629 631 -639 125 124 123 121 Romans suffered that rich kingdom to waste A R. B. C, away of itself, and extended their dominion westward. During the wars of Demetrius Nicator, and Zebina, they began to extend their dominion beyond the Alps; 650 and Sextius having conquered the Gauls, called Salii, established in the city of Aix, a colony, which bears his name to this day. The Gauls made but a poor defence. Fabius subdued the Allobroges, and all the neighbouring nation; and the same year that Grypus caused his mother to drink the poison she had prepared for him, Gallia. Narbonensis, reduced into a province, received the name of a Roman province. Thus the Roman empire grew in greatness, and gradually possessed itself of all the lands and seas of the then known world. But as fair as the face of the republic seemed outwardly by its conquests, so was it disfigured by the inordinate ambition of its citizens, and by its intestine broils. The most illustrious of the Romans became the most pernicious to the public weal. The two Gracchi, by flattering the people, began divisions, which ended only with the commonwealth. Caius, brother of Tiberius, could not bear their having put to death so great a man, in so tragical a manner. Animated to vengeance by impulses, which were thought to be inspired by the ghost of Tiberius, he armed all the citizens against one another, and as he was upon the point of destroying the whole, he was cut off by a death like that he meant to revenge. Money did every thing at Rome. Jugurtha 635 640 119 114 641 118 648 106 651 652 654 103 102 100 A. R. B. C. king of Numidia, stained with the murder of his brothers, whom the Roman people protected, defended himself longer by his presents than by his arms; and Marius, who completed his overthrow, could only arrive at the command, by exciting the people against the nobles. The slaves took up arms once more in Sicily; and their second revolt cost the Romans no less blood than the first. Marius beat the Teutons, Cimbrians, and other northern nations, who were penetrating into the Gauls, into Spain, and into Italy. The victories he obtained over them afforded an opportunity for proposing a new distribution of lands. Metellus, who opposed it, was forced to give way to the times, and the divisions were only extinguished by the blood of Saturnius, a tribune of the people. While Rome protected Cappadocia against Mithridates king of Pontus, and so great a foe yielded to the Roman force, with Greece, which had espoused his interest; Italy, long exercised and following. in arms by so many wars, either against, or with the Romans, endangered their empire by an universal revolt. Rome felt herself at the same time torn by the animosities of Marius and Sylla, one of whom had made both the South and North to tremble, and the other was the conquerer of Greece and Asia. Sylla, who was styled the fortunate, was too much so against his country, which his tyrannical dictatorship brought into servitude. He might indeed voluntarily lay down the sovereign power, but he could not hinder the effect of bad example. 94 88 660 666 668 663 91 666 667 672 675 86 88 87 82 79 680 681 683 686 74* 73 71 63 Every one wanted to rule. Sertorius, a zea- A. R. B. C. lous partizan of Marius, cantoned himself in Spain, and entered into a league with Mithridates. Against so great a captain, force was of no avail; and Pompey could find no way of reducing that party but by sowing division in it. Not even Spartacus, the gladiator, but thought he might aspire to the command. That slave caused no less trouble to the pretors and consuls, than Mithridates was creating to Lucullus. The war of the Gladiators became formidable to the Roman power. Crassus found it difficult to put an end to it, so that it became necessary to send the great Pompey against them. Lucullus was getting the better in the East. The Romans passed the Euphrates: but their general, invincible against the enemy, could not keep his own soldiers in their duty. Mithridates, frequently beaten, but never losing courage, was recruiting his force, and Pompey's good fortune seemed necessary to put a happy period to the war. He was just come from scouring the seas of 687 the pirates, that infested them from Syria as far as the pillars of Hercules, when he was sent against Mithridates. His glory appeared then at its height. He completed the subjection of that valiant king; of Armenia, whither he had fled for refuge; of 689 Iberia and Albania, which supported him; of Syria, torn by its factions; of Judea, where the division of the Asmoneans left Hyrcanus II. the son of Alexander Janneus, but a shadow of power; and, in short, of the whole East. But he would not have 691 65 62 091 696 63 58 A. R. B. C. had a place for his triumph over so many enemies, had it not been for the consul Cicero, who saved the city from the flames that were preparing for it by Catiline, supported by the most illustrious of the Roman nobility. This formidable party was ruined more by Cicero's eloquence, than by the arms of C. Antonius his colleague. The liberty of the Roman people was not the more secure. Pompey reigned in the senate, and his great name made him absolute master of all deliberations. Julius Ceand following. sar, by subduing the Gauls, gained his country the most useful conquest it had ever made. So signal a service enabled him to establish his dominion in his own country. He wanted first to equal, and then to surpass Pompey. The immense riches of Crassus made him fancy he might share the glory of these two great men, as he did their authority. He rashly undertook the war against the Parthians, which proved fatal to himself and to his country. The Arsacidæ victorious, insulted by cruel railleries, the ambition of the Romans, and the insatiable avarice of their general. But the disgrace of the Roman name was not the worst effect of Crassus's overthrow. power counterbalanced that of Pompey and Cesar, whom he kept united, as it were, against their will. By his death the mound, that confined them, was broken down. The two rivals, who had all the forces of the commonwealth in their hands, decided their quarrel at Pharsalia by a bloody battle: Cesar, victorious, appeared in a moment all 700 ૐ 701 703 706 54 53 48 His 707 47 708 46 709 45 710 44 43 42 over the world; in Egypt, in Asia, in Mau- A. R. B. C. ritania, in Spain: conquerer on all sides, he was acknowledged master at Rome, and in the whole empire. Brutus and Cassius thought to set their fellow citizens free by 1 murdering him as a tyrant, notwithstanding his clemency. Rome fell again into the hands of Mark Antony, Lepidus, and the young Cesar Octavianus, grand nephew to Julius Cesar, and his adopted son; three 712 insupportable tyrants, whose triumvirate and proscriptions cannot yet be read without horror. But they were too violent to last long. These three persons divide the empire amongst them. Česar keeps Italy; and changing instantly his former cruelties into mildness, he makes it believed that he was drawn into them by his colleagues. The remains of the republic perish with Brutus and Cassius. Antony and Cesar, 72 after ruining Lepidus, fall next upon each other. The whole Roman power puts to sea. Cesar wins the battle of Actium: the forces of Egypt, and of the East, which Antony brought with him, are dispersed; all his friends abandon him, and even his Cleopatra, for whom he had ruined himself. Herod the Idumean, who owed every thing to him, is forced to give assistance to the victor, and maintains himself, by this mean, 724 in possession of the kingdom of Judea, which the weakness of old Hyrcanus had entirely lost to the Asmoneans. Every thing yields to Cesar's fortune: Alexandria opens her gates to him: Egypt becomes a Roman province: Cleopatra, despairing of being 718 36 723 32 31 ୫ |