twice over but those insatiable usurers, by heaping interest upon interest, had run it up to a hundred and twenty thousand talents; so that they still owed triple the sums they had already paid. Tacitus + had reason to say, that usury was one of the most ancient evils of the Roman common-wealth, and the most frequent cause of sedition; but at the time we now speak of, it was carried to an excess not easy to be credited. The interest of money amongst the Romans was paid every month, and was one per cent. hence it was called usura centesima, or unciarium fœnus; because in reckoning the twelve months, twelve per cent. was paid: Uncia is the twelfth part of an whole. The law of the twelve tables prohibited the raising interest to above twelve per cent. This law was revived by the two tribunes of the people, in the 396th year of Rome. 'Ten years after, interest was reduced to half that sum, in the 406th year of Rome, semiunciarium fœnus. * At length, in the 411th year of Rome, all interest was prohibited by decree: Ne fœnerari liceret. All these decrees were ineffectual. § Avarice was always too strong for the laws: and whatever regulations were made to suppress it, either in the time of the republic or under the emperors, it always found means to elude them. Nor has it paid more regard to the laws of the Church, which has never entered into any composition on this point, and severely condemns all usury, even the most moderate; because, God having forbidden any, she never 9 Tacit. Annal. 1. vi. c. 16. Liv. 1. vii. n. 27. Liv. 1. vii. n. 16. * About eighteen millions sterling. *Sanè vetus urbi fænebre malum, & seditionum discordiarumque creberrima causa. Tacit. Annal. 1. vi. c. 16. Nequis unciario fænore amplius exerceto. § Multis plebiscitis obviam itum fraudibus: quæ toties repressæ miras per artes rursum oriebantur. Tacit. Ibid. believed she had a right to permit it in the least. It is remarkable, that usury has always occasioned the ruin of the states where it has been tolerated; and it was this disorder which contributed very much to subvert the constitution of the Roman commonwealth, and gave birth to the greatest calamities in all the provinces of that empire. Lucullus, at this time, applied himself in procuring. for the provinces of Asia some relaxation; which he could only effect by putting a stop to the injustice and cruelty of the usurers and tax-gatherers. The latter, finding themselves deprived by Lucullus of the immense gain they made, raised a great outcry, as if they had been excessively injured, and by the force of money animated many orators against him; particularly confiding in having most of those, who governed the republic, in their debt, which gave them a very extensive and almost unbounded influence. But Lucullus despised their clamours with a constancy the more admirable from its being very uncommon. SECT. III. Lucullus causes war to be declared with Tigranes, and marches against him. Vanity and ridiculous self-sufficiency of that prince. He loses a great battle. Lucullus takes Tigranocerta, the capital of Armenia. He gains a second victory over the joint forces of Tigranes and Mithridates. Mutiny and revolt in the army of Lucullus. TIGRANES, to whom Lucullus had sent an ambassador, though of no great power in the beginning 3934. of his reign, had enlarged it so much by a series Ant. J. C. of successes, of which there are few examples, that he was commonly surnamed king of kings. After • Plut. in Lucul. p. 504-512. Memn. c. xlviii,-lvii. Appian, in Mithrid. p. 228-232. 70. having overthrown, and almost ruined the family of the kings, successors of the great Seleucus; after having very often humbled the pride of the Parthians, transp rted whole cities of Greeks into Media, conquered all Syria and Palestine, and given laws to the Arabians, called Scenites; he reigned with an authority respected by all the princes of Asia. The people paid him honours after the manner of the East, even to adoration. His pride was inflamed and supported by the immense riches he possessed, by the excessive and continual praises of his flatterers, and by a prosperity that had never known any interruption. Appius Clodius was introduced to an audience of this prince, who appeared with all the splendour he could display, in order to give the ambassador an higher idea of the royal dignity; who, on his side, uniting the haughtiness of his natural disposition with that which particularly characterised his republic, perfectly supported the dignity of a Roman ambassador. After having explained, in a few words, the subjects of complaint which the Romans had against Mithridates, and that prince's breach of faith in breaking the peace, without so much as attempting to give any reason or colour for it, he told Tigranes, that he came to demand his being delivered up to him, as due by every sort of title to Lucullus's triumph; that he did not believe, as a friend to the Romans, which he had been till then, that he would make any difficulty in giving up Mithridates; and that, in case of his refusal, he was instructed to declare war against him. That prince who had never been contradicted, and who knew no other law nor rule than his own. will and pleasure, was extremely offended at this Roman freedom. But he was much more so with Lucullus's letter, when it was delivered to him. The title of king only, which it gave him, did not satisfy him. He had assumed that of king of kings, of which he was very fond, and had carried his pride in that respect so far, as to cause himself to be served by crowned heads. He never appeared in public without having four kings attending him; two on foot on each side of his horse, when he went abroad: at table, in his chamber, in short, every where, he had always some of them to do the lowest offices for him; but especially when he gave audience to ambassadors. For, at that time, to give strangers a greater idea of his glory and power, he made them all stand in two ranks, one on each side of his throne, where they appeared in the habit and posture of common slaves. A pride so full of absurdity offends all the world. One more refined shocks less, though much the same at bottom. It is not surprising that a prince of this character should bear the manner in which Clodius spoke to him with impatience. It was the first free and sincere speech he had heard during the five and twenty years he had governed his subjects, or rather tyrannized over them with excessive insolence. He answered, that Mithridates was the father of Cleopatra, his wife; that the union between them was of too strict a nature to admit his delivering him up for the triumph of Lucullus; and that if the Romans were unjust enough to make war against him, he knew how to defend himself, and to make them repent it. To express his resentment by his answer, he directed it only to Lucullus, without adding the usual title of Imperator, or any other commonly given to the Roman generals. Lucullus, when Clodius reported the result of his commission, and that war had been declared against Tigranes, returned with the utmost diligence into Pontus to begin it. The enterprise seemed rash, and the terrible power of the king astonished all those who relied less upon the valour of the troops and the conduct of the general, than upon a multitude of soldiers. After having made himself master of Sinope, he gave that place its liberty, as he did also to Amisus, and made them both free and in dependent cities. Cotta did not treat Heraclæa, which he took after a long siege by treachery, in the same manner. He enriched himself out of its spoils, treated the inhabitants with excessive cruelty, and burnt almost the whole city. On his return to Rome, he was at first well received by the senate, and honoured with the surname of Ponticus, upon account of taking that place. But, soon after, when the Heracleans had laid their complaints before the senate, and represented, in a manner capable of moving the hardest hearts, the miseries Cotta's avarice and cruelty had made them suffer, the senate contented themselves with depriving him of the latus clavus, which was the robe worn by the senators, a punishment in no wise proportioned to the flagrant excesses proved upon him. Lucullus left Sornatius, one of his generals, in Pontus, with six thousand men, and marched with the rest, which amounted only to twelve thousand foot and three thousand horse, through Cappadocia to the Euphrates. He passed that river in the midst of winter, and afterwards the Tigris, and came before Tigranocerta, which was at some small distance, to attack Tigranes in his capital, where he had lately arrived from Syria. Nobody dared speak to that prince of Lucullus and his march, after his cruel treatment of the person who brought him the first news of it, whom he put to death in reward for so important a service. He listened to nothing but the discourses of flatterers, who told him Lucullus must be a great captain if he only dared wait for. him at Ephesus, and did not betake himself to flight and abandon Asia, when he saw the many thousands of which his army was composed. So true it is, says Plutarch, that as all constitutions are not capable of bearing much wine, all minds are not strong enough to bear great prosperity without loss of reason and infatuation. a Memn. c. li-lxi. |