The Historians' History of the World 05

The Cimbrians sent their cavalry in advance of their foot-soldiers; in the thick fog of the early morning they suddenly fell upon the Roman cavalry and drew them away from their foot. The battle was carried on in some cases with great bravery, but in spite of the numbers and strength of the barbarians the superior knowledge and endurance of the Romans conquered. The greater part of the Cimbrians were killed on the field, Boiorix among the number. Several put an end to their own lives. The scenes of Aquæ Sextiæ were repeated, the women rushed with swords and axes into the midst of the enemy and let themselves be hewn down; they killed those they saw flying, their children and at last themselves. The Cimbrians were destroyed, root and branch; those who were not killed, in number over sixty thousand, were sold as slaves. The Tigurini, who had accompanied the Cimbrians, had remained waiting on the spurs of the Alps; when they saw their friends defeated they fled towards their own homes.

After the battle the two parties in Rome quarrelled as to which of the two leaders could really claim the honours of the victory of Vercellæ. The aristocrats maintained that Catulus, the man of their party, had decided the battle in the centre, he had captured thirty-one standards, whilst Marius had only brought away two; to him therefore the wreath of victory. On the other hand, the people claimed for Marius the great man who had risen from their ranks, that he was the one and only subduer of the Cimbrians and Teutones, and called him the third founder of the city, for the danger which he had averted had been as great as the Gallic peril which Camillus, the “second founder of Rome,” had stamped out. The people judged aright, for Marius fought the battle of Vercellæ as consul, whilst Catulus was only proconsul, and so Marius was the commander-in-chief; and further it is certain that he greatly excelled Catulus in military ability. But most of all it must not be forgotten that but for the victory of Aquæ Sextiæ the victory of Vercellæ could never have been.

On his return to Rome, Marius was accorded a well-deserved triumph, in which he nevertheless insisted that Catulus should share.c

THE SECOND SLAVE WAR

[102-101 B.C.]

While the arms of the republic were thus triumphant in averting external peril, the fertile province of Sicily was again a prey to the desolating horrors of a slave war.

After the former war had been happily concluded by Piso and Rupilius, several indications of similar troubles appeared in Italy itself. At Capua, a spendthrift knight armed four thousand slaves and assumed the diadem. But by prompt measures the insurrection was put down.

The rising in Sicily might have been checked with no less ease. It originated thus: Marius had been commissioned by the senate to raise troops in foreign countries to meet the difficulties of the Cimbrian War. He applied to the king of Bithynia, among other persons; but the king answered that he had no soldiers, the Roman tax-gatherers had made slaves of them all. The senate, glad to have an opportunity of censuring the equites, passed a decree that all persons unduly detained in slavery should be set free. In Sicily the number of such persons was so large that the prætor suspended the execution of the decree. Great disappointment followed. A body of slaves rose in insurrection near Agrigentum, and beat off the prætor. Their numbers swelled to twenty thousand, and they chose one Salvius, a soothsayer, to be their king. This man showed himself fit to command. He divided his followers into three bodies, regularly officered. He enforced strict discipline. To restrain his men from wine and debauchery, he kept them in the field. He contrived to provide two thousand with horses. When his men seemed sufficiently trained, he laid siege to the city of Murgantia. But the slave-masters of Morgantium offered freedom to all slaves who would remain faithful, and Salvius saw himself compelled to retire. The promise, however, was not kept, and numbers of the deceived men flocked to the insurgent camp.

This success in the east of Sicily gave birth to a similar rising in the west, which was headed by a Cilician slave named Athenion, who pretended to read the future in the stars. He soon found himself at the head of ten thousand soldiers, well found with arms and provisions. He gave out that the stars declared his sovereignty: he therefore forbade all robbery; for, said he, “the property of our masters is now ours.” He now rashly laid siege to the impregnable fortress of Lilybæum; but finding its capture impossible, he drew off, alleging that an impending danger had been revealed to him.