The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0001/00016.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 25KB | 379 lines

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$Title{Julius Caesar
Chapter I: Marius And Sylla}
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$Author{Abbott, Jacob}
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$Date{1900}
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Title:       Julius Caesar
Author:      Abbott, Jacob
Date:        1900

Chapter I: Marius And Sylla

     There were three great European nations in ancient days, each of which
furnished history with a hero: the Greeks, the Carthaginians, and the Romans.

     Alexander was the hero of the Greeks.  He was King of Macedon, a county
lying north of Greece proper.  He headed an army of his countrymen, and made
an excursion for conquest and glory into Asia.  He made himself master of all
that quarter of the globe, and reigned over it in Babylon, till he brought
himself to an early grave by the excesses into which his boundless prosperity
allured him.  His fame rests on his triumphant success in building up for
himself so vast an empire, and the admiration which his career has always
excited among mankind is heightened by the consideration of his youth, and of
the noble and generous impulses which strongly marked his character.

     The Carthaginian hero was Hannibal.  We class the Carthaginians among the
European nations of antiquity; for, in respect to their origin, their
civilization, and all their commercial and political relations, they belonged
to the European race, though it is true that their capital was on the African
side of the Mediterranean Sea.  Hannibal was the great Carthaginian hero.  He
earned his fame by the energy and implacableness of his hate.  The work of his
life was to keep a vast empire in a state of continual anxiety and terror for
fifty years, so that his claim to greatness and glory rests on the
determination, the perseverance, and the success with which he fulfilled his
function of being, while he lived, the terror of the world.

     The Roman hero was Caesar.  He was born just one hundred years before the
Christian era.  His renown does not depend, like that of Alexander, on foreign
conquests, nor, like that of Hannibal, on the terrible energy of his
aggressions upon foreign foes, but upon his protracted and dreadful contests
with, and ultimate triumphs over, his rivals and competitors at home.  When he
appeared upon the stage, the Roman empire already included nearly all of the
world that was worth possessing.  There were no more conquests to be made.
Caesar did, indeed, enlarge, in some degree, the boundaries of the empire; but
the main question in his day was, who should possess the power which preceding
conquerors had acquired.

     The Roman empire, as it existed in those days, must not be conceived of
by the reader as united together under one compact and consolidated
government.  It was, on the other hand, a vast congeries of nations, widely
dissimilar in every respect from each other, speaking various languages, and
having various customs and laws.  They were all, however, more or less
dependent upon, and connected with, the great central power.  Some of these
countries were provinces, and were governed by officers appointed and sent out
by the authorities at Rome.  These governors had to collect the taxes of their
provinces, and also to preside over and direct, in many important respects,
the administration of justice.  They had, accordingly, abundant opportunities
to enrich themselves while thus in office, by collecting more money than they
paid over to the government at home, and by taking bribes to favor the rich
man's cause in court.  Thus the more wealthy and prosperous provinces were
objects of great competition among aspirants for office at Rome.  Leading men
would get these appointments, and, after remaining long enough in their
provinces to acquire a fortune, would come back to Rome, and expend it in
intrigues and maneuvers to obtain higher offices still.

     Whenever there was any foreign war to be carried on with a distant nation
or tribe, there was always a great eagerness among all the military officers
of the state to be appointed to the command.  They each felt sure that they
should conquer in the contest, and they could enrich themselves still more
rapidly by the spoils of victory in war, than by extortion and bribes in the
government of a province in peace.  Then, besides, a victorious general coming
back to Rome always found that his military renown added vastly to his
influence and power in the city.  He was welcomed with celebrations and
triumphs; the people flocked to see him and to shout his praise.  He placed
his trophies of victory in the temples, and entertained the populace with
games and shows, and with combats of gladiators or of wild beasts, which he
had brought home with him for this purpose in the train of his army.  While he
was thus enjoying his triumph, his political enemies would be thrown into the
background and into the shade; unless, indeed, some one of them might himself
be earning the same honors in some other field, to come back in due time, and
claim his share of power and celebrity in his turn.  In this case, Rome would
be sometimes distracted and rent by the conflicts and contentions of military
rivals, who had acquired powers too vast for all the civil influences of the
Republic to regulate or control.

     There had been two such rivals just before the time of Caesar, who had
filled the world with their quarrels.  They were Marius and Sylla.  Their very
names have been, in all ages of the world, since their day, the symbols of
rivalry and hate.  They were the representatives respectively of the two great
parties into which the Roman state, like every other community in which the
population at large have any voice in governing, always has been, and probably
always will be divided, the upper and the lower; or, as they were called in
those days, the patrician and the plebeian.  Sylla was the patrician; the
higher and more aristocratic portions of the community were on his side.
Marius was the favorite of the plebeian masses.  In the contests, however,
which they waged with each other, they did not trust to the mere influence of
votes.  They relied much more upon the soldiers they could gather under their
respective standards, and upon their power of intimidating, by means of them,
the Roman assemblies.  There was a war to be waged with Mithridates, a very
powerful Asiatic monarch, which promised great opportunities for acquiring
fame and plunder.  Sylla was appointed to the command.  While he was absent,
however, upon some campaign in Italy, Marius contrived to have the decision
reversed, and the command transferred to him Two officers, called tribunes,
were sent to Sylla's camp to inform him of the change.  Sylla killed the
officers for daring to bring him such a message, and began immediately to
march toward Rome.  In retaliation for the murder of the tribunes, the party
of Marius in the city killed some of Sylla's prominent friends there, and a
general alarm spread itself throughout the population.  The Senate, which was
a sort of House of Lords, embodying mainly the power and influence of the
patrician party, and was, of course, on Sylla's side, sent out to him, when he
had arrived within a few miles of the city, urging him to come no further.  He
pretended to comply; he marked out the ground for a camp; but he did not, on
that account, materially delay his march.  The next morning he was in
possession of the city.  The friends of Marius attempted to resist him, by
throwing stones upon his troops from the roofs of the houses.  Sylla ordered
every house from which these symptoms of resistance appeared to be set on
fire.  Thus the whole population of a vast and wealthy city were thrown into a
condition of extreme danger and terror, by the conflicts of two great bands of
armed men, each claiming to be their friends.

     Marius was conquered in this struggle, and fled for his life.  Many of
the friends whom he left behind him were killed.  The Senate were assembled,
and, at Sylla's orders, a decree was