For thd next 10 years the internal history of Rome is a scene of wild confusion and discord. Marius, an admirable soldier, but otherwise a man of, eilJ and utterly unfit to play the part of a statesman, was the idol of the poor e.11Z,MS, whoiltg,d him to save the state from the rapacious misgovernment of the ios mumps were pitiable failures; the brave honest soldier fell into the hands in.i..etripulous dema gogues like Glaucia and Saturniuus, and sullied the laurels he had won in war by asso ciating with men who did not hesitate to assassinate a political opponent. Not less fruitless was the wise and patriotic effort of Livius Drusus—" the Graechus of the aris tocracy "—to effect a compromise between the privileges of the rich and the claims of the poor. The oligarchic party among the former, i.e. the senate, were enraged by his proposition to double their numbers by the introduction of 300 equines ;, the hitter by his offer to the " Latins" and " allied Italians" of the Roman franchise. Drusus fell 91 inc., by the steel of a hired bravo. Hardly a year elapsed before the whole of the sub ject " Italians"—i.e., the lfiarsians, Peliguiturs, Marrucinians. Vestinians, Picentines, Samnites, and Lncanians—were up in wild and furionc revolt against Rome; and. though the rebellion was crushed in less than two years by the superior generalship of Marius, Sulla, and Pompeius Strabo (father of the "great' Pompey), the insurgents v.rtnally triumphed; for the promise which Drusus had held out to them of the "Roman franchise." was made good by the Lex Plautia Papiria, 89 B.C. Yet the cost was terrible. It is calculated that 300,000 men—the flower of Rome and Italy—perished in the strwrgle; nor was even this tremendous holocaust sufficient to appease the fates. The jealousy that had long existed on the part of iNiarius toward his younger and more gifted rival, Sulla (q.v.), kindled into a flame of hate when the latter was elected consul 88 B.0 , and received the command of the Mithridatic war—an honor which Marius coveted for him self. Then followed the fearful years of the "civil wars" between the two chiefs, 88-82 B.C., when blood was spilt like water; and proscriptions and massacres were the order of the day. It was a " reign of ten-or "—surpassing even the excesses of the French revolutionists. Sulla, the leader of the aristocracy, which was nominally the party of order, triumphed, but the ferocious energy displayed by the revolutionists convinced him that the "Roman franchise" could never again be safely withdrawn from the " Italians;" and Roman citizens, therefore, they remained till the diSsolution of the empire; but, on the other hand, his whole legislation was directed toward the destruc tion of the political power of the burgesses, and to the restoration to the senatorial aris tocracy and priesthood of the authority and influence they had possessed in the times of the Punic wars. That his design was to build up a strong and vigorous executive can not admit of doubt, but the rottenness of Roman society Was beyond the reach of cure by any human policy. It would be hopeless in our limits to attempt even the most superficial sketch of the complicated history of this period, which,'besides, will be fonnd given with considerable fullness of detail in the biographies of its lending personages. SER TORIUS, LUCULLUS, CRASSUS, POMPEY, MITIIRIDATES, CAESAR, CICERO. CATILLNE. MARK ARTONY, LEPIDUS, CLEOPATRA, CLODIUS, BRUTUS, CASSIUS, CATO, and AUGUSTUS. The very utmost we can attempt is to enumerate results.
Abroad the Roman army continued as before to prove irresistible. About 13 years after the extermination of the northern barbarians, the Cimbri and Teutones, or ID 88 B.C., broke out in the far east the first of the "Mithridatic wars," which. like the Sam nite, Punic, and Macedonian wars. were three in number. Begun by Sulla, 88 B.C., they were brought to a successful close by Pompey, 65 B.C., although the gen. that had really. broken the power of Mithridates was Lucullus. The result was the annexation of the sultauatq of Pontus, as a new province of the Roman republic. year, Pompey marched southward with his army, deposed Antiochus Asiaticus, king of Syria, and transformed his kingdom also into a Roman province, while in the following year (63 me.) he reduced to a state of dependence Phenicia, Ccele-Syria, and Palestine, storming Jerusalem, and, to the horror of the Jews, violating their holy of holies. But what a terrible commentary it is upon these glittering triumphs to remember that during the same year there was hatched at Rome the conspiracy of Canine (q.v.), which, if it had not been crushed by an extraordinary display of decision on the part of the consul Cicero, would have placed at least the city of Rome at the mercy of a crew of aristocratic des peradoes find cut-throats. One thing now becomes particularly noticeable, viz., the paralysis of the senate—that "governing board" as Mommsen calls it, that bad once been the mightiest'power in the world. In spite of all that Sulla did to make it once pore the governing body in the state, the power passed out of its hands. –Torn by wretched jealousies, spites, piques (personal and partisan), it could do nothing but squabble or feebly attempt to frustrate the purpose of men whom it considered formida ble. Henceforth the interest as.well as the importance of Roman history attaches to individuals, and the senate sinks deeper and deeper into insignificance, until at last it becomes merely the obsequious council of the emperors. The famous coalition of
CrAssus, Pompey, and Caesar (known as the first triumvirate), which dates from the year 60 B.C., proves how weak the government and how powerful individuals had become; and the same fact is even more dismally brought out by the lawless and bloody tribunates of Clodius and Milo (58-57 u.c.), when Rome was for a while at the mercy of travos and gladiators. The campaigns of Caesar in Gaul (58-50 n.e.), by which the whole of that country was reduced to subjection; his rupture with Pompey; his defiance of the senate; the civil wars; his, victory, dictatorship, and assassination; the restoration of the senatorial oligarchy; the second triumvirate, composed of Antony, Impidus, and Octavian; the overthrow of the oligarchy at Philippi; the struggle between Antony and Octavian; the triumph of the latter, rind his investment with absolute power for life (29 n.e.), which put an end at least to time civil dissensions that had raged so long (and was therefore so far a blessing to the state), are described in the biographical articles already referred to.
' THE RonAN ESwIRE.—When Augustus had gathered up into himself all the civil and military powers of the state, its political life was at an end; henceforth time voices of the citizens are dumb, and only the rude clamor of the legions or the prmtorians (q.v.) is heard, as emperors rise and fall. It is, indeed, amazing to consider how long brute force managed to keep under the elements of anarchy and dissolution in the empire; but it must be remembered that it was the east that ruined Rome, and not Rome the cast. Even in the worst days of the republic, the Roman adminst•ators of the provinces were acknowledged to be less unjust, ravenous, tyrannical, and cruel than the native princes and sultans; and the servile myriads of Asia Minor and Syria witnessed the deposition of their dynasts without, a shadow of regret—sometimes even with a cry of joy. The Romans had therefore comparatively little difficulty- in retaining and even increasing their eastern conquests, while the superior discipline of their well-trained soldiery enabled them to repel and subdue even the intrepid barbarians of the north, though singly these were probably more gallant Men than the rank and file of the imperial legions. But no military prowess, however great, will, beyond a certain time, serve to keep a nation alive that is otherwise moribund; and even Christianity, with all its antiseptic and reviyifying influences, came too late to reanimate the national life of the empire, When Augustus died (14 A.D.), the Roman empire was separated in the n. from Germany by the Rhine, but it also included both Holland and Friesland; from about the lake of Constance it ran along the Danube to lower Mcesia, though the imperial authority was far from being firmly established there. In the e., the boundary-line was, in general,•the Euphrates; in the s., Egypt, Libya, and, in fact, the whole of Africa, as far w. as Morocco, and as far inland as Fezzan and the Sahara, acknowledged Roman authority. The Roman franchise was extended to transma•ine communities, and in the western provinces especially it became quite common. To keep this enormous territory,—containing so many different races—quiet an army of 47 legions and as many cohorts was maintained, most of whom were levied among the newly admitted burgesses of the western provinces. The reigns of Tiberius (q.v.). Caligula (q.v.), Claudius (q.v.). Nero (q.v.), Galba (q.v.), Otho (q.v.), and Vitellius (q.v.) present little of any moment in a general survey of the external history of the empire, though the chronicle of their lives—those of Galba and Otho, perhaps, excepted—has all time horrible and revolting interest that attaches to records of conspiracy, assassinations, poisonings, massacres, lust, debauchery. and delirious madness. The most notable incident of this period is probably the concentration of the praetorian guards in the vicinity of Rome during the reign of Tiberius, which Niebuhr even pronounces "the most momentous event in the history of the emperors;" and not without reason, for. until their dissolution by Diocletian, they were the real sovereigns of the empire. In Nero's time, Armenia was wrested from the Pa•tbians, and only restored to them on condition of their holding it as a "fief' of the empire; the Roman authority in England was likewise extended as far n. as the Trent; and a great rebellion in Gaul (not, how ever, against Rome, but only against Nero), headed by Julius Vindex, a noble Aqui tanian and a Roman senator, was crushed by T. Virginius Rufus, the commander of the Germanic legions. During the profound peace that the empire had enjoyed every where, except on its frontiers—since the usurpation of the imperial authority—its material prosperity had greatly increased. The population was more than doubled ; the towns became filled with 'inhabitants, and the wastes were peopled, wherever, at least, the pnblicani (q.v.) or farmers-generals had not got the land into their rapacious hands; but the immorality of the rich, especially among the females, became yet worse than before, and virtuous men actually preferred concubinage with a slave, to marriage with a free-born Roman lady.