Story of the Greek and the Roman People

CORNELIA AND HER JEWELS.

But no matter how eloquently Tiberius spoke, the senators could not be brought to look at the matter as he did. That was not so very important, for if the ten tribunes, of whom Tiberius was one, agreed to propose this law to the assembly of tribes, or meeting of plebeians who were landowners, there was little doubt that it would be passed. But no law could even be proposed unless all ten of the tribunes desired it. The senators induced one of the ten to refuse to present it. Legally, Tiberius could do nothing more; but he reasoned that when a man refused to agree to so good a law, he was not fit to be tribune, and he induced the assembly to pass a vote putting the man out of office. When the tribune refused to give up his office, then by orders of Tiberius, he was pulled down from his place.

However good this new law may have been, it was exceedingly difficult to carry it out, and, what was worse, Tiberius had broken the laws in passing it. As long as he was a tribune, he was safe; and therefore, although this, too, was illegal, he tried to get himself elected tribune for the following year. The nobles were angry and indignant. They rushed out of the senate house. A riot followed, and Tiberius was slain. Before this, the different parties in Rome had tried their best to get their own way; but this was the first time that they had tried to get what they wanted unlawfully and with violence. If the government of any country allows lawbreakers to go unpunished, or even if the citizens are permitted to uphold the laws by unlawful means, that country is sure to become weak. So it was that the act of kind, honest, mistaken Tiberius Gracchus in 133 B. C. was the beginning of the downfall of the republic.

Ten years later, Tiberius's brother, Caius Sempronius Gracchus, proposed that a law should be passed requiring the state to sell grain to the people at much less than the usual price. Then he won over the merchants, bankers, and other business men by getting laws passed giving them instead of the nobles control of the courts. The common people and the men whose property was in money were friends of Caius; but the senators, whose property was chiefly in land, were his enemies, for they were afraid he would propose a land law, or agrarian law, like that brought forward by his brother Tiberius. They had good reason to be afraid, for this is exactly what he did do. Then he founded colonies at Tarentum and Capua. No one objected to his founding colonies; but when he proposed that the Latins should have all the rights of Roman citizens, the proud people of Rome were indignant. Before long, there was a riot and Caius was slain.

The brothers were dead, and no one came forward to care for the rights of the poor. The slaves, too, were becoming more and more wretched, if that were possible. In Sicily they were especially miserable, and at length they revolted. They fought like demons, for they knew well that if they were captured, torture and death would await them. Four times they overcame the armies of the Romans; but at last they had to yield. Then followed terrible scenes of suffering. Thousands of these prisoners were thrown from cliffs or were crucified.

The poor freemen of Rome were hardly happier than the slaves, for in that city gold was the only power. No one could hope to win even a just cause in the courts unless he had gold with which to bribe the judges. Jugurtha of Numidia said of Rome, "O city, you would sell yourself if you could only find a buyer."

Jugurtha had good reason to make this speech. Masinissa, king of Numidia, had died and Jugurtha had seized the kingdom. The rightful heirs appealed to Rome for help. Rome sent generals and soldiers to regain the kingdom and punish Jugurtha, but for a long time he found it an easy matter to bribe the generals. At length, however, he was conquered by a commander named Caius Marius. He was brought to Rome and had to walk in chains at the triumph of Marius. When the procession was about to ascend to the Capitol, he was thrust into the Mamertine dungeons and left to die of hunger.

This Caius Marius was the son of some hard-working country folk. He entered the army as a young man and was so brave and obedient that his general, the famous Scipio Africanus, began to take special notice of him. One evening some one asked Scipio, "When you are gone, where will the Romans find another general equally great?" "Here, perhaps," replied Scipio, laying his hand kindly upon the shoulder of Marius. The young soldier was too excited to sleep that night. Such words as these, coming from so famous a general, seemed to him like the prediction of an oracle. He pushed onward with all his might, and before long he became a tribune. While he held this office, he carried a law that lessened the power of the nobles. Then the common folk admired him. Soon he opposed a law which the common folk wanted, but which he thought not best for them; and now the nobles were inclined to admire him. Both parties began to say, "That young Marius is a bold, sturdy fellow. He does what he thinks best and fears no one."

As an officer in the army, Marius was so wise that the other officers respected him, and so simple in all his ways that the common soldiers loved him. If the soldiers had only dry bread for their dinner, the commander, too, dined upon dry bread. If they were digging a trench or throwing up a bulwark, they often found Marius among them working as hard as they. They wrote to their friends at Rome about the brave and honest general, and when he wished to be elected consul, he had little difficulty in getting the office. He was now at the head of the army, and a strong, powerful army he made it. He trained the soldiers to take long marches, to carry their baggage, and to care for their own food. "Marius's mules," the jesters of Rome called them.

LEGIONARY ON THE MARCH.

The soldiers needed all the training they could get, for soon the Romans were obliged to carry on war, not to increase their power or to punish rebellious states, but to defend their own state. For many years they had felt no fear of attacks by any foreign nation; but now there came tidings from the north that a vast company of barbarians were marching toward Italy. "There are at least three hundred thousand," the rumors said, "and in battle they fight like furies. Their war cries are like the roars of wild beasts, so horrible that no man can describe them."

ROMAN ARMY PASSING UNDER THE YOKE.

These barbarians were called Cimbri and Teutones. They belonged to the German race whose home had been on the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. They had wandered southward as far as Gaul, or what is now France, and there they had burned and plundered and killed. Then they had come still farther south. Some Roman forces met them in battle beyond the Alps and were defeated as badly as their countrymen had been at Cannae. The most mortifying part of this defeat was that a barbarian tribe of Switzerland, that had joined the others, compelled a Roman army to pass under the yoke. At this the Romans were fairly terrified. Barbarians had burned their city once; they might do it a second time. Prayers and sacrifices were offered, and no man who was able to bear arms was allowed to leave Italy. Just at this time Marius returned from his victory over Jugurtha. "Marius will save us," cried the people. "Let us make him consul again." This was contrary to the custom, but the Romans were so alarmed that they thought only of choosing a general who could overcome the barbarians; therefore Marius was elected. He was elected year after year, for the barbarians delayed and the fear of them increased.

At length, in 102 B. C., they started for Italy. Marius had not wasted the time of their delay; he had trained his soldiers more and more perfectly, and had kept them busy digging canals and doing other work, so that instead of growing weak, they had become stronger and more ready for battles. The battles came. Marius defeated the barbarians and destroyed their whole army except sixty thousand, who were sent to Rome to be sold as slaves. In this battle, two companies, or cohorts, of Italians had been so fearless and valiant that as a reward he made them all Roman citizens. Of course he had no right to do any such thing; but "the din of battle was so loud that I could not hear the laws," he said.