Story of the Greek and the Roman People
- Автор: Tappan Eva March
- Год: 1910
- Язык: английский
- Год: Heritage History
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «Story of the Greek and the Roman People». Краткое содержание книги:
Story of the Greek People
Story of the Roman People
The others, however, had quite different ideas. They had been successful in several engagements, and they had wild hopes of staying in Italy and conquering Rome.
At first the proud senators had felt annoyed and disgraced that a band of barbarians should overpower Roman troops; but now they began to feel alarmed, and they sent both consuls against them. The consuls met with no success. Then they put the war into the hands of the praetor Marcus Crassus. Spartacus marched toward Sicily and paid some pirates to take him and his army, now consisting of a hundred and fifty thousand men, to the island. The pirates took the money and sailed away without the army. Then Spartacus made himself as strong as he could in Rhegium. Crassus dug a trench and built a wall across the peninsula upon which Rhegium stands; but one stormy night, Spartacus filled up the trench with earth and wood and passed it with part of his army. He defeated some Roman troops; but this victory was his ruin, for now his men insisted upon meeting the army of Crassus in open combat. They had their way, but were defeated and Spartacus was slain.
Pompey, meanwhile, was just returning from Spain. He met five thousand of the rebels and cut them down. They had learned too late that it would have been wiser to seek the North. The credit of the war belonged to Crassus, but Pompey wrote to the senate, "Crassus has beaten the gladiators in a pitched battle, but I have cut up the war by the roots." When the two generals returned to Rome, both were made consuls; but Pompey was honored with a triumph because of his victories in Spain. According to law, neither Crassus nor Pompey should have been chosen consul; but Crassus was enormously rich and Pompey was a favorite among the people. Moreover, Pompey had promised them that if he was elected, he would have a law passed giving back to the tribunes the power which Sulla had taken away.
Sulla had passed another most important law, namely, that a man accused of crime must be tried before a jury of senators. Soon an event occurred which made it possible to repeal this law also. This was the trial of Verres, governor of the province of Sicily.
When Rome began to make some of her conquered countries into provinces, she ruled them fairly and kindly; but little by little the rule of the governors had become almost unbelievably cruel and shameless. Verres had taken the greater part of the grain raised by the farmers, sometimes the whole of it. He stole gems, statues, paintings, tapestry, gold and silver vessels, even columns from the temples. No one in Sicily could hold an office or win a cause without making extravagant presents to this infamous governor. The farming lands of Sicily began to look like deserts, for the farmers would not cultivate the ground to have their crops taken away from them. The temples and the finest houses were as bare of their former handsome furnishings as if they had been stripped by a band of robbers. Far worse than this were his terrible cruelties, shown not only to the helpless Sicilians, but to Romans. He dared to imprison Romans without a trial, to scourge them, to put them to death, even by the slave's death of crucifixion. The Roman's great protection, "I am a Roman citizen," counted for nothing with him.
Verres knew that at the end of his three years of office he would probably be brought before the courts; but that did not alarm him, for he thought he could easily buy up his judges. Indeed, he boasted that there was no reason for him to be troubled; one third of his gains would give him an immense fortune, and the rest he was perfectly willing to use to buy his acquittal. Unfortunately for his schemes, the Sicilians engaged a young lawyer, Marcus Tullius Cicero, who had once held an important office in their island, to prosecute him. Cicero drew a vivid picture of the sufferings of the Sicilians, the cruelty and wickedness of Verres. Then he began to call out witnesses. Long before they had all testified, Verres saw that his case was hopeless. He took as much of his wealth as possible and fled to Massilia (Marseilles). The corruption of the senate jury was shown so plainly that few could venture to oppose the law providing that one third of a jury should be composed of senators, but the other two thirds should always be of merchants and other men of standing.
All this time a third war with Mithridates was going on, but with little success to the Romans. There was another trouble, however, nearer home, and that was the piracy in the Mediterranean Sea. It had become a real business. The pirates were masters of four hundred cities. They owned a thousand galleys, many of them gorgeous in purple canopies and gilded sterns. They went about boldly with music and feasting, and not only captured ships, but robbed the most sacred temples. They had no respect for the title of Roman citizen, but made raids upon the land and carried away even officials in their robes of office. The Romans had been so occupied by the wars on land that they had paid little attention to the water, and the pirates had grown so bold that no vessel would venture to sail on the Tuscan Sea.
Then the Romans began to arouse themselves. Italy had come to depend upon Sicily and Africa for much of her grain; and there was danger of famine. What should be done? It was decided to put the whole matter into the hands of Pompey, and to give him for three years the power of a dictator over the Mediterranean Sea and for fifty miles inland. He was to have as much money as he wished, to fit out five hundred galleys, and he was to raise an army of a hundred and twenty-five thousand men. The people were so sure that he would be successful that the price of provisions fell that very day.
They had put their trust in the right man. Pompey divided the Mediterranean Sea into thirteen parts and sent a squadron to each. Within three months the pirates and their strongholds had been captured. Mercy to prisoners was not common in those days, but instead of putting his twenty thousand captives to death, Pompey scattered them among the small towns of Cilicia. They were made welcome by the inhabitants because he was wise enough to give each town a large addition of land.
The Romans were overjoyed at this victory, and many of them began to say, "Pompey would bring the war with Mithridates to an end. Let us put him in command." The tribune Caius Manilius formally proposed to do this. Julius Caesar supported him, and Cicero made a brilliant speech in favor of the Manilian Law, as this proposal was called. Some of the Romans shook their heads. "No general has ever held so much power," they said; but the law was passed, and while Pompey was still in the east, he was made commander of all the forces outside of Italy. He had the authority to make peace or war with any nation.
This war with Mithridates had begun more than twenty years earlier. Peace had been made twice; but Mithridates had taken up arms again, for he had brought together an excellent army and he believed that he could become ruler of Asia. He certainly had good reason to think that the Asiatic peoples would welcome him, for under the Roman rule they were most miserable. Sulla had inflicted upon them so enormous a fine that to pay it they had been forced to borrow of the Roman money-lenders. The collectors had added interest upon interest, and although the poor people had paid the amount twice over, these collectors claimed that they owed six times as much as the original fine. They had been obliged to strip their temples of the ornaments sacred to the gods, to sell their children into slavery, and even to make themselves slaves to these merciless creditors.