Ancient Rome: An Introductory History (31 page)

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popular among the masses, and therefore very powerful, for the colonists would henceforth regard him as their
patronus
, and he would have many
clientes
to summon when he needed help.

2.
A law for the regulation of the sale of grain in Rome
. The price of grain fluctuated widely, and this caused the poor to suffer. Gaius wanted the government to buy grain in bulk and then to sell it at unchanging prices.

3.
Changes in the makeup of juries
. Since the jurors in the courts for judging Roman governors' conduct in the provinces were recruited from the nobles, the courts were ineffective in ensuring ethical administration (see chapter 15). Gaius wanted to abolish the juries of senators and to replace them with juries of members of the equestrian class, the knights, who would not have such sympathy for the accused.

4.
A grant of Roman citizenship to allies of Latin status, and Latin status to the Italians
. Rome could not have obtained its vast territories without the help of the Latins and Italians, yet did not show its gratitude to them by granting them some political rights and power. In 129 Scipio Aemilianus had tried to help the Italians, but failed; four years later the Latin colony Fregellae, which had stayed loyal to Rome during the Pyrrhic and Hannibalic wars, revolted and was destroyed. The consul of 125, M. Fulvius Flaccus, proposed a law giving citizenship to the Italians, but the Senate conveniently sent him on a military expedition to Gaul when his proposal was to be voted on. As one of Gaius' colleagues in the tribunate in 122, Flaccus continued his attempt to give the Italians the vote, or at least the
ius provocationis
.

5.
Miscellaneous reforms
. Gaius passed a law making seventeen the minimum age for military service, and another providing that soldiers' clothing should be paid for by the state, with no reduction in the soldiers' pay. He also passed legislation for the construction of roads to serve the needs of agriculture, not necessarily those of the military, as before. If he were to make a provision that the roads would be built by paid, citizen labor, instead of servile labor, that law would have made him extremely popular with the unemployed common people.

Gaius encountered opposition not only from the Senate, which wanted its power left unshaken, but also from the urban citizens,

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who did not want to share the privileges of citizenship with non-Romans; before the proposal was voted on, the consul drove all non-Romans out of the city, so they would not put pressure on the voters. Gaius faced opposition also because of religion: The area of Carthage had been cursed (see chapter 15), and rumors spread that the colony, to be called Junonia, was on cursed ground and therefore contrary to the will of the gods. During the founding of the colony, terrible omens were seen, such as gales of wind blowing the sacrificial victims from the altars beyond the stakes demarcating the boundaries of the colony and even blowing away the stakes themselves.

With opposition growing, and plans being made to repeal the legislation, Gaius' supporters made a fatal mistake. They occupied the Aventine Hill (once public land, the Aventine had been given to the common people for settlement back in 456 and now was the plebeian quarter of Rome), thus causing the Senate to pass the
senatus consultum ultimum
, "the final decision of the Senate," which in effect declared martial law. The consul called forth armed citizens, who attacked Gaius' supporters, killing thousands and eagerly seeking Gaius himself, to earn the reward of the weight of his head in gold. While trying to escape, Gaius committed suicide. Dead bodies were thrown into the Tiber, and Opimius the consul condemned three thousand of Gaius' supporters to death without a trial. Their estates were confiscated, and their/families were forbidden to wear mourning.

The affair of the Gracchi shows many faults in Roman government, which were left unsolved and eventually led to the Social War; the pacification of the unemployed urban masses by "bread and circuses"; the war with Spartacus; the growth of the professional army; and the fall of the republic. Among the immediate effects, the
equites
had been granted political power without political responsibility, and they frequently would use their wealth to guide Roman politics in a way advantageous to them, but not to the republic. Further, Roman politics was now sharply split between the
boni
(also called Optimates), who favored senatorial rule, and the
populares
, who wanted to rule Rome through their control of the popular assemblies. It is tempting for us to see the
populares
as democrats and the
boni
as republicans, but this is

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inaccurate, for the
populares
were themselves aristocrats who had failed to break into the senatorial power group. The
populares
merely used the popular assemblies to gain the power they could not secure within the Senate. Were the Gracchi selfless reformers or radicals aiming for a tyranny? The truth probably lies somewhere between the two extremes. Either way, the next century of Roman history gave proof of their foresight.

Page 149

Chapter 17
The War Against Jugurtha and Rise of Marius

Numidia had become an ally of Rome during the Second Punic War, when together they waged war on Garthage, and had been steadfast in its loyalty to Rome. Despite that longstanding alliance, Rome fought a war with Numidia.

The king of Numidia, Micipsa, had two sons by marriage, Adherbal and Hiempsal, and a third by adoption, Jugurtha. When Micipsa learned that he was dying, he summoned his three sons to his bed and asked them to divide the kingdom into three parts and to live in peace with each other. He would not live to see his hopes disappointed.

Soon after the death of Micipsa in 118
B.C
., Jugurtha had his brother Hiempsal killed. He then attacked the kingdom of Adherbal; after losing the battle, Adherbal fled to Rome to seek assistance against Jugurtha, who now was king of all Numidia. Jugurtha had foreseen what Adherbal would do and had accordingly bribed many senators to reject Adherbal's pleas. The Senate then decided to divide Numidia between Jugurtha and Adherbal. Three years after the division, in 112, Jugurtha again attacked Adherbal's kingdom and besieged its main city, Cirta, where thousands of Italian merchants lived. Trapped in the city, Adherbal sent an embassy to Rome to beg for help against Jugurtha; the Senate then sent a commission to summon Jugurtha to address the Senate. The Italian merchants in Cirta felt it was now safe to surrender the city to Jugurtha, for, they thought, the authority of the angry Senate would prevent him from harming them. With the city in his hands, Jugurtha tortured and killed his brother and ordered his soldiers to kill all the adult males in the city. That included the Italians.

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Outraged at the massacre, the Romans declared war on Jugurtha in 112
B.C
. and sent the consul Bestia with troops to Africa to deal with Jugurtha. After Bestia had destroyed a few small towns, Jugurtha sent an embassy to him to seek a treaty. After receiving an enormous bribe, Bestia agreed to a treaty, by which Jugurtha surrendered only some elephants, some cattle, and a small amount of money.

Bestia returned to Rome, where the common people were outraged at his tender treatment of Jugurtha; Jugurtha, after all, had massacred thousands of Italians. They accused Bestia and other nobles of receiving bribes from Jugurtha. Jugurtha was summoned to Rome to give testimony about bribery, but his testimony was blocked by a tribune whom he had bribed. This further inflamed the anger of the common people; they suspected that Jugurtha's testimony would have implicated many nobles. With the Romans hating him and wanting to install a different king as ally in Numidia, Jugurtha had a rival claimant for the throne killed in Rome; he was then ordered to leave the city. Upon departing, he exclaimed, "Now that's a city available for a price, and it will fall soon enough, once it finds a buyer" (Sallust,
Bellum Iugurthinum
XXXV).

The war was resumed. The Romans sent the consul of 110, Postumius Albinus, to Africa to conquer Jugurtha, but he failed to finish the war, despite his eagerness to do so before his term ended. When he left Africa to oversee the elections in Rome for the next year, he left his brother Aulus in charge as acting praetor. The foolish Aulus then allowed the army to be trapped by Jugurtha; to avoid the massacre of the army, he was forced to agree to a treaty by which his soldiers, after being sent under the yoke, would evacuate all Numidia within ten days. He too returned to face Rome's angry citizens, who demanded action against Jugurtha.

The Rise of Marius

The next consul, Metellus, had to restore discipline and confidence to his troops when he arrived in Africa, for they had been demoralized and humiliated by Jugurtha. Metellus had some success in the war against Jugurthahe captured towns and won

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some battlesbut could not capture Jugurtha. He was assisted in his victories by his legate, Gaius Marius.

Marius, born to an equestrian family in a village outside the town of Arpinum, had won awards while serving under Scipio Aemilianus at Numantia and showed himself fearless in carrying out whatever orders he was given. The common soldiers who served under Marius loved him, for he ate the same type of food, slept on the same type of bed, and did his share of drudge work alongside them, such as digging trenches. Despite his lack of illustrious ancestorsto the Roman nobles, Marius was an outsiderhe decided to campaign for the consulship.

When Marius asked Metellus for permission to go to Rome to pursue his political ambitions, Metellus (a patrician) at first responded that he should not seek things that he could not get and should not try to go above his station in life. When Marius asked again, Metellus told him to wait until after they had finished the business of the state. Marius made his request a third time; Metellus then told him that quite soonin another twenty-three yearshe could seek the consulship with Metellus's son, who was then twenty years old. Marius, who was forty-nine years old at the time, was not amused; Metellus' insult unleashed his latent fury against the arrogant nobles. He started badmouthing Metellus, especially to the traders, probably so that they would repeat his words the next time they were in Italy, and he spread the rumor that the war could be finished within a few days if Metellus were not so fond of power.

Marius was finally allowed to return to Rome, where he won a consulship for 107; he thus became a
novus homo
, "new man," a consul who could not boast of an ancestor who had been consul. He won the consulship because he was
not
a noble; the common people had seen other nobles waste Rome's manpower and resources in the war against Jugurtha, and the scandals of bribery left them even more bitter against the nobles. Here, instead, was a commoner with many awards for valor who gave speeches in plain Latinthe nobles had long before learned from the Greeks the art of giving fancy speechesand castigated the nobles for their inefficiency, loose morals, and arrogance toward the common people. The plebeians found in Marius something of a folk

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hero and made him consul. In one of his speeches, Marius told the common people:

"Those men, they're so arrogant, they have it all wrong [in thinking that their noble birth alone warrants special respect]. Their ancestors left them all the things they could leave them, such as wealth, wax masks, the memory of their brilliant deeds. They didn't leave them manliness, though, and they couldn't. That's the only thing that isn't given and received like a gift. They think I'm uncouth and trashy because I don't give an elegant enough dinner, or I don't have some actor or a cook who's worth more than a slave who manages a farm. My fellow Romans, I'm happy to admit it, because I got it from my father and other upstanding men that pretty things are right for women, but work is a man's job, and that having a good reputation is worth more than money, and that one gets glory not with household objects, but with weapons." (Sallust,
Bellum Iugurthinum
LXXXV. 38-40)

Marius returned to Africa to take over Metellus' command. Metellus refused even to meet with Marius upon his return, for Marius had maligned him in particular, despite the help that Metellus had given him in advancing in his career.

While drafting troops, Marius disregarded the property qualifications necessary for becoming a soldier; thus he accepted many men who had no money or property at all. By taking these men as soldiers, Marius started the development of the professional army in Rome, which eventually had tremendous consequences in the fall of the republic. These soldiers had no land to return to upon the end of the war, and the Roman government did not provide any type of pension. As a result, such soldiers became dedicated not to the republic, but to their generals, who as leaders and patrons of their soldiers/clients would provide for their retirement. Thus the generals had whole armies to call upon for help in their political squabbles with the Senate or with other generals.

Marius proved to be an excellent general. He repeatedly defeated Jugurtha in battle, sacked many towns and a few large cities, and captured large numbers of slaves and immense amounts of loot; one of the cities he sacked held Jugurtha's treasury. Still, he was unable to catch the elusive Jugurtha. Finally, when one of Jugurtha's

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