Caesar. Life of a Colossus (Adrian Goldsworthy) Yale University Press by Adrian Goldsworthy Read Free Book Online Page B

in the allied Kingdom of Numidia in North Africa resulted in a succession of scandals, as senators were bribed on a lavish scale to favour the claim of Jugurtha. The massacre of thousands of Roman and Italian traders at the town of Cirta caused outrage at Rome, forcing an army to be sent against Jugurtha, but the war was waged in a lethargic way and in 110 BC this force was defeated and surrendered to the enemy. A consul of greater ability was sent to take charge after this, but the whole episode had seriously damaged the faith of the wider population in the ability of the senatorial elite to lead. Exploiting this mood, Caius Marius campaigned for the consulship for 107 BC, contrasting himself, a tough and experienced soldier who had succeeded only through personal merit, with the scions of the noble houses who relied on their ancestors’ glory rather than their own ability. Marius won comfortably and, through the aid of a tribune who passed a law in the Assembly to override the Senate’s allocation of provinces, was given the command in Numidia. A further attempt to frustrate him came when the Senate refused to let him raise new legions to take to Africa, instead granting him permission only to take volunteers. Marius outmanoeuvred them by seeking volunteers from the poorest class, men not normally eligible for military service. It was an important stage in the transition from a militia army conscripted from a cross-section of the property-owning classes, to a professional army recruited overwhelmingly 28
    Caesar’s World
    from the very poor. The change was not instant, but its significance was to be deep and contributed much to the end of the Republic.13
    Marius eventually won the war in Numidia by late 105 BC, but by this time the menace of the Cimbri and Teutones hung heavy over Italy. The early contacts with these tribes had again been marked by scandals and incompetence on the part of magistrates, many of them from the old established families. There was a strong feeling, evidently amongst the better off as well as the poor, for it was the former who dominated the voting in the Comitia Centuriata , that only Marius could be trusted to defeat the barbarians. This led to his unprecedented run of consulships, a far more serious breach of precedent than Caius Gracchus’ consecutive tribunates. Saturninus and Glaucia offered support to Marius and at the same time hoped to capitalise on his success. In 103 BC Saturninus was tribune and passed a law granting land in North Africa to many of Marius’ veterans from the war in Numidia. Caesar’s father was one of the commissioners appointed to oversee the implementation of either this bill or more probably a similar one passed by Saturninus in 100 BC. The reliance on recruits from the poorest sections of society did mean that these men had no source of livelihood when they were discharged back to civilian life. Part of Saturninus’ legislation in 100 BC was aimed at providing for the discharged soldiers of the operations against the Cimbri. Saturninus used the tribunate in much the same way as the Gracchi, bringing forward popular measures to distribute land, particularly land in the provinces, and renewing a measure that made wheat available to all citizens at a set price irrespective of the market. The latter had been introduced by Caius Gracchus, but abandoned after his death. Yet from the beginning Saturninus and Glaucia were less reputable than the Gracchi and far more inclined to resort to violence. In the end they went too far, losing the support of Marius who, acting under the Senate’s ultimate decree just as Opimius had in 122 BC, led their suppression. The Republic into which Caesar was born was not coping well with some of the problems facing it.
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    II
    Caesar’s Childhood
    ‘Born into the most noble family of the Julii, and tracing his ancestry back to Anchises and Venus – a claim acknowledged by all those who study the ancient past – he surpassed all