THE HISTORY OF OLD ROME

IV. The Revolution

From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson

CHAPTER IV - The Rule of the Restoration

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Page 36

On the news of this peace the storm once more broke forth in Rome. Everybody knew how the peace had been brought about; even Scaurus was evidently open to bribery, only at a price higher than the ordinary senatorial average. The legal validity of the peace was seriously assailed in the senate; Gaius Memmius declared that the king, if he had really submitted unconditionally, could not refuse to appear in Rome, and that he should accordingly be summoned before them, with the view of ascertaining how the matter actually stood as to the thoroughly irregular negotiations for peace by hearing both the contracting parties.

They yielded to the inconvenient demand: but at the same time granted a safe-conduct to the king inconsistently with the law, for he came not as an enemy, but as one who had made his submission. Thereupon the king actually appeared at Rome and presented himself to be heard before the assembled people, which was with difficulty induced to respect the safe-conduct and to refrain from tearing in pieces on the spot the murderer of the Italians at Cirta. But scarcely had Gaius Memmius addressed his first question to the king, when one of his colleagues interfered in virtue of his veto and enjoined the king to be silent.

Here too African gold was more powerful than the will of the sovereign people and of its supreme magistrates. Meanwhile the discussions respecting the validity of the peace so concluded went on in the senate, and the new consul Spurius Postumius Albinus zealously supported the proposal to cancel it, in the expectation that in that case the chief command in Africa would devolve on him.

This induced Massiva, a grandson of Massinissa living in Rome, to assert before the senate his claims to the vacant Numidian kingdom; upon which Bomilcar, one of the confidants of king Jugurtha, doubtless under his instructions made away with the rival of his master by assassination, and, when he was prosecuted on account of it, escaped with Jugurtha's aid from Rome.

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