10b: Life During Wartime

The Roman Republic began the first century BC with a severe constitutional conflict. Gaius Marius and his client army had saved Rome from the Germanic tribes. Now he was back in Rome and working with the populares to win benefits for his client soldiers. Although Marius retired from the scene in 100 BC, Rome's next seven decades would be marked by bloody civil war. In 91 BC Rome's pigheaded unwillingness to share full Roman citizenship with its Italian allies started the Social War. Marius, Sulla, and other Roman generals found themselves fighting their former Italian comrades, now organized as the state of Italia. The Social War ended abruptly and peaceful due to an even bigger crisis in the East. In 88 BC King Mithradates VI of Pontus (in modern day Turkey) convinced the people of the Roman province of Asia to rebel. Given the Romans' brutal exploitation of its provincials, this was not tough. Mithradates's first step was a bold terrorist act: the murder of a reported 80,000 Romans (including Roman families, Italians, and slaves) in one night. The fact that Mithradates' plot was not stopped shows just how hated the Romans had made themselves. As the rebellion spread across the Aegean Sea to Greece, it dawned on the Romans that maybe the Italian allies deserved full citizenship after all. A hurried peace was made and Rome prepared to punish Mithradates.

The end of the Social War exposed a fatal flaw of the Roman Republic: what happened when two legislative bodies disagreed with each other? The Popular Assembly was summoned by a popularis tribune and awarded the command against Mithradates to the beloved Gaius Marius. Marius was glad to accept; he and his veterans had warmed up in the Social War and were ready to go. For its part, the Senatorial optimates chose one of the consuls for 87 BC: Lucius Cornelius Sulla, a patrician and once Marius's trusted lieutenant. Like Marius, Sulla had been commanding a client army in the Social War;. Sulla and his veterans were also warmed up and ready to go.  But the war versus Mithradates was not big enough for the two of them. Sulla and his army struck first and slaughtered Marius's supporters. For the first time (but not for the last), Roman troops  marched on Rome. Marius himself hid out until Sulla and his troops left to fight Mithradates. He then marched on Rome with his troops and threw a little bloodbath of his own. Marius was also elected consul an unprecedented seventh time, but died (fortunately) before he could harm the state further. But his supporters maintained their stranglehold on Roman government, even sending a second army to Asia with orders to defeat Sulla and Mithridates, in that order. These soldiers wisely defected to Sulla at their earliest opportunity.

Sulla believed that he had to fix Rome's problems first. Accordingly, he made a peace treaty with Mithridates, returned to Italy with his army, marched on Rome once more, and wiped out Marius's supporters. This accomplished by 81 BC, Sulla had himself proclaimed dictator "for the restoration of the Republic." His first step was to condemn his popularis enemies and confiscate all their property. The Senate asked him to publish the names of the condemned, so that those  not "on the list" could be freed from anxiety - a process called "proscription" or posting of names. Although his reign of terror was just as bloody as that of the hated Marius, Sulla tried hard to fix what he saw as the Roman Republic's problems. Sulla strengthened the Senate's power and legally established the minimum ages for holding Roman magistracies. He weakened the tribunate by making ex-tribunes ineligible for future magistracies, and quit giving free grain to the urban masses. His goal was to make sure that no Marius - or no Sulla, for that matter - would ever threaten Rome again. He decreed that no standing army could be stationed in or near Rome, and that governors and/or commanders could not lead their troops back to Rome without the Senate's express permission. This accomplished, Sulla lay down his dictatorship and partied himself to death in 79 BC.

Yet the problem presented by client armies would not go away. Rome had already endured three civil wars: the Social War of 91-88 BC, Marius and Sulla's war of 87 BC, and Sulla's war of 82-81 BC. The general Quintus Sertorius, a comrade of Marius, took over the provinces of Spain and held out until 72 BC, when he was at last put down by the young Sullan general Pompey. The Spartacus slave revolt of 73-71 BC was put down by the Sullan general Crassus with an assist from Pompey and his veterans. Crassus never did forgive Pompey for stealing his limelight. To reward these ambitious young generals and (hopefully) keep them from marching their client armies upon Rome, Pompey and Crassus were elected co-consuls for 70 BC. This was yet another lousy precedent, as Pompey was not just too young for the position, he had never been elected to any position on the cursus honorum. But Rome was now an empire in the full sense of the world, and war was no longer a matter of dropping the plow, picking up the sword, and kicking Etruscan butt. Rome now needed professional armies and experienced generals to fight its wars.  These generals had to be kept happy. And nothing made a general happier than a long-term grant of proconsular imperium: a great big blank check to fight Rome's enemies just as he pleased. In 67 BC, young Pompey, who now called himself Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Gnaeus Pompey the Great), received a five year grant of proconsular imperium to rid the Mediterranean of pirates. It took Pompey nine months. In the next year, another law gave Pompey proconsular imperium to defeat King Mithridates of Pontus once and for all, finishing the work Sulla had left. This Pompey accomplished by December 62 BC.

So far, Pompey had not abused either of his grants of proconsular imperium. Yet all Rome awaited his return with great anxiety. Rome had already endured another minor civil war in 63 BC when the popularis Catiline was caught plotting to overthrow the state. Catiline's backers were Crassus and Marius's ambitious (but impoverished) nephew, the pontifex maximus Gaius Julius Caesar. The mighty mouth of the consul Cicero was enough to put Catiline out of commission, but Crassus and Caesar were left free, hoping to gain leverage against their joint adversary Pompey. As far as the Senate was concerned, all of the potential Sullas needed to be put on the sideline, including Pompey, Crassus and Caesar. The great Roman powder keg was about to blow sky high.