Bellum Iugurthinum

The prevalence of parties among the people, and of factions in the senate, and of all evil practices attendant on them, had its origin at Rome, a few years before, during a period of tranquillity, and amid the abundance of all that mankind regarded as desirable. For, before the destruction of Carthage, the senate and people managed the affairs of the republic with mutual moderation and forbearance; there were no contests among the citizens for honor or ascendency; but the dread of an enemy kept the state in order. When that fear, however, was removed from their minds, licentiousness and pride, evils which prosperity loves to foster, immediately began to prevail; and thus peace, which they had so eagerly desired in adversity, proved, when they had obtained it, more grievous and fatal than adversity itself. The patricians carried their authority, and the people their liberty, to excess; every man took, snatched, and seized[*](XLI. Took, snatched, and seized] Ducere, trahere, rapere. "Ducere conveys the notion of cunning and fraud; trahere of some degree of force; rapere of open violence."Müller. The words chiefly refer to offices in the state, as is apparent from what follows.) what he could. There was a complete division into two factions, and the republic was torn in pieces between them. Yet the nobility still maintained an ascendency by conspiring together; for the strength of the people, being disunited and dispersed among a multitude, was less able to exert itself. Things were accordingly directed, both at home and in the field, by the will of a small number of men, at whose disposal were the treasury, the provinces, offices, honors, and triumphs; while the people were oppressed with military service and with poverty, and the generals divided the spoils of war with a few of their friends. The parents and children of the soldiers,[*](The parents and children of the soldiers, etc.] Quid quod usque proximosRevellis agri terminos, et ultraLimites clientiumSalis avarus? Pellitur paternosIn sinu ferens deosEt uxor et vir, sordidosque natos.Hor. Od., ii. 18. What can this impious av'rice stay ?Their sacred landmarks torn away,You plunge into your neighbor's grounds,And overleap your client's bounds,Helpless the wife and husband fleeAnd in their arms, expell'd by thee,Their household gods, adored in vain,Their infants, too, a sordid train.Francis.) meantime,

if they chanced to dwell near a powerful neighbor, were driven from their homes. Thus avarice, leagued with power, disturbed, violated, and wasted every thing, without moderation or restraint; disregarding alike reason and religion, and rushing headlong, as it were, to its own destruction. For whenever any arose among the nobility,[*](Among the nobility] Ex nobilitate. Cortius injudiciously omits those words. The reference is to the Gracchi.) who preferred true glory to unjust power, the state was immediately in a tumult, and civil discord spread with as much disturbance as attends a convulsion of the earth.

Thus when Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, whose forefathers had done much to increase the power of the state in the Punic and other wars, began to vindicate the liberty of the people, and to expose the misconduct of the few, the nobility, conscious of guilt, and seized with alarm, endeavored, sometimes by means of the allies and Latins,[*](By means of the allies and Latins] See on, c. 40.) and sometimes by means of the equestrian order, whom the hope of coalition with the patricians had detached from the people, to put a stop to the proceedings of the Gracchi; and first they killed Tiberius, and a few years after Caius, who pursued the same measures as his brother, the one when he was tribune, and the other when he was one of a triumvirate for settling colonies; and with them they cut off Marcus Fulvius Flaccus. In the Gracchi, indeed, it must be allowed that, from their ardor for victory, there was not sufficient prudence. But to a reasonable man it is more agreeable to submit[*](But to a reasonable man it is more agreeable to submit, etc.] Sed bono vinci satius est, quám malo more injuriam vincere. Bono, sc. viro. "That is, if the nobility had been truly worthy characters, they would rather have yielded to the Gracchi, than have revenged any wrong that they had received frem them in an unprincipled manner."Dietsch. Thus this is a reflection on the nobles; in which notion of the passage Allen concurs with Dietsch. Others, as Cortius, think it a reflection on the too great violence of the Gracchi. The brevity with which Sallust had expressed himself makes it difficult to decide. Kritzius, who thinks that the remark is in praise of the Gracchi, supplies the ellipse thus: "Sane concedi debet Gracchis non satis moderatum animum fuisse; quœ res ipsis adeo interitum attulit; sed sic quoque egregii viri putandi sunt; nam bono vinci," etc. Langius and Burnouf join bono with more, but do not differ much in their interpretations of the passage from that given by Dietsch.) to injustice than to triumph over it by improper

means. The nobility, however, using their victory with wanton extravagance, exterminated numbers of men by the sword or by exile, yet rather increased, for the time to come, the dread with which they were regarded, than their real power. Such proceedings have often ruined powerful states; for of two parties, each strives to suppress the other by any means whatever, and take vengeance with undue severity on the vanquished.

But were I to attempt to treat of the animosities of parties, and of the morals of the state, with minuteness of detail, and suitably to the vastness of the subject, time would fail me sooner than matter. I therefore return to my subject.