The politics of the city were far from quiet in Pompey’s absence. The elections of 66 were marred by scandal: P. Autronius Paetus and P. Cornelius Sulla were returned as consuls, only to be prosecuted and convicted for ambitus. The event was unnerving in its implications for the soundness of Rome’s government, a circumstance that helps to explain why the consul who presided over the necessary by-election, L. Volcacius Tullus, refused to accept the candidacy of L. Sergius Catilina: Catiline had recently returned from Africa; his conduct as governor had been deplored in senatorial resolutions and his prosecution for extortion was certain. The new consuls were L. Manlius Torquatus and L. Aurelius Cotta.
Ambitious men were keen to win favor from the absent Pompey. A tribune of 66, C. Memmius (familiar from the poetry of Lucretius and Catullus), prosecuted Lucullus’ brother, unsuccessfully, and roused the People in opposition to Lucullus’ triumph: similar tactics delayed the triumphs of Q. Metellus Creticus and Marcius Rex. The great man’s enemies responded by prosecuting and convicting Manilius (whom Pompey did nothing to assist). In the midst of this sharp practice, it was rumored that Autronius and Sulla were plotting to murder the consuls, for whom a bodyguard was voted by the Senate (Dio 36.44.4).
Few aspiring men had taken more care to cultivate Pompey than Julius Caesar, who had supported the Lex Gabinia as well as the Lex Manilia. Though his origin was patrician, Caesar enjoyed greater splendor from his maternal lineage (his mother was an Aurelia Cotta). Unfortunately, his family had taken the Marian side in the 80s, a circumstance that Caesar overcame but which rendered him somewhat suspect to the Sullan establishment. Hence his energies in military service and especially in the courts (he was a gifted orator), all devoted to political advancement, an undertaking that required influential friends - like Pompey the Great. But young Caesar never intended to remain one of Pompey’s minions. As aedile in 65 Caesar plunged himself into debt in order to produce dazzling games, and he adorned the city with monuments to the victories of Marius, by means of whose popular symbolism he could distinguish himself from his rivals for the People’s affections. At the same time, he married a granddaughter of Sulla, Pompeia. He demonstrated similar versatility by securing the friendship, and the financial support, of Crassus, Pompey’s rival.
It is an unfortunate reality for the student of the late Republic that we are so poorly informed about Crassus’ actions. His importance is undoubted: he possessed wealth and clout enough that few had the courage to cross him. But he preferred to act behind the scenes, so clear sightings are few. Crassus was elected, with Catulus as his colleague, to the censorship in 65. Crassus brought with him an ambitious agenda: he wanted to enfranchise the inhabitants of Transpadana in Cisalpine Gaul and he sought recognition for Ptolemy Alexander’s bequest of his kingdom to Rome, a decision that would result in the annexation of Egypt. It was obvious that Crassus would have benefited personally from either scheme, in terms of electoral influence amongst the Transpadani or, in Egypt, owing to the appreciation of publicani (and Crassus himself was an active investor in the provinces).18 Catulus naturally resisted both policies, but the tribunes, and Caesar, supported Crassus’ idea of annexing Egypt. Cicero attacked the policy as unjust.19 And, in the end, both censors resigned in frustration.
Cicero was rapidly rising to prominence in the 60s. Though a ‘‘new man’’ from a municipality, his eloquence and his brilliant intellect, his strong connections within the equestrian order, all in combination with integrity and prudence, rendered him attractive to most segments of Roman society and compensated for his deficient heritage. He challenged corruption, he championed the tribunate and popular rights, he was a loyal friend of Pompey, he recognized the importance of the publicani, yet he did not fail to concede the primacy of the Senate and its traditional values.20 He was elected praetor for 66 at the top of the polls.
For all his talents, Cicero was elevated to the consulship as much by events as by his own industry. Electoral competition, keen and crowded, left losers, whose dignity and personal fortunes became dubious. Debt had become a serious problem. The sheer expense of political life led many senators into debts that could only be discharged by parting with the property on which their status as senators depended. And so they risked ruin. Economic activity in Rome was robust: senators and equestrians were centers of investment and lending; consequently, their difficulties affected other social groups, such as rural tenants and city shopkeepers and even the urban poor. And there was debt in some provinces as well. Romans were unkind and unsympathetic to debtors. The situation, then, was anxious, even potentially dangerous, but not susceptible to candid or rational analysis - or remedy.
But it was clear to all that sound leadership was necessary. The discontents of the poor must not become a source of disturbance or an invitation to demagogues, nor did straitened senators wish to be discovered for failures or lose their status. In 64 the Senate decreed the suppression of the city’s collegia, the neighborhood associations, religious and occupational, that organized the urban plebs into societies vital to their personal concerns but, under the circumstances, worrying to the elite. The censors elected in 64, after the abdication of Catulus and Crassus, were prevented from revising the Senate’s roster by tribunes fearful of their own expulsion: their success in blocking the revision indicates the extent of their support in the body itself, and the censors had no choice but to resign. Crisis, or even the appearance of crisis, had to be averted, especially from the perspective of Pompey’s enemies and rivals: the completion of his eastern assignment would soon make it possible for him to bring his army home to Italy; it was not entirely unreasonable for his opponents to fear a second Sulla in the person of Sulla’s hatchet man, and, even for those who were not frightened by that prospect, Pompey’s career had given ample evidence of his talent for exploiting public problems for his own advancement. Pompey was a remedy that many in the oligarchy will have wanted to avoid, which meant that the results of the consular elections were especially important.
There were three significant candidates in the consular elections for 63: Cicero, C. Antonius, and Catiline. Antonius, son of the distinguished consul of 99, had been marked by disgrace: evicted from the Senate in the census of 70, he had regained his station and had reached the praetorship in 66. Catiline, denied an opportunity to stand for the consulship in 66, was prevented from standing in the subsequent year by a prosecution for extortion. Cicero’s superiority to either of his rivals was as patent in 64 as it is today. Antonius and Catiline combined against the new man, each freighting their campaigns with emphasis on lineage, and Catiline at least enjoyed a reputation for physical courage. But, in the end, Cicero was returned at the top of the polls. Between his rivals there was little to choose, and Antonius defeated Catiline by a narrow margin.
Cicero’s leadership was immediately tested. A tribune, P. Servilius Rullus, proposed an agrarian law that would establish colonies and assign public lands both to veterans returning from the Mithridatic War and to the poor. There would be no confiscations; instead, public funds, including the much-anticipated spoil from the east, would guarantee fair purchases of privately held or occupied land. Cicero opposed the bill, in the Senate and in the Forum. His eloquence and his high standing with the populace combined to defeat it. This was, for many amongst the elite, the predictable benefit of sound leadership: the People trusted Cicero and could be persuaded by him, even when he was devoting himself to the most conservative interests of the prosperous classes, in whose debt the orator was well aware that he stood after his triumph over his noble rivals in the consular elections.
But more serious tests awaited. Catiline was again a candidate for the consulship. In this campaign, he postured as the champion of debtors, a category that included farmers, residents of the city, and members of the aristocracy desperate for a new beginning. He also engaged in ample bribery. But Catiline was again defeated. He began to turn to conspiracy as a means of restoring his lost dignitas.2 Other straitened aristocrats recollected Sulla and saw opportunities for themselves in civil disturbance. News of plotting came to Crassus, who informed Cicero. But there were other perturbations. In Etruria ruined peasants, many of them former Sullan troops who had been settled there, were organized by an ex-centurion, C. Manlius, and were preparing to march on the city.
Cicero informed the Senate of the danger posed by Manlius and the emergency decree (the senatus consultum ultimum; see also Chapter 12) was passed. Troops were dispatched to deal with the matter. Other deployments were made throughout the peninsula in order to guarantee security. It was only after the Senate had reacted to Manlius that Cicero denounced Catiline by delivering the first of his Catilinarian orations, which drove the bankrupt patrician out of the city. Catiline then took command of Manlius’ forces. Soon thereafter Cicero discovered that P. Cornelius
Lentulus Sura, an ex-consul who had been expelled from the Senate in 70 but now held a praetorship, was attempting to rouse into rebellion the Allobroges in Transalpine Gaul - who were themselves overwhelmed by debts and had gained nothing from their appeals to the Senate. An Allobrogian embassy in Rome had been approached; they had in their turn dutifully reported the matter to the consul. Cicero was able to arrest five conspirators, including Lentulus, who admitted the plot. These revelations created panic and inspired multiple accusations of complicity with Catiline.23
In December Cicero summoned the Senate to debate the fate of the arrested conspirators. The leading men were for executing them without trial, until Caesar, who was then praetor-elect, put forward an argument for imprisonment. After all, it was a violation of the law to put citizens to death without trial, nor was it clear that, in view of their arrest, such a course could be justified by reference to the senatus consultum ultimum.2 Many were affected by his speech, but the Senate was restored to its previous severity by M. Porcius Cato, who was then merely a tribune-elect. Cato was the great-grandson of Cato the Censor, whose rectitude he self-consciously emulated. Pertinacious and brave, his nobility and his traditional, uncomplicated politics more than compensated, amongst his peers, for his lack of intelligence.25 His denunciation of the conspirators carried the Senate, and Cicero, who alone was actually responsible for any executive actions, put the conspirators to death immediately. The city had been saved. were rendered to the gods, and Cicero was hailed as parens patriae, father of his country.
The rebellion in Italy was reduced early in 62. Catiline tried to make his way to Transalpine Gaul. He was blocked, however, by Roman troops, and his forces were crushed by an army commanded by Antonius. By the end of 61 the rebellion of the Allobroges was also suppressed.
There was an attempt by Pompey’s supporters to capitalize on the danger posed by Catiline. Pompey’s former legate, and his relation by marriage, Q. Metellus Nepos, a tribune in 62, proposed two bills, one summoning Pompey to Italy to assume the command against Catiline and another allowing him to stand for the consulship in absentia. Nepos’ proposals were supported by Caesar, but vetoed by Cato in an assembly marred by violence incited by both tribunes. The senatus consultum ulti-mum was passed, Caesar was suspended from his praetorship, and the Senate urged that Nepos be stripped of his office. Nepos fled to Pompey in what he deemed to be a gesture demonstrating the Senate’s violation of the tribunate (it was illegal for tribunes to be away from the city during their tenure of office). Caesar exercised greater prudence. He had already attracted senatorial opprobrium by standing, in the previous year, for the office of pontifex maximus, when it was vacated by the death of Metellus Pius. By doing so, he challenged the claims of two senior consulares, Servilius Isauricus (cos. 79) and Catulus. His popularity with the People and his enormous expenditure on bribery secured his election, which astonished - and offended - his seniors. His opposition to the execution of the Catilinarians had not enhanced his reputation for soundness. Now, his career in danger of crashing, Caesar played his part in calming the public and let himself be reconciled with the Senate, which restored him to his office. But the affairs of the city remained unsettled, a circumstance which prompted Cato, bulwark of the optimates, to carry a bill extending the benefits of the grain subsidy - with senatorial approval and at enormous public expense.
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