The Late Republic (133–31 bc)

He and Crassus now confronted each other, each demanding the consulship for 70, though Pompey had held no regular magistracy and was not a senator. Agreeing to join forces, both secured it.

During their consulship, the political, though not the administrative, part of the Sullan settlement was repealed. The tribunes’ powers were fully restored; criminal juries were divided between senators and wealthy nonsenators; and, for the first time since Sulla, two censors—both supporters of Pompey—were elected, who purged the Senate and, in compiling the registers, at last fully implemented the Italians’ citizenship. The year 70 also saw the prosecution of Verres (son of a “new man” and Sullan profiteer), who had surpassed the liberal Roman conventions in exploiting his province of Sicily. For future impunity he relied on his aristocratic connections (especially the Metelli and their friends), his fortune, and the known corruptibility of the Sullan senatorial juries. But Verres was unlucky. First, he had ill-treated some of Pompey’s important Sicilian clients, thus incurring Pompey’s displeasure; next, his case coincided with the anti-Sullan reaction of 70; finally, the Sicilians succeeded in persuading Cicero—an ambitious young “new man” from Arpinum hoping to imitate the success of his fellow citizen Marius by means of his rhetorical ability—to undertake the prosecution. Despite obstruction from Verres’ friends, Cicero collected massive evidence against him, presented his case to fit into the political context of the year, and obtained Verres’ conviction as an act of expiation for the shortcomings of the Sullan order.

The year 70 thus marked the loss of control by the Sullan establishment. The nobility (families descended from consuls) continued to gain most of the consulships, with the old patriciate (revived by Sulla after a long decline) stronger than for generations; the Senate still supervised administration and made ordinary political decisions; the system continued to rely essentially on mos majorum (constitutional custom) and auctoritas (prestige)—potent forces in the status society of the Roman Republic. The solid bases of law and power that Sulla had tried to give it had been surrendered, however. The demagogue—tribune or consul—could use the legal machinery of the popular assembly (hence such men are called populares), while the commander could rely on his army in the pursuit of private ambition. The situation that Sulla had tried to remedy now recurred, made worse by his intervention. His massacres and proscriptions had weeded out the defenders of lawful government, and his rewards had gone to the timeservers and the unscrupulous. The large infusion of equites into the Senate had intensified the effect. While eliminating the serious friction between the two classes, which had made the state ungovernable by 91, it had filled the Senate with men whose tradition was the opposite of that sense of mission and public service that had animated the best of the aristocracy. Few men in the new ruling class saw beyond self-interest and self-indulgence.

One result was that massive bribery and civil disorder in the service of ambition became endemic. Laws were repeatedly passed to stop them, but they remained ineffective because few found it in their interest to enforce them. Exploitation of the provinces did not decrease after Verres: governors (still with unlimited powers) feathered their own nests and were expected to provide for all their friends. Extortion cases became a political ritual, with convictions impossible to obtain. Cicero, thenceforth usually counsel for the defense, presented hair-raising behavior as commonplace and claimed it as acceptable. The Senate’s traditional opposition to annexation faded out. Pompey made Syria into a province and added a large part of Pontus to Bithynia (inherited in 74 and occupied in 70); the demagogue Clodius annexed Cyprus—driving its king to suicide—to pay for his massive grain distributions in Rome; Caesar, finally, conquered Gaul by open aggression and genocide and bled it white for the benefit of his friends and his ambitions. Crassus would have done the same with Parthia, had he succeeded. Opposition to all this in the Senate, where it appeared, was based on personal or political antagonism. If the robber barons were attacked on moral grounds, it was because of the use they made of their power in Rome.

Politically, the 60s lay under the shadow of Pompey. Refusing to take an ordinary province in 69, he waited for his chance. It came in 67 when his adherent Gabinius, as tribune, secured him, against the opposition of all important men, an extraordinary command with unprecedented powers to deal with the pirates. Pompey succeeded within a few months where Antonius and others had failed. The equites and the people were delighted because trade, including Rome’s food imports, would now be secure. Meanwhile Lucullus had driven Mithradates out of Anatolia and into Armenia; but he had offended Roman businessmen by strict control and his own soldiers and officers by strict discipline. Faced with mutinies, he suffered a reverse and became vulnerable to attacks in Rome. In 66 another tribunician law appointed Pompey, fresh from his naval victories, to take over supreme command in the East, which he did at once, studiously insulting his predecessor. He quickly defeated Mithradates and procured his death, then spent some time in a total reorganization of the East, where Asia (the chief source of revenue) was protected by three further provinces and a ring of client states beyond the frontier. The whole of the East now stood in his clientela (clientship), and most of it owed him money as well. He returned by far the wealthiest man in Rome.

Political suspicion and violence

Meanwhile Roman politics had been full of suspicion and violence, much of it stirred up by Crassus who, remembering 71, feared Pompey’s return and tried to make his own power impregnable. There was much material for revolution, with poverty (especially in the country, among families dispossessed by Sulla) and debt (among both the poor and the dissolute rich) providing suitable issues for unscrupulous populares. One such man, the patrician Catiline, after twice failing to gain the consulship by traditional bribery and intrigue, put himself at the head of a movement planning a coup d’état in Rome to coincide with an armed rising in Italy (late 63). Cicero, as consul, defeated these efforts and, relying on the doubtful legality of a Senate vote in support, had Catiline’s eminent Roman associates executed. Catiline himself fell in a desperate battle.

For Cicero—the “new man” who had made his way to the top by his own oratorical and political skill, obliging everyone by unstinting service, representing Pompey’s interests in Rome while avoiding offense to Pompey’s enemies—this was the climax of his life. Like his compatriot Marius, he had saved the state for its rulers: he had taken resolute action when those rulers were weak and vacillating; and, like Marius, he got small thanks for it. Pompey was miffed at having to share his fame with a municipal upstart, and eminent gentlemen could not forgive that upstart for having driven patricians to their death.

Pompey’s return was peaceful. Like Marius, he wanted recognition, not tyranny. He dismissed his army, to the surprise of Crassus and others, and basked in the glory of his triumph and the honors voted to him. But having given up power, he found himself caught in a net of constitutional obstruction woven by his politically experienced enemies and was unable to have either of his principal demands met: land for his veterans and the ratification of his arrangements in the East. It was at this point that Caesar returned from Spain.

Gaius Julius Caesar, descended (as he insisted) from kings and gods, had shown talent and ambition in his youth: he opposed Sulla but without inviting punishment, married into the oligarchy but advocated popular causes, vocally defended Pompey’s interests while aiding Crassus in his intrigues and borrowing a fortune from him, flirted with Catiline but refused to dabble in revolution, then worked to save those whom Cicero executed. In 63 he won a startling success: defeating two distinguished principes, he, who had not yet been praetor, was elected pontifex maximus—a post of supreme dignity, power, and patronage. Despite some cynicism among Roman aristocrats toward the state religion, its ceremonial was kept up and was a recognized means of political manipulation; thus priesthoods could give more lasting power than magistracies, in addition to the cachet of social success. Young Caesar was now head of the hierarchy. After his praetorship (62), Caesar successfully governed Spain, clearing a surplus sufficient to pay off his debts. On returning to Rome, he naturally hoped for the consulship of 59; but his enemies, by legal chicanery, forced him to choose between standing for office and celebrating a triumph. He gave up the triumph and easily became consul.

Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus

For his consulship Caesar fashioned an improbable alliance: his skill in having won the trust of both Crassus and Pompey enabled him to unite these two enemies in his support. Crassus had the connections, Pompey had the soldiers’ vote, and Caesar was consul and pontifex maximus. The combination (often misleadingly called the “first Triumvirate”) was invincible, especially since the consul Caesar had no scruples about countering legal obstruction with open force. Pompey got what he wanted, and so did Crassus (whose immediate need was a concession to the Asian tax farmers, in whose companies he probably had much of his capital). In return, Caesar got a special command in Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum for five years by vote of the people; the Senate itself, on Pompey’s motion, extended it to Transalpine Gaul. Marriage alliances sealed the compact, chief of them Pompey’s marriage to Caesar’s daughter Julia.

Caesar left for Gaul, but Rome was never the same; the shadow of the alliance hung over it, making the old-style politics impossible. In 58 Publius Clodius, another aristocratic demagogue, was tribune and defended Caesar’s interests. Cicero had incurred Clodius’ enmity and was now sacrificed to him: he was driven into exile as having unlawfully executed citizens in 63. By 57 Caesar’s allies had drifted back into rivalry. Pompey secured Cicero’s return, and Cicero at once tried to break up the alliance by attracting Pompey to the Senate’s side. Just when he seemed about to succeed, the three dynasts secretly met and revived their compact (56). Rome had to bow once more. In 55 Pompey and Crassus were consuls, and the contents of their secret agreement were slowly revealed. Caesar, whom his enemies had made efforts to recall, was prolonged in his command for five years and (it later appeared) had been promised another consulship straight after, to secure him against prosecution and give him a chance of another army command. Pompey was given a special command over all of Spain, which he exercised through deputies while he himself remained just outside Rome to keep an eye on the city. Crassus, who now needed glory and new wealth to equal those of his allies, was to attack Parthia with a large army. Thus the three dynasts would practically monopolize military power for the foreseeable future.

Cicero, among others, had to submit and was thenceforth their loyal spokesman. After his achievement of 63 he had dreamed of leading a coalition of all “right-thinking” men in Italy in defending the traditional oligarchy, but he had found little support among the oligarchy. He now used this fact to rationalize his surrender. His brother took service in Gaul under Caesar.

The dynasts’ pact did not even bring peace. Clodius, as tribune, had created a private army, and there was no state force to counter it. Pompey could have done it by calling his soldiers in, but the Senate did not trust him enough to request this, and Pompey did not wish to parade himself as an unashamed tyrant. Other men formed private armies in opposition to Clodius, and one Milo at last managed to have him killed after a scuffle (52). By then, however, Roman politics had radically and unexpectedly changed.

Political maneuvers

Julia died in 54, breaking the ties between Caesar and Pompey. Caesar pressed Pompey to renew them, but Pompey held off, preserving his freedom of action. Crassus’ Parthian campaign ended in disaster and in Crassus’ death (53). By 52 Pompey and Caesar stood face to face, still nominally friends but with no personal link between them and no common interests. Caesar, by conquering the whole of Gaul, had almost equaled Pompey’s prestige and, by his utterly ruthless way of waging war, Pompey’s wealth. Unlike Pompey, he used his wealth to dispense patronage and buy useful friends. At this point Pompey cautiously offered the oligarchy his support. It had much to give him that he wanted—control of the administrative machine, respectability, and the seal of public approval. Its leaders (even the intransigent young Cato, who had led opposition to the three individually long before their alliance and to their joint oppression of the state ever since) now recognized that acceptance of Pompey’s terms and surrender to his protection was their only chance of survival. Pompey at once turned firmly against Milo, who presented a political threat: if Milo could use the force that had killed Clodius to keep firm control of Rome, he—an ambitious man of known conservative views—might in due course offer an alternative and more trustworthy champion to the oligarchy. But he was not yet ready. Pompey forced them to make their choice at once, and they chose Pompey in preference. He was made sole consul and had Milo convicted by an intimidated court. Meanwhile he had made a marriage alliance with the noblest man in Rome, Quintus Metellus Scipio, who became his colleague in the consulship. The state had captured Pompey (or vice versa), and Caesar stood alone in opposition to both of them. During the next two years there were a series of maneuvers: the Senate leaders, with Pompey’s silent support, worked for Caesar’s recall, which would have meant his instantly sharing the fate of Milo; while Caesar and his agents in Rome tried to strike some bargain that would ensure his safety and his future in politics. Finally, Pompey declared himself, and, early in 49, the Senate voted to outlaw Caesar. Two tribunes supporting him (one of them Mark Antony) had to flee. By the time they reached him, Caesar had already crossed the Rubicon: he now had a cause.

Civil war

Pompey had exuded confidence over the outcome if it came to war. In fact, however, Caesar’s veterans were unbeatable, and both men knew it. To the disgust of his followers, Pompey evacuated Rome, then Italy. His plan was to bottle Caesar up in Italy and starve him out. But Caesar, in a lightning sweep, seized Massilia and Spain from Pompey’s commanders, then crossed into Greece, where a short campaign ended in Pompey’s decisive defeat at Pharsalus (48). Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was assassinated by a man hoping thus to curry Caesar’s favor. This was by no means the end of the war. Almost at once Caesar was nearly trapped at Alexandria, where he had intervened in a succession dispute; but he escaped and installed Cleopatra on the throne, for personal as well as political reasons. In Africa the Pompeian forces and their native allies were not defeated until Caesar himself moved against them and annihilated them at Thapsus. Cato, disdaining the victor’s pardon, committed suicide at Utica (46). In Spain, where Pompey’s name was still powerful, his sons organized a major rising, which Caesar himself again had to defeat at Munda (45) in the bloodiest battle of the war. By the time he returned, he had only a few months to live.