A HISTORY OF ROME

DURING THE LATER REPUBLIC AND EARLY PRINCIPATE

BY

A. H. J. GREENIDGE, M. A., D. LITT. TUTOR AND LATE FELLOW OF HERTFORD COLLEGE AND LECTURER IN ANCIENT HISTORY AT BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD

VOLUME I

FROM THE TRIBUNATE OF TIBERIUS GRACCHUS TO THE SECOND CONSULSHIP OF MARIUS B.C. 133-104

WITH TWO MAPS

TO

B. G.

AND

T. G.

PREFACE

This work will be comprised in six volumes. According to the plan whichI have provisionally laid down, the second volume will cover the periodfrom 104 to 70 B.C., ending with the first consulship of Pompeius andCrassus; the third, the period from 70 to 44 B.C., closing with thedeath of Caesar; the fourth volume will probably be occupied by theThird Civil War and the rule of Augustus, while the fifth and sixth willcover the reigns of the Emperors to the accession of Vespasian.

The original sources, on which the greater part of the contents of thepresent volume is based, have been collected during the last few yearsby Miss Clay and myself, and have already been published in anabbreviated form. Some idea of the debt which I owe to modern authorsmay be gathered from the references in the footnotes. As I have often,for the sake of brevity, cited the works of these authors by shortenedand incomplete titles, I have thought it advisable to add to the volumea list of the full titles of the works referred to. But the list makesno pretence to be a full bibliography of the period of history withwhich this volume deals. The map of the Wäd Mellag and its surroundingterritory, which I have inserted to illustrate the probable site of thebattle of the Muthul, is taken from the map of the "Medjerda supérieure"which appears in M. Salomon Reinach's Atlas de la Province Romained'Afrique.

I am very much indebted to my friend and former pupil, Mr. E.J. Harding,of Hertford College, for the ungrudging labour which he has bestowed onthe proofs of the whole of this volume. Many improvements in the form ofthe work are due to his perspicacity and judgment.

A problem which confronts an author who plunges into the midst of thehistory of a nation (however complete may be the unity of the periodwith which he deals) is that of the amount of introductory informationwhich he feels bound to supply to his readers. In this case, I have feltneither obligation nor inclination to supply a sketch of the developmentof Rome or her constitution up to the period of the Gracchi. The amountof information on the general and political history of Rome which theaverage student must have acquired from any of the excellent text-booksnow in use, is quite sufficient to enable him to understand thetechnicalities of the politics of the period with which I deal; and Iwas very unwilling to burden the volume with a précis of a subjectwhich I had already treated in another work. On the other hand, it isnot so easy

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