Notes on the Period from the Death of Sulla to Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon to begin another civil war.
 

Sulla died in 78 and new warlords were on the rise, such a Gnaeus Pompey, who had been born in 106. Pompey’s father had made vast wealth during the Social War (which he inherited) when the Italian allies revolted, but incurred a reputation for double-dealing. When Sulla returned in 83, Pompey raised army among father’s veterans and helped him conquer Italy. Although he was too young to hold official office, he managed to get a triumph from Sulla and made a marriage alliance with the party of Sulla.

But soon a new revolt broke out in Spain, where Quintus Sertorius, a former praetor, had gone (80), claiming to represent the ‘legitimate’ Roman government, and even created a ‘counter Senate’, and won the enthusiastic support of many Spaniards. Metellus Pius, sent to fight him, was defeated (77), and Pompey got his friends to have him sent to help Metellus. The Spanish war dragged out until 73 (when Sertorius was murdered), ending up as a guerilla campaign. Pompey defeated the last of his supporters in 72.

Meanwhile in Italy there had been a slave revolt, lead by Spartacus in 73, who was a Thracian slave. He had been a former gladiator and the revolt had started in gladiatorial schools at Capua. He managed to acquire a army of over 80,000 men. Spartacus had defeated 2 Roman armies and ravaged Southern Italy. This vast increase of the number of slaves, of course, was one of the threats to the Republic that the Gracchi pointed out. Spartacus’ army was finally defeated by Crassus, who was the richest man in Rome, a fortune he had made from the properties of all the people Sulla had put to death.

Pompey returned to Italy in 71, just in time to defeat what was left of Spartacus’ force, crucifying six thousand of them along the Appian Way, and tried to steal credit from Crassus for putting down the slave revolt. He joined forces with Crassus, was awarded with a second triumph, and his first consulship in 70, although, according to the Sullan constitution, he was too young, with Crassus as the other consul. Later these two will link up with Julius Caesar. Together they returned to the tribunes their legislative powers and, with Cotta, took some of the power over the courts from the Senate and gave it to the knights and the tribuni aeraii.

In 70 there was another important event. Cicero, a ‘new man’ of equestrian stock from Arpinum (where Marius came from) known for his oratorical ability, prosecuted Verres, the rapacious former governor of Sicily and member of the party of Sulla, who had died in 78. Thus 70 really marked the break up of the Sullan attempt at reform. Instead, all the bad aspects remained and were worse, for Sulla, with his illegal proscriptions which enriched his own party members, plus the use of Roman troops for civil war, had set a pattern for the future. Elections were now marked by wholesale bribery, demagoguery and violence.

Meanwhile there was still another problem: Mithridates, whom Sulla had fought. Nicomedes IV of Bithynia (in Asia Minor, on the Southern coast of the Black Sea, see map) in 74 had left his kingdom to Rome. Mithridates, who had contacts with Sertorius, thought the empire was vulnerable. After a lot of debate and feuding, the command against Mithridates went to Lucullus, a relative of Sulla’s. But, as often the case, the war did not go so well at first, and Lucullus, who was a good general, also was a harsh disciplinarian and also kept a firm control over Roman businessmen in the region.

In 67 Pompey got a special 3-year command to deal with pirates, whom he cleaned up in 3 months, a command that gave him huge powers. After that great success he returned to Rome and in 66 managed to be put in charge of the Eastern War which he quickly won, not only because of good generalship, but because Lucullus had really prepared the way ­ but Pompey got the credit. After Mithridates committed suicide Pompey reorganized eastern part of the Empire, adding Syria, Judea and Pontus. He new states in effect became his ‘clients’ and he returned to Rome the richest of men.

When he was preparing to return (62), all Rome was wondering; would Pompey use his vast number of troops and wealth to become, like Sulla, a virtual dictator of Rome? Pompey did not. He thought his achievements were so great that he could legitimately gain power, so he instead disbanded his troops, expecting the Senate to comply with his requests for land for his veterans and ratification of his eastern reorganization. But the Senate stubbornly refused his requests, lead by the intractable Marcus Portius Cato (not the one who got Carthage destroyed). This lead him to form a coalition with other rising leaders -- Caesar and Crassus.

The year before (63) there had been a rise in violence and revolutionary trends. Crassus was preparing his own forces, fearing Pompey. There was widespread bankruptcy, both by families who had been on the losing side of the civil wars, and by spendthrift elites who saw revolution as a way of getting rid of their debts and gaining money. One such radical was Cataline (see Sallust), who, after failing twice to become consul, planned to take over Rome in an armed uprising. He was supported by bankrupts who thought he could bring about a cancellation of debts, as well as those who thought they could profit from proscriptions -- like Sulla’s men had. Cataline’s plot was uncovered by Cicero, who had been elected Consul with Optimate support, and in a brief battle Cataline and his supporters were killed. Cicero, however, had made the mistake of executing some of Cataline’s supporters without trial, and this would cause him to go into exile later. Cicero would spend the rest of his life telling Romans how he had saved Rome, rather overstating his case.

Now the third man, Caesar. He came from an old patrician family that traced itself back to Iulus, son of Aeneas. He was allied early with the Marian faction, and Sulla had nearly had him killed. He was one of the most creative minds of his time -- an excellent general, a great orator, a very good writer. In the early 70’s he had fought in Asia minor and won some distinction. He was enrolled as a pontifex in 73. As questor in 69, put on lavish funerals for aunt and wife, stressing their descent from the gods, and also displayed a bust of Marius - which had not been seen since Sulla’s time. He supported Pompey’s plan to wage the eastern war. While Pompey was fighting, he became an associate of Crassus, who bankrolled his public career -- big time. In 63, although he had not yet been consul, he was elected as Pontifex Maximus, chiefly though lavish bribery. He also became praetor at this time. He apparently was a secret supporter of Cataline, but managed to hide this involvement, although he did oppose Cicero in the plan to execute some of his supporters without trial. After 63 he went to his province in Further Spain (a praetor was often given a province after his term of office) and was nearly stopped by his creditors. He was brutally successful in attacking independent tribes in Spain and looting them -- to pay off his enormous debts. He returned to Rome in 60 to enjoy a formal triumph and to become consul, but his enemies (principally Cato again) made his choose between enjoying the triumph and standing for consul, so he never got that triumph.

It was in 60 that Cato was leading the Senate in opposing the reasonable requests of Pompey, as well as Crassus’ attempt to give a break to the publicani (the knights who collected taxes) who had overbid on their contracts. Caesar was instrumental in bringing Pompey and Crassus together with him in what has been called the First Triumvirate. So, in a election that had an extraordinary amount of bribery, Caesar was elected, as well as one of Cato’s relatives, Bibulus. When he was frustrated in the Senate, Caesar passed his laws in the Assembly by violence, while Bibulus refused to attend, claiming he was ‘observing the omens.’ Thus in 59 Caesar managed to get Pompey and Crassus what they both wanted. Pompey marries Caesar’s daughter. At this point Caesar’s break with the Senate was near total. Caesar’s allies became consuls in 58, and Caesar went off to the province assigned him, Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum. Caesar left behind him at Rome a young, dangerous radical called Clodius, who managed a private army that used violence to keep the enemies of him and Caesar cowed. Clodius in 58 used his power to pass a law ‘against those who had illegally executed Roman citizens’, which forced Cicero for a time to go into exile in Greece. Clodius led a mob that destroyed Cicero’s house in Rome. But next year Pompey (with whom Cicero was closer) got him recalled by a law of the people and returned on August 57. After Cicero tried, unsuccessfully to break Caesar and Pompey apart, he was firmly put in his place and became something of a spokesperson for the two, but largely dropped out of politics, devoting to writing in a short amount of time a number of major philosophic works. Cicero was forced to defend Milo (who was prosecuted for the murder of Clodius) in 52, but could not conduct the defense as he wanted, because of the gangster tactics Pompey’s men.

Meanwhile, back to Caesar in his province. Due to a attempted migration of a Celtic tribe, the Helvetii, Caesar managed to start a major war which lasted 10 years and allowed him to add great new territories to Rome (he even invaded England), and to make a huge amount of money and get many soldiers as his personal supporters. He was particularly brutal in his conquest and looting of Gaul; Cicero says he killed a million Gauls and enslaved a million more. Caesar History of the Gallic War is a justification as well as a somewhat one-sided history of this conflict.

After a brief near meltdown of the triumvirate in 55, the real breakdown began in 54, the year Julia (Caesar’s daughter, the wife of Pompey) died. The next year Crassus, trying to equal the fame of Crassus, went off to fight the Parthians (in what is now Iraq) and was destroyed. Clodius was finally murdered, probably through the activities of Milo, another Pompey was jealous of Caesar and conservatives like Cicero eventually detached him from Caesar by offering the respect he craved, saying he could ‘save the republic’ from the despotic Caesar. Pompey even married a member of the household of the Scipioes, a powerful conservative family. Pompey caused the conviction of the conservative terrorist Milo (see above), which showed what might happen to Caesar if he allowed himself to be tried at Rome.

In 49 Caesar wanted to run for consul, and this normally required one to show up in person at Rome. Caesar needed to remain in some high office to avoid being prosecuted. But Pompey was pushed by the conservatives to thwart this, and finally, after much tortured negations, the Senate decreed that all the forces of the state should be put into Pompey’s hands, declaring that Caesar should give up command of his army. Of course, this would have been suicide for Caesar, so on Jan 10, 49, Caesar cross the Rubicon into Italy with his army, who was very loyal to him, and like Sulla, began a new civil war, which would kill off the republic for good.
 

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