While Rome was trembling for the issue
of the war with the Cimbri, she was forced to send an army elsewhere.
There was at this time another general stir among
the slave population. There were risings at Nuceria,
at Capua, in the silver mines of Attica, and at Thurii,
and the last was headed by a Roman eques, named
Minucius or Vettius. He wanted to buy a female
slave; and, failing to raise the money which was her
price, armed his own slaves, was joined by others,
assumed the state and title of king, and fortified
a camp, being at the head of 3,500 men. Lucullus,
the praetor, marched against him with 4,400 men; but
though superior in numbers, he preferred Jugurthine
tactics, and bribed a Greek to betray Vettius, who anticipated a worse fate by
suicide. But, as before,
the fiercest outbreak was in Sicily. Marius had
applied for men for his levies to Nicomedes, king of
Bithynia, who replied that he had none to send, because
the Roman publicani had carried off most of his subjects and sold them as
slaves. Thereupon the Senate issued orders that no free member of an allied
state should be kept as a slave in a Roman province. P. Licinius
Nerva, governor of Sicily, in accordance with these orders, set free a number of
Sicilian slaves; but, worked on by the indignation of the proprietors, he backed
out of what he had begun to do, and, having raised the hopes of the slaves,
caused an insurrection by disappointing them. He suppressed the first rebels by
treachery. But he was a weak man, and delayed so long in attacking another body
near Heraclea, that when he sent a lieutenant to attack them with 600 men they
were strong enough to beat him. By this success they supplied
themselves with arms, and then elected Salvius as their
king, who found himself at the head of 20,000 infantry
and 2,000 horse. With these troops he attacked
Morgantia, and, on the governor coming to relieve it, turned on him and routed
him; and by proclaiming that anyone who threw down his arms should be spared, he
got a fresh supply for his men. Then the slaves
of the west rose near Lilybaeum, headed by Athenion, a Cilician robber-captain
before he was a slave, and a man of great courage and capacity, who pretended to
be a magician and was elected king. Salvius took the
name of Tryphon, a usurper of the Syrian throne in
149. Athenion, deferring to his authority, became
his general, and Triocala, supposed to be near the
modern Calata Bellotta, was their head-quarters.
In some respects this second slave revolt was a repetition
of the first. As the Cilician Cleon submitted
to the impostor Eunous, who called himself Antiochus,
so now the Cilician Athenion submitted to the impostor
Salvius, who called himself Tryphon. The outbreak had
probably begun in 105, but it was not till 103 that
Lucullus, who had put down Vettius, was sent to Sicily with 1,600 or 1,700 men. Tryphon, distrusting Athenion, had put
him in prison. But he released him now, and at
Scirthaea a great battle was fought, in which 20,000
slaves were slain, and Athenion was left for dead.
Lucullus, however, delayed to attack Triocala, and
did nothing more, unless he destroyed his own military
stores in order to injure his successor C. Servilius.
To say that if he did so, such mean treason could only
happen in a government where place depends on a popular
vote, is a random criticism, for, though nominally
open to all, the consulship was virtually closed,
except to a few families, which retained now, as they
had always done, the high offices in their own hands,
and, when Marius forced this close circle, Metellus
is said to have acted much as Lucullus did.
Servilius was incapable. Athenion,
who at Tryphon’s death became king, surprised
his camp, and nearly captured Messana. But, in
101, M’. Aquilius was sent out, and
defeated Athenion and slew him with his own hand.
A batch of 1,000 still remained under arms, but surrendered
to Aquilius. He sent them to Rome to fight
with wild beasts in the arena. They preferred
to die by each other’s swords there. Satyrus
and one other were left last, and Satyrus after killing
his comrade slew himself. The misery caused in
Sicily by this long war, which ended in 100 B.C., may
be estimated by the fact that, whereas Sicily usually
supplied Rome with corn, it was now desolated by famine,
and its towns had to be supplied with grain from Rome.
After this narration of the military events of the period to
the beginning of the second century B.C., it is natural to consider the changes
which Marius had effected in the army the instrument of his late conquests. We cannot tell how many
of the innovations now introduced were initiated by
him, but they were introduced about this date.
Before his time the Hastati, Principes, and Triarii,
ranked according to length of service, had superseded
the Servian classes. From his time this second classification also ceased. Every legionary was armed alike with
the heavy pilum an iron-headed javelin
6 feet 9 inches long, the light pilum, a sword,
and a coat of armour. Besides these he had to carry food and other burdens,
which would vary according to the length and object of the march, such as stakes
for encampment, tools, &c. Marius invented what were called ‘Mariani
muli’ to ease the soldier forked
sticks, with a board at the end to bear the bundle,
carried over the shoulders. Before his time the
army had ceased to be recruited solely from Roman
citizens. Not only had Italians been drafted into
it, but foreign mercenaries were employed, such as
Thracians, Africans, Ligurians, and Balearians. After his time the Velites are
not mentioned, and all the light-armed troop were auxiliaries. Before his time
the maniple had been the tactical unit. Now it was the cohort. A legion
consisted of ten cohorts, each cohort containing three
maniples, and each maniple two centuries. The
legion’s standard was the eagle, borne by the
oldest centurion of the first cohort. Each cohort
had its ‘signum, or ensign. Each maniple had its ‘vexillum,
or standard. There were
two centurions for each maniple, one commanding
the first and the other the second century, and taking
rank according to the cohort to which they belonged,
which might be from the first to the tenth. The
youngest centurion officered the second century of
the third maniple of the tenth cohort. The oldest
officered the first century of the first maniple of
the first cohort, and was called ‘primus-pilus,’
and the ‘primi ordines,’ or first
class of centurions, consisted of the six
centurions of the first cohort. These corresponded to our
non-commissioned officers, were taken from the lower classes of society, and
were seldom made tribunes. The tribunes
were six to each legion, were taken from the upper
class, and after being attached to the general’s
suite, received the rank of tribune, if they were
supposed to be qualified for it. The tribunes
were originally appointed by the consuls. Afterwards
they had been elected, partly by the people and partly
by the consuls. Caesar superseded the tribunes
by ‘legati of his own, to one of whom he would entrust a legion,
and appointed some, but probably not all, of the tribunes, and Marius, it seems
likely, did the same. The normal number of a legion had been 4,200 men and 300
horse, but was often larger. The pay of a legionary was
in the time of Polybius two obols a day for the private,
four for a centurion, and six for a horse soldier,
besides an allowance of corn. But deductions
were made for clothing, arms, and food. Hence
the law of Caius Gracchus; but from the first book of the Annals of Tacitus we
find that such deductions long continued to be the soldiers grievance.
Auxiliary troops received an allowance of corn, but no pay from Rome. The engineers of the army were called
Fabri, under a ‘praefectus,’
the ‘Fabri Lignarii’ having
the woodwork, and the ‘Fabri Ferrarii the ironwork of the
enginery under their special charge, and all were attached
to the staff of the army, which consisted of the general
and certain officers, such as the legati, or generals
of division, and the quaestors, or managers of the commissariat. One of the most significant changes that had sprung
up of late years was one which was introduced by Scipio Aemilianus at Numantia the institution
of a body-guard, or Cohors Praetoria.
It consisted of young men of rank, who went with the
general to learn their profession, or as volunteers
of troops specially enlisted for the post, who would
often be veterans from his former armies. The
term Evocati was applied to such veterans strictly, but also to any men
specially enlisted for the purpose. It is probable that
the equites no longer formed the cavalry of a legion,
but only served in the general’s body-guard,
as tribunes and praefects, or on extraordinary commissions.
The cavalry in Caesar’s time appears to have
consisted entirely of auxiliaries.
There had been for a long time among
the wealthier classes a growing disinclination for
service, and as the middle class was rapidly disappearing,
there had been great difficulty in filling the ranks.
The speeches of the Gracchi alluded to this, and it
had been experienced in the wars with Viriathus, with
Jugurtha, with Tryphon, and with the Cimbri. One
device for avoiding it we have seen, by the orders
issued to the captains of ships in Italian ports.
Among Roman citizens, if not among the allies, some
property qualification had been required in a soldier.
Marius tapped a lower stratum, and allowed the Capite
Censi to volunteer. To such men the prospect
of plunder would be an object, and they would be far
more at the bidding of individual generals than soldiers
of the old stamp. Thus though obligation to service
was not abolished, volunteering was allowed, and became
the practice; and the army, with a new drill, and
no longer consisting of Romans or even Italians, but
of men of all nations, became as effective as of old,
if not more so, and at the same time a body detached
from the State. The citizen was lost in the professional,
and patriotism was superseded by the personal attachment
of soldiers of fortune, who knew no will but that
of their favourite commander or their own selfishness.
Their general could reward them with money, and extort
land for them from the State; and when Marius after
Vercellae gave the franchise to two Italian cohorts,
saying that he could not hear the laws in the din
of arms, he was giving to what was becoming a standing
army privileges which could not be conferred by a consul,
but only by a king.