A CRIMINAL HISTORY OF MANKIND

were talking about. Rome had overrun the Mediterranean; it had even added Macedonia, the
country of Alexander the Great, to its conquests. Wealth was flooding in from all sides. Everyone
benefited; the plebs were always being given free hand-outs and treated to public spectacles in
which captives had to fight for their lives against lions and tigers. They were not going to complain
about the increasing power of the rich so long as the rich kept them so well entertained. In a city as
wealthy as Rome, there was plenty for everyone.
What worried men like Tiberius Gracchus - another grandson of the great Scipio Africanus - and
his brother Gaius, was that most of the wealth and land was passing into the hands of a few people,
and that these were mostly corrupt. Rome’s greatness had been founded on small farmers who
owned their own land; such men might have a few slaves, but these were treated almost as
members of the family. And now, just as in the time of Marcus Manlius, soldiers returning from the
war were being jailed for debt and the small farms were being gobbled up by the wealthy
landowners. These new super-farms were being stocked with slaves by Mediterranean pirates, and
the cheap grain was putting the remaining small farmers out of business. The fields were full of
chained slaves who were branded like cattle. Naturally, these escaped whenever they could, and
went around committing robbery and murder until they were caught and tortured to death. When
the Sicilian slaves revolted, in 134 B.C., seventy thousand of them took over the island. The
Romans finally had to kill the lot. A happy and contented land was turning into a land of suffering
and crime.
In the year of the slave revolt in Sicily, Tiberius Gracchus was elected tribune of the people. And
his first act was to propose a law to limit the amount of land that could be held by a single family.
He suggested too that land should be given to homeless soldiers. This was too much. His fellow
senators rose up against him, chased him into the street, and beat him to death with table legs. Ten
years later, his brother Gaius - another ‘troublemaker’ - was murdered under almost identical
circumstances.
The Romans were slipping into violence by a process of self-justification. And once a nation - or an
individual - has started down this particular slope, it is almost impossible to apply the brakes. The
Roman people were too unimaginative and short-sighted to realise that, once murder has been
justified on grounds of expediency, it can become a habit, then a disease.
The man who was most responsible for bringing the disease to Rome was not a criminal or
degenerate; in fact, he possessed all the Roman virtues. Gaius Marius was the son of a farm
labourer; he rose to eminence in the army, married a patrician girl, and succeeded in getting himself
elected tribune - a spokesman of the people. He was in his mid-forties when an African general
named Jugurtha rose up in revolt. Jugurtha’s skill in guerrilla warfare enabled him to defy the
might of Rome for four years. Finally, Marius marched off to try his luck. He soon decided to
abandon force in favour of treachery. Jugurtha’s father-in-law was bribed to betray him, and lure
him into a trap laid by a brilliant young officer known as ‘Lucky Sulla’. Marius was able to keep
his promise to drag Jugurtha back to Rome in chains. The angry populace tore off the captive’s
jewels and clothes, yanking the ear-rings so violently that they ripped off the flesh. Jugurtha was
thrown into an icy dungeon and executed a few days later. Marius became the most popular man in
Rome, and was awarded a triumph.
Rome undoubtedly needed Marius. Barbarian invaders, including Germans (making their first
appearance in history), poured in from the north. A Roman army had been virtually wiped out at
Arausio, on the Rhone - the most shattering defeat since Hannibal. Marius was hastily despatched