Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/783

Rh MARIUS.] ROME 759 The six consulships of Marias represented not merely a party victory but a protest against the system of divided and rapidly-changing commands, which was no doubt the system favoured by the senate, but was also an integral element of the republican constitution, and in assailing it the populares weakened the republic even more than they irritated the senate. The transference of the political leadership to a consul who was nothing if not a soldier was at once a confession of the insufficiency of the purely civil authority of the tribunate and a dangerous encourage- ment of military interference in political controversies. The consequences were already foreshadowed by the special pro- visions made by Saturninus for Marius's veterans, and in the active part taken by them in the passing of his laws. i ity Indirectly too Marius, though no politician, played an important part in this new departure. His military more closely to its leader for the time being. He swept away the last traces of civil distinctions of rank or wealth within the legion, admitted to its ranks all classes, and substituted voluntary enlistment under a popular general for the old-fashioned compulsory levy. The efficiency of the legion was increased at the cost of a complete severance of the ties which bound it to the civil community and to the civil authorities. The defeat of Saturninus was followed by several years of quiet ; nor was the next important crisis provoked directly by any efforts of the discredited popular party. It was due partly to the rivalry which had been growing more bitter each year since 122 between the senate and the commercial class, and secondly to the long impending question of the enfranchisement of the Italian allies. The publicani, negotiatores, and others, who constituted what was now becoming known as the equestrian order, had made unscrupulous use of their control of the courts and especially of the "quaestio de repetundis" against their natural rivals, the official class in the provinces. The threat of prosecution before a hostile jury was held over the head of every governor, legate, and quaestor who ventured to interfere with their operations in the pro- vinces. The average official preferred to connive at their exactions ; the bolder ones paid with fines and even exile 1. for their courage. In 93 the necessity for a reform was proved beyond a doubt by the scandalous condemnation of P. Ruti'ius Rufus, 2 ostensibly on a charge of extortion, in reality as the reward of his efforts to check the extor- tions of the Roman equites in Asia. sci- The need of reform was clear, but it was not so easy to ltf carry a reform which would certainly be opposed by the I whole strength of the equestrian order, and which, as in- i c volving the repeal of a Sempronian law, would arouse the resentment of the popular party. The difficulties of the Italian question were more serious. That the Italian allies were discontented was notorious. After nearly two centuries of close alliance, of common dangers and victories, they now eagerly coveted as a boon that complete amal- gamation with Rome which they had at first resented as a dishonour. But, unfortunately, Rome had grown more selfishly exclusive in proportion as the value set upon Roman citizenship increased. The politic liberality with which the franchise had once been granted had disappeared. The allies found their burdens increasing and their ancient privileges diminishing, while the resentment with which they viewed their exclusion from the fruits of the conquests they had helped to make was aggravated by 1 Sallust, Jug., 86, " ipse interea militesscribere, non more majorum neque ex classibus, sed uti cujusque cupido erat, capite censos plerosque." For details, cf. Mommsen, ii. 192 ; Madvig, Verf., ii. 4C8, 493; Marquardt, Staatsv., ii. 417, 421. 2 Livy, Epit., hex.; Veil. Pat., ii. 13; Cicero, Brut., the growingly suspicious and domineering attitude of the Roman government. 3 During the last forty years feel- ings of hope and disappointment had rapidly succeeded each other ; Marcus Fulvius, Gaius Gracchus, Saturninus, had all held out promises of relief and nothing had yet been done. On each occasion they had crowded to Rome, full of eager expectation, only to be harshly ejected from the city by the consul's orders. 4 The justice of their claims could hardly" be denied, the danger of continuing to ignore them was obvious yet the difficulties in the way of granting them were formidable in the extreme. The temper of senate and people alike was still jealously exclusive, and from a higher than a merely selfish point of view there was much to be said against the revolution involved in so sudden and enormous an enlargement of the citizen body. Marcus Livius Drusus, who as tribune gallantly took up Marcus the task of reform, is claimed by Cicero 5 as a member of Livius that party of the centre to which he belonged himself. Q US ' Noble, wealthy, and popular, he seems to have hoped to be QQ^ able by the weight of his position and character to rescue the burning questions of the day from the grasp of extreme partisans and to settle them peacefully and equitably. But he, like Cicero after him, had to find to his cost that there was no room in the fierce strife of Roman politics for moderate counsels. His proposal to reform the law courts excited the equestrian order and their friends in the senate to fury. The agrarian and corn laws which he coupled with it 6 alienated many more in the senate, and roused the old anti-popular party feeling ; finally, his known negotiations with the Italians were eagerly misrepresented to the jealous and excited people as evidence of complicity with a wide-spread conspiracy against Rome. His laws were carried, but the senate pronounced them null and void. 7 Drusus was denounced in the senate house as a traitor, and on his way home was struck down by the hand of an unknown assassin. The knights retained their monopoly of the courts, but The this and all other domestic controversies were silenced for Social the time by the news which followed hard upon the 90 ^8 9= murder of Drusus that the Italians were in open revolt 664-665. against Rome. His assassination was the signal for an outbreak which had been secretly prepared for some time before. Throughout the highlands of central and southern Italy the flower of the Italian peoples rose as one man. 8 Etruria and Umbria held aloof ; the isolated Latin colonies stood firm ; but the Sabellian clans, north and south, the Latinized Marsi and Paeligni, as well as the still Oscan-speaking Samnites and Lucanians, rushed to arms. No time was lost in proclaiming their plans for the future. A new Italian state was to be formed. The Paelignian town of Corfinium was selected as its capital and re-christened with the proud name of Italica^ All Italians were to be citizens of this new metropolis, and here were to be the place of assembly and the senate house. A senate of 500 members and a magistracy resembling that of Rome completed a constitution which adhered closely to the very political traditions which its authors had most reason to abjure. Now, as always in the face of serious danger, the action 3 Mommsen, ii. 218 ; Ibiie, iv. 151, v. 253 ; Marquardt, Staats- verw., i. 57, 58. 4 Lex Junia,5 Cic. De Of., iii. 11; lex Licinia Mucia, Cic. Pro Corn., fr. 10 ; Ascon., p. 67. 5 Cic. De Oral., i. 25, andZte Domo, 50; Appian, B. C., i. 35; Diod. Sic., xxxvii. 10; Ihne, v. 242. 6 For the provisions of the "leges Liviae," see App., B. C., i. 35; Livy, Epit., Ixxi. They included, according to Pliny, N. H., xxxiii. 3, a proposal for the debasement of the coinage. 7 Cic. Pro Domo, 16. 8 For the Social War, see, besides Mommsen, Ihne, Lange ; also Kiene, D. Rdmische Bundesgenossenkrieg, Leipsic, 1845.
 * reforms l at once democratized the army and attached it