Roman civil wars

“ The essential fact is, that Rome became unable to keep up the strength of its armies. First, there were lacking the men to fill up the legions. The civil wars had reduced the population in Italy and in other countries. The efforts of Augustus to encourage marriage by bounties proved of little avail. Secondly, the class of independent Italian yeomen, which had made up the bone and sinew of the Roman armies, passed away. Slavery supplanted free labor. Thirdly, in the third century terrible plagues swept over the empire. ”

“ The devastating civil wars and bloody contests of the Prætorian Guards with the legions, which stained with blood the annals, and shortened the existence of the Roman empire, may show what is the fate of a great nation which, having cast away the bonds of hereditary loyalty, has nothing to be guided by, in the choice of a ruler, but the blind partiality of armed men, or the corrupted support of interested hirelings. ”

“ The critical days of any contest are seldom those of its final culmination. The end has generally been long foreshadowed. The time at which the last stand for the Roman liberties was made was not during the civil wars of the last century before Christ, but at the time of the attempted reforms of the previous century. The years in which the great crisis of the Roman republic was reached were those from 134 to 121 B.C., the years marked by the activities of the Gracchi. ”

“ We are likewise informed that the legions themselves were struck with horror and remorse, and that those pious sons of the republic refused to violate the sanctity of their venerable parent. 26 But when we recollect with how much ease, in the more ancient civil wars, the zeal of party and the habits of military obedience had converted the native citizens of Rome into her most implacable enemies, we shall be inclined to distrust this extreme delicacy of strangers and barbarians, who had never beheld Italy till they entered it in a hostile manner. ”

“ Still, unless something was done, matters would become worse; the poor would become poorer, and the slaves more numerous, and the state would descend more rapidly into the yawning abyss beneath it. Under these circumstances, two young men, belonging to one of the noblest families in Rome, came forward to save the Republic, but perished in the attempt. Their violent death may be regarded as the beginning of the Civil Wars, which ended in the destruction of freedom, and the establishment of the despotism of the Empire. ”

“ But what other motive or wish have the Romans, than, induced by envy, to settle in the lands and states of those whom they have learned by fame to be noble and powerful in war, and impose on them perpetual slavery? For they never have carried on wars on any other terms. But if you know not these things which are going on in distant countries, look to the neighbouring Gaul, which being reduced to the form of a province, stripped of its rights and laws, and subjected to Roman despotism, is oppressed by perpetual slavery. ”

“ The poorer class of the free inhabitants availed themselves of the general confusion to indulge in unrestrained license and devastation. This insurrection became so [187] formidable, that again Rome was compelled to rouse her energies. A consular army was sent, which drove the insurgents into their strongholds and then subdued them by the slow process of siege. The carnage and misery resulting from these servile wars no tongue can tell. The whole power of the Roman empire was pledged to put down insurrections ”

“ Ye can therefore insure to yourselves perpetual peace, as far as regards the Latins, either by adopting severe or lenient measures. Do ye choose to adopt cruel conduct towards people who have surrendered and have been conquered? Ye may destroy all Latium, make a vast desert of a place whence, in many and serious wars, ye have often made use of an excellent army of allies. Do you wish, according to the example of your ancestors, to augment the Roman state by admitting the vanquished among your citizens? Materials for extending your power by the highest glory are at hand. ”

“ Degenerate morals keep pace with civil contests. Rome revels in the spoils of all kingdoms and countries, is intoxicated with power, becomes cruel and tyrannical, and, after yielding up the lives of citizens to fortunate generals, yields at last her liberties, and imperial despotism begins its reign,—hard, immovable, resolute,—under which genius is crushed, and life becomes epicurean, but under which property and order are preserved. The regime is bad; but it is a change for the better. War has produced its fruits. It has added empire, but undermined prosperity ”

“ There were many Roman wars which were exceptions, when an exalted patriotism was the animating principle; but aggressive war was the policy and shame of Rome. Her citizens did not generally fight to preserve liberties or rights or national existence, but for self-aggrandizement. Incessant campaigns for a thousand years brought out military science, courage, energy, and a grasping and selfish patriotism. They gave power, skill to rule, executive talents; and these qualities, eminently adapted to worldly greatness, made the Romans universal masters, even if they do not make them interesting. ”

“ Let loose from furthest North her fair-haired tribes:
Elbe, pour thy Suevians forth! Let us be foes
Of all the peoples. May the Getan press
Here, and the Dacian there; Pompeius meet
The Eastern archers, Caesar in the West
Confront th' Iberian. Leave to Rome no hand
To raise against herself in civil strife.
Or, if Italia by the gods be doomed,
Let all the sky, fierce Parent, be dissolved
And falling on the earth in flaming bolts,
Their hands still bloodless, strike both leaders down,
With both their hosts! Why plunge in novel crime
To settle which of them shall rule in Rome? ”

“ Already they had heard whispers of how hard barbarians were pressing upon Rome, day by day they saw Britain depleted of the stalwart legionaries who had occupied the land four hundred years, and as phalanx after phalanx went south through Gaul to protect the mother city on the Tiber, their demagogues secretly stirred the people up to ambition and discontent.
Nor can it be denied the villains had something to grumble for. Society was dissolute and debased, while the country was full of those who made the good Roman name a byword. ”

“ Italy lay torn and exhausted by civil war. Agriculture had been ruined, thousands slain, and business of all kinds was at a standstill. The war in the East shook the very life of the Republic to its foundations. Rome lived, as London lives, on trade and supplies from overseas. They were stopped. There was a money panic. The danger was the greater that the revolt against Rome, both in Italy and in Asia, Greece, and elsewhere, had right on its side. The Roman Government, in the years that had passed since the defeat of Hannibal, had been bad: cruel, extortionate, and unjust. ”

“ Why should a Roman soldier have the right of appeal to a civil tribunal, and an Italian soldier be at the mercy of martial law? Why should two Italians for every one Roman be forced to fight Rome's battles? Why should insolent young Romans and the fine ladies of the metropolis insult Italian magistrates and murder Italians of humbler rank? This was the reward of their long fidelity. If here and there a statesman was willing to yield them the franchise, the flower of the aristocracy, the Scaevolae and the Crassi, expelled them by an Alien Act from Rome. ”

“ We purpose to go no further back than the beginning of the war, and to let the facts which we shall name speak for themselves. If they have no other lesson, they will, at least, show that Rome, during our terrible struggle for national existence, was true to her ancient history and traditions, as the enemy of civil liberty and the friend of the oppressor the world over. ”

“ Much has been said of the right of conquest; and history contains little more than accounts of kingdoms reduced by it under the dominion of other kingdoms, and of the havock it has made among mankind. But the authority derived from hence, being founded on violence, is never rightful. The Roman Republic was nothing but a faction against the general liberties of the world ”

“ Romans! raised to the rank of your Senator, my whole thought has been for your liberties and welfare; already treason defeated in the City, our banners triumphant without, attest the favour with which the Deity regards men who seek to unite liberty with law. Let us set an example to Italy and the World! Let us prove that the Roman sword can guard the Roman Forum! In each Rione of the City is provided a Legion of the Citizens, collected from the traders and artisans of the town; they allege that they cannot leave their callings without remuneration. ”

“ Expansion by means of military conquest increased the influence of the military at the expense of the civilian administrators. The consequent burdens of militarism reached from the bottom to the top of Roman society. Eventually, under the Caesars, the military selected emperors from among the rivals for the purple of imperial authority, and used the legions under their command to protect and promote their own political fortunes, thus maintaining a form of latent and frequently open civil war. ”

“ When Rome had once tasted the fruits of foreign conquest, the extension of such conquests became the great object of Roman ambition. It was not by accident but by deliberately planned wars of conquest that the so-called world empire of the Romans was acquired.
With the United States the comparatively few and unimportant insular possessions are still a matter of secondary concern. But few of the citizens of this country give any thought or attention to these possessions, and many even favor their abandonment. ”

“ Have all our rights fallen so far, that in a province of the Roman people,—in a town of our confederate allies,—a Roman citizen should be bound in the forum, and beaten with rods by a man who only had the fasces and the axes through the kindness of the Roman people? What shall I say? When fire, and red-hot plates, and other instruments of torture were employed? If the bitter entreaties and the miserable cries of that man had no power to restrain you, were you not moved even by the weeping and loud groans of the Roman citizens who were present at that time? ”

“ Born to glory and to liberty, let us hold these bright distinctions fast, or let us greatly die! Be it, Romans, our first resolve to strike down the tyrant and the tyranny. Be it our second to endure all things for the honor and liberty of our country. To submit to infamy for the love of life can never come within the contemplation of a Roman soul! For you, the people of Rome—you whom the gods have appointed to rule the world—for you to own a master, is impious. ”

“ Such attempts to place the moral responsibility for a war upon the enemy are common to all ages and are not always convincing. However, if we may not convict the Romans of aggressive imperialism prior to 265, at any rate the methods which they pursued in their relations with the other peoples of Italy made their domination inevitable in view of the Roman national character and their political and military organization. ”

“ Secret societies have swarmed in Rome during his reign. What remonstrances from without has he silenced? Europe continues to complain unanimously, and day by day lifts up its voice a tone or two higher. He has failed to reconcile one single party or one single power to the Holy father. During his ten years' dictatorship, he has neither gained the esteem of one foreigner nor the confidence of one Roman. All he has gained is time. ”

“ Although it is true that the history of early Rome, unlike the histories of the various early Grecian states, records few instances where hatred or bitterness arising from political defeat induced a citizen to turn traitor to his country, and although the approach of a foreign foe was generally sufficient to bring about a truce in Roman political hostilities and the union of all factions in the city against the common national enemy, still it must be remembered that the amount of energy possessed by a community is limited. ”

“ Thus wars are not an unmixed calamity, since the evils are overruled in the ultimate good of nations. But they are a great calamity for the time, and they are sent when nations most need chastisement.
[Sidenote: Conquest of the Celts.]
The Romans triumphed, by their great and unexampled energy and patience and heroism, over all the world, and erected their universal empire upon the ruins of all the states of antiquity. They were suffered to increase and prosper, that great ends might be accomplished, either by the punishment of the old nations, or the creation of a new civilization. ”

“ Complete equality of political and civil rights has never existed, in any republic, among those subject to the laws; and throughout the whole history of the Roman republic the most striking discriminations existed between different strata in the political and economic organizations.
The contests arising from caste distinctions among the Romans themselves are discussed in other chapters of this volume; it is here proposed to treat of the distinctions existing between Roman citizens, allies, and subjects and to describe briefly the status of each class. ”