Ancient Rome: An Introductory History (32 page)

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allies saw that Jugurtha would eventually lose, Marius forced him to give up Jugurtha, dead or alive. Jugurtha was handed over to Sulla, Marius' quaestor (about whom we will hear more), and the war with Jugurtha was finished in 105
B.C
.

While Marius was finishing off the war against Jugurtha, the Romans were threatened by the Cimbri and Teutones, Germanic tribes from central Europe that were descending upon Italy. These tribes had already inflicted enormous defeats upon many patrician consuls and their armies. Worried, the Romans elected Marius consul in absentia (which was illegal) for 104 and summoned him to Rome to defend Italy against the Germans. During 104 Marius was lucky, for the Germans went to Spain instead; the Romans reelected him consul for 103, again wanting an experienced general to deal with the Germans. During 103 the Germans failed to appear; Marius then managed to be elected consul again for 102, with the tribune Saturninus promoting his candidature.

In 102 the Germans started their advance on Italy. Marius crossed the Alps to oppose them. For a long time he avoided battle, which the Germans interpreted as cowardice; while marching past the Roman camp, the Germans, laughing, asked the Italians if they had any messages for their wives and daughters, as they would be with them shortly. Once Marius' soldiers started begging him to allow them to fight the Germans, he let them fight; they won that skirmish, and the next day they inflicted a crashing defeat on the Germans, capturing or killing a hundred thousand of them at Aquae Sextiae (modem Aix-en-Provence). The next year, as consul yet again, Marius, with his colleague Catulus, conquered another part of the German armies at Vercellae, taking sixty thousand captives. For that victory Marius was called the third founder of Rome.

The Tribunate of Saturninus

Since Marius had taken into his army men who owned no land that they could retire to, he needed land for his veterans. However gifted a general Marius was, he was not adept at politics; therefore, he benefited from the help of the tribune Saturninus. Although born to a plebeian family, Saturninus could boast that one of his

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ancestors had been a praetor. While quaestor, Saturninus had been in charge of securing a supply of grain (the
cura annonae
), in accordance with the laws passed by the Gracchi. Owing to a shortage in the grain supply, however, he was removed and replaced by a patrician who relieved the shortage and received the credit and popularity. Angry at this, Saturninus then turned violently against the oligarchy of the Senate.

Saturninus was elected tribune for 103 and tried to pass a law offering land in Africa to Marius' veterans upon their discharge from the army. Another tribune tried to veto the bill; Marius' soldiers, throwing rocks at him, ran him out of the assembly, and the proposed bill became law. Saturninus may have passed a grain bill as well; whether or not he did so, just the attempt would have made him more popular and powerful.

Saturninus was elected tribune again for 100. He proposed another land bill, this one to give allotments of land in Gaul to the veterans of the German wars and to found colonies in Sicily and Greece. The bill was unpopular with the common people of Rome; they saw it as too narrow and too favorable to non-Roman Italians, who were to receive land in the colonies. The Senate objected to the bill because one of its clauses required that senators swear an oath to abide by the law; senators who refused to swear would incur a fine and exile. When the bill was being voted upon, the tribunes who tried to veto it were run off by the soldiers; no one else dared oppose the bill at risk to his life. Therefore, the bill passed, and Marius' soldiers in the German wars received land in Gaul.

Many peopleincluding Marius, who had supported himwere now angry at Saturninus for using violence to get the bill approved. Popular opinion against Saturninus peaked when his friend Glaucia, who was running for the consulate, had his main rival assassinated. The Senate passed the
consultum ultimum
and entrusted Marius with preserving the safety of the state. In the ensuing violence Saturninus, Glaucia, and their supporters were killed.

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Chapter 18
The Italian Wars and the Career of Sulla

By the start of the first century
B.C
. almost two hundred years had elapsed since Rome had gained control of peninsular Italy. During those years Roman power had spread over many of the Mediterranean lands, a phenomenal success that the Romans could not have achieved without the help of the Latins and the Italian allies.

During that time, however, little change was made to reflect the important role that the Latins and Italian allies had played. The Latins still could not vote in Rome, and the Italian allies had no rights at all against the power of Roman magistrates. Consequently the
Latinum nomen
became less a sign of honor, and more a stigma of second-class status. The conduct of the Roman magistrates was also becoming more obnoxious, and this emphasized to Latins and Italians their inferior position with regard to Romans. In 123 Gaius Gracchus had spoken about this glaring example of the magistrates' abuse of power:

Recently the consul came to Teanum Sidicinum. His wife said that she wanted to bathe in the men's baths. The job of driving out those who were using the baths was given to M. Marius, the quaestor of Sidicinum. The consul's wife announced to him that the baths had not been given up to her quickly enough and that they were not clean enough. Consequently a stake was put in the forum and M. Marius, the most eminent man in the city, was led to it. His clothes were ripped off, and he was flogged. When the people of Cales heard about this, they passed the decree that no one should use the baths when a Roman magistrate was nearby. At Ferentinum, for the same reason, our praetor ordered the

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quaestors to be brought forward: one threw himself from the city wall [committing suicide], and the other was seized and flogged. (Aulus Gellius X.3)

In 91 a new tribune, Drusus, wanted to propose a law giving Roman citizenship to the Latins and Italians. He encountered opposition from the Senate, whose members feared encroachments upon their power; from the Roman people, who did not want to share with the allies the benefits of Roman citizenship (free grain, land in the colonies, freedom from direct taxes, higher pay in the army, and shorter term of military service); and even from some of the Italians themselves, who feared that his plans for creating colonies might take their land. Drusus' legislation for colonies, which had already been approved, was declared invalid, and he was murdered before he could bring to a vote his legislation to grant citizenship to the Italians. The knights then coerced the tribunes into passing a law prosecuting all those who tried to help the Italians get the vote, and many eminent Romans were driven into exile.

The Italians could find no more patience. The first rebellion of the Italians against Rome had occurred years earlier at Fregellae, a city long faithful and steadfast to Rome, but pushed too far; it revolted in 125
B.C
. and was quickly squashed. Asculum was the next to rebel; in 91 its citizens killed a Roman praetor (who had been sent there precisely to preempt a rebellion) and all Romans residing there. Both sides prepared for war.

The rebel Italian confederacy was concentrated in the south of Italy, among Italy's most formidable fighting men, the Samnites, Marsi (hence another name for the war, the Marsic War; it is also called the Social War), Paeligni, and others. Many of their soldiers had fought under Roman commanders. They chose Corfinium as their capital, and renamed it Italia; they coined their own money, on which their symbol, the Italian bull, was represented goring the Roman wolf. The Etruscans and Gauls in the north of Italy did not revolt, nor did the Latins and the Greek cities in the south.

If the Romans had any doubts about the ability of the Italians to wage a successful war without Roman leadership, they were soon corrected. The leadership of the rebel confederacy proved to be

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excellent; the rebels defeated the Roman armies in the first battles, even killing two Roman commanders. Sulla and Marius helped turn the tide for the Romans, who were aided also by Pompeius Strabo from Picenum (we will hear more about his son). The rebels had made it clear to the Senate that the war would be fierce; seeing that Rome could eventually lose, or that a victory would be too costly, the consul L. Caesar (uncle of Julius, who was then ten years old) passed a law that gave Roman citizenship to all the Italians who had remained loyal to Rome. The next year, the Lex Plautia Papiria was passed, giving citizenship to the rebels who stopped fighting. The laws had the desired effect, and no more towns and cities joined the rebels' side. The vote was further given to the peoples in Transpadane Gaul.

Some fighting remained, with the Romans eventually gaining control through the victories of Sulla, who used this opportunity to try to exterminate the Samnites. By 88
B.C
. most of the fighting was finished, and by 84 all free-born Italians had Roman citizenship. One condition of their citizenship was that they had to adopt Roman government as the model for their local government. The newly enfranchised were still at a political disadvantage, for few would come to Rome to vote, and even then their enrollment in the tribes (where they would vote) was manipulated so as to dilute their voting power.

Sulla Takes Over Rome

Although Italy was peaceful, Rome itself became the scene of much fighting and bloodshed. Sulla and Marius, despite having served together in successful wars against Jugurtha, the Germans, and the rebellious Italians, had long nursed a bitter hatred of each other. Marius was envious of Sulla because Sulla had received much of the credit for the capture of Jugurtha: A statue had been placed on the Capitol depicting Jugurtha's being handed over to Sulla, not Marius. Sulla, a cultured man from an aristocratic family, had the lukewarm support of the Senate, even though he had been raised in poverty and his family had not gained high office in two centuries. Marius, however, who came from an equestrian family from outside the town Arpinum and who disdained

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