The history of Rome. Book IV

by Theodor Mommsen

  Government of Cinna

  Along with the reign of terror came the tyrannis. Cinna not only stood at the head of the state for four years in succession (667-670) as consul, but he regularly nominated himself and his colleagues without consulting the people; it seemed as if these democrats set aside the sovereign popular assembly with intentional contempt. No other chief of the popular party, before or afterwards, possessed so perfectly absolute a power in Italy and in the greater part of the provinces for so long a time almost undisturbed, as Cinna; but no one can be named, whose government was so utterly worthless and aimless. The law proposed by Sulpicius and thereafter by Cinna himself, which promised to the new burgesses and the freedmen equality of suffrage with the old burgesses, was naturally revived; and it was formally confirmed by a decree of the senate as valid in law (670). Censors were nominated (668) for the purpose of distributing all the Italians, in accordance with it, into the thirty-five burgess-districts - by a singular conjuncture, in consequence of a want of qualified candidates for the censorship the same Philippus, who when consul in 663 had chiefly occasioned the miscarriage of the plan of Drusus for bestowing the franchise on the Italians[8], was now selected as censor to inscribe them in the burgess-rolls. The reactionary institutions established by Sulla in 666 were of course overthrown.

  Some steps were taken to please the proletariate - for instance, the restrictions on the distribution of grain introduced some years ago[9], were probably now once more removed; the design of Gaius Gracchus to found a colony at Capua was in reality carried out in the spring of 671 on the proposal of the tribune of the people, Marcus Junius Brutus; Lucius Valerius Flaccus the younger introduced a law as to debt, which reduced every private claim to the fourth part of its nominal amount and cancelled three fourths in favour of the debtors. But these measures, the only positive ones during the whole Cinnan government, were without exception the dictates of the moment; they were based - and this is perhaps the most shocking feature in this whole catastrophe - not on a plan possibly erroneous, but on no political plan at all. The populace were caressed, and at the same time offended in a very unnecessary way by a meaningless disregard of the constitutional arrangements for election. The capitalist party might have furnished a support, but it was injured in the most sensitive point by the law as to debt. The true mainstay of the government was - wholly without any cooperation on its part - the new burgesses; their assistance was acquiesced in, but nothing was done to regulate the strange position of the Samnites, who were now nominally Roman citizens, but evidently regarded their country's independence as practically the real object and prize of the struggle and remained in arms to defend it against all and sundry. Illustrious senators were struck down like mad dogs; but not the smallest step was taken to reorganize the senate in the interest of the government, or even permanently to terrify it; so that the government was by no means sure of its aid. Gaius Gracchus had not understood the fall of the oligarchy as implying that the new master might conduct himself on his self-created throne, as legitimate cipher-kings think proper to do. But this Cinna had been elevated to power not by his will, but by pure accident; was there any wonder that he remained where the storm-wave of revolution had washed him up, till a second wave came to sweep him away again?

  Cinna and Sulla

  Italy and the Provinces in Favour of the Government The same union of the mightiest plenitude of power with the most utter impotence and incapacity in those who held it, was apparent in the warfare waged by the revolutionary government against the oligarchy - a warfare on which withal its existence primarily depended. In Italy it ruled with absolute sway. Of the old burgesses a very large portion were on principle favourable to democratic views; and the still greater mass of quiet people, while disapproving the Marian horrors, saw in an oligarchic restoration simply the commencement of a second reign of terror by the opposite party. The impression of the outrages of 667 on the nation at large had been comparatively slight, as they had chiefly affected the mere aristocracy of the capital; and it was moreover somewhat effaced by the three years of tolerably peaceful government that ensued. Lastly the whole mass of the new burgesses - three-fifths perhaps of the Italians - were decidedly, if not favourable to the present government, yet opposed to the oligarchy.

  Like Italy, most of the provinces adhered to the oligarchy - Sicily, Sardinia, the two Gauls, the two Spains. In Africa Quintus Metellus, who had fortunately escaped the murderers, made an attempt to hold that province for the Optimates; Marcus Crassus, the youngest son of the Publius Crassus who had perished in the Marian massacre, resorted to him from Spain, and reinforced him by a band which he had collected there. But on their quarrelling with each other they were obliged to yield to Gaius Fabius Hadrianus, the governor appointed by the revolutionary government. Asia was in the hands of Mithradates; consequently the province of Macedonia, so far as it was in the power of Sulla, remained the only asylum of the exiled oligarchy. Sulla's wife and children who had with difficulty escaped death, and not a few senators who had made their escape, sought refuge there, so that a sort of senate was soon formed at his head-quarters.

  Measures against Sulla

  The government did not fail to issue decrees against the oligarchic proconsul. Sulla was deprived by the comitia of his command and of his other honours and dignities and outlawed, as was also the case with Metellus, Appius Claudius, and other refugees of note; his house in Rome was razed, his country estates were laid waste. But such proceedings did not settle the matter. Had Gaius Marius lived longer, he would doubtless have marched in person against Sulla to those fields whither the fevered visions of his death-bed drew him; the measures which the government took after his death have been stated already. Lucius Valerius Flaccus the younger[10], who after Marius' death was invested with the consulship and the command in the east (668), was neither soldier nor officer; Gaius Fimbria who accompanied him was not without ability, but insubordinate; the army assigned to them was even in numbers three times weaker than the army of Sulla. Tidings successively arrived, that Flaccus, in order not to be crushed by Sulla, had marched past him onward to Asia (668); that Fimbria had set him aside and installed himself in his room (beg. of 669); that Sulla had concluded peace with Mithradates (669-670). Hitherto Sulla had been silent so far as the authorities ruling in the capital were concerned. Now a letter from him reached the senate, in which he reported the termination of the war and announced his return to Italy; he stated that he would respect the rights conferred on the new burgesses, and that, while penal measures were inevitable, they would light not on the masses, but on the authors of the mischief. This announcement frightened Cinna out of his inaction: while he had hitherto taken no step against Sulla except the placing some men under arms and collecting a number of vessels in the Adriatic, he now resolved to cross in all haste to Greece.

  Attempts at a Compromise - Death of Cinna - Carbo and the New Burgesses Arm against Sulla

  On the other hand Sulla's letter, which in the circumstances might be called extremely moderate, awakened in the middle-party hopes of a peaceful adjustment. The majority of the senate resolved, on the proposal of the elder Flaccus, to set on foot an attempt at reconciliation, and with that view to summon Sulla to come under the guarantee of a safe-conduct to Italy, and to suggest to the consuls Cinna and Carbo that they should suspend their preparations till the arrival of Sulla's answer. Sulla did not absolutely reject the proposals. Of course he did not come in person, but he sent a message that he asked nothing but the restoration of the banished to their former status and the judicial punishment of the crimes that had been perpetrated, and moreover that he did not desire security to be provided for himself, but proposed to bring it to those who were at home. His envoys found the state of things in Italy essentially altered. Cinna had, without concerning himself further about that decree of the senate, immediately after the termination of its sitting proceeded to the army and urged it embarkation. The summons to trust themselves to the sea at that unfa
vourable season of the year provoked among the already dissatisfied troops in the head-quarters at Ancona a mutiny, to which Cinna fell a victim (beg. of 670); whereupon his colleague Carbo found himself compelled to bring back the divisions that had already crossed and, abandoning the idea of taking up the war in Greece, to enter into winter-quarters in Ariminum. But Sulla's offers met no better reception on that account; the senate rejected his proposals without even allowing the envoys to enter Rome, and enjoined him summarily to lay down arms. It was not the coterie of the Marians which primarily brought about this resolute attitude.

  That faction was obliged to abandon its hitherto usurped occupation of the supreme magistracy at the very time when it was of moment, and again to institute consular elections for the decisive year 671. The suffrages on this occasion were united not in favour of the former consul Carbo or of any of the able officers of the hitherto ruling clique, such as Quintus Sertorius or Gaius Marius the younger, but in favour of Lucius Scipio and Gaius Norbanus, two incapables, neither of whom knew how to fight and Scipio not even how to speak; the former of these recommended himself to the multitude only as the great-grandson of the conqueror of Antiochus, and the latter as a political opponent of the oligarchy[11]. The Marians were not so much abhorred for their misdeeds as despised for their incapacity; but if the nation would have nothing to do with these, the great majority of it would have still less to do with Sulla and an oligarchic restoration. Earnest measures of self-defence were contemplated. While Sulla crossed to Asia and induced such defection in the army of Fimbria that its leader fell by his own hand, the government in Italy employed the further interval of a year granted to it by these steps of Sulla in energetic preparations; it is said that at Sulla's landing 100,000 men, and afterwards even double that number of troops, were arrayed in arms against him.

  Difficult Position of Sulla

  Against this Italian force Sulla had nothing to place in the scale except his five legions, which, even including some contingents levied in Macedonia and the Peloponnesus, probably amounted to scarce 40,000 men. It is true that this army had been, during its seven years' conflicts in Italy, Greece, and Asia, weaned from politics, and adhered to its general - who pardoned everything in his soldiers, debauchery, brutality, even mutiny against their officers, required nothing but valour and fidelity towards their general, and set before them the prospect of the most extravagant rewards in the event of victory - with all that soldierly enthusiasm, which is the more powerful that the noblest and the meanest passions often combine to produce it in the same breast. The soldiers of Sulla voluntarily according to the Roman custom swore mutual oaths that they would stand firmly by each other, and each voluntarily brought to the general his savings as a contribution to the costs of the war. But considerable as was the weight of this solid and select body of troops in comparison with the masses of the enemy, Sulla saw very well that Italy could not be subdued with five legions if it remained united in resolute resistance. To settle accounts with the popular party and their incapable autocrats would not have been difficult; but he saw opposed to him and united with that party the whole mass of those who desired no oligarchic restoration with its terrors, and above all the whole body of new burgesses - both those who had been withheld by the Julian law from taking part in the insurrection, and those whose revolt a few years before had brought Rome to the brink of ruin.

  His Moderation

  Sulla fully surveyed the situation of affairs, and was far removed from the blind exasperation and the obstinate rigour which characterized the majority of his party. While the edifice of the state was in flames, while his friends were being murdered, his houses destroyed, his family driven into exile, he had remained undisturbed at his post till the public foe was conquered and the Roman frontier was secured. He now treated Italian affairs in the same spirit of patriotic and judicious moderation, and did whatever he could to pacify the moderate party and the new burgesses, and to prevent the civil war from assuming the far more dangerous form of a fresh war between the Old Romans and the Italian allies. The first letter which Sulla addressed to the senate had asked nothing but what was right and just, and had expressly disclaimed a reign of terror. In harmony with its terms, he now presented the prospect of unconditional pardon to all those who should even now break off from the revolutionary government, and caused his soldiers man by man to swear that they would meet the Italians thoroughly as friends and fellow-citizens. The most binding declarations secured to the new burgesses the political rights which they had acquired; so that Carbo, for that reason, wished hostages to be furnished to him by every civic community in Italy, but the proposal broke down under general indignation and under the opposition of the senate. The chief difficulty in the position of Sulla really consisted in the fact, that in consequence of the faithlessness and perfidy which prevailed the new burgesses had every reason, if not to suspect his personal designs, to doubt at any rate whether he would be able to induce his party to keep their word after the victory.

  Sulla Lands in Italy - And Is Reinforced by Partisans and Deserters

  In the spring of 671 Sulla landed with his legions in the port of Brundisium. The senate, on receiving the news, declared the commonwealth in danger, and committed to the consuls unlimited powers; but these incapable leaders had not looked before them, and were surprised by a landing which had nevertheless been foreseen for years. The army was still at Ariminum, the ports were not garrisoned, and - what is almost incredible - there was not a man under arms at all along the whole south-eastern coast.

  The consequences were soon apparent Brundisium itself, a considerable community of new burgesses, at once opened its gates without resistance to the oligarchic general, and all Messapia and Apulia followed its example. The army marched through these regions as through a friendly country, and mindful of its oath uniformly maintained the strictest discipline. From all sides the scattered remnant of the Optimate party flocked to the camp of Sulla.

  Quintus Metellus came from the mountain ravines of Liguria, whither he had made his escape from Africa, and resumed, as colleague of Sulla, the proconsular command committed to him in 667[12], and withdrawn from him by the revolution. Marcus Crassus in like manner appeared from Africa with a small band of armed men. Most of the Optimates, indeed, came as emigrants of quality with great pretensions and small desire for fighting, so that they had to listen to bitter language from Sulla himself regarding the noble lords who wished to have themselves preserved for the good of the state and could not even be brought to arm their slaves. It was of more importance, that deserters already made their appearance from the democratic camp - for instance, the refined and respected Lucius Philippus, who was, along with one or two notoriously incapable persons, the only consular that had come to terms with the revolutionary government and accepted offices under it He met with the most gracious reception from Sulla, and obtained the honourable and easy charge of occupying for him the province of Sardinia. Quintus Lucretius Ofella and other serviceable officers were likewise received and at once employed; even Publius Cethegus, one of the senators banished after the Sulpician emeute by Sulla, obtained pardon and a position in the army.

  Pompeius

  Still more important than these individual accessions was the gain of the district of Picenum, which was substantially due to the son of Strabo, the young Gnaeus Pompeius. The latter, like his father originally no adherent of the oligarchy, had acknowledged the revolutionary government and even taken service in Cinna's army; but in his case the fact was not forgotten, that his father had borne arms against the revolution; he found himself assailed in various forms and even threatened with the loss of his very considerable wealth by an indictment charging him to give up the booty which was, or was alleged to have been, embezzled by his father after the capture of Asculum. The protection of the consul Carbo, who was personally attached to him, still more than the eloquence of the consular Lucius Philippus and of the young Quintus Hortensius, averted from him financial ruin; but
the dissatisfaction remained. On the news of Sulla's landing he went to Picenum, where he had extensive possessions and the best municipal connections derived from his father and the Social war, and set up the standard of the Optimate party in Auximum (Osimo). The district, which was mostly inhabited by old burgesses, joined him; the young men, many of whom had served with him under his father, readily ranged themselves under the courageous leader who, not yet twenty-three years of age, was as much soldier as general, sprang to the front of his cavalry in combat, and vigorously assailed the enemy along with them. The corps of Picenian volunteers soon grew to three legions; divisions under Cloelius, Gaius Carrinas, Lucius Junius Brutus Damasippus[13], were despatched from the capital to put down the Picenian insurrection, but the extemporized general, dexterously taking advantage of the dissensions that arose among them, had the skill to evade them or to beat them in detail and to effect his junction with the main army of Sulla, apparently in Apulia. Sulla saluted him as imperator, that is, as an officer commanding in his own name and not subordinate but co-ordinate, and distinguished the youth by marks of honour such as he showed to none of his noble clients - presumably not without the collateral design of thereby administering an indirect rebuke to the lack of energetic character among his own partisans.

  Sulla in Campania Opposed by Norbanus and Scipio - Sulla Gains a Victory over Norbanus at Mount Tifata - Defection of Scipio's Army

  Reinforced thus considerably both in a moral and material point of view, Sulla and Metellus marched from Apulia through the still insurgent Samnite districts towards Campania. The main force of the enemy also proceeded thither, and it seemed as if the matter could not but there be brought to a decision. The army of the consul Gaius Norbanus was already at Capua, where the new colony had just established itself with all democratic pomp; the second consular army was likewise advancing along the Appian road. But, before it arrived, Sulla was in front of Norbanus. A last attempt at mediation, which Sulla made, led only to the arrest of his envoys. With fresh indignation his veteran troops threw themselves on the enemy; their vehement charge down from Mount Tifata at the first onset broke the enemy drawn up in the plain; with the remnant of his force Norbanus threw himself into the revolutionary colony of Capua and the new-burgess town of Neapolis, and allowed himself to be blockaded there. Sulla's troops, hitherto not without apprehension as they compared their weak numbers with the masses of the enemy, had by this victory gained a full conviction of their military superiority, instead of pausing to besiege the remains of the defeated army, Sulla left the towns where they took shelter to be invested, and advanced along the Appian highway against Teanum, where Scipio was posted. To him also, before beginning battle, he made fresh proposals for peace; apparently in good earnest.