The Historians' History of the World 05

Saturninus obtained the renewal of his tribunate. He had carried matters with a high hand: on the occasion of his first election he had daringly murdered an opponent; he had thwarted the nobles, and even risked his popularity with the commons by proclaiming himself the patron of the Italians. It was now requisite, perhaps, to recover his ground with his supporters in the city; and for this purpose he imposed one of his freedmen upon the citizens, as a son of their favourite Tiberius Gracchus. This intrigue, indeed, seems to have had little success; Sempronia, the widow of Scipio Æmilianus, and sister of the murdered tribunes, vehemently denounced it, and the people laughed at the imposture, if they did not resent it. But force, after all, was more familiar to Saturninus than fraud. When C. Memmius, one of his adversaries, was about to be elected consul, he caused him to be poniarded in the Forum by the bandits who surrounded his own person.[86] But he had now gone too far. To save himself he rushed into open revolt. He climbed the Capitol, with his companion Glaucia and his band of ruffians and assassins, seized the citadel, in virtue perhaps of his official dignity, and defied the republic to arms. The nobles retorted upon him with the fatal cry, that he aspired to royalty; and the people, already perplexed at his leaning to the Italians, and shocked, perhaps, at the frantic violence of his proceedings, were not indisposed to listen to it. They acquiesced without a murmur in the decree of the senate, by which the state was declared in danger and Marius charged as consul to provide for its safety.

The city was placed in what in modern times is called a state of siege; that is, the consul, whose ordinary functions within the walls were purely judicial and administrative, received the power of the sword as fully as if he were in the camp. He proceeded to invest the fortress, which was considered impregnable to an attack, and could only be reduced by blockade. By cutting some leaden pipes, upon which, in the security of the times, the citadel of the republic had been allowed to become dependent for water, the insurgents were deprived of the first necessary of life. Saturninus offered to capitulate on the promise of personal safety. Marius guaranteed his life; and in order to preserve him from the fury of the populace, placed him, in the first instance, with his followers, in the Curia Hostilia, a large public building at the foot of the hill. But when the people scaled the walls, tore off the roof, and poured missiles upon the wretched captives, the consul made no effort to save them, and they all perished miserably—a deed of blood which was long remembered, and afforded at a later period the handle for a persecution of the nobles themselves.

No event, perhaps, in Roman history is so sudden, so unconnected, and accordingly so obscure in its origin and causes, as this revolt or conspiracy of Saturninus. The facility with which a favourite champion of the people is abandoned and slain by his own clients, seems to point to some unseen motive, with which history has forgotten to acquaint us. The Roman demagogues were well aware of the inveterate horror with which the people regarded the name of king; and none of them, it may be safely said, notwithstanding the oft-repeated calumnies of their opponents, ever ventured to aspire to it. If it be true then (as the historians represent) that Saturninus was hailed as king by his adherents, and accepted the invidious designation with joy, it is highly probable that his adherents were foreigners and Italians rather than citizens. We have already seen the use which leaders of all parties were making at this time of the claims of the Italians to emancipation from the state of conquered subjects in which they were still held. All in turn pressed these claims, when it suited their particular purpose, nor did most of them scruple to abandon them when their convenience required it. Sometimes the nobles, sometimes the commons, were cajoled into supporting them, as a counterpoise to the aggressions of their immediate opponents; but both the one class and the other were at heart bitterly opposed to them, and the hope of obtaining favour or justice from the republic seems to have gradually disappeared from the minds of the claimants themselves. They hated Rome, and with Rome they identified, perhaps, republican government itself. They could only hope for redress of their grievances from a revolution which should overthrow the supremacy of the senate house and the Forum. This was the menace from which even the licentious rabble of the city recoiled, and which determined Marius to allow the violation of his plighted faith, and the sacrifice of his friend and ally.[87] Even if entirely devoid of patriotic feeling, which we may well believe, Marius was deeply interested in preventing any demagogue from attaining a monarchical ascendency superior to his own.