A History of Rome, Vol 1 by A H.J. Greenidge

A >> A H.J. Greenidge >> A History of Rome, Vol 1

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49

The party of reform were rightly advised in attempting to secure an
adequate mechanism for the fulfilment of a democratic programme before
they put their wishes into shape. That they were less fortunate in the
proposals that they formulated, was due to the fact that these proposals
were at least as much the result of necessity as of deliberate choice.
The agrarian question was still working its wicked will. It hung like an
incubus round the necks of democrats and forced them into most
undemocratic paths. The legacy left by Scipio had become the burdensome
inheritance of his foes. Italian claims were now the impasse which
stopped the present distribution and the future acquisition of land. The
minds of many were led to inquire whether it might not be possible to
strike a bargain with the allies, and thus began that mischievous
co-operation between a party in Rome and the protected towns in Italy,
which suggested hopes that could not be satisfied, led to open revolt as
the result of the disappointment engendered by failure, and might easily
be interpreted as veiling treasonable designs against the Roman State,
The franchise was to be offered to the Italian towns on condition that
they waived their rights in the public land.[478] The details of the
bargain were probably unknown, even to contemporaries, for the
negotiations demanded secrecy; but it is clear that the arrangements
must have been at once general and complex; for no organisation is
likely to have existed that could bind each Italian township to the
agreement, nor could any town have undertaken to prejudice all the
varying rights of its individual citizens. When the Italians eagerly
accepted the offer, a pledge must have been got from their leading men
that the local governments would not press their claims to the disputed
land as an international question; for it was under this aspect that the
dispute presented the gravest difficulties. The commons of these states
might be comforted by the assurance that, when they had become Roman
citizens, they would themselves be entitled to share in the
assignations. These negotiations, which may have extended over two or
three years, ended by bringing crowds of Italians to Rome. They had no
votes; but the moral influence of their presence was very great. They
could applaud or hiss the speakers in the informal gatherings of the
Contio; it was not impossible that in the last resort they might lend
physical aid to that section of the democrats which had advocated their
cause. It might even have been possible to manufacture votes for some of
these immigrants. A Latin domiciled in Rome always enjoyed a limited
suffrage in the Comitia, and a pretended domicile might easily be
invented for a temporary resident. Nor was it even certain that the
wholly unqualified foreigner might not give a surreptitious vote; for
the president of the assembly was the man interested in the passing of
the bill, and his subordinates might be instructed not to submit the
qualifications of the voters to too strict a scrutiny. It was under
these circumstances that the senate resorted to the device, rare but not
unprecedented, of an alien act. Following its instructions, the tribune
Marcus Junius Pennus introduced a proposal that foreigners should be
excluded from the city.[479] We know nothing of the wording of the act.
It may have made no specific mention of Italians, and its operation was
presumably limited to strangers not domiciled before a certain date.
But, like all similar provisions, it must have contained further
limitations, for it is inconceivable that the foreign trader, engaged in
legitimate business, was hustled summarily from the city. But, however
limited its scope, its end was clear: and the fact that it passed the
Comitia shows that the franchise movement was by no means wholly
popular. A crowd is not so easy of conversion as an individual. Recent
events must have caused large numbers of the urban proletariate to hate
the very name of the Italians, and the idea of sharing the privileges of
empire with the foreigner must already have been distasteful to the
average Roman mind. It was in vain that Caius Gracchus, to whom the
suggestion of his brother was already becoming a precept, tried to
emphasise the political ruin which the spirit of exclusiveness had
brought to cities of the past.[480] The appeal to history and to nobler
motives must have fallen on deaf ears. It is possible, however, that the
personality of the speaker might have been of some avail, had he been
ably supported, and had the people seen all their leaders united on the
question of the day. But there is reason for supposing that serious
differences of opinion existed amongst these leaders as to the wisdom of
the move. Some may have held that the party of reform had merely drifted
in this direction, that the proposal for enfranchisement had never been
considered on its own merits, and that they had no mandate from the
people for purchasing land at this costly price. It may have been at
this time that Carbo first showed his dissatisfaction with the party, of
which he had almost been the accepted leader. If he declined to
accompany his colleagues on this new and untried path, the first step in
his conversion to the party of the optimates betrays no inconsistency
with his former attitude; for he could maintain with justice that the
proposal for enfranchising Italy was not a popular measure either in
spirit or in fact.

It was, therefore, with more than doubtful chances of success that
Fulvius Flaccus, who was consul in the following year, attempted to
bring the question to an issue by an actual proposal of citizenship for
the allies. The details of his scheme of enfranchisement have been very
imperfectly preserved.[481] We are unaware whether, like Caius Gracchus
some three years later, he proposed to endow the Latins with higher
privileges than the other allies: and, although he contemplated the
non-acceptance of Roman citizenship by some of the allied communities,
since he offered these cities the right of appeal to the people as a
substitute for the status which they declined, we do not know whether
his bill granted citizenship at once to all accepting states, or merely
opened a way for a request for this right to come from individual cities
to the Roman people. But it is probable that the bill in some way
asserted the willingness of the people to confer the franchise, and
that, if any other steps were involved in the method of conferment, they
were little more than formal. The fact that the _provocatio_ was
contemplated as a substitute for citizenship is at once a proof that the
old spirit of state life, which viewed absorption as extermination, was
known still to be strong in some of the Italian communes, and that many
of the individual Italians were believed to value the citizenship mainly
as a means of protecting their persons against Roman officialdom. That
the democratic party was strong at the moment when this proposal was
given to the world is shown by the fact that Flaccus filled the
consulship; that it had little sympathy with his scheme is proved by the
isolation of the proposer and by the manner in which the senate was
allowed to intervene. The conferment of the franchise had been proved to
be essentially a popular prerogative;[482] the consultation of the
senate on such a point might be advisable, but was by no means
necessary; for, in spite of the ruling theory that the authority of the
senate should be respected in all matters of legislation, the complex
Roman constitution recognised shades of difference, determined by the
quality of the particular proposal, with respect to the observance of
this rule. The position of Flaccus was legally stronger than that of
Tiberius Gracchus had been. Had he been well supported by men of
influence or by the masses, the senate's judgment might have been set at
naught. But the people were cold, Carbo had probably turned away, and
Caius Gracchus had gone as quaestor to Sardinia. The senate was
emboldened to adopt a firm attitude. They invited the consul to take
them into his confidence. After much delay he entered the senate house;
but a stubborn silence was his only answer to the admonitions and
entreaties of the fathers that he would desist from his purpose.[483]
Flaccus knew the futility of arguing with people who had adopted a
foregone conclusion; he would not even deign to accept a graceful
retreat from an impossible position. The matter must be dropped; but to
withdraw it at the exhortation of the senate, although complimentary to
his peers and perhaps not unpleasing even to the people in their present
humour, would prejudice the chances of the future. In view of better
days it was wiser to shelve than to discard the measure. His attitude
may also have been influenced by pledges made to the allies; to these,
helpless as he was, he would yet be personally faithful. His fidelity
would have been put to a severe test had he remained in Italy; but the
supreme magistrate at Rome had always a refuge from a perplexing
situation. The voice of duty called him abroad,[484] and Flaccus set
forth to shelter Massilia from the Salluvii and to build up the Roman
power in Transalpine Gaul.[485] Perhaps only a few of the leading
democrats had knowledge enough to suspect the terrible consequences that
might be involved in the failure of the proposal for conferring the
franchise. To the senate and the Roman world they must have caused as
much astonishment as alarm. It could never have been dreamed that the
well-knit confederacy, which had known no spontaneous revolt since the
rising of Falerii in the middle of the third century, could again be
disturbed by internal war. Now the very centre of this confederacy, that
loyal nucleus which had been unshaken by the victories of Hannibal, was
to be the scene of an insurrection, the product of hope long deferred,
of expectations recently kindled by injudicious promises, of resentment
at Pennus's success and Flaccus's failure. Fregellae, the town which
assumed the lead in the movement and either through overhaste or faulty
information alone took the fatal step,[486] was a Latin colony which had
been planted by Rome in the territory of the Volsci in the year 328
B.C.[487] The position of the town had ensured its prosperity even
before it fell into the hands of Rome. It lay on the Liris in a rich
vine-growing country, and within that circle of Latin and Campanian
states, which had now become the industrial centre of Italy. It was
itself the centre of the group of Latin colonies that lay as bulwarks of
Rome between the Appian and Latin roads, and had in the Hannibalic war
been chosen as the mouthpiece of the eighteen faithful cities, when
twelve of the Latin states grew weary of their burdens and wavered in
their allegiance.[488] The importance of the city was manifest and of
long-standing, its self-esteem was doubtless great, and it perhaps
considered that its signal services had been inadequately recompensed by
Rome. But its peculiar grievances are unknown, or the particular reasons
which gave Roman citizenship such an excessive value in its eyes. It is
possible that its thriving farmer class had been angered by the agrarian
commission and by undue demands for military service, and, in spite of
the commercial equality with the Romans which they enjoyed in virtue of
their Latin rights, they may have compared their position unfavourably
with that of communities in the neighbourhood which had received the
Roman franchise in full. Towns like Arpinum, Fundi and Formiae had been
admitted to the citizen body without forfeiting their self-government.
Absorption need not now entail the almost penal consequences of the
dissolution of the constitution; while the possession of citizenship
ensured the right of appeal and a full participation in the religious
festivals and the amenities of the capital. It is also possible that, in
the case of a prosperous industrial and agricultural community situated
actually within Latium, the desire for actively participating in the
decisions of the sovereign people may have played its part. But
sentiment probably had in its councils as large a share as reason: and
the fact that this sentiment led to premature action, and that the fall
of the state was due to treason, may lead as to suppose that the Romans
had to deal with a divided people and that one section of the community,
perhaps represented by the upper or official class, although it may have
sympathised with the general desire for the attainment of the franchise,
was by no means prepared to stake the ample fortunes of the town on the
doubtful chance of successful rebellion. A prolonged resistance of the
citizens within their walls might have given the impulse to a general
rising of the Latins. Had Fregellae played the part of a second
Numantia, the Social War might have been anticipated by thirty-five
years. But the advantage to be gained from time was foiled by treason. A
certain Numitorius Pullus betrayed the state to the praetor Lucius
Opimius, who had been sent with an army from Rome. Had Fregellae stood
alone, it might have been spared; but it was felt that some extreme
measure either of concession or of terrorism was necessary to keep
discontent from assuming the same fiery form in other communities. In
the later war with the allies a greater danger was bought off by
concession. But there the disease had run its course; here it was met in
its earliest stage, and the familiar devise of excision was felt to be
the true remedy. The principle of the "awful warning," which Alexander
had applied to Thebes and Rome to Corinth, doomed the greatest of the
Latin cities to destruction. Regardless of the past services of
Fregellae and of the fact that the passion for the franchise was the
most indubitable sign of the loyalty of the town, the government ordered
that the walls of the surrendered city should be razed and that the town
should become a mere open village undistinguished by any civic
privilege.[489] A portion of its territory was during the next year
employed for the foundation of the citizen colony of Fabrateria.[490]
The new settlement was the typical Roman garrison in a disaffected
country. But it proved the weakness of the present regime that such a
crude and antiquated method should have to be employed in the heart of
Latium. Security, however, was perhaps not the sole object of the
foundation. The confiscated land of Fregellae was a boon to a government
sadly in need of popularity at home.

An excellent opportunity was now offered for impressing the people with
the enormity of the offence that had been committed by some of their
leaders, and prosecutions were directed against the men who had been
foremost in support of the movement for extending the franchise. It was
pretended that they had suggested designs as well as kindled hopes. The
fate of the lesser advocates of the Italian cause is unknown; but Caius
Gracchus, against whom an indictment was directed, cleared his name of
all complicity in the movement.[491] The effect of these measures of
suppression was not to improve matters for the future. The allies were
burdened with a new and bitter memory; their friends at Rome were
furnished with a new cause for resentment. If the Roman people continued
selfish and apathetic, a leader might arise who would find the Italians
a better support for his position than the Roman mob. If he did not
arise or if he failed, the sole but certain arbitrament was that of
the sword.

The foreign activity of Rome during this period did not reflect the
troubled spirit of the capital. It was of little moment that petty wars
were being waged in East and West, and that bulletins sometimes brought
news of a general's defeat. Rome was accustomed to these things; and her
efforts were still marked by their usual characteristics of steady
expansion and decorous success. To predicate failure of her foreign
activity for this period is to predicate it for all her history, for
never was an empire more slowly won or more painfully preserved. It is
true that at the commencement of this epoch an imperialist might have
been justified in taking a gloomy view of the situation. In Spain
Numantia was inflicting more injury on Roman prestige than on Roman
power, while the long and harassing slave-war was devastating Sicily.
But these perils were ultimately overcome, and meanwhile circumstances
had led to the first extension of provincial rule over the wealthy East.

The kingdom of Pergamon had long been the mainstay of Rome's influence
in the Orient. Her contact with the other protected princedoms was
distant and fitful; but as long as her mandates could be issued through
this faithful vassal, and he could rely on her whole-hearted support in
making or meeting aggressions, the balance of power in the East was
tolerably secure. It had been necessary to make Eumenes the Second see
that he was wholly in the power of Rome, her vassal and not her ally. He
had been rewarded and strengthened, not for his own deserts, but that he
might be fitted to become the policeman of Western Asia, and it had been
successfully shown that the hand which gave could also take away. The
lesson was learnt by the Pergamene power, and fortunately the dynasty
was too short-lived for a king to arise who should forget the crushing
display of Roman power which had followed the Third Macedonian War, or
for the realisation of that greater danger of a protectorate--a struggle
for the throne which should lead one of the pretenders to appeal to a
national sentiment and embark on a national war. Eumenes at his death
had left a direct successor in the person of his son Attalus, who had
been born to him by his wife Stratonice, the daughter of Ariarathes King
of Cappadocia.[492] But Attalus was a mere boy at the time of his
father's death, and the choice of a guardian was of vital importance for
the fortunes of the monarchy. Every consideration pointed to the uncle
of the heir, and in the strong hands of Attalus the Second the regency
became practically a monarchy.[493] The new ruler was a man of more than
middle age, of sober judgment, and deeply versed in all the mysteries of
kingcraft; for a mutual trust, rare amongst royal brethren in the East,
had led Eumenes to treat him more as a colleague than as a lieutenant.
He had none of the insane ambition which sees in the diadem the good to
which all other blessings may be fitly sacrificed, and had resisted the
invitation of a Roman coterie that he should thrust his suspected
brother from the throne and reign himself as the acknowledged favourite
of Rome. In the case of Attalus familiarity with the suzerain power had
not bred contempt. He had served with Manlius in Galatia[494] and with
Paulus in Macedonia,[495] and had been sent at least five times as envoy
to the capital itself.[496] The change from a private station to a
throne did not alter his conviction that the best interests of his
country would be served by a steady adherence to the power, whose
marvellous development to be the mainspring of Eastern politics was a
miracle which he had witnessed with his own eyes. He had grasped the
essentials of the Roman character sufficiently to see that this was not
one of the temporary waves of conquest that had so often swept over the
unchangeable East and spent their strength in the very violence of their
flow, nor did he commit the error of mistaking self-restraint for
weakness. Monarchs like himself were the necessary substitute for the
dominion which the conquering State had been strong enough to spurn; and
he threw himself zealously into the task of forwarding the designs of
Rome in the dynastic struggles of the neighbouring nations. He helped to
restore Ariarathes the Fifth to his kingdom of Cappadocia,[497] and
appealed to Rome against the aggressions of Prusias the Second of
Bithynia. He was saved by the decisive intervention of the senate, but
not until he had been twice driven within the walls of his capital by
his victorious enemy.[498] His own peace and the interests of Rome were
now secured by his support of Nicomedes, the son of Prusias, who had won
the favour of the Romans and was placed on the throne of his father. He
had even interfered in the succession to the kingdom of the Seleucidae,
when the Romans thought fit to support the pretensions of Alexander
Balas to the throne of Syria.[499] Lastly he had sent assistance to the
Roman armies in the conflict which ended in the final reduction of
Greece.[500] There was no question of his abandoning his regency during
his life-time. Rome could not have found a better instrument, and it was
perhaps in obedience to the wishes of the senate, and certainly in
accordance with their will, that he held the supreme power until his
reign of twenty-one years was closed by his death.[501] Possibly the
qualities of the rightful heir may not have inspired confidence, for a
strong as well as a faithful friend was needed on the throne of
Pergamon. The new ruler, Attalus the Third, threatened only the danger
that springs from weakness; but, had not his rule been ended by an early
death, it is possible that Roman intervention might have been called in
to save the monarchy from the despair of his subjects, to hand it over
to some more worthy vassal, or, in default of a suitable ruler, to
reduce it to the form of a province. The restraint under which Attalus
had lived during his uncle's guardianship, had given him the sense of
impotence that issues in bitterness of temper and reckless suspicion.
The suspicion became a mania when the death of his mother and his
consort created a void in his life which he persisted in believing to be
due to the criminal agency of man. Relatives and friends were now the
immediate victims of his disordered mind,[502] and the carnival of
slaughter was followed by an apathetic indifference to the things of the
outer world. Dooming himself to a sordid seclusion, the king solaced his
gloomy leisure with pursuits that had perhaps become habitual during his
early detachment from affairs. He passed his time in ornamental
gardening, modelling in wax, casting in bronze and working in
metal.[503] His last great object in life was to raise a stately tomb to
his mother Stratonice. It was while he was engaged in this pious task
that exposure to the sun engendered an illness which caused his death.
When the last of the legitimate Attalids had gone to his grave, it was
found that the vacant kingdom had been disposed of by will, and that the
Roman people was the nominated heir.[504] The genuineness of this
document was subsequently disputed by the enemies of Rome, and it was
pronounced to be a forgery perpetrated by Roman diplomats.[505] History
furnishes evidence of the reality of the testament, but none of the
influences under which it was made.[506] It is quite possible that the
last eccentric king was jealous enough to will that he should have no
successor on the throne, and cynical enough to see that it made little
difference whether the actual power of Rome was direct or indirect. It
is equally possible that the idea was suggested by the Romanising party
in his court; although, when we remember the extreme unwillingness that
Rome had ever shown to accept a position of permanent responsibility in
the East, we can hardly imagine the plan to have received the direct
sanction of the senate. It is conceivable, however, that many leading
members of the government were growing doubtful of the success of merely
diplomatic interference with the troubled politics of the East; that
they desired a nearer point of vantage from which to watch the movements
of its turbulent rulers; and that, if consulted on the chances of
success which attended the new departure, they may have given a
favourable reply. It was impossible by the nature of the case to
question the validity of the act. The legatees were far too powerful to
make it possible for their living chattels to raise an effective protest
except by actual rebellion. But, from a legal point of view, a
principality like Pergamon that had grown out of the successful seizure
of a royal estate by its steward some hundred and fifty years before
this time, might easily be regarded as the property of its kings;[507]
and certainly if any heirs outside the royal family were to be admitted
to the bequest, these would naturally be sought in the power, which had
increased its dominions, strengthened its position and made it one of
the great powers of the world. Neglected by Rome the principality would
have become the prey of neighbouring powers; whilst the institution of a
new prince, chosen from some royal house, would, have excited the
jealousy and stimulated the rapacity of the others. The acceptance of
the bequest was inevitable, although by this acceptance Rome was
departing from the beaten track of a carefully chosen policy. It is
hinted that Attalus in his bequest, or the Romans in their acceptance,
stipulated for the freedom of the dominion.[508] This freedom may be
merely a euphemism for provincial rule when contrasted with absolute
despotism; but we may read a truer meaning into the term. Rome had often
guaranteed the liberty of Asiatic cities which she had wrested from
their overlord, she had once divided Macedonia into independent
Republics, she still maintained Achaea in a condition which allowed a
great deal of self-government to many of its towns, and the system of
Roman protectorate melted by insensible degrees into that of provincial
government. It is possible that her treatment of the bequeathed
communities might have been marked by greater liberality than was
actually shown, had not the dominion been immediately convulsed by a war
of independence.