A history of Rome,from the earliest times to the establishment of the empire. With chapters on the history of literature and art

from the earliest times to the establishment of the empire. With chapters on the history of literature and art

448-406. XII. Sequel of tho Decemvirato. Military Tribunate. General history to tho war with Vcii ........128

448-391. XIII. Wars since the Decemvirato. Siege of Vcii .. .. 136 390. XIV. Tho Gauls ..................143

389-344. XVIII. "Wars from the burning of Rome to the first Samnite War...............172

337-326. XXI. Events leading to the Second Samnite War .. 195 326-304. XXII. The Great Samnite War, commonly called the

— XXVIII. Carthago. Events leading to First Punic War .. 259 263-241. XXIX. First Punic War..............267

— XXXYIII. Introductory: State of tho Eastern World .. .. 412 214-194. XXXIX. First and Second Macedonian Wars: Settlement

Spartacus: Consulship of Pompey and Crassus 620 7-1-Cl. LXIII. Third or Groat Mithridat^:e War: Pompey in the

C9-61. LXIV. From Consulship of Pompey and Crassus to return of Pompey from the East: Csesar: Cicero:

44-42. LXIX. From the death of Caesar to the battle of Philippi 703 41-30. LXX. From the battle of Philippi to the final establishment of Imperial-Monarchy ........713

§ 1. Relation of Italy to Roman History. § 2. Length of Italian Peninsula. § 3. Breadth. § 4. Extent of Surface. § 5. Reasons for considering Physical Structure. Division of Italy into two portions. § 7. Physical Structure of upper portion: The Alps, or northern limits of the valley of the Po. § 8. Upper Apennines, or southern limits of this valley. § 9. Plain of tho Po itself. § 10. Physical Structure of lower portion of Apennine range. § 11. Its Southern flank. § 12. Northern flank. § 13. Deduction of geographical features of Italy from foregoing description: Few prominent, Headlands and large Gulfs. § 14. Few Islands. § 15. No largo Rivers, except in tho valley of tho Po. § 16. No largo Plains, except in same valley. § 17. No largo Lakes, except in same valley. Peculiar character of Lakes in many parts of sub-Apennine districts. § 18. Marshy character of some districts. Methods of reclaiming land in modem times. § 19. Climate. § .20. Productions. § 21. Beauty of scenery.

§ 1. The History of Rome is properly the history of a City, or rather a Civic Community, which gradually extended its imperial sway, first over all Italy, then over all the countries bordering upon the Mediterranean Sea. It was, according to the common reckoning, nearly five centuries before the citizens of Rome became lords of Lower Italy;* in little more than another, con*

tury llicy had becomc tlic sovereign power of tlio civilised world.* It is difficult, therefore, in attempting a geographical sketch for the purpose of elucidating Roman History, to determine where we ought to begin and where to end. For during a long period we arc hardly carried out of sight of the Capitol; and at the close of that period wo arc hurried with startling rapidity into the heart of every country, from the Atlantic to the mountains of Asia Minor, from the ridges of the Alps to the plains that lie beneath Mount Atlas. But since the origin and composition of the people whom we call Romans depends upon the early state and population of Italy at large, and since in course of time all Italians became Romans, it will be well to follow the usual custom, and begin with a geographical sketch of the Italian Peninsula.

§ 2. This Peninsula, the central one of the three which stretch boldly forward from the southern coasts of Europe, lies nearly between the parallels of north latitude 38° and 46°. Its length therefore, measured along a meridian arc, ought to be about 550 miles. But since, unlike the other two Mediterranean Peninsulas, it runs in a direction nearly diagonal to the lines of latitude and longitude, its real length, measured from Mont Blanc to Cape Spartivento, is somewhat more than V00 miles.

§ 3. To estimate the breadth of this long and singularly-shaped Peninsula, it may conveniently be divided into two parts by a line drawn across from the mouths of the Po to the northern point of Etruria. Below this line the average breadth of the leg of Italy docs not much exceed 100 miles. Above this line, both coasts trend rapidly outwards, so that the upper portion forms an irregularly-shaped figure, which lies across the top of the leg, being bounded on the north and west by the Alpine range from Illyria to the mouth of the Var, on the south by the imaginary lino before drawn, and on the cast by the head of the Adriatic Sea. The length of this figure from cast to west is not less than 350 miles; while from north to south it measures,, on the average, about 120 miles.

§ 4. The surface of the whole Peninsula, including both the leg of Italy and the irregular figure at the top, is estimated at about 90,000 square miles, or an area nearly equal to the surface of Great Britain and Ireland.

But a very large proportion of this surface is unproductive, and a great part even incapable of tillage.

§ 5. The reason of this difference between the actual extent of the Peninsula and its productive surface is to be found in its physical structure, which is so remarkable as to invite an

attempt to describe it in the shortest and simplest manner compatible with clearness. The Physical Geography of a country is indeed the key to a great portion of its History, and explains tho very fact of its existence. For example, mountains which lift their heads above the waves and storms form the indestructible core of some countries ‘destined by Providence to play a largo part in the history of the world, while others are spread out in broad and swelling plains equally indestructible. The hard lime-tstone of the Apeimine range has alone enabled the long and Blender Italian Peninsula to be the cradle of those political, social, and ecclesiastical institutions which are inseparably attached to the name of Rome. If the masses thrown into that singular shape had been composed of soft or loose materials, they had been swept away by the joint action of wind and water, and the names of Italy and of Rome had been unknown.

§ 6. For the purpose of description we must again divide Italy Into two portions, as before, for the purpose of measurement.* The former portion consists of the enormous valley enclosed between the Alps on the north and the upper range of the Apennines on the south; a valley which may be represented as an irregular triangle, having its base upon the Adriatic, and gradually thinning off towards the Maritime Alps. The latter portion is formed by that lower part of the Apennine range which runs down the whole leg of Italy.

§ 7. In the former portion a gigantic ridge of Granite rocks has burst through the superincumbent formations, and sweeps in an irregular curve from the Tyrol to the Gulf of Genoa. On the southern flank of this Granite ridge reclines an enormous mass of the most Ancient Limestone, of that kind which has been called the Jura Formation. Appearing first near the Lago Maggiore, it attains its greatest breadth between Yerona and Belluno, and then again thins off towards the Tyrol. This Ancient Limestone dips towards the south, and disappears beneath a thin and broken edge of the more Recent Limestone rocks, which are analogous to what is called the Chalk Formation in England and France, though in Italy the Chalk itself is nowhere found.I Thus, from the Lago Maggiore eastward, the great valley of the Po is skirted on the north by the two Limestone systems, with the Granite coming from beneath them. But westward, from the Lago Maggiore to the Maritime Alps, the Limestones disappear altogether, and the alluvial plain abuts upon the primaeval Granite itself.

* In tho map over the leaf tho division is, by tho requirement of tho printer, made considerably lower down.

§ 8. The southern boundary of this great valley now remains to be examined. It is formed, as we have said, by the upper part of the Apennine range, which strikes nearly across Italy from above Genoa to the sources of the Rubicon and the Tiber. From beneath the southern edge of the alluvial plain first appears a band of the Tertiary rocks, which hardly show themselves on its northern edge. From below them again emerges in immense proportions the more Recent Limestone, which here covers the Jura formation, and forms the entire surface of that part of tho Apennines. The Granite, unable to burst its way through, has contented itself with upheaving the superincumbent mass of Limestone, while the Tertiary strata have been broken up and almost swept away.

§ 9. In the vast sweeping hollow or basin embraced by the northern and southern elevation of the Limestone mountains, that is, in the space between the Alps and Apennines, lies the great allu-

vial plain formed by the atoms washed down through all time by the thousand streams which descend from the Alps upon the north and west, and from the Apennines on the south, all at length combining their waters in the mighty stream of the Eri-danus. These waters, charged with particles of every kind of rock through which they flow, from the Granite to the Tertiary, form a soil hardly equalled in the world for natural richness. Near the mountains, indeed, where the streams descend from the gorges, the whole surface is often covered with barren gravel; especially on the Apennino side, where the mountains arc nearer and the descent more rapid. But as we advance into the centre of the plain, the gravel becomes finer and finer, till at length nothing is left but that fine and impalpable garden mould, which appears probably in the greatest perfection in the fertile district between Lodi and Cremona.

§ 10. AVe now turn to the leg of Italy, which consists of the lower range of Apennines, with its manifold branches and offshoots. Near the sources of the Rubicon and Tiber the more Recent Limestone has suffered a violent disruption, and falls off right and left, so as to display a huge mass of the Ancient Limestone. The two formations, the Ancient flanked on both sides by the more Recent, edged by narrow bands of Tertiary remains, continue their courso flowing down the leg of Italy, gradually inclining towards tho

instep,¹ till at the point where the gulf of Tarentum threatens to penetrate to the Sicilian sea, the wild country of the Bruttij rises in primaeval Granite.

§ 11. A line drawn from Ancona to Cape Argentaro gives the greatest breadth of these Limestone formations; and a little lower down, a fragment of the more Recent kind, left like an island upon the uplifted shoulders of the Ancient, presents the loftiest mountain of the Apennine range, Monte Corno or the Gran Sasso d’Italia, which attains an elevation of nearly 10,000 English feet. On the southern coast, from above the lake of Bolsena in Tuscany to the beautiful bay of Salerno, the regular geological series is broken up by a large tract of comparatively recent Volcanic country, which is interrupted between Latium and Campania by Ancient Limestone hills.

§ 12. On the northern flank of the Limestone range appears a belt of Tertiary formation, which spreads out wider, as the Limestone inclines towards the south, till it attains its greatest breadth along the western and northern sides of the gulf of Tarentum. But the Limestone formations, after sinking towards the Adriatic, again appear in the isolated eminence of Mount Garganus, the spur of Italy, and along the heel from Canusium to the Iapygian headland.

§ 13. This description of the physical structure of the Italian Peninsula will enable us to comprehend, by a very brief glance, its chief geographical features. Deep gulfs and inlets are not to be expected; for these are only found when mountain chains jut out into the sea, and maintain themselves as headlands, while the lower land between is eaten and washed away by the ceaseless action of the waves. Such phenomena are presented by Greece, and by the western coasts of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. But in Italy there is but one uniform mountain-cliain. On the northern or Adriatic slope of the Apennines, indeed, a number of gorges open to the sea in a direction transverse to the main line of the mountains. But the projecting spurs which form these gorges are not considerable in height; and on the southern^ or Mediterranean side the main range sinks towards the sea in subordinate or secondary ranges, more or less parallel to. the principal chain, and therefore seldom admitting of abrupt headlands with deep embrasures between. There is, however, one cxccption which proves the rule. We have above shown that at the foot of Italy, the Limestone range forks oft’ into two great branches, one running towards the toe of the Peninsula, the other forming tlio licel. The softer Tertiary formations between these two ranges have fallen a prey to the devouring waves. Here they have scooped out the great gulf of Tarentum, a vast expanse of sea, measuring from point to point no less than 80 miles.

But except this great gulf, the coasts of the Peninsula arc indented by comparatively gentle curves. On the northern side the single inequality is presented by the projecting mass of Mount Garganus, which forms with the lower coast what is now called the bay of Manfrcdonia. On the sole of the foot, below tho gulf of Tarentum, we find the bay of Squillacc (Sinus Scyla-cius). After passing the straits of Messina, first occurs the bay of St. Eufcmia (Sinus .Viboncnsis), which is separated from that of Squillacc by a mass of granitic rocks less than twenty miles in breadth. A little higher up we come to a wide sweep in the coast, known by the name of the bay of Policastro.

That part of the southern coast which is most irregular deserves particular attention from the student of Roman History. Between the point where ancient Lncania borders on Campania, and that at which Latium begins, a distance of about 120 miles, the coast-line is broken into three fine bays, the bay of Pa;stuin, or Salerno on the south, the bay of Gaeta on the north, and between them the smallest but most famous and most beautiful of the three—the bay of Cuma or Naples. From Cape Circello (Circeii), which forms the northern horn of the bay of Gaeta, the coast-line runs onward to Genoa, unbroken save by the headlands of Argentaro and Piombino in Tuscany. But these do not project far enough to form any recess worthy to be named. Nor is the little bay of Spezzia, just north of Tuscany, deserving of mention as a geographical feature.

§ 14. The same circumstance which prevents Italy from abounding in deep bays and bold headlands, also prevents its coasts from being studded with islands, which arc but relics of projecting mountain-cliains. If we omit Sicily, which is in fact a continuation of the Peninsula separated by a channel of two or three miles broad, and the Lipari islands, which arc due to tho volcanic action still at work beneath Etna and Vesuvius, tho islands of Italy arc insignificant. Caprea3 (Capri) on the one hand, Prochyta (Procida) and Ischia on the other, are but fragments of the two headlands that form the bay of Naples. Igilium (Giglio) and Ilva (Elba) stand in a similar relation to the headlands of Argentaro and Piombino. Besides these may be named Pontise (Ponza), Pandataria, with a few more barren rocks off the bay of Gaeta, and a few even less important on the coast of Tuscany.

§ 15. Except in Northern Italy, which abounds in noble rivers, as above described, the narrowness of the Peninsula forbids the existence of really large streams. Yet the Apennine range, which forms on its southern side long parallel valleys, enables numerous torrents and rills which descend towards the south to swell into rivers of not inconsiderable size. Such especially are the Arno and Tiber, which rise nearly at the point where the ancient limestone breaks through the more modern. Their waters are separated ly the hills which terminate in the headlands of Argentaro and Piombino, so that the Arno flows northward, and enters the sea on the northern frontier of Tuscany, after a course of about 120 miles; while the Tiber runs in a general southerly direction, receiving the waters of the Clanis from the west, and those of the Nar (Nera) and Velinus from the east, till its course is abruptly turned by the Sabine limestone hills. The entire length of its channel is about 180 miles. These two well-known rivers, with their affluents, drain the whole of Etruria, the Sabine country, and the Campagna of Rome.

Similar in their course, but on a smaller scale, are the Anio, (Teverone) and the Liris. 'They both rise in the ./Equian hills, the Anio flowing northward to swell the stream of the Tiber a little above Rome: the Liris, joined by the Trerus (Sacco) from the west, running southward so as to drain southern Latium and Northern Campania, till it turns abruptly towards the sea, and enters it about the middle of the bay of Gaeta, after a course of about 80 miles.

The Vulturnus and the Calor run down opposite valleys from the north and south of the Samnite territory, till they join their streams on the frontier of Campania, and fall into the bay of GatHa only a short distance below the Liris. Each of these streams measure from their sources to their united mouth not less than 100 miles.

The only other notable river on the southern coast is the Silarus (Sole), which descends by a channel of about 60 miles from the central Apennines of Lucania into the bay of Psestum or Salerno. After this comes the foot of Italy, in which the mountains come down so close to the sea that from the mouth of the Silarus down to the lower angle of the gulf of Tarentum, the streams are but short and rapid torrents. Of these it is said .that no less than eighty may be enumerated between Pajstum and the straits of Messina.

The gulf of Tarentum in its middle portion is skirted by a lower tertiary bed, and lias some streams of importance. The Bradanus and Casucntus (Basento) enter the gulf within four miles of cach other, after a course of about 60 miles. Tho Aciris (Agri) is to the south of these. The Siris (Sinno) notable as the scene of the first battle between Pyrrhus and the Romans, is a mere torrent, as is the Galcsus upon which Tarentum stands.

The northern or Adriatic coast is almost devoid of lateral valleys, such as are found on the other coast, and therefore has few considerable streams. The Auiidus (Ofanto) in Apulia, renowned in Roman history, from the fact that the fatal battle of Canna) took place upon its banks, rises on the opposite side of the came range as the Calor, and runs a course of about 80 miles. The Sagrus (Sangro) stands in the same relation to the Vulturous, and conveys the waters of the Fucine lake from the ^quian hills through Samnium, by a nearly similar length of channel. But the largest river of this side is the Aternus, which finds its way from the Sabine hills into a short valley parallel to the main range, and thus prolongs its course. It is joined by a number of smaller streams, and attains a considerable volume of water before it reaches the sea at the point where the Marru-cinian coast abuts on that of Picenum. -

The whole coast from Mount Garganus northward is ploughed by numberless torrents which descend in rapid course down steep mountain gorges. Of these we need but name the ^Esis between Picenum and Umbria; the Metaurus, in Umbria, famous for the defeat of Hasdrubal; the Rubicon, which formed the boundary of Roman Italy on the northern side, as did the Macra (Magra) on the opposite coast.

§ 16. The limestone mountain track that occupies the whole narrow Peninsula from the great valley of the Po downwards is often too steep, bare, and rugged, to be capable of cultivation. There are, however, many rich plains of limited extent, among which Campania ranks first; and many narrow but fertile valleys, in which nature rewards the smallest labour with bountiful returns. In the continental dominions of the modern kingdom of Naples, consisting of about half the leg of Italy, it is calculated that little more than one half of the land is at present under cultivation. In the Estates of the Church, and on the sea-coast of Tuscany, the proportion is even less.

§ 17. In speaking of Lakes, we must resume our twofold division of the Peninsula. On the Alpine slopes of the great valley of the Po, the Granitic and Ancient Limestone rocks break into vast chasms at right angles to their general direction, in which the waters of the rivers that flow downwards to join the Po accumulate and form those lakes so well known to all lovers of natural beauty. Such are the lake Benacus (Lago di Garda) formed by the waters of the Mincius, Larius (Lago di Como) by those of the Adda, Yerbanus (Lago Maggiore) by those of tho

Ticino, not to mention the lakes of Lugano, Orta, and others, smaller, but hardly less beautiful.

But Apennine Italy, considering the great extent of its mountain districts, does not present many considerable lakes. Nor are these formed by the accumulated waters of rivers flowing through them, like the lakes of northern Italy or Switzerland. For the most part, like the lakes of Greece, they have no visible outlet, but lose their waters partly by evaporation, partly by underground fissures and channels. The Fucine lake in the ^E^uian hills feeds the Sangro, and lake Bradanus in the south feeds the river of the same name. But the celebrated lake of Trasimene in Etruria, and the numerous lakes of the volcanic district, as the-“great Yolsinian Mere,” the lakes of Alba, Nemi, Amsanctus, and others, have no visible outlet. These, in fact, are the craters of extinct volcanoes. Roman history contains legends which relate to the artificial tapping of some of these caldrons; and some of the tunnels cut through their rocky basins still remain.

§ 18. The abundance of water which is poured over the hills, has a great disposition to accumulate in marshy swamps in the low districts towards the sea. Such is the case along the lower course of the Po, on the coast-lands of Tuscany, and in the lower part of the Campagna of Rome. Mantua, which stands a little above the junction of the Mincio with the Po, is surrounded by marshes; and the whole coast between Yenice and Ravenna is a swamp.

To keep the Po and its tributaries within their channel, the Lombards of the Middle Ages raised embankments on either side of the stream. But the rivers being charged with mud are obliged by these embankments to deposit the whole within their channels, and the quantity thus deposited is so great that it is necessary to raise these embankments continually; and thus in the course of centuries the bottoms of the rivers have been elevated considerably above the plains; so that the streams of Lombardy in their lower course are in fact carried along huge earthen aqueducts. In time, human industry will not be equal to raise these embankments in sufficient strength, and a deluge will ensue more fearful than those which the poet of Mantua seems to have witnessed in his own time.²

§ 19. Tlic Climate of Italy, like its physical structure, is extremely different in the northern and in the southern part of tlic Peninsula. In the valley of the Po the -winters are often extremely severe, so that towards the close of the last century all the olive-trees in that district were killed by the frost. On the south of the Apennines the climate is much milder in the winter, though in spring the winds are often very cold. Snow is rarely seen in the Campagna di Roma, or in the neighbourhood of Naples at the present day; though in the times of the ancients it seems to have been not uncommon.

Italy is in general a healthy country. The men arc active, vigorous, and well-grown; the women, in their youth, handsome. Some parts, however, arc afflicted by pestilential air (malaria), especially the lower part of Tuscany, and the Campagna di Roma, of which countries a more particular account will be found in a later page. Parts of Calabria also are extremely unhealthy, and all the southern side of tlic Apennines suffers from the south wind, called the Sirocco, which comes charged with suffocating heat from tlic plains of Africa. .

§ 20. The productions are those of tlic temperate zone in their highest perfection. Wherever there is a sufficiency of soil and water, as in the valleys leading to the plain of Lombardy, or descending to the sea from cither side of the Apennines, grain of all kinds is produced in great abundance. In ancient days, the plain of Lombardy, now so highly cultivated, was thickly covered with oak forests, that furnished food to countless herds of swine. Many parts of the Apennines arc still'well clothed with chestnut trees, and the inhabitants of the upland valleys live on their fruit during the winter. But modern ingenuity and industry have reclaimed many of these districts by the help of artificial irrigation.* On the southern slopes of

followed in the north, a most ingenious method, has been pursued in redeeming from the Arno those marshes in which Hannibal was attacked by ophthalmia, and lost part of his army. The philosopher Torricelli (about 1550 a.d.) suggested that the stream should be allowed freely to flood the surface within certain limits, and to deposit within these limits its fertilizing mud. This experiment has been tried with signal success. Strong embankments aro formed, with sluices and flood-gates, to admit the river at will over a confined surface. Hero all its deposit is spread; and after a number of years tho pestilent marshes of the Upper Amo (tho Val Chiana) have boon raised by a depth of not less than eight feet of fertile alluvial soil. When one district had been raised, tho same process was repeated with that next adjoining, and so tho whole surface of tho marshes has been raised. The same plan is now being pursued with tho marshes formed by tho Ombrono in tho Maremma of Tuscany.

* “ Tho woods have been cleared, and a skilful system of irrigation imparts fertility to tho district. Not loss than onc-fi(th of tho whole productivo area tlie Apennines olives flourish; and the vine is cultivated largely in all parts of the Peninsula. For this last purpose the sunny terraces of the limestone mountains are especially suited. But want of care in the treatment of the plant, or rather in the manufacture of the wine, makes the wines of Italy very inferior in quality to those of Franco or the Spanish Peninsula, though in ancient times the vineyards of northern Campania enjoyed a high reputation. Every schoolboy knows the names of the Massic and Falernian hills, of the Calene and Formian vineyards. In the southern parts the date-palm is found in gardens, though this and other tropical plants are not natural to the climate, as they are in the south of the Spanish Peninsula, which lies about two degrees nearer to the region of the vertical sun. The plains of Apulia, where the tertiary strata sink towards the gulf of Tarentum, were chiefly given up to pasturage— a custom which continues to the present day. This is connected with historical facts, to which we shall have to call attention hereafter.

§ 21. The natural beauty of Italy is too well known to need many words here. The lovers of the sublime will find no more magnificent mountain-passes than those which descend through the Alps to the plains of Lombardy. In the valley of the Dora Baltea, from its source under Mont Blanc to Aosta and Ivrea, all the grandeur of Switzerland is to be found, enriched by the colours and warmth of a southern sky; the cold green and gray of the central chain here passes into gold and purple. In the same district is found the most charming lake scenery in the world, where the sunny hills and warm hues of Italy are backed by the snowy range of the towering Alps. Those who prefer rich culture may gratify their utmost desires in the lower vale of the

of Lombardy is irrigated at tho present day. But nearer the mountains, nearly all the land is watered; between tho Ticino and tho Adda not less than 9-lOths; between the Adda and tho Oglio, about 2-lOths; between the Oglio and tho Adige, about l-7th or l-8th.”—Capt. Baird Smith’s Irrig. of Italy, i. p. 205.

This irrigation is almost entirely modern. Tho practice was known to antiquity, a3 appears from Virgil’s well-known line (Eel. iii. 11):—

But that it was rudo appears from tho beautiful description in Goorg. L 10G, sqq.:—

Ecco supercilio clivosi tramitis undam Elicit: ilia cadons raucum per levia murmur Saxa ciet, scatebrisque arentia temperat arva.”

It may, indeed, bo observed, that this description is partly borrowed from Iliad *I>. 257, sqq.

Po about Lodi and Cremona, or across the Apennines in the valley of the Arno and in Campania. If we follow the southern coast, probably the world presents no lovelier passages than meet the traveller’s eye as he skirts the Maritime Alps where they overhang the sea cornice-like, between Nice and Genoa; or below Campania, where the limestone of the Apennines, broken by volcanic eruptions, strikes out into the sea between the bays of Naples and Salerno. The Romans, who became lords of all Italy and of the civilised world, sprung up in one of the least enviable portions of the whole Peninsula. The attractions of Modern Rome are less of nature than of association. The traveller would little care to linger on the banks of the Tiber, if it were stripped of its buildings and its history.

§ 1. Constant invasions of Italy, notwithstanding Alpine barrier. § 2. Its subdivision among numerous tribes. § 3. Signification of the namo Italy in Roman times. § 4. Roman Italy occupied by at least six distinct races. § 5. Pelasgians. § 6. Opicans or Oscans. § 7. Umbrians. § 8. Sabel-lians. § 9. Etruscans. § 10. Greeks. § 11. Romans a compound racc. § 12. Evidence of Tradition. § 13. Evidence of Language:—Roman language akin to the Greek in structure, being probably Pelagian, mixed with Oscan, with Sabine vocabulary added- § 14. Comparison between Romans and English in respect to origin. § 15. Sources of early Roman History.

§ 1. It is a common remark, that mountains are the chief boundaries of countries, and that races of men are found in their purest state when they are separated by these barriers from admixture with other tribes. Italy forms an exception to this rule. It was not so much the “ fatal gift of beauty,” of which the poet speaks,* as the richness of its northern plain, that attracted successive tribes of invaders over the Alps. From the earliest dawn of historic knowledge, we hear of one tribe after another sweeping like waves over the Peninsula, each forcing its predecessor onward, till there arose a power strong enough to drive back the current, and bar aggression for many an age. This power was the Roman Empire, which forced the Gauls to remain on the northern side of the Apennines, and preserved Italy untouched by the foot of the foreigner for centuries. No sooner was this power weakened, than the incursions again began; and at the present day the fairest provinces of the Peninsula are subject to foreign rule.

§ 2. But if the northern barriers of the Peninsula failed to check the lust of invaders, its long straggling shape intersected by mountains from top to bottom, materially assisted in breaking it up into a number of different nations. Except during the strength of the Roman Empire Italy lias always been parcelled out into a number of small states. In the earliest times it was shared among a number of tribes differing in race and language. Great pains have been taken to investigate the origin and character of these primaeval nations. But the success has not been great, and it is not our purpose to dwell on intricate ques-

* The stanzas of Filicaja are well known from their version in Childe Harold, “Italia, oh Italia 1 would thou wert less lovely, or more powerful,” &c.

tions of this kind. Wc will here only give results so far as they seem to be established.

§ 3. It is well known that it was not till the closo of the Republic, or rather the beginning of the Empire, that the name of Italy was employed, as wc now employ it, to designate the whole Peninsula, from the Alps to the straits of Messina. The term Italia, borrowed from the name of a prima3val tribe who occupied the southern portion of the land, was gradually adopted as a generic title in the same obscure manner in which most of the countries of Europe, or (wc might say) the Continents of the world have received their appellations. In the remotest times the name only included Lower Calabria :* from these narrow limits it gradually spread upwards, till about the time of the Punic Wars, its northern boundary ascended the little river Rubicon (between Umbria and Cisalpine Gaul), then followed the ridge of the Apennines westward to the source of the Macra, and was carried down the bed of that small stream to the Gulf of Genoa.

When wc speak of Italy, therefore, in the Roman sense of the word, wc must dismiss from our thoughts all that fertile country which was at Rome entitled the provincial district of Gallia Cis-alpina and Liguria, and which was nearly equivalent to the territory now. subject to the crowns of Sardinia and Austria, with the Duchies of Parma and Modena, and the upper portion of the States of the Church. It will be seen that this political division nearly coincides with the physical divisions noticed in the foregoing chapter.

§ 4. But under Roman rule even this narrower Italy wanted that unity of race and language which, in spite of political severance, we are accustomed to attribute to the name. Within the boundaries just indicated there were at least six distinct races, some no doubt more widely separated, but all marked by strong national characteristics. These were the Pelasgians, the Oscans, the Sabellians, the Umbrians, the Etrurians, and the Greeks.

§ 5. It is certain that in primitive times the coasts and lower valleys of Italy were peopled by tribes that had crossed over from the opposite shores of Greece and Epirus. These tribes belonged to that ancient stock called the Pclasgian, of which so much lias been written and so little is known. The names that remained in Southern Italy were all of a Pclasgian or half-IIellenic character. Such were, in the heel of Italy, the Daunians and Peucetians (reputed to be of Arcadian origin), the Messapians and Sallentines; to the south of the Gulf of Tarentum, the Chaonians (who arc also found in Epirus); and in the toe the (Enotrians, who

* Properly only the too of Italy, from tho Bay of Squillaco to that of S. Eufemia (tho Sinus Scylaciua to tho S. Lameticus), Arist Polit. vii. 10.

once gave name to all Southern Italy.³ Sucli also were the Siculians and other tribes along the coast from Etruria to Campania, who were driven out by the invading Oscan and Sabellian nations.f

§ 6. The Oscan or Opican race was at one time very widely spread over the south. The Auruncans of Lower Latium belonged to this race, as also the Ausonians, who once gave. name to Central Italy,J and probably also the Volscians and the ./Equians. In Campania the Oscan language was preserved to a late period in Roman History, and inscriptions still remain which can be interpreted by those familiar with Latin.

§ 7. The Umbrians at one time possessed dominion over great part of Central Italy. Inscriptions in their language also remain, and manifestly show that they spoke a tongue not alien to the Latin. The irruption of the Sabellian and of the Etruscan nations was probably the cause which broke the power of the Umbrians, and drove them back to a scanty territory between the ^Esis, the Rubicon, and the Tiber.

§ 8. The greatest of the Italian nations was the Sabellian. Under this name we include the Sabines, who are said by tradition to have been the progenitors of the whole race, the Samnites, the • Picenians, Yestinians, Marsians, Marrucinians, Pelignians, and Frentanians. This race seems to have been naturally given to a pastoral life, and therefore fixed their early settlements in the upland valleys of the Apennines. Pushing gradually along this central range, they penetrated downwards towards the Gulf of Tarentum; and as their population became too dense to find support in their native hills, bands of warrior youths issued forth to settle in the richer plains below. Thus they mingled with the Opican and Pelasgian races of the south, and formed new tribes, known by the names of Apulians, Lucanians, and Campanians. These more recent tribes, in turn, threatened the great Greek colonies on the coast, of which we shall speak presently.

§ 9. We now come to the Etruscans, the most singular people of the Peninsula. This people called themselves Rasena, or Rasenna—a name that reminds us of the Etruscan surnames Porsenna, Vibenna, Sisenna. At one time they possessed not only the country known to the Romans as Etruria (that is, the country bounded by tho Macra, the central Apennine ridge, and the Tiber), but also occupied a large portion of Liguria and Cisalpine Gaul ;* and perhaps they had settlements in Campania. I In early times they possessed a powerful navy, and in the primitive Greek legends they are represented as infesting the Mediterranean with their piratical galleys.^ They seem to have been driven out of their Trans-Apennine possession by early invasions of the Gauls; and their naval power never recovered the blow which it received in the year 480 B.C., when Gelo King of Syracuse defeated their navy, combined with that of Carthage, on the same d«y on which the battle of Salamis crippled the power of Persia.

But who this people were, or whence they came, baffles conjecture. It may be assumed as certain, that the Pelasgic settlers came in by sea from the western coasts of Epirus, which are distant from Italy less than fifty miles; and that the Opican, Umbrian, and Sabellian races came in from the north by land. But with respect to the Etruscans all is doubtful. One well-known legend represents them as Lydians, who fled by sea from Asia Minor to avoid the terrible presence of famine.. Another indicates that they came down over the Alps, and the origin of their name Rasena is traced in Rsetia. On the former supposition, Etruria was their earliest settlement, and, pushing northward, they conquered the plain of the Po; on the latter, they first took possession of this fertile plain, and then spread southward over the Apennines.

Their language, if it could be interpreted, might help to solve the riddle. But though we have numerous inscriptions in their tombs, though the characters in which these inscriptions are written bear close affinity to the letters of the Greek and Roman alphabets, the tongue of this remarkable people.has as yet baffled the deftest efforts of philology.

§ 10. Of the-Greek settlements that studded the coast of Lower Italy, and' gave to that district the name of Magna

* Allusion is made to this in Virgil (Aen. x. 198-206) whero tho Etruscan chiof Oenus, tho son of ManJto, is said to havo founded Mantua (“muros ma-trisque dedit tibi, Mantua, nomen”), and to havo brought his troops from the Lago di Garda :•—

“ Quos patro Benaco velatus arundino glauca Mincius infesta ducebat in sequora pinu.”

\ See the pretty Hymn to Dionysos, attributed to Homer, in which Etruscan pirates tako the god prisoner, and aro punished in a strange fashion for their audacity.

Graecia, little need here be said. They were not planted till after the foundation of Rome. Many of them, indeed, attained to great power and splendour; and the native Osco-Pelasgian population of the south became their subjects or their serfs. Sybaris alone, in the course of two centuries, is said to have become mistress of four nations and twenty-five towns, and to have been able to raise a civic force of 300,000 men. Croton, her rival, was even larger.⁴ Greek cities appear as far north as Campania, where Naples still preserves in a corrupt form her Hellenic name, Neapolis. The Greek remains discovered at Canusium (Canosi) in the heart of Apulia, attest the extent of Hellenic dominion. But the Greeks scein to have held aloof from mixture with the native Italians, whom they considered as barbarians. Rome is not mentioned by any Greek writer before the time of Aristotle (about 340 b.c.)

§ 11. From the foregoing sketch it will appear that Latium formed a kind of focus, in which all the different races that in past centuries had been thronging into Italy converged. The Etruscans bordered on Latium to the west; the Sabines, with the Umbrians behind them, to the north; the vEquians and Volscians, Oscan tribes, to the north-east and cast; while Pelasgian communities arc to be traccd upon the coast-lands. Wc should then cxpect beforehand to meet with a people formed by a commixture of divers tribes; and this expectation is confirmed both by ancient Tradition and by the investigations of modern scholars into the construction of the Latin Language.

§ 12. Tradition tells us that the Aborigines of Latium mingled in early times with a people calling themselves Siculians; that these Siculians, being conquered and partly expelled from Italy, took refuge in the island, which was afterwards called Sicily from them, but was at that time peopled by a tribe named Sicanians; that the conquering people were named Sacranians, and had themselves been forced down from the Sabine valleys in the neighbourhood of Rcate by Sabellian invaders; and that from this mixture of Aborigines, Siculians, and Sacranians arose the people known afterwards by the name of Latins.

Where all is uncertain, conjecture is easy. It might be alleged that the Aborigines and Siculians, both of them, or at least the latter, were Pelasgians, and that the Sacranians were Oscan. AH such conjectures must remain unproved. But they all bear witness to the compound nature of the Latin nation.

(1.) The Latin language contains a very large number of words closely resembling the Greek; and, what is particularly to be observed, the grammatical inflexion of the nouns and verbs, with all that may be called the framework of the language, closely rcstfmbles that ancient dialect of the Hellenic called Molic. But it is not to be supposed that these roots and forms were borrowed from the Greek; for these same roots and forms arc found in Sanscrit, the ancient language of India. In many of its forms, indeed, Latin more nearly resembles Sanscrit than Greek. It must be inferred, then, that these languages all branched off from one stock. And it may be affirmed that the form under which this original language first appeared in Latium was Pclasgian or half-IIellcnic.

(2.) Though the framework and a large portion of the vocabulary resembles the Greek, there is also a large portion which is totally foreign to the Greek. This foreign clement was certainly not Etruscan; for if so, we should find many words in the Etruscan inscriptions agreeing with words in Latin; whereas, in fact, we find hardly any. But in the Oscan inscriptions we find words much resembling the Greek; and it may be inferred that the Oscan races had so largely blended with the Pelasgian, that the original Latin tongue was a mixture of the two.

(3.) It is certain that the nation we call Roman was more than half Sabellian. Traditional history, as we shall see, attributes the conqucst of Rome to a Sabine tribe. Some of her kings were Sabine; the name borne by her citizens was Sabine ; her religion was Sabine; most of her institutions in war and peace were Sabine; and therefore it may be concluded that the language of the Roman people differed from that of Latium Proper by its Sabine elements, though this difference died out. again as the Latin communities were gradually absorbed into the territory of Rome.

§ 14. This, then, is the summary of what we know. Tradition represents Italy as peopled by a number of different races, and Rome as partaking more or less of the peculiarities of each race. Philology confirms this representation, and attempts to establish some definite relations between these races. The result is meagre, because the materials for a judgment arc meagre. But it is at least certain, that the Roman people and its language were formed by a composition almost as manifold and heterogeneous as the people and language of England. The original Celtic population of our island gave way before the mixed Saxon, Anglian, and Danish tribes, which poured into it from the north. Anglo-Saxon, not without a dash of Celtic, became the common language of the people. Norman conquerors, Danes by origin, and Frenchmen by habit, gradually adopted the .language of the conquered people, infusing into it a large vocabulary of French or rather Latin terms ; but still the grammatical structure,,the bone and sinew of the language, remained and remains Anglo-Saxon. So in Latium, it may be assumed, that the original inhabitants, a mixture of Pelasgians and Oscans, spoke a tongue which was the parent of the later Latin; that the Sabine conquerors of Rome gradually adopted this Latin language, infusing into it a large vocabulary of their own. Other infusions may have occurred, both before and after; but the organic structure still remained the same, and is identified with the structure of the Greek and its kindred tongues.

§ 15. We will now pass on to the Legends, in which is preserved the early History of Rome, reserving for a later page all attempts to estimate how far these Legends are mere fictions, and how far they may be regarded as actual events. It may be observed that no people is so rich in legendary history as the Romans. Their patriotic pride preserved the stories of their ancestors from generation to generation, till they were, so to say, embalmed by poets who lived in the times of the Punic wars. These poems, indeed, have, with the exception of a few fragments, perished; but we learn from Cicero how highly they were esteemed in his day, and in the epic poem of Virgil, with the scarcely less poetic prose of Livy’s early history, they still liv<\ From these, great writers chiefly are derived those famous Legends, which are now to be recounted for the hundredth time. .

§ 1. Belief of the Romans that they were sprung from tho East. § 2. Legend of yEneas. § 3. Legend of Ascanius. §. 4. Legend of Rea Silvia, and birth of the Twins. § 5. Legend of recognition of Twins by Numitor. § 6. Legend of tho quarrel of Romulus and Remus. Variations in Legends. § 7. Romulus founds Romo. Uncertainty of dates. § 8. Asylum. Rape of Sabines. § 9. War with Sabines. Legends of Tarpeia, of Janus, of Sabino women. § 10. Peace between Romans and Sabines. Romulus and Titus Tatius joint Kings. §11. Legend of Cables Vibenna and Etruscan settlers at Rome. Four of Seven Hills now occupied. § 12. Death of Titus Tatius. Reign and death of Romulus. § 13. Institutions attributed to Romulus: (1) Social; (*2) Political; (3) Military. § 14. Interregnum: Numa Pompilius, a Sabine, second king of Rome. § 15. Religious institutions attributed to Numa. § 16. His love of agriculture. § 17. Other institutions.

§ 1. It was the pride of the Romans to believe that they wero descended from the ancient nations to the East of the Mediterranean Sea. All their early legends point to Greece and Troy. How far the Pelasgian origin of the nation may account for this belief may be conjectured, but cannot be determined. It may, however, be assumed that the Arcadian Evander and his followers, whom the legends represent as the first settlers on the Palatine Hill, were Pelasgians; and it is more than probable that the Trojan ^Eneas and liis followers, who are believed to have coalesced with the Arcadians of the Palatine, were likewise Pelasgians. With this preface we proceed to the Legends themselves.

§ 2. Virgil has told the tale of the flight of ^Eneas, and every one knows how he escaped from the flames of Troy bearing his father Anchises on his shoulders, and leading his boy Ascanius by the hand to seek a new home in Hesperia, the Land of Promise in the West. His piety or reverential affection* was not confined to his own family. He rescued also the gods of his father’s household from the flames, and he was rewarded by the favour of Heaven. Mercury or Hermes guided his steps from the burning city; the star of his mother Venus led him safely to the shores of tlic western land.

Nor did the protection of the gods desert him when he had reached the long-sought shores of Italy. Omens and signs told him that he had reached the promised land, and that Latium was to be the cradle of the new people which was to spring from the loins of the Trojan settlers. A white sow farrowed on the coast, and gave birth to the prodigious number of thirty young.

But before the Trojans could obtain a fixed settlement, it was needful to come to terms with the people of the country. These were the Aborigines or children of the soil.f Their King’s name was Latinus, and their chief city Laurentum. They treated the new comers kindly, and Latinus gave his daughter Lavinia in marriage to yl^neas, who therefore gave to the town which he built on the spot where the white sow had farrowed the name of Lavinium.

This agreement, however, had not come to pass without bloodshed. Lavinia had been betrothed to Turnus, the young chief of the Rutulians of Ardea. He, wrathful with disappointment, made war upon the strangers. JEneas sought the aid of Evander the Arcadian, who had founded a city on the Palatine Ilill, which afterwards became Rome; he was also befriended by the Etruscans of Ca)re, who had revolted against tlieir barbarous chief Mezen-tius, “ the despiser of the gods.” The Trojans prevailed, and

Turnus fell. But throe years after a new war arose ;⁵ and ^Eneas disappeared amid the waters of the Numicius, a small river be* tween Lavinium and Ardea. It was said that the gods had taken him, and a temple was raised to him on the spot, in which lie was worshipped under the name of Jupiter Indiges, or tho ^u God of the country.”! '

§ 3. Aseanius, who was also called lulus, from the youthful down I upon his cheeks, was warned by signs from Heaven that Lavinium was not to be the abiding place of the new people. After thirty years, therefore, as foretokened by the sign of the thirty young swine, he removed to the ridge of a hill about fifteen miles to the south-east of Rome, and here he built a new city, which was afterwards famous under the name of Alba Longa, or “ the Long White City.”|| In time this city became the capital of Latium, and all the Latin tribes came up to worship at the Temple of Jupiter Latiaris oil the top of the Alban Mount. Their chiefs also used to meet for the discussion of matters of state in the sacred grove by the spring of Ferentina on the side of the same mount.

Aseanius was succeeded by a son of ./Eneas and Lavinia, named Silvius,and the eleven Kings of Alba who succeeded all boro the surname of Silvius.

§ 4. The last of these Kings, named Procas, left two sons, Nu-mitor and Amulius. Amulius, the younger, seized the inlieritanco of his elder brother Numitor, who coveted not the crown. But he had a son and a daughter, who might hereafter be troublesome to the usurper. The son was put to death by Amulius; the daughter, Rea Silvia by name,⁶ was dedicated to the service of

Vesta, which compelled her to live and die un wedded. But destiny is stronger than the will of man. The sacred Virgin of Vesta was found to be with child by the god Mars, and she bore two boys at a birth. The punishment of a vestal virgin for incontinence was dreadful: the law ordained that she should be buried alive. Amulius spared not his niece. The Twins he ordered to be thrown into the Tiber. It chanced that at that time the river had overflowed his banks, and spread shallow pools over the ground afterwards famous as the Homan Forum. The slioal water shrank before the fated founder of Rome, and the Twins were left on dry ground near a wild fig-tree, which was long preserved with careful reverence under the name of the Ficus Ruminalis. Here they grew to boyhood, being suckled by a wolf and fed by the care of a woodpecker, creatures held sacred among the Latins.⁷ Thus marvellously preserved, they were found by Faust ulus, the herdsman of Amulius, who took them home to his wife Acca Laurentia. So the Twins grew up with the herdsman’s children in his cot upon the Palatine, and were known by the names of Romulus and Remus.

§ 5. The Twins were distinguished among the young shepherds by their nobler form and bolder spirit. It chanced that the herdsmen of Amulius, who dwelt on the Palatine Hill, were at feud with the herdsmen of Numitor, who fed their flocks upon the Avcntine. The latter took Remus prisoner by an ambush, and brought him before Numitor, their master, who admired the stately figure of the youth, and recognised in his features that which called back to his mind the memory of his unhappy daughter. Soon after Romulus came up to ransom his brother, and his appearance confirmed Numitor in his suspicions. The accounts given of them by their foster-father Faustulus revealed to the youths their true descent. With prompt energy they attacked Amulius in his palace at Alba and slew him there. Numitor, their good grandsire, was restored to the throne of the Silvii, his fathers.

§ G. Three hundred years had now passed since the foundation of Alba; and the Twins, led by omens and auguries, determined to quit the city of Ascanius and build a new town on the bank of the Tiber where they had been bred.f Now as they knew not which of the two was the elder, a dispute arose with respect to the place and name of the projected city. Romulus wished to build upon the Palatine, Remus on the Avcntine. To settle this question, they resolved to appeal to the gods. They were to watch, each on their chosen hill, from sunrise to sunset, and from sunset again to sunrise, and whoever was favoured by an ominous flight of birds was to be the founder. Remus first saw six vultures on his left. But at the moment that his messenger announced this success to Romulus, there appeared to Romulus a flight of twelve. Which, then, had the advantage,— Remus who saw first* or Romulus who saw most ? The quarrel was renewed, and in the fray Remus was slain by a chance blow.

Another legend says that Romulus began to build the city on the Palatine, when Remus scornfully leapt over the narrow trench, and Romulus in wrath slew him. Another attributes the fatal act not to the brother, but to Ccler, the friend of Romulus. And lastly, according to another legend still, there were two citics,—Rome, built by Romulus on the Palatine, and Remuria by Remus, not on the Aventinc, but on a hill threo miles south of Rome.*

§ 7. Young Romulus was now left alone to build his city on the Palatine. lie carried a wall along the edge of the hill all round, and ordained that a space should be left inside and outside the walls clcar of all buildings. This space was accounted holy ground, and was called the Pomcerium; and the beginning of the great city of the Tiber, was called Roma Quadrata, or Square Rome, to distinguish it from that which inclosed all the seven hills within the circuit of its walls.f

Inde lupas fulvo nutricis tegmino laetus Romulus exeipiet gentem, et Mavortia condet Mcenia, Romanosque suo do nomino diect.”—ViRG., Am. i. 272. yEneas thoroforo reigned 3 years; Ascanius 3 X 10 = 30; tho Silvii 3X100=300. See above, §§ 2 and 3. The number 3 was also tho number which guided Romulus in framing his institutions. See below, not© on Chapt

iv. 1, 9, Ac. It will be observed that all those Legends are ignorant of tho Legend of Evander’s city upon the Palatine, which is adopted by Virgil.

f There was, however, according to aneient authors, a Septimontium even in this primaeval Rome.

% This is the date of Yarro, which is followed by most authors. Cato placed it 332 years after the fall of Troy, i. e. in 752 B.C. Polybius and others in 750 b.c. Cineius Alimentus, a Roman annalist contemporary with Hannibal, as lato a3 729 B.C.

§ 8. The walls were built and. the? city ready, but men were wanting to people it. To supply this want Romulus set. apai t a place within the walls as a sanctuary or refuge for those who had shed blood, for slaves who had run away from their masters, and the like. Hence the city of Romulus was called by the Greek name of the Asylum. :

_t But though by this means men were supplied in plenty, they lacked wives, and the neighbouring cities held them unworthy to receive their daughters in marriage.. Romulus therefore determined to compass by foul means what he could not obtain by fair. Ho invited the people of the Sabines and neighbouring. Latin towns to witness the Consualia, or games to be celebrated in honour of the god Consus ;, and when , they were intent upon the show, a number of Roman youths rushed in and seized all the marriageable maidens on whom they could lay hands. This was the famous Rape of the Sabine Women.

§ 9. The kindness of their Roman husbands soon reconciled the women thus strangely wedded to their lot : but their parents and kinsfolk took up arms to avenge the insult they had received. First came the men of Csenina, Crustumerium, and \ntemna>; but Romulus defeated them all, and slew Acron, chief of the men of Csenina, in single combat, and offered up his arms as a trophy to Jupiter Feretrius. Trophies thus won by the leader of one army from the leader of another were called spolia opima_r and were only gained on two other occasions in the whole course of .Roman history.

The war with the Sabines of Cures was more serious. They came with a large force under their chief, Titus Tatius by name, and advanced to the foot of what was then called the Saturnian Hill, jthe same that afterwards became famous under the name of the Capitoline. The southern portion of this hill was called the Tarpeian,* and here Romulus had made a citadel, which he committed to the care of his faithful follower Tarpeius. But Tarpeius had a daughter, the fair Tarpeia, less faithful than her sire, and she promised to admit the Sabines into the citadel “ if. they would give her what they wore upon their left arms,” by which she meant their golden armlets. She opened the gates; but the Sabine soldiers threw upon her the heavy shields which they also ⁴⁴ wore upon their left arms,” and was crushed to death,—a meet reward for treachery.

Tho Romans and Sabines now lay over against each other, tho former on the Palatine, the latter on the Saturnian Ilill, with a

* Tho lower part was tho Tarpeian Ilill or Capitol, and the upper was tho Arx. Tho depression between tlieso two eminences was called Iuter-montium.

swampy valley between them, the same in which the Twins had, been exposed, the same which afterwards became so. famous as, the Forum of Rome. Ilere they fought¹ many battles. Once tho Sabines had forced their way up to the very Pomcerium of. the Palatine, when, behold ! .the gates burst open, and the. god Janus poured forth a flood ,of water and swept away the foe. ⁸ '' - _# ,

^v Another time, Mettus Curtius, a brave Sabine, forced his horse through the swamp and pressed the Romans hard. Romulus invoked the aid of Jupiter Stator, or the Stayer of Flight, and rallied his Romans. Still the battle raged fiercely, when the. Sabine women, who were the cause of the war, rushed down from, the Palatine with dishevelled hair and threw themselves between their Roman husbands and their Sabine .kinsmen. Then a peace was made; and in memory Of the service done by the Sabine matrons, a festival called the Matronalia was celebrated on the Calends of March, which was at that time the .first day of ;the. new year.* * .

§ 10. By the peace then made it was agreed that the people; of Rome and Cures should be united into one community. Romulus and his Romans were to continue in the possession of the Palatine Ilill, while Titus and his Sabines were to occupy the Quirinal.f The Saturnian Hill or Citadel.was. left in possession, of the Sabines. The two kings were to retain joint authority, and to debate on matters concerning the whole community, the Burgesses of both nations were to assemble at the upper, end of the valley which afterwards became the Forum, whence this place was called the Comitium or Meeting-place. Mor& over it is to be noted that Romulus assumed the Sabine name.' of Quirinus,J and all tho Burgesses or Citizens were cabed by the Sabine title of Quirites or Men of the Spear,||, facts whicli plainly proved that in the union the Sabines had the lion’s share of the spoil.

§ 11. At this time the Etruscans were powerful byland and sea. They had, as the legend relates, taken part in the wars between ^Eneas and the Rutulians; and another legend mentions ^ that Cailes Yibenna, one of their chiefs, had settled on the hill which lies to the south-east of the Palatine, and that from liim^ this hill received the name of Cselian. This Caeles is said to have assisted Romulus in his war againt the Sabines, and when * peace was made, his followers were allowed to become members • of the new community. Thus four of the seven hills were combined into one city, the Palatine, Quirinal, and Cseliau, with the Saturnian for the Citadel. .

§ 12. Not long after the union, Titus Tatius, the Sabine king, was killed while sacrificing at Lavinium by the Latins, in revenge for some injuries which they had received from some of his Sabine compatriots. Romulus now resumed the sole sovereignty, and ruled without a colleague. He is said to have reigned in all seven and thirty years, when he came to a sudden and unexpected end. It chanced, says the Legend, that he was reviewing his army on the Field of Mars by the Goat’s Pool, when there arose a fearful storm, and the darkness was so thick that no man could see his neighbour. When it cleared off, the king had disappeared. But it was revealed that he had been carried away in the chariot of his father Mars ;* and shortly after one Julius Proculus related that as he was returning from Alba, Romulus the King had appeared to him in celestial form, and told him that hereafter the people of Rome were to regard him as their guardian god jointly with Mars, and were to worship him by his Sabine, name of Quirinus.

But in later days this Legend seemed too marvellous, and a new one was adopted. It was said that the chief men—the Sabine nobles we may presume—had murdered him in the confusion of the storm, had carried away his body piecemeal under their gowns, and then had invented the miraculous story to conceal their crime.

§ 13. To Romulus are attributed all the early institutions of Rome, Social, Political, and Military.

(1.) To begin with the Social regulations. The whole population were divided into two classes, the Burgesses or citizens on tho one hand, and on the other their Clients or dependents.f

\ Tho common derivation of aliens is from kIvelv, to hear or obey, with which id compared the Latin old duSre, to be called [so and so].

The Burgesses were called Fatrons in relation to their Clients. These Patrons were expected, l>y law or custom, to defend their Clients from all wrong 01⁹ oppression on the part of others, while the Clients were bound to render certain services to their Patrons; so that the relation of Patron and Client in some degree resembled that of Lord and Vassal in the feudal times, or that of Chief and Clansman in the highlands of Scotland, or per-lia'ps even that of Proprietor and Serf in Russia. The Burgesses alone engrossed all political rights, and they alone made up what was at this time the Populus Romanus or Body Politic of Rome. The Clients were at the mercy of their Patrons, and had as yet no place in the State.

(2.) The Political institutions of Romulus could only affect the Burgessess or Patrons. Among these the old national distinctions gave the rule of division. They were formed into three Tribes* or nations,—the Ramnes or Romans of Romulus, the Tities or Sabines of Titus, the Luceres or Etruscans of Caeles, who was a Lucumo or nobleman in his own Etruscan city.

Then he subdivided each Tribe into ten Curiae, and each Curia had a chief officer called its Curio. In all, therefore, there wero thirty Curia?, and they received names after thirty of the Sabino women who had brought about the union of the nations. The Burgesses used to meet according to their Curiae in the Comitium to vote on all matters of state, which the King was bound to lay before them, and their assembly was callcd the Comitia Curiata, or Assembly of the Curies, and all matters were decided by the majority of Curiae that voted for or against it. No law could be made except with their consent. Nor was the sovereign power of the king considered legally established till it had been conferred by a curiate law. By the sovereign power (Imperium) so conferred the King held chief command in war, and was supremo judge in all matters of life and death, and in token thereof he was attended by twelve lictors bearing bundles of rods with sharp axes projecting from the middle of them (fasces).

Besides this large assembly, in which all Burgesses were entitled to vote, each in his own curia, there was a select body for advising the King, called the Senate or Council of Elders. This consisted at first of 100 members; but when the Sabines were joined to the Romans, 100 more were added, so that the whole number consisted of 200, being 10 from each of the 20 Ramnian and Titian Curies : for the Luceres or Third Tribe, though they also had 10 Curiae, were not as yet allowed to send any members to the Senate.

(3.) For military purposes each Tribe was ordered to furnish 1000 men on foot and 100 on horseback, so that the army of the united burgesses consisted of 3000 foot and 300 horse, and was called by the name of Legion. The 300 horsemen were the noblest young men of the military age, and also served as a bodyguard to the king.' The horsemen of each Tribe were called a, Century, and the three Centuries were known by the same namo as' their Tribes—Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres. The wholQ squadron was called by the joint name of Celeres, and the Captain or 'Prefect of the Celeres bore the first rank in the state after the King¹⁰ .

‘ § 14. Romulus had left the earth, and there was no King at Rome. The Senators took the government into their own hands; For this purpose the whole Senate was divided into tens: each ten was called a Decuria, and the chief of each Decuria a Decu-rion. Every Decurion with his nine compeers held the sovereign power for five days. The Decurions therefore were called Inter* reges or Between-kings, and the time during which they ruled was an Interregnum.

When this state of things had continued for a year, the Burgesses imperiously demanded that they should have a King. The Senate yielded, and a Sabine named Numa Pompilius was chosen, known as a just and holy man, famous for his wisdom in all matters of right and religion. He was elected by the Curies in their assembly, and himself proposed the law whereby he was invested with sovereign power. Ilis peaceful reign lasted for nine and thirty years, after which he was^- buried with the books of his laws on Mount Janiculum.

§ 15. As Romulus the Roman was held to be the framer of all regulations Social, Political, and Military, so Numa the Sabine is the reputed author of all the Religious and Ecclesiastical institutions of Rome.

According to the Legend, he was instructed in all these things -by Egeria, a Muse or (as the Latins called her) a Camena. To her sacred grove lie was admitted, and even became her spouse. By her counsel lie surprised the gods Picus and Faunus in their retreat under the Aventine, and kept them in duress till they had taught him how to draw forth Jupiter, the Father of tho gods, frorn heaven. Jupiter appeared in the form of lightning, and promised him a public sign of his favour. Accordingly, next day, in the prcscncc of the assembled Burgesses, the ancilo

or sacrcd shield of Mars Gradivus, the father of Quirinus, fell from heaven amid lightning and thunder. To prevent this precious gift from being stolen, Numa ordered eleven others to be made of exactly the same substance, size, and shape, so that no man might know which was the true ancile: and to take charge of these shields, twelve Salii, or dancing priests of Mars, werd appointed, who also officiated at the public thanksgiving which in after times the Romans used to offer after great victories.¹¹ Further, for the regulation of the worship of the gods, and to decide all questions of religion, he created four pontiffs, with a superior named the Pontifex Maximus. These acted as a kind of ecclesiastical council; and the offices were usually held by the most distinguished men at Rome, for there were no clergy or class set apart from other classes for religious purposes. For the special service of the two guardian gods of Rome, Mars Gr,a-divus and Quirinus, he appointed two FI amen?, called respectively the Flamens of Gradivus and Quirinus. With these was associated a third, devoted to the service of supreme Jupiter, who bore the name of the Flamen Dialis.

To consult the will of the gods by auguries and divinations ho created four Augurs.

And to keep alive the sacrcd fire of Vesta, which had been brought from the shrine of the goddess at Alba, the mother city of Rome, he ordained that there should be four Vestal Virgins. In honour of Vesta ho built a temple on the north side of the Palatine, abutting on the Forum, and adjoining it a dwelling for the vestals, llis own palace also, the Regia, he placed next to. the temple of the goddess.

To distinguish time of war from time of peace, lie is said to have built a temple to the god Janus, or the Double God, whose two faces looked different ways.} During the whole of his reign the door of the temple was closed in sign of peace ; but from his time to the time of the Emperor Augustus it remained open in sign of war, except during a brief period after the first Punic war.

§ 1G. Yet Numa willed not that the Romans should offer costly sacrifices to the gods, but ordained that they should present corn and the fruits of the earth, and not any living thing; for he was a lover of husbandry," and was anxious that this peaceful art should flourish. Therefore he took pains to secure each man in possession of his land, and fixed the bounds of each farm by landmarks or termini, which it was sacrilege to remove, for they were under the protection of the god Terminus; and in honour of this god he established the yearly festival of the Terminalia. Moreover he distributed all the lands of Rome into pagi or districts, and ordered the memory of this act to be kept alive by the feast of the Paganalia.¹²

§ 17. Some other matters are attributed to Numa which might here be mentioned. lie is said to have divided tho people into guilds or companies, according to their trades and professions. He built a temple to Good Faith; he determined the dies fasti and nefasti, or common days and holidays; and lastly, he is said to have added to the year of Romulus (which consisted of 10 months only, some of them but 20 days long) the months of January and February; and to have ordained that the year should consist of twelve lunar months and one day over, or in all of 355 days.f

§ 1. Increaso of Romo in next two reigns. § 2. Choico of Tullus IIostilius. § 3. War with Alba. Legend of Iloratii and Curiatii. § 4. War with Etruscans. Punishment of Mettus Fuffetius. § 5. Forccd migration of Albans to Rome. § 6. War with Sabines. § 7. Curia Ilostilia. § S. Death of Tullus. § 9, 10. Election of Ancus Martius: his institutions. § 11. Subjugation of Southern Latium: increaso of Roman citizens. § 12. Pons Sublicius: Janiculum: Ostia. § 13. Death of Ancus.

$ 1. From the reigns of Romulus and Nuina, tlie reputed founders of Rome and all her early institutions, we pnss to that of two Kings, also a Roman and a Sabine, who swelled the numbers of the Roman people by the addition of large bodies of Latins, many of whom were transferred from their own cities by force or persuasion. These Kings prepared the way for the more extensive political changes attributed to their successors.

But in no long time the Burgesses met, and chose to be their king Tullus Hostilius, a Roman, whoso grandsire had been a captain in the army of Romulus. His reign of two-and-thirty years was as bloody and warlike as that of Numa had been calm and peaceful. The acts attributed to him are, first, the establishment of the Latins of Alba in Rome, and secondly, the creation of judges to try matters of life and death in place of tho king, called Qua3stores Parricidii. The famous Legends which follow give the reasons for both these matters. -

§ 3. The chief war of Tullus was against the Albans. It broke outthus. The lands of Rome and Alba Inarched together, that is, they bordered one upon the other, and the borderers of both nations had frequent quarrels and plundered ono another. King Tullus took up the cause of his people, and demanded restitution of the booty taken by tho Albans from Cluilius, the Dictator of Alba, who replied that his people had suffered to the full as much. from the Romans as they of Rome from the Albans. Since, then, neither party would make satisfaction, war was declared. Cluilius first led out his army and encamped within five miles of Rome, at a place afterwards called the Fossa Cluilia, where he died, and the Albans chose Mettus Fuffetius to be Dictator in his stead. Meanwhile Tullus, on his part, had marched into the territory of the Albans, and Mettus returned to give him battle. But when the two armies were drawn up ready to fight, Mettus proposed that the quarrel should be decided by the combat of champions chosen from each army, and Tullus agreed to the proposal. Now it chanced that there wero three brothers in each army, equal in age, strength, and valour. Iloratii was the name of the three Roman brethren, Curiatii of the Alban.* These were chosen to be the champions, and an agreement was made, with solemn rites, that victory should be adjudged to that people whose champions should conquer in the strife. Then the two armies sate down opposite one another as spectators of the combat, but not like common spectators, for each man felt that the question at issue was whether Rome was to be mistress of Alba or Alba of Rome. Long and bravely fought all the champions. At length all the Curiatii were grievously wounded; but of the Iloratii two lay dead upon tho plain, while the third was yet untouched. So the surviving Ho-ratius, seeing that, single-handed, he could not prevail, pretended to flee before his three opponents. They pursued him, each as he was able; the most vigorous was foremost; he that had lost

* In another form of tho legend, the names aro reversed. It may be presumed that this is tho Latin version, whilo tho received form is tho Roman. .Each nation would wish to claim the conqueror.

most blood lagged behind. And when-Horatius saw that they were far separate one from another, he turned about and smote the first pursuer; so likewise the second; and lastly he slew the third. Then the Romans were adjudged victorious.

But a sad event followed to damp their joy. Iloratius was returning home with the spoils of the slaughtered three borne in triumph before him, when, outside the Capuan gate,* he met his sister. Alas ! she had been betrothed to one of the Alban brethren, and now she beheld his bloody vestments adorning tho triumph of her brother, and she wept aloud before all the army. But when lloratius saw this, he was so angered that ho took his sword and stabbed her where she stood.

Now all, both Senate and People, were shocked at this unnatural deed; and though they owed so much to Horatius, they ordered him to be tried before two Judges appointed by the King. These Judges found Horatius guilty, arid condemned him to be “hanged with a rope,” according to the law; nor had they power to lighten his punishment. But Horatius appealed to the People, and they pardoned him, because he had fought so well for them, and because old Horatius, the father, entreated for him, and said that his daughter had been rightly slain, and that he would himself have slain her, as he had a right to do, because he was her father; for by the old Roman law the father had this terrible power over his children. But to atone for the bloodshed, the father was ordered to make certain sacrifices at the public expense; and the heads of the Horatian Gens continued to offer these sacrifices ever afterwards.

§ 4. Thus it was that the Albans became subjects of King Tullus, and they were bound to assist him in war against his enemies; and he soon called upon them to follow him against the Etruscans of Veii and Fidense. So Mettus Fuffetius came to his aid with a brave army; but in the battle Mettus stood aloof upon a hill with his army, waiting to see which party should prevail. The Romans were so hard pressed that tho king to stay the alarm, vowed temples in case of victory to Paleness and Panic-fear (Pallor et Pavor). At length the battle was won, and then the Alban Dictator came down and pretended to be on their side. But Tullus took no notice, and summoned all the Albans to come next day to consult on public affairs. So they came, as to a peaceful assembly, with no arms in their hands, when suddenly the Roman legion closed around them, and they could neither fight or flee. Then Tullus rebuked the Albans, but said that he would only punish .their chief, for that

' * It may bo noted that there was no Capuan Gate (Porta Capcna) till after tho building of tho walls of Servius Tullius lie was tho most guilty. And he took Mettus and bound him by the arms and legs to two four-horsed chariots ; and the chariots, being drawn different ways, tore the unhappy wretch asunder.

§ 5. Then Tullus gave orders that the city of Alba should bo dismantled, and that all its burgesses with their clients should migrate to Rome. It was sad to leave their fathers’ homes and the temples of their fathers’ gods. Yet was their new abode no ctrange city. Had not Rome been founded by Alban princes ? and did not the Quirites keep up the eternal fire of Yesta and worship the Latin Jupiter ? Nor did Tullus treat them as enemies, but gave them the Cffilian Hill for their quarter; and ho built a palace for himself on the same hill and dwelt in the midst of them: he also made the heads of chief Alban families burgesses of Rome, and placed some of their chief men in the Senate.

§ 6. After this he also made war against the Sabines; and in fulfilment of a vow which he made in the stress of battle, he celebrated his victory by establishing the games of the Saturnalia and Opalia in honour of the Latin god Saturnus and the goddess Ops.

§ 7. To Tullus Hostilius likewise is attributed the building of the Senate-house, called from him the Curia Hostilia. It stood on the edge of the Comitium facing the Palatine; and in a building crected on the same spot at a later time, and bearing the same name, the Senate continued to hold their ordinary meetings till the days of Julius Caesar.

§ 8. But amid his triumphs and successes Tullus rendered not meet reverence to the gods. The people of Rome were smitten by a plague, and the King himself fell ill of a lingering disease. Then he bethought him to seek counsel of Jupiter, after the manner of King Numa. But when he took his station upon the Aventine, and endeavoured to draw forth the father of the gods from heaven, lightnings descended, as to Numa, but with destroying force, so that he himself was smitten and his house burnt down. His reign had lasted two-and-thirty years.

§ 9. After a short interregnum, the Burgesses chose Ancus Martius to be King, a Sabine noble, son of a daughter of King Numa. Ilis reputation was worthy of his descent; and his first act was to order the laws of his venerated grandsire to be written out fair on a white board and set up for all to read in the Forum, lie also made a prison for criminals in the rock beneath that side of the Saturnian Hill which overhangs the Forum,—the same which was afterwards enlarged by King Servius Tullius, and callcd after him the Tullianum.

§ 10. Ancus was a, lover of peacc ; but lie did not shrink from war, when war was necessary to protect the honour of the Roman name. But¹³even in matters of war he showed that reverence for law and order, which was his ruling characteristic. For he created a college of sacred Heralds, called Fetiales, whose business it was to demand reparation for injuries in a regular and formal manner,* and in case of refusal to declare war by hurling a spear into the enemy’s land.

§11. His chief wars were with the Latin cities of the neighbourhood. He took Politorium, and destroyed it; and reduced to subjection all the Latin shore, or that part of Latium which lies between Rome and the sea. The heads of families in these Latin cities, after the example set by Tullus Hostilius, were made Roman citizens; and to such as chose to settle in Rome Ancus assigned Mount Aventine for a dwelling-place, so that thus a fifth hill was added to the other four. In this way the city of Rome was greatly increased, and large numbers added to its citizens; while by the wars of Tullus and Ancus the power of the Latins proportionably diminished.

But the Latins whom Ancus made citizens of Rome, were not, like the Albans in the time of Tullus, put on an equality with the old Burgesses. Most of them continued to reside in their own small cities, subject to Roman authority. They formed a new clement in the state—being neither Patrons nor Clients—of which we shall speak more at length in our account of Tarquinius Pris-cus. It is probably this encouragement of a free people, who were not bound by tho ties of Clientship to any Patron, that leads Virgil to speak of Ancus as “ too much rejoicing iu popular favour.” f

§ 12. Other works of utility are attributed to Ancus Martins. He is said to have made the first bridge over the Tiber. It was built of wooden piles (sublicaj), and hence was called the Pons Sublicius. In order to prevent it being broken down by the Etruscans who lived on the other side of the Tiber, he fortified Janiculum, where his grandsire Numa lay buried. lie also built the town of Ostia at the mouth of the river, which long continued to be the principal haven of the Roman people.

§ 1. Sons of Ancus set aside. § 2. Early history of Tarquinics Pmscus. § 3. IIow he came to bo chosen King. § 4. Addition to numbers of Senate. § 5. Soeial state before reforms of Tarquin. Patricians or Patrons, Clients, Plebeians. § G. Origin of Plebs. § 7. Tarquin’s plan of reform. § 8. Opposition of Patricians. Legend of Attus Navius. § 9. Plan modified. Augmentation of Patrician Gentes and of Knights. § 10. Wars of Tarquin. § 11. Public works: Cloaea Maxima, etc. § 12, Legend of death of Tarquin. § 13. Servius Tullius. § 14. Wish to give political power to all Plebeians. § 15. Plan of reform. Comitia Centuriata. § 1G. Census. Preponderating influence of property. § 17. Plebs mado part of Populus, or Body Politic. § 18. Roman territory divided into Tribes. § 19. Four of city. § 20. Sixteen of country. § 21. Only Plebeians originally members of Tribes. § 22. Assembly of curia) finally superseded by that of Tribes. § 23. Walls of Rome built by Servius. § 24. Principal places in early Rome. § 25. Allianco with Latins. § 2G. Legend of death of Serviua

§ 1. The first traco of hereditary succession in the Roman monarchy appears with Ancus. He was grandson to Numa, and

according to one legend conspired to take away the life of his predecessor Tullus. But the legends, after the death of Ancus, al! make the notion of hereditary right an essential element in the succession. Ancus had left two sons, as yet boys. But when they grew up, and found the throne occupied by a stranger, they took measures for asserting their right. It is of this stranger that we must now speak. lie is known to all by the name of Tar-quinius Priscus.

§ 2. Tarquinius had been a citizen of Tarquinii, a city of Etruria. But it w^ras said that his father was a Greek nobleman of Corinth, Demaratus by name, who had fled from his native land, because the power had fallen into the hands of a tyrannical oligarchy.¹⁴ The son had become a Lucumo or Chief at Tarquinii, had gained great wealth, and married a noble Etruscan lady, Tanaquil by name. Both himself and his wife were eager for power and honour; and, as they could not satisfy their desires at home, they determined to try their fortune in the new city on the Tiber, where their countryman Cajles Yibenna and his followers had already settled.f Therefore they set out for Rome; and when they had reached the Mount Janiculum, in full view of the city, an eagle came down with gentle swoop and took the cap from oft' the head of Tarquin, and then, wheeling round him, replaced it. Ilis wife Tanaquil, skilled in augury, like all the Etruscans, interpreted this to be an omen of good. “ The eagle,” sho said, “ wa9 a messenger from heaven; it had restored the cap as a gift of tho gods; her husband would surely rise to honour and power.” Thu9 it was that he came to settle in Rome, probably among his countrymen on the Cailian Ilill. He took the Latin name of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus and by his riches and his cleverness and goodwill he gained the favour of King Ancus, and was made guardian of his children. .

But he used the power so gotten in his own favour; and tho people chose him to be their king.

§ 3. It needs some explanation to show how Tarquin, being an Etruscan stranger, came to be chosen king of Rome : for in all likelihood he belonged to the tribe of the Lucercs; and this Tribe had hitherto been held subordinate. The Ramnians of tho Palatine and Titians of the Quirinal had kept power in their own hands ; and the Kings had been chosen by turns from these two Tribes. Romulus and Tullus were Ramnians ; ^Numa and Ancus

were Titians. Also, Romulus had chosen only 200 olders into the Senate ; of whom 100 were first chosen from the Romans or Ramnians of the Palatine, and 100 afterwards from the Sabines or Titians of the Quirinal; and there were no Lucerians in tho Senate, except perhaps some few that King Tullus had added from the Alban families, which he settled in the Cajlian Hill. Moreover, Numa did not admit the Burgesses of the Lucerian Tribe into the sacred offices which he made. For, under the Chief Pontifex, there were but four other Pontifices, two for the Ramnians, and two for the Titians. So, under the Chief Flamen of Jove, there were but two Flamens, one belonging to the Roman or Ramnian god Mars, the other to him who had become a god by the Sabine name of Quirinus. Likewise, he had mado but four Augurs, and four Vestal Virgins ; two for the Ramnians, and two for the Titians;¹⁵ and Tullus Hostilius had appointed but two Judges to represent him in deciding cases of life and death. The Luceres, therefore, were held in small account; and no doubt in the Comitia Curiata they were always outvoted by the other two Tribes ; for they had but 10 Curia) to the 20 of the other two.

But of late the Luceres had been waxing in power. Tho Albans had been added to their ranks; and no doubt this addition had made them more Latin, more like the other Romans, and less like the Etruscans. It might well be, therefore, that Tarquin was able by their means to raise himself to the kingly power. At all events, we may be sure that the four first Kings appear as representatives of the two elder Tribes; and that the three last belonged to the Luceres.

§ 4. Tarquin soon began to use his power to raise those by whom he had risen ; for he made the Luceres almost equal in dignity to the two old Tribes. First lie chose 100 fresh members into the Senate, who (we cannot doubt) were all of the Lucerian Tribe; so that now the Senate consisted of 300. Then, he increased the number of Vestal Virgins to six; the two new ones being (it is presumed) Lucerian. But the influence of the old Tribes in the colleges of Pontifices, Augurs, and Flamens appears to have been too strong to allow him to make similar alterations here. These remained according to the numbers fixed by Numa for a great many years. •

§ 5. Tarquin, however, was not satisfied witli simply raising his Lucerian friends to an equality with the Burgesses of the old Tribes. lie designed to make other alterations in the state, larger and more important. To explain these we must go back to the institutions attributed to Romulus. The w hole body of the people had been divided (as we saw) into two great classes, Patrons and Clients. The Clients or vassals being wholly dependent upon •their Patrons, had no part in the Body Politic, nor had they the right of connubium (as it was called), that is, the right of intermarrying with their Patrons. The Patrons, alone, therefore (wo repeat), made up the Populus or Body Politic of Rome: these only were members of the Three Tribes; these only voted in the Comitium by their Curia?, when they chose their Kings or made laws. At first, then, there were only two classes of freemen at Rome, Patrons and Clients; and all the power was in the hands of the Patrons.

These Patrons or Lords also took the name of patres or patricii, Fathers or Patricians. In after times the name of Patres was confined to the senators, and the descendants of the old patrons or patres were called Patricians. The Patricians were at this time the same as the Burgesses.

The Patricians were divided into certain private associations, called GenteSy which we may translate Houses or Clans. All the members of each Gens were called gentiles; and they bore the same name, which always ended in -ius; as for instance, every member of the Julian Gens was a Julius; every member of the Cornelian Qens was a Cornelius, and so on. Now in every Gens there were a number of Families, which were distinguished by a name added to tlie name of the Gens. Thus the Scipios, Sullas, Cinnas, Cethegi, Lentuli were all Families of the Cornelian Gens. Lastly, every person of every Family was denoted by a name prefixed to the name of the Gens. The name of the person was, in Latin, prccnomen; that of the Gens or House, nomen; that of the* Family, cognomen. Thus Caius Julius Caesar was a person of the Cajsar Family in the Julian Gens; Lucius Cornelius Scipio was a person of the Scipio Family in the Cornelian Gens; and so forth. Their pramomen, or fore-name, was Caius or Lucius, etc.; their nomen on name Julius, Cornelius, etc.; their cognomen or surname Cajsar, Scipio, etc. Theso Gentes may be compared to the ^Scottish Clans, in which there are many Families, as in the Clan Campbell there are the great Families of Argyle and Breadalbane and others.

Whether the Gentes were originally connected by blood or not, is hard to say.* But whether it was so or no, it is certain

that they ceased to be so, just as in the Scottish Clans. But they >vere bound together by certain'private sacred rites, called sacra <yentilicia, of which we have seen one example in the case of the lloratian Gens.*

The Patrons or Patricians, then, alone belonged to Gentes, and these only might intermarry with each Other. If a Patrician married a Client, their issue could not take the Patrician rank, or become a member of his parent’s house; because the Clients had not the connubium, or right of marriage with their Patrons.

But as time went on, there arose a third class of freemen at Rome, who were neither Patrons nor Clients—neither lords over vassals* nor vassals dependent upon lords. These were called Plebeians, and their general name was Plebs, or the Commonalty. They were like the Clients, in that they had no part in the government, in that they were excluded from the patrician houses, and could not intermarry with the Patricians.. But they were unlike the Clients, in that they were quite free and independent, subject to no lord, except to the King and the laws.

§ 6. Now comes the question—How did this Plebs or Com* mons come into being ? How came there to be Plebeians in the time of Tarquinius Priscus, whereas they were at all events but few in the time Of Romulus i ' * .'

It is probable that at the first settlement, of the city there were a number of people previously dwelling about the Seven Hills, ivho were made subject without becoming Clients. These were tlie original Plebeians, that is, free men, without political rights. Their numbers were afterwards much ii^reased in various ways. First, a Patron might marry a Client’s* daughter, or a Client might marry a Patrician lady, and men the children would be neither Patricians nor Clients. Again, a Patron might die and leave no heirs, and then all his Clients would become independent, having no lord. But the third class was mainly formed by the addition of Latins, who were not powerful enough to gain admittance into the Patrician Gentes and Tribes. Tullus, we remember, brought the Albans, to Rome, and admitted their chief families into the patrician order. But there were many families that were not so admitted. However, the great increase of this kind took place when King Ancus peopled the Aventine witl^ Latins, and conquered all the country between Rome and the Sea. All new settlers who were not, like the Albans, admitted into the ranks of the Burgesses, and all the burgesses of conquered tov^is who continued to dwell at home, swelled the number of the Plebeians or Commons of Rorne.f

And as the great addition is reputed to have taken place in the reign of Ancus, he was held to be the father of the Plebs, and is (as we have before noted) represented by Virgil as exulting in popular applause. But yet he gave them no part in tho State; they lived like strangers at Rome, subject to no lord, as thp Clients were, and yet, like them, without any rights or power as citizens.

§ 7. Now Tarquinius Priscus saw that, sooner or later, these families of the Commons must gain power in the State. Many of them were rich; many of them had been noble in the old Latin cities from which they had been brought to Rome, or in those which had become subject to Rome. Tarquin therefore determined to raise a certain number of these plebeian families to patrician rank, just as Tullus had raised many of the Alban families. He proposed to do this by doubling tho number of the Patrician Tribes, so that they should be six instead of three. The three new Tribes were to be made up of Plebeian Gcntes, and were to be called after himself and his chief friends.

§ 8. But the citizens of the two old Patrician Tribes, the Ramnes and Tities, already angry at seeing the Luceres raised nearly to an equality with themselves, opposed this new plan most fiercely. There was a famous Titian augur, called Attus Navius, who came forward and plainly forbade the whole thing in the name of the gods.

The story goes that Tarquin laughed at the augur, and bade him tell by his auguries whether what he then had in his mind was possible to be done. And when the augur said it was possible, then said the king, “I wa^thinking that thou should’st cut this whetstone asunder with a razor: now let me see whether thy auguries will help thee.” Whereupon Attus took the razor and^jg; the whetstone asunder. At this the king greatly marvelled, sK promised that he would not disobey the gods.

§ 9. But though Tarquin no longer thought of making new Patrician Tribes with new names, he did what in reality came to the same thing; for he added his favourite Plebeian Gentcs to each of the three Tribes, so that each Tribe consisted of two parts—the Old Ramnes and the New, the Old Tities and tho

or privileged Cittadini or Burgesses, corresponding to tho Roman Patriciano Thes8 had their Vassals or Clients. And besides these two classes, there -was always a numerous class who wero neither Burgesses nor Dependents. In Germany these Plebeians wero called Pfahlburger, or Burgesses of tho.Pale, because they were allowed to live within the pale of the city, but not to enjoy any civic rights. They very much corresponded to tho Proselytes of tho Gato among tho Jews. Seo Niebuhr.

New, the Old Luceres and the New,¹⁶ and there were in reality six Patrician Tribes, though they bore only three names as before; and the new Patricians were called the Fathers of the Younger Clans, Patres Minorum Gentium.\

Thus the chief Plebeians were numbered among the Patrician families, and became part and parcel of the Populus or Body Politic of Rome; and were entitled to vote in the Comitia Curiata. But the mass of the Plebeians remained, as of old, excluded from $1 share in the State.

Tarquinius also doubled the centuries of Knights. Once they /iad been doubled by Tullus, so they were two hundred in each century or squadron, and six hundred in all. After the addition made by Tarquinius they amounted to twelve hundred The new Centuries retained the old names, just as in the Tribes the Old and New Ramnes, and so on; and no doubt they were enrolled from the New Tribes.

§ 10. When Tarquin had thus attached the Plebeians to the state, by raising some and giving hopes to all, he led forth his army against the Sabines. He conquered them, and took their town Collatia, which he gave in charge to his nephew Egerius (the Needy), who was so called because he was left destitute to the charge of his uncle Tarquin. Xhe son of Egerius took the name of Collatinus.

He also made war against the cities of Latium, which had not been conquered by Ancus Martius. And he was so successful in his wars and treaties, that all the old Latin communities sub* mitted to Rome as their sovereign state. .

His authority was also recognised by many of his Etruscan compatriots; and he .is said first to have introduced at Rome the Etruscan ensigns of royal dignity, the golden crown and sceptre, the ivory chair, and the robe striped with vioJet colour.

§ 11. But what made the reign of Tarquinius Priscus most famous were the great works by which he improved the city. The bounds of the Roman Forum had already been fixed in part by the buildings of Numa and Tullus Ilostilius. But Tarquin completed them for ever by building booths or shops along tho northern and southern sides.J And in the valley between the

Palatine and Aventine he formed the Circus Maximus, or great race-course for the celebration of the Roman or Great Games.

11c also vowed a temple to Jupiter on the Saturnian Hill, and began to level the ground at the lower extremity, where it boro the name of the Tarpeian Ilill. But this great building was reserved for another to complete.

One remarkable work remains to be mentioned, which even to the present day preserves the memory of Tarquin. This was the Cloaca Maxima, or great drain, which ran from tho valley of the Circus Maximus* and joined the Tiber below the island. The purpose of this great work was to carry off the waters which collected in stagnant pools in the ground to the west of the Palatine Hill, which was known by the name of the Velabrum. But its size and execution bear witness to the power and greatness of the monarch who planned it. It is formed in a semicircular vault, measuring nearly fourteen feet in diameter, and consists of three concentric arches, each composed of hewn blocks of hard volcanic stone.* Where it enters the river, the quay is formed by a wall of the same kind of masonry.f So admirable is the workmanship, that at the present day, though the stones are kept in their place simply by their own weight, without mortar or ccment, not one block has been displaced in the part of it which has been explored, and a knife-blade can hardly be inserted between the joints.^ Similar works arc found among the ruined cities of ancient Etruria ; and from that country- doubtless came the artificers capable of executing such a work.j

§ 12. The legend of Tarquin’s death is one of the most famous in the early Roman annals. It runs thus. He had a favourite called Servius Tullius, a young man whom some said was born of a female Latin slave taken at Corniculum; whereas others said

Tabornaj Novae, while thoso on tho south side retained tho namo of Tabema> Yeteres, even to Cicero’s time. Academ. iv. 22: “ Ut ii qui siib Novis [sc. Tahernis] solem non ferunt . . ., Veterum . . . umbrarn secvius est.”

* A kind of tophus or tufa, found near Rome, according to Brocchi (quoted by Dr. Arnold).

f This wall i3 almost concealed by a facing of later brick-work, as i3 shown in the woodcut at tho head of this chapter.

% Another Cloaca from tho great Cloaca under tho Forum was discovered by excavations in tho year 1742. This is probably the drain alluded to by Juvenal (Sat. v. 104), when ho speaks of a fish

But it appears to be built of travertino, a soft limestone from tho neighbourhood of Tivoli, which was not used till a late period in Roman buildings.— Niebuhr, vol. L p. 392. jj Seo tho woodcut at tho closo of tho chapter.

he was no Latin but an Etruscan called Mastarna, who had comc to Rome, like Tarquin himself, and assumed a Latin name.¹⁷ Servius had - the same plans as Tarquin himself, and afterwards (as we shall see) executed much which that King was unable to perform, whence we may conclude that he was. either a Lucerian or a member of one of the Latin houses which had lately been raised to Patrician rank. Now it was thought that this young man would most likely be chosen King, when; Tarquinius was dead., Whereupon the sons of .Ancus Martius, who had borne patiently the reign of Tarquin, resolved that they would seize the crown; and probably they were urged on by their brethren the Tities and others of the older Gentes, who. could not bear that another upstart should be King. So they procured two countrymen, who pretended to have a quarrel,, and, came before the King as if to seek for judgment; and while one of them was speaking, the other smote the King on the head with an axe, so that he fell dead. But the lictors seized the murderers; and Tanaquil the Queen shut up the palace, and gave out that • the King was not dead, but only’wounded. Then she sent for,-Servius Tullius, and exhorted him to assume the royal robe, and go forth with the lictors in kingly state to judge causes in the King’s name. Thus Tarquinius Priscus died after a reign of eight-, and-thirty years. And after a time his death was made known, and Servius Tullius became King in his place, without being regularly chosen by the Assembly of the Curiae. ,

§ 13. Servius Tullius was the best and wisest of all the Kings, and his reign is a history of the greatest changes that took place among the Roman people during the whole time of the kingly government. His wars were few, though we hear that he overcame, the people of Yeii and other Etruscan cities. His chief glory came from his new institutions for the good government of the people, which in a manner completed what Tarquinius Priscus had

§ 14. We have already spoken of the growth of the Plebs or Commons, a third class, belonging neither to the Patricians nor the Clients: and shown how Tarquinius raised the richest and most powerful houses of this class to be members of the Patrician [Tribes. But still the mass of the Plebs continued to live as before' upon the Aventine, without having art or part in the affairs of the Roman Peopl,o. The Populus or Body Politic still consisted only of Patricians; but the Plebeians were every Jay increasing in numbers and wealth, and it was to be feared that if they were much longer shut out from all part in public affairs, they might rise against the Patricians and take by force what they could not get as a free gift, and so the Aventine would become the chief place of Rome instead of the Palatine.

Servius took measures to guard against this danger by admitting the Plebeians into full citizenship, and made them in great measure equal to their Patrician brethren. The way he took was this.

§ 15. It was not proposed to raise the plebeian families to patrician rank and make them members of the Curia), but to create a new popular Assembly which was to include all the citizens, Patricians and Plebeians. alike. The whole form, divisions, and nature of this assembly was military. It was called tho Exercitus; it met in the field of Mars outside the city; the members of it appeared in the arms of their respective divisions, and gave their votes in the same manner. Of this w^re shall find, full, proof as we go on. .

But it was not all free Romans who were admitted even into this Assembly. A great division was made between those who had independent means of living (locupletes or assidui*), and those who had no sufficient property (proletarii). The former were required to have at least 11,000 ases’ worth of land or house property, and these alone were included in the new Assembly of Servius.

The locupletes appeared in the Assembly in five great Classes, or armed bodies, which were distinguished by their Census or amount of rateable property in land; the richest formed the First Class, the next richest the Second Class, and so on. Then each of the five Classes were subdivided into a number of Cen^ turies or companies, of which one half consisted of juniors, or men within the age of military service (17 to 45), tho other half of seniors, or men between 45 and GO.f The First Class appeared in full armour, offensive and defensive ; the Second Class was less completely armed, and so on till we come to the Fifth Class, which wore no defensive armour, and served as light*troops, slingers, archers, and the like.

* Assiduus is said to bo derived ab asse dando, because all who were included in the Classes had to pay tho tax.

f Occasional service might bo required of tho Seniors. After 60 they were superannuated. And, as they could not serve, neither could they vote in the Centuriato Assembly; a strange provision, that was in force in Cicero’s time. See his oration pro Sext. Roscio Amerino, c. 35. Such old men (sexagenarii) were therefore called depontani, because they could not pass tho gangway (j>uns) which lod into tho voting-booth {uvik), (equites). Servius found six Centuries already existing, each containing 200 men, as they had been left by Tarquinius Priscus, and all these six Centuries were Patricians, as has been shown. To these Servius added twelve Centuries more, the members of which were chosen from the best Plebeian families. These were the horsemen of the army, amounting in all to 3600 men. They were allowed a horse at the public expense, with a certain yearly sum for maintaining it.

Besides these there were two Centuries of carpenters and smiths (fabri tignarii et aerarii) for engineering purposes, with three of trumpeters and horn-blowers. The former, being skilful workmen, were thought worthy of being associated with the first Class; the latter belonged to the fifth. The Proletarians also were thrown into a single century and added to the fifth Class.*

Such was the celebrated assembly known by the name of the Comitia Centuriata, or General Assembly of the Centuries.

§ 16. The Census or assessment of property in the above military classification was made solely with regard to land and all that we call real property. No account was taken of slaves, cattle, precious metals, furniture, and all that we call personalty, till a much later period.

* The subjoined table will make it easy to perceive these arrangements at a glance, as they are given by Livy:

(’5,000 ases and up- > wards - - - - . - -)

50,030 ases and up- > wards.......5

25.000 ases and up-> wards - -- .- ..J

11.000 ases and up-'] wards (more pro-! bably 12,500, as f Dionysius says) -J

Trumpeters.....

Capite Censi, or Pro-) letarii.......J

The whole number of Centuries, therefore, was 194; and in tho First Class alone there are more than half.

The Centuries of cornicines, tubicines, &c., wero called accensi, becauso thfey were added to the list of censi.

The singlo century of proletarii wero called capito censi, because they wero counted by the head, and not rated by their property. Later, however, tho proletarii and capite censi wero distinguished, tho former being thoso who possessed appreciablo property of less amount than 11,000 ases.

butum or tax for military expenses, of which wc shall speak in a future page; and secondly, to serve certain political ends, of which wc will speak here. It is manifest that Servius, when he admitted the Plebeians to political power, did not contemplate anything like the equality of a democracy. lie intended that all tho citizens of the Classes should have votes, but that their votes should avail only in proportion to their landed property. The wealthy were sure to have the preponderance; for] if the Centuries of the Knights and the other centuries of the first Class, even without the Fabri, agreed together, they could outvote the centuries of all the other Classes put together. Moreover, great weight was given to age. It is certain that in each Class the seniores, or those between the ago of 45 and GO, must have been far less numerous than the juniors; yet in each Class they formed an equal number of centuries. The number of seniors in each of the 40 Centuries of the first Class, thinned alike by ago and rate of property, must have been comparatively very few.

§ 17. But though safeguards so many and so great were provided in favour of property, the new assembly of Servius conferred a great and positive boon on the Plebeians. It must bG remembered that before his time they were outside the Populus or Body Politic altogether. They were still excluded from the Curiae or Assembly of the Patricians; and so far as this involved political rights, the name of Populus was still confined to the old Burgesses. But in reality the Plebs became members of the Populus ; for the new Centuriatc Assembly slowly but surely assumed to itself all the political rights which had formerly belonged to the Curiatc Assembly alone; and though it is probable that all laws proposed in the former must receive the sanction of the latter (as bills brought forward in the House of Commons must pass through the House of Lords), and also must be authorised by the Senate, which was at this time exclusively patrician, in time these powers were cancelled, and the Centuriatc Assembly became the supreme legislative body of the state.*

§ 18. But Servius was not satisfied with merely giving the Plebeians a place in the Body Politic. He also made regulations which related to the well-being of the Plebeians alone, without reference to the Patricians.

By the conquests of the preceding Kings Rome had gained large acquisitions of territory in Latium, and some probably on the Etruscan side of the Tiber. Nuina had divided the original

* Tho intention of tho change was somewhat the same as that wrought bj Solon at Athens, who is said to have changed an dXiyapxca into a TifioKparta. Seo Dr. Smith’s Hist, of Greece, p. 9*7.

lands of the state into pagi. But these had become quite unequal to ,the altered condition of things; and Servius now distributed the whole Roman territory, as he found it, into a number of Tribes. These Tribes of Servius, then, were divisions of the soil, like our parishes or townships, and we must take especial care not to confound them with the Tribes of Romulus. It is indeed unfortunate that things so different should be called by the same name. The Tribes of • Romulus were three in number : those of Servius were at least twenty. The Tribes of Romulus included the Patrician Burgesses only; in the Tribes of Servius none were enrolled but Plebeians. The members of the Tribes of Romulus held their place in virtue of their Patrician birth, independently of their place of habitation; those who belonged to the Tribes of Servius belonged to it because they had what we might call their-“ settlement” in some particular place. In one point only they were alike. A person who once belonged either to a Romulian Tribe of birth or a Servian Tribe of place, always remained a member of that Tribe, to whatever place he might remove his dwelling. It is probable, indeed, that there were means by which the members of the Servian Tribes might change their ^u settlement,” but nothing is known upon this subject. In each Tribes there were Presidents,¹⁸ whose business it was to keep the list of the Tribe ; but they were not empowered to remove the name of any person on the list simply because he had ceased to reside iji the district belonging to the Tribe.

§ 19. Of these Tribes four were in the city and the rest outside: the limits of the city. The four city Tribes were 1. the Palatine ; 2. the Colline, answering to the Quirinal Hill; 3. the Suburran, answering to the Ccelian with its neighbouring valleys; 4. the Esquiline, which shows that the Equiline Hill,, together with the Yiminal or seventh Hill, must have been already added to the city. It will be observed that neither the Saturnian Hill or Capitoline, nor the Aventine, were included within these Tribes. The former was omitted because it was, as it were, consecrated to military and religious purposes; the latter because it never was included within the sacred limits of the Pom cerium, as will appear presently.

§ 20. The Country Tribes were all named after patrician Gentes. The names of sixteen are preserved as existing at the time of the expulsion of the kings.f The first Tribe which bore a name not derived from a noble house was the Crustumine, which was added under the Republic, and made the twenty-first Tribe. No doubt the noble House which bore the same name with* these Tribes consisted of the chief persons in these respective districts, just as in England great noblemen took their names from those counties in which their families once possessed almost sovereign power.

§ 21. It is probable that at first none save the Plebeians were entered upon the lists of tlicir respective Tribes; and the Plebeians, having thus received a kind of constitution of their own, used to meet in the Forum on market-days (:nundince) to settle their own affairs. These meetings were called the Comitia Tri-duta, because the Commons gave their votes according to their Tribes, as at the Comitia Curiata votes were given according to Curiae, and at the Comitia Centuriata according to Centuries; for it was an established custom at Rome not to vote in a mass and by the head ; but, first, the voters were distributed into smaller bodies, and then, in all cases, questions were determined by the majority of those bodies which voted for or against it.

g 22. Thus, then, the outline of the future Roman constitution was marked out. The Patricians met in their Curia? in the Co-mitium at the high or narrow end of the Forum; the Plebeians met in their Tribes in the low or broad end of the same famous piece of land; the whole People, Patricians and Plebeians alike, met in the Field of Mars according to their Classes and Centuries.

One of the chief tasks of Roman history is to trace the working and development of those Assemblies under the control and direction of the Senate. We shall find the Patrician Assembly of the Curies, now supreme, gradually wane and become an empty name ; while the despised Assembly of the Plebeian Tribes gradually engrosses power to itself, till at length it becomes the great legislative body of the State. Meanwhile the great Asscm -bly of the Classes and Centuries undergoes changes and transmutations which much alter its character, and bring it into close neighbourhood with the popular assembly. But of this hereafter.

names of most of theso Tribes aro familiar as tho names of Patrician Gentes; and it may be presumed that the seven unknown names (marked with asterisks) represent Gentes that had become extinct.

It has been generally assumed that Servius created Thirty Tribes in all, on tho authority of Dionysius, iv. 14 • duTke 61 Ka\ ttjv xupav uxaaav, <Lf (iiv <1'uftiug Qtjoiv, eif ftoipag [i. e. pagos] ig Kat eikooiv, uq kclI avnif kci?.eZ QvXag [i. e. tribus], Kal rdf uotikuc npoariOsic avraig rhrapur, rpuiKovTa tyvAug dfi^oTcpov erri Ti'TJXiov ruf ndoag yeveadai Xiya.—But in tho learned aud ingenious work by Mommsen, On the Roman Tribes (Altona, 1844), so much uncertainty is shown to prevail on this subjcct, that it is thought better to leave tho question open.

§ 23. To Servius Tullius also is attributed the great work of enlarging the Pomoerium of Romulus. But while the original Pomoerium of the Palatine or Roman Quadrata was the same as its wall or line of defence, this rule was not observed by Servius. His new Pomoerium, which surrounded the four Tribes of the city, included only five of the seven hills ; for the Capitoline and Aventine were not admitted within the sacred inclosure : but his wall or line of fortification ran round all the Seven Hills. .

This will be a convenient opportunity to give some account of the city of Rome with its hills, walls, and gates. Ancient Rome stood on the left bank of the Tiber. A little to the north of the ancient city the river makes a sudden bend westward, till it is stopped and turned to the south-east again by the high ground sloping downwards froni tho Vatican Hill. Between these two

reaches of the river is inclosed a plain, anciently called the Campus Martius, on which stands the greater part of modern Rome. At the lower extremity of this plain, where the stream forms an island, called the Insula Tiberina, its course is again arrested and turned towards the south-west. This turn is caused by the abrupt rise of the eminence called in old times the Saturnian Hill, and still renowned under its later name of “ the Capitoland this shall be taken as the point from which we will survey the ancient city. ^

The City, as bounded by the wall of Servius, may be likened to n fan, of which the Capitol forms the pivot. To this point converge, on the north, the Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline; then the Palatine and Cajlian, lying in the same line, nearly southwest ; and due south, abutting upon the river, the Aventine. The Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline run out like so many promontories towards the Capitol; but they soon unite and sink gradually into the plain towards the west.

Across the slope thus formed a great eartli-bank and trench were carried, of which traces still remain. In its original state this embankment of Servius Tullius is said to have been 60 feet high and its base 50 feet broad, while the foss outside it was 100 feet wide and 30 deep. From cither end of this mound walls were built on all the low ground and across the valleys; but when these walls reached the edges or escarpments of the hills, which in those days were steep and high, no wall was needed. Thus from the northern end of the embankment tlic wall was carried to the steep edge of the Quirinal, where it ceased, and appeared again in the narrow valley between this hill and the Capitoline, and then was continued from the southwestern corner of the Capitoline to the edge of the river. In like manner the wall was carried from the southern edge of the Esquiline across the valley which divides that hill from tho Caclian; then across the Csolian to its lower verge; then across a second valley, and so quite round the Aventine to the river’s edge, which it joined at a distance of little more than a quarter of an English mile from the point at which it started. This short space was faced by a quay, but was not considered to need A wall for its defence.

• The whole circuit thus inclosed measures about seven miles, and it remained without alteration for many centuries. Great suburbs grew up, and as Rome needed no fortifications till the times of the later emperors, the walls of Servius were suffered to decay, and no new line of fortification was formed till the days of Aurelian and Probus (a.d. 270-282).

The principal gates in the wall of Servius were the Flumcntana and the Carmental, between the river and the Capitol; the Col-line, at the northern extremity of the Agger of Servius, and the Esquiline at its southern extremity; the Caalimontane upon the Caslian; the Capene or Capuan, where this hill slopes towards the Aventine; and the Trigemina, between the Aventinc and the river. The Sublician Bridge, which Ancus built to connect the city with the Janiculum, was just outside this gate, if the piles still remaining jn the bed of the Tiber indicate its true position. But as it is little likely that the only bridge then existing would be outside the walls, it may be assumed that tho real position of the Pons Sublicius was between the points where the wall abuts upon the river.

§ 2’4. We may here also notice a few of the places of chief importance in Roman history, which were inclosed within the wall of Servius.

The low ground along the river, below the Capitoline, Palatine, and Aventine, drained by the Cloaca Maxima and protected by its quay, was the Forum Boarium or cattle market, the part immediately beneath the Palatine being the Velabrum. From the upper end of the Velabrum the Nova Via led over the Palatine to the Forum, while from its lower part the Vicus Tuscus ran in a parallel direction to the same quarter.

lies a piece of land of irregular shape, having its broader end beneath the Capitol itself, while its two sides converge towards the ridge called the Velia, which connects the Palatine with the Esquiline, and was in after ages marked by the triumphal arch of Titus. The broader end, of which we speak, measures about 190 feet, the narrower 100; the lower side about G30 feet, and the upper' somewhat less. These measurements include both the Forum proper and the Comitium; but the line of demarcation between the ineeting-places of the Plebeians and Patricians ran across at about 200 feet distance from the narrow end, and here stood the rostra, or place occupied by those who addressed the people assembled beneath them. The Sacra Via, the most famous street of Rome, entered the Forum or Comitium at its south-eastern corner, passed along the narrow end, and then ran along the northern side, by the Curia Ilostilia and the Tabernse Nova), till.it reached the foot of the Capitolinc. Here it met the famous Clivus Capitolinus, which led up by a steep ascent to the summit of the Capitol. When a general went up to offer thanksgiving to Jupiter, he descended from the Yelian ridge into the Foruin, and then mounted by this ascent to the great temple on the Tarpeian, or lower height of the Capitoline Hill.

On the southern side of the Forum ran a street past the Temple of Vesta and the Regia of Numa, connecting the Nova Via with the Sacra Via. From the Forum to the Esquiline ran the Vicus. Cyprius, the upper part of which was called the Vicns Sceleratus; in memory of the murder of King Servius, of which we arc to speak presently. This street probably led through the Subura or populous quarter, which lay in the low ground between the Esquiline, Viminal, and Quirinal Hills, to the Carina?, which was after-: wards the most fashionable part of Rome, and lay on the edge of the Esquiline next the Velia.

§ 25. Besides enlarging and strengthening the city, Servius also endeavoured to form an enduring alliance with the whole Latin nation, who had been so much weakened by the wars of tho former kings. lie built a temple to the great Latin goddess Diana upon the Aventine, and here wero to be held sacrifices and festivals common both to Rome and Latium. The Sabines also, as it seems, desired to share in this alliance, but not on equal terms. There was, so runs the legend, a cow of noble form and surpassing beauty, which belonged to a Sabine householder: whoever, said the soothsayers, first sacrificed this animal in the new-built temple of Diana, should hold sway over Rome. The Sabine owner brought his cow to offer her on the Aventine. But the Roman sacrificing priest bade him first purify himself by bathing in the Tiber, and then cunningly himself completed the sacrifice.

§ 20. It remains only to add the famous legend of the death of the good King Servius.

He had assumed kingly power without the consent of the patrician Curiae, and he had afterwards sought confirmation of his title, not from this proud assembly, but the new assembly of the Classes pnd Centuries which he had created. It is said, moreover, that when he had finished his reforms he had it in his mind to resign the kingly power altogether, and leave his great Assembly to elect two chief magistrates to govern in his stead. But this purpose was not accomplished. He continued to reign till he was murdered, like King Tarquinius before him.

From the two sons of King Ancus there was nothing to fear. But Tarquinius Priscus had also two sons, Lucius and Aruns, and Servius had Cwo daughters. So he married these two daughters to the two young Tarquins, that they might become his successors, and might not be jealous of a stranger sitting in their father’s seat. ' Now Lucius Tarquinius was a proud and violent youth, but his brother Aruns was mild and good. So also the eldest daughter of King Servius was gentle, but her sister was ambitious and cruel. Servius therefore took care that Lucius, the violent brother, should be married to the good sister, and Aruns, the good brother, to the bad sister; for he hoped that the good might prevail over the evil and subdue it. But the event proved otherwise. The lamb will not lie down with the wolf, nor the hawk couple with the dove. Therefore Lucius and the younger Tullia conspired together; and Lucius murdered his wife, and Tullia murdered her husband ; and then they married together, so that the two wicked ones were free to work their will.

Lucius Tarquin soon resolved to make an end of King Servius. So he conspired with the Patricians, and chiefly with those of the new Gentes, whom his father had raised; and when he thought he was strong enough, he came into the Comitium and took his seat upon the throne in front of the senate-house, and summoned the Patricians to attend on “ King Tarquinius.” But when King Servius heard of it he came forth and asked how any one dared sit on the throne while he was alive. But Lucius said it was his father’s throne, and that now it was his own by right. Then ho seized the old man by the waist and cast him down the steps of the throne, and he himself entered into the senate-house. Servius, when he saw that all were against him, endeavoured to escape homewards; but certain men, sent by Lucius, overtook him and slew him, and left his body lying in the way.

And when Tullia heard what was done, she mounted her chariot-and drove to the Forum and saluted her husband king. But ho bade her go home, for such scenes were not fit for women. And she came to the foot of the Esquiline Ilill, to the place where the body of her father lay in the way. And when the charioteer saw it he was shocked, and pulled in his horses that he might not drive over the body. But his wicked mistress chid him angrily anti bade him drive on. So she went home “ with her father’s blood upon her chariot-wheels and that place was called the Wicked Street ever after.

So King Servius died when he had reigned four and forty years, and Lucius Tarquinius the Proud reigned in his stead.

§ 1. Despotism of sccond Tarquin. §2. Allianco -with Etruseans and Latins. § 3. Temple on Capitoline. § 4. Legend of Sibyl. § 5. Stratagem by which Gabii was taken. § 6. King’s sons, with Brutus, sent to consult tho Delphic Oraclc. § 7. Legend of Lucrctia. Expulsion of Tarquins. §8. Consuls. §9. Patres Conscripti. §10. Rex Sacrorum. § 11. First attempt to restore Tarquin. Judgment of Brutus. _# § 12. Sceond attempt by Etruseans of Tarquinii and Veii. Death of Brutus. § 13. P. Valerius Poplicola. §14. Consecration of Capitolino Temple by M. Iloratius. §15. Third attempt to restoro Tarquin. Porsenna. Legends of Iloratius Codes, Mueius Scaevola, Cloelia. § 16. Tarquin at Tusculum. § 17. First Dictator. § 18. Fourth attempt to restore Tarquin by Latins. Battle of Lako Regil-lus. § 19. Death of Tarquin at Cumse.

the Centuries; but neither did lie pay any heed to the Curiatc Assembly, nor did lie allow any new members to be chosen into the Senate in place of those who were removed by death or other causes; so that even those who had helped him to the throne repented them of tlicir deed. The name of Supcrbus, or the Trend, testifies to the general feeling against the despotic rule of the second Tarquin.

§ 2. It was by foreign alliances that he calculated 011 supporting his despotism at home. The Etruscans of Tarquinii, and all its associate cities were his friends; and among the Latins also ho sought to raise a power which might counterbalance the senate and people of Rome.

The wisdom of Tarquinius Priscus and Servius had united all the Latin name to Rome, so that Rome had become the sovereign city of Latium. The last Tarquin drew those ties still closer, lie gave his daughter in marriage to Octavius Mamilius, Chief of Tus-culum, and favoured the Latins in all things. But at a general assembly of the Latins at the Fercntine Grove, beneath the Alban Mount, where they had been accustomed to meet of olden time to settle their national affairs, Turnus llerdonius of Aricia rose and spoke against him. Then Tarquinius accused him of high treason, and brought false witnesses against him; and so powerful with the Latins was the King that they condemned their countryman to be drowned in the Fercntine water, and obeyed Tarquinius in all things.

§ 3. With them he made war upon the Volscians and took the city of Sucssa, wherein was a great booty. This booty lie applied to the execution of great works in the city, in emulation of his father and King Servius. The elder Tarquin had built up the side of the Tarpcian rock and levelled the summit, to be the founda* tion of a temple of Jupiter, but lie had not completed the work. Tarquinius Supcrbus now removed all the temples and shrines of the old Sabine gods which had been there since the time of Titus Tatius; but the goddess of Youth and the god Terminus kept their place, whereby was signified that the Roman people should enjoy undccaying vigour, and that the boundaries of their empire should never be drawn in. And on the Tarpcian height lie built a magnificent temple, to be dedicated jointly to the three great irods of the Latins and Etruscans, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva; and this part of the Saturnian Ilill was ever after called the Capitol >r the Chief Place, while the upper part was called the Arx or Oitadcl.*

lie brought architects from Etruria to plan the temple, but lie forced the Roman people to work for him without hire.

§ 4. One day a strange woman appeared before the King and offered him nine books to buy; and when lie refused them she went away and burnt three of the nine books, and brought back the remaining six and offered to sell them at the same price that she had asked for the nine; and when he laughed at her and again refused, she went as before and burnt three more books, and came back and asked still the same price for the three that were left. Then the King was struck by her pertinacity, and lie consulted his augurs what this might be ; and they bade him by all means buy the three, and said he had done wrong not to buy the nine, for these were the books of the Sibyl and contained great secrets. So the books were kept underground in the Capitol in a stone chest, and two men (duumviri) were appointed to take charge of them, and consult them when the state was in danger. .

§ 5. The only Latin town that defied Tarquin’s power was Gabii; and Sextus, the king’s youngest son, promised to win this place also for his father. So he fled from Rome and presented himself at Gabii; and there he made complaints of his father’s tyranny and prayed for protection. The Gabians believed him, and took him into their city, and they trusted him, so that in time he was made commander of their army. Now his father suffered him to conquer in many small battles, and the Gabians trusted him more and more. Then lie sent privately to his father, and asked what he should do to make the Gabians submit. Then King Tarquin gave no answer to the messenger, but, as he walked up and down his garden, he kept cutting off the heads of the tallest poppies with his staff. At last the messenger was tired, and went back to Sextus and told him what had passed. But Sextus understood what his father meant, and he began to accuse falsely all the chief men, and some of them he put to death and some lie banished. So at last the city of Gabii was left defenceless, and Sextus delivered it up to his father.*

§ 0. While Tarquin was building his temple on the Capitol, a strange portent offered itself; for a snake came forth and devoured the sacrifices on the altar. The king, not content with the interpretation of his Etruscan soothsayers, sent persons to consult the famous oracle of the Greeks at Delphi, and the per-cons he sent were his own sons Titus and Aruns, and his sister’s son, L. Junius, a young man who, to avoid his uncle’s jealousy, feigned to be without common sense, wherefore he was called Brutus or the Dullard. The answer given by the oracle was,

* It is well known that this Legend occurs in Ilorodotus, who relates that Babylon was betrayed to Darius Hystaspes in a similar manner, iii. 154. sqq.

that the chief power of Rome should belong to him of the thrco who should first kiss his mother; and the two sons of King Tar-quin agreed to draw lots which of them should do this as soon as tnoy returned home. But Brutus pcrceivcd that the oracle had another sense; so as soon as they landed in Italy he fell down 011 the ground as if he had stumbled, and kissed the earth, for she (he thought) was the true mother of all mortal things.

§ 7. When the sons of Tarquin returned with their cousin, L. Innius Brutus, they found the king at war with the Rutulians of Ardca. Being unable to take the place by storm, lie was forced to blockade it; and while the Roman army was encamped before the town the young men used to amuse themselves at night with wine and wassail. One night there was a feast, at which Sextus, the king’s third son, was present, as also Collatinus, the son of Egcrius, the king’s uncle, who had been made governor of Col-latia. So they soon began to dispute about the worthiness of their wives; and when each maintained that his own wife was worthiest, “ Come, gentlemen,” said Collatinus, “ let us take horse and see what our wives are doing; they expect us not, and so we shall know the truth.” All agreed, and they galloped to Rome, and there they found the wives of all the others feasting and revelling: but when they came to Collatia they found Lucrctia, the wife of Collatinus, not making merry like the rest, but sitting in the midst of her handmaids carding wool and spinning; so they all allowed that Lucrctia was the worthiest.

Now Lucrctia was the daughter of a noble Roman, Spuriua Lucretius, who was at this time Prefect of the city; for it was tho custom, when the kings went out to war, that they left a chief man at home to administer all things in the king’s name, and he was called Prefect of the City.

But it chanced that Sextus, the king’s son, when he saw tho fair Lucrctia, was smitten with lustful passion; and a few days after he came again to Collatia, and Lucrctia entertained him hospitably as her husband’s cousin and friend. But at midnight lie arose and came with stealthy steps to her bedside: and holding a sword in his right hand, and laying his left hand upon her breast, he bade her yield to his wicked desires; for if not, he would slay her and lay one of her slaves beside her, and would rl iclare that he had taken them in adultery. So for shame she consented to that which no fear w’ould have wrung from her: and Sextus, having -wrought this deed of shame, returned to the camp.

Thon Lucretia sent to Rome for her father, and to the camp at Ardca for her husband. They came in haste. Lucretius brought with him P. Valerius, and Collatinus brought L. Junius

Brutus, his cousin. And they camc in and asked if all was well. Then she told them what was done “hut,” she said, “my body only has suffered the shame, for my will consented not to the deed. Therefore,” she cried, “ avenge me on the wretch Sextus. As for me, though my heart has not sinned, I can live no longer. No one shall ¹⁹ say that Lucretia set an example of living in unchastity” So she drew forth a knife and stabbed herself to tlio heart.

When they saw that, her father and her husband cried aloud; but Brutus drew the knife from the wound, and holding it up, opoke thus: “ By this pure blood I swear before the gods that I will pursue L. Tarquinius the Proud and all his bloody houso with fire, sword, or in whatsoever way I may, and that neither they nor any other shall hereafter be King in Rome.” Then he gave the knife to Collatinus and Lucretius and Valerius, and they all swore likewise, much marvelling to hear such words from L. Junius the Dullard. And they took up the body of Lucretia, and carried it into the Forum, and called on the men of Collatia to rise against the tyrant. So they set a guard at the gates of the town, .to prevent any news of the matter being carried to King Tarquin: and they themselves, followed by the youth of Collatia, went to Rome. Here Brutus, who was Chief Captain of the Knights,* called the people together, and he told them what had been done, and called on them by the deed of shame wrought against Lucretius and Collatinus—by all that they had suffered from the tyrants—by the abominable murder of good King Servius—to assist them in taking vengeance on the Tar-quins. So it was hastily agreed to banish Tarquinius and his family. The youth declared themselves ready to follow Brutus against the King’s army, and the seniors put themselves under the rule of Lucretius, the Prefect of the City. In this tumult, the wicked Tullia fled from her house, pursued by the curses of all men, who prayed that the avengers of her father’s blood might be upon her.

When the King heard what had passed, he set off in all haste for the city. B/utus also set off for the camp at Ardea; and he turned aside that he might not meet his uncle the King. So he came to the camp at Ardea, and the King came to Rome. And all the Romans at Ardea welcomed Brutus, and joined their arms to his, and thrust out all the King’s sons from the camp. But the people of Rome shut the gates against the King, so that he could not enter. And King Tarquin, with his sons Titus and Aruns, went into exile and lived at Caere in Etruria. But Sextus

lied to Gabii, where he had before held rule, and the people ot‘ Gabii slew him in memory of his former cruelty.

So L. Tarquinius Superbus w as expelled from Rome, after he had been King tive-and-twenty years. And in memory of this event was instituted a festival called the Regifugium or Fugalia, which was celebrated every year, on the 24th day of February.*

§ 8. To gratify the Plebeians, the Patricians consented to' restore, in some measure at least, the popular institutions of King Servius; and it was resolved to follow his supposed intention with regard to the supreme government—that is, to have two Magistrates elected every year, who were to have the same power as the King during the time of their rule. These were in after days known by the name of Consuls ; but in ancient times they were called Prajtors or Judges (Judiccs). . They were elected at the great Assembly of the Centuries; and they had sovereign power (imperium) conferred upon them by the Assembly of the Curies. They wore a robe edged with violet colour, sat in their chairs of state called curule chairs, and were attended by tw elve lictors each. These lictors carried fasces, or bundles of rods, out of which arose an axe, in token of the power of life and death possessed by the Consuls as successors of the Kings. But only one of them at a. time had a right to this power ; and in token thereof, his colleague’s fasces had no axes in them. Each retained this mark of sovereign power (imperium) for a month at a time.

§ 9. The new Consuls filled up the Senate to the proper number of three hundred; and the new Senators were called Conscripti, while the old members retained their old name of Patres. So after this the whole Senate was addressed by speakers as “ Patres, Conscripti” (*. c. Patres et Conscripti). But in later times it was forgotten that these names belonged to different sorts* of persons, and the whole Senate was addressed as by one name, “ Patres Conscripti.”

§ 10. The name of King was hateful. But certain sacrifices had always been performed by the King in person; and therefore, to keep up the fonn, a person was still chosen, with the title of Ilex Sacrorum or Rex Sacrificulus, to perform these offerings. But even he was placed under the authority of the Chief Pontifex.

§11. After his expulsion, King Tarquin sent messengers to Rome to ask that his property should be given up to linn, and the Senate decreed that his prayer should be granted. But the King’s ambassadors, while they were in Rome, stirred up tho

minds of the young men and others who had been favoured by Tarquin, so that a plot was made to bring him back. Among those who plotted were Titus and Tiberius, the sons of the Consul Brutus; and they gave letters to the messengers of the King. But it chanced that a certain slave hid himself in the place where they met, and overheard them plotting; and he came and told the thing to the Consuls, who seized the messengers of the King with the letters upon their persons, authenticated by the seals of the young men. The culprits were immediately arrested; but the ambassadors were let go, because their persons were regarded as sacred. And the goods of King Tarquin were given up for plunder to the people. "

Then the traitors were brought up before the Consuls, and 'the eight was such as to move all beholders to pity; for among them were the sons of L. Junius Brutus himself, the First Consul, the liberator of the Roman people. And now all men saw how Brutus loved his country; for he bade the lictors put all the traitors to death, and his own sons first; and men could mark in his face the struggle between his duty as a chief magistrate of Rome and his feelings as a father. And while they praised and admired him, they pitied him yet more.* -

Then a decree of the Senate was made that no one of the blood of the Tarquins should remain in Rome. And since Collatinus, the Consul, was by descent a Tarquin, even he was obliged to give up his office and return to Collatia. In his room, P. Valerius was chosen Consul by the people.

§ 12. When Tarquin saw that the plot at home had failed, he prevailed on the people of Tarquinii and Veii to make war with him against the Romans. But the Consuls came out against them; Valerius commanding the main army, and Brutus the cavalry. And it chanced that Aruns, the King’s son, led the cavalry of the enemy. When he saw Brutus he spurred his horse against him, and Brutus declined not the combat. So they rode straight at each other with levelled spears; and so fierce was the shock, that they pierced each other through from breast to back, and both fell dead.

Then, also, the armies fought, but the battle was neither won nor lost. But in the night a voice was heard by the Etruscans, saying that the Romans were the conquerors. So the enemy fled by night; and when the Romans arose in the morning, there was no man to oppose them. Then they took up the body of Brutus, and departed home, and buried him in public with great

_> * “Infelix—utcunquo fonint ea facta minorcsl”—Acn. vi. 823—a punctuation which ono could wish it possible to maintain.

pomp; and the matrons of Rome mourned him for a whole year, because he had avenged the injury of Lucrctia.

§ 13. After the death of Brutus, Publius Valerius ruled tho people for a while by himself, and he began to build himself a houso upon the ridge called Yelia, which looks down upon the Forum. So the people thought that he was going to make himself king; but when lie heard this, he called an Assembly of the People, and appeared before them with his fasces lowered, and with no axes in them, whence the custom remained ever after, that no consular lictors wore axes within the city, and no Consul had power of life and death except when he was in command of his legions abroad. And he pulled down the beginning of his house upon the Yelia, and built it below that hill. Also he passed laws that every Roman citizen might appeal to the people against the judgment of the chief magistrates. Wherefore he was greatly honoured among tho people, and was called Poplicola, or Friend of the People.

After this Valerius called together the great Assembly of tho Centuries, and they chose Sp. Lucretius, father of Lucretius, to succeed Brutus. But he was an old man, and in not many days he died. So M. Iloratius was chosen in his stead.

§ 14. The temple on the Capitol which King Tarquin began had never yet been consecrated. Then Valerius and Iloratius drew lots which should be the consecrator, and the lot fell on Iloratius. But the friends of Valerius murmured, and they wished to prevent Horatius from having the honour; so when he was now saying the prayer of consecration, with his hand upon the doorpost of the temple, there came a messenger, who told him that his son was just dead, and that one mourning for a son could not rightly consecrate the temple. But Iloratius kept his hand upon the door-post, and told them to see to the burial of his son, and finished the rites of consecration. Thus did he honour the gods even above his own son.

§ 15. In the next year Valerius was again made Consul, with T. Lucretius; and Tarquinius, despairing now of aid from his friends at Veii and Tarquinii, went to Lars Porsenna of Clusium, a city on the river Clanis, which falls into the Tiber. Porsenna _rwas at this time acknowledged as chief of the twelve Etruscan cities; and he assembled a powerful army and came to Rome. He came so quickly that he reached the Tiber and was near the Sublician Bridge before there was time to destroy it; and if lie had crossed it the city would have been lost. Then a noble Roman, called Horatius Codes, of tho Lucerian tribe, with two friends—Sp. Lartius, a Ramnian, and T. Herminius, a Titian— posted themselves at the far end of the bridge, and defended the passage against all the Etruscan host, while the Romans were cutting it off behind them. When it was all but destroyed, his two friends retreated across the bridge, and Horatius was left alone to bear the whole attack of the enemy. Well he kept his ground, standing unmoved amid the darts which were showered upon his shield, till the last beams of the bridge fell crashing into the river. Then he prayed, saying—^w Father Tiber, receive me and bear mo up, I pray thee.” So he plunged in, and reached the other side safely; and the Romans honoured him greatly: they put up his statue in the Comitium, and gave him as much land as he could plough round in a day, and every man at .Rome subscribed the cost of one day’s food to reward him.

Then Porsenna, disappointed in his attempt to surprise the city, occupied the Hill Janiculum, and besieged the city, so that the people were greatly distressed by hunger. But C. Mucius, n noble youth, resolved to deliver his country by the death of the King. So he armed himself with a dagger, and went to the place where the King was used to sit in judgment. It chanced that the soldiers were receiving their pay from the King’s secretary, who sate at his right hand splendidly apparelled; and -as this man seemed to be chief in authority, Mucius thought that this must be the King; so he stabbed him to the heart. Then the .guards seized him and dragged him before the King, who was greatly enraged, and ordered them to burn him alive if he would not confess the whole affair. Then Mucius stood before the King, and said —“ See how little thy tortures can avail to make a brave man tell the secrets committed to him;” and so saying, he thrust his right hand into the fire of the altar, and held it in the flame with unmoved countenance. Then the King marvelled at his courage, and ordered him to be spared, and sent away in safety: “ for,” said he, “ thou art a brave man, and hast done more harm to thyself than to me.” Then Mucius replied, “ Thy generosity, O King, prevails more with me than thy threats. Know that three hundred Roman youths have sworn thy death: my lot came first. But all the rest remain, prepared to do and suffer like myself.” So he was let go, and returned home, and was called Scajvola, or the Left-handed, because his right hand had been burnt off.

King Porsenna was greatly moved by the danger lie had escaped; and perceiving the obstinate determination of the Romans, he offered to make peace. The Romans gladly gave car to his words, for they were hard pressed; and they consented to give back all the land which they had won from the

Etruscans beyond the Tiber. And they gave hostages to the King in pledge that they would obey liim as they had promised, ten youths and ten maidens. But one of the maidens, named Clocilia, had a man’s heart, and she persuaded all her fellows to escape from the King’s camp and swim across the Tiber. At first King Porsenna was wroth; but then lie was mucli amazed, even more than at the deeds of Iloratius and Mucius. So when the Romans sent back Cloelia and her fellow-maidens—for they would not break faith with the King—he bade her return home again, and told her she might take whom she pleased of the youths who were hostages; and she chose those who were yet boys, and restored them to their parents.

So the Roman people gave certain lands to young Mucius, and they set up an equestrian statue to the bold Cloelia at the top of the Sacred Way. And King Porsenna returned home; and thus the third and most formidable attempt to bring back Tarquin failed.

§ 1G. When Tarquin now found that he had no hopes of further assistance from Porsenna and his Etruscan friends, lie went and dwelt at Tusculum, where Mamilius Octavius, his son-in-law, was still chief. Then the thirty Latin cities combined together, and made this Octavius their Dictator, and bound themselves to restore their old friend and ally King Tarquin to the sovereignty of Rome.

§ 17. P. Valerius, who was called Poplicola, was now dead, and the Romans looked about for some chief worthy to lead them against the army of the Latins. Poplicola had been made Consul four times, and his compeers acknowledged him as their chief, and all men submitted to him as to a king. But now the two Consuls were jealous of each other; nor had they power of life and death within the city, for Valerius (as we saw) had taker, away the axes from the fasces. Now this was one of the reasons why Brutus and the rest made two Consuls instead of one king: for they said that neither one would allow the other to become tyrant; and since they only held office for one year at a time, they might be called on to give account of their government when their year was at an end.

Yet though this was a* safeguard of liberty in times of peace, it was hurtful in time of war ; for the Consuls chosen by the people in their great assemblies were not always skilful generals; or if they were so, they were obliged to lay down their command at the year’s end.

So the Senate determined, in cases of great danger, to call upon one of the Consuls to appoint a single chief, who should be called Dictator, or Master of the People. lie had sovereign power (imperium) both in the city and out of the city, and the fasces were always carried before him with the axes in them, as they had been before the king. He could only be appointed for six months, but at the end of the time he had to give no account. So that he was free to act according to his own judgment, having no colleague to interfere with him at the present, and no accusations to fear at a future time. The Dictator was general-in-chief, and he appointed a chief officer to command 2he knights under him, who was called Master of the Horse.

And now it appeared to be a fit time to appoint such a chief, to take the command of the army against the Latins. So the first Dictator was T. Lartius; and he made Spurius Cassius his Master of the Horse. This was in the year 499 B.C., eight years after the expulsion of Tarquin.

§ 18. But the Latins did not declare war for two years after. Then the Senate again ordered the Consul to name a Master of the People, or Dictator; and he named Aul. Postumius, who appointed T. yEbutius (one of the Consuls of that year) to be his Master of the Horse. So they led out the Roman army against the Latins, and they met at the Lake Regillus, in the land of the Tusculans. King Tarquin and all his family were in the host of the Latins; and that day it was to be determined whether Rome should be again subject to the tyrant, and whether or no she was to be chief of the Latin cities.

King Tarquin himself, old as he was, rode in front of the Latins in full armour; and when he descried the Roman Dictator marshalling his men, he rode at him; but Postumius wounded him in the side, and he was rescued by the -Latins. Then also yEbutius, the Master of the Horse, and Oct, Mamilius, the Dictator of the Latins, charged one another, and ^Ebutius was pierced through the arm, and Mamilius wounded in the breast. But the Latin chief, nothing daunted, returned to battle, followed by Titus, the King’s son, with his band of exiles. These charged the Romans furiously, so that they gave way ; but when M. Valerius, brother of the great Poplicola, saw this, he spurred his horse against Titus, and rode at him with spear in rest: and when Titus turned away and fled, Valerius rode furiously after him into the midst of the Latin host, and a certain Latin smote him in the side as he was riding past, so that he fell dead, and his horse galloped on without a rider. So the band of exiles pressed still more fiercely upon the Romans, and they began to flee. Then Postumius the Dictator lifted up his voice and vowed a temple to Castor and Pollux, the great twin heroes of the Greeks, if they would aid him; and behold there appeared on his right two horsemen, taller and fairer than the sons of men, and their horses were as white as snow. And they led the Dictator and his guard against the exiles and the Latins, and the Romans prevailed against them; and T. Ilerminius, the Titian, the friend of Iloratius Codes, ran Mamilius, the Dictator of the Latins, through the body, so that he died; but when he was stripping the arms from his foe, another ran him through, and he was carried back to the camp, and he also died. Then also Titus, the King’s son, was slain, and the Latins fled, and the Romans pursued them with great slaughter, and took their camp and all that was in it. Now Postumius had promised great rewards to those who first broke into the camp of the Latins, and the first who broke in were the two horsemen on white horses; but after the battle they were nowhere to be seen or found, nor was there any sign of them left, save on the hard rock there was the mark of a horse’s hoof, which men said was made by the horse of one of those horsemen.

But at this very time two youths on white horses rode into the Forum at Rome. They were covered with dust and sweat and blood, like men who had fought long and hard, and their horses also were bathed in sweat and foam: and they alighted near the Temple of Vesta, and washed themselves in a spring that gushes out hard by, and told all the people in the Forum how the battle by the Lake Regillus had been fought and won. Then they mounted their horses and rode away, and were seen no more.

But Postumius, when lie heard it, knew that these were Castor and Pollux, the great twin brethren of the Greeks, and that it was they who fought so well for Rome at the Lake Regillus. So he built them a temple, according to his vow, over the place where they had alighted in the Forum.²⁰ And their effigies were displayed on Roman coins to the latest ages of the city.f

§ 19. This was the fourth and last attempt to restore King Tarquin. After the great defeat of Lake Regillus, the Latin cities made peace with Rome, and agreed to refuse harbourage to the old King. lie had lost all his sons, and, accompanied by a few faithful friends, who shared his exile, he sought a last asylum at the Greek city of Cumae in the Bay of Naples, at the court of the tyrant Aristodemus. Here he died in the course of a year, fourteen years after his expulsion.

§ 1. Nature of Legendary History. § 2. Among Greeks. § 3. Among Romans. § 4. Religious and Historical Legends, g 5. Tendency to propagate historical legends in all times. § 6. Detection of incongruities in early Roman history: difficulties explained away by ancient critics. § 1. Modem critics, before and after Niebuhr. § 8. Relation of stories of Kings to actual history. § 9. Romulus and Numa. § 10. Tullus and Ancus. § 11. Tarquinius Priscus and Servius. § 12. Tarquinius Superbus. § 13. Character of next Book. .

by word of mouth causes a perpetual variation in the narratives. The same original story being handed down traditionally by two different tribes, which have been separated from each other, or which are animated by hostile feelings, will in a very short time assume extremely different forms. Names,* circumstances, everything, except some dominant thought, may have been changed, and yet the origin may be the same. No fraud is intended or committed. Tho alterations arise naturally from the causes which have been indicated.

§ 2. Among the Greeks such legendary lore is chiefly connected with religious ideas. The Legends or (ildoi of that lively race may mostly be traced to that sort of awe or wonder with which simple and uneducated minds regard the changes and movements of the natural world. The direct and easy way in which the imagination of such persons accounts for marvellous phenomena is to refer them to the operation of Persons. When the attention is excited by the regular movements of sun and moon and stars, by the alternations of day and night, by the recurrence of the seasons, by the rising and falling of the seas, by the ceaseless flow of rivers, by the gathering of clouds, the rolling of thunder, and the flashing of lightning, by the operation of life in the vegetable and animal worlds, in short by any exhibition of an active and motive power,—it is natural for uninstructed minds to consider such changes and movements as the work of divine Persons. In this manner the early Greek Legends associate themselves with personification of the powers of nature. All attempts to account for the marvels which surround us are foregone; everything is referred to the immediate operation of a god. “ Cloud-compelling” Zeus is the author of the phenomena of the air; “Earth-shaking” Poseidon of all that happens in the water under the earth ; Nymphs arc attached to every spring and tree; Demcter, or Mother Earth, for six months rejoices in the presence of Proserpine, the green herb, her daughter, and for six months forgets her absence in dark abodes beneath the earth.

This tendency to deify the powers of nature is due partly to a clear atmosphere and sunny climate, which inclines a people to live much in the open air in close communion with all that nature offers to charm the senses and excite the imagination, partly to the character of the people, and partly to the poets who in early times have wrought these legendary tales into works, which are read with increased delight in ages when science and method have banished the simple faith which procured acceptance for these legends. Among the Greeks all these

conditions were found existing. They lived, so to say, out of doors; their powers of observation were extremely quick, and their imagination singularly vivid; and their ancient poems are the most noble specimens of the old legendary tales that have been preserved in any country.*

§ 3. But among the Romans all is different. We find few traces of this Religious Legend among them. What may have been the case in the earliest times we know not; but the Roman poets whose works we possess adopted the mythology of Greece, and transferred to the Sabine and Latin divinities the attributes and actions of the Hellenic gods, so that we are often presented with the strange anomaly of Italian divinities disporting themselves on the hills and in the valleys of Thessaly or Arcadia. But if there is not much of the native Religious Legend among the Romans, there is found another kind of Legend in greater fulness and beauty than perhaps among any other people.

§ 4. We are thus brought to a distinction which it is necessary to make in the Legends of all nations. One class may be called the Religious Legend, of which we have briefly spoken; the other is the Heroic or Historical, of whicli we have now to speak. The Religious Legend pretends to explain the nature of the universe and its history; the Heroic Legend seeks to determine the early history of the particular people among whom it is found existing. As the poetic fancy of the Greek inclined him to the former kind, so the practical and business-like character of the Roman mind cared little for the mysteries of nature, but loved to dwell upon the origin and early fortunes of their own great city.

§ 5. This tendency to hero-worship, which is indicated by tlie prevalence of the Heroic Legend, generally exerts its influence to a very late period in a nation’s life, or rather it may be said never to die away entirely. A correcter natural philosophy has

“ Tho traveller slaked His thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thanked The Naiad. Sunbeams, upon distant hills Gliding apace, with shadows in their train,

Might, with small help from fancy, bo transformed Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly.

Lackcd not, for love, fair objects, whom they wooed With gcntlo whisper,” etc.

banished from most minds this belief in particular divine beings exercising particular influence 011 streams, and skies, and trees.* But no sooner docs a man occupy any space in the public mind, than all kinds of tales concerning his sayings and doings pass current from mouth to mouth, and things arc believed of him either for good or evil which have very slender- foundation in truth. To children their parents, to young people their masters, to grown men their poets and philosophers, their statesmen and generals, or any one Avho raises himself above the crowd by extraordinary actions, good or bad, have an existence more or less mythical; that is, they arc the heroes of many tales, which arc unconsciously invented, transmitted, altered, magnified, and believed. Education and the press have done much to diminish this propensity to mythology; the more persons arc brought into immediate contact with the great, the more arc they disabused of imaginative fancies Avitli regard to them. But the spirit can never wholly be eradicated, nor indeed is its eradication produce tivc of unmixed good. It is impossible to conceive a society of men so penetrated by philosophical culture as to have become incapable of inventing and receiving legendary tales in some shape or other.

§ G. It is well known that the Legends of Homan history were long repeated and regarded as sober historic truths. Some keen-siglitcd critics were excited to examine them, and they proved by a long and careful investigation that they had no claim to be so regarded.f Impossibilities were pointed out, discrepancies of time and fact noted, variations of the same story, as told by

They live no longer in tho faith of reason!” f The first, and probably tho ablest, of these sceptical critics was Perizonius, a German. But his work (Animadversiones Historical) was written in Latin, and addressed only to tho learned. Gianbattista Vico, an Italian of extraordinary genius, mixed up his historical speculations with so much of mysticism and obscurity, that they also produced but little effect. The person who next shook tho credit of the old Roman history was tho Frenchman Beaufort, who, with the clear and cool calculation of his nation, made tho discrepancies and variations clear to tho least attentive, in his essay, Sur VIncertitude de VHis-toire Romaine. It is characteristic at least, that ho was first stimulated to his investigations by national pique. Ho was indignant at the tale that the bravo Gauls of Brennus were defeated by Camillus, and his successful confutation of this legend led him on to more adventurous flights. The immediate results of his work may bo seen in * histories of Ilook and Ferguson. ,

different writers, brought forward, Even in ancient times tlic miraculous nature of many of these Legends was a stumbling-block to sober annalists. The course these writers took in ancient times was what we now know by the name of rationalism. They retained all the statements of the legends, but explained them so as to suit common prose. The Golden Fleece was a ship in which Medea and Jason escaped; the Bull was a ship in which Europa was carried off by Jove, and so forth. In Grecian literature the chief rationalist was named Euliemeros; in Roman L. Calpurnius Piso played the same part. „

§ 1. But the modern critics who showed the discrepancies and variations of the ancient Legends took a different course. It was not the marvellous and supernatural incidents that attracted their notice; for after all there are not many of such kind in Roman annals. It was the manifest falsehood of many of the early stories, which attracted notice,—the exaltation of individual heroes, the concealment of defeats and losses on the part of Rome. The most striking among these inventions, as we shall show below, are the stories of Porsenna and Camillus. The immediate effect of these discoveries was, that for a time the annals of early Roman history were passed over in almost contemptuous silence. It was then that Niebuhr arose. He acknowledged the sagacity of these critics, and conceded to them that the early history, if regarded as an actual narrative of facts, was wholly unreal; but he refused to throw it all aside as arbitrary fiction. lie showed that the early history of Rome, like that of all nations, was mythical or legendary, containing a poetical account of the first ages of the city, and not a sober historical narrative ; but the legendary traditions of the Roman people particularly are, he contended, so rich and so beautiful, that they give an insight into the early genius of the people which would never have been divined from the imitative literature which has been handed down as Roman. Moreover, mingled up with the poetic legends of which we speak, there are accounts of laws and institutions which undeniably existed, such as the regulations attributed to Romulus and Numa, and the popular reforms of which tho elder Tarquin and Servius Tullius are the reputed authors. There are also great works, in part remaining to the present day, of which these Legends tell—such as the Cloaca Maxima, the Substructions of the Capitol, the Agger of Servius Tullius. Here we have realities which cannot be put aside as children’s tales.

§ 8. At present we have only to estimate the relation which the clironiclcs of Regal Rome bear to actual historical fact.

The reigns of the seven Kings have been thrown into four chapters purposely. Each of these sections presents a legendary character of its own. The accounts of Romulus and Numa differ essentially from those of Tullus and Ancus; and all these differ more widely from the chronicle of the first Tarquin and of Servius; while the story of the last Tarquin brings us into the atmosphere of romance in which we move during the first century and a half of the Republic.

§ 9. The reigns of Romulus and Numa are in the realm of pure mythology. Romulus, like ^Eneas, is the son of a god; Numa, like Anchises, is the favoured lover of a goddess. Romulus is the man of force, for Roma (/5w/z?y) signifies strength and vigour. Numa is the man of law, for numus (vdfiog) signifies law. Under these typical names is embodied, in beautiful legends, the origin of the social, political, and religious institutions of Rome. IIow long a period is thus symbolised, or how many generations of kings, it is impossible to guess.

But under the mythical story of these reigns we may clearly discern historical truth. We see in them a continual struggle between the original Latin influence and the Sabine. Romulus the Roman founds the city, and is 'obliged to admit into partnership Titus the Sabine, who occupies both the Quirinal and Satur-nian Ilills. Then Titus is slain by Latins, and the Roman King regains ascendancy for a time. But he is carried miraculously from the earth, is worshipped under a Sabine name, and a Sabine king succeeds. Ilcre we trace the indisputable symptoms of Sabine conquest. The admission of Sabines into the city at all suggests this; their occupation of the stronghold on the Saturnian Ilill confirms it; the assumption of a Sabine name by the Roman king, and the appellation of Quirites given to the united citizens, prove it.*

It is probable, indeed, that the early institutions of Rome arc Sabine rather than Latin. The religious ordinances of Numa are confessedly so. There is reason to think that the same is

* Above, Clia.pt. i. § 10, Quiritos has boon rendered “Mon of tho Spear,” according to tho first derivation thus quoted from Ovid. It is objected that this appellation, which is always used of tho Romans in their civil capacity, while as conquerors they aro always called Populus Romanus, ill accords with this explanation. In answer, it is suggested that tho term Quirites, originally moaning “united warriors,” lost its warlike, and retained only its political, sense of union. From tho notion of union or brotherhood, it foilows (which is tho fact) that tho singular Quiris was not properly used at all Niebuhr supposes that tho common phraso, Populus Romanus Quirites, stood for Populus Romanus et Quirites, according to tho forms of ancient Latin. But, on tlio above hypothesis, this cannot bo so. Quirites can hardly denote a body distinct from Populus Romanus; and tho phraso must bo equivalent to Pop. Rom. Quiritium, which is not unfroquent. Sec tho proof in Becker’s Roman Antir quities, vol. ii. part i. pago 21, sqq.

For example, the relations of Patrons and Clients almost necessarily imply a conquering and a conquered people. The Clients we may presume to be the Aborigines, a Pelasgian tribe, first reduced by Oscans, and afterwards by Sabines. On the conquest by the Sabines, it may be supposed that the chief Oscan families- -were admitted to equality with the conquerors, either at once or in the course of a short time : while the mass of the Osco-Pclasgiair population sank into the condition of Russian serfs or of feudal vassals.

Something not very dissimilar occurred after the conquest of England by William the Norman. The great Saxon families were not doomed to ruin by the Conqueror till a wide-spread rebellion had convinced him that he could not retain his power but by fear: and even then the French wars soon promoted an equality between the Norman lords and the Saxon chiefs, while the mass of the nation remained in a state of serfdom. It is, in like manner, very probable that the dominion of the Sabines was relaxed, in consequence of war with their neighbours the Latins and Etruscans; and it is very possible that the patriotism of later lioman minstrels may have confounded the Sabines with their own progenitors ; just as the Norman-French of England soon learned to glory in the name of Englishmen.

On the whole, then, it seems not unlikely that the reigns of Romulus and Numa represents a period ©f Sabine supremacy; during which institutions arose of Sabine origin and character, but so moulded and modified as to suit the genius of the combined people ; and that slowly, but surely, the spirit and genius of the Latin people prevailed over the smaller numbers of their Sabine conquerors, just as the spirit and genius of the Anglo-Saxons gradually overpowered the Roman influence.

§ 10. The reigns of Tullus and Ancus present, in some measure, a repetition of those of Romulus and Numa. The Roman King dies by a strange and sudden death; the Sabine succeeds. 'But the miraculous has disappeared. The Kings are ordinary mortals, not the sons and spouses of divinities; and there is very little even of heroic legend. But there are a few naked facts which are no doubt historical. The destruction of Alba by Tullus, the conquest of Politorium and the Latin shore by Ancus, and the rapid growth of an independent Commonalty by tho side of their Patrons and their Clients, are evidently beyond the range of legendary tales. There are few signs here of hostility between Latin and Sabine interest. The reigns of Tullus and Ancus seem to denote a period in which the two nations, though still distinct, were going through a rapid process of fusion.

§11. With the elder Tarquin and Servius the scene changes suddenly. The differences between Romans and Sabines have disappeared ; the fusion of the Rhamnian and Titian tribes is complete, But the third Tribe, the Lucerian, which the Legends (erroneously, no doubt,) represent as coeval w^Tith the other two, and which had been hitherto kept in a subordinate position, now starts into political life. It seems originally to have been of a mixed race, partly Etruscan, partly Latin, though gradually the Latin preponderated, and the Etruscan element at length disappeared. This mixture is indicated by the varying accounts which are given of the birthplace and family of Tarquin and Servius. The former is commonly represented as an Etruscan emigrant, but one Legend calls him a Latin; the latter is generally regarded as a Latin, but one Legend makes him an Etruscan chief, named Mastarna, the comrade of Caeles Yibenna. Yet, so vague and baffling is the language of these Legends, that after all investigations, nothing more can be said than that the bulk of the third Tribe was manifestly Latin, aud that whatever there was in Rome x>f Etruscan decayed and vanished away.

Yet it is certain that, under these kings, Rome became the centre of a considerable monarchy, extending her sway over Lower Etruria and all Latium. This is proved not only by the concurrent voice of all the Legends, but also most convincingly by the great works which still remain to attest the power and wealth of those who executed them, the Cloacse of Tarquin, the walls of Servius, and the great extent of ground enclosed by them, and the plan of the Capitoline Temple. To this subject wc have to recur nt the beginning of our next chapter. .

Further, it is certain that under these kings the old oligarchical constitution was in great measure superseded. Anciently, the Kings, according to the Sabine rule, had been the chiefs in war; but in peace their power was almost limited to the duty of presiding in the oligarchical assembly of the Curia?, and in the Council of the Senate. Their power of life and death was limited by the right of appeal to the Curiate Assembly belonging to every burgess, as is shown in the legend of Horatius. But Tarquin admitted great numbers of new burgesses to leaven the oligarchy, and Servius remoulded the whole population, in which the independent commonalty now formed the chief part, into a new political frame. It cannot be doubted that with the decrease in the power of the Oligarchy that of the Kings increased. The reigns of Tarquin the Elder and Servius represent a period in which the old Sabi no-Roman Oligarchy gave way before the royal power, supported by the Latin Plebs, just as in England the Commons were called into political existence by the Plantagenet kings to counterbalance the overwhelming power of the feudal aristocracy.

§ 12. The reign of the last Tarquin represents the consummation of this work. Royalty is now despotic. The Plebeians having served the purpose of lowering the Oligarchy, are east aside, and a despotic monarchy overrules both alike. As the reigns of Tullus and Ancus, of the elder Tarquin and Servius, though they present much of real political interest, are aim of t empty of legendary tales, so the accounts of the last Tarquin are nothing but a series of Heroic Legends, beginning with the death of Servius, and closing with the great battle of Lake Regillrs. All that we can collect from these Legends is, that Tarquin the Despot was really a great and powerful monarch, a man of ability and energy, who acknowledged no political rights except those of the King, and who fell in consequence of one of those sudden bursts of passionate indignation, to which all orders of a nation are sometimes roused by contumelious oppression. No sooner was his fall achieved, than the disunion of the Patrician and Plebeian Orders disclosed itself, just as in England tho enmity of Churchmen and Puritans, who had combined for a moment against the Stuarts, broke out with double fuiy after their fall.

§ 13. In the History of Rome under the Patricians, which forms the subject of our next Book, we have still to deal with legendary narrative. But it is of a different kind to that which meets us in the chronicle of regal Rome. There the legends are mostly national, and here they will be personal. There they refer to dynasties and the changes which arose from feuds between conquerors and conquered; here they relate chiefly to foreign wai-p, and tbs prowess of patrician heroes.

§ 1. Extent of Roman power at Expulsion of Kings. § 2. It fell with Monarchy. § 3. Romans for a timo subject to Porsenna. § 4 Romo no longer head of Latium: accession of Attus Clausus and 3000 Clients. Narrow limits of Roman History for noxt 150 years. § 5. Campagna: pestilential air. § G. Less unhealthy in ancient times. § 7. Nations bordering on plain of Romo: Tuseulum, &e. § 8. Lower Apennines: Pncnest6: Vols-cians: iEquians: llemicans. § 9. Lower Etruria.

that she must have occupied an important position in the Mediterranean. The general impression raised by the mere existence of such a treaty, is much strengthened by its articles, so far as they have been preserved to us. It appears that the Carthaginians on their part bound themselves to make no settlement for trading purposes on the coast of Latium and Campania, while the Romans on their part covenanted not to sail along the African coast southward of the Ilermaean promontory. This jealousy of maritime interference on the side of Carthage shows that Rome, or her Etruscan sovereign at least, must have been in possession of a considerable naval force. Again, the Latins are in the treaty expressly called the “ subjects” of Rome, which confirms the statements of the Roman Annalists that all Latium was reduced under the sovereignty of the later kings.

§ 2. It is probable, then, on the one hand, that the Tarquins and Servius ruled a considerable kingdom, which certainly included all Latium, and probably also great part of Etruria.

§ 3. The war with Porsenna and the Etruscans shows that Etruria, whatever was the ease before, • was now certainly not subject to Rome; nay, there is evidence to prove that the Romans themselves became for a time subject to the Etrusean yoke. AVe have heard the legend of Porsenna as it is related by Roman bards. But it is certain that the truth has been much distorted. The tales of Horatius, of Mueius, of Cloelia, are noble poetry, and stir the youthful heart with no ungenerous fire. Yet we must confess that Porsenna conquered Rome, and held it for a time at least under an iron rule. Taeitus, the greatest of Roman historians, lets drop the fact that “the city itself was surrendered” to the Etruscan monarch :²¹ another writer tells us, that the war lasted three years :f the legend itself obscurely confesses that Rome at this time lost its Trans-Tiberine pagi, and that Porsenna was acknowledged as sovereign by the present of an ivory throne, a sceptre, a crown of gold, and a robe of state, the very marks of Etrusean monarchy introduced at Romo by the elder Tarquin: and, lastly, Pliny expressly cites the treaty, by which it appears, that Porsenna forbade the Romans to use any iron except for implements of husbandry .J

This dominion of the Etruscaus over Rome did not contimio long; for, soon after, Porsenna was defeated and slain before the Latin city of Aricia; and then it was, doubtless, that the Romans seized and sold all tlic goods of the king on which they could lay. their hands.²² But it was not till long after that they reconquered the Yeientine pagi which they had lost.

§ 4. So also, notwithstanding the triumph of Lake Regillus, it is certain that Rome no longer was the head of Latium. The Latin cities Tusculum, Lanuvium, Corioli, and others, within ten or twelve miles of the Forum, asserted their independence; not to speak of Tibur, Pncnesto, and others, which were more remote. The only accession to her territory, amid all these losses, arose from the voluntary union of some Sabines with their old compatriots at Rome. Most of the Sabine tribes in proximity with Rome supported the Latins in their revolt. But a powerful chief of the name of Attus Clausus, with a following of no less than three thousand clients, joined himself to tho Romans, and himself became a Roman. He and his followers were settled in a Sabine district beyond the Anio, which was constituted as a local tribe;—the number of the Tribes being thus raised to Twenty-one.f Rome, then, now appears as mistress only of a small territory on tho left bank of the Tiber. The next century and a half of her history is occupied in reconquering that which she had lost: and though still the narrative is much mixed up with legendary tales, yet the people with whom she deals, and the land which she wins, arc real and substantial things, and remain in her possession for ever. Here then it will be convenient and instructive for the student to pause, and take a geographical survey of the Roman territory and its adjacent lands.

§ 5. The city of Rome stands at the verge of a small island of tertiary formation in the midst of a long tract of volcanic country, which stretches from the Pontine Marshes on the south to Acquapcndente, a town of modern Tuscany, about ten miles north of the Yolsinian lake. The land along tho coast-line of this tract, from Civita Vccchia, the port of modern Rome, to Cape Circello, is flat and low. But the land rises gra* dually inland, till at Rome the general level is considerably above the sea. To one standing upon, the Capitol, tlic view towards Tuscany is immediately bounded by a ridge of hills, which

skirt the Tiber on the west. The height directly west of the Capitol is Mont Janiculum; northward, and facing the Campus Martius, is the Vatican hill; while still further north appears the more considerable eminence of Mont Marius. Due north, the view up the valley of the Tiber is closed by the noble mass of Soracte. From this point round to the sea, that is on the north-cast, cast, and south, the eye ranges over a wide extent of plain, properly called the Campagna di Roma.

. Viewed from the heights of Rome, this plain appears level and unbroken. But the traveller who passes over it finds it rising and falling in constant undulations, while in the hollows, here and there, small streams creep sluggishly towards the Tiber or Anio through broken banks fringed with broom and other low-growing plants. He secs but few portions of this plain under cultivation, though it produces a luxuriant herbage. Houses, there arc scarcely any, trees almost none, to break the dreary monotony; and the peasants whom he meets, few and far between, give sufficient reason for this desolation in their unhealthy looks and listless bearing.

The part of this plain which on the west is bounded by the course of the Tiber, from beyond the Anio to the sea, was the famous' Ager Romanus, and formed the narrow district to which we find its limits reduced after the wars which followed the expulsion of the Tarquins. Its eastern boundary cannot be distinctly ascertained; but it was formed by a waving lino which ran from below Tivoli to Ardea, at a mean breadth of ten or twelve miles; its whole area being not larger than the county of Middlesex. On enquiry into its present condition, we learn that this district is distributed into four or five and twenty farms; that the land in each farm is divided into seven portions, each of which is ploughed up in rotation for a grain crop, and then it is left to resume the natural herbage which soon clothes it again without the help of man; so that not above one-seventh part of the whole is under tillage at once. We arc further informed that the country is thus left desolate because of the malaria or pestilential atmosphere which pervades it; that few or none of ‘ the tenant-farmers who occupy the land are hardy enough to .reside upon their farms; that the peasants who reap the crops come down for the express purpose from the upland valleys on the north, and suffer much from low fever and disease during the time that they are thus occupied; that when the crop is housed, all flee the pestilential soil, except some few who haunt spectrc-like the ruinous remains of its ancient towns.*

* Tho foregoing facts aro mainly colloctod from an articlo in tho Edinburgh Review, voL xxxviii. p. 4.8 and following.

§ C. It is a natural and inevitable thought, that, in the Roman times, the physical condition of this country must have been different; for every eminence was then crowned with a town or village, and many of the broken cliff-like banks formed citadels, like the Hills of Rome. It is certain, indeed, that in ancient times the country was unhealthy and uninviting ;²³ but it is not to be doubted that it is more unhealthy now, and that Rome itself was in those days less exposed to the influence of malaria than at present. What is not less striking is, that hitherto the causes of this malaria have baffled the researches of science. It does not arise from marshy exhalations; for tho soil of the Campagna is as dry in the present day as it was when Livy described it. It can hardly be due to the impregnation of the volcanic soil with mephitic vapour; for, though it appears that the volcanic district of Etruria, now called the Marcmma, is equally unhealthy, and presents a similar aspect of forlorn desolation, yet no such evil attacks other volcanic soils, as Campania or Sicily; nor will this hypothesis account for the increase of the plague in modern times. The causes suggested for this increase arc : first, the neglected eulturc of the land; secondly, the destruction of trees and natural shelter from the sun and wind; thirdly, the want of all protection to those who brave the climate from the sudden cold that at sunset follows the intense heat of the day. Instances arc alleged to show that if good houses are built, if tillage is promoted in their neighbourhood, and trees encouragcd around them, and if the inhabitants avoid the air during sunset and at night, life may be enjoyed in the Campagna even at the present day without constant liability to fever in the hot season.f But social mismanagement seems to have combined with nature to desolate this region. Under the Romans themselves of a later day, as we shall sec hereafter, it was found more profitable to throw large districts into pastures, and people it with flocks tended by slavc-shepherds;—for it must be noticed as a singular fact, that the air so prejudicial to the health of the human frame is not hurtful to the cattle. This system, introduced of old, still pre-

vails. And though it is likely that no natural evils would have dispeopled tlie Campagna, any more than they have dispeopled Vera Cruz or the coasts of the Sea of Azof, yet when the misrule of man seconds the visitation of God, and when once such a country lias lost its inhabitants, it is little to be expected that it will again be reclaimed from its state of desolation.*

§ V. Wc will now notice the different tribes who dwelt on the verges of this celebrated district, and for this purpose we will return to the Capitol.

A little to the south of cast the plain is interrupted by a beautiful range of hills, which rise abruptly and by themselves from its surface. This is the volcanic range so well known as the Alban Hills. The highest peak, measuring about 3000 feet, was anciently crowned by the temple of Jupiter Latiaris, the common sanctuary of the Latin nation; and on the ridge, of which it forms the culminating point, once lay the town of Alba Longa. In two hollows, to the south-west, are found the Alban lake and the lake of Ncmus (Nemi), being both of them formed by accumulations of water in the craters of extinct volcanoes. On a separate ridge to the north lay Tusculum (Frascati), one of the Latin cities which threw off the Roman yoke on the expulsion of the Tarquins: Corioli and Lavinium were situated on similar eminences to the south.

§ 8. A line, drawn along the map of Italy from below Narnia down the Tiber, then across the Sabine country to Tibur, and so past Prsencste and Signia to Tcrracina, marks the edge of a continuous chain of hills which bound the plain of Latium. This is formed by a narrow belt of Ancient Limestone, which rises from under a broad and many-ridged mass of the more Recent system, as shown in the annexed map. These united formations constitute the lower range of Apennines, while on the other side of the more Recent mass again emerge the Ancient Limestone rocks of the main chain. It is the descent down the face of this lower ridge which forms the beautiful cascade of the Anio at Tibur (Tivoli). At Pracncste, the ridge sinks and lets the eye into the valley of the Trerus (Sacco), which runs eastward to join the Liris. Prceneste (Palestrina) itself stands on a bold projecting eminence, in the gap formed by the sinking of the hills. Now this natural division of the range which we call the Lower Apeninnes, corresponds to its political division at the time of which wc speak. The range between the right bank of the Trerus and Tcrracina was the hill country of the Yolsci, who stretched across the Liris to Sora and

* Edinburgh Review, as abovo, pp. 56, 57; Arnold’s History of Rome, L p. 004. ^

Arpimmi. The up^er part from the Anio northwards, was the country of the ^Equians, reaching beyond Carscoli and Alba, and including the Fucine lake (lake of Celano)_> the largest piece of water in the Apennine range. Between these two tribes, that is between the Trerus and the Anio, lay, wedged in theif upland valley, the Ilernicans. The Volscians and the ^Equians were probably Opican tribes, of the same race with the Auruncans, who lay behind the Volscian hills in the mountainous tract which leads into Campania; whereas the Ilernicans, a brave and independent tribe, were of Sabine blood. The mountains to the north-east about Reate up to Amiternum, are the ancient homes of the Sabines; and from these mountains descended, according to tradition, the first occupants of Rome and Latium. Close above Amiternum rises the wild mass of Monte Corno, and the highest peaks of the Apennine range. For six months of the year the central ridges may easily be distinguished by their snowcapped summits.

all view towards ancient Etruria on tlic west arid north-west, lay what we may call Lower Etruria. This district, lying between the lower valley of the Tiber and tho sea, is separated from Upper Etruria by a range of volcanic hills, which strike across the country at right angles to the Apenninc valleys. They formed an unfrequented tract, then called the Ciminian Forest, beyond which no Romans for many years after dared to penetrate. It is from the eastern edge of this range, now called the heights of Viterbo, that the traveller from Florence obtains his first view of the Campagna. • Below these hills was the country occupied by the Veientines and the Faliscans. Beyond them again, the places of chief note wero Sutrium and Nepete; and towards the sea lay the low lands of the men of Caere, a city which plays a considerable part in the history of Rome. Veii was not more than twelve miles distant from the walls of Rome. •

With this geographical sketch, which should be verified by a comparison with the map annexed, all the progress of Rome in ’ foreign conquest may readily bo followed for the next century and a half. Her arms, in that period, never travelled further than twenty miles from Rome; generally their action took place in a much more circumscribed sphere.

§ 1. Character of strugglo between Orders. § 2. Sufferings of Plebeians in border wars, not shared by Patricians. § 3. All power gradually resumed by Patricians. § 4. Patricians an exclusive Caste: privilogo of Connubium. § 5. Plebeians first roused by severo Laws of Debtor and Creditor. § C. Patricians chief Creditors, Plebeians Debtors. § 7. Story of incident which gave rise to Tribunate: Appius Claudius, leader of Patricians, deceives Plebeians. § 8. Secession of Plebeians to Mons Sacer. § 9. Menenius Agrippa: Fablo of Belly and Members. § 10. Peace restored: two Tribunes to be chosen as Protectors of Plebeians. § 11. Incompleteness of Protection. § 12. Plebeian iEdiles.

§ 1. In the following chapters of this Book we shall have to. record, not only the slow steps by which the Romans recovered dominion over their neighbours, but also the long-continued’ struggle by which the Plebeians raised themselves to a level with the Patricians, who had again become the dominant caste at’ Rome. Mixed up with legendary tales as the history still is, enough is nevertheless preserved to excite the admiration of all who love to look upon a brave people pursuing a worthy object with patient but earnest resolution, never flinching, yet seldom injuring their good cause by reckless violence. To an Englishman this history ought to be especially dear; for more than any other in the annals of the world does it resemble the long-enduring constancy and sturdy determination, the temperate will and noble self-control, with which the Commons of his own country secured their rights. It was by a struggle of this nature, pursued through a century and a half, that the character of the Roman people was moulded into that form of strength and energy, which threw back Hannibal to the coasts of Africa, and in half a century more made them masters of the Mediterranean shore.

' § 2. There can be no doubt that the wars that followed the Expulsion of the Tarqnins, with the loss of territory that accompanied them, must have reduced all orders of men at Rome to great distress. But those who most suffered were the Plebeians. The Plebeians at that time consisted entirely of landholders, great and small, and husbandmen ; for in those times the practice of trades and mechanical arts was considered unworthy of a freeborn man. Some of tho Plebeian families were as wealthy as any

among the Patricians ; but tlic mass of them were petty yeoman, who lived on the produce of their small farms, and were solely dependent for a living on their own limbs, their own thrift and industry. Most of them lived in the villages and small towns, which in those times were thickly sprinkled, over the slopes of the Campagna.

The Patricians, on the otlier hand, resided chiefly within the city. If slaves were few as yet, they had the labour of their Clients available to till their farms; and through their Clients also they were enabled to derive a profit from the practice of trading and crafts, which personally neither they nor the Plebeians would stoop to pursue. Besides these sources of profit, they had at this time the exclusive use of the Public Land, a subject on which we shall have to speak more at length hereafter. At present, it will be sufficient to say, that the Public Land now spoken of had been the Crown Land or Regal Domain, which on the expulsion of the Kings had been forfeited to the State. The Patricians being -in possession of all actual power, engrossed possession of it, and seem to have paid a very small quit-rent to the treasury for this great advantage.

. Besides this, the necessity of service in the army, or militia (as it might more justly be called), acted very differently on the rich landholder and the small yeoman. The latter, being called out with sword and spear for the summer’s campaign, as liis turn came round, was obliged to leave his farm uncarcd for, and his crop could only be reaped by the kind aid of neighbours; whereas the rich proprietor, by his Clients or his hired labourers, could render the required military service without robbing his land of his own labour. Moreover, the territory of Rome was so narrow, and the enemy’s borders so close at hand, that any night the stout yeoman might find himself reduced to beggary, by seeing his crops destroyed, his cattle driven away, and his homestead burnt in a sudden foray. The Patricians and rich Plebeians were, it is true, exposed to the same contingencies. But wealth will always provide some defence; and it is reasonable to think that the larger proprietors provided places of refuge, into which they could drive their cattle, and secure much of their property, such as the peel-towers common in our own border counties. Thus the Patricians and their Clients might escape the storm which destroyed the isolated yeoman. To this must be added, that the Public Land seems to have been mostly in pasturage, and therefore the property of the Patricians must have chiefly consisted in cattle, which was more easily saved from depredation than the crops of the Plebeian. Lastly, the profit derived from the trades and business of their Clients, being secured by the walls of tho city, gave to the Patricians the command of all the capital that could exist in a state of society so simple and rude, and afforded at once a means of repairing their own losses, and also of obtaining a dominion over the poor yeomen.

§ 3. For some time after the expulsion of the Tarquins, it was necessary for the Patricians to treat the Plebeians with liberality. The institutions of “the Commons’ King,” King Servius, suspended by Tarquin, were, partially at least, restored: it is said even that one of the first Consuls was a Plebeian, and that lie chose several of the leading Plebeians into the Senate. But after the death of Porsenna, and when the fear of the Tarquins ceased, all these flattering signs disappeared. The Consuls seem still to have been elected by the Centuriate Assembly, but the Cu-riate Assembly retained in their own hands the right of conferring the Imperium, which amounted to a positive veto on the election by the larger body. All the names of the early Consuls, except in the first year of the Republic, are Patrician. But if by chance a Consul displayed popular tendencies, it was in the power of the Senate and Patricians to suspend his power by the appointment of a Dictator. Thus, practically, the Patrician Burgesses again became the Populus or Body Politic of Rome. *

§ 4. It must here not be forgotten that this dominant body was an exclusive caste; that is, it consisted of a limited number of noble families, who allowed none of their members to marry with persons born out of the pale of their own order. The child of a Patrician and a Plebeian, or of a Patrician and a Client, was not considered as born in lawful wedlock; and however proud the blood which it derived from one parent, the child sank to the condition of the parent of lower rank. This was expressed in Roman language by saying, that there was no Right of Connu-bium between Patricians and any inferior classes of men. Nothing can be more impolitic than such restrictions ; nothing more hurtful even to those who count it their privilege. In all exclusive or oligarchical pales, families become extinct, and the breed decays both in bodily strength and mental vigour. Happily for Rome, the Patricians were unable long to maintain themselves as a separate caste.

§ 5. Yet the Plebeians might long have submitted to this state of social and political inferiority, had not their personal distress and the severe laws of Rome driven them to seek relief, by claiming to be recognised as members of the body politic.

creditor. If a Roman borrowed money, he was expected to enter into a contract with his creditor to pay the debt by a certain day;* and if on that day he was unable to discharge his obligation, he was summoned before the Patrician judge, who was authorised by the law to assign the defaulter as a bondsman to his creditor; that is, the debtor was obliged to pay by his own labour the debt which lie was unable to pay in money. Or if a man incurred a debt without such formal contract, the rule was still more imperious : for in that case the law itself fixed the day of payment; and if after a lapse of thirty days from that date the debt was not discharged, the creditor was empowered to arrest the person of his debtor, to load him with chains, and feed him on bread and water for another thirty days; and then, if the money still remained unpaid, he might put him to death, or sell him as a slave to the highest bidder; or, if there were several creditors, they might hew his body in pieces, and divide it. And in this last case the law provided with scrupulous providence against the evasion by which the Merchant of Venice escaped the cruelty of the Jew; for the Roman law said, that “ whether a man cut more or less [than his due], he should incur no penalty.”! These atrocious provisions, however, defeated their own object; for there was no more unprofitable way in which the body of a debtor could be disposed of.

§ 6. Such being the law of debtor and creditor, it remains to say that the creditors were chiefly of the Patrician caste, and the debtors almost exclusively of the poorer sort among the Plebeians. The Patricians were the creditors, because from their occupancy of the Public Land, and from their engrossing the profits to be derived from trade and crafts, they alone had spare capital to lend. The Plebeian yeomen were the debtors, because their independent position made them, at that time, helpless. Vassals, clients, serfs, or by whatever name dependents are called, do not suffer from the ravages of a predatory war like free landholders, because the loss falls on their lords or patrons. But when the independent yeoman’s crops are destroyed, his-cattle “lifted,” and his homestead in ashes, he must himself repair the loss. This was, as we have said, the condition of many Roman Plebeians. To rebuild their houses

• * Contracts wcro in Roman language called nexa, and persons bound by contract wero next

f The technical word was addixit. ITence person?? delivered over as bondsmen were add,icti; and the word addictus came to mean generally bound to do a thing, as in tho phrase. “Nullius addictus juraro in verba magistri.” Horat. Epist. i. 1, 14.

\ “ Si plus minusve sccuerint, so [i. e. sine] fraudo esto.” This, as well us tho other provisions of tho law, are given by Gclliu3, xx. 1, §§ 45-49.

and re-stock their farms, they borrowed; the Patricians were their creditors; and the law, instead of protecting the small holders, like the law of the Hebrews,²⁵ delivered them over into serfdom or slavery.

Thus the free Plebeian population might have been reduced to a state of mere dependency, and the history of Rome might have presented a repetition of monotonous severity, like that of Sparta or of Yenice.j* But it was ordained otherwise. The distress and oppression of the Plebeians led them to demand, and to obtain political protectors, by whose means they were slowly but surely raised to equality of rights and privileges with their rulers and oppressors. These protectors were the famous Tribunes of the Plebs. Wo will now repeat the no less famous legends by which their first creation was accounted for.

§ 7. It was, by the common reckoning, fifteen years after the expulsion of the Tarquins (494 c.c.), that the Plebeians were roused to take the first step in the assertion of their rights. After the battle of Lake Regillus, the Plebeians had reason to expect some relaxation of the law of debt, in consideration of the great services they had rendered in the war. But none was granted. The Patrician creditors began to avail themselves of the severity of the law against their Plebeian debtors. The discontent that followed was great: and the Consuls prepared to meet the storm. These were Appius Claudius, the proud Sabine nobleman who had lately become a Roman, and who now led the high Patrician party with all the unbending energy of a chieftain whose will had never been disputed by his obedient clansmen : and P. Scrvilius, who represented the milder and more liberal party of the Fathers.

It chanced that an aged man rushed into the Forum on a market-day, loaded with chains, clothed with a few scanty rags, his hair and beard long and squalid; his whole appearance ghastly, as of one oppressed by long want of food and air. He was recognised as a brave soldier, the old comrade of many who thronged the Forum. lie told his story, how that in the Jato wars, the enemy had burnt his house and plundered his little farm; that to replace his losses, he had borrowed money of a Patrician, that his cruel creditor (in default of payment) had thrown him into prison, \ and tormented him with chains and scourges. At this sad tale, the passions of the people rose high.

Appius was obliged to conceal himself; while Servilius undertook to plead the cause of the Plebeians with the Senate.

Meantime news came to the city that the Roman territory was invaded by the Yolscian foe. The Consuls proclaimed a levy; but the stout yeomen, one and all, refused to give in their names and take the military oath. Servilius now came forward,. and proclaimed by edict, that no citizen should be imprisoned for debt so long as the war lasted, and that at the close of the war he would propose an alteration of the law. The Plebeians trusted him, and the enemy was driven back. But when the popular Consul returned. with his victorious soldiers, he was denied a triumph; and the Senate, led by Appius, refused to make any concession in favour of the debtors.

The anger of the Plebeians rose higher and higher; when again news came that the enemy were ravaging the lands of Home. The Senate, well knowing that the power of the Consuls would avail nothing, since Appius was regarded as a tyrant, and Servilius would not * choose again to become an instrument for deceiving the people, appointed a Dictator to lead the citizens into the field. But to make the act as popular as might be, they named M. Yalerius, a descendant of the great Poplicola. The same scene was repeated over again. Yalerius protected the Plebeians against their creditors while they were at war, and promised them relief when war was over. But when the danger was gone by, Appius again prevailed; the Senate refused to listen to Yalerius; and the Dictator laid down his office, calling gods and men to witness that he was not responsible for his breach of faith.

§ 8. The Plebeians whom Yalerius had led forth were still under arms, still bound by their military oath; and Appius, with the violent Patricians, refused to disband them. The army, therefore, having lost Yalerius, their proper general, chose two of themselves, L. Junius Brutus and L. Sicinius Bellutus by name, and under their command they marched northwards and occupied the hill which commands the junction of the Tiber and the Anio. Here, at a distance of about two miles from Rome, they determined to settle and form a new city, leaving Rome to the Patricians and their Clients. But the latter were not willing to lose the best of their soldiery, the cultivators of the greater part of the Roman territory, and they sent repeated embassies to persuade the seceders to return. They, however, turned a deaf car to all promises; *for they had too often been deceived. Appius now urged the Senate and Patricians to leave the Plebeians to themselves; the Nobles and their Clients, he said, could well maintain themselves in the city without such base aid.

§ 9. But wiser sentiments prevailed. T. Lartius, and M. Va-. lerius, both of whom had been Dictators, with Mcncnius Agrippa, an old Patrician of popular character, were empowered to treat with the people. Still their leaders were unwilling to listen, till old Mcncnius addressed them in the famous fable of the Belly and the Members :—

“ In times of old,” said lie, “ when every Member of the body could think for itself, and each had a separate, will of its own, they all, with one conscnt, resolved to revolt against the Belly. They knew no reason, they said, why they should toil from morning till night in its service, while the Belly lay at its case in the midst of all, and indolently grew fat upon their labours. Accordingly, they agreed to support it no more. The feet vowed they would carry it no longer; the hands that they would do no more work; the teeth that they would not chew a morsel of meat, even were it placed between them. Thus resolved, the Members for a time showed their spirit and kept their resolution ; but soon they found, that instead of mortifying the Belly, they only undid themselves: they languished for awhile, and per-ccivcd too late that it was owing to the Belly that they had strength to work and courage to mutiny.”

§ 10. The moral of this fable was plain. The people readily applied it to the Patricians and themselves; and their leaders proposed terms of agreement to the Patrician messengers. They required that the debtors who could not pay should have their debts canccllcd; and that those who had been given up into slavery (addicti) should be restored to freedom. This for the past. And as a security for the future, they demanded that two of themselves should be appointed for the sole purpose of protecting the Plebeians against the Patrician magistrates, if they actcd cruclly or unjustly towards the debtors. The two officers thus to be appointed were called Tribunes of the Plebs. Their persons were to be sacred and inviolable during their year of office, whcnce their office is callcd “sacrosancta Potcstas.” They were never to leave the city during that time; and .their houses were to be open day and night, that all who needed their aid might demand it without delay.

§ 11. This concession, apparently great, was much modified by the fact that the Patricians insisted on the election of the Tribunes being made at the Comitia of the Centuries, in which they themselves and their wealthy clicnts could usually command a majority.* In later times, the number of the Tribunes

* That the election must havo been so conducted is manifest from Liv. ii. 5G, where ho says that tho object of tho Publilian Law was to take away from tho Patricians the power of “per cliuutium suQragia creandi quos vellent tri

was increased to five, and afterwards to ten. They were ’ elected at the Comitia of the Tribes, as we shall have to notice presently. They had the privilege of attending all sittings of the Senate, though they were not considered members of that famous body. Above all, they acquired the great and perilous power of the Veto, by which any one of their number might stop any law, or annul any decree of the Senate, without cause or reason assigned. This right of Veto was called the right of Intercession.

On the spot where this treaty was made, an altar was built to Jupiter, the Causer and Banisher of Fear; for the Plebeians had gone thither in fear and returned from it in safety. The place was called Mons Sacer, or the Sacred Hill, for ever after, and the laws by which the sanctity of the tribunitian office was secured were called the Leges Sacrata).

§ 12. The Tribunes were not properly magistrates or officers, for they had no express functions or official duties to discharge. They were simply Representatives and Protectors of the Plebs. At the same time, however, with the institution of these protective officers, the Plebeians were allowed the right of having two iEdiles chosen from their own body, whose business it was to preserve order and decency in the streets, to provide for the repair of all buildings and roads there, with other functions partly belonging to police-officers, and partly to commissioners of public works.

bunos.” When, therefore, Asconius (in Comelianam, p. 76, ed. Orelli) says “Tribuni Plebis Comitiis Curiatis creati,” and when Dionysius (vi. 89, ix. 41) follows the same notion, there must be some mistake.

1. Sp. Cassius, Patrician, patron of tho Plebeians: proposes an Agrarian Law. § 2. Nature of Agrarian Laws. § 3. Tho Patricians allow Law to pass. § 4. Sp. Cassius condemned for aiming at kingly power. § 5. Ilia

fall increases power of Patricians: seven Consulships, of Fabii. § 6. But boldness of Tribunes also increases: a Consul impeached by Tribune Genu-cius, who is murdered. § 1. Volero Publilius refuses to enlist. § 8. Chosen Tribuno: Publilian Law, enacting that Tribunes should bo chosen by Tribes. § 9. Second Appius Claudius elected Consul to oppose Law; in vain. Five Tribunes henceforth elected at Comitia Tributa.

§ 1. Tiie small beginning of political independence which the Plebeians liad gained by the institution of the Tribunate, seemed likely to be much farthered by the unexpected appearance of a patron of their order in the ranks of the Patricians themselves. This was Spurius Cassius, a notable man. He was three times Consul. In his second Consulship he concluded a league with the Latins, and in his third Consulship a similar league with the Ilernicans, by which the united people of Rome, Latium, and the Ilernicans bound themselves to check the alarming advance lately made by the Yolscians. But of this we will speak in the next chapter. At present we have to treat of another remarkable act of the third Consulship of Sp. Cassius, which was tho proposal of the first Agrarian Law.

§ 2. Great mistakes formerly prevailed on the nature of the Roman laws familiarly termed Agrarian. It was supposed that by these laws all land was declared common property, and that at certain intervals of time the state assumed possession, and made a fresh distribution thereof to all citizens, rich and poor. It is needless to make any remarks on the nature and consequences of such a law; sufficient it will be to say, what is now known to all, that at Rome such laws never existed, never were thought of. The lands which were to be distributed by Agrarian laws were not private property, but the property of the state. They were, originally, those Public Lands which had been the Domain of the Kings ; and which were increased whenever any city or people was conquered by the Romans, because it was an Italian practice to confiscate the lands of the conquered, in whole or in part, to the use and benefit of the conquering people.

Now at this time, as has been shown, the Patrician Burgesses in effect constituted the Populus, and they had occupied the greater part, if not all, of this Public Land. This land, as has also been said, chiefly consisted of pasturage; and it was manifest that if the Plebeians could add to their small farms, which were mostly in tillage, the right of feeding cattle upon these lands, their means would be much increased, and they were likely to become much less dependent upon the rich Patrician Burgesses.

§ 3. It ia said in the Annals that Servius Tullius was author of the first Agrarian regulations. He divided, we are told, part of the domain land among the poorer Plebeians, probably at the rate of seven jugera (about 4£ acres) a man ; for this is the rule that we find adopted at the expulsion of the Kings.* Whether these ancient assignments of land took effect, and whether the proposal of Spurius Cassius was merely intended to carry them into execution, or was a further law of the same character, we havo no means of judging. On either supposition, the relief of the Plebeians would be of the same kind. And as the Patricians enjoyed the use and profit of all Public Lands that had not already been divided, it is not unnatural that they should have resisted any such law with the utmost vehemence and pertinacity.

Such indeed was the case. But Sp. Cassius, the proposer of tho law, was Consul for the third time (486 B.C.). His services to tho state had been great; his official power was great. The remembrance of the Secession to the Sacred Mount was yet fresh ; and the law, after passing the Centuriate Comitia, was not rejected by the Patrician Burgesses in their Curia3. They calculated that it would be more easy to thwart the execution of the law, than to prevent its being passed. And they calculated rightly.

§ 4. But though the Patricians had yielded thus far, they only waited for an opportunity of seeking vengeance. When Sp. Cassius laid down his Consulship, that opportunity arrived. It was said, that in the Leagues formed with the Latins and Her-nicansf he had granted terms too favourable to these people, and was seeking to make himself despotic lord of Rome by means of foreigners, as Tarquin had done. It appears that there was some colour for this last accusation. Indeed, it is not unlikely, that a man such as Spurius Cassius may have contemplated overthrowing the patrician Oligarchy, and making himself a King like Servius Tullius. But whether his views were simply ambitious, or whether they were directed to the true interests of tho community, the very name of King had become hateful to Roman cars. Sp. Cassius was accused by Kaeso Fabius, then head of one of the most powerful patrician Gentes. He was tried, no doubt before a patrician court, found guilty, and condemned to die the death of a traitor. He was scourged and beheaded, and his house razed to the ground.

Such was the end of Spurius Cassius, a man little mentioned in the Annals of Rome, and who would be forgotten, were it not that the mere record of his acts at home and abroad, the Agrarian law, and the treaties concluded by him with the Latins and Ilernicans, have worthily preserved his name. His enterprise

and his end have been aptly compared with those of Agis at Sparta, or of Marino Faliero at Venice, who like him endeavoured to overthrow the power of the close and selfish oligarchy to which they ^respectively belonged.

§ 5. It is remarkable that for seven successive years after this event, a Fabius appears as one of the two Consuls ; and we constantly find one Consul in the interest of the high patrician party, while the other indicates more popular sentiments. These signs, together with some indistinct notices in two of our ancient authorities, led Niebuhr to conclude that at this time the Patricians obtained the power of electing one of the Consuls at their own Curiate Assembly, while in some years they even appointed both. Later inquiries, however, have made it probable that the Consuls were always elected at the great Assembly of the Classes and Centuries. The great influence which the Patricians had in this Assembly, by means of their own wealth and that of their Clients, must have given them at least a great preponderance in all elections; and it is possible, that for the sake of peace, some arrangement may have been made by which one Consul was generally returned in the Patrician interest, and the other in the Plebeian. Such compromises are common in all elections. But when party-spirit ran very high, the Patricians might return both of the chief magistrates themselves.*

§ 6. The same preponderating influence which enabled tho Patricians to command the consular elections, gave them power also to control the choice of the Tribunes of the Plebs, except that as both Consuls must be Patricians, so both Tribunes must be Plebeians. It is evident, that in order to make the Tribunes really the representatives and protectors of their order, they must be chosen by that order. Still, notwithstanding the mode of their election, energetic men had been found to put forth the power with which they were invested by the sanctity of the tri-bunitian office. The Patricians had successfully impeded the execution of the Agrarian law of Cassius. But three years after, a Tribune named Msenius, declared that he would prevent the militia from being called out to take the field against the Volscian and JEquian foe, till this grievance was redressed. lie offered, that is, in virtue of his protective powers, to secure any plebeian soldier against the power of the Consul, should he refuse to obey the order to give in his name for active service ; and another Tribune, named Licinius, renewed the same attempt in the next year. TheSe first essays of their newly gained power were the origin of that tremendous intercessory force, which in

* On tliia question soo Niebuhr, ii. 1T9 sqq.; with tho remarks of Becker, Antiqq. ii. part ii. p. 03.

later times was so freely exercised. At present the attempt proved an empty threat. The Consuls held their levy outside the walls of the city, where they possessed power of life and death, and where the Tribunes’ protective power availed not. The next attempt of tho plebeian chiefs was more successful. Tho Tribunes of the year 4*76 B.C. publicly indicted the Consul Menenius, son of him who had done good service to the state at tho Secession,' for suffering the Fabian Gens to be overpowered by the Yeientines, of which we shall speak presently; and the Consul was condemned to pay a fine. At length, three years after (4*73), matters were brought to issue by the Tribune Genu-cius, who impeached the Consuls of the previous year for preventing the execution of the Agrarian law. Consternation prevailed among the Patricians. The condemnation of Menenius by the Centuries, notwithstanding the votes of the Clients, struck them with dismay; and they resolved on striking a blow calculated to prevent such attempts in future. On the day of trial the Tribune appeared not. His friends sought him at home. He was found murdered in his-chamber.

§ 7. But the effect produced was contrary to expectation. The flame which the Patricians expected to smother, was fanned to greater violence. The Consuls ordered a levy to take the field, confidently expecting tame submission. But when one Yolero Pub-lilius, who had served as a Centurion, was called out as a private soldier, he refused to give his name, and appealed to the Tribunes for protection. They hung back, terrified by the fate of Genu-cius. But Yolero threw himself among his compatriots; a tumult arose, and the Consuls were obliged to take refuge in the Senate-house.

§ 8. Yolero Publilius was chosen one of the Tribunes for the ensuing year; and he straightway proposed a law, by which it was provided that the Tribunes and iEdiles of the Plebs should be elected by the Plebeians themselves at the Assembly of the Tribes in the Forum, not at the Assembly of the Centuries in the Field of Mars. This is usually called the Publilian law of Yolero.

§ 9. For a whole year, the Patricians succeeded in putting off the law. But the Plebeians were determined to have it. Yolero was re-elected Tribune; and C. Lsetorius, a man of great resolution, was chosen as his colleague : facts which show that in Reasons of excitement the people were able to procure the election of their own friends even before the passing of the first Publilian law.

The more violent among the Patricians now prepared to prevent this measure from being accepted by any means. App. Claudis, son of him whose haughty opposition had provoked the secession to the Sacred Mount, had succeeded his father as the bitterest and most determined foe of the Plebs, and was chosen Consul by his party. The law was again brought forward by the new Tribunes; and the new Consul, attended by his lictors, appeared at the Comitia of the Tribes to interrupt the proceedings. Laetorius ordered him to withdraw; and a general riot followed, which was only stopped by the intervention of the other Consul, T. Quinctius. But the Tribunes were resolved to have their law carried, and by a sudden movement they occupied the Capitol itself, and defied all the attacks of the Patricians. Appius proposed, as of old, to reduce them by force, but the milder counsels of his colleague again prevailed, and the Patricians (by the authority of the Senate) passed the Publilian law.

In the next year (470) five Tribunes were elected by tho Plebeians themselves, without let or hindrance from the Patrician Burgesses. Thus, no doubt, these officers became real protectors of their brethren. But their powers were too large and unrestricted, and the fruits of the absolute veto which they afterwards learned to exercise will amply appear in the course cf our subsequent narrative.

WARS AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS FROM THE BATTLE OF LAKE REGILLUS TO THE DECEMVIR ATE. (49G-450 B.C.)

§ 1. Great decroaso of Roman power. § 2. Vagueness in history of "Wars: famous Legends. § 3. Yolseian "Wars: Legend of Coriolanus. § 4. JEquian Wars: Legend of Cineinnatus. § 5. Yeientino Wars: Legend of Fabian Gens. § G. Leagues formed by Spurius Cassius with tho Latins and Her-nicans tho true barriers against JEqui and Volsci. § 7. Importance of theso Leagues to Latins as well as to Rome. § 8. Duration of Latin League.

Lavinium, Corioli, Lavici, Pedum, and other cities within sight of Rome. The Aequians also pressed on from the north-east; at one time they were in possession of the citadel of Tusculum, and shut up the Roman Consul within the Roman territory.

At the same time, the Etruscans of Yeii, who had recovered the lands taken from them by Rome under the later Kings, continually appeared in force upon the opposite banks of the Tiber, and threatened the Janiculum, which the Romans still retained.

§ 2. To the readers of Livy nothing is more wearying than tho monotonous iteration, with which he repeats the story of the victories won by Roman Consuls, over enemies who always appear next year unbroken and ready for fresh conflicts. lie himself felt the weariness in recording these unsubstantial conflicts, and we shall here not think it necessary to follow him.*

. But there are some famous legends connected with these threefold wars, which cannot be omitted by any writer of Roman history. These are the legends of Coriolanus, of Cincinnatus, and of the Fabian Gens. The exact time to which they refer is uncertain; nor is it material to determine.

Caius ‘Marcius was a youth of high patrician family, descended from the Sabine king, Ancus Marcius; and he was brought up by his mother Yolumnia, a true Roman matron, noble and generous, proud and stern, implacable towards enemies, unforgiving towards the faults of friends. Caius grew up with all the faults and virtues of his mother, and was soon found among the chief opponents of the Plebeians. lie won a civic crown of oak for saving a fellow-citizen at the battle of Lake Regillus, when he was seventeen years of age. But he gained his chief fame in the Yolscian wars. For the Romans, being at war with this people, attacked Corioli, a Latin city which then had fallen into the hands of the Yolscians. But the assailants were driven back by the garrison; when Caius Marcius rallied the fugitives, turned upon his pursuers, and, driving them back in turn, entered the gates along with them; and the city fell into the hands of the Romans. For this brave conduct he was named after the city which he had taken, Caius Marcius Coriolanus.

Now it happened, after this, that the Roman people being much distressed by having their lands ravaged in war, and tillage being neglected, a great dearth ensued. Then Gel on, the Greek king of Syracuse, sent them ships laden with corn to relieve the distress. It was debated in the Senate how this corn should be

* “ Non dubito” (ho says naively), “ prater eatietatem, tot jam libria assidua bella... logentibus id quoquo succursurum (quod mihi miraculo fuit)j' undo toties victis Yolscia et Aoquis suffoccrint militcs.”—vi. 12.

distributed. Somo were for giving it away to the poorer sort; some were for selling it at a low price; but Coriolanus, who was greatly enraged at the concessions that had been made to the Plebeians, and hated to see them protected by the new officers, the Tribunes, spoke vehemently against these proposals, and said: “ Why do they ask us for corn ? They have got their Tribunes. Let them go back to the Sacred Ilill, and leave us to rule alone. Or let them give up their Tribunes, and then they shall have the corn.” This insolent language wrought up tho Plebeians to a height of fury against Caius Marcius, and they would have torn him in pieces; but their Tribunes persuaded them to keep their hands off; and then cited him before the Comitia to give account of his conduct. The main body of the Patricians were not inclined to assist Coriolanus; so, after some violent struggles, he declined to stand his trial, but left Koine, shaking the dust from his feet against his thankless countrymen (for so he deemed them), and vowing that they should bitterly repent of having driven Caius Marcius Coriolanus into exile.”

He went straight to Antium, another Latin city which had become the capital of the Yolscians, and going to the house of Attus Tullius, one of the chief men of the nation, he seated himself near the hearth by the household gods, a place which among the Italian nations was held sacred. When Tullius entered, the Roman rose and greeted his former enemy : “ My name (he said) is Caius Marcius: my surname, Coriolanus—the only reward now remaining for all my services. I am an exile from Rome, my country; I seek refuge in the house of my enemy. If ye will use my services, I will serve you well; if ye would rather take vengeance on me, strike, I am ready.”

Tullius at once accepted the offer of the “ banished lord and determined to break the treaty which there then was between his people and the Romans. But the Yolscians were afraid to go to war. So Tullius had recourse to fraud. It happened that one Titus Atinius, a Plebeian of Rome, was warned in a dream to go to the Consuls, and order them to celebrate the Great Games over again, because they had not been rightly performed the first time. But he was afraid and would not go. Then his son fell sick and died; and again lie dreamt the same dream; but still he would not go. Then he was himself stricken with palsy; and so he delayed no longer, but made his friends carry him on a litter to the Consuls. And they believed his words, and the Great Games were begun again with increased pomp; and many of the Yolscians, being at peace with Rome, came to see them. $Jpon this Tullius went secretly to the Consuls, and told them that his countrymen were thronging to Rome, and ho feared they had mischief in their thoughts. Then the Consuls laid this secret information before the Senate; and the Senate decreed that all Yolscians should depart from Rome before sunset* This decree seemed to the Yolscians to be a wanton insult, and they went home in a rage. Tullius met them on their way home at the fountain of Ferentina, where the Latins had been ivont to hold their councils of old; and he spoke to them, and Increased their anger, and persuaded them to break off their treaty with tho Romans. So the Yolscians made war against Rome_r and chose Attus Tullius and Caius Marcius the Roman to be their commanders.

The army advanced against Rome, ravaging and laying waste all the lands of the Plebeians, but letting those of the Patricians remain untouched. This increased- the jealousy between tho Orders, and the Consuls found it impossible to raise an army to go out against the enemy. Coriolanus took one Latin town after another, and even the Yolscians deserted their own general to serve under his banners. He now advanced and encamped at the Cluilian Foss, within five miles of the city. _%

Nothing was now to be seen within the walls but consterna tion and despair. The temples of the gods were filled with suppliants; the Plebeians themselves pressed the Senate to make peace with the terrible Coriolanus. Meantime the enemy advanced to the very gates of the city, and at length the Senato agreed to send five men, chiefs among the Patricians, to turn away the anger of their countryman. He received them with the utmost sternness; said that he was now general of the Yolscians, and must do what was best for his new friends; that if they wished for peace they must restore all the lands and places that had been taken from the Yolscians, and must admit these people to an equal league, and put them on an equal footing with the Latins. The deputies could not accept these terms, so they returned to Rome. The Senate sent them back, to ask for milder terms; but the haughty exile would not suffer them to enter his camp.

Then went forth another deputation, graver and more solemn than the former,—the Pontiffs, Flamens, and Augurs, all attired iin their priestly robes, who besought him, by all that he held /sacred, by the respect he owed to his country’s gods, to give them assurance of peace and safety. He treated them with grave respect, but sent them away without relaxing any of his demands.

It seemed as if the glory of Rome were departing, as if the crown were about to bo transferred to tho cities of the Yolscians.

But not so was it destined to be. It chanced that as all the women were weeping and praying in the temples, the thoughlj arose among them that they might effect what Patricians and Priests had alike failed to do. It was Valeria, the sister of the great Valerius Poplicola, who first started tho thought, and she prevailed on Volumnia, the stern mother of the exile, to accompany the mournful train. With them also went Virgilia, his wife, leading her two boys by the hand, and a crowd of other women. Coriolanus beheld them from afar, as he was sitting on a raised seat among the Volscian chiefs, and resolved to send back them also with a denial. But when they camo near, and he saw his mother at the head of the sad procession, he sprang from his seat, and was about to kiss her. But she drew back with all the loftiness of a Roman matron, and said—“ Art thou Caius Marcius, and am I thy mother ? or art thou the general of the Volscian foe, and I a prisoner in his camp? Before thou kissest me, answer me that question.” Caius stood silent, and his mother went on: “ Shall it be said that it is to me—to me alone—that Rome owes her conqueror and oppressor ? Had I never been a mother, my country had still been free. But I am too old to feel this misery long. Look to thy wife and little ones; thou art enslaving thy country, and with it thou enslavest them.” The fierce Roman’s heart sunk before the indignant words of her whom he had feared and respected from his childhood; and when his wife and children hanging about him added their soft prayers to the lofty supplications of his mother, he turned to her with bitterness of soul, and said— “ O my mother, thou hast saved Rome, but lost thy son!”

So he drew off' his army, and the women went back to Rome and were hailed as the saviours of their country. And the Senate ordered a temple to be built and dedicated to “Woman’s Fortune” (Fortuna Muliebris) ; and Valeria was the first priestess of the temple.*

But Coriolanus returned to dwell among the Volscians; and Tullius, who had before become jealous of his superiority, excited the people against him, saying that he had purposely spared their great enemy the city of Rome, even when it was within their grasp. So he lost favour, and was slain in a tumult; and the words he had spoken to his mother were truly fulfilled.

This is the famous Legend of Coriolanus, which is dear to us, because it has been wrought by Shakspere into one of his noblest tragedies. Nothing can exceed the truth and force with which he has drawn the character of the haughty Patrician; but it must be observed that the Tribunes and Plebeians of th»

play ratlier represent the turbulent mob of the times of Marius and Caesar, than the sturdy countrymen who formed the people of Rome in those early days.

lii the course of these wars, Minucius, one of the Consuls, suffered himself to be cut oft’ from Rome in a narrow valley of Mount Algidus, and it seemed as if hope of delivery there was none. However, five horsemen found means to escape and report at Rome the perilous condition of the Consul and his army. Then the other Consul consulted the Senate, and it was agreed that the only man who could deliver the army was L. Quinc-tius Cincinnatus. Therefore this man was named Dictator, and deputies were sent to acquaint him with his high dignity.

Now this Lucius Quinctius was called Cincinnatus, because ho wore his hair in long curling locks (cincinni); and, though he was a Patrician, he lived on his own small farm, like any plebeian yeomen. This farm was beyond the Tiber,* and here he lived contentedly with his wife Racilia.

Two years before he had been Consul, and had been brought into great distress by the conduct of his son Kseso. This Kseso Quinctius was a wild and insolent young man, who despised the Plebeians, and hated their Tribunes, like Coriolanus. Like Corio-lanus, ho was impeached by the Tribunes, but on very different grounds. One Yolscius Fictor alleged that he and his brother, an old and sickly man, had been attacked by Kseso and a party of young Patricians by night in the Suburra; his brother had died of the treatment then received. The indignation of the people rose high; and Kseso, again like Coriolanus, was forced to go into exile. After this the young patricians became more insolent than ever, but they courted the poorest of the people, hoping to engage them on their side against the more respectable Plebeians. Next year all Rome was alarmed by finding that the Capitol had been seized by an enemy during the night. This enemy was Appius Herdonius, a Sabine, and with him was associated a band of desperate men, exiles and runaway slaves. The first demand he made was that all Roman exiles should be restored. The Consul, P. Yalerius, collected a force, and took the Capitol. But he was himself killed in the assault, and L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, father of the banished Kseso, was chosen to succeed him. When he heard the news of his elevation, he turned to his wife and said,—“ I fear, Racilia our little field must remain this year unsown.” Then he assumed the robe of

* Within tho cntrenched limits of Janiculum, wo must suppose; for all tho rest of tho Trans-Tiborino land had been restored in tho timo of Porsenna to Uio Veicn tinea.

state, and went to Rome. Now it was believed that Kaeso had beeii concerned in the desperate enterprise that had just been defeated. What had become of him was unknown; but that he was already dead was pretty certain; and liis father was very bitter against the Tribunes and their party, to whom lie attributed his son’s disgrace and death. P. Valerius, the Consul, had persuaded the Plebeians to join in the assault of tho Capitol, by promising to gain them further privileges : this promise Cincinnatus refused to keep, and used all his power to frustrate the attempts of the Tribunes to gain its fulfilment. At the end of his year of office, however, when the Patricians wished to continue him in the. consulship, lie positively declined the offer, and returned to his rustic lifo as if he had never left it.

It was two years after these events, that the deputies of tho Senate, who came to invest him with the ensigns of dictatorial power, found him working on his little farm. lie was clad in his tunic only ; and as the deputies advanced, they bade him put on his toga, that he might receive the commands of the Senate in seemly guise. So he wiped off* the dust and sw'eat, the signs of labour, and bade his wife fetch his toga, and asked anxiously whether all was right or no. Then the deputies told him how the army was beset by the vEquian foe, and how the Senate looked to him as the saviour of the state. A boat was provided to carry him over the Tiber; and when he reached the other bank, lie w^ra,. greeted by his family and friends and the greater part of the Senate, who followed him to the city, while he himself walked in state, with his four-and-twenty lictors.

Cincinnatus then chose L. Tarquitius as his Master of the Horse. This man was a Patrician, but, like the Dictator, w^Tas poor,—so poor, that lie could not keep a horse, but was obliged to serve among the foot-soldiers.

That same day the Dictator and his Master of the Horse came down into the Forum, ordered all shops to be shut, and all business to be suspended. All men of the military age were to meet them in the Field of Mars before sunset, each man with five da)V provisions and twelve stakes ; the older men were to get the provisions ready, while the soldiers were preparing the stakes. Thus all was got ready in time : the Dictator led them forth; and they marched so rapidly, that by midnight they had reached Mount Algidus, where the army of the Consul was hemmed in.

Then the Dictator, when he had discovered the place of the enemy’s army, ordered his men to put all their baggage down in one place, and then to surround the enemy’s, camp. They obeyed, and each one raising a shout, began digging tho trench and fixing his stakes, so as to form a palisade round the enemy. The Consul’s army, -which was hemmed in, heard the shout of their brethren, and flew to arms ; and so hotly did they fight all night, that the ^Equians had no time to attend to the new foe, and next morning they found themselves hemmed in on all sides by the trench and palisade, so that they were now between two Roman armies. They were thus forced to surrender. The Dictator required them to give up their chiefs, and made their whole army pass under the yoke, which was formed by two spears fixed upright in the ground, and-a third bound across them at the top.

»• Cincinnatus returned to Rome amid the shouts and exultation of his soldiers : they gave him a golden crown, in token that he had saved the lives of many citizens; and tho Senate decreed that he should enter the city in triumph.

So Cincinnatus accomplished the purpose for which he had been made Dictator in twenty-four hours. One evening he marched forth to deliver tho Consul, and the next evening he returned victorious.

But he would not lay down his high office till he had avenged his son Kaeso. Accordingly he summoned Volscius Fictor, the accuser, and had him tried for peijury. The man was condemned and banished; and then Cincinnatus once more returned to his wife and farm.

It has already been related that, after the final expulsion of tho Tarquins, the Patricians withdrew from the Plebeians those rights which they had originally obtained from King Servius, and which had been renewed and confirmed to them during the time that the Tarquins were endeavouring to return. And for a number of years it appears that the Fabii engrossed a great share of this power to themselves. For we find in the lists of Consuls that for seven years running (from 485 to 479 B.C.), ono of the two Consuls was always a Fabius. Now these Fabii were the chief opponents of the Agrarian Law ; and Kaiso Fabius, who was three times Consul in the said seven years, was the person who procured the condemnation of Sp. Cassius, the great friend of the Plebeians. This Kseso, in his second Consulship, found himself as unpopular as Appius Claudius. Ilis soldiers refused to fight against the enemy. But in his third Consulship, which fell in the last of the seven years, he showed an altered spirit, he and all his house. For the Fabii saw the injustice they had been guilty of towards the Plebeians, and the injury they had been doing to the state; and Kjeso himself came forward and proposed that the Agrarian Law of Sp. Cassius should bo carried into full effcct. But the Patricians rejected the proposal with scorn; and so the whole Fabian Gens determined to leave

Romo altogether. They thought they could serve their country better by warring against the Veientines than by remaining at home. So they assembled together on the Quirinal Ilill, in all three hundred and six men, besides their clients and followers, and they passed under the Capitol, and went out of the city by the right-hand arch of the Carmental gate.²⁶ They then crossed the Tiber, and marked out a place on the little river Cremera, which flows into the Tiber below Yeii. Here they fortified a camp, and callied forth to ravage the lands of tho Veientines and drive their cattle. "

So they stood between Rome and Veii for more than a year’s time, and the Romans had peace on that side, whereas the Yeien-tines suffered greatly. But there was a certain day, the Ides of February,! which was always held sacred by the Fabii, when they offered solemn sacrifices on the Quirinal Hill f to the gods of their Gens. On this day, Kseso, their chief, led them forth for Rome; and the Veientines, hearing of it, lay in ambush for them, and they were all cut off. And the Plebeians greatly mourned the loss of their patrician friends, and Menenius, the Consul, who was encamped near at hand, but did not assist them, was accused by the Tribunes of treacherously betraying them, as has been above recorded.§

But one young Fabius, who was then a boy, was left behind at Rome when the rest of his Gens went forth to settle on the Cre-mera. And he (so it was said) was the father of the Fabii who were afterwards so famous in the history of Rome.

After this, it is said, the men of Veii asked and obtained a peacc of forty years.

§ 6. Though these poetic legends are so much more copious than the scanty facts recorded by the Annals, these last furnish us with the true account of the manner in which the victorious inroads of the Volscians and JEquians were turned back, and their encroachments stayed. Here also the name of Spurius Cassius, albeit not celebrated in the legends, must claim our chief attention. The patrician minstrels who sang of Coriolanus and Cincinnatus left his acts unnoticed. But not the less may wo be sure that it was the Leagues formed by him with the

Latins and Hcrnicans which really stemmed the tide of conquest, and saved Latium from the dominion of these Oscan tribes. The first of these Leagues was made in the second Consulship of Cassius (b.c. 493), the second in the third Consulship (b.c. 486). It was stipulated by the first that the people of Rome and Latium should form a combined army for the purpose of repelling tho invader; their Legions -were United under the same forms, and in like manner ; andvit .is probable that in one year a Roman Consul, in another a Latin Dictator, took the supreme command. The League with the Hcrnicans was probably of a less intimate nature. In both it seems to have been agreed that all lands taken from the enemy should be shared alike by the combined nations.

§ 7. The geographical sketch above given will show the importance of these Leagues, especially of the second, for the defencc of Rome. The League of Rome and Latium was as much a defensive measure on the part of the Latins as on that of the Romans. It was chiefly Latin towns that had become the booty of the conquerors. The Hcrnicans, in their upland valleys, were probably less exposed to the common danger. But their position between the Yolscian and ^Equian hills was such, that when either of these tribes sallied down to attack the cities of Latium, their flank and rear lay exposed to the assaults of the Ilernicans. We have no detailed accounts to show how these advantages were used. But from the time of these Leagues we may date the declining power of the Oscan tribes, who had one time overrun Latium, and presented themselves before the walls of Rome. Yelitrse, Antium, Satricum, and other places were recovered ; and to Antium a colony was sent to restore its 'wasted population.

§ 8. The League formed by Spurius Cassius with the Latins, cemented as it was by common interest and common danger, remained unaltered till the Gauls broke into Latium, and with their furious onslaught confounded all that existed of order and association. The formation of an alliance which lasted unbroken foi more than a century, and which then gave way under the pressure of an unforeseen calamity, speaks of no ordinary prudence and foresight on the part of him who formed it. Yet this act was, as we have seen, turned into an article of impeachment against Spurius Cassius.*

§ 1. Progress of Plebeians: Colony of Antium. impeachment of second Appius. § 2. Great pestilence. § 3. Reform-bill of Terentilius Harsa. § 4. Violent scenes at Rome. § 5. Compromise: Triumvirs appointed to report upon Laws of Solon at Athens. § G. Public Land on tho Aventine parcelled out among Plebeians. § 7. Return of Triumviri. § 8. Appointment of Decemviri : their functions: third Appius Claudius their chief. § 9. Ten Tables completed. § 10. Resignation of first Decemvirs: successors elected, including Appius. §11. Change in bearing of Appius: despotism of new Decemvirs. § 12. Two Tables added to Code. § 13. Appius and colleagues retain office for a second year. § 14. "Warsbreak out with ^Equians and Sabines. § 15. Legend of Siccius Dentatus. § 10. Legend of Virginia. § IT. Second Secession to Mons Sacer: Decemvirs resign. § 18. L. Valerius and M. Iloratius sent to negotiate between Senate and Plebeians : Ten Tribunes elected. § 19. Restoration of Consulship; Valerius and Iloratius elected. § 20. Valerio-Horatian Laws. § 21. Triumph of new Consuls over Sabines and ^Equians. § 22. Appius impeached and dies in prison: Appius executed: tho rest pardoned. § 23. Attempt tore-elect Consuls and Tribunes.

been shown that the great Consul Spurius Cassius endeavoured to relieve the commonalty by an Agrarian law, so as to better their condition permanently.

The execution of the Agrarian law was constantly evaded, as we have seen. But, on the conquest of Antium from the Volscians in the year 468 B.C., a colony was sent thither; and this was one of the first examples of a distribution of public land to poorer citizens, which answered two purposes—the improvement of their condition, and the defence of the place against the enemy.

Nor did the Tribunes, now- made altogether independent of the Patricians, fail to assert their power. One of the first persons who felt the force of their arm was the second Appius Claudius. This Sabine noble, following his father’s example, had, after the departure of the Fabii, led the opposition to the Pub-lilian law. When he took the field against the Yolscians, his soldiers would not fight; and the stern commander put to death every tenth man in his legions. For the acts of his consulship he was brought to trial by the Tribunes, M. Duillius and C. Sicinius. Seeing that the event was certain, the proud Patrician avoided humiliation by suicide.*

§ 2. Nevertheless the border wars still continued, and the Plebeians still suffered much. To the evils of debt and want were added about this time the horrors of pestilential disease, which visited the Roman territory several times at that period. In one year (b.c. 464) the two Consuls, two of the four Augurs, and the Curio Maximus, who was the Head of all the Patricians, were swept off: a fact which implies the death of a vast number of less distinguished persons. The government w'as administered by the Plebeian ^Ediles, under the control of senatorial Interreges.f The Yolscians and iEquians ravaged the country up to the walls of Rome ; and the safety of the city must be attributed to the Latins and Hernicans, not to the men of Rome.

§ 3. Meantime the Tribunes had in vain demanded a full execution of the Agrarian law. But in the year 462 b.c., one of the Sacred College, by name C. Terrentilius Ilarsa, came forward with a bill, of which the object was to give the Plebeians a surer footing in the state. This man perceived that as long as the Consuls retained their almost despotic power, and were elected by the influence of the Patricians, this Order had it in their power to thwart all measures, even after they were passed, which / tended to advance the interests of the Plebeians. lie therefore no longer demanded the execution of the Agrarian law, but pro

* So says Dionys. ix. 51. “ Morbo moritur,” says Livy, il Cl. f Liv. iii. G-8.

posed that a commission of Ten Men (decemviri), should be appointed to draw up constitutional laws for regulating the future relations of the Patricians and Plebeians.

§ 4. The Reform Bill of Terentilius was, as might be supposed, vehemently resisted by the Patrician Burgesses. But the Plebeians supported their champion no less warmly. For five consecutive years the same Tribunes were re-elected, and in vain endeavoured to carry the bill. This was the time which least fulfils the character which we have claimed for the Roman people—paticncc and temperance, combined with firmness in their demands. To prevent the Tribunes from carrying their law, the younger Patricians thronged to the Assemblies, and interfered with all proceedings; Terentilius, they said, was endeavouring to confound all distinction between the Orders. Some scenes occurred which seem to show that both sides were prepared for civil war.

In the year 460 B.C. the city was alarmed by hearing that the Capitol had been seized by a band of Sabines and exiled Romans, under the command of one Ilerdonius.* Who these exiles were is uncertain. But we have seen, in the legend of Cincinnatus, that Kseso Quinctius, the son of that old hero, was an exile. It has been inferred, therefore, that he was among them, that the Tribunes had succeeded in banishing from the city tho most violent of their opponents, and that these persons had not scrupled to associate themselves with Sabines to recover their homes. The Consul Yalerius, aided by the Latins of Tus-culum, levied an army to attack the insurgents, on condition that after success the law should be fully considered. The exiles were driven out, and Ilerdonius was killed. But the Consul fell in the assault; and the Patricians, led by old Cincinnatus, refused to fulfil his promises.

Then followed the danger of the ^Equian invasion, to which the legend of Cincinnatus, as given above, refers. The stern old man used his dictatorial power quite as much to crush the Tribunes at home, as to conquer the enemies abroad.

One of the historians tells us that in this period of seditious violence, many of the leading Plebeians were assassinated, as the Tribune Genucius had been ; and to this time only can be attributed the horrible story mentioned by more than one writer, 'that nine Tribunes were burnt alive at the instance of their colleague Mucius.f Society was utterly disorganised. The two

* Tho circumstances, as related in tho legend, havo already been given in the story of Cincinnatus.

f Dio Cassius, Fragment. Vatican, xxii., and in tho abridgment by Zonaras, vk 11. Compare Yaler. Max. vi. 3, § 2. Tho latter atrributes it to the time

Orders wer^ on the brink of civil war. It seemed as if Romo was to become the city of discord, not of Jaw. Happily, there were moderate men in both Orders. Now, as at the time of the Secession, their voices prevailed, and a compromise was arranged.

§ 5. In the eighth year after the first promulgation of the Terentilian law, this compromise was made (454 b.c.). The law itself was no longer pressed by the Tribunes. The Patricians, on the other hand, so far gave way as to allow Three Men (triumviri) to be appointed, who were to travel into Greece, and bring back a copy of the laws of Solon, as well as the laws and institutes of any other Greek states, which they might deem good and useful. These were to be the groundwork of a new Code of Laws, such as should give fair and equal rights to both Orders, and restrain the arbitrary power of the Patrician Magistrates.

§ 6. Another concession made by the Patrician Lords was a small instalment of the Agrarian law. L. Icilius, Tribune of the Plebs, proposed that all the Aventine hill, being Public Land, should be made over to the Plebs, to be their quarter for ever, as the other hills were occupied by the Patricians and their Clients. This hill, it will be remembered, was consecrated to the goddess Diana (Jana),* and though included in the walls of Servius, was yet not within the sacred limits (pomoerium) of the patrician city. After some opposition, the Patricians suffered this Icilian law to pass, in hopes of soothing the anger of the Plebeians. The land was parcelled out into building-sites. But as there was not enough to give a separate plot to every plebeian householder that wished to live in the city, one allotment was assigned to several persons, who built a joint house in flats or stories, each of which was inhabited (as in Edinburgh and in most foreign towns) by a separate family.f

§ 7. The three men who had been sent into Greece returned in the third year (452 B.C.). They found the city free from domestic strife, partly from the concessions already made, partly from expectation of what was now to follow, and partly from the effect of a pestilence which had broken out anew.

§ 8. So far did moderate counsels now prevail among the Pa* tricians, that after some little delay they agreed to suspend tho ordinary government by the Consuls and other officers, and in

pf Spuriua Cassius. But it must have been after tho year 41T B.c.; for in that year tho number of Tribunes lirst became ten.

f Thoso houses, or blocks of houses, jointly occupied by several familios, were in Roman phrase called insulce (the term isola is still so used), while tho term domtis was restricted to tho mansion occupied by a single wealthy family.

their stead to appoint a Council of Ten, who were during their existence to be entrusted with all the functions of government. But they were to have a double duty: they were not only an administrative, but also a legislative council. On the one hand, they were to conduct the government, administer justice, and command the'armies. On the other, they were to draw up a Code of Laws, by which equal justice was to be dealt out to the whole Roman People, to Patricians and Plebeians alike," and by which especially the authority to be exercised by the Consuls, or chief magistrates, was to be clearly determined and settled.

This supreme Council of Ten, or Decemvirs, was first appointed in the year 450 b.c. They were all Patricians. At their head stood Appius Claudius and T. Genucius, who had already been chosen Consuls for this memorable year. This Appius Claudius, the third of his name, was son and grandson of those two patrician chiefs who had opposed the leaders of the Plebeians so vehemently in the matter of the tribunate.- But he affected a different conduct from his sires. He was the most popular man of the whole council, and became in fact the sovereign of Rome, At first he used his great power well; and the first year’s government of tho Decemvirs was famed for justice and moderation.

§ 9. They also applied themselves diligently to their great work of law-making; and before the end of the year, had drawn up a Code of Ten Tables, which were posted in the Forum, that all citizens might examine them, and suggest amendments to the Decemvirs. After due time thus spent, the Ten Tables were confirmed and made law at the Comitia of the Centuries. By this Code equal justice was-to be administered to both Orders without distinction of persons.

§ 10. At the close of the year, the first Decemvirs laid down their office, just as the Consuls and other officers of stato had been accustomed to do before. They -were succeeded by a second set of ten, who for the next year at least were to conduct the government like their predecessors. The only one of the old Decemvirs re-elected was Appius Claudius. The Patricians, indeed, endeavoured to prevent even this, and to this end ho was himself appointed to preside at the new elections ; for it was held impossible for a chief magistrate to return his own name, when he was himself presiding. But Appius scorned precedents. lie returned himself as elected, together with nine others, - men of no name, while two of the great Quinctian Gens who offered themselves were rejected.

bable that five, wero Plebeians. Appius, with the plebeian Oppius, held the judicial office, and remained in the city; and these two seem to have been regarded as the chiefs. The other six commanded the armies and discharged the duties previously assigned to the Qua3stors and iEdiles.

§11. The first Decemvirs had earned the respect and esteem of their fellow-citizens. The new Council of Ten deserved the hatred which has ever since cloven to their name. Appius now threw off the mask which he Had so long worn, and assumed his natural character—the same as had distinguished his sire and grandsire of unhappy memory. He became an absolute despot. Ilis brethren in the council offered no hindrance to his will: even the plebeian deccmvirs, bribed by power, fell into liis way of action and supported his tyranny. They each had twelve lictors, who carried fasces with the axes in them, the symbol of absolute power, as in the times of the Kings ; so that it was said, Rome had now twelve Tarquins instead of one, and 120 armed lictors instead of 12. All freedom of speech ceased. The Senate was seldom called together. The leading men, Patricians and Plebeians, left the city. The outward aspect of things was that of perfect calm and peacc; but an opportunity only was wanting for the discontent which was smouldering in all men’s hearts to break out and show itself. . .

§ 12. By the end of the year the Decemvirs had added two more Tables to the Code, so that there were now Twelve Tables. But these two last were of a most oppressive and arbitrary kind, devoted chiefly to restore the ancient privileges of the patrician caste. Of these Tables we will speak presently; but here it should be observed that they were made laws not by the vote of the People, but by the simple edict of the Decemvirs.

§ 13. It was, no doubt, expected that the second Deccmvirs also would have held Comitia for the election of successors. But Appius and his colleagues showed no intention, and when the year came to a close they continued'to hold office as if they had been re-elected. So firmly did their power seem to be established, that we hear not of any endeavour being made to induce them to resign.

§ 14. In tho course of this next year (449 B.C.), the border wars were renewed. On the north the Sabines, and the ./Equiaiis •on the north-east, invaded the Roman country at the same time. The latter penetrated as far as Mount Algidus, as in 458 b.c., when they were routed by old Cincinnatus. The Dcccmvirs probably, like the Patrician Burgesses in former times, regarded these inroads not without satisfaction; for they turned away tho mind of the people from their sufferings at home. Yet from

these very wars sprung the events which overturned their power and destroyed themselves.

Two armies were levied, one to clieck the Sabines, the other to oppose the JEquians, and these were commanded by tho six military Decemvirs. Appius and Oppius remained to administer affairs at home. But there was no spirit in the armies. Both were defeated; and that which was opposed to the ^Equians was compelled to take refuge within the walls of Tusculum.

Then followed two events which were preserved in well-known legends, and which give the popular narrative of the manner in which the power of the Decemvirs was overthrown.

§ 15. Legend of Siccius Dentatus.—In the army sent against the Sabines, Siccius Dentatus was known as the bravest man. lie was then serving as a centurion; he had fought in 120 battles; he had slain eight champions in single combat; had saved the lives of fourteen citizens; had received forty wounds, all in front; had followed in nine triumphal processions; and had won crowns and decorations without number. This gallant veteran had taken an active part in the civil contests between the two orders, and was now suspected by the Decemvirs commanding the Sabine army, of plotting against them. Accordingly, they determined to get rid of him; and for this end they sent him out as if to reconnoitre, with a party of soldiers, who were secretly instructed to murder him. Having discovered their design, he set his back against a rock, and resolved to sell his life dear. More than one of his assailants fell, and the rest stood at bay around him, not venturing to come within sword’s length; when one wretch climbed up the rock behind and crushed the brave old man with a massive stone. But the manner of his death could not be hidden from the army; and the generals only prevented an outbreak by honouring him with a magnificent funeral.

§ 16. Legend of Virginia.—The other army had a still grosser outrage to complain of. In this, also, there was a notable centurion, Virginius by name. His daughter Virginia, just ripening into womanhood, beautiful as the day, was betrothed to L. Icilius, the Tribune who had carried the law for allotting they Aventine Hill to the Plebeians. Appius Claudius, the Decemvir, saw her and lusted to make her his own. And with this view, he ordered one of his clients, M. Claudius by name, to lay hands upon her as she was going to her school in the Forum, and to claim her as his slave. The man did so; and when the cries of her nurse brought a crowd round them, M. Claudius insisted on taking her before the Decemvir, in order (as he said) to have tlie ease fairly tried. Her friends consented; and no sooner had Appius heard the matter, than he gave judgment that the maiden should be delivered up to the claimant, who should be bound to produce her in case her alleged father appeared to gainsay the claim. Now this judgment was directly against one of the laws of the Twelve Tables, which Appius himself had framed : for therein it was provided, that any person being at freedom should continue free, till it was proved that such person was a slave. Icilius, therefore, with Numitorius the uncle of the maiden, boldly argued against the legality of the judgment; and at length Appius, fearing a tumult, agreed to leave the girl in their hands on condition of their giving bail to bring her before him * next morning ; and then, if Virginius did not appear, he would at once (he said) 'give her up to her pretended master. To this Icilius consented; but he delayed giving bail, pretending that he could not procure it readily; and in the meantime he sent off a secret message to the camp on Algidus, to inform Virginius of what had happened. As soon as the bail was given, Appius also sent a message to the Decemvirs in command of that army, ordering them to refuse leave of absence to Virginius. But when this last message arrived, Yirginius was already halfway on his road to Rome; for the distance was not more than twenty miles, and he had started at nightfall.

Next morning - early, Yirginius entered the Forum leading his daughter by the hand, both clad in mean attire. A great number of friends and matrons attended him; and he went about among the people entreating them to support him against the tyranny of Appius. So when Appius came to take his place on the judgment seat, he found the Forum full of people, all friendly to Yirginius and his cause. But he inherited the boldness as well as the vices of his sires, and though he saw Yirginius standing there, ready to prove that he was the maiden’s father, he at once gave judgment against his own law, that Yirginia should be given up to M. Claudius, till it should be proved that she was free.* The wretch came lip to seize her, and the lictors kept the people from him. Yirginius, now despairing of deliverance, begged Appius to allow him to ask the maiden whether she were indeed his daughter or no. “If,” said he, “I find I am not her father, I shall bear her loss the lighter.” Under this pretence he drew her aside to a spot upon tho northern side of the Forum (afterwards called the Nova) TaberneG),f and

* This was called vindicias in servitutem dare. Vindex was the' legal term for claimant; vindicce was tho claim to possession. Tho opposite judgment was vindicias in liberlatem dare. The person who claimed another as slave or free was said asserere cdiqucm in servitutem, or in libertaiem. f See Cliap. iii. § 11.

licrc, snatching up a knife from a butcher’s stall, lie cried : ^u In this way only can I keep thee free—and so saying, stabbed her to tlie heart. Then lie turned to the tribunal and said: “ On thee, Appius, and on thy head be this blood.” Appius cried out to seize ^u the murderer but the crowd made way for Virginius, and lie passed through them - holding up the bloocly knife, and went out at the gate and made straight for the army. There, when the soldiers had heard his tale, they at once • abandoned their decemviral generals, and marched to Rome. They were soon followed by the other army from the Sabine frontier; for to them Icilius had gone, and Numitorius; and they found willing ears among men who were already enraged by the murder of old Siccius Dentatus. So the two armies joined their banners, elected new generals, and encamped upon the Aventine Hill, the quarter of tho Plebeians. -

Meantime, the people at home had risen against Appius; and, after driving him from the Forum, they joined their armed fellow citizens upon the Aventine. There the whole body of the commons, armed and unarmed, hung like a dark cloud ready to burst upon the city.

§ 17. Whatever may be the truth of the legends of Siccius and Virginia, there can be no doubt that the conduct of the Decemvirs had brought matters to the verge of civil war. At this juncture the Senate met; and the moderate party so far prevailed as to send their own leaders, M. Horatius Barbatus and L. Valerius Potitus, to negotiate with the insurgents. The Plebeians were ready to listen to the voices of these men; for they remembered that the Consuls of the first year of the Republic, when the Patrician Burgesses were friends to the Plebeians, were named Valerius and Horatius; and so they appointed M. Duillius, a former Tribune to be their spokesman. But no good came of it. And Duillius persuaded the Plebeians to leave the city, and once more to occupy the Sacred Mount.

Then remembrances of the great Secession came back upon the minds of the Patricians; and the Senate observing the calm and resolute bearing of the plebeian leaders, compelled the Decemvirs to resign, and sent back Valerius and Horatius to negotiate anew. - «

§ 18. The leaders of the Plebeians demanded:—1st, That tlie Tribuneship should bo restored, and the Comitia Tributa recognised. 2ndly, That a right of appeal to the People against tho power of the supreme magistrate should be secured. 3rdly, That full indemnity should be granted to tlie movers and promoters of the late Secession. 4thly, That the Docemvirs should bo burnt alive.

Of tlicse demands the deputies of the Senate agreed to the three first; but the fourth, they said, was unworthy of a free people; it was a piece of tyranny, as bad as any of the worst acts of the late government; and it was needless, because any one who had reason of complaint against the late Decemvirs might proceed against them according to law. The Plebeians listened to these words of wisdom, and withdrew their savago demand. The other three were confirmed by the Fathers, and tho Plebeians returned to their quarters on the Avcntine. Here they held an Assembly according to their Tribes, in which the Pontifex Maximus presided ;²⁷ and they now for the first time elected Ten Tribunes—first Virginius, Numitorius, and Icilius, then Duillius and six others : so full were their minds of the wrong done to the daughter of Virginius; so entirely was it the blood • of young Virginia that overthrew the Decemvirs, even as that of Lucretia had driven out the Tarquins.

§ 19. The Plebeians had now returned to the city, headed by their ten Tribunes, a number which was never again altered so long as the tribunate continued in existence. It remained for the Patricians to redeem the pledges given by their agents Valerius and Horatius, on the other demands of the plebeian leaders.

The first thing to settle was the election of the supreme magistrates. The Decemvirs had fallen, and the state was without any executive government.

It has been supposed, as we have above said, that the government of the Decemvirs was intended to be perpetual. Tho Patricians gave up their Consuls, and the Plebeians their Tribunes, on condition that each order was to be admitted to an equal share in the new decemviral college. But the Tribunes were now restored in augmented number, and it was but natural that the Patricians should insist on again occupying all places in the supreme magistracy. By common consent, as it would seem, the Comitia of the Centuries met, and elected to the consulate the two Patricians who had shown themselves the friends of both Orders—L. Valerius Potitus, and M. Horatius Barbatus.

Properly speaking, these were the first Consuls, though (in accordance with common custom) this name has been used to designate the supreme magistrates from the beginning of the Republic. But we are told by the Roman historians that before the year 449 b.c. these officers were known by the name of

Praetors.²⁸ Strictly, therefore, Valerius and Iloratius were tho first Consuls.

§ 20. As soon as they were installed in office they proceeded to redeem the pledges they had given to the Plebeian leaders by bringing forward certain popular laws, which from them are commonly called the Valerio-Horatian Laws. .

(1.) First, they solemnly renewed the old law of Valerius Pop-licola, by which it was provided that every Roman citizen should have an Appeal to the People against the power of the supreme magistrate. This had been sanctioned by the Ten Tables of the Decemvirs, and some remarks on the nature of the right will be found in the next chapter. It must here be noticed that probably the “People” designated in the old law of Poplicola was the Assembly of Patrician Burgesses, whereas now it meant tho general Assembly of the Centuries.

To the law as proposed by the Consuls, the Tribune Duillius added the terrible penalty already inflicted on nine Tribunes, and threatened to the Decemvirs that “ wlioso transgressed it should be burnt alive.”f .

(2.) Secondly, it was enacted tliat tlie Assembly of the Tribes should receive legislative power, and their measures should, like the laws passed at the Centuriatc Comitia, have authority over the whole body of citizens—Patricians and Plebeians. Hitherto the Plebi-scita, or resolutions of the Plebs, had been made merely for regulating their own affairs, and had not the force of law. Henceforth they became laws binding on all the Body Politic.^ We shall have occasion to return to this subject hereafter. At present it will be enough to note that, as will appear from our review of the laws of the Twelve Tables, the Decemvirs had included in the plebeian or local Tribes tlie Patricians, and their Clients; so that the claim of the Comitia Tributa to obtain legislative authority was no exclusive privilege conferred on the Plebeians.

§ 21. Tlie second of these laws soon showed itself in operation. It will be remembered that two armies had been sent by the Decemvirs to meet the Sabines and the iEquians in the field. When these armies marched to Rome to take vengeance upon

Appius and Lis colleagues, the enemy was left to pursue their ravages unchecked, except by the Latins and Hernicans. The new Consuls now held; a levy. Names were willingly given in, and they were soon ready to take the field at the head of men devoted to them for their good services. Victories were gained; but when Valerius and Horatius returned at the head of their troops, and halted in the Campus Martius (according to custom), that they might enter the city in triumphal procession, the Senate refused them this honour. Upon this, L. Icilius, Tribune of the Plebs, obtained a vote from the people assembled in their Tribes, by which it was ordained that the friends of the Plebs should enjoy their triumph in despite of the senatorial ill-will; and the Senate saw themselves compelled to give way.

§ 22. Meanwhile the Decemvirs had been left personally unmolested ; but Virginius, now a Tribune, singled out Appius as the chief offender, and impeached him. The proud Patrician scorned submission, and descended into the Forum, surrounded by a crowd of young men of his own order. Virginius ordered him to be arrested, and refused to hold him to bail unless he could prove “ that he had not assigned Virginia into bondage till she was proved free." This was impossible, and he was thrown into prison to await his trial before the assembled people. But to such degradation he could not stoop; and, like his father, he put an end to his own life in prison. ,

Then Sp. Oppius, the chief among the Plebeian Decemvirs, the friend and imitator of Appius the Patrician, was accused by Numitorius and executed. The goods of both were confiscated to the state (publicata sunt). But when some of the plebeian leaders would have gone on to impeach the other Decemvirs, then M. Duillius, the Tribune, came forward, and by his power of veto stayed all further proceedings. “ Enough had been done/' I16 said, “to vindicate justice and uphold freedom. Further punishments would bear the semblance of revenge, and make it still more difficult to reconcile. the two orders.” Happy is tho people which has leaders who in the heat and tumult of triumph can gain even greater honours by moderation, than by the firmness displayed in the conduct of the struggle!

§ 23. In all these proceedings no security had yet been taken for the election of Consuls more favourable to plebeian claims. The late refusal of the Senate to authorise the triumph of Valerius and Horatius, and the zeal of the young Patricians to obtain the acquittal of Appius, were not encouraging signs for future peace. The more ardent of the plebeian leaders, therefore, proposed that the Consuls and Tribunes now in office should be continued without re-election for the suceceding your. But, with

the moderation that had marked all tlieir proceedings, the Consuls declined this honour for themselves; and Duillius the Tribune, on his part, declared that he could not receive any votes tendered for reappointing himself or any of his present colleagues. But many of the Plebeians persisted in voting in this sense: and in consequence only live of the new candidates obtained votes sufficient for their election. These five then chose other five to complete the jCollege of Ten.

Thus closed the remarkable year in which the Decemvirs wero overthrown, and a new beginning of independence made for the commonalty of Rome. But before we continue our narrative, it will be proper to add a chapter on the famous code of laws left behind by the Decemvirs; for though they were passed away, and their government, was forgotten, their laws endured for many ages.

* Tliis was called cooptatio: sco Chapt. xxiv. § 3. One of tho Tribunes now elected, L. Trebonius, introduced a law by which it was enacted that hereafter tho election of the Tribunes should bo kept open till all ten received the duo number of votes.

§ 1. Few remains of the XII Tables. § 2. Difference of character in tho first X and last II Tables. § 3. Political ordinances of the X Tables. § 4. Laws for protection of Person and Property. § 5. Iniquitous provisions of the II. Tables. § G. Advantages resulting from the Code to the Plebeians.

§ 1. The Twelve Tables were considered as the foundation of all law,²⁹ and Cicero always mentions them with the utmost reverence. But only fragments remain, and those who have bestowed tho greatest labour in examining these can give but an imperfect account of their original form and contents.

§ 2. It is probable that the purpose of Terentilius and his followers, in urging the framing of a Code of laws, was to establish an equality of rights for both orders—Patricians and Plebeians, Lords and Commons. Now it will be seen in the following short statement that some laws had a contrary effect, and tended to widen the breach. These unequal laws were believed by the ancients to belong to the Two last Tables, which were enacted by the second Decemvirs, and which were unduly favourable to the extreme patrician party, while the Ten Tables of the first Decemvirs were just and equal for all.f

§ 3. We will first review the political ordinances of these Ten Tables, by which the first Decemvirs sought to establish equality between the Orders.

(1.) It has been already stated that they divided the supreme authority. All the old offices were, for the time at least, abrogated ; and the state was to be governed by a Council of ten, consisting of five Patricians and five Plebeians. This reasonable rule fell to the ground when the Decemvirate was abolished; and hence the contentions between the Orders were renewed (as we shall see) with great virulence.

(2.) The Patricians and their Clients were now probably first included in the Plebeian Tribes; and when we speak of Clients, we must now comprehend also the Freedmen (libertini)^ who

were a large and increasing class.* Further, the three old Patrician Tribes now, or before this, became obsolete; and henceforth a Patrician was known not as a Ramnian, a Titian, or a Lucerian, but as a Burgess of the Pollian, Papirian, or some other local Tribe. The term Populus Romanus, which (as before remarked) had been applicable in some measure to the united body of Patricians and Plebeians since the time when both Orders were comprehended in the Comitia of the Centuries, was now more properly and strictly so used,—though the time of their perfect union was yet to come.

(3.) In consequence of this ordinance a great alteration followed both 111 the Comitia Centuriata and in the Comitia Tributa; but as these alterations were rather future consequences of the last-mentioned ordinance, than a distinct ordinance of'the Decemvirs, it will be more convenient to notice them hereafter.f

§ 4. We will now notice a few provisions of those laws, which were intended to protect the person and property of private citizens.

(1.) It was enacted that any person claimed as a Slave should be left at freedom till such time as the alleged master proved his claim good. This was the law violated by Appius in the case of Virginia.

(2.) The power of a Father over his Children was made less absolute. By the old law the son was as much at the mercy of his father (in potestate patris) as a slave. Henceforth, by tlireo sales, real or fictitious, the son might acquire independence or become sui juris.

(3.) The law of Debt was left in its former state of severity.]; But the condition of borrowing money was made easier; for it was made illegal to exact higher interest than ten per cent. For that this is the meaning of focnus unciarium has been clearly proved by Niebuhr. Uncia (derived from unus) is one of the twelve units into which the as was divided, each being one-twelfth part of the whole.- Now -Jy of the capital is 8£ per cent.; but as the old Roman year was only ten months, we must add two months’ interest at the same rate; and this amounts to ten per cent, for the year of twelve months.

(4.) No Private Law or privilegium—that is a law to impose any penalty or disability on a single citizen, similar in character to our bills of attainder—was to be made.||

_ * All slaves who became free remained attached to their formor master as his freedmen, and he was now callod not their master (dominus), but their patron (patronus), the very same term which was used in respect to his clients. It is indeed probable that tho increase in the number of slaves and freedmen was among the causes of the gradual decay of the relation of patrons and dient3.

(5.) There was to be an Appeal to the People from the sentence of every magistrate; and no citizen was to be tried for bis lifo except before tbe Comitia of the Centuries.

It is remarkable how constantly laws of this kind were renewed, from the time of the first law of appeal passed by Valerius Pop-’ licola in the first year of the Republic. The right of Appeal was one of the demands made by Duillius on behalf of the Plebeians at the fall of the Decemvirs; and one of the first acts of the new Consuls was to provide that there should be such appeal. All these laws were finally absorbed in that of Porcius Lseca, passed nearly two centuries after (b.c. 256). This was the famous Porcian law “ de capite et tergo civiiim,” by which it was enacted that no Roman citizen should be put to death or scourged without trial before the Centuries.* These laws may be compared to our Act of Habeas Corpus, which provides that no man shall be imprisoned by the sovereign or his officers without having his person produced in open court and allowed a fair trial. And as in turbulent times this Act is sometimes suspended by the proclamation of military law, so at Rome the laws of appeal might be suspended. This was done in the earlier times by the appointment of a Dictator, and afterwards by a resolution of the Senate, *‘tliat the Consuls should see that the commonwealth suffered no injury .’’I By such a resolution the Consuls were invested with dictatorial power; they possessed the imperium within the walls of the city, and might put any dangerous citizen to death. Thus it was that the Senate proceeded against the Gracchi, and against the Catili-narian conspirators.

(6.) With regard to the laws of inheritance and contracts, they are of too intricate and technical a nature to be satisfactorily treated in a work like this. The decemviral laws on this head generally made the conveyance of property easier and more certain, favoured the power of leaving property by will, and endeavoured to secure the fulfilment of contracts. These laws are well worth careful study, for they are the foundation of the great Code of laws known in later times by the name of the Roman or Civil Law, which still prevails in Italy, Germany, and other parts of Europe.

§ 5. On the whole, therefore, it is clear that the legislation of the first decemviral council was honest and fair, and really tended to introduce equal rights both in law and government for the whole nation.

* This was the law by which St. Paul “ appealed to Crcsar”—for the Emperor then represented tho Roman People. Tho phrases varied:—Provoco ad Populum,, Appello Camrem. See tho Coin at tho end of tho last Chapter.

f “ Vidoant consules, no quid detrimenti capiat Respublica.'” and these (as lias been said) arc, by the ancients, attributed to the Two last Tables of the Code.

(1.) The old law or custom prohibiting all Intermarriage (con-niibiuin) between the two Orders was now formally confirmed, and thus a positive bar was put to what is conjectured to have been the primary aim of Terentilius and the Tribunes, namely to procure an equalisation of the two Orders. No such consummation could be looked for, when the Code of national law proclaimed them to be of different races, unfit to mingle one with the other.

It is impossible to conceive any enactment that could more tend to dissever the two Orders, and produce greater bitterness of feeling between them. At the time of passing it the law was thought to be injurious chiefly to the Plebeians; and to their feelings and their pride it was injurious. But the class to whom it was really most injurious was the Patrician; for if they had been compelled to intermarry among themselves they would sOon have dwindled into a very small number of families, as has been proved by experience in many cases.³⁰ It is probable that the wiser and more moderate of the Patricians knew this, and therefore it wa3 that this law was repealed shortly after, without much opposition, by the Tribune Canuleius.

(2.) To this may be added the celebrated law by which any one who wrote lampoons or libels on his neighbours was liable to be deprived of civil rights (diminutio capitis). By this law the poet Naevius was punished, when he assailed the great family of the Metelli.f .

(3.) We may also mention that no attempt was made to divide the Public Land more equitably. Hence we shall find that Agrarian Laws remained a ready instrument in the hands of all enemies of the Patricians and wealthy Plebeians, whether true patriots or brawling demagogues.

§ 6. But, notwithstanding these unequal laws, there can be no doubt that by the Code of the Twelve Tables the Plebeians gained a considerable step towards the adjustment of their differences with the Patrician Lords. It was nearly eighty years before these differences were completely settled, when the Licinian Laws again admitted the Plebeians to the supreme offices of the state,

SEQUEL OP THE DECEMVIRATE. MILITARY TRIBUNATE. GENERAL HISTORY TO THE WAR WITH VEII. (448-40G B.C.)

{3 1. Many Patricians go over to tho Plebeians. § 2. Canuleian Law for », legalising Intermarriage of Orders. § 3. Proposition to throw open Con' sulship to Plebeians: compromise by appointment of Military Tribunes. § 4. Nugatory nature of concession. Creation of Censorship. § 5. Surrey of whole time of Military Tribunate: three periods. § 6. Reasons for Plebeians demanding so little. § ?. Quaestors inereased from two to four: admission of Plebeians to Qusestorship. § 8. Probably at samo timo to Senate. § 9* Summary. § 10. Popularity of Sp. Maelius, a knight: struck dead by C. Servilius Ahala. § 11. Stories of twoPostumii: their severity.

§ 1. In the first joy which followed tho fall of the Decemvirs, there seems to have been a great disposition in the moderate men of both, sides to confide in the good intentions of the opposite party. This appeared fully in the conduct of the Consuls and of Duillius, the most influential of the Tribunes. But the greater part of the Patricians, especially the young men, in whom the pride of blood was hottest, seem only to have mado concessions in the hope of recalling them on the first opportunity. It could not be concealed that the Tribunes and the Comitia Tributa had received a, great accession of power; and it was, apparently, for the sake of wielding this power in their own interest that at this time we hear of Senators offering themselves for the Tribunate, and of Patricians laying aside. the dignity of their birth, and obtaining adoption into Plebeian families; nay, at this time, we read that Patricians, or those who had been Patricians, were chosen into the college of the Tribunes.*

§ 2. But the greatest omission in the arrangement cfirected by the Consuls and Tribunes of the year 449 B.C. was, that they had not insisted on the repeal of the invidious law, ratified

. * Livy QiL 65) distinctly states that of tho five Tribunes ehosen by their colleagues, in default of duo election (seo Chapt. x. § 23), two were Patricians, and that a similar attempt was mado at a later period (v. 10). If this was done without tho Patrieians having been previously mado Plebeians, it must be set down to the disorder of the times; for to the latest period, after all other political distinctions had eeased, a man of Patrieian blood could not be-como a Tribune without having been adopted as a Plebeian. Tho fact that at this timo “ many Patrieians renounced their birth to bocomo Tribunes” is stated by Zonaras (tho Epitomator of Dio Cassius), vii. 15.

lately by the Twelve Tables, by which the Intermarriage of the Orders was prohibited. Attention was perhaps called to this by the sight of Patricians seeking the Tribunate; and in the fourth year after the deposition of the Decemvirs, an enterprising college of Tribunes made it fully understood that the claims of the Plebeians were yet unsatisfied. Nothing short of social and political equality would allay the contests which had been raging, and were sure to r ige again, till the wall of severance raised up by oligarchical pride were broken down.

With these views, C. Canuleius, one of the Tribunes of the year 445 b.c., gave notice of a bill which should make the marriage of the two Orders legitimate. And at the same time his nine colleagues spoke of bringing forward a measure which should throw open the Consulship to Patricians and Plebeians alike.

Scenes of great violence followed the introduction of these bills, as before, when Terentilius Harsa was striving for his law. Wc are not informed of the particulars; but at length the Tribunes, despairing of success, again led the Plebeians out of the city, and in this third Secession'they occupied the Janiculum.* 'If, they said, the Patricians deemed their fellow citizens unworthy to marry with them, if their blood would not mingle, if they were different races of men,—it were better that they separate. Here, however, as before, the Secession gave strength to the moderate party, and it was agreed by the Patricians to allow the Canuleian law to pass without further opposition. This was in itself a revolution. It destroyed the existence of the Patricians as a caste. It was now conceded that the two Orders were equal in blood, and that children born of a mixed marriage were in law entitled to the same rank and privileges as those of pure patrician descent.f This change, more than any other, promoted that complete amalgamation of the two Orders, which followed so rapidly in the next seventy or eighty years.

§ 3. The Canuleian bill had become law. The proposal of the nine Tribunes to open the Consulship remained. Against this, the Patrician Burgesses made a firmer stand. They had yielded the most dearly prized of their social privileges; they resolved to maintain their political powers untouched. The Consuls, they argued, had sacred duties to perform; it was their business to icall together the Centuriate Assembly and preside over it, foi

* “ Tertiam seditionem incitavit matrimoniorum dignitas, ut pleboii cum patriciis jungerentur: qui tumultus in monto Janiculo duce Canulcio Trib. Pleb. oxarsit.”—Floras, i. 25. This secession is not mentioned by Livy or Dionysius.

f See tlio eloquent speech which Livy puts into tho mouth of Canuleius, iii. 3-5. It anticipates tho pregnant argument of Shylock: “ Hath not a Jew eyes? ... fed with tho same food, hurt with tho samo weapons,” &c.

none could take the auspices and perform the sacred duties associated with this business except those in whose veins ran pure patrician blood. Thus was again raised the very question which ought to have been set to rest for ever by the Canuleian law. The different nature, as it were, of Patricians and Plebeians was still made a reason for excluding the latter from the highest offices of state.

After much altercation and long delays, a compromise was agreed to, as in the case of the Terentilian law. Till a satisfactory arrangement could be'made with respect to the Consulship the chief executive power was committed to officers who bore the name of Military Tribunes, or Tribunes with Consular authority.* They were to be elected, like the Consuls, by the Centuries, and Plebeians, as well as Patricians, were to be eligible.

§ 4. It seems, at first sight, as if by this concession the Patricians had given up more than was demanded by the nine Tribunes. They asked for one of the Consulships; all the places in the Military Tribunate were opened to them. However, on examination, it turns out that these apparent concessions were more than balanced by other portions of the arrangement.

(1.) The Patricians felt quite sure, by their influence in the Comitia of the Centuries, that they should secure most of the places in the new tribunitian college. But if this seemed unlikely, the Senate had the power of suspending the new magistracy and ordering an election of Consuls for any given year.

(2.) The office of Prefect of the City seems to have been called into greater prominency now than before. In the absence of the Kings or Consuls it had been usual to invest one of the leading Senators with this high office. But now it seems to have become almost permanent. Ilis business was to preside in the Senate and in the courts of justice, and to execute all those high executive functions which were associated with regal and consular dignity. _< <₄

(3.) In the very year after the establishment of Military Tribunes, two new officers of state, called Censors, were appointed. These were both Patricians. Their business was to hold the Census, and perform the solemn rites with which every lustrum, or period of five years, was initiated; and their office was to last for the whole of this period. In later times the Censors obtained a very great and commanding power, and became the chief and crowning dignity which a Koman burgess could reach. But it cannot be doubted that the cause of their creation was to take out of the hands of the Military Tribunes some of the most important

* Their proper titlo was tribuni militares consvlari polestate, or consulari tmperio.

functions attaching to the offico of Consul. It is nowhere said that the Military Tribunes could not take the auspices. But it is said that none of them ever enjoyed a triumph; tho Patrician Tribunes would not claim this honour, lest it should also bo granted to tlieir Plebeian Colleagues. Probably the auspices were always taken by the Censors, or (when there were no Censors) by the Prefect of "the City.

It is evident, therefore, that the concessions made in the compromise of the year 444 b.c. were rather apparent than real. Even if the Plebeians had succeeded in filling all the places in the Mili-* tary Tribunate, which was not to be expected, yet the Prefect of tho City and tho Censors were there to maintain the claim of tho Patricians to exclusive management of the Comitia Centuriata, with its sacred attributes, the framing of the list of citizens, the assessment for taxation and military service.

§ 5. We must now anticipate matters a little, to sec how this system worked in practice.

The time during which the Military Tribunate lasted may bo divided into three periods: (1), eighteen years (444—42*7 B.C.), in which Military Tribunes, three in number, were elected only five times, and Consuls in the remaining years; (2), twenty-one years (420—406 B.C.), in which we count fourteen colleges of Military Tribunes, consisting of four in each year, except twice, when the number of three recurs;* (3) thirty-nine years (405—367 b.c.)in which Consuls arc found only twice, while the annual number of Military Tribunes amounts to six, except in three years,j- when they arc eight.

It appears, then, that in the first period the Military Tribunes formed an exception to tlic rule. Out of seventeen annual magistracies, there w’erc at least twelve sets of Consuls; and even in the five years when there were three Military Tribunes there wero Censors by their side.

But in the year 434 b.c. L. yEmilius Mamcrcus, himself a Patrician, and a man of highest distinction,! introduced a change. IIo was in that year invested with tlic officc of Dictator, for the purpose of conducting the war in Lower Etruria, of which we shall •<peak in the next chapter. Ilis services, however, were not required in the field; but lie brought in a law by which the Ccnsoi-s were allowed eighteen months for the purpose of executing their business, and then were required to lay down their office; so that if Censors were elected for each lustrum, there would be three years and a half in each of these quinquennial periods during which there were no Censors. We know not what were tho

motives of JSmilius in this transaction. ' So angry were the Patricians, that the next Censors disgraced this eminent man by depriving him of his political rights as a Burgess of Rome. It is shortly after this law took effect that we first hear of four Military Tribunes ; and the conjecture of Niebuhr is now commonly accepted, namely, that the fourth Tribune was the Pracfectus Urbis, and therefore necessarily a Patrician.*

The third period begins with the siege of Yeii. From this time the Military Tribunate becomes the rule, and the Consulship the exception. The number now appears fixed at six: for the three years in which eight are counted, it is probable that the two additional names were those of the Censors.f One of them was no doubt always the Prefect of the City, and he was supreme.

It may be observed that it was not till the year 400 b.c. that even a single Plebeian obtained a place in the college. After this, however, the inferior order commonly obtained their due share of places, and in one year they even formed a majority.

§ 6. It may be matter of surprise that the Plebeians were content with so little. No doubt, the first thing they looked to was their own personal well-being; as yet they cared little for political rights. All their movements had rather tended to security of life and property than to possession of power. They sought for Tribunes of the Plebs, to protect the poor debtors from the oppression of rich creditors. They demanded an equal Code of laws, that they might have known rights, not dependent on the will of patrician courts of law. They claimed the right of Appeal from the judgment of the supreme magistrate; that their persons might be secure from the arbitrary power of patrician praetors. The only exception is the second Valerian Law, by which the Assembly of the Tribes obtained the power of making laws. But for some time to come even these laws had to do only with questions of life and property; the Plebeians did not yet interfere with political matters, such as peace and war. Just so, the Commons of England, from their first assembly in Parliament to the time of James I., confined themselves to laws affecting their own personal interests, and to voting money for the purposes of government: and when they attempted to go further in Elizabeth’s time, they were stemly rebuked by that

* 418 B.C., when there wero only three Tribunes, was a censorial year, and therefore a patrieian prefect was not required. 408 B.C., when there were also but three, remains a problem.

f This is certainly the case in 403 B.C., whore Livy (v. 1) and Plutarch (Vit. Camill. 2) reckon the Censors Camillus and Postumius among the eight Military Tribunes. In the years 380, 379 B.C., Diodorus alone names eight Tribunes. Tho Censors of those years, howovcr, aro not named among thcso eight.

§ 7. We may assume that the period between the Canuleiau Law and the siege of Yeii, when the Military Tribunate seems first to have been regularly established, was a period of provisional government, during which all public relations were extremely unsettled. The few events that are preserved by the annalists fully indicate this state of things. Throughout the two first periods of the Military Tribunate, the Patrician Burgesses are evidently struggling hard to maintain their political supremacy. At first Consulships are general; the very first election to the Military Tribunate was set aside by the augurs, and the same thing happens. more than once: but at length consular years become rare, and after the beginning of the siege of Yeii almost disappear. In the year 421 b.c. the Plebeians were admitted to another office of state hitherto confined to the Patricians, namely, the Quaestorship. The Quaestors now spoken of are the Qujsstores Classici, so called because they were originally named by King Servius as paymasters of the Classes, or great military bodies, into which he divided all the people : and they must be distinguished from the Quaestores Parricidii, or Perduellionis.* As time went on, the'duties of the Quaestores Classici, now called simply Quaestors, multiplied ; and it was thought necessary to appoint four instead of two. On this, the Tribunes of the Plebs demanded, that two of the four should be Plebeians, and after some little opposition this was conceded. Some time after, the number of the Quaestors was again doubled; and in later times they became indefinite in number, since every general and every governor of a province had a Quaestor attached to his staff.

§ 8. Now it was the custom (as we know in after-times) to fill up vacancies in the Senate from those who had served as Quaestors ; and probably it was so from the beginning. When, therefore, there were eight Quaestors, the Censors at the commencement of each lustrum would find forty men, out of whom new Senators were to be chosen; and as these forty had all been elected Quaestors by the People in their Centuries, it is plain that the Senate was indirectly chosen by the People. This regulation, whenever introduced, diminished very much the arbitrary power of tlie Censors in choosing new Senators. Moreover, it gave the Plebeians admission into the Senate—a most important privilege, which was granted we know not exactly when, but probably from their first admission to the Quaestorship. For we find P. Licinius Calvus spoken of as ^w an old senator,” just

at the close of tlic Veientinc war (ill 390 B.C.),* and he was a Plebeian. Now, as the Plebeians were admitted to the Quaestor-sliip in 421 b.c. (about 20 years before), it may reasonably bo supposed that this P. Licinius was one of the first plebeian Quaestors, and that he with other Plebeians was placed by the next Censors on the roll of the Senate.

§ 9. Therefore we see the Plebeians admitted to the Military Tribuneship, by law in 444 B.C., and actually in 400; to the Quaestorship in 421, and to the Senate probably at the same time. The political disunion of the Orders was fast disappearing, and but for the Gallic invasion, which interrupted all peaceful reforms, would have ended sooner than was actually the fact.

§ 10. Yet there remained many signs of discord and discontent, though of less violence than in the time of Terentilius. Of these the subjoined narratives will afford sufficient evidence.

The year 440 b.c. was the beginning of several seasons of dearth and scarcity. To relieve the distress of the poor, a new office, called the Mastership of the Market (Praefectura Annonae), was created; and the Patrician L. Minucius was the first who held this office. But the poorer sort among the Plebeians, impatient with hunger, complained that his measures were slow and ineffectual; and their discontent was still further increased by the suspicious liberality of Sp. Maelius, a wealthy Plebeian Knight. This man employed his money in buying up corn, which he distributed for little or nothing among the poorer citizens. He thus became exceedingly popular; and he was suspected by the Patricians of a wish to raise himself to kingly power* The unhappy man paid dearly for his ambition or generosity. One of the Consuls of the year was T. Quinctius Capitolinus, one of the most vehement of the Patricians, who determined to crush the attempts of Maelius. To this end he named a Dictator, and the person chosen was the old hero L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, his kinsman, well known as a bitter enemy of the Plebeians, who now reappears for a moment upon the stage. The aged Dictator entered on his office with all the eagerness of youth; he named C. Servilius Aliala his Master of the Horse; during the night he occupied the Capitol and all the strong places in the city. Next morning he took his seat in the Forum, and sent Ahala to summon Maelius before his tribunal. Maelius knew that his case was desperate; for the Dictator being appointed, the right of Appeal to the Centuries was for the timo suspended. lie therefore refused to obey the summons; and, on his refusal, Ahala struck him dead upon the spot. Then the Dictator gave judgment that the act was necessary and justifi-

able : lie treated Maslius as a condemned traitor, and ordered his house to be levelled with the ground. The place was called the .'Equimadium. His stores of corn were sold at a low rate to the poor Plebeians by Minucius.

Cicero and the ancients always praise the conduct of Ahala, and represent him to have saved the commonwealth by Lis firmness and decision. On the other hand, the Plebeians of his own time considered Marius as a martyr to their cause; and so great was their indignation that Ahala, fearing to be indicted for murder, was obliged to leave Rome.

Which is the true view of the case—whether Mselius was a selfish demagogue or a true patriot, or something between the two— it is impossible for us in our ignorance to say. Put suspicions arc raised in his favour by remarking that the members of the Quinc-tian Gens were generally violent and tyrannical; and, further, by the notice that L. Minucius, the patrician Master of the Market, changed his mode of conduct after the death of Maelius so much as to desert his own order and become a Plebeian.³¹

§ 11. Still more angry feeling is indicated by two narratives relating to members of the haughty Postumian Gens.

In the year 431 c.c., Itome was threatened by a combined attack from the iEquians and Yolscians; and to oppose it A. Pos-tnrnius Tubertus was named Dictator. He defeated the enemy, but only by enforcing the most rigorous discipline—so rigorous, that he condemned his own son to death because he had presumed to attack the enemy, though lie conquered them, without orders. The story of the severity of the Roman father is better known in the case of T. Manlius, which occurred nearly 100 years later. . ■

Again, in the year 414 b.c.,' M. Postumius Regillensis was Military Tribune, and warmly opposed an agrarian law, by which it was proposed to divide among the poor Plebeians certain lands which had been taken from the ./Equians of Lavici’ and Bola. As commander of the army, he threatened to use his absolute power (imperium) in punishing any soldier who had dared, or should dare to further this agrarian law; and he made good his word by refusing them all share in the plunder of Bola. So exasperated were the men by this conduct, that they rose in mutiny, and stoned their general to death—a rare instance of insubordination among the soldiers of Rome. For a time, however, this violence, as is usually the case, gave advantage to the enemies of the Plebeians ; and for some years the Patricians succeeded in having Consuls elected instead of Military Tribunes.

§ 1. Steady atlvanco of Romans on sido of JEquians and Yolscians. § 2. Lower Ktruria, at peaco sinco fall of Fabii. § 3. Renewal of hostilities: Cossus wins Bpolia opima from Lars Tolumriius. § 4. Voii: siege begins in 400 B.c. § 5. Appointmont of M. Furius Camillus as Dictator. § 6. Logond of Overflow of Alban Lako. § V. Legend of Capture of Veii in tenth yoar of war. § 8. Camillus takes Falerii (story of schoolmaster),

§ 1. Since the victory gained by the Consuls Valerius and Hora-tius over the Sabines, no molestation had been experienced from that quarter. The Leagues formed by the great Consul Sp. Cassius had checked the advance of the Opican nations on the east, particularly of the Volscians. These successes continued. The towns of Lavici and Bola were recovered from the yEquians; Anxur won from the Volscians, then lost, but again won. Colonies sent to Ardea in 442 n.c., and to VelitraB m 404, shut out the Volscians from the coast-lands; while northern Latium was secured by another Colony planted at Lavici in 418. While the narratives of these wars are uncertain and exaggerated, it is clear that there was a steady progress on the part of the Latin arms: the Opican arms wero gradually being forced back into their mountains. A great change had taken place since they had been in occupation of the Alban Ilills, and threatened the very gates of Rome.

§ 2. But if less positive results were obtained against the Opi-cans on the east, a war took place against the Etruscans beyond the Tiber, which ended in the first considerable addition to the Roman territory that had been received since the fall of tho monarchy.

It will be recollected that ancient Etruria was described as being divided into two portions by the Ciminian hills; but the whole Etruscan nation was considered as constituting twelve great communities, of which twelve cities formed the centres.* All these communities were independent of each other, being governed by oligarchies, while the mass of the population were their clients or serfs. For general national purposes these twelve cities formed a federation, and their common meeting-place was the Fanum Vol-tumnse, which lay on the northern slope of the Ciminian range. When the nation engaged in common war, it was usual for them to elect a common chief, under the title of Lar or Lars. Such w^ras Porsenna of Clusium.

Since the days of Lars Porsenna, Rome had carried on a desultory war with the Veientines, as with her neighbours on the eastern frontier. But since the fatal day on which the great Fabian Gens perished on the Cremera, there had been a cessation of these feuds. The quarrel was thus renewed.

§ 3. Fidenoo was an ancient town on the Sabine side of the Tiber, opposite the Cremera, not more than six or seven miles from Rome. It was a Roman Colony, but it had repeatedly re

volted and expelled the colonists. The last time that this happened the Fidenatians called bn Lars Tolumnius of Veii to defend them from the Romans. He raised an army of bis own people combined with the men of Capena and the Faliscans, and marched against Rome. The Romans prevailed, and ,A* Cornelius Cossus, one of the Military Tribunes, slew the Veientine king with hia own hand: the linen cuirass which he took and offered up to Jupiter was long preserved, and the Emperor Augustus himself pointed outlo Livy that in the inscription upon it Gossos called himself Consul instead of Military Tribune, in order that ho might have the credit of winning the spolia opima.* After this victory, Fidenso was taken and razed to the ground: a truce was made with Veii. . . . ►

§ 4. This truce ended in the year 407 n.c., and the Veientines entreated the assistance of their Etruscan kinsfolk against the City of the Seven Hills. They met at the Fanum Voltumna3; but tho northern states were in fear of the Gauls, who were threatening to overrun their country,f and Veii was left to defend herself. She was no mean rival—as large as Rome, well-peopled, not more than twelve miles 'distant; and, from the preparations made on the part of Rome, it was plain that the war must end in the destruction of one city or the other. The Veientines, however, did not dare again to meet the Romans in the field, and allowed their city to bo invested. This was the first time that the Roman militia kept the field for a continuance. Hitherto the men had gone forth for a short campaign, but now they were obliged to remain in the field for the whole year, in order effectually to blockade the enemy’s city. Ilence it became necessary to pay the army for the whole year, instead of furnishing them with a small allowance for the summer’s campaign.^ ,

§ 5.' But the siege lasted several years without any progress on the part of the Romans. Their soldiers were (as we have said) a kind of militia, unused to the work of a regular siege; and the Veientines, assisted now by the people of Capena and Falerii, met them in the field and defeated them. A panic fear spread from the army to Rome; the matrons crowded to the temples; tho Senate met and ordered that a Dictator should be appointed. The choice fell on M. Furius Camillus, a great name, which is now mentioned for the first time.

* Liv. iv. 20. For, as Military Tribune, ho could not l>e sole commander of tho legions.

f They had oxpollod tho Etruscans from tho valley of the To, but when this took placo is quito unknown. Introduet. Sect. ii. § 0.

t regular pay (stipendium) was 100 asses a month, or in later times a denarius overy threo days. Of the modo in which the pay was raised au account will bo given in Chapt. xxxvi. § 1.

From about the time of his appointment tho story of the siege passes into an heroic legend, like those of Coriolanus and tho rabii. Thus it runs.

§ G. The panic fear which overpowered the people in the seventh year of the war was not caused by defeat alone. It was magnified by prodigies and marvels : for when summer was now far spent, the Alban Lake, which stands high on the Alban Ilills without any visible outlet for its waters, began to rise, and at length poured itself upon the plain below. Prayers and sacrifice availed not; the waters still flowed on. Then tho Senate sent to consult tho oracle at Delphi what should be done to avert tho mischief.

Meantime an old Yeientino soothsayer was heard to laugh at tho Romans who were encamped by Yeii; “for,” said he, “it is written in tho Book of Fate that Yeii shall never bo taken till the waters of the Alban Lake find a passage into the sea.” A Roman centurion who heard this persuaded the old man to como forth and advise him about certain matters of his own : then he seized the old man, and tho generals sent him to Rome to be examined by tho Senate. But tho Senate paid no heed to him till the messengers returned from Delphi, and said tho same things as the old Yeientine soothsayer. Then they set to work and made a great tunnel loading from the south-western part of the lake to the river Anio ; and so the waters escaped into the river, and flowed down with its waters into the sea. The tunnel, called in Latin an em.issarium 01* out-lettcr, to which tho legend refers, still remains. It is hewn through hard volcanic rock for a distance of nearly three miles, measuring about five feet in height and three in breadth.* It would bo a great work oven in these days.f

When tho Yeiontines found that tho fates were about to bo fulfilled, they sent messengers to ask for peace. But the Senate turned a deaf ear to their prayers; whereupon one of the messengers said, “ It is written truly that our city should fall; but it

* Seo tho Section and Plan at the head of this Chapter. Tho Alban stono is noted for its hardness. To check tires at Rome, tho Emperor Augustus ordered that a portion of every new house should bo of Alban or Gabian stono. —The interpreters suppose that theso enigmatical orders darkly hinted at tlio operation of mining, by which (as the legend says) Veii was taken.

f There is a similar eniissarium to let off tho waters of tho Fucino Lake (Lake of Celano) in tho vEquian mountains. It was executed in tho time of tho Emperor Claudius, and is three miles in length from tho edgo of the lako to tho bed of the Liris. Its height is about ten feet, and its breadth six. Thirty thousand men wero engaged for eleven years in the work; and after all, it failed. In our own days, a company has been formed to complete tho work, tho calculated expense being 160,000/.. These facts will give some notion of tho greatness of tho work of draining tho Alban Lake, which was successfully executed in tho infancy of tho Roman Republic.

is also written (though ye know it not), that if Yeii should fall, Rome shall be destroyed also.” But still the Senate listened not, and M. Furius Camillus was appointed Dictator, as has been told before. , ,

§ 7. Camillus dallied not with the work. lie was not con' tented with blockading the city as before, but began a mine which was to open into the citadel; and when this was ready for springing, he sent for all citizens to come from Rome and share in tho plunder.

As the Romans stood in the mine, so runs the Legend, the King of the Yeii was offering a sacrifice to Juno in the citadel; and they heard the soothsayer declare that whoever completed that sacrifice, should prevail. Then Camillus gave the sign, and the YeientineS were astounded to sec armed Romans rise from the floor beneath their feet. So they and their king were slain, and the Romans completed the sacrifice. And Camillus sent a band of young men dressed in white, with hands clean from blood, to carry the statue of the great goddess Juno to Rome. But they, not daring to touch her, asked whether she were willing to go ; and then (it is said) she nodded assent, and the statue was placed in a new temple dedicated to her upon the Aventine.

Thus fell Yeii, like Troy, in the tenth year of the war, and the people obtained a great booty. And Camillus entered Rome, and descended the Sacred Way, and went up to the Capitol in a car drawn by four white horses, like the chariot of the sun. Never Jiad general so triumphed before, and old men feared that the vengeance of the gods might come upon his pride,

§ 8. Yeii had fallen, and her few allies were not left unpunished. First, the Romans attacked and utterly destroyed Capena; then Camillus, who was now a Military Tribune, went against Falerii, the chief city of the Falisci,* which also fell an easy prey to the Roman arms. The story goes that when lie appeared before this city a certain schoolmaster, who taught the sons of all the chief men, brought them out by stealth and offered to put them into the hands of the Romans. But Camillus, scorning the baseness of the man, ordered that his hands should be tied behind him, and that the boys should flog him back again into the town; “for Romans,” said lie, “ war not with boys, but with men.” Then the Falis-cans, won by his noble conduct, willingly surrendered their city (n.c. 394).

Soon after Sutrium and Nepeto also surrendered, and as Cjcro was an ancient ally of Rome, her power was paramount in

* Tlioso Faliscans, though in Etruria, wero not Etruscans. Yirgil calls them JEqui Falisci {JEn. vii. G95). Probably they wero of tho Opican race, which iuhabitod tho country beforo tho incoming of tho Etruscans.

all the district south of the Ciminian forest. Nor was this all Three years later they came in collision with the powerful city of Yolsinii, (Bolsena), north of the Ciminian range, and won a battle. A peace of twenty years was then concluded. Doubtless the same reasons had prevented the northern Etruscans from aiding their southern compatriots, and now hastened this peace. The Gauls ere this had crossed the Apennines.

§ 9. The conquest, of Yeii very nearly proved the ruin of Rome; It was a large and beautiful city, well and regularly built, on a plain, with a citadel of great natural strength overhanging tho city. All the plain country round, up to the hills of the Cirni* liian forest, were now subject to Rome. The* Veientincs themselves, according to the barbarous practice of ancient times, had all been put to the sword or sold into slavery. There stood tho goodly city empty, inviting people to come and dwell in her.

On the other hand, Rome with her seven hills presented a series of ascents and descents; in the ancient city there was hardly a level street. The streets themselves were much less regular and handsome than those of Yeii, and the climate was even then bad, as has been said above.* .

It is not wonderful then that men should turn their thoughts towards Yeii, especially those poor Plebeians who had no lands at Rome. Some called for an agrarian law, to divide the lands of Yeii among the people ; but T. Sicinus and some of his brother Tribunes proposed that half the people should go and settle in Yeii, so that she should form another state equal to Rome. At first this proposal was stopped by the veto of two Tribunes who opposed their colleagues; but at length it was brought before the People, who now listened to the reasoning of the Patricians, and eleven tribes out of twenty-one voted against the bill: thus the Tribunes were defeated even in their own Assembly.

Ilappy for Rome that her people were so moderate and reasonable. Separation such as was proposed might have condemned both Rome and Yeii to become obscure Latin towns, like Tuscu-lum or Pneneste, and the sovereignty of Italy might have fallen to the Samnites or to Pyrrhus of Epirus. But Providence had determined that Rome was to be the mistress of the world, and she remained unbroken by the will of her own people.

Satisfied with this victory, the patrician party consented to an agrarian law on a large scale. The Yeientine lands were distributed, and seven jugera were allotted to every householder, with an additional allowance for his children.

§ 10. Meantime the great Camillus had lost favour with his countrymen. His patrician pride all along diminished the popu-

larity which as a conqueror he could not fail to win : and he lost still more when he called upon every man to refund a tenth of the spoil they had taken aitYeii; for though he, in the moment of victory, had vowed to offer his tenth to Apollo, yet the plunder was taken before there had been time to set apart the portion of the god. Poor men ill brook to part with what they think their own; and in this case the whole of the ill-will fell upon the general. “His vow,” they said, “was a mere pretence to rob the Plebeians of their hard-won spoil.”

Still worse than this, it was not long before men came forward and accused Camillus of taking much of the booty for his own share, which ought to have been fairly divided among all. Especially, it was said, he had appropriated the great bronze gates, which in those days, when all coin was made of bronze, were exceedingly valuable. The general was impeached for corrupt practices by L. Appuleius, Tribune of the Plebs (391 b.c.) Ilis Clients and Tribesmen offered to pay the fine, which probably would have been imposed upon him, but said they could not acquit him. He therefore left the city, and as he left it he turned about and prayed that his country might soon have reason to feel his want and call him back again. Ardea, a city of the Latins, was his place of refuge.

§ 11. There can be little doubt that the great Camillus really took these gates. But how far he was guilty of an illegal act we cannot determine. He might think that he was entitled to them, for it was acknowledged that a general had a right to set apart a portion for himself i and we may well believe that his chief fault was, that in his pride lie arrogated to himself more than was generally thought right. All would wish to believe that so great a man was not to be blamed for greed and baseness.

His parting prayer was heard : for “ the Gaul was at the gates,” and the next year saw Rome in ashes.

§ i. Introductory. § 2. Who tho Gauls were. § 3. Migration of Celtic nations: occupation of Northern Italy by Gauls. § 4. Who those Gauls were that burnt Rome. § 5. Legend of quarrel with Gauls, and battle of Alia. § 6—8. Of sack of Rome and blockade of Capitol. § 9. Of delivery by Camillus. § 10. Falsehood of last Legend. § 11. Later inroads of Gauls. § 12. Legends of T. Manlius Torquatus and M. Valerius Corvus.

§ 2. Before telling the tale of the destruction of Home by the Gauls, it will be well to ask—Who were these Gauls ? *

They were a tribe of that large race of mankind who are known under the name of Celts, and who at the time in question peopled nearly the whole of Western Europe, from the heart of Germany to the ocean. The northern and central parts of the continent were already in the hands of various nations, called by the common name of Germans or Teutons, to whom belonged the Goths, Saxons, Danes, Normans, Lombards, Franks, and Alemanni,— names which yet live in Europe. But the Celts in earlier times possessed a far extended range of country—France, great part of Germany, most of Spain and Portugal, together with the British Isles. Of these Celts there were, and still are, two great divisions, commonly called Gael and Cymri, differing in habits and language.* The ancient inhabitants of France were Gael, those of Britain and Belgica were Cymri; and the Druidical religion, though sometimes adopted by the Gael, w^ras properly and originally Cymric. Gael are still found in Ireland and in the Highlands of Scotland ; Cymri in Wales and Low Brittany; and they have left traces of-their name in Cumber-land. But the great Celtic race, once so widely spread, has been, as it were, pushed into the sea by the Gothic and German tribes. The few fragments of them that remain are usually found 011 the western verge of their old countries.

§ 3. Now before the time we are now speaking of, there had been a great movement in these Celtic nations. Two great swarms went out from Gaul. Of these, one crossed the Alps into Italy; the other, moving eastward, in the course of time penetrated into Greece and then passed into Asia Minor, where they were known under the name of Galatians.f

It is supposed that the Gael who dwelt in the eastern parts of Gaul, being oppressed by Cymric tribes of the west and north, went forth to seek new homes in distant lands, as in later times the Gothic and German tribes were driven in the contrary direction by the Huns and other Asiatic hordes, who were thronging into Europe from the cast. At all events, it is certain, that large bodies of Celts passed over the Alps before and after

'* Celt is strictly the same as Gael (K ehr-ai, Yalar-al, Gall-i, Gael, being all one), and therefore is itself properly opposed to Cymri. But it is convenient to have one common name, and most modem writers have taken Celt or Kelt as tho generic appellation of the race.

f They plundered tho templo of Delphi in 279 B.C., rather moro than a ccntury after their compatriots sacked Rome. Sco Dr. Smith’s Uistoi'y of Grccce, chapt. xlvi. § 4 this time, and having once tasted the wines and eaten tho fruits of Italy were in no hurry to return from that fair land into their own less hospitable regions. We read of one swarm after another pressing into the Land of Promise; parties of Lingones, whose fathers lived about Langres in Champagne; Boians, whose name is traced in French Bourbon and Italian Bologna; Senones, whose old country was about Sens,³² and who have left record of themselves in. the name of Senigaglia, (Sena Gallica) on the coasts of the Adriatic* The. course taken by these adventurers was' probably: over divers, passes of tho Alps, from that of the Mount Cenis. and¹ the Xittle St. Bernard to the Simplon. Pouring from these outlets, they overran the rich plains of Northern Italy, and so occupied the territory which lies between the Alps, the Apennines, and the Adriatic,! that the Romans called this territory Gallia Cisalpina, or Hither Gaul. The northern Etruscans gave way before these fierce barbarians, and their name is heard of no more in those parts. Thence the Gauls crossed the Apennines into Southern Etruria, and while they were ravaging that country they first came in contact with the sons of Rome. *- ₍

§ 4. The common- date for this event is 390 b.c. IIow long before this time the Gallic hordes had been pouring into Italy we know not. But whenever it. was that they first, passed over the Alps, it is certain that now they first crossed the Apennines.

The tribe which took this course were of the Senones, as all authors say, and therefore we may suppose they were Gaelic; but it has been thought they were mixed with Cymri, since the namo of their king or chief was Brennus, and Brenhin is Cymric for a King.J They are described as large-limbed,. with . fair skins, yellow hair, and blue eyes, in all respects, contrasted with the native's of Southern Italy—a description which suits Gael better than Cymri. Their courage was high, but their tempers fickle. They were more fitted for action than endurance; able to conquer, but not steady enough to maintain and secure their conquests. These qualities attributed to the Gallic nations of antiquity, show themselves remarkably in tlieir descendants. Nowhere,, as above observed, have tho Celts been able to sustain the approach of the German nations; even in Gaul, transformed as it was by Roman civilisation, the Germans prevailed. The modern French nation is a compound of these conquerors,-Goths, Vandals, Franks, Norths men, with the original Celtic population. , . ■ _r ; . _ ,

§ 5. Such is a brief account of the Gauls who destroyed Rome.; Now begins the Roman Legend. .. . ; • ..

Brennus and his barbarians (it was said or. sung) passed into Etruria at the invitation of Aruns, a citizen of Clusium (Chiusi), whose daughter had been dishonoured by a young Lucumo or Noble of the same place. To avenge his. private wrongs this Etruscan called in the Gauls, as Count Julian in the. Spanish romance called in the Moors. to avenge the seduction of his daughter by Roderic the Goth. The Gauls, nothing loth, crossed the mountains, and laid siege to Clusium ; on which the Etruscans of the city, terrified and helpless, despairing, of effectual succour from their own countrymen, sent to. seek aid from the city of the Tiber, »which had formerly ,measured arms with their own King Porsenna, and which but now had conquered so many old Etruscan cities. Common danger makes friends of foes; and the Senate, determined to support the Etruscans against the barbarians. However, all they did was to send three ambassadors, sons of Fabius Ambustus, the Pontifex Maximus, to warn > the ’■ Gauls not to meddle further with the men of Clusium, for Clusium Was the ally of Rome; Tlie barbarians took slight notice of the message, and continued the war.- Now it * chanced. that there was .a battle fought while the three Fabii were still at Clusium;> and they, forgetting their peaceful character as envoys, took part with the Clusians against the Gauls, and one of them was seen stripping the arms off a Gallic champion whom he had slain. The barbarians, in high Wrath, demanded to be led straight against the city whose sons were so faithless; but their chiefs restrained them, and sent -an embassy to Rome demanding that the envoys should be given up. Then the Senate, not caring to decide so weighty a matted, referred it to the People ; and so far were they from listening to the demands of the Gauls, that at the Comitia next ensuing, these very envoys were all three elected Military Tribunes. On hearing of this gross and-open insult, Brennus broke up his camp at Clusium, and the Gauls marched southward for Rome. The river Clanis, upon which stood Clusium, led them down to tho Tiber beneath Yulsinii; they crossed that river, and pouring down its left bank, they found themselves confronted by the Romans On the banks of the Alia, a little stream that rises in the Sabine hills and empties itself into the Tiber at a point nearly opposite the Cremera. Their left rested on the Tiber, the Alia was in their front, and their right occupied some hilly ground. Brennus did not' attempt to attack in fronf, but threw himself with an overpowering force upon the right flank of the enemy; and the Romans, finding their position turned, were seized with panic fear and fled. The greater part plunged into the Tiber in the hope of escaping across the river to Yeii, and many made their' cscape good; but many were drowned, and many pierced by Gallic javelins. A still smaller number made their way to* Rome, and carried home news of the disaster. ■ -

The Gauls cared not to pursue the flying foe. Oiie day, or even two days (as some accounts give it), they spent in collecting trophies'and rejoicing in their great and easy victory. »•* § G. Meantime the Senate at Rome did what was possible to retrieve their fallen fortunes. With all the men of military age they' withdrew into- the Capitol, for they had not numbers enough to nian the walls⁵ of the City. • These were mainly Patricians. The mass of the* Plebeians; with the women’, fled to Veii. The priests and vestal virgins, carrying with them the sacred images and utensils,' found refuge at the friendly Etruscan city of Caere. But the' old senators, who had been Consuls or Censors, and had won triumphs and grown gray in their country’s service, feeling themselves to be now no longer a succour but a burthen, determined to' sacrifice themselves for' her; and M; Fabius, the Pontifex, recited the‘form of words* by which they solemnly devoted themselves to the gods below, praying that on their heads only might fall the vengeance and the destruction. Then, as the Gauls approached, they ordered their ivory chairs to be set in the Comitium before the temples of the gods’jf and there they took their seats, each man clad in his robes of state, to await the coming of the avenger. •

§ 7. At length the Gallic host approached the city and came to the Colline gate. It stood wide open before their astonished gaze, and they advanced slowly, not without suspicion, through deserted' streets, unresisted and unchecked. When they reached the Forum, there within its sacred precincts they beheld' those venerable men, sitting like so many gods descended from Heaven to protect their own. They gazed with silent aWe : till at length a Gaul, hardier than his brethren, ventured to stroke the -long beard of M. Papirius. The old hero raised his ivory' staff and smote the offender; whereupon the barbarian in wrath slew him; and this first sword-stroke gave the signal for a general slaughter. Then the Romans in tho Capitol-believed’ that the gods had accepted the offering which those old men had made, and that the rest would be saved.

But for a time they were doomed to look down inactive upon the pillage of their beloved city. Fires broke out, and all the houses perished, except some upon the Palatine, which were saved for the convenience of the chiefs. At length the Gauls, sated with plunder, resolved to assault the Capitol. In those di^’s it was surrounded on all sides with steep scarped cliffs, and only approachable from the Forum by the Sacer Clivus. Here the Gauls made their assault; but it was easily repulsed, and henceforth they contented themselves with a blockade^ A portion of them remained in the city, while the rest roamed through Southern Italy, plundering and destroying.

§ 8. The months that follow are embellished with more than one heroic Legend. • We read that while the Gauls were lying at the foot of the Capitol, they were astonished to see a youth named

0. Fabius Dorso come down into the midst of them, clad in sacred attire, and pass through the Forum along the Sacred Way to the Quirinal Hill, there to perform certain solemn rites peculiar to the great Fabian Gens.* Struck with religious awe, they suffered the bold, youth to go upon his way and return to the Capitol unharmed. _

Still more famous is the Legend of M. Manlius, the saviour of the Capitol. The Plebeians at. Yeii were anxious to communicate; with the Senate and Patricians there; and for this purpose Pontius Cominius, a brave patrician youth, undertook to climb up the steep rock of the Capitoline Ilill on the river side.fj He explained to the Senate the wish of the People to rccal Camillus and make him Dictator; and having obtained their sanction, lie returned the same way in safety. But next day, the Gauls observed the marks on the rock where his feet had rested, or where lie had clung, for support to the tufted grass and bushes. Where one man had climbed another could follow;; a,nd a chosen party cautiously ascended by the same track. The foremost of them was just reaching the top in safety; the guards slept; not even a watch-dog bayed. But in the temple of Juno, which stood hard by, certain sacred geese were kept, and the pious Romans (so ran the legend) had spared to eat of .these even in the extremities of hunger. And they were rewarded. For now, in the hour of need, the sacred birds began to cackle aloud and flap their wings, so that they roused M. Manlius from sleep. Then he, hastily snatching up his .arms, rushed to the edge of the cliff where the noise was, and found a Gaul who had just reached the top. On he rushed and pushed

f Tho plaeo designated was somewhere near tho steps which now lead up to tho Capitol, U<.*ur tho church of Araeclu him backward; and his fall so alarmed his comrades, that some fell down, and others were slain without resistance. Thus did M. Manlius save the Capitol; aud his fellow-soldiors honoured his bravery so highly, that each man gave him a day’s allowance of food, notwithstanding the distress to which all had been reduced,

§ 9. For seven months did the Gauls blockade the Capitol.³³ They entered the city in the heat of the Dog-days,f and the two months that follow are at Rome the most unhealthy of the year. Unused to the sultry climate, naturally intemperate, living in the open air, numbers of them fell a prey to pestilence and fever. But with stubborn courage they braved all, till at length Brennus' agreed to quit Rome on condition of receiving 1000 pounds weight of gold. This was hastily collected, partly from the temples of the Capitol, partly from private sources; and when it was being weighed out, Brennus with insolent bravado threw in his sword with the weights, crying, “Woe to the vanquished!” While the scale was yet turning (so ran the legend), Camillus, who had successfully repulsed the Gauls from Ardea, and then as Dictator had taken the command of the Roman army at Veii, marched into the Forum. Sternly ho ordered the gold to be taken away, saying that with iron, not with gold, would lie redeem the city. Then he drove the Gauls away, and so completely destroyed their host, that not a man was left to carry home the news of their calamity.

' § 10, Such was the conclusion of the Legend. But* unfortunately for Roman pride, here also, as in the tale of Porsenna, traces of true history arc preserved which show how iittle the Roman annalists regarded truth. Polybius tells us, as. if he knew no other story, that the departure of the Gauls was caused by the intelligence that the Venetians, an Illyrian tribe, had invaded their settlements in Northern Italy, and that- they actually received the gold and marched off unmolested to their homes. It is added by a later historian, that Drusus, the elder brother of the Emperor Tiberius, recovered this very gold from the Gauls of his own day. This last account at least shows that in the time of Drusus the heroic Legend of Camillus found little credence.

The Gauls left the city in ruins, in whatever way they were compelled to retire, whether by the sword of Camillus, or

by the softer' persuasion of gold. Of the‘ effects of their invasions and tho- condition of Rome thereafter, we will speak in the next chapter. . '

' §11. It may be convenient to mention beforehand the two later invasions,³⁴ which perhaps were quite as formidable, as the first, though the Romans now resisted with greater courage and firmness. - ' ' ‘ '■ ^f

' Thirty years after the first irruption (3G1 B.C.), we hear that another host of Senonian Gauls burst into Latium from the North, and in alliance with the people of Tibur, ravaged tlib lands of Rome; Latium, and Campania.'’ For four years they continued" their ravages, and then we hear of them no more. -

A third irruption followed, ten' years later, of still more formidable character. The Gauls formed a stationary camp on the Alban Hills, and kept Rome in perpetual terror. But, in tho* Second year, the Romans' under the command of L. Furius Camillus, a nephew of the great M. Camillus,: took the field against them, and so harassed them by cutting off their supplies, without ‘ venturing' on a general action, that after some months they poured southward, and disappear from history. Therefore Lucius Camillus was called by Aristotle “ the Deliverer of Rom6” from the Gauls.* (n.c. 350, 349.) - * ' * . ^ . -After this, the Romans did not come in contact with the: Gauls* for^-many years ; and then they • were* the: inVaders Of Gallia Cisalpina, not the Gauls of Latium. - * - ' ^;

§12.‘These later inroads of the Gauls are distinguished by two famous Legends;'the last, or nearly the last, which'occur in the pages of Roman history. v ...

In the Manlian house there was a Family which bore the name of Torquatus. This name was said to' have' been won by IV Manlius, who fought with "a gigantic Gallic champion on the bridge over the Anio in 361 b.c., and slew him. From tile neck of the slain enemy he took the massy chain (torques) which the Gallic ^ chiefs'were in the habit of wearing.f He put it .round his own neck, and returning in triumph to his friends, was 6ver after known by the name of T. Manlius Torquatus. Of him we shall hear more in the sequel. ' " ‘

. Again, when L. Camillus w^ras pursuing the Gauls through the Volscian plains in 349 B.C., a champion challenged any one of the Iloman youth to single combat. The challenge was readily

accepted by M. Valerius, who, by the side of tho huge Gaul, looked like a mere stripling, At the beginning of the combat (wonderful to tell) a crow lighted upon his helmet; and as they fought, the bird confounded the Gaul by flying in his face and striking him with his beak, and flapping his wings before liis eyes; so that he fell an easy conquest to the young Roman. Hence M. Valerius was ever k:nown by the name of Corvus, and his descendants after him. Him also w e shall hear of hereafter; for he lived to be a great general, and more than once delivered his country from great danger.

SEQUEL OP TIIE GALLIC WAR. LICINIAN LAWS. FINAL EQUALISATION OF THE TWO ORDERS. (389--3G7 B.C.)

§ 1. Proposition to migrate to Yeii renewed: defeated by an omen. § 2. Irregularity in rebuilding tho City. § 3. Misery of the people. § 4. M. Manlius comes forward as their patron: his fate. § 5. Estimate of his character. § 6. Measures to eoneiliate the Plebs: Pour new Tribes ereated from the Yeientine territory. § 7. Claims of the Plobeians to the Consulate renewed by C. Licinius and L. Sextius. § 8. Pretended cause of their enterprise. §9. Tho three Licinian Rogations promulgated 376 B.C. §10. First, for reduction of debt. § 11. Seeond, agrarian. § 12. Third, political. § 13. Violent opposition of the Patricians, met by an interdict on all elections by Lieinius and Sextius. § 14. Struggle prolonged for live years. § 15. CompromisD refused by the Tribunes: after five years more the Licinian Rogations become Law. § 1G. Sextius first Plebeian Consul: Patrician Curies refuse him the Imperium. § 17. This Quarrel adjusted: judicial power of the Consul transferred to a new Patrician Magistrate: tho Praetor: Curulo JEdiles. § 18. Camillus vows a Temple to Coneord: rapid rise of Roman power consequent on the Union of the Orders.

ravaged and the farms of the plebeian yeomen destroyed, as had often happened in days of yore, but the city itself, except tho Capitol, was a heap of ruins, it is not strange that once again the Plebeians should liavo thought of quitting Rome for ever. Not long before a great body of them had wished to make Yeii their city; now, the bulk of the people had actually been living there for many months. Home 110 longer existed; patriotism, it might be said, no longer required them to stand by their ancient homo: why should not all depart—Patricians with their Clients and Freedmen, as well as Plebeians—and make a new Rome at Veii? Thus was the question argued, and so it seemed likely to be decided. In vain Camillus opposed it with all tho influenco which his late services had given him. Even ■ standing in thb Forum, under the shadow of the Capitol, with the Citadel so well defended by Manlius over their heads, in the sight of their country’s gods, which had now been safely brought back from tho friendly refuge of Caere, tho Plebeians wero ready to agree to a general migration of the whole people, when (so runs the story) a sudden omen changed their hearts and minds. A certain centurion was leading a party of soldiers through the city, and, halting them in the Forum while the question was in hot debate, ho used these memorable words: “ Standard-bearer, pitch the standard here; here it will be best for us to stay!”

§ 2. It was therefore resolved to rebuild tho city, and the Senato did all in their power to hasten on the work. They took care to retrace, as far as might be, the ancient sites of the temples; but the hurry was too great and authority too w^reak to prescribe any rules for marking out the streets and fixing the habitations of tho citizens. All they did was to supply tiling for the houses at tho public expense. Then men built their houses where they could, where the ground was most clear of rubbish, or where old materials were most easy to be got. Ilence, when these houses camo to be joined together by others, so as to form streets, these streets were narrow and crooked, and, what was still worse were often built across the lines of the ancient sewers, so that there was now no good and effectual drainage. The irregularity continued till Rome was again rebuilt after the great fire in the time of the Emperor Nero.

§ 3. Great were the evils that were caused by this hurry. Tho healthiness of the city must have been impaired, order and decency must have suffered, but there was one particular evil at the moment which threatened very great mischief. Tho .mass of the people, having little or nothing of thfcir own, or having lost all 'in the late destruction, were obliged to borrow money in; order to completo their dwellings ; and as tillage had for tho last season

been nearly suspended, tho want and misery that prevailed was great. Now, we have seen that the Twelve Tables did indeed regulate the rate of interest, but left untouched the ancient severity of the laws of debt ;* so that now again, as after the wars against the Tarquins, many of the poorer sort were reduced to bondage in the houses of the wealthy Patricians and Plebeians; for the latter now possessed many rich members, and the rich persons of both orders began to* act together. ■ . _:

w § 4. Then it was that M. Manlius, the defender of the Capitol, Stood forth- as the patron of the poor. He saw a debtor being taken to prison, whom he, recognised as a brave centurion that had formerly served with him in the wars. He instantly paid the man’s debt’ and set him free. ‘After this he did the. same for many others; and, selling the best part of his landed property* he declared that while lie could prevent it he would never see a fellow-citizen imprisoned for. debt. His popularity ₄ rose high, and with the poorer sort the name of M. Manlius was more in esteem than that of the great Camillus. Nor did, he content himself with relieving want; he also stepped forward as an accuser of the Patricians and Senators: they had divided among themselves, he said, part of the gold which had been raised to; pay the Gauls. On. the other hand,, the Patricians asserted that Manlius was endeavouring to make himself tyrant of Rome, and that this was the real purpose of alh his generosity. Hie Senate ordered a Dictator to be named, and Au. Cornelius Cossus was the person chosen. He summoned Manlius before him, and required him to prove the charge which he had maliciously brought against the ruling body. lie failed to do so and was cast into prison, but claimed to be regularly tried before the whole people assembled in their Centuries; and his claim was allowed. On the appointed day he appeared in the Campus Martius, surrounded by a crowd .of debtors, every one of whom he had redeemed from bondage. Then he exhibited spoils taken from thirty enemies slain by himself in single combat; eight civic .crowns bestowed each of .them for the life of a citizen saved in battle, with many other badges given him in token of bravery. ’ lie. laid ^bare his breast and showed it all scarred with wounds, and then turning to the Capitol, he called those gods to fil’d whom he had saved from the sacrilegious hands of the barbarians. The appeal was felt, and if the Centuries had then /given- their votes, lie would certainly have been acquitted of high ^reason. So his enemies contrived to break up that Assembly; and sliortly-aftcr he was put on his trial in another place, the Petelino ‘grove, wheuco (it is said), the Capitol could not be seen. Here he

* ^f ‘ ’ ‘ * Chapt. xl § 4. . . ■ was at once found guilty, and condemned to bo thrown down tho Tarpcian rock. A bill was then brought in and passed, cnacting that his liouse on the Capitol should be destroyed, and that no one of his Gens should hereafter bear the forename of Marcus.*

§ 5. When we read this story, like those of Sp. Cassius and Sp. Myelius, wo again ask, was M. Manlius really a traitor or no ? It is difficult to give a positive answer, yet there are circumstances which show that probably lie was not free from guilt. The ostentatious way in which he relieved the debtors is no good sign; and we read that in the first trial the Tribunes of the Plobs were against him. It is not unlikely that he endeavoured to exalt himself by means of the poorest, classcs, and thus raised against him not only the Patrician Lords, but also all the wealthier Plebeians, or indeed men of all orders, who had cause to fear disorder and revolution. There are several different accounts of his trial and latter days. One liistorianf tells us that. Manlius forestalled his arrest .by heading an insurrection, and, seizing the Capitol,.where he himself dwelt,J bade defiance.to the power of the Senate. But they craftily engaged a false friend of.the traitor,in their interest; and lie, pretending to have something important to tell, led Man lius to the edge of the Tarpeian rock and then pushed him unawares over the brink.

All accounts agree at least in this,, that Manlius had made himself dangerous to public order, and, in the unsettled state of affairs which then prevailed, it is more than probable that the Senate resorted to unusual, perhaps unconstitutional, measures to put him down. . ,

§ 6. Tho Senate, however, also had recourse to conciliatory measures. The lands which had been taken from the Veientines on the right bank of the Tiber were now incorporated into the Roman territory and divided into four Tribes, so that all free men' settled in these districts bccame burgesses of Rome, and had votes in tho Comitia both of the Centuries and Tribes. This politic measure, however, served no less to conciliate the affections of their new Etrurian subjects than to benefit tlicir own poor citizcns.§ Moreover ail attempt was made to plant a number of poor citizcns in the Pontine district. Yet thcso

* It may bo observed that each gens ot familia clung to the same forenamos Thus Publius, Lucius, Cneius, were favourite forenames of tho Comelii; Caius of tho Julii; Appius of tho Claudii; and so on.

% IIo was surnamed Capitolinus from this circumstance probably, and nol bocauso ho saved tho Capitol. For wo have other families called by tho samo name, as that of T. Quinctius Capitolinus.

hieasures were insufficient to heal the breach which still subsisted between the Patricians and Plebeians. Nothing could be effectual to this end but the admission of the Plebeians to the chief magistracy ; and a struggle now commenced for that purpose whieb ended successfully. . r. .

- § 7. It has been often repeated, that all difference between the Patrician and Plebeian Orders was rapidly, disappearing, or rather that the Patrician families were dying off, and the numbers of their order gradually becoming less, while many Plebeian families were becoming wealthy and powerful. Already we have s6en the Plebeians obtain a footing in the Senate; already they were allowed to fill the offices of Quasstor and JEdile, and, as Mili-. tary Tribunes, could command the armies of the state ; but to' the’ highest curule offices, as the Censorship and Consulship, they were not admissible, the reason given being, that for these offices the auguries must be taken, and no religious rites could be performed save by persons of pure Patrician blood. This now^v began *to be felt to be a mockery. Men saw with their own eyes and judged with their own-understanding that Patricians and; Plebeians were men of like natures and like faculties, were all' ealled on- alike .to share burthens and dangers in the service of the state, and therefore ought to share alike the honours and dignities which she conferred. So Canuleius argued many years before, so the Plebeians thought now.; and two resolute, clearheaded Tribunes arose, who proposed, and at length carried, the celebrated laws by which Plebeians were admitted to the highest honours. ‘ .

§ 8. There is a well-known story of the manner in which they were first roused-to the * undertaking. It runs thus. M. Fabius Ambustus, a Patrician, had two daughters, the elder married to Serv. Sulpicius, a Patrician, the younger to C. Licinius, a Plebeian. It happened that Sulpicius-was Consular Tribune in the same year that Licinius was Tribune of the Plebs; and as the -younger Fabia was on a visit to' her sister, Sulpicius, return-' ing home from the Forum with his lictors, alarmed the Plebeian’s wife by the noise he made on entering the house. The elder sister laughed at this ignorance; and the younger Fabia, stung to tho quick, besought her husband to place her on a level > with her proud sister. Thus, it is said, did Licinius form the design which we have now to speak of. It may be observed, by the wathat tho story must be an invention;—because, Lici-nms’ wife" being daughter of a man who had himself been Consular Tribune not long before, could not have been ignorant of tlie dignities of the office; and because there was nothing in the world to prevent Licinius himself from being Consular Tribune, and thus, equal in power and dignity to his brother-in-law. No doubt Licinius and his kinsman were led by higher motives and better principles to bring forward their laws. _ - ^:

§ 9. However this might be, Licinius and Sextius, being Tribunes of the Plebs together in the year 376 B.C., promulgated the three bills which have ever since borne the name of the Lici-' nian Rogations. These were :

I. That of all debts on which interest had bc6n paid, the sum of the interest paid should be deducted from the* principal and the remainder paid off in three successive years.

' II. That no citizen should hold more than 500 jugcra (nearly 320 acres) of the Public Land, nor should feed on the public pastures more than 100 head of larger cattle and 500 of smaller, under penalty of a heavy fine. , * ' •

III. That henceforth Consuls, not Consular Tribunes, should always be elected, and that one of the two Consuls must be a Plebeian. - * » ^L .

“ § 10. Of these laws, the first is of a kind not-Very uncommon in rude states of society, and in such only could it fail to produce great- and serious mischief. ' If persons' lend and borrow /noney, without violating the law, they enter into a legal con^: tract, and-the State is bound to maintain this contract, not to Annul or alter it. Cases will occur when the borrower is unable to pay his debts, and that from no fault or neglect of his own; And it is good that laws should be enacted to provide for such cascfe of insolvency,—cases, that is, in which the insolvent is not guilty of fraud or n6glect.' These laws must be* general and known beforehand, so that when the parties make the contract they may do it with their eyes open. But if the State were oftfcn to cancel legal debts, in whole or' in part, this would shake all confidence, persons would be very slow to lend money at all, and thus credit and commerce would be destroyed. But 'at Rome in the times after the Gallic war, as at Athens in the time of Solon (when a similar ordinance w^Tas⁽ passed)* all' things w^rcre in such confusion, all law so weakened, all trade so utterly at a stand-still, that it might possibly be ‘necessary to resort to vio-' lent and arbitrary measures of this kind; and we may well believe that Licinius, who was himself a wealthy man, would not have interfered in this way but for a presumed necessity. It must .be

* His famous oeioaxOeia, or Disburdening Ordinance, by which all existing debts were wiped out. See. Dr. Smith’s History of Grcece, chapt x. § 12. So, after tho wars of tho League in Franco, Sully deducted from the principal of all debts tho usurious interest already paid, and left tho remainder standing at tho legal rate of interest added tliat the Roman law, at that time, was too 'favourable to the creditor, and quite insufficient to ^proteet tho debtor. But the precedent was a bad one; and in later times one of the worst means by which demagogues pandered to, the dishonest wishes of the people was a promise ³⁵of novce tabula, or an abolition of all standing debts. .. ^ .

§ 11. The seeond law was a general Agrarian Law;. We, need only refer here to what has before been said as to,the nature of Agrarian Laws at Rome, namely, that they were not intended to confiscate private property, but to divide among needy citizens the state-lands, whieh by the law of the state belonged to the whole body of citizens.* Former Agrarian laws had merely divided certain portions of state-land (ager publicus) among, the needy citizens; but this proposed to lay down a general rule, by-, which the, holding^ (possessio)' of all the state-lands was to bo limited. The purpose of Licinius was a good one. _f He wished to maintain that hardy race of independent yeomen who w^rere the best soldiers in the state-militia; -whereas if all these lands were absorbed by the rieli, they would bo cultivated by hired labourers or slaves. The subsequent* history will show how unfortunate it was for Rome that this law was not more fully executed.

§12. These two laws were of a soeial nature, attempting to regulate the private relations and dealings of the citizens : the t,hird was a political law, and needs no remark. It went to affirm that the Plebeians had an equal right to supreme .power with the Patricians. ♦ _v

§ 13. At first the Patricians were equally opposed to all these laws; they were the chief creditors, and therefore- would lose by the first law; they held the bulk of tho state_:lands on- easy terms, and therefore,would lose by the second; they alone,could be Consuls, and therefore they could not brook the third. We ^eed not therefore, wonder at a violent resistance ; nor is it wonderful that they should enlist many rich Plebeians on their side, tor these persons w^Tould suffer as much as themselves from the first two laws. Accordingly we find that in the college of Tribunes of the Plebs some Tribunes were found to put a veto on the bills. But Licinius'and Sextius^vould not be thus thwarted, and themselves, turned the powerful engine of¹ the veto against their opponents. When the time of the elections arrived they interdicted all proceedings in the Comitia of the Centuries : consequently no .Consuls, Consular Tribunes, Censors, or Qucestors could be clcctcd. The Tribuhcs and ^Edilcs, who were choscn at the Comitia of Tribes,, were tho only officers of state for the ensuing year.

§ 14. This state of things (as the Roman annalists say) lasted for five years,³⁶ Licinius and. Sextius being re-elected to the Tribunate every year. But in the fifth year, when the people of Tus-culum, old allies of Rome, applied for aid against tho Latins, the Tribunes permitted Consular Tribunes to. be clcctcd to lead the army, and among them was M. Fabius Ambustns, the fathcivin-law and friend of Licinius. The latter, far from relaxing his claims, now'proposed a fourth bill, providing that, instead.of two ■•keepers' of the Sibylline books (duumviri), both Patricians, there .should' be ten (decemviri), to be choscn alike from both Orders ;— so scornfully did he treat the pretensions of the Patricians to be solo ministers of religion. =

The latter felt that tho ground was slipping from under them* ■and that tho popular cause was daily gaining strength. In vain -did the Senate order a Dictator to be named for the purpose of settling the matter in their favour. The great Camillus assumed •the office for the fourth time, but resigned ; and P. Manlius Capi-;tolinus, who was named presently after, effected nothing. He seems, indeed, to have been friendly to tho Plebeians, if we may judge'from the fact that ho chose 1*. Licinius Calvus, a Plebeian, to bo his Master of Horse.

§ 15. Once more, as when tho Patricians were in opposition to the Tribuhcs Terentilius and Canulcius, so now did tho more moderate party propose a compromise. Tho law respecting the keepers Of the- Sibylline books "was allowed to pass, and it was suggested that tho two former of tho Licinian Rogations, tho two social laws, might be conceded, if tho Plebeians would not press the political law, and claim admission to tho highest curulc rank. But this the Tribunes refused. They could not, they said, effectually remedy the social evils of tlicir poor brethren unless they had access to the highest political power ; and they declared they would not allow the two first bills to become law unless the third was passed together with them. “If the people will not cat,” said Licinius, “ neither shall they drink.” . In vain did the Patricians endeavour to turn this declaration against them; in vain did they represent tho Tribunes as ambitious men, who ekred not really for tho wants of the poor in comparison of their own honour and dignity; in vain did the mass of the Plebeians" avow themselves ready to accept the compromise offered by the Patricians. The Tribunes- set their faces, like iron against the threats of the higher sort and the supplications of the lower. For another five years the grim conflict lasted, till at length their resolution prevailed, and in the year 367 B.C. all the three Licinian Rogations became law. * -

This great triumph was achieved with little tumult (so far as we hear) and no bloodshed.' Who can refuse his admiration to a people which could carry through their most violent changes with such calmness and. moderation ? .

§ 16. But the Patricians, worsted as they were, had not yet shot away all their arrows. At the first election after these laws were passed, L. Sextius was choscn the first Plebeian Consul. Now the Consuls, though elected at the Comitia of the Centuries, were invested with the imperium or sovereign power by a law of the Curies.* This law the Patricians, who alone composed the Curies, refused to grant; and to support this refusal the Senato had ordered Camillus, who was now some eighty years old, to bo named Dictator for the fifth time. The old soldier, always ready to fight at an -advantage, perceived that nothing now was practicable but an honourable capitulation. The Tribunes advised tho people to submit to the Dictator, but declared that they would indict him at the close of his office; and he, taking a calm view of the state of things, resolved to act as mediator.j-

§ 17. The matter was finally adjusted by a further compromise. • The Plebeian Consul was invested with the imperium; but the judicial power was now taken from the Consuls and put into the hands of a supreme Patrician Judge, called the Praetor of the City (Praetor Urbanus), and Sp. Camillus, son of tlio Dictator, was the first Praetor. A hundred men (centumviri) were named, to whom he might delegate all difficult cases not of a criminal nature. At the-same time also another magistracy, the Curule ^Edileship, was created, to be chosen from Patricians and Plebeians in alternate years, who shared the duties of the only Plebeian iEdiles, and besides this, had to superintend the Croat Games, for which they were allowed a certain sum from the treasury. At the same time a fourth day was added to these games,]; in honour of the Plebeians.

t Not, howevor, without another Secession, if we must take Ovid’s wordg literally (Fast. i. G39):—

§ 18. Thus the Patricians lost one of the Consulships, but retained part of the consular functions under other titles. And when Camillus had thus effected peace between the Orders, he vowed a temple to Concord; but before he could dedicate it, the old hero died. The temple, however, was built according to his design; its site, now one of the best known among those of ancient Rome, can still be traced with great certainty at the North* western angle of the Forum, immediately under the Capitoline.* The building was restored with great magnificence by the Emperor Tiberius;. and it deserved to be so, for it commemorated one of the greatest events of Roman history,—the final union of tho two Orders, from which point wo must date that splendid period on which we now enter. By this event was a single city enabled to conquer, first all Italy, and then all the civilised countries of the known world, that is, all the peoples bordering on _ the Mediterranean Sea. .

"\Ve pause here,' though it was some years yet before tlie political equality of the'Plebeians was fully recognised. But it will be convenient to reserve this transition period for the next Book, because it runs inextricably into the events there to be narrated. The present Book shall be closed with a chapter on the sources of Roman History down to tho point which we have now reached. •' „

• ; ¹ * * . > § 1. Destruction of all public Records by tho Gauls. § 2. Meagre character , ₀f these Records: early History of Romo embodied in' Legends. § 3.' Legends of the Patrician period Ml of, falsehood. § il Due- tp banquet-¹ minstrelsy and. funeral eulogies. § 5. Plebeian ballads =al3o rife. § 6.' How this mass, of Legends^ was mado into. History. § 7. ^Tradition and¹ , documents. § 18. Minstrelsy lingered on after Burning .by Gauls, but: super. seded by Annals. . . - - ■ «- _v \

§ 1. When the Gauls departed and left Rome in ashes, it was not only the buildings of the city .which- perished. , "We _;are expressly told that all public Records, shared in the, general destruction,—; the Fasti’, or list of yearly magistrates with their triumphs, .tho Annales Pontificum and the Linen Rolls (libri Jintei), which-were annual registers or chronicles of events kept by tlie Pontiffs and Augurs.* ' , . . . _f ; .

^L This took place, wo know, about the year 390 b.c. _< . , _/IV j Now the first Roman annalists, Fabius _Pictor, Cincius Alimen-tus, Cato the Censor, with the poets Naevius and Ennius, flourished about a century and a half after.this date.-,

Whence, then, it is natural to ask, did these writers and their successors find_/ materials for the History of Rome before the burning of the "city ? What is the authority for the events and actions which are stated to have taken place before the year 390 B.C.? i

§ 2. The answer to these questions may partly be found in our fifth cliaptcr. The early histoiy of Rome was preserved in old heroic legends, which lived in the memories of men, and were transmitted byword of mouth from one generation to j another. The early history of all nations is, as we have said, the same; and even if we had the Fasti and the Annals complete, we should still have to refer to those legendary tales for the substance and colour of the early history. The Fasti, indeed, if they were so utterly destroyed as Livy states, must have been, preserved in memory with tolerable accuracy, for we have several lists of the early magistrates, which only differ by a few omissions and transpositions. The Annals and Linen Rolls, if we had copies of them, would present little else than dry bones without flesh,

mere names with a few naked incidents attached, much iike what wo read in the famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. For narrative we should still have been dependent upon the Legends. We might know tho exact time at which Coriolanus appeared at the head of the YolsCian host, but the story would remain untouched. The Annals would give us nothing of the Legends of Romulus and Numa, of the Iloratii and Curiatii, of Mucius Scaevola, Codes and Cloelia, of the twin horsemen of Lake Regillus, of the fatal sufferings of. Lueretia and ³⁷ Virginia, of the Yeicntine soothsayer, and the draining of the Alban lake, of • tho self-sacrifice of; Curtins, of the deeds of Camillus, and the noble devotion oft the aged senators who fell beneath the Gallic sword. All these_: are as much matter of legendary story as the lays of King ,Arthur and his knights, of Charlemagne and his Paladins, of the Cidand Bernardo, which we read in the ballad poetry of England, France, and Spain.* ; > . * ' ■ J ■

* § 3. We have already taken notice of the, legendary character; of the early history, and, endeavoured very briefly to show how. out of them might be extracted evidence of historical truth so-far, as regarded the condition of Itome unde? the kings. IJnder the patrician rule, of which we have now, been speaking, the Legends-tell us little, for. they, pass into positive romance. <We have noticed that it was the glaring discrepancies and falsehoods pervading the legends respecting Porsenna and Camillus that led Beaufort to. attack-the whole of early Roman history. These false statements are quite different in kind from the greater part of the legendary fictions of Greece or of regal Rome.- There we discern no dishonesty of purpose, no intentional fraud;. here much of this baser coin is current. In the Legends of Porsenna and Camillus the dishonour of Romo and the triumphs of the in^, vaders are studiously kept-out of sight, and glorious deeds are; attributed to heroes who are proved to have no claim to such honour. It remains to state the* cause of this altered character in the Legends. ^r •.

*'§ 4.-The cause seems to have been, chiefly, the predominant power of certain great Houses. The Yalerii, the Fabii, the Furii, the Horatii, the Much, appropriated to themselves and their ancestors deeds which were never performed'; and family bards or ministrels made it their vocation to pander to this idle and unreal love of honour. The occasion on which these poets were enabled to exalt the family of their patrons arose out of the custom common among all rude nations to enhance the pleasures of wine and wassail by music and heroic song. Of these practices we have direct and positive evidence. “ Cato, in his Origines, tells us,” says Cicero, “that it was an old custom at banquets for those who sate at table to sing to the flute the praiseworthy deeds of famous men.”* But these lays had perished in Cicero’s time, “ Oh,” he exclaims in another place, “ Oh that wc had left some of those old lays of which Cato speaks in his Origines !”f Valerius Maximum bears 'testimony to the same fact.\ Varro adds that well-born boys used to sing these ballads to the company,| like Phemios in the Odyssey, or Cadwallader in the halls of the kings of Powys. We may wish with Cicero that Cato had pro-’ served some of these Reliques of early Latin poetry, and had thus done his country the same service that Percy and Scott have rendered to the minstrelsy of old England and of the Scottish border. We should' then be able' more clearly to distinguish between the poem and the chronicle, as they lie mixed in the^J pages of Livy.

' Besides-this practice of banquet minstrelsy, it was a custom much honoured at Rome, on' occasion of the funerals of persons of rank, to carry forth the images of their ancestors, when family bards rehearsed their laudatory songs, and family chroniclers poured forth panegyrics in praise of the illustrious dead.⁶] ‘ At such times ’ truth is little regarded. The common saying, de mortuis nil nisi bonum,” is easily extended to the families and ancestors of the departed. The stories of Horatius and of Mucius may be traced' to the desire of the Horatii and Mucii of later times to connect themselves with the early history of Rome. If we had an Etruscan account of the siege of Rome by Porsenna, we should probably hear little of these famous names; and if ti Gallic bard had sung the lay of Brennus, the great Camillus w^rould appear in a very different light. This may be illustrated by Percy’s remarks on the battle of Otterburn. The version which he gives, “ is related,” he says, “with the allowable partiality of an English poet while “ the Scottish writers have, with a partiality at least as allowable, related it no less in their own favour.” The version adopted by the ministrel varied according as he touched his harp in the halls of the Percy or the Douglas.

1 Such songs and speeches wero called ncenice, laudationes,—“ Absint inani mnero nncnirc,” Bays Iloraco; that is, “I am a poot, and shall not die: my luneral, thereforo, will bo an idlo ceremony: funeral songs will bo wasted upon mo.”—Od. ii. 20, 21. • ‘

§ 5. It may be observed that some of the Legends, as those of Virginia, show a manifest leaning to the side of the Plebeians. No doubt the lower order had their minstrels as well as the higher, nor did the praises of the great Plebeian Houses remain unsung" So in our own country the Commons had their poets as well as the great feudal lords; nor were the deeds of Percy and Douglas, of the Childe of Elle, or of Fair Rosamond, more famous than the “Gestes of Robin Ilood and Little John,” the feats of Adam Bell and Clym of the Clough, and of other heroes in whose names the people delighted.

§ 0. There can be no doubt, then, that at the burning of Rome there was abundant store of these romantic lays or ballads, which were constantly called for and constantly adapted to the requirements of the hearers. Thus they lived, and thus they were propagated, till they were reduced into more regular form by Najvius and Ennius, and the prose chroniclers in the times before and after the great llannibalic war, and at length were embalmed in the great work of Livy, who gave them, as lie found them, in* their true poetic form. But for him, perhaps, the mass of these legends might have been filtered off into rationalising narratives, like those of Piso.* Thus not only should we have lost the life of the Roman Annals, but we should have regarded them as so dry and uninteresting that they would have been studied no more than the early history of Scotland or Ireland; and we should have altogether lost the spirit-stirring story of these early times. We may therefore say, paradoxically, that it is to the fiction manifest in the legendary tales of Livy that we owe our knowledge of the realities of early Roman History.

§ 7. Besides these lays, it cannot be doubted that there was a mass of traditional history which preserved incidents in the struggle of the two Orders. Some documents were certainly preserved, as the Laws of the Twelve Tables, and the Treaty with Carthage which Polybius saw.f There were also, no doubt, archives preserved in Latin towns, from which careful inquirers might have gleaned information; but searching examination of this kind was little the fasliiou among Roman annalists.

§ 8. After the burning of the city the minstrels still continued to compose their romances. It is plain that the combats of Valerius Corvus and Manlius Torquatus with gigantic Gauls were borrowed from ballads in their honour; but few or none appear in the pages of Livy after this date, and one reason for their somewhat sudden disappearance is the fact that after this time the Annals or Registers are preserved; so that henceforth Chroniclers, "”ith their dry narratives, superseded the ministrels. The meagre

and unintelligible Annals of the years that follow the Gallic -irruption are a specimen of what would have remained to us_f had all the Legendary History perished, and had the Annals been preserved entire from the first ages of the Republic. . ’./i The gradual decay of Roman minstrelsy may, like its positive qualities, be compared to our own'. “ As the old minstrels gradually wore out,” says Percy, “ a new race of ballad-writCrs succeeded, an inferior race of minor poets, who wrote narrative song^ merely for the press. * Towards the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign the genuine old minstrelsy seems to have been extinct, and thenceforth the ballads that were produced were wholly of the latter kind.” Such ballads are merely rhythmical versions of passing events, which die when they have satisfied the immediate occasion for which they were produced. As poetry they are generally worthless; as historical narratives they are inferior to the more exact accounts of the prose writers who gradually supersede them; • '

§ 1 Difficulties of Social Reformation. § 2. Increased by pestilence: Gulf in, Forum: Self-sacrifice of M. Curtius. § 3. Also by Gallic inroads. § 4. Yain attempts to limit rate of Interest. § 5. Evasion of Second Licinian Law. § 6. Attempts to set aside Third Licinian Law foiled: First Plebeian Dictator: First Plebeian Censor. § V. Plebeian honours limited to a few families. § 8'. Subject of this Book.

they can only be abated by altering the habits and feelings of the people, which cannot be effected in the existing generation; they will not give way at once to the will of a lawgiver, however good his judgment, however pure his motives, however just his objects. In most cases he must content himself with carrying his reform/ and leaving it to work upon a future generation. But the _fcoln-mon difficulty of removing social evils was increased in Rome at this time by circumstances³⁸

§ 2. For two years a pestilence raged in the city, which swept away great numbers of citizens and paralysed the industry of all. The most illustrious of its victims was Camillus, who died even more gloriously than he had lived, while discharging the office of peacemaker. About the same time the region of the city was shaken by earthquakes; tlie Tiber overflowed his bed and flooded the Great Circus, so that the games then going on were broken off. Not long after a vast gulf opened in the Forum, as if to say that the meeting-place of the Roman People was to be used no more. The seers being consulted, said that the gods forbade this gulf to close till that which Rome held most valuable were thrown into it. Then, when men were asking what this might be, a noble youth, named M. Curtius, said aloud that ►Rome’s true riches were brave men, that nothing else so worthy could be devoted to the gods. Thus saying, he put on his armour, and, mounting his horse, leaped into the gulf; and straightway says the , legend, the earth closed f and became solid as before; and the” place was called tlie ^Lacus' Curtius for ever after.* .... . *

§ 3. To these direct visitations of God, the pestilence and the earthquake, was added a still morcTtefrible scourge in the continued inroads of the Gauls. It has been noticed above that in the years 361 and 350 B.c.f hordes of these' barbarians again burst into Latium and again ravaged all the Roman territory. . i

§ 4. These combined causes so .increased the distress of the poor that no one can wonder to hear of debts being multiplied, every day. We read therefore without surprise that in the year 357 n.c., ten years after the passing of the Licinian laws, a bill was brought forward by Duillius and Msenius, Tribunes of the Plebs, to restore the. rate of interest fixed by the, XII. Tables,J which in the late troubles had fallen * into neglect; and five years later (in 352) the Consuls, P. Valerius and C. Marcius Rutilus,

brought forward a measure to assist the operation of the Licinian law of debt. Many persons had not been -able to take advantage of this law, because their whole property¹ was invested in land or houses; .and owing to the general distress and the great' scarcity of money, they could not sell this property but ate a very-heavy loss. The Consuls therefore appointed^ Five Commissioned (iquinqueviri), with power to make estimates of all debts and of the property of the debtors. .This done,-the Commissioners advanced money to discharge the debt, so for as it was covered- by the property of the debtor. Thus a quantity of land came--into possession of the state; and landed property in general-must have become more valuable, while money was more freely, circulated, _tand must have been more easy to procure at a* fair rate of interest. The measure was wise and useful, but could only- be partial in its effects. It could not help those debtors *who had .110 property, or not enough property to pay their debts withal. Hence we find that in another five years (347 b.c.) the rate of interest was reduced to five per cent..-;* and some years afterwards it was tried to * abolish, interest Altogether. But, laws'to liiriit interest then, as ever since, proved ineffectual or even mischievous. It is always easy to evade sucli' laws; and the only difference they make is, that needy borrowers have to resort to grasping and dishonest usurers, who charge higher interest than they would otherwise have done, in order to meet the increased risk'. In short we find, as we should expect, that all these laws proved insufficient, and in the year 342 b.c. recourse was had to a measure still more sweeping and violent than the Licinian law, which shall be spoken of in its proper place.f * * •».£.< i .

, § 5. There were, then, great difficulties inthe-way of;a law for ielieving debtors. These.wore increased, as has been* seen, by circumstances,. and we must * now add-the selfishness' and - dishonesty of the rich Patricians and Plebeians, who held the bulk of the Public Land in their own hands. If these lands had been leased out on moderate terms to the poorer sort,- no doubt^they would have been able jn great measure to avoid debt -for the future. But the present holders contrived to evade the Licinian law in the following way. If a man held more than 300 jugcra, he emancipated his son and made over *a> portion of the * laud nominally to him, or, if he had no son, to some othor trusty person. With sorrow we hear of these, practices, and with still greater sorrow we learn that in the year 354 b.c. C<- Licinius ~ ^r ' ; *. 11 ' ^s I ... i •*

* Tacit. Annal. vL 16. Foenus semi-nnciarfcun, Le. V₄ of the-capital, being 4J. per cent for the'old Roman year of 10 months, or five per cent, for tfio. oom-₍ mon year. *

himself was indicted by the Curulp ^Edile, M. Popillius Lsenas, for fraudulently making over 500 jugera to his son, while he held (mother 500 in his own name. Perhaps it was some suspicion of his true character that -induced the people to. elect L. Sextius, his kinsman, first plebeian consul, instead of Licinius himself. Thus this remedy for pauperism was set aside and neglected, till ihe Gracchi arose, and vainly endeavoured, after more than two centuries of abuse, to correct that which at first might have Jbcen prevented., •

Circumstances, therefore, combined * with the dishonesty of men, thwarted the social amendments which the Licinian laws aimed at.

§ 6, The law for equalising political power was more effective. For eleven years after the Licinian law one Consul -was always a Plebeian. Then the Patricians made one last struggle to recover their exclusive privilege; and in the year 355 b.c. we have a Sulpicius and a Valerius as Consuls, both of them Patricians; and in the course of the next dozen years we find the law violated in like manner no legs than seven times. After that it is regularly observed, one Consul being Patrician and the other Plebeian, till at length in the year 172 B.C., when the patrician families had greatly decreased, both Consulships were opened to the Plebeians, and from that time forth the Offices were held by men of either order without distinction^

These violations of the law above mentioned were effected by the power Jby which the Senate ordered the Patrician Consul to name. a.Dictator. At least in the space of twenty-five years after the Licinian laws, we have no less than fifteen Dictators. Now several of these were appointed for sudden emergencies of war, such as the Gillie invasions of 361 and 350. But often we find Dictators when there is no mention of foreign war. In the year 360; we find that both the Consuls, enjoyed a triumph, and not the Dictator. These and other reasons, have led to the belief that these Dictators were appointed to hold the, Consular Comitia, and brought the overbearing weight of their political power to secure the election,of two Patrician Consuls.

§ 7. But if this were the plan of the Patricians, it availed not. After tliQ year 343 B.C. the law was regularly observed, by which one^ Consul was necessarily a Plebeian. The Plebeians also forced their way to other offices. C. Marcius Rutilus, the most distinguished Plebeian of his time, who was four times elected Consul, was named Dictator in the year 356 B.C., no doubt by the Plebeian Oonsnl Popillius Lrenas; and five years later (351) we find the same Marcius elected to the Censorship.

Scxtius liad been effectual so far as the admission of Plebeians to the highest offices of state was concerned. It must be remarked, however, that these privileges, though no longer engrossed by Patricians, seem to have been open only to a few wealthy plebeian families. 0. Marcius ltutilus, as we have just remarked, held the Consulship four times in sixteen years (357342). M. Popillius Laenas and C. Pa*telius Libo enjoyed a similar monopoly of honours.

§ 9. As the exclusive privileges of the Patricians thus gradually and quietly gave way, instead of being maintained (as in modern France) till swept away by the violent tide of revolution, so did the power of the Senate rise. It was by the wisdom or policy of this famous assembly that the City of Rome became mistress of Italy and of the World; but a more convenient place for examining its altered constitution will occur hereafter. At present we proceed with our proper task. Hitherto the contest has been internal, of citizen against citizen* in order to gain an equality of rights. Henceforth, for two hundred years, we shall have to relate contests with foreign people, and the subject of this Book is to give an account of the conquest of Italy, for which the Roman Senate and People, now at length politically united, were prepared.

§ I. Rising of Yolscians, JEquians, and Etruscans. Victorious Dictatorship of Camillus. § 2. Six new Tribes added, four from the Etruscan, two from the Volscian territory. § 3. The Latin League no longer in existence; wars with several Latin Cities. § 4. Fresh irruption of tho Gauls, favoured by Hemicans and Tiburtines. § 5. Renewal of Latin League. § 6. War with the Tarquinians, followed by a peace for 40 years. § 7. Third inroad of Gauls. Second Treaty with Carthago. Reflections.

Ilills. The city was in great alarm ; and the-Consular Tribunes being deemed unequal to the exigency, Comillus • was named Dictator for the second time, lie defeated them with great loss, and pursued them into their own territory. lie then marched rapidly to Bolaj, to which place the iEquians had advanced, and gained another victory. •

But in the moment of triumph news came that Etruria was in arms. The storm of the Gallic invasion seems to have been averted from Etruria to Ilome, and by a brave effort it now seemed possiblo to recover the territory which the Romans had for tho second time appropriated. The people of Fidenaj and Ficulca fire mentioned as appearing in arms. A force was sent against them; but so completely was it routed on the Nones of July, that this day was noted in the Kalendar as the Poplifuga. Siege was then laid to Sutrium by the victors, and it fell. But the prompt Dictator, on the first alarm, marched his troops straight from Bola? to the point of danger; and on the very day on which Sutrium had yielded to the foe, it was again taken by the Roman General. Such is the obscure account preserved of this year’s danger. Camillus again appears as the Saviour of Rome, nc enjoyed a threefold triumph over the Volscians, the JEquians, and the Etrurians.

§ 2. It was two years after, that the Etruscan territory, now effectually conquered, was formed into four Tribes, as has been mentioned before.³⁹ By the addition of these new Tribes, the first that had been added since this very territory had been wrested from Rome by Porsenna, the whole number w^Tas raised to twenty-five. The late assault of the Etruscans, perhaps, suggested tho wisdom of making the free inhabitants of this district citizens of Rome. Men who had lately been subject to the oppressive government of a civic oligarchy, being now mingled with Roman Plebeians who had received allotments in the district, and seeing the comparative freedom of all Roman Burgesses, w^rcre sure in future to fight for Rome rather than join in an insurrection against her. Here was the beginning of that sagacious policy, which for a time led political enfranchisement hand in hand with conqucst. Thirty years later (358 b.c.) the Senate pursued the same course with respect to the Pontine district and other lowlands, which had been recovered from the grasp of the Volscians. A settlement of poor Plebeians which was attempted in 387 B.C., failed: the emigrants were cut off by the Volscian liills-men. But the territory being now formed into two Tribes, so as to make tlie whole number twenty-seven, the inhabitants had themselves an interest in repressing predatory inroads.⁴⁰

Yet the .assaults of the Yolscians continued. In 380 b.c., Ca-millus being Consular Tribune for the fourth time, reconquered Antium, which must have fallen into the hands of the Yolscians again after the Gallic invasion. Colonies were sent to Satricum and Setia in Southern Latium, to Nepete in Etruria. Then came the struggle for the Licinian laws; and during this period the annals arc altogether silent On the subject of wars.

§ 3. But before the promulgation of the Licinian laws, there were threatenings of greater, danger than was to be feared either from Etruscans or Yolscians. The Latins and Hcrnicans, who since the time of Sp. Cassius had been bound in close alliance with Rome, and had fought by- her side in all her border wars, no longer appeared in this position. The inroad of the Gauls had broken up the League. Rome had then been reduced to ashes, and was left • in miserable weakness, Many of the thirty Latin cities, the names of which occur in the League of .Cassius, were so utterly destroyed that the antiquary in vain seeks for their site in the desolation of the Campagna. But the two important cities of Tibur and Prsonest6 (Tivoli and Palestrina,) perched on steep-scarped rocks, defied the rude arts of tli£ invader, and had gained strength by the, ruin of their neigh hours. Prameste seems to have seized the district of Algidus and the other lands from which the iEquians had been expelled. Both Praeneste and Tibur appear as separate and independent communities, standing apart from the rest of Latium and from Rome. It was believed that the Pramestines. encouraged the Yolscians in their inroads, and in 382. b.c* war was. declared tigainst them. Some of the Latin cities joined Prameste, as Lanuvium and Yclitra>; others sought protection against her from Rome, as Tusculum, Gabii, Lavici. In this war all. .is obscure. In the course of it even the Tusculans deserted }{omc. But after a struggle of five years, the Dictator T. Quino-tius took nine insurgent cities, Yelitno amongst the number, and blockaded Praeneste itself, which also capitulated on terms of which we arc not informed. Soon after Tusculum also was recovered; and for the present all fear of the Latins subsided.

§ 4. But a few years after the Temple of Concord had been erected by old Camillus, fresh alarms arose. The Ilernicans gave signs of disquietude. War was declared against them in 362 b.c. Next year came the second inroad of flic Ganls, and it was observed with consternation that this terrible foe occupied the valley of the Anio, and was not molested either by the Latins of Tibur or by the Ilernicans. In the year 3G0 b.c. the Fasti record a triumph of the Consul Fabius over this last-named people, and another of his colleague Ptt'telius over the men of Tibur and the Gauls⁴¹—an ominous conjunction.

§ 5. But this new inroad of tho barbarians, which threatened Rome with a second ruin, really proved a blessing; for the remaining Latia cities, which in the late conflict had stood aloof, terrified by tho presence of the Gauls, and seeing safety only in union, now renewed their league with Rome, and the Ilernicans soon after followed their example. The glory of concluding this second league belongs to C. Plautius, the plebeian Consul of the year 358 b.c. The Gauls now quitted Latium, we know not liovv or Why. Of all the Latin cities, Privernum and Tibur now alone remained out of the alliance; but in the next five years both were compelled to yield. (357, 354 b.c.)

§ G. 'While these daugers were successfully averted on the north-eastern frontier, war had been declared against Rome by the powerful Etruscan city of Tarquinii, which lies beyond the Oimi-nian Ilills. This was in the very year in which the new League was formed with the Latins and Ilernicans. But for this, it is hard to imagine that Rome, exhausted as she was, could have resisted the united assaults of Gauls, Yolscians, Latins, Ilernicaus, and Etruscans. As it was, she found it hard to repel the Tarquinians. The people made a sudden descent from the hills, defeated the Consul C. Fabius, and sacrificed three hundred aud seven Roman prisoners to their gods (b.c. 358). Two years later they were joined by the Faliscans. Bearing torches in their hands, and having their hair wreathed into snake-like tresses, they attacked the Romans with savage cries, and drove them before them. They overran the district lately formed into four new Tribes, and threatened Rome itself. Then M. Popillius Lsonas, tlie plebeian Consul, being ordered by the Senate to name a Dictator, named another Plebeian, C. Marcius Rutilus, the first of his order (as we have said) who was advanced to this high office; and his conduct justified the appointment. The enemy was defeated. Tho Senate refused a triumph to the Plebeian ; but the People in their Tribes voted that he should enjoy the well-earned honour.

For a moment the people of C;ere, the old allies of the Roman people* who had given shelter to their sacred things, their women rind children,'in the panic of, the Gallic invasion, joined the; war; but almost immediately after sued for peace. The Romans, however, remembered this defection, as we shall have to mention in a future page.⁴² The Tarquinians were again defeated in a great battle. Three, hundred and fifty-eight prisoners wero scourged and beheaded in the Forum to retaliate for former barbarity. In the year 351 B.C. a peace of forty years was concluded, after a struggle of eight years’ duration. * ^v

§ 7. It. was in the very next year after the conclusion of this war that the third' inroad of the Gauls took place, of which wo* have above spoken, when L. Camillus, grandson of the old Dictator, rivalled the glory of his progenitor, and L. Valerius gained his name of Corvus. Thus remarkably was Rome carried through the ;dangers of intestine strife and surrounding wars. When she was at strife within* her enemies were quiet. • Befor,e each new assault commenced a former foe had retired from'the field, and. Rome rose stronger from every fall. 'She had now recovered all; the Latin coast-land from the Tiber to Circeii; and her increasing, importance is shown by a renewed treaty with the great commercial. city of Carthage.f But a more formidable enemy was now to be encountered than had as yet challenged Rome to conflict; and a larger area opened to .her ambition.» In the course of a very few years after the. last event of which we have spoken the First Sam- • nite War began. . - ■ . /

§. 1. Origin and geographical position of tho Samnites. § 2. Little unity_k between them and kindred tribes. § 3. Samnites a pastoral peoplo. § 4. They spread from their mountains over various parts of tho coast. Campania. Their Colonists become their enemies. § 5. Causes of tho "War. § G. First year of the War: battle of Mount Gaurus gained by Valerius Corvus. Other victories. § 7. Peace concluded next year. Reasons. § 8. First Reason : Mutiny of Roman Legions wintering at Campanin. They advance to Bovillro, and are joined by Plebeians from tho City. § 9. Difference between this and former Secessions. It is put down by Valerius. § 10. Laws for improving tho condition of soldiers. § 11. Genucian Laws. Laws for relieving debtors: remarks. § 12. Second Reason deferred to next Chapter.

they were dedicated to the god Mamcrs (Mars), and went forth to seek their fortunes abroad. On one such occasion the emigrants, pressing southward along the highland valleys, occupied the broad mountainous district which lies northward of Campania. Such is the story which the Samnites told of their own origin.⁴³ The Picenians and Frentanians, on the north coast, with the four allied Cantons of the Yestinians, Marrucinians, Pelignians, and Marsians, who were interposed between the Sam* nites and their ancestral Sabines, claimed kin with both nations. The Samnites themselves also formed four Cantons—the Caro-ccnians, Pentrians, Caudinians, and Ilirpinians. Of these Cantons, the first and last are little heard of. Tlie Pentrians were far the most considerable: they occupied the rugged mountain district between the upper valleys of the Vulturnus and the Calor. Here a great mass of mountains, now known by tlie name of Mount Matese, projects boldly from the central chain, rising to the height of more than G000 feet; and its steep defiles offer defences of great natural strength against an invader. But the remains of massive polygonal masonry, which are still seen on the rocky heights occupied by their towns of ^Esernia and Bovi-anum (Iscrnia and Bojano), show that the Samnites trusted to military art as well as to natural strength of country. Below Mount Matese, in the valley of the Calor, lay the Cantons of the Caudinians, whose town of Bcnevcntuin (anciently called Malc-vcntum, or Maliessa) also offered a position made strong by. art. It is within these limits, from ^Esernia to Bcncvcntum, that the scenes of some of the chief campaigns of the Samnite wars were laid.

§ 2. It must be remarked that but little connexion seems to have been maintained between the Samnite Cantons and their Sabellian kinsmen to the north. If the Sabines of the Upper Apennines, if Marsian, and Pelignian, and other Cantons which lie between the Sabines and the Samnites, had combined, nay, if all the Samnite cantons had been closely united, the issue of the wars which were waged with Rome might have been different. But the brunt of conflict fell chiefly on the Pentrians and Caudinians; and it was not till their strength was well nigh exhausted that tho other Sabellian tribes came forward to oppose the growing power of Rome.

§ 3. From tho nature of their country, the Samnites were for the most part a pastoral people. Their mountains break into numberless valleys, sloping both to the north and south, well watered, and fresh even in tho summer heats. Into these valleys, as is still the practice of the country, the flocks were driven from⁴⁴ the lower lands, ascending higher and higher as the heats increased, and descending towards the plain in the same gradual way as autumn inclined towards winter.

§ 4. But the Samnites were not contented with these narrow mountain-homes. As they had themselves been sent forth from a central hive, so in time they cast forth new swarms of emigrants. In early times a Samnitc tribe, under the name of Frentaiuans, had taken possession of the coast lands between the Marrueinian canton and Apulia. They also constantly pushed forward bands of adventurous settlers down the Vulturnus and Calor into tho rich plain that lay temptingly beneath their mountains, and to which they gave the name of Campania, or the champagne-land, in opposition to the narrow vales and rugged hills of their nativu Country. In earlier times this fair plain had attracted Etruscarf conquerors ; and its chief city, anciently called Vulturnum, is said from them to have received the lasting name of Capua.* But in about the year 423 B.C., nearly a century before the timO of which we arc presently to speak, a band of Samnites had seized this famous city, and had become its lords,f the ancient Oscan inhabitants being reduced to the condition of clients. Soon after, the great Greek city of Cuma, which then gave namo to the Bay of Naples, had been conquered by the new lords of Capua and from this time forth, under the name of Campanians, they became the dominant power of the country. In course of time, however, the Samnites of Capua, or the Campanians, lost their own language and usages, and adopted those of the Oscan people, who had become their subjects, lienee it is that we shall find the Campanian Samnites at war with the old Samnites of the mountains, just as the lioman Sabines lost all national sympathy with the old Sabines of Cures, and as in England the Anglo-Normans became the national enemies of tho French.

It may be added that the Lucanians and Apulians, who stretched across the breadth of Italy below Campania, wero formed by a mixture of Samnitc invaders with the ancient population, themselves (as we have seen above) a compound of Oscan and Pelasgian races ;|| while the Bruttians, who occupied thd mountainous district south of the. Gulf of Tarentum, were a similar offcast from the Lucanians. But these half-Sabellian tribes, like the old races from whom the Samnites came, lent very uncertain aid to their kinsmen in the struggle with Ilome_t The sons were not more alive to their own interest in joining the Samnites against the new_; conquerors than the fathers.

§ 5. These prefatory remarks will prepare us for the great conflict which, followed, and which* in fact, determined the sovereignty of Italy to be the right of the Roman, and not of the Samnite people. The first war arose out of a, quarrel such as we have just alluded to between the Campanians and the old Sam-jiites of the Matese. In the year 354 B.C., a league had been concluded with the Romans and the Samnites. Since that time, Samnite adventurers had been pressing upon the Oscan nations in the upper valley of the Liris, and had even taken the Yolscian cities of Sora and Fregella?, while the Romans, combined with the Latins,again since the year 358 B.C., were forcing back the Yolscians from the west. In 343 b.c, the Samnites had pursued their encroachments so far as to assail Teanum, the chief city of the Sidicines, probably an Oscan tribe, who occupied the lower hills in the north of Campania. The Sidicines demanded the aid of the Burgesses of Capua against their assailants ; and the Campanians, venturing to give this aid, drew upon their own heads the wrath of the mountaineers. The Samnites took possession of Mount Tifata, a bare hill which overhangs Capua on the north, and from their camp there plundered at will the rich plain below. Unable to meet the enemy in the field, the degenerate Campanians entreated the assistance of the Roman and Latin League. , -

There was some difficulty in listening to this application; for the treaty of peace, which had been concluded eleven years before, still subsisted, and no aggression against Rome or her allies was chargeable upon the Samnites. But it is probable that their aggressions in the valleys of the Liris and Yulturnus had alarmed the Senate; and all scruples were removed when the Campanians offered to surrender their city absolutely, so that in defending them Rome would be defending her own subjects. This quibbling bargain was struck, and war was declared against the Samnites.

_# § C. The Consuls of the year were both Patricians—Au. Cornelius Cossu9, and M. Yalerius Corvus, whose single combat with the Gaul has been mentioned more than once. Apart from legendary talcs, it is, evident that Yalerius was the most considerable man at Rome, now'that'Camillus .was no more. He was now in liis third Consulship, and thrice in future years he held the same high office. To extreme old age he continued in the service or tho state, and his last Consulships were employed in assisting to remove the last traces of disunion between the Orders. If tho Licinian Law was to be broken, it could not be broken in favour of a worthier than M. Yalerius.

Each Consul led two legions separately into the field, with au equal number of Latin Allies. The force under the command of Valerius was destined to drive tho Samnites out of Campania, while Cossus was to invade the Pentrian valleys. But the details of the campaign are quite unintelligible. Yalerius gained a’ great victory over the Samnites on Mount Gaurus, which lies near Baia) on the sea-coast. ’How it was that he was thus driven into this corner of the land we know not. No sooner was the battle of Mount Gaurus won, than news reached Yalerius that his colleague Cossus had become entangled in a Sam-nite defile, and was shut in by the enemy on all sides. From, this danger he w^;as relieved by the valour and conduct of a legionary tribune, P. Decius Mus, the first-named of an illustrious plebeian family. He seized an eminence, which commanded the pass, and the Consul was enabled to escape from his danger. Then, say the Roman annals, Cossus attacked the Samnites and defeated them. It is added that Yalerius joined him directly after, and the united forces ovorthrew the enemy in a third great battle.

§ 7. An army remained in Campania during the winter, lest the Samnites should descend from their mountains suddenly. But in the next spring, instead of continuing the war, the Romans concluded a treaty of alliance with the enemy, by which the Sidicines and Campanians were left entirely at their mercy. The causes of this unexpected change of policy were twofold; first, a renewal of discord between the two Orders of the Roman People; secondly, the uneasy feeling which showed itself between the Romans and their Latin Allies.

§ 8. It has been shown above that the pressure of the laws of debt continued, and that there was a systematic attempt to evade the Licinian Law in the election of Consuls.* The discontent thus caused, long smouldering, broke ‘out into flamo afmong the legionaries who were wintering in Campania. They compared that rich and beautiful country with the sullen gloom of the Roman territory, and the luxurious life of the Campanian people with their own rude and sparing habits : and they formed (as we are told) a design to imitate the old Samnites in making themselves lords of this happy land. When C. Marcius, tho new Consul, came to the army in the year 342 B.C., he found the ' - * Chapt. xvii.

men more ready to mutiny than, to take the field. An attempt was made to check this spirit by drafting off the most unruly, and sending them home under various pretences. But as these men passed Lautul®, a place near Te.rracina, which commanded the road over the Yolscian Hills, they found the, cohort that had been posted to defeud this pass ready to mutiny, and those who were on their way home, agreed to join them. The insurgents, being joined by many_; others from the army, forced an old Patrician of the Quinctian house, whom, they found dwelling at his country house, to be their leader; and then advancing,, cncamped at Bovilla?, in front of the Alban Hills., Upon this, the disaffected within the city also rose] and putting another Patrician, named Manlius, at .their head, joined the mutineers in their camp. . ■ _s . .

§ 9. Here, then, was another of those Secessions of which V(e have already heard so much. But now, be it observed, the secession was not of the whole Plebeian Order, but only of the poorer: sort, who felt oppressed by debt. Against these were' arrayed not only the Patricians and their Clients, but also all tho wealthier Plebeians, indeed, all who wished to maintain order in the state: and this great party showed their sincerity by procuring that M. Valerius Corvus, a man as famous for moderation ^is for bravery, should be appointed Dictator, to put an end to the sedition. He was able to collect an imposing force, with which he approached the camp of the insurgents. But Roman citizens were not yet so reckless of blood and so cold of heart as willingly to engage in civil war; and when the two armies met, both were overpowered by their different feelings, the one by pity, the other by remorse. Arms were laid aside, and the soL diers of each party embraced each other.

No doubt this happy issue of the sedition was brought about by the good offices of the Dictator Valerius and Marcius the Plebeian Consul. It was no doubt understood on both sides that tho Patricians and rich Plebeians were ready to avert the evil by making large concessions, for these followed immediately.

§ 10. The leaders of the army were allowed to propose and carry two Laws: first, that no citizen should be struck off the military roll, except for some crime; secondly, that no one who had served as legionary tribune should thereafter be called on to act as centurion. The first law was evidently a boon to the debtors; for persons serving in the army were protected from their creditors. The second is said to have arisen from the case of one Salonius, who had .been vexatiously degraded to a subaltern rank by his patrician general; and the Plebeians were tho more willing to maintain the dignity of tho Tribunes, since the

election of six out of the twenty-four had recently been conceded to the legions themselves.* It was also proposed to reduce the pay of the equites, who at that time received three times as much as the foot soldiers. But on the interference of Valerius this proposal was withdrawn.

§ 11. Such were the concessions made to the army. But at home greater changes followed. L. Genucius, Tribune of the Plebs, moved that henceforth both Consulships should be open to Plebeians; and that no one should be re-elected to a curulo magistracy. But it does not appear that these Genucian Laws took effect. It was long before both Consuls were Plebeians ; and it remained for many years a constant practice to re-elect the same persons to the Consulship within the stated period. But from this time forth we find no more violations of the Licinian Law.

At the same time another Law was carried, by whom we know not, of much greater and more serious import; for it enacted that all debts then existing should be cancelled, and'that for the future no interest was to be taken for money lent. This second provision was simply absurd. It was the same thing as forbidding the loan of money at all; no one will lend without some profit to cover the risk of loss. The former provision, cancelling all debts, was a more violenf and dangerous form of the first Licinian Law. \ The Licinian Law struck certain sums off the debts, providing for the payment of the rest; this new Law abolished the debts altogether. What was said of the former law must be repeated here. Such laws, declaring general insolvency, can only be justified by absolute necessity, and never can be enacted in a settled state of society. At Rome, possibly, they may have been necessary at this juncture, owing to the great cruelty of the old laws of debt. And that such laws were necessary may be inferred from the fact that Valerius suffered them to pass. Society was already so disorganised, that even such a law did not make it worse: nay, from this time forth we may date improvement; for henceforth we hear no more of free Romans binding themselves as slaves to their creditors.

§ 12. The second cause which, joined to these intestine commotions, operated to promote the Samnite peace, was so important, and was followed by results so considerable, that it must form the subject of a separate Chapter.’ •

* Tho regular number of Legions was four, two to each Consul, and thero were six Tribunes to each Legion. At a later time, tho people elected 13 out of the 24.

§1. Review of tho relations between Rome and Latiura. § 2. Proposals of the Latin Cities for a union with Rome. § 3. Contemptuously rejected. §4..Manlius and Decius, Consuls, march into Campania: reasons. § 5. Roman and Latin armies meet under Vesuvius: military systems of Rome: identical with that of Latins. ’ § 6. Order of Manlius against single combats. § 7. Manlius condemns his son for disobeying. § .8.. Battle of Vesuvius: self-sacrifice of Decius. § 9. Mournful triumph of Manlius. § 10. Conclusion of the War. § 11. Large quantity of Public Land gained by tho War: a portion distributed to the poor Plebeians. § 12. Publilian Laws. § 13. Principle on which tho Latin Cities wero treated. § 14. Public and Private Rights of Romans: how granted to foreignera § 15. Previous privileges of Latins. § 16. New arrangements, of three kinds. §17. Settlement of tho Campanian Cities.

League had been renewed, and such as remained of the original Thirty Cities again joined their ranks to those of Home in warring first against the Volscians and Etruscans, and finally against the Samnites. * In the first year of the Samnite war wc find two Roman Consuls in command; in the second it is probable that the Latins would have claimed the chief command for their two Praetors. All w*e know is, that tho Senate foresaw that the confederacy of Latin Cities would claim equality with Rome; and it was no doubtr to strengthen themselves against such claim that now, in the year 341 B.C., they not only made peace with the Samnites, but concluded a separate league with that people. Thus the Latins alone continued in alliance with the Sidicines and other Oscan tribes'of'Campania, "while the Romans united themselves with the Samnites, the mortal enemies of these same Oscan tribes, .whose protectors they had lately been. A Ye also hear of the Latins being at war with the Pelignians, which sliovrs that other Sabellian tribes were taking part’with the Samnites.*

§ 2. When Rome formed a separate League with the Samnites^ she broke faith with the Latins. Her conduct made it clear that Latium could no longer remain the independent ally of Rome: the former must either submit entirely to her rival,' or assert her independence in arms. There was, indeed, a third course possible, namely, for the two nations to form a united state under one central government, like England and Scotland since the Union : and this course the Latins proposed to try, although the spirit and temper of the Romin Senate made it very clear that the attempt must fail. •

• However, it was"made. In the year 340 b.c. the united cities of Latium sent their two Praetors (who were elected every year like the Consuls at Rome), together with the ten chiefs of their Senate, to propose terms of union. Rome and Latium were henceforth to form one state, Rome being allowed to remain as the seat of government; but of the two Consuls, one was to be a Latin. ^rThe Senate was to be doubled by the admission of 300 Latin members; and no doubt (though this is not recorded) the Latin territory was to be divided, like the Roman, into Tribes, which would have equal votes with those of old Rome at the Comitia. .

The proposal was fair enough, and it may be thought that Rome might have accepted it without loss of honour; for not very long after, most of the Latin cities formed the centres of new Tribes, and some of the most distinguished men of later-times were of Latin origin.. But the conduct of some Latin

cities, as Tibur and Praeneste, had not been such as. to warrant confidence, and it is probable that an Union now formed, when neither nation were, willing quite to acknowledge the supremacy of the other, would not have been more lasting .than that of Holland and Belgium in our own times. The Latins now proposed it only under fear of the Gauls and Samnites, and when that fear was removed, they would probably have broken it up. „

§ 3. It is not likely, liowever, that politic reasons of this kind influenced the Romans in rejecting it. Rude nations generally act on impulse rather than on reason ; and the story shows that it was Roman pride which was touched, rather„ than Roman interests.' *. % V

The Senate, says, the Legend,-met' to receive the'Latin depu-* ties in the temple of Capitoline Jupiter, at the head of the Sacer Clivus. When the deputies had spoken, the Fathers were filled with wrath, and their mind was uttered by T. Manlius Torquatus, patrician Consul elect, the same who had earned liis surname in a single fight against a Gaul. “ If,” said he, “the Roman Senate were so dead of heart as to admit these proposals, I myself-would come down to the Senate-house sword in hand and slay- the first Latin who should presume to cross this holy threshold.” Angry words followed, in the course of which L. Annius of Setia, one of the Latin Praetors, spoke lightly of the great god of the Capitol, beneath whose temple they were standing. -Then, to avenge his majesty,' burst forth lightning and thunder; and the Latin, turning hastily to depart, fell iiead^: long down the steps of the Sacred Ascent, and was killed.*

§ 4. But when the Senate were receiving these deputies, they were already preparing for war. Their patrician Consul was, as has been mentioned, the famous champion T. Manlius, and his plebeian colleague was the no less famous P. Decius Mus, who had saved the army of the Consul Cossns in the Samnite war. These Consuls straightway assembled their legions, and boldly resolved to leave Rome under the protection of the Praetor, while they marched through the friendly passes of the Sabines, Marsians, and Pelignians into Samnium, there to unite with a Samnite force and descend upon Capua. This bold stroke succeeded. The Latin army marched hastily soutlrward to protect their Oscan allies, and it was in the plains of Campania that the fate of Rome and Latium was to be decided.

There could be little doubt which people were destined to prevail. The Latins and Romans might be well matched; but, of

* Tho Chronielors, however, mention L. Annins as general of tho Latins in tho ensuing war,—another instaneo of tho variety above noticed in tlieso old legends. , ‘ their allies, tho Oscans were quite unequal to the mountaineers of Sainnium. Moreover, even of the Latin cities three adhered to Romo, Laurentum, Ardea, and Lanuvium, and several wero lukewarm in the cause. The Oscan cities of Fundi and Formiae, which command the road between Romo and Capua, remained neutral; and in Capua herself a protest against war with Rome was made by sixteen hundred Knights (as they are called), who were probably the heads of the old Samnite families, before mentioned as the lords of Capua.*

§ 5. When the two armies met under Mount Vesuvius, they lay opposed to one another, neither party choosing to begin the fray. It was almost like a civil war; Romans and Latins spoke the same language; their armies had long fought side by side under common generals; their arms, discipline, and tactics were the same.

And here we will follow Livy in giving an account of the Roman army as at that time constituted.*)-

In tho old times the Roman army had been drawn up in close order like the Greek phalanx, so as to act by its weight. Tho front ranks were armed with the long pike or spear (hasta) and the large round shield (clipeus, damg). Locking their shields together, with their spear-points bristling in front, they formed a mass irresistible so long as it remained unbroken. This order of battle was carried to its greatest perfection by Philip of Macedon, and we shall have to speak further of it when we come to the Macedonian wars.

The Romans, as is w^rcll known, changed their system, and made this heavy mass a living body. ’ Their citizens were brave men fighting for their country, and were fit for something better, than to be mere machines, unable to act separately. The soldiers of the republic were armed, not with the. long pike, but with two heavy javelins, called pila, which they were taught to throw with great effect, and a short strong sword, fit alike for striking and thrusting.^ They exchanged the heavy round shield for a lighter one of oblong shape, (scutum), curved so as to defend the side as well as the front. Thus armed, they stood at a distance of a yard from their right and left hand men, so as to allow free room for the use of their weapons. The men of each rear-rank stood, not directly behind their front-rank men, but so as to cover the space between two, like the knots in net-work (in quincuncem dispositi). Thus, when the front-rank men had discharged

f Liv. viii. 8. Tho account that follows is based on this passago with tho commentary of Niebuhr.

their pila, they fell bade, and their rear-rank steppod forward,-so as to come in front and discharge their pila in turrj. Meanwhile the original front-rank w^ras falling back to the rear, and each rear*rank was gradually coming up to be ready to take their turn in front. When all the pila were discharged, and the enemy thrown into confusion by this continued fire, the whole body advanced to close combat, and completed the work of defeat/with their swords.

' Now in the times of Marius and Caesar, wlio conquered tho Germans and Gauls with tactics of this kind, the whole legion was armed alike, being divided into ten cohorts, and each cohort into three maniples or six centuries, each century being commanded by a centurion. . ^s ;

But at the time of which wc now speak, this uniformity of system did not yet prevail. At this time the Legion consisted of three battalions of the line, each 1200 strong, and to these were attached a body of light troops, bowmen and ^v slingers (called rorarii, because they sprinkled their missiles lilce dew), and also an unarmed body called atcensi, because they were qddcd to the, rate-paying citizens (censi),* to serve as attendants, and perform all the duties of camp-followers. Of the three main battalions the foremost was called Hastati, because they were still armed witli the long pike, like the old phalanx. Close behind these were the Principes, who were composed of the first in rank among the citizens, and were probably armed with the sword and pila. In rear of the principes were placed the standards of the whole army, so that these two front "battalions were called Ante-signani. Behind the standards were ranged the third battalion, called Triarii, composed of the most experienced soldiers, destined to act as a reserve, and bring aid to any part of the front battalions which seemed to be in difficulty. The battle was begun by the rorarii,' who covered the advance of the main body, and then dispersed on either flank. It is probable that the principes then advanced through the intervals of the maniples of the hastati, and having, discharged their pila, fell back again through the same intervals but the manner in which the soldiers, armed some with the pike and some with the^ sword and pila, acted together, must remain matter of doubt. ^ ,^v •

To each Legion was attached a squadron (ala) of 300 horse ; but the horse-soldiers of Rome were always inefficient; her chief dependence w^ras on her infantry.

* Thoso who paid no ratos and taxes (tho capite censi) wcro not allowed to eorvo in tho legions till tho timo of Marius, who first placcd them on tho> military roll. *

Romans and Latins. The divisions of their army, their officers, their tactics were exactly alike. They had been used to fight side by side, and in each army there were many men and officers who were personally connected with those in the other. Under these circumstances the Roman commanders thought it important to break oft' all communication between the armies, and they issued a general order to this effect. It was also strictly forbidden to engage in any partial skirmishes with the Latins, or to accept any challenge to single combat which they might make. All strength, was to be reserved for the great battle which was to determine the fate of the two nations. . .

§ 7. While the armies were thus lying over against each other, the Latin horsemen, conscious of superiority, used every endeavour to provoke the Romans to single combats. The latter, however, wero cheeked by the orders of their generals, till young Manlius, son of the Consul, stung to the quick by the taunts of. Geminus Metius, a Latin champion, accepted 'his challenge. The young Roman conquered, and returned to the camp to lay the spoils of the enemy at his father’s feet. But the spirit of Brutus was not dead; and the stern Consul, unmindful of his own feelings and the pleading voices of the whole army, condemned his son to death for disobedience to orders. Discipline was thus maintained, but at a heavy expense, aud the men’s hearts were heavy at this unnatural act. . . .

§ 8‘. In the night before the day on which the Consuls resolved * to fight, each of them were visited by ‘an ominous dream, by which it was revealed that whichever army first lost its general should prevail; and they agreed that he whose- division first gave ground should devote himself, to the gods of the lower, world. .

- In the morning, when the auspices were taken, the liver.of the victim offered on the part of Deeius was defective, while that of Manlius was perfect, and the event confirmed the omen ; for Manlius, who commanded the right division, held his ground, while tho legions of Deeius on the left gave way.; _ }

Then Deeius, mindful of his vow, sent for Valerius, the ChiefJ Pontiff, to direct him how duly to devote himself. He put on his toga, the robe of peace, after the Gabine fashion, bringing the end’ or lappet under the right arm and throwing it over his head; and then standing on a javelin, he pronounced the solemn form of words prescribed, by which he devoted the army of the enemy along with himself to the gods of death and to the grave. Then, still shrouded in his toga, he leaped upon his horse, and dashing into the enemy’s ranks was slain. ■

< Both- armies were well aware of the meaning of the act: it dc-pressed the spirits of the Latins as much as it raised those of the Romans. . ' • •

The skill of Manlius now finished the work of superstitious awe. lie had armed his accensi, contrary to usual custom; and as soon as his two front battalions were wearied, he brought them up in place of the triarii. The Latins, thinking they were triarii, brought up their own third battalions, who thus used up their weapons and their strength upon the Roman accensi. Then Manlius brought up his real triarii, fresh and unbroken, to gain an easy victory over the wearied * enemy. They fled in irretrievable confusion.

Such was the battle of Vesuvius, which decided the fate of Latium and of Campania. We know not what part the Campanians and Samnites took in it, but there is no doubt that they were engaged as allies on either side. The Latins endeavoured to make a stand upon the Liris, but again. suffered a defeat, and the surviving ' Consul led his victorious army to Rome. • . " . •

§ 9. If the greatness of a Consul’s honours were proportioned to the importance of his acts, the,triumph of T.Manlius Torquatus ought..to have been second to none; for Capua, Cumae, Cales, and other towns in Campania were among the conquered; and not only Latium, but Campania and the intervening country, of the Auruncans and Volscians, remained at the mercy of the conquerors. But the memory of his son was alive; the younger men were too much struck with horror at the remorseless father to give glory to the victorious Consul, and a gloomy silence attended his progress along the Forum to the Capitol. From the stern exercise of his authority he is said to’ have derived his other surname of Imperiosus. .

§ 10. The war. was kept up the next year by several Latin cities, which, however, were unable to keep an army in the field. Tibur, Praeneste, Aricia, Lavinium, Velitrse, and Antium were conquered successively by the Consuls Ti. ^Emilius and Q. Publilius Philo, but Pedum still held out: in the third year, however (339 B.C.),, this city also yielded, and the Latin war was ended.

^ § 11. The country that was left at the mercy of Rome by the issue of the Latin < war was a large tract, comprehending Latium itself, the country of the Volscians and Auruncans from Anxur or Tcrracina to the mouth of the Liris, and the northern district of Campania nearly to the mouth of the Vulturnus. It is probable that in the lower part of Campania the Samnites remained paramount : but Roman Campania was the vine-growing part of tho country, in which lay Mons Massicus and Cales, and the famous Ager Falernus, while northward, among the Ausonians, was tho

Ager Ciecubus and the Formian hills, whose wines were only second to those of Campania. .

It was a rich domain, and at the close of the first year of the war the Senate, sure of their prize, proceeded to appropriate part of the lands of these countries. The poorest Plebeians, lately relieved of the pressure of debt, now received portions not exceeding three jugera (nearly 2 acres) apiece.⁴⁵ The allotments were small, but with the help of pasturage on the public land, this was enough to enable industrious men to keep free from debt. .

t § 12. However, the smallness of these allotments seems to have again raised discontent; and in the second year of the Latin war (340 b.c.) the Plebeian Consul, Q. Publilius Philo, being named Dictator by his patrician colleague for some purpose now unknown, proposed and carried three laws still further abridging the few remaining privileges of the patrician Lords.

Tlie first Publilian law enacted that one of the Censors, as one of the Consuls, must be a Plebeian, which confirmed as a rule what had already been allowed; for C.'Marcius Rutilus had already held this office, f The second gave fuller sanction to the principle already established, that the Resolutions of the Plebeian Assembly should have the force of law.J The third provided that all laws passed at the Comitia of the Centuries or of the Tribes should receive beforehand the sanction of the Curies ;|| so that this Patrician Assembly now lost all power of stopping or rejecting laws proposed in the Popular Assemblies. It is remarkable that' these Publilian Laws were passed with very little open opposition on the part of the Patricians. .

§ 13. After the surrender of Pedum, in the third year of the war, the Senate proceeded to make such a .settlement of the conquered communities as might deliver Rome from all future fears of insurrection. The principle of policy was that which was steadily and insidiously pursued in all future dealings with conquered countries, namely, to divide the interests of the different communities by bestowing privileges on some, and by reducing others to such a state of absolute subjection that they were never likely again to unite in arms. It should be added, however, that hopes wero held out to those who were most severely punished that by obedience and good service they might hereafter gain the privileges of the most highly favoured. .

§ 14. It will be necessary here to say a few words on thenaturo of the privileges which Rome was able to bestow upon her subjects or to withhold from them. _:

All Burgesses of Rome, now that no political distinction remained between Patrician and Plebeian, enjoyed the same rights. These rights are commonly divided into two classes, the Private and the Public. The private rights of a Roman citizen were (1) the power of legal marriage with all families of citizens, (2) the power of making legal contracts of bargain and sale, so that he might hold land and houses by a good title in any part of the Roman territory, (3) the power of devising property by will, and of inheriting property, with other smaller privileges of which it is needless to speak here.* The Public Rights were (1) the power of voting in the great popular assemblies, the Comitia of the Centuries and of the tribes, in all matters of -legislation, in the 'election of magistrates, in the trial of fellow'-citizens, and' (2) tho power of being elected to all offices of State.f

When foreign lands were incorporated with Rome, the free citizens residing in those lands became entitled to all these Rights, both Private and Public. But it was common for Rome to enter into relations with foreign communities on such conditions, that she granted a portion of those Rights to the citizens of those communities, and received for her own citizens corresponding rights in those communities. Thus the citizens of Capua might possess tho Private Rights of a Roman Citizen at Rome, and reciprocally a Roman burgess might be able to exercise the same Rights at Capua. It is obvious that these concessions might be made, in various degrees of completeness.' All Private Rights might be granted, or only some ; or to the Private Rights might be added a power of obtaining even the Public Rights, that is, of becoming a burgess of Rome. I .

§ 15. It is probable that by the League of Spurius Cassius, and by the League renewed by Plautius in 35.6 B.C., this equal relation was established, between Rome and her subject communities .on the one hand, and all the independent Latin communities on the other. ‘ Romans possessed the Private Rights of citizenship in all these communities, and Latins possessed the same Rights at Rome. It is probable also that the citizens of each of the two parties to this League had some power of obtaining the

* Jus Connulni, Jus Commcrcii, Jus Teslamentifactionis ct Hoereditaiis, etc. i * v. •. . H 0

Public Rights in the allied states. A Roman might become tho burgess of one of the Latin communities, a Latiii might becomo a burgess of Rome. In Campania also similar relations seem to have existed between Rome and the chief Campanian communities before the great war of which we are speaking.

§ 10. But now, at the end of the year 339 B.C., Latium, Campania, and the intervening country, lay at the feet of Rome, and no such equality was thought of for the future. A complete division of interest was made* and all utaion between the cities was rendered difficult.

(1.) Some Latin communities with their lands w^Tere at once added to the Roman territory, so that their citizens became citizens of Rome and voted in the Comitia. * This complete incorporation was conferred upon Lanuvium, Tusculum, Nomentum, and Velitrae. Part of these lands were added to Tribes already existing,* but the greater part was comprehended in two new Tribes, which w^rere formed by the next Censors in 332 B.C., so that now the Roman Tribes amounted in number to twenty-nine.f It must be observed, however, that no reward was herein conferred upon Velitra?, which had been pertinacious in its resistance during the war; for its walls were thrown down and its chief citizens banished beyond the Tiber, while its lands were divided among Plebeians of Rome. It was not, therefore, the Latins of Velitne, but the new Roman settlers who became members of the Tribe in which the city stood; but in the other three cities the Latin inhabitants henceforth became Romans. It is probable that Aricia and Pedum were treated in the same manner as Velitra.

(2.) Tibur and Prameste were deprived of a portion of their territory, which thus became.part of the public domain of Rome; otherwise they remained independent. Probably they were still too powerful to be treated without regard. Praeneste more than once again appeared in arms against Rome.

(3.) The other Latin Communities were prohibited from entering into any relations, privato or public, one with another. The citizens of one town could not enter legal marriage with the family of another town, nor make a legal contract of bargain and sale with any but one of his own townsmen. This severe penal enactment shows that they were reduced into a state of absolute subjection to Rome, and the isolation which was its consequence effectually maintained that subjection. Many Latin

* Tusculum was added to tho old Papirian tribe.—Liv. viii. 37. f “ Eodem anno census actus, novique cives censi: Tribus propter eos ftddita), Maocia et Scaptia.”—Liv. viii. 17. Tho last had boon added more than 50 years before.—Chapt xviii. § 2.

Cities had been destroyed by the Gauls: others now began to dwindle away : so early began that chain of causes which has ended in the present desolation of the Campagna. In course of time their territory was nearly all incorporated with the Roman Tribes, and Latin families derived from these towns furnished some of the most illustrious generals and statesmen of -Rome. The Fulvii, the Curii, the Coruncanii were of Latin origin : Marius and Cicero, as is'well known, derived their origin irom the little Volscian town of Arpinum. • -

§ 17. The Oscan communities between Latium and Campania, with the chief cities of Northern Campania, were admitted into alliance with Rome much on the same tenns that had before subsisted between Rome and the communities of Latium. Capua especially appears in later history on terms as equal as eVer had been enjoyed by Tusculum, or Tibur, or Prameste. * The chief men, whom Livy calls* the Knights, were (as we have seen) probably of Samnite origin, and had taken part with Rome in the late Latin war, while the mass of the Oscan population joined their countrymen against the Latins. It is likely that these men were now restored as a Patrician order in Capua, and that the privileges of equal alliance referred to them alone. Probably, also, in Cumae, Suessula, Formise, and Fundi, where similar privileges were granted, similar political revolutions took place. A Patriciate was formed . and put in possession of political privileges, while the mass of the people were left in the former condition of the Plebeians at Rome. Thus the Patricians or governing body in each city would be anxious to maintain alliance with Rome, becausc on that depended the maintenance of their own supremacy.

§ 1. Next twelve years without great events: measures of precaution agaim. Samnites. § 2. Revolt of Cales: Colony there. § 3. Alexander of Mo lossus engaged by Tarentines to make waT with ^ucanians: Treaty of Romans with him. § 4. Colony sent to Fregellae. § 5. Generous treatment of Privemum: Tliirty-ono Tribes. § 6. Colony to Terracina. § 7. Dispute with Palsepolis, which calls in a Samnite garrison. § 8. Publilius Philo besieges Palscpolis: first Proconsul: destruction of Pabepolis. § 0. From these causes of quarrel, Second Samnite War breaks out.

§ 2. It appeal's that the Sidicines, in the late settlement of Campania, Lad been left independent, as a sort of border country between the Roman and the Samnite borders. This people, not satisfied with neutrality, drove the Auruncans of Cales into revolt against Rome, and a short war followed; Cales was speedily reduced by Valerius Corvus, Consul in b.c. 335 ; and, to prevent all future trouble, was occupied by a Colony of 2500 citizens (b.c. 334). These settlers became as it were the Patricians of the Colony, sharing the public domain amongst them; while the old population was reduced to the position of Plebeians; and therefore it was for the interest of the colonists always to remain faithful to Rome. Thus one outpost was planted in the newly-conquered country, so placed as to defend it against the Samnites.

§ 3. Three years after (b.c. 332) news came to Romo that Alexander, King of Molossus, had landed in Southern Italy with an army. This Alexander was unclc of Alexander the Great, being brother of his mother Olympias. lie had been invited to cross the sea by the Tarentines, whose practice it was to hire foreign armies commanded by leaders of note, in order to defend them against their barbarous neighbours, the Lucanians. Alexander defeated these people near Psestum; and the Senate forthwith sent to form an alliance with him, thinking he might -be of service to them in any future war with the Samnites. This was dishonest; for Rome was already in alliance with the Sam-nites, and the Samnites were at war with Alexander. Nor did it profit them; for Alexander, who had come into Italy not so much to assist the Tarentines as to win a kingdom for himself, was slain not long after in a gecond battle at Pandosia.

§ 4. Another event brought the two nations still nearer a direct , collision. It will be remembered that the Samnites had conquered the Yolscian country in the Upper Liris; that they had been left in possession of their conquests at the settlement which followed the Great Latin War. From this frontier they seem to have gone on to attack other Yolscian towns now under the protection of Rome; for in the year 328 b.c. we find the Volscians of Fabrateria, near Fregella), imploring the assistance of Rome. The appeal was listened to at once. The Senate warned the Samnites to abstain from further inroads; and not content with this, they proceeded to occupy FregcIIfe with a strong body of Colonists. This second Colony on the Samnite frontier was destined to command the upper or inland road from Latiurn into Campania.

§ 5. Two. years before (330 B.C.) one of the newly-conquered Yolscian cities had revolted against Rome. This was Priveruum,

and tlic revolt was countenanced by Fundi, and perhaps other Auruncan towns; for Vitruvius Vaccus, a wealthy citizen of Fundi, who had lately settled at Rome, appears as the leader of the Privcrnatians. The revolt was soon crushed : but the Pri-vernatians, contrary to custom, were treated with indulgent favour by the Senate. Their deputies, being asked by the Consul, “ What was due to such conduct as theirs V' boldly replied by another question:—“What is due to brave men wlm have fought for freedomV “Well, but if we spare you,’’ rejoined the Consul, “ what arc wc to expect ?” “Peace,” was the reply, “if you treat us well; but if ill, a speedy return to war.¹’ Then the Senate voted that the people of Privcrnum should be admitted to be Roman citizens; and not long after, they were included in two new Oscan Tribes, which, being added to the Roman territory, made the Tribes thirty-one in all.* Probably this conduct was rather politic than magnanimous. It was evidently w^rcll calculated to make the Oscan nations satisfied with Roman sovereignty, and willing to take part with Rome rather than with the Samnites.

§ G. Shortly after this tho Senate placed a Colony of ’300 Roman citizens in the strong city of Anxur, or Tcrracina. This Colony was of a different -sort from those of Cales and Fregellrc (as shall hereafter be explained). It was intended to command the lower or coast road from Latium into Campania, as Frcgcllaa did the upper or inland. A Colony, planted in Antium at the •close of the Latin w^Tar, had a similar effect

§ *7. In the yoar 327 b.c. began the dispute which was the immediate cause of the great Samnite War. Parthcnopo wa* an ancient Greek colony founded by the Chalcidians of Cuma on the northern part of the Day of Naples. In after years another city sprung up a little to the south, whence the original Parthcnopo was called Palsepolis, or Old-town, while the New Town took the name of Ncapolis. The latter preserves its name in the modern Naples; the former has so utterly disappeared that its site is a matter of guess. These two cities (as has been stated) were considered to be free and independent, though tho main part of the country above had been seized by the Samnites. Now at the time just mentioned the Senate sent to PaUcpolis l<> complain of piracies and other outrages committed upon Roman subjects in Campania. But the Greek city, being closely allied with her sister Ncapolis and the great Oscan town of Nola (which had almost become Greek), seeing also that she might count on the aid of the Samnites against Rome, and being secretly instigated by the Tarentines, refused to give any satis

faction for the alleged injuries. On this the Senate declared war, and ordered L. Publilius Philo, the plebeian Consul, to besiege Palsepolis; and this city on her part received a garrison, consisting (it was said) of 2000 Nolans and 4000 Samnites.

§ 8. The Consul encamped between the two cities, the npw and the old: but the Romans were at this time unskilful in sieges, and the year drew on without any great advance being made. Publilius Philo, however, was a deserved favourite of the people, and in order to enable him to continue the war, he received the title of Pro-consul, with the command of .the besieging army for the next year—tho first example of a practice which afterwards became common. Still all his efforts might have been vain, had not two traitor Greeks, holding high offices in Palsepolis, offered to betray the city. This offer was eagerly accepted, and the Romans were admitted into the. old town at one gate, while the Samnite garrison left it by the. opposite side. From this time we hear no more of Palsepolis. Tlie Neapolitans, foreseeing the ascendency of Rome, entered into a treaty of peace with the Senate; and Publilius returned home completely successful. He was the first Pro-consul; he was also the first general who was allowed to triumph before he had laid down his office.

§ 9. While these affairs were going on, war broke out v ith the Samnites. The Senate sent ambassadors to complain of the conduct of these people in encouraging the men of Privernmn to revolt, and in supporting the Greeks of Palsepolis against Rome. The Samnites denied both charges, and fiercely retorted upon Rome for daring to colonise Frcgellse, which they had taken and destroyed. “ What need of further trifling ?” said they ; “ war is the only way to settle our disputes, and the plain of Campania must be our battle-ground. There let us meet, between Capua and Sucssula, and decide which is to be mistress of Italy, Samnium or Rome.” But the Romans, coldly replying that it was their custom to choose their own field of battle, contented themselves with declaring war; and the colleague of Publilius was ordered to enter the Samnite frontiers. Thus in the year 32G b.c. was war again begun between Rome and Samnium. This time it lasted, not two years, as before, but twenty-two. It was a desolating warfare, which brought both nations to the last stage-of exhaustion. But Rome remained the conqueror.

§ 1. Part taken in war by nations of Southern Italy. § 2. Leading men of Rome: M, Valerius Corvus, M. Papirius Cursor, Q. Fabius, P. Decius tho younger, etc. § 3. War divided into three periods. § 4. First Period (326-322), in which Romans gain the upper hand. § 5. Second Period (b.c. 321-315): great defeat of Roman army at Fureuke Caudina). § 6. Pontius passes Romans under yoke, and releases them on conditions of pcace. §. 7. Peace repudiated by Senate. § 8. Remarks on their conduct. § 9. Continued success of Samnites, till 315. § 10. TnmD Period (314-304): precautionary measures: Capua called to account: Colonists sent to Fre-gellae, Casinum, Interamna, Suessa. §11. War declared by Etruscans. § 12. Great defeat of Samnites by Papirius. § 13. Of Etruscans by Fabius. § 14. Samnites sue for Peaeo (304 b.c.) § 15. Why Senate was ready to come to terms.—Thirty-three Tribes.

Samnites; but their aid seems to have been of an uncertain and unstable character. The alliance formed with the Apulian tribes was more serviceable to Rome.

Tarentum, which was now the chief of the Greek cities in the South of Italy, took no direct part in the war, but regarded it with no common interest. Lately the Samnites and Lucanians had been her chief enemies; but the conquests of Rome, and especially the fall of Palaepolis, had excited the interest and the fears of the Greek cities in the south, and their good wishes were on the side of Samnium. Indeed, we arc expressly told that it was by tho arts of the Tarcntines that the Lucanians were detached from their alliance with Rome.*

§ 2. Such was the state of the neighbouring nations when war broke out. It will be useful here to notice the men whom the Romans expected to lead them to victory.

Of T. Manlius Torquatus, the conqueror of the Latins, we hear not. Either he was dead, or the horror caused by the ruthless execution of his son prevented his being again elected Consul. But M. Valerius Corvus, the conqueror of the Samnites in the First War, was still in the vigour of life. He had been first elected Consul in the year 346, at the early age of twenty-three, now, therefore, he was little more than forty-four. Four times had he been Consul; and as Dictator, in the year after his Samnite victory, he had quelled a dangerous insurrection without bloodshed. In'the course of this war he was once more Dictator and twice Consul.

But the general in ivhom the Senate seem to have placed most confidence was M. Papirius Cursor. Four times was he made Consul in this war, and once Dictator, and his services were usually called for in the greatest emergencies. He was a man of little education, of great bodily strength, and especially remarkable for his swiftness of foot (whence his name of Cursor) ; able to endure all extremes of hunger, cold, and fatigue ; and not without a rough sort of humour. Once, it is said, the troops asked for some remission of duty in reward for good service; “ Very well,” said he, “ you need not stroke your horses on the back when you dismount.” Again, an offender was brought before him as he was walking up and down in front of his tent, and straightway he bade the lictor get ready-his axe. The culprit, pale with fear, stood expecting his death-blow, when Papirius said—“ Here, lictor, cut away this root, or ’twill trip me up as I walkand then dismissed the trembling w’retch. A man of this kind was sure to be popular with the soldiers ; yet often he lost their good-will by his violent and overbearing conduct. *

Q. Fabius Maximus* was perhaps the most considerable man of the time, lie was a patrician, but the warm friend of the plebeian P. Decius, the son of that Decius who devoted himself so nobly in the Latin War. Fabius more than once proved himself the better genius of Home, in the latter part of this war and afterwards.

With these three Patricians must be remembered the names of C. Marcius Rutilus and Q. Publilius Philo, Plebeians, who have already been mentioned more than once.

To oppose these Homan chiefs, the Samnites had no doubt bold and skilful leaders; for during a great part of the war their arms were in the ascendant. But the only name we know is that of C. Pontius; and a litter place will occur presently to speak of this _n great man.

§ 3. The war itself may be conveniently divided into three periods: the first, from 320 to 322, when the Samnites were so far reduced as to sue for peace ; the second from 321, when the lto-mans were defeated at the Caudine Forks, .to 315, when the Sam-nitcs gained another victory at Lautulse, and Capua threatened to revolt; the third,from 314, when the lioman fortune again began to prevail, to 304, when the war ended.

§ 4. First Period (320—322).—The year after the fall of Pa-lajpolis, the Senate boldly ordered the Consul D. Junius Brutus to march into the allied country of Apulia, in order to attack theSani-nites from that quarter, while the other Consul entered Samnium from Campania. By this means they hoped to avert the war from their own territory, as they had done successfully in the Latiil war. Brutus was^- refused a passage through the Yestiuian country, and spent the whole year in reducing these people to submission. The purpose of this was, no doubt, to secure a passage into Apulia.

Meantime, the other Consul being sick, M. Papirius Cursor was named Dictator to act in his place, and he chose Q. Fabius as hi* Master of Horse. The Dictator found the Samnite army advanced to the edge of the Lower Apennines, which overhang the Latian Plain, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Sublaqucum (Subiaco),- and there he fixed his camp. Being recalled to Romo to rectify some mistake in the auguries, he left the army in command of Fabius, strictly charging him not to venture on an action. But in a day or two, as lie was presiding in the Senate, a message reached him to say that his Master of ITorso had been so provoked by the hourly insults of the enemy, that he had attacked them and gained a signal victory. Papirius rushed out of the

* Also called Rullianua. From this namo it should seom that ho was adopted by a Fabius from the Gens Rullia.

Senate-house, and went straight to the army, vowing that his rebellious officer should die the death of young Manlius, the son of Torquatus. But Fabius, being forewarned, called the soldiers together, and told them of his danger; whereupon they bade him be of good cheer, for they would stand between him and the Dictator’s wrath. The latter, as soon as he arrived, ordered the lictors to seize Fabius, who took refuge among the veterans; and after a long struggle, the Dictator was obliged to let matters stand over till the next day. Meantime, Fabius fled to Rome, and appeared before the Senate to tell his story. But Papirius pursuing him, entered the Senate-house and ordered the lictors to arrest him. A scene of great violence followed; and at length the Dictator was obliged to yield to the wishes of both Senate and People. But the pardon he granted was forced and Ungracious, and on liis return to the camp he found the army ripe for mutiny and unwilling to fight. Then even his stubborn will gave way; he found it necessary to curb his angry temper, and adopt gentler manners; till at length, having recovered the good-will of the soldiery, he again attacked the enemy, and again defeated them.

So discouraged were the Samnites, that they sued for peace; but only a year’s truce was granted, at the end of which hostilities were resumed with the same fortune as before. They were again defeated in a great battle on the borders of their own country; while Q. Fabius, now Consul, made an'irruption into the northern part of Apulia, which was still subject to the Samnites, and took Luceria, with other places. On these losses, the enemy prayed for peace more earnestly than before; but the Senate refused to treat unless Brutulus Papius, whom they accounted the leader of the war-party, were first delivered up. This man nobly said that he would not stand in the way of his country’s wishes, and sought a voluntary death. Then the Samnites sent ambassadors to Rome, bearing the body of Papius, to repeat their former prayer. But this unworthy treatment of a man whose only fault seems to have been that lie loved his county too well, was of no avail. The conditions of peace offered by the Senate were so hard, that it was thought that a war ever so unsuccessful could bring about no worse results. It w^Tas determined to renew hostilities.

§ 5. Second Period (321—315 b.c.)—As during the first five years of the war the Roman arms had prevailed, so during the next seven the Samnites were almost uniformly successful. This success was mainly due to C. Pontius. Ilerennius, his father, was famed for wisdom, not without reason ; for he had drank at the fountain of Creek philosophy, having been tho friend of tho

Pythagorean sage Archytas,* who had governed Tarentum with wisdom and virtue for many years. Ilerennius had paid great attention to the education of his son, .and the name of C. Pontius stood so high, that he was elected captain-general of the Samnite League. ,

The very first year of his command was marked by one of the greatest disgraces which the Roman armies ever suffered. This A’as the famous affair of the Caudine Forks (Furculas Caudinsc).

It . appears that in this year (321 b.c.) both the Consuls, T. Vcturius and Sp. Posthumius, had been ordered to march into Campania, in order to attack Samnium from that country. * When they reached Capua, they heard that Pontius with the whole Samnite army was besieging Lucefia. Thinking that, unless they hastened by the shortest way into Apulia, the whole country might fall away from the Romans, they marched straight northward into Sanmiuin, taking the road which led by Calatia through the mountains to Beneventum, the chief town of the Caudini. Soon after the road enters the mountains, the valley becomes very narrow : it then opens out into a small plain, and then closes in again.f When the Roman armies, after,traversing the plain, attempted to defile through the pass at the far end of it, they found they had been deceived by false reports. The enemy had indeed besieged Luceria; but C. Pontius himself, with the best of his troops, had beset the road, and was so strongly posted, that it seemed impossible to force a passage. The Consuls then turned about, intending to go back into Campania and seek another way into Apulia, but they found that the enemy had in the meantime taken possession of the pass by which they had entered, so that they were hemmed in both in front and rear. The hills on either side were also guarded, so that escape was impossible. Still the Romans made a desperate attempt to force tlieir way out of this trap, but at what point is unknown. Great"numbers fell; one-half of their officers were killed or wounded; and not till then did the Consuls offer to treaty

§ 6. Pontius was so elated by his great success, that he knew not what would be the best use to make of his victory. In this state of doubt he sent for his sage father, and demanded counsel. “ Two courses are open to you,” said Ilerennius, “ either to put all to the

f Tho placo is uncertain. It was certainly on tho road from Capua to Beneventum, and must havo been either the Stretto d’Arpaia, a narrow defilo between Arienzo and Arpaia, or tho depressed valley beyond Arpaia, between that place and Montesarchio.

% Livy mentions no battle: ho did not seo that defeat was more glorious than surrender. But tho battlo is expressly mentioned by Ciccro (do Offic. iii. 30, do Sencct 12), and tho great loss is specified by Appian.

sword, and deprive your enemies of a bravo army ; or to let them go untouched, and make them your friends.” This advice has been highly praised, but without much reason. It sounds like the policy of a rude Samnite mountaineer, rather than of one who had heard tlie lessons of Grecian wisdom. The slaughter of a whole army is too cruel for a civilised man to think of. To dismiss them all without conditions would have been a romantic piece of generosity, which the Roman Senate would have ascribed either to folly or to fear. Nor did Pontius listen to his father’s counsel. He proposed to let the army go free, on surrendering their arms and publicly acknowledging their defeat, if the chief officers would engage to procure a peace and cause that all towns and lands which had been taken from tho Samnites should bo restored. This was agreed to; tho treaty was signed by the Consuls and all the superior officers. Six hundred knights were handed over to Pontius as hostages till tho treaty was ratified by the Senate. And then tho whole army, clad in their under garments only, having given up their armour and cloaks, was allowed to go through tho Samnite lines, each man passing singly under the yoke. They returned in this sorry guise to Capua, where they were supplied with arms and outer garments, that they might not return to Romo like prisoners or slaves. But so ashamed were they, that none would go into tho city till nightfall, except the Consuls, who wero obliged to enter publicly, and by daylight. But they shared in tho feelings of their men, and the whole Roman people were oppressed by shame and grief. All business was suspended ;⁴⁶ all ranks put on mourning; all festivals, public and private, were adjourned ; and the Comitia for election of new magistrates were held by an Interrex, the Consuls being deemed unworthy to preside. The persons chosen to be the new Consuls were those held most likely to repair this great disaster,—L. Papirius Cursor the Patrician, and Q. Publilius Philo the Plebeian. %

§ 7. Pontius now demanded the fulfilment of the treaty, and the matter was laid before the Senate. Tho late Consuls, who had made the treaty, rose and declared that it ought not to be observed ; that they and all who had signed that shameful treaty ought to be given up to the enemy. Two Tribunes of the Plebs opposed this motion, but they were not heard. Consuls, Legionary Tribunes, Qua>stors, and all others who had signed, were given to the fecial or herald; and he delivered them in chains to tho Samnites. As soon as this was done, Postumius, the late Consul, struck the Roman fecial with his knee, saying: “I am now a Sam-nitc subject, and thus do I insult tlie sacred officer of Rome. Tho Romans can now make rightful war against tho Samnites.” But Pontius cut short this paltry quibbling by declaring that lie would not rcccive the prisoners at all. ^u Rome,” said lie, “ made a troaty with me ; I will not excuse her performance of licr duty because she gives up the persons of a few oflicers. If she will not have the treaty, let her place her army as it was in the Pass of Caudino Forks, and then I will see what may be done.” The Roman pri-noncrs returned to Rome; the six hundred hostages were left to tho mercy of the Samnites.

§ 8. In this matter the Roman Senate has been mucli blamed for treachery and breach of faith. But, to justify such censurc, we must be able to answer these questions:—Had the Consuls power to make a treaty binding on the whole people ? Or if they had not, did they send to Rome to obtain the sanction of tho Senate and People? If these questions arc answered, one or both of them, in the affirmative, then doubtless the Senate were most guilty. But if the Consuls had no such power, and if the authorities at home had not been consulted, then all that can be said is that C. Pontius ought not to have dismissed the army till the treaty had been duly ratified : for Rome was so near that an answer could soon have been brought back. There is too much reason to think that, directly or indirectly, some authority was given to the treaty. At all events the conduct of Postumius, in pretending to be a Samnite when he insulted the Roman fecial, is, to our notions, contemptible, if not too ludicrous even to bo contemptible.

§ 9. So the war was renewed, and Papirius Cursor, with his plebeian colleague, took the field. It is said that Luceria surrendered to Papirius ; at all events, his presence in Apulia prevented that people from deserting tho Roman alliance, and he was re-elected Consul for the next year. •

The history of the rest of this⁴⁷ period is obscure. Two years passed in another armistice, during which the Romans created the two new Oscan Tribes above noticed.* But fortune continued to favour the Samnites. They advanced still further along the upper valley of the Liris; Sora revolted to them, and they expelled the Roman colonists from Fregellai; so that the Romans lost tho command of the upper road into Campania. Still the Senato persisted in their aggressive policy; and in tho eleventh year of the war, Papirius and Publilius, again colleagues in the Consulship, again led their arms into Apulia and Samnium, leaving the lower Campanian road undefended. On this the Samnites descended into Campania; and Fabius, being appointed Dictator, had only just time to occupy the pass of Lautiila?, which has been mentioned as an important position on the lower road, between Anxur and Fundi. But Fabius, bravo and skilful as he was, could not hold his post with an army so hastily drawn together. lie was defeated with great loss, Q. Aulius Cerre-tanus, Master of the Horse, being in the number of the slain. The loss of Lautulae opened Latium to the Samnite army; the Auruncans and other Oscan tribes rose against Rome, and Campania threatened to revolt. The condition o.f the pity seemed desperate. But old Rome never shone so bright as when her light seemed quite put out. “ Merses profundo, ⁴⁸pul-chrior evenit,” is no poetic fancy, but an historic truth. And so it was even .now. Fabius appears to have saved part of his army, and with it to have joined one of the Consuls, who had returned home in haste, when the,news of the battle of Lautulas reached him. They fell upon the ,Samnites, and defeated them completely. , ,

From this time the star of the Samnites began to wane. For the remaining ten years of the war the Roman arms uniformly prevailed; and with these begin our third and last period.

§ 10. Third Period (314—304 b.c.).—The defeat of the Samnites just mentioned was so complete, that they cOuld not meet the Romans in the field. The wretched Auruncans, who had been tempted to revolt after the battle of Lautulrc, were betrayed to their old masters, and (to use the words of Livy) were annihilated.* Mamius was named Dictator to inquire into Campanian disaffection; and his presence at Capua created so much terror, that the two Calavii, the leaders of the confederacy, were delivered up to him, and a general amnesty was granted.

The Senate then busied themselves with so fortifying the upper road, that they might never again lose it. Sora was a second time betrayed to them; they re-established the Colony of Fregellse, and sent colonists to Casinum, Interamna, and Suessa, so that these places, with Cales, formed a line of fortresses along the Samnite frontier. They also took the largo town of Nola in Southern Campania, and probably also Salernum, so that the Samnites were now almost, if not quite, cut off from the southern sea. Lastly, a large body of colonists was sent to the distant town of Luceria, to prevent its being again surprised by the enemy. Thus were the Samnites held in check on every side.

§ 11. The war would probably have come to a quick conclusion liad it not been that in the fifteenth year the forty years’ truce with the Etruscans of the southern country ended, and this people stirred up other cities of Northern Etruria to join with them in war against Rome. In that year Q. Fabius was appointed Consul for the second time, to conduct the war against the Etruscans, while C. Marcius liutilus, his colleague, held the Samnites in check. But the Plebeian Consul was defeated by the Samnites^ and cut off from communication with the city. The Senate, in great alarm, resolved that Papirius Cursor should be named Dictator. But who was to name him? Marcius could not; and Fabius, it was feared, would not. However, they sent to the lattei in Etruria, trusting that love of his country would overcome memory of his private wrongs. Fabius received the order to exalt his old enemy in silence, and turned abruptly from the messengers; but at dead of night he rose, according to ancient custom, and named his deadly foe to the Dictatorship.

. § 12. For the next year (309. b.c.), it appears from the Fasti that no Consuls were elected. Papirius, with dictatorial power, led his legions into Samnium; while Fabius continued as Proconsul in Etruria. The Samnites had made great exertions to improve their success, and the splendid equipment of their army is described by Livy. One division wore striped tunics with gilded shields; the other was clad in white, with shields of silver. But all was of no avail; the long-tried fortune of Papirius again prevailed, and the Samnites were once more utterly defeated. This was the last battle they fought in this-war.

§ 13. Meanwhile Fabius had been no less successful in Etruria. He first mado. another attempt upon the Etruscan lines at Sutrium; but- finding them too strong to be forced, with the bold decision which marks the Roman leaders of this time lie determined to make an inroad into their country. He knew their weakness at home, caused by the tyranny which was exercised by tho Lucumoncs over their serfs. Still his enterprise was a bold one. To reach the Vulsinian territory he must traverse the Ciminian hills.⁴⁹ Since Lower Etruria had been conquered, these hills had been left as a frontier, not to be occupied by either party. They were quite overgrown with wood, and no Roman foot (it is said) had traversed them for many years. Fabius proposed to make his way through this barrier, and descend at once upon Vulsinii, justly calculating that the alarm caused by his appearance would draw off the invading army. He sent forward his brother Marcus, who had been brought up at- Cairo and spoke Etruscan like a native, to examine tho country beyond the forest; and sent word to the Senate of his intention, that they might provide means to defend the city, in case the Etruscans ventured to attack it in his absence. Tho Senate was alarmed by liis boldness, and sent off ambassadors, attended by two Tribunes, with positive orders to stop his march. But Fabius was already in Etruria. He ravaged the country far and wide; and the enemy broke up from Sutrium to defend their own liomes. He encountered them near Perusia, and, after a bloody battle, defeated them utterly. The result was that the cities whom the Yulsinians had drawn into the war, made a peace for thirty years. The Yulsinians, however, continued in arms.

§ 14. The Samnites were now quite worn out. The w'ar had lasted more than twenty years. Tlie Romans every year invaded their country; and at length, upon the fall of Bovianum, the chief town of the Pentrians, they sued for peace. It was granted, but on hard terms. They lost all their territory on the sea-coast: they gave up all foreign alliances and conquests, and acknowledged tho supremacy of Rome.

§ 15. The Senate were more' ready to come to terms, because so:ne of her other neighbours threatened to be troublesome. Even the Hernicans, the old and faithful allies of Home, had risen against her just before the close of the war; but they were reduced in a single campaign, and their towns treated as those of the Latins had been before. Anagnia, their chief city, became a Roman municipal town. Part of the Yolscian lands also wero occupied by the colonies of Interamna and Casinum (as abovtf noted), and more recently by Sora. At the close of the war, tho remnant of the JEquians also ventured to provoke the wrath of Rome. They also were -soon subdued, and two Colonies wore planted among their mountains—at Alba on the Fucine Lake, and at Carseoli; and by the next Censors the ^Equian territory on tho Anio was formed into two new Tribes, so that now the number amounted to Thirty-three.⁵⁰ This near approach of Roman settlers alarmed the Sabellian tribes on the high Apennines, and the Mar* sians declared war. They also were defeated; upon which the Senate at once offered to enter into a league with them on equal terms: and the Marsians long remained tho faithful ally of Rome. The Marrucinians, Pelignians, Frentanians, and Vestinians, also joined the Roman league.

§ 1. Hollowness of tho lato pcaco. § 2. Rotao engaged in war with Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls. § 3. Samnites chooso this crisis for declaring war. § 4. Samnium desolated by Fabius and Decius. § 5. Great confederacy organised by Gellius Egnatius, tho Samnite. •§ C. Fabius and Decius again elected Consuls: great efforts for Campaign. § 7. Dccisivo battlo of Sentinum: self-sacrifico of second Decius. § 8. Yictory in Samnium by Papirius and Carvilius. § 9. C. Pontius again appears, and. i3 taken prisoner by Fabius. § 10. Great Colony planted at Yenusia. § 11. Submission of Samnites. § 12. Shameful doath of C. Tontius.

§ 2. After the conclusion of the peace before-named, Rome again appears in hostility with many of the Etruscan cities, notwithstanding the thirty years’ truce which all except Vulsinii had lately made.* At Arretium (Arezzo) we find the noble house of the Cilmi, from whom C. Cilnius Maecenas, the minister of Augustus, claimed descent, inviting the Romans to restore them to the city from which they had been banished. Pcrusia also and other cities appear in arms. Even beyond Etruria, in Umbria, we find the Romans at war with the people of Ncquinum, a city strongly situated on the Nar (Nera). After an obstinate siege they took the place, and planted a Colony there, under the name of Narnia (Narni), to command the point at which the frontiers of Elruria, Umbria, and the Sabines meet. The Umbrians Avcre ro alanned by this aggressive .movement, that they called in to aid them a people who had hitherto been regarded, with horror by all Italian nations.

A tribe of the Scnonian Gauls, the same who had burnt Rome, had made a permanent settlement on the Umbrian coast-land, between the Utis and the JEsis. The Umbrians, once a large and powerful nation, had been gradually confined to the mountain land on the left bank of the Tiber; and these Gauls had been the last enemy who had encroached upon their lands till the late settlement of the Romans at Narnia, We may infer the alarm felt by the Umbrians from the fact of their seeking such assistance,. . .

§ 3. In the year 298 b.c. the Consuls were preparing to resist an attack from.the Umbrians and Gauls; find this was the favourable moment chosen by, the Samnites for renewing the war.

Their first step was to overpower the Roman party in Lucania and Apulia; the colony of Luccria alone held out. Then they attempted to draw over the Marsians to -their league; but this people turned a deaf car to the voice of the tempter. The Sabines^ however, of the upper country, gave a favourable answer.

With this formidable confederacy on the one hand, and the fear of the Etrurians, Umbrians, and Senonian Gauls on the other_r the position of Rome appeared critical. But for some reason the fickle Gauls failed in their engagement, the Umbrians did 'not move, and Rome was left to deal with tho Samnite bague on the south, and the Etruscan cities on the north. But no doubt the interposition of the Krentanians and of the Marsians, with their associated cantons, between the Samnites and Northern Italy, must have greatly strengthened the hands of Rome in the ensuing war. ’

§ 4. The patrician Consul of the year 298 B.C., L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, the first of a great name/⁵¹ invaded Etruria, while his colleague, Cn. Fulvius, entered the country of the Pcntrian Samnites. Fulvius gained not that advantage which the Roman people expected over an enemy whom they considered as already conquered. Accordingly, the general wish was to elect Q. Fabius Maximus, the hero of the late war, Consul for the next year, Fabius was now an elderly man, and this would be his fourth Consulship. Ho was fain to declinc the task_? but at length gavq way on condition that his plebeian colleague should be P. Decius Mus, son of him who devoted himself in the great Latin war; and he also had been Consul twice before. They had been colleagues in the Consulship four years before (301 B.C.), and had cordially united in measures calculatcd to preserve harmony in the state, as we shall show in the next chapter. They continued firm friends till the death of Decius, and present a most honourable specimen of a Patrician and i'lcbeian combined for the common good. .

Etruria was neglected. Both Consuls invaded Samnium: Fabius the Pentrian, Decius the Caudinc yalleys. .They overran every part, burning and destroying. It is said that in this summer’s campaign, Decius encamped in forty-five different places, Fabius in eighty-six. The campaign served to detach the Luca-nians and Apulians from alliance with the Samnites.

§ 5. It appeared as if this brave people were again at the feet of Rome; and L. Volumnius, the plebeian Consul of the next year (290 B.C.), whilst his colleague App. Claudius was sent into Etruria, entered Samnium as if to take possession. But the Samnites rose from under their calamities with an elasticity as great as Rome herself displayed. Probably in the terrible assault of the last year great part of their flocks and herds, their chief wealth, had been secured in mountain fastnesses", and therefore they suffered not so much as an agricultural people might have done. But the chief merit of their renewed vigour must be attributed to a brave chief, named Gellius Egnatius, who shines forth for a moment, like Pontius in the former war, through the uncertain mist of Samnite history, as it is transmitted to.us by Roman annalists. The plan for an Italian confederation, which had been faintly attempted at the beginning of the war, this man attempted to realise by a step as bold as ever was taken in a desperate emergency.

With a chosen body of Samnites lie made a rapid march into the valley of the Tiber, between Umbria and Etruria, hoping that his presence might rouse to action the slumbering energies of those countries, leaving, however, a sufficient force to keep Volumnius employed in Samnium. App. Glaudius, a remarkable man, of whose acts in pcace we shall have to speak in the next chapter, was more skilled in the contests of the Senate than of the field, 'and he was alarmed to hear that Gcllius was likely to rouse both Umbrians and Gauls to join the Etruscans. He shut himself np in an cntrenchcd camp, and sent orders to his colleague to joiu him. But no attack was made that year.

§ 0. In this state of alarm the people were convened to clcct Consuls for the ensuing year (295 B.C.). They at once chosc old Fabius for the fifth time, and would have continued Volumnius in oflicc. But Fabius again refused to be elected unless lie was united to his old and tried colleague, P. Dccius; and this noble Plebeian was clcctcd for the fourth time Consul. .

At the very beginning of the year Fabius went to the camp of the late Consuls, where he found Appius adding to the fortifications. lie treated the statesman with much 'contempt, and led forth the men into the field, exercising them daily. He then returned for a short time to the city, to concert measures with tho Senate for the eventful campaign that followed.

It was settled that both the Consuls, with four legions, were to go forward into Umbria, so as to separate the Samnites, with their Umbrian and Gallic allies, from Etruria. Scipio Barbatus had been sent forward with a single legion to watch the movements of the enemy. Volumnius, as Proconsul, was sent into Samnium. Fulvius was to be stationed near Falcrii with a reserve force to overawe Etruria; while a fourth army, under Pos-tumius, was to cover Rome herself. This was the largest number of troops that the Republic had ever yet called into the field. With her allies she could not have had less than 100,000 men under arms.

§ 7. When the Consuls took the field, they were greeted with the unwelcome news that Scipio had.been overpowered by the Gauls; and that these barbarians, with some of the Etruscans, had joined the l)ravc Gellius Egnatius in Umbria. They immediately pushed across the Apennines, and (probably to supply Scipio’s place) recalled Volumnius from Samnium. At the same timo they sent orders to Fulvius to advance into Etruria, hoping by this diversion to draw off the Etruscans, and thus weaken the confederate army. The scheme was successful; and when the Roman army met the confederates at Scntinum in Umbria, the Etruscans had already returned home. Here, as on all occasions, tlic conduct of that people was weak and selfish. No brave man could trust his fortunes in their hands.

The Roman army of Umbria, legionaries and allies, amounted to not less than GO,000 men. The enemy, even without the Etruscans, were far more numerous. Fabius commanded tho light wing, which was opposed to Gellius with his Samnites, the Umbrians, and probably some other Italian tribes; Decius on the left faccd an immense host of Gauls. Just before the battle began, a hind and a wolf (so runs the story) ran down between the armiesthe hind turned in among the Gauls, and was slain by their javelins; the wolf sought refuge in the Roman ranks, and no man touched the sacred beast of Romulus. This was hailed as an omen of good, and the battle began. Fabius, after an obstinate struggle, brought up his reserve and tho Samnites gave way. But lie could not pursue them; for Decius on his side had been less successful. The Gauls had brought their war-chariots into action, and the Romans were terror-struck by these strange engines of destruction. A panic seized the cavalry, and the legions wavered; when Decius resolved to follow the example of his father, and devote himself for his country. lie went through the same solemn forms; his heroic death lent new courage to his men, and they returned to the charge under the command of M. Livius, the Pontifex Maximus. Still the Gauls kept their ground unflinching, though the heat of an Italian sun relaxed the strength of their northern frames. At this time Fabius, having driven the Samnites and their confederates from the field, wheeled round, and assailed the Gauls on their left flank, while he detached the Campanian cavalry to take them in rear. Thus surrounded, they were soon completely broken, and a general pursuit took place. Then the Samnites were attacked anew, and the brave Gellius Egnatius fell fighting. But a remnant of his hardy mountaineers retreated in good order, and regained their own country. Tlic slaughter on both sides was prodigious.

Such was the battle of Sentinum, which determined the fate of Samnium and of Italy. The triumph of Fabius, who returned not home till he had gained another victory over the Etruscans at Perusia, was well deserved. But it was marred by the absence of his brave colleague; and none felt this more than Fabius himself. He pronounced an oration over the grave of his thrice-proved friend, lamenting that ho had borne all the danger, but had not lived to share the glory.

§ 8. Notwithstanding this complete rout of the confederates, the Samnites maintained tho contest for fiv-e years more. In 293 ii.c. they made a desperate effort; certain picked battalions were splendidly armed, as in the last war, and bound themselves by horrid oaths to die or conquer. The Consuls of the year wore L. Papirius, sou of Papirius Cursor, and Sp. Carvilius; and they both invaded Samnium, as Fabius and Deeius had done four years bofore. The Samnites resolved to try the fortune of another battle with their new levies, and their armies met Papirius—we know not where. When the omens were taken from the feeding of the sacred'fowls (pulli), their keeper (the> pullarius) reported that “ they fed well,^:—so greedily indeed, that some of the corn fell over.” The ometi was good. But just as the battle was beginning the nephew of the Consul Papirius came to him in great fear: “for,” said he, “the"pullarius has lied; the fowls will not cat at all.” “Bc.it so,” replied the Consul, ^u the omens were reported to me as good, and I shall begin the battle. If the report was false, let tliC false speaker look to it;” and he ordered the pullarius to be set in the front rank. At the first onset the wretch was killed; by his death tho anger of tlie gods was believed to be averted, and the Romans advanced to battle with fresh Confidence. In the heat of battle Papirius, confident of victory, shouted: “Jupiter, grant me victory, and I will give thee a cup of wine and honey before I touch a cup myself.” The soldiers recognised the rough humour of old Papirius Cursor, and shared the'general’s confidence. The enemy were utterly defeated; and the rest of the year was spent in ravaging the country. The booty taken was immense; and Carvilius signalised his triumph by erecting a colossal statue of Jupiter on the Capitol, so huge that it Could be seen from the Alban Hill, twelve miles oft’.

§ 9. These vigorous measures wore not continued the next year, when Q. Fabius'Gurges, son of old Fabius, was sent alone into ‘ Samnium. He had the name but not the nature of his father, and the Samnites were once more commanded by their greatest man, C. Pontius, of whom wc hear nothing from the year of the Furculae Caudinai to the present time. lie resumed his old tactics, and again drew the Romans into a defile, from which, however, he allowed them to escape, * but not without heavy loss. The news of this unexpected reverse raised a storm of indignation at Rome, and the. Consul was only saved from disgrace by his father, who volunteered to join the army as his son’s “ legatus or lieutenant. His presence restored spirit to the army. Another battle was fought; many thousand Samnites fell, and C. Pontius was taken prisoner. The triumphal procession was remarkable, because old Fabius and his fton both appeared in the car of victorv, and asccnded together to the Capitol. ’

§ 10. The Senate had some fear lest Tarentum and the Southern tribes might even yet be excited to join the Samnites ; and to curb them, they determined to colonise Venusia, in Southern Apulia. It is said that 20,000 Romans and Latins settled in the future birthplace of Horace, and we shall find Venusia hereafter appearing as one of the most faithful of the Colonics.

§ 11. Two years after, in the year 290 b.c., the Samnites finally laid down their arras, and submitted to Roman supremacy. One short struggle more followed ten years after, when the arrival of Pyrrhus gave false hopes to the people of Southern Italy. After his departure the Samnites, with the rest of the Italians, bowed without further dispute to the sovereignty of Rome.

§ 12. The close of this war was marked by one disgraceful act, the death of C. Pontius. He followed the triumphal procession of Fabius Gurges, and was beheaded in the prison under the Capitol. We blush for Rome when we hear of such treatment of a noble and generous enemy. We grieve that the last we hear of old Fabius is that he should have been associated in a triumph whose laurels were so grievously sullied. The death of'Pontius not only showed a great want of magnanimity, but was a violation of common humanity. But the religion of the Romans did not teach humanity; and though they were magnanimous in misfortune, they were always tyrannical in success.

§ 1. Internal changes during Samnite Wars: remnants of jealousy between two Orders: Pudicitia Plebeia. § 2. Patrician Clubs put down by C. Maenius. § 3. Ogulnian Xaw for admitting Plebeians to Pontificate and Augurate. § 4. Plebeians, as a class, no longer poor. § 5. Increasing number of Slaves and Freedmen. § 6. Political condition of Freedmen. § 7. Appius Claudius Caucus: his scheme of uniting Patricians and Freedmen against Plebeians. § 8. Choice of Senate by Appius as Censor: his Colleague resigns, but he remains sole Censor. § 9. He enrols Freedmen in all Tribes. § 10. His agent, Cn. Flavius tho notary: publishes a Calendar. § 11. Elected Curule JEdile. § 12. Appius retains liis Censorship for four years. § 13. His public works: Appian Road: Appian Aqueduct. §14. His later life. § 15. Restoration of old rule with respect to Freedmen by Fabius and Decius: peaceablo end of tho question.

however, some changes introduced during the Samnite wars that oall for special notice.

First, it may be noticed that as all political inequality between Patricians and Plebeians had been removed, so all social distinctions were fast disappearing. Many Patrician families had fallen into decay; a Plebeian Nobility had grown up by their side; and the Publilii, the Marcii, the Dccii, boasted names as great as the Manlii, the Papirii, the Fabii. Moreover access to the Senate was obtained, as we have before said, by the tenure of political office; and, now that these offices were equally divided it may bo presumed that there were as many Plebeian Senator; as Patrician.

That jealousy still lingered in many minds is certain. A sign of this appears in the story preserved of the wife of Yolumnius, the plebeian colleague of Appius Claudius in 29G b.c. She was a Patrician of the Virginian Gens, but the patrician matrons would not allow her to join in the worship of the Pudicitia Patricia, alleging that by marriage with a Plebeian she had forfeited her rights. Upon this she consecrated a chapel to Pudicitia Plcbeia. But petty jealousies of this kind did not find place among the better sort of either order. The example of Fabius and Decius shows that there were noble-minded men in each who could join heart and hand in the service of the state.

§ 2. But there were many of the young Patricians who could not brook to part even with their political supremacy. Clubs (co'itioncs) were formed for the purpose of promoting the election of their own order at the Comitia, and debarring the Plebeians from the rights accorded to them by the Licinian law. But C. Mainius, a Plebeian, who had been appointed Dictator to inquire into the threatened revolt of Capua (314 b.c.),⁵² after executing his duty abroad, went on summarily to break up these political clubs as contrary to public good. The outcry raised by the clubbists was so great that he laid down his office, and submitted to be impeached before the Senate, together with his Master of the Horse, M. Foslius, and the noble plebeian Q. Publilius Philo, by whose advice he had acted. The complaint, however, was dismissed, and the Clubs arc little heard of afterwards.

§ 3. The only exclusive privilege which was still maintained by the Patricians was, that they alone were eligible to the sacred offices of the Pontificate and Augurate.f There were still only four Pontifices, beside the Poutifex Maximus, and four Augurs,

all Patricians, according to tho original institutions ascribed to Numa. JJut this privilege was little worth preserving, when it had been conceded that Plebeians could hold cuvule offices,, enter the Capitoline Temple in triumphal procession, and take the auspices at the meeting of the Centuriate Assembly. Accordingly, in the year 300 B.C., a law was proposed by two Tribunes, both bearing the name of Ogulnius, for removing this last symbol of exclusive privilege. It was proposed that henceforth there should be eight Pontifices, four from each order, besides the chief Pontiff, who might be either patrician 01* plebeian, for we find the office held by Ti. Coruncanius, a distinguished Plebeian, not many years later. The number of Augurs was also to be increased to nine, four from each order, the ninth probably being President of the College, as was the Chief Pontiff of the Pontifical College. Vacancies were to be filled up as heretofore, by the surviving members of the College, a practice which in Roman language was called Cooptatio* Decius spoke warmly in favour of the law, and it was carried by general consent.

§ 4. We have now ceased to hear the epithet poor applied to the Plebeians as a class. There were still, no doubt, poor Plebeians, as there were poor Patricians; but the law which delivered debtors into bondage was no more, and the. late divisions of Public Land to those who had been sent out to settle in the colonies lately planted in the Volscian, JKquian, and other districts, must have removed poverty from a large number of families. The colonial system of Rome, which afterwards played so important a part in her policy, Avas as yet in its infancy, and we shall defer our consideration of its nature and intentions. But its effect in diminishing the number of the poor Plebeians is self-evident ; nor was anything now remaining to affix poverty to them-as a class.

§ 5. But while this complete fusion of the Orders was peaceably brought about, a new element of discord was appearing in the state. The poor of the plebeian order had been relieved by colonisation. But another class of poor was rapidly arising with the increase of the city in population and wealth. In all large communities assembled in towns a vast number of needy persons are found, who live from hand to mouth, and are ready to take advantage of any political or social disturbance. In ancient cities, where labour and mechanical arts were chiefly left to slaves, this class was separated from the burgesses or citizens by a yet wider gulf than prevails in modern communities. For a long period of Rome’s earlier age, Slaves seem not to have been

* Being tho proccss by which Fcllow3 of Colleges at Oxford and Cambridgo aro eloctod.

numerous. Agricultural labour was mostly done by the Plebeians themselves, either as the owners of small estates or as free labourers. The mechanical works of artisans and the business of trade were mostly carried 011 by the Clients under the protection and for the benefit of their Patrons. But, 110 doubt, when Kome became a powerful monarchy under the later kings, she followed the example of all ancient states, and. made Slaves of a large number of those whom she conquered. And the same process must have been repeated with accelerated rapidity during the progress which the arms of the Republic had made since the union of Patricians and Plebeians. We find, in fact, that the Frccdmen, that is, those who had once been Slaves or whose parents had been Slaves, had become an important class in the state; and therefore it follows that Slaves, from whose ranks the Frccdmen were supplied, must also have become numerous.

These Frccdmen were many of them wealthy; but when a large number of Slaves were set free at once, as was sometimes the case on the death of their master, a number of indigent persons must have been left to their own resources: and thus it was that the new race of poor citizens arose, of whom we shall hear so much in tha later period of our history under the name of the Populace of Rome, the factio forensis of the Roman writers.

§ G. We have called these Frccdmen citizens. They were so; but their citizenship was limited by this particular stigma, that they could only belong to one of the four City Tribes. Therefore, even if they formed a majority in these four Tribes, they never could exercise much weight in the Comitia Tributa. For, sincc there were at present twenty-seven Rustic Tribes, the votes of the full Burgesses stood to those of the Freedmen in the proportion of more than six to one. But it was obvious that if these Frecd-men were thrown into the Rustic Tribes, their single votes would gain great weight, and give much political power to any one who could command these votes.

§ 7. It is not an unusual thing to find persons of high patrician blood associating themselves politically with the lowest orders rather than with the class immediately below them. The proud Patrician may find more complete submission in the one ease than will .be rendered in the other; and the lower orders themselves are glad to find a leader among those whom historical association and ancicnt wealth connect with the highest order in the state. Such a combination was easy at Rome, because the elevation of the Plebeian order still rankled in the minds of many Patricians; and it might have been expected that there would not be wanting unscrupulous men of this class who would avail themselves of any means to rccovcr their exclusive privileges. Such a man appears at the present juncture.

Appius Claudius, afterwards named Caccus or the Blind, was this man. He was descended from that proud Sabine family which in tho earlier times of the Republic had for three generations led the high Patrician party in their opposition to the claims of tho Plebeians. But for nearly a century and a half, from the end of the Decemviral government to this period, tho name of that great family disappears from the Annals. He was, as we have seen, devoid of military talent among a people where every man was more or less a soldier, and whero every magistrate was expected to be a general. But his abilities as a statesman must have been great. He is the first man of whom we hear as rising to high honours with this recommendation only to favour : his temper was determined, and his will inflexible.

This eminent man first conceived the plan of creating a new party by means of the Freedmen, so as to neutralise the equality lately won by the Plebeians. Tho Patricians were as yet the chief slave-owners. The Freedmen were therefore chiefly attached to them, and whatever influence was conceded to them would probably be used, for a time at least, on the side of the Patricians, especially if the political boon conferred were conferred by the hand of a patrician statesman.

§ 8. In 312 b.c., three years after the disastrous defeat sustained by Fabius at Lautulae, Appius was chosen Censor, together with the plebeian C. Plautius. He was not Consul till five years later, a reversal of the usual order of office, which may be attributed to his want of military skill. One of the first duties of the Censor was to make up the list of the Senate. The common practice was to leave all the old members on the list, unless any man had been guilty of some dishonourable act, and to fill up the vacancies by a regular rule, of which we shall speak hereafter.* But Appius disdained all precedent, and called up into the Senate a number of persons devoted to himself, who had no claim to such a dignity. No doubt tho chief slight was shown to the Plebeians, for L. Junius Bubulcus, who in the next year was Plebeian Consul for the third time, treated the list made out by Appius as null, and the Plebeian Censor, C. Plautius, resigned his office. The purpose of this resignation was to force Appius also to resign; for it was the custom when by any cause a Censor was deprived of his colleague, that he should lay down his office at once. But here again Appius defied precedent, and remained sole Censor.

alteration to which wc have before alluded. In revising the Census-register, or list of all who belonged to the Tribes, he allowed the Freedmen to be registered in the list of any Tribe they pleased, country as well as city. By this means, as wc have said, the Freedmen’s votes became available in every Tribe, instead of being confined to four. Moreover the Freedmen, being resident in Rome, were always present at the assemblies, whereas the country voters attended much less regularly,—a fact which gave to the Freedmen a power beyond their numerical proportion. It is not too much to assume that in this measure Appius had the interest of the Patrician party at heart rather than that of the Freedmen and Populace, whom lie admitted to equality with the rest of the Burgesses.

§ 10. The agent whom lie employed in dealing with the populace was one Cn. Flavius, the son of a freedman, who followed the calling of a public scrivener or notary (scriba), a class which in ancient times, when printing was unknown, was numerous and important. This man’s name is best known in connexion with another matter, the publication of the forms and times to be observed in legal proceedings. Up to that time the Patricians had kept all the secrets of law in their own hands they alone knew which were the days when courts could be held and when they could not ;* they alone were in possession of those technical formularies according to which all actions must proceed. But Flavius, probably by the help of his patron Appius, got possession of these secrets, and drew up a regular Calendar, in which the Dies Fasti and Nefasti were marked; and this he set up in the forum, so that all might see it: he also published an authentic list of the formularies proper to be employed in the several kinds of action; and thus, as Ciccro says, ^u lie picked out the crows’ eyes.”f

§ 11. Soon after the admission of the Freedmen to the full citizenship, Flavius became a candidate for the Curule iEdile-sliip. The Tribune presiding at the election .said he could not take votes for a person who was engaged in trade; upon which Flavius stepped forward and laid down his tablets and stile, the badges of his occupation, declaring that he would be a scrivener no longer. Then he was elected, to the great indignation of tho

* Originally tho court days had been on tho Nundinac, or ono day in every week when tho markets wero hold. But they wero now held irregularly on tho Dies Fasti, that is, on all days which were not marked as Nefasti or IUicit in tho secret calendar of tho Fontiflfs, as Ovid says:—

Fastus erit, per qucm lego licobit agi. f “ Scriba quidam, Cn. Flavius, qui coruicura oculos confixerit.”—Cicero pro Murenfi, ch. 11.

old citizens, who saw two of their own candidates, men of consular rank, rejected in favour of this Freedman’s son. Flavius, however, was no common manhe maintained his position with dignity, and was so struck with the evils that might result from continued disunion, that he vowed a shrine to Concord if tho upper and lower classes could be reconciled.

§12. We have seen that Appius remained sole Censor, and when he had held his office for eighteen months it was expected that he would lay it down, as ordered by the ^Emilian law.⁵³ But ho had no such intention. He had begun some great national works, and determined to hold his office for the whole Lustrum, that is, for three and a half years longer. The works we speak of became and still remain famous as the Appian road and the Appian aqueduct.

§ 13. The Appian Road is well known, even to those who have not visited Rome, by the amusing description which Horace has given of his journey along it. It led from Rome to Capua, passing through the Pontine marshes to Terracina, then skirted the seaward side of the Auruncan hills, so as to avoid the pass of Lautulse, and went on by way of Fundi, Formia?, and Sinuessa to Capua. There had been a road this way before, which we have called the lower road to Capua. What Appius did was to straighten it, and make it fit for military purposes : its length was about 120 miles. Some years later it was paved with large angular blocks of basalt or hard lava (silex) and long afterwards it was continued through Beneventum and the Samnite Apennines to Brundusium.f The Latin road, as the upper road to Capua was now called, left Rome by the same gate, the Porta Capena.

The Appian Aqueduct (aqua Appia) was the first of these great works by which Rome was so abundantly supplied with water, to the shame of the great cities of modern times. But it did not resemble the Roman Aqueducts of later times—those long lines of arches with which every one is familiar. In those days enemies often penetrated even to the walls of Rome, and might easily have broken off a raised Aqueduct. It passed under ground, ‘except after it had entered the city, when it rose on a few arches near the Porta Capena thence it passed down into the lower parts of the city next the river, between the Capitol and the Aventinc, where spring-water there was none. In this quarter dwelt those poorer classes whose favour Appius had otherwise endeavoured to gain. It may therefore be suspected that iu this work also he had a political end in view; but however this may be, every one will agree with the remark, that one must “ feel unmixed pleasure in observing that the first Roman aqueduct was constructed for the benefit of the poor, and of those who most needed it.”*

§ 14. At the end of the fourth year of his Censorship Appius was elected Consul. He intended to have continued Censor for this year, but the Tribunes interfered with so much determination that he deemed it prudent to resign his office, and content himself with the Consulship. He was Consul again ten years later (296 B.C.), when Gellius Egnatius led his Samnites into Etruria, and the next year he was Prator: it was not long after this, probably, that lie lost his sight. This deprivation was regarded as a punishment for his having advised the Patrician Gentes of the Potitii and Pinarii, who were hereditary priests of Hercules, to delegate their ministry to slaves, another evidence of the contempt of Appius for old customs. These Gentes, adds the legend, soon after ceased to exist.

§ 15. During the whole of Appius’ arbitrary Censorship the Senate and the old citizens behaved with marvellous self-control, and refrained from offering any direct opposition to his acts. But when the next Censors (of the year 307 b.c.) left office without attempt to restore the balance of power which Appius had destroyed, the Senate resolved that new Ceusors should b‘ choscn for this purpose two and a half years before the proper time, and the choice of the people fell on Rome’s two worthiest sons, Q. Fabius Maximus and P. Decius Mus. These two great men, who agreed heart and hand together, accepted the office, and applied a remedy simple but effectual. They did not, as some of the more violent might have wished, disenfranchise the new citizens, but merely removed their names from the country Tribes and restored them to the four city Tribes, to which they had before belonged. Thus the new voters could only carry four Tribes, while there were twenty-nine in the hands of the old citizens. This measure was executed in the year 303 b.c. Fabius and Decius saved the state as much by their firmness and moderation now as they did afterwards by the glorious victory of Scntinum.

rises to \ts own level, but p’-obably because they were not able to manufacture pipes of sufficient magnitude for conveying very large streams.

§ 1. M’ Curius Dontatus: conquest of Upper Sabines. § 2. Agrarian Law of Curius: Secession of poorer Citizens: Hortensian Laws. § 3. Early inter course of Romo with Greece Proper: tho Snake of iEsculapius and Sacred Isle. § 4. Now brought into contact with Magna Grsecia and Sicily: retrospective view of their wealth and population. § 5. Syracuse. § <5. Other towns of Sicily: Rhcgium occupicd by Mamertincs. § 1. Tarentum: her situation and people: practice of hiring foreign captains. § 8. Her treaty with Rome. § 9. She intrigues with Italian nations against Romo. § 10. Thurii seek aid of Romo against Lucanians. § 11. General rising of Southern Italians, as also of Etruscans and Gauls: Proctor Metellus cut ofif in Etruria. § 12. Consul Dolabella extirpates Senonians. § 13. Boian Gauls defeated in a great battle on Lako Yadimo: Colony of Sena Gallica. § 14. Fabricius conducts war in South. § 15. Ten Roman ships aro assaulted in harbour of Tarentum: sack of Thurii. § 1G. Roman Envoy3 insulted: speech of L. Postumius. § 1*7. Hopes of peaco frustrated by promised arrival of Pyrrhus.

war ■with Ilannibal and the Carthaginians, a brief and naked epitome of each book is all that remains to us. For the campaigns of Pyrrhus we have Plutarch. But for the intervening years tlie materials are few and scanty.

Immediately upon the final submission of the Samnites, in 290 b.c., the Senate resolved to punish the Sabines for their suspicious conduct in listening to the overtures of Gellius Egnatius at the beginning of the late war, when the Marsians and their neighbours stood firm in their alliance.'⁵⁴ The commander entrusted with the invasion of the difficult country formed by the valleys of the highest Apennines, was M’ Curius Dentatus, a name which may be counted among the most illustrious in Roman history,f though we confess with regret that we know little of his life, lie is said himself to have been of Sabine origin,—sprung from the Sabines of the lower country, 110 doubt, who had long been closely united with Rome.J We first hear of him as Tribune of the Plebs, when he stood forth as a defender of his order, and forced Appius Claudius, then presiding as interrex, to receive the votes of the Plebeians, which the Patricians wished to reject.]) He lived, like the old plebeian yeomen, on his own farm, and himself shared with his men the labours of the field. It is said that on one occasion the Samnites sent messengers to tempt him with costly presents of gold; the messengers found him toasting radishes at the fire; and when he had heard their business, he pointed to his rude’meal, and said—“ Leave me my earthen pans, and let those who use gold be my subjects.” His honesty and rough vigour of character recommended him to the Tribes, and notwithstanding his humble condition, he rose to the first offices of state. . In the year 290 b.c. he w^Tas elected Consul, and. received the final submission of the Samnites. He then straightway turned his arms against the Sabines, who fell an easy prey. What surprises us is to hear that he took a very large booty, a quantity of gold, and other things, which sound strangely as the possessions of a tribe that dwelt in the upland valleys of the Apennines. The Sabines became now absolutely subject to Rome, being obliged to accept the citizenship without suffrage, the burdens without the privileges.

§ 2. After his double triumph over the Samnites and Sabines, Curius proposed an Agrarian Law, providing that all the poorer citizens (these probably were for the most part the Freedmen and others lately admitted into the Tribes) should receive each man an allotment of seven jugcra in the Sabine country.⁵⁵ This was vehemently opposed by the greater part of the old citizens, Plebeians as well as Patricians, and the life of Curius was thought to be in so great danger, that eight hundred young men attached themselves to him as a body guard.

The sequel of this strife cannot be unfolded. All we know is, that the poverty of the poor was aggravated by several years of famine and pestilence: at the same time debts again multiplied and became oppressive. The end of it was, that about the year 286 B.C. the mass of the poorer citizens, consisting (as may be guessed) chiefly of. those who had lately been enfranchised by Appius, left the city and encamped in an oak-wood upon the Janiculum.f To appease this last Secession, Q. Hortensius was named Dictator, and he succeeded in bringing back the people by allowing them to enact several laws upon the spot. One of these Ilortensian laws w^ras probably an extension of the Agrarian Law of Curius, granting not seven, but fourteen jugera (about 9 acres) to each of the poor citizens.]; Another provided for the reduction of debt. But that which is best known as the Hortensian law was one enacting that all Resolutions of the Tribes should be law for the whole Roman people.|| This was nearly in the same terms as the law passed by Valerius and Horatius at the close of the Decemvirate, and that passed by Publilius Philo tho Dictator, after the conquest of Latium.^f

Hortensius died in his Dictatorship—an unparalleled event, which was considered ominous. Yet with his death ended the last Secession of the People. For one hundred and fifty years from this time to the appearance of the Gracchi, we hear of no civil dissensions at Rome.

It may be here added, that on the allotment of the Sabine domain lands, Curius refused to take more than any other poor citizen. But it was decreed by acclamation that he should be rewarded by a gift of five hundred jugera (about 320 acres). And we shall find him acting with the same single-minded honesty ten years later in the war with Pyrrhus.

§ 3. Notwithstanding the part played by Hellenic heroes in the earliest Roman Legends, the Romans had as yet had few dealings with the Greeks. The talc of Tarquin sending to consult the Oracle at Delphi, of the mission of the three men to procure the laws of Solon, of the answer of the Delphic Priestess with respect to the draining of the Alban Lake, arc Legends of dubious authority. A story that Roman envoys appeared among the ambassadors of other Italian peoples at Alexander’s court at Babylon, is rejected as false by Arrian, the most trustworthy historian of the great king. The next time we find Rome mentioned as having intercourse with Greece was soon after the close of the third Samnitc war. Pestilence was raging at Rome; and the Senate is said to have sent to Epidaurus, to request that ^Esculapius (the tutelary god of that place) might come to avert the evil. The ambassadors returned with a sacred snake, the emblem of the god,⁵⁶ who found his own way into their ship, and ensconced himself in the cabin. When they arrived in the Tiber, the snake glided from the ship, and swimming to the land which lies between the Capitol and Aventine disappeared there. Here a temple was built to the Greek god of medicine. The island was shaped into the rude resemblance of a trireme, which it still bears, and to this day it is called by the name of the Sacred Isle (Isola Sacra) .f

g 4. But there was another Greece, nearer home, with which she was soon to come in direct collision. In early times, when the name of Rome was yet unknown, the cities of Greece, especially the great Dorian city of Corinth, were sending out their supcrflii' ous population to seek settlements in the western worlds, Italy and Sicily were to them what North America has been to us. All the eastern and southern coasts of Sicily—all the coasts of Lower Italy, from the Bay of Naples to the promontory of Iapygia, were thick-studded with Grecian Colonics, which had become large and flourishing cities when Rome was yet struggling for existence. The inhabitants of these Greek colonies were known by the names of Siccliotcs and Italiotes,J to distinguish them from the native Siccli and I tali. The whole seaboard of Southern Italy received, and still retains, the appellation of Magna Grecia.

Hitherto the name of Rome had been unfeared and uncared for. The Greeks of Sicily were defended by the sea ; those of Italy by the barrier of hardy tribes which lay between them and their future mistress. But now this barrier was broken down. The brave Samnites had submitted after a struggle as noble as any which history has recorded. The Lucanians and Apulians had formed a league with Rome. Already had Palscpolis and Neapolis bowed before her. Any day the Consuls and their legions might be expected to knock at the gates of the southern cities.

These cities, so famous in early time, had most of them fallen into decay. This had been caused in part by the inroads of the Oscan and Sabellian tribes (as above noticed),⁵⁷ in pait by civil wars with one another, and by domestic convulsions in each. In Sicily especially, the Carthaginians were always dangerous; and here, above all, the changes of Government were most frequent and most violent. Aristocracies were supplanted by tuibulent democracies, and these gave way in turn to despotic ruleis, who had been elevated in ancient times, or who had raised themselves by force or fraud to sovereign power. Such rulers were called Tyrants by the Greeks—a name which (as is well known) referred rather to the mode in which power was gained than to that in which it was exercised. In seditions and civil wars thousands and tens of thousands of citizens had fallen ; the prosperity of ancient Cities had decayed; cities themselves had perished. The vast remains of temples at Agrigentum, at Selinus, at Pa?stum, fhow what those cities must have been, where now not a house is left. Whole mounds of broken pottery cover the environs of Tarentum, and show what masses of men must have peopled those now desolate shores. The series of coins due to this city is surpassed in beauty and variety of type only by those of Syracuse. Sybaris, the splendid and luxurious rival of Croton, was destroyed by the latter city. Croton herself, though supported by the old remembrance of her Pythagorean rulers, had fallen into insignificance. Thurii, the chosen seat of the old age of Herodotus, and its neighbouring Metapontum, Locri, and Rhegium, still retained the vestiges of ancient grandeur. The most noted tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius, was one of the chief causes of the decay of the Greek towns of Lower Italy. About the time that the Gauls were devastating Latium, he did not scruple to league himself with the barbarous Lucanians to establish a tyranny over his fellow-countrymen. And about a century later, Agathocles of Syracuso ravaged Lower Italy. Tlius, by combined violence from many sources, the Hellenic communities both of Italy and Sicily, were fallen from their sometime magnificcnce. Tarentum and Syracuse remained, and a brief sketch of the previous history of these two places will illustrate the above remarks, and will servo to make the succeeding narrative intelligible.

§ 5. Syracuse was founded about the same time as Rome, by Arehias, a noble Corinthian, who led forth a colony of his countrymen, to seek a new country in the far west. For many years the colony was governed (like the mother city) by a moderate aristocracy. This was interrupted by the princely tyranny of Gelo and his son Iliero, who held the sceptre of Syracuse at the time of the Persian ware from 485 to 467 b.c. The old republic was then restored till the invasion of the Athenians in 415, when it was supplanted by a violent democracy. This again was overthrown by tho elder Dionysius in 406; but the sceptre which, after an active reign of thirty-eight years, he transmitted to his son, passed finally from that son’s feebler grasp about the beginning of the Samnite wars. For twenty-six years the republic was restored, when in 317 another adventurer possessed himself of the throne. This was Agathocles, who began life as a potter’s apprentice, and raised himself first by his personal strength and beauty of form, then by the continued exertion of an almost fabulous boldness. His reign terminated in 289, just as the third Samnite war had been concluded. A new king, Hiero II., was called to the throne in 270, and it was in his reign that the Romans first set foot in Sicily.

Of these sovereigns, it may be observed that the two last, Agathocles and Hiero, were no longer called Tyrants, but Kings. The former name had fallen into disuse after the splendid royalty of Alexander, whom no one, save Demosthenes and his republican followers, ventured to call by the name of Tyrant. Yet they had all risen by the same means, and held their power by the same tenure. Nor were any of them able to transmit the sceptre to a line of successors. They all rose to power, because the Republic needed a skilful captain to carry on the war against the Carthaginians. Gelo defeated the enemy in a great naval battle on the same day as the battle of Salamis. Dionysius I., after being besieged in his capital, took Motye, the Calcutta of those mcrchant-princes, and established his rule over the greater part of Sicily. Agathocles carried fire and sword up to the gates of Carthage. More than once he landed in Italy for the purpose of defending the Tarentines from the Bruttians, their barbarous neighbours. Strange to say, the name of this remarkable man is not mentioned by the Roman historians. Yet, but for his perpetual wars with

Carthage, he might have employed his restless arms in supporting the Samnites against Rome.

§ G. The other Greek cities of Sicily suffered similar vicissitudes. But we know little of them, nor is it important that we should. The state of one will serve to inform us of all.

But before we leave Sicily, an event must be mentioned, which has no small influence on the subsequent history. A large portion of the army of Agathocles consisted of Italians, who called them selves Mamertines, that is, servants of Mamers, or Mars. They w^rere Campanian adventurers of Samnite origin, who took service with any government that would pay them. They chose their own captains, like the. free troops led by the condottieri of the middle ages. On the death of Agathocles, a large body of these Mamertines seized Syracuse as a guarantee for the payment of their wages. On payment being made, they were induced to leave the city, and were marched to Messana, for the purpose of crossing into Italy. But finding this city an inviting prey, they seized it and became its lords; and soon they established their power over a large portion of northern Sicily. Meanwhile, the Carthaginians recovered possession of the west of the islands. Syracuse and the other Greek cities retained a precarious independence. .

Hence it will appear that the Greek-Sicilian cities were in 110 case to help their brethren in Italy, should they be attacked by Rome. They could not defend themselves, much less render aid to others.

§ V. Our attention is now claimed by Tarentum, the chief of the Greek-Italian cities.

The origin of Lacedsemonian Tarentum is veiled in fable. The warriors of Sparta (so runs the well-known legend) went forth to the second Messenian war under a vow not to see their homes till they had conquered the enemy. They were long absent, and their wives sought paramours among the slaves and others who had not gone out to war. When the warriors returned, they found a large body of youth grown up from this adulterous intercourse. These youths, (the Parthenii, as they were called) disdaining subjection, quitted their native land under the command of Phalantus, one of their own body, and founded the colony of Tarentum.

Whatever may be the truth of this legend, thus much is certain, that Tarentum was a Lacedaemonian colony of very great antiquity. Its history is little known. But what is known shows that the colony partook of the steady nature, of * her mother-city, and resisted those violent and frequent changes which were *0 rife in Syracuse and the other Greek cities of the

west. Tarentum lay at the northern corner of the great gulf which still bears its name. It had an excellent harbour, almost land-locked. On its eastern horn stood the city. Its form was triangular; one side being washed by the open sea, the other by the waters of the harbour, while the base or land side was protected by a line of strong fortifications. Thus advantageously posted for commerce the city grew apace. She possessed an opulent middle class; and the poorer citizens found an easy subsistence in the. abundant supply of fish which the gulf afforded. These native fishermen were always ready to man the navy of the state. But they made indifferent soldiers. Therefore when any peril of war threatened the state, it was the practice of the government to hire foreign captains, soldiers of fortune, who were often kings or princes, to bring an army for their defence. Thus we find them taking into their service Archidamus of Sparta and Alexander of Molossus,* to defend them against the Lucanians. So also, after the second Samnite war, when they began to fear the power of Rome, they engaged the services of Cleonymus Prince of Sparta to fight their battles. They called in Agathocles of Syracuse to war against the Bruttians. And last of all, when they came into actual conflict with Rome, they put themselves under the protection of Pyrrhus, as we shall presently have to narrate.

It was probably this practice of hiring foreign armies for their wars which saved them from the domination of successive tyrants; for at Syracuse, as we have seen, these tyrants were citizens who had raised themselves by means of the military power with which they had been invested. However, this practice had many evils. The city learnt every day to. trust more to strangers and less to the energies of her own citizens; and the foreign captains whose aid she sought often proved mere buccaneers, who plundered and ruined friendly Greeks as well as hostile barbarians. Such was the conduct of Cleonymus towards Metapontum and Thurii, of Agathocles towards Locri and Rhegium.

Yet on the whole the government of Tarentum was better and more regular than that of most Greek Republics. Seven times was * Archytas, the Pythagorean Philosopher, raised to the. supreme magistracy,—that Archytas who has been mentioned above as the friend of Ilerennius the Samnite, and instructor of C. Pontius.f This shows that the Tarentines could value duly the merits of this great man, without that jealousy which in many Greek states prevented the people from reaping the full service of their best and wisest citizens.

This brief sketch of the state of Sicily and Magna Gracia will have shown that of all the Greek cities, lately so great aijd powerful, Tarentum alone was in a condition to cope -with Home.

§ 8. Once already they had been engaged in brief hostilities: this was at the close of the second Samnite war, when the Romans lent aid to the Lucanians in attacking the Sallentines. This last-named people were neighbours of Tarentum, and the Greek republic, willing to defend them, called in the aid of Cleonymus, as has been just mentioned. The.appearance of this soldier of fortune inclined the Lucanians to peace, and at the same time no doubt was made the treaty between Rome and the Tarentines by which certain limits were prescribed to the fleets of the latter power, while the Romans 011 their part bound themselves not to pass the temple of Lacinian Juno, nor let any ships of theirs appear in the Gulf of Tarentum.

§ 9. After this followed the third Samnite war. At its close it seemed clear that Rome was to be, if she was not already, mistress of Italy. What power could withstand her ? Tarentum must now meet Rome face to face, and must decide whether they should meet as friend or foe. She chose the latter. For the next few years we find various nations of Italy, the Etruscans and Gauls in the north, the Lucanians and other barbarians in the south, renewing war with Rome, and finally crushed by her energy. These last struggles are attributed to the intrigues of Tarentum, and when they availed not, she at length threw herself into the gap, and called in Pyrrhus, the greatest general of the age, to fight the battles of the Greeks against Rome.

§ 10. The first link in the chain of events which led to the war with Tarentum was (curiously enough) the aid lent by Rome to a neighbouring Greek city. This was Thurii. Soon after the close of the third Samnite war Thurii was attacked by the Lucanians. The Thurians knew that Tarentum would not defend them. Some years before, when Cleonymus of Sparta made a descent upon their coast and took their city, they had implored the aid of Roman legions, which came too late indeed, but yet came, and Thurii now hoped for more effectual succour. But at this time the domestic struggle was going on which ended in the Hortensian law. Soon after quiet was restored, the Tribune ^Elius proposed, and the people voted, to declare war against the Lucanians, (284 b.c.).

§ 11. This declaration of war was followed by a general rising of the Italian nations against Rome. The Lucanians, lately her allies, now her enemies, were joined by the Bruttiaus, part of the Apulians, and even by some relics of the Samnites. But the attention of the Senate was diverted from this southern war by more imminent peril in the north. Early in the year 283 b.c. news came that the Etruscans of Vulsinii, who had been for the last twenty years engaged in feeble and uncertain war against Rome, had roused the other states of Northern Etruria to make a joint attack upon Arrctium, which, under the rule of tho friendly Cilnii, remained faithful to Rome. They had summoned to their aid an army of Scnonian Gauls from the coasts of Umbria, and these Celtic barbarians, though at peace with Rome, came eager for plunder, and burning to avenge their defeat at the battle of Sentinum. Q. Caccilius Mctcllus, the Consul of the last year, and now Praetor, was ordered to march to the relief of Arrctium, while the new Consuls, P. Cornelius Dolabella and Cn. Domitius, prepared to crush the Etruscan war. But what was the consternation at Romo when tidings came that Mctcllus had been utterly defeated, himself slain, and his whole army cut to pieces or made prisoners.

§ 12. The Senate, nothing daunted, ordered the Consul Dolabella to advance, while Domitius, with M’ Curius the Praetor, remained in reserve. Meanwhile they sent the Fecials into Umbria to complain of the breach of faith committed by the Senonian Gauls. But it happened that in the battle with Mctcllus, Brito-maris the Gallic chief had fallen, and the young chief, his son, burning with mad desire of vengeance, committed another and a worse breach of faith : he murdered the sacred envoys in cold blood. As soon'as the news of this outrage reached the Consul Dolabella, he promptly changed his plan. Instead of marching towards Arrctium lie turned to the right, and crossing the Apennines descended into the Senonian country. This he found almost defenceless, for the warriors were absent in Etruria. Ho took a bloody revenge, ravaging the country, burning the dwellings, slaying the old men, enslaving the women and children. The Celtic warriors hastily returned to defend their homes, but in vain; they sustained a complete defeat, and “ the race of the Scnonians was annihilated.”⁵⁸ Such is the brief and terrible epitome of their fate.

§ 13. The work of death was not yet done. The Boian Gauls, who lived along the southern bank of the Po, from the Trebia to the Rubicon, seized their arms and marched southwards to assist or avenge their brethren. They overtook the Consul Dolabella on the Tiber at its junction with the Nar, but not till after lie had been joined by his colleague Domitius. The battle was fought on the right bank of the Tiber, near the little lake Vadimo. It was a fierce conflict, the most terrible probably which the Romans had fought since the battle of Sentimim. But the legionaries had become used to the huge bodies, strange arms, and savage cries of the Celtic barbarians; and their victory was complete. Once more, however, the Boians made a desperate rally, and were again defeated. .

These great successes kept the Celtic tribes of Northern Italy quiet for nearly sixty years. Meanwhile the Senate secured the frontier of Umbria and occupied the vacant lands of the Senonians by the Colony of Sena Gallica, which, under the name of Senigaglia, still preserves the memory of its Celtic possessors.

§ 14. Meanwhile the war had been going on feebly in Lucania; but these prompt and successful operations in the north enabled the Senate to prosecute it more energetically; and in the year 282 b.c. the Consul of the year, C. Fabricius Luscinus, a remarkable man, of whom we shall have more to say presently, defeated the confederates in several actions, and finally compelled them to raise the siege of Thurii. The Roman army was withdrawn, but a garrison was left to defend the city; and the grateful people dedicated a statue to their deliverers, the first honour paid by Greeks to their future masters.

§ 15. It was believed at Rome, and not without reason, that the Tarentines, though they had not themselves drawn the sword, had been the secret instigators of these wars, both in Lucania and Etruria. The Senate therefore determined to pay no attention to the treaty, by which Roman ships were forbidden to appear in the bay of Tarentum; and on the withdrawal of the army of Fabricius, L. Valerius, one of the duumviri navales,⁵⁹ sailed round the Lacinian headland, and with ten ships stood across the gulf towards Tarentum. It was a summer noon, and the people were assembled in their theatre, which (as w as common in Greek cities) was used alike for purposes of business and pleasure.]- This theatre was cut out of the side of the hill looking towards the sea, and commanded a view of the whole bay. The whole assembly therefore saw the treaty violated before their eyes, and lent a ready ear to a demagogue named Philocharis, who rose and exhorted them to take summary vengeance. The people, seamen by habit, rushed down to the harbour, manned a number of ships and gained an easy victory over the little Roman squadron. Four ships were sunk, one taken, and Valerius himself was killed. Tho dio was now cast, and the demagogues pushed the people to further outrages. They marched forth to Thurii, and, accusing that people of seeking aid from the barbarians, required the instant dismissal of the Roman garrison. This was done, and no sooner was it done than the Tarentine populace plundered tho unfortunate city and drove its chief citizens into exile.

§ 16. Tho Senate, unwilling to undertake a new war, in which their coasts might be ravaged by the superior navy of the Taren-tines, sent an embassy, headed by L. Postumius, to require some explanation of this outrageous conduct. They knew that the wealthier citizens of Tarentum were as averse from war as themselves, and hoped that by this time the people might be inclined to hear the voice of reason. But unfortunately the ambassadors arrived at the season of the Dionysia, when the whole people, given up to wine and revelry, were again collected in tho theatre. The Roman envoys wero led straight into the orchestra, and ordered to state the purpose of their mission. When Postumius endeavoured to do so, his bad Greek produced peals of laughter from the thoughtless populace. He bore all patiently till a drunken buffoon ran up and defiled his white toga with ordure. This produced fresh laughter and loud applause, which was again renewed, when Postumius held up the sullied robe in the sight of all, “Aye,” said he, “laugh on now : but this robe of mine shall remain uncleansed till it is washed in your best blood !”

§ 17. Yet even after these gross insults the Roman People was so weary of war that the Senate debated long before they ordered L. -#]miliiis Barbula, the Consul of the year 281 B.C., to march Ro’ithward, while his colleague covered the Etruscan frontier. ^Eaiilius was instructed to ravage the lands of the democratic party, and to spare the property of those citizens who wished to maintain peace; and so successful was this policy, that the demagogues lost their power, and Agis or Apis, the chief of the moderate party, was chosen strategus. And now there was good hope that some satisfaction would be offered for the outrages committed against the Romans and their allies, and that peace might be maintained : but this hope was soon frustrated. Early in the year the chiefs of the democratic party had sent to invite Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, to bring over an army and undertake the defence of Tarentum. These Tarentine envoys were accompanied by ambassadors from the Lucanians and Samnites, with large promises of soldiers to recruit his army and provisions to feed them. Pyrrhus needed no great persuasion to undertake a romantic enterprise, and he forthwith despatched Milo, one of his best officers, with 3000 men, to garrison the citadel of

Tarentam, Tho arrival of Milo restored the democratic party to power. Agis was deprived of his office: the Roman Consul retired into Apulia, and fixed his head-quarters at the colony of Yenusia.

Pyrrhus was now expected every day, and the Tarentinc populace gave themselves up to immoderate joy_T “Aye, dance and sing, while ye may,” said one of their graver citizens ; “ there will be something else to do when Pyrrhus comes.” .

He did not arrive till winter, and before we speak of his operations, it will be necessary to give some account of his life and character.

§ 1. Adventurous youth of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus: last of conquest. § 2. Arrives at Tarentum : stern discipline. § 3. Preparations of Romans: comparison of forces. § 4. Pyrrhus meets Romans on Siris: battle of Ileraclea. § 5. Remarks of Pyrrhus after victory § 6. Locri joins Pyrrhus: Rhegium seized by Campanian captain, Decius Jubellius: disappointment of Pyrrhus. § 7. Mission of Cineas to Rome: patriotic speech of App. Claudius. § 8. Report of Cineas: Pyrrhus marches into Latium, but Romo remains firm. § 9. Embassy of Fabricius during winter. § 10. Second campaign: Battle of Asculum in Apulia: Pyrrhus inclined to Peace.

• § 11. Consuls of tho next year warn him of his physician’s treachery: Pyrrlius restores prisoners and departs for Sicily. § 12. His fortunes in Sicily. § 13. Returns to Italy in third year. § 14. M’ Curius, the Consul, compels Romans to enlist § 15. Battle of Beneventum: defeat of Pyrrlius. § 16. After fato of Pyrrhus.

§ 1. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, when lie landed in Italy, was in his thirty-eighth year. His whole early life had been a series of adventure and peril. His father’s name was yEacidas, a kinsman of that Alexander of Molossus, who, some fifty years before, had been invited by the Tarentincs to defend them against the Lucanians.* When Alexander fell at Pandosia, ^Eacidas seized the throne of the Molossians. But he did not long retain it.

For soon after followed the death of Alexander the Great at Babylon (323 b.c.), and the whole of his vast empire was broken up into separate kingdoms, which became the appanages of his generals. Cassandcr obtained Maccdon, first as Regent, afterwards as king. But Olympias, the mother of the great Alexander, raised a faction against him, and JEacidas took her part. After some years of conflict, ^Eacidas fell in battle (313 b.c.) and by «rdcr of the ruthless Cassander' all his family were massacred except Pyrrhus, who was then a child of about five years old. The boy was carried off secretly, and found safe harbourage with Glaucias, an Illyrian chief. In this obscure retreat ho remained till he had reached the age of twelve or thirteen years, when his foster-father took advantage of disturbances in Macedon to restore his young charge to the throne of Epirus. But Cassandcr again triumphed over opposition, and prevailed upon the Epirotes to expel the young prince. Pyrrhus, now about seventeen years old, sought refuge at the court of Antigonus, the Macedonian king of Syria. Here he formed a friendship with the king’s son, the celebrated Demetrius Poliorcctes. But the ambition of the Syrian princes provoked the other Macedonian monarehs to form a league against them ; and the bloody field of Ipsus (301 b.c.) deprived Antigonus of his life, and Demetrius of his succession. Pyrrhus was present at the battle. On the defeat of his friend Demetrius, he offered himself as a hostage for him, and was so received at the magnificent court of Ptolemy Soter, the first Macedonian king of Egypt. Here he had opportunities of completing the education which the friendship of Demetrius had offered him. Ptolemy was one of the best of Alexander’s officers; and himself, with his soiifPhiladelplius, did all that lay in their power to encourage the cultivation of Greek arts and letters. Pyrrhus found favour with the queen Berenice, who gave him in marriage Antigone, her daughter by a former marriagQ, and persuaded Ptolemy to assist him in recovering his Epirote sovereignty. For .some time lie reigned conjointly with Neop-tolcmus, son of that Alexander who had been killed in Italy. But, as was to be expected, the two sovereigns broke out into quarrels, which ended in the death of Ncoptolcmus (295 B.C.), so that Pyrrhus, now about twenty-three years of age, became sole monarch. In that same year Cassandcr died, and a war arose about the succession to the throne of Macedon. At length Demetrius, who had long been an outcast and a wanderer, gained possession of the Macedonian throne. But Pyrrhus thought his own claims better than those of his old friend, and joined a general league against him. In 287 b.c. Demetrius was overthrown ; and while Lysimaclius took possession of the eastern part of Macedon, tlie western provinces were ceded to the young and enterprising sovereign of Epirus. But Pyrrhus did not long retain this much-coveted prize. The Macedonians preferred Lysimaclms as their king; and, after a seven months’ reign, Pyrrhus was again driven across the mountains into Epirus (b.c. 287). For the next few years he lived at peace; built Ambracia as a new capital of his dominions, and reigned there in security and magnificence. lie was in the prime of life, handsome in porson, happy in temper, popular from his frankness and generosity, and reputed to be a skilful soldier. But neither his nature nor his restless youth had fitted him for the enjoyment of happy tranquillity. lie had married as his second wife the daughter of Agathocles of Syracuse ; the exploits of that remarkable man fired his soul; he remembered that Alcibiades, that Alexander, that every Greek conqueror had looked to the West as a new scene for enterprise and triumph; and he lent a ready ear to the solicitations of tho Italian envoys. After defeating the Romans and Carthaginians, he might return as king of Southern Italy and Sicily, and dictate terms to the exhausted monarchs of Macedon and Asia. These had been the dreams of less romantic persons than himself.

§ 2. It was at the end of the year 281 d.c. that he left Epirus with a force of about 20,000 foot, and 4000 or 5000 horse, together with a squadron of 20 elephants, held by the Greeks of that time to be a necessary part of a complete armament. On the passage his ships were scattered by a storm, but eventually they all reached Tarentum in safety. His infantry was in part supplied by Ptolemy Ceraunus, the new King of Macedon. Ilis cavalry were Thessalian, the best in Greece. It was a small army for the execution of designs so vast. But he trusted to the promises of the Lucanians and Samnites ; and he also intended to make the Tarcntincs into soldiers. No sooner had he landed than this people found how true were the words of their fellow-citizcn. They had meant him to fight their battles, like his kinsman, Alexander of Molossus; but he resolved that they also should fight his battles. He shut up the theatres and other places of public amusement; closed the democratic clubs ; put some demagogues to death, and banished others; and ordered all citizens of military age to be drilled for the phalanx. The indolent populace murmured, but in vain. The horse had taken a rider on his back to avenge him on the stag, and it was no longer possible to shake him off.

§ 3. With the early spring the Romans took the field. Ti. Coruncanius, plebeian Consul for the year 280, commanded against the Etrurians, with orders to make a peace if possible. P. Valerius

Lsevinus, liis patrician colleague, was to march through Lucan ia, so as to prevent the Lucanians from joining the king; while iamilius, Consul of the former year, was stationed at Venusia, to hold the Samnites and Apulians in check. A Campanian legion, composed of Mamertines, commanded by Decius Jubellius, an officer of tlieir own choosing, occupied Rhegium, in order (we may suppose) to intercept communication from Sicily.

The army with which Pyrrhus advanced along the coast of the Bay of Tarentum, to encounter Lsevinus, is said to have been inferior to that of the Consul. It must be supposed that the latter had not only his own two legions, but also a third legion, under the command of a Prastor. These three, together with the allies, would amount to about 30,000 foot, and the cavalry might be 4000. But this arm was in quality very inferior to the Thessalian horse of the king; and when we take the elephants into account, it is difficult to understand how Pyrrhus’ army, which must have been increased by Tarentine levies, though none of the Italians had yet joined, could have been inferior to that of the Romans. It is rather matter of wonder that the Senate should not have sent both Consuls against so formidable an antagonist, relying on a praetorian army to keep the Etruscans in check,

§ 4. As the king moved along the coast from Ileraclea he came in view of the Roman army, encamped on the right bank of the little river Siris. His practised eye was at once struck by the military order of the enemy’s camp. And when he saw them cross the broad but shallow stream in the face of his own army, „ and form their line before he could close with them, he remarked, “ In war, at least, these barbarians are no way barbarous.”

And now for the first time the Roman Legions had to stand the shock of the Greek Phalanx. The tactics of the two armies were wholly different. The Roman army had undergone no essential change since we had occasion to describe its order in the great Latin war.⁶⁰ Each soldier stood free of his right and left hand man. When all had discharged their pila they then came to close quarters with their short strong swords, and largo oblong shields, each man fighting separately. But the Epirots formed two great columns, called the Phalanxes, in which each man stood close to his fellow, so that half his body was covered by his right-hand man’s shield. They were drawn up sixteen deep, and their long pikes, called sarissac, bristled so thickly in front, that the line was impenetrable unless a gap could be mado in the front ranks. They acted mechanically, by weight. If

they were once broken they were almost defenceless. Level ground, therefore, was necessary to their effective action.

Pyrrhus had secured this last-named advantage: the plain of Ileraclea was well adapted for the regular movement of the phalanxes, as well as for that of his cavalry and elephants. The action began by the Roman cavalry crossing the Siris, and driving back a squadron of the Thessalian horse, the remainder of which, with the elephants, were yet in rear. The main body of the Romans, inspirited by this success, followed across the bed of the river to assail the phalanxes. But they could make no impression on these solid masses; the Principes took the place of the Ilastati, and the Triarii succeeded to the Principes, in vain. Laevi-nus then ordered up his cavalry to attack the phalanxes in flank. But they were met by the whole body of Thessalian horse, supported by the elephants. Tlie Romans had never before seen these monstrous animals, which in their ignorance they called ^w Lucanian oxentheir horses would not face them, and galloped back affrighted among the infantry. Pyrrhus now led the whole line forward, and the rout was general. The Romans were driven back across the Siris, and did not attempt to defend their camp. Yet they soon rallied, and retired in good order into Apulia, where Venusia was ready to receive them. It was now seen with what judgment tho Senate had occupied that place with a large Colony.

§ 5. Tho victory of Ileraclea was gained at a heavy loss. Pyrrhus now rightly estimated the task lie had undertaken. He had a soldier’s eye. When he visited the field of battle next day, and saw every Roman corpse with its wounds in front, lie exclaimed: ^tl If these were my soldiers, or if I w^rere their general, we should conquer the world.” When he offered in the temple of Jove at Tarentum a portion of the spoils taken after the battle, lie placed on them the following inscription :—

And when lie was asked why he spoke thus, he answered: ^u Another victory like this will send me without a man back to Epirus.”

§ 6. The battle of Ileraclea, however, encouraged the Greek cities of Locri and Rhcgium to throw oft* the Roman yoke, Locri joined Pyrrhus; but Decius Jubellius, with his Campanian soldiers, declared themselves independent, and seized Rhegium

* The lines quoted by Orosius, iv. 1, are, no doubt, tliosD of Ennius, a translation of tho original Greek:—

for themselves, as their brethren the Mamertines had seized Mes-sana on the opposite side of the straits. But, above all, the battle of Heraclea left the ground open for the Lucanians and Samnites to join the king; and he"advanced into Samnium to claim the fulfilment of their promises. But as he advanced he was struck by the fewness of the men, and the desolate condition of the whole country; and he bitterly reproached the Italians with deceiving him. The battle which had just been fought taught him how formidable was the foe he had to deal with, and what he now saw showed him how much he must trust to his own resources. lie resolved therefore to end the war at once by negotiating an advantageous peace, while he himself advanced slowly to support his negotiations by the show of force.

§ 7. The person employed in this negotiation was Cineas, a name only less remarkable than that of Pyrrhus himself. He was a Thessalian Greek, famous .for his eloquence, but still more famous for his diplomatic skill. He served Pyrrhus as minister at home and ambassador abroad. “ The tongue of Cineas,” Pyrrhus used to say, “had won him more battles than his own sword.” So quick was his perception, and so excellent his memory, that he had hardly arrived in Rome when he could call every Senator by his name, and address every one according to his character. The terms he had to offer were stringent; for Pyrrhus required that all Greek cities should be left free, and that all the places that had been taken from the Samnites, Apulians, and his other allies, should be restored. Yet the skill of Cineas would have persuaded the Senate to submit to these terms if it had not been for one man. This was Appius Claudius the Censor. He was now in extreme old age; he had been blind for many years, and had long ceased to take part in public affairs. But now, when he heard of the proposed surrender, he caused himself to be conducted to the senate-liouse by his four sons and his five sons-in-law, and there, with the authoritative eloquence of an oracle, he confirmed the wavering spirits of the Fathers, and dictated the only answer worthy of Rome,—that she would not treat of peace with Pyrrhus till he had quitted the shores of Italy. The dying patriotism of Appius covers the multitude of arbitrary acts of which he was guilty in his Censorship.

§ 8. Cineas returned to Pyrrhus, baffled and without hope. He told his master, that “ to fight with the Roman People was like fighting with the hydra;” he declared that “the City was as a temple of the gods, and the Senate an assembly of kings.” But the king resolved to try what effect might be produced by the presence of his army in Latium. He passed rapidly through Campania, leaving it to be plundered by the Samnites, and adv.

vanced upon Rome by tlie upper or Latin road. lie took tlie colony of Fregellje by storm; he received the willing submission of Anaguia, the capital of the Hernicans, and was admitted into the impregnable citadel of Prameste, for both the Ilernicans and the Pramestines were only half Roman citizens; they boro the burthens without enjoying the privileges, and were therefore glad to welcome a chance of liberty. He then advanced six miles beyond Prameste, within eighteen miles of Rome. But here his course was stayed. There were no signs of defection among the bulk of the Latins, or Volscians, or Campanians, who had been admitted into the Tribes and enjoyed the full honour^ of Roman citizenship. Ti. Coruncanius, afterwards Chief Pontiff, and now Consul, was himself a Latin of Tusculum. AVhat he had now gained all might hope for.

The situation of Pyrrhus now became perilous. Coruncanius himself had just concluded a peace with the Etruscans, and his army was free to act in front of Rome; Lievinus had recruited his shattered army and was coming up in rear; liis own army was, except the Epirotes, ill-disciplined and disorderly, and he therefore determined to close the campaign and retire into winter quarters at Tarentum.

§ 9. This winter is famous for the embassy of C. Fabricius, who was sent by the Senate with two other Consulars to propose an interchange of prisoners. The character and habits of Fabricius resembled those of Curius. He lived in frugal simplicity upon his own farm, and was honoured by his countrymen for his inflexible uprightness. lie was somewhat younger than Curius, and seems to have been less rough in manners and more gentle in disposition. The stories are well known which tell how Pyrrlius practised upon his cupidity by offering him gold, and upon his fears by concealing an elephant behind the curtains of the royal tent, which, upon a given signal, waved its trunk over his head; and how Fabricius calmly refused the bribe, and looked with unmoved eye upon the threatening monster. Pyrrhus, it is said, so admired the bearing of the Roman that lie wished him to enter into his service like Cineas, an offer which, to a Roman car, could convey nothing but insult. He refused to give up any Roman citizens w’hom lie had taken, unless the Senate would make peace upon the terms proposed through Cineas: but ho gave his prisoners leave to return home in the month of December to partake in the joviality of the Saturnalia, if they would pledge their wprd of honour to return. His confidence was not misplaced. The prisoners used every effort to procure peace; but the Senate remained firm, and ordered every man, under penalty of death, to return to Tarentum by the appointed day.

§ 10. Hostilities were renewed next year. Tho new Consuls were P. Sulpicius for the Patricians, and P. Decius Mus, son and grandson of those illustrious Plebeians who bore the same name, and had devoted themselves to death beneath Vesuvius and at Sentinum. Since peaco was now concluded with the Etruscans, both Consuls led their armies into Apulia, where Pyrrhus had already taken tho field. He was anxious to make himself master of the Colonies of Venusia and Luceria, so that tho Ilomans might be forced to quit that country and leave him master of all Southern Italy. But ho failed. We are ignorant of tho details of the campaign till we find tho Consuls strongly encamped on tho hills which command .the plain of Apulian Asculum.* Here Pyrrhus encountered them. After some skilful manoeuvring he drew the Romans down into the plain, where his phalanx and cavalry could act freely. He placed the Tarentines in the centre, the Italian allies on his left wing, and his Epirotes and Macedonians'in phalanx on the right; his cavalry and elephants he kept in reserve. What success the Homan Legions had against the Tarentines and Italians wo know not, but they w^Tasted their strength upon tho phalanxes. Again and again they charged that iron wall with unavailing bravery. At length, when they were well nigh exhausted, Pyrrhus brought up his cavalry and elephants, as at Ileraclea, and the Romans were broken. But this time they made good their retreat to their entrenched camp, and Pyrrhus did not think it prudent to pursue them. He had little confidence in his Italian allies, who hated the Greeks even more than they hated the Romans, and gave signal proof of their perfidy by plundering the king’s camp while he was in action. The loss on both sides was heavy. The second victory was now won; but the king’s saying was fast being fulfilled. In these two battles he had lost many of his chief officers and a great number of the. Epirotes, the only troops on whom he could rely. He dared not advance.

When he returned to Tarentum news awaited him which dispirited him still more. The Romans, he heard, had concluded a defensive alliance with Carthage, so that tho superiority of Tarentum at sea would be lost;f Ptolemy Ceraunus, who had promised him fresh troops from Macedon, had been slain by the Gauls, and these barbarians were threatening to overrun tho whole of Greece.!

§ 11. Under these circumstances lie seized tho first occasion of making peace with Rome. This was afforded early in tho

* Othcrwiso called Apulum, now Ascoli di Satriano. This town must not bo confounded with Asculum (Aseolj) in Picenum.

next year by a communication lie received from tno new Consuls Q. iHmilius’ and C. Fabricius. They sent to give him motico that his physician or cup-bearer (the accounts vary) had offered to take lijin off by- poison. Pyrrhus returned his warmest thanks, sent back all his prisoners fresh-clothed and without ransom, and told his allies he should accept an invitation ho had just received to take the command of a Sicilian-Grcek army against the Carthaginians and Mamcrtincs. Accordingly he sailed from Locri to Sicily, evading the Carthaginian fleet which had been lying in wait for him. He left the Italians to the mercy of the Homans, but Milo still kept hold of the citadel of Tarentum, and Alexander, the king’s son, remained in garrison at Locri.

He had been a little more than two years in Italy, for he came at the end of the year 281 b.c. and departed early in 278 : he returned towards the close of 270, so that his stay in Sicily was about two years and a half. The events of this period may be very briefly summed up.

§ 12. The Samnites and Lucanians continued a sort of partisan warfare against Rome, in which, though the Consuls w^Tcre honoured with triumphs, no very signal advantages seem to have been gained. The Romans no doubt took back the places on the Latin road which had submitted to tlic king; they also made themselves masters of Locri, and utterly destroyed the ancient city of Croton, but they failed to take Rhegium, which was stoutly maintained by Deems Jubcllius and his Campanians against Pyrrhus and Romans alike. Meanwhile Pyrrhus was pursuing a career of brilliruit success in Sicily. lie confined tho Mamertincs within the walls of Messana, and in a brilliant campaign drove the Carthaginians to the extreme west of the island. At length, in an evil hour and by the advice of evil counsellors* lie undertook the siege of Lilybajum, a place which the Carthaginians had made almost impregnable. He was obliged to raise the siege, and with this first reverse of fortune he lost the confidence of his fickle Greek allies. Before this also death had deprived him of the services of Cineas. Left to himself, he was guilty of many harsh and arbitrary acts, which proceeded rather from impatience and disappointment than from a cruel or tyrannical temper. It now became clear that he could hold Sicily no longer, and ho gladly accepted a new invitation to return to Italy.

§ 13. Accordingly, late in the year 27G B.C., he set sail for Tarentum. ' On the passage he was intercepted by a Carthaginian fleet, and lost the larger number of his ships; and, on landing between Rhegium and Locri, he suffered further loss by an assault from the Campanians, who still held the former city.

Yet, once in Italy, he found himself at the head of a large army⁶¹ composed partly of his veteran Epirotes, and partly of soldiers of fortune who had followed him from Sicily. His first act was to assault and recover possession of Loeri; and here, in extreme want of money, he again listened to evil counsellors, and plundered the rich treasury of the temple of Proserpine. The ships that were conveying the plunder were wrecked, and Pyrrhus, eonscicnec-stricken, restored all that was saved. But the memory of the deed haunted him : he has recorded his belief that this sacrilegious act was the cause of all his future misfor' tunes.*

§ 14. The Consuls of the next year were L. Cornelius Lentnlus and M’ Curius Dcntatus. On Curius depended the fortunes of Rome. The people were much disheartened, for pestilcnce was raging. The statue of Capitoline Jupiter had been struck by lightning, and men’s hearts were filled with ominous forebodings. When the Consuls held their levy, the citizens summoned for service did not answer their names. Then Curius ordered the goods of the first rceusant to be sold, a sentence which was followed by the loss of all political rights. This severe measure had its effect, and the required legions were made up.

§ 15. Lentulus marehed into Lueania, Curius into Samnium. Pyrrhus chose the latter country for the seat of war. He found Curius encamped above Bencventum, and he resolved on a night attack, so as to surprise him before he could be joined by his colleague. But night attacks seldom succeed : part of the army missed its way, and it was broad daylight before the Epirote army appeared before the camp of the Consul. Curius immediately drew out his legions, and assaulted the enemy while they were entangled in the mountains. lie had instructed his archers to shoot arrows wrapped in burning tow at the elephants, and to this dcviec is attributed the victory he won. One of the females, hearing the cries of her young one, which had been wounded in this way, rushed furiously into the ranks of her own men. Curius now brought up the main body of his foot and attacked the disordered phalanxes: they were broken, and became helpless. The defeat was complete : Pyrrhus fell back at once uport Tarentum, and resolved to leave the shores of Italy. However, he left Milo still in the eitadcl, as if he intended to return.

§ 16. But the glory of his life was ended; the two or three years that remained of it were passed in hopeless enterprises. One day he was proclaimed King of Macedon, and the next ho lost his kingdom. Then he attacked Sparta, and nearly took it. Lastly, lie assaulted Argos, and was killed by a tile thrown by a woman from the roof of a house.

Such was the end of this reiharkable man. Like Richard I. of England or Charles XII. of Sweden, lie passed his life in winning battles without securing any fruits of victory; and, like them, a life passed in the thick of danger was ended in a petty war and by an unknown hand. Ilis chivalric disposition won him the admiration even of liis enemies ; his impetuous temper and impatience of misfortune prevented him from securing the confidence of his friends. Yet he left a name worthy of his great ancestry; and we part with regret from the history of his Italian wars, for it is the most frank and generous conflict in which Rome was ever engaged. .

§ 1. Milo left by Pyrrhus in Tarentum. § 2. Final reduction of Samnites and Italians of South. § 3. Surrender of Tarentum: embassy of Ptolemy Philadelphia to Romo. § 4. Campanian soldiers in Rhegium compelled to surrender: their fate. § 5. Submission of Sallentines and Messapians: Colony of Brundusium. § G. Reduction of Picenians and Umbrians. § 7. Of Etruscans. § 8. Account of Settlement of Italy: present extent of Roman Territory: nono but its inhabitants admitted to a sharo in government. § 9. Principles adopted in regulating Italy: Isolation and Selfgovernment. § 10. IIow Isolation was produced: different conditions of Italian Towns. §11. Prefectures.* §12. Municipal Towns,. §13. Colonies. § 14. Colonies of Roman Citizens. § 15. Latin Colonies. § 10. Jus. Latii. § 17. Froo and Confederate States. § 18. Constitutions of Italian Towns. § 19. Admirable results of tho system.

§ 1. The departure of Pyrrhus left Italy at the mercy of Rome. Yet Milo, the king’s lieutenant, still held the citadel of Tarentum, and none of the nations who had lately joined the Epirote standard submitted without a final struggle. Of this struggle, what few particulars have survived shall be related, the affairs of tho south being taken first, and then those of the north.

§ 2. Affairs of tiie South.—The Samnites, Lucanians, Brut-tians, and other tribes continued a kind of guerilla warfare, for which their mountains afforded great facilities. To put an end to this, in tho year 272 B.C., L. Papirius Cursor the younger, and Sp. Carvilius, who had been tlie instruments of crushing the Samnites at the close of the third war, were again elected Consuls together and sent southward with all their legions. Papirius invested Ta-rcntum; and while the lines were being formed, he received tho Gubmission of the Lucanians and Bruttians.

Meanwhile Carvilius attacked the Samnites in their mountains, and the scattered remnants of_# that brave people, deserted by all, saw themselves compelled to submit finally to Home, after a struggle of about seventy years. Thus ended what is sometimes called the fourth Samnite war.

§ 3. The same summer witnessed the reduction of Tarentum. Papirius, jealous of the appearance of a Carthaginian fleet in the gulf^ entered into a secret treaty with Milo, by which the Epirote governor agreed to evacuate the city and leave it to the will of the Romans. This man had ruled the Tarcntincs like a tyrant, and it is probable that they on their part would have gladly put* chased reasonable terms from the consul by surrendering their Epirote governor. But they were not allowed the choice. Milo sailed for Epirus with all his men and stores, and Tarentum was left to itself. The aristocratical party instantly seized the government, and made submission to Rome* They were allowed to continue independent, on condition of paying an annual tribute to the conqueror: but their fortifications were rased, their arsenal dismantled, the fleet surrendered to Rome, and a Roman garrison placed in their citadel.

The attention generally excited in the cast of the Mediterranean by the failure of Pyrrhus is attested by the fact that in the year 273 b.c. Ptolemy Philadclphus, the king’s brother-in-law, now sovereign of Egypt, sent ambassadors to Rome, and entered into alliance with Rome. Thus began a friendly connexion with Egypt which continued unbroken to the time of Caesar.

§ 4. In 271 b.c. the Plebeian Consul, C. Gcnucius, was sent to reduce Decius Jubcllius and the Campanian soldiers, who had made themselves lords of Rhcgium. This able captain had added a number of adventurers to his original legion, and was in fact head of a military oligarchy in that city. But tlie Senate formed a treaty with the Mamertine soldiery, who had occupied Mcssana in precisely the same manner, and thus detached them from alliance with their compatriots: they also secured supplies of corn from Ilicro, who had been raised to the sovereignty of Syracuse on the departure of Pyrrhus from Sicily. The Campanians

- 11* of Rliegiuin were thus left to themselves; the city was taken by assault and all the soldiery put to the sword, except the original legionaries of Jubellius, who as burgesses of Capua possessed some of the rights of Roman citizens, and were therefore reserved for trial before the People of Rome. Not more than three hundred still survived • out of several thousands; but they met with no mercy. Every Tribe voted that they should be first scourged and then beheaded as traitors to the Republic. Rhegium was restored to the condition of a Greek community.

§ 5. A few years later, the Sallentines and Messapians in the heel of Italy submitted to the joint forces of both Consuls. Brundusium and its lands were ceded to Rome; and about twenty years afterwards (244 b.c.) a colony was planted there. Brundu-sium became the Dover of Italy, as Dyrrhachium, on the opposite Epirote coast, became the Calais of Greece.

§ 6. Affairs of the North.—In the year 268 b.c. both Consuls undertook the reduction of the Picenians, who occupied the coast land between Umbria and the Marrucinians. Their chief city, Asculum, was taken by storm. A portion of the people was transferred to that beautiful coast which lies between the bay of Naples and the Silarus, where they took the name of Picentines.

Soon after (266 b.c.) Sarsina, the chief city of the Umbrians, was taken, and all Umbria submitted to Rome.

§ V. It remains to speak of Etruria. No community here was strong enough, so far as we hear, to maintain active war against Rome; and the haughty Vulsinii, which had so long resisted her single-handed, was now compelled to sue for succour. The ruling aristocracy had ventured to arm their serfs, probably for the purpose of a Roman war : but these men had turned’upon their late masters, and were now exercising a still direr oppression than they had suffered. The Senate readily gave car to a call for assistance from the Volsinian lords; and (in the year 265 B.C.) Q. Fabius Gurges, son of old Fabius Maximus, invested the city. He was slain in a sally made by the Etruscan serfs, who were, however, obliged to surrender soon after. The Romans treated the city as lawfully-gotten booty. The old Etruscan town on the hilltop, with its polygonal walls, was destroyed; its 2000 statues and other works of art were transferred to Rome; a new town was founded on the low ground, which in the modernised name of Bolsena still preserves the memory of its ancient fame. After the fall of Vulsinii, all the Etruscan communities, which (like Arre-tium) were not already in alliance with Rome, made formal submission ; and Etruria, like every other district of Roman Italy, awaited the will of tho conquering city of the Tiber. >

§ 8. We must now give a brief account of the manner in which the Roman government so ordered the noble dominions of which they were now masters, that for many years at least absolute tranquillity prevailed. Wo have no definite account of the organisation by which those results were obtained ; but by putting together incidental facts which are handed down with respect to various communities, a tolerably- exact knowledge of their system may be obtained.

To conceive of ancient Ilomo as the capital of Italy in tho aame sense that London is the capital of England or Paris of France would be a great mistake. London and Paris are tho chief cities of their respective countries only because they are the scat of government. The people of these cities and their surrounding districts have no privileges superior to those of other English or French citizens. But the city of ancient Romo, with her surrounding territory, was a great Corporate Body or Community, holding sovereignty over the whole of Italy, which had now obtained that signification which we have above noticed,* and comprehended the whole Peninsula from the Macra and Rubicon downwards, except that the territory lately taken from the Senonian Gauls was for some years later termed the Province of Ariminum. The Roman territory itself, in tho first days of the Republic, consisted (as we have seen) of twenty-one Tribes or Wards. Before the point at which we have arrived, these Tribes had been successively increased to thrce-and-tliirty. These Tribes included a district beyond the Tiber stretching somewhat further than Yeii; a portion of the Sabine and yEquian territory beyond the Anio; with part of Latium, part of the Yolscian country, and the coast-land as far as the Liris, southward. None but persons enrolled on the lists of these Tribes had a vote in the Popular Assemblies or any share in tho government and legislation of the City. The Latin Cities not included in the Tribes, and all the Italian Communities, were subject to Rome, but had no share in her political franchise.

§ 9. The principles on which the Italian nations were so settled as to remain the peaceable subjects of Rome were these. First, they were broken up and divided as much as possible ; secondly, they were allowed, with little exception, to manage their own affairs. The Isolation enforced by Rome prevented them from combining against her. The Self-government granted by Rome made them bear her supremacy with contentment.

§ 10. The arts by which Isolation was produced we have seen put in full practicc at the settlement of Latium fifty years before.f The same plan was pursued with the different Italian

nations. Those which submitted with a good grace were treated leniently. Those which resisted stubbornly were weakened by the confiscation of their lands and by the settlement of colonies in their principal towns. The. Frentanians .are the best example of the milder treatment; the Samnites afford the most notable instance of the more harsh.

The work of Isolation was promoted partly by the long and narrow shape and the central mountain range, which still makes a central government so difficult, and still renders it easy for many states to maintain a separate existence, but partly also by a sentiment common to mo§t_f of the Italian nations, as well as to those of Greecc. They regarded a free man, not as one of a Nation, but as the member of a Civic Community. Every one regarded his first duties as owed to his own City, and not to his Nation. Their City was their Country. They addressed one another not as fellow-countrymen, but as fellow-citizens. Rome herself was the noblest specimen of this form of society. And the settlement which she adopted throughout Italy took advantage of this prevailing rule, and perpetuated it.

Not only were the Italians split up into civic communities, but these communities were themselves placed in very different Conditions. The common division of the Italian communities, as established by the Roman Government, is threefold—Prefectures, Municipal Towns, and Colonies. In each of these three classes, many subordinate differences existed. Yet there were certain broad distinctions which justify this division; and they shall now be described briefly in their order.

§ 11. Prefectures. We will begin with these, because, though they may be regarded as exceptions, they are examples of the simplest form under which Italian cities subject to Rome present themselves.

The Prefectures are exceptional, because they did not enjoy tho right of Self-government, but were under the rule of Prefects; that is, of Roman governors annually nominated by the Praetor of the City. All lawsuits were tried in the Prefect’s court; and the inhabitants of the Prefecture were registered by the Roman Censor, so as to be liable to all the burthens and duties of Roman citizens, without enjoying any of their privileges.

This condition was called the Caerite Franchise, because the town of Caere, in Lower Etruria, was the first community placed in this dependent position.⁶² Amid the terror of the Gallic invasion, Caere had afforded a place of refuge to priests and sacred things, and women and children of the Romans, and had been rewarded by a treaty of equal alliance! But at a later period she joined other Etruscan communities in war against koine,⁶³ and it was on lier submission, probably, that she was reduced to the condition of a Prefecture. Capua afterwards became a notable instance of a similar change. She also, during the Samnite wars and afterwards, enjoyed a state of perfect equality in respect to Home. The troops which she supplied in virtue of the allianco between her and Rome formed a separate legion, and were commanded by officers of her own, as appeared in the case of Decius Jubellius. But in the Ilannibalic war she joined the Carthaginian conqueror; and when Rome regained the ascendancy, she was degraded to the condition of a Prefecture f

§ 12. Municipal Towns. At the period of which wc write, these were Communities bound to Rome by treaties of alliance varying in specific terms, but framed on a general principle with respect to burthens and privileges. Their burthens consisted in furnishing certain contingents of troops, which they were obliged to provide with pay and equipments while on service, provisions being found by the Romans.J; Their privileges consisted in freedom from all other taxes, and in possessing in more or less completeness the right of Self-government. This condition was secured by a treaty of alliance, which, nominally at least, placed the Municipal community on a footing of equality with Rome; though sometimes this treaty was imposed by Rome without consulting the will of the other Community.] Thus there was, no doubt, a considerable diversity of condition among the Municipia. Some regarded their alliance as a boon, others looked upon it as a mark of subjection. In the former condition were Ca)re and Capua before they were made Prefectures ; in the latter condition was Volsinii and the other Etruscan Cities.

The Municipal Towns, then, were exempt from all tribute or toll payable to Rome, except military service. They enjoyed the right of Self-government, and administered their own laws. They also were allowed to exercise the Civil or Private rights of

Roman citizcns; but none, without special grant, bad any power of obtaining the Political or Public Rights. In some cases even the Private Rights were withheld, as from the greater part of the Latin communities after the war of 338 b.c., when the citizens of each Community were for a time forbidden to form contracts of marriage or commerce with Roman citizens or with their neighbours. They stood to Rome and to the rest of Italy much in the same condition as the Plebeians to the Patricians before the Can-uleian law. But these prohibitions were gradually and silently removed. Municipal Towns were often rewarded by a gift of the Roman franchise, more or less completely, while those which offended were depressed to the condition of Prefectures.

At length, by the Julian and other Laws, (b.c. 90), of which we shall speak in its proper place, all the Municipal Towns of Italy, as well as the Colonies, received the full Roman franchise; and hence arose the common conception of a Municipal Town, that is, a Community of which the citizens are members of the whole nation, all possessing the same rights, and subject to the same burthens, but retaining the administration of law and government in all local matters which concern not the nation at large. But the Municipal Towns of Italy, before the Julian law, were hardly members of a nation at all. Their citizens had no share in the central government, no votes in the National Assemblies; while they were exempt from all taxation, except that which they found it necessary to impose on themselves for sending their contingents of troops into the field; and they possessed unfettered power of self-government, except when a Roman Consul or Praetor happened to be present in their city.

§ 13. Colonies. It is in the Colonial Towns that we must look for the chief instruments of Roman supremacy in Italy. Directly dependent upon Rome for existence, they served more than anything to promote that division of interests which rendered it so difficult for Italy, or any part of Italy, to combine nationally against the Roman government.

When we speak or think of Roman Colonies, we must dismiss all those conceptions of colonisation which are familiar to our minds from the practice either of ancient Greece or of the maritime states of modern Europe. Roman Colonies were not planted in new countries by adventurers who found their old homes too narrow for their wants or their ambition, and whose bond of union with the mother-country was rendered feeble and precarious by difference of interest or remoteness of situation. When the Romans, planted a Colony (at the time we speak of and for more than, a century later), it was always within the limits of the Italian Peninsula, and within the walls of ancient citics whose obstinate resistance made it prudent to restore them to independence, and whose reduced condition rendered it possible to place them in the condition of subjects.

It was a custom followed by the Romans, in common with the Sabellian nations, to amerce a conquered community of its lands, either in whole or in part, for the benefit of the conquering state. The lands thus confiscated were added to the Public Land, of which we have heard so much. After the conquest of Italy, this Public Land had become very large in extent in every part of the Peninsula. We have, on several occasions, mentioned that portions of this land were appropriated to the citizens who migrated from Rome and its neighbourhood to become the citizens of a Colony. Thus two purposes were served at once:—the poorer plebeians were raised to a state of easy independence, and the sovereignty of Rome was secured in remote districts by the presence of a new population devoted to her interests.

But these Colonies were not all of the same character. They must be distinguished into two classes,—the Colonies of Roman Citizens, and the Latin Colonies.

§ 14. The Colonies of Roman Citizens consisted usually of three hundred men of approved military experience, who went forth with their families to occupy conquered cities of no great magnitude, but which were important as military positions, being usually on the sea-coast⁶⁴ These three hundred families formed a sort of patrician caste, while the old inhabitants sank into the condition formerly occupied by the plebeians at Rome. The heads of these families retained all their rights as Roman citizens, and might repair to Rome to vote in the Popular Assemblies. When in early Roman history we hear of the revolt of a Colony, tho meaning seems to be that the natives rose against the colonists and expelled them. Ilence it is that we hear of colonists being sent more than once to the same place, as to Antium.f

§ 15. But more numerous and more important than these were the Latin Colonies, of which there were thirty in existence when Hannibal crossed the Alps. Of these thirty no fewer than twenty-six had been founded before the close of the year 2G3 n.c.

The reason for the name they bore was this. Wo have seen that a close connection had subsisted between Rome and the Latin communities from the earliest times. Under the later

Kings Rome was the head of Latium; and by Spurius Cassius a League was formed between Rome and Latium, which continued with a slight interruption till the great Latin War of 338 b.c. So long as this league lasted, Rome on the one side and the Latin Communities 011 tlie other granted certain reciprocal rights to the citizens of each people. Latins enjoyed all the Private Rights of Roman citizens in Rome ; and Romans enjoyed all the Private Rights of the Latin citizens in any of the cities of Latium.* During the period of the league a number of Colonies were sent forth, in which the settlers consisted jointly of Romans and Latins, and their numbers were not confined to the small number of three, hundred, but usually amounted to some thousands. But the citizens of these Latin Colonies seem to have had no rights at Rome, except such as were possessed by the allied Municipal Towns. They were therefore regarded politically as Communities in alliance with "Rome. .

After the Latin war, similar Colonies still continued to be sent forth; indeed, these were the Colonies which chiefly relieved the poor of the Roman territory. At first, no doubt, the Colonists remained distinct from the old inhabitants; but generally both were fused into one body, like the Sabines and Latins at Rome, like the Samnites and Oscans in Capua.

The Latin Colonies, then, at that time seem to have been merely Allied Cities, bound like them to furnish troops for the service of Rome, and holding their cities as the friends of Rome in the midst of a hostile population. It is to these Colonies that we must attribute chiefly that tenacious grasp which Rome was able to keep upon every district in Italy. The Volscians were overawed by Fregellae, Pontiso, Interamna, and Sora; the Campanians by Cales, Suessa Aurunca, and Cosa; the ^Equians by Carseoli; the Marsians by Alba Fucentia ; Umbria by Narnia and Ariminum ; the Picenians by Ilatria and Firmum; the Samnites by Saticula, Beneventum, and ./Esernia; the Apulians by Luceria and Venusia; the Lucanians by Posidonia (afterwards Psestum). These places were, no doubt, all strongly fortified. The ruins of massive walls built with irregular polygonal blocks of stone, which crowned their rocky citadels, still remain in many places, to show that they must .have presented most formidable obstacles in an age when gun* powder was unknown.

§ 16. The rights and privileges of these Latin Colonies are only known to us as they are found at a later period of the Republic under the name of Latinitas, or the Right of Latium (Jus Latii). This Right, at the later time we speak of, we know to have consisted in the power of obtaining the full Rights of a Roman

Burgess, but in a limited and peculiar manner. Any citizcn of a Latin Community, whether one of the Free Cities of Latium or a Latin Colony, was allowed to emigrate to Rome and be enrolled in one of the Roman Tribes, on two conditions: first, that he had held a magistracy in his native town; secondly, that lie left a representative of his family in that native town. Thus was formed that large body of half-Roman citizcns throughout Italy, who arc so well known to readers of Livy under the appellation of “tho Latin name.” Socii ct nomen Latinum—the Allies and the Latin Name—was the technical expression for all those Italian Communities, besides Rome herself, w^rho were bound to supply soldiers fpr her armies.

§ 17. Free and Confederate States.*. It wil I be seen, then, that the mass of the Italian Communities were in a condition of greater or less dcpcndcncc upon Rome,—the Prefectures being in a state of absolute subjection, the Colonics bound by tics of national feeling and interest, the Municipal Towns by articles of alliance varying in kind. Besides these more or less dependent communities, there remain to be noticed, fourthly, the Cities which remained w^rholly independent of Rome, but bound to her by treaties of Equal Alliancc. Of the Latin citics, Tibur and Praoncsto alone were in this condition ; in Campania, most of the citics, till, after tho Hannibalic war, Capua and others were reduccd to the conr dition of Prefectures, while Nola and Nuccria alone remained free; of tho Hellenic citics in the south, Neapolis, Velia, Locri, Rhegium, and Ilcraclca ; in Umbria, Camcrium; in Etruria, Iguvium; with all the cities of the Frcntanians. But as Roman power increased, most of these communities were reduccd to the condition of simple municipal towns.

§ 18. Whatever is known of the internal constitution of these various communities belongs to later times, when by the Julian Law they had all obtained the Roman franchise, and had become part and parcel of the Roman state. At Capua, indeed, wc learn that the government was now in the hands of a Senate, with an elective cliicf callcd the Mcddix Tuticus.f But Capua, as we have just seen, was, till after 211 b.c., to all intents and purposes an independent city, and affords no clue to assist us iu judging of the rest.

There can, however, be little doubt that in the Colonies a constitution was adopted similar to that of Rome herself. The Colonists formed a kind of Patriciate or Aristocracy, and the heads of their leading families constituted a Senate. There w^rcrc two cliicf magistrates representing the Consuls, to whom (in the more important towns) were added one or two men to fulfil the

duties of Censor and Quaestor.⁶⁵ In course of time similar constitutions were introduced into the Municipal Towns also. And it is probable that from the first Rome exerted her influence in favour of an aristocratic government.

§ 19. Thus, by placing the Italian Cities in every possible relation to herself, from real independence .to complete subjection, and by planting Colonies, some with full Roman Rights, some with a limited power of obtaining these Rights, Rome wove her net of sovereignty over the Peninsula, and covered every part with its entangling meshes. It is not to be supposed that every step in this process was taken with a full consciousncss of its effect But some general plan there must have been, such as we have summed up in the words Isolation and Self-government. Tho effects, at all events, were such as would have corresponded with the most deep-laid plans of policy. The campaigns of Pyrrhus took place at a time when Italy was yet not wholly conquered. But few citics of importance, except those of his own countrymen, opened their gates to him. In the first Punic war, not an Italian community took advantage of the exhausted condition to which Rome was more than oncc reduced. In the Gallic war that followed, her allies served her faithfully. The invasion of Hannibal exposed her to 3 pressure as severe as any government ever underwent. Yet when the great General was asked by his rivals at home, “Whether the. defeat of Canna) had caused one Latin community to desert Rome ?” f he could not answer in the affirmative. More than this. The mass of the Campanians, the poor remains of the brave Samnite tribes, the Lucanians, Apulians, and Bruttians, all rose in favour of the Carthaginian invader. But in central Italy, where the Roman government was best known, not one city, federate or municipal, opened her gates to the conqueror; and even in the insurgent districts the Colonics remained immoveable as rocks, upon which the seething waves might lavish their utmost fury.

§ 1. Good fortuno of Romo in her successive wars. § 2. Saying of Pyrrhos § 3. Situation of Carthago. § 4. Origin and growth of Carthage. § 5. Her subjects. § 6. Government. § 7. Army. § 8. Navy. § 0. ller attempts to gain possession of Sicily. § 10. Mamcrtines of Mcssana and Hiero of Syracuse: Mamertines seek protection of Rome. §11. Hiero and Carthaginians defeated by Romans. § 12. Tho First Punic War follows.

§ 1. Nothing is more remarkable in the History of Rome than the manner in which she was brought into contact only with one enemy at a time. During the heat of her contest with the Samnites, Alexander of Macedon was terminating his career. The second Samnite war broke out in 324 b.c. ; and in the following year the great King died at the untimely age of thirty-two. When he took rest at Babylon, after ten years spent in ceaseless activity, he received embassies from all parts of tho known world. If it is to be believed that among these envoys there were representatives of the Samnites and other tribes of Lower Italy, their business at the distant court of Alex-

ander could have been no other than to solicit the aid of his victorious arms to arrest the course of Rome, and protect the south of Italy, so dear to every Greek, from her overpowering ambition. The possibility that the great King might have turned his course westward to execute the plan which had once presented itself to the young ambition of Alcibiades,'* occurred to Roman minds, Why should not he have attempted, what his kinsman Alexander of Molossus had attempted, and what Pyrrhus after him was destined to attempt? Livy broaches the question whether Rome would have risen superior to the contest or not, and decides it in the affirmative. But his judgment is that of a patriot, rather than of an historian. Scarcely did Rome prevail over the unassisted prowess of the Samnites. Scarcely did she drive the adventurous Pyrrhus from her shores, after she had broken the force of Italy. If a stronger than Pyrrhus—a man of rarest ability both for war and peace—had joined his power to that of C. Pontius the Samnite, it can hardly be doubted that the History of the World would have been changed,

§ 2. The same good fortune attended Rome in her collision with Carthage. The adventurous temper of Pyrrhus led him from Italy to Sicily, and thus threw the Carthaginians into necessary alliance with the Romans. When the King was on his return to the Italian shore, the greater part of his forces were destroyed by a Carthaginian fleet. What might have been the result of the Tarcntinc war, if the diplomacy of Cineas had, in the first instance, been employed to engage the great African city against Rome ? Now that Italy was prostrate, it was plain that a collision between the two governments so encroaching and so jealous was inevitable. As Pyrrhus left the soil of Italy for ever, he said regretfully:—“ How fair a battle-field we arc leaving for the Romans and Carthaginians!” .

§ 3. Before we begin the narration of the first Punic War, it will be well to give a brief account of Carthage and the Carthaginians,

The north coast of Africa, at a .point nearly clue south of Florence, turns abruptly southward, and the coast continues to run in a southerly direction for about two hundred miles, when it again trends eastward. Just before the coast takes its sudden turn to the south, it is hollowed out into a deep bay, of which the western extremity was named the Fair Promontory (Pulcrum Promontorium), and the eastern horn, anciently called the Promontory of Mercury (Promontorium Hcrmteuin), is now well known under the appellation of Cape Bon. About the middle of

this great bay a tongue of land juts out into the water, and on this now desolate spot once stood the great commercial city of Carthage.⁶⁶ Cape Bon is not more than eighty miles distant from Lilybajum, the southernmost point of Sicily, and Carthage itself was not more than one hundred miles from the same point. If the African coast ran on straight eastward from Cape Bon, it would strike against the headland of Lilybseum.

§ 4. It is well known that this celebrated city was a colony from Tyre, the great centre of Phoenician commerce in the cast, and that the common date for its foundation is about a century before the foundation of Rome. The language of the colony continued to be Phoenician, or (as the Romans called it) Puiiic;f and the scanty remains of that language arc sufficient to show its near affinity with Hebrew and other kindred tongues. In very early times Carthage had assumed a leading position in the west of the Mediterranean* At the time of her fall, after the long and disastrous struggle with Rome, and the loss of all her empire, she still numbered a population of 700,000 within her walls; and the circumference of. these walls measured more than twenty miles. As her wealth and power increased, she had planted numerous colonics on the African coast. Three hundred Libyan cities are said to have paid her tribute; and her dominion was gradually extended to the Pillars of Hercules on the one side, and nearly to tho Great Syrtis 011‘the other. Much of this coast-land, especially the great plain that extends south of Carthage to the Lesser Syrtis, is extraordinarily fertile.

§ 5. This fertility naturally attracted inhabitants. Besides the native Libyan Tribes, there was a large mixed population of Libyans and Phoenicians in and around the colonics of Carthage, and of other cities which, like Carthage, claimed descent from Phoenicia itself. These people were ruled by Carthage with excessive rigour. They were treated as mere tillers of the ground, subject to the payment of tribute, but were not entrusted with any political rights whatsoever. Their condition somewhat resembled that, of the Rayahs or. Christian peasantry in the Turkish dominions, before the recent reforms; but whereas the Turkish tribute was always light, the burdens imposed upon these subjects of the Carthaginian government were often more than tho utmost industry could furnish. The result was that the Carthaginian Government was detested everywhere, and the presence of a foreign invader was always tho signal for a general insurrection, a fact wliicli offers a remarkable point of contrast between the dominion of Rome in Italy and that of Carthage in Africa.

§ G. Of the internal condition of Carthage little is known. It seems probable that both the government and the trade were a monopoly in the hands of a few wealthy families, descendants of those merchant princes who once bore rule in Tyre. Power was nominally entrusted to two elective magistrates, who bore the title of Suffets* or Protectors, and a Senate of three hundred. The Suffets were elective, but only held their office for a season. On certain occasions the whole body of citizens were called together and consulted. But all real power seems to have been absorbed by a smaller Council of One Hundred, self-elected, who held office for life. Before this narrow oligarchy all other powers grew dim. The Suffets became mere lay-figures; the Senate and the Assembly of the People faded into venerable forms; just as at Yenice, after the thirteenth century, the Doges and the Assembly of the Nobles dwindled into a shadow before the secret despotism of the Council of Ten.

§ V. The Carthaginians had little need of a strong military force in Africa. Their own citizens seem to have been trained to arms for home purposes, and an immense magazine of military stores was kept iri Byrsa or Bosra,f the citadel. This force was probably sufficient to overawe the native Libyans, and to repress the incursions of the Numidians and other predatory tribes on their western side. But for foreign service they relied almost solely on mercenary troops. These they hired from Libya itself, Spain, Italy, Gaul, and Greece. The Balearic Isles supplied them with good slingers. Their light cavalry, which in the hands of Hannibal proved a formidable force, was formed of wild Numidians, light, spare, hardy men, who had their horses so completely under command as to ride them without bit or rein. Organisation seems to have been introduced into this army by Mago, a notable man who flourished about 500 B.C., and is the reputed founder of the military power of Carthage.

The officers in chief command of these motley forces' wero usually native Carthaginians. But here the jealous and confined nature of the Government was hurtful to the public interest.

* Tho Latin Suffes, plur. Suffetes, is clearly tho Eamo as the Hebrew Shophet, plur. Shof Urn, which in our version of tho Biblo is translated Judges. But tho root is shafat, to protect.

f Moro than ono strongly fortified city on tho borders of Palestine was called Bosra—the Phoenician name for the citadel of Carthage. Tho Greeks called it Bvpoa. No doubt the meaning of this word gave riso to the legend that Dido bought as much land from tho Libyans “ as a hide would compass,” and then cheated them by cutting tho liido into strips.

Nothing was more formidable to such a Government than an able and successful general at the head of a force that owed no allegiance save to their officers. The generals, therefore, seem mostly to have been men chosen rather because of their devotion to the oligarchical families, than because of their aptness for command. When they failed their merciless masters visited the failure by fine, imprisonment, or crucifixion.

§ 8. if tlie army was not a national institution, it might have been thought that a people whose wealth so much depended upon their shipping would at least have been absolute masters of the sea. And we find immense fleets fitted out, and great losses speedily repaired. But here again the commanders seem to have been hampered by the Government, or not to have made fit use of the means at their command. It must have been as surprising to people of that day to see the Carthaginians beaten on their own element by the Romans, as it would be to the present generation to sec the fleets of England defeated by those of Russia. .

§ 9. It was by means of the fleets, of course, that Carthage was brought into connexion and collision with other countries. In early days she had established commercial settlements in the South of Spain and in Sicily. It was in the latter country that she came in contact first with the Greeks, and afterwards with the Romans. .

We have seen that in the first- year of the Republic a treaty was made between Carthage and Rome. This was at a time when the Sicilian Greeks, by their growing wealth and restless energy, must have already awakened the jealousy of the mer-chant-rulers of western Sicily. About thirty years later, the great Persian invasion encouraged Carthage to assail them; but the Sicilian Greeks had kept aloof, and Gelon of Syracuse destroyed the fleets of Carthage and Etruria, combined under the command of Mago, as has been already noticed. For the next seventy years the Carthaginians contented themselves with obtaining possession of three factories or trading-marts on the coast of Sicily—Panormus, Motye, and Lilybscum, which they fortified very strongly. But after the great overthrow of the Athenian power by the Syracusans (413 B.C.), the Carthaginian Government formed the design of becoming masters of this fertile and coveted island. Three years later they appeared in great forco before Selinus, which fell after a brave resistance. Other cities shared the same fate; and in 406 b.c. the city of Agrigentum, then probably the largest and most magnificent in the Hellenic world, was sacked and destroyed. The person, afterwards so famous as Dionysius the Tyrant, took advantage of this disaster to attack the existing Government of Syracuse for permitting the destruction of a sister city, and with singular craft raised himself to absolute power. His long reign of thirty-eight years (405—367 b.c.) comprises the time of Rome’s great depression by the Gallic invasion, while the year of his death is coincident with that of the Licinian Laws, the era from which dates the constant advance of the Italian great city. He engaged in two great wars with Carthage. In the first, he had lost all Sicily, and was blockaded by Imilcon in Syracuse, when a pestilence destroyed the Carthaginian army, and so reduced that people, that their Libyan subjects rose in insurrection, and for a time the existence of Carthage seemed doubtful (394 b.c.) In the second, he Was at first eminently successful, but was at length obliged to conclude a peacc by which the River Ilalycus was settled as the boundary between Grecian and Carthaginian Sicily, and the territory of Agrigentum was added to Syracusan rule (383 b.c.)

This treaty was followed by a long rest. The younger Dionysius succeeded, and was overthrown by Dion, a Platonic philosopher, who put down the tyranny of Dionysius II. only to continuo fi modified tyranny in his own person. Dion was put to death by his brother Timoleon, a man in whom stern patriotism overpowered the sentiments of nature. The Carthaginians took advantage of these troubles to renew hostilities, but were compelled by Timoleon to remain contented with the same boundaries which had been fixed by the treaty of Dionysius. This took place in the year of the great Latin War.

Peace was now maintained for nearly thirty years. But in 317 b.c. Agathocles made himself King of Syracuse by means still more unscrupulous than had been used by Dionysius. In 310 b.c. the Carthaginians declared war against him. At Ilimera he was signally defeated, and Syracuse lay open to the enemy. But Agathocles took the bold step of transporting the troops which remained for the defence of the capital into Africa, so as to avail himself of the known disaffection of the Libyan subjects of Carthage. His successes were marvellous. One of the Suffets fell in battle, the other acted as a traitor. All the Libyan subjects of Carthage supported the Sicilian monarch, and he encamped almost under the walls of tho city. But lie was obliged to return to Sicily rapidly, to check an insurrection there, and a hurried peace was made with Carthage. The remainder of his life was spent in vain attempts in Sicily, in Corcyra, and in Southern Italy. Ho died in 289 B.C., less then ten years beforo the appearance of Pyrrhus in Italy.

After the death of Agathocles, the Carthaginians and Greeks of Sicily rested quiet, till Pyrrhus undertook to expel the former

from the island. Wo have already mentioned his first brilliant successes and his subsequent failure.⁶⁷ By this assault of Pyrrhus, Carthage was led to conclude a treaty with Home. But the appearance of Carthaginian fleets off Ostia and in the Gulf of Tarentum liad roused the jealousy of the Italian Republic, and an opportunity only was wanting to give rise to open war between the two states. In tlie year 204 b.c. sucli an opportunity occurred.

§ 10. It has been recorded above that a body of Campanian Mercenaries, calling themselves Mamertines, being discharged from the service of Agathocles, had made themselves masters of Messana.f From this place they became dangerous neighbours to Syracuse. A young man of good birth, named Iliero, who liad won distinction in the Sicilian campaigns of Pyrrhus, gained a signal victory over these marauders at Centuripa, and was by his grateful compatriots proclaimed king. This was about the year 270 b.c. For some time the Mamertines remained quiet, and Iliero was occupied in securing liis power at Syracuse. But in 264 b.c. the new King resolved to destroy this nest of robbers, and advanced against Messana with a force superior to any they could bring into the field against him. The Mamertines, in this peril, were divided as to the best means of seeking succour. One party wished to call in the Carthaginians, who were close at hand : another preferred alliance with Rome. The latter prevailed, and envoys were despatched to demand immediate aid. The Senate were well inclined to grant what was asked; for they knew that, if they did not interfere, Carthage w^rould; and to see Messana, a town with a good harbour, and separated from Italy by so narrow a strait, in the hands of Carthage, might have given alarm to a less watchful government. Yet shame restrained them. It was barely six years since Iliero had assisted them in punishing the Campanian legion which had seized Italian Rhegium, as the Mamertines had seized Sicilian Messana. In this perplexity, the Senate declined to entertain the question. But the Consuls, eager for military glory, immediately brought the matter before the Centu-riate Assembly, which straightway voted that support should be given to tlie Mamertines, or in other words, that the Carthaginians should not be allowed to gain possession of Messana. The Consul App. Claudius, son of the old Censor, was to command the army; and he sent his kinsman, C. Claudius, to assure the Mamertines of approaching aid.

§ 11. During this delay, however, the Carthaginian party among the Mamertines had prevailed, and Ilanno, with a party of Carthaginian soldiers, had been admitted into the town. But the arrival of Appius soon changed the face of affairs. After being once driven back by the fleet of Ilanno, he succeeded in landing his troops to the south of the town; and immediately attacking Hiero, he defeated him with such loss, that the prudent King gave up the siege and retired to Syracuse. Next day the Romans fell upon Hanno, and also defeated him. Messana was now free. The Consul pursued his successes by plundering the Syracusan dominions up to the very gates of the city. .

§ 12. The Romans, having now set foot in Sicily, determined to declare war against Carthage, so as to anticipate any plan which she might have of assailing Italy. It is probable that the Senate, recollecting the rapid success of Pyrrhns, who in two years almost swept _t the Carthaginians out of the island, reckoned on a speedy conquest: else, after their late exhausting wars, they would hardly have engaged in this new and terrible conflict. But they were much deceived. The first Punic War, which began in 263 B.C., did not end till 241, having dragged out its tedious length for three-and-twenty years. The general history of it is most uninteresting. All the great men of Rome, who had waged her Italian wars with so much vigour and ability, were in their graves; we hear no more of Decius, or Curius, or Fabricius; and no worthy successors had arisen. The only men of note who appear on the Roman side are Duillius and Regulus. But the heroes of Carthage are no less obscure. No one on their side is worthy of mention, except the great Ilamilcar; and he appears not till near the close of the war, and is to be mentioned not so much for what he then did as for the promise of what he might do hereafter.

g 1. First Punic "War divided into Throe Periods. § 2. First Period. Success of Romans: sack of Agrigentum. § 3. Romans build a fleet of Quin-queremos. § 4. Sail to tho North of SieiV. § 5. Grappling engines, called Oorvi. § G. Carthaginians defeated by Duillius of Mylce. § 7. Carthaginians loso greater part of Sicily. § 8. Second Period. Regulus and Manlius set sail for Africa: great victory at sea off Ecnomus. § 9. Army landed at Clupea. § 10. Romans advance to Carthago. Great defeat of Regulus by Xanthippus. § 11. Fleet entirely lost. § 12. Fresh Fleet built. Panormus taken. § 13. Second Fleet lost. Romans give up tho Soa. § 14. Victory gained by Metellus at Panormus. § 15. Embassy and death of Regulus. § 1G. Criticism of this event. §17. Tiurd Period. Third Fleet built. Siege of Lilybacum. § 18. Headstrong folly of Claudius: part of Fleet destroyed at Drepanum, the rest by a storm off Camarina. § 19. Ilamilcar. § 20. Fourth Fleet built. § 21. Battle of tho iEgatian Isles. § 22. Terms of Peace with Carthage. § 23. Review of tho War. Prospects.

§ 1. To make the dreary length of this war more intelligible, it may conveniently be divided into three periods. The first comprises its first seven years (2 G 3-2 5 7), during which the Romans were uniformly successful, and at the close of which they had driven the Carthaginians to the south and west coasts of Sicily. The second is an anxious period of mingled success and failure, also lasting for seven years (25G-250): it begins with the invasion of Africa by Regulus, and ends with his embassy and death. The third is a long and listless period of nine years (249-241), in which the Romans slowly retrieve their losses, and at length conclude the war by a great victory at sea.

§ 2. First Period (2G3-257).—The ill success of Ilanno at Messana so displeased the Carthaginian government that they

ordered tlie unfortunate general to be crucified. They had manifestly not calculated on the aggressive spirit of Rome, and had no force on foot sufficient to meet her armies in the field. The Romans pursued their first success with vigour. In the year 263 b.c. both the Consuls crossed over into Sicily with an army of forty or fifty thousand men. On their appearance, a vast number of the Sicilian towns, weary of being the objects of contention between Carthaginians and Syracusans, declared in favour of the new power, which might (they hoped) secure their independence against both; for at present no one dreamed of a permanent occupation of the island by the Romans. No less than sixty-seven towns are said to have taken this course. Iliero, a prudent man, >vas struck by the energy of the new invaders. “They had conquered him,” he said, “before he had time to see them." lie shrewdly calculated that the Carthaginians would prove inferior in the straggle, and forthwith concluded a treaty of alliance with Rome, by which he was left in undisturbed possession of a small but fertile region lying round Syracuse: some more remote towns, as Tauromenium, being also subject to his sceptre. From this time forth to the time of his death, a period of forty-seven years, he remained a useful ally of the Roman people. In 262 b.c. both Consuls laid siege to the city of Agrigentum, which, though far fallen from her ancient splendour, was still the second of the Hellenic communities in Sicily. Another Ilanno was sent with a force from Carthage to raise the siege, and for some time fortune favoured him. lie drew a second circle of entrenchments round the Roman lines, so as to intercept all supplies; and thus the besiegers, being themselves besieged, were reduced to the greatest straits. But the Consul at length forced nanno to give him battle, and gained a complete victory. Upon this the commandant of the garrison, finding further defence useless, slipped out of Agrigentum by night, and deserted the hapless city after a siege of seven months. The Romans repaid themselves for the miseries they* had undergone by indulging in all those excesses which soldiers arc wont to commit when they take a town by storm after a long and obstinate defence. It is said that 25,000 men w^rerc slain.

§ 3. This great success raised the spirits of the Romans. And now, for the first time, the Senate conceived the hope and formed the plan of expelling the Carthaginians entirely from Sicily: but after a short experience, that sagacious Council became aware that a fleet ,was indispensable for success. Tho coasts of Italy were infested by Carthaginian cruisers, and though it might always be possible to carry.men and stores across the narrow strait of Messana, the want of roads in the mountainous district about ./Etna made this an inconvenient placc of transit. It was important for Romo to send lier armies straight to Syracuse or Panormus; and since the Carthaginians were masters of the sea, this could not be done without such a navy as might be able to cope with the fleets of the enemy. Nothing shows the courage and resolution of the Romans more than their manner of acting in this matter. It is no light matter for landsmen to become seamen ; but for unpractised landsmen to think of encountering tho most skilful seamen then known might have been deemed a piece of romantic absurdity, if the men of Rome had not undertaken and accomplished it. '

What they wanted first was a set of ships, which, in size at least and weight, should be a match for those of the enemy. It is a mistake to suppose that the Romans had no fleet before this time. The treaties with Carthage sufficiently prove the contrary; and on several occasions we hear of ships being employed by them. But these ships were of the trireme kind, formerly em' ployed by the Greeks. The Carthaginians, like the Greeks after Alexander, used quinqueremes; and it would have been as absurd for the small Roman ships to have encountered those heavier vessels, as for a frigate to cope with a thrce-decker. The Romans therefore determined to build quinqueremes. A Carthaginian ship cast ashore on the coast of Bruttii served as a model; the forest of Sila, in that district, supplied timber. In sixty days from the time the trees were felled they had completed, probably by the help of Greek artisans, a fleet of one hundred quinqueremes and twenty triremes ; and while it was building, they trained men to row in a manner which to us seems laughable, by placing them on scaffolds ranged on land in the same way as the benches in the ships.* (266 n.c.) V .

§ 4. The Consul Cn. Cornelius put to sea first with seventeen ships, leaving the rest of the fleet to follow; but he was surprised near Lipara and captured, with the whole of his little squadron, by the Carthaginian admiral. Ilis plebeian colleague, C. Duillins, was in command of the army in Sicily; but as soon as he heard of this disaster, he hastened to take charge of the main body of the fleet, and with it he sailed slowly along the north coast of Sicily. \

§ 5. Meantime, the Roman shipwrights had contrived certain engines, by means of which their seamen might grapple with the enemy’s ships, so as to bring them to close quarters and deprive them of the superiority derived from tlieir better construction

* All this rests on tho weighty authority of Polybius (i. 20 and 21), except tho time spent in building tho fleet, which is given by Pliny (Nat. Hist. xvL 74)..

and ,thc greater skill of their crews. These engines were called crows (corvi). They consisted of a gangway 36 feet long and 4 broad, pierced with an oblong hole towards one end, so as to play freely round a strong pole 24 feet high, which was fixed near the ship’s prow. At the other end was attached a strong rope, which passed over a sheaf at the head of the pole. By this rope the gangway was kept hauled up till within reach of tho enemy’s ship : it was then suddenly let go, and as it fell with all Sts weight, a strong, sharp spike on its under side (shaped like a crow’s beak) was driven fast into the enemy’s deck. Then the Roman men-at-arms poured along the gangway, and a mere stand-up fight followed, in which the best soldiers were sure to prevail.

§ G. Thus prepared, Duillius encountered the enemy’s fleet, lie found them ravaging the coast at Mylse, a little to the west of Palermo. The admiral was the same person who had commanded the garrison of Agrigentum, and was carried in an enormous septircme, which had formerly belonged to Pyrrhus. Nothing daunted, Duillius attacked without delay. By his rude assault the skilful tactics of the Carthaginian seamen were confounded. The Roman fighting-men were very numerous, and when they had once boarded an enemy’s ship, easily made themselves masters of her. Duillius took thirty-one Carthaginian ships and sunk fourteen. For a season, no Roman name stood so high as that of Duillius. Public honours were awarded him; he was to be escorted home at night from banquets and festivals by the light of torches and the music of the flute; a pillar was set up in the Forum, ornamented with the beaks of the captured ships, and therefore called the Columna Rostrata, to commemorate the great event: fragments of tho inscription still remain.⁶⁸ And no doubt the triumph was signal. To have defeated the Mistress of the Sea upon her own element in the first trial of strength was indeed remarkable, and might justify almost any amount of extravagant exultation. The honours conferred upon the conqueror cannot but give a pleasing impression of the simple life and manners then prevailing _#at Rome, especially when we contrast them with the cruelty of the Carthaginian Government, who crucified their unfortunate admiral for this and other mischances.

§ 7. The sea-fight of Duillius was fought in the year 260 b.c. The next three years passed with no very remarkable succcsscs. In 259 we learn that L. Scipio, Consul of the year, made a de-sccnt upon Sardinia and Corsica. But in the following year the Consul L. Atilius Calatinus had nearly suffered a great reverse. He advanced incautiously into a defile in the western part of the islaud, and was entirely hemmed in, when he was delivered by the military skill and bravery of M. Calpurnius,' one of the legionary tribunes in his army, and the imminent disaster was changed into a victory, which the Senate deemed worthy of a triumph. ,

On the whole, it is clear that the Carthaginians were now only able to act upon the defensive. Not only Agrigentum, but Cama-rina, Gela, Enna, Egesta, and many other cities had surrendered to the Romans. The Carthaginians were confined to their great trading marts, Drcpana, Lilybseum, Eryx, and Panormus. They did not dare to meet the Romans in the field; yet these places were very strong, especially LilybsBiun. Against its iron fortifications all the strength of Pyrrhus had been broken. It was not time yet for Carthage to despair.

But in the eighth year of the war the Senate determined on more dccisivc measures. They knew the weakness of the Carthaginians at home; they had a victorious fleet, and they determined not to let their fortune slumber.

§ 8. Second Period (25G-250 B.C.).—Duillius appears for a brief time as the hero of the first part of the war; but its second period is marked by the name of a man who has become famous in the whole world as a hero and a patriot,—M. Atilius Regulus. Ilis claim to these high titles has of late years been questioned and denied, and shall be shortly examined when wc come to the close of his career. At all events, he fills a commanding place among the men of the first Punic War.

It was in the year 25G, the eighth of the war, that the Consuls, M. Regulus and L. Manlius, sailed from Italy and doubled Cape Pacliynum with a fleet of 330 quinqucrcmes. The Carthaginian fleet, even larger in number, had been stationed at Lilybamm to meet the enemy, whether they should approach from the north or from the east. They now put to sea, and sailed westward along the southern coast of Sicily. They met the Roman fleet at a place called Ecnomus, a little more than half way along that coast. The battle that ensued was the greatest that, up to that time, had ever been fought at sea: it is calculated that not fewer than 300,000 men were engaged. It was desperately contested on both sides; but at Ecnomus, again, wc arc astonished to find the Roman fleet victorious. It must be presumed that they still employed the corvi to baffle the superior skill of the enemy, and turn a sea-fight into the similitude of a battle on land. -

§ 0. The way was now open to Africa. The Consuls, after ro fitting and provisioning their fleet, sailed straight across to the Hermscan Promontory, which is distant from the nearest point of Sicily not more than eighty miles. But the omens were not auspicious; the Roman soldiery went on board with gloomy forebodings of their fate; nay, one of the tribunes refused to lead his legionaries into the ships, till Regulus ordered the lictors to seize him. The passage, however, was favoured by the wind. The Consuls landed their men, drew up the fleet on shore, and fortified it in a naval camp; and then, marching southward, they took the city of Aspis or Clupea by assault.

No Carthaginian army met them : every place they came near, cxcept Utica, surrendered at discretion; for they were unfortified and defenceless. Carthage, being of old mistress of the sea, feared no invaders : like England since the Civil Wars, she left her cities unwalled, trusting for defence rather to her ships than to stone walls. Yet she had not been unwarned. Sixty years before, the adventurous Agathocles had landed like Regulus. Then, as now, the whole country lay like a garden before him, covered with wealthy towns and the luxurious villas of the Carthaginian merchants. Then two hundred towns or more had surrendered almost without stroke of sword. It appeared as if the same easy success now awaited Regulus and the Romans.

/ § 10. The Consuls were advancing along the coast of the gulf towards Carthage, when, at a critical moment and for reasons we know not of, Manlius was recalled with the greater part of the army, and Regulus was left in Africa with only 15,000 foot and 500 horse. Yet even with this small force he remained master of the country. The Libyans (as has been said) offered no resistance or joined the invader; and the Carthaginian generals, after venturing one battle in which they were worsted, did not again meet the Consul in the field. lie had gone round the whole Gulf of Tunis as far as Utica, and now he turned upon his steps with the intention of marching upon the capital itself. On his way he was obliged to cross the river Bagradas, and here (so ran the legend) the army was stopped by a huge serpent, so strong and tough of skin that they were unable to destroy it, till they brought up their artillery of catapults and balists :⁶⁹ he then continued his route southwards to the Bay of Carthage. He was allowed to take Tunis, which stood within twenty miles of Carthage. The great city was now reduced to the utmost straits. A Roman army was encamped within sight; tlie Numidiaus took advantage of the enemy’s presence to overrun and plunder the whole country; famine stared the townsmen in the face ; tlie Government trembled. In this abject condition tho Council sent an embassy to ask what terms of peace Rcgulus would grant. The Consul was so elated by success, so confident in his power, that he demanded the most extravagant concessions. Tlie Carthaginians were to give up tlieir fleet, pay all the expenses of tho war, and cede all Sicily, with Sardinia, Corsica, and tho Balearic Isles, to Rome. When these terms wero reported the Government took care to publish them, and public indignation rose against the arrogant invaders. The civic force was, as we have said,⁷⁰ not untrained to arms, and they had now to fight for their hearths and altars. A good general was sought for. At that time there happened to be at Carthage a soldier of fortune, by name Xanthippus, a Lacedaemonian. This man had been heard to censure the ordinary tactics of the native generals, and to de~ clare that the victories of the Romans were due, not to their ow^rn superior skill ancl valour, but to the faults committed by their opponents. lie was summoned before the Council and desired to give reasons for his remarks. lie did so; and, for a moment, the Government, dismissing all jealousy, appointed this obscure foreigner general in chief. Xanthippus immediately drew together all the mercenaries he could find, and united them with the armed citizens; then, supported by a large body of elephants, he boldly took the field. The Romans were astonished; but they wero too much accustomed to victory to hesitate about accepting battle. But they were both outnumbered and outgeneraled. Xanthippus gained a victory as easy as it w^ras complete. Rcgulus himself'w'as taken prisoner; only 2000 of his men succeeded in making good their retreat to Clupea. ■

Thus was Carthage delivered by the ability of one man, and that man a foreigner. The Government did not improve in wisdom or generosity; their old and incapable generals resumed the command; Xanthippus, loaded with honours and presents, prudently withdrew from the jealous city, and is heard of no more.

§ 11. The Roman Senate, on the other hand, did their best to repair this great calamity. Tlie new Consuls were ordered to put to sea, and bring off the garrison and fugitives from Clupea. Near the Hermacan Promontory they encountered the enemy’s fleet, and again defeated it; and then, having taken up the ships and men at Clupea, they-sailed for Syracuse. But now a still greater disaster was in store for Rome than the destruction of her African army. This was the loss of that fleet of which she was justly proud. The time of year was about the beginning of the dog-days, when ,the Mediterranean is apt to be visited by sudden storms. The Consuls, upon their passage, were warned that such a storm was at hand; but they were ignorant and rash, and continued their course. Before they could double Cape Pachynum they were caught by the tempest; almost the whole fleet was wrecked or:foundered; the coast of Sicily from Camarina to Pachynum was strewed with fragments of ships and bodies of men. Such was the end of the Roman fleet.

§ 12. These successive disasters might well raise the hopes of Carthage, and they sent a considerable force into Sicily with 140 elephants. Agrigentum is said to have been recovered, and no doubt it was expected that the whole island would once more become the.ir own. But the Romans, aptly compared by Horace to the hydra which grows stronger from successive mutilations, showed a spirit equal to the need. In three months’ time (so wonderful was their energy), a new fleet of 220 sail was ready for sea.⁷¹ The Consuls of the year 254 B.C., having touched at Mes-sana to take up the remnants of the old fleet, passed onward to Drepanum. They could not take this strong place, but they were more successful at Panormus, the modern Palermo, which yielded after a short siege to the Roman arms. This was an important conquest.

§ 13. Next year the fleet touched at several places on the African coast, but without making any impression on the country. Among the shoals and currents of the Lesser Syrtis it ran great danger of being lost; but having escaped this peril, the Consuls returned to Panormus and thence stood straight across for the mouth of the Tiber. On the passage they were overtaken by another of those terrible storms, and again nearly the whole fleet was lost. Thus, within three years, the Romans lost two great fleets. This was enough to damp even their courage; and the Senate determined to try whether it were not possible to keep their ground in Sicily without a navy. For the present they gave up all claim to the command of the sea, and limited themselves to a small fleet of sixty ships.

§ 14. Matters continued in this state for two years. Neither party seemed willing to hazard a battle by land ; but in 250 b.c. llasdrubal, the Carthaginian general, was induced to march secretly from Lilybceum to Panormus, in tlie hope of surprising and recovering that important town. The Homan commandant was the Proconsul L. Csecilius Metellus. He allowed the enemy to approach the walls, and then suddenly sallied forth, covering his attack by a cloud of light troops, slingers, and javelin-men. Some of the elephants being wounded, carried confusion into their own ranks, and Metelius, seizing the occasioii, charged the enemy and defeated them utterly. Besides 13 Carthaginian generals, 120 elephants were taken and carried across the sea on strong rafts to adorn the triumph of the Proconsul. The battle of Panormus was the greatest battle that was fought on land in the course of the war, and it was the last. In memory of this victory we find the elephant as a frequent device on the coins of the great family of the Metelli.⁷²

§ 15. After the battle of Panormus, the hopes of the Romans rose again, and the Senate gave orders to build a third fleet of 200 sail. But the Carthaginians, weary of the expenses of the war, and suffering greatly in their commerce, thought that a fair opportunity for making peace was now offered. The Romans had recovered in •some measure from their late disasters, but not so entirely but that they might be glad to listen to fair terms. Accordingly an embassy was dispatched to offer an exchange of prisoners and to propose terms on which a peace might be concluded. Regulus (according to the weli-known story) accompanied this embassy, under promise to return to Carthage if the purposes of the embassy should fail. When he arrived at Rome he refused to enter tho walls and take his place in the Senate, as being no longer a citizen or a senator. Then the Senate sent certain of their own number to confer with him in the presence of the ambassadors, and tho counsel which lie gave confirmed the wavering minds of the fathers. “ Useless it was,” he said, “ to ransom prisoners who had ignobly yielded with arms in their hands : let them be left to perish unheeded; let war go on till Carthago be subdued.” Ilis counsel prevailed, and the embassy returned without effect. Regulus also returned to suffer the vengeance of the Carthaginians. Every one knows the horrid tortures by which it is said that life was taken from him; how his eyelids were cut off; how he was placed in a barrel stuck full of nails, with one end knocked out; and how he was exposed to the unmitigated glare of an African sun, to die by the slow agonies of pain, and thirst, and fever.

§ 16. Regulus was a man of the old Roman kind, like Curius and Fabricius, devoted to his country, eager for glory, frugal, bold, resolute or (call it) stubborn. He lias been censured for excessive presumptuousness in his African campaign, and for the extravagance by which he lost all the advantages which he might have secured. But it must be allowed that lie had some grounds even for overweening confidence. Ever since the two nations had met in arms, the star of Carthage had grown dim before that of Rome. Even on the sea, where her navies had long ridden triumphant, the Queen of the Mediterranean had twice been beaten by her unskilled rival. There was enough to make more sagacious men than Regulus believe that Carthage was well nigh powerless against Rome. The Romans had yet to learn that when the jealous government of Carthage allowed great generals to command their armies, such as Xanthippus, and Hamilcar, and Hannibal, then the well-trained mercenaries might gain easy victories over their own brave but less practised citizens. The whole story of the embassy and death of Regulus has been doubted, chiefly becausc of the silence of Polybius, the most authentic historian of the time; and from the certainty that at least one mythical marvel has been introduced into the narrative.* But if allowance be made for some patriotic exaggeration, there is nothing improbable in the story. Those who crucified their own unlucky generals would not be slow to wreak any measure of vengeance on a recusant prisoner. We read also that the Romans retaliated by torturing some Carthaginian prisoners,! and this fact can hardly be an invention. At all events, the personal qualities of Regulus rest too firmly on old tradition to be questioned. While we read the beautiful passage in which Cicero describes his disinterested patriotism while we repeat the noble Ode, in which Horace paints him as putting aside all who would have persuaded him to stay—people, friends, and family, going forth to torture and death with the same serene indifference as if lie were leaving the busy life of Rome for the calm retirement of his country house; § — so long will the blood flow more quickly and the heart beat higher at mention of the name of Regulus.

§ 17. Tiiird Period (249-241).—It has been said that the Senate, encouraged by the victory of Panormus, resolved once more to attempt the sea. In the year 249 B.C., the third fleet was ready, and its purpose soon became evident. The Consuls

f Niebuhr supposes that theso tortures are a fact, and that tho story of the* tortures of Regulus aroso out of them,—a somowhat gratuitous supposition.

were ordered to invest Lilybaeum, the queen of Carthaginian fortresses, both by sea and land. If this strong place fell, the Carthaginians would have no firm hold on Sicily; but it could not be taken unless it were blockaded by sea, for by sea supplies could be poured into it from Carthage. The blockade of Lilybaeum was the thing that made a fleet necessary at this time.

The Romans began the siege with great activity; they constructed enormous works, they endeavoured to throw a dam across the harbour, but in vain. The skilful seamen of Carthage contrived to carry provision-ships into the harbour through the midst of the Roman fleet. Their own navy lay near at hand in the Bay of Drepanum, ready to take advantage of any remissness on tho part of the Romans. •

§ 18. Yet the invincible perseverance of the Romans would have prevailed, but for the headstrong folly of the Patrician Consul for the year 249 b.c. This was P. Claudius, a younger son of the old Censor, brother of him who had relieved Messana. As he lay before Lilyba)um, he formed a plan for surprising the enemy’s fleet at Drepanum, and left his station for this purpose. In vain he was warned by the Pullarii, that the sacred chickens would not feed. “Then let them drink,” said the irreverent commander, and threw them into the sea. But the men were much dispirited by the omen and by the contempt of the omen. And the Consul had managed matters with so little secresy and skill, that the enemy were informed of liis intended attack. As the Romans sailed in column into the harbour, the Carthaginian fleet was seen sailing outward. But on a sudden they tacked and bore down upon the side of the Roman column. Of Claudius’ two hundred and twenty ships, only thirty escaped. The reckless Consul was recalled to Rome by the Senate, and ordered to supersede himself by naming a Dictator. With the old insolence of his family he named the son of one of his own freedmen, by name Claudius Glycias. But the Senate set aside the nomination, and themselves appointed A. Atilius Calatinus, who was also called Serranus.⁷³ What became of Claudius we know not. But he was dead three years after ; for a story is preserved, that at that time his sister insolently expressed a wish that he were still alive, that he might lose more men, and make the streets less crowded. She was heavily fined for this speech ; and ii* words deserve punishment, none ever more deserved it than hers.

The loss of the fleet of Claudius was not the only disaster of tlic year. L. Junius, liis Plebeian colleague, \Vas less guilty, but even more unfortunate. He was convoying a large fleet of ships, freighted with supplies for the forces at Lilybamm, whqu, near Camarina, he was overtaken" by a tremendous hurricane, and both the convoy and the convoying squadron perished. The destruction was so complete, that every single ship was, broken up, and not a plank (says Polybius) was fit to be used again.

Thus, by the folly of one Consul and the misfortune ,of the other, did the Romans, lose their entire fleet for the third time. It seemed to them as if the god of the sea was jealous of these new pretenders to his favour.

§ 19. These disasters left the Carthaginians once more masters of the Sea. And at the same time a really great man was appointed to a command in Sicily. This was Ilamilcar, the father of Hannibal, of whom we shall have a better opportunity to speak hereafter. He docs not seem to have had many ships or troops at his command; but the skill with which he used his means abundantly shows what might have been done if the government had trusted him more completely. He made continual descents on the coasts of Italy, plundering and alarming. Before long he landed suddenly near Panormus, and in the face of the Roman commandant seized a hill called Hcrcte, which overhung the town (the same with the modern Monte Pellegrino). Here he fortified himself; and hence he carried on a continual predatory warfare against the Romans for the space of three years. After this, by an equally sudden movement, he made a descent on Eryx, which had been taken by the Romans not long before, and surprised it. To this place he now shifted his quarters, and continued the same harassing attacks for the remaining years of the war.

Except for this, matters were at a stand-still. Neither party made any advance. The whole strength of the Romans was concentrated in the lines of Lilyba3um; but they had no fleet now, and therefore the place was fully supplied from the sea. On the other hand, Hamilcar acted like a perpetual blister, and kept the enemy always in alarm ; but either his forces were too small, or the Romans were too watchful to allow him to make any great impression. Slight actions constantly took place; and an anecdote is told by Diodorus, which sets tho character of Hamilcar in a pleasing light. In a skirmish with the Roman Consul, C. Fundanius, he had suffered some loss, and sent (according to custom) to demand a truce, that he might bury his dead. But the Consul insolently replied that he ought to concern himself about the living rather than the. dead,

and save further bloodshed by.surrendering at once. Soon after it was Hamilcar’s turn to defeat the Romans, and when their commander sent for leave to bnry their dead, the Carthaginian General at once granted it, saying that he ^u warred not with the dead, but with the living.”*

§ 20. These interminable hostilities convinced the Senate that they must once more build a fleet, or give up all hopes of driving the Carthaginians out of Sicily. Lilybauun would foil all their efforts, as it had done those of Pyrrhus. The siege had now lasted eight years, from 250 to 241, and it appeared no nearer its conclusion than at first. All sacrifices must be made. A fleet must be built. And it Was built. At the beginning of the year 241' B.C., the Patrician Consul, Q. Lutatius Catulus, put to sea with more than two hundred sail.f

This was the fourth navy which the Romans had created. Three times had they lost the whole by storms or by mismanagement. It is impossible not to admire this iron determination; im^ possible not to feel satisfaction at seeing it rewarded.

§ 21. The Consul, with his new fleet, sailed very early in tho year. lie immediately blockaded Drepanum by sea and land, hoping to take it at once, and so deprive the Carthaginians of the harbour in which their fleet commonly lay to watch the Romans at Lily-bajum. lie also took great pains to train his seamen in naval tactics. In an action which took place at Drepanum he was severely wounded.

On the other hand, the Carthaginians had of late neglected their navy; and it was not till early in the following year (241) that a fleet was dispatched to the relief of Drepanum. It was heavily freighted with provisions and stores. llanno, its commander, touched at Iliera, a small island, about twenty or twenty-five miles from the port of Drepanum. Of this (it appears) Catulus was informed. lie was still suffering from his wound, but ho at once embarked and put to sea, hoping to intercept the enemy before they unloaded their ships. On the evening of the 9th of March he lay to at ./Egusa, another small island, not above ten miles distant from Iliera. Next morning the Carthaginians put to sea and endeavoured to run into Drepanum. But they were intercepted by the Roman fleet, and obliged to give battle. They fought under great disadvantages, and the Romans gained an easy victory. Fifty of the enemy’s ships were sunk, seventy taken ; the rest escaped to Hiera.

§ 22. This battle, called the battle of the iEgatian islands (for this was the general name of the group), decided the war. It was

* “ Nullum cum victis certamen et rcthero cassis.”—Virg., Aen. xi. 105. f Polybius says 200 ; Justin and others say 300.

plain that Lilybaeum must now surrender; and that though Hamil-car might yet stand at bay, he could not recover Sicily for the present. The merchants of Carthage were eager for the conclusion of the war ; and the government sent orders to Ilamilcar to make a peace on the best terms he could obtain. . Catulus at first required, as a preliminary to all negociations, that Hamilcar should lay down his arms, and give up all Roman deserters in his service. But when the Carthaginian disdainfully refused this condition, the Consul prudently waived it, and a treaty was finally agreed on by the two commanders to the following effect:—that the Carthaginians should evacuate Sicily; should give up all Roman prisoners without ransom; and should pay 2,200 talents, in twenty years, towards the expenses of the war. This treaty, however, was subject to the approval of the Roman people, and the tribes refused to ratify it without inquiry. Accordingly the Senate sent over ten envoys, who confirmed the treaty of Catulus, except that they raised the sum to 3,200 talents, and required this larger sum to be paid in ten years, instead of twenty. They also insisted on the cession of all the small islands between Italy and Sicily. • .

The treaty was immediately executed. Lilybaeum, Dre-panum, Eryx, and the other places still held by the Carthaginians, were surrendered, and Hamilcar embarked his troops for Carthage.

§ 23. Thus ended the first Punic War. The issue of this, long struggle was altogether in favour of Rome. She had performed few brilliant exploits; she had sent few eminent men to conduct the war; but she had done great things on the whole. She had beaten the Mistress of the Sea upon her own element. She had gained possession of a large and fertile island; an island nearly twice as large as Yorkshire, and fertile beyond the example of other lands.* Her losses indeed had been enormous; for she had lost seven hundred ships, a vast number of men, and large sums of money. But Carthage had suffered still more. For though she had lost not more than five hundred ships, yet the interruption to her trade, and the loss of her great commercial emporiums of Lilyba3um and Drepanuin, not only crippled the resources of tho State, but largely diminished the fortunes of every individual citizen. The Romans and Italians, who fought in this war, were mostly agricultural; and the losses of such a people are small, and soon repaired, while those suffered by a great commercial state are often irreparable. * '

* Sicily became tlio first province. But as it was lost again a fow years after, and all tho known rules of government date from tho second conquest, all notico of tho provincial system of Romo shall bo deferred. Soo Chapt. xxxvL

This Avar was only the prelude to a more fierce and deadly contest. Carthage had withdrawn discomfited from Sicily, and her empty treasury and ruined trade forbade her to continue the conflict at that time. But it was not yet decided whether Rome or Carthage w^Tas to rule the coasts of the Mediterranean. Tho great Ilamilcar left Eryx without despair. lie foresaw that by patience and prudence he might shake off the control of his jealous Government, and train up an array in his own interest, with which he miglit defy the Roman legions.* Unfortunate circumstances prevented him from the execution of this project for the next four years. After that (as wo shall see) he began that policy which was so successfully carried out by his celebrated son.

§ 1. Origin and progress of the Mercenary War at Carthage: Spendius and Matho. § 2. Hamilcar commissioned to check it: thwarted by Hanno. § 3. Hamilcar made sole commander: ho compels Spendius to surrender. § 4. Obstinate resistance of Matho: he murders Gisgo and other prisoners: end of War. § 5. Ungenerous conduct of Rome. § 6. Hamilcar goes to Spain. § 7. Affairs of Rome: Temple of Janus closed. § 8. Illyrian War: Piratical tribes of Illyrian coast: Queen Teuta murders a Roman Envoy. § 9. Demetrius of Pharos, Teuta’s governor of Corcyra, treacherously joins Rome: Teuta obliged to consent to hard terms. § 10. Honour paid to Romans in Greece. § 11. Gallic War: Gauls provoked to war by proposal of Flaminius to plant settlements in Picenum and Umbria. § 12. Enormous forces at disposal of Rome: plan of campaign. § 13. Great defeat of Gauls at Telamon in Etruria. § 14. Invasion of Transpa-dane Gaul. § 15. Marcellus wins spolia opima. § 16. Colonies planted at Placentia and Cremona. § 17. Revolt of Demetrius of Pharos, easily subdued by iEmilius Paulus. § 18. Ilamilcar’s operations in Spain: Hannibal’s oath.

§ 1. The first Punic War lasted threc-and-twenty-years; and the interval between the end of this war and the beginning of the next was of nearly the same duration. In the course of this period ('(from 240 to 218 b.c.) both Rome and Carthage, notwithstanding their exhausted condition, were involved in perilous wars. In the next three years Carthage was brought to the very brink of destruction by a general mutiny of her mercenary troops. This Mercenary War arose in the following manner.

to withdraw all her troops from Sicily, and pay.them their arrears. The general who was entrusted with the charge of shipping off these troops, Gisgo, executed his trust with judgment and dexterity. He foresaw the danger that might arise, if the whole army, consisting of adventurers without country or law, were landed all at once on the shores of Africa.^. They might make war on their own account, like the Campanians of Rhegium, or the Mamertines of Messana. Gisgo therefore sent home the troops in ^small detachments, so that each might bo paid off and disbanded before tho next arrival. But he was ill seconded by the Government at home. The treasury was exhausted. No doubt money was to be raised on loans at high interest; and perhaps the Council imagined that, by delaying payment, they might induce the soldiers to be content with a smaller sum than was their due. They therefore allowed the whole army to collect at Sieea, in the neighbourhood of the capital, before any measures were taken for payment of their arrears. The consequence was the reverse of what was expected. The reckless adventurers who commanded these mercenaries saw the weakness of the Government, and coveted the wealth and luxury of the great eity, which seemed now within their grasp. They at once declared that they must have their full arrears of pay; and presently added that now they would not be content even with this. To enforce these demands they encamped at Tunis, almost within sight-of Carthage. The Government became frightened, and offered to concede all demands. But with the fears of the Government rose the demands of the soldiers; it soon became clear that the whole army was in open revolt, and their leaders bent on nothing less than conquering their masters. Their Carthaginian officers and commanders were discarded: two desperate and abandoned men gained supreme power over the whole army. These were Spendius, a runaway Campanian slave, who feared to be given up to the Romans; and Matlio, a Libyan, who had been too forward in urging the demands of the army to hope for forgiveness from the Carthaginian Government. Led on by these desperadoes, the soldiers gave a full loose to their ferocity; they seized Gisgo, who had been sent to treat with them, as a hostage; plundered the country round about; raised the subject Africans in rebellion; besieged the fortified towns of Utica and Hippo; and cut off all communication by land with the promontory on which Carthage stands.

§ 2. In this desperate crisis, the Government turned their eyes on Ilamilcar, and charged him with the office of saving his country. He promptly obeyed. The civic force of Carthage itself must have formed his chief foTce. By skilful persuasion he induced the Numidian cavalry to desert and join his standard. Thus strengthened, lie gave, battle to the mutineers twice, and twice defeated them. He showed his policy by sparing all prisoners, and offering free pardon to all that would at once submit. Everything promised a speedy termination of this mutiny, when the Government again spoiled all. Hanno, who headed the most influential party in the Council, was jealous of Hamilcar, and procured his own appointment to a share in tlie command. The two generals were now continually at variance; all the plans of Ilamilcar were thwarted ; and the rebels again resumed the upper hand; so much so indeed, that at the end of the second year they got possession of Utica and Hippo, and proceeded to besiege Carthage herself.

§ 3. Immediate danger once more made the Government wise, and Hamilcar was again appointed to tlie sole command. He was enabled to take the field with a better appointed force than before; for Hiero of Syracuse, and the Senate of Rome, both sent supplies to the exhausted Carthaginians, and interdicted all communication with the insurgents. Hamilcar soon succeeded in raising the siege of Carthage, and forced the rebel army to separate into two -bodies, respectively commanded by Spendius and Matho. He first pursued Spendius, and reduced him to such extremities, that he surrendered at discretion, with Autaritus, the leader of the Gallic Mercenaries: he then turned his arms against Matho, and compelled this rebel chief to shut himself up in Tunis.

§ 4. The spirit of the insurgents was now quite broken, and they would fain have given in. But Matho and his officers were fighting with halters round their necks, and whenever any one attempted to persuade peaceful measures, a knot of the more violent cried him down; and thus, as usually happens in popular commotions, the real wishes of the greater part were drowned in the loud vociferations of a few bold and resolute desperadoes. What made the task of these men easier, was that the army was composed of a great many different nations; and the soldiers not being able to understand one another, could not so readily combine against their leaders. Almost the only word which was understood by all, was the terrible cry of “ Stone him, stone him !”* which was raised by the leading insurgents^ whenever any one rose to advocate peace, and was re-echoed by the mass in ignorance or fear. But Matho still feared the influenco of Hamilcar over the troops, and he resolved to commit acts which would compromise himself and his followers still moro

irrevocably. lie took Gisgo, who had hitherto been kept as a hostage, with seven hundred other prisoners, cut oft* their hands and ears, broke Jblieir legs, threw them, yet living, into a pit, and declared that he-would treat all otlier prisoners in the same barbarous fashion. Hamilcar, who had hitherto used all gentleness, was by this brutal conduct driven to retaliation : he crucified Spendius, and threw his other prisoners to wild beasts.

But this frightful state of things did not last much longer. The insurgents in Tunis were now reduced to the last extremities of famine, and at length Matlio was obliged to lead out his men to battle. He was utterly defeated, taken prisoner and put to death.'

The death of Matlio terminated this terrible war, which had lasted more than three years and four months, and at one time threatened the very existence of Carthage. It was known by the name of the War Without Truce, or the Inexpiable War.*

§ 5. The forbearance shown by the Homans to Carthage during this fearful war makes their conduct at its close very surprising. For now they were guilty of an act which was not only unjust, but dishonourable. The mercenary troops in Sardinia had mutinied after the example of tlieir brethren, had slain Bostar, their Carthaginian commandant, and had taken possession of the island. After the close of the war in Africa these insurgents, fearing that their turn was come, put themselves under Roman protection; and their prayer for aid, like that of the Mainertines, was granted. The Senate had the effrontery not only to demand the cession of Sardinia and Corsica, but also the payment of a further sum of 1,200 talents. The Carthaginians were too weak to refuse; not even Hamilcar could have counselled them to do so. But this ungenerous conduct sank deep into many hearts, and strengthened Ilamil-car’s grim resolve, to take full vengeance on the grasping .Italian Republic.

§ G. In order to execute this resolve, it was necessary for him to obtain an independent authority, so as to form armies and carry on campaigns, without being fettered by the orders of the narrow-minded government. And now seemed the time to obtain this authority. Ilanno and the leading members of the council had long been jealous of the family of Barca,f of which Hamilcar was the chief. Hamilcar’s fame and popularity was now so high, that it was possible he might form a party and overthrow the usurped power of the council. It was therefore

f Barca, or Barka, is tho same word as tho TIcbrow Barak, which means lightnin'j.

with pleasure that they received his proposal to go. to Spain and reduce that country under the Carthaginian power. Carthage already had settlements in the south , of Spain, and the old trading city of Gadcs was in alliance with her. But the rest of tho country was peopled by wild and savage tribes, who could not be conquered in a day. No doubt the government of Carthage saw the departure of Hamilcar for Spain with as much inward satisfaction as the French Directory in 1797 witnessed the departure of Napoleon for Egypt. If he succeeded, he would at least be far distant, and long absent; if he failed, they would be rid of one whom they feared and hated. Before we trace the consequences of this extension of Carthaginian power in Spain, the affairs of Rome and Italy claim our attention. i/¹

§ 7. During the Mercenary War in Africa, the Romans had remained at peace, except to quell an insignificant revolt of the Faliscans, which was put down in less than a week. The northern frontier of Roman Italy was slightly troubled by incursions on the part of Gauls and Ligurians; and in more than one year a triumph is recorded over Sardinians and Corsicans, the new provinces so iniquitously wrung from Carthage. But so profound was the general tranquillity in the year 235 B.C., that tho temple of Janus was closed by the Consul Manlius Torquatus, for the first time (say the annals) since the time of Numa. The people of Italy seem to have been little disturbed during the late war. Several Colonies had been founded in its course, of which one was Brundusium. In the last year of the war, the lower Sabine country was formed into two Tribes, the Veline and the Quirine. Thus the number of thirty-five was completed, and no addition was hereafter made to the Roman territory.

§ 8. This tranquillity was of no long duration. Tlie success of their arms in Sicily, and their newly acquired maritime power,‘encouraged the Romans to cross the Adriatic not so much for the purpose of advancing their own dominion as to render a service to all who frequented these seas for the purposes of traffic.

The far side of the Adriatic consists of a narrow ledge of coast-land flanked by parallel mountain-cliains. Many islands appear off the shore, and several large creeks or bays afford safe anchorage for ships. These natural advantages made the Illyrians of the coast skilful seamen. Tlieir light barks (lembi)⁷⁴' issued from behind the islands or out of the creeks, and practised piracy on their neighbours. Tlie lower part of this Illyrian district had been reduced by Philip of Macedon, but on the confusion which followed the death of Alexander, the people had become independent. The main stronghold of this lower Illyria seems to^ htfvo been Scodra (Scutari), and a chief named Agron had ’established a supremacy for his tribe over all his neighbours as far as the Ccraunian mountains. He died in 231 B.C., and his wife Teuta, a woman of bold and masculine spirit* became chief of this piratical race during the infancy of Agron’s eon Pinnes. She pursued her husband’s designs, and in 230 B.ci had made herself supreme over all the islands except Issa, which she blockaded in person in that year.

The Senate had not hitherto found leisure to attend to the many complaints which reached them of the assaults committed by these pirates. But in the year just named, they resolved to take measures for checking their marauding expeditions, and sent C. and L. Coruncanius as Envoys to remonstrate with Teuta. They found her, it seems, at Issa. But Teuta was little disposed to listen to them. “ It was not,” she said, “ customary for the Chiefs of Illyria to prevent their subjects from making use of the sea.” The younger Coruncanius, indignant at this avowal of national piracy, replied that “if such were the institutions of the Illyrians, the Romans would lose no time in helping her to mend them.” Exasperated by the sarcasm, Teuta ordered the Envoys to be pursued and the younger one to be put to death. Upon receiving news of this violent act, the Romans at once declared war against the Illyrians.

§ 9. After the surrender of Issa, the Illyrian Queen had pursued her success by the capture not only of Dyrrhacliium, but also of Corcyra; and Demetrius, a clever and unscrupulous Greek of Pharos (a place on the coast of Upper Illyria), who had been the chief counsellor of Teuta in her late enterprises, was mado Governor of this famous island.

Upon this, the Epirotes sent Ambassadors to crave protection from Rome; and the Senate, already preparing for war, gladly took advantage of this opening. Early in the next spring both Consuls appeared at Corcyra with a powerful fleet and army. Demetrius quickly discerned to which side fortune would incline, and without hesitation took his course. He surrendered Corcyra to the Romans without a blow. This treachery seems to have paralysed Teuta’s spirit; and the information given by Demetrius enabled the Roman commanders to overpower her forces with little trouble. Teuta was obliged to surrender the greater part of her dominions to the traitor Demetrius, who now became

Chief of Corcyra and southern Illyria, under the protection of Rome. The Illyrians were not to appear south of Lissus with more than two barks at a time.

§ 10. The suppression of Illyrian piracy was even more advantageous to the commerce of Greece than that of Rome. The leading men of the Senate began, even at this time, to show a strong disposition to win the good opinion of the Greeks, who, degenerate as they were, were still held to be the centre of civilisation and the dispensers of fame. Postumius the Consul, therefore, sent envoys to various Greek states to explain the appearance of a Roman force in those quarters. They were received with high distinction. The Athenians and Corinthians, especially, paid honour to Rome; and the latter people recognised her Greek descent by voting that her citizens should be admitted to the Isthmian games (228 b.c.).

§ 11. This short but decisive war was scarcely ended, when Rome saw a conflict impending, which filled them with more alarm than was warranted by the event.

It will be remembered that just before the war with Pyrrhus, the Scnonian Gauls had been extirpated, and the Boians defeated with great slaughter in two battles near the lake Yadimo in Etruria (283 b.c.)* From that time, some sixty years before, the Gauls had remained quiet within their own boundaries. But in 292 B.C., the Tribune C. Flaminius, a man who will hereafter claim more special notice, proposed to distribute all the public lands held by Rome on the Piccnian and Umbrian coasts to a number of poor citizens; a law which was put into effect four years afterwards. When the Colonies of Sena Gallica and Ariminum had been planted on that same coast, the Boians were too much weakened by their late defeats to offer any opposition. But in two generations their strength was recruited, and they were encouraged to rise against Rome by the promised support of the Insubrians, a powerful tribe who occupied the Transpadane district about Milan. The arrival of large bodies of Gauls from beyond the Alps f completed their determination, and increased the terror which the recollections of the Alia still wrought upon the Roman mind.

f They wero called Gaesatae, which Polybius (ii. 22, 1) explains as mercenaries. But it is hardly possible to avoid connecting tho namo with gaesa, tho Gallic javelins montioned by Virgil and others:

They are represented as very lightly clad, wearing tartan plaids (sagula virgata) and trews (braccae). Ilenco Transalpino Gaul was called Gallia Braccaia, while tho Romanised Cisalpino province was Gallia Togaia.

§ 12. Reports exaggerated these movements, and the Romans made larger preparation for this Gallic war than they had made against Pyrrhus or the Carthaginians. It is said that in tho year 225 b.c. the men returned fit for active service in the Roman Tribes and among the various Italian Allies amounted to nearly 800,000 ; but the forces called out for service were only a small portion of this vast national militia. A consular array amounting to about 25,000 foot and 1500 horse was sent under -dEmilius to Arminium, while a Prator with an army of similar amount pushed forward to Faesulso on the Arno. The other Consul, Atilius, who had been despatched early in the year to Sardinia, was ordered to join the Praetor in Northern Etruria without delay. A reserve force of large amount was ready near Rome.

These active preparations were seconded by superstitious rites. The Sybilline books were consulted, and in them it was found written that the soil of Rome must be twice occupied by a foreign foe. To fulfil this prediction, the Government ordered a Gaulish man and woman, together with a Greek woman, to be buried alive in the Forum. By this barbarous folly it was hoped the alarm of the people might be calmed, and the omen averted.

§ 13. The campaign opened in Northern Etruria. The Gauls crossed the Apennines into the vale of the Arno and fell suddenly upon the Praetor stationed at Fassula). Him they overpowered, and defeated with great slaughter. Tho Consul yEmilius now, with great promptitude, crossed the Umbrian hills into Etruria; and on his approach the Gauls retired northwards along the coast, wishing to secure their booty; while ^Emilius hung upon their rear, without venturing to engage in a general action. But when the Gauls came near Pisa, they found that the Consul Atilius had landed there from Sardinia; and thus hemmed in by two consular armies, they were obliged to give battle at a place called Telamon. The conflict was desperate; but the Romans were better armed and better disciplined than of old, while the Gauls had remained stationary. Their large heavy broad-swords, forged of ill-tempered iroD, bent at the first blow, and while they stooped to straighten them with the foot, they were fully exposed to the thrust of the short Roman sword. The victory of Telamon was as signal as that of Sentinum or that of the Lake Vadimo. ^Emilius pursued the flying host across the mountains, and brought home a large booty from the Boian lands to grace the triumph.

§ 14. The Consuls of the next year (224 b.c.) again invaded the Boian country, and received the complete submission of all

the tribes on the left bank of the Po. They were prevented from pursuing their successes by a pestilence in their army. But in the following year C. Flaminius, who was the reputed cause of the war, was Consul with P. Furius, and these Consuls pushed across the Po, with the resolution of punishing the Insubrians (Milanese) for the part they had taken in the invasion of Etruria. The place at which they crossed the great river was somewhere above Mantua; and here they formed a league with the Cenomanni, who were at deadly feud with the Insubrians. Assisted t>y these auxiliaries, they moved westward across the Adda, which was the boundary of the Insubrian district. Flaminius now appears to have had the chief command. Despatches arrived from the Senate addressed to him, forbidding him to invade the Insubrian country. But suspecting their contents, he laid them aside unopened, and at once gave battle to the enemy, who had advanced to drive him into the Adda. The Romans, however, beat them back triumphantly; and then Flaminius, opening the despatches, laughed at the caution of the Senate.*

§ 15. The war was brought to an end in the fourth campaign. During the winter the Insubrians sued for peace; but the new Consuls, Cn. Cornelius Scipio and M. Claudius Marcellus—afterwards so celebrated—persuaded the Senate to reject the application. The Consuls both marched north, and entered the Insubrian territory. But Marcellus hearing that Viridomarus, the Insubrian chief, had crossed the Po to ravage the country lately occupied by the Romans, left his colleague to reduce the principal towns of the Insubrians, while he pursued the chief with his army. He came up with him near Clastidium, and attacked him with liis cavalry alone. A smart action ensued, in which Marcellus encountered Viridomarus, and slew him with his own hand ; and the Gauls fled in disorder. Thus were won the third and last Spolia Opima. Meanwhile Scipio had taken Mediolanum (Milan), the chief city of the Insubrian Gauls, and the war was concluded (b.c. 221).

§ 16. Soon after this, it was resolved, probably at the instance of Flaminius, to plant two colonies, Cremona and Placentia, on opposite sides of the Po, so as to secure the territory lately won in the Boian and Insubrian territories. But the execution of this project did not take place till three years later, when Hannibal was on his march; Probably the same interruption prevented tho large tract of country which had been conquered on the Po

* If wo bcliovo Polybius (ii. 23), tho victory was due to tho military skill of tho legionary tribunes. Flaminius is strongly censured for tho reckless way in which ho aceeptod battlo, without providing for retreat in caso of defeat.

from being at once formed into a Province. A few years afterwards we liear it spoken of under the name of the province of Ariminura ;* but when this Province was constituted we are not informed. Communication was secured between Rome and Ariminum by a road constructed in the Censorship of Flaminius, which bore his name (220 B.C.).

§ 17. During this great disturbance in Italy, Demetrius of Pharos proved as false to his new patrons as he had been to Teuta. Relying on the promised support of the king of Macedon, he assumed the air of an independent chief, and encouraged his subjects in the piratical practices, which he had been placed at Corcyra to prevent. In 219 B.C. L. iEmilius Paullus, the Patrician Consul, received orders from the Senate to put a stop to these proceedings. In one short campaign he reduced Corcyra, took Pharos, and forced Demetrius to take refuge at the court of his new patron, Philip king of Macedon, where we shall find him at a later time active in promoting hostilities against Rome. Perhaps Illyria, as well as Gaul, might then have been occupied as a Province, but for the sudden events that checked the progress of the Roman arms. Left to itself, it again fell into the hands of native chiefs. The Romans, however, kept possession of the island of Corcyra, together with the strong towns of Oricum and Apollonia, with a small surrounding district, —positions which were of great service to them afterwards in the Macedonian wars.

§ 18. Thus triumphant on all sides and on all sides apparently secure, the Roman government had no presentiment of the storm that had long been gathering in the West. We must now return to the time at which Hamilcar, as has been related,! was preparing to cross over into Spain.

He crossed tlie straits of Gibraltar in 235 b.c. With him went his son-in-law llasdrubal, and his son Hannibal, then a boy of nine years old, but even then giving promise of those qualities which afterwards made him the terror of Rome. Hamilcar had not intended to take him to Spain ; but the boy pleaded so earnestly, that the father yielded on condition that he should swear eternal enmity to Rome and the Romans. Hannibal himself, in his old age, told the tale to Antiochus, king of Syria, how that he was led to the altar of his country’s gods, and took this direful oatli.J IIow well he kept it the sequel will prove. Nothing can more strongly show the feelings with which Ilarnil-car left liis country. He went not as the servant of Carthage,

* In tho year 205 B.c. Soo Liv. xxviii. 33 : '* Ariminum,—ita Galliam appollabant.”

but as the enemy of Rome, with feelings of personal hostility, not to be appeased save by the degradation of his antagonist.

His lirst object w^ras to, conquer Spain, and thus put Carthage in possession of a province which might itself become a great kingdom, and was worth many Sicilies and Sardinias. One of the chief advantages he proposed to himself in this conquest was the unlimited supply of hardy soldiers, which would bo given by the possession of Spain. But he was well aware that for this purpose conquest was not sufficient; he must. enlist the feelings of the Spaniards in his cause; he must teach, them to look'up to himself and his family as their friends and benefactors. Accordingly he married a Spanish lady of Castulo; he lived among the natives like one of themselves ; he taught them to work their rich silver mines; and in all ways opened out the resources of the country under his sway. Meanwhile he collected and disciplined an excellent army, with which he reduced many of the ruder tribes to the northward of the modern Andalusia and Murcia* Thus he reigned (this .is the best word to express his pow^Ter) with vigour and wisdom for eight years ; and in the ninth he fell in battle, admired and regretted by all southern Spain. His forecast and sagacity, combined with great activity_> resolution, and knowledge of men, gave him all the qualities of a great general and a great sovereign. It is a remark of Aristotle’s that men of brilliant abilities seldom leave those abilities as an inheritance. In the times of . which we write, Ilamilcar and Hannibal, as Philip of Macedon and Alexander before them, afford remarkable exceptions to this rule.

§ 19. Hannibal was yet only in his eighteenth year, too young to take up the work which Hamilcar had left unfinished. But Hasdrubal, the son-in-law of the great commander, proved his worthy successor. He at once assumed supreme authority. By the gentler arts of conciliation he won over a great number of tribes; and in order to give a capital to this new realm, he founded the city of New Carthage, now Carthagena, on the. coast of Murcia. The successes of Ilamilcar had at length attracted the notice of the Roman Senate; and in the year 227 B.C., the first of Hasdrubal’s command, they concluded a league with the latter general, whereby the river Ebro w^Tas fixed as the northern boundary of the Carthaginian empire in Spain. Hasdrubal fell by tlie knife of an assassin in the year 221 B.C., the seventh of his command.

§ 20. Hannibal was now in his twenty-fourth year. He was at once elected by the acclamations of the army to stand in his great father’s place. Nor did the government venture to brave the anger of a young general at the head of an army devoted to his cause. Hannibal remained as ruler of Carthaginian Spain. The office was becoming hereditary in his family. He Bet himself to realise his father’s designs.

Hamilcar had enlarged the Carthaginian rule in Spain from a few trading settlements to a great province. Hasdrubal had carried the limits of this province as far as the Sierra of Toledo. Hannibal immediately crosscd this range into the' valley of the Tagus, and reduccd the Celtiberian tribes which then oecupicd Castillo. He even passed the Castilian mountains which form the upper edge of the basin of the Tagus, and made the name of Carthage feared among the Vacca>ans in the valley of the Douro, by taking their cliicf town Ilelmantiee (Salamanca). At the close of the year 220 B.C., all Spain south of the Ebro and Douro was in subjection to Carthage, or in alliance with her. The great qualities of the three men through whom they knew her made them not unwilling vassals.

§ 21. But there was one city south of the Ebro which still maintained independence. This was Saguntum, an ancient colony from the Greek island of Zacynthos. Its site on the coast of modern Valencia is marked by the present town of Murviedro (Mari Veteres), rather more than half-way between New Carthage and the mouth of the Ebro. Saguntum, like Massilia, had been for some time in alliance with Rome; and therefore, though it was on the Carthaginian side of the Ebro, was by Roman custom entitled to support. In the year 219 B.C. this city was at war with a neighbouring tribe, and Hannibal eagerly acccpted an invitation to destroy the ally of his enemy. He surrounded Saguntum with a large army. The siege began; but the people held out for eight months against all his assaults with that heroic obstinacy which seems to distinguish all dwellers on Spanish ground, when engaged in defensive warfare. In many respects, the siege of Saguntum brings that of Saragossa to mind. The booty obtained by the conqueror was of great use in fitting out his army for the next year’s campaign.

§ 22. While the siege yet lasted, the Roman Senate liad sent envoys to Hannibal, requiring him to desist from attacking their ally. He replied coldly, that “lie could not answer for thtfir safety in his camp; they had better seek redress at Carthage.” They went on their way: but meantime the news of the fall of Saguntum readied Rome, and an embassy was sent to Carthage to demand that Hannibal, the author of the mischief, should be given up. There was a large party, that of Hanno and the government, which would probably have complied with their demand. But the memory of Rome’s dishonourable conduct at the closo of tho Mercenary War dwelt in many hearts; and the

government did not dare to oppose the general feeling. Nor indeed were they themselves altogether averse from such a war as Hannibal proposed to w^rage against Rome; they might expect the brunt of it to be borne by him and his Spaniards: at all events it would remove the young ambition of the general far from home, and might end by ruining him altogether. They xeplied that “Saguntum was not mentioned in the treaty of jJIasdrubal; but even if it were, that treaty had never been rati-₍fcd by the government, and therefore was of no authority.” Then Q. Fabius Buteo, the chief of the Roman Envoys, doubling his toga in his hand, held it up and said : “ In this fold I carry peace and war: choose ye which ye will have.” “ Give us which you will,” replied the Suffet. “ Then take war,” said the Roman, letting his toga fall loose. “We accept the gift,” cried the Senators of Carthage, “ and welcome.”

Thus was war formally declared against Rome. But before we .pass on to the narrative of this war, it will be well to form some idea of the extraordinary man who, by his sole genius, undertook and supported it with success for so many years. ,

§ 23. Hannibal was now in his twenty-eighth year, nearly of the same age at which Napoleon Bonaparte led the army of tho French Republic into Italy. And when we have named Napoleon, we have named, perhaps, the only man, ancient or modern, who can claim to be superior, or even equal, to Hannibal as a general. Bred in the camp, he possessed every quality necessary to gain the confidence of his men. His personal strength and activity were such, that he could handle their arms and perform their exercises, on foot or on horsebeck, more skilfully than themselves. His endurance of heat and cold, of fatigue and hunger, excelled that of the hardiest soldier in the camp. Ho never required others to do what he could not and would not do himself. To these bodily powers he added an address as winning as that of Ilasdrubal his brother-in-law, talents for command fully as great as those of his father Hamilcar. Ilis frank manners and genial temper endeared him to the soldiery. His strong will swayed them like one man. The different nations who made up his motley arms—Africans and Spaniards, Gauls and Italians—looked upon him each as their own chief. Polybius twice remarks, that amid the hardships which his mixed army underwent for sixteen years in a foreign land, there never was a mutiny in his camp.* The admirable versatility of tho man was soconded by qualities required to make the general. Ilis quick perception and great sagacity led him to marvellously correct judgment of future events and distant countries,—which in those days, when travellers were few and countries unknown, must have been a task of extraordinary difficulty. lie formed his plans after patient inquiry, and kept them profoundly secret till it was necessary to make them known. But with this caution in designing was united marvellous promptness in execution. “He was never deceived himself,” says Polybius, “ but never failed to take advantage of the errors of his opponent.”* Nor was he a mere soldier. In leisure hours he delighted to converse with Greeks on ‘topics of intellectual cultivation. And we shall see hereafter that, as a statesman, he displayed ability hardly inferior to that which lie had displayed as a general.

Against these great qualities, he was traditionally reported to have been cruel even to ferocity, and treacherous beyond the common measure of his country.} But even if we believe the bad faith of Carthage to have been greater than that which Rome showed towards foreigners, yet we hear of no single occasion on which Hannibal broke faith with Rome. With regard to his cruelty, there can be no doubt that he was indifferent to human life when success could be gained by its sacrifice; and on several occasions we shall find him, under the influence of passion, treating his prisoners with great barbarity. But though he had been trained to consider the Romans as his natural enemies, to be hunted down like wolves, we shall find that he forgot not to treat worthy focmen, such as Marcellus, with the magnanimity of a noble nature. And after all, it is somewhat out of place to expect refined humanity from a leader of mercenaries, who had lived from his earliest boyhood in the midst of war.

But whatever might be the ability, whatever the hardihood of the young general, he required it all for the enterprise he had now in hand. To penetrate from the Ebro to the Po, with chains of giant mountains to bar his progress, through countries partly barbarous and for the most part hostile, without roads, or maps, or accurate knowledge of his route, without certain provision for the food and clothing of his army, without the hearty concurrence of his own Government,—was an undertaking from which the boldest might shrink; and to have accomplished this march with triumphant success would alone justify the homage which is still paid to the genius of Hannibal.

f “ Has tantas viri virtutes ingontia vitia aoquabant: inhumana crudelitas, perfidia plusquam Punica,”—Liv. xxi. 4.

§ 1. Tlio War divided into Four Periods. § 2. Hannibal’s preparations and forces. § 3. His march to the Rhone. § 4. Preparations of tho Romans: Sempronius sent to Sicily, Scipio touches at Massilia. § 5. Passage of tho Rhone. § 6. Scipio sends his brother into Spain, and himself returns to Italy. § 7. Hannibal marches up the Rhone to tho Iscro. § 8. Begins tho passage of tho Alps. § 9. Surmounts tho Pass and reaches Italy. § 10. Ilis great losses: takes Turin. §11. Cavalry skirmish of tho Ticinus. § 12. Retreat of Scipio: position of tho two armies on tho Trebia. § 13. Battle of tho Trebia. § 14. Preparations for second campaign: position of Flaminius. § 15. Hannibal’s march through Etruria. § 1G. Battle of Lake Trasimene. § 17. Dismay at Romo: measures taken by tho Senate. §18. Course taken by Hannibal. §19. Policy of Fabius: cscapo of Hannibal from Campania. § 20. Discontent at Romo: Minucius. § 21. Review: Varro and Paullus Consuls for next year. § 22. Position of tho two armies near Canusium. § 23. Varro resolves to give battle. § 24. Preparations for tho battle of Cannas. § 25. Battle of Cannax § 26. Feelings at Rome. § 27. Reasons for Hannibal not advancing to Romo: Embassy. §28. Firmness of tho Senate. §29. Hannibal enters

Capua. § 30. Revolt of all Southern Italy, except Colonies and Freo Towns. § 31. Embassy of Hannibal to Carthage. §32. Tho Scipios in Spain. § 33. Prospects of Hannibal. § 34. Senate filled up: economical measures. § 33. Philip of Macedon: Oppian Law.

§ 1. The war which began with the invasion of Italy by Hannibal lasted for seventeen years. Its changing scenes and fortunes will be made more clear by separating it into Periods, as was done with the First Punic War. These Periods shall bo Four.

The First comprehends the victorious career of Hannibal, from the Passage of the Alps in 218 B.C., to his wintcr-quarters at Capua in 21G-15. Each year is marked by a great battle-^Trebia, Tra-rimene, Cannze.

The Second is of Five Years, in which the Romans, by caution and wariness, avoid signal defeats, and succeed in recovering Capua while they lose Tarentum (215-211 b.c.).

The Third, of Four Years, in which Hannibal, left without support from home, is obliged more and more to confine himself to the mountain regions of Calabria, relying on the succours to be brought him from Spain by his brother Hasdrubal. It ends with the disastrous Battle of the Mctaurus, which destroyed his hopes (211-207 B.C.). . V j <■

The Fourth, of Four Years, in which Hannibal stands at bay in the extremity of Italy, while the main scene of the war shifts to Spain, Sicily, and Africa. It terminates with the great battle of Zama, and the peace which followed (206-202 B.C.).

But during the former periods of the great war, the Roman arms were also engaged in Spain, in Sicily, and in Epirus. From the very beginning of the war they maintained - the conflict in Spain. After 215 b.c. they were obliged to besiege Syracuse and reconquer Sicily, as well as Sardinia. In 212 b.c. they declared war against Philip of Macedon, in order to prevent him from sending aid to Hannibal in Italy. Fitting opportunities will occur to speak of the first two wars; but the Macedonian War will be conveniently deferred to the next Book.

§ 2. The winter of 219 was passed by Hannibal in activc preparations for his great enterprise. His soldiers received lcavo of absence, with orders to be present at New Carthage at tho very beginning of next spring. He sent envoys into the south of Gaul and north of Italy, along his intended line of march, with instructions to inform tho Celts on both sides of the Alps of his expedition,—to win the Transalpine Gauls with hopes of the plunder of Italy, to rouse the Cisalpines by promises of delivery from the Roman yoke. Theso envoys returned early in tlie year 218 with favourable accounts of the disposition of the Gallic tribes: the Passage of the Alps they reported to be difficult and dangerous, but not impracticable.

Thus assured, Hannibal reviewed his troops at New Carthage. The army of invasion amounted to 90,000 foot and 12,000 horse, with some fifty elephants.* The infantry were mostly Spanish, the veteran soldiers of Hamilcar and Hasdrubal, recruited by new levies of his own. The Spaniards, however, were kept in balance by a large body of Libyan mercenaries, drawn over from Africa in exchange for about 15,000 Spaniards, whom he placed at the disposal of the Home Government. The light infantry, slingers and archers, were from the Balearic Isles. Of the cavalry, the heavy troopers were Spanish, while the light horse were furnished by Numidia; and the whole of this arm was placed under the command of the fiery Maharbal.

Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, was left at New Carthage, to rule £he lately-conquered province of Spain, and to raise an army of reserve for the Italian war. Mago, liis youngest brother, accompanied the general.

§ 3. Having left New Carthage about the end of May, he marched with no interruption to the Ebro; but as soon as he had crossed that river, the whole country up to the Pyrenees was hostile.' By great rapidity of movement, though with the loss of many men, he reduced all the tribes to submission in a few weeks; and leaving an officer in charge of this newly-acquired district, with 11,000 men, he pushed forward ,to the Pyrenees. Here his Spanish soldiers first discovered that they were to leave their own country for strange and unknown lands; discontent appeared in the camp; 3,000 Carpetanians, a tribe which had not been long conquered, seized their arms and set off homewards. Upon this, Hannibal, with prudent frankness, called the troops together, told them his whole design, and gave all who were unwilling to go on free leave to return. Nearly 8,000 more availed themselves of this permission.

He passed round the eastern end of the Pyrenees, where the mountains sink gently towards the sea, and halted his army for a few days at Iiuscino (Roussillon). On a review, it appeared, that the losses he had sustained, together with the 22,000 men whom he had either left in Catalonia or dismissed, had reduced his foot to 50,000, and his horse to 9,000. With this force he advanced almost unopposed to the banks of the Rhone.

§ 4. It is now time to inquire what the Romans were doing to meet the coming danger.

* Polybius saw at Lacinium in Southern Italy a bronzo tablo left thero by Hannibal on which these numbers woro inscribed (iii. 34, 18).

The Senate had not been idle in preparation. But they had acted on the supposition that the Second Punic War would, like the First, be fought on foreign soil. It is almost amusing to contrast their expectations with the actual result of the year’s campaign. The Plebeian Consul, Tib. Sempronius Longus, was sent to Lilybasum with a large fleet, and instructed to invade Africa. The other Consul, P. Cornelius Scipio, was ordered to land in Spain and take the field against Ilannibal. And it is plain that the Senate thought this service was the least important of the two, because they detained Scipio’s army rather than that of Sempro* nius, to quell a rebellion which broke out this summer in Cis* alpine Gaul. This rebellion was caused by the proceeding of the Triumviri, who had been sent to distribute the confiscated" lands of the Boians and Insubrians among the settlers in the new colonies of Placentia and Cremona.* Just at this time the. envoys of Hannibal arrived, and the Gauls rushed to arms. The Triumviri were taken prisoners; the colonists fled to Mutina (Modena); and L. Manlius the Prajtor was obliged to retire. It was to repress this outbreak that one of Scipio’s legions was sent off in all haste : the Consul could not set sail for Spain till he had raised a new legion.

It is plain, however, that his movements must still have been very measured. For he was only just leaving Pisa for Spain when he heard that Hannibal had already crossed the Pyrenees.

On receiving this news he put in at the allied city of Massilia (Marseilles), and disembarked there, intending to meet Hannibal upon the Rhone. He did not expect him there for some time yet, and therefore he gave his army some days’ rest, while he despatched a reconnoitring party of 300 picked horse, to move from Marseilles up the left bank of the Rhone, under the trusty guidance of some Massaliots.

§ 5. But Hannibal had crossed the Rhone while these horsemen were on their way up the river. The point at which he reached it was not far above Avignon, about fifty miles from the coast.f The river itself is large, and the rapidity of its stream proverbial. But, besides these natural difficulties, he found the left bank occupied by a large host of Gauls. Upon this, he immediately made preparations for forcing the passage, by seizing all the boats he could, and constructing rafts. After two days spent in this way, he sent Ilanno, son of Bomilcar, with a strong detachment of cavalry, to cross the river about twenty miles higher up, so that, returning down the other bank, he might come upon the

f Four days’ march. Roquemauro is tho placo fixed upon by tho conjoo-turo of several geographical critics.

rear of the Gauls. On the morning of the third day after his departure, Hanno signalled his arrival to Hannibal by a column of smoke; and the Carthaginians, who were ready to put off their boats and rafts, immediately pushed into the stream. The Gauls fljpcked down to the water’s edge, brandishing tlicir arms and uttering wild yells of defiance. But while the boats were in mid stream, a cry arose from the rear; and, looking round, the Barbarians beheld their tents in flames. They hastened back, and were charged by Hanno with his cavalry. Meanwhile, the first divisions of the army landed, and forming under the General’s eye, attacked the Gauls in rear; and for the remainder of the day the Carthaginians lay encamped in the enemy’s late quarters. All the army, except the elephants, had effected the passage. It was on this very day that Scipio sent off his 300 horse from Marseilles.

On the next morning (the sixth after his arrival on the Rhone) news reached Hannibal that the Romans had landed. Upon this he instantly despatched a body of 400 Numidian horse to reconnoitre, while he himself spent tho day in preparation for bringing over the elephants. At this moment, some Boian and Insubrian chieftains arrived from Italy to inform him of what their people were doing and had done against the Romans, and to describe in glowing colours the richness and beauty of the land which would welcome him after the toils of the Alpine Passage. This news had a great effect upon the army, which was somewhat dispirited by the opposition offered by the Gauls upon the Rhone. These barbarians, repented, it seemed, of encouraging the march of the Carthaginians, when they found the strangers really among them. The unknown language of all, the swarthy skins and uncouth forms of the Africans, the wild Numidian horse, the monstrous elephants appalled them ; and the Carthaginians found enemies where they expected friends. The encouraging news from Italy came most opportunely.

In the evening the Numidian horse galloped into camp in great disorder, having lost half their number. At some distance a body of cavalry appeared in pursuit, who reined in their horses on coming in view of the Carthaginian camp, and tlien turned about and rode off down the river. This was Scipio’s reconnoiter-ing party, who had encountered the Numidians and defeated them.

§ 6. Hannibal, finding the enemy so near at hand, and having no intention to fight them till he reached Italy, sent off the whole of his infantry next morning to march up the left bank of tho Rhone. He himself only stayed till he saw his elephants, now about thirty in number, safely across the stream; and then, with tlio elephants and cavalry, he followed the main body of his army.

Scipio, on his part, so soon as he heard that the Carthaginians had already crossed the Rhone, proceeded by forced marches up the river. Rut it was three or four days after Hannibal’s departure that he arrived at tho point where the Carthaginians had crossed. It was in vain to pursue the enemy into unknown regions, peopled by barbarous tribes; and Scipio had the mortification to reflect that, if he had marched at once from Marseilles, ho might have come in time to assist the Gauls in barring Hannibal's passage. Not able to undo the past, he provided wisely for the future. He despatched his brother Cneius to Spain with the fleet and the consular army, deeming it of high importance to cut off* communication between Hannibal and that country; and himself returned to Pisa, to take command of the army of Manlius, which had suppressed the Gallic insurrection. He expected to be in time to meet Hannibal’s army shattered and broken by the passage of the Alps, and to gain an easy victory.

§ 1. Meanwhile, Hannibal continued his march up the Rhone, and crossing the Isere, found himself in the plains of Dauphino, then inhabited by the Allobrogian Gauls. He marched thus far north, about one hundred miles beyond the place where he had crossed the river, at the invitation of a chieftain who was contending for the dominion of the tribe with his younger brother. Hannibal’s veterans soon put the elder brother in possession; and the grateful chief furnished the army with a quantity of arms and clothing, and entertained them hospitably for some days. He then guided them to the verge of his own dominions, and took his leave. This must have brought them to the point at which the Isare issues from the lower range of the Alps into the plain, somewhere near the present fortress of Grenoble. .

§ 8. Up to this point there is little doubt as to the route taken by Hannibal; but after this all is doubtful. It appears that he first had to force his way through a pass of the lower mountains just behind Grenoble, from which he emerged into a comparatively open valley; and here he assaulted a town belonging to the Allobrogian Gauls, who had attempted to bar his way through the above-named pass. Two or three days’ march through this valley brought him to the foot of the main Alpine chain. Hero he was met by the mountaineers with branches in their hands, in token of peace and friendship, offering to guide him over the pass. Hannibal accepted their offers, only because he thought it dangerous to refuse, and took the precaution to secure his rear by a 6trong guard. On the third day, tho faithless barbarians.

fell upon his rear, and were only repulsed with great loss both in men and horses. They continued to annoy his line of march by rolling huge stones down the steep sides of the mountain which overhung the path, till Hannibal prevented them from following, by seizing a strong white rock which entirely commands the pass. Here he kept the barbarians at bay till his baggage and cavalry were a day’s march in advance; and then followed, with the elephants in rear, for the mountaineers dared not come near these strange and unknown monsters.

§ 9. In seven days⁷⁵ after he began the ascent did he reach the summit. Hannibal now endeavoured to cheer the fainting hearts of his weary soldiers, by pointing out the. descending pathway which led to the plains of Italy. And here he halted two days to rest them and collect the stragglers. It was now near the end of October.f The last year’s snow, frozen into ice, lay thick at the top of the pass, and fresh snow now began to fall, which covered the traces of the path. The ascent had been bad, but the descent threatened to be worse.

Those who have walked over the main Alps, where they are traversed only by a mule-track, may in some degree imagine the difficulty of conveying an army with its stores and baggage over such a pass, especially at a season when the days are shortening and the snow constantly falling. Multitudes of men and cattle sank daily, worn out by hunger and fatigue. Their progress was further impeded by finding that in one place the pathway had slipped down or been carried away by an avalanche for a distance of a furlong and a half.J Before this place could be passed it was necessary to make the road good, and in miserable plight the army was compelled to halt for nearly three days.§ In three days more they reached the bottom of the pass, having spent fifteen in the whole passage.

§ 10. The extent of suffering which the arm}’- had gone through may be best estimated by considering the losses which it had sustained since the review at Roussillon. Out of 50,000 foot and 9000 horse Hannibal had now remaining only 20,000 of the former and G000 of tlie latter.⁷⁶ A larg6 number of his elephants had perished; it is only wonderful that so many horse had survived.

Hannibal descended among tho mountains of the Salassians, and pushed on into the friendly country of the Insubrians (Milanese), where he rested his troops for some time, and procured fresh horses for many of his cavalry. lie then rewarded tho good services of the Insubrians by lending them his aid against the hostile tribe of the Taurini, whose capital city (Turin) he took by assaultf

§ 11. It was now December. He was moving down the left bank of the Po, above its junction with the Ticinus, and on the Piedmontese side of that river, when his cavalry came accidentally in conflict with the Roman horse, commanded by the Consul Scipio himself.

Scipio had returned to Pisa. Taking command of the . army of the Praetor, he moved slowly through the Gallic country, in order to be ready to encounter Hannibal on his descent from the Alps. He crossed the Po near Pavia, and made a bridge over the Ticinus to secure his retreat; then crossing the latter river, he began to march up the left bank of the Po, just as Hannibal was coming down it. Both generals were in advance with their cavalry, and came unexpectedly in sight of each other. A smart action followed, in which the Romans had the worst, and the Consul was severely wounded, his life being saved by tho devotion of a Ligurian slave, or, as others said, by his son Publius, afterwards the great Africanus, then a youth only seventeen years old. He fell back upon his main body and recrossed the Ticinus so rapidly that, in breaking up the bridge, he left GOO men behind, who fell into the hands of Hannibal. This wa» the skirmish of the Ticinus, which proved Hannibal’s superiority in cavalry. It had the effect of making the Boian Gauls on the south of the Po dcclare in his favour. Those who were serving as auxiliaries in the Roman camp deserted; and the Roman Triumviri, who had been seized early in the spring, were given up to the Carthaginians.

§ 12. Hannibal, after spending two or three days on the north side of the Po, crosscd somewhere below Placcntia; and Scipio. not finding his position near that • town secure, fell back so as to place the Trcbia between himself and Hannibal. On the left bank of this river, lie fortified a strong camp, with the purpose of awaiting the arrival of his colleague Scmpronius, whom the Senate had ordered to hasten from Sicily into the north of Italy. Hannibal followed the Romans and encamped in view of them on the right bank of the Trebia. Here he received offers from a Brundusian, who was in chargc of the Roman magazine at Clas-tidium, a town in Scipio’s rear, to betray the place ; and it must have been while he was absent in this quarter that Sempronius joined Scipio. Sempronius, not daring to sail across from Sicily to Pisa at that time of year, had sent his army over the Straits of Mcssana, with orders to ’rendezvous at Ariminum; and so expeditious were they that they performed the whole march from Lilybasum to Scipio’s camp in forty days. .After some days’ rest, a foraging party of Hannibal’s was attacked with some advantage by the Roman horse, and this slight success made Sempronius eager for a general action. Scipio endeavoured to dissuade him, but in vain ; and being still confined by the consequences of his wound, he was obliged to' leave the whole army under the direction of his colleague. Hannibal, for his part, was equally anxious for a battle. The Gauls began to complain of tho burthen of two armies in their country, and victory was nccessary to securc them in his interest.

§ 13. The Trcbia is a mountain stream, which in summer runs babbling over a broad gravelly bed, so shallow that the foot-travcllcr walks over it unheeding; but in winter, or after heavy rains, it rises to a deep and rapid torrent. It was now nearly tho end of December,⁷⁷ and Hannibal resolved that he would not cross the water to attack the Romans, but would make them cross it to attack him. lie executed his purpose with great skill. On his left there was a sort of gully, thickly grown with reeds and brushwood, in which he concealed his brother Mago with 1000 foot and as many horse. Then, early in the morning, he sent his Numidian riders across the river, and ordered the whole army to prepare for the cold of the day by rubbing tI?omsclves with oil and making a hearty meal. As soon as Sempronius saw the Numidians cross tho water, ho sent out his cavalry, about 4000 strong, to meet them, and then drew out his whole army, amounting to about 36,000 men, to support tho attack. The Numidians feigned to bo beaten and fell back across the river. Tho Romans pursued, but the w^ater w'as running breast-high and was deadly cold; sleet was falling, which was driven in their faces by the oast wind; and when they reached the other side, they were half frozen with cold and wet, as well as faint with hunger. Their treacherous foes now opened on both sides and displayed Hannibal’s infantry in battle-order with tho rest of the cavalry aud tho elephants on either wing. The Roman cavalry, which was also on the wings, was greatly outnumbered and soon put to flight; but tho Legions and Allies kept their ground bravely under all disadvantages till Mago rose from ambush and attacked them in rear. Then the rout becamo general. A body of 10,000 men, however, cut their way through the Carthaginian lines to Placentia; the rest were driven back with great slaughter to the Trebia, in which many were drowned, but a large number, with the Consul Sempronius himself, recrossed in safet}".

Tho battle of the Trebia ended Hannibal’s first campaign. The two Consuls, with the relics of their armies, soon after contrived to throw themselves into Placentia and Cremona, and afterwards made good their retreat to Ariminum. Sempronius had sent home a varnished account of the battle, but the fatal truth soon betrayed itself. Two consular armies had been defeated, Cisalpine Gaul was abandoned to the Carthaginians.

§ 14. b.c. 217. The Senate made great preparations for the next campaign. Sicily, Sardinia, and Tarentum were garrisoned against tho Carthaginian fleets; the new Consuls were to keep Hannibal out of Roman Italy. The Patrician Consul for the year was Cn. Servilius; C. Flaminius was the Plebeian. Flaminius, it will bo remembered, had held this high office in 223 B.C., and had won a great battlo over the Insubrian Gauls, in contempt of the orders of the Senate. As Censor, he still dwells in memory for having made the Flaminian Way, the great high road from Rome through tho Sabine country to Ariminum. lie had won extraordinary popularity by a sweeping agrarian law to divide the coast lands of Umbria and Picenum among a number of poor citizens. He had incurred the bitterest enmity of tho Senate by the warm support ho gave to a law of the Tribune Claudius, which prohibited senators from engaging in trade. This was the man elected by popular favour to oppose Hannibal, brave, as it appears, and generous, but adventurous and reckless. Fearing that the Senate might even yet bar his Consulship by an appeal to the omens, he left the. city before the Ides of March,* which was at that time the day for the Consuls to enter upon office. But no such attempt was made. Servi-lius was sent to Ariminum in case Hannibal should come down by the Flaminian Road; and Flaminius himself took post at Arretium to watch the passes of the Apennines.

§ 15. As the spring approached, Hannibal was anxious to leave Cisalpine Gaul. His friends the Insubrians and Boians, however much they wished to be relieved from the Roman yoke, did not relish entertaining a large army in winter-quarters. They were proverbially fickle, and so much did Hannibal mistrust them, that, to prevent attempts upon his life, he continually woro disguises, and assumed false hair. Leaving the Roman colonies of Placentia and Cremona unassailed, he passed the Apennines early in the year by an unfrequented route, which brought him down into the neighbourhood of Pistoja and Lucca. From this point eastward he had to march through the Yal d’Arno, which was at that time an unwholesome swamp.f Here his men and horses suffered much; he himself, being attacked by ophthalmia, lost the sight of one eye, and was obliged to have recourse to the single elephant which survived the cold of the Alps and a winter in the North of Italy. In the neighbourhood of Faisulae he rested his army, now much increased by Gallic recruits, and rewarded his men for their late toils by the plunder of Etruria. Flaminius now found that his dexterous enemy had stolen a march upon him, and Hannibal, on his part, heard with delight the rash and adventurous character of the new Consul. Trusting to this, he led his army past Arretium, where Flaminius still

lay encamped, and leaving Cortona on the left, passed on towards Pc-rusia along the northern side of Lake Trasimcnc. As soon as Flaminius found that the Carthaginian had passed him in this^ disdainful way, lie immediately marchcd in pursuit.

§ 16. As the traveller comcs upon the north-w’cstern corner of Lake Trasimcnc, the road ascends a low ridge, now callcd Monte Gualandro, along

* From the year 223 to 153 B.C., tho Consuls entered oflico on tho Idoa of March; after tho latter date, on tho Calends of January.

which runs the boundary line of the Estates of the Church and Tuscany. The broad lako lies to his right and the road descends into a crescent-shaped plain, skirted on the left by hills of some height, while between the road and the Jake the ground undulates considerably. After traversing this open space the road passes through the modem village of Passignano, and ascends a hill. This was the ground Hannibal chose for awaiting Flaminius. Ho placed his Balearians and light troops in ambush round the hills on the left of the narrow plain; he himself, with his infantry, lay in front somewhere near the village of Passignano, while his cavalry were ensconced in the uneven ground next the lake, ready to close upon tho rear of the Romans so soon as they wero fairly in the plain. While the Carthaginians were thus disposed, Flaminius was encamping for the night on the Tuscan side of Monte Gualandro. In the morning a thick mist hung over tho lako and low lands, so that when the Consul advanced into the plain above described he could see nothing. Hannibal suffered the Roman van-guard, consisting of C000 men, to advance beyond Passignano before he gave the signal for attack. Hearing the cries of battle behind them, they halted anxiously on the hill which they were then ascending, but could see nothing for the mist. Meantime tho Consul, with the main army, was assailed on all sides. Charged in front by the Spanish and African infantry, on his right and rear by the Gauls and cavalry, exposed on his left flank to the ceaseless fire of the slingers and javelin-men, Flaminius and his soldiers did all that bravo men could. They fought valiantly and died fighting. Not less than 15,000 Italians fell on that fatal field. Such was tho scene disclosed to the soldiers of the van-guard when the mist cleared off. Hannibal now sent Maharbal to pursue this division, which surrendered at discretion. Such of them as were Romans or Latins were all thrown into chains; the Italian Allies were dismissed without ransom. Thus did Hannibal’s plan for tho conquest of Rome begin to show itself; he had no hope of subduing Rome and Italy with a handful of Spanish and African veterans. These were to be the core of a great army, to be made up of Italians, who (as he hoped) would join his victorious standard, as the Gauls had already done. “ He had come,” he said, “into Italy, not to fight against the Italians, but to fight for the liberty of the Italians against Rome.”

Such was the battle of Lake Trasimene. So hot was the conflict that the combatants did not feel the shock of an earthquake, which overthrew many cities of Italy.

§ 17. Stragglers escaping from the slaughter soon carried tho evil tidings to Rome, and tho Praetor, unable to extenuate tho loss, came into the Forum, where the people were assembled, and ascending the Rostra uttered the brief but significant words: “We have been defeated in a great battle.” Dreadful was the terror, so soon as it was known that the Consul was dead, his army destroyed. The gates were thronged with mothers and children, eagerly questioning the fugitives about the fate of their sons, and fathers, and kinsfolk. Every hour Hannibal was expected at the gates. Three days passed and he came not; but the news of a fresh disaster came. Cn. Servilius, the other Consul, as soon as he heard of Hannibal’s presence in Etruria, resolved to join his colleague immediately, and sent on his horse, 4000 strong, as an earnest of his own arrival. Hannibal, informed of their approach, detached Maharbal with a division of cavalry and some light-armed troops to intercept them. Half of the Romans were cut in pieces, the rest returned in disorder to tell the Consul that he was too late.

Amid the terror which prevailed at Rome the Senate alone maintained their calmness. They sate, without adjournment, to receive intelligence and deliberate on measures of safety. It was resolved (an extraordinary measure) to call upon the people to elect a Dictator, the person recommended being Q. Fabius Maximus, a man of known discretion and reputed skill; M. Minucius Rufus was also elected as his Master of the Horse.* Fabius first called upon the gods to sanction the defence of Rome, consulted the Sibylline books, and advised the Senate to decree a “ sacred spring,” according to the ancient custom of the Sabines.f And then, collecting the troops that had escaped from the slaughter, and filling up their ranks by a new levy, he sent for the army of Servilius, and thus with four legions and their auxiliary troops he prepared to take the field.

§ 18. Meanwhile the movements of Hannibal had relieved the Romans of all immediate fear of seeing him at the gates. It seems that he had little hopes of the Etruscans, for he straightway left their country and passed northwards by the Flaminian Road. He presented himself before the colony of Spoletum, but the colonists closed their gates, and he passed upon his way into Picenum, collecting plunder from all the Roman settlements as he went. Here he lay quiet during the heat of summer. As the weather became cooler, lie advanced along the coast of the’ Adriatic into Apulia, still plundering as he went. The soldiers of the Alps revelled in the abundance of Italy: it is said they bathed their horses in wine. But the colonics of Luceria and

* Commonly, it will be remembered, the Consul nominated tho Dictator at tho order of tho Senate, and tho Dictator choso his own Master of Horse.

Venusia, as of old, refused entrance to tlic invader, and Hannibal passed the Apennines again into Lower Samnium, where Bene-ventum, now become a colony, defied him like the rest.

§ 19. By this time Fabius had taken the field. He had mado up his mind not to risk another battle. . His plan for conducting the campaign was to move along the heights, so as to keep Hannibal in view, cutting off his supplies, intercepting his communications, and harassing him in all ways without a general action. This was not for Hannibal’s interest. He wished to fight another great battle and win another great victory (the things were synonymous with him), in order that the Samnites and other Italians, lately conquered, might venture to rise and join him. It was no doubt with the purpose of provoking Fabius to a battle, or of showing the Italians that the Romans dared not fight him, that Hannibal descended from Beneventum down the Yulturnus into the rich Falernian Plain.* Here dwelt Roman citizens ; this was tho garden of Italy: would not the Dictator fight to defend them and their country from the spoiler ? No : Fabius persisted in his cautious policy. He closed all the passes leading from the

{)lain, where Hannibal’s soldiers were now luxuriating, and waited lis time patiently, thinking he had caught the invader in a trap. But the wily Carthaginian eluded him by a simple stratagem. Collecting all the oxen lie had seized in this favoured region, he ordered fagots to be tied to their horns; and as soon as it was night, these fagots being lighted, the animals were driven, tossing their heads with fright and waving the flames, up the pass which leads from Teanum to Allifie. The troops who guarded this pass fled panic-stricken to the heights of Mount Callicula, and left free passage for the Carthaginian army. When morning broke Hannibal was gone ; he was lying safely encamped near Allifa?. From thence lie pursued his devastating course through the Pelignian and Frentanian lands, till he again reached Apulia, and there fixed on a strong position near Geronium for his winter-quarters. The place was warm and sunny; corn and provisions were abundant.

Fabius, however discomfited by Hannibal’s escape from Campania, persisted in earning his name of The Lingerer,\ and follow. * This is tho simplo statemont of Polybius (iii. 91). Tho well-known story in Livy (xxiL 13), that Hannibal told the guides to load to Casinum on tho Latin road, and that they by a mistako took him to Casilinum in Campania, ia not noticed by tho graver historian, f Cunctator. Eveiy ono knows Ennius’ lino, borrowed by Virgil—

ing Hannibal as before, took post at Larinum, within five or six miles of the enemy’s eamp.

§ 20. He was now ealled to Rome, ostensibly to preside over certain sacred offices, but really to give an aecount of his conduet. He found the people much discontented. He had been in command of two Consular armies for several months, and had done worse than nothing: he had allowed the lands of the Roman colonists in Apulia and Samnium, the lands of Roman citizens in Campania, to be wasted and spoiled before his eyes. These diseontents were fomented by Minucius, the Master of the Horse, who openly dissented from the taetics of his commander, and deelared that were he General-in-Chief he would try the fortune of another battle. Minucius had been left in command at Larinum, and though charged by the Dictator not to risk an action, he pushed his camp forward within two miles of Hannibal, and gained some advantages in skirmishing with the Carthaginian foraging-parties. This raised his self-opinion still higher, and he sent home highly coloured despatches describing his sueeesses. Popular feeling rose to its height, and Terentius Varro beeame its mouthpieee. This man was a petty merehant by trade, the son of a butcher; but he had been Praitor the year before, and was now candidate for the Consulship. His eloquence was great; and the Senate were obliged to consent to a law whieh gave Minueius an equal command with the Dietator. Fabius returned to the camp, and quietly gave up half the army to his -late subordinate. But he was soon repaid for his moderation. Hannibal discovered the rash character of the new commander, and drew him out to battle, having previously (according to his wont) eoncealed a squadron of cavalry in the flank of tho field of battle. Minucius fell into the snare, and would have been defeated as utterly as Flaminius at Lake Trasimene, had not the watchful Fabius eome up upon his rear, so as to baffle the flank attack of the cavalry. Hannibal drew off his men; and Minucius, acknowledging Fabius as his deliverer, eraved his pardon and resumed liis post of Master of the Horse. The whole army returned to its old quarters at Larinum.

§ 21. Thus ended the second eampaign, not greatly to the satisfaction of cither party. Hannibal had hoped that ere this all Southern Italy would have risen like one man against Rome. He had shown himself her master in the field; wherever her _t soldiers had dared to meet his, they had been grievously defeated. He had shown all indulgenec for Italian prisoners, though he had put to the sword all .Roman and Latin eitizens. But not one city had yet opened its gates to reeeive him. The Gauls of tho North were the only people who had joined him since he erossed

the Alps. The Romans, indeed, continued to suffer cruelly, and their ordinary revenues were grievously curtailed. It seems to have been agreed that a great effort must be made in the ensuing campaign; an overpowering force was to be brought against Hannibal; he was to be crushed, if not by skill, by numbers. It was so far encouraging that the Allies had as yet remained faithful ; but how long this might last 110 one could tell. Everything concurred in showing that another battle must be ventured.

When the day of electing the Consuls came, out of six candidates C. Terentius Yarro alone obtained a sufficient number of votes in any tribe to be returned. It is difficult to ascertain the true character of this man. His vigorous eloquence had won the confidence of the people : but so much is plain, that he was no general, and his election was esteemed a public misfortune by the Senate. Varro himself presided at tho election of his colleague, when tho Senate, anxious to provide an able general, induced L. ^Etnilius Paullus to offer himself as candidate. Paullus had shown his ability as a general in his former Consulship, when (219 b.c.) he concluded the Illyrian War in a single campaign. 13ut his character for integrity was not spotless, and his manners were cold and haughty. 'Yet so earnestly did the Senate represent the necessity of the case, that he was returned without opposition.

These were the Consuls elected to fight Hannibal. Their four legions wore to be added to tho four which Fabius had commanded just before, and which were still in tho field. These eight legions were raised to more than their usual complement,⁷⁸ so that the whole army to bo commanded by tho Consuls must, with the allied force, have amounted to at least 80,000 foot and more than G000 horse.

§ 22. b.c. 21G. The late Consuls (Atilius had succeeded Flaminius), now serving as Proconsuls, had moved from Larinum southwards towards Venusia, and had busied themselves with forming magazines at Canusium and Cannaj; and on tho plain near the latter place tho camp was formed. Hannibal, as the spring advanced, suffered much from want of corn, for he had exhausted his supplies at Geronium; and having by this timo received recruits from Cisalpine Gaul, he made a rapid movement and seized the Roman magazine at Cannae, encamping not far from that place, on the left bank of the Aufidus. The Proconsuls sent home word of this disaster, but received strict orders to continue on the defensive till the Consuls arrived to take tho command. Yet it was some time before this took place, certainly not till near the end of July, for the great battle, which is .now to be described, was fought on the 2nd of August,* and it was fought soon after the arrival of the Consuls.

§ 23. The Consuls found the army about two days’ march from Hannibal: they immediately moved to his neighbourhood, with the intention of offering battle. But when Paullus observed the open plain on which Hannibal lay, he was desirous to put ofl an engagement, and manoeuvre so as to draw the enemy into ground less favourable for the action of cavalry. Yarro, however, knowing the anxiety of the people to have the matter brought to a speedy issue, thought otherwise, and now appeared the evil of both Consuls being joined in command of the same army. It was a repetition of the arrangement which had answered so ill in the last years with Fabius and Minucius, with this additional evil, that the Consuls, instead of dividing the army between them, took the command of the whole on alternate days. A plan more expressly calculated to prevent unity of action could not have been devised. But the Consuls were, by the constitution, equal, and Yarro was far too confident of success to give way to his more experienced colleague. ^Emilius felt bitterly the truth of Fabius’ parting injunction : “ Remember that you will have to oppose not only Hannibal, but also Yarro.”

On the first day of his sole command, Yarro moved the whole army to the right bank of the Aufidus, between Cannse and the sea, so that the river only separated the Roman camp from that of the Carthaginians. Next day iEmilius fortified a smaller camp on the left side of the river, fronting Hannibal, so as to secure the passage of the river, but resolutely declined battle. On the third day, however, when morning broke, the red standard, which was the Roman signal for battle, was seen flying from Varro’s tent. The men rejoiced at this; they were sick of their long inactivity; they were confident in their numbers, and the resolution of their favourite Yarro was highly applauded.

§ 24. When -^Emilius found that a battle must be fought on the plain of Cannas, he did his best to support his colleague. The whole army was drawn up nearly facing south, with the right resting, on the river Aufidus. The Roman cavalry, only 2400 strong, were on this right flank; the left was covered in like manner by the cavalry of the Allies. yEmilius commanded on the

* It is probable, however, that tho Roman Calendar was in error, and that tho battlo was really fought earlier in tho year. Sco Clinton, F. II. iii. anno 21G.

right, Varro on the left; the centre was under the orders of Ser-vilius and Atilius, the Proconsuls. It must be especially observed that the Legionaries and Allied Infantry were not drawn up, as usual, in an open and far-extended line, leaving considerable gaps between each inanipulus; but the ranks were made very deep and closed up almost like the Phalanx. It has been above observed how serviceable the Phalanx was on plain ground; and probably the Consuls imagined that by this order they might offer a more complete resistance to the formidable cavalry of Hannibal, which might be expected to break itself against these compact masses of infantry.

But Hannibal skilfully availed himself of this close array, and formed his line accordingly, lie had crossed the river early, as soon as he saw the Romans in motion. The Spanish and Gallic Infantry, which were much inferior in number to the Romans, lie drew out in an extended line, equal in length to that of the enemy, but much less deep and massive. This line advanced in a convex form, and at each end he placed his Africans, armed with the spoils of former battles, so as to form two flanking columns of narrow front but great depth. He himself, with his brother Mago, commanded the infantry. On his left flank, next the river, were the heavy cavalry of Spain and Gaul, commanded by an officer named Ilasdrubal, not the brother of the General. On the right were the Numidian light horse, under the orders o⁴ Maharbal.

Hannibal was in high spirits at the prospect of the battle. He had ascended an eminence to gain a better view of the Roman lines: and as he stood surveying them, surrounded by his officers, one of them, named Gisgo, remarked on “the wonderful numbers” of the enemy. “Ah,” said Hannibal, “ there is one thing about them more wonderful than their numbers.” Gisgo asked what he meant. “ Why,” replied the General, “ in all that vast number there is not one man called Gisgo.” This sally raised a laugh; the gaiety of the General was an earnest of victory.

§ 25. After some indecisive skirmishing betwen the light troops, the real battle began with a conflict on the river-side between the Roman cavalry and the horse of Hasdrubal. The latter wero greatly superior in force, and charged with such effect as to drive the Roman horse across the river.

Meantime the Roman legions, and their allied infantry, advanced steadily against Hannibal’s centre. The long crescentshaped line above described was quite unable to withstand the shock. Nor had the General expected it. On the contrary, he had instructed the centre so to fall back, as to form a concave

figure, and then tlie whole line to retire slowly, in order to draw the Roman masses on betw^reen the African flanldng columns. This order was obeyed with great precision. The Romans pressed eagerly on the retiring foe; but as they advanced, the Africans, on either hand, wheeled half-round opposite ways, and attacked the Romans on both flanks. The latter, jammed together, and assailed on both sides, fell into great disorder, very few of their vast army being able to use their weapons. But the Consul ^Emilius, who had been wounded by a sling, in an early part of the action, and had vainly endeavoured to make the Reman cavalry keep their ground, contrived to restore some sort of order; and it seemed as if the battle was not lost; when Hasdrubal fell upon the rear of the legions, and the rout became complete.

This able officer, after destroying the Roman cavalry, had led his heavy horse round to the other wing, where he found the Numidians, engaged with the allied cavalry. The latter being borne down by the whole force of Hannibal’s cavalry, speedily turned their backs; and Hasdrubal, leaving Maharbal to pursue them, made that decisive charge upon the rear of the legions, which completed the defeat of the Roman army.

Then the battle became a mere massacre. The Remans and Allies, mingled in a disorderly mass, were cut down on all sides. Tlie Consul JEmilius fell. Yarro, with but seventy horsemen, escaped to Yenusia. Other parties of fugitives made good tlicir retreat to Canusium; some thousands took refuge in the camps. But on the bloody field that evening, there lay dead, at the lowest computation, more than 40,000 Roman foot and 3,000 horse. The loss in the cavalry involved the death of some of the wealthiest and most distinguished men at Rome. With them had fallen one Consul, both the Proconsuls, both the Quaestors, one-and-twenty out of eight-and-forty Tribunes, and not less than eighty Senators. And to add to this, all who had taken refuge in the camp surrendered at discretion next day. Hannibal’s loss is variously stated at from six to eight thousand.⁷⁹

§ 26. This then was the battle of Cannaj. History does not record any defeat more complete, and very few more murderous. The great army levied to conquer Hannibal had been annihilated.

The feverish anxiety with which all men at Romo followed the Consuls to the field may be imagined; those who stayed behind in horrible suspense, flocked to the temples, offered vows, consulted the auguries, raked up omens and prophecies, left no means untried to divine the issue of the coming battle. What must have been the dismay, what the amazement, with which they received the first uncertain tidings of defeat! what the despair, what the stupor, which the dreadful reality produced!

Among the fugitives who came in with the tidings, was a Tribune of the Legions, Cn. Lentulus by name. As he rode oft’ the field, ho had seen ^Emilius the Consul sitting on a stone, mortally wounded. He had dismounted and offered him his horse. But the Consul replied, “ No, my hours are numbered: go thou to Rome, seek out Q. Fabius, and bid him prepare to defend the city: tell him that ./Emilius dies, as he lived, mindful of his precepts and example.” To Fabius, indeed, all eyes were now turned. The Senate instantly met; and at his motion, each Senator was invested with the power of a magistrate: they were to prevent all public lamentations;⁸⁰ to hinder the people from meeting in the Forum, lest they should pass resolutions in favour of peace; to keep the gates well guarded, suffering no one to pass in or out without a special order. Every one feared to see the army of Hannibal defiling through the Apennines upon the plain of Latium.

§ 27. What the Romans feared the Carthaginians desired. “ Only send me on,” said Maharbal to the General, “ with tho cavalry, and within five days tliou shalt sup in the Capitol.” But Hannibal thought otherwise. Ilis army was small: he was totally unprovided with materials for a siege; Rome was strongly fortified. He felt that the mere appearance of his army before the walls would rather rouse to action than terrify into submission; and meanwhile the golden time for raising the Samnites and other nations of Italy might be lost. Already was he in negocia-tion with the leading men at Capua, a city second only to Rome in point of size, superior probably in wealth. To this place he resolved to march as soon as his men were rested. When their Allies had deserted, Rome must agree to his terms, without giving him the trouble of a siege.

lie resolved, however, to try the temper of the Romans, and accordingly sent ten of the chief men among his prisoners, with offers to hold all whom lie had taken to ransom. The Senate, on the motion of T. Manlius Torquatus, a man who had inherited the stern decision of his ancestor, refused to admit the messengers to an audience, and ordered all to return, as they bad bound themselves, to Hannibal’s camp. One man conceived he had fulfilled his promise, because he had gone back on pretence of having forgotten something. But the Senate sent him back with his- companions. Hannibal was greatly provoked at this almost contemptuous reply to his advances. He immediately sold tho greater part of his prisoners into slavery. This was but the common custom of the times. But besides this, he reserved the bravest and noblest youths, in order to fight as gladiators- for the amusement of his army ; and on their refusal, he put them to death by torture.*' The fact shows, that in moments of passion Hannibal was too justly liable to the accusation of barbarous, cruelty.

§ 28. The Senate were now busily occupied in taking all steps possible for the safety of Rome. . The public horror was increased by a discovery that two Vestal virgins had been guilty of unchastity. One was, as the law directed, buried alive; the other put herself to death. To avert the wrath erf the gods, Fabius Pictor was sent to consult the Greek oracle at Delphi; and by the orders of the Sibylline books, a Greek man and woman and a Gaulish man and woman were buried alive in the Forum, according to the same horrid practice used in the last great Gallic War.f But to these superstitious rites were added wiser precautions. Fabius, with the coolness of age and cxpe-vience, continued to direct their measures. M. Claudius Mar-eellus, one of the Prretors, was at Ostia with some troops for the service of the fleet, and one legion, lie was ordered to bring these troops to Rome, while he himself was sent to take the command of the fugitives in Apulia. For by this time despatches had arrived from Varro, stating that he had been joined by about four thousand men at Venusia, and that about the same number had assembled at Canusium under App. Claudius, young P. Scipio (now about nineteen years of age,) and other Tribunes. It was added, that some of the young nobles at Canusium, headed by a Metellus, had formed a plan to fly from Italy and offer their services to some foreign prince, despairing of the Republic; that young Scipio had gone instantly to the lodgings of Metellus, and standing over him with a drawn sword, had made him swear that neither would he desert the Republic, nor allow others to do so; that to support the noble conduct of Scipio, Varro had himself transferred his liead-quarters to Canusium, and was using all his efforts to collect and organise the remains of the defeated army.

On the arrival of Marcellus at Canusium, Varro set out to Rome to make a personal report of his conduct With what feelings he approached the city may be imagined. But as ho drew near, the Senate and People went out to meet him, and publicly thanked him, “ for that lie had not despaired of the Republic.” History presents 110 nobler spectacle than this. Had he been a Carthaginian general, lie would have been crucified.

The Dictator ordered levies in Rome and Latium. But the immense losses sustained in the three past years had thinned the ranks of those who were on the military list. From the action on the Ticinus to Canna), the loss of. the Romans and their allies could not have been less than 80,000 men. And therefore, while the regular levies were slowly proceeding, the Dictator proposed to buy 8000 slaves from their masters to serve as light troops; and also to enrol debtors, prisoners, and other persons by law incapable of serving in the Roman Legions. Marcellus had now drawn the eight or ten thousand fugitives from Canusium into Campania, and took his post at Casilinum. All commanders were instructed to keep to the defensive system of Fabius, and on no account to risk another battle.

§ 29. Meanwhile Hannibal had advanced through Samnium to Capua, where he found all prepared to receive him. The Senate, who were in the interest of Rome, were dismissed, and the chief power committed to a popular leader, named Pacuvius Calavius. Ilis first act was to seize on all Romans resident in the city and put them to death; he then made an agreement with Hannibal that no Carthaginian officer should exercise authority in Capua, but that all the magistrates, as heretofore, should be of their owii choice; and demanded that 300 Roman prisoners should be put into his hands as hostages for the safety of 300 Capuan knights who were serving in the Roman army in Sicily. Hannibal agreed to all their demands, and entered this great and wealthy city in triumph. One man only, by name Decius Magius, ventured to oppose the measures of Pacuvius. Hannibal treated him with magnanimous clemency, and contented himself with sending him off to Africa. The rest of the Roman party held their peace, and were suffered to remain in Capua.

§ 30. All Southern Italy had by this time declared in Hannibal’s favour. Most of tho Apulians, the Ilirpinian and Cau-dinian Samnites, the Surrentines, most of tho Lucanians, tho Bruttians, and all the Greek cities of the South which were not held by Roman garrisons, welcomed him as their deliverer. It seemed as if he were now about to realise his great project of raising Italy in insurrection against Rome.

lie was obliged to send detachments of his army into tlieso several districts; and he employed what small force he still retained in attempting to gain possession of the cities in the plains of Campania. Nuceria, Acerra, and some others submitted, as Capua had done. But Ncapolis and Cumae closed their gates; and the Senate of Nola, fearing that the people might rise against them, as at Capua, sent for Marcellus to Casilinum. This bold and enterprising officer threw himself into the city, and by a successful sally repulsed Hannibal from the gates. He then seized and executed seventy persons who were suspected of treason, and entrenched himself strongly in a fixed camp near the city. Hannibal being thus repulsed from Nola, determined to invest Casilinum, which from its close proximity to Capua was likely to prove a troublesome neighbour.⁸¹ The garrison held out obstinately; but as Marcellus dared not risk an action to relieve them, they were at length obliged to yield to the Carthaginian. This was almost the only town in Italy which he took by a regular siege.

§ 31. Hannibal now went into winter quarters at Capua, in expectation of receiving succours from home. Soon after the battle he had sent off his brother Mago to carry home the tidings of his great success. For three years he had pursued a career of victory unassisted by the Government: Rome was at his feet: he only-wanted force enough to crush her. In proof of the greatness of the victory of Cannae, Mago poured out on the Hoor of the Senate-house a bushel of gold rings, which had been w^Torn by Roman knights who had fallen on that fatal field. But the jealous Government, headed by a Hanno, the mortal enemy of the Barcine family, listened coldly to Mago’s words: they asked “ whether one Roman or Latin citizen had joined Hannibal ? He wanted men and money: what more could he want, had he lost the battle instead of winning it ?” At length, however, 'A was agreed that Mago should carry reinforcements to Hannibal. But the war in Spain soon assumed so threatening an aspect, that these succours were diverted to this nearer danger, and Mago was ordered to lead them to the support of his brother Hasdrubal in that country. All that reached Hannibal was a paltry force of 4000 Numidian horse, with about forty elephants, and a stinted supply of money.

§ 32. Perhaps the General had not expected much from this quarter. No doubt the person to whom he looked for chief support was his brother Hasdrubal in Spain. But here, too, lie was doomed to disappointment. It will be remembered that P. Scipio, the Consul of the year 218, when lie returned from Marseilles to Pisa, liad sent on his brother Cneius with proconsular command into Spain, according to the original orders of the Senate. Tho wisdom of this step was fully proved by the event. Cn. Scipio landed at Emporium (Ampurias), an old Greek colony. Within the year lie had driven llanno across the Ebro, and recovered the Roman dominion in Spain. In the next year, the year of Trasi-mene, ho defeated Ilasdrubal by sea, ravaged the coast up to the suburbs of New Carthage, and made large booty in one of the Balearic Isles. 1*. Scipio joined his brother towards the close of the same year; and by the time that the battle of Canna3 had made Hannibal master of Southcn Italy, the two brothers had subdued all Northern Spain.

§ 33. Hannibal’s hopes, therefore, of reinforcements for the next campaign rested with his new Italian allies. The additional cavalry and elephants from Carthage, would still give him the command of the open country. But the Romans had learnt Avisdom by sore experience, and Hannibal could not expect to win great victories, such as had marked his first three campaigns. What he wanted was a good engineer corps and siege apparatus, to tako the Latin Colonics and other Free Towns, which even in the districts that had joined him still maintained the cause of Rome. Why he did not employ his winter at Capua in organising a force of this nature wc know not. Whether it was that he thought Rome was too much weakened to make head against him, or whether the Italians were jealous of his authority, and, fearing to make him their master, never provided him with any efficient force, wc know not. The clear narrative of Polybius deserts us after the battle of Cannai; and the history of Livy, beautiful as it is, fails in all that precise information which would account for Hannibal’s apparent rcmissncss during the winter. But, whatever was the cause, he was never able to take towns by force; and tho Romans never gave him an opportunity of winning another great battle. Consequently all the Latin Colonics and Free Towns remained faithful to Rome, and Hannibal was only half master even of Southern Italy.

§ 34. The Romans, for their part, passed the winter in the most active preparations. The first step necessary was to fill up tho numerous vacancies caused in the Senate by the late disastrous battles. It appeared, on calling over the list, that no fewer than ono hundred and seventy-seven members were missing. Sp. Carvilius proposed to recruit the ranks of the Senate by admitting the chief citizens of the Latin towns, but this liberal proposal was not listened to ; and it was resolved to commit the whole business to tho care of a Dictator specially appointed for the purpose. The person chosen was M. Fabius Buteo, the same who had been sent as chief ambassador to Carthage in the year 219 b.c. He was an old man, universally respected; and the way he discharged the duty laid upon him gave great satisfaction. The bravest and the worthiest men were named as the new members. The Consuls elected for the ensuing year were T. Sempronius Gracchus and L. Postumius, who was now Pnetor commanding in Cisalpine Gaul. But before the Ides of March came the sad intelligence that Postumius, with all his army, had been cut off by the Gauls. Fabius Maximus himself was elected Consul for the third time, to supply his place. Marcellus and Varro were to remain in command as Proconsuls.

Yet to support the vast expenses of the war means were scanty, for the revenues of the whole of Southern Italy were cut off. The direct taxes were doubled; and to regulate the collection of this impost, three Commissioners* were appointed by a special law. The Praitors in Sicily and Sardinia were informed that they must raise money to pay their forces within their Provinces; and, fortunately for Rome, King Iliero of Syracuse supplied money to her treasury even in her most exhausted state. But he died at the close of this year,f and it was well known that both these provinces were on the eve of revolt.

§ 35. It must have been a further discouragement to find that Hannibal had entered into negociations with Philip King of Macc-don. The messengers of the King were taken on their way to Capua. For the present, therefore, the danger to be expected from this quarter was averted; but for the future the prospect was made more gloomy. Yet nothing availed to break the courage or shake the determination of the Senate.

Few things, probably, could mark the public feeling more than a law which was passed in the next year at the instance of the Tribune Oppius, by which it w^Tas forbidden that any woman should wear a gay-coloured dress, or lilave more than half an ounce of gold to ornament her person, and that none should approach within a mile of any city or town in a car drawn by horses. Public need must be very urgent before it is possible to restrain private expense by enactments so rigid as those of the Oppian Law.

§ ]. Fabius and his coadjutors. § 2. Plan of tho campaign on both sides. § 3. Gracchus attacks the Capuans: Marcellus sallies from Nola and defeats a division of tho Carthaginians. § 4. Fabius sets asido tho election of tho tribes. § 5. Order with respect to tho soldiers of Cannae. § C. Hanno, fails beforo Beneventum, Ilannibal beforo Tarentum. § 1. Uncertainty of Hannibal’s position in Southern Italy. § 8. War declared against Philip of Macedon. § 9. Insurrection in Sardinia. § 10. Death of Hiero, and revolt of Syracuse. § 11. Marcellus takes Leontini and begins siego of Syracuso. § 12. Extent of Syracuse. § 13. Vigorous defenco by Archimedes: general defection of tho Sicilian towns. § 14. Capture of Syracuso. § 15. War still maintained by Epicydes, with tho assistanco of tho African Mutin: Ovation of Marcellus. § 16. Lacvinus in Sicily; tho war ended by tho desertion of Mutin. § 11. Hannibal surprises Tarentum, and blockades tho Citadel. § 18. Capua besieged by Fulvius and Appius. § 19. Raised by Ilannibal: heavy losses sustained by several Roman commanders. § 20. Siego of Capua resumod: the placo completely invested. § 21. Hannibal’s endeavour to relievo it by a march upon Rome. § 22. Surrender and punishment of Capua. § 23. Prospects of Ilannibal. § 24. Tho war in Spain: defeat and death of tho two Scipios.

In times of danger and difficulty, tlie chief power of a Republic usually falls into the liands of a single man, who is thought capable of saving the state. At Rome, after the battle of Cannao, Q. Fabius Maximus became for some years the virtual chief of Senate and People. He was great-grandson of that Q. Fabius who won so high a name in the Second Samnite War. lie was already an old man; more than seventy summers had passed over his head. His disposition was so mild or so apathetic that he was known by the popular name of Ovicula, or the Lamb. His abilities seem not to have been great. His merit was that he had the hardihood to avow that the Roman militia were no match for Hannibal’s veterans, and the courage to act on his belief. The cautious system which he had practised after the battle of Lake Trasimene had excited discontent: but the great defeat of Cannae had most unhappily vindicated it. For some years it was rigorously carried out by commanders more skilful in war than Fabius himself.

Of these coadjutors the ablest was unquestionably M. Claudius Marcellus, who was called the Sword of Rome, as Fabius was called the Shield. He also was past the middle age, being at this time more than fifty. In his first consulship he had distinguished himself by a brilliant victory over the Insubrian Gauls ;⁸² and his name now stood very high, for having given the first check to Hannibal in his career of victory. Marcellus was a true Roman soldier, prompt and bold in action, resolute in adversity, stem and unyielding in disposition, blunt and illiterate, yet not without touches of finer feeling, as was proved at the siege of Syracuse.

With him must be mentioned Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, a man of humane arid kindly temper, and possessing high talents for command. Had he not been cut off so early, he might have rivalled the fame of Marcellus.

Q. Fulvius Flaccus, who, like Marcellus, had already been twice Consul, disdained not for the two following years to act as Praetor of the City. He enjoyed the confidence of Fabius and the Senate, and this officc gave him, in the continued absence of the Consuls, the whole management of the home government. He was not less than sixty years of age, discreet and cautious as Fabius himself, but more active, energetic, and relentless.

These and other able men kept Hannibal in check by acting on the defensive system of Fabius. When by this means the strength of the republic was recruited, Scipio came forward as tho author of an offensive system. But for the next few years, it is only nccessary to cast the eye over the list of Consuls, to sec how that office was limited to those whom Fabius, as the Senate’s Minister for War, approved.⁸³

§ 2. The plan of war now adopted was of the following kind. The two Consuls and a Proconsul were stationed in Campania, cacli with two legions and their auxiliary cohorts. In the present year Fabius took post on the Latin road, between Cales and Casili-num; Gracchus occupied the entrenched camp, which had been formed by Marcellus near Sinuessa; and Marcellus himself occupied a similar camp near Nola. Thus these commanders were always ready to harass Capua, and were also able to make forays into Samnium, Apulia, and Lucania, whenever Hannibal was absent. Their connexion with the sea was maintained by the great seaports of Naples and Cumze.

Hannibal, on the other hand, formed a strong camp on the ridge of Mount T^fata above Capua. But lie was often obliged to move his forces into the south, leaving the Capuans to defend themselves. He sent Hanno son of Bomilcar, with a small division, into Bruttii, to reassure his friends in that quarter, and collect recruits. The Greek towns of Locri and Croton fell into the hands of this commander ; but the Romans retained a firm hold of Rhegium, Thurii, Metapontum and Tarentum. We have no means of estimating the amount of Hannibal’s army ; but it may be inferred that it was small; we never find him able to act in force both in Campania and in the south.

§ 3. lie soon came in collision with the Consul Gracchus. This general was in his camp at Sinuessa, busily employed in training the two legions of slaves, who, by the name of Yolones or Volunteers, still served under his command. Here lie received information from the people of Cuma) that the Capuans were coming to hold a festival near their city, and he was enabled to fall upon the Capuans by night, and slaughter a great number. The news soon reached Hannibal, who descended from his camp, only to find Gracchus safe behind the walls of Cuma).

Wliile Gracchus was thus engaged at Cuma), Fabius had occupied his camp at Sinuessa, and Marcellus was making forays in the Samnite country. The sufferers sent earnest appeals for defence to Hannibal, who now appeared a second time before the walls of Nola, being induced by some of the popular party, which in all the cities was hostile to Rome, to hope that the place might be betrayed. But Marcellus made a well-timed sally, in which he cut off a large body of the Carthaginian army; and Hannibal, retiring in disappointment, went into winter quarters at Arpi in Apulia.

§ 4. Returning spring (214 b.c.) found Hannibal again in his camp on Tifata, and the same Roman commanders opposed to him. fabius was still Consul, with Marcellus for his colleague; while Gracchus had taken the place of the latter as Proconsul. The circumstance of the election of these Consuls deserves noting, because it shows how completely the people had surrendered their right of free choice into the hands of Fabius. The old Consul, on returning to hold the Comitia, purposely halted in the Campus Martius, and held the election without having entered the city. By this means he retained his Imperium, or absolute power. The Prerogative Century, which happened to be the Juniors of the An-iene tribe, gave their vote for M. ^Emilius Regillus and T. Otacilius Crassus. Otacilius was a nephew of Fabius, and had served as Prajtor in command of the fleet during the current j ear, but without much credit. Upon this vote being given, the old Consul stopped the proceedings and addressed the people. “ The Republic,” he said, “was struggling for existence; she was maintaining nearly twenty legions in Italy and Sicily and other quarters; and that with revenues diminished and citizens thinned ; what was the use of all their exertions if she committed her armies to untried men ? Therefore,” he concluded, “ go, Lictor, call back the Juniors of the Aniene tribe to give their vote anew.” All men felt that the old man had not only power, but reason on his side. The same Century which had voted for other men, now gave their voices for Fabius himself and Marcellus.

§ 5. At the same time the Senate gave an earnest of their stern determination by passing a decree that the soldiers of Cannae should be sent to act on the defensive in Sicily, without hope of honour and glory till the end of the war. And the Censors, in the course of this year, summoned before them Metellus and the others who had wished to desert the Republic after the defeat of Canna); and they were all deprived of their civic rights. .Provision was also made for supporting the continued drain upon the Treasury; but of this hereafter.

§ 6. Early in this campaign, Hannibal was cnticcd from Campanil by a message sent from certain friends whom lie had made within the walls of Tarcntum, and who now offered to betray that large and important town to him. Meanwhile lie ordered llanno to come up from Bruttii, for the purpose of covering Samnium and Campania. llanno seems to have had hopes of surprising the Roman colony of Bcnevcntum. But the Proconsul Gracchus threw himself into the town; ^u And now,” he told his Slavc-coldicrs, “ now the time was come when they might win their liberty. Every one who brought in an enemy’s head should be made free.” In the battle which followed, victory was long undetermined; till Gracchus proclaimed that without victory none should be enfranchised; but if they conquered, none should remain a slave. Thus the desperate conflict was determined in favour of the Romans, an4 Hanno, after great loss, made good his retreat back into the Bruttian territory. Then Gracchus fulfilled the promise made to his Voloncs, and celebrated their enfranchisement by a public festival, in which they all appeared wearing white caps in token of liberty. So pleased was their commander with the scene, that lie had a picture painted to commemorate it on the walls of the Temple of Liberty on the Aventine Hill.

Ilannibal, therefore, had the mortification to hear of this reverse, without the satisfaction of succeeding in his own expedition. For M. Valerius Laevinus, the Roman Praetor stationed at Brundusium, being informed of the plot to betray Tarcntum, threw a strong garrison into the place under the command of M. Livius, and the conspirators did not dare to attempt the fulfilment of their promises.

§ 7. The next year (213 b.c.) was still less fruitful in decisive events than the two foregoing. That is, it was favourable to the Romans; for to Hannibal’s cause inaction was fatal. And there arc not wanting indications to show that the Italians who had joined him began even now to falter in tlicir resolution, and to look with fearful eyes to the little progress lie had made since the battle of Canna), and to the tenacity with which the Romans kept hold of every city. Arpi in Apulia, Hannibal’s late winter quarters, was betrayed to Fabius the younger, who was now Consul, assisted by his father as legate.⁸⁴ The 300 Capuan knights who wore in the scrvico of Home at the time when their city threw itself into Hannibal’s arms, had shown their disapprobation of this step by enrolling themselves as citizens of Home; and about this time one hundred and twelve more of the came order came into the Roman camp at Sucssula. There can be no doubt that the aristocratic party, who had formed the municipal government of the communities in connexion with ftoine, were all against Hannibal. It was this party which maintained so many places in their old allegiance, and were ready to restore to Rome such places as had revolted at the first opportunity. But if the war in Italy languished, it had broken out with great vigour in other quarters. Hannibal’s skilful negociations had raised up enemies to Rome wherever his envoys could find an opening—in Macedonia, in Sardinia, in Sicily.

§ 8. It has been mentioned that the first letters of Philip king of Macedon to Hannibal had been intercepted by the Romans; and it was the fear of an attack from this quarter that had induced them to station Lsevinus with a fleet at Brundusium. A second embassy was more successful, and an alliance was concluded by Hannibal with the king, by which the latter bound himself to send an auxiliary force to support the Carthaginians in Italy. But Laevinus and his successors carried the war into Philip’s own neighbourhood, and took their measures with so much skill and energy that the promised succours were never sent.

§ 9. In Sardinia an insurrection broke out in the year after Cannae. Q. Fulvius, the City-Prsctor, was ordered to provide for its suppression, with leave to appoint any commander whom he thought fit. He straightway made choice of T. Manlius Torquatus, a man as stern and uncompromising as himself, who in his Consulship twenty years before had first conquered the island. The old general landed with little delay, and in one decisive battle completely restored Sardinia to subjection.

§ 10. Affairs in Sicil}^r gave much more trouble. Indeed in the years 211 and 212 this island became the chief scat of the war. Hicro, the old king of Syracuse, who for fifty years had never faltered in his alliance with Rome, had died soon after the fatal day of Canna). He was succeeded by his grandson Hieronymus, a youth of fifteen years of age, whose imagination was captivated by the brilliant career of Hannibal. The able Carthaginian soon availed himself of the opportunity which thus presented itself to send over agents, into whose hands the young prince completely surrendered himself. These were two brothers named Hippocrates and Epicydes, Syracusan Greeks by descent, but natives of Carthage. The young King, however, after a little more than a year’s reign, was assassinated by a gang of obscure conspirators in the main street of Leontini. A republic was immediately proclaimed at Syracuse: and shortly after, all the remaining members of the royal family were massacred with circumstances of singular atrocity. The question now was whether the new government should side with Koine or Carthage. The brothers, Hippocrates and Epicydes, had at first resolved to return to Hannibal; but they changed their plan, and pretending to fall in with the views of the conspirators, were elected Generals-in-Cliief with several others. Yet the popular feeling seems to have inclined towards Rome; and when App. Claudius the Prator, who had been watching the course of events from Murgantia, a seaport about thirty miles north of Syracuse, appeared off⁸⁵ the harbour with a squadron of 100 ships, it was agreed to conclude a treaty with Rome.

Before long, however, Hippocrates, true to the interests of his master, contrived to leave Syracuse with a body of troops. He repaired to Leontini, and here he was soon joined by his brother Epicydes. They then threw off* the mask; and the Leontines declared themselves independent of Syracuse.

This was probably late in the year 214 b.c. And about that time the Consul Marcellus arrived to take the command of the army in Sicily; for Appius foreseeing that war was at hand, had sent despatches to the Senate early in the year.

§11. Marcellus, without delay, laid siege to Leontini, and took the town by assault. He did what he could to spare the inhabitants ; but lie was guilty of a piece of most imprudent severity in scourging and putting to death as deserters 2000 of the garrison, who had once been in the service of Rome. It appears that the troops whom Iliero had sent over to the succour of Rome, had returned home on the death of that prince, and that these men were now in the Syracusan army. When they heard of the cruel death of their comrades at Leontini, they lent a ready ear to the persuasion of Hippocrates and Epicydes, who had escaped from Leontini and now turned the severity of Marcellus to good account. These two adventurers were elected sole Generals, and Syracuse closed her gates against Rome. Marcellus made somo fruitless attempts at negociation; and finally commenced the siego of Syracuse.

§ 12. The city of Syracuse'had been greatly enlarged since the Athenian expedition.* The island of Ortygia liad become tho citadel, and the suburb along the sea-coast, called Achradina, was now part of the town. The rugged triangular surface called Epipolae was well fortified, and its northern approaches, especially, were strongly defended by a fort called Hexapylum.

§ 13. Marcellus at first attempted to take the city by assault⁸⁶ lie himself attacked the sea-wall of Achradina, while Appius attempted to force Hexapylum. The Romans wefe always famous for their skill in the attack and defence of fortifications, and Marcellus was well provided with engines of all kinds. But within the walls was an engineer more skilful than any they possessed. Archimedes, the most celebrated mathematician of ancient times, was now 75 years old, but age had not quenched the inventive vigour of his mind. He was so devoted to abstruse calculations, that sometimes he forgot even to take his meals; yet speculation had not unfitted him for practical pursuits. He had been the friend of Hiero and therefore of Rome; yet his patriotism burnt with steady flame, and the enemy of his country was his enemy. Marvellous are the stories told of the engines which he invented to thwart the assaults of the Romans, both by sea and land. The whole wall was armed with ballists and catapults of immense power, so that the ships dared not come within shot. If they ventured to get close under the walls, favoured by the darkness of night, they were galled by a fire from myriads of loopholes, and nearly crushed by enormous stones let drop from the battlements. Then one end of the ship was grasped by an “ iron hand” let down from a projecting crane, which suddenly lifted it up, and as suddenly let it go, so that first one end and then the other was plunged in the water. It is said also, that burning-glasses of great power were so placed as to set on fire ships which approached within their reach. This is probably a fiction.* But.thus much is certain, that Marcellus at length gave up all hopes of taking the city by storm, and commenced to blockade it by regular lines of circumvallation. After many months the Romans were as far from taking Syracuse as ever.

Meantime, the Roman cause was daily losing ground in Sicily. Even Murgantia, the head-quarters of the fleet, surrendered to Carthage: and Enna, a very strong fortress, was only prevented from doing likewise by the prompt cruelty of the Commandant, who massacred the whole of its inhabitants. Bui this barbarous act, though efficacious on the <spot, served still more to alienate the Sicilians from Itome. Agrigcntnm surrendered, and numerous other towns threw off the yoke.

§ 14. But there was treason within the walls of Syracuse. Marcellus at length succeeded in scaling the walls of Ilcxapylum by night, when by reason of a festival they were left unguarded, lie soon gained possession of the whole upper city; and as he gazed from the heights of Epipola) on the “fair view beneath him, even his rude nature was so affected by the beauty of the scene and the greatness of his success, that he burst into a flood of tears.

The southern quarters of the town surrendered to him; but Epicydes, with his army, drew within Achradina, and prepared for a desperate defence. Hippocrates, who had gone to obtain succours from Carthage, soon returned with a considerable force. But Marcellus lay safe within the Upper City, and the army of Hippocrates, which encamped on the marshy ground at the mouth of the Anapus, was soon thinned by disease, as the hot weather came on ; and among the dead was Hippocrates himself. Still the sea was open, and a fleet was daily expected from Carthage under the command of Bomilcar. At length the Admiral came in view; but the Roman squadron put out to meet him; and great was the disappointment of Epicydes, when he saw the Carthaginian fleet bear away towards Italy. He left the city secretly and fled to Agrigcntum.

Many of the garrison were deserters from the Romans, who could expect little mercy from the severe Marcellus. But the rest, when they found themselves deserted by their General, slew their officers, and put themselves under Meric, a Spaniard, and Sosis, one of the murderers of Hieronymus. These men admitted Marcellus by night within the walls of Achradina. Next morning, the city was given up to plunder; and in the massacre which followed,* Archimedes was slain by a soldier, whose question he did not answer, being absorbed in a geometrical problem. For the honour of Marcellus, it should be recorded that he was deeply grieved by this mischance, that he gave honourable burial to the corpse of the philosopher, and showed great kindness to his relations. The royal treasure was reserved for the State; and the exquisite works of the Grecian chisel which adorned the splendid city were sent to Rome, to begin that system of plunder which enriched Rome at the expense of Greece. The people were treated with more mildness than usual;

* "When tho Romans took a town by assault, they commenced an indiscriminate slaughter of every living thing, dogs included. Thi3 was what so horrified tho Greeks of Sicily. Sco Polyb. x. 15.

and yet wliat was that mildness, that sold tlic mass of tlic citizens into slavery, and drove numbers starving into the fields!

§ 15. Thus fell Syracuse, in the summer of 212 b.c., after a siege of nearly two years. But though Syracuse was taken, Sicily was not conquered. It will be well to anticipate events a little, so as to finish our narrative of this war in this place.

Epicydes, who had escaped to Agrigentum, continued his ceaseless activity, and "persuaded the Carthaginian Government to send out another large force under the command of a general named Hanno.⁸⁷ Hannibal also sent over an officer named Mutin or Mutton, who henceforth became the sonl of the war in Sicily.f This man was a half-bred Carthaginian : and the African blood in his veins degraded him as much in the eyes of pure Carthaginians, as the taint of black blood degrades a man in the United States. But his abilities as a soldier made Hannibal overlook vain distinctions, and Mutin took the command of the Numidian horse in the army of Hanno and Epicydes. With such skill did he use this formidable cavalry, that Marcellus rather lost ground than_#gained it. But Hanno was jealous of the upstart commander, and took occasion to give battle to the Romans during his absence. Marcellus accepted the challenge, and gained a signal victory.

This was in the year 211 B.C.; and the Proconsul, not wishing to tarnish his laurels by the chance of another encounter with the dreaded Mutin, went straight home and claimed a triumph. But tlic Senate, finding that Sicily still continued in full revolt, refused this demand; and Marcellus, notwithstanding his successes, was obliged to remain contented with a splendid Ovation.

§ 16. In the next year (210 b.c.) Valerius Laevinus took the command in Sicily. How long the war might have continued it is hard to say, for Mutin still continued to defy the Romans. But in an evil hour, the jealousy of Hanno led him to deprive his able subordinate of his command, upon which the hot-blooded African immediately put himself at the head of lm faithful Numidians, and threw open tlic gates of Agrigentum to tho Roman Consul. Hanno and Epicydes escaped to Carthage, leaving the army an easy prey to the Roman Legions. The town was sacked and plundered, and the inhabitants reduced to slavery. And in a short time Laevinus was able to send despatches to the Senate, reporting the entire submission of all Sicily. Mutin, as well as Meric and Sosis, was made a Roman citizcn, and rcccivcd 500 jugcra of Statc-land. His Numidian horse took service with Rome.

§ 17. It is now time to return to Italy, where the war had also resumed a more active form. Early in the year 212 b.c. Hannibal once more marched southward to Tarcntum, and this time with better success than before. lie encamped at a distance of about three miles, and was constantly visited by two young Greeks, who left the city under pretence of hunting, and repaired to Hannibal’s camp to concert measures for delivering the city into his hands. The place was very strong, as the description before given of it will show.⁸⁸ It was by the landward side that the conspirators proposed to admit Hannibal; and the time they chose was a night on which it was well known that M. Livius, the Commandant, would be engaged in a drinking-bout. The Romans went to bed in drunken security, and at daybreak found the city in the hands of the Carthaginians. Great part of the garrison was put to the sword; but Livius, with the survivors, made good his escape to the Citadel. Hannibal immediately took measures for besieging it; and the Tarentines, having dragged their ships over-land from the harbour into the open sea, were enabled to blockade it both by sea and land. It was about this time that Bomilcar arrived at Tarcntum, with the licet destined to relieve Syracuse. And Hannibal, having thus received considerable reinforcements, was enabled to resume active operations against the Romans.

§ 18. Meanwhile, the Consuls—Appius Claudius and old Q. Fulvius Flaccus—were preparing to besiege Capua. Gracchus, with his Yoloncs, was stationed in Lucania; one l’rcetor, Claudius Nero, occupied the old camp at Sucssula; another, Cn. Fulvius, brother of the Consul, lay in Apulia. The Capuans, fearing they should bo cut off from all supplies, sent a hasty message to Hannibal at Tarcntum ; and he straightway sent orders to provision the town, in case it should be besieged before he could come, llanno executed his difficult task with success; but near Bcnc-vcntum, the Consuls fell upon llanno, and captured all the supplies. He was obliged to retire once more into Bruttii, and leave Capua to its fate.

§ 19. The Roman armies now began to close round that devoted city. But they were destined to suffer heavy losses before they were able to invest it. First, Gracchus, who was coming northwards from Lucania to reinforce the Consuls, was slain in an ambuscade, and his Yoloncs, so long faithful to their favourite leader, dispersed and fled, cach man to his own home.

Next, Hannibal himself once more appeared in Campania. He had already sent Mago with a division of cavalry to encourage the Capuans; and now he entered the city in person without the knowledge of the Consuls. He was in high spirits at his successes in the South. Not only Tarentum, but also Meta-pontum and Thurii, had joined him; and though Syracuse had fallen, the war was still raging fiercely in Sicily, But the Roman. Commanders were cautious; and Hannibal, finding he could not bring on a battle, was anxious to return to press the siege of the citadel of Tarentum, which the Romans had succeeded In reinforcing. He went by way of Lucania, and on his route met a Roman army, commanded by M. Centenius, an old centurion, who had collected an army, and with equal courage and folly attempted to bar Hannibal’s 'march. He fell as a valiant soldier should fall; and many thousand brave men paid the penalty of trusting to his promises. Hannibal now passed the mountains into Apulia; and here, near Ilerdonea, he surprised the Praitor, Cn. Fulvius. He was like Centenius in rashness, but unlike him in being a profligate and a coward. In this action, also, many thousand Romans were cut to pieces. Fulvius was afterwards brought to trial, and obliged to go into exile to save his life.

§ 20. But notwithstanding these thick-coming losses, the Consuls held to their resolution of blockading. Capua. No sooner was Hannibal’s back turned than they again appeared before the city; and before the expiration of the year the lines of circumvallation were completed. The armies of Rome always contained good workmen; their common agricultural habits accustomed them to the use of the spade; the great works that had for gome time been going on, roads and aqueducts, had trained a number of men for military work. Yet the rapidity with which the vast extent of lines necessary to enclose a great city like Capua was completed, cannot but surprise us. These lines were secured by a double wall, and care was taken to supply the besiegers with provisions.

§ 21. The Consuls for the next year (211 n.c.) were not allowed to supersede Appius and Fulvius: to them was left the glory of completing well what they had well begun.

When the Capuans found themselves blockaded, their spirits foil, and they sent an urgent message to Hannibal. In an assault upon the Roman lines, he was beaten off with loss. And now only one hope remained. It was possible that, if lie threatened Rome itself, the besieging army might be recalled to defend tho capital. Accordingly, lie sent the Capuans notice of his purpose by means of a pretended deserter, and the next morning the Proconsuls saw his camp on Mount Tifata empty. They

thought, probably, that lie had returned to the South. But they soon discovered the truth from country people, who cainc in full of horror to tell that Hannibal’s wild Numidians and monstrous elephants were in full route for Home. Fulvius sent word to the Senate of this fearful visitation ; and the opinion of Fabius was unanimously adopted, that one of the Proconsuls should be recalled to defend the city with part of his army and the City Legions, while the other was left to maintain the blockade of Capua. Accordingly, Fulvius marched straight to Rome by the Appian road, while llannibal took the line of the Latin road, and then probably crossed the Anio, to avoid the thick-studded cities and colonics which might have barred his passage. Fulvius, therefore, arrived at Rome before Hannibal descended from the North, and encamped within a mile or two of the city. The consternation at Rome was in some measure quelled by the arrival of Fulvius; and still more, when Hannibal himself, after riding up to the Collinc gate, and then skirting the walls, was attacked by the old Proconsul, and obliged to fall back upon his camp. It is said, that while he lay there, the land occupied by his camp was put up to sale and bought at a price not at all below its value. Hannibal laughed, and bade an auctioneer put up the * silversmiths’ shops in the Forum for sale. But though he put a bold face upon the matter, lie felt in his heart that he had failed. Rome was able to defend licrself, and yet had left a sufficient force at Capua to continue the blockade.

The line of his retreat is as uncertain as that of his advance. It is known, however, that he conducted his army through Apulia into Bruttii, which became henceforth his liead-quartcrs in Italy.

§ 22. Meantime, Fulvius had returned to the lines round Capua, full of exultation. Time wore on, and famine began to oppress the wretched inhabitants. IIow long the desperate resistance was prolonged we know not. But at length it appeared manifest that surrender must ensue within a few hours; upon which Yibius Virrius, one of the insurgent chiefs, gave a splendid banquet to all Senators w^Tho would partake of it. Twenty-seven came, and when the feast was over, a poisoned cup went round, in which the guests pledged their host. They went home to die; and next morning the city was surrendered. The savage old Q. Fulvius determined to wreak a bloody vengeance upon the leaders of tho insurgents. Five-and-twenty were sent to Calcs, to Teanum cight-and-twcnty, there to await their doom. In vain did Appius plead for milder measures. Fulvius heeded no intercession. On the morning after the capture, he rode in person to Teanum, and saw all the prisoners beheaded. He

then galloped off to Cales; but when the prisoners there were being bound, a messenger from Rome brought him letters from the Senate, lie put them into his bosom, and ordered the executions to proceed. When all the heads had fallen, lie opened the letters, which contained orders to reserve the prisoners for the judgment of the Senate. Others of the chief men were imprisoned, and all the commoner sort were sold into slavery. The city itself was confiscated to Rome. The future settlers, for the most part freedmen and. slaves, were allowed no power of self-government, a Prefect being sent every year from Rome, who ruled them with arbitrary sway.⁸⁹ Such was the terrible fate of a revolted city in the best times of the Roman Republic.

Other revolted cities of Campania suffered a like fate. But it is worth remarking, that when the Consuls returned home, they were refused a triumph. No Roman general, it was said, deserved a triumph for merely recovering what once belonged to the Republic.

§ 23. The fall of Syracuse and Capua had given a decided superiority to the Roman arms in Italy.f Yet, though Hannibal was at present so weak that he could not leave the South, nor give effectual succour to his Campanian allies, there were many causes to give him hopes of retrieving his fortunes. The diversion made by sending Mutin to Sicily had proved most successful, and it was not till a year later that the folly of Hanno betrayed the cause of Carthage in that island. Though the Citadel of Tarentum still held out, that great city itself, with the rest of Magna Gracia, except Rhegium, had joined Hannibal; and if the Greeks of Sicily should be permanently attached to his interests, he might hope at length that Philip of Macedon would come over to oppose the common enemy.

§ 24. But the quarter to which he looked for most effectual aid was Spain. For a long time the successes of the Scipios had cut off all hope of succour from his brother Ilasdrubal. These successes continued, notwithstanding the arrival of Mago with reinforcements from Carthage; and the Romans at one time penetrated into the valley of the Guadalquivir. Many of the Celtiberian Tribes enlisted under their banners, eager to try a change of masters. Syphax, a Prince of the Numidian:, formed an alliance with them, and they seemed thus early to have formed the design of carrying the war into Africa. In the year 212 B.C., the same which witnessed the fall of Syracuse and the investment of Capua, the two brothers entertained high hopes of a successful campaign. They had wintered in the Celtiberian country, and now divided their armies; Cn. Scipio marching against Hasdrubal, the brother of Ilannibal, and Publius directing his course against a second Carthaginian army, under another Hasdrubal and Mago. But the Celtiberians in the army of Cneius deserted to their old commander ; and the Roman Proconsul was in full retreat when he heard that liis brother Publius had been surprised and slain with a great portion of his army. The united Carthaginian armies now threw themselves on the retreating army of Cn. Scipio. lie fell fighting bravely, with most of his officers. The remains of the Roman armies were collected by a brave knight, by name L. Marcius. But though he made good his retreat, it is not too much to say that the defeat and death of the two Scipios gave back to the Carthaginians all that they had lost in Spain since the departure of Hannibal.

Tlie road now lay open for Hasdrubal to lead a large force to the assistance of his brother in Italy, and enable him to resume that superiority which he had lately lost. Notwithstanding his losses, however, it must not be forgotten that no Roman General had dared to meet him in a fair field of battle since Canna). What might he not hope when largely reinforced ? It belongs to the history of the next period to show how irremediably theso hopes were blighted.

§ I. Depressed state of Rome. § 2. Renewed Discontent with tho Fabian system: Election of Consuls for 210 B.C. § 3. M. Yalerius Laevinus. § 4. Immense armies kept on foot. § 5. Financial measures to raise money. §6. Patriotic Loan. § *7. Caution of Marcellus. §8. Laevinus : quarrel with tho Senate. § 9. Twelve of tho Thirty Latin Colonies refuse any longer to contribute to the war. § 10. Tarentum recovered from Hannibal by Fabius. § 11. Dissatisfaction. § 12. Marcellus killed. § IB.. His colleague Crispinus only lives long enough to name a Dictator: apprehensions of Hasdrubal’s invasion. § 14. M. Claudius Nero and M. Livius Salinator elected Consuls for 20*7 B.C., to meet Hasdrubal. § 15. March of Hasdrubal: his delay at Placentia. § 16. His despatches to Hannibal intercepted: Nero marches to join Livius in Umbria. § 17. Hasdrubal returns: overtaken by the Romans on the Metaurus. § 18. Battle of tho Metaurus. § 19. Joy at Rome. § 20. Grief of Hannibal: he retires into tho Bruttian territory. § 21. Triumph of the Consuls: tho first sinco tho beginning of tho War.

§ 2. It is evident that mutterings of discontent were beginning to arise at the .manner in which the war had been conducted by Fabius. and his friends. The bitter lesson of Canna) had taught the necessity of caution, and proved that, to act with success against Ilaunibal, they must act on the defensive only. But was this system to last for ever? Were they never to meet Hannibal in the field ? Thoughts like these, no doubt, suggested the experiment of electing a popular Consul for tin year 210 b.c. When the votes of the Prerogative Century were taken, it appeared that the men of their choice were old T..Manlius Torquatus, the conqueror of Sardinia, and that same T. Otacilius who had been ousted from his Consulship five years before by his uncle Fabius. He was doomed to like treatment a second time, though he did not live to hear of it. For Manlius immediately rose and declined the Consulship for himself: “ho was,” he said, “ old and nearly blind : a general should be able to use his own eyes. They must choose other and better men.”. The Century, after some hesitation, obeyed, and gave one of their votes for Marcellus, as no doubt Fabius and the Senate wished, while they bestowed tho other upon M. Valerius Lsevinus, who had served the State well in the conduct of the war against Philip of Macedon. ' .

§ 3. Valerius probably owed his choice to the fact that he was not disposed to submit to Fabius and Fulvius. An opportunity soon arose for showing this. As he passed through Capua on his way to Rome, where he had not been for several years,⁹⁰ the Campanians, smarting under the severe dominion of Fulvius, earnestly besought him to let them follow in his train, that they might lay their grievances before tbe Senate. The old Proconsul growled, but at length allowed them to go with Larvinus. When the Consul arrived at Rome, ho was greeted by a deputation of Sicilians, who had heard with alarm that the imperious Marcellus was about to return to their island with Consular authority. The affairs of both peoples were brought before the Senate. As to the Campanians, the Fathers confirmed in all respects the stern edicts of Fulvius; and not unjustly, for of all cities Capua had been most generously treated by Rome: her rebellion had been prompted, not by love of liberty (for she was already free), but by lust for power. Capua, therefore, now became a Prefecture. On the other hand, Marcellus at once gave up his Sicilian province to his colleague Lffivinus, and agreed to take the command in Italy against Hannibal; and the Senate, though they ratified the previous measures of Marcellus, now recommended the Sicilians to the special care of Laevinus. Upon this, the Sicilian Envoys⁹¹ fearing the future anger of Marcellus, fell at his feet and entreated him to take them as his clients* For many years the Marcelli, his descendants, are found as patrons and protectors of the island*

§ 4. Before the Consuls took the field, they were called upon to meet the financial difficulties under which the state was labouring. The force which had been maintained by Rome now for many years was very large, and the cost enormous. The number of Legions kept on foot since the battle of Cannae had averaged about twenty; so that the number of soldiers, legionaries and allied, amounted to nearly 200,000 men. While the expenditure was thus prodigiously increased, the revenues were greatly diminished: and it is a recorded fact, that about this time com had risen to many times its ordinary price.* ,

§ 5. Hitherto the difficulties had been met by various expedients. Early in the war the Senate had simply doubled all existing imposts. The commanders in Sardinia and Sicily were told that they must subsist their troops from the resources of those provinces. The Seipios in Spain had for some time done likewise. But in the year after Cannae, these commanders had written to- say that they were destitute of all tilings—money, food, and clothing. Upon this, the Senate proposed to the contractors to supply the required stores, and wait for payment till the end of the war,' it being understood that whatever was shipped from Italy was to be paid for, whether the vessel reached its destination or not. This offer was readily accepted; but some of the contractors were guilty of a fraud, disgraceful enough at any time, but at a time when the State was struggling for very existence, utterly detestable. ’ These wretched men put a quantity of worthless stores on board crazy vessels, which were purposely lost on their passage, and then claimed payment in full, according to their contract. ^rIJie fraud, however, was discovered, and these unworthy citizens were obliged to seek refuge in dishonourable exile.

Contracts taken-on such terms were, in fact, a loan to tho State. The contractors advanced their property for the service of the State, and received in exchange a ticket promising them

payment at some future time. Till then they lent her their goods, and held her promissory note as a security.

In the same manner, the owners of the eight thousand slaves who were enlisted by Gracchus, gave up their slaves to tlie State, and waited for payment till the Treasury was replenished.

Both these transactions took place in the year 215 b.c. In the following year (214 b.c.) the Senate were obliged to borrow money in a more direct form. The fortunes of minors and widows, which were in the hands of guardians or trustees, were now advanced to the State, all expenses incurred on the part of the owners being discharged by orders upon the Treasury:* These. Treasury Bills (as they may be called) were probably taken in payment by the tradesmen and others, who did not press to have them exchanged for coin till it was convenient for the Treasury to do so. In these loans it does not appear that the State allowed any interest upon the goods or money advanced. It is probable that the bills or orders upon the Treasury continued in use as money, like our Bank-notes.

In the same year (214 b.c.) an extraordinary measure had been taken for manning the fleets. All citizens, except the poor, were required to furnish one or more seamen, with six months’ pay and tlieir full accoutrements. Senators were called upon to equip eight, and the rest in proportion to their rated ¹ property. Such was the Roman “ Ship-money.”

§ G. The necessities of the present year (210) were greater than ever. Every resource seemed to be exhausted. . Among other means, the coinage had been gradually lowered in value. The As, which had originally been a pound weight, of copper, had now been diminished to one-sixth of that weight; and all payments for the Treasury were no doubt made in this depreciated coinage. The usual results of such measures had followed. A temporary relief was gained. But the prices of all articles were raised to meet the change, and public credit was shaken.

In these difficulties, the Senate proposed again to levy ship-money. But the people were in no mood to bear it. They had been much impoverished in the last four years; continued increase of taxation had drained their resources; continued service in the army had prevented the proper cultivation of their, lands; the marauding march of Hannibal in the year before had ruined many. The ferment caused by this new impost assumed a very formidable appearance. The Senate met to deliberate, and the Consul Lasvinus proposed that the great Council should

* A qucestoro perscribebantur (Liv. xxiv. 19). For tho uso of the term perscribere or rescribere, to pay by an order or noto of hand, seo Terent., Phorm. v. *7, 30, with tho notes. •

set an example of patriotic devotion. “ Let us,” said he, “ contribute all our treasure for the service of the State. Let us reserve —of gold, only our rings, the bullae worn by our sons, and for the ornaments of our wives and daughters one ounce apiece,—of silver, the trappings of our horses, the family salt-cellar, and a small vessel for the service of the gods,—of copper, five thousand pounds for the necessities of each family.” This proposal was carried by acclamation, and the noble example followed emulously by all the people. So eager was the throng which pressed to the Treasury, that the clerks were unable to make a full register of the names. This Patriotic Loan (for it was intended that it should be repaid hereafter) saved the State; and it was even more valuable in the spirit which it called forth, than for the actual relief which it afforded to the Treasury.

§ 7. The Consuls now took the field. Marcellus arrived in Sainnium only to hear that Cn. Fulvius Centumalus, the last year’s Consul, had shared the fate of his namesake and predecessor, Cn. Fulvius Flaccus, and had been cut off with the greater part of his army at Herdonea.⁹² The unhappy relics of this force were sent to be added to the remains of the army of Cannaj, which the relentless Senate still kept in banishment in Sicily. Marcellus cautiously advanced to Venusia, and so dogged Hannibal’s footsteps that he was unable to strike another blow. The town of Salapia in Apulia, where lived a lady whom Hannibal loved too well, and who is said to have more than once detained him from the field, was betrayed to Marcellus, as Arpi had been to Fulvius, and was another example of the altered feeling of the Italians.

§ 8. Lajvinus, as has above been mentioned, was enabled by a stroke of good luck to finish the war in Sicily with ease and credit; and he returned to Rome accompanied by the redoubtable Mutin. Before he left Sicily he had sent over his fleet to examine the coasts of Africa. The officer despatched on this service learnt that the Carthaginian Government were actively engaged in collecting troops to be placed under Hasdrubal’s command for a second invasion of Italy from the North; and he immediately forwarded this intelligence to the Consul at Rome. The Senate were so much alarmed that they ordered Lajvinus to return instantly to his province without waiting to preside at the Comitia. He was to name a Dictator for that purpose; and the person submitted to him for nomination was old Q. Fulvius, the Governor of Capua. Laevinus, however, refused to

name his personal enemy; upon which the ruling party referred the matter to the People, who peremptorily ordered the Consul to name Fulvius, and no one else. But Lsevinus, to avoid this necessity, had already left Rome; and the Fathers were obliged to send for Marcellus to execute their orders. AVhen the old Dictator held the Comitia, the Prerogative Tribe gave its vote for Fulvius himself and Fabius. An objection was taken ly two of the Tribunes, who were of the party opposed lo Fabius, that a presiding magistrate could not allow himself to be cleeted. But this, like many other ordinances, was overruled at this critical season by the Senate, and the election proceeded. The next year was to see Hannibal confronted with the three men reputed to be the ablest commanders in Rome, Fabius and Fulvius the Consuls, and Marcellus as Proconsul. It was hoped that by their united efforts the enemy might be crushed before the arrival of Ilasdrubal and his Spaniards.

§ 9. But the result was not equal to men’s expectations. In the very outset of this year (209 b.c.) the levies were delayed by a circumstance which looked even more threatening than the financial difficulties of the previous year. The Latin Colonics, now Thirty in number, have been mentioned as the chief stays of Roman power in the subject provinces of Italy. They had hitherto borne the toils and expenses of the war as unrepiningly as Rome herself. What then was the alarm of the Consuls and the Senate, when Twelve of the Thirty openly declined to comply with the requisition to furnish their contingents for the armies of this year. The refusal was due in part no doubt to exhaustion and poverty; but it was partly caused by anger at the fact, that most of the defeated soldiers of Centumalus who had lately been banished to Sicily were citizens of their towns. The Consuls at first endeavoured to reason with them, but in vain; and when the deputies of the other Eighteen Colonies, which comprised all the largest and most important places,⁹³ declared their stcdfast and unaltered allegiance, they determined to pass the matter over for the present, saying that they would not deign to ask assistance from those who would not give it willingly.

To provide for. the current expenses, a large, treasure of gold, which had been reserved for the emergency of another Gallic war, was now first invaded.

§ 10. Fulvius resumed his station at Capua; Marcellus was to engage Hannibal’s attention in Apulia, while old Fabius mado an attempt to rccovcr Tarentum. Marcellus found his enemy at Canusium; and a series of indecisive actions followed, in which (although the Roman annalists claim the advantage for their, hero) it is plain that he must have suffered greatly; for he remained inactive during the rest of the campaign. But fortunately for Fabius’ attempt upon Tarentum, Hannibal’s presence was required in Bruttii to defend his allies from a band of Free Mercenaries, who, formerly in the service of the Carthaginians in Sicily, had now been engaged by Lajvinus, and sent to Rhegiuni to harass their old masters. The appearance of the great General was enough to scare these marauders into submission; but scarcely was this done, when he heard the news that Fabius had sate down before Tarentum. Instantly he put his army in motion, and marched day and night to relieve this important city. But he was too late. By treachery he had won the place, and by treachery he lost it. The officer in command at Tarentum was a Bruttian. This man had a mistress, sister to an Italian serving in the army of Fabius: she it was who persuaded him to open the gates to the Consul; and Hannibal, while yet upon his march, heard this disastrous news. The old Consul gave up the despised city of the Greeks to be plundered by his soldiers, reserving the public treasure for the service of the State. But when he was asked whether he would have the statues and works of art taken to Rome, after the example set by Marcellus at Syracuse, “ No,” lie said, “ let the Tarentines keep their angry gods.”

Besides the recovery of Tarentum, the Samnites and Lucanians, lonnr wavering, again returned to their allegiance, and were restored by Fulvius to their position as allies without any notice being taken of their revolt.

§ 11. Notwithstanding this, men were dissatisfied with the result of the campaign. Three consular armies had not sufficed to defeat Hannibal; Marcellus, reputed their best general, seemed to have suffered a defeat. But the party who murmured against Fabius and his friends were as yet feeble, even among the people. Very lately Lajvinus had been compelled to relinquish his opposition to that great party; and when Marcellus appeared before the people, and gave a narrative of his services, all men’s hearts were turned, and not only was he forgiven freely, but was even elected Consul for the ensuing year (208 B.C.). His colleague was T. Quinctius Crispinus, who had served under him in Sicily.

Old Fabius had just completed his public life. The capturo of Tarentum was his greatest exploit, and it was his last; an honourable close to an honourable career. Marcellus, so long his friend and compeer, was destined to close not only his military career, but Iiis life, a few weeks later.

§ 12. The defection of the Italians had no doubt weakened Hannibal, and the two Consuls determined to throw themselves upon him with their conjoint force, in order (if possible) to break the charm which seemed to protect the Carthaginian from defeat. They found him near Yenusia, and every day they drew out their forces before liis camp and offered him battle. But the odds were too great even for Hannibal, and he kept close within his intrencliments. It happened that between his camp and that of the Consuls there was a hill which .Marcellus thought it desirable to occupy. Accordingly lie rode tip to the top, accompanied by his colleague and a small detachment of cavalry, unconscious that a large body of Numidian horse were lurking in the woods below. In a moment the Consuls were surrounded. Marcellus was run through by the spear of one of these wild horsemen, and fell dead from his horse; Crispinus cscaped mortally wounded to his camp. As soon as Hannibal heard of this great stroke of good luck, he hastened to the scene of conflict, and saw with his own eyes his ablest antagonist lying dead before him. His conduct proved the true nobility of his nature. He showed no triumph : but simply drew the gold ring from the dead man’s finger, saying: “ There lies a good soldier but a bad general.” He then ordered tho corpse to receive • n soldier’s burial. Like his father Hamilcar, lie warred not with the dead, but with the living. .

§ 13. Great was the consternation at Rome when intelligence of this untoward event arrived. The Consul Crispinus lived just long enough to be carried in a litter to Capua, where he was on Iloman ground, and could therefore execute tho command of the Senate to name a Dictator. He named old Manlius Torquatus. < But no attempt was made to molest Hannibal again this year. Torquatus only exercised his office in holding Comitia for the election of new Consuls. The occasion was a grave one. Never before, since the beginning of the Republic, had shebeen bereft • of both her Consuls at one blow. But in order to understand the full importance of the choice which the people were now required to make, it must be mentioned that Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, had already set out upon his march from Spain, and in a short time might be expected to arrive in Italy.

§ 13. All noticc of the Spanish war since, the death of the two Scipios has purposely been deferred. Here it will bo enough to say, that soon after that event, the Senate, well understanding the importance of maintaining the war in Spain, and anxious (if it might be) to prevent a further invasion of Italy, had endeavoured to retrieve their losses in that quarter; and in 211 b.c. young P. Scipio, the hero of tho latter part of the war, had been appointed to the dangerous command left, vacant by his father and uncle. In the next chapter notice will be taken m his splendid successes during the three years which had passed. But these successes had not served to divert Hasdrubal from liin purpose. This general had collected an army, not large, but composed of tried soldiers, which he skilfully carried through theheait of Spain, and crossed the Pyrenees near Bayonne, entering Gaul by the pass which now is threaded by the high road from Paris to Madrid. By this dexterous movement he completely eluded the vigilance of the Romans, who lost sight of him altogether and knew not whither he was gone. But towards the close of the present year news came from the friendly people of Marseilles, to the effect that Hasdrubal had arrived in Aquitania, and intended wintering in Gaul, as the season was too far advanced for the safe passage of the Alps.

Such were the grave circumstances under which Torquatus summoned the people to elect Consuls for the year 207.

§ 14. It might have been thought, that the ablest Patrician to be found was M. Yalerius Laevinus, who was still in Sicily. Not only had he restored the province to order, but had laid in large stores of provisions at Catana for the Italian armies, and had assisted in other ways in lightening the expenses of the war. But the Senate distrusted him: they had not forgotten the contumacious way in which he had quitted Rome two years before, rather than name a Dictator at their bidding. They therefore turned their eyes on M. Claudius Nero, a man of known energy and unflinching resolution, who had served now for many years under Fulvius and Marcellus. He had been sent to Spain at the first news of the disasters there, and remained in command till the appointment of young Scipio. All men agreed that Nero should be the Patrician Consul. But who was to be his Plebeian colleague ? Marcellus was dead, and Gracchus was dead; ‘and Fulvius was nearly as old as Fabius. At length it was resolved to choose AT. Livius Salinator, a man who was also well stricken in years, for he had been Consul with ./Emilius Paullus in the year before Hannibal’s invasion, and had triumphed with him' over the Illyrians. But he had been accused of unfair division of the spoil taken in that Illyrian war, and had been condemned to pay a fine by the vote of all the Tribes, save one. Indignant at a sentence which he deemed unjust, he had withdrawn to his estate in the country, and had only lately reappeared in the Senate at the command of the Censors. But when there, he sat in moody silence, till at length he started up to speak in defence of his kinsman Livius, the commandant of Tarentum, who was accused of having lost the city to Hannibal. On this occasion Fabius’.conduct had not been conciliatory. For when it was urged in defence of the accused that he had mainly assisted in recovering the city, Fabius drily remarked, that “ he did not wish to condemn Livius : certainly lie had assisted in recovering Tarentum, for if he had not lost it, it would not have been recovered at all.” These recollections all rankled in the heart of tho old Senator; and he refused the proffered Consulship. Here, however, he yielded to the command, rather than tho entreaty of the Fathers. But still one difficulty remained. The cross-grained old man was at feud with his colleague Nero; and when friends tried to reconcile them, he replied that “ he saw no occasion for it: if they remained enemies, they would keep a keener watch for each other’s faults.” At last he gave way in this point also, and before they took the field the Consuls were in perfect agreement.

They hastened early in the year to their respective stations, Nero to take the command in Southern Italy, against tho feeble army of Hannibal; Livius to Ariminum, on the frontier of Cisalpine Gaul, to await the arrival of Hasdrubal.

§ 15. As soon as the season permitted, Hasdrubal advanced from his winter-quarters to the passage of the Alps. He avoided the coast-road taken by his brother, and passed through tho country of the Arvernians (who have left their name in French Auvergne), and thus camo straight to the point where the Rhone and Isere meet, so as to take the same. route over the mountains which had been pursued by his brother eleven years before.. The time of the year was favourable: in the period which had elapsed the people had become better acquainted with the Carthaginians; and Hasdrubal achieved his passage into Italy with little loss or difficulty. He straightway marched through the plains of Cisalpine Gaul to the banks of the Po, where the Roman colony of Placentia, one of the eighteen lately found faithful, had before defied the arms of Hannibal. Hannibal had not wasted time in assailing this town; but Hasdrubal spent some time in besieging it, probably to oblige the Gauls, whom he expected to swell the numbers of his army. For hitherto they had not given Hannibal much assistance. In the eventful year of Cannae they had cut off the Consul-elect

Posthumius, and still drank mead out of liis. skull. But sincc then they had remained quiet; and Yarro, with a single Legion at Ariminum, had sufficed to watch them. And now they seem to have given Hasdrubal indifferent support, so that the time he spent at Placentia must have been nearly throw^rn away. However he obtained some Gallic recruits, and (what was more valuable) a considerable body of Ligurians, an active and hardy people, who were likely to do him good service.

§ 16. Before he left his lines at Placentia, he sent off sis, couriers, four Gauls and two Numidians, to inform his brother of his intended route. Hannibal, meantime, had been constantly on the move. We find him marching from Bruttii into Lucania, from Lncania into Apulia, and from Apulia again into Bruttii, and then once more back into Apulia. The purpose of these rapid movements seems to have been to collect recruits from such people as still remained faithful to him, in order that he might join his brother with as strong a force as possible* We cannot but admire the skill with which he eluded Nero, who pursued him with a double army of four Legions. Yet it was one of these marches that accidentally proved the ruin of his cause. The couriers despatched by Hasdrubal from Placentia made their way into Apulia, but unfortunately arrived just at the time when Hannibal was absent in Bruttii. They attempted to follow him but missed their way, and fell into tho hands of the Praetor stationed on the Tarentine frontier. That officer immediately sent off the despatches found upon them to Nero, who was lying at Canusium. An interpreter was soon procured, and the whole plan of the enemy’s campaign was now revealed to the Consul. Hasdrubal told his brother that he intended to advance along the Adriatic, by way of Ariminum, and proposed that they should join forces in Umbria, in order to march upon Rome. Nero’s determination was soon taken. Legally, he had no power to quit his district in Southern Italy, but in this emergency he resolved to set all forms at defiance.. He picked out 6000 foot and 1000 horse, the flower of his army, and gave out that he would march at nightfall on a secret expedition into Lucania. As soon as it was dark, he set out; but the soldiers soon discovered that Lucania was not their destination. They were marching northwards towards Picenum, and they found that provision^ and beasts of burthen were ready for them all along the road, by the Consul’s orders. As soon as he was well advanced upon his march, he addressed his men, and told them that “in a few days they would join their countrymen under Livius in his camp at Sena Gallica in Umbria; that combined they would intercept Hasdrubal and his invading army;

that victory was certain; that the chief share of the glory would bo theirs.” The men answered such an address as soldiers should; and everywhere, as they passed, the inhabitants came out to meet them, pressing upon them clothes, victuals, horses, all, and more than all that they could want. In a week’s time they accomplished a. distance of about 250 miles,⁹⁴ and found themselves within a short distance of Sena. Nero halted till it was dark, that he might enter his colleague’s camp unperceived by Hasdrubal. °

§ 17. lie had previously written to the Senate, informing them of his march, and urging them to throw forward a strong force to defend the defile through which the Flaminian road passes at Narnia, in case the Consuls should be beaten by Hasdrubal. Answers had reached him, fully approving his bold design, and promising all support. It was, therefore, with full confidence that he entered his colleague’s camp, and beheld the watch-fires of Hasdrubal at not more than half a mile’s distance in front. His men were warmly greeted by their comrades, and received within the camp of Livius, that Hasdrubal might not observe the increase of the army. After one day’s rest, Nero urged immediate action, lest his absence from Apulia might bo discovered by Hannibal, or his presence in Umbria by Hasdrubal. Accordingly, the two legions of Livius, with the two commanded by the Prsetor Porcius, and Nero’s troops, drew out before Has-drubal’s camp and offered battle. The experienced eye of the Carthaginian was struck with an apparent increase of numbers; and his suspicions were confirmed, when he heard the trumpet sound twice in the Consul’s lines. This convinced him that Nero had joined his colleague, and full of anxious fear as to tho fate of his brother, he determined to refuse battle and retreat under cover of night. The Romans returned to • their camp} and when the next day broke, they found Ilasdrubal’s camp deserted. Orders were given to pursue. They came up.with tho Carthaginian army on the banks of the Metaurus, about twelve or fourteen miles north of their former position. The Metaurus, usually a small river, was swollen by rains, so that they could not pass it except at certain places; and their guides had deserted them so that they could not find the fords. Hasdrubal, therefore, was obliged to give battle with the river in his rear.

§ 18. On the side of the Romans, Nero commanded on tliO right and Livius on the left, the centre being under the charge of the Praetor Porcius. Hasdrubal with his Spanish veterans, stood opposed to Livius, while Lis Gallic allies confronted Nero; and his centre, covered by a corps of elephants, was formed of the Ligurians who had taken service in his army.

The battle began along the whole line at once. In the centre, the elephants were wounded, and running furiously about trampled down friends and foes alike. On the left, Nero found the Gauls strongly posted; and leaving the greater part of his troops to hold them in check, he himself made a flank movement with his own troops, and fell upon the right of Hasdrubal’s division. This bold charge decided the battle. When the right wing of the Carthaginian army gave way, the centre followed their example; and Hasdrubal, finding the battle lost, and the destruction of his army inevitable from the nature of the ground, threw himself into the enemy’s ranks and fell fighting. The slaughter was great: the Metaurus ran red with blood. .

§ 19. At Rome, as may be well imagined, the news of Nero’s march had filled all hearts with hope and fear. And now, after some ton days' of intense anxiety, vague rumours came that a battle had been fought and won. Still, men feared to believe what they wished; and the anxiety rose higher and higher, till the officer in command at Narnia sent home despatches to say that two horsemen had arrived at that place from the field of battle with certain news of a great victory. So eager were the people, that the Pra)tor had great difficulty in preventing the despatches from being seized and torn open before they had been read in the Senate. And when he brought them out from the Senate-house, and read them publicly from the Rostra, a burst of exultation broke from every tongue; and men, women, and children thronged to the temples to bless the gods for their great deliverance. Thanks were decreed to the Consuls and their armies; three days wore appointed for a public thanksgiving to the gods. Never was,public joy and gratitude more deserved. The battle of the Metaurus was the salvation of Italy; and Horace spoke with as much historic truth as poetic fervour when he said that “Then,-by the death of Hasdrubal, then fell all the hope and fortune of Carthago.”*

§ 20. The news was conveyed to Hannibal in a barbarous fashion. Nero had returned to his camp at Canusium as speedily as possible, and his lieutenants had kept the secret so well, that Hannibal had remained ignorant of his absence; when one morning a grisly head was thrown into his camp, and Hannibal knew the features of his brother. Two prisoners sent in,

and a large body paraded before the Roman camp, confirmed the dismal forebodings of the general, and lie said with a heavy heart that “ the doom of Carthage was spoken.⁵’ This treatment of his brother’s remains was an ill return for'the generosity shown by Hannibal to the corpses of his opponents; and Nero, by this act, forfeited all claim to admiration, except such as must bo bestowed cn a skilful general and a resolute man.

Ilannibal now retreated into Bruttii. The people of this wild country, still nearly as wild as it was then, clung to his fallen fortunes with unshaken fidelity. Here lie maintained himself for four years longer, almost more admirable in adversity than in prosperity. Even now no Roman general was able to gain a victory over him; even now every veteran soldier remained faithful to his great leader. But lie was. driven into a corner, and stood like a lion at bay, still terrible, but without hope. The war in Italy may now be considered at an end.

§ 21. The victory of the Metaurus was held to be an occasion for allowing a triumph to the victorious Generals. No triumphal procession had passed down the Sacred Way and ascended to the Capitol since ^Emilius Paullus and Livius Salinator had led up the captive Illyrians in the year before Hannibal’s invasion. All former succcsscs in the war had been but the recoveries of losses, all except the capture of Syracuse; and Marcellus was refused a full triumph then, because lie left the Sicilian war unfinished. But now there was no drawback. The two Consuls met at Praencste, and advanced with the army of Livius and the captives in long procession to the Temple of Bcllona, in the Campus Martius. Here they were received by the Senate and people in festal array. Livius appeared in the triumphal car drawn by four white horses, attended by his army; Nero rode on horseback beside him unattended ; for the battle had been fought in Livius’ district. Yet all men turned their eyes on the Patrician Consul, and the acclamations of the crowd showed to whom belonged the true honours of the triumph.

Notwithstanding these honours, Nero (strange to say) was never again employed during the war; and it was not till Ncros became heirs of the Empire of Augustus that poets sang of the debt which Rome owed to that name.⁹⁵ A star was appearing in the west, which soon eclipsed the brightness of Nero’s fame. The remaining period of the war will be little more than a history of the deeds of Scipio.

§ 1. Young P. Scipio elected Proconsul for Spain. § 2. Character of Scipio. § 3. Ho resolves to surprise New Carthage. § 4 Site of New Carthage: its capturo. § 5. His humane and politic conduct: ho refuses to bo king. § 6. Movements of Hasdrubal Barca. § 7. Great battle near the Guadalquivir: Romans masters of all Spain except Gades. § 8. Scipio’s designs upon Africa. § 9. He crosses over to hold conference with Syphax, king of Westorn Numidia: Treaty. § 10. Revolt of Spanish Cities. § 11. Mutiny quelled. § 12. Mago loses Gades. § 13. Scipio returns homo: is clected Consul, and sent to Sicily with permission to invade Africa. § 14. Adventures of Masinissa. § 15. Attempts made at homo to thwart Scipio, triumphantly repelled. § 16. Restoration of confidence and credit at Rome. § 17. Scipio lands in Africa* § 18. Besieges Utica, and destroys Carthaginian army by a treacherous artifice. § 19. Defeats a second army: advances to Tunis. § 20. Masinissa mado King of all Numidia: death of Sophonisba. § 21. Tho Carthaginians recall Hannibal and Mago, and send to treat for Peaco at Romo. § 22. Peace refused: death of Fabius. § 23. Hannibal lands at Leptis and advances to Zama: Scipio moves to tho samo point: Conference. §24. Battlo of Zama. §25. Zama and 'Waterloo. § 26. Conditions of Peaco. § 27. Hannibal becomes chief of Carthage. § 28. Triumph of Scipio.

of tlic war between Rome and Hannibal was in reality determined on Spanish soil.

After the disasters of that campaign, the Senate determined to despatch reinforcements without delay; and the officer appointed to take the temporary command was C. Claudius Nero, the future hero of the Metaurus. Nero succeeded in restoring Roman dominion in the district north of the Ebro; but the Senate resolved to call upon the People to elect a Proconsul for Spain at the Great Comitia. This was an unusual course, and was due no doubt to the peculiar exigencies of the case. Tho policy of continuing the Spanish War was manifest; but the risk of failure was so great, that the Senate thought fit to throw the responsibility upon the People. It was announced therefore that Candidates for the Proconsulate were to present themselves in the Campus Martius. But when the day came no Candidate appeared. Men looked at one another in blank dismay. It seemed that none of the soldiers of the Republic dared to undertake so great and hazardous an enterprise; when, to the surprise and admiration of all, P. Cornelius Scipio, son and nephew of the slain Proconsuls, arose and offered himself to the suffrages of the People. He was barely twenty-six years of age ;⁹⁶ but his name and character were well known; and though he had hitherto held no ofticc higher than that of ^Edile, he w^ras elected by acclamation.

§ 2. Scipio presents in almost all respects a striking contrast to tlic men who had hitherto conducted the affairs of Rome in the Second Punic War. They were far advanced in years, cautious and distrustful; he was in the prime of youth, enterprising and self-confident. They had been trained in all the severity of the old Roman discipline; lie is said to have been dissolute in early years, and was still thought to affect too much the easy laxity of Grecian manners. They were strictly obedient to the letter of the law; he was accustomed from his very youth to put himself above the laws and customs of Rome. They always acted as the faithful ministers of the Senate; he very soon showed that the Senate must be content to follow his policy, rather than guide it. They, however gentle to their countrymen, were to foreigners harsh, arrogant, and cruel; he treated foreigners with a humanity and courteousness that made his name better loved in Spain than in Italy. Yet in some respects he was a true Roman. Notwithstanding the excesses charged upon liis youth, he had long learnt to control liis passions absolutely, and to submit every desire to jhis own views of duty. Notwithstanding the grace and affability of his manner, he preserved a loftiness of deportment which kept men at a certain distance from him. Few shared his intimacy; but where he gave bis confidence, as to his friend C. Lselius, that confidence was complete and unreserved. One point in his character calls for particular attention,—the Religiousness of his life. Never, from his first appearance in public, liad he been known to undertake any enterprise without first resorting to the Great Temple on the Capitol, and remaining there for hours absorbed in devotion. There have been those who have represented this conduct as merely assumed to blind and influence tho people. But such was not the belief of those who knew him best; and to think that Scipio was a mere hypocrite, is a .monstrous belief. In the time of the Second Punic War, religious feelings were strong in the hearts of the people, though the popular belief in prodigies and the popular mode of deprecating the divine wrath were .gross and barbarous. •. The Religion of Scipio might not be consistent; yet, on the whole, it would be unjust to doubt that he, like others of his own time, acted in reliance on the support of Higher Powers. In this lies the secret of his character. That self-confidence, which prompted him to shrink from no responsibility, led him also to neglect the laws of his country, when they seemed to oppose what he thought just or necessary. Every incident in his youth shows this confidence. Not to insist on the doubtful story of his saving his father’s life, when he was yet a boy, we have seen him a Tribune of the Legions at the age ot’ twenty, assisting to rally the broken remains of the army of Cannae, and barring the Secession of the young Nobles after that disastrous day. Three years after, we find him offering himself Candidate for the • Curule iEdilesliip; and, when it was objected that he was yet too young for the office, promptly answering, “If the People vote for me, that will make me old enough.” And now, after the death of his Father and Uncle in Spain, we see him modestly waiting • till it was clear that 110 experienced commander would claim the dangerous honour of succeeding them, and then bravely offering himself to the acceptance of the People. •

§ 3. Scipio arrived in Spain late in the summer of 210, or perhaps not till the spring of 209. lie landed at Emporiac, with his friend Laelius and his elder brother Lucius, who accompanied him as Legates, and M. Junius Silanus, who was to command a9 Propraetor .in the placc of Nero. He found that the threo

Generals commanding the Carthaginians in Spain, Hasdrubal and Mago, brothers of Hannibal, and Hasdrubal, son of Gisgo, were at discord with each other. Their forces lay scattered over a wide extent of country from Gades to Celtiberia ; and there seems to have been no disposition to act on the offensive against the Romans. Scipio, taking advantage of these circumstances, determined to strike a blow which, if successful, would confirm the enthusiastic feelings of the Roman People towards him, and would mark that a General had arisen who would not rest content with the timid discretion of the Fabian policy. No less a place than New Carthage itself, the Capital of Carthaginian Spain, was the object he had in view. He heard that it was defended by a garrison of 1000 men only, and that none of the Carthaginian armies lay near it. By a bold stroke it might bo ^possible to surprise it. Ilis purpose was revealed to none save Lielius, who sailed in command of the fleet, while Scipio himself led his army across the Ebro, and arrived in an incredibly short time under the walls of the city.⁹⁷

§ 4. New Carthage lay on a hilly peninsula jutting out into a fine bay, which forms the harbour. On the land side its walls were covered by a marsh or lagoon, which was overflowed by the sea, so that the place was only approachable by a narrow neck of land between the lagoon and the harbour. On this neck of land Scipio took up his position, entrenching himself in rear, but leaving the front of his camp open towards the city. No time was to be lost; and next morning he gave orders to assault the walls. He addressed his soldiers, and assured them of success; Neptune, he said, had appeared to him in a dream, and promised to fight with the Romans. The men advanced gallantly to the cscalade, confident in their young General. But the walls were high and strong; the garrison made a stout defence : and before noon Scipio called off his soldiers. But he did not give up his enterprise. In the afternoon, as lie was informed, the water in the lagoon would be very low, in consequence of a fall in the tide assisted by a strong wind. He therefore picked out 500 men, who were ordered to take a number of scaling-ladders and dash through the water so as to mount the walls unobserved, while the main body of the army made a feigned attack by the neck of land. Thus Neptune would fulfil his promise. The device succeeded completely. The garrison had retired to their noon day’s sleep, and while they were hurrying to repel the feigned attack, the 500 got into the town unopposed, and rushing to the main entrance threw open the gates. Scipio, with a chosen detachment, pushed on to the citadel, into which tho garrison had fled ; and the Commandant surrendered at discretion. All pillaging and slaughter was now stopped; and at the close of the day the young General found himself master of this important city, with a very large treasure and an immense supply of stores.

§ 5. In the city lie found a number of Spaniards, mostly women and children, kept there as hostages for the fidelity of their countrymen. For the Carthaginian rule was no longer beloved as in the days of the elder Hasdrubal. Hasdrubal the son of Gisgo, especially, had made himself hateful to the people; and the Celtiberians, the most powerful tribe of Central Spain, were eager for an opportunity of revolting. Scipio turned these dispositions to his own advantage with admirable dexterity. He set free all the hostages, as well as all of Spanish blood who had been taken prisoners in the city. Among these hostages was the wife of Mandonius, brother of Indibilis, a powerful chief who had formerly been the friend of Carthage, and the daughters of Indibilis himself. He sent them home with as much care as if they had been his own kinswomeu, although Indibilis and Mandonius had been actively engaged against his unfortunate father and uncle. Then the soldiers brought him a beautiful girl, whom they liad reserved as a special gift for their youthful commander. But Scipio, observing her tears, inquired into her condition, and finding that she was the betrothed of Al-lucius, a young Celtiberian chief, he sent for the youth, and restored his bride unharmed, without ransom or condition. This generous conduct was not without its reward. The Spaniards, quick in feeling and romantic in disposition, regarded the young conqueror as a hero sent to deliver them from the yoke of Carthage. His noble bearing, his personal beauty, confirmed the favourable impressions caused by his conduct to the hostages; and when he advanced next year into Celti-beria, he was welcomed by Indibilis and Mandonius at the head of their vassals. Soon after, a deputation of Spaniards came to him with entreaties to become their King. In him they saw revived the dignity of Hamilcar, the affability of the elder Hasdrubal; and they hoped that the popular times of those favourite rulers might return. But Scipio courteously declined the offer, informing them that he was but the General of tho Roman People, in whose ears the name of king was a byword and a reproach.

§ G. The Carthaginian generals had been quite unable to make head against the well-earned popularity of the youthful Roman. Hasdrubal Barca had attempted to retake New Carthage by surprise, but in vain; and the year 208 found him too busily engaged in preparing for his Italian expedition to act with energy against the Romans. All Spain north of tho Boetis (Guadalquivir) was relinquished; but at length Hasdrubal found himself obliged to give battle at a placc called Bsocula, which stands near that river. The Romans won the day; but the Carthaginian Commander made a skilful retreat, leaving his camp and baggage in the hands of the enemy. Hasdrubal now drew back into Lusitania, leaving his brother Mago and the other Hasdrubal (son of Gisgo) to cover the borders of that district, which with the province now called Andalusia were the only parts of Spain left to the Carthaginians. Meanwhile he himself crossed the Tagus, and marching northwards (as we have seen) by ways unknown to the Romans, crossed the Pyrenees into Gaul near the shores of the Bay of Biscay. Scipio, informed of his intentions to pass into Italy, and expecting him to follow the course of his brother Hannibal, spent the remainder of the season upon the Ebro in fruitless expectation. In the beginning of 207, he heard that his able opponent had eluded him, and was already in the heart of Gaul.

§ 7. In that year the Carthaginians made great efforts to retrieve their falling fortunes. An officer named Hanno had come over from Africa to replace Hasdrubal Barca; and the young Masinissa, son of Gala,' a powerful Numidian chief, had also taken the field with a large body of his formidable horsemen. Scipio himself did not appear in the field till late in the season, when he found that his brother Lucius, with his legate Silanus, had kept the Carthaginians in check. But the news of the Metaurus had reached him, and he burned with eagerness to eclipse the glory of Nero.

Late in this year, therefore, or early in 20G, Scipio with his whole force prepared to pass the Bsotis and bring the enemy to action. The Carthaginians, confident in their numbers, were equally ready, and their united forces boldly faced the enemy. The place of the battle is unknown ; its name is variously given as Silpia or Elinga. But the result is certain. Scipio’s victory was complete: the whole Carthaginian army was broken and destroyed ; its scattered remains took refuge behind the walls of Gadcs, with Hasdrubal Gisgo and Mago; while the wily Masinissa entered into secret negotiations with Silanus, of which we shall have to speak further presently. The Senate, therefore, at the commencement of the year 20G, had to • congratulate the People not only on seeing

Italy almost delivered from the army of Hannibal, but also on the important fact that all Spain, except the town of Gades, was in the hands of the Roman armies.

§ 8. But Scipio regarded Spain as a mere stepping-stone to Africa. Here, and here only, he felt convinced, could the war be concluded. Already had Valerius Lsevinus made descents upon the African coast, and found the country nearly as defenceless as in the days of Rcgulus. But Fabius and the Senate were hostile to bold enterprises, and Lajvinus could go no further. Scipio determined not to return to Rome till he had laid the train for an invasion of Africa; and then, with the confidence that marked his whole career, he would offer himself for the Consulship, and force the Senate to allow him his own way.

§ 9. At that time, the country to the west of the Carthaginian Territory, from Bona to Oran, was known by the name of Nu-midia; and the Numidians themselves were divided into two great Tribes, the Eastern Numidians or Massesylians, and the Western or Massylians. Of the Massesylians, Syphax was King; his capital being Cirta, now well known under the name of Constantine as a chief place in French Algeria. Gala, father of Masinissa, was ruler of the Massylians. We have already seen Scipio entering into negotiations with Masinissa. But Masinissa had not yet any power of his own. On the other hand, the position of the territory of Syphax on the Carthaginian frontier necessarily made him the most dangerous enemy of Carthage. It was therefore of the greatest importance to secure the friendship of this powerful but unstable chieftain. Scipio resolved, with a boldness almost romantic, to pay a visit to the Nuini-dian capital; and, to show his confidence in Syphax, lie sailed from New Carthage to Africa with two ships only. It happened that Hasdrubal Gisgo, who had before this left Spain .in despair, appeared at the court of Syphax at the self-same time, with the self-same purposes. The two rivals were both entertained by the Numidian; but the winning manners and personal grace of Scipio prevailed for the present, and Syphax formed an alliance with the Romans.

§ 10. When Scipio returned to Spain, he found that his short absence had produced a serious change. Three important cities in the vale of the Bajtis, Illiturgi, Castulo, and Astapa, had closed their gates and declared tlicir independence. Without delay, lie laid siege. to Illiturgi. The town was taken after an obstinate defence, and given up to massacre and pillage. This dreadful fate of their countrymen produced immediate, but opposite, effects on Castulo and Astapa. The men of Castulo, .stricken with fear, surrendered at discretion. The men of Astapa collected all their property and valuables into a huge funeral pile in tlie market-place, and placed their wives and daughters under a guard, who had orders to slay them and fire the pile as soon as tho gates should be forced. The rest of the citizens fell fighting bravely, and tho Romans were left masters of a heap of ashes.

§ 11. Another circumstance showed that the Roman power in Spain rested on a very precarious tenure. Scipio fell ill at New Carthage, and a report was spread that he was dead. Upon this, Indibilis and Mandonius, whom he had believed to be his most faithful friends, raised tho standard of revolt and advanced into Celtiberia. A division of Italian troops, 8000 strong, stationed upon the Sucro, broke out into open mutiny, driving away their Roman officers, and choosing two Italians as their chiefs. The prompt and decisive way in which Scipio quelled this dangerous mutiny recalls the conduct of Clive in Bengal on a similar occasion. He sent messengers to the mutineers, desiring them to come to New Carthage and state their grievances; and as they approached the town, he ordered the division of the army in that place to prepare for marching against the revolted Spaniards. The Italians, therefore, met the army leaving New Carthago as they entered it, and fondly deemed that the General would now be completely at their mercy. But when they appeared next morning before Scipio, they found that thirty-five persons, the ringleaders of the mutiny, had been arrested during the night; and the clash of arms in the streets leading to the Forum apprised them that the army had returned from its pretended march. Scipio now showed the mutineers that they were in his power. Ho reproved them with much severity. lie ordered tho ringleaders for execution, and pardoned the rest on their taking the oath of allegiance anew. Indibilis and Mandonius, finding that the report of the General’s death was false, hastened to make full submission. But no sooner had Scipio left Spain, than these discontented chiefs again took arms. Indibilis fell in battle ; Mandonius was taken prisoner, and put to death with a number of other chieftains. For tho present, therefore, Spain was reduced to quiet; but it was more than two centuries before the power of Rome was finally established in the Peninsula.

§ 12. It was now apparent that the Carthaginians had no longer any hope-of recovering their lost ground in' Spain. Has-drubal Gisgo had returned to Africa. Masinissa obtained a personal interview with Scipio, and renewed those promises of friendship which he had made to Silanus after the battle of Elinga, and which he afterwards faithfully performod. Mago,

the last remaining brother of Hannibal, after a vain attempt to surprise New Carthage, returned to Gades, and found that the inhabitants shut their gates against him. He enticed the chief Magistrates, called Suffets, like the two chief Magistrates of Carthage, into a negotiation, and then seizing their persons, he crucified them in sight of the town. This brutal and treacherous act forfeited his last claim on the sympathies of the people of Gades. They immediately surrendered to the Romans, while Mago sailed off to the Balearic Isles, and there occupied himself in preparing for a fresh descent upon the coast of Italy, as a last chance of relieving his illustrious brother.

§ 13. The soil of the Spanish Peninsula was now completely cleared of the Carthaginians, and Scipio prepared to. return to Rome. About three years before he had left his country amid the hopes and expectations of all men. He now returned, having more than fulfilled those hopes and expectations. His friend Lselius had been sent home to announce his first great success; his brother Lucius had lately arrived to prepare the Senate and people for the speedy arrival of the hero; and no one doubted that at the approaching elections Scipio would be raised to the Consulship by the unanimous voice of the people.

It was towards the close of the year 206 b.c. that he returned. The Senate met him at the Temple of Bellona; but refused him a triumph on the ground that he had not held any regular magistracy during his absence. He therefore entered the city, and offered himself candidate for the Consulship. Every Tribe united in giving him their suffrages, though he was not yet thirty years old. But the common rules of election had been neglected throughout the war, and no difficulty seems to have been raised on the score of age. His colleague was P. Licinius Crassus, who was Pontifex Maximus, and therefore unable to leave Italy. Whatever foreign enterprise was undertaken must fall to the lot of Scipio. He himself was at no pains to conceal his intention of carrying the war into Africa; and it was generally understood, that if the Senate refused leave, he would bring a special bill for the purpose before the people. Fabius, with Fulvius and the old Senatorial party, vehemently opposed these bold projects. But the time was gone by when they could use the votes of the people against an enterprising Consul, as they had done some years before against Lacvinus.* The confidence of all men in Scipio was unbounded ; and, in the end, the Senate was fain to compromise the matter by naming Sicily as his province, with perm^ion to cross over into Africa, if he deemed it expedient.

They refused him, however, the additional levies and supplies which lie required. But the Etruscans and other Italians enthusiastically volunteered to give all he wanted. Scipio led a well-appointed fleet into his province, and was able to add considerably to tlie veteran soldiers of Canna) and Ilerdonea, who had seen hard service under Marcellus and Laevinus. The year

Eassed, however, without any attempt on Africa, except that aelius went across to reconnoitre, and, after an interview witli Masinissa, returned laden with spoil.

§ 14. It will be worth while to devote a few lines to the fortunes of this Numidian Prince. Ilis life, sincc his return from Spain, had been one series of romantic enterprises; and at tho present time, notwithstanding his adventurous daring, lie was a wanderer and an outlaw. While he was in Spain, liis father Gala had died, and his uncle (Esalces took possession of the chieftainship of the Massylians. On the death of his uncle, and liis uncle’s son, which followed in rapid succession, the chief power was seized by an adventurer named Mezetulus, who pretended to act as guardian of an infant, the sole remaining scion of the family of (Esalces. Masinissa now appeared on the scene. lie was very popular among the Massylians, and Mezetulus, with his young charge, was obliged to fly for safety to the court of Syphax at Cirta. This prince, we saw, had formed a treaty with Scipio. But Hasdrubal Gisgo soon found means to detach tho fickle Numidian from his new ally, by offering him the hand of his beautiful daughter Sophonisba, and urged him to prevent Masinissa from recovering the power of his father. The power of Masinissa was unequal to that of Syphax. lie was defeated in every battle he ventured to fight; but he seemed to lead a charmed life. Once he was obliged to lie hid many days in a cave, once he escaped with only two horsemen by swimming a broad and rapid river; but he always appeared afresh, from liis fastnesses in the mountains of the south, at the head of a body of his wild cavalry, plundering and alarming the subjects of Carthage, as well as those of Syphax. Personal pique was added to the desire of recovering the chieftainship of his father; for the beautiful Sophonisba had been his betrothed bride.

§ 15. Iu the next year he looked eagerly to see the Romans in Africa. But before this took place the enemies of Scipio made one more attempt to thwart his African enterprise. IIo had been continued in his command as Proconsul; and, hearing that the citadel of Locri had been taken by Q. Pleminius, who commanded as Propraetor in Bruttii, but that Hannibal had come to the relief of the" place, he left his province without hesitation, and sailing into the harbour of Locri, obliged the Cartlia-ginian to retire. Pleminius was no sooner left in command there tlian he indulged in gross and brutal outrages, not only against the people of Locri, but against such Romans as ventured to oppose his will. Scipio was appealed to, but declined to interfere, desiring the Locrians to lay their complaints before the Senate at Rome. These complaints arrived early in the year 204 b.c., and old Fabius again took occasion to inveigh loudly against the presumptuous audacity of his young rival. lie ended his speech by proposing that - he should be deprived of his command. Other complaints were made against' Scipio, that by going to Locri he had transgressed the limits of his province, as he had done before by visiting Syphax in Numidia; moreover, that he spent his time in pursuits unfit for a Roman soldier, frequenting the schools and gymnasia of the Greek cities, and wearing a Greek dress; while his men were daily becoming corrupted by licentious living and want of discipline. The Senate was too well aware of the merits and popularity of Scipio to venture to act on these vague accusations without previous inquiry; and it was therefore resolved to send a commission into Sicily to examine into the truth of the charges. The result was highly favourable to the General. It was reported that he was quite guiltless of the excesses of Pleminius, who was arrested and left to die in prison; and his troops, instead of being neglected or undisciplined, were in the highest order; the Commissioners had themselves witnessed the evolutions of the army and fleet, and could testify to their effective condition; they had also inspected the stores at Lilybajum, and found arms, engines, and supplies of every kind^f provided for the invasion of Africa. It was universally'resolved that Scipio should retain his command till he should bring the war to a close. ■

§ 16. The confidence which the Senate felt in the altered state of affairs is fully shown by two Decrees passed in the same yenr. The first respected the Twelve Latin Colonies, which five years before had refused to furnish, soldiers. At the time, it had been thought prudent to pass over this contumacious conduct.⁹⁸ But now they were required to furnish twice their proper contingent till the end of the war. - They murmured, but submitted. The other Decree was moved by Laivinus for the repayment of the patriotic, loan advanced by the Senators and people during his Consulship in the year 210 B.c.f It was apparent, therefore, that the battle of the Metaurus, backed by the great successes of Scipio in Spain, had raised the Republic above all fear of disaffection in her Colonies, or of bankruptcy at home. Other

signs of confidcncc appear. A huge stone, supposed to represent the Great Mother of the Gods, was brought in state to Rome from Pcssinus in Sicily. The Sibylline books directed that the care of this precious relic should be given to “ the best man” at Rome: and the Senate adjudged the title to P. Scipio Nasica, son of Cn. Scipio, who had died in Spain, and first cousin to the great man who was now making the name illustrious.⁹⁹ The Cincian Law, also, brought forward by tho Tribune M. Cincius Alimcntus, at tho instance of old Fabius, to prevent advocates from accepting fee* for their services, shows that business was falling into its routine course again.

§ 17. All obstacles being now removed, Scipio prepared to cross over into Africa. His army and fleet were assembled at Lilybajum under his own eye. His brother Lucius and his friend Lajlius still attended him as legates; and his Qua3stor was a young man destined hereafter to become famous, M. Porcius Cato. It was towards the close of 204 b.c. that he set sail. Ilis army was not so numerous as it was well-appointed and well-disciplined, composed of men who had grown old in service, skilful in sieges, prepared for all dangers; for the greater part of them knew that in the successful termination of the war lay their only chance of returning home to end their days in peace. As the ships left the harbour at daybreak, Scipio prayed aloud to all the gods, that his enterprise might be blessed by their • favour; that the evils which Carthage had wrought against Romo might now be visited upon her own head.f When the second morning broke, they were in sight of land; and Scipio, when lie heard that they were off the Fair Promontory, said that the omen was a good one, and there should be their landing-place.

Masinissa hastened to join him with only 200 of his Nurnidian horse; but his knowledge of the country, and the ceaseless activity which he displayed, would have made him most welcome, even if he had come alone.

§18. Scipio immediately laid siege to Utica. The terror felt at Carthage, when Laelius had landed the year before, was great; and now, when Scipio himself was almost at the gates, terror rose to its highest pitch. For a time lie was left to carry on his operations unmolested. But as the winter advanced, Hasdrubal Gisgo succeeded in collecting a considerable force, and

persuaded Syphax, liis son-in-law, to lend his aid in relieving Utica. Scipio was encamped on a head-land to the eastward of this town, on a spot which long retained the name of “ the Cornelian Camp,”* where (it is said) the ruins of his entrenchments are still to be traced; and the Carthaginians hoped that they might blockade him here both by land and sea. They made their arrangements not without skill; and their fleet, which was superior to that of the Romans, threatened to intercept communication with Sicily. Scipio remained quiet the whole winter, except that he amused Syphax by entering into negotiations for peace. The fickle Numidian showed himself not unwilling to form a separate treaty, and to desert his father-in-law Hasdrubal. But Scipio had no real purpose in these negotiations. They were only carried on to mask a design, which, as spring came on, he was enabled to put in practice. He observed that Hasdrubal occupied one camp, and Syphax another. The huts occupied by the Numidians were composed merely of stakes wattled and thatched with reeds; the quarters of the Carthaginians, though somewhat more substantial, consisted solely of timber, without any stone or brick. Scipio, in the course of the before-mentioned negotiations, contrived to gain an accurate knowledge of the plan and disposition of these camps; and when he thought the time for the execution of his design was arrived, he suddenly broke off the negotiations, and told Syphax that all thoughts of pcace must be deferred till a later time.

On the first dark night that followed, he sent Lajlius and Ma-sinissa against the camp of Syphax, while he himself moved towards that of Hasdrubal. Masinissa, with his Numidians, obtained an easy entrance into the lines of his countrymen, and straightway set fire to their inflammable habitations. The unfortunate men rose from their beds or from their wine-cups, and endeavoured to extinguish the flames. But the work had been too well done; and as they attempted to escape, they found that every avenue of the camp was beset by enemies. Fire was behind them, death by the sword before; and though Syphax, with a chosen band, escaped, the whole of his army was destroyed. Tlie same fate befel Hasdrubal. On the first alarm, he conjectured the truth, and with a cowardly haste made off, leaving his men an easy prey to Scipio. When morning broke, the Romans pursued the fugitives ; and it is not too much to say that the whole army on which Carthage depended for safety was cut off in this horrible way. The recital makes the blood run cold.

of modern warfare. If in sieges and bombardments dreadful calamities are inflicted and suffered, yet no general would form a plan for burning and destroying an army by pretended negotiations for peace, carried on in cold blood for weeks before. Yet the historian Polybius relates this event as a matter quite in the ordinary course of warfare, without any remark on the duplicity by which it was made successful. Neither the act itself, nor the means by which it was carried into execution, was ever thought to cast any slur on the fair fame of Scipio.

§ 19. The Carthaginian Senate were ready to give up matters as lost. But at this juncture 10,000 Celtiberians landed in Africa and offered their services to Syphax; and this prince was overpersuaded by the entreaties of Sophonisba to renew the struggle, llasdrubal also exerted himself greatly to collect a new army; and in the course of thirty days the two allied generals appeared on the Great Plains, which lie about 70 or 80 miles to the south-west of Utica and Carthage. Scipio, leaving his fleet and a division of his army to continue the blockade of Utica, advanced to give them battle without delay. The Celtiberians made a stout resistance ; but being deserted by the rest of the army, they were entirely cut to pieces. llasdrubal fled to Carthage, Syphax to his own kingdom ; so that the whole country was left to the mercy of the Romans. Scipio advanced towards Carthage, receiving the submission of the different towns by which he passed. Encamping at Tunis, within sight of the Capital, he awaited the submission of the Government.

§ 20. Meanwhile Laelius and Masinissa, with the Italian and Numidian cavalry, pursued Syphax to Cirta. The unlucky king made a faint show of resistance; but he was defeated, and his capital surrendered at discretion. Masinissa now received his reward, and was proclaimed king of all Numidia. When he entered Cirta, he was met by Sophonisba, formerly his betrothed, and now the wife of his rival. Iler charms melted his heart; and fearing lest Scipio might claim her as his captive, to lead her in triumph by the side of Syphax, he took the bold step of marrying her at once. This much provoked Scipio, who sent for the young chief and rebuked him sternly for venturing to take possession of a Roman captive. Masinissa sighed, and felt that he was unable to protect his unhappy bride. But, resolved that at least she should have the option of escaping from the degradation of a Roman triumph, he sent her a cup of poison, telling her that herein lay her only possible deliverance. She took the potion, saying that she accepted the nuptial gift, and drained it to the dregs. When the tragical fate of Sophonisba reached the ears of Scipio, he feared that he had dealt too harshly with his Numidian ally. He sent for him, and gently reproving him for his haste, he publicly presented him with the most honourable testimonies to his bravery and fidelity which a Roman General could bestow. In the delights of satisfied ambition and the acquisition of a powerful sovereignty, Masinissa soon forgot the sorrows of Sophonisba. .

§ 21. While Scipio remained at Tunis, the Carthaginian fleet made an attack on the Roman ships in the harbour of Utica, and gained some advantage. Intelligence also reached the Government that .Mago, on landing in Italy, had been welcomed by the Ligurians and a portion of the Gauls, and had lately taken position on the Po with a considerable force. Here, however, lie was encountered by a Roman army and defeated after a severe struggle. Mago, himself wounded, took refuge among the Ligurians, who still remained faithful to his cause.

The Carthaginian Government then had the choice of tlireo courses: either to make terms with Rome at once; or to continue tho war by recalling Hannibal and Mago from Italy to Africa; or to recall the two brothers on the one hand, while on the other they entered into negotiations for a peace. The last was the course adopted. Ambassadors were dispatched to Rome to treat for peace, while orders were sent to Hannibal and Mago to return with such forces as they could bring.

Mago obeyed the orders immediately, but never reached Africa. He died of his wound upon the passage, and his few ships were taken by the Romans. Hannibal also with bitter feelings prepared to obey. For sixteen years had the indomitable man maintained himself on foreign ground; and even now the remains of his veteran army clung to him with desperate fidelity. He felt that, so far as he was concerned, he had been more than successful; if he had failed, it had been the fault of that ungrateful country, which had left him long years unsupported, and now was recalling him to defend her from the enemy. What Scipio was now to Carthage, that might Hannibal have been to Rome. Still he saw that no advantage could be gained by remaining longer in Italy: he therefore bade farewell to the foreign shores, so long his own, and set sail for that native land which had not seen him for nearly forty years.

§ 22. Great was the joy at Rome when the news came that their dire¹⁰⁰ enemy had been at length compelled to leave the shores of Italy. A public thanksgiving was decreed; sacrifices offered to all the Great Gods of Rome; and the Roman Games, which had been vowed by Marcellus in his last Consulship, were now at length performed. It was at this moment of triumph that the Carthaginian Ambassadors arrived. The Senate received them (inauspicious omen!) in the Temple of Bellona. Lamnus moved that they should be at once dismissed, and that orders should be sent to Scipio to push on the war with vigour. After some debate, his proposition was adopted. The close of the year 203 therefore rendered it certain that the war must be decided by a trial of strength between the two great Generals, who, each triumphant in his own career, had never yet encountered each other in arms. About the same time old Fabius breathed his last, as if unwilling to be a spectator of the final glory of Scipio. He died in extreme old age. He has the merit of first successfully opposing Hannibal; but his somewhat narrow mind, and the jealous obstinacy which often accompanies increasing years, prevented him from seeing that there is a time for all things; that his own policy was excellent for retrieving the fortunes of the Republic, but that the inactivity of the Carthaginian Government had ruined Hannibal and left the field open for the bolder measures of Scipio.

§ 23. Hannibal had landed at Leptis, to the south of Carthage, with his veterans; and thence marching northwards, took up his position on the plain of Zama, within five days’ march of Carthage. Scipio, early in the year (202 b.c.), advanced from Tunis to meet him; and finding that the Carthaginian General had sent spies to ascertain his strength, he ordered them to bo led through his camp, and sent back with a full account of all that they had seen. Hannibal felt that he had to deal with a superior force, led by a General only second in ability to himself. Ilis own veterans were few in number; the remainder of his army were raw levies or allies little to be trusted; the Numidian horse, which had been his main arm in Italy, were now arrayed against him under the enterprising Masinissa. He therefore proposed a personal conference, in the faint hope that he might effect a treaty between himself and Scipio, which he would then compel the Carthaginian Government to accept. Perhaps if Scipio had felt himself free to act independently, he might have listened to the blandishments of his great opponent; but lie was the General of the Republic, and he knew the feeling at Rome too well to venture to act in opposition to it. Tho Generals therefore parted from their conference, with feelings of mutual esteem, and prepared to decide the fate.of the civilised world by battle.

§ 24. Next day at sunrise both armies drew out. Hannibal marshalled his army in three lines: first his Gallic and Ligurian auxiliaries, with Balearians and other light troops; in tho second line, the veterans of Italy with fresh African levies; and in the rear, the few Bruttian and Italian allies who had followed his fortunes. Both wings were flanked by cavalry, as usual; and the whole line of battle was covered by a formidable array of eighty elephants. To oppose him, Scipio also formed three lines according to the common practice of the Romans; Laclius with the Italian cavalry was posted on the left, Masinissa with his Numidians on the right. The Roman army was superior in all respects, except in elephants; and to make the attack of these monsters powerless, Scipio drew up the maniples of his infantry not (as was usual) chequer-wise, but one immediately behind the other, so as to leave open lanes between the maniples from front to rear.

The battle began by an attack of the elephants on the Roman light troops, who skirmished in front of the regular lines. These were overborne-by the weight of the huge beasts, and fled down the lanes which have been described; but when the elephants came within the ranks, the men on each side pricked them with their javelins, so that some of them rushed clear through the spaces without turning to the right or left; others wheeled about and carried confusion into the Carthaginian ranks. Meanwhile both Masinissa and Laelius had routed the cavalry opposed to them, and tho battle grew hot in the centre. The auxiliaries in Hannibal’s front line were soon driven in upon the veterans, who, however, levelled their spears and compelled them to advance again. Both parties kept bringing up their fresh men, withdrawing their wounded to the rear; and the battle continued with great fury, till Leelius and Masinissa, returning with the cavalry from the pursuit, charged the Carthaginians in rear, and decided the fate of the day. The Romans lost about 5000 on the field; the Carthaginians not less than 20,000, besides a vast number who were taken prisoners.

§ 25. Thus was Hannibal defeated, but not subdued. The Battle of Zama has often been compared to that of Waterloo. In both, the greatest Generals of the respective parties met for the first time; and in both, the more famous chief, fighting with an army hastily drawn together in defence of his country, was defeated. But in other points they were unlike. Waterloo left France helpless; and her ruler had no hope but in withdrawing from her shores. After the Battle of Zama Hannibal could still have offered a long resistance; and if he thought it best to make peace immediately, it was that he might reform the government, and prepare for new struggles at a future time.

Carthage. He sent them back with the following conditions of peace: “ The Carthaginians were to be left independent within their own territories; they were to give up all prisoners and deserters, all their ships of war except ten triremes, and all their elephants; they were not to make war in Africa or out of Africa without the consent of Rome; they were to acknowledge Masi-nissa as King of Numidia; they were to pay 10,000 talents of silver towards the expenses of the war by instalments in the course of the next fifty years.”* When the Senate of Carthage met to debate on these conditions, Hasdrubal, son of Gisgo, rose to advise the continuation of war! when Hannibal, angry at the folly of the man, pulled liim back to his seat. A loud cry was raised; upon which the General rose and said that “for six-and-thirty years he liad been fighting the battles of his country in foreign lands, and if in the camp he had forgotten the manners of the city, he prayed forgiveness.” lie then went on to show that all resistance, however prolonged, must eventually prove fruitless; and in the end the Senate agreed to accept the proposed conditions. Upon this Scipio granted an armistice of three months, while he sent his brother Lucius, with two other envoys, to Rome to learn the pleasure of the Senate and People. The Senate, gave audience to Scipio’s envoys in the Temple of Bellona, and welcomed them into the city with the highest honours. At the same time ambassadors arrived from the old Government party at Carthage, who had always opposed the Hannibalic War, and now hoped to obtain more favourable terms: but they were dismissed by the Senate with contumely; .and the final decision respecting Peace was left to the People. All the Tribes voted that Scipio should be empowered to confirm the conditions which he had already offered; and the Fe-cials were ordered to pass over into Africa, carrying with them Italian flints to strike fire withal, and Italian herbs on which to offer sacrifice, that the Treaty might be made in unexceptionable form. Accordingly, in the very beginning of the year 201 B.C., seventeen years after Hannibal had set out from New Carthago on his march into Italy, peace was concluded, and Scipio set sail for Rome.

§ 27. When the old merchant rulers of Carthage saw their ships of war delivered up to the Romans, and most of them burned before their eyes; when they were obliged to open their money-bags to pay the first instalment of the enormous fine entailed upon them by that war, which had been begun in defiance of their secret wishes, and which had ended thus disas-

* 10,000 talents weight of silver would bo worth at the present day moro than 2,000,0001. sterling.

trously in consequence of their own jealousy and supineness, Hannibal made no secret of his contempt, and laughed openly at their rueful and dejected aspect. Nothing marks more clearly the character of this son of the camp. Kind and genial as he was, frank and generous to his soldiers, he respected not the real sufferings of these civilians, and took no trouble to disguise his sentiments. He felt conscious that his power in the city was greater now, than when lie was conqueror of Italy. We shall see hereafter that for the next few years he became the absolute ruler of Carthage, and the reformer of her narrow institutions. If he had been permitted, he might have raised her to an eminence greater than that from which she had fallen. But such was not the will of Providence.

§ 28. The Triumph of Scipio was the most splendid that had ever yet ascended the Sacred Hill. The enormous quantity of silver which he brought with him not only enriched his soldiers, but relieved the State from the pressure of the debts which during the war she had been obliged to contract. King Syphax followed his car, with many other illustrious prisoners; and, what was still more grateful to his feelings, many Romans who had long languished in captivity attended their deliverer wearing caps of Liberty. Among these was a Senator, by name Q. Terentius Culeo, who ever after considered himself the Freedman of Scipio. The General himself, the universal gaze of men, was saluted by the name of the country he had conquered. No one before him had obtained the honour of this titular surname: but the name of Scipio has come down to our own times indissolubly linked witli that of Africanus.

§ 1. Tho present a fit placo for a Review of tho Constitution, &c. § 2. Tho sevoraneo between Patricians and Plebeians fast disappearing. § 3. Decay of tho Comitia Curiata. § 4. Regulations of age, &e., for admission to offices of State. § 5. Duties attached to each. § 6. Theso offices professedly open to all, but now practically limited to tho wealthy. § 7. Constant ehango in executive officers, oven in those of tho army. § 8. Republican naturo of tho system: its disadvantages, how counteracted in practice. § 9. Stability given to tho system by tho Senate: the Senato composed of persons qualified (1) by tenuro of office, (2) by property, (3) by ago. § 10. Power of tho Senate, (1) in legislation, (2) in administration of homo and foreign affairs, (3) in jurisdiction. § 11. Tho Comitia Centuriata, as re-modelled. § 12. The Comitia Tributa: its gradual riso to power, coordinate with tho encroachments of tho Tribunato. § 13. Anomaly of two independent legislative bodies: how wero collisions prevented ? § 14. Tho Tribo Assembly far from a puro democracy. § 15. All laws in both Assemblies required tho previous sanction of tho Senate. § 10. Causes that prevented collisions between tho Senato and tho Tribes. § 17. Predominance of tho Tribo Assembly over tho Centuriate, in legislation. § 18. Their elective powers. § 19. Their rights of jurisdiction. § 20. Present supremacy of tho Senato accounted for.

§ 1. Now tliat wc have seen Rome first become Mistress of Italy, and then, after a life and death struggle, rise superior to Car-

thage; now that we shall have to follow her in her conquest of all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, so that this sea became what in modern phrase may be called a Roman lake, we naturally inquire what was the form of government under which she made these great achievements, what the treatment of the subject foreigners, what the condition of the people, their manners and mode of life, their progress in art and literature. To some of these questions an answer has already been given by the history itself; to others no answer can be given, so scanty are the records of the time.

§ 2. About the time of the Punic Wars tlie framework of the Roman Constitution was complete. This Constitution was not created by a single legislator, like that of Sparta, nor due to the convulsive efforts of an oppressed commonalty, like that of modern France, but had grown up, like that of England, by slow degrees out of the struggle between the Patrician Lords who had originally engrossed all political power, and the Plebeians or Commons, who had by successive steps obtained a share in all the privileges of the Patricians. The only trace remaining of ancient severance was the regulation by which, of the two Consuls and the two Censors, one must be a Patrician, one a Plebeian. At the time of which we speak this regulation was in full force. Indeed the Consuls who in the Hannibalic War rendered the most signal services were Patrician; but, by a law of nature, the Patrician Families being (like the Scottish Peerages) limited in number, gradually died off, while new Plebeian Families were rising to opulence and honour. In a few years even the partition of offices fell into disuse,¹⁰¹ and no political distinction remained, save that persons of Patrician pedigree were excluded from the Tribunate of the Plebs, as Scottish Peers from sitting in the House of Commons.

§ 3. In correspondence with the advance of Plebeian and the decay of Patrician Families, a silent revolution had been wrought in most parts of the Constitution.

The Assembly of the Curies, consisting wholly of Patricians, once the sole and supreme Legislative Body, continued to drag on a sickly existence. The Curies, indeed, still retained nominal powers of high sound. No Consul or Dictator could assume the Imperium without a Curiate Law to invest him therewith. But what at first sight seems a veto on the appointment of the first officers of State, was in fact a mere form; for the assent which the Curies were still allowed to give they were not allowed to withhold. They continued to meet even to Cicero’s time, but their business had then dwindled away to the regulation of the religious observances proper to the Patrician Gentes. A few Lictors, who were present as the attendants of the presiding Magistrate, alone appeared to represent the descendants of the Valerii, the Claudii, and the Posthumii.¹⁰²

As the Assembly of the Curies declined, the Assembly of tho Tribes arose. As the Comitium or Patrician Meeting-place at the narrow end of the Forum was deserted, the Forum itself or Plebeian Meeting-place was more and more thronged.f But before wo speak of this Assembly it will be convenient to give some account of the Executive Government.

§ 4. The chief officers of State employed in the administration of Iloman affairs remained as they had been settled after the Licinian Laws.

In Cicero’s time it is well known that every Roman who aspired to the highest offices was obliged to ascend through a regular scale of honours. An age was fixed before which each was unattainable. Tho first office so held was the Quaestorship, and the earliest age at which this could then be gained appears to have been about twenty-seven. Several years were then to elapse before a Roman could hold the first Curule office, that is, the ^Edileship. But between this and each of the highest honours, the Praetorship and the Consulship, only two complete years were interposed. To be chosen JEdile a man must bo at least thirty-seven, to be Praetor at least forty, to be Consul at least forty-three.J

But no settled regulations had yet been made. Many cases occur, both before and after the Second Punic Wav, in which men were elected to the Consulship at a very early age, and before they had held any other Curule office. Such was the case with Valerius Corvus in the Samnite Wars; such was the case with the great Scipio in the Ilannibalic War; such was the case with Galba and Flamininus, two of tho Consuls whom we shall find employed in the Macedonian War. Even in later times the rule was dispensed with on great emergencies or in favour of particular men. The younger Scipio was elected Consul, though he was but candidate for the iEdileship : Marius and Sylla both avoided the ^Edileship.

§ 5. There can be little doubt that this last-named office was the least acceptable to an active and ambitious man. The chief duties of the ./Ediles related to the care of the Public Buildings (whence their name), the celebration of the Games and Festivals, the order of the streets, and other matters belonging to the department of Police. But the Quaestors were charged with business of a more important character. They were attached to the Consuls and Praetors as Treasurers and Paymasters. The Tax-gatherers (Publicani) paid into their hands all moneys received on account of the State, and out of these funds they disbursed all sums required for the use of the Army, the Fleet, or the Civil Administration. They were ..originally two in number, one for cach Consul; but very soon they were doubled, and at the conquest of Italy they were increased to eight. Two always remained at home to conduct the business of the Treasury, the rest accompanied the Consuls, and Praetors, and Proconsuls to the most important provinces. .

The office of Praetor was supplementary to that of the Consuls. The time of its first creation was that important crisis when the Consulate was half surrendered to the Plebeians.* The judicial functions hitherto discharged by the Consuls were then transferred to a special Magistrate, who assumed the name of Praetor, originally borne by the Consuls themselves, and the Patricians retained exclusive possession of this magistracy longer than of any other; it was not till 337 B.C., that the first Plebeian obtained access to it. This original Praetor was called Praetor Urbanus, or President of the^City Courts. A second was added about the time when Sicily became subject to Rome, and a new court was erected for the decision of cases in which foreigners were concerned: hence the new magistrate was called Praetor Peregrinus. For the government of the two first provinces, Sicily and Sardinia, two more Praetors were created, and when Spain was constituted as a double province, two more, so that the whole number amounted to six. In the absence of the Consuls the Praetors presided in the Senate and at the great assembly of the Centuries. They often commanded reservo armies in the field, but they were always subordinate to tho Consul ; and to mark this subordinate position they were allowed only six Lictors,f whereas cach Consul was attended by twelve.

position as the supreme executive officers of the State is sufficiently indicated in every page of the History.

§ 6. To obtain each of these high offices the Roman was obliged to seek the suffrages of his fellow-citizens. They were open to the ambition of every one whose name had been entered by the Censors on the Register of Citizens, provided he had reached the required age. No office, except the Censorship, was held for a longer period than twelve months: no officer received any pay or salary for his services. To defray expenses certain allowances were made from tho Treasury by order of the Senate. To discharge routine duties and to conduct their correspondence, each magistrate had a certain number of clerks (Scrib¹⁰³), who formed what we should call the Civil Service, and who had before this assumed an important position in the State.*

But though the highest offices seemed- thus absolutely open to every candidate, they were not so in practice. About the time of the First Punic War an alteration was made which, in effect, confined the Curule offices to the wealthy families. The ^Ediles, as has been said, were charged with the management of the Public Games, and for celebrating them with due splendour an allowance had been made from the Treasury. At the time just mentioned this allowance was withdrawn. Yet the Curule ^Ediles were still expected to maintain the honour of Rome by costly spectacles at the Great Roman Games, the Megalesian Festival, and others of less consequence. A great change was wrought by this law, which, under a popular aspect, limited the choice of the people to those who could buy their favour.

§ 7. That which strikes the mind as most remarkable in the Executive Government of Rome is the short period for which each magistrate held his office, and the seeming danger of leaving appointments so important to the suffrages of the people at large. And this is still more striking when we remember that the same system was extended to the army itself as well as to its generals. The Romans had no standing army. Every Roman citizen between the complete ages of seventeen and forty-five, and possessing property worth at least 4000 pounds of copper, was placed on the Military Roll. From this Roll four Legions, two for each Consul, were enlisted every year, and in cases of necessity additional Legions were raised. But at the close of the year’s campaign these legionary soldiers had a right to return home and be relieved by others. Nor were there any fixed officers. Each Legion had six Tribunes and sixty Centurions'; but these were appointed,. like the Consuls and soldiers, fresh every year. Tlie majority of the Tribunes vyere elected by the people at the Comitia of the Tribes, and the remainder were nominated by the Consuls of the year, the only limitation to such choice being that those elected or nominated should have served in the Legions at least five campaigns. The Centurions were then nominated by the Tribunes, subject to the approval of the Consuls. No doubt the Tribunes and Consuls, for their own sake, would nominate effective men: and therefore we should conclude, what we find to be the fact, that the Roman armies depended chiefly on their Centurions, and on those Tribunes who were nominated by the Consuls.

§ 8. This brief statement will sufficiently show that the Roman system, both in Army and State, was strictly Republican, that is, calculated to distribute public offices to as many citizens as possible, and to prevent power being absorbed by any single man or classes of men. There were no professed statesmen or officers, but there was a large number of men who had served for a time in each capacity. There was no standing Army, but there was a good Militia. There was no regularly trained soldiery, but every citizen had served in his time several campaigns, and every one was something of a soldier. .

It has often been objected that this system was hurtful on the one hand to the successful management of war and foreign affairs; on the other hand destructive of that liberty which is necessary to trade and commerce. As to the latter point it may be admitted at once : the Roman institutions were not framed for the purpose of encouraging commercial pursuits. But military and political success would seem likely to be thwarted no less effectually by this fleeting tenure of office. If a Consul was pursuing his operations ever so successfully, he was liable to be superseded at the year’s close by his successor in the Consulship : and this successor brought with him new soldiers and new officers; everything, it would seem, had to be done over again. This was always felt in times of difficulty, and the constitutional usages were practically suspended. No Republic, however jealous, can rigidly carry out such a system: necessity will modify it in practice. During the Samnite Wars we find the same eminent men repeatedly elected to the Consulship, notwithstanding the provision that no man should hold this high office except at intervals of ten years. Valerius Corvus was first chosen Consul at three-and-twenty; he held the office four times in fourteen years; and, besides this, he often served as Dictator, as Praetor, and as Tribune of the Legions. The same remark, with slight alteration, may be made of Papirius Cursor, Publilius Philo, Fabius Maximus, Marcius Itcx, and others, who

held the same sovereign office repeatedly at short intervals. It was not till after 300 b.c. that the ten years’ law seems to have been enforced; and before this time another plan had been devised to leave the conduct of any doubtful war in the hands of a General who had shown himself equal to the task. In the year 328 B.C. the Senate first assumed the power of decreeing that a Consul or Praetor might be continued in his command for several successive years, with the title of Proconsul or Propraetor, the power of these officers being, within tlicir own district, equal to the power of the Consul or Praetor himself. The Proconsul also was allowed to keep part of his old army, and would of course continue his Tribunes and Centurions in officc. The hope of booty and the desire to serve out their campaigns (for after a certain number of campaigns served the legionary was exempt, even though he was much under forty-five years¹⁰⁴) kept many soldiers in the field; and thus the nucleus of a standing army was formed by each commander. In the Punic Wars the ten years’ law was suspended altogether, and Proconsuls were ordered to remain in officc for years together: almost all the great successes of Marcellus and Scipio w'cre gained in Proconsular commands*

§ 9. But though the chief officers both in State and Army were continually changing at the popular will, there was a mighty power behind them, on which they were all dependent, which did not change. This was the Senate.

The importance of this body can hardly be overstated. All the acts of the Roman Republic ran in the name of the Senate and People, as if the Senate were half the state, though its number seems still to have been limited to Three Hundred members.

The Senate of Rome was perhaps the most remarkable assembly that the world has ever seen. Its members held their scats for life; once Senators always Senators, unless they were degraded for some dishonourable cause. But the Senatorial Peerage was not hereditary. No father could transmit the honour to his son. Each man must win it for himself.

The manner in which scats in tho Senate were obtained is tolerably well ascertained. Many persons will be surprised to learn that the members of this august body, all—or nearly all— owed their places to the votes of the people. In theory, indeed, the Censors still possessed the power really exercised by the > Kings and early Consuls, of choosing the Senators at their own will and pleasure. But official powers, however arbitrary, are

always limited in practice; and the Censors followed rules established by ancient precedent. A notable example of the rule by which the list of the Senate was made, occurs at a period when, if ever, there was wide room for the exercise of discretion. After the fatal days of Thrasymene and Cannae, it was found that to complete the just number of Senators, no less than one hundred and seventy were wanting. Two years were yet to pass before new Censors would be in office; and to provide an extraordinary remedy for an extraordinary case, M. Fabius Buteo, an Old Senator of high character, was named Dictator for the sole purpose of recruiting the vacant ranks of his Order. He thus discharged his duty. “ After reciting the names of all surviving Senators, he chose as new members, first, those who had held Curulo offices since the last Censorship, according to the order of their election; then those who had served as iEdiles, Tribunes, or Quaestors; then, of those who had not held office, such as had decorated their houses with spoils taken from the enemy, or with crowns bestowed for saving the lives of fellow-citizens.”*

In the interval between two Censorships, that is in the course of five years, the number of Ex-Quaestors alone ipust have amounted to at least forty, and this was more than sufficient to fill the number of vacancies which would have occurred in ordinary times. The first qualification for a seat in the Senate then was that of Office. It is probable that to the qualification of office there was added a second, of Property. Such was certainly the case in later times. The Emperor Augustus fixed the property qualification of Senators at double that required of the Equestrian Order. And so early as the Hannibalic War, we have seen that when all orders were required to contribute towards a fleet, the Senators were called upon to equip a larger number of seamen than the citizens of the First Class a requisition which seems absurd, unless Senators had been the wealthiest men in the State. A third limitation, that of Age, followed from the rule that the Senate was recruited from the lists of official persons. No one could be a Senator till he was about thirty years of

the best times of the Republic. It formed a true Aristocracy. Its members, almost all, possessed the knowledge derived from the discharge of public office and from mature age. They were recommended to their places by popular election, and yet se-

* When Appius tho Censor transgressed the rule, new Censors were appointed, to make out a list according to old custom. V. Chapt. xxiv. § 15.

f Chapt xxxiiL § 5. _r cured from subserviency to popular will by the amount of their property. Forty or fifty Consulars at least, ten or twelve men to whom had been committed the delicate trusts belonging to tho office of Consor, with a number of younger aspirants to these high objects of ambition, were to be counted in its ranks. It was not by a mere figure of speech that the minister of Pyrrhus called the Roman Senate “ an Assembly of Kings.” Many of its members had exercised Sovereign power; many were preparing to cxercise it.

I § 10. The power of the Senate was equal to its dignity. It absorbed into its ranks a large proportion of the practical ability of the community. It was a standing Council, where all official functions were annual. And thus it is but natural that it should engross the chief business of the State.

First, in regard to Legislation, they exercised an absolute control over the Centuriatc Assembly, because no law could be submitted to its votes which had not originated in the Senate; and thus the vote of the Centuries could not do more than place a veto on a Senatorial Decree. In respect to the Legislation of the Tribe Assembly, their control was less authoritative; but of this we will speak presently.

In respect to Foreign Affairs, the power of the Senate was absolute, except in declaring war or concluding treaties of peace, — matters which were submitted to the votes of the People.¹⁰⁵ They assigned to the Consuls and Praetors their respective provinces of administration and command; they fixed the amount of the troops to be levied every year from the list of Roman citizens, and o*f the contingents to be furnished by the Italian allies. They prolonged the command of a general or superseded him at pleasure. They estimated the sums necessary for the military chest; nor could a sesterce be paid to the General without their order. If a Consul proved refractory, they could transfer his power for the time to a Dictator; even if his success had been great, they could refuse him the honour of a Triumph. Ambassadors to foreign states were chosen by them and from them; so w'cre the frequent Commissions appointed for transacting business abroad, cither in treating with foreign potentates, or settling the government of conquered countries. All disputes in Italy or beyond seas were referred to their sovereign arbitrement.

In the administration of Home Affairs, all the regulation o} religious matters was in their lianas; they exercised superintendence over the Pontiffs and other ministers of public worship. They appointed days for extraordinary festivals, for thanksgiving after victory, for humiliation after defeat. But, which was of highest importance, all the Financial arrangements of the State were left to their discretion. The Censors, at periods usually not exceeding five years in duration, formed estimates of annual outlay, and provided ways and means for meeting these estimates; but always under the direction of the Senate.

In all these matters, both of Home and Foreign administration, their Decrees had the power of law. In times of difficulty they had the power of suspending all rules of law, by the appointment of a Dictator, or by investing the Consuls with Dictatorial power.

Besides these Administrative functions, they might resolve themselves into a High Court of Justice for the trial of extraordinary offences. But in this matter they obtained far more definite authority by the Calpurnian Law, which about fifty years later established High Courts of Justice, in which Praetors acted as presiding judges, but the Senators were the Jury.

It appears, then, that the Senate of Rome was not, like our Parliament, a merely deliberative and legislative body, but a great Sovereign Council, controlling every branch of administration, and nearly all matters of legislation also. The Consuls and Praetors were its Ministers of Foreign and Home Affairs; the Censors its Ministers of Finance; the Quaestors its Treasurers and Paymasters; the .iEdiles its Superintendents of Police and Public Works. It was at the present time, and for many years later, the main-spring of the Roman Constitution.

§11. Our attention must now be directed to the two great Legislative Assemblies of the Roman People, well known respectively under the names af the Assembly of the Classes and Centuries, and the Assembly of the Tribes, which had now entirely superseded the ancient Patrician Assembly of the Curies.

A description was given in a former page of the manner in which King Servius so organised the great Centuriate Assembly as to give tho privilege of a Vote to every citizen, yet so as to leave all real power in the hands of the wealthier classes. But at some time between the Decemvirate and the Second Punic War, a complete reform had been made in the organisation of Servius. When this was we know not.¹⁰⁶ Nor do wo know the preciso nature of the reform. This only is certain, that the distribution of the whole people into Tribes was taken as tho basis of division in the Centuriate Assembly as well as in the Assembly of tho Tribes, and yet that the division into Classes and Centuries was still retained, as well as the division into Seniores and Juniores. The maintenance of this last division preserved the military character of this great Assemblythe introduction of the Tribes as a basis of division gave it a more democratic character than before; while the preservation of the Class system made it more aristocratic than the Tribe • Assembly.

In the absence of positive evidence, we may here give what is the most probable constitution of the Reformed Centuriate Assembly. It is assumed then, that the whole People was convened according to its division into thirty-fivo Tribes; that in each Tribe, account was taken of the five Classes, arranged according to an ascending scale of property, which, however, had been greatly altered from that attributed to Servius; and that in each Tribe each of the five Classes was subdivided into two Centuries, one of Seniores, or men between forty-five and sixty, one of Juniores, or men between eighteen and forty-five. On the whole, then, with the addition of eighteen Centuries of Knights, there would be 368 Centuries. This plan, though it allowed far less influence to wealth than the plan of Servius, would yet leave a considerable advantage to the richer classes. For it is plain that the two Centuries of the First Class in cach Tribe would contain far fewer members than the two Centuries of the Second Class, those of the Second fewer than those of the Third, and all those of the first four together, probably, fewer than those of the Fifth. Yet these four Tribes having in all 240, or (with the Knights) 258 Centuries, would command an absolute majority; for the question was still decided not by the majority of persons, but by the majority of Centuries.

§ 12. While the Centuriate Assembly was becoming more popular in its constitution, a still more democratic body had come into existence, namely, the Assembly op tiie Tribes.

There can be no doubt that when the Centuriate Assembly was restored by the Patricians after the expulsion of Tarquin, it was intended to be the sole Legislative body. The more recent Legislative Assembly of the Tribes was a spontaneous growth of popular will, not contemplated by statesmen. The Tribe Assembly, originally intended to conduct the business of the Plebeian Order, gradually extended its power over the whole Body politic; and its ordinances (Plebiscita) obtained all the force of laws.

It is in the history of the Tribunate that we trace the course of the insensible revolution which made the Assembly of Tribes the chief Legislative body in the State.

The Tribunes were, as their name denotes, the Presidents and Ministers of the Tribes. They were originally invested with political authority for the purpose of protecting the persons of the Plebeians from the arbitrary punishments inflicted by the Patrician Magistrates. It was no doubt intended that this authority should be only suspensive, so as to prevent sudden acts of violence. But the Tribunes soon assumed the licence of standing between Plebeians and the law. Thus they established the celebrated right of Intercession, which in course of time they extended to all matters. They forbade trials, stopped elections, put a veto on the passing of laws. So far, however, their power was only negative. But when the Tribe Assembly obtained legislative rights, the Tribunes obtained a positive authority. The power of the Tribunes and of the Tribes implied each other. The Plebeian Assembly was dead without able and resolute Tribunes; the Tribunes were impotent without the democracy at their back.

This relation was at once established when the election of the Tribunes was committed to the Tribes themselves. The Tribunes soon began to summon the Tribes to discuss political questions; and the formidable authority which they now wielded appeared in the overthrow of the Decemvirate and the recognition of the Tribe Assembly as a Legislative body. The political powers then gained by the Valerio-Horatian laws were confirmed and extended by the popular Dictators, Q. Publilius Philo and Q. Hortensius.¹⁰⁷ It is impossible to estimate the amount of concession made by each of these laws. All that can be determined is, that by these laws—all of them passed at the Centuriate Assembly—the Tribes were constituted by the side of the other Assembly as a complete and independent Legislative body, and that no person except a Tribune could introduce a measure for their approval. Before the first of these laws was passed, the votes of the Tribe Assembly were merely like the rules of a parish meeting, having no reference to the community at large. After these laws were conceded, the Plebiscita obtained the authority of law, and were binding on the whole community. For a long period, however, only the measures of the Centuriate Assembly were dignified -with the name of Leges; blit in later times the name Lex was applied indiscriminately to the measures passed by both Assemblies.

parent anomaly of two distinct Legislative Assemblies, each independent of the other*,' for laws passed in the one did not require the sanction of the other, as is the case with our Houses of Parliament. Nor were any distinct provinces of action assigned respectively to each. This being so, we should expect to find the one clashing with the other; to hear of popular laws emanating from the one body met with a counter-project from the other. But no such struggles are recorded. The only way in which it can be known that a particular law is due to the more popular or to the more aristocratic Assembly is by looking to the name of the mover, by which every law was designated. If the name be that of a Tribune, the law must be referred to the Tribe Assembly. If the name be that of a Consul, Praitor, or Dictator,-the law must be referred to the Centuriate Assembly. What, then, were the causes which prevented collisions which appear inevitable ? •

§ 14. First, it must be remembered that, though the Centuriate Assembly had been made more democratic, yet the Tribe Assembly was very far indeed from a purely democratic body. In the latter, the suffrages were taken by the head in each of the thirty-five Tribes, and if eighteen Tribes voted one way, and seventeen another, the question was decided by the votes of the eighteen. But the eighteen rarely, if ever, contained an absolute majority of citizens. For the whole population of Rome, with all the Freedmen, were thrown into four Tribes only,* and if these four Tribes. were in the minority, there can be no doubt that the minority of Tribes represented a majority of voters. Thus even in the more popular Assembly, there was not wanting a counterpoise to the will of the mere majority.

§ 15. A still more effective check to collision is to be found in the fact that all measures proposed to the Tribe Assembly by the Tribes, as well as the Centuriate Laws proposed by the Consuls or other Ministers of the Senate, must first receive the sanction of the Senate itself. Tlie few exceptions which occur are where Tribunes propose a Resolution granting to a popular Consul the Triumph refused by the Senate. But these exceptions only serve to prove the rule.

§ 16. Our surprise that no collision is heard of between the ^ftwo Assemblies now takes another form, and we are led to ask how it came that, if all measures must be first approved by the Senate, any substantial power at all could belong to the Tribes ? It would seem that they also, like the Centuriate Assembly, could at most exercise only a veto on measures emanating from the great Council.

That this result did not follow, is due to the rude but formid' able counter-clieck provided by the Tribunate. The persons of the Tribunes were inviolable; but the Tribunes had power to place- even Consuls under arrest. By the advance of their intercessory prerogative they gradually built up an authority capablo of overriding all other powers in the State.

It is plain that if the Senate and the Tribunes had both insisted on their. respective rights of initiation and intercession, Legislation must have come to a standstill. But it was to the credit of all orders at Rome, that hitherto they had always agreed to a peaceful compromise. The Senate, by its very composition, contained men of widely different sentiments; the Plebeians, as we have seen, obtained access to its ranks at an early period.* Its members were taken from the official lists, and official personages are never disposed to push matters to extremity. Old soldiers will maintain a position while it is defensible: when it ceases to be so, they make an honourable retreat. As in early times we find the Senate far more moderate than the hot Patrician party, who would have resisted the demands of the Plebeians at all hazards, so in a later age we shall see this experienced Council taking a middle course between the stiff conservative policy of the Nobility and the violence of the Democratic Leaders. On the other hand, the College of Tribunes, consisting of Ten Members, were seldom so unanimous as to be able to thwart the Senate with effect. We shall find that it was by divisions in the College that their formidable power was often broken.

§ 17. We are now better able to appreciate the position of the two Assemblies as Legislative Bodies. The Tribe Assembly was presided over by officers of its own choice, invested with authority generally sufficient to extort from the Senate leave to bring in Laws of a popular character. No such power resided in the Presidents of the Centuriate Assembly: for the Consuls were little more than Ministers of the Senate. It was natural that the more energetic will of the popular leaders should exalt their own Assemblies; and as two Legislative Assemblies could not coexist with full and independent powers, it was no less natural that the more aristocratic body should suffer decay. Between the time when the Tribes gained legislative power and the close of the Hannibalic War, there are recorded but eleven Centuriate Laws, and more than thirty which emanated from the Tribes. Even of these eleven, five were measures of compromise, which served to advance the authority of the Tribes. The Centuriate

Assembly more and more became a passive instrument in the hands of the Senate. The Tribe Assembly rose to be the real and sole organ of popular opinion.

§ 18. In other matters, the powers of the two Assemblies were more definitely marked and the limits better observed.

In Elections, the Centuriatc Assembly always retained the right of choosing the chief Officers of State, the Consuls, the Praetors, and the Censors. The Tribe Assembly, originally, elected only their own Tribunes and the Plebeian ^Ediles. But in no long time they obtained the right of choosing also tho Curule -/Edilcs, the Quaestors, the great majority of the Legionary Tribunes, and all inferior Officers of State. But as the Centuriea were, generally, obliged to elect their Praetors and Consuls out of those who had already been elected Quaestors and ^diles by the Tribes, it is manifest that the elective power of the former was controlled and over-ridden by the latter. In conferring extraordinary commands, such as that of Scipio in Spain, the Tribes were always consulted, not the Centuries.

§ 19. In regard to Jurisdiction, it has before been noticed that Rome was tender of the personal liberties of her citizens. Various Laws of Appeal provided for an open trial before his peers of any one charged with grave offences, such as would subject him to stripes, imprisonment, or death.¹⁰⁸ Now the Centuries alone formed a High Court of Justice for the trial of citizens; the Tribe Assembly never achieved this dangerous privilege. But the peculiar nature of the Tribunician power offered to the chief officers of the Tribes a ready means of interference. They used their right of intercession, occasionally, to prevent any trial from taking place, and thus screened real offenders from justice. But more frequently they acted on the offensive. There was a merciful provision of the law of Rome, by which a person liable to a state-prosecution might withdraw from Italian soil at any time before his trial, and become the citizen of some allied city, such as Syracuse or Pergamus. But the Tribunes sometimes threw culprits into prison before trial, as in the case of App. Claudius the Decemvir and his father. Or, after a culprit had sought safety in voluntary exile, they proposed a Bill of Outlawry, by which he was “ interdicted from fire and water” on Italian soil, and all his goods were confiscated. Offending Magistrates were also fined heavily, without trial, by special Plebiscita, which resembled the Bills of Attainder so familiar to the reader of English history.

These encroachments of the Tribunes were met by other unconstitutional measures on the part of the Senate. To bar the action of the Tribunes and to suspend the Laws of Appeal, they at one time had constant recourse to Dictatorial appointments. Ten years after the nomination of Dictators had been solemnly prohibited by the Valerio-IIoratian Laws (449 b.c.) Cincinnatus approved the act of Ahala, who had struck down the popular champion Q. Maelius in the Forum. In the following 237 year,! the Fasti supply the names of 65 Dictators, of whom no fewer than 37 appear in the 67 years next after the Licinian Laws. Three of these are expressly said to have been named for the purpose of quelling sedition¹⁰⁹ But it must be remembered that of those appointed for special military service,f many used their power to overawe the Plebeian leaders. It is a complaint constantly put by Livy into the mouths of the Tribunes, that Dictators were appointed nominally to carry on war, but really for a very different purpose; nor indeed is it conceivable that so many emergencies should have occurred requiring the special action of an irresponsible magistrate. But these contests slackened at the time of the Samnite Wars. Dictators were *\gain named, but for real service, in the desperate conflict of the'Punic Wars. After that none are heard of till the time of Sylla.

We shall find, however, that in critical times the Senate assumed the right of investing the Consuls with dictatorial power. And the dispute about jurisdiction over the persons of citizens assumed a new form when the Calpurnian law, already noticed, transferred the power of trying all gra^e offences from the Centuries to Juries of the Senate under tho presidency of the Praetor.

§ 20. It must not here be forgotten that of late years circumstances had greatly exalted the power of the Senate and proportionally diminished the power of the Tribunes. In great wars, especially such as threaten the existence of a community, the voice of popular leaders is little heard. Reforms are forgotten. Agitation ceases. Each man applies his energies to avert present danger, rather than to achieve future improvements. During the Samnite Wars, scarcely one Tribunician law is recorded in the Annals: but no sooner is the peril overpast than the Ogulnian Law opens the Augurate to the Plebeians. During the first Punic War, the Forum is silent: but no sooner is it ended than we are struck by the appearance of a leader of the Commons, bold, resolute, and accomplished. This was C. Flaminius. In 232

B.C., being Tribune, lie proposed an Agrarian Law to distribute the lands taken from tho Boians and Insubrians to a large number of Colonists; and notwithstanding the opposition of the Senate, the colonies of Placentia and Cremona were founded. In the memorable year in which Hannibal crossed the Alps, Flaminius was Consul-elect, and under his auspices the Tribune Claudius obliged the Senate to consent to a law by which Senators were prohibited from engaging in commercial pursuits. Nor did the popular spirit evoked by this man die till after the great battle of Canna). His own election and that of Terentius Yarro were directly contrary to the wislien of the Senate; and the measure by which Fabius was obliged to share his imperial power with Minucius his Master of the Horse, was a Plebiscitum proposed by a Tribune. Even after Canna3, the Tribune Oppius forced the Senate to consent to a sumptuary law. But after this, the Senate under the leading of old Fabius Cunctator ruled absolutely for several years. Even elections to the Consulate, which he deemed inopportune, were set aside,—a thing without precedent in Roman constitutional history. Fabius was at length superseded by young Scipio, who in his turn became absolute, and at the close of the war might have made himself Dictator, had he been so pleased. At present, popular spirit had fallen asleep. Constitutional opposition there was none. The Senate seemed likely to retain in peace the power which war had necessarily thrown into their hands.

§ 1. Provincial and Italian Communities. § 2. Our knowledge chiefly drawn from Sicily. § 3. Condition of the Sicilian Cities after the Second Punic War. § 4. General principles of Provincial Government: similarity of Provincial Towns to Italian. § 5. Difference, chiefly consisting in Taxation: Jus Italicum. § 6. Treasury. § 7. Ordinary Revenues. § 8. Extraordinary Tax on Property levied for war expenses. § 9. Not sufficient for expenses of Second Punic War: Loans, Contracts paid in paper-money: nature of these advances : soon repaid. § 10. The War Tax itself repaid: finally abolished. § 11. How far Italians contributed to war expenses: reasons for their patience. § 12. System of Taxation and Tax-gathering in tho Provinces. § 13. Corrupt administration of Provincial Government.

§ 1. After this general view of the manner in which the different elements of the Roman Constitution were roughly welded into a sort of unity, we must give some account of the Imperial relations subsisting between Rome and her subjects at tho bo-

ginning of the second century before the Christian Era, and especially of tho way in which the expenses of government were defrayed. In speaking of the subjects of the great Republic, the Latin and Italian Allies are not included. What has been said of them in a former .Chapter will show the justice of this distinction. It is true, indeed, that all the Italians were not Allies; for the Prefectures and some small communities were strictly subject. Nor were all the Provincial communities subject ; for a favoured few were left in a condition as independent as any Italian city. But, as a general rule, the Italian. Communities were allied, the Provincial communities were subject.

§ 2. At the close of the Ilannibalic War, Rome was in possession, nominally, of five Provinces, Sicily, Sardinia, the Gallic coast of Umbria (then called the Province of Arimmum), with Hither and Further Spain. But of these, Sardinia and the Spains were almost to be conquered again; and Gallic Umbria was shortly after absorbed into Italy, while the magnificent district between the Alps and the Gulf of .Genoa became the Province of Gaul. Sicily was the only Province as yet constituted on a solid foundation. To Sicily, therefore, we will confine our remarks; a course which is further recommended by the fact that we arc better informed with regard to Sicily than with regard to any other of the foreign possessions of the Republic.

§ 3. We must call to mind that, in speaking of Sicily as of Italy, we are not to think of the country as a whole, but as broken up into a number of Civic Communities, each being more or less isolated from the rest. It was Roman policy to encourage this isolation, but in Sicily no encouragement was needed. Sicily, like Greece Proper, had long been divided into numerous small States, sometimes Republican, sometimes subject to Tyrants, but always full of jealousy towards each other, and often in a state of war. Strong rulers, like Dionysius the Elder, might for a season unite the greater part of the island Under the supremacy of Syracuse; but as soon as the coercive force of military despotism was removed, disruption followed. At tho close of the First Punic War, when the Romans had expelled tho Carthaginians from the island, the greater part of it was formoa into a Province; while the kingdom of Hiero, consisting of Syracuse with six dependent communities,¹¹⁰ was received into free alliance with Rome. But in the Second Punic War, Syracuse and all Sicily was reconquered by Marcellus. and Lsevinus, and the form of the Provincial Communities was altered. The cities of Sicily were now divided into three classes. First, there were those cities which had been taken by siege: these, twenty-six in number, were mulcted of their territory, which became part of the public land of Rome;¹¹¹ their former citizens had perished in war, or had been sold as slaves, or were living as serfs on the soil which they had formerly owned. Secondly, there were a large number of Communities, thirty-four in all, which retained the fee-simple of their land, but were burthened with payment of a tithe of corn, wine, oil, and other produce, according to a rule established by Iliero in the district subject to- Syracuse-! Thirdly, there were eight Communities left independent, which were, like the Italians, free from all imposts,, except certain military services.

These states were all left in possession of what we should call Municipal institutions; they had the right of self-government in alt local matters, with popular assemblies and councils, such as were common in Greek communities. But all were subject to the authority of a- governor, sent from Rome, with the title of Praetor, whose business it was to adjudicate in all matters where the interests of Rome or of Roman citizens were concerned, and, above all, to provide for the regular payment of the imposts. In Sicily, which in those days was a well-cultivated and productive country, this department was so important, that the Praetor was assisted by two Quaestors, one stationed at Syracuse, the other at Lilybeeum.

§> 4. This brief statement will show the principles of Roman Provincial government. Communities which, during the War of Conquest, had joined the invaders at once 01* at a critical point, in the war,, were left free from all ordinary and annual imposts. Cities that were taken by force became, with their territory, the absolute property of Rome. Between these extremes there was a large class, which retained full possession of their lands, and complete local independence, but were subject to the payment of yearly imposts to the imperial treasury⁷, which were levied on tlie produce of their land. All alike were obliged to contribute towards the expenses of the Praetor’s court and government.

In the formation of the numerous Provinces which were conquered in the next eighty years, the same principles were followed. But it is probable that there was a greater uniformity in the condition of the various communities. In many of the Provinces there seem to have been no large portions of public land,, as in Sicily: while, on the other hand, the States both in independence and alliance seem also to have been less numerous. In a general way, the administration of each Province much resembled that of Italy itself. The Prefectures, Municipia, and allied States of Italy correspond very nearly to the three conditions of Provincial Communities above noticed; the principle of administration was, generally, internal independence under the control of the central government of the Senate. In Italy, the Senate acted through the Consuls or Praetor resident at Rome; in the Provinces, through the Praitors or Proconsuls deputed to conduct the government there.

§ 5. There were, however, some important particulars, in which the constitution of Italy differed from the constitution of the Provinces. In the Provinces, as we have said, the free and allied Communities formed the exceptions. Nor was it, till long after the present time, the practice to found Colonics out of Italy.

But there was one yet more important distinction. It was a general rule that all Italian land was tax-free; and that all Provincial land, except such as was specified in treaties or in Decrees of the Senate, was subject to tax. This rule was so absolute, that the exemption of land from taxation was known by the technical name of Jus Italicum or the Right of Italy.

This last distinction implies that the Imperial revenues were raised chiefly from the Provinces. In the course of little more than thirty years from the close of the Ilannibalic War, this was actually the case. We will take this opportunity of giving a brief account of the different sources from which the revenues of Rome were raised.

§ G. The Imperial Treasury of Rome was in the ancient Temple of Saturn, situated at the end of the Forum beneath the Capitol, of which three stately columns still remain to attest the magnificence with which it was restored by the Emperor Sevcrus. Ilere the two Quaestors of the city deposited all the moneys received on account of the State. No disbursements could be made without an order from an officer duly authorised by the Senate. For the moneys received, the Quaestors also had to account to the Senate. The sources of receipt were two-fold, ordinary and extraordinary.

§ 7. The Ordinary Revenues consisted of the proceeds and rent of public property, custom-dutics, tolls, and the like, and the tax levied on Provincial lands.

The property of the State was, as lias often been noticed, very large. Much of the public land, however, had been distributed to colonics, and Hie rent received for the rest seems to have been small. Yet the quantity of undistributed land in Italy and Sicily was so great, that it must have yielded a considerable revenue. Besides this, the fisheries, with all. mines and quarries, were considered public property. Even the manufacture of salt was a State monopoly from the Censorship of M. Livius, who thenceforth bore the name of Salinator, or the Salt-maker. It is fair to state, however, that this monopoly was intended to keep salt at a lower price than it could be manufactured by private enterprise, and therefore, though it might be a mistake, the Senate is not properly chargeable with the odium of raising revenue from one of the first necessaries of life, as was the practice in France before the Revolution, and as has remained the practice in India to the present day.

Besides these rents and monopolies, custom-duties were levied on certain kinds of goods, both exports and imports, and tolls were demanded for passengers and goods carried by canals or across bridges and ferries.¹¹²

There was also an ad valorem duty of five per cent, imposed on the manumission of slaves. This was not carried to the account of the year, but laid by as a reserve-fund, not to be used except in great emergencies.

The revenue derived from the Provincial Land-tax was only beginning to be productive, but in a few years it formed the chief income of the Republic.

§ 8. It appears that for the Civil government of the Republic the Ordinary Revenues were found sufficient. The current expenses, indeed, were small. The Italian and Provincial Communities defrayed the expenses of their own administration. Rome herself as we have said, claimed the services of her statesmen and administrators without paying them any public salaries.

In time of war, however, the Ordinary Revenues failed, and to meet the expenses of each year’s campaign an Extraordinary Tax was levied as required. This was the. Tributum or Property-tax. Its mode of assessment marks its close association with war-expenses. We have seen above that the whole arrangement of the Centuriate Assembly was military. Not the least important of these was the Census or Register of all citizens, arranged according to their age and property. It was made out by the Censors at intervals of five years, and served during the succeeding period as the basis of taxation. The necessities of each year determined the amount to be levied. It was usually one in a thousand, or one-tenth per cent.f The Senate had the power of calling for this payment. It was this “ power of the purse” which, in time of war, enabled them to play so great a part. No people can control its government effectually, unless it has the right of taxing itself.

§ 9. In the Second Punic War this tax was quite insufficient to meet the expenses. Once it was doubled.¹¹³ But at length it became necessary to call on wealthy individuals to furnish seamen, and to advance money by way of loan ; and contracts were formed with commercial companies to furnish stores and clothing for the army, in return for which they received orders on the Treasury payable at some future time.f The obligations thus contractcd were not left as a national debt; though the Hanni-balic War was so Entirely a struggle for existence, that it might well have justified the Senate in laying part of the load upon posterity by the expedient which has been so much abused in modern times. But probably this expedient was not thought of. Those who made advances to the State without prospect of immediate payment, did so on speculation. If Rome prevailed, they were sure not to lose. If she fell, the practice of ancient warfare made it ccrtain that they would lose all they had. The advancement of money or goods, therefore, was rather an act of prudent policy, than of extraordinary patriotism. The first and chief contributors were the Senators, who had much to lose and all to gain. No doubt, those who gave freely and without interest deserved well of their country. But, in serving the State they also served themselves. The whole concerns of the State, formed a great joint-stock company: every man had an interest in succcss and failure. We find, accordingly, that the first instalment of repayment was made in the year 204 b.c., immediately after the submission of Carthage; tho second and third at successive intervals of four ycars.J

§ 10. But here it must be observed that the war-tax itself in 3ome degree resembled a compulsory loan. It was a forced contribution to the necessities of the State; but it was repaid, in whole or in part, on the succcssful completion of the war. Tho soldiers who survived battles won or towns capturcd, seldom failed to gain a large share of booty. The greater portion, however, was sold, and the money received paid into tho Treasury, while the expenses of the war were in whole or in part charged upon the conquered people. From these funds which may be considered as another source of extraordinary revenue, it seems to have been the practice to repay the sums raised by way of property-tax during the war.¹¹⁴ At length, in the year 1G7 b.c., wc shall find that the payments exacted from the Provincials became so large that the Senate was enabled to dispense with extraordinary taxes altogether; and thus the ordinary revenues sufficed for the expenses of all future wars, as well as for the civil administration.

§ 11. When it is said that the Italian allies were free from Land-tax, it must not be supposed that they escaped all taxation. Roman land -was free from direct taxation except when the Tri-butum or war-tax was levied. So, also, the allied Communities of Italy, the Municipia and Colonies, were free from all direct burthens, except in time of war. Then each Community w^Tas required, according to a scale furnished by its own Censor, to supply contingents of soldiery to the Roman army, such contingents bearing a proportion to the number of legions levied by the Romans themselves in any given year. The Italian soldiery were fed by Rome; but their equipments and pay were provided at the expense of their own States: and therefore it is plain that every Italian Community was indirectly subject to a war-tax. But though these Communities suffered the burthens of war like Rome, they did not like Rome profit by war. The Roman Treasury repaid taxes raised for the conduct of war. But such repayment was confined to Romans. The soldiers of the Latin and Italian towns might obtain their share of booty; but tlicir citizens at home had no hope of repayment. Moneys paid into the Roman Treasury were applicable to Roman purposes only. The Italians, though they shared the danger and the expense, were not allowed to share the profit. Here was a fertile field for discontent, which afterwards bore fatal fruits.

In the Hannibalic War Italians, as well as Romans, were fighting for house and home; and if, in the last years, the genius of Scipio enriched the Treasury by conquest, the Italians were too thankful for deliverance from the invader to think of claiming equality with Rome. But in the wars which followed, when tlicir citizens were carried beyond seas and detained for years far from home, when their blood and treasure, poured out as profusely as the blood and treasure of Roman citizens, only served to bring glory and profit to Rome, it is less wonderful that disaffection should have arisen, than that it should have been delayed so long. It was more than a century from the close of the Hannibalic War before the Italians in arms demanded to bo placed on an equal footing with the citizens of Rome.

§ 12. In the Provinces, on the other hand, little military service was required ; but direct imposts were levied instead.

This system was itself galling and onerous. It was as if England were to defray the expenses of her own administration from the proceeds of a tax levied upon her Indian Empire. But the cystem was made much worse by the way in which the taxes were collected. This was done by contract. Every five years the taxes of the Provinces were put up to public auction; and that company of contractors which outbade the rest would receive the contract. The Fanners of the Taxes, therefore, offered to pay a certain Klim to the Imperial Treasury for the right of collecting, the taxes and imposts of Sicily, gave security for payment, and then made what profit they could out of the taxes collected. The members of these companies were called Publicani, and the Farmers-general, or chiefs of the companies, bore the name of Mancipes. It is manifest that this system offered a premium on extortion; for the more the tax-collectors could wring from the Provincials, the more they would have for themselves. The extortions incident to this system form a principal topic in the Provincial history of Rome.

§ 13. If tiie Roman Governors had done their duty, it is probable that the extortions of the Tax-gatherers might have been prevented, or limited within a narrow circle. The system of Provincial governments, as above stated, sounds fair. Local independence, subject to the general control of a central authority, is the ideal of government. But, unfortunately, the fairness of the system was more in the sound than the reality. The Proconsuls and Praetors exercised an authority virtually despotic. They were Senators, and were responsible to the Senate alone. It may too surely be anticipated what degree of severity a close corporation, like the Senate, would exercise towards its own members in times when communication with the Provinces was uncertain and difficult, when no one cared for the fate of foreigners, when there was no press to give tongue to public opinion, and, indeed, no force of public opinion at all. Very soon, the Senatorial Proconsuls found it their interests to support the tax-gatherers in their extortions, on condition of sharing in the plunder; and one party played into the hand of the other. Thus, the Provincial government of the Republic became in practice an organised system of oppression, calculated to enrich fortunate Senators, and to provide them with the means of buying the suffrages of the people or of discharging the debts incurred in buying them. The name of Proconsul be* came identified with tyranny and greed.

§ 1. The Third Century before Christ tho Golden Ago of Rome. § 2. Tho Towns chiefly peopled by the Nobles and their dependents: § 3. tho Country by the Yeomen: their condition in these times. § 4. Excess of population relieved by Home Colonics. § 5. Increase in the number of Slaves by conquest: their social condition. § 6. Common practice of setting Slaves free. § *7. Condition of the Freedmen: Rustic and Civic Tribes. § 8. Family life of Romans: Marriage: paternal authority. • § 9 Religion: its influence on morality. §10. Superstitious practices. § 11-No faith or humanity towards Foreigners. § 12. Tho Language of Romo quite formed after First Punic War: versification. § 13. Native Literature of Romo Hellenized by tho conqucst of Magna Grascia. § 14. M. Livus Andronicus tho first Hellcnizing writer. § 15. Cn. Naevius: his opposition to Hellenism. § 16. Q. Ennius secures tho ascendency of Hellenizing Literature. § 1*7. Proso ‘Writers. § 18. Early specimens of Roman Art: duo to tho Graco-Etruscan artists. §19. Pure Greek Art

* introduced after conqucst of Magna Graecia. § 20. Slow progress in tho mechanical Arts. § 21. Rudeness of houses, agriculture, &c. § 22.

§ 1. The ago of which we have been treating, from the Samnite War to the close of the Punic Wars, was always considered by the Romans, and is still considered by their admirers, to have been the golden age of the Republic. There is a tendency in every nation to look back with fond regret to the “ good old times.” Frenchmen, after all their revolutions, still love the gallantry and popular sympathies of their Fourth Ilenry; and Englishmen, perhaps with better reason, are still proud of the age of “ good Queen Bess.” Modern historians have laboured to dispel illusions, by holding up a dark picture of the social condition of such times, and by contrasting the comforts and luxuries which we enjoy with the rudeness and filth in which former generations were content to live. Reasonings of this kind arc more applicable to people dwelling in a climate like our own than to those who live under the sky of Italy. In Italy, so great a part of life is spent in the open air, that many of our comforts or necessaries • arc to her people superfluous. On the other hand, in many countries and ages which we call uncivilised, there is found a genuine simplicity of thought and manners, which give them some unquestionable advantages. This simplicity, which Horace, no depreciator of cultivated life, found and loved in his Sabine valley, when Rome was in the depth of corruption, still lingers in retired parts of Italy, and was at that time to be found within sight of the walls of Rome. A people whicji handed down the legends of Cincinnatus, Curius, Fabricius, Regulus, can hardly not have practised the thrift and honesty which they admired. The characters are no doubt idealised; but they may be taken as types of their times. In the Roman country districts, and still more in the Apennine valleys, the habits of life were no doubt simple, honest, and perhaps rude, of Sabine rather than of Hellenic character, the life of countrymen rather than of dwellers in the town

§ 2. It has been remarked that the Italians, like the Greeks, must be regarded as members of Cities or Civic Communities. But the walled towns which w^rere the centres of each community were mostly the residence of the chief men and their dependents and slaves, while the mass of the free citizens were dispersed over the adjoining country district, dwelling on their own farms, and resorting to the town only to bring their produce to market or to take their part in the political business transacted at the general assemblies. Such was the case at Rome in early times. The great patrician lords with their families dwelt in strong houses or castles on the Capitoline, Palatine, and Quirinal Hills, while their clients thronged the lower parts adjacent. As the Plebeians increased in wealth and power, their great men established themselves at first upon the Cselian and Aventine, and afterwards indiscriminately on all the Hills. We may judge of the importance attached to these castle-like mansions by the fact, that when a man became too powerful or incurred the suspicion of the ruling party, one chief part of his punishment was that his house should be levelled with the ground. Such was the sentence laid upon the popular leaders Sp. Maslius and M. Manlius by the aristocratic Tribunals. And this was the reason which induced Valerius Publicola to avert jealousy by shifting the situation of his new house from the Velian ridge to lower ground. Suspicion prevailed on both sides. The Patricians could not brook to see fortresses in the hands of popular leaders; the Plebeians dreaded the Patrician mansions as the strongholds of oppression, and the prisons of unhappy debtors.

§ 3. In the country districts of Rome the greater part of the land* was still in the hands of small proprietors, who tilled their own lands by the aid of their sons and sons-in-law. In the earliest times the dimensions of these Plebeian holdings were incredibly small,—an allotment being computed at not more than

2 jugera (about acres). Even with very fertile soil and unremitting labour, such a piece of land could barely maintain a family. But to eke out the produce of their tilled lands, every free citizen had a right to feed a certain number of cattle on the common, pastures at the expense of a small payment to the State; and in this way even a large family might live in rude abundance. In no long time, however, the plebeian allotments were increased to 7 jugera (about acres) ; and this increase of tilled lands indicates a corresponding improvement in the habits and comforts of the people,—an improvement attributed, as all benefits conferred on the Plebeians in early times were attributed, to King Servius. And this long remained the normal size of the small properties then so common in the Roman district.*

As long as the border wars with the ^Equians and Volscians lasted, tillage must have been constantly interrupted. The yeomanry of the Roman district must have been much in the condition of the English and Scottish borderers a century ago*, their hands must have been as well used to the sword and spear as to the spade or hoe. * And even when war was removed to a distance from Rome, the farmer and his sons must

have been often summoned from their field labours to serve in tho militia called out for service in the year. Yet the inconvenience cannot have been great. The allotments were still small: tho severe labours of digging or ploughing wero over before the year’s campaign opened: and the lighter toils of hoeing and weeding, and even of reaping, could be performed by the sturdy wife and boys whom the soldier left behind ; or, if the sons were ripening to manhood, one of them would take the place of the’ good man in the legions. The cattle 011 the public pastures only needed a boy to drive them afield and bring them home. In the times that followed the Samnite Wars, it may be assumed that the Romans and Italians generally enjoyed a condition of great material prosperity. The farm and public pasture produced all that the family required,—not only food, but flax and wool, which the matron and her daughters dressed and spun and wove, wood and stone for building and farm implements, everything except metals and salt, which were (as avc have seen) stato monopolies.

§ 4. But a golden age generally comes to an end with increase of population. Mouths to be fed multiply; the yeomen ‘sell their little farms and emigrate, or become satisfied with a lower scale of living as hired labourers. The Swiss have long poured a tide of emigrants into various parts of the world. The French are beginning to feel the evil of excessive division of land. But the Romans had a remedy for these evils in a home colonisation. The immense quantity of public land in the hands of the State, with the necessity of securing newly-conquered districts of Italy, led to the foundation of numerous Colonies between the Samnite and Punic Wars, and extended the means of material wellbeing to every one who was willing and able to work; and this not only for Romans, but for Latins and others who were invited to become citizens of the colony.

§ 5. If, however, the superfluous sons of families settled on lands in Samnium, or Apulia, or Cisalpine Gaul, others must have lost these lands; and the question naturally occurs,—What had become of these people ? This question brings us to the worst point in ancient society,—that is, Slavery.

It was the practice of ancient nations to regard all conquered persons as completely in the light of booty as cattle or lifeless goods. If indeed* the enemy surrendered without a blow, they became subjects. But those who were taken after a struggle were for the most part sold into slavery. Barbarians were considered even by philosophers as only created to be slaves to civilised people.

In early times this evil was small. Nor was it to be expected that the small proprietors could afford either lo buy or to maintain slaves. They were acquired by the rich Patricians and Plebeians, who held large tracts of public land, or who had acquired large estates of their own. Before the Decemvirate, their debtors were their slaves. But this custom had been long abolished, and it was conquest which supplied slaves; to the rich. After the conquest of Samnium, 36,000 persons are said to have been sold. After the reduction of Cisalpine Gaul and Sicily, still larger numbers were brought to the hammer. These were the wretches on whose lands the poorer' sort of Roman citizens settled. The slaves may generally be divided into two - great classes, the Urban or City Slaves, and those of the Country. They had no civil rights; they could not contract legal marriage; they had no power over their own children ; they could hold no property in their own name ; their very savings were not their own, but held by consent .of their master;¹¹⁵ all law proceedings ran in the name of their masters. For crimes committed, they were tried by the public courts; and the masters were held liable for the damage done, but only to the extent of the slave’s value. To kill, maim, or maltreat a slave, was considered, as damage to his master, and could only be treated as such. No pain or suffering inflicted on a slave was punishable, unless loss had thereby accrued to the Owner.

But human nature is too strong always to fulfil conditions so cruel. There is no doubt that the slaves of the household were often treated with kindness; often they became the confidential advisers of their masters. The steward or bailiff of a rich man’s estate, his Villicus, was a person of considerable power. Still the mass of the slaves, especially the agricultural slaves, were treated as mere cattle. Some poor drudges were the slaves of other slaves, such ownership being allowed by the masters. Cato recommends to sell off old and infirm slaves, so as to save the expense of keeping live lumber. Englishmen feel a pang at seeing a fine horse consigned in his old age to the drivers of public carriages; but Romans wasted no such sympathy on slaves who had spent their lives and strength in cultivating their lands. Notwithstanding the better treatment of the house-slaves, the humane Cicero reproached himself with feeling too much sorrow for one who had been for years his tried and faithful servant. It was in the next half-century, however, that slaves increased so much in Italy as to produce great effect upon the social condition of the people. At present the evil was only in its beginning.

§ C. Ilcrc it must be remarked that, in the times of tlie Republic, the practice of giving liberty to slaves was very common. Whether it was that the Romans made the discovery that slaVc-labour is less profitable than the labour of free men working for wages, it is certain that Freedmen became so numerous that restrictions were placed upon manumission by law. The prospect of freedom as a reward for good conduct must have done much to prevent Roman bondsmen from sinking into that state of animal contentment and listless indifference which marks the negro slaves of our own times.

§ 7. Wo have seen that, before the close of the Samnite Wars, the proud Patrician, App. Claudius, had conceived the plan of forming out of the Freedmen a political body devoted to himself,¹¹⁶ and that his schema was frustrated by the succeeding Censors, Fabius and Dccius, who threw them into the Four City Tribes, so that after the Tribes had reached their highest number of Thirty-five (in 241 B.C.), tlie votes of the Freedmen only availed in the proportion of four to thirty-one.

These Freedmen, however, filled no mean space in Roman society. Among them were to be found able and well-educated men, who had held a high station in their native country, and often obtained great influence over the minds of their masters. Freedmen exercised most branches of retail trade, and formed the shopkeepers and petty traders and artizans of Rome: for Roman citizens, however poor, could in early times condescend to no business except that of agriculture. Rich men carried on trades by means of their slaves and freedmen; in later times Freedmen often worked as artists under some Patrician roof, and many of the early poets were Freedmen.

Here then we trace the beginning of a great distinction, that afterwards was more strongly marked, between the population of the city and the population of the country,—between the Rustic and the Civic Tribes.

§ 8. At the time of which wc write, a patriarchal rule prevailed in the family. In early ages the refusal of the Patricians to recognise any right of legal marriage between themselves and the Plebeians must have frequently led to illicit connexions. But this unnatural severance between the Orders was the first to give way; and after the Canulcian Law, the simple marriagc-ritc of the Plebeians was held equally binding upon all as the more solemn vows of the Patrician form.f It is a noteworthy fact, that Sp. Carvilius was the first person who put away his wife, and that the first example of divorce occurs as late as the year 231 b.c. This observance of marriage as a sacred bond is striking. From it was derived the pure and lofty character of the ancient Roman Matron. At Rome it was not by clever and fascinating courtesans, such as Aspasia and Thais, but by wives and mothers, such as Lucretia and Volumnia of the legends, such as Cornelia the mother of the Gracchi in actual history, that noble wishes and heroic thoughts were inspired into the hearts of the men. The chastity and frugality of the women found an answer in the temperance and self-devotion of the men. This is the more remarkable, since by the Roman law married women had no personal rights: they were subject to their husbands as absolutely as if they had been slaves. •

The same patriarchal power belonged to the father over his children, unless he thought fit to emancipate them, a process which was conducted with the same forms as the manumission of a slave. It was a terrible power; yet we seldom hear of its being abused. Such a system no doubt prevented all gentleness of filial love. The old Romans had but one word—pietas—to express the veneration due from children to parents and from men to gods. But the sterner exercise of parental authority, with the general purity of morals, preserved youth |om that wild intemperance, both of action and thought, which has often injured nations. It is impossible to read without admiration Cicero’s description of the house of old Appius the Censor. “ Blind and old as he was, he held dominion over four strong sons, five daughters, and a crowd of clients. His mind was always ready strung, like a bow : nor did he give way to the feebleness of age. He ruled his dependents with sovereign power, feared by his slaves, respected by his children, beloved by all. Such, in his house, was the power of ancient custom and ancient discipline.” If this could be said of the house of Appius, how much more shall we believe it of Fabius and Decius, of Curius and Fabricius!

But if in his own house the father was sovereign, the son when invested with the power of the State was not only allowed, but expected, to act as if there were no relation between them. All must remember the story of old Fabius Cunctator, who rodo into the camp of the Consul, his son, and was overjoyed at receiving a stern rebuke for his apparent want of deference to the representative of the Senate and People of Rome.

§ 9. There can be little doubt that the simple morality of tho times, maintained by habitual deference to authority, was confirmed by the higher sanction of Religion.

_r The Religion of Rome was, as the legends show, of Sabine origin, much of its ceremonial, the names of many of its gods, were Etruscan : and llellcnic mythology began, at an early time, to mingle itself in the simple religious faith of the Sabine countrymen. The important question in the histoiy of all religions, is how far they exert power over the lives of their professors. That the old faith of Rome was not without such power in the times of which we speak is unquestionable. The simple Roman husbandman lived and died, like his Sabine ancestors, in the fear of tho gods; he believed that there was something in the universe higher and better than himself; that by these higher powers his life and actions were watched; that to these powers good deeds and an honest life were pleasing, evil deeds and bad faith hateful. Many modern historians represent Roman Religion as but a piece of statecraft, devised to make the people more easy to be led. But the cases quoted prove the contrary. Papirius Cursor the younger spoke like a rough humourist, but not irreverently, when he vowed the cup of honied wine to Jove. Regulus and Claudius, when they neglected the omens in the first Punic War, shocked all men. Scipio won his early popularity in a great measure by his religious fervour. And the weighty testimony of Polybius, delivered with reference to a later and more corrupt age, proves the conclusion. “If,” says he, “you lend a single talent to a Greek, binding him by all possible securities, yet he will break faith. But Roman magistrates, accustomed to have immense sums of money pass through their hands, are restrained from fraud simply by respect for the sanctity of an oath.” If this was true in the days of Cato and the younger Scipio, how much more so in those of Fabius and Africanus, of Regulus, Fabricius, and Curius!

Tho Religion of Rome was wholly subject to the State. It had no clergy set apart and paid by special funds. The Pontiffs, Augtirs, and Flamens, indeed, at this time formed close corporations, which their own vacancies filled up, like the fellows of a college ; but in later times they were elected at the Comitia, in *the same manner, though by a different rule, as the officers of state. ~

§ 10. No doubt, in Cicero’s time, educated persons looked with contempt on the Roman ceremonial, with its omens and its auguries. At that time, formalism had taken the place of religion ; but, at that time, morality also was little respected at Rome. No doubt, also, the Religion of Rome lent countenance to gross superstition and inhuman practices. The ominous circumstances constantly recorded by Livy, of oxen speaking, of stones falling like rain, show the former; and for the latter, we are shocked to read that two Greeks and two Gauls, one of each sex, were buried alive in the Forum on two different occasions, because it was foretold in the Sibylline Books that these people should at some time occupy the soil of that famous place; and that human sacrifices were occasionally offered—once eveii in the time of the Dictator Ca3sar—though they had been abolished by a special edict more than a century before. But these horrors may, as the mention of the Sibylline Books shows, be referred rather to Etruscan formularies than to the old Sabine religion of Rome. Nor ought those to be too forward in censuring the senseless modes adopted by heathen nations, in times of darkness and danger, to ascertain the will or avert the wrath of the gods, who remember what a history of superstitious practices and inhuman cruelties might be drawn up ¹¹⁷ from the Annals of Christianity itself. The main point is, and this is indisputable, that the old Romans were in fact more pure in morals, more honest, more self-denying than their neighbours; and we have found a clear-sighted Greek accounting for the difference by their stronger sense of the obligations of religion.

§11. But while morality, good faith, and self-denial prevailed among themselves, it is clear that the Romans laid no such restrictions upon their dealings, with other nations. This great defect is common to Rome with all antiquity. The calmest Greek philosopher, Aristotle, regarded barbarians as naturally the slaves of Greeks. International Law was unknown, except in certain formalities observed in declaring war and making peace, and in the respect paid to the persons of Ambassadors. This absence of common humanity and generosity to foreigners appears in many pages of this History, in hone more strongly than in that which records the treatment of the Samnite leader C. Pontius. Gleams of better feeling appear in the war with Pyrrhus: the cliivalric character of the King awakened something of a kindred spirit in the stern and rigid Romans. But nothing could be more ungenerous than the conduct of Rome to Carthage, after the Mercenary War: and still baser pieces of diplomacy occur in the subsequent dealings of the Senate with the Achaoans and with Carthage. t

In the period between the conquest of Italy and the close of the First Punic War a great change had taken place in tho language of the Romans. The-heterogeneous compound of Pelas-gian, Oscan, and Sabine elements* had already been moulded into a dear, uniform, and nervous instrument of thought. The olde^l specimen extant of the Latin tongue is a Hymn of the Fra-tres Arvales, a rural priesthood, who used to go round the fields in spring, praying the earth to yield her increase. Its language is as different from the Latin of Horace as the English of WiclifPs Bible is from that of Dryden.* Its antiquated forms recur in Inscriptions and Laws down to a late period ; for the Romans, like ourselves, did not easily relinquish old forms. But fragments remain, which were written between the First and Second Punic Wars; and these, if the ancient forms of spelling are altered, exhibit Latin in its complete form.

A change also had taken place in the versification. The metre of the ancient Ilymn just quoted is Saturnian, a kind of verse which much resembled our own ballad-metre, being regulated by accent or cadence solely, without regard to the laws of quantity so strictly observed by all Greek and by later Latin writers.f But at the time of the Punic Wars we find the forms of Greek metres already established.

§ 13. The revolution here indicated is no doubt due to tho Hellenic influences which began to prevail at Rome after the conquest of Lower Italy and Sicily. If the compound structure of Latin may be compared to that of our own tongue, its destiny has been far different. While English can boast of a more vigorous native literature than any language, except Greek, Latin is perhaps of all the most destitute of originality. The germs of a rude literature existed in the ancient Lays, of which we have spoken in our 16th chapter. The Romans, also, from the earliest times, seem to have been fond of dramatic representations. Tho Atellane Fables or Exodia of tho Oscan tribes were a kind of pantomimic performance, which perhaps still survives in the Policinello of modern Italy. They 'were kept up to a late time even at Rome, and were extemporaneous pieces, in which it was

Nos, Mamers, juvato ! Triumphe, Triumphe! f Examples of tho Latin Satumium occur below in § 15. As an English oxamplo, take this:

not disgraceful for the noblest youths to play a part. The Fes-cennine verses were no doubt the original of the only kind of literature which the Romans claim as their own,—that is, the Satura or Satire, a lively and caustic criticism of the foibles and follies of the day. Dramatic exhibitions are said to have been first borrowed from the Etruscans in the year 3G3 B.C., when a pesti/enco was raging at Rome; but at this time the drama was a mere name,—the story being told by means of dancing and' gesticulation, with music, but without words. The Roman drama, such as we know it, was not so much borrowed or imitated as translated from the Greek originals. It arose in. the period of tranquillity after the First Punic War, when the Temple of Janus was shut for a brief period. The vast increase of territory and wealth which the Romans had lately won was of itself sufficient to give a stimulus to intellectual exertion as great as the Athenians received from their triumphs over the Persians. But in the conquered cities of Tarentum and Syracuse the Romans found a literature of unrivalled excellence, and it was not their nature to pursue with labour what they could adopt ready made. From this time dates the growth of the Grceco-Roman literature. In the well-known words of Horace, “ captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror.”

§ 14. The first author of whom we hear as presenting a finished drama to a Roman audience was a Greek named Andronicus. He was taken prisoner at the capture of Tarentum in 272 B.C., and became the slave of M. Livius Salinator. Afterwards he was set free, when (according to custom) he adopted the two first names of his late master, adding his own name as a family appellation. Thus he became known as M. Livius Andronicus. His first piece was represented about thirty years later, in which time he had mastered Latin completely, and added to it the polish of his native Greek. His plays continued to be read in the times of Cicero and Horace; and though these authors speak of them with little respect, the fact that they were used as a text-book for boys at the school of Orbilius, when Horace himself was there, shows that they must have been written in a cleat and grammatical style. Their titles—^Egisthus, Ajax, Helena, and the like—sufficiently show from what source they were borrowed.

§ 15. A brave stand against the new Ilellenizing fashion was made by Cn. Naivius, a Campanian by birth. Ilis name shows that he was not a Greek: the fact that lie served in the Roman armies during the First Punic War proves that he was a free citizen. In his earlier days he followed lh3 example set by Andronicus, so far as to translate Greek Dramas. The names preserved show that, among the masters of Attic Tragedy, Euripides was his favourite. Nscvius, however, was of comic rather than of tragic vein, and he maintained the licence of the old Fescennine songs in attacking the foibles of the great men of his day. lie lampooned the conqueror of Hannibal for licentious practices in early youth. Scipio laughed at the libel. But soon after the poet ventured to assail the powerful family of the Metelli, saying that

And they were as good as their word. lie was thrown into prison, and remained there long enough to compose two comc-dies. He was set free by a Tribune on condition of his abstaining from personal libels. But he could not refrain from fresh attacks on the Senatorial nobility, which at the close of the Second Punic War had become so powerful; and he was obliged to flee to Utica, where he died about 203 b.c. lie employed his latter days in the work which made his name most famous, namely, in a sort of Epic Poem on the First Punic War, with accounts of early Roman history introduced.

In narrative or epic poetry Greek thought and metre had not yet established themselves. Even Livius, when he translated the Odyssey, kept to the old Saturnian verse, and Nsevius of course did likewise. Ilis poem 110 doubt incorporated the ancient Lays. It was written in forcible language and lively imagery. Cicero declared that he derived from it a pleasure as great as from the contemplation of Mycon’s finest statues. Many of the mythological incidents were borrowed by Ennius and Virgil. The loss of this poem of Ntevius may be considered as the greatest loss which Latin literature has sustained.*

The bold and independent character of Nasvius appears from.the epitaph he composed for himself. It is in Saturnian verse, and mournfully complains of the predominance which Greeks were daily gaining over the ancient Latin poetry:

* What Scaliger said of Ennius would be more justly said of Ncovius: “ Utinam hunc haberemus integrum, et amississemus Lucanum, Silium Itali-cuni, et tous css (jargons Id!” youth, w^ras beginning first to imitate and then to oppose the Greek models introduced by Livius Andronicus, was born the man who fixed the Greek metres and forms of poetry irrevocably in Latin usage, and crushed for ever the old Homan Lays. This was Q. Ennius, a native of Rudia) in Campania, an Oscan probably by blood, a Greek by education, whose birtli-year is fixed at'238 b.c. In early youth he settled, we know not why, in Sardinia, and'from this island he was brought to Rome by Cato in 204, when he was now in his thirty-fifth year, just before the death of Na)vius. Here he settled in a small house on the Aventine, and earned a frugal living for fourteen years by teaching Greek to the young nobles! In this period he must have acquired that mastery over the Latin tongue which is so plainly marked in the fragments of his poems which remain. He died in the year before the battle of Pydna (1G8) at the age of seventy. In his later years he suffered both from poverty and disease, which lie bore with fortitude; the disease was caused by his too great fondness for jovial living. lie fulfilled the forebodings of Naevius: after him the Camense, or Latin Muses, forgot their descent, and strove in all things to be Greek. The epitaph he wrote, to be placed under his bust, marks consciousness of his triumph: .

Nemo me lacrumis decoret, nee funera fletu Faxit. Cur? Yolito vivu’ per ora virilm.

As his works belong entirely to tho age which forms the subject of the next Book_; we will reserve our notice of them.

§ 17. The first writers of Latin prose were the Chroniclers Q. Fabius Pictor and L. Cincius Alimentus, who were both in their manhood before the invasion of Hannibal. ^f Fabius served in tho Gallic War of 225, rose to be a senator, and was sent on an embassy to consult the Delphic Oracle after the disaster of Canna). Cincius was somewhat younger; he also became a senator. At one time he fell into the hands of Hannibal, and some of his statements with regard to the war were derived from the lips of the great Carthaginian himself. The principal matter treated of by both these writers was that which then absorbed all interest; they 'vrote Chronicles of the Second Punic War; and both of them prefixed a summary of early Roman History. Cincius seems to have been the most trustworthy: family partialities often misled Fabius. It is particularly to be noted that they both wrote in Greek, which seems then to have established itsolf as the language of the learned, just as Latin was used by all European writers during the Middle Ages.

§ 18. If Ilcllenic forms of thought and speech invaded tlie domain of Literature, much more was this the case with the Arts of Design. There are not wanting examples to show that before this time Sculpture and Painting were held in honour at Rome. The Consul Carvilius (in 293 b.c.) employed part of the spoilB taken from the Samnites in setting up a colossal bronze statue on the Capitoline. A Quadriga, executed in terra cotta by an Etruscan artist, is ascribed to the same date. Statues were erected in the Forum to honour divers great men of olden time. Many temples were built in thanksgiving for victories, most of which were adorned by Etruscan or Greek artists. The Temple of Salus was ornamented about 305 b.c. by paintings from the hand of 0. Fabius, who thenceforward adopted the name of Pictor and transmitted it as an honour to his family. The Ogulnii, in their ^Edilesliip (296 b.c.) set up in the Capitol a bronze group representing the Wolf suckling the Twins. A painting of the battle in which the Romans defeated Iliero in 263 adorned the walls of the Senate-House.

Of these works, and others not recorded by history, no trace remains except the famous Wolf now preserved in the Capitoline Museum.¹¹⁸ The Twins are a later addition, but the animal is probably the original work noticed by Cicero and Livy. It bears the well-known marks of the archaTc Greek art in the sharp, rigid forms of the limbs and muscles, the peculiar expression of the face, and the regular knots of hair abort, the neck and head. Here, then, we trace Hellenic artists at Rome. Others of the works mentioned are expressly assigned to Etruscan artists, and it may be remarked that Fabius, the only native artist of whom we hear, belonged to a family always associated in history with Etruscans.f

Now the Art of the Etruscans was probably much modified by Greek artists and Greek models at an early period. Their tombs, we are told, are always national in character, but their painted vases are Hellenic, not only m shape and pattern, but in the mythical subjects with which they are decorated. Indeed, when the vases discovered in the old Etruscan city of Vulci—a city of which history preserves no trace—are placed by the side of others known to be of Hellenic workmanship, it is only a practised eye that can detect the distinguishing characteristics of each.J Many of the Etruscan works of art bear a striking resemblance to the archaic forms of Greek art. Even the ancient style of building called Cyclopean appears to have been as much Etruscan as Pelasgiau or Hellenic. It may be assumed, then, that the earliest school of Roman art was derived from the Greeks through the medium of Etruscan artists.

§ 19. But when Rome had conquered Southern Italy, she was brought at once in contact with works of the finest Greek art. No coins of old Greece are so beautiful as those of her ¹¹⁹ colonial settlements in the West; and it is in the coins of Rome that wc first trace the indisputable effect of Greek art.

Up to the time when Italy was conquered, the Romans had used only copper money of a most clumsy and inconvenient kind. A pound of this metal by weight was stamped with the rude effigy of a ship’s prow, and this was the original As or Libra. Gradually the As was reduced in weight till, in the necessities of the Second Punic War, it became only l-6th of the Libra by weight; yet it retained its ancient name, just as our pound sterling of silver, originally equivalent to a pound Troy-wfcight, is now not more than l-3rd, or as the French livre is not above l-24th part of that weight.* But even this diminished coin was clumsy for use, as trade increased with increasing empire. After the conquest of Southern Italy the precious metals became more plentiful, and the coinage of the conquered cities supplied beautiful models. The first denarius, or silver piece of ten ases, was struck in the year 269 b.c., and is evidently imitated from the coins of Magna Grsecia. The Roman Generals who commanded in these districts stamped money for the use of their armies with the old insignia of the conquered cities. The workmanship is, indeed, inferior to the best specimens of Hellenic coins, but far superior to anything Roman, before or after. Gold coins of similar model were not struck till near the close of the Hannibalic War (205 b.c.). The great mass of Roman coins which we possess belong to the last century of the Republic. They usually bear the family emblems of the person who presided over the mint, or of the Consuls for whose use they were struck, but the execution always remained rude and unattractive.

Afterwards, Roman conquest gave the means of supplying works of art by the easier mode of appropriation. In the conquest of Etruria, years before, the practice had been begun: from Yolsinii alone we read that 2000 statues were brought to Rome. In following years Agrigentum, Syracuse, Corinth, and other famous cities, sent the finest works of Hellenic Art to

decorate the public buildings and public places of the barbarous City of the Tiber, or in many cases to ornament the villas pf the rapacious generals.

§ 20. In tho more intellectual even of the Useful Arts the Romans made no great progress. The contrivances of Archi-mcdes for the defence of Syracuse struck them with amazement. In Cicero’s time they usually carried the sciences of Quantity and Magnitude no further than was necessary for practical arithmetic' and mensuration. In 293 b.c. L. Papirius Cursor the younger set up a sun-dial at Rome, and thirty years later another was brought from Sicily by the Consul M. Valerius Messala; but no one knew how to place them, so ks to make the shadow of the gnomon an index of time. A watcr-clock, resembling our sandglass, was not introduced till 159 b.c.

§ 21. Nor were the common conveniences of life in an advanced state. Up to the year 264 the houses were commonly roofed with shingles of wood, like the Alpine cottages of our days; then first earthen tiles began to supersede this rude material. Agriculture must have been roughly carried on by men who were as much soldiers as countrymen. The wine of Latium was so bad that Cineas, when he tasted it, said—and- the witticism was remembered—“ he did not wonder that the mother of such wine was hung so highalluding to the" Italian custom, still retained, of training the vine up elms and poplars, while in Greece it was trained (as in France and Germany) on short poles and exposed to all the lieat of the sun.

§ 22. A form of architecture called, the Tuscan was mostly used, which bore an imperfect resemblance to that early Greek style usually called the Doric. But the existing remains of the Republican period are too scanty to allow of any precise statements. The true Arts of Rome were, then and always, the Arts of the Builder and Engineer. It would not be wrong to call the Romans the greatest Builders in the world. Some of their mighty works, w^rorks combining solidity of structure with beauty of form and utility of purpose, still remain for our admiration, having survived the decay of ages and the more destructive hands of barbarian conquerors. In every country subject to their sway, roads and bridges and aqueducts remain in sufficient number and perfection to justify all praise. AVe class the roads among the buildings, according to their own phraseology,¹²⁰ and their construction deserves the name as justly as the works upon our own railways. The first great military road and the first aqueduct are due to the old Censor Appius Cascus, and the.y

both remain to preserve the memory of the man, often self-willed and presumptuous, but resolute, firm of purpose, noble in conception, and audacious in execution. Other aqueducts and other roads rapidly followed; and the spade and trowel were as much the instruments of Roman dominion as the sword and spear. By the close of the Punic Wars solid roads, carried by the engineer’s art over broad and rapid streams, through difficult moun-tain-passes, across quaking morasses, had already linked Rome with Capua in the South, with Placentia and Cremona in the North. Such were the proud monuments of the Appii, the JEmilii, the Flaminii. .

§ 23. It may be said that these magnificent works, as well as the vast Amphitheatres- and Baths which afterwards decorated Rome and every petty city in her provinces, were due to the invention of the Arch. This simple piece of mechanism, so wonderful in its results, first appears in the great Cloaca. It was unknown to the Greeks, or at least not used by them.* It may be that the Romans borrowed it from the Etruscans; the Cloaca is attributed to an Etruscan king, and similar works are discovered in ruined cities of Etruria.f But if they borrowed the principle they used it nobly, as witness the noble bridges still remaining, the copious streams carried over the plain for miles at the height of sixty or seventy feet from the level of the soil. If they had little feeling for beauty and delicacy in the use of the pencil or the chisel, their buildings are stamped with a greatness which exalted the power of the State while it disregarded the pleasure of the individual.

§ 24. Their attention to practical utility in draining and watering their city is especially noted by Strabo in contrast with the indifference shown by the Greeks in these matters. To the facts already stated may be added their rule, established so early as the year 260 B.C., that no one should be buried within the city,—a rule scarcely yet adopted in London. From this time dates the beginning of those rows of sepulchral monuments which the traveller beheld on either side of the road as he entered the Eternal City. It was a gloomy custom, but better at least than leaving graveyards in the heart of crowded cities.

§ 25. A striking proof of engineering skill is shown in the tunnels cut through solid rock for the purpose of draining off volcanic lakes: this art we may also believe to have been originally borrowed from the Etruscans. The first tunnel of which we hear was that by which the Alban Lake was partially let off

* Tho arch ia said to have been invented by Democritus, Posidon ap. Senec., Ep. 80. But it had long existed in Etruria.

f Seo Chapt iii. § 11* during tlic siege of Vcii, a work -which was suggested by an Etruscan soothsayer.* Other works of like kind still remain, though the time of their execution is not always known. Here shall bo added the notice of one work of kindred sort, which happens by a rare coincidence to combine great utility with rarest beauty. The famous M’ Curius Dentatus, when Censor in 272, cut a passage through the rock, by which the waters of Lake Velinus were precipitated into the Nar. By this means lie recovered for his newly-conquered Sabine Clients a large portion of fertile land, and left behind the most lovely, if not the most sublime, of all waterfalls. The Falls of Tcrni, such is the famous name they now bear, were wrought by the hand of man. “Thousands of travellers visit them,” says Niebuhr; “ how few know that they arc not the work of Nature!”

§ 26. It will be something gained if from these imperfect chapters tho young student shall have learned to look upon the early Romans as they were—men of strong wills and rigid morals, who cared little for the elegancies of life, but much for its freedom and order; who scorned the crcdit to be derived from originality compared with the practical uses of an invention; who were trained by education and discipline to rule themselves; and were thus carried on from conquest to conquest by an insatiable desire to rule others. The Roman of this time has his own virtues—simplicity and good morals, joined indeed with roughness and want of feeling. In a later age he lost the virtues without losing the defects. The Roman, as wc shall find him-at the end of his career of conquest, without simplicity of manners and morality of life, corrupted by wealth and luxury, yet coarse and unfeeling as ever, is a being who docs little honour to humanity.

§ 1. Tlie East and West. § 2. The East from the death of Alexander to tho Battle of Ipsus. § 3. Egypt at the present time. § 4. Syria. § 5. Per-gamus. § 6. Rhodes. § 7. Macedon. § 8. Athens. § 9. Sparta. § 10. Commencement of the Achaean League: its rapid rise under Aratus: unable to conquer Sparta, he makes the League subject to Macedon. § 11. The JEtolians. § 12. War between the iEtolians andAchaeans: Philip V. of Macedon assists the latter: his successes. § 13. His imagination fired by the news of Trasimene and Cannae: Demetrius of Pharos: § 14. Philip’s treaty with Hannibal.

§ 1. So far, the countries round the Mediterranean had been divided, as it were, into two worlds, the Western and the Eastern: the Western, in which Rome and Carthage were struggling for mastery; the Eastern, in which the Macedonian successors of Alexander the Great were wasting their strength in wars. .But from the moment that Philip Y. of Macedon entered into alliance with Hannibal, the line of separation had been broken; and Rome only waited her time to break in upon the enervated nations of the East. That time came when the battle of Zama had delivered her from the fear of Hannibal.

§ 2. At the death of Alexander in 323 B.C., his vast Empire fell into distinct portions. The Generals of the Great King at first governed these provinces as Yiceroys of Alexander’s infant son. But this child was set aside; and within twenty years of

the King’s death these Imperial Governors assumed tho title of Sovereigns. Ptolemy became King of Egypt; Seleucus, of Babylonia and the East; Antigonus, with his son Demetrius, of Syria and Asia Minor; Lysimachus, of Thrace; Cassander, of Macedonia, with authority over the whole of Greece.

Of these soldier-kings, the most ambitious of all were tho Kings of Syria, Antigonus and Demetrius; and tho year 305 b.c. saw the other sovereigns combined against these two. A general war followed; and in 301 b.c., tho battle of Ipsus made a considerable change in these Macedonian monarchies. Seleucus became master of tho greater part of Asia Minor and of northern Syria; Phoenicia and Ccele-Syria fell into tho hands of tho King of Egypt.

We must add a brief account of these kingdoms down to the period of the second Panic War.

§ 3. Egypt enjoyed long tranquillity. In the course of the eighty years which followed tho battle of Ipsus, tho Kings of Egypt quietly extended their sway over parts of Arabia and Libya, as well as Lower Syria, and became Masters of Lycia and Caria, of Cyprus and tho Cyclades. Tho flourishing Republic of Rhodes was their ally. Trade flourished; art and literature reached a height unknown since the best days of Athens: the natural sciences were cultivated with unexampled success. Alexandria increased daily in wealth and population, and became (as its great .founder intended) tho chief seat of trade between the East and Wost. Yet this prosperity was not long-lived. Tho decline of the monarchy may be dated from the accession of the fourth Ptolemy, surnamed Philopator; and so rapid was it, that when he died, towards the close of the Second Punic War (205 b.o.), the ministers of Iiis infant son Epiphanes were obliged to look around for some poweful patron to defend the inheritance of their master from the Kings of Macedon and Syria, who had impudently agreed to divide it between them.

In the year 273 B.C., Philadelphus formed an alliance with Rome (chapt. xxiii. § 3); and her attitude of superiority after the struggle with Carthage attracted the notice of all tho Mediterranean nations. The Senate, therefore, were requested to become guardians of the boy-king, and they accepted the office.

§ 4. After the death of Seleucus, the monarchy of Syria fell into dacay. His son, Antioch us I., shifted the seat of the monarchy from Babylon to his new city of Antiocheia (Antioch) on the Orontes, and thus the Eastern Provinces were left open to the inroads of the Parthians. Asia Minor was lost to the monarchy. The kings of Macedon gained a footing in Mysia and Ionia; Caria and Lycia fell into the hands of the Egyptian sovereigns j

Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Pontus became independent principalities; Northern Phrygia was occupied by hosts of vagrant Gauls, who gave name to the district called Galatia; a Greek eunuch, named Philetserus, Treasurer of Lysimachus, King of Thrace, gained possession of the city of Pergamus. He transmitted his principality to his nephew Eumenes, and Attalus, another nephew, succeeding to Eumenes, took the title of King. Most of the Greek cities on the coast, with the islands of Lesbos, Chios, and Samos, became independent. Such was the condition of things in 223 b.c., when Antiochus III. ascended the throne, and turned his arms against the Parthians with so much success that he assumed the title of the Great.

§ 5. Attalus, King of Pergamus, saw his advantage in siding with Rome. Threatened by the King of Macedonia on the north, and by the King of Syria on the south, he at once threw himself into the arms of this powerful ally, and was of no small use to the Roman commanders.

§ G. The Republic of Rhodes rapidly recovered from the terrible siege which it had sustained from Demetrius Poliorcetes.¹²¹ After Alexandria, Rhodes was the chief commercial place in the Eastern part of the Mediterranean. The government was conducted on upright principles; her citizens commanded the respect of all who had dealings with them. They would gladly have stood aloof from the Roman wars. But their old ally, the King of Egypt, was too weak to support them; and the brutal conduct of the King of Macedonia forced them into alliance with Rome.

A very short time after Demetrius the Besieger fled from the field of Ipsus, discrowned and helpless, we are surprised to find him in possession of the sceptre of Macedon and lord of Greece. After reiging at Pella for seven years, he was expelled from his new kingdom by a second coalition, headed by Lysimachus, the veteran King of Thrace, and Pyrrhus, the young King of Epirus. He made one more desperate attempt to recover liis Asiatic dominions, when he fell into the hands of Seleucus, and died in captivity in the year 283 b.c. Soon after, died Ptolemy and Lysimachus. Seleucus, the only survivor of Alexander’s generals, would havo won Macedon also, but in the moment of conquest he fell by tho knife of an assassin. This assassin was Ptolemy Ceraunus, eldest son of the deceased King of Egypt. For a brief period, this savage became King, and lent aid to Pyrrhus in his Italian campaigns. But Ceraunus did not long enjoy his ill-gotten spoil.

He lost his life in endeavouring to stay the course of the Gauls who burnt Delphi.

A period of confusion followed. The Gauls, expelled from Europe, settled in Asia Minor; and when Pyrrhus returned from Italy in 274 B.C., he found that the sceptre of Maccdon had fallen into the hands of Antigonas Gonatas, son of Demetrius, who transmitted the sceptre of Macedon to his son Demetrius II. When this prince died, he left his son Philip, a child of eight years old, to the charge of his cousin Antigonus Doson,* who took .possession of the throne for himself, but in other respects acted with honour and good faith towards his young charge. He gave him a good education; and at his death, in 221 b.c., he took care that Philip should be proclaimed King to the exclusion of his own children. Such an example of good faith deserves notice in this age of selfishness and corruption.

When Philip succeeded to the throne, he found the kingdom in a flourishing state. No foreign enemy threatened his shores; and unhappy Greece, torn by discord, was ready to welcome him as a protector.

§ 8. The mere mention of the name of Greece excites some interest in the mind of the most indifferent reader; and when Greece is mentioned, the first name that memory recalls is that of Athens. But there was little left of that glorious spirit which enabled Athens to throw back the Persian invader from her shores. After the last struggle for independence, when the name of Demosthenes sheds a dying glory over Athens, the people surrendered itself quietly to the protection of the Kings of Macedon. Art, indeed, and literature still remained in their old abode. - Even now the silken chains were being woven, which, at a later time were to bind her Roman conquerors. Zeno the Stoic and Epicurus were establishing the rival doctrines which afterwards divided the Roman mind between them. Menander and Philemon and Diphilus were bringing on the stage those dramas of the New Comedy, which not long after delighted the Romans in the imperfect versions of Plautus and Terence. Yet, for all this, Athens, the star of Greece, had lost her brightness. An Athenian and a sycophant became convertible terms.

§ 9. In Sparta, the old Dorian nobility had dwindled away to a few families, who engrossed the land, and exercised tyrannical rule over the people. In the year 241 b.c., Agis IY., one of the Kings, a young man of noble spirit, endeavoured to bring about a reform of the State, by abolishing all debts, and admitting to the Spartan franchise a number of the Lacedannonians, among whom

* Auffcjv, intending to give; for he did not givo up tho throne to Philip till his death.

all lands were to be divided anew according to the system of Lycnrgns. But the old burgesses, led by the Ephors and tho other King, opposed him vehemently; and Agis was put to death. Then followed a re-action. Cleomenes III., son of the King who had opposed Agis, succeeded to the crown and resumed the projects of that unhappy prince. But he showed more prudence in the execution of them; and for a time some appearance of vigour was restored to the enfeebled frame of the Spartan constitution.

§ 10. But at that period chief notice belongs to a people who had hitherto played a very subordinate part in the history of Greece, the people of Acii^ea. From the time when the “ longhaired Achaeans” fought against Troy, their name had almost vanished from the pages of history. All we know of them ip, that they were a relic of that ancient people who formerly possessed Peloponnesus, and were driven by the conquering Dorians to a narrow strip of land on the sea-coast. It was in the year 280 B.C., when the irruption of the Gauls filled all hearts with fear, that four towns of this obscure district united for mutual defence. Such was the beginning of that Confederation, which bccame famous under the name of the Achaean League.

Yet it was not to themselves, but to a foreigner, that this fame was due. Aratus was born at Sicyon about the time when Pyrrhus came to his ignoble end. Scarcely had he reached the age of twenty, when he formed the plan of delivering his native city from the Tyrant who oppressed her. Success justified his audacity ; and Sicyon, by the advice of Aratus, joined the Achaean League (251 b.c.). Not many years after, he was clected General-in-chief, and formed the design of uniting all Peloponnesus under the League. He set Corinth free from her Macedonian garrison, and this important city joined the Federation. Her example was followed by Megalopolis and by Argos; and by the year 227 b.c. the Achaean League had become the chief power of Peloponnesus. But Sparta still stood aloof; and Cleomenes had no mind to let his country become a province of tho League. Aratus endeavoured to compel him. But he was an unskilful general, and Cleomenes possessed great talents for war. It soon appeared that Sparta was more likely to become master of the Achaeans, than tho Achaeans of Sparta. In this state of things, Aratus scrupled not to undo the work which he had spent his best years in executing. He called in the aid of Antigonus Doson, or, in other words, he made the Achaean League subject to Macedon. The army of Antigonus, united to the forces of the League, was too much for Cleomenes. lie was utterly defeated at tho battle of Sollasia (222 b.c.), and died an exile in Egypt. Sparta fell into the hands of bloody Tyrants;, and Aratus henceforth appears as Lieutenant of the King of Macedon.

§ 11. There was yet another warlike State always ready to take advantage of the weakness of its neighbours.

In the best times of Greecc the ^Etolians make little more figure than the Acha)ans. From the time when “ yellowhaired Meleager” slew the boar of Calydon, we hear little of them. Dwelling in a mountainous district, they were a nation of freebooters, a sort of land-pirates, caring for nothing but plunder. They owned no king ; but before this time their several tribes had formed a sort of League; and deputies met every year at Thermon, their chief city, to elect a Captain-General (aTguTj/ydg). They had thriven on the weakness of their neighbours. Ambracia, the capital of Pyrrhus, was theirs; so was Naupactus, once the chief station of the Athenian navy in the Gulf of Corinth. Thermon rose to be a splendid, city, and here the ./Etolian chiefs lived in great magnificence. But they ;ontinued their marauding habits on a larger scalc and in a more regular manner. It was chiefly by their selfish policy that the Itomans were enabled to becomc masters of Greecc.

§ 12. The ^Etolian chiefs thought that the death of Antigonus Doson presented a good opportunity for a foray into Peloponnesus. The time was well chosen. Philip was too young, they thought, to act with promptitude; Aratus was too unskilful a general to alarm them. For one year the marauders ravaged Arcadia and Argolis at will. But when they repeated their inroad in the following season, Philip came to aid the League, and the tide of war turned against the, ^Etolians.

The young King of Macedon showed great vigour. Not only did he expel the invaders from Peloponnesus, but broke into their own country and surprised Thermon, where all the treasures of the nation were deposited. Here he made the fierce chiefs his enemies for ever; for he carried off their treasure, destroyed their houses, and burnt down their temples. At this moment, Philip’s attention was attracted by events which made his successes in ^Etolia look pale and trifling. These events were Hannibal’s first victories in Italy.

§ 13. It was in the winter of 21*7 B.C., when the Acliacans and their allies were assembled at Argos under Philip’s presidency, that their deliberations were suspended by the tidings of the battle of Trasimcne. The young King’s mind was fired with eager desire to take part in this more splendid drama. He made peace with the JStolians on terms very favourable to the Achaeans; and thus ended what was called the last Social War.

Nothing could be more imprudent than Philip’s desire to take part in Western politics. His position at home was most advantageous. His army was well disciplined, his fleet considerable ; his finances in good order. The King of Egypt was too feeble to thwart him; the King of Syria and the Republic of Rhodes were willing to be his allies: the Greek states of Asia and Europe were ready to own him as protector; the malcontent ^Etolians had just felt his power. With prudence he might have formed an Eastern confederation, which would have offered a formidable front to Rome.

But his imagination was influenced by Hannibal’s glory; in sleep his dreams transported him to Italy; and when the news of the great victory of Cannso. followed that of Trasimcnc, he determined no longer to stand aloof. It must be added, that his natural ambition was urged on by a person whom he had just admitted into his councils. This was Demetrius of Pharos, who by treachery had lost the Illyrian Principality given him by Rome. He took refuge with Philip, and in the autumn which followed the battle of Trasimene, the Senate had sent to demand the surrender of his person. But at that moment, to be an enemy to Rome was to be the friend of Philip; and Demetrius became the King’s chief adviser. His acquaintance with Roman politics recommended him; his unscrupulous advice suited the temper of Philip better than the cautious policy of Aratus, who ceased henceforth to have any weight in the counsels of Philip.

§ 14. It has been above mentioned that as soon as the news of the battle of Cannse arrived, Philip V. King of Macedon sent off ambassadors to offer terms of alliance to Hannibal; that the messengers fell into the hands of the Romans, and that consequently the treaty was not concluded till late in the year 215 b.c. In this treaty, it was stipulated that Philip should send an army to support Hannibal in Italy; and that, in the event of a successful issue of the war, Illyria should be given to Demetrius, while the Roman possessions in Epirus were handed over to Philip. Tlie result of this treaty was the First Macedonian War.

FIRST AND SECOND MACEDONIAN WARS I SETTLEMENT OF GREECE BY FLAMININUS. (214-194 B.C.)

G 1. Conduct of Philip. § 2. League formed by Lasvinus with iEtolians. § 3. Activity of Philip: Lsevinus succeeded by Galba: JEgina taken. § 4. Danger of Philip in the year 208: his vigilance and successes. § 5. End of the First Macedonian "War. § 6. Philip assists Hannibal at Zama: Embassy to Rome. § 7. His impolitic conduct towards tho Achaeans. His outrages in Asia Minor. § 8. Athens revolts from Philip: complaints laid before the Senate. § 9. Difficulty in declaring war against Philip. § 10. Conquests of Philip in Thrace. §11. The Romans bum Chalcis: the Achaeans refuse aid to Philip. § 12. Galba enters Macedonia by the North-west: his fruitless campaign. § 13. Second Campaign: L. Yillius, Consul, attempts to enter Thessaly. § 14. T. Quinctius Flaminius supersedes Villius: he forces tho pass of the Aoiis. § 15. nis operations in Greece: dissensions in tho Achaean League. § 16. Confcrenco during winter between Philip and Flamininus. § 17. Third Campaign: Flamininus continued in command as Proconsul: Romans dominant in Greece. § 18. Battle of Cynoscephaloo: completo defeat of Philip. § 19. Terms offered by Flamininus to Philip: Peace. § 20. Declaration of independence at Isthmian Games. § 21. Proceedings of Antiochus, King of Syria. § 22. Nabis, Tyrant of Sparta: siego of Sparta. § 23. Policy of Flamininus. § 24. Address of Flamininus to tho Greeks at Corinth. § 25. His departure, and Triumph.

§ 1. No doubt Philip’s wisest course would have been to abstain from mixing himself up with the affairs of Italy; but, having done so, he ought to have engaged heartily in the war. In 212 b.c. Ilannibal became master of Tarentum. Then, if ever, would have been the time for the King to have dispatched his Macedonian phalanx to support the Carthaginian in Italy. Ilis inactivity is the more remarkable, because about the same time he delivered himself

so entirely to tlie counsels of Demetrius that he did not hesitate to disembarrass himself of the troublesome remonstrances of Aratus by poison. Thus was the patriotic founder of the Achaean League, so long the faithful servant of the Kings of Macedon, requited for his services.

§ 2. On discovering Philip’s negotiations with Hannibal, the Senate dispatched M. Valerius Lsevinus, with a small squadron, to watch his proceedings. This enterprising officer succeeded in checking Philip’s feeble efforts ; but he took no forward step till the year 211 B.C., when he entered into negotiations with the JEtolians, and soon found means to induce their greedy chiefs to form a treaty with Rome on terms that reveal their selfish policy. They were to join Rome in war npon Philip: all cities taken by the confederate forces were to be handed over to the JEtolians, but the inhabitants and moveable property were to be left to the Romans.

§ 3. The news of this treaty roused Philip to something of his former activity, and he baffled the assault of his enemies on every side. Lsevinus, however, succeeded in taking the strong city of Anticyra in Locris, which was treated in the manner prescribed by treaty.

His successor was P. Sulpicius Galba, who was ordered to send home the legion which had hitherto been employed in Greece. The Senate were of opinion that a squadron of ships, supported by Attalus at sea and by the JEtolians on land, was sufficient to hold Philip in check. Galba, thus hampered, was unable to do more than seize the island of -^Egina. Here, as at Anticyra, the inhabitants were sold as slaves for the benefit of the Romans, while the place was left to the JEtolian chiefs, who handed it over to Attalus for 30 talents. This monarch had lately joined the allies with a squadron of 35 Pergamese ships, and JEgina henceforth became his head-quarters.

The Achseans, notwithstanding the suspicious death of Aratus, preferred maintaining their alliance with Philip to uniting themselves with greedy freebooters like the JEtolians. But the Lace-dajmonians and Eleans joined the iEtolian League.'

§ 4. In the next year (208 b.c.) Philip with the Achajans had to enter upon a conflict with the Romans and Attalus at sea, tho ^Etolians and Lacedaemonians by land, while the Illyrians threatened the northern frontiers of Macedonia, and the Thracians broke into the eastern districts.

To meet these multiplied enemies, Philip exerted a vigour and activity worthy of his best days. Fixing his head-quarters at Demetrias (a strong fortress, in the south of Thessaly, erected by Demetrius Poliorcetes to command tho passage from Macedonia into Greece), he sent troops to defend his allies from the attacks of the iEtolians. Attalus was happily detached from the League by an incursion made by Prusias of Bithynia into his kingdom of Pergamus; and Galba, left alone with a feeble squadron, was obliged to retire to ^Egina.

In the two following years fortune declared positively for Philip. In the Peloponnesus, Philopcemen, the new general of the Achaian League, gained a decided superiority over Lacedaemon. The King invaded ^Etolia, and again committed Thermon to the flames.

§ 5. The JEtolians finding themselves left to bear the brunt of the war, were glad to conclude a peace on terms favourable to Macedon. Scarcely was the peace concluded, when P. Sempronius Tuditanus arrived at Dyrrhachium, and Philip hastened over the mountains to attack him. But before any decisive action, the Epirotes offered their mediation, and a treaty of peace was signed between Philip and Rome (205 b.c.)

Thus ended what is commonly called the First Macedonian War. The object of the Romans had been simply to prevent Philip from assisting Hannibal in Italy, and in this they had succeeded at a very small expense to themselves either in men or money.

§ G. That Philip entertained few thoughts of a lasting peace, is shown by the fact that on Hannibal’s return to Africa, he sent him 4000 men, commanded by Sopater, a nobleman of the highest rank at the Macedonian court, to assist in maintaining the war against Scipio. These men took part in the battle of Zama, and their commander with many of his men became prisoners. Philip had the impudence to send envoys to Rome, to demand their liberation. His envoys were dismissed with the stern answer, that “if Philip wished for war, he should have it.”

§ 1. Meantime the King of Macedon had been displaying a most unfortunate activity in the East and in Greece.

On the death of Ptolemy Philopator in the very year of the Peace of Dyrrhachium, Philip made a bargain with Antiochus King of Syria to divide the dominions that had devolved on the boy-king of Egypt, Ptolemy Epiphanes. This was the unprincipled Treaty of Partition which drove the ministers of young Ptolemy to place him under the guardianship of Rome.

In Greece the tyrannical disposition, which Philip had disclosed ever since Demetrius of Pharos became his chief counsellor, exhibited itself more and more. This man was killed in battle soon after the Peace of Dyrrhachium, and was succeeded in tho king’s confidcnce by still more unscrupulous knaves, Heraclides, a Tarentine pirate, and Dicsoarchus, an ^Etolian exile. At their instigation Philip now attempted to take off Philopoemen as he had taken off Aratus, but without success; and the Achaean patriots, though they dreaded the ^Etolian marauders, yet would not brook the oppressive tyranny of Philip. It was as yet uncertain what part they would take in the war.

In Asia Minor his conduct was so outrageous, that the Rhodian fleet combined with that of Attalus, took the sea, and blockaded him in Caria so closely, that it was not till the spring of 201 b.c. that he effected his escape into Europe. .

§ 8. The Rhodians and Attalus now passed over to Greece, and promised the Athenians support if they would throw off the Macedonian yoke. Philip dispatched an army to overawe Athens, while in person he laid siege to Abydos. .

But, meantime, the injured powers had sent to complain at Rome; and three Roman envoys, who were then just starting to assume the guardianship of the young King of Egypt, were ordered to visit Philip on their way, and remonstrate on his proceedings. They were all men of note,—Claudius Nero the conqueror of Hasdrubal, P. Sempronius Tuditanus the author of the Peace of Dyrrhachium, and M. ^Emilius Lepidus a young Senator of high and generous spirit, who afterwards rose to be the first man at Rome. Laevinus was dispatched anew to Greece with the fleet that had during the Punic War been employed on the coast of Sicily. But no proposal to declare war was made till the next year (200 B.C.).

§ 9. On the Ides of March, the day on which at that period the Consuls entered upon office, these magistrates summoned the Senate. Dispatches had just arrived from Lawinus, detailing in full the late conduct of Philip, and urging the necessity of an immediate declaration of war. The three envoys had found Philip at Abydos, and ^Emilius had remonstrated in plain and open language.- “ You speak thus,” replied the King, “ because you are a young man, a handsome man, and—a Roman. If,” he added, “ you wish for war, I am ready ” The Consul P. Sulpicius Galba, who had before succeeded Lajvinus, was again appointed to conduct the Macedonian war, and prepared to bring in a bill for the purpose before the Assembly of the Centuries.

Great pains had been taken to prepare the minds of the People for ready acquiescence. At the conclusion of the Hannibalic War, the victories of Rome had been celebrated with games of extraordinary pomp by the JEdiles, one of whom was T. Quinctius Hamininus, the future conqueror of Philip. The poorer class of citizens had been invited to purchase at a low rate the large supplies of grain sent over by Scipio from Africa. Portions of the Public Land in Apulia and Samnium were distributed to the veterans of Scipio. '

There was, however, a general disinclination to make the sacrifices required by a new war. Tho citizens of Rome, as well as the Latins and Italians, were all liable to be drawn for service, unless they were past the military age, or had already served their time. Every family had for years seen its best and strongest males withdrawn from rustic labour to bear arms against Carthage; all were anxious to avoid any return of the miseries which they had endured during Hannibal’s occupation of Italy. The declaration of war was rejected by the vote of almost every Century.

But the Senate was not to be thus discouraged. The Consul was ordered to summon the Centuries to a second vote. Before the question was put, he addressed them in a set speech, in which he argued that the point of decision was, not whether they would go to war with Philip or not, but whether they would have that war in Italy or across the sea. The yeomen of the Tribes, terrified at the thoughts of a new invasion, believed liis arguments, and reversed their vote. -

In consequence of these delays, Galba was not able to reach Apollonia till near the end of the season; but he at once dispatched C. Claudius Centho to relieve Athens.

§ 10. Meantime Philip had been pursuing a very successful career in Thrace. Abydos alone held out with heroic bravery: rather than yield to Philip, they said they would destroy every living soul within the city. “ Well,” remarked the King, with the reckless wit for which he was famous, “ we will suspend the siege, and give them three days to kill themselves in.” At last it fell; and Philip heard that the Romans were in Epirus and at Athens.

§ 11. At once he crossed over to Demetrias. While he lay here, Claudius made an inroad into Euboea, and surprised the strong city of Chalcis. Philip crossed the Euripus; but, too late to save the place from plunder, he resolved to taker vengeance upon Athens. Claudius was not strong enough to meet him in the field, and Philip wreaked his barbarous rage 'on the sacred groves and buildings round the city, which his generals had hitherto spared. The Achacans were exasperated by this conduct, and were still less inclined to take part with the reckless tyrant.

§ 12. Early in the next year (199 b.c.) Galba moved. Under the guidance of Pleuratus, a young Illyrian chief, he advanced through the rugged and woody districts to the west of the Axius (Yardar), then called Eordrca and Elymiotis, but avoided a descent into the level plain; and Philip, not choosing to risk a battle on ground unfavourable to the action of the phalanx, contented himself with watching the enemy. Galba at length returned to Apollonia by the valley of the Apsus. He had effected nothing, and his army suffered greatly in .its bootless campaign. When he first landed at Corcyra, he wrote word to the Senate that a laurel with which his ship’s stem was decked had budded ■—a sure omen of victory; but 110 laurel wreath adorned the Consul’s brow.

§ 13. Galba’s campaign took place after his successor P. Villius Tappulus had entered upon office; but the latter did not arrive at Corcyra till late in the season, and during the winter he was occupied with quelling a mutiny. In the spring of 198 b.c. he took the field, but did not attempt the northern passes as Galba had done. He had the merit of perceiving that Philip was most vulnerable in Thessaly; that the army, supported by the fleet, might by its presence in that country deprive Philip of all influence in Greece. With the aim of penetrating into Thessaly, therefore, he marched up the valley of the Aovis; and in a narrow defile of this valley he found Philip strongly posted. While he was considering his next move, he received news that T. Quinctius Flamininus, the Consul of the year, had arrived at Corcyra to take the command.

§ 14. Flamininus is as much the hero of the Macedonian war ag is Scipio of the war with Hannibal. He also was a Patrician, and was elected to the Consulship at the age of thirty. Unlike Galba and Villius, he left Rome soon after the Ides of March, instead of allowing himself to be detained at Rome till it was time to go into winter-quarters. His brother Lucius accompanied him to take the command of the fleet.

The position occupied by Philip was at a point where the valley closes in to a narrow gorge, which the Macedonians had occupied so skilfully that Flamininus hesitated to attempt a direct attack.* Both armies lay confronting each other for about six weeks, when an attempt was made to settle matters by negotiation. But Flamininus demanded that “the King should withdraw his garrisons from all Hellenic cities, making restitution for injuries past, and leave them independent for the future,” and Philip broke oft* the conference, exclaiming that “ no harder terms could be asked if he were beaten.” It is probable that the Romans might have been altogether foiled, had not an Epirote chief named Charops betrayed a path by which the enemy’s position might be turned. The Macedonians beat off

* Tho place seems to havo been a little below Klissoura, whero aridgo strikes across tho gorge, an'l loaves a vory narrow pasaago for tho stream.

the Roman assaults gallantly till they found themselves attacked in rear. Then they iled precipitately up the pass, past tho present town of Metzovo; and Philip, after throwing garrisons into the strongest fortresses of Thessaly, withdrew to Pella.

§ 15. Flamininus attempted not to pursue him, but remained in Epirus, where he secured the goodwill of the people by his mild treatment. From Epirus he marched through Thessaly, and passed southward into Locris, where the seaport of Anticyra served as a basis of operations. He then laid siege to Elateia, a strong fortress which commanded the chief pass leading from Boeotia northwards.

Meanwhile the Roman fleet, under the command of tho general’s brother, anchored at Cenclirea}, the eastern haven of Corinth. The purpose of L. Flamininus was to influence the General Assembly of the Achaean League, which had met at iEgium. The question for decision was whether they were to take part in the war, and if so, what part. Opinion had gradually been becoming more positive in favour of the Romans, and the leader of the Macedonian party had been banished; yet there was a third party, headed by Philopoemen, which desired neutrality. Great was the perplexity of the Assembly. If they declared in favour of the Romans, they would find themselves leagued with the barbarous JEtolians; if they remained neutral, they might find themselves left in a perilous state of isolation. It is probable that the neutral party would have carried the day, had not Philopoemen been absent. After hearing the envoys of both powers, they sat a whole day silent or murmuring. Next day a tumultuous debate followed; on the third day the majority voted for alliance with Rome, but the representatives of some States withdrew under protest; Argos admitted a Macedonian garrison; and Megalopolis stood aloof. The League was in fact broken up; but the vote of the Assembly enabled Flamininus to declare himself Protector of the liberties of Greece.

§ 10. During the winter, both powers were active in negotiation. Philip was alarmed at the success of Flamininus. Flamininus was fearful of being superseded in the command.

Both parties therefore agreed to a conference, which was held near the Pass of Thermopylae The King approached the appointed place in his state galley, attended by the banished Achaean leader, and two Macedonian officers. Flamininus stood upon the shore surrounded by his allies, Amynander Prince of the Athamanians, the envoy of Attalus, the Rhodian admiral, the chiefs of the Achasan League, and Phseneas the one-eyed captain of the iEtolians. Tho Roman began by demanding that “Philip should restore freedom to the cities of Greece, and make restitution for injuries.” He was followed by his several allies, who urged their own claims not without vehemence. Philip kept his patience till the ^Etolian chief broke in by saying, that “ this was no question of words: the long and short of it was that Philip must conquer or obey.” “ Ay,” retorted the King in his sarcastic vein, “ one may see that with half an eye.” So closed the first day’s conference. Next day Flamininus persuaded the allies to allow him to conduct the negotiations alone. On the third day proceedings closed with a proposal that both parties should send envoys to the Senate at Rome.

When Philip’s envoy began a set speech before the Senate he was cut short by the question, “ Whether the King -was prepared to withdraw the garrison from the three fortresses which (in his biting way) he used to call the Fetters of Greece—Demetrias, Chalcis, and Corinth ?” The envoy had received no instructions on this point, and was ordered to leave Rome.

§ 17. Both parties therefore prepared for a decisive conflict. Flamininus was continued in the command as Proconsul. All Greece between Thessaly and the Isthmus was with him, except Acarnania and Boeotia. Acarnania might safely be neglected, but it was of high importance to secure Boeotia. An assembly was held at Thebes to discuss the propriety, of submission, at which Attalus, now an old man, spoke with so much warmth that he fell down in a fit, and died not long after. During the debate the Consul introduced a body of soldiers into Thebes, and the Assembly voted for alliance with Rome. Still more mortifying to Philip was it to see Nabis, Tyrant of Lacedaemon, follow the general current. He had stooped to court the favour of this monster, and as an earnest of goodwill put Argos into his hands. Nabis took the bribe, and then concluded an alliance with Flamininus.

§ 18. In 197 B.C., therefore, Flamininus advanced from Elateia to Thermopyla) with all Greece at his back. Here he paused till he was joined by a division of ^Etolian cavalry. Philip had already passed through the Vale of Tempe into Thessaly. Constant wars had so drained the population of Macedonia that the levies included veterans past the time of service, and boys of the tender age of sixteen. The phalanx, as usual, consisted of two divisions, each 8000 strong; and to this were added about 7000 light troops and 2000 horse. Tlie Romans had about the same number of foot, but the -^Etolian cavalry gave them a great advantage in this arm. After some manoeuvring, Philip fell back upon Scotussa, where plains of waving corn, then just ripe, supplied forage. Hamininus followed; and the two armies cncamped, unknowingly, on opposite sides of the same low range of liills, which from their appearance were called Cynoseephalsc, or the Dogheads. The next day was stormy, and the air so darkened by mist and rain that the men could only sec a few yards before them. Philip, however, detached a body of light troops to occupy the ridge: and at the same time a Roman rcconnoitering party ascended the opposite slope. The Romans, being the weaker, were driven down the hill towards their camp, where they were supported by fresh troops, and the Macedonians were obliged to retire to the summit of the ridge. The mist now cleared off. The Macedonians, reinforced in their turn, again forced the Romans down the slope, and would have cut them to picecs had not the ^Etolian cavalry held them in check. Flamininus now drew out the Legions, and advanced with his whole line of battle; while the Macedonian officers sent off message • after message to the King, exaggerating their success, and urging him to bring up the Phalanxes and secure the victory. Philip was a good general, and had no mind to entangle his columns in uneven ground, but lie suffered himself to be persuaded against his better judgment. The King himself led one Phalanx on the right, while Nicanor was to follow with the other on the left.

On ordinary occasions the Phalanx was drawn up sixteen men in file; but on this day Philip threw his division into a much 'deeper column. Its weight was thus much increased; and as it bore down upon the Roman left with levelled lances, ten points against each soldier, its charge was irresistible. The Legions gave way before it. But while this was taking place on the Roman left, Flamininus upon the right observed Nicanor’s Phalanx still upon the brow of the hill, broken by the rough ground. lie immediately sent up his elephants, and following with his Legionaries charged before the enemy had time to form. The left Phalanx, attacked in this helpless condition, were driven over the hill in utter confusion. Philip saw that all was lost^ and left the field. Not fewer than 8000 Macedonians were killed; 7000 were taken prisoners. The army was annihilated.

§ 19. When the Romans reached the Macedonian camp, they found that tlicir light-fingered allies the iEtolians had already plundered it. If this disgusted the soldiery, Flamininus himself was provoked by tho arrogance with which their chiefs claimed the chief share in the victory of Cynoseephakc. Tlicir cavalry had doubtless done good service ; but it was too much for Roman pride to hear an epigram recited, in which it was said that “ Philip had been conquered by the .^Etolians and the Latins.”*

* AIru'kuv djxTjdcvrec in' 'Aptof r/di Aarivuv. Tho epigram was written by Alcacus of Mesaond. Sco Plutarch, Yit Flamin. c. 9. ,

The ./Etolians had now ceased to bo useful to. the Homans, and from this time forth we find little harmony between them, Flamininus held a conference with Philip at Tempe; and the ./Etolians were furious to find that the politic Roman offered Philip the old conditions of peace, whereas they wished for nothing less than to deprive him of his crown. Philip gladly accepted the offer of the General: he paid down 200 talents caution-money, and gave up his son Demetrius and other hostages, who were to be restored in case the Senate refused their assent to the treaty. But Flamininus was at this time completely trusted; and ten Commissioners were sent with a Decree of the Senate, which prescribed the basis on which the settlement of Greece was to be made. All the engagements of the Proconsul were sanctioned; but Philip was required to pay 1000 talents, half at once and half in annual instalments for ten years.

On the arrival of the Commissioners, rumours became rife of the intentions of the Senate.- The ^Etolians eagerly caught up these rumours, and endeavoured to raise the indignation of the Greeks. “ The freedom promised was,” they said, “ an illusion. Greece would only find a change of masters. Macedonian garrisons will be replaced by Roman. The Fetters of Greece would only be clasped tighter by a stronger hand.” Flamininus exerted himself to weaken the effect of these representations; and tho Greeks waited anxiously but quietly for the promulgation of the Decree.

§ 20. The Commissioners repaired to Corinth, and it was generally known that their resolutions would be publicly announced at the approaching Isthmian Games. That city of old renown was thronged by the assembled Greeks, who came not so much to witness the national festival, as to learn their country’s fate from the lips of the conqueror. Tho day arrived. Flamininus took his seat in the Amphitheatre. Amid the expectation of all men, a trumpet sounded, and a crier advanced into the arena, who proclaimed that, the Roman Senate AND T. QUINCTIUS THE GENERAL, HAVING CONQUERED KlNG Philip and. the Macedonians, declared all the Greeks who

glad news was more than men could believe; they gazed incredulously on each other; they asked their neighbours whether they had heard aright. Then a general cry arose that the proclamation should be repeated. And now, when doubt gave way to certainty, a deafening shout of joy burst from the assembled multitude. Men’s minds were too much absorbed with serious topics to be interested by shows; the games were hurried over. When the Roman General rose to leave the Amphitheatre, tho crowd pressed so closely round him, eager to toucli his hand and wreathe his head with garlands, that he was well nigh smothered under their tumultuous greeting.

This memorable event took place in the summer of 19G B.C., about a year after the battle of Cynoscephala).

§ 21. Flamiuinus remained nearly two years in Greece after the day of the Proclamation. Already the seeds of a new war were sown. Envoys had arrived from Antiochus, King of Syria, a rash and selfish monarch, who had some reason for alarm. Wo have related how he had proposed to divide with Philip the possessions of the King of Egypt. But no sooner was Philip engaged in a war with Rome than Antiochus seized the opportunity to occupy Asia Minor, and he was now preparing to cross the Hellespont.

Hitherto, Flamininus had abstained from every step which could irritate a new enemy; but now he cared not any longer to humour the King of Syria. He dismissed the Envoys with peremptory orders for Antiochus “to restore the Greek cities in Asia to independence, and on no account to set foot in Europe.” At the same time he promised that Commissioners should be sent to acquaint him more explicitly with the pleasure of the Senate.

§ 22. Some things in Greece required the immediate attention of the General. It was necessary to secure the peace and safety of Peloponnesus by putting down Nabis, Tyrant of Lacedsemon. No peaceful community could subsist by the side of this barbarian. How he gained his power we know not. He confirmed himself in it by a caricature of the reforms of Cleomenes, and distributed the lands among a number of enfranchised Helots. The rich and respectable citizens he banished or put to death; those who were suspected of wealth were put to the torture. His favourite engine for this purpose was a wooden figure representing his wife Apega, which clasped the unhappy recusant to breasts furnished with sharp spikes in place of nipples. He maintained a considerable fleet and army, which were employed in piracy and plunder.

The Roman general had no pretext for war against him. Ho had admitted him into alliance just before the battle of Cynosce-phalse, and Nabis had not broken the terms. Flamininus, therefore, resolved to act merely as the agent of the Achaians, who had abundant grounds for complaint against the Tyrant. He led the allies against Sparta, which, though formerly unwalled, was now strongly fortified; and the desperadoes who formed its garrison defended their last hope bravely. But the Tyrant must have yielded at discretion, had not Flamininus, whose departure from Greecc was now fast approaching, granted him fair terms. The Acha>ans murmured, but in vain. Nabis was deprived of the southern portion of Laconia, which was declared free and was required to give up his fleet and disband his army.

§ 23. Flamininus employed the few months that remained before his departure in making a tour of Greece, and settling the government in Thessaly and other newly-emancipated places. Everywhere he gave preponderance to the aristocratieal or Roman party, and attempted to create such a balance of power, that each state should be afraid of going to war. He spared Philip in the North to check the power of the iEtolians, and Nabis in the South to be a thorn in the Side of the Achscans. He intended that no state in Greece should be strong enough to prevail over the rest, but that all should maintain a species of independence under the protection of Rome, which was to occupy the place filled by Macedon since the battle of Sellasia.

§ 24. The spring of the year 194 b.c. now camc on, and Flamininus prepared for departure. He assembled his Grecian allies at Corinth, and addressed them in a parting speech. He declared he had been actuated in all his measures by a sincere desire of promoting their good; he had spared Nabis only because he could not put him down without destroying the ancient city of Sparta; “ his last act,” he said, “ should prove whether the word of Romans or of iEtolians were more trustworthy. He would show that the freedom of Greece was to be no illusion. He would withdraw the Roman garrisons from all the cities, even from those famous strongholds which were called the Fetters of Greece. Corinth, Clialcis, and Demetrias should be pledges of his sincerity. And now,” he added, “ now that you have perfect liberty, show that you understand its value by maintaining peace and goodwill among yourselves. Let the Roman People know that you are worthy of the gift they have bestowed.” .

These words so touched the hearers, that with the excitable temper of a Southern people they burst into tears; and the General himself was so affected, that he was for a time unable to go on. After a pause he asked as a personal favour, that all Roman citizens who were in slavery among them should be set free, and allowed to attend his triumph. The request was granted by acclamation; and the Acliseans alone redeemed 1200 Roman slaves at the expense of the State.

§ 25. Two months after this memorable scene, Flamininus set sail from Oricum, after an absence of nearly five years, during three of which he had been almost the absolute Sovereign of

Grecce. lie landed at Brundusium with his army, and marclicd in a sort of festal procession along the Appian Way to Rome. The Senate met him outside the walls, and granted the Triumph he had justly earned. The Triumph lasted three days. The first two were taken up with processions of cars, carrying the spoils taken from Philip and Nabis. On the third day, the General himself ascended to the Capitol, preceded by his prisoners and hostages, among whom were two King’s sons, Demetrius son of Philip, and Armenes son of Nabis. After him came his soldiers, all enriched by the war; and, lastly, the liberated slaves, forming the most glorious part of the whole. Not Scipio himself had enjoyed a more splendid triumph. The character of Flamininus, indeed, could not challenge comparison with the heroic proportions of Scipio : yet there was no other Roman who could be compared with Flamininus.

§ 1. Antiochus ordered to quit Europe. § 2. His court at Ephesus visited by Hannibal: how this happened. § 3. Hannibal’s plan. § 4. Intrigues of iEtolians in Greece: death of Nabis: Sparta joins Acliasan League. § 5. Flamininus dispatched to Greece: Thoas the jEtolian persuades Antiochus to cross over into Greece. § 6. Antiochus lands at Demetrias: welcomed by the northern Greeks. § 7. Opinion of Hannibal: frivolity of Antiochus. § 8. Next spring, Antiochus advances into Acamania: retreats to Thermopylae. § 9. The pass of Thermopylae forced by the Consul Gla-brio: Cato. § 10. Advice of Flamininus to Glabrio, not to crush iEtolians. §11. Flamininus puts all Peloponnesus under the Achaean League: his warning. § 12. Next year, L. Scipio, with his brother Publius as Legate, takes the command against Ajitiochus. § 13. Operations by sea: Battle of Myonncsus. § 14. Great army of Antiochus. § 15. Battle of Magnesia: utter defeat of tho Syrians. § 16. Terms of peace dictated by Scipio. § 17. Effects at Romo of the Syrian triumph. § 18. M. Fulvius Nobilior reduces vEtolians: Flamininus again interferes. § 19. Cn. Manlius Yulso makes war, without authority, upon the Galatians. § 20. Distribution of tho Asiatic possessions of Antiochus. § 21. Fruits of tho Galatian War.

§ 1. Notwithstanding- the warning of Flamininus, Antiochus crossed the Hellespont (192 B.C.). Abydos yielded to him. Ly-simacheia, destroyed by Philip, he ordered to be rebuilt; and here he was found by the Commissioners of the Senate. They told him not to imagine that the Romans had spared Philip for him to conquer, and required him to quit Europe at once and to give up all the cities of Asia Minor which he had taken. An angry argument followed, which was broken off by a false report of the death of young Ptolemy. The Syrian King returned in haste to Asia, that he might be ready for all contingencies.

§ 2. At this crisis the court of Antiochus was visited by a man whose counsels, had they been followed, might have changed the history of the world.

After the conclusion of peace with Rome, Ilannibal applied all his energies to the reform of the State. Ilis first step was to put down the selfish oligarchy which had crippled his enterprises in Italy. lie had carried safe from the field of Zama the greater part of his veterans, and their swords made him master of the State. He found that the finances had been shamefully maladministered by the Council of One Hundred. He at once ordained that this Council should be re-elected, wholly or in part, every year, not by themselves, but by the people. He published a statement, by which it appeared that the present revenue, properly administered, would amply suffice to defray all the expenses of the Government, as well as the tribute due to Rome. The old oligarchy could not brook to lose the gains of office without a struggle. They sent messages to the Senate accusing Hannibal of forming secret treaties with Antiochus and others. As soon as the Macedonian War was ended, the Senate sent commissioners to inquire into the truth of the accusations. Hannibal felt that he was already condemned by these prejudiced judges, and fled from Africa. He reached Tyre in safety, and thence repaired to the court of Antiochus at Ephesus. Here he exerted all his abilities to widen the breach between Rome and the Syrian monarch.

§ 3. Antiochus had made up his mind to war, and Ilannibal was welcomed and consulted. Ilis plan of operations was this. He asked for 10,000 men and 100 ships of war, with transports. With these he w^rould sail to Carthage and make her declare war against Rome. lie would then invade Italy, while Antiochus, with an overpowering force, should cross over into Greece and raise all the country against Rome.

§ 4. The time was favourable. Tlie Romans were engaged in desperate conflicts with the Spaniards, as well as with the Ligurians and the Gauls of Northern Italy;¹²² and the presence of Hannibal might have revived a contest as fierce as in the Great Punic War. In Greece the discontent of the iEtolians had laid a train of fresh troubles. No sooner had Flamininus turned his back than they began their intrigues, and determined to set Greece in a flame. At the suggestion of Tlioas, their Chief, envoys were sent to Antiochus, Philip, and Nabis, urging theso monarchs to war. Philip at once refused; he had suffered too much; he detested the iEtolians, and was little satisfied with the selfish conduct of Antiochus. Nabis wanted little incitement : he flew to arms, assassinated all the Roman partisans in Lacedaemon, and sent marauding parties into the territory of the Achajan League; but he was soon compelled by Philopoemen to retire behind the walls of Sparta. Antiochus sent back Thoas with promises, and the -^Etolians resolved at once to commence their movements. On a given day they attempted to gain possession of Chalcis, Demetrias, and Sparta. At Chalcis they failed; Demetrias was betrayed by its inhabitants. Their perfidious attempt on Sparta was defeated; Nabis himself was killed; the most respectable citizens hastily sent for Philopoemen, and declared Sparta a member of the Achaean League.

§ 5. These things took place in the summer of 192 b.c. On hearing of the first disturbances, the Senate had dispatched Flamininus to Greece at the head of a Commission. Flamininus remained there, while he sent on the other Commissioners to warn Antiochus against; taking part with the JEtolians. But Thoas had just returned to Ephesus with news of the capture of Demetrias. If the King would but show himself, he said, Macedonia and all Greece would rise to welcome him; but he must come at once, or the Romans would be upon them.

The only forces which Antiochus had ready were the 10,000 men whom he had assembled to execute the plan of Hannibal. The great Carthaginian had overcome the King’s jealous feelings by the tale of his boyish oath to bear eternal enmity against Rome ; and for a time Antiochus followed all his counsels. But the flattering words of Thoas once more estranged the King’s mind from the great general; and the lying ^Etolian obtained absolute influence at court. Notwithstanding the pleadings of Hannibal, notwithstanding the warnings of the Roman Commissioners, Antiochus determined to set sail for Europe, and thus virtually declared war against Rome.

§ 6. He offered a solemn sacrifice at Troy, and in a few days landed at Demetrias. Here he was welcomed with loud acclamations. The Boeotians, eager to satiate their hatred of Rome, received him joyfully; the people of Elis, old enemies of the Achajan League, sent him favourable answers; the Epirotes promised to join him as soon as he should appear; and Amy-nander, the Athamanian, was persuaded to desert his old allies and join Antiochus. The Achseans, however, unanimously declined his offers.

Presently, he held a council of war at Demetrias. The yEtolians advised that the first thing needful was to secure possession of all Thessaly. All the rest approved except Hannibal, who sate silent. The King asked his opinion. He said that “his opinion was unchanged. He had thought before, and he thought still, that all the time spent in gaining the support of the Greeks was thrown away. They must side with the strongest, and if the King were victorious would join him as a matter of course. It was ill-advised to have believed the false reports of the ^Etolians, and to have ventured into Greece with so small a force; but now the best thing to be done was to force Philip to take part with them, by ordering Seleucus, the King’s son, to advance into Macedonia: to send for reinforcements without delay; to station the fleet at Cor-cyra, and concentrate all the forces in Epirus, so as to meet the Romans there or (if possible) to invade Italy.”

§ V. But this plan was too great for the petty mind of tho King and his advisers. He spent the summer in Thessaly, and as winter approached retired to the fortress of Chalcis in Euboea, which had opened its gates at his approach. Here the senseless monarch gave himself up to enjoyment. He married a fair daughter of the place, and celebrated his marriage with Oriental splendour. His officers and their men followed the royal example; all bonds of order and discipline were relaxed. The Syrians passed the winter in idling and drinking, and Philo-poemen regretted that he was no longer General, of the League, or he would have cut off the whole army in detail.

Meanwhile the Senate were busily engaged in preparing for war. The conduct of Antiochus had so completely thrown the game into their hands that it was easy to represent the war as one of simple defence. No one could say that they had provoked it. The Acliajans regarded them as their champions.

§ 8. In the spring of the next year (191 b.c.) Antiochus roused himself and advanced into Acarnania. Ilis prospects suddenly darkened. At the same moment he heard that Philip, with the authority of the Romans, was fast reconquering the Thessalian cities which had submitted in the previous year, and’ that the Consul, M’ Acilius Glabrio, had also entered Thessaly. Tho .^Etolians, after all their promises, brought but 4000 men into the field. Antiochus retraced his steps to Chalcis, and sent urgent messages for additional forces, but in vain. The Roman Consul was approaching Thermopyla? from the north, and unless he were checked here, Boeotia and Euboea, as well as Thessaly, would be lost.

§ 9. The Pass of Thermopyla) is formed, as is well known, by a spur of Mount (Eta, which comes close down upon the sea. The King intrenched himself in the narrowest place, like Leonidas of old, but not in the spirit of Leonidas. The mountain-path, by which the Persian troops had found a way to the rear of the Greeks, was now committed to tho charge of tho vEtolians; but these freebooters sent a small detachment only on this service, while they employed their chief force in seizing tho neighbouring city of Ileraclea. The Consul encamped in front of the Pass; but before commencing the assault he sent his lieutenants, L. Valerius Flaccus and M. Porcius Cato, to force their way over the mountain to the rear of the enemy. The Syrians defended their entrenchments well, but as soon as they found themselves attacked in rear, they threw down their arms and fled with precipitation. Antiochus himself was wounded in the mouth by a stone, and escaped with only 500 men to Chalcis. The Consul embraced Cato before the whole army, and, declaring that the whole merit of the victory lay with him, sent him home with news of the victory. lie travelled with the greatest speed, landed at Tarentum, and in five days more announced to the Senate that Greece was delivered from the Syrians. When the Consul advanced into Bceotia, the King re-embarked for Ephesus, taking with him his bride, the only conquest which he retained.

§ 10. Glabrio soon reduced the strong places which had joined the enemy, and then laid siege to Naupactus, the chief station of the iEtolian navy. While he was thus engaged, Flamininus arrived in his. camp. He immediately pointed out to the Consul that it would be an error to crush the ^Etolians altogether, and thus to leave Philip, who had by this time reconquered Upper Thessaly, without any people strong enough to balance his power in Upper Greece. Glabrio acquiesced, and Naupactus was left to the JEtolians.

§ II. On his way to the Consul’s camp, Flamininus ordered the Messenians and Eleans to give in their adhesion to the Achjean League. Thus at length all Peloponnesus was combined into one Federate State, and the darling project of Aratus seemed to'be fulfilled. But Philopcemen and the patriots looked sadly on. They felt that this consummation was due to foreign force, and was, in fact, a proof of weakness. This weakness appeared still more palpably before the departure of the Romans. The Achseans laid claim to the island of Zacynthus, which liad lately belonged to Philip. ^u Take care,” said Flamininus, “ what you do. Your League is like a tortoise, safe while it keeps its head within Peloponnesus, but in danger as soon as it ventures beyond ” Tlie League needed no further hint. It drew in its head, and Zacynthus passed into the hands of the Romans.

§ 12. As soon as Antiochus had left Europe, he thought he was secure from the Romans. But Hannibal, who had prophesied the event of the last campaign, and had now regained sonic measure of credit with the arrogant monarch, told him he only wondered they were not already in Asia.

The Consuls for the new year (190 n.c.) were L. Scipio the cider brother, and C. Laslius the bosom friend, of the great Africanus. Lajlius was anxious for the command in the East, and the Senate were disposed to confer it on him; but Africanus rose in tho Senate-house and said, that if they would give it to his brother, he would himself acc6mpany him as lieutenant. This decided the question, and the two Scipios left the city as early as possible for Greece. They found Glabno still engaged in the siege of petty fortresses. Africanus had taken care that a number of his own veterans should be enlisted in his brother’s army; and they both agreed that the war should be carried as soon as possible into Asia. L. Scipio therefore granted a fresh armistice to the ^Etolians, and sent an envoy to Philip to demand a free passage for the army through Macedonia and Thrace. Philip, eager to retain his conquests in Thessaly, showed great alacrity in the Roman service. He repaired the roads and bridges, laid in stores for the army along the line of march, and attended the Consul in person to the Hellespont.

§ 13. The march of the Romans eastward convinced Antioch us that Hannibal was a true prophet. He immediately ordered a force to be collected so vast as to insure victory over the rash invaders, and dispatched Hannibal into Phoenicia to bring up reinforcements for the fleet.

But the Roman commander ordered a Rhodian fleet to the coast of Caria to intercept Hannibal, and tho brave islanders performed this service with complete success: Hannibal’s Phoenician squadron was dispersed, and the Rhodians, combined with the Roman ships, attacked the Syrian fleet. A sharp conflict ensued off Myonnesus, a promontory of Lydia, in which the Syrian Admiral lost more than half his fleet, and left the sea at the command of the enemy.

§ 14. The King had collected a vast army from all quarters. Besides his own people, he gathered levies from North and South. AH kinds of men appeared in his ranks: Scythian and Galatian horsem2n; Persian riders clad in complete armour, man and horse; scythed cars like those of the Western Celts; Cretan slingers; Arabian archers mounted on dromedaries; Indian elephants to the number of forty-four.* Sixteen thousand men bore the redoubted name of the Phalanx; and the elite of tho army, like that of Alexander, were called Argyraspids; but

* The Romans had a few African elephants, an inferior kind. They first used elephants in tho Macedonian war (Liv. xxxi. 36), but they nevor relied much on these animals.

though the names and arms were Macedonian, the men were the men of Xerxes and Darius.

With this host Antiochus ravaged the plains of Mysia and Lydia. Pergamus was bravely defended by Attalus, the young King’s brother, Eumenes himself being with the Roman army. Africanus, who was one of the Salian Priests of Mars, stayed in Europe for the due performance of certain solemn rites, while the army crossed the Hellespont. Soon after this, lifc was taken ill, and obliged to remain at Elsea, the seaport of Pergamus, while the army advanced towards the King’s quarters at Thyatira. At the approach of the Romans, Antiochus fell back across the Hyllus, and encamped at Magnesia under Mount Sipylus. -He was closely followed by the Consul, who also crossed the river, and took up a position within three miles of the King’s camp. Still Antiochus declined an engagement, till he found that the Romans were preparing to attack him in his entrenchment. Then he drew out his vast army in battle order.

§ 15. It is needless to give a detailed account of the battle. The Syrian army was three or four times as numerous as that of Scipio, who had invaded Asia with a common Consular army, supported by 3000 Achaeans, 800 men from Pergamus, and a few volunteers from Thrace and Macedonia; but they wero more than enough to defeat the Syrians. The King fled, leaving 53,000 men upon the field. The Romans, it is said, lost no more than 400.

§ 16. By the single battle of Magnesia, Antiochus the Great lost all his conquests in Asia Minor. He did not deem himself safe till he reached Apamea, in the south of Phrygia, where he was joined by his son Seleucus and his chief counsellors. Hence he sent ambassadors to the Consul to treat for peace. L. Scipio was at Sardis with his brother Africanus, who now took upon himself to dictate the terms. Antiochus was to give up all his possessions north of Mount Taurus; and pay down a sum of 3000 talents, with a tribute of 1000 for twelve succeeding years. All his ships of war and elephants were to be given up for ever; he was to abstain from all interference with European matters; he was not even allowed to hire mercenaries in Europe. The persons of Hannibal the Carthaginian and Thoas the ./Etolian, with some others, were to be surrendered to the Romans.

§ 17. L. Scipio repaired straightway to Rome to enjoy his splendid but easy triumph. In imitation of his brother, he assumed the after-name of Asiaticus. The booty he had made was great beyond example, the sums he paid into the treasury enormous. The Macedonian and Syrian wars laid the foundation of those prodigious fortunes which afterwards distinguished tho

Roman nobles, and introduced that gorgeous but barbaric luxury which corrupted the manners of the whole people, and led to incurable evils in the State.

§ 18. The Senate now had leisure to punish the ^Ftolians. Soon after the departure of the Scipios for Asia, false reports reached Greecc of successes gained by Antiochus, and the JEto-lians, %ing to arms, drove Philip from his late conquests to the west of Mount Pindus. On this news the Senate ordered M. Fulvius Nobilior, one of the Consuls for the year 189, to take the command in Greece, while his colleague, Cn. Manlius Yulso, succeeded L. Scipio in Asia. Fulvius immediately laid siege to Ambracia, while Perseus, the son of Philip, invaded yEtolia from the north, and the Aclueans from the south. Ambracia, a noble and well-fortified town, the ancient capital of Pyrrhus, was bravely defended; but the ^Etolian chiefs, finding their condition desperate, hastened to send a new embassy to Rome with full submission. Philip was now as anxious to annihilate the iEtolians, as the iEtolians had formerly been eager to destroy him; but Flamininus had saved Philip from the iEtolians, and he now interfered to save the iEtolians from Philip. The Senate listened to his arguments, and allowed them to become the vassals of Rome. The Roman wars in Greece were now ended for some years.

§ 19. Manlius, on arriving in Asia, was much disappointed by finding that the war had been finished by the battle of Magnesia, and that nothing remained but for the Commissioners of the Senate who accompanied him to confirm the peaco dictated by Africanus. But he was too anxious for plunder and a triumph not to seek for war, and an occasion presented itself in the circumstance that the Galatians had served in the ranks of the Syrian army at Magnesia.

It has before been mentioned that Galatia was a district of Northern Phrygia, which had been seized by a host of Gauls, who had been driven out of Greece about a century before. In the heart of Asia they retained their Celtic habits and names. By continual plundering they had amassed great stores of wealth.

When the Consul advanced into the country, the Galatians retired into tlicir mountain fastnesses, but without avail. In two great battles they w’crc defeated by the Romans, and obliged to give up all their riches. From this time these Asiatic Gauls gradually became assimilated to the Greeks.

§ 20. Manlius spent a second year as Proconsul in Asia Minor. In company with the ten Commissioners of the Senate, he received ambassadors from the various States, and distributed the possessions of Antiochus in Asia Minor according to a decree of the Senate. Eumenes of Pergamus was rewarded by the gift of Mysia, Lydia, Phrygia, and part of Caria,with those Thracian towns which Antiochus had abandoned. The rest of Caria, with Lycia and Pisidia, was given to the Rhodians. Caria and Lycia rightly belonged to Ptolemy Epiphanes, but that prince had offended the Senate by marrying a daughter of King Antiochus.

§ 21. The Galatian war, insignificant as it was, became the root .of great evils. It was the first time that a Roman General had ventured to make war without the authority of the Senate. Nay, the ten Commissioners had expressly forbidden the enterprise; and when Manlius applied for a triumph, one of the ten opposed it warmly; but there were too many young officers in the Senate who looked forward to like opportunities, and the Consul was allowed to celebrate his triumph over the Galatians. His example was followed too often in after times.

WARS IN THE WEST CONTEMPORANEOUS WITII THE MACEDONIAN AND SYRIAN WARS. (200-177 B.C.)

§ 1. Wars in Northern Italy: tho Ligurians. § 2. Conquest of tho Boians: Placentia and Cremona peopled anew: Colony of Bononia founded. § 3. Conquest of tho Italian Ligurians. § 4. yEmilian Road: Colonies of Mu-tina, Parma, and Lucca: new Province of Cisalpine GauL § 5. Condition of tho Spanish Peninsula. § G. Conquest of Northern Spain by Cato. § 1. Services and triumph of Cato. § 8. Continued troubles in Spain to tha Praetorship of Tib. Gracchus. § 9. Reduction of Sardinia by Gracchus: Sardi venales. §10. Conquest of Istria: Colony of Aquileia.

§ 1. While two or three Consuls were winning riches and hon. ours in the East at an easy rate, others were engaged in the West with far more stubborn adversaries. Tedious wars with the barbarians in Northern Italy, and with the brave tribes of Central Spain, offered little to attract greedy or ambitious Senators; and yet in these districts many generals were compelled to keep watch and ward for years.

It was about the year 200 b.c. that the Senate received news of a general rising in Northern Italy. The Gauls, who took part in the movement, were the old enemies of Rome—the Boians south of the Po, with the Insubrians and Cenomannians on the far sido of that great river. A new enemy was behind, the Ligurians, a wild people of uncertain race, who occupied the mountainous district of the Maritime Alps and Upper Aponnines, from near the Rhone to the confines of Etruria.

§ 2. Three campaigns sufficed to reduce the Gallic tribes beyond the Po; and the Boians, being left to carry on the conflict single-handed, excited the Ligurians to renew their inroads. In 193 b.c., bands of these marauders appeared before Pisa and Placentia at once. But in 191, when Glabrio was forcing the Pass of Thermopylae, his colleague, P. Scipio Nasica, received the final submission of the Boians. They purchased peace at the price of half their territory; but the half which remained was more than enough for their numbers, diminished by nine years’ deadly war with Rome. In the next year (190), C. Loelius, disappointed of the command against Antiochus, was employed in settling the conquered country. The colonies of Placentia and Cremona, which had suffered greatly since the time of Hannibal’s first appearance in Italy, were re-peopled by COOO families of Roman and Latin citizens. Part of the confiscated

lands were assigned to a new colony at Felsina, which assumed tho name of Bononia, or (as it is now called) Bologna.

§ 3. But to subdue the Ligurians in their mountains required long years of desultory warfare. These nimble mountaineers, lean and sinewy in form, inured to hardship, unincumbered with baggage, acquainted with every bye-path and fastness in their native hills, carried on a sort of guerilla warfare, which the Romans found as difficult to deal with as regular armies have always found in similar cases. Whenever the enemy presented a front, they were cure to be defeated; but even then the bulk of the force escaped by mountain paths, and met again in some well-known resort. Often they surprised careless or over-confident commanders, and cut off large bodies of Roman troops. But year after year the Roman columns penetrated further and further into the Ligurian fast-' nesses. One tribe after another submitted. L. ^Emilius Paullus, son of him who fell at Cannae, himself destined to become one of Rome’s most famous men, remained in Liguria with proconsular command for several years. In 180, he received the submission of two of their bravest tribes, the Ingaunians and Apuans; and the last-named people, who marched with Etruria along the Macra, were transplanted into Samnium to the number of 40,000 souls, and their lands confiscated to the use of the Roman People. The war was virtually at an-end.

§ 4. The submission of Northern Italy was no doubt hastened by the construction of military roads. M. ^Emilius Lepidus, Consul for the year 180 B.C., the same who irritated Philip by his peremptory manner, constructed the great road which bore his name through the new colony of Bononia to Placentia, being a continuation of the Flaininian Way, or Great North Road, made by C. Flaminius in 220 from Rome to Ari-minum; whilo Flaminius, the son, being the colleague of Lepidus, made a branch road from Bononia across the Apennines to Arre-tium. Soon after, on the line of the JEmilian Road, between Bononia and Placentia, the Senate planted the colonies of Mutina (Modena) and Parma. The confiscated territory of the Apuans was assigned to the new colony of Lucca. Thus did Rome secure her conquests in the North as in the South. It was soon after these wars that the whole of Cisalpine. Gaul with Italian Liguria was formed into a great Province, which was always treated with favour, and proved one of the most valuable possessions of the Roman Empire. The Gallic towns became Latin in languago and feeling, as well as in government; and some notable Romans of later times, among whom may be named Livy the Historian, a Paduan by birth, sprang from the loins of these Latinised Celts. ^{1
b}

§ 5. Wc must now follow the tide of Homan conquest in the Spanish Peninsula. That part of Spain which had been conquered by Scipio was divided into two Provinces, known as Ilis-pania Citcrior and Ulterior, each being ruled by a Prajtor or Proconsul. But these Provinces in fact included only a small portion of the Peninsula. Hither Spain ran along the coast southward to a point beyond Carthagcna, its western boundary being as yet indeterminate: Further Spain contained little more than modern Andalusia. The rest of Spain was still unconqucrcd. The Ccltiberians, a brave race, who inhabited the chief parts of Castillo, dwelt in numerous cities strong both by nature and art. The Lusitanians, who occupied the mountainous districts of Western Spain and Portugal, between the Douro and Guadiana, were shepherds or guerillas as the case required; now tending their flocks on the hill-sidcs, now making armed forays into the heart of the Further province. The Gallajcians and Cantabrians, between the Douro and the Bay of Biscay, had as yet scarcely heard of the Roman name.

§ G. The formation of Spanish Provinces took place apparently in 198 d.c., when wc first hear of six Prators, two being destined to govern Spain. A general outbreak followed, and may be attributed to the fear entertained by the Spaniards that the Romans meditated the eventual conquest of all tlicir tribes. When M. Porcius Cato, Consul in the year 195 B.C., entered on office, he was dispatched at once to the Hither province to subdue the insurrection. This remarkable man had already distinguished himself as a Legionary Tribune under Fabius in the Hannibalic War, and had served as Quaestor under the great Scipio in Sicily. Wc have also recorded, by anticipation, the glory he won by turning the Pass of Thcrmopyke in the campaign of Glabrio. But his military fame chiefly depends upon his operations in Spain.

When lie landed at Emporia) (Ampurias), he found the whole country, up to the very walls of this place, in arms; nay, the Spaniards of Emporia) itself were only prevented by the presence of a Roman garrison from joining their countrymen, lie gave proof of his determined temper by dismissing the speculators who usually contracted to supply the army with victuals; “ for,” said lie, “ I will make the war support itself.” He spent some time in training his troops for the desultory warfare of the Spaniards, occasionally dashing into the country occupied by the enemy, and inuring his men to every hardship. He shared all privations with the common soldiers, and won tlicir affection by his blunt manners and rough jests. Sometimes he rode through the ranks, armed with a rude countryman’s javelin, called sparus, and chastised offenders not over gently with his own hand.

When tliis training had lasted long enough to give the General and his men confidence in each other, Cato led them forth to attack the Spaniards, who were encamped in force near Emporioe. He fell unexpectedly on their rear, and defeated them with great slaughter. Profiting by the terror thus inspired, lie penetrated into all the mountain valleys from the Ebro to Carthagcna, and executed merciless vengeance on those who resisted. To the rapid military movements by which he terrified his opponents, ho added a diplomatic trick, which shows the disconnected condition of the tribes he had to deal with. To the chiefs of every strong place in Northern Spain he addressed letters, commanding them, on pain of suffering Roman vengeance, to dismantle their fortifications, and took care that every letter should be delivered on or about the same day. Each chief supposed the order was addressed to himself alone; and each, fearing Cato’s severity for himself, obeyed the order.

§ 7. Thus in a few weeks Cato reduced the whole Northern province to submission. No doubt he committed great atrocities. Numbers fell by the sword; more still were taken and sold as slaves: many, to avoid this fate, put themselves to death. But no Roman General hesitated to use harsh measures; no one thought of censuring him for doing so.

After his operations in the North, lie made an excursion into the Southern province, and by his presence assisted the Pnetor in repelling the assaults of the Lusitanians, so that Cato had some reason for his boast, that lie had pacified the whole of Spain. lie returned to Rome laden with booty and honour. It must be mentioned to his credit, that he reserved no large share of plunder for himself, though he bestowed a handsome largess on each of his soldiers. “ Better,” he said, “ that many men should have plenty of silver, than that one man should have plenty of gold.”

The Senate were so well satisfied with his successes that they decreed a Thanksgiving of Three Days; and the triumph which he celebrated was the first which Rome had witnessed since the triumph of Scipio over Hannibal. It was happy for Cato’s vanity that Flamininus returned home a few weeks later, or the glory of tho Spanish triumph would have been eclipsed by the greater splendour of the Macedonian. .

§ 8. It is however probable that the measures taken by Cato for the future government of the Spanish provinces sow^rcd the sccds^ of future evil. lie laid regular taxes and imposts on the Spanish subjects of Rome, and confiscated as Statc-propcrty the mines of silver and gold, which in those days made Spain an object of contention. It was foreseen by Scipio that the measures of Cato would irritate the Spaniards; and his apprehen-

sions were justified. For the next sixteen years Rome was engaged in continual wars with the Spaniards. But in the year 179 b.c., sixteen years after the Consulship of Cato, the limits of the Upper Province were settled, and a general pacification brought about. This liappy result was due to Tib. Seinpronius Gracchus, father of the famous Gracchi. He was himseJf a man of ability and courage, and ruled with a moderation little known and less valued among Romans. Many communities who liad been deprived of home and land, received new settlements, for which they were required to pay certain yearly dues, and to perform military service at the order of the Roman Governor. No city was henceforth to fortify itself without the consent of Rome. In other respects they were allowed to govern themselves without interference. Such is all that we know of the famous pacification of Gracchus.

§ 9. Here may be added a notice of some other conquests made by Rome in this same period. The Sardinians and Corsicans, who had first risen against Rome in the Second Punic War, again appeared in arms about the year 181 B.C., for what cause or with what justice we know not. This petty war continued, till after his return from Spain Tib. Gracchus obtained the Consulship. His vigorous hand soon checked the insurrection; and after an absencc of two years he celebrated a triumph over the islanders. Ilis measures do not seem to have been marked with the same forbearance which distinguished him in Spain; for so great was the number of prisoners brought home and sold that the slave-market was glutted, and “ Sardinians for sale” became a proverbial expression for anything that was cheap and common.*

§ 10. The conquest of the northern shores of the Adriatic took place about the same time. In the year 183 B.C., a son of the great Marcellus, being Consul for the year, had occasion to inarch into Venetia to repel a threatened irruption of the Celtic tribes from the north. Having effected his purpose with little difficulty, he wrote to the Senate to point out the great advantage which the Republic would deftve from the possession of the peninsula between the modern towns of Trieste and Fiume, which then as now bore the name of Istria; and without waiting for a reply from the Government, he invaded the country. The Senate sanctioned his unprovoked attack; and, soon after, possession was secured by the Latin colony of Aquileia, which became a place of great importance as a barrier against the northern barbarians. When it was destroyed by Attila, from its ashes rose the famous city of Venice.

CIVIL HISTORY DURING THE MACEDONIAN AND SYRIAN WARS I CORRUPTION OF MANNERS : SENATORIAL PREDOMINANCE : SCIPIO AND CATO. (200-169 B.C.)

1. General inclination to War caused by tho conquests in tho East. § 2. Chango in the character of tho Roman armies. § 3. Evil effects of war on tho social condition of Romans. § 4. Rapid rise of tho new Nobility of wealth: its oligarchical tendency. § 5. Evil effects of sudden wealth on manners and morals. § 6. Bribery. § *7. Evidcnco of profligacy: L. Flamininus: Bacchanalia: Poisoning by women. § 8. State of parties in the Senato: Scipio. § 9. Cato leader of the attack on Scipio: his previous life. § 10. Cato’s bitterness against Greek fashions* §11. L. Scipio required to produce his accounts: conduct cf P. Scipio: ho is indicted before the People: his reply. § 12. New attack upon P. Scipio, diverted to Lucius: arrest of the latter prevented first by tho armed interference cf his brother, then by tho intercession of Tib. Gracchus. § 13. Retirement and death of Scipio. § 14. Death of Hannibal in the same_year. § 15. Cato turns upon tho Senatorial party: his election to tho Censorship. § 1G. Severity of his Censorial administration. § 1*7. Character.

§ 1. Though it was with great difficulty that the citizens were induced to consent to the Macedonian War, to the Senators war

was wclcomo even at that time of extreme depression. By commands, embassies, and commissions to foreign courts, they expected to find means of repairing their past losses and enriching themselves; and they were not mistaken. And after the wars in the East a great chango seems to have wrought in the feelings of the People also. The yeomen of Italy saw their brethren returning home laden witli booty. A royal road to rbhes is always thronged, and wc hear no more of disinclination to declare war. It was seldom necessary to resort to the Census-roll for compulsory enlistment. The Legions wero filled by volunteers.

§ 2. A great change now began to be introduced into the constitution of the Roman armies. During the Punic Wars, it had often been found impossible to dismiss the Legions levied for the year after the year’s campaign was over. And what had hitherto been the exception now became the rule. A general usually kept the men who first took service under him during his whole command, and often handed them over to his successor. Thus the old militia of the Republic changed its character, and a race of professional soldiers came into being. There was not, indeed, a standing army in our sense of the word. The soldiery were not so much servants of the State, as attached to the person of a successful general, whom they regarded as their patron. This new state of things reached its height under Marius and Caisar; but it took its origin with Scipio. Scipio was refused by the Senate the levies which he deemed necessary for the invasion of Africa, and he raised volunteers on his own credit. These men were rewarded with grants of land in Southern Italy. But then swords were at the command of any leader who offered a chance of fresh booty. Many enlisted for service in the Macedonian and Syrian Wars. This tendency to regard a soldier’s business as a profession, rather than as the occasional duty of a citizen, received a great impulse from the invasion of Galatia by Cn. Manlius Vulso. From this time Livy dates the greedy and licentious spirit which marked the Roman soldiery of his own time, as it has marked soldiers of fortune in all times. •

§ 3. Thus the lust of conquest became general. The Senate had now no difficulty in carrying war-votcs. Wars were no fonger defensive, even in pretence. Increase of empire was the hardly-concealed motive of action. The most detestable practices were employed to create intestine dissensions in all countries, to encourage one potentate against another, to provoke quiet and independent States by acts of intolerable arrogance, to bring about by what means soever an appeal t Roman arbitration. Senatorial commissions were continually crossing the sea to Greece and Asia, to Carthage and Egypt. Diplomatic acts of the basest kind were becoming part of tho profession of Senator. The rude simplicity of the old Roman character was degenerating into brutal arrogance, or was used as a cloak for the meanest and most hypocritical ends.

§ 4. The Senate itself was every day becoming more confined and oligarchical. We have before shown how the superior offices of the State were barred against men of moderate fortune. The old distinctions of blood had ceased: in the year 173 b.c. both Consuls were Plebeian. But a new Nobility was rising, consistr ing of the wealthy Senatorial families. Here wealth was the mother of wealth: a family once ennobled by office had so many opportunities of making money, that every day it became more difficult for an upstart or New Man (as persons were called whose progenitors had not held office) to make his way to the Consulship, or even into the Senate. Those who could place in their vestibules or carry out to funerals the greatest number of the images of ancestors distinguished by office were the most noble. The Senate was fast becoming an oligarchical council, almost hereditary in certain families.

§ 5. It will readily be perceived how fatal must have been the influence exercised on manners and morals by these changes. It has been said with melancholy truth that at the moment when the history of the Republic begins to extend itself so as to cmbrace the whole civilised world, it loses all its moral interest. The Romans before their conquests were (as we have seen) a hardy, thrifty, self-denying, and religious race, but withal ignorant, rude, destitute of common charity and humanity in their dealings with foreigners. When enormous wealth and power are suddenly placed in the hands of such a people, the results are certain. The proverbs of every nation testify to the arrogance and vices of rich upstarts; and the Romans were no exceptions to the rule. They were much in the condition of savages exposed to the first influences of civilisation, who eagerly imbibe its new vices, and retain their own grossness.

The Roman historians with one voice concur in these representations. “The great Scipio,” says Velleius with pregnant brevity, “opened the way to empire; his brother to luxury.” “ The Asiatic army,” says Livy, “ first introduced among us couches of rich workmanship, cloths of delicate texture, and all kinds of costly furniture. They set the fashion of sumptuous banquets, at which the guests were at once regaled with the choicest viands and charmed with voluptuous music. Cooks, who had formerly been the cheapest kind of slave, now becamo the mos* valuable ”

§ 6. The cfFcct of the rapidly increasing wealth on political morality is proved by the frequent laws against Bribery at Elections, which may be dated from the year 181 B.C.*

§ 7. Some incidents have been preserved which prove the rising profligacy. Lucius Flamiiiinus, brother of the famous Titus, was elected Consul in 192 B.C., and sent to Cisalpine Gaul. He had lately bought a beautiful Carthaginian boy, who indulged in loud complaints at being taken away from Rome just beforo tho exhibition of the great gladiatorial games. Soon after the Consul reached his province, a Gallic chieftain fled with his family to seek for protection in the Roman camp. The fugitive was brought to the Consul’s tent, where he Was feasting with his unworthy minion. “ Now,” said Lucius,- “ you shall be rewarded for not seeing the gladiatorsand, at a sign, one of the attendants stabbed the suppliant, that his dying agonies might amuse the cruel boy.

A sure sign of corruption is to be found in the dissolute manners that were discovered among the women. In 186 b.c., the Consul Posthumius was accidentally informed that there were not only in Rome, but in many Italian towns, secret societies, in which young men and women were dedicated to Bacchus; and that, under the cloak of religious ceremony, every kind of licence and debauchery was practised. The Senate issued a stringent Decree for the repression of Bacchanalian orgies. Numbers of men were put to death; the women were handed over to the heads of their respective families, for the law did not permit the public execution of a female.

§ 8. The state of parties in the Senate iii the earlier part of this period is singular. When Scipio returned to Rome as tho conqueror of Hannibal, he was saluted by the people as the saviour of Italy. lie might then have put himself at the head of a popular party, and crushed the ascendaucy lately gained by the Senate. lie had been elected Consul against the will of the Senatorial majority; he had won his Triumph by setting their known opinion at defiance. He was the idol of the. People. It was proposed to set up his statue in the Forum, in the Comi-tium, in the Senate-house, on the Capitol, iii the very Temple of Jupiter. Nay, there was a general w ish to make him Dictator for life, in tho hope that by the same vigour and address which had marked his military career he might put an end to the social evils, the debt, the misery which followed the dreadful Ilannibalic War.

* Thero were earlier laws de Ambilu; but these were intended by tho Nobility to check tho New Men from canvassing. Now canvassing and bribery became synonymous, and were expressed by tho samo word—Anibitu*.

Scipio was still in the prime of life, not more than thirty-five years of age. But he had no taste for the cares and toils of a party-leader. He put aside the houours offered him with the same calm disdain with which he had declined the crown offered him by the Celtiberians. It is always difficult for a soldier who from early years has held high command to acquire the tact necessary for managing the war of parties. Hannibal, indeed, had shown himself as able in statesmanship as in war; but it was by the despotic method of the camp. He was backed by his veterans; by their aid he made himself master of Carthage, and ruled it with imperial sway. Scipio might perhaps have done the same at Rome. But he was not like Hannibal. He used to say, that “he was never less alone than when alone,” so fond was he of literature and art. Those who were intimate with him loved him dearly. But he never concealed a certain proud indifference for opinion, whether of the Senate or the people, which soon dimmed his popularity. He cared not for this. He preferred the society of the poet Ennius to the applause of the people or the favour of the Senate.

In 199 B.C., he was chosen Censor; his friendly colleague, Q. iElius Paetus, named him Chief of the Senate, and he retained this high rank till the Censorship of Cato in 184, one year before his death. In 193, he held the Consulship for a second time, and his popularity received a mortal blow from his own hand. The Censors of that year proposed to appropriate the front places in the Theatre to the Senatorial Order, ai\d Scipio supported the proposal.

But it was not till after liis return from Asia that his enemies ventured to attack him openly. Those enemies were no doubt the leaders of the old Senatorial party. But the person who led the assault bore the famous name of Cato.

§ 9. M. Porcius Cato was born at the provincial town of Tus-culum in the same year with the great Scipio : they were both seventeen years of age when Hannibal crossed the Alps. Cato’s patrimony lay in the Sabine country, near the humble dwelling once occupied by the great Curius Bentatus. The* youth looked with reverence on the hearth at which * Curius was roasting his radishes when he rejected the Samnite gold, and resolved to make the rustic hero his model. lie used to work with his slaves, wearing the same coarse dress, and partaking of the same simple fare. His natural power of speaking he exercised by pleading in tho law-courts of the neighbouring town. Ilis shrewd remarks passed current in the country; and the fame of tho youthful orator reached the > ears of L. Valerius Flaccus, a ^oung nobleman of the neighbourhood, himself a determined friend of the ancient Roman manners. Flaccus had discernment enough to see what was in Cato; lie became his friend, and persuaded him to go to Rome, there to enter on a public life. The honourable intimacy thus begun continued throughout life. Flaccus aud Cato were colleagues in almost every office of State.

Cato at once attached himself to the party of Fabius, who at that time dispensed all the honours of the Republic, lie served under the old General at Capua and at Tarentum: and being elected Qusestor in 205 B.C., was sent with Scipio to Sicily. When Cato returned to Rome, the favour of the old Senatorial party, and the popularity he had won by unabashed self-con-iidence, blunt bearing, and caustic eloquence, enabled him to gain the highest honours with little difficulty. He was Praetor in Sardinia in 198 B.C., at the age of thirty-seven, and gained credit by the uprightness of his administration, though he was thought too severe against the practice of usury. He was Consul in his fortieth year; and we have already followed his able conduct of the Spanish war. Four years later he returned to Rome with the dispatch announcing the victory of Thermopylae which he himself had mainly contributed to gain.

§ 10. Such was the man who, in the year 187 B.C., led the attack upon Scipio. From his first connexion with Fabius, he had formed an inveterate hatred against his patron’s rival; and as Scipio was the leader of the new Hellenic manners, so Cato constituted himself as the protector of the old Roman life.

Cato seems to have thought that all evil was due to the introduction of Greek customs. No doubt Greece was at that time fast verging to that miserable state in which she still lies. But the corruption of Rome would have followed, if there had been no Greece to corrupt. The vices for which Romans became notorious were not Hellenic. It was not part of the nature of Greeks to spend large sums in gluttonous eating and coarse sensuality. Pericles boasted that his countrymen cultivated their taste for the beautiful without extravagance :¹²³ and the same might be said of their pleasures ; they are and were a frugal race. No doubt the quick-witted and unscrupulous Greeks who, as slaves or freedmen, thronged tho houses of the Roman nobles, were more adroit ministers of vice than the duller natives of other lands; but they obeyed rather .than guided the propensities of their masters; and it must not be forgotten that the philosophers, statesmen, and artists of Greece flocked to Rome, as well as her parasites and pandars. Those who cultivated Greek letters and art were the noblest sons of Rome.—Scipio himself, Lepidus, Paullus, and the like. The second Scipio, was, as we shall see, trained by the precepts and friendship of a Greek statesman.

§ 11. Tlie first attack upon Scipio was judiciously made through his brother Asiaticus, who was required by the Tribune Petillius to produce an account of receipts and expenditure during his Asiatic command. Africanus bade liis brother fetch the books, and then taking them from his hands tore them in fragments before the Senate, saying that “ it was unworthy to call a man to account for a few thousands who had paid millions into the Treasury.” This contemptuous disregard of opinion and law was now made the ground of accusation against Scipio himself. On other occasions he had been guilty of similar acts of arrogance. When the Quaestors refused to pay him certain moneys without an order from the Senate, he had taken the keys by force, saying that “ one who had closed the Treasury by his successes had the best right to open it.” These and other instances of contempt were brought before the People. Scipio rose to answer. He took no notice of the charges laid against him, but gave a simple history of his life and services. The glory of the man revived; the memory of old times returned; all hearts yearned again towards him who had driven the fell African from the shores of Italy; the sun set before the Assembly had passed to a vote. Next day was the anniversary of the battle of Zama. Scipio appeared in a festal robe, escorted by a splendid retinue of friends and followers. “ Romans,” he said, “ on this day I defeated Hannibal. I am on my way to the Capitol to render thanks to the great gods of the city. Follow me, Romans, and pray to those gods that you may always have leaders such as I am.” The effect of these words was electrical. The multitude rose with one accord, and followed the hero up the Sacred Ascent. The Tribune was left alone with his attendants.

§ 12. This was the last day of Scipio’s greatness. The cool animosity of Cato pursued him with untiring zeal, and another Tribune was urged to renew the prosecution. On the day appointed the great man did not appear: he had left Rome. Ills brother Asiaticus alleged sickness as the cause of absence, and prayed for an adjournment. After some question, the plea was allowed; but the accusers turned upon the advocate. This was politic. It is not likely that a vote of condemnation could have been obtained against Africanus: his character was unblemished, and late events had shown that the memory of the past was not dead; but Asiaticus was not above suspicion. It was said that of the Syrian spoils a large sum due to the Trea snry had found its way into his private coffers, and the scene in the Senate-house confirmed the belief.

So soon as Africanus heard of the proceedings against his brother, lie hastened to Rome, and reached the Forum in time to see his person seized by the officers of the Tribune. lie was followed by an armed retinue, and rescued Lucius by force from their custody. It seemed as if now there was to be a beginning of those bloody frays which disgraced the city in later times; but this dire extremity was averted by a Tribune who had as yet taken no part in the business. This was Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, whom wc have already seen so honourably distinguished for humanity in Spain. “ lie did not interfere,” he said, “from any wish to thwart the action of law. lie was still, as he had ever been, an enemy of the Scipios; but rather than permit domestic war, he would himself bar the arrest of L. Scipio. It was better that the will of the People should be frustrated by one of their own Tribunes than by the arrogance of a private citizen.” He then forbade all further attempts to seize the person of Asiaticus.

§ 13. The great Scipio felt that his name could no longer work like a spell upon the people. He retired to his villa at Liternum, where he lived some years longer in retirement; and when he found his end approaching, he ordered himself to be buried there. “ Ungrateful city!” he said, “ thou shalt not even have my ashes.” The three statues of himself, his brother, and the poet Ennius, which stood outside the Capuan Gate at Rome, were placed over a sepulchral vault built by the heir of his name and fame, the younger Africanus. He died in the year 183 b.c., in the fifty-fourth year of his age, though the fine bust still preserved bears the appearance of an older man.* He was too lordly to be tho useful citizen of a Republic, too generous to become her master. His later career threw a shadow over services which were worth more to Rome than those of any other of her sons.

§ 14. In the self-same year Hannibal breathed his last. After the loss of his last hope by the destruction of the Syrian host at Magnesia, he wandered from land to land till he found a resting-place at the Court of Prusias of Bithynia. The Senate could not breathe while their great enemy lived; and Flamininus was sent to demand from Prusias the person of his illustrious guest. The King dared not say-nay, and gave Hannibal to understand that he must be surrendered to Flamininus; but the great Carthaginian, to avoid falling into the hands of liis implacable

* It was discovered with that of Ennius, in the Tomb. Tho Tomb is figured at the head of this Chapter, tho bust of Scipio at tho head of Chapt Xxxiv., that of Enuius at tho end of Chapt. xxxvii.

foes, swallowed a dose of poison, which, according to the common story, he carried with him constantly in the hollow of a ring. He was sixty-three years of age. Life had long ceased to be valuable to him, becauseopposition to Rome had become hopeless. He died, as he lived, faithful to the service of that avenging deity to whom he had been bound in boyhood by his father Hamilcar.

§ 15. The fall of Scipio threw all power into the hands of the old Senatorial party. The names of the Gentes friendly to Scipio nearly disappear, for a season, from the Fasti. The noble ^Emilius Paullus, who, had rendered signal services to the State in Liguria and in Spain, was unable to obtain the Consulship till a late age. But Cato no longer held by this party. Ilis first connection with them arose from the fact that they represented his old patron, Fabius. They had supported Cato up to his Consulship, because he was a useful hound to run down Scipio; but when he offered himself for the Censorship in 189, they used all their influence against him, and he was defeated. They knew well that he was a sworn friend of the old Roman rusticity, and would not tolerate their vulgar luxuries any more than the refined elegance of Scipio; and now that his personal animosity to that great enemy was gratified, they apprehended that he might turn and rend them. This was the period of Cato’s greatness. The Forum rang with his voice; his bitter gibes and caustic sarcasms were repeated everywhere; tho People began to recognise him as their champion. At the next election of Censors (185), he again came forward, with his friend Flaccus by his side; and though they were opposed by seven distinguished candidates, the favour of the People prevailed, and the two friends were elected.

§ 16. Cato was now in full possession of the immense arbitrary powers wielded by the Censor, and determined to put down luxury with a strong hand. He had thundered against the repeal of the Oppian law during his Consulship, but in vain,—the ladies were too strong for him. But now it was his turn. Hitherto no property had been included in the Censor’s register, except land and houses. Cato ordered all valuable slaves to be rated at three times the amount of other property, and laid a heavy tax on _ the dress and equipages of the women, if they exceeded a certain num. He struck seven Senators off the list, some for paltry causes. Manilius was degraded for kissing his wife in public; another for an unseasonable jest; but all honest men must have applauded when L. Flamininus suffered. At the great review of the Knights lie deprived L. Scipio of his horse.

In the management of public works, Cato showed judgment equal to his vigour. lie provided for the repair of the aqueducts and reservoirs, and took great pains to amend the drainage of tho city. He encouraged a fair and open competition for the contracts of tax-collection, and so much offended the powerful companies of Publicani, that after he laid down his office he was prosecuted, and compelled to pay a fine of 12,000 ases.

§ 17. It is manifest also that Cato had given quite a new significance to the Censorial office. The fearless onslaught made by him oh all abuses had stirred up a nest of hornets. Fort}--four times he was accused before the people, yet exccpt on one occasion he always came off free. More familiar to us than almost any of the great men of Rome, we see him with his keen gray eyes and red hair, his harsh features and spare athletic framo, strong by natural constitution and hardened by exercise, clad even at Rome in the coarsest rustic garb, attacking with plain bi£ nervous eloquence the luxury and corruption of the Nobles. Yet Cato was no demagogue; indeed, in his way he was as haughty as any noble in the land. His mind was of that hard and narrow kind, that when he had formed opinions or conceived prejudices, nothing could move him. In private business he was ruled by calculation solely. He was a great farmer : his book on agriculture is still in our hands, and contains a curious mixture of shrewd sense, calculating selfishness, and superstitious fancies. He encouraged pasturage as the most profitable employment of land in Italy. He condemned usury as a crime only less bad than murder, and yet evaded the law which forbade Senators to engage in trade by lending his money to the trading companies. He advised a farmer to sell off such of his slaves as might become useless from age or infirmity. His self-sufficiency was intolerable. He was one of those men who having done everything for themselves, have come to think themselves infallible. The Sabine farmer made himself a perpetual Censor, and would fain have laid down the law for every one.

§ 1. Prudence and energy of Philip. § 2. A Commission sent to check Philip. § 3. His son Demetrius sent to Rome: Philip forgiven “for his son’s sake.” § 4. Imprudence of Demetrius: Perseus. § 5. Philip’s preparations and plans. § 6. Murder of Demetrius and death of Philip: Perseus. § 7. Measures of Perseus. § 8. Eumenes accuses him at Rome: attempt upon the life of Eumenes. § 9. War declared against Perseus: he is deceived by Philippus. § 10. Resources of Perseus. § 11. First and second campaigns: end in favour of Perseus. § 12. Discontent throughout Greece. § 13. Third Campaign: Q. Marcius Philippus: weakness of Perseus. § 14. Fourth Campaign: L. iEmilius Paullus. § 15. Severe measures of Paullus in the army. § 16. Perseus falls back to Pydna: Eclipse of Moon. § It. Battle of Pydna. § 18. Perseus surrenders. § 19. Settlement of Macedonia. § 20. Greece: Massacre of Epirotes. § 21. Triumph of Paullus. § 22. Death of his sons. § 23. Great increaso of Revenue. § 24. Fate of Perseus.

§ 1. Philip had of late shown complete submission to Rome; but he was secretly engaged in improving the internal resources of Macedon. For a time his ungovernable temper was controlled by prudence. He organised an improved system of taxation; he established a regular mode of working the gold mines of Mount Pangasus, which had supplied treasure to his great predecessor Philip the Second.* He replenished his wasted population by large draughts of brave barbarians from Thrace. lie formed an alliance with Prusias of Bithynia, the enemy of Eumenes. Ho ventured to seize -^Enos and Maroneia, two Thracian cities lately evacuated by Antiochus.

§ 2. Reports of this activity were soon transmitted to Rome by Eumenes, and the Senate sent a Commission of inquiry.

Philip was summoned to appear before them at Tempo, and the proud rrlonarch complied. But when he found that he was to be stripped of all his Thessalian possessions, his assumed calmness gave way, and he broke into an angry threat. “The sun,” he said, “had not quite set yet.” The complaints of ^Enos and Maroneia were reserved for the judgment of the Senate. Philip, however, feeling very sure what that judgment would be, resolved to gratify his vengeance, and ordered a general massacre of the wretched Maroneians. The king was immediately desired to send the authors of the massacre for trial at Rome. lie became much alarmed, and despatched his younger son Demetrius, who had lived for four years as a hostage at Rome, to make intercession in his behalf.

§ 3. The mission of Demetrius was the beginning of great misery to his father. The young man was received by the Senate in the most flattering manner. But, at the same time, they encouraged every complaint against Philip. Fugitives detailed the horrors of the massacre at Maroneia. And when Demetrius stood forth in the Senate-house to offer a defence for his father, the Chief of the Senate cut him short by asking whether he had no written instructions. The young prince incautiously produced papers, drawn up with the freedom which Philip was likely to use in a confidential memorandum. Upon this, the Senate at once gave judgment against him; “ but,” it was added, “ they would forgive him for the sake of Demetrius. They would only require that he should withdraw from Thessaly and Thrace; but he must remember that he owed this forbearance entirely to the young prince his son.”

§ 4. The rest of Philip’s life was embittered by family intrigues. Demetrius was the favourite of the Macedonians; and even where there is no positive reason, suspicion is apt to grow up between an aged king and the popular heir to the crown. Such suspicion was, not without cause, aggravated by the honours paid to Demetrius at Rome, and by the foolish fondness shown by the young prince for everything Roman. There was, moreover, an eye watching the young prince with more of jealousy than even Philip was likely to feel. Perseus, the King’s elder son, was born of a concubine. He was reserved in manner, and far less popular than Demetrius. He gained his father’s ear, and led him to believe that Demetrius was endeavouring to anticipate the course of nature in gaining possession of the crown. The young prince was committed to the custody of Didas, Governor of Pa?onia; and two confidential ministers were sent

* § 5. Meanwhile, the King silently continued his preparations. Every day, it is said, lie had the treaties he had 'signed with Rome read over to him, to remind him of the duty of revenge. Filled with jealousy and suspicion, he put many of his great nobles to death, and imprisoned their sons, quoting the line of Homer, which says, that it is but foolish work to' slay the father and spare the child.¹²⁴ He endeavoured to balance the suspected fidelity of the Macedonians by transporting whole families into Emathia, and replacing them by Thracians, who held their lands by military service. He formed a bold scheme for employing Rome, by inducing the Bastarnians, a people who inhabited the country afterwards called Mcesia, to exterminate the Dardanians and seize their territory, and then, leaving their families there, to pour into Italy by the northern end of the Adriatic. It was no doubt in connection with this great plan, that he made a tour to the passes of Hsemus (the Balkan), of which Livy speaks in language that we might use of a person visiting the regions of Siberia.

§ G. On his return gloomy news awaited him. Didas, under pretence of sympathy, had led Demetrius to form and to confess a scheme for flying to Italy and claiming the protection of the Senate. The envoys had come from Rome with what seemed to confirm all that Philip or Perseus had suspected ; they were the bearers of letters purporting to be written by Flamininus, and urging the young prince to the worst extremities of treason. The unhappy father, who had long wished to disbelieve, signed an order for his son’s death. Didas attempted to take him off by poison; but the unfortunate young man detected the attempt, and was suffocated with brutal violence.

This event took place in 179 b.c. The old King did not long survive. He discovered that the letters of Flamininus were forged, and it is said that he meditated disinheriting Perseus. But mortal sickness overtook him at Amphipolis. Perseus, informed of his father’s state, hastened to Pella, and was proclaimed King before others knew of Philip’s death.

The great abilities possessed by Philip were always shown on emergencies. But ordinarily his savage passions deprived him of the advantages he might have gained, and it was the popular belief that the misery of his latter days was a divine retribution for tho crimes of his life. Perseus had neither the same abilities nor the same passions. In manner he was dignified and w-served; in government ho was generally prudent and temperate. But he had two defects, which in his position were almost more fatal than his father’s ferocity,—avarice and timidity.

§ 7. The first measures of his reign were marked by prudcncc and moderation. After regulating the affairs at home, lie visited Greece and won golden opinions by his gracious manners. The patriotic party was inclined to join him against the Romanising tyrants who were raised to power in every State, as formerly the same party had been fain to accept the aid of Rome against the tyranny of Philip.

§ 8. The Senate had their eye upon the movements of Perseus ; but it was not till the year 172 b.c. that incidents occurred which brought on immediate hostilities.

It had been their policy in Asia to increase the power of Eumenes of Pergamus, as a balance to the power both of Macedonia and Syria. Eumenes was anxious also to extend his possessions in Greece; but the Achaean League, supported by Perseus, baffled all his endeavours; and he appeared at Rome as the formal accuser of the King of Macedon. lie was heard with favour; and after a secret debate, the Senate called in the envoy sent by Perseus to offer explanations. This man perceived that the matter had been prejudged. “ Ilis master,” he said, “ was ready to explain; but if they were bent on war, for war lie was also prepared.” lie then hastened home to warn Perseus that hostilities must soon begin.

Matters were precipitated by an attempt on the life of Eumenes. At Rome he had been rewarded with the gift of a curule chair and ivory staff, the highest honours which the Republic could bestow upon a foreigner; and, on his return homewards, he landed at Cirrlia to pay a devotional visit at Delphi. He was ascending the steep road which led to tho Temple, when he was knocked down by some large stones thrown from a wall which skirted the road. He was taken up for dead; but was carried to ^Egina, where he recovered. The assassins had escaped. But it was said that they bore letters of introduction from Perseus; and a chief citizen of Brundusium came forward to state that he also had been offered bribes from tho King to poison some of the Roman Senators.

It is difficult to say how much of these accusations was true. But the Senate gave ready credenco to the informers, and immediate war was determined upon.

§ 9. On the very day on which the Consuls for 171 b.c. entered on office, a decree was framed for obtaining from the Centuries a declaration of war; and this time the vote passed in the affirmative without demur. The command fell to P. Li-cinius Crassus. While he was preparing for his expedition, Commissioners were sent to different parts of Greece to intimidate the States and prevent them from taking part with Perseus. The chief person among them was Q. Marcius Philippas, a former friend of Philip, who had borrowed a new family name from that monarch.

Perseus invited him to a conference, which was readily accepted by the Roman envoy, for he knew that the Senate wished to gain time. Some dispute arose as to the etiquette of crossing the Peneus, where they met. The Roman decidcd it in his own favour by an indifferent jest. “It is meet” said he, “that the son should come to the father.” The plausible manners of Philippus beguiled Perseus. He prayed for an armistice in order to send an embassy to the Senate, which Philippus granted with apparent unwillingness. He then returned to Rome, and had the impudence to boast in open Senate of the successful fraud by which he had gained time; and the Senate, with the exception of a few honourable men, had the effrontery to approve conduct which much resembled swindling. Philippus was sent back to Greece as the diplomatic representative of Rome.

§ 10. It was with reason that the Romans were anxious to gain time. The resources of Macedon had been steadily increasing during a peace of nearly thirty years : the Treasury was full. Perseus had a well-appointed army of 40,000 foot and 4000 horse, besides the troops of his Thracian allies. The phalanx, raised to 20,000 men, was formed, as of old, in two divisions,— the Silver Shields and the Brass Shields. To oppose this force, Crassus landed in Epirus late in the season with 28,000 foot and 2000 horse, for the most part raw troops.

§11. When Perseus discovered the fraud that had been practised upon him, he formed an entrenched camp on the western slope of Ossa, favourably situated for foraging in the plain of the Pencils, and for commanding his communications with Macedon by the Pass of Tempc. Meanwhile Crassus had threaded the passes of Western Thessaly without molestation ‘ and advanced to Larissa, where to his joy he found Eumenes, now recovered from his wounds, with his brother Attalus, at the head of 4000 foot and 1000 horse." These additions to'his force, with Acluean and ^Etolian auxiliaries, and some Numidian horse, made his army nearly equal in number to that of Perseus, though it was much inferior in quality. "

Tho Consuls felt this, and steadily declined battle, till Perseus advanced^ to the very gates of the Roman camp, and drove the Romans in. He did not, however, venture to attack the camp, and Crassus decamped across tho Pencils. Tlie blame of tho defeat was laid upon the ^Etolians; and five chiefs of that nation were sent to be tried before the Senate. *

Perseus sued for peace on the terms of the treaty of Flarai ni-nus; but the Consul obstinately refused all terms short of absolute submission. Even this defiance failed to rouso the spirit of the King. He sent a second message, offering to increase tho tribute paid by his father; but the same contemptuous reply met his advances.

The new Consul Au. Ilostilius Mancinus arrived early in the season to take the command (170 B.C.). He made an attempt to force the Cambunian passes, but was repulsed at every point.

§ 12. The success of the Macedonians had given life to the smouldering discontent of Greece. The presence of the Roman fleet at Chalcis alone prevented Boeotia from rising in a mass. Epirus, hitherto devoted to Rome, reaped no benefit from her submissive conduct. Cephalus had long held the government ; and though in his heart he hated Italian dominion, he had scrupulously observed every obligation laid upon him. But the ear of the Senatorial Commissioners was gained by Charops, grandson of that Charops who had assisted Flamininus to turn the Pass of Klissoura. Cephalus felt that his turn would come next; and he engaged with Perseus to raise Epirus against Rome.

§ 13. The Consul who followed Hostilius was Q, Marcius Phi-lippus, the cajoler of Perseus. Philippus, though he was past sixty and of unwieldy corpulence, displayed more vigour tliau his predecessors. Avoiding the gorge of Tempe and the Cambunian Passes, he carried his army by a difficult path over the north-western shoulder of Mount Olympus, and appeared within a few miles of Dium, where Perseus was lying in fancied security. The King, panic-stricken, ordered a precipitate retreat to Pydna, and sent off two of his confidential ministers,—one to Pella to throw his treasure into the sea, the other to Thessalonica to destroy his naval stores.

Philippus, astonished at his own success^ pursued the King: but he could obtain no provisions, and was obliged to retreat to Tempe. On his retreat, Perseus returned to Dium. Ashamed of his own pusillanimity, he censured his officers for suffering the Romans to pass over Mount Olympus; and ordered the ministers whom he had commissioned to destroy his arsenal and sink his treasure to be put to death, in the idle hope that the truth might be concealed.

§ 14. The only substantial success gained by the Consul Philippus was the opening of the Pass of Tempo. Public feeling at

Rome began to show signs of impatience. The Senate perceived that they must no longer dally with the war, and resolved to proftiote the election of L. JEmilius Paullus to the Consulship. This eminent man, the son-in-law of Scipio, had lived in retirement since the fall of his great kinsman. He was now past sixty, and had always been rejected as a candidate for the Consulship, but in the hour of need was appointed to the command by a special decree of the Senate.

He resolved, however, first to make the present state of things fully known. He therefore insisted on sending Commissioners to report on the condition of both the armies. This report was not encouraging. Perseus was still at Dium with all his forces round him. The Consul could not stir from Tempe. Epirus was in full insurrection. The fleet was as ill off as the army. Eumenes had withdrawn. Both he and the Rhodians had shown symptoms of disaffection to Rome. Genthius, King of Illyria, was expected to join Perseus.

§ 15. Paullus deemed the occasion worthy of all attention. No Legionary Tribunes were appointed but men of proved experience. The army was made up to more than 30,000 men. One Praetor, Cn. Octavius, took the command of the fleet. L. Anicius, the Prsetor Peregrinus, was dispatched with 10,000 foot r.nd 800 horse to attack Genthius at home. An army of reserve was formed in Italy.

The commanders left Rome early in April of the year 168 b.c. Paullus, accompanied by his two sons, and by young Scipio Nasica, son of the “best man” (Chapt. xxxiv. § 16), travelled post-haste to Brundusium, crossed to Dyrrhachium in one day; in five days more reached Delphi, where he stayed to offer sacrifice to Apollo ; and in five days more joined the army at Tempo. A few severe examples checked disorder, and strict regulations restored discipline. The fame of the new Consul alarmed the feeble Perseus. Nor was his alarm lessened by hearing that the Praetor Anicius had pursued Genthius from Lissus to Scodra, and had compelled the chief to surrender at discretion.

§ 16. Yet the defensive measures taken by Perseus were good. He had drawn entrenchments along the deep bed of the Enipeus from the base of Mount Olympus to the sea; and Paullus thought the Macedonian position too strong to be assailed in front. He therefore sent Nasica round the mountain, while he amused the enemy by a feigned attack upon his lines. Nasica, after an arduous march, turned the right flank of the Macedonian lines; and Perseus fell back to the plain of Pydna, which was well adapted for the movements of the Phalanxes. Paullus followed close, but resolved not to risk a battle till he had secured his camp. On the evening of his arrival, O. Sulpicius Gallos, one of the Legionary Tribunes, gave out that there would be an eclipse of the moon that night, and thus prevented the alarm which this supposed portent would have caused to the Romans. The Macedonians, on the other hand, were horror-struck : the eclipse seemed to threaten the fall of the monarchy.*

§17. The next day a decisive conflict was brought on by accident, as at Cynoscephalse. About three in the afternoon a Roman horse broke loose, and was followed by a few soldiers into the bed of the small stream which separated the two armies. Tlie horse was seized by an outpost of Thracians; a scuffle ensued, and so many men came up on both sides to take part in the fray, that both King and Consul drew out their whole armies in battle order. The Macedonians attacked. The two Phalanxes, the Brass and Silver Shields, formed the main body, flanked by the light troops and cavalry, with a formidable body of Thracian auxiliaries. Paullus rode, unhelmeted, with his gray hair loose, along their line, and looked, as he afterwards said, with alarm at the formidable mass of bristling pikes. The battle began. In vain the Italian soldiers showed more than their accustomed bravery. The weight of the Phalanxes was irresistible ; and the Legions fell back, but so as to draw the enemy to the base of the hills which skirted the plain. As the ground became less even, the compact masses of the Phalanxes began to show gaps here and there. Into every chink that opened, Roman soldiers penetrated. Once more the Phalanx was tried against the Legions and failed. The heavy infantry, encumbered by their long pikes, were cut down man by man ; not less than 20,000 fell, and 11,000 were made prisoners. The Macedonian army was annihilated.

§ 18. After the disastrous day of Pydna, Perseus fled to Pella, his capital, which he reached at midnight. Next day, he continued his flight to Ampliipolis, where he stayed only to see his beloved treasures put on board ship. Then, with his children he made straight for the sacred asylum of Samothrace. Ilis only followers were Evander, a Cretan, and two Greek exiles.

Paullus followed the King to Ampliipolis, but was too late, and dispatched Octavius with the fleet to Samothrace. On the arrival of the Romans, the wretched King was deserted by his last followers, who carried off on board ship the gold which he loved more than life. His children were betrayed by their keepers to Octavius. Then, deserted by every one, he surren-

* Modern calculations havo fixed this eclipse to the 21st of Juno of our calendar; but according to tho Romans it was lnte in August or early in September. So far was their calendar from tho truo time.

dered, and was conveyed to the Consul’s quarters at Amphipolis. lie was received by Paullus with distant courtesy, but he was given to understand that the Macedonian monarchy had ceased to exist.

§ 19. Great was the joy at Rome at news of^- the decisive victories won bv Anicius in Illyria, and by Paullus in Macedonia. Paullus remained in Greece during the winter, and in the spring was visited by Commissioners bearing the orders of the Senate with regard to Macedonia. The people crowded eagerly to Amphipolis, as on a former occasion the Greeks had crowded to Corinth, but.with hopes and feelings far different. In the midst of a dead silence, Paullus recited the ordinances in Latin; Octavius repeated them in Greek. “ The whole country was to be divided into four. districts :—one between the Nestus and the Strymon, the second between the Strymon and Axius, the third between the Axius and Mount Olympus, while the fourth included the inland districts bordering on Epirus and Illyria. The capital cities of each respectively were to be Amphipolis, Thessalonica, Pella, Pelagonia. Each district was to constitute a separate Republic, but the citizens of each were forbidden to enter into any connubial or commercial relations with those of another. The tribute paid to Rome was to be only half what they had hitherto paid to the King. They were prohibited from working their gold and silver mines, or to make salt in the country.” • .

The isolation of Macedonia was thus effectually provided for, while the people were amused with a show of liberty, and pleased by a remission of taxes. Paullus drew up, for the government of the four Republics, a clear and impartial code of laws. The administration of each was placed in the hands of a Senate ; but as all who had hitherto taken part in the government were transported to Italy, the persons who held rule were helplesa and ignorant, and the country fell into utter disorganisation.

§ 20. The Greeks laid their complaints at the feet of Paullus; but the Senatorial envoys turned a deaf ear to all prayers. Full power was left in the hands of the Romanizing Tyrants.

In Epirus, a shocking work still remained to be done; the Epirotes were to be punished for their insurrection. Cephalus and the ringleaders had sought a voluntary death; but this did not satisfy the Senate. By their express orders, Paullus met Anicius in Epirus. Here he announced the will of the Senate, that all Epirotes .should hereafter be free and independent, and that all their gold and silver should, by a given day, be deposited m the treasury of seventy towns specified-by name. On that day seventy detachments of his army entered each of tho seventy towns, seized tho precious metals and all free inhabitants. The walls of every town were demolished, the wretched captives, to the number of 150,000, were sold as slaves, and the money was distributed to the soldiery. It is grievous to have to relate such an act of iEmilius Paullus. It may be imagined, what must have been the public feeling of a nation, when the Government could deliberately issue such an order, when the best of its citizens thought himself bound to execute it without hesitation or reserve, when no historian speaks of it with so much as a word of censure.

§ 21. The close of the year 1G7 b.c. witnessed the return of the conquerors. Paullus sailed from Oricum in a splendid galley of seventeen banks of oars, laden with trophies. He passed up the Tiber amid the acclamations of the multitude who lined the banks, followed by Anicius and Octavius.

His triumph took place in the last days of November. It was the most gorgeous spectacle which had yet feasted the eyes of the Roman populace. The Forum was fitted out with rising seats like a theatre, that all might see the processions as they passed. On the first day the statues and paintings taken were exhibited on 250 waggons; on the second, the splendid arms and accoutrements of the Macedonian officers, suspended from the long pikes of the phalanx-men, passed along the Sacred Way: then followed 3000 men, walking four abreast, each of whom carried a vase full of silver coin: and the procession closed with another sot, who bore the silver plate used at the tables of Perseus and his nobles. On the third and great day the procession began with a body of trumpeters, followed by twenty youths, each leading a milk-white bull, with his horns gilded, garlanded with ribands and flowers. Then came men carrying gold coin in vases, and the gold plate and the precious stones. Next followed tho royal car of Perseus, laden with his armour and surmounted by the diadem of Macedon. After it camo the children of Perseus—two boys and a girl with their attendants,—and Perseus himself, with his queen, stupefied with grief. Last of all was seen the triumphal car of the Proconsul, preceded by men bearing 400 crowns of gold, the gifts of the cities of Greece, followed by his two eldest sons on horseback, together with all his army in its order.

§ 22. But Paullus, amid all this glory, was reminded that lie was mortal. The two sons, who shared his triumph, had been adopted into other families; the elder by Q. Fabius Maximus, son of the old Dictator, the second by P. Scipio, the son of Africanus. But he had two younger boys still left to brighten his home, when* he returned to the City. Of these, one died

five days before his Triumph, the other three days after. The stern father was moved as such men are wont to be moved by heavy calamities; but with the true feeling of a Roman he lightened his private woe by representing it as a public good. In a speech which he made to the People, according to custom, on surrendering his command, he recounted his successes; “but,” he said, “at every new success he had dreaded the wrath of Nemesis, and he thanked the gods that the blow had fallen upon himself, and not upon his country. No one was left to bear the name of Paullus. But he repined not at this domestic sorrow; he rejoiced that Rome was happy, though he was miserable.”

§ 23. The treasure taken in the Macedonian war paid all debts contracted in its progress; and the tribute annually exacted from Macedon, added to the revenues of other Provinces, enabled the Government to dispense with all direct taxes upon Roman citizens in future wars. Such tax was only once imposed anew, at a disastrous crisis. _#

§ 24. The captive monarch was kept in durance at Alba: his two other children died soon after the triumph. It is gratifying to know that Paullus interfered to procure the liberation of Perseus from a loathsome dungeon to which he had at first been consigned. The unhappy King did not long survive his degradation. His surviving son, Alexander, was set free after a while, and lived long at Rome in the condition of a public clerk. Such was the destiny of the last heir of the monarchy of Macedon.

GENERAL HISTORY BETWEEN THE WAR WITH PERSEUS AND THE LAST WARS WITH GREECE AND CARTHAGE. (ICC-150 B.C.)

§ 1. Imperious bearing of Romo in tho East: Antiochus Epiphanes invades Egypt: “ Circle” of Popillius. § 2. One Thousand chief Achreans detained in Italy. § 3. Base treatment of tho Rhodians. § 4. Attempts against Eumones: he is succeeded by Attalus II. § 5. Meanness of Prusias. § G. War of Antiochus Epiphanes with tho Jews: tho Maccabees: his nephew Demetrius obtains tho crown. § 7. Egypt. § 8. Wars in Southern Gaul and Dalmatia. § 9. Death of yEmilius Paullus: his frugality. § 10. Cato: Embassy of Cameades. §11. Complaints of tho Spaniards: trial and exile of two Governors: Calpumian Law. § 12. Outbreak of war in Spain: patriotism of Scipio tho son of Paullus. § 13. Baso treachery of Galba to tho Lusitanians: his trial and acquittal. § 14. Early lifo and character of Scipio tho son of Paullus.

§ 1. The years which followed the fall of Macedon present little to interest the reader; yet in that time the seeds were sown for future conquests. The reduction of Carthage, Greece, and Macedon to’the condition of Roman Provinces was the consequence of the diplomatic art, which senators learned every day to practise with more unscrupulousness.

In the East the Senate assumed a more imperious tone: kings bowed down before them and became their vassals.

In Greece every state was subject to tyrants who ruled under ’ the patronage of Rome. Athens alone was left untortured, for she had ever been the submissive servant of the Senate.

Meantime Antiochus Epiphanes, the lialf-mad King of Syria, took occasion of a disputed succession in Egypt to invade that famous country. His progress was arrested in a summary fashion. When the Senate heard of the movement c? Antiochus,

C. Popillius Laenas had been dispatched to stop him. He found the King on the borders of Egypt; he demanded and obtained an immediate audience. Antiochus advanced graciously with extended hand, but the Roman Envoy held out a written decree of the Senate, by which the King was required to leave Egypt at peace. The King demanded time for deliberation, upon which the insolent Roman drew a circle round him with his staff, and told him that before he stepped out of that circle an answer must be given. Confounded by this abruptness, Antiochus submitted, and withdrew his troops.

§ 2. After the death of Philoposmen in 183 B.C., Lycortas became Chief of the Achaean League. He would willingly have pursued the bold policy of Philoposmen. But his son Polybius, with the other patriotic leaders, felt their real weakness; and an agreement was made with the leaders of the Roman party to send an embassy to Rome (b.c. 180). In this embassy was Callicrates, who at once sold himself to the Senate, and assured them that so long as Lycortas, Polybius, and the popular Chiefs were in power, the League would never act in the interests of Rome; that if they would lend the weight of their influence to place him in power, he would undertake that the Acliseans should give them no more trouble; and that similar policy might be pursued with advantage in every state of Greece. After the battle of Pydna, Commissioners we*re sent^r to the Assembly of the Achaean League, to declare that the Senate had received information that certain leading Achaean statesmen had supported Perseus; they now demanded that the Assembly should pass a vote of condemnation on all such persons;— the names should be made known when the vote was passed. The President refused to put this iniquitous question to the vote, insisting that the names of the accused should first be stated. After some hesitation the Commissioners named all who had held the office of Captain-General for some years. Xenon rose and indignantly offered to prove his innocence before the Senate. With this incautious offer the Commissioners eagerly closed, and Callicrates drew up a list of 1000 suspected persons, including Polybius (his father, Lycortas, was dead), and every man of note in the cities of tlie League. But the Senate had no intention of bringing them to trial. They were distributed among the cities of Etruria, to be kept in close custody, all except Polybius, who was allowed to reside in the house of ^Emilius Paullus. Callicrates was now absolute ruler of the Peloponnese.

§ 3. The treatment of the Rhodians was most dishonourable to Rome. The islanders had ventured to reduce their insurgent subjects, the Lycians and Carians, to obediencc. Tlie Senate now encouraged these people to appeal, declaring with shameless effrontery that they had never intended to make them subjects, but only allies, of Rhodes. During the war with Perseus, the wily Philippas suggested to the Rhodians to offer their mediation. The ambassadors charged with this business arrived in Italy about the time that Paullus was setting forth. They were not admitted to an audience till the news of the battle of Pydna arrived, when they were dismissed with a contemptuous reproof. Soon after they were deprived not only of Lycia and Caria, but also of other cities which they had purchased; and a fatal blow was aimed at their commerce by declaring Delos a free port under Roman protection. By this single act their custom-dues fell from 1,000,000 drachma) per annum to 150,000.

§ 4. Nor did the Kings fare better than the free States. Eumenes of Pergamus, so long the favourite of the Senate, had shown some coolness to Rome in the war with Perseus. His brother Attalus, however, had remained in the Roman camp, and was sent to Rome with congratulations after the battle of Pydna. The leaders of the Senate now insidiously advised him to demand a portion of his brother’s dominions for himself. Attalus was a vain but not ill-disposed prince, and he shrunk from such disloyalty. The Senate then secretly urged Prusias of Bithynia to lay complaints against the King of Pergamus; but all their insidious arts were baffled, and Eumenes died upon the throne four years after. He left an infant son, who ultimately succeeded to the throne, but his immediate successor was his brother, who took the name of Attalus Philadelphus. Polybius gives a high character of Eumenes ; it is to the credit of all concerned that his brothers, notwithstanding all temptations, continued to act as his faithful ministers.

§ 5. Prusias of Bithynia was among the first to offer congratulations after the battle of Pydna. This mean-spirited Prince appeared at Rome with his head shaven, and dressed like a slave who had just received his liberty. The Senate were not displeased at this abject flattery. But though they had encouraged him to quarrel with Attalus,—when ho ventured to make war, and was at the gates of Pergamus, they imperiously compelled him to make peace.

§ 6. The mad King of Syria, prevented from his attempts on Egypt by the famous circle of Popillius, found employment nearer home. He had before this time conquered Judaea, and had insulted the religious feelings of the people by offering swine’s flesh on the altar of Jehovah. Ilis gross and outrageous tyranny at length roused the shrinking energies of the Jews.

Mattathias and his seven heroic sons raised the standard of the Maccabees about the year 168 B.C., and unaccustomed lustre was shed upon the arms of Israel. Antiochus Epiphanes died in 164, and left the heritage of this war to his infant son Antiochus Eupator. But there was a competitor for the throne, whose claims were in every way superior. This was Demetrius, sou of Seleucus the elder brother and predecessor of Epiphanes. He was at that time a youth of twenty-five years, and had been long detained at Rome as a hostage. On the death of his uncle, he applied to the Senate for his rightful inheritance. That astute Council preferred to have an infant on the ^throne of Syria, and sent Octavius to assume the guardianship of the child Antiochus. But Lysias, a kinsman of the royal family, suspected the Senate, and hired an assassin to murder Octavius on his landing. At that moment Demetrius appeared in Syria and was proclaimed King. The soldiery acknowledged him, and murdered both the infant King and his guardian Lysias; and the Senate thought it best to confirm Demetrius in possession of the throne. He endeavoured to propitiate their favour by every means. But the Senate secretly encouraged the efforts of Judas Maccabasus, who was now the leader of the Jews, and in the year 161 b.c. concluded a formal covenant with him. They did not, however, lend him any open assistance; and the Jews finally sunk under the power of the Syrian monarchy.

§ 7. In Egypt, also, the Senate endeavoured to profit by promoting the dissensions which first led Antiochus Epiphanes to his attempt upon Egypt. But in 110 long time Ptolemy Physcon (Fat-paunch) succeeded to the monarchy. The low state to which Egypt had now sunk is aptly typified by the name of its King.

Thus, without using actual force, the Senate weakened every government in the East. It was needless to employ the Legions and to spend money in crushing governments which were so weak and so divided. When “ the pear was ripe,” it was sure to fall into the ready hand of Rome. Her emblem at this timo ou^ht to have been the Serpent rather than the Eagle.

§ 8. Neither were her arms mUch more actively employed in Western conquest. In 166 b.c. the Consuls C. Sulpicius Gallus, the predictor of the eclipse, and M. Marcellus pushed the Legions for the first time across the Maritime Alps, and obtained a double triumph over the Gauls and Ligurians, who peopled the western slopes of the range. And twelve years lator (154) the Consul Q. Opimiuswas sent to drive back the Oxybians, a Ligurian tribe, who had descended to the coasts of the Mediterranean and assaulted Antipolis and Nicaoa (Antibes and Nice), two cities subject to Massilia, then and always a faithful ally of Home. Such were the first steps towards the conquest of Gaul.

Two years before this last campaign, tho Dalmatians, an Illyrian tribe, who occupied the eoast-land between Istria and Illyria Proper, incurred the anger of Rome by making inroads into the country about Scodra. Seipio Nasica, the friend of ^milius Paullus, brought this petty war to a triumphant conclusion in 155 c.c. The whole coast of the Adriatic was now subject to Roman power.

iEmilius Paullus held the office of Censor three years after his triumph; and five years later he was gathered to his fathers, having completed his three score years and ten. Ilis funeral was honoured with splendid games, and with the first performance of the Adelphi of Terence, in which it is said that the poet was assisted by the son of the deceased, young Seipio, who wa3 then in his twenty-fifth year. Paullus left behind him a name unspotted, except by the devastation of Epirus. lie professed the austere philosophy of the Stoics, which he applied to maintain the simplicity of the old Roman manners,—so far was it from true that in all cases corruption flowed from Hellenic sources. At his death, it appeared that his whole property amounted to no more than sixty talents, little more than the great Scipio had bestowed upon each of his two daughters.

§ 10. Old Cato still maintained the battle against luxury. He warmly supported several Sumptuary Laws, which were passed at this time to limit the expenses of banquets. Ho buried liis only son with austere frugality.

This son had married the daughter ‘ of ^Emilius Paullus, and thus the old man had been drawn into connection with the Seipios. This connection, together with age, seems to have exerted a softening influence upon the old Censor. In his latter days he had extended the love which he had always shown for Roman literature to that of Greece. The language of Homer and Demosthenes could boast no more signal triumph than that it conquered the stubborn pride of Cato.

Yet the old Censor continued to wage war against the fashionable learning. His notion of education was, that the youth should engage as early as possible in the active struggles of the Forum; all speculative studies were, in his belief, calculated to unfit men for practical life. In 101 n.c., the Senate, at his advice, authorised the Praetor Pomponius to banish all philosophers and rhetoricians from Rome; and six years later (155), a notable occasion offered itself for enforcing his principles. In that year tho Athenians sent an embassy to Rome to pray for the remission of a fine imposed upon tlieir city by the Senate for certain depredations committed in the Oropian territory. To add weight to their prayers, they named as the envoys the chiefs of the three great schools which then divided the philosophic world,—Diogenes the Stoic* Critolaus the Peripatetic, and Carneades the famous founder of the New Academy. These ingenious reasoners were welcomed by the younger members of the Roman nobility. C. Acilius, a Senator, himself acted as their interpreter. Crowds of young Romans came to hear the. acute logic of Diogenes, the persuasive rhetoric of Critolaus, and the subtle speculation of Carneades, whose philosophy was so unbiassed that he was ready not only to maintain either side in any argument, but was never known to betray an opinion of his own. Old Cato, though he cared little for justice when the questions lay between Rome and foreigners, could not brook to see the principles of right and wrong treated as indifferent questions, and was alarmed lest the practical principles and habits of Roman youth might give way to a taste for sophistical trifling. The Senate remitted the fine; but, at Cato’s instance, ordered the ingenious strangers to quit Rome immediately.

§ 11. After the uneventful period of which we have been speaking, war broke out in Spain, speedily followed by others in the Carthaginian territory, in Macedonia, and in Greece. These last we will reserve for separate chapters; but of the first it will be convenient to speak here.

The treaty of Tib. Gracchus in 179 b.c. was followed by a long tranquillity: yet there was much reason for discontent. The oppression of the Praetors, and the extortion of the tax-collectors, were constant; and, after eight years, envoys from both Provinces appeared with formal complaints before the Senate. At that time the war with Perseus was just beginning, and, therefore, there was no disposition to provoke the hostility of the Spaniards. Five Senators were named as Judges, and the Spanish envoys were left to name their own advocates. Those of the Hither Province chose Cato and Nasica; those of Further Spain, ^Emilius Paullus and Sulpicius Gallus. The first Governor indicted before this Court was acquitted. So were the next two. But the advocates declared that they would apply for fresh trials, and the accused sought safety in voluntary exile. In this Senatorial Court we may recognise the germ of the famous Law of L. Calpurnius Piso de rebus repetundis, that is, tho Law for the recovery of undue exactions on the part of Provincial Governors. It was passed about twenty years later (149 u.c.)

§ 12. About eighteen years after this imperfect attempt at redress, the smouldering fire of war broke out. A Celtibcrian city named Segeda, in the upper valley of the Tagus, began to rebuild their walls, contrary to an article in the treaty of Gracchus. To resist the Consul M. Fulvius Nobilior,* tho Segedians formed an alliance with the people of Numantia, a brave tribe which occupied the mountainous country in which the Douro takes its rise. Fulvius handed over his command to Marcellus after an inglorious campaign. The new Commander, who was grandson of the famous Marcellus, assumed the offensive with so much vigour that the enemy sued for a renewal of the ^ treaty of Gracchus. But the Senate ordered Lucullus, the new Consul, to make fresh levies for the war. A scene now followed, which might have shown the Senate that their power was not destined to be perpetual. When Lucullus held his levy, none were willing to enlist, and the Tribunes of the Plebs committed both Consuls to prison for enforcing enlistment. In this difficulty, young Scipio, the second son of Paullus, who had lived up to the age of thirty-three in retirement, came forward as a mediator, lie had been just offered a lucrative mission to Macedonia; but he declined it, and said that he would serve however and wherever the Senate thought fit. This patriotic conduct had its effect. Scipio was elected one of the Legionary Tribunes, and the levies were concluded.

Lucullus made an unprovoked inroad into the country of the Vaccajans, who lay to the west of Numantia. The town of Cauca capitulated; but Lucullus, with scandalous ill-faith, put all the inhabitants to the sword. He then attacked a strong fortress not far from Valladolid. Here a tall Spaniard, splendidly armed, rode forth and challenged any Roman to single combat. Scipio accepted the challenge, and slew his gigantic adversary.

§ 13. Meanwhile, the Lusitanian shepherds had resumed their inroads into the Further Province. While Lucullus was wantonly assailing the Vaccteans, the Praetor Sergius Galba invaded Lusitania. The mountaineers dispersed before the Legions, but fell upon the Prator at a disadvantage, and so effectually routed him, that he escaped only with a few horse over the mountains into Baitica, and passed tho winter meditating vengeance.

Early in the next spring he again entered Lusitania from the south, while Lucullus advanced from the north, wasting the country with fire and sword. The people offered submission. Galba

* Consul for the year 152 B.C. In this year the Consuls first entered offico in the Calends of January, instead of the Calends of March, which had hitherto been the first day of tho official year.

answered with apparent kindness. “ He was grieved,” he said, “ to see the poverty of the country. If the inhabitants would meet him in three divisions, at places specified, he would assign lands and cities to each, as Gracchus had done.” The simple people believed him. But Galba fell on each body separately, with his whole force and cut it to pieces. This infamous piece of treachery crushed the spirit of the Lusitanians. But retributive justice waited her time. Among those who escaped the sword of Galba was a young shepherd, named Yiriathus, of whom we shall hear another time.

Galba was brought to trial, not so much for treachery to the enemy, as because he divided so small a portion of the booty, and kept back the larger share for himself. Old Cato spoke with honest indignation against the un-Roman perfidy of the Governor. But Galba was extremely eloquent and extremely rich. The Centuries made themselves partakers in his infamy by a vote of acquittal, and six years after he was elected Consul by their votes. Corruption was descending to all orders and degrees of men.

§ 14. We will here add, by way of contrast to Galba’s baseness, some account of the man who in the next few years played the most important part among the generals of Rome.

P. Scipio, sometimes called .^Emilianus to distinguish him from his great namesake, has already been mentioned more than once. His youth is remarkable for his intimacy with an exile, Polybius, the Achaean statesman, the historian of Roman conquest. The Greek had become acquainted with Paullus and his sons during the Macedonian War; it was at the request of the young man, that he was allowed to reside in the house of Paullus, while his fellow-exiles were buried in Etrurian prisons. Polybius was at this time not less than forty years of age; Scipio was but eighteen. The youth’s habits were reserved and shy. He was fonder of field-sports than of the Forum. When the Achsean exile first came to Rome, he attached himself chiefly to Fabius, the elder brother, whose manners were more frank and cordial. But one day, when Fabius had gone (as usual) to the Forum, Scipio, with an ingenuous blush, complained of the neglect shown to himself. “And yet,” said he, “ I am m)⁷self to blame. Men think me indolent, because I love not the strife of the Forum, and deem me unworthy of the great name I bear.” Polybius perceived that he had mistaken the character of the young man (it is from himself that we learn the facts), and offered his best services in advancing his education. “ Book-learning you and your brother may get from any of my countrymen. But for the lessons of practical life, my experience may enable me to serve you.” Young Scipio seized the hand of his new friend, and passionately exclaimed: “ If you will but make me your chief care, I shall prove unworthy neither of my great father, nor of him whose adopted name I bear.” Polybius undertook his work not without fear, for he saw the temptations which would beset a young man so noble and so wealthy. But the seed was sown on no ungrateful coil. Young Scipio followed his father in adopting the practical philosophy of the Stoics, and resisted the besetting sins of tho day,—selfishness and sensuality. If he seldom set foot in the Forum, he shunned 110 laborious exercises: many hours he spent in hunting the boar or the deer on the Alban Hills, accompanied by Polybius, who shared his ardour for the chase. The wife of the great Scipio, his aunt by blood and grandmother by adoption, had used a costly equipage aud large retinue. At her death, Scipio, with thoughtful generosity, gave it all to his mother ^Emilia. At the same time, he was called on (as heir to the great Scipio) to make up half the dowry of his two daughters, which had been left unpaid. The law allowed him three years for payment; but he paid down the whole fifty talents at once, to the surprise of Nasica and Gracchus, husbands of the ladies. At the death of his natural father, he inherited a moiety of his fortune, which he at once relinquished in favour of his less wealthy brother Fabius, and undertook of his own accord to bear the expense of the gladiatorial show, which Fabius, as the eldest son, was called on to exhibit. “These things,” says Polybius, “would be excellent anywhere; but at Rome, where no one gives anything without need, nor pays a talent before the time prescribed by law, they wero perfect miracles.”

§ 1. Liberation of the Achaean captives. § 2. Violent Counsels of these men. § 3. Appearance of a Pretender in Macedonia. § 4. The Achaeans revolt: Q. Metellus recovers Macedonia. § 5. War declared against the Achaeans. § 6. Metellus defeats Critolaus and advances towards the Isthmus. § 7. Superseded by L. Mummius, who defeats Diaeus before Corinth: Sack of Corinth. § 8. Mummius sends home the Statues and works of Art. § 9. Greece formed into the Roman Province of Achaia: good offices of Polybius. § 10. Macedonia and Epirus formed into another Province: also Illyria. § 11. Triumphs of Metellus and Mummius.

§ 1. In the same year in which Lucullus and Galba took command in Spain, the Senate was induced to perform an act of tardy justice in the release of the Acliaian captives. The abduction of the best men in every state of Greece gave free scope, as has been said, to the oppressions of the tyrants favoured by Rome. In the Achaean Assembly alone there was still spirit enough to check Callicrates, who never ventured to assail the persons and property of his fellow-citizens. Meantime years rolled on; the captives still languished in Etruscan prisons; hope deferred and sickness were fast thinning their numbers: the Assembly asked that only Polybius and Stratius might return, but the request was met by a peremptory negative. At last, when Scipio returned from Spain, he induced Cato to intercede for these unhappy men. The manner of the old Censor’s intercession is characteristic. The debate had lasted long and the issue was doubtful, when Cato rose, and, without a word about justice or humanity, simply said: “ Have we really nothing to do but to sit here all day, debating whether a parcel of old Greeks are to have their coffins made here or at home ?” The question was decided by this unfeeling argument, and the prisoners, who in sixteen years had dwindled from 1000 to 300, were set free. But when Polybius prayed that his comrades might be restored to their former rank and honours, the old senator smiled, and told him “ he was acting like Ulysses, when lie ventured back into the cave of the Cyclops to recover his cap and belt.” ‘

§ 2. The men released in this ungracious way had passed the best part of tlieir lives in captivity. The elder and more ex-

perienced among them were dead. Tlie survivors returned with feelings embittered against Rome; they were rash and ignorant, and, wliat was worse, they had lost all sense of honour and all principle, and were ready to expose their country to any danger in order to gratify their own passions. Tlie chief name that has reached us is that of Diasus. Polybius did not return at first, and when he reached Greece he found his countrymen acting with such reckless violence that he gladly accepted Scipio’s invitation to accompany him to the siege of Carthage. Callicratcs, by a strange reverse, was now the leader of the moderate party. Diajus advocated every violent and unprincipled measure. On an embassy to Rome the former died, and Diaeus returned as chief of the Achaean League.

§ 3. Not long after (in 148 b.c.) a pretender to the throne of Macedon appeared. He was a young man named Andriscus, a native of Adramyttium, who gave himself out as Philip, a younger son of that luckless monarch. The state of Macedonia, divided into four Republics, each in a state of compulsory excommunication, was so distracted, that, in the year 151, the people sent an embassy to Rome, praying that Scipio might be sent to settle their affairs, and lie had only been prevented irom undertaking the task by the self-imposed duty of accompanying the army of Lucullus into Spain. The Pretender, however, met with so little success in his first attempt that he fled to the court of Demetrius at Antioch, and this Prince sent him to Rome. The war with Carthage was then at its height. Tho Senate treated the matter lightly, and tho adventurer was allowed to escape. Some Thracian chiefs received him, and with troops furnished by them he penetrated into Thessaly. The Roman Praetor, Juventius Thalna, was defeated and slain by tho Pretender.

§ 4. The temporary success of Pseudo-Pliilippus (as the Romans called him) encouraged Diaeus to drivo the Achaeans into a rupture with Rome. The haughty Republic, he said, was at war with Carthage and with Macedon; now was the time to break their bonds. Q. Metellus, who had just landed in Greece with a considerable army, gave the Achajans a friendly warning, but in vain. ^ _#

Metellus soon finished the Macedonian war. At his approach the Pretender hastily retired from Thessaly, and was given un to the Roman Praetor by a Thracian chief whose protection he nad sought. _> <

§ 5. Meanwhile, a Commission had already arrived at Corinth, headed by M. Aurelius Orestes, who summoned tho chiefs of the League to hear the sentence of the Senate upon their recent conduct He informed them that they must relinquish all claims of sovereignty over Corinth, Argos, and Lacedaemon—a doom which reduced the Achaean League nearly to the condition from which Aratus first raised it. The chiefs reported what they had heard to the Assembly. A furious burst of passion rose, which Diaeus did not attempt to restrain. Orestes and the Romans hardly escaped personal violence.

Orestes instantly returned to Rome; and the Senate, preferring diplomacy to force, sent a second Commission headed by Sext. Julius Caesar, with instructions to use gentle language, and merely to demand the surrender of those who had instigated the violent scenes lately cnacted at Corinth. A contemptuous answer was returned, upon which Caesar returned to Rome, and the Senate declared war against the Achaeans. .

§ 6. Metellus hoped to win the glory of pacifying Greece, as well as of conquering Macedonia. He sent some of his chief officers to endeavour to bring the Achaeans to their senses. But their leaders were too far committed ; and at the beginning of 14G b.c. Critolaus, a friend of Dias us, who was General for the year, advanced into Thessaly, and was joined by the Thebans, always the inveterate enemies of Rome. Metellus had already heard that the Achaean war was to be conducted by L. Mummius, one of the new Consuls; and, anxious to bring it to a close before lie was superseded, he advanced rapidly with his army. On this the braggart chiefs of the Achaeans retreated in all haste, not endeavouring to make a stand even at Thermopylae. Their army dispersed almost without a blow. Metellus pushed straight on towards the Isthmus. Thebes he found deserted by her inhabitants: misery and desolation appeared everywhere. ^

§ 7. Diaeus prepared to defend Corinth. But popular terror had succeeded to popular passion ; few citizens would enlist under his banner: though he emancipated a number of slaves, he could not muster more than 15,000 men.

When Metellus was almost within sight of Corinth, Mummius landed on the Isthmus with his legions, and assumed the command. The Romans treated the enemy with so much contempt that one of their outposts was surprised; and Diaeus flushed with this small success, drew out his forces before the city. Mummius eagerly accepted the challenge, and the battle began. The Achaean cavalry fled at the first onset; the infantry was soon broken, and Diaeus fled into one gate of Corinth and out of another without attempting further resistance. The Romans might have entered the city that same day; but seeing the strength of the Acropolis, and suspecting treachery, Mummius held back, and twenty-four hours' elapsed before he took- possession of liis unresisting prey. But the city was treated as if it had been taken by assault; the men were put to the sword,' the women and children reserved to be sold by auction. All treasures, all pictures, all the works of the famous artists who had moulded Corinthian brass into effigies of living force and symmetry, were seized by the Consul on behalf of the State; then, at a given signal, fire was applied, and Corinth was reduced to a heap of ashes.

§ 8. Mummius, a New Man was distinguished by the rudeness rather than by the simplicity of an Italian boor. lie was not greedy, for he reserved little for himself; and when he died, his daughter found not enough left for her dowry; but his abstinence seems to have proceeded from indifference rather than self-denial. He cared not for the works of Grecian art. He suffered his soldiers to use one of the choicest works of the painter Aristides as a draft-board; but when Attalus offered him a large sum for the painting, he imagined it must be a talisman, and ordered it to be sent to Rome. Every one knows his speech to the seamen who contracted to carry the statues and pictures of Corinth to Rome. “If they lost or damaged them,” he said, “ they must replace them with others of equal value.”

§ 9. In the autumn ten commissioners arrived, as usual, with draughts of decrees for settling the future condition of Macedon and Greece. Polybius, who had returned from witnessing the conflagration of Carthage just in time to behold that of Corinth, had the melancholy satisfaction of being called to their counsels,—a favour which he owed to the influence of Scipio. A wretched sycophant proposed to the commissioners to destroy the statues of Aratus and Philopoemen; but Polybius prevented this dishonour by showing that these eminent men had always endeavoured to keep peace with Rome. At the same time lie declined to accept any part of the confiscated property of Diaeus. Politically he was able to render important services. All Greece south of Macedonia and Epirus was formed into a Roman Province under the name of Acliaia. The old republican governments of the various communities were abolished, and the constitution of each assimilated to that of the municipal cities of Italy. Polybius was left in Greece to settle these new constitutions, and to adjust them to the circumstances and wants of each place. His grateful countrymen raised a statue to his honour by the side of their old heroes, and placed an inscription on the pedestal, which declared that, if Greece had followed his advice, she would not have fallen.

Such was the issue of the last struggle for Grecian liberty. Ii was conducted by unworthy men, and was unworthy of the name it bore. Polybius had always opposed attempts at useless and destructive insurrection. He considered it happy for Greece that one battle and the ruin of one city consummated her fall. Indeed it was a proverb of the day that “Greece was saved by her speedy fall.”

§ 10. The ten commissioners passed northwards into Macedonia, and formed that country, in conjunction with Epirus, into another Province, with institutions for municipal government much the same as those which had been established in Greece. It is probable that Illyria also was constituted as a Province at the same time.

§ 11. Metellus and Mummius both returned to Rome before the close of 146 b.c., and were honoured with triumphs not long after Scipio had carried the spoils of Carthage in procession to the Capitol. In memory of their respective services, Metellus was afterwards known by the name of Macedonicus, while Mummius, who appears to have had no third name of his own, was not ashamed to assume the title of Acha'icus.

§ 1. Flourishing trade of Carthago: tho Senato encourages Masinissa to attack her. §' 2. Tho popular party prevails at Carthago: Commission headed by Cato: delenda est Carthago. § 3. Masinissa restores the oligarchy at Carthago: tho Senato declares War against Carthage. § 4. Tho Consuls land in Africa: treachery by which Carthago is induced to strip herself of all means of defence. § 5. Popular indignation: preparations for a desperate defence. § 6. Policy of Masinissa. § 7. Description of Carthage. § 8. Ill success of Manilius and Censorinus. § 9. Death of Masinissa: distribution of his kingdom. § 10. Hamilcar Phamaeas deserts to Romans. § 11. Second Campaign: continued ill success. § 12. Scipio elected Consul. § 13. Third campaign: Scipio carries tho suburb of Megara. § 14. Great siege-works. § 15. Fourth campaign: Sack of Carthago. § 16. Surrender of Hasdrubal and tho Citadel: Scipio’s reflexions. § 17. Future of Carthage.

§ 1. Before Corintli fell, Carthage also had ceased to exist. We saw Hannibal reform the corrupt administration of his native city, and put her in the way of recovering even from the heavy blow which she had suffered after the defeat of Zama. We saw him compelled to leave Africa at the instance of the Roman Senate. But his acts lived after him. The trade of Carthage revived rapidly, and the disturbed condition of the East threw a large commerce into the hands of her merchants.

The Senate could not look with equanimity on this state of affairs; and Masinissa was given to understand that he would not be prevented from enriching -himself at the expense of his neighbours. The unscrupulous Numidian did not require a second hint. He overran and plundered the most fertile provinces dependent upon Carthage; and the Carthaginians, finding the Senate deaf to all complaints, at last prayed to be allowed to plead their cause before some fair tribunal, or, if not, to use arms in self-defence. “ Tho Carthaginians,” they said, “ would rather be the slaves of Rome than subject to the depredations of Masinissa. Better die at once than live at tie tnercy of that Numidian robber!” Nevertheless they were again put off with promises and delays.

§ 2. It appears that at this time parties ran high at Carthage. The old oligarchical party, which had expelled Hannibal, was disposed to maintain peace at any price. But about the year 151

ment resolved openly to oppose tlie encroachments of Masi-nissa. It was at this time that Cato, now eighty-four years of age, was seized by a sort of fanatic desire for the destruction of Carthage. So long as the hateful rival flourished, he contended there could be no safety for Rome. Scipio Nasica, who for his prudence and sagacity had received the name of Corculum, opposed this opinion with all his eloquence, and so far prevailed that before declaring war a Commission was sent to Africa, headed by Cato liimself, with full powers to settle all disputes between Carthage and Masinissa. The Commissioners began by requiring that both parties should enter into a bond to submit absolutely to their decisions. Masinissa of course consented; but the Carthaginians naturally demurred to throw themselves on the mercy of Cato, and the Commissioners returned to Rome. Once more Cato rose in the Senate, and gave a glowing description of the power and wealth of Carthage. Unfolding his gown, he produced some giant figs, which he held up, and said, “These figs grow but three days* sail from Rome. Every speech,^,r he added, “which I make in this house shall finish with the words,—^L my opinion is, that Carthage must be destroyed —delenda est Carthago? ” From that day the doom of Carthage was fixed.

§ 3. An opportunity soon offered for interference (150 b.c.). The banished oligarchy sought the aid of Masinissa, and the old Chief promptly led a large army into the territory .of Carthage. The new Government had levied a considerable force, which they put under the command of an officer named Hasdrubal. It was not long before a battle was fought, in which the Numidians won the clay. It happened that young Scipio had just then been sent by Lucullus from Spain to obtain a supply of elephants from Masinissa; and he was a spectator of the battle from a neighbouring eminence,—“a sight,” as he told Polybius, “that no one had enjoyed since the time when Jupiter looked down from Ida upon the battle of the Greeks and Trojans.” It must have been a remarkable, sight to behold old Masinissa, then past ninety years of age, charge like a boy of nineteen at the head of his wild Numidian horse.

Masinissa soon reduced the ,army of the enemy to such straits that the Government of Carthage was compelled to yield. The popular party was once, more deprived of power; and the wealthy merchants, who now recovered the government, prepared to make submission to the Senate. They proclaimed Hasdrubal and the leaders of. the war party guilty of high treason, and sent envoys to Rome with humble apologies; but they were too lato. Tho Consuls elect for the year 149 b.c., L. Ccnsorinus and M. Manilius, began to hold tlioir levies before the Carthaginian envoys arrived. The latter knew not well how to act, but at length resolved to place Carthage and all her possessions at the absolute disposal of the Senate. It was answered that they had done well. Tho Fathers pledged their word that Carthage should be left free, if 300 of the noblest youths were sent as hostages to meet tlic Consuls at Lilybasum; from them the Government should learn the further commands of the Senate.

§ 4. The Carthaginian Government complied with the demand, not without secret alarm as to what these “ further commands” might be. A heart-rending scene ensued when the 300 hostages were torn from their parents’ arms. At Lilybceum the Consuls received those pledges of submission, coldly signifying that they should land their army in Africa within a few days, and would then declare the will of the Senate. Accordingly the poor boys were sent to Rome, and the fleet anchored in the harbour of Utica, while the legions took up their quarters in the old camp of Scipio at the mouth of the Bagradas. Here another deputation from the trembling Government of Carthage appeared before the Consuls, who received them sitting on their chairs of state, with their officers around them, and the army drawn out in order. The deputies recapitulated the acts of submission which Carthago had made, and humbly asked what more could be required. Ccnso-rinus replied, that, “ as Carthage was now under the protection of Rome, they would no longer have occasion to engage in war: they must therefore give up all their arms and engines without reserve.” This hard condition also was accepted. The force of tho City may be in some measure estimated from the fact that 200,000 stand of arms and 2000 catapults were delivered up to Scipio Nasica, who conveyed them to the Roman camp, followed by the chiefs of the Government, who imagined that they had drained the cup of humiliation to the dregs. They were grievously mistaken. The Consuls thought that the City was now wholly disabled, and they let drop the mask. Censorinus calmly informed the unhappy men, that “so long as they possessed a fortified city near the sea, Rome could not feel sure of their submission : therefore it was the will of the Senate that they must remove to some point ten miles distant from tho coast: Carthage must be destroyed.” On hearing their final doom, the wretched Carthaginians fell stupefied to tho ground; and when they found utterance, broke into passionate exclamations against the perjured Senate. The Consuls waited in stern silence till these paroxysms were past; and when the miserable men represented, in terms of penitent humility, “ that the Senate had guaranteed the freedom of Carthage, that such a measuro must destroy this freedom by destroying her commcree and her means of subsistence,” Censorinus replied, with the same cold brevity as before, that “ the guarantee of the Senate referred to the people of Carthage, not to her houses. In short, the will of the Senate was as he had declared it: it must be done, and done quickly.”

§ 5. The envoys, being also the chiefs of the Government, feared to carry back these ill-omened commands. Some of them absconded; the rest approached the city, and found every avenue lined with people eager to learn their destiny. They spoke no word, but their downcast looks and gloomy silence proclaimed them messengers of evil. The crowd followed to the Council-chamber, where they delivered their report with closed doors. A cry of horror burst from the assembled Councillors, and the crowd, impatient of delay, broke open the doors, and demanded to know the fatal news. It was impossible to conceal the truth. The popular fury knew no bounds. The members of the Government who had made submission to Rome were obliged to flee for their lives. All Italians found within the city were massacred. Once more the popular party seized the government; and the residue of the Council voted to defend themselves to the uttermost, rather than die the lingering death to which the Romans had condemned them. Hasdrubal, lately proclaimed a traitor, had levied a force of 20,000 men, with whom he was plundering the territory of Carthage on his own account: he was now invited to become the General of the Republic. Another Hasdrubal, a kinsman of Masinissa, was invested with command within the city. A message was sent to the Consuls, requesting an armistice of thirty days, in order to send an embassy to Rome: this was refused. Despair gave unnatural courage. The temples and public buildings were converted into workshops; men and women worked day and night manufacturing arms; every day 100 shields were turned out, 300 swords, 500 pikes and javelins, 1000 eatapult-bolts. The women cut off their long hair to be twisted into strings for the new catapults. Corn was assiduously collected from every quarter.

§ 6. The Consuls, who were men of the Forum rather than the Camp, were not a little disappointed at this turn of affairs. They dallied for a time, hoping that on reflexion the Carthaginians would give up all thoughts of an armed defence. The conduct of Masinissa contributed to their irresolution. The wily old chief had no mind that, after Carthage had been weakened by his arms, Rome should come in and take the lion’s share.^ At first the Consuls had not thought it necessary to ask for his cooperation : it is plain that they expected to tako the city without stroke of sword. But now the case was altered, and when they applied to Masinissa, he hung back.

§ 7. When it became clear that Carthage must be formally besieged, the Consuls still no doubt expected an easy triumph; but the defence that followed w'as one of the most heroic that the world has seen. In order to understand its details, it will be necessary to describe briefly the site of Carthage.

A Inner Port.

B Outer Port

G Supposed Outlet to Sea.

D Scipio’s Mole.

E New Outlet cut by Carthaginians.

F Cothon.

0 Forum and Temple of Apollo. *

II Temple of Esculapius.

1 Homan Lines.

Remains of Homan Cisterns, Temples, &c.

Tyrian Carthage (as it may be called, to distinguish it from the later Roman Colony) stood on a peninsula which was joined to the mainland of Tunis by an isthmus. The city itself measured about twenty-three miles round, but did not occupy the whole peninsula. The portion occupied by the city seems to have been the northern end ;* the southern part being a suburb, called Megara, chiefly occupied by gardens. The city itself was divided into two quarters,—the Citadel, which was called Bosra, and Cothon, or the harbour-quarter. It appears almost certain

* This is inferred from tho fact that the Roman remains now existing, near the Arabic village of El Mersa, occupy the southern part. But, as Scipio pronounced a curse on the site of Tyrian Carthago, it is no less certain that tho Roman Colonists avoided this site: indeed Appian expressly asserts it. Tho annexed plan is formed upon this hypothesis. Most writers suppose that Tyrian and Roman Carthage were identical that the harbours, two in number, lay on the north side of the isthmus, and are to be identified not with the shallow lake now called the Bay of Tunis, but with the salt-pits on the northern side. The outermost was the merchants’ harbour, protected from the sea by a broad pier or mole, and furnished with a spacious quay. Inside this, and so much in the heart of the city as to be concealed from the view of the outer haven, lay the harbour of the navy. In its centre was a small island. Both island and harbour were surrounded by docks for the reception of 220 ships, all furnished with Ionic columns, so as to give the whole the appearance of stately colonnades. The admiral resided in the island. The entrance of this basin was only 70 feet broad, and was kept closed by strong chains drawn across it. The citadel was of course the highest and strongest part of the city. It measured about two miles round; and on the side towards the isthmus was defended by three walls, each 30 cubits high and consisting of two stories, flanked at intervals by towers rising two stories above the wall. Along these walls were stalls for 300 elephants and 4000 horse, with barracks for 20,000 men. The suburb of Megara was defended by a comparatively feeble wall; for it was edged by a low cliff, naturally defensible. .

§ 8. The Consuls divided their army; Manilius assaulting the triple wall abutting on the isthmus, Censorinus directing his attack at the end of the pier, where the city wall seemed least strong. But all their assaults were gallantly repelled. The season was passing, and the hot weather caused the army to suffer greatly. Censorinus returned home to hold the Comitia; and the army, commanded by Manilius, was only saved from Hasdrubal’s assaults by Scipio, who was serving under the Consul.

§ 9. The Senate began to repent of having neglected Masinissa, and sent ambassadors to beg for his assistance. But the old chief was dead before they arrived. His character will have shown itself sufficiently from the facts already mentioned. He showed no scruples in acquiring territory; but it must be added to his credit, that he did much towards humanising the wild tribes who owned his sway, and turned many uncultivated tracts into fruitful fields. In following years Italy imported much of her corn from these districts.

Of liis numerous offspring only three were legitimate. On his deatli-bed he sent for Scipio, to whom he was attached as tho heir of the great Africanus, and left tho settlement of the succession to his judgment. Scipio gave the sceptre to Micipsa, the eldest son ; Golossa, the second, was to be General; the administration of justice was committed to the youngest, Mastanarbal. Golossa joined the Romans at tho head of a body of troops; and thus freed the Consul from the fear of seeing the Numidians take part with Carthage.

§ 10. Before the winter set in, Hamilcar Phamseas, commander of the cavalry, the terror of the Roman foraging parties, finding that the Numidians had joined Rome, determined to make a merit of timely submission to Rome; and Manilius was oveijoyed to see this redoubted foe ride into camp in company with Scipio, followed by a squadron of African horse. Tidings now came that L. Calpurnius Piso, Consul for the next year, was on his way to supersede him ; and Manilius sent off Scipio, with Pliamfleas as a trophy of success to Rome. The army escorted their favourite officer to the coast, and prayed him to come back as Consul; for all were persuaded that none but Scipio was destined to take Carthage. The Senate received Scipio with high distinction, and rewarded the traitor Phamseas with splendid presents. His desertion was the only piece of success which two Consuls and a great army had won in a whole campaign.

§ 11. The next year (148 b.c.) passed still less prosperously. Piso did not attempt to assault the city, but employed his fleet and army in buccaneering expeditions along the coast. Discontent and disorder spread amongst the soldiery; and the Consul went early into winter-quarters at Utica. Meantime the spirits of the Carthaginians rose. Their bitter enemy, old Cato, had just died, at the age of 85. Bithyas, a Numidian chief, deserted from Golossa with a large body of cavalry. The Numidian Hasdrubal, who commanded the garrison, being suspected of intriguing with his cousin Golossa, was put to death, and the other Hasdrubal took command in the city. News also arrived of the Macedonian war; and it was hoped that the Romans might be altogether baffled.

§ 12. Meanwhile discontent arose high at Rome. Both Senate and People had expected to reap a rich booty at Carthage with little trouble, and the faineans who had disappointed them could hardly appear in public. It was well known that Scipio was the darling of the army. Old Cato had said of him, in a line of Homer, that

The People clamoured for his election as Consul, though by tho Lex Annalis he was not eligible, for he was but thirty-eight years of age, and was now a candidate for the JSdileship. He was, however, elected Consul at the Comitia; and the Senate yielded.

* oZof 7TEirvvrai, rol 61 gklclI uiaaovci, Horn. Od. xi. 10; a quotation which shows that the old man had made progress in his late lore.

with new levies, attended by Polybius. C. Lselius, son of that Laelius who had enjoyed the confidence of Africanus, had command of the fleet. The Consul fixed his head-quarters in a camp commanding the Isthmus of Carthage; and here his first business was to restore discipline in the disorganised army. He ordered the crowd of idlers and hucksters, who were following the camp for plunder or petty traffic, to leave it immediately; and enforced ctrict discipline.

He then directed an attack against the suburb of Megara. Planks were laid from a detached tower to the wall; and thus a party of soldiers descended into the place, and threw the gate open to their comrades. Tib. Gracchus the younger, destined to become famous in Roman history, was the first who mounted tho wall. The loss of this suburb of gardens must have been of great moment to the Carthaginians; for it deprived them of a great source of provisions. Hasdrubal showed his vexation by putting his prisoners to death in sight of the Romans. In vain the Council endeavoured to restrain him: the savage soldier was now lord of Carthage, and determined to commit himself and his men to a desperate defence. He was a greedy tyrant, who fed his gross corpulence by luxurious living, while others were starving; and affected the pompous demeanour of an Oriental despot, rather than the simplicity of a patriot soldier. His men alone shared the provisions, which now began to come scantily into the city. The unhappy townsmen began to feel the miseries of want.

§ 14. For not only had Scipio taken Megara; he had drawn strong lines across the isthmus so as to cut off the city from all land supplies; and the fleet blockaded the harbour, so as to make it difficult to send in provisions by sea. Still, light vessels contrived to press into the harbour under full sail, when the wind blew strongly landwards and prevented the Roman ships from keeping the sea. Scipio determined to cut off even these precarious supplies by throwing an embankment across the mouth of the harbour.* The work was one of infinite labour, and made but slow progress. The Carthaginians, however, saw that it must ultimately succeed, and began to cut a canal from the inside, so as to open a new entrance from the sea into their harbour. Before the end of the year this work was completed, and, moreover, a fleet of fifty ships had been secretly built in the inner port. By the time Scipio’s embankment was finished, the Romans had the mortification to see this new fleet sail out by the new entrance; so that it seemed as if all their

* This embankment no doubt assisted in choking up tho harbour and reducing it to its present condition. .

labour liad been thrown away. For two days they allowed the Carthaginian fleet to insult them with impunity. But on the third they attacked it with all their ships. The battle lasted till evening with some advantage to the Carthaginians. But as tho latter foil back to the new entrance, they found the passage impeded by small craft; and in the confusion which ensued, the Romans succeeded in destroying the greater part of the new Ibet.

§ 15. At the beginning of spring (146 B.C.), Scipio resumed the offensive. While he made a feigned attack upon the walls of Cothon, Lajlius succeeded in forcing an entrance on the other side of the city, and at evening the Roman legions bivouacked in the Marketplace of Carthage. But a long and terrible struggk was still before them. From the Marketplace three streets converged towards the Citadel. These streets were all strongly barricaded; and the houses on each side rising to the height of six stories, were occupied by the Carthaginians. A series of street-fights ensued, which lasted several days. The Romans were obliged to carry the first houses on each street by assault, and then to force their way by breaking through from house to house, and driving the enemy along the flat roofs. The cross streets or lanes -were passed by bridges of planks. Thus they slowly advanced to the wall of Bosra. When they had reached this point the city was set on fire behind them. Six days and nights the flames continued to rage; and as they slackened, the Roman legionaries were employed as pioneers to clear thoroughfares for the free passage of men and horses.

§ 16. During the great labour of the last days Scipio alone sought no rest. At length, worn out by anxiety and fatigue, he lay down to repose on an eminence commanding a view of the Temple of Esculapius, which, with its gilded roof, crowned the heights of Bosra. He had not long been here, when the Carthaginian garrison, seeing no longer any hope, offered to surrender the Citadel, on condition of their lives being spared. Scipio consented for all, except Roman deserters; and 50,000 men defiled out of the gates of Bosra as prisoners of war. Then Ilasdrubal and his family, with 900 deserters and other desperadoes, retired into the Temple* of Esculapius, as if to make a brave defence. But the Commandant’s heart failed him; and, slipping out alone, he threw himself at the feet of Scipio, and craved for pardon. His wife, standing on the base of the temple, was near enough to witness the sight, and reproaching her husband with cowardice, east herself with her children into the flames, which were now wrapping the Citadel round on all sides. Ilasdrubal’s life was spared to grace the triumph of the conqueror; most of the deserters

perished in the flames; those who escaped, or were taken elsewhere, were trampled to death by elephants.

It was during these scenes of horror, that Scipio, with Polybius at his side, gazed upon the burning city, and involuntarily vented his high-wrought feeling in two well-known verses of Homer;¹²⁵

“ The day shall come, when sacred Troy shall be levelled with the plain, And Priam and the people of that good warrior slain.”

“ Assyria,” he said, “ had fallen, and Persia and Macedon. Carthage was burning. Rome’s day might come next I”

For five days the soldiery were allowed to range the ruined city, glutting their wild passions. Yet enough of statues and valuables of all sorts fell into the hands of the Proconsul, to adorn a triumph little less magnificent than that in which he had followed his father Paullus one-and-twenty years before. Before he left Africa, he celebrated magnificent games, in which all the spoil was displayed to the army, as had been done by Paullus in Macedonia.

§17. Scipio had written laconically to the Senate, that “Carthage was taken, and the army waited for further orders.” Amid the exultation of all classes, a Decree was passed that the walls should be destroyed, and every house within them levelled to the ground. A solemn curse was pronounced by Scipio on any one who should rebuild a town on the same site. Not many years after, C. Gracchus was sent to found a colony on the site of Carthage,—a design which failed; and its failure was attributed to the curse of Scipio. But the same design was renewed by the great Julius, and accomplished by Augustus. This Colony, which rose to be a noble city, and in the second century of the Christian era might be regarded as the metropolis of Western Christendom, stood (as stated above) at the southern end of the Peninsula, where the Moorish fortress of Goletta now commands the entrance of the Bay of Tunis.

Utica, for her timely submission, was rewarded with a portion of the dominions of Carthage. Tlie remaining territory was formed into a province under the name of Libya, and placed . under the government of a Roman Magistrate, being the fourth Province added to the empire in this one year. ' j

§ 1. War with tho Lusitanians under Yiriathus, and with Numantia. § 2. Celtiberian War: Metellus Macedonicus: Treaty of Mancinus. § 3. Lusitanian War: Treaty of Q. Fabius Servilianus, broken by Q. Servilius Caepio: Murder of Yiriathus. § 4. Discussion on tho Treaty of Mancinus: he is given up to the Numantians: their conduct § 5. Dec. Brutus carries Roman arms into Gallsecia: surnamed Callaicus. § 6. Scipio: his life since the Fall of Carthage. § 7. Ilis popularity: elected Consul for the Numantian War. § 8. Measures for restoring discipline. § 9. Ho appears before Numantia: lines of investment § 10. Misery of tho Numantians. § 11. Surrender and destruction of Numantia.

§ 1. While Rome was engaged in war with Carthage, the Lusitanians resumed their inroads under the conduct of the gallant Viriathus, who had escaped from the massacre of Galba. No Roman general could gain any positive advantage over this indefatigable enemy, and in the year 143 B.C. the war assumed a much more serious aspect. The brave Celtiberian tribes of Numantia and its adjacent districts again appeared in the field. For several years we find two Roman commanders engaged in Spain, as before the Treaty of Gracchus: one opposed to the Numantians and their Celtiberian allies in the North, the other carrying on an irregular warfare against Yiriathus and the Lusitanians in the South.

§ 2. The conduct of the Celtiberian War was committed to Q. Metellus Macedonicus, who had been elected Consul for the year 143. He remained in command for two years, and was so successful in his measures that by the close of the second campaign he had compelled the enemy to shut themselves up in their . strong cities. But he was disappointed, as in Greece, by finding anticipated triumph snatched from his grasp by Q. Pompeius, Consul for the year 141 b.c.

Pompeius and his successors could make no impression upon the Numantians. Nay, C. Hostilius Mancinus, Consul for the year 137, suffered a memorable reverse. Mancinus set out for his province amid general alarm, excited by the unfavourable omens at his inaugural sacrifices. He was attended as Quaestor by young Tib. Gracchus, who had already distinguished himself at the siege of Carthage. Mancinus found the army befor® Numantia in a state of complete disorganisation, and deemed

it prudent to retreat from liis position in front of that city. The Numantians pursued and pressed him so hard that he was obliged to entrench himself in an old camp, and send a herald with offers to treat on condition that his army should be spared. The enemy consented, but only on the understanding that young Gracchus was to make himself responsible for the execution of the treaty. Articles of peace were accordingly signed by Mancinus himself, with Gracchus and all the chief officers of the army.

Before we notice the sequel of the famous Treaty of Mancinus, it will be well to follow the Lusitanian War to its conclusion.

§ 3. Here also the fortune of Rome was in the decline. Q. Fabius Servilianus was surprised by Yiriathus in a narrow defile, and so shut up that escape was impossible. The Lusitanian captain offered liberal terms, which were gladly accepted by the Proconsul. This peace was approved by the Senate, and Yiriathus was acknowledged as the ally of Rome.

But Q. Servilius Ca3pio, brother by blood of Servilianus, was little satisfied by the prospect of an inactive command. By importunity he wrung from the Senate permission to break the peace so lately concluded by his brother, and ratified by themselves,— a permission basely given and more basely used. Cfepio assailed Yiriathus, when he little expected an attack, with so much vigour that the chief was fain to seek refuge in Gallaecia, and sent envoys to ask Ca3pio on what ground the late treaty was no longer observed. Caspio sent back tlie messengers with fair words, but privily bribed thein to assassinate their master. They were too successful in their purpose, and returned to claim their blood-money from the Consul. But he, with double treachery, disowned the act, and referred them to the Senate for their reward.

The death of Yiriathus was tho real end of tlie Lusitanian War. He was (as even the Roman writers allow) brave, generous, active, vigilant, patient, faithful to his word; and the manner in which he baffled all fair and open assault of the disciplined armies of Rome gives a high conception of his qualities as a guerilla' chief. His countrymen, sensible of their loss, honoured him with a splendid military funeral. The Senate, with a wise moderation which might have been adopted years before, assigned lands to r portion of the mountaineers withiii the Province, thus at length making good the broken promises of Galba.

§ 4. Such was the discreditable termination of the Lusitanian War. We must now return to Mancinus and his Treaty.

He returned to defend his conduct before the Senate. He pleaded that the army was so demoralised that no man could wield it with effect, and admitted that he had concluded a treaty

with Numantia without the authority of the Senate and People; as that treaty was not approved, he declared himself ready to support a bill for delivering up the persons of himself and all who had signed it to the Numantians. Such a bill was accordingly brought before the Tribes. But young Gracchus upheld the treaty, and Scipio, his brother-in-law, made an eloquent speech in his behalf. But the people, always jealous of defeat, voted for delivering up Mancinus alone as an expiatory offering. Accordingly a person, consecrated for this special purpose, carried him to Numantia. But the Spaniards, like the Samnites of old, refused to accept such a compensation; one man’s body, they said, was no equivalent for the advantage they had lost. Mancinus, therefore, returned to Rome. But when he took his place in the Senate, the Tribune Rutilius ordered him to leave the Curia, because, he said,.one who had been delivered over to the enemy with religious ceremony was no longer a citizen of Rome, and could not recover his rights by simply returning to his country.¹²⁶ A special law was introduced to restore Mancinus to his former position.f

§ 5. Dec. Junius Brutus, Consul for 138, an able officer, was entrusted with the pacification of Lusitania : the town of Valentia owes its origin to a colony of this people planted there by him. After finishing this business, he carried his arms northward across the Tagus, the Douro, and the Minho, aud received homage from the Tribes of the Western Pyrenees. He was the first Roman who reached the shores of the Bay of Biscay, and saw the sun set in the waters of the Atlantic; and he was not unjustly honoured with the name of CallalcusJ for his successes.

§ G. But Numantia still defied the arms of Rome. Men began to clamour for a Consul fit to command; and all eyes fell upon Scipio. Ilis qualities as a general had been tested by success at Carthage, and circumstances had since occurred which raised him to great popularity.

After his triumph in 14G b.c., Scipio had continued to lead the simple life in which he had been bred, and which not all the wealth he inherited from his adoptive father induced him to abandon. lie affected an austerity of manners, which almost emulated that of Cato, though lie was free from the censorius dogmatism and rudo eccentricities of that celebrated man. In 142 b.c. lie was elected Censor in conjunction with Mummius, who so thwarted all the efforts of his colleague to promote reforms that the latter publicly exclaimed, “ I should have been able to do my duty, either with a colleague or without one.” Scipio had gained a clear conception of the unsound state of things, which long-continued wars and Senatorial government had produced. In the prayer, which he offered on entering upon the Censor’s office, he altered the usual form; and instead of asking that “ the gods would increase and magnify the power of Rome,” he said, “I pray that they maj preserve it; it is great enough already.”

§ V. His frugal life carried with it a guarantee of honesty and devotion to public interests, which would alone have secured him public favour. But several of his acts gained him ¹²⁷ more direct popularity. The son of his kinsman Nasica, nicknamed Serapio, had joined the high oligarchical party. But the son of JEmilius Paullus, on the few occasions on which he appeared in public, took the popular side. In 13 7, the Tribune Cassius proposed the first law for taking votes by secret ballot,* with the intention of neutralising the undue influence of the Senators. Scipio came forward and addressed the people in favour of this law. As his popularity was increased, his favour with the Senate proportion-jably fell. Six years before, when he was canvassing for the Censorship, App. Claudius, seeing the motley crowd which followed him, exclaimed :—r-“ Ah, JEmilius, it would trouble thy spirit to see thy son followed by such a crew.” Yet he courted not popularity: he seldom even visited the Forum, though lie spoke with force and eloquence when he chose. When the same Appius boasted that he knew all who frequented the Forum by name, Scipio replied:—“ True, I do not know many of my fellow-citizens by name, but I have taken care that all should know me.” Popularity came unasked, and the People cast their eyes upon him to retrieve the dishonour of the Roman arms in Spain. Legally he could not hold the Consulship, for a law had been lately passed forbidding a second election in any case. But Scipio received the votes of every Century, though he was not a candidate.

§ 8. He was now fifty-one years of age, and he proceeded to execute his commission with the same steady vigour which distinguished him on other occasions. lie found the demoralisation of the army not less than it had been described, and he applied himself to correct it with the same severity that his father had used in Macedonia, and he himself had used before Carthage. All courtesans and hucksters, together with fortune-tellers who drove a lucrative trade in the dispirited army, he commanded to quit the camp. All carriages, horses, and mules he ordered to be sold, except those that were needed for actual service. No cooking utensils were allowed except a spit, a camp-bottle, and a drinking-cup. Down beds were forbidden: the general himself slept upon a straw pallet.

§ 9. After some time spent in training his army, he led it to Numantia by a difficult and circuitous route, in order to avoid a battle. As he approached the place he was joined by young Ju-gurtha, a bastard son of Micipsa, who came from Numidia with twelve elephants and a large body of light cavalry. By this time the season for war was nearly over, and he ordered two strong camps to be formed for winter-quarters. In one he fixed himself, the other he put under tho command of his brother Fabius.

With the beginning of spring (133 b.c.) he began to draw lines of circumvallation round the city, and declined all attempts made by the Numantians to provoke a general action,—a circumstance which is rather surprising, if it be true that the available troops of the Spanish city amounted to no more than 8000 men.

§ 10. Numantia lay on both sides of the Douro, not far from its source. The blockade was so strict, and the inhabitants were, so ill provided, that in no long time they were reduced to feed on boiled leather, and at length (horrible to tell) on the bodies of the dead. In vain those who retained sufficient strength attempted sallies by day and night; Scipio had established so complete a system, that additional troops were always ready to strengthen any weak point which might be assailed. In vain did the young men of Lubia endeavour to relieve their brave neighbours. Scipio promptly marched to that place with a division of light troops, and, having compelled the government to surrender 400 of the most active sympathisers, he cut oft' their right hands and returned. Such was the cruelty which the most enlightened men of Rome permitted themselves to use towards barbarians. Nor does any ancient historian whisper a word of reproach.

§ 11. The wretched Numantians now inquired on what terms they might be admitted to surrender. The reply was, that on that very day they must lay down their arms, and on the next appear at a given place. They prayed for time to deliberate. In the interval a certain number of brave men, resolved not to submit on any terms, put themselves to death; the remnant came forth from the gates. Their matted hair, squalid apparel, and wasted forms made even the Romans turn away in horror from their own work. Scipio selected fifty to walk in his triumphal procession, and sold the rest. The town was so effectually destroyed that its very site cannot be discovered.

Such was the destructive, but not glorious work, which .earned for Scipio the name of Numantinus, as the ruin of Carthage had given him a better title than adoption to that of Africanus.

Commissioners were sent, according to custom, to re-organiso the Spanish Provinces. The conquests of Scipio and of Dec. Brutus were comprehended in the limits of the Hither Province, and for some years Spain remained in tranquillity.

There was no enemy now left on the coast-Jands of the Mediterranean to dispute the Sovereignty of Rome. Nine Provinces, each fit to be a kingdom, owned her sway, and poured yearly taxes into her revenue. The kings of Asia Minor, of Syria, of Egypt were her obedient vassals.

§ 1. Increase of Slaves. § 2. Fondness of the Romans for agriculture: declino ‘ of agriculture. § 3. Immense numbers of Slaves brought to market. § 4. Tho Slaves of Apulia become banditti § 5. Similar state of things in Sicily: insurrection breaks out near Enna. § 6. King Eunus. § 7. Enna taken by the Slaves: dreadful scenes. § 8. Cleon heads another rising near Agrigentum. § 9. Defeat of a Roman Prsetor: spread of the Insurrection. § 10. The War concluded by Rupilius: fate of the Slave-chiefe. § 11. Propitiation of Ceres. § 12. Laws of Rupilius for improving tho state of Sicily.

§ 1. While Numantia was yet defying the Roman Generals, a war broke out near home of a more dreadful kind than any distant contest with foreigners could be,—the insurrection of the Slaves in Sicily. Some remarks have already been made on the rapid increase in the number of Slaves which attended the career of Roman conquest; and it was observed that,*while domestic Slaves usually were well treated, the agricultural Slaves were thrust down to a condition worse than that of the oxen which laboured on the land.* The evils which such oppression might engender were now proved by terrible experience.

§ 2. Every one knows that in the early times of Rome tho work of the farm was the only kind of manual labour deemed worthy of a free citizen. This feeling long survived, as may be seen from the praise bestowed on agriculture by Cicero,f whoso enthusiasm was caught from one of his favourite heroes, old Cato the Censor, whose Treatise on Agriculture has been noticed. The taste for books of farming continued. Varro the antiquarian, a friend of Cicero, has left an excellent treatise on the subject. A little later came the famous Georgies of Virgil, followed at no long interval by Pliny’s notices, and then by the elaborate Dissertations of Columella, who refers to a great number of Roman writers on the same subject. It is manifest that tho subject of agriculture possessed a strong and enduring charm for the Roman mind.

f “ Omnium autem rerum ex quibus aliquid acquiritur nihil cst agri culture melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine libero dignius.”—De Of. i. 42, fin.

ground in Italy. When Cato was asked what was the most profitable kind of farming, he said, “ Good grazing.” What next? “ Tolerable grazing.” What next ? “ Bad grazing.” What next? “Corn-growing.”* Later writers, with one accord, deplore the diminished productiveness of land.

This result was due in part, no doubt, to war, but much more to other causes. Corn could be imported with facility from the southern lands of Sicily, from Egypt, and from Numidia, while a great part of Italy was little suited for the production of grain-crops. These causes found a powerful assistant in the growth of large estates, and the profitable employment of Slaves as shepherds and herdsmen.

§ 3. A few examples will show the prodigious number of Slaves that must have been thrown into the market after the Second Punic War. To punish the Bruttians for the fidelity with which they adhered to the cause of Hannibal, the whole nation were made Slaves; 150,000 Epirotes were sold by iEmilius Paullus;

50,000 captives were sent home from Carthage. These numbers are accidentally preserved; and if, according to this scale, we calculate the hosts of unhappy men sold in slavery during the Syrian, Macedonian, Illyrian, Grecian, and Spanish Wars, we shall be prepared to hear that Slaves fit only for unskilled labour were plentiful and cheap.

There was also a Slave-trade regularly carried on in the East. The barbarous tribes on the coasts of the Black Sea were always ready to sell their own flesh and blood; Thrace and Sarmatia were the Guinea Coast of the Romans. The entrepot of this trade was Delos, which had been made a free port by Rome after the conquest of Macedonia.! Strabo tells us . that in one day 10,000 slaves were sold there in open market. Such were the vile uses to which was put the Sacred Island, once the treasury of Greece, when her states were banded together to secure their freedom against the Persian.

§ 4. It is evident that hosts of slaves, lately free men, and many of them soldiers, must become dangerous to the owners. Nor was their treatment such as to conciliate. They were turned out upon the hills, made responsible for the safety of the cattle put under their charge, and compelled to provide themselves with the common necessaries of life. A body of these wretched men asked their master for clothing: “ What,” he asked, “ are there no travellers with clothes on ?” The atrocious hin* was soon taken : the shepherd slaves of Lower Italy became banditti, and to travel through Apulia without an armed retinue

was a perilous adventure. From assailing travellers, the marauders began to plunder the smaller couutry-houses; and all but the rich were obliged to desert the country and flock into the towns. So early as the year 185 B.C., 7000 slaves in Apulia were condemned for brigandage by a Praetor sent specially to restore order in that land of pasturage. When they were not employed upon the hills, they were shut up in large prison-like buildings (ergastula), where they could talk together of their wrongs, and form schemes of vengeance.

§ 5. The Sicilian landowners emulated their Italian brethren; and it was their tyrannical conduct that led to the frightful insurrection, which reveals to us somewhat of the real state of society which existed under the rule of Rome.

In Sicily, as in Lower Italy, the herds are driven up into the mountain pastures during the summer months, and about October return towards the plains. The same causes which were at work in Italy were at work, on a smaller scale, in Sicily. The city of Enna, once famous for the worship of Demeter, had become the centre of a pastoral district, and of the neighbouring landowners, Damophilus was the wealthiest. He was famous for the multitude of his Slave-herdsmen, and for his cruel treatment of them, and liis wife Megallis emulated her .lord in the barbarities which she practised on the female Slaves. At length the cup was full, and 400 of his bondsmen, meeting at Enna, took counsels of vengeance against Damophilus.

§ 0. At Enna there lived another rich proprietor, named Antigenes; and among his Slaves was a Syrian, known by the Greek name of Eunus (Evvovg). This man was a kind of wizard, who pretended to have revelations of the future, and practised a mode of breathing fire, which passed for a supernatural power. At length he gave out that his Syrian gods had declared to him that he should be king hereafter. His master treated him as a jester, and at banquets used to call him in to make sport for his guests; and they, entering into his humour, used to beg him to remember them when he gained his sceptre. But to the confederate Slaves of Damophilus, Eunus seemed in truth a Prophet and a King sent to deliver them. They prayed him to become their leader, he accepted their offer; and the whole body entered the city of Enna, with Eunus at their head breathing fire.

§ 7. The wretched city now felt the vengeance of men brutalised by oppression. Clad in skins, anned with stakes burnt at tho end, with reaping-hooks, spits, or whatever arms rage supplied, they broke into the houses, and massacred all persons of free condition, from the old man and matron to the infant at the breast. Crowds of Slaves joined them ; every man’s foes were those of his own household. Damophilus was dragged to the Theatre and slain. Megallis was given over to the female Slaves, who first tortured her, and then cast her down the crag on which the city stands.* * _v

Eunus thus saw the wildest of his dreams fulfilled. He assumed the diadem, took the royal name of Antiochus, and called his followers Syrians. The ergastula were broken • open, and numbers of Slaves sallied out to join him. Soon he was at the head of 10,000 men. He showed no little discretion in the choice of officers. Aehaeus, a Greek, was made General of the army, and he exerted himself to preserve order and moderate excesses.

§ 8. A few days after the massacrc at Enna, Cleon, a Cilician Slave, raised a similar insurrection near Agrigentum. He also was soon at the head of several thousand men.

The Romans in Sicily, who had looked on in blank dismay, now formed hopes that the two leaders might quarrel,—hopes soon disappointed by the tidings that Cleon had acknowledged the sovereign authority of King Antiochus.

§ 9. There was no Roman magistrate present in Sicily when the insurrection broke out. The Praetor of the last year had returned to Italy; and his successor now arrived, ignorant of all that was passing. He contrived to collect 8000 men in the island, and took the field against the Slaves, who by this time numbered 20,000. He was utterly defeated, and the insurrection spread over the whole island.

The consternation at Rome was great. No one could tell where the evil would stop. Movements broke out in various parts of the empire; but the magistrates were on the alert, and all attempts were crushed forcibly. At Rome itself one hundred and fifty Slaves, detected in organising an outbreak, were put to death without mercy.

§ 10. The insurrection seemed to the Senate so serious that they dispatched the Consul, Q. Fulvius Flaccus, colleague of Scipio in the year 133 B.C., to crush it. But Flaccus obtained no advantage over the insurgents. In the next year L. Calpurnius Piso succeeded in wresting Messana from the enemy, and advanced to Enna, a place strongly defended by nature, which he was unable to take. His successor, P. Rupilius, a friend of Scipio, began his campaign with the siege of Tauro-menium. Tho Slaves offered a desperate resistance. Reduced to straits for want of food, they devoured the children, tho women, and at length began to prey upon each other. Even tnen the place was only taken by treachery. All the Slaves taken alive were put to the torture and thrown down a preeipiec. The Consul now advaneed to Euna, the last stronghold of Eunus. The fate of the insurgents was inevitable. Cleon of Agrigentum chose a soldier’s death, and sallying forth with all who breathed the same spirit as himself, he died fighting valiantly. Of the end of Achaeus we are not informed. Eunus, with a bodyguard of 600 men, fled to the neighbouring hills; but, despairing of escape, the greater part of the wretehed men slew one another. The moek king himself was taken in a cave, with his eook, baker, bathing-man, and jester. lie showed a pusillanimity far unlike the desperate eourage of the rest, and died eaten by vermin in a dungeon at Murgantia. '

§ 11. Thus was crushed for a time this perilous insurrection, the result of the Slave-system established by Roman conquest. The well-being of Sieily had even now been so seriously impaired that extraordinary measures were deemed necessary for restoring order. The Sibylline Books were consulted. The oracular page ordered the propitiation of “ Ceres the most aneientand a solemn deputation of priests proceeded to the august Temple of the Goddess in the city of Enna. This eireumstanee, seemingly unimportant, beeomes significant, when it is considered that the war really originated in the negleet of agricultural labours, and was at its height during the notable year in which Tib. Gracchus was bringing to all men’s knowledge the reduced condition of the farmers of Italy.

§ 12. Ten Commissioners were sent to assist Rupilius in drawing up laws for the better regulation of the agricultural districts. The eode formerly established by Iliero at Syracuse was taken as the basis of their legislation, a measure whieh gave great satisfaction to all the Greek Communities. The whole land was required to pay a tithe of its produce to the Romans except the five free cities and some others whieh were allowed to pay a fixed annual sum. The eolleetion of these tithes was to be let to Roman eontraetors. But to prevent extortion, Courts of Appeal were provided. All disputes between citizens of the same town were left to be decided in the town eourts; those between eitizens of different towns, by judges drawn by lot under the eye of the Praetor; those between a town-eommunity and an individual, by the Senate of some other city; those between a Roman eitizen and a Sicilian, by a judge belonging to the same nation as the defendant. There ean be no doubt that the general condition of the Sicilian landholders was considerably improved by this system; and agriculture again flourished in Sicily as it had done in former times.

§ 1. Rise of a New Nobility. § 2. Control of Public Purse now in hands of Senate. § 3. Precariousness of Senatorial power. § 4. Growth of a wealthy Class, not noble. § 5. Knights equo publico et privato: new Equestrian Order created by C. Gracchus. § 6. The free citizens consumed by the wars. § 7. Those who returned migrated to tho towns. § 8. Increase of large estates. § 9. How these estates were furnished with labour: Metayers. § 10. Growing division between the City and the Rural Tribes: what was meant by “Men of tho People” q,t Rome. § 11. Influence of the Nobility in the Comitia

§ 1. An attempt was made to review the condition of Rome and her subjects at the point of time when she had just passed through the terrible ordeal of the Hannibalic War. Since that we have followed her, for more than a century and a half, in her rapid ascent to absolute dominion. And here again we may pause to note the changes that had taken place in her political and social system. For though no violent changes are recorded, yet silently and surely great alterations had been wrought in almost all sorts and conditions of Roman citizens.

Wc have had continually to recognise the increasing power of the Senate and the growth of a New Nobility, as compact as the old Patrician Oligarchy, and wielding a mightier power. The mark of Nobility was not now, as of old, birth within the pale of the Patriciate, but birth within the number of those families who could count up successive honours for generations. Those were now most noble who possessed the longest file of images, that is those whose ancestors had held the greatest number of Curule offices.

§ 2. That which secured political supremacy to the Senate was what is familiarly called the power of the Purse. No people can be free unless they have some control over the expenditure of public money; and at Rome all financial matters were, as we have seen, wholly in the hands of the Senate. In earlier times this great Council was obliged to levy a war-tax upon the People, which served as a check upon its power. But the large sums which poured into the treasury for the next few years made this tax lighter every year, till with the conquest of Macedon it ceased altogether. Henceforth, therefore, there was not even an indirect control over the public purse, and no hindrance was offered to a vote for declaring war. Even Cato, in his determination to destroy Carthage, lent himself to the policy of his Order. All lucrative employments were seized by the members of the great Senatorial families. It was only when difficult services were required, .such as the conquest of Macedon, or the reduction of Carthage and Numantia, that the Senate were obliged to resort to the services of independent men like ^Emilius Paullus or his son Scipio.

, § 3. But while the Senatorial Nobility seemed to be in secure possession of nearly all honours, there were not wanting signs to show that this possession was precarious. In the first place there had grown up of late years a body of wealthy families who wero debarred from political honours; and in the second place, the condition of the Rustic Population was every day becoming so bad as to excite the sympathy of the generous, and to alarm the fears of the selfish.

§ 4. The wealthy class of which we speak was chiefly composed of the tax-collectors, public contractors, and other persons engaged in commercial pursuits. Just before the second Punic War a law had been passed to make it illegal for Senators to engage in any kind of commercial adventure; and to supply the constant demand caused by the wars that followed. Companies were formed, with a sufficient capital to undertake contracts for supplying the army and navy. When one province after another was conquered, siniiliar Companies contracted to collect the imposts laid upon the new subjects of Rome, and this soon became a large and profitable business. The provincial imposts were put up to public auction; the Company which offered the largest sum, if they could give proper security, received the contract; they paid into the Treasury the sum which they had offered, and all that they collected over and above this sum they divided among themselves: a system well contrived to encourage extortion. It was from this wealthy class of contractors and commercial men that C. Gracchus created a new order of citizens to balance the Senators. This was the Equestrian Order, the members of which were called Equites or Knights,—a new application of an old name which demands explanation.

§ 5. It has been noticed that by the institutions attributed to King Servius the Equites were raised to the number of 3600. They were the wealthiest men at Rome, and formed a real body of Knights or Chivalry, who served on horseback in the army of the city, as all the other Centuries served on foot. They were furnished with a horse at the public expense, or rather by a special tax laid on the property of widows and orphans, who were exempt from all other dues. '

As the City increased in power there were many citizens who were as wealthy as the Equites,* and yet were not of their number; and at the siege of Yeii many of these citizens came forward and offered to serve as horse-soldiers at their own expense. Hence arose the distinction of Knights with a Public and Knights with a Private Horse. After this time, the Cavalry seem to have been regularly furnished by families of a certain amount of property; and the horse bestowed by the State became a badge of honour, which was retained by Senators and Consulars, though they were no longer liable to serve in the army. The whole system was remodelled, as it appears, in the Censorship of Fabius and Decius, who were commissioned to counteract the measures of Appius Claudius. It was then ordained that on the day of the battle of Regillus the Knights who had a public horse, clad in purple and wreathed with olive, should ride in procession from the Temple of Mars outside the city, to the portico of the Temple of Castor and Pollux in the Forum, and there dismounting should lead their horses past the Censors, who had power to deprive any man of his rank by taking away his horse. Such a punishment was inflicted on Livius and Nero, the conquerors of Metaurus, each upon the other, and upon L. Scipio by Cato. In process of time the distinction between

* The Census of tho Equites in earlier times is not known, but was (it may bo presumed) larger than that of tho First Class. Augustus fixed it at

the titular Equites and tlio horse-soldiers of the army becamc more and more pronounced, and the possession of a public horse became a sort of honorary distinction held in high esteem. The Cavaliers became distinct from the Cavalry.

But a great and complete change took place when C. Gracchus raised to the Equestrian Order all who possessed a certain amount of property, and thus created a sort of Lesser Nobility to counterbalance the Senate. After this, as it seems, a man lost his place in the Equestrian Order by becoming a Senator; and the Equites were either wealthy contractors and merchants, or young men of Senatorial families, who had not themselves reached Senatorial dignity. The antagonism of the Equites and the Senate forms one of the most striking points in the internal history of Rome for the next fifty years. And hero we find one of the quarters from which the dominion of tho Senate was threatened.

§ 6. More immediate danger was. to be apprehended from the state of the Rural Population,, not only in the Roman territory itself, but throughout the allied cities of Italy.

In the early times of Rome military service was a privilege, confined to persons of a certain property. Citizens with a fixed yearly income of smaller amount than gave a position in the Classes were • employed on board the ships; but those who had no appreciable property were used only as slingers and archers to skirmish in front of the regular battalions of tho Legion. And the same practice seems to have prevailed in the Italian Communities, who always furnished more than half the Roman armies. In the great defeats of the Ilannibalic War, therefore, the losses fell not on mercenary armies; but on tho substantial burgesses of the towns and the stout yeomeu of *he country. There can be no doubt that in this dreadful war the rural inhabitants of the Roman Territory, and of Italy generally, must have been more than decimated. And it was probably due to this cause that, from the time of Flamininus, Proletarians began to be enrolled in the legions along with the wealthier citizens.* Italy was drained of her best blood, and many a farm lost the stout limbs of its proprietors.

§ 7. To this must be added that the wars, being now carried on beyond seas, drew off the legionaries from their country work much more completely than tho Italian wars. The men could no longer return home when the campaign was over, but were kept for several years in foreign lands; and even if they returned to their country they had often contracted licentious tastes and formed

* That Flamininus originated the practice appears probable from Plutarch. Vit. Flamin. c. 18.

irregular habits which ill suited the frugal life of. an Italian husbandman. Those, therefore, who had small estates were eager to turn them into money, that they might enjoy the irregular pleasures of the City; those who had nothing to sell migrated without hindrance. Thus the Rural Population was more and more thinned, while the towns, and Rome most of all, swarmed with needy and reckless men, ready for outrage.

§ 8. The small proprietors found it extremely easy to part with their estates and holdings. For the great Senatorial families were every day growing richer by the commands and governments which were multiplied after every successive war; and, being prohibited from commerce, they were glad to invest their gains in buying up land in the neighbourhood^ of their own estates. From this time forth began those Latifundia or Great Estates which Pliny believed to be the real cause of the depopulation and decay of Italy.

§ 9. It might appear, indeed, that these estates, being stript of their labourers, would not be very valuable. But this was compensated by the great abundance and cheapness of Slaves,— a point which has been sufficiently illustrated in our account of the Sicilian Slave-war. Whole districts were thrown into pasturage because free labourers were wanting, and their place was supplied by wretched captives, who, though unequal to tlie labours of the plough or spade, were able to watch flocks and tend herds. Even when tillage was still found profitable in Italy, it changed its character. It was then, probably, that what is called the metayer system, which prevails so largely there at the present day, first took its rise; the system, that is, in which the tenant and landlord are partners in the crops,¹²⁸ the landlord furnishing land, farm-buildings, and seed, the tenant supplying the farm-implements and the labour.

Here, then, was a second cause of discontent, which rendered the established order of things insecure, and might at any time cause peril to the government of the Senate.

§ 10. Meantime, with the decline of the Rural Population, the Population of the City had constantly been increasing. Even in the time of the Samnite Wars the Censor Appius had found the Freedmen sufficiently numerous to form a powerful support of the Patricians against the Plebeians. So we shall find them in the next half-century generally taking part with the Nobility against the champions of the Rural Population,—a fact of great importance in estimating the relation of parties at Rome. The people of tho city, contemptuously called the Forensic Mob, were mostly confined to four votes out of thirty-five, and therefore in a general way they had little weight against the country people, who had thirty-one votes out of thirty-five. It is, therefore, the Country Tribes which in Roman. history are commonly known by the name of “ the People,” and it is this part of the nation which supported the patriotic statesmen who endeavoured to restoro the old yeomanry of Italy; while the haughtiest of the aristocracy are allied with the Tribes of the City. It was Appius, tho proud Patrician, who endeavoured to spread the latter over all the Tribes; it was by the popular Censors, Fabius and Decius, that they were thrown back into the Four City Tribes. When they had again broken these bonds, the rule of Fabius and Decius was renewed by a man branded by Livy with the name and character of demagogue, namely C. Flaminius, who fell at the Lake Trasimene; and it was the father of the Gracchi who confined them even to a single Tribe. Cato, the most popular man of his day, was all in favour of the rural population, and it was their sufferings that first awakened the sympathies of Tib. Gracchus. We must not, then, import our notions of “popular men” into this portion of Roman history. By “popular men” we mean those who favour the people of the towns; at Rome the term meant those who supported the people of the country. There was, properly speaking, no large and independent Middle Class, consisting of shopkeepers and small traders of all kinds, such as are found in all parts of Western Europe; for these crafts were filled by the Freedmen and dependents of the rich. The conflict lay, therefore, between the Nobility and the country voters, though in a few years the Equestrian Order stepped in as a New Nobility to embroil the strife.

§ 11. An important consequence of this relation of parties was that^-by dexterous management the Nobility were able to obtain great influence in the Comitia. Popular choice was already much limited by the fact that wealth was required for the discharge of public office. It was further limited by the fact that at many seasons of the year the country people of the more distant Tribes could not leave their harvesting to give their votes at Rome. In this case the great Landowners, and all who were not obliged personally to labour on their estates, represented the country tribes. Thus we may understand why, at some seasons, the Nobility carried elections against the will of the popular party, while at other times this party obtained easy victories over the Nobility.

§ I. Vain attempts to cheek immorality by the Censorship, and by Law. § 2. Religion. § 3. Public opinion: Literature. § 4. Ennius. § 5. Comedy. § 6. Plautus and Terence. § 1. Characteristics of their Plays. § a Csecilius and Afraniua. §. 9. Tragedy: Pacuvius and Attius. § IQ. Reasons why the Drama had little success at Rome. §11. Satire: Luci-lius. § 12. Prose Writers. § 13. Study of Law and Oratory. § 14. Art.

§ 1. Enough has been said in more than one chapter of the foregoing Book to prove the rapid decline in morality which followed the Punic Wars. The rankness ©f vice was felt by all Romans of "better feeling and truer patriotism. In consequence of the growing corruption of the age, an attempt was made to check the evil in a manner characteristic of the Roman mind, namely, by the moral superintendence of the Censors. Cato, the very type of a Roman, wielded this enormous power without compromise ; and if penal Edicts could have arrested social changes or enforced moral obligations, the Censorial power in the hands of such a man as Cato must have done it. But though his spirit descended, in some measure, upon succeeding Censors, the undertaking proved vain.

Sumptuary Laws, Laws against Bribery, and the like, were also tried by those who still clung to the hope of reviving the old Roman simplicity. The history of all nations, or rather the history of human nature, would teach us the vanity of such endeavours. They were not more successful at Rome than they have since been ‘in other lands.

§ 2. It must not, however, be imagined that there were no exceptions to the rule of corrupt and licentious living, which began to prevail at Rome in this period. In the foregoing chapters many such have been specified, and if the records of the time were more complete, names now forgotten might be added to the list. But in the most upright Romans, such as Cato, there is something harsh and repulsive; and now, more remarkably than ever, was their acknowledgment of social duties confined to the circle of their own countrymen. Nothing can be more detestable than the public morality of Rome throughout her career of conquest. No arts were too base to be used by her statesmen and generals. In the fulfilmeut of positive contracts, indeed, their good faith was much greater than tho Greeks were accustomed to; and Polybius, in a passage already cited, gives them high praise in this particular. But the religious feelings which he attributes to them were fast decaying. Those who lived in open profligacy could know nothing of religion but its formalities, which it was necessary for every Roman to observe, because they were inextricably entangled with political business and military enterprises. Men of education sought a substitute in Greek Philosophy; and here, it may be noticed that the best Romans, such as JEmilius Paullus and the younger Scipio, professed the stern and practical doctrines of the Stoic school. .

§ 3. Nor was the progress of corruption checked by the great Censor of modern times, Public Opinion. This force can never fully operate in large communities except through the Press. Whatever be the abuses of the Press, and they are great, its uses are greater far. At Athens the place of this potent instrument was in some measure supplied by the free and vigorous satire of the Comic Poets. But at Rome even this was wanting. Tho rude Roman took little pleasure in exquisite poetry and keen wit, such as that with which Aristophanes or Eupolis enchained the ear of an Athenian audience; nay, the wild buffoonery with which even Attic poets were obliged to amuse the multitude, failed to please those whose youth had been spent in the camp and on the battle-field. Yet there was a Literature at Rome, and we will here resume the account of it from the point at which we before broke off.

“* § 4. It was said that the native poetry of Rome suddenly gave way to an invasion from Greece; and that Na3vius, though he made a brave stand against the prevailing taste, yet lived to see the triumph of Ennius, an avowed Hellenist. The vigour and force with which the new poet used the heroic metre of Homer paay be seen from a few specimens, which Yirgil borrowed and incorporated with slight alteration in his great Epic.* Ennius, like Livius and Najvius, wrote Tragedies and Comedies, which he translated from the .Greek. But the work on which his fame rested was his great Epic poem entitled the Annals of Rome, in eighteen books. The first six of these contained a rapid narrative of the early History: the seventh began with the Second Punic War, so that to this great theme the bulk of the Poem was devoted. He boasts that he was the first who abandoned the rude metre used “by Fauns and Bards,” and studied the elegancies of style; and he is acknowledged by Lucretius as the poet

Nor was his boast empty. It is manifest that Ennius, by his Poem on the Punic Wars, formed and settled the Latin language, much as Shakspere and the Translators of the Bible formed and settled English. No doubt Yirgil culled the fairest flowers; but even the fastidious taste of Horace could recognise true poetic spirit in some lines of Ennius, though, at a later period of his lifg, he sneered at the old bard’s prctensions.f The devotion of Cicero to Ennius is absolute. So long did his popularity last, that Seneca, writing in the time of Nero, calls the Roman People Populus Ennianus, and portions of his poems were commonly recited in the theatres down to the time of the Emperor Aurelius. .

§ 5. Meantime, besides Tragedy, of which we have spoken, there had arisen at Rome a Comic Drama, of high excellence. Comic entertainments of a rude kind had prevailed from early times. But the Fcscennine Dialogues and the Atellane Mimes, of which we spoke in a former page, had no relation to what was called Comedy at Rome. This, like Tragedy, was merely

“ Impulit ipsa manu portas, et cardine verso Belli ferratos rupit Saturnia postes.”—Yirgil.

^ | He recogniscs tho poetic spirit in 1 Serm. iv. 60 sq.; he adopts a depreciatory tone in 2 Epht. i. 50 sq.

transplanted from Greece. Probably all the old poets from Livius Andronicus to Ennius, who tianslated Greek Tragedies for the Roman stage, also translated Greek Comedies. Naevius, as we have seen, tried a more independent course, and was persecuted for his pains. The Comedies, in which he attacked the Metelli and others, must have rather resembled the Old Comedy of Athens, in which it was usual to indulge in the most open personalities; while the Roman Comic Dramas known to us are borrowed from the New Comedy of Meander and Diphilus, in which the characters represent not particular persons, but whole classes of society. It is evident, at once, that such dramas would have little effect, as will appear when we have given some account of the chief Comic Poets and their works.

§ C. T. Maccius Plautus was a native Italian, having been born at Sarsina, a petty town of Umbria, near the close of the First Punic War. Ilis father was a Freedman : he led a careless, jovial life, frequenting taverns, and entering into the humours of the people, rather than seekiug the patronage of the great. His plays were not without reward; but he was sometimes obliged to labour like a slave for his daily bread. He died in 184 b.c. at a good old age. Twenty of his comedies still remain.

P. Terentius Afer appears to have been born at Carthage about the year 195 B.C., and was therefore some half-century younger than Plautus. In his youth he was the slave of a wealthy Roman, named P. Terentius Lucanus, whose first names he adopted (according to custom) on obtaining his freedom. Ilis first play was the Andria, which he finished in liis twenty-seventh year, and it won him the acquaintance and patronage of Scipio vEmilianus and Lajlius, who were then young men, studying Greek under Polybius. His Adelphi was acted (by a strange abuse) at the funeral games of ^Emilius Paullus, and the charge that he was assisted in translating from Diphilus by his young patrons is at least not discountenanced by the poet.¹²⁹ He died at the early age of thirty-four; and probably the six comedies which we still possess entire were all that he ever wrote. •

§ 7. The characteristic excellences of the two poets correspond with the manners of their lives. As far as the plots go, there is little to praise. The same generic characters appear and reappear in eveiy play. Both Plautus and Terence content tbem-

selves with giving us, at second hand, weak fathers who leave their sons to the care of roguish slaves; and represent the sons as determined to woo and win penniless girls, in which aim ,liey were aided by the clever knavery of the slaves. In the end, a reconciliation is brought about by the discovery that the dreaded mistress is the lost daughter of a brother or some particular friend of tlie father; so that the young man gains his point, and the slave, instead of being punished for his trickery, is rewarded for his adroitness. Sometimes a Captain Bobadil, cuch as in Greece were common after the Macedonian Wars, stupid, braggart, and rich with plunder, is made a butt for all kinds of jokes, verbal and practical, and he is attended by a Parasite, who flatters him extravagantly, and is rewarded (as his name shows) by a place at the Captain’s table.

But the tone and manner in which these unpromising characters were employed by the two writers are extremely different. Plautus, coarser and more free-spoken, admits much of broad Roman humour, and introduces many Roman customs into his scenes. Terence, veiling even immoral thoughts in a style polished almost to coldness, keeps closer to his Attic original, and seldom ventures to mar its unity by foreign admixture.- The Parasite in Plautus tickles his master’s vanity by a coarseness of flattery that would have put Falstaff to the blush: the Parasite of Terence falls into his lord’s vein with such easy assentation, that a less stupid man might be deceived.¹³⁰ The Son of Plautus, thwarted in his desires, prays for his father’s death, that he may bestow the inheritance on his mistress :f the Son of Terence, grieved for the deceit he has practised upon his father, breaks into passionate self-reproach.J There is a racy freshness in the style of Plautus which well deserves the praise bestowed by Cicero, and was so admired by some Roman critics, as to draw from them the extravagant praise, that, “ if the Muses spoke Latin, they would use the tongue of Plautusand if Horace speaks slightingly of him, as of Ennius, it must be said that he was provoked by the fashion which in his day prevailed of over-rating the old Roman writers. The style of Terence is a very model of precision, elegance, and purity, as is testified by Cicero and by Caesar, though the latter laments a certain deficiency of comic vigour, wlrich made him only “ half a Menander.”*

§ 8. Besides these two famous writers, may be mentioned Q. Cajcilius, a Comic poet, who died about two years before tho Andria of Terence was acted, and who was coupled with Terence in a manner that implies his excellence.! lie was a Milanese by birth, and, like Terence, came to Rome as a slave.

Another Comic poet of somewhat later date deserves particular notice. This was L. Afranius, who ventured, like Nasvius, to write Comedies on Roman subjects, though he still seems to havo drawn upon Menander for his dialogue.];

§ 9. To those short notices of the Comic Poets, we may add a still shorter account of the two Tragic writers who flourished at the same time.

Pacuvius, sister’s son of Ennius, was born in the year before Hannibal crossed the Alps, and lived to the age of eighty, so that he died about the same time with Terence. Most of his Tragedies, like those of his predecessors, were borrowed from the Greek. But he wrote one play named Paullus, of which the hero was the conqueror of Macedon.

Attius, or Accius, began to bring forward plays in the year of the death of Pacuvius (139 B.C.). He also, besides his Greek translations, produced two plays with Roman arguments, The Brutus and The Deeius. The subjects were the Delivery of Rome from the Tarquins, and the Self-sacrifice of that Deeius who fell at the battle of Sentinum. They were produced, as the name of the first testifies, under the patronage of Dec. Brutus Callaicus, who carried the Roman arms to the verge of the Atlantic, and who entered

Lenibua atque utinam scriptis adjuncta foret via Comica, ut aequato virtus polleret honors

■j- ^u Vincere Caeciliua gravitate, Terentiua arte.”—Ilorat. 2. Epist. L 59. This was the popular opinion, not Horace’s.

\ “ Dicitur Afranl toga convenisse Menander,” says Horace (2 Epist. L 57). Comedies in which the Dramatis Person® were Roman, and wore Roman dresses, were called Fabulas Togntce, while those in which the Greek names and dresaea were retained* which was usually the ease, were called Palliates.

into a generous rivalry witli Scipio in patronage of Poetry.¹³¹ The few remains of Attius are terse and vigorous ; and the loss of his historical plays cannot but be matter of regret.f .

§ 10. Enough has been- said to show that this literature, can have produced very little effect upon the manners and morals of Rome. It was wholly of foreign growth. What interest could the people at large take in the Grecian dramas ? “ What Was Hecuba to them, or they to Hecuba ?” The Roman Drama was an exotic, which subsisted by the patronage of the great men, who spoke Greek as readily as Latin. The Roman Dramatic Poets were mostly Slaves or Freedmen, whose object was to please th,e great family to which they were attached. When any One, as Nasvius, attempted to tread a freer course, his mouth was stopped by persecution.

The common life and interests of a Roman citizen every year made him less disposed for intellectual. amusements. From childhood he was used to the splendid games, which every succeeding JEdile tried to make more splendid. Triumph after triumph raised a love of gorgeous exhibitions, which was ill-satisfied by the poetry and action of the Stage. Above all, the bloody sports of the gladiatorial .combats, which were first exhibited at the funeral games of a Brutus (264 B.C.), created a craving for strong and real excitements, which no dramatic illusions could supply. This tendency in the vulgar was seconded by the old Roman spirit, which regarded the Drama as a foreign innovation, calculated to enervate and corrupt. Dramatic representations at Rome were but occasional, and the Theatres were but temporary booths, removed when the festival-time was past. In the year 155 b.c. the Censor Cassius wished to perpetuate the memory of his office by building a stone Theatre; but the Consul P. Scipio Nasica, a rigid stickler for old Roman customs, interfered to prevent the work; nor was any stone Theatre erected at Rome till tho second Consulship of Pompey the Great, exactly one century later. But the Theatres, such as they were, were not so much used for dramatic purposes in the proper sense of the word, as for tho representation of gorgeous spectacles and magnificent processions. In a tragedy, whose subject was tho Fall of Troy, it was not tho fate of Priam or the sorrows of Andromache that touched the hearts of the audi¹³² once, but a host of soldiers in foreign arms and strange apparel that amused their eyes. In Horace’s time this corruption of taste had reached its height. Tho taste of tho people, ho says, is all for bear-baiting and boxing-matches. Nor could tho educated classes boast of a better taste. Tho love of military shows and spectacles had overpowered all merely intellectual pleasures.*

§ 11. One species of Poetry remains to bo mentioned, which arose in tho same period, and for which alone tho Romans can claim tho merit of original invention,—that, namely, which Horace and Juvenal have made so well known under tho namo of Satire. It originated, doubtless, with those rustic effusions called the Fescennine Dialogues, which had served from early times to attack tho foibles and fashions of the day. This rude instrument was taken up by a great poet, who used it so as not only to assail and censure, but also to convey positive instruction.-)-This Poet was named C. Lucilius. IIo was born at Suessa Aurunca in 148 B.C., served in tho Equites under Scipio in tho Numantino war, and continued on intimate terms with tho younger Ljelius, after tho death of his more illustrious friend. He died about tho year 103 b.c. at Naples, to which place he had retired from tho civil broils which disturbed tlie City. Tho muse of Lucilius was very fluent. Of his numerous Satires only fragments now remain; "but many of these show that ho possessed a vigour of thought and pungency of style not unworthy of the master of Horace and Juvenal. In tho Augustan age, indeed, tho admiration for Lucilius was so great, that Horace thought it necessary to moderate tho fervour of his admirers, and gave so much offence that ho was obliged to enter into an

explanation of the Satire whieh lie had written upon the first writer of Satires.*

§ 12. Little need here be added with respeet to Prose Literature. It beeame a fashionable employment for Romans of high family to eompose narratives of portions of Roman history, after the example set by Fabius Pietor and Cineius Alimentus. The instruction of the people eould but little be consulted, when books were all written by hand, and were, therefore, both scarce and eostly. But any such purpose was disavowed by the faet, that most of these ehronielers wrote in Greek, just as the English, Freneh, and German authors of the Middle ages wrote in Latin.

§ 13. The study of law had before this begun to be eommon at Rome, and men little fitted for military life eourted popular favour by giving legal adviee to numerous elients. But this subjeet belongs properly to the succeeding age. Men of the Forum were still expeeted to take the command of armies, even when their inefficiency was certain. Such was the case with the Consuls who began the Third Punie War.

But there was a kindred pursuit, whieh already brought fame and profit to those who professed it, namely, the art of Public Speaking. The praetiee of indicting great offenders before the people, or prosecuting them in the Law-eourts, encouraged Fo-rensie Oratory. Deliberative or Parliamentary speaking found an open field, not only in the Senate, but in the great Assemblies of the People. And the faculties of the Romans seem to have readily adapted themselves to the requirement. In his work on the Orators of Rome,f Cieero enumerates some even of this early date, whose speeches were still thought worth reading. Such was Appius Claudius the Censor, whose dying eloquence led the Senate to reject the persuasive offers of Cineas; sueh was Sergius Galba, whose pathetic language procured his own acquittal from the charge of oppression in Spain; sueh was old Cato, for many years the favourite orator of the Forum. The study of the art of Speaking was, indeed, the chief part of a young Roman’s edueation. When he had gone through some' grammatical teaehing, and read some of the old poets, he passed into the sehool of a Rlietorieal master, and learned to repeat famous speeehes, sueh as those of Galba, and to frame speeches of his own on imaginary subjeets. But the old Romans objected to these novel practices. Greek Rhetoricians were their chief abomination. In the year 161 b.c., a Decree of the Senato was launehed even against Latin Philosophers and Rhetoricians; and

the Praetor Pomponius was instructed to sec that no such persons remained at Rome. Of the prompt measures taken by Cato to remove Carneades six years later we have spoken. But the fashion was gradually tolerated and finally prevailed.

§ 14. Roman Art became more and more a mere name, except so far as engineering and building came into that province. We have nothing to add here to the remarks made in a former chapter. The story of Mummius and the Corinthian statues is, in a somewhat grotesque form, an epitome of genuine Roman taste and feeling in respect to the Fine Arts.

1. Necessity of Reform. § 2. Youth and education of Tib. Gracchus. § 3. Elected Tribune. § 4. The Country Citizens chiefly interested in an Agrarian Law. § 5. Provisions of the Law proposed by Gracchus. § 6. Opposition to tho Law: question as to its justice. § 7. Feeling in its favour: Octavius, a Tribune, undertakes to bar it. § 8. Proceedings at the First Assembly. § 9. Efforts of both parties. § 10. Proceedings at

the Second Assembly. §11. Tho Third Assembly: Octavius deposed, tho Law passed, Three Commissioners elected. § 12. Bequest of Attalus: Gracchus proposes to employ it in stocking the new allotments. § 13. Accusations against Gracchus in tho Senate: decrease of popularity. § 14. He defends his own conduct. § 15. Offers himself for re-election: brings forward popular measures. § 16. The Comitia adjourned: preparations for a struggle. § 17. Tumult: death of Gracchus. § 18. Estimate of his character.

8 1. It appears that before the time of Scipio’s election to conduct the Numantian War, it had become a prevalent opinion that some measures were necessary to arrest the social evils of which we have spoken above. The frightful excesses of the Servile War called attention still more strongly to the subject; and in the year that Scipio achieved the conquest of Numantia a leader appeared who was endowed with courage, firmness, self-confidence, ability, eloquence, and every requisite for political success, except a larger experience and a larger share of patience and selfcontrol.

§ 2. Ti. Sempronius Gracchus was son of one of the few Romans in whom public spirit prevailed over the spirit of party. Though personally hostile to the great Scipio, we saw him interfere between him and his foes. After the death of Africanus, the chiefs of the party offered him the hand of Cornelia, the only surviving daughter of the hero; and from this marriage twelve sons and one daughter were born in rapid succession. The eldest, Tiberius, saw the light about 166 B.C., but the father died before his eldest son reached man’s estate, and Cornelia was left a widow with her children. The daughter lived; but of all the twelve sons only two grew up,—Tiberius, and Caius who was nine years younger. To the education of these precious relics Cornelia devoted all the energies of her masculine mind. She even refused an offer to share the throne of the King of Egypt. Her dearest task was to watch the opening capacities of her boys. Such was her hope of their greatness that she used to say she would be known not as the Daughter of Scipio, but as the Mother of the Gracchi.

According to the fashion of the day, Greek teachers were called in to educate the boys. Blossius of Cumae, and Diophanes a Mitylenajan exile, are mentioned as the instructors, and in later life as the friends, of Tiberius. Scarcely had Tiberius assumed the garb of manhood when he was elected into the College of Augurs. At the banquet given to celebrate his installation, App. Claudius, the Chief of the Senate, offered him his daughter’s hand in marriage. When the proud Senator returned home, he told his wife that he had that day betrothed their daughter.

“ Ah!” she cried, ^u she is too young: it had been well to wait a while,—unless indeed young Gracchus is the man.” Soon after liis marriage he accompanied Scipio to Carthage, where he was the first to scale the walls.

The personal importance of Gracchus was strengthened by the marriage of Scipio with his only sister. But this marriage proved unhappy. Sempronia had no charms of person, and her temper was not good; Scipio’s austere manners were little pleasing to a bride; nor were children born to form a bond of union between them.

§ 3. It was when Gracchus was about thirty years old (137 b.c.) that he served as Quajstor in Spain. Before this, when he travelled through Etruria to join the army, he had noted her broad lands tilled not by free yeomen as of old, but by slaves. Soon after this the Slave War broke out. He spoke his sentiments freely, and public opinion designated him as the man who was to undertake the thankless office of Reformer. In all places of public resort the walls were covered with inscriptions calling on Gracchus to vindicate the rights of all Roman citizens to a share in the State lands. He presented himself as a candidate for the Tribunate, and was elected.

§ 4. In the beginning of 133 b.c. he entered upon office. He liad already prepared men for his projected legislation by eloquent speeches, in which he compared the present state of Italy with her olden time, deplored the decay of her yeomen and farmers, and the lack of free men to serve in the legions. All his arguments pointed towards some measures for restoring the class of small landed proprietors who were dwindling fast away.

§ 5. In a short time his plan was matured and his Bill brought forward. He proposed to revise the Licinian Law of 364 b.c., by which it was enacted that no head of a family should hold more than 500 jugera (nearly 320 acres) of the Public Land; but to render the rule less stringent, he added that every son of the family might, on becoming liis own master, hold half that quantity in addition. Whoever was in possession of more was to give up the excess at once to the State; but to obviate complaints of injustice, he proposed that those who gave up possession should be entitled to a fair compensation for any improvements they liad made during the term of their possession. All Public Lands were to be vested in three Commissioners (Triumviri), who were to be elected by the Tribes. Their business was to distribute the Public Lands to all citizens in needy circumstances: and to prevent lands so distributed being again absorbed into the estates of the rich Landowners, the sale of the new allotments was altogether prohibited.

§ G. The greater part of these Public Lands had fallen into the hands of the rich Landowners. They had held them on payment of a small yearly rent, for generations: and many of these persons had forgotten perhaps that their possession could be disturbed. After the first surprise was over, the voices of these Landholders began to be heard; but as yet the majority of the Senate showed no disfavour to the law of Gracchus.¹³³ The persons interested alleged that the measure, though it pretended only to interfere with State lands, did in fact interfere with the rights of private property; for these lands were held on public lease and had been made matters of purchase and sale, moneys were secured on them for the benefit of widows and orphans, tombs had been erected on them: if this law passed, no man’s land could be called his own.

If Gracchus had proposed a forcible and immediate resumption of all State lands, without compensation for moneys spent on them, these arguments would have had more weight. Rights arise by prescription; and if the State had for a long course of time tacitly recognised a right of private property in these lands, it would have been a manifest injustice thus abruptly to resume possession. But the Licinian Law was evidence that the State claimed a right to interfere with the tenure of the Public Lands. That the Romans felt no doubt about the right is shown by the fact that in framing his law Tiberius was assisted by his father-in-law App. Claudius, the Chief of the Senate, and by P. Mucius Scsevola, Consul of the year, the best lawyer at Rome, and a man of unquestionable integrity. The right was clear: the only question was as to the expediency of the measure.

§ V. It is certain that the Law would be carried in all the country Tribes, because it was precisely in these Tribes that the strength of Gracchus lay, and all his arguments show that he knew it. It was to the country people, who had lost or were afraid of losing their little tenements, that he spoke. “ The wild animals of Italy,” said he, “ have their dens and lairs: the men who have fought for Italy have air and light,—nothing more. They are styled masters of the world, though they have not a clod of earth they can call their own.” One course only remained open to the Landholders for thwarting the bold Tribune, and this was to gain over one of his brother Tribunes to interpose the fatal veto. They fixed on M. Octavius. For a time he was inexorable, but at length he gave way to their arguments; and on the night before the day on which the Law was to be proposed, the holders of Public Lands went to rest with lightened hearts.

§ 8. The morning came. The Forum was crowded with people expecting the completion of the great measure which was to restore some share in the broad lands of Italy to the sons of those who had won them. Strange faces were seen everywhere : vinedressers from Campania and the Auruncan hills, peasants from the Sabine and ^Equian valleys, farmers of valley and plain from the Clanis to the Vulturnus.

Graechus rose. His speech was received with loud applause by the eager multitude. When he had ended, he turned to the clerk, and bade him read over the words of the Law before it was put to the vote.. Then Octavius stood up and forbade the man to read. Graeehus was taken by surprise. After much debate he broke up the Assembly, declaring that he would again bring on his defeated Bill upon the next regular day of meeting.

§ 9. This intervening time was spent in preparing for the contest. Graeehus retaliated upon the veto of Octavius by laying an interdict on all public functionaries, shut up the courts of justice and the offices of police, and put a seal upon the doors of the Treasury. Further, he struck the compensation clauses out of his Bill, and now simply proposed that the State should resume possession of all lands held by individuals in contravention of the Licinian Law.

§ 10. On the day of the second Assembly Gracehns appeared in the Forum escorted by a body-guard. Again he ordered the elerk to read the Bill; again Octavius stood forth, and barred all proceedings. A violent scene followed, and a riot seemed inevitable, when two Senators, friends of Graeehus—one named Fulvius Flaceus—earnestly besought him to refer the whole matter to the Senate. Graeehus consented. But his late impatienf conduct had weakened whatever influence his name possessed in the great Council, and his appearance was the signal for a burst of reproaches. He hastily left the House,' and returning to the Forum gave out that on the next day of Assembly he would for the third time propose his measure; and that, if Octavius persisted in opposition, he would move the People to depose their unfaithful Tribune.

§11- As the day approached, Graeehus made every effort to avoid this desperate necessity; but Octavius’ repelled every advance, and on the morning of the third Assembly, Graeehus rose at once and moved that Octavius should be deprived of the trust which he had betrayed.

The country Tribe, which obtained by lot the prerogative of voting first, was called, and its suffrage was unanimous for the deposition of Octavius; sixteen Tribes followed in the same sense; the eighteenth would give a majority of the thirty-five, and its vote would determine the question. As this Tribe came up to vote, Gracchus stopped the proceedings, and besought Octavius not to force on the irrevocable step. The Tribune wavered : but he caught the eye of one of his rich friends, and turned coldly from Tiberius. Then the eighteenth Tribe was called, and by its vote Octavius was in a moment stripped of his sacred office.

The Bill itself was then passed by acclamation, and three Commissioners destined to execute its provisions were elected,— Tiberius himself, his father-in-law App. Claudius, his brother Caius, then a youth of twenty, serving under Scipio in Spain. The Law was not deemed safe unless it was intrusted for execution to Tiberius and his kinsmen.

§ 12. In a few weeks Gracchus had risen to the summit of power. lie seldom stirred from home without being followed by a crowd. The Numantian AVar and the Servile AVar still lingered, and the government of the Senate was not in a condition to defy attack. That body now was thoroughly alarmed, and Gracchus soon proceeded to measures which touched them in their tenderest point. Attalus Philometor, King of Pergamus, the last of the line of Eumenes, was just dead, and had bequeathed his kingdom with all his lands and treasure to the Roman People. In ordinary times the Senate, as the administrator of all foreign and financial affairs, would at once have assumed the disposition of this bequest; but Gracchus promptly gave notice that he would propose a Bill to enact that the moneys of Attalus should be distributed to those who were to receive allotments of Public Land, in order to assist them in purchasing stock, in erecting farm-buildings, and the like; and he added that he would bring the subject of its future government before the People without allowing the Senate to interfere. He thus openly announced a revolution.

§ 13. When Gracchus next appeared in the Senate-house, he was accused of receiving a purple robe and diadem from the envoy of the late King of Pergamus. T. Annius, an old Senator, who had been Consul twenty years before, openly taxed the Tribune with violating the Constitution. Gracchus, stung to the quick by this last assault, indicted the old Consular for treason against the majesty of the People. Annius appeared; but before Gracchus could speak, he said : “I suppose, if one of your brother Tribunes offers to protect me, you will fly into a passion and depose him also.” Gracchus saw the effect produced upon his hearers, and broke up the Assembly.

Law, by which he had made the Triumviri absolute judges, without appeal, on disputed questions with regard to property in land. Many allotments of Public Land had been granted, of which the titles had been lost; and every person holding under such condition saw his property placed at the mercy of irresponsible judges.

§ 14. Gracchus felt that his popularity was shaken, and at the next Assembly he thought it necessary to make a set speech to vindicate his conduct in deposing Octavius. The sum of his arguments amounts to a plea of necessity. It is true that the Constitution of Rome provided no remedy against the abuse of power by an officer, except the shortness of time during which lie held office and his liability to indictment at the close of that time. The Tribunician authority, originally demanded to protect the People, might have turned against the People. But was not it open to Gracchus to propose a Law by which the veto of a single Tribune might be limited in its effect ? Or might he not have waited patiently for the election of new set of Tribunes, and taken care that all were tried friends of his Law ? Instead of this he preferred a coup-d’etat, and thus set an example which was sure to be turned against himself.

§ 15. The violent language of Nasica and his party made it plain that in the next year, when his person was no longer protected by the sanctity of the Tribunician office, he would be vigorously assailed. He therefore determined to offer himself for reelection at the approaching Comitia of the Tribes. But his election was far from secure. Harvest-work occupied the country voters; many had grown cold; the mass of those who resided in the city were clients and dependents of the Nobility. It was to regain and extend his popularity that he now brought forward three measures calculated to please all classes except the Senatorial families. First, he proposed to diminish the necessary period of Military Sendee. Secondly, he announced a reform of the superior Law-courts, by which the juries were to be taken not from the Senators only, but from all persons possessing a certain amount of property,—a measure which was sure to please the wealthy contractors and tax-collectors. Thirdly, he provided an Appeal in all cases from the law-courts to the Assembly of the People.

These measures, which in altered forms were afterwards carried by his brother Caius, were only brought forward by Tiberius. But this was enough. Ilis popularity returned in full tide.

§ 16. When the day of the election came, the Prerogative Tribe gave its vote for Gracchus and his friends; so also the next. But it was objected that the same man could Pot be chosen in two successive years; and after a hot debate the Assembly was adjourned till next day.

It wanted yet some hours of nightfall. Gracchus came forth into the Forum, clad in black, and leading his young son by the hand; In anticipation of his untimely end, he committed his precious charge to his fellow citizens. All hearts were touched. The people surrounded him with eager gesticulations, and cscorted him home, bidding him be of good cheer for the morrow. Many of his warmest adherents kept guard at his doors all night.

§ 17. The adjourned Assembly met next morning upon the Capitol, and the area in front of the Temple of Jupiter was filled chiefly by the adherents of Gracchus, among whom the Tribune was himself conspicuous, in company with his Greek friend and preceptor Blossius of Cumoe. The Senate also assembled hard by in the Temple of Faith. Nasica rose and urged the presiding Consul to stop the reelection. But Scaevola declined.*

On this, Fulvius Flaccus left the Senate, informed Gracchus of the speech of Nasica, and told him that his death was resolved upon. Then the friends of Gracchus girded up their gowns and armed themselves with staves, for the purpose of repelling force by force. In the midst of the uproar Gracchus raised his hand to his head. Ilis enemies cried that he was asking for a crown. Exaggerated reports were carried into the Senate-house, and Nasica exclaimed, “ The Consul is betraying the Republic: those who would save their country, follow me!” So saying, he drew the skirt of his gown over his head, after the manner used by the Pontifex Maximus in solemn acts of worship. A number of Senators followed, and the people respectfully made way. But the Nobles and their partisans broke up the benches that had been set out for the Assembly, and began an assault upon the adherents of Gracchus, who fled in disorder. Gracchus abandoned all thoughts of resistance: he left his gown in the hands of a friend who sought to detain him, and made towards the Temple of Jupiter. But the priests had closed the doors; and in his haste he stumbled over a bench and fell. As he was rising, one of his own colleagues struck him on the head with a stool; another claimed the honour of repeating the blow; and before the statues of the old kings at the portico of the Temple the Tribune lay dead. Many of his adherents were slain with him: many were forced over the wall at the edge of the Tar-peian Rock, and were killed by their fall. Not fewer than three hundred lost their lives in the fray.

* Piso, the other Consul, was employed in extinguishing the Slave-war in Sicily.—Chapt. xlviii. § 11.

Caius had just returned from Spain, and asked leave to bury liis brother’s corpse. This was refused. The triumphant party ordered the bodies of Tiberius and his friends to be thrown into the Tiber before morning.

§ 18. Tiberius Gracchus must be allowed the name of Great, if greatness be measured by the effects produced upon society by the action of a single mind, rather than by the length of time during which power is held, or the success that follows upon bold enterprises. He held office not more than seven months ;¹³⁴ and in that short time he so shook the power of the Senate, that it never entirely recovered from the blow. His nature was noble; his views and wishes those of a true patriot. But he was impatient of opposition, and by his abrupt and violent conduct provoked a resistance which he might have avoided. When the moment of action came, his temper was too gentle, or his will too irresolute, to take the bold course which his own conduct and that of the Senate had rendered necessary.

When Scipio, in the camp before Numantia, heard of his kinsman’s end, he exclaimed in the words of Homer:—

But the sequel will show that it was not so much of the political measures of Gracchus that Scipio disapproved, as of the impatience which he had shown and the violence which he had used in carrying them. Such defects of character were of all most displeasing to a soldier and a Stoic.

§ 1. Prcvalcnce of the moderate Party in the Senate: P. Crassus elected Triumvir to succced Tib. Gracchus : Nasica obliged to quit Rome. § 2. A Commission issued to try the accomplices of Gracchus. § 3. Scipio returns from Spain: his sympathies with tho Italian yeomen. § 4. His opposition to the City populace. § 5. Scipio and Crassus competitors for command: Crassus elccted: Censorship of Metellus and Pompeius, two Plebeians. § 6. Death of Crassus in Asia, and of App. Claudius: Fulvius Flaccus and Carbo elected Triumviri in their stead. § 7. Proceedings of Carbo to give cffcct to the Agrarian Law. § 8. Arbitrary decisions on tenure of Public Lands: great offence given to the Italians. § 9. They entreat Scipio to undertake their cause: failure of his schemc. § 10. Speech of Scipio in the Senate : intention to speak in the Forum next day: he is found dead in his bed. § 11. Suspicions of murder. § 12. Character of Scipio.

§ 1. The struggle had now commenced between the Oligarchy and Democracy. This struggle was to last till the Dictator Sylla for a time restored the Senate to sovereignty, which was wrested from them again by a Dictator yet more potent than Sylla. But we shouid be wrong to assume that the Senate and the Oligarchy

were always identical. At times they were so, for at times the violent party among the Nobles were in command of a majority in the Senate; but a moderate party always existed, who stood between the Nobility and the Democracy. It was the violent party, headed by Nasica, not the body itself, which was responsible for the death of Gracchus. The Senate did not support them.

The People were allowed to proceed quietly to the election of a new Commissioner in the place of Gracchus, and their choice fell on P. Licinius Crassus, brother by blood of the Consul Scaevola, who had been adopted into the family of the Crassi. Ilis daughter had lately been married to young Caius Gracchus, and he now bccame the acknowledged leader of the party.

Nor did the Senate attempt to shield Nasica from popular indignation. He was branded as the murderer of Gracchus, and his friends advised him to quit Italy, though, as Chief Pontifex, he was prohibited from doing so. Not long time after he died at Pergamus, and Crassus succeeded him in the Pontificate.

§ 2. But in the course of the next year (132 b.c.) the Senate was induced to give the new Consuls a Commission to inquire into the conduct of those who had abetted Gracchus. They began their proceedings by associating with themselves C. Laelius, a man of known moderation. Before the inquiry commenced, Lselius sent for Blossius, and questioned him privately as to his part in the late disturbances. He excused himself on the ground that he had only followed the Tribune’s orders. “That,” said Lselius, “is no excuse. What would you have done if he had ordered you to set the Capitol on fire?” “Gracchus,” replied Blossius, “could never have given such an order.” “ But if he had ?” insisted Laelius. “ Then,” said Blossius, “ I would have done it.” This bold partisan, however, was suffered to escape. Diophanes of Mitylene, another of the preceptors of Gracchus, was arrested by the Consuls and put to death. Others also lost their lives, and some escaped death by exile. These whole proceedings were in violation of the Laws of Appeal; for the Consuls had no legal power to try and condemn within the City. •

§ 3. It was not probably till the autumn of this year that Scipio celebrated his Numantian triumph. It was not gorgeous with spoils and a long train of captives, for the Numantians had buried themselves and their possessions beneath the ruins of their city. But the prescncc of Scipio, at this moment, was or might be pregnant with results; and as he passed in procession to the Capitol, many eyes turned to him with expectation. It might be thought that his approval of the death of Gracchus

sufficiently indicated what part he intended to take. But it was possible for him to disapprove of the conduct of Gracchus without disapproving of his purpose. The countrymen of Latium and Italy had fought under him at Carthage and at Nuinantia. It was known that among the rest he had shown especial honour to a young soldier of Arpinum, of humble birth and rude manners. On one occasion he had invited this youth to supper, and placed him by his side; and when some flatterer asked where a general could be found to succeed him, “ Perhaps here,” he said, laying his hand on the young soldier’s arm. The name of the youth was C. Manus.

§ 4. Whatever doubt might rest on Scipio’s intentions, he soon made it clear that he had no intention of holding out a hand to the Civic Populace. One of the partisans of Gracchus, by name C. Papirius Carbo, a man of ready wit, but in character turbulent, reckless, and unprincipled, hoped to raise himself to importance by means of this rabble. He was Tribune for the year, and had carried a law for extending the use of the ballot into the legislative assemblies of the People. He now brought forward another bill, making it legal to reelect a Tribune to a second year of office. Scipio and Laelius opposed the measure, and the former spoke so warmly against it, that it was rejected by the Tribes, though young C. Gracchus made his first public speech in its favour. It was then that Carbo publicly demanded of Scipio what he thought of the death of Gracchus. “ That he was rightly put to death,” Scipio promptly replied. At these words an angry shout was raised. Scipio turned sternly to the quarter from which it came,—“ Peace,” he said, “ ye stepsons of Italy: remember who it was that brought you in chains to Rome.”

§ 5. Early in the following year, however (131 B.C.), an incident occurred which also parted Scipio from Crassus. The Consuls for the year were Crassus himself and L. Valerius Flaccus. The former was Pontifex Maximus, the latter was Flamen of Mars. It happened that one Aristonicus, a bastard son of the last Attalus, had raised an insurrection in the mountain-districts near Pergamus, and matters had become so serious, that a Consular army was required. Both Consuls were eager for command; but by reason of their sacred offices they were both legally unable to leave Italy, and Scipio’s tried skill in war pointed him out as the fittest man for command. Yet such was the popularity of Crassus, that out of thirty-five Tribes, two only voted for Scipio and the rest for him. Considering a vote of the People as superior to the law, he completed his ievies and set out for Pergamus, never to return. Scipio retired from Rome in disgust.

In this same year the Censorship was held by Q. Metellus and Q. Pompeius,—an event noted by all the historians as memorable* since now for the first time two men of plebeian blood were elected to the most august magistracy of the State. It is rather matter of wonder that an artificial distinction, which for all practical purposes was obsolete, should have been so long retained in the Censorship, than that it should now have ceased.

§ 6. If Crassus had returned, he might have taken more active steps to diminish the violence which the democratic leaders were beginning to encourage. But early in the year ISO b.c. he was defeated by Aristonicus in a pitched battle, and taken prisoner. The Roman statesman and jurist, deeming slavery intolerable, purposely struck the barbarian who had captured him in the face with his sword-belt, and was instantly cut down. His head was carried to Aristonicus : his body interred at Smyrna.

About the same time died App. Claudius. The natural leader of the Gracchan party would now have been C. Gracchus. But this young man had withdrawn from public life at the advice of his mother Cornelia. Consequently fresh power fell into the hands of the reckless Carbo, who was supported by Fulvius Flaccus; and the whole character of the party became more positively democratic. _r

§7. These leaders sought to recover their popularity with the country Tribes by calling the Agrarian Law into fresh life. Of the three Commissioners elected for the year C. Gracchus still appeared on the list; the vacancies made by the deaths of Crassus and App. Claudius were filled by Carbo and Flaccus.

The rich Landholders had endeavoured to baffle the law by passive resistance. To foil this policy, Carbo and his colleagues issued a proclamation, calling for informations against all who had not duly registered themselves as holders of Public Land. The call was readily obeyed, and the .Triumvirs were soon overburdened with names. The next step was to decide on the rights of the present holders, and to determine the boundaries between the private and the public lands in each estate. This was a task of extreme delicacy, and here the loss of Crassus was sensibly felt. The ignorant and reckless Carbo raised up a host of formidable opponents. '.

§ 8. Portions of the Public Land had often been alienated by grant or sale. The holders were now, in consequence of Carbo’s proclamation, suddenly called upon to produce their title-deeds, which in many cases were missing; so that a vast number of these holders were liable to be stripped of lands which were undoubtedly their own. Further, in cases where persons held •property partly public and partly private, there were often no documents to show which pait was public and which private. The Commissioners acted in the most arbitrary way, and exasperated a vast" number of persons throughout all Italy; and thus a new popular party was called forth, which exercised a most important influence on the events of the next fifty years. In Carbo’s rash haste to win the Roman countrymen he recked not of the hostility of Latins and Italians; and those who had lately worshipped Gracchus now rose like one man to oppose those who now pretended to represent Gracchus.

§ 9. These new opponents of the Agrarian Law had no mind to join the Roman oligarchs, but turned to Scipio and supplicated him to undertake their cause. They had claims upon him, for they had volunteered to fill his army when the Senate had no money to give him, and he had always manifested sympathy with them. Averse as he was from party politics, he did not shrink from the task, and the moderate party in the Senate welcomed his return. He began by moving that a Decree should issue for withdrawing from the Triumvirs the judicial power with which they had been invested by Gracchus, and transferring the jurisdiction to the Consuls. The Decree passed, and the task was committed to C. Sempronius Tuditanus, a man of refined taste, fonder of art and literature than of business. But news came of a movement among the Iapydes, a people on the Illyrian frontier; and Tuditanus eagerly seized this excuse for hastening to Aquileia, feeling confident that he could better cope with barbarous enemies than with the more barbarous perplexities of the law.

All proceedings were thus cut short. The Senate had taken away jurisdiction from the Triumvirs; the Consul to whom it was committed had fled. General discontent arose. Scipio was accused of having betrayed Roman interests to the Italians. His enemies spread reports that he had sold himself to the Oligarchy, that he intended to repeal the Sempronian Law by force, and let loose his Italian soldiery upon the People of Rome.

§ 10. Scipio felt that it was necessary to explain his motives, and announced his purpose of delivering set speeches, one day in the Senate, and the day after in the Forum. The first only of these purposes was fulfilled. By his speech in the Senate lie pledged himself to maintain the rights of tho Latins and Italiaus against the Triumvirs, and to prevent the unjust assumption of the lands that had been granted to them. The Senate loudly applauded; and Scipio was escorted home by the mass of the Senators with a jubilant crowd of Italians. Many thought tliia the most glorious day of his life.

He retired to rest early, in good liealtli. In the morning he was found dead in his bed. By his side lay the tablets on which he lmd been noting down the heads of the oration which he had intended to make next day.-

§11. The death of Scipio struck consternation into the hearts of the Senators. Metellus exclaimed that he had been murdered. It is said that on the neck marks as of strangulation appeared; and when he was carried out to burial the head was covered, contrary to .custom. At the moment suspicion attached to

C. Gracchus, and to his sister Sempronia, the wife of Scipio. But these unfounded rumours, soon passed over; and it was confidently affirmed that Garbo was, the murderer. Cicero speaks of it as an undoubted fact; the character, as well as the subsequent history, of the man justifies the. belief.

§ 12. Thus died the younger Africanus. No public honours attested his public services. The funeral feast was furnished in the most thrifty manner by his nephew Q. Tubero, a rigid Stoic, who was glad thus to remind the people of their ingratitude.

Scipio possessed no lofty genius like the great man whose name he bore; yet there was at Rome no one of his own time to be compared with him. To say that he was the best general of the day is little praise, for military talent was at that time scarce; but no doubt his abilities for war would have won him glory in the best times of the Republic. His disinterested generosity has been already noticed ; at his death he was found to be no richer than when he succeeded to the inheritance of the great Scipio. Ilis love of the country and his habitual reserve led him to shun public life. But the austere manner and severe gravity which he commonly affected gave way among his friends; and there is nothing that more raises our esteem for Scipio than the warm attachment borne to him by such men as Polybius, as well as Lselius, Rupilius, and others, whom Cicero has introduced into his beautiful dialogues.¹³⁵ Scipio has usually been represented as a stiff’ adherent of the Oligarchy, but tlie facts of history disprove this opinTon. He might have lived some years to moderate the fury of party strife, to awe the factious, and to support just claims; for at his death he numbered no more than six-and-fifty years. Ilis death at this moment was perhaps the greatest loss that the Republic could have suffered.

§ 1. General calm: Project for reconciling Romans with Italians: Law of Pennus for expelling Italians from Rome. § 2. C. Gracchus Quaestor in ' Sardinia. § 3. Fulvius Flaccus: his Bill for enfranchising Italians: he is sent into Transalpine Gaul. § 4. Revolt of Fregellaj, quelled by Opimius. § 5. Attempt to detain C. Graechus in Sardinia: he is elected Tribune. § 6. Former and present character of Caius: his eloquence. § 7. Laws against his» brother’s enemies. § 8. Measures to improve condition of People:—(1.) Agrarian Law. (2.) Law for selling corn cheap to Populace. § 9. Measures to abridge power of Senate:—(1.) Transference of Judicial Power from Senators to Equites. (2.) Assignment of Consular Provinces before Election. (3.) Public works. § 10. Purposes and Results of Sempronian Laws. §11. Election of Fannius as Consul: C. Graeehus reelected to Tribunate. § 12: Bill for enfranchising Italians. § 13. Unpopularity of proposal to enfranchise Italians : Fannius : Drusus. § 14. Addition to Agrarian Law by C. Gracchus: Drusus outbids him. § 15. Colonies in Provinces : proposal to colonise Carthage: Gracchus and Flaccus sent to found it. § 16. They return to Rome in time for

Consular Elections: Opimiua Consul. §17. Ill report.from Carthage: Assembly of Tribes on Capitol: tumult: during night Opimius collects an armed force upon the Capitol: Flaccus occupies Aventine. § 18. Attack on Aventine: death of Gracchus and Flaccus. § 19. Persecution: Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi.

§ 1. The sudden death of Scipio was followed by a calm. The t-.irbulent Carbo vanished from the scene, till nine years later he re-appears as a champion of the violent oligarchical party. 0. Gracchus was still living in retirement. Fulvius Flaccus was content to let the Agrarian Law sleep in face of the portentous difficulties created by the measures of the Triumvirs. Nor was there anything in foreign affairs to ruffle the general calm. But under this external tranquillity a leaven of agitation was at work. It was not to bo expected that the new-born jealousy which, had sprung up between the Romans on the one side and the Latins and Italians on the other, would fall asleep. Proposals, however, were set afloat for reconciling these two opposing interests. The Italians were led to hope that they might be made citizens of Rome, on condition that they should not resist the execution of the Agrarian Law.

But the burgesses of Rome soon perceived that the admission of the Latins and Italians to the Roman franchise would reduce them to comparative insignificance. All the benefits now derived from the Provinces by Romans exclusively must then be shared with a vastly increased number of citizens, and the profits as well as the power of a Roman must be materially diminished. In the year 120 b.c. a large number of Italian strangers flocked to Rome, eager for the promised boon. But by this time public opinion at Rome was so far changed that M. Junius Pennus, one of the Tribunes, brought forward what we may call a severe Alien-Act, by which all strangers were compelled to quit Rome. Tho successors of Gracchus, however, remained constant to their now policy, and Caius himself was induced to speak in public for tho second time. But he was unsuccessful. The Law of Pennus was passed; and from this time may be dated that angry contest of feeling between Romans and Italians which after thirty-eight years found vent in a bloody war.

§ 2. When Caius delivered this speech he was Quaestor-elect for the next year. lie was appointed to serve under the Consul L. Aurelius Orestes, when this officer undertook to reduce the Sardinian mountaineers, who had been subjugated by the father of young Gracchus fifty years before.* After the first year’s operations Orestes was at a loss for supplies and clothing; and from this difficulty he was relieved by his Quaestor, who by tho

memory of his father and his own persuasive eloquence induced the Sardinian colonists to give voluntarily what the soldiers wanted. Shortly after, envoys arrived at Rome from Micipsa, son of Masinissa, offering, from respect (as they said) for the name of Gracchus, to send supplies of corn to Sardinia. The Senate angrily dismissed the embassy. Orestes was directed to remain as Proconsul in his Province, and his Quajstor was ordered to continue in office for a second year.

§ 3. Meanwhile the country party had succeeded in carrying the election of their present chief, Fulvius Flaccus, to the Consulship for 125 b.c. He was a man with little force of oratory, but his activity and audacity gave him power, and his unchangeable attachment to the memory of Ti. Gracchus made him respectable. No sooner was he in the Consul’s chair than he gave full proof of his headlong temerity by giving notice of a bill for extending the Franchise to all the Latin and Italian Allies. It was a Reform Bill sweeping beyond all example. No addition had been made to the Roman territory or the number of Tribes since 241 B.C., a period of one hundred and sixteen years, and now at one stroke it was proposed to add to the register a population much more numerous than the whole existing number of Roman burgesses. The Tribes felt their interests to be at stake, and the measure of Flaccus was highly unpopular at Rome.

At this moment, the Senate adroitly contrived to detach Flaccus upon foreign service. The people of Massilia, old allies of Rome, sent to demand protection against the Salluvians, a Ligurian tribe of the Maritime Alps, and Flaccus was ordered to take command of the army destined to relieve them. He remained in Gaul for more than t*vo years, and was honoured with a triumph in the year 123 b.c. Meantime his great measure for extending the Franchise fell to the ground.

§ 4. But the hopes excited by the impetuous Consul were not easily relinquished. The excitement was great throughout Italy, and in one of the Latin Colonies the smouldering fire burst into llame.

Fregellie was a large and flourishing city on the Latin road. It was one cf the eighteen Colonies which had remained faithful to Rome in the Ilannibalic War. It had seen the full Franchise conferred on its neighbours at Formia3, Fundi, and Arpinuin at the close of that war. And now the cup was dashed from the very lip. Fregellse flew to arms, without concert with any other towns; and L. Opimius, one of the Prajtors, a man of prompt resolution and devoid of pity, was ordered by the Senate to crush the insurrection. The gates were opened to him by treachery. Opimius took his seat in the Forum, and exercised a fearful vengeance on the inhabitants, for which he was rewarded by the Senate with a triumph. The walls were pulled down, and the Colony, stripped of, all its rights, was reduced to the condition of a mere market-town (conciliabulum). The example of Fregellse for a time silenced the claims of the Italians.

§ 5. Thus triumphant, the Senate determined to keep the chiefs of the Gracchan party absent from Home. Flaccus had not yet finished his Gallic wars; and an order was sent to detain C. Gracchus for a third year in Sardinia. But the young Quaestor perceived the drift of this order, and returned to Rome about the middle' of the year 124 B.C., to the no small consternation of the Senate. He was instantly summoned before the Censors then in office to account for his conduct, in order that he might be branded with a public stigma, and thus disqualified from taking liis seat in the Senate-Iiouse. He made his defence to the people in a set speech, in which he declared that the Senate had no right to keep him employed as Quaestor for more than one year. “ No one,” added he, “ can say that I have received a penny in presents, or have put any one to charges on my own account. The purse which I took put full I have brought back empty; though I could name persons who took out casks filled with wine and brought them home charged with money.” He was triumphantly acquitted, and at once came forward as candidate for the Tribunate. The Senate exerted all their influence to prevent his election, and succeeded so far that his name stood only fourth on the list. But as soon as he entered office, no one disputed his title to be first.

§ 6; The die was now cast. For ten years he had held back from public life; but the vexatious course pursued by the Senate roused him to action; the pent-up energy of his passionate nature burst forth, and he threw aside all restraints both of fear and of prudence.

Hitherto there had been no proof of the young speaker’s powers. Twice only had he spoken in public, and both times lie had been on the losing side. But years of diligent study had passed; and he became the greatest orator that Rome had yet seen. Much as Cicero disliked Gracchus, he speaks with lively admiration of his genius, arid laments the loss which Latin literature had sustained by his early death. The care which the young orator bestowed on preparation was extraordinary : he was the first that used regular gesticulation: in his most fiery outbursts his voice was so modulated as never to offend the ear.*

* The story was that he always hod a slave fit his elbow who gave him the right note bv a pitch-pipe.—Cicero de Oratore, iii. 61. But Cicero himself is purzled by this curious device,—“eujus ego nondum plane rationem intelligo."

§ 7. His first measures are marked by that which was tho ruling passion of his life,—a burning desire to avenge his brother’s death. Nasica was beyond his reach. But others, .who had persecuted the friends and followers of Tiberius, were yet alive, and he inveighed against their cruel severity on all occasions. “Your ancestors,” he exclaimed, “suffered not their Tribunes to be trampled down. But .you,—you let these men beat Tiberius to death, and murder his friends without a trial!”

’ Accordingly he brought a bill before the Tribes aimed at Popillius, who had been the head of the special Commission appointed after the death of Tiberius. It declared any magistrate guilty of treason who had punished a citizen capitally without the consent of the People. Before it passed, Popillius left Rome; and the Tribes, on the motion of Caius, banished him from the soil of Italy.

The young Tribune next moved that any one who should have been deprived of office by a vote of the People should be incapable of holding any other office,—an enactment evidently pointed at his brother’s old opponent Octavius. Fortunately for the honour of Gracchus, he was stopped in his career of vengeance by the intercession of his mother.

§ 8. He now turned his thoughts to measures of a public nature, and brought forward a series of important bills, long known as the Sempronian Laws, so sweeping in their design, as to show that he meditated no less than a revolution in the government of Rome. They may be divided into two classes: first, those which were intended to ameliorate the condition of the People; secondly, those which aimed at diminishing the power of the Senate.

(1.) Foremost in the first class we may place a bill for renewing and exteuding the Agrarian Law of his brother, which was coupled with a measure for planting new Colonies in divers parts of Italy, and even in the Provinces. As the execution of this law was deferred till the next year, we will defer further mention of it here. This enactment was evidently intended to conciliate the country Tribes.

(2.) The second Sempronian Law was the famous measure by which the State undertook to furnish corn at a low price to all Roman citizens. It provided that any one possessing the Roman franchise should be allowed to purchase grain from public stores at 6t ases the modius, or about 25 ases the bushel; the losses incident to such sale being borne by the Treasury.

Public measures for distributing corn in times of scarcity had long been familiar to Roman statesmen; and individuals had more than once sought popularity by doles to the poor. But

now, for the first time, was a Right established by Law. The necessary results of such a measure must have been, and were, very fatal. Fifty years later, it was found necessary to limit the quantity sold to five modii (1£ bushels) a month for each person; and 40,000 citizens were habitual purchasers. Successive demagogues reduced the price, till the profligate Clodius enacted that these bushels should be given .away without any payment. The Dictator Caesar found no fewer than 320,000 citizens in the monthly receipt of this dole. He reduced tho number to 150,000 : and Augustus fixed it at a maximum of 200,000 souls.¹³⁶ Such was the mass of paupers saddled upon the Imperial government by the unwise law of Gracchus.

§ 9. We now pass on to the measures which aimed at depriving the Senate of the great administrative power which of late years it had engrossed..

(1.) The first of these touched their Judicial power. It has been mentioned, that by the famous Calpurnian Law (149 b.c.) all Provincial Magistrates accused of corrupt dealings in their government were to be tried before the Praetor Peregrinus as presiding Judge, and a Jury of Senators. This was the first regular and permanent Court of Justice established at Rome.f The principle of the Calpurnian Law was gradually extended to other grave offences; and in all the superior courts the Juries were composed of Senators.

These Courts had given little satisfaction. In all important cases of corruption, especially such as occurred in the Provinces, the offenders were themselves Senators. Some of the Judges had been guilty of like offences, others hoped for opportunities of committing like offences; extortion was looked upon as a venial crime; prosecutions became a trial of party strength, and the culprit was usually absolved.

Gracchus now took the Judicial power altogether out of the hands of the Senate, and transferred it to a body of Three Hundred persons, to be chosen periodically from all citizens who possessed the Equestrian rate of property.]; . By this measure ho smote the Senate with a two-edged sword. For not only did ho deprive it of the means of shielding its own members, but he also gave a political constitution to a rival Order. The Equestrian Order, as a political body, entirely distinct from a mero military class, now first received distinct recognition.

It is doubtful whether this measure of reform was followed by the good effccts intended by Gracchus. If the governors of Provinces were Senators, the farmers of the taxes were Equites. The new Juries had their personal reasons for acquitting corrupt magistrates; for without the countenance of these magistrates they could not demand money from the Provincials beyond what was strictly legal. The constitution of these Juries formed a chief ground of political contcst for the next fifty years.

(2.) Another measure which fettered the power and patronage of the Senate was the Sempronian Law for the assignment of the Consular Provinces. Hitherto the Senate had refrained from determining these Provinces till after the elections; and they thus had a ready way of marking displeasure by allotting unprofitable governments to Consuls whom they disliked. But Gracchus now ordained that the two Consular Provinces should bo fixed before the elections, and that the new Consuls, immediately upon their election, should settle between themselves what Provinces each was to administer, either by lot or by agreement (sortitio or comparatio). It was a wise and equitable provision, which remained in force as long as the Republic lasted.

(3.) A great blow was given to Senatorial power by a measure for improving the roads of Italy. Public works of all kinds had hitherto been left to the Censors, subject to the approval of the Senate. Gracchus now transferred the business to the Tribunes.

§ 10. This account of the chief Sempronian Laws shows the spirit which animated Gracchus. It is plain that his main purpose was to diminish the increased and increasing power of the Senate. It was no doubt a confusion between the purposes and the results of the Sempronian Legislation that swelled the cry against Gracchus in after times. It is clear, however, that he had no chance of amending the corrupt government of the Senatorial Oligarchy, unless he first weakened their power ; and if he fancied that administrative functions might safely be controlled by a large and fluctuating popular Assembly, something may be forgiven: to political inexperience. Representative bodies are a modern invention; and the wisest of the ancients found no halting-place between Aristocracy and Democracy. Gracchus was not without misgivings as to the effects of his legislation. But it was too late to draw back; and his zeal was quickened by the return of Fulvius Flaccus from Gaul.

§ 11. By his measures Gracchus had so won all suffrages, that he and his friend Flaccus were absolute masters of the Comitia. The elections of Curule officers for the next year were at hand, and Gracchus told the People lie had a favour to ask. Every one cxpected that he would demand his own election to some high office: but to the surprise of all he proposed as Candidate for the Consulship C. Fannius, an old comrade of his brother. Fannius was elected as a matter of course, to the rejection of L. Opimius, the Senatorial Candidate. •

The Tribunician elections followed. Flaccus, though he had been Consul, appeared as Candidate for an office that had been raised by the Gracchi to sovereign power. But Gracchus was not by his side; for it had been made illegal that the same man should be reelected Tribune. However, there were not candidates enough for tlie ten places; and the People, exercising the absolute right of choice which in this contingency was allowed, reelected Gracchus by a unanimous vote. Not more than seven months of liis first year’s Tribunate were over; and he was secure of power for the next seventeen months at least. He now put forth all*■ the tremendous power of the office. The Senate sate powerless, and Caius Gracchus became for a time the virtual sovereign of the Empire.

§ 12. Immediately on reflection, Gracchus came forward with a Bill for extending the Roman Franchise, certainly to the citizens of all Latin Colonies, probably to all free Italian communities. Here we recognise the hand of Flaccus, who had in his Consulship raised this momentous question, and resumed the project on the first opportunity after his return. <•

There can be no doubt that some change in this direction was necessary. The admission of the Latins and Italians to full citizenship would infuse a quantity of new blood into the decaying frame of the Roman People; and, by extending to all Italians the benefits of the Agrarian law, there was really a good hope of reviving that hardy race of yeomen who were regretted by all Roman Statesmen. Scipio had induced the Senate for a moment to take up this cause; but after the revolt of Fregellai, all thoughts of an extension of tlie Franchise had been dropped. The difficulty was how to favour the Italians without provoking the Roman Tribesmen. It is manifest that the project was still unpopular in the Forum, for Gracchus laboured to show that the Roman People and the Italians had one grievance in common, namely, the tyranny of the Senatorial Oligarchy. “ Tlie other day,” he told them, “ the magistrates of Teanum had been stripped naked and scourged, because the Consul’s lady complained that the public baths there had not been properly •cleaned for her use.” . . . “ IIow great is the insolence of the young Nobles, a single example would show. One of them was travelling through Apulia in a litter, and a countryman, meeting the bearers, asked whether they had got a dead man inside. For this word, the young lord ordered the poor man to be beaten to death with the cords of the litter.”

§ 13. The chiefs of the Senate perceived that the proposal to enfranchise the Italians had sapped his popularity at Romo. The Consul Fannius, notwithstanding the part Gracchus had taken in his election, vehemently opposed the measure. lie declared that lie would again bring forward the Alien-Act of Pennus, and expel all foreigners from Rome. The Senate soon after ventured a step further. One of the new Tribunes, M. Livius Drusus by name, a young man of high birth, rich, eloquent, ambitious, and determined, undertook to thwart the progress of his great colleague, and he put a veto on the law for enfranchising the Latins.

§ 14. We must now return to the Agrarian Law. In furtherance of this Law, Caius proposed to plant Colonies in divers parts of Italy; Capua and Tarentum were fixed upon as the first of these new settlements; but here he showed no democratic tendencies; for no allotments were given to citizens, however poor, unless their character was respectable; and only a small number of colonists were to be sent to each place.

Drusus was not slow to take advantage of these unpopular provisions. He resolved to outbid Gracchus, and the agent of the Nobility became a demagogue. He proposed to found no fewer than twelve Colonics at once, each to consist of 3000 families, to be chosen without respect to character. All these Colonists were to hold their allotments rent-free. Drusus openly avowed that he made these propositions in favor of the poor on the part of the Senate; and declared in significant terms that lie would not himself accept any part in the honour or emolument to be derived from the office of founding these Colonies, whereas Gracchus had himself superintended all the public works which he had originated.

§ 15. At this time, plans were on foot for extending the Italian system of colonisation to the Provinces. In this very year, C. Sextius Calvinus, who had succeeded Flaccus as Proconsul in Gaul, founded the town of Aquae Sextise, still called Aix, in Southern Gaul; four years later Narbo Marcius, or Narbonnc, was planted further westward in the same country. But Gracchus himself was the first who had proposed to plant a Colony beyond the Italian Peninsula; and the place he fixed upon was Carthage. The plan was taken up by the Senate. The new Colony was to be called Junonia, and it was dexterously contrived that Gracchus himself, with Flaccus and another, should be the Commissioners for distributing the lands and marking the limits of the settlement- In this way, the formidable Tribune and his most active supporter were obliged to quit Rome just when their presence was most needed to revive their drooping popularity.

§ 16. The Commissioners'applied themselves to their task with so much assiduity that they returned to Rome in time for the Consular elections. The ruthless Opimius was again candidate, and Gracchus exerted himself to the utmost to reorganise his party, but in vain. Popular feeling was strongly marked by the triumphant election of Opimius to the Consulship, in company with Q. Fabius, son of Scipio’s elder brother, a man personally hostile to Gracchus. " •

The Tribunician elections followed, and were equally significant of the temper of the People. Neither Gracchus nor Flaccus was reelected. The remainder of the year indeed, passed by quietly. But at the beginning of the year 121 b.c. Opimius became Consul, and it was evident that danger was at hand.

§ 17. Gracchus and his friends prudently refrained from all offensive steps; but as he would give no grounds for proceeding against him, Opimius resolved to make them. News arrived from the new Colony at Carthage to the effect that it had been planted on the ground cursed by Scipio : the wrath of the gods had been shown by the fact that wolves had torn down the boundary-posts. The Senate met, and on the motion of Opimius ordered the Tribunes to call a meeting of the Tribes upon the Capitol, to rescind the law for colonising Carthage. The place was ominous, for there Ti. Gracchus had been slain.

On the appointed morning the impetuous Flaccus appeared with a large retinue armed with daggers. Gracchus followed with a considerable suite. Flaccus spoke vehemently to the Tribes, while Gracchus stood aloof in the portico Of the Temple, in which Opimius was offering sacrifice. Here he was encountered by a retainer of the Consul, who insolently pushed Gracchus aside, crying, “Make way for honest men.” Gracchus cast an angry look upon the man, who presently fell stabbed to the heart by an unknown hand. A cry of murder was raised, and the crowd fled in alarm to the Forum. Gracchus retired to his house, regretting the rash imprudence of his followers. Meantime the body of the slain man was paraded before the eyes of Ihe terrified People. The Senate armed the Consuls with a Decree, by which Gracchus was proclaimed a public enemy; and Opimius took station during the night in the Temple of Castor, by the side of the Forum. He summoned the Senate to a special sitting early next morning; and also sent to all on whom he could rely, desiring them to come armed to the Forum, and each man to bring two armed slaves. With this force he occupied the Capitol at daybreak, and prepared to execute the will of the Senate.

Gracchus was irresolute; but Flaccus summoned to his house all who were ready to resist Senatorial authority. Here he armed them with the Celtic weapons which he had brought'home from his Gallic campaigns, and kept up their courage by deep potations of wine. Early in the morning he occupied a strong position on the Aventine, where he was joined by Gracchus, who t.ighed over the necessity of using force.

§ 18. When the Senate met, the popular leaders were summoned to attend in their places, and explain the proceedings of the previous day. They answered by proclaiming liberty to all slaves who should join them. Nothing could more show the desperate aspect which the struggle had assumed. Yet before blood flowed, Gracchus insisted on trying negotiation, and Q. Flaccus, a handsome youth of eighteen, son of the ex-Tribune, was sent. But already the Senate had invested Opimius with dictatorial power. The only answer the Consul returned was that the leaders must appear before the Senate, and explain their conduct; and when young Quintus came back with a fresh message, Opimius arrested him. He now set a price on the heads of Gracchus and Fulvius Flaccus, and ordered an immediate attack upon the Aventine. Under arms appeared the noblest men at Rome, P. Lentulus, Chief of the Senate, old Metellus Mace-donicus, and many others. For their leader they chose not tho Consul, but L. Junius Brutus, the Spanish conqueror. The attack was opened under cover of a shower of arrows from a body of Cretan bowmen. Little or no resistance was offered. Flaccus fled with his eldest son. Gracchus retired into the Temple of Diana, where he was hardly prevented from putting an end to his own life by two faithful friends, the Knights Pomponius and Laitorius. Urged by them to flee, he threw himself on his knees, and prayed the goddess to punish the unworthy people of Rome by everlasting slavery. All three then took their way down to the Porta Trigemina, hotly pursued. Pomponius made a stand in the gateway to cover his friend’s escape across the Sublician Bridge, and fell pierced with many wounds. Lflctorius showed no less devotion by gallantly turning to bay upon the bridge till he knew that Gracchus was safe over, when he sprang into the river and perished. Gracchus with a single slave reached the Grove of the Furies, and here both were found dead. The faithful slave had first held the sword to his master’s heart, and then fallen upon it himself. One Scptimuleius cut off the head of Gracchus, and was rewarded by the fierce Opimius with its weight in gold.

Flaccus and his eldest son had found shelter in the bathhouse of a friend. The Consul’s myrmidons tracked them, and threatened to set fire to the house. The owner, alarmed for his property, allowed another to disclose the sccret, though he did not choose to speak the word himself. They were dragged forth and slain with every mark of indignity. The handsome youth who had been arrested before the assault commenced was allowed to put himself to death.

§ 19. Great numbers of the partisans of Gracchus were thrown into prison, and put to death without trial. The stream of Tiber flowed thick with corpses. The inconstant mob plundered their houses without molestation. The widows and friends of the slain were forbidden by Consular edict to wear mourning. When the bloody work was done, the City was purged by a formal lustration; and the Consul, by order of the Senate, laid the foundations of a Temple of Concord. Under the inscription placed on it by Opimius was found next morning another to this effect:—

But none dared openly avow themselves friends of the Gracchi. The son of Caius died soon after; and exccpt Sempronia, the widow of Scipio, none of the race remained. Cornelia retired to Misenum, where she lived for many years, not so much sorrowing for tlic loss of her sons as dwelling with delight on the memory of tlicir acts. Many visited her in retirement, cliicfly learned Greeks, to licar the story of the bold Reformers. Calmly and loftily she told the tale, declaring that her sons had found worthy graves in the Temples of the Gods. In after days her statue in bronze was set up in the Forum, with the Greek sandals on her feet which had been made a reproach to her illustrious father. Beneath it were placed these words only:—To Cornelia, the Mother of the Gracchi.

§ 1. Danger of delayed Reformation. § 2. Indictment of Opimius • suicide of Carbo. § 3. The nobler sort in the Senate: the Metelli: Scaurus. § 4. Conquest of Balearic Isles : Wars in Gaul: Fabius Allobrogicus. § 5. Jugurtha. § C. Murder of Hiempsal: Humidia divided by Senate between Adherbal and Jugurtha. § 7. Murder of AdhcrbaL § 8. The Tribune Mcmmius forces the Senate to proclaim War. § 9. Futile campaign of Bestia: Jugurtha summoned to Rome. § 10. Jugurtha procures murder ofMassiva: is ordered to quit Rome. §11. Metellus appointed to command. § 12. Commission of inquiry: Bestia, Albinus, and others put to death. § 13. Severity of Metellus: his legate C. Marius. § 14. First campaign of Metellus. § 15. Jugurtha offers to treat: diplomacy of Metellus. § 16. Marius depreciates Metellus : he is clccted Consul. § 17. Second campaign of Metellus: Cirta taken : Jugurtha takes refuge with Bocchus, § 18. Command transferred by People to Marius. § 19. Return of Metellus to Rome. § 20. Marius completes the conquest of Numidia : Sylla : his early life. § 21. Sylla sent to the court of Bocchus to obtain the person of Jugurtha: Jugurtha betrayed: Sylla’s arrogance. § 22. Triumph and reflection of Marius. § 23. Miserable end of Jugurtha.

§ 1. Tiie cruel times which followed made the best men of both parties regret the untimely end of those who had sacrificed wealth, rank, tranquillity, in the hope of reforming the State by peaceful methods. It is not the less true because, it is an epigram, “ that the blood of the Gracchi was the seed sown, and Marius was the fruit.” But Marius, though the most ruthless, was not the worst of the successors of the Gracchi. So savage were the party quarrels which followed, that good men shrank in despair from the cause of Reform, and the conduct of the popular party w^Tas abandoned to needy demagogues. Such is the common course of Revolutions. They begin with noble aspirations ; they end in reckless violence. At length public spirit is lost, and all men, sighing for tranquillity, seek it in tlie strong rule of an armed soldier. It is a thrice-told talc.

§ 2. As the murder of Tiberius had been avenged upon Nasica, so there was even now found a Tribune bold enough to indict Opimius. The accuser bore the time-honoured name of Decius; the defender was that Carbo who was more than suspected of Scipio’s murder, and who was now Consul (120 b.c.) : his eloquence and the terror that prevailed procured an acquittal. But

Carbo, though he earned the gratitude of the Nobility by defending their champion, did not find his eloquence equally effectual in defending himself. It was at that time the practice of young Romans who aspired to distinction to attract public notice by indicting some great offender before the People. L. Licinius Crassus, son of Crassus the Pontifex, and brother-in-law of C. Gracchus, though only one-and-twenty years of age, felt within him that power of speech which in later days gained him the appellation of the Orator; and he singled out Carbo for attack. So fierce was the invective of the young accuser that Carbo put an end to his own life by poison.

§ 3. The Nobility probably cared little for the life of a worthless renegade. The best men in the Senate, indeed, regretted what they considered the necessity of taking up arms against Gracchus. First among those was old Metellus Macedonicus, who died full of honours and years seven years after the death of C. Gracchus. He left four sons. Before his death three of them had been Consuls; the fourth was candidate for the Consulship at his father’s death; but his two nephews, sons of his brother Calvus, were more distinguished than his own offspring. Quintus the younger, under the title of Numidicus, shortly afterwards became the most eminent man in the ranks of the Nobility. In the course of twenty years the Mctclli enjoyed six Consulships and four Censorships, besides five triumphs. Such an aggregation of honours in one family was without example. Tho worst fault of the Mctelli was pride; but if they were not beloved, they were at least respected by the People.

A person who plays a large part in the events of the next years was M. ^Emilius Scaurus, a man of more dubious character. Horace names him with some of the greatest men of olden time;¹³⁸ Sallust represents him as disgracing high qualities by an inordinate love for money. The facts we shall have to record will show that in his earlier days he was infected by the corruption of his compeers, while in later life his prudence was so great as to stand for principle. lie was born in 163 B.C., so that at the fall of C. Gracchus ho had reached that ripe age which was required for the Consulship. Though he belonged to a great Patrician Gens, his family was so obscure that he was accounted a New Man. Ilis father had been a charcoal' merchant, and left his son so poor that the future ruler of the Empire had at one time contemplated following the trade of a money-changer. But he was encouraged to try the chances of political life; and in 115 b.c. lie readied the Consulate. By his ability and discretion lie so won the confidence of the Senate that at the first vacancy he was named Princeps. He was a man less seen than felt. Ilis oratory wanted fire; but his talents for business, and his dexterity in the management of parties, made him the most important person in the field of politics from the fall of Gracchus till the rise of Sylla.

The more prudent or more severe among the Senators believed that reform in the State might be averted by a reformation of Manners. But in vain. The business of Jugurtha brought into full light the venality and corruption of the dominant statesmen.

§ 4. We have said little of the Wars of Rome since the fall of Numantia and the termination of the Servile War. They were not considerable. The kingdom of Pergamus had formed the tenth Province. The eldest son of old Metellus earned the title of Balearicus for subduing the Balearic Isles (121 B.C.); his eldest nephew that of Delmaticus for putting down an outbreak of the Dalmatians (117 b.c.)

More attention was excited by wars in the South of Gaul, ana more permanent effects followed. The success of Fulvius Flaccus, the friend of the Gracchi, in defending Marseilles, has been already noticed. C. Scxtius, who succeeded Flaccus in 123 B.C., secured his conquests by founding the colony of Aqua) Sextice, which under the name of Aix still attracts visitors for the sake of its hot springs. These conquests brought the Romans in contact with the Allobrogians, between the Rhone and the Iserc; and this people threw themselves on the protection of Bituitus, chief of the Arvernians (Auvergne). Q. Fabius, while Opimius was crushing C. Gracchus, crossed the Iserc. A desperate battle ensued, in which the Proconsul, with 30,000 men, is said to have so completely routed 200,000 Gauls, that in the battle and pursuit no less than 130,000 fell. Fabius was suffering from a quartan ague, but in the heat of conflict shook off his disease, lie assumed the title of Allobrogicus with better right than many who were decorated with these national surnames. Tlie war was now carried into the Arvenian country, and the great triumphs of Caesar might have been anticipated by some Senatorial Commander, when it was brought to a sudden end. An enemy, formidable alike to Romans and Gauls, well known a few years later under the dreaded names of Cimbrians and Teutons, had appeared on the north-eastern frontier of Gaul, and threatened to overrun all southern Europe. But circumstances deferred for a time the conflict between Italy and thos3 barbarous hordes, and for the present tho dominion of

Home was firmly established in the southern angle of Gaul, between the Alps and Pyrenees, a district which still preserves its Roman name, “ the Province,” in the French Provcnce. The whole northern coast of the Mediterranean, from the Pillars of Hercules to Syria, now owned the sovereignty of Rome.

§ 5. Attention was now for a time riveted upon the affairs of Africa. The kingdom of Masinissa, as we said, had been divided among his three sons, Micipsa, Mastanarbal, and Golossa. The Jast two had died, and left Micipsa sole King of Numidia. The old friendship between this country and Rome was cemented by the flourishing corn-trade that grew up there, which supplied the failing crops of Italy. Micipsa died in 118 B.C., leaving two sons*, Adherbal and Iiiempsal. By their side stood their cousin Ju-gurtha, a bastard. This young man was considerably older than his cousins. Sixteen years before he had served with credit under Scipio at Numantia. The young nobles of Scipio’s camp suggested to the African Prince that, at the death of Micipsa, he should purchase the support of Rome and seize the Numidian crown. “ At Rome,” they said, “ all things might be had for money.” The intriguing character of Jugurtha escaped not the discernment of Scipio. At parting, he said: “ Trust to your own good qualities, and pow^Ter will come of itself. Seek it by base arts, and you will lose all.” Old Micipsa left Jugurtha as Regent and guardian of his two young sons.

§ 0. It is possible that if the two Princes had submitted passively, Jugurtha might have been contented with the substance without the title of sovereignty; but Hiempsal showed a spirit impatient of control. When Jugurtha proposed that the decrees made by Micipsa in the last five years of his dotage should be abrogated, the young Prince gave a ready assent; “ for,” said he, “ with these will fall the ordinance by which you claim the Regency.” The unscrupulous Jugurtha ordered Iiiempsal to be assassinated; and Adherbal, in alarm, took up arms. The people were with him, but the soldiery were with Jugurtha; and Ad-herbal was obliged to fly into the Roman province of Libya, whence he took ship to plead his own cause before the Senate. General feeling was strong in his favour; but the wily Jugurtha bethought him of the advice tendered by his Roman friends, and sent envoys to Rome laden with gold. Adherbal was heard with cold attention, while many Senators supported the claim of Jugurtha. It was decided that a Commission of Ten should be sent to Numidia, with instructions to divide the kingdom between Adherbal and his unscrupulous cousin. L. Opimius, a fit instrument for such work, was placed at the head of tho Commission. The western half, which had been tho patrimony of

Masinissa and supplied the famous Numidian cavalry, was assigned to J ugurtha. The eastern portion, conterminous with the Roman Province, and formerly subject to Syphax, was given to Ad herbal.

§ 7. Jugurtha was not slow in using liis advantage. Ilis rival was obliged to shut himself up in Cirta, the almost impregnable city which formed his capital; but the Italian mercenaries, on whom he mainly relied, forced him to surrender on condition that his life should be spared. No sooner had Jugurtha got possession of his cousin, than he ordered him to be put to death by torture. ,

§ 8. So great was the power of Jugurtha’s gold, that the matter would have been hushed up, had not C. Memmius, Tribune-elect, come forward in the Forum, and boldly exposed the iniquities of Jugurtha. The conscience-stricken majority of the Senate shrunk back; war was declared against the faithless Numidian Prince, and the command fell by lot to L. Calpurnius Bestia, one of the Con§uls-elect for the next year (111 b.c.).

§ 9. The first campaign was conducted with so much remissness, that it was universally believed that the commanders had received bribes. Memmius promptly brought in a bill, by which the Praetor L. Cassius was commissioned to bring Jugurtha to Rome under a safe-conduct, in order that he might give evidence against the persons accused of corrupt dealings. Jugurtha did not hesitate to attend Cassius to Rome, where he appeared in the garb of a suppliant. The People would have executed summary vengeance on the culprit, had not Memmius interfered to maintain the sanctity of the safe-conduct. But lie ordered' Jugurtha to stand forth, detailed at length the crimes with which lie was charged, and concluded by urging him to place his hopes of safety in a simple confession of the truth. When Memmius resumed his seat, one of his colleagues, C. Baebius by name, rose and forbade Jugurtha to reply. It was manifest that this Tribunician veto had been purchased by African gold, and a terrible storm arose in the Forum. But Baebius stood firm, and the sanctity of his office was allowed to protect his unworthy client.

§ 10. But it was found impossible to obtain the votes of tho People to any peace with Jugurtha, and the conduct of the wav for the next year (110 b.c.) was allotted to Sp. Posthumius Albi-nus. Albinus had already entered into negotiations witty Mas-siva, son of Golossa, the third son of Masinissa. Jugurtha discovered the intrigue, and procured the assassination of the young Prince. This piece of effrontery was too much even for the Senate. Jugurtha received an order to quit Rome instantly.

lie obeyed; and as he passed out of the gates, he looked back and said: “ A city for sale if she can find a purchaser!”

§ 11. Albinus was baffled at every point by the dexterous African. His brother Aulus suffered himself to be surprised by Jugurtha, and only saved his army by allowing it to pass under the yoke and agreeing to evacuate Numidia. But the Senate hastily repudiated the engagements made by Aulus, and the command for the next year (109 B.C.) was conferred upon Q. Metellus, nephew of old Macedonicus. . .

§ 12. It was time for the Senate to show that they had upright and capable men in their ranks. The scandal caused by the conduct of Numidian affairs was so great, that before the departure of Metellus, C. Manilius, Tribune of the People, brought forward a bill for appointing a Commission of Three, to inquire into the conduct of all who had been concerned in the two last campaigns. Scaurus was placed at the head of this Triumvirate. Several of the leading Senators were found guilty of high treason, and put to death without mercy. Among them were Bestia and Albinus, the two Consuls who had conducted the war, and one whose fate can excite no commiseration,—the cruel and corrupt L. Opimius. *

§ 13. Metellus was obliged to devote much time to restoring habits of discipline by the same severe methods which had been employed by Scipio. In this work he was much assisted by his chief lieutenant, a man who soon after became famous wherever the name of Rome was known.

Caius Marius had already reached the age of fifty. He was a citizen of Arpinum, a Yolscian town, which had been incorporated into the Roman Tribes. His family was old and respectable, but he was the first who obtained imperial honours. In his rustic origin and habits he .may be compared-to Cato; but he had none of the intellectual ambition which distinguished that singular person. He scorned the custom which led young Romans to study Greek and cultivate the art of rhetoric as the readiest way of rising to honours. “ Greek,” he said, “ was the language of slaves: he would none of it.” His rough temper and coarse manners unfitted him for political life. For war he possessed an instinctive genius. At twenty-four he had been designated by Scipio as the future general of Rome.* But the predominance of the Senatorial families, and his own poverty, made it difficult for him to rise. In 119 B.C., when he was thirty-eight years old, he was chosen Tribune, and had an opportunity of showing his audacity. lie had brought forward a bill for taking tlic votes more easily in the Centuriate elections, which was opposed by the Consul Metellus, elder brother of that Metellus who now commanded against Jugurtha. The family of Marius was dependent upon the Metelli; but the dauntless Tribune ordered the Consul into custody, and the Senate was compelled to allow the bill to pass.

To choose such a man for his lieutenant is a proof of tho integrity and the discernment of vMetellus. It is true that ho had lately allied himself to the oligarchy by a marriage with Julia, "an aunt of the great Caesar. But the affront put upon the Consul’s brother by Marius ten years before, was not of a kind to be forgotten; and the proud noble can have had little in common with the rough soldier, except determination to conduct the war with honest energy.

§ 14. Late in the year Metellus took the field. The ready wit of Jugurtha soon told him that he must now meet force by force, and by a skilful disposition of his troops he succeeded in surprising the Romans 011 their march. But after a long and harassing series of assaults, the Numidians were beaten off, and left forty elephants dead. This was the only engagement like a battle on which Jugurtha ventured during the war. He henceforth relied entirely upon his fortresses, of which Cirta, his capital, now well known as Constantine, in Algeria, was among the strongest. The advance of Metellus was checked by the fortress of Zama. The season was too far advanced for a siege, and Metellus retired for winter-quarters into the Roman Province.

§ 15. Jugurtha saw that his cause was hopel< ss. Personally lie might long elude capture. But the Romans were sure to gain possession of all his kingdom and all his strongholds, and he would be reduced to the condition of a homeless w’andercr. He therefore offpred to treat; and Metellus, though his term of command had been prolonged to another year, was not unwilling to listen to overtures. He demanded that the Prince should give pledges of good faith, by paying down 200,000 pounds of silver, by giving up all his elephants and a quantity of horses, and by surrendering all deserters. These demands were complied with, and then Metellus required the surrender of Jugur-tha’s own person. It was evident that the worst defeat could hardly reduce him to greater extremities. He. at once put aside counsels of peace, and disappeared from sight.

§ 1G. Meanwhile the conduct of Marius began to excite distrust in the mind of the general. When he named the rude soldier his lieutenant, he expected doubtless that the honour of serving under a Metellus would be honour sufficient. But the military talents of Marius had become manifest, and he had be-

comc a favourite with the soldiery. “ If he had half the army,” he used to say, “lie would soon send Jugurtha in chains to Rome.” He gave out that he meant to offer himself as candidate for tho Consulship, and requested leave of absence as soon as he could be spared. “ It will be time for you to seek the Consulship,” said Metellus, “ when my son (a youth of twenty years old) can be your colleague:”—ungenerous words, that rankled for ever in the heart of Marius.

The next year’s campaign had begun before Marius obtained leave to repair to Rome. The elections were to come on in twelve days. In less than a week he reached Rome, and there lie used the same language which the camp had been accustomed to hear: “ Make me Consul, and you shall soon have Jugurtlu^ dead or alive, at Rome.” He was elected by an overpowering majority. The death of Gracchus had been avenged. The people exulted in raising to the chief magistracy one whose chief claim was that he was a New Man and the best soldier of Rome.

§ 17. The second campaign of Metellus was conducted with vigour. Marius being absent, it was manifest that the general was not wholly indebted to his lieutenant. Cirta surrendered. Jugurtha, afraid of the treachery of his friends, put confidence in none, changed his quarters daily, and suffered no one to know where he was to pass tlie next night. At length he fled to the Court of Bocchus, king of Mauritania, whose daughter lie had married. It was not long before Metellus heard that Bocchus was advancing with a large army to Cirta, and he prepared to meet this new enemy. At this crisis he received the unwelcome news that Marius was on his way to supersede him.

§ 18. After the election of the popular favourite, the Senate had decreed that Metellus should continue in command till the Ju-gurthan War was ended. But the Tribune Mancinus, encouraged by the success of his predecessors Memmius and Mamilius, moved in the Assembly of the Tribes that the command should be transferred to Marius; and the measure passed by acclamation.

Marius immediately set about his preparations. lie harangued the People with expressions of vehement scorn against all the Senatorial commanders, “ men of old pedigree, but ignorant of war; who never saw an army till they became generals, and then set about studying Greek books of tactics.* He was a New Mai; he had 110 images to show; he knew no Greek, and was unfit to figure at the banquets of the great; he did not esteem a stage-player or a cook better men than an honest yeoman: but he had images of his own,—spears, trappings, standards, prizes won by valour, and scars upon his breast.”

He did not, nowcvcr, confinc Iiimself to words. Though ho had spoken of only needing half the army of Metellus, he made levies on a large scale; and here he introduced an innovation which demands special notice. In early times military service was confined to those citizens who had a considerable stake in the country. Only those who were worth 4000 pounds of copper were allowed to enlist. After the Punic War the area of service had been extended by Flamininus. Marius now enlisted even those who were entered on the Censor’s register as possessing no appreciable amount of property.¹³⁹ Marius shipped the infantry which he had levied at opce for Africa, leaving his Quaestor, L. Cornelius Sylla,f t,o follow with'the cavalry.

§ 19. Metellys shed tears of vexation when he heard that he was to lose the prize ; and, not choosing to undergo the humiliation of surrendering his command to his late lieutenant, he took ship for Rome. Here he was well received. It could not be concealed that»Jugurtha was a fugitive, discrowned and landless, and that; the war. was virtually ended. Metellus without arrogance assumed the titlo of Numidicus. Sallust, a bitter enemy to the aristocracy, , allows that he was regarded with equal favour both by Senate and People. . . '

. § 20. On the approach of Marius, Bocchus retired into his own country. Tho chief difficulty now remaining was to get possession of tho person of Jugurtha. Marius was no adept in diplomatic arts, and probably would have begun a war with the Mauritanians. But he had with him one who was second to none in these arts. . , . -

L. Cornelius Sylla had just arrived with the cavalry. This person was now thirty-one . years old, twenty years younger than tho general. His family, though a branch of the great Cornelian Gens, hnd remained without honours since the days of P. Rufinus, who had been ejected from the Senate by the stern Curius Den-tatus for possessing more than ten ounces of silver plate. Sylla had inherited little from his father, and was reduced to take a mean lodging in the same house with a poor freedman, who in his greatness reminded him of tlie fact. He made himself master of the Greek literature of tho day, and in early years imbibed a taste for dramatic art. His habits were dissolute, as his appearance testified. His complexion, naturally fair, became pallid and blotched; but his bright blue eyes showed the vigorous spirit within. When he rode into the camp of Marius he had seen no active service, and the stern Consul looked with • > .

contempt on tlie effeminate debauchee whom lot had assigned him as a Quaestor. But with happy versatility Sylla adapted himself to the rough manners of the general, and entered with ready zest into the joviality of the soldiery. / His aptitude for business was such, that before the end of the campaign he was the chief adviser of Marius.

§ 21. As the army was retiring to winter at Cirta it was suddenly assaulted by Bocchus and his Moors. The enemy were beaten off, but by a rapid side march they reached Cirta before Marius. A severe conflict followed, in which the Moors were at length defeated with horrible carnage. Bocchus now began to fear that the next spring might witness an invasion of his own country, and the winter passed in negotiation. Sylla was sent to the Moorish capital, but even his dexterity was baffled by the arts of Jugurtha, and he returned without result. In a short time, however, Bocchus repented, and requested that Sylla might be sent back again. But the monarch still hesitated. After, a long delay, Bocchus sent for Sylla privately by night, and proposed to banish Jugurtha from his kingdom. Sylla replied that he was obliged to insist upon the surrender of Ju-gurtha’s person. Bocchus still hesitated. It is said that he doubted whether he should give up Jugurtha to Sylla, or Sylla to Jugurtha. But the address of the Roman envoy prevailed, and he did not depart from the King’s presence till he had received promises of all that he asked.

Next morning, however, the doubts of Bocchus returned. For several days he held secret interviews alternately with Sylla and with the envoy of Jugurtha, giving both of them to understand that he was on their side. But it was necessary for the wavering monarch to choose his part, and fear of Rome prevailed. He bade Jugurtha appear at a specified time and place ; and the Prince came, expecting to triumph. But his retinue was surrounded . and cut down, his own person secured, and given over to the Roman envoy. Sylla, relieved from the painful anxiety of many days, returned triumphantly to Marius.

Sylla was not of a.temper to waive any claims of his own in favour of his general. He ■ openly asserted that he was the real conqueror of Jugurtha, and had a signet-ring cut bearing a representation of the surrender of Jugurtha. The friends of Metellus encouraged this claim ; but the soldiery and the people regarded Marius as the conqueror, and none could deny that he was the greatest general of the day.

§ 22. It was on the Calends of January 104 b.c. that Marius entered Rome in triumphal procession, and passed before the gazing crowd to deposite in the Capitol the large booty which ho liad taken. On the same day he entered upon his second Consulate. Ilis reflection was against the law, both because he was absent at the time of his election, and because less than two years had passed since the termination of his first Consulship. The circumstances which justified this double suspension of the law will be given in the next chapter. •

§23. Jugurtha was treated in a manner that excites compassion for one who l^tle deserves such feelings. When he walked before the triumphal car of Marius he seemed sunk in stupor, from which he was roused by the brutal mob tearing off his clothes, and plucking the gold rings by force out of his ears. He was then thrust naked into the state-dungeon at the foot of the Capitoline. “ Hercules,” he cried, “ what a cold bath this is!” Here he was left to starve for six days, when death came to his relief. His kingdom was given to a rival prince of the line of Masinissa.

§ 1. First appearance of the Cimbrians and Teutons. § 2. Defeat of three Roman armies. § 3. Great defeat of Mallius and Caepio on the Rhone: Cimbrians push onward into Spaia § 4. Marius appointed to the command : his stern discipline. § 5. Third and fourth Consulships of Marius: Catulus his colleague in the last. § 6. Return of the Cimbrians from Spain: the Teutons also appear in Gaul, but turn eastward towards Switzerland. § 7. Marius on tho Rhone: first battle of Aix. § 8. Second battle: annihilation of the Teutons. § 9. Fith Consulship of Marius. § 10. Catulus Proeonsul: driven back from the Adige by the Teutons. §11. Catulus joined by Marius : they meet the Teutons near Vereellae. § 12. Battle of Vereellse: annihilation of the Teutons. § 13. Triumph of Marius and Catulus. § 14. Seeond Slave "War in Sicily: its origin: Salvius in the East. § 15. Athenio in the East. § 16. Salvius assumes the title of King and the name of Tryphon: Athenio submits. § 17. L. Lueullus, his little success: M’Aquillius ends the war. § 18. Strict measures to prevent future risings.

§ 1. Jugurtha had been taken prisoner early in 106 B.C., but Marius remained in Africa till the close of the next year. In the course of this year and a half happened the events which justified the election of Marius to his second Consulship.

It has been noticed in the preceding chapter that Roman conquest on the Rhone had been checked by the irruption of barbarians from the North. It was a few years before tho out-

break of the Jugurthan war that vast hordes from the North of Europe, impelled probably by want, appeared on the northeastern frontier of Gaul. The chief names by which these barbarians were known were those of Ciinbrians and Teutons. It cannot be ascertained who or what they were. Probably the Teutons were an association of German tribes under one common name. Tho Cimbrians must have been of Celtic origin, though with much Teutonic admixture. Their numbers were large; the fighting men are said to have numbered 300,000. The Cimbrians led the way; many smaller tribes followed or joined them, as the Ambrons from Germany, the Tectosages from the southwest of Gaul, the Tigurines from the north and west of Switzerland.

§ 2. It was in the year 113 b.c. that the Romans first came in contact with a host of Cimbrians on the northern frontier of Istria, and suffered a great defeat. But the main body pressed westward and crossed the Rhine at the crisis when war was declared against Jugurtha (111 b.c.). At that time they contented themselves with ravaging Gaul. Two years later they appeared on the frontier of the Transalpine Province, and demanded a gift of land. The Consul Silanus, colleague of Metellus, replied by giving them battle; but he also was defeated. In 107 B.C. the Tigurines pressed down the Rhone from their Swiss valleys, and were met by the Consul L. Cassius Longinus, colleague of Marius. The Helvetian Tribe shunned the conflict; but Cassius pursued them, and as he was incautiously advancing, he fell into an ambuscade. Great part of his army was slain, himself among the number; the rest were made to pass under the yoke. '

§ 3. While Marius was still detained in Africa after the capture of Jugurtha, still worse tidings reached Rome. The successive defeats just noticed had thoroughly alarmed the Senate, and large levies had been made for the year 105 b.c. Q. Servilius Caepio, the Consul of that year, had held command on the Rhone, and gained an evil reputation by the sack of Tolosa (Toulouse), the cliief city of the Tectosages, which he had assailed without provocation. So great was the plunder he took, that “Toulouse gold” became a proverbial expression for ill-gotten gains. He was, however, high in the favour of the Senate, and he was continued in command as Proconsul; but the chief command (in 104 b.c.) fell to the new Consul, Cn. Mallius, a man only distinguished for his want of capacity. When he arrived in the Province, Caepio scornfully refused to join him, till he crossed the Rhone, and was threatened by the barbarians. On hearing of the danger of the Consul, Caepio also crossed tho river, but still endeavoured to maintain a separate command. During these bickerings the armies of Mallius and Caepio were surprised and utterly destroyed; they lost no fewer than 80,000 soldiers and 40,000 camp-followers. This bloody defeat, the most serious that Rome had sustained since the day of Cannae, took place on the 6th of October, which was marked as a black day in the calendar.

§ 4. After this great victory, the barbarians, instead of pouring at once into Italy, turned southwards, and—a great portion of them at least—passed over the Pyrenees into Spain. Thus Italy was relieved from immediate fear; and Marius, now Consul for the second time, put forth all his energy in organising a fresh army. The greater part of his troops must have been furnished by the lowest class of citizens, and the disorderly recruits murmured at the requirements of the Consul. His sternness repelled them, his arbitrary habits offended, and those who submitted patiently were called “the mules of Marius.” Sylla, who, notwithstanding the jealousy of the General, had taken service under him as Legate, was of use m smoothing difficulties. The murmurs soon abated, and the nickname became a name of honour. The confidence felt by the old soldiers in the General extended itself to the new levies. It was found that, if he was inflexibly severe, he was no less inflexibly just,—the highest and the lowest received the same measure. His own nephew offered a brutal insult to a young soldier named Tre-bonius, who resented it by slaying his officer on the spot. Marius brought the youth to trial; but when he heard his story proved by evidence, he not only directed an acquittal, but placed a crown upon the youth’s head as a reward for his Roman virtue.

§ 5. For the next year Marius was elected Consul for the third time, and in the following year for the fourth time. His colleague was now Q. Lutatius Catulus, one of the most distinguished members of the aristocracy, who had hitherto been an unsuccessful candidate for the Consulship. In the three foregoing years he had been defeated by persons unworthy to be put in comparison with Catulus, whose character stood so high that it was usual to quote his mere word as sufficient authority for a fact: “ It must be so, for Q. Lutatius has said it.”* In personal integrity Marius was his equal, but in other respects they formed a marked contrast. Marius rough and stern, without education, scorning accomplishments, but the best general of the day; Catulus, polished in manner, well-informed and witty, the most finished orator of his time,f but untried in war.

f “ Oratio ejus pura sic ut Latine loqui paeno solus videretur.*'—Ibid iii. 8.

§ 6. Soon after the election news arrived that the dreaded hour was really at hand: the Gimbrians had been repulsed by the Celtiberians, and had recrossed the Pyrenees. The Teutons, whose name now first appears in the narrative, had by this time entered Gaul from the north-east, and the combined hordes were gathering on the frontier of the Gallic Province. Marius left Rome in haste and crossed the Alps; the remainder of the year he spent in fortifying a strong camp on the right bank of the Rhone, somewhere between Nismes and Arles. To secure ready access to the sea, he employed his men in cutting a canal from the rear of his camp to the coast, which long remained open, and was known as the Foss of Marius.

It was soon found that the barbarian hordes had again separated. The Teutons, with the Ambrons, remained in Gaul to attack the Roman Province and enter Italy by the Maritime Alps, while the Cimbrians passed up the Rhone and made a long circuit so as to threaten Italy from the north. Marius remained in Gaul to arrest the Teutons; Catulus, with a second Consular army, was ordered to the plains of Lombardy, there to await the Cimbrians.

Marius was exposed to the first assault. Early in the year 102 b.c. the plain in front of his camp was covered by Teutons, who challenged him with hideous cries to come forth; and his men indignantly asked whether their only task was to be that of digging and delving like slaves. But Marius turned a deaf ear both to the provocations of the barbarians and the murmurs of his own troops. “We have to fight,” he said, “not for trophies but for existence; we will not give battle till victory is secure.” •This backwardness was in part due to a superstitious regard for divination. As Wallenstein consulted the stars through his astrologer, so the grim Roman carried about with him a Syrian woman named Martha, in whose predictions he placed unbounded confidence.

§ 7. The Teutons, finding their challenges vain, attempted to storm the Roman camp, but were driven off with great loss. On this, they marched eastward past the lines. For six days the barbarians were defiling before the eyes of the Italian soldiery, scoffingly asking whether they could not carry some message home for them to their wives. As soon as their vast host liad crossed the Rhone, Marius followed them leisurely along the Aurelian road, till he came up with the Ambrons near Aquas Sextia>. While the soldiers set to work to entrench the camp, the camp-followers went down with the beasts to seek water, and found the Ambrons "vere luxuriantly bathing in the hot springs which gave name to tho place. As soon as they saw

the Romans they seized their arms, shouting the. name of their own tribe as a war-cry. There was in * the Roman advanced guard a Ligurian Tribe bearing a similar name, who returned the cry, and rushed into the stream. Marius, unable to restrain them, drew out the remainder of liis army, and the conflict became general. After a severe struggle the Ambrons were driven back to their camp, where their women came out and fell upon fugitives and Romans alike with indiscriminate violence. Darkness stopped the battle, and the Romans drew back to their * unfortified camp, where they passed the night under arms, listening to the wild and uncouth wailings with which the Ambrons lamented their dead. No attempt was made to renew the battle the next day, but Marius silently prepared for a decisive action on the morrow. •

§ 8. The Teutons liad in the mean time returned to support their comrades; and when the sun rose, the whole mass of the barbarians stood upon the plain in front of the eminence where the Romans lay encamped. During the night Marius had sent S000 men, to form an ambush in the rear of the enemy; and having drawn out his legions on the sloping ground before his camp, he there awaited the attack. The barbarians charged up the slope with furious cries. The Romans awaited tlieir assault steadily, till they were within spear’s throw; and then, having discharged their heavy javelins with terrible effect, they drew their swords and fell upon the broken ranks of the enemy.

The barbarians were driven back across the plain, and at the moment when they were attempting to rally, Marcellus, issuing from the wood, fell upon their rear. A dreadful massacre followed. So numerous w^rere the slain, that in after-years the people of Marseilles used the bones to make fences for tlieir vineyards, and the whole plain was fertilised by putrescent bodies. The Teutonic host was annihilated, and, on the western side, Italy was saved by the battle of Aix. .

§ 9. Teubocchus, the gigantic Chieftain of the Teutons, accus- • tomed (as tales ran) to ride four or six horses at once, was reserved to grace the Triumph. The broken arms and equipages were piled in a huge heap, and Marius himself, waving a chaplet and with his gown girded after the Gabine fashion, was advancing to fire it, when some horsemen were seen galloping along the road from Italy. lie paused: leaping from their horses, they saluted him as Consul for the fifth time.

§ 10. During the whole year the Cimbrians had not made their appearance, but towards the close of the season it was ascertained that they had reached the Tyrol, and might be expected to descend into Italy next spring by the valley of the Athesis (Adige).

Catulus, who remained in command for a second year as Proconsul, concentrated his forces on that river. Ilis camp, strongly fortified, was on the right or western bank; a bridge was thrown across the stream, defended by a similar camp or tete-du-pont.

The barbarians did not wait for the melting of the snows. Early in the next year (101 b.c.) they poured down the Pass of the Brenner, sliding exultingly down the frozen slopes upon their shields. Keeping the left bank of the Adige, they made their way to the point where^- Catulus was stationed. Tho Roman soldiers, unaccustomed to the aspect of the barbarians, could not be prevented from deserting the camp in precipitate flight. Happily, the division which was stationed on the left bank defended their post gallantly and prevented the Cimbrians from crossing the bridge in pursuit.

§ 11. Marius had returned to Rome at the close of the previous campaign, where he was received as became. the Conqueror of the Teutons, but generously declined the honour of a Triumph, till he could share it with Catulus. As soon as he heard of the descent of the Cimbrians, he set ofF for the Proconsul’s camp, having previously ordered his lieutenants to bring his victorious army from Gaul into . Italy. Catulus had succeeded in rallying his troops, and was posted on the south bank of the Po, probably near Placentia. The army which Marius brought to his aid amounted to more than 30,000 men; that of Catulus was reduced to little more than 20,000. The energy of Sylla had provided well for supplies of provisions and forage, and Marius was obliged to own himself indebted to an ofticer who had unceasingly provoked his jealousy.

Between the two Commanders the best feeling subsisted. The Cimbrians had pushed westward in the hope of meeting their friends the Teutons, of whose destruction they had not heard. Marius and Catulus, crossing the Po above the Ticinus, offered battle. The Cimbrians answered by sending envoys to demand that, when tlicir brethren reached Italy, the Romans should give them lands. “Your brethren,” replied Marius, “have already as much land as they are like to need;” and he sent back some Teuton prisoners, who sufficiently explained the meaning of his words. Boiorix, the Cimbrian Chief, nothing daunted, rode up to the Roman lines, and challenged the Generals to fix the day and place for a pitched battle. “ The Romans,” retorted Marius, “ are not wont to consult the enemy on such points. However, we will humour you. Let the day be the third day hence; the place the plain of Vercella).”

§ 1.2. Here the battle was fought. Catulus commanded tho centre; the troops of the Consul Marius, in two divisions, flanked 24*

him on the right and left. The Cimbrian host advanced in one dense column, their front ranks being linked together by chains passed through their belts. This great phalanx was supported by 15,000 horsemen, armed like Germans, with helmets made of the heads of wild beasts, surmounted by tall plumes. The combat took place on the 30th day of July; and the intense heat, together with the dust, impaired the vigour of these northern men. The compact ranks of the enemy, broken by the fire of the terrible pila, and charged by the whole Roman line, were driven back to their camp in disorder, and there received by their own wives as if they had been enemies. A scene of frightful carnage followed. The women alone, from the high waggons which formed the defence of the camp, continued to resist; till, not choosing to become slaves, they strangled their children, and sought a voluntary death either by the hands of friends or by nooses twisted of their own hair. The annihilation of the Cimbrian host at Vercellae was as complete as that of the Teutons at Aquae Sextiae.

§ 13. Both Marius and Catulus had done their duty in this bloody conflict. Plutarch, indeed, attributes the victory wholly to Catulus. But the accounts of Plutarch are borrowed from the annals of Sylla, a suspicious • authority for estimating the merits of Marius. At Rome, all the credit of the Cimbrian, as well as of the Teutonic, victory was given to Marius. He was saluted, with Romulus and Camillus, as the third Founder of Rome. The people loudly expressed their wish that he should triumph alone. But Marius, respecting the feelings of the soldiers, and not devoid of a rough generosity, declared that his noble colleague must share the honour. The opinion of the day was ratified by posterity. Cicero speaks of the Triumph as due to Marius;¹⁴⁰ and Juvenal in a well-known line sums up the traditional faith of a later generation.f There can be no doubt that Marius well deserved all his honours. By these great victories he rolled back the tide of Northern immigration for at least three centuries. The battles of Aix and Vercellae may be ranked in the number of those which changed the course of the World’s History.

§ 14. While the arms of the Republic were thus triumphant in averting external peril, the fertile Province of Sicily was again a prey to the desolating horrors of a Slave War.

After the former war had been happily concluded by Piso and Rupilius, several indications of similar troubles appeared in Italy itself. At Capua, a spendthrift Knight armed 4000 slaves and assumed the diadem. But by prompt measures the insurrection was put down.

The rising in Sicily might have been checked with no less ease. It originated thus. Marius had been commissioned by the Senate to raise troops in foreign countries to meet the difficulties of tho Cimbrian war. lie applied to the King of Bithynia, among other persons; but the King answered that he had no soldiers, the Roman Tax-gatherers had made slaves of them all. The Senate, glad to have an opportunity of censuring the Equites, passed a Decree that all persons unduly detained in slavery should be set free. In Sicily the number of such persons was so large that the Praetor suspended the execution of the Decree. Great disappointment followed. A body of slaves rose in insurrection near Agrigentum, and beat off the Praetor. Their numbers swelled to 20,000, and they chose one Salvius, a soothsayer, to be their king. This man showed himself fit to command, lie divided his followers into three bodies, regularly officered, lie enforced strict discipline. To restrain his men from wine and debauchery, he kept them in the field. He contrived to provide 2000 with horses. When his men seemed sufficiently trained, he laid siege to the city of Murgantia. But the slave-masters of Murgantia offered freedom to all slaves who ’Would remain faithful, and Salvius saw himself compelled to retire. The promise, however, was not kept, and numbers of the deceived men flocked to the insurgent camp.

§ 15. This success in the East of Sicily gave birth to a similar rising in the West, which was headed by a Cilician slave named Athenio, who pretended to read the future in the stars. He soon found himself at the head of 10,000 soldiers, well found with arms and provisions. He gave out that the stars declared his sovereignty: he therefore forbade all robbery; for, said he, “ the property of our masters is now ours.” He now rashly laid siege to the impregnable fortress of Lilybaeum; but finding its capture impossible, he drew off, alleging that an impending danger had been revealed to him.

§ 16. Meanwhile Salvius, who had assumed the name of Try-phon, fixed the seat of his sovereignty at the fortress of Trio-* cala, which had fallen into his hands, and sent orders to Athenio to repair in person to that place. Athenio obeyed the orders of King Tryplion, and appeared at Triocalawitli 3000 men. The King now occupied himself with adding to the strength of his new capital. He chose a Senate out of his followers. On public occasions lie wore the Toga Praetexta of a Roman Magistrate, and was attended by the due number of Lictors.

§ 17. The Romans seemed unable to make head against the insurgents, till, in 101 B.C., M’ Aquillius, the colleague of Marius in his fifth Consulship, took the command. Meanwhile, Try-phon had died, and Athenio had become chief of the insurgents. Aquillius brought them to an engagement, in which he encountered the brave Athenio hand to hand. The Consul was severely wounded, but the slave leader was killed. Aquillius remained as Proconsul in Sicily for another year, in the course of which time he crushed the last embers of the war. After the fall of Athenio, the insurgents dwindled away to a band of 1000 desperate men commanded by one Satyrus, who at length surrendered to Aquillius, and were by him sent to Rome to serve as gladiators. The story of their end is very touching. Being brought out into the arena to fight with wild beasts, they slew one another at the foot of the altars which stood there; and Satyrus, being left alone, fell upon his own sword.

It is manifest, from the humanity and discipline observed by these unhappy men in their power, that their chiefs must have been originally men of station and education, reduced to slavery by the horrid practice of ancient warfare. The story of their death presents a picture not flattering to Roman civilisation.

§ 18. Strict measures were adopted in Sicily to prevent a recurrence of these perils. It was made a standing order, confirmed by every successive Prsetor, that no slave should have a weapon in his possession. Nor was the ordinance suffered to remain a dead letter. Soon after, the Prsetor L. Domitius received a fine wild boar as a present. He inquired who had killed it. Finding that it was a slave employed as a shepherd, he summoned the man to his presence. The poor fellow came with alacrity, expecting a reward. The Prsetor asked him with what he had killed the animal; and finding that it was with a hunting-spear, he ordered the unfortunate wretch to be crucified. Such were the laws by which the masters of the world were obliged to maintain their power.

FROM THE SIXTH CONSULSHIP OF MARIUS TO THE DEATH OF M. LIVIUS DRUSUS. (100-91 B.C.)

§ 1. Seaurug and the Senate form a middle party. § 2. Practice of young orators to indict culprits of high rank : condemnation of Q. Caepio. § 3. Caepio had offended the Equites. § 4. Eminent men in the moderate party : the two Seaevolas: Crassus and Antonius, the Orators. § 6. Position of Marius: inaptitude for political arts. § 6. Election of Marius to a Sixth Consulship, Glaueia to the Praetorship, Saturninus to the Tribunate. § 7. Agrarian Law of Saturninus: oath required of Senators. § 8. Trick of Marius: banishment of Metellus. § 9. Extension of the Corn-law prevented by Cn. Caepio. § 10. Glaueia stands for the Consulship: murder of Memmius: Saturninus and his crcw outlawed: their cad. § 11. Decline of Marius’ power. § 12. Return of Metellus. § 13. Visit of Marius to Mithridates. § 14. Praetorship of Sylla: Sylla sent to Cilicia. § 15. Partial verdicts of the Equestrian Juries: cases of Aquillius and Rutilius. § 16. Drusus undertakes to deprive the Equites of Judicial power, but insists on enfranchising Italians. § 17. Measures of Drusus. § 18. Ilis judicial Reform ill received. § 19. Attack of Phi-lippus on the Enfranchisement Bill: death of Crassus. § 20. Assassination of Drusus. § 21. Law of Varius: impeachment of Scaurus.

§ 1. The power of the Nobility, shaken to its centre by the Gracchi, was for a time restored by force. But the election of Marius to the Consulate was a signal triumph of the popular party. Scaurus perceived that the reckless corruption of the Oligarchy must end in ruin, and he put himself at the head of the moderate party. The Senate was now in their hands.

§ 2. An indirect check was placed upon public immorality, by the increasing love for popular oratory, which followed the transference of judicial authority from the Senate to the Equestrian Order. The latter were venal enough, but were yet more open to persuasion than the old Senatorial juries, and afforded a greater scope to the powers of youthful orators. The cxamph of Cato and the Gracchi showed how men might rise to eminence by peaceful arts; and men even of noble family found a ready way to office by impeaching public officers. Q. Caepio suffered in this way. This man, as we have seen, was gorged with the plunder of Toulouse, and by his quarrel with the Consul Mallius had at least contributed to the great defeat of 105 B.C.* On the news of the defeat being received, tho Tribes * Chnpt. Iv. § 3.

passed a vote to deprive Csepio of his proconsular command, and to confiscate all his goods,—a proceeding unexampled in the later annals of the Republic. In the next year, the Tribunes introduced a law by which it was enacted that any one who had been so deprived of his command should lose his seat in the Senate.

§ 3. The attainder of Csepio was the greatest advantage which we know to have been gained by the popular party at this time. It was not solely on the merits of the case that he was so promptly judged. He had, in the year before, when he was Consul, carried a Centuriate Law—the Servilian Law of Caepio— by which the judicial authority was restored to the Senate, and had thus provoked the wrath of the Equestrian Order. This law, however, did not remain in force many months. • It was repealed by the Servilian Law of the Tribune C. Glaucia, in the same year that Caepio was condemned: and thus one Servilian law for restoring judgment to the Senate was cancelled by another Servilian law giving it back to the Knights.

§ 4. Of the moderate party, after Scaurus, none are more noticeable than Metellus and Catulus. But the most distinguished for purity of life were the two Scaevolas, the Augur and the Pontifex Maximus. Q. Scaevola, the Augur, belonged to a former generation. He is chiefly known for his great legal knowledge, in which he was the worthy successor of his cousins, 1\ Scaevola and P. Crassus, the friends of Ti. Gracchus.¹⁴¹ He married Laclia, the daughter of Scipio’s friend. In a corrupt age he escaped all taint of corruption.

The fame of Q. Scaevola, the Augur, was sustained by his cousin, Q. Scaevola, the Chief Pontiff. He was the son of that Scaevola who supported Ti. Gracchus, and was the third of his family who had borne the high office of Pontifex Maximus in succession. Like the Augur, he preferred the quiet profession of a jurist to the cxciting conflicts of political life. But whenever he appears in public, he adds honour to the name of his family. He ruled Asia with singular integrity; and we shall have to notice in a future page the unjust condemnation of his Legate, P. Rutilius Rufus, for endeavouring to prevent the extortions of the tax-collectors. His memory was long preserved by the grateful Asiatics in festal games known by the name of Mucia. The disinterested character of the Pontiff is shown by an anecdote preserved by Cicero. He had bought an estate under its due value; and though that value had been fixed by the vendor, the conscientious purchaser insisted on paying a

larger price,—an act which the jurists of the day considered to be incompatible with wisdom.*

Ilere also may be noticed the two great Advocates of the day, M. Antonius and L. Licinius Crassus, each known by the name of “ the Orator.” At Rome, in those days, a great Advocate could hardly avoid taking part in politics, for all celebrated causes were of a political nature. At Rome, advocacy was not so much a profession as a duty of private or political friendship. Both Crassus and Antonius generally appear as the defenders of Senators before the Equestrian Tribunal, and therefore seldom met as rivals at the bar. In youth, they both courted popular favour: but they soon became steady adherents of the Senatorial Order. Crassus married Mucia, daughter of Q.- Scaevola the Augur, and was the close friend of Q. Scaevola the Pontiff. One of his most famous speeches was delivered in favour of the Servilian law of Caepio for restoring judicial power to the Senators: in the time of Cicero it was regarded as a classical composition: “ it could not,” remarks the critic, “ be improved except by Crassus himself.” The oratory of Crassus was often pointed with sarcasm, which made him enemies even in the Senate : that of Antonius was more natural and pathetic. Cicero is unable to adjudge superiority to either. He introduces the two as the chief interlocutors in his celebrated Dialogues on the Orator. He exhausts the Latin language in expressing his admiration of both. Crassus he held to be the greatest orator Rome had ever seen except Antonius, and Antonius the greatest except Crassus. The oratory of Antonius, from its pathetic character, was more fitted for a Jury, that of Crassus for a deliberative Assembly. In their high finish and elaborate preparation the orations of Cicero himself may be taken as representations of the style of Crassus rather than of Antonius.

But these men, though they were upright, grave, and dignified, had not energy enough to reform the abuses revealed by the Gracchi; and thus the stage was left open to profligate demagogues. The removal of external danger by the defeat of the barbarians, and the return of Marius to Rome, gave the signal for a renewal of internal troubles.

§ 5. Marius was now the great man of the day. All parties were disposed to welcome him. He had conciliated tho Senate by his bearing towards Catulus: his military glory dazzled the multitude; the saving of Italy won him the regards of all. Tho blunt manners of the man gave no offence, nay, rather increased his popularity with the multitude. He had become rich; but to

gain wealth he had used no means that were reprobated by the usages of Roman society; his character for integrity stood high. Yet his own nature and long habits of command rendered him incapable of using the arts of the Forum. He is not the only great General that has quailed before the clamours of a popular Assembly: and it was not long before his popularity began to decline.

§ 6. But he could not bear to descend into private life: all men were surprised, and moderate men were disgusted, when ho appeared as candidate for a Sixth Consulship (101 b.c.) There was no excuse for any further violation of the law, and it appeared that his chance of election was doubtful. But agents were ready to assist him; his money was at their disposal; troops of disbanded soldiery thronged the streets of Rome. Metellus came forward as a candidate, not so much hoping to defeat Marius, as to neutralise his power by becoming his colleague. But even in this he was disappointed: L. Valerius Flaccus, a feeble nobleman, was preferred to the leader of the aristocracy.

The person who was mainly instrumental in procuring this result was L. Apuleius Saturninus, a man of good family, but with the habits of a reckless debauchee. Finding himself slighted by the Senate, he resolved upon revenge. 11c possessed that kind of eloquence which stirs the populace. Wli'at he wanted in rank and character he supplied by attaching himself to Marius. He found a friend and associate in C. Servilius Glaucia, the same who had already foiled the Senate by repealing the judicial law of Csepio. This man’s character was as bad as that of Saturninus. But his ready wit and reckless humour made him a popular favourite, and he was elected PriBtor of the City at the same Comitia which made Marius Consul for the sixth time. Having secured the election of these two men, Saturninus now stood forward as a candidate for a second Tribunate.

But a man of spirit, named Nonius, rose in the Assembly, and after boldly denouncing the infamous lives of both Glaucia and Saturninus, offered himself as a candidate, and was elected Tribune to the exclusion of the demagogue. A man so reckless as Saturninus was not thus to be defeated. With a party of his adherents he set upon Nonius, and murdered him. Glaucia.then called a partisan meeting early next morning, which he declared to be a regular Assembly of the Tribes; and by their votes Saturninus was elected Tribune.

§ 7. Saturninus at once commenced a career which is a sort of caricature of the public acts of the Gracchi. lie began by introducing an iniquitous Agrarian Law, by which it was proposed to divido. among the soldiers of Marius the lands in Gaul recently

occupied by the Cimbrians; iniquitous, for these lands were the property of the Provincials who had been dispossessed by the barbarians. He also proposed to found Colonies in various provinces, and to employ the “Toulouse gold” of Cacpio as Ti. Gracchus had employed the gold of Attalus.

For carrying this law Saturninus relied chiefly on the disbanded soldiery of Marius and a mob of Latins and Italians. To intimidate the Senate it was provided that, in case the law received the assent of the Tribes, every Senator should, within five days, take an oath of obedience to its enactments, and that any recusant should lose his seat in the Senate and pay a fine of twenty talents to the Treasury.

§ 8. On the day appointed for the vote, the opposite party endeavoured to break up the Assembly by declaring that it was , thundering. “ If you do not take heed,” said Saturninus, “ it will hail also.” Stung by his scornful demeanour, the opponents of the law girded up their gowns, and drove the "adherents of Saturninus from the Forum. But the veteran soldiers Regained possession of the place, and the law passed. On the same day Marius, in the Senate-house, declared that to exact a compulsory oath was an insult to the Order, and Metellus expressed his resolution to stand by the Consul in refusing the oath. But late on the afternoon of the fifth day, when the time for taking the oath was just expiring, Marius hastily convened the Senate, and stated that there was reason to apprehend violence if the oath were not taken; to appease the mob he proposed that all should submit to take it; hereafter it might be declared null, as having been taken under compulsion. All saw through this hypocritical artifice : but there was no time for debate; and Marius himself, rising from his place, went forth to the front of the Temple of Saturn, and there publicly took the oath. The rest of the Senators present followed his example, all except Metellus, who declared that he would submit to any penalty except dishonour. Next day, when the Senate met, Metellus appeared in his place; and Saturninus ordered him to be removed. The other Tribunes interposed; upon which Saturninus rushed forth and harangued his partisans, telling them that while Metellus was at Rome they \vould never get their promised lands. He then brought forward a Bill to banish Metellus from the soil of Italy. Before the day appointed for the vote, the Roman citizens armed themselves with daggers, and would have used force against the partisans of Saturninus; but Metellus, with noble patriotism, said that not for him should blood be shed, and forthwith quitted the city.

§ 9. Saturninus next brought in a Bill designed to win the flavour of the Roman Populace. It was a measure for reducing

tiie price of grain from ases the modius (the price fixed by C. Gracchus) to 5-6ths of an as.* The Senate were now roused to action. The Quaestor of the City, Cn. Caepio, made a report that the Treasury could not bear the drain which must follow; and the Senate ordered Saturninus to proceed no further. He persisted; his colleagues interposed their veto; but Saturninus scornfully ordered the ballot-boxes to be brought forward, on which Caepio, supported by a strong body of men, broke down the gangways and overthrew the ballot-boxes. The violence of Saturninus could not be arrested but by violence.

§ 10. The Tribunician Elections for the next year came on before the Consular. Saturninus procured his own reelection; and, as Marius did not seek a seventh Consulship, the Tribune used all his power to procure the election of his friend Glaucia to this office. But Antonius the Orator and C. Memmius were held sure of their election; and, to prevent this result, Saturninus sent a band of ruffians who positively beat Memmius to death in the Campus Martius. This brutal act broke up the Assembly. The People of the City were wrought up to frenzy, and met next day, vowing that they would have the life of Saturninus. The Tribune, supported by Glaucia and by Saufeius, one of the City Quaestors, assumed an attitude of resistance. The Senate met, and Marius offered himself as mediator. But the Senate issued a decree which charged the Consuls with dictatorial power. Meanwhile the insurgents had seized the Capitol. All the chiefs of the Senate appeared in arms to support Marius, who became the unwilling leader of his political adversaries. It might have been not easy to reduce the insurgents under such a commander; but some persons cut the pipes which supplied the quarter with water, and as it thus became impossible for the insurgents to hold out, they surrendered in reliance upon tho good offices of Marius. The citizens would have slain them on the spot; but Marius insisted on a regular trial, and shut them up in the Senate-house. The People, however, would not be balked of vengeance. Numbers of them climbed to the top of the building, tore off the tiles, and killed all the prisoners. Thus were slain a Praetor, a Quaestor, and a Tribune, all wearing tho ensigns of office.

§ 11. The proceedings against Saturninus were the same as those adopted against the Gracchi. But this demagogue had himself set the example of using force, and his death was due to a burst of popular feeling. Marius had lost all influence by

* The particular change of price was caused probably by a jingle of words. By the Apuleian Law corn was to be sold semisse et triente (-$■ ~j- $ —-instead of *cni» et triente (6$), as ruled by the Scmpronian Law.

associating himself with such men. The Senate and People of Rome, who were now allied through fear of the Italians, hated him because he had attempted to save Saturninus. He proved as feeble a politician as he was a bold and skilful commander.

§ 12. All orders now desired the recal of Metellus, who had retired to Rhodes. On the death of Saturninus, it was proposed at once to rescind tho law by which he was banished; but one of the Tribunes put a veto on the measure. In vain the friends and kinsmen of the banished Senator sought to bend this man from his purpose; in vain young Q. Metellus interceded for his father so earnestly that he was known ever after by the name of Pius. But at the beginning of the next year (99 B.C.), the law for removing the ban from Metellus now passed by acclamation, liis return was a real triumph. The whole City, Nobles and People, met him outside the walls. So many were the greetings which he had to receive and give that it was evening before he entered the gates. Ho had been absent about a year.

§ 13. That was a bitter day for the proud spirit of Marius. He left Rome abruptly, and took ship for Asia. The ambassadors of Mithridates had been insulted by Saturninus; but the King dissembled all anger, and received the great General with every mark of honour. Marius answered the Oriental compliments of Mithridates with rude threats. “ King,” said he, “ you will have to conquer Rome or to submit.” Plutarch avers that his purpose was to drive Mithridates to war, in the hope that he might recover in arms that consequence which he had lost in peace.

§ 14. The popular taste for shows was daily increasing with the increasing wealth of the great families who supplied iEdiles to the State. Sylla had relapsed into easy self-indulgence after his Cimbrian campaigns. But he now appeared as candidate for the Pratorship. He had not, however, served as ^Edile; and the people expected a magnificent show of beasts from the friend of Bocchus. Sylla therefore lost his election. But in 94 b.c. ho spent large sums in bribery, and promised to exhibit as Prastor all that had been expected from him as iEdile. Accordingly in the next year the wondering people saw one hundred lions, tho gift of the Moorish King, let loose in the Circus.

After his Praetorsliip, Sylla was sent by the Senate into Cilicia with a commission to watch Mithridates, who had already begun military preparations on a large scale. "Wherever Marius went, it seemed as if he were destined to meet Sylla in rivalry.

§ 15. Of all the measures of Gracchus none had left a deeper sore than that which transferred the judicial power from the Senators to the Equestrian Order. Q. Caspio’s attempt to reverse this measure had succeeded only for a moment: disap* pointmcnt aggravated the soreness of tlie Senate. But though popular feeling was in favour of the Equestrian rather than the Senatorial juries, yet the Knights, as has before been noted, had their own motives for corrupt judgment. As Farmers of the Revenue, they were subject to the power of provincial magistrates ; and, accordingly as a provincial magistrate favoured or hindered their exactions, it was probable that he would be .treated with leniency or severity at their tribunal.

Two celebrated causes had lately occurred which proved this point to demonstration.

M’ Aquillius had quelled the Second Slave-war in Sicily. His father had been noted for rapacity in Asia: the son followed too faithfully the example of his sire. His advocate, Antonius, pleaded his good services as a set-off against the corrupt practices by which he had amassed a large fortune. The orator concluded a pathetic appeal to the feelings of the jury by tearing open the tunic of the old soldier and displaying the scars which seamed his breast. The effect was such that the whole audience sobbed aloud, and iron tears were seen to roll down the cheeks of Marius. Aquillius was acquitted.

P. Rutilius Rufus had displayed no small military talent as Legate to Metellus in the Jugurthan War. After his Consulship he had accompanied his friend Q. ScsBvola the Pontiff as Legate to Asia. The severe spirit of justice which regulated his whole conduct could not tolerate the. rapacity, displayed by the Equestrian Farmers of the Revenue, and he exerted himself to protect the helpless Provincials from their exactions. On his return, a person of indifferent character, was induced to indict him before the Equestrian Court for impeding public officers in the execution of their duty. Rutilius had, like Scipio, been a disciple of the great Stoic teacher Pansetius, and, he practised the rigid philosophy which he professed. He would not accept the services either of Crassus or Antonius, and prevented even Scsevola, who attended him into Court, from using the arts of advocacy. But probably no advocacy would have availed. Tlie complainants and the jury belonged to the same body; and the Knights proved that they were not more fit than the Senators to be judges in their own case.*

§ 1G. The iniquity of this sentence was so glaring that it gave an opportunity for wresting the privilege of judgment from tlie Knights. Scaurus cast his eye about for a fitting agent, and it fell on a young man named M. Livius Drusus, son of that Drusus

* Cicero, a great pdtron of the Equestrian Order, declares that, “P. Rutilio damnato, nemo tarn innocens videbatur, ut non timeret judicia.”— Pro Scauro, 1; compare In Pison. 39. * who had served as the tool of the Senate in outbidding C. Gracchus. Ilis family was good, his wealth great, his life spotless, his mind cultivated, his eloquence remarkable, his temper fearless, and his will inflexible. The frank simplicity of his nature is well shown by a well-known anecdote, lie was building a new house on the Palatine (the same which afterwards belonged to Cicero), and the architect promised so to construct it that no one should be able to overlook him. “ Rather,” said Drusus, “ so arrange it that all my life may be opon to all eyes.” Scaurus soon found that he had chosen one who would not stoop to be the tool of a party. Several of the Italian towns sent deputies to pray Drusus to undertake their cause, and he eagerly agreed, Scaurus and the Senatorial leaders, to secure him for their own service, were obliged to support his foreign policy.

§ 17. Drusus began his Tribunate like C. Gracchus and Sa-turninus. He resorted to the old expedient of an Agrarian Law, by which Colonies were to be largely planted on the Public Lands of Italy and Sicily, and he proposed an extension of the Law for selling corn cheap.

§ 18. He next undertook to fulfil the contract he had made with Scaurus. He did not, however, purpose simply to restore judicial power to the Senate; but devised’ a compromise, by which this power might be shared between its old and its new possessors. The number of the Senate was to be doubled by the addition of 300 members, to be chosen from among the Knights; and from these 600 Senators the Judges were to be chosen.' But this plan failed to satisfy either party. The Knights, as a body, had no wish to transfer the privilege they now possessed to 300 of their Order, and the Oligarchy were loud against Scaurus for betraying his Order.

§ 19. The Oligarchy was even more irritated by the proposal to enfranchise the Italians. They won over the Consul Philippus, a cross-grained man of ready speech, who appeared in the Forum to oppose the Law. But Drusus ordered the Consul to be removed, and the order was executed with so little regard that blood burst from his mouth. On this Philippus declared in open Forum, that “ with such a Senate as they now had it was impossible to carry on the Government.” Next day, the Tribune rose in the House to complain of the attack made by the Consul on the Senatorial Order. lie was seconded by Crassus in a speech so eloquent that he was thought to have surpassed himself. Philippus replied in a furious invective, and declared that he would exact pledges for good conduct from the Orator. This called up Crassus again, and he attacked the Consul in a strain of indignation unusual to him. “Do you expect,” he exclaimed, “to frighten me by pledges? You must first cut out this tongue; and even then love of liberty will find means to testify against depraved license.” The great Orator sat down amid general applause ; but his exertions brought on an attack of pleurisy, and in a week that eloquent tongue was mute for ever.

§ 20. What might have been the result is impossible to guess; for all further proceedings were cut short by the assassination of the Tribune. Drusus knew that his life was in danger. For some time he had avoided public places, and received those who came to transact business with him in a covered walk behind his house. One evening, as he was dismissing his visitors, he cried out that he was stabbed, and fell to the ground. A leather-cutter’s knife was found planted in his loins. He expired soon after, mournfully saying that it would be long before the Republic would have a servant so disinterested as himself.

§ 21. The excitement produced by this last disappointment of their hopes was great throughout the towns of Italy. It was greater still when a Tribune named Yarius, a native of Sucro in Spain, who had become a Roman citizen, introduced a Law by which it was declared that all who favoured Italian claims had been guilty of high treason against the People of Rome. Under this Law Scaurus and the leading Senators were at once impeached. Some sought safety in exile. Antonius stood his trial, defended himself in a speech of passionate vehemence, and was acquitted. There was no evidence against Scaurus but the word of the accuser; and the wary statesman contented himself with saying in defence : “ Q. Yarius, the Spaniard, says that M. Scaurus, the Chief of the Senate, has endeavoured to excite the Allies to rebellion. Choose ye, Quirites, which ye will believe.” He was acquitted, and this is the last we hear of a man who for thirty years or more had been the virtual Chief of Rome.

Coin of the Eight Italian Nations, joining in an Oath of Federation, with th* Legend Italia.

§ 1. Anger of the Italians: outbreak at Asculum. § 2. Organisation of tho Italians: Consuls, Praetors, &c. § 3. Defeat and death of the Roman Consul, Rutilius Lupus: inactivity of Marius. § 4. New Consuls: Pompeius Strabo. § 5. Compromise proposed: Julian Law. § 6. Submission of many: bitter enmity of the Samnites. § 7. Second Campaign: great successes of Sylla. § 8. And of Pompeius Strabo. § 9. Attempts at negotiation: Sylla takes Bovianum: answer of Mithridates. § 10. Capture of Asculum: submission of all the Allies except the Samnites and Lucanians: great losses on both 6ides. § 11. Plotian and Papirian Law. § 12. Admission of New Citizens. § 13. Difficulties and dangers in the new state of things. § 14. State of the Law-courts.

§ 1. The occurrences described at the close of the last Chapter embittered the Italians to the uttermost. The outbreak of war was precipitated by an unpremeditated act of violence.

Italy was at that time subject to the government of Proconsuls. One of these officers, named Servilius, stationed in the Picenian territory, received information that the citizens of Asculum were organising insurrection. He immediately entered that city with a small retinue, and, finding the citizens assembled for some festal purpose, he assailed them with vehement threats. The people set upon him and slew him; and now that blood had been spilt, free vent was given to passion. All Romans who fell into their hands were massacred and their goods confiscated.

The news spread like wildfire. A general meeting of the Allies was called. Deputies attended from the Picenians, from the Marsians, Pelignians, Marrucinians, and Vestinians; from the Samnites, from the Apulians and the Lucanians. A formal statement of their claims was drawn up and despatched to Rome:— “ They had,” they said, “ long done faithful service to the Republic; they had furnished two-thirds of her armies, they had conquered the world for her, yet they were still treated like mere aliens.” The Senate stiffly replied, “ that no embassies could be received till reparation was made for the late acts of violence.”

§ 2. The steps taken by the Eight Allied Nations showed the nature of the impending struggle. The question was, not whether the Italians were to become citizens of Rome, but whether Roma was to continue to be mistress of the Italian Confederation.

They declared Corfinium, a strong city in the Pelignian Apennines, the capital of the new Italian League: henceforth it was to be called Italica.* Two Consuls were to be the chief officers of the League, each having six Prators under his command. A Senate was formed for managing public business: everything showed the determination of the insurgent Communities to supersede the authority of Rome.

No time was lost in debating. Q. Pompsedius Silo, a Marsian, and C. Papius Motylus, a Samnite, were elected Consuls.f In every quarter able officers started up who had learned the art of war in the Roman armies, some of them under Marius. The most eminent names are C. Judacilius, a Picenian of Asculum, Herius Asinius, a Marrucinian, T. Lamponius of Lucania, with Vettius Scato, Marius Egnatius, and T. Afranius, all three of Samnite blood. The meagre accounts which remain to us of the Social WarJ make it difficult to distinguish between the merits of these commanders. Their proceedings seem to have weakened by want of concentration, and forcibly recal to mind the straggling and indecisive conflicts which characterised the earlier part of our own Civil War, before the genius of Cromwell gave unity of purpose to the armies of the Parliament.

§ 3. The outbreak of the war (90 c.c.) evidently took the Senate by surprise. Campania itself, the favoured and favourite land of tho Roman nobles, fell into the hands of the enemy. Nola was compelled to surrender: Stabia3, Liternum, Salernum followed the example of Nola: Aceme was closely invested by the Samnites. The Consul Ca3sar threw himself into this place, while liis colleague Rutilius advanced with a regular army, with Marius for his Legate, to the Liris. lie was met by Pompcedius Silo, the Marsian Consul. The Roman army was in two divisions, Rutilius himself commanding on the left, while Marius led the right to a

* Coins of the Confederacy are found with the legend italia. See tho Woodcut at the head of this Chapter.

t Papins is the only one whose name appears on coins.—See below, noto on § 5.

% This is the name given to it by Florus, Eutropius, &c. Cicero and others call it Bellum Italicum. Horace, Strabo, and Plutarch call it the Marsian War.

point nearer the sea. No sooner had Rutilius crossed the river with negligent haste, than lie was assaulted by Pompredius. The lloman army was utterly defeated, the Consul himself slain, and Marius apprised of the Consul’s defeat only by the number of dead bodies that came slowly floating down the Liris. The old General immediately crossed the river and drove back tho victorious enemy. The body of the Consul was recovered and sent to be interred publicly at Rome. But the consternation which prevailed there was raised to its height by this fatal spectacle, and the Senate issued a Decree ordering that the bodies of the slain, however illustrious, should be buried in the place where they had fallen.

Marius himself maintained his reputation only by foiling the enemy in all attempts to force on a battle. Pompsedius, flushed with success, called on him,—“ If he were the great General he was reported, to come out and fight.” “ Nay,” retorted Marius, “ if you are the great General you would fain be thought, make me come out and fight.” Plutarch attributes his inactivity to his age (he was now sixty-five), his corpulence, and the luxurious habits he had of late adopted. But subsequent events showed that he could be active enough when he pleased; and it is more than probable that Marius purposely abstained from acting with energy against the Italians, who had fought his battles in the field and supported his political agitation in the City.

§ 4. The Consuls chosen for the next year were, Cn. Pompeius Strabo, father of Pompey the Great, aud L. Porcius Cato. Pompeius waa a greedy and selfish, but able man ; and he served the Republic well in the ensuing campaign. Cato had just rendered a great service to the State by checking a threatened rising in Etruria.

§ 5. But the Senate trusted not wholly to military ability. During the autumn serious deliberations were held as to the expediency of a compromise. Statesmen of the school of Scaurus advocated the affirmative side: the actual Consul L. Caesar, and the Consul-elect Cn. Pompeius, were both of this class. Besides the losses in Campania, all Samnium, except the Colony of yEsernia, was in the hands of the enemy; in Apulia, even the Colonies of Venusia and Luceria had been taken by Judacilius, and Lamponius had driven the Praetor Crassus, son of the orator, out of Lucania. Unfavourable reports also came in from the North ; it seemed likely that the Sabellian insurrection might spread over the whole of Italy. The Consul Caesar was by the Senate empowered to draw up a Law, called after him the Julian Law, for granting the Franchise to those of the Allies who had either taken no part in the Social AYar, or had now ceased to

take part in it, on the necessary condition that their respective countries should become integral portions of the Eoinan Territory. To show that the Law was to be a reality, L. Caesar himself, with his Legate Crassus, were elected Censors for the year 80 b.c. to enrol the new citizens, though it was but eighteen months since the last Censors had laid down their office.

The effect of this timely concession immediately appeared: a division of opinion was created in many of the insurgent Communities. But in others it excited a still more vigorous determination. At first, the coins issued from the Mint of the Confederates bore Latin Legends: but as the contest became embittered, the Oscan character was adopted, as if to show that the language of Rome was to be henceforth disused by the friends of Italy.*

§ 6. But while the. Senate prudently disarmed the wavering or the lukewarm, they made strenuous exertions to crush those who should continue the war. The Samnites, above all, showed no inclination to accept favours from Rome : the deadly hostility of ancient times again broke out; and they scrupled not to send an embassy to the Court of Mithridates. Desperate resolution could not be more strongly shown than by calling in an Asiatic monarch to share in the spoils of Italy. Proclamations were issued in which rewards were offered for the heads of Roman citizens, and freedom promised to all slaves who should join the Italian cause.

§ 7. Early in the spring of the next year (89 bx.) the campaign began. The Consul Pompeius moved northwards into the Picenian territory, while his colleague Cato covered the passes leading down from the Appennines into the Campagna of Rome. But Cato fell at the very outset of the campaign in a skirmish, and the chief command on the south of the Apennines fell to his Lieutenant, Sylla.

Sylla now exerted himself to the utmost to cclipse the military renown of his old Commander Marius. He took the field with a small Roman division, supported by a strong auxiliary force of Numidians and Moors, raised by his personal influence in Africa. With these troops he advanced within sight of the enemy’s entrenched camp in Campania. A gigantic Gaul came out and challenged any of Sylla’s men to single combat. The challenge was accepted by a Numidian, whose adroitness enabled him to lay low his huge antagonist. On this, the enemy’s host fled in consternation towards Nola; and Sylla followed so closely, that the garrison of that city were obliged to close the gates which

* It is impossible to say wTicn this chang-c took place. The coin at the end of tliis Chapter bears tho name of Papius in Oscan characters* with only Two of the Allied Nations left.

they had opened to admit the fugitives. The activo Roman followed up his first success so vigorously, that the enemy was obliged to leave Campania; and Sylla, leaving part of his ariny to invest Nola, entered tlie Hirpiuian country. Its towns submitted ; and Sylla prepared to pass into the Pentrian valleys, tho last and strongest holds of Samnite freedom.

§ 8. Meanwhile, the Consul Pompeius had been pursuing a course no less successful in the North. He had at first been defeated by Judaeilius, who left Afranius to hold the Consul in check, while he repaired in person to Apulia. But Pompeius routed Afranius, and invested Asculum, the first seat of the insurrection. As soon as this ill news reached Judaeilius, he flew to the relief of his native city, but only succeeded so far as to cut his way through the Roman lines and enter the gates with a few brave men. Pompeius left his lieutenants to blockade the place, which was desperately defended, and himself moved southwards. Corfinium fell into his hands, and the seat of the insurgent government was shifted to Bovianmn, the chief stronghold of the Pentrian Samnites.

itere then the war was to be decided. While Pompeius descended from the North, Sylla was advancing from the South.

§ 9. At this moment an attempt was made to negotiate. Pompeius and Scato had an interview, at which Cicero—then a youth of seventeen, served his first campaign in the Consul’s army—was present. Sextus, the Consul’s brother, came expressly from Rome to lend his good offices for promoting peace. “ I am,” said lie to* the Samnite Chief, “ by choice your friend, your enemy by necessity.” But the attempt proved unavailing.

Meanwhile, Sylla defeated the Samnite General Papius, and pushed on straight to Bovianmn, where he was in correspondeneo with some persons attached to the Roman interest. The plaeo was betrayed to him.

About the same time an answer arrived from Mitliridates. He bade the Samnites hold out firmly: he was, he said, at present engaged in expelling the Romans from Asia; when that work was done, he would cross the sea, and assist them in crushing the she-wolf of Italy. But promises at sueh a juncture were equivalent to refusal.

§ 10. On all hands, therefore, the fortune of Rome was in the ascendant. Judaeilius, finding that lie could hold Asculum no-longer, raised a funeral pile in sight of his banquetiiig-liall, and after a sumptuous entertainment given to his friends, drained a poisoned cup of wine to the dregs, ascended the fatal pile, and Jbade his guests set fire to it. The place surrendered, and the Consul Pompeius treated the citizens with ruthless severity; tho richcr sort were beheaded ; the rest sold as slaves ; the houses rased to the ground. Among those reserved to grace his triumpli was a boy named P. Ventidius Bassus, who afterwards became one of the best officers in the Roman army, and himself enjoyed a triumph for avenging the defeat of Crassus upon the Parthians. The Vestinians and Pelignians yielded to the Consul; Sulpicius received the submission of the Marrucinians, Murena and Me-tellus Pius that of the Marsians¹⁴² The brave Marsian Chief, Pompsedius, fled into Apulia, pursued by Metellus; and venturing to give battle, was defeated and slain. Vcnusia returned to its allegiance. But Canusium in Apulia and Nola in Campania were still held by Samnite garrisons; and the Samnites themselves in their mountains, with a portion of the Lucanians, sti1> defied the Roman arms.

The successful issue of the war was not purchased without heavy losses on the side of Rome. It is computed that in the whole of this deadly struggle not fewer than 300,000 of the youth of Italy fell. The greater part of them belonged doubtless to the enemy. But when we speak of the enemy, it must be remembered that in every man who fell—whether Roman, La!in, or Italian—the Republic lost a soldier.

§ 11. When it was too late, the Senate showed themselves forward in concession. In the early -part of the second campaign, the Tribunes, M. Plotius Sylvanus and C. Papirius Carbo, Drought in a Law supplementary to the Julian Law, by which its privileges were granted not only to the Italian allies, but also to the burgesses of all allied cities in the provinces, who were at that time domiciled in Italy, provided that they registered their names before the Praetor of the city within sixty days.f The Consul Pompeius emulated his predecessor by proposing a law for advancing all the citizens of the Gallic, communities beyond the Po to the condition of Latin burgesses.

§ 12. The practical question that remained was the mode of admitting the new citizens. It is evident that there were two distinct ways in which this might be accomplished. First, the number of Tribes might have been retained as it was; and the Italians might cither have been distributed through the whole Thirty-five, or have been confined (like the Freedmen) to a certain number. Of these plans, the forfticr mode would have made the Italians masters of the Comitia on all occasions; the latter would have looked like an insult and a degradation. Or, secondly, the number of Tribes might be increased, and the new Tribes reserved for the Italians. This was the plan adopted. The Censors, L. Cajsar and P. Crassus, entered on their office during the present year; and in the course of the year 89 b.c., they created Ten new Tribes for the Italians alone, and prepared to register all their names as Roman citizens of these Tribes. But the Civil War prevented the Censors from finishing their work.

§ 13. The difficulties attached to the question of enfranchising the Italians showed that it was not a merely factious opposition which had hitherto been offered. The Senate indeed had shown an anxious disposition to settle the matter peaceably; and the passing of the Law to extend the Franchise, before arms were laid down, proves that they gave up the stern maxim of the old Republic, “Sparc the submissive, and war down the proud.” It was in fact impossible to adapt a Constitution originally fitted for a small Civic Community to a great Country. It was manifest that the Italians would not rest satisfied with the scanty share of direct power granted to them; and yet it was hardly safe to grant them more, unless, indeed, some statesman in advance of his time had suggested a plan resembling the modern system of Representative Parliaments. But no such plan was thought of. It may be said that the partial admission of the Italians to tho franchise annulled the old Roman Constitution, and made an absolute Monarchy almost a political necessity.

§ 14. During the Social War the High Courts of Justice had been closed. Of the great advocates, Crassus was dead, Ar.to-nius was absent from Rome, Cotta, who had aspired to succeed to their fame, was in exile. Ilortensius, who was fast establishing his claim to be considered the first orator of his day, was employed in the first year of the war as a Legionary Tribune, in the second as a Tribune. Sulpicius, another eloquent speaker, had served as a Legate of the Consul Pompeius. Cicero, not yet eighteen, had just imbibed fliat distaste for a military life which attached him ever after to the Forum.

§ 1. Sylla appointed to the command against Mithridates. § 2. Attempt of the young Nobles to relieve themselves of debt. § 3. The Tribune Sul-picius. § 4. He proposes to distribute the Italians among all the Tribes. § 5. Riots: the law passed, and Marius chosen to supersede Sylla. § G. Sylla flies to his army at Nola. § 7. Marches upon Rome: joined by tho other Consul Q. Pompeius Rufus. § 8. Battle in streets of Rome. § 9. Marius anl eleven others outlawed by the Senate. § 10. Death of Sul-picius. § 11- Adventures of Marius: he reaches Africa. § 12. Unpopularity of Sylla: Octavius and Cinna, Consuls: oath of Cinna: murder cf Pompeius Rufus: Sylla leaves Italy. § 13. Cinna puts himself at the head of the Italians: he is driven out of Rome, and deprived of the Consulship. § 14. The army at Nola declares for Cinna: the Italians rise in arms. § 15. Marius returns to Italy : joins Cinna. § 16. Efforts of the Senate: Pompeius Strabo enters Rome. § 1*1. Blockade of Rome by four armies. § 18. Death of Pompeius: surrender.of Rome. § 19. The Marian Massacre. § 20. Sertorius slaughters the slaves. § 21. Death of Catulus anl others. § 22. Seventh Consulship and death of Marius.

§ 1. Marius was the cause of the First Civil War; but the person who gave occasion to its outbreak was Mithridates, King of Pontus. Wc have said that in the second year of the Social War this remarkable man encouraged the insurgents to hope for his support as soon as lie had expelled the Romans from Asia. The details of this enterprise will bo given in the next chapter. Here we must be content with stating that, before the end of the year 89 B.C., the Senate had determined upon war, and a Commander was to be chosen. In the mind of Marius, this Commander could bo none other than himself: he had long fixed his eye upon the East, and had done what in him lay to hasten a rupture. Late events had shown him that Sylla, whom lie hated, might become a formidable rival; and he left the sumptuous villa which lie had lately erected at Misenum, for a house adjoining the Forum. He daily frequented that busy place, and, notwithstanding his increasing age and corpulence, again joined in the military exercises of the Campus, trusting that thus lie should be always in the sight of the People. But the glory won by Sylla in the Social War marked him as the person to whom the command was due; and, as lie was Consul-elect, his appointment was regarded as a

matter of course. In tlie heart of Marius hatred was made intense by disappointment; and he determined, cost what it might, to secure the command for himself.

§ 2. Circumstances favoured his design. The business of farming the revenue every day increased" the wealth of the Equestrian Order. To them all who needed money resorted. They demanded high rates of interest; but lavish expenditure was the fashion among the young Nobles. Some of those who were heavily burthened with debt raked up an old law, by which usurious interest was forbidden, and refused to pay more than was by this law allowed. A case was brought before the Praetor Asellio, who allowed the noble debtors to prosecute their creditors for illegal usury. The fury of the Knights rose to the utmost: Asellio was assaulted and murdered.

§ 3. Among the Tribunes of the year was P. Sulpicius, a master of lofty and pathetic eloquence,* who had been a friend of the unfortunate Drusus, and was animated by bitter enmity against Q. Pompeius Rufus, Sylla’s colleague in the Consulship. This was the person whom old Marius now selected as his political agent, as lie had formerly chosen Saturninus. Marius held up before his ardent imagination the treasures of Mithridates, promising that, if the command were transferred to himself, he would employ the wealth of the Pontic King to relieve the Roman debtors. Sulpicius caught eagerly at the offer.

§ 4. There was no inclination among the People of Rome to supersede Sylla. But if the Italians could exercise a weight in the Comitia proportioned to their numbers, it was plain that Marius, alway a favourite with the Italian countrymen, would be secure of the appointment. Sulpicius, therefore, boldly gave notice of two measures : one by which the Italians were to be distributed evenly through all the Tribes; a second, by which all Freedmen who had served in the Italian Wars were to be placed on a level with the Old Citizens. Thus in every Tribe the New Citizens, comprising Italians and Freedmen, would form a majority, and thus the votes of the Tribes would be at the disposal of Marius.

§ 5. It was not to be expected that the Old Citizens would tamely submit to be overridden. As the day for voting drew nigh, battles with stones and staves were of daily occurrence. The Consuls endeavoured to postpone the day of conflict by proclaiming a Justitium or General Holiday, the effect of which was to suspend all public business. But the Tribune declared his intention to proceed to a vote, just as if the Consuls had issued no proclamation; and ordered a body of 3000 young men * “Maximc omnium grandis ct tragicus Orator.”—Cicero Brut 55.

to attend him, with concealed daggers, in the Forum : they were to strike when he commanded, not sparing even the Consuls, if need were. On the appointed day the Tribune rose, and declared the proclamation of the Public Holiday illegal, on the ground that there was no special cause for it.* A loud outcry arose from the Old Citizens; upon which, at a sign from the Tribune, his adherents drew their daggers. Their opponents fled. Pompeius only escaped by hiding himself: his son, who was married to Sylla’s daughter, was ruthlessly murdered. Sylla fled into the house of Marius, which faced the Forum, whence he was obliged to return, and declare the Justitium at an end. The Laws then passed without opposition; and, as a matter of course, the command in the Mithridatic War was transferred to Marius.

§ 6. Sylla went straight from the Forum to his camp before Nola (for the Samnites had not yet surrendered that town), with the purpose of hurrying to the East. But he had already been superseded; and two officers arrived in camp bearing a commission from Marius to assume the command. Sylla was now compelled to take a decisive part. Either he must submissively resign or must vindicate his right by force. The name of Civil War was not yet familiar to Roman ears; and before he committed himself to actual hostilities, he resolved to scund the inclinations of his .troops. He summoned them to tlie Pra?-torium. He enlarged on the insults that had been offered to himself; and gave them to understand that, unless he remained in command, their hopes of booty from the Mithridatic War must end; and concluded by a hope that they would obey his orders. The men gave a ready interpretation to his last words by calling upon him to lead them to Rome, and proved their zeal by stoning to death the officers sent by Marius. Sylla, fully assured, ordered six Legions to get under arms. The superior officers, however, shrunk from lending countenance to civil war; and all, save one Quaestor, fled to Rome.

§ 1. In the City the consternation was great. The Senate, more from fear of Marius than of their own good will, sent to demand of Sylla why he was in arms against his country. “To set her at liberty,” was the only answer he vouchsafed. The Praetors then went out, invested with all the ensigns of their office: but the soldiers broke their fasces, and stripped them of tlieir robes. Sylla meantime continued to advance. The officeis who had deserted him were replaced by persons of note, who had fled from Rome: above all, he was joined by his colleague and kinsman, Q. Pompeius Rufus; and henceforth all his acts ran in

* A Justitium was proclaimed for so?r;c great triumph or disaster,—the former caso accompanied by a Supplicatio or Publio Thanksgiving.

the joint name of the two Consuls of tho year,—a fact which had great authority over men’s minds.

§ 8. The prompt audacity of Sylla took Marius and Sulpicius by surprise. They had not calculated 011 his daring to march a Roman army against Rome. To gain time, they sent a last embassy, in the name of the Senate, requesting the Consuls to stop the march of the army till the Fathers had come to some resolution. Sylla, now about five miles from the gates, promised to comply: but no sooner had the envoys turned their backs, than lie despatched two officers with a detachment to occupy the high ground adjoining the Esquiline. They marched so rapidly that they seized the Colline Gate, and penetrated into the City; but their progress was stopped by the People, who threw tiles and stones upon them from the housetops. Meantime the Consuls had come up -with their whole force. Pompeius pushed forward with one Legion to support the troops at tho Colline Gate; another Legion seized the Ca*li-montane Gate; a third turned the Aventine, and occupied the Sublician Bridge; a fourth was left in reserve before the walls; while Sylla with the remaining two entered the City.

His opponents, meantime, had assembled a considerable force; and in the district between the Caelian and the Esquiline, armed soldiers for the first time encountered in the streets of Rome. Sylla’s men were beaten back, till, seizing an eagle, he threw himself into the thick of the fray. Meanwhile, his reserve Legion entered the city and attacked Marius in flank from the Suburra. The old General, finding his position turned, retreated to the Capitol, whence he issued a proclamation offering liberty to all slaves who would join his banner. But this desperate act only revealed his weakness, and even those who had hitherto supported him dispersed. Marius and Sulpicius, with all their chief friends, sought safety in flight.

§ 9. Meantime Sylla had marched his Legions in good order down the Sacred Way into the Forum, and restored public confidence by inflicting summary punishment upon all plunderers. Next morning he addressed the People in a set speech, deploring the extremity to which he had been forced by profligate demagogues. From the Forum the Consuls proceeded to the Senate-house. A Decree was issued, by which twelve persons were proclaimed traitors. Among these, the most eminent were Marius, his son, his son-in law L. Granius, and the Tribunes Sulpicius and Albinovanus. Against this arbitrary Decree 110 one had courage to raise a voice except Q. Screvola, the Pontifex. “Never,” said the old lawyer, “will I consent to declare Caius Marius an outlaw.”

§ 10. All the proclaimed persons had escaped. But Sulpicius, who had secreted himself, in a villa near Laurentum, was betrayed by a slave and slain. His head was exposed upon the Rostra, from which his eloquence had so often moved the people to tears,—the first example of a barbarous practice which became common in after years, The treacherous slave was rewarded by Sylla for doing his duty to the State, and then thrown down the Tarpeian Rock for betraying bis master,—a perfidious judgment, characteristic of a country where slayes are numerous and held in fear. The masters dare not recognise them as free men, even where the public interest is most concerned.

§ 11. Marius himself ran through a series of adventures strange as ever were coined by the brain of a romancer. He reached Ostia in company with Granius his son-in-law, and a few slaves: hence they proposed to take ship for Africa, where Marius had much .influence, derived from the times of the Jugurthan War. When young Marius, who had taken a different route, arrived at Ostia, he found that his father had put to sea. By a lucky chance, however, he found another vessel sailing for Africa, and reached that Province in safety. Meantime, old Marius was by stress of weather driven to land near Circeii. From this place the party wandered southward along the desolate shore in great distress, till some herdsmen, who recognised the old General, warned him of the approach of a party of cavalry. Not daring to keep the road, the fugitives plunged into the forest which still covers the coast. Here they passed the night in great misery, and next morning., continued their forlorn walk. Marius alone kept up his spirits and encouraged his attendants by assurances that a seventh Consulship, was yet in store for him. In the two following days they had dragged their weary limbs over a space of about forty miles direct distance, when they saw a body of horse coming towards them. It happened that two merchant vessels were passing southward close in-shore. The fugitives plunged into the sea, and made for the ships. Granius reached one of them, and was put ashore in the island of Pithecusa (Ischia). So exhausted was Marius, that he was hardly kept above water by two slaves, till the seamen got him on board the other vessel. Meantime, the horsemen rode down to the water’s edge, and, calling out to the captain, demanded the person of Marius. With tears tho old General besought protection; and after much wavering the captain continued his course. When they reached the mouth of the Liris, he persuaded Marius to go ashore, as it was necessary to lie to till the land-wind rose. But no sooner had his boat returned, than the faithless captain got under way, and

Marius was left absolutely alone upon the swampy beach. lie walked wearily to an old man’s hut, who concealed him in a liolc near the river, and covered him with reeds. Presently the horsemen came up and demanded where Marius was. Afraid of being discovered, the fugitive rose from his liiding-plaee and dashed into the river. He was perceived and dragged ashore; and tbe horsemen conveyed him, nearly naked and covered with mud, to Minturnce. Here he was given over to the magistiatcs of the town, who had received a circular letter from the Con-culs, ordering them to put Marius to death if he should fall into their hands. But the magistrates, not liking to incur such responsibility, referred the matter to a Town Council.

The Council voted that Sylla’s orders should be obeyed, and a Gaulish slave was sent with orders to put the old General to death. It was dark, and, as the man entered the room where Marius was lying, he saw the old man’s eyes glaring through the darkness, while a deep voice exclaimed: “Fellow, darest thou slay Caius Marius ?” He threw down his sword and fled, crying, “ I cannot slay Caius Marius.” By the connivance of the Magistrates, the fugitive escaped to Ischia, where he joined Granius, and a friendly ship was found to convey liim to Africa. Hearing that his son had already arrived, he was emboldened to land near the site of ancient Carthage. But the Prsetor Sex-tilius sent him orders to quit the Province without delay. Marius with silent indignation gazed fixedly on the messenger, till the man demanded what answer he should take back to the Praetor. “ Tell him,” said the old General, “ that you have seen Caius Marius sitting among the ruins of Carthage.”

Soon after, he was joined by his son, who had endeavoured to gain support from Hiempsal, King of Numidia. The young man had been received with outward kindness, but was in fact detained as prisoner, till he was taught to escape by the compassion of the King’s daughter. After this, Marius remained in Africa without molestation.

§ 12. Meanwhile Sylla at Rome was not without liis difficulties. He found both Senate and People so shocked by the intrusion of anned legions within the sacred precincts of the city, that he thought it prudent to send back the troops to their old quarters in Campania, while he remained himself to settle matters in his own favour, before lie took his departure for the East. The Senate, on his motion, issued a Decree by whieh the laws of Sulpicius were declared null and void; and thus the " Italian voters were again deprived of the advantages granted them by those laws, while Sylla’s appointment to the Oriental command resumed its force. But there was no disposition to

favour him, and lie was unable to influence the Consular elections. The choice fell upon Cn. Octavius, a feeble nobleman, given to superstitious reverence for astrologers,* and L. Cornelius Cinna. It is plain that the latter was an object of suspicion to Sylla’s observant eye; for before he assumed office he was compelled by the General to repair to the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter, and there solemnly to swear that he would not disturb the existing order of things.

But Sylla’s position was very insecure. Cn. Pompeius Strabo, still serving as Proconsul in Apulia, was superseded by Q. Pompeius Rufus, Sylla’s kinsman and late colleague. But no sooner had Strabo left his army, than a mutiny broke out, and Rufus was murdered by the soldiers. The wily Proconsul immediately returned to the camp, and, after rebuking the mutineers with apparent sternness, quietly resumed the command; nor was Sylla strong enough to take notice of this piece of preconcerted treachery. Plots were formed against his life, and the murder of his colleague was a token of what might next be his own fate. Cinna urged one of the new Tribunes to impeach him for bringing an army within the walls of Rome; upon which the General hastened to Campania, and shipped his troops for Greece, leaving the Aristocracy to fight their own battle.

§ 13. His departure was the signal for a fresh outbreak of Civil War. Cinna, an ambitious, unprincipled, and reckless man, perceived that he could at once raise himself to importance by putting himself at the head of the New Citizens, or Italian party, who had been left .without leaders by the death of Sulpicius and the flight of Marius. He at once gave notice of a Bill for again distributing the Italians and Freedmen through all the Tribes. This measure was warmly opposed by the Senate and by the old Roman citizens. On the day of voting, Cinna’s party occupied the Forum, armed with daggers; and when it appeared that the Tribunes were about to interpose their veto, they drew tlieir weapons upon those officers. The Old Citizens, headed by Octavius,'opposed force by force; and a furious battle ensued, which ended in the Italians being driven from the Forum.f Cinna was obliged to quit Rome ; and the Senate immediately deprived him of the Consular office, and conferred it, by their own authority, on L. Cornelius Morula, Flamen of Jupiter, an inoffensive man, who allowed the perilous honour to be thrust upon him.

§ 14. Cinna was now completely compromised, and he took the bold step of trusting himself to the troops left by Sylla before

With the los9 of 10,000 men, according to Plutarch Vit. Sertor. 4 This period of the Civil War was called Bellum Octavianum by Cicero

Nola, who wero discontented at being excluded from participating in the gains of the Mithridatic War. With passionate words ho told the soldiery that the Senate had stripped him ot the high office which had been conferred by the votes of the People; and then lie rent his robe and threw himself on the ground. Tho unwonted sight of a Consul in this attitude moved the susceptible feelings of the men. All took the oath of obedience to him as Consul. But Cinna not only addressed himself to the Roman coldiers who were beleaguering Nola; he also invited the Samnito garrison of Nola to make common cause with him against tho old Roman citizens. In a similar strain lie declaimed in tho towns of Italy which had lately been engaged in the Social War. Everywhere he was received with enthusiasm. The Social War was revived under a different aspect. A Consul appeared as their leader, and Marius, the greatest General of Rome, was known to favour their claims. Cinna was soon at the head of a formidable army. Among the officers who accepted commissions from him may be named Cn. Papirius Carbo and Q. Sertorius, men who played great parts in the following years.

§ 15. News of these proceedings soon reached old Marius in Africa, where he assembled about a thousand desperate men, and, landing in Etruria, soon found himself in command of a large force, which was brought into order by his habits of command. lie also made himself master of a small but well-appointed fleet. He was now in a condition to treat with Cinna, and offered to accept a commission under him as Consul. Cinna’s officers advised him to close with this offer, all except Sertorius. This sagacious man, who had served under Marius in the Cimbrian War, and had gained distinction in tho war against the Allies, feared the savage temper of his old general, and advised Cinna not to compromise his cause by uniting it to that of Marius. But when Cinna confessed that lie had opened a correspondence with Marius in Africa, Sertorius withdrew his objections. Cinna offered to Marius the rank of Proconsul. But the old man grimly refused all marks of honour.

§ 1C. Meanwhile the Senate had been exerting themselves to raise a force for the defence of the city. They hired mercenaries in Gaul. They sent orders to Pompeius Strabo to bring up his army. They directed Metellus Pius, who was still employed in reducing the Samnites, to make what terms lie could with tho enemy, and hasten to Rome. Metellus lingered; but Pompeius advanced to the Colline Gate, where lie maintained an obstinate reserve, and seemed uncertain whether he should join the Senate or go over to Marius. But after some fruitless intrigues he at length entered Rome, and united his troops to the scanty foreo of the Consul Octavius.

§ 17. The armies of the assailants now drew close round Rome, so as to invest it on every side. Cinna took his post near the Colline Gate, so as to intercept communications with the north and north-east. Carbo lay on his left, so as to command the roads which approached Rome from the east; Sertorius on liis right, so as to bar all passage from Etruria and the northwest. Marius himself took up his position on the Tiber, across which he threw a bridge, so as to communicate with Carbo on the one side and Sertorius on the other. Thus placed, with large forces at their command, the allied generals calculated on reducing the city by famine.

§ 18. Pompeius, after defeating an attempt of Marius to take Janiculum, died suddenly, and a plague broke out which decimated the Senatorial army. By this time Metellus had quitted Samnium, and encamped upon the Alban Hills. Here he was visited by some of the soldiers of Pompeius, who entreated him to take the chief command. But he was unable to do more than threaten Cinna’s rear. Tired of inaction, great part of his troops deserted or returned home; and the Senate, left almost defenceless, determined on attempting negotiations. A deputation of Senators arrived in the camp of Cinna, who prefaced all proceedings by asking whether they were prepared to treat with him “ as Consul.” They had no instructions on this point, and returned to Rome, while Cinna advanced his camp within a dart’s throw of the gates. A second deputation arrived, and humbly saluted him as Consul. He received them sitting in his chair of state, with his Lictors on either side. The Deputies asked nothing more than that before entering the city he would take an oath not to suffer a general massacre. Cinna answered gently, and promised not to authorise any slaughter; but all hopes inspired by the moderation of his language were damped by the aspect of old Marius. He stood behind the Consul’s chair, in mean apparel, with his hair and beard rough and long, for they had been left untrimmed ever since the day on which he had fled from Rome, and with a sullen frown upon his brow. But the Senate had little room for choice. Hastily they passed a Decree, inviting Cinna, Marius, and their partisans to enter the City. Marius ironically replied, that he had been formally proclaimed a traitor, and must be formally restored to his rights. But before a second Decree could issue, he had entered the City with the army.

§ 19. Rome was treated as a conquered city. Tlie soldiers, consisting of slaves and vagabonds of all kinds, combined with Italians smarting from the late war, were let loose to plunder. The unfortunate Octavius, assured by his astrologers, was slain while seated upon liis Consular cliair in the Janiculum. Ilis slaughter was but the prelude to a series of horrible butcheries. Marius had returned to Italy full of the memory of his ignominious flight. He was attended everywhere by a band of ruffians, who had orders to strike down any person of rank whom their master passed without the courtesy of a salute. The Senators who had opposed liis recall from exile were among his first victims. Q. Lentulus, C. Numitorius, M. Basbius, and others were cut down, and their bodies dragged through the public places. P. Crassus, seeing his eldest son slain by Fimbria, put an end to his own life. L. Ca)sar, author of the Law for enfranchising the Italians, and his brother Caius, were murdered in their own houses. Q. Ancliarius came in suppliant guise to Marius, when he was sacrificing in the Capitol; but the relentless old man ordered the suppliant to be cut down in the very precincts of the Temple and his body cast into the street. The example of Marius was followed by all who had private wrongs to avenge, or debts to cancel. Many Knights were massacred, doubtless by their creditors. Slaves, drunk with passion and licence, wreaked a less discriminating vengeance upon all who fell in their way. But here it must be recorded that many were saved by the devotion of their household slaves. Cornutus was pursued to his house by some of the gang of Marius; his slaves liung up one of the corpses, which were but too plentiful, with their master’s gold ring upon the hand; and when the murderers burst into the house, these faithful slaves pretended that they had anticipated the deed of blood, and by this pious fraud saved their master. The orator Antonius had incurred the special wrath of Marius by an eloquent speech in which he had opposed his recal to Rome. For some time he was concealed in a country-house by his slaves. But one of these simple men, in buying wine, told the vintner that he must have good liquor, since it was (he whispered) for the special use of the great orator Antonius. The treacherous dealer hastened with the news to Marius, who ordered the orator’s head to be brought to him and placed it on the table as the chief ornament of the banquet.

§ 20. Chinn took no part in these atrocities. Sertorius looked on with deep disgust, especially when he saw the enfranchised slaves giving a loose to every licentious passion with a Bacchanalian glee which excites pity, not only for the sufferers, but also for those who by ill-treatment had been degraded into savages. By the permission of the Consul, Sertorious fell upon them with a body of his own troops, and slow several thousands. By this rude justice order was in some degree restored.

been too conspicuous to remain unpunished, and against them tlie mockery of legal forms was put in motion. The most eminent of these were L. Cornelius Merula, Flamen of Jupiter, and Q. Lutatius Catulus, colleague of Marius in his Cimbric triumph. Merula was a quiet and respectable man, whose only offence was that he*had unwillingly superseded Cinna in the Consulship. For this he was indicted; and knowing that indictment was equivalent to condemnation, he repaired to the great Temple 011 the Capitol, and opening his veins bled to death. Catulus, like Antonius, had offended Marius by opposing his recal from exile. Some influential friends endeavoured to awaken in the breast of the stern old man some generous memory of the days when he had refused to triumph over the barbarians without Catulus to share his triumph. But in vain. “ lie must die,” was the only answer vouchsafed. Catulus shut himself up in a newly-plastered room, lighted a charcoal fire, and died by suffocation. Sylla himself was beyond reach; but his house was rased to the ground, his property confiscated, and himself proclaimed a traitor. His wife Cajcilia and his children fled to join him in Greece.

Of all Senators put to death in these days of Terror, the heads were exposed upon the Rostra, a ghastly tribute to the manes of the Tribune Sulpicius, who was the first Roman citizen thus dishonoured. The bodies of all were left unburied, to be devoured by dogs and birds. But it must be observed that tho '* Massacre of Marius differed widely from the Proscriptions of later times. It w⁷as a burst of savage passion, which lasted for - * a few hours, and was not marked by any systematic rules ofted murder and confiscation. z 'fo.

§ 22. The short remainder of the year passed in gloomy tranquillity. News of Sylla’s victories in the East from time.to time disturbed the satisfaction of the conquerors. But for the present they were absolute. Cinna remained sole Consul till the Kalends of January of 86 b.c., when Marius for the seventh time, and Cinna for the second, assumed the fasces without election. On the first day of his authority, Marius ordered one Sext. Licinius, a Senator, to be thrown down the Tarpeian Rock, without even the form of a trial. Sad presages arose of what might follow. ’But Marius, since his return, had given himself to wine and riotous living; and his iron constitution, worn out by former labours, and especially by his late strange sufferings, sank under an inflammatory fever. Tlie hero of six Consulships died in thirteen days after he had seen his cherished expectations fulfilled by the seventh tenure of that high office,—hated by his enemies, feared even by his friends.

§ 1. Rise.of kingdom of Pontus : ancestors of Mithridates. § 2. His youth, education, and character. § 3. His conquests from Pontus to the Borys-thenes: alliance with Tigranes of Armenia. § 4. Seizes Cappadocia: intervention of Sylla. § 5. Encourages Italians during Social War: eeizes Bithynia, while Tigranes invades Cappadocia: Aquillius sent to restore Nieomedes. § 6. Mithridates invades Roman Province: treatment of Aquillius. § 7. Honours paid to Mithridates: Massaero of Italians. § 8 Athens revolts: Archelaus sent by Mithridates to garrison Piraeus. §9. Sylla lands in Epirus : assault and siege of Piraeus: gallant defence of Archelaus. § 10. Siege of Piraeeus raised: fall of Athens. § 11. Archelaus retires by sea: fall of Piraeeus. § 12. Sylla defeats Archelaus at Chaeronea. § 13. Marches to intercept Flaccus: returns and defeats Archelaus at Orehomenus: winters in Thessaly. § 14. Flaeeus murdered by Fimbria at Nieomedia. § 15. Fimbria nearly surprises Mithridates at Pergamus. § 1G. Negotiations of Sylla and Archelaus. § IT. Sylla advances into Thrace: meets Mithridates in TroaJ: Peace concluded. § 18. Attacks Fimbria: his death. § 10. Leaves Murena in Asm : spendr. remainder of 84 b.c. in Greece.

§ 1. It will be nccessary to go back in order to gain a cle'ar perception of the causes which led to the Mitliridatic AVar.

After the battle of Magnesia, Asia Minor was broken np into a number of petty principalities, jealous of one another. Eumenes of Pergamus was rewarded by the addition of Lydia and some other districts to his rule ; but in time the kingdom of Pergamus

becamc a Roman Province under tlie proud title of Asia,¹⁴³ just as the name of Libya or Africa had been bestowed on the Province formed out of the territory of Carthage. Bithynia to the north, subject to Kings of Macedonian origin, had, since Prusias declared his inability to protect Hannibal, fallen completely under Roman influence. At this time it was governed by Nico-medes II., grandson of Prusias. Cappadocia was subject to a prince named Ariarathes. Galatia, united into one principality, was ruled by a native chief named Deiotarus.

But a country beyond these distant realms demands our chief attention. During the weakness of the later Persian monarchy, the Satraps of Pontus, that is, the mountainous country along the south shore of the Euxine from the Halys eastward, had asserted their independence. In the wars between the successors of Alexander, the ruler of Pontus, Mithridates by name, raised liis principality to a kingdom. His descendants extended their power over part of Cappadocia and Paphlagonia till Mithridates V., called Euergetes, assisted Rome in her war against Aristonicus, and was rewarded with a considerable portion of Phrygia. This Mithridates was assassinated at Sinope, his capital, about the year 120 B.C., and was succeeded by liis son Mithridates VI., commonly called Dionysos or Eupator, who was then a boy of about twelve years old.f This was the man who became famous as the competitor of Rome for the sovereignty of the East.

§ 2. In later times it wag remembered that at his birth a comet blazed in the heavens so large in size as to reach from the zenith to the horizon,—a sign of his destined greatness. But during liis boyhood the fates seemed adverse. The Senate revoked the gift conferred upon his father. His guardians attempted liis life both by poison and the dagger; but lie eseaped all perils marvellously. It was commonly believed that his constitution was enabled to defy the attacks of poison by the habitual use of antidotes. What education he received was given by Greek masters at Sinope. So excellent was his memory that he is said to have been master of five-and-twenty languages so as to be able to converse in their own tongue with all tlie tribes who composed liis motley Empire. Ilis appreciation of Hellenic superiority is attested by the employment of Greeks both for military and civil administration; and his cultivated taste is disclosed by the artistical skill displayed in the execution of his coins. The great silver piece figured at the head of this chapter is ono of the most admirable medals that came from the ancient mints. lie was fond of hunting in the mountains of Pontus, and thus obtained vigour of constitution, quickness of eye, and promptness of decision. In all respects he stood far above the common run of Oriental despots. •

§ 3. When he undertook the government, he secured himself at home by the murder of his nearest relatives. Finding his neighbours, Nicomedes of Bithynia and Ariarathes of Cappa-docia, secured by Roman protection, lie sought scope for his military ambition in the North. There he formed an alliance with Parisades, King of Bosporus, as the eastern portion of the Crimea was then called, and assisted him in reducing the whole of that Peninsula to submission. At the death of Parisades, Mithridatcs took possession of the Crimea, and coins bearing his name are still found about Ivertch and Kaffa. The whole eastern coast-land of the Euxine, known to the Greeks under the name of Colchis, as well as the country between the Kuban and the Borysthenes, owned his sway. On the East he strengthened liimself by alliance with Tigranes, King of Armenia, who married his daughter; and having thus, in the course of about thirty years from his accession (120-90 B.C.), raised liimself to the possession of a formidable Empire, lie considered himself not unequal to a conflict with Rome herself.

§ 4. So early as the year 93 b.c. the state of Cappadocia invited interference. Ariarathes married a sister of Mithridatcs, but was put to death by the agency of that monarch. Then followed a quarrel for Cappadocia between Mithridatcs and Nicomedes. Sylla was commissioned by the Senate to settle theso disputes, and lie restored Ariobarzanes, a nobleman of the country, whom his compatriots had chosen to succeed Ariarathes, to the throne. For the time Mithridatcs submitted, but the arrogant language of Marius confirmed him in tlic resolution

§ 5. Two years later the Social War broke out. Mithridatcs availed himself of tlic opportunity afforded by the disturbances in tlic AVest to extend his own power in the East. Nicomedes of Bithynia was just dead, and the King of Pontus seized his kingdom; while lie induced his son-in-law Tigranes to invade Cappadocia, and expel Ariobarzanes for the second time. The Senate were too much occupied at home to attend to these proceedings till late in the year 89 b.c., when M’ Aquillins, the conqueror of the Slaves in Sicily, was sent to restore tlic son of Nicomedes to the throne of Bithynia, and Ariobarzanes to that of Cappadocia. Mithridates again yielded, and the fugitive Kings again took possession of their thrones; hut Aquillius gave young Nicomedes to understand that a largess must be paid to those who had restored him, and urged him to raise the necessary money by an inroad into the dominions of the King of Pontus. Mithridates at once despatched envoys to Rome to make complaints of the conduct of the Senatorial Commissioner.

§ 6. The Social War had now well-nigh spent its force, and the Senate dismissed the Pontic envoys without a satisfactory answer. Mithridates expected this result, and resolved to take the law into his own hands. His Generals, Arclielans and Neop-tolemus, fell upon Nicomedes while he was plundering, and utterly defeated him. A similar fate befel Aquillius and other Roman officers who endeavoured to support the Bithynian King. Thus the road to the Roman Province lay open to Mithridates.

Without hesitation he pushed forward at the head of his victorious troops. Almost everywhere his advent was welcomed as that of a deliverer. Aquillius sought shelter in Mytilene; but the Lesbians delivered him up to Mithridates, who sent him round the cities of the Province seated upon an ass, with a proclamation stating that to his covetous dealing alone the war was due, and then put him to death by having molten gold poured down his throat.

§ 7. To justify the character of Deliverer, Mithridates set free all prisoners of Asiatic race, excused men from military service for five years, remitted taxes due to the Roman' Government, and cancelled a portion of private debts. All that Asiatic enthusiasm could bestow of honour was heaped upon him. He was welcomed at the gates of every city by festal processions. He was saluted as the preserver of Asia, as Dionysos her present and protecting Deity. During the winter he took up his residence at Pergamus, and celebrated his nuptials with a young Greek of Stratonicea. But while he seemed to be given up to enjoyment, an edict went forth to every city in the Province of Asia, ordering the people to massacre all Italians found within their borders. This savage order was obeyed with alacrity. On one day no less than 80,000 persons were slaughtered.

§ 8. A wider field now opened itself to the ambition of Mithri* dates. Aristion, an Epicurean philosopher of Athens, persuaded the people of that famous city to rise against Rome, assumed sovereign power, and invited Mithridates to support the revolt. Archelaus, the King’s best General, was despatched to Pirseeus at the head of a large force. Most of the Greek communities joined in the Athenian insurrection. Italians were everywhere massacred, as in Asia. '

§ 9. Such was the state of things when Sylla landed in Epirus with about 50,000 men. lie spent some time in ./Etolia and Thessaly to collect supplies, and then, advancing to Athens, attempted to take Piraeus by escalade; but the walls were the walls of Pericles, nearly 80 feet high, and regularly built of massive stone. The rash attempt was repulsed, and the Roman General found it necessary to besiege the place in form. The stones of the Long Walls were used to form two great embankments sloping upwards against the walls. When all was ready, two huge battering-towers were brought up these inclined planes, and began to play upon the walls; but Arehelaus baffled all the skill and industry of the Roman engineers, and repelled every assault.

§ 10. Winter was now far spent; and Sylla, despairing of the capture of’ Pirajeus, unless he were able to invest it by sea as well as by land, sent Lueullus to Asia to collect ships for this purpose. While expecting his return, Sylla determined to employ his whole force in taking the city of Athens. During the siege of Pirajeus, the blockade of the City, distant about five miles, had been steadily continued. Aristion and his courtiers lived in luxury: but the people were reduced to the extremity of famine; and, but for the strength of the walls, they could have offered little resistance. After some time, a weak place was found, and the whole besieging army poured in. Sylla, enraged by the part taken by the Athenians, left the soldiery to wreak their passion on the miserable city. Aristion with a few troops had withdrawn into the Acropolis. But want of water soon obliged him to surrender at discretion.

§11. Athens was taken on the 1st of March, 88 b.c.; and Sylla’s whole force being now available, he determined to attempt a fresh assault upon Pirajeus, though Lueullus had not yet returned. Arehelaus had been expecting succours sent through Boeotia under command of the King’s son. But the young prineo had died, and Taxiles, the general left in command, had halted in Thessaly. Arehelaus, therefore,^in despair of holding out, sailed to Thermopylaj, where he joined Taxiles. Pirajeus now surrendered, and Sylla avenged himself for his long disappointment by burning the dockyards and arsenals, and all the buildings of old historic fame in that celebrated place.

§ 12. Meanwhile, Arehelaus and Taxiles had advanced with their combined forces, in the hope of surprising Sylla within the confines of Attica. But the active Roman was in Boeotia before them, and Arehelaus retreated towards the Euripus, closely followed by the Romans. The army of the Mithridatic Generals is stated at 100,000 men, with 10,000 horse and 90 scythed cars;

that of Sylla was reduced to 30,000 men, with a small body of cavalry. The armies met at Chseronea, nearly on the same ground on which, two hundred and fifty years before, Philip of Macedon had overthrown the Athenian army, and made himself master of the liberties of Greece. A desperate conflict ensued, in which Sylla displayed more personal bravery than strategic skill. But the steady discipline of the Roman Legionaries prevailed, and the battle ended in the complete overthrow of the Pontic army, Archelaus was not able to collect above 10,000 men out of that vast host, and with these he made good his retreat across the Euripus to Chalcis. The Roman loss was small.

§ 13. After the battle of Chseronea, Sylla heard that L. Yalerius Flaccus, who had been sent to supersede himself in the command, had landed in Epirus. With his accustomed promptitude he at once marched northwards to meet him. But at Melitea he heard that Mithridates had sent Dorylaus with 80,000 men to reinforce Archelaus. Leaving Flaccus to work bis will, Sylla returned rapidly to Orchomenus. The Pontic army lay southward of that place, on the edge of a plain very favourable for the action of their great force of cavalry. Archelaus used every effort to dissuade his new colleague from venturing another battle; but Dorylaus was obstinate. The Romans gained another great victory, and Archelaus rallied but a small remnant of the Pontic army, with which he again made good his retreat to Chalcis. Bceotia was now given up to plunder, and the Roman army passed into Thessaly for winter-quarters. .

§ 14. Meantime Yalerius Flaccus had found his men more inclined to join Sylla than to fight him. Part of them, indeed, deserted; the rest had been kept under their banners .by the active exertions of his lieutenant, C. Flavius Fimbria, a daring and unscrupulous man, who had taken a foremost part in the massacres of Marius.¹⁴⁴ To avoid a conflict with Sylla, Flaccus and Fimbria directed their march towards the Hellespont, with the intention of assailing Mithridates in Asia, where he had but a small force remaining. But when Flaccus crossed over from Byzantium to Chalcedon, Fimbria appealed to the army and was unanimously chosen to the command. The Consul instantly returned in high dudgeon; but found that Fimbria was all powerful with the army, and fled across the Hellespont into Asia. Fimbria pursued him, and, disregardful of the consular dignity, ordered him to be beheaded.

§ 15. In the spring of 85 B.C., Fimbria, having collected considerable reinforcements, threw himself suddenly into Asia, and advanced rapidly upon Pergamus. Surprised by this unexpected attack, Mithridates took refuge at Mytilene, where he was safe from the pursuit of Fimbria, ■who had no ships. But Lucullus, ■who had by this time collected a respectable fleet, was in the neighbourhood. lie might easily have invested the island and terminated the war by possessing himself of the King’s person. But, fearful of playing into the hands of Fimbria, he suffered Mithridates to escape to the mainland.

§ 1G. The presence of Fimbria was embarrassing to Sylla. Ilis wife Caecilia Matella had escaped from Rome with her children, and urged the necessity of a speedy return to Italy. During the winter he had held a personal interview with Archelaus, in which that able officer proposed that Sylla should leave Asia in the King’s possession, on condition that Mithridates should assist him in conquering his enemies at home. -Sylla made no reply, except by offering to make Archelaus King of Pontus, on condition that he should become the ally of Rome. Archelaus indignantly refused to break faith with his master; upon which Sylla quietly asked: “If treason seems so base to you, how dare you suggest treason to a Roman General?” The two commanders, however, continued to be good friends; and it was whispered that Archelaus had been won over by the gold or the persuasions of the adroit Roman.

§ 17. The year 85 b.c. was passed by Sylla in Macedonia, where he was detained by the necessity of subduing the barbarous Tribes on the northern frontier of the Roman Province, who were probably urged on to attack him by the gold of Mithridates. But the successes of Fimbria in Asia inclined Sylla to peace. Mithridates also was well inclined to treat; for his fleet, hitherto master of the sea, had been utterly defeated by Lucullus off Tenedos, and the passage of the Hellespont was open to Sylla. After some preliminaries, Archelaus contrived a personal conference between the Roman General and the King. They met at Dardanus in the Troad, when Sylla cut short all diplomatic arts by stating the least that he would accept; and Mithridates, an acute judge of character, gave way to the peremptory Roman. It was agreed that the King should abandon all his conquests in Asia, and resume the position in which he had been before the war. He was to pay 2000 talents to indemnify Rome for her expenses, and surrender a fine fleet of 70 ships.

§ 18. This settlement was made in the winter, and Mithridates withdrew to Sinope. Early in the next year (84 b.c.) Sylla advanced against Fimbria, who had thrown himself into Thyatira, and began to draw lines of blockade round the place. Fimbria's men deserted in great numbers; and the reckless adventurer, perceiving that his case was desperate, fled to Pergamus, where ho took refuge in the Temple of Esculapius, and attempted to put an end to himself. But the wound was not mortal; and he was obliged to resort for this last service to a faithful slave, who slew himself upon his master’s body.

§ 19. It was now open to Sylla to return to Italy. He had in I'ag course of three years completely humbled the powerful King of Pontus, and compelled him to accept a peace dictated by himself. The fourth year since his departure from Italy was now far spent. To supply money for his Italian enterprise, as well as to punish the Asiatics, he forced the Communities which had joined Mithridates to pay him very large sums of money. Of these sums, part paid down at once, Lucullus w^ras left to exact the rest. This officer discharged his task with as much consideration and gentleness as possible. But to raise the money at all, the unfortunate Provincials were obliged to resort to Roman money-lenders, who advanced what they required at usurious interest. Murena was left in Asia with the troops of Fimbria, but received strict injunctions not to renew hostilities with Mithridates. Sylla set sail from Ephesus, and returned to Greece, where he spent the remainder of the year 84 b.c., engaged in active preparations for the invasion of Italy next spring. But before we follow him in his great adventure, it will be necessary to trace the fortunes of Cinna and his partisans at Rome.

§ 1. Komc after the death of Marius. § 2. Cinna and Carbo, Consuls. Message from Sylla to the Senate: their reply. § 3. Death of Cinna: Carbo continues as sole Consul. § 4. Rejoinder of Sylla to the reply of the Senate. § 5. Scipio and Norbanus elected Consuls for 83 b.c. § 6. Agrarian Law. § 7. Enfranchisement of Freedmen. § 8. Sylla lands in Italy. § 9. Metellus Pius, Crassus, Pompcy, join Sylla. § 10. Defeat of Norbanus and Scipio by Sylla. § 11. Pompcy in Picenum. § 12. Efforts of Sylla and Carbo during the -winter: Carbo and young Marius Consuls for 82 B.C.: fire in the Capitol. § 13. Position of the armies at the beginning of the next campaign. § 14. Battle of Sacriportus: young Marius shut up in Praeneste. § 15. Massacre of Senators. § 16. Sylla enters Rome: attacks Carbo at Clusium: fails: advance of Samnites. § 17. March of Sylla to eovcr PramestS. § 18. Metellus and Pompey complete the conquest of Northern Italy. § 19.j The Samnites advance upon Rome: Sylla follows: battle of Rome. § 20. Battle renewed next morning: total defeat of the Samnites. § 21. Death of young Marius: end of the War.

§ 1. After the death of Marius, Cinna remained absolute master of Rome. He had associated with himself in the Consulship L. Valerius Flaccus,—chiefly (as it seems) because that nobleman had been colleague of Marius in his sixth Consulship. Flaccus, as we have seen, was murdered by Fimbria. In the next year (85 b.c.) Cinna declared himself Consul for the third time, with Cn. Papirius Carbo. Sertorius was at the same time nominated to the Pnetorship, with a promise of the government of the two Spains.

§ 2. The year passed away quietly, and in 84 w.c. Cinna assumed the Consulship for the fourth time, again taking Carbo for his colleague. Tidings from the East made it plain that Sylla’s return to Italy could not be long delayed, and the Consuls determined to attack him in the East. While they were absent from Home, envoys arrived with a message from Sylla himself to the Senate. In return for his services to the State' “ his enemies,” ho said, “ had placed him under ban \ his house had been rased to the ground, his friends massacred, his wife and children forced to ilee.” “ Presently,”¹ he concluded, “ I shall return to execute vengeance on the guilty. But be it understood that I intend not to interfere with the rights of any citizens, New or Old.” The Senate were thrown into great perplexity. They feared to offend Cinna, and yet wished to return a favourable answer to Sylla. At length it was agreed, on the motion of another L. Valerius Flaccus, Chief of the Senate, that they should propose “to mediate between Sylla and his enemies, and to guarantee his personal safety if he would return to Rome.” At the same time they mustered courage enough to order the Consuls to suspend their military preparations till Sylla’s answer was received.

§3. This order met with little respect. The Consuls had completed their preparations. An army was assembled at Ancona, and transports were there collected to carry it across to Dalmatia. The first division was landed without difficulty. The second embarked, but w^ras driven back to Italy by a storm; whereupon the men dispersed, declaring that they would not make war upon fellow-citizens. Disaffection spread in the ranks of the troops that remained at Ancona; and when Cinna called the leaders before his Tribunal, their gloomy looks portended mischief. At this moment one of his Lictors struck a soldier. The blow was returned, and a tumult arose. Cinna fell, struck by a stone, and was despatched by the swords of the soldiery.

Such was the end of Cinna, a man who for three years had been absolute Lord of Rome. Elected to the Consulship at the critical moment when the Italian party had lost its leaders, he stepped into the vacant place. The course of events proved that he was not able to make a dexterous use of this fortunate chance. lie died, disliked rather than detested by most men, regretted probably by none.

Ilis colleague Carbo, a man of considerable talents, continued sole Consul for the remainder of the year. He gave up all thoughts of crossing the sea. The troops who had already landed in Dalmatia were recalled, and preparations mad''

§ 4. Meanwhile Sylla’s reply arrived. “He could never,” he said, “ make terms with such men as the Marian leaders; but it* the Senate choso to spare their lives, he should not object. As to personal safety, he was in a condition to provide this for himself. As a preliminary lie required immediate restoration of himself and his friends to all the property and honours of which they had been deprived.” This haughty language enabled Carbo to carry a motion in the Senate for refusing to take the message into consideration. War on the soil of Italy was now inevitable.

§ 5. To gain popularity Carbo thought it necessary to convene the Centuriate Assembly for the election of Consuls to succeed himself. The choice of the voters fell on L. Scipio and C. Norbanus, both adherents of the Marian party, but men of little mark. It is probable that the rejection of the most able man of the party, Q. Sertorius, was due to the jealousy of Carbo, who, by the election of two feeble magistrates, himself retained all substantial power.

To strengthen themselves yet more, and to secure a numerous party, devoted to themselves, the Marian leaders took the course which had been followed regularly since the time of the Gracchi, and brought forward two highly democratic measures: one an Agrarian law, the other a large extension of the Franchise.

§ G. The Agrarian law was moved by L. Junius Brutus, one of the Tribunes of the year, father of Cajsar’s murderer. By its provisions, the rich Public Lands of Campania, which had been reserved for purposes of revenue even by the Gracchi, were to be distributed to a number of needy citizens,—a number so large that Cicero characterises the measure as a transference of Rome to Capua. Young Cicero was himself residing at the latter place, when the duumviri appointed to execute the law arrived there. Crowds of expectants followed them, but their proceedings were cut short by the appearance of Sylla, and the law slumbered till it was revived twenty years later in the Consulship of Cicero himself.*

§ 7. By the second law it was proposed to extend the Roman Franchise to the mass of liberated slaves and adventurers, who had swelled the armies of Marius and Cinna. The rights of the new citizens had been expressly reserved bv Sylla in his message, and therefore Carbo had nothing to offer to the Italians which they might not expect from his opponent. But by this bold measure he threw all power into the hands of a mob devoted to himself. For the time, it answered. No serious attempt was made to thwart Carbo and his party till Sylla entered Rome.

§ 8. During the winter of 84 b.c. Sylla had assembled in Greece the army destined for the invasion of Italy. It amounted to about 40,000 men,—a small force to oppose the 200,000 men who had been armed by Carbo. Sylla had some fears that his Italian soldiers might disperse as soon as they touched their native soil. But they gave the strongest proof of their fidelity by offering to contribute money to fill his military chest, lie thanked the men for their offer, but accepted only an oath that they would stand by him in his enterprise, and would refrain upon Italian soil from that license which in the East they had been suffered to indulge. Early in the following spring (83 b.c.) he embarked his whole force at Patae, and landed at Brundusium without opposition.

§ 9. As soon as it was known that he had landed, several eminent persons, who had not joined him in Greece, repaired to his camp. Metellus Pius came to add the weight of his unblemished name to the cause of the invader, and Sylla gave him a command commensurate with the dignity of Proconsul. Young Crassus, the future Triumvir, who had escaped from Fimbria’s ruffians, when his father and elder brother were sacrificed, also came. Sylla desired him to repair to the ■ Marsian valleys, where his family was influential, and to raise troops there for his service. The cautious youth asked for a guard. “I give you,” tsaid Sylla, “your father, your brother, and your friends, whose murder I am come to avenge.” Before this, a young man, destined to be the chief of Rome, had of his own accord begun to levy troops for Sylla in the neighbouring district of Picenum. This was Cn. Pompeius, son of the Proconsul Pompeius Strabo, who died during the siege of Rome. After that event the youth had remained at Rome. When Sylla landed, young Pompey was but three-and-twenty; but from the school-room he had gone into the camp; his father’s long command in Picenum, with his own popular manners and soldier-like bearing, secured him the favour of the country people of that place, and he soon found himself at the head of a considerable force.

§ 10. Tlie Consuls made no attempt to arrest the progress of the enemy in Lower Italy. Sylla passed quietly along the Ap-pian Way into Apulia. The Consul Norbanus had taken post before Capua, while his colleague, Scipio, nearer Rome, watched the Latin Way. Sylla directed his march across the Apennines, probably by the gap to the West of Venusia, into Campania.

As he advanced, he took care everywhere to conciliate the peoplo. Ilis soldiers, mindful of their oath, observed strict order: no injury was done to lands or buildings, men or women, lie camo suddenly upon tho camp of Norbanus; and in the battle which followed his veterans gained an easy victory. Norbanus, with his shattered army, sought refuge in Capua.

Leaving him there unmolested, Sylla marched rapidly towau!s Romo to intercept Scipio. At Teanum the two armies met, and Sylla proposed an armistice in the hope (he said) of coming to an amicable settlement. Sertorius, who was serving as a Legate in Scipio’s army, strongly dissuaded his chief from listening to such a proposal, knowing that “in Sylla,” as Caibo used to say, “ they had to contend with one who was as much fox as lion.” But it was not till too late that tho Consul perceived that he had been tricked, and suddenly broke off negotiations. Ilis army, however, was disaffected: persuasion and bribery had done their work. When Sylla appeared before the camp, he was joined by Scipio’s whole force. The Consul and his son were surprised in their tents. But it was Sylla’s policy to appear humane, and the prisoners were dismissed unhurt. Sertorius escaped; but despairing of a cause in which the leaders were so incapable, lie left Italy and repaired to the government of Spain, which had lately been conferred upon him by Carbo. There wc shall hear of him hereafter.

Sylla now returned to Capua, where he endeavoured 1o beguile the Consul Norbanus into submission. But that placo was full of needy Romans, expecting their portions of the Public Land of Capua,—and the Marian party was completely in the ascendant. As Sylla had no means of besieging the place, he was compelled to content himself with ravaging the lands of his adversaries.

§ 11. Meanwhile, young Pompey had been assailed in Picenum at three points by three Marian officers who had been detached by Carbo to crush him. He now gave the first sample of that military genius which presently afterwards raised him to be the first General of Rome, and succeeded in baffling all attacks, till Sylla himself hastened to his relief. On his approach the enemy dispersed; and Pompey rode into Sylla’s camp to offer, not his single sword, but an army raised by his unassisted efforts. He appeared before Sylla to salute him as Imperator; but the General, rising from his chair of state, greeted the young officer by the same honourable title.

§ 12. The remainder of the year was spent by Sylla in establishing the influence of his party among the Italians of Central Italy. Money was freely lavished. The rights of citizenship conferred by Cinna were confirmed. To mark liis confidence in the issue of the conflict, Sylla ostentatiously adjourned certain law proceedings, till the time when he could deliver judgment in the Roman Forum.

Nor was Carbo idle. The failure cf the Consuls Norbanus and Scipio had restored his influence at Rome. He was elected Consul for the third time, and with him was associated young Marius, a youth who counted but twenty-seven years, and had not yet served any of the^ subordinate offices required by law. This young man seems to have possessed all the ferocity of his father, without his skill in war. But it was hoped that his name might work like a spell upon the memory of the Italians. Rome was every day more deserted, and Sylla’s camp more thronged by men of rank and station. A terrible fire broke out in the Capitol, and burnt its august temples to the ground. Some attributed the fire to Carbo, some to Sylla. It was no doubt accidental, but its effect was sinister to the party in possession of the government.

§ 13. So soon as the weather permitted (82 b.c.), hostilities were resumed. Sylla stationed himself in the Latin town of Setia. Metellus Pius took the chief command in Umbria, supported by Pompey and Crassus in Picenum and the Marsian country.

Carbo stationed himself in an entrenched camp at Clusium on the Clanis, whence he sent forth armies under his lieutenants to combat the enemy, and collected reserves to support them. Young Marius fixed his liead-quarters at the strong city of Praeneste, to which he carried all the gold deposited in the Treasury of Rome.

§ 14. The campaign opened by the advance of young Marius towards Setia, at the head of 40,000 men. When he came in sight of Sylla’s army, he fell back to Signia. Sylla followed to a plaee called Sacriportus; and here a desperate conflict ensued, which remained doubtful, till five cohorts of the army of Marius threw down their standards and passed over to the enemy. Then the whole line broke and fled to Praneste. So hotly were they pursued, that the Praenestines, fearing lest Sylla’s men might press into the city together with the fugitives, closed the gates. Marius himself was drawn up within the walls by a rope; but of his soldiers, not less than 20,000 were cut down by the enemy, and 8000 taken prisoners. Among them were found some of Samnite rase, who were instantly butchered in cold blood.

§ 15. By the battle of Sacriportus Marius was reduced to act on the defensive for the rest of the campaign. He perceived that Rome now lay open to the conquerors, but with the true instinct of his race he determined to anticipate their triumphal entrance by a deed of blood. Scarcely had he entered Praeneste, when he despatched a confidential messenger, ordering L. Dama-sippus,'the Prjetor left in command of the city, to put to death all who remained there of the friends of Sylla. Damasippus was a fit instrument for such cruelty. lie summoned the relics of the Senate to meet as if for business, and at a given signal a band of assassins rushed in to massacre. Then perished L. An-tistius, L. Doniitius, and C. Carbo, the Consul’s brother. The aged Pontifex, P. Mucius Scaovola, who had once been saved from the sword of Fimbria, escaped to the Temple of Vesta; but here he was overtaken and ruthlessly cut down. The bodies of all who thus fell were dragged through the streets, and thrown into the Tiber; for “it had become an established custom,” says Appian, “ not to bury the victims of party strife.”

§ 1G. This butchery was hardly finished, when the van of Sylla’s army appeared on the road leading from Prseneste. Dama-sippus fled precipitately by the road leading to Etruria, while Sylla, leaving his troops in the Campus Martius, entered the City. But he did not loiter there. Leaving a strong detachment under the command of Lucretius Ofella, an old Marian officer who had joined him, to mask Praneste, he resolved to march straight up the Clanis and attack Carbo. He found the Consul’s camp so strongly defended, that it was almost impregnable. But at this moment news reached Sylla from the South of an alarming character. The Samnites and Lucanians had hitherto held aloof from the strife, well pleased to sec their Roman masters worn out by mutual conflict. They had no wish for the triumph of either party; but if one must prevail, that one must not be Sylla. A body of Samnites had joined Marius before the battle of Sacriportus. And now it was reported that a large army of the brave mountaineers,-under C. Pontius of Telesia,—a name which recalled the memory of one of the gloomiest days in the Roman annals,—a force of Lucanians under T. Lamponius, and a division of Campanians under Albius Gutta, were in full march towards Prrcneste.

§ 17. In this emergency, Sylla chose the boldest course, and threw himself against the strong entrenchments of Carbo. From morning to evening he renewed his desperate assaults, but in vain. Nor did he dare to weaken his army further by renewing the attack the next day. It was necessary, at all hazards, to seize the passes which led from the mountains into Latium, before the Samnites gained them, and Sylla commenced a rapid march southward, while the enemy were advancing towards Prceneste. [t was a race for empire between the Roman and the Samnite. Ifc was won by Sylla. When Pontius reached the passes which led down from the mountains to Pneneste, he had the mortification to find them already occupied by the Roman General, who was soon after joined by young Crassus at the head of his Mar-rian recruits.

§ 18. In this position things remained for some time, Sylla and Pontius each watching his opportunity. But in the North, the vigor of Sylla’s lieutenants brought the war in that quarter to an unexpected conclusion.

Metellus had taken ship from Ancona, and landed at Ravenna, whence he advanced to Placentia, so as to intercept Carbo’s communications with Cisalpine Gaul. The Consul, roused to action by this bold movement, crossed the Apennines and attacked the camp of the enemy near Placentia. He was repulsed with great Joss; and so large a number of his remaining force deserted, that he returned to Etruria with only 1000 men. A series of disasters followed. M. Licinius Lucullus, an officer of Metellus, cut to pieces a detachment of Marian troops. C. Verres, the Consul’s Quaestor, began his infamous life by deserting to the enemy with the military chest in his possession. Albinovanus, one of the oldest of the Marian party, seeing the cause to be desperate, offered to desert; and Sylla promised to receive him if he would do something worthy of favour. To execute this suggestion he invited his brother officers to a banquet, and, at a given signal, a body of ruffians rushed in and massacred the guests. Carbo’s army at Clusium still numbered 30,000 men ; but, thrown into despair by these disasters, he departed by night and took ship for Africa, where for a time he succeeded in rallying the remains of the Marian party. Pompey attacked the camp at Clusium. The men, though deserted by their commander, still made a desperate defence, and it was not till two-thirds of their number had fallen that their lines were forced. Even then a considerable force marched southward in the hope of joining the Samnites.

§ 19. Pontius and Lamponius, informed of their advance, contrived to elude the vigilance of Sylla, and effected a junction with the shattered relics of Carbo’s great army. Thus united, the enemy poured down the Tiburtine road to Rome, and encamped at nightfall before the Colline Gate. It was the last day of October by the Roman calendar (probably our 23rd of August), of the year 82 b.c. The adherents of Sylla in the city passed the night in an agony of fear; and the most devoted adherents of Marius might have trembled at the thought that next clay Rome would in all likelihood fall into the hands of her most inveterate foes. At daybreak Pontius addressed his men.

* Rome’s last day,” he said, “ was come. The wolves that had so long preyed upon Italy would never cease from troubling till their lair was utterly destroyed.” But, as the assault began, on the Praenestine road appeared a large body of horse. Pontius well knew that they were the advanced guard of Sylla’s army, and he prepared for battle. It was past noon; Sylla’s troops

were exhausted by a rapid march, but he ordered an immediate attack. The left wing, commanded by himself, rested upo:i the Agger of Servius, and was opposed to the Samnites, wliilj Crassus, who commanded the right wing, was opposed to the relics of Carbo’s army. Sylla rode a white horse, and was in tho thick of the fight, the mark of every javelin. lie exerted liimself to the utmost, but in vain. When night closed lie had been forced back against the walls, and it seemed as if nothing remained for liis brave veterans but to sell their lives dearly next morning.

§ 20. But when lie was awaiting the dawn of day in an agony of suspense, he was surprised by a message from Crassus to announce that on his side he had been completely successful, and had pursued the routed enemy to Antemnce, a place just below the junction of the Anio and Tiber. Ilis joy may be imagined. With prompt dexterity he contrived to join Crassus at Antemnsc, and at daybreak the battle was renewed. It was not till 50,000 men on both sides had fallen that victory declared for Sylla. Among the slain was found the brave Pontius, still breathing, with a look of triumph in his eye. All Roman officers taken prisoners were at once put to death. Their heads, with those of the Italian leaders, were sent to Ofella, who paraded them on spear-heads round the walls of Prameste. Of the common sort about 8000 were taken, of whom 0000 were Samnites. Sylla at once summoned the Senate to meet in the Temple of Bellona, outside the walls, having ordered the Samnite prisoners to bo taken to the Circus Flaminius, which lay hard by. As the Senate were proceeding to business, cries of death w’ere heard, and those who were not in Sylla’s confidenco rose in alarm. “Be seated,” said he; “what you hear need not trouble you. It is but some wretches undergoing punishment by my order.” The G000 Samnites were all massacred.

sally from Prameste, but was repulsed with loss; and finding his case desperate, endeavoured to escape by a subterranean passage in company with a younger brother of the brave Pontius. Finding the passage obstructed, they agreed to kill one another. Pontius received the point of his friend's sword, and fell dead: Marius, being only wounded, caused a slave who had attended them to despatch him. Praneste was then surrendered to the conqueror. Rome, Italy, and the World lay at his feet, and men waited with trembling expectation tho announcement of his will.

§ 1. Sylla’s return: his rage against the memory of Marius. § 2. Proscription. § 3. Seenes in Italian eities. § 4. Sylla Perpetual Dietator. § 5. His absolute power: eontrol of elections. § 6. Mithridatic Triumph. § 7. New Constitution. § 8. Sale of property of the Proscribed. § 9. Military eolonies. '§ 10. Changes in the Register of Citizens. § 11. Power of Tribunes redueed to nothing. § 12. All real power entrusted to Senate. § 13. Laws for tenure of Magistracies, for Judieial bodies. § 14. Tendeney of Sylla’s legislation. § 15. Criminal legislation. § 16. His increasing moderation: Pompey and Caesar. § 17. Cieero’s defenee of Sext. Roscius. § 18. Sylla resigns dictatorship. § 19. Quiet state of Rome and provinces, except Spain. § 20. Sylla retires to Puteoli. § 21. Death of Sylla. § 22. His eharaeter.

§ 1. Presently after his second entrance into the City, Sylla addressed the People in a set speech, holding out promises to the obedient, and to the disobedient threats. But for his declared enemies no hopes were left: all were doomed to death who had

taken any part publicly against him sincc the day on which the Consul Scipio broke off the armistice at Tcanum. The memory of Marius excited in Sylla’s breast passions absolutely ferocious. The trophies upon the Capitol, recording the African and Cimbrian triumphs, were destroyed; the ashes of the old General were torn from their sepulchre near the Anio, and scattered in tho stream. L. Sergius Catilina, afterwards notorious, sought to win the conqueror’s favour by seizing the person of M. Maries Gra-tidianus, a nephew of the old hero by adoption. Catiline calculated justly.- By Sylla’s order the unoffending prisoner was carried to the tomb of Catulus, and there his eyes were plucked out, limb severed from limb, and death delayed with horrid ingenuity. A Senator, who fainted at the cruel sight, was slain upon the spot for showing sympathy with a Marius. Soon afterwards Ofclla sent the head of the old General’s son to Rome. Sylla, with grim delight, gazed on the youthful face, and said :—“Those who take the helm should first serve at the oar.” Now, he said, his fortune was accomplished; and henceforth he took the name of Felix.*

§ 2. Every hour -was marked by slaughters. Some who had taken no part in the war were put to death, and no one knew whether he was safe. At length a formal list of the doomed was made out and published; and this was what was properly called the Proscription. But even then the uncertainty remained. The first list of eighty names was followed by a second of one hundred and twenty; and each succeeding day produced a horrid supplement. To make the sentence sure, a price of two talents was set on the head of every proscribed person ; and this sum was paid alike to the slave who slew his master or tlie son who murdered his own father. All who harboured the proscribed, or favoured their escape, became liable to their fate; and wives were found heartless enough to refuse shelter to their husbands. But what most gave security for vengeance was the knowledge that the property of these unhappy men was to be confiscated to reward the zealous agents of the conqueror. Those who coveted the possessions of others contrived to have their names placed on the Proscription-lists. Here again Catiline bore away the palm of iniquity. He sought to legalise a murder he had committed, by having the name of his victim placed upon the proscribed list; and that victim was his own brother. The heads of the slain were placed in the hall of Sylla’s house.

§ 3. These scenes of terror were not confined to Rome. At Prsenesto Sylla took his scat on the Tribunal. All who could

* In letters to Greek communities he translated this by Epaphroditus, the favourite of Venus. Venus Victrix, tho goddess of pleasure and of fortune, was the common deviee upon his coins.

prove that they had been against the Marians,—a small minority, —were ordered to stand aside. The remainder were divided into two classes. Citizens of Rome constituted the first; the second was made up of the Praenestines themselves and their Samnite allies. The Romans he addressed with great severity, but ended by sparing the lives which had (he said) been justly forfeited. The Praenestines and Samnites were ruthlessly shot down. The women and children alone were spared. The town was given up to be plundered by the soldiery. Norba, a Latin town, which still held out, was betrayed; the greater part of its inhabitants, warned by the fate of the Praenestines, set fire to their city and sought a voluntary death. Nola was still held by the same gallant Samnites whom Sylla had left unconquered before the Mithridatic war: nor did it now fall without an obstinate defence. To all cities which had taken part with the Marians the Proscription was extended, and the same direful scenes were repeated in each place. There also, as at Rome, the lust for other men’s property swelled the numbers of the slain. It was chiefly the rich who were sought after; the poorer sort, however guilty, were neglected.

§ 4. All this was done without any semblance of legal authority. There was in fact no executive government in existence. Sylla himself, by entering the city, had lost his Proconsular dignity. One Consul, young Marius, had died at Praeneste. The fate of his colleague Carbo may be shortly told. It has been said that he crossed over into Africa. Here he assembled a considerable force and returned to Sicily, and Pompey was despatched thither to arrest his progress. Carbo endeavoured again to make his escape to Africa; but he was brought back in chains to Pompey, and his head was sent to Rome.

Yet by conquest Sylla held supreme authority. The Senate obeyed him in all matters, and set; up an equestrian statue to him, with the inscription Cornelio Sullae, Imperatori, Felici. He desired however to have some definite power, and represented to the Senate that it would be proper to appoint an Interrex. They at once named that L. Valerius Flaccus, who had already signalised his attachment to the cause of Sylla; and this man, having assembled the Centuries, read to them a letter from Sylla, in which he stated that he deemed it expedient to revert to the ancient office of Dictator (which had been in abeyance since the Second Punic War for a period of 120 years); whoever was named, ought to be named not according to the old rule for six months, but till he should have succeeded in restoring order to the Empire. No one could doubt who was the person thus designated. * But Sylla disdained innuendoes, and added that “ for the services demanded of the Dictator he thought himself fittest to b? chosen.” The terms of this imperial mandate were echoed in the bill introduced by the Intcrrex. By that Valerian Law, all Sylla’s acts in the East and in Italy were confirmed: he was declared Dictator for so long as he judged fit; and was in express terms authorised to make laws, to put citizens to death, to confiscate property and distribute public lands, to destroy old colonies and to found new, to transfer the sceptres of der pendent monarchs from one claimant to another. More absolute powers were never entrusted to one man by a formal act of law.

§ 5. Sylla at once assumed his office. He appointed Flaccus his Master of Horse. He appeared in public with four-and-twenty Lictors, and was besides surrounded by a body-guard. But at the same time he gave proof that he had no intention of superseding the old forms of the Constitution: for he summoned the Comitia for the election of Consuls, intimating, however that 110 one was to appear as Candidate except by his permission. And what he said he meant. Lucretius Ofella, presuming on his services at Prajneste, entered the Forum as a Candidate, while the Dictator was seated on his Chair of State before the Temple of the Dioscuri. Sylla at once ordered a centurion of his guard to cut down Ofella. After this, it may be presumed that Candidates were not eager to thrust forward their claims upon public notice. And to prevent any show of independence in the Centuries, he made use of a terrible apologue:—“A husbandman, ” he said, “ was troubled with vermin. Twice he shook his tunic; but they continued to annoy him, and the third time lie burnt it. Let those,” he added, “ who had twice been conquered by arms, beware of fire the third time.” The persons elected were mere cyphers, who served to give a name to the year.

§ G. Early in the following year he celebrated a splendid Triumph for his successes in the Mithridatic War. The obedient Senate suspended the old rule by which a General who had once entered the City forfeited all claim to a Triumph; and two days in tlie last week of January (81 b.c,) were devoted to the spectacle. The first day was occupied by a long procession of captives and treasure defiling through the City. On the second, the Dictator himself ascended to the Capitol, preceded by his veterans, and followed by a crowd of Senators and Nobles, wearing chaplets in token that they acknowledged Sylla as their saviour. Large sums of money were paid into the Treasury. Splendid spectacles followed. Greece was obliged to suspend her Olympian games, that her athletes and trained combatants might exhibit their skill and strength before the Roman People. Young men. of the noblest family, contrary to old custom, did not disdain to drive chariots at these games.

§ 7. Sylla now threw himself into the true work of his Dictatorship, and proceeded to issue a scries of Laws by which the Constitution of Rome was entirely remodelled.

§ 8. His first measure confirmed the Proscription. He had cleared the stage of all antagonists; and he now ordained that all the families of the Proscribed were to be deprived for ever of their civic rights. The second measure to gain this end was more efficacious: he ordained that all their property should be Fold by public auction, and the sums received^- placed to the public account.

Even if this sale had been fairly conducted, the Treasury would have received far less than the value of the property sold. But the sale was not fairly conducted. The auction was held before the Dictator’s chair. His favourites were the chief bidders; and if persons unconnected with his party ventured to enter the lists against them, he broke out into angry menace. So little did he regard appearances, that he used to talk of selling his “booty.” Often he remitted payment altogether; at other times he bestowed what ought to have been sold upon his wife Ca3cilia, upon his mistresses or frcedmen, upon favourite actors, dancers, and musicians. In one case, made familiar to us by a speech of Cicero, Chiysogonus, a favoured freedman, caused a wealthy citizen to be murdered, and took possession of his goods, though the man was not on the Proscription-list, and though the time prescribed in the law for the sale of confiscated property had gone by.* The spirit in which the sales were conducted appears from a story preserved by Cicero. A sorry poet handed an epigram to the Dictator as he was presiding over the auction. Sylla laughed, and ordered that the man should have a sum of money from the proceeds of the sale then in progress,—on condition that he should write no more poetry.f The measures thus enforced at Rome were executed with the same undeviating rigour in every town of the Italian Peninsula.

§ 9. But of the confiscated lands of the disaffected towns <?rcat part was not sold at all. These reserved lands were destined to reward Sylla’s soldiery, and by their means to create a new constituency for the Comitia. At least 150,000 men who had served under Sylla or his lieutenants in the East and in Italy received allotments. Legions; or parts of Legions, were settled in old Italian towns, and became citizens of those places, interested by the nature of their title in upholding the Dictator’s measures. The disbanded veterans of Cromwell’s army were, it is said,

tho most industrious, orderly, and useful citizens of tho towns to which they retired. It was far otherwise with the licensed soldiery of Sylla. They wasted their newly-acquired property in riotous living; the Cornelian soldiers became the terror and disgrace of their neighbourhood, and in after times supplied the ready instruments of sedition to Catiline and Clodius.

From this time forth, the depopulation of Italy proceeded rapidly. From this time forth, may be dated the decay of distinct nationality in the several districts of the Italian Peninsula. Parts of Samnium and Lower Etruria became almost desolate. Apulia was given up to shepherds. From this time forth also, a common language began to prevail throughout the country towns of Italy. The disbanded soldiery had all learned to speak a species of Latin, and, in all the towns in which they settled, they mingled with the relics of the old population, and introduced a general use of this language.

§ 10. Having disposed in this summary fashion of the property confiscated by the Proscription, the Dictator proceeded to mould anew the Political Constitution of Rome.

The Italians and others who had received the suffrage were left in possession of their right, unless they had taken part with the Marians in the late war,—an exception which was probably more comprehensive than the rule. To secure personal influence in the Tribes, Sylla selected from among the slaves of the Proscribed 10,000 of the youngest and most active men, an I by a stroke made them Citizens of Rome. All the men tins enfranchised considered themselves as Freedmen of the Dictator, and assumed his name. These Cornelii proved a strong support of tho Syllan Constitution in the years that followed.

§11. But while he thus filled the ranks of the Tribes with his creatures, he took away from the Tribes all real and substantive authority. He ordained that Candidates for the Tribunate should necessarily be Members of the Senate; that no one who had been Tribune should be capable of holding any curule office; that no Tribune should have power to propose a Law to the Tribes; and lastly, that the right of Intercession should be limited to its original purpose, that is, that it should not be available to stop Decrees of the Senate, or Laws brought before the Senate, but only to protect the personal liberty of Citizens from the arbitrary power of tlie Higher Magistrates. The Tribunes were thus effectually shackled, and their power returned to the low condition in which it had been during the earlier period of its existence.

These measures restored Legislation to the Centuriate As- * sembly, from which of late years it had passed away. But here also Sylla ordained that the old rule should he strictly enforced, by which no measure could be submitted to either of the Popular Assemblies till first it had received the sanction of the Senate. Thus the Assembly of the Centuries was placed under the direct control of that Council.

§ 12. The crowning work of his Political Reforms was the reconstitution of the Senate. Its numbers had been greatly thinned by war, massacre, and proscription. To fill up its ranks to the old complement of Three Hundred, he first named the wealthiest and most dignified of his own adherents. A large proportion of these were taken from the Knights, and he thus detached from that Order a number of its most influential members. Some members who obtained seats had begun service with Sylla as common soldiers, and were devoted to his interests. The number of Quaestors was at the same time raised to twenty, so that, for the future, members would never be wanting to supply vacancies. Sylla did not employ Censors to make out the list in due form; indeed, he tacitly abolished the Censorial office. The last Censors had held office in the year 86 b.c.; the jiext belong to the year 70 B.C., in which the most important of Sylla’s political regulations were set aside.

§ 13. With respect to the Magistracies, Sylla ordained that there should be twenty Quaestors instead of eight, and that there should be eight Praetors instead of six. He also required the strict observance of the Lex Annalis. Every one who aspired to the Consulship was compelled to go through all the inferior grades with fixed intervals between each. As in every succeeding year the costly spectacles expected by the People became more costly, these offices were more effectually than ever confined to a limited number of old families; and for a New Man to obtain the highest offices became more difficult than ever.

It was not to bo expected that Sylla would leave the Judicial power, as C. Gracchus had placed it, in the hands of the Knights. There had been a constant struggle to deprive them of it, and Sylla now at once restored this power absolutely to the Senate. Thus once more the Senators, became the judges of their own Order. Of all the Laws of Sylla there was none of which the repeal was more loudly demanded than this.

§ 14. Such were the chief Political measures of the Dictator. Their general purpose was to restore the Constitution to its state before the time of the Gracchi. It was still a Republic in outward form, but in reality a close Oligarchy. The Popular Assemblies still existed, but were made completely dependent upon the Senate. That body, composed chiefly of those who could win the votes of the People by bribing freely, and by exhibiting costly shows, monopolized all the powers of the State.

§ 15. A number of other Cornelian Laws preserved the Dictator’s name. One defined more clearly the Law of Treason against the Majesty of the Republic, originally passed by the Tribune Saturninus. In the Tribune’s mouth, the Majesty of the Republic meant the Majesty of the People ; in Sylla’s mouth, it meant the Majesty of the Senate; under Tiberius and his successors, it was taken to mean tho Majesty of the Emperor’s person. But, if Sylla’s political ordinances were framed in a jealous and exclusive spirit, his Criminal Legislation was well calculated to repress the disorders consequent upon the Civil Wars. The crime of assassination was sternly checked ; and the Dictator’s Criminal Code long survived his political measures.

§ 16. In the next year (80 b. c.) the Dictator condescended to fill the Consulship in company with Metellus Pius; but in the following year (79 b.c.) in obedience to his own law he declined to submit his name to the Comitia. Generally speaking, it may be said that his government became more lenient, but he was perfectly indifferent to justice in awarding public honours. L. Licinius Murcna, his lieutenant in Asia, invaded the dominions of Mithridatcs in spite of strict injunctions to the contrary, till orders from home put an end to what was called the Second Mithridatic War. On his return to Rome, Murena claimed a triumph, and his claim was allowed by the careless indulgence of the Dictator. But when Pompey, returning victorious from Sicily and Africa, also claimed a triumph, Sylla refused the claim. The young General not yet twenty-five years of age, had filled no office of State; and the Dictator, who was anxious to restore the old regulations of the Republic, attempted to satisfy Pompcy’s ambitious aspirations by saluting him by the name of Magnus. Pompey, however, was obstinate : his army was cn-campcd outside the walls; and Sylla, not choosing the risk of a possible struggle with the rising General, gave a contemptuous permission. “ Well then, let him triumph.” To crush the Marian party effectually, he had ordered all persons connected with it by marriage to divorce tlieir wives. Pompey, who had married Antistia from policy rather than affection, readily obeyed; and married ./Emilia, daughter of the Dictator's wife by her first marriage. But there was another young man who was less compliant. This was C. Julius Caesar, then a youth in his 19th year. He had married Cornelia, daughter of Cinna; and he boldly refused to put away his wife. Caesar was not only son-in-law of Cinna, but also nephew of Marius; and this refusal would have cost him his life, had not powerful friends and kinsmen interceded for liim with the Dictator. “You know not what you ask,” replied the Dictator; “that profligate boy will be more dangerous than many Mariuses.” Cajsar was allowed to escape, but was for some time obliged to skulk in fear of his life among the Sabine mountains.

§17. Another circumstance more strongly shows the greater leniency of the Dictator. Young Cicero, who was of the same age as Pompey, had returned from his academical studies in Greece; and in the year 81 b.c. commenced that brilliant career which made him one of the great men of Rome. His first known oration, for P. Quinctius, contains little of public interest. But his second was in favour of Sext. Roscius of Ameria, a young man who was accused by a notorious informer of having murdered his own father; whereas the guilty person was Chryso-gonus, Sylla’s favourite Freedman. Young Cicero undertook the defence; and ,the boldness with which he conducted it is quite as remarkable as the skill. Cicero lashed the favourite with all the vigour and energy of youthful eloquence, while he dexterously excuses Sylla from all share in the blame, by a compliment which is almost blasphemous. “As Jupiter,” he said, “ is obliged to allow the existence of pain and suffering in the universe, so Sylla cannot be so ubiquitous as to see his will executed everywhere and always.” The jury, composed of Senators though it was, took part against the Dictator’s Freedman, and Roscius was acquitted. It must be observed, however, that Cicero returned to his studies at Rhodes for two years.

§ 18. Sylla’s increasing moderation may have surprised many. But all were much more surprised when, early in the year 80 b.c., he abruptly laid down his Dictator’s office, which he had held for little more than two years, and appeared in the Forum ?.s a private man, where he ascended the Rostra, rehearsed his acts, and desired any one who had reason to complain to come forward and speak. No one answered the challenge. The blood of his opponents could not speak from the ground. The disfranchised and the exiled had no place in the Assembly. Above all, it was hazardous to accept the challenge thrown down by a man who, though no longer Dictator, still had the State waiting on his nod.

§ 19. Rome and Italy were now in complete tranquillity. In Spain alone, of the Provinces, the Marian party under Sertorius maintained a threatening attitude. But Metellus Pius had been despatched as Proconsul to quell the insurrection, and it was expected that he would execute his commission with ease.

§ 20. All, therefore, seemed tranquil when Sylla left Rome for ever, to seek at his Puteoline villa on the bay of Naples that which lie loved better than power or glory,—a life of voluptuous ease, lie loved not statesmen, nor soldiers, nor serious men of any kind. He was fond of genial humour and unrestrained license, and therefore admitted jesters, actors, and humorists to unreserved intimacy. He was fond of sensual pleasure; and therefore, though he always treated his wife Caecilia with respect, his doors were open to dancing girls and singing girls. He was fond of literature, and therefore gave free invitation to men of letters. In company of this various kind lie passed hours lounging in a boat upon the Bay of Naples, and hours at table or over his wine, sometimes conversing on art and literature, sometimes engaging in licentious jesting or coarse buffoonery. At such times he would not suffer business to be named. Selfindulgence and amusement were the sole objects of his life.

§ 21. But he did not long enjoy this life of pleasurable ease. About a year after he had resigned the Dictatorship, he was attacked by a complication of disorders, which ended in a loathsome disease. His body, distempered by debauchery and labour, is said to have engendered vermin; and thus miserably died the great Dictator in the 00th year of his age.

§ 22. Sylla was eminently a man of genius. In war and politics, in literature and encounters, of wit, he was a match for the masters of each art at their own weapons. That which gave him advantage was his perfect knowledge of men, and his just confidence in self, unalloyed by any tincture of personal vanity. In the art of war, he was inferior to Marius, but in the diplomatic arts by which men are guided or deluded he was unequalled. Yet with all qualities to fit him for active life, his inclinations lay not that way. He never continued his exertions for a longer time than was required for his immediate object. Properly speaking he was not ambitious. He desired wealth and power, but only as a means, his real end being the facility of absolute self-indulgence. Ilis passions were by nature fierce, and they were made fiercer by a distempered frame of body and by unjust opposition. Before Marius endeavoured to rob him of the Mithridatic command, we hear not of any barbarities that can bo attributed to him; and after the Proscription he relapsed into the easiness of temper which best suited his Epicurean principles.

REVOLUTIONARY ATTEMPT OF LEPIDUS I SERTORIUS : SPARTACUS: CONSULSHIP OF POMPEY AND CRASSUS. (*78-*70 B.C.)

§ 1. Symptoms of decay in the constitution of Sylla: Catulus and Lepidus, Consuls. § 2. Revolutionary attempt of Lepidus. § 3. Adventures of Sertorius. § 4. His government of Spain. § 5. Metellus Pius fails in crushing him: Pompey sent to bis aid. § 6. Sertorius maintains his superiority: treaty with Mithridates. § 7. Sertorius assassinated by Per-perna. § 8. Sertorian war concluded by Pompey. § 9. Gladiatorial War: Spartacus. § 10. He becomes almost master of Italy. § 11. Crassus commands against him: his skilful measures. § 12. Defeat and death of Spartacus. § 13. Claim of Pompey to merit of concluding Gladiatorial War. § 14. Pompey and Crassus elected Consuls, illegally. § 15. Popular measures announced by Pompey: Tribunate reestablished. § 16. Reform of law-courts proposed by Praetor L. Cotta, opposed by Senate. § 17. Cicero’s prosecution of Verres. § 18. Aurelian Law carried: Reform of Senate. § 19. Rivalry of Pompey and Crassus: the latter acknowledges superiority of Pompey.

§ 1. We now enter upon the last stage in the Decline and Fall of the Republic. By a violent effort Sylla had restored the government to the Senatorial Nobility. But symptoms intimating the insecurity of the fabric which he had hastily reared on blood-bathed foundations showed themselves even before his death. After his secession, Q. Catulus became the chief of the Senatorial party. He was son of the Catulus who shared the Cimbric Triumph witli Marius, and in the year 79 b.c. he appeared among the candidates for the Consulship with the certainty of election. The person who aspired to be his colleague was M. ./Emilius Lepidus, a man of illustrious family, but of vain and petulant character. He was supported by many friends, among others by young Pompey. Sylla knew the man, and warned Pompey against entrusting him with power. But Pompey, who already began to talk of “the setting and the rising sun,” disregarded the •warning, and Lepidus was elected.

§ 2. Scarcely was Sylla dead when his words were fulfilled. Lepidus declared himself the Chief of tho Italian party, and promised to restore all that Sylla had taken away. To prevent a renewal of Civil War, the Senate bound him and Catulus alike by oatli not to take up arms during their Consulate. But Lepidus retired to his Province of Transalpine Gaul, and, pretending that his oath did not bind him there, began to levy troops. The Senate summoned him to return to Rome. lie obeyed, but it; was at the head of an army. To oppose him, Catulus took post before the Mulvian Bridge, with Pompey for his lieutenant. Ilere they were attacked by Lepidus, who was easily defeated. After this failure, lie fled to Sardinia, where lie died shortly after. But his lieutenants, M. Perperna and L. Junius Brutus, father of Caesar’s murderer, kept the troops together, and waited for the course of events. A war was raging in Spain, which might well encourage the hopes of discontented persons.

§ 3. It has been mentioned that Q. Sertorius had assumed the government of Spain. But after a vain struggle against superior forces, he w^ras obliged to take refuge in Mauritania. The news from Italy was dispiriting. It seemed as if the Marian cause was lost for ever. Sertorius lent ear to the tales of seamen who had lately made a voyage to the Fortunate Islands (so the Ancients called the Azores), and seemed to recognise the happy regions which Greek legends assigned as the abode of the Blessed.¹⁴⁵ But while the active soldier was indulging in day-dreams of indolent tranquillity, he received an invitation from the Lusitanians to head them in rising against the Senatorial Governors, and obeyed without a moment’s hesitation. Viriathus himself did not use with better effect the energies of the brave mountaineers. The South of Spain was soon too hot to hold the Syllan leaders: the proscribed Marians came out of their hiding-places and joined the new chief. His progress, in the course of two years’ time, became so serious, that when Metellus Pius laid down his Consulship, he was sent into Spain to crush Sertorius.

§ 4. But to crush Sertorius was no easy task. He was no mere soldier, but possessed political qualities of a high order. Like Hamilcar and Hasdrubal of old, he flattered the Spaniards with the hope of rising to independence under his rule. Tho government which he formed indicated a disposition to dispute Empire with Rome. He formed a Senate of Three Hundred, consisting partly of proscribed Romans, partly of Spanish Chiefs —a step unparalleled in the provincial government of Rome. All cities in his power he organised after the Italian model: and at Osca (now Huesca in Catalonia) he established a school for the noble youth of Spain. The boys wore the Roman garb, and were taught the tongues of Rome and Athens. Sertorius is almost the only statesman of antiquity who tried to use education as an engine of government. It cannot indeed bo pretended that his views were merely philanthropic; no doubt he field the boys as hostages for the fidelity of their sires.

His great talents, above all his acknowledgment of equality beween Provincials and Romans, won him golden opinions. Everywhere the Spaniards crowded to see him, and loudly protested their readiness to die for him. Their enthusiastic reverence for his person was increased "by the presence of a white doe, which continually followed him, and was regarded by the simple people as a familiar spirit, by means of which he held communication with heaven.

§ 5. Metellus in two campaigns found himself unequal to cope with the new ruler of Spain. In the second of these years (77 b.c.) Perperna, who had retired to Gaul with the best troops of Lepidus, entered Spain, and joined the popular leader; and the Senate hastily despatched Pompey to reinforce Metellus. On his march through Gaul, the young General encountered the other remnant of the army of Lepidus under Brutus; and Brutus, who fell into his hands, was put to death in cold blood.

§ 6. Pompey’s aid, however, did not change the face of affairs. In the first battle the young General was saved by the approaeli of Metellus, on which Sertorius said : “ If the old woman had not come up, I should have given the boy a sound drubbing and sent him back to Rome.” At the end of 75 b.c. Pompey wrote an urgent letter to the Senate, representing the insufficiency of his forces, and two more legions were sent to reinforce him. Meam time Sertorius himself had reasons for apprehension. Some ol his Roman friends, disliking his policy of favouring the Pro vincials, made overtures to the Senatorial commanders; and Sertorius, severe by nature, still further exasperated the Romans of his party by forming his body-guard exclusively of Spaniards. But he still maintained his superiority in the field. Nor was it encouraging to learn that he had received envoys from Mithridates, who was about to renew war with Rome. Sertorius agreed to furnish Roman officers to train the soldiers of Asia, while the King was to repay the loan in ships and money.

§ 7. The despotic power exercised by Sertorius had corrupted his nature. lie indulged in the immoderate use of wine, was impatient of the slightest contradiction, and was guilty cf many acts of tyranny. Even the Spaniards began to fall away; and Sertorius in a moment of irritation ordered all the boys at Osca to be put to death. This cruel and impolitic act would probably have cost him his power and his life, even if it had not been terminated by treachery. Perperna, who had at first joined him against his own inclination, thought that a favourable opportunity had arrived for grasping power. lie invited Sertorius to a banquet at Osca ; and the General, having drunk freely according to his custom, fell an easy prey to the dagger of the assassin (72 B.C.).

§ 8. But when Perperna had wrought this shameful deed, lie found that the name of Sertorius was still powerful among the Spaniards. Many of them, now that their great leader was r:o more, forgot his faults, and with the devoted enthusiasm of their nation threw themselves into the flames of his funeral pyre. A few days after the death of Sertorius, Perperna attempted to lead the soldiery against Pompcy, but lie sustained an ignominious defeat. His men dispersed, and he was taken prisoner. When brought before Pompcy, he endeavoured to gain favour by handing to him letters which had been interchanged by Sertorius with some of the chief men at Rome. But Pompcy, with prudent magnanimity, threw the letters into the fire and refused to hear him. In the course of a year the last relics of the Marian party in Spain were extinguished.

Before this was effected, Rome was engaged in conflict with Mithridates. The history of this war shall be reserved for a separate chapter. But here must be noticed a formidable outbreak that took place in Italy, and threatened the very existence of the State. This was the war of the Gladiators.

§ 9. For the purpose of the barbarous shows which were so much enjoyed at Rome, it was the custom to keep schools for training gladiators, who were let out by their owners to the ^Edilcs. At Capua there was a large school of this kind ; and among the gladiators in training there was Spartacus, a Thracian, who had once led liis countrymen against Roman commanders, but now, having been taken prisoner, was destined to make sport for his conquerors. He persuaded about seventy of his fcllow-bondsnien to join him in breaking loose : better it was, he argued, to die in battle on the open field, than on the sand of the amphitheatre. This handful of brave men took up a strong position upon Mount Vesuvius, where Spartacus was presently joined by slaves and outlaws of all descriptions. The gladiators, old soldiers like himself, supplied him with officers. (Enomaus and Crixus, the former a Greek, the latter a Gaul, acted as his lieutenants. He enforced strict discipline; and, so long as he was able, obliged his followers to abstain from acts of rapine. Two Roman Prators attacked him, but they were beaten with loss, and the numbers of his army swelled every* day. All this happened in 73 B.C., after the Mithridatic War had broken out, and before the Ser-torian War was ended.

§ 10. In the next year (72 B.C.), the same which witnessed the murder of Sertorius, Spartacus had become strong enough to take the offensive. He had to face a formidable power, for both Consuls were ordered to take the field. But, at the head of more than 100,000 men, he forced the passes of the Apennines and entered Picenum. His subordinates, however, proved unmanageable : and Spartacus, aware that the power of Rome must prevail, bent all his energies towards forcing his way across the Alps, in the hope of reaching some remote region inaccessible to Rome. As he pressed northwards, he was assaulted by both the Consuls, but defeated them both, and made his way to Cisalpine Gaul; but here he was repulsed by the Praetor Cassius, and obliged by the impatience of his followers to retrace his steps. Still, every other Roman officer who dared to meet him was defeated: at one time the brave Gladiator is said to have meditated a descent upon Rome itself. But he relinquished this desperate plan, and spent the remainder of the year in collecting treasure and arms. Little discipline was now observed. The extent of the ravages committed by the bands under his command may be guessed from the well-known line of Horace, in which lie promised his friend a jar of wine made in the Social War, “ if he could find one that had escaped the clutches of roaming Spartacus.”*

§ 11. The management of the war was now committed to Crassus, who had really Avon the Battle of the Colline gate. Ever since the triumph of Sylla he had lived quietly at Rome, profiting by the Proscription to buy up property cheap; and after that period he had been busied in making the most profitable use of the large fortune which he had amassed.

Crassus took the field with six new legions, to be added to the remains of the Consular Armies. The disorganised battalions of these armies he punished by the unjust and terrible penalty of decimation; but his rigour was successful in restoring discipline. lie found Spartacus besieging Rhcgium, with the view of establishing a connexion with Sicily, and rekindling the Servile War in that Island. The Gladiator had even agreed with a squadron of Cilician Pirates to convey 2000 of his men across the straits; but the faithless marauders took the money and sailed without the men. Crassus determined to shut up the

enemy by drawing entrenchments across the narrowest part of the Calabrian Peninsula. Twice in one day did Spartacus endeavour to break through the lines; twice he was thrown back with great slaughter. But lie continued to defend himself with dauntless pertinacity; and the Senate, hearing that Pompey was on his way back from Spain, joined him in the command with Crassus, and urged him to accelerate liis march.

§ 12. Crassus, afraid of losing liis laurels, determined to assault Spartacus; but the brave Gladiator anticipated him by forcing a passage through the lines, and marching upon Brundusium, where he hoped to seize shipping and make his escape from Italy. But M. Lueullus, brother of Lucius, the commander against Mithridates, had just returned with a force of veteran soldiers from Macedonia to Brundusium. Spartacus, foiled in liis intention, turned like a wolf at bay to meet Crassus. A fearful conflict ensued, which remained doubtful till Spartacus was wounded by a dart through the thigh. Supported on his knee, he still fought heroically, till he fell overpowered by nuin> bcrs. Most of his followers were cut to pieces; but a strong body of the insurgents drew off in good order to the mountains. A division of 5000 made their way to the North of Italy, where Pompey fell in with them on his way home from Spain, and slew them to a man. About G000 more were taken prisoners by Crassus, who hung them along the road from Rome to Capua.

§ 13. To Crassus belongs the credit of bringing this dreadful war to a close. In six months he liad finished his work. But Pompey claimed the honour of concluding not only the Sertorian War, but also the war with Spartacus. In fact he had not much cause for boasting in either case. Tlie daggers of Perpcrna really brought the Spanish contest to an end; and as to the gladiatorial conflict, the lucky chance by which Pompey intercepted. 5000 fugitives was his only claim to credit. But the young General was a favourite with the soldiery and with the People, while Crassus from his greedy love of money enjoyed little popularity. Public opinion, therefore, seconded claims which were put forward without modesty or justice.

§ 14. Neither Pompey nor Crassus would enter the City; for both desired a Triumph, and their armies lay at the gates to share the honours. Tlie wish of Pompey was at once granted; but to Crassus only an Ovation was conceded.

Before they entered the City, they had both asked permission to offer themselves as Candidates for the Consulship. Both were excluded by the Laws of Sylla. Crassus was still Prnctor, and at least two years ought to elapse before his Consulship. Pompey was only in his thirty-fifth year, and had not even been Qucestor. ‘ 27

The Senate, however, dared not refuse Pompey; lor he would not disband his army, and his tone brooked no refusal. And what was granted to Pompey could not be denied to Crassus, who also kept his soldiers under arms. Thus, at the demand of two chiefs, each backed by an army, the Senate’ were, within eight years after Sylla’s death, obliged to break his Laws. Pompey was elected by acclamation. Crassus might have been less successful, had there not been a secret understanding between him and Pompey. On the Calends of January, 10 b.c., Pompey and Crassus entered on their memorable Consulship.

§ 15. On that day Pompey gave intimation of his intention to pursue a popular course of policy. In a set spcech he declared his intention of releasing the Tribunes from the trammels imposed upon them by Sylla, and of attempting a Reform of the Judicial system. Both of Pompey’s announcements were received with shouts of applause. To the former the Senate offered but a feeble opposition. The Tribunes were restored to the exercise of their power, and with their restoration it may be said that the key-stone of the arch erected by Sylla fell. With the resuscitation of this popular power revived also the independence of the Tribe-Assembly, and hence followed by necessity a struggle between that body and the Senate.

§• 1(5. But the other measure broached by Pompey was one which the Senate determined to oppose to the uttermost. They could not tamely abandon their absolute power over the Law-courts. Yet in the last ten years scandal had been great. Among other persons Caesar had reason to complain. After his escape from' Sylla’s vengeance, he also, like Cicero, resorted to the schools of Greek Philosophy. On his return, though only in his 23rd year_T he indicted Cn. Dolabella for misgovernment in Macedonia. Dolabella was defended by Q. Hortensius, the first Advocate of the day, a determined adherent of the Senatorial Party, and as a matter of course he was acquitted. It had, however, been remarked that the Knights were little less corrupt than the Senators; and the law proposed under Pompey’s authority by the City-Prsetor, L. Aurelius Cotta, was so devised as to establish a Court composed of three elements, each of which might serve as a check upon the other two. In each Jury one-third of the Jurymen was to be furnished by the Senate, one-third by the Knights, and the remaining third by the Tribunes of the Treasury.¹⁴⁶ Catulus endeavoured to promote a compromise; but Pompey was resolute, and the Nobles prepared to maintain their privilege by arms.

§ 17. An event, however, occurred which smoothed the way for Cotta’s Law. Cicero, as we have mentioned, after the great credit he had won by his bold defence of Sext. Roscius, had quitted Rome for two years. He returned in 77 b.c., and immediately began to dispute with Hortcnsius the sway which lie exercised in the Law-Courts. Except during the year 75 b.c., when he was serving as Quajstor in Sicily, lie was employed as an Advocate at Rome. Ilis polished eloquence excited universal admiration; his defence of many wealthy clients brought him in much money and connected him with many powerful families. He was of the same age as Pompey; and, being now a Candidate for the ^Edileship, he began to be eager for political distinction. To obtain this by military commands was not suited to his tastes or talents. But it was possible to achieve it by the public impeachment of sonic powerful offender. C. Cornelius Vcrres, a man connected with some of the highest Senatorial families, had for three years been Pnetor of Sicily, from which province lie had returned after practising extortions and iniquities unexampled even in those days. The Sicilians, remembering the industry and equity with which Cicero had lately executed the functions of Quaestor in their island, begged him to come forward as the accuser of this man; and the Orator, who saw how lie might at once strengthen the hands of Pompey, and share the popular triumph of the Consul, readily undertook the cause.

The first attempt which the dexterous Advocate of Vcrres made to elude Cicero’s attack was to put forward Q. Cajcilius Niger, who had been Qaa3stor under Verrcs, to contend that to him belonged the task of accusation. But Cicero exposed the intended fraud so unanswerably that even the Senatorial Jurymen named Cicero as prosecutor.* He demanded ninety days for the purpose of collecting evidence in Sicily. But lie only used fifty of them, and on the 5th of August lie opened this famous impeachment. He had in the mean time been elected ^Edile. But Hortensius had also become Consul-elect; and one of the Mctclli, a warm friend of the accused, was designated to succeed Glabrio, who now presided in the Court as Praetor Pcrcgrinus. It was therefore a great object for Vcrres to get the trial postponed to next year, when his great Senatorial • friends would fill the most important ofHcos in the State. To baffle this design, Cicero contented liimself with a brief statement of his ease, ana at once proceeded to call witnesses. So overpowering was the evidence, that Hortcnsius threw up his brief, and Verres sought

impunity in a voluntary exile. To show what he could have done, Cicero published the Five great Pleadings, in which he intended to have set forth the crimes of Yerres; and they remain to us as a notable picture of the misery which it was in the power of a Roman Proconsul to inflict.

Soon after the trial came to this abrupt issue, the Law was passed, seemingly with little opposition; and thus a second great breach was made in the Syllan Constitution.

§ 18. The corrupt state of the Senate itself was made manifest by a step now taken by Catulus and his friends. They restored the Censorial office, which had been suspended for sixteen years. The Censors of the year 70 b.c. discharged their duties with severe integrity, and sixty-four Senators were degraded. For Catulus they revived the high rank of Princeps, and he w^ras the last independent Senator who held that rank. When it was next called into existence, it served to give a Title to the despotic authority, of Augustus. The review of the Knights was made remarkable by the fact that the Consul Pompey appeared in the procession, leading his horse through the Forum, and submitting himself to the Censorial scrutiny.

§ 19. The jealousy of Crassus increased with Pompey’s popularity. Both the Consuls continued to maintain an armed force near the City; and, though the liberal measures of Pompey had won the Forum, yet the gold of Crassus commanded many followers. The Senate dreaded that the days of Marius or Cinna might return. But Crassus calculated the risks of a conflict, and prudently resolved to give a pledge of peace. At the close of the year he publicly offered his hand to Pompey, which the-latter deigned to accept after the manner of a prince. It did not suit Crassus to disturb credit and imperil his vast fortune by a civil war: Pompey was satisfied so long as no other disputed his claim to be the first Citizen of the Republic.

Thus ended by far the most remarkable year that had passed since the time of Sylla. Two generals, backed, by an armed force, had trampled on the great Dictator’s laws: and one of them had rudely shaken the political edifice reared in so much blood. Behind them appeared the form of one who sought to gain by eloquence and civil arts what had lately been arrogated by the sword. But it was some years yet before Caesar descended into the political arena.

§ 1. Second Mitliridatie "War. § 2. Preparations of MithriJates. § 3. Third Mithridatie War: the King defeats tlie Consul Cotta, and lays siege to Cyzieus. § 4. L. Lueullus, the other Consul, relieves Cyzieus. § 5. Drives Mithridates into Armenia. § G. Sends to demand Mithridates from Tigranes: relieves Asiatics from arrears of debt. § 7. Invades Armenia, auil takes Tigranoecrta. § 8. Obliged to relinquish his advance upon Artaxata: takes Nisibis. § 9. Mithridates defeats Triarius in Pontus: army of Lueullus mutinies. § 10. Account of Cilician pirates* Gabiuian Law, empowering Pompey to put them down. § 11. Brilliant succcss of Pompey. § 12. Minilian Law, investing Pompey with command over the East. § 13. He drives Mithridates across the Caucasus. § 14. Effect of his victories: further successes: he returns to Pontus. § 15. Ilis campaign in Syria: siege of Jerusalem. § 16. Death of Mitliridatea § 17. Pompey’a progress through Asia and Greece; return to Italy.

§ 1. It lias been mentioned that so soon as Sylla’s back was turned, Murena assailed Mithridates anew. Archelaus, who had been disgraced by his master, was his secret instigator. Mithridates submitted silently, till he found the Roman General preparing to repeat his invasion. Then he collected a large force, fell suddenly upon Murena near the Halys, and defeated him. Envoys now arrived from Rome, commanding Murena to desist

from his rash enterprise: and thus ended what is usually called the Second Mithridatic War.

§ 2. This reckless attack was enough to provoke a less adventurous spirit than that of Mithridates. The death of the great Dictator, the outbreak of party quarrels, and the successes of Sertorius, led the King to think that a favourable moment had arrived. It was about the year 75 b.c. that he concluded his Treaty with Sertorius. But the Roman leader’s career was cut short, and the Treaty was of no effect. ^

Soon after this, Nicomcdes of Bithynia died, and left his kingdom by will to the Roman People. But Mithridates at once led an army consisting of 120,000 foot, armed and trained in the Roman fashion, with 16,000 horse, into Bithynia. A powerful fleet cooperated with this formidable force, and the whole country submitted without a blow.

§ 3. The Consuls of the year were M. Aurelius Cotta, and L. Licinius Lucullus. Lucullus, eldest son of a Lucullus who had commanded in the Second Sicilian Slave War, and grandson of him who had behaved so treacherously to the Spaniards,* had done good service under Sylla in the First Mithridatic War, and seotned to have earned a right to command in the present outbreak. But Cotta had obtained the Province of Bithynia by lot, and Lucullus was destined by this capricious dispenser of patronage to the quiet rule of Cisalpine Gaul. It happened, however, that the Province of Cilicia became vacant, and the Sanate conferred it upon him as an extraordinary command. On the arrival of Lucullus in Asia, he heard that Cotta had been obliged to throw himself into Chalcedon, where he was blockaded by the King. Lucullus carried with him no more than two Legions. Besides these he found four in Asia, two of which were the licentious soldiery of Fimbria. But there was no time to pick and choose. He advanced into Mysia with about 30,000 foot and 1,600 horse.

Meanwhile, Mithridates had laid siege to Cyzicus, a town which stands on what is now a peninsula, though at that time it was separated from the mainland by a narrow channel. With his large army he cut it off from all communication with the land, w.hile his powerful fleet served at once to blockade the place, and to keep his'army well supplied.

§ 4. Lucullus cautiously advanced towards Cyzicus, and contrived to post his army so strongly, that on the one hand ho was quite secure from attack, while on the other he completely commanded the enemy’s lines. Winter was at hand. Tho Pontic fleet was unable to keep the sea; and as Lucullus had,

intcrccptcd communication with the interior, supplies began to tail. By famine and disease the enemy was at length so weakened, that Lueullus closed in upon them, and the besiegers became in their turn besieged. After persisting bravely for some time, Mithridates sent off his sick towards Bithynia, while he showed a bold front towards Lueullus. But the Roman general sent a detachment in pursuit, while he had still force enough to keep his own ground, and the wretched fugitives wero cut off to a man. The remainder of the Pontic army then broke out from their lines and marched along the coast for Lampsacus. Lueullus followed close, and attacked them at every advantageous point. On the ^Esopus, on the Granicus, great numbers fell; only a shattered remnant of the host arrived at Lampsacus. Ilere, in company with the Lampsacenes, who dreaded the vengeance of Rome, they embarked on board the fleet for Nico-media. But the greater part perished in a storm, and the vast army which Mithridates had collected and trained with so much anxious care was annihilated in little more than a year. Mithridates himself was indebted to a pirate for his escape to Sinope. For the whole of that year and the next Lueullus continued steadily to advance upon the kingdom of Pontus. At the end of 72 b.c. Lueullus sent letters wreathed in laurel recording his successes to the Senate.

§ 5. Winter checked not the activity of the Roman commander. He crossed the llalys late in the season. Alarmed at the approach of the Romans, Mithridates left Sinope, his capital city, and betook himself to the mountain-fortress of Cabeira, within reach of the kingdom of his son-in-law Tigranes. To this monarch, who styled himself King of Kings, he sent for aid, as well as to his own son Machares, whom he had made sovereign over the Crimean Bosphorus and its dependencies. Tlie strong town of Amisus, however, held out during the winter; and in the spring of 71 B.C., Lueullus, leaving Murena (son of him who had earned a disgraceful triumph from tlie Second Mithridatic War) to continue the siege, advanced against Cabeira. Mithridates fled precipitately, and was so hotly pursued, that his capture would have been certain, had not the Roman horsemen stopped to collect a quantity of gold which had fallen from pack-horse in the King’s suite. He took refuge in Armenia. Amisus now surrendered; Sinope followed its example; and by the close of the third campaign, all the country from the Halys to the Euphrates was at the feet of Rome.

§ G. In the course of the next year (70 b.c.) Lueullus sent App. Clodius to demand the person of Mithridates from Tigranes. The envoy did not return from this mission for some months;

and Lucullus employed the interval in making a, tour of Asia Minor, with the purpose of restoring order in the Province and its contiguous principalities. His mild and generous temper won the favour of the people. It had been formerly his task to collect the tribute imposed by Sylla upon Asia Minor, and he had performed this duty with all the gentleness which its nature permitted. But since his departure, the imposts had been multiplied six-fold by the extortionate interest demanded for taxes in arrear. Lucullus at once fixed the rate of interest at one per cent., struck off the accumulated sums from the capital of the debt, and made other stringent rules for checking the malpractices of the Roman Capitalists. These proceedings made him many enemies; moreover, by forbidding pillage, he lost the affections of Legions accustomed to license.

§ 7. Early in 69 B.C., App. Clodius returned with the answer of Tigranes. This haughty monarch had not as yet admitted his unfortunate father-in-law to his presence. But the tone of the Roman Envoy displeased him; he was especially wroth because he was not honoured with the title of King of Kings, and he refused to give up the person of Mithridates. Lucullus at once crossed the upper Euphrates with a small force, and pushed on through wild mountain districts to Tigranoccita, the Western Capital of Armenia. Mithridates advised Tigranes not to hazard an action with the invaders. But the King scornfully rejected his advice. “ Those Romans,” he said, “ for ambassadors are too many, for enemies too few.” But a terrible defeat was the consequence of his temerity; and the slaughter of his broken host was only stopped by- the approach of night. Tigranes tore off his diadem, and fled eastward, having learnt by bitter experience that his father-in-law had formed too true an estimate of the Roman soldiery. Tigranocerta, though defended by walls 50 cubits high, was betrayed by the Greek inhabitants of the place. Machares, son of Mithridates, viceroy of the Crimea, paid homage to Rome. The King of the Parthians, a powerful tribe, which had poured from the mountainous districts south of the Indian Caucasus, and had become lords of Central Asia from the Indus to the Euphrates, sent offers of alliance. Roman tacticians loudly commended Lucullus, who had subdued the disciplined army of Mithridates by systematic operations, and had crushed the barbarous hordes of Tigranes by adventurous boldness.

§ 8. Next year (68 b.c.) the Roman leader continued his victorious career. Tigranes attempted to make a stand upon the Arsanias, a tributary of the Euphrates, but was again defeated, and fled to Artaxata, the second capital of Armenia, which lies in the valley of the Araxcs, northward cf Mount Ararat. Lucullus, nothing daunted, was anxious to continue the pursuit. But already the soldiery had shown mutinous inclinations, and the Tribunes declared that the army would advance no farther Eastward. Lucullus unwillingly gave way, and turned his course southward, crossed the range of Taurus into the warmer region between the upper valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, then called Mygdonia, where he took by storm the large and wealthy town of Nisibis. In the ensuing winter events happened that destroyed his well-grounded hopes of eventual success.

§ 9. Mithridates, finding that Pontus was occupied by a feeble corps of the Iloman army under the command of L. Yalerius Triarius, suddenly re-appeared in his own kingdom. Early next spring (67 B.C.) news of this bold descent reached Lucullus, who hastened to support his lieutenant. But Triarius, presumptuous and eager for triumph, attacked Mithridates at Zela, without waiting for the arrival of the General, and lie was defeated, with the loss of his own life. The King, satisfied with his advantage, retreated to the mountains, and Lucullus gave orders for pursuit. But the mutinous spirit, partially disclosed in tho foregoing year, now broke out with undissembled fury. The. flame was fanned by Publ. ClodiUs Pulcher, younger brother of the App. Clodius who had been sent as envoy to Tigranes, and brother-in-law to the General. His subsequent career proved his reckless and selfish temper. On the present occasion, though he was but one or two and twenty, he conceived he had been neglected by Lucullus. In the army he found ready materials for sedition. The men had indeed some reason for discontent. The soldiers of Fimbria had been absent from Italy for nearly twenty years; and since Lucullus took the command they had suffered great hardships. Lucullus, though a good general and a just ruler, had none of that genial frankness which wins the affection of soldiers, and his luxurious habits excited jealousy. The army agreed to defend Pontus from Mithridates, but positively refused to undertake any new operations.

§ 10. Events were even now occurring which transferred the command to other hands. While the Roman arms were threatening the shores of the Caspian and the confines of the Parthian Monarchy, while Lucullus was mortified at seeing a magnificent Triumph slip from his grasp, a formidable enemy was assailing the very shores of Italy. From ancient times, as at the present day, the creeks of Asia Minor, and the islets of the Archipelago, had been the resort of piratical bands, who sallied out for plunder, and disappeared as if by magic before attack. During the distractions that followed the Social and Civil Wars, these Pirates had gained a power and an audacity unknown before.

Their chief nests were in the ports of Cilicia and Pisidia; and they possessed strongholds in the mountain valleys which lead down from Taurus to that coast. Hence these Pirates are often called Cilicians, and often Isaurians, — the district of Isauria, in the heart of the Pisidian mountain range, being one of their chief fastnesses. Of late they had been encouraged by the patronage and money of Mithridatcs. Their audacity was extreme. At one time young Caesar was in their hands; and P. Clodius, who had left the army of Lucullus after his success in fomenting mutiny, was now their prisoner. Not long before this, they had carried off two Praetors from Italy. The grand-daughter of the great Orator M. Antonius had been seized by them at Misenum; the very port of Ostia had been plundered by their galleys. In the year 78 b.c., Q. Servilius Vatia was sent as Proconsul to Cilicia, and he carried on the war with so much success, that he assumed the title of Isauricus. In 75 B.C., M. Antonius, the son of the Orator, was invested with an extraordinary command over the Mediterranean, in order to clear the seas of the Pirates. But he used his great power for plunder and extortion; his operations covered the Roman arms with dishonour; and, dying in Crete, he was called Creticus in derision. The depredations of the Pirates continued. Q. Metellus, Consul in 69 B.C., was ordered to continue the war against Crete, with a view to further operations against the Pirates, and gave good promise of a successful issue. But Pompey was becoming impatient for employment. He w^ras popular; his military character stood higher than that of any other man at Rome; and it was with general approbation, that in the year 67 B.C., the Tribune Au. Gabinius, a creature of his own, brought, forward a law enabling the People to elect a person of Consular rank, who should exercise over the whole Mediterranean a power still more absolute than had been conferred upon Antonius. Every one knew that Pompey was to be the person. The Senate were, almost to a man, suspicious of his intentions. It was thought that he purposed to make himself the chief of Rome; and the proposition Avas opposed, as dangerous to freedom, by the Senatorial leaders, Catulus, Hortensius, and others. Caesar supported it in the Senate; but he stood- almost alone. Pompey was threatened with the ominous words:—'“You aspire to be Romulus; beware the fate of Romulus.” When the Tribes met to pass the Bill, a Tribune named Trebellius was induced to interpose his veto; nor could threats or persuasions move him, till Gabinius put it to the vote that he should be deprived of his Tribunate, as Octavius had been deprived by Gracchus. Not till seventeen Tribes had voted for his deprivation, did Trebellius yield, and then the Bill was passed by acclamation. No sooner was this result known, than the price of provisions fell. .

§11. No part of Poinpey’s life 13 no brilliant as its next ycaip. During the winter he got a large Fleet ready for sea. Twenty-four lieutenants, among whom appear the names of Cato and Varro, some commanding squadrons of the fleet, some protecting the coast with troops, obeyed his orders. He directed all these forces to encircle the West of the Mediterranean, and by simultaneous movements to drive the flying squadrons of the enemy before them towards the East. In the brief space of forty days lie returned to Rome, and reported that the whole sea West of Greece had been cleared of the Pirates. Meantime, a powerful Fleet had assembled at Brundusium; and hastening across Italy to that port he took the command in ■ person. He continued his plan of action by sweeping every inlet of the Archipelago, £0 as to force the enemy to the Cilician coast. Their assembled ships ventured to give him battle off the roek-fortress of Cora-cesium, and suffered a complete defeat. A general submission followed, due as much to the leniency of Pompey as to his victory; and in the course of three months from the day on which he commenced operations the war was ended. A large number of the Pirates were settled in the Cilician town of Soli, which was henceforth named Pompeiopolis.

About the same time, Metellus completed the conquest of Crete, and Pompey sought to include that island in his command. But Metellus resisted tho encroachment, and the Senate backed him. After some delay, he was honoured with a Triumph and assumed the namo of Creticus as a title of real honour.

§ 12. At tho moment, then, when Lueullus was unwillingly obeying his soldiery, Pompey, in the full blaze of victory, was settling the affairs of Cilicia. During the winter lie remained in the East. Ilis friends at Rome pufc.,forward his name as the only person fit to be entrusted with the task of concluding the Mithridatic War. At the very beginning of the year GG b.c., the Tribune Manilius moved that a second commission should be issued to invest Pompey with the chief command over all Roman dominions in the East, till he had brought the war with Mithridates to an end. The Senatorial Chiefs opposed the law of Manilius, but less vehemently than they had opposed the law of Gabinius, and a new supporter of the popular hero appeared in the person of Cicero. The eloquent advocate had never yet addressed the Tribes on any political question, and lie could not have found an occasion better suited for his first essay than the praises of Pompey. The tusk was easy, and the audience eager;

but never was a more splendid offering paid to military genius than was now paid to Pompey by the rising Orator.* Success was a matter of course. Pompey received by acclamation the most extensive authority ever yet conferred by law upon a Roman Citizen, with the exception of the Dictatorial power given to Sylla. Pie was in fact appointed Dictator of the East; and with the army placed at his command, it would liave been easy to establish himself as master of the West also. It must be confessed, that the Senatorial Chiefs had some reason to object to this unlimited authority. Necessity was an excuse in Sylla’s case; for without him there would have been anarchy. But no necessity now existed; for it cannot be doubted, that Lueullus, with proper reinforcements, would have brought the war to a speedy conclusion. But the cause of Pompey was identified with the cause of the People; Lueullus was held to be a champion of the Senate; and the popular will prevailed.

§ 13. Daring the year of inaction that had preceded Pompey’s appointment, Mithridates had collected a fresh army, with which he occupied the frontier-of Pontus. Pompey received his new commission in the summer of 66 b.c., and he at once pushed forward towards Cabeira, through a country wasted by previous campaigns. Mithridates, anxious to avoid a battle, retired towards tlie sources of the Ilalys, but he was overtaken by the Roman general, and obliged to give battle on a spot afterwards marked by the city of Nicopolis, founded by Pompey in memory of the battle. Here Mithridates was entirely defeated, and with only a few stragglers succeeded in crossing the Euphrates. But Tigranes refused to harbour him in Armenia; and he made his way northward, with great difficulty, through the wild mountain tribes of Caucasus to Dioscurias (Iskuria) on the coast of Circassia. Banished from the regions south of Caucasus, his adventurous genius formed the conception of uniting the Sarmatian tribes northward of the Black Sea, and making a descent upon Italy. Panic-stricken at his father’s approach, Macharcs, Viceroy of the Crimea, sought death by his own hand; and the Crimea again became subject to Mithridates.

§ 14. So great was the terror caused by the victories of the Roman General, that Tigranes would have prostrated himself at his feet, had not Pompey prevented tho humiliation; and Phraates of Parthia, who had assumed the proud title of King of Kings, latjly arrogated by Tigranes, sent to make an alliance with the victorious Roman, who turned his steps Northward in pursuit of Mithridates. At mid-winter lie celebrated the

* See his speech Pro imperio Cn. Pompeii, commonly called pro Lege Manihd, especially c. 16.

Saturnalia on the River Cyrus (Kur), and in the spring advanced along the coast to the Phasis. But learning that Mithridates was safe in the Crimea, he turned back to his old quarters on the Cyrus, and spent the summer in reducing the tribes which occupied tho southern slopes of Caucasus. One of his victories was celebrated by the foundation of another Nicopolis. But he was obliged to return to Pontus for winter-quarters. Here lie received ambassadors from the neighbouring potentates, and busied himself in reducing Pontus to the form of a Roman Province. For the next two years he occupied himself by campaigns in the famous countries to the south of Asia Minor.

§ 15. Syria had been of late years subject to Tigranes. In the summer of 04 b.c., Pompey, descending through Cappadocia to Antioch, took possession of the kingdom of the Seleucida) and reduced it to the form of a Roman Province. The Ituneans, the northern Idumscans, and all the country below Taurus crouched submissive at his feet. As he advanced Southward, his authority was called in to settle a quarrel between two brothers of that Royal Family, which had inherited the Jewish sceptre and high priesthood from the brave Maccabees. Aristo-bulus was the reigning King of Judrca, but his title was disputed by his brother llyrcanus. It was the latter who applied for aid to tho Roman General. Pompey accepted the appeal. But the Jews, attached to the reigning prince, refused obedience, and Pompey was obliged to undertake the siege of Jerusalem. For three months the Jews defended themselves with their wonted obstinacy; but their submission was enforced by famine, and Pompey entered the lloly City. Pillage he forbade; but, excited by the curiosity which even then the spiritual worship of Jehovah created in the minds of Roman idolaters, he entered the sacred precincts of tho Temple, and ventured even to intrude into the Holy of Holies, and to stand behind that solemn veil which had hitherto been lifted but once a year, and that by the High Priest alone. We know little of the impression produced upon Pompey’s mind by finding the shrine untenanted by any object of worship. But -it is interesting to compare the irreverent curiosity of the Roman with tho conduct attributed to the Great Alexander upon a similar occasion. llyrcanus was established in the sovereignty, 011 condition of paying a tribute to Rome: Aristobulus followed the conqueror as his prisoner.

§ 10. Aretas, King of the Nabathaian Arabs, detied the grills of Pompey; and the conqueror was preparing to enter the rocky deserts of Iduma?a, so as to penetrate to Petra, when he received news which suddenly recalled him to Asia Minor. Mithridates was no more. lie had been endeavouring to cxecnte his great

design of uniting all the barbarous Tribes of Eastern Europe against Home, and so excited the alarm of his remaining subjects, that his son Pharnaces found it an easy task to raise them to insurrection. The old monarch, rendered desperate by seeing liis last hopes baulked, had, while Pompey was yet before Jerusalem, terminated his own life at Panticapaeum (Kertch) in the Crimea. Pompey hastened to Sinope, to which place the body of the old King had been sent by his son. It was honoured with a royal funeral, and placed in the sepulchre of his fathers.

§ 17. The remainder of the year 63 b.c. was spent by the General in regulating the new Provinces of Bithynia, Pontus, and Syria, and in settling the kingdoms, which he allowed to remain under Roman protection on the frontiers of these Provinces. Pharnaces, son of Mithridates, was left in the 'possession¹ of the Crimea and its dependencies: Deitorarus, chief of Galatia, received an increase of territory; Ariobarzanes was restored for the fourth time to the principality of Cappadocia. All this was done by Pompey’s sole authority, without advice from tlie Senate.

Early in 62 b.c. he left Asia, and proceeded slowly through Macedonia and Greece,—so slowly, that on the 1st of January 61 b.c., he had not yet appeared before the walls of Rome to claim his Triumph. He had been absent from Italy for nearly seven years. His intentions were known to none. But ,the power given him by the devotion of his soldiers was absolute; and the Senatorial Chiefs might well feel anxiety till he disclosed his will. But before we speak of his arrival in Rome, we must relate the important events that had occurred during his absence.

FROM CONSULSHIP OF POMPEY AND CRASSUS TO RETURN OF POMPEY" from the east: c^esar: CICERO! CATILINE. (69-61 B.C.)

§ 1. Life of Caesar to 67 b.c. § 2. His- Quaestorship and ^Edilcsliip: acknowledged as leader of the Marian Party. § 3. Discontent with government of Senate among (1) families of Proscribed, (2) soldiers of Sylla, (3) pro. fligate young Nobles. § 4. Catiline: his previous life: accused by P. Clodius, and prevented standing for Consulship. § 5. First plot of Catiline: Cicero’s offer to defend him. § 0. Election of Cicero and C. Antonius to Consulship, Catiline being rejected. § 7. Cicero’s Consulship: he takes part with Senate: speaks against Agrarian Law of Rullus. § 8. Impeachment of Rabirius for taking up arms against Saturninus. § 0. Cicero opposes the restoration of the Sons of the Proscribed. § 10. Election of Ctesar to Chief Pontificate. § 11. Catiline’s plans betrayed to Cicero: Consuls invested with dictatorial power: Catilino again loses Consulship : Cicero’s First Speech: Catiline leaves Rome: Second Speech. §12. Allo-brogian Envoys seized. § 13. Arrest of Conspirators left at Rome: Cicero’s Third Speech. § 14. Debate in Senate on punishment of prisoners: Cicero’s Fourth Speech: they are put to death. § 15. Ciecro defends Murena, Consul-elect. § 1G. Catiline defeated and slain early in next year. § 17. Discussion as to complicity of Crassus and Ca;sur in Cati« line’s conspiracy.

§ 1. Though the restoration of the Tribunate and the withdrawal of the Judicial power had given a rude shock to tho

Senatorial Oligarchy, they still remained masters of Rome. But a chief was growing up who was destined to restore life to the Marian party, to become master of the Roman world, and to be acknowledged as the greatest man whom Rome ever produced.

C. Julius Caesar was born of an old Patrician family in the year 100 b.c. He was therefore six years younger than Pompey and Cicero. His father, C. Caesar, did not live to reach the Consulship. His uncle Sextus held that high dignity in 91 b.c., just before the outbreak of the Social War. But the connexion on which the young Patrician most prided liimself was the marriagb of his aunt Julia with C. Marius; and at the early age of seventeen he declared his adhesion to the popular party by espousing Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna_r who was at that time absolute master of Rome.* We have already noticed his bold refusal to repudiate his wife, and his narrow escape from Sylla^rs assassins. His first military service was performed under L. Minucius Ther-mus, who was left by Sylla to take Mytilene. In the siege of that place he won a civic crown for saving a citizen. On the death of Sylla he returned to Rome, and, after the custom of ambitious young Romans, he indicted Cn. Dolabella, for extortion in Macedonia. The Senatorial Jury acquitted Dolabella as a matter of course; but the credit gained by the young Orator was great; and he went to Rhodes to study rhetoric under Molo, in whose school Cicero had lately been taking lessons. It was on his Avay to Rhodes that he fell into the hands of Cilician pirates. Redeemed by a heavy ransom, he collected some ships, attacked his captors, took them prisoners, and crucified them at Pergamus, according to a threat which he had made while he was. their prisoner. About the year 74 b.c. he heard that he had been chosen as one of the Pontifices, and he instantly returned to Rome, where he remained for some years, leading a life of pleasure, taking little part in politics, but yet, by his winning manners and open-handed generosity, laying in a large store of popularity, and perhaps exercising an unseen influence over the events of the time.

§ 2. It was in 07 B.C., as we have seen, that Pompey left the City to take the command against the Pirates. At the same time, Caesar, being in his thirty-third year, was clected Quaestor, and signalised his year of office by a panegyric over his aunt Julia, the widow of Marius. His wife Cornelia died in the same year, and gave occasion to another funeral harangue. In both of these speeches the political allusions were evident; and lie ventured to have the bust of Marius carried among his family images

* lie was already manicd to Cossutia, a rich heiress, whom he divorced to marry Cornelias for the first time sincc the Dictatorship of Sylla. In 65 b.c. lie was elected Curule ^Edilc, when ho increased his popularity by exhibiting 320 pairs of gladiators, and conducting the games on a scale of unusual magnificence. The chief expense of these exhibitions was borne by his colleague, M. Bibulus, who complained that Cjesar had all the credit of the shows,—“just as the temple of the Dioscuri, though belonging both to Castor and jPollux, bore tho name of Castor only.” But lie did not contino •himself to winning applause by theatrical spectacles. As Curator of the Appian AVay, lie expended a large sum from his own resources. The Cimbrian trophies of Marius had been thrown down by Sylla, and no public remembrance existed of the services rendered to Rome by her greatest soldier. Caesar ordered these trophies, with suitable inscriptions, to be secretly restored; and in one night lie contrived to have them set up upon tho Capitol, so that at daybreak men were astonished by tho unaccustomed sight. Old soldiers who had served with Marius shed tears. All the party opposed to Sylla and the Senate took heart at this boldness, and recognised their chief. So important was the matter deemed, that it was brought before the Senate, and Catulus accused Ca3sar of openly assaulting the Constitution. But nothing could be done to check his movements, for in all things lie kept cautiously within the Law.

§ 3. Tlie year 6f his ./Edileship was marked by the appearance of a man destined to an infamous notoriety,—L. Sergius Catilina, familiar to all under the name of Catiline.

For some time after the death of Sylla the weariness and desire of repose which always follows revolutionary movements had disposed all men to acquiesce in the rule established by the Dictator. But more than one class of persons found themselves ill at ease. First, the families proscribed by Sylla cherished the thoughts that they might recover what they had lost, and the enthusiasm displayed when Caosar restored the trophies of Marius, revealed to tho Senate the hopes of their political enemies. Secondly, there were a vast number of persons, formerly attached to Sylla, who shared the discontent of the Marian party. Tho Dictator left all real power in the hands of a few great families, liis own creatures were allowed to amass money, but remained without _t political power; and the upstarts who ^enjoyed a transient greatness under Sylla found themselves reduced to obscurity. With the recklessness of men who had become suddenly rich, they had squandered their fortunes as lightly as they had w’on them. These men were for the most part soldiers, and ready for any violence. They only wanted chiefs. These, chiefs they found among the profligate members of noble families, who like themselves were excluded from the counsels of the respectable though narrow-minded men who composed the Senate and administered the government. These were the young Nobles, effeminate and debauched, reckless of blood, of whom Cicero speaks with horror.*

§ 4. Of these adventurers Catiline was the most remarkable. He belonged to an • old Patrician Gens, and had distinguished himself both by valour and cruelty in the late Civil War. We have noticed how he is said to have murdered his own brother, and to-have secured impunity by getting the name of his victim placed on the proscribed lists, as well as the ready zeal with which he delivered up Marius Gratidianus to torture. A beautiful and profligate lady, by name Aurelia Orestilla, refused his proffered hand because he had a grown-up son by a former marriage; this son speedily ceased to live. Notwithstanding his crimes, the personal qualities of Catiline gave him great ascendancy over all who came in contact with him. His strength and activity were such, that he was superior to the soldiers at their own exercises, and could encounter skilled gladiators with their own weapons. His manners were frank, and he was never known to desert friends. By qualities so nearly resembling virtues, it is not strange that he deceived many, and obtained mastery over more. In 68 b.c. he was elected Praetor, and in the following year became Governor of the Province of Africa. Here he spent two years in the practice of every crime that is imputed to Roman Provincial rulers. During the year of Caesar’s ^lileship, Catiline was accused by the profligate P. Clodius Pulcher. He had intended in that year to offer himself Candidate for the Consulship. But while this accusation was pending the Law forbade him to come forward; and this obstacle so irritated him that he planned a new Revolution.

§ 5. The Senatorial Chiefs, in their wish to restore outward decency, had countenanced the introduction of a severe Law to prevent Bribery by L. Calpurnius Piso. Under this law P. Cornelius Sulla and P. Autronius Paetus, Consuls-elect for 65 B.C., were indicted and found guilty. Their election was declared void; and their accusers were nominated Consuls by the Senate, without the formality of an election. Catiline found Autro-nius ready for any violence; and these two entered into a conspiracy with another profligate young Nobleman, by name Cn. Piso, to murder the new Consuls on the Calends of January,— the day on which they entered upon office,—and to seize the supreme authority for themselves. The scheme is said to have

* “Libidinosa et delicata juventua,” ad Att. i. 19, 8: “sanguinaria juventus,” ib. ii. 7, 3.

failed only because Catiline gave the signal of attack before the armed assassins had assembled in sufficient numbers.

Catiline was acquitted oi* liis trial, 110 doubt through the intentional misconduct* of the case by Clodius. We arc astonished to read a private letter of Cicero’s, in which the Orator expresses his willingness to act as Catiline’s advocate.f Cicero’s excuse is that in the next year he was to be Candidate for the Consulship ; if Catiline were acquitted lie would be a competitor; and it would be better to have him as a friend than as an enemy. This alone speaks loudly for the influence of Catiline ; for at the same time Cicero declares that his guilt was clear as noonday .J

§ 6. There was indeed reason to fear Catiline’s success. Five of the six Candidates who opposed him were men of little note. The sixth was Cicero, whose obscure birth was a strong objection against him in the eyes of the Nobility. But there was 110 choice. C. Antonius, brother of M. Antonius Creticus and younger son of the Orator, was considered sure of his election; and he was inclined to form a coalition with Catiline. Cicero was supported by the Equites, by the friends of Pompey, whom he had served by his speech for the Manilian Law, and by a number of persons whom he had obliged by liis services as Advocate. What part he had hitherto taken in politics had been decidedly in opposition to the Senate. But necessity knows no rule; and to keep out Catiline, whom they feared, the Senatorial Chiefs resolved to support Cicero, whom they disliked. The personal popularity of the Orator and the support of the Aristocracy placed him at the head of the poll. Antonius was returned as liis colleague, though he headed Catiline by the votes of very ihw Centuries.

§ 7. Wc now como to the memorable year of Cicero’s Consulship, G3 b.c. It was generally believed that Catiline’s second disappointment would drive him to a second conspiracy. Immediately after his election, Cicero attached himself to the Senate and justified their choice. To detach Antonius from Catiline, lie voluntarily ceded to him the lucrative Province of Macedonia, which he had obtained by lot. But Catiline’s measures were conducted with so much secrecy, that for several months no clue was obtained to his designs.

f “Hoc tempore Catilinam, competitorem nostrum, defendere cogita-bamus .... Spero si absolutns erit, conjunctiorem iljum fore in ratione pctitionis; sin aliter accident humaniter feremus.”—Ad Att. L 2, 3. The use of the imperfect cogitqbamux indicates that Cicero’s advocacy was either ni't really offered or not accepted.

i Catilina, si judicatum erit mcridic non lueere, certus erit competitor.”— Ad Att. i. 1, 2.

Meantime Cicero had other difficulties to meet. Among the Tribunes of the year were two persons attached to Caesar’s party, Q. Servilius Rullus and T. Attius Labienus. The Tribunes entered upon their office nearly a month before the Consuls; and Rullus had already come forward with an Agrarian Law, to revive the measure of Cinna, and divide the Public Lands of Campania among the poor citizens. Cicero’s devotion to his new friends was shown by the alacrity with which he opposed this measure. On the Calends of January, the very day upon which he entered office, he delivered an harangue against it in the Senate, which he followed up by speeches in the Forum * He pleased himself by thinking that it was in consequence of these efforts that Rullus withdrew his bill. But it is probable that Caesar, the real author of the law, cared little for its success. In bringing it forward he secured favour for himself. In forcing Cicero to take part against it, he deprived the orator of a large portion of his popularity.

§ 8. Soon alter this, Caesar employed the services of Labienus to make an assault upon the arbitrary power assumed by the Senate in dangerous emergencies. It will be remembered that, in the sixth Consulship of Marius, the revolutionary enterprise of Saturninus had been put down by resorting to this arbitrary power. Labienus, whose uncle had perished by the side of Saturninus, now indicted C. Rabirius, an aged Senator, for having slain the Tribune. It was well known that the actual perpetrator of the deed was a slave, who had been publicly rewarded for his services. But Rabirius had certainly been one of the assailants, and he was indicted for High Treason (per-duellio). If he were found guilty, it would follow that all who hereafter obeyed the Senate in taking up arms against seditious persons would be liable to a similar charge. The cause was tried before the Duumviri, one of whom w^ras L. Caesar, Consul of the preceding year; the other was C. Caesar himself. Hortensius and Cicero defended the old Senator. It would seem almost impossible for Caesar to condemn Rabirius, seeing that Marius himself had led the attack against Saturninus. But Ca'sar was not troubled by scruples. The Duumviri found Rabirius guilty.

From this judgment the old Senator appealed to the popular Assembly. Cicero came forward, in his Consular robes, to defend him. He was allowed only half-an-liour for his speech; but the defence which he condensed into that narrow space was unanswerable, and must have obtained a verdict for his client, if it

^Fragments of three BpccclieB Be Lege Agraria remain. See Orelli’a edition, ii. p. 627, sqq. -had been addressed to a calm audience. The People, however, were eager to humiliate the Senate, and were ready to vote according to their present passion. Rabirius would certainly have been condemned, had not Q. Metellus Color, Praetor of the City, taken down tho standard which from ancient times iloated from the Janiculum during the sitting of the Comitia.¹⁴⁷ But Ciesar’s purpose was effectually answered. The governing body had been bumbled, and their right to place seditious persons under a sentence of outlawry had been called in question.

§ 9. Cicero lost still more favour by the successful opposition which he offered to an attempt to restore the sons of those who liad been oil the proscribed lists of Sylla. In this he served the purpose of tho Senate by excluding from the Comitia their mortal enemies; but he incurred many personal enmities, and he advocated a sentence which could be justified only by necessity.

§ 10. About this time the age and infirmities of Metellus Pius made probable a vacancy in. the high office of Pontifex Maximus; and Labienus introduced a Law by which the right of election to this office was restored to the Tribes, according to the rule observed before Sylla’s Revolution. When Metellus died, Caesar offered himself as a candidate for this high office. Catulus, Chief of the Senate, also came forward, as well as P. Servilius Isauri-cus. Caesar had been one of the Pontiffs from early youth: but he was known to be unscrupulous in his pleasures as in his politics, overwhelmed with debt, careless of religion. Ilis election, however, was a trial of political strength merely. It was considered so certain, that Catulus attempted to persuade him to withdraw by offering to pay liis debts; but Cajsar peremptorily refused, saying that if lie needed more money, he would borrow more. He probably anticipated that the Senate would use force to oppose him; for on the morning of the election he parted from his mother Aurelia with the words, “ I shall return as Pontifex Maximus, or not at all.” His success was triumphant. Even in the Tribes to which his opponents belonged he obtained more votes than they counted altogether. No fact can more strongly

Erove the strength which the popular party had regained under is adroit but unseen management. It is worth noting that in this year was born his sister’s son, M. Octavius, who reaped the fruit of all his ambitious endeavours.

§11. The year was fast waning, and nothing was known to the public of any attempts on the part of Catiline. That dark and enterprising person liad offered himself a third time as Candidate for the Consulship, and he was anxious not to stir till the result was known. But Cicero had become acquainted with a woman named Fulvia, mistress to Curius, one of Catiline’s confidential friends, and by her means he obtained immediate knowledge of the designs of the conspirators. At length he considered them so far advanced, that on the 21st of October lie .assembled the Senate and laid all his information before them. On the next day a Decree was framed to invest the Consuls with Dictatorial power, but at present this Decree was kept secret.

Soon after, the Consular Comitia were held, and the election of the Centuries fell on D. Junius Silanus and L. Licinius Murena, adherents of the Senatorial party. Catiline, disappointed of his last hopes, convened his friends at the house of M. Porcius Lceca, on the nights of the 6th and 7tli of November ;¹⁴⁸ and at this meeting it was determined to proceed to action. C. Mallius, an old Centurion, who had been employed in levying troops secretly in Etruria, was sent to Fsesulae, and ordered to prepare for war; Catiline and his associates were to organise movements within the City. ¹

Cicero, informed of these resolutions through Fulvia, resolved to dally no longer with the peril. He summoned the Senate to meet on the 8th of November in the Temple of Jupiter Stator. Catiline, with marvellous effrontery, appeared in his place as a Senator; but every one quitted the bench and left him alone. Cicero now rose, and delivered that famous speech which is entitled his First Oration against Catiline. The conspirator rose to reply; but a general shout of execration prevented him. Unable to obtain a hearing, he left the Senate-house ; and, perceiving that his life was in danger at Rome, he summoned his associates together, handed over the execution of his designs to M. Len-tulus Sura, Praetor of the City, and C. Cethegus, and left Rome before morning to join Mallius at Faesulae. On the following morning Cicero assembled the People in the Forum, and in his Second Speech told them of the flight of Catiline.

§ 12. The Senate now made a second Decree, in which Catiline was proclaimed a Public Enemy; and the Consul Antonius was directed to take the command of an army destined to act against him, while to Cicero was committed the care of the City.- Cicero was at a loss; for he was not able to bring forward Fulvia as a witness, and after the proceedings against Rabirius lie feared resorting to the use of Dictatorial power. But at this moment he obtained diroct evidence against the conspirators. There were then present at Rome ambassadors from the Allobroger, whose business it was to solicit relief from the debts which that people had incurred to the Roman Treasury. The Senate heard them coldly, and Lentulus took advantage of their discontent to stir them to insurrection. At first they lent ear to his offers, but thought it prudent to disclose the matter to Q. Fabius Sanga, whose family was engaged to protect tlieir interests at Rome/' Fabius communicated with Cicero. By the Consul’s directions, the Allobrogian Envoys continued their intrigue with Lentulus, and demanded written orders, signed by the chief conspirators, to serve as credentials to their nation. Bearing these documents, they set out from Rome on the evening of tho 3rd of December (5th of Feb., 62 b.c.), accompanied by one T. VuU turcius, who carried letters from Lentulus to Catiline. Cicero ordered the Pra3tors, L. Flaccus and C. Pompt.inus, to take post upon the Mulvian Bridge. Here tho Envoys were arrested, and all their papers seized.

§ 13. Early next morning, Cicero sent for Lentulus, Cethcgus, and the others who had signed the Allobrogian credentials. Ignorant of what had passed, they came; and the Consul, holding the Pnetor Lentulus by the hand, and followed by the rest, went straight to the Temple of Concord, where lie had summoned the Senate to meet. Vulturcius and the Allobrogian Envoys were now brought in, and the Prajtor Flaccus produced the papers which lie had seized. The evidence was brought ro clearly to a point, that the Conspirators confessed their handwriting ; and the Senate decreed that Lentulus should be deprived of his Prajtorsliip, and that all the prisoners should bo put into the hands of eminent Senators, who were to be answerable for tlieir persons. Then Cicero went forth into the Forum, and in his Third Speech detailed to the assembled People all the circumstances which had been discovered. Not only had two Knights been commissioned by Cethegus to kill Cicero in his chamber, a fate which the Consul eluded by refusing them admission, but it had also been resolved to set the City on fire in twelve places at once, as soon as it was known that Catiline and Mallius were ready to advance at the head of an armed force. Lentulus, who belonged to the great Cornelian Gens, had been buoyed up by a Sibylline prophecy, which promised the dominion over Rome to “ three Cshe was to be the third Cornelius

* They had been conquered by Q. Fabius Maximus, nephew of Scipio iEmilianus. See Chapt. liv. § 4.

after Cornelius Cinna and Cornelius Sylla. But it was to liis remissness that Cethegus attributed their failure; and it is probable, that if tho conduct of the business had been left to this desperate man,¹⁴⁹ some attempt at a rising would have been made.

The certainty of danger and the feeling of escape filled all hearts with indignation against the Catilinarian gang; and for a moment Cicero and the Senate rose to the height of popularity.

§ 14. Two days after (Dec. 5=Feb. 7, G2 b.c.), the Senate was oncc more summoned to decide the fate of tho captive conspirators. Silanus, as Consul-elect, was first asked liis opinion, and he gave it in favour of Death. Ti. Nero moved that the question should b3 adjourned. Caesar, who was then Pra;tor-elcct, spoke against capital punishment and proposed that tho prisoners should be condemned to perpetual chains in various cities of Italy,—taking caro to remind the Senate that their power to inflict the penalty of death was questionable. His speech produced such an effect, that even Silanus declared his intention to accede to Nero’s motion. But Cicero and Cato delivered vehement arguments in favour of extreme punishment, and the majority voted with them. Immediately after the vote, the Consul, with a strong guard, conveyed tho prisoners to the loathsome dungeon, called the Tuliianum, and here they were strangled by the public executioners.

It is difficult to see how the State could have been imperilled by suffering the culprits to live, at least till they had been allowed*¹ the chances of a regular trial If Rabirius was held guilty for assisting in the assault upon Saturninus, a man who was actually in arms against tho government, what had Cicero to expect from those who were ready to deliver this verdict? It was not long before lie had cause to rue his over-zealous haste. But for the moment, the popular voice ratified the judgment of Cato, when he proclaimed Cicero to have deserved tho title of “ Father of his Country.” ⁰

§ 15. Before tho close of tho year, the Consul-elect Murena was indicted by C. Sulpicius, ono of his competitors, for Bribery, and tho accusation was supported by Cato. Hortensius and Cicero undertook tho defence. Cicero’s speech is extant; and the buoyant spirits, with which he assails the legal pedantry of Sulpicius and tho impracticable Stoicism of Cato, show how highly ho was elated by his success in crushing tho conspiracy. There can be no doubt that Murena was guilty. The only argument of force used in his defence by Cicero, was that it was dangerous to leave tho State with ono Consul when Catiline was in tho

field. And this argument probably it was that procured the acquittal of the Consul-elect.

§ 1G. The sequel may be briefly related. Before the execution of his accomplices, Catiline was at the head of two complete Legions, consisting chiefly of Sylla’s veterans. When news of the failure of the plot reached the insurgents, many deserted; and Catiline endeavoured to retreat into Cisalpine Gaul. But the passes were beset by the Pro-praetor Metellus Celer; the Consul Antonius was close behind; and it became necessary either to light or surrender. Catiline chose the braver course. Ilis small army was drawn up with skill. Antonius, mindful of former intimacy with Catiline, alleged illness as a plea for giving up the command of his troops to M. Pctreius, a skilful soldier. A short but desperate conflict followed. Mallius fell fighting bravely. Catiline, seeing that the day was lost, rushed into the thick of battle and also fell with many wounds. He was found, still breathing, with a menacing frown stamped upon his brow. None were taken prisoners; all who died had their wounds in front.

§17. It is impossible to part from this history without adding a word with respect to the part taken by Caesar and Crassus. Both these eminent persons were supposed to have been more or less privy to Catiline’s designs; if the first conspiracy attributed to Catiline had succeeded, we are told that the assassins of the Consuls had intended to declare Crassus Dictator, and that Caesar was to be Master of the Horse. And many believed that he at least, if not Crassus also, was guilty.

Nothing seems more improbable than that Crassus should have countenanced a plan which involved the destruction of the city, and which must have been followed by the ruin of credit, lie had constantly employed the large fortune which he had amassed in the Syllan Proscription for the purposes of speculation and jobbing. To a money-lender and speculator, a violent Revolution, attended by destruction of property and promising abolition of debts, would be of all things the least desirable. Crassus was not without ambition, but he never gratified the lust of power at the expense of his purse.

The case against Caesar bears at first sight more likelihood. Sallust represents Cato as hinting that C&'sar’s wish to spare the conspirators arose from his complicity with them. In the next year (G2 b.c.) after Caesar had entered upon his Pra'torfhip, a person named Yettius, employed by Cicero as a spy, offered to produce a letter from Caesar to Catiline, which would provo his guilt. Cicero and the more prudent of the Senators wished at once to quash these tales. But Caesar would not be content, with this, and in full Senate he called on the Ex-consul to state

what lie knew of the matter. Cicero rose, and. declared that so far from Cajsar being implicated in the plot, he bad done all that could be expected from a good citizen to assist in crushing it. The People, having learnt what was the question before the Senate, crowded to the doors of the House and demanded Caesar’s safety. His appearance assured them, and he was welcomed with loud applause. It was only by his interference that Vettius was saved from being torn in pieces.

In truth, of evidence to prove Caesar’s complicity with Catiline there was none; and the further the case is examined, the less appears to be the probability of such complicity. The course he had pursued for the purpose of undermining the power of the Senate had been so successful, that he was little likely to abandon it for a scheme of reckless violence, from which others would reap the chief advantage. Even if Catiline had succeeded, he must have been crushed by Pompey, who was just returning to Italy at the head of his victorious Legions. The desire of Cassar to save the lives of Lentulus and the rest is at once explained, when we remember that he had just before promoted the prosecution of Rabirius. As the leader of the popular party, it was his cue always and everywhere to protest against the absolute power assumed by the Senate, as unconstitutional and illegal. It is possible that he may have suspected the designs of Catiline, and he may have been sounded by that reckless person as a well-known opponent of the Senate. But without claiming for Caesar any credit for principle, we may safely conclude that it was not expedient for him to have any dealings with Catiline; and we may be sure that he was the last man to be misled into a rash enterprise which n« no*; expedient for himself. '

pompey’s return: first triumvirate: c^esar’s consulship: clodius. (62—58 B.C.)

§ 1. Cicero’s vanity: coldness of Pompey: Metellus Nepos, Tribune, attacks Cicero. § 2. Caesar departs for Spain: Return of Pompey, liis caution: Crassus lauds Cicero. § 3. Senate offends Pompey, (1) by refusing to confirm bis Acts in tho East, (2) by thwarting provision proposed for his Veterans. § 4. Caesar in Spain. § 5. He returns to 6tand for the Consulship: First Triumvirate. § 6. Caesar’s Law to provide for Pompey’a Veterans: opposition of Senate frustrated. § 7. Caesar’s Law to confirm Pompey’s Acts. § 8. Another to exeuso Equites from a hard bargain. § 9. Vatinian Law, investing Caesar with government of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria for five years: Senate add Province of Transalpine Gaul. § 10. Marriage of Pompey and Julia: Perplexity of Cieero. § 11. Violation of Mysteries of Bona Dea by Clodius: Cieero speaks against him: he i3 nrndo Plebeian by Caesar’s influence: elected Tribune. § 12. Cicero, threatened by a Bill of penalties for putting Catilinarians to death, goes into exile. § 13. Cato: his character: 6cnt to annex Cyprus to the Empire. § 14. Democratic measures of Clodius.

§ 1. Ix the first heat of his triumph, Cicero disclosed the weakness of his character. He was full of vanity, a quality which above all others deprives a man of the inlluencc which may

otherwise bo due to integrity, industry, and ability.. The Senators were irritated by hearing Cicero repeat:—“ I am the Saviour of Rome; I am the Father of my Country.” Pompey also, now on the eve of returning to Italy, had been watching Cicero’s rise, not without jealousy. Metellus Nepos, his Legate, had already returned to Rome with instructions from his Chief, and had been elected Tribune for the next year. Cicero, in the fulness of his heart, wrote Pompey a long account of his Consulate, in which he had the ill address to compare his triumph over Catiline with Pompey’s Eastern Conquests. Tlie General took no notice of Cicero’s actions; and the Orator wrote him a submissive letter, in which he professes his hope of playing Lselius to his great correspondent’s Africanus. Meanwhile Metellus Nepos made no secret of his disapproval of Cicero’s conduct in putting citizens to death without trial. On the Calends of January, when the Ex-consul quitted office and intended to have delivered an elaborate panegyric on liimslef and the Senate, the Tribune interdicted him from speaking. He could do nothing more than step forward and swear aloud that “he alone had preserved the Republic.” The people, not yet recovered from the fear of' Catiline and his crew, shouted in answer that he had sworn the truth.

Metellus Nepos followed up this assault by two Bills,—» ne empowering Pompey to be elected Consul for the second time in his absence, the other investing him with the command in Italy for the purpose of quelling the Insurrection of Catiline. Caesar supported these motions: But when Nepos began to read them previously to submitting them to the votes of the Assembly, Cato, also one of the Tribunes for the year, snatched the paper from tho hand of his Colleagae, and tore it in pieces. Nepos then began to recite his Laws from memory; but another Tribune placed his hand over his mouth. A tumult followed; and for the time the Senate triumphed over Pompey.

§ 2. On laying down his Praetorsliip, Caesar obtained Spain for his Province. His debtors threatened to detain him. In this emergency he applied to Crassus; and Crassus, believing in the fortune of Caesar, advanced the required sums, so that the Pro-praetor set out for Spain at the beginning of 61 b.c.

Pompey had arrived in Italy, but not at Rome. Great apprehensions were*felt there; for he was as silent on political matters as Monk on the eve of the Restoration, and his intentions were suspected. But at Brundusium he addressed his soldiers, thanked them for their services, and dismissed them to their homes till it was time for them to attend his Triumph. He then set out for Rome, accompanied by a few friends. Outside the walls he halted, and asked permission from tho Senate to enter the City, as Sylla had done, without forfeiting his claim to a Triumph. Cato opposed the application, and it was refused. Pompey therefore remained outside the walls; and his Triumph, the third which he had enjoyed, did not take place till the end of September. It lasted two days, and tho sum of money paid into the Treasury exceeded all former experience. After the Triumph addressed speeches both to the Senate and to the People, so cautiously framed, that no one could form any conclusion with respect to his intentions; in particular, he avoided expressing any opinion with respect to the part taken against the Catilinarian conspirators. Crassus, always jealous of Pompey, took advantage of his rival’s reserve to pronounce a panegyric upon Cicero; and this gave the Orator an opportunity of delivering the speech which he had prepared for the Calends of January. Cicero sat down amid cheers from all sides of the House. It was probably the happiest moment of his life.¹⁵⁰

§ 3. The Consuls-elect were L. Afranius, an old officer of Pompey, and Q. Metellus Celer, elder brother of Nepos.f The chief officers of State, therefore, were likely to be at the beck of the great Eastern Conqueror. But Afranius had no political influence, and Metellus Celer, exasperated because Pompey had divorced his sister, sided with the Senate. Cajsar w’as in Further Spain: Crassus was ready to oppose Pompey; and the game, if prudently played, might have been won by the Senatorial leaders. But about this time they lost Catulus ; and the blind obstinacy of Metellus Celer, Cato, and others, converted Pompey from his cold neutrality into a warm antagonist.

During his stay in the East after the death of Mithridates, he had formed Provinces and re-distributed kingdoms without the assistance of a Senatorial Commission. lie now applied to have his arrangements confirmed by the Senate. But Lucullus and Metellus Creticus, irritated at seeing that in the blaze of his triumphant success their own unquestionable merits had been forgotten, spoke warmly in the Senate of the appropriation of their labours by Pompey, and persuaded the majority to with-liold'the desired confirmation. At the same time an Agrarian Law, proposed by L. Flavin, a Tribune, to assign certain lands in guerdon to Pompcy’s veteran soldiers, was opposed by the Consul Metellus Celer with rancorous determination. Pompey, who disliked popular tumults, suffered the measure to be withdrawn, and brooded over the insult in haughty silence.

§ 4. Caesar had taken his departure for Spain before Pompey’s return. In that Province he availed himself of some disturbances on the Lusitanian border to declare war against that gallant people. He overran their country, and turned, his arms against the Gallaecians, who seem to have been unmolested since the days of Dec. Brutus. In two campaigns he became master of spoils sufficient not only to pay off a great portion of his debts, but also to enrich his soldiery. There can be no doubt that he must have acted with great severity to wring these large sums from the native Spaniards : indeed he never took thought for the sufferings of people not subject to Roman sway. ^But he was careful not to be guilty of oppression towards the Provincials ; q,nd his rule in the Spanish Provinces was long remarked for its equitable adjustment of debts due to Roman Tax-collectors.

§ 5. He left Spain in time to reach Rome before the Consular Elections of the year GO b.c.—for he intended to present himself as a candidate. But he claimed a Triumph, and therefore applied to the Senate for leave to sue for the Consulship without appearing personally in the City. The Senate was disposed to grant this request; but Cato adjourned the question by speaking against time; and Caesar, who scorned appearance in comparison with reality of power, relinquished his Triumph and entered the City. He found Pompey in high dudgeon with the Senate; and to strengthen their hands, proposed to include Crassus in their political union. The advances made by Crassus to Cicero and to the Senate had been ill received, and he lent a ready ear to the overtures of the dexterous negotiator who now addressed him. Pompey, at the instance of Caesar, relinquished the old enmity which he bore to Crassus; and thus was formed that famous Cabal which is commonly, though improperly, called the First Triumvirate.* •

Thus supported secretly by the power of Pompey and the wealth of Crassus, and borne onward by his own popularity, Ca?sar was elected to the Consulship by acclamation. But the Senatorial Chiefs exhausted every art of intrigue and bribery to secure the return of M. Calpurnius Bibulus, known to be a man of unflinching resolution, as his colleague, lie was son-in-law to Cato, who to obtain a political advantage did not hesitate to sanction the corrupt practices which on other occasions he loudly denounced.

* Improperly, hccnusc it wns a sccrct combi natnn, rnd not nn open assumption of political power, such as to Roman ears was implied in the word Triumvirate.

Bibulus was elected; and from tlic antagonism of the two Consuls, the approaching year seemed big with danger.

§ G. Caesar began the acts of his Consulship by a measure so adroitly drawn up as to gratify at once his own adherents and Pompey. It was an Agrarian Law, framed on the model of that which had been proposed last year by Pompey’s agents. Before bringing it forward in the Assembly he read it over clause by clause in the Senate, and not even Cato was able to find fault. But Bibulus declared that the measure should not pass while ho was Consul, and therefore refused to sanction any further meetings of the Senate. Caesar, unable to convene the great Council without his colleague, threw himself upon the People, and enlarged his Agrarian Law to the dimensions of the Laws formerly proposed by Cinna and by Rullus. * Cicero now took alarm, and the Senatorial Order united in opposition to any distribution of their favourite Campanian lands. On the day appointed for taking the votes of the People, the most violent of the Oligarchy met at the house of Bibulus, whence they sallied into the Fornm and attempted to dissolve the Assembly by force. But Ciesar ordered his Lictors to arrest Cato, and the rest were obliged to seek safety in flight. After another vain attempt to stop proceedings, on pretence of the auguries, Bibulus shut himself up in his house for the remainder of his term of office, and contented himself with protesting from time to time against the acts of his Colleague. After this victory, Caesar called upon Pompey and Crassus before the whole Assembly to express their opinions with respect to the Bill. Pompey warmly approved it, and declared that if others drew swords to oppose it he would cover it with his shield. Crassus spoke in a similar strain. After this public manifestation of the union of the Triumvirs all opposition ceased. The Bill bccamo Law, and Caesar forced every Senator to swear obedience to its provisions. Even Cato complied, and Cicero looked on in blank perplexity.

§ 7. Caesar followed up this successful movement by procuring from the People a full acknowledgment of Pompev’s Acts in the East. Here again what the Senate had captiously refused was skilfully employed to cement the union of tho Triumvirs.

§ 8. The next step taken by the dexterous Consul was to establish his credit with another class in tho community, the Equites, who also (it may be observed) were especially favoured both by Pompey and Cicero. The Orator, during his Consulship, endeavoured to effect a union between the Senatorial and Equestrian Orders. The Tax-collectors had made a high offer for t.hc taxes of Asia at the last auction; they prayed to be let oft' their contract, and Cicero undertook their cause. But Cato opposed it with all his force, and the Equites were held strictly to their bargain. At Caesar’s suggestion a Law was now passed, remitting a third part of what they had agreed to give. Here, also, the favour which the Senate might have achieved by a gracious act was transferred to their most dangerous enemy.

§ 9. Before he quitted office, Caesar determined to provide for liis future power. The Senate had assigned him the insignificant province of managing the forests and public pastures of Italy. But the Tribune Vatinius, his creature, proposed a Law by which Caesar was specially invested, as Proconsul, with the government of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum, and the command of two Legions ; and this government was conferred upon him for the extraordinary term of five years. No doubt his purpose in obtaining this Province was to remain as near Rome as possible, and by means of the troops under his orders, to assume a commanding position with regard to Roman politics. Circumstances unexpectedly enlarged his sphere of action, and enabled him to add to liis political successes the character of a triumphant General. For some time past there had been threatening movements in Transalpine Gaul. The Allobrogians, who had been treated with little consideration after the Catilinarian conspiracy, had endeavoured to redress their grievances by arms, and had been subdued by Pomptinus, one of the Praetors employed by Cicero at the Mulvian Bridge. The ^Eduans, who inhabited modern Burgundy, though in alliance with Rome, were suspected of having favoured this revolt. On the banks of the Rhine the Suevi, a powerful German Tribe, were threatening inroads which revived the memory of the Cimbric and Teutonic times; -and the Helvetians were moving uneasily within their narrow borders. An able and active commander was required to meet these various dangers; and the Senate probably thought that by removing Caesar to a distant, perilous, and uncertain war, they might, expose him to the risk of failure, or that absence might diminish the prestige of his name. They therefore added the Province of Transalpine Gaul, with an additional Legion, to the Provinces already conferred upon him by popular Vote. Pompey and Crassus supported the Decree, a fact which perhaps caused the Senate to repent of their liberality.

, § 10. Pompey, we have said, had divorced liis wife Caecilia, and Caesar took advantage of this circumstance to cement his union with Pompey by offering him the hand of Julia, his young and beautiful daughter. Pompey accepted the offer, and had no reason to repent as a husband, whatever may be thought of its effect on his public career. So far, Cicero had still hoped against hope in Pompey. In liis letters, ho represents his union with

Pompcy as so close, that the young men nicknamed the great general Cnccus Cicero;¹⁵¹ he professes his unshaken confidence in his illustrious friend; he even hopes that they may be able to reform Caesar. Ilis confidence is shaken by Poinpey’s approbation of Caesar’s Agrarian Law; and lie begins to fear that the great Eastern Conqueror,—Sampsiceranus, Alabarches, the Jeru-salemitef (such are the names which he uses to indicate the haughty bearing of Pompey),—is aiming at a tyranny. Still he continues to hope that the great man will at length declare himself for the Senate, till at length he is roused from these waking dreams by the marriage of Pompey with Julia, and by I he approach of personal danger to himself.

§ 11. Caesar, during liis Praetorship, had lent the house which belonged to him as Chief Pontiff for the celebration of tho mysteries of the Bona Dea,—rites at which it was not lawful for any but women to be present. Young App. Clodius, the same who had promoted mutiny in the army of Lueullus, either had or aspired to have an intrigue with Pompeia,J Caesar’s wife, and contrived to enter the forbidden precincts disguised as a singing girl. He was discovered by his voice; and the matter was important enough to be referred to the Senate. But nothing was done till the next year, when Clodius was Quaestor. He was then brought to trial, and pleaded an alibi. Caesar and Cicero were summoned as witnesses against him. Caesar had divorced his wife in consequence of the affair. But professed ignorance of all that had passed. “Why then,” it was asked, “have you put away your wife?”—a question to which he gave the famous reply :—“ Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.” Cicero, on the other hand, who justly detested the profligate character of the accused, said that he had seen and spoken with Clodius on that very day at Rome. He thus overthrew the plea of alibi, and followed up his evidence by pointed speeches in the Senate. There was no doubt of the guilt of Clodius. But the matter was treated as a trial of political strength; he was acquitted; and, before Caesar’s Consulship, he had conceived the desire of becoming Tribune of the Plebs, so as to satisfy his vengeance upon Cicero. But his Patrician pedigree—sole relic of the old distinction between the Orders—forbade his election, to this office. Caesar, in the first instance, attempted to gain the

support of Cicero, as he had gained the support of Pompey, by promises. The Orator received these advanees with pleasure, more, however, in the hope of converting the popular statesman than with any* thought of being converted. But Caesar was not the man to be led by Cicero. He soon saw the Orator’s drift, and endeavoured to alarm him by threatening to support a Law for making Clodius a Plebeian. But Cicero still relied on Pompey, and soon after provoked Caesar to fulfil his threat. C. Antonius, Cicero’s Colleague in the Consulship, had lately returned from his Macedonian Government. He had b3en guilty of more than the usual measure of extortion and oppression, and Clodius sought popularity by impeaehing him. Cieero appeared as his Advoeate, and took oeeasion to eontrast his own forgotten serviees in the Catilinarian conspiracy with the present condition of publie affairs. An immediate report of this speech was eonveyed to Caesar. It was delivered at noon, and the same afternoon Caesar gave his consent to the Law for making Clodius a Plebeian. Presently after, the reekless Noble was eleeted Tribune for the ensuing year, that is for 58 b.c. Cicero was in eonsternation.

The Consular Elections were equally disheartening. Caesar had lately espoused Calpurnia, daughter of L. Piso. This man was chosen Consul, together with Au. Gabinius, who had moved the Law for conferring the command over the Mediterranean upon Pompey. It was evident that these Consuls, one the father-in-law of Caesar, the other a ereature of Pompey, would be mere tools of the Triumviral Cabal.

§ 12. In Deeember Clodius entered upon offiee as Tribune. Caesar did not set out for his Provinee before the end of March in the next year (58 b.c.). In the course of these three months he used Clodius as an instrument for removing from Rome the persons most likely to thwart his poliey. Close to the gates lay the Legions which he had levied for service in Gaul, ready, if need were, to support Clodius in the Forum.

The first person assailed was Cicero. Caesar was willing to spare the Orator the rude assaults of Clodius. He therefore offered him first one of the commissionerships for executing the Agrarian Law, and then a lieutenancy under himself in Gaul. But Cicero declined both offers; arid Caesar determined to remove him from Rome, left him to the mercies of the Tribune. Clodius gave notiee of a Bill, enacting that any magistrate who had put Roman Citizens to death without regular trial should be banished from Italy, thus embodying in a law the principle which Caesar had maintained by the indictment of Rabirins. At first Cicero trusted to Pompey and his own imaginary popularity. But the haste with which Cicero had acted had been condemned by Pompey even before his league with Caesar; and many who had applauded Cicero at the time now took part with Clodius. Finding also that the Tribune was supported by Caesar in the background, the frightened Orator put 011 mourning, and canvassed for acquittal. Great part of the Senators and Knights followed his example; but Clodius persevered, and tho Consuls ordered the mourners to resume their usual apparel. As a last chance, Cicero appealed to Pompey himself, who maintained the cold reserve which he had affected ever since his return, and told him, with bitter mockery, to seek assistance from the Consuls. In this desperate case he held counsel with his friends. The Senators felt that Cicero’s cause was tlicir own, and repented of the coldness they had shown him of late. Lueullus shook off his luxurious indolence for a moment, and advised an appeal to arms. But, after full deliberation, even Cato recommended the Orator to quit Italy, and wait for better times, lie complied with a heavy heart,—for Rome, the Forum, and the Scnatc-llousc, were all the world to him,—and left the capital before Caesar’s departure for his Province. No sooner was his back turned, than Sex. Clodius, a client of the audacious Tribune, brought in a second Bill, by which Cicero was expressly attacked by name. He was forbidden to approach within 400 miles of Rome: all who harboured him within those limits were subjected to heavy penalties: all his property was confiscated: his favourite house on the Palatine, his villas at Tusculum and at Formiae, were to be destroyed. The great Orator lingered on the southern shores of his beloved Italy, in hope that his friends might even yet baffle the designs of Clodius. But his hope faded and vanished. In his letters lie pours forth unmanly lamentations; accuses all,—Cato, Ilortcnsius, even his friend Atticus; refuses to see his brother Quintus; and seriously debates the question of suicide. Atticus began to be alarmed for his friend’s sanity. At length lie crossed the sea, and sought refuge at Thcssaloiiica.

§ 13. The next person to be disposed of was Cato. This remarkable man has already come before us 011 one or two occasions which serve to indicate liis character. lie was great-grandson of the old Censor, and resembled him in many points, though lie wanted the political shrewdness of his ancestor. lie was five years younger- than Caesar, and at present therefore not more than thirty-seven years of age. From the time when his speech determined the fate of Catiline, his strong will had made him one of the leaders of the Senatorial Oligarchy; and after the death of Catulus, lie took the most determined part in opposing the popular party. But his Stoic Philosophy almost unfitted liim for the political life of that dissolute age. He applied the rules of Zeno’s inflexible logic to politics as to mathematics, without regard to times or persons or places, and treated questions of mere expedience as if they were matters of moral right and wrong. At times, however, party spirit overcame even Cato’s scruples, and to gain a political victory he forgot the rules of his philosophy.

No accusation could be brought against Cato as against Cicero; and therefore, to remove him from Rome, he was charged with a business of apparent honour. Ptolemy, brother of the King of Egypt, was Prince of Cyprus ; and when Clodius was in the hands of the pirates this Prince contributed the paltry sum of two talents towards liis ransom. The Tribune, who never forgot or forgave, now brought in a Law, by which Cyprus was annexed to the Roman Empire; and Cato, though he had held no Curule office, was invested with Praetorian rank for the execution of this iniquitous business. Cato pretended not that he was ignorant of the real purpose of this mission. But he declared himself ready to obey the Law, left Rome soon after Cicero’s departure, and remained absent for about two years. When, therefore, Caesar set out for Gaul, the Senate was left in a state of paralysis from the want of leaders.

§ 14. After Caesar’s departure, Clodius pursued his democratic measures without let or hindrance. He abolished the Law of the Comitial Auspices by which Bibulus had attempted to thwart Caesar. He distributed the Libertines and City-rabble into all the Tribes. He restored the trade-unions and companies, which had been abolished by the Senate nine years before. He gave such an extension to the unwise Corn-law of C. Gracchus, that grain, instead of being sold at a low rate, was distributed gratuitously to all citizens of Rome. For the time Clodius was master of Rome. Ca3sar was in Gaul. Neither Pompey nor Crassus stirred hand or foot to interfere.

§ 1. Caesar expels Helvetians and Suevians from Gaul. § 2. Conquest d Belgians. § 3. Conquest of eoast-land from North to Loire. § 4. Cajsai holds eourt at Lueea during winters. § 5. Quarrel of Pompey with Clodius. § 6. Reeall of Cieero. § 7. Dearness of eora at Rome: Pompey made controller of the market for five years. § 8. Cieero proposes to annul acts of Clodius : opposition of Cato. § 9. Commission to restore Ptolemy Auletes to throne of Egypt. § 10. Domitius candidate for Consulship: his hostility to Caesar: meeting of Triumvirs at Lueea. § 11. No Consuls eleeted for 56 b.c. : Pompey and Crassus assume the Consulship. § 12. Trcbo-nian Law, granting Spain to Pompey and Syria to Crassus for five years; prolongation of Caesar’s command. § 13. Splendid shows exhibited by Pompey. § 14. Cieero joins Triumvirs. § 15. Death of Julia. § 16» Crassus leaves Rome for the East. § 17. Campaign of Crassus in Parthm: his death. § 18. Caesar’s expedition into Germany. § 19. Into Britain § 20. Final conquest of Gaul. § 21. Pompey governs Spain by deputy: his poliey. § 22. Death of Clodius: Pompey Solo Consul: exile of Mila § 23. Pompey’s measures to maintain superiority over Caesar.

§ 1. A few days after Cicero had left Rome, Cocsar received news from Gaul which compelled his precipitate departure. The Helvetians were advancing upon Geneva, with the purpose of crossing the Rhone near that town, the extreme outpost of the Province of Transalpine Gaul, and forcing their way through that Province to seek new settlements in the West. In eight days, the active Proconsul travelled from the gates of Rome to Geneva. Arrived there, he lined the river with fortifications such as compelled the Helvetians to pass into Gaul’by a longer route over the Jura ; he followed them across the Arar (Saonc), and after a murderous battle near Bibracte (Autun in Burgundy), compelled the remnant to return to their own country.

Immediately after defending the Province from these invaders, he accepted the invitation of the iEduans and Gauls dwelling Westward of the Saone to expel from their borders a formidable German Tribe, which had passed the Rhine and was threatening to overrun all Gaul. These Suevi, who have left their name in modern Suabia, were led by a great chief named Ariovistus. Ariovistus at first proposed to divide Gaul with the Romans; but Caesar promptly rejected all such overtures. So alarmed were the Roman Legionaries at the prospect of a contest with the Germans, huge in frame and multitudinous in number, that it required all Caesar’s adroitness to restore their confidence. “ If,” he said, ” all deserted him, he would himself brave every hazard, and face the foe with the Tenth Legion alone.” These words rallied the Legionaries. A desperate battle was fought about five miles from the Rhine, somewhere north of Bale, in which the Germans were utterly defeated; and Ariovistus himself only escaped in a boat across the great river which was long to remain as the western boundary of the Teutonic race.

§ 2. Caesar’s troops wintered in the heart of the country which he had set free from the Suevian invaders. This position roused the jealousy of the Belgic Tribes to the north of the Seine, and a powerful confederacy was formed to bar any designs entertained by Caesar for extending.the dominion of Rome in Gaul. Caesar did not wait to be attacked. He raised two new Legions without demanding the authority of the Senate, and early next year (57 b.c.) entered the Belgic territory, which was bounded southward by the Seine and Marne. Here he occupied a strong position on the Aisne, and baffled all the efforts of the confederates to dislodge him or draw him out to battle. Wearied out, they dispersed, each to their own homes; and Caesar then advanced rapidly into the country of the Nervians, the most formidable, people of the Belgic League, who occupied the district between the Sambre and the Scheld. As he was forming his camp upon the right bank of the former river, he was surprised by the enemy, and his whole army was nearly cut off. lie retrieved the disaster only at imminent peril to himself, and had to do the duty both of a common soldier and a general. But when the first confusion was over, Roman discipline prevailed; and the brave Barbarians were repulsed with prodigious slaughter. After this desperate battle, lie received the submission of the whole country below tho Rhine. ^

§ 3. In the following year (56 B.C.), he built a fleet, and quickly reduced the amphibious people of Brittany, who had defied his power and insulted liis officers. lie attempted also, but without success, to occupy a post at Martigny in the Valais, for the purpose of commanding the Pass of the Pennine Alp (Great St. Bernard), received the submission of the Aquitanians 111 the extreme south through his young lieutenant P. Crassus, eon of the Triumvir, and himself chastised the wild Tribes occupying the coast-laud which now forms Picardy, Artois, and French Flanders, the Menapii and the Morini—“remotest of mankind.”¹⁵² Thus i:i three campaigns, lie seemed to have conquered the whole of Gaul, from the Rhine and Mount Jura to the Western Ocean. The brilliancy and rapidity of his successes silenced all hostility at Rome. A thanksgiving of fifteen days—an unprecedented length of time—was decreed by the Senate.

§ 4. The winter months of each year were passed by the Proconsul on the Italian side of the Alps. After travelling through his Cisalpine Province to hold assizes, inspect public works, raise money for his wars, and recruit liis troops, lie fixed his head-quartcrs at Luca (Lucca)—a town on the very frontier of Roman Italy, within two hundred miles of Rome itself. Here lie could hold easy communication with his partisans at home. Lucca during his residence was more like a regal court than the quarters of a Roman Proconsul. At one time 200 Senators wero counted among his visitors; 120 Lictors indicated the presence of the. numerous magistrates who attended his levees. Both Pompey and Crassus came to hold conference with him. To explain the object of this visit, wc must know what had passed at Rome since his departure two years before.

§ 5. It has been mentioned that Clodius remained absolute at Rome during the year 58 b.c. But the insolence and audacity of the Tribune at length gave offence to Pompey. Clodius had seized the person of a son of Tigrancs, whom the great conqueror had brought with him from the East, and had accepted a large ransom for the young prince. The Praetor L. Flavius, a creature of Pompey, endeavoured to arrest the liberated prisoner; but Clodius interfered at the head of an armed force, and in the struggle scvcra'

friends had been using all exertions to compass this end. 11 is brother Quintus, who had lately returned from a three years’ government in Asia, and was about to join Caesar as one of his Legates,—his friend Atticus, who on this occasion forsook his usual epicurean case,—his old but generous rival Ilortensius,— all joined with his wife Tcrciitia, a woman of masculine spirit, to promote his interests; and Cicero ventured to Dyrrhachium, though it was within the prescribed limit of 400 miles. Pom-p:3j’s quarrel with Clodius was announced by the election to the Consulate of P. Lentulus Spinther, a known friend of Cicero, and Q. Metellus Nepos, a creature of Pompey. •

§ 6. The new Consuls, on entering office (58 B.C.), immediately moved for the Orator’s recall. It was not, however, easy to carry a Law for this purpose. Clodius, though no longer Tribune, had adherents in the new College, who interposed their veto. The motion, dropt for the moment, was presently renewed; and Clodius entered the Forum at the head of a retinue fully prepared for any violence. A regular battle followed, which left Clodius master of the field. For some days Rome was at his mercy. With his own hand he fired the temple of the Nymphs and destroyed the Censorial Registers. He attacked his enemies’ houses, and many persons were slain in these riotous assaults. No public attempt was made to stop him. But a young Nobleman, named T. Annius Milo, bold and reckless as Clodius himself, raised a body of Gladiators at his own charge, and succeeded in checking the lawless violence of the Tribune by the use of violence as lawless. The bill for Cicero’s recall was now again brought forward, but was not passed till the month of August.

Meantime the impatient Orator had continued to accuse his friends of coldness and insincerity. But when the Law was passed, all the clouds vanished. Early in September, about a year and four months after his departure, he approached- the City, and crowds attended him along the whole length of. the Appian Way. From the Porta Capena to the Capitol, the steps of the Temples, and every place of vantage, were thronged by multitudes, who testified their satisfaction by loud applause. For the moment, the popularity which had followed his Consulship returned, and in honest pride lie ascended to the Capitoline Temple to return thanks to the Gods for turning the hearts of the People.

§ V. At this time there was a great scarcity of corn at Rome, which was in part occasioned by the disturbed state of Egypt, one of the chief granaries of Italy. The King, Ptolemy Auletes, had lately been expelled by his subjects, and was now at Rome seeking aid from the Senate to procure restoration to his throne. The People, accustomed to be fed by the State, murmured loudly. Prices fell after the return of Cicero, and his friends attributed this cheapness to his recall; but before he entered Rome, they rose again, and Clodius attributed this dearness to the same cause. On the day after his triumphant entry, therefore, the Orator appeared in tho Senate, and after returning thanks moved that an extraordinary Commission should be issued to Pompey, by which he was to be entrusted with a complete control over the corn-market of the Empire. The Consuls closed with the proposal, and added that the Commission should run for five years, with the command of money, troops, fleets, and all things necessary for absolute authority. The Senate dared not oppose the Bill, but Pompey was obliged to relinquish the clauses which invested him with military power. He proved unable to influence prices, or in other words to force nature, and the coveted appointment resulted in unpopularity.

§ 8. At the same time, handsome sums were voted to Cicero to enable him to rebuild his ruined houses, and to compensate him for the destruction of his property. Encouraged by his present popularity, he proceeded to institute a prosecution against Clodius for seditious conduct during his office; but the reckless demagogue received support from an unexpected quarter. Cato had just returned from executing the hateful Commission given him by Clcdius. The helpless Prince of Cyprus, despairing of resistance, had put an end to his own life; and the Roman, with rigorous punctuality, proceeded to sell the royal property, and reduced the island to the condition of a Roman Province. On liis return, lie paid large sums into the Treasury, insisted on his accounts being examined with minute scrutiny, and took pride in having executed his Commission with strict severity. But liis acts would be illegal, were the Tribunate of Clodius declared illegal. Cato, therefore, came forward as a defender of Clodius and liis Tribunate.

§ 9. While the question was pending, fresh passions were excited by the petition of Ptolemy Auletes. The King had consulted Cato during his sojourn in the East; and Cato had advised him to procure restoration by any means rather than by application to Rome. But Ptolemy neglected the advice; and every Senator of influence claimed the lucrative task of restoring the King of Egypt. Pompey sought it, and Crassus sought it. The Senate, however, was too jealous of the Triumvirate to listen cither to Pompcy or to Crassus: and it was conferred upon the late Consul Lcntulus Spinthcr, who had obtained the Province of Cilicia. But the Tribune C. Cato produced an oracle from tho Sibylline books, which forbade the use of an army. Lcntulus, therefore, obtained a commission without the power of executing it. and the question was in reality left open for future aspirants.

§ 10. In the heat of this contest, Clodius had been elected yEdilc, and for the nonce escaped the impeachment which was menacing. The armed conflicts between him and Milo continued ; and the Consular election for the year 55 b.c. threatened to become the opportunity of serious bloodshed. The Consuls of the current year (57 b.c.) were decidedly in the interest of the Senate, and supported, with all their influence, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, brother-in-law of Cato, a determined antagonist of the Triumviral Cabal. This man threatened that his first act should be to recall Caesar from his Province. Pompey also and Crassus met with little favour from him. It was to concert measures for thwarting the reviving energy of the Senate, that the ominous meeting of the Triumvirs at Lucca was held. "What passed between the Three is only known from the results.

§11. Pompey and Crassus returned to Rome pledged (as the result showed) to prevent the election of Domitius. To this end, they came forward themselves as joint Candidates for a Second Consulship. The Senate, however, had gathered courage. Milo held Clodius in check, and the Consuls refused to hold the Comitia. Thje Calends of January came, and there were no Consuls to assume the government. But young Crassus just then arrived in the neighbourhood of Rome with a body of Gallic veterans from Caesar’s army. Under fear of violence,, the Senatorial Chiefs allowed Pompey and Crassus to assume the Consulship, as Marius and Cinna had assumed it, without any regular form of Election. They immediately held Comitia for the election of the other Curule Magistracies. Cato offered himself for the Praetorship, but was defeated by Yatinius, a mercenary instrument of Caesar’s policy.

§ 12. Further fruits of the Conference of Lucca soon appeared. The Tribune, C. Trebonius, moved in. the Assembly of Tribes that the Consuls should receive special Provinces for the space of five years,—Syria being allotted to Crassus, Spain to Pompey; and Pompey added a clause to this Trebonian Law, by which Caesar’s government of the Gauls was extended for an additional five years, to date from the expiration of the first term.* Cato obstructed the Law by his old ruse of speaking against time, but Trebonius committed him to prison; and two Tribunes who threatened to interpose their veto were kept away from the Assembly by the use of positive force.

§ 13. Pompey endeavoured to outdo even Caesar in bidding for the favour of tlie People by magnificent spectacles. In his name, his Freedman Demetrius erected the first Theatre of stone which Romo had yet seen, and exhibited combats of wild beasts on a scale never before witnessed. Then for the first time an elepliant-fight was exhibited in the Arena of the Amphitheatre.

* The Vatinian Law gave Cajsar command from the beginning of 58 to the end of 54 B.C.; tho Trebonian, from the beginning of 53 to the end of 49.

engaged in professional pursuits. To pass over the speeches touching his own affairs, which belong to the year 57 b.c., wo lind him defending P. Scstius, M. Caelius, and L. Balbus; and the speeches which he delivered as their advocate arc full of interesting allusions to the state of political affairs. In the Senate also he took an active part in the debates. Before the confercncc of Lucca, the Triumviral Cabal seemed shaken, and the Orator ventured to move in the Senate the repeal of Caesar’s Agrarian Law. But after the Conference, a message was conveyed to him through Crassus which convinced him of the danger which might again overtake him. He was, moreover becoming disgusted with the Senatorial Chiefs. Lucullus, after spending his latter days in profuse luxury, was sinking into a state of senile apathy. IIor-tensius, always more of an Advocate than a Statesman, was devoted to his fish-ponds and his plantations. With Cato the gentler nature of Cicero never acted harmoniously. The persons who were now rising to be Chiefs of the Senate, such as Domi-tius Ahcnobarbus and Milo, were as lawless as Clodius. It had been best for Cicero if he had taken the advice of his friend Atticus and retired altogether from public life. He would not join the violent members of the Senatorial party; lie dared not oppose the Triumvirs; yet he could not bear to abandon the Senate-liousc and Forum, and at length lie reluctantly resolved to support the Triumviral Cabal. Soon after the confercncc of Lucca a change took place in his politics. He spoke in favour of the prolongation of Caesar’s command, and pronounced a laboured panegyric on Crassus. To Cajsar he had been reconciled by his brother Quintus, a warm admirer of the great Proconsul ; and the gallant son of Crassus, who had returned flushed with triumph from the Gallic wars, was a devoted follower of Cicero. No doubt the Orator was disgusted by the ferocity of Milo; 'and perhaps he really believed that at present the best hope of regular government was from the Triumvirs. At all events his Letters written at this time show that lie laboured to convince his friends that such was iiis belief.

§ 15. But the Cabal was hastening to dissolution. In the year 54 b.c. Julia, the daughter of Ciesar and wife of Pompey, died in childbed. Though Pompey was old enough to be her father, slio had been to him a loving and faithful wife. He on his part was so devoted to his young and beautiful consort, that ancient authors attribute much of his apathy in public matters to tho happiness which lie found in domestic life. This faithful attachment to Julia is the most amiable point in a character otherwise cold and unattractive. So much was Julia beloved, that the People voted her the extraordinary honor of a public funeral in the Campus Martius. Her death set Pompey free at once from ties which had long bound him to Caesar, and impelled him to drown the sense of his loss in the busy whirl of public life.

§ 16. Meanwhile Crassus had left Rome for the East, and destroyed another link in the chain that had hitherto maintained union among the Triumvirs. Early in the year after his Consulship (54 b.c.) he assumed the government of Syria. His chief object in seeking this Province was by the conquest of the Parthians to balance the military glory of Pompey and of Caesar. But, towards the close of the year 53 b.c., about twelve months after the death of Julia, Rome was horror-struck by hearing that the wealthy Proconsul and his gallant son had been cut off, and that the greater part of his army had been destroyed.

§ 17. The Parthians, a people originally found in the mountainous district to the soutli-w^Test of the Caspian Sea, had, on the death of Alexander, fallen under the nominal sway of Seleucus and his successors on the Graeco-Syrian throne. As that dynasty fell into decay, the Parthians continually waxed bolder; till at the time of the great Mithridatic War we find their King Phraates claiming to be called King of Kings, and exercising despotic power over the countries adjacent to the Euphrates westward. Their capital was the Greek city of Seleuceia on the Tigris; and here the King maintained a court, in which the barbaric splendour of the East was strangely mingled wiih the refinements introduced by Grecian settlers. They possessed a numerous cavalry, clad in light armour, accustomed to scour the broad plains near the Euphrates, trained to disperse like a clond before regular troops, but as they fled to fire on the advancing enemy. Orodes, their present King, threatened with an attack by Gabinius, the predecessor of Crassus, was not unprepared for war.

In the first year of his Proconsulship, Crassus was too late for serious attack; but early in the next spring (53 b.c.) he advanced in strength from the Euphrates at the head of a well-appointed army. Artabazus, the present King of Armenia, who through fear of the Parthian monarch was sincerely attached to Rome, wished the Proconsul to take his country as a basis of operations, and to descend the valley of the Tigris, so as to avoid the open plains, where the Parthian horsemen, seconded by the heat of summer, would act against him at terrible advantage. C. Cassius Longinus, the most experienced officer of the Proconsul,—a man who afterwards became famous as the chief author of Caesar’s death,—took the same view. But Crassus neglected warning and advice. What was foretold happened. The Parthians, avoiding a general battle, drew on the Romans into the heart of Mesopotamia, till the Legionaries, faint with heat and hunger, could advancc no further. As tliey began to retreat, they were enveloped by a crowd of horsemen, and pursued by a great army commanded by Surenas, a principal officer of Orodcs. At Charrae, the Haran where Abraham once dwelt, Crassus halted and offered battle. His offer was accepted, and he was defeated. Still the Proconsul contrived to make good his retreat, and was within reach of the mountains that skirt the western side of the great plain of Mesopotamia, when he was induced to accept a conference offered by the treacherous Surenas. At this conference he was seized and slain, as the Chiefs of the Ten Thousand had been dealt with three centuries before. His head was sent to Orodcs, who ordered molten gold to be poured into the mouth. Young Publius, the friend of Caisar and of Cicero, fell in the struggle, fighting valiantly for his father. Cassius alone of the chief officers did the duty of a general, and succeeded in drawing off his division in safety to the Roman frontiers. For two years Cassius continued to defend the Province against the Parthian assaults, till in 51 b.c. a decisive victory checked their advances, and enabled him to hand over the Province in a peaceful condition to Bibulus.

§ 18. Meanwhile Cajsar also in Gaul was involved in unexpected difficulties. In his three first campaigns (58-5G B.C.), as has been said, he seemed to have reduced all Gaul to silent submission. In the two next years he was engaged in expeditions calculated rather to astonish and dazzle men’s minds at Rome than necessary to secure his conquests. Fresh swarms of Germans had begun to cross the Rhine near Coblenz. He defeated them near that place with slaughter so terrible, that upwards of 150,000 men are said to have been slain by the sword or to have perished in the Rhine. To terrify them still further, he threw a bridge over the broad river at a spot probably between Coblenz and Andernach, which was completed in ten days,—a miracle of engineering art. lie then advanced into Germany, burning and destroying, but broke up his bridge as he returned. Caisar’s account of the victory of Coblenz was not received like the triumphs of previous years. It appeared that the German chiefs had come into the Roman camp, that Ciesar detained them on the ground that they had broken an armistice, and while they were captives had attacked their army. The facts as narrated by himself bear an appearance of ill faith. Cato rose in the Senate, and proposed that Caesar should be delivered up to the Germans, as an offering in expiation of treachery. But such a proposition came with an ill grace even from Cato’s mouth. Romans professed not to keep faith witli barbarians; and if Caesar had not been the enemy of the Sena-

torial party, probably nothing would have been said of his trcaclicry. But however this may’bo, it is clear that the Decree would have been an empty threat. Who could have been found to “bell the cat?” Who would or could have arrested Ca3sar at the head of his Legions ?

§ 19. It was in the autumn of the same year (55 b.c.) that he passed over into our own island, taking ship probably at Witsand near Calais, and landing on the open beach near Deal. In the next year he repeated the invasion of Britain with a much larger force, marched up the Stour, took Canterbury, crossed the Thames above London, probably near Walton, defeated Cassi-vclaunus, the gallant cliicf of .the Trinobantes, and took his town,—which stood probably on the site of the modem St.-Albans. Little result followed from these expeditions except to spread the terror of the Roman name, and to afford matter of wonderment at Rome. Ciccrols curiosity about these unknown lands- was satisfied by letters from his brother Quintus, and from Trcbatius, a learned lawyer, who attended Caesar at the recommendation of Cicero himself/"

§ 20. But it was soon discovered how hollow was the pacification of Gaul. During the winter of 54-53 b.c., Cassar had spread his troops in winter-quarters over a wide area. Ambiorix, a crafty chief of the Eburones, a half-German Tribe on the Meuse, assaulted the camp of Cotta and Sabinus, and by adroit cunning contrived to cut off two Legions. He then attacked Q. Cicero. But this officer, though stationed in the hostile country of the Nervii with one Legion only, gallantly defended his camp till- he was relieved by Caesar himself, who had not yet left Transalpine Gaul. Alarmed by the prospect of a general insurrection, the Proconsul asked Pompey to lend him a Legion, and his request was granted. The next year’s campaign crushed Ambiorix, and Caesar returned to Italy during the winter of 53-52 b.c., where his presence was needed, as we shall presently hear. But in the years 52 and 51 b.c. all central Gaul rose against the Romans, under the able conduct of Vercingctorix, chief of the Arvernians. The combined Gauls for the most part declined open conflicts, and threw themselves into towns fortified with great skill and defended with great obstinacy. But, notwithstanding some reverses, the rapid movements and steady resolution of Caesar triumphed. The last hope of the Gauls lay in the strong fortress of Avaricum (Bourges); and when this yielded, resistance was at an end. But tor the two next years the Proconsul was obliged to winter beyond the Alps; and it was not till the beginning of the year 50 b.c., the ninth of his command, that he had achieved the

conqucst of the whole country. This conquest was achieved at a fearful loss of life. Nearly a million of Gauls and Germans are computed to have been sacrificed in those eight years of war. Caesar was humane in the treatment of his fellow-citizens, but, like a true Roman, lie counted the lives of barbarians as naught.

§ 21. While therefore Crassus was engaged, never to return, in the East, and Caesar was occupied with serious dangers in Gaul, Pompey was complete master of Rome. Contrary to precedent, he sent lieutenants to govern Spain in his stead, pleading his employment as Curator of the Corn-market as a reason for remaining at home; though, to save appearances, he never appeared publicly within the walls of Rome. lie seems to have expected that in ^tlie present condition of things all orders would unite in proclaiming him Dictator. In 54 b.c. Consuls were elected in the interest of the Senate, probably by a free use of money. When the elections for 53 b.c. approached, several Tribunes of the popular party bound themselves together, and prevented all elections whatsoever; so that for eight months the city was left without any responsible government. At length two Consuls were chosen; but when they proposed to hold tlio Comitia for 52 b.c., the new Tribunes refused to permit any elections; and when the Calends of Jannary came round, the Republic was without Consuls. But in a few days an event happened which completely altered all political relations.

§ 22. In Caesar’s absence Clodius had become the leader of the popular party. During the present interregnum he was a candidate for the Praetorship, while his enemy Milo sought to be Consul. On the 18tli of January, 52 b.c., Milo was travelling with his wife and family, attended by an armed retinue, along the Appian Road to Lanuvium, where he held a municipal office. Near Bovillae he met Clodius riding, with a small number of attendants also armed. A quarrel arose among the servants; Clodius mingled in the fray, and being wounded took refuge in a tavern. Milo, determined not to suffer for an imperfect act of violence, surrounded the house, drew forth liis wounded enemy, and left him dead upon the road. The body was carried to Rome and exposed in the Forum. A dreadful riot arose. The houses of Milo and other Senatorial chiefs were assaulted, bat they were strongly built, and the populace was beaten off. But the furniture of the Senatc-IIouse was seized to make a funeral pile to the deceased demagogue, and the Curia itself was burnt to the ground. Every day witnessed a fresh riot, till the Senate commissioned Pompey to restore order. This was done; and it was supposed that he would have been appointed Dictator at once, had not Caesar been at Lucca.

watching for a false move of the party opposed to him. To avoid a direct collision, Cato and Bibulus recommended that Pompey should be named as sole Consul. Milo was soon after brought to trial for the death of Clodius, and Cicero exerted himself to the utmost to prepare a speech in justification of the slaughter of Clodius. The jury were willing to acquit Milo. But Pompey was anxious to get rid of a citizen as troublesome on the one side as Clodius had been on the other; and lie placed soldiers at every avenue of the Court for the purpose, as lie said, of preserving order. This unwonted sight, and the fear of popular violence, robbed Cicero of his eloquence and the jury of their courage. Milo was condemned, and fled to Marseilles. Cicero sent him there a copy of the speech which he intended to have spoken. Milo, who knew not fear, sarcastically replied, that “ he was glad it had not been delivered: else he should not then have been eating the fine mullets of Marseilles.”

§ 23. Pompey had now reached the height of his ambition, lie was virtually Dictator, without being bound to any party. But from this time he seems to have made up his mind to break with Caesar. He married Cornelia, daughter of Metellus Scipio, a leading member of the Aristocracy, and on the 1st of August associated his new father-in-law in the Consulship with himself. He repealed some of the democratic measures of Clodius, and made rules for the better conduct of Elections, and the assignment of Provinces. He struck indirectly at Caesar by several new enactments. He procured a Decree of the Senate by which his own government of Spain was prolonged for five years, whereas Caesar’s command in Gaul would terminate in little more than two years. By this Law Pompey calculated that he should be able to keep his own army on foot after the Gallic conqueror had disbanded his. In anticipation of Caesar’s seeking a second Consulship, it was provided that no one should hold a Province till five years had elapsed from the end of his tenure of office. By this Law Pompey calculated that his rival would be left, after he laid down the Consulship, without any military force. It is strange that Pompey should not have foreseen that a man so resolute and so ambitious would break through the cobwebs of law by the strong hand.

§ I. First move against Caesar. § 2. Enemies and Friends of Caesar at Romo: Curio : Caelius : Antony. § 3. Proposals and eounter-proposals in 50 b.c. § 4. Cajsar outlawed: Antony and Q. Cassius, Tribunes, fly to his camp. § 5. Both parties ill prepared for immediate war: Pompey’s confidence. § 6. Caesar’s advanee to Corfinium. § 7. Pompey leaves Italy: Caesar at Rome. § 8. Caesar eonquers Pompeians in Spain. § 9. Surrender of Marseilles: return of Caesar to Rome. §10. First Dictatorship, for eleven days. §11. Illyria won by Pompeians: failure of Curio in Afriea. §12. Return of Cieero from Cilicia: he remains in Italy, but at length joins Pompey. § 13. Position of Pompey in the East. § 14. In tho autumn of 49 b.o. Caesar lands in Epirus: Pompey hastens to Dyrrhaehium. § 15. Next spring, Caesar is joined by Antony. § 16. He draws lines round Pompey’s position: Pompey breaks tho blockade and defeats Caesar. § 17. Retreat of Caesar, who sueceeds in joining Calvinus in Thessaly. § 18. Pompey join3 Metellus Seipio at Larissa: both armies at Pharsalia. § 19. Battle of Pharsalia: flight of Pompey. § 23. Pursuit § 21. Pompey 6eeks refuge at Lesbos: his plans. § 22. llo goes to Egypt: murder of Pompey. § 23. His eharaeter.

§ 1. The Senatorial Chiefs had resolved to break with Caesar. The attack was commenced in September, 51 b.c. lie had at that time succeeded in putting down the formidable insurrection organised by Vercingetorix, and the fact of his success was not yet known at Rome. Little more than two years of his command were yet to run before lie became a private citizen. He had, however, already intimated his intention of offering himself again for the Consulship, in order that he might be secured from the prosecution with which he was threatened on laying down his proconsular command; and it was intended to ask permission of the Senate that he might become a Candidate without returning to Rome. For, if he continued to bo Proconsul, he could not

legally enter the gates; and if he ceased to be Proconsul, he would be exposed to personal danger. But a Decree was made, by which the Consuls of the next year were ordered at once to bring before the Senate the question of re-distributing the Pro- ' vincial Governments; and a clause was added providing, that the Senate would take care of Caesar’s veterans. The purpose of this Decree was manifest. It was intended to supersede Caesar, though the Law gave him two years more of command, and to sap the fidelity of his soldiers by the promise of lands in Italy.

But the movement was premature, and was allowed to drop. Still a move had been made, and men’s minds were familiarised with the notion of stripping Caesar of his command.

§ 2. Caesar felt that the crisis was at hand. Of the new Consuls (for the year 50 B.C.), C. Marcellus was his declared enemy; but L. ./Emilius Paullus had been secretly won by a share of the conqueror’s gold. Among the Tribunes of the year was a young man named M. Scribonius Curio, son of one of Sylla’s most determined partisans. His talents were ready, his eloquence great, his audacity incomparable. He had entered upon political life at an early age, and was a leader among those young nobles, whom Cicero ten years before had designated as “ the blood-thirsty youth.” Since that time he had attached himself to Cicero; and the Orator believed that he had reclaimed the profligate young man. But Caesar, or his Gallic gold, had made a convert of Curio. The Nobles, ignorant of this secret, promoted his election to the Tribunate, and thus unwarily committed power to a bold and uncompromising foe.

M. Caelius Rufus, another profligate youth of great ability, whom Cicero flattered himself he had won, was also secretly on Caesar’s side. During the whole of the Orator’s absence in Cilicia, this unprincipled young man kept up a brisk correspondence with him, as if he was a firm adherent of the Senatorial party. But on the first outbreak of the quarrel he joined the enemy.

A third person, hereafter destined to play a conspicuous part, now appeared at Rome as the avowed partisan of Caesar. This was young M. Antonius, better known as Mark Antony, son of M. Antonius Creticus, and therefore grandson of the great Orator. His uncle, C. Antonius, had been Consul with Cicero. His mother was Julia, a distant relation of the great Caesar. Antony had served under Gabinius in the East, and for the last two years had been with Caesar in Gaul. He now came to Rome to sue for the Augurate, vacant by the death of the Orator Ilor-tensius; and, assisted by Caesar’s influence, and his own connexions, he was elected. He was thirty-three years of age, ready and unscrupulous as Curio, and he offered himself to' be

elected as successor to that young adventurer in the College of Tribunes. Thus, for the year 50 d.c. Cajsar’s interests wero watched by Curio, and in the year 49 d.c. Antony succeeded to the task.

§ 3. No direct attack was made during tlic present year. At Pompey’s suggestion, however, it was represented that a Parthian war was imminent, and both the rivals were desired to furnish one Legion for service in the East. Ca*sar at once complied; Pompey evaded the demand by asking Caesar to return the Legion which had been lent by himself after the destruction of the two Legions by Ambiorix. This request also Ciesar obeyed, so that in fact both Legions were withdrawn from his army. Their employment in the East proved to be a mere pretext. They were both stationed at Capua, within call of Pompey.

Curio now proposed that both Pompey -and Ca?sar should disband their armies; “ this was but fair,” he said, “ for both; nor could the will of the Senate and People be considered free while Pompey was at hand with a military force to control their deliberations.” But the Senate turned a deaf ear to the proposal, and the year closed without any approach to a peaceful settlement.

. § 4. The Consuls for the ensuing year (49 d.c.) were L. Len~ tulus Crus, and another C. Marcellus, cousin-german of his predecessor,—both in the interest of Pompey. Scarcely had they entered upon oflice, when the crisis arrived.

On the Calends of January, letters from Ca?sar were laid before the Senate by Curio, in which the Proconsul expressed his readiness “to accept the proposal that Pompey and himself should both resign their military power: as soon as he was assured that all soldiers were removed from the neighbourhood of Rome, he would enter the gates as a private person, and offer himself Candidate for tho Consulship.” Warm debates followed, in which Metellus Scipio,* Pompey’s father-in-law, and Cato urged that Ca?sar should bo declared a public enemy unless lie laid down his command by a certain day. But even this did not satisfy the majority. Not only was Caisar outlawed : but on tlic Gth of January a Dccrec was framed, investing the Consuls with dictatorial power, in the same form that had been used against C. Gracchus, against Saturninus, against Catiline. On the following night, Mark Antony fled from the City, together with another Tribune, Q. Cassius Longinus, brother of the more famous C. Cassius.

* Ho was a Scipio by birth, being great-grandson of Scipio Nasiea (nicknamed Serapio), the slayer of Ti. Gracchus, and was adopted by Metellus Pius.

§ 5. The die was cast. Caesar had no longer any choice. He must either offer an armed resistance or save himself by flight. Neither party was well prepared for immediate war. Caesar had but one Legion in Italy; for the hesitation of his enemies made him doubt whether they would ever defy him to mortal conflict. Pompey knew the weakness of his rival’s forces. lie also knew that Labienus, the best of Caesar’s officers, was ready to desert his leader, and he believed that such an example would be followed by many others. He calculated that Caesar would not dare to move, or would fall a victim to his own rashness. For himself he had one Legion close to Rome, Caesar’s two Legions at Capua; and Sylla^Ts veterans were, it was supposed, ready to take arms for the Senate at a moment’s notice. “ I have but to stamp my foot,” said the great commander, “ and armed men will start from the soil of Italy.”

§ 6. But Gesar^Ts prompt audacity remedied his own want of preparation, and disconcerted the calculations of his opponents. He was stationed, with his single Legion, at Ravenna, when he was surprised by letters announcing the Decree of the 6th of January. His resolution was at once taken. He reviewed his Legion, and ascertained their readiness to follow whithersoever he led. At night-fall he left Ravenna secretly, crossed the Rubicon, which divided his Province from Italy, and at day-break entered Ariminum.¹⁵³ Here he met the Tribunes Antony and Q. Cassius, on their way from Rome. His legion arrived soon after, and orders were sent off to the nearest troops in Transalpine Gaul, to follow his steps with all speed. But lie waited not for them. With his single Legion he appeared before Licenum, Fanum, Ancona, Iguvium, Auximum, and Asculum. All these towns surrendered without a blow, and by the beginning of February Caesar was master of all Umbria and Picenum. By the middle of that month he had been reinforced by two additional Legions from Gaul, and was strong enough to invest Corfinium, a fortress in the Pelignian Apennines, which was vigorously defended by Domitius Ahenobarbus and a number of Senators. At the close of a week, however, news came that Pompey and the Consuls and moved southward; and Domitius surrendered at discretion. Qaesar allowed him and his Senatorial friends to go their way, without even exacting a promise that they would take no further part in the war. On entering the town he ordered that his men should abstain, not only from personal violence, blit even from petty pillage. Reports had been spread that the Proconsul's troops were not Romans but Gauls, ferocious barbarians, whose hands would be against every Italian as their natural enemy. The public humanity which Cajsar showed, reconciled to his cause many who had hitherto stood aloof. The soldiers of Domitius took service under the conqueror.

§ 7. After the fall of Corfinium, Cresar hastened southwards in pursuit of Pompey. But when he arrived at Brundusium, on the 9th of March he found that the Consuls had sailed for Dyrrlia-chium, though Pompey w^ras still in the Italian port The town was too strong to be taken by assault; and nine days after Caesar appeared before its walls, Pompey embarked at leisure and carried liis last soldier out of Italy. Disappointed of his prey, Caesar returned upon liis steps, and reached Rome upon the 1st of April. The People, at the motion of M. Antony, gave Caesar full power to take what money he desired from the Treasury, without sparing even the sacred hoard, which had iiever been touched, except in the necessities of the Ilannibalic War. Notwithstanding this vote, the Tribune L. Metellus, a son of Metellus Creticus, refused to produce the keys of the Treasury, and when Caesar ordered the doors to be broken open, endeavoured to bar his passage into the sacred chamber. “ Stand aside, young man,” said Caesar, “ it is easier for me to do than to say.” '

He was now master of Italy as w^rell as Gaul. To pursue Tom-pey to Epirus was impossible, because Senatorial officers swept the sea with a large fleet, and Caesar had few ships at his disposal. Moreover, in Spain, which had been subject to Pompey for the last five years, there was a veteran army ready to enter Italy. The remainder of the season, therefore, lie resolved to occupy in the reduction of that army.

§ 8. On liis way to Spain, he found that Marseilles, the retreat of Milo, had declared for Pompey. Leaving Dec. Brutus with twelve ships, and <3. Trebonius with a body of troops, to besiege the town both by sea and land, he continued his march, and crossed the Pyrenees early in the summer. Hither Spain was held by 0. Afranius, an officer of Pompey, whom he had raised to the Consulship, and M. Petreius, who had destroyed the army of Catiline. Further Spain w*as entrusted to the care of M. Teren-tius Yarro.

Near Ilerda (Lerida), on the river Sicoris, an affluent of the Ebro, Caesar was encountered bv tho Pompeian leaders. He gives us a very full account of the movements which followed, from which it seems that he was at first out-generalled by Petreius. Yet liis dexterity in swaying the wills of men soon gave him the superiority. Avoiding a battle always, he encouraged communications between his own men and the soldiers of the enemy; and at length the Pompeian leaders, finding themselves unable to eontrol their own troops, were obliged to surrender their command.- Two-thirds of their force took servicc -with the politie conqueror.

Yarro, in Further Spain, by dexterous intrigue, eontrived to evade immediate submission. But after a vain attempt to collect a force, he surrendered to the conqueror at Corduba (Cordova), and was allowed to go where he pleased. Before autumn closed, all Spain was at the feet of Caesar, and was committed to the government of Q. Cassius, the Tribune who had supported his eause at Rome. Thus secured from danger in the West, he hastened into Italy.

§ 9. As he passed through Southern Gaul, he found that Marseilles still held out against Dec. Brutus and Trebonius. The defenee had been most gallant. The blockade by sea had been interrupted by a detachment from Pompey’s fleet; and the great works raised by the besiegers on land had been met by counter-works' of equal magnitude on the part of the besieged. But on the arrival of Caesar, the Massilians surrendered themselves with a good graee, and were treated with the utmost clemeney.

§ 10. During his absenee in Spain, M. ^Emilius Lepidus, whom he had left as Prefect of the City to govern Italy, had named him Dictator. He assumed the great dignity thus conferred upon him, but held it only eleven days. In that period he presided at the Comitia, and was eleeted Consul, together with P. Servilius Isauricus, one of his old competitors for the Chief Pontificate. He also passed several Laws. One of those restored all exiles to the eity, except Milo, thus undoing one of the last remnants of Sylla’s Dictatorship. A seeond provided for the payment of debts, so as to lighten the burthens of the debtors without satisfying the demoeratie ery for an abolitioft of all contracts. A third conferred the franchise on the eitizens of Transpad an e Gaul, who had sinee the Soeial War enjoyed the Latin right only. ^ ^ *

§ 11. Of the doings of his lieutenants in other quarters during this memorable year, Caesar did not reeeive accounts at all commensurate with his own marvellous sueeess. In Illyria, T. Cornelius Dolabella, son-in-law of Cieero, who had joined the conqueror, had been disgracefully beaten, and Caius, brother of Mark Antony, taken prisoner, so that all the eastern eoast of the Adriatic was now in tho hands of the Pompoians.

Curio had been sent to oecupy Sicily, where Cato commanded in the name of tho Senate. Tho philosopher, having no adcqnato force, declined the contcst, and joined Pompey in Epirus. Curio then passed over to Africa, where the Pompeian general Varus held command, and was at first successful. But presently Juba, king of Mauritania, appeared in the field as an Ally of the Senatorial party; and Curio, obliged to retreat before the combined forces of tho enemy, took refuge in the famous camp of Scipio. From this position lie was drawn out by a feigned retreat; and being surprised by an overpowering force, he was defeated and slain. Africa, therefore, as well as all tho Eastern World remained in the hands of the Pompeians, while Italy, Gaul, and Spain owned the authority of Cajsar.

§ 12. Cicero had returned from Cilicia, while the debates, which issued in the Decree of the Oth of January, were still unfinished. He claimed a Triumph for some military successes over the mountaineers who infested that Province, and therefore would not enter the walls of the City to be present at these momentous debates. The question of his Triumph was soon forgotten in the rapid course of events which followed, and he retired to his Formian Villa, still attended by his Lictors with their faces wreathed in laurel. Here he had interviews with the Pompeian leaders on their retreat through Campania. At the same time many of his personal friends, as Curio, Cselius, Dolabella, Balbus, Trebatius, had joined Caesar, and urged him to make common causc with their generous leader. On his return from Brundusium Cajsar himself visited him. But the Orator could not be prevailed upon to forsake the cause of the Senate; and after long hesitation, he took ship and joined Pompey in tho East.

§ 13. Pompey was bitterly censured by his party for quitting Italy without a blow. But when ho was surprised by Caesar’s rapid advance, the only troops besides those under Domitius at Corfinium were the two Legions lately sent from Gaul by Cresar; and these (it may well be supposed) lie dared not trust to do battle against their old commander.

It is probable, therefore, that ho was really compelled to quit Italy. But his fleet was now so large that it would have been easy for him to regain Italian soil; and, since he made no attempt to cross tho sea, we may assume that he purposely chose Epirus as the ground for battle. He had all the East behind him, long used to reverence his name; and out of Italy he was less likely to be thwarted by the Senatorial Chiefs, who hated him while they used him. Such especially was Domitius Ahenobarbus, who loudly complaincd that he had been deserted at Corfinium.

Pompey’s head-quarters were fixed at Thessalonica, the chief city of Macedonia. Here the Senators who had fled from Italy assembled, and his chief officers assumed titles of authority. He had employed the time well. The Provinces and Kings of the East filled his military chest with treasure; he had collected seven Roman Legions, with a number of auxiliaries from every surrounding monarchy, and a powerful force of cavalry; large magazines of provisions and military stores were formed: above all, a fleet, increasing every day in numbers, w^ras supplied by the maritime states of Illyria, Greece, Asia Minor, Phoenicia, and Egypt. Bibulus, the old adversary of Caesar, took the command as Admiral-in-Chief, supported by able lieutenants. With this naval force actively employed, it was hoped that it would be impossible for Caesar to land in Epirus.

49 B.C.¹⁵⁴ Twelve Legions had been assembled there. So much had their numbers been thinned by war, fatigue, and the fevers of Apulia, that each Legion averaged less than 3000 men. His transports were so few, that he was not able to ship more than seven of these imperfect Legions, with 600 horse. All the harbours were occupied by the enemy. But the ancients were seldom able to maintain a blockade by cruising; and Caesar, leaving Brundusium on the 5th November, landed his first corps on the open coast of Epirus, a little south of the Acroceraunian headland. He sent his empty ships back directly, and marched northward to Oricum and Apollonia, where he claimed admission in virtue of his consular office. The claim was admitted, and these towns fell into his hands. Pompey immediately marched from Thessalonica, and succeeded in reaching Dyrrhachium in time to save that important place. He then pushed his lines forward to the mouth of the Apsus, and the two hostile armies lay inactive during the remainder of the winter, with this stream between their camps,—Caesar occupying the left or southern Ixmk, Pompey the right or northern side.

§ 15. As the winter passed away, Caesar was rendered extremely anxious by the non-appearance of his second corps, which Antony was charged to bring across. News soon reached him that Bibulus, stung to the quick by the successful landing of the first corps, had put to sea from Corcyra with all his fleet, liad destroyed thirty of the returning transports, and had ever since kept so strict a watch on the coast of Italy, that Antony did not dare to leave Bruiidusiuni. So stubborn was the will of Bibulus, tliat he fell a victim to his own exertions, and died at sea. But L. Soribonius Libo continued the tactics of Bibulus, and Caisar’s impatience arose to the height. lie had lost more than two months, and complained that Antony Lad neglected several opportunities of crossing the Ionian Sea. At length lie engaged a small boat to take him across to Italy in person. The sea ran high, and the rowers refused to proceed, till the General revealed himself to them in the famous words: “ You carry Caesar and his fortunes.” All night they toiled, but when day broke they had made no way, and the General reluctantly consented to put back into the Apsus. But soon after, he succeeded in sending over a positive message to Antony to cross over at all risks; and if Antony disobeyed, the messenger carried a commission to his chief officers, by which they were ordered to supersede their commander, and discharge the duty which he neglected to perform. Stung by this practical rebuke, Antony resolved to attempt the passage at all risks. As he neared the coast of Epirus, the wind shifted to the south-east, and, being unable to make the port of Oricum, he was obliged to run northward past Pompey’s camp, in full view of the enemy. They gave chase; but he succeeded in landing all his men near the headland of Nymphaeum, more than fifty miles north of the Apsus. His position was critical, for Pompey’s army lay between him and Caesar. But Caesar had already made a rapid march round the enemy’s position, and succeeded in joining Antony before Pompey moved northwards. The latter, finding himself too late, took a new position some miles to the north of Dyrrba-chium, and here formed a strongly-entrenched camp resting upon the sea. These entrenchments ran in an irregular lialt-circle of nearly fifteen miles in length, the chord of which was the coast-line of Epirus.

§ 16. The spring of 48 b.c. was now beginnings It was probably in March that Ciesar effected his union with Antony. Even after this junction, he was inferior iu numbers to Pompey; and it is not without wonder that we read his own account of the audacious attempt with which to began the campaign. Ilis plan was to draw lines round Pompey's vast entrenchments, so as to cut him off from Dyrrhachium and from the surrounding country. As Pompey’s entrenchments measured nearly fifteen miles, Caesar’s linds must have measured considerably more. And as his army was inferior in numbers, it might have been expected that Pompey would not submit to be shut in. But the latter general could not interrupt the works without hazarding a battle, and his troops were not yet a match for Ca?sar’s veto-rans. The command of the sea insured him supplies and enabled him to shift his army; and he therefore allowed Caesar to carry on his lines with little interruption.

During the winter Caesar’s men had suffered terribly for want of vegetable food. But as spring advanced, and the crops began to ripen, brighter days seemed at hand. Pompey’s men, meanwhile, though supplied from the sea, began to suffer for want of fresh water, and their animals for want of green fodder. He therefore determined to assume the offensive. At each extremity of Caesar’s lines, where they abutted upon the sea, a second line of entrenchments had been marked out reaching some way inland, so that for some distance from the sea the lines might be protected from an attack in rear, as Well as in front. But this part of the work was as yet unfinished; and, in particular, no attempt had been made to carry any defence along the sea so as to connect the two lines. Pompey was instructed of this defect by some Gallic deserters; and he succeeded in landing some troops at the southern extremity of the works, so as to make a lodgement between Caesar’s two lines. A series of combats followed. But the Pompeians maintained their ground, and Caesar perceived that his labour was thrown away. Pompey had reestablished his land communication with Dyrrhachium; and circumvallation being now impossible, Caesar determined to shift the scene of action.

§ 17. During the spring he had detached Cn. Domitius Calvinus with two Legions into Macedonia, to intercept the march of Metellus Scipio, who was expected every day to bring reinforcements to Pompey from Syria. Scipio had been delayed by the necessity of securing his Province against the Parthians; and had spent much time in levying contributions on his line of march. When he arrived in Macedonia he found his passage barred by Calvinus at Pella. But, about the time of Caesar’s defeat at Dyrrhachium, Calvinus had been obliged, by want of provisions, to fall back towards Epirus, while Caesar himself marched by Apollonia up the valley of the Aoiis. Pompey immediately detached a strong force to separate Calvinus from his chief.' But Calvinus, informed of Caesar’s retreat, moved with great rapidity to the southward, and effected a union with his general in the north-western corner of Thessaly. The Caesarian army, thus united, advanced to Gomplii, which was taken and given up to plunder. Meanwhile, Scipio had occupied Larissa; but, with this exception, all other Thessalian cities opened their gates to Caesar; and the harvest being now ripe, his army revelled in the abundant supplies of the rich plain of Thessaly.

§ 18. Soon after, Pompey entered Thessaly from the north and joined Scipio at Larissa. The Pompeian leaders, elated by success, were quarrelling among themselves for tho prize, which they regarded as already won. Lentulus Spinther, Domitius Ahenobarbus, and Metellus Scipio, all claimed Caesar’s Pontificate. Domitius proposed that all who had remained in Italy or had not taken an active part in the contest should be 'brought to trial as traitors to the cause,—Cicero being the person chiefly aimed at. Pompey himself was not spared. Domitius nicknamed him Agamemnon King of men, and openly rejected his authority. The advice of the great general to avoid a decisive battle was contemptuously set at naught by all but Cato, who from first to last advocated any measure which gave a hope of avoiding bloodshed. Even Favonius, a blunt and simple-minded man who usually echoed Cato’s sentiments, loudly complaincd that Pompey’s reluctance to fight would prevent his friends from eating their figs that summer at Tusculum.

From Larissa Pompey moved southward, and occupied a strong position on an eminence near the city of Pharsalus, overlooking the plain which skirts the left bank of the river Enipeus. Caesar followed and encamped upon the plain, within four miles of the enemy’s position. Here the hostile armies lay watching each other for some time, till Caesar made a movement which threatened to intercept Pompey’s communications with Larissa. The latter now at length yielded to the impatience of the Senatorial Chiefs. He resolved to descend from his position and give battle upon the plain of Pharsalus or Pharsalia.

§ 19. The morning of the 6th of June* saw both armies drawn out in order of battle. The forces of Pompey consisted of about

44,000 men, and were (if Caesar’s account is accurate) twice as numerous as the army opposed to them. Put Cresar’s were all well-trained troops; the greater part of Pompey’s were levies recently collected in Macedonia and Asia, far inferior to the soldiers of Gaul and Italy. Pompey’s army faced the north, liis right wing, resting on the river, was commanded by Scipio, the centre by Lentulus Spinther, the left by Domitius. liis cavalry, far superior to Ca*sar’s, covered the left flank. Ciesar drew up his forces in three lines, of which the rearmost was to act in reserve. Ilis left was upon tho river; and his small force of cavalry was placed upon his right, opposite to Pompey’s left wing. To compensate for his inferiority in this arm, he picked out six veteran cohorts, who were to skirmish between the files of the horse. Domitius Calvinus commanded in the centre.

Antony on the left, Csesar himself upon the right, with tho Tenth Legion in reserve.

The attack began by Caesar’s whole line, which advanced running. Pompey ordered his men to wait the charge without moving, in hopes that the enemy would lose breath before they closed. • But Caesar’s old soldiers, observing that the Pompeians kept their ground, halted to form line and rccover breath, before they closed with the enemy. A desperate conflict followed.

While the Legions were engaged along the whole line, Pom-pey’s cavalry attacked the weak squadrons of Caesar’s horse and drove them back, upon which the veterans sallied out of the ranks and drove their formidable pila straight at the unarmed faces of the enemy.¹⁵⁵ Caesar’s squadrons rallied; and after a brave struggle Pompey’s cavalry was completely broken and fled in disorder.

Upon this Caesar brought up his reserve; and the infantry of Pompey, assailed by fresh troops in front, and attacked in flank by the cavalry and veterans, gave way everywhere. A general order was now issued by Caesar to spare the Romans, and to throw all their strength upon the foreigners. Pompey himself rode off' the field to his tent, leaving orders for the troops to retreat behind their entrenchments.

But this was not permitted. His Legionaries dispersed in all directions. The Eastern Allies, after a terrible slaughter, fled; and Pompey had only time to mount his horse and gallop off' through the Decuman or Rearward gate of his camp, as the soldiers of Caesar forced their way in by the Praetorian or Front gate. The booty taken was immense. The hardy veterans of Gaul gazed with surprise on the tent of Lcntulus, adorned with festoons of Bacchic ivy, and on the splendid services of plate which were. set out everywhere for a banquet to celebrate the expected victory.

§ 20. Before Caesar allowed his tired soldiers to enjoy the fruits of the victory of Pharsalia, he required them to complete the conquest. The pursuit was continued during the remainder of the day, and on the morrow. But the task was easy. The clemency of the conqueror induced all to submit. When Caesar entered the camp and saw the dead bodies of many Romans lying about, he exclaimed, “ They would have it so : to have laid down our arms v.*ou! 1 have scaled our doom.” Most of thoso who perished were foreigners or freedmen. The only distinguished person who fell was Doinitius Ahenobarbus. Among those who submitted, was M. Junius Brutus, a young man of whom we shall hear more.

§ 21. Pompey fled through the gorge of Tempo to the mouth of the Pencils, where he embarked on bord a merchant-vessel in company witii Lentulus Spinther, Lentulus Crus, and others. He dismissed all his slaves. Honest Favonius proved his fidelity to the general by undertaking for him such menial offices as usually were left to slaves. The master of the ship knew the adventurers, and offered to take them whithersoever they would. Pompey first directed his course to Lesbos, where his wife Cornelia and his younger son Sextus had been sent for safety, and having taken them on board he sailed round to Cilicia, where he collected a few ships and a small company of soldiers. With these he crossed over to Cyprus, where lie stayed a short time, deliberating on the best means of safety. lie still had a powerful flc^t at sea, under the command of his elder son Cnams, assisted by C. Cassius. Africa was still his own, and Xing Juba anxious to do him service. But after considering several plans, he determined to seek an asylum in Egypt.

§ 22. Ptolemy Auletes, who had been restored by Gabinius, Pompey’s friend, had left his kingdom to the divided sway of his son Ptolemy Dionysius and his daughter Cleopatra, under the g.iardianship of the Senate; and the Senate had delegated this trust to Pompey. Hence his reason for choosing Egypt as his place of retreat. But Cleopatra, who was older than her brother, had been driven from Alexandria by the people; and three Greek adventurers,—Pothlnus a eunuch, Theodotus a rhetorician, and Achillas an officer of the army,—governed the kingdom in tiie name of young Ptolemy. When Pompey appeared off Alexandria with a few ships and a force of about 2000 men, these ministers were engaged in repelling Cleopatra. A message from Pompey, to signify his intention of landing, threw them into great alarm. In the Egyptian army were a number of men who had formerly served under Pompey in tho East, and it was feared that they would betray Egypt to their old general. All was left to the conduct of Achillas, a bold man troubled by no scruples. A small boat was sent to receive the fugitive, under the false pretence that the water was too shallow to allow a larger vessel to reach the shore. In the boat were Achillas himself, a Roman officer named Salvius, and another named Septimius, who had served as Tribune under Pompey in the war against the Pirates. The great general recognised his old officer, and entered tho boat alone. His wife and friends anxiously watched it as it slowly made its way back to shore, and were somewhat comforted by seeing a number of persons collected on the beach as if to receive Pompey with honour. At length the boat stopped, and the general took the hand of the person next him to assist him in rising. At this moment Septimius struck him from behind. Pompey knew his fate, and fell without a struggle. His head was then cut off and taken away, his body left upon the beach. When the crowd dispersed, a freedman of Pompey, assisted by an old soldier of the great commander, had the piety to break up a fishing-boat and form a rude funeral pile. By these humble obsequies was the sometime master of the world honoured.

§ 23. So died Pompey. He liad lived nearly sixty years, and had enjoyed more of the world’s honours than almost any Roman before him. In youth he was cold, calculating, and hardhearted, covetous of military fame, and not slow to appropriate what belonged to others. His talents for Avar were great. In the struggle with Ctesar it is plain that, so far as military tactics went, Pompey was superior to his great rival; and had he not been hampered by impatient colleagues, the result might have been different. In politics he was grasping and selfish, irresolute and improvident. He imagined that his achievements gave him a title to be acknowledged as the chief of Rome; and when neither Senate or People seemed willing to acquiesce in the claim, he formed a coalition with politicians whose principles he disliked, and made himself responsible for the acts of Clodius. Lastly, when he found that in this coalition he- was unable to maintain his superiority over Caesar, he joined the Oligarchy who hated him, and lost even the glory which as a soldier he liad deserved. In private life he was free from those licentious habits in which most persons of that day indulged without scruple or reproach; and his tragical death excited a commiseration for him which by his life lie hardly deserved.

§ 1. Caesar follows Pompey to Egypt: lands there: Cleopatra: Alexandrian War: triumph of Caesar. § 2. Pompeians rally at Corcyra: erOss over to Africa: Scipio placed in command: Cato at Utica. § 3. State of Wcstem Provinces. § 4. Caesar Dictator for sccond time: at length leaves Alexandria. § 5. Conquers Pharnaccs, settles Asia, and returns to Home. § 6. He relieves debtors, and quells mutiny of soldiers at Capua. § 7. Crosses over to Africa: victory at Thapsus: death of tho Pompeian leaders: end of Cato. § 8. Settlement of Africa: Sallust. § 9. Four Triumphs of Ca3sar: amnesty: donatives. § 10. Fresh war in Spain: defeats Pompeians at Munda: death of young Cu. Pompey,escape of Sextus. § 11. Short space of time spent at Rome in Legislation. § 12. He relieves Treasury by revising Corn-list § 13. Liberal Extension of Roman Franchise. § 14. Imperial projects. § 15. Enlarges and fills up tho Senate: pasquinades. § 16. Military colonies. § 17. Encouragement of marriage. § 18. Endeavour to limit Slave labour. § 19. Public buildings. § 20. Reform of Calendar. § 21. Necessary seclusion. § 22. Public honours : desire to be proclaimed King. § 23. Growing discontent among various classes. § 24. Conspiracy : Brutus. § 25. Assassination of Caesar. § 26. Estimate of his character.

§ 1. On the third day after the battle of Pharsalia, Caesar pursued Pompey by forced marches. lie reached Amphipolis just after the fugitive had touched there. On the Hellespont, he fell in with a squadron of Pompey’s fleet under the command of C.

Cassius, who surrendered to Caesar, and was received by tho conqueror with the same favour which he had shown to Brutus and the rest of his opponents. Caesar crossed the Hellespont in boats; in Asia Minor he heard that Pompey had taken ship from Cyprus, and immediately concluded that Egypt must be liis destination. Without a moment’s hesitation, he sailed for this country, though he was unable to carry with him more than 4000 men, and though he incurred imminent risk of being intercepted by the Pompeian fleet., As soon as his arrival off Alex andria was known, Theodotus came off, bearing Pompey’s head and ring. The conqueror accepted the ring, but turned with tears in his eyes from the ghastly spectacle of the head, and ordered it to be burnt with due honours. Over the place of the funeral-pyre he raised a shrine to Nemesis, the goddess assigned by the religion of the Greeks to be the punisher of excessive prosperity. He then landed and entered Alexandria with his Consular emblems displayed, followed by his small army. Presently after, Cleopatra introduced herself in disguise into the palace where Caesar had fixed his residence. The conqueror, notorious for indulgence in sensual pleasures, yielded readily to the blandishments of the princess. But Pothinus and Achillas had no wish to lose their importance by agreeing to a compromise between the young King their master and his sister; and the people of Alexandria were alarmed at Caesar’s assumption of authority. A great crowd, supported by Achilla^ and the army, assaulted Caesar’s palace, and he escaped with difficulty to Pharos, the quarter of the city next the sea. In vain he endeavoured to ruin the cause of Achillas by seizing the person ‘of young Ptolemy. Arsinog, another daughter of the blood-royal, was set up by the army, and Caesar was blockaded in Pharos. Constant encounters took place by land and water ; and in one of these he was in so much danger, that he was obliged to swim for his life from a sinking ship, with his coat of mail between his teeth, holding his note-book above water in his left hand.

He was shut up in Pharos about August, and the blockade continued till the winter was far spent. But at the beginning of the new year he was relieved by the arrival of considerable "forces. Achillas was obliged to raise the siege, and a battle in the open field resulted in a signal triumph to Ciesar. Vast numbers of the fugitives were drowned in attempting to cross the Nile; among them the young King himself. Caesar installed XJleopatra as a sovereign of Egypt, and reserved Arsinoe to grace 3iis triumph.

§ 2. During these months, the Pompeian chiefs recovered from their first consternation. Cnaeus, eldest son of Pompey, joined Cato at Corcyra, where also were assembled Cicero, Labi-cnus, Afranius, and others. The chief command was offered to Cicero, as tho oldest Consular; but the Orator declined a post for which he had neither aptitude nor inclination; and the command was given to Scipio, who arrived at the moment. A considerable fleet was assembled at Corcyra. Scipio and the rest embarked, with the troops that they had rallied, and sailed for Africa, in the hope of learning news of their chief. Here, as thoy were steering eastward along the coast, they fell in with Cornelia and young Sextus, full of the tragic scene which they had just witnessed on the beach of Alexandria. The disheartened leaders returned to Cyrene, which refused to admit any one within its walls except Cato and such men as he would be answerable for. The fleet, therefore, with Scipio, Labienus, and the greater part of the troops, pursued its course across the great gulf of the Syrtes to the Province of Africa, where the Pompeian cause was upheld by Varus and Juba. Cato also joined them after an arduous march across the desert, and by the beginning of next year all the Pompeian leaders were assembled. Dissensions arose between Varus and Scipio for the command; to compromise the matter it was offered to Cato. The disinterested philosopher declined it, and persuaded all to acquiesce in the appointment of Scipio. It was then proposed to destroy the city of Utica, as being favourable to Caesar. But Cato offered to assume the government of the town, and be responsible for its fidelity, thus finally separating himself from the active warfare, which from the first he had deprecated and disavowed.

§ 3. In other parts of the empire affairs were unfavourable to Caesar’s cause. Pharnaces, son of Mithridatcs, was daily gathering strength in Pontus. In Further Spain, the oppressive rule of Q. Cassius had excited a mutiny in the army. In Illyricum, Gabinius, who had deserted Pompey on occasion of the flight from Italy, had been ignominiously worsted by the Pompeian leader, M. Octavius, and had died at Salona. In Italy, Ca*lius and Milo, even before the battle of Pharsalia, had endeavoured to cffect a new Revolution by promising an abolition of all debts; r,nd though they had failed, the project was now renewed by the profligate Dolabella. Two Legions at Capua, one of which was the favoured Tenth, had risen in mutiny against tlieir officers, declaring that they had been kept under their standards long enough, and demanding their promised reward.

§ 4. We know not when the news of these threatening events reached Ccesar’s ears at Alexandria. Early in the year 47 n.c. lie had been proclaimed Dictator for the second time, and had named Mark Antony Master of the Ilorse. This officer was entrusted with the government of Italy. But the presence of the Dictator himself seemed to be imperiously demanded. Still he lingered in Egypt, detained (as his enemies say) by the blandishments of Cleopatra, or (as his admirers contend) by the necessity of confirming Roman influence in that country. It was not for the space of four months after his victory on the Nile that he left Egypt, having remained there altogether for not less than three-quarters of a year.

§ 5. But when once he had shaken off this real or apparent lethargy, all his startling rapidity of action returned. He left Egypt at the end of May (47 b.c.), and marched northward through Syria to crush Pharnaces. On his way he received the congratulations of the Jews, who hated the memory of Pompey, and in a few days appeared in Pontus. Pharnaces gave him battle near Zela, where his father, Mithridates had defeated Triarius, and the victory gained by Caesar was announced at Rome in the famous despatch, “Veni, vidi, vici.” Caesar now devoted a short time to the task of settling the affairs of Asia. This province had been attached to the Senatorial cause by the mild rule of Lucullus and Pompey. Lately, however, the exactions of Metellus Scipio had caused discontent; and Caesar found it easy to win popularity by remitting a portion of the monies due to the Imperial Treasury.

Two months after Caesar left Alexandria, all parts of the East were again restored to tranquil submission; and early in July Rome beheld him enter her gates for the third time since he had crossed the Rubicon.

§ 6. Assuming his Dictatorial authority, he applied himself with his usual industry and rapidity to settle the most pressing difficulties. The disturbances raised by the promises of Dolabella had been quelled by Antony; and the Dictator attempted to relieve distress by paying a year’s liouse-rent for all poor citizens out of the public purse.

The mutiny of the soldiers at Capua was more formidable. But Caesar, as was his wont, overcame the danger by facing it boldly. He ordered the two Legions to meet him in the Campus Martius unarmed. They had demanded their discharge, thinking that thus they would extort a large donation, for they considered themselves indispensable to the Dictator. He ascended the Tribunal, and they expected a speech. “You demand your discharge/’ he said, “I discharge you.” A dead silence followed these unexpected words. Caesar resumed : “ Tlie rewards which I have promised you shall have, when I return to celebrate my Triumph with my other troops.” Shame now filled their hearts, mingled with vexation at the thought that they who had borno all the heat and burden of the day would be excluded from the Triumph. They passionately besought him to recall his words, but lie answered not. At length, at the earnest entreaty of his friends, he again rose to speak. ^aQui-rites,”—he began, as if they wero no longer soldiers, but merely private citizens. A burst of repentant sorrow broke from tho ranks of the veterans; but Caesar turned away as if he were about to leave the Tribunal. The cries rose still louder: they besought him to punish them in any way, but not to dismiss them from his service. After long delay, he said that⁴⁴ lie would not punish any one for demanding his due; but that he could not conceal his vexation that the Tenth Legion could not bide his time. That Legion at least he must dismiss.” Loud applause followed from the rest; the men of the Tenth hung their heads in shame, begging him to decimate them, and restore the survivors to his favour; and at length, Caisar, deeming them sufficiently humbled, accepted their repentance. The whole scene is a striking illustration of the cool and dauntless resolution of the man.

§ 7. Having completed all pressing business, ho again left Rome to meet the Pompeians in Africa. His troops assembled at Lilybteum, and about the middle of October (47 b.c.) he reached the opposite coast. But he was too weak to take the fi?ld, and lay iencamped waiting for reinforcements till the winter was far spent. Then he advanced against the enemy, and on the 4th of February (46 b.c.) encamped near Thapsus, where was fought the battle which decided the fate of the campaign. After a desperate conflict, the Senatorial army was forced to give way; and Ca)sar, who always pressed an advantage to the utmost, followed them to their camp. The leaders fled in all directions, Varus and Labienus escaped into Spain. Scipio put to sea, but being overtaken by the enemy’s ships sought death by his own hands. Such also was tho fate of Afranius. Juba fled with old Petreius; and these two rude soldiers, after a last banquet, heated with wine, agreed to end their life by single combat. The Roman veteran was slain bv the African prince, and Juba sought death at the hand of a faithful Slave.

Meanwhile, Cato at Utica had received news of the ruin of his party by the battle of Thapsus. He calmly resolved on selfslaughter, and after a conversation with his friends upon the subject, retired to rest. For a moment he forgot his philosophic calm, when he saw that his too careful friends had removed his sword. Wratlifully reproving them, he ordered it to bo brought back and hung at his bed’s head. There he lav down, and turned over the pages of Plato’s Phajdo till he fell asleep. In the night lie awoke, and taking his sword from the sheath thrust it into his body. His watchful friends heard him utter an involuntary groan, and, entering the room, found him writhing in agony. They procured surgical aid, and the wound was carefully dressed. Cato lay down again apparently insensible; but, as soon as he was alone, he quietly removed the dressings, and tore open the wound, so that his bowels .broke out, and after no long time he breathed his last. The Romans, one and all, even Cicero, admired his conduct. It is true that the Stoics, whose doctrines Cato professed, recommended the endurance of all evils as indifferent to a philosopher. But Cato was still more of a Roman than a Stoic: life had become intolerable to him; and while Christian judgment must condemn his impatience, it must be confessed that from his point of view the act was at least excusable.

§ 8. After this miserable end of the most upright among the Senatorial Chiefs, Caesar busied himself in regulating the countries he had conquered. Juba’s kingdom of Numidia he formed into a new Province, and gave it into the care of the historian Sallust, who with others had been expelled from the Senate in the year 50 b.c., professedly because of his profligate manners, but really because of his devoted attachment to Caesar’s cause. His subsequent life justified both the real and the alleged cause, lie proved an oppressive ruler, and his luxurious habits were conspicuous even in that age. His terse and epigrammatic sentences embalmed in two immortal works the merits of Marius and of Caesar, and the vices and errors of their Sena~ torial antagonists. ^

§ 9. Caesar returned to Rome for the fourth time since the .Civil War broke out, about the end of May, 46 b.c. At length he had found time to celebrate the Triumphs which he had earned since his first Consulship, and to devote his attention to those internal reforms, which long years of faction and anarchy had made necessaiy.

His Triumphs were four in number, over Gaul, Egypt, Pon-tus, and Numidia;—for no mention was made of the Civil War. A Roman could not triumph over fellow-citizens; therefore the victories of Ilerda and Pharsalia were not celebrated by public honours; nor would Thapsus have been mentioned, had not Juba been among the foes. These Triumphs were made attractive by splendid gladiatorial shows and combats of wild beasts. But what gave them more real splendour was the announcement of a general amnesty for all the opponents of thb Dictator. The memory of the Marian Massacre and of the Syllan Proscription was still present to many minds. Domitius

Ahenobarbus and the Senatorial leaders had vowed vengeance against all who took part with Caesar, or even who remained neutral. Men could not rid themselves of the belief that when all fear of the enemy had ceased the conqueror would glut his vengeance by a hecatomb. The certainty that no more blood would flow was so much tho more grateful.

After Caesar’s Triumphs all his soldiers were gratified by a magnificent donation, and every poor citizen received a present both of grain and money. The veterans also at length received their rewards in lands, which were either public property or were duly purchased with public money. But no Julian Colonies were planted on lands wrested by force from citizens. Ilcrc also the example of Sylla, who confiscated private property to reward his troops, was carefully avoided.

§ 10. After his Triumph every kind of honour was bestowed upon Caesar. He was named Dictator for the third time, and for the space of ten years. He was also invested with Censorial authority for three years; and in virtue of these combine* 1 offices he became absolute master of the Empire. For several months lie remained at Rome busily occupied with measures intended to remedy the evil effects of the long continued civil discords and to secure order for the future. But in the middle of his work he was compelled to quit Rome by tho call of another wav. It will be well to dispose of this before we give a brief summary of his great legislative measures.

Spain was the Province that required his presence. There the two sons of Pompey, with Labienus and Varus, had rallied the scanty relics of the African army. The Province was already in a state of revolt against Cjcsar. Q. Cassius,—whom Caesar had left as Governor,—had been expelled by his own Legions. Bocchus, King of Mauritania, lent aid, and tho malcontents in Spain were able to present a formidable front. Cajsar arrived in Spain late in September, (46 B.C.), afler a journey of extraordinary rapidity, and found that young Cn. Pompey had concentrated his forces near Corduba (Cordova). But the Dictator fell sick, and it was not till the first month of the next year that he was able to take the field. The enemy cautiously declined a battle, but were obliged to retreat towards the coast of the Mediterranean. Ca?sar found them in a strong position near Munda, a small town about 25 miles west of Malaga; and he determined on attacking notwithstanding the difficulties of the ground. Success was for some time doubtful.

So desperate was tho conflict, that Caesar is reported to have Raid :—“ On other occasions I have fought for victory, here I fought for life.” At length the eneinv gave way. More than

30,000 men fell, among them Varus and Labienus. Cn. Pompey lied to the coast. Here as he was getting on board a small boat he entangled his foot in a rope; and a friend endeavouring to cut away the rope struck the foot instead. The unfortunate young man landed again, hoping to lie hid till his wound was healed. Finding his lurking-place discovered he limped wearily up a mountain path, but was soon overtaken and slain. Sext. Pompey escaped into Northern Spain, whence he re-appeared at a later time to vex the peace of the Roman world. So important did Caesar consider it to quench the last sparks of disaffection in a Province which for several years had been under Pompey’s government that he did not return to Rome till late in September (45 B.C.), having been absent from the capital nearly a year. On this occasion he was, less scrupulous than before, for he celebrated a Fifth Triumph in honour of his successes in Spain, though these were as much won over Roman Citizens as his former victories in that same country, or his crowning glory of Pharsalia.

§ 11. From his last Triumph to his death was somewhat more than five months (October 45 b.c.—March 44 b.c.): from his Quadruple Triumph to the Spanish Campaign was little more than four months (June—September 46 B.C.). Into these two brief periods were compressed most of the Laws which bear his name, and of which we will now give a brief account. The evils which he endeavoured to remedy were of <)ld standing. His long residence at Rome, and busy engagement in all political matters from early youth to the close of his Consulship, made him familiar with every sore place, and with all tjie proposed remedies. His own clear judgment, his habits of rapid decision, and the unlimited power which he held, made it easier for him to legislate than for others to advise.

§ 12. The long wars, and the liberality with which he had rewarded his Soldiers and the People at his Triumphs, had reduced the Treasury to a low ebb. lie began by revising the Register of Citizens, principally for the purpose of abridging the list of those who were receiving monthly donations of grain from the Treasury. Numbers of foreigners had been irregularly placed on the list, and he was able to reduce the list of State-paupers resident in or near Rome from 320,000 to less than halt that number.* The Treasury felt an immediate and a permanent relief. •

§ 13. But though, for this purpose, Caesar made severe distinctions between Roman citizens and the foreign subjects of the Republic, no ruler' ever showed himself so much alive to the claims of all classes of her subjects. Other popular leaders had

advocated the cause of the Italians, and all freo people of the Peninsula had in the last thirty years been made Romans: but no one had as yet shown interest in the claims of the Provincial subjects of Pome, except Sertorius, and his object was rather a transference of power from Italians to Spaniards, than an incorporation of Spain with Italy. Ca3sar was the first acknowledged ruler of,the Roman State who extended his view beyond tho politics of the City and took a really Imperial survey of the vast dominions subject to her sway. Towards those who were at Avar with Rome he was as relentless as the sternest Roman of them all; but no one so well as lie knew how “ to spare the submissive hardly any one except himself felt pleasure in sparing. All the Cities of Transpadane Gaul, already Latin, were raised to the Roman Franchise. The same high privilege was bestowed on many Communities of Transalpine Gaul and Spain. The Gallic Legion which he had raised, called Alauda from the lark which was the emblem on their arms, was rewarded for its services by the same gift. All scientific men, of whatever origin, were to be allowed to claim the Roman Franchise. After his death a plan was found among his papers for raising the Sicilian Communities to the rank of Latin Citizens.

§ 14. The Imperial character of the great Dictator’s government is strongly shown by his unfulfilled projects. Among these was the draining of the Pontine marshes, the opening of Lakes Lucrinus and Avernus to form a harbour, a complete survey and map of the whole Empire,—plans afterwards executed by Agrippa, the minister of Augustus. Another and more memorable design was that of a Code of Laws embodying anil organising the scattered judgments and precedents which at that time regulated the Courts. It was several centuries before this great work was accomplished, by which Roman Law became the Law of civilised Europe.

§ 15. The liberal tendency of the Dictator’s mind was showii by the manner in which he supplied the great gaps which the Civil War had made in the benches of the Senate. Of late years the number of that Assembly had been increased from its original 300. Cicero on one occasion mentions 415 Members taking part in the votes, and many of course were absent. Put Caesar raised it to 900, thus probably doubling the largest number that had ever been counted in its ranka. Many of the new Senators were fortunate soldiers who had served him well. In raising such men to Senatorial rank he followed the example of Sylla. Many also were enfranchised Citizens of the towns of Cisalpine Gaul. Tlie old Citizens were indignant at this invasion of barbarians. “ The Gauls,” said one wit, “ had exchanged the trews for the toga, ancl had followed the conqueror’s triumphal car into the Senate.” “It were a good deed,” said another, “if no one would show the new Senators the way to the House.” The curule offices, however, were still conferred on men of Italian birth. The first foreigner who reached the Consulship was Balbus, a Spaniard of Gades, the friend of Caesar and of Cicero; but this was four years after the Dictator’s death.

§ 16. To revive a military population in Italy was not so much che object of Caesar, as that of former leaders of the People. His veterans received few assignments of land in Italy* The principal settlements by which he enriched them were in the Provinces. Corinth and Carthage were made Military Colonies, and regained somewhat of their ancient splendour and renown.

§ 17. He endeavoured .to restore the wasted population of Italy by more peaceful methods. The marriage-tie, which had become exceedingly lax in these profligate times, was encouraged by somewhat singular means. A married matron was allowed to use more ornaments 'and more costly carriages than the sumptuary Laws of Rome permitted to women generally. A married man who had three children born in lawful wedlock at Rome, or four born in Italy, or five born in the Provinces, enjoyed freedom from certain duties and charges.

§ 18. The great abuse of Slave-labour was difficult to correct. It was attempted to apply remedies familiar to despotic governments. An Ordinance was issued that no Citizens between twenty and ^forty years of age should be absent from Italy for more than three years. An ancient enactment was revived that on all estates at least one-third of the labourers should be free men. No doubt these measures were of little effect.

§ 19. Caesar’s great designs for the improvement of the City was shown by several facts. Under his patronage the first public library was opened at Rome by his friend C. Asinius Pollio, famous as a poet, and in later years as the historian of the Civil War. For the transaction of public business, he erected the tnagnificent building called the Basilica Julia, of which we will Bay a few words in a later page. ,

§ 20. But of all his acts, that by which his name is best remembered is the Reform of the Calendar. It has been before stated that the Roman year had hitherto consisted of 355 days, with a month of 30 days intercalated every third year, so that the average length of the year was 365 days.* If the intercalations had been regularly made, the Romans would have lost nearly one day in every four years; since the real length of the solar year is about 365i days. But the business was so care

lessly executed, that the difference between the civil year and the solar year sometimes amounted to several months.

Caesar called in the aid of Greek astronomers, to rectify the present error, and prevent error for the future. It was determined to make the 1st of January of the Roman year 709 u.c. coincide with the, 1st of January of tlie Solar year which we call 45 d.c. Bnt it was calculated that this 1st'of January of the year 709 u.c. would be 07 days in advance of the true time; or, in other words, would concur not with the 1st of January 45 B.C., but with the 22nd of October 40 b.c. And therefore two intercalary months, making together G7 days, were inserted between the last day of November and the 1st of December of the year 708. An intercalary month of 23 days had already been added to February of that year, according to the old method. Therefore, on the whole, the Roman year 708 consisted in all of the. prodigious number of 445 days.*' It was scoffingly called “The Year of Confusion.” More justly should it be named, as Macrobius observes, “The hist Year of Confusion.”

Thus the past error was corrected, aud the first of January, 709 u.c. became the same with the 1st of January 45 b.c.

To prevent future errors, tho year was extended from 355 to 305 days, each month being lengthened, except February, according to the rule which we still observe. But as the solar year consists of about 305| days*, it is manifest that it was necessary to add one day in every four years, and this was done at the end of February, as at present in our Leap Year.

Such was the famous Julian Calendar, which, with a slight alteration, continues to date every transaction and every letter of the present day.f

§ 21. The constant occupation required for these measures of reform, all .executed in the space of nine or ten months, necessarily absorbed the chief part of tho Dictator’s day, and prevented the free access w hich great men at Rome usually accorded

f The addition of one day in every four years would be correct, if tho solar year consisted exaetly of 365$- days, or 3G5 days 6 hours. In fact, it consists of 365 days, 5 hours, 47 minutes, 511 seconds, so that the Julian year is longer than the true solar year by about 11 miuutes. Cajsar’s astrononvrre knew this error, but neglected it. Accordingly in the year 15S2 a.d. the beginning of the Julian year was about 13 days behind the true time. Pope Gregory XIII. shortened that year by 10 days, still leaving the year 3 davs behind the true time; aud to prevent error for the future, ordered the additional day of February to be omitted three times in 400 years. Prot<*«tant England refused to aclopt this reform till tho year 1752 a.d., when 11 days were dropped between the 2nd and 14th of September, whieh gave ri«e to the vulgar cry,—“ Give us back our 11 da^s.” Russia still keeps the Old Style, aud her reckoning is now 12 days behind that of the rest of Europe.

to suitors and visitors. Caesar lamented this. The true reason for his seclusion was not understood, and the fact diminished his popularity. Yet his affability was the same as ever, and a letter of Cicero, in which he describes a visit he received from the conqueror in his villa at Puteoli, leaves a pleasing impression of both host and guest.¹⁵⁶ Cicero indeed had fully bowed to circumstances ; and into his speeches for the Pompeians, M. Marcellus and Q. Ligarius, he introduced compliments to Caesar too fulsome to be genuine. It was in his enforced retirement from public life which followed Pharsalia, that he composed • some of those pleasing Dialogues which we still read.f Both to him and to every other Senatorial Chief Csesar not only showed pardon, but favour.

§ 22. Yet the remnant of the Nobles loved him not. And with the People at large he suffered still more, from a belief that he wished to be made King. On his return from Spain, he had been named Dictator and Imperator for life. His head had for some time been placed on the money of the Republic, a regal honour conceded to none before him. Quintilis, the fifth month of the Calendar, received from him the name which it still bears. The Senate took an oath to guard the safety of his person. He was honoured with sacrifices, and honours hitherto reserved for the Gods. But Csesar was not satisfied. He was often heard to quote the sentiment of Euripides, that, “if any violation of law is excusable, it is excusable for the sake of gaining sovereign power It was no doubt to ascertain the popular sentiments that various propositions were made towards an assumption of the title of King. His statues in the Forum were found crowned with a diadem; but two of the Tribunes tore it off, and the mob applauded. On the 26th of January, at the Great Latin Festival on the Alban Mount, voices in the crowd saluted him as King; but mutterings of discontent reached his ear, and he promptly said: “ I am no King, but Csesar.” The final attempt was made at the Lupercalia on the 15th of February. Antony, in the character of one of the Priests of Pan, approached the Dictator as he sat presiding in his golden chair, and offered him an embroidered band, like the “diadem” of Oriental Sovereigns. The applause which followed was partial, and the Dictator put the offered gift aside. Then a burst of genuine cheering greeted him, which waxed louder still when he rejected it a second time. Old traditional feeling was too strong at Rome even for Caesar’s daring temper to

brave it. Tho People would submit to the despotic rule of a Dictator, but would not have a King.

Disappointed 110 doubt lie was, and ho determined to reign abroad, if he could not bo King at Rome. A large camp had been formed at Apollonia in Illyricum; in it was present a young man, tho declared heir of tho Dictator. This w as C. Octavius, son of his niece Atia, and therefore his grand nephew. He was born, as wc have noted, in the memorable year of Catiline’s conspiracy, and was now in his nineteenth year. From the time that lie had assumed the garb of manhood his health had been too delicate for military service. Notwithstanding this, he had ventured to demand the Mastership of the Horse from his unclc. But he was quietly refused, and sent to take his first lessons in the art of war at Apollonia, where a large and well-equipped army had been assembled. This powerful force was destined to recover the Eagles of Crassus, which wero still retained as trophies by tho Parthians. A Sibylline oracle being produced, saying, “ that none but a King could conquer Parthia,” a Decree was moved in the Senate, by which Caesar was to be enabled to assume the style of King, not at Rome, but in tho Provinces. But events prevented this Decree from being carried into effect

§ 23. Meanwhile other causes of discontent had been agitating various classes at Rome. Cleopatra appeared at Rome with her boy Caesarion, whom she declared to bo her son by Caesar. It was her ambition to be acknowledged as his wife, and to obtain the Dictator’s inheritance for the boy,—a thing hateful even to the degenerate Romans of that day. The more fiery partisans of Caesar disapproved of his clemency; tho more prodigal sort were angry at his regulations for securing the Provincials from oppression. Tho Populace of the City complained,—the genuine Romans at seeing favour extended to Provincials, those of foreign origin because they had been excluded from tho corn-bounty. Caesar no doubt was eager to return to his army, and escape from the increasing difficulties which beset his civil government But as soon as he joined tho army, he would assume monarchical power, in virtue of the late Decree; and this consideration urged tho discontented to a plot against his life.

§ 24. The difficulty was to find a leader. At length M. Junius Brutus accepted the post of danger. This young man, a nephew of Cato, had taken his unclc as an example for his public life. But he was fonder of speculation than of action. Ilis habits were reserved, rather those of a student than a statesman. lie had reluctantly joined the cause of Pompey, for ho could ill for* get that it was by Pompey that his father had been put to death in cold blood. After l harsalia, he was treated by Caesar almost like a son. In the present year he had been proclaimed Praetor of the City, with the promise of the Consulship. But the discontented remnants of the Senatorial party assailed him with constant reproaches. The.name of Brutus, dear to all Roman patriots, was made a rebuke to him. “ His ancestor expelled the Tarquins; could he sit .quietly under a King’s rule?” At the foot of the statue of that ancestor, or on his own praetorian tribunal, notes were placed, containing phrases such as these:— “Thou art not Brutus: would thou wert.” “Brutus, thou sleepest.” “Awake, Brutus.” Gradually he was brought to think that it was his duty as a patriot to put an end to Caesar’s rule even by taking his life. The most notable of those who arrayed themselves under him was Cassius. This man’s motive is unknown. He had never taken much part in politics; he had made submission to the conqueror, and had been received with marked favour. Some personal reason probably actuated his unquiet spirit. More than sixty persons were in the secret, most of them, like Brutus and Cassius, under personal obligations to the Dictator. P. Servilius Casca was by his grace Tribune of the Plebs. L. Tillius Cimber was promised the government of Bitliynia. Dec. Brutus, one of his old Gallic officers, was Praetor-elect, and was to be gratified with the rich Province of Cisalpine Gaul. C. Trebonius, another trusted officer, had received every favour which the Dictator could bestow; he had just laid down the Consulship, and was on the eve of departure for the government of Asia. Q. Ligarius had lately accepted a pardon from the Dictator, and rose from a sick bed to join the conspirators.

§ 25. A meeting of the Senate was called for the Ides of March, at which Caesar was to be present. This was the day appointed for the murder. The secret had oozed out. Many persons warned Caesar that some danger was impending. A Greek soothsayer told him of the very day. On the morning of the Ides his wife arose so disturbed by dreams, that she persuaded him to relinquish his purpose of presiding in the Senate, and he sent Antony in his stead.

This change of purpose was reported after the House was formed. The conspirators were in despair. Dec. Brutus at once went to Caesar, told him that the Fathers were only waiting to confer upon him the sovereign power which he desired, and begged him not to listen to auguries and dreams. Caesar was

f>ersuaded to change his purpose, and was carried forth in his itter. On his way, a slave who had discovered the conspiracy tried to attract his notice, but was unable to reach him for the crowd. A Greek Philosopher, named Artemidorus, succeded in putting a roll of paper into his hand, containing full information of tho conspiracy; but Caesar, supposing it to be a petition, laid it by his side lor a more convenient season. Meanwhile tho conspirators had reason to think that their plot had been discovered. A friend eamc up to Casea and said, “All, Casca, Brutus has told me your secrct!” The conspirator started, but was relieved by the next scntcnco: “ 'Where will you find money for the expenses of the ^Edileship ?” More scrions alann was felt when Popillius Lacnas remarked to Brutus and Cassius, “You have my good wishes; but what you do, do quickly,”— especially when the same Senator stepped up to Caesar on his entering the IIousc, and began whispering in his ear. So terrified was Cassius, that lie thought of stabbing himself instead of Caisar, till Brutus quietly observed that the gestures of Popillius indicated that lie w’as asking a favour, not revealing a fatal secret. Caesar took his scat without further delay.

As was agreed, Cimber presented a petition, praying for his brother’s recall from banishment; and all the conspirators pressed round the Dictator, urging his favourable answer. Displeased at their importunity, Caesar attempted to rise. At that moment, Cimber seized the lappet of his robe, and pulled him down; and immediately Casca struck him from the side, but inflicted only a slight wound. Then all drew their daggers and assailed him. Cajsar for a time defended himself with the gown folded over his left arm, and the sharp-pointed stile which he held in his right hand for writing on the wax of his tablets. But when he saw Brutus among the assassins, he exclaimed, “ You too, Brutus!” and covering his face with his gown offered no further resistance. In their eagerness, some blows intended for their victim fell upon themselves. But enough reached Caesar to do the bloody w’ork. Pierced by three-and-twenty wounds, lie fell at the base of Pompey’s statue, which had been removed after Pharsalia by Antony, but had been restored by the- magnanimity of Caesar.

§ 26. Thus died “ the foremost man of all the world,” a man who failed in nothing that he attempted. He might, Cicero thought, have been a great orator; his Commentaries remain to prove that lie was a great writer. As a general lie had few superiors, as a statesman and politician no equal. That which stamps him as a man of true greatness, is tho entire absence of vanity and self-conecit from his character. He paid, indeed, great attention to his personal appearance, even when his hard lifo and unremitting activity had brought 011 fits of an epileptic nature, and left him with that meagre visage which is made familiar to us from his coins. Even then lie was sedulous in arrangiug hi* robes, and was pleased to have the privilege of wearing a laurel crown to hide the scantiness of his hair. But - these were foibles too trifling to be taken as symptoms ‘ of real vanity. His morality in domestic life was not better or worse than commonly prevailed in those licentious days. He indulged in profligate amours freely and without scruple. But public opinion reproached him not for this. He seldom, if ever, allowed pleasure to interfere with business, and here his character forms a notable contrast to that of Sylla. But Sylla loved pleasure more than power; Csesar valued power above all other things. As a general, Caesar was probably no less inferior to Pompey than Sylla to Marius. Yet his successes in war, achieved by a man who, in his forty-ninth year, had hardly seen a camp, add to our conviction of his real genius. Those successes were due not so much to scientific manoeuvres, as to rapid audacity of movement and mastery over the wills of men. That he caused the death or captivity of more than a million of Gauls, to provide treasure and form an army for his political purposes, is shocking to us; but it was not so to Roman moralists. His political career was troubled by no scruples; to gain his end he was careless of the means. But before we judge him severely, we must remember the manner in which the Marian party had been trampled under foot by Sylla and the Senate. If, however, the mode in which he rose to power was questionable, the mode in which he exercised it was admirable. The indulgence with which Caesar spared the lives of his opponents, and received them into favour, "was peculiarly his own. There seemed no escape from anarchy except by submission to the strong domination of one capable man. The effect of Caesar’s fall was to cause a renewal of bloodshed for another half generation; and then his work was finished by a far less generous ruler. Those who slew Caesar were guilty of a great crime, and a still greater blunder.

§ 1. Terror of Senate and People: Conspirators retire to Capitol. § 2. Antony takes possession of Caesar’s money and papers. § 3. Brutus addresses People in Forum: Conspirators again retire to Capitol. § 4. Negociation •with Antony: confirmation of Cajsar’s Acts. § 6. Caisar’a Will: Funeral in Forum: Riot. § 6. Temporising policy of Antony: he abolishes Dictatorship : quits Rome. § 7. Octavius lands in Italy and declares himself Cajsar’s heir: quarrel with Antony. § 8. Antony master of Rome: tho Liberators quit Italy: Cicero returns to Rome. § 9. Antony’s uso of Caesar’s papers. § 10. Tlie first Philippic: Antony’s reply: Ciccro vritc* the Second Philippic. § 11. Pansa and Ilirtius, Consuls-elect, declare for Octavius: Antony attacks Dec. Brutus at Mutiua: Ciccro publithtt his Second Philippic. § 12. Antony intercepts Pansa, but is himself intercepted by Ilirtius: death of both Consuls. § 13. Hopes of Senate: Antony retreats across tho Alps and joius Lepidus. § 14 Octavius marches to Rome and is elected Consul with Q. Pcdius. § 15. Pcdian Law, condemning Ctesar’s murderers: death of Dcc. Brutus. § 16. Formation of Triumvirate. § 17. Proscription. § 18. Death of Cicero. § 19. His character. § 20. Sext Pompey saves many of Proscribed: Octavius attempts to expel him from Sicily. § 21. Brutus in Macedonia, Cassius in Syria: death of Trebonius and of Dolnbclla. § 22. Doings of Brutus and Cassius in Asia Minor: vision of Brutus. § 23. Position of hostile armies at Philippi § 24. First Battle of Philippi: death of Cassius. § 25. Second Battlo of Philippi: death of Brutus. § 26. Character of Brutus.

§ 1. While the Conspirators were at their bloody work, the mass of the Senators rushed in confused terror to the doors; and

when Brutus turned to address his peers in defence of the deed, the Hall was well nigh empty. Cicero, who had been present, answered not, though he was called by name; Antony had hurried away to exchange his consular robes for the garb of a slave. Disappointed of obtaining the sanction of the. Senate, the Conspirators sallied out into the Forum to win the ear of the People. But here too they were disappointed. Not knowing what massacre might be in store, every man had fled to his c'.vn house; and in vain the Conspirators paraded the Forrm, holding up their blood-stained weapons and proclaiming themselves the Liberators of Rome. Disappointment was not tl.eir only feeling: they were not without fear. They knew that Lepidus, being on the eve of departure for his Province of Narbonese Gaul, had a Legion encamped on the Island of the Tiber : and if he were to unite with Antony against them, Caesar would quickly be avenged. In all haste, therefore, they retired to the Capitol. Meanwhile, three of Caesar’s slaves placed their master’s body upon a stretcher, and carried it to his house on the south side of the Forum with one arm dangling from the unsupported corner. In this condition the widowed Calpurnia received the lifeless clay of him who had lately been Sovereign of the world.

§ 2. Lepidus moved his troops to the Campus Martins. But Antony had no thoughts of using force; for in that case probably Lepidus would have become master of Rome. During the night he took possession of the treasure which Caesar had collected to defray the expenses of his Parthian campaign, and persuaded Calpurnia to put into his hands all the Dictator’s papers. Possessed of these securities, he barricaded his house on the Carinae, and determined to watch the course of events.

§ 3. In the evening Cicero, with other Senators, visited the self-styled Liberators in the Capitol. They had not communicated their plot to the Orator, through fear (they said) of his irresolute counsels; but now that the deed was done, he extolled it as a godlike act. Next morning, Dolabella, Cicero’s son-in-law, whom Caesar had promised should be his successor in the Consulship, assumed the Consular fasces and joined the Liberators ; while Cinna, son of the old Marian leader, and therefore 'brother-in-law to Caesar, threw aside his Praetorian robes, declaring he would no longer wear the tyrant’s livery. Dec. Brutus, a good soldier, had taken a band of gladiators into pay, to serve as a body-guard of the Liberators. Thus strengthened, they ventured again to descend into the Forum. Brutus mounted the Tribune, and addressed the People in a dispassionate speech, which produced little effect. But when Cinna assailed the memory of the Dictator, tho crowd broke out into menacing cries, and the Liberators again retired to the Capitol.

§ 4. That same night they entered into ncgociations with Antony, and the result appeared next morning, the second after the murder. The Senate, summoned to meet, obeyed tho call in large numbers. Antony and Dolabella attended in their Consular robes, and Cinna resumed his Praetorian garb. It was soon apparent that a reconciliation had been effected: for Antony moved that a general amnesty should be granted, and Cicero sacondcd the motion in an animated speech. It was carried; and Antony next moved, that all the Acts of the Dictator should 1)3 recognised as law. Ho had his own purposes here; but the Liberators also saw in the motion an advantage to themselves; for they were actually in possession of somo of the chief Magistracies, and had received appointments to some of the richest Provinces of the Empire. This proposal, therefore, was favourably received; but it was adjourned to the next day, together with the important question of Caesar’s Funeral.

On the next day, Caesar’s Acts were formally confirmed, and among them his Will was declared valid, though its provisions were yet unknown. After this, it was difficult to reject tho proposal that the Dictator should have a public burial. Old Senators remembered the riots that attended the funeral of Clodius, and shook their heads. Cassius opposed it. But Brutus, with imprudent magnanimity, decided in favour of allowing it. To seal the reconciliation, Lcpidus entertained Brutus at dinner, and Cassius was feasted by Mark Antony.

§ 5. The Will was immediately made public. Cleopatra was still in Rome, and entertained hopes that the boy Caisarion would be declared the Dictator’s heir; for though lie had been married thrice, there were no one of his lineage surviving. But Caesar was too much a Roman, and knew the Romans too well, to bo guilty of this folly. Young C. Octavius, his sister’s son, was declared his heir. Legacies were left to all his supposed friends, among whom were several of those who had assassinated him. His noble gardens beyond the Tiber were devised to tho use of the Public, and every Roman Citizen was to receive a donation of 300 sesterces (between 21. and 3/. sterling). The effect of this recital was electric. Devotion to the memory of the Dictator and hatred for his murderers at once filled every breast.

Two or three days after this followed the Funeral. The body was to bo burnt and the ashes deposited in the Campus Martius near the tomb of his daughter Julia. But it was first brought into the Forum upon a bier inlaid with ivory and covered with rich tapestries, which was carried by men high in rank and office. Thore Antony, as Consul, rose to pronounce the Funeral Oration. He ran through the chief acts of Caesar’s life, recited his Will, and then spoke of the death which had rewarded him. To make this more vividly present to the excitable Italians, he displayed a waxen image marked with the three-and-twenty wounds, and produced the very robe which he had worn all rent and blood-stained. Soul-stirring dirges added to the solemn horror of the scene. But to us the memorable speech which Shakspere puts into Antony’s mouth will give the liveliest notion of the art used and the impression produced. That impression was instantaneous. The Senator friends of the Liberators who had attended the ceremony looked on in moody silence. Soon the menacing gestures of the crowd make them look to their safety. They fled; and the multitude insisted on burning the body, as they had burnt the body of Clodius, in the sacred precincts of the Forum. Some of the veterans who attended the funeral, set fire to the bier; benches and firewood heaped round it soon made a sufficient pile.

From the blazing pyre the crowd rushed, eager for vengeance, to the houses of the Conspirators. But all had fled betimes. One poor wretch fell a victim to the fury of the mob,—Helvius Cinna, a poet who had devoted his art to the service, of the Dictator. He was mistaken for L. Cornelius Cinna the Prjetor, and torn to pieces before the mistake could be explained.*

§ 6. Antony was now the real Master of Home. The treasure which he had seized gave him the means of purchasing goodwill, and of securing the attachment of the veterans stationed in various parts of Italy. He did not, however, proceed in the course which, from the tone of his Funeral harangue, might have been expected. He renewed friendly intercourse with Brutus and Cassius, who were encouraged to visit Rome once at least, if not oftener, after that day; and Dec. Brutus, with liis gladiators, was suffered to remain in the City. Antony went still further. He gratified the Senate by passing a Law to abolish the Dictatorship for ever. He then left Rome to win the favour of the Italian Communities, and try the temper of the veterans.

§ 7. Meanwhile another actor appeared upon the scene. This was young Octavius. He had been but six months in the camp at Apollonia; but in that short time he had formed a close friendship with M. Vipsanius Agrippa, a young man of his own age, who possessed great abilities for active life, but could not boast of any distinguished ancestry. As soon as the news of

* This story is however rendered somewhat doubtful by the manner in which Cinna is mentioned in Virgil’s ninth F.^logue, which was certainly written in or after the year 40 b.o.

his uncle’s assassination reached the camp, his friend Agrippa recommended him to appeal to the troops, and march upon Rome. But the youth, with a wariness above his years, resisted these bold counsels. Landing near Brundusium almost alone, he there first heard that Caisar’s Will had been published, and that he was declared Cajsar’s heir. lie at once accepted tho dangerous honour. As he travelled slowly towards the Cit}’, he stayed some days at Puteoli with his mother Atia, who was now married to L. Philippus. Both mother and stepfather attempted to dissuade him from the perilous business of claiming his inheritance. At the same place he had an interview with Cicero, who had quitted Rome in despair after the Funeral, and left the Orator under the impression that ho might be won to what was deemed the patriotic party. He arrived at Rome about the beginning of May, and demanded from Antony, who had now returned from his Italian tour, an account of the moneys of which the Consul had taken possession, in order that he might discharge the obligations laid upon him by his uncle’s Will. But Antony had already spent great part of the money in bribing Dolabella and other influential persons; nor was he willing to give up any portion of his spoil. Octavius therefore sold what remained of his uncle’s property, raised money on his own credit, and paid all legacies with great exactness. This act earned him much popularity. Antony began to fear this boy of eighteen, whom he had hitherto despised, and the Senate learned to look on him as a person to be conciliated.

With this feeling they decreed that the month Quintilis should continue to be styled July, as had been determined in the Dictator’s lifetime : and a day was set apart for celebrating his memory with divine honours.

§ 8. Still Antony remained in possession of all actual power. The Senate voted, on his demand, that the Provinces of Macedonia and Syria, though granted to Brutus and Cassius by tho act of Cajsar, should be given to C. Antonius and Dolabella, and that the coveted Province of Cisalpine Gaul should be transferred from Dec. Brutus to Antony himself. Tho news of these arbitrary acts convinced the Liberators that they had nothing to hope at Rome. Dec. Brutus immediately left tho City and took possession of his Province by force. But M. Brutus and Cassius still dallied. Their vacillating conduct during this time gives us an unfavourable impression of their fitness for any enterprise of mark. Cicero, not himself remarkable for political firmness, in this crisis displayed a vigour worthy of his earlier days, and was scandalised by the unworthy bickerings of liis friends.* At

* See an interesting Letter, in which he describes a conference held by the Conspirators in his presence at Antium.—Add Att. xv. 11 length they set sail from Yelia for Greece. This was in the month of September. Cicero also had at one moment made up his mind to retire from public life and end his days at Athens, in learned leisure. In the course of this summer he continued to employ himself on some of his most elaborate treatises. Ilis works on the Nature of the Gods and on Divination, his Offices, his Dialogue on Old Age, and several other Essays belong to this period, and mark the restless activity of his mind. But though he twice set sail from Italy, he was driven back to port at Yelia, where he found Brutus and Cassius. Here he received letters from Au. Hirtius, and other friends of Caesar, which gave him hopes that, in the name of Octavius, they might successfully oppose Antony, and restore constitutional government. He determined to return, and announced his purpose to Brutus and Cassius, who commended him, and took leave of him. They went their way to the East to raise armies against Antony; ho repaired to Rome to fight the battles of his party in the Senate House.

§ 9. Meanwhile Antony had been running riot. In possession of Caesar’s papers, with no one to check him, he produced ready warrant for every measure which lie wished to carry, and pleaded the vote of the Senate which confirmed all'the Acts of Caesar. When he could not produce a genuine paper, he interpolated or forged what was needful. .

§ 10. On the day after Cicero’s return (September 1st) there was a meeting of the Senate. But the Orator did not attend, and Antony threatened to send men to drag him from his house. Next day Cicero was in his place, but now Antony was absent. The Orator rose and addressed the Senate in what is called his First Philippic. This was a measured attack upon the government and policy of Antony, but personalities were carefully eschewed;—the tone of the whole speech, indeed, is such as might bs delivered by a leader of opposition in Parliament at the present day. But Antony, enraged at his boldness, summoned a meeting for the 19tli of September, which Cicero did not think it prudent to attend. He then attacked the absent Orator in the strongest language of personal abuse and menace. Cicero sate down, and composed his famous Second Philippic, which is written as if it were delivered on the same day, in rjply to Antony’s invective. At present, however, lie contented himself with bending a copy of it to Atticus, enjoining secrecy.

§ 11. Matters quickly drew to a head between Antony and Octavius. The latter had succeeded in securing a thousand men of his uncle’s veterans who had settled in Campania; and by great exertions in the different towns of Italy had levied a considerable force. Meantime four of the Epirote Legions had just landed at Brundusium, and Antony hastened to attach them to his cause. But tho largess which lie offered them was only a hundred denaries a man, and the soldiers laughed in his facc. Antony, enraged at their conduct, seized the ringleaders, aud decimated them. But this severity only served to change their open insolence into sullen anger, and emissaries from Octavius were ready to draw them over to the side of their young master. They had so far obeyed Antony as to march northwards to Ariminum, while lie repaired to Rome. But as ho entered the Senate House, lie heard that two of the four Legions had deserted to his rival, and in great alarm lie hastened to the camp just in time to keep the remainder of the troops under his standard, by distributing to every man live hundred denaries.

The persons to hold the Consulship for the next year had been designated by Caisar. They were both old officers of the Gallic army, C. Vibius Pansa, and Au. Ilirtius, the reputed author of the Eighth Book of tho History of the Gallic War. Cicero was ready to believe that they had become patriots, because, disgusted with the arrogance of Antony, they had declared for Octavius and the Senate. Antony began to fear that all parties might combino to crush him. Ho determined, therefore, no longer to remain inactive; and about the end of November, having collected all his troops at Ariminum, he marched along tho ^Einilian road to drive Dec. Brutus out of Cisalpiuc Gaul. Decimus was obliged to throw himself into Mutina (Modena), and Antony blockaded the place. As soon as his back was turned, Cicero published the famous Second Philippic, in which lie lashed the Consul with the most unsparing hand, going through the history of his past life, exaggerating the debaucheries, which were common to Antony with great part of the Roman youth, and painting in the strongest colours the protligato use he had made of Caesar’s papers. Its effect was great, and Cicero followed up the blow by the following twelve Philippics, which were speeches delivered in the Senate House and Forum, at intervals from December 44 b.c. to April in the next year.

§ 12. Cicero was anxious to break with Antony at onro, by declaring him a public enemy. But the latter was still regarded by many Senators as the head of tho Ciesarian party, and it was resolved to treat with him. But the demands of Antony were so extravagant, that negociations were at once broken off, and nothing remained but to try the fortune of arms. The Consuls proceeded to levy troops; but so exhausted was tho Treasury, that now for the first time since the triumph of

^Emilias Paullus, it was found necessary to levy a property-tax on the citizens of Rome. •

Octavius and the Consuls assembled their forccs at Alba. On the first day of the new year (43 b.c.) Hirtius marched for Mu-tina, with Octavius, under his command. The other Consul, Pansa, remained at Rome to raise new levies; but by the end of March he also marchcd to form a junction with Hirtius. Both parties pretended to be acting in Caesar’s name.

Antony left his brother Lucius in the trenches before Mutin a, and took the field against Hirtius and Octavius. For three months the opponents lay watching each other. But when Antony learnt that Pansa was coming up, he made a rapid movement southward with two of his veteran Legions, and attacked him. A sharp conflict followed, in which Pansa’s. troops were defeated, and the Consul himself was carried, mortally wounded, off the field. But Hirtius was on the alert, and assaulted Antony’s wearied troops on their way back to their camp, with some advantage. This was on .the 15th of April, and on the 27th, Hirtius drew Antony from his entrenchments before Mu-tina. A fierce battle followed, which ended in the troops of Antony being driven back into their lines. Hirtius followed close upon the flying enemy; the camp was carried by storm, and a complete victory would have been Avon had not Hirtius himself fallen. Upon this disaster Octavius drew off .the troops. The news of the first battle had been reported at Rome as a victory, and gave rise to extravagant rejoicings. The second battle was really a victory, but all rejoicing Avas damped by the news that one Consul Avas dead and the other dying. No such fatal mischance had happened since the Second Punic War, Avhen Marcellus and Crispinus fell in one day.

§ 13. After his defeat Antony felt it impossible to maintain the siege of Mutina. With Dec. Brutus in the toAvn behind him, and the victorious Legions of Octavius before him, his position Avas critical. He therefore prepared to .retreat, and effected this purpose like a good soldier. His destination Avas the province of Narbonese Gaul, Avhere Lepidus had assumed the government, and had promised him support. But the Senate al?o had hopes in the same quarter. L. Munatius Plancus com’ manded in Northern Gaul, and C. Asinius Pollio in Southern Spain. Sext. Pompeius had made good his ground in the latter country, and had almost expelled Pollio from Baetica. Plancus and Pollio, both friends and favourites of Caesar, had as yet declared neither for Antony nor Octavius. If they would declare for the Senate, Lepidus, a feeble and fickle man, might desert Antony; or, if Octavius Avould join with Dec. Brutus, and

pursuo him, Antony might not be able to cscapc from Italy at all. But these political combinations failed. Phancus and Pollio stood aloof, waiting for the course of events. Dec. Brutus was not strong enough to pursue Antony by himself, and Octavius was unwilling, perhaps unable, to unite the veterans of Caesar with troops commanded by one of Cnesar’s murderers. And so it happened, that Antony effected his retreat across the Alps, but not without cxtremo hardships, which ho boro in common with the meanest soldier. It was at such times that his good qualities always showed themselves, and his gallant endurance of misery endeared him to every man under his command. On his arrival in Narbonesc Gaul he met Lepidus at Forum Julii (Frejus), and here the two commanders agreed on a plan of operations.

§ 14. The conduct of Octavius gave rise to grave suspicions. It was even said that the Consuls had been killed by his agents. Cicero, who had hitherto maintained his cause, was silent. IIo hal delivered his fourteenth and last Philippic on tho news of the first victory gained by Hirtius. But now he talked in private of “ removing” the boy of whom he had hoped to make a tool. Octavius, however, had taken his part, and was not to be removed. . Secretly he ent.ercd into negociations with Antony. After some vain efforts on the part of the Senate to thwart him, ho appeared in the Campus Martius with his Legions. Cicero and most of the Senators disappeared, and the ficklo populacc greeted the young heir of Caesar with applause. Though he was not yet twenty he demanded the Consulship, having been previously relieved from the provisions of the Lex Annalis by a Decree of the Scnat^, and he was elected to the first office in tho State, with his cousin Q. Pedius.¹⁵⁷

§ 15. A Curiate Law passed, by which Octavius was adopted into the Patrician Gens of the Julii, and was put into legal possession of the nams which he had already assumed,—C. Julius Cjesar Octavianus. We shall henceforth call him Octavian.

The change in his policy was soon indicated by a Law, in which lie formally separated himself from tho Senate. Pedius brought it forward. By its provisions all Ciesar’s murderers were summoned to tako their trial. Of course, none of them appeared, and they were condemned by default. By the end of September Octavian was again in Cisalpine Gaul, and in close negociation with Antony and Lepidus. The fruits of his conduct soon appeared. Plancus and JPollio declared against Ca'sar’s murderers. *Dec. Brutus, deserted by his soldiery, attempted to escape into Macedonia through Illyricum; but he was overtaken near Aquileia, and slain by order of Antony. .

§ 16. Italy and Gaul being now clear of the Senatorial party, Lepidus, as mediator, arranged a meeting between Octavian and Antony, upon an island in a small river near Bononia (Bologna). Here the three potentates agreed that they should assume a joint and coordinate authority, under the name of “Triumvirs for settling the affairs of the Commonwealth.” Antony was to liav3 the two Gauls, except the Narbonese district, which, with Spain, was assigned to Lepidus ; Octavian received Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa. Italy was for the present to be left to the Consuls of the year, and for the ensuing year Lepidus, with Plancus, received promise of this high office. In return, Lepidus gave up his military force, while Octavian and Antony, each at the head of ten Legions, prepared to conquer the eastern part of the Empire_v which could not yet be divided like the Western Provinces, be^ cause it was in possession of Brutus and Cassius.

§ 17. But before they began war, the Triumvirs agreed to follow the example set by Sylla,—to extirpate their opponents by a Proscription, and to raise money by confiscation. They framed a list of all men’s names whose death could be regarded as advantageous to any of the three, and on this list each in turn pricked a name. Antony had made many personal enemies by his proceedings at Rome, and was at no loss for victims. Octavian had few direct enemies; but the boy-despot discerned with precocious sagacity those who were likely to impede his ambitious projects, and chose his victims with little hesitation. Lepidus would not be left behind in the bloody work. The author of the Philippics was one of Antony’s first victims; Octavian gave him up, and took as an equivalent for his late friend the life of L. Caesar, uncle of Antony. Lepidus surrendered his brother Paullus for some similar favour. So the work went on. The description already given of Sylla’s Proscription may be repeated here literally, except that every horror was increased, and the number of victims multiplied. Not fewer than three hundred Senators and two thousand Knights were on the list. Q. Pedius, an honest and upright man, died in his Consulship, overcome by vexation and shame at being implicated in these transactions.

§ 18."As soon as their secret business was ended, the Triumvirs determined to enter Rome publicly. Hitherto they had not published more than seventeen names of the Proscribed. They made their entrance severally on three successive days, cacli attended by a Legion. A Law was immediately brought in to invest them formally with the supreme authority, which they had assumed. This was followed by the promulgation of fuexcessive. lists, each larger than its predecessor.

Among the victims, lar the most conspicuous was Cicrro. With his brother Quintus, the old Orator had retired to his Tusculan villa after the Battle of Mutina; and now they endeavoured to escape in the hope of joining Brutus in Macedonia: for the Orator’s only son was serving as a Tribune in the Liberator’s army. After many changes of domicile, they reached Astura, a little island near Antium, where they found themselves chort of money, and Quintus ventured to Rome to procure the necessary supply. Here he was recognised and seized, together with his son. Each desired to die first, and the mournful claim to precedence was settled by the soldiers killing both at tho same moment. Meantime Cicero had put to sea. But even in this extremity he could not make up liis mind to leave Italy, and put to land at Circeii. After further hesitation, he again embarked, and again sought the Italian shore near Formiae (Mola di Gaeta). For the night he stayed at his villa near that place; and next morning w^Tould not move, exclaiming,—“Let me die in my own country,—that country which I have so often saved.” But his faithful slaves forced him into a litter, and carried him again towards the coast. Scarcely were they gone, when a band of Antony’s blood-hounds reached his villa, and were put upon the track of their victim by a young man who owed everything to the Ciceros. The old Orator from his litter saw the pursuers coming up. Ilis own followers w*cre strong enough to have made resistance; but he desired them to set the litter down. Then, raising himself on his elbow, he calmly waited for the ruffians, and offered his neck to the sword, lie was soon despatched. The chief of the band, by Antony’s express orders, hewed off tho head and hands and carried them to Rome. Fulvia, the widow of Clodius and now tho wife of Antony, drove her hair-pin through the tongue which had denounced the iniquities of both her husbands. The head which had given birth to tho second Philippic, and the hands which had written it, were nailed to the Rostra, the home of their eloquence. Tho sight and the associations raised feelings of horror and pity in every heart.

§ 19. Cicero died in his sixty-fourth year, lie had fallen on evil times; and, being eminently a man of peace, was constantly called upon to mingle in counsels of civil war. From his first appearance in public during the Dictatorship of Sylla to tho great triumph of his Consulship, he rose with a vigorous and unflagging energy, which gave promise of a man fit to cope with the dangers that were then closing round the Constitution. But the performance was not equal to the promise. A\hcn onco

Cicero liad joined the ranks of the Senatorial Nobility, his political conduct is marked by an almost peevish vacillation. His advances were coldly rejected by Pompey. He could not make up his mind to break entirely with Caesar. His new Senatorial associates never heartily welcomed the New Man, whose labo* rious habits contrasted disadvantageously with their own. As the first Orator of the day, he thought he had a claim to be considered as equal to the first Statesmen; and the rejection of this claim even by his own party threw him still more out of harmony with that party.

If we turn from his public to his private character, our commendations need less reserve. None but must admire the vigorous industry with which from early youth he prepared for* (lis chosen profession of an Advocate, full of the generous belief chat every branch of liberal studies must be serviceable to one >vho is expected to bring out of his treasure things new and old.* To mould his multifarious knowledge he possessed a readiness of speech which sometimes betrayed him into verbosity. The Advocate with an eye only to his verdict is sometimes for-, gotten in the Orator who desires to display his own powers. When the Forum and the Senate-house were closed to him, he poured the overflowing abundance of his acquirements into those dialogues and treatises which we still read with delight. He wrote rapidly and fluently as he spoke, rather to amuse and employ his mind in times of enforced idleness, than as one who feels a call to instruct or benefit mankind. His disposition was extremely amiable. He felt no jealousy for rivals: Hor^ tensius .was among his intimate friends, and is chiefly known to us by Cicero’s generous praise. No man had more friends. In liis family, relations he shines brightly amid the darkness of that age. His wife Terentia was one with whom he had little sympathy; her masculine energy was oppressive to his less resolute character. It was a relief doubtless, to find an excuse for divorcing her in the troubles of the Civil War. But divorces were matters of course in these times. Nor did public opinion condemn him, when to mend his broken fortunes he married Publilia, a girl of largo property, who was his ward. To his affection for his brother Quintus, and for his children, there is no drawback. _t On the whole, his character displays much weakness, but very little evil; while the perfect integrity and justice of his life, in an age when such qualities were rare, if they do not compensate for his defects in a political point of view, yet entitle him to the regard and admiration of all good men.

§ 20. Many of the Proscribed cscaped their fate, and found refuge, some with Brutus in the East, some in Africa, more still with Scxt. Pompeius. The adventurer took advantage of the troubles in Italy to extend his power. lie occupied Sicily, and his fleets swept the coasts of Italy to afford assistance to the Proscribed. Next year, while Antony was intrusted with tho task of levying troops against Brutus and Cassius, Octavian undertook to wrest Sicily from the hands of Sextus. But his fleet was encountered and beaten off by the skilful captains of the enemy; and Octavian was compelled to depart for the East without accomplishing his purpose. ¹⁵⁸

§ 21. Brutus and Cassius, when they left Italy in the autumn of 44 B.C., at once repaired to the Provinces allotted to them, though by Antony’s influence the Senate had transferred Macedonia from Brutus to his own brother Caius, and Syria from Cassius to Dolabella. C. Antonius was already in possession of parts of Macedonia; but Brutus succeeded in dislodging him. Meanwhile Cassius, already well known in Syria for his successful conduct of the Parthian war, had established himself in that Province, before he heard of the approach of Dolabella. This worthless man left Italy about the same time as Brutus and Cassius, and, at the head of several Legions, marched without opposition through Macedonia into Asia Minor. Here C. Trc-bonius had already arrived. But lie was unablo to cope with Dolabella; and tho latter surprised him and took him prisoner at Smyrna. He was put to death with unseemly contumely in Dolabclla’s presence. This was in February 43 b.c.; and thus two of Cassar’s murderers, in less than a year’s time, felt tho blow of retributive justice. When the news of this piece of butchery reached Rome, Cicero, believing that Octavian was a puppet in his hands, was ruling Romo by the eloquence of his Philippics. On his motion, Dolabella was declared a public enemy.* Cassius lost no time in marching his Legions into Asia, to execute the behest of the Senate, though lie had been dispossessed of liis Province by the Senate itself. Dolabella threw himself into Laodicea, where he sought a voluntary death.

§ 22. By the end of 43 B.C., therefore, the wholo of the East was in the hands of Brutus and Cassius. But instead of making preparations for war with Antony, the two Commanders spent the early part of th* year 42 b.c. in plundering the miserablo cities of Asia Minor. Brutus demanded men and money of the Lycians; and, when they refused, lie laid siege to Xanthus, their principal city. The Xantliians made tho same bravo resistance which they had offered 500 years before to the Persian invaders.¹⁵⁹ They burnt their city, and put themselves to death rather than submit. Brutus wept over their fate, and abstained from further exactions. But Cassius showed less moderation ; from the Rhodians alone, though they were Allies of Rome, he demanded all their precious metals. After this campaign of plunder, the two chiefs met at Sardis, and renewed the alterca-ti6ns which Cicero had deplored in Italy. It is probable that war might have broken out between them, had not the preparations of the Triumvirs waked them from their dream of security. It was as he was passing over into Europe, that Brutus, who continued his studious habits amid all disquietudes, and limited his time of sleep to a period too small for the requirements of health, was dispirited by the vision which Shakspere, after Plutarch, has made famous. It was no doubt the result of a diseased frame, though it was universally held to be a divine visitation. As he sat in his tent in the dead of night, he thought a huge and shadowy form stood by him ; and when he calmly asked, “ What and whence art thou ?” it answered, or seemed, to answer, “ I am thine evil genius, Brutus: we shall meet again at Philippi.”

§ 23. Meantime Antony’s lieutenants had crossed the Ionian Sea, and penetrated without opposition into Thrace. The Republican leaders found them at Philippi. The aimy of Brutus and Cassius amounted to at least 80,000 infantry, supported by 20,000 horse; but they were ill supplied with experienced officers. For M. Valerius Messalla, a young man of twenty-eight, held the chief command after Brutus and Cassius; and Horace, who was but three-and-twenty, the son of a Freedman, and a youth of feeble constitution, was appointed a Legionary Tribune.f The forces opposed to them would have been at once overpowered, had not Antony himself opportunely arrived with the second corps of the Triumviral army. Octavian was detained by illness at Dyrrhachium, but he ordered himself to be carried on a litter to join his Legions. The aiiny of the Triumvirs w^Tas now superior to the enemy; but their cavalry, counting only 13,000, was considerably weaker than the force opposed to it. The Republicans were strongly posted upon two iills, with entrenchments between : the camp of Cassius i:pon the left next the sea, that of Brutus inland on tho right. The Triumviral army lay upon the open plain before them, in a position rendered unhealthy by marshes; Antony, on tho right, was opposed to Cassius; Ootavian, on the left, fronted Brutus. But they were ill supplied with provisions, and anxious for a decisive battle. The Republicans, however, kept to their entrenchments, and the other party began to suffer severely from famine.

§ 24. Determined to bring on an action, Antony began works for tho purpose of cutting olf Cassius from the sea. Cassius had always opposed a general action, but Brutus insisted on putting an end to the suspense, and his colleague yielded. The day of the attack was ‘probably in October. Brutus attacked OcUviau's army, while Cassius assaulted the working parties of Antony. Cassius’ assault was beaten back with loss, but he succeeded in regaining his camp in safety. Meanwhile, Messalla, who commanded the right wing of Brutus’, army, had defeated the host of Octavian, who was still too ill to appear on the field, and the Republican soldiers penetrated into the Triumvir’s camp. Presently, his litter was brought in stained with blood, and the corpse of a young man found near it was supposed to be Octavian. But Brutus, not receiving any tidings of the movements of Cassius, became so anxious for his fate that he sent off a party of horse to make inquiries, and neglected to support the successful assaults of Messalla.

Cassius, on his part, discouraged at his ill success, was unable to ascertain the progress of Brutus. When he saw the party of horse, he hastily concluded that they belonged to the enemy, and retired into his tent with his Freedman Pindarns. What passed there we know not for certain. Cassius was found dead, with the head severed from the body. Pindarus was never seen again. It was generally believed that Pindarus slew his master in obedience to orders; but many thought that he had dealt a felon blow. The intelligence of Cassius’ death was a heavy blow to Brutus. lie forgot his own success, and pronounced the elegy of Cassius in the well-known words : “ There lies tho la>t of the Romans.” Tlie praise was ill-deserved. Except in his conduct of the war against the Parthians, Cassius had never played a worthy part.

§ 25. After the first battle of Philippi, it would have still been politic in Brutus to abstain from battle. The Triuinviral armies were in great distress, and every day increased their losses. Reinforcements coming to their aid by sea were intercepted,—a proof of the neglect of the Republican lead el's in not sooner bringing their fleet into action. Nor did Brutus ever hear of this success. He was ill fitted for the life of the camp, and after the death of Cassius he only kept his men together by largesses and promises of plunder. Twenty days after the first battle ho led them out again. Both armies faced one another. There was little manoeuvring. The second battle was decided by numbers and force, not by skill; and it was decided in favour of the Triumvirs. Brutus retired with four Legions to a strong position in the rear, while the rest of his broken army sought refuge in the camp. Octavian remained to watch them, while Antony pursued the Republican Chief. Next day, Brutus endeavoured to rouse his men to another effort; but they sullenly refused to fight; and Brutus withdrew with a few friends into a neighbouring wood. Here he took them aside one by one, and prayed each to do him the. last service that a Roman could render to his friend. All refused with horror; till at nightfall a trusty Greek Freedman, named Strato, held the sword, and his master threw himself upon it. Most of his friends followed the sad example. The body of Brutus was sent by Antony to his mother. His wife Portia, the daughter of Cato, refused all comfort ; and being too closely watched to be able to slay herself by ordinary means, she suffocated herself by thrusting burning charcoal into her mouth. MesSalla, with a number of other fugitives, sought safety in the island of Thasos, and soon after made submission to Antony.

§ 26. The name of Brutus has, by Plutarch’s beautiful narrative, sublimed by Shakspere, become a bye-word for self-devoted patriotism. This exalted opinion is now generally confessed to be unjust. Brutus was not a patriot, unless devotion to the party of*the Senate be patriotism. Towards the Provincials he was a true Roman, harsh and oppressive. He was free from the sensuality and profligacy of his age, but for public life he was unfit. His habits were those of a student. His application was great, his memory remarkable. But he possessed little power of turning his acquirements to account; and to the last he was rather a learned man than a man "improved by learning. In comparison with Cassius, he was humane and generous; but in all respects his character is contrasted for the worse with that of the great man, from whom lie accepted favours, and then became his murderer.

FROM THE BATTLE OF PHILIPPI TO THE FINAL ESTABLISHMENT OF IMPERIAL MONARCHY. (41-30 B.C.)

S 1. End of the Republic: Second division of tho Roman World by the Triumvirs. § 2. Cleopatra meets Antony at Tarsus: he attends her tc Alexandria. § 3. Difficulties of Octavian: confiscation of lands to reward the veterans: Virgil § 4. Fulvia wife of Antony takes advantage of these commotions: Pcrusine War. § 5. Syria and Asia Minor overrun bv the Parthiaus. § 6. Antony with Scxt Pompeius invades Italy inter vention of the soldiery • Peace of Brundusium: Third division of the Roman World. § 7. Scxt Pompeius acknowledged by the Triumvirs. §8. P. Ventidius Bassus. his victories over the Parthians. §9. Scxt Pompeius harasses Italy: Octavius in vain attacks him* two years’preparations by Agrippa to crush him. § 10. Misfortunes of Octavian by sea: defeat of Sextus by Agrippa: Sextus seeks refuge at Lesbos. § 11. Lepidus ceases to be Triumvir. § 12". Octavian and Antony meet at Tarentum: renewal of their power for Five Years. § 13. Antony surrenders himself to Cleopatra. § 14. Conduct of Octavian. § 15. Antony’s Will published: indignation at Rome_% §16. Declaration of War. § 17. Octavian passes over to Epirus: Position of Antony’s forces. § 18. Battle of Actium. § 19. Octavian returns to Italy. § 20. Antony and Cleopa tra quarrel. § 21. Octavian in Egypt: deaths of Antony and Cleopatra. § 22. Triumphs and Imperial Power of Octavian.

§ 1. The Battle of Philippi was in reality the closing scene of the Republican drama. But the rivalship of the Triumvirs pro. longed for several years the divided state of the Roman World; and it was not till after the crowning victory of Actium that the Imperial Government was established in its unity. We sJiali.

therefore, here add a rapid narrative of the events which led to that consummation.

The hopeless state of the Republican or rather the Senatorial party, was such, that almost all hastened to make submission to the conquerors: those whose sturdy spirit still disdained submission resorted to Sext. Pompeius in Sicily. Octavian, still suffering from ill health, was anxious to return to Italy; but before he parted from Antony, they agreed to a Second Distri' bution of the Provinces of the Empire. Antony was to have the Eastern ■ world; Octavian the Western Provinces. To Le-pidus, who was not consulted in this second division, Africa alone was left. Sext. Pompeius remained in possession of Sicily.

§ 2. Antony at once proceeded to make a tour through Western Asia, in order to exact money from its unfortunate People. About midsummer (41 b.c.) he arrived at Tarsus, and here he received a visit which determined the future course of his life and influenced Roman History for the next ten years. - ' -

Antony had visited Alexandria fourteen years before, and had been smitten by the charms of Cleopatra, then a girl of fifteen. She became Caesar’s paramour, and from the time of the Dictator’s death Antony had never seen her. She now came to meet him in Cilicia. The galley which carried her up the Cydnus was of more than Oriental gorgeousness: the sails of purple; oars of silver, moving to the sound of music; the raised poop burnished with gold. There she lay upon a splendid couch, shaded by a spangled canopy; her attire was that of Venus; around her flitted attendant Cupids and Graces. At the news of her approach to Tarsus, the Triumvir found his tribunal deserted by the people. She invited him to her ship, and he complied. From that moment he was her slave. He accompanied her to Alexandria, exchanged the Roman garb for the Gras co-Egyptian costume of the court, and lent his power to the Q’.i?en to execute all her caprices.

§ 3. Meanwhile, Octavian was not without his difficulties. He was so ill at Brundusium that his death was reported at Rome. The veterans, eager for their promised rewards, were on the eve of mutiny. In a short time Octavian was sufficiently recovered to show himself. But he could find no other means of satisfying the greedy soldiery than by a confiscation of lands more sweeping than that which followed the Proscription of Sylla. The towns of Cisalpine Gaul were accused of favouring Dec. Brutus, and saw nearly all their lands handed over to new possessors. The young poet, Virgil, lost his little patrimony, but was reinstated at the instance of Pollio and Maecenas, and showed his gratitude in his first Eclogue. Other parts of Italy also suffered,—Apulia, for example, as we learn from Horace’s friend Ofellus, who became tho tenant of the estate which had formerly been hi* own.*

§ 4. But these violent measures defeired rather than obviated the difficulty. The expulsion of so many persons threw thousands loose upon society, ripe for any criinc. Many of the veterans were ready to join any new leader who promised them booty. Such a leader was at hand.

Fulvia, wife of Antony, was a woman of fierce passions ai l ambitious spirit. She had not been invited to follow her husband to the East. She saw that in his absence Imperial power would fall into the hands of Octavian. Lucius, brother of Mark Antony, was Consul for the year, and at her instigation he raised his standard at Prancste. But L. Antonius knew not how to use his strength; and young Agrippa, to whom Octavian entrusted the command, obliged Antonius and Fulvia to retire northwards and shut themselves up in Perusia. Their store of provisions w^ras ^o small that it sufficed only for the soldiery. Early in the next year Perusia surrendered, on condition that tlie lives of the leaders should be spared. The town was sacked; the conduct of L. Antonius alienated all Italy from his brother.

§ 5. While liis wife, his brother, and liis friends were quitting Italy in confusion, the arms of Antony suffered a still heavier blow in the Eastern Provinces which wero under liis special government. After the battle of Philippi, Q. Labieiius, son of Caesar’s old lieutenant Titus, sought refuge at the court of Orodes, king of Parthia. Encouraged by the proffered aid of a Roman officer, Pacorus the King’s son led a formidable army into Syria. Antony’s lieutenant was entirely routed; and while Pacorus with one army poured into Palestine and Phoenicia, Q. Labienus with another broke into Cilicia. Here he found no opposition; and, overrunning all Asia Minor even to the Ionian Sea, he assumed the name of Parthicus, as if ho had been a Roman conqueror of the people whom he servod.

§ C. These complicated disasters roused Antony from liis lethargy. He sailed to Tyre, intending to take the field against the Parthians; but the season was too far advanced, and ho therefore crossed tho ./Egean to Athens, where lie found Fulvia and his brother, accompanied by 1*011 io, Plancus, and others, all discontented with Octavian’s government. Octavian was absei.t in Ganl, and their representation of the state of Itah encouraged him to make another attempt. Late in the year (41 n.c.) Antony formed a league with Scxt. Pompcius; and while that chief blockaded Thurii and Consentia, Antony assailed Brundu-* Uorat 2 Scrtn. ii. 133.

sium. Agrippa was preparing to meet this new combination; and a fresh Civil War was imminent. But the soldiery was weary of war: both armies compelled their leaders to make pacific overtures, and the new year was ushered in by a general peace, which was rendered easier by the death of Fulvia. Antony and Octavian renewed their professions of amity, and entered Rome together in joint Ovation to celebrate the restoration of Peace. They now made a third division of the Provinces, by which Scodra (Scutari) in Illyricum was fixed as the boundary of the West and East. Lepidus was still left in possession of Africa. It was further agreed that Octavian was to drive Sext. Pompeius, lately the ally of Antony, out of Sicily; while Antony renewed his pledges to recover the standards of Crassus from the Parthians. The new compact was sealed by the marriage of Antony Avith Octavia, his colleague’s sister, a virtuous and beautiful lady, worthy of a better consort. These auspicious events were celebrated by the lofty verse of Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue, styled “ the Pollio.”¹⁶⁰

§ 7. Sext. Pompeius had reason to complain. By the Peace of Brundusium he was abandoned by his late friend to Octavian. He was not a man to brook ungenerous treatment. Of late years his possession of Sicily had given him command of the Roman corn-market. During the winter which followed the Peace of Brundusium (40—39 b.c.), Sextus blockaded Italy so closely that Rome was threatened with a positive dearth. Riots arose; the Triumvirs were pelted with stones in the Forum: and they deemed it prudent to temporise by inviting Pompey to enter their League. He met them at Misenum, and the two Chiefs went on board his ship to settle the terms of alliance. It is said that one of his chief officers, a Greek named Menas or Menodorus, suggested to him the expediency of putting to sea with the great prize, and then making his own terms. Sextus rejected the advice with the characteristic words: “You Should have done it without asking me.” It was agreed that Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica should be given up to his absolute rule, and that Achaia should be added to his portion; so that the Roman world was now partitioned among four,—Octavian, Antony, Lepidus, and Sext. Pompeius. On their return the Triumvirs were received with vociferous applause.

§ 8. Before winter, Antony sailed for Athens in company with Octavia, who for the time seems to have banished Cleopatra from his thoughts. But ho disgusted all true Romans by assuming the attributes of Grecian Gods, and indulging in Grecian orgies.

He found the stato of things in the East greatly changed since his departure. Ho had commissioned P. Ventidius Bassus, an officer who had followed Fulvia from Italy, to hold the Parthians in check till his return. Ventidius was son of a Piccnian Nobleman of Asculum, who had been brought to Romo as a captivo in the Social War. In his youth he had been a contractor to supply mules for the uso of the Roman Commissariat. But in the Civil Wars which followed, men of military talent easily roso to command; and such was the lot of Ventidius. While Antony was absent in Italy, he drove Q. Labienus iuto the defiles of Taurus, and here that adventurer was defeated and slain. The conqueror then marched rapidly into Syria, and forced Pacorus also to withdraw to the Eastern bank of the Euphrates.

In tho following year (38 b. c.) he repelled a fresh invasion of the Parthians, and defeated them in three battles. In the last of theso engagements Pacorus himself was slain on the fifteenth anniversary of the death of Crassus. Antony found Ventidius laying siege to Samosata, and displaced him, only to abandon the siege, and return to Athens. Ventidius repaired to Rome, where lie was honoured with a well-deserved triumph. He had left it as a mule-jobber: lie returned with tho laurel round his brows. He was tho first, and almost the last, Roman General who could claim such a distinction for victory over the Parthians.

§ 9. The alliance with Sext. Pompeius was not intended to last, and it did not last. Antony refused to put him in possession of Achaia; and to avenge himself for this breach of faith Pompeius again began to intercept tho Italian corn-fleets. Fresh discontent appeared at Rome; and Octavian equipped a second fleet to sail against the naval chief; but after two battles of doubtful result, the fleet was destroyed by a storm, and Sextus was again left in undisputed mastery of the sea. Octavian, however, was never daunted by reverses, and he gave his favourite Agrippa full powers to conduct the war against Pompeius. This able commander set about his work with that resolution that marked a man determined not to fail. As a harbour for his fleet, he executed a plan of the great Caesar,—namely, to make a good and secure harbour on the coast of Latium, which then, as now, offered no shelter to ships. For this purpose he cut a passage through the narrow necks of land which separated Lake Lucrinus from the sea, and Lake Avcrnus from Lake

Lucrinus, and faced tlie outer barrier with stone. This was the famous Julian Port.* In the whole of tho two years 38 and 37 B.C., Agrippa was occupied in this work and in preparing a sufficient force of ships. Every dockyard in Italy was called into requisition. A large body of slaves were set free that they might be trained to serve as rowers.

§ 10. On the 1st of July, 36 B.C., the fleet put to sea. Octavian himself, with one division, purposed to attack the Northern coast of Sicily, while a second squadron was assembled at Tarentum for tho purpose of assailing the Eastern side. Lepidus, with a third fleet from Africa, was to assault Lilybseum. But the winds were again adverse; and, though Lepidus effected a landing on the southern coast, Octavian’s two fleets were driven back to Italy with great damage. But the injured ships were refitted, and Agrippa was sent westward towards Panormus, while Octavian himself kept guard near Messana. Off Mylas, a place famous for having witnessed the first naval victory of the Romans, Agrippa encountered the fleet of Sext. Pompeius; but Sextus, with the larger portion of his ships, gave Agrippa the slip, and sailing eastward fell suddenly upon Octavian’s squadron off Tauromenium. A desperate conflict followed, which ended in the complete triumph of Sextus, and Octavian escaped to Italy with a few ships only. But Agrippa was soon upon the traces of the enemy. On the 3rd of September Sextus was obliged once more to accept battle near the straits of Messana, and suffered an irretrievable defeat. His troops on land were attacked and dispersed by an army which had been landed on the eastern coast by the indefatigable Octavian; and Sextus sailed off to Lesbos, where he had found refuge as a boy during the campaign of Pharsalia, to seek protection from the jealousy of Antony.

§ 11. Lepidus had assisted in the campaign; but after the departure of Sextus he openly declared himself independent of liis brother Triumvirs. Octavian, with prompt and prudent boldness, entered the camp of Lepidus in person with a few attendants. -The soldiers deserted in crowds, and in a few hours Lepidus was fain to sue for pardon, where he had hoped to rule, lie was treated with contemptuous indifference. Africa was taken from him; but he was allowed to live and die at Romo in quiet enjoyment of the Chief Pontificate.

§ 12. It was fortunate for Octavian that during this campaign Antony was on friendly terms with him. In 37 b.c. the ruler of

the East again visited Italy, and a meeting between the two Chiefs was arranged at Tarentum. Tho five years for which the Triumvirs wero originally appointed were now fast expiring; and it was settled that their authority should be renewed by the subservient Senate and People for a second period of the samo duration. They parted good friends; and Octavian undertook his campaign against Sext. Pompeius without fear from Antony. This was proved by the fate of the fugitive. From Lesbos Sextus passed over to Asia, where he was taken prisoner by Antony’s lieutenants, and put to death.

§ 13. Hitherto Octavia had retained her influence over Antony. But presently after his last interview with her brother, the ficklc Triumvir abruptly quitted a wife who was too good for him, and returned to the fascinating presence of the Egyptian Queen, whom he had not seen for three years. From this time forth lie made no attempt to break the silken chain of her enchantments. During the next summer, indeed, lie attempted a new Parthian campaign. But his advance was made, like that of Crassus, with reckless indifference to the safety of his troops. Provisions failed; disease broke out; and after great suffering he was forced to seek safety by a precipitate retreat into the Armenian mountains. In the next year he contented himself with a campaign in Armenia, to punish the King of that country for alleged treachery in the last campaign. The King fell into his hands; and with this trophy Antony returned to Alexandria, where the Homans were disgusted to see the streets of a Grecco-Egyptian town honoured by a mimicry of a Roman Triumph. For the next three years lie surrendered himself absolutely to the will of the enchantress. To this period belong those tales of luxurious indulgence which arc known to every reader. The brave soldier, who in the perils of war could shake off all luxurious habits, and could rival the commonest man in the cheerfulness with which lie underwent every hardship, was seen no more. He sunk into an indolent voluptuary, pleased by childish amusements. At one time he would lounge in a boat at a fishing-party, and laugh when he drew up pieces of salt-fish, which by the queen’s order had been attached to his hook by divers. At another time she wagered that she would consume ten million sesterces at one meal, and won her wager by dissolving in vinegar a pearl of unknown value. While Cleopatra bore the character of the goddess Isis, her lover appeared as Osiris. Her head was placed conjointly with his own on the coins which he issued as a Roman Magistrate. He disposed of the kingdoms and principalities of the East by his sole word. By his influence Herod, son of Antipatcr, the Idumocan minister of llyrcanus, the late sovereign of Judaea, was made King to tlie exclusion of tlie rightful heir. Polemo, his own son by Cleopatra, was invested with the sceptre of Armenia. Encouraged by the absolute submission of her lover, Cleopatra fixed her eye upon the Capitol, and dreamed of winning by means of Antony that Imperial crown which she had vainly sought from Caesar.

§ 14. While Antony was engaged in voluptuous dalliance, Octavian was resolutely pursuing the work of consolidating his power in the West. His patience, his industry, his attention to b isiness, his affability, were winning golden opinions and rapidly obliterating all memory of the bloody work by which he had risen to power. He had won little glory in war; but so long as the corn-fleets arrived daily from Sicily and Africa, the populate cared little whether the victory had been won by Octavian or by his generals. In Agrippa he possessed a consummate captain, in Maecenas a wise and temperate minister. It is much to his credit that he never showed any jealousy of the men to whom he owed so much. He flattered the People with the hope that he would, when Antony had fulfilled his mission of recovering the standards of Crassus, engage him to join in putting an end to their sovereign power and restoring constitutional liberty. In point of fidelity to his marriage-vows Octavian was little better than Antony. He renounced his marriage with Clodia, the daughter of Fulvia, when her mother attempted to raise Italy against him. He divorced Scribonia, when it no longer suited him to court the favour of her kinsman. To replace this second wife, he forcibly took away Livia from her husband, Ti. Claudius Nero, though she was at that time pregnant of her second son. But in this and other less pardonable immoralities there was nothing to shock the feelings of Romans.

But Octavian never suffered pleasure to divert him from business. If he could not be a successful general, he resolved at least to show that he could be a hardy soldier. While Antony in his Egyptian palace was neglecting the Parthian war, his rival lei his Legions in more than one dangerous campaign against the barbarous Dalmatians and Pannonians, who had been for some time infesting the Province of Illyricum. In the year 33 b.c. he announced that the limits of the Empire had been extended northwards to the banks of the Save.

§ 15. Octavian now began to feel that any appearance of friendship with Antony was a source of weakness rather than of strength at Rome. Misunderstandings had already broken out. Antony complained that Octavian had given him no share in tlie Provinces wrested from Sext. Pompeius and Lepidus. Octavian retorted by accusing his colleague of appropriating Egypt and

Armenia, and of increasing Cleopatra’s power at tlie expense of the Roman Empire. Popular indignation rose to its height when Plancus and Titius, who had been admitted to Antony’s confidence, passed over to Octavian, and disclosed the contents of their master’s Will. In that document Antony ordered that his body should bo buried at Alexandria, in the mausoleum of Cleopatra. Men began to fancy that Cleopatra had already planted her throne upon the Capitol. These suspicions were sedulously encouraged by Octavian.

§ 16. Before the close of 32 b.c., Octavian, by the authority of the Senate, declared war nominally against Cleopatra. Antony, roused from his sleep by reports from Rome, passed over to Athens, issuing orders everywhere to levy men and collect ships for the impending struggle. At Athens he received news of the declaration of war, and replied by divorcing Octavia. Ilis Fleet was ordered to assemble at Corcyra; and his Legions in the early spring prepared to pour into Epirus. He established his head-quarters at Patraj on the Corinthian Gulf.

§ 17. But Antony, though his fleet was superior to that of Octavian, allowed Agrippa to sweep the Ionian sea, and to take possession of Methone, in Messenia, as a station for a flying squadron to intercept Antony’s communications with the East, nay even to occupy Corcyra, which had been destined for his own place of rendezvous. Antony’s fleet now anchored in the waters of the Ambracian Gulf, wdiile his legions encamped on a spot of land, which forms the northern horn of that spacious inlet. But the place chosen for the camp was unhealthy; and in the heats of early summer his army suffered greatly from disease. Agrippa lay close at hand watching his opportunity. In the course of the spring Octavian joined him in person.

§18. Early in the season, Antony had repaired from Patnc to his army, so as to be ready either to cross over into Italy or to meet the enemy if they attempted to land in Epirus. At first ho showed something of his old military spirit, and the soldiers, who always loved his military frankness, warmed into enthusiasm ; but his chief officers, won by Octavian or disgusted by the influence of Cleopatra, deserted him in such numbers, that lie knew not whom to trust, and gave up all thoughts of maintaining the contest with energy. Urged by Cleopatra, he resolved to carry off his fleet and abandon the army. All preparations were made in secret, and the great fleet put to sea on the 28th of August. For the four following days there was a strong gale from the south. Neither could Antony escape, nor could Octavian put to sea against him from Corcyra. On the 2nd of September, however, the wind fell, and Octavian’s light vessels, by using their oars, easily came up with the unwieldy galleys of tho Eastern Fleet. A battle was now inevitable.

Antony’s ships were like impregnable fortresses to the assault of the slight vessels of Octavian ;¹⁶¹ and, though they lay nearly motionless in the calm sea, little impression was made upon them. But about noon a breeze sprung up from the west; and Cleopatra, followed by sixty Egyptian ships, made sail in a southerly direction. Antony immediately sprang from his ship of war into ‘a light galley and followed. Deserted by their commander, the captains of Antony’s ships continued to resist desperately; nor was it till the greater part of them were set on fire, that the contest was decided. Before evening closed, the whole fleet was destroyed; most of the men and all the treasure on board, perished. A few days after, when the shameful flight of Antony was made known to his army, all his Legions went over to the conqueror.

§ 19. It was not for eleven months after the Battle of Actium that Octavian entered the open gates of Alexandria. He had been employed in the interval in founding the City of N.icopolis to celebrate his victory on the northern horn of the Ambracian Gul£ in rewarding his soldiers, and settling the affairs of the Provinces of the East. In the winter he returned to Italy, and it was midsummer, 30 B.C., before he arrived in Egypt.

§ 20. When Antony and Cleopatra arrived off Alexandria they put a bold face upon the matter. Some time passed before the real state of the case was known; but it soon became plain that Egypt was at the mercy of the conqueror. The Queen formed all kinds of wild designs. One was to transport the ships that she had saved across the Isthmus of Suez and seek refuge in some distant land where the name of Rome was yet unknown. Some ships were actually drawn across, but they were destroyed by the Arabs, and the plan was abandoned. She now flattered herself, that her powers of fascination, proved so potent over Caesar and Antony, might subdue Octavian. Secret messages passed between the conqueror and the queen; nor w*ere Octa-vian’s answers such as to banish hope.

Antony, full of repentance and despair, shut himself up in Pharos, and there remained in gloomy isolation. .

§ 21. In July 30 b.c. Octavian appeared before Pelusium. The place w^ras surrendered without a blow. Yet, at the approach of the conqueror, Antony put himself at the head of a division of cavalry, and gained some advantage. But on his return to Alexandria lie found that Cleopatra had given up all her ships; and no moro opposition was offered. On tho 1st of August (Scxtilis as it was then called) Octavian entered tho open gates of Alexandria. Both Antony and Cleopatra sought to win him. Antony’s messengers the conqueror refused to see; but he still used fair words to Cleopatra. The Queen had shut herself up in a sort of mausoleum built to receive her body after death, which was not approachable by any door; and it was given out that she was really dead. All tho tenderness of old times revived in Antony’s heart. Ho stabbed himself, and in a dying state ordered himself to be laid by the side of Cleopatra. The Queen touched by pity, ordered her expiring lover to be drawn up by cords into her retreat, and bathed his temples with her tears. After he had breathed his last, she consented to see Octavian. Her penetration soon told her that she had nothing to hope from him. She saw that his fair words were only intended to prevent her from desperate acts, and reserve her for the degradation of his Triumph. This impression was confirmed when all instruments by which death could be inflicted were found to have been removed from her apartments. But she was not to be so baffled. She pretended all submission; but when the ministers of Octavian came to carry her away, they found her lying dead upon her couch, attended by her faithful waiting-womcn, Iras and Charmion. The manner of her death was never ascertained; popular belief ascribed it to the bite of an asp, which had been conveyed to her in a basket of fruit.

Thus died Antony and Cleopatra. Antony was by nature a genial, open-hearted Roman, a good soldier, quick, resolute, and vigorous, but reckless and self-indulgent, devoid alike of prudence and of principle. The corruptions of the age, the seductions of power, and the evil influence of Cleopatra, paralysed a nature capable of better things. We know him chictiy through the exaggerated assaults of Cicero in his Philippic, and the narratives of writers devoted to Octavian. But after all deductions for partial representation, enough remains to show that Antony had all .the faults of Cajsar, with little of his redeeming greatness.

Cleopatra was an extraordinary person. At her death she was but thirty-eight years of age. Iler power rested not so much 011 actual beauty as on her fascinating manners and her extreme readiness of wit. I11 her follies there was a certain magnificence, which excites even a dull imagination. We may estimate tho real power of her mental qualities by observing the impression her character made upon the Roman Poets of the time. No meditated praises could have borne such testimony to her great-

ness as tlie lofty strain in which Horace celebrates her fall, and congratulates the Roman world on its cscapo from the ruin which she was threatening to the Capitol.*

§ 22. Octavian dated the years of liis Imperial Monarchy from the day of the Battle of Actium. But it was not till two years after (the summer of 29 b.c.) that he established himself in Rome as Ruler of the Roman World. Then he'celebrated three magnificent Triumphs, after the example of his uncle the great Dictator, for his victories in Dalmatia, at Actium, and in Egypt.f At the same time the Temple of Janus was closed (notwithstanding that border wars still continued in Gaul and Spain) for the first time since the year 235 b.c. All men drew breath more freely, and all except the soldiery looked forward to a time of tranquillity. Liberty and independence were forgotten words. After the terrible disorders of the last century, the general cry was for quiet at any price. Octavian was a person admirably fitted to fulfil these aspirations. His uncle Julius was too fond of active exertion to play such a part well. Octavian never shone in war, while his vigilant and patient mind was w^rell fitted for the discharge of business. He avoided shocking popular feeling by assuming any title savouring of royalty; but he enjoyed by universal consent an authority more than regal.

§ 1. Acquiescence of the Roman World in Despotic rule. § 2. Circura-stanccs that favoured Octavian. § 3. Disguise thrown over his power by Octavian. § 4. Exhausted condition of Italy. § 5. The Provinces benefited by the establishment of a ccntral Despotism. § 6. Its deadening effccts upon the mind of Rome: but the first effects of tranquillity produced a new Literature. § 7. Review of Roman Literature from the beginning of the Civil Wars: Oratory: Education. §8. Historical Memoirs and Histories. § 9. Grammatical and Philological Writers. § 10. Ciccro. § 11. The Drama. § 12. Mimes: their chief authors, Dec. Laberius and Publ. Syrus. § 13. Other kinds of poetry: Didactic Poetry: Lucretius. § 14. Catullus and Calvus. § 15. Epio Poetry: various. § 16. Virgil. § 17. Horace. § 18. Elegiao Poet*. § 19. Art § 20. Publio Buildings. § 21. Public Works in the Provinces. § 22. Unsettled state of sentiment and opinion: Stoic and Epicurean Philosophy. § 23. Superstitious practices and sentiments. § 24. Preparation of the public mind for a purer Faith.

§ 1. We have now traced the progress and decline of the Roman Constitution through its several stages. We have seen it pass from a Monarchy into a Patrician Oligarchy, from a Patrician Oligarchy into a limited Republic, from a limited Republic into an Oligarchy of Wealth; and now, after a century of Civil War,

in which the State swayed from one extreme to the other, we close with the contemplation of an absolute Despotism. Every page of the latter portion of our narrative shows how inevitably events were tending to this issue. The Roman world had long been preparing for it. At no time had such authority been altogether alien from the mind of the People of Rome. Dictatorships were frequent in their earlier history. In later times tli3 Consuls were, by the will of the Senate, raised to Dictatorial power to meet emergencies, military or civil. The despotic commands conferred upon Sylla and Pompey, the powers seized first by Csesar, and after him by the Triumvirate, were all of the same form as the authority conferred upon Octavian;—that is, all were, in form at least, temporary and provisional. The disorders of the State required the intervention of one or more persons endued with absolute authority. And whether power was vested in a Dictator, such as Sylla and Ceesar; in a sole Consul, such as Pompey; in a Commission of Three, such as the Triumvirate of Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus; or in an Impc-rator, such as Octavian alone, the constitutional principle was the same. These despotic powers were in every case, except in the cases of Sylla and Caesar, granted for a definite term: oven Caesar’s first Dictatorships were conferred for limited periods. The Triumvirate was renewed at intervals of five years, the imperial rule of Octavian at. intervals of ten. In theory these piowers were conferred exceptionally, for a temporary purpose; and when the purpose was served, the exception was to yield to the rule. Even in the reign of Octavian there were some persons credulous enough to expect, a restoration of tlie Republic. It belongs to the History of the Empire to examine in detail the arts of government, by which a provisional and temporary power was, by the adroitness of the new ruler, converted into a despotic Monarchy. Here a few brief notes must be sufficient.

From the time that all Italians were made Citizens of Rome, it became plain that some great alteration must be made in the Constitution. Marius seems first to have entertained thoughts of a perpetual Consulship; but the confidence reposed in him as a leader in war neither could nor did avail to gain him a similar confidence in peace. Circumstances rather than set purpose placed Sylla at the head of the State; and lie endeavoured to solve the political problem of the day by placing all authority in the hands of the Senatorial Oligarchy. His death was followed by an explosion; and the remainder of the History of the Republic is merely a personal conflict for supreme power. Every man was for himself. Pompey never assumed the character of champion of the Senate because he was .jealous of Ca3sar.

Caesar, from the first, had a clear determination to establish himself as the ruler of the future fortunes of Rome, and ho succeeded. But lie disclosed his wish to assume sovereign power, and he fell by tho hands of men who had accepted his favours, but in heart were jealous of his greatness,—men who professed to be Republicans, but who were in fact the agents of the Senatorial Oligarchy. Then came Antony and the Triumvirate, who prepared the way for acquiescence in the sole dominion of Octavian.

§ 3. Octavian’s adroitness has often been commended. But lie had many examples to warn and to guide him. Above all, the precedent of h:s uncle, the Great Dictator, proved that the Romans were not prepared to accept even order and good government at the price of Royalty; and lie dexterously avoided the danger. The cruelties of the Triumviral Proscription he was able to throw chiefly upon Antony. But tlieso very cruelties stood him in stead; for they induced men to estimate at more than its real worth the clemency which distinguished his sole government, lie avoided jealousy by assuming a power professedly only temporary. The title by which he liked to be known was that of Prince; for he revived in his own person the title Princcps Senatus, which had slept since the death of Catulus.¹⁶² But in fact ho absorbed all the powers of the State. As Impenltor he exercised absolute control over the lives of all Roman Citizens not within the limits of the City. As Pontifex Maximus, an office for which lie waited patiently till the death of Lepidus, lie controlled the religion of the State. lie assumed the Cens6rial power without a colleague to impede his action: thus lie was able to revise at pleasure the Register of tho Citizens and the List of the Senate, promoting or degrading whom he pleased, lie appropriated also the Tribunfcian power;—and thus the Popular Assembly was by a side-blow deprived of vitality; for without its Tribunes it was naught.f Consuls were still elected to give name to the year; and the Assembly of the Centuries still met for the empty purpose of electing those whom the Prince named. Often, indeed, several pairs were elected for one year, after a practice begun by the Great Dictator.

§ 4. The name of Italy now at length assumed the significance which it still bears; for all free inhabitants of Cisalpine Gaul obtained the rights of Roman citizens. But little was done to repair the losses and decays of which wc have spoken in former chapters. Tho military Colonics planted by Sylla and Octavian, liad lowered its condition even beyond its former misery. Ancient and respectable citizens made way for reckless and profligate soldiery,—such as the Centurion -who would have slain the Poet Virgil. Our' pity for the ejected inhabitants is somewhat lessened by the thought that all the civilised world was open to them, for all the world was Roman. Gaul, and Spain, and Sicily, and the Provinces of the East, depopulated by long wars, gratefully received families of Italian citizens, who brought them their habits of civilised life, industry, and such property as they had saved from the ruin of their homes. Great as was the injustice of expelling these persons, the actual loss and suffering, after the pain of leaving home was over, must have been incalculably less than we, in the present condition of Europe, are apt to imagine. After the settlement of these Colonies, it is probable that what could be done for the welfare of Italy was done by Augustus and his able Ministers, Agrippa and Maecenas. But the evils were too great and too recent to admit of palliation; and Italy probably never recovered from the effects of the Roman Wars of Conquest, till she received a new population from the North.

§ 5. The Provinces were gainers by the transference of power from the Senate to a single man. The most important Provinces were governed by Deputies appointed by the Prince himself;* the rest were left to the rule of Senatorial Proconsuls. The condition of the Imperial Provinces was preferred; for the taxes cxacted were lighter, and the government under severer control. Instances occur of Senatorial Provinces requesting as a favour to be transferred to the rule of the Emperor.f But even the Senatorial Government was more equitable than of old. The salaries of the Proconsuls were fixed; greedy men were no longer left to pay themselves by extortion; and the Governors held power for several years, so that they had more temptation to wip the good opinion of their subjects. The examples of Pilate and Felix show, indeed, that glaring injustice was still perpetrated; but these very cases show that the Governors stood in awe of those whom they governed,—for in both cases the iniquity was committed through fear of the Jews, whom these men had mis-governed, svid whose accusations they feared. It may be added that bcth these men were severely punished for their misgovernment.

§ 6. The world, therefore, on the whole, was a gainer by the substitution of the Imperial rule for the Constitution, falsely named Republican. For nearly two centuries the government was, with two intervals, administered by rulers of

f As Achaia and Macedonia in the timo of Tiberius. Tacit. Annal, i. 76, great abilities and great energy; and though, no doubt, there was enough of oppression and to spare, yet there was much less than had been common in the times of Senatorial dominion.

But if the Provinces—that is, the Empire at large—continued to be content with a Central Despotism, in comparison with tho old Senatorial rule of “every man for himself,” this was not tho case at Rome. The educated classes at least, and the Senatorial Nobility, soon began to regret even the turbulent days of Mariur, and Pompey. The practice of Oratory, in which Romans excelled and took chief delight, was confined to mere forensic pleadings, and lost all that excitement which attached to it when an orator could sway the will of the Senate, and calm or rouse the seething passions of the Forum. We cannot wonder at Cicero, notwithstanding his hatred for commotion, throwing himself into the conflict against Antony with the fervid energy which is revealed in the Philippics. lie felt that this was the last change of supporting the old freedom of the Foruin,—which, with all its turbulence, he loved, partly as the scene of his own glories, partly as a barrier against the crushing force of military despotism. And though the slaughter of the Proscription and of the Civil Wars removed many of the leading Senators, men of independent will revolted against the deadening weight of despotic government, as is revealed in tho pages of Tacitus. For a time, however, there was a general disposition, even at Rome, to welcome the tranquillity ensured by the rule of Octavian, and nothing can more strongly show the security that men experienced, even before the battle of Actium, than the sudden burst with which Literature and the polite Arts rose from their slumbers.

§ 7. This leads us to give a brief account of the state of Literature at Rome, since we last took notice of the subject, at the beginning of the Civil Wars.

Since that epoch literary pursuits had languished,—the natural effect of political excitement and perilous times. Oratory indeed had flourished, as every page of our History indicates ; and Oratory may be called the popular literature of Rome, as truly as Journalism may be called tho popular literature of England. Cicero, a master of his art both in theory and practice, has left us an account of a host of Orators whom he thought worthy of being placed in a national catalogue. Of the Gracchi, of Antonius, of Crassus, of Sulpicius, we have spoken. After their time Cotta was the chief favourite, and then llortensius rose to be “King of the Courts.” He was what we may call an Advocate by profession, taking little part in politics till he had made a large fortune by the presents which at that time stood in the placo of regular fees; and even in the hot conflicts that distinguished the rise of Pompey’s popularity he took but a languid part. His style of speaking was what Cicero styles Asiatic,—that is, florid and decorated beyond what even the liberal judgment of his critic could approve. Cicero considered his own youthful manner to partake of this character, and refers to the brave speech in which he defended Sext. Roscius of Ameria as an example of this style. But that elaborate phraseology and copious flow of language remained with him to the last. It was only when his feelings were strongly excited, or when his time was limited, as when he defended old Rabirius or assailed Catiline in the Senate, that he displayed anything of that terrible concentration of speech with which Demosthenes smote his antagonists. So far as we can judge from the scanty remnants preserved, C. Gracchus, more than any other Roman, possessed this fierce earnestness. The example and criticism of Cicero lead to the conclusion that Roman Oratory generally had a tendency to be redundant, if not wordy. This tendency may be ascribed to the prevailing mode in which the young orators of the day sought to acquire skill in speaking. The Schools of the Rhetorical Teachers were thronged by them; and here they were taught to declaim fluently on any subject, without reference to passion or feeling or earnestness of purpose. The Romans of a former generation endeavoured to crush such schools; and it was not at Rome that the most celebrated Teachers were to be found. Athens and Rhodes were the fashionable Universities, as we may call them, to which the young Romans resorted, when they had finished their schooling at Rome.¹⁶³ After learning grammar, and reading Latin and Greek Poets in their boyhood, they repaired to the more famous haunts of Grecian learning to study a little Geometry and a little Philosophy;! but it was to Rhetoric or the acquirement of a facile power of speaking on any given subject that the ambitious youth devoted their chief efforts.

g 8. Education in Greek literature led many persons in this period to compose Greek memoirs of the stirring scenes in which they had lived or acted. Examples of this kind had boon set as early as the Second Punic War by Cincius and Fabius. It now became very common; but many began to employ the vernacular language. C. Fannius Strabo, who mounted the walls of Carthage by tho side of Ti. Gracchus, and his contemporary L. Cielius Antipatcr, wrote Latin histories famors in their time. > Both were thought worthy of abridgment by Brutus. Tho foi'mer is commended by Sallust, the latter was preferred to Sallust by the Emperor liadrian. Even Cicero commended Antipate¹⁶⁴ as an improver of Latin composition; liis follower Ascllio, says the Orator, returned to the meagre dullness of the ancient Annalists. Then came L. Cornelius Siscnna, who witnessed the bloody scenes of the Social and First Civil Wars and wrote their history. Cicero commends his style; Sallust speaks with praise of his diligence, but hints at his subserviency to Sylla and the Senate. But the great men who made History at this epoch also took up the pen to write History. Q. Lutatius Catulus, the colleague of Marius, left an account of the Cimbric War. The good Rutilius Rufus employed his leisure in penning an historical work. Sylla composed a memoir of his own political life, to which Plutarch often refers; but from the specimens which he gives the Dictator seems not lo have been scrupulously impartial in his narrative. Lueullus composed similar memoirs. Cicero drew up a Greek notice of his Consulate with his own ready pen, and endeavoured to persuade L. Lucceius to undertake a similar task. Even the grim Marius wishes to have his deeds commemorated by a worthy hand.* The Commentaries of Cassar have been already quoted as illustrating one characteristic of the great Dictator’s mind. His pen was taken up by several of his officers, Au. llirtius, who completed the narrative of the Gallic War, C. Oppius, to whom the memoirs of the Dictator’s Wars in Egypt, Africa, and Spain are often attributed, L. Cornelius Balbus, and others. But the most remarkable prosc-writer of the late Republican Era is C. Sallustius Crispus, familiarly known to us as Sallust. The two works that remain to us from tho pen of this vigorous writer, the account of the Catilinarian Conspiracy and tlie Ju^urthan War, are rather to be styled political pamphlets than histories. Sallust was, as we have mentioned, an ardent partisan of the Marian and Ciesarian party. lie had been expelled from the Senate. Dislike of the reigning oligarchy appears at every turn, notwithstanding the semblance of impartiality assumed by a man who practised the profligacy which ho indignantly denounces. But Sallust’s workings arc valuable in a literary point of view, because they disclose the terse and concentrated cuergy of which the Latin language was capable, qualities little favoured by the oratorical tendencies of the day, but used with marvellous cffect in a later age by Tacitus.

Other writers now first endeavoured to hand down in Latin a History of Rome from her foundation, or from early periods of her existence. Such were C. Licinius Macer, Q. Claudius Quadri-garius, and Q. Valerius Antias, all born about the beginning of the last century before the Christian Era. The works of these and other Annalists were used and,swallowed up by the History of Livy, who was born, probably at Padua, in the year 59 b.c.,‘ and belongs J-o the Imperial Era of Augustus, of which wc speak not here.

§ 9. Some few writers in this same period began to cultivate grammatical and philological studies. The founder of these pursuits at Rome is reputed to be L. JElius Stilo, the friend of Q. Metellus Numidicus, and his companion in exile. He was closely followed by Aurelius Opilius, a freedman, who attended Rutilius Ilufus into exile, as Stilo had attended Metellus. But the man whose name is in this department most conspicuous is M. Terentius Varro of Reate.¹⁶⁵ He was born in 116 b.c., ten years later than Cicero, whose friendship he cultivated to the close of the great Orator’s life. Varro was a laborious student, and earned by his successful pursuit of all kinds of knowledge a reputation not deserved by his public life. From the first he adhered to the cause of Pompey. After Pharsalia, Caesar received him with the same clemency that he had shown to all his foes, and employed him in promoting the plans which he had formed of establishing a Public Library at Rome. After the death of Caesar he retired to the country, and confined himself to literary pursuits; but this did not save him from being placed on the Proscription-list. He escaped, however, to be received into favour by Octavian, and continued his studies in grammar, phi-iology, and agriculture, till he reached the great age of eiglity-cight, when he died in peace. Of his great work on the Latin Language, originally consisting of twenty-four Books, six remain to attest the industry of the man and the infantine state of philological science at the time.f His work on Agriculture in three books, written when he was eighty years old, is still in our hands, and forms the most accurate account we possess from the Romans of the subject. Fragments and notices of many other writers on all kinds of topics have been handed down to justify tho title given by the ancients to Varro—“the most learned of the Romans.”

§ 10. We will closo this sketch of the Prose Literature of the last age of the Republic with a notice of Cicero’s writings. Of his oratory and of his epistles something has been said in fonner pages; and it is to these productions that we must attribute the great orator’s place in the Commonwealth of Letters. Of his poems it were better to say nothing. Of his memoirs and historical writings little is known, unless we count the fragments of “The Republic” in this class. But liis rhetorical and philosophical Essays each fill a goodly volume; and these writings have been the themes of warm admiration for ages past. Yet it is to be doubted whether the praises lavished upon them are not chiefly due to the magic influence of the language in which they arc expressed. The “Brutus” doubtless is extremely interesting as containing the judgment of Rome’s greatest orator on all the speakers of his own generation and of foregoing times. The Dialogues on “ The Orator” are yet more interesting as furnishing a record of his own professional experience. But the philosophical works of Cicero are of little philosophical value. They were written not so much to teach mankind as to employ his time at moments when he was banished from the City. Their highest merits consist in the lucid and graceful style, which ceduced the great Italian Latinists at the end of the fifteenth century to abjure all words and phrases which did not rest on Ciceronian authority, and which led Erasmus himself, who resisted this pedantry, to “ spend ten years in reading Cicero.”

§ 11. The Dramatic Art fell more and more into dishonour. We hear, indeed, of two illustrious actors, -dEsopus and Roscius, who where highly honoured at Rome, and died in possession of large fortunes. But it was from the great families that their honours and the means of making money came. The Theatres, as we have before observed, remained mere temporary buildings till the second Consulship of Pompey, when the first stone theatre at Rome was erected by one of his wealthy freedmen. The pieces represented were more of the nature of spectacles. Those in which Roscius and iEsopus acted must have been old plays revived. In this period hardly one name of a dramatic author occurs.* It was not in Theatres, but in Amphitheatres, that Rome and Roman Towns sought amusement. Not only is the Flavian Amphitheatre the most gorgeous of the remains of

* T. Quinctius Atta is almost the only ono known to us. He died in 78 b.c., and it is evident from llorat, 2 Epist. ii. 79, that his Plays were the most popular dramas of the day.

Imperial Rome, but at all places where Roman remains are preserved, at Verona in Transpadane Gaul, at Arles and Nismes in “the Province,” at Treves on the distant Moselle, it is the Amphitheatre that characterises the Roman City, as it is the Theatre that marks the Greek.

§ 12. During this period, indeed, a new kind of dramatic representation was introduced, which enjoyed a short-lived popularity. This was the Mime. The name at least was borrowed from the Greeks of Sicily. The Greek Mime was a kind of Comic Dialogue in prose, adapted to the purposes afterwards pursued by the Roman Satire. But while the Greek Mime in the. hands of Sophron assumed a grave and dignified character, so that Aristotle classes him among Poets though he wrote in prose, the Roman Mime was generally coarse and licentious. Sylla was particularly fond of these productions and their authors. After his time, Dec. Laberius, a Knight, strove to give them greater dignity. His Mimes, as the fragments show, were in iambic verse, and differed from Comedy chiefly in their absence of plot and their relation to the topics of the day. Tlie fame of Laberius was rivalled by Publ. Syrus, a freedman who acted in his own Mimes, whereas the Knighthood of Laberius forbade this degradation. Csesar, however, on the occasion of his quadruple Triumph, thought fit to order Laberius to enter into a contest with Syrus; and the Knight, though a man of sixty years, dared not refuse. His sense of the indignity was strongly marked by a fine passage in the Prologue, still preserved:

So then, albeit I’ve lived twice thirty years Free from all taint of blame, I left my house At morn a Roman Knight and shall return At eve a sorry Player. Faith, my life Is one day longer than it should have been.¹⁶⁶

In the course of the dialogue he expressed himself with freedom against the arbitrary power of the great Dictator:—

Caesar, however, took no further noticc of these caustic sallies than to assign tho prize to Syrus.

§ 13. In Poetry, the long period from the death of Lucilius to the appearance of Virgil and Horace,—a period of about sixty years,—is broken only by two names worthy of mention. But it must be admitted that these names take a place in the first ranks of 1 woman Literature. It is suflicicnt to mention Lucretius and Catullus.

T. Lucretius Carus was a Roman of good descent, as his liamo shows. All we know of him is that lie was born about 95 b.c., and died by his own hand in the forty-fourth year of his age. But if little is related of his life, his great Poem on the Nature of the Universe is known by name at least to all. It is dedicated to C. Meminius Gemellus, a profligate man and an unscrupulous politician, who sided now with the Senatorial party, now with Caesar, and ended his days in exile at Mitylenc. But Memmius had a fine sense in literature, as is evinced by his patronage of Lucretius and of Catullus.

The poem of Lucretius seems to have been published about the time when Clodius was lord of misrule in the Roman Forum, that is, about 58 B.C. Memmius took part against tho Demagogue, and to this the Poet probably alludes in the introduction to the First Book, where lie regrets the necessity which involved liis friend in political strugglcs.f

The attempt of Lucretius in his great poem is to show that all creation took placc and that all nature is sustained, without the agency of a creating and sustaining God, by the self-operation of the elemental atoms of which all matter is composed and iuto which all matter may be resolved. The doctrine is the doctrinc of Epicurus; but his arguments arc in great part borrowed from the early Greek philosophers, who delivered their doctrines in heroic verse of the same majestic kind that extorts admiration from the reader of Lucretius. lie professes unbounded reverence for the name of Empedocles; and, doubtless, if the works of this philosopher, of Anaxagoras, and others were in our hands, wo should see, what tlicir fragments indicate, the sourccs from which Lucretius drew. Mingled with the philosophic argument

* “Nccesso est multos timeat, quern multi timent” f “Nam nequc nos agere hoc patriai tempore iniquo Possumus aequo animo, neo Memmi clam propago Talibus in rebus communi d£sso salutl”—i. 41.

are passages of noble verse; but liere also it may be doubted how far we can believe in his originality. One of the most magnificent passages,—the Sacrifice of Iphigenia,—is taken in every detail from the famous Chorus in the Agamemnon of JEscliylus. When we see this, and know that the almost universal habit of Latin Poets was not to create, but to adapt and borrow, we must pause before we give Lucretius credit for originality.

Yet none can rise from the perusal of Lucretius without feeling that he was a true Poet. The ingenuity with which lie employs Latin, a language unused to philosophical speculation, to express in the trammels of metre the most technical details of natural phenomena, is itself admirable. But more admirable are those majestic outbursts of song with which the philosophical speculations are diversified. The indignant and melancholy passion with which he attacks the superstitious Religion of his time cannot but touch us, though we feel that his censurc falls not upon Superstition only, but upon the sacred form of Religion herself. But he was little appreciated at Rome. Cicero speaks of him with that cold praise which is almost worse than censure,¹⁶⁷ Horace never makes mention of his name. Yirgil alone showed the true feeling of a poet by his value for Lucretius. He scrupled not to borrow whole lines from his poem; many passages in the Georgies bear witness to the faithful study which he had bestowed on the works of his great predecessor,f and in one often-quoted place he confesses his inferiority to the great didactic Poet.J On the whole, it may be affirmed that Lucretius possessed the greatest genius of all Roman Poets.

§ 14. In striking contrast to the majestic gravity of Lucretius appears the second Poet whom we have named. C. or Q. Valerius Catullus (for his first name is variously given) was a native of Verona, or its neighbourhood. He was born about 97 B.C., and is known to have been alive in the Consulship of Vatinius§ (47 B.C.). He was then fifty years of age, and we hear of him no more. Ilis father was a friend of Cfesar, and left his eon in the possession of some property. He had a house on the lovely peninsula of Sirmio, at the foot of Lake Bcnacus, well known from his own description ;¹⁶⁸ he had a villa near Tibur, and manv of his poems indicate the licentiousness of the life which he led at Rome. lie endeavoured to mend his broken fortunes by attending Memmius, the friend of Lucretius, when he went as Praetor into Bithynia, but was little satisfied with the result, and bitterly complained of the stinginess of his patron.f When lie was m Asia, his brother died, and he addressed to Hortalus, son of the Orator Hortensius, that beautiful and affecting elegy which alone would entitle him to a foremost place among Roman Poets.}; Fearless of consequences, he libelled Caesar in language too coarse for modern ears. The great man laughed w hen he heard tho libel, and asked the poet to dinner the same day.

The poems of Catullus range from gross impurity to lofty flights of inspiration. The fine poem called the Atys is the only Latin specimen which we possess of that dithyrainbic spirit which Horace repudiated for himself. The elegy to Hortalus is perhaps the most touching piece of poetry that lias been left us by the ancients. The imitation of Callimachus is a masterpiece in its way. The little poems on passing events,—pieces de circon-stancc (as the French call them), are the most lively, natural, and graceful products of the Latin Muse. To those who agrco in this estimate it seems strange that Horace should only notice Catullus in a passing snccr.§ It is difficult to acquit the judge of jealousy. For Catullus cannot be ranked with the old Poets, such as Livius, Ennius, aud others, against the extravagant admiration of whom Horace not unjustly protested. II is lyric compositions are as finished and perfect as the productions of Horace, who never wrote anything so touching as the Elegy to Hortalus, or so full of poetic fire as the Atys.

With Catullus may be mentioned his friend C. Lucinius Maccr, commonly called Calvus, whom Horace honours by comprehending him in the same condemnation. He was some fifteen years younger, and was probably son of Lucinius Maccr the Historian. He was a good speaker, and a Poet (if we believe other authors, rather than Horace), not unworthy to be coupled with Catullus. He died at the early age of thirty-five or thirty-six.

Another poet highly praised by Catullus was C. Helvius Cinna, supposed to be the unlucky man torn to pieces by the rabble after Caesar’s funeral by mistake for L. Cornelius Cinna.

§ 15. At the time that the battles of Philippi secured to Italy somewhat of tranquillity, many others began to devote themselves to poetry. Among these were L. Varius Rufus, celebrated by Horace as the Epic Poet of his time ;* and the few fragments from his pen which remain do much to justify the praise. He was the intimate friend both of Horace and Virgil.

Furius Bibaculus also may be mentioned here as an Epic Poet, who attempted to commit to verse the campaign of Caesar in Gaul. Horace ridicules his pretensions in two well-known passages;! but there is reason to think that in the case of Furius also the satirist was influenced by some personal feeling.

But the fame of all other Poets was obscured by the brightness which encircled the names of Virgil and Horace. Properly their history belongs to the Augustan or Imperial era. But as they both published some of their best works before the Battle of Actium, a slight notice of them may be permitted here.

§ 16. P. Virgilius (or Vergilius) Maro was born at Andes, a village near Mantua, in the famous year 70 B.C., so that he was entering manhood about the time when Lucretius put an end to his own life. From his father he inherited a small estate. After the Battle of Philippi, he was among those whose lands were handed over to the soldiery of the victorious Triumvirs. But what seemed his ruin brought him into earlier notice than otherwise might have been his lot. He was introduced to Maecenas by Asinius Pollio, himself a Poet, who had been made Governor of Cisalpine Gaul, and was reinstated in his property. This happy event, as every one knows, he celebrates in his First Eclogue. But it appears that when he tried to resume possession he was nearly slain by the rude soldier who had received a grant of the land, and it was some months before he was securely restored.J In company with Horace, Varius, and others, he attended Maecenas in the famous journey to Brundusium (probably in 37 b.c.). He had already (in the year 40 b.c.) written the famous Eclogue on the Consulship of Pollio, of which we have before spoken; and soon after this lie began tho Georgies, at the special desire of Maecenas. They seem to have been published in their complete form soon after the Battle of Actium. For the rest of his life, which he closed at Brundusium

in the fifty-first year of his age (b.c. 19), he was occupied with liis ^Eneid, which with modest self-depreciation he ordered to be destroyed. But it was revised by his friends Varius an<J Plotius, and published by order of the Emperor, whom he had accompanied in a tour through Greece just before his death.

The character of Yirgil was gentle and amiable, his manners simple, and unobtrusive, and we hear little from himself of the great men with whom he w^Tas associated in friendship. Ilis health w’as feeble, and liis life passed away in uneventful study of which his poems were the fruit and are the evidence. Nothing can be more finished than the style and versification of VirgK Ilis phraseology is so idiomatic as often to defy translation; hit learning so great, that each page requires a commentary. He bestow^rcd the greatest labour in polishing his w’ritings; Ins habit being, as is said, to pour forth a vast quantity of verses in the morning, which he reduced to a small number by continual elaboration, after the manner (as lie said) of a bear licking hot cubs into shape. It may be said that Cicero, Horace, and Virgil liimsclf, completed the Ilellenising tendency which had begun v ith Ennius. Lucretius, though lie borrowed his matter from the old Greek philosophers, is much more Roman in his style. Catullus is more Roman still. But Virgil, except in idiom, is Greek everywhere. His Eclogues are feeble echoes of the Doric grace of Theocritus. Ilis Georgies ai;e elaborately constructed from the works of Hellenic writers, tempered in some of the noblest poetic passages with the grave majesty of Lucretius. In his iEneid almost every comparison and description is borrowed from Homer, Apollonius, and other Greek Poets. In strength of character his Epic fails entirely. No one person in tlie iEneid excites awe, love, sympathy, or any other strong feeling, unless we except the untimely end of Nisus and Euryalus, the fates of young Lausus and young Pallas, and the death of the heroine Camilla. But, notwithstanding all this, such is the tender grace of his style, sucli the elaborate beauty of liis descriptions, that wc read again and yet again with renewed delight.

§ 17. To give any adequate account of the gay Horace in a page is impossible. Q. Horatius Flaccus was born in the Colony of Venusia in the year G5 n.c._t tw'o years before the Consulship of Cicero. He was therefore nearly six years younger than Virgil, and two years older than Octavian. He died in the fifty-seventh year of his age (8 B.C.), following his friend and patron Maecenas, who died a month or two before, according to his own prophetic promise.* Ilis father was a Freedman by birth, and

by profession a Tax-collector, a good and tender parent, caring above all things for the education, of his son. He was at the expense of taking the promising boy to Rome,-probably when he was about twelve years old, where he attended the school of Orbilius, known to others besides Horace for his belief in the maxim that the “sparing of the rod spoils the child.”¹⁶⁹ There he learnt Greek as well as Latin, by reading Homer and the old Roman Poets. About the age of eighteen he went to complete his education at Athens, where Q. Cicero was his fellow-student. lie was at Athens when Caesar was murdered, and became an officer in the army of Brutus. After the Battle of Philippi he returned to Rome, and was thrown entirely upon the world. He obtained, we know not how, a Clerkship in the Treasury, on the proceeds of which he contrived to live in the most frugal manner : vegetables and water formed his truly poetic diet.f But he was not left to languish in poverty. He became acquainted with Varius and Virgil, and was by them introduced to Maecenas; and w^Te have from his own pen a pleasing narrative of the introduction.^ For several months, however, he received no sign of the great man’s favour; but before the journey to Brundusium he was evidently established in intimacy as great as Virgil’s. Soon after this he published the First Book of the Satires. The Second Book and the Epodes followed; but in the interval he had received a substantial reward from his patron in the present of the Sabine farm, so prettily described by h’imself.§ At a later period he becamc master of a cottage at Tibur, distant about fifteen miles from his Sabine villa. But it must be said that, notwithstanding his dependence upon patrons, Horace always maintained a steady determination not to be subservient to any one, Emperor or Minister. The Epistle to Maecenas deserves especial notice; for it is written in a tone equally creditable to the Poet who would not condescend to flatter the Patron, and to the Patron who tolerated such freedom in the Poet.j Hitherto he had declined the name of Poet. But the publication of the Three Books of his Odes in' rapid succession indicated his title to this name, though still he declined to approach subjects of Epic grandeur. Before this he had been introduced to Agrippa, and somewhat later to Octavia. The First Book of his Epistles seems to have been completed in 21 B.C., when the Poet wa$ beginning liis forty-fifth year.* Then followed tho Carmen Seeulare, which may be fixed, by the occasion to which it belongs, to the year 17 n.c. After this came tho Fourth Book of Odos and tho Second Book of Epistles, works in groat part duo to tho express request of Augustus.

The popularity of the Odes of Horace has over been great. lie disclaims the title of Poet for his other writings: and of the Odes he says that lie wrote poetry only under the sharp compulsion of poverty.,¹ Much ij borrowed from tho Greek, as we know; and if the works of the Greek Lyric Poets remained to us in a less fragmentary form, wc should doubtless find far more numerous examples of imitation. But the style of Horace is so finished, his sentiments expressed with so much lively precision, and in words so happily chosen, that lie deserves the title which lie claims of “Home’s Lyric Minstrel.” No doubt his poetry was tho result of great labour, and every pcrsual of his Odes strengthens the belief that lie spoke literally when lie compared himself to “the Matine bee, rilling the sweets of many flowers, and finishing his work with assiduous labour. It is in the First Book of the Epistles that wc must seek the true genius of Horace,—tho easy man of the world, popular with his great patrons, the sworn friend of his brother poets, good-natured to every one, except tho old poets of Rome, whom he undervalued partly (as in the case of Livius) from dislike for a rude and imperfect style, partly (as we must suspect in the case of Catullus and Calvus) from an irrepressible emotion of jealousy.

§ 18. The Elegiac Toots, Tibullus and Propertius, with their younger and more famous compccr Ovid, and many writers of lesser note, belong to the Imperial era of Augustus.

§ 19. A few words may bo added on the subject of Art generally* With the great fortunes that had been amassed first bv Senatorial Rulers and afterwards by the favourites of the Triumvirs, it is natural that Art in some shapo should bo cultivated. But Greek Masters still ruled at Rome; and a taste began for collecting ancient works, such as resembles the eagerness with which the pictures of the old Masters arc sought in modern Europe. In the oration of Cicero against Verres wo have an elaborate exposure of the base and greedy arts by which that wholesale plunderer robbed the Sicilians of tlicir finest Works of Art. It was, no doubt, an extreme case; but Verres would net

* It is impossiblo here to enter minutely into the time of the publication of Horace’s works. Their order is pretty well ascertained, as given in the text. The date of none, except the 1st Book of the Epistles and the Carmen Seeulare, can be settled cxactly, even after all that has beeu written by Bentley, Tait, Milman, and many German scholars, f 2 Epist. ii. 50.

have dared to proceed to extremities so audacious, Unless he had been encouraged by many precedents.

§ 20. The Arts also of the Builder and Engineer grew with the growing wealth of Rome. It was one of the chief and favourite occupations of C. Gracchus, during his brief reign, to improve the roads and bridges. The great Dictator Caesar had many projects in view when he was cut off,—as, for instance, the draining of the mountain-1 akes by tunnels, of the Pontine marshes by canal. Many of these works were afterwards executed by Agrippa. who also (as we have said) constructed the Julian harbour, by uniting the Lucrine and Avernian Lakes with the sea. In the year 33 b.c. he condescended to act as JEdile, and signalised his Magistracy by a complete repair of the aqueducts and sewers.

Before this time, also, had begun the adornment of the Ciiy with noble buildings of public use. A vast Basilica* was laid out and begun by M. JEmilius Paullus, Consul in 50 b.c. This magnificent work was said to have been erected with money received from Caesar as the price of the ConsuPs good services.f But the Basilica JEmilia was eclipsed by the splendid plans of the Dictator Caesar. A great space had lately been cleared by the fire kindled at the funeral of Clodius. Other buildings wero pulled down, and the Basilica Julia extended on the south of the Forum along the frontage formerly occupied by the Tabernac Yeteres. The great work was completed by Octavian. A still more magnificent edifice were the Thermae or Hot-baths of Agrippa, and the noble Temple erected by the same great builder, which still remains under the name of the Pantheon. In this structure the Arch, that instrument by which Rome was enabled to give that combination of stability and magnitude which distinguishes all her works, achieved its greatest triumph; and here was seen the first of those great vaulted domes which became the distinctive attribute of the Christian Architecture of modern Italy. By these and many other works,—politic both because they increased the magnificence and the health of the capital, and also gave constant employment to workmen who might otherwise have been turbulent,—the Emperor Augustus was enabled to boast that he had “found Rome of brick, and left it of marble.”];

* The Basiliea was a Hall of greater length than breadth, divided into a central nave, flanked on each side by aisles. Portions of these buildings were set apart for the use of the Law-courts, and for the transaction of other kinds of business. The first Basiliea was the Porcia, b.c. 184; the second the Fulvia, b.c. 179. That of Paullus was a restoration of the latter. ,

\ “Ut jure sit gloriatus marmoream se relinquere, quam lateritiam acce-pisset.”—Sucton. Octav. 28.

§ 21. But it was not to Homo alone that Augustus, Agrippa, and others confined their labours. Nothing more excites our wonder than to stumble upon costly works, built with a solidity that soems to imply immortality, in tho mountain districts of Italy, or in remote valleys of Gaul or Asia Minor or Africa. Wherever the Homan went he carricd with him his art of Building. The Aqueduct which was constructed by Agrippa to supply Neniausus (Nismes), a colony of 110 great note, with water, is a proof of this assertion. The largest modern cities can hardly show a work of public utility so magnificent as the structure which is known to thousands of modern travellers under tlie name of the Pont du Gard.

§ 22. It is needless here to repeat the dismal tale of corruption and vice which was presented in the life of most of the eminent Romans of the time. Even the rich who were not vicious in their pleasures, such as Lueullus and Ilortcusius, showed less of taste and good sense in their expenditure than a desire of astonishing by display. The old Religion had lost its hold upon the public mind, though superstitious practices lingered among the uneducated classes. Philosophy did little to supply the void. The practical tendencies of the Roman mind attached it to the most practical doctrines of the Hellenic Teachers. The moral philosophy of Zeno and Epicurus divided the Roman world; for here were to be found broad and positive principles of action, comprehensible by all. The finer speculations of tho Academic and Peripatetic Schools found few votaries among men who were equally downright in their purposes of virtuous or vicious living. In earlier times the Stoic doctrines had found a response in the hearts of men who revived the stern simplicity of the old Roman life. Some of the best men, in the times that folio wed the Punic Wars, were Stoics by practice as well as in profession. Such were yEmilius Paullus and his son the younger Scipio. Notwithstanding the pride and self-sufficiency which was the common result of Zeno’s discipline, there was something ennobling in tho principle that a man’s business in life is to do his Duty, regardless of pleasure or pain, riches or poverty, honour or disgrace. But Nature is too strong for such n system to prevail for many years or over many men. The popular Philosophy of the later times was borrowed from the School of Epicurus, but it was an easy aud fashionable modification of the morality of that Philosopher. Epicurus taught that human happiness could not exist without Pleasure, but lie added, that without the practice of Virtue real Pleasure could not exist. The former precept was adopted by the sensualists of Romo: the latter was set aside.

Nothing more strongly proves the vicious state of society than the neglect of the marriage tie and the unblushing immo" rality of the female sex. Caesar and Octavian, though their own practice was not such as to set example to society, both saw the danger of this state of things, and both exerted themselves to restore at least outward decency. Lawful marriage they endeavoured to encourage or even to enforce by Law.

§ 23. But if Religion had given way, Superstition was busy at work. Men in general cannot entirely throw aside those sentiments which are unfolded with more or less of strength in every mind and in every state of social existence. There will still bo cravings after spiritual things and the invisible world. Tlu ancient Oracles had fallen into disrepute, and soon after the Fall of the Republic (as is well known to Christian students) shrank into ignoble silence. But behind the Hellenic, a new world was now opened to Rome. She became familiar with the mystic speculation and the more spiritual creeds of the East. The fanatical worship of the Egyptian Divinities, Isis and Serapis, became common even in Rome, notwithstanding the old feeling' against Cleopatra, and notwithstanding many attempts to crash this worship. It became a common practice to seek for revelations of the future by means of the stars. The grim Marius carried about with him a Syrian soothsayer. To consult Babylonian star-readers was familiar to the friends of Horace. Magi were the companions of Roman magistrates. One of Juvenal’s most striking pictures is that of the gloomy voluptuary Tiberius sitting in his island Palace surrounded by a host of Chaldsean astrologers. Nor could the purer and sublimer images of the Hebrew Scriptures be unknown. Jew⁷s abounded in every populous City of the Empire long before they were scattered by the fall of their Holy City. Virgil drew one of his noblest bursts of poetry from the inspiration of Isaiah’s prophetic visions. Others sought the presence of God in Nature, and confounded the Divinity with his works. Mail seemed to them such a mass of contradictory meannesses, that they tried to solve the riddle of evil, by supposing that lie, like the animals and the whole creation, was but a machine animated by the universal and pervading spirit of the Deity. Such was the elder Pliny,¹⁷⁰ who forfeited a life spent in the study of nature to the curiosity which led him to brave the fires of Vesuvius.

§ 24. Out of this seething mass of doubts and fears, uncertain belief and troubling disbelief, rose an eagerness to find and a readiness to receive the principles of that Religion which took root a few years later in Galileo and Judaia, and which extended itself with marvellous rapidity over every Province of the Empire. The purity of its morality attracted those whoso hearts were still craving for something better than could be found in the Religions or Philosophies of the day. Its divine aspirations and the light it threw upon the baffling uncertainties of life beyond the grave, offered great attractions to those who were looking with doubt and fear upon all that lay before or behind. The breaking up of national distinctions, the union of all the Mediterranean shore under one strong and central Government, the roads and canals which connected countries and Province#* under the magnificent rule of the first Cacsare, were potent instruments in assisting the rapid march of the new Religion. All things, moral and physical, internal and external, concurred to promote the greatest, but most silent, Revolution that has ever passed over the mind of the civilised portion of the World.

AmbrOnes, who, 557. Amiternum, 85, 177. Ampliip&lis, 464. Amphitheatres, characteristic of Roman towns, 739.

Agis IV., king of Sparta, his against Philip, 4‘5. reforms and death, 415. 'Anagnia taken by Rome, 208.

M. Curius, 226. Of Ti. Anclle, Ancilia, wliat, £0. Gracchus, 520. Of C. Grac- Ancus Martius, Sabine, 30. chus, 541. Of Saturninus, I Popular character, 37.

568. Of L. Brutus, 603. Of Andriscus pretends to the by Pseudo-Philippus to de-| Rullus, 044. Of Caesar, 655.1 throne of Macedon, 477. clare war, 477. Defeated Agriculture, 409. Of Africa, 'Anicius, L., defeats Genthius, by Metellus, ib. 480. Fondness of the Ro-| 402.

at Comitia Tributa, 100. Carthaginians, 203, 329. Antemnse, Sabine city, £6. .flMiles, Curule, 100, 371, 372. Agrippa, M. Yips., 700. Con-'Ante-signani, who, 188.

eludes the war of Perusia,'Antigonus, king of Syria and ⁷⁰¹ Forms the Julian har-| Asia Minor, 413.

./Egatian Isles, battle of, 279. ^Emilian Road, 442. yEmilius Mamercus, 131. ./Emilius Paullus, L, conquers Illyrians : Consul before Cannaj, 311. Unwilling to light, 312. Death, 314. iEmilius Paullus, L., son of last, conquers Ligurians, 412. Consul against Perseus, 402. Wins battle of Pydna, 463. Settles Macedonia, 464. Triumph, 465. Censorship and death, 471. >En»5as, legend of, 22. -dSquians, an Oscan tribe, 10. Country, 85. Power after expulsion of Tarquius, 102. Defeated by Cincinnatus, 108.

-Esernia, city of, 178.

./Etolian League, 417. ^Eto-lians invade Peloponnesus, expelled by Philip V., ib. Allied with Rome, 420. Claim chief honour at Cy-nocephala!, 427. Discontent at peace with Philip, 4J8. Invite Antiochus into Greece, 433,434. Saved by Flamininus, 430, 439. Afranius, " '

Caesar ‘

bour, 723. Defeats SextJAntigSnus Doson, 415. Mas Pompeius, 724. Ministerl ter of Achaean League, 410. of Octavian, 720. ; His Antigonus Gonatus, 415. splendid works, 748, seq. Antiochus I., king of Syria, Ahala, C, Servilius, kills Sp. founds Antioch, 413.

Ala of Cavalry, what, 188. Proposes to divide Egypt Alauda, Gallic Legion, 6£5. with Philip, 421. Warned Alba Fucentia> colony, 208. •. by Flamininus, 429. Crosses

Alban Hills, description of, 84. Alban Lake, draining of, 139. Albinus commands against Jugurtha, 549. Death* 550. Alexander of Macedon, con

m5nes), invades Egypt, stopped by “ Circle” of Po-pillius, 407. Tyranny over Jews, 469. Death, 470. Antonius, M. (orator), compared with CraeEiis, 6<j7. Defends Aquillius, 57’/. Impeached, 574. Put to death by Marius, 521.

of Samnite Wars, !s5'.>. Designs upon West, 260. Fate of his empire, 412.

Alexander, son of Perseus, last heir to Macedon, 406.

Alexander of Molossus, lands in Italy, and death, 196.

Alia, battle of the, 140.

Allobrogian Gauls, befriend

Hannibal, 301. Conquered,'Antonius, M., Eon of last, 547. Concerned with Cati-j commands against Pirates, line, 647. | called Creticus, 634.

, L., defeated by Alps, passed by Hannibal,'Antonius, C., brother of last, in Spain,078. Escapes! 301. I colleague of Cicero, C-43.

to Africa, 083. Death, 691. Ambitus, wliat, 443. I Snnfc Asminist nntiiiw>. G4G.

quelled by 1*. Rupilius, ib. Second Slave-War, 503, seq. Quelled by M’ Aquillius, 504. Attempt of Ca'sar to elicck slave-labour, 090.

Social War, 575, seq.

Sophonisba, given to Syphax, USD. Iler fate, 163.

Sora taken by Samnites, ISO. llecovcred, 206. Colony, COS. ■

Spain, conqucst by llamilcar, -9, seq. By Scipio, 344, f-52, seq. Divided into two provinces, 443. Pacified by TL Gracchus, 445, Spaniards appeal to senate, 47*2. Outbreak of Celtiberian War, 473.

?parta, condition, 415. Joins Achfran League, 434.

Sparta eus, insurrection of, 023, seq.

Sparus, what, 443.

Spendius, leader of Carthaginian insurgent mcrceua-rles, 2S3, seq.

SpolStum delies Hannibal, 308.

i>]>olia Optma won by Romulus, 2G. By Cossus, 138. By Marcellus, 290.

Statuary. See Sculpture.

Stipenaium, 138.

Stoic philosophy, at Romo, 509, 749.

Suessa, 20G.

SufTeta of Carthage, C02.

Sulpiclus, 1’., tribune, eloquence, 5S3. Agent of Marins, ib. Death,J>S0.

Sumptuary laws, 471.

Sun-dial, first at Home. 409.

Superstition, prevalence of, at end of republic, 750.

Sybaris, early greatuess, 18.

Sylla, L. Cornelius (Felix), early life, 553. Qutestor of Marius, ib. Sent to Bocchus, 554. Brings Ju gurtha to Marius, ib. Lieutenant of Matius in Cim-bric War, 558. Transfers services to Catulus, 501 Praetor, 571. Splendid lion fight, ib. Governor of Cill

dates, ib. Message to Tauromcnium, rie^e and cap-senate, CO.*. Answer of ture of, by Rupilius, 600. senate, ib. Syllu’s reply, Taxation, doubled after Car-003. Lunds in Italy, ib. me, 8-0. llow mauaged, Defeats Norbanus, 004. 38J.

And Scipio, 005. Defeats Teinum, calls ia Campanians young Marius, COO. Enters against Samnlt. s, ISO. Rome, 007. Attacks Carbo Sylla’s victory there, 327. at Clusium, ib. Marches Telfimon, battle of, £S9. to meet Samnites. ib. Teu Tables. Stvs Deceinn'rate. Marches to relievo Romo, Terentilius Harsa, C., tribune, 112. Law for Jecvm-virate, 114.

Tereutius Afer, P., his Adel-phi performed at funeral of .A'niilius Paullus, 471.

Triumph, ib. Laws, 014, Temi, falls of, 411. seq. Consul 2nd time, 017. Teuta, queen of the Illyrians, Carelessness, ib. Retires war with Rome, 2^7. to l’uteoli, 018. Mode of TeutOne*, origin, 157. Pour life, 019. Death and cha- into Gaul, 559. l*ass Ma-racter, ib. Hus, ib. Annihilated at

Syphax, entertains Scipio Alx, 500. and llasdrubal Gisgo, i>50. Thapsus, battle rf, 091.

Forms alliance with Scipio, Theatres, Greek, 234, seq.

of Cicero, C50. Ilcad-quar-ters of Pompey, C80.

Thessaly, republics of, 4C0.

Three, prevalent number in Roman legends, 23, 24. Partly superseded by two, 31, 40.

Thoas, persuades Antiochus to invado Greece, 4"4.

Thurii, defended by Rome, 232. louses statue to Fa-bricius, 234. Destroyed by Tarentlnos, 215. Occupied by Hannibal, b52.

Tibur, position of, 84. Joins Gauls, 175. How treated after Latin War, 103.

Sccond proposal, after burning of city, 153.

Velabrum, 54.

Velia, 55, 396.

Ventidius Bassus, P., triumph over Parthians, 7*23.

Venusia, colony, 215. Defies Hannibal, 309.

Vercellae, Cimbrians annihilated there, 561.

Virginia, legend of, 117, seq.

Viriathus, 491. His shameful death, 492.

Volones, 323.

Volscians, 16. Country, S4. Take many Latin towns, 101. Led by Coriolanus against Rome, 104, seq. Checked by Sp. Cassius, 103, 137.

Vulsinii, city of Etruria, war with Rome, 207, 210. Renewed, 233. Taken by Ro-

cessful war against Philip mans, 250. Magnificent reV., 420. Forms league with mains, ib. uEtolians, ib. Sent back to Vulturnus, river, 178.

Greece on outbreak of 2nd

Macedonian War, 422. "W.

VaSo⁸ C^UfTer?n«us⁷⁴tonsul ^WaU <>^{f Servius
Tullilt3}’

811?' C Jacter, ?6.’ wi .nd tvin*. Image, 407

r. i ,. _ . ).___„ qio Women, influence on man-

on Hern tine: at Cannas, olA ’ , . .

Escajcs to Venusia, 314. ners, and ■i.crc^ing pro#.-Reception by senate, 317. . ^ ’

Posted at Ariminum to - y

watch Gauls, 346.

Varro, M. Terentius, life and Xanthippus, defeats Regulus, writings, 738. 273.

with Gaul and origin of his Vcrres, C.Cbmelius, plunder* name, 151. Consul, defeats military chest, 60S. Im-Samnites, 180. Dictator, peachcd by Cieero, 027, wq. 182. Engaged in 2nd Sam- Ver sacrum, what, 177. nite War, ‘200. Vesta, her worship, 31.

ty-nine, 193. Thirty-one, Valerius Flaccus, L., patron Vestal virgins, 31, 40.

197. Thirty-three, 203. Ex- and friend of Cato, 450. Vestinians, 16, 178. Allies oi tent of district so divided, Valerius Flaccus, L., super- Rome, 208.

251. Thirty-five, 286. Al- sedes Sylla in the East, 538. Vesuvius, battle of, 189. tered to admit Italians, 531. Murdered, ib. Veto of tribunes, 94.

Trib uni airarii, 50, 330. Valerius Flaccus, L., princeps V'ici or wards of oity, 32.

Supply l-3rd of judices, 626. senatus, 602. Law to make Villicus, who, 398.

Tribuni militares consulari Sylla dictator, 612. Master Villius Tappulus, P., 424. polestate, 130. Military trir of the horse, 613. - Vindex, vindiciaa dare, 118. bunate divided into three.Valerius Poplicola, P., 64. Virgilius Maro, P., the poet, period3, 131, seq. Plebe- His house, 396. ' recovers his patrimony, 720.

ians, when elected, 132. [Valerius, M., dictator, 92. Ilis life and writings, 744.

fiv3, elected by the comitia tributa, 100. Increased to ten, 120. Power in the tim3 of the Gracchi, 520,

533,541. Tribunitian power abolished by Sylla, 615.

Restored by Pompey, 626.

Appropriated by Octavian,

733.

Tribus, original sense of, 2D.

Tributum, property-tax ia war, 330. Repaid, 301. Levied but once after battle Varius Rufus, poet, 744. of Pydna, 503, 710.

Triumviri mensarii, 320.

Triumviriajri dividmdi, 520.

Triumviri rei constituendce, title of Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus, 712; cf. 654.

Tubero, Q. vElius, 532.

Tullianuin, prison, 36.

Tullus llostilius, third king, a Homan, 34. Death, 36.

Tunis, taken, 272.

Tunnel. See Emissarium.

Tusculum, 84.

Twelve Tables, 124-127.

Tyrants, 228, seq.

Trebii, battle there, 304. Usury, condemned by Cato. Tiebonius, C., moves to con- 455. fer provinces on first tri- Utica, 490. umvirs, 666. Legate of Caesar, 6T7. Conspirator, 700. ^

Takes possession of Asia

Minor, 715. Death, ib. Vadlmo, battle of, 233. _ Tresoiri, who, 253. Yalerio-Horatian laws, 121.

Triarii, who, 18S. Valerius Antias, Q., 738.

Tribas, patrician, 29, 43, seq. Valerius Corvus, M., battle

Thcro is, however, one completo gap or severance in tho chain, which is noarly marked by a lino drawn from Capua to Yenusia.

“ Non sic aggeribus ruptis,, quum spumous amnis Kxiit, oppositasquo evicit gurgito molos,

\ For a clear and intelligible account of tho Pelasgians, seo Dr. Smith’s Uist. of Greece, p. 14.

X Virgil, &c. Aristotle {Politic. viL 10) says that the Opicans were formerly called Ausones.

Temaquo transierint Rutulis hibema subactis.”—Virg., Aen. L 263. f Ilonco Virgil (Aen. yil 242) speaks of vada sacra Kumici, although ho ends his poom with tho death of Turnus.

% iovXo?. Here, as in many other of tho Roman legends, Greek influence i3 discerniblo. fl “At puer Aseanius, cui nunc cognomen Iulo,

Triginta magnos volvendis mensibus orbes Imporio explebit, regnumque ab sede Lavini

* * She is commonly confounded with Ilia. But Ilia was a daughter of iEnoas; and hero wo rccogniso a double legend,—one in which the vestal priestess was sister of lulus, ono in which sho was twelvo generations in descent from him-

Ovid, fasti, Hi. 54.—Picus (the Woodpecker) was a Latin god, being father of Turnua, and grandsire of Latinus, Yirg., Aen. vii. 45-49.

f “ Hie jam lercenium totos regnabitur annos Gonto sub 1 lectorea, donee rogina saeerdos Murto gravis geminam partu dabit Ilia prolem.

Therefore Horaca amus2s himself with tho wonder whiel? his friend* • would feel at seeing him, a bachelor, preparing for festivities on tho day ol • tho matron's feast:— . „ . ¹

H From Quiris, Sabine for a spear. Others derived these ^:nair»eb f.oia the town of Cures. Ovid (Fasti, ii. 475) notes both derivations:^

It will be remembored that according to ono form of tho legend, it waa Celer who killed Remus, § C. •

ttenco Horace (Od. i. 38), on receiving tlio news of tho victory of Augustus at Actium, breaks out:—

“Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero Pulsanda tellus; nunc Sdliaribus Omaro pulvinar Deorum Tempus erat dapibus, sodalcs.”

f His name ^ Janus (i. c. Djanus), corresponding to the feminine Diana (Djana), is derived from the root dis (fiiq) or bis, implying double. It may hero bo observed that tho divinities of ancient Latium went in pairs, as, besides Janus and Diana, Saturnus and Ops, Vulcanus and Vesta.

The city land was similarly (it is not said by whom) divided into vici or wards, with a corresponding festival called Compitalia. This festival is attributed to Servius Tullius.

f The Romans continued to reckon by this short year till the calendar was reformed by tho dictator Caesar; and in order to make the lunar year of 355 days square to some extent with the solar year of 365J days, Numa is said to have ordained that a supplementary month should be intercalated every third year between the 23rd and the 25th of February, which was considered to be tho last month of tho year. This business of intercalation, however, was left to the Pontiffs, who executed itkin a very arbitrary and uncertain manner. When, therefore, we hear of events taking place in any Roman month, it seldom happens that this month coincides with our own month of the same name : and this makes it extremely difficult to decide tho exact time of most events in Roman History before tho Julian era.

Wo find, liowevor, that tho samo formality was observed by Tullus IIos-tilius in declaring war against Alba: seo § 3.

f. Chapt. i. § 11. Another legend makes Cosies younger than Tarquin. Compare § 12.*and Chapt. v. § 11.

. % Another form of tho legend takes no notice of his Etruscan origin, and gives him to wife a person bearing the undeniably Latin namo of Caia Goocilia.

It has boon already noticed that tho number 3 frequently recurs in tho early history of Romo (c. i. § G and § 13). But this number is suddenly interrupted, and (as appears from tho text) 2 became the ruling unit of combination. Tho lattor number seems to liavo been tho favourito of tho Latins: seo Chapt. i. § 15, Note. Probably this chango must bo attributed to tho dominant influcncc of tho two elder tribes. .

f Livy and others tell us that Tarquin only doubled tho Centuries of Knights. But this (no doubt) is an error arising from tho three Centuries of Knights bearing tho same name with the threo patrician Tribes. 1'estua (p. 1G9) says: “ Cum Tarquinius Priscus institutas Tribus a Jlcmulo mutate vcUet” etc.; and p. 344, ^uciviias Ilomana in sex est distributa parks, in primos secundosque Titienses, Ramnes, Ivuceres.” Cf. also Dionys. (iii. 71, 72), who speaks of tyvlal Ivnreuv, thus confounding the two accounts.

Tho Etruscan legend, which makes Mastarna or Servius a comrade of Cailes Vibenna, rests on tho authority of a speech of tho Emperor Claudius, which was inscribed on a brass tablet, and is now preserved (though so placed that no ono can read it) in tho Museum at Lyons.

Called lirifitlrjraL (j>v%fiv by Dionysius. They -were probably tho samo as tho Tribimi aerarii, of whom wo shall have to speak hereafter.

f Thcsowcre, 1. Aemilia; 2. Cornelia; 3. Fabia; 4. Iloratia; 5. Mencnia', G. Papina; 7. Serbia; 8. Yeturia; 9. Claudia; 10. *Camilia; 11. *Galeria; 12. *LciiK>nia; 13.. *PoUia; 11. *Pupiniu > 15. *Romilia; 1G. *Volthria. Thu

\ “ In fcedere quod expulsis regibus Populo Romano dedit Porsenna, nomi-natim comprohensum invenimus, no ferro nisi in agri culturam uterentur.”— Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 39. With this may be compared the treatment of tho Israelites by tho Philistinos, 2 Sam. xiii.^19—22. Thcro could bo no more Complo*c proof of absolute submission. '

Ilenco “ to sell tho goods of King Porsenna” became a proverb at Romo for despoiling an enemy. Livy attempts to explain tho phrase in accordanco with tho legend, which represents Romo as never having yielded to the king.

f It probably was tho Crustumino or Crustumerian, the first that did not bear the name of a Patrician Gens. Seo Chapt. iii. § 20, Note, whcncQ it will be seen that a Claudian Tribo already existed.

Cicero {Be Bepublicd, ii. G) saj's that Romulus “ locum delcgit in regiono pestilento salubrem.” And Livy (vii. 38) represents discontented Romans as declaring that they wero wearied of struggling “ in pestilento atquo arido cir-cum urbem solo.” Compare tho reasons given against removing to Veii, v. 54. Strabo, a Greek, speaks still more disparagingly of the situation of Romo. It was, ho says, matter of necessity, rather than of choice.

f Tho reviewer abovo referred to quotes such cases; and Dr. Arnold, on tho authority of Chevalier Bunsen, mentions the great improvements that havo been made on tho lands of tho Duko of Zagarolo (near Palestrina) by .promoting tillago and permanent occupation. Hist, of Rome, i. p. 507.

f A well-known German historian calls tlio Spartans by tho namo of " stunted Romans.” There is much resemblance to bo traced.

\ Such prisons wero called ergastula, and afterwards becamo tho places for keeping slaves in.

Usually the Tribunes themselves conducted the business of the Comitia Tributa. But at present there were no Tribunes. The presence of tho Chief Pontiff, although a Patrician, would give a peculiar force to tho restoration of tho leges sacratcc of tho tribunato. .

Seo Liv. iii. 54. They wero called Praetors in tho Laws of the XII. Tables (Plin., Hist. Nat. xviii. 3). The derivation of consul and constdere is evidently tho same, namely tho preposition cum or con, implying joint deliberation and common action. Niebuhr compares it to prcesul from prce, exul from ex.

f Zfivrac KaraKavdyvai, Diodor. xii. 25. Livy (iii. 55) says that tho offenders wero “ to bo scourged and beheaded.” But tho practice of burning seems at that timo to have been the last penalty.

X Tho terms of tho enactment, as given by Livy, aro:—“Ut quod tributim pltbcs jussissGt, populum tencrot.”

Livy (iii. 34) calls them “ fons omnis publici privatiquo juris.” f Cicero do Republic^, ii. 31. So Appius boasts at the close of tho first decemvirate—“so . . omnia jura summis infimisquo nequasse.” Liv. iii. 34.

X They were called libertini absolutely, but liberti in reference to their patron. Thus Tiro was Cicero’s liberties, but when spoken of simply lie was a liberiinus.

Niebuhr quotes the case of tho baronial families of Bremen, who by such ‘ restricted marriages were in filly years diminished by one-third. By the Act of Union with Scotland it was forbidden to creato any more Scottish peerages. At the Union 154 Peers were on the Roll. In 1812 71 of this list had disappeared. A few of these were forfeited, and some dormant; but far tho greater number were extinct,—and this, though there was no Law prohibiting marriage with commoners.

“Senonumquo priores,” days Juvenal, whereas Polybius writes their namo 'Lr)vovtq. But other Gallic names in -ones are pronounced short (as Lingones, Santones Vascones,' &c.), and therefore we follow Juvenal.

f All of it except Liguria, which was bounded by tho Apennines and Maritime Alps, tho Pq. and tlio Trebia.

f Tho battle of tho Alia was fought about tho summer solstico (Plutarch, Camill. c. 19). The Kalends of August was tho day marked in tho Kalendar as ill-omened in consequence of this battle. But tho uncertainty of tho year has already been noticed, Chapt, L § 17, Note,

Plutarch, GamiU c. -22. Aristotle was bom in 384 B.C., and was living at Athens when this last invasion took place. From this and other facts, we sco that tho affairs of Italy were now exciting interest in Greece, t “ Lactca colla

Appian (Bell. Civ. i. 8) states this so clearly, that it is surprising that tho common misapprehensions should over havo arisen. After explaining What the Public Land was, ho says that Licinius ordained /nrfdha £x^slv TH2AE THE I'll£ rt'kkdpa'TtevTaKoaiuv •nT.eiova, k. t. A.

In a highly organised state of society, it is impossible to conceivo tho suspension of tho chief magistrates for so long a time. But after tho burning of tho city, with tho population much diminished, and in tho absence of foreign wars, tho thing docs not seem incredible. . ' . ’ '

It is doubtful, indeed, whether tho Annals even went so far back as tho earlier of these legends. The fact of the year being marked by fixing a nail confirms Livy’s statement that writing was little known in thoso times: ‘^ParvED et rarae per eadem tempora littene . . .; una custodia fidelia memoria rerum gestarum.”—yl 1. . -

According to an older legend it derived its namo from the Sabine chartv' pion Mettus Curtius (chapt. ii. § 9). J lero is a notable example of the “ doublo Jogond.” Tho spot was called “tho Lacus Curtius;” and'to account for tho namo two legends arose, ono recent, tho other of remote antiquity.

Chapt. xv. § G. Tho names of thcso four tribes wero tho Stellatine, Tro* mentino, Sabatino, Aniono. Liv. vi. 5.

From tho Etruscan chief Capys. It must bo remarked, however, that Capua and Campania seem to bo etvmologically akin, and aro probably botli of Samnito origin.

% Liv. iv. 44, who places the conquest of Cumee in tho year 420 B.c. Diodorus, xii. 76, places it eight years earlier.

Some received allotments on tho public lands of Latium and tho VoLscL, and .tlieso portions only amounted to 2$ jugera. But thoso who wero settled on tho Falemian lands had three.—Liv. viii. 11,

In tho censorship of P. 'Sempronius Soptms, P. Sulptciu9, 209 B.C. “Tri-busquo additao duse, Anionis ct Terontiaa.”—Liv. x. 9.

This was tho Scipio whoso sarcophagus (figured at tho head of this Chapter) is so familiar to all eyes. The inscription on it records that ho “ conquered tho Lucanians, &c., and led away hostages.” When this was dono is not re* oorded in Livy

f Tho Plebeians, indeed, lirst obtained entrances to tho Censorship in 280 b.c.—Liv. Epit. xiii. But thcro seems to havo been no law necessary to admit them.

f Part of it has recently been laid bare of tho rubbisli which had collected over it, and an interesting description of the discoveries made, with restorations, has boon given by Canina, tho well-known Roman antiquary. Sco tho woodcut at tho head of this Chapter.

From this it will appear that tho common Roman practico of raising their aqueducts on high arches arose, not from i^norancc of tho fact that wator

£ Aurel. Victor says that Curius assigned fourteen jugera; Pliny (H. N., xviii. § 8) says seven. Tho statement in the text attempts to reconcile tho two.

f Seo the cut at tho head of this Chapter. There is no doubt that this temple was a Hospital, liko other temples of iEsculapius. Its insular position might bo chosen to avoid the noise of tho thoroughfares, and to obtain fresher air than was possible in the close and crooked streets of the old city.

This office was abolished not, long after. In the Punic and subsequent ware tho Consuls and Praetors commanded both the armies and fleets indifferently, as was the case in all modern European countries till tho closo of tho 17 th century. « ^

f Compare the assembly in the theatre at Ephesus to hear the complaint of tho silver-workers against tho Christians.—Acts xix. 29.

* Sic* avrdf 6 TIvppoc tv toI<; Itiioir vTrouvrjuasi ypd<j>ei.—Diony& xix. 11.

f Tho Prefectures of which wo hoar are:—(1), in Campania: Capua, Cuma?, Casilinum, Volturnum, Litemum, Puteoli, Acenrae, Suessula, Atella, Calatia, Fundi, Formiaj; (2), in,Etruria: Caere, Saturnia; (3), in Samnium: Vena-frum^ Allifae; (4), in the Volscian land: Arpinum, Privernum; (5), in ih« Hernican: Anagnia, Frusino; (6), in the Sabine: Reate, Nursia.

|| Ilence the distinction between Civitates Federates and Civitates Libert All Federate Communities wero free, but not all Froo Communities were federate.

f The Roman Colonies of which wo hear previous to 2G3 B.C., wero Antium, Vitellia, Satricum, Terracina, Casinum, in the Yolscian land; Mintumce and Sinuessa, in Campania (200 n.o); Sena Gallica, on the Umbrian coast (282 B.C.); Castrum Novum, in Picenum (2G4 B.O.).

This was so in later times, at all events. Hence in some towns we hear the magistrates called Duumviri, in others Tresviri, in others Quatuoi'viri. For purposes of business tho municipal senates wore divided into committees of ten, whenco the members of those senates are callod JDecuriones.

A plan of Carthage, with its harbours, will bo given to illustrate its siege, in Chapt. xlvi. § 7.

f Phoenix became in old Latin Poenus. Tho adjcctivo lienee formed was Punicus, as munirc from mocnia_y punire from poena.

la tho Capitolino Museum at Romo—probably a copy of tho original, raado when tho Columna Rostrata was rostorod by tho Emperor Augustus.

No mention of this is mado by Polybius, tho most ancient and most authentic historian of the war. Its subsequent invention shows how easily somi-mythical legends may intrude themselves oven into tho history of well-known times, and certainly is one of tho circumstances which indicate that tho fame of Regulus is partly duo to tho family prido of tho Atilian Gens.

“ Yel to sulco, Serrano, serentcm.”—Acn. vi. 844. Tho story told of Cincinnatus is hero transferred to Calatinus: seo Chapt. ix. § 4.

Tho Illyrian soamon long continued tho use of theso light vessels. Tho Liburnian galleys used by Augustus at Actium wero from theso coasts. Therefore Horace (Epod. i. 1) says to Maecenas,

Polybius says nine (iii. 53, 9). But tliis must include tho two days’ halt at tho top of tho pass. For the descent occupied at least six days (comparo id., iii. 55, 8, with 56, 1); and the whole passage took fifteen days (56, 3).

f From Grenoble on the Isdre to Turin, geographers dispute about tho route ascribed by Polybius to Hannibal At one time, General Melville’s route was adopted, which carried him over tho low rango between Grenoblo and Montmeillan into tho valley of Chamb6ry, up the Isero over tho Little St. Bernard, down through the valley of Aosta into the Insubrian country, and co back to Turin.

This is confessedly a long round. And fc.ter writers prefer carrying him from Montmeillan up tho Arc over tho Mont Ccnis, and straight down by Susa to Turin.

^ Others again follow Livy in taking him from Grenoble up tho Romancho into tho valley of Bourg d’Oisans, and so over tho Mont Genevro (Cottian Alp) down to Turin.

Tho controversy will probably last for over. Tho data seem insufficient to enable us to form a positive judgment.

Tho usual complement of a legion at this time was 4000 foot and 200 horse. At need, this was raised to 5000 foot and 300 horso. It must bo always remembered that the legions of every Consular army were rather more than doublod by tho addition of tho Italian Auxiliaries.

The slaughter in ancient battles was much greater than in modern. At "Waterloo tho English loss in killed and wounded was about 15,000, tho French more than double. The killed are generally about one-fifth of the whole. But in ancient battles we never hear of wounded; for in ancient battles tho conflict was hand to hand, and few were left wounded on the field. In these also the lines wero generally much closer and deeper, and tho attack took place along tho whole line instead of on single points; so that, in case of a defeat, tho conquerod army was wholly at tho mercy of tho conqueror.

Casilinum U tho modern Capua. It lies on tho river. Tho sito of tho ancient Capua is about two miles eastward, on an cininenco.

Thiso wlio seem to have been opposed to Fabius are marked with an asterisk. Tho Patrician Consul stands first in each year.

Therefore, out of sixteen Consulships, Fabius and his son held four, Marcellus three, Fulvius two.

In tho samo way that the elder Fabius had acted as legato to his son in tho Third Samnito "War, Chapt. xxiii. § 8. When old Fabius arrived in camp, ho rode up to greet his son, who bade him dismount before ho presumed to appear before tho Consul. Tho old man alighted and said, “ My son, I wished to seo if thou wouldst remember that thou wort Consul.”

Tho burning-glasses are not mentioned in any of the earlier accounts. They first appear in Galen and Lucian, authors of the second century after Christ. Tho thing appears to bo mathematically possible; for, by a complicated arrangement of mirrors, Buffon succeeded in igniting wood at a distance of 150 yards. See a summary of tho argument in Smith’s Diet, of Biography, vol. L p. 270.

Tho Carthaginians must liavo had a very scarco supply of names. Their Ilannos are infinito.

f So much was attributed to tho capturo of Syracuse, that the Sibylline books were consulted, and tho games of Apollo, afterwards ono of tho most splendid shows of Romo, instituted (Liv. xxv. 12).

Tho medimnus (=1£ bushels) was selling- for 15 drachma? (about 12 shillings), Polyb., ix. 44. In Polybius’ time corn sold in Oisalpine Gaul for 4 obols (about 6£&) tho modimnus (ii. 15, 1): but this was extraordinarily choap. In Cicero’s timo a modimnu3 in. Sicily sold for 15 sesterces (about 2s. Gti.), in VciT. iii. ’Z.’S.

Tho names are so similar, and Livy’s narrativo so vague, that ono is led lo suspect that ono event has been made into two.

Tho Eighteen faithful Colonics wero:—In Apulia, Brundusium, Venitsia, Luceria; in Lucania, Pccsium; in Samnium, Beneventum, Saticula, JEsernia; in Latium, Fregellai, Signia, Norba; in Etruria, Cosa; in Picenum, Iladria> Firmum; in Umbria, Spoletum, Ariminum; in Gallia Cisalpina, Placentia, Cremona; and, lastly, tho island of Pontia.

Tho Twelve contumacious Colonics were:—In Campania Caler, Stiessa; in Latium, Interamna, Circeii, Setia, Cora, Ardea; in the Marsian country, Alba Fucentia; in tho Sabine, Carscoli; in Etruria, Satrium, Ncpcic; in Umbria, Narnia.

In six days, Livy says (xxviil 10). Tho soldiers wero much assisted in theso long marches by tho loan of horses, cars, &c.

IIo was seventeen at tho skirmish on tho Ticinus (Polyb., x. 3). When ho went to Spain ho was in his twenty-seventh year (id., x. 6). IIo cannot therefore havo set out till tho end of 210 or the beginning of 209. Livy’a chronology is hardly to bo reconciled with the abovo statements.

Polybius says in seven days (x. 9). Tho distanco in a straight lino is not less than 230 miles, so that this march would rival tho march of Nero to tho Mctaurus. Wo must supposo that tho baggago and engines wero sent with-tho fleet

Tho Megalosian games (*. e. tho games of tho ficytD.r) f.iTjrrjp) long preserved the memory of this great event.

A number of old Latin forms occur in it,—DU... bene verruncent, i. o. vertant,

f In later times the Tribe Assembly became too largo for the Forum. It might meet in any place to which tho power of the Tribunes extended; that is, any place within a mile of tho city walls, and thereforo in the Campus Mar-tius, the regular meeting-place of the Centuriate Assembly.

X These ages were probably fixed by the Lex Annalis of L. Villius (b.c. 180). The age of 27 for the quaestorship is inferred from the age at which the Gracchi and others are known to have held it. The other ages follow from a well-known passage of Cicero (de Lege Agraria, ii. 37), in which he says that ho held each of his curule offices at tho earliest ago permitted by the law. Compare De Officiis, ii. 17.

Such exempts wero called Emeriti,—qui stipendia legitima fecissent. Tho number of campaigns required was 20 for tho infantry, 10 for tho cavalry.

Declarations of War wero submitted to tho Centuriato Assembly, treaties of Peaco to tho Tribes. Seo the commencement of the First Punic and Mace, donian wars (Chapt. xxviii. § 7, xxxix. § 12), and tho treaties at the closo of tho First Punic and Hannibalic war3 (Chapt. xxix. § 23, xxxiv. § 26).

Niebuhr and many others attribute tho reform to the Censorship of Fabius and Docius (Chapt. xxiv. § 15). Others place it as lato as tho Censorship of C. Flaminius, only two years before Hannibal crossed tho Alps. Tho”o is no cvidenco to justify any positive conclusion.

f Iiei gerendai causa. Tho third causo for appointing Dictators was clavi fig&ndi causa,—to drive a nail into the door-post of tho Tcmplo of Jupiter, as a rudo way of keeping count of tho years.

f Of theso, threo were allied citics, Civitates Federate?, Messana, Tauro mcnium, Netiun,; fivo wero frco without any special treaty of alliance, Civitates Liberal ct immuncs, Cuuturipa, Alosa, Segesta* Panormup, Ilalicyux

Tbeso duos (portoria, as they wero called) were extended to each Province as it was formed, and were abolished in Italy in tho year 60 B.C.

f This was tho simplex tributum. Tho word tributum was used bocause this war-tax was collected in each tribe, according to tho assessment of tho Censors. Tho tribo-officers who collected it wero tho Tribuni Aerarii

Saya Livy (xxxix. 7) “A decree was mado that from tho moneys paid into the Treasury after tho triumph (of 187 B.C.), repayment should bo mado of that portion of tho soldiers’ pay contributed by tho peoplo which had not been repaid already. ”

f If two Plebeians lived together for a year, this was enough to constituto Matrimonium. But tho union of Patricians required certain religious rites, called Confarreatio.

The settlement of tho Fabii on tho Cremera shows this. When tho great Fabius first crossed the Ciminian Hills, he sent his brother to explore, because he could speak Etruscan. See Chapt. xxii. § 13.

When tho pound of weight ceased to be the samo with tho pound of currency, tho former was usually designated cos grave.

Such a recovery of rights was called Postliminium. For tho legal opinions on both sides see Cicero de Oral. i. 40, de Off. iii. 30, pro Ccecina, 34.

f Tho rights of the question have already been discussed in speaking of tho similar transaction at the Furculae Caudinae. Cliapt. xxii. § 8.

X From CalUccia or Gallaecia, tho ancient nam« ^f tb^ district in tho N.W-of Spain, 3till called Gallicia.

These Leges TabeUarice (as the Romans called them, tdbeUa being their word for a ballot) were four in number: 1. The Gabinian (139 B.C.), introducing the use of the Ballot at Elections. 2. The Gassian (137), introducing it in all state-trials, except in tho case of high-treason (perduellio). 3. The Papirian (131), introducing it into tho Legislative Assembly. 4. The Gediaa (107), which cancelled tho single exception mado by tho Cassian Law.

“ Nam quod isti dicunt rnalcvoli, homines nobiles Eum adjutare adsidueque una scribcre,

la the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus, the Parasite flatters Pyrgopolinices thus:—

“ I do remember—let me see—an hundred Cryphiolathronians, and thirty Sardians,

Ana threescore Macedonians—that’s the number Of men you slaughtered in a single day.

The Parasite in the Eunuchus of Terence is much more delicate in his flattery. + Mostellaria, Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 76. j As Pamphilus in the Andria, Act v. Sc. 3.

These Historical Plays were no doubt the dramas known under the name of the Fabulce Prcetextatce, because the chief persons wore the Prcdcxta or State-robe of Senators.

. f Popular opinion represented Paeuvius as the Euripides, Attius as the Sophocles of Roman Tragedy:—

Paeuvius docti fiimam Senis, Attius alti.”—Horat. 2 Epist. i. 50. Horace commends the fashion of plays on subjects of Roman history:—

“ Nee minimum meruSre deeus, vestigia Graeca Ausi deserere, et eelebrare domestica facta.”—Ars Poet. 28G.

One of the vigorous sayings of Attius is the famous Tyrant’s maxim, “ Oderint duni metuant.” Tho pithy line—“ Virtute sis par, dispar fortunsB patris”— has been amplified by Virgil into—

f Its originality is expressly asserted by Horace, who calls Lucilius ‘‘6fraxis intacti carminis auctor” (1 Serm. x. 08). Juvenal’s definition of Satire is well known:

The word Satira or Satura is said to mean a medley,—a sense well suited to this definition.

Appius calls his opponents not Senators (ftovlevrac or ytpovreg), but ol tLTTtjia-iKoi or oi ttZovgioi, Lat. Possessorcs,—wealthy Landholders.

For the Tribunes entered on office on the IV. Id. Decembr.—tha 10th of December; and the new election was held in the July followiDg. f wf unoXoiTo nai aA/lof, otic roiavru ye —Od. i. 47.

The Lselius (de Amicitia), and the Republica. The time at -which the latter is supposed to be held is just before the death of Scipio.

200,000 persons, receiving monthly 1J bushels, would receive in tho year 375,000 quarters. Taking wheat at 50s. the quarter, the corn-bounty would cost, in our money, 937,500J. per annum.

The Capite Ccn&i. f More correctly written Sulla. But we retain the form sanctioned by long usage.

“ Utrum tandem beatior. C. Marius turn, quum Cimbricso victoria) gloriam cum collegd Catulo communicavit,—paene altero Laelio, an . . . etc.” —Tuscul. Qucest. v. 19. The comparison of Catulus with Laelius implies that of Marius with Scipio.

It must have been after the submission of these four nations that the Mlies struck money with four figures instead of eight. The four shortly ifter fell to two. See the coins at the head and foot of this Chapter.

f The argument of Cicero in his well-known speech for tho poet Archias „ lurns upon tho provisions of this la'w.

Sometimes called Proconsular Asia. Hence it is that persons, being already in Phrygia or Galatia, speak of going into Asia, as in the Acts of the Apostles, xvi. G; comparc xix. 22, 26, 27, <fcc.

f On his coins the name is spelt Mithradates. The Romans changed it, as was their wont So, for instance, TAacaalia became in Latin Massilia, Maooaviocag Massinissa, Ac.

“ Homincm longe audacissimum .. et insanissimum.” Cicero pro Sex. Roscio Amerino 12. He stabbed Q. Scaevola at the funeral of Manus, and presently brought an accusation against him, “ bccause he had not died of the wound.”

avpai neptTTvioLOiv, uvdejia <J£ xP^va°v W-iyeh T(l fiiv x^eP°odev ut? dyXauv devdepeuv,

The Trihuni uErarii. Originally they were the Presidents of the Tribes and collectors of the Tributum, but their name hardly over occurs m Roman authors. It is probable that there was one Tribunus yErarins for every Century in the new Cmnitia Centurintn, and therefore in all 350 in number.

A custom probably derived from the times when the Etruscans were foes of Rome. Tho removal of the standard was, in those times, a sign of tho enemy’s approach, and on this signal the Comitia centuriata became an army ready for battle. Tho form remained, though the reason liad long passed by.

Our llth of Jan. G2 b.c. In this and all following dates corrcction must be made to obtain the real time. The Roman 1 st of January of this year would bo by our reckoning the 14th of March It must be observed also that Hig Romans reckoned the night as "belonging to the following day. What we call the night of the 6th of November would be with them the night of the *7th.

For a lively description of the whole scene, see Cicero ad Att. i. 14. f It was from thia year that Pollio began his History of this Civil 'War:—'

f Ibid. ii. 9,1; 14,1; 16, 2, &c. Sampsiccranus vras the King of Emesa in Syria, Strabo, xvi. p. 1092. Alabarches (Ibid. ii. 17, 3), an Oriental name for the collector of certain dues and taxes.

\ She was no way related to Fompey, being the daughter of Pompeiu* Rufus, Sylla’s son-in-law.

“ Extrcmosquc hominum Morinos—Virg., JEn. viii. 727 ;—where thi* line and that which precedes ought probably to be transposed.

Tins is Caesar’s simple narrative. The dramatic scene, in which he is represented as pausing on the banks of the Rubicon, and anxiously weighing the probable consequences of one irremediable &tep is duo to rhetorical writers of later times.

This is tho true dntn, according to our reckoning. By the Roman Calendar, it was December But, for the military operations which follow, it is bo important to note the true seasons, that we shall, from this point, giye the dates as if tho Roman Calendar had already been corrected-

Plutarch’s story is that the order was given because Pompey’s cavalry consisted chiefly of young Romans, who were afraid of having their beauty

rilt. Cffisar, however, mentions that Pompey’s cavalry was excellent, and s not notice that he gave any order at all about striking at the face. The foot soldiers would naturally strike at the most defenceless part, and the story of the“ spoilt beauty” would be readily added by somo scornful Caesarian.

f The Brutus, Orator ad M. Brutum, Partitiones Oratoriae, Academica, De Finibus lonorum et malorum. \ Cicero de Off. iii. 21.

Pedius was son of Caesar’s second sister, Julia minor, and therefore first cousin (once removed) to Octavius.

Every ono knows his allusions to the loss his shield at Ph>^i:r*oi, 2 Cartn-viL 9. rf^TA

C. Asinius Pollio was Consul in the year 40 b.c. It was he who had introduced tho young poet to Maecenas. The child who was to restoro tho golden age—“ Cara Deum soboles, magni Jovis incrementum ”—must have been the cxpected progeny either of Antony and Octavia, or of Octavian himself who about the same time celebrated his nuptials with Scribonia, the sister-in-law of Sext. Pompey.

“Non Regno .... ncquc Dictatura, pod Principia nomine constitutam Rempublicara.”—Tacit. Annal. i. 9. _#

+ Chapt. xxxv. § 12. He was not styled Censor or Tribune, but waa said t > be invested Censor til polcstate, Tribunicid potentate.

We know this of the two Ciceros, of Csesar, of Horace, of Persius. The a^e at which they went seems to have been much the same as that at which young men in the present day go to the Universities.

To distinguish him from P. Varro Atacinus, a Poet from the banks of the Atax (Aude) in Narbonese Gaul. See Horace, 1 Serm. x 46.

f For instance : Ocrea, quod opponebatur ob crus: Anas, a nando: Lus-cinia, quia luctuose cancre existimetur: Ignis, a nascendo, quod liic nascitua et omne quod nascitur ignis scindit • Luna, quod lucet noctu: Sol, quod solum ita lucet ut ex co dies sit

“Etenim ipsi Di negare eui nil potuerunt, Hominem me denegare quis possit pati ? Ergo bis tneenis aetis annis sine notd Eques Romanus lare degrcssus meo Domum reverto Mimus. Nimirum hoc dio Uno plus vixi mihi quam vivendus fuit”

“Lucretii poemata, ut scribis, ita sunt: non multis luminibus ingenii, multae tamen artis.”—Ad Quintum Fralrem, ii. 11, 4.

f Compare, for instance, Georg, i. 121 sq. with Lucret. v. 931 sq.\ Georg. ii. 461 with Lucret. ii. 24; Georg, iii. 289 with Lucret. i. 921; Georg, iii. 478 sq. with the description of the Plague in Lucret. vi.; &c.

Atquc metus omnes et inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus strepitumque Achcrontis nvari.

A line is quoted from Domitius Marsus, a brother poet, who was educated at the school of Orbilius:

		of Grecco by Flamininus .. ........	419
1D2-188.	XL.	War with Antiochus, and settlement of Eastern Affairs..................	432
200-117.	XLI.	Wars in tho West contemporaneous with tho Macedonian and Syrian Wars........	441
200-1*69.	XLII.	Civil History during the Macedonian and Syrian Wars: Corruption of manners: Senatorial predominance : Scipio and Cato ........	446
180-168.	XLIII.	The Third Macedonian War, or War of Perseus..	456
1G6-150.	XLIY.	General History between the War with Perseus and the last Wars with Greece and Carthage ..	467
151-146.	XLY.	The last Wars with Maced on and Greece: Fall of	476
150-146.	XLYI.	Third Punic War: Fall of Carthago ......	481
149-133.	XLYII.	Spanish Wars: Fall of Numantia........	491
133-131.	XLYIII.	First Slave-War in Sicily .........	497
—	XLIX.	The condition of Romo and her People at the close of the Period of Conquest..........	502
	L.	Manners and Morals: Literature and Art .. .. BOOK VI.	503
	FIRST PERIOD OF CIYIL WARS.
133.	LI. Tiberius Gracchus...............		518
133-129.	LIT. Return and death of Scipio tho Younger . . ..		527
128-121.	LIII.	Caius Gracchus and his times ........	533
120-104.	LIY. Jugurtha and his times............		545
105-101. 103-101.	LY. Tho Cimbrians and Teutons..........) Second Slave-War in Italy..........)		- 556
100-91.	LYI. From the Sixth Consulship of Marius to tho death of M. Livius Drusus............		565
90, 89.	LVII. Tho Social War ..............		575
88-86.	LYIII.	First Civil War ..............	582
88-84.	LIX. First Mithridatic War.......... . .		593
83, 82.	LX. Return of Sylla: Second Civil War ......		601
82-78.	LXI. Sylla’s Dictatorship and death .......		610