J H UUl»-; JBequeatbeo to Gbe Xtbrarp oftbe inntversttp of Toronto bfi professor TRH. 5. flMlner m /I THE GREATNESS AND DECLINE OF ROME ROMAN ART By F. Wickhoff Profusely Illustrated, i vol. 36s. net " Is full of the most admirable observation and description. The translation is excellent." Atkiturum. THE ROMAN CAPITOL IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES By E. RoDOCANACHi Illustrated. 1 vol. 4s. net " For a account of the Roman really scholarly Capitol nothing could be fuller and more trustworthy than this." Bookman. ITALIAN JOURNEYS By W. D. Howells Illustrated by Joseph Pennell. i vol. 10s. net " This is a volume which can be confidently recom- mended both to the travelled and the stay-at-home community."—Bookman. MASTERPIECES OF GREEK SCULPTURE By A. FlIRTWANGLE* Profusely Illustrated. 1 vol. Imp. 8vo, £3 3s. net "A volume which, both in its and artistic literary' aspect, it is difficult to praise too highly. —Spectator. SICILY By A. J. C. Hare and St. Clair Baddeley With Map, Plans, and numerous Illustrations. 1 vol. 3s. " We should advise all visitors to Sicily to take this book with them. It is excellent reading.' —Graphic. London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN ^HHHH 5%*uua eZag&a/t/ WL' THE GREATNESS AND DECLINE OF ROME VOL. I. THE EMPIRE BUILDERS BY GUGLIELMO FERRERO TRANSLATED BY ALFRED E. ZIMMERN, M.A. FELLOW AND TUTOR OF NEW COLLECE, OXFORD LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1907 D<5 15M ?2>2> v.l Co p.. 2. /<// rights reserved PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION These two volumes contain a history of the age of Caesar, from the death of Sulla to the Ides of March. They cover the critical years in which Roman imperialism definitely asserted its sway over the civilised world—when, by the conversion of the Mediterranean into an Italian lake, Italy entered upon her historic task as intermediary between the Hellenised East and barbarous Europe. Prefixed to the work are five introductory chapters giving a somewhat lengthy summary of Roman history down to the moment when the detailed narrative begins. Despite the many defects to which this style of writing is obviously exposed, I would beg my readers to study these chapters with patience and for are a introduction to the full goodwill ; they necessary description and understanding of Caesar's own age. Human history, like all other phenomena of life and motion, is the unconscious product of an infinity of small and un- noticed efforts. Its work is done, spasmodically and in disorder, by single individuals or groups of individuals, acting generally from immediate motives, with results which always transcend the knowledge and intentions of contemporaries, and are but seldom revealed, darkly and for a moment, to succeeding generations. To find a clue to the immediate, accidental, * and transitory motives which have pricked on the men of the to their labours to describe and past ; vividly whole-heartedly their vicissitudes and anxieties, their struggles and illusions, as their work to discover how and they pursued ; why, through this work, the men of one generation have often, not satisfied the passions which spurred them to action, but effected some lasting transformation in the life of their society—this should be, in my opinion, the unfailing inspiration of the historian's task. v vi PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION I hope that my book has enabled me to demonstrate that the Roman world-conquest, one of those amazing spectacles in history which, seen from a distance, seem to defy both comparison and explanation, was in reality the effect, remark- able, indeed, for its special conditions of place and time, of an internal transformation which is continually being re-enacted in the history of societies on a larger or a smaller scale, promoted by the same causes and with the same resultant confusion and suffering— the growth of a nationalist and industrial democracy on the ruins of a federation of agricultural aristocracies. My intention is to continue the narrative, in succeeding volumes, down to the break-up of the Empire. We shall watch, in the generation between Augustus and Nero, the appearance of a new aristocracy out of the industrial democracy of Caesar's shall watch this age ; we aristocracy, all-powerful in a peaceful empire, crumble slowly to pieces through its own prosperity, while Christianity and the Oriental worships its foundations and we shall watch undermine spiritual ; finally it is takes it into the as^ it engulfed anew, and down with deeps all that was most ancient and revered in Graeco-Latin civilisation. Thus the book includes in its survey the entire course of one of the most remarkable societies in history, from its birth to its death—from the far-distant morning when a small clan of peasants and shepherds felled the forests on the Palatine to raise altars to its tribal deities, down to the tragic hour in which the sun of Graeco-Latin civilisation set over the deserted fields, the abandoned cities, the homeless, ignorant, and brutalised peoples of Latin Europe. Turin: December i, 1901. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGB I. The Small Beginnings of a Great Empire . i II. The First Military and Commercial Expansion of Rome in the Mediterranean Basin . 18 III. The Gracchi and the New Italy .... 44 IV. Marius and the Great Proletarian Rising of the Ancient World 70 V. Sulla and the Conservative Reaction ... 87 VI. Caesar's Debut in Politics 106 VII. The Conquest of Bithynia 128 VIII. The Invasion of Pontus and the Proctorship of Crassus 143 IX. The New Popular Party 159 X. The Conquest of Armenia and the Financial Crisis in Italy 176 XI. The Fall of Lucullus 186 XII. Cicero and the Manilian Law .... 202 XIII. The Egyptian Project 211 XIV. How Cesar Became a Demagogue . 224 XV. Catiline 239 XVI. The Return of Pompey and the Trial of Clodius 260 XVII. The Three-Headed Monster 277 XVIII. Empire-Building 303 NOTE At the end of Vol. II. the reader will find a Bibliography explaining the abbreviations used in the footnotes, and four critical Appendices : i. On the Corn Trade in Antiquity. 2. On the Chronology of the Campaigns of Lucullus. 3. The Relations of Crassus, Porapey and Caesar between 70 and 60 b.c. 4. The War against the Helvetii and the Suevi, CHAPTER I THE SMALL BEGINNINGS OF A GREAT EMPIRE Italy in the second half of the fifth century b.c. —The warfare between the small republics, and its causes—Rome as a small aristocratic and agricultural State—Its condition amid this warfare—The family organisation—Conservative spirit of the nobility—Rigidly aristocratic and republican government and institutions—Rome's early wars at the head of the Latin Con- federacy, fifth and fourth centuries b.c. —Their results—In- crease of territory, foundation of colonies, conclusion of alliances, increase of State and private resources—Abundance of diffusion of of slaves, prairie pasturage, increase precious metals—Gradual growth of luxury, fidelity to old ways of life, consolidation of the old landlord aristocracy—The vic- torious wars of the fourth and third centuries—Rome wins the political supremacy of Italy—Rural and aristocratic society at its zenith—Its virtues and defects—Conquest of Magna Gracia—First Punic War and conquest of Sicily— First signs of the trading spirit—The first middlemen -con- tractors—The nobility begin to engage in speculation—Be- ginnings of literature—First appearance of a democratic party —Caius Flaminius and the conquest of the Po Valley—The in- vasion of Hannibal—Strength and weakness, losses and gains, of Rome in the Second Punic War. In the second half of the fifth century before Christ Rome was Rome in 45o ~4°° still an aristocratic community of free peasants, occupying an area of nearly 400 square miles,* with a population, certainly not exceeding I50,ooo,t almost entirely dispersed over the * Cf. Beloch, I. B., 29 ff. 69. * It is true that to iii. the t according Livy , 24, census of 459 B.C. counted 117,319 citizens, which would give a free population of about 400,000. But these figures do not seem to me probable, for the following reasons : (1) If Rome had at that time had as many as 120,000 soldiers, she would not have experienced so much difficulty in conquering the small neighbouring peoples. (2) A population of over 1000 inhabitants to the square mile could not possibly have subsisted, no matter how poor, at a time when Rome lived entirely on the produce of the land. (3) These figures do not agree with others which are more certain. If there were 165,000 citizens on a territory of 1045 square miles in 339 b.c, and 260,321 citizens on 1606 square miles in 293 B.C. I , A GREATNESS AND DECLINE OF ROME 450-400 b.c. countryside and divided into seventeen districts or rural Tribes. Most of the families had a small holding and cottage of their own, where father and sons lived and worked together, growing corn for the most part, with here and there a strip of vine or olive. Their few head of cattle were kept at pasture the land their clothes on neighbouring common ; and simple implements of husbandry they_made for themselves at home. Only at rare intervals and on special occasions would they make their way into the fortified town which was the centre at once of their religion and their government. Here were the temples of the gods, the houses of the wealthy, and the shops of the artisans and traders, where corn, oil or wine could be bartered in small quantities for salt oV 'F&ngh tools and weapons of iron.