The Grass Crown

by Colleen McCullough

  When Attalus III of Pergamum died that year and was discovered to have bequeathed his kingdom to Rome, Tiberius ignored the Senate's right to decide what ought to be done with this bequest, and legislated to have the lands used to resettle more of Rome's poor. Opposition in Senate and Comitia hardened day by day.

  Then when 133 b.c. drew to a close without Tiberius's seeing a successful conclusion to his program, he flouted another established practice—the one which said a man might be a tribune of the plebs only once. Tiberius Gracchus ran for a second term. In a confrontation on the Capitol between his own faction and an ultra-conservative faction led by his cousin Scipio Nasica, Tiberius was clubbed to death, as were some of his followers. His cousin Scipio Aemilianus—though not yet returned from Numantia when this happened—publicly condoned the murder, alleging that Tiberius had wanted to make himself King of Rome.

  Turmoil died down until ten years later, when Tiberius's little brother Gaius was elected a tribune of the plebs in 123 b.c. Gaius Sempronius Gracchus was the same kind of man as his elder brother, but he had learned from Tiberius's mistakes, and was besides the more able of the two. His reforms were far wider; they embraced not only agrarian laws, but also laws to provide very cheap grain for the urban lowly, to regulate service in the army, to found Roman citizen colonies abroad, to initiate public works throughout Italy, to remove the extortion court from the Senate and give it to the knights, to farm the taxes of Asia Province by public contracts let by the censors, and to give the full Roman citizenship to all those having the Latin Rights, and the Latin Rights to every Italian. His program was nowhere near completed when his term as a tribune of the plebs came to an end, so Gaius did the impossible—he ran for a second term, and got in. Amid mounting fury and obdurate enmity, he battled on to achieve his program of reform, which was still not completed when his second term expired. He stood a third time for the tribunate of the plebs. This time he was defeated, as was his friend and close colleague, Marcus Fulvius Flaccus.

  When 121 b.c. dawned, Gaius saw his laws and policies attacked at once by the consul Lucius Opimius and the ex-tribune of the plebs Marcus Livius Drusus. Desperate to prevent everything he had done being torn down again, Gaius Sempronius Gracchus resorted to violence. The Senate responded by passing its first-ever "ultimate decree" to stop the escalating Forum war; Fulvius Flaccus and two of his sons were murdered and the fleeing Gaius Gracchus committed suicide in the Grove of Furrina on the flanks of the Janiculan hill. Roman politics could never be the same; the aged citadel of the mos maiorum was now irreparably breached.

  The same thread of tragedy wove through the personal lives of the Brothers Gracchi also. Tiberius married a Claudia, the daughter of Appius Claudius Pulcher, consul in 143 b.c., an inveterate enemy of Scipio Aemilianus and as idiosyncratic as most Claudius-Pulcher men tended to be. There were three sons of the marriage between Tiberius and Claudia, none of whom lived to achieve a public career. Gaius Gracchus also married the daughter of one of his stoutest supporters—Licinia, daughter of Publius Licinius Crassus Mucianus. They had one child only, a daughter, Sempronia, who married a Fulvius Flaccus Bambalio—she produced a daughter, Fulvia, who became in turn the wife of Publius Clodius Pulcher, Gaius Scribonius Curio, and Mark Antony.

  grammaticus Not a teacher of grammar! He taught the basic arts of rhetoric—public speaking (see rhetoric).

  Greece By the beginning of the first century b.c. Greece had been stripped of the territories of Macedonia and Epirus. It comprised Thessaly, Dolopia, Malis, Euboeia, Ocris, Phocis, Locris, Aetolia, Acarnania, Boeotia, Attica, Corinth, and the various states of the Peloponnese. Things Greek had fallen into almost complete decline; many of Greece's regions were bare of people, their towns ghost, their coffers empty. Only places like Athens continued in some way to thrive. Centuries of war—with foreign invaders, at the whim of would-be conquerors, and—most often of all—between Greek states, had impoverished the country and halved its population, many of whom (if fortunate enough to possess a good trade or education) voluntarily sold themselves into slavery.

  Hannibal The Carthaginian prince who led his country in the second of its three wars against Rome. Born in 247 b.c. , the son of Hamilcar, Hannibal was taught to soldier in Spain as a mere child; he spent his youth in Spain, where his father was the Carthaginian governor. In 218 b.c. Hannibal invaded Italy, a shock tactic which confounded Rome; his crossing of the Alps (complete with elephants) through the Montgenèvre Pass was brilliantly done. For sixteen years he roamed at will through Italian Gaul and Italy, defeating Roman armies at Trebia, Trasimene, and finally Cannae. But Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosis Cunctator evolved a strategy which eventually wore Hannibal out; relentlessly he shadowed the Carthaginian army with an army of his own, yet never offered battle nor allowed his men to be trapped into battle—the so-called “Fabian tactics.'' Because Fabius Maximus was always in his vicinity somewhere, Hannibal never quite got up the courage to attack the city of Rome herself. Then his allies among the Italians began to flag; after his hold on Campania was broken, Fabius Maximus forced Hannibal further and further south in Italy. The Carthaginian lost the (verbal) battle for Tarentum at about the same time as his younger brother, Hasdrubal, was defeated at the Metaurus River in Umbria. Penned up in Bruttium, the very toe of Italy, he evacuated his undefeated army back to Carthage in 203 b.c. At Zama he was beaten by Scipio Africanus, after which, as the Head of State, he intrigued with Antiochus the Great of Syria against Rome. Roman pressure forced him to flee from Carthage and seek asylum with Antiochus in Syria; after Rome subdued the King, Hannibal had to move on. He is reputed to have wandered to Armenia, where he helped King Artaxias design and build his capital, Artaxata. So oriental a court could not please; Hannibal journeyed west across Anatolia and fetched up with King Prusias in Bithynia. Then in 182 b.c., Rome demanded that Prusias hand the Carthaginian over. Rather than fall into Roman hands, Hannibal committed suicide. An unrepentant enemy of Rome, he was always admired and respected by Rome.

  "hay on his horn" Ancient oxen were endowed with most formidable horns, and not all ancient oxen were placid, despite their castrated state. A beast which gored was tagged in warning; hay was wrapped around the horn it gored with, or around both horns if it gored with both. Pedestrians scattered wildly on seeing an ox tagged in this manner. The saying "hay on his horn" came to be applied to a very large, good-natured, placid man after it was discovered that this same man could turn like lightning and strike with the ruthlessness of a born killer.

  Head Count This is the term I have used throughout the book to describe the lowliest of Roman citizens—those who were too poor to belong to one of the five economic Classes. All the censors did was to take a "head count" of them. I have preferred Head Count to "the proletariat" or "the masses" because of our modern post-Marxist attitudes— attitudes entirely misleading in the ancient context (see also capite censi and proletarii).

  Hellenic The term used to describe Greek culture outside Greece after Alexander the Great introduced a Greek element into the courts and kingdoms of Mediterranean and Asian rulers.

  Herakles The Greek form. In Latin, Hercules. A mortal man (though a son of Zeus), his sheer strength, indomitability and perseverance in adversity immortalized him for all time. After he died inside the poisoned shirt, Zeus also immortalized him. However, it was undoubtedly his human qualities which made him such an attractive object of worship; he held sway from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. His cult was exclusively male, and he was regarded as the embodiment of all traditional male virtues. His was the statue dressed in the raiment of the triumphing general. In Rome, he was also a god of merchant trading, particularly for vendors of olive oil. Some men thought themselves his descendants; this was true of Mithridates and the Roman Antonii.

  Hyperboreans Literally, the people beyond the home of Boreas, the North Wind. They were mythical, said to worship only the god Apollo, and to live an idyllic existence. The Land of the Hyperboreans was, howe
ver, definitely thought by the ancients to exist somewhere in the far north. Ilium The name the Romans gave to the city of Troy. imago Plural, imagines. This was the beautifully painted and bewigged, lifelike mask of a Roman family's consular (or perhaps also praetorian) ancestor. It was made out of beeswax and kept in a dust-free cupboard shaped like a miniature temple. The mask and its cupboard were the objects of enormous reverence. When a man of the family died, an actor was hired to don the mask and wig and impersonate the dead ancestor in the funeral procession. If a man became consul, his mask was added to the family collection. From time to time a man who was not consul did something so remarkable it was considered he deserved an imago.

  imperator Literally, the commander-in-chief or the general of a Roman army. However, the term gradually came to be given only to a general who won a great victory; his troops hailed him imperator on the field. In order to gain permission from the Senate to celebrate a triumph, a general had to prove that his men had indeed hailed him as imperator on the field. Imperator is the root of the word "emperor."

  imperium Imperium was the degree of authority vested in a curule magistrate or promagistrate. Imperium meant that a man owned the authority of his office, and could not be gainsaid (provided he was acting within the limits of his particular level of imperium and within the laws governing his conduct). It was conferred by a lex Curiata, and lasted for one year only; extensions had to be ratified by Senate and/or People in the case of promagistrates who had not completed their original commissions in the space of one year. Lictors bearing fasces indicated that a man possessed imperium, the higher the number, the higher the imperium (see also fasces; lictor; magistrate),

  insula Plural, insulae. Literally, "island." Because it was usually surrounded on all sides by streets or lanes or alleys, an apartment building became known as an insula. Roman insulae were very tall (up to one hundred feet—thirty meters—in height), and most were large enough to warrant the incorporation of an internal light-well; many were large enough to contain more than one internal light-well. Then, as now, Rome was a city of apartment dwellers. This in itself is a strong clue to the answer to the vexed question— how many people lived in Rome? We know the dimensions of the city within the Servian Walls: one-plus kilometers in width, two-plus kilometers in length. That meant the population of Rome at the time of Marius and Sulla had to have been at least one million, probably more. Otherwise the insulae would have been half empty and the city smothered in parks. Rome teemed with people, its insulae were multitudinous. Two million (including slaves) might be closer to the truth of the matter.

  Interrex The word means "between the kings." It dates back to the kings of Rome, when the patrician Senate appointed one of its members to act after the death of one king and before the accession of a new king. After the establishment of the Republic the practice survived in cases where, due to death or other disaster, no consuls were left in office, and no elections had yet been held. The members of the Senate were divided into decuries of ten men, each decury being headed by a patrician senator; this was always so. But while Rome had no consuls, an interrex was chosen from among the patrician heads of the senatorial decuries. He could serve for five days only, then was succeeded by another patrician head of a decury; this went on until elections could be held and proper consuls take office. While in office the interrex was endowed with a full consular imperium, had the full complement of twelve lictors, and could perform all the functions of the consul. No man could be an interrex unless he was the patrician head of a senatorial decury. The first in a series of interreges (plural) was not allowed to hold consular elections.

  Italia For the purposes of this book, the word has two meanings. First of all, it refers to all of ancient peninsular Italy south of the Arnus and Rubico rivers. Secondly, it is used to refer to the rebel Italian nations which rose against Rome in 91 b.c. and fought the Marsic (later known as the Social) War.

  Italian Allies The peoples, tribes, or nations (they are variously described as all three) who lived in the Italian peninsula without enjoying either the full Roman citizenship or the Latin Rights were known as the Italian Allies. In return for military protection and in the interests of peaceful co-existence, they were required by Rome to furnish properly armed soldiers for the armies of Rome, and to pay for the upkeep of these soldiers. The Italian Allies also bore the brunt of general taxation within Italy at the time of Marius and Sulla, and in many instances had been obliged to yield part of their lands to swell the Roman ager publicus. Many of them had either risen against Rome (like the Samnites) or sided with Hannibal and others against Rome (like parts of Campania). To some extent, there was always some movement among the Italian Allies to throw off the Roman yoke, or to demand that Rome accord them the full citizenship; but until the last century of the Republic, Rome was sensitive enough to act before the grumbling grew too serious. After the joint enfranchisement of Formiae Fundi and Arpinum in 188 b.c., no more Italian Allied communities were rewarded with the citizenship or even the Latin Rights. The final straw which turned Italian Allied discontent into open revolt was the lex Licinia Mucia of 95 b.c.; at the end of 91 b.c. war broke out. The regions of Italy which remained loyal to Rome were: Etruria, Umbria, Northern Picenum, Northern Campania, Latium, the Sabine country.

  The nations which rose up against Rome were: Marsi (after whom the war was named, the Marsic War), Samnites, Frentani, Marrucini, Picentes south of the Flosis River, Paeligni, Vestini, Hirpini, all of whom rose up together, and were soon joined by: Lucani, Apuli, Venusini.

  The two regions in the extreme south, Bruttium and Calabria, were sympathetic to the Italian cause, but took little part in hostilities. Quintus Poppaedius Silo of the Marsi and Gaius Papius Mutilus of the Samnites were the heads of the Italian Allied government.

  Italian Gaul Gallia Cisalpina—Gaul-on-this-side-of-the-Alps. In the interests of simplicity, I have elected to call it Italian Gaul. It incorporated all the lands north of the Arnus-Rubico border on the Italian side of the formidable semicircle of alps which cut Italy off from the rest of Europe. It was bisected from west to east by the Padus River (the modem Po). South of the river the people and towns were heavily Romanized, many of them possessing the Latin Rights. North of the river the peoples and towns were more Celtic than Roman; Latin was at best a second language, if spoken at all. The lex Pompeia promulgated by Pompey Strabo in 89 b.c. gave the full Roman citizenship to all the Latin Rights communities south of the Padus, and gave the Latin Rights to the towns of Aquileia, Patavium, and Mediolanum to the north of the Padus. Politically Italian Gaul dwelt in a kind of limbo at the time of Marius and Sulla, for it had neither the status of a true province nor was it a part of Italia. The Marsic (Social) War saw for the first time the men of Italian Gaul drafted into Rome's armies—as auxiliaries before the lex Pompeia, as full Roman legions after that.

  Italica The capital of the new nation of Italia as dreamed of by the insurgents of the Marsic (Social) War. It was actually the city of Corfinium, and enjoyed the name Italica only while the war went on.

  iugera Singular, iugerum. The Roman unit of land measurement. In modern terms one iugerum was 0.623 (or five eighths) of an acre, or 0.252 (one quarter) of a hectare. The modern user of imperial measure will get close enough in acres by dividing the iugera in two; in metric measure, to divide by four will be very close in hectares.

  ius Latii See Latin Rights.

  Janiculum The Janiculan hill consisted of the heights behind the northwest bank of the Tiber, opposite the city of Rome. During the Republic-there was a defensive fortress upon it; this was still kept up and was ready to be garrisoned during the time of Marius and Sulla. A flagpole stood atop the citadel inside the stronghold; if the red flag flying from it was pulled down, it was a signal that Rome lay under threat of attack.

  Jugurtha King of Numidia from 118 b.c. until his capture by Sulla in 105 b.c.. An illegitimate son, he gained his throne by murdering those more legitimately entitled to the throne than him
self, and he hung onto it grimly, despite great opposition from certain elements in the Roman Senate led by Marcus Aemilius Scaurus the Princeps Senatus. In 109 b.c. (after a disgraceful act of aggression by the young Aulus Postumius Albinus) Jugurtha went to war against Roman Africa; Quintus Caecilius Metellus the consul was sent to Africa to subjugate him, his legates being Gaius Marius and Publius Rutilius Rufus (both of whom had served as cadets with Jugurtha in Spain years before). Metellus (who earned the extra cognomen Numidicus from this campaign) and Marius could not get on, with the result that Marius ran for consul in 108 b.c. for 107 in office, and had the Plebeian Assembly take the command in the war off Metellus Numidicus, who never forgave him. Marius did well against the Numidian army, but Jugurtha himself constantly eluded capture until Sulla, then Marius's quaestor, persuaded King Bocchus of Mauretania to trick Jugurtha, who was captured and sent to Rome. He walked in Marius's triumphal parade on New Year's Day of 104 b.c., then was thrown into the lower chamber of the Tullianum and left there to starve to death.