CHAPTER XII. ARGUMENT. Castra Hyberna. · Sertorius dislikes the too great proximity of his own Camp and that of Perpenna. He re-establishes his Colleague's authority, and finds distant employment for the Mutinous. - His Personal Tastes simple; -his Public and Professional Habits magnificent. The reception of his Guests and Embassies. His Treaty with Mithridates. He sends Marcus Marius to Asia as his Pro-prætor. - Provident for the Majesty of Rome, and in the maintenance of Freedom. His love of the Chase profitable to him. Perpenna's Amusements during the Winter. The Luxurious Splendour of his Prætorium. His Visits to Osca. The Use which he makes of King Orcilis. — Manlius among his Familiars. - Manlius an unskilful Lover, and too tolerant Guest. - Myrtilis still studies the Discipline of Perpenna's School, and is profuse in her Patronage. The Fawn extends her Fame. Becomes an Assistant to Justice on the Tribunal. -- The two Purses and Chain of Gold. THE camps of Sertorius and Perpenna were separated by a river, which, before the bridges were built, might be crossed at twenty fords. The two parts constituted more than one whole, only because there was a prætorium, with its customary appendages, in each. Wide and rapid, the river was also shallow and rocky. Sertorius would have preferred a less easy communication, and intercourse less free. Between his own camp and the mountain solitudes, through which were introduced no small portion of his supplies, was now placed this ill-regulated obstruction. New roads were to be formed, additional outposts to be guarded. He also disliked the sedition of Perpenna's legions, however advantageous to his own supremacy. Notwithstanding the apology or the necessity, it was a mischievous precedent. Tribunes and legates had broken up their encampment, and, in open contempt of their general, had transferred his ensigns to another commander. Sertorius felt no apprehension that such power, extorted from his colleague by subordinate officers, would be directed hereafter against himself. But it ill-agreed with the sobriety of that justice for which he fought, and the majesty of those laws by which his office was sanctioned. The Oscan senate had no participation here. So daring a breach of republican authority would be proclaimed in Rome, and censured every where. Nor did he esteem this large addition to his army as an equivalent. Old soldiers who have lost their discipline, are less reclaimable than younger men, by whom their duties are disregarded, because till now they have been unknown. Perpenna boasted of eight legions, but his army would have consisted of no more than fifty-four cohorts, if all had been complete. He was obliged to weaken his ranks and multiply his eagles in support of his arithmetic. Sertorius never dragged behind him yesterday's regrets. His first thought was the correction of mischance, his next the means by which it might be rendered profitable, or at least harmless. On every account he determined to re-establish the authority of Perpenna as his colleague, and to appropriate, from the present temper of a mutinous army, no ungenerous advantage. Perpenna had collected that army, had conducted it into Spain, had brought with it much wealth of his own, and the contributions of many opulent partisans. His family was powerful, his resources were ample, the names of liberty and Marius on his ensigns were popular still. To have superseded and dismissed him, even in self-defence, must have appeared ambitious and extortionate, rather than provident or honest. Winter, which was not remote, would suspend the operations of war by its frosts and snows, and then severer discipline might be established under a more resolute superintendency. Perhaps even the restless prætor himself would become in noxious through the sense of weakness. As is usual, there remained another and a stronger reason unassigned: any want of forbearance. towards her friend's son, would distress that noble mother whom Sertorius never had disobeyed. Perpenna's fury was soon assuaged. His patrician associates were surprised that, after the first convulsions of disappointed pride, there should have been such a philosophical reflux. The effusions of rage were exhausted in a week. Wisdom meditates rather on what it may have gained unexpectedly, than what it has lost irretrievably. Some honor was gone; but we grow patient through habit, and this was not the first time. Some authority had escaped; but Perpenna was a prætor still with six lictors, a colleague of Sertorius with eight legions, a conqueror of Metellus and Pompeius, as attested by his epistles to Rome. His army had subsisted during its march through Gaul by rapine, his friends by extortion, and he was not much less rich at present, than at the commencement of his enterprise. And now for repose, while the more anxious operations of war, or the discipline preparatory to it, are usurped by Sertorius. Sertorius hastened the return of his good humour, by detaching to distant provinces the legates and military tribunes through whose sedition he had been deposed. J. Libo, with seven cohorts, was appointed to the command at Ocana. Avienus supported P. Messala at Patavonium with five. The younger Pansa had an honorable mission in Lusitania. By such arrangements, the one prætor was disengaged from watchful subordinates whom he felt unable to control, commanders of courage and experience who had detected his incapacity; and the other prætor could reward merit at a distance from the camp without countenancing disaffection there. Every deduction from Perpenna's cohorts rendered the remainder more manageable. Each of these politicians understood the reasoning which determined the other. Perpenna, less candid than his colleague, did not say that he wished for the command of such an army as he could corrupt and govern, preparatory to loftier enterprises. But Sertorius avowed the policy of dividing the mu-, tinous and employing the discontented. He anticipated Perpenna's conjectures, by explaining them. He took small pains to conceal from him that, if such visionary aspirations might again awake, they should do no greater harm the second time than they had done the first. |