Plutarch's Lives Volume III Part 16

[Footnote 229: Sulla had not abolished the tribunitian office, but he had deprived the tribunes of the chief part of their power. It does not seem exactly certain what Sulla did. Appia.n.u.s (_Civil Wars_, i.

100) says 'that he weakened it very much and carried a law by which no man after being tribune could hold any other office.' Cicero (_De Legibus_, iii. 9) considers the extension of the tribunitian power as unavoidable, and as effected with the least mischief by being the work of Pompeius.]

[Footnote 230: A Cornelia Lex, pa.s.sed in the time of Sulla, made the Judices in the Judicia Publica eligible only out of the body of Senators. That the Senators had acted corruptly in the administration of justice, we have the authority of Cicero in one of his Verrine orations (_In Verr._ A 1, 13 and 16). The measure for restoring the Equites to a share in the judicial functions was proposed by the praetor L. Aurelius Cotta, the uncle of C. Julius Caesar, with the approbation of Pompeius and Caesar, who were now acting in concert. The charges of corruption which Cotta made against the Senate are recorded by Cicero (_In Verr._ iii. 96). The proposed law (rogatio), which was carried, made the Judices eligible out of the Senators, Equites, and Tribuni aerarii, which three cla.s.ses are mentioned by Cicero (_Ad Attic.u.m_, i. 16) as represented by the Judices who sat on the trial of Clodius. The purity of the administration of justice was not hereby improved. Cicero, on the occasion of the trial of Clodius, speaks of all these cla.s.ses having their dishonest representatives among the judices.]

[Footnote 231: Compare the Life of Cra.s.sus, c. 12.

The remarks at the end of the chapter may be useful to some men who would meddle with matters political, when their only training has been in camps. Pompeius was merely a soldier, and had no capacity for civil affairs.]

[Footnote 232: The history of piracy in the Mediterranean goes as far back as the history of navigation. The numerous creeks and islands of this inland sea offer favourable opportunities for piratical posts, and accordingly we read of pirates as early as we read of commerce by sea. (Thucydides, i. 5.) The disturbances in the Roman State had encouraged these freebooters in their depredations. Caesar, when a young man, fell into their hands (Life of Caesar, c. 1); and also P.

Clodius. The insecure state of Italy is shown by the fact of the pirates even landing on the Italian coast, and seizing the Roman magistrates, s.e.xtilius and Bellienus. Cicero in his oration in favour of the Lex Manilia (c. 12, c. 17, &c.) gives some particulars of the excesses of the pirates. Antonia, whom they carried off, was the daughter of the distinguished orator, Marcus Antonius (Life of Marius, c. 44), who had been sent against the Cilician pirates B.C. 102, and had a triumph for his victory over them. If Cicero alludes (_Pro Lege Manilia_) to the capture of the daughter of Antonius, that probably took place before B.C. 87, for in that year Antonius was put to death.

But Cicero speaks of the daughter of 'a praetor' being carried off from Misenum, and it is not improbable that he alludes to M. Antonius Creticus, praetor B.C. 75. If this explanation is correct, the Antonia was the grand-daughter of the orator Antonius.]

[Footnote 233: [Greek: stulides] st???de?. The meaning of this word is uncertain. [Greek: Stulis] St???? is a diminutive of [Greek: stulos]

st????, and signifies a small pillar, or pole. It may be that which carried the colours. But I do not profess to have translated the word, for I do not know what is meant.]

[Footnote 234: From the places enumerated it appears that the pirates had carried their ravages from the coast of Asia Minor to the sh.o.r.es of Greece and up the Ionian Sea as far as the entrance of the Gulf of Ambracia, now the Gulf of Arta, near the entrance of which Actium was situated on the southern coast, and even to the Italian sh.o.r.es. The temple of Juno Lacinia was on the south-eastern coast of Italy on a promontory, now called Capo delle Colonne, from the ruins of the ancient temple. The noted temples of antiquity were filled with works of art and rich offerings, the gifts of pious devotees. Cicero (_Pro Lege Manilia_), c. 18) speaks of the pirates as infesting even the Via Appia.]

[Footnote 235: Not the mountain of that name, Kaltwa.s.ser remarks, but a town of Lycia in Asia Minor, one of the headquarters of the pirates.

Strabo (p. 671) places Olympus in Cilicia. There was both a city and a mountain named Olympus there; and I have accordingly translated 'on Olympus.' (Beaufort, _Karamania_, p. 46.)]

[Footnote 236: Mithras was a Persian deity, as it appears. The name occurs in many Persian compounds as Mithridates, Ithamitres, and others. _Mitra_ is a Sanscrit name for the Sun. (Wilson, _Sanscrit Dictionary_.)]

[Footnote 237: The Mediterranean. See the Life of Sertorius, c. 8, note. As to the limits of the command of Pompeius, compare Velleius Paterculus, ii. 31.]

[Footnote 238: Aulus Gabinius, one of the tribunes for the year B.C.

67, proposed the measure. The consuls of this year were C. Calpurnius Piso and M. Acilius Glabrio.]

[Footnote 239: L. Roscius Otho, one of the tribunes, and the proposer of the unpopular law (B.C. 67) which gave the Equites fourteen separate seats at the theatre. (Velleius, ii. 32; Dion Ca.s.sius, 36, c.

25.)]

[Footnote 240: Compare the Life of Flaminiaus, c. 10.]

[Footnote 241: [Greek: ekomizen] ?????e? in the text. The reading is perhaps wrong, and the sense is doubtful. Reiske conjectured that it should be [Greek: ekolaze] ????a?e.]

[Footnote 242: This place is on the coast of the Rough or Mountainous Cilicia, on a steep rock near the sea. (Strabo, p. 668; Beaufort's _Karamania_, p. 174.)]

[Footnote 243: Soli was an Achaean and Rhodian colony. After being settled by Pompeius, it received the name of Pompeiopolis, or the city of Pompeius. It is on the coast of the Level Cilicia, twenty miles west of the mouth of the river Cydnus, on which Tarsus stood. Soli was the birthplace of the Stoic Chrysippus, and of Philemon the comic writer. (Strabo, p. 671; Beaufort's _Kar._, p. 259.)]

[Footnote 244: Compare the Life of Lucullus, c. 26.]

[Footnote 245: One of the towns of Achaea in the Peloponnesus, near the borders of Elis. Pausanias (vii. 17).

As to the number of the pirates who surrendered, see Appia.n.u.s (_Mithridatic War_, c. 96).]

[Footnote 246: Q. Caecilius Metellus Creticus is stated by some modern writers to have been a son of Metellus Dalmaticus; but it is unknown who his father and grandfather were. (Drumann, _Geschichte Roms_.) He had been consul B.C. 69. (Compare Velleius Paterculus, ii. 32.)]

[Footnote 247: The pa.s.sage is in the Iliad, xxii. 207.]

[Footnote 248: Or as Plutarch writes it Mallius. The tribune C.

Manilius is meant, who carried the Lex Manilia, B.C. 66, which gave Pompeius the command in the Mithridatic war. Cicero supported the law in the speech which is extant, Pro Lege Manilia. It has been proposed to alter Mallius in Plutarch's text into Manilius, but Sintenis refers to Dion Ca.s.sius (36. c. 25, 26, 27).]

[Footnote 249: This was Glabrio the consul of B.C. 67 (see note on c.

25), who had been appointed to supersede Lucullus. (Life of Lucullus, c. 34, notes.)]

[Footnote 250: The allusion is to the secession of the Plebs to the Mons Sacer, which is recorded in Livius (2. c. 32).]

[Footnote 251: See the Life of Tib. Gracchus, c. 12, and the note.]

[Footnote 252: Pompeius was appointed to the command in the Mithridatic war B.C. 66, when he was in Cilicia. (Appia.n.u.s, _Mithridatic War_, c. 97.)]

[Footnote 253: Compare the Life of Lucullus, c. 35, &c.]

[Footnote 254: As to the events in this chapter, compare Appia.n.u.s, _Mithridatic War_, c. 98, &c.]

[Footnote 255: Probably a Greek woman, as we may infer from the name.

The king seems to have had a liking for Greek women.]

[Footnote 256: This is probably a corrupted name. It is Sinorega in Appia.n.u.s (_Mithridatic War_, c. 101). Coraes proposes Sinora. (Strabo, p. 555.) The place is mentioned by Ammia.n.u.s (quoted by Sintenis) under the name of Sinhorium or Synorium. Strabo places Sinoria (as it is written in Casaubon's text) on the borders of the Greater Armenia.]

[Footnote 257: Appia.n.u.s (_Mithridatic War_, c. 101) describes the course which Mithridates took in his flight. He spent the winter in Dioscuri, as Appia.n.u.s calls it, or Dioscurias on the east coast of the Euxine; and afterwards entered the countries bordering on the Maeotis or sea of Azoff. (Compare Strabo, p. 555.)]

[Footnote 258: He was the third son of Tigranes by the daughter of Mithridates. The other two had been put to death by their father. The young Tigranes appeared in the triumph of Pompeius at Rome and then was put to death. (Appia.n.u.s, _Mithridatic War_, c. 104, 5.)]

[Footnote 259: See the Life of Lucullus, c. 26, notes.]

[Footnote 260: Probably Artaxata is meant, for Appia.n.u.s (c. 104) says that Pompeius had advanced to the neighbourhood of Artaxata.

Appia.n.u.s (_Mithridatic War_, c. 104) places these transactions with Tigranes after the battle with the Iberians which Plutarch describes in c. 34.]

[Footnote 261: Probably a Persian word, with the same meaning as Tiara, the head-dress of the Persians and some other Oriental nations.

The kings wore it upright to distinguish them from other people.

(Herodotus, vii. 61.)]

[Footnote 262: A part of Armenia between the Ant.i.taurus and the mountain range of Masius. (Strabo, p. 527.)]

[Footnote 263: Appia.n.u.s (_Mithridatic War_, c. 104) states that Pompeius received 6000 talents (of silver?) from Tigranes; and he seems to understand it as if the money was for Pompeius. In the other sums he agrees with Plutarch, except as to the tribunes, who received 10,000 drachmae, or one talent and 4000 drachmae, or 40 minae.

On the value of the drachma, see Life of Tib. Gracchus, c. 2.]

[Footnote 264: _I.e._, to sup with.]

[Footnote 265: This great mountain system lies between the Euxine and the Caspian, and was now entered for the first time by the Roman troops. Colchis was on the west side of the mountains.]

[Footnote 266: The Saturnalia were celebrated in Rome on the 19th of December at this time. (Macrobius, _Sat._ i. 10; and the Life of Sulla, c. 18.) It was accordingly in the winter of B.C. 66 that Pompeius was in the mountains of the Caucasus. (Dion Ca.s.sius, 36. c.

36, 37.)]

[Footnote 267: I have kept the name Cyrnus, as it stands in the text of Plutarch, though it is probably, an error of the transcribers. The real name Cyrus could not be unknown to Plutarch. In the text of Appia.n.u.s (_Mithridatic War_, c. 103) the name is erroneously written Cyrtus; in Dion Ca.s.sius, it is Cyrnus. The Cyrus, now the Cur, flows from the higher regions of the Caucasus through Iberia and Albania, and is joined by the Araxes, Aras, above the point where the united stream enters the Caspian on the west coast. The twelve mouths are mentioned by Appia.n.u.s (c. 103). Compare Strabo, p. 491.]

[Footnote 268: In fact the Persians never subdued any of the mountain tribes within the nominal limits of their dominions; and the Caucasus was indeed not even within the nominal limits.