The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,061 pages of information about The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5).

The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,061 pages of information about The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5).
of the people for the first time (Plutarch, Mar. 14; Oros, v. 17; App. i. 28; Diodor. p. 608, 631), and 654, when he held that office a second time.  There are not materials for deciding the point with entire certainty, but the great preponderance of probability is in favour of the former year; partly because it was nearer to the disastrous events in Gaul, partly because in the tolerably full accounts of the second tribunate of Saturninus there is no mention of Quintus Caepio the father and the acts of violence directed against him.  The circumstance, that the sums paid back to the treasury in consequence of the verdicts as to the embezzlement of the Tolosan booty were claimed by Saturninus in his second tribunate for his schemes of colonization (De Viris Ill. 73, 5, and thereon Orelli, Ind.  Legg. p. 137), is not in itself decisive, and may, moreover, have been easily transferred by mistake from the first African to the second general agrarian law of Saturninus.

The fact that afterwards, when Norbanus was impeached, his impeachment proceeded on the very ground of the law which he had taken part in suggesting, was an ironical incident common in the Roman political procedure of this period (Cic.  Brut. 89, 305) and should not mislead us into the belief that the Appuleian law was, like the later Cornelian, a general law of high treason.

24.  The view here presented rests in the main on the comparatively trustworthy account in the Epitome of Livy (where we should read -reversi in Gallium in Vellocassis se Teutonis coniunxerunt) and in Obsequens; to the disregard of authorities of lesser weight, which make the Teutones appear by the side of the Cimbri at an earlier date, some of them, such as Appian, Celt. 13, even as early as the battle of Noreia.  With these we connect the notices in Caesar (B.  G. i. 33; ii. 4, 29); as the invasion of the Roman province and of Italy by the Cimbri can only mean the expedition of 652.

25.  It is injudicious to deviate from the traditional account and to transfer the field of battle to Verona:  in so doing the fact is overlooked that a whole winter and various movements of troops intervened between the conflicts on the Adige and the decisive engagement, and that Catulus, according to express statement (Plut.  Mar. 24), had retreated as far as the right bank of the Po.  The statements that the Cimbri were defeated on the Po (Hier.  Chron.), and that they were defeated where Stilicho afterwards defeated the Getae, i. e. at Cherasco on the Tanaro, although both inaccurate, point at least to Vercellae much rather than to Verona.

Chapter VI

1.  IV.  IV.  The Domain Question under the Restoration

2.  I. Vi.  The Servian Constitution, ii.  III.  Its Composition

3.  III.  XI.  Reforms in the Military Service

4.  III.  XI.  The Nobility in Possession of the Equestrian Centuries

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The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.