Story of the Greek and the Roman People

The Rise of Pompey

Sulla had declared that the government would soon "go as it ought," but it began to seem as if all things were going as they ought not, for there was trouble in every corner of the republic and in Rome itself. Sulla had brought the senate and the nobles into power again, but no one respected them or their rule. Before he had been dead many months, there was a revolt in Etruria, and the two consuls were sent to settle it. But what would Cincinnatus and Coriolanus and Caius Mucius Scaevola and the other old patriots have said to this, that the consuls were not allowed to set out until they had most solemnly sworn not to permit their armies to fight each other! One of the laws recently passed was that no one should be made consul for two years in succession, but Lepidus, one of the consuls, demanded a second term. This was refused, and then Lepidus and his army made ready to attack Rome; but they were defeated by the other consul and his army.

The trouble in the West arose because the people of Lusitania, which was nearly the Portugal of to-day, revolted against Rome. They wanted a leader, and they invited a Roman general, Quintus Sertorius, to be that leader. He had been on the side of Marius and Cinna, though he did all that he could to prevent their cruelty. When Sulla came into power, Sertorius took refuge in Spain. The natives admired him because he was brave, and they liked him because he was kind and thoughtful. If any of them brought him a gift, however small, he never forgot to show his gratitude. One day a countryman captured a snow-white fawn, so pretty that he carried it at once to the general. This fawn became so fond of him that it followed him wherever he went. The deer was sacred to the goddess Diana, and Sertorius persuaded the people who were very willing to be persuaded that this fawn was a gift from her to her favorite. They were glad to obey a favorite of the gods, and Sertorius set to work to form a good government in Spain and teach the people what the Romans had learned. He trained them as the Roman soldiers were trained; and he even opened schools for their children where they could be taught as children were taught in Rome. He often visited these schools and gave rewards to the pupils that had done well.

Many Romans joined him who had fled from the rule of Sulla; he made friends with the Gauls, the Mediterranean pirates, and even with Mithridates; and some people in Rome began to think he was trying to found a rival city. They sent troops against him, but for several years he was more than a match for them. He could always think of some new way of accomplishing what he wished. He once overcame a tribe of savages who lived in caves on a hillside by building up a great mound of dry and crumbly clay. The barbarians laughed and scoffed at him; but when the strong wind began to blow toward the hill, the soldiers galloped up and down on the mound and stirred up a thick cloud of dust. This blew straight into the caves, and after two days the barbarians surrendered.

Sertorius was so strong that at one time the Romans were afraid they had lost Spain. To overcome him they sent the young general, Cnaeus Pompeius, now called Pompeius Magnus, or Pompey the Great, because of his victories over the followers of Marius in Africa and Sicily. Whether Pompey would have succeeded is not known, for some of the Romans in Spain became jealous of Sertorius and murdered him at a banquet. Now that the leader was dead, Pompey soon succeeded in making the Roman rule in Spain as strong as ever.

These were the difficulties of Rome in the West; but there were two matters fully as serious as the troubles in Spain and in the East, and they were much nearer home. One was the War with the Gladiators, and the other was the piracy of the Mediterranean Sea.

The War with the Gladiators began at Capua, where there was a gladiatorial school for Gallic prisoners who had been forced to become gladiators. They escaped from the town with only some weapons of the arena which they had seized; but soon they captured some weapons of war from a party sent out from Capua against them. They now numbered forty thousand, for slaves and other gladiators had joined them, and they routed the troops sent against them from Rome. Spartacus had been chosen as their leader. He very sensibly planned to get away from Italy as soon as possible, so his men could make their way to their homes in Gaul and Thrace.