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The Historians' History of the World 05 [The Roman Republic]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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Crassus was advancing to the relief of his son when the rolling of the Parthians’ drums was heard, and they came exhibiting the head of that unfortunate youth. The spirits of the Romans were now quite depressed; Crassus vainly tried to rouse them, crying that the loss was his not theirs, and urging them to renewed exertions. The Parthians after harassing them through the day retired for the night. Cassius and the legate Octavius, having tried, but in vain, to rouse their general, who was now sunk in despair, called a council of the officers, and it was resolved to attempt a retreat that night. The wailing of the sick and wounded who were left behind informed the Parthians, but it not being their custom to fight at night they remained quiet till morning. They then took the deserted camp, and slaughtered four thousand men whom they found in it, and pursuing after the army cut off the stragglers. The Romans reached the town of Carrhæ, in which they had a garrison. Surenas to keep them from retreat, made feigned proposals of peace; but finding that he was only deceiving them, they set out in the night under the guidance of a Greek: their guide however proved treacherous, and led them into a place full of marshes and ditches. Cassius, who suspected him, turned back and made his escape with five hundred horse; Octavius with five thousand men, having had faithful guides, reached a secure position among the hills, and he brought off Crassus, who was assailed in the marshes by the Parthians. Surenas fearing lest they should get away in the night, let go some of his prisoners, in whose hearing he had caused to be said that the king did not wish to carry things to extremities; and he himself and his officers rode to the hill with unbent bows, and holding out his hand he called on Crassus to come down and meet him. The soldiers were overjoyed, but Crassus put no faith in him; at length when his men, having urged and pressed, began to abuse and threaten him, he took his officers to witness of the force that was put on him, and went down accompanied by Octavius and some of his other officers. The Parthians at first affected to receive him with respect, and a horse was brought for him to mount; but they soon contrived to pick a quarrel, and killed him and all who were with him. The head and right hand of Crassus were cut off; quarter was then offered to the troops, and most of them surrendered. The loss of the Romans in this unjust and ill-fated expedition was twenty thousand men slain and ten thousand captured. The Parthians, it is said, poured molten gold down the throat of Crassus, in reproach of his insatiable avarice. They afterwards made irruptions into Syria, which Cassius gallantly defended against them.
When the news of Crassus’ defeat and death reached Rome, the concern felt for the loss of the army was considerable, that of himself was thought nothing of; yet this was in reality the greater loss of the two, for he alone had the power to keep Cæsar and Pompey at unity, as Julia, whom they both agreed in loving as she deserved, and who was a bond of union between them, had lately died in childbirth, to the grief not merely of her father and husband, but of the whole Roman people (54).
ANARCHY AT ROME
[54-52 B.C.]
Affairs at Rome were now indeed in a state of perfect anarchy; violence and bribery were the only modes of obtaining office. In 54 all the candidates for the consulate were prosecuted for bribery; and C. Memmius, one of them, actually read in the senate a written agreement between himself and a fellow-candidate Cn. Domitius Calvinus on one part, and the actual consuls L. Domitius Ahenobarbus and App. Claudius on the other, by which the two former bound themselves, if elected through the consul’s influence, to pay them each forty thousand sesterces unless they produced three augurs to declare that they were present when the curiate law was passed, and two consulars to aver that they were present when the consular provinces were arranged, which would give the ex-consuls the provinces they desired—all utterly false. By these and other delays the elections were kept off for seven months, Pompey looking quietly on in hopes that they would be obliged to create him dictator. Many spoke of it as the only remedy; and though they did not name, they described him very exactly as the fittest person; but Sulla had made the name of dictator too odious; others talked of consular military tribunes. Cn. Domitius Calvinus and M. Valerius Messalla were, however, chosen consuls at the end of the seven months.
The next year (52) T. Annius Milo, P. Plautius Hypsæus, and Q. Metellus Scipio were the candidates, and they all bribed to a most enormous extent. Clodius stood for the prætorship, and between his retainers and those of Milo and the other candidates, scenes of tumult and bloodshed occurred in the streets almost daily. Pompey and the tribune T. Munatius Plancus purposely kept the patricians from meeting to appoint an interrex to hold the elections. On the 20th of January, Milo, who was dictator of his native place Lanuvium, had occasion to go thither to appoint a chief priest of Juno Sospita, the patron deity of the place; Clodius, who had been to harangue the magistrates at Aricia, where he had a great deal of influence, happened to be returning just at this time, and he met Milo near Bovillæ. Milo was in his carriage with his wife, the daughter of Sulla, and a friend, and he was attended by a numerous train, among which were some of his gladiators; Clodius was on horseback, with thirty armed bravos, who always accompanied him. Two of Milo’s people followed those of Clodius and began to quarrel with them, and when he turned round to menace them, one of them ran a long sword through his shoulder. The tumult then became general; Clodius had been conveyed into an adjoining tavern, but Milo forced it, dragged him out, and killed him outright; his dead body was thrown on the highway, where it lay till a senator, who was returning to the city from his country-seat, took it up and brought it with him in his litter. It was laid in the hall of Clodius’ own house, and his wife Fulvia with floods of tears showed his bleeding wounds to the rabble who repaired thither, and excited them to vengeance. Next morning Clodius’ friends, the tribunes Q. Pompeius Rufus and T. Munatius Plancus, exposed it on the rostra, and harangued the populace over it. The mob snatched it up, carried it into the senate house, and making a pyre of the seats burned it and the house together. They then ran to Milo’s house intending to burn it also, but they were beaten off by his slaves.
Death of Clodius
(After Mirys)
The excesses committed by the mob having injured the Clodian cause, Milo ventured to return to the city, and to go on bribing and canvassing for the consulate. The tribune M. Cælius, whom he had gained, having filled the Forum with a purchased mob, led Milo thither to defend himself, in hopes of having him acquitted by them as by the people; but the adverse tribunes armed their partisans and fell on and scattered them.[110] Milo and Cælius were forced to fly in the dress of slaves; the rabble killed, wounded, and robbed without distinction; houses were broken open, plundered, and burned, under the pretext of seeking for the friends of Milo. These excesses lasted for several days, and the senate at length decreed that the interrex, the tribunes of the people, and Pompey, should see that the republic sustained no injury; and finally, as there seemed an absolute necessity for some extraordinary power, to avoid a dictatorship and to exclude Cæsar (who was spoken of) from the consulate, it was resolved, on the motion of Bibulus, with the assent of Cato, to make Pompey sole consul.