Speaker 1: Section nine of the grochy Marius and Sulla by A. H. Beasley.
Speaker 1: This librovox recording is in the public domain. Read by Pamelinagami,
Speaker 1: Chapter nine Saturninus and Drusus. With such a weapon in
Speaker 1: his hand, Marius came back to Rome intoxicated with success.
Speaker 1: He thought his marches in two continents worthy to be
Speaker 1: compared with the progresses of Bacchus, and had a cup
Speaker 1: made on the model of that of the god. He
Speaker 1: spoke badly. He was easily disconcerted by the disapproval of
Speaker 1: an audience. He had no insight into the evils or
Speaker 1: any project for the reformation of the state. But the
Speaker 1: scorn of men like Metellus had made him throw himself
Speaker 1: on the support of the people from whom he sprang,
Speaker 1: and they idolizing him for his dazzling exploits as a soldier,
Speaker 1: looked to him as their natural leader and the creator
Speaker 1: of a new era. Indeed, it needed no stimulus from
Speaker 1: without to what his ambitious cravings. That seventh consulship, which
Speaker 1: superstition whispered, would be surely his. He had yet to win,
Speaker 1: and in all his after conduct he seems to have
Speaker 1: been guided by the most vulgar selfishness, which in the
Speaker 1: end became murderous insanity. But while he hoped to use
Speaker 1: all parties for his own advancement, a game in which he,
Speaker 1: of all men was least qualified to succeed, other and
Speaker 1: abler politicians were bent on using him for the overthrow
Speaker 1: of the optimates. The harangues of Memmius had shown that
Speaker 1: the spirit of the Gracchi were still alive in Rome,
Speaker 1: and now Lucius Apulaeus Saturninus took up their revolutionary projects
Speaker 1: with a violence to which they had been averse, but
Speaker 1: for which the acts of their adversaries had become a
Speaker 1: fatal precedent. Of Saturninus himself, we do not know much
Speaker 1: more than that he was an eloquent speaker and the resolute,
Speaker 1: though not over scrupulous man, at a time when to
Speaker 1: be scrupulous was equivalent to self martyrdom or self effacement.
Speaker 1: In something of the same relation in which Camille de
Speaker 1: Moulin stood to Danto Gaius Servilius, Glaucia, a wit and
Speaker 1: favored of the people, stood toward the somber and imperious Saturninus,
Speaker 1: and both hoped to effect their aims by the aid
Speaker 1: of Marius if they are to be judged by their
Speaker 1: axe alone, we could hardly condemn them. They tried to
Speaker 1: do what the Grocy had attempted before them, what Drusus
Speaker 1: attempted after them, and what when they and Drusus had
Speaker 1: fallen as the Groci had fallen, the social war finally effected.
Speaker 1: No historian has given sufficient prominence to the fact that
Speaker 1: it was primarily a country movement of which each of
Speaker 1: these men was the leader, a movement of un broken continuity,
Speaker 1: though each used his own means and had his own
Speaker 1: special temperament. If this is kept in view, we shall
Speaker 1: no longer consider, with some modern historians, that no event,
Speaker 1: perhaps in Roman history, is so sudden, so unconnected, and
Speaker 1: accordingly so obscure in its original causes as this revolt
Speaker 1: or conspiracy of Saturninus. Like Caius Graccus, Saturninus represented rural
Speaker 1: as opposed to urban interests, and the interests of the
Speaker 1: provinces as opposed to those of the capital. Like Gaius too,
Speaker 1: he endeavored to conciliate the Equitace, but they had all
Speaker 1: the Roman prejudice against admitting Italians to a level with themselves,
Speaker 1: and the attempt to play off party against party utterly failed.
Speaker 1: In Vain, Saturninus tried to defy opposition by enlisting the
Speaker 1: support of the Marian veterans, the rich, the noble, and
Speaker 1: the mob united against him, and when he seized the capital,
Speaker 1: it was to defend himself against all three. In the
Speaker 1: year one hundred BC, Marius was consul for the sixth time,
Speaker 1: Glaucia was pritor, and Saturninus was a second time tribune.
Speaker 1: A triumvirate so powerful might, if united, have overthrown the Constitution.
Speaker 1: But the vanity and vacillation of Marius were the best
Speaker 1: allies of the optimates. And it was no grown man
Speaker 1: but Guius Julius Caesar, a child born in that same year,
Speaker 1: who was destined to subvert their rule. Saturninus had been
Speaker 1: instrumental in securing the election of Marius to his fifth
Speaker 1: consulship in one o two, and it was about that
Speaker 1: time that the Lex Servilia was carried. This law defined
Speaker 1: the liability of Roman officials to trial for extortion in
Speaker 1: the provinces, and by a process of elimination, four senators,
Speaker 1: workers for hire, and others were expressly declared ineligible, practically
Speaker 1: left to the equities. The jurisdiction in such trials. Whether
Speaker 1: or no the law of Gracus had been repealed by
Speaker 1: another civilian law, that of Quintus Servilius Kipio, we cannot
Speaker 1: say for certain. If so the second civilian law repealed
Speaker 1: the first, but whether it restored power to the equities
Speaker 1: or only confirmed the minute. In theory, it left the
Speaker 1: office of udex open to all citizens. For while it
Speaker 1: excluded so many citizens that in practice that judicia was
Speaker 1: close to all but the equestrian class, it did not
Speaker 1: assign the office to any one class. In particular, it
Speaker 1: also provided that any one not a citizen who won
Speaker 1: his suit against an official should, by virtue of doing so,
Speaker 1: obtain the citizenship. So that we may trace in this
Speaker 1: law a threefold policy, an attempt One to relieve the
Speaker 1: provincials by making prosecutions for extortion easy and even putting
Speaker 1: a premium on them. Two to conciliate the equitase. Three
Speaker 1: to pave the way for the overthrow of class jurisdiction
Speaker 1: by nominally at least leaving the judicia open to all
Speaker 1: who did not come under specified restrictions. Cicero, in Vags
Speaker 1: against Glaucia, as a demagogue of the Hyperbolus stamp, But
Speaker 1: there was more of the statesmen than the demagogue in
Speaker 1: this law. When Saturninus was a candidate for the tribunate,
Speaker 1: he and Glaucia are said to have set on men
Speaker 1: to murder Nonius, another candidate who they feared might use
Speaker 1: his veto to thwart their projects. Marius had been previously
Speaker 1: elected consul and supported Saturninus in his candidature, as Saturninus
Speaker 1: had supported him. Marius may have been induced to enter
Speaker 1: into this alliance by the desire to gratify a personal
Speaker 1: grudge for the rival candidate had been the man he
Speaker 1: most detested, Quintus Metellus, and the first measure of Saturninus
Speaker 1: was a compliment to him and a direct blow aimed
Speaker 1: at Metellus. This was an agrarian law which would benefit
Speaker 1: the Marian veterans, as it contained a proviso that any
Speaker 1: senator refusing to swear to observe it within five days
Speaker 1: should be expelled from the Senate. It would be sure
Speaker 1: to drive Metellus from Rome. But if there was diplomacy
Speaker 1: in this measure of Saturninus, there was sagacity also. What
Speaker 1: discontent was seething in Italy? The social war soon proved,
Speaker 1: and this was an attempt to appease it. Saturninus had
Speaker 1: previously proposed allotments in Africa. Now he proposed to allot
Speaker 1: lands in Transalpine Gaul, Sicily, Aecia and Macedonia, and supply
Speaker 1: the colonists with an outfit from the treasure taken from
Speaker 1: Tolosa Marius was have the allotment of the land. There
Speaker 1: is a difficulty as to these colonies, which no history solves.
Speaker 1: They were Roman colonies to which only Roman citizens were eligible,
Speaker 1: and yet the Roman populace opposed the law. The Italians,
Speaker 1: on the contrary, carried it by violence. Some have cut
Speaker 1: the knot by supposing that though the colonies were Roman,
Speaker 1: Italians were to be admitted to them, but there is
Speaker 1: another possible explanation. It is certain that many Italians passed
Speaker 1: as citizens at Rome in one eighty seven BC, twelve
Speaker 1: thousand Latins passing as Roman citizens had been obliged to
Speaker 1: quit Rome. In ninety five BC, there was another clearance
Speaker 1: of aliens, which was one of the immediate causes of
Speaker 1: the social war. Fictitious citizens might have found it easy
Speaker 1: to obtain allotments from a consul whose ears if first
Speaker 1: made deaf by the din of arms, had never since
Speaker 1: recovered their hearing. However this may be. It was the
Speaker 1: rural party which by violence procured a preponderance of votes
Speaker 1: at the ballot boxes, and it was the town populace
Speaker 1: which resisted what it felt to be an invasion of
Speaker 1: their prerogative by the men from the country. Marius is
Speaker 1: said to have got rid of Metellus by a trick.
Speaker 1: He pretended that he would not take the oath which
Speaker 1: the law demanded, but when Metellus had said the same thing,
Speaker 1: told the Senate that he would swear to obey the
Speaker 1: law as far as it was a law, in order
Speaker 1: to induce the rural voters to leave Rome, and Metellus,
Speaker 1: scorning such a subterfuge, went into exile. Another law of
Speaker 1: Saturninus either renewed the corn law of Caius Gracus, or
Speaker 1: went farther and made the price of grain merely nominal.
Speaker 1: This law was, no doubt meant to recover the favor
Speaker 1: of the city mob, which he had forfeited by his
Speaker 1: agrarian law. But Cayphio, son probably of the Hero of Tolosa,
Speaker 1: stopped the voting by force, and the law was not carried.
Speaker 1: The third law of Saturninus was alex de Maastate, a
Speaker 1: law by which anyone could be prosecuted for treason against
Speaker 1: the state, and which was not improbably aimed specially at Kaipio,
Speaker 1: who was impeached under it. It seems at any rate
Speaker 1: certain that of these laws the agrarian was the chief
Speaker 1: and the others subsidiary. In other words, that he and
Speaker 1: Claucia were working together on an organized plan and striving
Speaker 1: to admit the whole Roman world into a community of rites.
Speaker 1: With Rome. They thought that with the Marian soldiers at
Speaker 1: their back, they would be safer than Gracus with his
Speaker 1: bands of reapers, and so they may have taken the
Speaker 1: initiative in violence, from which, both by past events and
Speaker 1: the acts of men like Kaipio, it was certain that
Speaker 1: the Optimists would not shrink. It is difficult to apportion
Speaker 1: the blame in such cases. But when Glaucias stood for
Speaker 1: the consulship of ninety nine and his rival Memius, a
Speaker 1: favorite with the people, was murdered, an attack was made
Speaker 1: on Saturninus, who hastily sent for aid to his rural
Speaker 1: supporters and seized the capital. He found then that in
Speaker 1: reckoning on Marius, he had made a fatal blunder. That
Speaker 1: selfish intriguer had been alarmed by the popular favor shown
Speaker 1: to an impostor named Equitius, who gave out that he
Speaker 1: was the son of Tiberius Gracus, and who, being imprisoned
Speaker 1: by Marius, was released by the people an elected tribune.
Speaker 1: He may have been jealous too of the popularity of
Speaker 1: Saturninus with his own veterans, and at the same time
Speaker 1: anxious to curry favor with the foes of Saturninus, the
Speaker 1: urban populace. So instead of boldly joining his late ally,
Speaker 1: he became the general of the opposite party, drove Saturninus
Speaker 1: and his friends from the forum, and when they had surrendered,
Speaker 1: suffered them to be pelted to death in the Curia Hostilia,
Speaker 1: where he had placed them. Saturninus, it is said, had
Speaker 1: been proclaimed king before his death. If so, he had
Speaker 1: at least struck for a crown consistently and boldly, and
Speaker 1: even if his attempt for the moment united the senatorial
Speaker 1: party and the Equitaise while the city mob stood wavering
Speaker 1: or hostile, he might nevertheless have forestalled the empire by
Speaker 1: a century. Had Marius only had half his enterprise or nerve.
Speaker 1: In an epoch of revolution, it is idle to judge
Speaker 1: men by an ordinary standard, how far personal ambition and
Speaker 1: how far a noble ideal animated Saturninus. No man can say,
Speaker 1: those who condemn him must condemn Cromwell too. For the
Speaker 1: moment the power of the optimates seemed restored, the specter
Speaker 1: of monarchy had made the men of riches coalesce with
Speaker 1: their old rivals, the men of rank, and the mob,
Speaker 1: ungrateful for an unexecuted corn law, chafed at Italian pretensions.
Speaker 1: Metellus the aristocrat was recalled to Rome amid the enthusiasm
Speaker 1: of the anti Italian mob, and Publius, furious, was torn
Speaker 1: to pieces for having opposed his return. Marius slunk away
Speaker 1: to the east, finding that his treachery had only isolated
Speaker 1: him and brought him into contempt. And there it is
Speaker 1: said he tried to incite Mithridatees to war sextstitious indeed
Speaker 1: brought forward an agrarian law in ninety nine b c.
Speaker 1: But he was opposed by his colleagues and driven into exile.
Speaker 1: Two events soon happened which showed not only the embittered
Speaker 1: feelings existing between the urban and rural population, but also
Speaker 1: the sympathy with the provincials felt by the better Romans,
Speaker 1: and as an inference, the miserable condition of the provincials themselves.
Speaker 1: The first was the enactment in ninety five b c.
Speaker 1: Of the Lex Lacinia Minutia, which ordered Latins and Italian's
Speaker 1: resident at Rome to leave the city. The second was
Speaker 1: the prosecution and conviction of Publius Rutilius Rufus, nominally for extortion,
Speaker 1: but really because by his just administration of the province
Speaker 1: of Asia, he had rebuked extortion and the equestrian courts
Speaker 1: which connived it. It. Though most of the senators were
Speaker 1: as guilty as the equitas, the mass like Marcus Scaurus,
Speaker 1: who was himself impeached for extortion, would ill brook being
Speaker 1: forced to appear before their courts and be eager to
Speaker 1: take hold of their maladministration of justice as a pretext
Speaker 1: for abrogating the Servilian law. One more attempt at reform
Speaker 1: was to be made, this time by one of the
Speaker 1: Senate's own members, but only to be once more defeated
Speaker 1: by rancorous party spirit and besotted urban pride. Marcus Livius
Speaker 1: Drusus was son of the man whom the Senate had
Speaker 1: put forward to outbid Gaius Gracus. He he was a haughty,
Speaker 1: upright man of an impetuous temper, such a man as
Speaker 1: often becomes the tool of less courageous but more dexterous intriguers.
Speaker 1: Marcus Scourus had been impeached for taking bribes in Asia,
Speaker 1: and it is said that in his disgust, he egged
Speaker 1: on Drusus to restore the Judicia to the Senate. Jusus
Speaker 1: was probably one of those men whom in aristocracy, in
Speaker 1: its decadence, not rarely produces. He disliked the preponderance of
Speaker 1: the moneyed class. He could not feel the vulgar Roman's
Speaker 1: antipathy to giving Italians the franchise, for he saw it
Speaker 1: exercised by men who were, in his eyes, infinitely more contemptible.
Speaker 1: He disliked also and despised the vices of his own order,
Speaker 1: mistaking the crafty suggestions of scours for a genuine appeal
Speaker 1: to high motives. Flattered by it and by the confidence
Speaker 1: of the Italians, he thought that he could educate his party,
Speaker 1: and by his personal influence, induce it to do justice
Speaker 1: to Italy. But this conservative advocate of reform was not
Speaker 1: widely enough tactician for the times in which he lived
Speaker 1: were the changes which he meditated. His attempts to improve
Speaker 1: on the devices of Saturninus and Gracus were miserable failures,
Speaker 1: and the senators who used him or were influenced by him,
Speaker 1: shrank from his side when they saw him follow to
Speaker 1: their logical issue the principles which they had advocated, either
Speaker 1: for selfish objects or only theoretically. Whether this is the
Speaker 1: true view of the character and position of Drusus or not,
Speaker 1: we may feel sure that he was in earnest in
Speaker 1: his advocacy of Italian interests, and that this was the
Speaker 1: main object of his reforms. To silence the mob at Rome,
Speaker 1: he slightly depreciated the coinage so as to relieve debtors,
Speaker 1: established some colonies, perhaps those promised by his father, and
Speaker 1: carried some law for distributing cheap grains. Senators like scours.
Speaker 1: He courted by handing over the judicia once more to
Speaker 1: the Senate, while by admitting three hundred equitas to the Senate,
Speaker 1: he hoped to compensate them for the wound which he
Speaker 1: thus inflicted on their material interests and their pride. The
Speaker 1: body thus composed was to try cases of uticase accused
Speaker 1: of taking bribes, But the Senate scorned and yet feared
Speaker 1: the threatened invasion by which it would be severed into
Speaker 1: two antagonistic halves. The equitas left behind were jealous of
Speaker 1: the equitase promoted, and where Drusus hoped to conciliate both classes,
Speaker 1: he only drew down their united animosity upon himself. Even
Speaker 1: in Italy, his plans were not unanimously approved. Occupiers of
Speaker 1: the public land who had never yet been disturbed in
Speaker 1: their occupation, such as those who held the Campanian domainland,
Speaker 1: were alarmed by this plan of colonization, which not only
Speaker 1: called in question and once more their right of tenure,
Speaker 1: but even appropriated their land. But though the large landowners
Speaker 1: were adverse to him, the great mass of the Italians
Speaker 1: was on his side, and it was by their help
Speaker 1: that he carried the first three of his laws, which
Speaker 1: he shrewdly included in one measure. Thus, those who wanted
Speaker 1: land or grain were constrained to vote for the changes
Speaker 1: in the Judicia also, But as there was a law
Speaker 1: expressly forbidding this admixture of different measures in one bill,
Speaker 1: he left an opening for his opponents by which they
Speaker 1: soon took advantage. Chief of these opponents was the consul Philippus.
Speaker 1: When the Italians crowded into Rome to support Drusus, which
Speaker 1: they would do by overawing voters at the ballot boxes,
Speaker 1: by recording fictitious votes, and by escorting Drusus about so
Speaker 1: as to lend him the support which an apparent majority
Speaker 1: always confers, Philippus came forward as the champion of the
Speaker 1: opposite side. He seems to have been a turncoat, with
Speaker 1: a fluent tongue and few principles. He had no sympathy
Speaker 1: with the generous, if lighty liberalism of the party of Drusus,
Speaker 1: no doubt, it seemed to him weak sentimentalism, and he
Speaker 1: openly said that he must take counsel with other people,
Speaker 1: as he could not carry on the government with such
Speaker 1: a senate. Accordingly, he appealed to the worst Roman prejudices,
Speaker 1: namely the selfishness of large occupiers and the anti Italian
Speaker 1: sentiments of the mob. This explains his being numbered among
Speaker 1: the popular party, with which the Italian Party was not
Speaker 1: now identical. Drusus, when his subsidiary measures had proved abortive
Speaker 1: grew desperate as his influence in the Senate waned, he
Speaker 1: entered into closer alliance with the Italians, who, on their part,
Speaker 1: bound themselves by an oath to treat as their friend
Speaker 1: or enemy each friend or enemy of Drusus. And it
Speaker 1: is conjectured from a fragment of Deardorus, that ten thousand
Speaker 1: of them, led by pompidi Asilo, armed with daggers, set
Speaker 1: out for Rome to demand the franchise, but were persuaded
Speaker 1: to desist from their undertaking. Monarchy seemed once more imminent,
Speaker 1: and now, as in the case of Gracus, it is
Speaker 1: impossible to say whether the attitude of the champion of
Speaker 1: reform was due to the force of circumstances or to
Speaker 1: settle design. But Philippus was equal to the occasion. He
Speaker 1: induced the Senate to annul the laws of Drusus, already
Speaker 1: carried and summoned the occupiers of the public land whom
Speaker 1: that law affected, to come and confront the Italians in Rome.
Speaker 1: A battle in the streets would have no doubt ensued,
Speaker 1: but it was prevented by the assassination of Drusus, who
Speaker 1: was one evening stabbed mortally in his own house. It
Speaker 1: is said that, when dying, he ejaculated that it would
Speaker 1: be long before the state had another citizen like him.
Speaker 1: He seems to have had much of the disinterested spirit
Speaker 1: of Gaius Gracus, though with far inferiorability, and like him,
Speaker 1: he left a mother, Cornelia, to do honor by her
Speaker 1: fortitude to the memory of her son. That year, the
Speaker 1: presentiment of coming political convulsions found expression in reports of
Speaker 1: supernatural prodigies, while signs both on the earth and in
Speaker 1: the heavens portended war and bloodshed, the tramp of hostile armies,
Speaker 1: and the devastation of the peninsula, and of Section nine