Gnaeus Pompey’s victories preserved Roman dominion in the East and broke the Mediteranean pirates, while in Italy Crassus crushed the slave rebellion and Catline’s conspiracy was put down. The death of Crassus at Carrhae left Pompey supreme – save for Julius Caesar.
■ Ancient Authorities
In the generation which followed Sulla’s death, Roman Republican politics were at first dominated by Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey), then brought within sight of their end by Julius Caesar. This period is well represented by Plutarch’sLives. Although Plutarch insisted that he was a biographer and not a historian, the combined effect of the biographies of Pompey, Lucullus, Sertorius, Crassus, Cato, Cicero and Caesar is to convey a general picture of political and military events as they unfolded themselves in the last years of the Republic. Even Plutarch’s anecdotes, though often apocryphal, in many cases aptly illustrate personality, and Roman history in this period was largely one of personalities and their conflicts.
Cicero was born in the same year as Pompey (106 BC). Although without military experience, and anything but a soldier, the great orator rather astonishingly managed to become consul in 63 BC. As a consul he was in some ways the diametric opposite and counterpart of Marius, who had been a military man in need of political agents to manage his civil commitments. Cicero, in a world of ever-increasing political violence, needed military support. For this, he relied on no man more than Pompey, and his extant orations throw considerable light on the military realities of his day. His speech in favour of Manilius’ legislation1 shows him eloquently committed to the support of Pompey, faithfully reflecting the moderate opinion of his times. The extent of his personal reliance on the illustrious general, amid the lawless conditions then prevailing in Rome, is apparent in his defence of Milo on a murder charge, which followed the bloody recurrence of political gang warfare in the city and its vicinity. The defence of Murena contains allusions to the Catiline conspiracy, which Cicero, if anybody, could take credit for exposing and suppressing, although the relevant military operations were placed in the hands of others. Historically significant, also, is the prosecution of Verres after his term as governor of Sicily, which offers startling evidence of the helplessness of Roman naval forces in the face of an often quite highly organized pirate menace: the menace which Pompey was ultimately called upon to combat. Drawing on Cicero, one can easily multiply examples to demonstrate the interdependence of Roman military and political power in the first century BC.
To the subject of Catiline’s war, Sallust devotes a whole monograph. He, too, was writing of events which had occurred during his lifetime. But his account is sometimes hard to reconcile with Cicero and with Plutarch, and if Sallust was relying on his memory, his version may not be the most accurate. For instance, Plutarch, citing Cato’s demand for the death sentence on Catiline’s accomplices, tells us that the whole of Cato’s speech was recorded in shorthand (then an innovation) by Cicero’s clerks, and that as a result it was the only one of Cato’s speeches to remain extant. Sallust’s version of the speech is very different from Plutarch’s and, whether or not his memory played him false, may well be an invention of his own.
Other authorities for the period are those noted in the foregoing chapter. Appian is particularly instructive on the renewed Mithridatic War and on Roman operations in the East.
■ Military Command and Political Power
Sulla had tried to impose constitutional government by armed force. This attempt in itself was doomed to failure, for constitutional regimes depend upon a substantial element of consent and consensus among the population. In Sulla’s day, such an element was lacking, and the legislation by which he tried to make good the deficiency was in many ways anachronistic. He was perhaps justified in depriving the equites of rights and honours which Gaius Gracchus had conferred on them, but his laws reduced the People’s Assembly to a position which it had occupied in the years of struggle between Patricians and Plebs. He wished to guard the state against another Marius by reinforcing the old rules that had applied to consular elections. It was now required that magistracies should be filled by any one individual in strict order of ascent. A man could become consul only after first serving as quaestor, then as praetor, age qualifications secured that there would be a time interval between one appointment and the next. Re-election to the same office was a fortiori hampered by time regulations.
However, the new threat to the constitution came not from consuls and praetors, as Sulla had anticipated, but from proconsuls and propraetors. The exigencies of overseas wars had rendered the delegation of executive and administrative power inevitable. Distance, if nothing else, made it impossible to interrupt a war for the sake of an election, and the need for continuity of command was too obvious to be overlooked. Apart from that, the consuls were two in number, and the wide areas over which Rome now ruled could not be administered by a couple of magistrates, even allowing for their assistance by praetors. By contrast, constitutional precedent did not limit the number of pro-magistrates who could be appointed.
The first proconsul had held his office as an extension of his consular power in 326 BC. It had been an ad hoc measure to meet a military situation. Sulla had wished to limit the term for which pro-magistracies could be held to a single year, but the tasks which the pro-magistrates were called upon to perform often required a longer tenure of office. Pompey set a new precedent by having power conferred on him for a term of three years. Obstacles placed in the way of the consulate did not operate in the instance of special overseas commands. It was even possible for one who was not a magistrate at all to hold command in a province as a “private person” (privatus), and such commands were normally both military and civil in their scope. Admittedly, a proconsul’s power was limited to a certain area. But this area, as in the instance of Pompey’s command against the pirates in 67 BC, could be very large.
Sulla had provided that a consul should officiate for one year at home before being sent abroad with proconsular power. But in practice, it was possible for a consul in Rome to control foreign provinces through his senior officers (legati). Pompey, both on active service and while administering from a distance, made extensive use of legati. Originally, such officers, appointed to a general’s staff by the Senate, had been three or four in number. But Pompey in his campaign against the pirates made use of 24 legati. Both with proconsular responsibility for Spain from 55 BC and as consul in 52 BC he governed the province by proxy through the use of legati. But by this time, Sulla’s constitution had been completely eroded.
The delegation of authority, in one way or another, though expedient and formally constitutional, was a practice which hastened the downfall of the Republic. Nobody availed himself of this practice more than Pompey, and in many ways he was in the same paradoxical position as Sulla. He was, of course, a more amiable character and merely upheld, rather than imposed, a constitution by force.
■ The Early Career of Pompey
In 82 BC Pompey had himself been appointed as Sulla’s legatus first to Sicily then to North Africa, where leaders of the Popular party – who now had very little to lose – tried to rally resistance against the dictator and his establishment. In both theatres of war, Pompey had been wholly successful, and Sulla, whose concessions, no less than his ruthlessness, sometimes took men by surprise, permitted the junior general to celebrate a triumph.
The triumphal procession of a victorious general to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, with his army, spoils and captives, attended by senators, magistrates and officials, sacrificial beasts, banners and admiring crowds, was granted under certain conditions. The commander of the Roman Popular forces in North Africa had allied himself with an African king, so that Pompey’s victory could be claimed to have taken place over a foreign power. But triumphs were the prerogative of consuls, praetors and dictators, and Pompey was not a magistrate of any kind. Nevertheless, Sulla, though an ardent constitutionalist, did not always justify his decisions on constitutional grounds. Nor were the celebrations in any way subdued. Pompey had, in fact, intended to have his triumphal chariot drawn by African elephants, but they were too big for the city gates and horses had to serve his turn.
After Sulla’s death another attempt was made to rally the Popular faction in Italy by men whom Pompey had himself raised to power. However, he showed himself at once a champion of the status quo, besieged the dissidents with their forces in Mutina (Modena), received their surrender and then executed them. Lepidus, the ringleader of the movement, fled to Sardinia and died there. Pompey’s military power and prestige now alarmed the Senate, and they were glad to post him to Spain, where Sertorius, another one-time supporter of the Popular party, had set up what amounted to an independent state.
Since the death of Gaius Marius, Quintus Sertorius was probably the only good general that the Popular party had possessed. When his partisans in Italy were menaced by Sulla, he seems to have realized that the single hope of resistance lay in adoption of an overseas base. He already knew Spain, having served there as quaestor, and in conflict with Celtiberian tribes had shown himself able to match the tribesmen in the employment of ruses and guerrilla tactics. In the years that followed Sulla’s return to power, Sertorius had repeatedly worsted Roman senatorial forces. He identified himself with local aspirations and came to figure rather as the leader of a Spanish nationalist cause than of any Roman political faction. Pompey had considerable difficulty in dealing with his Romano-Spanish guerrilla tactics and strategy, and might never have emerged victorious if treachery had not played its part. For Sertorius was murdered as the result of a conspiracy formed by his lieutenant Perpenna. Perpenna, however, was not such an adroit guerrilla fighter as Sertorius, and Pompey, laying a trap, soon captured him and put him to death.
In this early stage of his career, at least, Pompey resembled Sulla in his good luck. During his five years’ absence in Spain, Italy had been terrorized by a massive slave revolt. The slaves had defeated several Roman armies, but had at last been crushed by Marcus Licinius Crassus, one of Sulla’s old officers, now an ambitious politician and general. Even so, 5,000 survivors of Crassus’ victory managed to escape and retreat northward into Etruria, where Pompey, returning from Spain with his legions, met and destroyed them. He did not hesitate to claim major credit for this successful operation, a claim which hardly improved his relations with the influential Crassus. Although Pompey had no unconstitutional ambitions, he attached great importance to his own public reputation and this sometimes made him tactless.
■ The Revolt of Spartacus
In the ancient world, the fate of war captives, if it was convenient to spare their lives, was normally to become slaves. Victorious Roman wars had consequently, before the beginning of the first century BC, filled Italy and Sicily with a slave population whose size had become an obvious danger. There had been violent slave revolts in Sicily in 139 and 104 BC, both of which had dragged on for several years, but the most serious of all such insurrections was that to which we have referred above (73 BC). It was led by Spartacus, a Thracian gladiator, a man of noble character and no mean intelligence, who was endowed with some Greek culture. Together with a band of comrades, he broke out of a gladiatorial barracks managed by private enterprise at Capua. The runaways equipped themselves with knives and spits from a local cookshop, afterwards supplementing these with a store of gladiatorial weapons. A military force from Capua was sent against them, but they routed the soldiers and took possession of their arms – a valuable acquistion for the slaves.
Now 3,000 troops from Rome, under a praetor, were sent against the insurgents. Spartacus and his followers were temporarily besieged on a precipitate summit, but they twisted the branches of wild vines to make ladders and escaped down a sheer rock face. Spartacus’ army was joined by runaway slaves of all nationalities, from all parts of Italy, and seems to have reached a strength of 90,000 – a figure which would account for its continued success against the Roman armies that confronted it. The consuls in Italy still normally shared four legions between them, while much bigger armies were posted abroad under pro-magistrates. However, the very size of the slave force, with its lack of men able to take command and the multitude of nationalities that went to its making, did not contribute to good order and discipline within its ranks. Spartacus led his men northward in the hope that they might pass the Alps and disperse to their homes, but many of them preferred a life of brigandage in Italy, and he was persuaded to turn south again.
Crassus, when appointed to deal with the rebels, was by no means immediately successful. One of his officers, commanding two legions, engaged the enemy in contravention of orders and was defeated with heavy casualties, while many legionaries, fleeing from the battlefield, left their weapons to increase the enemy’s already growing store. Crassus issued new arms on payment of deposit and apparently punished the cohort chiefly responsible for the rout by decimation, a traditional Roman military punishment: selected by lot, one man out of every ten was beaten to death.
Spartacus’ purpose in returning southwards, apart from that of satisfying his followers, had been to cross into Sicily and fan the embers of slave revolt which had continued to smoulder in the island since the earlier insurrections. Many slaves in this area were of Greek language and origin, and perhaps he hoped for some sense of national coherence such as would give him more control over his forces. He negotiated with a band of pirates – many of whom now ranged freely in the western Mediterranean far from their Cilician strongholds – but they failed to provide him with the transport they had promised and kept the deposit which he had paid for it.
Crassus at last managed to blockade Spartacus in a small peninsula at Rhegium, by means of an elaborate four-mile earthwork and fosse across the Isthmus. But on a wild, wintry night, Spartacus contrived to fill in the ditch and sallied out with a large part of his forces. It looked as though the slaves might march on Rome, but in Lucania some of them mutinied and formed a separate camp. These were engaged by Crassus, after some preliminary manoeuvring, and slaughtered to the number of 12,000. Spartacus, however, with the main body of the army, still remained at large. Crassus’ quaestor, who had pursued him into mountain country, was heavily defeated and was himself lucky to be carried away wounded. But discipline in the slave army remained poor, and Spartacus could not resist the demands of his followers for further confrontation with the Romans. This was precisely what Crassus wanted, being already afraid that Pompey and Lucullus, by their arrival from the West and East respectively, would steal credit for the victory which he had promised himself. In a decisive battle, Spartacus died fighting. Those of the slaves who survived the slaughter were captured by Crassus or Pompey and crucified.
Crassus’ trenching operations near Rhegium are worth noticing. The recourse to trench warfare, not necessarily associated with the blockade of a city or the fortification of a camp, was a Roman as distinct from Greek development. It was perhaps what one would expect from a nation of engineers who excelled in building roads, aqueducts and drainage systems. Perhaps it was a natural extension of camp construction, or perhaps we may see it as a logical step from Scipio Aemilianus’ fortifications at Numantia, where, as Appian observes, he was the first general to enclose within a wall an enemy who would have been willing to fight in the open field. If Scipio was the first, subsequent Roman commanders certainly showed themselves willing to learn from example, and it will be remembered how trenching operations had played an important part in Sulla’s eastern campaigns.
■ The Pirates
Spartacus’ negotiation with the pirates is just one among many instances testifying to their ubiquity in the Mediterranean world in the early first century BC. The Romans were not prepared to maintain a fleet in peacetime for mere police operations. In the emergencies of the Punic Wars, they had hastily constructed a navy. Against Mithridates, neither Sulla nor Fimbria had been given a fleet of warships. It had remained for Lucullus to buy or borrow one. In the eastern Mediterranean, Rhodes had been a great bulwark against piracy, but the Romans, dissatisfied with the Rhodian attitude in the last of the Macedonian Wars, spitefully damaged the island’s trading position by conferring on Delos the status of a free port. With Delos as a highly competitive trading centre, Rhodian sea-power had declined. Not only were the Rhodians unable to suppress piracy on the high seas or on the Aegean shores, but Delos, unlike Rhodes, provided the pirates with a market in which their booty could fetch its price and their captives be sold as slaves. The legality of such dealings went unchallenged.
In this connection, it is pertinent to recall some famous incidents in Julius Caesar’s early career. Caesar’s Julian pedigree marked him as the scion of an ancient patrician clan, but his aunt had been wedded to Marius, and while still a mere youth Caesar was on Sulla’s “wanted” list. Flitting between one rural hiding place and another, he was at last arrested by Sulla’s manhunters, but after bribing the officer in charge, escaped overseas to Bithynia, where King Nicomedes received him hospitably. While in the East, the young Caesar fell into the hands of Cilician pirates, who released him for a ransom. Manning some ships at Miletus, he then pursued, arrested and crucified the pirates, as he had often pleasantly threatened to do during his captivity. Caesar, however, was lucky in being able to afford a ransom, let alone organize a punitive expedition. Plutarch describes how Roman citizens, after being treated with ironic deference by their pirate captors, were at length assured that they were free to go and flung overboard in mid-sea.
Roman punitive forces were not always so successful against the pirates as Caesar’s expedition was. The Cilician pirates were not to be despised as a fighting force. They roved the sea not merely in ships but in fleets. They negotiated with civil powers often on equal terms; it was as if they had achieved some kind of citizen status in a cosmopolitan pirate community. Mithridates was anxious to enlist their help, as indeed Sertorius had been. When a pirate ship fell into the hands of Verres, governor of Sicily in 73–71 BC, members of the crew were re-employed by him for the various skills which they possessed and the pirate captain was allowed to ransom himself. Here indeed was a contrast to Caesar’s ruthless action, but Caesar after all had had a private score to settle with his captors.
Later, when Verres was still in office, a whole pirate squadron descended on the Sicilian coast. According to Cicero, the Greek commander in charge of the governor’s fleet was drunk at the time, and was the first to escape in his quadrireme as soon as the pirates had been sighted. The provincial navy was undermanned, its crews unpaid and half-starved, although they might have put up a fight if it had not been for their commander’s example. But the quadrireme, which by reason of its bulk should have been more than adequate to deal with the light pirate craft, outstripped the other vessels in headlong flight to a neighbouring port, where the panic-stricken commander and crew precipitately disembarked to seek refuge inland. The pirates overtook the hindmost ships of the governmental flotilla and in the evening burnt them, together with the quadrireme and other abandoned vessels, on the shore. Next day, they sailed unopposed into the harbour of Syracuse, taking the opportunity of a sightseeing expedition – as Cicero ironically suggests – while Verres was still governor.
The Sicilian débâcle resulted largely from the fact that money levied for the payment of rowers and marines had been diverted into the governor’s privy purse. Though a flagrant example, this was far from being the only case of its kind. Moreover, it in some way reflected at a provincial level the policy of the Republican government as a whole. The maintenance of navies merely for police operations seemed not worth the financial outlay. However, in Verres’ time, pressures were already mounting which were destined to change public attitudes.
■ Pompey against the Pirates
The Illyrian and Macedonian Wars had for a time forced the pirates of the Ionian Sea northwards into the Adriatic. At the beginning of the first century BC, the main piratical menace came from Cilicia, where the wild coastline and hinterland provided the pirates with remote bases and obscure hiding places. Rome had created a Cilician province, which was in effect a base for anti-piratical operations. The official thinking was characteristically military rather than naval, and the main strategy relied upon the time-honoured expedient of winning a naval war on land by depriving the enemy of his harbours. In other parts of the Mediterranean, however, especially Crete, the problem was more intractable.
In 67 BC, a corn shortage in Italy, linked to supply problems over seas that were increasingly unsafe, brought the question of piracy to a head. Pompey, as a result of a popular proposal by a minor politician, was given far-reaching powers to deal with the menace. By this time, thanks in part to encouragement from Mithridates, piratical enterprise had reached a high degree of cohesion and organization. The rovers had become to some extent a land power as well as a sea power. They exacted tribute from maritime cities, built beacons and watch-towers on the coasts where their arsenals and harbours were situated, employed skilful pilots, and were led by men who in earlier days had been used to administrative business and executive command. Their conduct, so far from being furtive, was marked by conspicuous bravado. Plutarch refers to silver-plated oars, gilded spars and purple-woven sails, not to mention leisure hours of music, dancing and feasting on the coasts which they controlled. Many of them were devotees of the popular eastern religion of Mithras, but this did not prevent them from plundering the temples of the more traditional gods and goddesses. Nor was the coast of Italy free from their attentions. On one occasion, they seized two Roman praetors, along with their official staff and entourage. In another raid they kidnapped and held to ransom the daughter of a distinguished Roman general. Plutarch says that at the time of Pompey’s appointment they possessed 1,000 ships and dominated 400 cities.
The terms of Pompey’s command gave him authority over all seas within the Pillars of Hercules (i.e., east of Gibraltar) and over the whole coastline to a distance of 50 miles (80km) inland. He was authorized to appoint 24 senior officers to serve directly under his orders, each one of whom would rank as praetor. He had power to raise up to 125,000 men and 500 warships, and the vast resources of money voted for the enterprise were wholly adequate to support such a force. In the event, Pompey did not use all the money placed at his disposal, and so, far from occupying the three years to which special legislation entitled him, he was able to report the successful completion of his task in a matter of months.
His work was carried out very methodically. The western Mediterranean was first combed of pirates, each of 13 naval squadrons having been assigned its separate operational zone. Pompey then proceeded eastward with 60 of his best ships to attack the main enemy strongholds. The western sea had been cleared in a mere 40 days. Within three months, the pirate bases of the east had also been stormed and occupied. The bulk of the enemy fleet had been destroyed in a major naval engagement, and those pirates who had sought refuge in inland fortresses with their families were besieged amid the mountains and captured. Prisoners numbered 20,000. Among many vessels captured were 90 warships complete with equipment.
If Pompey ever deserved the title of Magnus (“the Great”) it was now. So, far from simply crucifying all his captives – which would have been the normal reaction to the situation – he realized that the pirate menace had been the product of a social situation, not merely a military and naval challenge. The pirates had been desperate men with nothing to lose, whom ruthless wars and bloodstained politics had rendered homeless and destitute. In the circumstances, death in battle was preferable to starvation, and crucifixion well worth risking. Showing clemency to his prisoners, Pompey offered an amnesty to those who were still at large and as a result received massive surrenders. The ex-corsairs and their families were successfully settled in agricultural colonies at well-chosen points throughout the eastern Mediterranean lands.
Pompey’s great victory was unfortunately marred by an administrative clash. It must have been obvious from the start that in warfare against an elusive and highly mobile enemy, his authority over littoral zones was likely to conflict with that of previously appointed Roman governors, responsible for the interior. Metellus, the governor of Crete, was bent on merciless extermination of the pirates, many of whom hoped to take advantage of Pompey’s amnesty. One of Pompey’s officers, sent with a contingent to Crete, finished by fighting in league with the pirates against Metellus. Pompey was made to look foolish and Metellus got his way in the end.
■ Lucullus against Mithridates
Pompey’s suppression of the pirates was the finest achievement of his career, and one which he owed almost entirely to his own ability. The news of his victories swiftly arrived in Rome, and before he could himself return to Italy, new and sweeping powers of command were assigned to him. He was to take charge of the war against Mithridates. Here, however, as on other occasions in his life, he owed much to the work of a predecessor.
Taking full advantage of Roman preoccupations in Italy and Spain, allying himself with the pirates and accepting a military mission from Sertorius, Mithridates had gone far to re-establishing the military potential of which Sulla had temporarily deprived him. Sulla’s deputy in the province of Asia (i.e., west Asia Minor), suspicious of the king’s designs, had renewed military operations against Pontus without authorization from Rome. When he was worsted in battle, Roman prestige suffered.
Full-scale war had again broken out when Mithridates invaded Bithynia, a province which Rome had acquired by the bequest of its late monarch in 75 BC. Nobody was better qualified than Lucullus to undertake operations in this theatre, but in order to secure command of Cilicia and Asia during his consulate (74 BC), he had found it necessary to intrigue deviously with the mistress of a political adversary. He was immediately obliged to rescue his colleague in Bithynia who, anxious to take sole credit for a quick victory, had been defeated by Pontic forces both on land and in sea battles.
Mithridates, learning perhaps equally from his own past experience and from Sertorius’ military mission, had remodelled his army and navy. It is true that his large Oriental host still included such lumber as scythe-wheel chariots, which were usually ineffective because they needed an excessively long run in order to gather impetus. He had, nevertheless, equipped his infantry with short swords and long shields on the Roman pattern, and had adopted Roman tactical formations. In general, his forces were now equipped more obviously for war than for ceremonial occasions as they previously had been.
Mithridates besieged the Romans in Chalcedon (opposite Byzantium) and pressed farther westward along the south shores of the Propontis (Sea of Marmara) to attack Cyzicus. Lucullus, however, after successful actions by land and sea, relieved both these cities and, dispersing Mithridates’ invading armies, launched a counter-offensive into Pontus, where he soon penetrated the chain of fortress towns that defended the western territories of the kingdom. Mithridates, once more defeated in a pitched battle, fled eastward to take refuge with his son-in-law Tigranes, king of Armenia. Lucullus sent an embassy to demand the fugitive’s extradition and, while waiting for an answer, did much to restore the economy of the Asiatic cities, still crippled by Sulla’s impost. When the Armenian king refused to surrender Mithridates, Lucullus marched his legions into Armenia and, in a battle which showed him an astute tactician, defeated Tigranes’ multitudinous host. He then captured the newly built capital of Tigranocerta and inflicted a further defeat on Tigranes and Mithridates farther east. But the war threatened to extend itself interminably eastward, and it now seemed likely that Lucullus would involve himself against the Parthians, south of the Caspian sea. His troops mutinied and it was impossible for him to carry his conquests any farther.
Indeed, not only was a halt called to Lucullus’ victorious advance, but the Roman army in Armenia was paralysed by indiscipline, and the prolongation of Lucullus’ command was already in question. In these circumstances, Mithridates, who was nothing if not resilient, mustered new forces and reoccupied Pontus. At the same time, Tigranes resumed the offensive and entered Cappadocia in eastern Asia Minor. Shocked by news of Roman defeats in Pontus, the mutinous troops at last followed their general back westward to rescue the legions which had been left to garrison that territory. But such was their mood that it was not possible to restore the situation, and this unhappy state of affairs still persisted when Pompey arrived to assume command of the war.
Lucullus was a man of very independent mind, always determined to rely on his own ability and integrity in a world where sycophancy and demagogy were prerequisites of success. Consequently, he lost the support not only of the legionaries under his command but of his own staff, at the same time giving opportunities to his political enemies in Rome. He was a firm disciplinarian, but that was not enough. Perhaps the greatest grievance of his soldiers was that he prevented them from plundering the cities of friendly and subject peoples – in a way that Sulla would certainly have allowed.
In 63 BC, Lucullus managed at last to celebrate a well-deserved triumph, after which he retired from war and politics to live a life of refined luxury. Unfortunately, he became insane in his old age. His supersession by Pompey must have been extremely galling to him. The two men had been rivals ever since the days when they both served under Sulla. But Sulla, always unaccountable, had consistently favoured Pompey, though he had more confidence in Lucullus.
■ The End of Mithridates
By their dogged resistance to Lucullus, Mithridates and Tigranes had ultimately exhausted not only the Roman forces but their own. The mutiny among Lucullus’ troops had found its counterpart in palace intrigues and family dissensions in the despotic establishments of Pontus and Armenia. One of Mithridates’ sons had already set up a separatist government in South Russia and had been recognized by Lucullus. Tigranes’ son was soon to adopt a similarly independent line. The mere prospect of Pompey’s vast resources thrown into the scale against the Asiatic kingdoms was enough to increase already existing strains to breaking point.
Lucullus had overcome enemy armies many times larger than his own. Plutarch, quoting Livy, says that in the great battle which preceded the capture of Tigranocerta the Romans were outnumbered by more than twenty to one, and Livy must be presumed more accurate on history near to his own times than on semi-legendary antiquity or even the Hannibalic Wars. The situation, however, was now very much altered. Pompey possessed huge financial resources still untapped, increased by plunder taken from the pirates, not to mention the ships which he had captured. The Asiatic despots had lost heavily in men and Pompey had added the army of Lucullus to the massive forces which he had deployed against the pirates. Making full use of his naval strength, Pompey set his ships to guard the Asiatic coast from Syria to the Bosphorus, a precaution against any attack by the Pontic navy in his rear. He then left his Cilician base to confront Mithridates in the north. His striking force was not unduly large. Certainly, it was not unwieldy, and it was as much as he needed, for he had already by adroit diplomacy managed to involve Tigranes against the Parthians, and the king of Pontus was conveniently isolated.
Mithridates and his staff seem not always to have been alert to their opportunities. The Pontic army encamped at first in a strong mountain fastness, but retreated to worse positions as a result of water shortage. Pompey occupied the stronghold thus vacated, deduced from the vegetation that water existed at no great depth, and successfully dug wells. Subsequently, however, despite Pompey’s trenching operations, designed to cut him off, Mithridates slipped away eastward with a still substantial army. Pompey followed him as far as the Euphrates and a great battle2 was fought there by moonlight. The low moon, behind the Romans’ backs, threw long shadows ahead of them and confused the enemy marksmen. Mithridates’ army was routed, but he himself broke through the Roman ranks with a body of 800 cavalry. He at last escaped with only a few faithful followers, including a hardy young concubine who was dressed and armed like a Persian horseman. Pompey had been dubious about the wisdom of night operations, but had yielded to pressure from his officers – as he did with less fortunate results 18 years later against Caesar at Pharsalus.
Tigranes would no longer grant asylum to his father-in-law, and Mithridates made his way via the head-waters of the Euphrates into the Black Sea region. He still hoped to repair his fortunes and even contemplated the invasion of Italy by an overland route, but the rebellion of another son, who probably represented public opinion, made all such schemes futile. For the first time in his life, Mithridates, now 68 years old, gave way to despair. Suspicious of assassination attempts, he is said to have rendered himself immune to poison by the continuous administration of small doses. Now that he had decided to end his own life, his immunity proved a disadvantage, but in obedience to his orders one of his bodyguards despatched him.
Pompey had meanwhile made peace on sufficiently generous terms with Tigranes. He did not attempt to follow Mithridates northwards, but found himself involved in gruelling warfare with the Caucasian tribes. Later, operations southward, in Syria, Judaea and Arabia, claimed his attention and exposed him to criticism as neglecting the Pontic threat. He was in this area when news of Mithridates’ death reached him by letters. Apparently, the camp contained no platform of turfs such as a Roman general on campaign usually mounted when addressing his men, but Pompey climbed up on a pile of pack-saddles, and his announcement was the signal for sacrifices and feasting, as if in victory celebration.
■ Catiline’s Conspiracy
While Pompey was in the East, Italy was shaken by the conspiracy and armed insurrection of Catiline (Lucius Sergius Catilina). The relevant facts have reached us almost entirely through Sallust and Cicero. Sallust was anything but politically unbiased, and Cicero, as the man whom Catiline conspired to murder, and who ordered the execution of Catiline’s accomplices, was obviously not impartial.
Catiline had been involved in an earlier plot to overthrow the constitution and seize power in 65 BC. He was influential and well connected and on this occasion there had been no question of bringing any charge against him. His second plot, again the product of political disappointment and, we are encouraged to believe, sheer viciousness, was matured in 63 BC. The original plan was to coordinate widespread disturbances throughout Italy, with the main uprising concentrated in Etruria, where old soldiers who had become bankrupt farmers might be relied upon for support. When Cicero, as consul, obtained information of this plot, the conspirators held an emergency meeting at Rome in the Street of the Sickle-makers and adopted a more desperate programme. They resolved to murder Cicero next day, set Rome on fire, and incite the slave population to rebellion and looting. Meanwhile, their sympathizers in other parts of Italy were to take up arms without further delay and the insurgents of Etruria were to march on the terrorized city. Cicero, who was consistently well informed, received prompt warning of his danger and denounced Catiline to his face in the Senate – of which the accused was a member. After this, Catiline fled from Rome to join his army in Etruria.
Other conspirators, however, remained in Rome. Hoping to gain further supporters among the Gauls, they made contact with some envoys of a Gallic tribe then in the city. Cicero’s informants again served him well. Through the agency of the Gauls, he obtained signatures on incriminating documents and arrested five of the leading conspirators. Their fate was debated before the Senate. Caesar pleaded for life imprisonment. But Cicero was supported by Cato, the much-respected great-grandson of Cato the Censor, and ordered the execution of the conspirators without trial. His justification was the state of emergency which then existed, but not everyone considered him justified. Once the conspiracy at Rome had failed, Catiline’s mainly ill-armed forces in Etruria had little hope of success. Regular troops were sent against him. His line of retreat northward was cut off, and he was overwhelmed and killed in a battle at Pistoria.
Catiline’s blundering plot hardly amounted to a war, yet it had considerable military significance. Italy was the strategic centre of the Mediterranean world, but it was at the same time the most vulnerable area in that world. Ever fearful of military despotism, the Senate preferred to see Rome’s legions deployed in distant and overseas provinces, while Italy, comparatively denuded of troops, remained an attractive prey for any armed adventurer who could rally sufficient malcontents to his support. Catiline’s insurrection had its precedent in that of Lepidus in 77 BC. Lepidus’ attempt had been crushed with Pompey’s valuable aid. Catiline had timed his uprising to take place when Pompey was no longer at hand. That Pompey might return from the East, bringing retribution, as Sulla had done, was a possibility which the conspirators had been forced to take into account, and they had accordingly planned to seize Pompey’s children as hostages. Apart from that, any military régime which could control Italy possessed the advantage of interior communications, the importance of which remained to be demonstrated in later Roman history. It is hard to see how Catiline could have hoped ultimately to make himself despot of Rome. We do not know precisely what his plans and intentions were. But he certainly could have created great havoc before being subdued, if it had not been for Cicero’s highly efficient “secret service”.
■ The Parthians
In the course of their eastern wars, the Romans had several times come into contact with the Parthians. Sulla, reaching the Euphrates, had negotiated with them on friendly terms. Lucullus, distrusting them as allies, had prepared to attack them. Pompey, invoking their aid, had promised them Armenian frontier territory, but failed to keep his promise after Tigranes’ humble submission. Like other Asiatic kingdoms, Parthia was a succession state of the Seleucid Empire, the Parthian leader Arsaces having founded an independent dynasty in the middle of the third century BC. With this Arsacid dynasty the Romans had to deal.
The culture of the Parthians was in many ways a characteristic legacy of Alexander’s eastern conquests: a discrepant and sometimes grotesque blend of Greek and barbaric traditions. But their way of warfare owed little to Macedonian precedents. There was no clumsy imitation of the phalanx, such as Mithridates had used. The Parthian army was a cavalry army, and its cavalry was of two kinds. The nobility, not unlike medieval knights, were lancers, protected by coats of chain mail and mounted on strong horses that were also mail-clad. These heavy cavalrymen are referred to by Greek writers as cataphractoi. The word literally means “covered over”. But the more typical Parthian warrior was a mounted bowman who wore no armour and, relying on his mobility, rode swiftly within arrowshot of the enemy to let fly a deadly shaft as he wheeled his horse and made off. The modern expression “a Parthian shot” is a reminder of this highly skilful manoeuvre. Given an Asiatic terrain of undulating hills or dunes and skylines that could conceal without impeding such horsemen, Parthian tactics were a formidable threat to a less mobile enemy. In addition, it should be noted, their bows were strong and their arrows penetrating, being capable of nailing a shield to the arm that supported it or a foot to the ground.
Before conflicting with the Parthians, the Romans had some experience of cataphracts. Tigranes’ army had included 17,000 heavily mailed horsemen. Lucullus, observing that these had no offensive weapons save their lances and were hampered by the weight and stiffness of their armour, had ordered his Thracian and Galatian cavalry to beat down the lances with their swords and attack at arm’s length. Similarly, he had instructed the legionaries not to waste time hurling their javelins, but to close with the enemy at swordpoint, attacking the legs of the armoured riders and hamstringing their horses; for their mail did not cover them below the waist. The purpose of coming to grips quickly was also to prevent the enemy from using his archers. In the mountainous country of Armenia, the tactics of the Parthian horse-bowman would in any case have been impossible.
The Parthians were masters of ruse, adepts in feigned retreats and ambushes. Their country was remote and, to the Romans at any rate, little known, and they were in a position to plant spies and false information on an invader who necessarily made use of local guides. They rallied their troops not with military trumpets but with an ominous and disconcerting roll of drums – perhaps like the beating of tom-toms. They would also wheel their galloping steeds close to the ranks of the enemy, raising dust clouds which had the effect of a smoke-screen. Their methods of warfare were utterly different from those which the Romans had encountered in Pontus and Armenia, and the discovery of this fact came as a great shock to the Romans.
■ The Disaster of Carrhae
The Romans were never able to subdue or dominate the Parthians, and their first campaign against this untried enemy, led by Marcus Crassus in 53 BC, ended in a major disaster near Carrhae in Mesopotamia. In his youth, Crassus had, like Pompey and Lucullus, seen military service under Sulla. He had grown rich at the expense of Sulla’s outlawed victims. The Social War and the operations against Spartacus had proved that he possessed real military ability but, throughout his long political career, money had been his chief weapon. Only the spectacle of Pompey’s success and, latterly, Caesar’s victorious campaigns in Gaul, had revived his ambition for military honour. As a result of a tripartite political agreement, in which Pompey and Caesar were his partners, he obtained Syria and Egypt as his province, seeing the opportunity for a prestigious war against Parthia.
Crassus launched hostilities without any authority from Rome and without any provocation from the Parthians, although a hostile atmosphere had been created by Pompey’s broken promises and the support given to a Parthian royal pretender by Pompey’s deputy in Syria. When Crassus occupied frontier cities in Mesopotamia, he was met by a challenging embassy from the Parthian king. Defiant language was used on both sides, and a state of war immediately existed.
Having based himself on Carrhae (Biblical Haran; modern Harran), Crassus with his army began to march on Seleucia, the old Babylonian capital of Alexander’s successor. The Roman legions very soon became a constant target for the enemy’s missiles, nor were their light-armed skirmishers numerous enough to ward off the attacks. Surena3, the Parthian general, made sure that his bowmen were continuously supplied with ammunition, using an efficient camel corps to transport load upon load of arrows.
Crassus sent forward his son Publius with eight cohorts, 500 archers and some 1,300 cavalry. The Gauls, like Publius, had served with distinction under Caesar, and they had some success against the Parthian cataphracts, nimbly grasping the enemy’s long lances and stabbing the horses in their unprotected bellies from underneath. But in the end, Publius’ force, separated from the Roman main body, was annihilated, and the triumphant Parthians were able to taunt Crassus with the sight of his son’s head on a pike.
The Romans were now obliged to retreat by night, but they were by this time exhausted, and 4,000 wounded were abandoned to be butchered by the enemy. The Parthians were content to remain inactive during the hours of darkness, but gave chase again during the day, when the straggling Roman columns, as a result of their night march, had lost contact with each other. Crassus’ officer Gaius Cassius, better known to history for his action on the ides of March nine years later, led 10,000 men back to safety. Without more detailed information, we cannot confidently praise him for saving his men or blame him for deserting his general. Other officers, under pressure from the demoralized army, accompanied Crassus to a parley which Surena had proposed with obviously treacherous intent. In a contrived scuffle, the Roman negotiators were cut down; Crassus’ head was carried in triumph to the Parthian king, then concluding peace with the Armenians. In the whole campaign, the Romans are reported to have lost 20,000 killed and 10,000 prisoners. These last were settled by the Parthians as serfs in provinces farther east.
Despite the crushing defeat of Crassus, the Parthians made no attempt to follow up their victory. Unlike the Gauls or the Germans, they were under no pressure to migrate at the expense of other nations. Perhaps they also realized that the country into which Crassus had imprudently ventured was among their greatest military assets, and their way of fighting could not be equally successful on any other terrain. For many years, the Romans felt the disaster of Carrhae as a deep disgrace; apart from all else, their standards had fallen into enemy hands. But no sense of emergency was entailed. The Parthians did not even present a threat comparable with that which had been posed by Mithridates or the Cilician pirates.
Treachery apart, the Parthians were also indebted for their victory to the generalship of Surena – though what we hear of his character does not suggest the hardihood of a great military leader. When he travelled privately, Surena was accompanied by an enormous retinue, which included 200 waggons for his concubines. This made him look hypocritical when he expressed disgust at the pornography discovered in the baggage of the defeated Roman army. However, his personal ability is not in question. Indeed, his success excited the jealousy of the king whom he served, and soon after Carrhae he was put to death.
REFERENCES
1 The Manilian law gave Pompey command in the war against Mithridates.
2 Pompey later founded Nicopolis (Victory City) near the site of the battle.
3 Surena was head of the Suren clan and was therefore entitled “the Suren”.