Caius Martius

“ Mess. Where's Caius Martius?
Mar. Heere: what's the matter!
Mes. The newes is sir, the Volcies are in Armes
Mar. I am glad on't, then we shall ha meanes to vent
Our mustie superfluity. See our best Elders.
Enter Sicinius Velutus, Annius Brutus Cominius, Titus Lartius,
with other
Senatours.
1.Sen. Martius 'tis true, that you haue lately told vs,
The Volces are in Armes
Mar. They haue a Leader,
Tullus Auffidius that will put you too't:
I sinne in enuying his Nobility:
And were I any thing but what I am,
I would wish me onely he
Com. ”

“ For they do not so much admire those that confer honors and riches upon them, as those that partake of the same labor and danger with themselves; but love them better that will vouchsafe to join in their work, than those that encourage their idleness.
Marius thus employed, and thus winning the affections of the soldiers, before long filled both Africa and Rome with his fame, and some, too, wrote home from the army that the war with Africa would never be brought to a conclusion, unless they chose Caius Marius consul. All which was evidently unpleasing to Metellus ”

“ The barbarian hereupon immediately fled, and leaving his sword in the place rushed out of doors, crying only this, "I cannot kill Caius Marius." At which they were all at first astonished, and presently began to feel pity, and remorse, and anger at themselves for making so unjust and ungrateful a decree against one who had preserved Italy, and whom it was bad enough not to assist. "Let him go," said they, "where he please to banishment, and find his fate somewhere else; we only entreat pardon of the gods for thrusting Marius distressed and deserted out of our city." ”

“ The Roman commanders soon perceived the design, but could not contain the soldiers; for one happening to shout out that the enemy fled, they all rushed to pursue them, while the whole barbarian foot came on, moving like a great ocean. Here Marius, having washed his hands, and lifting them up towards heaven, vowed an hecatomb to the gods; and Catulus, too, in the same posture, solemnly promised to consecrate a temple to the "Fortune of that day." They say, too, that Marius, having the victim showed to him as he was sacrificing, cried out with a loud voice, "the victory is mine." ”

“ He afterwards won many more crowns in battle, and became one of the most famous of Roman soldiers.
One of his memorable exploits took place during a war with the Volscians, in which the Romans attacked the city of Corioli. The citizens made a sally, and drove the Romans back to their camp. But Caius, with a few followers, stopped them and turned the tide of battle, driving the Volscians back. As they fled into the city through the open gates, he cried, "Those gates are set open for us rather than for the Volscians. Why are we afraid to rush in?" ”

“ The good Caius had taken the tired boy and girl to his mother’s house, as he had promised, with their two attendants. The stately old Roman matron received her son with a smile of welcome; and as they stood in the little atrium, uncertain what to do, she advanced to Casca and Hyacintha, and bade them welcome to enter, and rest for a season. ”

“ Ill-starred Martialis is not the first nor the last who has suffered from misplaced infatuation.’
Her face was in profile, and his eyes scanned it keenly.
‘Of course Plautia knows I am speaking of Caius Martialis, the bosom friend of Apicius,’ he went on, with slow distinctness. ‘There is also another Martialis, his brother Lucius, a Centurion of the Pretorian guard, at present in attendance here on our worthy friend the Prefect. Do you know this one?’
‘It matters not whether I do or not; it is not worth the trouble to try and remember. ”

“ His only hope was in Caius Antonius; who being in age the middle one between his two brothers, rivalled both of them in vices. He hastened away as if he were being driven away by the senate into Macedonia, not as if he were prohibited from proceeding thither. What a storm, O ye immortal gods! what a conflagration! what a devastation! what a pestilence to Greece would that man have been, if incredible and godlike virtue had not checked the enterprise and audacity of that frantic man. What promptness was there in Brutus's conduct! what prudence! what valour! ”

“ It is true it is a common opinion that Caius was a pure demagogue, and much more greedy of popular favour than Tiberius. But it was not so in fact, and Caius seems to have been involved in public affairs rather through a kind of necessity than choice. Cicero the orator also says that Caius declined all offices, and had determined to live in retirement, but that his brother appeared to him in a dream,91 and said, “Caius, why do you linger? There is no escape: one life for both of us, and one death in defence of the people is our fate.” ”

“ Caius, not as in time past do I take my leave of you going to the Rostra as tribune and as legislator, nor yet going to a glorious war, where, if you died in the service of your country, you would still leave me an honoured grief; but you are going to expose yourself to the murderers of Tiberius: ’tis right indeed to go unarmed, and to suffer rather than do wrong, but you will perish without benefiting the state. ”

“ Some day you will kill this boy, and some one else will murder you." There were some who believed that Tiberius deliberately cherished the intention of allowing Caius to succeed him, in order that the Roman world might relent towards his own memory under the tyranny of a worse monster than himself. Even the Romans, who looked up to the family of Germanicus with extraordinary affection, seem early to have lost all hopes about Caius. ”

“ Caius Martialis, the Centurion’s brother, is well known for his perfect knowledge of the elegant arts and pleasures of life. No one disputes his dictum as to the beauty of a woman, or the flavour of a dish, or the fold of a garment—especially feminine,—or the business of the bath, the action of a player, the knowledge of the midnight city—the whole delicate art, in fact, of sustaining a continuous and uniform course of pleasure, without rushing into undue excess, or relapsing into ennui. ”

“ The force of terror had utterly extinguished the sense of human fellowship, and, with the growth of cruelty, pity was thrust aside.
20 About this time Caius Caesar, who became his grandfather's companion on his retirement to Capreae, married Claudia, daughter of Marcus Silanus. He was a man who masked a savage temper under an artful guise of self-restraint, and neither his mother's doom nor the banishment of his brothers extorted from him a single utterance. ”

“ Another interesting monument found there is that to Calpurnia, daughter of Caius Marius. Probably she died from the exposure and roughness of life camping out, when the barbarian hordes rolled west, and all the inhabitants of the towns were obliged to fly before them to the hills. I shall in a future chapter tell the story of Caius Marius and his great victory at Pourrières over the Teutons, having first thrashed the Ambrons near Aix. ”

“ Whereas both Tiberius and Caius Gracchus lived and died for an idea greater than themselves, Sulla’s was a mind incapable of idealism. He and Caius Marius, his great rival, are alike in nothing except the harsh cruelty that belongs to times of revolutionary upheaval. In all other respects they are as unlike as any two men that ever lived. Marius was a son of the soil, a soldier with a soldier’s merits—courage, rude good humour, careless generosity—and his faults—cruelty, coarseness, indifference to everything but the rudest of pleasures. His one big work was the reconstruction of the army. ”

“ Caius therefore could not suffer under him at Rome, where his elder Brother Carinus governed. But the Vulgar have a particular Veneration for Martyrs, and, what turns to a very good Account, are glad to purchase their Reliques at any rate. ”

“ Caius not liking the fellow’s look, and, suspecting what he came for, began to revile him and challenged him to fight, which the fellow refusing, Caius, in a fit of honest passion, beat him soundly, as such a mischief-maker and carrier of wicked messages deserved; which coming to the ears of Regan and her husband, they ordered Caius to be put in the stocks, though he was a messenger from the king her father and in that character demanded the highest respect. So that the first thing the king saw when he entered the castle was his faithful servant Caius sitting in that disgraceful situation. ”

“ Does the defeat of Carbo and Caepio, who were vanquished by the enemy, affright him? Surely they were much inferior to Marius both in glory and valor, and commanded a much weaker army; at the worst, it is better to be in action, though we suffer for it like them, than to sit idle spectators of the destruction of our allies and companions." Marius, not a little pleased to hear this, gently appeased them, pretending that he did not distrust their valor, but that he took his measures as to the time and place of victory from some certain oracles. ”

“ In the city he had neither riches nor eloquence to trust to, with which the leading men of the time obtained power with the people, but his vehement disposition, his indefatigable labors, and his plain way of living, of themselves gained him esteem and influence; so that he made an honorable match with Julia, of the distinguished family of the Caesars, to whom that Caesar was nephew who was afterwards so great among the Romans, and, in some degree, from his relationship, made Marius his example, as in his life we have observed. ”

“ The learning of the Church was then mainly in the East. It was by the influence of the East, in the West, that the church of Rome was enabled to recover that epistle. It was also the influence of the Apocalyptic churches of Asia that preserved the Apocalypse as an inspired work of St. John to the church of Rome.” By the deference with which the author of the Refutation speaks of the Apocalypse, we are able, among other evidences, to decide that it is not the work of Caius. ”

“ Caius was driven on by fate into the path in which he met with his ruin. Heart-broken by the death of his brother, he seemed as if he wished to keep away from the higher offices of the state: he rose indeed to [Pg 293] be a triumvir,—there he could not help himself,—but even then he would only act where it was possible for him to do so without shaking the existing state of things. ”

“ Seven! Hoc et nihil præter,
Four are walls and benches three.
Anon.
MARTIAL In Caium
"Lend me sestertia, Caius, only twenty,
'Tis no great thing for you who roll in plenty."
He was an old companion, and his coffers
Were full enough to stand such friendly offers.
"Go, plead in court," said he; "'tis pleadings pay us."
"I want your money, not your counsel, Caius."
Martial, ii. 30.
[90]
In Causidicum
'Tis said that some bold advocate
Has dared to criticise my poem,
His name I have not learned, his fate
Will be a warning when I know him.
Martial, v. 33. ”

“ The election coming on, and his colleague being dead, he left the command of the army to Manius Aquilius, and hastened to Rome, where, several eminent persons being candidates for the consulship, Lucius Saturninus, who more than any of the other tribunes swayed the populace, and of whom Marius himself was very observant, exerted his eloquence with the people, advising them to choose Marius consul. ”

“ For, when the vote had been taken, every man not having a vote had been expelled from the city, and forbidden to come within five miles of it till the voting was over. Caius had come to live in the Forum instead of on the Palatine when he returned to Rome, among his friends as he thought; and still even in little matters he stood forward as the champion of the poor against the rich. There was going to be a show of gladiators in the Forum, and the magistrates had enclosed the arena with benches, which they meant to hire out. ”

“ The persecution is not represented as general, but as aimed at a few obnoxious devotees, and Caius does not appear as leading, accompanying, or inciting them, but only as exercising a fatherly supervision. Probably the persecution continued for some time under Diocletian. The early Pontifical, as well as Anastasius, makes Caius of Dalmatian origin and cousin to this emperor. The Acts of St. Susanna confirm this, but are untrustworthy (Till. iv. 760) . Caius is said in the early Pontifical to have avoided persecution by hiding in the crypts. ”

“ And Caius Julius Cæsar Caligula, the father of his armies, the best and greatest of Cæsars, showed himself at all these pageants more crazed than ever; he hardly ever spoke now to the people. 'Twas averred that Cæsonia, his wife, had given him a potion to cure him of his infatuation for Dea Flavia, his kinswoman, whom he had exalted above all the other Augustas, and whose absence from Rome and from all festivities had rendered him half distracted with wrath. ”

“ Its object was not to chasten the affections and purify the appetites of man, but to replenish the curies and centuries, to maintain the service of the national temples, recruit the legions and establish Roman garrisons in conquered lands. The marriage therefore of Caius and Caia, of a Roman with a Roman, was a far higher and holier matter, in the view of their priests and legislators, than the union of a Roman with a foreigner, of aliens with aliens, or of slaves with slaves. ”