marcellus would consent to leave them in the enjoyment of their liberty and laws, under the dominion of Rome, fell on and slew tlie governors whom Epic^'des had left, and having called an assembly of the people, elected praetors, (strateffi,) some of whom were sent to treat with Marcellus. Matters were thus on the point of being accommodated, when the deserters in the town, persuading the mercenaries that their cause was the same with theirs, fell on and killed the praetors and several of the inhabitants, and then appointed six governors of their own, three for Acradina and throe for the Island. The mercenaries, however, soon saw that DEFEAT AND DEATH OF THE SCIPIOS. 227 iheir case was very different from that of the deserters ; and one of the three commandants of Acradina, a Spaniard named Mericus, made a secret agreement to put the town into the hands of Marcellus. For this purpose he proposed that each commandant should take charge of a separate part of the town. This was agreed to, and the part as- signed to himself being the Island, from the fount of Are- thiisa to the mouth of the Greek Harbor, he one night admitted a party of Roman soldiers at the gate next to the fount. In the morning, at daybreak, Marcellus made a general attack on Acradina, and while all the efforts of the besieged were directed against him, troops were landed on the island, and, with little loss, they made themselves masters of it and of a part of Acradina. Marcellus then sounded a recall, lest the royal treasures should be pillaged in the confusion. The deserters who were in Acradina having made their escape the town surrendered unconditionally, and Mar- cellus, when he had secured the royal treasure for the state, gave the city up to pillage. During the pillaging a soldier entered the room where Archimedes was deeply en- gaged over his geometrical figures, and not knowing who he was, killed him. Marcellus, who was greatly grieved at this mishap, gave him an honorable sepulture. The nu- S \ merous pictures, statues, and other works of art, in which Syracuse abounded, were sent to Rome to adorn that cap- ital. Marcellus shortly after gave the Punic forces and their allies a great defeat on the river Himera. But equal success did not attend the Roman arms in Spain ; for, the Scipios having divided their forces, Publius, hearing that a Spanish prince named Indibilis was coming with seven thousand five hundred men to join the Punic army, set out to give him battle on the road. In the midst of the action the Numidian horse came up, and then the rest of the .Punic army; the Romans were cut to pieces, and Scipio himself slain. About a month after, a similar fate befell Cu. Scipio and his army. From the wrecks of the two armies and the garrisons a new one was formed ; the soldiers themselves chose a^knight, named L. Marcius, to be their general, and under his command they repelled an attack on their own camp, and afterwards stormed two Punic camps with great slaughter of the enemies. The siege of Capua was now (541) the chief object of interest in Italy. Fulvius and Claudius had shut in that 228 HISTORY OF ROME. town completely by a double ditch and rampart ; famine pressed, and the difficulty of communicating with Hannibal was extreme. At length, on being informed of the condition of his allies, the Pbnic general came to their aid, and a com- bined attack from within and without was made on the Ro- man lines. It was, however, repulsed with great loss on the part of the assailants, and Hannibal saw that the only chance of saving Capua was to menace Rome, as the army would probably be recalled to its defence. Having, therefore, sent word to the people of Capua to hold out manfully, he col- lected boats, and put his army over the Vulturnus; then crossing the Liris, inarched rapidly along the Latin road by Ferentinum, Anagnia, Lavici, Tusculuin, and Gabii, and encamped within eight miles of the city. The news of Hannibal's march caused great alarm at Rome. It was at first proposed to recall all the troops to the defence of the city ; but at last it was thought sufficient for one of the proconsuls to leave Capua, and come with a part of their forces. As Claudius was confined by a wound, Fulvius i)roceeded with sixteen thousand men along the ? Appian road. He entered Rome at the Capene gate, and being* joined in command with the consuls, marched his forces through the city, and encamped without the Colline gate. Hannibal, who now lay beyond the Anio, only three miles from the city, advanced with two thousand horse as near as the temple of Hercules, in order to view it. Fulvius ordered the Roman horse to charge, and the consuls at the same time directed a body of twelve hundred Numidian de- serters who were on the Aventine to come down to the Esquili.T. The people who were on the Capitol, seeing them, thought the Aventine was taken, and the consternation that prevailed is not to be described. Ne.xt day Hannibal offered battle, but just as the two ar- mies were drawn out there came on a vi9lent storm of rain and hail which separated them ; the very same thing occur- red the following day. As soon as they returne presented themselves : the people were dejected ; when sud- | denly P. Scipio, the son of Publius who had fallen in Spain, | a young man of only four-and-twenty years of age, came forward and sought the command. It was voted to him ( unanimously ; but soon, when the people thought of his ; age, and of the ill-fortune of his family in Spain, they be- | gan to repent of their precipitation. Scipio tlien called an [ assembly, and spoke in such a manner on these points as \ completely reassured them, and changed their fears into 1 confidence. \ We have already seen Scipio distinguish himself at the T.icinus, and after the battle of Cannae. His was destined I to be one of the greatest names in Roman story. To the \ advantages of nature he joined such arts as \were calculated \ to raise him in the eyes of the people. From the day on ; which he assumed the virile toga^ he never did any thing * According to the historian Coelius (Liv. xxvi. 11) this was Han \ nibal's route to, aol from Rome. { 20 I 230 HISTORY OF ROME. either public or private without first ascending the Capitol, entering the temple, and sitting there for some time alone. Hence an opinion spread among the vulgar that, like Alex- ander the Great, he was of divine origin, and same even talked of a huge serpent that used to be seen in his mother's chamber, and which always vanished when any one entered. These things Scipio never either affirmed or denied, and thus enjoyed the advantage of the popular be- lief As a man, a statesman, and a general, his deeds will I best display his character. Having received an additional force of ten thousand foot 1 and one thousand horse, with M. Junius Silanus as propra;- ' tor under him, Scipio sailed for Spain. He landed at Em- 1 poriae, and having gone thence to Tarraco, held a meeting I of the deputies of the allies ; he then visited the troops in i their quarters, and bestowed great praises on them for their ' gallant conduct. To the brave Marcius he showed the most marked favor. As it was now late in the year, he returned i to Tarraco for the winter. ; In Greece, this year, M. Valerius LJ loin his brother Hannibal. Money was sent him for thia purpose, and to this he added what was in the treasury and temples at Gades, and the forced contributions of the citizens In consequence of this, when, after the failure of a nocturna. attempt on New Carthage, he returned to Gades, he found the gates closed against him, and on his retiring, the city was surrendered to the Romans. As it was now the end of autumn, he took up his winter quarters in the les.ser of the Baleares, (Minorca.) Scipio, having thus in five years achieved the conquest of Spain, now returned to Rome. The senate gave him au- dience, according to custom, at the temple of Bellona, with- out the city, and he gave a full account of his exploits. He had some hopes of being allowed to triumph ; but as this honor had hitherto been restricted to those who were magis- trates, he did not urge his claim. At the ensuing comitia, he was unanimously chosen consul for the next year (547) with P. Licinius Crassus, who was at this time great pontiff. Aware of the feeble hold which the Carthaginians had on the affections of their African subjects and allies, and recol- lecting the ease with which Agathocles and Regulus had brought them to the brink of ruin, Scipio was resolved, if possible, to transfer the war to their own shores. He was therefore desirous of having Africa assigned for his province, and he made no secret of his intention of appealing to the people if refused by the senate. The latter body were highly offended; some were envious of Scipio, others really dubious of the policy of invading Africa while Hannibal was in Italy. Among these last was Q,. Fabius Maximus, who spoke at great length against Scipio's plan. Scipio replied ; d. Ful- vius then demanded of him if he would leave the decision of the provinces to the Fathers; Scipio's answer was ambig- uous ; Fulvius appealed to the tribunes, and they declared that they would intercede. Scipio then demanded a day to con- sult with his colleague, and it ended by the decision being left to the Fathers, and their assigning Bruttium to one consul and Sicily to the other, with pei mission la pass over to Africa if he deemed it for the advantage of the state. The senate, being thus obliged to give way, vented their spleen by refusing Scipio leave to levy troops, and by refus- ing also to be at the expense of fitting out the fleet he might require. He did not pre.ss them j he only asked to be al- 21 EE 242 I'ISTORY OF ROME. lowed 10 take voluivieers and free-will offerings. This coul(J not well be refused: the various peoples of Etraria then con- tributed the materials for building and equipping ships; they also gave corn and arms; the Umbrians, Sabines, and the Marsian League sent numerous volunteers; the Camertians a complete cohort fully armed. Forty-five days after the trees for the purpose had been felled, a fleet of tliirty ships, fully equipped, was afloat. Scipio then passed over to Sicily, where he regimented his volunteers, keeping three hundred youths, the flower of them, about him, unarmed and ignorant of their destination. He soon after selected three hundred young Sicilians of good family, and directed them to be with liim on a certain day, fully equipped to serve as cavalry. They came ; but the idea of service was death to these ef- feminate youths and to their parents and rolatives. Scipio then offereul to provide them substitutes if they did not wish to serve. 'Jlley gladly embraced his offer : he appointed the three hundred youths to take their place; the Sicilians had to supply them with horses and arms, and have them taught to ride; and thus Scipio acquired without any e.xpensea valu- able body of hors<». He then draughted the best soldiers from the legions there, especially those who had served under Mar- cellus, and went to Syracuse for the winter. La;lius passed with a part of the fleet over to Africa, and landing at Hippo Regius plundereil the adjacent country. He was here joined by Masinissa, who having been driven out of his paternal kingdou) by Sypliax, was lurking with a few horsemen about the Lesser Syrlis. La;lius then returned with his booty to Sicily. In the course of this summer Mago sailed from the Baleares, and landed with l'-J,0(IO foot and 2000 horse at Genua, on the const of Liguria; and when Lailius had appeared in Af- rica the Punic senate sient him a reenforcement of 0000 foot, SOO horse, seven elephants, and a large sum of money, with directions to lose no time in hiring Gauls and Ligurians, and to endeavor to effect a junction with Hannibal as soon as possible, and thus give the Romaris employment at home. In Spain, Indibilis and Mandonius excited some of the native peoples to arms against the Romans ; but they were defeated and obliged to sue for peace. In Greece, a peace was con eluded with the king of Macedonia. The consulate of Scipio having expired, his command, as was usual, was prolonged for the ensuing year, (548,) and the ejes of all mc i were turned to the fine army which h# INVASION OF AFRICA 343 nad assembled for the conquest of Africa. Adthorities dif fer respecting the niiraber of his forces, but they could hardlj have been less than thirty-five thousand men, horse and foot They embarked, taking with them provisions for forty-five days; the transports sailed in the centre; on the right were twenty ships of war under Scipio himself and his brother Lucius, and an equal number on the left under Lajlius and M, Fortius Cato the qufestor; each transport carried two lights, each ship of war one, the general's ship three; the pilots were directed to steer for the Emporia on the Syrtes. The fleet left Lilybaeum at daybreak, and next morning it was off the Hermaic cape. Scipio's pilot proposed to land there, but he directed him to keep to the left. A fog however came on, and the wind fell ; during the night a contrary wind sprang up, and at dawn they found themselves off the Cape of Apollo, on the west side of the bay of Carthage, not far from Utica, and here they landed and encamped. The consternation was great in Carthage when it was known that the formidable Scipio was actually landed in Africa. Orders were sent to Hasdrubal, who was away collecting troops and elephants, to hasten to the defence of his country, and envoys were despatched to Syphax for a similar purpose. Has- drubal's son Hanno was directed to take a station with four thousand horse about fifteen miles from the Roman camp to protect the open country ; but Masinissa, who was now with Scipio, drew him to where the Roman horse stood covered by some hills, and nearly all his men were slain or taken. lie was himself made a prisoner, and afterwards exchanged for Masinissa's mother. Scipio and Masinissa now laid the country waste without opposition, and they set at liberty a, great number of Roman captives who were working as slaves in the fields. They laid siege to a large town named Lacha ; the scaling-ladders were placed, when the people sent, offering to surrender ; Scipio ordered the trumpet to sound the recall : the soldiers heeded it not, the town was stormed, and a general slaughter commenced. To punish his men Scipio deprived them of all their booty, and he put to death three of the most guilty tribunes. Hasdrubal, who was now at hand with an army of 20,000 foot, 7000 horse, 140 ele- phants, made an attack on the Romans, but was driven off with the loss of 5000 slain and 1800 prisoners. Scipio, wishing to have a strong town as a place of arms ?,nd for winter quarters, now laid siege to Utica : he had brought a>l the necessary machines from Sicily ; but the Uti- ^44 HISTORY CF ROME/ ''J cans defended themselves gallantly and after assailing the tuwn for forty days he was forced to give over the siege. lie with- drew, and fixed his winter camp on a rocky peninsula, which ran out into the sea, to the east of that town. Hasdruhal j encamped in the vicinity, as also did Svphax, the former with j :30,U()0 foot and ;J()UO horse, the latter with ,>U,(X)0 foot and • 10,000 horse, but they made no attempt on the Roman I camp. I During the winter Scipio entered into negotiations with i| Syphax, in hopes of detaching him from the Carthaginians,* I but the Numidian would not h6ar of revolt , he proposed J that the one party should evacuate Italy, the other Aliica, I and both remain as they were. Scipio at first would not listen to these terms; but when some of those whom he had ( sent to Syphax told him how the huts in the Punic camp I were formed of wood and leaves, while those of the Numid- j ians were of reeds, or they lay on simple leaves, and many of J them without the camp, he conceived the horrible project of I setting fire to both the camps in the night, and tnassaciing tiio troops amidst the flames. He feigned therefore to hearken to the proposal of Syphax; messengers went constantly to and tVo, and even remained for days on each side; and Scipio took care to send with them some of his most intelligent soldiers, disguised as slaves, who were to observe the position and form of the camps. ^ When the spring cjune, (ooQ,) Scipio, having gained all I the knowledge he required, launched his ships and put liis machines aboard as if to renew his attacks on Utica, and he fortified an eminence near the town which he had occupied before, and placed on it a body of two thonsand men, osten- sively to act against the town, but in reality to prevent an attempt on his canip bv the garrison during his absence. He then sent envoys to Syphax to know if the Carthaginians had made up their minds to agree to the terms arranged between them, and the envoys had orders not to return without a categorical answer. Syphax, now quite certain of the Roman's sincerity, sent to Hasdruhal, and receiving a perfectly satisfactory rrply, joyfully dismissed Scipio's envoys. But to his great mortification others came almost iirimediatelv, to sav that Scipio himself was well content to make peace on these terms, but that his council would not on any account accede to them. T us was all done by .Scipio in order to clear himself from the guilt of breach of truce, * Polvbius, xiv. 1 — 5. Livy, xxx. li — 6. HORRIBLE DESTRUCTION OF A PUNIC ARMY. 245 in making an attack while negotiations for peace were j going on. Syphax and llasdrubal, little suspecting the atrocious j design of the Roman general, having consulted together, i agreed to offer him battle, at once. But Scipio about mid- '; day assembled his ablest and m(»st trusty tribunes, and '| having communicated to them his plan, (which had hitherto i been a most profound secret,) directed them, when the [ trumpets sounded as usual after supper for setting the guards, ' to lead their men out of the camp. He then sent for those who had acted as spies, and examined them as to the state ! of the enemies' camps in the presence of Masinissa. At ; night, when all was ready he set out, at the end of the first { watch, and reaching the hostile camps by the end of the third | watch, he divided his forces, giving one half of the soldiers ■ and all the Numidians to Lselius and Masinissa, with orders ' to attack the camp of Syphax, while he himself led the rest [ of the army against that of Hasdrubal. j' Laelius and Masinissa having divided their troops, the i; latter went and stationed his men at all the avenues of the 1 camp, while the former set fire to it. The flames, which I spread rapidly, roused Syphax and his people from their \ sleep, and having no doubt that the fire was accidental, they | endeavored, naked as they were, to get out of the camp ; but | several were burnt to death, others trampled down in the | rush-out, and those who got out were cut to pieces by Mas- | itiissa's soldiers. Those in the other camp, when they saw | the flames, also took them to be accidental, and some has- | tened to give assistance, while the rest came and stood out- \ side of the camp gazing on the conflagration. .All were [ alike fallen on and slaughtered by the Romans, who at the I same time set fire to their camp. Here also the flames ( spread in all directions; in both camps men, horses, and 'i, beasts of burden were to be seen, some perishing in the ;/ flames, others rushing through them, and all over the plain [ naked, unarmed fugitives pursued and slaughtered by their I ruthless foes; of so many myriads * but about 20OO foot and | 500 horse escaped, with Hasdrubal and Syphax. "Scipio," says Polybius, "performed many great and j glorious actions, but, in my opinion, this was the boldest ! and most glorious he ever achieved." Yet what was it in • Accc.'dinEr'toLiWi 40,000 men perished' by the ftamfea oc by thi^ 21» 246 MI'iTORY OF ROME reality but a tissue of treachery, duplicity, and cruelty ? By a pretended negotiation the suspicions of the enemv were lulled to rest, and an opportunity gained for spying out their camps, and ihei» they were secretly assailed and set fire to ut the hour when all in them were asleep. Such a treacherous and cowardly procedure may be worthy of a leader of pirates or bandits, but it was surely disgraceful, at the least, to the general of a great republic. ■ '''"i Hasdrubal tied first to a town in the vicinity, and thence to Carthage, where opinions were divided; some were for \ suing for peace, others for recalling Hannibal, others for ] raising more troops, calling again on Syphax, and continuing i the war. This last opinion prevailed. Syphax, yielding to j the tears and entreaties of his lovely wife, and encouraged by the a|)pearance of a fine body of four thousand Celtiberjans who were just arrived, consented to make new levies, and in the space of thirty days a combined army of 30,000 men encamped on the Great Plain five days' march from Utica. j Scipio, leaving the siege of this town, advanced to engage them. After three days* skirmishing a general action com- I menced : the Roman army was drawn up with the Italian horse on the right, the Numidians on the left wing. The I Celtiberians were in the centre of the opposite army, the Carthaginians on the right, the Numidians on the left. The i iast two gave way at the first shock ; the Celtiberians fought { nobly, and perished to the last nian. After the battle Scipio I held a council, and it was decided that t^ajlins and Masinisst. 1 should pursue Syphax, while Scipio employed himself in j reducing the Punic towns, many of which readily surren- dered, for the heavy iMij)Ositions which had been laid on them during the war had made them lukewarm in their alle- giance. In Carthage it was now resolved to send to recall' Hanni- bal, to strengthen the defences of the city, and to send out a fleet to attack that of the Romans at Utica. Scipio mean- time advanced and occupied Tunis, a town within view of Carthage, at a distance of about fifteen miles. While here, he saw the Punic fleet putting to sea, and fearing for his own, he led his troops back to Utica. As his ships of war were j not in a condition for fighting, being prepared for battering 1 the town-, he drew tliem lip Close to the' shore, p acing the j transports three and four deep outside of them, with their ' ^asts and yards }9^d ?tor9P3 thepi, a«4>^fl tpgeiber and cov- i ered with planks ; and he set about one thousand men to ATTACK ON THE ROMAN FLEET 847 defend them. Had the Caithaginians come up while all was in confusion, they might have done much injury, but they Joitered so that they did not appear till the second day, and with all their efforts they only succeeded in dragging away six of the transports. Lcelius and Masinissa reached Numidia on the fifteenth day, and the Massylians gladly received their native prince. But Syphax having collected another army came and gave them battle, and was again defeated, and having fallen from hiri horse, that was wounded, he was made prisoner. Mas- inissa then pressed on for Syphax's capital, named Cirta, which surrendered when assured of that prince's captivity. Here as he entered the palace he met Sophonisba, who falling at his feet implored him to put her to death rather than give her up to the Romans. The prince's love revived, and as the only means of saving her from the Romans he resolved to espouse her that very day. The wedding was celebrated before the arrival of Laelius, who was highly in- dignant at it, and was even going to drag her from him, but he conceded to the tears of the prince that the decision should rest with Scipio. When Syphax was brought before Scipio he threw the whole blame of his change of policy on Sophonisba, and probably out of jealousy, assured him that her influence over Masinissa would produce similar effects. This sank deep in the mind of the politic Roman ; and, when Masinissa arrived, he lectured him gravely on his conduct, and insisted on his giving up Sophonisba. The lover burst into tears, and prayed to be permitted, as far as w.is possible, to keep his promise to his bride; he then retired to his tent, and having given way to an agony of grief, called a trusty servant who kept the poison with which monarchs in those times were always provided, desired him to bear it to Sophonisba, and tell her, that unable to keep the first part of his promise he thus performed the second, and it was for her to act as became the daughter of Hasdrubal and the spouse of two kings. The servant hastened to Cirta. " I accept the nup- tial gift," said Sophonisba, "no ungrateful one, if a husband could give his wife nothing better. Tell him only this, that I should have died with more glory if I had not married on the eve of death." So saying she took the bowl and drained it.* Scipio, now relieved from his apprehensions,, sought to * Livy, and probably Polybius, says nothing of the previous love of Masinissa. According to Appian, as he approached Cirta, Sophonisba 24S HISTORY OF ROME. console Masinissa he publicly gave him the title of ling, and, after the Roman custom, presented him with the regal insignia. Syphax was sent to Rome, and he died soon after at Tibur. The senate and people confirmed the honors bestowed l)y Scip o on Masinissa. Scipio now returned to Tunis, whither came an embassy from Car'hage suing for peace, and throwing all the blame of the war on Hannibal. The terms he proposed were the withdrawal of all their troops from Italy, Gaul, Spain, and the islands, their giving up all their ships of war but twenty, delivering 500,000 measures of wheat and 200,000 of barley, and paying a large sum of money. He gave them three days to consider of them ; at the end of that time a truce was made to enable them to send to Rome. Meantime Hannibal and Mago had both been recalled. The latter having been worsted in a severe-fought battle in Insubrian Gaul, and wounded in the thigh, was glad to leave Italy ; he embarked his troops ; but he died of his wound when off Sardinia, and several of his ships were taken by the Romans. Hannibal, it is said, groaned when he received the order to return ; and as he departed, looking back on the shores of Italy, where he had spent so many years, he cursed his own folly in not having marched for Rome after the victory at Cannae. This last circumstance proves that we have not here a true account, for Hannibal could not have blamed himself for acting right ; and as he must have been by this time perfectly sure that under the present cir- cumstances the conquest of Italy was become hopeless, his groans, if any, were not for his recall, but for the occasion of it. He landed his troops at Leptis. The Punic envoys received a dubious answer at Rome, and before they returned the truce had been broken ; for a number of ships laden with supplies from Sicily for the Ro- man army, being driven into the bay of Carthage, the Car- thaginians seized them ; and when Scipio sent envoys to eentti) trll him that she had been obliged to rtiarry Syphax. Masinissa left her at Cirta. Scipio very roughly ordered him to give her up, and not to attempt to deprive the Romans of a part of their booty. The prince then set out with some Romans as if to fetch her, and contriving to see her alone handed lier a bowl of poison, and telling her that she must drink it or b«>come a slave to the Romans, gave spurs to his horse and left her. She drank it: and .Masinissa having shown the Romans her dead body, buried her as a queen. See also Zonaras, ix. 13. At rJ! events, Scipio's conduct was that of the politician, not of the .nan of generous feelings. RETUUN OF HANNIBAL. 249 complain, they narrowly escaped personal ill treatment, and as they returned their vessel was attacked within view of tiie Roman camp by a Punic ship of war, and most of the crew slain. Notwithstanding this breach of faith, Scipio dismissed in safety the Punic envoys when they reached his camp on their return from Rome. ; The war was resumed,* (550,) and the Carthaginians, con- scious of wrong, resolved to strain every nerve. Hannibal had now advanced to Adrumetum, whither numerous volun- teers repaired to him, and he engaged a large body of Numidian cavalry. Urged then by the pressing instances of the people of Carthage, he advanced to Zama, a town about five days' march to the west of that city, whence he sent three spies to learn where and how the Romans were encamped. These spies were taken and led before Scipio ; but, like Xer.ves,t he had them conducted all through his camp and then dismissed in safety. Struck by this conduct, which evinced such confidence in his own strength, Hannibal pro- posed a personal interview, in hopes, while his forces were still unimpaired, that he should be able to obtain better terms for his country. The Roman did not decline the interview, but said he would appoint the time for it to take place. He was joined next day by Masinissa with six thousand foot and four thousand horse ; and he advanced and encamped near a town named N':'Each general having encouraged his men, the battle com- * Appian (viii. 40,41) gives the tnt^l of the Punic force 50,000 men, Mtat T »l»olj?)iu8. Yetitcanhardljrbelrii*'. ''^'-'^ ""'S*' 252 histohy of rome. 20,000 slain, and nearly an equal number taken; that o he victors was from 1500 to 2000 men. Hannibal having, both before and after the battle, by the confession of Scipio him- self and tlie military men of all ages, done all that was in man to secure the victory, fled with a few horsemen to Adrujnctum, whence at the call of the government he pro- ceeded to Carthage, which he had not seen since he leit it six-and-thirty years before. He advised to sue for peace, as he declared himself to be beaten not merely in a battle but in the war, — meaning that the resources of Carthage were all exhausted. Scipio, having taken the enemy's camp, led his army back to Ulica, where finding a Roman fleet arrived, he sent La;li- us home with the news of his victory; and desiring his legate Octavius to lead the troops by land to Carthage, he sailed himself with the fleet for the port of that city. When he came near it, he met a ship adorned with olive-branches, on board of which were ten noble Carthaginians come to sue for peace. He desired them to meet him at Tunis, whither he repaired when he had taken a personal survey of the bay of Carthage. When the Punic envoys came, he held a council of war; all voices were at first for destroying Car- thage; but Scipio, aware of the length and difliculty of the siege, and also apprehensive of a successor coming out to rob hira of his glory, declared for peace, and hi.s oflicers readily acquiesced in his views. After reprehending the Cartha- ginians for their breach of faith, he offered peace on the following conditions. The Carthaginians to retain all they had possessed in Africa before the war; to make good the losses caused by their seizure of (he ships during the late truce; to give up all deserters and prisoners, and all their long ships and elephants but ten ; not to make war either in or out of Africa without the consent of the Romans ; to restore all his possessions to Masinissa ; to give three months' corn to the Roman army, and pay till an answer should come from Rome ; to pay 10,000 talents at the rate of two hundred a year ; and to give one hundred hostage^, between the ages of fourteen and thirty years, to be selected by the Roman general. When the deputies returned to Carthage with these terms, one of the senators, it is said, rose to object to them, but Hannibal went and dragged him down from the pulpit. An outcry being raised at this breach of decorum, Hannibal again stood up and excused hiipself on the score of his MAC'EDONIAN WARi ' 253 ignorance, on account of his long absence from home. He then strongly urged to accept of peace on the terms pro- posed. His advice was followed ; the peace was confirmed by the Roman senate and people; and thus, after a duration of seventeen years, was terminated the second Punic war. Scipio having led home his victorious army entered Rome ill triumph. He derived from his conquest the title of Afri- canus, it is not known how conferred, and his was the first example of the kind known at Rome.* CHAPTER VH. MACEDONIAN WAR. FLIGHT OF HANNIBAL FROM CARTHAGE. ANTIOCHUS IN GREECE. INVASION OF ASIA AND DEFEAT OF ANTIOCHUS. DEATH OF HANNIBAL. LAST DAYS OP SCIPIO. CHARACTERS OF HANNIBAL AND SCIPIO. WAR WITH PERSEUS OF MACEDONIA. CONQUEST OF MACEDONIA. TRIUMPH OP ^MILIUS PAULUS. , , , The victory of Zama gave the Romans the dominion of the West; the ambitious senate then aspired to that of the East, and the king of Macedonia was selected as the first object of attack. The people, wearied out with service and con- tributions, were with some difficulty induced to give their consent ; and war was declared against Philip under the pretext of his having injured the allies of Rome, namely, the Athenians, and the kings of Egypt and Pergamus.t Philip after the late peace had been assiduous in augment- ing his fleet and army ; but instead of joining Hannibal when he was in Italy, he employed himself, in conjunction with Antiochus king of Syria, in seizing the islands and the towns on the coast of the ^gean, which were under the protection of Egypt, whose king was now a minor. This engaged him in hostilities with the king of Pergamus and the Rhodians. A Roman army, imder the consul SulpiciuS; passed over to Greece, (552;) the ^tolians declared against * Livy, XXX. 45. See above, p. 85 i For this war and the following events se»j the History ol Greece 22 254' HiBTOKY OF ROfi^t Philip, and gradually the Bojotiaus and Achaeans were in- duced to i'ollow their example. Philip made a gallant resistance against this formidable confederacy; but the con- sul T. Q,uinctius Flamininus gave hitn at lengUi (555) a complete defeat at Cynoscephalai in Thessaly, and he was forced to sue for peace, which, however, he obtained on much easier terms than might have been expected, as the Romans were on the eve of a war with the king of Syria. The peace with Philip was followed by the celebrated proC'» lamation at the Isthmian Games of the independence of those states of Greece which had been under the Macedonian dominion; for the Romans well knew that this was the in- fallible way to establish their own supremacy, as the Greeks would be sure never to unite for the common good of their country. . • ; «• / ii - After an interval of* u' few' yeaH, tn6 long-expected war with Antiochus the Great of Syria broke out. The inrime- diate occasion of it was the discontent of the ^toIi. In Thessaly, Acilius delivered up to them two legions which he had under his command, and being supplied with provisions and every thing else they required they marched through Macedonia and Thrace for the Hellespont. A Roman fleet was in the J3gean, which, united with those of Eumenes of Pergamus and the Rhodi- ans, proved an overmatch for that of Antiochus, even though 25G .::.'/ I- tr HISTORY OF ROME. ' ' THni.Tl commanded by Hannibal. When the Scipios reached the Hellespont, they found every thing prepared for the passage by Eiimenes. They crossed vithout any opposition ; and as this was the time for moving the Ancilia at Rome, P. Scipio, who was one of the Salii, caused the army to make a halt of a few days on that account. While they remained here, an envoy came fiom Antiochus proposing peace, on condition of his giving up all claim to the Grecian cities in Asia and paying one half of the ex- penses of the war. The Scipios insisted on his paying all the expenses of the war, as he had been the cause of it, and evacuating Asia on this side'of Mount Taurus. The envoy then applied privately to P. Scipio, telling him that the king would release without ransom his son, who had fallen lately into his hands, and give him a large (juantity of gold and every honor he could bestow, if through his means he could obtain more equitable terms. Scipio expressed his gratitude, as a private person, to the king for the offer to release his son ; and, as a friend, advised him to accept any terms he could get, as his case was hopeless. The envoy retired ; the Romans advanced to Ilium, where the consul ascended and offered sacrifice to Minerva, to the great joy of the Tlienses, who asserted themselves to be the progenitors of the Romans. They thence advanced to the head of the river Caicus. Antiochus, who was at Thyatira, hearing that P. Scipio was lying sick at Elnea, sent his son to him, and received in return his thanks, and his advice not to engage till he had rejoined the army. As in case of defeat his only hopes lay in P. Scipio, he took his counsel, and retiring to the foot of Mount Sipylus formed a strong camp near Mag- nesia. The consul advanced, and encamped about four miles off; and as the king seemed not inclined to fight, and the Roman soldiers were full of contempt for the enemy, and clamorous for action, it was resolved, if he did not accept the proffered battle, to storm his camp. But Antiochus, fearing that the spirit of his men would sink if he declined fighting, led them out when he saw the Romans in array. The Roman army, consisting of four legions, each of .5400 men, was drawn up in the usual manner, its left resting on a river ; 8000 Achc-ean and Pergamene foot were placed on the right, and beyond them the horse, about 3000 in number; sixteen African elephants were stationed in the rear. The army of Antiochus consisted of G2,000 foot, 12,000 ho»se, DEFEAT OF ANTIOCHUS. 251 and fifty-four elephants. His phalanx of 16,000 men was drawn up in ten divisions, each of fifty men in rank and thirty-two in file, with two elephants in ench of the intervals. On the left and right of the phalanx were placed the cavalry, the light troops and the remainder of the elephants, the | scythed chariots, and ilrab archers, mounted on dromedaries. When the armies were arrayed there came on a fog, with a light kind of rain, which relaxed the bow-strings, slings, and dart-thongs of the numerous light troops of the king, and the darkness caused confusion in his long and various line. Eumenes also, by a proper use of the light troops, frightened the horses of the scythed chariots, and drove them off the field. The Roman horse then charged that of the enemy and put it to flight; the confusion of the left wing extended to the phalangites, who, by their own men rushing from the left among them, were prevented from using their long s:ariss()9) to de- mand his death or his surrender. The mean-spirited Prusias, immediately after a conlerence with the Roman envoy, sent soldiers to seize his iilus'trious guest. Hannibal, who it is said had, in expectation of troachrry, made seven passages, open and secret, from his house, attempted to escape by the most private one; but finding it guarded, he bad recourse to the poison which he always tarried about him. Having vented imprecations on Prusias for his breach of hospitality, he drank the poison and expired, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. It is said that Scipio Africa nus died in the same year with his illustrious rival, an instance a.so of the mutabilitr a ^^i^ LAST DATS OF SCIPIO. 259 of fortune, for the conqueror of Carthage breathed his last in exile! In the year 559 he had had a specimen of the instability of popular favor; for while at the consular elec- tions he and all the Cornelian gens exerted their influence in favor of his cousin P. Cornelius Scipio, the son of CntEus, who had been killed in Spain, — and who was himself of so exem- plary a character, that when the statue of the Idasan Mother (Cybele) was brought to Rome, it was committed to his charge, as being the best man in the city, — they were forced to yield to that of the vain-glorious T. Quinctius Flaminiims, who sued for his brother, the profligate L. duinctius. But, as the historian observes, the glory of Flamininus was fresh- er ; he had triumphed that very year; whereas Africanus iiad been now ten years in the public view, and since his victory over Hannibal he had been consul a second time, and cen- sor, — very sufficient reasons for the decline of his favor with the unstable people. The year after the conclusion of the peace with Antiochus, (566,) the Q.. Petillii, tribunes of the people, at the instigation, it is said, of Cato, cited Scipio Africanus before the tribes, to answer various charges on old and new grounds, of which the chief was that of having taken bribes from Antiochus, j and not having accounted for the spoil. Scipio was attended j to the Forum by an immense concourse of people; he dis- > dained to notice the charges against him ; in a long speech he enumerated the various actions he had performed, and taking i a book from his bosom, " Tn this," said he, " is an account of [ all you want to know." '' Read it," said the tribunes, " and ' let it then be deposited in the treasury." *' No," said Scipio, li " I will not offer myself such an insult ; " and he tore tiie book | before their faces.* ) The night came on ; the cause was deferred till the next i day : at dawn the tribunes took their seat on the Rostra; the ] accused, on being cited, came before it, attended by a crowd ! of his friends and clients. " This day, ye tribunes and Q,ui- ^ rites," said he, " I defeated Hannibal in Africa. As, there- fore, it should be free from strife and litigation, 1 will go to ; the Capitol and give thanks to Jupiter and the other gods who inspired me on this and other days to do good service to the state. Let whoso will, come with me and pray the gods I *hat ye may always have leaders like unto me." He ascended ' •he Capitol ; all followed him, and the tribunes were left sit- * Gellius, iv. 18. 260 HISTORY OF HOME. ting alone. He then went round to all the other temples, stiil followed by the people; and this last day of his glory nearly equalled that of his triumph for conquered Africa- His cause was put off for some days longer ; but in the inter- val, disgusted with the prospect of contests with the tribunes, which his proud spirit could ill brook, he retired toLiternum I in Campania. On his not appearing, the tribunes spoke of I sending and dragiring him before the tribunal ; but their I colleagues interposed, especially Ti, Sempronius Gracchus, I from whom it was least expected, as he was at enmity with the Scipios. The senate thanked Gracchus for his noble I conduct,* the matter dropped, and Scipio spent the remain- der of his days at Liternum. He was buried there, it is said, \ at his own desire, that his ungrateful country might not even I possess his ashes. I The actions of the two great men who were now removed [ from the scene sufficiently declare their characters. As a ^ general, Hannibal is almost without an equal, not a single I military error can be charged on him, and the address with \ which he managed to keep an army composed of such dis- J cordant elements as his in obedience, even when obliged to '■ act on the defensive, is astonishing. The charges of perfidy, '; cruelty, and such like, made against him by the Roman I writers, are quite unfounded, and are belied by facts. No- i where does Hannibal's character appear so great as when, I after the defeat at Zama, he, with unbroken s|)irit, applied f his great mind to the reform of political abuses and the I restoration of the finances, in the hopes of once more rais- [ ing his country to independence. Here he shone the true patriot. The character of his rival has come down to us under the j garb of panegyric; but even after making all due deductions, I much remains to be admired. His military talents were doubtless considerable; of his civil virtues we hear but little, and we cannot there>fore judge of him accurately as a states- f man. Though a high aristocrat, we have, however, seen i that he would not hesitate to lower the authority of the ! senate by appealing to the people in the gratification of his ambition; and we certainly cannot approve of the conduct of the public man who disdained to produce his accounts i * For this, and for liis similar conduct to L. Scipio, tlie family gave I' l)im in marriage Cornelia, the daughter of AfricAnus. The two cele- J Hrated Gracchi were their sons. 1 i WAR WITH PERSEUS 261 t when demanded Of his vaunted magnanimity and gener- osity we have already had occasion to speak, and not m very ' exalted terms. Still, Rome has but one name in her annals to place in comparison with Africanus ; that name, Julius Caesar, is a greater than his, perhaps than any other. ' To return to our narrative In the period which had i elapsed since the peace with Carthage, there had beeu ;■ annual occupation for the Roman arms in Cisalpine Gaul, ' Liguria, and Spain. The Gauls, whose inaction all the time f Hannibal was in Italy seems hard to account for, resumed ; arms in the year .551, at the instigation of one Hasdrubal, who had remained behind from the army of Mago; they took r the colony of Placentia, and met several consular and pra^to- f rian armies in the field, and, after sustaining many great | defeats, were completely reduced : the Ligurians, owing to their mountains, made a longer resistance, but they also ; were brought under the yoke of Rome. In Spain the various I portions of its warlike population, ill brooking the dominion j of strangers, rose continually in arms, but failed before the ^ discipline of the Roman legions and the skill of their com- | mandgrs. The celebrated M. Porcius Cato when consul | (557) acquired great fame by his conduct in this country. | Philip of Macedonia, who with all his vices was an able | prince, had long been making preparations for a renewed | war with Rome, which he saw to be inevitable. He died | (573) before matters came to an extremity. His son and | successor, Perseus * was a man of a very different character ; I for, while he was free from his father's love of wine and ^ women, he did not possess his redeeming qualities, and was | deeply infected by a mean spirit of avarice. It was reserved | for him to make the final trial of strength with the Romans. ^ Eumenes of Pergamus went himself to Rome, to represent { how formidable he was become, and the necessity of crush- f ing him; the envoys of Perseus tried in vain to justify him i in the eyes of the jealous senate; war was declared (580) ,' against him on the usual pretext of his injuring the allies of i Rome, and the conduct of it was committed to P. Licinius ■; Crassus, one of the consuls for the ensuing year. \ The Macedonian army amounted to thirty-nine thousand ! foot, one half of whom were phalangites, and four thousand I horse, the largest that Macedonia had sent to the field since | the time of Alexander the Great. Perseus entered Thessaly i at the head of this army, and at the same time the Roman ' • By the Latin writers hfl is always named Perses. I 262 HISTORY OF KOME. legions entered it from Epirus. An engagement of cavalry took place not far from the Peneus, in which the advantage was decidedly on the side of the king. In another encounter success was on that of the Romans; after which Perseus led his troops home for the winter, and Licinius quartered his in Thessaly and Bteotiu. Notiiing deserving of note occurred in the following year. In the spring of SS^T the consul Q,. Marcius Philippus lea his army over the Cambunian mountains into Macedonia, I and Perseus, instead of occupying the passes in the rear and cutting off his supplies from Thessaly, cowardly retired j before him, and allowed him to ravage all the south of Mace- I doiiia. Marcius returned to Thessaly for the winter, and in I the spring (584) the new consul, L. iEmilius Paulus, a man I of high consideration, of great talent, and who had in a ! former consulate gained much fame in Spain, came out to f take the command. i Meantime the wretched avarice of Perseus was putting an I enil to every chance he had of success. Eumenes had ; offered, for the sum of 1500 talents, to abstain from taking f part in the war, and to endeavor to negotiate a peace for I him : Perseus gladly embraced the offer, and was ready } enough to arrange about the hostages which Eumenes agreed I to give; but he hesitated to part with the money till he had 3 had the value for it, and he proposed that it should be de- I posited in the temple at Samothrace till the war was ended. j As Samothrace belonged to Perseus, Eumenes saw he was 'j not to be trusted, and he broke off the negotiation. Again, \ a body of Gauls of 10,000 hor.se, and an equal number of ' foot, from beyond the Ister, to whom he had promised large I pay, were now at hand ; Perseus sought to circumvent them I and save his money, and the offended barbarians ravaged Thrace and returned home. It is the opinion of the histo- rian, that if he had kept his word with these (lauls, and sent them into Thessaly, the situation of the Roman army, placed thus between two armies, might have been very perilous. Lastly, he agreed to give Gentius, king of Illyria, 300 talents if he went to war with the Romans : he sent ten of them at once, and directed those who bore the remainder to go very slowly ; meantime his ambassador kept urging Gen- tiu», who, to please him, seized two Roman envoys who arrived just then, and imprisoned them. Perseus thinking him now fully committed with the Romans by this act, sent to recall the rest of his money. ;i i^r'Jiiw nili-vl 'Jill t.^' CONQ.LEST OF MACEDONIA. 263 Paulus letl his army without delay into Macedonia, and in the neighborhood of Pydna he forced the crafty Perseus to come to an engagement. The victory was speedy and de- cisive on the side of the Romans; the Macedonian horse fled, the king setting the example, and the phalanx thus left exposed was cut to pieces. Perseus fled with his treasures to Amphipolis, and thence to the sacred isle of Samothrace. Ail Macedonia submitted to the consul, who then advanced to Amphipolis after Perseus, who in vain sent letters suing for favor. Meantime the prastor Cn. Octavius was come with his fleet to Samothrace. He sought ineffectually to induce Perseus to surrender, and then so wrought on the people of the island, that the unhappy prince, considering himself no longer safe, resolved to try to escape to Cotys, king of Thrace, his only remaining ally. A Cretan ship-master undertook to convey him away secretly ; provisions, and as much money as could be carried thither unobserved, were pi^t pn board his bark in the evening, and at midnight the king left the temple secretly and proceeded to the appointed spot. But no bark was there ; the Cretan, false as any of his countrymen, had set sail far Crete as soon as it was dark. Perseus, having wandered about the shore till near daylight, slunk back and concealed himself in a corner of the temple. He was soon obliged to surrender to Octavius, by whom he was conveyed to the consul. Macedonia was, by the direc- tion of the senate, divided into four republics, between which there was to be neither intermarriage nor purchase of i(pmovable property, [conniibium or commcrciiun ;) each was to defray the expenses of its own government, and pay to Rome one half of the tribute it had paid to the kings; the silver and gold mines were not to be wrought, no ship-timber w^s )Lo be felled, no troops to be kept except on the fron- tiers; all who had held any office, civil or military, under Perseus, were ordered to quit Macedonia and go and live in Italy, lest if they remained at home they shoiild raise distur- bances.. In Greece, the lovers of their country were put to death or removed to Italy, under pretext of their having favored the cause of Perseus, and the administration of affairs was placed in (he hands of the tools of Rome. Paulus on his return to Rome celebrated his triumph with great magnificence. His soldiers, because he had main- tained rigid discipline and had given them less of the booty than hey had expected, and instigated by Ser. Sulpicius, "Xi HISTORY OF KOME. Galba, one of their tribunes, a personal enemy to Paulus, had tried to prevent it; but the eloquence of M. Servilius and others prevailed. Perseus and his children, examples of the mutability of fortune, preceded the car of the victor. After the triumph, Perseus was confined at Alba in the Marsian land, where he died a few years after. Octavius was allowed to celebrate a naval triumph ; and the praetor L. Anicius Gallus, who had in thirty days reduced lllyria and made Gentius and all his family captives, also triumphed for that country. CHAPTER VIII.* AFFAIRS OF CARTHAGE. THIRD PUNIC WAR. DESCRIPTION OF CARTHAOE. ILL SUCCESS OF THE ROMANS. SCtPIO MADE CONSUX. HE SAVES MANCINUS. RESTORES DISCI- PLINE IN THE ARMY. ATTACK ON CARTHAGE. ATTEMPT TO CLOSE THE HARBOR. CAPTURE AND DESTRUCTION OP CARTHAGE. REDUCTION OF MACEDONIA AND GREECE TO PROVINCES. After the conclusion of the Hannibalian war, the Car- thaginians seemed disposed to remain at peace ; but the ambition of their neighbor, Masinissa, whose life, to thelr- nii.sfortune, was extended to beyond ninety years, would not allow them to rest. He was continually encroaching on their territory and seizing their subject towns. The Roman senate, when appealed to as the common superior, sent out commissioners, who almost invariably decided in favor of Masinissa, and he gradually extended his dominion from the ocean inlands tf> the Syrtes. On one of these occasions M. Porcius Cato was one of those sent out; and when he saw the fertility of the Cartha- ginian territory and its high state of culture, and the strength, wealth, and population of the city, he became apprehensive of its yet endangering the power of Rome; his vanity also, of which he had a large share, was wounded, because the * Henceforth Livy fa'ls us, as we have only the epitomes of his r» maininor books. Our principal authority for this chapter is Appian Puiica. AFFAIRS OF CARTHAGE. 265 Carthaginians, who were manifestly in the right, would not acquiesce at once in the decision of himself and his col- leagues ; and he returned to Rome full of bitterness against them. Henceforth he concluded all his speeches in the senate with these words, " I also think that Carthage should be destroyed."* On the other side P. Scipio Nasica, either from a regard to justice, or, as it is said, persuaded that the only mode of saving Rome from the corruption to which she was tending, was to keep up a formidable rival to her, strenu- ously opposed this course. The majority, however, inclined to the opinion of Cato; it was resolved to lay hold on the first plausible pretext for declaring war, and to those who were so disposed a pretext was not long wanting. At Carthage there were three parties ; the Roman, the Numidian, and the popular party. This last, which, with all its faults, alone was patriotic, drove out of the city about forty of the principal of the Numidian party, and made the people swear never to readmit them or listen to any propo- sals for their return. The exiles repaired to Masinissa, who sent his sons Micipsa and Gulussa to Carthage on their be- half. But Carthalo, a leader of the popular party, shut the gates against them, and Hamilcar, the other popular leader, fell on Gulussa as he was coming again, and killed some of those who attended him. This gave occasion to a war ; a battle was fought between Masinissa and the Punic troops led by Hasdrubal, which lasted from morning to nicrht without being completely decided. But Masinissa, havinor inclosed the Punic army on a hill, starved them into a surr render; and Gulussa, as they were departing unarmed, fell on and slaughtered them all. The Carthaginians lost no time in sending to Rome to justify themselves, having previ- ously passed sentence of death on Hasdrubal, Carthalo, and the other authors of the war. The senate, however, would accept no excuse ; and, after various efforts on the part of the Carthaginians to avert it, war was proclaimed against them, (603,) and the conduct of it committed to the consuls L. Marcius Censorinus and M. Manilius Nepos, with secret orders not to desist from it till Carthage was destroyed. Their army is said to have consisted of 80,000 foot and 4000 horse, which had been previously prepared for this war. * Pint. Cato Major, 26, 27. Cato one day in the senate house let fall from his toga some fine African figs, and when the senators ad- niiied them he said, " The cpuntrj that produces these is but three days' sail from Rome." ' 'i' ' • ■^"- • li ■•;!' ;.. . , ■;,•;; j^ " 23 HH 266 lusroRT of home. Tlie Carthaginians learned almost at the same moment the fleclaration of war and the sailing of the Roman army. They saw themselves without ships, (for they had been prohibited to biiUd any,) without an ally, (even Utica, not eight miles from their city, having joined the Romans,) without merce- naries, or even supplies o.f corn, and the flower of their youth had been lately cut off by Masinissa. They again sent an embassy to Rome, to make a formal surrender of their city. The senate replied that if, within thirty days, they sent three hundred children of the noblest families as hos- tages to the consuls in Sicily, and did whatever they com- manded them, they should be allowed to be free and gov- erned by their own laws, and retain all the territory they |X)ssessed in Africa. At the same time secret orders were sent to the consuls to abide by their original instructions. The Carthaginians became somewhat suspicious at no mention of their city having been made by the senate. They however resolved to obey, and leave no pretext for attacking them; the hostages accordingly were sent to Lilybccum, amidst the tears and lamentations of their parents and rela- tives. The consuls straightway transmitted them to Rome, and then told the Carthaginians that they would settle the remaining matters at Utica, to which place they lost no time in passing over ; and when the Punic envoys came to learn their will, they said that, as the Carthaginians had declared their wish and resolution to live at peace, they could have no need for arms and weapons; they therefore required them to deliver up all that they had. This mandntc also was obeyed ; two hundred thousand sets of armor, with weap- ons of all kinds in proportion, were brought on wagons into the Ronian camp, accompanied by the priests, the sen- ators, and the chief persons of the city. Censorinus then, having praised their diligence and ready obedience, announ- ced to them the further will of the senate, which was that they should quit Carthage, which the Romans intended to level, and build another town in any part of their territory they pleased, but not within less than ten miles of the .sea.* The moment they heard this ruthless command they abaii- doned themselves to every extravagance of grief and despair; they rolled themselves on the ground, they tore their garments and their hair, they beat their breasts and faces, they called on the gods, they abused the Roitians for their treachery and * It well became the R itnans after this to talk of Punica fides. THIRD PUNIC WAR. 267 deceit. When they recovered from their paioxysm, tliey spoke again, requesting to be allowed to send an embassy to Rome, The consul said this would be to no purpose, for the will of the senate must be carried into effect. They then departed, with the melancholy forebodings of the reception they might meet with at home, and some of them ran away on the road, fearing to face the enraged populace. Censorinus forthwith sent twenty ships to cast anchor before Carthage. The people, who were anxiously waiting their return, when they saw their downcast, melancholy looks, gave way to despair, and lamented aloud. The envoys passed on in silence to the senate-house, and there made known the inex- orable resolve of Rome. When the senators heard it, they groaned and wept; the people without joined in their lamen- tations, then giving way to rage they rushed in and tore to pieces the principal advisers of the delivery of the hostages and arms ; and they stoned the ambassadors and dragged them about the city ; they then fell on and abused in various ways such Italians as happened to be still there. The senate that very day resolved on war; they proclaimed liberty to the slaves, they chose Hasdrubal, whom they had condemned to death, and who was at a place called Nepheris at the head of a force of twenty thousand men, general for the exterior, and another Hasdrubal, the grandson of Masinissa, for the city; and having again vainly applied to the consuls for a truce that they might send envoys to Rome, they prepared vigor- ously for defence, resolved to endure the last rather than abandon their city. The temples and other sacred places were turned into workshops, men and women wrought day and night in the manufacture of arms, and the women cut od" their long hair that it might be twisted into bow-strings. The consuls meantime, though urged by Masinissa, did not advance against the city, either through dislike of the un- pleasant task, or because they thought that they could take it whenever they pleased. At length they led their troops to the attack of the town. The city of Carthage lay on a peninsula at the bottom of a large bay; at its neck, which was nearly three miles in width, stood the citadel, Byrsa, on a rock whose summit was occupied by the temple of Esmun, (iEsculapius ;) from the neck on the east ran a narrow belt or tongue of land, between the lake of Tunis and the sea ; at a little distance in- lands extended a rocky ridge, through which narrow passes had been hewn. The harbor was on the east side of the 268 HISTORl OF ROME peninsula ; it was double, cou'jisting of an outer and an innci one, and its mouth, which was seventy feet wide, was se- cured with iron chains : the outer harbor was surrounded by a quay for the landing of goods. The inner one, naniea theCothon,* was for the ships of war; its only entrance was through the outer one, and it was defended by a double wall ; in its centre was an elevated island on which stood the admiral's house, whence there was a view out over the open sea. The Cothon was able to contain two hundred and twenty ships, and was provided with all the requisite maga- zines. A single wall environed the whole city ; that of Byr- sa was triple, each wall being 30 ells high, exclusive of the battlements, and at intervals of two hundred feet were tow- ers four stories high. A double row of vaults ran round each wall, the lower one containing stalls for 300 elephants and 4000 horses, with granaries for their fodder ; the upper, barracks for 20,000 foot and 4000 horse. Three streets led from Byrsa to the market, which was near the Cothon, which harbor gave name to this quarter of the town. That part of the town which lay to the west and north was named Megara ; t it was more thinly inhabited, and full of gardens divided by walls and hedges. The city was in compass twenty-three miles, and is said to have contained at this time 700,000 inhabitants. The consuls divided their forces; Censorinus attacked from his ships the wall where it was weakest, at the angle of the isthmus : Manilius attempted to fill the ditch and carry the outer works of the great wall. They reckoned on no re- sistance ; but their expectations were deceived, and they were forced to retire. Censorinus then constructed two large bat- tering rams, with which he threw down a part of the wall near the l)elt ; the Carthaginians partly rebuilt it during the night, and next day they drove out with loss such of the Ro- mans as had entered by the breach. They had a!.so in the night made a sally, and burnt the engines of the besiegers. It be- ing now the dog days, and Censorinus, finding the situation of his camp, close to a lake of standing water, unwholesome, re- moved to the sea shore. The Carthaginians then, watching when the wind blew strong from the sea on the Roman sta- tion, used to fill small vessels with combustibles, to which * This was a general name for an artificial harbor, probably from its resemblance to the xm^'tvi, a kind of drinkin^-vessel. f This is ]rDbab!y a Greek corruption of Magaria or Magalia, ten'.s OT dtedliiLgs, ;3nnocted with the Hebrew wia^iir, 'dwelling.' ILL SUCCESS OF THE ROMANS. they set fire, and spreading their sails let the wind drive them on the Roman ships, many of which were thus destroyed. Censoriiius having gone to Rome for the elections, the Carthaginians became more daring, and they ventured a noc- turnal attack on the camp of Munilius, in which they would have succeeded but for the presence of mind of Scipio, one of the tribunes, who led out the horse at the rear of the camp, and fell on them unexpectedly. A second nocturnal attack was frustrated by the same Scipio, who was now the life and soul of the army. Manilius then, contrary to the advice of Scipio, led his troops to Nepheris against Hasdrubal ; but he was forced to retire with loss, and four entire cohorts woula have been cut off but for the valor and skill of Scipio. Shortly after, when commissioners came out from Rome to inquire into the causes of the want of success, Manilius and his officers laying aside all jealousy, bore testimony to the merits of Scipio ; the affection of the army for him was also manifest ; of all which the commissioners informed the sen- ate and people on their return. Masinissa dying at this time, left the regulation of his kingdom to Scipio, who divided the regal office among the three legitimate sons of the de- ceased monarch ; giving the capital and the chief dignity to Micipsa, the eldest, the management of the foreign relations to Gulussa, and the administration of justice to Mastanabal. Scipio also induced Himilco Famajas, a Punic commander, who had hitherto done the Romans much mischief, to desert to them with two thousand two hundred horse. In the spring (604) the new consul L. Calpurnius Piso came out to take the command of the army, and the prsEtor L. Hostilius Mancinus that of the fleet. They attacked the town of Clupea by sea and land, but were repulsed ; and Calpurnius then spent the whole summer to no purpose in the siege of Hippagreta, a strong town between Carthage and Utica. The Carthaginians, elevated by their unexpected good fortune, were now masters of the country ; they insulted the Romans, and endeavored to detach the Numidians. Hasdru- bal, proud of his successes over Manilius, aspired to the com- mand of the city : he accused the other Hasdrubal of having intelligence with his uncle Gulussr , who was in the Roman camp ; and when this last, on being charged with it in the sen- ate, hesitated from surprise, the senators fell on and killed him with the seats ; and his rival thus gained his object. The elections now came on at Rome; Scipio was there as a candidate for the aedileship; all eyes were turned on OQ * 270 HISTORY OF ROME. him, his friends doubtless were not idle, and the letters from the soldiers in Africa represented him as the only man able to take Carthage. The tribes therefore resolved to make him consul, though he was not of the proper age.* The presiding consul opposed in vain; he was elected, and the people further assumed the power of assigning him Africa for his province. This celebrated man was son to ^Emilius Paulus, the c()ri(|ueror of Macedonia. He had been adopted by Scipio the son of Africanus; the Greek historian Polybius and the phil()SO|)her Panaitius were his instructors and friends ; and he had already distinguished himself as a soldier both in S[)ain and Africa. The very evening that Scipio arrived at Utica (605) he had again an opportunity of saving a part of the Roman army ; for Mancinus, a vain, rash man, having brought the fleet close to Cartilage, and observing a part of the wall over the cliffs left unguarded, landed some of his men, who mounted to the wall. The Carthaginians opened a gate and came to attack them, the Romans drove them back and entered the town ; Mancinus landed more men, and as it was now evening he sent off to Utica, requiring provisions and a reenforcement to be sent without delay, or else they would never be able to keep their position. Scipio, who arrived that evening, received about midnight the letters of Mancinus; he ordered the soldiers he had brought with him and the serviceable Uticaiis to get on board at once, and he set forth in the last watcli, directing hi^ men to stand erect on the decks and let themselves be seen ; he also released a prisoner, and sent him to tell at Carthage that Scipio was coming. Mancinus meantime was hard pressed by the enemies, who attacked him at riawn; lie placed five hundred men who had armor, around the remainder (three thousand men) who had none;, but tins availed tiiem not; they were on the point of being forced down the cliffs when Scipio appeared. The Cartha- ginians, who expected him, fell back a little, tind he lost no time in taking off Mancinus and his companions in peril. On his taking the command, finding extreme laxity of aiscipline and disorder in the army, in consequence of the negligence of Pi.'^o, Scipio called an assembly, and having upbraided the soldiers with their conduct, declared his reso- " The lawful age for the consulate at this time was tbrtr-three years, •nd Scipio was only thirty -eight. ATTACK ON CARTHAGE. 271 (ution of maintaining strict discipline; he ordered all suttlers, camp-followers, and other useless and pernicious people to quit the camp, which he now moved to within a little distance of Carthage. The Carthaginians also formed a camp about half a mile from their walls, which Hasdrubal entered at the head of 6000 foot and 1000 horse, all seasoned troops. When Scipio thought the discipline of his men sufficiently revived, he resolved to attempt a night-attack on the Megara ; but being perceived by tho defenders, the Romans could not scale the walls. Scipio then observing a turret (probably a garden one) which belonged to some private person, and was close to the wall, and of the same height with it, made some of his men ascend it. These drove down with their missiles those on the walls opposite them, and then laying planks and boards across got on the wall, and jumping down opened a gate to admit Scipio, who entered with four thou- sand men. The Punic soldiers fled to the Byrsa, thinking that the rest of the town was taken, and those in the camp hearing the tumult ran thither also ; but Scipio, finding the Megara full of gardens, with trees and hedges and ditches filled with water, and therefore unsafe for an invader, with- drew his men and went back to his camp. In the morning Hasdrubal, to satiate his rage, took what Roman prisoners he had, and placing them on the walls in sight of the Roman camp, mutilated them in a most horrible manner, and then flung them down from the lofty battlements. When the sen- ate blamed him for it, he put some of them to death, and he made himself in effect the tyrant of the city. Scipio, having taken and burnt the deserted camp of the enemy, formed a camp within a dart's cast of their wall, run- ning from sea to sea across the isthmus, and strongly for- tified on all sides. By this means he cut them off from the land; and as the only way in which provisions could now be brought into the city was by sea, when vessels, taking advan- tage of winds that drove off the Roman ships, ran into the harbor, he resolved to stop up its mouth by a rnole. He commenced from the belt, forming the mole of great breadth and with huge stones. The besieged at first mocked at the efforts of the Romans ; but when they saw how rapidly the work advanced they became alarmed, and instantly set about digging another passage out of the port into the open sea; they at the same time built ships out of the old materials; and they wrought so constantly and so secretly, that the Ro- mans at length saw all their phns f'istrated, a new entrance 272 HISTORY OF ROME. opened to the harbor, and a fleet of fifty ships of war and a great number of smaller vessels issue from it. Had their evil destiny now allowed the Carthaginians to take advantage of their consternation and fall at once on their fleet, which was utterly unprepared, they might have destroyed it; but they contented themselves with a bravado, and then returned to port. On the third day the two fleets engaged from morn till eve with various success. The small vessels of the enemy annoyed the Romans very much in the action ; but in the retreat they got ahead of their own ships, and blocking up the mouth of the harbor, obliged them to range themselves along a quay which had been made without the walls for the landing of goods, whither the Roman ships followed them and did them much mischief During the night they got into port, biit in the morning Scipio resolved to try to effect a lodgement on the quay which was so close to (he port. He assailed the works that were on it with rams, and threw down a pnrt of them ; but in the night the Carthaginians came, some swimming, some wading through the water, hav- ing combustibles with them, to which they set fire when near the machines, and thus burnt them. They then repaired the works; but Scipio finally succeeded in fixing a corps of four thousand men on the quay. During the winter Scipio took by storm the Punic camp before Nepheris, and that town surrendered after a siege of twenty-two days. As it was from Nepheris that Carthage almost entirely received its supplies, they now failed, and famine was severely felt. When the spring came (606) Scipio made a vigorous at- tack on the port of Cothon. Hasdrubal during the night set fire to the square side of it, expecting the attack to be made in the same place in the morninfj : but La-lius secretly entered the round part* on the other side of the port, and the atten- tion of the enemv being wholly directed to the square part, he easily made himself master of it. Scipio then advanced to the market, where he kept his men under arms during the night. In the morning he proceeded to attack the Brrsa, whither most of the people had fled for refuge. Three streets of houses, six stories high, led to this citadel from the market ; the Romans, as they attempted to penetrate them, finding themselves assailed by missiles from the roofs, burst * It would appear from this that the wall on one side of the Cothon was rectangular, circular on the other. CAPTURE AND DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE. 273 into the first houses, and mounting to the roofs, proceeded along them, slaying and flinging down the defenders; others meantime forced their way along the streets ; weapons flew in all directions; the groans of the wounded and dying, the shrieks of women and children, the shouts of the victors, ' I filled the air. At length the troops emerged before the Byrsa, ! and then Scipio gave orders to fire the town behind them. Old men, women, and children, driven by the flames from their hiding-places, became their victims ; every form of | horror and misery displayed itself During six days devasta- | tion spread around ; on the seventh a deputation from the | Byrsa, bearing supplicatory wreaths from the temple of xEsculapius, came to Scipio offering a surrender, on condi- tion of their lives being spared. These terms were granted to all except the deserters; they came out fifty thousand in | number, men and women ; the deserters, of whom there were \ nine hundred, retired with Hasdrubnl to the ^sculapium, i which being on a lofty, precipitous site, they easily defended till they were overcome by fatigue, want of rest, and hunger. They then retired into the temple, where Hasdrubal stole | away from them and became a suppliant to Scipio. The Roman general made him sit at his feet in their sight; they reviled and abused him as a coward and traitor, and then setting fire to the temple all perished in the flames. It is said that the wife of Hasdrubal, whom with her two children he had left in the temple, advanced arrayed in her best gar- ments in front of Scipio while the temple was burning, and cried out, " I blame not thee, O Roman, who hast warred against an enemy, but that Hasdrubal, a traitor to me, his children, his country and her temples, whom may the gods of Carthage and thou with them punish ! " Then turning to Hasdrubal, "O wretched, faithless, and most cowardly of men, these flames will consume me and my children; but what a triumph wilt thou adorn, thou, the general of mighty Carthage, and what punishment wilt thou not undergo from him before whom thou art sitting ! " So saying, she slew her children, and cast them and herself into the flames.* It is also said, that when Scipio surveyed the ruin of this mighty city, which had stood for seven hundred years, had abounded in wealth, had spread her commerce far and wide, ■..'..>£ * Thia must be a fable. Why would Hasdrtibal's wife rather perish with Roman deserters than be saved with her husband and her fel- low-citizens .' II 274 HISTCRY OP ROME. had reduced so many countries and peoples, and made Ro?ne tremble for her existence, he could not refrain from tears, and he repeated these lines of Homer : " The day will come when sacred Troy will fall, And Tnam, and strong-speared Priam's people."* When Polybius, who was present, asked what he meant, he owned that he had his country in view, for which he feared the vicissitudes of all things human. Scipio allowed his soldiers to plunder the town for a cer- tain number of days, with the reservation of the gold, the silver, and the ornaments of the temples ; and he sent to Sicily, desiring those towns from whom the Carthaginians had taken any of these last, to send to receive them. He despatched his swiftest ship to Rome with the account of the capture of Carthage, where the tidings produced the most iHjbounded joy. Ten commissioners were sent out forthwith to join with Scipio in regulating the affairs of Africa. What remained of Carthage was levelled, and heavy curses pronounced on any one who should attempt to rebuild it; all the towns which had adhered faithfully to it were treated in a similar manner; those whicli had joined Rome, partic- ularly Utica, were rewarded with increase of territory. Africa was reduced to a province, a land and poll-tax imposed, and a pr.-ctor was sent out every year from Rome to govern it. Scipio triumphed on his return, (OGG,) and he was henceforth named Africanus. In the first year of the war against Carthage (603) a man named Andriscus, who pretended to be a son of king Per- seus, assumed the name of Philip, and induced the Mace- donians to acknowledge him as their king. He invaded Thessaly, but was defeated by Scipio Na.sica, and the Achrc- ans. Scipio's successor, the prrstor P. Juvcntius Thalma, brought more troops with him from Italy, (G04,) but he lost the greater part of tlicm and his own life in attempting to penetrate into Macedonia, and Andriscus reentered Thes- . saly ; Q.. Ca^cilius Metellus, however, drove him out of it^ defeated him iu Macedonia, and alterwards in Thrace, by one of whose princes he was given up to the Romans '"Enntrai i^uun, Ttxar nor' fiXdiXi] "IXinc To/, Kal JT/jtatio:, y.u'i Xai>; ithiiitXlof TlQiuunio. II. vi. 448. In like wMinner Mohammed II., when he entered the palace of the CtEsars in Constantinople after the capture of that town, repeated a passage of Ferdousi, the Homer of Persia, to a similar effect. AFFAIRS OF SPAIN. BT5 Another impostor then appeared, who called himself Alexan- der; but Metellus forced him to seek refuge in D;irdania Metellus triumphed, (606,) and received the title of Mace- donicus, and Macedonia was made a province. Urged by their evil genius the Achaean League now (606) ventured to measure their strength with Rome; but one army was defeated by Metellus, and another by the consul L. Mummius. Corinth was taken and bur.nt; Thebes and Chalcis were razed; and Greece, under the name of Achaia, was reduced to a province. Mummius took the title of Achaicus, and triumphed, (607,) displaying on this occasion a vast number of the finest pictures and statues, the plunder of Corinth. CHAPTER IX.* \FFAIRS OP SPAIN. WAR WITH THE LUSITANIANS. TREACHERY OF LUCULI US. VIRIATHIAN WAR. MURDER OP VIRIATHUS. NUMANTINE WAR. CAPTURE OP NU- MANTIA. SERVILE WAR IN SICILY. FOREIGN RELA- TIONS OF ROME. GOVERNMENT OF THE PROVINCES. THE PUBLICANS. ROMAN SUPERSTITION. ROMAN LfT- ERATURE. The hardy tribes of Spain alone now offered resistance to the Roman arms. We will therefore cast a glance at the affairs of that country since the time of the Hannibaiian war. After the departure of Africanus, (547,) Indibilis and Mandonius excited their people to war, but they were defeated by the Romans ; the former was slain, and the latter given up by his own people. In 555 a new war broke out, in which the proconsul C. Sempronius Tuditanus was defeated and slain. The praetor Q,. Minucitis gained some advantages in 557, bat it still was found expedient to assign Spain as the province of M. Porcius Cato, one of the consuls of this year. Cato, soon after his arrival, defeated a large army of the natives, and he then had recourse to the following stratagem. When deputations came to him from the several • Appiar 'fl Iberica is the principal authority for this chapter. 276 HISTORY OF ROMR. owns, he as' usual demanded hostages, and sent sealed letters to each, directing^ them, under pain of slavery in case of delay, to throw down their walls. These letters he took care should all arrive on the same day; there wn^ consequently no time for deliberation ; each thought itself alone interested, his commands were every where obeyed, and the whole coun- try thus reduced to tranquillity. Cato then put the silver and iron mines on an advantageous footing for the state, and he triumphed on his return the following year. Spain was now divided into two provinces, named Citerior and Ulterior with respect to the river Ebro The restless temper of the natives,' ahd the' ambition and cupidity of the Roman generals, would not however allow of permanent tranquillity, and hardly a year passed without fighting. Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, when priPtor in Spain, (372,) arranged the relations between the Romans and the native population in a manner which gained him general applause. By one of his regulations, the Spaniards were hound not to build any more towns' when therefore the Cel- tiberians of Segeda increased the compass of their walls, and reinoved the people of the smaller towns to it, the senate sent to forbid tliem, and as they did not comply with the de- mands made on them, the consul Q,. Fulvius Nobilior led an army against them, (.599:) but the advantage in the campaign was on the side of the Celtiberians. The consul of thenext year, (6(30^) M. Claudius Marcellus, 'wlien the senate had refused the Celtiberians peace, attacked and reduced, them to submission. His successor, L. Licinius Luculhis, (601,) though the country was tranquil, would not be balked of his hopes of fame and booty. He crossed the Tagns, and, With- out any pretext, entering the Vnccsean territory, laid siege (0 the town of Cauca, (Coca;) and the people thus wantonly attacked were obliged to ^ive hostages and one hundred talents of money, hnd to send their horse to servie with him. He then required them to receiv^e a garrison ; and ori their consenting, he put two thousand of his best troops into the town, with directions to occupy the walls. When they had done so, he led in the rest of his army, and gave the signal for a general massacre of the male population, and of twenty thousand souls but a few escaped : he then plundered th« town. ' After this vile piece of treachery he advnnced through a! country which the inhabitants had purposely laid waste and sat down before a town named Tntercatia ; whence, aftei the army had suffered severely from hardship^ wantof nece* . LUSfTA^UAN WAR. ^S^ saries, and the incessant attacks of the enemy, he was glad, through the mediation of his legate Scipio, (the future con- queror of Carthage,) — for the people would not trust him- self, —to retire, on receiving hostages, a certain numher of cattle, find ten thousand c'oaks (sagcB) for his soldiers. Gold and silver, which he chiefly coveted, they had not to give. He then went to winter in Turditania. The historian remarks that he never was brought to trial at home for thus warring on his own account. Meantime the I^usitanians, one of the independent tribes of the peninsula, had ravaged the lands of the subjects of Rome, and;defeated the praetors, M' Manilius and L. Calpur- nius Piso, and the quaestor C. Terentius Varro. They after- wards defeated L. Mummius, the future conqueror of Greece, who hdA taken the command. The Lusitanians south of the Tagus now shared iii the war; a part of their forces crossed over to ravage Africa, while another part besieged a town named Ocila; but Mummius fell on them and routed them with great slaughter, by which he gained the glory of a triumph. . His stJGcessor, M. Atilius Serranus, reduced a part of them to submission ; but when he went into winter quar- ters, they rose again and laid siege to some of the subject towns, Ser. Sulpicius Galba, the successor of Atilius, coming to the relief of one of these towns, was defeated, with the loss of seven thousand men, and was forced to fly. This was at the time LucuUus was in Spain ; and in the spring (602) he apd Galba simultaneously attacked the Lusi- tanians, the former in the south, the latter in the north. LucuUus, having fallen on and cut to pieces those who were returning from Africa, entered Lusitania and laid a part of it waste. Galba invaded the country on the north ; and when some of the tribes sent embassies to him, proposing to renew *he peace made with Atilius which they had broken, he received them, kindly, affecting to pity them, laying the whole blame of their predatory habits on the poverty of their soil, and offering to give them, as his friends, abundance of fertile land. The simple people gladly embraced the offer, and leaving their mountains came down to the plains which he pointed out to them. These were in three several places; and he directed each portion of them to remain there till he came to regulate them. Then coming to the first, he desired them as friends to put away their arms ; when they had done so, he raised a rampart and ditch about them, (their future town as it were,) and sending in a party of soldiers armed 24 1276 HISTORY OF ROME. with swords massacred nil who were in it. He did the same at the other two places, and but a few escaped being the victims of this detestable piece of treachery.* About ten thousand of those who had escaped from Lu- cullus and Galba assembled the next year (603) and invaded Turditania. The pra:tor C. Vetilius marched against them, and succeeded in driving them into a position where, to all appearance, they must either perish by hunger or face the Roman sword. They sent to sue for lands, offering to be- come Roman subjects. Vetilius consented to their request ; but Viriathus, one of those who had escaped from Galba, reminding them of Roman treachery, bade them beware, and pledged himself to extricate them if they would be guided by him. They chose him general on the spot ; he drew them up in line of battle, directing them to scatter when they saw him mount his horse, and make as best they could for the town of Tribula. All was done accordingly ; Viriathus re- mained at the head of one thousand horse. Vetilius feared to divide his troops to pursue the fugitives ; Viriathus kept the Romans occupied the whole of that day and the next, aud then by ways with which he was well acquainted rejoined his men at Tribula. This stratagem gained him great fame among his countrymen, and his arrhy was speedily augmented. When Vetilius soon after came against Tri- bula, the Lusitanian laid an ambush, and slew the praetor himself and nearly half his army. By his accurate knowledge of the country, by his military skill and fertility in resources, and by possessing the confi- dence and affections of the native tribes, Viriathus succeeded during five years in baffling or defeating all the Roman generals sent against him. At length ((il)7) the senate, Carthage and Greece being now reduced, resolved to prosecute with vigoi the Lusita- nian war, which had assumed a formidable appearance. It was therefore committed to the consul Q,. Fabius Maximus i£milianus, the son of iiCmilius Paulus, and brother of the conqueror of Carthage. As the troops which he brought i>ut were mostly composed of raw recruits, he avoided giving battle for a long time ; at length he engaged and defeated * Galba was pmspcuted for this *brtdAct by the tribune L. Scribo- nsus, aided by M. Porcius V'ato, now in his 95th joar. He escaped by appealing to the compassion of the people, producing \ua young chil- dren to move their pity Cruelty and meanness ofXien gJ together ^Cic. Orat. i. 53.) . VIRIATHI.VN WAR. 279 Viriathus, and took two Lusitanian towns. Viriathus how- ever succeeded in gaining over to his side the greater part of the Celtiberian tribes, and he still harassed incessantly the Roman subjects. In 610 the consul Q,. Fabius Maximus Servilianus, tiie adoptive brother of ^mihanus, came out, bringing with him eighteen thousand foot and one thousand six hundred horse. He sent to Micipsa, of Numidia for elephants, and when they arrived he advanced .igainst Viria- thus, and defeated him ; but the Lusitanian, seeing the Ro- mans scattered in the pursuit, turned back, and having killed three thousand, drove the rest into their camp, which he would have stormed but that night came on. By making attacks in the night or during the heat of the day, he so worried and harassed the Roman army that he at length forced them to retreat to the town of Itucca, whither he pursued them ; but want of supplies and loss of men obliged him to return to Lusitania. Servilianus then again invaded that country; but as he was besieging a place named Eri- sane, Viriathus, who had entered the town by night, headed a sally in the morning, drove off those who were digging the trench, attacked the rest of the army, and chased it into a position whence there was no escape. The Lusitanian used his advantage nobly and moderately ; he proposed a peace, on the terms of his being recognized as a friend of Rome, and all those whom he commanded being secured in the possession of their territory. The consul gladly accept- ed these terms, peace was concluded, and the senate and people of Rome confirmed it. But Cn. Servilius Caepio, the broth»,r and successor of Servilianus, (611,) was by no means pleased at losing his chance of fame and plunder. He wrote home describing the peace as highly disgraceful to Rome. The senate gave him leave to harass and provoke Viriathus in secret ; but this did not content him, and on his repeated instances he received permission to make war openly. He came up Avith the army of Viriathus, far inferior in number, in Car- petania. The Lusitanian, not venturing to engage him, drew up his horse on an eminence, and sent off the rest of his troops by a deep glen ; and when he thcught them in safety he rode after them, in the presence of Cajpio, with such speed as to baffle pursuit. Some time after, however, he sent three of his friends to propose a peace : but the un- worthy Roman, by gifts and promises, prevailed on them lo engage to assassinate their chief. It was Viriathus' cus* 280 HISTORY OF ROME. tcm to sleep in his armor, but his officers hnd free access to his tent at uU liours. The traitors took advantage of tliis, and going in just as he had fallen asleep, killed him with one blow, they then fled to Cicpio to claim their reward, and he sent them to Kome to claim it there. The Lusitanians deeply mourned their valiant, able, and noble-minded leader, and celebrated his obsequies with all the pomp and magnificence in use among them. They ap- pointed a chief named Tantalus to take his place ; but Viriathus was not to be replaced, and they were obliged to submit to Caepio, give up their arms, and take the land he assigned them. The war which Viriathus had kindled in Citerior Spain now drew the attention of the Romans. The chief seat of this war was the city of Numantia, which lay in the present Old Castile. It was built on a steep hill of moderate height, being accessible only on one side; the river Durius (Douro) and another stream ran by it, and it was surrounded by woods. It contained, it is said, only eight thousand fighting men, but these were all *irst-rate soldiers, both horse and foot. Fulvius Nobilior, iu the year 599, had first wantonly attacked Numantia ; Marcellus and Lucullus also turned their arms and arts against the Numantiiies, who therefore readily entered into an alliance with the Lusitanian hero. In the year 612, Q. Pompeius, (the fiist consul of his name,) having received from his predecessor L. Metellus Macedo- nicus,* a well-disciplined army of thirty thousand foot and two thousand horse, laid siege to Numantia ; but he met with nothing but disgrace and defeat ; his army was at- tacked by disease, and he was forced to dispers^e it through the towns for the winter. Wishing to end the war before his successor should come out in the spring, he entered into secret negotiations with the Numantines, who were extremely desirous of peace, and at his suggestion they sent an embassy to him. In public he demanded uncon- ditional eubmissiou, as alone worthy of Rome; in private he declared he would be satisfied if they gave hostages and * This was one of the best men Rome ever produced. As he was besieping' in ' this war the town of Nertobriga, the people, to punish one oi tlieir citizens who h.id gone over to the Romans, exposed hit) children to the batterinij rams. Tlie father cried out not to heed them, but the generous Metellus gave up the siege, sooner than in- inrr them. The fame of this humane act caused many towns to snf •onder Flor ii. 17. Val. iV«*s. v. 1,5 NUMANTINS WAR 281 thirty taleats in money, and delivered up the prisoners and deserters. They agreed, and all was concluded except the payment of a part of the money, when M. Popillius Laenas catne out to take the command. Pompeius then turned round and denied having made any convention with them ; they appealed to his own officers who were present. Popil- lius sent them to Rome, and the senate having heard them and Pompeius, sent orders to Popillius to prosecute the war. He accordingly commenced operations against Numantia, but he was utterly defeated by its gallant defenders. In 615, the consul C. Hostilius Mancinus appeared before Numantia, but in every encounter he was worsted ; and on a false report of the approach of the Cantabrians and Vac- cajans to relieve the town, he fled in the night, and took; refuge in the old camp left by Nobilior : here he was sur- rounded by the Numantines, and no chance appearing of escape, he sent to propose a peace. The Numantines would only treat with his quaestor Ti. Semprouius Gracchus, the son of him who had regulated the state of Spain, and Grac- chus succeeded in concktding an honorable peace, and thus saving a Roman army of twenty thousand men. But at Rome this treaty caused high displeasure ; some were for giving up to the enemy all concerned in it, as had been done at the Caudine Forks ; but the influence of Gracchus' friends prevailed, and it was thought sufficient to deliver up the general. Mancinus, who offered himself a voluntary victim,' was taken by his successor P. Furius, and handed over naked and in bonds to the Numantines; but, like Pon- tius, they refused to receive him. During this time Mancinus' colleague, M. ^Emilius Lepi- dus, not to be idle, made war of himself on the Vaccaeans, under the pretext of their having supplied provisions to the- Numantines, and he laid siege to their chief town Paliantia. The senate, loath to engage in a new war at this time, sent out to stop him; but he wrote to say that he knew tiie reav state of things better than they, and that all Spain would rise if the Romans showed any symptoms of fear. He then went on with the war ; but his hopes of glory and booty were foully disappointed : after a great loss of men and beasts he was obliged to raise the siege and fly in the night, leaving his sick and wounded behind him. The people of Rome deprived him of his office, and fined him heavily. It ifl not quite certain that such would have been the case if 24* J J 282 HISTORY OF ROME. he had been victorious. The consul Q. Calpuriiius Piso (617) did not venture to engage the Numantines, contenting himself with plundering the lands of Pailantia. It was now become evident that the Numantine war de- manded Rome's ablest general ; the people therefore resolved to raise Scipio Africanus a second time to the consulate for this purpose, ((>I8,) the law forbidding any one to be consul a second time being suspended in his favor. As there were so many troops already in Spain, no legions were raised, but the name of Scipio brought together about four thoMs:ind volunteers ; and giving the charge of them to his .brother Fabius Maximus, he passed over himself at once to Spain. Here he found the army in such a state of demoralization, that nothing could be undertaken till its discipline was re- stored. He forthwith gave orders for all sutlers, harlots diviners and priests, (for ill success had as usual produced superstition,) to quit the camp. He directed all the need- less wagfms and beasts of burden to be sold ; forbade the soldierti to have any cooking utensils but a spit and a brass pot, or to use any food but plain roast and boiled meat, or to have more than one drinking-cup ; he also obliged them to sleep on the ground, himself setting them the example. By various regulations of this kind, he got the troops into good order, and having .seasoned them by marches and coun- termarches, making thetn dig trenches and fill them up again, raise walls and throw them down, he led them into the Vacc:ran territory, whence the Numantines dreVv their chief supplies, and laid it waste, atid then took up his winter (piarlers in that of Numantia. While here he was joined by Jugurtha, the nephew of Micipsa king of Nu- midia, with twelve elephants and a body of horse and light troops. In the spring (61()) Scipio formed two camps in the vi- cinity of Numantia under himself and his brother. His plan being to starve the town, he refused all offers of battle ; he divided his army into different portions, and raised ramparts and towers round the town, except where it was washed by the Durius ; and to prevent provisions or intelligence being conveyed in by boats or by divers, he placed guards on the river above and below, and from these stations he let long beams of timber, armed with swords and darts and fastened by ropes to the shore, float along the streani, which being very rapid kept whirling them round and round, so that KUMANTiNE WAR. nothing could pass. The works round the town were six miles in circuit, those of the town being three miles ; and tiie besieging army counted sixty thousand men. The Numantines made several gallant but fruitless at- tacks on the Roman works. Hunger began to be felt, and all communication with their friends was cut off. A man named Retogenes, we are told, having engaged live of bis friends to join in the attempt, they went one dark night, each with his horse and a servant, up to the Roman works, with a ladder made for the purpose. Having ascended, they fell on and slew the guards on each side, and then getting up their horses,* they sent back their servants, and mounted aiid rode to solicit the Druacians to aid their kinsmen of Numantia; but their terror of the Romans was too great to allow them. The Numantines then went to a town named Lutia : here the young men were for giving aid, but the eldbrs sent secretly to inform Scipio. It was the eighth hour when the word came; he collected what troops he wanted, and though the distance was'forty miles he reached Lutia by dawn. He demanded the principal of the youth ; he was told they were gone away ; he threatened to plunder the town if they were not produced ; they were theli brought, to the number of four hundred ; he cut off their hands, left the town, and at dawn next day reentered his camp. The Numantines hopeless of relief, now sent five depu- ties, offering to surrender if they could obtain moderate terms. The unfeeling Roman would grant no conditions: the Numantines would not yet surrender at discretion. But the famine grew sorer every day ; they ate leather and otlier nauseous substances, and even, it is said, began to feed on human flesh. They seiit once more to Scipio ; he desired them to give up their arms on that day, and repair on the next to a certain place. They asked a respite of one day, and in that time their leading men put an end to themselves. On the third day a miserable remnant came forth ; Scipio selected fifty to adorn his triumph, the rest he sold fof slaves; f he then levelled the town, and divided its territory among its neighbors. He triumphed on his return, and was named Numanticus. liittle, however, on this occasion was the real glory of Scipio or of Rome. An army of sixty * If this story be true, the ladder must have been broad and boarded, so that the horses could walk up it. t According to Florus and Orosius, all the Numantints put un end to themselves, after burning their arms, goods, and houses. 284 HISTORy QF aOME. thousaud men starved out one of four ihcusqnd, to whom they. would give no op])ortunity of fighting: a people who had generously granted life and liberty to twenty thousand Romans, were attacked, in breach of a solemn treaty, and destroyed, because they maintained tlieir liberty. In tlie year <)14 the consul D. Junius Brutus had entered Lusitania, and having subdued the country soutli of the Duriiis, he crossed that river and advanced to the Minius, (Miuho,) which he also passed, (OIG:) he made war suc- cessfully on the Callaeci, who dwelt to the north of it, and obtained the title of Callaicus. The year after the capture of Numautia the consul P. Ru- pilius terminated a war wliich had beengoiitg on for pome years in Sicily. It had thus originated.* In this fertile i.sland, the wealthy natives, and the Roman speculators who had made purchases in it, were in posses- sion of large tracts of land. As the cheapest mode of cul- tivating them, they bought whole droves of slaves at the various slave-marts, whom they branded and placed on their estates. These men, who seem to have been mo.stly Asiatics, were treated with great cruelty, and so stinted in food that they used to go out in gangs, (it is added, with their mas- ters' permission,) and rob on the highways, and even attack and plunder the villages; and the influence of their masters was so great at Rome that the prmtors did not venture to suppress this disorder. The slaves thus got union and a kind of discipline : they learned their own strength, and begnn to form plots. Among the slaves was a Syrian named Eunus, who af- fected to be inspired by the Syrian goddess : by various juggling tricks he attained great repute among his fellows, and he publicly declared himself destined to be a king. A wealthy Sicilian named Damophilus, who resided at Knua, treated his slaves with remarkable rigor, and his wife equalled him in cruelty ; their wretched slaves ther-efore formed a plot to murder them ; but they proviouely re.soIved to consult the prophet. Eunus promised them success; they placed him at their head, and to the number of four hundred entered Enna, wliere they were joined by their fellow^kves, and comnutted excesses of all kinds. Damo- philus and his wife were seized and brought before their tribunal ; as he was pleading for his life 'two <)f the slaves " Diodorus, xxxlv. Florus, iii. 19. BOJIAN GOVERNMENT. 285 fell on and slew him; his wife was given up to her female slaves, lyho, when they had tortured her, cast her down a precipice ; but their daughter, wlio had always been kind and humane to the slaves, was treated with the utmost con- sideration, and sent, under the escort of some whose honor and fidelity could be relied on, to her relations at Catana.* Eunus now assumed royalty. In three days he had an army of six thousand men, armed with axes, scythes, spits, etc. ; it gradually increased to beyond ten thousand ; he defeated the troops of the prretor P. Manilius, (610) ; and the same fate befell P. Lentulus the following year. A Ci- lician slave named Cleon, in imitation of Eunus, put himself at the head of another body of slaves, and plundered Agri- gentum and its territory. It was expected that these leaders would turn their arms against each other ; but, on the con- trary, Cleon placed himself under the command of Euni^is, and their forces at length, it is said, increased to 200,000 men. The prtEtor L. Plautius Hypsceus was defeated by the rebels, (618,) and the consul C Fulvius Flaccus met with little success ; the next cdnsul, L. Calpurnius Piso, defeated them before Messana, and his successor, P. Rupilius, (620,) ended the war, their strongholds, Tauromenium and Enna, being betrayed to him : numbers of the rebels were slain in battle or crucified ; Cleon fell fighting like a hero ; Eunus was made a prisoner, and' lie expired in a dungeon at Mur- S^titii. ' Tyofl oii'i .virioll U-, K.jTiq hue lumiro : ^ .'. - -.'l :■: :A:.n ^. -. !: .,. ., ■,,, We will conclude this Part by a few observations on the foreign policy and government of the Romans at this time, and the state of their literature. It vvas always Rome's policy to form alliances, if possible, with the neighbors, or natural enemies as they are called, of any state with which she was at war. We thus find that in 479 a Roman embassy appeared at Alexandria in Egypt, and concluded an alliance with Ptolemfelis Philadelphus, the object of which was a joint war against Pyrrhus, who was now become formidable ; but the death of that prince the follpwing year made the treaty of no effect. The feeble * What was Scipio's boasted virtue to this ? 286 HISTORY OF ROME. successors of the Egyptian king continued to regard the Romans as tiieir protectors, and the year 5SG offers a re- njarkable instance of the Roman influence. Antiochus Epi[)hanes had invaded Egypt; Rome was applied to ; an embassy, headed by M. Popillins Lsenas, came out. Antio- chus offered his hand to Popillius, who declined it, till the king should have read the letter of the senate, ordering him out of Effvpt. Having perused it, he said he would advise with his friends. Popillius, dravting a circle round him with a wand, desired him not to leave it till he had given him a reply. The king then said that he would obey the senate, and the haughty envoy at length condescended to give ,t)ipi his hand. , , The kings of Pergamus and Bithynia were the obedie^V slaves of the Roman senate, who employed them against tlie, kings of Macedonia and Syria; and as, lion-like, Rome always gave her jackals a share of the prey, their dominions were augmented by her victories. The meanness of Prusias of Bithynia was un|)aralleled ; he styled himself the freed- man of the Romans, and would go out to meet their ambas- sadors with a shaven head and the freednian's cap, {pi.lfu,^,) ns beiiifT just emancipated. Attains III. of Pergamus, dying (619) without issue, left his kingdom to the Roman people.* Such i>ortions of their conquests as they did not leave with their rightful owners, or give away, the Romans reduced to provinces, which were governed by those who had borne the oflices of consul and pra'tor at Rome. The power of the^p, Roni;in governors was nearly as despotic as that of the Turkish pashas, and they but too often plundered the un- hnp|)v |)rovinrials in a dreadful manner ; the conduct of the infinious Verres, as detailed by Cicero in his pleadings against him, though an extreme case, will show to what lengths robbery and extortion might be, and sometimes were,, carried by Roman praetors and proconsuls. What aug^ nientcd the evil was, that the office of governor was annual, and cacli governor was attended by a cohort of officers, friends, and dependents, who had to make (ht:{r fortjjues also, so that (though the command was sometimes prolonged,) the j)roviiices had every year to expect a new swarm of blo(t«e.; j 25* I 994 HISTORY OF ROM£. Qrucchus himself, excited by the magnitude and antici|>a' ted good of lu3 object, and warmed by oj)]X)sition, exerted aU the powers of his eloquence in hi;^ liarangues from the Rostra, The beasts of the field in Italy, he said, had their holes and dens to lie in, while those who fought and died for it partooK of its light and air, but of nought else, wandering about house- less and h()n»eless with their wives and cliildren. It was a mockery of the generals to call on their men in battle to fight for their altars and the tombs of their fathers, for of so many Romans not one had a fanjily altar or tomb ; they fought and died for the wealth and luxury of others ; they were called the lords of the world, while they had not a sod of their own. He asked the wealthy if slaves were better, braver, or more faithful than freemen : he showed them that, by thus diminish- ing the free population, they were running the risk not only of not making the further conquests to which they aspired, but of losing to the public enemies the lands they already possessed. He finally told them that if they cheerfully yielded up what they held beyond the limits specified in his law, they should have the remainder in absolute prop erty, and he gave an adequate renmneration for the money they had laid out on what they surrendered. He then de- sired the clerk to read out the bill. But the rich, fearing to make any opposition in their own persons, hrul engaged Octavius, one of the tribunes, on their side, and he interposed his veto. The clerk there- [ fore stopped reading. Gracchus then put the matter off 1 till the next market-day; but with no better success, for I Octavius again interposed. Gracchus appointed another day, and judging that Octavius' opposition proceeded from his being a holder of public land, he offered to make good out of his own fortune any loss he might sustain. Finding him obstinate, he suspended by his intercession the func- tions of all the magistrates till his bill should have passed, and he placed his seal on the temple of Saturn, that the qii.-Estors might take nothing into or out of it.* The wealthy now assumed the garb of mourners; they at the same time laid plots for the life of Gracchas, whc aware of them went constantly armed with a dagger, taking care to let it be seen. Another assembly-day came : the people were preparing * As this was the treasury, this was what «tc oav cbU sti-ypinv tht miplits. '•.ihul -'tit ■k '■• TRIBUNATE AND LAWS OF TIBERIUS GRACC1IU3 295 .0 vote, vvhen Octavius again interposed ; they lost patience, and were about to have recourse to violence ; but Manliu? and Fulvius, two consulars, witii tears implored Gracchus to leave the matter to the senate. He snatched up his bill and ran with it into the senate-house ; but here the party of the rich was too strong for him : he came out again, and in sight of the people besought Octavius to give up his op- position ; and vvhen he could not prevail he declared that the public weal must not be endangered by their disputes, and that one or other of them must be deprived of his office. lie then desired Octavius to put the question of Ms deposition to the vote, and on his refusal he said that he would i)ropose that of Octavius. The assembly was then dismissed. Next day he proposed the question ; the first or prceroga- tive tribe having voted for it, he conjured Octavius to change, but in vain. When seventeen tribes had voted, he again implored him ; Octavius, who was naturally of a mild, mod- erate temper, hesitated and was silent ; but on looking at the rich, false shame overcame him, and he persisted : the eighteenth tribe then voted, and he ceased to be a tribune. Gracchus ordered one of his officers, a freedman, to pull him downt the people rushed to seize him, the rich to defend him, and he escaped with some difficulty. Q,. Mumi- mius was forthwith chosen in his place. Gracchus now carried his laws without opposition ; he himself, his young brother Caius, and App. Claudius his father-in-law, were appointed triumvirs for dividing the landsl The senate, at the instigation of P. Scipio Nasica, an exten- sive holder of public land, had the meanness and folly to insult Gracchus by refusing him a tent, (a thing always given to triumvirs,) and by assigning him only 4 J asses a day far his expenses. Just at this time Eudemus, of Pergamus, arrived with the will of king Attalus. Gracchus immediately proposed that the royal treasures should be brought to Rome, and divided among those to whom land should be assigned, to enable them to purchase cattle and farming implements. He furtlier maintained that it was for the people, not the senate, to regulate the dominions of the deceased monarch. This galled the senate, and Pompeius rose and asserted that being Grace!/::?' neighbor he knew that Eudemus had given him, as the future king of Rome, the diadem and purple robe of Attalusv Q. Metellus reproached him with letting the poorer 296 HISTORY OF ROME. 'V fM!r!T citizeiis light him home at night, whereas, when his fathei was censor, people used to put out their lights as he was going home, lest he should know that they kept late hours Others said other things; but what most injured Gracchus even with his own party, was the deposition of Octavius. Being aware of this, he entered into a public justification of his conduct on that occasion ; but his arguments, though Lugenious, are not convincing.* The nobility made no secret of their intention to take vengeance on Gracchus when he became again a private man, aud his friends saw no safety for him but in being re- elected. To secure the people he declarec his intention of shortening the period of military service, and to give an appeal, in civil suits, from the judges to the people. He also (perhaps to gain the knights) proposed to add an equal number from the equestrian order to the panel of judges, who had been hitherto exclusively senators. When the day of election came, the party of Gracchus was much more feeble than usual, for his chief supporters being countryfolk were away getting in the harvest, and they did not attend to his summons. He therefore threw himself on the people of the town, and though the strength of his ene- mies lay in that quarter the first two tribes voted in his favor. The rich then interrupted the proceedings, exclaiming that the same man could not be twice tribune ; a dispute arose among the tribunes, and Gracchus put off the election till the next day.t Though inviolate by his office he put on mourning, and during the rest of the day he went leading his jou^g son about with him, and commending him to the care of the people, as he despaired of life for hin»self. The people attended him home, assuring him he might rely on tjrem, and many of them kept watch at his house during the night. In the morning the friends of Gracchus, having early occu- pied the Capitol, where the election waa to be held, sent to summon him. Various unfavorable omens, it is said, oc- curred as he was leaving home, but his friend Blo^^ius, the philosopher, bade him despise them. He went up : the elec- tion commenced ; the rich men and their party began to di^tfirb It ; Gracchus made the sign which he had arranged * ^lutarch gives the heads of his speech. Cicero (Laws, 1.1. 10) im- putes tlic nun of Gracch\is to his deposition of iiis colleague. ■ * Appian, i. \4. Plutarch says thai it was the friends of iracchui who began to quarrel when thtj found thi tle^^tion goinf igainst hinv 3UNATE AND LAWS OF TIBERIUS GRACCHUS. 297 trith hed friends during the night, for recurring to force : his party &S Uched the staves from the officers and broke them up, andi&irding their gowns about them fell on the rich men and drov'a them off the ground witli wounds and bruises. The tribdnes fled : the priests closed tlie doors of the tem- ple ; some ran here, some there, crying that Gracchus was deposing the other tribunes ; others said that he was making himself perpetual tribune without any election at all. ■ The senate meantime was sitting in the temple of Faith. When Gracchue moved his hand to his head to give the sig- nal, some ran down crying that he was demanding a diadem of the people. Scipio Nasica called on the consul Mucius ScaBvola to do his duty and save the republic ; but he mildly replied that he would not use force or ^)ut any one to death without a trial; that if Gracchus made the people pass any illegal measure, they were not bound by it. Nasica sprang up, and cried, " Since the consul is false to the state, let all who will aid the laws follow me." Then, regardless of his dignity as chief pontiff, and setting the retention of the pub- lic laud, of which h& held so large a portion, before all things, he threw the skirt of his gown over his head as a signal to his party, and began to ascend the Capitol. A number of senators, knights, and others, wrapping their gowns round their arms, followed him ; the crowd gave way through respect ; they snatched the staves from the Gracchians, broke up^lje forms and benches, and laid about with them on all sides. Some of the Gracchians were precipitated down the sleep ;3ides of the hill; about three hundred were slain, and among them Gracchus himself, at the door of the temple, by the statues of the kings; or, according to another account, by a blow of a piece of a seat from Salureius, one of his colleagues, as he was running down the cliviis of the hill. In the night the bodies of all the slain were flung into the 'Tiber, that of Gracchus included, which his murderers re- fused to the entreaties of his brother. Some of his friends were driven into exile ; others, among whom v, as Diophanes, were put to death. Blosius, when taken before the consuls, declared that he had done every thing in obedieiice to Grac- chus. "What," said La;lius, " if he had ordered you to burn the Capitol?" Blosius said that Gracchus would have given no such order ; but when pressed he answered that he would have obeyed it, as it must in such case have been for the public good. Strange to say, Jie was set at liberty! Thus, for the first time for centuri?s, was blood shed in LL 298 HISTORY OF ROME. fRU civil contpst in Rome, — a prelude to the atrotis iS 'vv.ioh were soon to be ot' every-day occurrence. To nai ^'eternal disgiace of the Roman aristocracy, and to thei# ^ rn ulti- mate ruin, their avarice first caused civil discord ;/f'nd their contempt of law, divine and human, sprinkled the femple of Jupiter Optiinus IMaximus with the sacred blood of a tribune, and taught the Roman people to despise the majesty of office and the sanctity of religion. The senate pronounced the death of Gracchus and his friends to be an act of justice ; * but the people were so irfi bitterrd airainst Nasica that he deemed it advisable to gd out of their sight; and though his ofFice of chief pontiff bound liim not to leave Italy, he obtained from the senate a free hi^dtion to Asia/ where, after wandering about for some time, he died at Pergamus. Scipio Africanus was at Numantia at this time, and it is said that when he heard of the death of Tib. Gracchus, he cried out in the words of Homer, ' Thus perish all who venture on such deeds It And when, after his returri, (021,) the tribune Carbo demand- ed of him before the people what he thought of the death of Tib. Gracchus, he replied that he was justly slain if he had a design of seizing on the government. At this the assembly groaned and hooted' at him, but he said, "How should I, who so oft have heard undismayed the shouts of armed encnries, be mov(!d bv those of you to whom Italy is but a stepdame ? " | The agrarian law also caused Scipio to sink in the popular favor; for M. Fulvius Flaccus and C. Papirius Carbo, who were made triuilivirs in the place of Tib. Gracchus and of App. Claudius, (who was dead,) finding that those who held the public land did not give in an account of it, invited inform- ers to come f(;rward. Immediately there sprang up a raitk crop of legal suits; for those Italians to whom the senate had re-orranted their lands, and those who had purchased, were required to produce their title deeds ; but some had been lost, others were ambiguous, and time and one cause or another had * Cieero (Plane. 30. Pro Domo, 54) says that Mucius applauded and defended tlic deed of Nasica. This hardly accords with his approval of Gracchun' project. ' i i t ' £1: artuXuiro r.ai uiiio?, « T»? VordtOra y» ^»tbel 'Od.*!. 45li<' X Meaning that they were rhostly freedtnen, ri6t ginonie Rrtiiiaii cit •tens. DEATH OF SCIPIO AFRICANUS. 209 produced such coufusion and uncertainty in the various pos- Bessions, that the encroachments of the rich could not be ascertained with any exactness, so tliat no man was sure of his property.* In this state of things the Italians applied to Scipio Africa- nus, under whom so many of them had served, to advocate their cause. Not venturing openly, on account of the people, to impugn the agrarian law, he contented himself with repre- senting that it was not right that those who were to divide the lands should be the judges of what was public or not. As this seemed reasonable, the consul C. Sempronius Tudita- nus (623) was appointed to act as judge ; but not liking the office he marched with an army into Illyria, under the pretext of some disturbance there. The whole matter came to a stop : the people were enraged with Scipio, and his ene- mies gave out that it was his design to abrogate the law by force. One evening Scipio went home from the senate in per- fect health, attended by the senators and a large concourse of the Latins and the allies. He got ready a table in order to write in the night what he intended to say to the people next day. In the morning he was found dead in his bed, but with- out any wound. Of the nature and cause of his death there were various opinions, some said it was natural.t others that he put an end to himself; others, that his wife Sempronia, the sis- ter of the Gracchi, (for whom he had little affection on account of her ugliness and her sterility,) and it was even added with the aid of her mother Cornelia, strangled him, that he might not abrogate the law of Gracchus.| His slaves, it is also said, declared that some strangers who were introduced at the rear of the house had strangled him : the triumvirs Carbo and Fulvius are expressly named as the assassins.^ Those who know how virulent and how little scrupulous of means par- ties were in ancient limes, will probably feel disposed to sus- pect that he was murdered, and it is needless to say by what party. At all events no judicial inquiry was made, and the conqueror of Carthage had only a private funeral. |1 ' The effect of the writ quo warranto in the reign of Edward I. was similar. t Which Velleius says was the more general account. t Appian, i. yo. Cicero, Somn. Scip. 2. Liv, Epit. 59. Cicero'sal- lusion may be to C. Gracchus, who was suspected. Plut. C. Grac. 10. § Cicero, ad Divers, ix. 21 ; Ad Quint ii. 3. ; Dp Np :. Deor. ii. 5. iii. 32. Plut. as above. 11 Pliny, H. N. x. 43, 60. 300 HISTORY OF ROME. Scipio Africanus is one of the most accomplishec' t^fo ters in Roman story. As a general he was brave and skilful and though he had not the opportunities of displayinn milit* ry talents of the highest order, success attended all his opera tionSj and he cannot be charged with any errors. He was oi a noble, generous spirit in all his dealings, and in money mat- ters he acted with a liberality that was thought surprising in a Roman. Scipio was moreover an accomplished scholar ; he was the pupil of Polybiusand Panajtius, and the patron of the elegant poet Terence, who is said to have been indebted to hiu> and his friend Lailius for many of the graces of his dramas. For seven years (OI9-02G) after the death of Tib. Grac chus, his brother Caius seems to have abstained from public affairs. In ()20 he was appointed quicstor to the consul L. Aurelius Orestes, who was going out to take the comjiiand in Sardinia. This appointment gave much joy to the nobility, who ha of their propQsfir ; 'th;us Sulla's wefe the Cornelian, Cassar'e, theiJulian laws. i After Juno, or Aslarte,.the patron-deity of Garthaj^e. (Virg. ^n. i.) i Appian says it was after the return of Gracchus that the prodig3' of the wolves (the only one he mentions) occurred, and that he and Fu.vitis said it was an invention of the senate, who wanted a pretext &r doing away vv^ith the colony. 304 HISTORY OF ROME. his devotion to them. But his nieasure of setting the Italians on a level with them was too unpalatable to be digested by the populace of Rome, who, as is always the case, were as fond of monopoly, as jealous of their privileges, and as heed- less of justice in maintaining them, as any oligarchs whatever. When he proposed anew the granting the franchise to the allies, the consul Fniinius, at the desire of the senate, issued an order forbidding any who were not qualified to vote to be in the city, or within five miles of it, on the day of voting, Gracchus, on the other hand, gave public notice to the Italians that he would protect thehi if they staid. He however did not, for he looked calmly on while one of his' own Italian friends was seized and dragged away' by th^;^ lictors, probably feeling that he could not now rely on the people, in his anxiety to gain whom he had also offended his own colleagues. P'or on the occasion of a combat of oladi- ators to be given in the Fornm, they had erected scaffolds around it in order to let the seats ; Gracchus desired them to pull them down, that the poor might see the sport without payment. As they took no heed of him, he waited till the night before the show, when collecting a body of workmen he demolished the scaffolds and left the place clear foi* the populace, by whom this paltry piece of demagogy was of course highly applauded. The time of elections now came on, and Gracchus stood a third time for the tribunate; but he failed, some said through the injustice of his colleagues, who made a false , return of the votes, but more probably through the ill-will of the people at liis wanting to extend the franchise ; a,nd moreover the senate succeeded in having L. Opimius, a man on whom they could rely, raised to the consulate. They^ deemed that they might now endeavor to abrogate the laws of Gracchus, and the first attempt was to be made on that of the African colony. Gracchus at first bore their proceedings patiently; at length, urged by Fulvius and his other friends,, he resolved to collect his adherents and oppose force to force. On the day of voting on the law, both parties early occupied the Capitol; the consul, as usual, offered sacrifice; and as one of his lictors, named Aj>tillius, was carrying away the entrails, he cried to those about Fulvius, " Make way, ye bad citizens, for the good ! " they instantly fell mi him and despatched him with their writing-styles.* Gracchus waa • PliitarcK. ' Appiaii relates this event somewhat differently. DEATH OF CAIUS GRACCHUS. 305 sorely grieved at this violent deed ; but to Opimiiis it was a matter of exultation, and he called on the people to avenge it. A shower of rain, however, came on and dispersed the assembly. Opimius then* called the senate together, and, while they were deliberating, the body of Antillius was brought, with loud lamentations, through the Forum to the senate-house by those to whom Opimius had given it in charge : he, however, pretended ignorance. The senators went out to look at it; some exclaimed at the heinousness of the deed, others could not help reflecting how different- had been the treatment of the body of Tib. Gracchus and of this common lictor by the oligarchs. A decree however was passed that the consuls should see that the state suffered no injury. t Opimius then directed the senators to arm them- selves, and ordered the knights to appear next morning early, each with two armed slaves. Fulvius on his side also pre- pared for battle. It is said that Gracchus, as he was leaving the Forum, stopped before his father's statue, and having gazed on it a long time in silence, groaned and shed tears. The people kept watch during the night at his house and at that of Fulvius; at the former in silence and anxiety, at the latter with drinking and revelry, Fulvius himself setting the example. In the morning Opimius, having occupied the Capitol with armed men, assembled the senate in the temple of Castor. Summonses to appear before the senate and defend themselves were sent to Gracchus and Fulvius ; but, instead of obeying, they resolved to occupy the Aventine. Fulvius having armed his adherents with the Gallic spoils with which he had adorn- ed his house after his triumph, moved toward the Aventine, calling the slaves in vain to liberty. Gracchus went in his toga, with no weapon but a small dagger. They posted themselves at the temple of Diana ; and, at the desire of Grac- chus, Fulvius sent his younger son to the senate to propose an accommodation. They were dfsired to lay down their arms and to come and say what they would, or to send no more proposals. Gracchus, it is said, was for compliance, but Ful- vius and the others would not yield. The youth, however, was sent down again ; and then Opimius, who thirsted for civil * Plutarch says, next morning ; but it is not likely that there could have been such delay. Appian makes the death of Gracchus take place the following day, t " Dent operaiii consules ne quid respublica detriraenti capiat," \va« tlie form of the decree. It invested them with dictatorial power 26 * MM 306 HISTORY OF ROME. l)Iood, seized him as beinjr no longer protected by his oflice, and putting himself at the head of his armed men advanced to the attack. The Gracchians fled without making any re- sistance. Fulvius took refuge in a deserted bath, whence he was dragged out and put to death with his eldest son. Grac- chus, retiring into the ten)ple, attempted to put an end to him- self: but two of his friends took the weapon from him and forced him to fly. As he was going, it is said, he knelt down, and, .stretching forth his hands, prayed to the goddess that the Roman people might be slave? forever, as a reward for their ingratitude and treachery to him, — a prayer destined to be accomplished ! His pursuers pressiug on him at the Sublici- an bridge, his two friends, to facilitate his escape, stood and maintained it against them till they were both slain. Grac- chus ill vain prayed for some one to supply him with a horse; then, finding escape hopeless, he turned, with a faithful slave who accompanied him, into the grove of the goddess Furina, where he ordered his slave to despatch him : the slave obey- ed, and then slew himself over his body. The heads of Gracchus and Fulvius were cut off and brought to Opimius, who had promised their weight in gold for them ; and the person who brought the former is said to have previously taken out the brain and filled it with lead. Their bodies and those of their adherents, to the number of three thousand,* were flung into the Tiber, their properties confiscated, their wives forbidden to put on mourning, and Licinia, the wife of Gracchus, was even deprived of her dower, contrary to the opinion of Mucins Sca;vola. Opimius, by way of clemency, gave the young Fulvius, whom he had cast into prison, the choice of the mode of his death, though what his crime was it is not easy to see. To crown all, having purified the city by order of the senate, Opimius built a temple to Concord 1 Plutarch compares the Gracchi with the last two kings of Sparta; and the parallel between Agis and Tiberius is cer- tainly just. Both were actuated by the purest motives ; both attempted to remedy an incurable evil ; both were murdered by the covetous oligarchs. But Agis committed no illegal act, while the deposition of O^tavius plainly violated the con- stitution. The comparison of C. Gracchus with Cleomenes is less just ; the Roman was the better man, though, but for his " Orosius, (v. 12,) who wrote from Li vy, says that only 2-JO were slain on the Avcntine, but that Opimius afterwards put to death more tlian 3000 prrsons, without trial, who were mostly innocent. THE GRACCHI AND THKIR MEASURES. 307 /aw increasing the power of the senate, we might say that he was a demagogue, like Pericles, who cared not what evil he introduced provided he extended his own influence. In talent, Caius was beyond his brother ; his eloquence was of the highest order ; and if, as we incline to believe, his views were pure, he also may claim to be ranked among Rome's most illustrious patriots. With respect to the great measure of the Gracchi, the re- sumption of the public land, its legality is not to be questioned ; and the objects proposed, the relief of the people and increase of the free population, were most laudable. But a hundred and fifty years had elapsed since the conquest of Italy, during which there had been few or no assignments of land ; and such dangers are apt to arise from disturbing long possession, even though not strictly legal in its origin, that it is doubtful if in any case good could have resulted from the measure. As it was, the evil was beyond cure , the Republic was verging to its fall, and no human skill could avail to save it. Still our applause is due to those who did not despair of it, and who manfully attempted to stem the torrent of vice and corrup- tion. Whatever may have been the faults of the Gracchi and their friends, the nobility have little claim on our sympathy ; for they used their victory with the greatest insolence and cru- elty. When they had glutted their vengeance, they began to think of their interest ; a law was passed allowing those who had received lands under the Sempronian law, to sell them, and the rich soon had tliem again by purchase, or under (hat pretext. Sp. Thorius, a tribune, then (645) directed thnt no more land should be divided ; that those who held it should keep it, on payment of a quit-rent, to be annually distributed among the people, — a measure which, though it might re- lieve the poor, had no-effect on the increase of the free pop- ulation, the great object of Tib, Gracchus. This, however was not pleasing to the oligarchs : so another tribune, to grat- ify them, did away with the quit-rents altogether ; and thue ended all the hopes of the people. It is remarkable that, at the time the Roman people were thus voting away their rights, they actually had the ballot, and, we may say, universal suffrage. In 614 Q.. Gabinius, a tribune of low birth, had a tabrllarian* law passed, by which the people were to vote with tablets on the election of magistrates ; * So named from the wooden tablets with which they gave their votca 303 HISTORY OF ROME. in 618, L. Cassius, the well-known rigid judge, when tribune, extended this principle to trials ; and in 622, C. Papirius Car- bo further extended it to the voting on laws : * yet we see of how little avail it was. Cicero t remarks that after it was in- troduced more state criminals escaped tlian when the people, voted openly; and we know how such acquittals werjB obtained by the plunderers of the provinces. L. Opimius was accused in 632, by the tribune Q.. Decius, for having put citizens to death without trial ; and it is rath- er startling to find the consul of that year, C. Papirius Carbo, the friend of the Gracchi, exerting hiseloquence (in which he excelled) in his defence, and maihnining that C. Gracchus had been justly slain. Opimius of course was acquitted. This change of party did not, however, avail Carbo: he was pros- ecuted the next year (633) by the young orator L. Crassus, for his share, as it would seem, in the measures of the Grac- chi, and seeing no prospect of escape he put an end to his own life. Having concluded the narrative of this first civil discord, we will cast a glance over the foreign affairs of the state at this period. When Attalus of Pergamus left his kingdom to the Ro- man people, (619,) his natural brother Aristonicus took up arms to assert his claim to it. There was perhaps some doubt in the senate as to the justice of their cause ; for it was not till two years after (621) that Asia was decreed as a prov- ince to the consul P. Licinius Crassus, who, though he vva3 chief pontiff, and therefore bound not to leave Italy, led an army thither. But thinking more on booty than war, he was defeated and made a prisoner in a battle fought near Smyrna, and he was put to death by the victor. Aristonicus, however, was forced to surrender (623) to M. Perperna, and the king- vn^ he obeyed, fearing to THE JUGURTHINE WAR. ^tl irritate Scaurus. But the interview was of no effect, for, after wasting words in vain, the commissioners went home. It would perhaps have been better for Adherbal if they had not come at all ; for the Italians in Cirta, convinced that the power of Rome would be a security to them, insisted on his surrendering the town, only stipulating for his life ; and, though he knew how little reliance was to be placed on Jugurtha's faith, he yielded, as it was in their power to compel him. Jugurtha first put Adherbal to death, with torture, and then made a promiscuous slaughter of the male inhabitants, the Italian traders included, (640.) Jugurtha's pensioners at Rome attempted to gloss over even this atrocious deed ; but C. Memmius, a tribune elect, in his harangues to the people, so exposed the motives of those who advocated his cause, that the senate grew alarmed, and by the Sempronian law Numidia was assigned as one of the provinces of the future consuls. It fell to L. Calpurnius Bestia, ((341 ;) an army was levied, and all preparations made for war. Jugurtha was not a little surprised when he heard of this. He sent his son and two of his friends as envoys to Rome, to bribe as before ; but they were ordered to quit Italy, unless they were come to make a surrender of Jugur- tha and his kingdom. They therefore returned without having effected any thing. The consul, wlio, like so many others, was a slave to avarice, having selected as his legates Scaurus and some other men of influence, whose authority, he hoped, would defend him if he acted wrong, passed over to Africa with his troops, and made a brisk inroad into Numidia. Jugurtha, instead of trying the chance of war, assailed him by large offers of money, displaying at the same time the difficulties of the war ; and Scaurus, whose prudence had hitherto been proof against all his offers, yi-elded at last, and went hand in hand with the consul. They agreed to a peace with him ; he came to the camp and made a surrender of himself, and delivered to the qutestor thirty elephants, a good number of horses and cattle for the army, and a small quantity of money. Bestia then went to Rome to hold the eieciions, as his colleague was dead. The senate were dubious how to act ; the disgraceful transaction was vehemently reprobated by the people, but the authority of Scaurus was great with them. Memmius seized the occasion of assailing the nobility ; he detailed their acts of cruelty and oppression, he exposed their avarice, venality, and corruption, and he finally succeeded in having 312 HISTORY Ot ftOME. the priEtor L. Cassius sent to Africa to bring Jugurtlia .0 Rome, ill order to convict Scaurus and the otliers by nis evidence. Cassius having pledged thpi public faith and his own, (which was of equal weight,) for his safely, Jugurtha came with him to Rome, ((34'2.) Here, besides his former friends, he gained C. Bajbius, one of Meniniius' colleagues ; and when Memmius produced him before the people, and, having enumerated all his crimes, called on him to name those who had aided and abetted him in them, Biebius ordered him not to answer. The people were furious, but Baibius heeded them not ; and Jugurtha soon ventured on another murder. There was at Rome a cousin of his, named Massiva, the son of Gulussa, whom the consul elect, Sp. Postumius Al- binus, anxious for the glory of a war, persuaded to apply to the senate for the kingdom of Numidia. Jugurtha, seeing him likely to succeed, desired his confidant, Bomilcar, to have him put out of the way. Assassins were then, as in more modern times, easily to be procured at Rome. Mas- siva was slain, but his murderer, on being seized, informed against Bomilcar, who, more in accordance with equity than with the law of nations, was arrested. Fifty of Jugurtha's friends gave bail for him ; but Jugurtha, finding this to be a case beyond his money, sent him away, heedless of his bail, for he feared that his other subjects would be less zealous to serve him if he let Bomilcar suffer. In a few days he him- self was ordered to quit Italy. It is said that as he was going out of Rome he turned back, and gazing on it, said, " Venal city, and soon to perish if a purchaser were to be found ! " Albinus passed over to Africa without delay ; but, with all his diligence, he was baffled by Jugurtha, who never would give an opportunity of fighting, and kept illuding him with offers of surrender. Many people suspected that the consul and he understood one another. The elections being at hand, Albinus returned to Rome, leaving his brother Aulus in command of the army. A delay having occurred, in consequence of two of the tribunes wanting to remain in office, in opposition to their colleagues, Aulus, hoping to end the war, or extort money from Jugurtha, led out his troops in the month of January, (043,) and by long marches came to a town named Suthul, where the royal treasures lay. The town was strong by nature and art : Jugurtha mocked at the folly of the legate, and, by holding out hopes of sur METELLUS IN AFRICA. 313 render, drew him away from it. By bribes he gamed some of the centurions and captains of horse to promise to desert, others to quit their posts : he then suddenly assailed the :amp in the night ; a centurion admitted him ; the Romans 9ed to an adjacent hill, where they were obliged to surrender, »ass under the yoke, and engage to evacuate Numidia within en days. Grief, terror, and indignation prevailed at Rome when this disgraceful treaty was known. The senate, as was always the case, pronounced it not to be binding. Albums hastened to Africa, burning to efface the shame ; but he found the troops in such a state of indiscipline that he could not ven- ture on any operations. At Rome, the tribune C. Mamilius Limetanus took advantage of the state of public feeling, to bring in a bill for inquiring into the conduct of those who had advised Jugurtha to neglect the decrees of the senate, and of those who had taken bribes from him, had given him back the elephants and deserters, or made treaties with him. The nobility, conscious of their guilt, strained every nerve against the bill ; the people, more out of hatred to them than regard for the republic, urged it on and passed it. Strange to say, Scaurus, one of the most guilty, had influence enough to have himself chosen among the three inquisitors whom the bill appointed. The inquiry was prosecuted with great asperity, the people being delighted to have an opportunity of humbling the nobility ; common fame was deemed suiB- cient evidence, and Opimius, Bestia, Albinus and others, were condemned. Albinus' successor (643) was Q.. Caecilius Metellus, a man who was an honor to his order, of high talents, ot stainless integrity, of pure morals ; his only defect was pride, " the common evil of the nobility," as the historian observes. He found the army as Scipio Africanus had found his at Car- thage and Numantia, and he employed the same means to restore its discipline. Jugurtha, aware of the kind of man he had to deal with, and that there was now no room for bribes, began to think of submission in earnest, and he sent envoys offering a surrender, and stipulating only for the lives of himself and his children. But Metellus, knowing there would be no peace in Africa while Jugurtha lived, treated with the envoys separately, and by large promises induced some of them to engage to deliver him up alive or dead : in public he gave them an ambiguous reply. In a ^e\\ days he entered Numidia, but saw no signs of 27 NN 314 HISTORT OF RCME. war; the peasantry and their cattle were in the fields, the governors of towns came forth to meet him, and furnished every thing he demanded. He put a garrison into a large own named Vaga, which was a place of great trade, and ivould therefore be of advantage if the war was to continue. Meantime Jugurtha sent a still more pressing embassy ; but Metellus, as before, engaged the envoys to betray him, and, rt'ithout promising or refusing him the peace he sought, ewaited for them to perform their engagements. (: Jugurtha, finding himself assailed by his own arts, and ihat all hopes were illusive, resolved once more to try the fate of arms. Learning that Metellus was on his march for a river named Muthul, he placed liis troops in ambush on a hill near it, by which the Roman army had to pass ; but the wild olives and myrtles among which they lay did not suffi- ciently conceal them, and Metellus had time to prepare for action. Jugurtha displajed all the talent of an able general, but his troops were far inferior in quality to those to which tliey were opposed, and, after a hard-fought contest, a com- plete victory remained with the Romans. Having given his men four days' rest, Metellus led them into the best parts of Numidia, where he laid waste the fields, took and burned towns and castle.s, putting all the males to the sword, and giving the plunder to his soldiers. Numbers of places therefore submitted and received garrisons, and Jugurtha became greatly terrified at this mode of conducting the war. Aware that nothing was to be hoped from a general action, he left the army he had asseml)led where it was, and, placing himself at the head of a select body of horse, hovered about the Romans, attacking them when scattered, and destroying the forage and the springs of water. The^^e desultory attacks greatly harassed the Roman troojw ; and, as the only means of forcing Jugurtha to an action, Metellus resolved to lay siege to the large and strong town of Zama. Jugurtha, learning his design from deserters, hastened thither before him, and conjured the townsmen to hold out bravely, prom- ising to come with an army to their relief, and leaving them the deserters to assist in the defence. Metellus, on coming before Zama, attempted a storm . in the heat of the engagement Jugurtha made a sudden attack on the Roman camp and broke into it; the soldiers fled in dismay toward those who were attacking the town. Me- tellus sent his legate Marius with the horse and some cohorts of the hWias to the defence of the camp, and the Numidians NEGOTIATIONS WITH JUGURTHA. 315 were driven out with loss. Next day, when they would renew the attack, they found the horse prepared to receive them. A smart cavalry action commenced and lasted all through the day, and at the same time the town was gallantly attacked and defended : night ended the contlict. Metellus, seeing that there was no chance of taking the town, or of making Jugurtha fight, except when and where he pleased, and that the summer was at an end, raised tlie siege and led his troops into the province for the winter. He then renewed his secret dealings with Jugurtha's friends; and having induced even Bomilcar to come to him privately, he engaged him, by a promise of pardon from the senate, to undertake to deliver up his master. Bomilcar took the first opportunity to urge Jugurtha to a surrender, by picturing to him the wretched condition to which he was reduced, and the danger of the Numidians making terms for them- selves without him. Envoys were therefore sent to Metellus, offering an unconditional surrender. Metellus, having as- sembled all the senators who were in Africa, and other fit persons, held a council after the Roman usage, and with their concurrence sent orders to Jugurtha to deliver up 200,000 pounds of silver, all his elephants, and a part of his horses and arras. This being done, he ordered him to send him the deserters : all were brought, except a few who had time to make their escape to the Moorish, king Bocchus. Jugur- tha was then directed to repair to the town of Tisidium, there to learn his fate; but his guilty conscience made him hesitate, and after fluctuating a few days he resolved once more to try the fortune of war. The senate continued Me- tellus in his command as proconsul, (644.) Jugurtha now strained every nerve. At his instigation the people of Vaga treacherously massiacred the Roman gar- rison ; but they paid the penalty of their crime within two days; for when Metellus heard of it, he took what troops he had with him, set out in the night, came on the Vagenses by surprise, slaughtered them, and gave the town up to plunder. About this time Bomilcar's plans failed. He had associated with himself a man of high rank named Nabdalsa, to whom he wrote a letter urging immediate action. Nabdalsa, lying down to rest, put the letter on his pillow, and his secretary coming intjQi.the tent while he was asleep, took and read it. He imnrvediately hastened to give Jugurtha inform^ation. Nabdalsa was saved by his rank and his protestations •>f his intention to reveal the plot, but Bomilcar and several others 816 HISTtRY OF ROME. ''-''' were put to death ; some fled to the Romans, sojne to Boc- chus, king of the Gaetulians, and Jugurtha remained witlv- out any one in whom he could place confidence, haunted by fear and suspicion. In this condition he was forced to an action, and defeated by Metellus. He fled to a large town named Thala ; whither Metellus, though there was no water to be had for the space of fifty miles, resolved to pursue him. He collected vessels of every kind, which he filled at the near- est river, and he ordered the Numidians to convey supplies of water to a place which he designated. When he reached that place a copious rain fell, and he thus catne before Tha- la, from which Jugurtha fled in the night with a part of his treasure. After a siege of forty days the town was taken; but the deserters had collected the things of most value into the palace, and then, after feasting and drinking, set fire to it and perished in the flames. Jugurtha now sought to arm the Gaetulians in his cause, and he prevailed on Bocchus, whose daughter was among his wives, to form an alliance with him. Such was the condition of the war when (645) the consul Marius came out to supersede Metellus. ' C. Marius * was the son of a small proprietor at Arpinum in the Volscian country ; he entered the army when young, and <1istinguished himself by his courage, his military skill, his temperance, and other (jualities becoming a good soldier. He rose through the inferior grades of the service, and was at length appointed by the people, who hardly knew him but by fame, to be a military tribune ; he served under Scipio at Numantia, (thus he and Jugurtha were fellow-soldiers,) and that able man foretold, it is said,his future eminence. In the year G^^^ he wa.s made a tribune of the people, and he had a law passed to lessen the influence of the nobility at elections, and another abrogating that by which corn was ordered to be sold to the people at a reduced price, — certainly no dema- gogic measure : but the hardy peasant probably saw, that an idle town-population could not but be injurious to the state. He then stood for both ai-dileships in the one day, and failed, but imdismaved he shortly after sought the pra-torship, and gained it, thodijh he was accused of having used unfair means. He next had, as proprfPtor, the government of Ulterioi Spain, which he cleared of the bands of robbers that infested it. Marius married into the noble family of the Julii ; and his character stood so high, that Metellus, when appointed to Numidia, made him one of his legates. * See Plutarch, Marius. CAIUS MARIUS. 31 T The great object of Marius' ambition was the consulate ; but this was an office which had hitherto been the exclusive property of the nobility, to which no new 7uun* be his merit what it might, had ever dreamed of aspiring. Marius howev- er knew that the times were changed, and that the people would gladly seize an occasion to spite the nobility. Vulgar minds are commonly superstitious; that of Marius was eminently so, and it happened that as he was sacrificing, when in winter quar- ters at Utica, the haruspex declared that mighty things were portended to him, and bade him rely on the gods and do what he was thinking of. He instantly applied to Metellus for leave to go to Rome to sue for the consulate. The proud noble could not conceal his amazement ; by way of friend- ship he advised him to moderate his ambition, and seek only what was within his reach ; telling him, however, that he would give him leave when the public service permitted it. Marius applied again and again to no effect; he then became exas- perated, and had recourse to all the vulgar modes of gaining favor with the varioiis classes of men ; he relaxed the discipline of his soldiers ; to the Italian traders, of whom there was a great number at Utica, and to whom the war was very injuri- ous, he threw the whole blame of its continuance on the general's love of power, adding that if he had but one half of the army he would soon have Jugurtha in chains. There was moreover in the Roman quarters a brother of Jugurtha's, named Cauda, a man of weak mind, but to whom Micij)sa had left the kingdom in remainder, who was at this time highly offended because Metellus had refused him a guard of Roman horse and a seat of honor beside himself While he was in this mood Marius accosted him, exaggerated the affront he had received, called him a great man, who would with- out doubt be king of Numidia if Jugurtha were taken or slain, as he would be if he were consul. The consequence was that all these people wrote to their friends at Rome, inveighing against Metellus, and desiring the command to be transferred to Marius.' Metellus, having delayed Marius as long as he could, at length let him ga home. He was received with high favor by the people ; he was extolled, Metellus abused ; the one was a noble, the other, one of themselves, the man of the peo- ple ; party spirit is always blind to the defects of its favorites,f * A novus homo, or ' new man,' was one in whose family there had been nncun.le dignity, and who tlierefore had no images. ' Political partisans are, in this, like loveri. " Mr. Wilks squints no 27* 318 HISTORY OF ROME. and the merits of its adversaries. The tribunes harangued ; the peasants and the workmen of the city neg ected tlieir business to support Marius ; the nobility were defeated, and be was made consul. The senate had already decreed Nu- uiidia to MeteUus ; but they were to be further humbled ; a tribune asked the people whom they would have to conduct the war with Jugurtha, and they replied, Marius.* The new consul set no bounds to his insolent exultation; be made incessant attacks on the nobility, vaunting thnt he had won the consulate from thetn as spoils from a vanquished enemy. The senate dared refuse none of bis deman<1s for the war; they eveii cheerfully decreed a levy, thinking that ' the people wotdd be unwilling to serve, and that Marius would thus sink in their favor. But it was (piile the contrary; all were eager to go and gain fame and plunder under Marius ; who, having held an assembly, in which as usual he inveighed against the nobility and Extolled himself, commenced his levy. In this he set the pernicious example of taking any that offered, mostly Capite-censi, instead of raising them in the old way from the classes :t he knew that those who had nothing to lose, and all to gain, were best suited to a ihan' greedy of power and indifTerent to the welfare of his country.' Having thus raised more than had been decreed, he passed over to Africa, where the army was given up to him by the legate ' Rutilius, as the])roud spirit of Metellus could not brook the sight of his insolent rival. Yet so variable is the multitude, so really just when left to itself, that Metellus was received with as much favor by the people as by the senate on bis re- tiir'n, anrj he obfained^ a triumph and the title of Nnmidicus'' as the true conqueror of Numidia.| Marius displayed great energy and activity; he 1\aid th^ wht»U; comifry waste, and forcerings outside of the former, there was but one at the latter, and that within the \*alls. Having vinre than a gentleman ought to do, " Said ah hdrtit)^l*'of tliat »ieWjirka- bif iiinii. • This was a manifest violation of the Sempronian la'v. Sec above p. 30:5. \ Not those of Servius ; see above, p. 17!i i Ve leius faterculus, ii. 11. SULLA AND BOCCHUS. 319 made his men load themselves and the beasts, mosJy with skins of water at the river Tama, he set forth at nightfall, not saying whither he was going; and resting by day and march- ing by night, he reached before day on the third morning a range of hills within two miles of Capsa ; and when it was day, and tlie people were come ont of the town, lie ordered his horse and light troops to rush for the gates. In this way the town was forced to capitulate ; but, contrary to the laws of nations, the grown males were put to the sword, the rest sold, the plunder given to the soldiers, and the town burnt. This fortunate piece of temerity, for it was nothing better^'' greatly magnitied the fame of Marius, and scarcely any place ventured to resist him. He now proceeded to another act of similar fool-hardiness. There was near the river Mu- lucha a strong castle, on a single rock in the plain, in which the royal treasures were deposited. It was well, supplied with men, arms, and provisions, and had a good spring of water ; one single narrow path led up to it from the plain, na- ture having secured it on all other sides. Marius .spent sever- al days before it ; and having lost some of his best men to no purpose, he was thinking of retiring, when fortune again stood his friend. A Ligurian, seeing some snails on the back part of the rock, climbed up to get them, and going higher and high- er as he saw them, he at length reached the summit. He de- scended again, carefully noting the way, and then went and informed the consul of his discovery. Marius resolved to take advantage of it ; he sent with the Ligurian five trum- peters and four centurions, who climbed up while he kept the garrison occupied by an attack. Suddenly the Roman trumpets were heard to sound above them, and the women and children were seen flying down ; Marius then urged un his men, the wall was scaled, and the fort carried. About this time the qusistor L. Cornelius Sulla,* afterwards so renowned, arrived in the canip with a large body of horse, to raise which he had been left in Italy. Jugurtha having induced Bocchus, with a promise of a third of his kingdom, to aid hirn eflbctually, their combined forces fell one evening on the Romans as they were marching to their winter (piar- ters. The Romans were forced to retire to two neighboring " HuUii. not Si/la, ts the orthography of all good writers. Tin- Latin langiiaire had do y in it at this time. Sulla, i e. surula, is suiai' to be a diminutive of sura. 320 HISTORY OF ROME. hills, around which the barl)arians hivouacked ; but to- ward morning, whrMi they were niostly asleep, the Ilomaiis sounded their tnnnpeis and rnshed down and slaughtered them. In tlie neiglilmrhood of Cirta, four days after, the two kings ventured on another attack ; but they were again routed with great loss. The consul then went into quarters for the winter at Cirta, whither envoys came from Bocchus, request- ing that two trusty persons might be sent to confer with him. Marius committed the affair to Sulla and the legate Manlius; and the arguments of the former had no little effect on the king, who soon alter sent five other envoys to Marius. They were so unlucky as to fall in \vith robbers on their way, by whom they were stript and plundered ; but Sulla, who com- manded in the absence of .Vlarius, treated them with great kind- ness ; and on the return of tlie consul a council was assem- bled, and three of the envoys were, {{) intelligence reached Rome of the approach of a barbarous people named Cimbrians to the north-eastern frontier of Italy. This people is supposed to have inhabited the peninsula of Jutland, and those parts which afterwards sent forth the Anglo-Sa.xon conquerors of England. At this lime, urged by some of the causes which usually set bar CIJttBRIC WAR. 321 barous tribes in motion, they resolved to migrate southwards. The consul Cn. Papirius Carbo gave them battle in the modern Carinthia, but he sustained a defeat. The barbari- ans, instead of advancing into Italy, turned back, and being joined by a German people named the Teutones, poured into Southern Gaul, where (643) they defeated the consul M. Ju- nius Silanus. The next year the consul M. Aurelius Scaurus had a similar fate; and in the following year (645) the con- sul L. Cassius Longinus was defeated and slain by the Tigu- rinians, a Helvetic people who had joined the Cimbrians, and the remnant of his army had to pass under the yoke to escape destruction. Q,. Servilius Caepio, the consul of the year 646, turned his arms, as the Cimbrians appear to have been in Spain, against the Tectosages, and plundered their capital Tolosa (Toulouse) of its sacred treasure, which he diverted to his own use. Ctepio was continued the next year in his command ; and as the Ciriibrians were returned from Spain, the consul Cn. Manlius led his army into Gaul ; but he and CcEpio, instead of uniting their forces, wrangled and quar- relled with each other, and kept separate camps on different sides of the Rhone ; in consequence of which both their ar- mies were literally annihilated by the barbarians, who now seem to have seriously thought of invading Italy. It was at this conjuncture that Marius was made consul a second time. , , ■ The Cirnbrians however returned to Spain, where they rer' mained during this ai]d the following year. Marius, who. was made consul a third time, (649,) employed himself chief- ly in restoring the discipline of the army ; and Sulla, who was his legate the first and a tribune the second year, dis- played his diplomatic talent now in Gaul as before in Numidia, and thus augmented the envy and hatred with which the rude, ferocious consul regarded him. His colleague happening to die just before the elections, Marius went to Rome to hold them, and there his friend the tribune L. Apuleius Saturni- nus, as had been arranged between them, proposed him for consul a fourth time. Marius affected to decline the honor; Saturninus called him a traitor to his country if he refused to serve her in the time of her peril ; the scene was well acted between them, and Marius was made consul with Q,. Lutatius Catulus, (650.) The province of Gaul was decreed to both the consuls ; and as the barbarians were now returned fr:)m Spain and tiad divided their forces, the Cimbrians moving to entef oo 322 HISTORY OF ROME. Italy on the north-east, the Teutones and Ambrones from Gaul, Marius crossed tlie Alps, and fortified a strong camp on the banks of the Rhone, that he might raise the spirit of his men, and accustom them to the sight of the huge bodies and ferocious mien of the barbarians. He refused all their chal- lenges to fight, and contented himself with repelliilg their assaults on his camp and at last the barbarians, giving up all hopes, of forcing him to action, resolved to cross the Alps, leaving him behind them. We are told that they spent six days in marching by the Roman camp, and that as they went they jeeringly asked the soldiers if they had any messages to send to their wives. Mariusthcn broke up his camp, and fol- lowed them, keeping on the high grounds till he came to Aquse SextitB. Hq here chotec for his camp an eminence where there was no water, and when his soldiers complained he pointed to a stream running by the enemies' camp, and told them they must buy it there with their blood. " Lead us on then at once while our blood is warm!" cried they. "We must first secure our camp," coolly replied the general. The camp servants, taking with them axes, hatchets, and some spears and swords for their defence, went down to the stream to water the beasts, and they drove off such of the enemies as they met. The noise roused the Ambrones, who, though they were full rtfter a meal, j^ut on their armor and crossed the stream ; the Ligurians advanced to engage them, some . more Roman troops succeeded, and the Ant- brones were driven back to their wagons with loss. This check irritated the barbarians exceedingly, and the Romans passed the night in anxiety, expecting an attack. In the morning RIarius, having sent Claudius Marcellus with 3000 men to occupy a woody hill in the enemy's rear, prepared to give battle. The impatient barbarians charged up-hill ; the Romans, with the advantage of the ground, drove them back, Marcellus fell on their rear, and the rout was soon complete : the slain and the captives were, it is said, not less than 100,000. As Marius after the battle stood with a torch, in the act of setting fire to a pile of their arms, mes- sengers arrived with tidings of Ws being chosen consul for the fifth time. Catulus, meantime, had not been equally fortunate : not thinking it safe to divide his forces for defending the passes of the Alps, he retired behind the Atesis, (.Adige,) securing the fords, and having a bridge in front of his position to communicate with the country on the other side. But when VICTORY OF VERCELLJC. 323 the Ciiiibrians poured down from the Alps, and were be- ginning to fill up the bed of the river, his soldiers grew alarmed, and, unable to retain them, he led them back, abandoning the plain of the Po to the barbarians. Catulus was continued iu his command as proconsul the next year, (Gol ;) his deficiency of military talent was made up foi* by the ability of L. Sulla, who had left Marius to join him. iVlarius, who was at Rome, instead of triumpbing as was expected, summoned his troops from Gaul, and proceeded to unite them with those of Catulus, hoping to have the glory of a second victory ; and when the battle took place in the neighborhood of Vercellae, he placed his own troops on the wings, and those of Catulus iu the centre, which he threw back in order that they' might have as little share as possible in the action. But his manceuvre was a failure, for an im- mense cloud of dust rising, which prevented the troops from seeing each other, Marius in his charge left the enemy at one side, and the brant of the battle fell on the troops of Catulus. The dust was of advairtage to the Romans, as it prevented their seeing the number of their foes : the heat of the weather, (it being now July,) exhausted the barbarians, and they were obliged to give way, and as their front ranks had bound themselves together by chains from their Waists, they could not escape. ' A dreadful spectacle presented itself when the Romans drove them to their line of wagons ; the women rushed out, fell on the fugitives, and then slew themselves and their children ; the men too put an end to themselves in various ways : the captives amounted to 60,000, the slain to double the number. Marius and Catulus tri- umphed together, and though the former had had little share in the victory, his rank, and the fame of his former one, caused this also to be ascribed to him ; the muhitude called him the third founder of Rome, and poured out libations to him with the gods at their meals. He would have triumphed alone but for fear of Catulus' soldiers; and, as we shall see, he never forgave him his victory.* ' '" ' One evil of gredt magnitude which resulted from this war was, the great number of slaves that it dispersed over the Roman dominions; and at this very time those of Sicily were again in insurrection. Under the guidance of a slave, " The details of the battle are only to be found in Plutarch, (Marius,) who&e authority were Sulla's owp Memoirs, and therefore must b« received with some suspicion. vi'i " t 324 HISTORY OF ROME. named Salvias, who assumed the name of Trypho and tnt royal dignity, they defeated the Roman officers. In another part of the island the slaves made one Athenio, a Cilician, their king, but he submitted to Trypho, after whose death he had the supreme command. At length (651) the consul M. Aquilius slew Athenio with his own hand in an engage- ment, and suppressed the rebellion. CHAPTER m* STATE OF ROME. TRIDUNATE OF SATURNlNUS. — HIS SEDI- TION AND DEATH. RETURN OF METEJL.1.US. TRIBUNATE AND DEATH OP DRUSUS. SOCIAL OR MARSIC WAR. — MURDER OF THE PRAiTOR BY THE USURERS. SEDITION OF MARIUS AND SULPICIOS. SULLA AT ROME. FLIUHT OF MARIUS. *'T«E cruelty with which the npbility hadiused their victory over the Gracchi, and the scandalous corruption and profli- gacy which they had exhibited in the cas^ of Jugurtha, had greatly exasperated the people against them, and alienated from them the aflectious of the lovers of justice and honor. Ambitious and revengeful meu took advantage of this state of feeling to have themselves made tribuntor, was sent from Rome (GCO) to restore him. On this occasion Sulla advanced to the Euphrates, where Parthian ambassadors came to him proposing an alliance with Rome. On the death of Nlcomedes (661) the throne of Bithynia was disputed by his sons Nicomedes and Socrates named Chrestos ; the Pontic king, in alliance with his powerful son- in-law I'igranes of Aruienia, supported the latter, and at the same tiuie drove Ariobarzanes out of Cappadocia. The Romans sent (66Q) an embassy, headed by M. Aquilius, to restore the two kings, which was done without any attempt on the part of Mithridates to prevent it. Aquilius and his friends and followers, who had, acording to the usual custom, made the kings and all the towns pay large sums of money or enormous interest for what they lent them, looking forward to the advantages to be derived from a war, required the kings to make an irruption into the dominions of Mithridates. Nicomedes unwillingly complied, on their assurance that they would aid him. Mithridates, desirous to put the Romans in the wrong, offered no resistance, but sent an em- bassy to complain ; and on receiving an ambiguous, unsatisfac- tory reply, he entered and seized Cappadocia. He then sent again to the Romans, displaying his power and advising them to justice and peace; but they in indignation ordered his envoy to quit their camp and never to return. The Roman commissioners, with L. Cassius, the governor of the province of Asia, now took upon them, without con- sulting the senate and people, and in the very midst of the Social war, to make war on a most powerful monarch. They collected a force of 120,000 men, and dividing them into three corps, Cassius, Aquilius, and Q. Oppius took different posi- tions, while Nicomedes was at the head of an army of his subjects. But the Pontic generals Archelatis and Neop- tolemus, two Cappadocians by birth, defeated Nicomedes ; the Roman commanders successively had the same fate, and Mithridates was speedily master of the whole of Asia north of Mount Taurus ; the isles of the iEgean also cheerfully sul)- mitted to his dominion, Rhodes alone remaining faithful to the Romans. SULLA IN GREECE. m Mithridates now gave a dreadful proof of his hatred to the Romans. He sent secret orders to the people of the Greek i I towns on the coast to rise on a certain day and massacre all ! the Romans and Italians, men, women and children, slaves 1 and free, without mercy; and such , was the hatred the || Romans had brought on themselves by their insolence, j \ oppression and extortion, that the mandate was strictly '< \ obeyed, — less, says the historian^ from fear of the king than | 'I from animosity toward them. No mercy was shown, no temple was a sanctuary ; those who grasped the images of the , I gods were torn from them; the children were slain before i| the face of their mothers, whose own fate was only so long | I deferred. The lowest calculation gives eighty thousand as ] j the number of those who perished. Such as escaped sought | { refuo-e in Rhodes, which Mithridates besieored by sea and ! t land ; but to no effect, as he was obliged to retire with ( t disgrace. Meantime in Greece the Athenians, Boeotians, ; i Achreans, and Laconians had declared for him, and Arche- . \ laus passed over and made the Pirreeus his head-quarters, ■ I while an Epicurean philosopher named Aristion became the ^ r tyrant of the city by means of a garrison of two thousand j i men that Archelaus had given him to guard the treasure I j which was transferred thither from Delos. Near Chaeronea, | j Brutius Sura, the legate of Q,. Sentius governor of Macedo- | | nia, engaged the Pontic troops for three days, and forced I them to fall back to Athens. | | Sulla was now (665) landed with five legions and some | troops of the allies. The Boeotians returned to their alle- I I giance to Rome; he advanced into Attica, and laid siege to | Athens and the Piraeeus, being desirous to end the war as < I speedily as possible and return to Rome. He first tried to t | storm the Piraeeus, but, failing in the attempt, he made all ; \ kinds of machines, cutting down for that purpose the trees of ! | the Academy and the Lyceum, and taking the sacred treas- I ures from Epidaurus, Delphi, and Olympia. All the assaults j ] on the Pirceeus were gallantly repelled by Archelaus, and as the Pontic fleet commanded the sea no want was felt; but in the city famine soon began to rage, while the misery of the wretched citizens was augmented by the insolence and cru- elty of Aristion. At length the chatter of some old men, blaming him for not having secured a certain part of the wall, was overheard by the Romans, and Sulla attacked the town on that side and forced his way in. He gave orders for an indiscriminate slaughter ; no age or sex was spared ; the very 340 HISTORY OF ROME. Streets ran blood, till night ended the carnage ; tie then granted to the prayers of his friends, and the former renown of the city, the lives of those who remained. Aristion fled to the Acropolis, but thirst soon compelled him to surrender, and he was put to death. Sulla then pressed the sietje of the Piraieus more vigorously than ever, and Archelaus having at length embarked his troops and left it to its fate, he look and burned it, without sparing its noble docks and arsenal, ((]()<).) Archelaus meantime, in conjunction with the other gen- erals, had assembled an army stated at 120,000 men, with which he encamped near Cha;ronea. Sulla led his troops into Boeotia. Archelaus, knowing the inferiority of his soldiers, wished to avoid an action, but the impetuosity of some of the other generals was not to be restrained ; they gave battle to disadvantage, and sustained so ei»tire a defeat I j that only 10,000 men, it is said, of the whole army escaped, I I while we are assured that the Romans lost but thirteen men ! ! i Archelaus fled to Eubcea, and soon after Mithridates, having I I sent another army of 80,000 men under Dorylaus into Greece, 1 ' he joined it, and, taking the command, encamped at Orcho- j I menus. Sulla, seeing the fine plain which extends thence to ;? Lake Copais so well adapted for the action of the enemies' I I numerous cavalry, dug trenches through it ten feet wide to . I impede them. Archelaus, observing what he was about, made i I a charge ; the Romans were giving way, when Sulla, jumping I ; from his horse, seized a standard, and advancing alone with it cried out, " If any ask you, Romans, where you left your general, say, Fighting at Orchomenus." Shame took place of fear, the troops turned, Sulla sprang again to horse, the enemies were driven to their camp with a loss of 15,000 men, and next day the camp was stormed, and those who were in it slaughtered or driven into the marshes, where they were drowned. Archelaus fled to Chalcis, and Sulla retired to Thessaly for the winter. Meantime matters at Rome had taken a turn highly un- favorable to Sulla, and his friends came flying for safety to his camp. He was therefore anxious to terminate the war, and gladly hearkened to the proposal of an interview with Archelaus for that purpose. The Pontic general, who knew his situation, proposed that he should give up all designs on Asia and return to the civil war in Italy, for wliich Mithri- dates would supply him with money, ships, and troops. This being indignantly rejected, it was agreed that the king should restore all his conquests in Asia, pay two thousand talents, FLACCUS AND FIMBRIA. 34 i and furnish seventy ships fully equipped, and then be secured in his other dominions and declared an ally of Rome. Sulla then, accompanied by Archelaus, set out for the Hellespont ; but envoys came from Mithridates refusing to give up Paph- lagonia. This roused the indignation of Sulla. Archelans craved permission to go to his master ; and an interview between Sulla and Mithridates having taken place at Darda- uum, all was arranged as Sulla desired. He excused himselt to his soldiers for not exacting more satisfaction for the blood of so many myriads of Roman citizens, by telling them that if the king and Fimbria were to unite their troops he should be unable to withstand them. C. Flavius Fimbria was at this time in Asia, at the head of a Roman army of the Marian faction. Cinna, as we shall presently relate, having made L. Valerius Flaccus his col- league in the consulate, sent him with two legions to take the I I conduct of the Mithridatic war from Sulla, and, as he was U not a military man. Fimbria, who was a good officer, was f [ sent out as his legate. Fearing, as it would seem, to meet j [ Sulla, Flaccus led his troops through Macedonia to the Hel- | : lespont, and here a quarrel taking place between him and ! Fimbria, the latter, having excited a sedition against him \ among the soldiers, whom his avarice had alienated, murdered ( him and took the command of the army, with which he | gained some advantages over Mithridates and his son. He was encamped at Thyatira at the time of the peace, and Sulla instantly marched against him. Fimbria's troops began at once to desert, and finding he could not rely on them, and being mortified by Sulla's refusal of a personal interview, he put an end to himself. His army then joined that of Sulla, who having regulated the affairs of Asia, rewarding those who had been faithful to Rome, and imposing such heavy fines on the rest of the towns as immersed them in debt to the usurers and became a source of incalculable misery, set out for Greece on his return to Italy, where a new war awaited him. For scarcely had he left Rome when Cinna, heedless of his oath, and having, it is said, received a large bribe for the purpose, renewed Sulpicius' project of dividing the new citizens among all the tribes. Octavius, with the senate and the old citizens, opposed him. A large number of the new citizens armed with daggers occupied the Forum, to carry the law by terror ; but Octavius, at the head of the opposite pa'tVi also armed, came down and dispersed them. Several 29 • i ■ 342 HISTORY OF ROME. were slain, aiid Cinna, having vainly essayed to excits tne slaves, fled from the city. The senate declared his dignity to be forfeited, and L. Cornelius Morula, the Flamen Dialis, was made consul in his place. Cinna repaired to the army at Nola, which he induced to declare for him ; he also gained several of the allied towns, wliich furnished him with men and money ; and C. Milonius, Q,. Sertorius, and others of his senatorial friends, having come from Rome and joined him, he resumed the consular ensigns and advanced agair»st the Ij city, which Octavius and Merula had put in a state of defence. • They had also summoned Pompeius Straho to their aid, and i he was now encamped hefore the Colliue gate. J j Cinna having recalled Marius, he embarked with his j i friends and made sail for Italy. He landed in Etruria, j where his name and his promises respecting the places in the j j tribes drew about six thousand men to his standard ; he then J I sent to Cinna, offermg to serve under him. Cinna overjoyed I I sent him proconsular ensigns; but Marius, who still wore ; the dress in which he had fled from Rome, and had never I J cut or trimmed his hair since that time, replied that they did j j not become one in his condition. They divided their forces I j into three parts, Cinna and Cn. Carbo lying before the city, 1 I Sertorius above, Marius below it ; and Marius having taken j • Ostia, and put its inhabitants to the sword, threw a bridge II over the river so that no provisions could reach the city. I Octavius was advised to offer liberty to the slaves; but he [ replied that he would not give slaves a share in that coun- I > try, from which, in defence of the laws, he was excluding II C. Marius. Orders were sent to Q,. Metelius Pius, who was acting against the Samnites, to make terms with them and c>ome to the aid of the city. But while he hesitated to grant the terms they required, Marius sent, and promising them all they demanded, gained them over to his side. Ap. Claudius, a military tribune who had charge of the Janiculan, admitted Marius into the town, who then let in Cinna : but the troops of Octavius and Pompeius drove them out again. Pompeius was shortly after killed by lightning. Famine now began to be dreaded in the city, and both slaves and free deserted in great numbers. The .senate therefore sent envoys to treat with Cinna: he asked if they came to him as consul or as a private person ; they hesitated, and retired. He then encamped nearer the city, and the senate flndioo the desertion increase were obliged to deprive Merula of his ofl!ice, and send to Cinna as consv^i Thev CRUELTIES OF MARIUS AND CINNA. 343 only asked him to swear that there should be no slaughter; ne declined to swear, but promised that he would not of his own accord be the cause of any one's death, and he desired that Octavius should leave the city lest any evil should befall him. Cinna spoke thus from his tribunal, beside which stood C. Marius in silence ; but his stern look showed what he was meditating. When the senate sent to invite them to enter the city, Marius said, smiling ironically, that such was not permitted to exiles. The tribunes assembled the tribes to vote his recall, but not more than three or four had voted, when he flung oif the mask, entered the city at the head of a body-guard of slaves named Bardiaeans, who slew all he pointed out to them ; it at length sufficing for Marius not to I return any one's salute for these ruffians to murder him. ! Their atrocities at length rose to such a height that Cinna \ and Sertorius found it necessary to fall on and massacre them in their sleep. s We will enter into some details of the murders now per- | petrated. Octavius, declaring that while consul he would never quit the city, retired to the Janiculan. Here, while I he sat on his tribunal surrounded by his lictors, some horse- men, sent for the purpose, killed him, and, cutting off his | head, brought it to Cinna, by whom it was fixed on the Rostra. I C. and L. Julius, Atilius Serranus, P. Lentulus, and M. | Bajbius were overtaken and slain as they fled. Crassus and f his son being pursued, the father killed the son, and then was \ slain himself. M. Antonius, the great orator, sought refuge | in the house of a peasant, who, having sent his slave to a tav- | ^ em to get somewhat better wine than usual, the host inquired the reason ; the slave whispered it to him, and he went off, and, finding Marius at supper, gave him the information. Marius clapped his hands with joy, and was hardly kept from going himself to seize him. He sent a tribune named Annius, who, staying without, sent some soldiers in to kill him ; but the eloquence with which Antonius pleaded for his life was such that the soldiers stood as if enchanted. An- nius, wondering at their delay, went in and himself cui off Antonius' head, and brought it to Marius. Q. Ancharius, seeing Marius about to sacrifice on the capitol, and thinking he might be in a merciful mood, approached and addressed him, but the signal was given and he was slain. L. Merula and Q,. Catulus, Marius' colleague in the Cimbric war. and whom he had never forgiven, put themselves to a voluntary death. Merula opened his veins, and a tablet was found by 344 .A '- H STORY OF ROME. liim raying that he had previously taken off his sac cci liat, (aptr,) in which it was not hiwfui for a flanien to die.* Catulus shut himself up in a room newly plastered with lime, and burning charcoal in it suffocated himself Nor must the fidelity of the slaves of Cornutus go without its praise, who concealed their master, and taking and dressing the corpse of some common person burned it as his, and then conveyed him away secretly to Gaul. All the friends of Sulla were murdered ; his house was razed, his property confiscated, and himself declared an enemy. Murder, banishment, confis- cation raged every day, and even sepulture was refused to the bodies of the slain. Marius, whose appetite for blood in- creased with indulgence, was at the end of the year made consul the seventh time with Cinna, but he died in the first month while meditating new schemes of vengeance. t Cinna then had L. Valerius Flaccus, and when he heard of his murder, Cn. Papirius Carbo, chosen as his colleague, (667.) Caius Marius was one of those men who, in particular states of society, rise to eminence without being really great. His talents were purely military; his good qualities those of the mere soldier; he was temperate and free from avarice, but he was envious, jealous, ignorant, superstitious, and cruel, even to ferocity. As a statesman he was contemptible, the mere tool of others, and deficient in moral courage. Even in his military capaeity he was rather a good officer than a great general. In Numidia he only imitated Metellus, who had really brought the war to a conclusion ; there is nothing remarkable in his conduct of the Cimbric war ; and, if Sulla is to be believed, the battle at Vercelire did him no great credit. It was party spirit, not a sense of his superior merits, that renewed his consulates at this t me ; for surely Metellus, if no other, could have conducted the Cimbric war as well as Marius. Finally, in the Social war, when opposed to able generals and good troops, his deficiencies became apparent. f * The office now remained vacant till 744. Dion, liv. 36; Tac. Ann ill. ^^A•, Suet. Octav. 31. t Fimbria, who was at this time quflPstor. nt the funeral of Marius ordered Q,. Sccevola, the chief pontiff to be slain. Finding that the wound was not mortal, he prosecuted him ; and beinsr asked what cbarffCB he could brinstors to be chosen annually, partly by the people, partly by the consuls; in like manner the number ofpr.Ttors to be raised from six to eiorht; those who had been tribunes to be incapable of the higher offices, and the tribunes not to have the power of proposing laws. He restored the judicial power to the senators, and prohibited any one from challen- ging more than three jurors, and they were to give their ver- dict openly or secretly at the option of the accused, ft was also forbidden to any governor to go out of his province or to make war without the consent of the senate and people. The laws against extortion in the provinces were made more strict, it being Sulla's wish to attach the provincials to the government. Sumptuary and other laws relating to morals were passed ; in that against assassins especial care was taken to exempt those who had murdered the proscribed. As the senate wns now greatly reduced, Sulla augmented it by three hundred members from the equestrian order, each of them beincr chosen by tlie comitia of the tribes. He also selected ten thousand of the slaves of the proscribed, to whom he gave their liborty, and enrolled them in the tribes under the nante of Cornelians. These men were therefore always at his devotion, and his old soldiers were ready to appear when summoned, so that he was under no apprehen- sion for his power. Sulla showed in the case ofL. Lucretius Ofella that he \vould have his laws obeyed, for when he saw him suing for the consulate without havinjj been quaestor or praetor, he Bent to tell him to desist. Ofella taking no notice of the warning, a centurion was despatched to kill him ; and when Sulla's death. 35 1 the people seized the centurion for the murder, and brought him before Sulla, he said it was done by his order, adding, " A ploughman was one time annoyed by the vermin; he stopped the plough twice and shook his coat, and when they still bit him he burned the coat not to lose his time ; so I advise those who have been twice overcoino not to expose themselves the third time to the fire." During the first year of his dictatorship (671) Sulla had himself and Metellus Pius chosen consuls for the following year. In 673, having had P. Servilius and Ap. Claudius elected, he, to the surprise of all men, laid down his office and retired into private life. The man who had put to death ninety senators, fifteen consulars, two thousand six hundred knights, besides having driven numbers into exile, and in whose struggle for the supremacy one hundred thousand men had perished, who had confiscated the property of towns and individuals to such an extent as had reduced thousands and thousands to beggary and desperation* — that man dismissed his lictors, walked alone about the Forum and the streets of Rome, calmly offering to account for any of his public actions! It is said that one day a young man followed him home cursing and reviling him, and that he bore it patiently, only saying, " That youth's conduct will teach another not to lay down such an office so readily." Sulla retired to Cumse, where he employed his time in writing his memoirs, in hunting and fishing, and in drink- ing and revelling with players and musicians. He was here attacked the very next year with the most odious of all dis- eases, {morbus pedicularis,) a judgment, one might almost say, from heaven on him ; and one day hearing that a magis- trate of the adjacent town of Puteoli was putting off the payment of a debt to the corporation expecting his death, he sent for him to his chamber and had him strangled before his eyes. The exertions he made caused him to throw up a quantity of blood, and he died that night, in the sixtieth year of his age, (674.) Though the Cornelian gens had hitherto always inhumed their dead, it was Sulla's desire that his body should be burnt, lest the impotent vengeance he had exercised on the remains of Marius might in a turn of affairs be directed against his own. After some opposition on the part of the consul Lepi- dus, it was decided by the senate that his corpse should be • Appiai, B. C. i 203. 352 HISTORY OF ROMK. conveyed in state to Rome, and be burnt in he Field o. Mars. It was carried on a golden bier, hor!71) to Spain, and Sertorius, unable to main- tain himself there, passed over to Africa, where, aiding one of the native princes, he defeated and killed Paccianus, one of Sulla's officers. While considering what further course he should take, he was invited by the Lusitanians to come and be their leader against the troops of Sulla. He gladly accepted the command ; and, uniting in himself the talents of a Viriathus and of a Roman general, equally adapted for the irueri/la and the regular warfare, he speedily routed all the Roman commanders, and made himself master of the country south of the Ebro. lie did not disdain having recourse to art to establish his influence over the natives. Having been presented by a hunter with a milk-white fawn, he tamed it so that it would come when called, and heeded not the noise and tumult of the camp, and he pretended that it had been a gift of a deity to him, and was inspired, and revealed R ailt ii I * Metellus was not more tHah fifty-sii years of age, but he had g'iven himself up to luxurious habits, and had grown very corpulent. ' He was an amiable man. When Calidius, who had been the means j of recalling his father, stood for the prfetorship, Metellus canvassed for him, and, tliough consul, styled him his patron and the protector of i his family. (Cicero, Plancus.) ! 356 HISTOBt ^F ROME. have whipped this boy well, and sent him back to Rome.' He then retired. Sertorius eventually reduced his opponents to such straits that it was appreliended he would even invade Italy. Pom- peiu3 wrote word, tlmt, unless supplied with money from home, he could not stand ; Metellus ofi'ered a large reward for Sertorius' head ; and envy and treachery at length re- lieved them from all their fears. Perperna had all along iMjen jealous of Sertorius' superiority ; he did his Uitmost to alienate the affections of the Spaniards from him by exer- cising severities in his name, and he organized a conspiracy against him among the Romans. He finally invited him to a fea^t at Osca, and there he was fallen on and murdered, (G80.) Perperna hoped to Ik; able to take his place, but the Spaniards, having no confidence in him, submitted to Ponjj)eius and Metellus ; and, venturing to give battle with the troops he had remaining, he was defeated and taken. He had found among the papers of Sertorius letters from several of the leading n)en at Rome, inviting him to invade Italy, and these he offered to Pompoius to save his life ; but Pompeius nobly and wiselv had these and all Sertorius' other papers burnt, without beinrr read by himself or any one else, and he put Perperna to death without delay, lest he should mention names, and thus give occasion to new commotions. Thus, after a continuance of eight years, terminated the war in Spain. Meantime Italy was the scene of a contest of a most sanguinary and atrocious character. We have already related what an enormous slave-popula- tion there was in Italy, and how hardly the slaves were treated by their masters. The passion of the Roman people for the combats of gladiators had increased to such an extent, that it was become a kind of trade to train gladiators in schools, and hire them out to a;diles, and all who wished to gratify the people with their combats ; and .stout, strong slaves were purchased for this j)urpose. The cheapness of provisions in Campania made it a great seat of these schools, and here those in the school of one Lentulus Ratuatus, at Capua, resolved (679) to break out. and, if they could not escape to their homes, to die fighting for their liberty, rather tlian slaughter one another for the gratification of a ferocious populace. Their plot was betrayed, but upwards of seventy got out, and, arming themselves with spits and cleavers from the adjoining cook-shops, they broke open other schools, and SPARTACIAN OR GLADI.lTOltlAL WAR. 351 I I freed those who were in them. Near the town they met a • wagon laden with arms for the use of the schools in other i towns; and, having thus armed themselves, they took a i strong position on Mount Vesuvius. Here they were joined ' by great numbers of slaves, and they routed the troops sent \ from Capua to attack them, and got possession of their arms. { The chief command was given to Spartacus, a Thracian by | birth, who had served in the Roman army, though he had | been afterwards reduced to slavery ; and under him were ( two other gladiators, Crixus and CKnomaiJs. \ The praetor Claudius Pulcher was now sent against them < with 3000 men. He forced them to retire to the summit of t a steep hill, which had but one narrow approach. This he ;' guarded straitly; but they made themselves ladders of the \ branches of the wild vine, with which the hill was overgrown, and let themselves down on the other side, and then suddenly ' fell on and routed the troops of the praetor. Spartacus was \ now joined by vast numbers of the slaves who were employed ( as herdsmen. He armed them with such weapons as fortune offered, and he spread his ravages over all Campania and Lucania, plundering towns, villages, and country-houses. He defeated the prsetor P. Varinius, his legate Furius, and his colleague Coscinius : but, aware that they would not eventually be able to resist the disciplined troops of Rome, Spartacus proposed that they should march for the Alps, and, if they reached them, then disperse and seek their native countries. This prudent plan was rejected by the slaves, who, as they were now forty thousand strong, looked forward to the plunder of Italy. The senate meantinie, aware of the importance which the war was assuming, di- rected (680) the consuls L. Gellius and Cn. Lentulus to take the field against them. Tlie praetor Arrius engaging Crixus (who, with the Germans, had separated from Spartacus) in Apulia, killed him and twenty thousand of his men ; but he was soon after himself defeated by Spartacus, as also were both the consuls. Spartacus was now preparing to march against Rome at the head of 120,000 men; but, as the consuls had posted themselves in Picenum to oppose him, he gave up his design and fell back to Thurii, which he made his head-quarters. The war against Spartacus had lasted nearly three years, the hopes of the Romans were in the prjctor M. Liciniug Crassus, to whom it was now committed, (681.) Six legions *ere raised, to which he joined those of the consuls which 1 I 358 HISTORY OF ROMS. had fought so ill, having previously decimated a part of them. Spar.acus retired, on the approach of Crassus, to the point of Rhegium, where he agreed witli some Cilician pi- rates to transport hira and his men over to Sicily, hoping to [ be able to rouse tlie slaves there again to arms. The pirates j agreed, took the money, and then sailed away, leaving them ; to their fate. Crassus, to prevent all escape, ran a ditch and wall across from sea to sea at the neck of the peninsula of iiruttium ; but Spartacus, taking advantage of a dark, ; stormy night, made his way over the rampart. A body of 1 Gauls or Germans which separated from him was defeated j by Crassus, who soon after gave Spartacus himself a signal j defeat ; but the gladiator in his turn routed the qucestor and I legate of Crassus. The confidence which this advantage ; gave the slaves caused their ruin ; for they would not obey [ their leader and continue a desultory war, but insisted on j being led against the Romans. Crassus on his part was I equally anxious for a battle, as Pompeius, who, at his desire, j had been recalled by the senate, was now on his way, proba- ' bly to rob him of the glory of ending the war. The slaves j were so eager for the combat that they attacked as he was j pitching his camp. A general engagement ensued : Spar- tacus fell fighting like a hero, and his whole army was cut to pieces : about six thousand who were taken were hung by I Crassus from the trees along the road from Capua to Rome. j Pompeius, however, came in for some share of the glory, j for he met and destroyed a body of five thousand who were j endeavoring to make their way to the Alps. Tlie Servile I War, in which it is said sixty thousand slaves perished, thus . terminated. Pompeius and Meteliua triumplied for their I successes in Spain : Crassus, on account of the mean con- idition of his foes, only sought the honor of an ovation. The enormous wealth of Crassus, and his eloquence, gave j him great influence in tht state, and he was one of the chief j props of the aristocracy ; Ponipeius on the other hand j sought the favor of the people, whose idol he soon became. { Both now stood for the consulate. Pompeius, though he I had borne no previous office, as the Cornelian law r'equired, 1 and was several years under the legitimate age of forty-two years, was certain of his election : while Crassus could oidy succeed by Pompeius asking it for him as a favor to him- self. They were both chosen, but their year (682) passed { away in strife and contention. Before they went out of office the people insisted on their becoming friends , and PIRATIC WAR. 359 Crassus ileclaring that he did not. thu',ji ii unbecoming in him to make the first advances lo one on whom senate and people had bestowed such honors at so early an age, they shook hands in presence of the people, and never agani were at open enmity. In this consulate the tribunes were restored to all the rights and powers of which Sulla had deprived them ; the measure proceeded from Pompeius with a view to popular favor. With his consent also the praetor L. Aurelius I j Cotta put the judicial power into the hands of the senators, | j knights, and the aerarian tribunes;* for the senators alone || had shown themselves as corrupt as ever, and the knights, j | while the right had been exclusively theirs, had been no bet- \ ter. It was hoped that three separate verdicts might be more | I favorable to justice. | I Crassus now returned to his money-bags, and was wholly I occupied in augmenting his already enormous wealth. Pom- | peius, whose passion was glory, kept rather out of the public 1 1 view, rarely entering the Forum, and when he did visit it i ' bemg environed by a host of friends and clients. At length i the alarming extent to which the pirates of Cilicia now | carried their depredations gave him another opportunity of f exercising extensive military command. | From the most remote ages piracy had been practised in I various parts of the Mediterranean sea. The Athenians, in | the days of their might, had kept it down in the ^Egean ; | the Rhodians had followed their example ; but when their | naval power had been reduced by the Romans, the Cili- i cians, who had been encouraged in piracy by the kings of f' Egypt and Syria in their contests with each other, carried | on the system to an extent hitherto unparalleled. Not only | did private persons join in this profitable trade, but whole j towns and islands shared in it. The slave-market at Delos | was abundantly supplied by the pirates; the temples of | Samothrace, Claros, and other renowned sanctuaries were \ plundered ; towns on the coasts were taken and sacked ; i the piratic fleets penetrated to the straits of Gades. They I landed in Italy, and carried off the Roman magistrates and | the senators and their families, whom they set at heavy | ransoms. They even had the audacity to make an attack on | the port of Ostia: the corn-fleets destined for Rciie were j mtercepted. and famine menaced the city. j * These were wealthy plebeians, to whom the quaestors i^ued the pay of the soldiers. *i iiil*. .LjUJji 3(50 HISTORY OF KOME. Fleets and troops had at various times been sent agiinst the pirates to no efTcct. In G74 P. Servilius put to sea with a strong fleet, and having routed their squadrons of light vessels, took several of their towns on the coast of Lycia, and reduced the country of Isauria, (077,) whence he gained the title o( Isauricus. But he had hardly triumphed when the sea was again covered with swarms of pirates. The prajtor M. Antonius (678) was then sent against them, with most extensive powers ; but he effected nothing ; their depreda- tions became as numerous as ever, and they even laid siege to tiie city of Syracuse. In this state of things the tribune A. Gabinius, (tiSo,) either moved by Pompeius or hoping thereby to gain his favor, proposed that to one of the con- sulars should be given the command against the pirates, with absolute power for three years over the whole sea and the coasts to a distance of fifty miles inland, and authority to make levies and take money for the war out of the treas- ury and from the publicans in the provinces, and to raise what number of men he pleased. Though no one was named, all knew who was meant. The aristocratic party ex- erted themselves to the utmost against the law. Gabinius was near being killed in the senate-house : the people would then have massacred the senate, but they fled ; the consul C. Calpurnius Piso was indebted to Gabinius for his life. When the day for voting came, Pompeius spoke, affecting to de- cline the invidious honor; but Gabinius, as of course had been arranged, called on the people to elect him, and on him to obey the voice of his country. The tribunes Trebellius and L. Roscius attempted to interpose, but, like Tib. Gracchus, Gabinius put it to the vote to deprive Trebellius of his of- fice : when seventeen tribes had voted, Trebellius gave over. Roscius, as he could not be heard, hold up two fingers, to intimate that he proposed that two persons should be aj)- pointed ; but such a shout of disapprobation was raised that it is said a crow flying over the Forum fell down stunned. Catulus, the chief of the senate, being present, Gabinius called on him to speak, expecting that he would take warn- ing by the fate of the tribune, and not oppose the law. The people listened in respectful silence while he argued against it ; and when, in conclusion, having extolled Pompeius, he asked them whom, if any thing should happen to him, they would put in his place, the whole assembly cried out. " Thyself, Q,. Catulus ! " Finding further opposition useless, he retired, and the law was passed. Pompeius, who had PIRATIC WAR. ^1 left the town, returned in the night, and next day he called an assembly, and had various additions made to the law, which nearly doubled the force he was to have, giving him 500 slHps, 120,000 foot and 5000 horse, with 24 senators to command as legates under him.' Such was the general confidence in his talents and fortune, that the prices of corn and bread fell at once to their usual level. Pompeius lost no time in making all the needful arrange- ments. He placed his legates with divisions of ships and troops along all the coasts from the straits of Gades to the iEgean ; and in the space of a few months the pirates were destroyed, or forced to take refuge in their strongholds in Cilicia. He sailed thither with a fleet in person, and the reputation of his clemency making them deem it their safest course to submit, they surrendered themselves, their strong- holds, their ships, and stores ; and thus, in forty-nine days after his departure from Brundisium, Pompeius termniated the Piratic War. The pirates were not deceived in their ex- pectations : he placed them as colonists in Soli, Adana, and other towns of Cilicia which had been depopulated by Ti- granes ; and even Dyme, in Achaia, received a portion of them to cultivate its territory, which was lying waste. In this year also the island of Crete was reduced. The Cretans, who appear so contemptible in Grecian history that one hardly knows how to give credit to the greatness of their Minos in the mythic ages, had of late become of rather more importance. M. Antonius, when he was sent against the pirates, hoping to acquire plunder and fame in Crete, ac- cused the Cretans, probably with justice, of being connected with them, and proceeded to invade the island ; but he was repulsed with disgrace. The Cretans, knowing that a storm would burst on them from Rome, tried to avert it by an embassy, laying all the blame on Antonius ; but the terms offered by the senate were such as were beyond their power to fulfil, and they had to prepare for war. The proconsul Q,. Metell us invaded their island, (683:) under two chiefs named Lasthenes and Panares they held out bravely foi two years. The war was one of extermination on the part of Metellus, who wasted the whole island with fire and sword; and, having at length reduced it, gained the horioi of a triumph, and the title of Creiicus, (685.) 31 TT .^62 UISTORT OF ROME. CHAPTER VI.» SECOND MITHRIDATIC WAR. — THIRD MITHRIDATIC WAR — VICTORIES OF LUCULLUS. HIS JUSTICK TO THE PROVIN- CIALS. WAR WITH TIGRANES. DKFEAT OF TIURANES. TAKING OP TIGRANOCEUTA. INVASION OF ARMENIA. DE- FEAT OF A ROMAN ARMY. INTRIGUES OF I.l.'fUM.ts' ENE- MIES AT RUMi: MANILIAN LAW. I'OMl'EIUS IN ASIA. DEFEAT OF MITHRIDATES. POMPEIL'S IN ARMENIA : IN f. ALBANIA AND lUERIA : IN SYRIA AND THE HOLY LAND. DEATH OF MITHRIDATES. RETURN AND TRIUMPH OP POMPEiUS. While the Roman arms were occupied in Europe by the Sertoriaii and the other wars above related, the contest with Mithridates for the dominion of Asia still continued. Sulla had left as propraetor in Asia L. Licinius Murena. with P^iinbria s two legions under him. As was the usua) practice, Murena, in hopes of a triumph, tried to stir up a war. Archelaus, who had fled to him when he found him- self suspected by his master, furnishing him with pretexts, he invaded the territories of Mithridates, who, instead of having recourse to arms, sent an embassy to Rome to com- plain, and Q. Calidius came out with orders to Murena to desist from attacking a king with whom there was a treaty. After a private conference with Calidius, however, Murena took no notice of (he public order; and then Mithridates, finding that negotiation was of no use, took the field against him, and forced him to retire into Phrygia. Sulla, displeased at seeing the treaty he had made thus despised, sent out A. Gabinius with orders in earnest to Murena, and thus the war ended for the present. Murena had the honor of a triumph, but how merited it is not easy to see. Mithridates was well aware that he would soon be at war again ; and he found the period after the death of Sulla 30 favorable, while the Roman arms were engaged in so many quarters, that he resolved to be the aggressor. At his impulsion his son-in-law Tigranes, of Armenia, invaded Cappadocia, and swept away three hundred thousand of its * Appian, Mithridatica, 64 to the end. Dion,- xxxvi. 28 to the end ; zzxvii. 1 — 23. Plut., LucuUus and Pompeius. THIRD MITHBIDATIC WAR. 363 inhabitants, whom he sent to people the city of Tigranoeerta, which he had lately built. Mithridates himself invaded Bithynia, which its last king, Nicomedes II., dying without heirs, (678,) had left to the Roman people. The Pontic i^iionarch, knowing the contest in which he was now to engage to be for his very existence, made all the preparations calculated to insure its success. He sent to Spain and formed an alliance with Sertorius ; he also made alliances with all the peoples round the Euxine ; du- ring eighteen months he had timber felled in the forests of Pontus, and ships of war built ; he hired able seamen in Phoenicia, and laid up magazines of corn in the towns of the coast ; he armed and disciplined his troops in the Roman mahner ; and his army, we are told, amounted to 120,000 foot, 16,000 horse, with 100 scythed chariots. Still these troops were Asiatics, and little able to cope with the legions of Rome. .,,;The war against Mithridates was committed to the con- suls of the year, (678,) M. Aurelius Cotta and L. Licinius Lu- cuUus, the latter of whom had been Sulla's qunestor in the first war. Cotta was soon driven by Mithridates out of his province, Bithynia, and he was besieged in Chalcedon. When Lucullus came out, he brought with him one legion from Rome, which, joined with the two Fimbrian and two others already there, gave him a force of thirty thousand foot and sixteen hundred horse. Mithridates, being forced by him to raise the siege of Chalcedon, led his troops against Cyzicus, a town lying in an island joined by two bridges to the main land. Lucullus followed him thither, and Mithridates, (by the treacherous advice of one of the Romans sent him by Sertorius, who assured him that the Fimbrian legions which had served under that general would desert,) let him without opposition occupy a hill, which enabled him to cut off his communication with the interior, so that he must get all his supplies by sea, and the winter was now at hand. The defence of the Cyzicenes was most heroic ; mounds, mines, rams, towers, and all the modes of attack then known were employed against them in vain. Mithridates, finding his cavalry useless, and that it was suffering from want of forage, sent away it and the beasts of burden, but Lucullus fell on it at the passage of the Ryndacr.s, killed a part, and took 15,000 men and 6000 horses with all the beasts of burden. A storm now came on and shattered 364 HISTORY OF ROME. Mithridatcs' fleet; all the horrors of famine .vere felt in his camp; still he persevered, lioping to take the town. At length he got on shipboard by night, leaving his army to make the best of its way to Lampsacus. It reached the river ^sepue ; but while it was crossing that stream, which was now greatly swollen, the Romans came up and routed it with the loss of '20, 000 men, (679.) A tremendous storm assailed and shattered the fleet of Mithridates, and he himself escaped with difficulty to Nico- media, whence he sent envoys and money on all sides to raise new troops, and to induce Tigranes and other princes to give him aid. Meantime Lucullus, having overcome in the yEgean a Pontic fleet which was sailing to aid Sparta- cus, advanced and entered Mithridates' paternal dorninions, where the plunder was so abundant that a slave was sold for four drachmas and an ox for one. This however did not content the troops, thoy longed for the pillage of some weal- thy city, and loudly blamed their general for receiving the submission of tiie towns. To gratify them Lucullus formed the siege of Amisus and Themilies, but giving no opportunity of fighting. His position was so strong that Pompeius did not venture to attack him by decamping, however, he drew him down, and then, laying an ambuscade, cut off several of liis men. Soon after, Pompeius being joined by the troops of Marcius, Mithridates broke up by night and marched for Tigranes' part of Armenia. Pom- peius pursueJ, anxious to bring him to a battle, but, Mith- ridates encamping by day and marching by night, he could not succeed till they came to the frontiers : then taking advantage of the midday repose of the barbarians, Pompeius marched on before them, and coming to a hollow between hills througli which they were to pass, he halted, and placed his troops on the hills. Ai nightfall the barba- rians set forth, unsuspicious of danger; it was dark niglit when they entered the hollow: suddenly their ears were assailed by the sound of the trumpets of the Romans, and the clasliing of their arms and their shouts over their heads, and arrows, darts, and stones were showered down upon them, and then the Romans fell on with their swords and pi/n. The slaughter was great and promiscuous, none could r(iake any resistance in the dark ; and when the moon at length rose, it favored the Romans by being behind their backs, and Uius lengthening their shadows. POMPEIUS IN ASIA. m\ Mithri lafes, having escaped, was proceeding to Tigranes : but this king, irritated by his misfortunes, and attributing the conduct of his son, who was in rebellion against litni, to the councils of Mithridates, refused him an asylum, and even, it is said, set a reward on his head. He therefore turned and directed his course for Colchis, whence he went on to the Macotis and Bosporus, where he caused his son Machares, who had joined the Romans, to be put to death, and employed himself in making further preparations for continuing the war. Pompeius, when he found he had passed the Phasis, gave up all thoughts of pursuit, and em- ployed himself in founding a city named Nicopolis in the country where he had gained his victory, settling in it his wounded and invalid soldiers, and such of the neighborinjx people as chose to make it their abode. The young Tigranes had fled to Phraates king of the Parthians, who was 'his father-in-l;iw ; and, as Phraates had formed an alliance with Pompeius, and promised to make a diversion in iiis favor, he now joined the young prince in an invasion of Armenia. They advanced and laid siege to Ar- taxata : the old king fled to the mountains; and Phraates, leaving a part of his forces with Tigranes to continue the i siege, which seemed likely lo be tedious, returned to his ! own dominions. The elder Tigranes then came down and | defeated his son, who at first was flying to Mithridates ; but ] learning that he was himself a fugitive, he repaired to Pom- j peius, and became his guide into Armenia. Pompeius had passed the Araxes and was approaching Artaxata, when | Tigranes, whose proposals for peace had been hitherto frus- j trated by his son, embraced the resolution of surrendering 1 his capital, and coming himself as a suppliant to the lio- | man general. He laid aside most of the ensigns of his dignity^ I and approaching the camp on horseback, was preparing i after the oriental fashion to ride into it, when a lictor i^z^ l and told him that it was not permitted to any one to enter a ! Roman camp on horseback. He then advanced on foot, and coming to the tribunal of Pompeius, cast himself on the ground before him. The Roman general raised and con- soled the huml)led monarch; while his son, who was sitting beside the tribunal, did not rise or take any notice of him, j and when Pompeius invited the king to supper the young prince did not appear at it ; conduct which drew on him the aversion of Pompeius, who, next day, having heard both parties, decided that the king should retain his paternal 375 HISTORY OF aOM£. dOiiiinions, giving up all his conquests and paying 6000 ta • ents, and the prince have the provinces of Gordyene anc Sophene. As the treasures were in this last country, the prince claimed them, and he irritated Pompeiiis so uiuchj that at length he laid him in bonds and reserved him for hia triumph. Pompclus wintered iu Armenia, forming three separate campy on the banks of the Cyrnus, (KCir.) Orttses, king of the neighboring Albanians, having l)een in alliance with the young Tigranes, and fearing that his country would be in- vaded in the spring, resolved to fall on the Romans while they were separate. In the very depth of the winter, there- fore, he made three simultaneous attacks on their camps; but his troops were every where driven off with loss, and he was obliged to sue for a truce. When spring came, (^-S?,) Pon)peins advanced into the coun.try of the Iberians, whose king gave hostages and made a peace. Ponipeius then entered Colchis, intending to pursue Mithridatcs ; but when he heard what difficulties he would have to encounter, he gave up the project, and return- ing to All)ania again defeated Orocses. lie then made peace with the Albanians and several of the tribes that dwelt toward the Caspian. Returning to Pontus, he received the submission of several of Mithridiites' governors and officers; large treasures were put into his hands, all of which, unlike LucuUus, he delivered up to the quaestors; and he sent Mithridates' concubines uninjured to their parents and friends. Having regulated the affairs of this part of Asia, Pomp©* ius proceeded to take possession of the part of Syria which had been conquered by Tigranes. All the cities submitted at his approach ; the Arabian emirs did him homage, and he reduced Syria to a province. In the summer of the follow- ing year (688) he had to return to Armenia to the aid of Tigranes, who had been attacked by Phraates. Iln thence proceeded to Pontus, where be wintered. At Damascus the ne.xt year ((iSO) Pompeius was waited on by the two brothers Ilyrcanus and Aristobulus, who were cootending for the high-priesthood at Jerusalem, and now appeared as suitors for the favor of the powerful Roman. As Pompeius inclined to the former, Aristobiilus .secretly retired to the Holy City, and the Roman legions entered Judsea for the first time. Knowing his inability to resist, Aristobiilus gave himself up, to remain as a pri.soner till the DEATH :OF MITHRIOATES. fe?S gates 'Of- Jcifusaleni should be opened and his treasures de- livered up to the Romans. But when A. Gabinius, who was sent to take possession of the city, appeared, the gates were closed against him : Pompeius, accusing Aristobulus of treach- ery, put him into close confinement and advanced to lay siege to the city. Timber for the construction of machines was brought from Tyre ; but, though the friends of Hyrcanus admitted the Romans into the lower town, the temple was so bravely defended that the siege lasted three months ; and it was only by taking advantage of the Sabbath, on which the superstition of the Jews would not let them defend them- selves, and storming on that day, that it was taken. Pompeius, it is said, entered into the Holy of Holies of the temple, but he took away none of the sacred treasures; the priesthood was given to Hyrcanus ; all the conquests made by his predecessors were taken from him, and an annual tribute was imposed on the land. When Pompeius was about to form the feii^gfe of Jerusa- lem, tidings came to him of the death of Mithridates. This persevering monarch, undismayed by his reverses, had, it is said, formed the bold plan of effecting a union of the various tribes and nations dwelling from the Maeotis to the Alps, and at their head descending on Italy while Pompeius was away in Syria. His friends and officers, however, shrank from this daring project, and thought rather of making their peace with the Romans ; some of them had even carried off his children, and put them into Pompeius' hands. This made the old king suspicious and cruel, and he put some of his sons to death. His son Pharnaces, fearing for himself, and expecting to get the kingdom from the Romans, conspired against him in the city of Panticapjeum, where they were residing. Mithridates on learning the conspiracy sent his guards to seize the rebel, but they went over to his side, and the citizens also declared for him. Having vainly sent to ask permission to depart, and seeing that all was now over, the aged monarch retired into the palace, and, taking the poison which he had always ready, he gave part of it to his two virgin daughters and drank the remainder himself. The princesses died immediately ; but his body had, it is said, been so fortified with antidotes, that the poison took little effect on him. He then implored a Gallic chief not to let him endure the disgrace of being led in triumph, add the Gaul despatched him with his sword. Thus perished in the seventy-third year of his age, and 32 ( 374 HlSTOBTt OF ROME. after a contest of twenty-seven years with Rome> the ki;ig ofPontus, a man certainly to b(.' classed among those whom we denominate great. Enterprising, ambitious, of great strength and dexterity of n)ind and body, quick to discern advantages, unscrupulous as to means, utterly careless of human life, and therefore at times barbarously cruel, his greatness was that of an Asiatic, and his character will find many a parallel, though not many an equal, in Oriental his- tory. As a proof of his mental powers, we are told that, ruling over twenty-two different peoples, he could converse with each of them in their own language. Pompeius, giving up all thoughts of Arabia, of which he had proposed the conquest, returned to Pontus. At Amisus he was met by envoys bearing the submission of Pharnaces, with presents and the embalmed body of Mithridates and his royal ornaments. The Roman general, who warred not with the dead, sent the corpse for interment to Sinope. He confirmed Pharnaces in the kingdom of Bosporus, and re- duced Pontus to a province ; and, having wintered at Ephe- sus, he set out (090) on his return for Italy. Great appre- hension was felt at Rome, as it was surely expected that, elate with conquest and possessed of such power, he would lead his army to the city and make himself absolute. But, true to his character, on landing at Brundisium he dismissed his soldiers to their homes, only requiring them to appear at his triumph, and then, attended by his friends alone, he set out for Rome. His triumph, which took place the following year (OM) and lasted for two days, was the most magnificent Rome had as yet seen. The naues of the numerous kings and peoples he had warred with were proclaimed aloud ; the immense treasures and spoils he had won were displayed ; pictures of towns and battles and other events were borne along ; the captive princes, Tigrancs, Aristobiilus, and others, with their families, walked in procession ; the images of Mithridate.% the elder Tigranes, and other absent princes were carried ; a table declared the numbers of ships that had been taken and cities founded, and the names of the kings who had been conquered. Pompeius appeared in a stately chariot, followed by his officers and his whole army, horse and foot. Contrary to the usual practice, none of the captive princea were pvit to death. The money brought into the treasury amounted to ^U,000 talearts^. besides iti^OOO whic i he had catilina's conspiracy. 375 distributed among his soldiers, the lowest sura given to any of them being 1500 drachmas. Even bei^^re he came to Rome, a decree had been passed allowing him to wear a triumphal robe at the Circensian games, the prceicxta at all others, and a laurel wreath at all. He had however the modesty to take advantage but once of this decree. CHAPTER VH.* CATILINa's conspiracy. ARREST AND EXECUTION OF THE CONSPIRATORS. DEFEAT AND DEATH OP CATILINA. HONORS GIVEN TO CICERO. FACTIOUS ATTEMPTS AT ROME. CLODIUS VIOLATES THE MYSTERIES OP THE UONA DEA. HIS TRIAL. While Pompeiuswas absent in the East, a conspiracy was discovered and suppressed at Rome, which from the rank of those engaged in it, and the atrocious means resorted to to accomplish the most nefarious objects, sets in a strong light the state of moral corruption among the Roman nobil- ity of this time, and shows that no form of government but the single power of monarchy was adequate to maintaining the state. L, Sergius Gatilina, a member of one of the oldest patri- cian families, was a man of very great powers of mind and body, but from his youth familiar with every species of crime. In the time of Sulla he was the murderer of his own brother ; he afterwards, it was firmly believed, pat his own son out of the way, to make room for his marriage with a beautiful but abandoned woman ; and he was ac- cused of various other enormities. He had been prjetor (686) in Africa, and he aspired to the consulate ; but he only regarded this high office as the means of relieving his desperate circumstances, by renewing scenes of proscription, bloodshed, and robbery, similar to those in which he had acted in the days of Sulla. Catilina had collected around him a vast number of des- - ^'iiSalliwt, Catilina. Appian, B. C. ii. 1 — 7. Dion, txxTii 34^& *'PIut. Cicero and Caesar. ^! 876 HISTORY OF Rcciii:; petnd0 3S of every description, — all bankrupts in fame ano fortune, all who had been punished or feared punishnient for their crimes, all in fine who had any thing to hope from a revolution. He sought by every means to inveigle young men of family, and for this purpose spared no expense to gratify their propensities and vices. But it was not such alone that were engaged in his designs ; they were shared in by some of the first men in Rome, magistrates, senators, and knights. In an assembly which met on one occasion at his house, when he unfolded his views, there were present, of the senatorian order, P. Lcntulus Sura, C. Cethegus, P. and Ser. Sulla, (all of the Cornelian gens,) L. Cassius Longinus, P. Autronius, L. Vargunteius, Q,. Annius, M. Porcius Lieca, L. Ctdpurnius Beslia, and Q,. Curius; of the equestrian, M. Fulvius Nobilior, L. Statilius, P. Gabinius Capito, C. Cornelius. It was thought too that M. Licinius Crassus and C. Julius Ca-sar knew at least of the conspiracy. Several women of rank were also engaged in it, as Catilina expected them to be useful in raising the slaves, in firing the city, in gaining over, or, if not, in murdering, their husbands. The young noblemen in general were favorably disposed to it ; several leaduig men in the colonies and municipal towns joined in it; and it was reckoned that Sulla's soldiers, wiio had dissipated their gains, would be easily brought to take arms again, along with those whom he had robbed of their lands. The meeting alluded to was held about the kalends of June, 088; and Catilina, having addressed the conspirators in the strain usual on such occasions, representing them as the most injured and unhappy of mortals, and the possessors of wealth as the most oppressive of tyrants, called on them to aid in every way to gain him the consulate ; promising in return the abolition of debts, proscription of the wealthy, the possession of the lucrative priesthoods and magisfacies, and rapine and j'lunder of every kind. It was even reported, that before they separated they bound themselves by an oath, drinking human blood minified with wine. A woman was the cause of the affair coming to light. Curius, who carried on an intrigue with a lady named Fulvia, had been of late rather slighted by her, as he was not able from poverty tp make her presents as heretofore ; but he now completely altered his tone, boasting of the vealth he should have,: and treating her with the greatest insolence. Fulvia, guessing that there must be some secret catilina's conspiracy, 377 cause for such a change, never ceased till she had drawn the truth from him ; and she made known what she had heard without naming her author. The nobility, whose pride had hitherto made them adverse to Cicero's getting the con- sulate, as he was what was called a new man, now bein^ menaced with ruin, and knowing him to be the only man able effectually to oppose Catilina, gave him their support, and he and C. Antonius were elected. Catilina, though disappointed, did not despair; he resolved to stand for the consulate again, (689;) he exerted himself to gain more associates at Rome and throughout Italy ; and, having borrowed money on his own and his friends' credit, he sent it to Fajsulag to one C. Mallius, one of Sulla's old officers, to enable him to raise troops. He also made every effort to have Cicero taken off; but this able consul went always well guarded, and having, through Fulvia, gained over Curius, he received regular information of Catilina's designs; fie also, by giving his colleague the choice of provinces, se- cured his fidelity to the state. The day of election came, and Catilina was again foiled. He now became desperate and resolved on war, for which ;>urpose he sent Mallius back to Fssulse, C. Julius to Apulia, and one Septimius to Picenum, and others to other places ; ihen, assembling the principal conspirators and upbraiding them with their inertness, he declared his intention of set- ting out for Mallius' army, but that he must first have an end put to Cicero, who impeded all his plans. A senator and a knight, L. Vargunteius and C. Cornelius, forthwith offered to go that very night with armed men to the con- sul's house, and, under pretence of saluting, to murder him. Curius, as no time was to be lost, hastened to Fulvia ; the consul was warned in time, and his doors were closed against the assassins. Cicero, having also ascertained that Mallius was actually in arms, saw that there was no further room for delay ; he laid the whole matter before the senate, and it was decreed in the usual form that the consuls should take measures for the safety of the state. The prge- tors and other officers were sent to Apulia and elsewhere to provide against emergencies ; guards were placed at Rome ; the gladiators were removed to Capua and other towns ; rewards were offered for information, to a slave his freedom and 100,000 sestercesi'lo'tt freeman' double that sufniahd ti ' pardon. . ; ' . : • ■ ■ '• ^ • ' At 'ength Catilina, ag if he Were! the victim of persecution^ 32* vv t37S HISTORY OF ROME. boldly entered the senate and faced his foes. Cicero's anger was roused at the sight of him ; he poured forth a tlood of indigiiuui oratory : the overwhehned traitor muttered some sentences of exculpation ; the wliole senate called him an enemy and a parricide; he then flung off the mask; in a fury he cried out that he would quench the flames raised around him in the ruins of his country, and hurried to his Iiome. Then, having directed Lentulus and the others how to act, he set out that night with a few companions for the camp of Mallius. On his way he wrote to several consulars, saying that he was going into exile at Massilia : it was, how- ever, soon ascertained that he had entered tlie rebel camp with fusees and other consular ornaments. The senate then proclaimed him and Mallius public enemies, and offered a pardon to all those, not guilty of capil;d crimes, who should quit them before a certain day ; but neither this nor the former decree had the slightest effect, such was the general appetite for cliange, for blood, and for rapine. Lentulus meantime was exerting himself to gain associates, and, as there happened to be ambassadors from the Allobroges then at Rome, — come, as usual, to try if they could get re- dress from the senate for the oppression of the Roman gov- ernors, — he had them sounded by one Umbrenus, and, when they eagerly caught at hopes of relief, Umbrenus introduced them to Gabinius and informed them of the conspiracy, telling them the names of those engaged in it, and mention- ing among others many innocent persons. They agreed on the part of their nation to join it ; but afterwards, when they reflected coolly on the matter, they thought the course too hazardous, and went and revealed all they knew to Q. Fabius Sanga, the patron of their state. Saaga instantly informed Cicero, who directed that they should pretend the greatest zeal for the plot, and learn as much of it as they could. The conspirators had now arranged their plan. On a certain day Bestia, who was a tribune, was to harangue the people, throwing all the blame of the civil war now on the eve of bre:diing out on Cicero; the following night Statilius and Gabinius with their bands were to fire the city in twelve places, while Cethegus should watch at Cicero's doors, others at those of other men of rank, to kill them as they came out ; the young noblemen were to murder their fathers ; and thus having filled the city with blood and tumult, the whole paxty were to break out and join Catilina. CAriLINA's CONSPIRACY. 379 By Cicero's direction the Allobroges requiret^ an oath, sealed by the principal conspirators, to take home to their people. This was readily given them, and one T. Voltur- cius was directed to go with them and introduce them,'on the way, to Catilina, to whom he was also the bearer of a letter from Lentulus. They left Rome by night, and when they came to the Mulvian bridge they were assailed by the troops which they knew the consul had placed there : they gave themselves up at once, as also did Volturcius, seeing resistance was in vain, and all were brought back to Rome. Cicero, having now sufficient evidence in his hands, sent for the principal conspirators and arrested them. He then called together the senate ; the letters were read, the Allobroges gave their evidence ; Volturcius, being promised life and liberty, made a full confession ; Lentulus and the rest ac- knowledged their seals. It was decreed that Lentulus, who was prcBtor, should lay down his office, and that he and all the rest should be held in free custody. The tide of popular feeling turned completely against the conspirators, when it was known that they had designed to fire the city, and every voice now extolled the consul. In a day or two after, one L. Tarquinius was taken on his way to Catilina, and, being promised his life, told the same story with Volturcius, but added, that he was sent by M. Crassus to tell Catilina not to be cast down at the arrest of Lentulus and the others, but on the contrary to advance with all speed toward the city. The information perhaps was true, but such was the power and influence his wealth gave Crassus, and so many of the senators were in his debt, that it was at once voted false, and Tarquinius was ordered to be laid in chains till he should tell at whose instigation he acted. Some thought it was a plan of Autronius, that, by implicating Crassus, he might save himself and the others ; others, that it was done by Cicero to keep Crassus from taking up the cause of criminals, as was his wont. Crassus himself affected to take this last view of the case. Catulus and Piso, it is said, vainly tried to induce the consul to im- plicate Caesar ; * yet the opinion of his being concerned was so strong, that some of the knights menaced him with their swords as he came out of the senate. Some days after, (the nones of December,) Cicero, having • Sallust, Catil. 49. Perhaps they only wanted him to produce the evidence be possessed. ■■.,-^ 3S0 ■- HISTORY OF ROME. ascertained that Lentulus and Cethegus were making every exertion to induce the slaves and the rabble to rise in their favor, again assembled the senate, and put the question what should be done with those in custody, as they had already declared them guilty of treason. D. Junius Silanus, consul elect, being, as was usual, asked the first, voted for capital punishment. When the consul put the question to C. C;esar, praetor elect, he rose, and, in an artful speech, dissuaded from severity, and proposed that their properties should be confiscated, theniselves confined in the nnuiicipal towns, and that any one who should speak in their favor to the senate or people, should be held to have acted against the interests of the republic. This speech caused niany to waver ; but when M. Porcius Cato, one of the tribunes, rose, and dis- played the guilt of the conspirators in its true colors, and the danger and impolicy of ill-timed clemency, their execution was decided on almo.~;t unanimously. Cicero, that very day, having directed the Capital Triumvirs to have every thing ready, himself conducted Lentulus to the prison, where he was immediately strangled by the officers, as also were Cethegus, Statilius, Gabinius, and Coeparius. When Cicero came forth, he said, using a common euphemism, " They have lived ! " in order to extinguish the hopes of such of their confederates as were in the Forum. The populace then gave a loose to their joy, and followed him home, calling him the savior and founder of the city ; and it being now evening, lights were set at the doors throughout all the streets, and the women stood on the roofs of the houses to gaze on him as he passed. Catilina had meantime augmented his forces from two thousand men to two legions, of which however only a fourth were properly armed. On the approach of Antonius, who was sent against him, he fell back into the mountains, avoiding an action till he should hear from Rome. He also rejected the slaves, who at first were flocking to him in great numbers. But when the news of the execution of Lentulus and the others came, and he found his forces melting away, — as those whose only object had been plunder, thinking the case now desperate, were going off every day, — he tried to escajje into Cisalpine Gaul with those who remained. But Q,. Metellus Celer, who commanded in Picenum, being informed, by deserters, of his design, came and encamped at the foot of t|ie mountains. , Catilina, seeing escape thus cut off, resolved to give battle at cnce to Anto« FACTIOUS ATTEMPTS AT ROME. 381 nius. He chpse a position between hills on one side, and rocks on the other ; and, having placed his best men in front, and sent away all the horses, that the danger might he equal, he prepared for action. Antonius, being either really ill of the gout, or making it a pretext, gave the command to his legate M. Petreius. Catilina and his men fought with desperation, and were slain to a man ; and the loss on the part of the victors was also considerable, (690.) The suppression of this conspiracy was doubtless the most glorious act of Cicero's life ; and, could he have controlled his vanity, which was inordinate, and left more to others the task of praising it, his fame would perhaps be purer. Pom- peius declared more than once in the senate that the safety of the state was due to Cicero, and that he had vainly been entitled to claim a third triumph if Cicero had not preserved a republic for him to triumph in. Crassus said on one occasion that he was indebted to Cicero for his being now a senator, a citizen, free, and alive ; and that whenever he looked at his wife, his house, his country, he beheld his good deeds. L. Gellius declared in the senate that he de- served a civic crown; and the censor L. Aurelius Cotta had a supplication * decreed him, — an honor never before granted to a gowned citizen. Finally, he was styled by Q,. Catulus the first of the senate, Father of his Country ; and several of the senators, even Cato included, joined in the appellation ; and when, on going out of office, he was pre- vented by the tribune Q,. Metellus Nepos from haranguing the people, as was usual, before he made oath that he had kept the laws, he swore aloud that, through him alone, the republic and the city had been saved ; and the whole people averred that he had sworn the truth. But the party who wished the subversion of the state per- sisted in their efforts against him. The same Metellus, urged on by Caesar, it is said, proposed a bill to recall Pom- peius with his army, to end the seditions caused by the attempt of Catilina and the tyranny of Cicero. As this was evidently directed against the senate, Cato tried at first, in that assembly, to soothe Metellus, reminding him of the aristocratic feelings always shown by his family ; but when he found that this only increased his insolence, he changed * The supplication or thanksgiving (the probable origin of the T« Deiim of modern times) was usually given only on occasion of vic- tories over foreign enemies in the field. 382 HISTORY OF ROME. his tone, and loudly declared that while he lived Pompeius should not bring an army into the city ; and he pointed out to the senate the evident danger of the proposed measure. When the day of voting came, Metellus filled the Forum with strangers, gladiators, and slaves, beinc resolved to carry his bill by force. Cato's family and friends were under great apprehension for him ; but, fixed on doing his duty, when one of his colleacues, Q. Minucius, came and called him up in the morning, he rose and set out for the Forum. Seeing the temple of Castor occupied by gladiators, while Ca.'sar and Metellus sat on the Rostra, he cried, " What a bold and timid man, who has raised such a force against one unarmed man ! " lie then advanced to the Rostra, and took his seat between the two: ntimbers of well-disposed persons in the crowd cried out to him to be stout, and to those about them to stand by him in defence of their free- dom. Metellus then ordered the clerk to read out the bill ; Cato forbade him. Metellus took it him.self, and began to read it ; Cato snatched it from him. Metellus then began to repeat it from memory; but Miruicius put his hand on his mouth and stopped it. Metellus then ordered his gladiators to act. The people were dispersed ; Cato remained alone ; he was assailed with sticks and stones ; but Murena, whom he had one time prosecuted, threw his gown over him, and brought him into the temple of Castor. Metellus then dis- missed his bandits, and was proceeding at his ease to pass his law, when the opposite party r;iHied and drove him and his partisans awav. Cato came forth and encouratjed them, and the senate met and passed a decree for the consuls to take care of the republic. Metellus, having assembled the people, and uttered a tirade against the tyrnnny of Cato and the conspiracy against Pompeius, w'ent off to Asia tf) boast to him of what he had done. The senate deprived both him and Ca?sar of their offices : the latter, at first, disregnrded the decree, and sat in court as usual ; but, finding that force was about to be employed against him, he dismissed his lictors and retired to his house; and when, two days after, a multitude repaired to him offering to re-instate him by force, he declined their services. This conduct, so unexpected, was so gratefiil to the senate, that they sent forthwith to thank him, and rescinded their decree.* At the close of CfEsar's praetorship, the rites of the Bona " Suetonius, Jul. Cees. li> TRIAL OF CLODIUS. ^8^ Dea were according to usage, celebrated by the women in his house. At this festival no man was allowed to be present; but P. Clodius, the brother-in-law of Lucullus, a man of such profligacy of morals that the suspicion of incest with his own sisters was so strong against him that Lucullus had divorced his wife on account of it, shrank not from polluting the mysteries. He was violently enamored of Caesar's wife, Pompeia ; and it was arranged between them that, to elude the vigilance of her mother-in-law, Aurelia, he [ should come disguised as a woman. He got into the house, 1 but while the slave who was the confidant was gone to inform her mistress, he went roaming about, and meeti-ng one of Aurelia's slaves was discovered by her. She gave the alarm ; he was found in his hiding-place, and turned out of the house. The affair was soon known to every one. ( The senate consulted the pontiffs, and on their pronouncincr j it to have been impiety, the new consul, M. Pupius Piso, j (691,) was directed to bring the matter before the people. ' Piso, himself a man of indifferent character, and the crea- | ture of Pompeius, worked underhand against it. Clodius and his partisans exerted themselves to have a good body of ' the rabble in readiness to disturb the voting. The nobles, I seeing how it would be, had the assembly dismissed ; aud, on the motion of Hort.ensius, it was resolved that the pragtor i and the usual judges, who were to be chosen by lot, should 1 try the matter. Money and every other inducement was { now to be employed on the judges, who were mostly embar- i rassed and profligate men. Crassus, as usual, was most I liberal ; * and out of fifty-six, thirty-one acquitted Clodius. The judges, pretending fear, had asked a guard from the senate. " Were you afraid," said Catulus, a few days after, ! to one of them, " that the money would be taken from you ? " When Clodius in the senate afterwards said to Cicero, who | had given evidence against him,t that the judges h.id not given him credit, " Yes," replied he, " twenty-five did ; but thirty-one would not give you credit, for they received the money beforehand," — so notorious was the manner in which the verdict had been obtained. Caesar, when examined on ' Cicero ad Alt. i. lo. t Clodius had attempted to prove an alibi, by bringing people to bvvear that he had been at Interamna, si.^ty miles off, at tiie time he was said to have been in Csesar's house ; but Cicero, when examined, declared that lie had been with him at Rome that very morning. Clodius n?ver forgave him for not having perjured himselft 384 HISTORY OF ROME. the trial, though his mother and sister had giver the fullest and most satisfactory evidence, denied that he had found any thing wrong. He had however divorced his wife; and on being asked why he did so, as he declared her to be inno- cent, he replied, " Because I will have those belonging to me as free from suspicion as from crime." * A very specioup sentiment certainly! Caesar however had no doubt of his wife's guilt, but he wanted to secure the aid of Clodius, whom he knew to be a bold viiiain, »br his future projects, and he thought the purchase worth the price. CHAPTER Vni.t POMPErUS AND LUCULLUS. C. JULIUS C^SAR. M. LICINJUS CRASSUS. M. PORCIUS CATO. M. TULLIUS CICERO. POMPEUS AT ROME. CONSULATE OF C^SAR. EXILE OF CICKRO. RORBERY OF THE KING OF CYPRUS. RECALL OF CICERO. HIS CONDUCT AFTER HIS RETURN. As Catulus died about this time, the leading men in the Roman state were Lucullus, Pompeius, Caesar, Crassus, Cato, and Cicero. We will now, therefore, sketch the previous history of these persons. The actions of the first two have been already related. Pompeius now only aimed at main- taining a virtual supremacy in the state : he was no tyrant by nature ; but he was vain and covetous of fame, and find- ing himself thwarted and opposed in the senate, he courted the favor of the people. Lucullus, after his return from Asia, took little share in public alTairs ; he abandoned him- self to luxurious enjoyments to such an excess as to have made his name proverbial. His luxury, however, was of a far more refined and elegant nature than was usual, and he was a zealous patron and cultivator of literature. He rarely visited the senate or Fornm, and only when it was necessary to oppose the projects of Pompeius, with whom he was justly incensed for his treatment of him in Asia. His pol'tics were at all times aristocratic. * Suetonius. Jul. Csbs. 74. t .^ppian, B. C. ii. 8— Ifi. Dion, .Txxviii. 1— 30, xxxix. G— 11, 17- 213. Plut. Cicero, Cato, Ceesar, and Pompeius. c. JULIUS ca:sAK. 385 C. Julius Caesar, of an ancient patrician family, was neph- ew by marriage to Marius, and had married the daughter of Cinna, whom, when ordered by Sulla, he refused to di- vorce. The dictator refused to allow him to assume the dignity of Flamen Dialis, (to which he had been nominated by Marius and Cinna "\ deprived him of his wife's portion, and his gentile rights of inheritance ; and only granted his life to the prayers of the Vestals, and of his relations Mam. ^miiius and C. Aurelius Cotta, telling them at the same time, it is gaid^ that he would one time be the destruction of the aristocratic party, for that there were many Marii in him. CiBsar retired to Asia, and his enemies always as- serted that at this time he prostituted himself to Nicomedes, king of Bithyiiia. On the death of Sulla he returned to Rome, and prosecuted Cn. Cornelius Dolabella for extortion in Greece ; but, filling to convict him, he retired to Rhodes to attend the lectures of the rhetorician Molo. On his way he was taken by pirates, and while detained by them, waiting for his ransom, he used, apparently in jest, to threaten that he would yet crucify them; but when at liberty, he collected a fleet, attacked them, and did as he had threatened. When he came back to Rome he was chosen by the people one of the military tribunes, (682,) and he was active in aiding Pompeius and Crassus in restoring their powers to the tribunes of the people. His wife Cornelia being now dead, he espoused Pompeia the niece of Sulla. He then (686) went as qufestor with Antistius Vetus to Ulterio* Spain ; but finding no occupation there for his ambitious spirit, he obtained leave to return to Rome. He tried to excite the Latin colonies who were claiming the civic fran- chise, but, finding that the legions destined for Cilicia were detained on account of it, he gave up this project. He soon after (687) fell under a strong suspicion of being concerned with Crassus, Catilina, Piso, and others to raurder a part of the senate ; Crassus, it is said, was then to be dictator, and Caesar his master of the horse. Crassus however lost cour- age, and the attempt was not made. Piso being sent to Spain, Caesar, it is added, planned a simultaneous rising with him ; but the death of Piso prevented its execution. Cajsar was ajdile this year, and he entertained the people with all kinds of shows at an enormous expense ; and, as a means of repairing his fortune, he sought Egypt as his prov- ince, where the people of Alexandria had expelled their king ; but the nobility opposed, and to spite thera he ro« 33 WW !iS6 HISTORY OF ROME. placed on the Capitol the statues and the Cinibric trophies of Marius, which Sulla had removed ; he also caused to be prosecuted as murderers those who had received money out of the treasury for bringing the heads of the proscribed ; and he excited T. Labienus to prosecute C. Rabirius for the murder of L. Saturninus, who was put to death by order of the senate thirty-seven years before. Q. Catulus, observing these proceedings, exclaimed, " Ca'sar assails the constitu- tion now with engines, not by mines." On the death of the chief pontiff Metellus Pius, (688,) Ca?sar stood for the office against Q,. Catulu.s and P. Servilius Isauricus, two of the first men in the state, relying on the ])ower of his money ; for he had bribed to such an extent, and was thereby so im- mersed in debt, that, when taking leave of his mother on the day of election, he said to her, " Mother, you will see your son to-day chief pontiff or an exile." He was elected; hav- ing had more votes in his competitors' own tribes than they had altogether. He was praetor elect at the time of Cati- lina's conspiracy, and we have seen his conduct on that occasion and his union with Metellus Nepos. On the ex- piration of his office he was appointed proprsptor in Spain ; but his creditors would not let him go, till Crassus, who knew how useful he might be to him, satisfied the mo.st urgent, and gave security to the amount of eight hundred and thirty talents to the others. M. Licinius Crassus was a man of considerable talent and eIo(iuence, bitt of insatiable avarice. In the time of Sulla he obtained by gift or purchase at low rates an im- mense (juantity of tlic property of the proscribed, and he used every means to augment his wealth. He courted the people with entertainments ; he lent money to his friends without interest, and to others on interest; and by these means had such a number of persons under his influence, that he possessed considerable power in the state. His eloquence gave him great advantage as an advocate, and he usually undertook the defence of those accused of crimes. Crassus had not the great talents of Ca;sar, but his private character was much purer. M. Porcins Cato, a descendant of the celebrated censor, was like him a rigid maintainor of the old Roman man- ners. His life WAS stainless, his morals austere ; but he was not totally exempt from the vanity which seemtd inherent in his family. Having served as a military tribune in Mao*donia, and made a tour through Asia, he returned to M. TULLIUS CICERO. 387 ] Rome, and devoted himself to public affairs. He was first appointed to the qiiaestorship, and (what was, it seems, very unusual at the time) before he entered on the duties of his office he made himself master of the laws and rules be- ' longing to it. The clerks, who heretofore had done all the j business as they pleased under the name of the ignorant young noblemen who were appointed to the office, now [ found matters quite altered; they attempted to thwart him, 1 but he turned some of them out, and soon reduced them to order. He brought the treasury into a more flourishing state J than it had been for some time. He made those wlio had j received from Sulla the 50,000 sesterces for the murder of the proscribed refund, as possessing the public money j unlawfully ; and they were then prosecuted for the murders i they had committed. Cato never was absent from a sitting | of the senate or an assembly of the people ; he was the first 1 to enter, the last to leave, the senate-house; in the intervals i of business he drew his cloak before his face and read, | having a book always with him. When his friends, in the ■ year 6S9, urged him to stand for the tribunate, he declineo and retired to his estate in Lucania ; but on his road meet- j\ ing the train of Metellus Nepos, who was going, with Pom- J peius' approbation, to sue for the office, he paused, and, j having reflected on the evil Metellus might do if not vigor- ) ously opposed, he returned, offered himself as a candidate, J and, being elected, acted as we have seen above. Cicero | objected to Cato that he did not, like himself, bend to cir ^ cumstances, speaking, as he terms it, as if he were in Plato's | republic and not in the dregs of Romulus ; and his obser- 5 vation is just ; but it is this very thing that gives dignity i to Cato's character: as for the republic, it was already past { redemption. ( M. Tullius Cicero was a native of Arpinum in the Vol- \ scian country, where his family had been connected with [; that of Marius. His superior talents early displayed them- | selves, and were sedulously cultured ; and, though of rather S a timid character, he ventured to plead the cause of Sex. \ Roscius, who was unjustly prosecuted for parricide by Sulla's j froedman Chrysogonus and his agents, after they had robbed | him of his property. Though he succeeded Sulla testified I no enmity toward him ; he, however, some t me after went to Greece for the sake of study, and of hearing the lectures of the inost distinguished teachers of rhetoric. After his re- turn he was appointed (677) • frumentary quaestor for Sicily, 388 HISTORY OF ROME. and ill this office he exhibited that spirit of humanity and justice which always distinguished him. In 682, when Pompeiiis and Crassus were consuls, Cicero, then aedile elect, appeared as the prosecutor of the notorious C. Verrea for robbery and extortion in Sicily. He was chosen praetor for the year (>S6. It would appear that, as the haughty nobility looked down on him as being a new man, he now chiefly sought the favor of tlic people and of Pornpeius ; I for while in office he strenuously supported the Manilian I law, which was certainly not a constitutional measure. The 1 danger caused by Catilina however drew Cicero and the [ aristocracy closely together ; they raised him to his glori- j ous consulate, and he ever after contiiuied to be- their ablest I supporter. i Pornpeius on his return from Asia found his party in the ; senate not so strong as hitherto ; Luculliis and JNIetellus Creticus were both hostile to him, Crassus bore him the old grudge, Cicero had somewhat cooled in his ardor. The first request which he had made, namely, to have the consular elections for 691 deferred till he should .arrive to canvass for his friend M. Pupius Piso, was refused, Cato opposing it as unconstitutional. Piso however was elected ; but he does not appear to have quite answered Pompeius' purpose, being perhaps impeded by his colleague INl. Valerius Messala. At the next election (691) Pompeius (Piso being his agent) actually bought the consulate for his creature L. Afranius, paying the tribes so much apiece for their votes.* Even this did not answer, as Afranins was a man of little account, and his colleague Q. .Metollus Celer was personally hostile to Pompeius for hnvincr divorced his sister Mucia. What Pompeius chieflv wanted to accomplish was, to get lands for his soldiers, and to have all his acts in Asia confirmed in the mass by the senate ; but Lucullus and his party in- sisted, with reason, that they should be gone through sep- arately, and confirmed or not according to their merits. At Pompeius' desire the tribune L. F'avius moved an agrarian raw, and to gain the people they were joined in it with the soldiers. Cicero, proposing amendments for the security of private property, and for the purchase of the lands to be divided out of the new revenues of the state, gave the bill his support ; for he wished to oblige Pompeius, and he expected that it would help to remove the rabble from the city.f But • Cicero od Att. i 10. Plut. Pomp. 44. i Cic. ad Alt. i. 19 CONSULATE OF CiESAR. 389 the senate was strongly opposed to it ; the tribune on his side was violent ; he cast the consul Metellus into prison, and, when Metellus summoned the senate thither, Flavins placed his official seat in the door and told them they must make their way through the w^ll. Pompeius however, through shame and fear of disgustmg the people, ordered him to ri§e and leave the passage free. The bill appears to have been then given up. Caesar, who, by expeditions against the Lusitanians, had, as he considered, gotten sufficient materials for a triumph, and was anxious to obtain the consulate, hastened home when the time of the elections was at hand, (692.) As there was no room for delay, he applied to the senate for permis- sion to enter the city before his triumph in order to canvass the people ; but Cato and his friends opposing it, it was re- fused. Caesar, who was not a man to sacrifice the substance for the show, gave up the triumph ; and, entering the city, formed a coalition with L. Lucceius, a man of wealth who was also a candidate, of which the terms were that Luc- ceius should distribute money in his own and Caesar's name conjointly, and Caesar in like manner give him a share in his influence. The nobles, when they saw this coalition, resolved to give all their interest to M. Calpurnius Bibulus, the other candidate, and, with even Cato's consent, author- ized him to offer as high as Lucceius, engaging to raise the money among them. Bibulus therefore was elected with Caesar, whose daring projects the senate thus hoped to restrain. Caesar, who well knew the character of Pompeius, re- solved to make him and Crassus the ladder of his ambition. He represented to them how absurd their jealousy and en- mity was, which only gave importance to such people as Cato and Cicero ; whereas if they three were united they might command the state. They saw the truth of what he said, and each, blinded by his vanity and ambition, ex- pecting to derive the greatest advantage from it, agreed to the coalition ; and thus was formed a Triumvirate, bound by a secret pledge that nothing displeasing to any one of them should be allowed to pass. / Caesar, as soon as he entered on his office, (693,) introduced an agrarian law for dividing all the public land (except in Campania) among Pompeius' soldiers and the poorer citi- zens ; purchasing it however from the present possessors, and appointing twenty commissioners to carry the law into 33* m HlSTORr OF ROME. effect, among whom were to be Pompeius and Crassus. This law, to which they could make no objection, was highly dis- pleasing to the adverse party in the senate, who suspected CcEsar's ulterior designs, and Cato declared strongly against any change. Caesar menaced to drag him off to prison ; he professed himself ready to go that instant, and several rose to follow him. Ca;sar then grew ashamed and desisted, but he dismissed the senate, telling them he would bring the matter at once before the people ; and he called the •j senate together no longer during his consulate, j He then laid his bill before the people, to which he had I added a clause for dividing the lands of Campania, in lots 5 of ten jugers, among twenty thousand poor citizens with j three or tnore children ;* and, being desirous to have some I of the principal persons to express their approbation of it, he j first addressed his colleague, but Bibulus declared himself I adverse to innovation ; he then affected to entreat him, ask- \ ing the people to join with him, as if Bibulus wished they might have it ; " Then," cried Bibulus, " you shall not have it this year even if you all will it," and went away. Ca;sar, expecting a similar refusal from the other magis- trates, made no application to them, but bringing forward 4 Pompeius and Crassus desired them to say what they ' thought of the law. Pompeius then spoke highly in favor ' of it, and on Caesar and the people asking him if he would ! support them against those who opposed it, he cried, elate \ with this proof of his importance, " If any man dares to \ draw a sword, I will raise a buckler!" Crassus also ex- > pressed his approbation, and as the coalition was a secret, ithe example of these two leading men induced many others to give their consent and support to the law. Bibulus how- ever was still firm, and he was supported by three of the j tribunes; and, as a means of impeding the law, he declared I all the remaining days of the year nrfa^ti, or holydays. } When Caesar, regardless of his proclamations, fixed a day ' for passing the law, Bibulus and his friends came to the I temple of Castor, whence he was haranguing the people, and attempted to oppose him ; but he was pushed down, a I basket of dung was flung upon him, his lictors' fasces were ! broken, his friends (among whom were Cato and the trib- i I * Cicero (ad Alt. ii. 16) highly disapproved of this. He however ' expected that, as the land would yield but 5000 lots, the people would ' 6e discontented CONSULATE OF C^SAR. 391 unes) were beaten and wounded, and so the law was passed Bibulus henceforth did not quit his house, whence he continually issued edicts declaring all that was done on the nefast days to be unlawful. The tribune P, Vatinius, one of Caesar's creatures, even attempted to drag him to prison, but he was opposed by his colleagues. The senate were required to swear to this law, as for- merly to that of Saturninus. Metellus, Cato, and Cato's imkator Favonius at first declared loudly that they would not do so ; but having the fate of Numidicus before their eyes, and knowing the inutility of opposition, they yielded to the remonstrances of their friends. Having thus gained the people, Csesar proceeded to se- cure the knights, and here Cato's Utopian policy aided him. This most influential body thinking, or pretending, that they had taken the tolls at too high a rate, had applied to the senate for a reduction, but Cato insisted on keeping them to their bargain. Ctesar, without heeding him or the senate, reduced them at once a third, and thus this self-interested body was detached from the party of the aristocracy, and all Cicero's work undone. Caesar now found himself strong enough to keep his promise to Pompeius, all whose acts in Asia were confirmed by the people.* The triumvirate, or rather Caesar, was extremely anxious to gain Cicero over to their side, on account of the influ- ence which he possessed. But, though he had a great per- sonal regard for Pompeius, he rejected all their overtures. Caesar then resolved to make him feel his resentment, and the best mode seemed to be to let Clodius loose at him. This profligate had long been trying to become a tribune of the people, but for that purpose it was necessary he should be a plebeian, which could only be effected by adoption. His first efforts were unavailing; but when Cicero, in defend- ing his former Colleague Antonius, took occasion to make some reflections on the present condition of the common- wealth, Caesar, to punish him, had the law for Clodius' adop- tion passed at once, Pompeius degrading himself by acting as augur on this occasion, in which all the laws and rules on the subject were violated.! * It was probably on this occasion that Caesar so terrified Lucullui by false accusations that he threw himself at his feet. Suet. Jul. C our only author ity for this part of the Roman history. Fortune favored Caesar by furnishing him with an early occasion of war, though his province was quite tranquil when he received it, (694.) The Helvetians, a people of Galfic race, who dwelt fr( m Mount Jura far into the Alps, resolved to leave their m )untains and seek new seats in * Here, as in the Punic wars ve have reason to regret that the lions were not painters ! 403 HISTOKY OF ROME. Gaul ; and having burnt all their towns and vil ages, they set forth with wives and children to tlie number of ;]5(>,000 souls. As their easier way lay through the Roman province, they sent, on hearing that Cie.sar had broken down the bridge over the Rhone at Geneva, and was making prepara- tions to oppose them, to ask a free passage, promising to do no injury. Caesar, who had not all his troops with iiim, gave an evasive answer, and meantime ran a ditch and rampart from the Leinan lake to Mount Jura. The Helvetians then turned, and going by Mount Jura entered the country of the Sequanians and ^Eduans ; but Caesar fell on them as they were passing the Arar, (Saone,) and defeated them ; he afterwards routed them again, and finally compelled them to return to their own country, lest the Germans should occupy it. The yEduans, who were ancient allies of Rome, then com- plained to Ca?sar that their neighbors, the Arvernians and Sequanians, having in their disputes with them invited aGer- man chief named Ariovistus {Htcr-furst, 'Army-prince?') to their aid, he had occupied a part of the land of the Se- quanians, and now menaced the freedom of all the surround- ing peoples ; their only hopes, they added, lay in the Ro- mans. This invitation was, as they knew, precisely what Ca?sar desired ; he promised aid, and as in his consulate he had had Ariovistus acknowledged as a king and friend of the Roman people, and he now wished to put him in the wrong, he sent to require him to meet him at a certain place. The German haughtily replied, that if Caisar wanted to speak with him he should come to him. Cssar, further to irritate him, desired him to give back the hostages of the allies of Rome, and not to enter their lands or to bring over any more auxiliaries from Germany. Ariovistus replied by seizing on the Sequanian town of Besontion, (Besan^on.) On learning that the powerful nation of the Suevians were sending troops to Ariovistus, Caesar resolved to march against him at once. But his soldiers were daunted by what they heard of the strength and ferocity of the Germans, till he made a speech to reassure them, in which he declared that with the tenth legion alone he would prosecute the war. At the desire of Ariovistus a conference was held, at which however nothing could be arranged ; and while it was going on, news (true or false) was brought to ^tesar that the Germans had at- tacked the Romans; this broke off the conference; Caesar GALLIC WARS OF C^ISAR. 409 refused to renew it; and a battle taking place, Ariovistus was defeated, and forced to recross the Rhine. Cajsar then retired for the winter to Cisalpine Ciaul, under the pretext of regulating the province, but in reality to keep up his communication with Rome, and acquire new friends there. As he had left his troops in the country of the Se- quanians, the Belgians, a powerful people, who Were a mix- ture of Germans and Gauls, and dwelt in the north-east of Gaul, fearing for their independence, resolved to take up arms. The Germans on this side of the Rhine joined them, and they invaded (695) the states in alliance with the Ro- mans. Caesar lost no time in repairing to the defence of his allies; and the Belgians finding that the yEduans had in- vaded their country, and moreover, being in want of supplies, returned home; but they were fallen on and defeated with great loss by a division of Caesar's troops, and he himself entering their country took the town of Noviodunum, (Noyon,) and obliged the Suessiones, (Soissons,)* Bellava- cans, (Beauvais,) and Ambianians (Amiens) to sue for peace. He then entered the territory of the Nervians, (Ilainault.) This people, the bravest of the Belgians, attacked him by surprise, routed his cavalry, and killed all the centurions of two legions ; the camps on both sides were taken, and Caesar himself was for some time surrounded with his guards on a hill : victory, however, was finally on the side of the Romans, and the Nervians sued for peace. The Atuaticans, when they saw the military machines advanced against their walls, submitted ; but they resumed their arms, and Caesar took and plundered the town, and sold 53,000 of the inhabitants. Caesar's legate, P. Crassus, who (we are not told why) had led a legion against the Venetans (Vannes) and other neigh- boring peoples on the Ocean, now sent to say that they had submitted. The legions were then placed for the winter in the country of the Carniites, (Chartres,) Andes, (Anjou,) and Turones, (Tourraine,) and Caesar returned to Italy. On the motion of Cicero the senate decreed a supplication of fifteen days for these victories, — tke longest ever as yet decreed. During the winter P. Crassus, who was quartered with the seventh legion in the country of the Andes, being in want of corn sent some of his officers to apply for some to • * As In France the name of the people is usually retained onlj ia that of the town, we give this last. 35 zz. 410 HISTORY OF ROME the Venetans and the adjoining peoples. The Venetana however detained the envoys, in order to get back their hostages in exchange, and the rest followed their example. Coesar, when he heard of this, sent directions to have ships of war built on the Ligeris, (Loire,) and ordered sailors and pilots to repair thither from the province, and in the spring (01)0) he set out to take the command in person. The Venetans were a seafaring people, their towns mostly lay on capes, where they could not easily be attacked, and their navy was numerous. The contest Cajsar saw must be on tiie sea, and his fleet therefore entered the ocean. The Roman ships of war were, as usual, impelled by oars, while thosie of the enemy, which were also much higher, were worked hv sails. At first the advantage was on the side of the Gauls; but Csesar had provided a number of scythes set on poles, with which the Romans laid hold on the rigging of the Gallic ships, and then urging on their own, thus cut the cordage, and caused the sails to fall. This device, like that of the ravrns in the old times, gave the Romans the victory : a sudden calm that came on was also greatly in their favor. The Venetans were forced to sue for peace, and as they had only detained his agents, Caesar was merci- fully content with putting their whole senate to death, and selling the people for slaves. As the Morinians and Menapians of the north coast (Pi- cardy) had been in league with the Venetans, Caesar invaded their country, which abounded in woods and marshes ; but the approach of the wet season obliged him to retire. Hav- ing put his troops into winter quarters, he set out to look after his affairs in Italy, and had the meeting at Luca with Pompeius and Crassus above related. During this summer P. Crassus, who had been sent ijito Aquitaine to keep it quiet, or rather, as it would appear, to raise a war, routed the Sotiates, (Sos,) forced their chief town to surrender ; and defeated a large army of the adjoining peoples, and the Spaniards who had joined them. Shortly after he left Gaul to join his father in Syria, taking with him 1000 Gallic horse. Tribes of Germans named Usipetes and Tencterians hav ing crossed the Rhine and entered the Menapian country, CsBsar feared lest their presence might induce the Gauls t« rise, and hastened (697) to oppose them. Some negotiations took place between them, during which (if we may credit Cffisar) a body of eight hundred German horse fell on. ao4 GALLIC WARS OF C^SAR. ''411 even put to flight with a loss of seventy-four men, five thou- sand Roman cavalry ; and they then had the audacity to send an embassy, in which were all their principal men, to the Roman camp to justify themselves and to seek another truce. But Caesar was even with them ; he detained the envoys, and, having thus deprived them of their leaders, fell Dn and slaughtered them ; and most of those who escaped were drowned in the Rhine and Meuse as they fled. Being resolved that Gaul should be all his own, CfEsar thought it would be well to show the Germans that their country too might be invaded. Accordingly, under the pretext of aiding the Ubians against the Suevians, he threw a bridge over the Rhine, and having ravaged the lands of the Sicambrians, who had retired to their woods, he entered the country of the Ubians ; then hearing that the Suevians had collected all their forces in the centre of their territory, and waited there to give him battle, he returned to the Rhine, having, as he says, accomplished all he had proposed. This run into Germany had occupied but eighteen days ; and as there was a pTirt of the summer remaining, he resolved to employ it in a similar inroad into the isle of Britain, whose people had been so audacious as to send aid to the Gauls when fighting for their independence against him : moreover, the invasion of unknown countries, like Germany and Britain, would tell well at Rome. He accordingly had ships brought round from the Loire to the Morinian coast, (Boulogne,) and putting two legions on board he set sail at midnight. At nine next morning he reached the coast of Britain ; but as the cliffs (Dover) were covered with armed men, he cast anchor, and in the evening sailed eight miles further down, (Deal,) and there effected a landing, though vigorously op- posed by the natives. The Britons soon sent to sue for peace; and they had given some of the hostages demanded of them, when a spring-tide having greatly damaged the Roman fleet, they resolved to try again the fate of war. They fell on the seventh legion as it was out foraging, and Caesar had some difficulty in bringing it off; they afterwards assailed the Roman camp, but were repulsed, and Cccsar, who had neither cavalry nor corn, and who wanted to get back to Gaul, readily made peace on their promise of send- ing a double number of hostages thither after him. He then departed ; and having written the wonderful news to Rome, a supplication of twenty days was decreed. ' '* As but two of the British states sent the hostages. Cxsar 412 HISTORY OF ROME. resolved to make this a pretext foj a second invasion of their island. When, therefore, he was setting ont ns usual for Italy, he directed his legates to repair the old and build new ships : and on his return in the spring (698) he found a fleet of twenty-eight long ships and six hundred transports ready. He embarked with five legions and two tiiousand Gallic horse, and landed at the same place as before. The Britons retired to the hills; and Caisar, having left some troops to guard his camp, advanced in quest of them. He found them posted on the banks of a river, (the Stour,) about twelve miles inlands. He attacked and drove then) off; but next day, as he was preparing to advance into the country, he was recalled to the coast by tidings of the damage his fleet had sustained from a storm during the night. Having given the needful directions, he resumed his pursuit of the Britons, who laying aside their jealousies had giveii the su- preme command to Cassivelaunus, king of the Trinobanlcs, (Essex and Middlesex ;) but the Roman cavalry cut them up so dreadfully when they attacked the foragers, that they dispersed, and most of them went to their homes. Ca;sar then advanced, and having forced the passage of the Thames invaded Cassivelaunus' kingdom, and took his chief tov.-n ; * and having received the submissions and hostages of various states, and regulated the tributes they should (Ijut never did) pay, he returned to Gaul, where it being now late in autumn, he put his troops into winter (jiiarters. The Gauls, however, who did not comprehend the right of Rome and C Massilia. had resolved not to admit him into their town, ! wishing, as they said, to remain neuter; but when L. Do- | mitius, to whom the senate had given the province of Cisal- \ pine Gaul, appeared before their port they received him. S Caesar then laid siege to the town, having had some ships I built for the purpose at Aries ; and leaving the conduct of [ the siege to, C. Treboniiis, ^nd the command of the fleet to i D,. Brutus, he hastened on to Spain, having previously sent i C. Fabius with three legions to sj^eure the passes of the Pyrenees. On his way, to make sure of the fidelity of his i troops, he borrowed al};the money he could from his officers i and (listributed it among the soldiers, thus binding both to i him by the ties of interest \ Pompeius had three legates in Spain, L. Afranius, M. Pe- ; trmus, and M. Terentius Varro, and their troops amounted ! to seven legion?. When they heard of Caesar's approach, i they agreed that Varro should remain with two legions in I Ulterior Spain, while Afranius and Petreius^ with the re- maining five, should oppose the invader. They therefore encamped on an eminence between the rivers Cinga (Cinca) and Sicoris, (SegrCj) near the town of Ilerda, (Lerida,) in which they had placed their magazines; and a; bridge ovet ' 36 422 HISTORY OF ROME. the Sicoris kept up their communication witl) the coun.ry beyond it, whence they drew their supplies. When Fabiua arrived, some skirmishing took place between him and the Pompeian generals, without any advantage on either side. CiBsar, when he came, encamped at the foot of the hill on which the enemy lay, and forthwith made a bold attempt to seize an eminence in the plain between it and the town, as • he possession of it would enable him to cut off their com- munication with the town and bridge. Afranius, aware of his design, had sent some troops to occupy it ; the Caesari- ans were driven off; they were reenforced, and chased the Afranians to the walls of lierda : the engagement lasted five hours, and Afranius finally remained in possession of the eminence, which he took care to fortify. Soon after a flood iu the Sicoris carried away two bridges which Caisar had thrown over it; his communications being thus cut off, famine l>egan to prevail in his camp, while the enemy had abundance of every thing. Having vainly endeavored to repair the bridges, he gave orders to build a number of cora- clcs, or boats of osier covered with raw hide, such as he had seen in Gaul, which he conveyed in wagons twenty-two miles up the river, and passed a legion over in them ; and, having secured a hill on the other side, he then threw a bridge across. As he was greatly superior in cavalry the advantage was now on his side, and several of the native peoples declared for him. This bridge 'seing too far off, he set about rendering the river fordable by cutting canals from it; and he had nearly completed his project, when Afranius and Peireius, having resolved to transfer the war to Celtibe- ria, set out for the Ebro, where they had a camp fortified and a bridge of boats constructed. As the Sicoris was still too deep for his infantry to pass without hazard, Caesar sent over his cavalry to pursue and harass them ; but his infantry soon growing impatient, he was obliged to let them attempt the passage, though the stream was very rapid and the water above their shoulders. He placed two lines of cavalry in the .stream, one above to break the force of the current, the other below to stop those who might be carried away, and they thus got over without the loss of a single man. They came up with the enemy about three in the afternoon, and thus obliged them to encamp earlier than they intended. Next day both parties sent out tb examine the country, and they found that all depended on whiqh should first secure the passes in the hills betw'^ri them and the Ebro. Cresar's SURRENDER OF MASSILIA. 423 superior celerity however overcame all difficulties, and wheri the Afraniaus came in view of the passes they found his legions in array before them. They halted on a rising ground ; Caesar's officers and soldiers were urgent with him to attack them, but hoping to make them surrender by cut- ting off their provisions he allowed them to regain their camp. He then encamped clo^e by them, having secured the passes to the Ebro. Conferences now took place between the soldiers of the two armies ; the Afranians proposed to join Caesar if the lives of their generals were spared, and some of their princi- pal officers went to treat with him. The pien of both armies visited one another in their tents, and every thing seemed on the point of being arranged, when Petreuis, arming his slaves, with some Spanish cavalry, forced his men to break off all conference, and put to the sword all the Caesarians whom he could find. He then went through the camp im- ploring the soldiers to have pity on him and Pompeius, and not thus to give them up to the vengeance of their enemy. He made the whole army renew their military oath, and ordered them to produce all the Caesarians in their tents that they might be put to death ; some obeyed, but the greater part concealed their friends and let them go in the night. Caesar, as he was wont, followed a different and a nobler course ; he sought out the Afranians and sent them back uninjured. The Ponipeian generals now endeavored to re- turn to Ilerda, but they were so closely followed and harassed by the troops of Caesar, that they were obliged to halt and encamp on a hill, round which Ciesar commenced drawing lines ; and he at length cut them off so completely from water and forage that they were obliged to propose a surren- der. He only required them to disband their forces and to | | quit Spain ; these terms were joyfully accepted : one third 3 | of the army, as having possessions in Spain, was discharged \ | on the spot, the rest on the banks of the Var in Gaul. In Southern Spain Varro, finding the people of all the towns in favor of Ci-Esar, resigned his command and left the province, the whole of which joyfully submitted to Cajsar. Meantime Massilia was assailed and defended with equal energy and perseverance. At length however the works raised against the city were so numerous and powerful, that the people sent deputies offering a surrender, but requiring a truce till the arrival of Caesar. The truce was granted, 424- HISTORY OF ROME. but we are told they broke it : it was however again re newed, and when Caesar came he obliged them to deliver up all their arms, ships and money, and receive a garrison of two legions into their town. He spared the town, he said, out of regard to its antiquity and renown, not for any merits its people had toward him. While CiEsar was at Massilia he beard that, pursuant to his directions, Lepidus had a decree passed by the people for nominating him dictator to hold the elections. He did not however set out yet for Rome, but remained some time to regulate Cisalpine Gaul, and while he was there a muiiny broke out in the ninth legion at Placeiitia. The soldiers, probably as they had not yet gotten 'the plunder promised them, demanded their dismissal. Ciesar coolly addressed them, reproaching them with their ingratitude and folly ; and telling them he never should want for soldiers to share his triumphs, said he would dismiss them, but that he would first punish them by decimation. They threw themselves at his feet imploring pardon ; their officers interceded ; C'EEsar was for some time inexorable ; at length he agreed to pardon all but one hundred and twenty of the most guilty, and these being given up he selected thirty of the most turbulent for execution. He then went to Rome to hold the consular elections, and had himself and P. Servilius Isauricus chosen consuls ; Trebonius and Coelius were two of the new prietors. Antonius and others of his partisans, who were overwhelmed with debt, urged him to a total abolition of debts ; but CjEsar, who wished to found an empire for himself, would establish no such precedent. He passed a law, directing that the property of debtors should be estimated at the value it bore before the war, and transferred to their :>reditorrf, adding that the interest which had been paid shoidd be deducted from the principal ; by which the creditors lost about a fourth of their money. Caesar then had all those who had been condemned for bribery under Pompeius' law, and who had resorted to him, re.'^tored to their civic rights, — r Milo, the slayer of his friend Clodius, was however excepted ; he also restored the sons of those who had been proscribed by Sulla. Having th6n held the Latin Holydays he laid down his dic- tatorship a«id set out for BrutMlisium, where, on the first of January, (704,) he entered on his office of consul. Pompeius meantime had been makihg every effort to collect a large fleet and army. Ships' came from all the MII-ITARS! EVENTS IN EPIRUS. 425 ports of Greece and Asia, and a numerous navy was as- sembled, the cliief command of which was given to Caesar's former colleague Bibulus. His army consisted of nine Ro- man legions, besides the auxiliaries of Greece, Macedonia, and Asia. He had received large sums of money from the kings, princes, and states of the East ; he had collected great quantities of corn for the support of his army, which he intended should winter in the towns of the coast of Epirus, while his fleet cruised in the Adriatic to prevent Cajsar's passage. Toward the end of the year, the consuls having assembled the senators, two hundred in number, who were with them at Thessalonica, and declared them to be the true senate, Pompeius was made commander in chief of the armies of the republic, and the consuls and other magistrates were directed to retain their offices under the titles of pro- consuls, etc. Caesar found twelve legions and all his cavalry at Brun- disium, but the legions had been so reduced by fatigue and sickness that they were very incomplete. The ships which had been colJected barely sufficed to transport seven legions (only 20,000 men) and six hundred horse; but with these he embarked, and eluding Bibulus landed at a place named Pharsalus, in Epirus ; he then sent back the ships for the rest of his troops, but Bibulus met them and took thirty, and then strictly guarded the whole coast, Caesar received the submissions of the towns of Oricum and Apollonia ; and most of the states of Epirus declared for him. He was ad- vancing against Dyrrhachium, when, hearing that Pompeius was rapidly marching to its defence, he halted and encamped on the banks of the river Apsus, whither Pompeius came, and encamped also on the other side of that river. Accord- ing to Caesar's own account he was so anxious for peace, that immediately on landing he had sent off L. Vibullius Rufus, whom he had twice made a prisoner, proposing to Pompeius that they should both disband their armies and submit to the decision of the senate and people. Vibullius had gone off with all speed, more with the intention of in- forming Pompfeius of Caesar's landing than of pn^moting peace, and it was only in his camp on the Apsus that Pom^ peius heard of these proposals, to which however he refused to listen. Caesar also tells us that as the soldiers of the two armies used to converse together across the river, he directed his legate P. Vatini»is to go and call outj askihg if citizens. 36 * B B B 426 i." HI5TORY OF RUME. might not send to citizens to treat of peace, a thing Pom- peius had not refused to robbers and pirates. He was heard in silence, and told that A. Varro would come tlie following day to treat- Next day a great number appeared on both sides, and Labienus advanced and began in a low voice to confer with Vatinius ; a shower of missiles, which woundeo several of the Ca;sarians, broke off the conference, and Labienus then cried, " Give over talking of accommodation ; there can be no peace unless you briug us Ceesar's head." While CuBsar was lying on the Apsus, his friend Ccelius, whom he had left one of the prretors at Rome, displeased that he had not been able to get rid of all his debts, began to raise dibturbances. He commenced by opposing Trebonius in every way he could ; and this not succeeding, he proposed two laws, the one for exempting from rent all the tenants of the state, the other for a general abolition of debt. At the head of the multitude he then attacked Trebonius, and wounded some of those about him : the senate in return forbade him to execute the functions of his office. He then left Rome under the pretence of going to Ciesar, but he had secretly written to his old friend Milo urging him to come and raise some disturbance in Italy ; and Milo, having col- lected his gladiators and what other forces he could, had laid siege to the town of Cosa, near Thurii. Coilius proceeded t(y join him, but Milo had been killed by a stone flung from the walls; and CoBiius, attempting to seduce some Gallic and Spanish horse that were in Cosa, was slain by them. Ca3sar's great object now was to get over the rest of his troops, and Pompeios was equally anxious to prevent their passage. Bibulus had lately died of an illness caused by cold and fatigue ; but Libo and others kept the sea, and impeded the transport. Some months had now passed, and as the wind had frequently been favorable for them, Cfcsar thought there must be some fault on the part of M. Antoniu? and Q,. Fufius Calenus, who commanded at Brundisium, ana he wrote to them in the most peremptory terms. He even, it is said, resolved to pass over in person, and disguising himself as a slave he embarked in a fishing-boat at the mouth of the Apsus ; but the sea proved so rough that the fishermen feared to go on ; Ctesar then discovered himself, saying to „\ie master, " Why dost thou fear ? thou carriest Caesar ! " and they made another attempt ; but the sea was so furious that he was obliged to let them put back again. MILITARY EVENTS IN EPIRUS. 427 At length Antonius put to sea, and succeeded in landing near Lissus. Cresar and Pompeius, when they heard of his arrival, both put their trbops in motiort, the one to join, the other to attack hlTi. Antonius kept within his entrench- ments till Caesar came up. Pompeius then retired; CfEsar followed him ; and h-aving offered him battle in vain, set out for Dyrrhachium. Pompeius delayed for one day, and then took a shorter route for the same place, and encamped on a hUl named Petra near it, close to the sea. As there were hills at a little distance near Petra, Cjesar raised forts on them, proposing to circumvallate Pompeius' camp. Pom- peius, to oblige him to take in a greater space, also formed a line of forts, inclosing an extent of fifteen miles, so as to yield him forage for his cavalry ; and he received abundant supplies by sea, while Caesar's men were obliged to live chiefly on a root, named chara, for want of bread. But the forage soon began to run short with Pompeius' army ; and as CcBsar had turned the streams, the want of water also was severely felt. At length Pompeius made a bold and judicious attack on the enemy's lines, and forced them; and in the action which ensued he gained the victory. Csesar then resolved to transfer the war to Macedonia, and he set out for that country, closely followed by Pompeius. After a pursuit of three days Pompeius changed his course, and taking a nearer route arrived the first in Macedonia, where he whs near surprising Caesar's general Cn. Domitius Calvinus. CjEsar entered Thessaly and took the town of Gomphi by assault, and then advanced and encamped near the town of Metropolis. Pompeius entered Thessaly a few days after, and joined his father-in-law Scipio, who lay at Larissa ; and the two armies finally encamped opposite each other on the ftver-memorable plain of Pharsalus. 42B .HIETORY OF BONK CHAPTER XL* BATTLE OP PHARSALIA, *+— BLIGHT AND DEATH OF POMPEIUS. HIS CHARACTER. CjCSAR's ALEXANDRIAN WAR. THE PONTIC ^VAB.. AFFAIRS OF ROME. MITINY OF CALSAR's LBGIOMS. AFRICAN WAR. DEATH OF CATO. HIS CHAR- ACTER (JjESAR's TRIUMPHS. REFORMATION Ob THE CALENDAR, SECOND SPANISH WAR. BATTLE OF MUNDA. HONORS BESTOWED ON CJESAR. — - CONSPIRACXJ' iWQAINST HIM. HIS DEATH.' HIS CHARACTER. « i . !»' , ■. . . . I The two armies now lay in sight of each other ; that of Pompeius, which consisted of fortj'-five thousand men, of which tnorethan a sixth was cavalry, was superior in number but inferior in quality. Caesar's army, of twenty»two thou- sand men, only one thousand of whom were cavalry, were all hardy veterans, used to victory and confident in them- selves and their leader. The superior number of tlieir troops and their late suc- cesses had rai(ped the confidence of the Pompcinn leaders, and nothing, we are told, could exceed their in.solence ; they contended with one another for the dignities and priesthoods in the state, and disposed of the consulate for several years to come. Scipio, Lentulus Spinther, and L. Domitius had an angry contest for the chiet-j)riesthood with which Ciesar was invested, for of his defeat not a doubt was entertained ; and when Pompeius acted with caution, he was accu.sed of protracting the war out of the vanity of seeing such a num- ber of consular^ aj»dprajtorians under his command. Pro- scriptions and confiscations vwero resolved on; in short, says Cicero, " excepting Pompeius himself and a few other.'', (I speak of the principal leaders,) they carried ( n the war with such a spirit of rapaciousness, and breathed such prin- ciples of cruelty in their conversation, that I could not think even of our success without horror. To this I nnist add that some of our most dignified men were deeply involved in • CoBsar, Civil Wars. Hirtius' and others' Books of the Alexan- drian, African, and Spanish Wars. Dion, x\\. T).\, to the end ; xlii., xliii., and xliv. .Appian, ii. 5(), to the end. Suetonius, Jul. Ceesar Plutarch, Lives of Foinpeius, Coesar, Cato, and Brutus. :!' BATTLE OF PHARSALTA. <48(5 debt; and, in short, there was nothing good arr mg thfehi bill their cause." * Poiripeius, who was superstitious by nature, had been greatly encouraged by accounts of favorable signs :n the en- trails of the victims and such like sent him by the haruspices from Rome, and he resolved to risk a general engagenieni. He drew up his army at the foot of the hill on which he was encamped ; but Caesar, unwilling to engage him to a disad- vantage, pi-epared to decamp. Just, hovvever, as the order was given, seeing that Pompeius had advanced into the plain, he changed his mind, and made ready to engage. The right wing of the Pompeians, commanded by Lentulus, rested on the river Enipeus. Pompeius himself, with Domitius, com- manded the left; his father-in-law, Scipio, the centre ; the horse and light troops were all on the left. Csesar's right was commanded by himself and P. Sulla; his left by M. Antonius ; the centre by Domitius Calvinus : to strengthen his cavalry, he had mingled through it some of his most active foot-soldiers; and he placed six cohorts separate from his line, to act on occasion against the enemy's horse. Pompeius had directed his men to stand and receive the enemy's charge, hoping thus to engage them when out of breath with running; but the Csesarians, when they found that the enemy did not advance, halted of themselves, and, having recovered their breath, advanced in order and hurled their j'j/Za. They then fell on sword in hand ; the Pompeians did the same ; and while they were engaged, their horse ' od light troops having attacked and defeated Cresar's cavalry were preparing to take his infantry in flank, when he made the signal to the six cohorts, who fell on and drove them off the field. It is said that CjEsar had directed his men to aim their blows at the faces of the horsemen, and that the young Roman knights fled sooner than run the risk of having their beauty spoiled.! The six cohorts then took the Pompeian left wing in the rear, while Cjesar brought his third line, which had not been yet engaged, against it in front. It broke, and fled to the camp. Pompeius, whose whole reli- ance was on his left wing, now despairing of victory, retired to his tent to await the event of the battle. But Csesar soon led his men to the attack of the camp, which vas carried * Cic. ad Divers, vii. 3. Cicero always speaks witii horror an^ apprehension of the success of the Pompeians. J i This is not very likely; the young Roman kniglits could have formed but a small part of a body of 7000 horse. 430 ' HISTORY OF ROME. after an obstinate resistance from the cohorts which had been left to guard it. Pompeius, laying aside his general's habit, mounted a horse, and left it by the Decuman gate. Ca'sar found the tents of Lentulus and others hung with ivy, fresh turves cut for seats, tables covered with plate, and all the preparations for celebrating a victory. Leaving some troops to guard the two camps, he followed a body of the Porupeians who had lied to a hill, but they abandoned it and made for Larissa; he however got between them and that town, and finally forced them to surrender. His own loss in this battle, he tells us, was only 200 men and 30 centuri- ons ; that of the Pompeians was 15,000, of whom but 6000 were soldiers, the rest being servants and the like : upwards of i24,000 were made prisoners. He granted life and liberty to all ; and finding, it is said, in Pompeius' tent the letters of several men of rank, he imitated the conduct of Pompeius in Spain, and burned without reading them. L. Domitius had been slain in the pursuit ; Labienus fled with the Gallic horse to Dyrrhachium, where he found Cicero and Varro with Cato, who commanded there; they passed over to Cor- ey ra, and being joined l)y the young Cn. Pompeius and other commanders of the fleet, held a council ; but as they could decide on nothing, they separated, and went different ways. Labienus, Scipio and some others sailed to Africa to join Varus and king Juba ; Cato and young Pompeius went in quest of Pompeius; Cicero returned to Italy, intending to seek the victor's clemency. We must now follow the unhaj)py fompeius Magnus. He rode with :iI)Out thirty followers to the gates of Larissa, but would not enter the town lest the people should incur the anger of Ca'sar. He then went on to the Vale of Ten\pe, and at the mouth of the Peneus got on board a merchantman which he found lying there; thence he sailed to the mouth of the Stryinon, and, having gotten some money from his friends at Amphipolis, proceeded to Mytilene in Lesbos, where he had left his wife Cornelia. Having taken lier and his son Sextus on board, and collected a few vessels, he proceeded to Cilicia, and thence. to Cyprus. He had intended going to Syria, but finding that the people of An- tioch had declared for Ctesar, as also had the Rhodians, he gave up that design ; and having gotten money from the publicans and some private persons, and collected about twc thousand men, he made sail for Egypt. It is said that he had consulted with his friends whether FLIGHT OF POMPEIUS. 431 he should seek a refuge with the king of the Parthians, or retire to king Juba in Africa, or repair to the young king of Egypt, whose futher had been restored to his throne through his influence some years before.* The latter course was decided on, and he sailed for Pelusium, where the young king (who was at war with his sister Cleopatra, whom their father had made joint heir of the throne) was lying with his army. Potnpeius sent to request his protection, on account of his friendship for his father. The king's ministers, either fearing that Pompeius, by means of the troops which had been left there by Gabinius, might attempt to make bimself master of the kingdom, or despising his fallen fortunes, resolved on his death. They sent AchHlas, a captain of the guard, with Septimius, a former Roman centurion, and some others, in a small boat to invite him to land. He was re- quested to come into the boat, as the shore was too oozy and shallow for a ship to approach it. He consented, and directing two centurions and his freedman Philip and a slave to follow him, and having embraced Cornelia, he entered the boat, and then turning round repeated the following lines of Sophocles : He who unto a prince's house repairs Becomes his slave, though he go thither free.t They went on some time in silence ; at length Pompeius, turning to Septimius, said, "If I mistake not, you and I have been fellow-soldiers." Septimius merely nodded as- sent; the silence was resumed; Pompeius began to read over what he had prepared to say to the king in Greek. Meantime the boat approached the shore ; Cornelia and his friends saw several of the royal officers coming down to receive Pompeius, who, taking hold of Philip's arm, rose from his seat. As he rose, Septimius stabbed him in the ^ Ptolemaeus Auli'ltb promised CfEsar COOO talents for himself and Pompeius, for having him acknowledged as king of Egypt by the senate. He was forced by his subjects to fly when he oppressed them by raising that sum. He came to Rome ; Pompeius wished to liavo tlie profitable task of restoring him ; but the laws and Sibylline oracles were alleged by his opponents, and PtolemtEus being obliged to leave Rome for having poisoned the ambassadors sent thither by his subjects, Pompeius gave him letters to Gabinius, the governor of Syria, who, on being promised by him 10,000 talents, set the laws and oracles at nought, marched his troops out of his province, and replaced him on the throne of Egypt. 1 " OcTig f( nQnc TiQarvor fimoQu'tfai Kiivov 'art Sovkog, xnv iicvSiQo? ftoXtj. 432 HISTORY OF ROME. baek ; Achillas and a Roman named Salvius then strnck him : Pompeius drew his gown before his face, groaned, and died in silence. Thos-e on sliip-board gave a loud, piercing cry of grief, and set sail without delay, pursued by some Egyptian vessels. The head of Pompeius was cut off; his trunk was thrown on the beach, where his faithful freedman staid by it, and. having washed it in the sea, collected the wreck of a fishing-boat and prepared a pyre to burn it. While he was thus engaged, an old Roman who had served under Pompeius came up, and saying that the honor of aiding at the obsequies of the greatest of Roman generals compensated him in some sort for the evils of an abode in a foreign land, assisted him in his pious office. Such was the end of Cn. Pompeius Magnus, in the fifty- eighth year of his age. In his person he was graceful and dignified ; he spoke and wrote with ease and perspicuity, and was always heard with attention and respect. In pri- vate life his morals were remarkably pure, unstained by the excesses which disgraced Ca'sar and so many others at that time ; of the amiability of his character tliere can be no stronger proof than the fact of his having gained the entire and devoted affection of two such women as Julia and Cor- nelia, both so many years younger than himself. The public character of Pompeius is far less laudable; his love of sway was inordinate ; he could not brook a rival ; he would, how- ever, be the freely chosen head of the republic, and in such case would have respected and maintained the laws. Not succeeding in this course he was led to the commission of several illegal acts, and he formed that fatal coalition with Cajsar, for whom neither as a statesman nor as a general was he a match, and who, during their union, always exerted over him the power of a superior mind, and that mostly for evil. Pompeius was by no means mclined to cruelty; yet Cicero feared, and with reason, that his victory would have been more sanguinary than that of Caesar ; for though his natural humanity might have kept him from imitating Sulla as ho threatened, he had not Cajsar's energy to restrain the violence of his followers. Caesar, we must allow, was better fitted for empire ; Pompeius was by far the better man. Ciesar, on learning that Pompeius was gone to Egypt, made all the speed he could to overtake him, and thus end the war. He arrived at Alexandria with two legions, (.'3200 foot and SOO horse :) the head and ring of Pompeius were presented to him ; he shed some tears (counterfeit, we maj Cesar's Alexandrian war. 433 well suspec*) over them, and caused the head to be burnt with costly 5pices. He then set about regulating the affairs of Egypt, and he summoned Ptolemfeus and his sister before him.* The superior influence of Cleopatra was soon ap- parent, and Pothinus, the young king's minister, seeing the small number of the Roman troops, sent to desire Achillas to advance with the army from Pelusium. This army con- sisted of eighteen thousand foot and two thousand horse, all good troops, several of them being Romans left by Gabinius, and Caesar found it necessary to act on the defensive. Achillas made himself master of all the town except the palace which Caesar had fortified. A great struggle was made for the port, as with the shipping there the blockade of the palace might be made complete. Caesar however succeeded in burning all the ships in it ; unfortunately the flames extended, and the magnificent library of the kings was nearly all consumed. He then secured the island of Pharos, at the mouth of the port, and the mole leading to it. Ganymedes, the successor of Achillas who had been slain, then mixed sea-water with that of the Nile in the aqueducts which supplied Cnesar's quarters ; but this evil he obviated by sinking wells. In a naval action in the port, Caesar, with only a few ships, gained the advantage ; but, in an attempt to retake the mole and island, which the Alexandrians had recovered, he lost about eight hundred men and some ships, and he had to throw himself into the water and swim to a merchantman for safety.! The Alexandrians now sent to demand their king who was in his hands, and C.-esar, seeing no use in detaining him, let him go, and the war was then renewed more fiercely than ever. Meantime Mithridates, an officer whom Caesar had sent to levy troops in Syria, was advancing with a large army to relieve him, but as he had to go round the Delta, the young king despatched a part of his. army to oppose him. These troops, however, were defeated ; the king hastened with the rest of his army to their aid, and Caesaic Jit the same lime joined Mithridates. He now resolved to try and ter- '*, It is said that, to escape Irer brother's troops, Cleopatra had her- self wrapped up in a bale of bedclothes, and thus conveyed into Alex- andrfa. t He held, it is said, on this occasion, his papers with one hand over the water to save them from being welted. It is rather strange that he should have had papers in his hand, or even about him, in such » hot enga^jment. 37 rco 431 HISTORY OF ROME. miiiate the war by an attack on the Egyptian camp, which wa^ on an eminence over the Nile, one of its sides beii g defended by tlie steepness of the ground, the other by a morass. While the attack was carried on in the front of the camp, some cohorts climbed up the steep of the liill, and fell on the enemy's rear. The Egyptians fled on all sides, mostly to the iVile, and the king trying to escape was drowned in the river. Cajsar returned to Alexandria, whose inhabi- tants came forth, preceded by their priests, to implore his mercy. He gave the crown to Cleopatra and her younger brotiier, leaving them the greater part of his troops to pro- tect them, and then set out for Syria. After his departure Cleopatra was delivered of a son, who was said to be his, and was named C;Esarion. When the civil war broke out, Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates the Great, resolved to seize the occasion of re- covering his paternal dominions. He speedily regained Pontus, and then overran Lesser Armenia and Cappadocia. Deiotarus, the king of the former, applied for aid to Cn. Domitius, who commanded for Ca3sar in Asia ; and after some fruitless attempts at negotiation, Domitius collected what troops he could, and advancing to Nicopolis gave Pharnaces battle , but he was defeated and forced to retire. Cfpsar was meantime hastening from Egypt ; for though he had learned that things were in the utmost confusion at Rome, he resolved not to quit Asia till he had reduced it to peace. Though his force was small, he decided on giving battle without delay, and he advanced to within five miles of Pharnaces' camp, which was on a hill, and commenced fortifying another hill in its vicinity. Pharnaces, relying on the number of his troops, and recollecting that it was in this very place his father had defeated Triarius, crossed the valley, and leading his army up the hill, attacked the Roman troops. The battle was long and dubious; at length the riffht wing of the Romans was victorious, the centre and left were soon efjually successful; the enemy was driven down the hill and pursued to his camp, wliich was speedily taken : Pharnaces himself escaped, but nearly his wh( le army was slain or taken. "I came, I saw, I conquered," {Veni, vidi, vici,) were the terms in which Cresar wrote to announce this victory, which ended the Pontic war. Having regulated the affairs of Asia, Caesar set out for Italy : nt Brundisium he was bet by Cicero, whom he re- ceived very kindly; he then went on to Rome, vhich he AFFAIRS OF ROME. 43t5 found in a state of distraction. For Caesar, having been created dictator after the battle of Pharsalia, had seiit M. Antonius, liis master of the horse, to govern Italy in his absence; and P. Cornelius Dolabella, another of his friends, being made one of the tribunes, had revived the laws of CcbIius for the abolition of debts and rents. Antonius, who like Dolabella was imnrersed in debt, was at first willing to support him, but he finally sided with the senate and two of the other tribunes in opposing him. The people were of course for Dolabella, and such conflicts took place, during an absence of Antonius, between debtors and creditors, that the Vestals found it necessary to remove the sacred things to a place of safety. When Antonius returned the senate gave him the usual charge to see that the state suffered no injury. Dolabella, on the day of proposing his laws, had the Forum batricadoed, and even wooden towers erected to keep off all opponents ; but Antonius came down with soldiers from the Capitol, broke the tables of the laws, and seizing some of the more turbulent flung them down from the Tar- peian rock. When Caesar arrived he took no notice of what had occurred; he however steadily refused the abolition of debts, but remitted the interest that had accrued since the war began, and he also remitted to those who paid under 2000 sesterces rent, a year's rent at Rome, a quarter's throughout Italy. To gratify his friends, he let them have good bargains at the sales of the properties of Pompeius and others which he confiscated ; he increased the number of priesthoods and prsetorships, and placed several of his officers in the senate. Having had himself aud his master of the horse, M. Lepidus, (for he continued to be dictator,) chosen consuls for the following year, he was preparing to pass over to Africa, when a mutiny broke out among his veteran le- gions, who were disappointed at not having yet gotten the rewards that had been promised them. It began with his favorite tenth legion. C. Sallusttus, (the historian,) whom he sent to assure them that when the war was ended they should have 1000 denars a man, besides the lands and money already due to them, was obliged to fly for his life. They marched from Campania to Rome, plundering and murder- ing on their way, and cam6 and posted themselves on the Field of Mars. Caesar, in spite of his friends, went out, and mounting his tribunal demanded what had brought them thither and what they wanted. They were disconcerted, and merely said that they bad hoped he would give them \ i 436 HISTORY or rome. their discharge in consequence of their wounds and length of service. " I give it you," said he, < nd then aided, " and when I hnve triumphed w>th other soldiers I will still keep my word with you." He was retiring ; his officers stopped him, and begged him to be less severe, and to speak to tl>em again. He addressed them, commencing with Quirites ! and not as usual Commilitdnes ! This totally overcame them; they cried out they were his soldiers, and would follow him to Africa or any where else if he would not cast them off; he then pardoned them, and passed over at their head to Sicily, though it was now far in the winter. The Pompeians, aided by king Juba, were now in great force in Africa. Cato, having met Pompeius' ships, with Cornelia and Sex. Pompeius at Cyrene, landed all his troops there, and marching them over land to the African province joined Scipio and the other leaders. The chief commnivd was given to Scipio as being a consular, and Cato tiM>k the government of the town of (Jtica. C;esar, having assembled six legions in Sicily, set sail from Lilybaeum with a part of them (about t^OOO men) and landed near Adruinetum. JIaving failed to take that town, lie pro- ceeded to another named Ru«pina, which he reached on the first January, (TOf) ;) he thence advanced to Leptis, but he ■soon returned in order to go and look after his fleet, which had steered bv mistake for Utica. Having been joined by the troops on board the fleet he encamped at Iluspina, and some days after engaged a numerous arnVy, chiefly Numidi- ans, commanded h\ Labienus. The battle lasted from be- fore mid-day to sunset, and the advantage tvas on the side of Labienus. At? Scipio and Juba were said to be approaching with eight legions and three thousand horse, Cffsar fortificH his camp with the greatest care, and sent to Sicily and else- where for supplies. When Scipio came he offered battle repeatedly; but Cresar, taught by the experience of the late action, steadily refused to fight ; endeavoring at the same time to gain over Scipio's troops and (he people of thfe cotmtry, in which he is said to have had some sncce*!S. After some tiine he found himself stronrr enough to offer battle , but Scipio had now prudently resolved to protract the war. Caesar then decamped at midnight, and went and laid siege to the town of Thapsus. Scipio and Juba fol- lowed him thither, and forming two camps about eight miles from his, attempted to throw succors into the town ; failttig in this, they resolved to give him battle, though Cato, it *- AFRICAN WAR. 43"3 Siiid, strongly advised against it. Scipio moved down to the seaside, and having thrown up some intrenchnients drew his ariliy out before them with his elephants on the wings. Caesar also drew out his nine legions. While he was hesi- tating whether to attack or not, a trumpeter sounded on the right wing; the troops then charged in spite of their officers : the elephants, not being well trained, turned on their own men when assailed, by the missiles, and rushed into the camp. Scipio's troops broke and fled to their former camp, and then to that of Juba ; but this also being forced they retired to a hill, whither they were pursued and slaughtered by CcEsar's veterans. Ten thousand was the number of the slain ; the loss of the victors was but fifty men. Caesar then leaving three legions to blockade Thapsus, and sending two against a towfj named Tisdra, advanced with the remainder toward Utica. Cato, who commanded in this town, had fornled a council of three hundred of the Roman traders who resided in d. When the news of the defeat at Thapsus arrived, he assem- bled his council and tried to animate them; but finding them inclined to have recourse to Caesar's clemency, he gave up all hopes of defending the town, and sent word to that effect to Scipio and Juba, who were now in the neighbor- hood. Soon after the cavalry which had fled from Thapsus arrived ; Cato went out to try and engage them to stay, but while he was away the three hundred met and determined on a surrender : when he heard this he prevailed on the cavalry to stop for one day, and he put the gates and citadel into their hands; his object being to get time to send away the Roman senators and others by sea. Having closed all the gates but one leading to the port, he got ships and every thing ready for those who were to go. Meantime the cavalry had begun to plunder; but he went to them, and by giving them money prevailed on them to leave the town : he then went down to the port to see his friends off. He afterwards arranged his accounts, and commended his children to his quaestor la. Caesar. In the evening he bathed and supped as usual with his friends, discussing philosophical questions ; and, having walked after supper he retired to his room, wher€, it is said, he read over Plato's dialogue named Phtedo, which treats of a future state and the immortality of t »e soul, and it is added slept soundly. Toward morning he Blabbed himself with his sword : the sound of his fall being heard, his friends ran to the room, and his surgeon went to 37* 438 HliTORY OF ROME. bind up the wound ; but he thrust him from hin"., tore it open, and instantly expired. Thus died M. Porcius? Cato, in the forty-eighth year of his age, a man possessed of many noble and estimable qualities, but joined with some defects, among which his vanity and j his obstinacy were conspicuous. He was certainly patriotic, I and was for maintaining the constitution ; but it may be doubted if personal iiatred to Ca-sar was not the secret source of many of his apparently most patriotic actions. i His politics were of too Utopian a cast ever to be really j useful ; for such is our nature that the politician must kno^y how to yield to circumstances if he would do good. We may therefore admire, but should never think of imitating, the character of Cato. - Caesar soon arrived at Utica, where he granted their lives to L. Ca:;sar and the other Romans ; as for the three hun- dred, he said he would content hin)self with confiscating their properties for their crime in supplying Varus and Rcipio with money ; he however most graciously let them >fF for a sum of two hundred millions of sesterces, to be paid in the course of six years to the republic — that is, to himself. King Juba had set out with Petreias for his town of Zama; he found the gates closed against' him, and he and his companion, seeing no hopes, agreed to kill one another in a single combat ; Petreius died at once, Juba was obliged to employ the hand of a slave. Afranius and Fausttis Sulla were met and made prisoners in Mauritania, as they were making for Spain with the cavalry from Utica, by Sitius, a lloman rondottiere who had declared for Ca>sar, and Caesar put them and L. Caesar to death. Scipio, on his way to Spain, being obliged to put into the port of Hippo, where Sitius' freebooting squadron lay, was attacked by it.' Hav- ing seen most, of his vessels sink, he stabbed himself, and when one of Sitius' soldiers on boarding asked where was the general, he calmly replied, " The general is safe." C-Esar went from Utica to Zama, where he so^d the property of king Juba, and seized that of the Romans who resided there. He converted the kingdom into a province, giving Cirta to Sitius. On his return to Utica he seized and sold the property of all who had been centurions under Juba and Petreius, and he fined all the towns in proportion to their means; he, however; did not allow his soldiers to pil- lage any of them. He then set sail homewards, leaving CJSSARS TRIUMPHS. 439 C. Sallustius as proconsul to govern the new province of Nu midia, by whom it was plundered in a merciless manner.* On Caesar's arrival in Rome honors of every kind were decreed to him by his obsequious senate. They had already resolved that forty days should be devoted to the celebration of his African victory ; that he should be dictator for ten years, inspector of morals for three ; that his chariot should be placed on the Capitol opposite the statue of Jupiter, and i I his statue standing on a brazen figure of the world with the I | inscription " Caesar the semigod." Having addressed the | | senate and the people, and assured them of his clemency and j ] regard for the republic, he prepared to celebrate his tri- | \ umphs for his various conquests ; and in one month he tri- ) | umphed four times, the first triumph being for Gaul, the | \ second for Ptolemaeus of Egypt, the third for Pharnaces | of Pontus, and the fourth for Juba of Numidia. The first | | was the most splendid ; but as the procession went along i | the Velabrum the axle of the triumphal car broke, and in | | consequence of the delay he could not ascend the Capitol I | till dark, when forty elephants, ranged on his right and left, I s bore lights, and he went up the steps on his knees. In the j | second triumph were seen pictures of the deaths of Pothinua 5 | and Achillas, and the Pharos on fire ; the third displayed ci | i tablet with Veni, vidi, vici ! on it. The money borrte in | | triumph is said to have amounted to 65,000 talents, and the | j gold crowns to have been 2822 in number, and to have | | weighed 2414 pounds. He feasted the people at 22,000 || -ables placed in the streets ; and to 150,000 citizens he gave j] ten pecks of corn, ten pounds of oil, and 400 sesterces apiece. There were public games of all kinds, sham-battles, [ hunting of wild beasts, horse and chariot races, the Trojan game, etc.. To reward his veterans he gave them each 24,000 sesterces, double the sum to the centurions, the quadruple to the tribunes ; and he assigned them lands, but not in continuous tracts, in order that present possessors might not be disturbed. Caesar now turned his thoughts to legislation. He con- fined the judicial power to the senators and knights; he reduced by a census the number of citizens who received corn to about one half; he sent eighty thousand citizens away as colonists ; he enacted that no freeman under twenty * Dion, xliii. 9. He was prosecuted for extortian the next year, but Cffisar saved him ; hence his apologists say that it was for Ctesar, not for h.niself, that he had pillaged the province. 440' HISTORY OF ROME. or over forty years of age should be more than three years* out of Italy, and no senator's son at all, unles:? in the retinue of a magistrate ; that all graziers on the public lands should not have less than a third of their shepherds freemen. He granted the freedom of the city to alt physicians and pro- fessors of the liberal arts; he made or renewed various sumptuary laws ; and he encouraged maniage, and gave rewards to those who had many children. As a means of securing his power he abolished all the clubs and unions except the ancient ones ; for however use- ful they might have formerly proved in forwarding his own views, l)e knew them to be totally incompatible with all regular government. Judging also by his own experience, he enacted that no praetor should hold a province for more than one year, no consul for more than two. He further reserved to him.self the appointment of one half of those who were to be elected to offices in the state, and at the approach of the elections he always notified to the people whom he would have chosen.* It was at this time also that Caesar made his celebrated reformation of the calendar. The Roman year had been the lunai- one of 354 days, and it was kept in accordance with the solar year by intercalating months in every second and fourth year. The pontiffs were charged with this of- fice ; but they exercised it, it is said, in an arbitrary manner, from motives of partiality, and the year was now more than two months in arrear. Caesar therefore added 07 days be- tween November and December of this year, which with the intercalary month of 23 days made an entire addition of 90 days; and he divided the year into months of 30 and 31 days, directing a day to be intercalated every fourth year, to keep it even with the course of the sun. His agent in this change was an Alexandrian named Sosigenes. Towards the end of the year Cnssar was obliged to return to Spain, where the sous of Pompeius with Labienus and Varus had collected a force of eleven legions, and had driven Trebonius, who commanded there, out of Bnetica. In twenty- seven days he travelled from Rome to the neighborhood of Corduba, and after various movements the two armies met (March 17th, 707) on the plain of Munda. Cn. Pompeius, who commanded in chief, had the advantage in position and * The following was the form of his con^r- d'ilire : " Caesar, dictator i!!i tribui Commendo tibi ilium et ilhiin, utvestro suffmgio vnatn dig «itatem teneant." (Suet. Jul. Ces. 41.^ SECONU SPANISH WAK. 441 numbers and he was so near gaining the victory, that (Jaesar, it is said was about to put an end to himself. He alighted from his horse, took a shield, and advancing before his men declared that he would never retire. This action excited them to renewed exertions ; and just then a Moorish prince in Caesar's army having fallen on Pompeius' camp, Labienus sent five cohorts to protect it ; Caesar cried aloud that the enemy was flying ; this roused the courage of one side and excited the fears of the other, and after a severe contest victory remained with Caesar. Labienus, Varus, and 30,000 men, among whom were 3000 knights, lay slain on the side of Pompeius ; the victors had 1000 killed and 500 wounded. Caesar declared that in his other battles he had fought for victory, in this for his very life : it was the last conflict of the Civil War. Cn. Pompeius fled to Carteia, where his fleet lay ; but finding the people inclined to Cssar, he put to sea with thirty ships. Didius, who commanded Caesar's fleet at Gades, pursued him, and when he was obliged to land for water attacked and burned several of his ships. Pompeius, who was wounded, fled from one place to another : and being found in a cavern in which he had taken shelter, he was put to death, and his head, like his father's, brought to Caesar. Sex. Pompeius, who commanded in Corduba, fled to' the mountains of Celtiberia. Munda was taken after a siege of three weeks; Corduba, Hispalis, (Seville,) Gades, and the other towns opened their gates. Caesar, in order to raise money, heavily fined some places, sold privileges to others, and even plundered the temple of Hercules at Gades ; and having thus collected all the money he could, he set out on his return to Rome, leaving C. Asinius Pollio as legate in Spain. Cassar celebrated his triumph on the 1st of October, but though a magnificent it was a melancholy sight to the peo- ple, who regarded it as a triumph over themselves. The senate however was never weary of heaping honors on him. He was made perpetual dictator and inspector of morals, given the prbut Trebonius had diverted them from it. It was then warmly debated among them whether they should not kill Antonius and Lepidus along with CiEsar, but the two Brutuses declaring strongly against such an act as unjust and impolitic, it was imprudently given up. The place and time of performing the deed were also matter of debate, as they were resolved that this act of public justice, as they deemed it, should be done in the face of day : some proposed the Field of Mars, others the Via Sacra or the entrance of the theatre; but as (he senate were to meet in the Curia of Pompeius on the ides of March, that place and day were finally fixed on. It is said moreover t))at Cffisar knew that there was a conspiracy against him, but that he disdained to take any precautions, saying that he would rather die at puce by treachery than live in fe^r qF it ; that he had lived long eupugh, and that the state would be a greater, laser than he by his death. On the morning of the ides (15th) of March, Brutus and Cassius s the curia of Pompeius, in which he was slain. Suddenly two armed soldiers advanced with lighted tapers and set fire to the bier ; the crowd broke up all the seats and got brushwood and every thing else that came to hand to feed the flames ; the musicians and players threw on them their dresses, the veterans their arms, the women their own and their children's ornaments to honor Caesar. The mob then attempted to set fire to the houses of the conspirators, and they murdered C. Ilelvius Cinna, a tribune, and one ol CiPsar's friends, mistaking him for his namesake the praetor, and carried his hef^d about on a spear. The conspirators now found it advisable to leave Rome; but Antonius, not feeling himself yet strong enough to act as he intended, still wore the mask of moderation. He * Suetonius. Jul. Caesar, 84. Others say he displayed Ceesar'fl blot>dy robe and excited the people to vengeance ; but this cannot hav» been, as it was his policy now to keep fair with the con«pirators. CONnUCT OF ANTONIUS. 449 ipoke highly of Brutus and Cassius, obtained leave for them, t'hough prajtors, to stay away from the city, and had a de- cree passed abolishing forever the name and office of dic- tator. As the mob had erected an altar with a pillar on the spot where they had burnt Caesar's body and offered sacri- fices on it, he seized and put their ringleader to death ; and Dolabella afterwards demolished the pillar and altar, and executed several of the most riotous of the mob. Antonius, having made a tour through Italy to collect the veterans and draw them toward Rome, assembled the senate on the 1st of June; when as none ventured to appear but his own partisans, he had what decrees he pleased passed. Pretending fear on account of the decrees in favor of the republic, he asked for a guard to protect him, and when it was granted, he surrounded himself with six thousand vet- erans. He then had the execution of Ciesar's acts com- mitted to the consuls, and as he had Cresar's papers and his secretary Faberius in his hands he now could forge and do as he pleased. He therefore recalled exiles, granted immu- nities to whom he chose and who could pay for them,* and thus amassed a large quantity of money. Calpurnia, Csb- sar's wife, had, in her first terror, given up to him all the ready money that Caesar had left behind him, amounting to 100,000,000 sesterces, and he seized the public treasure of 700,000,000 sesterces which Caesar had .placed in the tem- ple of Ops. He thus had been enabled to pay off his own debts of 40,000,000 sesterces, purchase over his colleague Dolabella, and gain the soldiery to his side. As Sex. Pom- peius was again in arms, Antonius and Lepidus, aware of the annoyance he might give them, had a decree passed restoring him to his estates t and honors, and giving him the command at sea with as full powers as his father had enjoyed. The young C. Octavius, a youth of nineteen years of age, was at Apollonia pursuing his studies at the time of Caesar's death : the officers of the troops about there waited on him with a tender of their services, and some of his friends ad- * Though Cajear hated no man more than Deiotarus, Antonius re- stored him his dominions, in compliance, as he said, with the will of Csesar The price paid by the king was 10.000,000 sesterces : the bar- gain was made by his assents with Fulvia the wife of Antonius. t Ii may give some idea of the wealth of the Roman nobles to know that Pompeius' property (independent of his plate and jewels) waa valued at 700,000,000 sesterces, or £5,651,037 of our money. 38* E E E 450 UISTORY OF ROME. vised him to accept them ; hut this course did not suit his naturally cautious temper, and he only said that he would go to Rome and claim his uncle's estates. In the present posture of affairs even this course seemed too hazardous to many of his friends, and his mother Atia and her husband L. Marcius Philippus wrote to dissuade iiiin from it. He how- ever persisted, and on his landing at Brundisium, the vete- rans flocked to him complaining of Antonius" tardiness to avenge the death of Cassar. He thence proceeded to join his mother at Cumre, and there he was introduced to Cicero, whom he assured that he would be always governed by his advice. Octavius then set out for Rome ; when he came near the city crowds of Caesar's friends met him and attended him on his entrance. Next day, having had his claim duly registered, he went to M. Antonius and demanded posses- sion of his uncle's money and assets, that lie might pay the legacies. Antonius made a brief reply, telling him he wag young arid did not know what he was about ; he impeded him in getting his adoption confirmed by the curies ; and further, when Octavius, though a patrician, sought the tribunate vacant by the murder of Helvius Cinna, Antonius also opi)Osed him. Octavius, (whom we shall henceforth call Caisar,*) seeing he had no hopes of Antonius, turned to the senate and peo- ple; the former see^ned disposed to favor him against An- tonius, and he easily won the latter by a promise of even more money than Caesar had left them in his will, and of treating them with splendid shows. To perform these prom- ises he had to sell his own estate and his succession to his uncle's, and even those of his mother and his father-in- law, who now su|)ported him heartily. Brutus and Cassius soon after left Italy, regarding their • cause there as lost, and the chief hope of the republicans lav ni the increasing coolness between C.rsiir and Antonius. The latter did all in his power to gain the veterans; he estranged himself more and more from the republican party, which therefore looked to his rival, who, it is said, formed a design against his life, and sent some slaves to his house to assassinate him.t They both began to make preparations • By the rule of adoption, 1)18 name now became C. Julius Cmsar OctaviSnus. It is quite an error to call him henceforth Octavius ; we might as well call the younger Africanus iGniilius. t Suet. Ocluv. 10, QUARREL BETWISX OCTAVIUS AND ANTONIUS. 451 for war, and Antonius ir the beginning of October set out for Brundisiuin to meet four legions which he had recalled from Macedonia. Cassar sent his agents to try to purchase the fidelity of these legions ; he himself went to solicit the veterans settled about Capua, and as he gave 500 denars a man, a number of them joined him. Antonius was but coolly received by the soldiers, and when he offered them 100 denars each, they left his tribunal with contempt. In a rage he summoned the centurions whom he suspected to his quarters, and had them massacred in the presence of himself and his wife Fulvia. Caesar's agents took advantage of this to gain over the soldiers, and but one of the legions could be induced to follow Antonius to Rome ; the other three marched along the coast without declaring for either side. At Rome Antonius published several edicts in abuse of Caesar, Cicero, and others, and he had summoned the senate with the intention of having Caesar declared a public enemy ; but hearing that the three legions had declared for him, he left Rome in haste, and putting himself at the head of his troops set out for Cisalpine Gaul, which, though the province of D. Brutus, he had made the people decree to himself without asking the consent of the senate. Rome being now free from the presence of Antonius' troops, Cicero ventured to return to it ; and having received an assurance that Caesar would be a friend to Brutus, and seen that he allowed Casca, who had given the dictator the first blow, to enter on the tribunate to which he had been elected, he resolved to keep no measures with Antonius ; both in the senate and to the people he inveighed against him, extolling Caesar and D. Brutus, and calling on the senate to act with vigor in the defence of the republic* The remainder of the year was spent in making prepara- tions for war against Antonius, who was now actually be- sieging D. Brutus in Miitina. Caesar, with the approbation of Cicero, who had procured him the title of proprietor, marched after Antonius to watch his movements. On the first of January (709) the new consuls, A. Hir- tius and C. Vibius Pansa, entered on their office ; and in the senate, in spite of the eloquence of Cicero, the motion of Q,. Fufius Calenus to send an embassy to Antonius was carried, after a debate of three days. Three consulars, Sex. * The speeches, fourteen in number, delivered by Cicero against Antonius are called Philippics, after those of Demosthenes. '452 'I'/'fiT'/A nV'HISTORT OF ROME.; 1 .. !; , > Salpicius, L. Piso, and L. Philippus were sent. Meantime the levies Went on with great spirit, and an afniy under Hirtius took the field against Antonius. The embassy hav- ing been detained by the illness and death of Sulpicius, did not return till the beginning of February, when the senate was informed that Antonius refused obediehce unless they would confirm all the acts of his consulate, give lands and rewards to all his troops, and to himself the govern- ment of Transalpine Gaul for five years, with six legions. On the motion of Cicero, Antonius was then in effect, though not in words, declared a public enemy, and the people were ordered to assume the sagum, or military habit. As Brutus was closely pressed in Mutina, attempts were made in the senate to have the negotiations with Antonius renewed, but they were defeated by the forcible eloquence of Cicero; and Pansa at length set out about the middle of March to attempt the relief of Brutus. When Antonius heard of Pansa's approach he secretly drew out his best troops to attack him before he should join Hirtius. On the 15th of April, the day that Paiis^ was to enter Hirtius' camp, he found the horse and Hght troops of Antonius, who kept his legions out of view in an adjaipeni village, prepared to oppose him. A pa^rt qf his troops charged them without waiting for orders; Antonius brought out his legions ; the action became brisk and general ; and Pansa's troops were finally driven to their camp, which Anto- nius vainly attempted to storm; and as he was returning he was met by Hirtius and defeated with great loss, and another body of his troops, which attacked Hirtius' camp, was driven off by Cfesar, who commanded there. Three or four d-^ys after, Hirtius ami Cicsar made a vigorous attack on the ca'np of Antonius, who drew out his legions and gave them battf*> ; in the heat of the action Brutus made a sally frojn the town. Hirtius forced his way into the camp, but was ^lain near the prfftorhim ; Cajsar however completed the victory, and An- tonius fled with his cavalry toward the Alps. 'Th6 consul Pansa, who li:id been severely wounded in tie first engagement, died the next day at Bononia, (Bologna,) whither he had been conveyed. The deaths of the two consuls "happened so very opportunely for Caesar, that he vvas accused, though certainly without reason, of having caused them.* He was now at the head of nearly the entire army, for the vete- •••I'ii- ' * Suet. Octav. U. C^SAR MADE CONSUL. 453 rans would not serve under Brutus, who was thus unable to pursue Antonius; and as Caesar, having other views, would not follow him, he was able to f»rm a junction with his legate P. Ventidius, who was bringing him three legions, and to effect his retreat over the Alps. At Rome, on the motion of Cicero, all kinds of honors were lavished on the slain and living generals ; and, among the rest, the lesser triumph, named ovation, was decreed to Caesar. There were in this time two Roman armies in Gaul, the ox\e commanded by Lepidus, who had stopped there on his way to Spain, the other by L. Munatius Plancus, the con- sul elect. The former, though he had sent reiterated assur- ances of fidelity to the senate, joined Antonius when he came to the vicinity of his camp : the latter united his forces with those of D. Brutus; but when he found that Asinius PoUio had led two legions out of Spain to the aid of the rebels (for Lepidus had been also declared a public enemy) he took the same side, and even attempted to betray Brutus to them. Brutus endeavored to make his escape to M. Brutus, who was in Macedonia, but he was betrayed and taken and put to death by the soldiers whom Antonius had sent in pursuit of him, Cajsar, not content with the honors decreed him, demand- ed, it is said, a triumph, and on its being refused began to think of a reconciliation with Antonius. Though but a youth he then resolved to claim the consulate, and it is also said that he induced Cicero to approve of his project by flattering his self-love, holding out to him the prospect of becoming his collerigue and his director. As however no one could be found to propose him, he sent a deputation of his officers to demand it. The senate hesitated ; ,the centurion Cornelius, throwing back his cloak, showed the hilt of his sword and said, *' This will make him if you will not." Caesar himself soon appeared at the head of his troops ; two legions which were just arrived from Africa, and had been set to defend the Janiculan, went over to him; no opppsition could be made; an assembly of the people chose him and his cousin Q,. Pe- dius consuls, and they entered on their office on the I9th of the month Sextilis. CfEsar was now resolved to keep meas- ures no longer with the republican party. Pedius proposed a law for bringing to trial all concerned, directly or indi- rectly, in causing the dictator's death ; the conspirators were all impeached, and none of course appearing thfey were out- lawed. Sex. Pompeius, though he bad not had the slightest 4.'i4 HISTORY OF ^OME. concern in the deed, was included in the sentence, at) the object pioposed was not to avenge the death of the elder, but to establish the power of the younger Caesar, who for this purpose now distributed to the citizens the legacies left ihem by his uncle. Having settled the aflairs of the city to his mind, Csesar set out with his troops to hold the personal interview, which had been long since arranged, with Lepidus and Antonius, who had passed the Alps for the purpose. The place of meet- ing was a small island in a stream named the Rhenus, (Reno,) about two miles from Bononia. Each encamped with five le- gions ill view of the island, which Lepidus entered the first to see that all was safe; and on his giving the signal, Csesar and Antonius approached and passed over to it from the opposite banks by bridges, which they left guarded each by three hundred men. Tliey first, it is said, searched each other to see that they had no concealed weapons, and then sat in conference during three days, the middle seat being given to Cajsar as consul. It was agreed among them, that under the title of Triumvirs for settling the Republic they should jointly hold the supreme power for five years, appoint to all offices, and decide on all public affairs; that Caesar should have for his province Afrii^ii, Sicily, and the other islands, Lepidus Spain and Narbonese Gaul, and Antonius the two other Gauls both sides of the Alps; that Ca?sar and An- tonius, each with twenty legions, should prosecute the war against Brutus and Cassius, and Lepidus where the body of Brytus lay, cast a purple robe over it and he sent his remains to his mother Servilia.t * Ziv, fill iu^oi o» xmvS (ig ai'rioj naxajv. Dion fxJvii. 49) and Florus (iv. 7) say th^^ b0.ji>9p«sfL^d/, tliesc ^ereea from the Hercules of the same poet : •Si TAifftoj' tt^tTi,, Xoyof a^' 1/09'' iyat di at 'Hi fQyov rflxuvv av i' aq 'tS(jvXtvt(; Tv^if. , , "O vretclted, victue ! a mere word thou art„ but 1 Practised thee as a real thing, while thou art nought ',, But Fortune's slave." ' •' " '' ' t It was said that Brutus' wife Porcia, when she heard of his death, put an end to herself by swallowing burning coals, — a thing physically impossible. She might have smothered herself by inhaling the Aimes of charcoal ; but it appears Iron) the letters of Brutus atidhiv friends that she had died of disease before this time. As the charge of avarice is the greatest stain that has teen fixed on the character of Brutus, we will here relate the case which has given occasion to it. When Cicero was going out as governor of Cuicia, Brutus strongly recommended to him two persons named Scaptius and ilatinius, to whom the people of Salamis in Cyprus owed a largo sum of money. Cicero's predecessor, Ap. Claudius, who was Brutus' father- in-law, had given Scaptius a prefecture in Cyprus, which Brutus wished Ciceto to continue hiui in ; but Cicero, who had laid ii down aa a rule not to grant tliese Commands to traders ;uid usurers, refused ; particu- larly as he knew thnf Sc4iptiu8 had shut up the senate of Salami? in their house till five of them died of hunger. Moreover Scaptius de- manded 48 per cent., and Cicero in his edict had declared that he would allow of no more than 12 per cent, on any bonde. Brutus and AtticuB both wrote repeatedly to Cicero about, it, and the former at length con- fcseed th^t he was the ij^fil qr^ditor and the others were but hip agents. To Cicero's honor he stood firm, and would not jierniii such robbery and oppression when he conld prevent it. This affair is but 6rte proof among many ol the manner in which the Roman nobles oppressed tjiff prcTiaclalt. ANTONIUS IN ASIA. All wha had beea concerned in the death of C^sar 'fol- lowed the example of Brutus ; others made their escape to Tliasos, M. Vialerius Messala and Bibulus having collected about fourteen thousand men, sent to offer their, submission to the triumvirs. The victorious generals spent some days in glutting their vengeance and extirpating the friends of in- dependence; and we are assured that the cool, calculating Cssar far surpassed the brutal Antonius in cruelty and inso- lence.* They then made a new division of the empire; An- tonius getting all the provinces of the East ; CtBsar those of the west, exctept Africa, which was left to Lepidus • Italy, as their common country, remained unappropriated. Having made their arrangements, Antonius proceeded to levy money in the East for the soldiers' rewards, while Caesar undertook to put them in possession of the lands promised them in Italy Antonius went first to Greece, and spent some time at Athens, where he amused himself attending the games and the disputes of the philosophers, and having himself initiated in the Mysteries. He behaved with great mildness and was very liberal to the city. Leaving L. Censorinus to command in Greece, he passed with his army of eight legions and ten thousand horse over to Asia, where he disposed of public and private property at his will ; kings waited humbly at his doors, queens and princesses vied in offering him their wealth and their charms. He exacted from the unfortunate people the enor- mous sum of 200,000 talents, most part of which he squan- dered away in luxury. Meeting at Ephesus several of the friends of Brutus and Cassius, he granted their lives to all but two; he acted also with great generosity to the towns which had suffered for their attachment to the Caesarian cause. From Tarsus in Cilicia he sent to summon Cleopatra (who having murdered her young brother was now sole sovereign of Egypt) to justify herself for not having been more active in the cause of the triumvirs. She came, relying on her charms. At the mouth of the Cydnus she entered a barge, whose poop was adorned with gold arid whose sails were of purple; the oars, set with silver, moved in accordance with the sound of flutes and lyres. The queen herself, attired as Venus, lay reclined beneath the shade of a gold-embroidered umbrella, fanned by boys resembling Loves ; while her fe- male attendants, habited as Nereides and Graces, leaned against the shrouds and sides of the vessel ; and costly spices * Suet. Octav. 13. 39* 462 HISTORY >F ROME. and perfumes, as they burned before her, filled the surround- ing air with their fragrance. All the people of the city crowded to behold this novel sight, and Antonius was left sitting alone on his tribunal in the market. He sent to invite the fair queen to supper, but she required that he should come and sup with her. Antonius could not refuse; the elegance and variety of the banquet amazed him : next day lie tried, but in vain, to surpass it. The guileful en- chantress cast her spell over hini and twined herself round his heart. Cruel as fair, she obtained from him an order to drag her sister Arsinoe from the sanctuary at Ephesus, and put her to death. Her general Serapion, and an impostor who personated her elder brother, were likewise torn from sanctuaries and given up to her vengeance, and she then set out on her return to Egypt. Antonius, unable to live with- out her, gave up all his previous thouglits of war on the Parthians, and putting his troops into winter quarters, has- tened to follow her and abandoned himself wholly to luxury and enjoyment in her society. Meantime Ctesar came to Rome, (711,) and set about giv- ing his soldiers their promised rewards ; a ta.«k of no small difficulty and danger, for they demanded the towns which had been fixed on before the war, while the people of these towns required that the loss should be shared by all Italy, and that those who were deprived of their lands should be paid for them. Young and old, men, women, and children, they repaired to Rome ; they filled the Forum and temples with their lamentations; and the people there sympathized with their grief and mourned their wrongs.* Ca'sar, however, urging the tyrant's plea of necessity, went on distributing lands to his soldiery ; and he even borrowed money from the tem- ples to divide among them for the purchase of stock imd farming implements. This gained him additional favor with them, which was increased by the cries and reproaches of those whom he was robbing of their properties for them Like every army of the kind, they knew tiieir power over their chief, and exercised it with insolence, as the following instances will show. One day, when Caesar was present in the theatre, a common soldier went and took his seat among the knights ; the people murmured, and Ca;sar had him re- moved. . The soldiers took ofiencc at this, and surrounding * See the first and ninth of Virgil eclogues for affecting picture* of Uie evils of these confiscations CiESAR S DISTR. BUTION OF LANDS. 463 him as he was going out. of the theatre demanded tlieir com- rade's release : they were obeyed ; he came ; but wlien he as- BLired them that he had not been in prison as they supposed, they reviled him as a liar and a traitor to the common cause. Again, Ciesar summoned them to the Field of Mars for a di- vision of lands. In their eagerness they came before it was day, and finding that he delayed, they began to grow angry. A centurion named Nonius reminded them of their duty to their general , they laughed and jeered at him, but gradually they grew warm and abused and pelted him ; he jumped into the river to escape, but they dragged him out and killed him : they then laid the body where Cajsar was to pass. When he came he took but little notice of it, afFecling to regard the crime as the deed of a few, and merely advised them to be more sparing of one another in future ; he then proceeded to distribute the land, to which he added gifts to both the de- serving and the undeserving. The soldiers were touched, they bade him to search out and punish the murderers. He said, " I know them ; but I will leave their punishment to their own consciences and to your disapprobation." A shout of joy was raised at these words. How different from the conduct of the old dictators and consuls, and their armies, when Rome had a constitution and freedom, and her troops served from duty and not for plunder, like these hordes of bandits who raised their leaders to empire over their fellow- citizens! Cajsar's situation was at this time rather precarious. Sex Pompeius was powerful at sea, Cn. Domitius was also at the head of a large fleet in the Adriatic, and they cut off the supplies of corn from Italy, where tillage was now neglected and discontent was general ; for the soldiers, not satisfies with what had been given them, seized on such pieces of lano as took their fancy, and Caesar did not dare to check them. Antonius' wife Fulvia, and his brother Lucius, who was now consul, resolved to take advantage of this state of things. They promised to protect those who had been deprived of their lands, and declared that the properties of the proscribed and the money raised by Antonius in Asia were quite sufficient for paying the soldiers what had been promised them ; and they ga\e out that Antonius was willing to lay down his power and restore the constitution. They required Ciesar at any rate to be content with providing for his own legions, and to leave those of Antonius to them; but Caesar, wh)se object was to attach the soldiery to ^limself, declined this, al 16i HISTORY OF ROME. leging his agreement with Antonius ; aware liowever of the affection of the army for Antonius, and of the present enmity of the people of Italy to himself, he agreed to the terms which a congress of the officers of Antonius party proposed for ending the differences. He did not however execute them, and L. Antonius i -id Fulvia, affecting to fear for their lives, retired to Pra-nest*;, and scut to inform M. Antonius of the state of affairs. After another vain attempt at reconciliation both sides began to prepare for war. The good wishes, and in some cases the means and arms of the people of Italy were with L. Antonius; the remains of the Pompeian and republican parties joined him in the hope of restoring the republic, and hia brother's legions and colo- nies supported him ; but most of the veterans regarding CtEsar's cause ks their own were zealous in his favor. An- tonius' generaJs Pollio, Vcntidius, and Plancus do not seem to have exerted themselves as they ought, and L. Antonius, being obliged to throw himself into the town of Perusia, (Perugia,) was there besiege«l by Cus:ir. After a gallant de- fence, famine compelled him to surrender, (~12.) Caesar granted him and liis soldiers favorable terms, but for the Roman senators and knights, the remnant of the Pompeian or republican party who were in it, he had no mercy. " Thou must die," was his laconic, ruthless reply to every one who sued for mercy or sought to excuse himself. Nay, it is even said, that he reserved three lumdred captives of rank to sac- rifice to the nfanes of the dictator on the following ides of March.* The town of Perusia was destined to be plundered, but one of its citizens having set fire to his house th^< Whole city was consumed. This last effort of the republican party crushed their hopes forever, and it threw several more properties for confiscation into Caesar's hands; some indeed were of opinion that it was with a view to this that he had kindled the war.t Several persons, among whom was Julia the mother of the Antonii, sought refuge with Sex. Pompeius. Fulvia with her children and Plancus fled to Greece. M. Antonius was preparing to mj.rch against the Parthians, who had invaded Syria and taken and plundered Jerusalem, when he heard of the late events in Italy. He assembled two hundred ships and a large army and sailed to Athens, where DC met Fulvia, whom he blamed much for her recent conduct . • Sucton. Octav. 15. t Id. iU. RETURN OF ANTONIUS TO ITALY. 4J55 and leaving her sick at Sicyon, where she died soon after, he proceeded toward Italy. Domitius joined him with his fleet, and Sex. Ponipeius (though Cajsar in the hopes of gaining him to his side had lately married Scribonia, the sister of his father-in-law Libo, a woman many years older than himself*) preferring an alliance with Antonius, sent his mother Julia to him, aiid a kind of treaty was concluded between them. When Antonius came before Brundisium he was refused ad- mittance ; he then blockaded the port, and sent calling on Pom- peius to invade Italy. Caesar came to the relief of Brundisium : but his soldiers were unwilling to fight against Antonius and the two armies sought to reconcile their leaders. C. Asin^ ius Pollio and C. Cilnius Mascenas on the parts of Antonius* and Cajsar, and M. Cocceius Nerva a common friend, came,t and, having conferred together, settled the terms of agree- ment. All past offences were to be forgotten ; Antonius, who was naw a widower, was to espouse Ciesar's half-sister Oc- tavia, a lady of great beauty, sense and virtue; and the divis- ion of the empire was to remain nearly as before. J Antonius sent Ventidius to conduct the Parthian war, while he himself remained in Italy. The chief object now was to come to some arrangement with Sex. Pompeius, who was actually starving Rome by cutting off the supplies of corn. Caesar, who was personally hostile to him, would not hear of accommodation till one day he was. near being stoned by the famishing multitude. This operated on his cautious, timid nature, and the two triumvirs had an interview with Pompeius at Cape Misenum, but his demands were so high that nothing could be arranged. The increasing distress obliged them to have another meeting, and it was agreed (713) that Pompeius should possess the islands and Pelopon- nesus, be chosen augur, be allowed to stand for the consulate in his absence, and to discharge its duties by deputy, and be paid 70,000,000 sesterces; that all who had sought refuge with him out of fear should be restored to their estates and rights, and all the proscribed (except the actual assassins) have liberty to return and get back a fourth of their estates. * Caesar, on the rupture with Fulvia, sent her back her davghter Clodia, having never consummated his marriage. t Horace (Sat. I. v.) has given a very agreeab e description of the journey of MiEconas, whom he accompanied from Rome to Brundisium on this occasion. t The blessings which. were to result from tl^is p^aue are, as Vopi has proved, the theme of Virgil's fourth eclogue. ' ' ,' ' ' '■' ade ■'■■ ' -^' HISTORY or ROME. On his part he was to allow the sea to be free, sm] to jiay up the arrears of corn due from Sicily. When the peace was con- cluded the chiefs entertained each other ; Poropeius gave his dinner on board his ship. At the feast, Menas, one of his officers, whispered him, saying, " Let me now cot the cable*, and you are master of Rome." Pompeius po4>dered a mp. ment : " You should have done it," sard he, " without telling me; I cannot perjure myself" Having been entertained in return he set sail for Sicily, and Csesar and Antonius went back to Rome; the latter soon after set out for Atb«n9, where he spent the rest of the year. The, following year (714) Ventidius, who had been suc- cessful against the Parthians, defeated and killed their brave young prince Pacorus, for which Antonius allowed him to have the honor of a triumph.* In this year al'so the war was renewed between C.-csar and Pompeius: and Meiia.s, the admiral of the latter, having deserted to Caesar, pot him in possession of Sardinia and Corsica. CcBsar assailed Sicily \vith two separate fleets, but both were destroyed by Pora- I peius; and Cajsar himself, who was on board of one of them, narrowly escaped being taken or drowned. The triumvirs Sow of themselves renewed their office for another five years, isdaining to consult the senate or people. The whole of the succeeding year (715) was devoted by Caspar tothe prep- arations against Pompeius, and a larfje fleet was built under the superintendence of the consul, M. Vipsanius Agrippa, a man of humble birth, but of great civil and military talents, ami wholly devoted to the service of Ca?sar.f I^arly in the following year (710) when Ca?sar was pre- paring to act against Pompeius, Antonius came with three hundred ships to Brundisium, under the pretext of assisting hi^i, but in reality with other views. Being refused admit- tance he sailed to Tarciitum, whence Octavia went to her ibrotheri and by her influence with his friends Agrippa and jVlaecenas, prevailed on hirh to agree to a meeting with An- jpnius The cautious Ca-sar appointed a place where there would be a river between them, but when they came to it, • Ventidius, who was the son of the general of the same name in tlie JVIarsic war, had himself adorned as a captive the triumph of ^,qmpeiu^ Slfabo at the end of that war. f At this time the celebrated Julian Port was made, by running- a nl^rpng mole bet» 'een the Lucrine lake and the sea, with two passages tn it for ships, and ;utfing a shi^-canal from that like to lake Avier&us. ' See Viry Goor, ii. l6l. Horace, De Art. Poet. 63. WAR WITH SEX. POMPEIUS. 461 Antonius, more brave and more generous, jumped into a boat to cross o\er ; Caesar then, assuming the virtue he l»ad not, did the same ; they met in the middle, and then dis- puting which should pass over, Caesar prevailed, as he said *ie' would go to Tarentum to visit his sister. They soon arranged all matters : Antonius lent Caesar one hundred and twenty ships, and received in return twenty thousand soldiers for his Parthian war, and he then set out for the East, leav- ing Octavia in Italy. I Cjesar, having every thing t»w' prepared, resolved to make three simultaneous attacks oli Sicily. Lepidus was to invade it ffom Africa, Statilius Taurus with the ships of Antonius from Tarentum, Caesar himself and Agrippa from the Julian Port. Lepidus alone feffectdd a lauding; the other twa fleets were shattered by. a tempest. Pouipeius, affecting to view the peculiar favor of the sea-god ni this destruction of the hostile fleet by a summer-tempest, sacrificed to Neptune and the Sea, (Amphitrite,) styled himself their son^ and changed the color of his robe from purple to dark-h\ue, (coiruleus.) CsGsar declared that he would conquer in spite of Neptune, and forbade the image of that god to be carried at the nex,t CiTcensian games.* . i ■ Lepidus had with him twelve legions and five thousand Numidian horse ; he sent orders to his remaining four le- gions to come and join him, but they were met on the pas- sage by Papias, one of Pompeius' commanders, and two of them destroyed ; the other two found means to join him some tinrve after. CcEsar's fleet having passed over to the Liparcean isles sailed thence under the command of Agrippa, and engaged that of Pompeius led by his admirals Papias, Menecrates, and Apollophanes, off Mylae. C-esar's ^hips vvere larger, those of Pompeius lighter and more active ; the former had the better soldiei's, the latter 'the better sailors, but Agrippa had invented grappling implements, somewhat like the old ravens. The fight was long and obstinate ; at length the Pompeians fled with the loss of thirty vessels. Agrippa sailed thence and made an ineffectual attempt an the town of Tyndaris. m -n CfBsar had gone to Taui'us' camp at Scylaceum, intending to pass over in the night from Rhegium to Sicily ; but he took courage 'when he heard of Agrippa's success, and hav- ng first prudently ascended a lofty hill to assure himself that ->■'' ■■ <"'• i. .:i;!; ■.,; ■ • ; ,, :. tii)'-^ ■ ,11!'..' ''''^'fil • Suet. Octav. 1&. 468 HISTORY OF ROVE. no enerriy was in sight, he went on board with what troops his ships could carry, leaving the rest with Messala till he could send the ships back for them. Being refused adinit-< tance into Taiirominiam he sailed further on, and landing, began to Encamp, but suddenly Pompeius was seen coining with a large fleet, and bodies of horse and foot appeared an all sides. Had Pompeius now made a general attack he might hafe gained a complete victory, but as it was evening he did not wish to engage, and his cavalry alone assailed the enemy. Dnring the night the C^sarians fortified their camp, and CcBsar leaving the command with L. Cornificius, and d** siring him to hold out to the last, embarked to return to Italy for succors; his vessel being hotly pursued he was obliged to get into a small boat to s*ave himself, and he escaped with difficulty. Pompeius next day fell on and destroyed the whoJe Caesarian fleet, and Cornificius soon began to be in want of provisions ; having vainly offered the enemy battle he re- solved to abaiKlon his camp and march for Mylai, and though harassed by the enemy's horse and light troo|)s, and suffer- ing from heat, thirst, and fatigue dnring five days, his troops effected their retreat. Agrippa had now taken Tyndaris, whither Caesar soon transported twenty-one legions, twenty thousand horse and five thousand light troops. Lepidus moved from Lilyba'um, and their united forces met before the walls of Messana. Pompeius seeing no hopes but in a gen- eral battle sent to propose a combat of three hundred ships a-si(le, and Ctesar, jealous of Lepidus, departed from his usual caution and accepted the challenge. The victory was complete on the side of Cassar. Pompeius' land army, with the exception of eight legions in Messana, surrendered, and he himself, with his seventeen sole remaining ships abandon- ing Sicily, passed ov«r to Asia, where raising a new war he was taken and put to deadi by P. Titius, one of Antonius' officers. Messana soon surrendered, and the whole island sub- mitted ; Cffl.sar then proceeded to deprive his colleague Lepidus of his oflice and power; and having ascertained the temper of his officers and men, he ventured to enter his camp with a few attendants. Lopidus being deserted by his troops WAS forced to assume the garb of a suppliant, and throw himself at the feet of Caesar, who, never wan- tonly crnel, and knowing how powerless he would remain, raised him, granted him his life, and allowed him to pass I I I t PARTHIAN WAR. 469 tne rest of ais days at Cjrceii, retaining his dignity of high priest As Cffisar was preparing to return to Italy, a mutiny broke out, his troops demanding their discharge and re- wards equal to those of the victors at Philippi. He threat- ened and remonstrated in vain ; when he promised crowns and purple robes, one of the tribunes cried out that these were only fit for children, but that soldiers required monqy and lands. The soldiers loudly applauded ; Ccesar left the tribunal in a rage; the tribune was extolled, but that very night he disappeared, and was heard of no more. As the soldiers still continued to clamor for their discharge, Cs suffered se- verely from famine and thirst; but at length they reached and got over the Araxes, having in the retreat sustained a loss of 20,000 foot apd 4000 horse. Instead of wintering in Armenia he set out for Syria, impatient to rejoin Cleo- patra , in the march to which he lost eight thousand more of his men. The queen came to Berytus to m«et him, and 40 470 HISTORY OF KOME. h6 -Vetut'neid with her to Alexandria, 'where they oass^d' tlW*- winter in feasting and revelry. "''M In the year 718, Aiitonhis, in alliance with t4ie king of the Medes, entered Armenia, and by treachery inade its king a prisoner. He defeated the Armenians when they took up arms, and on his return to Alexandria he tri- umphed after the Roman fashion, — a thing which gave the greatest possible offence to the people of Rome when they iieard of it. The next year (719) he marched again to the Araxes, and concluded arj alliance offensive and defensive with the king of Media, to whom he gave a part of Arme- nia. On his return to Egypt he acted with the greatest extravagance. He 'and Cleopatra sat in public on golden thrones, the one attired as Bacchus, the other as Isis ; * he declared her his lawful wife, and queen of Egypt, Libya, Cyprus, and Coele-Syria, associating with her Cajsarion, her son by CtEsar, and giving kingdoms to the two eons whom she had borne to himself The most unbounded luxury followed this degradation of the majesty of Rome. '"' When Antonius was setting out on his second expeditioii against the Parthians, (710,) Octavia obtained leave from her brother to go and join him ; but Antonius, urged by Cleopatra, sent word to her to return to Italy. Ca;sar, glad perhaps of the pretext for war, laid before the senate the whole of Antonius' conduct, (720,) who in revenge sent Octavia a divorce ; and, after various insulting messages and letters on botii sides, Antonius directed his general P. Canidius to march sixteen legions to Ephesus, whither he himself soon after repaired with Cleopatra; and here he was joined by the consuls Cn. Domitius and C. Sosius, and his other friends who had come from Italy. Domitius urged him in vain to send away Cleopatra; she gained over Canidius, and Antonius was unable to resist their joint arguments. He and she passed over to Samos, and spent their days in revelry, while the kings of the East were for- warding their troop;; and stores to Ephesus. From Samos they went to Athens, where they passed some time. CfEsar meantime was rnaking his preparations in Italy, for which purpose he was obliged to lay on heavy taxes. As the peoplfe were in ill humor at this, he sought by all * At 9pe pf these banquets Cleopatra dissolved aod .drank a f^Ki in jreatlince. Pfmy, H. N, ix. 35, 50 ' "'^ ' '"' »:"« '' HUPTURE BKTWEEN C^SaR AND ANTONIUS. 471 means to render Antonius odious and contemptible in their eyes ; and Plancus, who deserted to him at this time, having informed him of the contents of Antonius' will, he forced the Vestals, iti whose custody it was, to give it up, and then most basely and dishonorably made it public. He had a decree passed depriving Antonius of the triumvirate and declaring war against Cleopatra, affecting to believe that she, not Antonius, was the real leader of the hostile forces. In the autumn Antonius sailed to Corcyra, but not ven- turing to pass over to Italy, he retired to Peloponnesus for the winter. The next year (721) Antonius occupied the bay of Am- bracia with his fleet; that of Caisar lay at Brundisium and the adjacent ports, whence Agrippa sailed with a division and took the town of Methone, (Modon,) and seized a large convoy. CcEsar then embarked his army, and landing at the Ceraunian mountains, marched and encamped on the north side of the bay of Ambracia ; the army of Antonius was on the south side ; and they thus lay opposite each other for some months. Meantime Agrippa took Patrae, Corinth and some other towns ; and Domitius and other leaders deserted to Caesar. Antonius' land forces amounted to 100,000 foot and 12,000 horse, besides the auxiliaries ; his fleet counte,d 500 ships. Caesar had 80,000 foot, 12,000 horse, and 250 ships ; his troops and sailors were both superior to those of his op- ponent ; his ships, though smaller in size, were better built and better manned. The great question with Antonius was, whether he should risk a land or a sea battle. Canid- ius was for the former, Cleopatra for tli^ latter, and the queen of course prevailed. Antonius selected 170 of his best ships, which were all he could fully man, and burned the rest ; with these he joined Cleopatra's 60 vessels, and he put 20,000 soldiers on board. On the 2d of September he drew up his fleet in line of battle before the mouth of the bay. Caesar's fleet, led by Agrippa, kept about a mile out to sea; the two land armies, the one from the cape of Actium, the other from the opposite point, stood as specta- tors of the combat, Antonius had directed his officers to '_ keep close to shore, and thus render the agility of the ene- [ my's vessels ot no avail ; but when about noon a breeze sprang up, his left wing, eager to engage, began to advance. Agrippa made his right wing fall back, to draw it on ; the engagement soon became general and both sides fought JJ 472 .-;'n.::i. historx of kome. with great courage; but in the midst of the action, whether from fe;ir, treachery, or a conviction that the battle would be lost, Cleopatra, followed by all her ships, turned and fled for Egypt : and Anton ius, when he saw her going, left the battle and followed after her. The battle still lasted till five in the evening, when finding themselves abandoned by their leader, the naval forces accepted the offers of Caesar and submitted to him. The land army refused for seven days to listen to his solicitations ; but at length, being deserted by Canidius and their other leaders, they yielded to necessity and submitted. Caesar, having made offerings to Apollo of Actium, sent home his veterans with Agrippa ; he then pro- ceeded to Athens, and thence to Asia; but he was obliged to return to Italy in the middle of the winter, on account of the turbulence of the veterans, whom Agrippa could not keep in order. Wb^i^n Antonius overtook Cleopatra he went on board of her ship, but during three days he sat in silence, refusing to see her. At Tainaron in Laconia her women brougjit about a reconciliation, and Antonius having written to Canidius to lead the army to Asia, they sailed for Egypt ; they parted on the confines of Cyrene, but when Antonius found that the governor of this province also had declared fbr Caesar, it was with difficulty that his friends were able to keep him from destroying himself They brought him to Alexandria, where Cleopatra was busily engaged in a new project ; she had had some of her ships hauled over the Isthmus of Suez, intending to fly with her treasures to some unknown region ; but the Arabs, at the instance of Didius, who commanded for Cffisar in Syria, burned her vessels and thus frustrated her design. She then began to put her kingdom into a state of defence. Nevertheless, she, Antonius, and their friends, were resolved to die; mean- time they spent their time in feasting and revelry. Caesar, having staid but twenty-seven days at Rome, re- turned (722) to Asia, all whose kings submitted to him. An envoy from Antonius and Cleopatra came to him ; the latler resigning her crown, and only asking the kingdom of Egypt for her children ; the former requesting to be al- lowed to live as a private than at Athens. To Antonius he deigned no repFy ; the (^ueen \Vas assured of every favor if «4he banished or put him to dl^ath. Meantime he himself ad- vanced on the east and seizfed P^hrsiain, while Cn. Come, iui Outius made himself master of Peritonium on the west of DEATH or ANtOi^IlJ*. 4if3 Egypt. Antonius flew to oppose this liast, biit w4s driven off wi*h loss. When Csesar drew nigh to Alexandria, An- tonius put himself at the head of his troops and gave him a check ; and emboldened by this success he drew out his army and his fleet on the 1st of August for a general engagement. His fleet was seen to advance in good order till it met that of Caesar ; it theiV turned round, and both together took a station before the port. Antonius' cavalry seeing this, also went over to Ca'sar ; his infantry was then forced to yield, and he himself returned in a rage to the town, crying that Cleopatra had ruined and betrayed him. The queen had a little time before had a kind of sepul- chre built near the temple of Isis, in which she placed her jewels and other valuables, and covered them with combus- tibles, with the intention, as she declared, of burning them and herself if driven to it. The knowledge of this had caused Caesar to send her various assurances of his respect and his kind intentions. She now shut herself up in the sepulchre, and caused a report to be spread of her death. Tins event revived the tenderness of Antonius ; he resolved riot to survive her ; he bade his faithful freedman Eros, who had engaged by oath to kill him, to perform his promise. Eros drew his sword, but plunged it into his own body and fell dead at his feet. Antonius then drew his own sword and stabbed himself in the belly ; he threw himself on his bed, where he lay writhing, vainly calling on his friends to despatch him. Meantime Cleopatra, having heard what had been done, sent to tell him she was alive, and to request that he would let himself be carried to her ; he assented, and as she would not have the door of her reireat opened, she and her maids drew him up by cords at a window. She laid him on her bed, and gave way to the most vio- lent transports of grief: Antonius sought to console her, begged of her to save her life if she could with honor, and among Caesar's friends recommended to her Proculeius. He then expired, in the fifty-third year of his age. The sword with which Antonius slew himself was bi'ought to Caesar, who, it is said, shed tears at the sight. Anxious to secure Cleopatra and hor treasure, he sent Proculeius to her : she refused to admit him ; he then returned to Caesar, who sent back Gallus with him with new proposals ; and while Gallus was talking to her at the door, Proculeius and two others got in at the window and made her prisoner CnJkir, \ heh he entered Alexandria, had her treated with tht 40 * H H H 474 BlfTORY OF J10M£. Utmost respect; and he allowed her tp soler lize the obse« quies of Antonius, which she performed with the greatest pi^^ificence. , Cajs^r soon afler paid her a visit ; she received him slightly arrayed, with her hair in disorder ; her eyes were red with weeping, and her voice faint and tremulous. She threw herself at his feet ; he Raised her, and sat beside her ; she atte^npted to excuse her previous conduct, and seemed as if s.he wished to live. Caesar made many promises ; it wap a trial of skill between two consummate actors ; the artful queen sought to catch him in the net of love ; the cold-blooded Cajsar wished to make her live to grace hij; triumph. He left her, certain that he had succeeded, but he was deceived. In a few days Cleopatra learned that she and her children were to be sent on to Syria before him ; she then resolved on death, and having obtained permission |o visit the tomb of Antonius, she embraced it and crowned it with flowers ; and then, as if her mourning was over, bathed and sat down richly arrayed to a splendid banqaet. While she was at table a peasant came with a basket of fine figs ; the guards suspecting nothing let him in. The queen took the basket, aware of its contents; she wrote a letter to Caesar requesting to be buried with Antonius ; and then, retaining in the room only her maids Charmion and Iras, applied to her arip an asp which had been concealed among the pretended peasant's figs. When those whom Cajsar sent to prevent her death arrived, they found her lying dead on her bed, Iras also dead at her feet, and Charmion just expiring in he act of arranging the diadem on the head of her mistress. Cajsar gave Cleopatra and her faithful maids a magnificent funeral, and buried her as she wished by the side of Antonius. He put to death her son Cassa' rion ; her two other sons adorned his triumph. Cleopatra died in the thirty-ninth year of her age ; the last of the Ptolemscan family. Her influence over Caesar and Antonius testifies for her beauty, talents, and accom- plishments ; but she was utterly devoid of principle, and capable of committing any crime. Ciesar reduced Egypt to the form of a province, and its wealth, when transported to Rome, enabled him to reward liis legions without the odium of robbing any more pro- prietors of their lands. He returned ta Italy the following year, (723,) and in the month of Sextilis (August) cele- brated three triumphs ; he then closed the temple of J^us, SOLE DOMINION OF CiESAK. 475 which had stood open for two centuries. The sedate knew no end of heaping honors on him ; his name was inserted in the public prayers ; the consul and senate swore on the kalends of every January to obey his orders ; under the title of Imperator he held the command of the army ; and gradually all the chief offices of the state were united in his person. In 725 the senate, on the motion of L. Mu- natius Plancus, conferred oii him the title of Augusti's, a term hitherto only employed in a religions sense. He was now the sole master of the Roman world ; and during the space of nearly half a century it enjoyed beneath his sway a degree of peace and tranquillity such as it had never known before. ^mjo-m (, ■i-n. n :b9Vi9K3iq nyjd'aijri noiJf^q IbniB r. tuci Though the last period of the republic was of so unquiet a character, literature was cultivated with much ardor by persons of rank and fortune. The language, the philoso- phy, and the poetry of the Greeks wer.e familiar to every Roman of education ; a library formed an essential part of every respectable house, and its contents were chiefly Greek. Roman poetry was still imitative, and the drama the great object of imitation. L. Attius, the younger contemporary of Pacuvius, may be regarded as the last of that rough but vig-. orous race of poets who ventured to tread in the foot-prints of ^-Eschylus and Sophocles. But the higher drama seems to have been as unattainable to ancient as to modern Italy. Attius' contemporary C. Lucilius followed Ennius in writing satires; of these he left several books, all of which have per- ished. In the time of Cicero, T. Lucretius Cafus put the physics of Epiciirus into verse ; and in no portions of Ro-/ man poetry is the true, the born poet, so discernible as in' those where liis ill-chosen subject allowed him to give free' course to his genius. C. Valerius Catullus was also a poet' of true genius ; grace, elegance, ease, and feeling strongly characterize many of his extant poems. Numerous histories also were written in; tnis period • I^., Calpurnius Piso and Ctelius Antipater in the time of the Grdcchi wrote histories of Rome, and they were followed by Gn. GelHus, Q,. Claudius Quadri^arius, Q,. Valerius Antias, (notorious for mendacity,) and C. Licinius Maeer, 'vitH: whom the series ^f annalists entl«. Histories of their owd 476 . : ; A ■* rr BixroBT of boms^ > ' lives or times were written by C. Fannius, Sempronius Asellio, P. Rutiliiis, L. Cornelius Sisenna, Q. Catulus, L. Sulla, L. Luoulius, and others. C. Junius, named Grac- ohanus from his friendship with C. Gracchus, wrote a valu- able history of the constitution, which, thou^i lost, is medi- ately the chief source whence our knowledge of it is derived. The only historian of this period of whose works any perfect portions have reached us is G. Sallustius Crispus. This writer seems to have taken Thucydides as his model, but he can by no means stand a rivalry with the great Athenian. Caesar's narrative of his own wars is a perfect specimen of that species of composition to which it belongs. The various writings, oratorical, philosophical, and didactic, of Cicero, are well known and most justly admired. Of the numerous works of M. Terentius Varro, the most learned of the Romans, but a small portion has been preserved. We have thus traced the history of Rome from the tiine when she was only a village on the Palatine to that when she became the mistress of the world; a future work will be devoted to the history of the enormous empire of which she now only formed a part. In the progress of Rome to do- minion it is difficult not to discern the hand of a predis- posing cause ; the steadine.ss and perseverance of the Roman character; the preponderance of the aristocratic elements in r>er constitution at the time of her conflicts with her most powerful rivals; the advantage which the unity produced by a capital, as a fixed point, gave her over the brave but loose federation of Samnium, and her armies of citizens and allies over the mercenaries in the pay of Carthage ; and the cir- cumstance of all other states being in their decline when she engaged them, — ^all tend to show that the empire of the wofld was reserved for Rome. But in the attainment of this empire she was also destined to lose her own freedom. Neglecting to enforce her agrarian laws, and not being a coramercial stale, she possessed no middle class of citizens,* " L. Marcius Philippus, when proposing an agrarian law in his tribu imte, (MB,) asserted that there were not two thousand citizens who were possessed of property, (" tion esse in civitate duo millia hominum qui rem habere nL" Cicero, Off. ii. Ul.) Many of the leading families of both orders in the early ages of the republic must have died ?ff, or have dwindled into insignificance, in consequence probably of there being neither law nor custom of primogeniture. In the Fasti and biMory of the last centnry we rarely meet the names of *he Quinctfi CONCLUSION. 477 without which there can oe no permanent liberty ; the Kor- tensian law placed all political power at the disposal of the lower order of the people ; the incessant foreign wars cor- rupted the genuine Roman character, and the constant influx and manumission of slaves further debased it. Mean- time the govetnmetit of provinces, the condb<',t of wars, and the farming of the public revenues, enabled some of the no- bility and the knights to acquire immense wealth, with which they purchased impunity for their crimes and the lucrative and influential offices of the state ; for the votes of electors w-ithoul property are always in danger of becoming venal. The consequence of this condition of society was, as we have seen, a century of turbulence and anarchy, ending in a despotism. .i .lift tn^sosq <'T ■■UVvrM)'ii ; ■<''<'>■ ; ,' ManJii, Fabii, Furii, Decii, Curii, and never those of the Horatii, Me- nenu, Veturu, Genucii, Icilii, Numitorii. The Virgilii of the late, are- prbbably the Virginii of tlie old Fasti; Atilius and AUnius (like Man jios and Mallius) are Derhaps the sarn^. /' i'! . ,■■() r •: I,', •liti iiaiit// "tm/ » '.nv^itm /lMiJ«yiiJ It ,]iuinoqnii }^< ( viiiinJanoo -jd lilunrla ■.y.,:>iv.101'- -toil •m(j n^'lii inMiuiitnaq on an nr.o'noril Aouin luoriliw Miij 111 iM7/oq luuiiilt"! \iii rioaulq '«•;! m.iHii-ir nol JiuwKMrjni uriJ ;" »l«|<>-i«| oil) 1o i;»bto T>//"i .... j.ij Lkw! .t>)-)/;-ij;i!.t iiMtn.il •imiunr! "'^ [>".T.)irf CHfeOffiOI^OG.ICAL TABLE or ' ,!<, »o CONTEMPORARY mSTORY.i 'i "I'li "u; Note.— It would be impossible to present the reader, in this (able, with, a complete view of tlie contemporary history of a11 nation*. The fulfilment of That design, thoujib hifjhly useful, would, of itself, occupy a volume. The reader may bo referred to a work, in which it has been carried out through the whole range of ancient History, entitled, "Comparative View of Ancient History, and Explanation of Chronological Eras," by the editor of this volume. What can be here done will be merely to present a view of the principal events wliich transpired in the most renowned among the nations of antiquity, at about the same time that the most marked events took jilace in the history of Rome. The details may be filled up by reference to the work already mentioned. It is most important, in the stueath of Philip. —The Golhs. — Gothic war. — Death of Peciuii. — Gallus. — itlmilian. — Valerian. — The Franks— The Ale- mans. — Gothic invasions. — Persian war. — Defeat and captiv- ity of Valerian. — Gallienus. — The Thirty Tyrants. — Death of Gallienus 223 CHAPTER VI. CLAUDIUS, AURELIAN, TACITUS, PROBUS, CARUS, CARINUS, AND NUMERIAN. A. u. 1021—1038. A. D. 268—285. Claudius. — Invasions of the Goths. — Aurelian. — Alemannic war. — AVar ajrainst Zenobia. — Tetricus. — i)e;ith of Aurelian. — Tacitus. — ills deatli. — Probus. — His military successes. — His death. — Cams. — Persian war. — His death. — Death of Numerian. — Election of Diocletian. — Battle of Margua 240 CHAPTER VII. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Persecutions of the church. — Corruptii i of relicrion. — The Ebionites. — Gnostic heresies. — Muntanus. — The Paschal Question. — Councils. — The hierarchy. — Platonic philoso- phy, its effects. — Rites and ceremonies. — Christian writers. . 259 P.VRT III. THE CHRISTI/VN EMPERORS. CHAPTER I. DIUCLETI\N AND MAXIMlA'N. A. u. 1033—1056. A. n. 285—303. State of tlie empire. — Character of Diocletian. — Imperial power divided. — The Bagauds — Carausius. — RetieUion in Egypt. — Persian war. — Triumph of Uie emperors. — Their resigna- tion. — Persecution of the church 286 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER II. EALERIUS, CONSTANTIUS, SEVERUS, MAXENTIUS, MAXIMIAN, LICINIUS, MAXIMIN, CONSTANTINE. ■' ' A. u. 1057— 1090. A. D. 304— 337. page The emperors and CsBsars. — Constantine. — Maxentius. — ^^1(3^'^ of Maximian. — War between Constantine and Maxentius. — Constantine and Licinius. — Constantine sole emperor. — Con- stantinople founded. — Hierarchy of the state. — The army. — The great officers. — Conversion of Constantine. — Deaths of Crispus and Fausta. — The imperial family. — War with the Goths. — Death and character of Constantine 299 CHAPTER III. CONSTANTINE IT., CONSTANTIUS, CONSTANS. A. u. 1090—1114. A. D. 337—361. Slaughter of the imperial family. — Persian war. — Deaths of Con- stantine and Constans. — Magnentius. — Gallus. — Julian. — Silvanus. — Court of Constantius. — War with the Limigantes. — Persian war. — Julian in Gaul. — Battle of Strasburg. — Ju- lian proclaimed emperor. — His march from Gaul. — Death of Constantius 3iy CHAPTER IV. JULIAN, JOVIAN. A. u. 1114—1117. A. D. 361—364. Reformations of Julian. — His religion. — His tolerance. — Julian at Antiocii. — Altem|)t to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. — The Persian war. — Death of Julian. — Election of Jovian. — Sur- render of territory to the Persians. — Retreat of the Roman ar- my. — Death of Jovian 337 CHAPTER V VALENTINIAN, VALENS, GRATIAN, VALENTINIAN II., AND THEODOSIUS. A. V. 1117—1143. A. D. 364—395. Elevation of Valentinian and of Valens. — Procopius. — German wars. — Recovery of Britain. — Rebellion in Africa. — Quadan war. — Death of Valentinian. — His character. — Gratian. — The Goths. — The Huns. — The Gothic war. — Battle of Ha- drianople and death of Valens. — Ravages of the Goths. — The- odosius. — Settlements of the Goths. — Maximus. — Death of Gr.atian. — Defeat of Maximus. — Massacre at Thessalonica. — Clemency of Theodosius. — Death of Valentinian II. — Defeat and death of Eugenius. — Death and character of Theodosius. — State of the empire 358 Ul CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. tABt Su^pressic a of paganism. — Religion of the fourth century. — State of morals. — The Donatists. — The Arians — Other her- etics. — Ecclesiastical constitution. — Fatliers of the church. — The Manichseans 38? CHAPTER Vn. HONORIUS, VALENTINIAN III., ETC. A. u. 1148—1229. A. D. 395^176. Division of the empire. — Ilufinus. — The Goths in Greece. — Gildo. — Invasion of Italy by Alaric — by Radagaisus. — Mur- der ofStilicho. — Claudian. — Alaric's second invasion. — Sack of Rome. — Death of .\laric. — Barbariuus in the empire. — Val- entiniaa III. — Bonifice and yEtius. — Genseric. — His con- quest of Africa. — Atliia. — Theodoric. — Battle of Chfilons. — Attila's invasion of Italy. — Murder of.3Itiu8 — and of Valen- tinian. — Maxiuius. — Sack of Rome by Gcnscric. — Avitus. — Majorian. — Sevcrus. — Antliemius. — Nepos and Glycerius. — Romulus Augustus. — End of the empire. — Conclusion 40S HISTORY THE ROMAN EMPIRE. PART I. THE C^SARIAN FAMILY. \i CHAPTER I.* I \ C.JULIUS C^SAR OCTAVIANUS AUGUSTUS l, A. u. 725—746. B. c. 29—8. j THE ROMAN EMPIRE. REGULATION OF IT BY AUGUSTUS. }{ AUGUSTUS IN SPAIN IN ASIA. LAWS. FAMILY CF l\ AUGUSTUS. DEATH OF AGRIPPA. GERMAN WARS, — I | DEATH OF DRUSUS, AND OF M^CENAS. LITERATURE. | The battle of Actium, fought between M. Antonius and I \ C. Caesar Octavianus, in the 723d t year of Rome, termina- [ I r * Authorities : Velleius Paterculus, Suetonius, Dion Cassius. For I a full account of the authorities for this History, see Appendix (A.) | t We shall use the Varronian chronology in this volume, as it is the 5 one followed by Tacitus, Dion, and other historians. [In the former | part of this work, Mr. K. made use of the Catonian computation. It { is immaterial which is used, though the Varronian is undoubtedly tlie ( more correct, and was employed by the editor in the " Chronological \ Table," at the end of that work. The difference is only two years — 5 a difference of little importance with respect to the history of the iJe- jnihlic, but of more in reference to the history of the Empire. See the editor's " Comparative View of Ancient History, and Explanation of Chronological Eras ' p. 92, title, Era of the Foundatirn of Rome. — J . 1 . to. J CONTIN. 1 A a AUGUSTUS. ted the contest for the supreme power in the Roman stale, whjcli had continued for so many years. After the death of his rival, Ctesar, now, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, saw himself the undoubted master of the Roman world. An army of forty-four legions* regarded him as its chief; the civil wars and the proscription liad cut otf all the men of em- inence at Rome ; the senate and people vied with each other in L-itir williiignetss to accept a sovereign; aiid thdiigh we may despise their servility, reason will evmce that they were right in their determination ; for he must be strangely inthralled by sounds, who, charmed by the mere words liberty and repub- lic, looks back through the last century of the history of Rome, and prefers the turbulent anarchy, whicii then prevailed, to the steady, firm rule of a single hand. VV'e will add, though the assertion may appear paradoxic;d, that their knowledge of Ca;sar'sch;{rhcter may have given them fair hopes of his proving an equitable sovereign. But, independently of all other considerations, the enor- mous magnitude of the Roman empire was incompatible with any other form of government than the monarchic, if the happiness of the subjects was to be a matter of moment. The formation of this empire is perhaps the most strikmg phenomenon in the amials of the world. Fabulous as is the early history of Rome, the fact of its having been in its commencement nothing more than a single town, or rather village, with a territory of a very few miles in compass, may be regarded as certain. Step by step it thence advanced in extent ; under its kings it became respectable amojig the Italian states : when the supreme magistracy was made an- nual, the Consuls were anxious to distinguish their year by some military acliieveuient; their ambition was sustained by the valor and discipline of the legions, and the wisdom of the senate cemented together into one strong and firm mass the various territories reduced by the arms of Rome, in the East, empires of huge extent are at times formed with rapidity, but their decay is in general equally rapid ; modern Europe has seen great empires formed by a Charlemagne and a Napoleon, but they fell to pieces almost as soon as erected : the Roman, empire, oti the contrary, endured for centuries. Perhai)s the nearest parallel is that of Russia; but of this the stability remaitis to be proved: watched by ,!' -r i-.:f 'r.: :■■ ' ■ ' •; ' * Orosius, vi. 18. These le§ions,^howeVer, were far from complete, some of them being mere skeletons. B. C. 29*] RETURN OF AUGUSTUS. 3 jealous and powerful rivals, its step is stealthy, artful, and treacherous, while that of Ro»ne was comparatively open, bold, and daring. The Roaian empire, at the time of which we write, em- braced all the countries contained between the Ocean, the Rhine, and Euphrates, on the west and east, and the moun- tain ranges of the Alps and Haemus on the north, and that of Atlas and the African sandy desert on the south. With respect to the condition of the various nations and peoples contained within its limits, it may be compared to that acquired with such rapidity by England in India. A portion were under the immediate government of the sovereign state, while others, under the name of allies, possessed a certain degree of independence in their internal relations, but their external policy was under the control of Rome.* As aristocracy and democracy are equally tyrannic to subjects, the oppres- sions of the proconsuls and propraetors, set over the provmcea by the republic, had beeu such as to make the provincials look forward with hope to the establislnnent of a monarchy at Rome. Such, then; was the condition of the Roman world at the time when our narrative commences. When intelligence of the death of Antonius reached Rome, the senate hastened to decree to Caesar the tribunitian power for life, a casting-voice in all the tribunals, the pawer of nominating to all the priesthoods, and various other hon- ors. They ordered that he should be named in all the pub- lic prayers, and libations be poured to him at both public and private entertainments. It was directed that the gates of Janus should be closed, as war was now at an end.t Caesar, meantime, having regulated the affairs of Egypt, over which he placed Cn. Cornelius Gallus as governor, set out on his return for Rome. He spent the winter in the province of Asia, adjusting the affairs of the surrounding countries; and during his abode there the Parthian king Phraates sent his son to him to be conducted as a hostage to Rome. In the summef (725) he proceeded to Italy, and on coming to Rome he celebrated a triumph of three days' du- ration for his©w;«iyiotories at Actium and Alexandria, and ■ '■.■ ,.; : ■ ■:■ l', * These allies were either kings or republics. The former were those oi' Judaea, of thf Arabs,, the Nabathoe^ns, Comagcne, Cilicia, Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Armenia, Tliraco, Nuinidia ; the latter, Cydonia and Lampasa in Crete, Cyzicus, Riiodes, Athens, Tyre and Sidon, Lycif^j.andlhe Ligurians of the Maritime Alps, t Dion, li. 19, 20. Suet. Oct 31. 4 AUGUSTUS. [b. c. 29. those of his lieutenants in Dahnatia and Pannonia. He dis- tributed money to the people ; he paid all his debts and for- gave his debtors ; and the abundance of money became so great in Rome, that the rate of interest fell two thirds.* We are told that at this time Cjesar had serious thoughts of laying down his power attd restoring the republic, and that he consulted with his friends Agrippa and Maecenas on the subject. The historian Dion Cassius has composed speeches for these two en)inent men, the former of whom he makes advocate, though with but feeblp reasons, the cause of the republic, while the latter lays down the whole system of the future monarchy. It is almost needless to state that the.se c;innot be genuine speeches; yet the consultation may have been held. Caesar was of a cautious temper ; he had the fate of his iincle, the dictator, before his eyes, and the ex- amples of Sulla and Pompeius showed that power might be resigned with safety. A conspiracy of young Lepidus, the son of the triumvir and nephew of Brutus, to assassinate him on his return to the city, had lately been discovered, and the author put to death by Maecenas, who had the charge of the city.t Still it is difficult to believe that Ca3sar could have really intended to divest himself of his authority. The counsel of Maecenas having prevailed, or such being his previous resolution, Caesar prepared to establish his pow- er on a firm basis. The object which he proposed was to frame a constitution which, under the forms of the republic should be in reality a disguised military monarchy. Wit: this view he conceived it necessary that the senate should be limited in number and respectable in character ; where- as it was at this time in a state of the utmost degradation ; for the dictator, out of hatred to the aristocracy, had in- troduced all kinds of rabble into it, and after his death M. Antonius had, formoncy or out of favor, admitted any one that chose to seek the dignity ,:j: so that the senators were now upwards of a thousand in number, ('aesar' adopted the following course of reformation. Having caused himself and Agrippa to be chosen censors, instead of arbitrarily ejecting unworthy persons from the senate, he made them judges of their own qualifications. Fifty were thus induced to resign voluntarily ; he then compelled one hundred and forty more to follow their e.\ample, and, having thus got rid • Dion, li. 21. Suet. Oct. 41. t Veil. Pat. ii. 88L Soet. Oct. 19 t Suet. Oct. 35. B. e. 28-27.] REGULATION OF THE STATE. & of the most disreputable portion, he went no farther in his reformation for the p esent. As the patrician families had been greatly reduced by the civil wars, he augmented their number. In order to obviate the danger of civil commotions, he renewed the regulation of his uncle for preventing the senators from visiting the provinces without permission, ex- cepting Sicily and Narbonese Gaul. To quiet their appre- hensions on account of the late troubles, and prevent their forming any designs against himself in consequence of them, he assured them that he had burned all the papers of M, Antonius ; and he had in fact burned some, but he retained the greater part, to use, if he found it necessary. The title of laiperator {general) had been already con- ferred on Caesar, as on his uncle; * and in his sixth consulate, (726,) when he formed the list of the senators, he received the denomination of Princeps Senatus, {Flrst-of-thc Sniatc,) according to the old republican custom ; and this he always used as his favorite title. Having forgiven all debts due to the state, and burnt the securities, gratified the people with shows, and done other popular acts, Csesar (727) addressed the senate, requesting them to take the government now into their own hands, and to permit him to retire to the enjoy- ment of a private station. He was heard with various emo- tions; a few only were in the secret, and knew his object; there were some who were willing to take him at his word, but the greater number had a horror of the anarchy and turbulence of a republic; all therefore united, from different motives, in calling on him not to resign his authority. He yielded with well-feigned reluctance. The supreme power was conferred on him by a decree of the senate and people, and double pay was voted to his guards, to increase their vigilance and fidelity. GaBsar thus attained his object, the legal establishment of his power ; but he refused to receive it for more than a pe- riod of ten years, alleging that by that time the state would be brought to a condition of order and tranquillity. He, further, though accepiing the charge of superintendence over the whole empire, would not assume the direct govern- ment of all the provinces; but, making a division of them into two classes, committed the more peaceful and orderly, * Hence our word Emperor. It was usually bestowed by the soldiers on tlieir general after a victory. It now became the constant title of the nionarcli, being prefi.xed instead of postfixed (as in the ordinary way) to hi.s name. 1 * 6 AUGUSTUS, [b. c. 27—24 such as Africa, Asia, Baetic Spain, to the senate and people ; while he reserved to himself the administration of the more warlike and turbulent, such as Gaul, northern Spain, and Egypt. The governors of the former were to be selected by the senate out of their own body by lot ; they were to hold their office for the space of a year, under the title of Procon- sul, whether they had been consuls or not ; their jurisdiction was to be purely civil, and they were therefore neither to carry swords lior wear the military habit. Cajsar himself was to appoint directly the governors of the remaining prov- inces; they were to be named Legates and Proprietors, to continue in office as long as he pleased, and to wear a sword and the military habit, as having the power of life and death over the soldiery. A proconsul was to be preceded by twelve, a proprietor, by six lictors. Quaestors appointed by Ca?sar were to be sent into all the provinces to collect and regulate the revenue, and all the governors and inferior officers were to receive fixed salaries, and not be allowed to pay thein* selves, as under the republic. The senate decreed at this time that laurels should be placed before the doors of Caesar's house on the Palatium, and an oak-leaf-crown be su?pended over them, to indicate that he was perpetual victor over the eneuiies of the state, and perpetnid preserver of the citizens. It was also pro- posed to confer on him some peculiar appellation, lie him- self would h:ive preferred that of Romulus, as being a second founder of the state; but finding that it would excite suspi- cion of his aiming at royalty, he acqtiiesced in that of Augus- tus, which was proposed by L. Munntius Plancus, and which indicated a certain iii:j!iui4!fi'Aii ' ii. vil; iii'Kl . ,-. . ..... .,,, . I ,1..!,V -..'T ■ ■-.;-! (.„!) r,. ».'.;■.■■.!. ."7 ..,t. Dipn (Uii. 27) would peemto Intimate tiiat it was consecrated to Ma ycars had now elapsed since the return of Augustus, victorious over Aiitonius, and his assumption of the sole supreme authority in the state. In that period, death had deprived him of his nephew, hi.s nohler .stepson, and his two ablest and most attached friends. His hopes now rested on his two arandsons and adopted sons Caius and Lucius, and their j)osthumous brother, named Agrippa after their father; on Tiberius, and on the children of Drusus, Caius was now (746) in his thirteenth year ; his brother was three years younger. As they grew up, the characters which they displayed were such as caused pain to tlieir grandfather. They were in fact porphi/rogeniti, (the first that Rome had seen,t) and therefore were spoiled by public and private flattery, and displayed insolence and presumption in their conduct. Though Augustus was fully aware of the defects in the character of Tiberius, he could not avoid ;is- sigiiing him the place in the state for which his age, and his abilities and experience, qualified him. He had, therefore, on the death of Drusus, committed to him the conduct of the war in Germany ; and, in 746 and the following year, the Roman legions were led I)y him over the Rhine, but no re- sistance was offered by the Germans. 'I'he next year, (748,) Augustus conferred on him the tribunitian power for a period of five years, and appointed Jiim to go to regulate Armenia, where affairs were now in some disorder.;}: Tiberius, however, had resolved on retiring for a time from public life. The prete.\t under which be sought permission from Augustus, was a satiety of honors and a longing for " Authorities same as for the precedinj^ chapter. t [That is, the first princes-born ; having been born since the aj» sumption of supreme authority by Augustus. — J. T. S.] X Zonaras, z 'K>. B.C. l.-A.D. 2.] TIBERIUS. 21 quiet and repose. What he afterwards assigned as the resl cause was liis wish not to appear to stand in the way qf Caius and his brother, who were now growing up to man's estate.* The improper conduct of his wife^ Julia, was also given as a reason for his retirement, or his expectation by absence to increase his authority in the state in case his presence should be again required : it was even said that he was banished by Augustus for conspiring against his sons. It was with great difficulty that he obtained permission from his mother and stepfather to put his design into execution. We are told that, to extort it, he menaced to starve himself, and actually abstained from food for four days. When he had thus drawn from them a reluctant consent, he went down privately with a very ,few attendants to Ostia, and, getting on board a vessel, proceeded along the coast of Campania Hearing that Augustus was taken ill, he halted ; but, finding that his so doing was imputed to a design of aiming at the empire in case of his death, he set sail, though the weather was not very favorable, and proceeded on his voyage to Rhodes. He had selected this island for his retreat, having been pleased with its amenity and salubrity, when he visited it on his return from Armenia, in the year 735. He adopted a pri- vate mode of life, dwelling in a moderately-sized house, and living on terms of equality with the respectable inhabitants. He was visited in his retreat by all those who were going out as proconsuls or legates to Asia. When Caius Caesar was sent out to regulate the affairs of Armenia, (753,) Tiberius passed over to Chios to wait on him. The young man showed him all marks of respect as his stepbrother and elder; but the insinuations of M. Loll ins, whom Augustus had given him as a director, soon alienated his mind from Tiberius. The period of his tribunitian power being now expired, Tiberius sought permission to return to Rome, avowing that his motive for quitting it had been the wish to avoid the sus- picion of emulation with Caius and Lucius. As they were now grown up, and were able to maintain their station as the second persons in the state, his absence was no longer requi- site, and he wished to be permitted to revisit his friends arid relatives. He, however, received a positive refusal ; and all his mother could obtain was his being named a legate, in order to cover his disgrace. He remained at Rhodes two years longer, when Caius, without whose apvprobation Augus- • Suet. Tib. 10. Yell. fat. ii.. 99. 22 AUGUSTUS. [a.d. 2-5 tus had determined to do nothing in his case, having quar- relled with Loliius, gave his consent to his recall. He was therefore permitted to return, but on the express condition of abstaining from public affairs, (755.) During the absence of Tiberius from Rome, the dissolute conduct of his wife, Julia, after having long been generally known, had at length (75'2) reached the ears of her father. Julia had been unchaste even when the wife of the excellent Agrippa ; some of the noblest men of Rome were among her paramours ; atid she had at length become .so devoid of shame and i)rudence as to carouse and revel openly at night in the Forum, and even on the Rostra. Augustus had al- ready had a suspicion that her mode of life was not quite cor- rect; when now convinced of the full extent of her depravity, his anger knew no bounds. He coinmuiiicated his domestic misfortune to the senate; he banished his dissolute daughter to the isle of Pandateria, on the coast of Campania, whither she was accompanied by her mother, Scribonia. He forbade her there the use of wine and of all delicacies in food or dress, and prohibited any person to visit her without his special permission. He caused a bill of divorce to l)e sent her in the name of her husband, Tiberius, of who.se letters of interces- sion for her he took no heed. He constantly rejected all the solicitations of the people for her recall ; and, when one time they were extremely urgent, he openly prayed that they might have wives and daughters like her.* At length, after a period of five years, he allowed her to remove to the town of Rhegium, on the continent, and made her treatment some- what milder. Among the adulterers of Julia was Julus Antonius, the son of the triumvir by Fulvia.t Augustus had treated him with the greatest kindness ; he had given liim in marriage the daughter of his sister Octavia, and had conferred on him all the honors and dignities of the state. His ingratitude was therefore without excuse, and he expiated his olFence by a voluntary death.f Of the rest, such as Sempronius Grac- chus, Quinctius Crispinus, and Appius .Claudius, some were executed and others banished. • Iler freedwoman and confidant Phoebe having hung herself when tlip discovery, was made, Augustus declared that lie woiild sooner have been the fallifr of Phoebe than of Julia. t It was to him that Horace addressed the second ode of tJie 4th book of his Odes, probably in the year 739. t Veil. Pat. ii. 100. A. D. 6.] GERMAN WARS. 23 It was in his family and his domestic relations that Augus- tus was destined to feel the adverse strokes of fortune. In 755, his grandson Lucius fell sick on his way to Spain, and died at Massalia; and, eighteen months later, (757,"* Caius breathed his last in Lycia, as he was on his return to Italy. Augustus had now only one grandson remaining, the posthu- mous child of Agrippa, of the same name with his father. He therefore adopted him and Tiberius on the same day, saying with regard to the latter, " This I do for the sake of the republic." He at the same time made Tiberius adopt j J Germanicus, the eldest son of his brother Drusus, although | I he had a son of his own by his first wife, also named Drusus. | f Tiberius was invested with the tribunitian power for \ \ another period of five years, and was immediately despatched ] [ to assume the conduct of the German war^ which had been \ \ going on for the last three years.* In his first campaign, he 1 i passed the Weser, and, having kept the field till the month I i of December, he placed his troops in winter quarters at the j | head of the Lippe, and returned himself to Rome. In the T | following campaign, (7.58,) having received the submission | f of the Chaucans and broken the power of the Lansobards. i l who were regarded as the fiercest of the German tribes, he i; | advanced to the banks of the Elbe; while his fleet, havinsf ti I safely circumnavigated the coast from the mouth of the ^ i Rhine to that of the Elbe, joined the land army in this river, and aided its operations. The plan of the campaign for the ensuing year (759) was a very extensive one. The people named Marcomans had quitted their original seats, and occupied the country named Bohemum, {Bohrmia,) which lay in the heart of the great Hercynian forest. Their prince, named Maroboduus, was 1 1 one of those men of superior talent, who have so often, among (■ 5 barbarous tribes, evinced the power of mental over corporeal f | qualities. He had established an undisputed authority over I; | his own nation, and reduced all his neighbors to submission | I by arms or by persuasion. He maintained a disciplined army | | of 70,000 foot and 4000 horse ; and, as his southern frontier | I was little more than two hundred miles from the Alps, it was \ I in his power suddenly to pour a large army even into Italy; | | and he was always ready to support revolt in the German | 5 or Illyrian provinces. Tiberius, a far-seeing statesman, re- l solved to anticipate the danger, and prepared to make a com- bined attack on the Marcoman prince. He therefore sent Veil. Pat. ii. 104. I 24 AUGUSTUS. [a. d. 6-9. orders to C. Sentius Saturninus to invade Bohemia in the north from the country of the Cattans, while he himself should enter it from the south with the army of lllyricum, which he had assembled, ,(of. the purpose at Carnuntum, in Noricum. But this extensive plan was frustrated by a formidable in- surrection of the Dalmatians ; for this people, who vU bore the weight of tribute imposed on them by the Romans, when they saw the troops that were in their country drawn away for the German war, and at the same time, in consequence of orders given them to prepare an auxiliary force, became aware of their own numbers and strength, at the impulsion of a Dalmatian named Balo, resolved to assert tlieir inde- pendence. The Breucans, a Pannonian tribe, led by another Bato, joined them, and speedily all Pannonia shared in the revolt. We should only weary the reader were we to enter into the details of this war, which hi.sted for the space of three years, employe|ete submission, (702.)* "■ When Bnto surrpndprpd and appeared before the tribunal of Tibe- rius, tlie latter asked him why they had revolted. " Yourselves," re- plied lie, "axe Uie cause, for you seud to yonr flocks, wolves, and nol 4og8 or he-'smen. ' Dion, Iv. 33;lvi. U>. A.D. 9.] VARUS. 3S This dangerous war was hardly brought to a close, when intelligence arrived of a dreadful disnster which had be- fallen the Roman arms in Germany. Since the reduction of a part of the country beyond the Rhine, a military force had been maintained in it, and some forts were erected ; the Germans were gradually adopting Roman manners, and ac- j customing themselves to Roman institutions. Had they been ? prudently managed, they might have been civilized and made \ useful subjects; but the present commander in Germany, P. *> Q,uinctilius Varus, who had been governor of Syria, and was j therefore in the habit of meeting with a prompt obedience < to all his commands, forgetting the difference between un- I warlike Syrians and barbarous Germans, began to treat them | with rigor, and to impose heavy taxes. Their native spirit I was roused, and they secretly formed a plan for delivering • themselves from the foreign yoke. Their principal leader was J Arminius, [Hermann,) son of Sigimer, a Cheruscan prince I who had long served with the Roman armies, and had ob- l tained the freedom of the city and the equestrian rank. The ] plan adopted being to lull Varus into security, they made a f show of yielding the most cheerful obedience to all his com- | niands, and thus induce*! him to quit the Rhine, and advance \ tOAvard the Weser. Sigimer and Arminius were continually i with him ; and so completely had they won his confidence, t that when Segestes, prince of the Chattans, had given him \ information of the plot, and advised him to seize himself | Arminius and the other leaders. Varus refused to believe | in it. I When all the necessary preparations had been made, some \ of the more distant tribes were directed to take up arms, in | order that Varus might be attacked with more advantage \ when on his march to reduce them. Arminius and the ij others remained behind, under the pretext of raising troops | with which they were to join him ; and, as soon as he was | gone, they fell on and slaughtered the various detachments, | which, at their own particular desire, he had stationed in ? their country; then, collecting a large force, they followed j and came up with the legions when in a place suited to their t purpose. \ The Roman army, consisting of three legions, with their \ requisite cavalry and auxiliaries, in all of upwards of 24,000 j; men, accompanied by women and children, by wagons and \ beasts of burden, was advancing without regular order, as i in 1 friendly country. They had reached a place surround I CONTIN. 3 D I 26 AUGUSTUS. [a.d. 10-12. ed by hills, and covered with marshes, and with trees, which they were obliged to cut down in order to effect a passage. The weather was tempestuous, and, in the midst of the wind and rain, while they were floundering in the mire, and im- peded by the standing stumps and fallen trunks of the trees, they found themselves assailed on all sides by the Germans. After suffering much from their desultory assaults, they seized a dry spot, where they encamped for the night, having burnt or abandoned the greater part of their baggage. Ne.xt day they attempted to march through the woods; but the wind and rain still continued, and the persevering enemy gave them no rest. At length Varus and his principal officers, seeing no chance of escape, rather than be taken or slain by the barbarians, terminated their lives with their own hands. The soldiers now lost all courage : some imitated j the act of their- officers, others ceased to resist, and suffered I themselves to be slain or taken ; and, had not the barbarians i fallen to plunder, not a man had escaped captivity or death. fc The legate Numonius Vala* broke away with the greater J part of the horse, and made for the Rhine. iWhen intelligence of this calamity arrived at Rome, the consternation which prevailed was extreme. Suioe the days , of Crassus, no such misfortune had befallen the Roman I arms. It was feared that the victorious Germans would in- vade Gaul, and even push on for Italy and Rome itself, and there was no army of either citizens or allies on foot to re- \ sist them. Augustus shared in the general alarm. He rent his raiment in grief; he vowed (what had only been done in the Cin>bric and Marsic wars) great games to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, if the state should return to a safer con- dition;! he doubled the guards in the city, and prolonged the command of the governors of the provinces. Finding that t»one of the men of the military age came forward to enroll themselves, he made them cast lots: and of those under five-and-thirty every fifth, of those over that age every tenth man, was to lose his property and to be infamous. Yet so degenerate were the Romans become, that even this * This is probably the person to whom the fifteenth epistle of the Ist book of Horace's Epistles ia addressed. f Any one acquainted witli the character of Augustus will not easily believe, that, accordinir to the re-port (ferunt) mentioned by Suetonius, (Oct. 2:^) and Dion, (Ivi. 2;J,) he let his hair and beard grot* for several months, ai>d used to dash his head agaivcst tlie doors, crying-, ■' Quinctilins Varus, give back ll)e loirions " Auarustua, we may observe, was at this time upwards of Seventy years of age. '' 2 K.V. 13, 14.] LAST ILLNESS OF AUGUSTUS. 23' severe measure failed to fill the ranks, and Augustus founa it necessary to put somo of ihem to death. He finally took the veterans by lot, and as many freedmen ^s he could col- lect, and, having thus formed an army, he sent Tiberius in all haste with it to Germany. At the same time, he ordered all the Gauls and Germans at Rome to quit the city, and he removed his German g.uards to some of the islands off the coast, lest they should revolt.* Tiberius led his array over the Rhine, (763,) but met with no enemies. In the follow- ing year, he and Germanicus again appeared in Germany, but, as before, no opportunity was given for fighting. la 765, Tiberius, with the permission of Augustus, triumphed in the usual manner for the Pannonian war. The domestic events of late years had not been numerous. | j Augustus still was doomed to suffer in his own family. His | j granddaughter Julia, whom he had married to L. yEmilius Paul us, imitated the profligacy of her mother, and he found | \ it necessary to banish her. Her brother, the young Agrippa, proved of so violent and dangerous a temper, that Augustus, having at first renounced him ^nd placed him in retirement at Surrentum, at length, finding him growing worse every day, had him removed to the isle of Planesia, near Corsica, and a guard of soldiers set over him. The life of Augustus still continued to be menaced by conspiracies. In 757, one was discovered, in which the person chiefly concerned was L. Cornelius Cinna, the grandson of Pompeius Magnus, and of the dictator Sulla. Augustus was long in doubt how to. act, for experience had shown him that the execution of those engaged in one plot did not prevent the formation of another. He was finally induced by the arguments of his wife, Livia, to try the effects of lenity. He called the conspirators before him, and, after remonstrating with them, pardoned and dismissed them ; and he even made Cinna consul for the following year. The effect of such generosity on the minds of them and others was such, that no plots were formed against him during the remaining years of his life.t * He had had Spanish guards till after the battle of Actiam : be theil employed Germans. Suet. Oct. 49. t Dion, Iv. 14—22. Seneca de Clem. i. 9. Suetonius (Oct. 19) mentions various persons who had conspired against Augustus, but without giving the dates of their attempts. Snch were those of M. Egnatius Rufus, (see Dion, liii. 24,) of Plautius Ruf'is, and L. Pauius, of Asinius, and of .Audasius, a forger, Epicadius, a Parthinian hybrid, The year after the triuitiph of Tiberius, Augustus- received the supreme power for a fifth period of ten years. He thetj invested Tiberius anew witli the tribunitian power, and lie took a census of the people for the third time. In the fol- lowing year, (767,) having sent Gerinanicus to command in Germany, he proposed sending Tiberius to regulate the affairs of lUyricum, intending to dismiss him at Beneventum, after ihey should have assisted at the gymnic games, cele- brated every fifth year in his honor by the people of Neapo- lis. He proceeded by land as far as Astura, and, contrary to hi.s usual habit, he left that place in his litter by night for the sake of the cool air. He was, in consequence, attacked by a complaint in his bowels; but he did not heed it. He went on shipboard, and sailed leisurely along the coast of Campania. He spent four days in the isle of Caprese, passfed then over to Neapolis, and viewed the games. He thence proceeded to Beneventum, where he dismissed Tiberius, and »hen returned to Nola, growing every day worse and worse. Messengers were sent to recall Tiberius, with whom he is said to have held a long private conference, after which he ispoke no more of public affairs.* On the day of his death, he called for a mirror, and had his hair arranged and his cheeks plumped out. He asked those present if they thought that he had played his part well in the drama of life, adding the formula in which actors at the conclusion besought the applause of the audience. He then dismissed them ; and, as he was intjuiring, of some who were just come from Rome, after the health of one of Drusus's daugh- ters who was sick, he breathed his last in the artns of Livia, saying, " Livia, live mindful of our marriage, and fare- well !" t The chamber in which he expired, it may be ol>- nnd of Tclephus, a slave. It was the plan of Audasius and Epicadius to rt'ltase Julia and Agrippa, and take them Uj the armies, and to attack Augustus and the senate. * Veil. Pat. ii. 123. Suet. Oct. !H Tib. 21. Dion (Ivi. 31) savs that the more general and credible account was, that he died before the arrival of Tiberius, but that Livia kept liis death secret. Tacitus (Ann. i. 5) leaves the matter uncertain. \ bivia yvss accused of poisoning him (Dio t, Ivi. 30; Tac. Ann. i. 5) by means of some fresh figg whi«h he gathered with his own hand off the tree, but which she had previously anoioted. This, by Uie way, was odd diet for a man with a bowel complaint. TJie reason assigned was, that Augustus had some months before gone secretly tc I'Unesia to see Agrippa. We consider charges of this nature to be entitled to little credit. CHARACTER OF AUGUSTUS. V9 served, was that in which his father had died seventy-two years before. ,'",'' Augustus died on the aftertioon of the 19th of August He wanted little more than a month of completing his seventy-sixth year. Computing from the battle of Actium, he had exercised the supreme authority in the Roman world for a space of forty-four years.* In person Augus- tus was below the middle size; his countenance was at all times remarkably serene and tranquil, and his eyes had a peculiar brilliancy. He was careless of his appearance, and plain and simple in his mode of living, using only the most ordinary food, and wearing no clothes but what were woven and made by his wife, sister, and daughters. In all his do- mestic relations he was kind and affectionate; he was a mild and indulgent master, and an attached and constant friend. He was fond of witnessing the sports of the Circus and other public shows, though it may be that he only sought thus to increase his popularity. He also took pleasure in 'playing at dice, but not for gain, as he did not exact his winnings. The heaviest charge made against him is his in- continence ; but, as we have above observed, this is evident- ly greatly exaggerated. ' In his public character, as the sovereign of the Roman empire, few princes will be found more deserving of praise than Augustus. He cannot be justly charged with a single cruel, or even harsh action, in the course of a period of forty-four years. On the contrary, he seems in every act to have had the welfare of the people at heart. In return, never was prince more entirely beloved by all orders of his subjects ; and the title, Father of his Country, so spontane- ously bestowed on him, is but one among many proofs of the sincerity of their affection. Nothing, however, is more common with modern writers, than to treat Augustus as a tyrant t who had destroyed lib- * Exactly 44 years minus 14 days. The reiffn of Augustus is alsc compuled by some from the death of CiEsar in 710, = 57-" 5'" 4'' ; by others from his first consulate in 71'], t= 50^ ; or from the triumvirkte in 712, = G.V 8'" 2'-V ; or. finally, from his entrance into Alexandria in 724, = 43.V 10'. See Clinton ad A. D. 14. t Montesquieu (Considerations, «fec. cli. 13) terms him a rus6 tyran- In a note he says tiiat he uses the word tyran in its Greek and Ltitin sense, signifying one who had overturned a democracy. The employ, ment of the term, when thus explained, is not very objectionable. Gibbon (ch. iii.) calls Augustus a crafty tyrant, without any limitation of the term. 3* 30 AUGUSTUS. erty, and had raised his own power on the servitude of his country. But liberty had vanished from Rome long before his time, and surely no friend of mankind would prefer the preceding anarchy to the peace and tranquillity which ha introduced and maintained. It was the evil destiny of Rome, not the fault of Augustus, that his successors did not resemble himself; it was necessity, not choice, that made him raise Tiberius to the second place in the state and his evident desire that his own place sliould b^ filled by the noble Agrippa, vouches for his love of his country. In fine, we recognize in Augustus a man of consummate pru- dence,* and of a temperament naturally mild and moderate, raised by the force of circumstances to supreme power, and exercisiu:: it for the advantage of those over whom he ruled. The Roman empire, as modelled by Augustps, presented the following appearance: — Augustus himself was at its head, but not in the manner of emperors and kings of ancient or modern times. He was surroundetl by no pomp ; no guards attended him ; no offi« cers of the household were to be seen in his modest dwell- iijg ; he lived on terms of familiarity with his friends; he appeared, like any other citizen, as a witness in courts of justice, and in llie senate gave his vole as an ordinary mem- ber. His power arose from the union in his person of all the high any such exclusive and ungenerous means as these, while their lowest propensities were daily fed and nourished by brutal combats Buch as have bf-en named, savors BOinewhat of a satire on all that ia truly pure, and lofty, and noble, in the character of a people. — J. T. S.J t /(/. ill. 2S. Dion, Ivi. 30. [This was a somewhat more effectual nwans of elevating their character. It was, at any rate, refining theii taste, which is a great step towards elevating character. — J. T. S.] i IMPROVEMENTS OF THE CITY. 38^ ca of Caius and Lucius. Tiberius built the temples of Con- cord and of Castor and Pollux; Marcius Philippus that of Hercules of the Muses; Miinatius Plancus that of Saturn; L. Cornificius that of Diana. Asinius Pollio built the hall or court [atrium) of Liberty, and Statilius Taurus a mag- nificent amphitheatre. The works of Agrippa have been already enumerated. To secure the city against inundations, Augustus cleared out and widened the bed of the Tiber. He first divided the city into wards or quarters, {ngioncs,) fourteen in number, and subdivided into streets, (vici,) with officers over them, chosen out of the inhabitants by lot. He established a body of watchmen and firemen to prevent the conflagrations whicl: were so frequent. He caused all the great public roads to be repaired and kept in order. As the confusion and license of the civil wars had, as is usually the case, given origin to illegal associations, and to the formation of bands of rob- bers, (grassatorcs,) he took every care to suppress them. He therefore, as his uncle had done, dissolved all guilds but the ancient ones, and he disposed guards in proper stations for the prevention of highway robbery. He caused all the slave- houses (crgastula) throughout Italy to be visited and exam- ined, it having been the practice to kidnap travellers, (free- men and slaves alike,) and shut them up and make them work in these prisons. In order to facilitate the administration of justice, he added upwards of thirty days to the ordinary court-days, and he increased the number of the decuries of jurors, and reduced the legal age of jurymen from five-and- twenty to twenty years. He himself sat constantly to hear causes and administer justice. Every wise sovereign will be desirous to see a proper sense of religion prevalent among his subjects. Augustus accordingly turned his serious attention to this important subject. He rebuilt or repaired the temples which had been burnt or had fallen ; he reestablished and reformed various ancient institutions which had gone out of use, such as the augury of health, the jlamcn dialis, the secular games, the Lupercal rites, &;c. He increased the number and the hon- ors and privileges of the priesthoods, particularly that of the Vestal Virgins; he caused all the soothsaying books which were current, to the number of upwards of two thousand, to be collected and burnt, only retaining the Sibylline oracles,* * [For an excellent account of the Sibylline oraeles, see Prideaux's Connection of the Old and New Testament, under the year 13. — J. T S.] 34 AUGUSTUS. which he had carefully revised and placed in two c::ses undei the statue of the Palatine Apollo. His efforts, however, re- mained without effect; infidelity and its constuut concomi- tant, immorality, were spread too widely for him or any human legislator to be able to check them, and the polythe- ism of Greece and Rome was destined to fall before a far purer system of faith and doctrine. We have already spoken of the exertions made by Augus- tus to overcome the prevalent aversion to marriage. The principal cause of this was the extreme dissoluteness of man- ners at the time, exceeding any thing known in modern days; but poverty prevented many a man of noble birtli from un- dertaking the charge of supporting a wife and family, and the court which was paid by greedy legacy-hunters to the rich and childless* had charms for many of both sexes. The promotion of marriage had always been an object of attention witli the Roman government. One of the questions invaria- bly put to each person by the censors was, whether he was married or not; and there was a fine, named iixoriuin, laid on old Inchelors. C.tsar the dictator had sought to encourage marriage bv offering rewards; but the first law on tiie sul)- ject was the Julian De inaritundis ordinibui of 7!iG, and, this hiving [)roved ineffectual, a new and more comprehensive law, embracing all the provisions of the Julian, and named the " Papia-Popprean," (from the consuls M. Papius and Ci. Poppieus,) was passed in the year 7(52. t The principal heads of this law were, 1. All persons ex- cept senators might marry freedwomen. 2. No maiden was to be betrothed under the age often years. 3. Widows were allowed to remain single two years, divorced women a year and a half, before contracting a second marriage. 4. Those who had children were to have various honors and advan- tages, such as better seats at the public spectacles, the pref- erence when candidates for honors and in the allotment of tlie |)rovinces, immunity from guardianship and other per- sonal burdens, etc. etc. 5. Bachelors could receive no legacies except from their nearest relations, and the child- less only the half of what was left them. C. A woman whose guilt was the cause of a divorce was to lose her dower. The evil, however, was too deeply seated to be eradicated by law, and it still remained a subject of comp.aint. Of aa * See Horace, Sat. ii. 5. t See Dion, Ivi. 1 — 10- He remarks that neither of the coniuls iiad trife or child. THE ARMV. 99 iittle avail was the sumptuary law which he caused to be enacted ; he even failed in his desire to bring the toga again into general use.* Such were the principal civil regulations made during the reign of Augustus. The changes in the military system were also considerable. In Rome, as in all the ancient republics, the army had been nothing more than a burgher militia, in which every freeman of the military age was required to serve when called on. The long foreign wars, however, in which Rome was afterwards engaged, gradually converted the original militia into a standing army, and war became a profession, as in modern times. The character of the soldier had also deteri- orated since the change in the mode of enlistment made by C. Marius; and the Roman soldiery, further demoralized by the various civil wars, stood no higher in moral worth than the mercenary troops of modern Europe. The extent of the Roman empire, with warlike nations «n its frontiers, could only be guarded by a regular standing army, disciplined and always in readiness to take the field. Accordingly, in the speech which Dion ascribes to Majcenas, we find that states- man thus advising Augustus : t " The soldiers must be kept up, immortal, citizens, subjects, and allies, in some places more, in some less, through each nation as need may require, and be always in arms, and always engaged in military exer- cises ; having their winter quarters in the most suitable places, and serving for a limited period, so as to have some part of their life to themselves before old age. For, living so far away from the frontiers of the empire, and having ene- mies dwelling on every side of us, we could not have troops ready for any sudden emergency ; but if we allow all who are of the suitable age, to possess arms and to practise mili- tary exercises, they will be always raising factions and civil wars ; and again, if we prohibit them to do so, and then call upon them to serve on any occasion, we shall run the risk of having none but raw and undisciplined troops. I there- * The larcnui, a kind of military great-coat of a dark color and with a hood to il, was jrenerally worn instead of the toga. Auorustus ono day seeing, as he sat on his tribunal in the Forum, a number of the people thus habited, cried out in indignation : ♦' En Romanes rerum dominos, gentemque togatam,'' and gave orders to the Bcdiles henceforth not to ac'niit any one without a. toga into the ForUin or Circus. Suet. Oct. 40. t Difli, lii. 27. 36 AUGUSTUS. fore give it as my opinion that all the rest should live witU out arms or camps, while the most able-bodied and neces- sitous should be selected and disciplined ; for these will fight the better, having nothing else to occupy them ; and the others can devote themselves more entirely to agricul- ture, navigation, and tlie other arts of peace, not being called on to serve personally, and having others to protect them ; Hiid thqt portion of the population which is the strongest and most vigorous, and the most likely to live by robbery, will be supported at its ease, and all the rest will live free from' danger." It was therefore determined that the legions should be immortal, i. e. that the army should henceforth be a stand- ing one. The legions were to be twenty-five in number, which we fnul thus stationed at the time of Augustus's' death:* — On the Rhenish frontier eight ; in Spain three; in Africa one ; in Egypt two; in Syria four; in Pannonia three; in Mcesia two, and two more in D.ilmatia for the protection of Italy. Attached to each of these divisions was a body of troops termed auxiliaries, furnished by the ditferent states subject to, or in alliance with the empire; and, as in the old days of the republic, their number nearly equalled that of the legion>;.t The legion at this time con- tamed (ilOO infantry and 7~G horse; the twenty-five legions, therefore, mustered, when complete, 170,01)0 men; to which adding as many more for the auxiliaries, we have a sum total of ;340,00() men. These, however, did not form the whole military force of the empire; there was a body of 10,001) guards, divided into nine cohorts, named Praetorian, and three Urban cohorts, containing 6000 men. J These two last bodies were always recruited in Etruria, Umbria, La- tium, and the ancient Roman colonies. They had double pay, and their period of service was shorter than that o^ the legionaries. Augustus allowed only three of the cohorts to ren.ain in the city; the rest were distributed through the towns io the vicinity. § There were two commanders of the * Dion, Iv. 23. Tac. Ann. iv. 5, It is for the ninth year of Tiberitis that this last furnishes us with the distribution of the legions g-iven in tile text; but there had been no alteration of any account since the jinc of Augustus. t " Nequc rr.ulto secus in iis virium." Tac. Ann. iv. 5. \ Tac. ut svpni. Dion (Iv. 24) says 10 Froetorian and 4 Urban co- horts. § Suet. Oct. 49 ; the three would seem to be the Urban cohorts, tlius confirming the numbers given by Tacitus. THE ARMY. 37 PrrEtorian guards named prefects ; they were always to be taken from the equestrian order. At Ravenna in the Up- per, and Misenum in the Lower Sea, were stationed fleets of galleys, with their due complement of rowers, and each with its legion of marines attached to it; there also lay at Forum Julii, [Frejus,) on the coast of Gaul, a fleet composed of the ships taken at Actium.* Tiie pay of the legionary soldier was ten asses a day; that of the praetorian was double; the former had to serve twenty, the latter sixteen years before he could claim his discharge. The former then received a gratuity of 3000, the latter of 5000 denars, answering to the pension of mod- ern times. The pay and rewards of so large an army, the salaries of the numerous public officers, and the other indispensable expenses of government, required a considerable revenue. From the time when yEmilius Paulus brought the treasures of Perseus to Rome, the citizens had been free from the payment of the annual tributes or direct taxes hitherto lev- ied, and so often, in the early days of the republic, the cause of seditions. An annual tribute was imposed on every con- quered state; and as the tide of conquest rolled eastwards and westwards, a larger amount of revenue flowed annually to Rome. In the time of Augustus, the annual tributes of Asia, Egypt, Africa, Spain, and Gaul, produced a sum which has been estimated at from fifteen to twenty millions ster- ling.t Yet even this large revenue did not suffice for the exigencies of the state, and Augustus found it necessary not merely to continue the port duties, (portoria,) or customs which had been imposed by the dictator, but to establish an excise, and to lay on some direct taxes. In all commercial states, at all ages of the world, duties have been levied on imported foreign commodities ; they originated, probably, in the mistaken idea, that it was on the foreign merchant, and not on the domestic consumer, that Ihey fell. They were levied at Rome as elsewhere till the * T;ic. Ann. iv. 5. Suet. Oct. 49. Vegetius, v. 1. t Gibbon, i. ch. vi. [This sum is just equal to the annual ex- penditure of the British government at present, though the British dominions are far more extensive than those of Rome in her most powerful days, and though that expenditure is commonly, and not unjustly, considered to be on a very lavish scale. How wasteful, then, must have been the expenditure of Rome, for which even this sum did not suffice!— J. T. S.j CONTIN. 4 33 AUGUSTUS. end of the Mithridatic war, when they v vTC abolished; but Juliu;! Ctesar caused them to be again collected.* They were levied ad valorem by Augustus, and varied from twelve and a half to two and a half per cent.; articles of luxury, such as the precious stones, silks, and spices, of the East, being, of course, the most highly taxed. The excise was imposed by Augustus chiefly with the view of providing a fund for the payment of the troops ; it was a duty of one per cent, [cc.ntesima) levied on all articles, great and small, sold in the markets or by auction at Rouie or throughout Italy. This not proving suificient, he imposed (T59) a duly of five per cent, on all legacies and inheritances, except in the case of the poor, or of very near relations.t This equitable tax, however, proving very odious to the legacy-hunting nobility of Rome, in order to stop their murmurs, he sent (7CG) to the senate, requesting them to suggest some less onerous imposition to the same amount; and when they could not, yet declared that they would pay any thing rather than it, he substituted a property tax, and »ent out officers to make an estimate of tlie property in lands, houses, etc., throughout Italy This brought them to reason, and there was no fur- ther opposition to the legacy duty.J The treasury of the prince, whence the pay of the army was to issue, was named the Fisc, {Fiscus,) and was distinct from the public treasury, {^Erariitm,) and managed by dif- ferent officers ; but the distinction was more apparent than real, as both were equally at the devotion of the master of the legions. Such was the form of the Roman empire, as reduced into order, and regulated by the wisdom and prudence of Augus- tus. While the civilized world thus formed one body, ruled by one mijtd, it pleased the Ruler of the universe to send his Son into it, as the teacher of a religion unrivalled in sublimity, purity, and beneficence, and which was gradually to spread to the remotest ends of the earth. In the year of Rome 7o2 by the Catonian, 754 by the Varronian computa* tion, Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem of Juda3a.<§ • Cic. Att. ii. 16. Dion, xxivii. 51. Suet. Jul. 43. t Dion, Iv. 25. t Dion, Ivi. US. § We shall henceforth reckon by the Christian era. A. D. 14.] FUNERAL OF AUGUSTUS 39 CHAPTER III.* TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS NERC CiESAR, A. V. 767—790. A. D. 14—37. FUNERAL OF AUGUSTUS. MUTINY OF THE LEGIONS. VICTO- RIES OF GERMANICUS. HIS DEATH. CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF TIBERIUS. RISE AND FALL OF SEJANUS. DEATH OF AGRIPPINA AND HER CHILDREN. DEATH OF TIBERIUS. The death of Augustus was kept secret by Livia and Tiberius till the danger of a disputed succession should be removed by the death of Agrippa Posthumus. Orders in the name of Augustus were therefore sent to the officer who had him in charge, to put him to death. The orders were forth- with executed; but when the centurion, who was the agent, made his report to Tiberius, according to the usual custom, the latter made answer that he had not ordered it, and that the centurion must account to the senate for it. The mat- ter, however, ended there, for no inquiry was ever instituted. When the death of Augustus was at length made known at Rome, the senate, the knights, the army, and the people, hastened to swear obedience to Tiberius, who had already assumed the command of the army as Imperator. The body of Augustus was conveyed by night from town to town by the decurions or councilmen of each. At Bovillae it was met by the Roman knights, who carried it into the city, and deposited it in the vestibule of his house on the Palatine. Tiberius, by virtue of his tribunitian authority, convoked the senate to consult about the funeral and the honors to be decreed to the deceased. These, had the real or pretended vvishes of the senate prevailed, would have been excessive ; but Tiberius set a limit to their adulation, and only con- sented that the senators should carry the body to the pyre. The will of Augustus, which was in the custody of the Ves- tals, was then produced and read. The funeral orations were pronounced by Tiberius himself and his son Drusus. The body was borne on the shoulders of the senate to the Campus Martius, and there burnt; the ashes were collected * Authorities: Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dion. '30 TIBERIUS. [a. D. 14 by the principal men of the equestrian order, and deposited '■.:, the Mausoleum, which he had built in his sixth consulate, (72G,) between the Flaminiau to«d and the Tiber, and sur rounded with plantations and public walks. An eagle had been let to nscend from the flaming pyre, as the bearer of the soul of the deceased to heaven; and Numinius Atticus, a man of praetorian rank, swore publicly that he saw Augus- tus mounting to the skies ; for which falsehood Livia gratified "him with a gift of 25,000 denars. A Iliroum was therefore decreed to be raised to Augustus, as to one who had not shared the fate of ordinary mortals, but, like Hercules or Romulus, was become a god. By his last will, Augustus had made Tiberius and Livia (whom he had placed in the Julian family, and named Au- gusta) his heirs, the former of two thirds, the latter of one \ third, of the property which would remain after payment of i the numerous legacies which he left. He bequeathed a sum [ of 43,o0(), 000 sesterces to the Roman people ; to the Proe- I torians 1000 sesterces each; half that sum to each of the { Urbans, and 300 to each of the legionaries. He also be- I queathed various sums to his friends. He expressly forbade 5 either of the Julias to be laid in his monument wlien they \ died. Beside his will, Augustus left three pieces in writing, I theone containing the directions about his funeral, another j an account of his actions, which he directed to be cut on J brazen tables, and set up before his Mausoleum, and a third I giving a view of the condition of the whole empire, the \ number of soldiers under arms, the quantity of money in the 1 treasury and fisc, or elsewhere, adding the names of the freed- j| men and slaves who might be called on to account for it. I The man into whose hands the supreme power was now i transferred, was in character diametrically opposite to Au- \ gustus. Tiberius Claudius Nero, who was by adoption a I member of the Julian house, was nearly fifty-four years of I age. He had exercised all the principal ofRces in the state, I Tind had commanded armies with reputation. He was fond \ of literature and science, and of the society of learned men ; I hut he had all the innate haughtiness of the Claudian family; I he was suspected of an inclination to cruelty ; yet ?o profound I »?a3 his power of dissimulation, that he had attained to that t mixture age without his character being generally understood.* I boJ >'>IU^ * In his first campaig-ns, the soldiers, noticing his love of wine, caHed him Biberius Caldius Mero. Suet. Tib. 42. A. D. 14.] MUTINY OF THE LEGIONS. 41 His manners and carriage were repulsive and forbidding, he was generally silent, and did not unbend and decline into familiarity. \\ When all due honors had been decreed to Augustus, the } | senate turned to Tiberius, imploring him to assume the su- \ i preme power; but he feigned reluctance, spoke of the diffj- j ! culty of the task, and his own incompetence, saying that, in | J a state possessing so many illustrious men, such power should < I not be committed to any single person. This only caused i them to urge him the more ; they called on the gods and on j the statue of Augustus: Tiberius marked the words of each, i and for some incautious speakers he laid up future vengeance. \ At length, yielding as it were to compulsion, he accepted the j wretched and onerous servitude, as he termed it, until the I senate should see fit to grant some repose to his old age. ' la this affected reluctance, Tiberius, no doubt, was act- j ing according to his natural character of dissimulation, and | seeking to learn the real sentiments of the leading senators; '? but he had other reasons and causes of apprehension. He j was uncertain how the two great armies, which were stationed | in Pannonia and Germany, would act when they heard of |I the death of Augustus; and he feared lest Germanicus, who | commanded the latter, and who was universally beloved, | miglit choose to grasp the supreme power when within his | reach, rather than wait for it to come to him by the more |i tedious course of succession. He did, however, the noble | Germanicus injustice ; but his suspicions of the legions were | not unfounded, for they broke out into mutiny when intelli- s gence reached them of the late events. -j The mutin^y commenced in the Pannonian army of three s legions under the command of Junius BK-esus. The soldiers ] complained of the smallness of their pay and the length of 'i their service, and demanded to be placed on an equality in I both these points with the Praetorians. Blaesus having sue- § ceeded, in some measure, in calming them, they selected hia I own son as their deputy, to lay their grievances before Ti- '| berius; but when he was gone, the mutiny broke out anew, < and they killed one of their officers, drove the rest out of the \ camp, and plundered their baggage. When Tiberius heard ' of the mutiny, he sent off his son Drusus with a guard of the Prstorians, and bearing letters to the troops, in which he promised to lay their grievances before the senate, adding that Drusus was authorized to concede at once all that could be granted without a decree of the senate. 42 TIBERIUS. [a d. 14. The sold irs received and listened to Drusus with re» spect ; but when they found that he had not in fact the power to grant any of their demands, they quitted liis tribu- nal in anger. The greatest apprehensions were entertained that they would break out into violence during the night; but an unexpected event altered the wiiole course of affairs. The moon, which was shining at the full in an unclouded sky, was suddenly observed to grow dim. The ignorant, superstitious soldiers, viewing this as ominous of their own condition, clashed their arms and sounded their horns and trumpets, to relieve the labor of the goddess of the night; and as she still grew darker, they gave way to despair, saying that the gods had declared against them, and that their toils were to have no end. The otiicers, who had influence with them, took advantage of this disposition, and went about all the night long reasoning with and persuading them. In the morning, Drusus again addressed then), and Blajsus and two other deputies were sent to Tiberius. Meantime Drusus caused some of the most mutinous to be executed. A pre- mature winter, with violent rain and storm, increased the superstitious terrors of the soldiery, and the legions gradually returned to their obedience without even waiting for the answer of Tiberius. The mutiny which broke out at the same time in the Ger- man army was still more formidable. This arn)y, consisting of two divisions of four legions each, was quartered in the Upper and Lower Germany ; the former commanded by C. Silius, the latter by A. Caecina. The commander-in-chief was Germanicus, who was at this time absent, being engaged in taking a census of Gaul. The mutiny commenced in the camp of C.-Ecina ; the complaints were the same as those of i the Pannonian legions, but the soldiers showed themselves more determined and ferocious. They seized their centu- rions, threw them on the ground, beat them nearly to death, and then cast them out of the camp or into the Rhine; they \ refused all obedience to their superior officers; they set the guards themselves, and performed all the necessary military duties. Germanicus hastened to the camp ; the soldiers came forth 1 to meet him with all tokens- of respect. He entered and ! ascended his tribunal; they; stood round in their companies. I He addressed them; they listened, iu- silence, while he spoke I in praise of Augustus and Tiberius, and extolled their own J exploits. But, when he began to touch on their late con A. D. 14.] MUTINY OF THE LEGIONS. 43 duct, they stripped their bodies, showing the scars of wounds and the marks of blows ; they enumerated the laborious tasks they had to perform ; the veterans counted up the thirty and more campaigns that they had served. Some called for the money bequeathed to them by Augustus, and expressed their wishes for Germanicus himseK to assume the supreme power. At these words, he sprang down from the tribunal; they opposed his departure with menaces; he drew his sword, and was about to plunge it into his bosom, but those near him caught his hand. Some of the more distant, however, called out to him to strike; and one soldier had the audacity to offer him his sword, saying that it was sharper than his own. The rest were appalled at this daring act, and paused ; and his friends then got Germanicus into his tent. He there deliberated on the state of affairs; and, as it was known that the mutineers were about to send deputies to solicit the legions in Upper Germany, and that the Germans would probably take advantage of the mutiny to cross the Rhine, it was resolved to try to appease them. A letter was therefore written, in the name of Tiberius, giving a total discharge to those who had served twenty, and a partial one to those who had served sixteen campaigns; and adding, that they should receive double the sum left them by Augustus. As two of the legions insisted on being paid their money down, Germanicus and his friends had to supply it from their own private funds. Germanicus then proceeded to the army of Upper Ger- many, in which the spirit of mutiny had been very slight; and, though the soldiers did not ask for them, he gave dis- charges and money as to the other army. On his return to the place named The Ubiaiis' Altar, [Bonn,) where two of the lately mutinous legions were quartered, he met a deputation from the senate, headed by xMunatius Plancus. The soldiers, conscious of guilt, began to fear that they were the bearers of a decree for annulling the concessions which they had extorted by their mutiny ; they again broke into a tumult ; they assailed the gate of Germanicus's dwelling in the night, and forced him to get up and deliver to them a standard which they demanded.* The deputies (especially Plancus, whom they fancied to have been the proposer of the ob- noxious decree) narrowly escaped with their lives. In tho * Tac. Ann. i. 3!). Lipsius thinks it was the red flag which used tc be hung out over the general's tent as the signal for battle. 14 TIBERIUS. [k. D. 14 doming, Germanicus remonstrated with them on their con- duct, but they listened in sullen silence. He then dismissed the deputies with an escort of horse of the allies; and, on his friends representing to him the imprudence of allow- ing his wife and young son to remain in a place of so much danger, he resolved to send them to the Trevirians for security. Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus, was the daughter of Agrippa and Julia ; she was a woman of a high spirit, de- votedly attached to her husband, and of unsullied chastity; and she was now far advanced in pregnancy. Her young son, Gains, had been reared in the camp, and been given by the soldiers the name of Caligula, from his being made to wear the military shoes, which were so called. When, there- fore, the soldiers saw the wife and child of their general, accompanied by the wives of his friends, all weeping and lamenting, about to quit a Roman camp in order to seek the protection of provincials, they were filled with grief and shame, and more especially with envy of the Trevirians. Some stopped them, and insisted on their remaining, while others crowded round Germanicus, who now rebuked them severely for their conduct. They acknowledged their fault, besought him to punish the guilty, to forgive the misguided, to lead them against the enemy, but to bring back his wife and child, and not deliver the nursling of the legions as a hostage to Gauls. He consented to the return of his son, but excused that of his wife, on account of her pregnancy and the approach of the winter. The soldiers were con- tented : they forthwith seized the ringleaders of the mutiny, and dragged them, bound, before C. Cetronius, the legate of the first legion. They then stood with their swords drawn : each of the prisoners was placed on a bank of earth before the tribunal: if the soldiers cried out, "Guilty," he was thrown down, and they despatched him. Germanicus finally made an inquiry into the conduct of the centurions, and dismissed the service all who were proved guilty of avarice or cruelty. Order being thus restored in these two legions, Germanicus made preparations for conducting a body of the allies against the other two legions, who had begun the mutiny, and were now lying at the Old Camp, ( Vt-tera Castra • Santen.') He wrote, however, previously, to Cajcina, to say that, if not Drevented by the punisliment of the guilty, he would come and make a promiscuous slaughter. Caecina secretly com« A. D. 15.] GERMANICUS. 43 municated this letter to the officers and the sound part of the army, and it was resolved to fall unawares on the mutineers, and slaughter them. The plan was carried into effect, and numbers were thus butchered. Germanicus, on coming to the camp, shed copious tears, calling it a massacre, and not a medicine, and ordered the bodies of the slain to be burnt. The soldiers clamored to be led against the enemy, in order, by receiving honorable wounds, to appease the Manes of their comrades. A bridge was hastily thrown over the river and they advanced some way into Germany, where, falling on the unsuspecting barbarians on the night of one of their solemn festivals, they slaughtered all ages and sexes promis- cuously ; they laid the country waste for a space of fifty miles, levelling all edifices, sacred and profane, alike. Ger- manicus then led them back to winter quarters. Tiberius received the account of the suppression of the mutiny with mingled feelings. He rejoiced that it was at an end, while he was uneasy at the popularity which Germanicus must have acquired by his able and vigorous conduct. He, however, praised him to the senate ; but it was observed that his praises of Drusus, at the same time, though more brief, were more sincere. He gave the Pannonian legions all the advantages which Germanicus had granted to the German army. Early in the spring, (15,) Germanicus led his whole army over the 'Rhine, and invaded the country of the Chattans, where he wasted the land and slaughtered the inhabitants in the usual manner. Segestes, the Chattan prince, who, as we have seen, through enmity to Arminius, was in favor of the Romans, having sent to apprize Germanicus that he was sur- rounded by his hostile countrymen, who were under the it - fluence of Arminius, the Roman army was instantly marched to his relief, and he and his family, (among whom was his daughter, the wife of Arminius,) and a large body of his clients, were received under the protection of the Romans, and given a settlement on the left; bank of the Rhine. Germanicus led back his army ; but Arminius, maddened at the captivity of his wife, went from place to place, rousing the Cheruscans and the conierminous tribes to arms against the Romans. He was joined by his uncle, Inguiomer, a man whose talents the Romans held in the highest respect ; and Germanicus, therefore, judging that the war would be very serious, resolved to prevent, if possible, the whole weight of it from falling on one place. With this view, he despatched 46 TIBERIUS. [a. i>. 15 Caecina, with forty cohorts, through the Bructerian country, to the River Ems, (Amiiia,) while the prefect Pedo led tlie cavalry through the country of the Frisians; and he liimself, putting four legions on shipboard, sailed through the lakes. The whole force rendezvoused on the Ems, and all the coun- try between it and the Lippe was laid waste. As the Teutoburg forest, in which Varus and his legions had been slaughtered, was at hand, Germanicus resolved to proceed thither, and render the last honors to the slain. On arriving at the fatal spot, the Romans found the camp of Varus bearing evidence of the fate of the army : around lay whitening the bones of men and horses; broken weapons strewed the ground ; human heads were fixed on trunks of trees; the altars, at which the olhcers had been sacrificed, stood in the adjoining woods. The soldiers mournfully col- lected the bones of their comrades, and raised a mound over them, Germanicus himself laying the first sod. The jealousy of Tiberius was offended at this popular act, which, he said, tended to damp the spirit of the soldiers. The Romans, on their return to the Ems, were fallen on, in their march through the woods and marshes, by Arminius, and narrowly escaped a defeat. Germanicus then recmbarked his legions, sending the cavalry, as before, round the coast. He charged Cajciiia to make all the speed he could to. get beyond the Long Bridges, as a causeway was named which the Romans had some years before constructed in the exten- sive marshes which lay not far from the Ems. Caecina ac- cordirisjlv advanced with rapidity, but the speed of Arminius exceeded his; and, on arriving at the Bridges, he found the woods all occupied by the Germans, lie also, to his mor- t.-'ication, saw that the causeway had become so decayed with time, that it must be repaired before the army could pass it ; he therefore resolved to encamp on the spot.' The Germans assailed the Romans as they were engaged in forming their camp, and the legions were saved from de- structif)u only by the intervention of night. As there was now little chance of their being able to pass by the Bridges, CsBcina saw that his only course was to endeavor to force liis way through a narrow plain, which lay between the marshes and the hills occupied by the enemy. After passing a miserable night, the army set out at dawn ; but the two le- gions, which were appointed to cover the flank of the line of march, disobeyed orders, and pushed on for the dry ground j and Arminius, waiting till he saw the Romans completely en 4. D. 16.] VICTORIES (Jf GERMANICUS. 4^ gaged in the marshes, charged the unprotected line, and broke it. The horses were the cliief object of attack ; and, pierced by the long spears of the Germans, they fell, and flung their riders, or, rushing on, trampled on those before them ; Ca;ci- na's own horse was killed under him, and he was near being taken by the enemy. Fortunately for the Romans, the bar- barians, in their usual manner, fell to plundering, and, at the approach of evening, they succeeded in reaching the dry ground. Here they were obliged to encamp, but most of their implements were lost; they were without tents, they had no dressings for their wounded, and their provisions were all spoiled ; they, however, succeeded in securing them- selves for the night. A horse having got loose in the night, the soldiers fancied that the Germans hud broken into the camp; and they were preparing to fly for their lives, when Cgecina, having ascer- tained that the alarm was groundless, called them together, and showed them that their only chance of safety was to re- main within their ramparts till the enemy should assail them, and then to break out and push on for the Rhine. The horses, not excepting his own, were then given to the bravest men, who were to be the first to charge the enemy. The Germans, on their part, were also deliberating how to pro- ceed ; Arminius was for letting the Romans quit their camp unmolested, and assailing, as before, their line of march ; but Inguiomer insisted on storming the ramparts, as there would then be more captives made, and the plunder would be in better condition. His opinion prevailed, and a general assault was made at daybreak. But, while the Germans were scaling the ramparts, the signal wag given to the co- horts, the trumpets .sounded, and the assailants found them- selves attacked in the rear. They made but a feeble resist- ance ; they were slaughtered in heaps all through the day by ttie legionaries, who next morning pursued their march unmolested for the Rhine. Germanicus resolved to conduct the next campaign (16) on different principles from the preceding ones. He had observed that, in consequence of the nature of the country, abounding in forests and morasses, the loss of men and horses in an invasion of Germany was immense; whereas, if the in- fantry were conveyed thither by sea, and the horse led round the coast, the campaign might be begun earlier, and the troops be exposed to less toil and danger. He therefore caused a multitude of vessels of all descriptions to be built 48 TIBERIUS. [a. r>. 16. in various places, and appointed the isle of the Batavians as the place of rendezvous and embarkation. When all was ready, he put the Roman army of eight legions and their at- tendant auxiliaries on board of a fleet of about 1000 vessels, of all forms and sizes, and, sailing up the Rhine, through the lake, and along the coast of the ocean, entered the mouth of the Ems, where having landed his troops, he advanced to the Weser. On reaching that river, he found its opposite bank occupied by Arminius and the Cheruscan warriors. He, however, forced the passage, and, the Germans having given him battle in a plain encompassed by hills on one side, on the other by the river, they were routed with great slaughter, the ground for a space of ten miles being covered with their arms and bodies. Undismayed by their reverses, they fell once more on the Ronians, as they were marching through a narrow, marshy plain, hemmed in by woods and the river; but success was once more on the side of discipline and supe- rior arms, andGernianicus, in the inscription which he put on a pile of the armor of the vanquished Germans, could boast of having conquered all the nations between the Rhine and the Elbe. As the summer was now far advanced, he sent a part of his army to their winter quarters by land ; he himself embarked with the remainder in the Ems ; but, when they got into the open sea, they were assailed by a furious tempest ; some of the vessels were driven on the German coast, others on the adjacent islands, others even to Britain ; and the loss of horses and baggage was immense. When the storm was over, the ships which had escaped were repaired without de- lay, and sent to search the islands, and bring off the men who had been cast away on them. Germanicus and his officers were decidedly of opinion that one campaign more would end the war, and complete the subjugation of Germany ; but the jealousy of Tiberius would not let him permit Germanicus to remain longer at the head of so large an army ; and he urged him to return to Rome to celebrate the triumph which had been decreed him, offering him, as an inducement, a second consulate. Germanicus, though he saw through his motives, yielded obedience to his wishes; and thus finally terminated the projects of the Romans for conquest in northern Germany.* * The gallant Arminius aflfrwards engaged in wat with and defcatr ed Maroboduns. He finally perished by the treachery of his relations, being charged with aiming at royalty. Tacitus (ii. 88) gives him the following encomium : " Liberator haud dubie Germanise, ct qui non A. D. 17-19.] DEATH OF GERMANICU3. 49" On his return to Rome, (17,) Germanicus celebrated his triumph over tlie Chattans, Cheruscans, and Angivarians Tiberius gave in his name a donation to the people of 300 sesterces a man, and nominated him his colleague in the consulate for the ensuing year. As, about this time, the kings of Cappadocia, Commagene, and Cilicia, were dead, and the affairs of Armenia were in their usual disorder, and Syria and Judiea were applying for a diminution of their burdens, Tiberius, who did not wish to let Germanicus re- main at Rome, or who, as some suspected, had designs on him which could best be accomplished at a distance, took advantage of this occasion for removing him ; by a decree of the senate, he was therefore assigned the provinces beyond the sea, with an authority, when in any of them, paramount to that of its actual governor. Tiberius at the same time removed Silanus, the governor of Syria, whose daughter was affianced to Germanicus's son, and appointed in his place Cn. Piso, a man of a fierce and violent temper, and whose wife, Plancina, a haughty and arrogant woman, was the intimate friend of Livia. It was suspected that they were selected as fit agents for the execution of some secret design against Germanicus. After visiting his brother Drusus, who held the command in Illyricum, and with whom he was always on the most cordial terms, Germanicus proceeded to Greece, (18,) whence he passed over to Asia, where he invested Zeno, son of the king of Pontus, with the diadem, and reduced Commagene and Cappadocia to the form of provinces. He thence (19) proceeded to Egypt, urged chiefly by the laudable curiosity of viewing the wonders of that land of mystery. On his return to Syria, he fell sick, and it was suspected that the cause of his disease was poison, privily administered by Piso and Plancina, with whom he was now at open enmity : Germanicus himself was of this opinion, and he therefore sent Piso orders to quit the province. The disease, however, proved fatal, and he died shortly after, with his last breath charging his friends to appeal to his father, brother, and the senate, for" punishment on Piso and Plancina, as the authors of his death. prirnordia Pop. Rom. sicut alii reges ducesque, sed florentissimum im- perium lacessierit; preeliis ambiguus, belle non victus; xxxvli. annoa vitse, xii. potenliap explevit; canitur adhuc barbaras apud gentes ; Grajcorum annalibus ignotus, qn\ suatantum mirantur ; Romanis haud perinde Celebris, diiin Vetera extolliinus recentium incuriosi." CONT N. 5 G 50 TIBERIUS. [a D. 20. Such was the end of the noble Germanicus, n the thirty- fourth year of his age. Unlike the Claudian "amily, from which he sprang, he was mild, affable, and clement in tem- per. Not content with military glory, he songlit fame also in the peaceful fields of literature.* He was a faithful husband, an affectionate parent, a constant friend ; in fine, both in public and private virtues, he has few superiors in the pages of history. After the death of Germanicus, a consultation was held, by such of the senators as were present, on the subject of the government of the province of Syria, now vacant, and it was resolved to commit it to Cn. Sentius. Meantime Piso, who was at Cos when the news of the death of Germanicus reached him, consulted as to what he should do. His son urged him to pursue his journey to Rome without a mo- ment's delay ; but one of his friends, Domitius Celer, advised him to return to Syria, and wrest the government of it from Sentius. Piso adopted this last course ; but, failing in his attempts to seduce the legions, he was besieged by Sentius in a castle on the coast of Cilicia, and surrendered on con- dition of being allowed to proceed to Rome. Agrippina li.id already (20) reached the city with the urn whicli contained the ashes of her illustrious husband. The mourning of the people was universal and sincere ; but the honors of the dead were limited by the jealousy of Tiberius. When Dru.sus, after the funeral, returned to Dalmatia, he was visited by Piso, who hoped to gain his protection ; but, failing in his object, he had to proceed to Rome, where the friends of Germanicus made no delay in exhibiting articles of accusation against him. The cause was referred by Ti- berius to the senate. All the charges but that of poisoning were proved ; and Piso, seeing Tiberius, the senate, and the people, equally hostile to him, sought a refuge from ignominy in a voluntary death. Plancina was acquitted through the influence of Augusta, at whose desire Tiberius himself be- came her intercessor. Before we proceed to notice the internal affairs of the empire during the early part of the reign of Tiberius, we will mention briefly the slight military movements on the frontiers. In Africa a Numidian named Tacfarinas, who had served in the Roman army, and had then become a freebooter, and * The Fasti of Ovid are dedicated to this prinee. A. D. 31.] MILITARY MOVEMENTS. 51 gradually collected a good body of men, being oiiii-.il h'j a Moorish chief named Mazippa, began to lay vaste and plunder the province, (17.) The proconsul Furius Camillud led the Roman troops out against them ; Tacfurinas had the courage to give him battle, but his Numidians were easily routed; the triumphal insignia were decreed to Caniillu^;, who, as the historian observes, was the tirst of his family, since the time of the great Camillas and his son, who had acquired military glory. Tacfarinas continued to harass the province by his incursions for some years ; at length (24) he was defeated and slain by the proconsul P. Dolabella. The trifling commotions which took place in Thrace, and were easily repressed, are not deserving of particular notice; but an insurrection which broke out in Gaul (21) threatened to be of serious consequence. The origin of it was the heavy weight of debt caused by the excessive amount of the tributes, to meet which the states were obliged to borrow money from the wealthy men at Rome on enormous interest; to which were added the pride and severity of the Romat. governors. The heads of the revolt were Julius Florus, a Trevirian, and Julius Sacrovir, an JEduan, both men of great influence, and whose ancestors had been honored with the Roman right of citizenship. The people of Anjou and Touraine were the first to rise, but they were easily put down; Sacrovir, who had not yet declared himself, fighting on the occasion in the Roman ranks. Florus, with his Tre- virians, occupied the forest of Ardenne, (Ardiunna ;) but his unorganized rabble was easily dispersed by a party under Julius Indus, another Trevirian, who was at enmity with him ; and he slew himself to escape captivity. Sacrovir meantime seized on Autun, (Augustodumim,) the capital of the ^duans, where most of the young nobility of Gaul were placed for the purpose of education, in order that he might thus draw their parents and relations in to share in the war. He collected 40,000 men, only a fifth of whom were completely armed : with these he gave battle to the Roman legions ; and, being defeated, he fled with a few companions to a country-house near Autun, where he put an end to himself. The Gallic war was thus terminated, and the em- pire remained at peace during the remainder of the reign of Tiberius. It is now time that we should trace the conduct of this wily prince during the period of which we have related the militrry transactions. 52 TTBERIUS. [a. D. 2l. All the historians are agreed that he both disliked and feared Germanicus, and that it was the awe in which he stood of that favorite of the soldiery and the people that caused him to act with so much moderation in his first years, in which there is really little to reprehend. His plan was to possess the reality of power without ex- citincf hatred or envy by the useless display of the show of it. He therefore rejected the titles that were offered him such as that of Imperator, as a prcenomen, and that of Fathe- of his Country ; even that of Augustus, though hereditar; , he would only use in his letters to kings and dynasts : abo\e all, he rejected that of Master, {Dominus ;) he would only be called Cresar, or First of the Senate. This last (which we shall henceforth term Prince) was his favorite title : he used to say, " I am the Master of my slaves, the Imperator of the soldiers, and the Prince of the rest." He would not allow any thing peculiar to be done in honor of his birthday, nor suffer any one to swear by his fortune ; neither would he permit the senate to swear to his acts on new year's day, or temples, or any other divine honors, to be decreed him. He was affable and ea.sy of approach ; he took no notice oflibels and evil reports of which he was the object, while he re- pelled flattery of every kind. To the senate and the magistrates he preserved (at least in apj)earance) all their pristine dignity and power. Every matter, great or small, public or private, was laid before the senate. The debates were apparently free, and the prince was often in the minority. He always entered the senate- house without any attendants, like an ordinary senator ; he reproved consulars in the command of armies for writing to him instead of the senate ; he treated the consuls with the utmost respect, rising to them and making way for them. Ambassadors and deputies were directed to apply to them, as in the time of the republic. It was only by his tribuiiitian ricrht of interceding that he exercised his power in the sen- ate. He used also to take his seat with the magistrates as they were administering justice, and by his presence and authority gave a check to the influence of the great in pro- tecting the accused ; by which conduct of his, while justice gained, liberty, it was observed, suffered.* The public morals and the tranquillity of the city were ■ >ui>l|!i < 'U' • '>!. ! ■ * ''Sed dum ' Viritati con^litur libertas corrunipebatur." Tac Ann. i. 75. A.D. 21.] CONDUCT OF TIBEBTUS. 53 also attended to. A limit was set to the expenses of plays end public shows, and to the salaries of the players, to whom the senators and knights were forbidden to show marks of respect, by visiting them or attending them in public. Profligacy had become so bold and shameless, that ladies were known to have entered themselves in the list of professed courtesans in order to escape the penalties of the law, and young men of family to have voluntarily submitted to the mark of infamy in order to appear with safety on tne stage or the arena; both these infamous classes were now subjected to the pen- alty of exile. Astrologers and .fortune-tellers were expelled the city ; the rites and ceremonies of the Egyptian and Judaic religions were suppressed. Guards were placed throughout Italy to prevent highway robbery ; and those refuges of villany of all kinds, the sanctuaries, were regu- lated in Greece and Asia. Yet people were not deceived by all this apparent regard for liberty and justice ; for they saw, as they thought, from the very commencement, the germs of tyranny, especially in the renewal of the law of treason, [majestas.) In the time of the republic, there was a law under this name, by which any one who had diminished the greatness {majestas) of the Roman people by betraying an army, exciting the plebs to sedition, or acting wrong in command, was subject to pun- ishment. It applied to actions alone ; but Sulla extended it to speeches,* and Augustus to writings against not merely the state, but private individuals, on the occasion of Cassius Severus having libelled several illustrious persons of both sexes. Tiberius, who was angered by anonymous verses made on himself, directed the prpetor, when consulted by him on the subject, to give judgment on the law of treason As this law extended to words as well as actions, it opened a wide field for mischief, and gave birth to the vile brood of Delators, or public informers, answering to the sycophants, those pests of Athens in the days of her democratic despot- ism. This evil commenced almost with the reign of Ti- berius, in whose second year two knights, Falonius and Rubrius, were accused, the one of associating a player of infamous character with the worshippers of Augustus, and of having sold with his gardens, a statue of that prince, the other of having sworn falsely by his divinity, Tiberius, hffwever, would not allow these absurd charges to be en- * Cic. Sid Pam. Hi. 11. 54 TIBERIUS. [a. d. 22 tertained. Soon after, Granius Marcellus, the praetor of Bithynia, was charged with treason by his quaestor, Cspio Crispinus, for having spoken evil of Tiberius, having placed his own statue on a higher site than that of the Cajsars, and having cut the head of Augustus off a statue, to make room for that of Tiberius. This last charge exasperated Tiberius, who declared that he would vote himself on the matter; but a bold expression used by Cn. Piso brought him to reason, and Marcellus was acquitted. After the death of Germanicus, Tiberius acted with less restraint; for his son Drusus did not possess the qualities sliiled to gain popularity, and thus to control him. In fact, except his affection for his noble adoptive brother, there was nothing in the Character of Drusus to esteem. He was addicted to intettiperance, devoted to the sports of the anv- phitheatre, and of so cruel a temper, that a peculiarly sharp kind of swords were named from him Drusians. Tiberius liiade him his colleague in the consulate,* and then obtained for him the tribunitian power, (22;) but Drusus was fated to no long enjoyment of the dignity and power thus con- ferred on him. A fatal change was also to take place in the conduct and government of Tiberius himself, of which we must now trace the origin. Seius Strabo, who had been made one of the pra.'fects of the praetorian cohorts by Augustus, had a son, who, having been adopted by one of the il'^lian family, was named, in the usual manner, L. /Elius Sejanus. This young man, who was born at Vulsinii in Tuscany, was at first attached to the service of Caius Caesar, after whose death he devoted him.scIfto Til)erius ; and such was his consummate art, that this wily prince, dark and mysterious to all others, was open and unreserved to him. Sejanus equalled his master in the power of concealing his thoughts and designs ; he was daring and ambitious, and he possessed the requisite qualities for attaining the eminence to which he aspired ; for, though proud, he could play the flatterer; he could, and did, assume a modest exterior, and he had vigilance and industry, and a body capable of enduring any fatigue. When Drusus was sent to quell the mutiny of the Panno- nian legions, Sejanue, whom Tiberius had made colleague * Dion (\v\\. 90) snys that people forthwitli prophpsi<»d the ruin of Drusus; or it was observed that every one who had been llberius'a colleag-ue in the consulate came to a violent end, as Quirictilius Vania, Cn. Piso, Germanicus, and afterwards Drusu" and Sejanus. A. D, 23.] RISE OF SEJANUS. 55 with his father, Strabo, in the command of the praetoiians, accompanied him as his governor and director. Strabo was afterwards sent out to Egypt, and Sejanus was continued in the sole command of the guards; he then represented to Tiberius how much better it would be to have them col- lected into one camp, instead of being dispersed through tho city and towns, as they would be less liable to be corrupted, would be more orderly, and of greater efficiency if any in- surrection «(hould occur. A fortified camp was therefore formed for them near the Viminai gate; and Sejanus then began to court the men, and he appointed those on whom he could rely to be tribunes and centurions. While thus securing the guards, he was equally assiduous to gain parti- sans in the senate ; and honors and provinces only came to | \ those who had acquired his favor by obsequiousness. In all | I these projects he was unwittingly aided by Tiberius, wfeo | I used publicly to style him " the associate of his labors ; " aiiMl 1 | even allowed his statues to be placed and worshipped in tern- I J pies and theatres, and among the ensigns of the legions. ] | Sejanus had, in fact, formed the daring project of destroy- j * ing Tiberius and his family, and seizing the supreme power. | f As, beside Tiberius and Drusus, who had two sons, there | \ were a brother and three sons of Germanicus living, he re- ;; I solved, as the safer course, to remove them gradually by art | | and treachery. He began with Drusus, against whom he | 5 had a personal spite, as that violent youth had one time pub- | i licly given him a blow in the face. In order to effect his I I purpose, he seduced his wife, Livia, or Livilla, the sister of I | Germaniv.us; and then, by holding out to her the prospect | | of a share in the imperial power, he induced her to engage l I in the plan for the murder of her husband.* Her physician, | | Eudemus, was also taken into the plot ; but it was some time | f before the associates could finally determine what mode to I adopt. At length a slow poison was fixed on, which was | administered to Drusus by a eunuch named Lygdus ; and he \ died apparently of disease, (23.) Tiberius, who, while his | son was lying dead, had entered the senate-house, and ad- j dressed the members with his usual composure, pronounced | the funeral oration himself, and then turned to business for j consolation. So far, all had succeeded with Sejanus, and death carried off the younger son of Drusus soon after his father ; but * " Neque femina, amissa pudicitia, alia abnuerit," observes Tacitus. •'^ 5G TIBERIUS. [a. d. 25. Nero an] Drusus, the two elder sons of Germanicus, were sow growing up ; and the chastity of their mother, and the fidelity of those about them, put poison out of the question. He therefore adopted another course ; and, taking advantage of the high spirit of Agrippina, and working on the jealousy of her which Augusta was known to entertain, he managed so that both she and Livia should labor to prejudice Tibe- rius against Agrippina by talking of the pride which she took in her progeny, and the ambitious designs which she entertained. At the same time, he induced some of those about her to stimulate her haughty spirit by their treacher- ous language. He further proposed to deprive her of sup- port, by destroying those persons of influence who were attached to her family, or the memory of her husband. With this view, he selected for his first victims C. Silius and Titius Sabinus, the friends of Germanicus, and Silius's wife, Sosia Galla, to whom Agrippina was strongly attached, and who was therefore an object of dislike to Tiberius, Omitting, however, Sabinus for the present, he caused the consul Visellius Varro to accuse Silius of treason, for having dissembled his kimwledge of the designs of Sacrovir, having disgraced his victory by his avarice, and countenanced the acts of his wife. Having vainly asked for a delay till hia accuser should go out of office, and seeing that Tiberius was determinedly hostile to him,* Silius avoided a condem- nation by a voluntary death. His wife was banished ; a portion of his property was confiscated, but the remainder was left to his children. Urged by his own ambition, and by the importunity of Livia, Sejanus had soon ('25) the boldness to present a pe- tition to Tiberius, praying to be chosen by him for her hus- band. Tiberius took no offence ; his reply was kind, only stating the difficulties of the matter with respect to Sejanus himself, but at the same time expressing the warmest friend- ship for and confidence in him. Sejanus, however, was suspicious; and he began to reflect that, while Tiberius re- mained at Rome, many occasions might present themselves to those who desired to undermine him in the mind of that jealous prince; whereas, could he induce him to quit the " " Advcrsatns est Coesar, solitnin quippe magislratibus diem priva- tis dicere; nee infringendum consulia jus, cujus vigiliis nitiretur n« quod respublica detrinientuin caperet. Proprium id Tiberic fuit see lera nuper reperta priscis verbis obtegere." Tac. A. D. 25.] SPEECH OF CREMUTIUS. 57 city, all access to him would be only through himself, all letters would be conveyed by soldiers who were under his orders, and gradually, as the prince advanced in years, all , the affairs of the state would pass into his hands. He there- | \ fore, by contrasting the noise and turbulence of Rome with \ the solitude and tranquillity of the country, gradually sought | to bend him to his purpose, which he effected in the follow- j | ing year. \ | During this time, the deadly charge of treason was brought [ I against various persons. The most remarkable case was that ] t of A. Cremutius Cordus, the historian. He had made a free \ | remark on the conduct of Sejanus; and, accordingly, two of i ! that favorite's clients were directed to accuse him of treason, | ) for having in his history called Cassius the last of the Ro- i' I mans.* Cremutius, when before the senate, observing the ' | sterrmess of Tiberius's countenance, took at once the resolu- j | tioii of abandoning life, and therefore spoke as follows : - — 1 1 " Fathers, my words are accused, so guiltless am I of { i acts ; but not even these are against the prince or the ] | prince's parent, whom the law of treason embraces. I am > i said to have praised Brutus and Cassius, whose deeds, while i| several have written, no one has mentioned without honor. I Titus Livius, who is preeminent for eloquence and fidelity, | extolled Pompeius with such praises, that Augustus used to | call him a Pompeian ; nor was that any hinderance of their { friendship. He nowhere calls Scipio, Afranius, this very I Cassius, this Brutus, robbers and parricides, which names \ are now given them ; he often speaks of them as distin- f guished men. The writings of Asinius Pollio transmit an I illustrious record of them ; Messala Corvinus used to call | Cassius his general ; and both of them flourished in wealth 1 and honors. To the book of Marcus Cicero, which extolled I Cato to the skies, what did the dictator Caesar but reply in I a written speech, as if before judges 1 The letters of Auto- t nius, the speeches of Brutus, contain imputations on Augus- l lus which are false, and written with great bitterness. The I verses of Bibaculus and Catullus, which are full of abuse of i the Caesars, are read; nay, the divine Julius himself, the f divine Augustus himself, both bore with them and let them \ remain ; I cannot well say whether more through modera- | tion or wisdom ; for what are despised go out of mind ; if | * He probably only used the words of Brutus, who spoke thus of 3 C^assius. See Hist, of Rome, p. 459. H , I 58 TIBERIUS. [i. D. 26. you are angry with them, their truth seer.is to be acknowl- edured. I speak not of .the Greeks, among whom not only liberty but license was unpunished ; or if any one did take notice, he avenged himself on words by words. But there was the greatest freedom, and no reproach, when speaking of those whom death had removed from enmity or favor. Do I, in the cause of civil war, inflame the people by my harangues, while Brutus and Cassius are in arms, and occu- pying the plains of Philippi ? Or do they, who are now dead these seventy years, as they are known by their images, which the conqueror did not destroy, retain in like manner their share of memory hi literary works? Posterity allots his meed to every one ; nor, should a condemnation fall on me, will there be wanting those who will remember not only Brutus and Cassius, but also meJ" Having thus spoken, Cordus left the senate-house, and, returning to his own abode, starved himself to death. The senate decreed that the copies of his work should be col- lected and burnt by the aediles ; but some were saved by his daughter Marcia, and were republished in the succeeding \ reign.* At length, (26,) Tiberius quitted Rome, and went into Cam- pania, under the pretext of dedicating a temple to Jupiter at Capua, and one to Augustus at Nola ; but with the secret intention of never returning to the city. Various causes, all perhaps true, are assigned for this resolution. The sug- gestions of Sejanus were not without effect ; he was grown thin, and (^looped ; he was quite bald, and his face was full of blotches and ulcers, to which he was obliged to have plasters constantly applied ; and he may therefore have sought, on this account, to retire from the public view. It is further said that he wished to escape from the authority of his mother, who seemed to consider herself entitled to share the power which he had obtained through her exer- tions ; but perhaps the most prevalent motive was the wish to be able to give free course jo his innate cruelty and lusts when iu solitude and secrecy. He was accompanied only by one senator, Cocceius Ner- * Sec Sen. Cons, ad Marciam; .Si*pt. Cal. 16. "Quo ina^is socor- djam [i. e. vecordiam] eorum inridere Ticet," observes Tacitus, "qui prsBsenti potentia credunt exlinjrui posse etiam sequentis tevi niemori- am ; nam contra, punitis ingeniis gliscit auctoritas ", neque aliud ex- terni r«ges, aut qui eeidem acvitia uai sunt, nisi dcdecus sibi atque iltia gloriain peperere." A. D. 27.] TIBERIUS IN CAMPANIA. 5^ va, who was deeply skilled, in the laws, by Sejanue and another knight, and by some persons, chiefly Greeks whc were versed in literature. A few days after he set out, an accident occurred, which was near being fatal to him, but proved fortunate for Sejanus. As, at one of his ountry- seats, near Fundi, named the Caverns, (SjjelunccB,) tie was, for the sake of the coolness, dining in one of the natural caverns, whence the villa derived its appellation, a great quantity of the stones, which formed its roof, fell down and crushed some of the attendants to death. Sejanus threw himself over Tiberius, to protect him with his own body, and was found in that position by the soldiers who came to their relief. This apparent proof of generous self-devotion raised him higher than ever ui the estimation of the prince. While Tiberius was rambling from place to place in Campania, (27,) a dreadful calamity occurred at Fidena;, in consequence of the fall of a temporary amphitheatre erected by a freedman named Atilius, for giving a show of gladia- tors; the number of the killed and maimed is said to have been fifty thousand. The conduct of the nobility at Rome, on this melancholy occasion, showed that all virtue had not departed from them ; they threw open their houses for the sufferers, and supplied them with medical attendance and remedies; so that, as the great historian observes, the city wore the appearance of the Rome of the olden time, when, after battles, the wounded were thus humanely treated. This calamity was immediately followed by a tremendous fire on the Caelian Hill ; but Tiberius alleviated the evil, by giving the inhabitants the amount of their losses in money. Having dedicated the temples, and rambled for some time through the towns of Campania, Tiberius finally fixed on the islet of Capreae, in the Bay of Naples, as his permanent abode. This isle, which lay at the short distance of three miles from the promontory of Surrentum, was accessible only in one place; it enjoyed a mild temperature, and commanded a most magnificent view of the Bay of Naples and the lovely region which encompassed it.* But the delicious retreat was speedily converted by the aged prince into a den of infamy — such as has never perhaps found its equal ; his vi- cious practices, however, were covered by the veil of secre- cy, for he still lay under some restraint. * Augustus was so taken with the charms of this island, that he gave lands in exchange for it to the people of Naples, to whom it be- longed. Dion lii. 43. 60 TIBERIUS. [a. d. 28-29 When Tiberius left Rome, Sejanus renewed his niachi!ia- tions against Agrippina and her children and friends. He directed his first efforts against her eldest son, Nero, whom he surrounded with spies; and as this youth was married to a daughter of Livia's, his wife was instructed by her aban- doned mother to note and report all his most secret words and actions. Sejanus kept a faithful register of all he could learn in these various ways, and regularly transmitted it to Tiberius. He also drew to his side Nero's younger brother Drusus, a youth of a fiery, turbulent temper, and who hated him because he was his mother's favorite. It was, however, Sejanus's intention to destroy him also, when he should have served his purpose against Nero. At this time also he made his final and fatal attack on Titius Sabinus, whose crime was his attachment to the fam- ily of Germanicus. The bait of the consulate, of which Sejanus alone could dispose, induced four men of praetorian dignity to conspire his ruin. The plan proposed was, that one of them, named Latinius Latiaris, who had some knowl- edge of Sabinus, should draw him into conversation, out of which a charge of treason might be manufactured. The plot succeeded : Latiaris, by praising the constancy of Sabi- nus in friendship, led him gradually on to speak as he thought of Sejanus, and even of Tiberius. At length, un- der pretence of having something of great importance to reveal, he brought him into a chamber where the other three were concealed between the ceiling and the roof A charge of treason was therefore speedily concocted and for- warded to Tiberius, fron) whom a letter came on new year's day, (28,) plainly intimating to the senate his desire of vengeance. This sufficed for that obsequious body, and Sabinus was dragged forth and executed without delay. In his letter of thanks to the senate, Tiberius talked of the danger he was in, and of the plots of his enemies, evi- dently alluding to Agrippina and Nero. These unfortunate persons lost their only remaining refuge, the following year, (29,) by the death of the prince's mother, Julia Augusta,* whose influence over her son, and regard for her own de- scendants, had held Sejanus in restraint. This soon ap- peared by the arrival of a letter from Tiberius, accusing " VVrit?rs differ as to her afffi. Tacitus merely says extrema alate. Pliny (XV. 8) makes her 82, Dion (Iviii. 1) 8H years old. This last sceins tc be the more correct, as her son Tiberius was now 70 yean of age. A;D. 31.] ARTS OF SEJANUS. 61 Nero of unnatural practices, and speaking of the arrogance of Agrippina ; but, while the senate were in debate, the people surrounded the house, carrying the images of Agrip- pina and Nero, and crying out that the letter was forged, and the prince deceived. Nothing therefore was done on that day, and Sejanus took the opportunity of irritating the mind of Tiberius, who wrote again to the senate ; but, as in the letter he forbade their proceeding to extremes, they passed a decree, declaring themselves prepared to avenge the prince, were they not hindered by himself Most unfortunately the admirable narrative of Tacitus fails us at this point; and for the space of more than two years, and those the most important o7the reign of Tiberius, we are obliged to derive our knowledge of events from the far inferior notices of Dion Cassius and Suetonius. We are therefore unable to display the arts by which Sejanus effected the ruin of Agrippina and her children, and can only learn that she was relegated to the isle of Pandateria, where, while she gave vent to her indignation, her eye was struck out by a centurion ; and that Nero was placed in the isle of Pontia, and forced to terminate his own life. The further fate of Agrippina and Drusus we shall have to relate. Sejanus now revelled in the enjoyment of power ; every one feared him, every one courted and flattered him. " In a word," says Dion, " he seemed to be emperor, Tiberius merely the ruler of an island;" for, while the latter dwelt in solitude, and apparently unthought of, the doors of the former were thronged every morning with saluting crowds, and the first men of Rome attended him on his way to the senate. His pride and insolence, as is always the case with those who rise otherwise than by merit, kept pace with his power, and men hated while they feared and flattered him. He had thus ruled for more than three years at Rome, with power nearly absolute, when (31) Tiberius made him his colleague in the consulate — an honor observed to be fatal to every one who had enjoyed it. In fact, the jealous tyrant, who had been fully informed of all his actions and designs,* had secretly resolved on his death ; but fear, on account of Se- janus's influence with the guards, and his uncertainty of how the people might stand affected, prevented him from pro- * According to Josephus, (Antiq. xviii. 6,) Antonia, the widow of his hroUier Drusus, wrote him a full account of Sejanus's proceedings, and sent it by a trusty slave named Pallas. c :ntin. 6 ■■ .J 62 TIBERIUS. [a. I>. 31. ceeding openly against him. He therefore had recourse t6 artifice, in which he so much delighted. At one time, he would write to the senate, and describe himself as so ill th:ii his recovery was nearly hopeless; again, that he was in per- fect health, and was about to return to Rome. He would now praise Sejanua to the skies, and then speak most disparagingly of him ; he would honor some and disgrace others of his friends solely as such. In this way both Seja- nus himself and all others were kept in a state of the utmost uncertainty. Tiberius further bestowed priesthoods on Se- ianus and his son, and proposed to marry his daughter to Drusus, the son of Claudius, the brother of Germanicus; yet, at the s une time, when Sejanus asked permission to go to Campania, on the pretext of her being unwell, he desired him to remain where he was, as he himself would be coming to Rome immediately. All this tended to keep Sejanus in a state of great per- turbation ; and this was increased by the circumstance of Tiberius, when appointing the young Cuius to a priesthood, having not merely praised him, but spoken of him in some sort as his successor in the monarchy. He would have pro- ceeded at once to action, were it not that the joy manifested by the people on this occasion proved to him that he had oiily the soldiers to rely on ; and he hesitated to act with them alone. Tiberius then showed favor to some of those to whom he was hostde ; and, when writing to the senate on the occasion of the death of Nero, he merely called him Sejanus, and directed them not to offer sacrifice to any man, nor to decree any honors to himself, and of consequence to no one else. The senators easily saw whither all this tend- ed ; and their neglect of Sejanus was now pretty openly displayed. Tiberius, having thus made trial of the senate and the people, and finding he could rely on both, resolved to strike the long-meditated blow. In order to take his victim more completely at unawares, he gave out that it was his intention to confer on him the tribunitian power. Meantime he gave to Ntevius Sertorius Macro a secret commission to take the command of the guards, made him the bearer of a letter to the senate, and instructed him fully how to act. Macro entered Rome at night, and communicated his instructions to the consul, C. Memmius Regulus, (for his colleague was a creature of Sejanus,) and to Gr^cinus Laco, the com- mander of the watchmen, and arranged with them the plan A.D. 31.] TALL OF SEJANUS. 63 of action. Early in the morning, he went up to the temple of the Palatine Apollo, where the senate was to sit that day and, meeting Sejanus, and finding him disturbed at Tiberius's having sent him no n)essage, he whispered him that he had the grant of the tribunitian power for him, Sejanus then went in highly elated ; and Macro, showing his commission to the guards on duty, and telling them that he had letters promising them a largess, sent them down to their camp, and put the watchmen about the temple in their stead. He then entered the temple, and, having delivered the letter to the consuls, immediately went out again, and, leaving Laco to watch the progress of events there, hastened down to the camp, lest there should be a mutiny of the guards. The letter was long and ambiguous; it contained nothing direct against Sejanus, but first treated of something else, then came to a little complaint of him, then to some other matter, then it returned to him again, and so on ; it conclu- ded by saying that two senators, who were most devoted to Sejanus, ought to be punished, and himself be cast into prison ; for, though Tiberius wished most ardently to have him executed, he did not venture to order his death, fearing a rebellion. He even implored them in the letter to send one of the consuls with a guard to conduct him, now an old man and desolate, into their presence. We are further told that such were his apprehensions, that he had given orders, in case of a tumult, to release hrs grandson Drusus, who was in chains at Rome, and put him at the head of those who remained faithful to his family ; and that he took his station on a lofty rock, watching for the signals that were to be made, having ships ready to carry him to some of the legions, in case any thing adverse should occur. His precautions, however, were needless. Before the letter was read, the senators, expecting to hear nothing but the praises of Sejanus and the grant of the tribunitian power, were loud in testifying their zeal toward him ; but, as the reading proceeded, their conduct sensibly altered ; their looks were no longer the same ; even some of those who were sitting near him rose and left their seats ; the praetors and tribunes cbsed round him, lest he should rush out and try to raise the guards, as he certainly would have done, had not the letter been composed with such consummate artifice. He was in fact so thunderstruck, that it was not till the consul had called him the third time that he was able to reply. All then joined in reviling and insulting him' he 64 TIBERIUS. [a. D. 31. was conducted to the prison by the consul and the oth- ^r magistrates. As he passed along, the populace poured curses and abuse on him ; they cast down his statues, cut the heads off of them, and dragged them about the streets. The senate, seeing this disposition of the people, and finding that the guards remained quiet, met in the afternoon in tlje tem- ple of Concord, close to the prison, and condemned him to death. lie was executed without delay ; his lifeless body was flung down the Gemoriian steps, and for three days it was exposed to every insult from the populace; it was then cast into the Tiber.* His children also were put to death : his little daughter, who was to have been the bride of the prince's grand-nephew, was so young and innocent, that, as they carried her to prison, she kept asking what she had done, and whither they were dragging her, adding that she would do so no more, and that she might be whipped if naughty. Nay, by one of those odious refinements of bar- barity which trample on justice and humanity while adhering to the letter of the law, because it was a thing unheard of for a virgin to be capitally punished, the executioner was made to deflower the child before he strangled her. Apica- ta, the divorced wife of Sejanus, on hearing of the death of her children, and seeing afterwards their lifeless bodies on the steps, went home ; and, having written to Tiberius a full account of the true manner of the death of Drusus, and of the guilt of Livilla, pat an end to herself. In conse- quence of this discovery, Livilla, and all who were concerned in that murder, were put to death. The rage of the populace was also vented on the friends of Sfcjanus, and many of them were slaughtered. The praeto- rian guards, too, enraged at being suspected, and at the watchmen being preferred to them, began to burn and plun- der houses. The senators were in a state of the utmost per- turbation, some trembling on account of their having paid court to Sejunus, others, who had been accusers or witnesses, from not knowing how their conduct might be taken. All, however, conspired in heaping insult on the memory of the fallen favorite. Tiberius, now free from all apprehension, gave loose tc his vengeance. From his island retreat he issued his orders, and the prison was filled with the friends and creatures of * See the graphic picture of the fall of Sejanus in Juvenal, Sat. x 66, sej. A. D. 32—33.] SEJANUS'S FRIENDS 6Sl Sejanus; the baleful pack of informers was unkennelled, and their victims of both sexes were hunted to death. Some were executed in prison ; others were flung from the Capitol ; the lifeless remains were exposed to every kind of indignity, and then cast into the river. Most, however, chose a volun- tary death ; for they thus not only escaped insult and pain, but pr-^served their property for their children. In the following year, (32,) Tiberius ventured to leave his island, and sail up the Tiber as far as Csesar's gardens; but suddenly, no one knew why, he retreated again to his soli- tude, whence by letters he directed the course of cruelty at Rome. The commencement of one was so remarkable that historians have thought »t deserving of a place in their works ; it ran thus : " What I shall write to you, P. C, or how I shall write, or what I shall not write, at this time, may the gods and goddesses destroy me worse than I daily feel myself perishing, if I know."* A knight named M. Terentius, at this time, when accused of the new crime of Sejanus's friendship, had the courage to adopt a novel course of defence. Tie boldly acknowledged the charge, but justified his conduct by saying that he had only followed the example of the prince, whom it was their duty to imitate. The senate acquitted him, and punished his accusers with exile or death, and Tiberius ex- pressed himself well pleased at the decision. But, in the suc- ceeding year, (33,) his cruelty, joined with avarice, (a vice new to him,) broke out with redoubled violence. Tired of murdering in detail, he ordered a general massacre of all who lay in prison on account of their connection with Sejanus. Without distinction of age, sex, or rank, they were slaugh- tered ; their friends dared not to approach, or even be seen to shed tears ; and as their putrefying remains floated along the Tiber, no one might venture to touch or to burn them. The deaths ofhis grandson Drusus, and his daughter-in- law Agrippina, were added to the atrocities of this year. The former perished by the famine to which he was destined, after he had sustained life till the ninth day by eating the stuffing of his bed. The tyrant then had the shamelessness * Suet. Tib. 67. Tac. Ann. vi. 6. " Adeo," adds Tacitus, « facinora dtque flagitia auaipei quoque in suppliciura verterant. Neque frustra prffistantissimus sapientios [Plato] firniare solitus est, si recludantur tyrannorum mentes posse aspici laniatus et ictus ; quando ut corpora verberibus, ita sisvitia, libidine, mails consultis animus dilaceretur : quippe Tiberium non fortuna non eolitudines protegebant quin tor menta pectoris suasque ipse poenas fateretur." G* 1 66 TIBERIUS. [a. d. 33-37 to cause to be read in the senate the diary which had been kept of every thing the unhappy youth had said or done for a course of years, and of the indignities which he had endured from the slaves and guards who were set about him. Agrip- pir.a had cherished hopes of meeting with justice after the fall of Sejanus ; but, finding them frustrated, she resolved tp starve herself to death. Tiberius, when informed, ordered food to be forced down her throat; but she finally accom- plished her purpose : he then endeavored to defame her mem- ory by charging her with unchastity. As her death occurred on the same day as that of Sejanus, two years before, he di- rected it to be noted ; and he took to himself as a merit that he had not caused her to be strangled or cast down the Ge- monian steps. The obse(|uious senate returned him thanks for his clemency, and decreed that, on the 18th of October, the day of both their deaths, an offering in gold should be made to Jupiter. The Caesarian family was now reduced to Claudius, the brother, and Caius, the son of Germanicus, and his three daughters, Agrippina, Drusilla, and Livilla, (whom Tiberius had given in marriage respectively to Cri. Domitius, L. Cas- eins, and M. Vinicius,) and Tiberius and Julia, the children of Drusus, which last had been married to her cousin Nero, and now was given in marriage to Rubellius Blandus. From his very outset in life, Tiberius had been obliged more or less to conceal his natural character. Augustus, Germanicus, Drusus, his mother, had successively been a check on him ; and even Sejanus, though the agent of his cruelty, had been the cause of his lusts being restrained.* But now all barriers were removed ; for Caius was so abject a slave to him, thai he modelled himself on his character and his words, only seeking to conceal his own vices. t He therefore now at length gave free course to all his vicious propensities ; and it almost chills the blood to read the details of the horrid practices in which he indulged amidst the rocks of Capreae. Meantime there was no relaxation of his cruelty ; Macro was as bad as Sejanus, only more covertly ; there was no lack of delators, and men of rank perished daily. Nature, however, at last began to give way. He had quit- ted his island, and approached to within seven miles of Rome, (37 ;) but terrified, it is said, by a prodigy, he did not ven tare to enter the city. As he was or his way back to Cam • Tic. Ann. vi. 51. t Id. ib. 20 A. D. 33.] LAST ILLNESS OF TIBERIUS. 67 pania, he fell sick at Astura ; having recovered a little, ho went on to Circeii, where, to conceal his condition, he ap« peared at the public games, and even flung darts at a wild boar which was turned out into the arena. The effort, how- ever, exhausted him, and he became worse ; still he went on, and reached the former abode of Lucullus at Misenum. Each day he lay at table and indulged as usual. A physi- cian named Charicles, under pretence of taking leave, one evening contrived to feel his pulse. Tiberius perceived his object, and, ordering more dishes up, lay longer than usual, under the pretext of doing honor to his departing friend ; but Charicles was not to be deceived; he told Macro that he could not last two days, and measures were forthwith taken for securing the succession of Caius. On the 16th of March, he swooned away, and appeared to be dead. Caius was con- gratulated by most of those present, and was preparing to assume the imperial power, when word was brought that Tiberius had revived and called for food. All slank away, feigning grief or ignorance : Caius remained in silence, ex- pecting his fate, when Macro boldly ordered clothes to be heaped on him; and Tiberius thus was smothered to death, in the 78th year of his age. CHAPTER IV.* CAIUS JULIUS C^SAR CALIGULA. A. V. 790—794. A. D. 37—41. ACCESSION OF CAIUS. HIS VICES AND CRUELTY. BRIDGE OVER THE BAY OF BAIiE. HIS EXPEDITION TO GERMANV. HIS MAD CAPRICES. HIS DEATH. The intelligence of the death of Tiberius diffused univer^ sal joy. The memory of Germanicus, and the hard fate of his family, recurred to men's minds, and led them to think favorably of his son, and to conceive hopes of happiness * Authorities : Suetonius and Dio i. 6^3 CAius. [a. d. 37 under his dominion. As Caius,* therefore, in a mourning habit, and in attendance on the corpse of his grandfather moved from Misenum to Rome, joyful crowds poured forth to meet him, altars were raised and victims slain on the way, and the most endearing epithets greeted him as he passed aiong.t When he reached Rome, he proceeded to the senate-house, and the will of the late prince was opened and read. It ap- peared that he had left Caius and Tiberius tlie son of Drusus joint heirs ; but the will was at once set aside, under the pre- text of the testator not having been in his right mind, and the sole power was conferred on Caius, so entirely with the public approbation, that it was computed that in less than three months upwards of 1CU,000 victims were slain in testi- mony of the general joy. Caius, in return, was lavish of pro- fessions, assuring the senate that he would siiure his power with them, and do every thing that pleased them, calling himself their son and foster-ciiild. He then released all who were in prison on charges of treason, and he burned (or rather pretended to do so) all the papers relating to them which Tiberius had left behind him, saying that he did so in order that, if he should feel ill disposed toward any one on account of his mother and brothers, he might not have it in his power to gratify his vengeance. As soon as he had celebrated the obsequies of his grand- father, whose funeral oration he pronounced himself, he got on shipboard, and, though the weather was tempestuous, passed over to the isles of Pandateria and Pontia ; and, hav- ing collected, and with lus own hand inurned the ashes of his mother and brother, he brought them to Rome, and deposited them in the Mausoleum of Augustus. He appointed annual religious rites in their honor ; he directed the month of Sep- tember to be called Gerinanicus, after his father ; he caused all the honors, which had ever been bestowed on Livia Au- gusta, to be conferred, by one decree, on his grandmother Antonia; he made his uncle Claudius, who had hitherto been in the equestrian order, his colleague in the consulate; he adopted his cousin Tiberius the day he took the virile toga, and named him Prince of the Youth ; he caused his sisters' * So he i3 called by all the historians. For the origrn of his sattbri quet " Caligula," see above, p. 44. t " Fausta otnina sidus et pidlum et puppum et tUumnum appellao tiuin.' Suet. Cal 13. 1. D. 38.] FIRST ACTS OF CAIUS. 69 names to be associated with his own in oaths and other so- lemnities.* He drove from the city all the ministers of the monstrous lusts of Tiberius, being with difficulty withheld from drown- ing them. He permitted the works of Cremutius Cordus and others to be made public. He gave the people abundance of public shows, and he distributed to them and the soldiers all the money that had been left them by Tiberius and Livia Augusta. Such was Caius in the first months of his reign. He then had a severe fit of illness, in consequence of which his intel- lect, it would seem, became disordered, for his remaining acts were those of a madman ; and the world witnessed the dreadful sight of a monster, devoid of reason, possessed of unlimited power. There, however, seems to have beeji no reason to expect that, under any circumstances, Caius would have made a good prince; he was already stained with every vice. While yet a boy, he was, it was said, guilty of incest with his sister Drusilia. On the death of his wife, Junia Claudilla, the daughter of M. Silanus, he formed an adulter- ous connection with Ennia, the wife of Macro, and gave her an engagement to marry her if he should attain the empire. Though he conducted himself with the most consummate dissimulation, and manifested such obsequiousness to Tibe- rius as gave occasion to the well-known saying of Passienus, that " there never was a better slave nor a worse master," yet the sagacious old prince saw his real character ; and, as Caius was one day in his presence speaking with contempt of Sulla, he told him that he would have all Sulla's vices and none of his virtues ; he also said at times that Caius lived for his own destruction and that of all others, and that in him he was rearing a serpent for the Roman people and a Phae- thon for the earth. One of the first acts of Caius, after his restoration to health, was to put his cousin Tiberius to death, under the pretext of his having prayed that he might not recover. He also forced his father-in-law, Silanus, to terminate his own life, because he had not accompanied him on his late voyage, pretending that he intended to occupy the empire if any thing adverse had befallen him, though Silanus's only reason * " Auctor fuit ut omnjbus sacramentis adjiceretur, Keque me libe- rosquc rnr.os airiores hahrbo qiiam Caium sororesque ejus. Item rela- tionibus consuluin. Quorf bonum felixque sit C. Casari so^orihisqut tjus.'' Suet. Cal. 15, 70 CAios. [a. r 38. had been dislike of the sea. A knight had vowed to fight as a gladiator, and another person to die, if Cuius should re- cover ; and, instead of rewarding them as they expected, he forced them to perform their vows. Thus passed the first nine months of Caius's rule. He be- gan the next year (38) auspiciously, by directing that the accounts of the receipts and expenditure of the revenue should be made public, according to the practice adopted by Augus- tus, but intermitted by Tiberius. lie also revised the eques- trian order, removing unworthy members, and introducing men of birth and property. He restored to the people the right of election, and abolished the excise duty of one per cent. — measures, however, both, it is said, condemned by men of sense, who deemed that no good could arise from giving power to those wlio knew not how to exercise it, and from diminishing without cause the regular revenue of the state. On the other hand, he sliowcd the natural ferocity of hi*? disposition by the delight with which he regarded the mas- sacres of the amphitheatre, where, on one occasion, the num- ber of condcnmed persons who were to be exposed to the wild beasts proving short, he ordered some of th(! spectators to be seized and cast to them, having previously cut out their tongues, to prevent their crying out or reproaching him. He made Macro and his wife, Eimia, be their own execu- tioners, and he put to death numbers of persons on the charge of having been the enemies of his parents or his brothers, producing against them the very papers which he pretended to have burnt. It was in fact the desire to gain possession of their properties that was his motive; for the vast treasures accumulated by Tiberius had already been dissipated. Caius had renewed his incestuous commerce with his sis- ter Drusilla, whom he took from her husband, L. Cassias, and then married to M. Lepidus, also the partaker in his vices. She died, however, in the course of the year ; and nothing could exceed the grief which he manifested. He gave her a magnificent public funeral, and proclaimed so strict a Justitmm, that it was a capital offence to laugh, bathe, or dine with one's own family or relations. All the honors which had been conferred on Livia were decreed to her ; her statue was placed in the senate-house and forum. A temple was built and priests appointed in her honor ; women, in giving testimony, were to swear by her divinity; a festival like that <»f the Mother of the Gods was to be cele- A. D. 39 J CAIUs's PROFLIGACY. 71 brated on her birthday, and under the name of Panthea she received divine honors in alJ the cities of the empire. A senator named Livius Geminius obtained a large reward by swearing, imprecating destruction on himself and his chil- dren if he lied, that he saw her ascending into heaven and mingling with the gods. Caius, in the first vehemence of his grief, fled from Rome in the night, and never stopped till he reached Syracuse, whence he returned with his hair and beard grown to a great length. His oath ever after, when addressing the people or the soldiers, was by the deity ofDrusilla. He lived in an incestuous commerce with his other sisters also, and at meals they used to lie by turns be- low him in the triclinium, while his wife lay above ; yet he used to prostitute them to the ministers of his lusts. His first wife, after he came to the empire, was Livia Orestilla; this lady was married to C. Piso ; but Caius, when invited to the nuptial feast, took a fancy to her, and saying to Piso, " Do not touch my wife," carried her off; and next day he issued an edict, saying " that he had purveyed him a wife after the fashion of Romulus and Augustus." Within a few days, however, he divorced her ; and, two years after, he i = banished her for having resumed her intimacy with her first )\ husband. Hearing the beauty of the grandmother of Lollia \\ Paullina praised, he summoned that lady from the province «! where her husband, Memmius Regulus, was in the command J of the troops, and, having obliged Regulus to divorce her^ he | made her his wife. k | The following year (39) witnessed the same scenes of cruelty and of reckless extravagance ; it was distinguished by the novel caprice of bridging over the sea from Baire to | I Puteoli, a space of more than three miles and a half All kinds of craft were collected, so that, in consequence of the want of foreign corn, a great scarcity prevailed throughout Italy ; and, these not proving sufficient, a large number were built for the purpose : they were anchored in two lines, and \ timber laid across them, and a way thus formed similar to the Appian road. Places for rest and refreshment were erected at regular distances, and pipes laid for conveying fresh water. When all was completed, Caius, putting on the breastplate (as it was said to be) of Alexander the Great, a military cloak of purple silk adorned with gold and precious stones, and girding on a sword, and grasping a shield, his brows crowned with oak, and having previously sacrificed to Neptune and some other gods, (particularly to Envy, to escape her influence,) entered the bridge from Br iae, mount- 'i ed on a stately horse, aiid followed by horse and foot hi I warJike array, and, passing along rapidly, entered Puteoli as * a captured city. Having rested there as after a battle, he I returned the next day along the bridge in a two-horsed [ chariot, drawn by the most famous winning hcyses of the I circus. Spoils and captives (among whom was Darius, aa I Arsacid, one of the Parthian hostages then at Rome) pre- I ceded the sham conqueror ; his friends followed in chariots, I and the troops brought up the rear. The glorious victor I ascended a tribunal erected on a ship about the centre of the I bridge, and harangued and extolled his triumphant warriors. ' He then caused a banquet to be spread on the bridge as if f) it were an island, and, all who were to partake of it crowding r round it in vessels of every kind, the rest of the day and ^ the whole of the night were spent in feasting and revelry. R Lights shone from the bridge and the vessels ; the hills I which enclose the bay were illumined with lires and torches; I the whole seemed one vat," Whatever was the cause, the effect was the destruction of an additional number of the Roman nobility, for the sake of (Confiscating their properties, in order to replace the euor- ^uous si^ms which the bridge had absorbed. When Rome I k. D. 39.] GERMAN EXPEDITION. 73 and Italy had been thus tolerably well exhausted of their wealth, the tyrant resolved to pillage in like manner the i opulent provinces of Gaul, and then those of Spain. Under I 'i the pretext of repelling the Germans, he suddenly collected j f an army, and set out for Gaul, going sometimes so rapidly | ( that the praetorian cohorts were obliged to put their stand- I I ards on the beasts of burden, at other times having himself \ i carried in a litter, and the people of the towns on the way i i being ordered to sweep and water the roads before him. He 'i ] was attended by a large train of women, gladiators, dancers, j | running-horses, and the other instruments of his luxury. ] I When he reached the camp of the legions, he affected the \ \ 'haracter of a strict commander, dismissing with ignominy | I fuch of the legates as brought up the auxiliary contingents i' I filowly. He then turned to robbing both officers and men, ' f by dismissing them a little before they were entitled to their '[ \ discharge, and cutting down the pensions of the rest to 1 1 6900 sesterces. 1 1 The son of Cinobellinus, a British prince, who was ban- .^ j ished by his father, having come and made his submission 1 1 to him, he wrote most magniloquent letters to Rome, as if 1 1 the whole island had submitted. He crossed the Rhine as \\ if in quest of the German foes ; but some one happening to 1 1 siy, as the troops were engaged in a narrow way, that there 'i | would be no little consternation if the enemy should then ap- \l pear, he sprang from his chariot in a fright, mounted his 1 1 horse, and gallopped back to the bridge, and, finding it filled I \ with the men and beasts of the baggage-train, he scrambled ji \ over their heads to get beyond the river. On anothe"- occd- 1 1 sion, he ordered some of his German guards to conceal them- | | selves on the other side of the Rhinfe, and intelligence to be x | brought to him, as he sat at dinner, that the enemy was at \ I hand; he sprang up, mounted his horse, and, followed by his \ I friends and part of the guards, rode into the adjoining wood, [l | and, cutting the trees and forming a trophy, returned with it f. l to the camp by torch-light. He then reproached the cow- | | ardice of those who had not shared his toils and dangers, and ( I rewarded with what he called exploratory/ croivns those who I | had accompanied him. Again, he took the young German f | hostages from their school, and, having secretly sent them on, I 1 l>e jumped up from a banquet, pursued them, as if they were I | running away, with a body of cavalry, and brought them back in chains. In an edict he severely rebuked the senate i and people of Rome for holding banquets, and frequenting [ j CONTIN. 7 J 74 CAius. [a. d. 39. theatres and delicious retreats, while Caesar was tarrying on I war, and exposed to such dangers. I (i His invasion of Britain was, if possible, still more ridicu- I I lous. He marched his troops to the coast, and drew them up witii all their artillery on the strand. He then got aboard of a g;illey, and, going a little way out to sea, returned, and, ascending a lofty tribunal, gave the signal for battle, and, at the sound of trumpets, ordered them to charge the ocean, and gatlier its shells as spoils due to the Capitol and Pala- tiuin. He bestowed a large donative on his victorious troops, and built a lighthouse to commemorate the conquest I of ocean. Meantime he was not neglectful of the purpose for which 5 he came. He pillaged indiscriminately, and put to death ij numbers whose only crime was their wealth. One day, :! when he was playing at dice, he discovered that his money ij was out ; he retired, and, calling for the census of the Gauls, .' selected the names of the richest men in it, ordering them to i be put to death ; then, returning to his company, he said, II " Yim are playing for a few denars, but 1 have collected a M hundred and fifty millions." He afterwards caused the most !( precious jewels and other possessions of the monarchy to be d sent to him, and put them up to auction, saying, " This was \ my father's ; this was my mother's ; this Egyptian jewel be- 3 longed to Antonius; this to Augustus ; " and so on, at the |i same time declaring that distress alone caused him to sell )j them. The buyers were of course obliged to give far beyoi>d ^ the real value of the articles. t Among those put to death while be was in Gaul was M. !; Lepidus, the husband of his beloved Drusilla, and the sharer j! in all his vices and debaucheries. The pretext was a con- spiracy of Lepidus with Livilla and Agrippina against his j life. He wrote to the senate in the most opprobrious terms 5 of his sisters, whom he banished to the Pontian isles. As he ■i was seuding them back to Italy for this purpose, he obliged I Agrippina to carry the whole way in her bosom the urn J I whicli contained the ashes of Lepidus. To commemorate I his escape, he sent three daggers to be consecrated to Mars I the Avenger. j At this time also he put away Lollia PauUina, under the ( pretext of her infecundity, and married Milonia Caesonia, a woman neither handsome nor young, and of the most disso< lute habits, and the mother already of three daughters. She was at the time so far gone with child by him that she was 11 11 A. D. 40.] CAIUS IN GAUL. 75- delivered of a daughter immediately after her marriage. He loved her ardently as long as he lived ; he used to exhibit her naked to his friends, and take her riding about with him through the ranks of the soldiery, arrayed in a cloak, helmet, and light buckler. Yet he would at times, in his fondness, protest that he would put her to the rack to make her tell why he loved her so much. Before he left Gaul, (40,) he proposed to massacre the legions which had mutinied against his father. He was dis- suaded from this course ; but nothing would withhold him from decimating them, at the least. He therefore called them together unarmed, and surrounded them with his cavalry ; but, wiien he observed that they suspected his design, and were gradually slipping away to resume their arms, he lost courage, and, flying from the camp, hastened back to Rome, breathing vengeance against the senate. To the deputies, sent to entreat him to hasten his return, his words were, " I will come — I will come ; and this with me," striking the hilt ot his sword ; and he declared that the senate would find him in future neither a citizen nor a prince. He entered Rome in ovation instead of triumph on his birthday, (Aug. 31,) the last he was to witness; for the measure of his guilt was full, and the patience of mankind nearly exhausted. It may be worth while to notice some of the acts of which a madman possessed of absolute power was capable. Caius declared himself to be a god, and had a temple erected to his deity, in which stood a golden statue of him, habited each day as he was himself. Peacocks, pheasants, and other rare birds, were offered in sacrifice every day : his wife CfEsouia, his uncle Claudius, and some persons of great wealth, (who had to purchase the office at a high rate,) wero the priests. He added himself and his horse Incitatus to the college. He appeared in the habit find with the insignia sometimes of one, sometimes of another god or goddess. He used to invite the moon, when shining full and bright, to de- scend to his embraces. He would enter the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, and engage in confidential discourse, as it were, with the god, sometimes even chiding or threatening him. Being invited, he said, to share the abode of that deity, he threw a bridge, for the purpose, over the Forum, from the Palatium to the Capitol, It would be endless to relate all his freaks of this kind. He devised new and extraordinary taxes. He laid an im- post on all kinds of eatables; he demanded two and a half 76 cXius. [a. d. 40. per cent, on all lawsuits, and severely punished all those who compounded their actions. Porters were required to pay an eighth of their daily earnings ; prostitutes were taxed in a similar manner. He even opened a brothel in his palace, which he filled with respectable women, and sent persons through the Forum inviting people to resort to it. When his daughter was born, he complained bitterly of his pov- erty, and received presents for her support and dower. On new year's day, he used to stand at the porch to receive the gifts which were brought to him. He would often walk barefoot on heaps of gold coin, or lie down and roll himself on them. His natural cruelty made him delight in the combats of gladiators : he was equally fond of chariot-races; and, as he chose to favor the sea-colored faction, he used to cause the best drivers and horses of their rivals (the green) to be poi- soned. I He was so fond of one of his own horses named Incitatus, that he used to invite him to dinner, give him gilded barley and wine out of golden cups, and swear by his safety and his fortune ; and he was only prevented by death from raising him to the consulate. One day, at a show of gladiators, he ordered the awning, which screened the spectators from the burning rays of the sun, to be withdrawn, and forbade any one to be let go out. Another time, when the people applauded contrary to his wishes, he cried out, " O that the Roman people had but one neck ! " A conspiracy at length delivered the world from the mon- ster who thus oppressed it. The principal freedmen and officers of the guards were concerned iti it ; they were actu- ated by a principle of self-preservation, and not by any patri- otic views or generous aspirations after the liberty and happiness of the Roman people. t was, in effect, such a conspiracy as most usually occurs m absolute and despotic governments.* The most active agents were Cassius Chre- rea and Cornelius Sabinus, two tribunes of the guards, who had private motives of revenge, in particular Cas- sius, whom, though advanced in years, and a man of great strength and courage, Caius used to term effeminate, and to give Venn? or Priapus, or some such lascivious term, when he came to h.m for the watchword. * A very ciicurrjstantial accountof the murder of Cni us, Ession of Clajdius, is given by Josephus, Antiq. xix. 1 — 4 and the 6U« i.. D. 41.] DEATH OF CAIUS. TII' On the 24th of January, (41,) a little after noon, though his stomach was suffering from the effects of the previous day's excess, Caius yielded to the instances of his friends, and was proceeding from the theatre, where he had passed the morning, to the dining-room. As he was going along the vaulted passage leading to it, he stopped to inspect some boys of noble birth from Ionia, whom he had caused to come to Rome to sing in public a hymn made in his honor. While thus engaged, he was fallen on and slain by Chjerea, Sabinus, and other officers of the guards. A centurion, by the order of Chaerea, killed, in the course of the night, his wife, Ca3sonia, and the brains of their infant daughter were dashed out against a wall. Such was the end of this execra- ble tyrant, in the twenty-ninth year of his age, after a reign of somewhat less than four years. After his death, there were found in his cabinet two books, the one having for its title the Sword, the other the Dagger, and containing the names of those whom he intended to put to death. There was also discovered a large chest full of all kinds of poisons. ill -L CHAPTER v.* TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS DRUSUS CiESAR. A. u. 794—807. A. D. 41—55. ACCESSION OF CLAUDIUS. HIS CHARACTER. HIS USEFUL MEASURES. MESSALINA AN'D THE FREEDMEN. HER LUST AND CRUELTY. CLAUDIUS IN BRITAIN. VICIOU3 CONDUCT OF MESSALINA. HER DEATH. — CLAUDIUS MAR- RIES AGRIPPINA. IS POISONED BY HER. As soon as the death of Caius was known, the cohsuls'set guards throughout the city, and assembled the senate on the Capitol, where the remainder of the day and all the night were spent in deliberation ; some wishing to reestablish the republic, others to continue the monarchy. But while they were deliberating, the question had been already determined in the camp of the praetorian cohorts. (\l .!>Hl' * Authorities: Tacitus, Suetoniud, ahd' Dion. 78 CLAUDIUS. [a. D. 41 Whtn Caius was slain, his uncle Claudius, in his terror, hid himself behind the door curtains of one of the rooms. A common soldier, who was running through tl)e palace in quest of j)liinder, happening to see his feet under the cur- tain, dragged him out. Claudius fell on his knees, suing for mercy; but the soldier, recognizing him, saluted him em- peror, and led him to his comrades, vvlio placed him in a litter, and carried him, trembling for his life, to their camp. The consuls sent the tribunes of the people to summon him as a senator to come and give his presence at their delibera- tions ; but he replied that he was detained by force. In the morning, however, finding the troops unanimous in their design of conferring the supreme power on him, he con- sented to accept it, promising them a gratuity of 15,000 sesterces a man — thus introducing the pernicious practice of bargaining for the support of the guards. The senate, unable to agree among themselves, finding the people indif- ferent, and being deserted by the urban cohorts, abandoned the futile project of restoring the republic, and quietly yield- ed submission to the behest of the soldiery. Tiberius Claudius Drusus Cssar, who was thus unexpect- edly raised to empire, was the younger brother of Germani- cus. lie was from infancy of a sickly, delicate constitu- tion, and the disease of his body affected his mind. His mother, Antonia, used to call him a portent of a man begun but not completed by nature; and when she would describe any one as particularly stupid, she would say he was a great- er fool than her son Claudius. His grandmother Livia held him in the most supreme contempt. Augustus had so mean an opinion of him, that he would not confer on him any of the honors of the state. Tiberius treated him in a similar manner. Caius, in the first days of his reign, made him his colleague in the consulate; but it was only his con- tempt for his folly (which Claudius cunningly affected be- yond nature) that saved him from sharing the fate of so many better men. Mental ability is very distinct from good sense and wis- dom. It need not therefore surprise us to learn that this prince, whose name in his own family was synonymous vvith stupidity, was learned, and wrote with ease and elegance in both the Greek and Latin languages.* He also, as is usual- ly the case with such persons, exhibited occasional glimpses ' Suetonius (Claud. 41) speaks rather favorably of his aistrirical wn tings. He seems to have been honest and impartial. A; D. 42.] ACTS OF CLAUDIUS. 79 of shrewdness and sagacity, and made just ojservations, and conceived or proposed judicious plans. In fact, in examin- ing tlie history and character of Claudius, one is often re- minded of James I. of England, though the advantage, it must be allowed, is greatly on the side of the British mon- arch. The first act of Claudius was to declare a full and com- plete amnesty (to which he faithfully adhered) of all that had been said and done in the last two days. He executed, however, Cha3rea, and some of the other assassins of Caius, not out of regard to him, but to deter others from attempt- ing the life of an emperor ; Sabinus died by his own hand. Claudius exhibited no enmity against those who had injured or insulted him in the two last reigns, of wliom the number was necessarily not small. He entirely abolished the law of treason ; and, taking the Sword and Dagger, and all the papers which Caius had pretended to burn, he showed them to the senate, and, letting them see the names of the writers, and of the persons against whom they were written, burned them in good earnest. While he sedulously abolished all the wild innovations of Caius, he was anxious to have all kinds of honors bestowed on the memory of his family. He re- called his nieces Agrippina and Livilla from their exile, and restored to them their property. Claudius, who was fifty years of age, and whose life had been passed chiefly in the study of antiquity, understood and wished to coiiforuj as much as possible to the forms of the ancient constitution. He declined to use the prEenomen emperor ; be refused excessive honors ; he celebrated the weddings of his two daughters as if he had been a simple citi- zen ; he did nothing of public import without the authority of the senate ; he showed all due marks of respect to the consuls and the other magistrates. By this conduct, he so won the popular favor, that, when one time he went to Ostia, and a rumor was spread that he had been assassinated, the people assembled and poured their maledictions on the sen- ate and the guards, as murderers and traitors, and were not pacified till they were assured by the magistrates of his safety. In the second year of his reign, (42,) Claudius commenced a work of great utility, but of enormous expense. For many years past, tillage had been so completely abandoned in Ita- ly, that nearly all the corn that was used in Rome was im- ported from Africa and Sicily. But, as there were no secure 80 CLAUDIUS. [a. d. 4% ports or lan4ing>-places at the mouth of the Tiber, the sup- plies could only be brought in during the fine season ; and, if a sufficient quantity was not then warehoused for the winter's consumption, a famine was the sure consequence. To rem- edy this evil, Claudius, undeterred by the magnitude of the estimate given in by the surveyors, resolved to construct a port at Ostia. It was formed in the following manner : A large basin was dug in the land, on the right bank of the river, and the sea let into it ; two extensive moles were then run out into the sea, including another large basin, at the entrance to which, on an artificial island, stood a Pharos or lighthouse to direct vessels into it.* By nienns of this port, corn could be brought in at all times (»f the year, and the danger of famine in the city was greatly diminished. An- other public work, effected by Claudius, was the bringing the stream named the New Anio to Rome, and distributing it there into a number of handsome reservoirs. He attempted a still greater work, namely, the draining of the Fucine lake, in the Marsinn country, of which we shall hereafter have occasion to speak. Another of his public works was the rebuilding of the theatre of Pompeius, which had been de- stroyed by fire. The conduct of Claudius had been so far commendable ; but constancy was not to be expected in a man of his feeble character. It was observed that he took immoderate delight in the barbarous sports of the amphitheatre, and hence it was inferred that he would shed blood without any repugnance ; but what caused greater apprehension was his absolute sub- mission to his wife and freedmen, of whose will he was merely the agent. His wife was Valeria Messalina, the daughter of his cousin Barbatus Messala, a woman whose name has become proverbial for infamy. His most distin- gnish(^d t'reedmen were the eunuch Posidus ; Felix, whom he made governor of Judaea, and who had the fortune to be the husband of three queens; and Callistus, who retained the power which he had acquired under Caius. But far supe- rior in point of influence to these were the three secretaries, (as we may term them,) Polybius, Narcissus, and Pallas. The first was the assistant of his studies, (« sturliis,) and ranked so high that he might be often seen walking between the two consuls; Narcissus was his private secretary, {ab " Dion, ]x. 11. Suet. Claud. SO. Juvenal (Sat. xii. 75,»ej.) altfi de- «er'bes this port. A D. 42.] MESSALINA AND THE FREEDMEN. 81 epistolis ;) and Pallas (the brother of Felix) was treasurer, (rt rationibus.) The two last were in strict league with Messalina; she only sought to gratify her lusts; they longed for honors, power, and wealth ; and such were the riches they acquired, that when Claudius was one time complain- ing of the poverty of his exchequer, some one told him that he would be rich enough if he could induce his two freed- men to take him into partnership. Their plan, when they would have any one put to death, was to terrify Claudius (who, like weak people in general, was a consmnmate coward) by tales of plots against his life. They commenced in his very second year, by assailing C. Annaeus Silanus, whom Claudius had summoned from Spain, where he was governor, given him in marriage the mother of Messalina, and treated him as one of his most intimate friends. The abandoned Messalina soon cast an eye of lust on her stepfather ; and, on his rejecting her advances, she plotted with Pallas to destroy him. Accordingly, Pallas came, early one morning, into Claudius's chamber, and told him that he had had a dream, in which he saw him slain by Silanus. Messalina helped to increase his alarm, and an order was obtained for the execution of the innocent no- bleman. This wanton murder caused general alarm, and was the occasion of a conspiracy against Claudius, in whi<5h the principal person engaged was Annasus Vinicianus, a man of high rank. As he had no force to oppose to the guards, he sent to Furius Camillus Scribonianus, who commanded in Dalmatia, inviting him to join in the conspiracy, and holding out to him a prospect of the empire. Camillus assented ; many senators and knights repaired to him ; he took the title of emperor, and wrote to Claudius, desiring him to re- tire into a private station — a command which the feeble prince had thoughts of obeying. Bu. the legions of Ca- millus, though at first inclined to second him, when they heard him speak of the people, and of ancient liberty, began to think that a revolution would not be for their advantage. They therefore refused to obey him, and he fled to an island off the coast, and put an end to his life. Messalina and the freedmen now gave a loose to their passion for blood fjnd for plunder. Slaves and freedmen were admitted as witnesses against their masters; and, though Claudius had sworn, at his accession, that no freeman should be put to the torture, knights and senators, citizens and strangers, were tortured K 82 CLAUDIUS. [a. b. 43 alike. Vinicianus and some others anticipated the execu- tioner. Men and women perished alike, and their bodies were indiscriminately flung down the Gemonian Steps. Yet some, and those of the most guilty, escaped, partly by favor, partly by money given to the freedmen ; and the cliil- dren, without exception, of those who perished remained uninjured ; some even obtained part of the property of their family. Among those who suffered, there wore two whose cases are deserving of notice. Gala^sus, a freedman of Camillus, when brought before Claudius and the senate, exhibited great constancy and courage. Pallas, stepping forward presumptuously, said to him, " What would you have done, Gah-rsus, if Camillus had become the monarch? " "I would have stood behind him and held my tongue!" was the reply of the undaunted freedman. The other case was that of Caicina Pa-tus and his wife, Arria. When Pa3tus, who was engaged with Camillus, was put on board a ship to be con- veyed to Rome, Arria besought the soldiers to allow her to go in the vessel with him, saying that surely they would let a man of consular rank have some slaves to dress him and to attend him at table, and that she would discharge these offices. They, however, refused, and she then hired a small fishing-boat, and followed the ship.* When Pietus was con- demned to die, this high-minded woman, though she might have lived in honor by the favor of Messalina, who had much regard for her, disdained to survive him ; and not merely so, but when she saw him hesitating to die, she took the sword, and, having stabbed herself, handed it to him, saying, "See! P.-etus; I am in no pain." "They were praised," adds the historian Dion ; for, from the continuance of evil, matters were come to that state that nothing but dying courageously was counted virtue. At length, when no more victims remained, the persecu- tion ceased, (43.) Claudius then, as usual, made some use- ful acts of legislation, such as diminishing the number of holidays, and obliging governors to repair betimes to their provinces, and not to remain in the city. He also deprived many unworthy persons of the right of citizenship, and con- ferred it on others. In this Messalina and the freedmen carried on a most extensive trade; and, in their eagerness to catch at all that could be obtained, they brought down so • Plin. Ep. Hi. 16. A. D. 44.] CRUELTY OF MESSALfNA. 83 much the price, (whick used to be very high, | that it became a common saying that one had only to give a parcel of bro- ken glass to be n\ade a citizen. Messalina now set no bounds to her vicious courses. Not content with being infamous herself, she would have others so; and she actually used to compel ladies to prostitute themselves even in the palace, and before the eyes of their husbands, whom she rewarded with honors and commands, while she contrived to destroy those who would not acquiesce in their wives' dishonor. Her cruelty extended also to her own sex, and to her husband's kindred; she had already (41) caused Livilla to be put to death, on a charge of adultery, (in which the philosopher Seneca was implicated, and in consequence exiled to Corsica;) but the real ground of of- fence was Livilla's beauty, and her intimacy with her uncle. She now became jealous of Julia, the granddaughter of Ti- berius, whom she soon contrived to deprive of life. Mean- time her own excesses were unknown to her husband, for she generally caused one of her maids to occupy her place in his bed ; and she bought off by benefits, or anticipated by punishments, those who could give him information.* The wars on the frontiers had been of late against the Germans in Europe, and the Moors in Africa, and Ser. Sulpicius Galba, the future emperor, had vanquished the Chattans, and C. Suetonius Paulinus had carried the Roman arms to the foot of Atlas. The plan of conquering Britain was now resumed, and partly effected.! An exiled British prince having applied to Claudius, orders were sent to A. Plautius, who commanded in Gaul, to lead his troops into the island. Plautius obeyed, and subdued a part of the country south of the Thames. At his desire, Claudius him- self proceeded to Britain ; and, having crossed that river, and defeated an army of the natives, he returned to Rome (after a stay of only sixteen days in the island) and celebrated a triumph, (44.) The title of Britannicus was decreed by the senate to himself and to his young son, and honors were conferred on Messalina similar to those enjoyed by Livia Augusta. Little of importance occurred for the next two or three years. As the 800th year of the city arrived in his reign, * Tlie picture of the depravity of this abandoned woman given b^ luvenal (vi. 114, seg.) is not overcharged. t For the affairs of Britain, the reader is referred to the author's History of England. 84 • CLAUDIUS. [a. 1 . 47 (47,) Claudius celebrated the sjecular games, alleging (it would seem with truth, though he had asserted the contrary ill his own historical works) that Augustus had anticipated the proper time. The proclamation being made in the usual form, caused a good deal of merriment ; for the crier invited the people to games " which no one had seen before nor would ever see again," whereas there were many who well remembered those of Augustus in the year 737, and even some of the actors who had then performed appeared now on the stage.* While Claudius was celebrating his games, and regula- ting, often advantageously, the affairs of the empire, Messali- na still r;'n her mad career of vice, often making her stupid husband the broker, as it were, of her pleasures. Thus, when Mnester, a celebrated dancer, with whom she fell violently in love, could be seduced neither by her promises nor her threats, sheobtaine^tia. When she met her husband, she cried out to him frpm'afai to hear the mother of Octavia and Britannicus; but Narcis suH reiterated Siiius and her marriage, and gave Claudius the records of her infamy to read. As he was entering the city, his children were presented to him ; but Narcissus desired them to be removed. Vil)i(lia then appeared, and required that he would not condenm his wife unheard. Nar- cissus replied that she should have an opportunity of defend- ing herself, and bade the Vestal meantime to go and attend to her sacred duties. Narcissus conducted Claudius to t^e house of Siiius, that he might have ocular proof of his guilt, ile thence took him to the camp, where Claudius, at his dictation, addressed a few words to" the soldiers, who replied with a shout, calling for judgment on the guilty. Siiius was brought before the tribunal ; he made no defence, atid only prayed for a speedy death. His example was followed by several illustrious knights. The only case that caused any delay was that of the dancer Mnester, who pleaded the prince's command for what he had done. Claudius was dubious how to act ; but the freedmen urged that it would be tbtly to think of a player when so many noblemen were put to death, and that it mat- tered not whether he acted voluntarily or not in committing such a crime. Mnester also was therefore put to death. Messalina had returned to the gardens of Lucullus. She did not yet de.-;pair, if she could but get access to her husband. As Claudius, when he grew warm with wine at his dinner, desired some one to go tell that wretcln d woman (so he termed her) to be prepared to make her defence the next day, Narcissus saw that all was again at take. He there- fore ran out, and told the tribune and ce-iturions on gijard that the emperor had ordered his wife to be put to death. They proceeded to the gardens of Lucullus, where they found her lying on the ground, her mother Lepida, who in her pros-perity had avoided '-er, sitting beside her, and persuading A. D. 43.] DEATH OF MESSALINA. 87 her to take refuge in a voluntary death. The unfortunate woman's mind, however, was too much enervated by luxury for her to possess sufficient courage for such an act. The freedman who accompanied the officers having loaded her with abuse, she took a sword and made some ineffectual at- tempts to stab herself; the tribune then ran her through. Claudius, when informed of her fate, testified neitlier joy nor grief By a decree of the senate, all memorials of Messalina were abolished, and the quaestorian ensigns were voted to Narcissus. The freedmen now had the task of selecting another wife for their feeble prince, who was not capable of leading a single life, and who was sure to be governed by the successful candidate. The principal women in Rome were ambitious j | of the honor of sharing the bed of the imperial idiot; but \\ the claims of all were forced to yield to those of Loliia '] I Paulina, the former wife of Caius, Julia Agrippina, the \ I daughter of Germanicus, and MVia. Petina, Claudius's own 1 1; divorced wife. The first was patronized by Callistus, the ] | second by Pallas, the last by Narcissus. Agrippina, how- ■ | ever, in consequence of her frequent access to her uncle, 1 1 easily triumphed over her rivals; the only difficulty that pre- ^ I sented itself was that of a marriage between uncle and niece I being contrary to Roman manners, and being even regarded ^ as incestuous. This difficulty, however, the compliant L. \ Vitellius, who was then censor, undertook to remove. He p addressed the senate, stating the necessity of a domestic ^ partner to a prince who had on him such weighty public | cares. He then launched forth in praise of Agrippina; as | to the objection of the nearness of kindred, such unions, he | said, were practised among other nations, and, at one time, i first cousins did not use to marry, which now they did so \ commonly. The servile assembly outran the speaker in I zeal ; they rushed out of the house, and a promiscuous rab- 5 ble collected, shouting that such was the wish of the Roman I people. Claudius repaired to the senate-house, and caused | a decree to be made legalizing marriages between uncles and nieces ; and he then formally espoused Agrippina. Yet such was the light in which the incestuous union was viewed, that, corrupt as the Roman character was become, only two persons were found to follow the imperial example.* * The Church of Rome forbids both these marriages, but grants dis- pensations for them. In Popish countries, the marriages of uncle and « 88" CLAUDIUS. [a. d. 48-52. Agrippina also proposed to unite her son Doniitiu3 with Oetuvia, the daughter of Claudius; but here there was a difficulty also, for Octavia was betrothed to L. Silanus. Ao-ain, however, she found a ready tool in the base Vitellius toi whose son Junia Calvina, the sister of Silanus, had been married. As the brother and sister indulged their affection imprudently, though not improperly, the worthy censor took the occasion to make a charge of incest against Silanus, and to strike him out of the list of senators. Claudius then broke off the match, and Silaims put an end to himself on the very day of Agrippina's marriage. His sister was ban- ished, and Claudius ordered some ancient rites expiatory of incest to be performed, unconscious of the application of them which would be made to himself f The woman who had now obtained the government of I Claudius and the Roman empire, was of a very differerrt character from the abandoned Messalina. The latter had noihincr noble about her ; she was the mere bondslave of lust, and cruel and avaricious only for its gratification ; but Agrip- pina was a woman of superior mind, though utterly devoid of principle. In hrr, lust was subservient to ambition; it was the desire of power, or the fear of death, and not wanton- [ ness, that made her submit to the incestuous embraces of her i" brutal brother Caius, and to be prostituted to the companions t of his vices. It was ambition and parental love that made I her now form an incestuous union with her uncle. To I neither of her husbands, Cn. Domitius or Crispus Passienus, I does she appear to have been voluntarily unfaithful ; the bed i of Claudius was, however, not fated to be unpolluted ; for, as [j a means of advancing her views, Agrippina formed an illicit I' connection with Pallas. !The great object of Agrippina was to exclude Britannicus, and obtain the succession for her own son, Nero Domitius, now a boy of twelve years of age. She therefore caused \ Octavia to be betrothed to him, and she had the philosopher Seneca recalled from Corsica, whither he had been e.xiled by the arts of Messalina, and committed to him the education of her son, that he might be fitted for empire. In the following year, (5.1,) Claudius, yielding to her influence, adopted him. In order to bring Nero forward, Agrippina caused hini to assume the virile toga before the usual age, (52;) and the niece are common. The late queen of Portugal was married to hei ujick'; the preBent m married ttvo brothers iti succession. A. D. 52—55.] AGRIPPINA. 89 servile senate desired of Claudius that he might be consul at the age of twenty, and meantime be elect with proconsular power without the city. A donative was given to the sol- diers, and a congiary (congiarium) to the people, in his j name. At the Circensian games, given to gain the people, ; Nero appeared in the triumphal habit; Britannicus, in a i simple jjrcetexta. Every one who showed any attachment to ? this poor youth, was removed, on one pretence or another, i and he was surrounded with the creatures of Agrippina. ^ ; Finally, as the two commanders of the guards were supposed j, to be attached to the interests of the children of Messalina, U she persuaded Claudius that their discipline would be much |' improved if they were placed under one commander. Ac- • | cordingly, those officers were removed, and the command !■ was given to Burrus Afranius, a man of high character for probity, and of great military reputation, and who knew to j whom he was indebted for his elevation. j. The pride and haughtiness of Agrippina far transcended f any thing that Rome had as yet witnessed in a woman. 1 When (51) the British prince Caraictacus and his family, l whom P. Ostorius had sent captives to the emperor, were led | before him, as. he sat on his tribunal in the plain under the 1 praetorian camp, with all the troops drawn out, Agrippina | appeared, seated on another tribunal, as the partner of his | power. And again, when (.53) the letting off of the Fucine \ lake was celebrated with a naval combat, she presided with f- him, habited in a military cloak of cloth of g'old. I Agrippina at length (55) grew weary of delay, or fearful i of discovery. Narcissus, who saw at what she was aiming, % appeared resolved to exert all his influence in favor of Bri- I t^nnicus; and Claudius himself, one day, when he was ] drunk, was heard to say, that it was his fate to bear with the | infamy of his wives, and then to punish it. He had also I begun to show peculiar marks of affection for Britannicus. 1; She therefore resolved to act without delay; and, as Clau- I., dius, having become unwell, had retired to Sinuessa for change of air and the benefit of the waters, she proposed to take advantage of the ©pportunity thus presented. She pro- cured, from a woman named Locusta, infamous for her skill in poisoning, a poison of the mo.st active nature. The eu- V. uucli Halotus, who was his taster, then infused it in a dish )> of mushrooms, a kind of food in which he delighted. The poison, however, acted violently on his bowels, and Agrippi- j na, in dismay lest he should recover, made a physician who 8» L 90 NERO. was at hand introduce a poisoned feather into his tliroat, by way of making him discharge his stomach; and in this man- ner the nefarious deed was completed. The death of Clau- dius was concealed till all the preparations for the succession of Nero should be made, and the fortunate hour marked by the astrologers be arrived. He then (Oct. 13) issued from tiie palace, accompanied b Burrus ; and, being cheered by the cohort which was on gnard, he mounted a litter, and proceeded to the camp. He addressed the soldiers, prom- ising them a donative, and was saluted emperor. The senate and provinces acquiesced without a murmur in the will of the guards. Claudius was in his sixty-fourth year when he was poi- soned ; and he had reigned thirteen years and nine months, wanting a few days. CHAPTER VI.* NERO CLAUDIUS CjESAR. A. u. 808—821. A. D. 55—68. OEC1.INE OF AGRIPPINA's POWER, — POiSONlNG OP BRITANNlCrS MURDER OF AGRIPPINA. NERO APPEARS ON THE STAGE. MURDER OF OCTAVIA. EXCESSES OP NERO. BURNING OF ROME. CONSPIRACY AGAINST NERO. DEATH OF SEN- KCA. DEATHS OF PKTRONIUS, THRASEAS, AND SOHANUS. NERO VISITS GREECE. GALBA PROCLAIMED EMPEROR. DEATH OF NERO. The new emperor t was only seventeen years of age. On account of his youth and his obligations to her, Agrippina hoped to enjoy the power of the state ; but Nero was not feeble-minded, like Claudius, and Seneca and Burrus were resolved to keep in check tl)e influence of a haughty, unprin- cipled woman. All outward honors, however, were shown her. When the tribune, according to custom, asked the emperor for the word, he gare, ' My best Mother ; ' the sen- • Authorities: Tacitus, S^ie^oniuB, and, Dinn. t We shall henceforth employ tliis teiai. ; Its original meaning mu»t be fanuliar to tlie reader. ■ «.'-»'> i < l l i. A. D. 56.J DECLINE OF AGBIPPINa's POWER. 9 . ate decreed her sundry privileges, but Burrus and Seneca o.hecked her lust of blood. She had, however, caused Junius Silanus, the proconsul of Asia, to be poisoned for being of the imperial family, and she forced Narcissus to be his own exe- cutioner. When the senators were summoned to the palace on any affair of state, she used to stand behind the door cur- tain, that she might be present and share in the debate with- out being seen ; and when ambassadors came from Armenia, she was abQut to ascend the tribunal with her son, had not Seneca bidden the emperor to go and meet his mother ; and thus, by the shovy of fil^^l. ^4.i4y:i t|i6 disgrace to the majesty of Rome was avoided. ■ ■-■,•. . All now was full of promise. The young emperor made speeches, the compositions of Seneca, replete with sentiments of clemency and justice. He declared that Augustus should be his model in government. He diminished the taxes, and reduced the rewards of informers to a fourth. When re- quired to sign the warrant for the execution of a criminal, " How I could wish," said he, " that I were ignorant of let- ters ! " He practised many popular arts, and acted in a char- acter easy to assume, but difficult to maintain if not prompted by nature. The power of Agrippina received its first shock (56) by the passion of her son for fi freedwoman named Acte, a native of Asia, and^ as he fiin would have it. a descendant of the kings of Pergamus, His graver friends were willing to wink at this attachment, for, aa he J;estified an aversion for hia chaste and modest wife, Octavia, they thought it would be a means of keeping him from debauching women of rank. But the violent Agrippina at first set no bounds to her rage ; then, passing to the other extremes, she offered him her purse and her apartments for the gratification of his wishes. Nero and his friends, however, saw through her arts, and the plan for reducing her power was steadily pursued. Accordingly Pallas was now deprived of his office of treasurer. This again drove her furious; she menaced her son with setting up Bri- tftnnicus against him, declaring that she would take him to the camp, and, as the daughter of Germanipus, appeal to the sol- diers against her unworthy son. Nero now becawie alarmed; he knew of what his mother was capable, and a ate incident* had shown him that Britan^ i' .li w i.iii-li.i| <,il iiiiii jiifijii-. i!f ji Jim Jt-j.j ::ii:-)ii m -lUii ' • i(M .;-i(iiilii' 'iii'toH )r.,\t ir.\n Bulf i.l vMiiitm'j -■ tf <" ! li.'^^ * In the Saturnalit vhenboys were, as nsual, grvmg the kingdom oy lot, it fell to Nero As all were then bound to obey his commands, 92 Nero. ' A. D. 56i iiicus was not without spirit, and was posst-^ed of friends. He therefore resolved to ren»6ve him, and for this purpose had a poison procured from Locusta, and administered by those' about the youth. It proved, however, too weak; and the em- peror, sendifig for Locusta, beat her with his own hands, and made her prepare a stronger dose, of which he made trial on a kid and a pig, till he was satisfied of its efficacy. He then had it brought into the dining-roonl, and given in some cold water to Britannicus, as he sat at dinner. The unhappy youth dropped suddenly dead ; Nero said carelessly, that he had been subject to epilepsy from his' infancy, and that he would soon recover. Agrippina was struck with terror and conster- nation, but did not venture to express them. Octavia, young as she was, had learned to conceal her feelings. So, after a brief interval of silence, tiie entertainment was resumed. The body of Britannicus was burnt that very night, the arrange- ments for it having been previously made. To stilie the memory of this atrocious deed, Nero be- stowed large gifts on the persons about him of most influ- ence. By many Seneca and Burrus were much blamed for accepting them, while others excused them by the plea of ne- cessity. Nothing, however, could soften Agrippina ; she em- braced Octavia; she held secret meetings with her friends; she collected money; she courted the officers of the guards; she treated the remaining nobility with great respect. Nero, in return, deprived her of the guard of honot which had been hitherto assigned her, appointed a different part of the palace for her residence, and never visited her without a party of centurions. The enemies of Agrij)pina were now imboldened to attack her life. Junia Silana,** who had been her intimate friend, irritated by her having been the means of depriving her of an advantageous match, caused two of her clients, named Iturius and Calvitius, to accuse her of a design to marry Rubellius Plautus, who was related to Augustus in tVie same degree that Nero wae, and to set him up as his rival for the empire. This information was communicated to Atimetus, a freed- man of Domitia, Nero's aunt, who also was at enmity with he ordered Britannicus to stand in the middle and sing a song. Bri- tannicus obeyed ; but the song he sang was one expressive of his own fate in being cast out from empire and liis paternal scat. Tac. An xiij. 15. It is probably to this play that Horace alludes, Ep. i. 1, 59. It is also the original of our Twelfth-day kings. *" See above, p. 84. k. D. 56-^59.] ATTACK ON AGRIPPINA. 93 Agrippiiia ; and he urged Paris the actor, anotaer of her fteed- men, to go at once and inform the emperor of the danger that menaced him. Paris hastened to the palace. It was late at night when he arrived. Nero, who had been drinking freely, was dreadfully alarmed at this intelligence. In the first ac- cess of his terror, he would have had both his mother and Plautiis put to death immediately ; but he was withheld for the present by the instances of Burrus. In the morning, Burrus, Seneca, and some of the freedmen, waited on Agrippina. She treated the charge with disdain, exposed its absurdityj and assigned the motives of its inventors. She insisted on being admitted to an audience of her Son ; and, when she saw him, she demanded, and she obtained, rewards for her friends, and vengeance on her enemies. Silana was exiled, Calvitius and Iturius were relegated, Atimetus was put to death; but Paris was too necessary to the pleasures of the prince to allow of his being punished. Pallas and Burrus were now accused of a design tq set up Cornelius Sulla, the son-in-rlaw of Claudius. But the charge was so manifestly absurd, that the accuser was sent into v^xile. A remarkable instance of the pride and insolence of Pallas appeared on this occasion; when the freedmen vyho were his confidants were named, he replied that in his house he always indicated his wishes by a nod or by a sign of his hand, or, if many things were to be expressed, he wrote them down, that he might not mingle his voice with those of his servants. Little of importance occurred at Rome during the three succeeding years. The matter of most note was the connec- tion which Nero formed (59) with a lady named Poppaea Sabina. This woman, who, as Tacitus remarks, possessed every thing but virtue, was at this time married to M. Salvius Otho, for whom she had quitted her former husband, Rufius Crispinus. Otho, who was one of Nero's greatest intimates, could not refrain from boasting frequently before him of the beauty and elegance of his wife. Nero's desires were in- flamed ; he soon managed to become acquainted with Pop- p. 59-^60. became nil her own, and Otho, that he might not be in the way of tlieir aniours, was sent out as governor of Lusitania. It w;is now that Agrippina was in real danger. Poppaja, whose power over her lover contimially increased, knew that, as long as his mother lived, she could not hope to succeed in making him divorce Octavia and marry herself.' She there- fore had recourse to her usual art.s, calling him a ward, tell- ing him that he did not possess freedom, much less empire ; and tauntingly asking him, was it on account of her noble an- cestors, or her beauty, or her fecundity, or her spirit, that hd delayed espousing her, and so forth. Tacitus relates, on the authority of several writers, and of common fame, that Agrippina's desire for the retentiou of power was such, that she actually sought to seduce her son to the commission of incest ; and her design was only prevent- ed by Seneca's making Acte tell the prince that the fame of it was gone abroad, and that the soldiers would not submit to the rule of a profane prince. Others said that the guilty party was Nero himself, but that he was diverted from his de- sign by Acte, as just related. Nothing, we fear, is too bad to be believed of either mother or son. i/' Be the truth as it may, Nero henceforth avoided all ocbd* sions of being alone with his mother ; and he secretly resolved on her death. The difficulty was how to accomplish it; poi- son was out of the question against a woman of such cau- tion ; a violent" death could not be concealed, and he also feared that he could get no one to attempt her life. At length Ailicetus, a freedman who commanded the fleet at Misenum, pro^)osed the expedient of a ship which should go to pieces. The prince embraced the idea, and, as he was s|>ending the festival of the Quinquatrus at Baia;, ((U),) he invited his mother, who was at Antium, to visit him there, saying that children should bear with the temper of their parents. He met her on the way, and conducted her to a villa named Bauli, on the sea-coast. Among the vessels lying there was one superior to the others, as if to do her honor. Slie was invited to proceed in it to Baire ; but it is said that she had gotten warning, and therefore declined, and proceeded thither in her litter. The caresses of her son, however, dispelled lier sus])icion9, if she had any; the banquet was prolonged into the night, and, when she rose to depart, the emperor attended her to the shore where she was to embark, and, as he was taking leave of her, he kissed her eyes and bosom repeatedly A. D. 60.] MURDER OF AGRIPPINA. 95 either the more completely to veil his purpose, or possibly from some remnants of the feelings of natui^e. The night was starlight — the sea was calm: Agrippina, attended only by Creperius Gallus and her maid Acerronia, went on board. The vessel had proceeded but a little way, when, as Creperius was standing near the lielm, and Acerronia was reclining over the feet of her mistress, and congratulating her on the recent reconciliation, the deck, which was laden with lead, at a given signal came down on them: Creperius was killed on the spot ; the strength of the sides of the bed saved Agrippina and Acerronia ; the ship did not go to pieces, as intended. The rowers then attempted to sink it by inclining it to one side, but did not succeed. Acerronia foolishly crying out that she was Agrippina, and calling to them to aid the mother of the prince, was despatched with blows of boat-hooks and oars. Agrippina, who preserved silence, only received a wound in the shoulder ; and she floated along till she was picked up by some small boats, and conveyed to her villa on the Lucrine lake. She now saw through the whole design of her impious son ; but, deem- liig it her wisest course to dissemble, she sent Agerinus, one of her freedmen, to inform him of the escape which the goodness of the gods had vouchsafed her, begging him not to come to visit her, as she required repose Nero's consternation was extreme when he hea»d of her escape. He deemed that she would now set no bounds to her vengeance ; that she would arm her slaves, and appeal t6 the soldiers, the senate, and the people, against her parricidal «on. He summoned Burrus and Seneca to advise him. They both maintained a long silence : at length Senega, seeing that either Nero or Agrippina now must fall, looked at Bur- rus, and asked if a soldier should be ordered to slay her? Burrus replied that the soldiers would not touch the issue of Germanicus, and added that it would be better for Anicetus to go through with what he had coihmenced. Nero was overjoyed when Anicetus declared his willingness. Just then Agermus arrived ; and, as he was delivering his message, Nero cast a sword at his feet, and then caused him to be put in chains, that he might be able to say that his mother had sent her freedman to assassinate him, and had killed herself out of shame when she had failed in her design. When Anicetus arrived at Agrippina's villa, he dispersed the crowds which had assembled to congratulate her on her escape. He set a guard round the house, and then, with a 96 , , ,=T iHi NERO. [a.d.. 60 captain of a galley and a centurion of the nrarines, entered her chamber, where she was waiting with extreme anxiety for intelligence. The only; maid about her was leaving her " Do you also desert nie I " said she ; and, looking around, she beheldjAnicetus. She told him, if he canie to see her, to say that she was recovered; if to perform a crime, she would not believe that her son would command the murder of his mother. The captain struck her with a stick on the head ; as the centurion was drawing his sword, she showed her womb, crying out, ," Strike here : " she was then despatched with several wounds. Such was the termijiation of the guilty ambition of the highly-gifted, daughter of Germanicus. It was said tliat she had long foreknown her fate ; for, having one time consulted the astrologers on the future fortunes of her son, they replied that he would reign, but that he would kill his mother. " Let him kill me," cried she, " provided that he reigns." Some writers related that Nero came to view the dead body of his mother, and that he criticised tlic various parts, observing, on the whole, that he did not think she had been so handsome. Yet conscience asserted its rights : terrific dreams scared him from his couch ; the aspect of the smiling shores of tlie Bay of Baiai became gloomy to his view; imagination heard the wailing of trumpets from the place where tlie unhonored ashes of Agrippina lay. Though the officers of the guards, at the impulsion of Burrus, came to congratulate him on his escape from the treachery of his mother ; though his friends and the adjacent towns of Campania wearied heaven with thanksgivings, and the ob- sequious senate decreed supplications and honors of all kinds, his mind could not find rest, and for years he was haunted by the memory of his murdered parent. Nero went first to Naples, and, having remained some time in Campania, dubious of the reception he might meet with at Rome, he was at length impelled by his flatterers to enter the city boldly. He did so, and found that he had had no just cause for alarm ; for senate and peo:)le alike, all ages and sexes, vied in servility and adulation. His entrance was like a triumph, and lie ascended the Capitol and returned thanks to the gods. The restraint of his mother being removed, Nero now gave a free couree to his idle or vicious propensities. He had always been fond of driving a chariot, and of singing to the lyre after his dinner, justifying it by the example of ancient 4. D. 60-63.] NERO ON THE STAGE. 97 kings and heroes, such as the Homeric Achilles. Seneca and Barrus thought it advisable to humor him in the Ijormer propensity, and a space was enclosed in the Vatican valley tor his chariot driving. But he was not contented till the people were admitted to witness and to applaud his skill. In order that the infamy of his exhibitioins might be dimin- ished by diffusion, he obliged some of the noblest of both sexes to appear on the stage, the arena, and the circus. He also instituted games called Juvenal ia, (from his then first shaving,) in which, in theatres erected in his gardens, he himself sang and danced; and he forced the nobility of all ages and sexes, without any regard to the honors they had borne, to do the same. A lady, for example, named /Elia Catella, rich and noble, and eighty years of age, was thus obliged to dance in public ! He finally appeared on the pub- lic stage; and the lord of the Roman world was seen to come forward, lyre in hand, wearing a long, trailing robe, and, hav- ing addressed the audience in the usual form, ("Gentlemen, hear me with favor," ) sing to his chords the story of Attis or the Bacchge. The officers of the guards stood around, Burrus grieving and applauding. He further selected five thousand young men, named Augustans, who were divided into companies, whose task was to applaud him when he was singing. The death of Burrus, (63,) which some ascribed to poison, removed another check from the vices of Nero. The com- mand of the guards was again divided ; Fenius Rufus, an honest but inactive officer, being joined in it with Sofonius Tigellinus, a man polluted by every vice, but whom similarity of manners had recommended to the favor of the prince. Seneca, finding his influence reduced by the death of Burrus, and himself marked as the object of attack by the base minions of the court, craved an audience of the prince, and requested to be allowed to restore all the possessions which he had bestowed on him, and permitted to retire into the shades of private life. But Nero, accomplished in hypocrisy, made the most affectionate objections, would not hear of his retire- ment, and lavished caresses on him. Seneca returned thanks and retired ; but he altered his mode of life, and henceforth avoided publicity as much as possible. Cornelius Sulla and Rubellius Plautus, being both de- scended in the female line from Augustus, were objects of alarm to Nero ; he had therefore removed them from the city ; the former resided in Gaul, the latter in Asia. But CONTIN. 9 - M NERO. [a. D. 68. Tigellinus, now pretending extreme solic jjde for the safety of il.e prince, and exaggerating the dangers to be apprehend- ed from those noblemen, obtained permission to murder them. Sulla therefore was slain as he was sitting at dinner at Marseilles, and Plautus as he was engaged in gymnic ex- ercises. Their heads were brought to Nero, who mocked at the first as gray before his time, and observed of the sec- ond, that he was not aware of his having had so large a nose. He, moreover, when he saw the head of Plautus, cried out, that now he might venture to put away Octavia, blameless and loved of the people as she was, and espouse his dear Pioppaja. Accordingly, having informed the senate of the deaths of Sulla and Plautus, and finding that supplications and so forth were decreed without hesitation, he judged that he had nothing to apprehend from that spiritless as- sembly ; he therefore at once put away Octavia, on the pre- tence of sterility, and married Poppaea, who then attempted to convict Octavia of an intrigue with a flute-player named Euceriis. But the noble constancy of the greater part of that lady's female slaves, whom all the tortures of the rack could not induce to testify falsely against their mistress, de^ foated the iniquitous project. The murmurs of the populace soon obliged Nero to take back Octavia, and the public joy was manifested in the most signal manner; the statues of Poppaea were flung down, and those of Octavia were carried about covered with flowers, and placed in the temples. Po[)paja, liow seriously alarmed for her safety, exerted all her influence over Nero ; and he obliged the notorious Anicetus to confess a criminal intercourse with Octavia. Pretending, then, that her object had been to gain over the fleet, he caused her to be confined in the fatal isle of Pan- dataria ; and a few days after, orders were sent for her death. The poor young woman, to whom, though only in her twenty-second year, life had ceased to yield any pleasure, still feared to die ; but she was bound, her veins were opened, and she was placed in a warm bath. When life was extinct, her head was cut off and brought to Poppasa. Thanks to the gods were of course decreed by the senate.* The murder of Octavia was succeeded by the deaths (by * " Quod ad eum finem memoravimuB^" says Tacitus,** utqiiicumqve casu!; teinporum illorum, nobis vel alits auctoribus, noscent, praesutnp- lum liabeant, quotiens fugas et ctedes jussit princeps, totiens grates di'ib ac'as, qinque rerum secundamm olini torn publice cladis insi^'nia fuisse.' A. D. 64-65.] NERO AT NAPLES. 9J poison, as was believed) of Pallas and some of the other freed men. The crime of Pallas was his detaining, by living toe long, his immense wealth from the covetous prince. At length, (64,) to his excessive joy, Nero became a father Poppaea being delivered of a daughter at Antium, the place of ' his own birtk The senate, who had already commended the • womb of Poppaea to the gods, now decreed to her and the in- ' fdnt the titlfe of Augusta ; supplications, temples, games, and all other honors, were voted; and when the baby died, in its fourth month, it was deified by the obsequious and impious assembly, and a temple and priest were voted to it. Hitherto Nero had confined the exercise of his scenic pow-"f ers to his palace and gardens ; but he longed for a more am-*' pie field of display. He would not yet, however, venture to ' insult the prejudices and feelings of the people by appearing on the stage openly at Rome; and he therefore selected Naples, as a Grecian city, for the place in which he would make his debut in public, intending then to pass over to Greece, and contend at all the great games of that country, ' and thus overcome the prejudices of the Romans. He ac- cordingly appeared, (65,) before a large audience, in the theatre of Naples; and even the shock of an earthquake, which rocked the building, did not prevent him from finish- ing his piece. Instead, however, of proceeding directly to Greece, he returned to Rome, and there, declaring that his absence would not be long, he ascended the Capitol to pray to the gods for the success of his journey ; but when he en- tered the temple of Vesta, he was seized with a violent tremor in all his limbs, (the effect probably of the stings of con- science ;) and he gave up his design for the present, to the great joy of the populace, who feared a scarcity of corn in his absence . to the senate and nobles it was uncertain wheth-" er his absence or his presence was the more to be dreaded. • - To prove to the people that he preferred Rome to all other places, he made the whole city, as it were, his house, and hold his banquets in the public places. Historians have deemed one of these, given by Tigellinus, deserving of memory; [but the details are far too disgusting to be repeated. The in- famy to which Nero reduced himself was of the lowest and vilest kind.] Rome was at this time visited by a calamity worse than ?iiy that had befallen her since she was a city. On the 19th of July, a fire broke out in a part of the circus which was full of shops containing inflammable substances. The 100 KERO. [a. D. 65 flames spread rapidly, the wind accelerating their career. It was not till the sixth day, that, by pulling down houses, the course of the conflagration was stopped at the foot of the Esquiline. The loss of lives and property was immense : of the fourteen quarters into which the city wrs divided, four only escaped ; three were totally destroyed, and of the other seven but little remained standing. Nero, who was at Antiuni, did not return till he heard that the flames were spreading to his palace; butiwhen he arrived, he was unable to save it. He threw open his gardens, the Campus Martins, and the monuments of Agrippa to the sufferers ; he caused supplies of all kinds to be fetched from Antium aiid other places, and he reduced the price of corn considerably. All he could do, however, would not remove the suspicion that the city had been tired by his own orders. It was said that he longed for an opportunity of rebuilding it with more of regularity and beauty ; and it was asserted that, while the fire was raging, he asceiided a tower in the gardens of Maecenas in his scenic dress, and, charmed with what he termed "the beauty of the flame," snng to his lyre The Taking of Ilium. He caused the Sibylline books to be con- sulted, and, in obedience to them, supplications to be made to various deities ; he spared no expense in the rebuilding of the city; and when all would not avail to clear him, he laid the guilt on the innocent. The members of the society named Christians, which had arisen some years before in Judaea, were now numerous at Rome. From causes which we will hereafter assign, they were objects of general aver- sion, and any charge against them was likely to gain credit. Some of them were seized and forced to confess : on their evidence, a great multitude of others were taken and con- demned. They were put to death with torture and insult, some being sewed up in the skins of wild beasts, and then torn to pieces by dogs, some crucified, and others wrapped in pitch and other inflammable materials, and seton fire to serve for lamps in the night. The scene of their agonies was Ne- ro's gardens; and he, at the same time, to please the populace, gave Circensian games, driving about at Rome in the dress of a charioteer. Still the sufferers, though believed to be guilty of crimes, were pitied, as the victims of the real criminal. The city' was rebuilt (at the heavy cost of Italy and the provinces) with more of regularity and beauty than it had ever befote possessed. Many, however, complained of the width A. D. 66.] CONSPIRACY AGAINST NERO. lOi of tlie streets, as, when narrow, they had enjoyed more of shade and coolness. But the great object of Nero's ambition was to rebuild his palace on a scale of unexampled magnifi- cence. He had already extended it from the Palatine to the Esquiline ; and it was thence called the Transitory-house : the new one was named the Golden-house, from the quantity of gold and precious stones employed in it. It covered an im- mense extent of, ground on the Palatine and Esquiline, con- taining within its bounds woods, plains, vineyards, ponds, with animals both wild and tame, and a great variety of buildings. The numerous dining-rooms were ceiled with ivory plates, which were movable, to shower down flowers, and perforated, to sprinkle odors on the guests. The prin- cipal one was round, and made to revolve day and night, in imitation of the world. The baths were supplied with water from the sea and from the river Albula. When the whole was completed, Nero observed that at length he had begun to dwell like a man. Men, however, were grown weary of being the objects of the tyrannic caprice of a profligate youth, and a widely-extended conspiracy to remove him and give the supreme power to C. Piso, a nobleman of many popular qualities, was organized, (66.) Men of all r,anks, civil and military, were engaged in it, — senators, knights, tribunes, and centurions, — some, as is usual, on public, some on private grounds. While they were yet undecided where it were best to fall on Nero, a cour- tesan named Epicharis, who had a knowledge (it is not known how obtained) of the plot, wearied of their indecision, attempted to gain over the officers of the fleet at Misenum. She made the first trial of an officer named Volusius Proc- ulus, who had been one of the agents in .the murder of Agrippina, and who complained of the ill return he had met with, and menaced revenge. She communicated to him the fact of there being a conspiracy, and proposed to him to join in it ; but Proculus, hoping to gain a reward by this new service, went and gave information to Nero. Epicharis was seized ; but as she had mentioned no names, and Proculus had no witnesses, nothing could be made of the matter. She was, however, kept in prison. The conspirators became alarmed ; and, lest they should be betrayed, they resolved to delay acting no longer, but to fall on the tyrant at the Circensian games. The plan ar- ranged was, that Plautius Lateranus, the consul elect, a man ■>f great courage and bodily strength^ should sue la the em- 9* 1 02 NERO. [a. d. 66 peror fa, relief to his family affairs, and in so doing should grasp his knees and throw him down, and that then the of- ficers should despatch him with their swords. Meantime Piso should be waiting at the adjacent temple of Ceres; and, when Nero was no more, the pra^fect Fenius Rufus and others should come and convey him to the camp. Noiwilhstanding the number and variety of persons en- gaged in the plot, the secret had been kept with wonderful fidelity. Accident, however, revealed it as it was on the very eve of e«ecution. Among the conspirators was a senator named Flavius Scevinus, who, though dissolved in luxury, was one of the most eager. lie had insisted on having the first part in the assassination, for which purpose he had provided a dagger taken from a temple. The night before the attack was to be made, he gave this dagger to one of his freedmeu, named Milichus, to grind and sharpen. He at the same time sealed his will, giving freedom to some, gifts to others of his slaves. He supped more lu.xuriously than usual; and, though he affected great cheerfulness, it was manifest from his air that he had something of importance on his mind. He also directed his freedniiiii to prepare bandages for wounds. The freedman, who was either already in the secret, or had his suspicions now excited, consulted with his wife, and at her impul.sion set off at daylight, and revealed his suspicions to Epnphroditus, one of Nero's freedmcn, by whom he was conducted to the emperor. On his information, Scevinus was arrested ; but he gave a plausible explanation of every thing but the bandages, which he positively denied. He might have escaped, were it not that Milichus's wife suggested that Antonius Natalis had conversed a great deal with him in secret of late, and that they were both intimate with Pis<>. Natalis was then sent for, and, as he and Scevinus did not agree in their accounts of the conversation which they had they were menaced with torture. Natalis's courage gave way; he named Piso and Seneca. Scevinus, either through weakness, or thinking that all was known, named several others, among whom were AnnaBus Lucanus, the poet, the nephew of Seneca, Tullius Senecio, and Afranius Q,uinc- lianus. The., | not suffer him to have it. He then told his friends that, as he \ I could not express his sense of their merits in the way that he ' I wished, he would leave them the image of his life, to which j i if they attended, they would obtain the fame of virtue and of | constancy in friendship. He checked their tears, showing that nothing had occurred but what was to have been e.x- ; pected. Then, embracing his wife, he began to console and j fortify her ; but she declared her resolution to die with him. 104 NERO. [a. D. 66 Not displeased at her generous devotion, and happy that one so dear to him should not remain exposed to injury and mis- fortune, he gave a ready consent, and the veins in the arma of both were opened. As Seneca, on account of his age, bled slowly, he caused those of his legs and thighs to be opened also ; and as he suffered very much, he persuaded his wife to go into another* room; and then, calling for amanuen- ses, he dictated a discourse vvliich was afterwards published. Finding himself going very slowly, be asked his friend, the physician, Statius Annaeus, for the hemlock-juice which he had provided, and took it; but it had no effect. He finally went into a warm bath, sprinkling, as he entered it, the ser- vants who were about him, and saying, " I pour this liquor to Jove the Liberator." The heat caused the blood to flow freely; and his suff'erings at length terminated. His body was burnt without any ceremony, according to the directions which he had given when at the height of his prosperity. Paulina did not die at this time ; for Nero, who had no en- mity against her, and wished to avoid the imputation of gratui- tous cruelty, sent orders to have her saved. She survived her husi)aiid a few years, her face and skin remaining of a deadly paleness, in consequence of her great loss of blood. The military men did not remain undiscovered. Fenius Rufus died like a coward ; the tribunes and centurions, like soldiers. When one of them, named Subrins Flavius, was asked by Nero what caused him to forget his military oath, — " I hated you," said he; " and there was none of the soldiers more faithful while you deserved to be loved. I began to hate you when you became the murderer of your mother and wife, a chariot-driver, a player, and an incendiary." Nothing in the whole aff'air cut Nero to the soul like this reply of the gallant .soldier. The consul Vestinus was not implicated by any in the conspiracv ; but Nero hated him ; and, as he was sitting at dinner with his friends, some .soldiers entered to say that their tribune wanted him. He arose, went into a chamber, had his veins opened, entered a warm bath, and died. Lucan, when or- dered to die, had his veins also opened ; when he felt his ex- tremities growing cold, he called to mind some verses of his Pharsalia which were applicable to his case, and died re- peating them.* Senecio Quinctianus, and Scevinus, and * They are supposed by Lipsius to be iii. 638 — ^i46, by Vertraniusi, '.X. SOQ — 814. Lipsius is in our opinion right. A. D. 67.] DEATH OF POPPiEA. 105 many others, died ; several were banished. Natalis, Milichus, and others, were rewarded ; offerings, thanksgivings, and so forth, were voted in abundance by the senate. This obsequious body, however, sought to avert the dis- grace of the lord of the Roman world appearing on the stage at the approaching Quinquennial games, by offering him the victory of song and the crown of eloquence. But Nero said that there needed not the power nor the influence of the senate ; that he feared not his rivals, and relied on the equity of the judges. He therefore sang on the stage, and, when the people pressed him to display all his acquirements, he came forth in the theatre, strictly conforming to all the rules of his art, not sitting down when weary, wiping his face in his robe, neither spitting nor blowing his nose, and finally, with bended knee, and moving his hand, waited in counterfeit terror for the sentence of the judges. At the end of the games, he in a fit of anger gave Poppsea, who was pregnant, a kick in the stomach, which caused her death. Instead of burning her body, as was now the general custom, he had it embalmed with the most costly spices, and deposited in the monument of the Julian family. He him- self pronounced the funeral oration, in which he praised her for, her beauty,* and for being the mother of a divine infant. The remainder of the year was marked by the deaths or exile of several illustrious persons, and by a pestilence which carried off great numbers of all ranks and ages. " Of the iinights and senators," observes Tacitus, " the deaths were less to be lamented ; they anticipated, as it were, by the com- mon fate, the cruelty of the prince." The first deaths of the succeeding year (67) were those of ?. Anteius, whose crime was his wealth and the friend- ship of Agrippina; Ostorius Scapula, who had distinguished } himself in Britain; Annasus Mella, the father of Lucan ; Anicius Cerealis, Rufius Crispinus, and others. They all ! died in the same manner, by opening their veins. The most ] remarkable death was that of C. Petronius, a man whose ? elegance and taste in luxury had recommended him to the i special favor of Nero, who, regarding him as hi« ' arbiter of elegance,' valued only that of which Petronius approved. \ The envy of Tigellinus being thus excited, he bribed one of i * Poppaea was so solicitous about her beauty, that she used to bathe j every day in the milk of 500 she-aases, which she kept for tlie purpose Dion, Ixii. 28. N I s i I 106 NERO. [a. d. 67. Petronius's slaves to charge his master with being the fiiend ofScevinus. His death Ibllowed, of course; the mode of it however, was peculiar. He caused his veins to be opened, then closed, then opened again, and so on. He meantime went ou conversing with his friends, not, like a Socrates or a Seneca, on the immoitality of the soul or the opinions of the Avise, but listening to light and wanton verses. He re- warded some of his slaves, he had others flogged, he dined, he slept ; he made, in short, his compulsive death as like a natural one as possible. He did not, like others, pay court to Nero or Tigellinus, or the men in power, in his will ; but he wrote an account of the vices and crimes of the prince and court, under the names of flagitious men and women, and sent it sealed up to ihe emperor. He broke his seal-ring, lest it might be used to the destruction of innocent persons. " After the slaughter of so many illustrious men," says Tacitus, "Nero at length sought to destroy virtue itself, by killing Thraseas Partus and Bareas Soranus." The former, a man of primitive Roman virtue, was hated by him not merely for his worth, but because he had, on various occa- sions, given public proof of his disapproval of his acts. Such were his going out of the senate-house when the decrees were made on account of the murder of Agrippina, and his absence from the deification and funeral ofPoppaea. Further than his virtue, we know of no cause of enmity that Nero could have against Soranus. The accu.«ers of Thraseas were Capito Cossutianus, whom he had made his enemy by supporting the Cilician deputies who came to accuse him of extortion, and Marcellus Eprius, a profligate man of eloquence. A Roman knight named Ostorius Sabinus appeared as the accuser of Soranus. The time selected for the destruction of the.se eminent men was that of the arrival of the Parthian prince Tiridates, who was coming to Rome to receive the dindem of Armenia, either in hopes that the domestic crime would be shrouded by the foreign glory, or, more probably, to give the Oriental an idea of the imperial power. Thraseas received an order not to appear among those who went to meet the king; he wrote to Nero, requiring to know with what he was charged, and as- serting his ability to clear himself if he got an opportunity Nero in reply said that he would convoke the senate. Thra- seas then consulted with his friends, whether he should go to the senate-house, or expect his ,doom at home. Opinions were, as usual, divided ; he, however, did not go to the senate. ^. D. 67.] THRASEAS AND SORANUS. 101 Next morning the temple in which the senate sat was sur- rounded with soldiery. Cossutianus and Eprius appeared as the accusers of Thraseas, his son-in-law Helvidius Priscus, Paconius Agrippinus, and Curtius Montanus. The general charge against them was passive rather than active disloyalty, Thraseas being held forth as the seducer and encourager of the others. Ostorius then came forward and accused Sora- nus, who was present, of friendship with Rubellius Plautus, and of mal-conduct in the government of Asia. He added, that Servilia, the daughter of the accused, had given money to fortune-tellers. Servilia was summoned. She owned the truth — that she had sold her ornaments and given the money to the soothsayers, but for no impious purpose, only to learn if her father would escape. Witnesses were then called, and among them, to the indignation of every virtuous man, ap- peared P. Egnatius, the client and friend of Soranus, and a professor of the Stoic philosophy, who now had sold himself to destroy his benefactor by false testimony. The accused were all condemned, of course — Thraseas, Soranus, and Servilia, to death; the others to exile. Of the circumstances of the end of Soranus and his daughter, we are not informed. Thraseas having prevented his wife, Arria, from following the example of her mother, of the same name, by entreating her not to deprive their daughter of her only remaining support, caused his veins to be opened in the usual ma»ner; and, as the blood spouted forth, he said to the quaestor who was present, " Let us pour out to Jove the Liberator. Regard this, young man. May the gods avert the omen ; but you have been born in times when it is ex- pedient to fortify the mind by examples of constancy." He died after suffering much pain. These sanguinary deeds were succeeded by the splendid ceremony of giving the diadem of Armenia to Tiridates. The scene was the Forum, which was filled during the night by the people arranged in order, wearing white togas and bearing laurel, while one part of it was occupied by the sol- diers brilliantly armed. The roofs of the houses also were thronged with spectators. At daybreak, Nero, in a triumphal robe, followed by the senate and his guards, entered the Forum, and took his seat on his tribunal. Tiridates and his attendants then advanced through the lines of soldiery. An immense shout was raised when he appeared; he was filled with terror; but, when silence was restored, he went forward 108 NERO. [a. d. 67 and addressed the prince. Nero made a suitable reply, and, inviting him up, and making him sit at his foot, placed the diadem on his head, while the shouts of the multitude filled the air. This Tiridates was the brother of the Parthian king Volo- geses". In the first year of Nero's reign, as this prince hac" occupied the throne of Armenia, the conduct of the war which it was resolved to undertake against him, was com mitted to Domitius Corbulo, a man of great military talen. and experience. The war, which was of the usual kind be- tween Europeans and Asiatics, in which the advantage of skill and discipline is on the side of the former, that of num- bers and knowledge of the country on that of the latter, had been tarried on with various success, till at length an ar- rangement was effected by Corbulo's agreeing that Tiridates should be king of Armenia on condition of his acknowledging the supremacy of Rome, and receiving his diadem from the hands of the emperor. Nothing of importance occurred in the time of Nero on the frontiers of tlie Rhine and Danube. In Britain, Sue- tonius Paulinus conquered the isle of Mona, the great seat of the Druidic religion ; and a war headed by Boadicea, queen of the Icenians, which commenced by the massacre of two Roman colonies, was terminated with a prodigious slaughter of the Britons. At length Nero put his long-cherished design of visiting Greece into execution. Leaving his freedman Helius with unlimited power in Rome, he crossed the Adriatic at the head of a body of men, numerous enough, as to mere num- bers, it was said, to conquer the Parthians; but of whom the greater part were armed with lyres, masks, and theatric bus- kins. He contended at all the games of Greece ; for he made them all be celebrated in the one year. When contending, he rigidly followed all the rules and practices of the citharoe- dic art; he addressed the judges with fear and reverence; he openly abused or secretly maligned his rivals. The Greeks, adepts in flattery, bestowed on him all the prizes ; and even when, at the Olympic games, he attempted to drive ten-in- hand, and was thrown from the chariot, he still was pro- claimed victor. In return, he bestowed liberty on the whole province, and gave the judges the rights of citizenship and a large sum of money. This, in imitation of Flamininus, he himself proclaimed aloud from the middle of the stadium at A.D. 67.] NERO IN GREECE. 109 the Isthmian games. These amusements, however, gave no check to the cruehy and rapacity of himself and Tigellinus. Greece was plundered as by an enemy ; numbers were put to death for their property ; many persons were even summoned thither from Italy and other parts for the sole purpose of be- ing executed. Among these was the gallant Corbulo, whom Nero lured thither by the most hypocritical expressions of affection, and ordered to be slain as soon as he landed. Corbulo took a sword, and plunged it into his body, crying, '* I deserve it." While in Greece, Nero celebrated another marriage. The bride, on this occasion, was a youth named Sporus, who, it is said, bore some resemblance to Poppcea. Having emascu- lated him, and essayed all the powers of art to convert him into a woman, he espoused him with the most solemn forms, Tigellinus acting as the bride's father on the occasion. He henceforth had him dressed as his empress, and carried about with him in a litter. Some one observed that " it had been well for the world if his father Domitius had had such a wife." He also, while in Greece, attempted to dig a canal through the Isthmus, for which purpose he assembled a great number of workmen from all parts. When, from supersti- tious motives, they hesitated to touch the ground which was sacred to the sea-god, he took a spade, and set them the ex- ample himself. The project, however, owing to subsequent events, came to nothing. Helius had for some time been urging the emperor by letters to return to Rome, on account of the aspect of affairs there. Finding his letters unheeded, he came over in per- son ; and, on his representations, Nero saw the necessity of leaving Greece. When he landed in Italy, he proceeded to Naples, the scene of his first musical glory. He entered it in a chariot drawn by white horses, and through a breach in the walls, as was the custom of victors in the public games. He did the same at Antium, Albanura, and Rome itself He entered this last city in the triumphal car of Augustus, in a purple robe studded with silver stars, the Olympic wrea.h of wild olive on his head, the Pythian laurel in his hand. The crowns which he had won, and boards showing the names and forms of the places where he had gained them, preceded his chariot; the senate, knights, and soldiers, followed, shout- ing, "Olympic victor! Pythian victor! Augustus! Nero Her- cules! Nero Apollo!" and such like. In this manner he CONTIN. 10 \]0 NERO. [a. d. 68. proceeded to the Capitol, and thence to the palace. The crowns, eighteen hundred in number, were hung round an Egyptian obelisk, Nero then resumed his former occupa- tions as a player and charioteer. The Roman world had thus long submitted to be the sport of a monster in human form ; but the day of vengeance was at hand. We are ill-informed of the circumstances and na- ture of the revolt against him, (C8;) we are only told that its author was C. Julius Vindex, a man of high birth in Aquitanian Gaul, whose father had been a Roman senator, and w ho was himself at this time proprsEtor of Gaul. As the people were harassed beyond endurance by exactions, he proposed to them to have recourse to arms, and deprive the unworthy wretch, under whose tyranny they groaned, of the power to oppress the Roman world any longer. Vindex was too prudent a man to set himself up as the rival of Nero; he proposed that the empire should be offered to Ser. Sulpicius Galba, the governor of Tarragonian Spain, a man of high character, of much military experience, and who was at the head of a large army. Deputies were accordingly sent to Galba, to whom Vindex also wrote, strongly urging him to become the deliverer and leader of the human race. Galba, who had discovered that Nero had resolved on his death, and whom favorable signs and omens encouraged, called his sol- diers together, and, placing before his tribunal the images of a great number of persons whom Nero had put to death, de- plored the condition of the times. The soldiers instantly saluted him emperor; he, however, cautiously professed him- self to be merely the legate of the Roman senate and peo- ple, and forthwith commenced his levies. He formed a kind of senate of the leading persons in the country, and selected a body of youths of the equestrian order to act as his body- guard. Meantime Verginius Rufus, who commanded m Germany, when he heard of the insurrection in Gaul, advanced and laid siege to Besan'on. Vindex came to its relief, and, having encamped at a little distance, he and Verginius had a private meeting, in which it was suspected that they agreed to unite against Nero ; but, shortly after, as Vindex was lead- ing his forces toward the town, the Roman legions, attack- ing them without orders, as was said, slew 20,000 of them, vindex also fell by their swords, or, as was more gener- ally believed, by his own hand. The soldiers would faio A D. 63.] INSURRECTION OF VINUEX. Ill have saluted Verginius emperor; but that noble-minded man steadfastly refused the honor, affirming that the senate and people alone had a right to confer it.* Nero was at Naples when intelligence reached him of the insurrection in Gaul. He made so light of it, that some thought he was rejoiced at the occasion which it was likely to offer for plundering those wealthy provinces. During eight days he took his ordinary amusements. At length, stung by the contumelious edicts of Vindex, he wrote to the senate, excusing his absence on account of the soreness of his throat, as if, observes the historian, he was to have sung for them ; and when he came to Rome, he assembled the principal men of both orders, but, instead of deliberating with them on the affairs of Gaul, he spent the time in ex- plaining some improvements which he had made in the hy- draulic organ, adding that he would shortly produce it in the theatre, if Vindex would allow him. When, however, he heard of the revolt of Galba and the Spains, his consternation was extreme. He revolved, it is said, the wildest and most nefarious projects, such as sending persons to kill all the governors of provinces, massacring the exiles and all the Gauls that were at Rome, poisoning the senate, setting fire to the city, and letting the wild beasts loose on the people. He began to levy troops ; but his first care was to provide carriages to convey his theatric proper- ties, and to dress and arm a party of his concubines as Ama- zons to form his guard. The urban cohorts having refused to serve, he called on all masters to furnish a certain number of their slaves, and he took care to select the most valuable, not even excepting the stewards or amanuenses. He likewise required all persons to give him a part of their property. Intelligence of further revolts having reached him as he was at dinner, he overturned, in his terror, the table, and broke his two precious Homeric cups, as they were named, from the scenes from Homer which were carved on them. Taking then with him in a golden box some poison prepared for him by Locusta, he went to the Servilian gardens, and sent some of his most faithful freedmen to Ostia to get shipping ready. He then tried to prevail on the officers of the guards to ac- company his flight ; but some excused themselves, others re- * Verginius caused the following lines to be placed on his tomb, (Plin Ep. vi. 10. :) " Hie situs est Rufus, pulso qui Vindice quondam, Imperium asseruit non sibi, sed patriae." 112 NER0.1 [A.D.ea fused, and one even repeated the line of Virgil, Usque adeu- ne mori miscrum est ? One time he thought of flying to the Partliians, another time to Galba, then of ascending the Rostra, and asking public pardon for his transgressions, and praying for even the government of Egypt. He retired to rest; but, awaking in the middle of the night, and finding that his guards had left him, he sprang up and sent for some of his friends. When none came, he arose, and went to some of their houses; but every door was closed against him. On his return, he found his bed-chamber pillaged, and his box of poison gone. He sought in vain for some one to kill him. "Have 1 neither a friend nor an enemy?" cried he, and rushed to the Tiber, to throw himself into it. His courage, however, failed him ; and his freedman Phaon having offered a country-house which he had four miles from the city for a retreat, he mounted a horse, and set out with Sporus and three others, concealed in a dark cloak, with his head covered and a handkerchief before his f:ice. As he was quitting the city, the ground seemed to rock beneath him, and a broad flash of lightning struck terror to his heart ; and, as he passed the praetorian camp, hia ears were assailed by the shouts of the soldiers execrating him and wishing success to Gal- ba. " There they go in pursuit of Nero," observed one of those whom they met; another inquired of them if there was any news of Nero in the city- His horse starting in the road, his handkerchief fell, and he was recognized and salu- ted by a praitorian soldier. They had to quit their horses and scramble through a thicket to get to the rear of Phaou's villa, and then to wait till an aperture was made in the wall to admit them. Phaon urged him to conceal himself, mean- time, in a sand hole ; but he replied that he would not bury himself alive, and, taking some water up in his hand from a pool to quench his thirst, he said, " This is Nero's prepared water." * He then picked the thorns out of his cloak, and, when the aperture was completed, he crept through it, and lay down on a miserable pallet in a slave's cell. Though suffer- ing from hunger, he would not eat the coarse bread that was offered him ; but he drank some warm water. Every one now urged him to lose no time in saving him- self (rooa the impending insults. He directed them to dig a " Decocta. Nero is said to have introduced the practice of boiling water and then cooling it in snow to give it a greatJer degree of cold Plin. N. H. x.xxi. 3. A. D. 68.] DEATH OF NERO. 113 grave on the spot, and to prepare the requisite water and wood for his funeral : meantime he continued weeping and saying, " What an artist is lost!" A messenger coming with letters to Phaon, he took them, and, reading that he was declared an enemy by the senate, and sentenced to be pun- ished more majorum, he inquired what that meant. Being told that it was to be stripped naked, have the head placed in a fork, and be scourged to death, he took two daggers he had with him, and tried their edge, then sheathed them again, saying that the fatal hour was not yet come. One moment he desired Sporus to begin the funeral wail, then he called on some one to set him an example of dying, then he upbraided his own cowardice. At length, hearing the trampling of the horses of those sent to take him, he hur- riedly repeated an appropriate line of Homer, and, placing a dagger at his throat, with the aid of his secretary Epaphro- ditus, drove it in. A centurion, entering before he was dead, put his cloak to the wound, pretending that he was come to his aid. " 'Tis too late! Is this your fidelity ?" said the bleeding tyrant, and expired. Such was the well-merited end of the emperor Nero, in the 31st year of his age and the 14th of his reign. We have not ventured to pollute our pages with the appalling details of his lusts and vices, which historians have transmitted to us; or by so doing we should injure rather than serve the cause 3f moral purity and of virtue. Monster as he was, the pop- ulace and the prfEtorian soldiery, missing the gifts and the shows which he used to bestow on them, soon began to re- gret him ; and for many years his tomb continued to be vis- ited and his memory to be held in honor. No more con- vincing proof could be given of the utter degradation of the Roman people. I On looking through the reigns of the four immediate suc- cessors of Augustus, one cannot fail to be struck with the singular failure of all the projects of that prince for securing the happiness of the Roman world. It can hardly be regard- ed as fortuitous that such monsters should have attained to unlimited power ; and those should not be regarded as super- stitious who see in this event a fulfilment of that great law of the moral world, the visitation on the children of the sins 10* o 1 14 NERO. and errors of the parents. The Roman loblcs had, in the last century of the republic, robbed and oppressed the people of the provinces in the most nefarious manner, and by their civil contentions at home they had demoralized the people and caused the downfall of public liberty ; their descendant* were therefore the victims of the most capricious and mer- ciless tyranny, against which virtue or innocence was no se- curity. For we may observe that, with slight exceptions, it was solely against the noble and wealthy that the cruelties of the emperors were directed. The whole of the people of Rome, nobles and plebeians alike, were debased and degraded. Though we may not place implicit faith in the exaggerated statements of the de- claimers and satirists of the time, we must yet recognize the foundation of truth on which their exaggerations rest. The nobles were sunk in luxury and sensuality to a degree rarely equalled. Vice, unrestrained by that regard to appearance and public opinion which acts as so salutary a check in modern times, reigned in their splendid mansions, and boldly affronted the public view. But all were not equally debased. In the history of the time, we meet with many splendid ex- amples of virtue ; and, had we the records of private life, we should probably find much to (latter our more exalted views of human nature. Tliey, in general, cultivated literature. The rigid precepts of the Stoic doctrine were adopted by those of more lofty aspirations, while the votaries of sensual enjoyment professed llie degenerated system of Epicurus. The common people, now degenerated into mere lazza- roni, living on the bounty or charity of the sovereign, and utterly destitute of even the semblance of political power, thought only of the public games,* and contendeil with mort^ passion for the success of the blue or green faction of the Circus than their forefathers had shown for the elevation of a Scipio or a Marius.to the highest dignities of the state. They were also completely brutalized by the constant view of the slaugliter of gladiators, the combats of men with the wild beasts to which they were exposed, and the massacre of animal!^, many brought for the purpose from the most distant regions, in the amphitheatre. For such were the amuse* * " Ex quo suifragia nuUi Vendiinus efTudit euros; nam qui dabatolim Imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se Continet, atque duas tantum res anxius optat, Panein et Circenses." Juv. Sat. x. 77. STATE OF THE EMPIRE. 115 meiits with which the emperors, continuing in truth only the usage of the commonwealth, sought to gratify the populace of Rome. The fine rural population of Italy, the hardy yeomanry and stout farm laborers, whose vigor and courage had won the victories which gave Rome her empire, had been greatly di- minished. Tillage had ceased in a great measure ; and Italy, divided into huge estates, the latifundia of the nobles, con- tained only vineyards, oliveyards, pastures, and forests, in which all the labor was performed by gangs of slaves. The corn which was to relieve the wants of the imperial city was all supplied by Africa and Egypt ; the existence of the Ro- man people was at the mercy of the winds, and any one who could obtain the possession of Egypt could starve the capi- tal. In every point of view, this policy was bad; it should be the object of every prudent government to maintain a sound agricultural population. Literature had greatly declined after the time of Augustus. The only historian of any note remaining from this period is C. Velleius Paterculus, an agreeable and ingenious writer, but the abject flatterer of the tyrant Tiberius. The philo- sophic writings of Seneca display a pure morality, conveyed in a style affected and epigrammatic, which, attractive from its very faults, operated very injuriously on the literature of the age. Of the actions of Seneca we have had occasion to speak in the preceding pages; and it is clear that his life did not strictly correspond with the high-strained principles of the Stoic philosophy which he professed. He is accused by Dion of having caused the insurrection of the Britons, in the reign of Nero, by his avarice; and that historian hints that the charge of adultery against him was not without foundation. On the other hand, Tacitus always speaks of him with great respect. Seneca, in effect, as he himself fre- quently confesses, had the failings of a man : he was rich ; he increased his wealth in the ordinary Roman manner, by put- ting his money out at interest in the provinces; he lived in a splendid manner; but he was moderate and temperate in his habits, and kind and amiable in all the relations of private life, and we should not hesitate to regard him as a good man. The unfortunate circumstances under which he was placed with respect to his imperial pupil, may plead his excuse for such of his public acts as are morally objectionable. Of the poets of this period we possess only two, M. Annseus Lucanus, the nephew of Seneca, and A. Persius 116 THE CHRISTIAN RF.LIGION. Flaccus. Both of these poets embraced the Stoic philoso- phy, and both died young. Lucan, following the example of Ennius, sought the materials of a narrative poem in the his- tory of Rome. But his subject, the war between Ciesar and Pompeius, was too recent an event, and the poet was there- fore impeded in his efforts by the restrictions of truth. The Pharsalia, consequently, though full of vigor and spirit, is rhetorical rather than poetical ; and we meet in it the severe truths of history, and the strict precepts of philosophy, instead of the beguiling illusions of fiction, the proper ornaments of poetry. Persius has left six satires, written in a tone of pure and elevated morality, but in a harsh, rugged style. Horace was the great object of his admiration ; but no contrast can be greater than that which the style and manner of their respec- tive compositions present. CHAPTER VII. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. THE JEWISH MESSIAH. JESUS CHRIST. HIS RELIGION. ITS PROPAGATION. CAUSES OF ITS SUCCESS. CHURCH GOV- ERNMENT. While such was the condition of the Roman empire under the successors of Augustus, the religion which was to super- sede the various systems of polytheism in Europe and a part of Asia, was secretly and noiselessly progressing, and making converts in all parts of the Roman dominions. The inspired books of the Jews in many places spoke of a mighty prince of that nation, named the Messiah, i. e. the Anointed-one, who would rule over all mankind in justice and equity, and exalt his own peculiar people to an extraor- dinary degree of power and preeminence. He was to be born of the line of their ancient sovereigns of the house of David ; and the interpreters of the prophetic writings had fixed the time of his advent to a period coinciding with the -eign of Augustus. Interpreting their prophecies in a literal sense, they viewed the promised Deliverer as a great temporal JESUS CHRIST. 117 prince, who would wrest the supremacy of the world from Rome, and confer it on Judaea ; and the whole Jewish people were looking forward with hope and exultation to the predes- tined triumph of their arms and their creed. The promised Saviour came at the appointed time, but under a widely different character from what the expounders of the Law and the Prophets had announced. His mother, an humble maiden of the house of David, the wife of a car- penter in one of the towns of Galilee, brought him forth at Bethlehem, the city of David. He grew up in privacy and obscurity; at the age of thirty he entered on his destined of- fice as a teacher of mankind ; by many wonderful works, he proved his mission to be from on high, and himself to be the promised Messiah, whose triumph was to be over sin and the powers of darkness, and not over the arms of Rome. Many, struck by his miraculous powers, and won by the beauty and sublimity of his doctrines, and their accordance with the writings of the prophets of Israel, became his followers; but a mild and beneficent system of religion was distasteful to the nation in general ; the heads of the Jewish religion grew alarmed for their own power and influence; they therefore resolved on his destruction ; and they forced the Roman gov- ernor to condemn him to death as a spreader of sedition against the Roman authority. The death which the Son of God endured was that of the cross, (the usual mode pit the time ;) but, as he had foretold to his disciples, he rose from the dead on the third day, and, after an abode of forty days on the earth, he ascended, in their view, to heaven, leaving them a charge to disseminate bis religion throughout the whole world. None, we should suppose, require to be told what is the religion of Jesus Christ. All must know that its essence is the love of God and the love of man, that it inculcates every virtue, teaches to shun all evil, promises to the good eternal bliss, and menaces the wicked with eternal misery, in a future state of existence. So lovely is it, so mild, peaceful, and beneficent is its character, that, were its precepts gener- ally, though but imperfectly, obeyed, even the present world would become a paradise. We speak of the religion which is contained in the sacred books of the New Testament, in the words of Christ himself and his apostles, and not of the corrupted system which grew up and usurped its place, the progress of which it will be our task to relate. There is perhaps no moral phenomenon so extraordinary ss the 118 THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. change of the purity and simplicity of the gospel into the polytheism and idolatry which afterwards assumed the name and office of Christianity ; yet, as will appear, it is a phe- nomenon not difficult of explanation. The religion of Christ was founded on that of Moses ; but while the latter was limited to one people and one country, and burdened with a wearisome ceremonial, and many peculi- arities about meats and drinks, and such like, the former, un- limited and unencumbered, was adapted to all parts of the earth, and suited to all those who had capacity to understand and follow its precepts. Its Divine Author therefore directed his disciples to preach it to all nations; and so bold and ener- getic were they in the performance of their commission, and so powerfully were they aided by the Divine Spirit which was promised them, that the religion was in the space of a few years diffiised throughout the greater part of the Roman empire. The first societies of the Christians (named churches *) were necessarily in Judaja, and the principal one at Jeru- salem, where the apostles or original companions of Christ chiefly resided. Gradually, by means of missionaries, the doc- trine was spread beyond the limits of Judaea, and churches were established at Damascus, Antioch, and other towns. The most powerful and effective of these missionaries was Saul, (or, as he was afterwards named, Paul,) who had been originally a persecutor of the church, but, being converted by miracle, as he was on his road to Damascus, became a most zealous preacher of the truth which he had opposed. To zeal and ardor he united the advantages of learning and eloquence ; he was versed in the literature of his own nation and of the Greeks, and was thus eminently qualified for the office assigned him, of being the apostle of the Gentiles. By means chiefly of this eminent man, within the space of five- and-twenty years from the death of Christ, churches had been formed in the principal towns of Syria, Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, and even in the city of Rome. The mode in which Paul and the other missionaries pro- ceeded was as follows: The Jews were now (for the pur- poses of traffic, it would appear) established in most of the great towns of the Roman empire ; and wherever they were, * T he term employed in the New Testament is ixxXyjola, " assem- bly." Church J8 usuall}' derived from llie phrase o toO xvqIov oixot, "the Lord's House, ' which was also employed to designate the be* Jiev rs in Christ. ITS PROPAGATION. 119 liiey had their synagogues or places of worship. On arriving at any town, therefore, Paul, (to take him for an exam.)le,) as j being a Jew, used to enter the synagogue on the Sabbath day, where, taking advantage of the custom which prevailed in the j synagogues, of inviting any persons wlio seemed inclined to i address the congregat on,* he undertook to prove to them I that Jesus was the long-promised Messiah. If the Jews were I; convinced and believed, they became the nucleus of a church; j if they did not, (as was more generally the case,) the apostle 'I "' turned to the Gentiles," that is, preached the gospel to the | heathen, or the followers of the worship of false gods. The j church of each town was usually composed of converts from ' among both Jews and Gentiles, but chiefly of the latter, the ■ Jews being in general the implacable enemies of the religion \ which was to supersede their own, and which disappointed all their lofty anticipations. ) In the moral as in the natural world, there is no effect i without a preceding cause; no change is produced without \ a due preparation of circumstances. We may therefore in- ] quire, without presumption, what were the circumstances that i favored the rapid progress of the Christian religion. ; The able historian of The Decline and Fall of the Roman I Empire assigns five causes for this great effect, namely, the ;, zeal of the Christians — the doctrine of a future life — the | miraculous powers ascribed to the church — the pure and aus- I tere morals of the Christians — and the union and discipline I of the Christian republic. In his examination of each of ^ these causes and its effects, he exerts all his powers of sneer \ and irony to throw discredit on the early Christians, to repre- | sent them as weak dupes or artful impostors, and their reli- ij gion as no more divine than those of Greece and Italy. We ) shall endeavor to examine them in a different spirit. ^ The first of the causes assigned by the historian is doubt- 5 less a true one. Without zeal, no system of philosophy, far \ less of religion, will ever make rapid progress in the world. | The second cause is also true. The doctrine )f a future ^tate, as taught by the apostles, had in it a degree of purity, determinateness, and certainty, unattainable by the polytheism of the heathen, and which foimed no part of the law given to the Jews by Moses. But we must not suppose, as the his- * " And after the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of Ihe synagogue sent unto them, saying : Ye men and brethren, if ye Iiave any word of exhortation for the people, say on,' Acts xiii. 15. I 1:20 THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. ioriaii would have us, that a future state was noi »elieved generally at that time by the Greeks and Romaws. The philosophers and men of education, doubtless, disgusted by the absurd details of the future world, furnished by poets and adopted in the popular creed, and findiljg no demonstrative arguments for a future existence, had reasoned themselves into skepticism on the subject, and the doctrine therefore had little or no effect on their lives and conduct ; but the vulgar still clung pertinaciously to the faith transmitted to them by their forefathers, and believed the poetic creed of the future world with all its incongruities.* The religious aspect of the Roman world at that time in fact very much resembled that of Catholic Europe at the present day; the popular re- ligion was a mass of absurdities revolting to the understand- ing ; the men of education rejected it, and were skeptics or infidels; while the vulgar lay grovelling in idolatry and super- stition. The historian's third cause — the miraculous powers of the church — is the one liable to most dispute. The infidel to- tally denies their reality ; the believer is convinced of their truth. On this point no a" priori arguments should be ad- mitted ; the inquirer should, for example, give no heed to reasonings from the steadiness and regularity of the course of nature, for we know not what that course is, and whether the effects which, as being uinisual, we denominate miracu- lous or wonderful, may not form a part of it, and have been arranged so as to coincide in point of time with the promul- gation of certain moral principles. The whole is in effect a question of evidence, and those who find the proofs offered for the authenticity of the New Testametit convincing, must acknowledge that the promise of divine aid made by Jesus to his disciples was fulfilled, and that the Holy Spirit enabled them to perform many wonderful works.t At the same time, • In Lucian (De Luctu 2) will be found a proof of the tenacity with which the vulvar adhered to the traditional creed. The chief cause of Gibbon's error seems to have been his ignorance of the difTerence be- tween tlie rehgious systems of Greece and Italy. CiBsar and Cicero might deride the poetic under-world ; Juvenal might say, (ii. 149,) " Esse aliquid Manes et subterranea regna, Et contum, et Stygio ranas in gurgite nigras, Atque una tranfsire vadum tot millia cymba, Nee pueri credunt nisi qui nondum cere lavantur." But these are all Grecian, not Roman, ideas on the subject, and the vuljrar at Rome might make trght or them, and yet believe (as the vul- gu; every where do) in a future statt*. ♦ The most convincing work on the evidences of Christianity, in CAt:SES OF ITS SUCCESS. 121 there are no safe grounds for supposing that this aid was continued beyond the age of the apostles. The Deity does nothing in vain ; and, when once the Christian religion was firmly rooted in the world, supernatural assistance was with- drawn. In fact, the accounts of all subsequent miracles ex- hibit the marks of error or imposition. The fourth cause was, beyond all question, a most effica- cious one. The virtues of the early Christians (to which we may add the purity of their system of morals) must have shone forth with preeminent lustre amid the moral darkness which then obscured the world. Not that virtue was totally e.xtinct ; for God never suffers it to become so among any people; but from the language used by the apostle Paul, and from the history of the times, and the writings which have come down to us, we may infer that morality was never at a lower ebb than at that period of the Roman empire. There certainly was then no sect nor society which showed the phi- lanthropy and spirit of mutual love displayed by the early Christians. " Behold how these Christians love one another ! " was the language of the admiring heathens. The last cause assigned by the historian — the government of the church — could hardly have had much efficacy in the | I period of which we now treat. What the original form of church government was, is a question which was once agitated with a degree of violence and animosity which testified little for the acquaintance of the combatants with the true nature and spirit of the gospel. It is now, we believe, pretty gen- erally agreed among rational and moderate divines, that nei- ther Christ nor his apostles intended to institute any particu- lar form; leaving it to the members of the church to regulate | j! it according to their ideas of what would best accord with ( I the political constitution under which they lived. And, in | fact, if we are fo judge by the effects, we might say that forms of ecclesiastical government are indifferent, and that I " whate'er is best administered is best; " for equal degrees of piety and holiness seem to be attainable under all. True re- ligion is seated in the heart ; it depends not on outward forms : it is the pride, the ambition, the vanity of man that has introduced schism and dissension into the church of Christ. The first churches, as we have seen, were founded by mis- our opinion, is Paley's " Horee Paulince," the perusal of which we ■trongly recommend. CONTIN. 11 P 122 THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION sionaries, who travelled from place to place. ^\ me they were present with any church, they necessarily exercised an authority over it ; but every society requires a permanent government; and, therefore, the churches seem almost im- mediately to have appointed some persons to preside in their assemblies, and to execute other offices of supervision or ministration. The presidents were named Overseers or Elders ; * they were chosen by the members of the church, and confirmed and appointed to their office by the founder, or one authorized by him.t There is also a class of persons spoken of who were termed Prophets, and seem to have been men endowed with a ready eloquence, able to expound the Scriptures, and tc exhort and admonish the congrega- tion. | A third class of officers were named Deacons, i. e. Ministers,<5i who attended to the poor, and discharged some other duties. Such seems to have been the external form of the churches during the lifetime of the apostles. Each con- gregation was independent of all others, governed by officers chosen by its members, living in harmony and friendly com- munication with the other churches; those which were more wealthy contributing to the comforts of those, which, like the parent one at Jerusalem, were more exposed to affiiction and poverty. It was not perhaps, in general, till after the death of the apostles, that, the congregations having become very numer- ous, a change was made in their form of government, and the office of Bishop or Overseer was separated from that of Elder, and restricted to one person in each society. His office was for life; he was the recognized o-gan and head of the church ; he had the management of its funds, and the appointment to the offices of the ministry. He also ad- ministered the rite of baptism, and he pronounced the blessing over the bread and wine used at the Lord's Supper. The presbyters were his council or assistants ; for he was only regarded as the first among equals. Such, then, was the church of Christ in its early days. It was composed of converts from among the Jews and * 'EitlnxoTToi and noenftrrfitoi. That they were synonymous, is evi- dent from the. following' passages : Acts xx. 18 and 28; Tit. i. 5 and 7. From tlie former are derived the modern Vescovo, (Ital.,) Obispo, (Sp.,) Eveque, (Fr.,) Bishop, (Eng.;) from the latter, Prete, (Ital.,) Pr.'tre, (Fr.,) Priest, (Eng.) t Tit. i. 5. } 1 Cor. xiv. 3 — 5. § Jmxotot THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 123 Gentiles, chiefly of the middle and lower ranks, or it did not exclude even slaves.* It was, in general, disregarded or l- diers, met him, and, refusing to return to their former con- dition, demanded an eagle and standards, he ordered hia horse to charge them ; and, not content with the slaughter thus made, he decimated the remainder. When the praeto- * Hence we term this the period of emperors elected by Hie army, though such was not strictly the case in all parts of it, as from N^'va to Com mod us. 11» 126 GALEA. [a. D. 69. rians demanded the donative promised in liis name, he re- plied that it was his way to levy, not to purchase his soldiers. He broke and sent home the German guards of the C.-esars, without giving them any gratuity. He offended the people, by refusing to punish, at their earnest desire, Tigelliuus and some others of the ministers of Nero's cruelty. He, how ever, put to death Helius, Locusta, and others. It added much to the unpopularity of Galba, that he was almost in a state of pupilage to three persons, namely, T. Vinius, his legate when in Spain, Cornelius Laco, whom he had made prefect of the praetorians, alid his freed man Icelus, to whom he had given the equestrian ring, and tlie surname of Martianus. These persons had all their own ends in view; and, as they knew that, under any circumstances, the life of tlic eujperor could not be long, they thought only of providing for their future interests. The provinces and the armies in general submitted to the emperor appointed by the senate. It was not so, however, with the legions in the Germanics. Gall)a had most unwise- ly recalled the noble Verginius under tlie show of friendship, but in reality out of fear and jealousy, and sent A. Vitellius to command the army of Lower Germany, whose general, Fonteius Capito, had been slain by iiis legates Cornelius Atjuinus and Fabius Valens ; while Hordeonius Flaccus, who commanded the army of Upper Germany, enfeebled by age and the gout, had lost all autliority over his troops. It was with this last army that the disturbance began. On new year's day, (09,) Galba entered on the consulate, with Vinius for his colleague; and a h\v days after, word came that the legions of Upper Germany insisted on having another emperor, leaving the choice to the senate and people. This intelligence made Galba hasten the execution of a design he had already formed of adopting some person, as he was himself childless; and he held consultations with his three friends on the subject. They were divided in their sentiments. M. Salvius Otho, from whom, it nay be recollected, Nero had taken Poppa;a, had early joined Galba, whom he hoped to succeed; there was a great intimacy between him and Vinius, whose daughter, it was believed, he was engaged to marry, and Vinius therefore now strongly urged his claim to the adoption. Laco and Icelus had no particular favorite, but they were resolved to oppose the candidate of Vinius. Galba, partly, as was thought, moved by a regard for the state, which would have been to no pur- A. D. C9.] ADOPTION OF PISO. 127 pose delivered from Nero if transmitted to Otho, and partly, as was supposed, influenced by Laco, fixed on Piso Licinia- nus, a young man of the noblest birth and the strictest morals. Having adopted him with the usual forms, he took him into the camp, and hiformed the soldiers of what he had done ; but, influenced by his parsimony and his regard for ancient usages, he unfortunately said not a word of a donative, and the troops listened to him with silence and disgust. (-)tho, v;ho, from the state of his affairs, saw ruin impend- ing over him, now resolved to make a desperate effort, and be emperor or perish. He had for some time been secretly tampering with the soldiery. By means of his freedman Onomastus, he gained over two soldiers, who undertook to make trial of the fidelity of their comrades; and, on the fifth day after the adoption of Piso, (Jan. 15,) as Galba was sacrificing at the temple of the Palatine Apollo, Onomastus came to Otho, who was standing by him, and said that the architect and builders were waiting for him, that being the signal agreed on. Otho, pretending that he had bought some houses which required to be examined, went away ; and, at the golden mile-stone in the Forum, he was met by three-and-twenty soldiers, who saluted him emperor, and, placing him in a sedan, hurried him away to the camp, being joined by about as many more on the way. Galba was still engaged sacrificing, when the report came, first, that some senator, and then that Otho, was carried away to the camp. It was resolved to make trial at once of the fidelity of the cohort which was on guard at the pal- ace, and Piso went and stood on the steps and addressed them. But, though he promised a donative, they did not. declare themselves. All the other troops joined the prfeto- rians, with the exception of those whom Nero had drafted from the German army to serve in Egypt, and whom Galba had lately treated with much kindness. The populace hastened to the palace with loud and noisy loyalty; and, while Galba was consulting with his friends, word came that Otho was slain in the camp : the senators and knights, then taking courage, vied with the populace in clamorous loyalty, and Galba was put into a chair to pro- ceed to the camp. Just as he was setting out, a guardsman, showing his bloody sword, cried out that he had slain Otho: Galba, ever mindful of discipline, replied, " Fellow-soldier, who ordered you 1 " Piso, who had been sent to the camp. 128 OTHO. [a. d. 69. met the emperor on his way with the assurance that all was lost, tlie soldiers having declared for Otho. While they were deliberating on what were best to be done, the soldiers, horse and foot, rushed into the Forum, and dispersed the senators and the people. At the sight of them, the standard- bearer ot the cohort which was with Galba threw down his ensign. The aged emperor was flung from his chair at the place called the Lake of. Curtius. He desired the soldiers to slay him, if it seemed for the good of the state; and he was instantly despatched. Vinius was the next victim. Piso fled to the temple of Vesta, where he was concealed by a public slave attached to it ; but he was soon discovered, dragged out and .«lain, and his head brought to Otho. Laco, Icelus, and several others, were put to death. The body of Galba, after being exposed to the insults of the soldiery and rabble, was indebted for sepulture to his steward, Argius, who interred it in his own garden. M. Salvias Otho. A. u. 822. A. D. 69. The soldiers now did every thing they pleased ; for Otho, even if inclined, had not the power to restrain them ; the senate and people rushed into servitude as usual. The trib- unitian power, the name of Augustus, and all the other honors, were decreed to Otho; and, as far as Rome was con- cerned, his power was supreme. But he had hardly entered on his new dignity when he received intelligence that the German legions, joined by several of the Gallic states, had declared A. Vitellius emperor, and that two armies, under his legates, Fabius Valens and Alienus Ca;cina, were in full innrch for Italy. The legions of Britain and of Raetia had also diclared for Vitellius. Those of Spain at first gave in their adhesion to Otho; but they sj)eedily turned to his rival. The troops of the East and of Africa took the oath to Otho, when they learned his elevation by the senate. The army of Illyricum also took the engagement to him, and adhered to*it. His chief reliance, however, was on the guards and the other troops which had revolted in his favor against Galba. Dur- ing the time that Otho remained in ihe city, preparing A. D. 69.] CIVIL WAR. T29 for the war, he BispTayed a degree of prudence and vigor not expected from his general character. He gained popularity by giving up to the public vengeance the infamous Tigelli- nus, and by bestowing pardon and his confidence on Marius Celsus, a consul elect, who had exhibited the most exempla- ry fidelity toward Galba, and who afterwards proved equally faithful to Otho himself On the eve of the Ides of March, (14th,) Otho, having commended the state to the care of the senate, set out to take the command of his army ; for Valens, at the head of 40,000 men, was now approaching Italy by the Cottian Alps, while Cajcina, with 30,000, was entering it by the Pennine Alps, and a part of the troops in Cisalpine Gaul had declared for Vitellius, and seized Milan, Novarra, and some other municipal towns. The whole of Italy to the Po was thus in the hands of the Viteilians. As Otho had the entire com- m'.nd of the sea, he had put troops on board of the fleet from Misenum, and sent them to make a diversion on the southern coast of Gaul ; and they had some success against the troops despatched by Valens to oppose them. The Pannonian le- gions were on their march for Italy, and they had sent their cavalry and light troops on before. Five prstorian cohorts, with the first legion, and some cavalry, and a band of two thousand gladiators, were despatched from the city, under the command of Annius Gallus and Vestricius Spurinna, to oc- cupy the banks of the Po ; and Otho himself followed with the remainder' of the prcetorian cohorts, a body of veteran praetorians, and a large number of the rowers of the fleet. Caecina had crossed the Po, unopposed ; he moved along the stream of that river, and sat down before Placentia, into which Spurinna had thrown himself On the very first day of the siege, the splendid amphitheatre, the largest in Italy, which lay without the walls, was burnt, by accident or de- sign. Having failed in all his attempts to storm the town, Csecina put his troops over the river, and marched against Cremona. Gallus, who was leading the first legion to the relief of Placentia, being informed by letters from Spurinna of the route taken by Ciscina, halted at a village named Bedriacum, between Verona and Cremona. Meantime Mar- tins Macro had suddenly crossed the Po with the gladiators, and routed a body of the Vitellian auxiliaries. The Otho- nians were now elate with success, and eager for battle, and they wrote to Otho, accusing their generals of treachery in restraining their ardor. The Othonian generals wished to avoid engaging the vet Q 130 OTHO. [a. p. 6a erans of Vitelllus with their holiday troops, which had never seen any service, and to wait for the arrival of the Pannonian legions. On the other hand, Ccecina, maddened by the re- pulses which he had received at Placentia, and anxious to bring matters to a conclusion before the arrival of Valcns, was impatient of delay. He therefore wished to provoke a battle; and, placing the best of his auxiliary troops in am- bush, in the woods on each side of the road, at a place called The Temple of the Castors, about twelve miles from Cre- mona, he sent a party of horse along the road, with directions to fall on the enemy, and then retire and draw them into the ambuscade. The plan, however, was betrayed to the Othonian generals, Suetonius Paulinus and Marius Celsus, of whom the former taking the command of the foot, and the latter that of the horse, they made such dispositions as might turn the enemy's wile against himself Accordingly, when the Vitellian horse turned and fled, Celsus kept his men in check ; those in the ambush then rising before their time, Celstis gradually fell back till he drew them to where they found the road occupied by the legionaries, while cohorts were on each side, and the cavalry had now gotten into their rear. Had Paulinus given the word at once, they might have been cut to pieces; but he delayed so long, that they had time to save themselves in the adjoining vineyards, and a little wood, from which they made sallies, and killed some of the most forward of the Othonian horse. The Othonian infantry now pushed forward, and, as Cajcina sent his troops out only by single cohorts to oppose them, the resistance which they experienced was slight; and it was thought, on both sides, that, if Paulinus had not sounded a recall, Ccecina's army might have been annihilated. The reason which Paulinus assigned for doing so, was his fear lest his wearied men should be attacked by fresh troops from the camp of the Vitellians, in which case he should have no reserve to support them; his arguments, however, did not prove generally satisfactory. This check abated Very much the confidence of both Cae- cina and his men; it had a similar effect on those of Va- lens', who had now reached Ticinun). They had lately been very mutinous, and their general had narrowly escaped death at their hands ; and when they heard of the recent disaster of their comrades, they were near breaking out into mutiny again. They would brook no delay; they urged on the standar 1-bearers, and they speedily joined the army of Cxcini. A. D. 69.] CIVIL WAR. 131 Otho now advised v/ith his generals whether it would be better to protract the war, or to bring matters to a speedy decision. Suetonius argued strongly in favor of the former course. The Vitellians, he said, were ail there ; they could calculate on no additions to their force ; they would soon be in want of corn ; the summer was coming on, and the Ger- mans, it was well known, could not stand the heat of Italy. On the other hand, Otho had Pannonia, Moesia, and the East, with their large armies; he had Italy and the city with him, and the name of the senate and people, which was always of importance ; he had plenty of money, and his men were inured to the climate. The line of the Po, as Placen- tia had proved, could be easily defended; he would speedily be joined by tiie legions from Illyricum. All therefore con- .spired to recommend delay. The opinions, of Celsus and Annius Gallus coincided with that of Suetonius. On the other hand, Otho himself was inclined to a speedy decision, and his brother Titianus, to whom he had given the chief command, and the praetorian prefect, Licinius Proculus, men utterly devoid of experience, flattered his wishes. The gen- erals ceased to oppose. It was then asked, should the em- peror himself appear in the field or not. Suetonius and Celsus gave no opinion, and the others decided that he should retire to Brescia, (Brixcllum,) and reserve himself for the empire. Nothing could be more pernicious than this course, for he took with him some of the best troops; and, moreover, as the soldiers distrusted their generals, and had confidence in himself alone, it diminished the moral force of the army. Valens and CfBcina, who, by means of scouts and desert- ers, knew all that was going on in the enemy's camp, now began to throw a bridge of boats over the Po, as if with the intention of driving off the gladiators. While they were thus engaged, the Othonians advanced four miles from Be- driacum, and encamped, displaying so little skill in the se- lection of the site, that, though it was spring-time, and there was a number of streams all about them, the soldiers actually suffered for want of water. Celsus and Paulinus were gen- erals only in name, and their opinions had never been taken. The troops were then set in motion, to march for the con- fluence of the Po and the Adda, sixteen miles off, in spite of the remonstrances of the generals, Titianus and Proculus, bemg confirmed by an express from Otho, ordering matters to be brought to a decision at once. 132 OTHO. [a. d. 69 Cscina was viewing the progress of the bridge, when word came that the enemy was at hand. He hurried back to the camp, where he found that Valens had got the troops under arms. The horse issued forth, and charged the Otho- nians, but were driven back ; the legions, favored by the denseness of the trees, which concealed them from view, formed witliout disorder. The Othonians were advancing without any order ; the baggage and the followers mingled with the soldiers, along a road with deep ditches on each side. A report being spread that his own troops had re- volted from Vitellius, the Othonians, when they came in view, saluted the Vitellians as friends; but they were soon made to perceive their error. A severe conflict ensued ; but the Othonians were finally routed and driven to their camp, and the Vitellians took up their position for the night within a mile of it. The prfBtorians alone were unbroken in spirit ; they asserted that they were betrayed, not conquered, and insisted on continuing the war. Morning, however, brought cooler thoughts, and a deputation was sent to sue for peace, which was readily granted, and the two armies then united. When the news of the defeat at Bcdriacum reached Bres- cia, the troops there, instead of being dejected, sought to in- spirit their emperor to continue the war; and envoys from the Moesian legions, who were now at Aquileia, assured him of their resolution to adhere to his cause. But Otho had already formed his determination to end the contest for empire by a voluntary death. lie addressed those about him in manly terms, declaring that he would not be the cause of ruin to such brave and worthy inen. He insisted on their providing fc/f their own safety; and, having distrib- uted money among them, and burnt all letters reflecting on Vitellius, he retired, in the evening, to his bed-chamber, and taking two daggers, and trying their edge, he placed one under his pillow. He passed the night in tranquillity, and at daybreak he thrust the dagger into his bosom. At the groan which he gave, his freedmen and friends came in ; but they found him already dead. The funeral was hurried ; for so he had earnestly desired, lest his head should be cut off" and insulted. Some of the soldiers slew themselves at the pyre, and their example was followed by many .it Bedriacum, Pla- centia, and other places.* * Ver^iniua, at this time, ran the rsk of his life for .i^ain refusing the empire. He had afterwards a narrow escape from the soldiers of i. D. 69.] CHARACTER OF VITELLIUS. 133 A. Vitellius. A. u. 822—823. A. r «9— 70. The news of the death of Otho reached Rome during t\ e celebration of the Cereal games. The event, joineo .vith that of Flavins Sabinus, the city prefect, having caused the soldiers there to take the oath to Vitellins, being announced in the theatre, the spectators shouted for Vitellius, and they then carried the images of Galba, adorned with laurel and flowers, round to the temples. The usual honors and titles were, without hesitation, decreed to Vitellius by the senate, and thanks were voted to the armies of Germany. Aulus Vitellius, who was thus suddenly raised to empire, was the son of L. Vitellius, who, as we have seen above, was one of the basest of flatterers in the times of Caius and Claudius. He himself had, in early youth, been an inmate of the Capraean sty of Tiberius ; he gained the favor of Caius by his fondness for chariot races; that of Claudius by his love of dice, and that of Nero by adroit flattery of his passion for the stage. He was distinguished above all men for his gluttony, so that Galba, when sending him to Lower Germany, gave as his reason for selecting him, that none are less to be feared than those who think of nothing but eating. Vitellius was collecting reenforcements in Gaul when he heard of the victory at Bedriacum. He was met at Lyons {Lugdunnm) by his own generals and by those of the Otho- nians. Of these last, Suetonius and Proculus escaped by ascribing to treachery on their own part the accidents which had favored the Vitellians. Titianus was excused on the ground of natural affection to his brother ; and Celsus was even allowed to retain the consulate, to which he had been appointed. . The most zealous of the Othonian centurions, however, were put to death — an act which tended greatly to alienate the Illyrian army. On the whole, however, Vi- Vitellius, when at that emperor's own table : " Nee quemqtiam Sffipjus quam Verginium," says Tacitus, " omnis seditio infestavit; monebat admiratio viri et fama, sed oderant nt fastiditi." This excellent man, however, escaped all dangers, and died, when consul for the third time, in the reign of Nerva, having reached his 83d year. His funeral oration was pronounced by Tacitus. Pliny, whose guardian he had been, speaks of him (Ep. ii. 1. vi. 10) in terms of the greatest respect and affection. CONTIN. 12 134 VITELLIUS. [a. d. 69. tellius did not exhibit imich of either avarice or cruelty; but his gluttony exceeded all conception, and the wealth of the empire seemed inadequate to the supply of his table. At the same time, all the north of Italy suffered from the license of the soldiery, who, heedless of their officers, committed every species of excess. The spirit of the Othouians, too, wa^ unbroken, and their language was haughty and menacing. The fourteenth legion, which was the most turbulent, was, therefore, ordered to return to Britain, whence it had been recalled by Nero, and the praetorians were first separated, and then disbanded. At Ticinum, almost in the presence of Vitellius himself, a tumult took place between the legion- aries and the auxiliaries of his own army. It was appeased with difficulty; and, in consequence of it, the Batavian co- horts were sent home — a measure productive of future calamity. Vitellius thence proceeded to Cremona, where he was present at a show of gladiators given by Cajcina. He then feasted his eyes with a view of the battle-field at Bedriacum, where the slain lay still unburied. At Bologna, he visited another show of gladiators, given by Valens. He advanced by easy journeys toward Rome, exhausting the whole coun- try on his way by requisitions for the numerous train that followed him. At length, he came in view of Rome, at the head of 00,000 men, attended by a still greater number of camp followers. Senators and knights, and crowds of the most profligate of the j)opulace, poured forth to meet him. He was about to enter the city as a conqueror in the mili- tary habit ; but, at the suggestion of his friends, he as- sumed the niagisterialjjrff/tx<«. The eagles of four legions were borne before him ; ensigns and standards were around him; the troops — foot, horse, and allies — followed, all in their most splendid array. He thus ascended the Capitol, where he embraced his excellent mother, and saluted her by the title of Augusta. It was remarked, as a matter of ill omen, that Vitellius took the office of chief pontiff on the 18th of July — a day rendered memorable in the annals of Rome by the disasters at the Cremera and the Allia.* He affected a civil deport- ment, refusing the title of Augustus, and attending the meet- * [The former was the destruction of the Fabian family by the Ve- jenies, A. U. C. '279; the latter was the defeat of the Roman army b* Brennug and the Gauls, A. U. C. 364. — J. T. S ] A. D. 69.] LUXURIOUS HABITS OF VITELLIUS. 135 ings of the senate as a simple member of their body, and accompanying his friends and soliciting votes for tliem in their canvass for the consulate. These popular arts, how- ever, did not blind men to his vices. His gluttony passed all bounds of moderation ; he had three or four huge meals everyday, for which he prepared himself by emetics ; and the lowest cost of each was 400,000 sesterces. One ban- quet, given him by his brother, is said to have comprised, in its bill of fare, 2,000 of the choicest fishes, and 7,000 of the rarest birds. He was also immoderately given to the sports of the circus, theatre, and amphitheatre; and he alarmed men's minds by offering public sacrifices to the Manes of Nero, as if he proposed that prince for his example. Like his predecessors, he was governed by a freedman, named Asiaticus, who in cruelty, rapacity, and every other vice, fully equalled those of the courts of Claudius and Nero. The generals Crecina and Valens, of whom the former was more desirous of power, the latter of money, also acted as they pleased; and, altogether, Tacitus observes, " no one in that court attempted to distinguish himself by worth or ap- plication to business, the only road to power being to satiate the insatiable appetites of Vitellius, by extravagant banquets, and expense and debauchery of every kind." The historian adds, that, in the few months that he reigned, Vitellius spent nine hundred millions of sesterces. The soldiers, meantime,_ were held under little restraint ; but their strength was melting away, from their riotous liv- ing, and from the insalubrity of the air and soil about Rome, The strength of the legions was also reduced, by the forma- tion of sixteen new praetorian and four urban cohorts, into which any legionary who pleased might volunteer. The luxurious enjoyments of Vitellius were soon disturbed by tidings that the legions of the East would not submit to have a head imposed on the empire by those of Germany. There were four legions in Syria, under the command of Licinius Mucianus, the governor of that province; and T. Flavins Vespasianus had, at the head of three other legions, been for the last three years carrying on the war against the rebellious Jews, which he had now nearly brought to a con- clusion; and Ti. Alexander, the prefect of Egypt, command- ed two other legions. Vespasian had sent his son Titus to Rome, with his adhesion to Galba ; but, hearing on his wa}* of the murder of that emperor, Titus had stopped, lest he 136 VITELLItS. [a. D. .69« might be made a hostage by either of the rival parlies Tlie armies of the East had taken tlie oath of fidelity to Otho, without making any objection ; but wlien Vespasian would set them the example of taking it to Vitellius, they listened to him in profound silence. He then began to meditate on his own chances of empire; both Mucianus and Alexander, he had abundant reason to believe, would aid hini in attain- ing it ; the third legion, which was nosv in Mojsia, had been drawn thither from Syria, and he was certain of its attach* ment to him, and it might be able to gain over the other legions of Fllyricum. On the other hand, he rellected on the strength of the German legions, with which he was well acquainted, and their superiority over those of the East, and also on the risk of his being as^sassinated, like Scribonianus in the time of Claudius. The legates and other officers tried to encourage him, and JSIucianus, both in private and public, urged every topic like- ly to prevail with him. His mind was also affected by sun- dry omens and prophecies which he recollected ; and he at length resolved to run the risk, and win the empire, or perish in the attempt. To make the necessary preparations, he repaired to Ca3sarea, while Mucianus hastened to Anti- och, the capitals of their respective provinces. It was, however, at Alexandria, that he was first proclaimed empe- ror ; where, on the first of July, Alexander made the legions take the oath of fidelity to Vespasian; and two days later, as he was coming out of his chamber, at Cajsarea, some sol- diers, who were at hand, saluter empire. Instead of crossing fhe Apennines and attacitho had set the example, prevailed among the rival candidates for empire. Vespasian's younger son, Domitianus, was also at Rome and in safety. Sabinus was strongly urged, by the principal persons in the city, to put himself at the head of ♦he urban cohorts and the watchmen, with their own slaves, and seize the city for his brother ; but he was a man of mild temper, and averse from civil bloodshed ; he therefore pre- A. D. 69.] AFFAIRS AT ROME. 143 ferred the way of negotiation* he had several private meet- ings with Vitellius, and they finally came to an arrangement in the temple of Apollo, it was said, in the presence of two witnesses. Vitellius's friends, when they heard of it, did all in their power to make him break the agreement, but to no purpose. On the 18th of December, when news came of the defection of the troops at Narnia, he came down from the palace, clad in black, having his young son in a litter with him, and addressed the people and soldiery in the Forum, telling them that he retired for the sake of peace and the re- public; and commending to them his family. He then, in token of his resignation, handed his dagger to the consul, who declined to receive it. He moved toward the temple of Concord, to deposit his ensigns there, and then retire to the adjoining house of his brother; but the people and the German soldiers opposed his passage, and forced him to re- turn to the palace. The principal persons of both orders, hearing that Vitel- lius had abdicated, had repaired to the house of Sabinus, where the urban cohorts and the watchmen were also assem- bled. When they heard of the conduct of the populace and the German cohorts, feeling that they had gone too far to recede, they resolved to have recourse to arms. A skirmish speedily took place with some of the Vitellians, in which they were worsted; and Sabinus then retired to the Capitol, with his soldiers and some of the knights and senators. Dur- ing the night, as the guard of the Vitellians was slack, he caused his children and nephew to be brought thither ; and at the samd time he sent to apprize the Flavian generals of his situation. As soon as it was light, Sabinus sent a centurion to remon- strate with Vilellius on his breach of faith. Vitellius at- tempted to excuse himself, by declaring his want of power to restrain his soldiers. The centurion was obliges to retire by the rear of the house to elude them; and he had hardly returned to the Capitol when they advanced to the assault. They assailed the portico of the temple with flaming brands ; Sabinus caused the statues to be all pulled down and piled up behind the doors, to serve as a barrier. They then made their attacks at all the approaches, especially that by the Asylum. The edifice at length burst into flames, whether fired by the besieged or the besiegers was uncertain ; and thus was the temple of the tutelar deities of Rome destroyed for the second time, in the midst of civil commotions. Un- daunted by the flames, the Vitellians rushed in: few of the 144 VITELLIUS. [a. D, 69 defenders made resistance ; rnost sought to escape in various ways, and generally with success. Domitian was concealed by the keeper of the temple; and next day he got away, dis- guised as one of the ministers of Isis. Sabinus and the con- sul Atticus were seized and dragged into the presence of Vitellius. In vain the powerless emperor wished to save tiie former ; he was murdered before his eyes, Atticus escaped by declaring that it was he himself that had fired the temple. The Flavians were keeping the Saturnalia, at Otricuium, when they heard of the late events at Rome. Cerialis ad- vanced immediately, with a body of a thousand horse, to enter the city by the Salarian road, while Antonius Jed the remainder of the army along the Flaminian. The night was advanced, when, at a place named the Red Rocks, {Saxa Ruhrn,) he was informed of the burning of the Capitol and the death of Sabinus. Cerialis was repulsed, when he ap- proached the city, and driven back to Fidcnae ; and the popu- lace, elated at this success of their party, took up arms for Vitellius, and demanded to be led to battle. He thanked them for their zeal, but he preferred negotiation to arms. He sent deputies to both Cerialis and Antonius, and the Vestal Virgins were the bearers of a letter to the latter. The holy maidens were treated with all due respect; but the answer returned to Vitellius was, that the murder of Sabi- nus and the burning of the Capitol had put an end to all hopes of peace. Antonius having made a fruitless effort to induce his troops to halt for one day at the Mulvian bridge, they ad- vanced to the assault, in three bodies, along the Tiber and the Salarian and Flaminian roads. The Vitellians opposed them vigorously at all points; success was various, but fortune mostly favored the Flavians. The people looked on, as if it had been the sports of the amphitheatre, cheering the vic- tors, and requiring those who sought refuge any where to l)e dragged out and slain. They also plundered the dead. In some parts of the city there were the flashing of arms and the sounds of combat ; while in others, the usual course of debauchery was going on, and the baths and the taverns were filled with their daily visitors. It was at the praetorian camp that the battle raged the loudest. Pride urged the old pra> torians to recover their camp; their successors were de- termined to die rather than yield it up. Every kind of en- gine was employed against it; at length an entrance was forced, and all its defenders were slain. When the city was taken, Vitellius had himself conveyed A. D. 70.] MURDER OF VITELLIUS. 145 in a sedan to the house of his wife, on the Aventine, intend- ing to steal away, during the night, to Tarracina, which his brother had recovered. But he changed his mind, and re- turned to the palace. He found it deserted ; and, as he roamed its empty halls, his spirit failed, and he concealed himself in the porter's lodge, hiding under the bed and bed- clothes. Here he was found and dragged out by a Flavian tribune. His hands were tied behind his back; a rope was put about his neck; his robe was torn; a sword was set under his chin to make him hold up his head ; some reviled him, others pelted him with mud and dirt. He was thus led along the Sacred Way ; and, at the Gemonian Stairs, he was hacked to death, and his body was then dragged away and flung into the Tiber. CHAPTER H.* THE FLAVIAN FAMILY. A. u. 823—849. A. V. 70—96. 61 ATE OF AFFAIRS AT ROME. GERMAN WAR. CAPTURE AND DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. RETURN OF TITUS. VES- PASIAN. CHARACTER OF HIS GOVERNMENT. HIS DEATH. CHARACTER AND REIGN OF TITUS. PUBLIC CALAMITIES. DEATH OF TITUS. CHARACTER OF DOMITIAN. CON- QUEST OF BRITAIN. DACIAN WAR, OTHER WARS. CRU- ELTY OF DOMITIAN. HIS DEATH. LITERATURE OF THIS PERIOD. T. Flavins Sabinus Vespasianus. A. u. 823— 832. A. D. 70—79. The death of Vitellius terminated the civil war, but it did not yet restore tranquillity to the empire. Rome presented the appearance of a conquered city. The victorious Flavi- ans pursued and slaughtered the Vitellians in all quarters j Authorities : Suetonius and Dion, CONTIN. 13 S 146 VESPASIAN. A. D. 69 itbuses were broken open and robbed, and their owners; if they resisted, were murdered. Complaint and lamentation were heard on all sides. The generals were unable to re- strain their men, and the evil was left to exhaust itself The troops were soon, however, led as far as Bovillse and Aricia, to oppose L. Vitellius, who was reported to be on his march against the city ; but he and his cohorts surrendered at dis- cretion, and he was led to Rome and put to death. The same was the fate of a few more of the friends of Vitellius ; among whom may be mentioned his frecdman Asiaticus. Some persons were prosecuted and punished for their acts in the time of Nero ; among whom it is gratifying to mention the philosopher Egnatius Celer, the friend and prosecutor of Soninus. The senate decreed all the usual imperial honors to Ves- pasian ; the consulship for the ensuing year to him ; to his eldest son, the prnetorsliip ; and the consular autliority to Do- mitian. The consular ensigns were decreed to Antonius Pri- mus ; the })rfetorian, to Cornelius Fuscus and Arrius Varus; and the triumphal, to Mucianus, for his success against the Sarmatians. The supreme power lay nominally with Domi- tian ; but its reality was in the hands of Antonius, from whom, however, it passed to Mucianus, who speedily arrived. Mucianus acted in all things as if he were H ])artner of the empire ; Domitian also exercised such imperial power, that his father, it is said, wrote to him one tinie, saying, " I thank yon, son, for allowing me to reigri, and for not having de- posed me." Vespasian did not arrive at Rome till toward the «nd of the year. As the Roman arms were at this time occfQpied by two distinct enemies in different parts of the world, the Germans and the Jews, and both wars were concltided iri this year, we will here briefly notice them. The origin of the German war was as follows: The Bata- vians, a tribe of the Chatt-ms, being expelled from their ori- ginal seats, had settled in the north-eastern extremity of Gaul, and in the island formed by the branches of the Rhine. They were in alliance with the Romans, on the usual terms, and theref)re supplied them with troops ; their cavalry, from its activity and the skill and boldness with which it was known to cross the deepest and most rapid river.<», was always greatly prized in the Roman Service; and the Batavian co- horts had very much distinguished themselves both in Britain and at Bedriacum. Two br >thers, named Julius Paulus and A. 0. 69.J INSURRECTION OF C1V»L1S. 47 Claudius Civilis, had held of late the chief command of the Batavian troops. The former was put to death by Fonteiua Capito, on a false charge of disaffection in the time of Nero, and the latter was sent in chains to Rome. He was acquit- ted by Galba, but he ran fresh danger from Vitellius, as the army was clamorous for his execution. He, however, escaped, and returned to his own country, where, under the pretence of acting for Vespasian, he prepared to cast off the Roman yoke. He first induced the Batavians to refuse the levy or- dered by Vitellius, and then proposed to the Canninifates, a neighboring people, to join the league; he also sent to solicit the Batavian cohorts, that had been sent back from Bedria- cum, and were now at Mentz, {Magontiacnvi.) The Cannin- ifates, choosing one of their nobles, named Brinno, for their leader, and having associated with them the trans-Rhenic Frisians, attacked and took tiie winter camp of two cohorts on the sea-coast. Civilis at first pretended great zeal for the Romans; but, when he found that his designs were seen through, he joined Brinno openly, and their united forces, aided by the treachery of a Tungrian cohort and of the Bata- vian rowers in the ships, succeeded in defeating a body of Roman troops, and capturing their fleet of four-and-twenty vessels. Hordeonius ordered Lupercus, one of his legates, to march against the rebels with two legions, Ubian and Tre- virian auxiliaries, and some Batavian cavalry. Lupercus therefore crossed the river ; Civilis gave him battle ; in the midst of the engagement, the Batavian horse went over to their countrymen ; the auxiliaries fled in confusion, and the legionaries were obliged to take refuge in the Old Camp. Meantime a messenger from Civilis had overtaken the Ba- tavian cohorts that were on their march for Italy. They im- mediately began, as a pretext for defection, to demand a donative, double pay, and other advantages promised by Vi- tellius; and Hordeonius having tried in vain to satisfy them, they set out to join Civilis. Hordeonius then, resolving to have recourse to force, sent orders to Herennius Gallus, who commanded at Bonn, (Bonna,) to stop them in front while he himself should press on their rear. He soon, however, changed his mind, and sent word to Herennius to let them pass. But the latter yielded to the instances of his mer , and led out his forces of 3,000 legionaries, some Belgian cohorts, and a train of camp followers, against the Batavians. The latter, inferior in nuinoer, but superior in discipline, drove them back with great slaughter to their camp, and then, 148 VESPASIAN. [a. D. 69 continuing tlieir route without further molestation, joined Civil is. The arrival of these veteran cohorts inspired Civil is with confidence; but, !-till aware of the power of Rome, he made all his men take the oath of fidelity to Ve5*pasian. He sent to invite the two legions in the Old Camp to do the same ; but, meeting with a scornful refusal, he resolved to attack them without further delay. He had now been joined by some of the Germans, and his army was numerous. On the other hand, the Romans did not exceed 5,000 men, and they had to defend a camp made for two legions. A general assault was at first tried ; and, when it did not succeed, Civilis, aware that the supply of provisions in the camp was very short, re- solved to trust to the surer course of blockade. But vast numbers of Germans having now flocked to him, to gratify their ardor he tried another assault. It, however, also failed, and he then resumed tlie blockade. Meantime he ceased not to urge by letters the people of Gaul to insurrection ; and disaffection in consequence prevailed extensively throughout that country. Hordeonius, unable to control the mutinous spirit of his troops, gave the command of the force which he sent to raise the siege of the Old Camp to the legate Dillius Vocula. This officer advanced as far as Gelduba, and there encamped. Meantime, tidings of the battle of Cremona arrived; and, on the receipt of letters from Antonius Primus, with an edict of Cajcina as consul, Hordeonius made his men take the oath to Vespasian. An envoy was then sent to Civilis, to inform him that he had now no further pretext for war, and to re- quire him to lay down his arms. He, however, refused, and he sent off the veteran cohorts with the Germans to attack the forces at Gelduba, while he himself remained to keep up the blockade of the Old Camp. These troops came so sud- denly on Vocula, that he had not time to draw out his men ; and, the cowardice or defection of some Nervian cohorts aid- ing the enemy, they were on the very point of obtaining a complete victory, when some Gascon cohorts came suddenly up, and fell on their rear. The Batavians, taking them foi the entire Roman army, lost courage, and, being now assailed in front and rear, were put to flight with loss. Vocula then marched to the relief of the Old Camp. Civilis gave him battle in front of it ; but a sally of the besieged, and a fall of Civilis himself from his horse, and a report that he was slain or wounded, damped the spirit of his men, and Vocula forced \. D. 70.] INSURRECTION OF CIVILIS. 149 his way into the camp, which he secured with additional works. A convoy, which he sent to fetch corn from Nova- sium, being attacked on its return by Civilis, and forced to take refuge in the camp at Gelduba, he drew a good part of the troops out of the Old Camp, and went with them to their relief Civilis then renewed the siege of the Old Camp ; and when Vocula went on to Novasium, the Batavian general captured Gelduba, and then came off victorious in a cavalry action near Novasium. Mutiny now prevailed to a great ex- tent in the Roman army. Hordeonius was murdered by his own men, and Vocula had to make his escape disguised as a slave. The success of Civilis, and the intelligence of the taking of Rome, and the death of Vitellius, excited the Gauls to think of asserting their independence. Classicus, the com- mander of the Treviriaii cavalry, opened a correspondence with Civilis. Julius Tutor, tli* prefect of the bank of the Rhine, and Julius Sabinus, a leading man among the Lingo- nians, joined with Classicus, and measures were taken to insure the cooperation of their countrymen. Vocula had information of their plans; but he felt himself too weak to oppose them, and he affected to give credit to their protesta- tions of fidelity. When, however, he marched to the relief of the Old Camp, Classicus and Tutor, having arranged mat- ters with Civilis, formed their camp apart from that of the legions. Vocula, having vainly essayed to reduce them to obedience, led, as we have seen, his army back to Novasium. The Gauls encamped two miles off, and (strange and novel event!) Classicus and Tutor succeeded in inducing the Ro- man soldiers to declare against their own country, and aban- don their general. Vocula was murdered by a deserter from the first legion ; his legates were confined : Classicus entered the camp with imperial ensigns, and the soldiers took the oath to the empire of the Gauls. The troops in the Old Camp, worn out with famine, now surrendered ; all the win- ter quarters beyond the Rhine, except those at Mentz and Windisch, (Vindonissa,) were burnt; Cologne and other towns submitted to the conquerors; the Gallic nations, how- ever, with the exception of the Trevirians and Lingonians, and a few others, remained faithful to Rome. Sabinus, causing himself to be proclaimed Ctesar, invaded the terri- tory of the Sequanians; but his disorderly levies were totally routed ; and he himself, flying to one of his country-seats^ 13* 150 VESPASIAN. [a. d. 70. bbrned it over his head, that it might be believed that he hao perished, while he reserved himself for better tiiries* Such was the state of affairs when Cerialis cane from Rome to conduct the German war. He fixed his head-quar- ters at Mentz, and the success of his first operations checked the progress of the rebellion. He thence advanced to Treves, where Civilis and Classicus, having in vain solicited him to assume the empire of the Gauls, resolved to give him battle. Early in tiie morning, a sudden attack was made on the Ro- man camp by a combined army of Gauls, Germans, and Ba- tavians. Cerialis, who had lain out of the camp, hastened to it, unarmed as he was, and found his men giving way on all sides. 3y great personal exertions he restored the battle, and the enemy was at length forced to retire. Civilis then, having received fresh troops from Germany, took his position at the Old Camp. Cerialis, who had also been reenforced by two legions, followed him thither. Civilis gave him battle ; the contest was long doubtful ; at length, the treachery of a Batavian, who deserted, and conducted a body of Roman horse into the rear of Civilis's army, decided the fortune of the day. Civilis then retired with Classicus, Tutor, and some of the principal men of tbe Trevirians, into the Bata- vian island, whither Cerialis, for want of shipping, could not pursue them ; and issuing thenc"^ again, they attacked the Romans in various places, who, in turn, passed over to the island and ravaged it. The approach of winter, during which the toil of carrying on a war amidst bogs and marshes would be intolerable, disposed Cerialis to seek an accommo- dation, to which Civilis, who saw that his countrymen were weary of war, was equally well inclined. The two leaders had an interview to arrange the terms. Civilis received a pardon; the confederates were released from all demands of tribjite, and only required to supply troops as heretofore. While such was the state of affairs in the west, Titus had brought the Jewish war to a fortunate conclusion. The Jews, as we have seen, had been for some years under the government of a Roman president. Those selected for that office, such as Felix and Festift, had been usually tyran- * His place of refbge was a subterraneous cavern, where he rem.-iincd concealed for nine years. His wife (who bore him two children in the cavern) and two of his freed men alone 1 new of his retreat. He was at lentrth discovered, and led to Rome, v here Vespasian, with a harsh- ness unusual to him, caused both him and his wife to be executed Dion, \xi\. 16. Plut. Amat. p. 1372. A.D. 63-64.] JEWISH WAR. 161 nic and avaricious men ; and they oppressec t^e people be- yond measure. On the other hand, the Jews, in reliance on the words of their prophets, looked every day for the appear- ance of their conquering Messiah, who was not merely to deliver them from bondage, but to make them lords and rulers over all nations. They also believed that they were forbidden by their law to submit to the rule of a stranger. From all these causes, insurrections were frequent in Judaea, and they were punished with great severity in the usual Roman manner. Bands of robbers swarmed in the country, among whom were particularly remarkable those called Sica- rians, from the dagger {sica) which they carried concealed in their garments, and with which they used secretly to stab their enemies even in the open day, in the streets, and chiefly at the time of the great festivals. In some points they seem to have resembled the Assassins of a far later period. False prophets were also continually appearing and leading the people into destruction. In the eleventh year of Nero, (63,) Gessius Florus was appointed procurator of Judaea. The tyranny which he exercised passed all endurance, and in the second year of his government (64) the whole Jewish nation took up arms against the dominion of Rome. The Roman garrison of Je- rusalem was massacred ; on the other hand, great numbers of Jews were slaughtered at Csesarea and Alexandria, and they, in their turn, destroyed Samaria, Askalon, and several other towns. Cestius Gallus, the governor of Syria, seeing that matters had assumed so serious a form, entered the country at the head of a large army, and advanced as far as Jerusalem : but, being foiled in the first attempts which he made on that city, instead of persevering, when, according to the most competent authority, he could have taken the city and prevented all the future calamities, he drew off his army and retired with disgrace. The Jews forthwith began to prepare for the war, which they now saw to be inevitable. They appointed military governors for all the provinces, among whom was Josephus, the historian of the war, to whom was given the province of Galilee. When Nero was informed by Cestius of the state of affairs in Judaea, he saw the necessity of committing the conduct of the war to a man of military talent and experience. The person on whom he fixed was Vespasian, who had already distinguislied himself both in Germany and Rritain. Ves- pasian set forth without delay, proceeding overland to Syria, 152 TESPASIAN. [a. D. 65-'0 while lie sent his son Titus to Egypt, to lead to him two legions from that province. At Antioch he received from Musianus, then president of Syria, one legion ; and, when joined by his son, he found himself at the head of an army of about 60,000 men, including the auxiliary troops of the different Asiatic princes and states. The Roman army rendezvoused at Ptolemai's, (Acre,) whence it advanced into Galilee, (05.) The city of Gadara was taken at the first assault ; and Vespasian then laid siege to Jotopata, the strongest place in the province, and of which Josephus himself conducted the defence. The Jews, favored by the natural strength of the place, made a most gallant resistance ; but, on the forty-seventh day of the siege, a traitor revealed to Vespasian the secret of the actual weakne.'js of the garrison, and showed how the town might be surprised. The city accordingly fell, and an indiscriminate massacre was made of all the male inhabitants. Josephus became a prisoner to the Roman general, by whom he was treated with much consideration ; and he thus had the excellent opportunity, of which he availed himself, for relating the events of the war. Few other places in Galilee offered resistance; the towns on the coast were all in the hands of the Romans; Vespasian had advanced southwards and placed garrisons in Jericho and other towns round Jerusalem, and he was preparing to lay siege to that city, when he received intelligence of the death of Nero, (6S.) He tlien put aside all thoughts of the siege for the present, waiting to see what course events would take in Italy, and retired to Cajsarea for the winter. In the spring, (69,) he had resumed operations against the Jews, when news came of the battle of Bedriacum, and the elevation of Vitellius to the empire. We have already re- lated what thence resulted, and the conBequent suspension of the Jewish war. Vespasian was at Alexandria when he heard of the death of Vitellius, and of himself being declared emperor by the senate. He resolved now to prosecute the Jewish war, and, Titus having left Egypt and proceeded to Caesarea early in the spring, (TO,) and being there joined by the remainder of the army destined for the siege of Jerusalem, advanced against the dev/jted citv, at the head of an army composed of four legions, with their due number of cohorts and auxil- iaries. As the festival of the Passover occurred about thi? tnie, the city was thronged with an immense number ol A. D. 70.] JKWISH WAR. -153 people from all parts of Judaea, and the Jewish nation was thus, as it were, enveloped in the net of destruction. Of no siege, in ancient times, have the events been trans- mitted with the same degree of minuteness as that of Jeru- salem ; for Josephus, the historian of them, was a Jew of noble birth, and he was present in the Roman camp, and on a footing of friendship with Titus. Versed in both the | Greek and Hebrew languages, and acquainted, personally, 1 with the principal persons on both sides, he had the oppor- 8 tunity of learning the e.xact truth of every event; and his ve- racity has never been called in question. As the destruction of Jerusalem was accurately foretold by the divine Author || of our religion, the narrative of the siege possesses additional importance in the eyes of all Christians. The proper place, f however, for the detailed narration of it is the History of ; \ the Jews ; in the limits to which the present work is neces- \ | sarily restricted, we feel it impossible to give such an ac- \ \ count as would content the reasonable curiosity of the reader, \ I and shall therefore only aim at a general view of this ruin of \ I the Jewish nation. ^ | The great body of the people of Jerusalem were anxious ; f to submit to the Romans; and Titus, on his part, would most if willingly have granted them favorable terms. But all the | | robbers and Sicarians had repaired to the city, and, under I f the name of Zealots, they seized on the whole power. They | I were divided into three hostile parties, having but one prin- \ I ciple in common, namely, to oppose the Romans, and to I \ oppress and murder the unhappy people. In their madness, ( I they early destroyed the greater part of the magazines of | I corn, and famine soon began to spread its ravages. The I \ sufferings o( the people were beyond description ; if they I f remained in the city, they perished of hunger ; if they were | t caught attempting to escape from it, they were barbarously [ j murdered by the Zealots; if they succeeded in making their I f escape, they were murdered by the Syrians and Arabians in \ \ the Roman army, for the gold, which it was discovered they \ I used to swallow. | .^ The siege lasted for nearly seven months. The Romans j | had to carry each of the three walls, and all the qi arters of the city, successively. Titus was anxious to save the mag- nificent temple of the God of Israel ; but one of the Roman soldiers set fire to it, and the stately edifice became a prey to the flames. The Upper City, as it was named, was still defended, but the Romans finally carried it; and the whole T 154 VESPASIAN. [a.d. 70. city, with the exception of three of the towers, left to show its former strength, was demolished. Josephus computes the number of those who perished in the siege and capture of the city at 1,100,000, and those who were made prisoners during tlie war, at 97,000 persons. Of these, those under seventeen years of age were sold for slaves ; of the rest, some were sent to the provinces to fight with each other, or with wild beasts, for the amusement of the people in the theatres ; the greater part were condemned to work in the quarries of Egypt. On the occasion of the conquest of Jerusalem, Titus was saluted emperor by his army ; and, when he was about to depart from the province, they insisted that he should either remain or take them with him. Tliis, combined with the circumstance of his wearing a diadem, (though according to the establislied usage,) some time after, when consecra- ting the holy calf Apis at Memphis in Egypt, gave occasion to a suspicion that he meditated to revolt from his father and establish a kingdom for himself in the East. He there- fore lost no time in repairing to Italy, whither Vespasian had proceeded long before. When he arrived unexpected- ly at Rome, he addressed his father in these words: "I am come, father, I am come," to show the absurdity of the re- ports respecting him. Vespasian, however, knew his noble son too well to have had any suspicion of him. He cele- brated with him a joint triumph for the conquest of Judaea; he made him his colleague in the censorship, the tribunate, and seven consulates, and gave hitn the command of the prajtorian cohorts. He transferred to him most of the busi- ness of the state, authorizing hira to write letters and issue edicts in his name. He, in effect, made him his colleague in the empire ; and he never had occasion, for one moment, to regret his confidence. Titus Flavius Vespasianus, the present ruler of the Roman world, was somewhat past his sixtieth year whon called to the empire. He was born near Reate, in the Sabine country, of a fan)ily which was merely respectable. He commenced his public life as a tribune in the army in Thrace; he rose to the rank of praetor, and he served as a legate in Germany and Britain, in which last country he distinguished himself greatly as a general, and was honored with the triumphal ensigns; and he afterwards obtained the government of Afri- ca. Finally, as we have seen, he was selected for the con- duct of the Jewish war. In all the offices which he held, \. D. 70—79.] CH\KACTER OF VESPASIAN. 155 Vespasian had behaved with justice, honor, and humanity and there was, perhaps, no man at the time better calculated for the important post of head of the Roman empire. The first cares of Vespasian were directed to the restora- tion of discipline in the army, and of order in the finances. He discharged a great part of the Vitellian soldiers, and he treated his own with strictne.ss, not giving them even their just rewards for some time, to make them sensible of his authority. In consequence of the wasteful extravagance of Nero, and the late civil wars, the revenues of the state were in such a condition, that Vespasian declared, on his acces- sion, that no less a sum than 40,000,000,000 sesterces were absolutely requisite to carry on the government. He there- fore reestablished all the taxes that Galba had remitted, and imposed new ones; he increased, and in some cases doubled, the tributes of the provinces; he even engaged in various branches of traffic, buying low and selling high. He was accused of selling places and pardons, and of making proc- urators of those known to be most rapacious, that he might condemn them when they were grown rich, " using them," as it was said, " as sponges, wetting them when dry, and squeezing them out when wet." Granting, however, that Vespasian was rapacious of money, it was not to hoard it or to squander it on pleasures. He was liberal both to the public and to all orders of the people. He rebuilt the Capitol, and he collected copies of the brazen tablets (three thousand in number) of the sena- tus-consults and plebiscits, which had been melted in the con- flagration. He built a temple to Peace, one to the emperor Claudius, and an amphitheatre which had been designed by Augustus. He gave large sums to various cities which had suffered from fires or earthquakes. He settled annual pen- sions on those men of consular rank who were in narrow circumstances. He was liberal to poets, rhetoricians, and artists of all kinds. Early in his reign, Vespasian made a diligent examination of the senatorian and equestrian orders. He expelled the more unworthy members of both, and supplied their places with the most respectable of the Italians and the provincials. He seems in this to have been actuated by his military notions of the unity and identity which should pervade the empire; for the superiority of the Roman citizens was thus taken avyay, the path to all honors now lying equally open to the provincials. It was probably the same principle that caused him to de- 156 VESPASIAN. [a. D. 70— 79. prive Lycia, Cilicio Thrace, Rhodes, Sainos, and other places, of the indeper.dence which they had hitherto enjoyed, and reduce them to tlie form of provinces. Vespasian was never ashamed of the humbleness of his origin, and he laughed at those who attempted to deduce the Flavian family from one of the companions of Hercules. He retained no enmities; he procured a very high match for the daughter of Vitellius, and gave her a dowry and outfit. When warned to beware of Metius Pomposianus, who was said to have an imperial nativity, he made him consul. Even during the civil war, he omitted the practice of searching those who came to salute the emperor. The doors of the palace stood always open, and there was no guard at them. He constantly had the senators and other persons of respecta- bility to dine with him, and he dined with them in return. In his mode of living he was simple and temperate. Vespasian banished the philosophers and the astrologers from Rome. These last were extremely mischievous, med- dling in all affairs of state ; and they had been objects of suspicion ever since the time of Augustus. In his proceed- ings against the philosophers, he was actuated by Mucianus, who represented to him that the Stoics were dangerous ^s republicans, and the Cynics as the enemies of decency and morality. The death of Helvidius Priscus, which is esteemed a stain on the memory of Vespasian, may be ascribed to his Stoicism and republicanism. When the emperor came to Rome, Helvidius addressed him as plain Vespasian ; in his edicts as praitor, he treated him with neglect and disrespect; and in the senate behaved toward him with such insolence, that he quitted the house in tears. Helvidius was relegated, and finally put to death, we know not on what account ; but Vespasian is said to have sent to countermand the order when it was too late. Toward the end of his reign, a conspiracy was formed against him by Crecina and Marcellus, both of whom stood high in his friendship, and bad received all the honors of the state. The plot being discovered, Caecina was seized as he was coming out from dining with the emperor, and put to death sby the orders of Titus, lest he should raise a dis* turbance in (he night, as he had gained over several of the soldiers. Marcellus, being condemned by the senate, cut his own throat with a razor. Vespasian was but once married. His wife having died long before he came to the empire, he lived with Ca?nis, the A. D. 79.] DEATH OF VESPASIAN. 157 freedwoman of Antonia, whom he treated as a wife, ather than a mistress. He allowed her to make traffic of the offices of the state, by which she amassed large sums of money ; and the emperor w^s suspected of sharing in her gains. This able prince had nearly completed the tenth year of Jiie reign, when he was attacked by a feverish complaint, in Campania. He returned to the city, and thence hastened to his native Sabine land, about Cutilife and Reate, where he was in tlie habit of spending the summer, and tried the cold springs of the place, but without effect. He attended to public business to the last : when he felt the approach of death, "An emperor," said he, "should die standing;" and being supported in that posture, he met his fate, in the seventieth year of his age. T. Flavins Sabinus Vespasianus II. A. u. 832—834. A. D. 79—81. Titus Flavins Vespasianus was born in the year of the death of the emperor Caius. He was brought up at the court of Claudius, as the companion of the young Britanni- cus. When he grew up, he served as a tribune in Germany and Britain, and he afterwards held a high command in the army of Judjea. In person, Titus was rather short, with a projecting stomach. He was eminently skilled in all martial exercises ; he had a remarkable memory ; could make verses extempore, in either Greek or Latin; and was well skilled in music. He could imitate any hand-writing ; and, as he said himself, wanted only the will, to be the most expert of forgers. Many people feared that Titus might prove a second Nero, He was accused of having put various persons to death in the late reign, and of having taken money from others for his interest with his father. His revels, prolongid till mid- night, gave occasion to suspicions of luxury ; and the crowds of eunuchs, and such like persons about him, excited suspi- cions of a darker hue. People also feared that he would espouse (contrary to Roman usage) the Jewish queen Bere- nice, who had followed hi'n to Rome, and lived with him in the palace, acting as if she w^re already empress. CONTIN. 14 158 TITUS. [a. D. 80-81 All these fears were, however, agreeably disappointed ; and Titus, when emperor, acted in such a manner as to be jnsily named the Love and Delight of Mankind. He sent away the fair Jewish queen, though it cost him a severe struggle.* He reduced his train of eunuchs; he retrenched the luxury of his table ; he selected his friends from among the best men of the time. In liberality no one surpassed him; while, preceding princes used to regard the gifts of their predeces- sors as invalid, ur)Iess they were given over again by them- selves, Titus, unsolicited, confirmed by one edict all the pre- ceding grants. He could not bear to refuse any one ; and when those about him observed that he promised more than he could perform, he replied, " No one ought to retire dis- satisfied from the presence of the prince." At dinner, one time, recollecting that he had done nothing for any one that day, he cried, " Friends, I have lost a day." When he took the office of chief pontiff, he declared that he (lid it that he might keep his hands free from blood ; and during his reign not a single person was put to death. Though his brother was constantly conspiring against him, he could not be induced to treat him with rigor. When two patricians had been convicted of a conspiracy against him, he contented himself with exhorting them to desist, for that the empire was given by fate. He even de.spatched couriers to assure the mother of one of them of her son's safety; and he invited them to dinner, and treated them with the utmost confidence. He constantly said that he would rather die than cause the death of any one.t Titus would never allow any prosecutions on the charge of treason. " /," said he, "cannot be injured or insulted, for I do nothing deserving of reproach, and I care not for those who speak falsely ; and as for the departed emperors, if they are in reality demigods, and have power, they will avenge themselves on those whr) injure them." He was very severe against the informers ; he caused them to be beaten with rods and cudgels, led through the amphitheatre, and then to be sold for slaves, or confined in the most rugged islands. The reign of this excellent prince was marked by a series of public calamities. He had reigned only two months when a tremendous volcanic eruption, the first on record, • " Berenicen statim ab urbe dimisit invitus invitam." Suetnn. t " Periturum se potius quam perditurum." A. D. 80-81.] ERUPTION OF VESUVIUS. 159 from Mount Vesuvius, spread dismay through Italy. This mountain had hitherto formed the most beautiful feature in the landscape of Campania, being clad with vines and other agreeable trees and plants. Earthquakes had of late years been of frequent occurrence ; but on the 24th of August the summit of the mountain sent forth a volume of flame, stones, and ashes, which spread devastation far and wide. The sky, to the extent of many leagues, was enveloped in the gloom of night ; the fine dust, it was asserted, was wafted even to Egypt and Syria; and at Rome it rendered the sun invisible for many days. Men and beasts, birds and fishes, perished alike. The adjoining towns of Pompeii and HerCulaneum were overwhelmed by the earthquake which attended the irrup- tion, and their inhabitants destroyed. Among those who lost their lives on this occasion, was Pliny, the great naturalist. He commanded the fleet at Misenum, and, his curiosity lead- ing him to proceed to Stabise to view this convulsion of nature more closely, he was suffocated by the pestilential air. Titus did all in his power to alleviate this great calamity. But while, on account of it, he was absent in Campania, (80,) a fire broke out at Rome, which raged for three days and nights, and destroyed the Septa, the baths of Agrippa, the Pantheon, the rebuilt Capitol, and a number of the other public buildings. This was succeeded by a pestilence, probably the consequence of the eruption of Vesuvius, which swept away numbers of people. The emperor undertook to restore the city at his own expense, refusing all the presents that were offered him for that purpose. He built a splendid amphitheatre in the middle of the city, and the baths which bear his name. At the dedication of these works, he gave magnificent games to the people. In the September of the following year, (81,) the reign and life of this excellent prince came to their close. At the termi- nation of one of the public spectacles, he was observed to burst into tears in presence of the people. Some ill omens dis- turbed him, and he set out for the Sabine country. On the first stage, he was attacked by a fever; and, as he was pro- ceeding in his litter, it is said that he looked at the sky and lamented that life should be taken from him undeservedly, as there was but one act he ever did to be repented of* He died at the country-house in which his father had so lately expired. Domitian was suspected, though apparently * What that act was no one knew ; and none of the conjectures are very probable. 160 DOMITIAN. [a. I 81. Without reason, .of having caused his death, Titus was only in his forty-first year, and had reigned little more than two years; fortunate perhaps in this, for, as Dion observes, had he lived longer, his fanae might not have been so pure. T. Flavins Sabinus Dotnitianus. A. u. 834—849. A. D. 81—96. Titus Flavius Sabinus Dotnitianus was the younger son of Vespasian. He was born in the year 51 ; his youth was not reputable; and when, after the death of Vitellius, he exercised the supreme power at Rome, he gave free course to his evil propensities. Among other acts, he took Domitia Calvina, the daughter of the celebrated Corbulo, from her husband, /Elius Lamia, and made her his own wife. After the return of his father to Rome, he passed his time mostly in seclusion at his residence at the Alban mount, devoting himself to poetry, in which he made no mean |)rogress. When his father died, he had some thoughts of offering a double donative to the soldiers, and claiming the empire ; and, as long as his brother lived, he was conspiring openly or secretly against him. Ere Titus had breathed his last, Domitian caused every one to abandon him, and, mounting his horse, rode to the praetorian camp, and caused himself to be saluted emperor by the soldiers. Like most bad emperors, Domitian commenced his reign with popular actions; and a portion of his good qualities adhered to him for some time. Such were his liberality (for no man was freer from avarice) and the strictness with which he looke. 97. borne the principal offices in the state. He was now in tha sixty-fourth year of his age ; he was a man of the most amia- ble lemper, yet not devoid of energy and activity, but mild aii.l clement even to a fault. To reverse the acts of Ins predecessor was the first care of Nerva. The banished were recalled, and their properties restored to them; accusations of treason were quashed ; severe laws were enacted against ': delators; slaves and freedmen, who had accused liieir mas- ters, were put to death. Nerva reduced the taxes, and made so many other beneficent regulations, that men expected a golden age under his mild domination. It was not long, however, before a conspiracy was formed to deprive the empire - mitted to his authority. He took the city of JNioibis, and Chosrocs was obliged to conclude a treaty with him, and even, it is said, to implore his aid against his rebellious subjects. On his return to Rome, Trajan assumed the title of Parthicus. The history of the reign of this celebrated emperor has come down to us in so very imperfect a form, that it is utterly impossible to ascertain how long he remained in the East, or when he came back to Italy. All we know is, that he did return to Rome, and staid there till the year 114, when we find him again in Syria, preparing for a war with the Parthians, the cause of which is not assigned. In the spring of this year, he entered Mesopotamia. The Parthians prepared to defend the passage of the Tigris ; but Trajan had caused boats to be framed in the forests about Nisibis, and conveyed on wagons with the army. A bridge of boats was speedily constructed, and the enemy retired, after having vainly attempted to impede the passage of the Romans. The whole of Adiabene submitted; and Trajan, as it would appear, returned to the Euphrates, for we are toW that he visited Babylon, and inspected the sources of the bitumen used for constructing its walls. He also, it is added, set about clearing the Nahar-malca, {Kinsrs' -river,) or canal, which formerly connected the Euphrates and Tigris, in order to convey boats along it for the passage of this last river. But he gave up the attempt, and, carrying the boats, as before, on wagons, he set his army over the Tigris, and captured Ctesiphbn, the Parthian capital.* He formed the conquered country into the provinces of A.--syria and Meso- potamia, and then, (IIGJ embarking on the Tigris, sailed down it, and entered the Persian Gulf. Seeing there, we are told, a vessel under sail for India, he declared that, if he was a young man, he would certainly penetrate to that re- mote country, and advance further than even the great Macedonian conqueror, whom he extolled and eulogized. * Ctesijihdn lay on the left bank of the Tigris, twenty miles soutli of the modern Baghdad. Tbr city of Seleucia Btood on the opposite aide of the river, and was a si ?urb to it. A. R. 117.] DEATH OF TRAJAN. 173 It is probable that Trajan returned up the Euphrates; for he was apparently at Babylon * when he learned that all the conquered countries had revolted, and driven away or slain the Roman garrisons. He sent his generals Maximus and Lusius Quietus to reduce them. The former was defeated and slan, but the latter recovered Nisibis, and took and burned Edessa : the city of Seleucia met with a similar fate from those sent against it. In order to keep the Parthians at rest, Trajan returned to Ctesiphon, and, assembling the inhabitants and his soldiers in the adjoining plain, he as- cended a lofty tribunal, and, having expatiated on his own exploits, he placed the diadem on the head of Parthamas- pates, one of the rival candidates for the throne, declaring him king of the Parthians. A portion of the Arabs of Mesopotamia having submitted to him, Trajan had formed a province of Arabia. But the Arabs loved independence too much to remain long in obe- dience, and the emperor found it necessary (117) to besiege in person a strong town belonging to them named Atra, which lay not far from the Tigris. The desert nature of the surrounding country, the extreme heat, the swarms of mosquitoes and other insects, together with tempests of thunder, hail, and rain, which occurred, soon obliged him to raise the siege and retire; and, shortly after, he fell sick, and, leaving the command in the East with his relative Hadrian, he set out on his return to Italy. But, at Selinus in Cilicia, he had a severe attack of dysentery, which carried him off in a few days, in the sixty-third year of his age, after aireign of twenty years all to about six months. His ashes were conveyed to Rome, and placed beneath the column raided in his Forum to commemorate his Dacian wars, and which still remains in that city. Imperfect as are the narratives which we possess of the reign of this prince, the testimony so unanimously borne to his virtues places them beyond dispute. Nearly three cen- turies after his death, the acclamation of the senate to their emperors continued to be, " May you be more fortunate than Augustus, and better than Trajan! "t In the Pape- * Ma^fov M Tavra 6 TQaiavof iv nXo'io) {xal ylto ixftat t^X&c ydTiSt Tt T)v (f>]urjr ^i or'icr ixtioi' ti3ty,o ri fit; jfwudi'a xui fivSoVc kai f()ti?F«a, xal Siu rov L-iiiiarS(iay « the people of Athens. From Greece, he passed ove* to S. iy, (125,) in order to ascend Mount ^Etna, and witr) s«J from summit the rising of the sun. He then returned m ''f^o'Ti*^ 'here he appears to have remained till the year Ix'O again visited Africa, and conferred many benefit. incials. The following year, (130,) he set out fofL/i**'^* ' while there, he was waited on by most of the prir.r.e.'^ ^to. ^out the Euxine and Caucasus. He sent back to (iJos hh. daughter, who had been made a captive by Trajan, at- the taking of Ctesiphon. He visited Syria, Judsa, and Ac-ab'i^i e^^^n where making regulations and punishing evil goveniorC' :^;~"' at length (132) arrived at Alexandria in Egypt, wht. 1 '^ rc-wnined for more than a year. On his way thither, h i"' ' -ftd ind repaired the tomb of Pompeius the Great, .-- ; i;.''"g J^ a" ^-temporary Greek verse, how strange it was, t i " "^ ' "' '^ many temples should scarcely have a tomL The death of the celebrated AntinooL .ccurred ni-*^*^. .'^* drian was in Egypt. This was a beaut. pj' -"O'ltu, a natiT® of Bithynia, beloved, after the unnatural l ^val Mii ;Vsh- ion of the age, by the emperor, Accordii.^ Hadfiai/s own account, he fell into the Nile and was dro others said that, like the Alrestis of Grecian fable, he dv ^ him- self, according to the superstition of the age, to prolong the days of the emperor; while others affirm that Hadrian, who was curious about magic arts, sacrificed him in order to pry into futurity by the inspection of his entrails. The extreme grief of the emperor at his loss gives probability to the first account, but is not inconsistent with the second. He built w 178 HADRIAN. [a. d. 134-138 a town, named after him, where he died ; he set up statuea of hitn all over the empire ; the Greeks, at his desire, de- clared him to be a god, and temples were raised and oracles ascribed to him ; in fine, a new star, observed at this time, was pronounced to be the soul of Antinoiis. Hadrian at length (134) quitted Egypt, and, returning through Syria and Asia, came and passed another winter at Athens. He was now admitted to the Greater Mysteries and lie was, in returti, lavish of benefits to the Athenians, ai he adorned their city with many stately edifices. In spring, (135,) he returned to Rome, and, his health ' ivow in a declining state, and having no offspring, he '•^ to adopt a successor. His choice, after long cons'uci iuau fixed on L. Ceionius Commodus Verus, a man of JioUIja- birth. and of literary taste, but sunk iu indolence and vu! • tuoushess, and delicate in health. After tlic cilopti' Verus, Hadrian retired from the city, and F ' at Tibur, where he devoted himself chiefiy .lion of the fine arts. His disorder still con* ecame peevish and cruel; and he put to death, u , die, sev- eral men of rank, among whom was hi.' i.r-.ther-in-law Servianus, a man of ninety years of age Verus, who had been sent to take ♦ ■ , - .naud in Panno- nia, returned to Rome in the end ' • , ;,r 137. He had prepared an address to make to ,eror on new year's day, l)Ut, having taken an opia je his nerves, the dose proved too powerful, and li ^pp, never to wake. Ha- drian then fixed on ^ «, ^^,^^ i^ Aurelius Antoninus, a man of most c- ^t^r, as his successor, and he adopted hii>- -ninus, who was childless, adopt his wife' ..nnius Verus, and L. M\i\is Verus, ^^'^ °" .nmodus Verus. n appears to have been dropsy, growing every day, Hadrian felt life to be a burden, .vas anxious to be relieved. He implored in .iDout him to give him a sword or poison, that he niinate his sufferiogs; and Antoninus watched over ^siduously. The irritation of his mind, it is said, made become daily .uore cruel. He ordered several senators J be put to death : but Antoninus saved them by pretending that the orders had been executed. At length he retired to Baias, and neglecteo all regimen, using the common saying that "many doctors killed a king." He died on the lOth A. D. 138.] DEATH OF HADRIAN. 179 of July, 138,* in the sixty-third year of his age, and after a reign of twenty-one years, wanting a month. The senate, on account of his late cruelties, proposed at first to abrogate all his acts, and refused him the usual honors; but they yielded to the arguments and tears of Antoninus, and Ha- drian was deified, and his ashes consigned to the splen- did mausoleum which he had raised on the banks of the Tiber.t The merits of Hadrian as a monarch, however, far out- numbered his defects. He maintained peace and plenty in the interior of the state, and he kept the army in a condition of the greatest efficiency. Justice was carefully adminis- tered, and he was the author of many beneficent laws and regulations. Among these may be observed those in favor of the slaves. Hitherto the law had been, that, if a master was assassinated in his house, all the slaves in it should be put to death. Hadrian directed that none should even be put to the torture, except those who were within hearing at the time. He also took from masters the power of life and death over their slaves, and ordered that no slave should be put to death without the sentence of a magistrate. He further abolished the private workhouses all through It- It was during the reign of this prince that Heaven poured out its last vial of vengeance on the obstinate and fanatic nation of the Jews. Toward the end of the reign of Trajan, (115,) this people had risen in rebellion in Egypt and Gy- rene, and committed great massacres and other atrocities ; anrl the following year they rose in a similar manner in the isle of Cyprus and in Mesopotamia. They were, however, reduced by Marcius Turbo and Lusius duietus ; and they remained at rest till the year 134, when, on the occasion of Hadrian's placing a Roman colony at Jerusalem, which he named from himself ^Elia Capitolina, and building a temple to Jupiter on the site of that of Jehovah, their fanatic spirit * A little before his death, he made the following pretty lines, ad- dressed to his soul (The measure is dimeter iambic acatalcctic.) Animula vagula, blandula, Hospes, comesque corporis, Quae nunc abibis in loca Pallidula, rigida, nudula Nee, ut soles, dabis joca.' t The Moles Hadriani, the present castle of St. Angelo. t See above, p. 32. The evil which Augustus tried to remedy still coatinued. 180 ^ANTONINUS PIUS. [a. D. 13S-161. took fire, and they flew to arms under f. leader named Bar- cokebas, {Son of the Star,) who gave himself out for the Messiah. Hadrian sent the ablest of his generals, Julius Severus, who commanded in Britain, to conduct the war, which lasted about two years. The number of the Jews slain in battle is said to have been 580,000, beside an infinite number «ho perished by famine and disease; and the loss on the part of the Romans was not inconsiderable. The pris- oners were sold for slaves, and the Jews were forbidden henceforth, under pain of death, to come e»en within sight of Jerusalem. T. Aurclius Antoninus Pius. A. u. 891—914. A. D. 139— IGl. Titus Aurelius Antoninus was of a family originally of Nismes (Wemnusia) in Gaul, but he was born near Lanu- vium in Latitira. lie bore the consulate and other offices of state, and he was so generally beloved, that the legacies which, in the usual Roman manner, he received from his friends, made him extremely rich. Thouijli he took a share in public affaifs, and had long been of Hadrian's council, his delight was in a country life, and his favorite abode was his villa of Lorii, about twelve miles from Rome, on the Au- reliau road, the place where he had passed his boyhood. ' Antoninus was in the fifty-first year of his age when he was adopted by Hadrian. The senate, on his accession, de- creed him all the usual titles and honors, adding to them that which gave him most pleasure, the title of Pius or ' Du- tiful,' on account of his anxiety to guard from reproach the memory of his adoptive father. For a space of twenty-three years, the Roman world was ruled by this excellent prince, in whom men recognized all the virtues that imagination had ascribed to the mythic Numa. The aspirations of Plato for the happiness of man- kind in the union of the rnonarch and the philosopher, at length received their accomplishment ; for Antoninus, though not in speculation, was in practice a philosopher of the best and most rational school. All the virtues that adorn public or private life were united in him. As a ruler, he was just, but clemept, generous, and affable ; as a private man, he was kind, social, liberal, and good-tempered. He lived with his A. v. 161. J M. AURELIUS. 181 friends on a footing of equality ; he encouraged philosophy and rhetoric in all parts of the empire, by giving honors and salaries to their professors ; he was attentive in the discharge of all the ceremonies and duties belonging to the religion of the state, but he would not suffer those who differed from it to be persecuted. The public events of this tranquil reign were few and unimportant. Bad men, however, are always to be found, and we need not therefore be surprised to hear that conspiracies weie formed even against Antoninus ; but the authors of them were punished by the senate, or died by their own hands. The only sounds of war were on the dis- tant frontiers, where the Moors and the German and Sarma- tian tribes were checked by the imperial generals. In Brit- ain, Antoninus caused a wall to be run fiom the Firth of Clyde to that of Forth; ftrtiier north than that of Hadrian. Some tumults in Greece and Judeea were suppressed. The princes of the East, and those round the Euxine, obeyed the mandates of the Roman emperor, or submitted their differ- ences to his decision. Antoninus had attained the seventy-fifth year of his age, and the twenty-third of his reign, when, at his palace of Lorii, (161,) after supping rather heartily on some Alpine cheese, he was seized with a vomiting in the night, which was succeeded next day by a fever. On the third day, he comntended the empire and his daughter to his adopted son, M. Aurelius, and caused the golden image of Fortune, which was usually kept in the imperial chamber, to be transferred to tliat prince's apartments. To the tribune of the guards, when he came for the word, he gave Equanimity ; and then, turning round as if to sleep, quietly breathed his last. He was buried in the tomb of Hadrian, and drvine honors were decreed to him by the senate. M. jEUus Aurelius Antoninus^ A. u. 914—933. A. D. 161—180. The first name of the adopted son, son-in-law, and suc- cessor, of Antoninus had been Catilius Severus, that of his maternal grandfather ; but, on the death of his father, he was adopted by his paternal grandfather, and called after him, AnniusVerus: when adopted by Antoninus, he took the name of M. ^lius Aurelius Verus; ami when he became CONTIN. 16 182 M. AURELIUS. [a. d. 161-162. emperor, he dropped the Verus, and took in its place An- toninus. The character of this prince was grave, serious, and vir- tuous, even from his childhood; and Hadrian, who had a great affection for him, used, instead of Verus, to call him Verissimus. At the age of twelve, he assumed the philoso- pher's habit, and began to practise the austerity of the philo- sophic life. He had the best instructors of every kind ; he became well skilled in all active and martial exercises, and acquired a knowledge of painting ; but the study of the Stoic philosophy, to which he was devoted, chiefly occupied his attention. He was in his eighteenth year when he was adopted by Antoninus. This prince gave him in marriage his daughter Faustina, and made him in effect his colleague in the empire. Such was the filial duty of Marcus, that, from the day of his adoption to that of the death of Pius, he lay but two nights out of the palace, and those at different times. On the death of Pius, the senate offered the empire to M. Aurelius alone; but, mindful of the wishes of Hadrian, he associated with him in his dignity his adoptive brother, L. Commodus, to whom he gave his own name of Verus, and betrothed to him his daughter Lucilla. The Roman world had thus for the first time two emperors; but in effect tiiere was only one, for Verus, who was of an open, good-natured temper, and a lover of pleasure rather than of study and business, deferred in all things to his wiser brother, and acted only as his lieutenant. The new emperors had soon to prepare for the defence of their dominions. The barbarians of Culedouia and of north- ern Germany renewed tiieir assaults on the adjoining prov- inces, and Vologeses, the Parthian king, entered Armenia and cut to pieces a Roman army, led by the governor of Cap- padocia to its defence. Tiie Parthian monarch then poured a large army into Syria, and defeated the governor of that province. This war appeared of such importance, that it was deemed expedient that one of the emperors should con- duct it in person. Aurelius, wishing to remove Verus fr(jm the seductions of Rome, and give him an opportunity of ac- quiring military fame, committed to him the Parthian war; and that prince accordingly set out for the East, (1G2.) But, instead of putting himself at the head of his troops, the vo luptuous emperor, under the pretext of attending to the com- miesariat of the array, remained at Antioch, visiting Daphne AD. 166.] PARTHIAN WAR. 183 in the summer and Laodicea in the winter, and thinking only of pleasure. The war was meantime conducted by his generals, who, esppcially Avidius Cassius', proved themselves to be able men. I, lasted four years ; success was generally on the side of the Romans, and Cassius crossed the Tigris, took Ctesiphon, and destroyed the royal palace. The war appears to have been concluded by a treaty, by which the - Parthian monarch resigned all claim to the country west of j the Tigris, The two emperors then celebrated a joint tri- ' umph, (166,) and assumed the title of Parthic. While Varus was absent in the East, the government of | Aurelius at Rome had emulated that of Pius, and been in all | things directed to the promotion of the happiness of the peo- i; pie. But in the train of Verus came a pestilence, which ex- | ceeded in virulence any that had occurred for many years, j spread to all parts of the empire, and carried off an immense j number of people. A famine at Rome accompanied it ; and, J to add to the calamities of the empire, a war with the Mar- I comans broke out, which was to occupy Aurelius all the rest ; of his reign. ' We always find. the German race acting in confederations, | and this is perhaps one of the principal reasons why the p Romans never could make any permanent impression on | them. The confederation was usually named from the prin- | cipal people engaged in it, and of the tribes on the left bank | of the Danube, the Marcomans seem now to have been the 'j most powerful. The removal of the legions, on account of 5 the Parthian war, held out to them an opportunity of rav- [ aging the Roman province. It is also said that the pressure ; of some of the tribes farther north, who had aban«:ioned or j been driven from their own lands, and came seeking new I ones, urged them to war. A union was therefore formed of \ all the German and Sarmatian nations contiguous to the [ Danube, for the invasion of the Roman provinces ; but, while f the Parthian war lasted, the Romans averted it by negotia- I; tion. When, however, the barbarians saw the empire deso- | lated by the plague, they would no longer be restrained, and I they passed the river in all parts, and poured over and rav- l aged the provinces, taking cities and towns, and dragging j' thousands into captivity.* The intelligence caused great j consternation at Rome, and Aurelius assured the senate that | l * According to Pausanias (x.) they advanced as far as Elatea in I Greece. j 184 M. AURELiug. [a. d. 167-169. the danger was of such magnitude, as to require the presence of both the emperors; not that he set any value on the mili tary talents of Verus, but he did not consider it safe to leave him behind at Rome, The emperors therefore assumed the I military habit, and advanced to Aquileia, (1(>7.) They found i that the tidings of their approach had caused the barbarians ; to repass the Danube, and deputies soon appeared suing for \ peace. Verus, who longed to return to the delights of Rome, I was for accepting their excuses ; but Mrircus, who judged ( that they only feigned a desire of peace through fear of his I large iirmy, resolved to advance farther, and let them see his I power. He therefore passed the Alps, and advanced into the I northern provinces, and, having made all the requisite dispo- , sitions for the security of Illyricum and Italy, he set out on ^ his return to Rome, permitting Verus to precede his arrival. I The war, however, was speedily renewed, and, toward the jj close of the year lt)9, the emperors prt>cccded again to Aqui- l [i leia, in order to take the field in tl>e sprir>g. But the plague ji was so violent in that town, that they could not venture to I remain there, and, though it was mid-winter, tiiey left it in !, order to return to Rome. On their way, as they were riding I in the same carriage, near to Altino, Verus was struck with I a fit of apoplexy; and, after remaining speechless for three days, he expired. His body was conveyed to Rome, and deposited in the tomb of Hadrian, and he was deified in the usual manner. i There were not wanting those who were rnalignant enough I to charge Marcos with the guilt of haying caused thfe death I / of Verus, by poison, or by exxessive blood-letting; but his i character alone suffices for the refutation of such calumnies, I The death of Verus was, however, a great relief to him, for, ■ r excepting cruelty, this prince had all the vices of Caius and I Nero, being devoted to gaming, chariot-racing, gladiators, buffoons, and every species of luxury and dissipation; and Marcus, though aware of and bitterly lamenting his defects, thought it his duty to conceal or excuse the failings of a brother. Marcus now, unimpeded by his colleague, devoted his whole energies to the improvement and defence of the em- pire. As the Marcomans had defeated am slain the pra> torian prefect Vindex, and were growing every day more formidable, and the legions had been dreadfully thinned by the plague, he took all kinds of men into pay. He enrolled, { A.D. 170-174.] MARCOMANIC WAR. 1^5 I \ rJaves, as had been done in the Punic war,* gladiators, the j i bandits of Dalmatia, and Dardania, and the DiocmitEB, or those i \ employed in pursuit of them. He also commenced the per- j | nicious practice of taking bodies of the Germans into Roman J I pay. In order to raise funds for the war without distressing the provincials, he caused an auction to be held, for the space of two months, in Trajan's Ft)rum, at which all the splendid furniture, plate, and jewels belonging to the palace, even his own and his wife's silken and golden garments, were sold. | Having thus obtained an abundant supply of money, he set J out for the seat of war, (170.) ji The war lasted several years, during which the emperor I did not return to Italy. His residence was, for three years, I at Carnuntum, in Pannonia, on the Danube. He cleared >| that province of the barbarians, and he gave the Marcomans i a notable defeat, as they were effecting the passage of the | river. In the year 174, he carried the war beyond the Dan- f, ube, into the country of the Quadans. It was the middle of \ summer, the heat was excessive, and the enemy contrived to | enclose the Roman arjny in a situation totally destitute of | water, and, securing all the outlets, they awaited the sure ( effects of heat and thirst. The sufferings of the Romans i were for some time extreme ; but at length the clouds were | seen to collect, and soon the rain began to descend in tor- | rents. The Cluadans, seeing their hopes thus frustrated, ^ fell on the Romans while engaged in quenching their thirst, \ and would, it is said, have defeated .them, had not a tempest I of hail and lightning come on, aided by which the Romans 5 gained a victory. | This event, which was, no doubt, a natural one, was held | to be miraculous, and both pagans and Christians claimed 1 the honor of it. The former ascribed it to an Egyptian ma- | gician named Arnesiphis, who was with Aurelius, and by \ his arts caused the aereal Hermes and other demons to send ^ the rain. The latter afiirmed that it was sent in answer to | the prayers of one of the legions, named the Melitenensian, ^ or the Thundering, and which was composed of Christ'ans; [ ; and they add that the emperor, in his letter to the senate, acknowledged this *o be the fact, and caused the persecution of the Christians to cease.t yliidil f . ' , ■ * The Volones, (Hist, of Rome, 219;) they were now called Volun tarii, and the gladiators, Obsequentes. t Euseb. Hist. Ec. V. 5 ; Tert. Ap. 5 ; Xiphil. Ixxi. 9. Apollinaris (ap. Euseb.) says that the legion received the title of Thundering IC* X 186 M. AURELIUS. [a. D. 175. The confederates had suffered so much by the war, that they now were nnxious for peace; and most of them sent deputies to the emperor. The duadans, the Marcomans, and the Sarmatian Jazygans, obtained peace on the terms of giving up all the deserters and prisoners, and of the two former not dwelling within less than five miles of the Dan- ube; the Jazygans of double that distance. Other smaller nations were taken into alliance with the Romans, and lands were given them in the adjacent provinces, and even in Italy. This accummudation with the barbarians was hastened by the intelligence of a revolt in Syria. Avidius Cassius, who had, in effect, conducted the Parthian war, and had after- wards commanded on the Danube, had received from Mar- cus the government of that province, in order that he might restore the discipline of the array. Cassius, who was a man of the greatest rigor, and was even barbarous in his punish- ments, had still the art of attaching the soldiery ; and the Syrian army was soon in a most effective state of discipline, ar)d devoted to its leader : the subjects an'l the neighboring princes were also inclined to Cassius, and, feeling, or affect- ing to feel, a contempt for the mild philosophy and the extreme lenity and clemency of Marcus, he at length (175) resolved to declare himself emperor. The whole of Asia south of Mount Taurus, and Egypt, submitted, and the troops of Bithynia were on the point of declaring for him. The emperor was informed of the revolt by Marcius Ve- rus, the governor of Cappadocia. He concealed the matter at first; but, finding that it had come to the ears of the soldiers, he called them together, and addressed them in a speech worthy of himself. He then wrote to the same effect to the senate, and that body declared Cassius a pub- lic enemy. Marcus was preparing to march into the East to contend for his empire, when the head of his rival was brought to him ; for Cassius, as he was one day walking or riding, was fallen on and slain by two of his own officers, after a dream of empire of three months. The army returned to its obedience, and put to death the eldest son of Cassius and his pr^torian prefect, and no more blood was shed. Cassius's papers were burnt, either by the emperor or by Verus; his family was treated with favor; the cities and towns which had declared for him were forgiven. {Fulminea) on this occasion ; but Tilter^oDt observes that an inscrip- tion proves it to have belonged toi the twelfth legion in the tipe of Trajan. A. D. 176-178.] M. AURELIUS. 187 In order to regulate the affairs of the East, Murcu= pro- ceeded thither in person. He visited SjTia and Egypt, aod stopping, on his return, at Athens, (176,) he was there in- itiated in the mysteries. On the 23d of December, he en- tered Rome in triumpii, with his son Commodus. The triumph was for the victories over the Germans. Wliile Marcus was in Asia, the empress Faustina, who accompanied him, died suddenly in a little town at the foot of Mount Taurus. Her husband lamented her, even with tears; and, at his request, the senate deified her, and erected an altar to her, at which all young maidens, when they mar- ried, were to sacrifice with their bridegrooms. Yet, if his- tory may be credited, Faustina was so abandoned to lust, that she used to select the most vigorous rowers fr m the fleet, and gladiators from the arena, to share her embraces; and the general opinion was, that a gladiator, and not Mar- cus, was the father of Commodus. Her infamy, it is said, was not unknown to her husband, who, when urged to di- vorce her if he would not put her to death, replied, " If I put away my wife, I must restore her dower," that is, the empire ; a reply so unworthy of Marcus, that we cannot regard it as true.* The war had been rekindled on the banks of the Danube; the Marcomans, Quadans, and their allies, were again in arms, and the presence of the emperor was required. He left Rome in the autumn of 178, taking with him his son. He is said to have gained a considerable victory the follow- ing year, and the subjugation of the barbarians was regarded as certain; but, in the spring of 180, he vvas attacked by a contagious malady, which carried him off on the seventh day, after a reign of nineteen years, and when he had nearly attained the fifty-ninth year of his age. The emperor M. Aurelius has been compared to the Eng- lish king Alfred. Like him, he united the active and con- templative life, led armies and cultivated literature. But Alfred had far greater difficulties to contend with, and his studies were more directed to objects suitable to a sovereign. The British monarch, too, (favored in this, perhaps, by na- ture or fortune,) was more happy in his family than the Roman; for, whih; Alfred left children worthy to occupy * It is more probable that he did not know her infamy ; for in the nrst book of his Meditations, written only a short time before she dieil, he praises her obedience, affection, and simplicity of manners. 188 REFLECTIONS. his place, and was blessed in all his domestic relations, ihti vices of his wife, his son, and his adoptive brother, cast a shade over the virtues of Anrclius. His blindness to these vices, if he really was not aware of them, derogates from his judgment and wisdom ; while, if we concede him penetration of character, we must condemn the weakness which could, for example, commit the happiness of the world to a Com- modus. A certain imbecility of character was in eflect the chief blemish of Aurelius. It would almost seem as if too early a study of speculative philosophy were detrimental to a man who is called on to take an active part in the atfairs of life, and to direct the destinies of an empire. '* If a man," say« Gibbon, " were called to fix a period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, with- out hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commbdus. The vftst extent of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power, un- der the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but geritle hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded in- voluntary respect. The forms of the civil administration were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering themselves as the accountable min- isters of the laws. Such princes deserved the honor of re- storing the republic, had the Romans of their days been capable of enjoying a rational freedom." In this passage, characterized by the author's usual preju- dices, there is certainly much that is true, but mingled with exaggeration and error. The character and reign of Ha- drian, for example, are surely not entitled to such lofty terms of praise. The brightest spot in the picture is the perioc of the dominion of Pius; but our information respecting that reign is so imperfect, that we have not the means of forming a correct judgment. As happiness is seated so entirely in the mind, and depends so much on natural character, com- parisons of the amount of it enjoyed in ditferent periods, and by diftercnt classes of persons, are quite fallacious; and we have no doubt that the guards and the populace at Rome thought themselves happier under a Nero and a Domitian than a Hadrian and an Aurelius. We s^ijl, howerer, agree generally in the conclusions of the historian. A. D. ISO.] COMMODUS. CHAPTER III.* . i COMMODUS. PERTINAX. JULIAN. SEVERUS. A. u. 933—964. A. D. 180—21 1 . COMMODUS. CONSPIRACY AGAINST HIM. PERENNIS. CLEANDER. MATERNUS AND THE DESERTERS. DEATH OF CLEANDER. VICES OF COMMODUS. HIS DEATH. ELEVATION AND MURDER OF PERTINAX. EMPIRE PUT TO AUCTION. BOUGHT BY DIDIUS JULIANUS. PESCENNIUS NIGER. SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. CLODIUS ALBINUS. MARCH OF SEVERUS. DEATH OF JULIAN. PRAETORIANS DISBANDED. SEVERUS AT ROME. WAR WITH NIGER. WITH ALBINUS. PARTHIAN WAR. FAMILY OF SEVERUS. — -PLAUTIANUS. SEVERUS IN BRITAIN. HIS DEATH. — MAXIMS OF GOVERNMENT. L. yElius Aurelius Commodus. A. u. 933—945. A. D. 180—192. L. iELius Aurelius Commodus, the son and successor of M. Aurelius, was in the nineteenth year of his age when the death of his excellent father left him master of the Roman world. He was the first of the Roman emperors who was what was termed Porphyrogenitus, i. e. born to a reigning emperor. Not a murmur was raised against his succession ; a liberal donative gratified the soldiers, and the war was, during the summer, prosecuted with vigor against the barbarians; but Commodus longed for the pleasures of Rome, and he will- ingly listened to their solicitations for peace. Treaties hon-. orable to Rome were therefore concluded. The terms given to the Quadans and Marcomans were nearly the same as those accorded by Marcus ; but they were bound not to make war on the Jazygans, the Burrans, or the Vandals. They were each to furnish a certain number of men for the Ro- man armies. The terms imposed on the rest were not dissimilar. The emperor then returned to Rome and tri- umphed, (Oct. 22.) * Authorities: Dion, Herodian, the Augustan History, aud the Epi lometors. 190 coMMODUs. [a. d. 180-183. Commodtis is one among the many instances which we may find of tiie feebleness of education in the attempt to control the tendencies of natU4^e.* It was in Vain that Marcus had, in his own person, given his son an exanjple of all the virtues, arid had surrounded him with the ablest instructors. 'i*heir lessons were unheeded, and tiieir pupil was distinguished only by skill in the exercises of the gladiators' school, and for the unerring aim with which he Hung the javelin or shot the arrow, under the teaching of Moors and Parthians. He is also noted for being the first of the emperors who was totally devoid of taste for literature. The foreign transactions of this reign are of little impor- tance ; the German and British frontiers merely gave their usual occupation to the legions. At Rome, for tiie space of about three years, all Was tranquillity also; for Commodus, whose natural character, as we are assured, was weak and tfmid, rather than wicked, allowed himself to be directed by the able and upright men to whom his father had recom- mended him. His hours were devoted to luxury and indul- gence, till, at length, (183,) an event occurred which revealed the latent cruelty of his nature. After the death of L. Verus, Marcus had given his daugh- ter Lucilla in marriage to Pompeiaiius, a most respectable senator, and, after the death of her mother, he allowed her all the honors of an empress, which her brother also con- tinued to her. But, on the marriage of Commodus with a lady named Crispina, Lucilla was obliged to yield prece- dence to the reigning empress. Her haughty spirit deemed tills au indignity, and she resolved on revenge. Fearing to intrust her design to her noble-minded husband, she first communicated it to Quadratus, a wealthy young nobleman, with whom she carried on an .adulterous intercourse; she also engaged in the plot Claudius Pompeianus, another of her paramours, who was betrothed to her daughter; some senators also were aware of it. As Commodus was entering the amphitheatre, through a dusky passage, Pompeianus, who was lying in wait, drew his sword, and i.i.ed, "The sienate sends thee this." But the words prevented the exe- cution of his design, and he was seized by the guards. He, Quadratus, and some others, were executed ; Lucilla was, for the present, confined in the isle of Caprese, but she was, " " The power of instruction," observes Gibbon, " is seldom of much ffficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almoo* iuperfluous." A. D. 186.] CONSPIRACY. "lOl ere long, put to^eath; and a similar fate s'odh befell her rival, Crispina, on account of adultery. In her place, Coni- modus took a freedwoman, named Marcia, who had been the concubine of Quadratus, and to whom he gave all the honors of an empress, except that of having fire borne be- fore her. The unwise exclamation of Pompeianus sank deep in the mind of Commodus: he learned to regard the senate as his deadly enemies, and many of its most illustrious members were put to death, on various pretexts. His only reliance was now on the guards; and the praetorian prefects soon be- came as important as in former times. The prefects now were Tarruatius Paternus and Perennis; but the arts of the latter caused the former to be removed and put to death, and the whole power of the state fell into his hands; for the timid Commodus no longer ventured to appear in public, and all business was transacted by Perennis. The prefect removed all he dreaded, by false accusations ; and he amassed wealth by the confiscation of the properties of the nobility. His son was in command, of the Illyrian legions, and he now aspired to the empire. But he had offended the army of Britain, and they deputed (186) fifteen hundred of their number to accuse him to Commodus of designs on the em- pire. They were supported by the secret influence of the freedman Oleander, and Perennis was given up to their vengeance. Himself, his wife, his sister, and two of his children, were massacred ; his eldest son was recalled, and murdered, on the way to Rome. The character cf Perennis is doubtful, but that of Clean- der, who succeeded to his power, was one of pure evil. Cleander, a Phrygian by birth, had been brought to Rome as a slave, and sold in the public market. He was pur- chased for the palace, and placed about the person of Com- modus, with whom he speedily ingi itiated himself; and when the prince became emperor, he made Cleander his chamberlain. The power of the freedman, when Perennis was removed, became absolute; avarice, the passion of a vulgar mind, was his guiding principle. All the honors and all the posts of the empire were put to sale ; pardons for any crime were to be had for money ; and, in the short space of three years, the wealth of Cleander exceeded that of the Pallas and Narcissus of the early days of the empire. A conspiracy of an extraordinary nature occurred not long •^C*er the death of Perennis. A great number of men wh« 192 coMMODus. [a. D. 187-189 ^ had deserted from the armies, put themselves under the com- mand of a common soldier, named Maternus : they were joined by slaves, whom they freed from their bonds; and they ravaged for some time with impunity the provinces of Gaul and Spain. At length, (187,) when Maternus found the governors preparing to act with vigor against him, he resolved to make a desperate effort, and be emperor; or perish. He directed his followers to disperse, and repair secretly to Rome, where he proposed that they should as- sume the dress of the guards, and fall on the emperor during the license of the festival of the Megalesia.* All succeeded to his wishes : they rendezvoused in Rome ; but some of them, out of envy, betrayed the secret, and Maternus ^nd some others were taken and executed. The power of Cleander was now at its height ; by gifts to Commodus and his mistresses, he maintained his influence at court, and, by the erection of baths and other public edi- fices, he sought to ingratiate himself with the people. He had also the command of the guards, for whom he had, for some time, caused praetorian prefects to be made and un- made, at his will. He at length divided the oflice between himself and two others; but he did not assume the title. t As an instance of the way in which he disposed of offices, we find in one year (189) no less than five-and-twenty consuls. Whit the ultimate views of Cleander may have been is unknown ; for he shared the usual fate of aspiring freedmen. Rome was risited at this time by a direful pestilence, and the emperor, on account of it, resided out of the city. The pestilence was, as usual, attended by famine ; and this visita- tion of Heaven was hy the people laid to the charge of the odi- ous favorite. As they were one day (189) viewing the horse- races in the circus, a party of children entered, headed by a fierce-looking girl, and began to exclaim against Cleander. The people joined in the cries, and then, rising, rushed to where Commodus was residing in the suburbs, demanding the death of Cleander. But the favorite instantly ordered the .prretorian cavalry to charge them, and they were driven back to the city, with the loss of many lives. When, however, th6, cavalry entered the streets, they were assailed by mis- * For a desciption of this festival, soe Ovid, Fasti, iv. 179, stq. ■'t He styled himself d pngione, m'ln'iBiers being thus named froin loeir offices, ex gr. a rationibus, ah epistolis. A. n. 192.] CRUELTY OF COMMODUS. l9lJ^ siles from the \oofs of the houses; and the peop.e, being joined by the urban cohorts, rallied, and drove them back to the palace, where Coinmodus still lay in total ignorance of all that had occurred ; for fear of Oleander had kept all silent. But now Marcia, or, as others said, the emperor's sister Fadilla,* seeing the danger so imminent, rushed into his presence, and informed him of the truth. Without a moment's hesitation, he ordered Oleander and his son to be put to death. The people placed the head of Oleander on a pole, and dragged his body through the streets; and, whe i they had massacred some of his creatures, the tumult ceased. The cruelty of Commodus displayed itself more and more every day, and several men of rank became its victims. At the same time, his lust was unbounded; three hundred beautiful women, and as mariy boys, of all ages and coun- tries, filled his seraglio, and he abstained from no kind of infamy. He delighted also to exhibit proofs of his skill as a marksman, and he assumed the title and attributes of the hero Hercules. For some time, like Nero, he confined his displays to the interior of his residences ; but, at length, the senate and people were permitted to witness his skill in the amphitheatre. A gallery ran round it for the safety and convenience of the emperor, from which he discharged his darts and arrows, with unerring aim, at the larger and fiercer animals, while he ventured into the arena to destroy the deer and other timid creatures. A hundred lions were at once let loose, and each fell by a single wound; an irritated panther had just seized a man — a dart was flung by the em- peror, and the beast fell dead, while the man remained un- injured. With crescent-headed arrows he cut off the heads of ostriches, as they ran at full speed. But his greatest delight was to combat as a gladiator. He appeared in the character of a Secutor : he caused to be re- corded 73.5 victories which he had gained, and he received each time an immense stipend out of the gladiatorial fund. Instead of Hercules, he now styled himself Paulus, after a celebrated Secutor, and caused it to be inscribed on his statues. He also took up his abode in the residence of the gladiators. At length, the tyrant met the fate he merited. It was his design to put to death the two consuls elect for the year 193, r,i Lii.r K'liii '_- )' •)■.'/ i * Djop says. Marcia, Herodian Fadilla. Tilleniont and Gibbon unite the two. CONTIN. 17 Y 194 PERTINAX. [a.d. 193. and, on new year's day, to proceed from the gladiators' scliool, in his gladiatorial habit, and enter on the consulate. On the preceding d?y, he communicated his design to Marcia, who trie.l in vain to dissuade him from it. Q,. ^lius Laetus, the praetorian prefect, and the chamberlain, Eclectus, also reasoned with him, but to as little purpose. He testified much wrath, add uttered some menaces. Knowing that the threats of the tyrant were the sure precursors of death, they saw their only hopes of safety lay in anticipation; they took their resolution on the moment ; * and when Commodus came from the bath, Marcia, as was her usual practice, handed him a bowl, (in which she had now infused a strong poison,) to quench his thirst. lie drank the liquor off, and then laid himself down to sleep. The attendants were all sent away. The conspira- tors were expecting the effect of the poison, when the empe- ror began to vomit profusely. Fearing now that the noisoo would not take effect, they brought in a vigorous wrestler, named Narcissus; and, induced by the promise of a la»ge reward, he laid hold on and strangled the emperor. P. Hclvius Pertinax. A. IT. 94G. A. D. 193. The conspirators had, it is probable, already fixed on the person who should succeed to the empire ; and their choice was om^ calculated to do them credit. It wa,s 1*. Helvius Pertinat, the prefect of the city, a man now ?dvanced in years, who had with an unblemished character, tho\iph born in an hiunble rank, passed through all the civil and military j^iradatiuns of the state. Pertinax was the son of a freed- nan who was engaged in the manufacture of charcoal, at Alba Pompeia, in the Apennines. He commenced life as a man of letters; but, finding the literary profession unprofit- able, he entered the army as a centurion, and his career of advancement was rapid. It was yet night when Loitus and Eclectus proceeded with * Herodian tells us of a fist of those destined to be put to death, taken by a child, and read by Marcia, as in the case of Doniitian. But lie \i a very inaccurate writer ; and Dion, who was a senator, and in Home at the time, could hardly have been ignorant of the tHrcura- , stance, if it were true. "" ''' VIT/«VJ A. D. 193.] PKRTiNAX. 195 some soldiers to the house of Pertinax. When informed of their arrival, he ordered them to be brought to his chamber, and then, without rising, told them that he had long expected every night to be his last, and bade them execute their office; lor he was certain that Commodus had sent them to put him to death. But they informed him that the tyrant himself was no more, and that they were come to offer him the em- pire. He hesitated to give credit to them ; but, having sent one on whom he could depend, and ascertained that Corn- modus was dead, he consented to accept the proffered dia- nity. Though it was not yet day, they all repaired to the praetorian camp ; and Laetus, having assembled the soldiers, told them that Commodus was suddenly dead of apoplexy, and that he had brought them his successor, a man whosei merits were known to them all. Pertinax then addressed them, promising a large donative. By this time, the people (for Laetus had caused the news of Commodus's death to be spread through the city) had gathered round the camp, and, urged by their shouts and importunity, the soldiers swore fidelity to the emperor, though they feared that he was a man who would renew the strictness of discipline. Before dawn, the senate was summoned to the temple of Concord, whither Pertinax had proceeded from the camp^ He told them what had occurred, and, noticing his age and his humble extraction, pointed out divers senators as more worthy of the empire than himself. But they would not listen to his excuses, and they decreed him all the imperial titles. Then, giving a loose to their rage against the fallen tyrant, they termed him parricide, gladiator, the enemy of the gods and of his country, and decreed that his statues should be cast down, his titles be erased, and his body dragged with the hook through the streets. But Pertinax respected too much the memory of Marcus to suffer the re- mains of his son to be thus treated; and they wet a, by his order, placed in the tomb of Hadrian. Pertinax was cheerfully acknowledged by all the armies. Like Vespasian, he was simple and modest in his dress and mode of life, and he lived on terms of intimacy with the respectable members of the senate. He resigned his private property to his wife and son, but would not suffer the senate to bestow on them any titles. He regulated the finances with the greatest care, remitting oppressive taxes, and can- celling unjust claims. He sold by auction all the late tyrant's inUruments of luxury, and obliged his favorites ^o 196 PERTINAX. [a. d. 193 disgorge a portion of their plunder. He grantee the waste lands in Italy and elsewhere for a term of years rent-free to those who would undertake to improve them. The reforming hand of the emperor was extended to all departments of the state; and men looked for a return of the age of the Antonines. But the soldiers dreaded the restoration of the ancient discipline; and Lastus, who found that he did not enjoy the power he had expected, secretly fomented their discontent. So early as the 3d of January, they had seized a senator named Triarius Maternus, intend- ing to make him emperor ; but he escaped from them, and fled to Pertinax for protection. Some time after, while the em- peror was on the seu-co.ist attending to the supply of corn, they prepared to raise Sosius Falco, tlien consul, to the empire ; but Pertinax came suddenly to Rome, and, having complained of Falco to the senate, they were about to pro- claim him a public enemy, when the emperor cried that no senator should suffer death while he reigned ; and Falco was thus suffered to escape punishment. Some expressions which Pertinax used on this occasion irritated the soldiers; and Lfetus, to exasperate them still more, put several of them to death, as if by his orders. Ac- cordingly, on the 2*^th of March, a general mutiny broke out in the camp, and two or three hundred of the most desper- ate proceeded with drawn swords to the palace. No one opposed their entrance. Pertinax, when informed of their approach, advanced to meet them. lie addressed them, reminding them of his own innocence and of the obligation of their oath. They were sil(?nt for a few moments; at length a Tungrian soldier struck him with his sword, crying, "The soldiers send thee this." They all then fell on him, and, rutting off his head, set it on a lance, and carried it to the camp. Eclectus, faithful to the last, perished with the emperor; Lfotus had fled in disguise at the approach of the mutineers. The reign of the virtuous Pertinax had lasted only eighty-six days ; he was in the sixty-seventh year of his age. M. Didius Severus Julianus. A. u. 946. A. D. 193. The mutineers, on their return to the camp, found mere Sulpicianus, the prefect of the ciity. the late emperot's father- A. i). 193.] jULiANtJs. 197 in-law, who had been sent thither to try to appease the mu- tiny. The bloody proof which they bore of the empire's being vacant, excited, while it should have extinguished, his ambition, and he forthwith began to treat for the dangerous prize. Immediately some of the soldiers ran, and, ascendino- the ramparts, cried out aloud, that the empire was for sale, and would be given to the highest bidder. The news reached the ears of Didius Julianus, a wealthy and luxurious senator, as he sat at table; and, urged by his wife and daughter, and his parasites, he rose and hastened to the camp. The mili- tary auctioneers stood on the wall, one bidder within, the other without. Sulpicianus had gone as hig.h as 5000 denars a man, when his rival, at one bidding, rose to 6250. This spirited offer carried it ; the soldiers also hud a secret dread that Sulpicianus, if emperor, might avenge the death of. his son-in-law. The gates were thrown open, and Julian was admitted and saluted emperor; but the soldiers had the gen- erosity to stipulate for the safety of his rival. From the camp, Julian, escorted by the soldiers, proceed- ed to the senate-house. He was there received with affected joy, and the usual titles and honors were decreed him; but the people stood aloof and in silence, and those who were more distant uttered loud curses on him. When Julian came to the palace, the first object that met his eyes was the corpse of his predecessor; he ordered it to be buried, and then, it is said, sat down and passed the greater part of the night at a luxurious banquet, and playing at dice. In the morning, the senate repaired to him with their feigned com- pliments; but the people still were gloomy; and, when he went down to the senate-house, and was about to offer incense to the Janus before the doors, they cried out that he was a parricide, and had stolen the empire. He promised them money, but they would have none of it; and at length he or- dered the soldiers to fall on them, and several were killed and wounded. Still they ceased not to revile him and the sol- diers, and to call on the other armies, especially that of Pescennius Niger, to come to their aid. The principal armies were that of Syria, commanded by Niger ; that of Pannonia, under Septimius Severus ; and that of Britain, under Clodius Albinus, each composed of three legions, with its suitable number of auxiliaries. C. Pescennius Niger was a native of Aquinum, of a sim- ple equestrian family. He entered the army as a centurion, and rose, rlmo.=t solelv by merit, till he attained the lucrative 17* 198 JULiANus. [a. d. 19'3. goveinment of Syria. As an officer, Niger was a rigorous maiutainer of discipline; as a governor, he was just, but mild and indulgent; and he succeeded in gaining alike the affections of the soldiers and the subjects. In his private lifii, he was chaste and temperate. L. Septimius Severus was born at Leptis in Africa. He received a learned education, and devoted himself to the bar, and M. Aurelius made him advocdus gave liiin the command in Gaul and in Britain, and designed him for his successor. Albinus was a strict and even severe officer. He was fond of agriculture, on which subject he wrote some books. He was charged with private vices, but probably without reason. When the intelligence of the murder of Pcrtinax, and the sale of the empire to Julian, reached the armies of vSyria and Pannonia, their generals saw the prospect of empire open to tlieui as the avengers of the emperor whom they had acknowledged. Eacii of them assembled his troops, and expatiated on the atrocity of the deed which had been per- petrated at Rome, and each was saluted Augustus by his army aud the subjects. But while Niger, seeing all the provinces and allied princes of Asia unanimous in his favor, and therefore indulging in confidence, reinained inactive at Antioch, Severus resolved to push on for the capital, and possess himself of that seat of empire. Having secured the adherence of the army of Gaul, he wrote a most friendly letter to Albinus, giving him the title of Caesar, and adopting * See his Life, in the. Augustan History. "The youth of Severus," Bays Gibbon, " had been trained in tlie implicit obedience of camps, and his riper years spent, in the despotism of military command." We have noticed some similar inaccarate assertions in this writer, who is in gut he spoke of Geta with regret, and gave him a magniftceni funeral, ai^d placeid hirn among the gqds.t • This was a camp of ttie praetorians also. The troops belonging lo it are called the Albanians by the historians. t " Sit Jtrus duiamodo noii sit vivus," are said to have been his words. A. D. 214-215.] CRUELTY OF CARACALLA. 209 Tihe unhappy empress dared not lament the death of her son ; she was even obliged to wear an aspect of joy for the safety of the emperor, who, all through his reign, continued lO treat her with respect, and' to give her a share in the affairs of state. But on all the other friends and favorers of, Geta, both civil and military, he let his vengeance fall without restraint ; and the number of those who perished on this account is estimated at twenty thousand. Among these, tjie most regretted was the great Papinian. Caracalla, it is said, wished him to compose an apology for the murder of Geta ; but he replied, with virtuous intrepidity, that it was not so easy to excuse a parricide as to commit it. A soldier cut off his head with an axe, and Caracalla rebuked him for not having used a sword. Fadilla, the surviving daughter of M. Aurelius, was put to death for having lamented Geta. HeJ- vius Pertinax, son of the emperor, Thrasea Priscus, a de- scendant of the great lover of liberty, and many other persons of rank and virtue, were involved in the common ruin. To such an extent, it is said, did Caracalla carry his hatred to his brother, that the comic poets no longer ventured to em- ploy the name of Geta in their plays. Like Commodus, the emperor devoted most of his time to the' circus and amphitheatre. In order to defray his enor- mous expenses, he increased the taxes and confiscated all the properties he could lay hold on. When his mother one day blamed him for bestowing such enormous sums on the soldiers, and said that he would soon have no source of reve- nue remaining, he laid his hand on his sword, and said, in the true spirit of despotism, "Never fear, mother; while we have this, we shall not want for money." One of the acts of Caracalla, at this time, was to confer the rights of citizenship, of which the old republicans had been so chary, on all the subjects of the empire. His restless temper soon urged him to seek for glory in a contest with the Germans. He marched to the Rhine, and obtained (by purchase, as it would seem) some advantages over the confederacy of the Alemans, whose name now first appears in history. He henceforth wonderfully affected the Germans, even wearing a blond periwig, to resemble them ; and he placed a nuraberof them about him; as guards. It is thought that it was on the occasion of his return to Rome from Gaul, after this war, (214,) that he distributed among the people the long Gallic coats, named Garw-ah, whence he derived the appellation by which he is usually knowa 18* A A 210 CARACALLA. [a. D. 215-216. After his German war, he marched to the Danube, (215,) visited the province of Dacia, and had some skirmishes with the neighboring barbarians. He then passed over to Asia witli tlie intention of making war on the Parthians, and spent the winter at Nicomedia. As he professed an especial regard for the memory of Achilles, he visited the remains of Ilium, offered sacrifices at the tomb of the hero, led his troops in arms round it, and erected a brazen statue on its summit. One of his freed* men happening to die, or being poisoned by him for the piirpo.se, he acted over again the Jlomeric funeral of Patro- clus, pouring, like Achilles, wine to the winds, to induce them to inflame the pyre, and cutting off" the hair, with which nature had furnished him most scantily, to cast into the flames. In thus honoring Achilles, he sought to follow the example of Alexander the Great — a prince of whom his ad- miration was such that he erected statues of him every where ; and he formed a phalanx of sixteen thousand Macedonians armed as in the time of that prince, whom he styled the Eastern Augustus. He even persecuted the Peripatetic phi- losophers, because Aristotle was accused of being cdncferned in the death of his royal pupil. In the spring, (2It),) Caracalla set out for Antioch. The Parthi.ms averted a war by the surrender of two persons whom he demanded. By treachery, he made himself master of the persons of the king of Armenia and his sons, and of the prince of Ede.«8a ; but the Armenians defeated the troops which he sent against them under Theocritus, a common player, whom he had raised to the digtjity of prsetorian pre- fect. He then proceeded to Alexandria with the secret re- solve of taking a bloody vengeance on the inhabitants of that city for their railleries and witticisms against him on the occasion of the murder of his brother. When he approached the city, the people came forth to meet him, with all the marks of joy and respect, and he received them graciously, and entered the town. Then, pretending a design of form- ing a phalanx in honor of Alexander, he directed all the youth to appear in the plain without the walls. W,ien they had done as required, he went through them, as it were to inspect them ; and then, retiring to the temple of Serapis, he gave the signal to his soldiers to fall on them and ma.ssacre them. The slaughter was dreadful both within and without the wal.s, for no age or rank was spared. Trenches were dug, and the dead and dying were flung into them, in order A. D. 217.] MACRINUS. 211 to conceal the extent of the massacre. He deprived the city of" all its privileges, and its total ruin was only averted by his death. After this slaughter of his helpless subjects, Caracalla re- turned to Antioch ; and, in order to have a pretext for makinn' war on the Parthians, he sent to Artabanus, their king, de- manding his daughter in marriage. The Parthian monarch having refused this strange suit, Caracalla invaded and rav- aged his territories; and, having taken Arbela, where were the royal tombs, he opened them, and scattered the bones of the monarchs which were deposited within them. He then took up his winter quarters in Edessa. In the spring, (217,) both sides were engaged in active preparation for war ; when a conspiracy in his own army terminated the life and reign of the Roman emperor. Of the two praetorian prefects, the one, Adventus, was a mere soldier, the other, Macrinus, was a civilian, well versed in the laws. The rough and brutal Caracalla often ridiculed him on this account, and even menaced his life ; and Macri- nus, having got sure information that his destruction was de- signed, resolved to anticipate the tyrant. He accordingly com- municated his designs to some of the officers of the guards, among whom was one Martial, whom Caracalla had mortally offended by refusing him the post of centurion, or, as others say, by putting his brother to death. Accordingly, on the 8th of April, 217, as the emperor was riding from Edessa to Carrhs in order to worship at the temple of the Moon, and had retired and alighted for a private occasion. Martial ran up, as if called, and stabbed him in the throat. The empe- ror fell down dead. Martial mounted his horse and fled ; but he was shot by a Scythian archer of the guard. M. Opilius Macrinus. A. u. 970— Qii: 1 p. 217—218. When the news of the murder of the emperbr was di- vulged, Macrinus was the first to hasten to the spot, and to deplore his death. As Caracalla had left no heir, the army was uncertain whom to proclaim emperor in his stead, and the empire was for four days without a chief Meantime the officers who were in the interests of Macrinus, used all their influence with their men, and on the fourth day he was 212 MACRINUS. [a. t>. 217 saluted emperor. He accepted the ofiice with feigned reluc- tance; and he distributed, according to custom, Urge sumJ" of money among the soldiers. Adventus was the bearer of the ashes of Caracalla to Rome, where they were deposited ill the tomb of the Antonines ; and Macrinus and the senate were obliged to yield to the instances of the soldiers, and place the monster among the gods. The senate received with joy the letter in which Macrinus announced his eleva- tion to the empire, and they decreed him all the usual titles and honors^ While these changes were taking place in the Roman empire, Artabanus had passed the Tigris with a large army. Macrinus, having in vain proposed terms of acconunodation, led out his legions, and some fighting took place in the neigliborhood of Nisibis, in which the advantage was on the side of tiie Parthians ; but, as they now began to feel the want of supplies, and were anxious to return home, they readily listened to the renewed proposals of the Roman emperor, and a peace was concluded. Macrinus then led his troops back to Antioch for the winter. Macrinus, as we have already observed, was not a military man. lie was a native of Ca;sarea in Africa, {A/o'in-s,) of humble origin, and he was indebted for his elevation to his countryman Plautianus. He was a man of an amiable dis- position, and a sincere lover of justice. He therefore turned his attention chiefly to civil regulations, and he made some necessary reforms and excellent laws ; but he was timid by nature, and, in his anxiety to serve and advance his friends, he did not sufficiently consider their fitness for the employ- ments which he bestowed on thetn. He committed a great and irreparable fault in not setting out for Rome at once, and in keeping the army all together in Syria ; and he further commenced too soon a necessary but imprudent attempt at bringing back the discipline of the legions to what it had been under Severus; for, though he applied it only to re- cruits, and did not inlprfere with the old soldiers, these last apprehended that the reform would at length reach them- :. 218.] CONSPIRACY. 21 eral blows on the breast, and thus irritated a cancer with which she was afHictcd, and her death ensued. Her sister, named Ma^sa, who had lived at court during the two last reigns^ and had acquired immense wealth, retired, by order of Alacrinus, to her native town of Emesa. She had two dai'.ghters, named Soagmis and Mamaea, each of whom was a widow with an only son ; that of the former was named Bassianus ; he was now a handsome youth of seventeen years of age, and the influence of his family had procured for him the lucrative priesthood of the Sun, who was worshipped at Emesa under the title of Elagabalus. The Roman troops who were encamped near the town, used to frequent the temple, and they greatly admired the comely young priest, whom they knew to be a cousin of their lamented Caracalla. The artful Massa resolved to take advantiige of that feeling, and she made no scruple to sacrifice the reputation of her daughters to the hopes of empire : she therefore declared (what was perhaps true) that Caracalla used to cohabit with her daughters in the palace, and that Bassianus was in reali- ty his son. Her assertion, backed with large sums of money, and lavish promises of more, found easy acceptance with the soldiers. On the night of the 15th of May, 218, she and her daughter and grandson, and the rest of her family, conducted by their eunuch Gannys, a man of great talent, stole out of the city, and proceeded to the camp, where they were joy- tully received; and Bassianus was proclaimed emperor by the title of M. Aurelius Antoninus. The camp was imme- diately put into a state of defence against a siege ; and num- bers of the other soldiers hastened to sustain the cause of the son of Caracalla. Macrinus sent the prstorian prefect, Ulpius Julianus, against the rebels. This officer was successful in his first attack on their camp ; but, having neglected to push his advan- tage, he gave the enemy time for tampering with his troops, a part of whom abandoned him ; and he was taken and slain. Macrinus had meantime advanced as far as Apamea; where he declared his son Diadumenianus, a boy of only ten years of age, Augustus ; and took this opportunity of promising a large gratuity to the army ; he also wrote against Bassianus, to the senate and governors of provinces. But instead of advancing rapidly against the rebels, he fell back to Antioch, whither they speedily followed him, and he was forced to give them battle near that town. The troops of Bassianus were ably disposed by the eunuch Gannys, who, now in arms 214 E^j^GABALUS. [a. D. 219, for the first time in his life, showed the talents of a general. But the prutorians, on the side of Macrinus, fought with such determined valor, that the rebels were on the point of flying, when Maesa and Soaemis rushed out and stopped them; and Bassianus, sword in hand, led them on to the combat. StiU the praetorians gave not way, and victory would have declared for Macrinus, had he not da.stardly fled in the midst of the battle. His troops, when assured of his flight, declared for Bassianus. Macrinus fled in disguise, and never stopped till he came to Chalcedon, where he was taken and put to death ; and his innocent son shared his fate. His reign had lasted only four- teen months. 31. Aurclitis Antoninus Elagabalus. A. u. 971—975. ^ D. 218—222. From Antioch Elagabalus,* as we shall henceforth style him, wrote to the senate a letter replete with abuse of Ma- crinus, and promising that he himself would take Augustus and M. Aiirelius for his models. From ignornnce, or from arrogance, he assumed in it the title of Augustus and others, which the senate had been hitherto in the habit of confer- ring. They bitterly lamented the cowardice of Mncrinus, and his error in not coming to Rome ; but they submitted, though with a sigh, to the rule of the pretended son of Caracalla. Elagabalus passed the winter at Nicomedia. While there, he put to death, with his own hand, Gaiinys, who had been the chief means of procuring him the empire, but who now wished to make him lead a regular and decorous life. Sev- eral persons of rank, both at Rome and in the provinces, had already perished by his orders, and men had little hopes of seeing the public good promoted by the new emperor. As soon as the season permitted, (219,) Minsa, who was impatient to return to Rome, urged her grandson to com- mence his journey. He had some time before .sent thither his picture, with orders to have it hung up over the statue of Victory in the senate-house. In this, which was a full, length portrait, he appeared habited in the long, loose, Asiatic * So he is more correctly named by the Greek writers; the Latini name him Heliogabalus. A. D. 219-222.] ELAGABALUS. 215 dress, with collars and necklaces, and a tiara set with gold and precious stones on his head ; and in this attire the senate and people beheld him entering the capital, Mjess having essayed in vain to make him assunie the Roman habit. He gave the usual shows and distributions of money to the peo- ple. On the first day of his appearance in the senate, he caused his grandmother to be invited thither, and she took her seat by that of the consuls, and henceforth acted in all respects as one of the members. His mother held a senate of her own, composed of ladies, who regulated all matters relating to dress, precedence, and other matters of impor- | j tance to the sex. The great object of the emperor's life was the exaltation of the god of Emesa. The conical black stone which repre- sented him was brought to Rome, and a stately temple was built on the Palatine to receive it; and the pious emperor ft proposed to transport thither the Palladium, the Ancilia, and 1 3 all the sacred pledges of the empire, and thus to make it the < | centre of Roman religion. He also built for his god a tem- tI pie in the suburbs, whither the sacred stone was conveyed , | every spring in a magnificent car drawn by six milk-white 1 1 horses, whose reins the emperor himself held, walking b.ick- i | wards before them, with his eyes fixed on the image. The t i people flung flowers and garlands in the way ; the knights \ \ and the army joined in the procession, and when it reached 1 1 the temple, gold and silver cups, garments, and all kinds of 1; | animals, except swine, were flung to the people to scramble ^j | for. Deeming it necessary that his god should have a wife, \,l the emperor first selected Minerva for his bride, and removed f | her image to the palace for the wedding; but then, consider- [I | ing that her rough and martial nature would make her an unsuitable mate for the soft, luxurious Syrian god, he gave the preference to the Astarte or Urania of Carthage; and her image, accompanied with much treasure by way of dowry, was brought to Rome and placed in the temple of the sun-god. EJagabalus himself married four different wives, one of whom was a Vestal, which he assured the senate was a most fitting union, as between a priest and a priestess. We dare ifiot -sully our pages' with the catalogue of his unnatural lusts pnd other excesses; suffice it to say, that the enormities of Tiberius and Nero were equalled, if not outdone, by this wretched, abandoned youth. The basest and most vicious 216 ELAGABALUS. [a. d. 219-2-22 of mankind were promoted to the highest offices, and the revenues of the empire were wasted with reckless prod- igality. The sagacious Maesa saw the inevitable consequence? of this wanton course, and she resolved to provide for the con- tinuance of her power ; she therefore persuaded Elagabalus to adopt and declare as CoBsar his cousin Alexianus, a boy four years younger than himself He yielded to her desire, and adopted him in presence of the senate, giving him the name of Alexander, under the direction, he said, of his god. He at first sought to corrupt his morals and make him like himself; but the disposition of Alexander was naturally good, and his mother, Mamaea, took care to supply him with ex- cellent masters. He then endeavored to have him secretly Jestroyed, but he could find no agent, and Maesa discovered titd disconcerted all his plans. I I The soldiers had long been disgusted with the vices and he effemin.icy of the emperor, and all their hopes were placed on the young Alexander. The rage of Elagabalus against that youth became at length so great that he resolved o annul the adoption; and he sent orders to the senate and Boldiers no longer to give him the title of Caesar. The con- sequence was a mutiny in the camp, and he was obliged to proceed thither, accompanied by Alexander, and agree to dismiss all the companions and agents of his vices, and to promise a reformation of his life. He thus escaped the present danger ; but his violent hatred of Alexander soon in- duced him to make a new effort to destroy him. To ascer- tain the temper of the soldiers, he caused a report to be spread of the death of that prince. A tumult instantly arose, which was only appeased by his appearing in the camp with Alexander; but finding how quickly it then subsided, he bought he might venture on punishing some of the ring- eaders. A tumult instantly broke out. Soaemis and Ma- msa animated theii- respective partisans ; but those of the latter proved victorious, and the wretched Elagabalus was I dragged from a privy, in which he had concealed himse'f, and slain in the arms of his mother, who shared his fate. A. stone, was fastened to his body, which was flung into 'Me Tiber. Almost all his minions and ministers fell victims 'o the popular vengeance. 4 D. 222-232.J ALEXANDER SEVERUS. 217 1 I M. Aurelius Alexander Severus. \ \ A. u. 975—988. A. D. 222—235. j Both the senate and the army joyfully concurred in the \ elevation of Alexander to the empire; and the former body, > lest any competitor should appear, hastened to confer on i. him all the imperial titles and powers. On account of his ), youth and his extremely amiable disposition, he was entirely ^ directed by his grandmother and mother ; but, Maesa dying \ soon after his accession, the sole direction of her son fell to i: Mamsa. There is some reason to suppose that this able l woman had embraced the Christian religion, now so preva- I lent throughout the empire ; at all events, in her guidance i of public affairs, she exhibited a spirit of wisdom, justice, and i moderation such as had not appeared in any preceding em- J press. Her enemies laid to her charge the love of power f and the love of money, and blamed her son for deferring too I much to her ; but their accusations are vague, and no act of | cruelty, caused by avarice, stains the annals of this reign. | The first care of Mamaea was to form a wise and upright | council for her son. Sixteen of the most respectable of the | senate, with the learned Ulpian, the praetorian prefect, at | their head, composed this council, and nothing was ever i done without their consent and approbation. A general I system of reformation was commenced and steadily pursued, I All the absurd acts of the late tyrant were reversed. His | god was sent back to Emesa ; the statues of the other deities | were restored to their temples ; the ministers of his vices I and pleasures were sold or banished; some of the worst were t drowned ; the unworthy persons whom he had ^^laced in \ public situations were dismissed, and men of knowledge and | probity put in their places. I Mamaea used the utmost care to keep away from her son i all those persons by whom his morals might be corrupted ; l and, in order to have his time fully occupied, she induced him f to devote the greater part of each day to the administration \ of justice, v/here none but the wise and good would be his i associates. The good seed fortunately fell into a kindly soil. \ Alexander was naturally disposed to every virtue, and all his | efforts were directed to the promotion of the welfare of the empire over which he ruled. The first ten years of the reign of this prince were passed at Rome, and devoted to civil occupations. His daily course CONTIN. 19 B B rsi 2^18 ALEXANDER SEVERUS. [a. d. 222-232 of life has been thus transmitted to us . He usually rose I early, and entered his private chapel, {lararium,) in which i I he had caused to be placed the images of those who had 'f f been teachers and benefactors of the human race, among i'\ whom he included the divine founder of the Christian reli- M gion. Having performed his devotions, he took some kind ) of exercise, and then applied himself for some hours to pub- lic business with his council. He then read for some time, his favorite works being the Republics of Plato and Cicero, and the verses of Horace, and the Life of Alexander the Great, whom he greatly admired. Gymnastic exercises, in which he excelled, succeeded. He then was anointed and i j bathed, and took a light breakfast, usually of bread, milk, ) 'j and eggs. In the afternoon, he was attended by his secre- ] ] taries, and he heard his letters read, and signed the answers i i to them. The business of the day being concluded, liis ^3 friends in general were admitted, and a frugal and simple dinner followed, at which the conversation was mostly of a .serious, instructive nature, or some literary work was read out to the emperor and his guests. The dress of Alexander was plain and simple ; his man- ners were free from all pride and haughtiness; he lived with the senators on a footing of friendly equality, like Augustus, Vespasian, and tlie wiser and better emperors. He was liberal and generous to all orders of the people, and he took m especial pleasure in assisting those persons of good family. u i^ ^ I who had fallen into poverty without reproach. Among the i) virtues of Alexander, was the somewhat rare one, in that j i] age, of chastity. His mother early caused him to espouse a s ,, lady of noble birth, names being retained in the city, as arguing a distrust of themselves. Unfortunately, too, there prevailed a secret jealousy between the two emperors, and it is probable that concord would not long have subsisted be- tween them under any circumstances. The pr.-Etorians, having to no purpose sought a pretext for getting rid of the emperors, at length took advantage of the celebration of the Capitoliuc games, at which almost every one was present, and the emperors remained nearly alone in the palace. They proceeded thither in fury. Pupienus, when aware of their approach, proposed to send for the Germans ; but Balbinus, fearing that it was meant to employ them against himself, refused his consent. Meantime the prfEtorians arrived, forced the entrance, seized the two aged emperors, tore their garments, treated them with every kind of indignity, and were dragging them to their camp, till, hearing that the Germans were coming to their aid, they killed them, and left their bodies lying in the street. They carried the young Gordian with them to their camp, where they proclaimed him emperor; and the senate, the people, and the provinces, readily acquiesced in his elevation. The youthful emperor was the object of general affection; the soldiers called him their child, the senate their son, the people their delight. He was of a lively and agreeable tem- per , and he was zealous in the acquisition of knowledge, in ^. D. 238-244.] murder of gordian. 229 order that he might not be deceived by those about him. In the first years, however, of his reign, public affairs were in- differently managed. His mother, who was not a Mamaea, allowed her eunuchs and freedmen to sell all the great offices of the state, (perhaps she shared in their gains,) and in con- sequence many improper appointments were made. But the marriage of the young emperor (241) brought about a thorough reformation. He espoused the daughter of Misi- theus, a man distinguished in the cultivation of letters, and he made his father-in-law his preetorian prefect, and guided himself by his counsels. Misitheus, who was a man of virtue and talent as well as of learning, discharged the duties of his office in the ablest manner. A Persian war soon called the emperor to the East, (242.) Sapor, [Shahpoor,) the son and successor of Artaxerxes, had invaded Mesopotamia, taken Nisibis, Carrh;u, and other towns, and menaced Antioch. But the able conduct of Misitheus, when the emperor arrived in Syria, speedily as- sured victory to the Roman arms ; the towns were all recov- ered, and the Persian monarch was obliged to repass the Tigris Unfortunately for Gordian and the empire, Misi- theus died in the following year, (243,) to the great regret of the whole army, by whom he was both beloved and feared. The office of praetorian prefect was given to M. Julius Philippus, who is accused, though apparently without reason, of having caused the death of his predecessor. Now, however, having in effect the command of the army, Philip aspired to the empire. He spoke disparagingly of the youth of Gordian; he contrived, by diverting the sup- plies, to cause the army to be in want, and then laid the blame on the emperor. At length, (244,) after a victory gained over the Persians on the banks of the Abora, he led the troops into a country where no provisions could be pro- cured ; a mutiny in consequence ensued, in which the em- peror was slain, and Philip was proclaimed in his place. Gordian was only nineteen years of age when he met his untimely fate ; he had reigned five years and eight months. The soldiers raised him a tomb on the spot, and the senate plficed him among the gods CONTIN. 20 230 PHiLippus. [a. d. 2^14-249 3£. Julius Philippus. A. u. 997—1002. A. D. 244—249, The adventurer who had now attained the iriperial purple was an Arab by birth, and it is even pretended a Christian in religion. He probably entered the Roman service in his youth, and gradually rose to rank in the army. Being anxious to proceed to Rome, Philip lost no time in concluding a treaty with Sapor. He then, after a short stay at Antioch, set out for Italy. At Rome, he used every means to conciliate the senators by liberality and kindness; and he never mentioned the late emperor but in terms of respect. To gain the affections of the people, he formed a reservoir to supply with water the part of the city beyond the Tiber. In the fifth year of his reign, (248,) Rome having then attained her one thousandth year, Philip, in conjunction with his son, now associated with him in the empire, cele- brated with great magnificence the secular games. The.se had been already solemnized by Augustus, by Claudius, by Domitian, and Severus, and Rome now witnessed them for the Inst time. Philip would appear to have acted unwisely in committing extensive conmiands to his own relations ; for, in Syria, where his brother Priscus, and in Moesia, where his father- in-law, Severianus, commanded, rival emperors were pro- claimed. The Syrian rebel was named Jotapianus ; the McEsinn was a centurion, named P. Carvilius Marinus. Philip, it is said, in alarm, called on the senate to support him, or to accept his resignation, (249 ;) but while the other senators maintained silence, Decius, a man of rank and talent, reassured him, speaking slightingly of the rebels, and asserting that they could not stand against him. His pre- diction proved correct ; for they both were shortly after slain. Philip then obliged Decius, much, it is said, against his inclination, to take the command of the Moesian and Pannonian legions. But when Decius reached the army, ;he soldiers insisted on investing him with the purple. He wrote to the emperor, assuring him of his fidelity ; but Philip ivould not trust to his declarations, and, leaving his son at Rome with a part of the praetorians, he put himself at the head of his troops to chastise him. The armies met near k D. 249-251.] GOTHIC WAR. 231 Verona; Philip was defeated and slain, and wien the news reached Rome, the praetorians slew his sen ard proclaimed Decius. i ? .1:1 C Messius QuiiiUis Trajanus Decius. A.u. 1002—1004. A.D. 249—251. Decius was born at Bubalia, a town near Sirmium, in Pannonia. He was either forty-eight or fifty-eight years of age, it is uncertain which, when he was proclaimed empe- ror ; and, from the imperfect accounts which we have of his reign, he would seem to have been a man of considerable ability. His reign was, however, brief and unquiet. It had hardly commenced, when he had to go in person to quell an insurrection in Gaul, and all the rest of it was occupied in war with the Goths. j This people, whose original seats seem to have been the | [: Scandinavian peninsula, had at an early period crossed the i Baltic, and settled on its southern coast. They had gradu- j ally advanced southwards, and they now had reached the 'a Euxine. In the time of Alexander Severus, they had made I inroads into Dacia; and in that of Philip, they ravaged both | that province and Mcesia. In the first year of Decius, (250,) '] the Gothic king Cniva passed the Danube at the head of \ 70,000 warriors, and laid siege to the town of Eustesium, | {Novi ;) being repelled by the Roman general Gallus, he | advanced against Nicopolis, whence he was driven by the | emperor or his son, (it is uncertain which,) with a loss of | 30,000 men. Undismayed by his reverses, he crossed Mount i Htcmus, in the hope of surprising Philippopolis ; Decius fol- ;• lowed him, but his camp ass the Danube; but the emperor, who was resolved to strike such a blow as would daunt the barbarians, and make them hcTiceforlh respect the Roman arms, refused all terms. The Goths, therefore, gave him battle in a place where a part of their front was covered by a morass. The younger Decius was slain by an arrow in the beginning of the action ; but the emperor, crying out that the loss of one soldier did not signify, led on his troops. In the attempt to cross the morass, they were pierced by the arrows of the enemy, or swallowed up in the mire, and the body of the emperor was I never found. I 5 C. Vibius Trebonianus Gallus. t \ A.u. 1005—1006. A.D. 252—253. I The senate, it is said, but more probably the "army, con- \ ferred the vacant purple on Gallus, the governor of Moesia. il He adopted Hostilianus, the remaining son (f Decius, and i| gave him the title of Augustus; but this youth dying soon \ after of the plague, Gallus associated his own son Volusia- I nus in the empire. Unable, probably, to resist the victorious I Goths, Gallus agreed that they should depart with their [ booty and prisoners, and even consented to pay them annu- ally a large sum of gold. He then set out for Rome, where I he remained for the rest of his reign, ruling with great ni'ld- ness and equity i.D. 253.] JEMILIAN, he. 233 The Goths and their allies, heedless of treaties, again (253) poured over the Danube; but iEmilianus, the gov- ernor of Moesia, gave them a signal defeat, and his victo- rious troops forthwith proclaimed him emperor. Without a moment's delay, he put them in motion for Rome. Gallus advanced to engage him ; the troops came in sight of each other at Interamna, ( Terni,) and those of Gallus, seeing themselves the weaker, and gained by the promises of ^mil- ianus, murdered the emperor and his son, and passed over to the side of the rebel. C Julius yEmilianus. n iEmilianus is said to have been a Moor by birth. Of his i previous history nothing is known. He wrote to the senate, | to say that they should have the whole civil administration, [; and that he would be no more than their general ; and that assembly readily acquiesced in his elevation. (. But Valerian had been sent by Gallus to fetch the legions [• of Gaul and Germany to his aid ; and these troops, as soon | as they heard of his death, proclaimed their general emperor. p He led them into Italy ; and the troops of iEmilianus, which ^ j were encamped at Spoleto, fearing the strength and number l] of the advancing army, murdered their emperor to obviate | a conflict. The reign of iEmilianus had not lasted four | ^ m mths. 1 1 P. Licinius Valerianus and P. Licinius Gnllienus. | A. u. 1006—1013. A. D. 253—260. I Valerian is said to have been sixty years of age when thus i raised to the empire. Feeling the infirmities of age, or in i imitation of the practice of so many preceding emperors, he | associated with him his son Gallienus, a young man devoid p neither of courage nor ability, but immoderately addicted \ to pleasure. I Had the Roman empire been in the condition in which it | ivas left by Augustus, Valerian might have emulated that I emperor, and have displayed his virtues and beneficence in ; promoting the hap-tiness of his subjects. But a great change 20 « D D f n 234 VALERIAN AND GALLIENUS. [a. D. 253. had taken place in the condition of Rome ; her legions no longer inspired their ancient terror ; her northern and east- ern provinces were exposed to the ravages of those who had formerly cowered before her eagles. Valerian could there- fore only exhibit his wisdom in the selection of his generals ; and it is to be observed that his choice never fell on an un- I worthy subject. The enemies by whom the empire was assailed at this period, were the Franks, the Alemans, the Goths, and the Persians. As the scanty notices of these times do not enable us to arrange events chronologically, we will give a separate view of the wars, with each of these peoples, during the reigns of Valerian and his son. We have already observed the proneness of the German i I tribes to form confederations. The Chaucans, Cheruscans, 1 1 Chattans, and some adjoining states, had lately, it would i I seem, entered into one of these political unions, under the I \ name of Franks, j r. Freemen. Their strength and number ! 'j aow causing uneasmess for Gaul, the young emperor, Gallie- {*■ lus, was sent to that country ; but the chief military com- I 'j mand was conferred on Postumius, a man of considerable II ability. The arms of the legions were successful in various encounters ; but they were finally unable to prevent the pas- sage of an army of the Franks through Gaul, whence, sur- mounting the barrier of the Pyrenees, they poured down into the now unvvarlike Spain. The rich city of Tarragona was taken and sacked ; the whole country was devastated, and J the Franks, then seizing the vessels which they found in the < ports, embarked to ravage Africa. We know not what was their ultimate fate; they were probably, however, destroyed 3 in detail by the Roman troops and the provincials. \ A portion of the great Suevian confederation had formed 1 a new combination, under the name of Alemans, i. r. AIl- ) men, on account of the variety of tribes which composed it. I Like the Suevians, their forces were chiefly composed of \ cavalry, with active footmen mingled with them ; * and they I always proved a formidable foe. While Gallienus was in I Gaul, a body of them entered Italy, penetrated as far as Ra- j venna, and their advanced troops came nearly within sight ' \ of Rome. The senate drew out the praetorian guards, and ; added to them a portion of the populace to oppose them ; ^nd the barbarians, finding themselves greatly outnumbered^ • The Hamippi of the Greeks. See Hist, of Greece, d. 219. n A. B. 255-262.] GOTHIC INVASIONS. 235 hastened to get beyond the Danube with their plunder. Gallienus, it is said, was so much alarmed at the spirit and energy shown by the senate on this occasion, that he issued an edict interdicting all military employments to the sena- tors, and even prohibiting their access to the camps of the legions. It is added that the luxurious nobles viewed this indignity as a favor rather than an insult. Gallienus is also said to have overcome a large army of Alemans in the vicinity of Milan.* He afterwards espoused Pipa, daughter of the king of the Marcomans, (one of the confederates,) to whom he gave a territory in Pannonia, as a means of averting the hostilities of the barbarians. The Goths were now masters of the northern coast of the Euxine; and, finding their attacks on the northern provinces generally repelled with vigor, they resolved to direct their efforts against more unwarlike districts. Collecting a quan- tity of the vessels used for navigating the Euxine, they em- barked (258) and crossed that sea. They made their first attempt on tne frontier town of Pityus, which was long ably defended against them ; but they at length succeeded in reducing it. They thence sailed to the wealthy city of Trebizond, [Trapezus ;) and, though it was defended by a numerous garrison, they effected an entrance during the night. The cowardly garrison fled without making any re- sistance ; the inhabitants were massacred in great numbers ; the booty and captives were immense, and the victors, havino- ravaged the province of Pontus, embarked there on board of the ships which they found in the harbors, and returned to their settlement in tl>e Tauric Chersonese. The next expedition of the Goths was directed to the Bosporus, (261.) They took and plundered Chalcedon and Nicomedia, Nicaea, Apamaea, Prusa, and other cities of Bi- thyuia. The accidental swelling of the little river Rhynda- cus saved the town of Cyzicus from pillage. The third expedition of the Goths was on a larger scale, (262.) Their fleet consisted of five hundred vessels of all sizes. They sailed along the Bosporus and Propontis ; took and plundered Cyzicus; passed the Hellespont, and entered the .lEgean. They directed their course to the Piraeeus; Athens could offer no resistance; the Goths ravaged Greece with impunity, and advanced to the shores of the Adriatic. Gallienus roused himself from his pleasures, and appeared in * ^onaras, xii. He says the Alemans were 300,000, the Romans only 10,000 strong 236 VALERIAN AND GALLIENUS. [a. D. 259-260. arms. A Herulan chief with his men was induced to enter the Roman service ; the Goths, weakened by this defection, broke up ; a part forced their way to the Danube over land ; the rest embarked, and, pillaging and burning the temple of Diana at Ephesus on their way, returned to the Euxine. Sapor, of Persia, had been long engaged in war with Chosroes, king of Armenia, a prince of the house of Arsa- ces. Unable to reduce the brave Armenian, he caused him to be assassinated ; and Armenia then received the Persian yoke. Elated with his success. Sapor invaded the Roman ter- ritory, took Nisibis and Carrhai, and spread his ravages over Mesopotamia. Valerian, alarmed for the safety of the East- ern provinces, proceeded thither in person, (259.) The events of the war which ensued have not reached us. All that we know with certainty is, that Valerian was finally de- feated and made a captive, (260.) The circumstances of his capture were somewhat similar to those of the taking of Crassus. His army, by ignorance or treachery, got into a position where neither discipline nor courage could avail, being without supplies and suffering from disease. The sol- diers clamored for a capitulation ; Sapor detained the depu- ties that were sent to him, and led his troops up to the camp ; and Valerian was obliged to consent to a conference, at which he was made a prisoner. Valerian ended his days a captive in Persia. We are told that Sapor treated him with every kind of indignity ; that he led him about in chains clad in his imperial purple; that, when the haughty Persian would mount his horse, the cap- tive emperor was made to go on his hands and knees to serve as his hor>e-l)lock ; and that, when deatli at length released him from his sufferings, his skin w.is stripped off, tanned, and stuffed, and placed in one of the most celebrated temples of Persia. The sufferings of Valerian are, however, probably of the same kind with the tortures of Regulus and the iron cage of Bajazet — gross exaggerations of some degree of ill treatment or of necessary precaution P. Licinius Gallienus. a. u. 1013—1021. a. d. 260—208. The captivity of Valerian was lamented by all but his son, who felt himself relieved by it from the restraint imposed on A D. '260. \ THE THIKTY TrRA> TS. 237 him by his father's virtue. He even affected to act the phi- losopher on the occasion, saying, in imitation of Xenophon, " I knew that my father was mortal ; " but lie never made any attempt to procure his liberty, and he abandoned him- self without restraint to sensual indulgence. The reign of Gallienus is termed the Time of the Thirty Tyrants. This word seems to have recovered its ancient Grecian sense, and to have merely signified prince, or rather usurper, that is, one who claims the supreme power already held by another. The tyrants of this time were, in general, men of excellent character, who had been placed in the com- mand of armies by Valerian, and were invested with the pur- ple by their soldiers, often against their will. The number of these usurpers, who rose and fell in succession, did not exceed eighteen or nineteen; but some very ftmciful analogy led to a comparison of them with the Thirty of Athens, and in the Augustan History an effort is made, by including women and children, to raise them to that number. The East, Illyricum, Gaul, Greece, and Egypt, were the places in which these tyrants appeared. We will notice them in order. After the defeat of Valerian, Sapor conferred the title of emperor on a person named Cyriades, the son of a citizen of Antioch. This vassal forthwith conducted the Persian troops to the pillage of his native city; and so rapid and so secret was their march, that they surprised the Antiochenes while engaged at the theatre. The massacre and devasta- tion usual in the East ensued. The Persian monarch then poured his troops into Cilicia, took and plundered Tarsus and other towns ; then, crossing Mount Taurus, he laid siege to Cffisarea in Cappadocia, a cii/ with 400,000 inhabitants. It was stoutly defended for some time ; but treachery at length delivered it into the hands of the Persians, and massacre and pillage followed. Sapor now spread his ravages on all sides; but the Roman troops, having rallied under the command of Ser. Anicius Ballista, who had been prietorian prefect, checked his career, and, as he was retiring towards his own states, he found himself assailed by an unexpected enemy. Soon after the defeat and capture of Valerian, a train of camels laden with presents entered the camp of Sapor. They were accompanied by a letter from Odenatus, a wealthy citizen of Palmyra, (the ancient Taduior,) contain- ing an assurance that he had never acted against the Per- sians. Sapor, enraged at such insolence, (as he deemed it,) 238 GALLIENUS. [a. D. 261-264 tore the letter, flung the gifts into the river, and declared that he would exterminate the insolent writer and his lainily, unless he came before his throne with his hands bound behind his back. Odenutus at once resolved to join the Romans; he collected a force chiefly composed of the Bedoweens, or Arabs of the Desert, over whom he had great influence. He hovered about the Persian army, and, attacking it at the passaire of the Euphrates, carried off" much treasure, and some of the women of the Great King, who was forced to seek safety in a precipitate retreat. Odenatus made himself master of all Mesopotamia; and he even passed the Tigris, and made an attempt on Ctesiplion, (201.) Gallienus gave him the title of his general of the East, and Odenatus him- self took soon after that of king of Palmyra. The Roman troops in the East, meantime, being resolved not to submit to Gallienus, were deliberating on whom they would bestow the purple. Acting under the advice of Bal- lista, they fixed on the prstorian prefect, M. Fulvius Macria- nus, a man of great military talents, and, what was perhaps of more importance in their eyes, extremely wealthy. Macria- ims conferred the office of pra;torian prefect on Ballista, and, leaving with him his younger son and a part of the army to defend the East, he put himself at the head of 45,000 men, and. taking with him his elder son, set out for Europe, {'Ziy2.) On the borders of lllyricum he was encountered by M'. Acil- ius Aureolus, the governor (or, as some say, the tyrant) of that province; and in the battle which ensued, himself and his son were slain, and his troops surrendered. After the deatii of Macrianus, Ballista assumed the purple; but he was slain by order of Odenatus, whom Gallienus, (204,) with the full consent of the senate and people of Rome, had made his associate in the empire, giving him the titles of Caesar, Augustus, and all the other tokens of sovereignty. Tib. Cestius yEmilianus, who commanded in Egypt, as- sumed the purple in that province, (202,) in consequence, it is said, of a sedition in the most turbulent city of Alexan- dria; but he was defeated the following year, taken prisoner, and sent to Gallienus, who caused him to be .strangled. It was in Gaul that the usurpers had most success. As soon as Gallienus left that country, (260,) the general M. Cassius Latienus Postumus was proclaimed emperor; and his authority appears to have been acknowledged in both Spain and Britain. He is described as a man of most noble and upright charatter; he administered justice impartially, and A. D. 261. \ THE THIRTV TYRANTS. 239 he defended the frontier against the Germans with valor and success. Possessed of the affections of the people, he easily maintained himself against all the efforts of Gallienus; but he was slain at last, ('^67,) in a mutiny of his own soldiers, to whom he had refused the plunder of the city of Mentz, in which a rival emperor had appeared. Postumus had associ- ated with himself in the empire Victorinus, the son of a lady named Aurelia Victoria, who was called the Mother of the Camp, and who had such influence with the troops, (we know not how acquired, but probably by her wealth,) as to be able to give the purple to whom she pleased. Victorinus being slain by a man whose wife he had violated, a simple armorer, named Marius, wore the purple for two days, at the end of which he was murdered ; and Victoria then caused a senator named P. Pivesus Tetricus to be proclaimed em- peror, who maintained his power for some years. At the time when Macrianus claimed the empire, P. Vale- rms Valens, the governor of Greece, finding that that usurper, who was resolved on his destruction, had sent L. Calpurnius Piso against him, assumed the purple in his own defence. Piso, being forced to retire into Thessaly, caused himself to be proclaimed emperor there ; but k\\ joined him, and he was slain by a party of soldiers sent against him by Valens, who was himself shortly after put to death by his own troops. Both Valens and Piso were men of high character; especially the latter, to whom the senate decreed divine honors, and respecting whom Valens himself said that " he would not be able to account to the gods below, for having ordered Piso, though his enemy, to be slain ; a man whose like the Roman republic did not then possess." C. Annius Trebellianus declared himself independent in Isauria, and T. Cornelius Celsus was proclaimed emperor in Africa; but both speedily perished, (265.) Among the ca- lamities of this reign was an insurrection of the slaves in Sicily, similar to those in the time of the republic. While his empire was thus torn asunder, Gallienus thought only of indulgence, and the loss of a province only gave him occasion for a joke. When Egypt revolted, " Well," said he, "cannot we do without Egyptian linen?" So, when Gaul was lost, he asked if the republic could not be secure without cloaks from Arras. He was content to retain Italy, satisfied with a nominal sovereignty over the rest of the em- pire ; and, whenever this seat of dominion was menaced, he exhibited in its defence the vigor and personal courage which he really possessed. 240 GALLIENUS. [a. d. -268 Gaul and Illyricutn were the quarters from which Italy had most to apprehend : Gallienus therefore headed his troops against Postuinus; and, when D. Lielius Ingenuus revolted, in Pannonia, he marched against him, defeated and slew him, and made the most cruel use of his victory, to deter others, (260.) Q,. Nonius Regillianus, who afterwards revolted in tiie same country, was slain by his own soldiers, (263;) but, when Aureolus was induced to assume the purple, (268,) the lllyrian legions advanced, and made themselves masters of Milan. Gallienus, shaking off sloth, quickly appeared at the head of his troops. The hostile armies encountered on the banks of the Adda, and Aureolus was defeated, wounded, and forced to shut himself up in Milan. During the siege, a con- spiracy was formed against the emperor, by some of the prin- cipal officers of his army ; and one night, as he was sitting at table, a report was spread that Aureolus had made a sally. Gallienus instantly threw himself on horseback, to hasten to the point of danger, and, in the dark, he received a mortal wound from an unknown hand. CPIAFTER VI.* CLAUDIUS, AURELIAN, TACITUS, PROBUS, CARUS, CARINUS, AND NUMERIAN. A. u. 1021—1038. A. D. 268—285. CLAUDIUS. INVASIONS OF THE GOTHS. AURELIAN. ALE- MANIC WAR. WAR AGAINST ZENOUIA. TETRICUS. DEATH OF AURELIAN. TACITUS. HIS DEATH. PRO- BUS. HIS MILITARY SUCCESSES. HIS DEATH. CARUS. PERSIAN WAR. HIS DEATH. DEATH OF NUMERIAN. ELECTION OF DIOCLETIAN. BATTLE OF MARGUS. We now enter on a series of emperors of a new order. Born nearly all in humble stations, and natives of the province of lilyricum, they rose, by merit, through the gradations of military service, attained the empire, in general, without crime, maintained its dignity, and checked or punished the inroads * Authorities : Zosimus, the Augustan History, and Epitomators. A. D. 268.] CHARACTER OF CLAUDIUS. 241 of the barbarians. This series commences with the death of Gallienus, and terminates with that of Licinius, embra- cing a period of somewhat more than half a century, and marked, as we shall find, by most important changes in the Roman empire. M. Aurelius Claudius. A. u. 1 )21— 1023. A. D. 268— 270. The murmurs of the soldiers, on the death of Gallienus, were easily stilled by the promise of a donative of twenty pieces of gold a man. To justify themselves in the eyes of the world, the conspirators resolved to bestow the empire on one who should form an advantageous contrast to its late unworthy. possessor ; and they fixed on M. Aurelius Claudius, who commanded a division of the army at Pavia. The sol- diers, the senate, and the people, alike approved their choice; and Claudius assumed the purple with universal approbation. This excellent man, in whose praise writers of all parties are agreed, was a native of lllyricum, born, apparently, in humble circumstances. His merit raised him through the inferior gradations of the army; he attracted the notice of the emperor Decius, and the discerning Valerian made him general* of the Illyrian frontier, with an assurance of the consulate. Aureolus was soon obliged to surrender, and he was put to death by the soldiers. An army of Alemans, coming per- haps to his aid, was then, it is said, defeated by Claudius, near Verona. After his victory, the emperor proceeded to Rome, where, during the remainder of the year, he devoted "his time and thoughts to the reformation of abuses in the state. Among other just and prudent regulations, he directed that the properties confiscated by Gallienus should be restored to their original owners A woman, it is said, came, on this occasion, to the emperor, and claimed her land, which, she said, had been given to Claudius, the commander of the cav- alry. This officer was the emperor himself; and he replied, that the emperor Claudius must restore what he took when he was a private man, and less bound to obey the laws.t The following year, (269,) the Goths and their allies em * The term no^ in use for general was dux, whence our duke. t Zonaras, p. ill). CONTIN. 21 E B 242 CLAUDIUS. [a. d. 269-270 barked, we are told, to the number of 320, 00 warriors, with their wives, children, and slaves, in two, c , as some say, six thousand vessels, and directed their course to the Bosporus. In passing that narrow channel, the number of their vessels and the rapidity of the current caused them to suffer consider- able loss. Their attempts on Byzantium and Cyzicus having failed, they proceeded along the northern coast of the ^Egean, and laid siege to the cities of Cassandria and Thessalonica. While thus engaged, they learned that the emperor was on his march to oppose them : and, breaking up, they advanced into the interior, wasting and plundering the country on their way. Near the town of Naii^sus, in Dardania, they encoun- tered the Roman legions. The battle was long and bloody, and the Romans were, at one time, on the verge of defeat; but the skill of Claudius turtied the beam, and the Goths were finally routed, with a loss of 50,000 men. During the remainder of the year, numerous desultory actions occurred, in which the Goths sustained great losses; and, being finally hemmed in on all sides by the Roman troops, they were forced to seek refuge in Mount ILcmus, and pass the winter amidst its snows. Famine and pestilence alike preyed on them : and when, on the return of spring, (270,) the emperor took the field against them, they were obliged to surrender at discre- tion. A portion of their youth were enrolled in the imperial troops ; vast numbers both of men and women were reduced to slavery; on some, lands were bestowed in the provinces; few returned to their seats on tiie Euxine. The pestilence which had afflicted the Goths proved .dso fital to the emperor. He was attav'ked and carried off by it at Sirmium, in the 57th year of his age. In the presence of* his principal officers, he named, it is said, Aurelian, one of his generals, as the fittest person to succeed him; but his. brother Quintilius, when he heard of his death, assumed the purple at Aquileia, and was acknowledged by the senate. Hearing, however, that Aurelian was on his march agamst him, he gave up all hopes of success, and, opening his veui3, died, after a reign of seventeen days. L. Domitius Aurelianus. A. V. 1023—1028. A. D. 270—275. Aurelian, like his able predece.ssor, was a man of humble birth. His father is said to have been a small farmer, and A. D, 270.] AURELIAN. '2i3 his mother a priestess of the Sun, in a village near Sirmium. He entered the army as a common soldier, and rose through the successive gradations of the service to the rank of gen- eral of a frontier. He was adopted in the presence of Va- lerian, (some said at his request,) by Ulpius Crinitus, a sena- tor of the same family with the emperor Tnijan, who gave him his daughter in marriage, and Valerian bestowed on him the office of consul. In the Gothic war, Claudius had committed to him the command of the cavalry. Immediately on his election, Aurelian hastened to Rome, whence he was speedily recalled to Pannonia by the intelli- gence of an irruption of the Goths. A great battle was fought, which was terminated by night without any decisive advantage on either side. Next day the Goths retired over the river, and sent proposals of peace, which was cheerfully accorded ; and for many years no hostilities of any account occurred between the Goths and Romans. But while Aure- lian was thus occupied in Pannonia, the Alemans, with a force of 40,000 horse and 80,000 foot, had passed the Alps and spread their ravages to the Po. Instead of following them into Italy, Aurelian, learning that they were on their return home with their booty, marched along the Danube to intercept their retreat, and, attacking them unawares, he reduced them to such straits that they sent to sue for peace. The emperor received the envoys at the head of his legions, surrounded by his principal officers. After a silence of some moments, they spoke by their interpreter, saying that it was the desire of peace, and not the fear of war, that had brought them thither. They spoke of the uncertainty of war, and enlarged on the number of their forces. As a condition of peace, they required the usual presents, and the same annual payments in silver and gold that they had had before the war. Aurelian replied in a long speech, the sum of which was that nothing short of unconditional surrender would be accepted. The envoys, returning to their countrymen, reported the ill success of their embassy; and forthwith the army turned back and reentered Italy. Aurelian followed, and came up with thein at Placentia. The Alemans, who had stationed themselves in the woods, fell suddenly on the legions in the dusk of the evening; and nothing but the firmness and skill of th? emperor saved the Romans from a total overthrow. A second battle was fought near Fano in Umbria, on the spot where Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal was defeated and slain, five hundred years before. The Alemans were totally 244 AURELIAN. [a. D. 27J routed, and a concluding victory at Pa\ a delivered Italy from their ravages. Aurelian pursued the barbarians beyond the Alps, and then turned to Pannonia, which the Vandala had invaded. He engaged and defeated them, (271.) They sent to sue for peace, and he referred the matter to his soldiers, who loudly expressed their desire for an accommo- dation. The Vandals gave the children of their two kings and of their principal nobles for hostages, and Aurelian took two thousand of them into his service. There had been some seditions at Rome during the time of the Alemanic war, and Aurelian, on his return to the capital, acted with great severity, and even cruelty, in pun- ishing those engaged in them. He is accused of having put to death senators of high rank, on the slightest evidence, and for the most trifling offences. Aware, too, that neither Alps nor Apennines could now chock the barbarians, he resolved to put Rome into a posture to stand a siege ; and he com- menced the erection of massive walls around it, which, when completed by his successors, formed a circuit of twen- ty-one miles, and yielded a striking proof of the declining strength of the empire. Aurelian, victorious against the barbarians, had still two rivals to subdue before he could be regarded as perfect mas- ter of the empire. Tetricus was acknowledged in Gaul, Spain, and Britain ; Zenobia, the widow of (Jdenatus, ruled the East. It is uncertain against which he fir«t turned hi.s arms ; but, as the greater number of writers give the priority to the Syrian war, we will here follow their example. Odenatus and his eldest son, Herod, were treacherously slain by his nephew Maeonius; but Zenobia, the widow of the murdered prince, speedily punished the traitor, and then held the government in the name of her remaining sons. This extraordinary woman claimed a descent from the Ptole- mies of Egypt. In her person she displayed the beauty of the East, being of a clear dark complexion, with pearly white teeth and brilliant black eyes. Her voice was strong and harmonious ; she spoke the Greek, Syrian, and Egyptian languages, and understood the Latin. She was fond of study, but at the same time she loved vigorous exercises; and she accompanied her husband to the chase of the lion, the panther, and the other wild beasts of the wood and desert, ajid by her counsels and her vigor of mind, she greatly contribute ' to his success in war. To these manly qualities was unitec a chastity rarely to be found in the East. View- A I). 271.] ZENOBIA. 245 ing the union of the sexes as the appointed means of con- tinuing the species, Zenobia would admit the embraces of her husband only in order to have offspring. She was tem- perate and sober, yet, when needful, she could quaff wine with her generals, and even vanquish in the combats of the table the wine-loving Persians and Armenians. As a sove- reign, Zenobia was severe or clement, as the occasion re- quired ; she was frugal of her treasure beyond what was ordinary with a woman, but when her afTairs called for lib- erality, no one dispensed them more freely. After the death of Odenatus, Zenobia styled her three sons August! ; but she held the government in her own hands : she bore the title of Queen of the East, wore royal robes and the diadem, caused herself to be adored in the Oriental fashion, and put the years of her reiga on her coins. She defeated an army sent against her by Gallienus; she made herself mistress of Egypt, and her rule extended northwards as far as the confines of Bithynia. Aurelian, on passing over to Asia, reduced to order the province of Bithynia. The city of Tyana in Cappadocia resisted him ; but the treachery of one of its inhabitants put it into his hands. He pardoned the people, and he aban- doned the traitor to the just indignation of^the soldiers. On the banks of the Orontes, he encountered the troops of the Queen of the East. A cavalry action ensued, and, the Pal- myrenians being greatly superior in that arm, Aurelian em- ployed the stratagem of making his cavalry feign a flight, and then turn and attack the pursuing enemies, when wea- ried and exhausted with the weight of their heavy armor. The defeated Palmyrenians retired to Antioch, which they quitted in the night, and next day it opened its gates to Au- relian. He advanced then, with little opposition, to Emesa, where he found the Palmyrenian army, 70,000 strong, en- camped in the plain before the city. Zenobia herself was present, but the command was intrusted to her general, Zabdas. In the engagement, the Roman horse, unable to withstand the ponderous charge of the steel-clad Palmyre- nians, turned and fled. While the Palmyrenian cavalry was engaged in the pursuit, their light infantry, being left un- protected, offered little resistance to the legions, and a total rout ensued. Zenobia, seeing the battle lost, and knowing that the people of Emesa favored the Romans, abandoned that city, and retired and shut herself up in Palmyra, her capital. 21 * 246 AURELIAN. [a.d. 272. The city of Tadtiior, or Palmyra, as it was named by the Greeks, seems to have been, from the earliest times, a place of importance in the trade between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea, being situated in an oasis of the desert, abounding in herbage, trees, and springs, and lying within sixty miles of the Euphrates, and somewhat more than three times that distance of the coast of Syria. Solomon, king of Israel, had made himself master of this important post, and fortified it. Its advantages being the gift of nature, and not of man, it continued to flourish under all the surrounding vicissitudes of empire. In the time of Trajan, it became a Roman colony, and it was adorned with those stately pub- lic edifices whose ruins command the admiration of modern Europe. In their march over the desert, the Roman troops were harassed by the attacks of the Bedoween Arabs. They found the city of Palmyra strongly fortified, and abundantly supplied with the means of defence. When the siege had lasted for some time, Aurelian wrote, offering advantageous terms to the queen and the people ; but, fully convinced that famine would soon prey on the Roman army, and that the Persians and Arabs would hasten to her relief, Zenobia returned a haughty and insulting reply. The expected suc- cors, however, did not arrive; convoys of provisions entered the Roman camp ; and Probus, whom Aurelian had de- tached for the reduction of Egypt, having accomplished his commission, brought his troops to join the main army. Want began to be felt within the walls of Palmyra; and Ze- nobia, finding that the city must surrender, resolved to fly to the Persians, and seek by their aid to continue the war. Mounting one of her fleetest dromedaries, she left the city, and had reached the Euphrates, and even entered the boat which was to convey her across, when the party of light horse sent in pursuit, came up and seized her. When brought before the emperor, and demanded why she had dared to insult the emperors of Rome, she replied, that she regarded him as such, as he had conquered ; but that slve never could esteem Gallienus, Aureolus, and such persons, to be emperors. This ])rudent answer won her favor, and Aurelian treated her with respect. The city soon surren- dered, and the enjperor led his army back to Eiuesa, where he set up his tribunal, and had Zenobia and her ministers and friends brought to trial. The soldiers were clamorous for the death of the queen, but the emperor was resolved to A. D. 272.] TETRICUS. 247 reserve her to grace his triumph; and it is added, that she belied the greatness of her character by weakly throwing all I the blame on her ministers. Of these, several were executed, among whom was the celebrated Longinus, the queen's i secretary. He died with the equanimity of a philosopher, 1 comforting his companions in misfortune. i Aurelian had passed the Bosporus on his return to Rome, ! when intelligence reached him that the Palmyrenians had risen on and massacred the small garrison he had left in their city. He instantly retraced his steps, arrived at Anti- och before it was known that he had set out, hastened to Palmyra, took the city, and massacred men, women, and ! children, citizens and peasants, without distinction. As he \ was on his way back to Europe, news came that Egypt had j revolted, and made a wealthy merchant, named Firmus, em- } peror, and that the export of corn to Rome had been stopped. The indefatigable Aurelian soon appeared on the banks of j the Nile, defeated the usurper, and took and put him to j death. ] The overthrow of Tetricus (whether it preceded or fol- lowed these events) left Aurelian without a rival. Tetricus, | it is said, was so wearied with the state of thraldom in which | he was held by his mutinous troops, that he secretly wrote || to Aurelian to come to his deliverance. When the emperor | entered Gaul, Tetricus found it necessary to affect the alac- | rity of one determined to conquer or die ; but, when the ar- j niies encountered on the plains of Chalons, he betrayed his | troops, and deserted in the very commencement of the bat- | tie. His legions fought, notwithstanding, with desperation, | and perished nearly to a man. r Victorious over all his rivals, and all the enemies of j Rome, Aurelian celebrated a triumph with unusual magnifi- { cence. Wild beasts of various kinds, troops of gladiators, j. and bands of captives of many nations, opened the proces- i! sion. Tetricus and his son walked, clad in the Gallic habit; i Zenobia also moved on foot, covered with jewels and bound \ with golden chains, which were borne up by slaves. The \ splendid cars of Odenatus and Zenobia, and one the gift of I the Persian king to the emperor, preceded the chariot drawn I ' by four stags, once the car of a Gothic king, in which Au- i relian himself rode. The senate, the people, the army, j horse and foot, succeeded ; and it was late in the day when the monarch reached the Capitol. • | The view of a Roman senator led in triumph, in the per- ii48 AUKELIAN. [a. d. 275 son of Tetricus, (an act of which there was no example,) cast a gloom over the minds of the senators. The insult, if intended for such, ended, however, with the procession. Aurelian made him governor of the southern part of Italy, and honored him with his Iriendship. He also bestowed on the Palmyrenian queen an estate at Tibur, where she lived many years, and her daughters matched into some of the noblest Roman families. The improvement of the city by useful public works, the establishment of daily distributions of bread and pork to the people, and the burning of all accounts of moneys due to the treasury, were measures calculated to gain Aurelian the popular favor. But a reformation of the coinage became the cause or pretext of an insurrection, the quelling of which cost h\'.n the lives of seven thousand of his veteran soldiers. Enveloj)ed as the whole affair is in obscurity, the senators must have been implicated in it ; for Aurelian's vengeance fell heavily on the whole body of the nobility. Numbers of them were cast into prison, and several were executed. Aurelian quitted Rome once more for the East, in order to carry on war against the Persians. On the road in Thrace, having detected his private secretary, Mnestheus, in some act of extortion, he menaced him with his anger. Aware that lie never threatened in vain, Mnestheus saw that himself or the emperor must die : he, thtirefore, imitating Aurelian's writing, drew up a li.st containing his own name and those of the principal olhcers of the army as marked out for death. He tdiowed this bloody list to those who were named in it, advising them to anticipate the emperor's cru- elty. Without furtlier inquiry, they resolved on his murder, and, falling on him between Byzantium and Heraclea, they despatched him with their swords. M. Claudius Tacitus. 1028—1029. A. D. 275—276. After the death of the emperor Aurelian, a scene without example presented itself — an amicable strife between the senate and the army, each wishing the other to appoint an emperor, and the empire without a head and without a tu- mult for the greater part of a year. It originated in the k'ilovving manner : •p h. D. 275.] TACITUS. 249 » The assassins of Aurelian speedily discovered their error, and Mneslheus expiated his treason with liis life. The sol- diers, who lamented the emperor, would not raise to his place any of those concerned in his death, however inno- cently ; and they wrote to the senate, requesting them to \ ( appoint his successor. The senate, though gratified by the \ deference shown to them by the army, deemed it prudent to i | decline the invidious honor. The legions again pressed ] \ them, and eight months passed away in the friendly contest. , [ At length, (Sept. 28,) the consul assembled the senate, and, i < laying before them the perilous condition of the empire, j I called on Tacitus, the First of the Senate, to give his opin- ? 1 ion. But ere he could speak, he was saluted emperor and 1 ^ Augustus from all parts of the house; and, after having in \ i vain represented his unfitness for the office on account of his ' | advanced age, he was obliged to yield to their wishes, and J i accept the purple. The praetorian guards willingly acqui- 1 1 esced in the choice of the senate ; and, when Tacitus pro- 1 1 ceeded to the camp in Thrace, the soldiets, true to their || engagement, submitted willingly to his authority. { I Tacitus was now seventy-five years old. He was one of | | those men who were, perhaps, less rare at Rome than we s | generally imagine; who, in the possession of a splendid for- 1 1 tune, spent a life, dignified by the honors of the state, in the 1 1 cultivation of philosophy and elegant literature. He claimed i | a descent from the historian of his name, whose works formed I J his constant study ; and after his accession to the empire, he | s directed that ten copies of them should be annually made \ I and placed in the public libraries. 1 1 Viewing himself only as the minister of the laws and the !; ? senate, Tacitus sought to raise that body to its former con- ] | sideration, by restoring the privileges of which it had been | \ deprived. Once more it began to appoint magistrates, to \ | henr appeals, and to give validity to the imperial edicts 1 1 But this was merely a glimpse of sunshine irradiating the 1 1 decline of its greatness. In history, there is no return ; and | I the real power of the once mighty Roman senate had de- ] i parted forever. | | Aurelian had engaged a body of the Alans, a Sarmatian tribe who dwelt about Lake Maeotis, for the war against Per sia. On the death of that emperor, and the suspension of the war, they ravaged the provinces south of the Euxine, to indemnify themselves for their disappointment. Tacitus, on taking the command of the army, offered to make good to F F 1 "i I 250 PROBus. [a. d. 276 them the engagements contracted oy his predecessor. A good number of them accepted the terms and retired, and he lod the legions against the remainder, and speedily reduced them. As these military operations fell in the winter, the emperor's constitution, enervated by age and the relaxing clime of southern Italy, proved uneijual to them. His mind was also harassed by the factions which broke out in the camp, and even reached his lent ; and he sank under men- tal and corporeal suffering, at Tyana, on the 22d of April, 276, after a brief reign of six months and twenty days. I M. Aurclius Prubus. A. V. 1029—1025. A. D. 276—282. On the death of Tacitus, his brother Florianus claimed ' I the empire as if fallen to him by inheritance, and the legions yielded him their obedience; but the army of the East obliged their general, Probus, to assume the purple, and a civil war commenced. The con.stitution of the European troops soon, however, began to give way under the heat of the sun of Asia ; sickness spread among them ; desertions be- came numerous; and when, at Tarsus in Cilicia, the army of Probus came to give them battle, they averted the contest by proclaiming Probus, and putting their emperor to death, after a reign of less than three months. Probus was another of those Illyrians, who, born in an humble station, attained the empire by their merit, and hon- ored it by their virtues. He entered the army young, and speedily became distinguished for his courage and his prob- ity. His merit did not escape the discerning eye of Vale- rian, who made him a tribune, though under the usual age; gave him the command of a body of auxiliary troops, and recommended him strongly to Gallienus, by whom; and by the succeeding emperors, he was greatly esteemed, and trusted with important commands. Aurelian rated him very highly, and is even thought to have destined him for his successor. After the death of Florianas, Probus wrote to the senate, apologizing for having accepted the empire from the hands of the soldiery, but assuring them that he would submit himself to their pleasure. A decree was unanimously passed, investing him with all the imperial titles and powers. In A. D. 277-279.] GERMAN WAR. 251 return, Probus continued to the senate the right of hearing appeals, appointing magistrates, and of giving force to his euicts by tiieir decrees. Tacitus had punished severely some of those concerned in the murder of Aureliar. ; Probus sought out and punished the remainder, but with less rigor. He exhibited no enmity toward those who had supported Florianus. The Germans had laken advantage of the interregnum which succeeded the death of Aurelian, to make a formidable irruption into Gaul, where they made themselves masters of not less than seventy cities, and were in possession of nearly the whole of the country. Probus, however, as soon as his affairs permitted, (277,) entered Gaul at the head of a numer- ous and well-appointed army. He gave the Germans several defeats, and forced them to repass the Rhine, with a loss, it is said, of 400,000 men. He pursued them over that river; and nine of their kings were obliged to come in person to sue for peace. The terms which the emperor imposed were, the restoration of all their booty, the annual delivery of a large quantity of corn and cattle, and 16,000 men to recruit the Roman armies. These Probus distributed in parties of fifty and sixty throughout the legions ; for it was his wise maxim, that the aid derived from the barbarians should be felt, not seen. He also placed colonies of the Germans, and other tribes, in Britain, and some of the other provinces. He had, further, it is said, conceived the idea of making the conquered Germans renounce the use of arms, and trust for their defence to those of the Romans ; but, on considering the number of troops it would require, he gave it up, con- tenting -hi^nself with making them retire behind the Necker and Elbe, with building forts and towns in the country, be- tween these rivers and the Rhine, and running a wall, two hundred miles in length, from the Rhine to the Danube, as a defence to Italy and the provinces against the Alemans. After the conquest of the Germans, the emperor led his troops into Raetia and Illyria, where the terror of his name and his arms daunted the Goths and Sarmatians, and gave security to the provinces. He then (279) passed over to Asia, subdued the brigands of Isauria, expelled them from their fastnesses in the mountains, in which he settled some of his veterans, under the condition that they should send their sons, when eighteen years of age, to the army, in order that they might not be induced, by the natural advantages of the country, to take to a life of freebooting, and prove as dangerous as their predecessors. Proceeding through Syria, 252 PKOBUS. [a. D. 27Ji he entered Egypt, an J reduced the peofle named Blemniy- ans,* who had taken the cities of Coptos and Ptolemai's. He conchided a peace with the king of Persia, and, on hia return through Thrace, he bestowed lands on a body of 200,000 Bastarnians, and on some of theGepidans, Vandals, and other tribes. He triumphed for the Germans and Blem- myans on his return to Rome. A prince so just and upright, and, at tlie same time, so warlike as Probus, might have been expected to have no competitors for empire; yet even he had to take the field against rival emperors. The first of these was Saturninus, whom he himself had made general of the East, a man of both talent and virtue, and for whom he had a most cordial esteem. But the light-minded and turbulent people of Alexandria, on occasion of his entry into their city, saluted him Augustus; and, though he rejected the title and retired to Palestine, he yet, not reflecting on the generous nature of Probus, deemed that he could no longer live in a private station. He therefore assumed the purple, saying, with tears, to his friends, that the republic had lost a useful man, and that his own ruin, and that of many others, was inevi- table. Probus tried in vain to induce him to trust to his clemency. A part of his troops joined those sent against him by the emperor; he was besieged in the castle of Apa- maea, and taken, and slain. After the defeat of Saturninus, two officers, named Proc- ulus and Bonosus, assumed the purple in Germany. They were both men of ability, and the emperor found it necessary to take the field against them in person. Proculus, being defeated, fled for succor to the Franks, by whom he was be- trayed; and he fell in battle against the imperial troops Bonosus held out for some time ; but, having received a de- cisive overthrow, he hanged himself As he had been re- markable for his drinking powers, one who saw him hanging cried, " There hangs a jar, not a man." Probus treated the families of both with great humanity. Probus, though far less cruel, was as rigid a maintainer of discipline in the armv as Aurelian had been. His mode was to keep the legions constantly employed, and thus to obviate the ill effects of idleness. When he commanded in Egypt, he employed his troops in draining marshes, improv- ing the course of the Nile, and raising public edifices. In * This people inhabited the mountains between Upper Egypt and the Red Sea. A. D. 282.] CARus. 253 Gaul and Paniionia, he occupied them in forming vine- yards. His maxim was, that a soldier should not eat his food idly ; and he even used to express his hopes that the time would come when the republic would have no further need of soldiers. This language naturally produced a good deal of discontent; and when, on his march against the Per- sians, who had broken the peace, (282,) he halted at his native town of Sirmium, and set the soldiers at work to cut a canal, to drain the marshes which incommoded it, they broke out into an open mutiny. Probus fled for safety to an iron tower, whence he was in the habit of surveying the prog- ress of the works; but the furious soldiers forced the tower, and seized and murdered him. They then lamented him, and gave his remains an honorable sepulture. M. Aurelius Carus^ A. u. 1035—1036. A. D. 282—283. Notwithstanding their grief and repentance for the mur- der of Probus, the soldiers did not part with their power of choosing an emperor. They conferred the purple on Carus, the praetorian prefect; and the senate was, as usual, obliged to acquiesce in their decision. Carus was about sixty years of age. The place of his birth is uncertain, but probability is in favor of Tllyricum. He stood high in the estimation of the late discernincr eni- peror, and he was undoubtedly a man of considerable ability. The first care of the new emperor was to punish the au- thors of the death of his predecessor. He then raised his two sons, Carinus and Numerian, (who were both grown up,) to the dignity of C.-esars; and, as the barbarians, after the death of Probus, had passed the Rhine and the Lower Danube, he sent Carinus into Gaul, directing him, when he had repelled the invaders, to fix his residence at Rome, and govern there during his absence. He himself, taking Nume- rian with him, marched against the Sarmatians, (283,) whom he defeated with a loss of 16,000 slain and 20,000 prisoners; and, having thus secured the Illyrian frontier, he led his army over to Asia for the Persian war. When Carus passed the Euphrates, the Persian monarch, Varanes (Bahram) II., though an able and a valiant prince, being engaged in a civil war, could not collect a force suffi- CONTIN. 22 254 CARINUS AND NUMERIAN. [a. D. 283. cient to oppose to the Romans : he therefore sent to propose terms of peace. It was evening when the s.mbassadors ar- rived at the Roman camp. Cams was at the time seated on the grass eating his supper, which consisted of a bowl of cold boiled peas and some pieces of salt pork, with a purple woollen robe thrown over his shoulders. He desired them to be brought to him, and when they came he told them that, if their master did not submit, he would in a month's time make Persia as bare of trees and standing corn as his own head was of hair ; and, suiting the action to the word, he pulled off the cap which he wore, and displayed his head totally devoid of hair. He invited them, if hungry, to share his meal ; if not, he bade them depart. They withdrew in terror; and Carus forthwith took the field, and recovered the whole of Mesopo- tamia; he defeated the troops sent against him, and took the cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon. He was advancing into the interior of Persia, when, one day as the army was en- camped near the Tigris, there came on a most furious thun- der-storm ; and, immediately after a most awful clap, a cry was raised that the emperor was dead. His tent was found to be in flames; but whether his death was caused by light- ning or by treachery, remained uncertain. M. Aurelius Carinus and M. Aurelius Numcrianus. A. u. 1036—1038. A. D. 283—285. The death of Carus appears to have occurred about the end of the year 283. The authority of lis sons was readily acknowledged; and Numerian, apprehmsive, as it might seem, of the designs of his brother, gave up the Persian war and set out on his return to Europe. Numerinn was a prince of an amiable disposition, a lover and cultivator of literature, a poet, it is said, of no mean order, and an eloquent declaimer. He was married to the daughter of Arrius Aper, to whom Carus had given the im- portant post of prajtorian prefect ; and as, on account of a weakness in his eyes, Numerian was obliged to remain shut up in his tent, or to travel in a close litter, all public business was transacted in his name by his father-in-law. The army had reached the shores of the Bosporus when a report was spread that the emperor, whom they had not seen for some time, had ceased to exist. The soldiers broke into the im K, D. 285.] CARINUS. 255 perial tent., and there found only the corpse of Numerian. The concealment of his death and other circumstances caused suspicion to fall on Aper. He was seized and laid in chains ; a general assembly of the army was held while the generals and tribunes sat in council to select a successor to Numerian. Their choice fell on Diocletian, the com- mander of the body-guard. The soldiers testified their ap- probation. Diocletian, having ascended the tribunal, made a solemn protestation of his own innocence, and then caused Aper to be led before him. " This man," said he, when he appeared, " is the murderer of Numerian ; " and, without giv- ing him a moment's time for defence, he plunged his sword into his bosom. It may cause some surprise that the army should have proceeded to the election of an emperor while Carinus was yet living. We know not what intrigues there may have been on the part of Diocletian; but the vices of that prince are said to have been such as would fully justify his exclusion. His conduct at Rome had been so vicious, and he put such unworthy persons into office even during his father's life- time, that Carus cried he was no son of his, and proposed to substitute for him in the empire Constautius, the governor of Dalmatia. When the death of his father had removed all restraint, he gave free course to his vicious inclinations, dis- playing the luxury of an Elagabalus and the cruelty of a Domitian. The news; however, of the death of his brother, and the elevation of Diocletian, roused him to energy, and he placed himself at the head of his troops. After a succession of engagements, the decisive conflict took place (May, 285) on the plain of Margus, near the Danube in Moesia. Carinus was betrayed or deserted by his own troops, and he was slain by a tribune whose wife he had seduced. During the long period now elapsed, the aspect of the Ro- man world remained nearly as we have already described it. The absence of a respectable middle class of society, abject poverty and enormous wealth standing in striking contrast in the provinces as well as in Italy, unbridled luxury, and the want of all noble and generous feeling, every where met the view. At the same time, foreign trade, of which luxury is the great promoter, was in a most flourishing state, and inmiense fortunes were acquired by traffic. The silks, the spices, and the precious stones and pearls of India, and 256 LITERATURE. the amber of the Baltic, reached Rome in abundance, and were purchased by its luxurious nobles and their ladies at enormous prices. The history of this period has noticed two inatances which may give us some idea of the wealth of individuals in those days : the one is that of a Roman nobleman, the emperor Tacitus ; the other that of an Alexandrian mer- chant. The landed and other property of the former pro- duced him an income of two hundred and eighty millions of sesterces, and his ready money at the time of his acces- sion sufficed for the pay of the army. The merchant was Firmus, who assumed the purple in t'he time of Aurelian. This man had a great number of merchantmen on the Red Sea for his trade with India; he carried on a commerce with the interior of Africa ; he contracted with the Blem- myans for the produce of their mines, and he had also com- mercial relations with the Saracens or Bedoween Arabs. He possessed, moreover, extensive manufactories, and it is said that he used to boast that the paper manufactured by him would suffice to maintain an army. The Roman army at this period was evidently on the de- cline in respect to discipline and moral force. The soldiers were now accustomed to luxuries and indulgences unknown to the troops of the republic or of the early days of the em- pire. Barbarians entered the Roman service in great num- bers ; and we shall ere long find officers of the very highest rank and power bearing German names. The maintenance of good military roads had always been an object of solicitude with the Roman government. We have seen the care of Augustus on this head ; and that wi.se emperor had also instituted a system of posts for the despatch of letters on public business, and the conveyance of persons employed by the government. This system was now great- ly extended, and post-houses were established at regular dis- tances along all the great roads, furnished with horses, mules, and carriages, for the conveyance of goods as well as persons. These beasts and carriages were provided gratis by the in- habitants of the di-strict in which the post-house stood, and the supplying of then) was a most onerous burthen. Any one bearing an imperial diploma could demand horses and carriages, and food for himself and attendants without pay- ment. The system was in effect the same as that which prevails at the present day in Turkey, where the sultan's frmdn corresponds exactly with the imperial diploma. When the emperor was on his way to any part of his do- PHILOSOPHY. 257 minions, his whole court and retinue were maintained at the charge of the inhabitants of tlie towns where he halted ; and at each he expected to find a palace ready furnished. In like manner, the wants of the troops when on their march were to be supplied ; and when we reflect how frequently they were removed from one frontier to another, and how incessant most of the emperors were in their movements, we may form some conception of the oppression endured by the subjects. Literature partook of the general decline. After the reign of Trajan, we do not meet with a single Latin poet or historian possessing any merit. The Greek language was not, however, equally barren. Plutarch, who wrote on such a variety of subjects in so agreeable a manner, flour- ished under the Antonines. The witty Lucian was his contemporary. History was written by Arrian, Dion Cas- sias, and Herodian, with more or less success. The travels ofPausanias in Greece are of great value to the modern scholar ; and the medical writings of Galen, and the works of Ptolemy on astronomy and geography, long exercised a most powerful influence over the human mind in both Europe and Asia. In poetry the Grecian muse of this period aimed at no higher flight than her Latin sister. The branch of literature (if we may so term it) most culti- vated at this time was philosophy. The Stoic system found many followers ; it numbered among its professors the em- peror Marcus Aurelius, who bequeathed to posterity his Meditations, in ten books; and Arrian, the historian and statesman, published the lessons of his master, Epictetus. But the philosophy which far eclipsed all the others, was the New Platonism of Alexandria, of which it is necessary to speak somewhat in detail. In the writings of Plato there is much that has a mystic tone, borrowed perhaps from the Pythagoreans, or derived immediately from the East. In such parts the usual charac- teristics of mysticism appear; simple truths are enveloped in figurative language, and vain attempts are made at explain- ing things beyond the reach of human knowledge. As such we may mention the Timaeus and similar pieces, which are certainly the least valuable portion of the philosopher's writings. But owing to their obscurity, which gives them a vague air of magnificent profundity, these were the very pieces that some most admired ; and their resemblance to 22 * GO 258 PHILOSOPHY. the dreamy speculations of the East strongly recommended them to those whose turn of mind led them to mysticism and to the cultivation of occult philosophy. Alexandria was the chief seat of this Platonism, and its professors .there ob- tained the name of Eclectics ; for, taking their leading principles from the works of Plato, they added such of those of the Stoics, the Peripatetics, and of the Oriental philosophy, as were capable of being brought into harmony with those of their master. The writings of Philo the Jew will show how Platonism and the Law of Moses were made to accord. Toward the close of the second century, this philosophy received a more e.xtended form from a teacher named Am- monius Saccas, a man of great ingenuity and of a lively imagination. His object was to bring all sects of philoso- phy, and all forms of religion, Christianity included, into one harmonious whole. His system differed from that of the Eclectics in this, that, while thiy viewed the different systems as composed of truth and error, he regarded them as all flowing from the one source of truth, and therefore capable of being reduced to their original unity. He held the world to be an eternal emanation of the Deity; and he adopted and extended the Egyptian and Plat»nic notion of Djemons of different ranks and degrees. The human soul, he asserted, might, by means of certain secret rites, become capable of perceiving and conversing with these intelligences. This art, which he termed Thcurgia, was a kind of magic, the exercise of which was confined to those of highest order in the sect. With this was combined a system of rigid ascet- icism, enjoined on all who aimed at freeing the soul from the bonds of the body. Aminonius, who was born a Christian, represented Christ as having been an admirable 'I'heurgist; and he labored to bring the Christian doctrine into accord- ance with his own peculiar views, by representing such parts of it as resisted his efforts as interpolations made by ignorant disciples. As many of the Christians studied in his school the effect of the New Platonism, as it was named, or theit speculations, proved extremely injurious, and many of the subsequent errors and superstitions into which they fell, may be traced to that source. The most distinguished of the New Platonists were Porphyry, Plotinus Proclus, Simplicius, and Jamblichus. The sect flourished till the time of the final triumph of Christianity. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 259 CHAPTER VII. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. PERSECUTIONS OF THE CHURCH. CORRUPTION OF RELI- GION. THE EBIONITES. GNOSTIC HERESIES. MONTA- GUS. THE PASCHAL QUESTION. COUNCILS. THE HIE- RARCHY. PLATONIC PHILOSOPHY, ITS EFFECTS. RITTS AND CEREMONIES. CHRISTIAN WRITERS. The Christian religion, during the last two centuries, had made rapid progress, and extended itself to Spain, Gaul, Britain, and the most remote parts of the Roman empire; but it at the same time had to endure external persecution and internal corruption. It also underwent a change in its discipline and government, and thereby lost a portion of its original simplicity. Of these subjects we will now treat. Nothing can be more erroneous than the idea given by Gibbon and other skeptical writers of the tolerant spirit of the ancient world. This boasted tolerance merely extended to allowing £ach people to follow its own national system of religion, and worship its own traditional deities, provided they did not attempt to make proselytes. It was in effect the toleration still to be found in Mohammedan countries; but, with respect to thfe worship of new or foreign deities by their own citizens, the laws both of Greece and Rome were strict and severe. One of the charges on which the excellent Soc- rates was condemned to death, was that of introducing new deities; and the language of the Roman law was, "Let no one have any separate worship or hold any new gods; nor let any private worship be offered to any strange gods, unless they have been publicly adopted."* We find that this law was acted on in all times of the republic, and that the magis- trates had the power to prevent any foreign mode of worship, drive from the city or otherwise punish its professors and ministers, and seize and destroy their religious books. t The reason of these laws was probably political rather than re- ligious; for all governments have a natural and a just aversion to secret societies, which are so easily and so frequent y con- * Cicero, Laws, ii. 8. t Livy, iv. 30 ; xxxix. 16. Val. Max. i. 3. Dion, lii. 36. 260 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. verted to jrolitical purposes, and the professors of a religion different from that of tlie state will always form a distinct so- ciety, and, as they increase in numbers, may prove dangerous to the political constitution. The early Christians were unfortunate in many circum- stances. The Jews, who were their most implacable ene- mies, were established in all parts of the empire; and they were not only exposed to their calumnies and persecutions, but, as they were regarded as merely a sect of that people, they came in for their share of the odium under which they lay. Again, proaelytism was of the very essence of the new faith ; and this was a point on which the Roman government was most jealous and apprehensive. Further, the Christians were taught to hold ail idolatrous riles in the utmost abhor- rence; and, as these were woven into the whole texture of public and private life, they found it necessary to alietaiu from the theatres, and from all public shows and solemnities; and they were obliged to be eijually on their guard ni the re- lations of private life, and hence they were regarded as mo- rose and unsociable. The spiritual monotheism of the Chris- tians was, moreover, considered as atheism * by those who had no conception of religion disjoined frou) temples, images, and a plurality of objects of worship. The simple rites and practices of their religion also furnished materials of calumny to their enemies. The .symbolical eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, for exampfe, was converted into Thyestian banquets, and their Agap^e or love- feasts were representetl as scenes of riot and pollution. The Christians them.selves, too, were not always prudent; they gave at times needless offence, and many exhibited what we may term a selfish eagerness to obtain the crown of martyr- dom. We thus see that the Christians were amenable to the ancient law of Rome for introducing a new religion and neglecting to comply with that of the state, and for their zeal in making proselytes to their opinions. They were at the same time odious to the vulgar, for their abstinence from the temples and the public shows. All kinds of calumnies were therefore spread abroad respecting them; and we need not wonder at these finding ready acceptance with the vulgar, when we recollect how they operated on the minds of such * [Much the same as, at the present day, deism and atheism are often confounded by the ignorant and bigoted. — J. T. S] PLRSECUTIONS. 261 men as Tacitus and Suetonius. To such a pitch did the ])opular dislike of the Christians at length rise, that the guilt of all public calamities was laid on them. " If the Tiber," says Tertullian,* "has overflowed its banks; or the Nile has not overflowed; if Heaven has refused its rain; if the earth has been shaken ; if famine or plague has spread its ravages, the cry is immediately raised, ' To the lions with the Chris- tians!'" When Christianity had triumphed over its foes, and was become the religion of the state, men began, like voyagers escaped from shipwreck, to looR back with an eye of compla cency on the perils through which it had passed, and felt a pleasure in magnifying its calamities and sufterings. The number of persecutions was gradually raised to the mystic number of ten, the number of the victims was prodigiously magnified, and imagination amused itself in varying the modes of their torture. The apostle John, for example, was [pretended to have been] thrown, at Rome, by order of Domitian, into a caldron of boiling oil, from which he came forth unscathed ; and St. Babylas was, at Pergamus, put in- to a brazen bull, heated red-hot; though these martyrdoms were apparently unknown to the learned Eusebius, and there are little grounds for supposing that there was any persecu- tion in the time of Domitian. The chief inventors of these pious legends were the monks, a class of men who have al- ways exhibited a strong inclination for the supernatural and the horrible. We will here briefly sketch the sufferings of the church, as they are to be derived from authentic sources.! The first persecution of the Christians is that by Nero, above related. That, as we have seen, was merely an effort made by a tyrant to throw the guilt with which he was him- self charged on a body who were generally obnoxious : there was nothing whatever religious or political in it, and we have no reason for supposing that it was of long duration, or extended beyond the city of Rome. Eusebius mentions a tradition that St. Paul was beheaded and St. Peter crucified at this time; but little reliance is to be placed on such ac- counts, and it is extremely doubtfuHfthe latter ever came to Rome. Under the Flavian family, the Christiana were unmolested. * Apol. 40. t In the following account of the persecutions, we have made Euse- bius our principal guide. Very few of the Acts of the Saints and Mar- tyrs of the first three centuries, as Moslieini observes, are genuine. 262 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Doniitian, indeed, is said, toward the close of his reign, to have exercised some severities against them. On this occa- sion, \vc are told, the two grandsons of Judas, tiie brother of our Lord, were brought before him, as being of tlie family of David. In answer to his inquiries, they told him that their whole property consisted of a small piece of land, which they cultivated themselves ; and they showed their hands hardened with toil. The kingdom of Christ which they expected they described as a celestial one, which would not appear till the end of the world. The tyrant, apprehending little from the heirs of such a kingdom, dismissed them with contempt, and put an end to the persecution.* In the reign of Trajan, Eusebius says, "there was a partial persecution excited throughout the cities, in consequence of a popular insurrection," i. c. an insurrection of the populace against the Christians, the usual source of persecution. It would appear to have been very partial indeed, for he men- tions but one martyr, St. Simeon, bishop of Jerusalem, a kinsman of our Lord's. The celebrated letter of Pliny to Trajan, however, proves that in some parts of the empire the Christians were exposed to nmch perd. This amiable man, being appointed governor of Pontus and Bithynia in the year 103, found numerous charges brought against persons of all ages and sex&s as Christians. Unwilling to punish, and un- certain how to act, he wrote to the emperor for advice.t Tra- jan, in his reply, directed that the Christians should not be sought after, but that, if accused and convicted, they should be punished, and that no anonymous accusations should be attended to. Considering the Roman law on the subject, and the general state of sentiment and feeling at the time, this rescript is highly creditable to the humanity and the justice of the emperor. From Pliny's letter we learn that a chief ground of proceeding against the Christians was the em- peror's aversion to clubs and societies, {lutccrias,) for which reason Pliny was very strict in prohii)iting the Christians from meeting together to celebrate the Eucharist or hold their love feasts. We ftirther learn that the number of the Chrisunns was very considerable, both in the towns and in the country, and that the heathen temples had been nearly deserted ; but that, when the law was put in force, such numbers abandoned their * Hegesippus ap. Euseb. iii. '20. t Plin. Ep. x. 07, 98 PEKSKCUTIONS. ' 263 faith, that Pliny had strong hopes that the s iperstition, as he \ ternnid it, might be suppressed. So far was Hadrian from being a persecutor, that, ac- i cording to Justin Martyr,* Serenius Granianus, the procon- 1 sul of Asia, having written to him " that it did not appear ! just to put the Christians to death without a regular accu- j sation and trial, merely to gratify the outcries of the popu- ' lace," he issued a rescript, directed to Granianus's successor, j Minucius Fundanus, directing him to pay no regard to mere petitions and outcries, but to judge of the accusations himself, i and to punish the accused according to the quality of their I offence, if it was clearly proved that they had transgressed j the laws, but at the same time to punish severely any one t who should bring a false and slanderous accusation. The ; emperor, it would seem, wrote to the same effect to some of j the other governors. t ) During the reign of the excellent Antoninus Pius, the i Christians suffered no molestation on the part of the govern- j ment ; but they had much to endure from the malignity and • siipe-j'stition of the populace of the provincial towns of Asia. ■ The emperor, however, interposed in their behalf, and re- j newed the directions of Hadrian to the authorities in the ij provinces. « Hitherto the sufferings of the ('hristians had been com- ] paratively light ; but under the reign of the philosophic M. ';■ Aurelius, a severe persecution raged against them. It is not I quite clear whether any edicts were made by the emperor di- l recting them to be punished,| but he certainly held them in | contempt, and he was anxious to uphold the ancient religion | and ceremonies of the state, and may therefore have been in- ? clined to deal rigorously with those who rejected and opposed i, them. Still, on examining the accounts of the martyrdoms f in this reign, it will appear that they resulted in general from I the usual cause — the hatred of the populace towards the \ Christians. \ The year 166, in which Aurelius first left Rome for the 5 German war, is usually fixed on as the commencement of the | persecution. A Christian, named Ptolemaeus, and two others \ were put to death at Rome, solely, we are told, on account I of their faith. On this occasion, Justin Martyr (by whom we ;, * Euseb. iv. 8, 9. t Euseb. iv. 26. ; i Melito (ap. Euseb. iv. 26) v(^ould seem to assert that there were 1 decrees issued against the Christians by Aurelius; but Tertullian j (Apol. 5) avers the contrary. j 264 ■ THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. are informed at' the fact) addressed his second Apology to the emperor and the senate. He was himself, soon after, with some others, put to death by the city prefect Rusticus. As Rusticus was a philosopher, and the Epicurean Crescens, Justin's great opponent, was then at Rome, there appears to be some reason for supposing that the philosophers had already adopted that spirit of inveterate hostility to the Christians which caused them to become their unrelenting persecutors. It was also in this year that the persecution broke out at Smyrna, in which the venerable Bishop Poly- carp, and about a dozen other Christians, suffered for their faith. The church of Smyrna wrote, on this occasion, an epistle to those of Pontus, from which we learn the following particulars. ' The letter commenced with an account of the other martyrs and their siiffcrini^fs. " Tlie by-standers," it says, " were struck with amazement at seeing them lacerated with scourges to their very blood and arteries, so that the flesh con- cealed in the very inmost parts of the body, and the i>owcl3 themselves, were exposed to view. Then they were laid upon sea-shells, and on the sharp heads of spears on the ground, and, after passing through every kind of punishment and torment, were at last thrown as food for wild beasts." The youth and Deauty of one of these martyrs, named Germ aniens, interest- ed the proconsul so much, that he earnestly implored him to take compassion on himself; but the ardent youth even irri- tated the beast to which he was exposed, and speedily per- ished. The multitude then beijan to call for Polycarp. This venerable prelate had, on the urgency of his friends, retired from the city ; but he was discovered and seized by those sent in quest of him. When brought back to Smyrna, he was conducted straight to the Stadion, (where public shows were exhibited,) and led to the tribunal of the proconsul, who urged him to deny Christ, and swear by the genius of Caisar. " Eighty-and-six years," said the holy prelate, " have I served ! I Christ, and he never did me wrong; and how can I now ; [ blaspheme my King that has saved me?" After several vain attempts to influence him, the proconsul caused the herald to proclaim aloud, " Polycarp confesses that he is a Christiai " The multitude then, both Jesvs and Gentiles, cried out, " This is that teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the destroyer of our gods, he that teaches multitudes not to sacrifice, not to worship." They insisted that a lion should be loosed at him; but, being informed that that part of the PERSECUTIONS. 265 show WHS over, they cried out that he should be burnt alive , and they forthwith began to collect wood and straw from the shops and baths for the purpose, " the Jews, as usual, freely offering their services." It was the custom to secure the victim to the stake with nails ; but at his own request Poly- \ \ cnrp was merely bound to it. He uttered a most devout | | pr^yer, and fire was then set to the pile. But the flames did i j not approach him ; *' they presented," says the narrative, " an i appearance like an oven, as when the sail of a ve.ssel is tilled l^ ] with the wind, and thus formed a wall round the body of the j ; martyr; and he was in the midst, not like burning tlesh, but i !| like gold and silver, purified in the furnace. We also per- |< ceived a fragrant odor, like the fumes of incense or other I precious aromatic drugs." The executioner at length, by f \ the order of the people, ran him through with his sword ; and [ the gush of blood, it is added, was so great as to extinguish i 5 tlie fire. At the instigation of the Jews, the body of the ^,1 martyr was burnt, lest, as they s lid, the Christians should \ I begin to worship Polycarp instead of him that was crucified. | | The letter asserts that the martyrdom of Polycarp terminated 'i j the persecution at Smyrna; but as martyrs are mentioned at fj. Pergamus, victims may still have continued to be given to the g S popular fury. 1 1 Hitherto the persecution of the Christians seems to have || been nearly confined to Asia, and to have been chiefly ex- jj cited by the Jews; but in the year 177, Gaul, whither the \\ gospel had now penetrated, became the scene of persecution | I on a scale of magnitude as yet Vvithout example. The j ^ churches of Lyons and Vienne wrote to those of Asia a full | ; account of their sufferings, from which it appears that the 1 1 governor and the populace were equally envenomed against 1 1 ihe Christians, and that the emperor himself, when consulted I f on the subject, merely directed that those who were Roman 1 1 citizens should be beheaded, those who renounced their faith f I be dismissed, leaving the rest to be exposed to the beasts, or || put to death in other barbarous modes. Among the victims | \ were Pothinus, bishop of Lyons, a venerable prelate of ninety II years of age, and Attains of Pergamus, a man of great zeal f { and piety. But the constancy of a female slave, named ' ,i Blandina, was the subject of admiration to both Christians | | and Gentiles. Every refinement of torture was exercised upon her ; day after day she was tortured or exposed to the beasts, who, however, would not even touch her. At length she was put in a net, and flung before a furious bull; and CONTIN. 23 H H , , ■ 266 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. when he liad tossed her till she became insensi.Je she waa despatched by the executioner. Among the modes of torture employed was an iron chair made quite hot, in which the victims were compelled to sit till their flesh was literally roasted ; hot plates of brass were also fastened to the tender- est parts of their bodies. Heathen slaves, belonifirig to the Christians, were seized, and by terror or persuasion were iu- duceu, says the letter, " to charge us with the feasts of Thy- estes, and the incests of CEdipus, and such crimes as we may neither think nor speak of, and such indeed as we do not even believe were committed by men." The reign of Commodus was a period of repose to the church. Severus also favored the Christians in the first years of his reign; but in 202 he issued an edict forbidding any one to become a Jew or a Christian. This gave occa- sion to tlie exercise of some severities, of which the principal scene was Alexandria. In the- reigns that intervened between Severus and Decius, the Christians were either favored or unmolested, with the exception of that of Maximin, who per- secuted the heads of the church, on account of their attach- I ment to his virtuous predecessor. Decius, as we have seen, was anxious to restore the ancient institutions of Rome. As these were connected with the re- ligion of the state, and as the Christians, whose faith was most strongly opposed to that religion, were now become ex- ' ceedingly numerous, he saw that he must suppress their doc- 1 trine before he could hope to carry his design into effect. I He accordingly issued an edict, requiring all his subjects, under heavy penalties, to return to the ancient religion ; and a persecution of the church, more severe than any that had yet occurred, was the immediate result The fervid declama- tion of St. Cyprian, or the highly-colored fancy-piece of St. Gregory Nyssen, on this subject, cannot be relied on with im- plicit confidence ; but from the fact that numbers (including priests And even prelates) apostatized, arid from the con- stancy of the tradition, there can be no doul)t but that the persecution was both general and severe. The bishop of Rome suffered martyrdom, those of Jerusalem and Antioch died in prison. The celebrated Origen was also among those who suffered imprisonment and torture in this calami- tous period. Valerian is said to have been at first extremely favorable to the Christians ; but when he was in the East, influenced by Macrianus, he wrote to the senate, ordering the severest PERSECUTIONS. 267 measures to be adopted against them. The persecution which ensued was terminated by the captivity of the emperor in the year 260 ; and Gallienus wrote circulars to the bishops, authorizing them to resume the public exercise of their of- fices, and assuring them of his protection. Among the martyrs in the time of Valerian, the most illus- trious was St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage. This able, zealous, and eloquent prelate had prudently concealed himself during the persecution of Decius. When Valerian's first edict was issued, the proconsul summoned him before him, and informed him that the emperor required all who had abandoned the religion of the state to return to it.* Cyprian replied that he was a Christian, and a bishop, a worshipper of the true and only God. A sentence of banish- ment was then pronounced against him, and he was sent to Curubis, a city on the sea-coast, about forty miles from Carthage. On the arrival, however, of a new proconsul, he was allowed to return to Carthage, and reside in his gardens near the city. He had not been there long when (258) the proconsul received positive orders to proceed capitally against the Christian teachers. An officer was therefore sent with some soldiers to arrest Cyprian and bring him before the tri- bunal. As his cause could not be heard that day, the officer took him to his own house for the night, where he treated him with much attention, and allowed his friends free access to him. The Christians kept watch all through the night, in the street before the house. In the morning, the bishop was conducted before the proconsul's tribunal. Having answered to his name, he was called on to obey the emperor's mandate, and offer sacrifice. He replied, " I do not sacrifice." The proconsul urged him, but he was firm ; and that magistrate, having consulted with his council, read from a tablet his sen- tence in the following words : " That Thascius Cyprianus should be -immediately beheaded, as the enemy of the gods of Rome, and as the chief and ringleader of a criminal as- sociation, which he had seduced into an impious resistance against the laws of the most holy emperors. Valerian and Gal- lienus." The bishop calmly responded, " God be praised ! " the Christians, who were present in great numbers, cried out, " Let us too be beheaded with him." Cyprian was then led away to the plain before the city ; the presbyters and dea- cons accompanied him, and aided him in his preparations for * The prelate had been a convert. 26S THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. doath; he took off his upper garment, and, directing them to give the executioner five-and-tuenty pieces of gold, laid his hands on his face, and bent his head, which was struck off at one blow. In the night his body was conveyed, amidst a multitude of lights, to the burial-place of the Christians, and there deposited, the government giving no opposition.* After the reign of Valerian, the church had rest for nearly half a century, when its last and greatest persecution broke out. We will relate that event in its proper place. On reviewing the history of the church for the first three centuries, various subjects of reflection present themselves. We may, for example, observe, as we have already done, that the sufferings of the Christians have been greatly exaggerated by the frauds and fictions of succeeding ages; that ihe per- secutions on the part of the Roman government were politi- cal rather than religious, as they occurred in the reigns of the best emperors, who were evidently prompted by the desire of restoring the ancient institutions to which the Roman great- ness was ascribed; that, finally, the greatest sufferings of the Christians were caused bv the fanatic spirit of the populace, especially in the cities of Asia, and at the instigation of the Jews; and were sometimes brought on bv their own impru- dence. It may further be observed, that the charge made against the heathen priesthood of exciting the fanaticism of the people out of regard to their own gains, does not seem to be well founded. They did not, in fact, except in Asia Mi- nor, form a separate caste or order ; and they therefore had not the corporate spirit which would inspire them with jeal- ousy and fears. Finallv, we would observe that the popular saying, " The blood of the martyrs is the .seed of the church," should be received with groat limitations. That many were led to view Christianity with a favorable eye when they saw the constancy with which even women and children met tor- ture and death, is not to be denied ; the same effects were observed in England in the time of dueen Mary Tudor. But false religion, heresy, even atheism itself, have had their martyrs; and the progress of Christianity should be ascribed to its true causes, namely, its purity, and the other causes al- ready enumerated. It is a melancholy reflection, that, giving the greatest ex- * There is a very circumstantial account of the martyrdom of Cyp rian, by tiie deacon Pontius, who was in attendance on him ; the pro consular acts also remain, and the two accounts harmonize. PERSECUTIONS. * 269 tent consistent with truth and probability to the number of Chri>tians immolated by the policy or the intolerance of hea- then Rome, it still fell infinitely short of that of the victims sacrificed to the bigotry of Papal Rome. When we think of the crusade against the Albigenses, of the 50,000 or 100,000 Protestants destroyed in the Netherlands, the St. Bartholo- mew massacre in France, the 100,000 persons burnt by the Inquisition, and the other dreadful deeds of the church of Rome, the persecutions of Aurelius, of Decius, and even of Diocletian, shrink into absolute insignificance; and we are forced to acknowledge that the perversion of true religion can outgo any false religion in barbarity. At the same time we must protest against the acts of Popery being laid to the charge of genuine Christianity. Tiie evils of persecution were only transient; but those in- flicted by heresy and false doctrine were deep and perma- nent, and their ill effects are felt even at the present day. The pride of the human intellect, and the desire to discover those secrets which are not to be known to man, gave origin to most of those opinions which we find recorded as monstrous heresies by the Fathers of the Church. These may be all comprehended under the term Gnosis, (I'l'Giuig, kiioioledgc,) the word used to designate the false philosophy which then prevailed, and which had been derived from the sultry re- gions of India and Persia. To this is to be added the New Platonism of the Greeks, which, however, had borrowed large- ly of the Oriental philosophy, and the Judaism or corrupted religion of the people of Israel. From these various sources flowed all the corruptions of the pure aiid simple religion of the gospel ; and so early did their operation commence, that it may be said that the stream had hardly burst from the sacred mount when it was defiled with mundane impurities. It is not our intention to treat of all the heresies enumera- ted by the Fathers. We shall only touch upon the principal ones, commencing with those which originated in Judaism.* From the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul, we learn that the Jewish converts in general, from devotion to their law, whose precepts they regarded as of everlasting obligation, and from their ignorance of the true nature and spirit of Christianity, held that the observance of the cere- * In th'* remainder of this chapter, our immediate authority has been the learn d, candid, and judicious Mosheim. The references to Ire- na3us and ather writers will be fj'md in his works. 23* 270 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. monial law was necessary for salvation. Against this eriv>ne- ous notion tlie apostle Paul exerted himself with the utmost vigor ; and he succeeded in checking its progress among the Gentile converts. It still, however, continued to prevail among the Christians of Judsa; and after the destruction of Jerusalem, in the reign of Hadrian, tliose who persisted in maintaining it withdraw to Peraja, or the region beyond the Jordan, and formed there a church of their own. They soon, however, split into two sects, named Nazarenes and Ebion- ites;* each of which had its peculiar gospel, differing from those which have been received by the church in general. The former, who held that the Mosaic law was binding only on Jews, were not regarded as heretics; but the latter, deny- ing the miraculous conception of Christ, and asserting that the Mosaic law, with all the additions made to it by the tra- ditions of the Pharisees, was binding on every one, were nat- urally phiced luider that denomination. Neither attained to any importance ; and after no very long time their names alone remained to testify their former existence. On looking through the ancient religions of Europe, from the Frozen Ocean to the Mediterranean, one is struck with the absence of all j)urely malignant beings: in those of Asia, on the contrary, we usually encounter one or more deities whose delight is in the production of evil, or whose office is destruction. In the Mosaic religion, the evil power is justly represented as the mere servant of the supreme God; but in some of the uninspired creeds, he is exalted into the rival and enemy of the great Author of good. This system received its fullest development in the ancient religion of Persia, where, beside the origrinal cause of all, there was a hierarchy of good spirits ruled over by a prince nanied Ormuzd, who were engaged in ceaseless conflict with Ahriman, the prince of darkness, and his subordinate spirits. ^ The Apocryphal books of the Jews show that during the Captivity they had im- bibed many ideas from the religion of their conquerors; and at the time when Christianity was first promulgated, the Ori- • That is, The Poor, as the term signifies in Hebrew. The best- founded opinion as to its origin is, that it was adopted by themselves on account of their humility or poverty. f [It should, however, be added, that both Ormuzd and Ahriman were subordinate to the supreme first cause, according to this system, and that it was a fundamental article that, in the end, Ahriman was to be overcome bv Ormuzd. — J. T. S.] GNOSTICISM. 271 ental philosophy, or Gnosis, as this system is denominated, was widely spread over western Asia. The doctrine of the two principles evidently arose from the wish to explain the origin of evil. Nature and reason lead man to regard the Supreme Being as purely good. That evil could not proceed frozTi him was manifest; whence, then, the ills of nature and the vice and pains of man? Matter which composed the parts of the world and the bodies of man was an apparent cause; but matter, sluggish and inert, could hardly be supposed to have organized itself, and produced the beauty, order, and harmony, so conspicuous in the material world ; and if that task was assigned to the Deity, he became, by necessary inference, the author of all the evil that thence resulted. There must therefore have been some intelligent being the author of evil. On the subject of the nature of this being there was much difference of opinion. Some regarded him as equa' to and coeternal with the good Deity; others held him to be generated of matter; others, again, maintained that he wa-i the offspring of the Deity, who, from pride and envy, had rebelled against the author of his being, and erected a separate state for himself. Many viewed the creator of the world as one of the spirits generated by the Deity, who was moved to his work by a sudden impulse, and acted with the approbation of the Deity, from whom pride afterwards caused him to fall off, and to seduce men to disobedience. Others thought he had a natural tendency lo evil; others, that, like the wo/ld and man, his work, he was composed of both good and evil. All agree'd in the belief of an eternal warfare be- tween the good and evil principles. The professors of this philosophy gave to the good being the fppellation of Depth, ( A'v^oc,) on account of his unfathom- able nature; they named his abode the Fulness, (/JArjouH/u,) a v.-ist expanse resplendent with everlasting light. Here he abode for ages in solitude and silence, till at length, moved by .'jome secret impulse, he begat of himself two intelligences, of/'i of either sex. These gave being to others, who becom- vig progenitors in their turn, the region of light was gradual- .'( peopled with a numerous family of blessed spirits; but the /"arther their remove, in the order of birth, from the original •jjarent, the less was their degree of goodness, knowledge, and power. To the higher class of these spirits was given the name of ^Eons, ( /((Jj*'fc,) or eternal beings. Matter lay, rude and undigested, far beyond the realms of light. It was agitated by turbulent, irregular, mtestinal mo- 272 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. tions, and contained in it the seeds of moral and natural evil. In this condition it was found by the JEon, who was to give it form. This being, named the Demiurge {Jrjuiovayo, j or Worker, having fashioned the world, fdled it with men and other animals, giving them particles of the divine essence to animate their material bodies. He then threw off his allegi- aiice to the author of his being, assumed the government of the world, dividing it into districts, of whicli he assigned the government to the inferior spirits who had assisted him in the work of creation. The Deity, however, did not aban- don the world altogether. Moved with compassion for the divine portion of man which was confined in the prison of the flesh, and liable to be involved in ignorance and tainted with vice, he from time to time sent fortli teachers, endowed witli wisdoin and filled with celestial light, to instruct man- kind in truth and virtue; but the Demiurge and his associater persecuted and slew the divine messengers, and opposed the truth by superstition and sensual pleasures. Their efforts were but too successful ; a small portion only of mankind continued in the worship of the true God and the |)ractice of virtue; all the rest were sunk in idolatry and sensuality. The former, when freed from their bodies by death, were admitted at once into the realms of supernal light; the latter were forced to migrate into various bodies ; but the greater part, if not all of them, een little more than the peculiar notions of individ- ual Christians. This visionary (for sucli he appears to have been) conceived that the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete promised to the apostles, had descended on himself, for the purpose of empowering him to foretell future events, and establishing a more rigorous system of morals than that founded on the precepts of Christ and his apostles. He drew over numbers to his opinions, among whom were two wealthy women named Priscilla and Maximilla, from the former of whom the sect received one of its appellations, th;it of Priscillianists. His disciples, as well as himself, pretended to the gift of proph- ecy, and the sect spread rapidly through the empire. The bishops of Asia excommunicated Montanus and his followers, and their example was followed by the prelates in other parts; but the sect continued to exist in a sej)arale state. The principal features in the doctrine of Montanus were the injunction of a greater frequency, and greater rigor, in fasting, than had as yet prevailed in the church ; * the for- bidding of second marriages; the absolute and irrevocable excommunication of adulterers, as well as of murderers and idolaters; the requiring virgins, as well as widows and wives, (to whom the usage had hitherto been confined,) to wear veils; the forbidding Christians, in time of persecution, to seek their safety in flight, or purchase it from the heathen • The only fest hitherto observed in the church was tliat of Passion- week. THE PASCHAL FEAST. *279 magistrates. Morrtanus, also, as may be inferred from the writings of his follower Tertullian, prohibited all kinds of costly attire, and ornaments of the person, and discouraged the cultivation of letters and philosophy. In all these opin- ions, as we have said, he did little more than enforce prin- ciples which had long been held by the more rigorous members of the church ; but while these had maintained \ them in a spirit of meekness and charity, he arrogantly im- I posed them as the dictates of the Holy Spirit, whom, con- \ sequently, those who refused to submit to these trifling and ; irrational precepts, would incur the guilt of resisting. This, 1 combined with his absurd and dangerous prophecies, fully, ; we think, justified the church in refusing to hold communion \ with him. I Another source of heresy, in this period, was the nature ; of Christ. Praxeas, an opponent of Mohtanus, denied all | distinction between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; \ and affirmed that it was the Father, the sole God, that took \ a human body in the person of Christ. Hence his follow- 1 ers were named Monarchians and Patripassians. On the \ other hand, Theodotus and Artemon denied the divinity of \ Christ, and maintained that his superior excellence was ) solely owing to his body being divinely begotten. I The dispute of greatest magnitude in the church, during s this period, was that respecting the Paschal feast, or day . of the institution of the Lord's Supper. This the Asiatic \ Christians kept on the fourteenth day of the first Jewish \ month, the day of the Passover, alleging the authority of the apostles Philip and John. But as this interrupted the great | fast of Passion-week observed by the church, all the other I Christians deferred it till the eve of the day of the resurrec- ] tion, resting on the authority of the apostles Peter and Paul, As the day of the Passover was variable, depending on the I moon, (the Jewish months being lunar,) there was this fur- ther inconvenience, that the third day from it, that of the j resurrection, did not always fall on the first day of the week, * the day fixed by the church for its observance. Various I attempts having therefore been made, to no purpose, to get j lid of this anomaly, toward the close of the second centu- ^ ry, Victor, bishop of Rome, supported by several provincial \ councils, wrote in very dictatorial terms to the churches of ' Asia, requiring them to conform to the priactice of the other churches; and, when they returned a spirited refusal, he was proceeding to excommunicate them, when iTenaeus, bishop i i 280 THE CHKISTIAN CHURCH. of Gaut, interposed, and a compromise was effected. The Asiatics, however, retained their peculiar usage till the tiine of the council of Nicaia. We will now proceed to notice the government and doc- trines of the clmrch during the second and third centuries. Each clmrch, /. e. congregation, with its bishop and pres- byters, was independent, forming a little republic, presided over by magistrates chosen by the people, and each meas- ure of moment was decided by the popular voice. These churches were at first confined to the cities and towns ; but, gradually, as the faith was spread among the country people, churches were formed in the villages, over which were set presbyters, sent by the church in the adjacent city or large town, who exercised nearly all the functions of the bishop, and were therefore named Chorepiscopi, i. e. rural bishops. These daughter-churches were, however, like all others, independent; but they testified a filial reverence for the church which had founded them, and whose authority they in some sort recognized. By degrees, it became the practice for the churches of a province to form themselves into ati association, and to hold conventions for the discus- sion of matters of common interest, at which the churches were represented by their bishops. This practice is said to nave originated in Greece ; and it is easy to recognize the resemblance between these Synods, {2:uioi)ffice was bestowed on the bishop of tlie chief city of th« * See History of Greece, pp. 24 and 440. 1 1 GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH. 281 province, which city was naturally selected as the most ap- propriate place for holding the council. Hence arose the | I title and dignity of Metropolitan ; and further, as councils \ became more extensive, and began to include the prelates of i } more provinces than one, it was deemed expedient to have a | \ chief ibr each division of the earth included in the Roman j ' empire ; and a tacit superiority was therefore conceded to the bishops of Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria, with prece- dence to the first, on account of the greater dignity of the city in which he resided. These three ecclesiastical poten- tates were afterwards named Patriarchs. In this manner, from the smallest beginnings, arose the Hierarchy of the church, which, in course of time, attained to such an as- 1 1 tounding eminence. j I The high authority of the Hebrew Scriptures enabled the | f ministers of the church to enlarge their pretensions to an- \. i thority. They conceived or represented themselves to have , | succeeded to all the rights of the Jewish priesthood. The I I bishop accordingly claimed the rights and authority of the t | high-priest ; the presbyters those of the ordinary priests I j the deacons those of the Levites. Hence followed the de^ j | mand of tithes and first-fruits, which there is abundant rea- 1 1 son to suppose was made even before the third century 1 1 It is not unlikely that it was also these Jewish notions that 1 1 gave origin to the distinction of clergy and laity,* which 1 1 very early prevailed in the church. f fj In the third century we find among the clergy a variety 1 1 of inferior officers, such as Sub-deacons, Acolyths, (^attend- | i ants,) Ostiaries, (floor-keepers,) Readers, and Exorcists. As | | these performed duties which had hitherto been discharged f I by the deacons, we see nothing improbable in the supposition i | that they were indebted for their origin to the pride of these i | last-named ministers, who now confined themselves to the ii more honorable functions of their office, devolving the more || menial ones on an inferior class of persons. Perhaps, how- | ^ ever, the more simple solution will be found in the principle I of the division of labor, which the great increase of the | church may now have called into operation. I Such, then, was the appearance presented by the Chris- f tian church at the close of the third century. The distinc- I tion was drawn clear and broad between the clergy and the ] laity; the former forming an order variously subdivided, | * KktiQixol, from xkiiooc, lot or office; XuCxol, from Xaog, people. 24* " J J 282 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. and claiming peculiar privileges. Were we to adopt the assertions of Cyprian, Eusebius, and other Christian writers, who find the causes of all the persecutions in the vices of the clergy, we should view them as utterly depraved ; but these writers indulged too much in rhetorical exaggeration to deserve implicit credit ; and though it must be conce- ded, tl it pride, ambition, avarice, luxury, and other vices, defiled the purity of the Christian priesthood, the truth is probaby contained in the assertion of Origen, that, though such was undoubtedly the case, the preeminence, in point of virtue, in the Christian ministers, as compared with the heathen magistrates and other persons in office, was incon- testable. They were, in fact, men, and, as such, of different degrees of moral worth; if some were eminently bad, others were as eminently good, :ind the great majority indifferent. FiniiUy, to repeat an observation already made, the errors or vices of its professors cannot be laid to the charge of the Christian religion. The first Christians, mostly selected from the humbler walks of life, bad been ignorant or careless of literature and phi- losophy ; but, in tl)e course of time, philosophers were num- bered among the converts to Christianity, and their attempts at making it liarmonize with their previous notions, were a principal cause of its corruption. We have already shown this in the case of the Gnostics; and we shalTnow briefly exhibit the iiifluciice of the philosophy of Greece on the doctrines of the church. The first philosopher who appears to have joined the Christian society, Wiis Justin, named the Martyr. He was a Platonist; and such also were most of the other Christian philosophers, for the tenets of Plato were those which ap- peared most akin to the doctrines of the gospel. But it was the Eclectic Platonism of Alexandria that was chiefly fol- lowed by the Christians, who had a seminary in that city, named the Cateclietic School, which was successively pre- sided over by Panttenus, Athenagoras, and Clement, and. in which the attempt was made to bring religion and philosophy into unison. A contest prevailed between the followers of this system .-Mid ihe advocates for gospel simplicity ; but the victory was on the side of the former, and the formation, toward the end of the second century, of the sect of the , New Platonists, by the celebrated Ammonins Saocas, as- } sured their triumph and the corruption of the gospel. The learned among the Christians now began, like the Gnostics^ CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHr. 283 to maintain, that in the Scriptures there was, beside the lite- ral sense, a latent and higher one; for thus only could their nairatives and precepts be made to accord with the new philosophic ideas. In this they followed the example of the Jewish Platcnist, Philo, who had already employed this sys- tem to some extent ; and any one who peruses his writings, or those of Justin, Clement of Alexandria, and the other early Christian philosophers, will easily perceive how widely it departs from all the principles of sane interpretation. As, however, many saw the danger of making such high matters known to the simple and ignorant, the plan of the old Egyp- tian priesthood was adopted, and the principles of their re- ligion were taught to the people with all plainness and sim- plicity, while the philosophic interpretation was reserved for the more advanced in faith, and even to them only commu- nicated orally. Hence arose what has been termed the Se- cret Discipline, {Disciplina Arcani ;) that is, in effect, mystic theology. Hence, too, followed a similar distinction in mor- als ; there was one rule for the multitude, another for the aspirants to higher sanctity and to perfection. These last were, on the Gnostic principles already explained, to seek retirement and mortify the flesh, avoiding marriage and all indulgence of the senses; while the former were left to live like other men, to engage in the affairs of the world, and become the fathers and mothers of families. This was the origin of hermits, monks, and coenobites, of whom we shall hereafter treat more largely. A twofold distinction in the discipline and ceremoij,ies of the church speedily followed. These philosophizing Chris- tians, reflecting on the mysteries of the heathen religions, thought that it would be becoming to have something sim- ilar in the church. The laity was therefore divided into the Profane and the Initiated or Faithful ; the former, who had either not been yet baptized, (such being named Catechu- mens or learners,*) or those who for some oflence had been expelled from the communion of the Faithful, were only adt mitted to a portion of the divine service; while the latter enjoyed all the rights and privileges of the full Christian, voting in the assemblies, being present at all parts of the service, and partaking of the Agapas or Love-feasts, and of the Lord's Supper. A holy silence toward the profane respecting these mysteries was required from them. The * Ot xoiTrixorutroty the being, instructed. 284 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. terms belonging to the heathen mysteries were freely and fondly employed, and baptism and the Eucharist were re- garded as of the most awful import, and far removed from tlieir original simplicity. In the former, which was publicly administered every year, at Easter and Whitsuntide, by the bishop or presbyters, the persons to be baptized, after they had repeated the creed and confessed, and renounced their sins, were immersed in water, signed with the cross, anoint- ed, and by prayer and imposition of hands dedicated to God. They then, in token of the new birth, received iiidk and honey, and the ceremony thus concluded. The Lord's Sup- per was administered every Sunday. . A portion of the bread which formed a part of the ordinary oblations of the faithful, was separated, and was consecrated by the prayers of the bishop; and it then was divided and distributed, as also was the wine when it had been previously mixed with water.* A portion of both the elements was sent to those who were sick or absent. This rite was regarded as absolutely neces- sary to salvation, and there appears reason to believe that even in the second century the superstition respecting it was such as to cause it to be administered to infants. It is manifest, that in form, in discipline, and in doctrine, the church was no longer what it had been in the days of the apostles. Some of the changes were the necessary conse- quence of the progress of time and the alteration of circum- stances ; but others, and by far the greater in number, and most pernicious in effi'ct, had been introduced in imitation of the Jewish hierarchy, of the mysteries of the heathen re- ligion, and its rites and ceremonies, or from the desire to make Christianity correspond with the philosophy of the East, or with that of Plato. Though the effect was inju- rious, the motives of the authors of the changes were, in general, pure, and they acted more from ignorance than design. During this period, the church began to have a literature of its own. The apostolic Fathers, (as those are named who had been contemporaneous with any of the apostles,) Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Hermas, Ignatius, and Poly- carp, have left some writings, all, with the exception of a triHiMg allegory, the Shepherd of Hermas, in the epistolary form. But some are .spurious, and others have suffered from ' Blood and water having flowed from the side of Jesus when ho was pierced with the spear. FATHERS OF THJE CHURCH. 2S5 interpolation ; and they are of little value, except as witnesses of the doctrine of the church in their time. The.r immense inferiorit}' to those of St. Paul is very striking. In the sec- ond century flourished Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, and Theophilus, who wrote Apologies or defences of the Chris- tian religion, beside treatises on various subjects. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, in Gaul, has left a work, in five books, against heresies, whence we chiefly derive our knowledge of them. Clement of Alexandria, a man of great learning, but too eager to find the heathen philosophy in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, was the author of numerous works; three of which, namely, the Paedagogue, the Exhortation, and the Stromata, or Patchwork, have come down to our times. The only Latin writer remaining from this century is Ter- tullian, bishop of Carthage, a man of vigorous capjicity, but feeble in judgment, and morose and melancholy in temper. His style possesses strength, but wants elegance ; and his arguments are rather rhetorical, than correct and con- vincing. The principal Greek writers of the third century were Julius Africanus, Dionysius the Great, bishop of Alexandria, Gregory, bishop of New Caesarea, (named Thaumaturgus, i. e. Wonder-worker, from the miracles which he was said to have wrought,) Methodius, and Hippolytus; but their works, which were not of a high order, have mostly perished. Far superior to all of this or the preceding age was Origen, a presbyter of Alexandria, a man of most extensive learning, of profound piety, and of high talent; but in whom, as in most of the Fathers, imagination largely preponderated over judgment. The Latin writers of thus century were Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, and the two apologists, Arnobius and Minu- cius Felix. Cyprian was pious and eloquent ; but his style is too rhetorical, and his temper was too haughty and ovep bearing. HISTORY THE ROMAN EMPIRE. PART III. THE CHRISTIAN EMPERORS. CHAPTER I.* DIOCLETIAN AND MAXIMIAN. * A. u. 10:38— 1058. a.d. 285— 4J05. BTATE OF THE EMPIRE. CI^ARACTER OF DIOCLETIAN. IM- PERIAL POWER DIVIDED. THE BAGAUDS. CARAUSIUS. REBELLION IN EIJYPT. PERSIAN WAR. TRIUMPH OF THE EMPERORS. — -THEIR RESIGNATION. PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH. The Roman empire hnd now lasted for three centuries. During that period, the forms of the republic under which the policy of Augustus had concealed the despotism of the imperial rule, had been silently laid aside, and the people were become accustomed to the display of arbitrary power, uplield by the arms of the soldiery. Occasionally, a faint gleam of the ancient Roman spirit broke forth, as in the time of the emperor Tacitus ; but the general aspect pre- sented by the inhabitants of the Eternal City, as it now began to be called, was that of a sensual, enervated nobility, and a beggarly, turbulent populace. The provinces, enjoy- * Authorities : The Epitomators, the Panegyrists, and Lactantius. A. D. 285.] CHARACTER OF DIOCLETIAN. 287 ing the rights of whieh Rome had once been so jealous, exhibited more of virtue and of vigor; and nearly all the emperors, for the two last centuries, had been provincials by origin. While the civil condition of the empire was thus undergoing inevitable change, its ancient systems of religion were last receding before that of the gospel, and an expe- rienced eye might easily discern that the final triumph of the latter was certain. We are now to witness that triumph, to behold, at the same time, the Roman emperors assuming the pomp and parade of the monarchs of the East, the irruptions of the barbarians becoming every day more formidable, and the empire of the West finally sinking beneath their attacks. Diocletian, into whose hands the empire had now fallen, was another of those able IHyrian peasants whom their own talents and m«rits had raised to the height of imperial pow-i^: cr. He is said to have been the freedman, or the son of a freedman, of a Roman senator named Anulinus. The place of his birth was a small town in Dalraatia.* He entered the army, and gradually rose to the post of commander of the body-guards, which he held when the votes of his com- panions in arms invested him with the purple. Good sense and prudence were the distinguishing features in the character of the new emperor. His courage was calm and collected, rather than impetuous ; and he never employed force where policy could avail. In this, as in some other points, he re- sembled Augustus ; and the personal courage of both has accordingly been called into question by malignant or super- ficial observers. The empire which Augustus had founded Diocletian remodelled, and his name stands at the head of a new order of things. Diocletian used his victory over Carinus with a modera- tion which had never hitherto been equalled. None of the adherents of his adversary suffered in life, fortune, or honor. Though unversed in letters, and ignorant of the philosophy of the schools, he appreciated the mild philosophy of M. Au- relius, and declared his intention of making him his model in the art of government. In imitation of that emperor, or, more probably, from the suggestion of his own sound judg- ment, he resolved to give himself a partner in the empire... The extensive frontiers of the Roman dominion were now, J * Its name is supposed to have been Doclia, from a tribe of Illyrians, and his own name was probably Docles, which he Hellenized to Dio- des, and then Latinized to Diocletianus. See Gibbon, eh. xiii. The Gentile name of his patron was apparently Valerius. 283 DIOCLETIAN AND MAXIMIAN. [a. D. 5:86-287 SO constantly and so vigorously assailed by the Persians and Germans, that no single person could attend to their defence, and experience had shown that generals intrusted with the command of large armies, might become the rivals of their sovereigns. The person whom Diocletian fixed on as his colleague was his ancient mate in arms, Maximianus, who, born a peasant in the district of Sirmium, had, like himself, risen solely by merit. A second Marius, Maxiinian was rude, brutal, and ferocious, a brave soldier, an able officer, but neither a general nor a statesman of any account. For the superior wisdom and knowledge of Diocletian, he had the utmost respect, and he always stood in awe of hio genius. It is remarkable that Diocletian was able to exer- cise as much influence over the rude Maximian, as Aurelius had possessed over the luxurious Verus — a proof, perhaps, of his greater force of mind. Diocletian first conferred on his friend the dignity of a Caesar, and then raised him to the more elevated rank of an Augustus, (Apr. 1,286.) On this occasion, the emperors assumed, the one the surname of Jovius, the other that of Herculius, in allusion to their different characters, and the parts they were to bear in the state. Diocletian retained for himself the administration of the provinces of the East, and fixed on Nicomedia as his place of residence ; to Max- imian he assigned those of the West, and Milan became his imperial abode. In the following year, (287,) Maximian found employmen'. for his arms in suppressing an insurrection of the peasantry of Gaul, who, under the name of Bagauds, a term of dubious origin,* were spreading devastation through the country. It is remarkable that, at ail periods of her history, France has presented the spectacle of a rural population reduced to the extreme of misery by the oppression of an aristocracy, or of the government. Predial servitude to a tyrannic nobility was the condition iu which the Romans found the Gallic peasantry ; under their own dominion, the same system was continued, and the evil was acgravated by the weight of taxation, and the insolence of a haughty soldiery. The Franks and other German conquerors succeeded to this power, and transmitted it to the feudal lords of the middle ages, with whose descendants it continued to the close of the " It is derived by some from the Celtic Bagad., a tumultuous as sembly. A. D. 2S9.] THE BAGAUDS. 289 eighteenth century; and, in consequence of the extreme di- vision of landed property which has since taken place, and the high direct taxes imposed on the proprietors, the govern- ment appears likely to become, ere long, the owner of the far greater part of the produce of the soil, and the cultiva- tors to, sink gradually to the condition of the serfs, their ancestors. The j at qurj-ie, or insurrection of the French peasantry, in the fourteenth century, as narrated in the graphic and ani- mated pages of Froissart, will enable us to form a conception of the rising of the Bagauds, in the fourth century. In both cases, the insurgents were unable to make head against the fully-armed troops opposed to them ; in both, the vengeance taken on them was cruel and remorseless. The leaders of the Bagauds, named iElianus and Aman- dus, had assumed the imperial ensigns; their coins may still be seen ; but their ambition was short-lived. A more fortu- nate usurper appeared in Britain. The Franks and other German tribes of the north coast having now begun to ad- dict themselves to piracy, a Roman fleet was stationed at Boulogne, (Bononia,) in order to protect the coasts of Gaul and Britain from their ravages. The command of this fleet was given to Carausius, a native of that country, (i. e. a Me- napian,) a man of very low origin, but skilled in navigation, and of approved courage. It was soon discovered that the pirates used to pass down the channel unobserved or unmo- lested, but that they were apt to be intercepted on their re- turn, and that a considerable part of the booty gained from them never found its way into the imperial treasury. Max- imian, convinced of the guilt of the admiral, gave orders for his death ; but the fleet was devoted to Carausius, and he passed with it over to Britain, and, having induced the legion and the auxiliaries stationed there to declare for him, he boldly assumed the purple ; and the emperors, after some fruitless attempts to reduce him, were obliged (289) to ac- knowledge his rank and title. It soon appeared that even two emperors would not suflice for the defence of the provinces, and Diocletian resolved to associate two other generals in the imperial power. Under the title of Caesars, they were to rank beneath the emperors, but their power was to be absolute in the parts of the empire assigned them. The persons selected were Galerins Max- imianus, a native of Dacia named Armentarius, from his CONTIN. 25 K K 290 DIOCLiriAN AND MAXIMIAN. [a. D. 296. original employment of a herdsman, and Constantius,* a grand-nephew in the female line of the emperor Claudius. The former was, as might be expected, rude aiid martial; the latter, though a soldier from his youth, was polisiied in maimers, and mild and. amiable in temper. Perliaps it was in imitation of the policy of Augustus, that Diocletian re- quired the Cajsars to divorce their wives and marry the daughters of himself and his colleague. He bestowed the hand of his own daughter Valeria on Galerius, and Theo- dora, the stepdaughter of Maximian, became the wife of Constantius. For himself Diocletian reserved Thrace, Egypt, and the Asiatic provinces, while his Cajsar Galerius governed tlioso on the Danube ; Maximian held Italy and Africa ; his Ccesar Constantius had charge of Spain, Gaul, and Britain. The power of Carausius, the ruler of this last-named island, was now at its height; by repressing the incursions of the Caledonians and the invasions of the Germans, he pre- served internal tranquillity ; his fleets rode triumphant on the ocean, and he still retained Boulogne and its district on the continent. But the loss of a rich province was galling to the pride and the dignity of the empire, and Constantius undertook the task of reducing the British ruler, (29'2.) By running a mole across the harlior of Boulogne, he obliged that town and a great part of the usurper's fleet to surrender. While he was preparing a fleet for the invasion of the island, he received intelligence of the death of Carausius, who was assassinated (294) by Allectus, his principal minister. The murderer assumed the vacant power and dignity, and more than two years elapsed before Constantius had assembled a fleet and army sufficient to attempt the recovery of the island. At length, (296,) he prepared to invade it in three separate places. The first division, under the praetorian prefect As- clepiodotus, put to sea on a stormy day, and by the favor of a fog having escaped the fleet of Allectus, which lay off the Isle of Wight, effected a landing in the West. As soon as his troops had debarked, the prefect set fire to his sliip- pin'i;. Allectus, who had taken his station with a large army fet London, to await the arrival of Constantius, hastened to ns of the army of Illyricurn, which were named Jovians and Herculians, from the titles of the emperors. The stay of Diocletian, in this his first and last visit to the capital of the empire, did not exceed two months. The freedom and familiarity of tiie populace was harsh and un- pleasant to his ear, accustomed to the submissive adulation of Greeks and Orientals; motives of policy may also have concurred to give him a distaste for Rome. He quitted that capital, therefore, in the midst of the winter, and proceeded through Illyticura to the East. The fatigue of the journey and tlie severity of the weather brought on a lingeritig ill- ness. He was obliged to travel by short stages, and mostly in a close litter, and he did not reach Nicomedia till toward the end of the summer, (304.) His illness had then become serious; and it was not till tlie March of the following year (305) that he was able to appear in public. During his long confinement, he had reflected on the incompatibility of the cares of empire with the attention and indulgence which his advanced age and declining health demanded; and he adopted the resolution of resigning his imj)erial power, and retiring into private life. He communicated his intention to Maximian ; and, however adverse that restless emperor might be to parting with his power, he had been too long in the habit of submitting implicitly to the dictates of his wiser colleague to refuse compliance. On the same day, (May 1,) as had been previously arranged, both the emperors, the one at Nicomedia, the. other at Milan, performed the ceremony of their abdication, and the Ca3sars Galerius and Constantius became emperors in their stead.* Diocletian retired to his native province of Dalinatia, wliere, in the neighborhood of the city of S;dona, he built a magnificent palace, and em- ployed his hours in gardening and planting.! Maximian fixed his abode at a villa in Lucania, but we are not informed how he passed his days. The abdication of Diocletian is the earliest instance which * If we may crodil the author of the work De Mortibus Pcrscciuo- rum, Galerius forced Diocletian to resign. t DiocWlian survived liis abdication about eight years. He died in 313. Wlien urged by the instances of Maximian and Galerius to re- sume his power, Jie replied, " I wish you could see the potherbs plant- ed by mj- own jiands at Salona, and you would surely never '.hink that power should be resumed." k. D. 305.] RESIGNATION OF EMPERORS. 295 history records of the voluntary relinquishment of supreme power. It is the only one to be found in the ancient world ; but examples, though rare, occur in modern times. That of the emperor Charles V. will present itself to the minds of most readers ; but that monarch's abdication was the result of disappointed ambition, and his leisure was less nobly oc- cupied than that of the Roman emperor. The Turkish sultan Moorad II. twice quitted his throne for the enjoy- ment of irivate life; but he was each time recalled to it by the dangers of the state. The Spanish king Philip V. also abandoned the pomp of royalty for the practice of devotion ; but the death of his son and successor obliged him to re- sume the sceptre. Devotion and other causes had, in ear- lier times, produced resignations among the princes of the states founded on the ruins of the Roman empire. It is rather remarkable that a prince like Diocletian, born in the humbler walks of life, and trained up in arms, should have been the introducer of Oriental usages into the palace of the Roman emperors. But he seems to have been actua- ted by policy rather than pride or vanity ; he conceived that investing the emperor with the splendor of apparel, and rendering him difficult of access, would make him more venerable in the eyes of the multitude, and induce a more absolute submission to his will. He and his colleague, therefore, assumed the diadem, which ornament distin- guished them from the C.-esars; the purple robes of the em- perors were of silk and gold, and their shoes were adorned with precious stones. Numerous officers attended at the palace, and the care of the interior apartments was com- mitted to eunuchs. When any one appeared before the emperor, he was required to fall prostrate and worship liim after the fashion of the East. This display of imperial pomp, and the maintenance of four separate courts, caused an enormous increase of taxation, and consequent oppression of the people. We shall presently explain the whole of the altered imperial system more at length. Toward the end of the reign of Diocletian and Maximian, the last and greatest persecution of the Christian church commenced. Its origin was as follows : Christianity, as has been already observed, was now most widely spread, and Christians were to be found in all the ranks and contUions of society. Diocletian, though he himself adhered to the ancient faith, was tolerant, if not ' ? 296 DIOCLETIAN, MAXIMIAN. [a. D. 302 even favorable to the new religion, which his wife and daughter are said to have secretly embraced, and which was openly professed by the imperial eunuchs Liicianus, Doro- theas, Gorgonius, and Andreas, and by most of the principal officers of the palace. Tlie Christian bishops were treated with respect, and new and more stately churches were rising in all the cities of the empire. But amid this seem- ing prosperity, a close observer might discern the distant approach of a tempest. Maximian and Galcrius were both inveterately hostile to the Christian faith, while the zeal and jealousy of the polytheists were alarmed at its rapid progress They clunii more closely to the religion of their ancestors I when tliey saw it menaced with destruction, and the new philosophy, which had based itself on the ancient supersti- tion, inspired its professors with hatred for its enemies and op^>onents. The philosophers saw plainly that by reasoning and eloquence alone its sinking cause could not be main- tained, and that its onlv resource was the employment of violent measures. We therefore find that the philosophers were the directors of the subsequent persecution, and the chief suggestors of the means for giving it efficacy. Galerius passed the winter after the conclusion of the Persian war at Nicomedia ; and during that period ho had frequent conferences with Diocletian on the subject of Chris- tianity. He rq)resentcd to the emperor bow utterly incom- patible it was with the ancient institutions of the state, forming, as it did, an empire within the empire, all whose members were reijularlv organized, and ready to act at any time as one man. Diocletian confessed that he saw the danger, and agreed to exclude the Christians from offices in the army and the palace; l)ut he expressed his disinclination to shed their blood, as not merely cruel, but impolitic. Ga- lerius, not content, prevailed on him to summon a council of the principal civil and military officers, to take the impor- tant matter into consideration ; and the o^juncil, when it met, seconded the views of the Caesar, into whose hands the reins of power were likely soon to fall. Diocletian, we may suppose, yielded to the arguments that were employed, as a man cf superior mind does when he gives way to his inferi- ors in intellect, foreseeing the consequences, but unable to preverlt them., A system of persecution was therefore pro- jected, and preparations were made for carrying it iatc eflect. i i A. D. 303.] PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH. 297 From a motive probably of superstition, the day of the Terminalia, or festival of Terminus, the god of boundaries, (Feb. 23,) was fixed for that of commencing to set limits to the inroads made on the ancient faith of Rome. At dawn on that day, (303,) the prsetorian prefect, accompanied by 1 I some of the higher officers of the army and the revenue, pro- i j ceeded to the principal church of Nicomedia. The doors |S were broken open, the holy books were taken out and com- < | mitted to the flames, and the sacred edifice was demolished. ; I Next day, (24th,) an edict was published, ordering the j| demolition of all the churches throughout the empire, and ^| forbidding any secret religious assemblies to be held ; the 1 1 bishops and presbyters were commanded to deliver up I j the sacred books to the magistrates, by whom they were to | | be burnt, and all the property of the church was declared to j | be confiscate. Christians were pronounced inc ipable of t \ holding any office, and Christian slaves were excluded from 1 1 the boon of manumission. The judges might deterniine any M action brought against a Christian, but no legal remedy was * I granted to the Christian when the object of injury. The 'i i whole Christian body was thus degraded, robbed of its pub- I | lie property, and put without the pale of the law ; but the 'i | persecution still stopped short of blood. 1 1 This edict was, in the usual manner, exposed to public | j view. But it had scarcely been displayed, when a zealous I | Christian tore it down, uttering invectives against its au- | i thors. His offence was treason ; and he expiated it with his 1 1 life, being burnt at a slow fire. In the course of the fol- id r lowing fortnight, flames burst out twice in the jjalace ; and, 1 1 as it was clear that they were not accidental, they were \\ ascribed to the vengeance of the Christians, by whose wri- 1 ?; ters the guilt is transferred to Galerius, who thus, they say, 1 1 sought to irritate Diocletian against them. Whatever was 1 1 the truth, the effect which Galerius desired was produced on |j | the emperor's mind. The imperial eunuchs were tortured i | and put to death with circumstances of the utmost barbarity. s | Anthemus, the bishop of Nicomedia, was beheaded, and | ' several of his flock perished at the same time. \ I A series of cruel edicts succeeded. By one, the gov- \ I ernors of provinces were ordered to cast all the Christian | f ecclesiastics into prison ; by a second, they were enjoined to I ; employ every kind of severity in order to make them aban- | | don their superstition, and sacrifice to the gods; by a third, 298 DIOCLV.TIAN, 3IAXIMIAN. [a. D. 304 (304,) the magistrates were commanded to force all Chris- tians, without distinction of age or sex, to sacrifice to the gods, and to employ every kind of torture for that purpose. The issuing of this edict was one of the last public acts of Diocletian, as his resignation took place in the course of the year. The efforts of Diocletian and Galerius were seconded by Maximian, who hated the Christians; and the persecution raged in Italy and Africa as in the East; but the mild Con- stantius protected the persons of his Christian subjects, though he found it necessary to consent to the demolition of tlieir churches. The entire duration of the persecution was ten years, (303 — 313;) it was more or less violent in different times and places, and according to the characters and political circumstances of the princes. On the part of the persecutors, every refinement of barbarity was practised ; on that of the persecuted, there was an abundant display of zeal and courage, though in many cases adulterated with fanaticism. At the same time, there were many, even bish- ops and presbyters, who gained the opprobrious title of Tra- ditors, by delivering the sacred Scriptures into the hands of the heathen. From the vague language employed by the ecclesiastical writers, it is difficult to form any clear idea of the number of those who suffered martyrdom in the space of the.se ten years. Gibbon estimates it at two thousand per- sons ; but his prejudices would lead him to put it at the lowest possible amount. Supposing i(, however, to be five, or even ten times .hat numl)er, it would still be far short of that of the victim s in any one of the religious me^sacrea perpetrated oy the church of Rome. A. D. 304-306.] GALERIUS, CONSTANTIUS. 299 CHAPTER IL* GALERIUS, CONSTANTIUS, SEVERUS, MAX- ENTIUS. MAXIMIAN, LICINIUS, MAXIMIN, CONSTANTINE. A. u. 1057—1090. A. D. 304—337. THE EMPERORS AND CjESARS. CONSTANTINE. MAXENTIUS. FATE OF MAXIMIAN. WAR BETWEEN CONSTANTINE AND MAXENTIUS. - — CONSTANTINE AND LICINIUS. CONSTAN- TINE SOLE EMPEROR. CONSTANTINOPLE FOUNDED. HIE- RARCHY OF THE STATE. THE ARMY. THE GREAT OFFI- CERS. CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE. DEATHS OF CRIS- PUS AND FAUSTA. THE IMPERIAL FAMILY. WAR WITH THE GOTHS. DEATH AND CHARACTER OF CONSTANTINE. Galerius and Constantius. A. u. 1058—1059. A. 0. 305—306. The task of appointing Cajsars, in the place of himself and Constantius, was assumed by the haughty Galerius. For his own associate he selected his nephew Daza or Maximin^ and an Illyrian, named Severus, was appointed to the same | dignity under Constantius ; the government of Egypt and Syria was committed to Maximin ; that of Italy and Africa, to Severus. Little more than a year elapsed after the retirement of Diocletian, when events occurred which proved the futility > of his plan for governing the Roman world by emperors^ with subordinate Caesars. The first took place on thf occa- sion of the death of Constantius, who expired at York, on the 25th of July, 306. According to the rule established by Diocletian, Severus should have become the Augustus, and a new Ciesar have been appointed ; but the soldiers of the army of Britain insisted that the eldest son of the de- ceased emperor should succeed to his rank and power. This son was Constantine, afterwards so renowned. His mother, * Authorities: Zosimus, the Epitomalors and Panegyrists, Lactan- iius, Eusebius, and the Ecclesiastical Historians 300 GALERIUSj COiNSTANTlNE, ETC. [a. >. 306 named Helena, was the daughter of an innkeeper; and Con stantius had been obliged to divorce her on the occasion of his elevation to the rank of CcEsar. Constantine, who was then about eighteen yenrs of age, engaged in the service of Diocletian, and distinguished himself in the Egyptian and Persian wars. He rose to liigh rank in tlie army;, his ap- pearance, manners, and qualities were such as were sure to win the favor of the people and the soldiery, and Gale- rius, when emperor, marked him out as the object of his jealousy. Alarnied at the dangers to which he knew him to be exposed, Constantius earnestly besought of Galerius to allow his son to repair to him. After many delays, that em- peror gave a reluctant consent; and Constantine, fearful of treachery, travelled with the utniost speed, and joined his fatlier as he was embarking for Britain. There can be no doubt that the succession was not the mere spontaneous oficr of the soldiery, and that Constantine had employed the usual artifices, and made the usual promises, on this occasion ; for, in fact, his only safety now lay in empire. He, howev- er, affected a decent degree of reluctance; and he wrote to Galerius, excusing himself for what had occurred. Tiie first emotions of the emperor were those of surprise and fury ; but, on calm reflection, he saw the danger of a contest with the hardy legions of the West, and he consented to allow Constantine a share of the imperial power, giving him, how- ever, only the humbler title of Cajsar, while he conferred the vacant dignity of Augustus on Severus. Satisfied with the substance of power, Constantine was careless of titles ; he de- voted himself to the improvement of his dominions, and he discharged the duties of an affectionate brother to his six half-brothers and sisters, whom his father, when dying, had committed to his care. Galerius, Constantine, Maxentius, Licinius* .A. u. I0i>9— 1066. A. D. 306—313. The next event which proved the instability of the new e-rm of government, commenced with an insurrection ax Rome. From the time of the conquest of Macedonia, a Dcriod of nearly five centuries, the people of Rome had been • We only (jiention here the principal emperors. A-D. 307.] GALERIUS, CONSTANTINE, ETC. 301 free from all direct taxes ; but now, in conformity with the new principles of government, Galerius prepared to impose a uniform property and capitation tax on the whole empire ; and, as no exemptions were to be allowed, the officers of the revenue began to make a list of the property and persons of the inhabitants of the capital. At the same time, directions were given for the removal of the prjetorian cohorts from the city, and for the demolition of tlieir camp. The pride of the soldiers, the self-interest of the citizens, caused them to unite in the determination of liberating Italy, and electing a native emperor. They cast theii* eyes on Maxentius, the .son of Maximian, and son-in-law of Galerius, a young man of neither talents nor virtue, who was then residing in a villa near the city. He readily yielded to their desires ; the pre- fect of the city, and a few other officers, were massacred, and Maxentius was invested with the purple. Severus, who was at Milan, prepared to march against the re-bels, who, on their part, invited Maximian to quit his retreat, and give them the advantage of his name and his experience ; and the old emperor, who may have had a greater share in the pre- vious transactions than is commonly supposed, lost no time in repairing to Rome. He there reassumed the purple, and his influence and authority caused numerous defections to take place in the army of Severus, when that prince appeared before the walls of the city. Severus found it, therefore, necessary to retire, and to shut himself up in Ravenna, where, as the works were strong, and his fleet commanded the sea, he might easily have maintained himself till Galerius should come to his relief Deceived, however, by the arti- fices of Maximian, he laid down his dignity, and surrendered himself on the promise of his life being secured. He was at first treated with respect; but when Galerius invaded Italy, the captive emperor was put to death. Constantine, at the head of the Gallic legions, had it evi- dently in his power to confirm or to overthrow the dominion of the new emperors. To win him over, Maximian under- took a journey to Gaul, and, by giving him in marriage his daughter Fausta, and conferring on him the dignity of Au- gustus, he secured his neutrality, if not his active coopera- tion. Galerius soon appeared in Italy, at the head of the iroops of lUyricum and the East, and advanced to Narni, within sixty miles of Rome, whence he' sent two of his prin- cipal officers to try to induce Maxentius to trust to his gen- erosity, rather than to risk the hazard of war. His offers CONTIN. 26 302 GALERIUS, CONSTANTINE, ETC. [a. D. 307-31 1. were spurned at ; and so large a number of his men were gained over by Maximian, that he was obliged to make a rapid retreat, and his troops, on their route, devastated the country in the most merciless manner. Some time after, (^i07,) Gaierius conferred the dignity of Augustus on his early and constant friend Licinius ; and, when the account of this elevation reached Maximin, he caused himself to be saluted emperor by his troops. Gaierius found it necessary to acquiesce in his assumption, and the Roman world thus was ruled by six emperors at the same time. A preeminence was, however, tacitly conceded to Maximian and Gaierius by their respective coomperors. Maximian and his son were too opposite in character to remain long at unity. One or other, it was found, must re- sign the supreme power in Italy ; and, the prjetorian guards having decided in favor of Maxentius, under whom they ex- pected to enjoy more license, the aged emperor was obliged to seek a refuge with his son-in-law in Gaul. By Constan- tine he was received with every mark of respect; and, as the restless temper of the Franks required his own frequent presence on the Lower Rhine, in the periods of his absence, he committed the government of southern Gaul to his father- in-law. The abode of Maximian was at the palace of Aries ; and, when one time (310) a report was spread of the death of Constantine, who was carrying on war beyond the Rhine, the restless old man seized the royal treasures and distributed them among the soldiers, in the hope of being saluted by them sole emperor. As soon as intelligence of his proceed- ings reached Constantine, he made a rapid march from the Rhine to Chalons, on the Saone, embarked his troops on that river, and thence entering the Rhone at Lyons, arrived at Aries before his departure from the Rhine was known. Maxinnan escaped from that city, and took refuge at Mar- seilles : he was pursued thither by Constantine, to whom he was delivered up by the garrison ; and he was either put to death or ordered to terminate his life by his own hano * Gaierius did not long survive Maximian. He died the following year, (311,) of the same odious disease as the great • Vict Epit. il. 5. Eutrop. x. 4. According to ..actantius, (De M. P. 2;t, :i(),) his life waa spared on thia occasion ; but, having after wards conspired against Constantine, and killed a chamberlain in hi< stead, he was secretly strangled. Eurnenius, however, says, (Pane, gyr. ix. iiO,) " sibi iiiiputal quisquis uti noluit beneficio luo [Constan tine] nee ae dignum vita judicavii cum per te liceat ut viveret." K. D. 312.] CIVIL WAR. 303 dictator Sulla. Licinius and Maximin itnmedia ely prepared to deci(]e by arms the possession of his dominions; but they were finnlly induced to accommodate their dispute by treaty, and divide the disputed territories, and the Hellespont and Bosporus became the boundary of their respective domin- ions. A sense of common interest soon united Licinius and Constantine, and a secret alliance was formed between Maxi- min and Maxentius. The contrast between the administration of Constantine and that of Maxentius was of the most striking character. In Gaul and Britain justice was carefully administered, op- pressive taxes were abolished or lightened, the inroads of tlie barbarians were checked. In Italy and Africa the wealthy were plundered or put to death, the virtue of their wives and daughters was exposed to the kist of a brutal tyrant, the soldiers were indulged in every species of license. During six years Rome groaned beneath the tyranny of its emperor, when at length (312) his own folly gave occasion to its de- liverance. Though Maximian had been driven from Italy by his un- worthy son, his death was made the occasion of a display of filial piety, and the statues of Constantine in Italy and Africa were cast down by the orders of Maxentius. Constantine, who was adverse to war, tried the effect of negotiation ; but finding that Maxentius, who openly claimed the empire of the West, had assembled a large army for the invasion of Gaul, he resolved to anticipate him and enter Italy, whither he was-secretly invited by the senate and people of Rome. At the head of about 40,000 veteran troops, he crossed the Alps * and descended into the plain of Piedmont, (312.) The troops of Maxentius numbered 170,000 foot and 18,000 horse; but they were chiefly raw levies, made in Africa, Italy, and Sicily, and Maxentius himself was utterly destitute of mili- tary talent or experience. The town of Susa, (Segusium,) at the fool of the Alps, closed its gates against Constantine; but it was taken by assault, and the greater part of the gar- rison slaughtered. On the plain of Turin a strong division of the army of Maxentius opposed the invaders. Its strength consisted in a large body of cavalry arrayed in full armor, after the manner of the Persians.! But the force of thia * The Cottian Alps, or Mount Cenis. t Called by the Greeks Cataphracts, by the Latins Clibanariana^ from tlie Persian word. They resembled the heavy cavalry of the middle ages, both horse and man being covered with armor. 304 GALERIUS, CONSTANTINE, ETC. [a I^. 312. formidable mass was rendered of no avail by the skill of Constantine, who made his troops break their line and allow it to pass through when it charged, and then close and at- tack it when broken and divided. The troops of Maxentiiis soon turned and fled; and as the gates of Turin were closed against them, few of them escaped the sword of the victors. Constantine proceeded without delay to Milan; and nearly all Italy north of the Po declared for his cause. A brave and skilful ollicer, named Ruricius Pompeianus, commanded at Verona for Maxentius. As Constantine was advancing against that city, he was encountered, near Bres- cia, by a large body of cavalry, detached from the army at Verona; but he drove it back with loss, and then sat down before the city. Ruricius, having made all the dispositions necessary for defence, secretly quitted the town, and, having with great rapidity collected a sufficient force, advanced to its relief Constantine drew out his army to give him battle. The engagement commenced in the evening, and was con- tinued through the night Victory finally declared lor the Gallic legions; Ruricius was among the slain, and Verona surrendered at discretion. After a short stay at. that city, Constantine directed his march for Rome. At a place named Saxa Rubra, about nine miles from the city, close by the memorable Cremera, he found (Oct. 28) the army of Ma.ventius prepared to give him battle. In person, at the head of his Gallic horse, he charged the cavalry of the ene- my and routed it; the greater part of the infantry then turned and fled, but the brave prx'torian cohorts fought and fell where they stood. In the flight, Maxentius fell from the Mulvian bridge into the Tiber, and was drowned. His body was found next day, and his head preceded the entrance of Constantine into the city. Constantine used his victory with sufllcient moderation. The children of Maxentius and his mo.st distinguished ad- herents were put to death ; but the demand of the people for a trreater number of victims was steadily rejected. Inform- ers were punished; the exiles were recalled and restored to their estates ; a general amnesty was pa.ssed ; the senate was treated with respect and consideration. At the same time, Constantine; carried into effect the very measures, the appre- hension of which had raised Maxentius to empire. The praetorian guards were broken and dispersed among the legions on the frontiers!, and their fortified camp was demol- ished. The property tax, which Galerius had projected, and A. D. 313. J CONSTANTINE, LICINIUS. 305 '.vhich Maxentius had levied, under the odious name of a iVee-trift, Was made perpetual on the senatorian order, whose mimber, apparently for this very purpose, was considerably augmented. Constantine and Licinius. A.u. 1066—1076. A.D. 313—323. Constantine remained only two months at Rome, being obliged to set out on his return for Gaul, where the Franks had renewed their incursions. On his way, he celebrated at Milan (813) the nuptials of his sister Constantia with Licin- ius, to whom he had betrothed her previous to the war with Maxentius. Immediately after the nuptial festival, the two emperors had to put themselves at the head of their troops; the one to chastise the Germans, and the other to oppose Maximin, who had crossed the Bosporus, and taken the cities of Byzantium and Heraclea. When Licinius arrived, with 30,000 Illyrian veterans, within eighteen miles of this last town, he found his rival supported by 70,000 men of the dis- ciplined troops of the East. Each having vainly tried to seduce the soldiers of the other, they led their forces out to battle, (April 30.) The advantage was at first on the side of numbers; but the European troops, directed by the military skill of their leader, soon asserted their wonted superiority, and a decisive victory crowned their efforts. Maximin fled with the utmost rapidity, never halting till he reached Nico- media, distant a hundred and sixty miles from the field of battle. He was on his way to Egypt about three months after; when at Tarsus, he despaired of his affairs, and took poison, of which he died after much suffering. Licinius used his victory with barbarity. Resolved to remove all pos- sibility of rival claims to the empire of the East, he not only put to death the son and daughter of Maximin, the former of whom was only eight, the latter only seven years of age, but he involved in their fate Severianus, the son of .the late emperor Severus, and Candidianus, the natural son of his friend and benefactor Galerius. But his treatment of the wife and daughter of Diocletian was still more conclusive of the innate inhumanity of his character. After the death of Galerius, Maximin had sought the hand of Valeria. Meetins with a fiirm refusal, the tyrani 26 * " MM 306 CONSTA.NTINE, LICINIUS. [a. D. 314 gave a loose to his rage ; he confiscated her property ; he put to the torture her eunuchs and servants; he executed some of her female friends, on false charges of adultery; and he condemned herself and her mother, Prisca, to exile in a Syr- ian village. Diocletian sought for permission for them tc join him at Salona ; but he was now powerless, and his appli- cation met with contemptuous neglect. On the death of Maximin, the two royal ladies proceeded in disguise to the court of Licinius. They were at first treated with kindness; but the execution of her adopted son, Candidianus, who had accompanied her thither, soon convinced Valeria that the tyrant only was changed, and she and her mother fled in a plebeian habit. After wandering about for fifteen months, they were discovered at Thessalonica, and were instantly beheaded, and their i)odies thrown into the sea. The number of the emperors was now reduced to two, and it might be supposed that, connected as they had been, both publicly and privately, they would remain at unity. Yet the very year after their becoming brothers-in-law, (314,) we find them drawing the sword against each other. The oc- casion was as follows : Constantine gave one of his sisters in marriage to a man of rank named Bassianus, whom he raised, with Licinius's consent, to the dignity of a Ciesar. Italy appears to have been destined for the new CiEsar ; but, some delay occurring in the appointment, Licinius secretly induced him to believe that Constantine was merely making a tool of him, and encouraged him to engage in a conspiracy against his benefactor. The plot was, however, speedily discovered; Bassianus was put to death; and as Licinius refused to give up one of the principal conspirators, who had fled to him, and as the statues of Constantine, in the t>. wn of yEmona, on the frontiers of Italy, had been thrown down, the empe- ror of the West entered Illyricuin at the head of 20,000 men. Licinius, with 35,000 men, advanced to oppose him. The armies encountered (Oct. 8) near Cibalis on the Save, about fifty miles from Sirmium. The engagement lasted from morning till night, when Licitiius retired with a loss of 20,000 njen. He h.astened to Sirmium to secure his family and treasures, and then, breaking down the bridge over the Save at that town, he proceeded to Thrace to collect a new army; and he conferred the title of Caesar on Valens, the general of the Illyrian frontier. Constantine made no delay in following him, and the emperors again measured their strength on the plain of Mardia in Thrace. The battle A. D. 3l4-;323.] CIVIL WAR. 307 lasted all through the day, and was terminated by the night. The victory remained with Constantine, but with so much loss as inclined him to listen to proposals for peace. He made the deposition of Valens an absolute condition; and, that luckless prince being deprived of his purple and his life, a treaty was concluded which gave Pannonia, Dalmatia, Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece, to the Western empire. It was also agreed that two of the sons of the Western empe- ror, and tlie one son of the Eastern monarch, should be raised to the rank of Caesars. Peace now continued for above eight years. During that time, Constantine was engaged either in beneficial legislation or in defending the frontiers of his empire. His principal war, which he conducted in person, was against the Goths, who (321) invaded the countries south of the Danube. He forced them to purchase a retreat by the surrender of their booty and prisoners ; and then, repairing the bridge of Tra- jan, he crossed the river, and carried the war into their own country. No longer satisfied with the possession of the larger portion of the Roman empire, he now aimed at wrest- ing the remainder from Licinius, His preparations for war did not escape the observation of that emperor, who forth- with (323) assembled troops and shipping from ail parts of his dominions. An army of 150,000 foot and 15,000 horse covered the plains of Hadrianople, and a fleet of three hundred and fifty triremes occupied the Hellespont. The troops of Constantine (120,000 horse and foot) rendezvoused at Thesaalonica ; his fleet, which numbered only two hun- dred small vessels, was assembled in the port of the Pirieeus. Licinius, who occupied a strong camp on a hi'l over Hadri- anople, did not oppose the passage of the Hebrus by the enemy. The accounts of the engagement which ensued (July 3) are scanty and confused; but it would appear that the veteran troops of the West, evincing their wonted supe- riority, won their way up the hill, and routed the forces of the East, slaying 34,000 men, and taking their fortified camp; Constantine, who displayed the valor of a soldier and the conduct of a general, received a wound in the thigh: Licinius fled, and shut himself up in Byzantium, whither he was speedily followed by his victorious rival. Constantine directed that his fleet, which was commanded by his eldest son, the Csesar Crispus, should advance and force the passage of the Hellespont. His admirals selected eighty of their best ships for the purpose : the opposite 308 CONSTANTINE, LICINIL S. [a. D. 0-23 admiral, Amandusi, opposed thern vvitli two hundred. An the narrow sea did not afford sufficient space for tlie evolu- tions of so large a number, the advantage, when night terminated the coiiflict, was on the side of Constantine. Next day, Amandus sailed over from the coast of Asia, the wind blowing strongly from the north; but, finding the enemy, who lay at Elx-iis, reenforced by thirty ships, he hesitated to attack. About noon, the wind changed, and blew so violently from the south that it drove on the rocks or the shore a hundred and thirty ships of the fleet of Licinius, and caused a loss of .3,000 men. Amandus fled with only four ships; and, the Hellespont being now open, provisions and supplies of all kinds flowed into the camp of ConstaiitinC before Byzantium, and Licinius, deeming that city no longer tenable, passed over with his friends and his treasures to Chalcedon. He there conferred the fatal dignity of CfBsar on Mariianus, the principal officer of his palace, and sent him to Lampsacus, to guard the passage of the Hellespont. He himself speedily assembled another ar- my, to oppose the landing of Constantine. That able prince, however, conveyed over a sufficient force in boats, and landed abo"ut two hundred stades (twenty-five miles) above Chalce- don. Licinius recalled Martianus with his troops, and an engagement was fought (Sept. 18) on the heights of Chry- soj)olis, (Srufnri,^ which ended in the total defeat of Licinius, with a loss of 25,000 men. He fled to Nicomedia ; nego- tiations were entered into; and Constantine, having given the assurance of his solemn oath to his sister for the security of her husband's life, Licinius laid his purple down at his feet, styling him his king and master. He was admitted to the royal table, and was then sent to Thessalonica, which was fixed on as the place of his residence ; Martiaiius was put to death, and two years after, on the charge of a con- spiracy, Licinius was strangled, in violation of the emperor'a most solemn engagement. Constantine. A. u. 1076—1090. A. D. 323—337. The Roman empire was thus, after thirty-four years of divided dominion, reunited under one head. Two most im- portant changes immediately succeeded, namely, the founda- FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 309 tion of a new capital, and the public establishment of Christianity as the "religion of the slate; the form of govern- ment commenced by Diocletian was also completed. Of these we shall now proceed to treat. Rome, as we have seen, had long ceased to be an imperial residence. It lay too remote from the banks of the Dan- ube and Euphrates, where the presence of the emperor was most frequently required : Diocletian had therefore fixed his abode in Nicomedia ; but the ambition of being the founder of a capital which should bear his own name, and the supe- rior advantages of the site of Byzantium, determined Con- stantine to raise an imperial city on the peninsula occupied by that town ; and in the year following that of the over- throw of Licinius, (324,) he laid the foundation of Con- stantinople, as he named it from himself — a city which still exists, and in magnitude and population yields to few in Europe, while in beauty and advantage of situation it is rivalled by none. It is not necessary that we should describe the situation of this celebrated city, which, like Rome, built on seven hills, grew up from the condition of a colony, and became the capital of empire. In the space of ten years, the nu- merous workmen employed, by the wealth of the imperial treasury, covered the ground marked out by the founder with all the edifices, sacred, profane, and military, required by a magnificent capital ; and the new city was speedily filled with a numerous population. In imitation of Rome, it was divided into fourteen regions or wards, and the corn of Egypt was distributed among its poorer citizens; its Hip- podrome emulated the Circus, and statues of marble and bronze vvere brought from all parts to adorn it. The supe- rior rank of the ancient capital, however, was still acknowl- edged, and the new city was styled its colony. The; civil and military administration of the empire had, as may have been observed, been gradually undergoing a change, and approximating to that of the East. That cliange vvas further accelerated by the removal of the seat of government to the new capital, and by the establishment of the prevalent corrupted form of Christianity as the religion of the state. The aspect of the empire under Constantine and his successors may be sketched as follows: * * We here sHall follow Gibbon, who derived his materials from the Theodosian Code and the Kotitia Imperii. 310 CONSTANTINE. The court and palace were filled witli officers, among whom the eunuchs were conspicuous ; they were arranged in orders, the whole forming a sacred hierarchy, as it was often styled. All the various ranks were regulated with the most accurate minuteness, and the numerous titles and modes of address which have been the models of those of modem Europe, were then devised : such were, Your Emi- nence, Yuur Excellency , Your illustrious and magnijicent Higlniess. The great officers had various badijes and em- blems of their dignities, and were known by their jjeculiar habits. The whole body of the higher officers and magis- trates were divided into three classes; the first, which con- tained the very highest, being named the Illustrious, the second the Notable, (Spcctabilcs,) and the third the Most Distinguished, (Clcirissimi.)* The title of Patrician, which had long been out of use, was revived by Constantino, but merely a.> a mark of per- sonal distinction. The dignity was not hereditary, and these new nobles bore no more resemblance to the patricians of ancient Rome tiian tiie actual peers of France do to the old noblesse. The patricians yielded in dignity to the con- .suls alone ; they were superior lo all the great officers of state, and had constant access to the person of the sovereign, whose favorites or ministers they had in general been ori- ginally. The consulate, now an empty dignity, was conferred by the emperor. On new year's day, the appointed consuls assumed the ensigns of their dignity at the place which was then the imperial residence. They moved in procession, attended by the principal officers of llie state and army, from the palace to the Forum, or market-place: they there took their seat on the curnle chairs, and manumitted a slave, according to ancient usage. Games were celebrated by them, or in their name, in the principal cities of the empire; their names were inscribed in the Fasti, and their names and portraits were engraved on tablets of ivory, adorned with gold, and sent as presents to magistrates and persons of rank. They then retired int( private life, for they had no public duties to discharge. Yet the vain and emp- ty honor still continued to be the object of highest am- bition. • An Italian, at the present day, will commence a letter witli Ckuf rissijno Siirnore. OFFICERS OF STATE. 311 The office of praetorian prefect had, as we have seen, gradually risen in importance. The prefect, unitintr civil | | and militarj' power, had been, in fact, what the mayor } [■ of the palace afterwards became in France. The sappres- \ f sion or' the guards having left him witliout military command^ j | his office now became purely civil. As, by the regulation of > ^ Diocletian, each prince had his prefect, the number of these f f officers was four, which number was retained by Constanliiie. | I The prefects were named of the East, of Illyricum, of Gaul, • ' and of Italy, each of which districts comprised the provinces i contamed under its title when ruled by the Augusti ai;d the j '. (Jtesars. They were at the head of the administration of If justice and the finances; they had authority over the pro- il vincial governors; there lay an appeal from all inferior tri- H bunals to that of the prjetorian prefect ; but his decision was 1 1 final. The city of Rome, and afterwards that of Constanti- While the civil and military departments of the state were i thus modelled and regulated, a still more important change ) was effected by making the Christian religion that of the l court and empire. We shall, however, defer our account { of the condition and organization of the church under Con- ^" stantine and his successors, and only at present notice the { conversion of that emperor, and the motives in which it \ originated. , t Constantius, without being a Christian, had, from motives | of justice and humanity, treated his subjects of that faith | with indulgence. His example was followed by his son ; l and the Christians, comparing his moderation with the per- ] secuting spirit of Galerius and his colleagues, were naturally 1 1 disposed to favor him. Constantine, however, was still a |j polytheist ; and his principal object of worship was the sun- f god, Apollo. At the same time with the compliant spirit of | polytheism, he held the God of the Christians and the author | of their faith in respect and reverence. After the defeat | and death of Maxentius, (313,) Constantine and Licinius is- 'j sued at Milan an edict of general toleration ; restoring, at '\ the same time, to the Christians the lands and churches of I which they had been deprived. To the terms of this edict \ Constantine firmly adhered ; and he was probably becoming daily more convinced of the superiority of the Christian religion, and of the advantage that might result from his CONTIN. 27 N N 314 CONSTANTINE. embracing it; while Liciiiius speedily violated it, and par* tially renewed the persecution. In the second war between these emperors, (324,) the cross appeared on the banner of Constantine; and his victory was followed by the issue of circular letters annpuncing his own conversion, and inviting I Ins subjects to follow his example. The call of a powerful i monarch was not likely to be unheeded; the Christian faith I rapidly spread ; offices of trust, profit, and honor, were be- ■ stowed almost exclusively on Christians; bishops thronged .| the court; paganism was in every way discouraged, and I Christianity finally triumphed over its ancient eijemy. ' I The conversion of Constantine may have been, and prob- i ably was, sincere. But in ;dl such cases, motives of policy '.;j are apt to concur with higher ones, and often to exercise a superior influence. Constantine must have seen tliat the Christians, if not the most numerous, were the best united and organized, and consequently the most powerful body in i ;] the empire. lie could not be blind to the great superiority f l of the Christian morality over that of heathenism, and, as a 11 wise sovereign, he must have seen that it was his interest to J promote its diffusion. The doctrine of passive obedience, i held by the Christians of that time, must have proved most ■j grateful to the ears of a monarch ; and tlie zeal in his cause and the loyalty shown by the Christians cannot have been wholly without effect on his mind. These various motives may, then, have given force to the reasonings of the Christian , divines ; but we are assured that the efficient cause of the conversion of the emperor was a miracle. According to the biographer of this emperor, the learned Bishoj) Eusebius, as Constantine was on his march against Maxentius, there appeared one day, in the sight of himself and hi.s whole army, a luminous cross above the sun in the noon-d ly sky, bearing inscribed on it the words, "By this i conquer," (//ac i'//jfr ;) and, in the following night, Christ j himself stood in a dream before the emperor, bearing a simi- j I lar cross, and directed him to frame a standard of that form, which would assure him of victory against Maxentius. The standard was accordingly framed, and, under the name of Labarum, a word of unknown origin, it became the future banner of the empire. Its form was that of a long pike, with a transverse bar, from which hung a piece of silk adorneu with the images of the monarch and his children. On the lop of the pike was a wreath of gold, enclosing the mono- gram of the name of Christ, and the sign of the cross. The i U k.j). 326.] cRispus. 315 care of the Labaruiu was always coinmitted to fifty soldiers of approved valor and fidelity. This legend is related by Eusebius, on the authority of Constantine himself; but his narrative did not appear till after the death of the emperor; and, in his earlier work, the Eccle^astical History, he is silent respecting it. Another contemporary mentions only a dream, in which Constantine was directed, on the night before the battle with Maxentius, to inscribe the sacred monogram on the shields of his sol- diers ; and adds, that his obedience was rewarded with vic- tory.* We take not on us to decide how much of fiction or of error there may be in the legend ; but that no actual miracle was wrought, we venture to affirm without hesitation, I \ in accordance with our fixed opinions on the subject. We now return to the course of our historic narrative. A dark transaction, which has fixed an indelible stain on the memory of Constantine, is the first that meets our view. We have already seen that, before his marriage with the daugh- ter of Maximian, he had had a son by his first wife. This | i youth, named Crispus, was reared under the charge of the h pious, learned, and eloquent Lactantius. Christian writers and historians are unanimous in the testimony which they bear to the virtues of the heir-apparent to the empire. It is oossible that, as is asserted, Crispus may have been jealous of the partiality shown by the emperor to the children of his second marriage, one of whom, Constantius, had been sent, with the title of Caesar, to administer the government of Gaul, while he himself was detained in inactivity at court. He may also, as is said, have given vent to his feelings in imprudent language ; and any one at all acquainted with the texture of courts in general, can easily suppose that, in the palace of a despotic prince, there was no lack of wretches who would seek to advance their own interest by exciting enmity between the father and the son. An edict of Con- stantine's, issued toward the end of the year 325, shows that he believed or feigned that a secret conspiracy had been formed against him, and in favor of Crispus. Whatever his suspi- cions of his son, or his designs against him, may have been, they were closely concealed ; and Crispus, in the following year, (326,) accompanied his father to Rome, when he pro- j ceeded thither to celebrate the twentieth year of his reign. f \n the midst of the festival, the prince was arrested; after a ohort private examination, or possibly no examination at all, * Thp author of the treatise De Mortibus Persecutorurn, 316 CONSTANTINE. [a. D. 326 he was sent, unJer a strong guard, to Pola in Istria, where, shortly after, he was put to death by poison, or by the liand of the executioner. His fate was shared by the son of tlie late emperor Licinius. When a biographer passes in silence over any important action of his hero, we may be certain tliat a minute and exact inquiry, and a sifting of aJl the circumstances, has convinced him that it is incapable of bearing exposure to the light, and that no ingenuity can avail to extenuate, much less excuse it. On this principle, we hold the profound silence of Eusebius on this mysterious transaction to be conclusive of the guilt of Constantine and the innocence of Crispus ; and, at the same time, destructive of that prelate's claim to truth and integrity as an historian. The later Greeks, however, have fabled that Constantine discovered his error, mourned and repented it, and erected a golden statue bearing the inscription, Tu my son, iclwm I unjustly condemned. A more ancient account said, that the story of Pha,'dra and Hippolytus was renewed in the imperial palace, and that the death of Crispus was caused by the dis- appointed lust of Fausta. It is added, that the emperor's mother, Helena, enraged at the fate of her innocent grand- son, caused Fausta to be closely watched ; and, it being discovered that she carried on an adulterous intercourse with a slave belonging to the stables, she was sudbcated, by order of her husband, in a bath, made more than usually hot for the purpose.* The deaths of Crispus, Licinius, and Fausta, were followed by those of many of the emperor's friends, on various charges. By Fausta the emperor had had three sons, named Con- stantine, Constantius, and Constans ; his elder brother, Ju- lius Constantius, had, beside other children, two sons, named Gallus and Julian ; and Dalmatius, another brother, was the father of two princes, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. From some motive whicli has not been assigned, Con.stantine re- solved to associate the two last-named nephews with his own sons in the empire, placing the former, as a Ciesar, on an equality with them, and giving the latter the new title of Nobilissimns, and even, as it would appear, that of King, which we find used of him alone. A war between the Goths and Sarmatians drew the atten- * Zosimiis, Philostorg-ius, and others, assert that Fnusta was put to death. Yt-t, ns Gihboii dhsrrvis, in a .Moundy on licr son, the younger Constantine, she is said to have lived to deplore his.f&Ve. ,. i A. D. 331—337.] DEATH OF CONSTANTINE. 317 tion of Constantine, in the latter years of his reign. Policy causing him to take the part of the latter, the former crossed the Danube, and laid Moesia waste, (331.) The emperor took the field in person ; but his troops fled from before them, and he was obliged to retire. In the following year, (332,) however, the imperial troops, led by the Caesar Constantius, retrieved their fame. The Goths were forced to recross the Danube, and to sue for peace. The Sarmatians having shown the usual levity and ingratitude of barbarians, Con- stantine left them to their fate. Vanquished in battle by the Goths, they armed their slaves, and, by their aid, expelled the invaders from their territory ; but the slaves turned their arms against their masters, .drove them out of the country, and held it under the name of Limigantes. Nothing occurred to disturb the tranquillity of the empire during the remaining years of the reign of Constantine. He bref^thed his last on the 22d of May, 337, in the palace of Aquirion, at Nicomedia, in the 65th year of his age, after a prosperous reign of thirty years and ten months. His corpse was removed to Constantinople, where it was placed on a golden bed, in an illuminated apartment of the palace; and each day, the principal officers of state approached it and offered their homage, as if to the living emperor. It was at length committed to the tomb, with all fitting ceremony and magnificence. The merits and virtues of the emperor Constantine were so numerous and conspicuous, that, were it not for the deaths of his son, and nephew, and friends, his name would be without any considerable blemish. It is, however, objected to him, that, in his latter years, he adopted a style of dress and manners which e.vhibited more of Asiatic effeminacy than of Roman dignity. He is also charged with lavishing on needless and expensive buildings the money wrung from his subjects by oppressive taxation, and of overlooking, if not encouraging, the rapacity of his friends and favorites. Like so many of those who have attained to empire by their own merits and talents, Constantine is more to be esteemed in the early than in the later years of his reign. It is remarkable, that Constantine (though he openly pro- fessed the Christian religion, convened and presided at a generc^l council of the church, and enjoyed nearly all the privileges of the initiated order of the faithful) remained all through his reign in the humble rank of a catechumen, and deferred receiving the sacrament of baptism till he discerned 27* 318 CONSTANTINE II., ETC. [a. D. 337 the cerlain symptoms of tlie approach of his dissolution. The superstition in which this practice originated, has already been explained ; and it derogates from the \visd6m or knowledge of the Nicene Fathers, to know that they tacitly, at least, sanctioned a usage so detrimental to true religion. CHAPTER III.* CONSTAiNTlNE II., CONSTANTIUS, CONSTANS A. u. 1090—1114. A.D. 337— 3G1. SLAUGHTER OF TUE IMPEUIAL FAMILY. PERSIAN WAR. DEATHS OF CONSTANTINE AND CONSTANS. MAGNENTIUS. GALLUS. JULIAN. SILVANUS. COURT OF CONSTAN- TIUS. WAR WITH THE LI.MIOANTES. PERSIAN WAR. JULIAN IN OAUL. BATTLE OF STRASBURG. JULIAN PROCLAIMED EMPKROR. HIS MARCH FROM GAUL. DEATH OF CONSTANTIUS. Constantine II., Constantius , Cunstons. A. u. 1090—1103. A.D. 337—350. The tomb had not received the mortal remains of the great Constantine, when a plot was laid to destroy some of the objects of his regard. The troops were induced — we are not informed by whom or by what means — to declare that none but the sons of the late monarch should rule over his empire ; and Dalmatius and Hannibalianus were seized and placed under cu.'^tody, till Constantius, to whom the charge of the funeral had been committed, should arrive in the caf>- ital. When this prince came, he pledged his oath to his kinsmen for their safety ; but ere long a false charge was made against them, and the soldiers became clamorous for their death. A general massacre of the imperial family en- sued, in which two uncles and seven cousins of Constaniius. and with them Optatus, the husband of his aunt, perished. * Authorities : Zosimus, Ammianus, Marcellinus, the Epitomators, and the Ecclesiastical Historians. 1. D. 337-340.] CONSTANTINE II., ETC. 319 Their fate was shared by the prefect Ablavius, the minister and favorite of the late emperor. Of the whole imperial family, there only remained Gallus and Julian, the sons of Julius Coiistantius. In the following month of September, the three brothers had a personal interview, in which a new arrangement of the empire was concluded; by which Constantine, as the eldest, was conceded a superiority in rank, and the possession of the eastern capital. The eastern frontier gave Constantius occupation for some years. Sapor II., king of Persia, a prince of great energy and enterprise, burned to recover the provinces which had been ceded to Galerius ; but dread of the power and genius of Constantine had held him in check. As soon, however, as the empire fell into the hands of inexperienced young princes, he poured his troops into Mesopotamia, and for some years the Roman annals had only to tell of armies defeated, and towns besieged or taken by the Persian monarch. In the battle of Singara, (34S,) the Roman legions routed the troops of Persia, and drove them to their camp ; as the night was at hand, Constantius, who commanded in person, sought to restrain his men, and defer the attack till the light of morn. But, heedless of the commands of their prince, the soldiers, eager for prey, pressed on, and, forcing the camp, spread themselves all over it in search of plunder. In the dead of the night. Sapor, who had posted his troops on the adjacent hills, led them to the attack of the scattered and un- prepared enemies ; and the Romans were routed with im- mense slaughter. The survivors escaped with the utmost difficulty, and endured intolerable hardships in their retreat. This is said to have been the ninth victory over the troops of Rome achieved by the arms of Sapor. But, though thus suc- cessful in the field, he was unable to carry the important city of Nisibis. Thrice did he lead his forces under its wails, and thrice did he employ in vain the valor of his soldiers and the arts of his engineers ; the gallant city still remained unsubdued. While Constantius was thus occupied in the East, Con- stans had become sole ruler in the West ; for Constantine, having required that Constans should resign Africa to him, and being irritated by the insincerity displayed by that prince in the negotiation, made a sudden irruption into his domin- ions, (340.) But in the neighborhood of Aquileia he came to an engagement with the generals of Constans, and, being 320 CONSTANTIUS. [a. d. 36o drawn into an ambush, himself and all those about him were slain. Constans then took possession of the whole of his do- minions, refusing to give any share to his remaining brother, who does not, however, appear to have claimed it. For about ten years Constans exercised every kind of op- pression over his subjects. His hours were devoted to the chase, and to other pleasures of a less innocent nature. At length (350) a conspiracy was formed against him by Mag- nentius, a Frank, but born in Gaul, who commanded the Jovian and Herculian guards. Marcellinus, the treasurer, shared in the conspiracy; and when the court was at Autun, and the emperor was taking the pleasures of the chase in the adjoining forest, Magnentius gave, under the pretext of cele- brating his son's birthday, a magnificent entertainment, to which were invited tlie principal ofiicers of tlie army. The festival was prolonged till after midnight, when Magnentius withdrew for a little tiuie, and then rea,ppeared clad in tlic imperial habit. Those in the secret instantly saluted hini emperor, and the remainder, taken by surprise, were induced to join in the acclamation. Prouuses and money were liber- ally scattered, and both the soldiery and the people declared for Magnentius. It was hoped that they might be able to surprise Constans on his return from the chase ; but he got timely information, and fled for Spain. He was, however, overtaken by those despatched in pursuit of him, at a town named Helena, (Elnc,) at the foot of the Pyrenees, dragged from a church to which he had fled for refuge, and put to death. Constantius. A.u. 1103—1114. A. D. 350—361. The whole of the West, with the exception of Illyricum, yielded obedience to Magnentius. The troops of that country were commanded by Vetranio, an aged general of simple and upright manners, but so illiterate as to be ignorant of even reading and writing. At first he professed allegiance to the remaining son of Constantine; but at length he yielded to the desires of his legions and those of tlie princess Con- etantina, the daughter of Constantine, and widow of Hanni- balianus, who thus, perhaps, sought to obtain vengeance for her husband, and to recover her own power. He cor.sented !i A. D. 350.] VETRANIO. 321 to accept of empju; and C6nstantiha with her own hand placed the diadetn c i his head. Vetranio soon found it ex- pedient to accept of the proffered alliance of Magnentius. An opportune incursion of the Massagetans into the northern part of his dominions having just at this time called Sapor away from the third siege of Nisibis, Constan- tius foun'l himself at leisure to attend to the affairs of the West. Leaving a sufficient force with his generals, he set out, for Europe, to avenge the murder of his brother. At Heraclea in Thrace, he was met by an embassy from the two emperors of the West, headed by Marcellinus. It was proposed that he sh juld acknowledge them, marry the daughter of Magnentius, and give Constantina in marriage to that prince Next day he gave his reply : the shade of the great Constantine, embracing the corpse of his murdered brother, had, he said, appeared to him in the night, bidden him not to despair of the republic, and assured him of vic- tory. He dismissed one of the ambassadors, put the others in irons as traitors, and then pursued his march. His conduct toward Vetranio was artful and politic. While he menaced Magnentius with vengeance as a traitor, he acknowledged the Illyrian Augustus as a colleaj^'ie, and finally induced him to unite with him against thi Uivjrper. It was agreed that the two emperors and their armies should meet at the town of Sardica. The troops of Vetrann were far superior both in number and strength to those of the em- peror of the East ; but the reliance of Constantius was on the promises that he had lavished on them, by which most of both officers and men had been secretly gained to his side. The united armies were assembled (Dec. 2-5) in a large plain near the city, and the two emperors ascended the tri- bunal to address them. Constantius spoke the first. He inveighed against Magnentius; he spoke of the glories of ConsLUS. 325 pass_ lest they should declare for him — a needful precaution, as it would appear ; for, when he reached Hadrianople, the Theba3an legions which lay in that neighborhood sent to offer him their services; but their deputies were unable to obtain access to him, for he was surrounded by persons de- voted to the court, who had been sent to occupy all the places in his establishment. Letters now reached him requiring his immediate presence at court ; and he was obliged to set out with only a few attendants, and to travel post with the utmost speed. On reaching the town of Petobio {Pcttau) on the Drave, he was lodged in a palace without the walls; and toward evening it was surrounded with soldiers, and their commander, Barbatio, entered and stripped the Caesar of his royal dress, putting common raiment upon him, and then, with oaths assuring him of safety, made him arise and enter a common carriage, in which he was conveyed to a place near Pola in Istria, which had been the scene of the last sufferings of the unhappy Crispus. After being kept a short time in suspense, and having undergone an examination respecting his conduct in the East, in which he confessed his criminal acts, but cast the entire blame of them on tws wife, he was secretly beheaded in prison. The imperi.il family was thus reduced to the emperor him- self and his cousin Julian. The eunuchs, who were all-power- ful in the palace, labored hard for the destruction of this prince, who had been brought to the court of Milan, and charges of treason were devised against him ; but though he easily refuted all that his enemies could allege, his innocence would probably have availed him little against the arts and the influence of those who dreaded him as his brother's aven- ger, had he not found a powerful protectress in the empress Eusebia, a woman of considerable beauty and merit, who ex- ercised great power over the mind of her husband. Julian was at length (355) permitted to retire to Athens, to pursue the literary studies in which he delighted. His abode in that seat of learning was, however, but of brief duration ; for Con- stantius, finding himself totally unequal to the sole direction of the multitudinous affairs of the empire, menaced on all its frontiers by restless and powerful enemies, yielded to the ar- guments and entreaties of the empress, who represented to him that Gallus and Julian had differed in character as much as the sons of Vespasian, and that from the mild, gentle tem- per of the latter he might expect to meet with nothing but gratitude and obedience. She thus induced him to consent CONTIIV. 28 t326 CONSTA.NTIUS. [a. d. 355 to associate Ju ian in the empire ; and an order was despatched for that prince to return immediately to court. Julian quitted Athens with deep and unfeigned regret. He was kindly re- ceived at Milan; the only condition exacted from him was a marriage with the emperor's sister Helena, a princess some years his senior; and on the day in which he entered his twenty-lifth year, (Nov. 6,) Constantius, in the presence and amid the acclamations of the army, hestowed on him the dignity of Caesar. He was immediately after sent to take the command in Gaul. This country had lately been the scene of rebellion, and this circumstance had probably contributed to the elevation of Julian. Silvanus, one of those German oflicers who were now so nunierous in the Roman service, had, by hi? opportune desertion just before the battle of Alursa, contributed not a little to the victory of Constantius. The command of the imperial infantry was his reward, and he enjoyed the favor of his sovereign, which, however, only exposed him the more to the hostility of the favorites, one of whom, Arbctio, as the surest means of destroying him, induced the emperor to give him the charge of delivering Gaul from the depredations of the Germans. Silvanus was not long in that province, when an agent, selected for the purpose, applied to him for letters of recommendation to his friends at court. These he unsus- pectingly gave, and they were conveyed to his enemies, who, erasing all but the signature, filled tlicin with language calling on his friends to aid his designs on the empire. The matter was then laid before the emperor in coui>cil, and orders were given to arrest the persons to whom the letters were addressed. Malaric, however, the commander of the foreign guards, and Silvanus's countryman, aided by his brother olHcers, warndy asserted the innocence of the absent general; and at his in- stance a new inquiry was instituted, in which the forgery was detected. The discovery however, came too late; Silvanus, indignant at the treatment he had received, and seeing no other prospect of security, had assumed the purple at Cologne. Treachery was then employed against him, and Urcisinus, a general who had lately distinguished himself so much in the defence of the East, that fear of his doing what Silvanus had now done had caused his recal., sullied his fnne by becoming the instrument. He set out for Gaul, with a few of his friends, under the pretence of avenging the injuries which he had re- ceived at court, and joined the usurper. He was received with kindness and confidence, which he repaid by seducing some o/ A. D. 357.] COURT OF CONSTANTIUS. 327 the foreign troops, and causing Silvanus to be murdered after a brief reign of twenty-eight days. The troops then returned to tlieir allegiance. The court of Constantius was one in which all the vices which distinguished those of the East flourished in luxuriance. There was ni it no place for virtue and integrity ; the vile race of eunuchs (for such the history of all ages proves them to be) were so powerful, that, as the historian sarcastically observes, Constantius had a good deal of influence with the chief of them, the chamberlain Eusebius. Their rapacity knew no bounds ; justice and the honors of the state were set up to sale, the complaints of the injured were intercept- ed, the honorable and the independent were secretly under- mined or openly assailed. But the eunuchs were not the sole authors of evil ; we find among the pests of the court the general Barbatio, and Paulus the notary, a crafty Span- iard surnamed Catena, from his skill in entangling destined victims in the meshes of dangerous subtleties. There were many others whose names it boots not to record. The char- acter of the emperor, jealous of his dignity, and barbarously j \ cruel to all who were even suspected of encroaching on it, ij 5 gave eflfect to the arts of these men, and few were safe from j, s their machinations. f | While Constantius remained in Italy, he paid a visit to the ^| ancient capital, (Apr. 38, 357.) He entered it in a triumphal || procession, visited and admired all its venerable monuments, | sj and gave orders for the transportation thither of an obelisk f I from Egypt, to commemorate his abode at Rome. After a 1 1 stay of only thirty days, he quitted it, never again to return. 1 1 The cause of his so speedy departure was the invasion of f l the Illyrian provinces by their ancient devastators, the Q,ua- { | dans and their allies. He took the field in person against | f them, cut their armies to pieces, ravaged their country far 1 1 and wide, and compelled them to sue for peace. At this 1 1 time also he listened to the entreaties of the Sarraatians, and i § consented to turn his arms against their rebellious slaves. | v On his approach, the Limigantes offered to pay an annual 1 1 tribute, and to furnish recruits for the army; but they ex- [| pressed their determination not to quit their country. When, however, thev found themselves attacked on diiFerent sides by the Roman legions, their former masters, and the Gotiiic Taifalans, their dwellings fired, and their country ravagf^d m all directions, their spirit abated, and they came, with their wives and children, to the Roman camp, and consented to re- 328 CONSTANTIUS. • [a. d. 359 move whithersoever it should please the emperor to appoint their abode. Lands were accordingly assigned them at some distance from the river ; and, the war being thus to all .ap- pearance terminated, Constantius retired to Sirmium foe the winter. Early, however, in the following year, (359,) intel- ligence that the Liinigantes had returned, and were about to cross the Danube and ravage the provinces, obliged him again to take the field. When he reached the banks of the river, the Limigantes were quite submissive, craved permis- sion to be allowed to pass over and state their grievances, ! ' and to have lands assigned them within the Roman frontiers, where they might dwell as peaceful subjects. Constantius gave a cheerful consent; his tribunal was erected on a mound near the river; the Limigantes surrounded it; he stood up, t, and was preparing to address them, when one of them flung ^ his shoe at the tribunal, and raised their war-cry, Mnrka i marha. Instantly a rush to the tribunal was made by tlie |. multitude ; the emperor had only time to mount a lleet liorse, fl and fly to the camp; iiis guards were cut to pieces, and the » tribunal was destroyed. IJut when the Roman troops le;irned fl the danger to which their eniperor had been exposed, they I hastened to lake vengeance on the traitors; and they speedily \ massacred the entire multitude of the Lin)igaiites, For his I successes against this people, Constantius took the title of \ Sarmaticus. I The war on the Illyrian frontier being thus terminated, the I emperor found it necessary to proceed . to the East, where I Sapor had once more crossed the Tigris, and poured his I troops over the plains of Mesopotamia. The director of the \ campaign was a Roman subject named Antoninus, who had \ been forced to seek at the court of Persia a refuge from op- B pression. His plan was to neglect the fortresses, push on f for the Euphrates, and think only of the conquest and pliin- f der of Antioch; but the country was destroyed by the Ro- I mans, and the river, happening to swell at this time, could not I be passed at the usual places. The march of the Persian \ army was therefore directed toward the head of the stream ; ! but, as it was passing under the walls of the strong city of Amida, Sapor halted and summoned it to surrender. A dart ' flung from the walls chanced to graze his tiara ; and the haughty despot, heedless of the remonstrances of his minis- ters, resolved to avenge the insult by the destruction of the citv. His army, which counted one hundred thousand men, invested it after a g-jneral assault had been tried and failed. L. D. 360.] PERSIAN WAR. 329 The works of the besiegers were carried on under the direc- ] \ lion of the Roman deserters, and, after a gallant defence of ! | seventy-three days, the city was taken by storm, and all but ' | those who had contrived to escape by the gate most remote | | from the point of attack were ruthlessly massacred. But the | J Persians purchased their conquest with the loss of nearly the | f third part of their host. l l The capture of Amida terminated the campaign. In the ' J following spring, (360,) Sapor again crossed the Tigris. He ] | besieged anti took the cities of Singara and Bezabde ; the j I former of which he dismantled, as it lay in a sandy plain; but i i in the latter, which occupied a peninsula on the Tigris, he i \ placed a strong garrison. Having failed in an attempt on 1 1 Virtha, a strong fortress of the independent Arabs, he led his !;! \ troops back to Persia. In the autumn, Constantius, who had j 1 at length arrived in the East, passed the Euphrates, and, hav- j | ing assembled his troops at Edessa, and wept over the ruins of 1 1 Amida, advanced to attempt the recavery of Bezabde ; but | i all his efforts to take it having failed, and the weather be- 3 1 coming tempestuous, he abandoned the siege, and returned | i to Antioch for the winter. 1 1 It is now time that we should direct our attention to the | ^ conduct of the Caesar Julian in his administration of the 1 1 Gallic provinces. The Franks and Alemans had been of late 1 1 almost the undisputed masters of the country to an extent far 1 1 westward of the Rhine ; forty-five cities, among which were 1 1 tlxose bearing the modern names of Tongres, Treves, Worms, 1 1 Spire, and Strasburg, beside numerous towns and villages, had 1 1 been pillaged or burnt by them; and the Caesar received at || Turin, on his road, the intelligence of the capture of the i j flourishing colony of Cologne. He passed the winter at Vienne, ^ I and early in the summer (356) he proceeded to Autun, which \ | had lately gallantly repelled an attack of the barbarians. He || thence made his way through a country occupied by the en- I f emy to Rheims, where he had ordered his troops to assemble. 1 1 After two encounters with the Alemans, in one of which he \ i was successful, he penetrated to the Rhine, and, having sur- 1 1 veyed the ruins of Cologne, and formed a just conception of | [ the difficulties he would have to encounter, he led his troops back to their winter quarters in Gaul. He fixed his own abode in the city of Sens, where for thirty days he was be- sieged by the Alemans ; but he defended the town with skiJi and courage, and the barbarians were forced to retire. Julian himself, in his e.xtant writings, speaks slightingly ol 28* pp 330 con;;tantius. [a. d. 357. his first campaign. It was the initiation of a retired student in the affairs of actual life ; and the love of honest fame, and the lessons of solid wisdom which he had derived from the works of those men of mighty intellect who had flourished in ancient Greece, combined with his natural talent, soon en- abled him to acquire the character of an able general. His next campaign therefore proved a glorious one. A principal cause of his success was the removal of the impediments which the eunuchs had prepared for him in his own army, where they had caused the command of the cavalry to be given to Marcellus, a man who seemed to think his only duty to be that of thwarting the Caesar. As, however, though near at hand, he had not come to his aid when he ran such i risk at Sens, he was, on Julian's complaint, supported prob- ; ably by the empress, removed from his conunand, and an I officer named Severus, of a very different character, sent in I his stead. Marcellus proceeded to the court, and was com- \ meiicing a course of insinuations against the loyalty of Julian, \ when the prince's chamberlain Eutherius, who had been de- ti spatclied for the purpose, arrived. This noble-minded eu- I nuch* demanded an audience of tlie emperor, and, when ad- { mitted, he boldly asserted the innocence of his master, and I proved the culpable conduct of Marcellus, who was obliged i to retire in disgrace to his native country, Pannonia. i Julian, now master of his actions, prepared to commence I operations, (JJ.>7.) The plan of the campaign was, that, while I he should advance from Rheims on the one side with the I troops of Gaul, Barbatio, tlie general of the imperial infantry, 5 5-hould lead an army of thirty thousand men from Iialy, and , cross the Rhine near Basil, (Kouruci,) so that the Alemans, ji attacked on both sides, .sliould be forced to abandon the left ( bank of the river. Julian's first care was to restore the I fortifications of the city of Saverne, in the heart of the J country occupied by the enemy ; but, while he was tlms en- j gaged, a large body of the Alemans passed unobserved be- I tween the two Roman armies, and made an attempt on the city of Lyons, which having failed, they fell to plundering the surrounding country. Julian immediately sent bodies * Amtnianus (xvi. 7) is justly lavish in his praise of this I'xcellent man. He coiuiuencea by obsorviiig, that what hi* said would hardly be credited, " ea re quod si Nunia Pompilius vel Socrates bona quae- dain dicerent de spadone, dictisque religionum adderent fidem, a veri- tate de.icivisse arguerentur. Sed inter vepres rostE nascunlur, et inter feras nounuUaa mitescunt." A. D. 357.] JULIAN IN GAUL. 331 of horse to occupy the roads by which they must return, and the booty was thus recovered, and all the plunderers cut to pieces, except those who were permitted to pass unmolested under tlie very ramparts of Barbatio's camp. When Julian, soon after, being anxious to drive the barbarians out of the islands which they occupied in the Rhine, applied to Bar- batio for seven of the boats which he had collected to form a bridge over the Rhine, the latter forthwith burned the whole of them, sooner than aid his operations. Julian, however, by means of the shallows in the river, caused by the summer heat, passed over a body of troops, and destroyed or expelled the barbarians. He then set his troops to restore the fortifi- cations of the town of Zabern, (TaberncB ;) and while they were thus engaged, Barbatio, as a further means of injuring Julian, seized the corn provided for them, consumed a part of it, and burned the remainder. Shortly after, he was sud- denly fallen on by the barbarians, defeated, and driven to Basil. Then, as if he had gained a victory, he put his troops into winter quarters, and returned to court, to follow his usual course of maligning the Caesar. Chnodomar, the Alemannic king, supported by six other kings and ten princes of royal lineage, now prepared to at- tack the Cnesar, whose forces, as he learned from a desert- er, were, by the departure of Barbatio, reduced to thirteen thousand men. The Germans occupied three days and nights in passing the Rhine ; and an army of thirty-five thousand of their warriors was thus assembled at Strasburg, (Argen' toratum.) Julian, who was encamped at a distance of twen- ty-one miles from that place, advanced to attack them; his troops being arranged in two divisions, the one of horse, the other of foot. It was so late in the day when they came in view of the enemy, that he wished to defer the attack till the morning; but the impatience of his troops was not to be restrained. Placing himself, therefore, at the head of his guards, he went round encouraging the men to fight valiantly. The battle then began ; the Roman cavalry which was on the right fought at first in a manner worthy of its fame; but, as the Germans had mingled footmen through their cavalry, the heavy cuirassiers were thrown into confusion, and re- treated. Julian immediately rode up and rallied them, and the combat of cavalry was renewed. The Roman infimtry, led by Severus, though vigorously opposed, was at length completely successful ; and the barbarians quitted the field with a loss of six thousand men, and many more were 3'3)i CONSTANTIUS. [a. D. 35S-359. drowned in the Rhine, or slain by the darts of their pursuers as they were swimming across. Chnodomar himself was ta- ken'while attempting to escape, and conducted to the Cr.* His enmity to the Christians was unjust and little niin led , but their revenge has been ample. Julian was not a great man, but he was better qualified to rule than most princes; and, though we may not admire, we must esteem his character. Jovian. A. u. 1 1 16—1 1 17. A. D. 363—364. The morning after the death of Julian, a general assem- bly of the officers of the army was held for the purpose of choosing an emperor; for, as the house of Constantine was now extinct, no one could justly put forth any other claim than that of merit. They were split into two parties; Arin- thaeiis, Victor, and the remaining courtiers of Constantius, looked out for one of their own party whom they might pro- pose ; while Nevitta, Dagalaiphus, and the Gallic officers, soiiglit a candidate of their own side. Both, however, agreed in the person of the prefect Sallust ; but he declined the honor, pleading his age and his infirmities. An officer of rank then proposed that they should, for the present, only think of extricating the army from the instant perils, and that, when they reached Mesopotamia, they might choose an emperor at their leisure. But, while they were deliberating, some persons saluted as emperor Joviatius, the conmiander of the Domestics, or body-guard. He was immediately in- vested with the royal robes, and he rode through the troops, who readily acknowledged his authority. Jovianus, whom the caprice of fortune thus elevated to the purple, was distinguished more by his fither's merit than his own. He was the son of Count Varronianus, who, after hav- ing long served with reputation, was now living in dignified retirement. Jovian was tall and comely in person, of a gay and cheerful temper, a lover of wine and women, fond of literature, at the same time a good soldier, and even a zeal- ous Christian. As soon as Jovian was proclaimed, victims were slain, and * " Superstitiosns magis quam sacrorum Jegitimus obaervator, innu- irH-ras sine parsimonia pecudes mactans, ut aestimaretur si revertisset (ie I'urthis boves jam defuturos : Marci illius similis Cssaris in quein 1(1 accepimus dictum ui ktixol ^ufg J\]u(>xo} tw Kuiauiii. 'Liv av yiaijai,;, i,ntii u7ioket by Sebas- lian and Procopius, and their principal officers; and tho A. D. 363.] CHRISTIANITY REESTABLISHED. 35T army finally encamped under the walls of Nisibis, which city shame prevented Jovian from entering, though earnestly entreated by the people. The following day, Bineses, a Persian nobleman, who was one of the hostages sent with the army, called on the empe- ror to fulfil his promise^ and surrender the town. Jovian having acceded to his demand, he entered, and displayed the banner of Persia from the citadel. Nothing could exceed the grief and indignation of the Nisibenes. They implored the emperor not to force them to migrate, affirming that, even unaided, they were able to maintain their town against all the power of Persia. But Jovian, alleging a regard for his oath, was deaf to their entreaties; and at length, exasperated at an advocate named Silvaaus, who cried out, when he saw a crown presented to him by the citizens, " May you bethds crowned, O emperor, by the remaining cities!" he issued orders for those to depart within three days who were not willing to be subjects of the king of Persia. The grief and lamentation were naturally great, and the loss of property WHS considerable, owing to the want of beasts of burden to convey it away. A new quarter was built at Amida for the reception of the exiles, which city, in consequence, resumed its former importance. Singara and the Moors' Camp were surrendered in like manner, and Jovian then led his troops to Antioch. The remains of the late emperor were com- mitted to the charge of Procopius, to be conveyed to Tarsus. The attachment of Jovian to the Christian faith was well known. On the march to Antioch, the Labarum was again displayed. By a circular epistle, addressed to the governors of the provinces, he declared the Christian faith to be the religion of the empire ; all the edicts of Julian against it were abolished, and the church was restored to its posses- sions and immunities. The prelates thronged to the court of the Christian emperor ; and the venerable Athanasius, although seventy years of age, undertook, at that advanced season of the year, a journey from Alexandria to Antioch, in order to confirm him in the path of orthodoxy. By a vvise and humane edict, Jovian calmed the fears of his pagan subjects, proclaiming universal toleration, except for the practisers of magic arts. Impatient to reach the capital, Jovian remained only six weeks at Antioch. He first marched to Tarsus, where he inade a brief halt, and gave directions relating to the tomb of Julian. At Tyana in Cappadocia, he was met by 358 VALENTINIAN, VALEN" [a. D. Si)H, deputies, sent to assure him of the obedience of the armies and people of the West. On the 1st of January, 304, he assumed the consuhiie at Ancyra, witli his infant son for his colleague, whose crying, and reluctance to be carried in the curule chair, were regarded as ominous. lie thence pro- ceeded toward the capital ; but, having supped heartily one night, (Feb. 17,) when he halted at Dadastana, a little town on the frontiers of Bithynia, he was found dead in his bed the following morning. Various causes were assigned for his death ; but the most probable oiie was his having lain in a recently plastered room, in which there was a large fire o' charcoal. He was in the 33d year of his age, and he had not reigned quite eight months. CHAPTER v.* VALENTINIAN, VALENS, GRATIAN, VALER TlNIAiN II., AND THEODOSIUS. A. u. 1 117—1 14S. A. D. 364—395. ELEVATION OF VALENTINIAN AND OF VALF.NS. PROCOPIUS. GERMAN WARS. RECOVERY OF BRITAIN. REBELLION IN AFRICA. QIIAUAN WAR. DEATH OF VALENTINIAN. 1II8 CHARACTER. GRATIAN. THE GOTHS THE HUNS. THE GOTHIC WAR. BATTLE OF lI.\DRIANOPLE, AND DEATH OF VALENS. RAVA<;ES OF THE GOTHS. THEO- DOSIUS. SETTLEMENTS OF THE GOTHS. M.\XIMUS. DEATH OF GRATIAN. DEFEAT OF MAXIMUS. MASSACRE AT THES8ALONICA. CLEMENCY OF THEODOSIUS. DEATH OF VALENTINIAN II. DEFEAT AND DEATH OF EUGENIUS. DEATH AND CHARACTER OF THEODOSIUS. STATE OF THE EMPIRE. Valr.nthiian and Valens. A. u. 1117—1128. A. D. 3G4— 375. The death of the emperor Jovian did not prevent the advance of the army; and while it was on its march for Nicsea, the generals and civil officers met in frequent delib- * Authorities: Amnr anus, Zosimus, the Epitomato'-s, and Erclesi lutical Historians. A. D. 364.] CHARACTER OF VALENTINIAN. 359 eration on the choice of an emperor. All the suffrages were united in favor of the prefect Sallust; but he again refused the imperial dignity, both for himself or for his son, alleg- ing the age of the one and the inexperience of the other. Various persons were named and rejected : at length all united in approbation of Valentinian, who was then at An- cyra, in command of the second school of the Scutarians; and an invitation was sent to him to repair to Nica;a, where the solemn election was to be held. Valentinian was a Pannonian by birth, son of Count Gra- tian, a distinguished officer. He had himself served with great credit, and was now in the forty-third year of his age. In person he was tall and handsome. He was chaste and temperate in his habits; his mind had been little cultivated, and he was unacquainted with the Greek language, and with literature in general. He was a Christian in religion, and he had offended the emperor Julian by the public expression of his contempt for the rites of paganism. Every prudent measure was adopted by the friends of Valentinian to prevent the appearance of a competitor for the empire. No time, it might therefore be supposed, would have been lost in causing him to be acknowledged ; yet it was not till the second day after his arrival at Nicaea that he let him- self be seen ; the first happening to be the Bissextile, a day noted as unlucky in the annals of Rome. On the evening of that day, at the suggestion of Sallust, it was forbidden, on pain of death, for any man of high rank to appear the next morning in public. At daybreak, the impatient troops all assembled without the city ; Valentinian advanced, and, having ascended a lofty tribunal, was unanimously saluted emperor. He was then arrayed in the imperial habit, and was proceeding to address the assembled troops, when a general cry arose for him to name a colleague ; for late events had made even the meanest perceive the danger of an un- settled succession. The tumult increased, and menaced to become serious, when the emperor, by his authority, stilled the clamor, and, addressing them, declared that he felt as well as they the necessity of an associate in the toils of govern ment, but that the choice required time and deliberation. He assured them that he would make the choice vvith all con- venient speed, and in conclusion promised them the usual donative. Their clamors were converted into acclamations, and the emperor was conducted to the palace, surrounded by eagles and banners, and guarded by all the troops. 360 VALENTINIAN, VALENS. '^A. D. 365 The word was given to march for Nicomedia. Meantimo Valeritiniaii called a council of his principal officers to delib- erate on the choice of a colleague, though he had prol)ably already, in his own mind, fixed on the person. All were silent but the free-spoken Dagaiaiphus, who said, " If you love your own family, most excellent emperor, you have a brother; if the state, seek whom you may invest with the purple." Vilentinian was offended, but he concealed his feelings. The army marched for the Bosporus, and, soon after their arrival at Constantinople, (Mar. 28,) the emperor assembled them in a plain near the city, and presented to them his brother Valens, as his colleague in the empire. In this choice, he proved that natural affection was stronger in his breast than regard for the public happiness ; for Valens, though in his thirty-sixth year, had never borne any employ- ment, or showed any distinguished talent. As none, however, ventured to dissent, the choice seemed to be made with the general approbation. i; A general reformation of the administration of the empire was effected in the course of the year. Most of the ollicers of the palace and governors of provinces appointed by Julian, were dismissed ; but the whole proceeding was regulated by equity. In the spring of the following year, (32 VALENTINIAN, VAL.ENS. A. D. 366 feared to be attacked in the rear by the garrison of Nicaja, retired with ail speed to Ancyra, leaving Procopius master of Bithynia. At Ancyra, he was joined by Lupicinus, with a strong body of troops from Syria. He then gave the com- mand to Arinthaius, who advanced against the rebels that were at Dadastana, under the command of one Hyperectri- ses, a man of low rank, whom Procopius had raised out of friendship. Arinthsus, vvheti he beheld him, called out to the soldiers to bind iheir commander and deliver him up; and such was his ascendency over their minds that they obeyed his mandate. Procopius, however, made himself master of Cyzicus on the Hellespont. He then unwisely suffered his soldiers to plunder the house of Arbetio,* who was living in retirement; and, instead of advancing at once into Asia, where the people would probably have declared for him, he thought only of collecting money for currying on the war. In the spring, ('300,) Valens advaticed intoGalatia, and, aa Procopius carried the infant daughter of Constantius with him to the field, he invited the offended Arbetio to repair to his camp; and this aged general of Constantine's, taking off his helmet, and displaying his hoary locks, advanced toward the troops of Procopius, and, addressing the soldiers as his children and the sharers of his former toils, implored them to follow himself, who was, as it were, their parent, rather than that profligate adventurer and common robber. Many were thus induced to desert; and, when Procopius gave battle to the imperial troops at Nacolia in Phrygia, Agilo, an officer of rank, and several of his men, went over to the emperor in the heat of the action. Procopius, seeing all lost, fled on foot to the mountains, with two companions, by whom he was treacherously seized next day, and delivered bound to the emperor. His head was instantly struck off; the two traitors shared his fate. Judicial inquiries ensued; the rack was in constant use ; the executioner was incessantly em- ployed : neither age, sex, nor rank, was spared, and the re- sults of the victory of Nacolia were more direful than the most terrible civil war. As nothing of very great importance, in a political sense, occurred for some years in the East, we will devote our pages henceforth to the actions of Valenlinian. The absence of the Roman armies and the intelligence of the death of Julian having inspirited the Alemans, they • See above, p. 326. \. D. 366—368.] ALEMANNIC WAR. 36»^ passed the Rhine in the beginning of January, 366, and proceeded to ravage Gaul in their usual manner. The Counts Charietto and Severian were defeated and slain by them. But Jovinus, the master of the cavalry, having taken the command of the army destined to act against them, surprised and cut to pieces two of their divisions,, and, en- gaging the third in the vicinity of Chalons, (Catalauni,) de- feated them after a well-contested action, with a loss of 6,000 slain and 4,000 wounded, that of the Romans being only twelve hundred men. For this victory, Jovinus was, on his return to Paris, justly honored with the consulate. Some time after, (368,) an Aleraannic chief, named Ran- do, surprised the city of Mentz, {Moguntiacum,) on the diiy of one of the Christian festivals, and carried away a great num- ber of the inhabitants. Valentinian, resolved to take ven- geance on the whole nation, ordered Count Sebastian to invade t'leir country from the south, with the armies of Italy and Illyricum, while he himself and his son Gratianus should cross the Rhine at the head of the troops of Gaul. They passed the river without opposition ; as they advanced, no enemy appeared ; the deserted villages were burnt, and the cultivated lands laid waste. At length they learned that the enemy had occupied a lofty mountain, the north side of which alone was of easy ascent. Valentinian, having posted Count Sebastian at that side to intercept the fugitives, gave the signal to advance; and the Roman soldiers, in spite of all impediments, won their way up the steep sides of the mountain. When they had attained the summit, they charged the enemies vigorously, and drove them down the northern side, where they were intercepted and slaughtered by Count Sebastian. Valentinian and his son then returned to Treves for the winter, and celebrated their victory by magnificent triumphal games. Instead of again invading Germany, the prudent emperor resolved to provide for the defence of Gaul ; and he caused a chain of forts and castles to be constructed, chiefly along the left bank of the Rhine, from its source to the ocean. The Germans made various attempts to interrupt the works, especially those on the right bank of the river, and sometimes with success; but the em- peror completed his design, and secured the tranquillity of Gaul for the remainder of his reign. The coasts of Gaul and Britain were now infested by the invasions of the pirates of the North, who, united under the name of Saxons, (that of the people of the neck of the Cim- 364 VAI.ENTINIAN, VALENS. [a. D. 37 1 brie peninsula,) had long since commenced that series of plundering excursions which afterwards led to such iiii' portant consequences. A large body of these freebooters having penetrated into Gaul, (371,) Severus, the master of the infantry, was sent with a considerable force to oppose them. The Saxons, when they beheld the number and the arms of the Romans, declined the combat, and offered to supply a select number of their youth for the Roman service, as (lie condition of a safe retreat. The treaty was con- cluded, the condition fulfilled, and the Saxons set out for the coast. But, in a wooded valley on the way, a chosen body of Roman infantry was posted in ambush to attack them as they passed. Some, however, of the soldiers rising before their time, the freebooters became aware of the treachery that was meditated, and stood on their defence.* The Romans were on the point of destruction, when a body of cuirassiers, who had been posted with the same design on another part of the road, hearing the din of combat, hastened to the spot, and the unfortunate Saxons, assailed in front and rear, were cut to pieces; all who escaped the sword were reserved for the sports of the amphitheatre. It is not necessary to express our disgust at this piece of treachery ; but even in her best days Rome did not shrink from breach of faith and contempt of engagements. The coasts of Britain suffered equally with those of Gaul from the inroads of the northern pirates, and this now wealthy and civilized island was, in addition, subject to the ravages of a domestic enemy ; for, the avarice of the military commanders causing them to defraud their soldiers of their pay, and to sell discharges or e.xemptions from service, the discipline of the troops was at an end, and the highways were filled with robbers. The Picts and Scots, as the un- subdued natives of the northern part of the island were called, poured their savage hordes down into the now de- fenceless province, and ravaged it far and wide. The em- peror, when intelligence of their devastations reached him, selected first Severus, and then Jovinus, for the command in Britain ; but he finally committed it to Count Theodosius, a Spaniard by birth, and an officer of approved merit and capacity. Theodosius landed at Sandwich, {Rutupice,) whence he * "Ac licet," says Aniniianus, "Justus quidam arbiter reruin factum incMsabit perfidmn et dcforine, pensato tamen negotio non fecit indigne mail :m latronum exitialem tarvdem, copia data, captam." A. D. 369.] KECOVERY OF BRITAIN. 365 advanced to London : he then led his troops against the barbarians, and attacked and routed their scattered bands, recovering a large quantity of booty and captives. By pub- lishing an amnesty, he induced the soldiers who had deserted to return to their standards, and he speedily cleared the Ro- man part of the island of its northern invaders. He restored all the cities and fortresses that had suffered injury or decay. The province which he recovered from the enemy he named Valentia, from the emperor.* On his return to court, (369,) Theodosius was promoted to the dignity of master of the horse, and given the command on the Upper Danube, where he acted with his usual success against the Alemans. He was then chosen to suppress a revolt in Africa. The .military commandant in that province, Count Roma- nus, was one of those officers, so common under all despotic governments, who, heedless of justice and of the welfare of tiie people, think only of gratifying their pride and avarice. Relying on the influence of his kinsman Remigius, the mas- ter of the offices, he set at nought the prayers and complaints 0^ the provincials, and he suffered them to become the prey of the barbarians if they did not come up to his demands. The people of Tripolis, who had thus been abandoned to ihe Gaetulians, ventured to send deputies with their com- plaints to the emperor ; and the charge of examining into the state of the province was committed to the notary Palla- dius. But this man had been selected by the influence of Remigius, and consequently his report asserted the inno- cence of Romanus, and the falsehood of the charges made by the Tripolitans. The deaths and mutilations of some of their most distinguished citizens, under a barbarous de- cree of the deceived emperor, ensued; and Romanus contin- ued his career of tyranny and extortion till his excesses forced the people to declare for a Moorish prince, who had been driven into insurrection. The name of this prince was Firmus, the son of Nabal. In a domestic quarrel, after the death of his father, he hap- pened to kill one of his brothers; and Romarius, prompted * '' Recuperatamque provinciam, quEB in ditionem concesserat hoB- tium, ita reddiderat statui pristine, ut eodem referenle et rectorem ha- beret legitimum. et Valentia deinde vocaretur arbitrio Principis velut ovantis." Am. Mar. xxviii. 3. This does not justify the language of Gibbon, that Theodosius " with a strong hand confined the trembling Caledonians to the northern angle of the island ; and perpetuated, by the name and settlement of the new province of Valentia, the glories of the reign of Valontinian." 31* 366 VALENTINIAN, VALENS. [a.D. 373-376 by hatred or avarice, or it may be by a regard for justice, showed such a determination to punisii him, that Firmus saw that he must submit to be executed or appeal to his sword. He chose the latter alternative; thousands flocked to his standard : Romanus proved unable to resist him, and the charrre of reducing him was committed to the able Theo- dosius, (37."}.) The contest between this officer and Firmus resembled that between Metellus and Jugurtha, in the same country. The arts of the African were encountered with cor- responding dissimulation ; the Roman general, at the head of an expedite force of less than 4,(H)0 men, traversed the coun- try in all directions, and a Moorish prince, with whom Fir- mus li;i(l sought refuge, resolved to imitate the conduct of Bocchus, and obtain the favor of the victor by the surrender of the fugitive. Firmus, however, anticipated his treachery by a voluntary death. The fate of Theodosius himself may here be told. He had committed Ronianus to safe custody on his landing in Africa, and abundant evidence of that officer's guilt had been procured. But court favor availed to procure delay ; bribery brought forward friendly witnesses, and forgery pro- duced favorable documents; and the final result was, that the guilty Romanus escaped with impunity, while the innocent Theodosius, after death had removed Valentinian, who kne^v his worth, was, through court intrigue, seized and beheaded at Carthawe, on a vague suspicion that he was grown too powerful for a subject! (;37().) While Theodosius was engaged in the reduction of Af- rica, a war with the once formidable Quadans engaged the arms of Valentinian in person. In pursuance of his plan of securing the banks of the frontier rivers by fortresses, the ground for one of them was marked out on what the Qua- dans claimed as their territory. On their complaint, Equi- tius, who commanded in Illyricum, suspended the works till he should have received further instructions from the emperor. His enemy Maximin, the tyrannic prefect of Gaul, seized thi.s occasion for injuring him in the mind of Valentinian, and of procurini{ the command of the province of Valeria (the scene of the dispute) for his own son Marcellinus. The passion- ate and credulous emperor was easily induced to comply with his desire, and that important command was intrusted to an inexperienced and insolent youth. On his arrival in the provitjce, Marcellinus caused the works which Ecpiitiua had suspended to be resumed; and when Gabinius, the Qua A.D. 375. J Q.UADAN WAR. 367 dan king, mod(;stly remonstrated, he invited him to a ban« quet, affecting a willingness to comply with his wishes, and caused him, as he was departing from it, to be assassinated. The murder of their king exasperated the Q,aadans; and, having procured the aid of a body of horse from their usual allies, the Sarmatians, they crossed the Danube, and invaded Pannonia. It was now the harvest-time, and the population were all engaged in their rural toils. The slaughter of the defenceless peasantry was therefore immense, and huge quantities of booty were carried over the Danube. The ravages of the invaders extended to the very walls of Sirmi- um. The two only legions which Equitius could brnig into the field were cut to pieces. The Sarmatians, following the example of their allies, invaded Mojsia; but the young Theo- dosius, who, though only a youth, held the post of duke of that frontier, routed them in several encounters, and forced them to retire, and sue for peace. In the following spring, (375,) the emperor Valentinian quitted Treves, his ordinary residence, and, at the head of the greater part of the troops of Gaul, appeared on the banks of the Danube. He crossed that river, and, having devastated the Quadan country far and wide, repassed it without having lost a single man of his army. As he in- tended to return and complete the destruction of the Qua- dans in the following year, he fixed his winter quarters at a place named Bregilio, on the banks of the Danube, near the site of the modern city of Presburg. While he abode there, he was waited on by ambassadors from that people, suing for peace in the humblest ternls. In his reply, he gave a loose to his violent passions, reproaching the envoys and those who sent them, in the most opprobrious terms. The violence of his exertions caused him to burst a blood-vessel, and he fell back speechless into the arms of his attendants. He expired within a few hours, (Nov. 17,) in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and after a reign of twelve years wanting one hundred days. Valentinian is praised as a brave soldier, a lover of justice, a man frugal, temperate, and chaste, in private life. He alle- viated, when he could, the burdens of his subjects; he was a rigid maintainer of discipline in the army. Above all, he was tolerant in religion, and did not seek to impose his own faith on his subjects by force or by disqualifications. On the other hand, he was choleric and cruel ; the slightest offences were punished by a cruel death, and the sentence at times 36c VALENS, GRATIAN, ETC. [a. D. 375. was passed in a tone of barbarous jocularity. He had two she-bears, which he named Gold-grain {Mica aurca) and In- nocence. Tliese animals, who were accustomed to tear human victims, were such favorites with him tiiat he caused their dens to be constructed near his own bed-chamber, and assigned them keepers, whose task was to foster their natural ferocity. We are not informed of the fate of Gold-grain, but Innocence, after a long course of service, was let loose in the woods. Valens, Gratian, Valtntlnian II. A. u. 1128— 1131. A. D. 375— 378. The late emperor had, iu the fifth year of his reign, asso- ciated in the empire with himself and his brother, his son Gratian, then a boy in his ninth year. This prince, who \v;is now in his seventeenth year, was residing at Treves when the death of his father occurred. His abt^ence im- boldened two officers of rank, Merobaudes and Equitius, to make an attempt to advance their own interest by adding to the number of the emperors ; and, having contrived to re- move the Gallic troops, from whom they apprehended oppo- sition, they brought to the camp Valentinian, the half-brother of Gratian, a child only four years old, who was residing with his mother, the empress Justina, at a country-seat one hundred miles distant from Brcgilio, and invested him with the purple. Gratian, a prudent and moderate prince, did not show any resentment at this act of assumption. He ac- cepted his infant colleague, to whom he acted as a kind and attentive ggardian. The portion of the empire assigned to the young emperor was Illyricum, Italy, and Africa; and he and his mother fixed their residence at JMilan. Since the fall of Procopius, the emperor Valens had reigned in security. The settlement of the thrones of Ibe- ria and Armenia had caused some hostile demonstrations between him and the great Sapor; but the Roman was timid, and age had softened the energy of the Persian, and their differences were settled by negotiation. After the death of his brother, Valens found himself obliged to take the field in person against a formidable enemy; and the fall of the Roman empire is, with some appearance of reason, dated from this inauspicious period. A. D. 375.] THE GOTHS. 369 The great Gothic nation, whose steps we have traced from the North to the Euxine, consisted of two mail stems, tlie Ostrogoths, or East-goths, and the Visigoths, c West- goths. The monarch of the former, named Hermarric, had, according to the chroniclers of his nation, at the advanced age of eighty years, the period when most men have ceased from their labors, commenced a career of conquest whicl: extended his dominion back to the shores of the Baltic. The kings of the Visigoths were obliged to renounce the royal title, and be content with the humbler rank of Judges; and Hermanric was the acknowledged monarch of Scythia. The aid given to Procopius having caused hostilities between him and the emperor Valens, the Gothic sovereign committed the conduct of the war to Atiianaric, one of the Judges of the Visigoths; it was terminated by a treaty in the year 369, and the Goths remained tranquil till the year of the death of Valentinian, when the appearance of an enemy from the remote regions of the East precipitated them on the Roman empire. The extensive plains of northern Asia, from the confines of Europe, or rather from those of the territory of the great Slavonian portion of the human family, to the shores of the eastern ocean, have from time immemorial been the abode of two races of men. The one, known to the ancients by the name of Scythians, to the moderns by that of Turks, has always occupied the western portion of these plains; and it is of this people that historians speak when they narrate the wars and conquests of the Scythians. They are tall, well- formed, and fair, and belong to what is termed the Caucasian or Indo-German portion of mankind. The other race, long unknown to the ancients, are termed Mongols or Tatars; their original seats are to the east of those of the Turks; and their physical qualities, such as their extreme ugliness, their thin beards, the great breadth between their eyes, and other marks, indicate them to belong to a different portion of the human race. To the south of the seats of the Mongols lies the exten- sive empire of China, the inhabitants of which appear to belong to the Mongol family. The annals of this people tell of numerous wars between them and their barbarous kinsmen of the north. Some time before the period of which we write, the arms of China had prevailed; the power of the Mongols had been broken, and a large portion of u u 370 VALENS, GRA.TIAN, ETC. [a. D. 375-376. tlteir warriors had, with their flocks and herds, moved west- ward in quest of new settlements. The Huns, as that por- tion of the Mongols of whom we treat were named, ad- vanced till they encountered the Alans, who dwelt between the Volga and the Don, or Tanais, on the banks of which latter stream the forces of the two nations engaged. The king of the Alans was slain, and victory crowned the arms of the Huns. A portion of the vanquished people migrated; the rest submitted, and weie incorporated with the conquer- ors, who then entered the territories of the Gothic monarch, (;}?;>,) whose tyranny had made him odious to the greater part of his subjects, and caused them to view the progress of the Huns with indifference. Some time before, on the occ ision of the desertion of a chief of the Roxolans, Her- manric had caused his innocent wife to be torn to pieces by wild horses, and her brothers now seized the occasion for vengeance. Hermanric perished by their daggers, and his son and successor, Withimer, fell in battle against the Huns. The greater part of the nation of the Ostrogoths forthwith submitted ; but the more generous portion, with their infant sovereign Witheric, and led by two brave chiefs named Suphrax and Aletheus, penetrated to the banks of the Nies- ter, which Athanaric occupied at the head of the warriors of the Visigoths. The Hunnish hordes soon appeared, and by causing a large body of their cavalry to ford the river by mr)onlight and surround the Goths, they forced them to retire and seek the shelter of the hills. Athanaric had arranged a new plan of defence; but his people had lost courage, and, jnder the guidance of their two other Judges, Fritigern and Alavivus, they approached the banks of the Danube, seeking the protection of the Roman emperor, (•.^76.) The Gothic envoys proceeded to Antioch, where Valens was then residing. Their request was taken into consider- ation by the emperor and his council ; and it was decided to give them a settlement within the boimds of the empire, on the condition of their delivering up their arms before they passed the river, and suffering their children to be separated from them, and dispersed through the cities of Asia, to serve .as hostages, and be brought up in Roman manners. Under the pressure of necessity, the Goths consented to these terms ; and orders for their transportation were then issued to the imperial officers. As the stream of the Danube was rapid, swollen, and a mile in breadth, many perished in the pas- sage ; but we are assured that at the least two hundred thou- A. D. 376.] THE GOTHS. 371 sand Gothic warriors, with their wives, children, and slaves, were safely landed on the southern bank of the river. The hostages were delivered according to agreement ; but to retain their arms they consented to prostitute their wives and chil- dren, and to sacrifice their most precious possessions; anc the lust and avarice of the imperial officers caused them to endanger the peace of the empire for their gratification. A powerful Gothic army thus occupied the hills and plains of Lower Moesia. Soon after, Saphrax and Aletheus, with their Ostrogoths, appeared on the banks of the Danube imploring a passage; but Valens, now become alarmed, dismissed their envoys with a refusal. Prudence and policy equally counselled that so formidable a host as that of the Visigoths should have been managed delicately, and the utmost care been taken to avoid giving them any cause of irritation. But Lupicinus and Maximus, the governors of the province, thought only of indulging their avarice. The vilest food, such as the flesh of dogs, was supplied to them ; to obtain a pound of bread they had to give a slave, and to pay ten pounds of silver for a small quantity of flesh meat ; and when all their property had thus been expended, want impelled them to the sale of their sons and daugiiters. Tiieir patience was at length exhausted, and their menaces alarmed Lupicinus and Maximus, who there- fore resolved to disperse them along the frontiers without delay. With tliis view they drew around them all the troops they could assemble ; and, as they in consequence removed those that were watching the Ostrogoths, that people seized the opportunity of crossing the river on rafts and in boats, and encamped, unshackled by conditions, on the Roman territory. The Visigoths, conducted by Fritigern, in com- pliance with the orders of the Roman general, advanced to Marcianopolis, seventy miles inland from the Danube. Here, however, they were refused a market; and a quarrel in con- sequence arose between them and the Roman soldiers, in which some blood was spilt. Lupicinus, who was at tho time entertaining the Gothic chiefs, when informed of this event, gave orders for their guards to be slain. Fritigern, hearing the noise, drew his sword, and, calling on his com- panions to follow him, forced his way through the crowd, and rejoined his countrymen without the walls. Their banners were instantly raised, and their horns sounded, according to their custom, for war. Lupicinus, at the head of what troops he could collect, marched out against them. 372 VALENS, GRATIAN, ETC. [a. D. 377-373 The engagement took place about nine miles from Marcian- opolis : atid it terminated in the total defeat of the Romans. The nnprotected country soon felt the effects of the Gothic victory; the husbandmen were massacred or enslaved, the villages were plundered and burnt. A body of Goths in the Roman service, who were t]uartered at Hadrianople, were driven into insurrection by the imprudent violence of the governor of that town. 'I'hey joined their victorious countrymen, and their united forces laid siege to the city. But the Goths knew nothing of sieges, and Fritigern drew them off, declaring that " he was at peace with stone walls." The slaves who wrought in the gold-mines of Thrace fled to the invaders, and revealed to them all the recesses in the mountains in which the inhabitants had concealed themselves with their cattle and properly. Enormities of every kind were perpetrated on the unhappy people of the country, (377.) To check the excesses of the barbarians, Valens sent the troops of the East, under his generals Trajan and Profnturus, with whom Richomer, count of the domestics in the Western empire, united his forces, and it was resolved to seek out and attack the enemy. The Goths, who had repassed Mount Flacmus, were now encamped in the plain adjacent to the most southern of the mouths of the Danube. When the approach of the Roman army was" discerned, Fritigern summoned all the scattered warriors to his standard, and an action was fought, which, after lasting from dawn till dusk, terminated in the decisive advantage of neither party. F'or the seven following days, the Goths remained within their camp, which was secured, according to the custom of their race, by a strong circuit of wagons. The plan of the Ro- man generals was to confine them to the angle which they occupied, till famine, by its sure operation, should have re- duced them. But while, with this view, they were fortifying their lines, they learned that Fritigern had formed a league with the Ostrogoths, and liad even induced a large number of the Huns and Alans to join his standard. The Romans, fearful of being surrounded, abandoned the siege of the Gothic camp, and retired; and the liberated Goths rapidly spread their devastations as far as the Hellespont, (37!^.) Valens had early sought the aid of his nephew and col- 'eague Gratian ; and that gallant young emi>oror was pre- paring to lead the forces of the West to the deliverance of the East, when the Alemans, learning his design, and perhaps A. D. 378.] GOTHIC WAR. 373 acting in concert with the Goths, passed the Rhine to the number of forty thousand. The troops which had been sent on to Pannonia were recalled, and Gratian, guided by the military experience and wisdom of his general Nanienus, and of Mellobaudes, king of the Franks, and count of the do- mestics, gave the barbarians battle at Colniar (Argentaria) in Alsace. The victory of the Romans was decisive; the king of the Alemans was slain ; and of their entire host not more than five thousand men escaped from the field of battle. Gratian then invaded their country, and forced them to sue for peace. While Gratian was thus inspiring his subjects with ad- miration and respect for their youthful emperor, Valens had reached Constantinople, where, urged by the clamors of the populace, and inspirited by the recent successes of some of his generals, he resolved to assume in person the conduct of the war against the barbarians ; and he set out at the head of a large army. The Goths had proposed to occupy the defiles on the road from that city to Hadrianople ; but the march of the imperial troops was conducted with so much skill and celerity, that they reached the latter place unim- peded, and secured themselves in a strong camp beneath its walls. A council was held to decide on future operations. Count Richomer, whom Gratian had despatched with intel- ligence of his victories, and with assurances of his speedy approach, urged strongly the prudence of waiting for the arrival of the Gallic legions; his advice was seconded by Victor, the master of the horse, a Sarmatian by birth, but a cautious and prudent man. On the other hand. Count Se- bastian and the court flatterers advised against sharing with a colleague the glory of a certain victory. Their counsels, aided by the jealousy of Valens, prevailed. While prepara- tions were being made for battle, a Christian presbyter ar- rived as the envoy of Fritigern. The public letters of which he was the bearer, craved that Thrace, with all its cattle and corn, should be given to his people as the condition of a perpetual peace; but he was also commissioned to deliver a private letter, in which Fritigern, writing as a friend, said that he should never be able to bring his countrymen to agree to any terms unless the imperial army were close at hand to daunt them by its presence. The object of the wily Goth was to bring on a speedy engagement. At dawn the following day, (Aug. 9,) the legions of the East were in motion, the imperial treasure and iinsignia being left CONTIN. 3-2 3*54 VALENS, GRATIAN, ETC. [a. D. 378 within the walls of Hadrianople. Toward noon the wag- on-fence of the enemy, twelve miles from the city, was discerned. The Romans began to form their line of battle; the Goths, as the troops of Aletheus and Saphrax were not yet come up, sent again illusive proposals of peace, and, while time was thus gained, the effects of the heal of the burning sun were augmented by the Goths seiting tire to the grass and wood of the surrounding country. The Romans also suffered from want of food ; and at length the arrival of Saphrax and Aletheus put an end to all negotiation, and the battle commenced. The horse of the Roman left wing pen- etrated to the enemy's line ofwagons, but, being unsupported, was overthrown and scattered ; and the foot, being thus left without protection, and crowded into too narrow a space to be able to use their arms to advantage, were crushed by the masses of the enemy. After a long but fruitless resistance, they fled in all directions. The emperor sought refuge among the troops named Lancearians and Mattiarians, from their weapons, who still stood their ground. Count Trajan crying out that all was lost if the emperor were not saved. Count Victor hastened to the spot with the reserve of Bata- vians; but the emperor was nowhere to be found, and the furious onset of the Goths soon forced all to provide for tneir own safety. A moonless night terminated the rout, and aided the escape of the van(|uislied Romans. Since the day of Cannnfe. no such calamity had bcfillen the Roman arms. Scarcely a third part of the army (\uitted the field. Among the slain were the Counts Trajan, Sebastian, Valerian, and Equitius, and six-and-thirty other officers of rank. The fate of Vnlens himself was never exactly known. Some said that at nightfall he fell mortally wounded by an arrow, and that his body, confounded among those of the common soldiers, could never be recognized. Others as- serted that, when he was wounded, some of his guards and eunuchs conveyed him to a neighboring cottage, and, vvliiie they were engaged in trying to dress his wound, the enemy surrounded the house, and, being unable to force the doors, lieaped straw and wood against them, and, setting fire to these materials, burned the house and all within it. One of (lie guards, who escaped out of a window, survived to tel the story. Such was the fate of the emperor Valens, in the fiftieth year of his age, and th i fourteenth of his reign. lie is said to have been a firm ft end, a rigid maintainer of both civil A.D. 378.] GOTHIC WAR. 375 and military order, a mild ruler of the provinces. He was also moderately liberal. On the other hand, he is charged wi*h avarice, indolence, severity bordering on cruelty ; and it is added, that, though affecting a great regard to justice, he would never allow the judges to give any sentence but such as he wished. In religion, he was an Arian ; and the Catholics underwent some persecution during his reign. On the morning after the battle, the Goths, eager to pos- sess the wealth of which they knew it to be the depot, sur- rounded the walls of Hadrianople. The soldiers and camp followers, who had been shut out of the town, fought with desperate resolution, and kept them at bay for the space of five hours; and the imprudent slaughter of three hundred men who went over to them, showed that safety only lay in valor and constancy. A violent tempest at last forced the Goths to return to their wagon-camp. They again had re- course to negotiation, and then tried the way of treachery. Some of the guards had deserted to them, and they induced these men to return to the city as if they had made their escape, and, if admitted, they were to set fire to a part of the town, in order that, while the besieged were engaged in quenching the flames, the Goths might seize the opportunity of breaking in at some unguarded place. The traitors were admitted ; but the discrepancy in their account of the designs of the enemy caused them to be put to the torture, and the truth was thus discovered. The Goths, in the morning, re- newed the assault ; but the defence was resolute as ever, and they retired in the evening, accusing one another of madness in not attending to the counsel of Fritigern, and avoiding all dealings with- stone walls. They departed the next day, i:' I and directed their course for the capital. They plundered and wa'^ted all the circumjacent country ; but they ieared the strength of the walls and the magnitude of the population of the city. While they were insulting its strength, a squadron of Saracenic light horse, which had lately arrived, issued from one of the gates and attacked them. The conflict was well maintained and dubious; but when the Goths beheld an Arab warrior, half naked, with his long hair hanging about him, raise a hoarse and dismal chant, and, drawing his dagger, rush into the midst of their ranks, and, putting his mouth to the throat of one whom he had slain, suck his blood, they were filled with horror and disgust. They short- ly after withdrew with their booty to the northern provinces, and spread their ravages as far as the Adriatic. 376 GRATIAN, ETC. [a. d. 379. Meantime, an act of barbarous, and therefoie questiona- ble, policy was put in practice by Julius, who commanded beyond Mount Taurus. Apprehending danger from the Gothic youth who were dispersed in the various towns and cities, he, with the corisenl of the senate of Constantinople, issued orders to their commanders, who happened to be all Romans, (a thing, as Ammianus observes, very rare in those days,) to assemble them all on a certain day, as if to receive their promised pay, and then to slaughter them. The orders were executed; the Goths were collected, unarmed, in the s(|uares of the towns, the avenues were gtiarded, and, from the tops of the adjacent buildings, the soldiers overwhelmed them with their weapons.* Qratian, Valmtinian IT., and Theodosius. A. u. 1131— 113G. A. D. 378— 3S3. Grattan had been on his march to aid his uncle, when he heard of the defeat and death of that ill-fated prince. He foithwith halted, and, taking into serious consideration the state of the empire, and knowing that the West would de- mand his own undividcul attention, he saw clearly the neces- sity of selecting some one, in whose character the general and the statesman should be united, to take the charge of the East. Acting on the wisdom which experience had taught, he resolved that the person selected should be his colleague in the empire, and not a subordinate officer; and the choice which he made was alike honorable to himself Tind its object. The person selected by Gralian for the high dignity of emperor of the East was the • son of that Theodosius, who, only three years before, had been put to death by his own authority. The younger Theodosius had, on that oc- casion, craved leave to resign his command; and, having obtained it, he had retired to his native country, Spain, and fixed his residence on his paternal estate at Coco, between Valladolid and Segovia. He there divided his time between the town and the country ; and the care and the improvement of his property formed his chief occupation. While thus * Zosimus (who is followed by Gibbon) says tliat they were the Gothic youths who had been delivered up to Valens. Amrnianuj Beeiiis to speak of them as Goths in the Roman service. This writer f valuable history ends at this point. A. D. 379-3S2.] THEODOsius. 377 engaged, he was summoned to receive the purple, with which he was invested by Gratian in the city of Sirmium, (Jan. 19, 379,) amid the favoring acclamations of the soldiers and the people. Theodosius was now in the thirty-third year of his age; his person and countenance displayed manly vigor and dignity; and time proved that the qualities of his heart corre- sponded to those outward charms which captivated the vulgar No man ever attained to empire in a more honorable man- ner ; the slightest vestige of intrigue or manoeuvre is not to be discerned; his country was in danger, and a noble-minded prince summoned to its aid the man deemed most capable of delivering it from its enemies; for we must not refuse the meed of praise to Gratian, who could intrust such power to a man whose father had been murdered in his name. Theodosius did not venture to lead the dispirited troops of the East into the field against the Goths. He fixed his own residence at Thessalonica, and caused the fortifications of the other towns to be strengthened. By frequent sallies; the soldiers were taught to encounter the barbarians ; grad- ually, small armies were formed, and, by well-concerted ope- rations, victories were gained. This Fabian policy was aided by the dissensions which naturally broke out among the various bodies of the barbarians when the able Fritigern was removed by death. A Gothic chief, of royal blood, named Modar, entered the service of Theodosius, who gave him a high military command ; and he surprised and cut to pieces a large body of his countrymen. Athanaric, who had emerged from his retirement after the death of Fritigern, and prevailed on the greater part of the Visigoths to submit to his rule, was now advanced in years, and disposed to peace. He therefore listened to the proposals of Theodo- sius, and concluded a treaty. The emperor advanced to meet him at some distance from Constantinople, and Atha- naric accompanied him' to that city. The Gothic prince was amazed at its strength and magnificence ; but the change in his mode of life probably proved fatal to him, for he died not long after his arrival. He was interred by the emperor with the utmost magnificence, and a stately monument was raised to his memory. His whole army entered the imperial service ; the other chiefs gradually agreed to treaties with the emperor ; and thus, within a space of little more than four years after the death of Valens, (382,) the victors of Hadrianople had become the subjects of the empire. The settle nents assigned them were in the provinces of Mcesia 32 • r V 378 GRATIAN, ETC. [a. D. 336. and the cis-Danubic Dacia, which had been laid desolate by their ravages. During all this time, the Ostrogoths were far away in the north, among the tribes of Gern)any. They at length (3S6) appeared once more on tlie banks of the Lower Danube, their numbers augmented by German and Sarmatian, or per- haps Hunnish auxiliaries, and proposed to renew their dev- astation of the Roman provinces. Promotus, the general of tlie opposite frontier, had recourse to stratagem against tliem. He sent over spies, wl»o stipulated to betray the Ro- man army, assuring the barbarians that, if they crossed the river in the dead of the night, they might surprise it when buried in sleep. Accordingly, on a moonless night, the Gotlis embarked their warriors in three thousand munozyls, or canoes, and pushed for the opposite shore; but, when they approached it, they found it guarded, for the length of two miles and a half, by a triple line of vessels ; and, whde they were struggling to force their way through them, a tleet of galleys came, with stream and oars, down the river, and as- sailed them. The resistance which they were able to offer was slight; their king or general Odotliajus, and numbers of their warriors, were slain or drowned, and they were rtnal- ly obliged to solicit the clemency of the victors.* Theodo- sius, who was at hand, concluded a treaty with them, by which they engaged to become his subjects. Seats were assigned them in Lydia and Phrygia, where they were gov- erned by their own hereditary chiefs, under the supreme authority of the emperor. A body of 40,000 Goths, named Foederati, or allies, henceforth formed a part of the army of the East, distinguished by gold collars, higher pay, and various privileges. We will now turn to the West and the emperor Gr;itian. Tliis prince, whose character was by nature feeble and gentle, had been fostered, as it were, into greatness by the wisdom and the counsels of the able preceptors with whom * There is some confusion in this account. Zosimus (iv. 35, and 38, 3!),) makes the Gotlis to be twice defeoted, (A. D. .383 and 38G,) on the s:une river, and by the same person, and in the same ntanner, as it would appear. The Gothic general in the former he calls GEdotheus ; til? same with the Odotheeus of Claudian (De iv. Cons. Hon. 62(j) in the second. We cannot, by the way, agree with Gibbon that tl»is wjs Aletheus. One of the most improbable circumstances in the narrative is, tint the Golhs should not have discerned the Roman shipping ; lor the Danube is nowhere too wide to be seen across. /^.D. 388.] CHARACTER OF GRATIAN. 3^9 his father had surrounded him.* In the acts of the early years of his reign, though he was tlie ostensible agent, they were the secret directors; and the youth, whose chief virtue was ductility to good, obtained the fame due to higher qual- ities,. But when death or other causes had removed these able and virtuous advisers, the amiable but indolent prince fell under the guidance of men of a different character, to vvhoni he intrusted the affairs of the state, while he devoted him- self to the delights of the chase, in which he bent the bow and flung the dart with the skill of a Commodus. The offices and advantages of the court and the provinces were set to sale, and the minds of the subjects were thus alienated; but this would have signified little had Gratian been careful to retain the attachment of the soldiers, which his conduct, when directed by worthy advisers, had won. This, how- ever, he lost by his own imprudence. He had placed a body of Alans among his guards, and, charmed with their dexterity in the use of his favorite weapons, he committed to them exclusively the defence of his person. He used even to ap- pear in public in their peculiar national dress, to the grief and indignation of the legionary soldiers, even the Germans viewing with horror the Scythian costume. While such was the temper of the troops, a revolt broke out in the army of Britain, (383,) and a person named Max- imus was there proclaimed emperor. This man, who was a native of Spain, and the fellow-soldier of Theodosius, was re- siding in Britain, but without civil or military rank of any importance. His abilities and his virtues are recognized, but whence his influence arose we are uninformed ; and if we may credit his own positive assertion, his dignity was forced on him. He plainly saw that he could not recede; and, as the British youth crowded to his standard, he passed over to Gaul at the head of a large army.t The troops of Gaul all declared for him, and Gratian fled from Paris to Lyons with oidy three hundred horse. The gates of all the towns on his way were closed against him, and the treacher- * Ausonius, the poet (more properly versifier) of Bordeaux, was one of his tutors. Gratian honored him with the consulate in 379. We cannot see why Gibbon should call Ausonius " a professed pagan." t A large emigration of Britons to Armorica is placed in this time, to which belongs the leo-end of St. Ursula and her virgins. These are said to have been 11,U00 noble and 60,000 plebeian maidens, the des- tined brides of the emigrants, who, mistaking their way, went up the llhiue, and were massacred at Cologne by the Huns — who were not there. 390 THEODOSIUS, ETC. [a. d. 383-367. oils governor of Lyons amused him with promises till those sent in pursuit of him arrived, and he was slain as he rose from supper, (Aug. 25.) His brother Valentiuum applied, but in vain, for his body. Mellobaudes, the Frank king and Roman general, shared the fate of his master; but Maximus, who was now acknowledged by the whole West, could boast 'bat no other blood was shed e.xcept in the field. Thcodosius, Valcntinian II., and Mazimus. A. u. 1136—1141. A. D. 383—388. The late revolution had been so sudden that Theodosius had been, perhaps, uninformed of it until it was accomplished ; and, ere he could determine how to act, he was waited on by an embassy from the usurper, headed by his chamberlain, a man advanced in years, and, as the historian observes, to the praise of Maximus, not a eunuch. The envoy justified the conduct of his master, asserting his ignorance of the murder of Gratian : he then proceeded to give Theodosius the op- tion of peace or war. Gratitude and honor urged the em- peror to avenge the fate of his benefactor ; but prudence sug- gested that the issue of a contest with the troops of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, was doubtful, and that the barbarians, who hovered on the frontiers, would be ready to pour into the empire when its forces should have been wasted in civil conflict. He, therefore, lent a favorable ear to the pro- posals of Maximus, and acknowledged him as a colleague, carefully, however, stipulating for the security of Valen- tinian in his share of the empire. The images of the three imperial colleagues were, according to usage, exhibited to the people. The empire now remained at rest for a space of four years; but at length (387) its repose was disturbed by the ambition of Maximus; for, not content with his own ample portion, this fortunate rebel cast an eye of cupidity on the dominions of Valentinian, where many were disaffected on account of religion. Having extorted large sums of money from his subjects, he took a great number of barbarians into pay ; and, when aii ambassador from Valentinian came to his court, he persuaded him to accept the services of a part of his troops for an imminent Pannonian war. The envoy himselC was their guide through the passes of the Alps; Maximus A. D. 387.] FLIGHT OF VALENTINIAN. 881 secretly followed at the head of a larger body, and a precipi- tate flight from Milan to Aquileia alone assured the safety of Valentinian and his mother. Not deeming themselves se- cure even in that strong city, they embarked in a vessel, and, sailing round the Grecian peninsula, landed at Thessaloni- ca,* whither Theodosius hastened to visit them. He delib- erated with his council as to what were best to be done ; the same reasons as before urged him to pause before he should engage in a civil war ; and the injuries of Valentinian might possibly have gone unrevenged, had they not found an advo- cate in the beauty of his sister Galla. By the directions of her mother, this princess cast herself at the feet of Theodo- sius, and with tears implored his aid. Few hearts are proof against the tears of benuty — that of Theodosius, at least, was not ; his empress was dead, and his aid was assured if the lovely supplicant would consent to share the throne of the East. The condition was accepted, the nuptials were cele- brated, and the royal bridegroom then prepared to take the field. Large bodies of Huns and Alans crowded to the standard of Theodosius, who found Maximus encamped near Siscia, on the banks of the Save. The light cavalry of the barbarians flung themselves into that deep and rapid river the moment they reached it, and routed the troops which guarded the opposite bank. Next morning, a general action ensued, which terminated in the submission of the surviving troops of Maximus, who fled to Aquileia, whither he was rapidly followed by Theodosius. The gates were burst open ; the unfortunate Maximus was dragged into the pres- ence of the victor, who, having reproached him with his misdeeds, delivered him to the vengeance of the soldiers, by whom his head was struck off. His son Victor, whom he had given the rank of Cjesar, and left behind him in Gaul, was put to death by Count Arbogast, one of Theodosius's generais, by the order of that emperor; and the whole of the West was thus subjected to the rule of Valentinian. The generous Theodosius compensated those who had suffered by the oppression of Maximus, and he assigned an income to the mother of that ill-fated prince, and provided for the edu- cation of his daughters. * G' bon's account of their voyage is more suited to epic poetry tl/an t history. 382 THEODOSIUS, ETC. [a. d. 390 Theodosius and Valcntiiiian II. A. u. 1141—1145. A. D. 388—392. Theodosius, after his victory, remained three years \u Italy to regulate the affairs of the West for his juvenile col- league, lu the spring of the year 389, he made a triumphal entrance into the ancient capital of the empire; but his usual abode was the palace of Milan. While Theodosius was residing in Italy, (390,) an unhappy event occurred, which casts almost the only shade over his fair fame. In the city of Thessalonica, an eminent charioteer of the circus conceived an impure affection for a beautiful boy, one of the slaves of Botheric, the commander of the gar- rison : to punish his insolence, Botheric cast him into prison. On the day of the games, the people, with whom he was a great favorite, enraged at his absence, rose in insurrection, and, as the garrison was then very small, they massacred Botheric and his principal officers, and dragged their bodies about the streets. Theodosius, who was of a choleric temper, was tilled with fury when he heard of this atrocious deed. His first resolution was to take a bloody revenge ; the efforts of the bishops then led him to thoughts of clemency ; but the arguments of his minister Rufinus induced him, finally, to expedite an order for military execution. lie then attempted to recall the order, but it was too late. The people of Thes- salonica were, in the name of the emperor, invited to the games of the circus. Their love of amusement overcoming their fear of punishment, they hastened to it in crowds; when the place was full, the soldiers, who were posted for the pur- pose, received thesijjnal, and an indiscriminate massacre en- sued. The lowest computation gives the number of those slain as seven thousand. The archbishop of Milan at this time was the intrepid Am- brose. When he heard of the bloody deed, he retired to the country, whence he wrote to the emperor to say that he had been warned in a vision not to offer the oblation in his name or presence, and advising him not to think of receiving the Eucharist with his blood-stained hands. Theodosius ac- knowledged and bewailed his offence, and after some time proceeded to the cathedral to perform his devotions ; but Ambrose met him at the porch, opposed his entrance, and insisted on the necessity of a public penance. Theodosiuf A. 1). 390.] ARBOGAST. 833 submitted ; and the lord of the Roman world, laying aside his imperial habit, appeared in the posture of a suppliant in the midst of the church of Milan, with tears soliciting the pardon of his sin. After a penance of eight months, he was restored to the communion of the faithful. To the cruelty of Theodosius on this occasion may be op- posed his clemency, some time before, to the people of Anti- och. This lively, licentious people, being galled by an in- crease of taxation, (337,) flung down, dragged through the streets, and broke, the images of Theodosius and his family. The governor of the province sent to court information of this act of treason ; the Antiochenes despatched envoys to testify their repentance. After a space of twenty-four days, two officers of high rank arrived to declare the will of the emperor. Antioch was to be degraded from its rank, and made a village, under the jurisdiction of Laodicea; all its places of amusement were to be shut up, the distribution of corn to be stopped, and the guilty to be inquired after and punished. A tribunal was erected in the market-place, the most wealthy citizens were laid in chains, and their houses exposed to sale, when monks and hermits descended in crowds from the mountains, and, at their intercession, one of the officers agreed to return to court, and learn the present disposition of the emperor. The anger of the generous Theodosius had subsided ere he arrived, and a full and free pardon was readily accorded to the repentant city. Valentinian, after the death of his mother and the departure of Theodosius, fixed his abode in Gaul. His troops were commanded by Count Arbogast, a Frank by birth, who had held a high rank in the service of Gratian, after whose death he had passed to that of Theodosius. Aware of the weak- ness of his young sovereign, the ambitious barbarian raised his thoughts to empire. He corrupted the troops, he gave the chief commands to his countrymen, he surrounded the prince with his creatures, and Valentinian found himself little better than a prisoner in the palace of Vienne. He sent to inform Theodosius of his situation ; but, impatient of delay, he summoned Arbogast to his presence, and deliv- ered him a paper containing his dismissal from his posts. " You have not given me my authority, and you cannot take it away," was the reply of the general ; and he tore the pa- per, and cast it on the ground. Valentinian snatched a sword from one of the guards, but he was prevented from using it 384 THEODosius. [a. d. 392-394. A few days after, he was privately strangled, and a report was spread that he had died by his own hand, (May 15, 39'2.) Theodosius. A. u. 1145—1148. A. D. 392—395. Arbogast, deeming it more prudent to reign under the name of another than to assume the purple himself, selected for his imperial puppet a rhetorician named Eugenius, who had been his secretary, and whom he had raised to the rank of master of the offices. An embassy was despatched to Theodosius to lament the unfortunate accident of the death of Valentinian, and to pray liim to actjuiesce in the choice of the armies and people of the West. Theodosius acted with his usual caution ; he disniis.sed the ambassadors with presents, and with an ambiguous answer ; but he was secretly swayed by the tears of his wife, and resolved to avenge the death of her brother. After devoting two years to his prepa- rations for this hazardous war, he at length (394) j)ut him- self at the head of his troops, nrid directed his march for Italy. Arbogast, taking warning by the errors of Maximus, contracted his line of defence, and, abandoning the northern provinces, and leaving unguarded the passes of the Julian Alps, encamped his troops under the walls of Aquileia. Theodosius, on emerging from the mountains, made a furious assault on the fortified camp of the enemy, in which ten thou- sand of his Gothic troops perished. At nightfall he retired, baffled, to the adjacent hills, where he passed a sleepless night, while the camp of the enemy rang with rejoicings. Arbogast, having secretly sent a large body of troops to get in the rear of the emperor, prepared to assail him in the morning, (Sept. 6.) But the leaders of these troops assured Theodo- sius of their allegiance ; and in the engagement a sudden tempest from the Alps blew full in the faces of the troops of the enemy; and, their superstition leading t^cm to view in it the hand of Heaven, they flung down their inns and submit- ted. Eugenius was taken and put to death ; Arbogast, after wandering some days through the mountains, perished by his own hand. Theodosius survived his victory only five months. Thougfh he was not more thaa fifty years of age, indulgence had un- A. D. 395.] CHAKACTER OF THEODOSIUS. 385 dermined his constitution, and he died of dropsy at Milan, (Jan. 17, 395,) leaving his dominions to his two sons, Arca- dius and Honorius. The character of the great Theodosius is one which it is gratifying to conten plate. Called from a private station to empire, he was still the same in principle and conduct ;' and, the surest evidence of native greatness of soul, he remained unchanged by prosperity. He was an affectionate and faith- ful husband to both his wives, a fond parent, a generous and kind relation, an affable and agreeable companion, and a steady friend. As a sovereign, he was a lover of justice, a wise and benevolent legislator, an able and successful gen- eral. His defects were too slavish a submission to some in- tolerant ecclesiastics, which led to the enactment of per- secuting laws against heretics and pagans; a violence of temper, which we have seen exemplified in the massacre at Thessalonica; a love of indolence, and an over-fondness for the pleasures of the table, which brought him to a prema- ture death, to the great calamity of the empire. The reign of Theodosius forms an epoch in the history of the Roman empire. He was the last who ruled over the whole empire ; and it was in his time that the ancient system of religion, under which Rome had risen, flourished, and commenced, at least, her decline, was finally and permanent- ly suppressed. His reign was also the last in which Rome appeared with any remnant of her original dignity on the scene of the world. It will surely not be accounted impiety or superstition, if we say that the eloquent appeals and lam- entations of the advocates for the old religion were not with- out foundation ; and that, in the order of Providence, Rome's greatness was indissolubly united with her pontifices, augurs, and vestals. Such seems undeniably to have been the fact ; the cause is probably inscrutable.* * [The autlior lias said, only ten lines before, that the decline of Rome began under the ancient system of religion. If so, there was, of course, no connection between the maintenance of that system and the greatness of Rome. Every reader of Roman history must surely perceive that her oicn moral degradation, and the advance, of other nations, were the causes of her decline. Our author loses, in this in- stance, his usual acuteness, or he wotild see that his remark implies a tendency in Christianity to weaken morality — a tendency he would be the latt to al'.iw. Sec his own words on the last page of this work. — J. T. S.] CONTIN. 33 W W 386 THEODosius. [a. d. 395 If we credit the complaints of contemporary writers, lux ury was continually on the increase, and manners became more depraved every day. These statements are, however, to be received with caution ; and how either luxury or de- pravity could exceed that under the successors of Augustus, it is not easy to discern. Property had, of late years, been somewhat more secure from the rapacity of the court, and the terrors of the barbarians were as yet too remote to produce that recklessness which consumes to-day what it is not certain of possessing to-morrow. The censurers, in fact, are either splenetic pagans, eager to cast a slur on the new fiith, or Christian ascetics, who viewed all indulgence with a jaun- diced eye. We are very far from saying that the morals of tiiis period were pure, or at all comparable with those of modern Europe ; we only doubt if tliey were worse than those of the times of Tiberius and Nero. A striking proof, however, was given at this time, that the thew and sinew of the Roman soldier were no longer what they had been in the days of the republic. The infantry craved and obtained permission to lay aside their helmets and corselets, as oppressing them with their extreme weight. Even future misfortunes could not induce them to resume these arms : and this, among other causes, contributed to the speedy downfall of the empire. Literature continued to share in the general decline. Po- etry might be regarded as e.xlinct ; history has only to pre- sent the name of Ammianus Marcellinus, who, however, among the historians of the empire, stands next in rank to Tacitus, though at a very long interval. The Sophists, that is, those to whom the manner was every thing, the matter of comparatively little importance, were the class of literary men held in most esteem. Orations, panegyrics, public or private epistles, in which the absence of fruit is sought to be concealed by the abundance of foliage and flowers, form the store of these men's compositions. The most distinguished among them was Libanius of Antioch, the friend of both Julian and Theodosius, a large fortion of whose writings still exist. Julian himself occupies no mean place among the Sophists. His letters, from his station in society, are far more impo tant and interesting than those of Libanius. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 387 CHAPTER VI. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. SUPPRESSION OF PAGANISM. RELIGION OF THE FOURTH CEN- TURY. STATE OF MORALS. THE DONATISTS. THE ARIANS. OTHER HERETICS. ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITU- TION. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH. THE MANICH.EANS. As the reign of Theodosius was the period of the com- plete fall of paganism, and final triumph of the Christian faith, we will here interrupt our narrative of political events, and briefly relate the victories of the church over heathen- ism and heresy, and portray its external and internal con- dition. When Constantine embraced the Christian religion, he left the ancient system of the Roman state undisturbed : toward the end of his reign, however, he issued edicts for the demolition of heathen temples, and prohibited sacrifices. Constantius was more hostile to heathenism than his father had been; and he executed the laws against it with great severity, even punishing capitally those guilty of the crime of offering sacrifice to idols. The absurd and fruitless efforts of Julian in its favor have been related, and the humane and enlightened toleration of Jovian and Valentinian has been praised. But Theodosius (much less Gratian) had not strength or enlargement of mind to resist or refute the argu- ments of the advocates of intolerance, and in their time the veneration of the tutelar deities of ancient Rome was treated as a crime. The preservation of a pure monotheism being the main object of the law of Moses, its prohibitions against idolatry are numerous and severe ; but the Christian religion, relying on its internal worth and its utter incompatibility with idol- atry, is less emphatic on that subject. The habit, however, of confounding it with the Mosaic law had become so strong, and the opinion of the gods of the heathen being evil spirits, and not mere creatures of imagination, so prevalent,* that the worship of them was held to be the highest insult to the * [This idea was not confined to those times. Modern theologians have held it. Thus does Prdeaux, in his valuable " Connection of Old and New Testaments." - J. T. S.] 388 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. majesty of the Creator ; and the sovereign who sufft ed im- pious rites to be performed, was regarded as participating in the guilt. Yielding to these considerations, Gratian, on his accession, refused to receive the insignia of a Pontifcx Maxi- mus, which even the most zealous of his predecessors had not rejected ; and he seized on tlie sacerdotal revenues for the uses of the church or state, and abolished all the honors and immunities of tlie heathen priesthoods. The imiisie and altar of Victory, which were placed in the senate-house, had been removed by Constantine and restored by Julian. As the majority of the senate still adhered to the old religion of the state, the tolerant Valentinian had suffered it lo remain undisturbed ; but his more zealous son ordered it to be again removed. A deputation of the senate, sent on this oc- casion, was refused an audience by the emperor. The year after his death, another deputation waited on his brother Valentinian : it was headed by Syinmachus, the prefect of the city, a pontiff and augur, a man of noble birth, and of distinguished eloquence and unstained virtue. He was op- posed by Ambrose, archbishop of Milan, and the prayer of the Roman senate was rejected. When Theodosius was at Rome,* he called on the senate to choose between the two religions; and the majority of that body, warned by the fate of Symmachus, who had recently been sent into exile, voted in accordance with the wishes of the emperor. Pretended conversions became numerous, the temples were deserted and the clmrclies filled with worshippers, and the religion under which Rome had flourished for twelve centuries ceased forever. Respect probably for the dignity of the city caused the temples to be spared and left to the operation of natural decay ; but in the provinces no such delicacy was observed, and many Christian prelates, such as Martin of Tours, Marcellus of Apamea, and Theophilus of Alexandria, headed holy crusades for the destruction of the abodes of the idols ; and many a stately edifice, the pride of architecture, was thus consigned to untimely ruin. A few escaped de- struction by being converted into Christian churches. In effect, the fate of the temples seems in general to have de- pended on the good sense or fanaticism of the bishop of the diocese in which they stood. The edicts which Theodosius put forth against sacrifices and other heathen rites having been frequently eluded, he at * Most probably aftrr his victory over Maximus, though both Zosi inus and Prudenlius place it after that over Eugenius. " RELIGION OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 389 length (392) published one which breathes the very spirit of intolerance.* By this he forbids all persons, no matter vvha'. their rank, to offer any sacrifice whatever, or even to suspend garlands, burn incense or place lights before the domestic deities of Roman religion, the Genius, the Lar, and the Penates. The penalty was the forfeiture of the house or estate in which the rites had been performed, or, if these were the property of another person, a fine of twenty-five | pounds weight of gold. Prohibited thus in either its public 1 or private exercise, heathenism gradually died away. Its last | lingering footprints appeared in remote villages;! and ir | the reign of the grandson of Theodosius, it even was doubted | (but without reason) if there were any longer any pagans in | existence. | Thus have we witnessed the final triumph of the church ,' over its open and declared enemy. Before we enter on the ^ history of its civil wars, we will take a view of its own nature > and character. | The Christianity of the days of Constantine and his sue- | cessors is most certainly not that of the gospel. In effect, \ with the exception of transubstantiation and image worship, j (from neither of which it was far distant,) and a few other points of minor importance, it differed little from the system which our ancestors flung off at the time of the Reformation. The church of Rome is, in fact, very unjustly treated, when she is charged with being the author of the tenets and prac- tices which were transmitted to her from the fourth century. Her guilt or error was that of retention, not of invention. The learned author whom we have taken for our principal guide in this part of our work, presents the following brief view of the state of religion at this time.| " The fundamental principles of the Christian doctrine were preserved hitherto incorrupt and entire in most churches, though it must be confessed that they were often explained and defended in a manner that discovered the greatest igno- rance, and an utter confusion of ideas. The disputes carried on in the council of Nice concerning the three persons in the Godhead, afford a remarkable instance of this, particu- * Yet Theodosius was not of an intolerant temper. He bestowed the consulate on Syminachus, and he was on terms of personal friend- ship with the Sophist Libanius. t Hence the heathens were called Pagans, (Pagani,) or villagers, d, pugo. X Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History, Cent. iv. Part ii. chap, 'i 33* 390 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. larly in the language and explanations of those who approved the decisions of that council. So little light, precision, and order, reigned in their discourses, that they appeared to sub- stitute three gods in the place of one. " Nor did the evil end here; for those vain fictions, which an attachment to the Platonic philosophy and to popular opinions had engaged the greatest part of the Christian doc- tors to adopt before the time of Constantine, were now con- firmed, enlarged, and embellished in various ways. Hence arose that extravagant veneration for departed saints, and those absurd notions of a certain^rr destined to purify sepa- rate souls, that now prevailed, and of which the public marks were every where to be seen. Hence, also, the celibacy of priests, the worship of images and relics, which, in process of time, almost utterly destroyed the .Christian religion, or at least eclipsed its lustre, and corrupted its essence in the most deplorable manner. " An enormous train of different superstitions were gradu- ally substituted in the place of genuine religion and true piety. This odious revolution proceeded from a variety of causes. A ridiculous preci[)itation in receiving new opin- ions, a preposterous desire of imitating the pagan rites, and of blending them with the Christian worship, and that idle propensity which the generality of mankind have toward a gaudy and ostentatious religion, all contributed to establish the reign of superstition upon the ruins of Christianity. Ac- cordingly, frequent pilgrimages were undertaken to Pales- tine, an 1 to the tombs of the imrtyrs, as if there alone the sacred principles of virtue, and the certain hope of salvation, were to be acquired. The reins being once let loose to superstition, which knows no bounds, absurd notions and idle ceremonies multiplied every day. Quantities of dust and earth, brought from Palestine and other places remark- able for their supposed sanctity, were handed about as the most powerful remedies against the violence of wicked spirits", Qud were sold and bought every where at enormous prices. The public processions and supplications, by which the pajians endeavored to appease their gods, were now adopted into the Christian worship, and celebrated with great pomp and magnificence in several places. The virtues that had formerly !)een ascribed to the heathen teinples, to their lus- trations, to the statues of their gods and heroes, were now attributed to Christian churches, to water consecrated by certain forms of prayer, and to the images of holy men; and RELIGION OF THE FOUivTH CENTURY. 391 the same privileges that the former enjoyed under the dark- ness of paganism, were conferred upon the latter under the light of the gospel, or rather under that cloud of supersti- tion that was obscuring its glory. It is true that as yet im- ages were not very common, nor were there any statues at all ; but it is at the same time as undoubtedly certain, a* it is ex- travagant and monstrous, that the worship of the martyrs was modelled according to the religious services that were paid to the gods before the coming of Christ." Thus doth this learned and candid historian express him- self; and we must remind the reader that it is not of the tenth or twelfth century, as might perhaps be supposed, thai he is writing, but of the fourth, the period of the Nicene council, the age of Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil the Great, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and others, who are regarded as the great Fathers of the Church. All these superstitions are to be found in their writings, and mostly mentioned in terms of approbation. The great parent of the external corruption of the pure and simple faith of the gospel seems, as we have already ob- served, to have been the law of Moses; for this law, which was at the same time a system of religious and of civil polity, was, in accordance with the designs of Providence and the state of the world at the time, so framed as to bear a certain degree of resemblance to the civil and religious institutions of the neighboring nations. Hence it had its priesthood, its sacrifices, its splendid ceremonies and ritual observances. When, therefore, the Christians, from the natural love of parade and magnificence, or with the specious view of gain- ing over the heathen, wished to introduce rites and ceremo- nies into the church, they found them ready to their hand in the law of the Israelites; and, when once the practice had begun, the step was easy to the introduction of various tenets and practices of heathenism, for which the Mosaic law fur- nished no precedent. The Mosaic religion, for example, had no mysteries, and no mythology and worship of heroes ; yet the Christianity of the fourth century had both. We have already shown how the simple rites of baptism and the Eucharist were converted into mysteries. The notion of their importance became every day more and more deep and solemn ; they were termed awful and tremendous mysteries, by the greatest of the Fathers ; and such were the miraculous powers ascribed to the elements of the Eucharist, that St. Ambrose; in a pub- 392 THE CHRISTIAN 3HURCH. lie discourse, affirmed that his own brother, happening to have them about his person, was by their efficacy saved in a shipwreck. Cliristianity obtained its heroes and mythology in the fol- lowing manner : The memory of the Martyrs, (i. e. wit- nesses,) or those who had testified their faith in Oirist by sealing it with their blood, and, in a less degree, that of the Confessors, who had shown their willingness to do tiie same, was naturally held in reverence and respect by the mendjers of the church. The.princij)le of human nature from which pilgrimage arises caused tlie pious to resort to the places where their remains were deposited ; these places were soon regarded as being possessed of superior sanctity, which could ordy arise from the mortal relics of the holy men which lay there ; and the sanctity, being inherent in these remains, would of course accompany them, if transferred. Hence arose the translation of the bodies of the apostles, and other holy men, from tlie humble tombs in which they had hitiierto reposed, to capital cities and other places, to give holiness to stately churches which were to be erected in their honor. Every, even the smallest, fragment of the body of a saint, every thing, in short, that had touched that hallowed frame when ani- mated, was held to possess virtue; and wonderful tales were told each day of the nuraclcs performed by them. As it might seem absurd that the earthly portions of the holy men should possess such power, and their spiritual have no influ- ence in the lower world, a kind of ubiquity was ascribed to their glorified spirits, and it was believed that they could hear prayer and give aid to the supplicant. False miracles, false relics, even false saints, were rapidly manufactured,* and the church had soon a mythology which far exceeded in copiousness that of ancient Greece. t A maxim of the most pernicious nature now greatly prevailed in the church, namely, " That it was an act of virtue to deceive and lie, * " Certain tombs were fulsely wiven out for the sepulchres of saints and confessors ; the list of the sainLs was augmented with fictitious names, and robbers were converted into martyrs. Some buried the bones of dead men in certain retired places, and then affirmed that they were divinely admonished by a dream, that the body of some friend of God l.iy tiiere," &c. &.c. Mosheiin, ut sujirn. t " l^he sublime and simple theology of the primitive Christians," says Gibbon, " was gradually corrupted ; and the monarchy of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtilties, was degraded by the infro- ■';:''tion of a populir mythology which tended to restore the reign of polytheism." RELIGION OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 393 when by such means the interests of the church might be promoted." This had, no doubt, been of long standing, for pious fraud and pious fiction early began, but it was now at its acme ; and even the greatest of the Fathers are charged with acting on this maxim,* and thus transforming Chris- | \ tianity into polytheism and idolatry. i | " If, in the beginning of the fifth century," says Gibbon, j | whom we may here safely quote, " Tertullian or Lactantius i; \ had been suddenly raised from the dead to assist at the festi- \ \ val of some popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed j I with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle j \ which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a \k Christian congregation. As soon as the doors of the church | [t were thrown open, they must have been offended by the i | smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of 1 1 lamps and tapers, which diffused at noon-day a gaudy, super- J | fluous, and, in their opinion, a sacrilegious light. If they 1 1 approached the balustrade of the altar, they made their way through the prostrate crowd, consisting for the most part of strangers and pilgrims, who resorted to the city on the vigils f| i of the feast, and who already felt the strong intoxication of || fanaticism, and perhaps of wine. Their devout kisses were \\ imprinted on the vvalls and pavement of the sacred edifice, ji | and their fervent prayers were directed, whatever might be || the language of their church, to the bones, the blood, or the 1 1 ashes of the saint, which were usually concealed by a linen | \ or silken veil from the eyes of the vulgar. The Christians ij K frequented the tombs of the martyrs in the hope of obtaining || from their powerful intercession every sort of spiritual, but ■ || more especially of temporal blessings. They implored the |j preservation of their health or the cure of their infirmities, j| the fruitfulness of their barren wives, or the safety and hap- piness of their children. Whenever they undertook any dis- tant or dangerous journey, they requested that the holy mar- tyrs would be their guides and protectors on the road; and if they returned without having experienced any misfortune, they again hastened to the tombs of the martyrs to celebrate with grateful thanksgivings their obligations tc the memory and relics of those heavenly patrons. The walls were hung round with symbols of the favors which they had received; eyes and hands, and feet of gold and silver; and edifying pictures, which could not long escape the abuses of indis- * Mosheim, ut supra. Paragraph xvi. X X n 394 THE CHKISTIAN CHURCH. creet or idolatrous devotion, representing the image, the at- tributes, and the miracles of the tutelar saint. The same uniform original spirit of superstition might suggest, in the most distant ages and countries, the same methods of deceiv- ing the credulity and of affecting the senses of mankind ; but it must ingenuously be confessed that the ministers of the Catholic church imitated the profane model which they were impatient to destroy. The most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of paganism if they found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved in less than a century the final conquest of the Roman em- pire, but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals." Nothing is more characteristic of the corruption which Christianity had undergone than the high hotior in which the various classes of ascetics were held. These useless or pernicious beings now actually swarmed throughout the East- ern empire, and were gradually spreading themselves into the West. We have shown how asceticism has been derived from the sultry regions of Asia, and how it originates in the Gnos- tic principles. It had long been insinuating itself into the church; but, after the establishment of Christianity, it burst forth like a torrent, spreading from Egypt over Syria, Meso- potamia, and the other provinces, at such a rate, that, " in a short time," observes Mosheim, " the East was filled with a lazy set of mortals, who, abandoning all human connections, advantages, pleasures, and concerns, wore out a languishing and miserable life amidst the hardships of want and various kinds of suffering, in order to arrive at a more close and rap- turous communion with God and angels." Of these fanatics there were two classes, the Coenobites and the Eremites, a branch of which last were the Anacho- l rites.* The former, as their name denotes, lived together I in a fi.\ed habitation under an abbot, a word signifying Ja- thcr. The founder of this order was a man named Antony, who drew together a number of the Eremites of Egypt, and gave them fixed rules of conduct. There is a life of this hero of the monastic orders, which has been written by the * Koiroliia*3t, livers-in-common ; ^Eitr^ftlrai, dwellcrs-qf-the-desert, (fp>;>. 395.] HONORius. 409 that in Italy, this language, which had hitherto been con- fined to religion, was, by Fredeiick II. and his friends, ex- tended to politics, and made the bond of union of the Ghibellines; and that it is only by a knowledge of it, that the writings of Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, and the other writers of that age, can be understood.* In fine, it might appear that Manichaeism eventually led to the Reformation. CHAPTER Vll.t HONORIUS, VALENTINIAN III., ETC. A. u. 1148—1229. A. D. 395—476. DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE. RUFINUS. THE GOTHS IN GREECE. GILDO. INVASION OF ITALY BY ALARIC. BY RADAGAISUS. MURDER OF STILICHO. CLAUDIAN. ALARIC'S SECOND INVASION. SACK OF ROME. DEATH OF ALARIC. BARBARIANS IN THE EMPIRE. VALENTIN- IAN III. BONIFACE AND ^TIUS. GENSERIC. HIS CON- QUEST OF AFRICA. ATTILA. THEODORIC. BATTLE i I OF CHALONS. ATTILA's INVASION OF ITALY. MURDER OF ^TIUS AND OF VALENTINIAN. — MAXIMUS. SACK OF ROME BY GENSERIC. AVITUS. MAJORIAN. SEVE- RUS. ANTHEMIUS. NEPOS AND GLYCERIUS. ROMULUS AUGUSTUS. END OF THE EMPIRE. CONCLUSION. Honorius. A. u. 1148—1176. A. D. 395—423. With Theodosius the unity of the Roman empire termi- 5 I nated ; it never again obeyed a single ruler, and henceforth the empires of the East and the West are as distinct as any independent kingdoms of ancient or modern times. As the history of that of the East, during the remaining period of our narrative, presents no events of much political impor- * The proofs will be found in the various works of Signor Rossetti, the learned and saijacious expounder of Dante. t Authorities : Zosimus, Claudian, Jornandes, the EcciesiasticaJ Historians, and t le Chroniclers. CONTIN. 35 Z Z 410 HONORIUS. [a. D. 395. tance, we will confine ourselves to that of he West, and rapidly relate its fall. Theodosius had two sons : to the elder, named Arcadius, a youth of eighteen years of age, who had been left behind in Constantinople, was assigned the empire of the East , to the younger, Ilonorius, a boy of eleven years, that ot the West.* The care of both the emperors and their dominions was connnitted by Theodosius, on his death bed, to Stilicho, a mnn of great talent, civil and military, and of incorrupt in- tegrity, to whom he had given his niece and adopted daugh- ter Serena in marriage, and had raised him to the high rank of master of both the cavalry and infantry of the empire. After the decease of Theodosius, Stilicho remained in Italy with the young Honorius. The chief minister of Ar- cadius was Rufinus, the prefect of the East, a native of Gaul, who, having devoted himself to the practice of the law j. \ at Constantinople, by his talents and by his profound hypoc- risy gained the favor of the late emperor, who had gradually raised him to his present dignity. As soon as death had relieved him from the restraint which his knowledge of the latent vigor of Theodosius's character imposed, Rufinus flung off the mask, and gave free course to his cruelty and his avarice. In the gratification of this last ignoble passion, he passed all bounds. Justice was sold, offices were sold, oppressive taxes were imposed, testaments were extorted or forged, ruinous fines were exacted, properties were confis- cated on the slightest pretexts. The wealth thus acquired was retained by the most rigid parsimony, and Rufinus was consequently the object of hatred to many, and of sincere attachment to no one. The ambitious prefect hoped to unite his only daughter to his youthful sovereign ; but he seems not to have reflected on the secret machinations of a despotic court ; and while he was absent on a journey of vengeance to Antioch, where, without even a shadow of proof, he judicially murdered the count of the East, a secret conspiracy in the palace, headed by the chamberlain Eutropius, undermined his power. Dis- covering that their young monarch had no affection for his destined bride, the confederates planned to substitute for her the fair Eudoxia, the orphan daughter of Bauto, a Frank general in the imperial service. They inflamed the imagina* * The province of lUyricum was divided between the two empires. A- p. 395.] RUFINUS. 411 tion of the emperor by their commendations of her charms, the view of her picture confirmed the impression, and when, on the day fixed for the royal nuptials, after the return of Rutinus, (April 27,) the bearers of the diadem, robes, and ornaments, of the future empress, issued from the palace, they entered not the mansion of the prefect, but the house in which Eudoxia was dwelling, and conducted the daughter of Bauto to the imperial residence. The sense and spirit exhibited by the new empress soon filled Rufinus with alarm; and it is not unlikely that, in the rage of disappointed ambi- tion, and the dread of a hostile faction, he may, as he is charged, have resolved to aim at the empire, and with this view have secretly encouraged the Goths and Huns to renew their ravages. But Rufinus had a foe to encounter more formidable than the eunuchs of the palace. He had long since drawn on himself the enmity of Stilicho; and that general, who had already divided between the royal brothers the jewels and other private property of their deceased father, now pre- pared to apportion between the two empires the troops which had been assembled under the imperial standard for the late war. Under the pretext of the ravages of the Goths, he marched in person at the head of the troops that were to return to the East ; and he had reached Thessalonica when he received an order from Arcadius, dictated by the fears of Rufinus, to send on the troops, but to advance no farther himself. He obeyed, committing to the soldiers the execution of the designs which he had formed against Rufi- nus. The army, led by Gainas, a Goth, marched for the capital : not a soldier divulged the secret of Stilicho ; Rufi- nus was led to hope that they would aid his ambition, and he freely distributed to them a portion of his hoarded treasures. When they were within a mile of the city, (Nov. 27,) he and the emperor advanced to salute them. As he was passing along the ranks, the wings gradually closed and surrounded him : Gainas then gave the signal ; a soldier plunged his sword into his breast, and he fell dead at the feet of the em- peror. His lifeless body was abandoned to the rage of the populace, wlio treated it with every species of horrid indig- nity. His wife and daughter found sanctuary in a church, and they ended their days in a convent at Jerusalem.* * The power now fell into the hands of the eunuch Eutropius, whom Claudian, the panegyrist of Stilicho, lashes in so fearful a manner. Of the poet's satiric powers, the following is a specimen : — 412 HONORius. [a. D. 396-398 The Goths, under the guidance of an intrepid young prince named Alaric, after ravaging the northern provinces, had advanced into Greece, (39G.) They no where encoun- tered opposition ; from Mount Olympus to the extremities of Tajnaron and Malea, they ravaged the country and piliageri the towns. At length (307) Stilicho debarked an army on the isthmus of ('orinth, and advanced into Arcadia, to engage the invaders. By skilful movements he forced them to re- tire to Mount Pholoe, and, having diverted the course of the only stream that supplied them, and drawn a line of posts round them, he withdrew to share in the pleasures of the stage and dance in the cities of Greece. The soldiers, not being controlled by the presence of their general, quitted the works, and spread themselves over the country. Alaric, watching his opportunity, marched out with his booty and captives, crossed the Corinthian Gulf, and was master of Epirus before Stilicho knew of his escape. The Gothic prince had meantime been secretly negotiating a treaty with the ministers of Arcadius; and just at this conjuncture he was api)ointed to the military comujand of eastern Illyricum, and Stilicho received orders to depart from the dominions of the emperor of the East. The attention of Stilicho was next directed to Africa, where Gildo, the brother of the unfortunate Firmus, ruled in nearly total independence ; for, after the suppression of that rebel, the government of Africa had been conferred on Gildo, who had risen to the rank of count in the service of Rome. At a distance from the seat of empire, and there- fore secure from putiishn)ent, he indulged all his passions without restraint, and the unhappy country groaned beneath his tyranny. Persons of wealth were poisoned in order to obtain their properties ; the fairest matrons and maidens, after being forced to submit to the embraces of the tyrant, »vere abandoned to his swarthy Moorish and Gxtulian guards. Asporius nihil est hurnili, cuin surgit in ahum; Cuncta ferit dum cuncta timet ; desmvit in omneB, Ut se posse putent ; nee bellua tetrior uUa Qiiain servi rabies in libera terga furentis. Agnoscit geniitus, et poence parcerc nescit Quam subiit, doininique memor qucni verberat odit. Adde quod eunuchus nulla pielate inovetur, Nee gen^i nalisve cavet. dementia cunctis In similes, animosque ligant consortia damni. Iste nee eunuchis placidus, sed pejus in aurum iEstaat ; hoc uno f ruitur succisa libido. In Eutrop. I. 181, seq. A. D. 398.] GiLDO. 413 His excesses were unnoticed by Theodosius, who resided at a distance ; but he saw that from Stilicho he had no favor to expect, and he therefore craftily tendered his allegiance to the throne of Arcadius. The ministers of that priuce, re- gardless of faith or honor, grasped at the delusive offer, and signified to Stilicho their right to Africa. Their claim was met by a decided negative. Stilicho instantly accused the African as a rebel to the senate, and that body declared him the enemy of the republic. The prudent Symmachus sug- gested the danger of the corn-ships being kept back, and the city being thus exposed to famine; but Stilicho had already provided for this case, and abundant supplies of corn from •Gaul were poured into the granaries of Rome. The command of the force destined for the reduction of the Moorish tyrant was committed to his own brother Mas- cezel, whom he had forced to fly for his life, and whose innocent children he had murdered. The army of Mascezei consisted of only five thousand Gallic veterans ; but these were deemed sufficient to overcome the naked and disorderly barbarians, who, to the number, it is said, of seventy thou- sand, marched under the banners of Gildo. Shortly after his landing, (398,) Mascezei gave the signal for engagement. He himself advanced before his troops with offers of par- don ; one of the enemy's standard-bearers met him, and Mascezei, on his refusal to yield, struck off" his arm with his sword. The standard fell to the ground ; the supposed vol- untary act was imitated by all the other standard-bearers : the cohorts proclaimed the name of Honorius ; the barba- rians dispersed and returned to their homes ; and the victory was thus gained without the slightest effusion of blood. Gildo fled to the sea-shore, and, throwing himself into a small vessel, made sail for the East ; but the wind drove him into the port of Tabraca, where he was seized by the inhab- itants and cast into prison, and he terminated his existence by his own hand. Mascezei, on his return, was received at court with great favor ; but, shortly after, as he was riding with Stilicho over a bridge, his horse threw him into the river; and the attendants, observing that Stilicho smiled, gave him no aid, and he was drowned.* The guilt of his death was accordingly charged on the envy of Stilicho. * So Gibbon " softens," as he terms it, the narrative of Zosiinus, "which, in its crude simplicity," he says, "is almost incredible." Zosiinus sii' ply says (v. ii.) that the guards, on a given signal, pushed him into th river, and that Stilicho laughed. 35* 414 HONORius. '400-403 The young etnperor, now in his fourteenth year, was uni- ted in marriage at this time with his cousin Maria, the daughter of Stilicho; but the consummation was deferred; and ten years after Maria died a virgin. Honorius, who was utterly devoid of talent or energy, passed his days in feeding poultry; and Stilicho, while he lived, was in reality the mon- arch of the West. This able man had soon again to measure arms with the ambitious Alaric. The Gothic prince, in addition to his rank of master of Illyricum, was now, by the unanimous suffrages of his countrymen, king of the Visigoths. For some years he acted a dubious part between the emperors of the East and the West ; but he finally (400) resolved on the invasion and plunder of Italy. By arts or by arms he was for three years withheld from treading its plains; but at length (402) the court of Milan was alarmed by intelligence of the approach of the Goths. The council of the young emperor proposed an instant flight to Gaul. Stilicho, alone undismayed, pledged himself, if the court would only remain tranquil during his absence, to return, within a limited time, at the head of a powerful army. He accordingly crossed the Alps in the depth of winter, collected the troops of Gaul and Britain, and took into pay a large body of Alemannic cav- alry. But, while he was thus engaged, the Goths had ad- vanced to Milan; and Honorius had fled and slmt himself up in the town of Asta (Asti) in Liguria, where he was clo.sely besieged by the Gothic monarch. Stilicho hastened to his relief; by skilful manoeuvres he cut off the supplies of the barbarians, and he gradually drew round them a line of fortifications. During these operations, the festival of Easter arrived, (403.) While the Goths were devoutly celebrating it, their camp at Polletitia (twenty-five miles south-east of Turin) was assailed by the imperial cavalry. Alaric speedily drew out and formed bis men ; the battle was maintained through- out the day with mutual valor; but in the evening the Goths retired. Their camp was forced ; the booty and captives were all recovered ; and the wife of Alaric remained a pris- oner in the hands of the victors. Alaric was, however, pre- paring, at the head of his remaining troops, to cross the Apennines and push on for Rome; but his council of war- riors forced him to listen to the offers of Stilicho, and con- clude a treaty for the evacuation of Italy. He repassed the Po, with the secret design of seizing the city of Verona A. D. 404-406-] INVASION OF ITALY. 415 advancing rapidly into Germany, passing the Rhine, and invading the defenceless provinces of Gaul. But Stilicho, who had a secret intelligence with some of the Gothic chiefs, learned his design, and, at a short distance from Verona, the Goths werfe assailed on all sides by the imperial troops. Their loss was considerable; Alaric himself owed his safety to the swiftness of his horse. He then assembled his remaining forces amid the adjacent rocks, where he pre- pared to stand a siege ; but hunger and desertion soon forced him to accept another treaty; and Italy was at length de- livered from the Goths, though but for a time. In the following year, (404,) Honorius visited the ancient capital of the empire. He entered it in triumphal pomp, Stilicho seated in his chariot by his side. His abode in the capital is distinguished by an edict abolishing the combats of gladiators ; for, as these inhuman contests were going on one day in the amphitheatre, an Asiatic monk, named Telemachus, urged by a generous impulse, sprang into the arena to separate the combatants. The enraged spectators overwhelmed him with a shower of stones ; and he perished a martyr in the sacred cause of humanity. When the rage of the people subsided, they were filled with penitence; a ready obedience was yielded to the edict is- sued on the occasion by the emperor, and the barbarous and inhuman gladiatorial combats ceased forever. As invasions of the barbarians were now matter of con- stant apprehension, and neither Rome nor Milan was con- sidered to be sufficiently secure for the imperial residence, Honorius fixed his abode at Ravenna. This city, situated on the Adriatic, was strongly fortified ; and its only approach on the land side was by a causeway leading through a deep morass.* Strong thus by nature and art, Ravenna hence- forth continued, for more than three centuries, to be the seat of government in Italy. The apprehensions of the emperor and his court were not unfounded ; for, within two years after the departure of Al- aric, a numerous host of Germans poured into Italy, (40C.) This host, which is stated at 200,000 fighting men, accom- panied by their wives, children, and slaves, was composed of adventurers from most of the German and Sarmatian tribes The leader-in-chief was named Radagaisus. The task of * Owing to the recession of the waters of the Mediterranean,, Ra venna is now four miles from the sea. 416 HONORius. [a. d. 407-408. defending Italy fell, as before, to Stilicho; he caused the feeble emperor to shut himself up in Ravenna; while he himself, with an army of between thirty and forty thousand men, the utmost force he was able to collect, took his post at Pavia, (Ticinum.) The barbarian's advanced unopposed, pillaging the towns and cities on their way ; they crossed the Po and the Apennines, and laid siege to the city of Flor- ence in Tuscany. Stilicho, who had, at length, been joined by the troops which he had summoned from the provinces, and by barbarian auxiliaries, now advanced to its reliet. Adopting his former policy, he avoided a general action, and gradually drew a strong line of fortifications around the posi- tion occupied by the host of Radagaisus. Famine soon spread its ravages among the men and horses ; their furious assaults on the lines of circumvallation were repelled; and they were at length obliged to surrender at discretion. Radagaisus was beheaded by order of Stilicho; the common barbarians were sold for slaves. The principal nations composing the host of Radagaisus were the Suevians, Burgundians, Vandals, and Alans; and only a portion of their immense force had entered Italy. In the following winter, those who had remained in Germany crossed the Rhine never to retreat ; and, in less than two years, after devastating the Gallic provinces, they had reached the Pyrenees. At this time, the trans-Alpine prov- inces had ceased to obey the emperor Ilonorius. The army of Britain had invested with the purple a private sol- dier of the name of Constantine, (407 ;) and, on his passing over to Gaul, all the cities which had escaped the barbarians yielded him submission. The troops of Ilonorius besieged him in Vieime, but they were forced to make a precipitate retreat over the Alps; and, in the following year, (408,) Constantine, with little dithculty, made himself master of Spain. After the retreat of Alaric from Italy, relations of friend- ship were formed between that prince and Stilicho; and the Goth, quitting the service of the emperor of the East, was appointed commander of the Roman forces in all Illyricum ; the eastern portion of which region Stilicho reclaimed from the court of Byzantium. A semblance of war ensued be- tween the two empires ; and Alaric carried on some feeble operations in Epirus and Thessaly, for which he furnished a long account of expenses to the court of Ravenna, intima- ting, though in respectful terras, that a refusal to comply fcjps^^ii'fs ijii'jjij^^ijii^^ ^^ I ,ji[iii!iii!:ii| i|!iaiii;aoiiiiii'iiiiwi"'":"'iiiiii"'i"»""''' ""■>-•■" ■^«»'"i;:.aiiiHiNiiiiiw"::;ujiti'i'''"''t''''"' "'•'"'" ''"lli'''''!!!^^ | ^^ [ i,&^h^«s«sy;:!!:!J©^^^^ A- D. 408 J MURDER OF STILICHO. 417 with his demands might prove hazardous Stilicho deem ing it the wiser course to yield, his autl.ority silenced all opposition ; and the sum of 4000 pounds of gold, under, the naiue of a subsidy, was promised to Alaric. While the empire was thus distracted and menaced on all sides, court intrigue deprived it of the only man capable of saving it. Olympius, a man whom the influence of Stilicho had advanced to a high office at court, and who concealed his vices under the mask of extreme piety, was secretly un- dermining his benefactor in the mind of the feeble emperor. He made Honorius believe that Stilicho had formed designs on his life and throne. As the troops, which, on account of the menaces of Alaric, were lying north of the Po, were composed of different elements — some devoted, others hos- tile to Stilicho — Honorius, at the instigation of Olympius, announced his intention of reviewing them in their different quarters. He visited Stilicho at Bologna, where the barba- rian troops (those most devoted to the general) lay, and thence proceeded to Pavia, to the camp of the Roman troops, the enemies of Stilicho and the barbarians. By the arts of Olympius, these troops had been prepared to enact the part required of them, and, after listening to an address from the emperor, they rose and massacred all the friends of Stilicho, including the highest officers of the empire. Honorius, who was ignorant of the projected massacre, was filled with ter- ror ; but he was finally persuaded to approve of what had been done, and commend the actors. Stilicho, on hearing of the massacre at Pavia, held a council of the leaders of the auxiliaries ; they were unanimous in urging him to ven- geance, but he hesitated to involve the empire in a civil war. His confederates retired in disgust at his irresolution, and in the night his camp was assailed by the troops of a Gothic leader named Sarus, who was one of the band of his enemies His faithful Hunnish guards were cut to pieces, and he him- self escaped with difficulty. He retired to Ravenna, and took sanctuary in a church ; by artifice and perjury the bishop was induced to yield him up, and he was beheaded as soon as he had passed the sacred threshold, (Aug. 23.) His son was shortly after put to death ; his daughter Thermantia, who, like her sister, was the emperor's virgin wife, was di- vorced ; his memory was defamed ; his friends were tortured and murdered. Among those involved in the fate of the great Stilicho was the poet Claudian, the last ancient poet in whose verses the AAA 418 HONORIUS. [a. d. 40S Latin language appears with any lustre. Claudian \v;is born at Alexandria ui Egypt. The Latin, therefore, was not his mother tongue; yet lie made it the graceful and elegant ve- hicle of such poetry as had not been equalled, except by Statins, since the Augustan age. Panegyric and satire were the principal themes of his muse. He may be culled the poet laureate of Stilicho, whose victories he celebrates, and whose enemies he overwhelms with invective. His diction is haruionious, though not perfectly pure; his descriptions are rich and luxuriant; he possessed the rare talent of ele- vating the mean and diversifying the similar without offend- ing the good sense or taste of the reader. In a word, Clau- dian closes with dignity the band of Latin poets.* While, by the base arts of courtiers, Italy was thus de- prived of her only stay, Alaric lav encamped on her confines. As if t(» aid him in his projects, tJie fanatic Olympius caused an edict to be issued excludingr all those who did not hold the orthodox creed from civil and military employment; and on one day the wives and chddreii of the barbarians in the Roman service (a body of :iO,0()U men) were massacred in the towns of Italy, in which they were dwelling as hostages. These troops vowed a heavy revenge; and Alaric, certain of their cooperation, hesitated not to enter Italy as the avenger of the death of Stilicho, and of his own wrongs. Stilicho had ])erished in the month of August, and in the following October, Alaric passed the Alps, the Po, the Apennines; and Rome, for the first time since the days of Hannibal, saw a foreign enemy before her gates. The Gothic forces closely blockaded all the approaches, and slopped the navigation of the Tiber. Famine and pestilence soon began to spread their ravages through the crowded population. At length, two senators were sent as envoys to the Gothic camp. When led before Alaric, they spoke of the dignity and number of the Roman people, and bade him to prepare tor battle if he would not grant reasonable terms. " The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed," replied the Goth, with a laugh. He then demanded, as a ransom, all the gold, silver, and preckous movables in the city, and all the barbarian slaves. He final- * Gibbon (chap, x.xx.) draws the character of this poet with tolerable accuracy. He evidently admired him. We cannot, however, con- cede, tliat in Claudian " it would not be easy to produce a passage that deserves the epithet of sublime or pathetic ; to select a verse that melts the heart ol enlarges the imagination." Of the last, at least, there are many \.D 409.] ATTALUS MADE EMPEROR. 419 ly consented to take 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 of silver, 3,000 of pepper, 4,000 robes of silk, and 3,000 pieces of scarlet cloth ; and, on the delivery of these articles, Alaric led his troops into Tuscany for the winter. His army, aug- mented by the barbarians who had been in the Roman ser- vice, and by 40,000 slaves, counted, at the least, 100,000 fighting men, (409.) The early part of the year was spent in fruitless negotia- tions for peace. Olympius was in his turn undermined by the intrigues of the palace, and forced to seek his safety in flight. A brave barbarian officer, named Gennerid, was placed at the head of the army, and 10,000 Huns were taken into pay. But the intrigues of the palace still prevailed, and an oath was extorted from the principal officers of the state and army, never, under any circumstances, to consent to a peace with the insolent invader of Italy. All hopes of accom- modation being thus cut off, Alaric led his troops once more toward Rome. By making himself master of the port of Ostia,* where the corn for the supply of the city was ware- housed, he speedily put an end to all thoughts of resistance; and the senate, at his dictation, invested with the purple At- tains, the prefect of the city. The new emperor bestowed on his benefactor the rank of commander-in-chief of the armies of the West, which he had sought in vain from the ministers of Honorius, and made Adolphus, {Athaulf,) the Gothic monarch's brother-in-law, count of the domestics, \vith the custody of the royal person. Milan cheerfully ac- knowledged the new emperor, whom Alaric conducted in triumph almost to the gates of Ravenna, where an embassy from Honorius, offering to divide the empire with him, en- tered the camp. Attalus insisted on his resignation ; and so desperate in reality did the affairs of Honorius now seem, that Jovius, his principal minister, and Valens, his general, two of the envoys, went over to the side of his rival. Honorius was in despair, preparing to fly to the Eastern court, when a body of four thousand veterans landed in Ra- venna, As these sufficed for its defence, he now felt some- what reassured, and he was soon further cheered by the arrival of a large sum of money, sent by Count Heraclian, who had defeated the troops sent to Africa by Attalus, and distressed the Romans by preventing the exportation of corn and oi . Alaric, wearied with the insolence and imprudence * See above, p. 80. 120 HONORIUS. [a. D. 1»0-412. of the emperor of his own creation, and acted on by tlie arts of the treacherous Jovius, at length publicly stripped him of his diadem and purple, which he sent to Honorius as a pledge of amity. He then advanced to within three miles of Ravenna, in the full expectation that a peace would now be concluded; but Sarus the Goth, at the head of three hun- dred men, sallied from one of the gates, and cut to pieces a division of his troops ; and a herald soon after appeared to declare that the emperor would never enter into friendship with the invader of Italy. The Gothic monarch, bent on vengeance, led his troops once more to Rome. The senate prepared to make a des- perate resistance ; but treachery rendered their plans unavail- ing. At midnight, (Aug. 24, 410,) the Salarian gate was silently opened, and the Goths were admitted ; and Rome, for the first time since the days of Camillus, (a spice of cii(ht centuries,) became the prey of a foreign enemy. All the horrors and atrocities consequent on the capture of a large town by storm, were felt by the unhappy city; but the evils were mitigated, in many instances, by the Christian feeling of the Arian Goths ; and it is acknowledged that Rome suffered far less at their hands, than it ditl afterwtirds, in the 16th century, from the Catholic troops of the orthodox em- peror Charles V. Numbers were, of course, reduced from affluence or comfort to slavery or poverty, and the provinces of Africa and the East were filled with fugitives from the ancicmt capital of the empire. . Alaric remained oidy six days in Rome ; he then led his troops southwards, captured Nola and other towns, and, on coming to the Straits of Rhegium, prepared to pass over and make the conquest of Sicily prelusive to that of Africa. But a storm shattered his transports, and a premature death ter- minated his visions of dominion. To form a grave for the mighty Alaric, the course of the Busentinus, a small river which washes the walls of Consentia, was diverted, and his corpse, royally arrayed, was deposited in its bed. The stream was then restored to its original channel ; and, that the secret of the resting-place of Alaric might never be known, a massacre was made of all the prisoners who had been engaged in the work. The royal dismitv, after the death of Alaric, was conferred on Adolphus. This prince, who was of a prudent and mod erate temper, effected a treaty with the court of Ravenna, and the Visigoths at length (412) evacuated Italy, after a A. D. 413.] BARBARIANS IN SPAIN. 421 possession of four years. But they never again returned to theii former seats; Adolphus, in the character of a Roman general, led his troops against the invaders and the usurpers of southern Gaul ; and his authority was speedily acknowl- edged from the Mediterranean to the Ocean. A marriage into the royal house of Theodosius also contributed to give him consequence. Placidia, the daughter of that monarch by Galla, had been detained in the Gothic camp since the period of the first siege of Rome by Alaric; and, though the court of Honorius rejected with disdain Adolphus's propo- sals of marriage, and insisted on her restitution, the princess herself was less haughty, and she readily gave her hand to the brave and handsome monarch of the Goths. Count Heraclian, who liad been loyal to Honorius wlien his cause seemed nearly hopeless, became a rebel when Italy was delivered of the Goths. He assumed the purple, (41:3,) and, embarking a numerous army in a large fleet, sailed from Africa, and entered the Tiber. But, as he was on the road to Rome, he was met and defeated by one of the imperial gen- erals, and he fled back to Africa in a single ship. He sought refuge in the temple of Memory, at Carthage, whence he was taken and beheaded. It would be tedious were we to relate the actions and deaths of Constantine, of Maximus, Jovinus, Sebastian, and others, who at this period aimed at empire in Gaul and Spain, and perished in the attempt. We therefore pass them over in silence, and proceed to relate the conquest of Spain by the Goths. The fruitful and wealthy provinces of Spain had, in conse- quence of its position, been strangers to war for the last four centuries, with the exception of the irruption of the Germans in the time of Gallienus; it was now to sufler in common with the rest of the empire. The barbarians who had passed the Rhine in 406, had reached the foot of the Pyrenees, and the barbarian mercenaries, called Honorians, to whom the usurper Constantine had committed the passes of those mountains, turning traitors to their trust, admitted the con- federate Germans and Alans into the heart of Spain, (409.) Rapine and devastation traversed the land from the Pyrenees to the Straits of Gades ; and when Spain had thus been ex- hausted of its strength and wealth, the conquerors set down, resolved to occupy it permanently. The Suevians and Van- dals settled in the north; the Alans spread over the central region from sea to sea ; a branch of the Vandals took posse* CONTIN. 36 4*22 VALENTINIAN III. [a. d. 414-423. sion of B?etica. They were not, however, suffered to remain long undisturbed. Adolphus, covetous of military fame, readily accepted the task of recovering Spain for the empire. He led his Goths througli tlie Pyrenees, (414,) and surprised tiie city of Barcelona. His career of victory, however, was cut short ere long (Aug. 415) by the dagger of an assassin ; and Singaric, a brother of Sarus, was placed on the vacant throne. The six children of Adolphus by a former marriage were put to death, and Placidia was treated as a slave by this tyrant. But ha also perished by assassination on the seventh day of his reign, and the choice of the nation gave the throne to a chief named Wallia. Within the space of four years, this valiant warrior restored Spain to the empire ; and he then (419) repassed the Pyrenees, and fi.xed his royal residence at Toulouse, ruling the country from the Loire to the confines of Spain. When the Goths were thus established in the south and west of France, the Burgundiaus ol)tained permanent posses- sion of the Upper Germ;uiy, and their name remains in its modern ap])ellation. The Lower Germany was at the same time occupied by the Franks. Armorica, or the north-west portion of Gaul, and the island of Britain, being left to their o\vn resources, assumed an attitude (jf independeuce. In this condition of his empire, that most feeble and con- temptible of princes, Honorius, emperor of the West, died (42^3) of dropsy, after an inglorious reign of twenty-eight years. Valcntinian III. A. u. 117— 6120S. A. I). 423--455. Honorius died childless ; but the western branch of the line of Tbcodosius did not expire with him. Placidia, whom we have seen treated with such indignity after the death of her husband, had been redeemed for ()(H),0()() measures of wheat; and her brother had obliged her to give lier baud to a brave and riithful general, named Consfantius, by whom she had two children, a flaufrhtcr named Honoria, and a son Valeu- tinian. At her iinpulsion, Constantius claimed and obtained the title of Augustus, and a share in the empire; but he died shortly after, and, by the intrigues of a steward and a nurse, enmity was excited between the emperor and his sister, to whom he had been hitherto most foudlv attached. As the A. D. 425-428.] COUNT boniface. 423 Gothic soldiers took tlie part of their queen, and the city of Ravenna was filled with tumult, Placidia was induced to re- tire from the scene. She went to the court of Byzantium, where she was most kindly received by the reigning empe- ror, Theodosius II. ; and when, a few mouths after, intelli- gence arrived of the death of Honorius, the Eastern monarch prepared to assert by arms the claim of her son to the vacant throne, which had been occupied by John, the Primicerius, or principal secretary of the late emperor. It was some time before the troops of the East were in readiness to attempt the conquest of Italy. At length (42)) they set forth ; Acjuileia was surprised, and one of the Eastern commanders, who had been made a prisoner and carried into Ravenna, having contrived to gain over the garrison, the usurper was seized and beheaded. Though Theodosius might have asserted his claim to the whole empire, he con- tented himself with the addition of western Illyricum to his dominions, and he caused his young cousin, Valenlinian, to be invested with the monarchy of the West. A marriage, which afterwards took place, was agreed on, Valentinian be- ing to espouse, when of suitable age, Eudoxia, the daughter of Theodosius. As the young monarch was now only six years old, the government of himself and his empire naturally fell into the hands of his mother, and she retained her power for a space of five-and-twenty years. The armies of the West were commanded by two able men, Boniface and Jiltius. The former, who held the government of Africa, had been at all times attached to the cause of Pla- cidia; the latter, who was of barbaric origin, had joined the late usurper, and had even brought a force of 60,000 Huns as far as the confines of Italy, to his aid, when he heard of his fate. Having negotiated a treaty for the retreat of the bar- barians, he entered the service of Valentinian ; and he soon gained great influence over the mind of Placidia. This in- fluence he employed for the destruction of his rival. He se- cretly persuaded Placidia to recall Boniface from his govern- ment, and he at the saine time advised Boniface to refuse obe- dience, assuring him that his death was intended. Boniface fell into the trap laid for him. He armed in his defence, and repelled the first attacks made on him ; but feeling that he could not long resist single-handed, he sent to propose an al- liance to the king of the Vandals, (428.) When the Goths recovered Spain for Honorius, the Sue- viais and Vandals still remained unsubdued in Gallicia. 424 VALENTINIAN III. A. D. 429-439 Dissension soon broke out between them; .he Vandals pre- vailed ; but, on the approach of an imperial army, they broke up, and marched for Ba&tica, and, having there defeated a superior force of Romans and Goths, they became masters of the entire province, which has derived from them its name of Andalusia. The king of the Vandals at this time was named Gen- seric. He is described as of middle stature, slow of speech, a contemner of luxury, prone to anger, covetous of gain, skilled in gaining nations and in sowing dissensions among his enemies. In the May of 4'29, he embarked his troops in vessels furnished by Boniface and the Spaniards, and crossed the Straits of Gades. His whole force, composed of Vandals, Alans, Goths, and others, did not exceed 50,000 men; but he ensily induced the Moors to unite with him, and the persecuted Donatists regarded as a deliverer the Christian, though not orthodo.v, Geuseric. Boniface, when too late, saw the error he had committed ; the letters of .(Etius being shown and compared, in an interview between [ him and an envoy sent from court, he discovered the fraud of which he had been the victim, and he resolved to re- turn to his allegiance ; and when Geuseric refused to evac- uate the country, he led out his troops and eneath tlio walls of Orleans, which Sangiban, king of the Alans, had engaged to betray. But the plot was discovered, the attacks of flic Ilims were repelled, and at the sight of the banners of ^tius and The- odoric, who were marching to its relief, the prudent Hun drew off his troops, and retired to the plains of Champagne, which were better adapted for the operations of cavalry. -Etius, aided by the eloquence of the senator Avitus, had succeeded in inducing Theodoric, whoso first plan had been to await the inv'aders within his own territories, to share in the common defence of Gaul. The Burgundians, the Salian Franks, the Saxons, Alans, Armoricans, and others, had also been prevailed on to aid the common cause ; and at the head of a host composed of such various materials, y^^tius and Theodoric prepared to engage the host of Attila. A. D. 451-452.] ATTILA IN ITALT. 427 The armies encountered on the plains of Clialons. Attila, with his Huns, occupied the centre of his line; the Rugians, Herulans, Franks, Burgundians, and others, were ranged on each side of them ; the right wing was formed by the G^pi- daus, the left by the Ostrogoths. On the side of the allies, Sangiban and his Alans were placed in the centre, where they might be watched. ^Etius commanded on the left, Theodoric on the right. The battle was long, obstinate, and bloody. The Huns easily pierced through the yielding centre, and then directed their whole force against the Visi- goths ; and Theodoric, as he was cheering his men, fell by the javelin of an Ostrogothic chief But his son Torris-» niond, who was stationed on an adjacent eminence, when he saw the Visigoths yielding, hastened to restore the battle, and Attila was forced to retreat. The approach of night saved 4iis troops from a total defeat ; they secured themselves within their wagon-fence, and Attila caused a pile to be made of saddles and horse-furniture, determined to fire it, and rus'h into the flames if his camp should be forced. But the dread of the valor inspired by despair withheld the allies from the attack ; and ^tius also feared the power of the Goths, if the Huns should be destroyed. He therefore pre- vailed on Torrismond to be content with the vengeance al- ready exacted for the fate of his father, and return to Tou- louse to secure his throne. The allies broke up and retired, and Attila was allowed to repass the Rhine unmolested. The policy of ^Etius, in thus dismissing the Huns, was fatal to the empire. In the following spring, (452,) Attila again claime.d the princess Honoria and her treasures, aud^ meeting again with a refusal, he advanced and laid siege to Aqnileia. After a siege of three months, this important city was carried by assault. All the cities north of the Po surrendered or were taken, ^tius in vain sought to retard the myriads of the barbarians; the timid Valentinian fled to Rome, and an embassy composed of Leo, the bishop of that city, and two eminent senators, was sent to deprecate the wrath of Attila, who now lay encamped on the shores of the Lake Benacus. Attila was superstitious; when he was re- minded that Alaric had not long survived the taking of Rome, he secretly shuddered at the omen ; and he consent- ed, on receiving an immense sum under the name of the Jower of the princess Honoria, to evacuate Italy. He re- tired threatening dreadful vengeance if the princess were not 428 VALENTINIAN III. [a. d. 453-455. delivered to his ambassador ; but in the following year, (453,) having drunk too freely on the night of his adding another maiden to his harem, he burst a vessel in his lungs, and was suffocated in his own blood. His funeral was celebrated with magnificence, after the usage of his nation. His mighty empire fell to pieces, and the Huns ceased to be formidable. Valentinian, worthless and dissolute, instead of viewing in JEtius the saviour of his empire, feared and hated him with aJJ the rancor of a petty mind. The son of ^tius was be- trothed to the emperor's daughter ; and when, one day, (45 1,) in the palace his father was urging the immediate marriage, Valentinian drew his sword for the first time in his life, and pluriged it into the general's bosom ; the eunuchs and others hastened to follow his example, and /Etius expired pierced by a hundred wounds. His principal friends were* sum- moned separately to the palace before the event could be known, and all were murdered. The loss of .^tius was universally deplored, and the contempt in which the em- peror had been held was converted into abhorrence. " I know not your motives and provocations," said a Roman <\hom he asked to approve the deed; "I only know that you have acted like a man who cuts off his right hand with his left." The feeble emperor did not long survive his able general. Among his other vices, Valentinian was addicted to gaming. He won, one day, a large sum of money from a wealthy sen- ator named Petronius Maxinuis, on whose chaste and beau- tiful wife he had long cast an eye of lust. As Maximus had not the money about him, the emperor exacted his ring from him by way of security ; and he forthwith sent it to his wife, with an order, in her husband's name, to wait on the etnpress Eudoxia. The lady, on arriving at the palace, was led into a private apartment ; Valentinian soon entered, and extorted by force the favors which she would not yield to solicitation. Her tears and her reproaches when she reached home ex- cited Maximus to vengeance. Two of the guards who had been attached to ^Etius readily consented to be his instru- ments, and, as Valentinian was viewing some military sports in the Field of Mars, they rushed on him, and stabbed him, none of th:)se present offering to resist them, (March 16, 455.) k. D. 455.] MAXiMUS, 429 Maximus, Avitus, Majorian, Severus, Anthemius, Olyhrius^ Glycerins, Nepos, Augustulus. A. u. 1208—1229. A. D. 455—47(5. The revenge of Maximus may have been stimulated by ambition, for he became the successor of the destroyer of his honor ; but the happiness, of which he had enjoyed a large portion when in a private station, departed the moment he mounted a throne, and he was heard to exclaim, in reference to a well-known story, " O fortunate Damocles ! thy reign began and ended with the same dinner." * Maximus married his son to the daughter of the late em- peror, and, as his wife died opportunely, he forced the re- luctant empress Eudoxia to give her hand to himself. In an unguarded hour he revealed to her the secret of his share in the death of her former husband ; and Eudoxia, who had loved Valentinian, worthless and faithless as he was, resolved to avenge him. She sent a secret invitation to Genseric, and ere long a fleet bearing a numerous army of V«ndals and Moors entered the Tiber. Maximus hastened to fly from the city ; but the moment he appeared in the streets, he was assailed by a shower of stones; a soldier gave him his first wound, and his mangled body was flung into the Tiber, (June 12.) His reign had not lasted quite two months. As Genseric was approaching the city, he was met by a procession of the clergy headed by ti»v» bishop Leo. The bold and eloquent prelate, who had turned away the wrath of Attila, was able also to mitigate the ferocity of Genseric, who promised to spare the people and the buildings of Rome. But this promise was little more than illusory. Rome was delivered to pillage for a space of fourteen days: churches, temples, and private houses, were plundered alike, and thou- sands of captives, among whom were the empress Eudoxia and her two daughters, were embarked for Africa. This calamity gave occasion to a noble display of genuine Chris- tian feeling in Deogratias, bishop of Carthage. He con- * [Damocles, having declared Dionysius of Sicily the happiest man on earth, was, by him, induced to try the happiness of royalty. No sooner had he mounted the throne, than he saw a sword hanging- by a single ha.r just over his head: he was glad to yield his place imme- diately. — J. T. S.] 430 AVITUS, MAJORIAN. [a. I 456—457 verted two large churches into hoi^pitals, and hiiraelf attend- ed most assiduously to the sick among the unhappy captives. Maxinms had committed tlie conjmand of the troops in Gaul to the senator Avitus, a native of Auvergne, who, after passing tiiirty years of his life in the public service, had re- tired to the enjoyment of private life. Avitus was at Tou- louse negotiating a treaty with Theodoric, who by the murder of his brother Torrismond had occupied the Gothic throne, when lie received intelligence of tlie death of Maximus. The prospect of empire attracted him ; the Goths gave him their suffrage ; an assemblage of the provinces of Gaul at Aries elected him, (Aug. 15 ;) the people of Italy submitted to him, and the emperor of the East acknowledged him. While the new emperor proceeded to Rome, Theodoric, as his general, crossed the Pyrenees to recover Spain, which had nearly all fallen under the power of the Suevians. His success was complete; he elfectually broke the Suevian might, and he captured and put to death his brother-in-law, their king. But meantime Avitus had ceased to reign. The Romans disliked him as a foreigner, and Count Ricimer, a Goth, one of the commanders of the barbarian troops, having acquired fame by a victory over a Vandal fleet off Corsica, took advantage of it, and ordered Avitus to resign his dig- nity. He obeyed, (Oct. IG, 4.5G,) and was made t)isliop of Placentia. But the senate voted his death ; and he died or was murdered as he was on his way to secure hitn^;elf in his native province. Ricimer, who, as being a barbarian by I. h, could not himself mount the throne, governed Italy for some months under the title of Patrician. He then (457) bestowed the purple on his intimate friend Majorian, a man of primitive Roman virtue, who, in the words of the historian Procopius,* " excelled in every virtue all who had ever reigned over the Romans." To restore the state to its former strength by the abolition of abuses, was the great object of this excellent man, and he made, with this view, many wise and salutary regulations. But the course of decline is not to be stopped ; and the reformer Majorian became an object of aversion to the degenerate Romans. Majorian, who was a warrior as well as a statesman, re- solved to achieve the conquest of Africa, and destroy the do- • De Bell. Vandal, i. 7. a. D. 451.] EMPEROnS OF THE EAST. 431 minion of the VanJals. As it was only among the barbarians thai soldiers were now to be found, he enlisted troops from among the nations north of the Alps. He defeated Theodo- ric in battle, and, having reunited the greater part of Gaul and Spain to the empire, he assembled, in the port of Car- thagena, a lieet of three hundred ships, with a l&rge number of transports, for the invasion of Africa. It is said that he even ventured to appear as his own ambassador at Carthage, having changed the color of his hair.* But treachery ren- dered all his preparations unavailing. Guided by secret in- telligence, Genseric succeeded in destroying the imperial fleet in the harbor, and Majorian was forced to consent to a treaty. He returned to Italy to carry on his plans of refor- mation, and to prepare for future war ; but a sedition, fo- mented by Ricimer, broke out in the camp near Tortona, at the foot of the Alps, and Majorian was forced to abdicate. Five days after, (Aug. 7, 461,) he died, as was said, of a dys- entery. Ricimer, whose object was to reign under the name of an- other, resolved not to commit again the error of selecting a man of virtue and energy : his choice therefore fell on Se- verus, a man so obscure, that even his origin is hardly known ; and for a space of niore than five years he governed Italy (almost all that remained of the empire) -under the name of his puppet. But Marcellinus, who commanded in Dalmatia, disdaining to submit to him, held that province in independ- ence; and /Egidius, a general of much ability, maintaii^ed his dominion over nearly the whole of Gaul. Meantime the piratic squadrons of Genseric ravaged the coasts of Italy, and Ricimer was forced to seek, as a suppliant, aid from the court of Byzantium. Arcadius, who died in the year 408, had been succeeded by his son Theodosius II., a child of seven years of age ; but fluring the reign of this prince, who was more conspicuous for piety than for the regal virtues, the empire was in reality governed by his sister Pulcheria, the only one of the descend- ants of the great Theodosius who inherited any portion of his talents. On his death, (450,) Pulcheria was proclaimed em- press. She had, after the fashionable superstition of that age, made a vow of perpetual virginity ; but, aware of the pre- judices to which her sex was expo.sed, she selected as her * Procopius, ut supra. 132 ANTHEMius. [a. D. 457-412 nominal husband a respectable senator named Marcian, a man now sixty years old, and made him her colleague in the empire. Marcian survived his wife; and on his death, (457,) tlie patrician Asper, who was in the East what Ricimer was in the West, conferred the vacant dignity on Leo, the steward of his household, who proved himself to be a monarch of ability and energy, and scorned to be the mere puppet of the patrician. It was to this emperor that Ricimer made application for aid against the Vandals. Assistance was promised on condi- tion of the West receiving an emperor chosen by the court of Byzantium. Ricimer accepted the terms, and the person selected (4G7) was Anthemius, the son-in-law of the late em- peror Marcian. On his arrival at Rome, (Apr. 12,) Anthe- mius gave his daughter in marriage to Ricimer. Marcellinus readily acknowledged the new emperor, and accepted a com- mand in the expedition prepared against the Vandals. Vigor- ous exertions were made by both euipires; and in the follow- ing year, (46S,) while the troops of tlie West under Marcelli- nus were recovering the isles of the Mediterranean, an army from Egypt moved westwards, and a fleet of 1100 shi[)s, carry- ing upwards of 100,000 men, sailed from the Hellespont, and entered the Bay of Carthage. Its commander, Basiliscus, the brother of Leo's empress, was, however, utterly devoid of tal- etit or experience. Instead of marching at once against the capital, he listened to the insidious proposals of Genseric, till the crafty Vandal, taking advantage of a change in the wind, sent, in the night, fire-ships among the imperial vessels. Bas- iliscus flrd to Constantinople, after the loss of one half of his fleet and troops. Marcellinus was a.ssassmated in Sicily; and that island fell into the hands of Genseric, whose fleets now met nowhere with resistance. Unity did not long continue between Anthemius and his haughty son-in-law. Ricimer quitted Rome, (471,) and fixed his abode at Milan. Italy was on the point of being the scene of a civil war, when the mediation of the bishop of Pavia succeeded in averting it. But the delay was brief, for the next year (472) Ricimer encamped with his army on the banks of the Anio, where he was joined by the man whom he had selected for the purple, Olybrius, a noble Roman, the husband of Placidia, the daughter of Valentinian III. Rome, after standing a siege of three months, was taken by storm and pillaged. Anthemius was put to death by order of hia A. D. 475-476.] FALL OF THE EMPIRE. 433 ruthless son-in-law, who followed him to the tomb within forty days, (Aug. '-iO,) being cut off in the midst of his triumph by a painful disorder. Oiybrius himself was carried off by death only two months later, (Oct. 23.) The court of Byzantium, after some delay, bestowed the sceptre of the West on Julius Nepos, the nephew of Marcel- linus. But meantime, Gundobald, a Burgundian, who had succeeded his uncle Ricimer in the command of his army, had invested a soldier named Glycerius with the imperial purple. Gundobald, however, having departed to assert his claim to the kingdom of Burgundy, Glycerius did not feel himself strong enough to maintain a contest for the empire, and he retired and became bishop of Salona. Nepos, after a brief reign of less tlian three years, (475,) on the occasion of d revolt of the barbarian troops, abandoned the empire, and fled to his principality in Dalmatia. These barbarians in the Roman pay were termed Confed- erates; they were drawn from various nations, of which the principal were the Herulans, Alans, Turcilingans, and Rugi- ans. Their commander was Orestes, a Pannonian by birth, who had been secretary to Attila. On the death of that mon- arch, he had entered the Roman service ; and Nepos had raised him to the dignity of Patrician, and given him the command of the army. By his artful conduct, Orestes gained the troops over to his interest, and at his impulsion they rose against Nepos. From some unknown motive, Orestes, though not a barbarian, did not himself assume the purple. He conferred it (476) on his son, named Romulus Augustus, or, as he is usually called, Augustulus, under whose name he preferred to reign. But his power was of brief duration ; his barbarian soldiers, excited by the example of their brethren in Gaul, Spain, and Africa, where they had acquired permanent landed possessions, insisted on a third part of the lands of Italy being divided among them. Orestes gave a prompt refusal. One of the commanders, named Odoacer, then proposed to his comrades to unite under him, and they would soon, he assured them, make the patrician yield to their demands. Forthwith they flocked from all parts to the standard of Odoacer. Ores- tes shut himself up in Pavia ; but the town was taken by storm, and he was put to death by the victors. His son, on laying down his purple, was allowed to retire to the villa of Luculhis in Campania, with an annual pension of 6,000 pieces of gold. Odoacer took the title of king of Italy, under CONTIN. 37 c c c '*34 FALL OF THE EMPIRE "vhich he reigned for a space of eighteen years, when his do- minion was overthrown by the Ostrogoths. The empire of the West was now at an end.. The parts of which it had Ijeeii composed were never again united; thev e;»c!i formed a separate and independent state. In all, the govcri;- nient and the lands were held by the Germnti conquerors. We will brielly notice these new states. After the defeat and death of Odoacer, the Ostrogoths re- tained possession of Italy for a term of seventy-five years, when (aGS) their power was overthrown by the Laiigobards. or Lombards, whose dominion lasted for two centuries. The Vandids retained possession of Africa till about the middle of the sixth century, when they were conquered by the great Beiisarins, the general of Justinian, enperor of the East. Africa remained part of the Eastern em])ire till it was con(juered l)y the Arabs in the following century. The Visigoths obtained possession of the entire S|)ailisl) peninsula, which they retained till the period of the invasion of the Arabs. Their dominions in the south of France were all, excepting a small portion, reduced by Clovis, the first king of the Franks. 'I'he Burgundians and Alemans had founded states in Swit- zerland, the east of France, and along the Rhine; but, like the Goths, they wore successively reduced, and obliged to ac knowledge the dominion of Clovis the Frank. Nearly the whole of France obeyed this able prince; but at bis death (oil) his dominions were divided among his tour sons. In the reign of Valentinian 111. the Roman troops had been witlidrawii from Britain. The unwarlikc inhabitants, unable to defend themselves against the savage Caledonian.':, called to their aid (449) the Sa.xon chiefs Ilengist and Ijorsa. Their allies became their enemies, and in a short time tl>e greater part of the island was conquered by the Sa.\ons and their kindred tribes. We thus have witnessed the rise and progress, the decline and fall, of that mighty empire, which, conunencing in a vil- lage on thj banks of the Tiber, finally made the Ocean and the Euplratcs its boundaries. Its fdl was in the order of Nature, vvnich has set limits to all things human ; but it is not unworthy of remark that, at the time when the Roman repub- FALL OF THE EMPIRE. 435 lie was at the very height of its power, the Tuscan augurs ventured to foretell the period of Roman dominion. Accord- ing to the rules of their art, they inferred that the twelve vul- tures seen by Romulus^ denoted the twelve centuries of rule assigned to his city by the decrees of Heaven. The accom- plishment of that prophecy is a curious fact ; but history con- tains many such coincidences. Th6 rise of Rome is one of the most extraordinary phenomena in the annals of the world; its fall was an ordinary event, and contains nothing, to excite surprise. The Roman empire, as left by Augustus, embraced the whole civilization of the West, while on all its confines dwelt poor but brave and energetic nations, eager, when an occasion should offer, to rush in and seize its wealth, it was only therefore by the conservation of the military spirit, by which it had been acquired, that it could be retained ; but we have seen how early and how totally this spirit became ex- tinct. When the nobles and men of property were immersed in luxury and sensual indulgence; when the country was de- populated or filled only with slaves, the cities thronged with an idle, beggarly, turbulent population, vigorous only for evil; when the provincials were so beaten to the earth by excessive taxation, that the rule of barbarian conquerors was looked to as an alleviation; when the noble, elevating, soul-expanding religion of the gospel had been degraded by Oriental ascet icism into a slavish, enervating superstition ; when, finally, the defence of the empire against the barbarians was intrusted to the barbarians themselves, — its fall was assured. A new order of things was to arise out of the union of German energy with Roman civilization, from which, after a series of many centuries, were to result the social institutions of modern Eu- rope, the colonization of the most distant regions of the earth, and the mighty political events which yet lie hidden in tie womb of Time. APPENDIX. A. Page 1. — Authorities. Dion Cassias wrote the history of Rome, from tiie foundation jf the rity to his own consulate, in the reign of Alexander Severus. Of thij v/ork the first books exist only in fraijinents, and the portion fr(jrn the reign of Claudius to the end only in the Hpitome of the modern Greek Xiphiliiius. For the period from the death of M. Aurelius to the end, Dion is a contemporary authority. Velleius Paterculus was the contemporary of Augustus and Tiberius, (see above, p. 11;");) the second book of his history extends from the Viriathian war, B. C. 148, to the death of Livia Augusta, A. D. 2'J. Tacitus lived in the period from Nero to Trajan, both inclusive. His Annals, in sixteen books, extended from the death of Augustus to that of Nero. Of these, the part of the fifth book containing the fall of Sejanus, the seventh to the tenth, and part of the eleventh, to A. D. 47, and the end of the sixteenth, are lost. The greater portion of his His- tories, which extended from the death of Nero to that of Domitian, has also perished. They end with the conference between Cerialis and Civilis, (above, p. 150.) Suetonius Tranquillus, the contemporary of Tacitus, (above, p. !(>",) has left minute biographies of the Caesars from C. Julius Caesar to Domitian, inclusive. Herodian was the contemporary of Dion Cassius, to whom, as an his- torian, he is much inferior. His work extends from the death of M. Aurelius to the reign of Gordian. Gibbon calls him "an elegant" historian, and, to a certain extent, he is such; but he is feeble, negli fent, devoid of political wisdom, and utterly careh'ss of chronology le reminds us more of Dionysius Halicarnassensis than of Thucyc ides. The Augustan History consists of a series of lives of all the emperora and tyrants or aspirants to empire, from Hadrian to Carus and his sons. The authors are iJMius Sparlianus, Julius Capitolinus, iElius Lamprid- ius, Trebellius Pollio, and Flavins Vopiscus. As writers, none of them possess any merit; but they may claim some praise on account of the letters and other orisjinal documents which they have preserved. Ammianus Marcellinus, a Greek by birth, wrote in Latin. His object seems to have been to be the conlinuator of Tacitus; for his work, which extended from the accession of Nerva to the death ol Va- lens, commenced where Tacitus had ended. Of the thirty-one books of which his work originally consisted, the first thirte'^n are lost ; the fourteenth commences with the account of the conduct of the Cajsar APPENDIX.. ^37 Gallus, in the reign jf Constantius. Ammianu/s is a judicious aonest and impartial historian, but his style is inflated and disagreeanle. Zosimus wrote in Greek about the time of the fall of the Western empire. His work, of which only six books remain, after a sketch ot the history of the emperors from Augustus to Diocletian, relates public events in detail thence to the attack on the Goths by Sarus, (above, p. 420.) The remainder of the work is lost, as also are the end ot the first and commencement of the second books, whicli contained the reign of Diocletian. Zosimus was a pagan, and he is mveterately hos- tile to Constantine and the Cliristian emperors. The Epitomators are, in Greek, Zonaras ; in Latin, Eutropius, Festus Rufus, Aurelius Victor, and Orosius. The first of these was a modern Greek monk, who wrote a Chronicle in IS books, which e.xtends from the Creation to tlie death of the Byzantine emperor Joim Alexius. Eutropius, who had been secretary to Constantine, and had shared in Julian's expedition to Persia, wrote, for the use of the emperor Valens, an epitome of the Roman history, from Romulus to the death of Jovian. His work was continued by the Lombard historian, Paulus Diaconus. A similar epitome, embracing the same period, was addressed to Valen- tinian by Festus Rufus. Under the name of Aurelius Victor, the eon teinpoi-ary of Ainmianus. we possess two short pieces; the one, De Cccsaribus, containing brief notices of the emperors, from Augustus to Juliau ; the other, the Epitume, similar notices of all, from Augustus to Theodosius. The History of Orosius, a Christian presbyter, extends from the Creatioi to Wallia, the Visigoth king, (above p. 422.) The Panegyrises, Mamertinus, Eumenius, Nazarms, pronounced lau datory discourses before the emperors Maximian, Constantine, and Con etantius. Mamertinus the younger delivered the eulogium of Julian Ausonius, that of Gratian and Pacatus, and that of Tlieodosius. These laudatory effusions contain many facts of which we find no account elsewhere. It is to be observed that their authors were all born and brought up in Gaul. The modern French have retained the custom of pronouncing ^ioo'e^. The Ecclesiastical historians also furnish many events to civil histo- ry. Eusebius wrote a life of Constantine. The history of Socrates extends from the conversion of that emperor to the 17th consulate of Tlieodosius H.; that of Sozomen, from the same event to the death of Honorius; that of Theodoret, from the rise of Arianism to Tlieodo- sius II., with whose reign the history of Evagrius commences, and extends into the sixth century. The history of the Arian Philostor- gius, of which only fragments remain, extended from the rise of Arianism to the reign of Valentinian III. The Chronologists, Eusebius Cassiodorus, Jerome, Idatius, and oth' ers, supply occasional historic facts ; so also do the writings of the contemporary Fathers, Ambrose, Jerome, etc. In like manner, the poets Claudian, Sidonius ApoUinaris, and Prudentius, and the sophists, such as Libanius, are at times historic authorities. For the affairs of the Goths, tlieir national historian Jornandes ia often our best guide. On looking over this list of authorities, it will be seen that the im- portaut reigns of Trajan and Diocletian are those for which we have tlie least materials: for the former, we have only the Panegyric of Pliny, Xiphilin's epitome of Dion, and the Epitomators; for the latter, onW tliese last. 438 APPENDIX. C. Page 14. — The German Tribes. 5 i The following trans-Rhenic German tribes and nations are men J! I "loned in the preceding History. The seats assigned them arc eithei j| p tliose where tney were first found, or where they subsequently settled. ■} Frisians. In West Friesland, Groningen, and north part of Over- f Yssel. I Chnucans. Along the coast, from the Ems to the Elbe in East Friesland, Oldenburg, and Bremen. iMiigobards, (j. e. Longbeards.) West of the Elbe in Luneburg j and Alt-Mark. Jiuiriiins. On the Oder, in Pomerania. j BuTgundians. Original seats between the Oder and the Vistula, in " the Netz district. |( Vandals. North side of the RicsengebUrg and Lausitz. [j Heruluns. Upper Hungary. 1< BruUerans. To the south of the Frisians, between the Saal and the \ Ems. S Sicavtbriuns. Along the Rhine, from Emmerich to the Sieg; east- < wards to the Bructerans; part ot Cleves and adjoining states. \ Jingritaiiaiis. South of the Chauoans, along the Ems. j Clmmaraiis. From the south of the Angrivarians to the Lippe. 4 Usiprtans. South of the Lippe. jj Teiiclerans. Soutli of the Usipetans; on the Rhine, about Cologne i and Bonn. J Cheruscans. In and on both sides of the Hartz forest. 5 Chattans. South of the Clieruscans, in Hesse, Fulda, Nassau, and i parts of Franconia and Weatphalia. I jilemuns, (>. e. All-men.) Along the Rliine, from the Main to the ■I Neckar. i Su'viuns. Under this general name are included the Quadans, I Maroonians, and other nations. The proper Suevians seem to bavo [ inhabited the modern Siiabia. f .V«/'Ow«w.v, (i. e. Marcli-men, or Borderers.) In Bohemia, and i Houlh wards. ' l^uaduns. Alan;j the Danube, train the Gran into Austria and Mo- \ I i \ I Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: y_j^ PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Parti Dnvc- Cranberry Townsliip. PA 16066