CHAPTER 2

Pompey's Recognitio Equitum

Historians have generally underestimated the importance of the consulship of Pompey and Crassus in the year 70 BCE. The year 71 was significant because the victory of Crassus and Pompey over Spartacus at that time marked the end of the anxiety that had gripped Rome since the uprising's outbreak. At that time, two Vestals, Fabia and Licinia, were accused of having broken their vow of chastity with Catiline and Crassus, respectively.1 Such accusations sometimes followed catastrophes, as the terrible events prompted the Romans to suspect that unusual wickedness had disturbed the pax deorum.2 The Spartacan rebellion was just such an event, and a number of other problems at the time only compounded the sense that the gods were angry. So bad was the state of affairs, in fact, that the crises of the year 73 were considered signs of Rome's impending end.3 Although the Vestals and their lovers were acquitted, the Roman people were not satisfied that justice had been done.4 Subsequent victories over Sertorius and Spartacus in quick succession were perhaps harbingers of an end to divine anger and, for Crassus in particular, a divine acquittal. The victors were presented with an unusual opportunity to complete the process of restoration by addressing the problems of the decade following Sulla's death through reforms and through holding a census. The present discussion of their consulship thus begins with the view that Pompey and Crassus had a definite program to reform the Sullan constitution, enroll thousands of Italian citizens, and use the same census to purge the state of immoral elements—something left undone thanks to the Vestals' acquittal. The consular pair's celebration of the god Hercules is then contextualized within their program. The significance of Hercules within a larger Italian milieu fits the content of the reforms these consuls undertook, and their use of the god points to a deliberate plan to enlist his divine assistance in supporting their reforms and securing Rome after a period of crisis and marked religious anxiety.

Over the course of the seventies BCE, Pompey emerged as the charismatic leader to fill the vacuum that the death of Sulla had created, and although he clearly relied on his military success in promoting himself, he did not follow the precedents of Sulla and Lepidus in turning his soldiers on the city.5 Pompey was thus not a revolutionary in that particular mold, as is evident in his later decision to disband his troops after he landed in Italy in 62. Often employing a variety of political strategies, some arguably reckless, in obtaining what he felt was his due, Pompey was, nevertheless, comfortably ensconced within the group of leading aristocrats in the seventies. His efforts during his consulship in 70 seem to reflect trends that were brewing over that period.6 Still, Pompey was of an independent mind, and early in his political career, he undertook a course that undermined the measures Sulla had instituted for the protection of the Republic from individual revolutionaries.7 A careful examination of Pompey's public performances in 70 clearly shows his use of ceremony and cult in articulating changes in the conception of Rome's relationship with Italy as it was realized under his leadership.

Although the Social War had ended in Sulla's victory at the Colline Gate over a decade earlier, Italian interests would continue to be an important consideration in almost every civil war or threat thereof down to the victory of Augustus. Pompey and Crassus were attuned to the opportunity presented to them in continuing Italian discontent. Both men had recently fought with Italians against Italians in putting down the forces of Spartacus. Furthermore, Pompey in particular was cognizant of these issues, thanks partly to his family's Italian connections and his own participation in the Social War. The Pompeii entered the Roman nobility through Pompey's father's consulship. Pompey's ancestors belonged to the tribe of Clustumina, located northeast of Rome in the Tiber valley.8 The family had land interests and ties in a number of places in Italy. They seem to have had particularly strong connections with Picenum, as suggested by Pompey Strabo's military assignment to Asculum during the Social War and by the appearance of names from the tribe Velina (to which many Picenes belonged) on the lex Pompeia.9 The family's involvement in the broader Italian milieu without correspondingly deep roots in the Roman nobility likely led to Pompey's greater awareness of, if not sympathy toward, the perspectives of non-Roman Italians.

Unfortunately, Pompey Strabo's reputation was marred by treachery and cruelty, so the young Pompey found it necessary to be creative in order to obtain the consulship and thereby achieve the pinnacle of Rome's political and social orders.10 He took an excellent gamble in throwing his support behind Sulla when he raised Picene legions and placed himself at the future dictator's disposal.11 This was the first instance of what would develop into a pattern for Pompey: the exploitation of a crisis to further his personal career. Undoubtedly, the careers of Marius and Sulla served as models for such a strategy. In achieving his goals, Pompey not only acquitted himself well but also demonstrated that he more or less understood and was committed to working with established members of Rome's senatorial aristocracy.12 The facts of his strong Italian connections and his ability to work with Roman aristocrats are indispensable for understanding Pompey's role in the reforms of the Sullan system in 70 and the ceremonial performances through which he sought to shape perceptions of his efforts.

After defeating the Sertorians, settling Spain, and then cleaning up the remnants of Spartacus' followers, Pompey returned to Rome to stand for election to the consulship.13 Spartacus' campaign across the length and breadth of Italy had had a highly destructive impact on much of the peninsula. It had required cooperation from Italian communities to put the rebellion down, since a number of poor Italians of non-servile origins were to be found in Spartacus' ranks.14 Rome's ultimate success against Spartacus, achieved with important Italian assistance but also over some Italian resistance in the form of a percentage of the rebels themselves, again brought to the fore the issue of the registration of Italians as citizens of Rome. Pompey emphasized the cooperation of Rome and Italy in securing these victories, as a coin minted to celebrate his triumph in 70 attests.15 On its reverse, Roma and Italia clasp hands.

The last significant independent Italian resistance to Rome had ended at the Battle of the Colline Gate, and many Italians had legally obtained Roman citizenship, but most of them did not effectively possess or exercise that citizenship, because they had not been enrolled in a Roman census and had not been assigned to one of Rome's thirty-five tribes.16 Continuing Italian discontentment about their relationship with Rome can be seen in the role Italians played in various Roman crises down to the so-called Catilinarian conspiracy.17 As a leader with strong Italian connections, Pompey must have been aware of the opportunities that Italian discontentment over issues regarding Roman citizenship might present to the shrewd politician, and he likely had the backing of aristocrats with considerably greater influence.18 So, defying factional resistance from some quarters, Pompey, with the cooperation of his consular colleague Crassus, determined to hold a census and thus boost his own following by acting as the patron of nearly half a million Italians who would claim Roman citizenship.19

Pompey and Crassus: Exaggerated Enmity

Before addressing the issue of the reforms themselves, a word needs to be said about the relationship between Crassus and Pompey. Too much has been made of the tension between Crassus and Pompey, based on sparse evidence in an inconsistent portrait of the relationship.20 There can be no doubt that tension did exist. Still, Plutarch at one point wildly exaggerates the problem, writing of their complete inability to cooperate for the balance of their consulship.21 Elsewhere, however, Plutarch refers to the various accomplishments that occurred in the same period, which he then appears to attribute mostly to Pompey.22 The most solid evidence of a rift between the two men is the reconciliation gesture that was arranged toward the end of their consular term, in which Crassus made the first move by complimenting Pompey for his achievements and then extending his hand as a conciliatory gesture.23

Aside from this scene of reconciliation, little militates against a portrait of consistent cooperation between the two men until late in the year 70. Evidence for conflict over Pompey's presumption during the final stages of the struggle against Spartacus is lacking. Crassus called for the assistance of Pompey and Lucullus as he sought to wipe up the remnants of the Spartacan uprising.24 While many would stress the obvious anger Crassus must have felt for being upstaged by Pompey in the latter's report to the Senate (in which Pompey appeared to take credit for ending the revolt), Crassus' overtures to Pompey in seeking leave from a junior privatus to run for consul betray insufficient ill feelings to argue that Crassus would compromise his larger political self-interest on that account.25 Crassus would have had no reason to be sour about his ovation for defeating Spartacus, since he could not have expected more than that honor for victory over a servile insurrection.26 Besides, Crassus received the unusual honor of a laurel crown for his victory over Spartacus.27 The two men thus campaigned cooperatively on a promise to restore the powers of the tribune, and they worked together in following through on that promise.28 They also cooperated in choosing censors and holding the census.29 These are not minor issues, and they probably carried the cooperation of the two men well into the late summer of 70. In fact, the precise issue of conflict between them is altogether unclear.30 Whatever it was, Crassus, in praising the younger man and offering him his hand, did not appear too opposed to Pompey to seek reconciliation.31

The Consulship of 70: Reforming the Sullan Constitution

Crassus had every reason to support Pompey's political program, since he stood to benefit thereby and since there was no love lost between Crassus and a number of other Roman aristocrats who opposed Pompey's initiatives. The census was part of a larger program designed not only to welcome thousands of Italians into Rome as citizens but also to give these new citizens almost immediate clout once they arrived.32 While consul designate, Pompey delivered a speech that revealed his plan to reform the Sullan constitution.33 He intended to reform the tribunate, the courts, and the governing of the provinces.34 All three items would have immediate impact on the newly enrolled citizens. The purpose of Pompey and Crassus' reform package was naturally not only to empower Italians but also to expand their own clientele thereby. The heart of the program was the census, which allowed scores of thousands of Italians to participate in the Roman state on significantly more equal footing for the first time.35 Among those who were able to come to Rome were men who would directly benefit from Pompey's reform of the courts.36 The lex Aurelia of 70 changed the composition of Roman juries such that the equites and tribuni aerarii joined in.37 These new jurists undoubtedly included a number of the men who were enrolled as citizens in the census of 70. Given that Italians comprised a large percentage of those negotiatores who were involved in provincial business, this was no small change.38 Now these men would have the ability to judge the guilt or innocence of Roman governors who were charged with crimes in the provinces—crimes that could and did impact business. Cicero's prosecution of Verres reflected the spirit of these reforms. Cicero, a rising novus homo from Arpinum, was the perfect prosecutor to demonstrate the kind of power that inclusion in Roman courts endowed on new Italian citizens of Rome.39

The resuscitation of the tribunate was another important peg in Pompey and Crassus' program.40 While there were a good number of relatively wealthy Italians who traveled to Rome for the census of 70, many poorer Italian men were already on site, poised to lay claim to the privileges in Roman politics that had supposedly been their right for close to two decades.41 Some had fought alongside Pompey and Crassus against Spartacan rebels.42 Some of the Italian residents of Rome had watched in horror while Sulla slaughtered his Samnite foes in the very place, the Villa Publica, where they hoped to be enrolled in the list of Rome's citizens.43 This demonstration undoubtedly made a terrifying impression on them. Now, thanks to Pompey and Crassus, not only would these men be citizens, but the traditional protections of the tribunes' full powers would be extended to them. More importantly, they would be able to vote in the Concilium Plebis on legislation that would be binding on all Romans, including their senatorial superiors.

Arguing that Pompey and Crassus took substantive steps to reform the Sullan constitution is not to suggest either that the Sullan constitution was a dead letter or that Pompey and Crassus intended to overthrow all of Sulla's work. Rather, Pompey and Crassus sought to ameliorate problems brought on by the continued deferral of the extension of active citizenship to the Italians—and also, of course, to advance their own careers. As concerns the tribunate, it has rightly been noted that prominent members of the Cotta family had already started to restore the tribunate some years before.44 It is true that Pompey and Crassus were not independent radicals and that their actions were in line with initiatives already in motion. At the same time, it is important not to underestimate the significance of Pompey entering on this course of reforms at this particular time. The Republic continued to be fundamentally the one that Sulla established, but that fact does not diminish the impact of Pompey and Crassus' reforms.

In short, what matters for the individual politician's construction of his legacy is not the fact that he is the literal mastermind and cause of all of the initiatives that occur during his consulship but that his is the name and his the visage (imago) that is associated with these accomplishments. It is a way of conceiving of the magistracy that is fully in line with the way that military command brought glory to the possessor of supreme imperium militiae on the battlefield. Whereas the modern historian instinctively strives to identify the precise causes of the victory or law in precise detail, the Roman magistrate wanted the credit that was his due as a function of his role as the holder of imperium under whose aegis the act was accomplished. Naturally, he would use his public performances to emphasize his role and articulate his vision of its significance.

The Recognitio Equitum

The preceding explication of Pompey and Crassus' reforms provides crucial context enabling one to interpret more accurately Pompey's dramatic appearance before the censors of 70.45 History has not been kind to Pompey as a public performer. His most infamous public performance—the triumphal gaffe early in his career in which his elephants proved too large to fit through the triumphal gate, forcing Pompey to dismount—has left the distinct impression of Pompey as a bumbler.46 The preservation of this episode as worthy of commemoration is interesting in itself because the anecdote serves well the purpose of reminding readers that Pompey's imposing presence, which approached Alexander-like proportions, did not fit comfortably within the city.47 Indeed, some may view it as a visual parable much like the well-known example of the camel fitting through the eye of the needle.48 The embarrassing scene of Pompey's triumphal gaffe is one of those moments that seems to stand as a symbol for the man as a whole. Pompey's achievements outside of Rome consistently appeared formidable, but in retrospect, his achievements at home, taken in toto, seem much less so, particularly in comparison with Caesar, Pompey's successor as Rome's leading man. The temptation, which has proven almost irresistible, is to underestimate the importance of what Pompey did accomplish in Rome, partly because of the power of anecdotes like the triumphal gaffe.

The truth was obviously much more complicated, and Pompey's career was replete with moments of highly effective maneuvering, which also included his use of public spectacle. In 70, Pompey ostentatiously participated in the review of knights (recognitio equitum), which was associated with the census he had brought to pass. In this review, knights presented themselves with their horses before the censors and were there adjudged worthy or unworthy of the privilege of the public horse.49 The participation of the consul in this review was undoubtedly a rare, if not unprecedented, event. The fact that the consulship was Pompey's first magistracy is what made this possible. After dismounting, Pompey led his mount down into the Forum to present himself for judgment before the censors at the Temple of Castor, the climactic moment of the review.50 As Pompey drew within sight of the crowd gathered around the censor's tribunal in the Forum, he told his lictors to allow him through, thus effectively dismissing them.51 When Pompey took his place before the tribunal, the senior censor, in accordance with custom, said, “Pompeius Magnus, I ask you whether you have performed all of the military services required by law.” To this, Pompey replied, “I have performed them all, and all under my own command.”52 The crowd erupted in enthusiastic cheers, undoubtedly struck by the novelty of the spectacle and Pompey's words. Plutarch calls it the most agreeable of all the spectacles Pompey offered the people.53

This event has been dismissed as being apocryphal.54 At first glance, it appears to be a little too staged to be credible. But the fact that it is so typical of Pompey's brash flair arguably supports its authenticity. Surely it is no less believable than some of the stories about Pompey and Sulla, such as Sulla hailing Pompey as imperator when, as a young privatus, the latter offered himself and the legions he had raised from his clients to the returning commander;55 or Pompey's chutzpah in demanding a triumph by telling the dictator Sulla that people cared more about the rising than the setting sun.56 These stories are usually accepted as factual, and Pompey's performance in the recognitio equitum fits well with such a portrait. Pompey was the Young Turk who had risen from a background of familial disgrace to consular prominence through his ambition, daring, ability, and talent for self-promotion. Pompey's performance on the occasion of his appearance before the censors simply underscores the unusual nature of his career—a career in which he held imperium without ever having been elected to a magistracy and, in contravention of the law, skipped all of the lower rungs of the Sullan cursus honorum to become consul, albeit with senatorial approval.57

If one considers Pompey's performance in the review of knights in terms of its visual and verbal symbolism within a Roman social and political context, some interesting insights emerge. At the beginning of the scene, one sees Pompey leading his horse but preceded by lictors, the traditional ceremonial guard of consuls. He was no doubt dressed in his consular regalia as well.58 His appearance at the time may have approached that of a commander in triumph or ovation, since a man on horseback with lictors would have combined elements of both rituals, with the crucial difference being that Pompey was not mounted for the review. As McDonnell has shown, there was a remarkable ambivalence toward the image of the mounted warrior in the Late Republic.59 To allow oneself to be depicted as a mounted warrior was taken as a sign of great arrogance, while appearing on foot was viewed as a sign of civilitas. Thus the depiction of the consul Pompey submitting to the authority of the censors by approaching them at the Temple of Castor while leading his horse rather than mounted on it is a striking expression of civilitas in contrast with the gilded equestrian statue of Sulla that stood by the Rostra.60 This image of civilitas is amplified by Pompey's dismissal of his lictors when he comes into the presence of the censors, a highly symbolic show of respect and deference to these officials, who, unlike Pompey, did not hold imperium and thus did not have lictors.61 The overall symbolic message and effect of this gesture was almost exactly the opposite of Marius' appearance before the Senate in his triumphal costume, a fact that is all the more interesting since Pompey had celebrated his triumph of 71 the day before he entered his consulship, in a manner that came close to repeating Marius' back-to-back triumph and inauguration as consul.62

According to Plutarch, the initial response of the crowd to Pompey's appearance before the censors was a stunned silence, while the magistrates were struck with awe and delight. As Vergil illustrates in his famous epic simile involving the man of gravitas, the silence of the crowd can represent the respect a great Roman man commands in others.63 When the censor addressed Pompey, he employed the controversial cognomen Magnus, which harked back to Pompey's military achievements in Africa and evoked the image of Alexander the Great—a combination of associations that is reminiscent of Marius' self-representation as a Dionysiac victor after his successes in Africa. The censor's use of Magnus arguably conferred on the name a quasi-official force. The two censors then accompanied Pompey to his home as though they were his clientes.64

Since the occasion of this intriguing display was essentially Pompey's own census, there can be no question regarding Pompey's hand in orchestrating this scene, from his role in arranging for the recognitio equitum to the departure of the censors in his company. Pompey planned to derive maximum benefit from the opportunity to associate himself with the first census to occur in over a decade—one through which Pompey triumphed as a privatus in his twenties and now, for a second time, as consul-elect.65 After celebrating this second triumph, Pompey could participate in the census' recognitio equitum not only as a knight among his fellow knights but also as a triumphator and consul.

There was more at stake, however, than perceptions of Pompey's personal career. Since the end of the Social War, Italians, many of whom were eligible by wealth to be equites, had been stuck in a citizenship limbo thanks to elite Roman opposition against registering new Italian citizens. Perhaps the lack of a census after Sulla also reflected something of the perceived finality of the dictator's arrangement of affairs. If the Sullan constitution, in the broad sense, was to be viewed as an ideal arrangement, there was no need to hold a census. Those equites who had been deemed worthy of joining the Senate had already been welcomed into it by Sulla.66 It is important to remember that the meaning of the census was not restricted to assigning people a place in accordance with their property but also included scrutiny of the moral standing of Rome's elite orders: the knights and the senators.67 Sulla's proscriptions represented a kind of radical census carried out under the authority of the dictator.68 What need could there be of holding a census when the ranks of Roman society had been cleansed and rearranged by Sulla, the agent of the gods and savior of Rome?

In other words, the failure to hold a census between the civil war and the consulship of Pompey and Crassus was not simply a way of deferring the incorporation of Italians into the body of the citizenry or protecting the elite from censure; it grew out of the logic of the implicitly utopian ideology of Sulla's dictatorship. The severe measures of Sulla's regime had been justified on the grounds that the gods had given Sulla the power to do as he had done. Bellona had placed a thunderbolt in the dictator's hands and given him both the power and permission to strike his enemies down.69 Sulla did this in the civil war struggle, but the attendant sense of divine backing also extended into the execution of the proscriptions. The slaughter of Samnites in the Villa Publica, the writing of the names of the proscribed on white boards placed out in public view (which represented a kind of reversal of the enrollment of citizens), and the elevation of select knights into the Senate all involved the symbols, power, and purview of the censorship. After having witnessed such an extreme example of censure, it would seem a challenge to Sulla's memory even to raise the possibility of a new census. Finally, Sulla did not allow censors to be elected for 81, a choice that sent a strong enough message about the census that it ended the practice until 70.70

The dangers of the late seventies, the trial of the Vestals, and a growing perception of senatorial corruption opened the door for Pompey and Crassus to support holding a new census in 70.71 This census resulted in the expulsion of an unprecedentedly large number of senators: sixty-four—a number to rival the number of senators who fell victim to Sulla's proscriptions.72 There can be little doubt that these expulsions represented a political struggle within the aristocracy. Although some of the expelled were undoubtedly new senators who had been incapable of keeping up with the financial demands of the senatorial lifestyle, this would not have been true of all sixty-four men. The expulsion of men like the consular Lentulus Sura, later a major player in the so-called Catilinarian conspiracy, is solid evidence that prominent men from old aristocratic families fell victim to the power of Pompey's censors. If the lectio senatus of 70 occurred prior to Pompey's appearance before the censors, the symbolism of his show of deference to their authority would have been all the more powerful, especially to those who rejoiced in the comeuppance that certain corrupt senatorial aristocrats had received in their ejection from the Senate. Pompey's gesture would have been a way of signaling his respect for the very same authority that had dealt his opponents a sharp blow.

Pompey's appearance before the censors occurred during a ritual associated with the census known as the recognitio equitum. This review of the knights, which took place in connection with the yearly transvectio equitum during the festival of Castor and Pollux, served a purpose similar to the lectio senatus in that those who did not meet the qualifications of the order in question were relieved of the public horse and thus removed from the eighteen centuries of knights that stood at the top of the Centuriate Assembly.73 These centuries were vitally important for the privileged place they had in the voting order of the Assembly, which ensured their influence on the votes of other, lower-ranked centuries. The grounds for dismissal were based on both wealth and morality.74 When knights in these centuries led their horses before the censors, the censors could either tell them to walk on or command them to sell the public horse. The command to sell the public horse was effectively a dismissal from the equestrian order in the more restrictive sense—that is, from the elite eighteen centuries. The timing of Pompey's appearance in such a morally charged ceremony may have helped to remind Romans of the upcoming trial of Verres by raising an unfavorable memory. Verres had performed some restorations on the Temple of Castor—the location of the censors during the review—in 74 BCE.75 With the trial less than three weeks away, a pious display that would contrast with the sacrilegious behavior imputed to Verres may have suggested to others something of Pompey's opinion regarding Verres' guilt.

The exchange between Pompey and the censors was, in many ways, typical of the interaction between knights and censors in the review. The censors asked the knights whether they had faithfully fulfilled their decade of service, and the knights responded accordingly. This ritual not only indicated the completion of required military service by the knight in question but also carried the positive implication that he had never been found unworthy of his place. Furthermore, it provided proof that the knight was eligible to stand for election to a magistracy, something that, in Pompey's case, was a foregone conclusion, given that he was already serving his term as consul at the time of the recognitio.76 The review of knights was an ideal showcase in that it allowed Pompey to appear as an upright and dutiful commander in stark contrast with those who fell to his census or would, soon, in the courts. It also allowed him to highlight the fact that he had attained the highest honors at precisely that moment when most knights would have only begun to mount the cursus honorum. Finally, as will be shown shortly, the review allowed him to combine the symbols of the consulship and the celebration of victory in a manner that practically inverted Marius' earlier triumphal gaffe.

Since the review of knights took place as part of the transvectio equitum, the review allowed Pompey to exploit the latter's associations with victory in ways that were reminiscent of the ovation and the triumph. In the transvectio, the knights gathered outside Rome at the Temple of Mars on the Via Appia on the day of the festival of Castor and Pollux, the heroes who had saved Rome at the Battle of Lake Regillus and who then rode to Rome to announce the victory over those who had sought to reinstall Tarquin as Rome's king.77 During the transvectio's procession, which stopped at the Temple of Honos and Virtus on its way into the city through the Porta Capena, the knights, riding on horseback, clad in the toga trabea, and decorated with the olive crown, filed past the censors, who were seated on the platform of the Temple of Castor in the Forum; the knights then sacrificed before they made their way up the Capitoline Hill.78 This destination made the transvectio similar to the triumph, as did the special garb of the participants. Cavalry dressed in this costume also participated in ovations.79 The transvectio was, in short, an event that yearly commemorated Roman victory and the triumph of the young Republic over monarchy, through the parading of its knights, whose divine patrons, Castor and Pollux, had secured the freedom of Rome from tyranny at Regillus.

Pompey's participation in the recognitio equitum thus allowed him to repeat, in a sense, his triumph from roughly six months before (December 29, 71). This time, instead of entering the porta triumphalis on a chariot, he entered the Porta Capena on horseback with companions wearing regalia evocative of an ovation. His declaration before the censors that he had served faithfully in all of his campaigns and all under his own command gave Pompey an opportunity to intone loudly that explosive word imperator. Indeed, his resounding declaration may have had the sound of a soldier's acclamation of imperator on the battlefield. The situation is even more suggestive considering the fact that the censor addressed him as Pompeius Magnus, a name that evoked the memory of Pompey's triumph over Africa.

After Pompey's appearance before them, the censors accompanied Pompey to his house.80 This would seem to present a problem, since the transvectio proceeded up the Capitoline. If the knights' review did occur during the transvectio, it would seem either that Pompey did not proceed up the Capitoline because he headed home with the censors or that Plutarch left out a step. Perhaps Pompey did forgo the sacrifice. He was, after all, no longer an eques, and his appearance before the censors at this time had allowed him to resign formally. It may not have been appropriate for him to continue on to sacrifice with those who continued to serve in the eighteen centuries. Yet it seems unlikely that Pompey would have missed the opportunity to make the parallel with the triumph more complete. Nothing would have prevented him from attending the sacrifice, even after retirement, and it is unknown whether retired knights did or did not participate. Surely only those who had been stripped of their public horse would have been barred from further participation in the event. Plutarch may simply have neglected to mention the trip to the Capitoline. In any case, Pompey's journey home with the censors after the transvectio is consistent with the commander's final destination after the triumph. Pompey no doubt banqueted with his friends in his house.

It is worth pausing to consider how much more adept Pompey proved himself to be in this performance than Marius had been when he entered the Senate wearing the garb of the triumphator.81 Indeed, Pompey may have purposely set out to show how superior to Marius he could be in navigating such displays. After all, he, like Marius, was entering his consulship directly after a triumph celebrated over a northern enemy. However, Pompey did not move straight from the triumph to his inauguration, vows, and first meeting with the Senate. He entered his consulship the day after the triumph. His appearance as consul before the censors in the transvectio allowed him, as civil magistrate, to exploit the victorious symbolism of the ceremony, but the statement was almost exactly the opposite of Marius'. As a consul wearing triumphal robes in the Senate, Marius was introducing martial and regal images into a special civic space in a manner that approached sacrilege. Pompey's gesture, rather, showed his deference both to the order he was leaving, which was now below him on the hierarchy of prestige, and also to the censors who were his seniors in age and in political experience. The finesse with which he was able to declare himself imperator in front of the censors without causing offense (or, rather, with their willing collusion) was supremely artful.

Not only was Pompey's decision to exploit the victorious associations of the transvectio clever, it also may have had a further ideological purpose. Pompey had recently celebrated a triumph for his victory over the forces of Sertorius, and Crassus also celebrated an ovation, with the added honor of the right to wear a laurel crown, for his victory over Spartacus. Pompey's participation in the review as one of the knights would have allowed him to celebrate his victories of the past decade in quite a different way—not simply as the imperator who led his men into battle (although he was careful to draw attention to the fact that he had been precisely that), but also as a fellow eques, whose rise signaled quite dramatically how far the new Italian knights might go in their careers or witness their descendants going in theirs: the pinnacle of the consulship.82 This kind of advancement need not have been a likely scenario in the near term for it to send an encouraging message.83 For men of equestrian or soon-to-be-equestrian status, such a demonstration would have been heartening indeed.

Also interesting is the way the memory of Italian conflict with Rome at Regillus was overwritten by a new narrative of Italian incorporation into Roman citizenship and Roman honors. Castor and Pollux were naturally involved in the equestrian ideology of Pompey, but there is little evidence that Pompey otherwise paid them special tribute in 70.84 The twins' identification with the Penates Publici would have rendered them a particularly suitable pair of gods to reference in connection with this census, when so many new Italian citizens were entering the Penates' protection as well as that of Vesta.85 In a sense, by becoming citizens, these Italians would, as adopted “sons of Aeneas,” have come to have a whole new relationship with the Dioscuri in their guise of Trojan Penates. Still, at the time, Pompey and Crassus clearly paid more explicit attention to Hercules than to Vesta, the Penates, or the Dioscuri.

Hercules, Rome, and Italy in Pompey's Political Theology

The symbolism of the recognitio of 70, with its message of social mobility for newly enfranchised Italians, reflected Pompey and Crassus' purpose to advance Italian interests. The recognition of the existence of such a coherent program aimed at Italians—a program that included not only legislation but also games, ritual, and spectacle—casts a new light on other aspects of Pompey and Crassus' activities of the year 70. That Pompey and Crassus were aware that their religious gestures had a large Italian audience is evident in the fact that many came to be enlisted in the census, and it is also directly attested by Cicero in his first Verrine oration, in which Cicero refers to the fact that he wants to proceed with the prosecution before the departure of the crowd collected from all Italy for elections, games, and the census.86 The consuls had clear motivation to tailor their religious activities accordingly.

Both Pompey and Crassus paid a great deal of attention to the celebration of Hercules, a figure of wide popularity throughout central Italy.87 Crassus decided to pay the tithe to Hercules and then to host a public banquet, which Ward attributes to Crassus' desire to compete with Pompey, who had also paid the tithe to Hercules and who had been associated with the god through a triumph in that year.88 Ward argues that Crassus was striving to make his ovation as close to Pompey's greater honor as possible. Thus Crassus pushed to get the novel honor in his ovation of wearing a laurel crown (the crown worn in the cult of the Ara Maxima and thus suggestive of a Herculean pose), and he voluntarily paid a tithe of his entire fortune to Hercules, a gesture of special piety that was perhaps part of his larger campaign to restore his good name after the scandal with the Vestals in 73.89

Overemphasis on the competition and conflict between Pompey and Crassus has, however, distorted interpretations of the evidence for their cooperation on important issues. The two men's use of Hercules, while competitive, may also have had an ideologically synergistic aspect that aligned with their efforts to promote the interests of Italians, an initiative that was ultimately to their shared political benefit. Just as Marius and Sulla had used overlapping religious symbolism to forward themselves and their agendas, so did Pompey and Crassus, but more cooperatively. In the case of Hercules, this meant taking a Sullan symbol and turning it to different associations and uses.90 Sulla had amplified the cult of Hercules by being the first in recent memory to dedicate a tithe to the god, the polluctum, and by founding or expanding the Games of Hercules.91 Sulla restored the Temple of Hercules Custos and installed something called “Hercules Sullanus” on the Esquiline Hill.92 It is also reported that Sulla kept on his table a statuette of Hercules, which had belonged to Alexander and Hannibal.93 Clearly Hercules was important to Sulla, although it would be difficult, given the available sources, to define the god's precise significance in the dictator's mind.

Among the more likely reasons Hercules may have been important to Sulla is that Hercules symbolized hegemony over Italy. The Greek Heracles was one of the two great travelers of myth—the other being, of course, Dionysus—whom Hellenistic rulers had adopted as a symbol of their own prowess as conquerors and civilizers.94 Marius seems to have been partial to Dionysus, as one can infer from his use of the cantharus in connection with his African victory.95 Sulla, seeking to strike quite a different pose and perhaps even seeing in Hercules a way of stealing more of Marius' thunder in Africa, chose the traveling Greek hero who was also identified with the Punic Melqart.96 Moreover, Hercules was a popular deity throughout Italy, among the Greeks, naturally, and such peoples as the Etruscans, Sabines, Latins, and Campanians.97 In appropriating Hercules for his own purposes, Sulla employed a widely understood theological symbol of Italian conquest to represent his victories over other Italians, from the Social War down to the defeat of Samnites at the Porta Collina. The man whom Laverna, goddess of thieves, predicted would be a great leader defeated his Italian enemies just as Hercules defeated Cacus, the Italian cattle thief.98

Pompey may have connected his success in Spain and return to Italy with Hercules' theft of the cattle of Geryon and visit to the future site of Rome.99 The association could only have been strengthened by Pompey's defeat of Spartacan stragglers, which is, in its own way, also reminiscent of Hercules' defeat of Cacus. Among the Italians of the Central Appennines, Hercules was strongly associated with pastoralism and transhumance. Romans had a habit of associating various forms of resistance with banditry and herders, of whom Cacus, the servus of Evander in Cassius Hemina, was a powerful symbol.100 Rome's founding myth also included the cattle rustling of Romulus and Remus. Some of the same elements of Italian society were likely involved in Spartacus' revolt; slaves had assumed the post of shepherds for large landowners in not only Sicily but also South Italy. Pompey and Crassus' interest in Hercules was a reflection of both Pompey's success in Spain and the duo's success against Spartacus, who was implicated in the broader context of the Italian issues the two consuls sought to address in 70. Thus, in addition to advertising their victory and Roman hegemony in Italy and the West, the consuls' celebration of Hercules before Italian spectators communicated the pair's benefactions to Italy.

These benefactions, previously discussed, were substantial for the hundreds of thousands of Italians who gathered to Rome to enroll in the body of Roman citizens. The celebration of Hercules by Pompey and Crassus, each in his own way, can thus be seen as synergistic rather than simply competitive. This is not to dismiss the very real urge of Roman aristocrats to outdo their fellow Romans in achievement and its celebration, but the present reading opens up a way of contextualizing the Hercules-associated activities of both men in relation to each other: Pompey's Temple of Hercules and games dedicated to the god, on the one hand, and Crassus' tithe and its accompanying public banquet, on the other.101 These different gestures worked together to celebrate a god whose popularity with Italians would now include new associations with the achievements of Pompey and Crassus, including their reform of the Sullan constitution. Under Sulla, it would have been appropriate to see Hercules Sullanus as a figure that potentially divided Romans and Italians in both an oppositional and hierarchical arrangement (with Romans clearly on top). Postulating a “Hercules Pompeianus” figure—one that is inflected by Pompey's unique engagement with the god—does not altogether erase the hierarchical nature of the relationship between Romans and Italians, but it goes a long way toward expressing the relationship in terms that are uniting and that show the possibility of social and political advancement through services to Rome. The latter idea is consistent with the image of Hercules as the visiting benefactor and savior of Rome, who, as a result of his contributions, subsequently receives cult.102

Conclusion

This chapter has sought to place Pompey's performance in the recognitio of 70 and his religious offerings to Hercules in a perspective whereby they can be seen as part of a coherent political-theological program for incorporating, rather than excluding, a large number of Italians and, at the same time, preserving and amplifying Rome's status as Italian hegemon. It would be incorrect to see Pompey as a renegade aristocrat and revolutionary who sought utterly to overturn Sulla's system by resuscitating the tribunate, changing the composition of the juries, and enrolling thousands of Italians on the citizen rolls. Gruen and others are correct in observing that Sulla's constitution remained fundamentally intact despite these changes.103 Furthermore, it is clear that others, like the Cottas, who were of the old Roman nobility, had already started making moves in this direction. Pompey was, rather, an ally and emerging leader of aristocrats who were already seeking to tweak Sulla's constitution in much-needed ways. Pompey further represents a potent example of the talented up-and-coming leader who succeeds at the Roman game where it counts, working more or less within the system and with the approval and cooperation of Rome's elites. Unlike Marius, Pompey was able to perform his role with sufficient deftness not to run afoul of the very men whom he sought as peers.104 Pompey's success brought the tide that future Italians and provincials—men like Cicero and Balbus—would ride to prominence in the Late Republic and Early Empire.105 Without Pompey's initial foray in uniting Italian interests with those of the aristocracy (and thereby recognizing Italy's crucial role in securing Rome's future stability and world leadership), Cicero could not have evoked cuncta Italia as his patroness in bearing him triumphantly back from exile, and Augustus could never have invoked tota Italia as he set out to defeat the forces of Antony in the final civil war of Rome's Republic.

It is worthwhile to consider the experiences that impressed on Pompey the usefulness of initiating a significant reformulation of the Sullan constitution. The human composition of the city-state was always among the foremost considerations in constructing civic identity. Although Romans did not conceive of citizenship primarily in ethnic terms (as, say, in many of the Hellenic poleis), the question of one's appropriateness for Roman citizenship was a serious concern. Sometimes citizenship was extended as a reward for signal services to Rome on the battlefield. At other times, the local aristocracy of a municipality was deemed worthy of Roman citizenship when it was diplomatically and politically useful to extend the privilege. Roman citizenship was not for just anyone, and extensions of the citizenship were a point of contention. Pompey saw the expansion of the body of citizens as a useful way of vastly multiplying the number his own clients. The census provided the means for Rome to revisit the issue of the composition of its citizen body on a regular basis, both by inviting new citizens and by reevaluating the allocation of citizen status, prestige, and political power. Pompey maximized the census as a way of expanding and reordering Rome. For this reason, Pompey should be viewed as striving to imitate no less a figure than a Servius Tullius, a gesture that followed Sulla's use of Servius Tullius as a model for his own constitutional reforms and extension of the pomerium.106

Pompey's motivation for reimagining Rome as the integration of Italians and Romans included not only a need to reinvigorate the legislation regarding Italian citizenship that had languished since at least 86 but also Pompey's encounter with Sertorian Spain. Sertorius had been successful at forging a counter-Rome by bringing together Spaniards and the disaffected from Sulla's Rome.107 As a result, Pompey cut the path of his success in the provinces by organizing Spain not only formally, in terms of provincial apparatus and extending citizenship strategically and selectively, but also informally, in terms of personal alliances, such that Spain continued to be a Pompeian stronghold into the period of the Second Triumvirate.108 Having set the pattern for expanding his clientele in Spain, Pompey added to the roll of Roman citizens in Gaul and Italy too.

One should not, however, underestimate, on the grounds of practical utility, the ideological significance of what Pompey was doing. Pompey likely saw his own return to Rome in the role of victor over Sertorius (and, to a lesser extent, Spartacus) as the triumph of a new Pompeian order—an order that used the lessons of recent conflicts and the opportunity of a consulship shared with Crassus to address issues of Roman identity and citizenship in ways that the aristocracy had theretofore failed to do. The result was a Pompeian age that would endure down to the civil war with Caesar. In the fifties, Caesar started to present a substantive challenge to this Pompeian order, but up to Pompey's flight from Italy in 49, there was never any real question who was the first man in Rome. Indeed, every significant Roman crisis from 70 forward would be turned over to Pompey's care, because Pompey's leadership was seen, even outside Rome, as the source of felicitas that ensured the general salus.109 In the eyes of some, Pompey's success in 70, which rejuvenated Rome in a time of anxiety regarding the possible end of the city, even rendered him a Sullan-style savior who would inaugurate a new saeculum, as Cicero's Pro lege Manilia attests.110 There, Pompey appears as one sent down from heaven to meet Rome's crises. Pompey's appearance before the censors of 70 also reveals what a deft showman he could be in performing this role. In holding a census, enrolling Italians, and personally appearing before the censors in the recognitio equitum, Pompey may also be viewed as one who deliberately struck a significantly different note from Sulla. This may have extended to his reformulation of Hercules as a god of Roman-Italian unity and cooperation rather than one of strictly Roman hegemony.


1. Sal. Cat. 15.1; Asc. 91.19–23; Plu. Crass. 1.4–5; Oros. 6.3.1. Cadoux 2005; Wildfang 2006, 96–97.

2. Staples 1998, 132–35; Takács 2008, 87–89; Cornell 1981.

3. Cic. Catil. 3.9: eundemque dixisse fatalem hunc annum esse ad interitum huius urbis atque imperi, qui esset annus decimus post virginum absolutionem, post Capitoli autem incensionem vicesimus.

4. Cadoux 2005, 177–78. Contra Wildfang (2006, 97), who sees the acquittal of the priestesses as the result of changing attitudes among Romans regarding the charge of incestum and the increased social power and sophistication of the Vestals themselves.

5. Vervaet (2009, 423–30) accepts Appian's (1.121) account as generally accurate and argues that Pompey extorted his first consulship by threat of armed force. Sherwin-White (1956, 6) argued that the notion of Pompey's army parked outside Rome past his triumph was the result of Appian stitching together the triumph of 71 and the reconciliation of late 70. Bucher (2000) has shown that Appian, aiming at showing the inevitability of monarchy, deliberately exaggerated instances of conflict between major Republican figures. Vervaet supports his position by appealing to Plu. Pomp. 21.3–4, in which many people expressed their fear that Pompey might not disband his army and might instead attack the city. In response, Pompey promised to disband the army after his triumph. Appian appears to have embellished Plutarch's scenario in order to create a greater threat, which is otherwise unattested. For Appian's reliance on Plutarch as a source, see Pelling 1979, 84.

6. Seager 2002, 32, 199 n. 30, 202 n. 84.

7. On Sulla's reregulation of the cursus honorum, see Brennan 2000, 2:392–94. On his new arrangements for provincial commands, see ibid., 394–96.

8. On Clustumina, see Taylor 1960, 246; on Pompey and Picenum, [Caes.] B Afr. 22.2; V. Max. 5.2.9; Gelzer 1963, 111; Badian 1958, 228–29.

9. For the significance of the names appearing on the lex Pompeia, see Leach 1978, 14. Leach identifies twelve of the tirones on the list as Picentines. On Strabo at Asculum, see App. BC 1.47–48; Vell. 2.21.1; Flor. Epit. 2.6.14; ILLRP 1092. See also Taylor 1960, 177; Criniti 1970.

10. For Strabo's murder of Pompeius Rufus, see Vell. 2.20.1; Liv. Per. 77. On Strabo playing both sides in the war with Cinna, see Vell. 2.21.1; Liv. Per. 79.

11. Cic. Man. 61; App. BC 1.80.366.

12. Note Pompey's show of deference to Metellus in writing to him to request the consular's permission to assist him in the fight in Gaul, although Sulla had already assigned Pompey the task. See Plu. Pomp. 8.4–5.

13. Vervaet 2009, 412–23.

14. Because of the rhetorical potency of terms like servus and latro, one must be wary of overly neat assumptions regarding the social image of Spartacus' following. See Habinek 2001, 69–87; Shaw 1984. Brown (1990) explores the opportunistic use of the label “bandit” as a mechanism for extending state power. Appian (BC 1.116) states explicitly that free farmhands were in the number of Spartacus' followers. The Periochae of Livy (95) uses the expression congregata servitiorum ergastulorumque multitudo to describe the rebels. The ergastula might house debtors as well as kidnapped free persons and those shirking military service. See Suet. Tib. 8.1. Plutarch's (Crass. 9.3) πολλοὶ τῶν αὐτόθι βοτήρων καὶ ποιμένων does not preclude the presence of non-servile members in the group. Augustus' father, according to Suetonius (Aug. 3.1), was sent in 61 BCE to mop up the brigands who were remnants of the followings of Spartacus and Catiline. Patterson (2010, 615–16) summarizes the situation nicely: “A series of problems continued to affect the Italian countryside in the years following Sulla's dictatorship: the revolt of M. Aemilius Lepidus in 78, which culminated in a march on Rome; attacks by pirates, who raided the coast by attacking the ports of Ostia and Caieta and even abducted two praetors (Plu. Pomp. 24; Cic. Man. 33). In 73 and 72, Spartacus' rebel slaves caused destruction across Italy, especially in the south…. Indeed, Italy in the first century BC, with its displaced peasantry and military veterans, provides a classic illustration of the conditions in which rural banditry typically tends to flourish.”

15. RRC 257; Howgego (2013, 83) says the coin “commemorated the eventual enfranchisement of the Italians after the Social War.”

16. The census figure of 463,000 for 86/85 BCE is too low to believe that many Italians, who were, thanks to the lex Julia, eligible for Roman citizenship, had been enrolled in that census. Cf. Hier. Chron. P. 151, (Helm, 1926): descriptione Romae facta inventa sunt hominum CCCCLXIII milia. The figure for 115/114, as given by Livy's epitomator, is 394,336. See Liv. Per. 63; Mouritsen 1998, 168. For a discussion of the confusion surrounding the census of 86/85 and of competing theories, see de Ligt 2012, 112–16. The question of whether the census was still centralized or conducted by local officials in municipia bears on the issue, but it has not been satisfactorily resolved. See ibid., 115–16.

17. For the relationship between Italian unrest and the so-called Catilinarian conspiracy, see Stewart 1995.

18. Davies, Jackson, Marshall, et al. 1978, 165. Paterson (ibid.) argues that most of the consuls' reforms followed pre-existing trends and, thus, that we should see their work as the continuation of an existing movement.

19. CAH IX2 225, 327–29. Wiseman (ibid.) observes that the lustrum had a religious function as a response to the disasters of the preceding sixteen years. Among the problems addressed was the perception of elite sacrilege such as the alleged affairs of Crassus and Catiline with Vestals.

20. While one cannot dismiss the existence of tension between Pompey and Crassus, which is clearly attested in the sources (Sal. Hist. 4.51; Suet. Jul. 19.2; Plu. Crass. 12.2–3; Pomp. 23.1–2; App. BC 1.121), it is difficult to trace its origins or gauge its seriousness in the years 71 and 70. Appian's account implausibly appears to place the conflict before their entry into Rome (see n. 5 in the present chapter). Like Vervaet, Seager (2002, 36) seems to find Appian credible: “But [Crassus] was jealous, however unjustly, of Pompeius' Spanish triumph, and his resentment was deep and enduring: despite periods of uneasy co-operation there was from this point on no love lost between the two men.” Ward (1977, 105–8) speculates, on no clear evidence, that the fallout had to do with jury reform. His general characterization of the relationship (99) is somewhat more believable: “Despite temporary truces, rivalry always colored Crassus's relationship with Pompey.” Crassus likely took an active role in bringing about his own reconciliation with Pompey through the help of a group both men had benefited, the equites. Cf. Ward 1977, 108–9.

21. Plu. Crass. 12.2.

22. Plu. Pomp. 21.4–5.

23. Plu. Pomp. 23.1–2; Crass. 12.3–4.

24. Plu. Crass. 11.2.

25. Plu. Pomp. 22.1–2; Crass. 12.1.

26. Plu. Crass. 11.8. For a list of ovations awarded for putting down a slave revolt, see Marshall 1972, 672. Plutarch (Marc. 22) elsewhere comments on the distinction between the ovation and the triumph. Marshall (669–73) argues that Crassus' ovation was the customary honor and that the Senate added distinction to him by allowing him to wear the laurel crown. It is difficult to see how the ovation can be used as evidence of Crassus' anger toward Pompey.

27. Cic. Pis. 58; Plin. Nat. 15.125; Gel. 5.6.23.

28. Ward (1977, 102–3) notes, “Most modern scholars accept the view that they did cooperate in the restoration of tribunician powers and then fell into constant disagreement.” Cf. Gelzer 1959, 64–65.

29. See Cic. Att. 4.2.6 for the necessity of consular cooperation in holding a census. Plutarch (Pomp. 22.4–6) describes Pompey's participation in the recognitio equitum that occurred in connection with the census that year.

30. Pompey's grandiosity during the recognitio equitum may have sparked jealousy in Crassus. See Plu. Pomp. 22.5–6 and the discussion that follows in the present chapter.

31. See n. 20 in the present chapter.

32. On Sulla, the Italians, and the decision not to hold a census, see Santangelo 2007b, 67; Coskun 2004. Those who possessed citizenship and had been enrolled in the thirty-five tribes but had not been enrolled in a census could not vote in the Comitia Centuriata. The latter body elected the consuls, praetors, and curule aediles. See Wiseman 1969, 61–62, 65–66.

33. For a discussion of the range of legislative measures that might be considered a part of this reform package, see Dzino 2002.

34. Sal. Hist. 4.45, 47 Maur.; Plu. Pomp. 21.4; App. BC 1.121. On the tribunate in particular, see Cic. Ver. 44–45.

35. Ward (1977, 104) sees the census as another area where Crassus and Pompey cooperated. See n. 20 in the present chapter.

36. Gruen (1974, 30) argues that the reform was not aimed at judicial corruption, since it placed men poorer than senators on the juries who were free from prosecution for bribery. Ergo, there were other reasons for including these men—equites and tribuni aerarii—on juries.

37. Gruen 1974, 29. Seager (2002, 37) opines that the fact that the court legislation was not passed until the fall suggests that this was of less interest to Pompey. To the contrary, Pompey may have waited on this legislation until the census had been conducted, when its actual impact on Italian political power in Rome could be fully appreciated. L. Cotta, brother of the consuls of 74 and 75, passed the law. The bill divided the juries between the Senate and the other two groups. Cf. Cic. Phil. 1.20; Vell. 2.32.3.

38. Many thousands of Italian negotiatores fell victim to Mithradates' Asian Vespers. Amiotti (1980, 132–39) has argued that many of the victims were clients of Marius.

39. Seager (2002, 37–38) shows how Pompey's personal ties with Sicily would have involved him in Verres' prosecution behind the scenes, even if he did not participate openly. For the political importance of Cicero's role in the prosecution, see Vasaly 2009. Cicero's prosecution was tied up in the debate about the composition of juries.

40. Cic. Ver. 5.163, ap. Asc. 76; Vell. 2.30.4; Plu. Pomp. 22; [Asc.] 189 St. Cf. Plu. Pomp. 23.1–2.

41. The lex Iunia of 126, which sought to expel Italians from Rome, attests to the presence of a sizable number of Italians in Rome in the Late Republic. See Cic. Brut. 109; Off. 11.47; Fest. 388 L; Kaster 2006, 187.

42. Perhaps the presence of Italian allied soldiers outside Rome gave rise to the accusation that Pompey and Crassus failed to dismiss their armies.

43. Plu. Sull. 30. 2–3; Sen. Cl. 1.12.2; D.C. 33 fr. 109.5.

44. Sal. Hist. 3.38.8 Maur.; Asc. 67, 78; [Asc.] 255. Kelley (2006, 183) proposes that C. Cotta, who accompanied Sulla on his return to Italy, was one of the restitui who took part in Sulla's triumph (Plu. Sull. 34.1). Cotta's political alignment makes less tenable the contention that supporting the restoration of the tribunate was anti-Sullan or revolutionary. On Cotta and the restoration of the tribunate, see also CAH IX2 211; Gruen 1974, 26–27; Seager 2002, 33.

45. Plu. Pomp. 22.5–6. Of the political significance of the census, Seager (2002, 39) writes that “conduct of the census may well have fostered his clientelae, especially in the Transpadane region.” This statement serves as a fine example of the underestimation of the significance of the census. As Ward (1977, 25) points out, “The holding of a new census was part of growing popular demands (Cic. Div. Caec. 8), and the successful completion of this first census since 86 resulted in just what the optimates feared, the enrollment of large numbers of new voters owing debts to Pompey and his supporters.” Cf. Taylor 1960, 120; Wiseman 1969, 65.

46. Plin. Nat. 8.2; Plu. Pomp. 14.4. This stumble occurred during his first triumph, when he was a young man in his twenties. The year was 81 or 80. Cf. Seager 2002, 29. Pliny (8.2) cites Dionysus' triumph over India as the precedent for using elephants this way. Note that, like Marius, who had also engaged in an unusual Hellenistic performance in using Dionysus' cantharus (V. Max. 3.6.6), Pompey had defeated enemies in Africa. His troops had there declared him imperator and called him Magnus. This might suggest that the Romans made some association between victory in Africa (or on a foreign continent in general) and Alexander the Great's conquests.

47. Sulla accorded Pompey the unusual honor of coming out to greet the young victor as he returned to Rome (adventus), and on a subsequent occasion, he addressed Pompey as Magnus. See Plu. Pomp. 8.2, 13.4. Thus the Alexander association was firmly in place before the elephant incident. See Greenhalgh 1980, 27–28.

48. Matt. 19.24.

49. Mommsen 1887, 397–400; Nicolet 1966, 71–73; Demougin 1988, 150–56.

50. Plu. Pomp. 22.5–6. On the significance of the Temple of Castor in the Late Republic, see Sumi 2009, 169–73. See map 1 in the present book.

51. Plutarch (Pomp. 19.5) mentions that Pompey earlier had his lictors lower their fasces when approaching Metellus after an engagement with Sertorius near the river Sucro. Pliny (Nat. 7.30.112) reports that Pompey also had his lictors lower their fasces when he entered the home of Posidonius. Cinna lowered his consular fasces when making his appeal to the army at Capua. See App. BC 1.65. On the symbolic authority of the lictors, see Nippel 1984, 22–23. On lictors and their organization more generally, see Purcell 1983, 148–52; Jones 1949.

52. Plu. Pomp. 22.6: εἶθ ὁ μὲν πρεσβύτερος ἠρώτησε: “Πυνθάνομαί σου, ὦ Πομπήϊε Μάγνε, εἰ πάσας ἐστράτευσαι τὰς κατὰ νόμον στρατείας;” Πομπήϊος δὲ μεγάλῃ φωνῇ, “Πάσας,” εἶπεν, “ἐστράτευμαι, καὶ πάσας ὑπ᾽ἐμαυτῷ αὐτοκράτορι.”

53. Ibid. 22.3. Hillman (1992, 130) argues persuasively that, in this instance, Plutarch intended to depict Pompey as a man who was much more effective as a general than as a politician, by contrasting his effectiveness in this display with his inability to work with Crassus. This highlights the historiographical distortion at work regarding both the political relationship between the two consuls and the significance of Pompey's behavior in the recognitio equitum.

54. Henderson (1963, 62) considers Plutarch's account apocryphal because these knights are elsewhere referred to as youth.

55. On the raising of the legions, see Plu. Pomp. 6. On the greeting, see ibid. 8.2.

56. Ibid. 14.3.

57. On the lex annalis, see App. BC 1.100; Fraccaro 1956–57, 225ff.

58. Nicolet (1966) contradicts himself by saying, first, that Pompey was “consul designé” on this occasion (71) and, later, that Pompey “vint revêtu de ses insignes consulaires” (72). Since Pompey entered the consulship the day after he triumphed (December 29), he was consul, not consul designate, when he participated in the recognitio equitum. On the timing of the triumph, see Vell. 2.30.2: sed Pompeius, hoc quoque triumpho adhuc eques Romanus, ante diem quam consulatum iniret, curru urbem invectus est.

59. McDonnell 2006, 151–58.

60. For the equestrian statue of Sulla, see RRC 401; Cic. Phil. 9.6.13; App. BC 1.97.

61. See n. 51 on the dismissal of lictors.

62. Plu. Mar. 12.2, 5.

63. Verg. A. 1.148–53.

64. Both men, L. Gellius Publicola and Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus, fielded legions against Spartacus. Cf. Gruen 1974, 44; MRR 2.126–27.

65. Pompey could boast of the unprecedented distinction of having triumphed twice as an eques, a fact that his participation in the recognitio as consul only further emphasized. On the unusual nature of the honor of triumphing as an eques, see Cic. Man. 62; V. Max. 8.15.8; Vell. 2.30.2; Plin. Nat. 7.96; Plu. Pomp. 23.2.

66. App. BC 1.100; Liv. Per. 89.3. See Hill 1932.

67. Nicolet 1980, 50–52. Nicolet (50) quotes Dumézil's (1943, 188) insightful description of the census as “siting a man, an act or an opinion etc. in his or its correct place in the hierarchy, with all the practical consequences this entails, and doing so by a just public assessment, by a solemn act of praise or blame” (trans. Falla). As Nicolet (52) states, “Moral character played a part in admission to the privileged orders of the equites and senators, from which one might be expelled by the censor's opprobrious nota.

68. See chapter 1, n. 60.

69. Plu. Sull. 9.4.

70. On Sulla and the census proper, see Williamson 2005, 342–43.

71. On the calamities and the trial of the Vestals, see the discussion at the beginning of this chapter. The notorious bribery of jurors during the trial of Oppianicus, who stood accused of attempting to murder his stepson by poison, is one particularly egregious example. The opportunistic tribune L. Quinctius initiated proceedings against the iudex Junius as his first step in exploiting anti-senatorial sentiment. See Cic. Clu. 77; Gruen 1974, 33–34; Riggsby 1999, 77–78. Clearly, though, the abuses of the proscriptions fostered and encouraged an element of lawlessness among the Sullan elite. The sordid reputations and crimes of men like Oppianicus and Lentulus Sura have been preserved in the historical record, but there were undoubtedly more.

72. MRR 2.126–27. Cicero (Clu. 127) mentions that only two of these men were expelled for judicial bribery. The censors of 117 ejected thirty-two men from the Senate, exactly half the number Pompey's censors threw out. See Liv. Per. 62.

73. See n. 49. On the holding of the recognitio during the transvectio, see McDonnell 2006, 188. Suetonius (Aug. 38.3) thus got it correct: equitum turmas frequenter recognovit, post longam intercapedinem reducto more transvectionis. On the confusion surrounding the two ceremonies, see Swan 2004, 205–6. For the view that the two ceremonies were separate but later combined by Augustus, see Demougin 1988, 150–156. Weinstock (1937, 10–24) argued that the previously religious ceremony of the transvectio was brought under the authority of the censors in 304. Elsewhere, Weinstock (1957, 215–16 n. 23) notes that one of those censors, Fabius, later vowed a temple to Jupiter Victor in connection with the Battle of Sentinum in 295. Fabius' interest in displays of victory in the context of Italian conflicts suggests the possibility that his efforts to refashion the transvectio belong in the same context. According to Livy (10.23.12), the curule aediles Cnaeus and Quintus Ogulnius had a stone footpath placed to run from the Porta Capena to the Temple of Mars, which, as Muccigrosso (2006, 199) notes, “covered exactly the distance along the Via Appia…as did Fabius' transvectio equitum.” The Ogulnii were political allies of the Fabii.

74. For the moral dimension of the recognitio, see Astin 1988, 14–34.

75. Cic. Ver. 1.129–54. According to Cicero, Verres had falsely found fault with the contractor's work in order to extort money from him.

76. Greenridge (1894, 94–95) notes, “When further we remember that, at least as late as the period of the Gracchi, military service, in the camp or the province, was a necessary qualification for a magistracy, and that this service, which for the cavalry was ten years, had to be proved before the censors, we see how the military discharge granted by these officials became of political importance.” If the requirement of a decade of military service were indeed moribund by 70, Pompey's display would have appealed especially to the conservative sensibilities of some Romans.

77. D.H. 6.13.

78. Scullard 1981, 164–65.

79. D.H. 6.13.4; Plin. Nat. 15.19; McDonnell 2006, 317 n. 68. The ceremonial costume of the knights who participated in the transvectio was similar to the garb of the triumphator. The triumphator wore the toga picta and tunica palmata, while the knights in the transvectio wore the toga trabea. The triumphator wore a laurel crown, the commander celebrating an ovatio wore a myrtle crown, and the knight in the transvectio wore a crown of olive. The triumphing general was drawn into the city in a chariot drawn by four white horses, while the knight in the transvectio rode his warhorse. There are even parallels in the symbolism of the geographical itinerary. The triumph started in the Campus Martius, Mars' Field, while the transvectio equitum began at the Temple of Mars on the Appian Way. While the triumph passed through the porta triumphalis, the transvectio passed through the Porta Capena. Both processions passed through the Forum and made their way up to the Capitoline.

80. Plu. Pomp. 22.6.

81. Plu. Mar. 12.2.5.

82. Rawson (1970, 33), notes, “He used the censor's review of members of the equestrian order as an occasion to advertise both his military record and his meteoric rise from equestrian to consul.”

83. It is important to stipulate that the new Italian equites would not have been equites equo publico but equites in the broader sense, whom Wiseman calls “quasi-equites.” Wiseman (1970, 79) states, “At the lustrum held by the censors who were finally elected in 70, the great increase in the number of citizens enrolled by them must imply at least a proportional increase in the number of quasi-equites with more than 400,000 sesterces. Perhaps something was done for their aspirations to prestige by the lex Aurelia passed in that year, if the introduction of the judicial panel of tribuni aerarii supports such an interpretation. It is clear from the sources that these men had the equestrian census, but were legally distinct from the equites proper…; it may be inferred, from Cicero's remarks on the large number of Atinate tribuni aerarii who supported Cn. Plancius at his trial, that the term applied not just to men on the Aurelian juries but denoted a large ordo analogous to the equestrian order, from which the jurors were to be drawn.”

84. Later, Pompeian allusions to the divine twins would be more apparent in the Argonautic associations of the Mithradatic spoils in the Theater of Pompey. On Argonautic allusions in the Theater of Pompey, see Murray 2011, 58–67; Braund 1994, 12–13. The strength of Pompey's later association with the Dioscuri may be attested by the Caesarian propaganda that made the twins announce Caesar's victory at Pharsalus. See D.C. 41.61.4; Sumi 2009, 175.

85. Sumi 2009, 177.

86. Cic. Ver. 54: non committam ut tum haec res iudicetur, cum haec frequentia totius Italiae Roma discesserit, quae convenit uno tempore undique comitiorum ludorum censendique causa.

87. Rawson 1970, 30–37.

88. Ward 1977, 101–2. On the banquet and tithe, see Plu. Crass. 2.3.

89. On the ovation, see Marshall 1972, 671–73. On the use of laurel wreaths in the Ara Maxima cult and when paying the tithe to Hercules, see Macr. 3.12.1; Serv. A. 8.276. On the use of laurel wreaths at the rites of the Ara Maxima as part of ritus Graecus, see Scheid 1995.

90. On Sulla and Hercules, see Keaveney 1983, 67, 78; Ramage 1991, 118–19; Sumi 2002b, 418–19.

91. On Sulla's polluctum, see Plu. Sull. 35.1. Wiseman (2000, 108–14) argues that Sulla established Games of Hercules, which were celebrated in 78, evidence for which appears in a series of denarii produced by the moneyer M. Volteius (RRC 385). Keaveney (2005a, 217–23) disagrees with much about Wiseman's thesis but still concludes (223), “Games that were lowly fell into the hands of Sulla, the great devotee of Hercules, and it was he who gave them their enhanced standing.”

92. On the restoration of the Temple of Hercules Custos, see Ov. Fast. 6.212; Wissowa 1912, 276. For Hercules Sullanus, see TDAR s.v. Hercules Sullanus; NTDAR s.v. Hercules Sullanus.

93. Stat. Silv. 4.6.85–86; Mart. 9.43.

94. According to Strabo (17.1.43), Alexander the Great desired to visit Siwah in emulation of Heracles. For the association of Alexander with Heracles during the king's lifetime, see Bosworth 1996, 98–102, 116–19, 164–69, 182–83.

95. V. Max. 3.6.6.

96. Crawford speculates that in Sullan family lore Hercules helped Sulla capture Jugurtha. See RRC 426/2 and 4a, along with discussion on p. 450.

97. See Orlin (2010, 42) for Tusculan Hercules. On the history, diffusion, and popularity of Hercules in Italy, see Bradley 2005, 129–51; Wonterghem 1992; 1999. On Horace's use of Hercules as a symbol of Italian unity, see Morgan 2005.

98. Hem. Origo Gentis Romae 6.7; D.H. 1.33; Liv. 1.7; Verg. A. 8.184–305; Ov. Fast. 1.543–86; Prop. 4.9; Plu. Q.R. 60; Macr. 1.12.28. For discussion of the story in its different versions, see Winter 1910, 193–270; Bayet 1926, 98–102; Staples 1998, 17–24.

99. Rawson 1970, 32–33.

100. On the association of the Appennine cult of Hercules with pastoralism and transhumance, see Bradley 2005, 138–40. See Small (1982, 24–29) for Cacus as cattle thief. Cassius Hemina's version of the myth of Hercules in Rome features Cacus as a cattle thief. This Cacus is not, however, a monster. See Origo Gentis Romae 6.7.

101. On the polluctum of Crassus, see Plu. Crass. 2. Pompey continued to associate himself with Hercules later in his career. He erected in his theater a colossal bronze statue of Hercules holding the apples of the Hesperides. On the bronze Hercules, see Köhler 1864, 227–30; Pellegrini 1865, 201–3. The retrieval of the apples was the second-to-last labor of Hercules. The Hesperides were located, according to Strabo (3.2.13), at or near the Iberian Peninsula. Thus the statue may be taken as an allusion to Pompey's accomplishments in the West. At the same time, the labor suggests the triumph of Pompey, as Hercules, over death. See Davies 1988, 278–79. Sertorius supposedly visited the Isles of the Blest during his travels, so Pompey may be recalling his victory over Sertorian forces in particular. On this journey, see Plu. Sert. 8–9; Sal. Hist. 1.100. Plutarch places the journey near Libya, while Sallust places it near Gades. The islands in question may have been Madeira and Porto. See Konrad 1994, 106–7.

102. Pliny (NH 34.57) refers to Pompey's temple of Hercules ad Circum Maximum as the aedes Pompei Magni, while Vitruvius (3.3.5) employs the term Hercules Pompeianus. It is possible that the Hercules of Pompey's temple was Hercules Pompeianus. TDAR s.v. Hercules Pompeianus, Aedes; NTDAR s.v. Hercules Pompeianus, Aedes. The most famous illustration of this conception of the relationship between Hercules and Rome is, of course, that found in book 8 of the Aeneid, where, in honor of Hercules' defeat of Cacus, the people of Evander's Pallanteum establish cult for Hercules at the Ara Maxima.

103. Gruen (1974, 46) notes, “The size and disposition of the senate, the cursus honorum, the system of criminal courts and legislation, civilian control over provincial commands—all the fundamental pillars of the aristocratic system remained intact. By 70 the senatorial leadership was more secure and firmly in control than ever before. The Sullan constitution had been altered only slightly in form, not at all in intent.”

104. Marius' ham-handed use of radical tribunes such as Saturninus and Sulpicius Rufus amply demonstrated his limitations as a politician.

105. Cicero would become consul in 63 BCE, while Balbus, from Gades, would eventually become a partisan of Rome's first emperor Augustus and celebrate the final triumph of the Republican era, in 19 BCE.

106. On Sulla as a new Servius Tullius, see Keaveny 2005b, 159. See App. BC 1.266. Servius Tullius was credited with establishing the census. See D.H. 4.16–22.

107. Plu. Sert. 22.3–4.

108. Weigel 1992, 50.

109. Fears 1981b, 882–83. See Cic. Att. 8.16.1; Tusc. 1.86; Vell. 2.48.2; Plu. Pomp. 57.1–3; D.C. 41.6.3–4.

110. Cic. Man. 13–16.

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