

E-text prepared by David Ceponis



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      Viertes Buch: Die Revolution, is in the Project Gutenberg
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THE HISTORY OF ROME, BOOK IV

The Revolution

by

THEODOR MOMMSEN

Translated with the Sanction of the Author

by

William Purdie Dickson, D.D., LL.D.
Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow






Preparer's Note

This work contains many literal citations of and references to words,
sounds, and alphabetic symbols drawn from many languages, including
Gothic and Phoenician, but chiefly Latin and Greek.  This English
language Gutenberg edition, constrained within the scope of 7-bit
ASCII code, adopts the following orthographic conventions:

1) Words and phrases regarded as "foreign imports", italicized in the
original text published in 1903; but which in the intervening century
have become "naturalized" into English; words such as "de jure",
"en masse", etc. are not given any special typographic distinction.

2) Except for Greek, all literally cited non-English words that do
not refer to texts cited as academic references, words that in the
source manuscript appear italicized, are rendered with a single
preceding, and a single following dash; thus, -xxxx-.

3) Greek words, first transliterated into Roman alphabetic equivalents,
are rendered with a preceding and a following double-dash; thus, --xxxx--.
Note that in some cases the root word itself is a compound form such as
xxx-xxxx, and is rendered as --xxx-xxx--

4) Simple non-ideographic references to vocalic sounds, single letters,
or alphabeic dipthongs; and prefixes, suffixes, and syllabic references
are represented by a single preceding dash; thus, -x, or -xxx.

5) The following refers particularly to the complex discussion of
alphabetic evolution in Ch. XIV: Measuring And Writing).  Ideographic
references, meaning pointers to the form of representation itself rather
than to its content, are represented as -"id:xxxx"-.  "id:" stands for
"ideograph", and indicates that the reader should form a mental picture
based on the "xxxx" following the colon.  "xxxx" may represent a single
symbol, a word, or an attempt at a picture composed of ASCII characters.
E. g. --"id:GAMMA gamma"-- indicates an uppercase Greek gamma-form
Followed by the form in lowercase.  Some such exotic parsing as this
is necessary to explain alphabetic development because a single symbol
may have been used for a number of sounds in a number of languages,
or even for a number of sounds in the same language at different
times.  Thus, -"id:GAMMA gamma" might very well refer to a Phoenician
construct that in appearance resembles the form that eventually
stabilized as an uppercase Greek "gamma" juxtaposed to another one
of lowercase.  Also, a construct such as --"id:E" indicates a symbol
that in graphic form most closely resembles an ASCII uppercase "E",
but, in fact, is actually drawn more crudely.

6) The numerous subheading references, of the form "XX. XX. Topic"
found in the appended section of endnotes are to be taken as "proximate"
rather than topical indicators.  That is, the information contained
in the endnote indicates primarily the location in the main text
of the closest indexing "handle", a subheading, which may or may not
echo congruent subject matter.

The reason for this is that in the translation from an original
paged manuscript to an unpaged "cyberscroll", page numbers are lost.
In this edition subheadings are the only remaining indexing "handles"
of sub-chapter scale.  Unfortunately, in some stretches of text these
subheadings may be as sparse as merely one in three pages.  Therefore,
it would seem to make best sense to save the reader time and temper
by adopting a shortest path method to indicate the desired reference.

7) Dr. Mommsen has given his dates in terms of Roman usage, A.U.C.;
that is, from the founding of Rome, conventionally taken to be 753 B. C.
To the end of each volume is appended a table of conversion between
the two systems.




CONTENTS

BOOK IV:  The Revolution

   CHAPTER

      I. The Subject Countries Down to the Times of the Gracchi

     II. The Reform Movement and Tiberius Gracchus

    III. The Revolution and Gaius Gracchus

     IV. The Rule of the Restoration

      V. The Peoples of the North

     VI. The Attempt of Marius at Revolution and the Attempt
         of Drusus at Reform

    VII. The Revolt of the Italian Subjects, and the Sulpician
         Revolution

   VIII. The East and King Mithradates

     IX. Cinna and Sulla

      X. The Sullan Constitution

     XI. The Commonwealth and Its Economy

    XII. Nationality, Religion, and Education

   XIII. Literature and Art




BOOK FOURTH

The Revolution




"-Aber sie treiben's toll;
Ich furcht', es breche."
Nicht jeden Wochenschluss
Macht Gott die Zeche-.

Goethe.




Chapter I

The Subject Countries Down to the Times of the Gracchi

The Subjects

With the abolition of the Macedonian monarchy the supremacy of Rome
not only became an established fact from the Pillars of Hercules to
the mouths of the Nile and the Orontes, but, as if it were the final
decree of fate, it weighed on the nations with all the pressure of
an inevitable necessity, and seemed to leave them merely the choice
of perishing in hopeless resistance or in hopeless endurance.
If history were not entitled to insist that the earnest reader
should accompany her through good and evil days, through landscapes
of winter as well as of spring, the historian might be tempted to shun
the cheerless task of tracing the manifold and yet monotonous turns
of this struggle between superior power and utter weakness, both in
the Spanish provinces already annexed to the Roman empire and in the
African, Hellenic, and Asiatic territories which were still treated
as clients of Rome.  But, however unimportant and subordinate the
individual conflicts may appear, they have collectively a deep
historical significance; and, in particular, the state of things
in Italy at this period only becomes intelligible in the light of
the reaction which the provinces exercised over the mother-country.

Spain

Except in the territories which may be regarded as natural appendages
of Italy--in which, however, the natives were still far from being
completely subdued, and, not greatly to the credit of Rome, Ligurians,
Sardinians, and Corsicans were continually furnishing occasion for
"village triumphs"--the formal sovereignty of Rome at the commencement
of this period was established only in the two Spanish provinces,
which embraced the larger eastern and southern portions of the
peninsula beyond the Pyrenees.  We have already(1) attempted to
describe the state of matters in the peninsula.  Iberians and Celts,
Phoenicians, Hellenes, and Romans were there confusedly intermingled.
The most diverse kinds and stages of civilization subsisted there
simultaneously and at various points crossed each other, the ancient
Iberian culture side by side with utter barbarism, the civilized
relations of Phoenician and Greek mercantile cities side by side with
an incipient process of Latinizing, which was especially promote
by the numerous Italians employed in the silver mines and by the
large standing garrison.  In this respect the Roman township of
Italica (near Seville) and the Latin colony of Carteia (on the bay
Of Gibraltar) deserve mention--the latter being the first transmarine
urban community of Latin tongue and Italian constitution.  Italica
was founded by the elder Scipio, before he left Spain (548), for
his veterans who were inclined to remain in the peninsula--probably,
however, not as a burgess-community, but merely as a market-place.(2)
Carteia was founded in 583 and owed its existence to the multitude of
camp-children--the offspring of Roman soldiers and Spanish slaves--who
grew up as slaves de jure but as free Italians de facto, and were now
manumitted on behalf of the state and constituted, along with the old
inhabitants of Carteia, into a Latin colony.  For nearly thirty years
after the organizing of the province of the Ebro by Tiberius Sempronius
Gracchus (575, 576)(3) the Spanish provinces, on the whole, enjoyed the
blessings of peace undisturbed, although mention is made of one or two
expeditions against the Celtiberians and Lusitanians.

Lusitanian War

But more serious events occurred in 600.  The Lusitanians, under the
leadership of a chief called Punicus, invaded the Roman territory,
defeated the two Roman governors who had united to oppose them, and
slew a great number of their troops.  The Vettones (between the Tagus
and the Upper Douro) were thereby induced to make common cause with
the Lusitanians; and these, thus reinforced, were enabled to extend
their excursions as far as the Mediterranean, and to pillage even
the territory of the Bastulo-Phoenicians not far from the Roman
capital New Carthage (Cartagena).  The Romans at home took the matter
seriously enough to resolve on sending a consul to Spain, a step
which had not been taken since 559; and, in order to accelerate the
despatch of aid, they even made the new consuls enter on office two
months and a half before the legal time.  For this reason the day for
the consuls entering on office was shifted from the 15th of March
to the 1st of January; and thus was established the beginning of the
year, which we still make use of at the present day.  But, before
the consul Quintus Fulvius Nobilior with his army arrived, a very
serious encounter took place on the right bank of the Tagus between
the praetor Lucius Mummius, governor of Further Spain, and the
Lusitanians, now led after the fall of Punicus by his successor
Caesarus (601).  Fortune was at first favourable to the Romans; the
Lusitanian army was broken and their camp was taken.  But the Romans,
partly already fatigued by their march and partly broken up in the
disorder of the pursuit, were at length completely beaten by their
already vanquished antagonists, and lost their own camp in addition
to that of the enemy, as well as 9000 dead.

Celtiberian War

The flame of war now blazed up far and wide.  The Lusitanians on
the left bank of the Tagus, led by Caucaenus, threw themselves on
the Celtici subject to the Romans (in Alentejo), and took away their
town Conistorgis.  The Lusitanians sent the standards taken from
Mummius to the Celtiberians at once as an announcement of victory
and as a warning; and among these, too, there was no want of ferment.
Two small Celtiberian tribes in the neighbourhood of the powerful
Arevacae (about the sources of the Douro and Tagus), the Belli and
the Titthi, had resolved to settle together in Segeda, one of their
towns.  While they were occupied in building the walls, the Romans
ordered them to desist, because the Sempronian regulations prohibited
the subject communities from founding towns at their own discretion;
and they at the same time required the contribution of money and men
which was due by treaty but for a considerable period had not been
demanded.  The Spaniards refused to obey either command, alleging
that they were engaged merely in enlarging, not in founding, a city,
and that the contribution had not been merely suspended, but
remitted by the Romans.  Thereupon Nobilior appeared in Hither
Spain with an army of nearly 30,000 men, including some Numidian
horsemen and ten elephants.  The walls of the new town of Segeda
still stood unfinished: most of the inhabitants submitted.  But the
most resolute men fled with their wives and children to the powerful
Arevacae, and summoned these to make common cause with them against
the Romans.  The Arevacae, emboldened by the victory of the
Lusitanians over Mummius, consented, and chose Carus, one of the
Segedan refugees, as their general.  On the third day after his
election the valiant leader had fallen, but the Roman army was
defeated and nearly 6000 Roman burgesses were slain; the 23rd day of
August, the festival of the Volcanalia, was thenceforth held in sad
remembrance by the Romans.  The fall of their general, however,
induced the Arevacae to retreat into their strongest town Numantia
(Guarray, a Spanish league to the north of Soria on the Douro),
whither Nobilior followed them.  Under the walls of the town a second
engagement took place, in which the Romans at first by means of their
elephants drove the Spaniards back into the town; but while doing
so they were thrown into confusion in consequence of one of the
animals being wounded, and sustained a second defeat at the hands of
the enemy again issuing from the walls.  This and other misfortunes--
such as the destruction of a corps of Roman cavalry despatched to
call forth the contingents--imparted to the affairs of the Romans in
the Hither province so unfavourable an aspect that the fortress of
Ocilis, where the Romans had their chest and their stores, passed
over to the enemy, and the Arevacae were in a position to think,
although without success, of dictating peace to the Romans.  These
disadvantages, however, were in some measure counterbalanced by the
successes which Mummius achieved in the southern province.  Weakened
though his army was by the disaster which it had suffered, he yet
succeeded with it in defeating the Lusitanians who had imprudently
dispersed themselves on the right bank of the Tagus; and passing
over to the left bank, where the Lusitanians had overrun the whole
Roman territory, and had even made a foray into Africa, he cleared
the southern province of the enemy.

Marcellus

To the northern province in the following year (602) the senate sent
considerable reinforcements and a new commander-in-chief in the place
of the incapable Nobilior, the consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who
had already, when praetor in 586, distinguished himself in Spain, and
had since that time given proof of his talents as a general in two
consulships.  His skilful leadership, and still more his clemency,
speedily changed the position of affairs: Ocilis at once surrendered
to him; and even the Arevacae, confirmed by Marcellus in the hope
that peace would be granted to them on payment of a moderate fine,
concluded an armistice and sent envoys to Rome.  Marcellus could thus
proceed to the southern province, where the Vettones and Lusitanians
had professed submission to the praetor Marcus Atilius so long as he
remained within their bounds, but after his departure had immediately
revolted afresh and chastised the allies of Rome.  The arrival of
the consul restored tranquillity, and, while he spent the winter
in Corduba, hostilities were suspended throughout the peninsula.
Meanwhile the question of peace with the Arevacae was discussed at
Rome.  It is a significant indication of the relations subsisting
among the Spaniards themselves, that the emissaries of the Roman
party subsisting among the Arevacae were the chief occasion of the
rejection of the proposals of peace at Rome, by representing that,
if the Romans were not willing to sacrifice the Spaniards friendly
to their interests, they had no alternative save either to send a
consul with a corresponding army every year to the peninsula or to
make an emphatic example now.  In consequence of this, the ambassadors
of the Arevacae were dismissed without a decisive answer, and it was
resolved that the war should be prosecuted with vigour.  Marcellus
accordingly found himself compelled in the following spring (603) to
resume the war against the Arevacae.  But--either, as was asserted,
from his unwillingness to leave to his successor, who was to be
expected soon, the glory of terminating the war, or, as is perhaps
more probable, from his believing like Gracchus that a humane
treatment of the Spaniards was the first thing requisite for a lasting
peace--the Roman general after holding a secret conference with the
most influential men of the Arevacae concluded a treaty under the
walls of Numantia, by which the Arevacae surrendered to the Romans
at discretion, but were reinstated in their former rights according
to treaty on their undertaking to pay money and furnish hostages.

Lucullus

When the new commander-in-chief, the consul Lucius Lucullus, arrived
at head-quarters, he found the war which he had come to conduct already
terminated by a formally concluded peace, and his hopes of bringing
home honour and more especially money from Spain were apparently
frustrated.  But there was a means of surmounting this difficulty.
Lucullus of his own accord attacked the western neighbours of the
Arevacae, the Vaccaei, a Celtiberian nation still independent which
was living on the best understanding with the Romans.  The question
of the Spaniards as to what fault they had committed was answered by
a sudden attack on the town of Cauca (Coca, eight Spanish leagues to
the west of Segovia); and, while the terrified town believed that it
had purchased a capitulation by heavy sacrifices of money, Roman
troops marched in and enslaved or slaughtered the inhabitants without
any pretext at all.  After this heroic feat, which is said to have
cost the lives of some 20,000 defenceless men,