Part 27 (1/2)
WAR IN SPAIN.
SIEGE OF NUMANTIA.--It is fitting that the same chapter which narrates the destruction of Corinth in Greece, and the blotting-out of Carthage in Africa, should tell the story of the destruction of Numantia in Spain.
The expulsion of the Carthaginians from the Spanish peninsula really gave Rome the control of only a small part of that country. The war-like native tribes--the Celtiberians and Lusitanians--of the North and the West were ready stubbornly to dispute with the new-comers the possession of the soil.
The war gathered about Numantia, the siege of which was brought to a close by Scipio aemilia.n.u.s, the conqueror of Carthage. Before the surrender of the place, almost all the inhabitants had met death, either in defence of the walls, or by deliberate suicide. The miserable remnant which the ravages of battle, famine, pestilence, and despair had left alive were sold into slavery, and the city was levelled to the ground (133 B.C.).
The capture of Numantia was considered quite as great an achievement as the taking of Carthage. Scipio celebrated another triumph at Rome, and to his surname Africa.n.u.s, which he had received for his achievements in Africa, added that of Numantinus. Spain became a favorite resort of Roman merchants, and many colonies were established in different parts of the country. As a result of this great influx of Italians, the laws, manners, customs, language, and religion of the conquerors were introduced everywhere, and the peninsula became rapidly Romanized.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC.
(133-31 B.C.)
We have now traced the growth of the power of republican Rome, as through two centuries and more of conquest she has extended her authority, first throughout Italy, and then over almost all the countries that border upon the Mediterranean. It must be our less pleasant task now to follow the declining fortunes of the republic through the last century of its existence. We shall here learn that wars waged for spoils and dominion are in the end more ruinous, if possible, to the conqueror than to the conquered.
THE SERVILE WAR IN SICILY (134-132 B.C.).--With the opening of this period we find a terrible struggle going on in Sicily between masters and slaves --or what is known as ”The First Servile War.” The condition of affairs in that island was the legitimate result of the Roman system of slavery. The captives taken in war were usually sold into servitude. The great number of prisoners furnished by the numerous conquests of the Romans caused slaves to become a drug in the slave-markets of the Roman world. They were so cheap that masters found it more profitable to wear their slaves out by a few years of unmercifully hard labor, and then to buy others, than to preserve their lives for a longer period by more humane treatment. In case of sickness, they were left to die without attention, as the expense of nursing exceeded the cost of new purchases. Some Sicilian estates were worked by as many as 20,000 slaves. That each owner might know his own, the poor creatures were branded like cattle. What makes all this the more revolting is the fact that many of these slaves were in every way the peers of their owners, and often were their superiors. The fortunes of war alone had made one servant and the other master.
The wretched condition of these slaves and the cruelty of their masters at last drove them to revolt. The insurrection spread throughout the island, until 200,000 slaves were in arms, and in possession of many of the strongholds of the country. They defeated four Roman armies sent against them, and for three years defied the power of Rome. Finally, however, in the year 132 B.C., the revolt was crushed, and peace was restored to the distracted island. [Footnote: In the year 102 B.C. another insurrection of the slaves broke out in the island, which it required three years to quell. This last revolt is known as ”The Second Servile War.”]
THE PUBLIC LANDS.--In Italy itself affairs were in a scarcely less wretched condition than in Sicily. When the different states of the peninsula were subjugated, large portions of the conquered territory had become public land (_ager publicus_); for upon the subjugation of a state Rome never left to the conquered people more than two-thirds of their lands, and often not so much as this. The land appropriated was disposed of at public sale, leased at low rentals, allotted to discharged soldiers, or allowed to lie unused. [Footnote: These land matters may be made plain by a reference to the public lands of the United States. The troubles in Ireland between the land-owners and their tenants will also serve to ill.u.s.trate the agrarian disturbances in ancient Rome.]
Now, it had happened that, in various ways, the greater part of the public lands had fallen into the hands of the wealthy. They alone had the capital necessary to stock and work them to advantage; hence the possessions of the small proprietors were gradually absorbed by the large landholders.
These great proprietors, also, disregarding a law which forbade any person to hold more than five hundred jugera of land, held many times that amount. Almost all the lands of Italy, about the beginning of the first century B.C., are said to have been held by not more than two thousand persons; for the large proprietors, besides the lands they had secured by purchase from the government, or had wrested from the smaller farmers, claimed enormous tracts to which they had only a squatter's t.i.tle. So long had they been left in undisturbed possession of these government lands that they had come to look upon them as absolutely their own. In many cases, feeling secure through great lapse of time,--the lands having been handed down through many generations,--the owners had expended large sums in their improvement, and now resisted as very unjust every effort to dispossess them of their hereditary estates. Money-lenders, too, had, in many instances, made loans upon these lands, and they naturally sided with the owners in their opposition to all efforts to disturb the t.i.tles.
These wealthy ”possessors” employed slave rather than free labor, as they found it more profitable; and so the poorer Romans, left without employment, crowded into the cities, especially congregating at Rome, where they lived in vicious indolence. The proprietors also found it to their interest to raise stock rather than to cultivate the soil. All Italy became a great sheep-pasture.
Thus, largely through the workings of the public land system, the Roman people had become divided into two great cla.s.ses, which are variously designated as the Rich and the Poor, the Possessors and the Non- Possessors, the Optimates (the ”Best”), and the Populares (the ”People”).
We hear nothing more of patricians and plebeians. As one expresses it, ”Rome had become a commonwealth of millionaires and beggars.”
For many years before and after the period at which we have now arrived, a bitter struggle was carried on between these two cla.s.ses; just such a contest as we have seen waged between the n.o.bility and the commonalty in the earlier history of Rome. The most instructive portion of the story of the Roman republic is found in the records of this later struggle. The misery of the great ma.s.ses naturally led to constant agitation at the capital. Popular leaders introduced bill after bill into the Senate, and brought measure after measure before the a.s.semblies of the people, all aiming at the redistribution of the public lands and the correction of existing abuses.
THE REFORMS OF THE GRACCHI.--The most noted champions of the cause of the poorer cla.s.ses against the rich and powerful were Tiberius and Caius Gracchus. These reformers are reckoned among the most popular orators that Rome ever produced. They eloquently voiced the wrongs of the people. Said Tiberius, ”You are called 'lords of the earth' without possessing a single clod to call your own.” The people made him tribune; and in that position he secured the pa.s.sage of a law for the redistribution of the public lands, which gave some relief. It took away from Possessors without sons all the land they held over five hundred jugera; Possessors with one son might hold seven hundred and fifty jugera, and those with two sons one thousand.
At the end of his term of office, Tiberius stood a second time for the tribunate. The n.o.bles combined to defeat him. Foreseeing that he would not be re-elected, Tiberius resolved to use force upon the day of voting. His partisans were overpowered, and he and three hundred of his followers were killed in the Forum, and their bodies thrown into the Tiber (133 B.C.).
This was the first time that the Roman Forum had witnessed such a scene of violence and crime.
Caius Gracchus, the younger brother of Tiberius, now a.s.sumed the position made vacant by the death of Tiberius. It is related that Caius had a dream in which the spirit of his brother seemed to address him thus: ”Caius, why do you linger? There is no escape: one life for both of us, and one death in defence of the people, is our fate.” The dream came true. Caius was chosen tribune in 123 B.C. He secured the pa.s.sage of grain-laws which provided that grain should be sold to the poor from public granaries, at half its value or less. This was a very unwise and pernicious measure. It was not long before grain was distributed free to all applicants; and a considerable portion of the population of the capital were living in vicious indolence and feeding at the public crib.
Caius proposed other measures in the interest of the people, which were bitterly opposed by the Optimates; and the two orders at last came into collision. Caius sought death by a friendly sword (121 B.C.), and three thousand of his adherents were ma.s.sacred. The consul offered for the head of Caius its weight in gold. ”This is the first instance in Roman history of head-money being offered and paid, but it was not the last” (Long).
The people ever regarded the Gracchi as martyrs to their cause, and their memory was preserved by statues in the public square. To Cornelia, their mother, a monument was erected, simply bearing the inscription, ”The Mother of the Gracchi.”
THE WAR WITH JUGURTHA (111-106 B.C.).--After the death of the Gracchi there seemed no one left to resist the heartless oppressions and to denounce the scandalous extravagances of the aristocratic party. Many of the laws of the Gracchi respecting the public lands were annulled. Italy fell again into the hands of a few over-rich land-owners. The provinces were plundered by the Roman governors, who squandered their ill-gotten wealth at the capital. The votes of senators and the decisions of judges, the offices at Rome and the places in the provinces--everything pertaining to the government had its price, and was bought and sold like merchandise.
Affairs in Africa at this time ill.u.s.trate how Roman virtue and integrity had declined since Fabricius indignantly refused the gold of Pyrrhus.
Jugurtha, king of Numidia, had seized all that country, having put to death the rightful rulers of different provinces of the region, who had been confirmed in their possessions by the Romans at the close of the Punic wars. Commissioners sent from Rome to look into the matter were bribed by Jugurtha. Even the consul Bestia, who had been sent into Africa with an army to punish the insolent usurper, sold himself to the robber.