From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 (17 page)

War and piracy had kept up the supply of slaves in Italy. Though no very large scale rising had taken place in sympathy with either of the two Servile Wars in Sicily (pp. 11 and 46), there was much potential unrest. Further, the Romans had developed a greater taste for blood, and gladiatorial shows (
munera
) at both public and private funerals became more common and elaborate. One of the gladiators in a training school at Capua was a Thracian-born slave named Spartacus, who at one time had served as an auxiliary in the Roman army. In 73 he managed to escape with a handful of companions and seized Mount Vesuvius (which was not an active volcano until A.B. 79). Joined by runaway slaves and herdsmen, he quickly built up a considerable force with which he overran Campania and Lucania and defeated the forces that Rome sent against him. Realizing perhaps that he could not hope to secure complete or permanent control of Italy, Spartacus wisely wanted to withdraw north of the Alps so that his followers could scatter to their original homelands; but the Gauls and Germans refused and preferred to stay in Italy to plunder, so that Spartacus had to withdraw to S. Italy for the winter.

As his forces now numbered some 70,000, the Senate at last realized the gravity of the threat and sent both consuls of 72 against him. They were, however, defeated first separately and then united. Again Spartacus moved north and defeated the proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul at Mutina; but once again his men would not leave Italy and he was again forced to march south, perhaps with the good plan of crossing to Sicily. The Senate then turned to Crassus, whom they appointed commander-in-chief with six legions. After Spartacus had broken through some lines by which Crassus hoped to bar him in the toe of Italy, the People voted that Pompey, who had just returned from Spain, should be associated with Crassus in the command. Crassus, however, wanted to win his own war. In this he was helped by M. Lucullus, who landed at Brundisium on his way back from Thrace and drove Spartacus back on Crassus. As Spartacus’ forces insisted on dividing, Crassus was able to crush them in three successive engagements. Spartacus was killed and 6000 of his followers were crucified along the Appian Way. Some fugitives, who managed to escape northwards, were intercepted in Etruria by Pompey, who thus claimed credit for finishing the war. This boastful claim, which he made in an official despatch to the Senate, would not endear him to Crassus.

The revolt of Spartacus appears tragic, because the odds were too heavy against him. He was relatively humane and able. His achievement in creating, disciplining and arming from scratch forces that could defeat consular armies
was little short of a miracle. But he could not always impose his will on them. On occasion they naturally turned to pillage and savage vengeance, dissensions arose among their various leaders, and complete unity of command eluded him. Idealized by Marxist historians as the champion of the revolutionary masses, he was rather the product of local conditions and scattered support: he made no appeal to the slaves in the towns, but drew his strength from the downtrodden and unsettled elements in the countryside. He was not a political theorist going into action, but a courageous individual who fought for the personal liberty that was denied him by the ghastly conditions of his place and time. The revolt caused much loss and destruction to the country, but it may have taught some of the large landowners to treat their slaves with less inhumanity; some began to make greater use of free tenants (
coloni
). Beside this social and economic aspect, the political repercussions were startling.

The administration of the Senate, both at home and abroad, had brought it little credit, so that its stock was low when the armies of Pompey and Crassus approached the city. It might well have tried to play off one of these commanders against the other in view of their mutual jealousies, but they decided to work together and they prevailed. Both wanted the consulship of 70. The claim of Crassus was reasonable enough: he had held the praetorship, defeated a dangerous enemy, and through his great wealth was a representative of the business interests of Rome. But Pompey was not qualified: he was six years too young and had held none of the requisite offices. He also wanted a triumph, and made that an excuse for keeping his army together near Rome. Under these circumstances the Senate gave way: Pompey was granted legal dispensation from the requirements of the
lex Annalis
of Sulla, and was allowed his triumph. He also enjoyed wide popular support, since he had made it known as early as 73 that he favoured the restoration of tribunician powers and he may have been known to approve of some equestrian participation in the law-courts: in any case the Equites would support him as a political ally of Crassus. Thus both men were elected. Pompey celebrated his triumph (Metellus Pius also received a triumph for his share in the defeat of Sertorius, and M. Lucullus for victory in Macedonia), but Crassus had to be content with the lesser honour of an
ovatio
. Political
amicitia
, however, did not always involve personal friendship, and the coolness between the two consuls was such that each hesitated to disarm. Further, as long as their armies remained in being (and the exact duration is uncertain),
¹⁰
they will have enjoyed an additional visible means of coercing the Senate. Finally, however, they staged a public reconciliation and disbanded their forces.

Pompey and Crassus, who had both been lieutenants of Sulla, now proceeded to sweep away much that remained of his constitution. First they carried a measure which restored to the tribunate all the powers it had enjoyed before it had been muzzled by Sulla; whether Pompey could have had any idea that the restored tribunate might prove a means by which his own career might later be advanced, cannot of course be known. Then they revived the dormant censorship: the censors elected were the two consuls of 72, whose claim to fame was their defeat by Spartacus: they promptly ejected 64 members from the Senate.

Before the third main measure of the year was carried, Rome was shaken by a grave scandal: the prosecution of C. Verres, who had plundered and misgoverned his province of Sicily (73–1) on a shocking scale. Though Verres’ victims included some of Pompey’s Sicilian clients, he had many powerful friends in Rome, among them the orator Hortensius and three members of the Metellus family. In their need the unfortunate Sicilians turned for a prosecutor to the man who had dared to stand up to Sulla’s agent some ten years before (p. 69, n. 38), M. Tullius Cicero. This young man, who came from the municipal aristocracy of Arpinum, was seeking political advancement through the bar rather than the army, and he had reached the quaestorship in 75 when he served in Sicily. He now undertook their request to prosecute Verres. After various intrigues by his opponents, Cicero defeated in his Actio Prima an attempt to postpone the trial till 69 when two of Verres’ friends would be consuls, and a third would preside over the court. In view of the damning evidence that Cicero produced, Verres’ counsel Hortensius abandoned his brief and Verres went into exile. Cicero then published the Actio Secunda, which he had not had opportunity to deliver; it formed a terrible indictment of senatorial government in the provinces. Cicero thus became Rome’s foremost advocate, but he had also incidentally paved the way for further reform.
^10a

This was undertaken, not by Pompey and Crassus in their own names, but by a praetor, L. Aurelius Cotta, a brother of the liberal consul of 75. By the
lex Aurelia
the Senatorial monopoly of the law-courts, which Sulla had enacted, came to an end, and in future they were to be empanelled in equal numbers from three groups: senators, Equites and
tribuni aerarii
.
¹¹
As this last group had similar interests to the Equites, the new arrangement was a political victory for the Equites, who would control some two-thirds of each jury. Thus within ten years of his retirement the essential parts of Sulla’s reforms had been swept away: little remained but his reorganization of the courts themselves. His attempts to check tribunes and army commanders alike had failed, but although the restored tribunate might chastise the Optimates with whips, the military dictators chastised them with scorpions. The Senate had failed to rise to the opportunity that Sulla had given it, and the ultimate result was further civil wars in which the Republic perished.

For the moment there was a lull. Neither Pompey nor Crassus took a proconsular command, but both retired into private life after their consulship and apparently made no effort to get any of their supporters into the consulship for the next years. Thus Optimate control, despite the weakening of Sulla’s work, might appear to be re-established, though the
populares
were not silent: in the funeral oration which Julius Caesar delivered at the death of his aunt Julia, the widow of Marius, when the
imagines
of Marius were displayed, he emphasized his connections with this group. He also drew attention to his family’s alleged descent from the kings of Rome (from Ancus Marcius) and the gods (from Venus, through Iulus, Aeneas’ son).

Caesar’s early life had not been uneventful. When he refused Sulla’s order to divorce his wife Cornelia, Cinna’s daughter, he was forced to flee from Rome. Later he was pardoned by Sulla and then served in the East (80–78), where he gained the civic crown (a decoration like the V.C.) for saving the life of a soldier in the assault of Mytilene. After his return to Rome, where he displayed his oratorical gifts in the courts, he left (75/4) to study rhetoric at Rhodes. He was captured by pirates, and, according to the anecdote, after his ransom he returned to fulfil the promise that he had made to them during his captivity that one day he would crucify all his captors. He then helped some communities in Asia to remain loyal against the appeal of Mithridates (74), and received news that he had been chosen a member of the college of pontiffs. On his return to Rome he drew closer to the
populares
: he backed the agitation for restoring tribunician power, held a military tribunate (71?) and supported the
lex Plotia de reditu Lepidanorum
by which citizenship was restored to the followers of Lepidus who had joined Sertorius (possibly in 70). He served as quaestor in Spain (69 or 68) and on his way home he extended his political
clientela
by interesting himself in the desire of the Transpadanes for full citizenship (cf. p. 58). Then in 67 he lent his support to Pompey.
¹²

In 67 two tribunes became very active. C. Cornelius sponsored some measures to improve the administration of justice,
¹³
and A. Gabinius proposed that drastic action should be taken against the pirates whose raids were affecting the corn-supply of Rome itself. He moved that a man of consular rank, obviously Pompey was meant, should be given for three years an
imperium infinitum
by sea throughout the Mediterranean, and authority equal to that of all provincial governors for fifty miles inland, together with vast supplies of men, ships and money.
¹⁴
This proposal provoked a storm of protest in the Senate, where it was denounced by Optimate leaders such as Catulus and Hortensius and where Julius Caesar alone supported it. The Senate found two tribunes to resist Gabinius: Roscius Otho urged that Pompey should have a colleague, and Tribellius vetoed the bill. Gabinius, however, had
recourse to the tactics of Tiberius Gracchus when faced by Octavius, and threatened to depose Trebellius. Amid scenes of great disorder the
lex Gabinia
was passed, but with increased supplies for Pompey which now included 6000 talents, 500 ships, 120,000 infantry and the right to appoint 24 legates.

Meantime the conduct of the Mithridatic War by Lucullus had caused discontent in Rome. His enemies alleged that he was needlessly prolonging the war for his own glory, and his just settlement of the financial affairs of Asia angered the Equites. In 69 therefore the province of Asia was withdrawn from him, in 68 Cilicia likewise, and in 67 Gabinius carried a law to assign Bithynia and Pontus to the consul Acilius Glabrio. Then in 66, as Pompey had finished off his pirate campaign with lightning speed, a tribune C. Manilius proposed that Cilicia, Bithynia and Pontus and the command against Mithridates should be entrusted to Pompey, who should still retain the command and forces granted to him by the
lex Gabinia
. In view of Pompey’s spectacular success against the pirates, the Optimates could hardly prevail against Manilius when they had failed against Gabinius. Caesar supported the bill and Cicero, now praetor, gained further favour with the populace and Equites by delivering a speech (
Pro lege Manilia
or
De imperio Cn. Pompeii
) in which he advocated the appointment and lauded Pompey’s past achievements.
^14a
Thus Pompey received unprecedented powers and was little short of a monarch in the East. How he would use this power when he returned to Rome was a question that men began to ask before long with increasing anxiety, but in the meantime it was clear that the ramparts which Sulla had attempted to erect around the Senate were breached irrevocably by such action as the People had taken under the stimulus of the unfettered tribunes. Pompey might or might not remain loyal to the constitution, but even if he did, other tribunes might be used to elevate less scrupulous army commanders to positions of unassailable power.

One hundred years before the
lex Gabinia
Rome had dealt so harshly with Rhodes that this island-Republic lost its power to keep the eastern Mediterranean free of piracy: the increasing weakness of Egypt and Syria also helped the pirates. Rome made some half-hearted efforts against them between 102 and 100 B.C. (see pp. 47 and 49 f.), and Sulla possibly intended further action, but little was done until P. Servilius Vatia (
cos
. 79) was sent out to reduce Cilicia which was their main lair.
¹⁵
After a naval battle off the Lycian coast (77) he reduced Lycia and Pamphylia (76) and then by over-running Isaurica he opened up the way for an attack by land from the north on Cilicia Tracheia (75); but the outbreak of the Third Mithridatic War (74) halted these operations. In 74 the Senate tried to shut the pirates out of Cyrene by
declaring it a province (p. 77) and conferred a special command on M. Antonius (son of the man who had campaigned against the pirates in 102); after long preparations Antonius decided to concentrate on Crete, where he did little except suffer a defeat at sea. The pirates gained a few years’ respite when Rome devoted her attention to Mithridates, who was in alliance with them. This they used both to increase their organization and strength which was said to have reached 1000 ships, and to extend the range of their operations which now included the coasts of Italy itself. Then Q. Caecilius Metellus (
cos
. 69) was sent with three legions to reduce Crete, which he did with such cruelty (68–7) that the Cretans preferred to surrender to an officer sent by Pompey. After a tussle Metellus asserted himself and Crete was declared a Roman province.

Pompey’s appointment under the
lex Gabinia
created such confidence that the price of corn in Rome dropped immediately, and he was quick to justify the trust he inspired.
¹⁶
He divided the Mediterranean and Euxine into thirteen sections under legates, and took command of a mobile squadron of 60 ships. Cutting the area into halves at the ‘Sicilian Narrows’ between Sicily and Africa, he dealt first with the western area, which he swept clear in forty days by driving detachments of the enemy into the arms of the section commanders. He then turned to the eastern half: after a naval victory off Coracesium in Cilicia and the capture of the pirates’ mountain stronghold there, he brought the whole campaign to a victorious end within three months, and crowned his achievement by the moderation of his settlement. He settled many of these desperate and ruined men in Cilicia and elsewhere: the old man, whom Virgil (
Georgics
4, 125 ff.) described as passing the evening of his days keeping bees in an idyllic setting near Tarentum, has long been thought to be one of these ex-pirates from Cilician Corycus.