Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/207

Rh. GABINITTS. reasons of Pompey for decliniiig the proposed com- mand : " You were not bom for yourself alone," he told Pompej', "but for your country." Tre- bellius attempted to stop the proceedings by his veto, whereupon Gabinius proposed that he should be deprived of his tribuneship. It was not until seventeen out of the thirty-five tribes had voted against his continuance in office, that Trebellius withdrew his opposition to the measure of his col- league. (Ascon. i7i Cic. pro Cornel.) If Gabinius had not carried his law, says Cicero (post Red. in Sen. 51), such were his embarrassments, that he must have turned pirate himself. Pie may have been privately rewarded by Pompey for his useful services, but the senate baffled him in his favourite project, by successfully opposing, or, at least, de- laying, his election as one of the legates of Pompey, whom he hoped to follow into Asia. As Pompey expected to supersede L. Lucullus in the war against Mithridates, Gabinius endeavoured to ex- cite obloquy against the pride and grandeur of Lucullus, by exhibiting in public a plan of his ijiag- nificent villa at Tusculum. Yet Gabinius himself afterwards, out of the profits of his office, built in tiie same neighbourhood so splendid and costly a mansion, that the villa of Lucullus was a mere hut in comparison. Gabinius was the proposer of a law regulating loans of money made at Rome to the provincials. If more than tvvelve per cent, were agreed to be paid as annual interest, the law of Gabinius pre- vented an?/ action at all from being brought on sucli an agreement. When M. Brutus lent the Salaminii a sum of monej^ at interest of four per cent, monthly, or forty-eight per cent, yearly, and obtained a decree of the senate, dispensing with the law of Gabinius in his case, and directing " ut jus diceretur ex ista syngrapha," Cicero held that the decree of the senate did not give such force to the agreement as to render valid the excess of in- terest above the legal rate. (Ad Att. vi. 2. §.5.) We read of another Lex Gabinia, by which the senate was directed to give audience to ambas- sadors from the Ist of February to the 1st of March. By a previous Lex Pupia the senate was prohibited in general terms from assembling on comitial days. Under these laws arose the ques- tion whether the senate might be legally assembled on a comitial day, occurring in February, or whe- ther such days were not tacitly excepted from the Lex Gabinia. (Ad Qu. Fr. ii. 13.) In B. c. 6 1 Gabinius was praetor, and in B. c. 59 he and L. Piso were chosen consuls for the en- suing year. In the interval between his tribunate and his praetorship he appears to have been en- gaged in military service in the East, and to have accompanied M. Scaurus to Judea, where, in the contest between the Maccabees, he received a bribe of 300 talents from Aristobulus. (Joseph. Ant. xiv. 2, 3, 4.) The consuls, Gabinius and Piso, had previously been gained over to the party of Clodius, who promised to xise his influence in procuring for tRem lucrative governments. Piso 'was to get Macedonia, with Greece and Thessal}--, and Ga- binius was to get Cilicia ; but, upon the remon- strance of Gabinius, Cilicia was exchanged for the richer government of Syria, which was erected into a proconsular province, on the ground of the in- cursions of the Arabs. I was during the consulship of Gabinius that VOL. II. GABINIUS. 193 the exile of Cicero occurred ; ai.,d the conduct of Gabinius in promoting the views of Clodius pro- duced that extreme resentment in the mind of Cicero, which afterwards found vent on many oc- casions. The consuls, by an edict, prohibited the senate from wearing mourning for the banished orator, and some of the spoils of Cicero's Tusculan villa were transferred to the neighbouring mansion of Gabinius. However, when Clodius quarrelled with Pompey, Gabinius remained true to his original patron, and thus exposed himself to the violence of Clodius, who broke his fasces, and, by a lea; sacrata, dedicated his property to the gods. It is not easy to trace with chronological accu- racy the proceedings of Gabinius in his proconsular government of Syria. When he arrived in Judea, he found the country in a state of agitation. The dispute between the two brothers, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, had been decided in favour of the former. Pompey had given to Hyrcanus the office of high-priest, and had carried away as prisoners Aristobulus, with two of his daughters, and his two sons, Alexander and Antigonus ; but Alex- ander, on his way to Italy, escaped from custody, returned to Judea, and dispossessed Hyrcanus. Gabinius soon compelled Alexander to sue for fa- vour, and efi'ected the restoration of Hyrcanus to the high priesthood. He next made an important change in the constitution of the goverianent of Judea, by dividing the country into five districts, in each of which he created a supreme council. (Joseph. Ant. iv. 10, de Bell. Jiid. i. 6.) It was perhaps on account of some of his successes in Judea that Gabinius made application to the se- nate to be honoured with a nupplicatio ; but the senate, in order to evince their hostility to him and his patron Pompey, slighted his letter, and rejected his suit — an affront which had never before been offered, under similar circumstances, to any pro- consul. (Ad Qu. Fr. ii. 8.) As the refusal of the senate occurred in the early part of the year B. c. 56, Drumann (Gesch. Horns, vol. iii. p. 47, n. 35) thinks that it referred to some successes of Gabi- nius over the Arabs, previous to his campaigns in Judea. Gabinius now sought for other enemies, against whom he might profitably turn his arms. Phraates, king of Parthia, had been murdered by his two sons, Orodes and Mithridates, who afterwards contended between themselves for the crown. Mithridates, feeling himself the weaker of the two, by presents and promises engaged Gabinius to undertake his cause, and the Roman general had already crossed the Euphrates with his army, when he was invited to return by the prospect of a richer and an easier prey. Ptolemy the Piper (Auletes), having offended the Alexandrians by his exactions and pusilla- nimity, had been driven frgm his kingdom. While he was absent, soliciting the senate of Rome to assist in his restoration, the Alexandrians made his daughter Berenice queen, and invited Seleucus Cibiosactes to marry her, and share her throne. He accepted the proposal, notwithstanding the op- position of Gabinius, but was shortly afterwards strangled by order of his wife, who thought him a mean-spirited man, and soon grew tired of his society. After the death of Cibiosactes, Archelaus (the son of that Archelaus who had commanded the army of Pontus against Sulla in the Mithridatic war) became ambitious to supply his place. Ap* O "