Within weeks of Sulla’s death, the consul M. Aemilius Lepidus was agitating for restoration of the tribunes’ powers and of the dispossessed to their property, and amnesty for the proscribed. In summer 78, expropriated landowners in Etruria forcibly expelled Sullan veterans settled there. Dispatched along with his colleague, Q. Lutatius Catulus, to restore order, Lepidus openly sided with the previous owners; joined by many of the surviving proscribed, notably M. Perperna (praetor by 83), he marched on Rome toward year’s end, demanding a second consulship. In January, 77, the Senate, roused from vaccillation by L. Philippus (consul 91), voted the ‘‘last decree,’’ instructing Catulus to defend the City; about the same time, Pompeius Magnus was sent with special imperium to Cisalpine Gaul, where he quickly crushed and executed its pro-Lepidan commander, M. lunius Brutus. Meanwhile, in a fight near Rome, Catulus forced Lepidus to withdraw to Sardinia, where he soon died. Perperna then took his army to Spain, which was already slipping from the Sullan Senate’s grasp.63
Spain’s last Cinno-Marian commander, Q. Sertorius (praetor by 83), a ‘‘new man’’ from Nursia, had briefly been forced out by a Sullan army in 81; but with the support of Lusitanian tribes and Marian refugees in Farther Spain, he returned from Mauretania in 80. The next commander in Farther Spain, Q. Metellus Pius (consul 80), pursued the war vigorously and avoided defeat, but proved unable to cope with Sertorius’ guerrilla methods; by early 77, the latter controlled large parts of the province of Nearer Spain as well. At this juncture, Perperna arrived and joined forces with Sertorius. Thus in summer 77, both consuls declining the command, Pompeius was sent to Nearer Spain, again with special imperium as a private citizen. In 76 Pompeius and Metellus, cooperating closely, destroyed Sertorius’ ability to field large armies; by 75, he had lost Lusitania and was reduced to a small area in northern Celtiberia.64 Yet at the same time, Sertorius moved to take possession of the province of Asia.
For all Sulla’s generosity in 85, Mithridates’ relations with Rome had remained tense. Besides enduring unprovoked raids (the ‘‘Second’’ Mithridatic War) by the governor ofAsia, L. Licinius Murena, in 82, the king had not succeeded in having the treaty of Dardanus ratified. In consequence, he was secure neither in the possession of his kingdom nor in his status as a Roman ally, and by 75 had reached the conclusion that another war was unavoidable. Hoping to keep Roman forces tied down in Spain and to improve the quality of his own, he concluded an alliance with Sertorius: the king gave 3,000 talents (72 million sesterces) and a fleet of 40 ships, while Sertorius sent officers, under one M. Marius, to train the royal army in the Roman manner. Once Mithridates invaded Roman Asia, Marius was to take command as Sertorius’ acting governor. (The king received Bithynia and Cappadocia; how long he would have kept to the agreement about Asia is everybody’s guess.) The Civil War, outside Italy, thus continued - and merged into the Third Mithridatic War.65
Nicomedes IV of Bithynia died in 75, bequeathing his kingdom to the Roman People. Early in 74, the consul M. Aurelius Cotta went to the new province, lest Mithridates attempt to seize it; indeed, the king was mobilizing. Meanwhile the other consul, L. Licinius Lucullus (Sulla’s right-hand man during the First Civil War), contrived to have Cilicia assigned to himself, along with Asia and the overall command against Mithridates, war now being virtually certain. Lucullus arrived in Asia in the fall; Mithridates invaded Cappadocia and Bithynia, and defeated Cotta at Calche-don. He next laid siege to Cyzicus, yet unable to provision his forces by sea in winter and cut off on land by Lucullus, Mithridates abandoned the siege with heavy losses in spring 73. An expeditionary force under Marius ran into Lucullus’ fleet in the Aegean; Marius was captured and put to death. By autumn 73, the Romans controlled Bithynia, and Mithridates withdrew to Pontus. Lucullus followed and destroyed the king’s last army at Cabira in 72; Mithridates narrowly escaped to Armenia, King Tigranes being his son-in-law. In 71, Cotta returned to Rome, and Bithynia was added to Lucullus’ command.
To pay Sulla’s indemnity in 84, the cities of Asia had to borrow heavily from Roman bankers (the only ones with sufficient capital); with the exorbitant interest charged - 48 percent and up - by 70 the cities’ collective debt had risen sixfold. Now Lucullus put an end to this obscene exploitation, canceling interest payments that exceeded principal, and limiting rates; within four years, the province had paid off all debts. This was his finest hour; no other act did as much to buttress Roman rule in Asia Minor. Equestrian men of finance were not amused.66
A different crisis arose close to home in 73. A troop of gladiators led by a Thracian named Spartacus broke from its ‘‘school’’ at Capua; the news spread rapidly, and tens of thousands of slaves and impoverished free persons joined the uprising. Rome had fought two fully-fledged Slave Wars in Sicily (135-132, 104-101) within memory; now the Spartacus War engulfed all Italy as far north as Cisalpine Gaul. The slaves routed several Roman armies in 73 and 72; at which point M. Crassus (praetor by 73) was invested with special imperium and unlimited resources. In spring, 71 he utterly destroyed the Slave army in Lucania. Spartacus fell in battle; Crassus had 6,000 survivors crucified along the Via Appia, and was awarded an ovation.67
In Spain, Sertorius since 75 had been steadily losing control. As Spanish communities kept surrendering to Pompeius, he reacted with savage reprisals, against the natives and against Romans he suspected of secretly trying to strike a deal. Unable to repeat the spectacular feats of his early years and having alienated many of his senior officers, he was assassinated by Perperna late in 73. Perperna now assumed command, but before the end of 72, Pompeius had defeated, captured, and executed him. In spring 71, Metellus and Pompeius returned to Italy.
At age 36, Pompeius had held almost uninterrupted military command for 13 years, without election to a magistracy. Now he sought the consulship, six years short of the legal minimum age, without the prerequisite offices of quaestor and praetor. The Senate voted an exemption: they could not, in good conscience and sound mind, insist that he start at the bottom of the hierarchy. He was elected, together with Crassus, and on December 29, 71 celebrated his second triumph.69
Emasculation of the tribunate had not achieved the domestic tranquility Sulla had desired, and grown into a source of popular discontent instead; already in 75, the ban on ex-tribunes’ seeking higher office was lifted. Now Pompeius and Crassus - champions of the Sullan takeover - as consuls cooperated in dismantling the remaining restrictions.70 Sulla’s all-senatorial juries had performed discreditably; a law of the praetor L. Aurelius Cotta replaced them with mixed panels: one-third each senators, equestrians, and tribuni aerarii (possessing the equestrian property qualification, but socially distinct and inferior). The compromise proved viable, and ended the long struggle over the composition of the courts. For the first time since 86, censors were elected; they expelled 64 members from the Senate. Employing his revived powers, the tribune (A.?) Plautius sponsored a law - without known opposition - that recalled the surviving followers of Lepidus and Sertorius from exile, insofar as they were not among Sulla’s proscribed. In a final gesture of self-restraint, Pompeius and Crassus both declined their provinces on stepping down.
The year 70 thus closed on a note of political conciliation and reform. Three grave military threats - to Roman rule in East and West, to established society in Italy, and to the senatorial oligarchy as ‘‘restored’’ by Sulla - had been terminated, some of Sulla’s worst excesses rectified; and Pompeius Magnus, now a senator, had to some extent regularized his literally ‘‘outstanding’’ position in the state. To expect him to recede fully into the nominal equality of power and prestige shared by the nobles would be naive; a reasonable course of action lay in employing his talents in whatever exceptional situations the future might present, in working with him, not against him. More than anything, he craved the recognition and approval of the optimates whose regime he had helped secure by force of arms: to diminish or withhold that recognition would be foolish and irrational. Men, of course, can be both.
World History
