Gaius Metellus

“ In 63 he returned to Rome, to assist Pompey in carrying out his plans. He violently attacked Cicero, and refused to allow him to deliver the customary speech on laying down office as consul; he even threatened to impeach him for having executed Roman citizens (referring to the Catilinarian conspirators) without a trial. In 62 his proposal that Pompey should be summoned to Italy to restore order was bitterly opposed by Cato, and on the day set down for the bill a fight took place in the forum. Metellus fled to Pompey, but soon returned with him to Rome. ”

“ He at once set to work to undermine the credit of his commander with the army, the Roman merchants, and Gauda, saying that he himself would soon bring the war to an end if he were general. Metellus can hardly have been a popular man anywhere, and his strictness must have made him many enemies. Thus he scornfully refused Gauda a seat at his side, and an escort of Roman horse. Gauda and the rest wrote to Rome, urging that Marius should have the army. Metellus with the worst grace let him go just twelve days before the election. ”

“ How far Metellus was terrified, and at what rate he esteemed him, he plainly declared, when he offered by proclamation an hundred talents, and twenty thousand acres of land, to any Roman that should kill him, and leave, if he were banished, to return; attempting villanously to buy his life by treachery, when he despaired of ever being able to overcome him in open war. And when once he gained the advantage in a battle against Sertorius, he was so pleased and transported with his good fortune, that he caused himself to be publicly proclaimed imperator ”

“ At last, however, the affair was placed in honourable hands, by the appointment of Metellus (Q. C.) to the command of the army. His probity placed him far above any bribe that Jugurtha could offer; and though it is a maxim with many, that every man has his price, it may be said of Metellus that his moral standard was too high for any pecuniary standard to be applied to it.
With the generosity of true genius, Metellus selected as his legate a man capable of sharing with himself any of the honours that might be gained in the wars about to be undertaken. ”

“ Metellus ravaged the greater part of the country, but failed in taking the important town of Zama before he withdrew into winter quarters. But he had produced such an effect upon the Numidian king, that Jugurtha was induced, in the course of the winter, to make offers of unqualified submission, and even surrendered all his elephants, with a number of arms and horses, and a large sum of money, to the Roman general; but when called upon to place himself personally in the power of Metellus, his courage failed him, he broke off the negotiation, and once more had recourse to arms. ”

“ On the arrival at Rome of Metellus, [136] the son of Metellus who had commanded in Libya, and had been banished from the city through the intrigues of Marius, the soldiers deserted Octavius and came to Metellus, entreating him to take the command and save the city; they said, if they had an experienced and active commander, they would fight well and get the victory. But Metellus expressed great dissatisfaction at their conduct, and bade them go to the consul, upon which they passed over to the enemy. ”

“ Neither is it apparent that a wicked life is to be chosen, on the ground that the gods are supposed to have favoured Marius more than Regulus. For Metellus, the most highly esteemed of all the Romans, who had five sons in the consulship, was prosperous even in this life; and Catiline, the worst of men, reduced to poverty and defeated in the war his own guilt had aroused, lived and perished miserably. ”

“ And thus he so wearied out the Roman army, that when Sertorius challenged Metellus to fight singly with him, they commended it, and cried out, it was a fair offer, a Roman to fight against a Roman, and a general against a general; and when Metellus refused the challenge, they reproached him. Metellus derided and contemned this, and rightly so; for, as Theophrastus observes, a general should die like a general, and not like a skirmisher. ”

“ He waited in his fortified camp near Cirta to watch events, when news was brought from Rome which proved to his mind that cautious inaction was now not merely the wiser but the only policy. The news that came by letter was of stunning force. Metellus had already learnt of Marius's election to the consulship. This knowledge should have prepared him for the worst; but a proud man, conscious of his deserts, will not meet in anticipation an event that, however probable, seems incredible. ”

“ Before he marched he offered sacrifices to all the gods, except Vesta, for which neglect the goddess was so incensed that she demanded the blood of his daughter Metella. When Metella was going to be immolated, the goddess placed a heifer in her place, and carried her to a temple at Lanuvium, of which she became the priestess.――Lucius Cæcilius, or Quintus, surnamed Creticus, from his conquest in Crete, B.C. 66, is supposed by some to be the son of Metellus Macedonicus.――Cimber, one of the conspirators against Julius Cæsar. ”

“ On the arrival of Lucius Metellus the praetor, when Verres had made all his retinue friends of this also by that sovereign medicine of his, money, men applied to Metellus; Apronius was brought before him; his accuser was a man of the highest consideration, Caius Gallius, a senator. He demanded of Metellus to give him a right of action according to the terms of his edict against Apronius, “for having taken away property by force or by fear,” which formula of Octavius, Metellus had both adopted at Rome, and now imported into the province. He does not succeed ”

“ Q. Metellus, the prætor, was obliged to go with a large army to Greece, where he landed on the coast, which could not have been easily defended; in the meanwhile, the Achæans already showed themselves very mutinous, and the war, if it lasted, could not but lead to a rising. Metellus drove the king from Thessaly, who, like Perseus, fell back upon Pydna, followed by the Romans. The Macedonians, who were superior in numbers, divided their forces for a foray ”

“ Before his death in 115 three of his sons had been consuls, one censor, and the fourth was a candidate for the consulship.
Metellus was succeeded in Greece by LUCIUS MUMMIUS, a cruel and harsh leader. The remnant of the Achaean army had taken refuge in CORINTH. The Senate directed Mummius to attack the city. Its capture in 146 was marked by special cruelties. The city was burned to the ground; beautiful pictures and costly statuary were ruthlessly destroyed. Gold in abundance was carried to Rome. The last vestige of Greek liberty vanished. ”

“ Lucius Domitius, proconsul of the other province of Spain, was overthrown by one of his lieutenants; Thoranius, another commander sent against him by Metellus with a great force, was slain, and Metellus, one of the greatest and most approved Roman generals then living, by a series of defeats, was reduced to such extremities, that Lucius Manlius came to his assistance out of Gallia Narbonensis, and Pompey the Great, was sent from Rome, itself, in all haste, with considerable forces. ”

“ For in the consulship of Quintus Metellus and Lucius Afranius, when the majesty of Rome predominated thoughout the world, and Rome herself was celebrating, in the theatres of Pmpey, her recent victories and triumphs over Pontus and Armenia, the overgrown power of Pompey, as is usual in similar cases, excited among the idle citizens a feeling of envy towards him. Metellus, discontented at the diminution of his triumph over Crete, [31] Cato, ever an enemy to those in power, calumniated Pompey, and raised a clamour against his acts. ”

“ Quintus is still in Asia. Pompey's triumph had taken place in the previous September.
TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS) Rome, 20 January
B.C. 60, ÆT. 46
Believe me there is nothing at this moment of which I stand so much in need as a man with whom to share all that causes me anxiety: a man to love me; a man of sense to whom I can speak without affectation, reserve, or conceal [Pg 50] ment. For my brother is away—that most open-hearted and affectionate of men. Metellus is not a human being, but
"Mere sound and air, a howling wilderness." ”

“ But when the day came for the people to give their voices for the passing this decree, and Metellus beforehand occupied the forum with armed men, strangers, gladiators, and slaves, those that in hopes of change followed Pompey, were known to be no small part of the people, and besides, they had great assistance from Caesar, who was then praetor; and though the best and chiefest men of the city were no less offended at these proceedings than Cato, they seemed rather likely to suffer with him, than able to assist him. ”

“ May any one have the persuasion that he should so abstain, lest by chance in his beef he eats of some ancestor of his? But if a Christian promises the return of a man from a man, and the very actual Gaius from Gaius, [1] the cry of the people will be to have him stoned ”

“ The very men who have remained—scarcely a tenth part of the old cultivators of the soil—were about to leave all their lands too, if Metellus had not sent letters to them from Rome, saying that he would sell the tenths according to the law of Hiero; and if he had not entreated them to sow as much land as they could, which they had always done for their own sakes, when no one entreated them, as long as they understood that they were sowing, and labouring, and going to expense for themselves and for the Roman people,—not for Verres and Apronius. ”

“ Your loyal and excellent fellow citizens, the only nation of men upon the whole face of the earth by whom Gaius is not esteemed to be a god, appear now to be even desiring to plot my death in their obstinate disobedience, for when I commanded my statue in the character of Jupiter to be erected in their temple, they raised the whole of their people, and quitted the city and the whole country in a body, under pretence of addressing a petition to me, but in reality being determined to act in a manner contrary to the commands which I had imposed upon them. ”

“ His interest in the antiquities of Roman law is apparent, and for this reason his work is most valuable to the historian of early institutions. In the disputes between the two schools of Roman jurists he generally attached himself to that of the Sabinians, who were said to be followers of Ateius Capito, of whose life we have some account in the Annals of Tacitus, and to advocate a strict adherence as far as possible to ancient rules, and to resist innovation. Many quotations from the works of Gaius occur in the Digest of Justinian, and so acquired a permanent place in the system of Roman law ”

“ Slowly the mournful procession moved on, and a stranger would have supposed that a corpse was being borne to the funeral pile; but those who watched at a distance knew well—from the direction it was taking, to the Campus Sceleratus—that there was a terrible fate prepared for the occupant of the litter. Such a spectacle had not been for a long time seen in Rome, and did not fail to attract a large number of the population.
Gaius, who was looking about him, remarked amongst the crowd a considerable number of persons whom he knew to be Christians, who walked along with sad and averted looks. ”

“ Metellus would have finished the war, but in 106 the command was taken from him by Caius Marius the consul. This Caius Marius was a man of low birth, but a good soldier. He had risen in war by his bravery, and had held magistracies in Rome. He was an officer in the army of Metellus, and was very much liked by the common soldiers, for he was a rough man like themselves, and talked with them, and lived as they did. ... Marius left Africa and went to Rome to try and be made consul in 106. He found fault with Metellus before the people, and said that he could carry on the war better himself. ”

“ For he represented to him, that Gaius was a person of a good and obedient disposition, and one who entertained the greatest affection for his cousin, so that out of his exceeding regard for him he would be willing even to abandon the government and to yield it up to him by himself, but that excessive modesty was anything but advantageous to many persons, in consequence of which Gaius, who was of a most guileless and single-minded disposition, was looked upon by many as crafty and designing. ”

“ But when Tiberius was dead, and Gaius succeeded to the empire, he then, following a new master, who invited him to every description of relaxation and luxury, such as could delight every one of his outward senses, said to himself: "Rise up, O Helicon! now is your opportunity. You have now an auditor, and a spectator, who is of all men in the world the best calculated to receive the exhibition of your talents favourably. You are a man of very attractive natural talents. You are able to joke graceful, and to say witty, things beyond any one else. ”

“ As a matter of fact, when among the crowd of gilded knights placed by Metellus on the Capitol, I noticed a likeness of Africanus with the name Serapio on the pedestal, I thought it was a workman’s error, but now I see it is Metellus’ mistake. What gross ignorance of history! For that misconception about Flavius and the calendar, if it is such, is widely held: and you were quite right in having doubts about it. ”