The Comic History of Rome

Numantia stood upon a lofty rock, and its inhabitants displayed a courage worthy of its high position. The river Durius (now the Douro) washed its feet; there were forests on either hand; while the mounds and ditches abounding in the vale before it, rendered any attempt to approach it in the front almost unavailable. Scipio Africanus soon perceived the hopelessness of succeeding by a direct attack, and he proceeded, therefore, to raise round the place a double stockade, to prevent any aid in the form of a stock of provisions being carried into it. He impeded the navigation of the river by throwing across it large beams, perforated with swords, which, revolving with the tide, cut off all communication by means of water.

Notwithstanding all the precautions that had been taken, a party of about half-a-dozen young men, having slipped through the lines – and very hard lines they were – succeeded in reaching the town of Lutia. The head of the party, holding an olive-branch, begged for assistance with such effect, that the Lutians offered to lend him a hand in his terrible emergency. Scipio, who had been in pursuit, no sooner heard of the Lutians having offered to lend a hand, than he savagely declared that they should have no hands to spare, and he barbarously ordered the cutting off of the hands of four hundred citizens.

The Numantines being completely hemmed in, were unable to obtain provisions; but though reduced at last to eat cats, they became only the more dogged in their resistance to the enemy. Eventually, they begged for a truce of three days, which they employed in destroying their wives and children – a species of heroism not easily understood; for to kill those who are dear, by way of protecting them, is a mode of insurance of which we must dispute the policy. The men were so sadly dispirited, and so fearfully cut up by their own or each other's swords, that the conquerors had only a remnant to take, in the shape of population, when they entered the city.

In conformity with the custom of the period, Scipio Africanus Minor, whose atrocities, in connexion with the siege of Numantia, have branded his name for ever with disgrace, proceeded to make arrangements for a triumph. Instead of feeling a decent shame, he manifested a most unbecoming pride in what he had done; and to identify himself more completely with the horrors of the siege, he took the name of Numantinus. So thoroughly had starvation done its work, that of the few citizens who were found alive, only fifty were in sufficiently good condition to appear in the show got up in celebration of his dishonourable victory.

While Rome was thus extending her arms, she may be said to have been painfully on the stretch; and Scipio, during his consulship, seeing the republic was likely to outgrow its strength, caused prayers to be said for its safety. Rome was certainly in danger, though from a different cause than that which had been apprehended; for the free population had been greatly reduced by war, and the captives, or slaves to circumstances, had been vastly multiplied. The office of the latter was to tend flocks; and they were so thoroughly regarded as a portion of the stock, that they were treated like brutes by their masters.

The system of slavery which existed at Rome, had so much influence upon her fate, and is calculated to afford such an insight into her morals, that the fetters she placed upon others may be regarded as so many links in her history. We will, therefore, break for a moment the chain of narrative, and proceed to a brief consideration of the Roman system of slavery and chains, to which we cannot hope that the attention of the reader can remain long riveted.

According to the strict letter of the Roman law, a master could treat, or maltreat, his slave in any way he pleased, either by death, sale, or punishment. Though the slave could hold no property, he had the power of taking anything he could get, but simply as a medium for conveying it to his master. So thoroughly were the slaves looked upon as articles of traffic, that they were liable to be pledged or put into pawn – a position in which they were the subjects of a melancholy sort of interest.

The demand for slave labour in Rome was caused by the annual consumption of the free population in war, at whose bidding many who should have remained to cultivate the land, were sent forth to plough the ocean. The result was a redundancy of slave population, accustomed to agricultural labour of every kind, and which, having been already brought under the yoke, had become sufficiently brutalised to do the work of oxen. The chief supply of slaves was drawn from the prisoners taken in war, and an army was generally attended by dealers, who, in case of a glut, could frequently buy a lot cheap; and at the camp of Lucullus they were being picked up for about three shillings and three-pence of our money – or four drachmas. In Rome it was usual to sell slaves by auction, and, as if the poor wretches were not already low enough, they were knocked down by the hammer. The dealers were in the habit of practising the same sort of tricks to conceal the defects of a slave, as are, in these days, employed to hide the faults of a horse, and it was customary therefore, in purchasing, to require a warranty. The character was often suspended on a scroll round the neck, and their chief recommendation consisted in a guarantee that they would neither commit suicide, nor steal – having no tendency to make away with either themselves or their master's property. There was a considerable variation in the value of slaves, and fancy prices have been known to be given for some curious specimens of captive humanity. A fool has been known to fetch 20,000 sesterces – about one hundred and seventy pounds – a sum that would seem to show that folly was scarce; but when we remember how wise a man is required to make a fool, we may take it for granted that the wisdom comprised in the subject of the bargain was the rare and costly part of it. Literary men were often exposed for sale like cattle when they happened to be slaves, and the useful hack, or occasionally the literary lion, might be seen chained to a pen in the public market-place. Slaves had no distinctive dress; and when it was once proposed to give them one, the measure was rejected, on the ground that it might show them their numerical strength, and that if they once saw their power by obtaining their livery, they might attempt to take up their freedom. It was deemed better to keep them in the dark, by clothing them in sombre colours, and their numbers not being manifested to them by any peculiar dress, it was not likely they would unite in order to redress their grievances.

There is, however, something elastic in human nature, which causes it to rise after being trodden on. Such was the case with the slaves, who began to swell with indignation, which was rendered particularly tumid by the inflated and inflating eloquence of one Eunus, a Syrian, who was a member of their own body. This individual possessed the art of oratory in a high degree, and there is nothing more stimulating to the breeze of discontent than the breath of an enthusiastic demagogue. He persuaded the slaves to revolt, and while preaching to them the doctrine of equality, he claimed to be not only their leader, but their prince and ruler – a species of practice which is not uncommon with the propounders of the most levelling theories. Pretending to possess the gift of prophecy, he predicted that he would be a king one day; and the rich, putting a mimic crown on his head for a few hours, jeeringly told him that he had been a king one day – or at least half a day, and that his prediction had been therefore verified. The slaves, however, put faith in him, and shouldering their spades, axes, poles, and hatchets, made themselves, as well as their implements, the tools of Eunus. No less than 70,000 slaves acknowledged as their head the man who taught them that they ought to have no head at all, and he urged them to a merciless massacre of their vanquished foes, while inculcating the doctrines of humanity. Rage without restraint, and revenge without reason, were, however, of no permanent avail, and the slaves under Eunus were soon routed by the disciplined forces of the Consul, Rupilius. He besieged Tauromenium; and the slaves, by being completely shut in, were altogether shut out from the chance of obtaining provisions. Their condition from day to day was so desperate and monotonous, that, with nothing to eat, they furnish but sorry food to the historian. Having swallowed their last morsel, the inhabitants could not satisfy their hunger by bolting the gates, and Rupilius was admitted within the city. Eunus escaped into a cutting in the rocks; but when he relied on the friendly shelter of the cave, he found it a hollow mockery. His retreat was discovered, and he was taken into custody with his cook, his confectioner, his butler, and his buffoon, who, with the exception of the last, must have held sinecures in their master's limited establishment. The buffoon must have been worked the hardest of the party, for the pursuit of mirth under difficulties is one of the most melancholy tasks that can be imposed on the professed humorist. Eunus himself was transferred from his subterranean cellar to an underground cell, where it is said he was devoured by rats; but happily this horrid tale receives no authentic ratification at the hands of history.

The Servile War had not yet ceased, when Attalus, the King of Pergamus, died, and left no sign; for there was no succeeding king's head for the crown of Pergamus to rest upon. It was fortunate, perhaps, that Attalus left no heir; for had there been any inheritor of his qualities as well as his title, the perpetuation of a nuisance would have been the deplorable consequence. The man was so thoroughly wicked that it is charity to pronounce him mad, and we accordingly set him down as a lunatic, though we feel scarcely justified in acquitting him of his many crimes on the single ground of insanity. He is said to have been so much addicted to the practice of poisoning his relations, that he found it cheaper to grow his own plants; and he cultivated the hemlock, or the night-shade, as others grew their own faba or cicer, their beans and chickweed. Death lurked at the root of everything his garden contained, and it is probable that he sent many a present of putative mushrooms to his unsuspecting kindred. So odious had he become, that it is said he would have been murdered, if he had not died a little too soon for the arrangements of the assassins to be completed. Having been in the habit of expressing his will very briefly in his lifetime, it is not surprising that he should have left at his death a will, so short, that it purported to say in four letters all he desired. His last testament was comprised in the characters P. R. H. E.; and all his property was supposed to be represented in this small collection of capitals. The Romans affecting to be initiated in the meaning of these initials, declared them to signify, Populus Romanus hæres est, Let the Roman people be the heirs of my property. Regarding these letters as letters of administration, the Romans possessed themselves of all the effects of Attalus; but the will was disputed by the next of kin, one Aristonicus, a natural brother, whose claim to succeed, as a member of the testator's line, was stifled by a rope, with which the unfortunate claimant was cruelly strangled.

Pergamus became a Roman province under the name of Asia Proper – a species of appropriation which there was nothing to justify.

Rome was now in the position of a man who had outgrown his strength, or rather of an adult still wearing the clothes of its infancy. Its measures had been adapted to a social body which had since spread itself in all directions, while the constitution, with which it was clothed, had not been extended to the new growth; and the extreme points of the Republic were therefore reduced to all sorts of extremities. The people at large had become so miserably poor, that they were easily bribed to become the tools of their own further abasement; and they were not only ready to sell themselves for a mere nothing, but to lend themselves to almost anything.

The tribuneship, which had been originally a purely popular institution, had changed, or rather lost, its character. Instead of being stationed outside the entrance of the Senate House, to prevent the door from being opened to abuse, the Tribunes were, by a law of C. Atinius, constituted ex-officio members of that aristocratic body. The design of the tribuneship was to insure to the people a certain number of friends invested with high authority; but the people were eventually anxious to be saved from their friends – a result that is by no means rare in ancient or modern history. As the bitterest vinegar can be made from the most generous wine, the sharpest of despots is often created out of the blandest of demagogues.

So great had the power of the Tribunes become, and so much had it been abused, that even the Senate grew jealous of it; and a law was enacted to bring the tribuneship under the operation of signs and omens. These were interpreted by the Augurs, who of course had the power of reading in the lightning, and hearing in the reports of the thunder, whatever it suited their purpose to circulate.

Aristocracy had lost its exclusive privileges; but these had only become more objectionable by being spread over a larger surface; for they were now extended to a certain portion of the plebeians, who went by the name of novi homines, or upstarts. These were distinguished from the Nobiles, or, to speak shortly, the nobs, who enjoyed the right of having the images of their ancestors in wax; but this jus imaginum, as it was termed, conferred only an imaginary dignity. There was no legal privilege attached to the sort of nobility above described; but those persons who were qualified by the possession of the waxen forms of their fathers, were looked upon as men making in society a highly respectable figure.

Notwithstanding the liberty which is declared by republicans to be inseparable from the Republican form of Government, laws were passed to restrain the liberty of private action in the days of the Roman Commonwealth. By the Orchian law, made in the year of the city 572 (B.C. 181), the number of guests that might sit down to dinner was limited: and as a further illustration of republican freedom, it may be mentioned that the entertainer was obliged to keep open his doors , so that all who were freely-and-easily inclined might enter his house to see that the law was complied with. Twenty years later, it was decreed by the law of Fannius, that no entertainment should cost more than one hundred asses, or six shillings and five-pence farthing, on high days and holidays; on ten other days in the month, the meal was not to exceed thirty asses, or one and eleven-pence farthing; but on ordinary occasions seven-pence farthing was the figure to which even the richest man was to limit the cost of his dinner. The law not only interfered with the bill of expenses, but with the bill of fare; and, under the Consulship of M. Scaurus, the dormouse was excluded from the dinner-table as an enervating luxury. Vegetables were allowed to any extent, and bread might be eaten at – or even beyond – discretion.

To such a ridiculous extent did the Romans carry their interference with the private expenditure of each other, that when Crassus and Cn. Demetrius were Censors, they endeavoured in the most absurd manner to damage each other's popularity. Demetrius publicly charged Crassus with having been guilty of extravagance for going into mourning on the death of a favourite fish; and Crassus retorted by declaring that Demetrius had lost three wives without exhibiting signs of mourning for any one of them.64

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.

THE GRACCHI AND THEIR MOTHER. RISE AND FALL OF TIBERIUS AND CAIUS GRACCHUS

A people trained to live chiefly on spoils taken from others must be continually spoiling itself for any peaceful occupation; and those whose chief support is the sword, must be always destroying the food they live upon. When foreign means are exhausted, it becomes necessary to look at home, and those who have existed by robbing strangers, are no sooner deprived of their external sources of support, than they begin to rob each other. Such was the order – or rather the disorder – of things in Rome, where wealth had got into the hands of the few, and the social fabric, like a building too heavy at the top, was in immediate danger of a downfall. There were large classes of persons who were assured that they were perfectly free; but, though enjoying the freedom of air itself, they found in it no element of comfort, when they had nothing more substantial than the air to live upon. Deprived of every inch of land, there was but a flatulent sort of satisfaction in the enjoyment of the atmosphere, nor could the most long-winded of orators impress the people with the idea that life could be maintained by simply imbibing the breath of liberty. They were informed that they were the lords of the earth;65 but this mockery of respect was simply insulting the emptiness of their mouths by a scarcely less empty title. The plebeians were like a number of ciphers without a preliminary figure, and, though possessing all the materials of strength in their vast body, were powerless until a head could be found for them. This at length appeared in the person of Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, the grandson of the elder Scipio, and as two heads are said to be better than one, Tib. united his brother Caius with him in the office of leader to the great plebeian movement.

The elder Gracchus had been tutored by his mother Cornelia – one of the earliest members of the ancient and honourable order of blue-stockings. She had superintended the education of her children, and had personally tutored them in eloquence; an art of which the female tongue is peculiarly capable. Her own house was the resort of some of the first philosophers of the day, who, like many modern philosophers, were thoroughly impressed with the idea that the way to penetrate the youthful mind, is to continue for ever boring it. In this manner the understandings of the young Gracchi had been thoroughly drilled, and the treasures of science had been admitted at so many apertures, that the only fear was lest the treasures, through some of the numerous openings by which they had got into the mind, might find their way out again.

Tib. had already won some reputation in Spain, and was returning home, when he saw the Etrurian estates of the wealthy being cultivated by foreign slaves in chains, whose bonds not only bore the seal of degradation for themselves, but were the means of fettering native industry. These slaves were housed and huddled together in places called Ergastula, which were literally workhouses, but practically, prisons. They are said to have been built under-ground in the shape of vaults; but, in giving this account of their construction, there has perhaps been some misconstruction on the part of Columella, who is the chief authority for the statement.

We must now return to Tib. Gracchus, who had, by this time, returned to Rome, and had formed the noble resolution of remedying abuses, though he knew that loud abuse of himself would be the inevitable consequence. He had seen that the aristocracy had got possession of nearly all the land, allowing the plebeians to have no share in it, except the ploughshare, and even this was often denied them by the employment of slaves instead of the free agricultural labourer. Tib. was learned in the law, and recollected the existence in the books of the old statute of Licinius, which had fallen into disuse, and the renewal of which he thought might put new life into the plebeian body. By this law, no one was allowed to occupy more than 500 jugera – about 330 English acres – of the land of the state; but the state of the land exhibited a very different distribution of the public property.

The poorer occupants of the soil had been compelled by their necessities to sell to the richer, and Tiberius made the popular but scarcely honest proposal, that those who had bought should give back to those who had sold – a suggestion which was hailed by the masses as the happy inspiration of a patriot. The idea was simple enough, and if simplicity is an element of grandeur, the notion was so far a great one; though, as it is based on the principle, that when a man has sold everything he possesses, the purchaser or the possessor should hand the property back to the original vendor, the project is not well adapted to business purposes. The suggestion was, however, one which enabled a patriot to go to the country with a "cry," and though the end proposed was laudable enough, the means, which involved an interference with the means of the wealthy, could not command the general approval. It is true that much of the property had been unfairly obtained, and that much more was held in illegal quantities; but some had been the subject of regular sale, and the general confiscation proposed was but a Procrustean measure of justice.

The plan was of course opposed, and the term of "selfish aristocrat" was liberally, or illiberally – for they are unfortunately too much alike, sometimes, in their political sense – bestowed on every one who did his utmost to protect what the law had allowed him to regard for years as his own property. Common sense, however, began so far to prevail over clamour, that the proposal of Tib. Gracchus was modified to some extent, and the distribution of the surplus land was confided to a permanent commission of three men, who were called the Triumviri. In order to give something like consistency to the measure, it provided, that the land which had been taken away from its old possessors should not be sold by the new; and thus a sort of uniformity was observed by robbing the former, and restricting the latter; so that the principle of not being able to do what one likes with one's own, was affirmed in each instance. The injustice of the whole proceeding was so palpable, notwithstanding the "popularity" of the scheme, that a compensation clause was introduced to indemnify those who had built houses at their own expense upon the ground; but nothing was awarded to those who had only built upon it their hopes of being allowed to continue in quiet possession of the property.

Party feeling ran, of course, exceedingly high, or, in other words, its proceedings were extremely low on both sides. Tib. Gracchus was lauded by the people as the essence of everything noble, and denounced by the patricians as the incarnation of everything contemptible. On one side he was hailed as a patriot, and on the other side he was hooted as a fraudulent demagogue; so that if everything that went in at one ear went out at the other, his head must have been a thoroughfare for every kind of vehicle of abuse and flattery. The Senate took the meanest means of revenge, and reduced his official salary to one denarius and a half, or about a shilling a day in English money. Tiberius, thus curtailed of the means on which he lived, declared there was a conspiracy against his life, and rather prematurely went into mourning for himself, to excite the public sympathy. Putting his children into black, he took them with him from house to house, requesting that they might be taken in as orphans; but the public refused to be taken in by a trick so obvious. False accusations were, however, brought against him; and a next-door neighbour stood up in the Senate, declaring that he had that morning observed a diadem and a scarlet robe delivered at the back door, which proved that Tiberius intended to usurp the regal authority. In order to obtain the weight of an official position for his reforms, Tiberius got himself elected tribune of the people, and the apparently inevitable effects of taking office were at once shown in his introduction of a modified edition of the measure he had previously clamoured for.

The aristocratic party set every engine and every old pump at work to throw cold water on his project, and they at length persuaded one of his colleagues, named Octavius, who was played upon as easily as an octave flute, to take part against him. The mode of opposition resorted to by Gracchus was rather more effective than constitutional, for he called upon the people to dismiss his colleague – an arrangement almost as equitable as it would be for one judge to insist upon the dismissal of another, who might refuse to announce himself submissively as "of the same opinion" with his learned brother. When, however, the people are once fairly off, in a certain or uncertain course, they seldom think how unfairly their precipitancy may operate. They had set their hearts on a particular measure, and they refused to be guided by their heads; but without deliberation, drove away every obstacle that impeded the accomplishment of their wishes. As Octavius still held his position, Gracchus gave notice that he had a resolution to propose, and, on the following day, he moved the removal of his colleague. Octavius, however, met the proposed resolution by a remarkable display of resolution on his own part, and he declared that he should stick to his office, notwithstanding the other's unfriendly offices. These means having failed, Tiberius made a personal appeal to his colleague, and pointed out to him the gracefulness of a voluntary resignation; but Octavius, who rated himself very highly, objected altogether to the voluntary principle. Tiberius next attempted to starve his colleague out by sealing up the treasury; but the sealing made no impression on Octavius, who retained his official seat until it was drawn from under him by the mob, and he fell to the ground, between the two stools of himself and his unscrupulous colleague. A client or creature of the Gracchi was elected in the place of the deposed Tribune, who had been got rid of by upsetting one of the most important forms of the constitution – that form being no other than the bench occupied by one of the highest officers of the government. Octavius was hurried out among the mob, who thrust him about in every direction; but, when it came to the push, Tiberius Gracchus endeavoured to pull him through his difficulties. The effort was almost vain; and Octavius owed his life to a faithful slave, who lost an eye in seeing his master through the dangers that surrounded him. After this manifestation of the popular opinion, no Tribune ventured to have an opinion of his own – or, if he had, he kept it to himself, with a prudent regard to his personal safety.