The Rise of Rome: The Making of the World's Greatest Empire (68 page)

23
  
a large and appetizing Punic fig
Plut Cat Maj 27 1.

24
“Ceterum censeo” This famous sentence appears in various forms in Plut Cat Ma 27 (
), Pliny NH 15 74, Florus 1 31 4, Aur Vic Vir ill 47.8.

25
  
“This is Carthage”
Plut Mar 200 11.

26
  
“It never pleases the Romans”
Eutrop 4 16.

27
  
“just in case of emergencies”
App Pun 74.

28
  
“You must make things right”
and
“You know perfectly well”
Ibid., 75.

29
  
“well adapted for landing an army”
Ibid.

30
  
Only
he
has wits
Hom Od 10 495.

31
  
Scipio surveyed the scene
App Pun 132. Appian says this comes from Polybius, who heard Scipio say it.

32
  
For in my heart and soul
Homer, Il 6 448–49.

33
  
the day will come
The day did indeed come. It was 24 August
A.D
. 410, when Alaric the Visigoth sacked Rome.

34
  
where Carthage once stood
App Civ 1 24.

35
  
The Romans had behaved very badly
This section is indebted to Miles, pp. 348–51.

36
  
lifted the entire episode from Naevius
Macr 6 2 31.

37
  
“boys in frocks”
Enn 8 270. Loeb reference numbers, for this and the following two citations. Skutsch,
The Annals of Ennius
, OUP; 1985.

38
  
“wicked haughty foes”
Ibid., 282.

39
  
at last moderates her wrath
Ibid., 293.

40
  
“Just as if we had nothing”
Plut Cat Maj 9 2.

41
  
Greece was added to the province of Macedon
Greece had to wait until the nineteenth century
A.D
. before it regained its full freedom.

42
  
“the kindest possible treatment”
Dio Sic 32 4 4–5.

16. Blood Brothers

Appian, here admirably well informed, and Plutarch’s lives of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus are the chief sources.

  
1
  
“always had Greeks and literary men”
Plut G Grac 19 2.

  
2
simplex munditiis Hor Car 1 5 5. “Casually chic” comes from James Michie’s translation. 346
Once, she was entertaining
Val Max 4 4 praef.

  
3
  
Cornelia was his reward
. The story of Cornelia’s marriage to Gracchus has echoes of her son’s and may be unreliable.

  
4
  
a curious anecdote
Plut Tib Grac 1 2–3.

  
5
  
“Keep up the good work”
Cit. Balsdon,
Life and Leisure
, p. 119 (Porphyrio and Ps) Acron on Hor Sat 1 2 31f.

  
6
  
Cornelia’s granddaughter
See Balsdon,
Roman Women
, p. 48.

  
7
  
She had greater skill in lyre-playing
Sall Cat 25 1–5.

  
8
  
“gentle and sedate”
Plut Tib Grac 2 2.

  
9
  
still known as Scipio Aemilianus’s mother-in-law
Ibid., 8 5.

10
  
a faint echo of the Caudine Forks
It may be that the Caudine Forks story was rewritten in the light of this latest debacle.

11
  
“a constant source of grief”
Cic Har 43.

12
  
“Wild beasts”
Plut Tib Grac 9 4.

13
  
pay him from his own resources
Ibid., 10 5.

14
  
“Do not throw into chaos”
App Civ 1 12.

15
  
the assembly-place
I assume that this was in front of the Temple of Jupiter. See Richardson fig. 19, p. 69.

16
  
“Be quiet, please, citizens”
CAH 9, p. 60.

17
  
“Since the Consul betrays the state”
Plut Tib Grac 19 3.

18
  
“I will give you a single example”
Aul Gell 10 3 5.

19
  
“I am the only man in the army”
Plut G Grac 2 5.

20
  
“However much you try to defer your destiny”
Cic Div 1 26 56.

21
  
“Apart from those who killed Tiberius”
Corn Nep Fragment. Scholarly opinion inclines toward the genuineness of the fragmentary letters.

22
  
Cornelia made representations
Plut G Grac 4 1–2.

23
  
“closely attended by a throng”
Ibid., 6 4.

24
  
I suppose you imagine
CAH 9, p. 83.

25
  
a visit to Carthage
This is a little odd, for tribunes were not meant to cross the city boundary. Perhaps Gaius received some kind of special dispensation.

26
  
helped him recruit bodyguards
Plut G Grac 13 2.

27
  
Gaius’s head was cut off
Ibid., 17 4.

28
  
The Senate reacted to the brothers rather like a general
I am indebted for this admirable simile to Andrew Lintott, CAH 9, p. 85.

29
  
No sword was ever brought into the assembly
App Civ 1 2.

30
  
“She had many friends”
Plut G Grac 19 2.

17. Triumph and Disaster

Plutarch’s lives of Marius and Sulla are important sources (also, to a lesser extent, those of Caesar, Cicero, and Pompey). Sallust is essential for the Jurgurthan War. Appian, assisted by Cassius Dio, carries along much of the main narrative. Keppie is valuable on military matters.

  
1
  
He may have been a blacksmith
Aur Vic Caes 33. A late source, so we cannot be certain of the claim.

  
2
  
These proud men make a very big mistake
Sall Hist 85 29–40. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, whom we know as Sallust, will have written up this speech; but if these are not Marius’s words, they well represent his embittered feelings.

  
3
  
“It very well expresses the harshness”
Plut Mar 2 1.

  
4
  
“I can see that the cure”
Ibid., 6 3.

  
5
  
Sulla loved literature and the arts
This account of Sulla’s personal life, including the verse, is taken from Plut Sul 2.

  
6
  
Then there were the
optimates This Latin word is found only in the plural; when using the singular, I adopt an Anglicized version of the word: optimate.

  
7
  
served in Spain under Scipio
Sall 7–8.

  
8
  
“So you are going to abandon us”
Plut Mar 8 3.

  
9
  
“God, this Roman bath”
Ibid., 12 3.

10
  
Marius’s mules
Plut Mar 13 1.

11
  
this took six days
Ibid., 25 1.

12
  
“insofar as it
was
a law”
Ibid., 29 4.

13
  
“He lacked the abilities others had”
Plut Mar 32 1.

14
  
“No,” replied Drusus. “Build it”
Plut Mor 800f.

15
  
The allies laid secret plans for an uprising
The ensuing war is known as the Social War (from
socius
, the Latin for “ally”).

16
  
the devastation of the countryside
Florus 2 6 11.

17
  
He rode off on a hunting trip
This Robin Hood–like tale may be a legend.

18
  
“Either be greater than the Romans”
Plut Mar 31.

19
  
“Sulpicius of all the orators”
Cic Brut 203.

20
  
“The murders and civil disturbances”
App Civ 1 55.

21
  
He imagined that he was the commander-in-chief
Plut Mar 45 6.

22
  
According to Appian, ninety senators died
Ibid., 1 103. Elsewhere, Appian gives the number as forty (App Civ 1 95).

23
  
He still kept company with women
Plut Sul 36 1.

24
  
“This lad will stop anyone else”
App Civ 1 104.

25
  
the most splendid of triumphs
The details are largely drawn from App Mith 1 116–17, Plut Pom 45 and Plin Nat Hist 33 151 and 37 13–14.

26
  
Ships with brazen beaks captured
App Mith 1 117.

18. Afterword

Cicero’s letters and his
Republic
and the
Academics
are the main sources.

  
1
  
We were wandering
Cic Acad 1 3 9.

  
2
  
“Like the learned men of old”
Cic Fam 177 (9 2).

  
3
  
“excessive liberty leads”
Cic Rep 1 68.

  
4
  
“winner of a greater laurel wreath”
Plin Nat Hist 7 117.

  
5
  
The Republic, when it was handed down to us
Cic Rep 5 2.

Sources

1
  
“The mere statement of a fact”
Polyb 12 25b.

2
  
“the type of man”
Cited in Cornell, p 2.

ALSO BY ANTHONY EVERITT
 

Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome

Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician

Augustus: The Life of Rome’s First Emperor

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ANTHONY EVERITT
, a sometime visiting professor in the visual and performing arts at Nottingham Trent University, has written extensively on European culture and is the author of
Cicero, Augustus
, and
Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome
. He has served as secretary general of the Arts Council of Great Britain. Everitt lives near Colchester, England’s first recorded town, founded by the Romans.