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knew, or might have known, was one Equitius, a runaway slave, for one of the Gracchi. Though then denied by Sempronia, the still surviving sister of Caius and Tiberius, as well as by the Censors,& on whose acknowledgment his registry as a citizen depended, the impostor had shown sufficient spirit to deceive the populace, readier themselves than could have been imagined to be deceived; and he was now brought out to serve the purposes of the Tribune, equally wary and audacious in his designs. On the reappearance of the pretender in the train of Saturninus and as a candidate for the tribuneship, he was ordered by Marius to prison; but the mob broke into the place of his confinement, and, after bearing him away triumphant, elected both him and Saturninus to be their Tribunes. Meanwhile, the other leader in the recent and present seditions, Servilius Glaucia, was aiming higher, at the consulship, and on being opposed at the election, in the Centuries, notwithstanding the triumph of his confederates in the Tribes, he caused his more favored competitor, Caius Memmius, to be slain in open day.

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But the party which had been strong enough to elect Memmius, one of the most honest citizens yet left in Rome, was resolute enough to avenge his murder and to stay the havoc thus cried and repeatedly

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wrought with impunity. Marius, still Consul, put himself at the head of the universal movement, and received from the Senate unfettered authority to protect the Commonwealth.88 A terrible fray in the Forum ensued; but Saturninus, overpowered, though he had called slaves to his aid,89 soon fled up to the Capitol, with Equitius, Glaucia, and his most daring followers. Resistance there was equally vain; and when, at Marius's command, the pipes which carried water to the hill were cut off, the whole party surrendered themselves, save Glaucia, who, in endeavouring to escape alone, was killed. Saturninus and the rest were carried to the Senate-house, where they were first confined, but presently slain by tiles and weapons hurled down upon them through the roof, broken in by their infuriated pursuers. The slave accredited to have been the murderer of Saturninus was rewarded with his freedom.91

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In such seditions and in such triumphs over them, the liberty of Rome was sure to perish. As for Marius, personally, there were too many rumors of his hesitation and duplicity to leave him much, if any, credit for the part he took in the overthrow of those with whom he had been closely allied, and in whose downfall, as many declared," he deserved to have been involved. Henceforth, at all events, his character

88Ex Senatus consulto." De Vir. Ill., LXVII., LXXIII. See Cic., Pro Rab., 7-11.

89 Val. Max., VIII. 6. 2. 90 Flor., III. 16. App., Bell. Civ., I. 32. Liv., Epit. LXIX.

91 Cic., Pro Rab., 11.

92 Plut., Mar., 30. App., Bell. Civ., I. 32. Cf. Val. Max., VIII. 6. 2. Vell. Pat., II. 12.

or his position changes; and as he grows older, the virtues, comparatively speaking, of his life will be found transformed to the madness and the crime through which the strange spectacle of the later Commonwealth is doomed to end in sceptred trage

dy. Metellus Numidicus was recalled from exile in the year after the overthrow of Saturninus; 93 and when Marius, who went away for a time into Asia Minor, returned to Rome and built a palace by the Forum, he found himself, within doors and without, everywhere face to face with Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

93 Plut., Mar., 31. App., Bell. Civ., I. 33.

CHAPTER III.

THE ITALIAN WAR FOR LIBERTY.

"The causes of dissension. . . . . were infinite and unavoidable. . . . . . Rapine, outrage, murder, exactions, became universal. Commerce was interrupted; industry suspended; and every part of Germany resembled a country which an enemy had plundered and left desolate. The variety of expedients employed with a view to restore order and tranquillity prove that the grievances occasioned by this state of anarchy had grown intolerable." —) - ROBERTSON, Charles V., View, etc., Sect. III.

AMONG the adherents of Saturninus the Tribune, there were many attached less by their confidence in him or in his schemes than by their utter want of occupations, interests, and proper guides. Some of these were Romans; but the larger number were composed of throngs, yearly and almost daily driven by wretchedness from their habitations throughout Italy to seek relief in largesses, riots, affrays, or any thing in the metropolis which could excite or support their lives. Such as these, however, were the poorest and the lowest of the Italians, with whom, in general, the subject of complaint was of more difficult alleviation. Their claim, to which the Gracchi first gave heed, was to be admitted, not amongst the seditious, but amongst the powerful at Rome; and though they might have regarded Saturninus with some complacency, on account of their aversion to the dominant aristocracy as the party most hostile to themselves,

the greater number were waiting for a better time or for a more valiant leader to procure a share of the authority and the corruption which they coveted.

Yet in entering upon the period of which the interest is almost entirely concentrated in the demands, the struggles, and the acquisitions of the Italians, the sketch formerly presented of their condition is to be recalled in its lighter, as well as its heavier, outlines. For, had they not, in every respect, as must be remembered, been treated with comparative lenity and confidence on the part of their victors, neither would these have become the conquerors of more distant people, nor would they themselves, after foreign conquests and repulses of barbarian invasions, have been possessed of the spirit which they showed in turning upon their masters and demanding equal rights and equal spoils. The condition of some subject and allied people will make that of the Italians clearer, by the contrast in fortune and in hope which it affords.

When Marius was preparing his army against the Cimbri,' with authority from the Senate to levy troops in all directions, he sent to King Nicomedes of Bithynia, then in the alliance, as it was called, of Rome, to seek the auxiliaries he required. But instead of a showy troop with arms and banners, the king sent back a simple message, that the greater part of his Bithynians had been already dragged away by the Roman publicans to serve them in their provinces as slaves. The Senate, to whom this answer was re

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