But although they did not despise the alliance with the equites and the proletariate of the capital, the real power by which the confederates enforced their measures lay not in these, but in the discharged soldiers of the Marian army, who for that very reason had been provided for in the colonial laws themselves after so extravagant a fashion. In this also was evinced the predominating military character, which forms the chief distinction between this attempt at revolution and that which preceded it.
Violent Proceedings in the Voting
They went to work accordingly. The corn and colonial laws encountered, as was to be expected, the keenest opposition from the government. They proved in the senate by striking figures, that the former must make the public treasury bankrupt; Saturninus did not trouble himself about that. They brought tribunician intercession to bear against both laws; Saturninus ordered the voting to go on. They informed the magistrates presiding at the voting that a peal of thunder had been heard, a portent by which according to ancient belief the gods enjoined the dismissal of the public assembly; Saturninus remarked to the messengers that the senate would do well to keep quiet, otherwise the thunder might very easily be followed by hail. Lastly the urban quaestor, Quintus Caepio, the son, it may be presumed, of the general condemned three years before[8], and like his father a vehement antagonist of the popular party, with a band of devoted partisans dispersed the comitia by violence. But the tough soldiers of Marius, who had flocked in crowds to Rome to vote on this occasion, quickly rallied and dispersed the city bands, and on the voting ground thus reconquered the vote on the Appuleian laws was successfully brought to an end. The scandal was grievous; but when it came to the question whether the senate would comply with the clause of the law that within five days after its passing every senator should on pain of forfeiting his senatorial seat take an oath faithfully to observe it, all the senators took the oath with the single exception of Quintus Metellus, who preferred to go into exile. Marius and Saturninus were not displeased to see the best general and the ablest man among the opposing party removed from the state by voluntary banishment.
The Fall of the Revolutionary Party
Their object seemed to be attained; but even now to those who saw more clearly the enterprise could not but appear a failure. The cause of the failure lay mainly in the awkward alliance between a politically incapable general and a street-demagogue, capable but recklessly violent, and filled with passion rather than with the aims of a statesman. They had agreed excellently, so long as the question related only to plans. But when the plans came to be executed, it was very soon apparent that the celebrated general was in politics utterly incapable; that his ambition was that of the farmer who would cope with and, if possible, surpass the aristocrats in titles, and not that of the statesman who desires to govern because he feels within him the power to do so; that every enterprise, which was based on his personal standing as a politician, must necessarily even under the most favourable circumstances be ruined by himself.
Opposition of the Whole Aristocracy
He knew neither the art of gaining his antagonists, nor that of keeping his own party in subjection. The opposition against him and his comrades was even of itself sufficiently considerable; for not only did the government party belong to it in a body, but also a great part of the burgesses, who guarded with jealous eyes their exclusive privileges against the Italians; and by the course which things took the whole class of the wealthy was also driven over to the government. Saturninus and Glaucia were from the first masters and servants of the proletariate and therefore not at all on a good footing with the moneyed aristocracy, which had no objection now and then to keep the senate in check by means of the rabble, but had no liking for street-riots and violent outrages.
As early as the first tribunate of Saturninus his armed bands had their skirmishes with the equites; the vehement opposition which his election as tribune for 654 encountered shows clearly how small was the party favourable to him. It should have been the endeavour of Marius to avail himself of the dangerous help of such associates only in moderation, and to convince all and sundry that they were destined not to rule, but to serve him as the ruler. As he did precisely the contrary, and the matter came to look quite as if the object was to place the government in the hands not of an intelligent and vigorous master, but of the mere canaille, the men of material interests, terrified to death at the prospect of such confusion, again attached themselves closely to the senate in presence of this common danger. While Gaius Gracchus, clearly perceiving that no government could be overthrown by means of the proletariate alone, had especially sought to gain over to his side the propertied classes, those who desired to continue his work began by producing a reconciliation between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie.
Variance between Marius and the Demogogues
But the ruin of the enterprise was brought about, still more rapidly than by this reconciliation of enemies, through the dissension which the more than ambiguous behaviour of Marius necessarily produced among its promoters. While the decisive proposals were brought forward by his associates and carried after a struggle by his soldiers, Marius maintained an attitude wholly passive, just as if the political leader was not bound quite as much as the military, when the brunt of battle came, to present himself everywhere and foremost in person. Nor was this all; he was terrified at, and fled from the presence of, the spirits which he had himself evoked. When his associates resorted to expedients which an honourable man could not approve, but without which in fact the object of their efforts could not be attained, he attempted, in the fashion usual with men whose ideas of political morality are confused, to wash his hands of participation in those crimes and at the same time to profit by their results. There is a story that the general once conducted secret negotiations in two different rooms of his house, with Saturninus and his partisans in the one, and with the deputies of the oligarchy in the other, talking with the former of striking a blow against the senate, and with the latter of interfering against the revolt, and that under a pretext which was in keeping with the anxiety of the situation he went to and fro between the two conferences - a story as certainly invented, and as certainly appropriate, as any incident in Aristophanes. The ambiguous attitude of Marius became notorious in the question of the oath. At first he seemed as though he would himself refuse the oath required by the Appuleian laws on account of the informalities that had occurred at their passing, and then swore it with the reservation, "so far as the laws were really valid"; a reservation which annulled the oath itself, and which of course all the senators likewise adopted in swearing, so that by this mode of taking the oath the validity of the laws was not secured, but on the contrary was for the first time really called in question.
The consequences of this behaviour - stupid beyond parallel - on the part of the celebrated general soon developed themselves. Saturninus and Glaucia had not undertaken the revolution and procured for Marius the supremacy of the state, in order that they might be disowned and sacrificed by him; if Glaucia, the favourite jester of the people, had hitherto lavished on Marius the gayest flowers of his jovial eloquence, the garlands which he now wove for him were by no means redolent of roses and violets. A total rupture took place, by which both parties were lost; for Marius had not a footing sufficiently firm singly to maintain the colonial law which he had himself called in question and to possess himself of the position which it assigned to him, nor were Saturninus and Glaucia in a condition to continue on their own account the work which Marius had begun.
Saturninus Isolated - Saturninus Assailed and Overpowered
But the two demagogues were so compromised that they could not recede; they had no alternative save to resign their offices in the usual way and thereby to deliver themselves with their hands bound to their exasperated opponents, or now to grasp the sceptre for themselves, although they felt that they could not bear its weight. They resolved on the latter course; Saturninus would come forward once more as a candidate for the
tribunate of the people for 655, Glaucia, although praetor and not eligible for the consulship till two years had elapsed, would become a candidate for the latter. In fact the tribunician elections were decided entirely to their mind, and the attempt of Marius to prevent the spurious Tiberius Gracchus from soliciting the tribuneship served only to show the celebrated man what was now the worth of his popularity; the multitude broke the doors of the prison in which Gracchus was confined, bore him in triumph through the streets, and elected him by a great majority as their tribune. Saturninus and Glaucia sought to control the more important consular election by the expedient for the removal of inconvenient competitors which had been tried in the previous year; the counter-candidate of the government party, Gaius Memmius - the same who eleven years before had led the opposition against them[9] - was suddenly assailed by a band of ruffians and beaten to death. But the government party had only waited for a striking event of this sort in order to employ force. The senate required the consul Gaius Marius to interfere, and the latter in reality professed his readiness now to draw for the conservative party the sword, which he had obtained from the democracy and had promised to wield on its behalf. The young men were hastily called out, equipped with arms from the public buildings, and drawn up in military array; the senate itself appeared under arms in the Forum, with its venerable chief Marcus Scaurus at its head. The opposite party were doubtless superior in a street-riot, but were not prepared for such an attack; they had now to defend themselves as they could. They broke open the doors of the prisons, and called the slaves to liberty and to arms; they proclaimed - so it was said at any rate - Saturninus as king or general; on the day when the new tribunes of the people had to enter on their office, the 10th of December 654, a battle occurred in the great market-place - the first which, since Rome existed, had ever been fought within the walls of the capital. The issue was not for a moment doubtful. The Populares were beaten and driven up to the Capitol, where the supply of water was cut off from them and they were thus compelled to surrender. Marius, who held the chief command, would gladly have saved the lives of his former allies who were now his prisoners; Saturninus proclaimed to the multitude that all which he had proposed had been done in concert with the consul: even a worse man than Marius was could not but shudder at the inglorious part which he played on this day. But he had long ceased to be master of affairs. Without orders the youth of rank climbed the roof of the senate-house in the Forum where the prisoners were temporarily confined, stripped off the tiles, and with these stoned their victims. Thus Saturninus perished with most of the more notable prisoners. Glaucia was found in a lurking-place and likewise put to death. Without sentence or trial there died on this day four magistrates of the Roman people - a praetor, a quaestor, and two tribunes of the people - and a number of other well-known men, some of whom belonged to good families. In spite of the grave faults by which the chiefs had invited on themselves this bloody retribution, we may nevertheless lament them: they fell like advanced posts, which are left unsupported by the main army and are forced to perish without aim in a conflict of despair.
Ascendency of the Government - Marius Politically Annihilated
Never had the government party achieved a more complete victory, never had the opposition suffered a more severe defeat, than on this 10th of December. It was the least part of the success that they had got rid of some troublesome brawlers, whose places might be supplied any day by associates of a like stamp; it was of greater moment that the only man, who was then in a position to become dangerous to the government, had publicly and completely effected his own annihilation; and most important of all that the two elements of the opposition, the capitalist order and the proletariate, emerged from the strife wholly at variance.
It is true that this was not the work of the government; the fabric which had been put together by the adroit hands of Gaius Gracchus had been broken up, partly by the force of circumstances, partly and especially by the coarse and boorish management of his incapable successor; but in the result it mattered not whether calculation or good fortune helped the government to its victory. A more pitiful position can hardly be conceived than that occupied by the hero of Aquae and Vercellae after such a disaster - all the more pitiful, because people could not but compare it with the lustre which only a few months before surrounded the same man. No one either on the aristocratic or the democratic side any longer thought of the victorious general on occasion of filling up the magistracies; the hero of six consulships could not even venture to become a candidate in 656 for the censorship. He went away to the east, ostensibly for the purpose of fulfilling a vow there, but in reality that he might not be a witness of the triumphant return of his mortal foe Quintus Metellus; he was allowed to go. He returned and opened his house; his halls stood empty. He always hoped that conflicts and battles would occur and that the people would once more need his experienced arm; he thought to provide himself with an opportunity for war in the east, where the Romans might certainly have found sufficient occasion for energetic interference. But this also miscarried, like every other of his wishes; profound peace continued to prevail. Yet the longing after honours once aroused within him, the oftener it was disappointed, ate the more deeply into his heart. Superstitious as he was, he cherished in his bosom an old oracular saying which had promised him seven consulships, and in gloomy meditation brooded over the means by which this utterance was to obtain its fulfilment and he his revenge, while he appeared to all, himself alone excepted, insignificant and innocuous.
The Equestrian Party
Still more important in its consequences than the setting aside of the dangerous man was the deep exasperation against the Populares, as they were called, which the insurrection of Saturninus left behind in the party of material interests. With the most remorseless severity the equestrian tribunals condemned every one who professed oppositional views; Sextus Titius, for instance, was condemned not so much on account of his agrarian law as because he had in his house a statue of Saturninus; Gaius Appuleius Decianus was condemned, because he had as tribune of the people characterized the proceedings against Saturninus as illegal. Even for earlier injuries inflicted by the Populares on the aristocracy satisfaction was now demanded, not without prospect of success, before the equestrian tribunals. Because Gaius Norbanus had eight years previously in concert with Saturninus driven the consular Quintus Caepio into exile[10] he was now (659) on the ground of his own law accused of high treason, and the jurymen hesitated long - not whether the accused was guilty or innocent, but whether his ally Saturninus or his enemy Caepio was to be regarded as the most deserving of their hate - till at last they decided for acquittal. Even if people were not more favourably disposed towards the government in itself than before, yet, after having found themselves, although but for a moment, on the verge of a real mob-rule, all men who had anything to lose viewed the existing government in a different light; it was notoriously wretched and pernicious for the state, but the anxious dread of the still more wretched and still more pernicious government of the proletariate had conferred on it a relative value. The current now set so much in that direction that the multitude tore in pieces a tribune of the people who had ventured to postpone the return of Quintus Metellus, and the democrats began to seek their safety in league with murderers and poisoners - ridding themselves, for example, of the hated Metellus by poison - or even in league with the public enemy, several of them already taking refuge at the court of king Mithradates who was secretly preparing for war against Rome. External relations also assumed an aspect favourable for the government. The Roman arms were employed but little in the period from the Cimbrian to the Social war, but everywhere with honour. The only serious conflict was in Spain, where, during the recent years so trying for Rome (649 seq.), the Lusitanians and Celtiberians had risen with unwonted vehemence against the Romans.
The history of Rome. Book IV Page 26
