Julius Exuperantius

Opusculum

Anthony Alcock

The following translation has been made from the text freely available on the Latin Library website. 1 Nothing is
known of the author beyond his name, which may point to the late classical period (4th-5th cent. AD). 2 The brief
text, which draws on Sallust3 and even quotes him, is an epitome or summary of the conflict between Marius and
Sulla (83-81 BC), after which Sulla assumed the office of dictatorship, a recognized office of the Roman Republic
that conferred extraordinary powers in an emergency. I have added notes of my own to provide background on
people and places mentioned in the text.

As Rome expanded by means of conquest in the early Republican period, it acquired the land that had formerly
belonged to the conquered enemy and, from the 4th cent. BC, was used to establish Latin colonies. The two major
social groups in Rome, the Optimates (upper class) and Plebeians (lower class) were in conflict about who was
entitled to exploit this land (ager publicus public land), and since it was the wealthy who were more easily able to
do this, representatives of the Plebeians tried to limit the amount of land individuals were able to acquire. The
land issue continued to be a problem, and in the 130s BC two brothers, Titus and Gaius Gracchus tried to
introduce legal measures to re-distribute land more equitably. About thirty years late an acute conflict between
Marius and Sulla, representing the Plebeians and Optimates respectively, led to civil war. This is the starting
point of the brief narrative recorded in Exuperantius' text.

1. When Lucius Metellus4 the proconsul was campaigning against Jugurtha in Numidia, he was
accompanied by Marius, a man of undistinguished birth from the ranks but one of outstanding
bravery. After he had been made quaestor5 by Metellus, Marius vowed that by his valiant

1 http://thelatinlibrary.com/exuperantius.shtml. The only scholarly edition I have been able to consult is that of
G. Landgraf and C. Weymann 'Die Epitome de Iulius Exuperantius' Archiv für Lateinische Lexikographie 12
(1903) pp. 561-578, which has a useful set of notes that give examples of how close the text is to the works of
Sallust. I have adopted their chapter division of the text.

2 Pauly-Wissowa Realenzyklopaedia der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft says merely that nothing is known
about him but the formation of the name and the style of the text point to 4th-5th cent. AD.

3 Born in 86 BC. His principal works cover the war against Jugurtha (112-105 BC) in Numidia and the
conspiracy against the Republic by Catiline and others in 63 BC. His Histories have not survived intact

4 The commander of the army that fought against Jugurtha (107 BC) was Quintus Metellus, the son of Lucius.
He was also the leader of the Optimates, the conservative aristocratic faction, the opposition to which was
formed by the Populares faction, which included Marius.

5 Financial officer

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deeds he would be a terror to the enemy and a friend to the Roman general. But when he was
sacrificing to the gods in the Numidian town of Utica, the priests told him that great things
were in store for him.6 They encouraged him to be bold enough to do what he wanted and to
seek things higher than his birth and greater than his deserts. For the favour of fortune
seemed to promise everything.

He was overcome by a great desire for the consulship and, in his campaign for it; having
secured votes, he left the province for Rome. By talking Metellus down and extolling his own
virtues, he made the people avid for novelty, with the help of tribunes of the people 7 to
encourage the electorate to support him. At that time there was great rivalry between the
patricians and the people for control. It came about that, by lacerating the nobility with
insults, Marius increased his prestige. So, in the consular elections, all those who had
convened to vote elected Marius consul and, after Metellus had been stripped of his province,
he was sent to Numidia.

2. Marius, having gained the consulship, began to wave it in the faces of the defeated patricians
like the spoils of victory and openly declared his hostility to their power. But when he began to
enlist soldiers, citizen recruits by a head count, he found himself leading unreliable and
useless soldiers into battle. In this way, he repaid the people, to their detriment, for the
honour of his election.

The Roman people was divided into classes, according to birth. All those with property joined
the army. Those freely defending the welfare of their country worked hard for victory. But
those with no wealth and classified as having only their lives, they remained within the walls
of the city in time of war. It was easy for them to become traitors, because poverty is not easily
endured without loss.8

So it was these people Marius led into battle, to whom the republic had not been entrusted. By
chance, he took Lucius Sulla, a noble, as a legate to the province. The war was successful and
Jugurtha was taken prisoner. They returned victorious to Rome and, after his achievement had
been acknowledged, Marius was sent to Gaul, which at the time was raiding the Roman
6 Sallust Bellum Iugurthinum 63.

7 Tribune of the people was an office created shortly after the expulsion of the last king Tarquinius and was
meant to provide a counterweight to the power of the patrician aristocracy.

8 Sallust Catiline Conspiracy 37, 3. This is almost certainly an attempt to quote Sallust that has gone wrong with
the addition of a counterproductive negative haud (not): Sallust writes quoniam egestas facile habetur sine
damno (for poverty is easily borne without loss).

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borders.9

3. At the same time Mithridates,10 with a large army, began to conquer and lay waste the whole
of Asia and cities of the allies. Sulla, whose greatness of body and spirit had proved itself in the
African War, was sent with an army to contain him.

When Marius found out about this, he hastened to finish the war he was waging. A man
desirous of infinite glory, he was not prepared to let Roman freedom and dignity be defended
by the courage of someone else. So, after the Gauls had been crushed and a nation of pure
barbarians devastated, he once again entered Rome as a victor. At his prompting, the tribune
of the people Sulpicius11 introduced a law that the province be removed from Sulla and given
to Marius.

When Sulla learned of this, he put his legate Murena12 in charge of the province and the
Valerian soldiers whom he considered to be untrustworthy in civil wars. With part of his
army, stung by insult, he made a move to wipe out the Marian faction. Immediately after his
arrival in Rome, he slaughtered his opponent Sulpicius who was unsettling the republic by
means of seditious speeches with many he had acquired as allies. Marius, who had engineered
the abuse against him, was driven into into exile by force of arms, and he who had so often
been victorious now had to wander, ruined and destitute, through the country districts of the
Gauls and the Africans.

4. While this was happening, Cinna13 and Octavius14 were elected consuls. Cinna, of the Marian
faction. proposed a law that new citizens, who had gained Roman citizenship, should have the
same voting rights as existing citizens. He did this of course to thank those who had
supported Marius with their vote and covered him with honours. But the law was not in the

9 The two main tribes who caused the problems were the Cimbri and the Teutones. Since Rome needed a
proven military commander of Marius's ability, Marius was elected to three successive consulships between
104 and 102 BC. The Cimbri were eventually defeated comprehensively by a joint attack of Marius, Catulus
and Sulla in N. Italy.

10 Mithridates VI, king of Pontus and Armenia Minor, remembered best by the Romans perhaps for slaughtering
80, 000 Italian settlers in Asia Minor in 86 BC in an attempt to root out Italian presence in the region.

11 Publius Sulpicius, though a patrician was a member of the Populares and supporter of Marius. He introduced
a bill to enfranchise Italian allies and freedmen, who as voting citizens helped Marius to relieve Sulla of the
command of the Mithridatic War (lex de bello mithridatico)

12 Lucius Murena, who initiated the second Mithridatic War without the authorization of theSenate.

13 Lucius Cornelius Cinna attempted in 85 BC to revive Sulpicius' enfranchisement policy.

14 Gnaeus Octavius died in the aftermath of the attempt by Cinna and Marius to take Rome by force in 87 BC.

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interest of the old citizens, who seemed to lose some of their deserved worth by voting with
the unworthy newly enfranchised.

Octavius, armed with the support of the forces of Sulla, was disturbed by this and, so that he
might be free of internal strife, sent his colleague Cinna, supported by older citizens, into exile.
In the process, large numbers of citizens of both sides were put to death.

So Cinna was expelled, and his travels took him to Africa and an indigent Marius, and together
they worked out a plan to create an army of the despondent and slaves released from prison,
Armed wih a strong force of young men, they came to Rome and defeated and killed Sulla's
follower Octavius.

Cruelty in its various forms became so widespread that much of the nobility was slaughtered
wilfully by fugitives. The immense savagery of Cinna was such that he did not spare even those
who had helped him to victory. While he was indulging himself in an indiscriminate orgy of
violent excess against everyone and giving speeches, he was murdered by his soldiers. Marius,
fearing that he was unable to sustain his dominance without an ally, called in Carbo 15 to
replace Cinna as a colleague in his seventh consulship.

5. Sulla then, aroused by so much anger, led his forces against Marius and Carbo, and there
was fierce fighting between Roman armies, in which Marius was defeated. The victor Sulla
remorselessly persecuted those who had not left the city, and did not return the avenged
republic to the rule of law, but took possession of it. He presented himself in such a way that
people began to ask how the domination of Cinna and Marius what had been avenged. As
Sallust says: "It started off well but ended badly." 16 The good beginning was that it wanted to
defended a freedom that had been attacked, but the bad outcome was that the one who had
promised, after the cruel lords and leaders had been defeated, to avert a public calamity did
even greater damage to the state.

6. When Lepidus17 tried to overturn these measures in his consulship, he had to fight a battle
against his colleague Catulus18 and was defeated. When they were gathered together on their
property, the victorious Sulla sent new settlers from among his soldiers to attack them and.

15 A supporter of Marius, he persuaded the Senate to officially declare Sulla an enemy of the state.

16 Coniuratio 7, 11

17 Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, consul in 78 BC, fled to Sardinia where he died.

18 An ally of Marius, Quintus Catulus transferred his allegiance to Sulla.

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together with the children of those whose property had been confiscated, he assembled a
substantial army and promised that if he were victorious, he would restore the republic.

His largesse both public and private was considerable. He appeared to be a caring champion of
public liberty. But in the battle on the coast of Etrura Lepidus initially had the upper hand with
an armed mob that had joined the Lepidus faction out of loathing for Sulla.

However, Pompey, on his return from Gaul, was not prepared to allow the impudence of to run
riot at the expense of the public good. He overthrew Lepidus' troops, who fled in hopeless
terrified confusion to such an extent that Lepidus, having lost many of his supporters, tried to
flee to Sardinia and, finding his progress blocked, began to importune the people of Rome in
desperation that he might rebuild his forces with weapons, supplies and the instruments of
warfare. There he engaged with Triarius19 the propraetor in various serious battles, but,
because of his careful stewardship of his province,20 Triarius managed to thwart Lepidus'
plans.

And so prevented and forcibly deterred from conquering cities he was unable to carry out his
plans. While making his many preparations, he succumbed to a serious illness and died.

7. His ally and assistant Perpenna,21 fearing punishment for the commission of such a major
crime, was removed from Sardinia to Spain, where he joined forces with Sertorius. who at the
time was shattering his command with Roman arms. For Sertorius was of the Marian faction.
In the consulship of Norbanus and Scipio, Sulla returned from Asia intending to assault
Marius and his faction, but fearing the anger of the senate that hostilities might arise between
the warring factions to the public detriment, ordered the consuls to ensure that the republic
did not suffer.

Thus, the consuls stirred into action by a decree of the senate, began to prepare all manner of
defences against the oncoming Sulla threatening to destroy them and to appoint leaders equal
to the task, one of them Sertorius.22 With a strong army they moved forward and, despite
Sertorius' protests, the consuls allowed negotiations between their army and Sulla's, with the
result that there was a surrender and the entire army was handed over to Sulla. Accordingly,

19 G. Valerius Triarius

20 Sardinia

21 Marcus Perpenna, member of the Marius-Cinna faction who eventually joined forces with Sertorius.

22 A supporter of Marius, he was an accomplished soldier who seems nevertheless to have been appalled by
Matrius' outbursts and tolerance of unnecessary violence.

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Sertorius, destitute and stripped of his army, fled to Etruria, fearing the anger of Sulla lest he
exact severe punishment as on a a conquered enemy.

Etruria was extremely loyal to the Marian cause because they had been granted Roman
citizenship, which they did not previously have. They were afraid that this benefit, conferred
on them by Marius, might be revoked by Sulla if the opposing parties were secretly cut off, so
they joined Sertorius and other leaders of his party, promising to do everything that was
required of them. And so it happened that a very strong army of 40 cohorts was re-assembled.
For many soldiers who had surrendered themselves to the oncoming Sulla, having lost
confidence in an agreement, returned to the camp of the former leaders whom they had
betrayed.

8. Meanwhile, Marius and Carbo were elected consuls for the seventh time. Sertorius, free
from the power of Marius, came to Rome and started to berate all for the idleness and to
praise the energy and courage of Sulla on the basis of his many swift actions and, if he did not
go to confront him, the matter would be settled and the war would be over. The consuls and
other leaders, chastened by the weight of these words, either to remove him from sight as a
rival and stern chastiser of negligence or to advance a suitable person to take charge of the
fierce province, the fidelity of which made them fearful, they sent to him to Nearer Spain with
orders to cross into Transalpine Gaul to bring matters under control.

But wherever he came in the province, he managed gently to soothe and win over the spirits of
the allies, by now low and wanting other things, to such an extent that he endeared himself to
them but was also held in awe by them all.

Meanwhile at Rome Sulla and Marius engaged in battle, and Marius was killed in the struggle.
Carbo, when the struggle was lost, fled. Sertorius, whose faction had disintegrated, believing
that the best plan was not to disband the army lest, stripped of it, he would be punished by the
victors, decided to fight on against the Roman army with the mob he had assembled in Spain.

So when Sulla was dead, he declared himself openly to be a public enemy. Metellus and
Pompey, who had been sent to conquer him, engaged him in heavy and assiduous fighting, and
he would not have been easy to defeat had he not been killed by a conspiracy of his own men
at a dinner party.

Pompey despatched Perpenna, destroying the towns of Auxum, Clunium and Calagurrim.
Having deposited trophies in the Pyrenees, he returned to Rome.