The Historians' History of the World 05

[77] Piso, the other consul, was employed in extinguishing the Slave War in Sicily.

[78] [George Longd doubts this, saying that Caius was still in Spain.]

[79] [It is now generally agreed that various classes of poor people should be supported by the government; the question is whether the Romans were wise in supporting so many and in such a way.]

[80] [Appian,g the authority for this matter, more probably means that before the tribuneship of Caius a law had been passed permitting the re-election of a tribune in case of a lack of candidates.]

[81] [“This,” says Long,d “is the first instance in Roman history of head-money being offered and paid, but it was not the last.”]

Roman Tweezers

(In the British Museum)

CHAPTER XVI. THE JUGURTHINE AND OTHER WARS

[123-112 B.C.]

The cruel times which followed made the best men of both parties regret the untimely end of those who had sacrificed wealth, rank, tranquillity, in the hope of reforming the state by peaceful methods. But Marius was not the worst of the successors of the Gracchi. So savage were the party quarrels which followed, that good men shrank in despair from the cause of reform, and the conduct of the popular party was abandoned to needy demagogues. Such is the common course of revolutions. They begin with noble aspirations; they end in reckless violence. At length public spirit is lost, and all men, sighing for tranquillity, seek it in the strong rule of an armed soldier. It is a thrice-told tale.

As the murder of Tiberius had been avenged upon Nasica, so there was even now found a tribune bold enough to indict Opimius. The accuser bore the time-honoured name of Decius; the defender was that Carbo who was more than suspected of Scipio’s murder, and who was now consul (120 B.C.); his eloquence and the terror that prevailed procured an acquittal. But Carbo, though he earned the gratitude of the nobility by defending their champion, did not find his eloquence equally effectual in defending himself. It was at that time the practice of young Romans who aspired to distinction to attract public notice by indicting some great offender before the people. L. Licinius Crassus, son of Crassus the pontifex, and brother-in-law of C. Gracchus, though only one-and-twenty years of age, felt within him that power of speech which in later days gained him the appellation of the orator; and he singled out Carbo for attack. So fierce was the invective of the young accuser that Carbo put an end to his own life by poison.

The nobility probably cared little for the life of a worthless renegade. The best men in the senate, indeed, regretted what they considered the necessity of taking up arms against Gracchus. First among these was old Metellus Macedonicus, who died full of honours and years seven years after the death of C. Gracchus. He left four sons. Before his death three of them had been consuls; the fourth was candidate for the consulship at his father’s death; but his two nephews, sons of his brother Calvus, were more distinguished than his own offspring. Quintus the younger, under the title of Numidicus, shortly afterwards became the most eminent man in the ranks of the nobility. In the course of twenty years the Metelli enjoyed six consulships and four censorships, besides five triumphs. Such an aggregation of honours in one family was without example. The worst fault of the Metelli was pride; but if they were not beloved, they were at least respected by the people.

A person who plays a large part in the events of the next years was M. Æmilius Scaurus, a man of more dubious character. Horace names him with some of the greatest men of olden time; Sallust represents him as disgracing high qualities by an inordinate love for money. The facts we shall have to record will show that in his earlier days he was infected by the corruption of his compeers, while in later life his prudence was so great as to stand for principle. He was born in 163 B.C., so that at the fall of C. Gracchus he had reached that ripe age which was required for the consulship. Though he belonged to a great patrician gens, his family was so obscure that he was accounted a new man. His father had been a charcoal merchant, and left his son so poor that the future ruler of the empire had at one time contemplated following the trade of a money-changer. But he was encouraged to try the chances of political life, and in 115 B.C. he reached the consulate. By his ability and discretion he so won the confidence of the senate that at the first vacancy he was named princeps. He was a man less seen than felt. His oratory wanted fire; but his talents for business, and his dexterity in the management of parties, made him the most important person in the field of politics from the fall of Gracchus to the rise of Sulla.