Roman Civilization

CMS 206 /History 206

• The death of Gaius Gracchus did not settle affairs between the warring members of the politcal elite. It is important to remember that these battles for "reform" quickly became a vehicle of competition between very similar groups of men within the same political elite. While complete cynicism is probably too extreme a position, it is fair to say that most populares were less interested in improving the lot of the populus than in using the popularity they gained by espousing reform to achieve a position of political superiority over other members of the elite. Similarly, the optimates (the "best people"), no doubt included sincere conservatives, devoted to the preservation of the Roman constitution. Many of their number, however, were simply interested in preserving the power the constitution afforded members of their class and exploiting the popularity their "conservative" positions achieved to obtain a position of political superiority over other members of the elite.
  
• After Gaius Gracchus died, Opimius was sued and aquitted. Optimates considered his acquittal to be the legal vindication of the senatus consultus ultimum. The next year (119 BCE), however, Carbo, the senator who defend Opimius at trial, was sued by L. Licinius Crassus (who eventually became consul in 95 BCE and was an ally of Gaius' land reform efforts). Carbo committed suicide rather than stand trial. This outcome may reflect less on the politics of the day than on Carbo's personal problems - before he defended Opimius he had been an ally of Gaius Gracchus. In fact, during the course of the next two decades most of Gaius' reforms were repealed. The optimates might have maintained their control of Roman domestic politics if it weren't for the fact they completely mishandled Roman foreign policy and military operations in North Africa, Macedonia and Gaul.
  
• Micipsa, son of Massinissa, the king of Numidia who provided the pretext for the Third Punic War, lacked his own sons at the time he took control of the kingdom. He did have a nephew, Jugurtha, born of his brother's concubine. He took Jugurtha into his household and the young man showed great promise as a military leader. He brilliantly led Numidian cavalry that fought with Scipio Aemilianus in Spain, for example. Jugurtha took the opportunity the Spanish campaign offered to learn much of Rome and Rome's fighting methods. Meanwhile, Micipsa had fathered two sons. He named his sons and Jugurtha joint heirs and died in 118 BCE. Jugurtha was not satisfied with this inheritance and shortly thereafter one of Micipsa's sons was assassinated and the other, Adherbal, defeated in battle by Jugurtha's forces. Adherbal went to Rome and asked the Seante to secure his inheritance. Jugurtha sent envoys to Rome who shamelessly bribed the Senate. The Senate decided to send Opimius and a commission to Numidia to settle the matter. The commission divided the kingdom between Jugurtha and Adherbal. As soon as the Senators left, Jugurtha attacked Adherbal. Rome sent several commissions of junior senators back to Numidia to order Jugurtha to stop, but he ignored them. In 112 he defeated and killed Adherbal and, for good measure, killed all the Italians (merchants, etc.) living in the area who had fought for Adherbal.
  
• The Roman consul of 111 BCE, L. Calpurnius Bestia, invaded Numidia. But rather than fight it out with Jugurtha, Bestia came to very easy terms with him and many suspected bribery. Jugurtha was given a safe-conduct to come to Rome to testify in the bribery inquiries and scandalized Rome, before he returned home, by taking the opportunity to have a nephew, who claimed the throne after Adherbal's death, assassinated. In 110 BCE, the consul Sp. Postumius Albinus invaded Numidia, but left the army under control of his brother Aulus, who was a lousy general. Jugurtha bribed Roman allied troops (and perhaps some Roman troops) and captured the entire army. As if this weren't bad enough, Germanic tribes (the Cimbri) had defeated Roman troops in Macedonia in 113 and Gaul in 109. To ordinary Romans, it looked like the senatorial elite had become corrupt and incompetent, at the price of the lives of thousands of Roman soldiers. The generals, all former consuls, Opimius, Albinus, and Bestia were sued for accepting bribes and convicted by equestrian juries.
  
• The Senate then gave command of the African campaign to Q. Caecilius Metellus. Caecilius Metellus was from one of the oldest and most powerful families in Roman politics. The Metelli, in fact, had dominated, if not controlled the consulship for the last several decades. Caecilius Metellus was far more willing to fight than previous Roman generals had been, but discovered to Roman dismay, that defeating Jugurtha was no easy matter. Actually, Metellus defeated Jugurtha several times. Jugurtha, however, always escaped and always raised another army. So Metellus decided upon a strategy of taking control of Numidia town by town until Jugurtha would have no place to run to or from which to raise more troops. It was a decent enough strategy, but not one that promised quick results.
  
• One of Metellus' legates was an equestrian by the name of Gaius Marius. Marius had proven himself to be one of the best military minds of the age in Rome's campaigns in Spain. [And, he had acquired the ownership of, and hence vast sums of wealth from mines in Spain.] Marius came from a locally prominant family in Arpinum [the town from which Cicero would come] which had claimed the Metelli as their patrons. A novus homo, Marius broke with his patrons in 130 BCE when as tribune he passed a law which made voting in Roman elections secret ( a popular political program that old conservatives like the Metelli would hate - what was the good having clients if you couldn't tell how they were voting?). In 115, Marius served as praetor and then was assigned the governship of Spain. He returned home and did a very interesting thing. He married into the family of Julii Caesars. You couldn't get more noble or patrician than the Caesares (they claimed they were descended from Venus).
  
• Despite their disagreement about the secret ballot law, Caecilius Metellus actively sought the appointment of Marius as his deputy in Numidia. It looked like a good deal. Marius would provide Metellus the military genius he needed to defeat Jugurtha, and Metellus would help Marius become consul after the war. Unfortunately for Marius, Metellus' strategy of slowly conquering the country made it seem like he wouldn't get back to Rome for decades. In 108 BCE, Marius asked Metellus for permission to return to Rome and run for consul. Metellus advised him to wait until Metellus' son ran and they could serve together. Metellus' son, however, wouldn't be eligible to run for another 20 years. Marius was peeved and began to seek and win the support of both the troops and the local Italian merchants by arguing that Metellus was campaigning like an old woman. Marius promised that he would capture Jugurtha in a week with half of Metellus' army. Soldiers and equites in North Africa began to flood the Senate with letters condemning Metellus. Metellus' friends eventually advised him to let Marius return home since the Romans were beginning to think the senatorial elite either didn't want to win the war in Africa or had forgotten how to win wars altogether. Marius was elected consul, but the Senate refused to grant him command of the war against Jugurtha. Marius responded by having the Assembly pass a law giving him the command (an infringement of Senatorial perogative). Metellus then dismissed his troops, which required Marius to raise a new army.
  
• The problem for Marius was that there was hardly anyone with sufficient property to qualify for army service left to recruit (senatorial generals had been losing armies with appalling regularity in the past decades). Marius simply recruited among the poor and ignored the property requirement. This decision radically changed the nature of service in the Roman army and of the Roman army itself. In 107 BCE, Marius took his army to North Africa with a deputy by the name of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Sulla came from a very old and prominent patrician family that had lost most of its money. He was an extremely able soldier and in fact, it was Sulla who captured Jugurtha by persuading his father-in-law to betray him. Marius, as general, received official credit for the victory, a fact which Sulla would grow to resent, although for a time the two would continue to work well together. Marius' popularity knew no end and he was elected consul again in 105, despite the fact that he did not return to Rome for the election, and that laws had been passed banning second consulships.
  
• While Marius was mopping up in Numidia, the Cimbri who had been causing Romans problems in Macedonia and Gaul became very restive. They attacked and defeated one army. The northern command was then assigned to a very old noble Roman, Caepio and a novus homo, Mallius. Caepio was deeply offended that anyone would dare associate him with an upstart like Mallius and refused to cooperate with him against the Cimbri. The Cimbri defeated both armies. 80,000 soldiers died. Italy lay undefended against invasion. The senatorial elite once again had lost all credibility with the people.
  
• The people responded to the senatorial failures of leadership by electing Marius every year from 104 through 100 (and also seem to have elected as co-consul whomever Marius designated). This was an unprecedented achievement and gravely threatened constitutional principals designed to limit the executive power. In 102, the Cimbri, now allied with other tribes, the Teutoni and the Tigurini, decided to invade Italy in three separate invasions. Marius, with Sulla as his deputy, took on the Teutoni at the town of Aquae Sextae and crushed them (100,000 killed in a day). He had dispatched his colleague Catulus to deal with the Cimbri and returned home for another re-election. Catulus, however, did a lousy job (although he didn't lose his army) and the Cimbri were able to reach northern Italy. Postponing his triumph, Marius marched his army north and in 101 he and Catulus defeated the Cimbri (killing 65,000 to 100,000) at Vercellae. The Tigurni, hearing the news decided to stay on their side of the Alps. In the popular imagination, Marius was again the hero of the day, saving the skin of yet another incompetent senatorial general (which was a bit unfair to Catulus). Catulus, like Sulla, would become an enemy of Marius. But for the moment Marius was at his zenith, having earned triumphs for his victories over Jugurtha, the Cimbri and the Teutoni (which he shared with Catulus). He was re-elected consul in 100 BCE.
  
• Marius allied himself with a tribune named Saturninus from a senatorial family and a novus homo, Narbonus, who also served as tribune. These men managed domestic politics in Rome while Marius was off fighting. They were proponents of strongly populares measures. They set up law courts that tried and convicted the incompetent generals of the last two decades. They introduced a new crime (maiestas - doing something that would diminish the prestige of Rome) which became a permant vehicle by which members of the elite could attack one another. They established colonies in Africa for Marian veterans (who, remember, were landless poor). These measures were very unpopular with the optimates and small scale riots ensued when they attempted to have their tribunes veto the laws.
  
• Saturninus then became the champion of a man named L. Equitius whom he claimed was the long lost son of Tiberius Gracchus. The Censors refused to enroll Equitius as a citizen under the name of Gracchus. Their refusal was perceived by the masses, who remembered the Gracchi as martyrs, as a sign of contempt. One of the Censors was so outraged by Saturninus' move that he threatened to remove Saturninus from the Senate. His collegue vetoed the effort, however, fearing a civil war. In 101 BCE, Saturninus was re-elected tribune. Rumor had it, however, that he won the election by ordering the murder of one of his opponents. The opponent clearly was murdered, but accounts of the affair are muddled and conflicting. Some versions say that Marius ordered the murder so that he could rely on Saturninus' aid in passing another bill setting up colonies for his veterans.
  
• Saturninus proposed to set up colonies not simply in Africa and Gaul, areas that Marius had subdued and could reasonably assert some influence in. The law, however, also proposed to settle Marian veterans in Greece and Sicily, areas where Marius had never served. The Senate fiercely objected to this extension of influence. To gain support from the people, Saturninus first restored the Gracchan grain price support laws. The law passed and Marius settled his veterans. He now wanted to make up with the optimates. Saturninus, who had been re-elected tribune (along with his protege, Equitius), however, had delusions of grandeur of his own. Marius, in his willingness to appease the optimates went so far as to order the arrest of Equitius (but Saturninus' supporters broke him out of jail). Marius also decided not to run for consul and blocked the efforts of Glaucia (who had been an ally of Saturninus and supporter of Marius) to seek election as consul. Rioting broke out at the elections and a candidate Marius backed, Memmius, was murdered. Saturninus and Glaucia seized the Capitol.
  
• Marius had the Senate pass an senatus consultus ultimum authorizing him to take action against Saturninus and Glaucia. Thus, the most prominent populares in Roman history ratified the Senatorial tool used against populares politicians. Marius armed his supportors and beseiged Saturninus and Glaucia in the Capitol. Once they realized that Marius would back the Senate against them, Saturninus and Glaucia surrendered, receiving assurances of safe conduct from Marius. They were, nevertheless, killed by mobs whom no one believed would have acted without the implicit approval of Marius. The death of Saturninus and Glaucia appeared to signal a truce between the populares and the optimates that would govern Roman politics for the next decade. Several crises signalled the political problems that lay ahead, however.
  
• A Senator, P. Rutilius Rufus, who refused to cut illicit deals with equestrian publicani in the province in which he served was deliberately and falsely accused of extortion and convicted by an equestrian jury. The Senatorial elite (whose own abuses as jurors had led to the inclusion of equites in juries) feared that the equites could now hold their governorships hostage. The issue of Roman citizenship on the Italian peninsula became a controversial topic. The Senate, in 95 BCE, passed a law creating a court in which individuals with Latin rights citizenship who had been living in Rome and enjoying the benefits of Roman citizenship, could be charged and stripped of the rights they had 'usurped.' The move deeply offended Rome's Italian allies who had been sending their sons off to die under the command of incompetent senatorial generals for the last 30 years and felt they were owed some greater respect (if not citizenship).
  
• The tribune Marcus Drusus in 91 then proposed a series of land and citizenship reforms that would have granted Italians citizenship rights and reformed the equestrian courts by extending Senatorial status to a number of equites, but on terms that ensured that continued hegemony of the Roman Senate. Drusus, son of the man who had successfully opposed Gaius Gracchus, claimed impeccable credentials as a champion of senatorial interest. The Senate, however, fiercely opposed his reforms, greeting any extension of the citizenship with enormous suspicion and hostility (not in the least because all the new Italian citizens would be clients of Drusus). Drusus passed his laws, but only by resorting to the kind of violence that had become routine in Roman politics. He lost all support he had in the Senate. Then the consul, L. Marcius Phillipus had the Senate pass a decree declaring Drusus' laws invalid because Drusus had ignored the ill-favored auspices that had preceeded his legislative efforts. Fearing the fate of Saturninus and Glaucia, Drusus gave up. He was, neverthless, murdered in his own home. When news of his death reached the Italian allies, they revolted against the Roman rule they had supported for the last two to three centuries. These wars between Rome and her allies are called the Social Wars (the Latin word for ally is "socius") by modern historians and the Marsic wars by Roman historians (the Marsi in central Italy, along with the Samnites in the south,were among the leaders of the revolt).
  
• The allies sought to create a loose federation along the lines of the old Latin League. They created a Senate and adopted a number of offices patterened along the lines of those provided by the Roman constitution. Not all allies of Rome revolted. Indeed the brunt of opposition came from the peoples who lived closest to Rome. More distant cities in Italy seemed happy to stay out of the affair. Nevertheless, the rebels, who had been serving in Roman armies, posed a profound threat to Roman rule. The consul of 90 BCE, Lupus, took Marius to battle with him against the Marsi as an advisor. Marius disagreed with Lupus' tactics and was proven correct when first Lupus' legates and then Lupus were defeated. Marius, with the reserve, managed to defeat the Italian army. The Senate hesitated giving Marius complete command of the armies in northern Italy but faced with the disasters achieved by senatorial generals, eventually had to. Marius, assisted by Sulla, defeated the allies in the north.
  
• In central Italy, after some setbacks, Cn. Pompeius Strabo (father of Pompey the Great), defeated armies of the rebels. In the south, Lupus' co-consul, L. Julius Ceasar, defeated the allies in Campania. Apulia remained the last region of opposition to Rome. Caesar returned to Rome and then passed a law granting Italians Roman citizenship to any allies who had not rebelled, and to rebels who would give up their arms. The war would continue for another two years with some significant Roman losses, but Caesar's law effectively broke the back of Italian opposition to Rome. The Senate named Sulla to replace Ceasar in command and managed by their arangement of the various commands in the mopping up operations to completely ignore Marius.
  
• Sulla was elected consul in 88 BCE. He had broken bitterly with Marius and allied himself closely with the oldest and most conservative faction of the optimates, the Caecilli Metelli (Marius' sometime patrons).The Senate sought in 88 BCE to limit the effect of Caesar's Italian citizenship laws by lumping all the new Italian citizens into eight or ten tribes (which meant that the existing 35 Roman tribes could outvote them at will). Sulpicius Rufus, an old ally of Drusus, opposed this effort. In anticipation of a threatened war with Mithridites, the king of Pontus, the Senate awarded the governship of Greece to Sulla (to begin after his consulship). The war promised extraordinary booty and was an office many, including Marius, desired. Marius agreed to help Sulpicius pass legislation ensuring fair treatment of the new Italian citizens if Sulpicius would help him get the Assembly to pass a law removing the Mithridatic command from Sulla and granting it to him.
  
• When Sulla and his co-consul, Q. Pompeius Rufus, opposed the efforts of Sulpicius widespread rioting broke out and Rufus' son was murdered. Sulla fled to Marius and promised, in exchange for his life, to drop his opposition. Marius and Sulpicius took him at his word and (with incredible stupidity) allowed him to return to the army that had been assigned to him for the Mithridatic wars. The Assembly voted Marius command of the Mithridatic wars but Sulla refused to turn his army over to Marius (back strongly by his rank and file troops - the officer corp refused to support him). Sulla marched his troops on Rome, took control of the city and declared Sulpicius, Marius and ten others hostes (public enemies who could be killed with impunity). Marius and his son, after much adventure, escaped to North Africa and were protected by Marius' veterans who had settled in colonies there. Sulpicius was killed. After taking control of the city, Sulla passed legislation that repealed the laws of Sulpicius and declared any law henceforth passed by the Assembly that had not been pre-approved by the Senate invalid.
  
• Sulla, however, was most anxious to take his army to Greece and permitteded the election of Octavius and Cinna, his enemy, to the consulship in 87. He required Cinna to take an oath under the terms of which Cinna promised to do nothing to undermine Sulla's laws. Then Sulla went off in search of Mithridates. Cinna changed his mind once Sulla was out of town and tried to pass laws protecting the citizenship rights of new Italian citizens. The Senate and Octavius opposed him and eventually drove him from Rome, declaring him a hostes. Cinna, however, took control of a legion in southern Italy that had not yet been disbanded from the Social Wars. In the meanwhile, Marius had raised a legion of African veterans and returned with them to Italy. The Samnites, the last of the Italian rebels, rather than come to terms with the Senate, joined up with Cinna. The combined armies of Marius and Cinna attacked and invaded Rome. A bloody terror followed their victory. Fourteen senators, including the consul Octavius, were killed or driven to suicide (no one knows how many people of less prestigious status died). Marius and Cinna were then elected consuls for the year 87. Marius, however, almost immediately died of a very bitter old age. Valerius Flaccus was elected to take his place.
  
  
• Sulla, meanwhile, was dealing with Mithridates in the East. Mithridates had begin making problems for Rome at the beginning of the Social Wars. He was king of Pontus, a hellenized region in the Caucuses (governed by a Persion elite) where modern Georgia and Armenia now lie, and had been expanding his influence towards Asia Minor. A tad preoccupied, the Senate had sought to delay the conflict in the early 90s by means of diplomacy and inciting their ally Bithynia to attack Mithridates. Unfortunately for Rome, Mithridates had better armies than their Bithynia. The Romans in Asia Minor organized their limited forces against Mithridates and were promptly wiped out. Mithridates swept westward and a number of Greek cities and kingdoms of Asia Minor that had tolerated Roman rule yielded to him ( a number remained loyal to Rome). He took care to treat them well, but, in 88 BCE, ordered all Romans in cities under his rule to be massacred on the very day his decree was posted. More than 80,000 Romans were killed throughout Asia Minor (which tells us no small tale about the popularity of Roman rule). Romans were not simply horrified at this act on patriotic grounds. The Roman treasury was quite dependent on taxes the publicani in Asia Minor had been sending home.
  
• Mithridates then sent his armies and navies into Greece. There he met resistance from Greek navies loyal to Rome and Roman legions who had been stationed in Macedonia. His general, Archelaus, however, was able to take control of Athens and the surrounding region. In 87 BCE, Sulla arrived and began a long and difficult siege of Athens during which he suffered not a few setbacks. Since he could not count on Rome to send him reinforcements, Sulla sent Lucullus, his deputy to Egypt to raise a navy from Roman allies in the eastern Mediterranean. In 86, Lucullus finally took control of Athens, permitting his troops to sack the city and burning the Piraeus, Athens' port, to the ground. Sulla pursued Mithridates and swept his forces from Greece. In the meanwhile, the Roman Senate (who considered Sulla a hostes) had sent Valerius Flaccus, who became consul after Marius died, out to Asia Minor. Flaccus had no desire to confront Sulla (who was doing a fine job in Greece) and procedeed to go to Asia Minor over land, through Macedonia. Flaccus enjoyed his own successes against Mithridatic armies in Macedonia, but suddenly found himself usurped by his legate Fimbria, who took over the army (Flaccus having been killed) and continued to press the attack against Mithridates. He conceivably would have defeated Mithridates, had Lucullus, who had finally collected a navy, coordinated attacks with him. But Sulla wanted to come to terms. Mithridates agreed to withdraw to his borders and in fact acquired the status of "friend and ally of Rome." The sometime Roman allies who had gone over to Mithridates and killed Roman citizens, however, were required to pay a ferocious indemnity. Sulla then surrounded Fimbria's legions, who began to desert and refuse to fight. After Fimbria committed suicide, Sulla took command of Fimbria's army (which he stationed in Asia Minor) and turned back for Rome with the legions who had accompanied him from Rome.
  
• Cinna had been attempting to govern Rome through the economic crises the Social, Civil and Mithridatic wars caused did not enjoy the loyalty of the equites or soldiers (who had been Marius' greatest adherents). He had been re-elected consul in 84 along with Carbo and was attempting to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Sulla. Cinna, unfortunately, was murdered by a mutinous legion. That left Carbo to lead the populares forces against Sulla. Carbo was simply not up to the job and, in fact, could not even get himself re-elected consul in 83. Norbanus, one of the new consuls, went to face Sulla in Brundisium. Sulla defeated him twice and pushed inexorably towards Rome. Scipio Asiagenus, the other consul, went to support Norbanus, but was of little help since his army promptly deserted to Sulla. Asiagenus and Sulla came to some sort of settlement, which Asiagenus promptly reneged on (earning Sulla's bitter wrath). At this point, every one with an army began to join Sulla. Pompey, son of one of the great generals of the Social Wars, showed up at the age of 19 with three legions recruited from his father's veterans. Asiagenus raised a new army to oppose Sulla, and it too promptly abandoned him for Sulla's side. Rome became an ugly place. The populares, in desperation, chose Carbo as consul again, with Marius' son as co-consul. Purges against those suspected of supporting Sulla began. Senatorial armies were defeated or rebelled to Sulla's side. The younger Marius actually fought a credible battle against Sulla, losing only when a substantial portion of his troops abandoned him in the middle of the action.
  
• The final battle of the war was fought outside the Colline Gate of the city of Rome itself in November of 82. The forces opposing Sulla were slaughtered. They were the lucky ones. The next day Sulla summoned what left of the Senate to the temple of Belladona in the Campus Martius to tell them how things would be. He arranged to have several thousand prisoners of war killed when he began to speak. When the Senators appeared distracted by the noise, he told them not to mind - he was just treating malfactors to their just deserts. The Senators got the message. At his request, the Senate passed a law naming Sulla "dictator for the purpose of restoring the republic." Unlike the archaic constitutional post of dictator (which hadn't been used in centuries), Sulla's office had no term limit.
  
• Sulla had decided three things about Rome's problems. First, the traditional authority of the Senate needed to be restored. Second, that Sulla, himself, was a very bad example for future Romans and that the constitution needed to be rewritten so that no one would ever try to imitate him. Finally, Sulla decided that he needed to revenge himself upon his enemies, and settle land upon his troops. To accomplish this goal he began a period of proscriptions. The excesses of Cinna and Marius' regime paled in comparison to Sulla's efforts. Forty senators and 1,600 equites were proscribed. Their lands were used to settle Sullan veterans. The fortunes went to Sullan allies. They either were killed, committed suicide or fled. The matter of revenge settled, Sulla turned to the job of restoring the republic.
  
• He passed laws which sharply limited the traditional power of tribunes and forbade anyone who had been elected tribune from pursuing any other political office. He returned control of the jurys to the Senate (although he doubled the size of the senate and enrolled many equites in it). He limited the powers of provinical governors and regularized the cursus honorum. Then, in a stunning display of power, he retired in 80 BCE and spent the last year of his life enjoying the sun in Campania. Julius Ceasar later opined that he could not imagine why Sulla did it. But, no one dared move against him while he lived.

Rome Against Italy (Social Wars) / Study Guide for Gracchi to the death of Clodius / A City for Sale /

Marius and Sulla / Africa & Rome / Plutarch's Life of Sulla / Plutarch's Life of Marius /

Mithridates and the Roman Conquests of the East /