The Story of Rome from the Earliest Times to the End of the RepublicGilman, Arthur
History
The Story of Rome from the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic
Gilman, Arthur
Rome -- History -- Republic, 510-30 B.C.
Lepidus slowly proceeded to carry out his part of this decree, but
Catulus remained behind long enough to complete a great temple, which
towered above the forum on the Capitoline Hill. The foundations only
remain now, but they bear an inscription placed there by order of the
senate, testifying that Catulus was the consul under whom the structure
was completed. Lepidus did not consider his oath binding long, and the
following year (B.C. 77) he marched straight to Rome again, announcing
to the senators that he came to re-establish the rights of the people
and to assume the dictatorship himself. He was met by an army under
Pompey and Catulus, at a spot near the Mulvian bridge and the Campus
Martius, almost on the place where the fate of the Roman Empire was to
be determined four centuries later by a battle between Maxentius and
Constantine (A.D. 312). Lepidus was defeated and forced to flee.
Shortly after, he died on the island of Sardinia, overcome by chagrin
and sorrow. One would expect to read of a new proscription, after this
success, but the victors did not resort to that terrible vengeance.
Thus Pompey found himself at the head of Roman affairs.
His first duty was to march against the remnant of the party of the
Marians. They had joined Sertorius in Spain. It was the year 76 when
Pompey arrived on the scene of his new operations. He found his enemy
more formidable than he had supposed, and it was not until five years
had passed, and Sertorius had been assassinated, that he was able to
achieve the victory and scatter the army of the Marians. Meantime the
Romans had been fearing that Sertorius would actually prove strong
enough to march upon the capital and perhaps overwhelm it. Hardly had
their fears in this respect been quieted than they found themselves
menaced by a still more frightful catastrophe.
We remember how, in the year 264 B.C., two young Romans honored the
memory of their father by causing men to fight each other to the death
with swords to celebrate his funeral, and hints from time to time have
shown how the Romans had become more and more fond of seeing human
beings hack and hew each other in the amphitheatres. The men who were
to be "butchered to make a Roman holiday," as the poet says, were
trained for their horrid work with as much system as is now used in our
best gymnasiums to fit men to live lives of happy peace, if not with
more. They were divided into classes with particular names, according
to the arms they wore, the hours at which they fought, and their modes
of fighting, and great were the pains that their instructors took to
make them perfect in their bloody work. Down at Capua, that celebrated
centre of refinement and luxury, there was a school of gladiators, kept
by one Lentulus, who hired his fierce pupils out to the nobles to be
used at games and festivals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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