Chapter 14
Although the Republic had weathered the foreign and domestic crises that had beset it since the time of the Gracchi, none of the basic problems had been solved. Political competition within the aristocracy continued to intensify. It politicized any attempts at necessary reform so that nothing could be accomplished without violence and the creation of further instability. At the same time, Rome’s wars put more and more power in the hands of ambitious military leaders. Therefore, they were able to resort to ever-higher levels of violence in the pursuit of their personal goals. Finally, beginning in 88 b.c.e., the Republic was rocked by a series of civil wars that ultimately destroyed it.
Sources for the years, 88 to 78 b.c.e.
As for the previous period, the only two major sources are Appian and Plutarch. Plutarch’s lives of Marius and Sulla are particularly important. Pertinent information is also found in the early portions of his biographies of Sertorius, Lucullus, Pompey, Crassus, Caesar, and Cicero. Velleius Paterculus presents a summary in Book 2 of his Histories, and Books 77 to 90 of Livy are summarized in the Periochae and later epitomes. There are a few fragments from Cassius Dio and sizable fragments from Diodorus Siculus. There also survive some interesting fragments on the First Mithridatic War from the first-century c.e. Greek historian Memnon of Heraclea in Pontus. For the First Mithridatic War, some official documents of both Sulla and Mithridates have been preserved on inscriptions. For internal affairs, numerous references scattered throughout the works of Cicero make him a valuable contemporary witness.
Mithridates VI Eupator (134 to 63 b.c.e.)
Senatorial leaders had ended the Social War by granting citizenship to the Italians. They had been prompted not only by the adverse military situation in Italy but also by the aggressive actions of Mithridates VI, king of Pontus. Mithridates had taken advantage of several factors: the resentment that often-corrupt Roman rule had aroused in the eastern provinces, Rome’s confrontations with Germanic invaders, and the disruptions caused by the Social War. His goal was to overthrow Roman rule in the eastern Mediterranean. He wanted an empire of his own on the model of Alexander the Great’s. By 90 b.c.e., he had gained control of all but the western coast of the Black Sea and most of the interior of Asia Minor. At that time, however, the Romans were thoroughly aroused by his simultaneous seizures of Bithynia and Cappadocia. Therefore, the senate sent special envoys to compel Mithridates to withdraw from both kingdoms. They demanded that he recognize Ariobarzanes as the lawful king of Cappadocia and Nicomedes IV as king of Bithynia. That done, one of the envoys, Manius Aquillius, did a very foolish thing: he incited Nicomedes to raid Pontus. Aquillius hoped to obtain enough loot to reward the Romans for their intervention in Bithynia. He also may have wanted to stir up a war to benefit Marius, his old commander and colleague as consul in 101 b.c.e. Marius was now in Asia and looking for opportunities to restore his glory.
Mithridates makes war on Rome
Nicomedes invaded Pontus in 90 b.c.e. After several unheeded protests, Mithridates decided to strike. Quickly defeating Nicomedes, he swept the weak Roman forces aside and attacked Pergamum. He captured Aquillius and, it is said, paid him the money that he had demanded by pouring molten gold down his throat. During 89 and 88, many in Asia Minor welcomed Mithridates as a deliverer and a savior. They seized the chance to make the Romans pay dearly for the previous forty years. By prearrangement, they slaughtered many Italians, mostly tax agents, moneylenders, and merchants, although the figure of 80,000 given in the sources may be highly exaggerated. Mithridates’ only setback, a major one, was the failure of his powerful fleet to capture Rome’s loyal naval ally Rhodes.
Mithridates would not feel secure unless he added Greece to his dominions. He knew that the Romans were hated there almost as much as in Asia. Therefore, he had sent his agents to Athens and other cities to make his case. Meanwhile, his navy had descended on Delos. There he ordered the massacre of 20,000 Italian merchants and slave dealers. Athens overthrew its pro-Roman oligarchic government and made common cause with Mithridates. Late in 88 b.c.e., his general occupied Athens’ main port, the Piraeus, and from that base conquered most of southern Greece. Meanwhile, another Pontic army was gathering to invade Macedonia and northern Greece. Such was the dangerous situation in the East as Rome slowly recovered from the ravages of the Social War.
The rise of Sulla (138 to 78 b.c.e.)
Marius and Sulla eagerly sought command of the war against Mithridates. Marius wanted to recover the popularity that he had enjoyed after the Jugurthine and Cimbrian wars but had later lost. Sulla was from an old patrician family that had not been prominent within the consular nobility for some time. He wanted the command because he believed that the war would be easily won and a source of power, fame, and fortune. For some time now, he had been promoting his career at Marius’ expense: he claimed credit for bringing an end to the Jugurthine War because of his role in Jugurtha’s capture (p. 233). He was closely allied with Marius’ optimate enemies in the senate. They had assured his election to the consulship of 88 b.c.e. and an important command in the Social War. Marius had been forced to settle for a legateship. Now powerful friends procured Sulla the coveted command against Mithridates.
The tribuneship of P. Sulpicius, 88 b.c.e.
The question of the Mithridatic command might well have been settled had it not been for the political aims of the tribune P. Sulpicius. Sulpicius had been a close friend and admirer of Livius Drusus the Younger. He had strongly opposed the restriction of the newly enfranchised Italians to eight of the thirty-five tribes. An orator of remarkable power and an heir to immense wealth, Sulpicius was also a member of one of the most ancient and illustrious patrician families. Nevertheless, he had given up his patrician status in 89 b.c.e. to qualify for election as tribune.
As tribune of the people, Sulpicius made four proposals that seem to have been presented in one omnibus bill: (1) to enroll the new Italian citizens as well as freedmen (see sidebar) in all the thirty-five tribes, (2) to recall all exiles, (3) to exclude from the senate all members owing bills in excess of 2000 denarii (in order to prevent bribery and corruption), and (4) to replace Sulla with Marius in the command against Mithridates. The first proposal was the least acceptable and made it difficult for the bill to gain the support of enough tribes to be passed in the concilium plebis. The fourth provision represented a deal with Marius. In exchange for the command against Mithridates, Marius probably delivered the required number of tribes through the votes of his veterans. The bill became law, although not without considerable opposition and violence. Sulla had left his army at Nola and rushed to Rome. He used his power as consul to suspend public business. Exasperated, Sulpicius and his armed followers rioted. Ironically, Sulla escaped by taking refuge in the house of Marius. After Sulla had agreed to lift the suspension of public business, Marius, like an old soldier doing a good turn for another, allowed him to escape from his house with the expectation that he would go into exile.
Sulla’s march on Rome
Instead, Sulla hastened to return to Campania and his army at Nola. He took part of the troops and marched on Rome. The increasingly bitter competition among ambitious politicians had led to outright civil war for the first time in the annals of the Roman Republic. Significantly, only one of his aristocratic officers, L. Licinius Lucullus, was willing to accompany him. It is a great irony that this act was made possible in part by Marius’ military career, which had increased the personal dependence of the soldiers on their commanders and weakened their loyalty to the state.
The common people of Rome resisted fiercely until Sulla started to set fire to their houses. Once in control, he obtained a senatorial decree declaring Marius, Sulpicius, and ten others to be enemies of the state. He then obtained passage of a law condemning them to death and putting a price on their heads. Marius fled and reached the coast of North Africa after some narrow escapes. Betrayed by a slave, Sulpicius seems to have been the only one executed, but Sulla had set a disastrous precedent for the future.
The victorious Sulla rescinded Sulpicius’ legislation. Although he introduced a reasonable law for the relief of debtors by reducing the maximum rate of interest to 10 percent, he then made a number of reactionary changes to the “constitution.” They were designed to make it impossible for anyone outside his group of optimate friends to challenge their dominant position within the senatorial aristocracy. Sulla made the Centuriate Assembly the primary legislative assembly by revoking the right of tribunes to introduce legislation in the concilium plebis. The Centuriate Assembly was also reorganized so that the ninety-eight wealthiest centuries had a clear majority once more. Another reactionary step was the requirement that magistrates consult the senate before introducing new legislation.
Sulla’s attempt to interfere with the consular elections failed. He did, however, manage to extract a promise from one of the newly elected consuls, Lucius Cornelius Cinna, not to tamper with any constitutional changes already made. Such an agreement could not last. Still, it allowed Sulla to depart for the East to make war against Mithridates.
Cinna’s consulship, 87 b.c.e.
Hardly had Sulla left Italy when Cinna attempted to annul Sulla’s laws and reenact those of Sulpicius. The prospect of enrolling the Italians in all thirty-five tribes aroused the opposition of optimates like Gnaeus Octavius, Cinna’s consular colleague. After some rioting and a massacre of Italians in the Forum, Octavius drove Cinna from the city, and the senate declared him a public enemy. In so doing, Cinna’s enemies seriously blundered. They gave him the opportunity of appealing to the Italian voters and winning the support of the troops that Sulla had left at Nola. Cinna recalled Marius from Africa and, imitating Sulla’s deadly example, marched on Rome.
Marius and his reign of terror
Recalled from Africa, the elderly Marius, now well over seventy, stormed Ostia, the seaport of Rome, cut off Rome’s food supplies, and starved the city into surrender. Marius was embittered by the ingratitude and snubs of the nobles. Enraged by his recent experiences in Italy and North Africa, he wanted revenge. With his blessing, his followers struck down prominent enemies who had not fled. Their mutilated corpses littered the streets. Their severed heads, dripping blood, decorated the rostra. Their houses and property were confiscated and auctioned. Marius’ outrages made even Cinna quail and finally stop them. In 86 b.c.e., Marius at last achieved his long-cherished ambition of a seventh consulship, but he did not long enjoy his victory. He fell ill and died a few days after taking office.
The significance of Marius
For a novus homo, Marius had made an unusually great impact on Roman history. His military service in defeating Jugurtha and in annihilating the threat of Germanic invasion made him a popular hero. Politically, however, his impact was largely negative. The problem was not with his opening military recruitment to the propertyless. That and its unforeseen political consequences would have happened anyway. Rather, the problem was that, as was the case with many of Marius’ contemporaries, his only goal was to achieve the consulship and maintain the greatest prestige at Rome. He had no real program to deal with Rome’s pressing problems. Therefore, he only made them worse and undermined faith in the political system. He was not the first to resort to outright civil war. Still, his willingness to follow Sulla’s example in that case helped to set precedents for violence that greatly aided in the destruction of the Republic. Moreover, the reputation of Marius as a military hero and the popular policies of his associates left a problematic legacy among his veterans, the urban masses, and new Italian citizens. They formed a large body of people who could be manipulated by recalling his name in the increasingly bitter political struggles of the late Republic.
Cinna’s time (cinnanum tempus)
After Marius’ sudden death in 86 b.c.e., Cinna was, in effect, left as a dictator. Foregoing elections, he appointed Lucius Valerius Flaccus as consul to replace Marius. For 85 and 84, he simply appointed himself and Gnaeus Papirius Carbo to the consulship. Cinna attempted, however, to secure his position by using power much more responsibly than Marius ever had. He overturned Sulla’s reactionary laws and tried to satisfy many legitimate grievances of his own supporters. On the other hand, he disappointed the newly enfranchised Italians on the issue of their enrollment in all thirty-five tribes. Their just demand was not even partially met until the senate passed a decree during the maneuvering after Cinna’s death in 84. It was not fully met until censors finally took office again in 70. Cinna’s friend Flaccus, however, introduced a law that forgave debtors three-quarters of their obligations. Financial stability was protected by restoring the value of the coinage, which had been debased by corrupt moneyers (officials of the mint) and thrown into disarray during the recent upheavals.
Under Cinna, the senate and courts continued to function. Many nobles supported him. Those who did not support him prudently kept a low profile and waited to see what would happen with Sulla. Despite being stripped of the command against Mithridates, Sulla ignored Cinna’s government and continued to press the war. Cinna attempted to come to an amicable agreement, but Sulla would have none of it. Instead, Sulla went from victory to victory and assumed control of the East with all of its resources. Support began to shift toward him at Rome. Cinna was forced to take a harder stand. As he prepared for another disruptive civil war, mutinous soldiers suddenly killed him in 84 b.c.e.
Sulla and the East, 87 to 84 b.c.e.
Sulla had invaded Greece in 87 b.c.e. and captured Athens in 86 after a winter-long siege. He showed the typical Roman love of Greek art by looting every painting, sculpture, and monument that he could put on a ship. During the summer, Sulla’s experienced veterans from the Social War won hard-fought battles against two different Mithridatic armies and their superior cavalry. The first was at Chaeroneia; the second, at Orchomenus. Sulla then refused to surrender his command to the consul Flaccus, whom Cinna had sent to replace him. After some of Flaccus’ troops defected to Sulla, Flaccus took the rest of his army to Asia to fight Mithridates. There, he was murdered by Flavius Fimbria, a mutinous legate. Fimbria seized command, defeated Mithridates’ son, and marched on the stronghold of Pergamum. Mithridates, already facing revolts stirred up by his heavy taxation to support the war, decided to make a deal with Sulla. The latter lacked adequate naval forces and wanted to deny victory to Fimbria or avoid the union of Mithridates and Fimbria against him. Therefore, he came to terms.
The treaty was signed at Dardanus in the Troad in 85 b.c.e. Mithridates had to abandon his conquests in Asia Minor, surrender his best warships, and pay an indemnity of 2000 or 3000 talents. Nevertheless, remaining a “friend and ally” of Rome, he kept his kingdom of Pontus. Sulla imposed far harsher terms on the province of Asia: an indemnity of 20,000 talents; five years’ back taxes; and pay, food, and lodging for his troops during the winter of 85–84. To raise the vast sums required, the province had to turn to Roman moneylenders and fell victim to a crushing burden of debt.
By these harsh actions and by subordinating many formally independent political entities within the boundaries of Rome’s original province of Asia, Sulla foreshadowed later Roman rule in the East as a whole. At the time, however, he did nothing to change Rome’s basically hegemonic imperial policy in the rest of the region. He restored Bithynia and Cappadocia to their former kings and gave Paphlagonia back to Bithynia. Galatia and Heraclea, never subject to Rome, retained the independence that they had recently won, while Rhodes regained its mainland territories. Southeast of the Meander River, he left it for others to reassert Roman control over native dynasts and pirates. What Sulla mainly did was create the conditions for more wars with Mithridates. In the meantime, as Sulla built up his forces in Greece for a civil war, negotiations for his peaceful return to Rome failed.
Sulla’s return to Italy, 83 to 82 b.c.e.
In the spring of 83 b.c.e., Sulla set sail for Italy. He left Flaccus’ old army to serve as a permanent garrison in Asia under the command of Lucius Licinius Murena. When Sulla landed his own troops at Brundisium, he easily overpowered the two consular armies sent against him. In fact, one simply deserted to his side. The only anti-Sullan who might have been a match for him was Quintus Sertorius, who had fought under Marius. The nobles who had opposed Sulla scorned Sertorius for his equestrian origin and disliked him for his blunt criticism of their actions. Therefore, he had left Italy to take up the province of Nearer Spain, to which he had been assigned as praetor.
Sulla, on the other hand, acquired a number of effective supporters once he arrived in Italy. The first was Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius. He came with a number of recruits from his hiding place in North Africa. Next, the young Marcus Licinius Crassus returned at the head of a small army from Spain. Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey), the young son of Pompeius Strabo, was an even more valuable addition, both in the number of troops that he brought and in military skill. On his own initiative, he had raised three legions in Picenum. Despite his youth, upon reaching Sulla, Pompey was hailed with the flattering title of Imperator (Commander). After he had won several victories, Sulla somewhat facetiously called him Magnus, “the Great.” The title stuck.
To bolster their tottering regime, Sulla’s opponents elected two consuls for 82 b.c.e.: Cn. Papirius Carbo, Cinna’s old consular colleague of 85 and 84, and Gaius Marius, son of the elder Marius. Their reputations enabled them to raise large numbers of recruits, but they proved to be inadequate generals against Sulla and his lieutenants. The younger Marius was besieged in Praeneste, where he eventually committed suicide or was killed. Carbo lost his nerve and fled to Africa. (Pompey later captured and executed him.) Nevertheless, thousands of Samnites rose up to fight Sulla, who still treated them as enemies from the Social War (pp. 238–9). Sulla met them late one day just outside Rome’s Colline Gate. He was defeated on the left wing, which he personally commanded, but Marcus Crassus won a victory on the right in time to save the day.
Sulla’s reign of terror, 82 b.c.e.
The bloody battle at the Colline Gate ended all effective resistance in Italy. Then began a reign of terror. Thousands suffered torture and death. Next door to the temple of Bellona, where Sulla was addressing a meeting of the senate, 6000 Samnite prisoners were brutally executed. Their only crime was that they lost a battle for what they believed was freedom and justice. The screams of the dying broke into his speech and distressed some of the senators to the point of fainting. Sulla grimly explained that only some criminals were being punished at his orders.
The proscriptions
To ruthlessness, Sulla added the method of proscription. To be proscribed meant to be put on a published list of people to be killed. Sulla and his henchmen listed some for political reasons, others to avenge private injuries, and still others for no reason except that they owned large and valuable properties. The proscribed, with prices set on their heads, were to be hunted down as outlaws and murdered. Sulla confiscated their property and revoked the citizenship of their children. Among the thousands he doomed to die were 90 senators, 15 men of consular rank, and 2600 equites. Their property was distributed among Sulla’s supporters and veterans. As beneficiaries of his murders, they would, when required, rally around him or loyally support the oligarchy that he put in power. He secured additional supporters by freeing 10,000 slaves who had belonged to his victims. He also generously rewarded some freedmen. One, for example, was allowed to buy an estate worth about 1.5 million denarii for about 2500.
Unfortunately, the murder and spoliation of rich individuals failed to provide enough money or land for Sulla to redeem his promises of pay, pensions, and farms to his discharged veterans. He penalized communities suspected of having resisted his rise to power or of having supported his enemies. Their punishment was in proportion to the duration and strength of their resistance and opposition. Cities that had offered only mild opposition were required to pay fines, have their walls torn down, and surrender most, if not all, of their territory. Others, such as Praeneste in Latium or Florentia (Florence) in Etruria, which had resisted him long and stubbornly, were destroyed. Their inhabitants were sold into slavery. Sulla also turned the richest and most thickly populated districts of Samnium into a desolate waste. Such were the atrocities that resulted from the increasingly bitter rivalries within the Roman ruling elite.
Sulla’s dictatorship and political reforms
In 82 b.c.e., a few days before arriving in Rome, Sulla had demanded and secured from the Centuriate Assembly passage of a law, known as the lex Valeria. It appointed him dictator for an undefined period for the purpose of drafting laws and “reconstituting” the state. That appointment, confirming what had already been established by military force, formally revived the dictatorship (last held in 216 b.c.e.). It also legalized Sulla’s subsequent murders, confiscations, and other atrocities. Unrestrained by law or custom, right of appeal, or tribunician veto, Sulla’s dictatorship could be terminated only by his death or resignation. He had the power of life and death, and his imperium was absolute. With that imperium, Sulla wanted to revise the Republic in such a way that no one would be able to challenge the dominance of the senate as an institution or break its control by an oligarchy of his grateful optimate supporters who became consular nobles.
In 81 b.c.e., Sulla increased the membership of the senate to 600. Normally around 300, membership had been reduced by the civil war and the murderous activities of Marius and Sulla himself. The new members came from the first eighteen centuries of the Centuriate Assembly. They included the rich, landowning equites from the Italian municipalities. The main object of expanding the senate’s membership was to make a larger number of persons available for jury service, which Sulla transferred from the equites to the senate. In expanding the membership of the senate and making senators alone eligible as jurors, Sulla was actually carrying out a proposal of Livius Drusus the Younger (p. 238). Of course, the new members would become grateful clients loyal to Sulla and those who had supported him in the civil war. Finally, Sulla abolished the position of princeps senatus to prevent any one man from having too much influence over the other senators.
Reform of the courts
In reforming the courts, Sulla went much further than Livius Drusus. He abolished ordinary trials before the popular assemblies and assigned them to a system of standing courts. Their juries were manned by senators. He raised the number of special jury courts for the trials of major crimes to seven: the quaestio de repetundis, dealing with extortion; de maiestate, with treason; de ambitu, with bribery in elections; de falsis, with forgery; de peculatu, with embezzlement of public property; de sicariis et veneficis, with murder; and de vi publica, with assault and battery. To provide enough judges to preside over these standing courts, he increased the number of praetors from six to eight. The reform of the courts was the greatest and the most permanent of Sulla’s reforms. It clarified and recast the law dealing with serious crimes and laid the foundation of subsequent Roman criminal law (pp. 331–2).
Changes in the magistracies and the tribuneship
Sulla tried to regulate the system of officeholding and prevent the unorthodox careers that had increased political competition to destructive levels. He reenacted, in a considerably modified form, the lex Villia Annalis of 180 b.c.e. He prescribed a regular order of holding office (cursus honorum)—first the quaestorship, then the praetorship, and finally the consulship. He reaffirmed the rule prescribing an interval of ten years between successive consulships. His revised law advanced the minimum age probably to twenty-nine for the quaestorship, thirty-nine for the praetorship, and forty-two for the consulship. Finally, Sulla increased the number of quaestors from around ten to twenty. They became members of the senate automatically after their year of office. In that way, they would replace the average yearly vacancies that occurred in a senate of 500 to 600 members. Also, the censors would be less able to play favorites because they no longer controlled admission to the senate.
Changes were made in the tribuneship to destroy the effectiveness of that office and the temptation to use it in a popularis manner. Sulla crippled it most by disqualifying a tribune from holding any higher office, making the tribuneship unattractive to able and ambitious men. He limited the veto power of tribunes to the protection of personal rights and restricted or abolished their right to propose laws or prosecute cases before the concilium plebis.
Reorganization of the provinces
Before the time of Sulla, Rome had nine provinces, six in the West (Sicily, Sardinia-Corsica, Nearer Spain, Farther Spain, Africa Proconsularis, and Gallia Transalpina) and three in the East (Macedonia, Asia, and Cilicia). Cyrenaica, though accepted in 96 b.c.e. as a legacy from its king, Ptolemy Apion, was not formally organized as a province until 74 b.c.e. Sulla made Cisalpine Gaul the tenth province by detaching it from the rest of Italy. He sent a governor and a garrison to guard it against the raiders who periodically descended from the Alps.
Most important was the attempt to fortify the power of the senate even more and prevent ambitious governors from doing what he himself had done: seize control of the state. Sulla limited the independence of provincial governors through his law of maiestas: a governor could no longer initiate a war, leave his province (with or without his army), or enter a foreign kingdom without express authorization from the senate. A governor also had to leave his province within thirty days of his replacement’s arrival. Sulla hoped thus to give the senate full control over the armed forces and limit the war-making potential of provincial commanders.
Sulla’s consulship, abdication, and death
Sulla had fully reorganized the government to his own satisfaction. He had created a system designed to maintain the dominance that he and his allies had achieved. In 81 b.c.e., he stood for election as consul for 80. He probably resigned the dictatorship at the end of 81, or possibly earlier that year. After the consulship of 80, he retired to his country estate near Puteoli (Pozzuoli) in Campania. He hoped to pass the rest of his life there in ease, luxury, and pleasure. He did not enjoy himself long. After his death in 78 b.c.e., he was cremated at Rome during a magnificent funeral. Before his death, he had dictated an epitaph to be inscribed upon his tomb to the effect that no one had ever surpassed him in rewarding his friends with good, or his enemies with evil.
The failure of Sulla
Sulla had named himself Felix, “Fortunate.” He was even fortunate in death. He never saw the utter futility of much that he had done. He had worked to create a system that would produce a stable government for Rome under the oligarchic control of the optimate friends whom he had rewarded. They were to dominate the senate. The avenues that previously had allowed other ambitious members of the senatorial class to challenge the dominant leaders were to remain blocked. The governmental system that he tried to make permanent did have some admirable features, such as the reform of the courts, the admission of new senators from the equestrian class, and the rational ordering of the magistracies and provincial government. Yet, it was doomed to failure. It did nothing to solve Rome’s basic social, economic, and political problems. Ambitious men who did not want to play the political game by his rules could exploit those problems in building bases of power to challenge the men whom he had left in control. No sooner had the ashes of his funeral pyre cooled than his whole carefully designed political superstructure began to collapse upon the sand beneath it.
First of all, his reforms of the magistracies actually intensified the competition for high office by increasing the number of quaestors and praetors. Previously, at least one-half of the quaestors could hope to reach the praetorship; one-third of the praetors could hope for consulships. Now, only two-fifths of the quaestors had a chance to become praetors; only one-fourth of the praetors were likely to become consuls. Therefore, the holders of lower offices had to intensify their efforts to reach the consulship. Second, the attempt to limit the war-making potential of provincial commanders was futile. An ambitious provincial commander determined to defy the senate could still do so with a loyal army, just as Sulla himself had done. There was little that senators could do except raise up another potentially dangerous commander against him.
Other safeguards that Sulla had created to check the destructive competition for personal preeminence that had led to civil war in the 80s were inadequate. In fact, they were part of the problem because they also restricted the rights and privileges of the equites and the common people. Ambitious politicians could gain popular support by advocating repeal of the safeguards that were supposed to keep them in check. Also, removing the equites from juries in the extortion court left no check on corrupt and abusive provincial governors. That only fueled discontent in the provinces, which provided more troubled waters in which the ambitious could fish.
Furthermore, Sulla had left a legacy of bitterness and hatred that created many enemies for the oligarchs who succeeded him. The bitterest enemies of these oligarchs were the sons, relations, and friends of the senators and wealthy equites who had suffered proscription, exile, or confiscation of their property. In the forests of Etruria roamed bands of once-peaceful and well-to-do farmers whose lands had been confiscated by Sulla for distribution among his veterans. In the city of Rome, the poor had been deprived of their subsidized grain. Of those equites who had not been killed, many had suffered financial ruin. All had been deprived of jury service in the courts.
As the years passed, no group was more frustrated and rebellious than Sulla’s veterans. They had been given confiscated land but had no knowledge of farming or desire for the monotony of rural life. They were soon enmeshed in debt and were only too happy to support anyone who promised them personal gain without regard to political proprieties. It is not surprising, therefore, that the flawed fabric of Sulla’s reforms soon began to fray.
Suggested reading
Keaveney , A. Sulla: The Last Republican. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2005.
Mayor , A. The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2010.