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Updated: April 30, 2025
The latter was of itself an extreme step, but it was rendered still more difficult by the fact that every one knew that Bestia would never have ventured on such a course had he not possessed the support of Scaurus.
His name was destined, however, to be linked with a great disaster as well as a thievish trick. The Cimbri, who had hitherto petitioned the Romans for lands to settle on, were now meditating a raid into Italy. On the left bank of the Rhone, in 105, they overthrew M. Aurelius Scaurus, whom they took prisoner and put to death.
On the news of this peace the storm once more broke forth in Rome. Everybody knew how the peace had been brought about; even Scaurus was evidently open to bribery, only at a price higher than the ordinary senatorial average.
Ultimately the adroit Jewish minister Antipater from Idumaea persuaded Aretas to purchase a guarantee for all his possessions, Damascus included, from the Roman governor for a sum of money; and this is the peace celebrated on the coins of Scaurus, where king Aretas appears leading his camel as a suppliant offering the olive branch to the Roman. Difficulty with the Parthians
The compact made with Bestia and Scaurus had been tacitly, if not formally, repudiated by the senate, and the fiction that Jugurtha had surrendered, although it had played its part in the negotiations which brought him to Rome, disappeared with the compact.
Never hitherto had the Roman aristocracy been so utterly deficient in men of statesmanly and military capacity, as it was during this epoch of restoration between the Gracchan and the Cinnan revolutions. Marcus Aemilius Scaurus A significant illustration of this is afforded by the chief of the senatorial party at this time, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus.
But he, full of firmness and gravity, defended himself in this manner: "Quintus Varius Hispanus alleges that Marcus Scaurus, President of the Senate, excited the allies to arms: Marcus Scaurus, President of the Senate, denies it. There is no witness. Which do you believe, Romans?" "Utri creditis, Quirites?" When he had said these words, he was absolved by the assembly of the people.
Here his eye wandered around him for awhile, taking note indeed of the surrounding objects, the great temple of Jupiter Stator on the Palatine; the splendid portico of Catulus, adorned with the uncouth and grisly spoils of the Cimbric hordes slaughtered on the plains of Vercellæ; the house of Scaurus, toward which a slow wain tugged by twelve powerful oxen was even then dragging one of the pondrous columns which rendered his hall for many years the boast of Roman luxury; and on the other tall buildings that stood every where about him; although in truth he scarce observed what for the time his eye dwelt upon.
Quintus Haterius and Mamercus Scaurus did thereafter incense his distrustful spirit; the first by asking him, "How long, Caesar, wilt thou suffer the Commonwealth to remain destitute of a head?"
The only important law of the period certainly proceeding from governmental circles, and dealing with a question that was novel, in the sense that it had not been heard of for a considerable number of years and had played no part in the Gracchan movements, was one passed by the consul Marcus Aemilius Scaurus.
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