Follow me to the Capitol to render thanks to the gods and to beseech
them always to provide generals like myself."
To support their pretensions at home, the majority of the nobles
required a large amount of money. Many used their power to get it for
themselves: some sent as governors plundered the subjects of Rome;
others compelled foreign or hostile kings to pay for the peace granted
them, or even for letting their army be beaten. It was in this way
that Jugurtha bribed a Roman general. Cited to Rome to answer for a
murder, he escaped trial by buying up a tribune who forbade him to
speak. It was related that in leaving Rome he had said, "O city for
sale, if thou only couldst find a purchaser!"
=Corruption of the Army.=--The Roman army was composed of small
proprietors who, when a war was finished, returned to the cultivation
of their fields. In becoming soldiers they remained citizens and
fought only for their country. Marius began to admit to the legions
poor citizens who enrolled themselves for the purpose of making
capital from their campaigns. Soon the whole army was full of
adventurers who went to war, not to perform their service, but to
enrich themselves from the vanquished.
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