HISTORY OF ROME. 



patriotic effort of Livius Drusus ' the Gracchus 

 of the aristocracy' to effect a compromise be 

 tween the privileges of the rich and the claims o 

 the poor. The oligarchic party among the former 

 i.e. the senate, were enraged by his proposition to 

 double their numbers by the introduction of 300 

 equites ; the latter by his offer to the 'Latins' anc 

 ' Allied Italians ' of the Roman franchise. Drusus 

 fell, 91 B.C. by the steel of a hired bravo. Hardly 

 a year elapsed before the whole of the subject 

 ' Italians ' i.e. the Marsians, Pelignians, Marru- 

 cinians,Vestinians, Picentines, Samnites, Apulians, 

 and Lucanians were up in wild and furious re- 

 volt against Rome ; and, though the rebellion was 

 crushed in less than two years by the superior 

 generalship of Marius, Sulla, and Pompeius Strabo 

 (father of the ' great ' Pompey), the insurgents 

 virtually triumphed ; for the promise which 

 Drusus had held out to them of the ' Roman 

 franchise,' was made good by the Lex Plautia 

 Papiria, 89 B.C. Yet the cost was terrible. It is 

 calculated that 300,000 men the flower of Rome 

 and Italy, perished in the struggle ; nor was even 

 this tremendous holocaust sufficient to appease 

 the Fates. The jealousy that had long existed on 

 the part of Marius towards his younger and more 

 gifted rival, Sulla, kindled into a flame of hate 

 when the latter was elected consul, 88 B.C. and 

 received the command of the Mithridatic War 

 an honour which Marius coveted for himself. 

 Then followed the fearful years of the ' civil wars ' 

 between the two chiefs, 88-82 B.C. when blood 

 was spilt like water ; and proscriptions and 

 massacres were the order of the day. It was a 

 'Reign of Terror' surpassing even the excesses 

 of the French Revolutionists. Sulla, the leader of 

 the aristocracy, which was nominally the party of 

 order, triumphed, but the ferocious energy dis- 

 played by the revolutionists convinced him that 

 the ' Roman franchise ' could never again be 

 ifely withdrawn from the ' Italians ; ' and Roman 

 :itizens, therefore, they remained till the dissolu- 

 tion of the empire ; but, on the other hand, his 

 whole legislation was directed towards the de- 

 struction of the political power of the burgesses, 

 and to the restoration to the senatorial aristocracy 

 ind priesthood of the authority and influence they 

 lad possessed in the times of the Punic Wars. 

 That his design was to build up a strong and 

 rigorous executive, cannot admit of doubt, but 

 the rottenness of Roman society was beyond the 

 ;ach of cure by any human policy. 

 Abroad, the Roman army continued as before to 

 prove irresistible. About 13 years after the exter- 

 mination of the northern barbarians, the Cimbri 

 and Teutones, or in 88 B.C. broke out in the far 

 East the first of the ' Mithridatic Wars,' which, 

 like the Samnite, Punic, and Macedonian Wars, 

 were three in number. Begun by Sulla, 88 B.C. 

 they were brought to a successful close by Pompey, 

 65 B.C. although the general that had really broken 

 the power of Mithridates was Lucullus. The re- 

 sult was the annexation of the sultanate of Pontus, 

 as a new province of the Roman republic. Next 

 year, Pompey marched southward with his army, 

 deposed Antiochus Asiaticus, king of Syria, and 

 transformed his kingdom also into a Roman prov- 

 ince, while in the following year (63 B.C.) he reduced 

 to a state of dependence Phoenicia, Crele-Syria, 

 and Palestine, storming Jerusalem, and, to the 

 horror of the Jews, violating their Holy of Holies. 



But what a terrible commentary it is upon these 

 glittering triumphs to remember that during the 

 same year there was hatched at Rome the Con- 

 spiracy of Catiline, which, if it had not been 

 crushed by an extraordinary display of decision 

 on the part of the consul Cicero, would have 

 placed at least the city of Rome at the mercy of 

 a crew of aristocratic desperadoes and cut-throats. 

 One thing now becomes particularly noticeable, 

 viz. the paralysis of the senate that ' governing 

 board ' as Mommsen calls it, that had once been 

 the mightiest power in the world. Henceforth 

 the interest as well as the importance of Roman 

 history attaches to individuals, and the senate 

 sinks deeper and deeper into insignificance, 

 until at last it becomes merely the obsequious 

 council of the emperors. The famous coalition of 

 Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar (known as the First 

 Triumvirate}, which dates from the year 60 B.C. 

 proves how weak the government and how power- 

 ful individuals had become ; and the same fact is 

 even more dismally brought out by the lawless 

 and bloody tribunates of Clodius and Milo (58-57 

 B.C.), when Rome was for a while at the mercy of 

 bravos and gladiators. The campaigns of Caesar 

 in Gaul (58-50 B.C.), by which the whole of that 

 country was reduced to subjection ; his rupture 

 with Pompey ; his defiance of the senate ; the 

 civil wars ; his victory, dictatorship, and assassin- 

 ation ; the restoration of the senatorial oligarchy ; 

 the Second Triumvirate, composed of Antony, Lepi- 

 dus, and Octavian ; the overthrow of the oligarchy 

 at Philippi ; the struggle between Antony and 

 Octavian ; the triumph of the latter, and his 

 investment with absolute power for life (29 B.C.), 

 which put an end at least to the civil dissensions 

 that had raged so long (and was therefore so far 

 a blessing to the state), are among the most 

 amiliar and picturesque passages in Roman his- 

 tory. 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 



When Augustus had gathered up into him- 

 self all the civil and military powers of the 

 state, its political life was at an end ; hence- 

 "orth the voices of the citizens are dumb, and 

 only the rude clamour of the legions or the 

 r'raetorians is heard, as emperors rise and fall. It 

 "s, indeed, amazing to consider how long brute- 

 brce managed to keep under the elements of 

 anarchy and dissolution in the empire ; but it 

 nust be remembered that it was the East that 

 uined Rome, and not Rome the East. Even in 

 he worst days of the republic, the Roman admin- 

 strators of the provinces were acknowledged to 

 )e less unjust, ravenous, tyrannical, and cruel than 

 he native princes and sultans ; and the servile 

 myriads of Asia Minor and Syria witnessed the 

 deposition of their dynasts without a shadow of 

 regret sometimes even with a cry of joy. The 

 Romans had, therefore, comparatively little diffi- 

 culty in retaining and even increasing their eastern 

 conquests, while the superior discipline of their 

 .veil-trained soldiery enabled them to repel and 

 subdue even the intrepid barbarians of the North, 

 hough singly these were probably more gallant 

 nen than the rank and file of the imperial legions. 

 3ut no military prowess, however great, will, be- 

 rond a certain time, serve to keep a nation alive 

 hat is otherwise moribund ; and even Christianity, 

 ,vith all its antiseptic and revivifying influences, 



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