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

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This review of the legislation on social questions which was initiated
or endured by the senate, shows the tentative attitude adopted by the
nobility in their dealings with the people, and proves either a
statesmanlike view of the needs of the situation or the entire lack of a
proud consciousness of their own immunity from attack. Even had they
possessed the power to dictate to the Comitia, they were hemmed in on
another side; for they had not dared to raise a protest against the law
of Gracchus which transferred criminal jurisdiction over the members of
their own order to the knights. The equestrian courts sat in judgment on
the noblest members of the aristocracy; for the political or personal
motives which urged to prosecution were stronger even than the
camaraderie of the order, and governors of provinces were still in
danger of indictment by their peers. Within two years of the
transference of the courts, Quintus Mucius Scaevola, known in later life
as "the Augur" and famed for his knowledge of the civil law, returned
from his province of Asia to meet the accusation of Titus Albucius.[783]
The knights did not begin by a vindictive exercise of their authority.
Although Asia was the most favoured sphere of their activity, Scaevola
was acquitted. Seven years later they gave a stern and perhaps righteous
example of their severity in the condemnation of Caius Porcius
Cato.[784] The accused when consul had obtained Macedonia as his
province, and had waged a frontier war with the Scordisci, which ended
in the annihilation of his forces and his own narrow escape from the
field of battle. His ill-success perhaps deepened the impression made by
his extortions in Macedonia, and he was sentenced to the payment of a
fine. Neither in the case of the acquittal nor in that of the
condemnation does political bias seem to have influenced the judgment of
the courts, and the equestrian jurors may have seemed for a time to
realise the best hopes which had inspired their creation.

The attention of the leading members of the nobility was probably too
absorbed by the problem of adapting senatorial rule to altered
circumstances to allow them the leisure or the inclination to embark on
fresh legislative projects of their own. Our record of these years is so
imperfect that it would be rash to conclude that the scanty proposals on
new subjects which it reveals exhausted the legislative activity of the
senate; but had they done so, the circumstance would be intelligible;
for the work that invited the attention of the senate in its own
interest, was one of consolidation rather than of reform; the political
feeling of the time put measures of a distinctly reactionary character,
such as might have been welcomed by the more conservative members of the
order, wholly out of the question; and the government was not likely,
except under compulsion, to undertake legislation of a progressive type.
The only important law of the period certainly proceeding from
governmental circles, and dealing with a question that was novel, in the
sense that it had not been heard of for a considerable number of years
and had played no part in the Gracchan movements, was one passed by the
consul Marcus Aemilius Scaurus. It dealt with the voting power of the
freedmen,[785] and probably confirmed its restriction to the four city
tribes. It is difficult to assign a political meaning to this law, as we
do not know the practice which prevailed at the time of Scaurus's
intervention; but it is probable that the restriction imposed by the
censors of 169, who had confined the freedmen to a single tribe,[786]
had not been observed, that great irregularity prevailed in the manner
of their registration, and that Scaurus's measure, which was a return to
the arrangement reached at the end of the fourth century, was intended
to restrict the voting privileges of the class. This interpretation of
his intention would seem to show that the increasing liberality of the
Roman master had created a class the larger portion of which was not
dependent on the wealthier and more conservative section of the citizen
body, or was at least enabled to assert its freedom from control through
the secrecy of the ballot. The interests of the class were almost
identical with those of the free proletariate, in which the descendants
of the freedmen were merged: and the law of Scaurus, which strengthened
the country vote by preventing this urban influence spreading through
all the tribes, may be an evidence that the senate distrusted the
present passivity of the urban folk, and looked forward with
apprehension to a time when they might have to rely on the more stable
element which the country districts supplied. We shall see in the sequel
that this anticipation of the freedmen's attitude was not unjustified,
and that the increase of their voting power still continued to be an
effective battle-cry for the demagogue who was eager to increase his
following in the city.

Scaurus was also the author of a sumptuary law.[787] It came
appropriately from a man who had been trained in a school of poverty,
and shows the willingness of the nobility to submit, at least in
appearance, to the discipline which would present it to the world as a
self-sacrificing administration, reaping no selfish reward for its
intense labour, and submitting to that equality of life with the average
citizen which is the best democratic concession that a powerful
oligarchy can make. The activity of the censorship was exhibited in the
same direction. Foreign and expensive dishes were prohibited by the
guardians of public morals, as they were by Scaurus's sumptuary
law:[788] and the censors of 115, Metellus and Domitius, undertook a
scrutiny of the stage which resulted in the complete exclusion from Rome
of all complex forms of the histrionic art and its reduction to the
simple Latin type of music and song.[789] Their energy was also
displayed in a destructive examination of the morals of their own order,
and as a result of the scrutiny thirty-two senators were banished from
the Curia.[790] To guard the senate-house from scandal was indeed the
necessary policy of a nobility which knew that its precarious power
rested on the opinion of the streets; and the efforts of the censors,
directed like those of their predecessors, to a regeneration which had a
national type as its goal, show that that opinion could not yet have
been considered wholly cosmopolitan or corrupt. The frequent splendour
of triumphal processions, such as those which celebrated the victories
of Domitius and Fabius over the Allobroges, of Metellus over the
Dalmatians, and of Scaurus over the Ligurians,[791] produced a
comfortable impression of the efficiency of the government in extending
or preserving the frontiers of the empire; the triumph itself was the
symbol of success, and few could have cared to question the extent and
utility of the achievement. Satisfied with the belief that they were
witnessing the average type of successful administration, the electors
pursued the course, from which they so seldom deflected, of giving their
unreserved confidence to the ancient houses; and this epoch witnessed a
striking instance of hereditary influence, if not of hereditary talent,
when Metellus Macedonicus was borne to his grave by sons, of whom four
had held curule office, three had possessed the consulship, and one had
fulfilled in addition the lofty functions of the censor and enjoyed the
honour of a triumph.[792]

Yet distinction without a certain degree of fitness was now, as at every
other time, an impossibility in Rome. The nobility, although it did not
love originality, extended a helping hand to the capacity that was
willing to support its cause and showed the likelihood of dignifying its
administration; a career was still open to talent and address, if they
were held to be wisely directed; and the man of the period who best
deserves the title of leader of the State, was one who had not even
sprung from the second strata of Roman society, but had struggled with a
poverty which would have condemned an ordinary man to devote such
leisure as he could spare for politics to swelling the babel of the
Forum and the streets. It is true that Marcus Aemilius Scaurus bore a
patrician name, and was one of those potential kings who, once in the
senate, might assume the royal foot-gear and continue the holy task,
which they had performed from the time of Romulus, of guarding and
transmitting the auspices of the Roman people. But the splendour of the
name had long been dimmed. Even in the history of the great wars of the
beginning of the century but one Aemilius Scaurus appears, and he holds
but a subordinate command as an officer of the Roman fleet. The father
of the future chief of the senate had been forced to seek a livelihood
in the humble calling of a purveyor of charcoal.[793] The son, resolute,
ambitious and conscious of great powers, long debated with himself the
question of his future walk in life.[794] He might remain in the ranks
of the business world, supply money to customers in place of coal, and
seize the golden opportunities which were being presented by the
extension of the banking industry in the provincial world. Had he chosen
this path, Scaurus might have been the chief of the knights and the most
resolute champion of equestrian claims against the government. But his
course was decided by the afterthought that the power of words was
greater than that of gold, and that eloquence might secure, not only
wealth, but the influence which wealth alone cannot attain. The fame
which he gained in the Forum led inevitably to service in the field. He
reaped distinction in the Spanish campaigns and served under Orestes in
Sardinia. His narrow means rather than his principles may have been the
reason why his aedileship was not marked by the generous shows to which
the people were accustomed and by which their favour was usually
purchased; in Scaurus's tenure of that office splendour was replaced by
a rigorous performance of judicial duties;[795] but that such an
equivalent could serve his purpose, that it should be even no hindrance
to his career, proves the respect that his strenuous character had won
from the people, and the anticipation formed by the government of the
value of his future services. Now, when he was nearing his fiftieth
year, he had secured the consulship, the bourne of most successful
careers, but not to be the last or greatest prize of a man whose stately
presence, unbending dignity, and apparent simplicity of purpose, could
generally awe the people into respect, and whose keenness of vision and
talent for intrigue impressed the senatorial mind with a sense of his
power to save, when claims were pressing and difficulties acute.[796]
His consulship, though without brilliancy, added to the respectable
laurels that he had already attained. A successful raid on some Illyrian
tribes[797] showed at least that he had retained the physical endurance
of his youth; while his legislation on sumptuary matters and the
freedman's vote showed the spirit of a milder Cato, and the moderate
conservatism, not distasteful to the Roman of pure blood, which would
preserve the preponderance in political power to the citizen untainted
by the stain of servitude. A stormy event of his period of office gave
the crowd an opportunity of seeing the severity with which a magistrate
of the older school could avenge an affront to the dignity of his
office. Publius Decius, who was believed to be a conscious imitator of
Fulvius Flaccus in the exaggerated vehemence of his oratory, and who had
already proved by his prosecution of Opimius that he was ready to defend
certain features of the Gracchan cause even when such championship was
fraught with danger, was in possession of the urban praetorship at the
time when Scaurus held the consulship. One day the consul passed the
open court of justice when the praetor was giving judgment from the
curule chair. Decius remained seated, either in feigned oblivion or in
ostentatious disregard of the presence of his superior. The politic
wrath of Scaurus was aroused; an enemy had been delivered into his
hands, and the people might be given an object-lesson of the way in
which the most vehement champion of popular rights was, even when
covered with the dignity of a magistracy, but a straw in the iron grasp
of the higher Imperium. The consul ordered Decius to rise, his official
robe to be rent, the chair of justice to be shattered in pieces, and
published a warning that no future litigant should resort to the court
of the contumacious praetor.[798] The vulgar mind is impressed, when it
is not angered, by such scenes of violence. A repute for sternness is
the best cloak for the flexibility which, if revealed, would excite
suspicion. Scaurus to the popular mind was an embodiment of stiff
patrician dignity, perhaps happily devoid of that touch of insolence
which is often the mark of a career assured without a struggle; of a
self-complacent dignity, quietly conscious of its own deserts and
demanding their due reward, of the calmness of a soul that is above
suspicion and refuses to admit even in its inmost sanctuary the thought
that its motives can be impugned. Meanwhile certain disrespectful
onlookers were expressing wonder at his mysteriously growing wealth and
marvelling as to its source. But, marvel as they might, they never drove
Scaurus to the necessity of an explanation. We shall find him as an old
man repelling all attacks by the irresistible appeal to his services and
his career. The condemnation of Scaurus appealed to the conservative as
a blow struck at the dignity of the State itself; to the man of a more
open mind it was at least the shattering of a delightful illusion.

The period which witnessed the crowning of the efforts of the poor and
struggling patrician was also sufficiently liberal, or sufficiently poor
in aristocratic talent, to admit the initial steps in the official
career of a genuine son of the people. It was now that Caius Marius was
laboriously climbing the grades of curule rank, and showing in the
pursuit of political influence at home the rugged determination which
had already distinguished him in the field. A Volscian by descent, he
belonged to Rome through the accident of birth in the old municipality
of Arpinum, which since the early part of the second century had enjoyed
full Roman citizenship and therefore gave its citizens the right of
suffrage and of honours in the capital. Born of good yeoman stock in the
village of Cereatae in the Arpinate territory,[799] he had passed a
boyhood which derived no polish from the refinements, and no taint from
the corruptions, of city life. In his case there was no puzzling
discrepancy between the outer and the inner man. His frame and visage
were the true index of a mind, somewhat unhewn and uncouth, but with a
massive reserve of strength, a persistence not blindly obstinate, a
patience that could wear out the most brilliant efforts of his rivals
and opponents. He did not court hostility, but simply shouldered his way
sturdily to the front, encouraged by Rome's better spirits, who saw in
him the excellent officer with qualities that might make the future
general, and appealing to the people, when they gradually became
familiar with his presence, as a type of that venerable myth, the rustic
statesman of the past. The poverty of his early lot was perhaps
exaggerated by historians[800] who wished to point the contrast between
his humble origin and his later glory, and to find a suitable cradle for
his rugged nature; even the initial stages of his career afford no
evidence of a struggle against pressing want, nor is there any proof
that he was supported by the bounty of his powerful friends. Even if he
entered the army as a common foot-soldier, he would merely have shared
the lot of many a well-to-do yeoman who obeyed the call of the
conscription. With Marius, however, military service was not to be an
incident, but a profession. The needs of a widening empire were calling
for special capacities such as had never been demanded in the past. The
career of Scaurus had shown the successful pleader surmounting the
obstacle of poverty; even the higher barrier of birth might be leaped
amidst the democratising influences of the camp. The nobility was not
sufficiently self-centred to be wholly blind to its own interests; and
it was easier to patronise a soldier than a pleader. In the latter case
the aspirant's political creed must be examined; in the former the last
question that would be asked was whether the officer possessed any
political creed at all. It might be a question of importance for the
future with respect to the candidature for those offices which alone
conferred high military command, even though there was as yet no dream
of the sword becoming the arbiter of political life; but the genuine
commander, engaged in the difficult task of remodelling an army, had no
eye but for the bearing and qualities of the soldier, and would not
scruple to cast aside his patrician prejudices in a despairing effort to
find the fittest instruments for the perfecting of his great design. It
was Marius's fortunate lot to enter the field at a time of trial, and to
serve his first campaign under a general, who was combating the adverse
forces of influence, licence and incompetence in the official staff
supplied by the government and represented by the young scions of the
nobility. To the camp before Numantia, where Scipio was scourging his
men into obedience, rooting out the amenities of life, and astonishing
his officers with new ideas of the meaning of a campaign, Marius brought
the very qualities on which the general had set his heart. An
unflinching courage, shown on one occasion in single combat when he
overthrew a champion of the foe, a power of physical endurance which
could submit to all changes of temperature and food, a minute precision
in the performance of the detailed duties of the camp, soon led to his
rapid advancement and to his selection as a member of the intimate
circle which surrounded the commander-in-chief. Every great specialist
has a small claim to the gift of prophecy; for he possesses an instinct
which reveals more than his reason will permit him to prove; and we need
not wonder at the story that, when once the debate grew warm round
Scipio's table as to who would succeed him as the chosen commander of
the Roman host, he lightly touched the shoulder of Marius and answered
"Perhaps we shall find him here".[801]

The higher commands in the army could be sought only through a political
career; and Marius, inspired with the highest hopes by Scipio's
commendation, was forced to breathe the uncongenial atmosphere of the
city and to fight his way upwards to the curule offices. There is no
proof that he took advantage of the current of democratic feeling which
accompanied the movements of the Gracchi. It was, perhaps, as well that
he did not; for such an association might have long delayed his higher
political career. The nobles who posed as democrats probably attached
more importance to forensic skill than to military merit; and the
support which Marius enjoyed was sought and found amongst the
representatives of the opposite party. Scipio's death removed a man who
might have been a powerful advocate on his behalf; the vague
relationship of clientship in which the family of Marius had stood to
the clan of the Herennii[802]--a relation common between Roman families
and the members of Italian townships, and in this case probably dating
from a time before Arpinum had received full Roman rights--seems never
to have led to active interference on his behalf on the part of the
representatives of that ancient Samnite house. Perhaps the Herennii were
too weak to assist the fortunes of their client; they certainly give no
names to the Fasti of this period. It is also possible that the proud
soldier was galled by the memory of the hereditary yoke, and sought
assistance where it would be given simply as a mark of merit, not as a
duty conditioned by the claim to irksome reciprocal obligations. The
all-powerful family of the Caecilii Metelli, who were at this time
vigorously fulfilling the destiny of office which heaven had prescribed
for their clan, stretched out a helping hand to the distinguished
soldier;[803] a family born to military command might consult its
interests, while it gratified its sympathies, by attaching to its
_clientele_ a warrior who had received the best training of the school
of Africanus. After he had held the military tribunate and the
quaestorship,[804] Marius attained the tribunate of the Plebs with the
assistance of Lucius Caecilius Metellus.[805] He was in his thirty-ninth
year when he entered on the first office which gave him the opportunity
of claiming the attention of the people by the initiation of legislative
measures. The slowness of his rise may have led him to believe that he
might accelerate his career by taking his fortune into his own hands;
certainly if the law which bore his name was not unwelcome to the better
portion of the nobility, the methods by which he forced it through did
not commend themselves even to his patron. His proposal was meant to
limit the exercise of undue influence at the Comitia, and although the
law doubtless referred to legislative meetings summoned for every
purpose, it was chiefly directed to securing the independence of the
voter in such public trials as still took place before the people,[806]
and was perhaps inspired by scenes that might have been witnessed at the
acquittal of Opimius one year previously. One of the clauses of the bill
provided that the exits to the galleries, through which the voters filed
to give their suffrages to the tellers, should be narrowed,[807] the
object being to exclude the political agents who were accustomed to
occupy the sides of the passages, and influence or intimidate, by their
presence if not by their words, the voting citizen at the critical
moment when he was about to record his verdict. Such methods were
probably found effective even where the ballot was used, but their
success must have been even greater in trials for treason, at which
voting by word of mouth was still employed. It was difficult for a
government, which had accepted the ballot, to offer a decent resistance
to a measure of this kind. The proposal attacked indifferently political
methods which might be, and probably were, employed by both parties;
and, although its success would no doubt inflict more injury on the
government than on the opposition, it could not be repudiated by the
senate on the ground that it was tainted by an aggressively "popular"
character. The opposition which it actually encountered was apparently
based on the formal ground that the heads of the administration had not
been sufficiently consulted. The law was not the outcome of any
senatorial decree, nor had the senate's opinion been deliberately taken
on the utility of the measure. The consul Cotta persuaded the house to
frame a resolution expressing dissatisfaction with the proposal as it
stood, and to summon Marius for an explanation. The summons was promptly
obeyed, but the expected scene of humiliation of the untried parvenu was
rudely interrupted at an early period of the debate. Marius knew that he
had the people and the tribunician college with him, and that even the
most perverse ingenuity could never construe the measure as a factious
opposition to the interests of the State. Obedience to the senate would
in this instance mean the sacrifice of a reputation for political
honesty and courage; it might be better to burn his boats and to trust
for the future to the generosity of the people for the gifts which the
nobility so grudgingly bestowed. He chose to regard the controversy as
one of those cases of hopeless conflict between the members of the
magistracy, for the solution of which the law had provided regular
though exceptional means. He fell back on the majesty of the tribunician
power, and threatened Cotta with imprisonment if he did not withdraw his
resolution.[808] It is probable that up to this point no decree
expressing wholesale condemnation of the bill had been passed, and the
senate might therefore be coerced through the magistrate, without its
authority being utterly disregarded. Cotta turned to his colleague
Metellus, known to be the friend of the obstinate tribune, and Metellus
rising gave the consul his support. Marius, undaunted by the attitude of
his patron, hurried matters to a close. He summoned his attendant to the
Curia, and bade him take Metellus himself into custody and conduct him
to a place of confinement. Metellus appealed to the other tribunes, but
none would offer his help; and the senate was forced to save the
situation by sacrificing its vote of censure. So rapid and complete a
victory, even on an issue of no great importance, delighted the popular
mind. The senate was then in good favour at Rome; but a chance for
realising their superiority over the greatest of their servants was
always welcome to the people. They also loved those exhibitions of
physical force by which the genius of Rome had solved the difficulties
of her constitution: and the violence of a tribune was as impressive now
as was that of a consul four years later. Marius had gained a character
for sturdy independence and unshaken constancy, which was to produce
unexpected results in the political world of the future, and was to be
immediately tested in a manner that must have proved profoundly
disappointing to many who acclaimed him. It seems as though this victory
over the resolution of the senate may have urged certain would-be
reformers to believe that measures of a Gracchan type might win the
favour of the people, and secure the support of a tribunician college
which seemed to be out of sympathy with the government. Some proposal
dealing with the distribution of corn,[809] perhaps an extension of the
existing scheme, was made. It found no more resolute opponent than
Marius, and his opposition helped to secure its utter defeat. In this
resistance we may perhaps see the genuinely neutral character of the
man; for the attribution of interested motives, although the historian's
favourite revenge for the difficulties of his task, endows his
characters with a foresight which is as abnormal as their lack of
principle; although it is questionable whether Marius would have gained
by identifying himself with a cause which had not yet emerged from the
ruin of its failure.