The History of Rome, vol 5 | Page 5

Theodor Mommsen
in 677), Mamercus
Aemilius Lepidus Livianus (consul in 677), and other such nullities,
whose best quality was a euphonious aristocratic name. But even those
four men rose little above the average calibre of the Optimates of this
age. Catulus was like his father a man of refined culture and an honest

aristocrat, but of moderate talents and, in particular, no soldier.
Metellus was not merely estimable in his personal character, but an
able and experienced officer; and it was not so much on account of his
close relations as a kinsman and colleague with the regent as because of
his recognized ability that he was sent in 675, after resigning the
consulship, to Spain, where the Lusitanians and the Roman emigrants
under Quintus Sertorius were bestirring themselves afresh. The two
Luculli were also capable officers--particularly the elder, who
combined very respectable military talents with thorough literary
culture and leanings to authorship, and appeared honourable also as a
man. But, as statesmen, even these better aristocrats were not much less
remiss and shortsighted than the average senators of the time. In
presence of an outward foe the more eminent among them, doubtless,
proved themselves useful and brave; but no one of them evinced the
desire or the skill to solve the problems of politics proper, and to guide
the vessel of the state through the stormy sea of intrigues and factions
as a true pilot. Their political wisdom was limited to a sincere belief in
the oligarchy as the sole means of salvation, and to a cordial hatred and
courageous execration of demagogism as well as of every individual
authority which sought to emancipate itself. Their petty ambition was
contented with little. The stories told of Metellus in Spain--that he not
only allowed himself to be delighted with the far from harmonious lyre
of the Spanish occasional poets, but even wherever he went had himself
received like a god with libations of wine and odours of incense, and at
table had his head crowned by descending Victories amidst theatrical
thunder with the golden laurel of the conqueror-- are no better attested
than most historical anecdotes; but even such gossip reflects the
degenerate ambition of the generations of Epigoni. Even the better men
were content when they had gained not power and influence, but the
consulship and a triumph and a place of honour in the senate; and at the
very time when with right ambition they would have just begun to be
truly useful to their country and their party, they retired from the
political stage to be lost in princely luxury. Men like Metellus and
Lucius Lucullus were, even as generals, not more attentive to the
enlargement of the Roman dominion by fresh conquests of kings and
peoples than to the enlargement of the endless game, poultry, and
dessert lists of Roman gastronomy by new delicacies from Africa and

Asia Minor, and they wasted the best part of their lives in more or less
ingenious idleness. The traditional aptitude and the individual
self-denial, on which all oligarchic government is based, were lost in
the decayed and artificially restored Roman aristocracy of this age; in
its judgment universally the spirit of clique was accounted as patriotism,
vanity as ambition, and narrow-mindedness as consistency. Had the
Sullan constitution passed into the guardianship of men such as have
sat in the Roman College of Cardinals or the Venetian Council of Ten,
we cannot tell whether the opposition would have been able to shake it
so soon; with such defenders every attack involved, at all events, a
serious peril.
Pompeius
Of the men, who were neither unconditional adherents nor open
opponents of the Sullan constitution, no one attracted more the eyes of
the multitude than the young Gnaeus Pompeius, who was at the time of
Sulla's death twenty-eight years of age (born 29th September 648). The
fact was a misfortune for the admired as well as for the admirers; but it
was natural. Sound in body and mind, a capable athlete, who even
when a superior officer vied with his soldiers in leaping, running, and
lifting, a vigorous and skilled rider and fencer, a bold leader of
volunteer bands, the youth had become Imperator and triumphator at an
age which excluded him from every magistracy and from the senate,
and had acquired the first place next to Sulla in public opinion; nay,
had obtained from the indulgent regent himself--half in recognition,
half in irony-- the surname of the Great. Unhappily, his mental
endowments by no means corresponded with these unprecedented
successes. He was neither a bad nor an incapable man, but a man
thoroughly ordinary, created by nature to be a good sergeant, called by
circumstances to be a general and a statesman. An intelligent, brave and
experienced, thoroughly excellent soldier, he was still, even in
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