The Storm Before The Storm: The Beginning Of The End Of The Roman Republic Quotes
"Thieves of private property pass their lives in chains; thieves of public property in riches and luxury." - CATO THE ELDER
"It is with lying lips that their commanders exhort the soldiers in their battles to protect sepulchers and shrines from the enemy… but they fight and die to support others in wealth and luxury."
"How can I, who have so many times heard the battle shout of the enemy without feeling fear, be disturbed by the shouts of men like you, to whom Italy is only a stepmother?" - Scipio Aemilianus
"Let those who would save our country follow me." - Scipio Nasica
The wild beasts that roam over Italy have every one of them a cave or lair to lurk in," he said, while "the men who fight and die for Italy enjoy the common air and light… but nothing else; houseless and homeless they wander about with their wives and children.
"Citizens were not called "good" or "bad" according to their public conduct because in that respect they were all equally corrupt; but those who were wealthiest and most able to inflict harm were considered "good" because they defended the existing state of affairs." - SALLUST
Gaius Gracchus had a dream. In this dream, he was visited by the ghost of his dead brother Tiberius who said, "However much you may try to defer your fate, nevertheless you must die the same death that I did."
"How great was his genius! How great his energy! How impetuous his eloquence! So that all men grieved that all those good qualities and accomplishments were not joined to a better disposition and to better intentions." - Cicero on Gaius Gracchus
"So perish all those who attempt such crimes." - Scipio Aemilianus
"For when those in power act cruelly and wickedly, the character of their subjects is inflamed to reckless action… if they are denied the kindness which they deserve, they revolt against the men who act like cruel despots." - DIODORUS
"Restoring the health of the Republic meant restoring the health of all Italians—not just Roman citizens."
"The Italian Allies should be admitted to Roman citizenship so that, out of gratitude… they might no longer quarrel about the land."
"It may not be right… for one who is not a citizen to exercise the rights and privileges of citizenship."
"By the Roman people Numantia was destroyed, Carthage razed, Corinth demolished, Fregellae overthrown."
"When I left for Rome, I brought back empty from the province the purses which I took there full of money."
"He left nothing undisturbed, nothing untouched, nothing unmolested, nothing, in short, as it had been."
"The censors' dignity has been prostituted to a ruthless enemy, your sovereignty has been betrayed, your country offered for sale at home and abroad."
"A city for sale and doomed to speedy destruction if it finds a purchaser."
"Men stained with crime, with gory hands, of monstrous greed, guilty, yet at the same time full of pride."
"The humiliating defeat only confirmed the belief back in Rome that the pathetic campaigns in Numidia needed fresh leadership."
"Stern and disciplined, Metellus was both honest and intelligent, but an aristocratic pride defined his worldview."
"Politically rigid and unyielding, Metellus had little use for populare agitation."
"Jugurtha was well informed of these developments and he did not like what he heard."
"Jugurtha resolved to defeat the Romans in battle. Again."
"With Jugurtha fielding an almost unlimited number of men, Metellus determined this was not a war that could be won by a series of battles."
"Metellus was not going to be taken in by the wily king."
"After so many men had been killed, some were crying for sons or brothers; others, orphaned by the death of their fathers, lamented the loss of their parents and the desolation of Italy."
"The chief beneficiary of this new environment would be Gaius Marius."
"He had a mind deep beyond belief in its power of disguising its purposes, and was generous with many things, especially with money."
"How can you be an honest man," they said, "when your father left you nothing, and yet you are so rich?"
"Lucius Appuleius Saturninus was elected quaestor and would shortly be at the center of a political movement that almost toppled the old senatorial order completely."
"The last thing they needed was for the war in Numidia to keep expanding until it covered all of North Africa."
"The first seed of that bitter and incurable hatred between Marius and Sulla, which nearly brought Rome to ruin."
"The Romans left him to die in a dungeon pit naked and starving."
"In Jugurtha it had a purchaser—if it had been for sale; but once it had escaped his hands, it was certain that it was not doomed to perish."
"He ordered his standard to be taken up, ran to the foremost of the retiring troops, and put himself at their head."
"The generals of this later time… who needed their armies for service against one another, rather than against the public enemy, were compelled to merge the general and the demagogue."
"Freedom, democracy, laws, reputation, official position, were no longer of any use to anybody."
If by my help you defeat your enemies, what reward will you give me?" - "Citizenship is considered a nonsense amongst the Cretans.
"By Capitoline Jupiter, Vesta of Rome, Mars the patron of the city, Sol the origin of all the people, Terra the benefactress of animals and plants... I swear that the friend or the enemy of Drusus will also be mine."
"Don’t trouble yourself about your brethren, for they have land, and they will have it forever—land which we have given them."
"If you are a great general, force me to fight it out with you against my will."
"Though he had risen from poverty to the greatest wealth and from obscurity to the highest place, he knew not how to set bounds to his good fortune."
"He knew that neither matters will mend and the people will change their minds and I shall return at their invitation, or, if matters remain as they are, it is best that I should be away."
"I will regard Rome as my homeland, and Drusus as my greatest benefactor."
"Throwing off his rich apparel, putting on poor and sordid clothes, and allowing his beard to grow, he ran up and down to the tumultuous throngs of people throughout the city."
"Either strive to be stronger than Rome, or do her bidding without a word."
"The clash of arms had prevented his hearing the voice of the law."
"For this betrayal, Sulpicius is roundly denounced in the sources 'so that the question was not whom else he surpassed in wickedness, but in what he surpassed his own wickedness.'"
"Cicero later wailed, 'For why should I speak of Publius Sulpicius? Whose dignity, and sweetness, and emphatic conciseness in speaking was so great that he was able by his oratory to lead even wise men into error, and virtuous men into pernicious sentiments.'"
"Sulpicius’s great contribution to Roman politics was the invention of the professional street gang."
"Despite the recent marriage of Sulla and Metella that might revive the family’s fortunes, Sulpicius decided to throw in his lot with Marius."
"But in Sulpicius’s final analysis, it was not courage that Saturninus lacked, but organization."
"Sulla’s march triggered a flurry of activity in Rome. Sulpicius used his own considerable powers as tribune, combined with Marius’s new military authority, to seize control of the situation."
"Gaius Marius, six-time consul and Third Founder of Rome, was dragged out of the swamp 'naked and covered with mud.'"
"Marius made preparations to leave his temporary safe haven on the island of Cercina as soon as he heard Cinna was raising an army of Italians."
"Sulla’s own forces could not believe the terms of the peace when they found out."
"While on the public stage, Cinna was the dominant leader of a tense coalition that ruled Rome for three years."
"To combat these efforts, Carbo returned to Rome in July 83 and had the Senate declare everyone who joined Sulla an enemy of the state."
"Most importantly they made the devastating promise that citizenship for the Italians would be respected."
"The battle for control of Picenum was particularly fierce as Carbo’s agents tried to blunt the damage of Pompey’s defection."
"Asiaticus led these four legions into Picenum to confront Pompey directly, but was forced to endure the same shame he had endured at Sulla’s hands."
"Sertorius would emerge as principal leader of the opposition to the coming Sullan regime."
"It is telling that Sulla was still not willing to risk all in battle, because it was a battle he might lose."
"Sulla’s legions were enraged they were being forced to drop their shovel and pick up their swords."
"When Sulla himself arrived, he displayed calculated cruelty."
"But the plebs urbana were in for a pleasant surprise."
"His conduct fixed a stigma upon offices of great power, which were thought to work a change in men’s previous characters, and render them capricious, vain, and cruel."
"Sulla’s run of reforms was designed to roll the Republic back to its roots as a senatorial aristocracy."
"Augustus’s imperial settlement was premised on the accumulation of all sovereign authority in the hands of one man."