Chapter 15
The oligarchic system that Sulla created to stabilize the Roman Republic only destabilized it further. His own example was a powerful incentive for ambitious men to circumvent the restraints that he tried to put in place. Sulla had alienated and embittered numerous groups within Roman society, and they were willing to support any leader who wanted to challenge Sulla’s repressive system, even one who was originally a part of that system. In addition, the need to control an extensive overseas empire required the creation of extraordinary military commands. Sulla had vainly tried to eliminate them, lest one man achieve so much more power and prestige than his noble peers that he could dominate them. Throughout the 70s and 60s b.c.e., therefore, a series of domestic and foreign crises gave ambitious individuals opportunities to gain so much popularity, clientage, and military power that the senate became powerless to restrain them. These leaders opened up another round of upheavals and civil wars, which destroyed the Republic by 30 b.c.e.
Sources for Roman history from 78 to 30 b.c.e.
The years from 78 to 30 b.c.e., which will be covered in this and the following four chapters, are among the best documented in Roman history. Cicero’s voluminous writings provide much invaluable information by a keen observer and participant in events until his death in 43 b.c.e. (pp. 239–40). Cicero’s correspondence also includes letters to him from other important participants or observers. The second largest group of contemporary works covers the conquest of Gaul and the civil war from 58 to 46 b.c.e.: Caesar’s commentaries, namely, the Gallic War and the Civil War; other accounts by some of his officers, namely, the final book of the Gallic War, the African War, the Alexandrian War, and the Spanish War. Another valuable contemporary witness is Sallust. His Histories, covering the years from 78 to 67, is preserved only in fragments, but his account of Catiline’s conspiracy (63 b.c.e.) is extant. Cornelius Nepos was another contemporary historian. Unfortunately, his biography of Cicero is lost, but his life of Cicero’s devoted friend Atticus is extant. Other contemporary historians, orators, and antiquarians are preserved mainly in fragments.
The poems of Catullus (pp. 338–9) and the didactic epic De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), by Lucretius (p. 339), help to reveal the atmosphere at the time of Caesar’s rise. The Eclogues and Georgics of Vergil (pp. 394–5) do the same for the time of Caesar’s heir, Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus. Fragments of a biography of Augustus’ early life by the late-first-century b.c.e. writer Nicolaus of Damascus also survive. Most of Augustus’ own official summary of his career, Res Gestae Divi Augusti, has been preserved because it was set up on stone inscriptions in various cities. The most complete version is the Monumentum Ancyranum, from Ankara in modern Turkey (p. 397).
Later writers also supply abundant material. The mid-first-century c.e. commentary by Asconius on some of Cicero’s speeches, particularly some lost ones, is extremely valuable. The biographies of Caesar and Augustus by the early-second-century c.e. author Suetonius, who often quotes from contemporary writers and documents, are veritable gold mines. So, too, are Plutarch’s biographies of many leading figures of the period, which are often based on contemporary sources like Asinius Pollio (p. 397). The relevant books of Livy survive only in the summaries of the Periochae and in the brief late Imperial histories, and the relevant books of Diodorus Siculus are lost except for some fragments. Nevertheless, there are extensive narrative sources. Appian’s Civil Wars narrates the years 78 to 35. Beginning with events of 69 b.c.e., Cassius Dio is complete for the remaining years of this period. Also, Velleius Paterculus’ narrative, though brief, is much fuller for this period than for earlier ones.
The rise of Pompey the Great (106 to 48 b.c.e.), 78 to 71 b.c.e.
The rise of Pompey the Great, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, is a study in opportunism, much like the career of his father, Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo (p. 239). As Strabo’s heir, Pompey was the largest landowner in the district of Picenum. Therefore, he had a large number of clients and vast personal resources. He was personally charming and seems to have inspired great loyalty and love in his children and most of his several wives. He was also extremely ambitious and missed no opportunity to use his resources to advance his personal career. In 85 b.c.e., Pompey successfully argued against a suit instituted to recover from his father’s estate booty misappropriated during the Social War (pp. 238–9). It seems more than coincidental that he soon married Antistia, the daughter of the presiding judge. In 84, at the age of twenty-three, after Cinna had refused to grant him the recognition that he wanted, he raised a large private army and joined Sulla (p. 247). Later, he willingly divorced Antistia when Sulla wanted him to marry Aemilia. She was Sulla’s pregnant stepdaughter and had to divorce her husband in order to marry Pompey. Sadly, she soon died in childbirth. Pompey then married Mucia Tertia. She was the third daughter of the famous jurist Q. Mucius Scaevola the Pontiff (p. 332) and half-sister of two Caecilii Metelli, whose powerful family had backed Sulla.
Pompey did not even protest when Sulla struck down before his very eyes former friends who had helped him in times of trouble. His zealous hunting of Sulla’s enemies earned him the nickname adulescentulus carnifex, “teenage butcher.” Then, when Sulla asked him to disband his army after killing Cn. Papirius Carbo and others in Sicily and North Africa (p. 247), he refused. Instead, he demanded that Sulla grant him a triumph, for which he was ineligible under Sulla’s own laws. When Sulla balked, Pompey is said to have reminded him, not very subtly, that more men worship the rising than the setting sun. Sulla gave in to preserve harmony, an act that reinforced the perception of Pompey as Magnus (Great).
As a general, Pompey was not brilliant. His detractors said, with some justice, that his victories were prepared by others who had fought before him. Still, Pompey often succeeded where others had not. He planned methodically and seldom attacked unless he had secured an overwhelming numerical superiority. As a statesman, Pompey was somewhat inept and shortsighted. He spoke poorly and awkwardly at times and often fell back on silence because he could think of nothing to say. He had no ideology or political program. His main ambition was simply to be admired as the Republic’s greatest hero and enjoy the political prestige that such heroes naturally acquired. There is no reason to think that he wanted to destroy the Republic that had produced him and was the source of the glory that he sought.
Pompey supports and abandons Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, 78 to 77 b.c.e.
As a renegade Marian, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (ca. 120–77 b.c.e.) had supported Sulla in 83. He had increased his own wealth by buying property of the proscribed at cut rates. Afterward, as governor of Sicily, he shamelessly plundered the province. He narrowly escaped prosecution and lost Sulla’s favor. Lepidus then sought support among the disaffected groups in society. Pompey, who felt little loyalty to the now-retired Sulla, backed Lepidus in the consular elections for 78 over Sulla’s bitter objections. Pompey may well have calculated that Lepidus was likely to give him an opportunity to pose as the champion of the status quo even as he violated the rules aimed at preserving it. If so, he was not disappointed.
As consul, Lepidus opposed a state funeral for Sulla. He proposed the recall of all exiles, the resumption of cheap grain distributions to the poor, the return of all confiscated properties to the former owners, and the restoration of the powers of the tribunes. Pompey ostentatiously made sure that Sulla received a grand state funeral even though Sulla had pointedly cut him out of his will. Sulla’ death and Lepidus’ proposals encouraged men like Cinna’s son, the young L. Cornelius Cinna, as well as Cinna’s son-in-law and Marius’ nephew, C. Julius Caesar, who had fled under Sulla, to return to Rome. Plots and conspiracies sprang up everywhere, but Caesar wisely stayed aloof.
Those who controlled the senate sought to get rid of Lepidus by sending him to suppress a rebellion of dispossessed farmers near Florence. Instead, Lepidus used the assignment as an opportunity to raise an even bigger rebellion of his own. Pompey enthusiastically accepted a command to help suppress the man whose election he had recently supported. Pompey defeated Lepidus, who fled to Sardinia and died there while trying to establish closer ties with the Marian holdout Sertorius in Spain.
Pompey obtains an irregular command against Sertorius in Spain, 76 to 71 b.c.e.
Quintus Sertorius (ca. 122–73 b.c.e.) was a serious foe of the Sullan regime. Whoever defeated him would be seen as an important member of the Roman nobility. Sertorius had fallen out with the anti-Sullan leaders in Italy before he could ennoble his family with a consulship (p. 247). Removing himself to Spain, he had fought to be the hero who would restore the anti-Sullan cause and return to long-sought honors at Rome. After some initial setbacks, he and a few other Roman officers loyal to him gained the support of the native peoples by treating them with dignity and justice. Using native Spanish troops, Sertorius had frustrated provincial governors sent out to fight him. He opposed only Sulla’s government and always proclaimed loyalty to Rome. After Sulla’s death, he was eager for reconciliation, but Sulla’s political heirs were determined to continue the war, which had been under the command of Sulla’s old ally Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius since 79 b.c.e.
Metellus had not been able to make much progress against Sertorius by 77. Then Pompey the Great returned to Rome from mopping-up operations after defeating Lepidus. Pompey refused a senatorial order to disband his army and practically demanded to be sent to Spain to join Metellus, who had been asking for reinforcements against Sertorius. A number of senators objected to Pompey. Some of Metellus’ friends may not have wanted to send him such an opportunistic colleague. To others, Pompey’s assignment would have represented just the kind of irregular command that Sulla had tried to prevent. Such a major military operation required a grant of proconsular imperium and Pompey had not yet held even the lowest office of the cursus honorum. A majority, however, sided with the young military hero. Pompey received proconsular imperium and the chief command in Nearer Spain.
Pompey’s arrival in Spain (76 b.c.e.) proved inauspicious: Sertorius defeated him twice with fewer men. On one occasion, only the timely arrival of old Metellus saved Pompey’s army from annihilation. Pompey threatened to withdraw and leave the way open for Sertorius to march into Italy. That prospect brought reinforcements from the senate. Still, Pompey was able to end the war in 72/71 only after a traitor assassinated Sertorius in 74 or 73 b.c.e. Pompey then promptly executed the assassin. A less skillful tactician than Metellus, Pompey received public credit for ending the war. Ironically, but wisely, he followed Sertorius’ example in victory and treated the Spanish people with great justice. His honorable peace terms restored prosperity to Spain, where the people long and gratefully remembered Pompey as their patron.
The Great (Third) Mithridatic War, 74/73 to 63 b.c.e., and Lucullus’ bid for glory, 74 to 66 b.c.e.
While Metellus and Pompey were fighting Sertorius in Spain, L. Licinius Lucullus (ca. 116–57 b.c.e.) saw his chance to achieve preeminence at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. Lucullus was the one officer to march on Rome with Sulla in 88 b.c.e. (p. 244). He came from an old aristocratic family that had fallen into obscurity. He had revived his family’s fortunes through loyal service to Sulla against Marius and Marius’ successors and in the first war against Mithridates (p. 242). Thus, he had entered the innermost circle of Sulla’s political heirs and been rewarded with election to a consulship for 74. When a third war with Mithridates was imminent in 74, Lucullus contrived to obtain for himself the main command in the anticipated theater of operations.
Both sides had long expected war. Rome’s humiliation at Mithridates’ hands in 88 b.c.e. remained unavenged. The Roman senate had refused to ratify Sulla’s easy peace terms after the first war. Then L. Licinius Murena, Sulla’s ambitious legate in Asia, touched off the brief Second Mithridatic War in 83 and 82 by an unauthorized attack until Sulla recalled him. In late 75 or early 74 b.c.e., the childless king of Bithynia, Nicomedes IV, bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman People. The senate accordingly declared Bithynia a Roman province. This provoked Mithridates, who feared that Roman control of Bithynia would block navigation from the Black Sea to the Aegean.
Mithridates braced for war. He had already engaged exiled Roman officers who had supported Marius. They now tried to modernize Mithridates’ army along Roman lines. Some had come from Sertorius, with whom Mithridates made an alliance. Mithridates also made alliances with his own son-in-law, Tigranes II of Armenia, and with the pirates of Crete and Cilicia. The pirates rebuilt the navy shattered in his first war with Rome.
At Rome, the other consul of 74, M. Aurelius Cotta, was not to be outdone by Lucullus. He successfully argued that he should be reassigned from his scheduled province to the new province of Bithynia. The senate also gave the praetor M. Antonius, father of the famous Mark Antony, an extraordinary commission to fight pirates all over the Mediterranean. Then, more fearful than ever of Mithridates, the senate assigned a fleet to Cotta and added another legion to Lucullus’ command.
In the spring of 73, Mithridates struck first by attacking Cotta. The Third Mithridatic War was on in earnest. The other commanders bungled their operations in the war, but Lucullus scored a series of stunning victories. In 72, Mithridates finally fled in exile to the court of Tigranes.
Lucullus’ legates (sub-commanders) completed the reduction of Pontus. Lucullus himself returned to the Roman province of Asia to relieve its cities of the crushing indemnity levied by Sulla and the extortionate loans that they had contracted with Roman moneylenders to pay it. Lucullus’ relief measures rapidly restored the economic health of the province but infuriated the financiers at Rome. They worked for his downfall.
The downfall of Lucullus, 69 to 66 b.c.e.
When Tigranes refused to surrender Mithridates, Lucullus invaded Armenia in 69 and captured Tigranes’ capital Tigranocerta. Lucullus, however, did not have authorization to attack Armenia, and agents of his political enemies undermined his efforts. One of them was his own brother-in-law, the young, ambitious, and unscrupulous Publius Clodius Pulcher (p. 270). Lucullus’ iron discipline and refusal to permit indiscriminate plunder made it easy for Clodius to stir up a mutiny that forced Lucullus to withdraw from Armenia. That permitted Mithridates to seize the initiative once more. Early in the summer of 67, near Zela in south-central Pontus, Mithridates almost annihilated two legions commanded by Lucullus’ legates.
Lucullus’ failure to defeat Mithridates was not the only problem. To the consternation of many, his crossing of the Euphrates River to attack Armenia had invited the hostile attention of resurgent Iranian peoples led by the aggressive dynasty of Arsacid kings. They had taken over the Seleucids’ eastern territories and created the Parthian Empire, which became Rome’s chief rival in the East. Pompey subsequently intrigued to become the supreme military commander in the East and eventually succeeded in ending the war. Though denied a chance for final victory, Lucullus did eventually obtain the triumph that he claimed. Meanwhile, he found consolation in his wine cellar, his fishponds, and his cherry trees, but he seized every opportunity to oppose Pompey.1
Crassus seeks advantage in the Slave War against Spartacus in Italy, 73 to 71 b.c.e.
While Pompey and Lucullus were waging wars at either end of the Mediterranean, Marcus Licinius Crassus (ca. 115–53 b.c.e.) was trying to advance himself in Rome. For three generations his family had enjoyed great prominence among the nobility. His father, brother, and many of their friends had died while opposing Marius. Crassus was the only one left to uphold the family’s honor. Like Pompey and Lucullus, he had started out as a Sullan partisan. He had even played the decisive role in Sulla’s victory at the Colline Gate (p. 247). He, however, had fallen behind Pompey and Lucullus in the race for preeminence at Rome.
Accused of manipulating Sulla’s proscriptions to benefit himself financially, Crassus had lost the crucial favor of Sulla and Sulla’s political heirs. Moreover, despite his later reputation for great wealth, Crassus had begun his career with only a modest inheritance by the standards of the Roman nobility. Therefore, he had to build up his own financial resources and a network of useful supporters essential for success in the intense competition of Roman politics. His strategy was to take advantage of the opportunities for profit in the world of business and finance. He used his profits, along with traditional forms of patronage, to obligate as many people to him as possible. He was particularly attentive to the publicani, the equites, and the lower ranks of the senatorial aristocracy.
Crassus’ financial operations earned him an unfair reputation for greed in ancient times. It was not considered proper for a Roman aristocrat, particularly a prominent member of the senate, to be so directly concerned with making money. Pompey actually became much richer than Crassus through the profits of war, an employment considered very honorable. Crassus, on the other hand, invested in profitable agricultural land, mines, and business loans. He maintained a large staff of highly trained slaves who could be rented out to those who needed temporary help. He also used them to repair and rebuild property that he bought at bargain prices as a result of the many fires in overcrowded and flimsily built Rome.
Many believe that Crassus maintained a private fire brigade (there was no public fire protection in the city) that would not put out a fire until the unfortunate owner agreed to sell his property to Crassus at a reduced rate. There is no ancient evidence for this story. It was not, however, unusual for wealthy men to maintain private fire brigades in their role as patrons of the less fortunate. Crassus may have done so, too, but it would not have been worth the ill will created to refuse to save a burning building before the owner sold.
Crassus was famous for his willingness to defend anyone in court, even though advocates could receive no fees. He often loaned money to people without interest. In that way, he earned the loyalty of many lesser-known members of the senate. As a result, Crassus had patiently advanced his career and had reached the praetorship in 73 b.c.e., a few years after he was first eligible. In that same year, a major slave revolt broke out. Although defeating slaves was not so glorious as conquering free peoples, this war proved to be unusually significant and was not already in the hands of a major figure. By the time Crassus took over, he had reason to hope that a victory would help advance him to the consulship.
It was probably late summer of 73 b.c.e., when Spartacus, a Thracian slave and gladiator, led a breakout of fellow gladiators from the barracks of a training school at Capua. They fortified themselves in the crater of Vesuvius and called upon all farm slaves to join them in a fight for freedom. Many thousands did, especially enslaved Gauls and Germans. Some slaves came already armed. The others soon obtained arms by buying them from pirates and unscrupulous traders or capturing them from the Roman armies sent to subdue them. Their force grew to at least 70,000 as they ranged over the country, broke open the slave prisons, and armed the slaves.
The slaves’ rebellion was able to gain momentum because Rome’s best soldiers were pinned down in Spain and Asia Minor. The Romans were now locked in a desperate struggle to maintain their power against a loosely coordinated uprising that spanned the whole Mediterranean. Earlier, Sertorius, Mithridates, and the Mediterranean pirates had taken some cooperative steps. Now the pirates were supplying arms and matériel to the rebellious slaves in Italy.
The government, which had thought the slave revolt would be easily quelled, soon learned that Spartacus commanded a large army and was a master strategist as well. Defeat followed defeat. After Spartacus had vanquished the armies of four praetors and two consuls, the senate, in desperation, appointed Crassus to take command. It assigned him six new legions, in addition to remnants of the four consular legions that Spartacus had shattered. Reputed once to have said that no man could be considered rich who could not finance a legion on his own, Crassus recruited even more troops with his own money.
After he had trained his men, Crassus pursued Spartacus to the southern part of Bruttium. Despite many difficulties, Crassus finally defeated the bulk of the slaves. Spartacus was killed, his body unidentifiable amid the slaughter. Still, 5000 slaves escaped capture. Pompey, returning from Spain, encountered them in Etruria and destroyed them. This minor feat of arms enabled Pompey to claim credit for ending yet another war, much to Crassus’ chagrin. Crassus, however, made a big show of crucifying 6000 captured slaves along the Appian Way.
The consulship of Pompey and Crassus, 70 b.c.e.
Pompey and Crassus, both victors, marched to Rome and encamped their armies outside the gates. Each expected military honors; both wanted the consulship. Crassus, praetor in 73 b.c.e., was eligible for the office. Pompey was six years too young to be a consul and had not yet held any of the lower offices that the law required for a consular candidate. The senators could grant Pompey’s demands only by violating the Sullan constitution, on which their power was based. Yet they could not reject the demands without the risk of having legions enter Rome. The hope of playing Crassus off against Pompey was equally vain. Although the two were political rivals, they realized that their hopes for consulships could be fulfilled only by cooperation at this point. To increase their popularity and put further pressure on their opponents in the senate, they supported popular demands for the restoration of full powers to the tribunes of the plebs and the placing of nonsenators on juries. They also seem to have favored the election of the first censors since 86 b.c.e. Pompey received a dispensation from the legal requirements, and both he and Crassus were elected consuls for 70 b.c.e.
The consulship of Pompey and Crassus completed the ruin of the Sullan constitution, which had been under attack for several years. The optimate leaders of the senate had made some concessions to popular pressure in the hope of defusing discontent. In 75, the consul Gaius Aurelius Cotta had carried a law permitting the tribunes to hold higher offices. The consuls of 73 b.c.e., a year of scarcity and high prices, had sponsored a bill to distribute five pecks of grain a month to 45,000 citizens at the price set by Gaius Gracchus. Pompey and Crassus now proposed and carried a law to restore to the tribunes all the powers taken away by Sulla. (Pompey hoped that tribunes with full powers would later help him to secure desirable commands. They did not disappoint him.) The tribunes of 70 proposed a law to restore citizenship to all who had fought under Lepidus and Sertorius. The new censors finally enrolled in all thirty-five tribes the Italians enfranchised at the end of the Social War (p. 239). They also ejected sixty-four of Sulla’s partisans from the senate. Both moves would have benefited Crassus and Pompey.
Near the end of their historic consulship, an optimate praetor drafted and carried a law to break the senatorial monopoly of jury service and to draw jurors in equal numbers from the senate, the equites, and the tribuni aerarii (“tribunes of the treasury”), effectively ending fifty years of fighting over who could serve as jurors. About the tribuni aerarii almost nothing is known. They were probably inferior to the equites in rank, but, like the equites, belonged to the upper nonsenatorial census classes, which henceforth supplied two-thirds of the jurors. After Pompey and Crassus left office, they both resumed their rivalry. Each looked for further ways to enhance his fame and prestige so that he would be in a better position to exploit the next public crisis. Pompey never attended meetings of the senate, where he was most unwelcome. On his rare appearances in the Forum, he was always accompanied by a mass of clients and retainers, to the mingled awe and pride of the populace. Crassus worked diligently behind the scenes to increase his wealth and network of grateful friends on whom he could depend when the need arose. Also, the cooperation of Pompey and Crassus in office had provided other ambitious men opportunities to join the parade of political prominence.
Cicero gains fame in the trial of Verres, 70 b.c.e.
The issue of who should sit on juries, which Pompey and Crassus’ consulship had brought to the fore, was underlined by the famous trial of Gaius Verres in 70 b.c.e. Yet another old supporter of Sulla, he had become a praetor for 74 b.c.e. and had received the governorship of Sicily for the following three years. As governor, he had cheated, blackmailed, plundered, and even murdered people, some of whom were clients of Pompey. In 70, injured Sicilians charged Verres with extortion. He assumed that Sulla’s old supporters in the senate would procure his acquittal. So did many others, who saw this trial as a test of the integrity of senatorial jurors.
Powerful friends did rally to Verres’ support. They persuaded Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, the most famous orator of the day, to defend him. They used the most ingenious tricks and dodges in a vain attempt to quash the indictment or postpone the trial until one of them could preside. They even tried to obtain a friendly prosecutor. At every turn, however, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 b.c.e.), an eager young orator who had served as a quaestor in Sicily (75 b.c.e.), was there to meet them.
Cicero, the son of a prominent eques, had been born at Arpinum near the home of Marius, to whom he was related by marriage. Cicero had received a fine education; had traveled extensively; had studied philosophy and rhetoric in Athens, Asia, and Rhodes; and had trained himself for the Roman bar. He became one of the world’s most renowned orators and greatest literary figures (pp. 339–40).
Throughout his life, Cicero unveiled the offenses and scandals of the optimate nobles who dominated the senate. Nevertheless, he never wholly lost faith in them or ceased to look up to them. His ideal was to join them and convince them to be true, impartial servants of the common good. In 80 b.c.e., he gained notice by defending, at considerable personal risk, a young man who was threatened by one of Sulla’s corrupt freedmen. In 70, the trial of Verres gave him a chance to show genuine sympathy for the victims of corruption. He also did a political favor by protecting Pompey’s Sicilian friends. At the same time, he bolstered his own clientele among the Sicilians and gained fame as an orator by beating Hortensius in a successful prosecution.
Cicero marshaled such a mass of damning evidence against Verres that the great Hortensius gave up the defense. Verres fled into exile to Massilia, where the mullets were delicious and the climate delightful—not a really harsh punishment for a man who had robbed the Sicilian people of millions and had even crucified a Roman citizen. That Verres was not acquitted, however, may have helped to make the subsequent compromise of sharing the seats on juries among the senators, equites, and tribuni aerarii acceptable to both Sulla’s political heirs and to the majority of voters. Shortly thereafter, Cicero was elected aedile for 69 b.c.e. After the reform of the juries and the restoration of full tribunician powers, the Republic had, for the most part, been returned to its pre-Sullan state.
Tribunes make their marks and Pompey takes control of the East, 67 to 62 b.c.e.
While Cicero won fame through the courts, other ambitious young men soon utilized the recently restored powers of the tribunes to gain favor and influence. In 67 b.c.e., the tribunes Gaius Cornelius and Aulus Gabinius were particularly active. The first law of the tribune Cornelius obliged praetors to administer justice according to the principles that they had laid down in their edicts on taking office. That enactment was supremely important. It laid the foundation of uniform law and equity throughout the provinces (p. 332). The second law imposed a fine and future exclusion from office for persons guilty of bribing the electorate. The third made it illegal for the senate to exempt individuals from the laws unless a quorum of 200 members was present. Of Cornelius’ other proposals, later carried by Gabinius, the first forbade the lending of money to foreign and provincial envoys for the purpose of securing an audience with the senate by bribery; the second compelled the senate to give priority to the reception of embassies during its February meetings to protect Roman allies against dilatory political tactics. These excellent and salutary laws were enacted in spite of the violent opposition of many leading senators, who stood to lose significant financial and political advantages. They seemed to justify freeing tribunes from the restrictions imposed by Sulla.
Still, men like Cornelius and Gabinius were not simply public-spirited reformers. They were doing just what Sulla had feared. As competitors in senatorial politics, they were using the restored powers of the tribunes to get around the dominant senatorial leaders, just as the Gracchi and others had done earlier. Part of their strategy was to attract the favor of other powerful senators, like Pompey and Crassus, who also stood outside the group of Sulla’s optimate political heirs, which dominated the senate.
Much of the legislation sponsored by Cornelius and Gabinius corrected abuses that had helped the optimate oligarchs to keep control in the face of rival populares. Gabinius was especially notable in promoting the interests of Pompey, who was intriguing to obtain command of the Third Mithridatic War at Lucullus’ expense. One of the laws that he sponsored in 67 b.c.e. removed Lucullus from the command of Bithynia and Pontus and ended his role in the war. Gabinius’ most famous service to Pompey is a law that dealt with the scourge of piracy in the Mediterranean. Previous attempts to suppress it had proved ineffective (pp. 234–5 and 256). The menace had recently reached dangerous proportions. Pirates had attacked large coastal cities in Italy itself and destroyed a large Roman fleet near Ostia. They so infested the waters around Sicily that grain ships supplying the city of Rome no longer ventured to sail. Food prices had risen, and the people, threatened with famine, resolved to clear the seas.
The bill that Gabinius laid before the voters in 67 b.c.e. provided for the appointment of a supreme commander over the waters and coasts of the Mediterranean basin for three years. He was to have consular rank and extraordinary authority. As finally enacted, the lex Gabinia placed enormous power in the hands of one man. His authority, superior to that of the provincial governors, extended over all coastal lands up to fifty Roman miles (ca. forty-five English miles, or seventy-five kilometers) from the sea. He could draw from the public treasury 6000 talents; raise a fleet up to 500 ships; if necessary, recruit an army of 120,000 infantry and 5000 cavalry; and appoint a staff of 24 sub-commanders (legates) of praetorian rank and 2 quaestors (see Box 15.1).
15.1 Provincial commands
Pompey’s command against the pirates can be seen as the culmination of the evolution of the process by which Romans determined who would maintain control over their expanding empire. Traditionally, the prerogative to assign provincial commands (whether for a geographical region or, as in Pompey’s case, a carefully defined task) resided with the senate, which assessed Rome’s entire military situation each year and handed out (either by lot or by arrangement) provincial commands to the consuls and praetors who had just been elected. Sitting consuls were not above using their prestige and authority to lobby for particularly plum assignments: such commands could enhance a man’s military glory and bestow upon him tremendous wealth. To curb this, in 123 or 122 b.c.e., the tribune Gaius Gracchus passed a law that either required or provided incentive for the senate to announce the consular provinces prior to the election of new magistrates.
In the year 107 b.c.e., Marius introduced a new mechanism for assigning provinces, and the consequences, whether intended or not, were far-reaching and destructive to the Republic itself. A tribune put legislation before the people that Marius should be given as his province the command of the war against Jugurtha, even though the senate had already decided to continue the proconsul Metellus in that role (see p. 232). Assigning provinces in this way not only hampered the senate’s ability to plan for military needs across the empire, but also opened the door for ever-increasing competition among politicians to curry popular favor as a means to a desirable provincial assignment. Within a few decades, men like Pompey, Caesar, Octavian, and Antony took things one step further, using the popular assembly to create for themselves massive territorial assignments or extraordinary commands over the objection of their colleagues in the senate. The result was fewer commanders in charge of ever-larger armies that contributed to the downfall of the republican system.
The consul C. Calpurnius Piso and other senators strenuously opposed Gabinius’ proposed law precisely because it gave so much power to one man. The populace rioted against the consul. One of the tribunes vetoed the bill. He withdrew his veto when threatened with the treatment that Tiberius Gracchus had once dealt out to Octavius (p. 211). The bill passed. After it became law, the majority of senators appointed Pompey to take the command. They had little choice because there was no one else of equal competence. Although not expressly named in the lex Gabinia, he was the person whom Gabinius and the voters had in mind.2 Gabinius, in turn, was amply rewarded for his efforts on Pompey’s behalf: Pompey chose him as a legate in 66 and ensured that he would enjoy the rare achievement of reaching the consulship as a novus homo in 58.
Pompey’s campaigns against the pirates, 67 b.c.e.
Pompey’s excellent organizational skills and the vast concentration of ships, men, and supplies made available by the lex Gabinia enabled him to sweep the western Mediterranean clean of pirates in forty days. He owed his swift victory over the pirates not only to the overwhelming superiority of his armaments but also to his treatment of captives. Instead of following the usual Roman practice of crucifying or selling them into slavery, he adopted the more humane methods that he had used successfully in Spain: those who surrendered he resettled on farms or in villages in Asia Minor. Many of the basic social and economic causes of piracy were thus eliminated, and the resettled pirates later became some of Rome’s most loyal and useful subjects. Some were among the first in the East to receive Roman citizenship. They, like many in Spain, also became loyal clients of Pompey. He would rely on their support when his preeminence was later challenged.
Pompey and the defeat of Mithridates, 66 to 64 b.c.e.
Pompey, however, was not satisfied with only the command against the pirates. He still wanted command of the whole Third Mithridatic War. In 66 b.c.e., Pompey’s friends and enemies in the senate argued about giving him the appointment. Another tribune, Gaius Manilius, made a bid for popularity and Pompey’s powerful favor. He proposed the lex Manilia, which appointed Pompey the supreme commander of all Roman forces in Asia Minor. Other ambitious young men sought to cash in on the situation, too. For example, Cicero delivered a speech, Pro Lege Manilia, on the law’s behalf. The Council of the Plebs adopted the resolution amid wild enthusiasm. Pompey was the idol of the populace. Though many in the senate, especially the leading optimates, opposed the sweeping provisions of the law, no one dared to speak in public against his appointment.
Like a buzzard coming to enjoy another’s kill, Pompey arrived to take over the command of forces in Asia Minor from Lucullus in 66. Despite recent reverses, Lucullus had already severely weakened the armies and destroyed the prestige of Mithridates and King Tigranes II of Armenia. With about twice as many men as Lucullus ever had and a navy cruising about in the Black Sea, Pompey overtook and destroyed the inferior forces of Mithridates. The latter fled first to Armenia and then, when refused haven by Tigranes, to the distant Caucasus.
Before pursuing Mithridates, Pompey invaded Armenia and forced Tigranes to become a subordinate ally of Rome. Then he set out after Mithridates but abandoned the chase at the Caucasus Mountains. After Pompey returned to administer the recently conquered territories, Mithridates made his way through the Caucasus to the Crimea. There he planned a daring invasion of Italy via the Balkans and the eastern Alps, a grandiose idea carried out five centuries later by Attila the Hun. Worn out by taxation and conscription, Mithridates’ subjects rebelled. Shut up in his palace, with all hope of escape or mercy gone, he murdered his wives and daughters and took his own life. His son Pharnaces II gave the body to Pompey, who buried it properly and gave Pharnaces the kingdom of Bosporus. Pompey earned Pharnaces’ gratitude and enhanced his growing new reputation as a just and humane conqueror.
Pompey, Syria, and the Jews, 64/63 b.c.e.
News of Mithridates’ death reached Pompey in Syria. He was fighting to stamp out the anarchy that had reigned there since Lucullus had driven out Tigranes II and restored Antiochus XIII to the decrepit throne of Seleucid Syria. Tyrants had seized control of the cities; robbers and pirates harassed the people. Pompey disposed of these nuisances and annexed Syria and Phoenicia as a Roman province.
Turning south into Palestine, Pompey found two brothers, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, fighting over the Judean throne of the Maccabees. Each gave him presents and sought his favor. In Rome’s interest, he took the side of the rather feeble Hyrcanus, who was supported by the Pharisees and the aggressive Nabataean Arab King Aretas. Pompey opposed Aristobulus, the more able brother, leader of the Sadducees. In the process, he had to capture the fortified Temple Mount in Jerusalem against Aristobulus’ followers. By supporting Hyrcanus, Pompey, who knew nothing about Jewish theology, unwittingly contributed to the ultimate triumph of the Pharisees over the Sadducees.
The Sadducees, composed mainly of the rich landed aristocracy and of the priestly caste, were conservative fundamentalists. They accepted literally the text of the Written Law contained in the Torah, or first five books of the Bible. The Pharisees, too, accepted the Written Law but included a mass of interpretations and oral traditions handed down by the scribes. The Pharisaic rabbis or teachers later produced the great commentaries on the law known as the Mishna and the Talmud. In deciding in favor of Hyrcanus on purely political grounds, Pompey may have set the future course of Judaism. He also did little to foster Jewish–Roman relations: he took it upon himself to violate one of the Jews’ most sacred prohibitions and see what was inside the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum of the Temple at Jerusalem.
Pompey’s arrangements in the East, 62 b.c.e.
Pompey, when the dust of his marches had settled, was the de facto overlord of a vast empire. It stretched south from the north shore of the Black Sea across all of Asia Minor and down the coast of the Levant to the border of Egypt, and eastward to the Caucasus Mountains and the northwest reaches of the Parthian Empire (see map on p. 369). On his own, without the customary senatorial commission, he organized this vast territory in a way that he thought would best serve Rome’s interests. He did not establish direct control over much more than the coastal fringes of Asia Minor and Syria. They were the lands most accessible, urbanized, wealthy, and easily administered as provinces. The only new territorial acquisitions among them were the core of Mithridates’ old kingdom of Pontus, the coastal plain of Cilicia, and the Syrian stump of the old Seleucid Empire. The latter was riven by dynastic rivalries and was easy prey for opportunistic neighbors.
Running counterclockwise from northern Asia Minor, Rome’s easternmost provinces now were Bithynia-Pontus, which embraced much of Paphlagonia; Asia, which included the western coast of Asia Minor and much of Phrygia; Cilicia, which stretched along the southern coast of Asia Minor through Pamphylia as far as Lycia and extended north through Lycaonia and the Taurus Mountains to the border of Cappadocia; and Syria, which encompassed the territory between the Cilician Gates and the Euphrates to the north, as well as the fertile strip southward between the desert and the Mediterranean Sea through Phoenicia to Judea. Within these provinces, Greek and Hellenized cities generally provided local administration. Rome’s permanent military presence included only two legions in Cilicia and two in Syria.
To shield the Roman provinces and govern the less developed areas beyond them, Pompey set up a network of dependent dynasts and client kings who would do Rome’s bidding. In what had been the southern part of Syria (Palestine), for example, he attached the Hellenized cities outside of Judea to the new Roman province of Syria. Judea was reduced to a tribute-paying dependency of the Syrian province, under the local control of the High Priest Hyrcanus. He was called an ethnarch, a title that many Jews preferred to king. Previously, after the capture of the Temple in Jerusalem, one of Pompey’s legates had forced the Nabataean Arabian kingdom across the Jordan River to recognize Roman supremacy. For over a century thereafter, the Nabataeans were an effective buffer on the eastern frontier.
Pompey’s career typified Roman Republican imperialism in the East. Neither the senate nor individual generals desired territorial conquest. They all wanted to impose Rome’s will with as little direct governance and as much profit as possible. They desired to punish those who affronted Rome’s dignity by refusing to maintain the order that Rome sought or who took up arms against it. They were not particularly interested in providing new opportunities for the publicani and financiers to profit, although they saw the need to protect existing interests. Pompey, for example, did not extend the privileges of the publicani beyond collecting taxes in the new provinces. Even there, he did not give them so much as he could have.
Pompey’s main incentives were the acquisition of personal glory and wealth, the greatest prerequisites for political preeminence in Rome. No other general had advertised as many conquests as Pompey did when he finally celebrated his magnificent triumph in September of 61. He contributed 20,000 talents of gold and silver directly to the Roman treasury and raised the annual revenues of the state from 50 million denarii a year to 135 million. He gave his officers and soldiers 96 million and still had enough loot left over for himself so that his land holdings were worth 50 million denarii a few years later.
Rome in the absence of Pompey
During Pompey’s absence, Lucullus and other optimate opponents in the senate were bitter and resentful toward him. In 65 b.c.e., they prosecuted the former tribunes Cornelius and Manilius, who had favored him. Cicero, hoping for the goodwill of Pompey and his supporters in anticipation of running for consul in 64, successfully defended Cornelius but abandoned his defense of Manilius after violence had disrupted the proceedings. Nevertheless, Pompey’s optimate foes had little ability to inflict real harm. Many Romans feared that Pompey would return like another Sulla and crush his enemies with his overwhelming military power. Among them was Crassus. He was doing everything in his power to build up a countervailing position of strength for dealing with Pompey. He did favors wherever he could and accepted help from anyone who would give it.
Julius Caesar becomes a player, 65 b.c.e.
One of those willing to help Crassus at times was the relatively impoverished thirty-five-year-old Gaius Julius Caesar (100–44 b.c.e.).3 Caesar had been born into a family that was very ancient and patrician but for centuries had been politically obscure. He had a strong popularis lineage. His aunt Julia had been the wife of Marius. As a young man, he married Cornelia, daughter of Cinna, Marius’ colleague and Sulla’s enemy, and he refused to divorce her in the face of Sulla’s command. He won the civic crown (corona civica) for saving the life of a fellow soldier in battle. He was willing to prosecute men of high standing as a young orator, and he took bold retribution against pirates who had seized him for ransom. Yet, it was his mother, Aurelia, who saved him from Sulla’s proscription. Sulla is said to have warned then that in Caesar was many a Marius.
At the beginning of the climb up the cursus honorum, Caesar may have spoken in favor of restoring the tribunician powers in 70 b.c.e. During that year, he definitely took advantage of the Sullan regime’s unpopularity and the common people’s high regard for the dead Marius to get elected quaestor for 69. Sulla had banned the showing of Marius’ images in public. Caesar boldly displayed them at the funerals of his aunt Julia, Marius’ widow, and of his own wife, Cornelia. He even dared to extol the deeds of Marius and Cinna in public eulogies on these occasions. Later in the same year, he went to serve in Spain, where he set about to make a name for himself and build up a useful group of Spanish clients.
Still, a young man trying to make his way up with small financial resources had no hope of making a mark at Rome. He needed help from older, more powerful supporters. Even after Caesar married Sulla’s granddaughter Pompeia in 67 b.c.e., he was suspect among many of Sulla’s political heirs because of his background. He needed support from people outside of their circle. Caesar may have sought popularity in 67 and 66 by backing the tribunician bills favorable to Pompey, but there is nothing to indicate any close connection with him.4 In the late 60s, however, there is some evidence that Caesar was working actively with Crassus as the latter maneuvered to strengthen his position.
The maneuverings of Crassus and Caesar, 65 b.c.e.
Crassus succeeded in becoming one of the censors for 65 and seems to have backed the election of two men as consuls for that year. A crisis arose when the two consuls-elect were convicted of bribery, and they were removed from office. According to Cicero, they then conspired with L. Sergius Catilina (Catiline) to murder their replacements on New Year’s Day, 65 b.c.e. This supposed plot, known as the First Catilinarian Conspiracy, never existed. Cicero was merely twisting certain facts in a piece of campaign rhetoric a year later when Catiline was his electoral rival.
Having become an aedile in 65, Caesar won popularity by entertaining the populace at unprecedented expense. For the people’s pleasure, he had the Forum lavishly decorated, exhibited 320 pairs of gladiators, and gave silver-tipped weapons to the criminals condemned to fighting lions in the arena. Early one morning, people entering the Forum saw the victory trophies and gleaming gold statues of Marius set up everywhere. Marius’ old veterans gathered around, tears of pride streaming down their cheeks. Such efforts entailed huge debts, however, and Crassus later helped to save Caesar from creditors (p. 272).
Crassus’ ultimate purpose in building a base of popular support was to be able to create an army and military command that would give him the same kind of political strength that Pompey enjoyed. One of the best Roman recruiting grounds was northern Italy. Using the power of censor, Crassus proposed to give full citizenship to the Transpadanes, the people of Cisalpine Gaul north of the Po, by enrolling them in all thirty-five voting tribes. Caesar had unsuccessfully advocated the same thing in 68 and must have backed it now. Crassus was vetoed by his fellow censor, Quintus Lutatius Catulus. That staunch optimate trusted neither Pompey nor Crassus. The impasse was so unbreakable that both Crassus and Catulus resigned. Even so, advocating citizenship for the Transpadanes won for Crassus and Caesar the continued gratitude of the people north of the Po. Caesar easily recruited soldiers there later.
One of Crassus’ schemes earlier in 65 concerned Egypt. Ptolemy X (Alexander I) had bequeathed it to the Roman People in 88 b.c.e. Crassus drafted a bill declaring Egypt a province. That bill would have given someone (perhaps Crassus) the right to raise an army, the Roman populace a rich source of grain, and equestrian financial interests a store of untapped wealth. Nevertheless, it was foiled by the efforts of Catulus and, also, Cicero, who was then one of Pompey’s staunchest advocates. Cicero did not want such a command to be available to someone who would then be a serious political rival to Pompey.
The elections of 64 b.c.e.
Crassus and Caesar continued to build their political bases by supporting candidates for election. In 64, they both seem to have backed Catiline and C. Antonius Hybrida, who were now running against Cicero for the consulship of 63 b.c.e. Catiline was already a man of some fame or, rather, notoriety. Although descended from an ancient and illustrious lineage, Catiline was (if the ancient accounts are to be believed) a scoundrel, a murderer, and a master of every known vice. He had supported Sulla, playing a notorious role in Sulla’s bloody proscriptions.
After serving as propraetor in the province of Africa in 67, Catiline was accused of extortion and brought to trial in 65.5 Bribery secured his acquittal. He went on to stand for the consulship in the elections of 64. At the last minute, however, Catiline alarmed the electorate by his violent behavior and his radical talk about the canceling of debts. Cicero won election with widespread equestrian support and ennobled his family as a novus homo. Antonius Hybrida, the other candidate, was a successful but poor second; Catiline, a close third. Cicero soon won the allegiance of Antonius by letting him take Macedonia as a consular province. It was far richer than the one that Antonius had originally drawn.
Popular legislation and actions in 63 b.c.e.
Crassus and Caesar seem to have been associated with a number of popular measures in 63 that would win favor with the voters and prove useful in dealing with Pompey. One of them was the proposed land law of the tribune P. Servillius Rullus. This law would have established a land commission that was to control the distribution of public land (which Pompey had promised his veterans), have access to Pompey’s war booty, enroll troops, and occupy Egypt by force. Cicero curried favor with Pompey by portraying it as a plot aimed directly at him and helped to bring about its defeat.
Caesar mounted a popular attack on the Senatus Consultum Ultimum (S.C.U.) by prosecuting the elderly senator Rabirius for treason (perduellio). Thirty years earlier, acting under the banner of the S.C.U., Rabirius had taken part in the shameful murder of the tribune Saturninus (pp. 236–7). Trying to preserve stability in a period of increasing tension, Cicero gave a speech in defense of Rabirius (Pro Rabirio Perduellionis). In the end, the trial was halted before the jury voted. No matter, Caesar had declared his hostility to a weapon that the optimate oligarchs had often used against popular challengers.
A friend obtained passage of a voting bill that made it easier for Caesar to get elected pontifex maximus against the steadfast optimate Catulus. Caesar also was elected praetor for 62, but Cicero blocked a proposal that he backed to let the sons of those proscribed by Sulla hold public office. Soon, Caesar’s support of Catiline’s failed bid for the consulship would bring suspicion that Caesar was involved in Catiline’s rash actions in late 63 b.c.e.
The Catilinarian conspiracy, 63 b.c.e.
Catiline again ran for the consulship in the elections for 62 b.c.e. Initially, he probably still had the support of Crassus and Caesar. His rhetoric, however, was more radical and alarming than what they were prepared to support. His demands for a general scaling down of debts repelled creditors and investors. On the other hand, they had a strong attraction for debtors, ruined aristocrats, Sulla’s veterans, and the sons of the persons whom Sulla had proscribed. The more support Catiline received from exiles and the less fortunate members of society, the more he caused the well-to-do and more privileged citizens to fear him as a public nuisance, if not a dangerous enemy. Cicero did his best to whip up the fear that Catiline, if elected, would resort to violence and revolution.
Upon losing the election, Catiline, frustrated and desperate, formed a conspiracy to overthrow the government. Rumors reached Cicero, and more definite information arrived through the cooperation of a certain Fulvia, mistress of one of Catiline’s accomplices. Also, Crassus secretly visited Cicero and entrusted to him a number of compromising letters that he had received from the conspirators.
Still, Cicero’s first denunciation of Catiline before the senate was based largely on surmises. Even when he reported that Catiline’s lieutenant, Manlius, was busily recruiting an army of malcontents in Etruria to seize control of the government, his evidence was dismissed as incomplete. The senate refused to issue the Senatus Consultum Ultimum until news arrived in Rome the next day that Manlius had indeed recruited a substantial army in Etruria. Cicero was right.
Cicero refrained from using the emergency decree and waited instead for Catiline’s next move. He learned more of Catiline’s plans through Fulvia. Thus, he was able to discredit Catiline and lay a trap for his accomplices in Rome. Caesar, courting popularity, unsuccessfully called for the return of Pompey to save the state. The arrest and execution of five leading conspirators dealt a major blow to Catiline, who was now in Etruria. Two-thirds of his army melted away, but, in early 62, he died fighting in heroic style at the head of the remnant.
Caesar, Cato the Younger, and the S.C.U.
When the senate met to determine the fate of Catiline’s five accomplices, Caesar was a praetor-elect for 62. He took another opportunity to earn popular favor by speaking out against the S.C.U. His eloquence almost persuaded a majority of the senators, even Cicero, to vote for life imprisonment instead of death. Then M. Porcius Cato the Younger (Uticensis) (95–46 b.c.e.), a stern Stoic, fierce optimate, and great-grandson of Cato the Elder, took the floor. He attacked the weakness and irresolution of his colleagues. So stinging were his words that a majority of the senators finally voted for the death penalty. That same day, the conspirators paid for their crimes in the gloomy prison of the Tullianum. Their political ghosts would come back to haunt Cicero.
Cicero’s hopes for the future
In the meantime, Cicero of Arpinum had attained sudden glory. For delivering Rome from danger, he was voted a thanksgiving festival and given the title Pater Patriae, “Father of His Country.” Without the support of a proud family name, great wealth, military talents, or a strong political following, he had entered the senate, reached the consulship, and ennobled his family. Unfortunately, in often proclaiming this proud achievement, he sometimes became tiresome even to his friends. Certainly, he was spurred by the slights that he suffered: he was admitted to the nobility but not accepted; admired for his eloquence but ridiculed for his self-adulation. The first novus homo consul since the death of Marius, Cicero could not have failed to be hurt by the aloofness of his colleagues, by their tacit assumption of superiority, and by their frequent rudeness.
It must have been difficult for so proud a man to accept such treatment. Nevertheless, Cicero was convinced that the preservation of the Republic depended on maintaining the supremacy of the senate. The ancient nobility would give the senate prestige and continuity with the past. New men—like Cicero himself—would bring to it energy, intelligence, and an awareness of present problems. Peace, stability, and freedom depended on the continued concord or harmony of the orders (concordia ordinum) between the senatorial aristocracy and the wealthy equestrian class. In a slightly expanded form, the harmony of the orders was an alliance of those whom Cicero saw as good, law-abiding citizens against revolutionary attacks on property and the status quo. He also insisted on the consensus Italiae, “mutual agreement of Italy.” By this phrase, he meant that Rome should conduct its affairs in conformity with the interests and sentiments of Italy as a whole—that is, of local Italian notables, from whom Cicero himself had come.
Cicero’s concept of the ideal state, one governed according to law, reflected the Republic’s highest ideal of libertas. To the magistrates was to be allotted executive power; to the senate, authority; to the people, liberty. It was to be a state in which the people, undisturbed by social strife or civil war, might live and work in peace and security. Members of the privileged classes could freely compete to maintain their dignitas (rank, prestige, and honor) in service to the state. Such a state, Cicero believed, could be neither a monarchy nor a participatory democracy on the Athenian model: only a free aristocratic republic was flexible enough to incorporate talented and patriotic men from nonaristocratic circles into the governing elite. Cicero’s vision is too narrow for today, but it was better than most of his contemporaries’ views.
Clodius, the Bona Dea, and Caesar, 62 b.c.e.
Unfortunately, Publius Clodius (Claudius) Pulcher (ca. 92–52 b.c.e.), the man who had done so much to ruin Lucullus’ career (p. 257), was about to become Cicero’s bitter enemy. He would drive Cicero from public life when Cicero’s services were needed most. Although Clodius chose the plebeian spelling of his name, he was a scion of the Appii Claudii, the great patrician noble house. He was the kind of rakish, unorthodox, over-privileged young aristocrat who, Cicero thought, threatened to undermine the people’s respect for their aristocratic betters. Late in the year 62, Roman women were celebrating the annual festival of the Bona Dea, “Good Goddess”, at the house of the pontifex maximus, Julius Caesar. Men were rigidly excluded from this all-female ritual. Clodius, however, disguised as a woman and alleged at the time to have been the lover of Caesar’s wife, Pompeia, managed to enter the house. His presence was detected, and a scandal ensued. As a result, Caesar made his famous declaration, “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion,” and divorced Pompeia.
Early in 61 b.c.e., personal enemies like Lucullus among the leading optimates maneuvered against Clodius in the senate. They managed to have Clodius brought to trial on a special charge of incestum (unchastity) because Vestal Virgins had been at the rites that he had defiled. Clodius stirred up the populace against the senate. When called as a witness, Caesar characteristically did the unexpected by refusing to testify. He was about to depart for a provincial governorship in Spain and did not want to make an enemy of a popular and powerful political figure. Cicero decided that he had to testify to uphold public religion and support the authority of the senate, on which he had relied in suppressing Catiline. Cicero flatly contradicted Clodius’ attempt to establish an alibi. Conviction seemed certain. Bribes proved otherwise: the jurors voted for acquittal.
As praetor in 62, Caesar had tried to make sure that he would have the goodwill of Pompey and his friends after Pompey returned from Asia. Caesar wanted to deny his and Pompey’s optimate foe Catulus the honor of restoring the temple of Capitoline Jupiter. He attempted to give that honor to the popular hero Pompey. Violence and passage of a Senatus Consultum Ultimum resulted in Caesar’s temporary suspension from office. That forced Caesar to abandon support of a tribunician bill to recall Pompey immediately from Asia. Q. Caecilius Metellus Nepos—half-brother of Pompey’s wife, Mucia—proposed the bill. It would have enabled Pompey to take credit for the suppression of Catiline and his remaining forces. The bill failed. Nevertheless, Pompey and his friends would have noted Caesar’s initial support.
After Pompey’s return, 62 to 60 b.c.e.
Toward the end of 62 b.c.e., Pompeius Magnus, conqueror of the East, landed at Brundisium. To the relief and amazement of many, he at once disbanded his powerful army. With it he could have seized dictatorial power as Sulla had done. His action gives the lie to the monarchic ambition sometimes attributed to him at this stage of his career. This fiction is based on the literal and serious acceptance of rex (king) and regnum (kingship), two terms equivalent to “tyrant” and “tyranny” in the political invective that was freely and loosely hurled in the late Roman Republic. Even Cicero, because he was a novus homo from Arpinum, felt their sting. He was maliciously called “the first foreign rex at Rome since the Tarquins.”
The opening days of the year 61 b.c.e. looked bright for the future of the Republic. In 63 and 62, the optimate generals Lucullus and Metellus Creticus had finally been allowed to celebrate triumphs that had long been delayed by popular opposition. At the same time, the senate had shown unexpected strength and resolution in dealing with the Catilinarian conspiracy. The equestrian class had, in Cicero, a vigorous and eloquent spokesman. His concordia ordinum seemed an answer to social and civil strife, although not a substitute for needed reforms. A truly hopeful sign was Pompey’s dismissal of his army and his refusal to seize dictatorial power. Cicero might yet have saved the Republic if Pompey could have been induced to support the policy of concordia.
Unfortunately, the jealousy of Crassus, the hostility of the optimate leaders of the senate toward Pompey, Pompey’s own ineptness, and Cicero’s unconquerable vanity all contributed to the breakdown of the tenuous harmony. Residing outside Rome to await a triumph, Pompey met with the senate outside the pomerium. He anticipated being hailed as another Alexander. Crassus solemnly rose and pointedly ignored Pompey. Instead, he dramatically declared Cicero the savior of Rome. Cicero, his vanity flattered, promptly forgot all about Pompey and went on to speak at great length of his own illustrious deeds. Cicero had already alienated Pompey by earlier boasts and thereby lost his crucial support for the concordia ordinum. Now Cicero had completely shattered any hope of cooperation from Pompey in protecting the Republic.
Pompey’s demands, finally presented to the senate in 60 b.c.e., were modest. He understandably wanted land for his veterans and ratification of his acta, or arrangements, made in the East. Personal enmities and fear of Pompey’s eventual dominance aroused bitter opposition. Soon after returning from the East, Pompey had divorced Mucia because of her rumored infidelity. Her half-brother, Q. Caecilius Metellus Celer, vigorously opposed Pompey’s requests. So, too, did Q. Caecilius Metellus Creticus. He had been consul in 69 b.c.e. and held a grudge because Pompey had interfered with his command in Crete during the pirate war in 67. Lucullus, emerging from his princely gardens, vindictive and rancorous, insisted on debating Pompey’s proposals in detail, not en bloc as Pompey requested. Lucullus had the support of Crassus, who was Pompey’s jealous rival, and Cato the Younger, who saw Pompey’s power as a threat to the Republic.
Not one of the optimate leaders of the senate opposed Pompey’s requests with more rancor than Cato. Narrow-minded and pedantic, yet honest and fearless, he was one of the few Stoics who lived by the philosophy they professed. Cato’s moral courage soon gained him recognition as the spokesman of the optimate heirs of Sulla. His forceful character won him a power greater than that of any other member of the senate. Because of Cato’s obstructive tactics, ratification of Pompey’s acta was delayed.
After destroying the possibility of goodwill between Pompey and the optimate leaders of the senate, Cato proceeded to alienate Crassus and the equestrian financial interests. He blocked passage of a bill for the relief of tax-collecting companies that had optimistically bid too high for the taxes in Asia. They were now requesting a reduction of their contract payments to the treasury. Cicero, though he privately considered the petition outrageous and impudent, had nevertheless supported the bill in order to promote the concordia ordinum.
Cato further antagonized the equites by forcing passage of a bill that declared as criminal the acceptance of bribes by equites serving on juries (it had long been so for senators). Again, Cicero, as politicians so often must, betrayed one principle for the sake of another: although he thought the bill a fair measure, he opposed it as being detrimental to harmony.
Cato’s next object of attack was Julius Caesar. After Crassus had stood surety with Caesar’s creditors in 61 b.c.e., Caesar had been able to take up his provincial governorship in Spain. On return from Spain in 60, Caesar had requested the right to declare his candidacy for the upcoming consular election in absentia. He had been voted a triumph for some victories against native tribes. He had found an excuse to attack them in order to have enough loot to pay off his debts—100,000,000 HS (sestertii)—and campaign for the coveted consulship. It was legally impossible for him to hold a triumph and declare his candidacy in the time remaining before the election. A recent law compelled potential candidates to declare their intentions personally in the Forum to the magistrate in charge of the election. To do so, he would have to cross the pomerium before he could hold his triumph. If he did that, another law would require him to forfeit his triumph.
When Caesar learned that Cato opposed the petition, he decided to forego the triumph and stand for the consulship. Cato feared that Caesar might win the election and thereby be eligible for another army along with another province to loot. He persuaded the senate to assign the cattle paths and forests of Italy as the provinces for the consuls of 59 b.c.e. If Cato had deliberately set out to destroy the Republic, he could not have been more successful.
Cato and his allies ultimately drove Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar into a coalition that made each member more powerful than he could have been by himself. Then, with each aiming for supreme honors, the natural rivalries that were bound to reemerge resulted in the dictatorship of Julius Caesar. It paved the way for the Principate of Augustus, which ended the Republic forever. The natural ambitions and rivalries of Roman nobles had reduced republican politics to a vast game of musical chairs in which only one man would ultimately be left to dominate the rest.
NOTES
1 The botanical name for the cultivated cherry is prunus lucullus because Lucullus brought it back to Europe from Asia Minor.
2 So great was the confidence in his leadership that grain prices fell the very day he received the command.
3 Although some scholars have argued for 102 or 101 b.c.e. as the year of Caesar’s birth, the traditional date of 100 b.c.e. is now commonly accepted. The day is usually given as July 13, but some authorities prefer July 12.
4 Pompeia’s distant relationship to Pompey indicates no connection between Caesar and Pompey.
5 The prosecutor at the trial was Publius Clodius Pulcher, who had helped to undermine Lucullus in Asia Minor (p. 257). Cicero, though convinced of Catiline’s guilt, had at first thought of defending him and even worked out a deal with Clodius but then dropped the idea.
Suggested reading
Santangelo , F. Sulla, the Elites and the Empire: A Study of Roman Policies in Italy and the Greek East. Impact of Empire 8. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007.
Schiavone , A. Spartacus. Revealing Antiquity, 19. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2013.
Seager , R. J. Pompey: A Political Biography. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.