The Historians' History of the World 05

During the progress of the tribune’s intrigues, the indisposition of both the senate and the knights to his measures became more strongly marked; and notwithstanding the adherence of some of the principal nobles, he was compelled to draw closer the bands of alliance between himself and the Italians. The impatience of his foreign associates was not easily restrained, and he was obliged himself to denounce a plot they formed for murdering the consuls at the great festival of the Latin feriæ

. But his influence waxed more and more powerful with them, and the oath they took to promote the common interests of the confederacy expressed their entire devotion to the person of their generous leader. They swore that they would have no other friends than his friends, that they would count his foes their foes, that they would spare nothing, neither their parents, nor their children, nor their own lives, for his advantage together with that of the common cause. “If I become a Roman citizen,” the oath continued, “I will esteem Rome my country and Drusus my benefactor.” The senate heard with indignation of the progress of these intrigues, at the moment when it was called upon to ratify by a vote the proposal for conferring the franchise upon its mutinous subjects. It was informed that Pompædius Silo, the chief of the Marsians, was marching at the head of ten thousand men, along by-roads and with arms concealed, towards the city, to intimidate the nobles. A force was despatched to intercept his progress, and a parley ensued, in which the leader of the Romans assured his adversary that the senate was actually prepared to concede the boon required.

For the moment blows were averted; but in the curia the discussion was still animated and the decision dubious. The classes opposed to the concession had gained some of the Italians to their side, and with the support of the Umbrians and Etruscans, alarmed at the projected foundation of new colonies in their territories, ventured still to withhold the concession. When the day for voting arrived, the consul Marcius Philippus attempted to break up the meeting. One of the tribune’s officers seized and throttled him till the blood sprang from his mouth and eyes. The city was now thrown into a state of the fiercest excitement. Tribunes were arrayed against tribunes, nobles against nobles, Romans against Romans, Italians against Italians. The streets were traversed by armed bands on either side. Everything seemed to portend a bloody solution of the crisis. At this juncture Drusus, attended by a number of his adherents, was returning one evening to his house. Passing along an obscure corridor he was heard suddenly to cry out that he was struck, and fell to the ground with a poniard planted in his groin. In a few hours he expired, exclaiming with his dying breath, “When will Rome again find so good a citizen as myself?” The assassin had escaped in the crowd (91).

The murder was generally imputed to the senatorial party, and especially to the consul Philippus. The magistrates omitted to make inquiry into the circumstances, while the murdered man’s opponents hastened to abrogate such of his measures as had already passed into laws; and his adherents were too stupefied to resist. Severe decrees were speedily issued against the Italians, and they were peremptorily forbidden to interfere in the affairs of the republic. An obscure tribune of foreign extraction, named Varius, was put forward by the knights to impeach some of the principal nobles, as reputed favourers of the movement. A Bestia, a Cotta, a Mummius, a Pompeius and a Memmius were condemned and banished. Among the accused was the illustrious Æmilius Scaurus. The only reply he deigned to make to the charge was this: “Varius the Iberian accuses Scaurus prince of the senate, of exciting the Italians to revolt. Scaurus denies it. Romans! which of the two do you believe?” The people absolved him with acclamations. But the knights still thirsted for vengeance upon their hereditary enemies, and the actual outbreak of the threatened insurrection alone prevented them from effecting a wider proscription of the most unpopular of the nobles.