wise enough to encourage and reward such aspirations. The full franchise was granted to the Arpinates in the year 188 B.C., shortly before the death of Hannibal and of Scipio Africanus. In the next generation the Romans deliberately set aside the wisdom of their ancestors, and adopted a system of harsh and rigid exclusion in the place of the liberal practice of gradually elevating aliens to the citizenship, by which the greatness of Rome had been built up. The punishment for this political crime came upon them when, a century after the enfranchisement of Arpinum, their Italian allies, after having in vain sought the citizenship by peaceful agitation, at length resolved to demand it at the point of the sword. During the Social War (B.C. 90 and 89) and during the civic conflicts which grew out of it, Rome tardily granted to the Italians, in the midst of her own ruin and theirs, the boon which, if accorded a few years earlier, would have averted irreparable disasters from the nation.[1]
So far, however, as Arpinum was concerned, the old liberal policy of Rome had lasted just long enough to secure its inclusion; and thus it came to pass that in her hour of peril Rome could reckon Caius Marius among her citizens. While Cicero was still an infant, the great soldier of Arpinum triumphed Jan. 1, 104 B.C.over Jugurtha; then re-elected during five successive years (B.C. 104-100) to the consulship, he crushed by two splendid victories the invading hordes of the Cimbri and Teu-- ↑ See below, p. II.
