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Pompey: MiLiTaRy gENiUs first consulship - civil war pt.1  first consulship - returning from the 3rd Mithridatic war

70 BC - FIRST CONSULSHIP

🌇In 70 bc, Pompey and Crassus became consuls 

Remember he was very underage and 

🌇Their main feat was that they repealed basically everything Sulla did

🌇The tribunes’ powers were fully restored; criminal juries were divided between senators and wealthy non-senators; 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 - possibly angered urban poor 

🌇The system then continued to rely essentially on mos majorum and auctoritas  —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. MAKES IT EASIER TO CORRUPT

🌇In the ‘Life of Crassus’, Plutarch wrote that the two men differed on almost every measure, and by their contentiousness rendered their consulship "barren politically and without achievement, except that Crassus made a great sacrifice in honour of Hercules and gave the people a great feast and an allowance of grain for three months” 

🌇Towards the end of their consulship, when the differences between the two  were increasing, a man declared that Jupiter told him, to "declare in public that you should not suffer your consuls to lay down their office until they become friends". 

🌇The people called for a reconciliation. Pompey did not react, but Crassus "clasped him by the hand" and said that it was not humiliating for him to take the first step of goodwill. aw

🌇Plutarch wrote that Pompey "had determined to restore the authority of the tribunate, which Sulla had overthrown, and to court the favour of the many" and commented that, "There was nothing on which the Roman people had more frantically set their affections, or for which they had a greater yearning, than to behold that office [the tribuneate] again." Through the repeal of Sulla's measures against the plebeian tribunate Pompey gained the favour of the people.J

67 BC - MITHRADATES AND PIRATES

Pirates

🎃In 67bc, Pompey did lots of military things like how a military person does

🎃 PIRATES: A large network of pirates coordinated operations over wide areas with large fleets. According to Cassius Dio, many years of war contributed to this because many war fugitives joined them. Pirates were more difficult to catch or break up than bandits. The pirates pillaged coastal fields and towns

🎃So he was given the Lex Gabinia

🎃This was proposed by Aulus Gabinius, tribune of the Plebs. 

🎃It granted Pompey extraordinary proconsular powers in any region within 50 miles of the Mediterranean Sea and was introduced to allow Pompey to deal with pirates that were patrolling the Mediterranean Sea and preventing grain from reaching Rome.

🎃 He was allowed to have 200 ships, levy as many soldiers and oarsmen as he needed and collect as much money from the tax collectors and the public treasuries as he wished. The use of treasury in the plural might suggest power to raise funds from treasures of the allied Mediterranean states as well. 

🎃Such sweeping powers were not a problem because comparable extraordinary powers given to Creticus to fight piracy in Crete in 74 BC provided a precedent.

🎃 Cassius Dio claimed that Gabinius "had either been prompted by Pompey or wished in any case to do him a favour … and … He did not directly utter Pompey's name, but it was easy to see that if once the populace should hear of any such proposition, they would choose him." 

🎃Plutarch described Gabinius as one of Pompey's intimates and claimed that he "drew up a law which gave him, not an admiralty, but an out-and‑out monarchy and irresponsible power over all men"

the third mithradatic war

🏮Mithradates was still a huge big huge huge problem, yes he was. 

🏮 Lucullus was conducting the Third Mithridatic War (73–63 BC) against Mithridates VI the king of Pontus and Tigranes the Great, the king of Armenia. He was successful in battle; however, the war was dragging on and he opened a new front (Armenia)

🏮In Rome Lucullus was accused of protracting the war for ‘the love of power and wealth’ and of taking from royal palaces as if he had been sent, 'not to subdue the kings, but to strip them.’ Some of the soldiers were disgruntled and were incited by Clodius not to follow their commander. MUTINY

🏮Because of this, Mithradates won back some territory

🏮Pompey was sent to help, given the Lex Manilia

🏮It gave Pompey command of the forces and the areas of operation of Lucullus and in addition to this, Bithynia, which was held by Acilius Glabrio. 

🏮It commissioned him to wage war on Mithridates and Tigranes.

🏮 It allowed him to retain his naval force and his dominion over the sea granted by the lex Gabinia. 

🏮Therefore, Phrygia, Lycaonia, Galatia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Upper Colchis, Pontus and Armenia as well as the forces of Lucullus were added to his command. 

🏮Plutarch noted that this meant the placing of Roman supremacy entirely in the hands of one man. The optimates were unhappy about so much power being given to Pompey and saw this as the establishment of a tyranny. 

🏮They agreed to oppose the law, but they were fearful of the mood of the people. Only Catulus spoke up. The law was passed.The law was supported by Julius Caesar and justified by Cicero in his extant speech Pro Lege Manilia

🏮According to Cassius Dio, while this was happening, Pompey was preparing to sail to Crete to face Metellus Creticus (see campaign against the pirates).

🏮Lucullus was incensed at the prospect of his replacement by Pompey. The outgoing commander and his replacement traded insults. Lucullus called Pompey a "vulture" who fed from the work of others. 

🏮Lucullus was referring not merely to Pompey's new command against Mithridates, but also his claim to have finished the war against Spartacus

An overview from wiki about what Pomps did:

The Roman province of Bithynia was enlarged and became the province of Bithynia et Pontus (Pompey added the western part of Pontus).

Galatia was divided between Deiotarus ruling the Tolistobogii in the west, Domnilaus ruling the Tectosages in the middle, Brogitarus ruling the Trocmi in the east, and Pylaemenes ruling Paphlagonia in the north.

Capadocia was restored to Ariobarzanes (Pompey actually increased his lands).

The Roman province of Cilicia was also enlarged (Pompey added Pamphylia and several other inland areas). Cilicia kept its name.

The coastal strip from Gaza to the gulf of Issus was formed into a new Roman province. The province of Syria.

Deiotarus (the ruler of the Tolistobogii) was given an extensive kingdom east of Bithynia et Pontus; consisting of the eastern part of Pontus and Lesser Armenia.

Colchis was given to Aristarchus.

Commagene was given to Antiochus.

Osrhoene was given to Abgar.

The Amanus range was given to Tarcondimotus.

Tigranes was allowed to remain king of Armenia.

Sophene became independent of Armenia (but a client of Rome).

Gordyene became a client of Rome.

Hyrcanus was reinstated as ruler a high priest of Judaea (although much of the power in Judaea passed into the hands of Antipater).

his return from the east and cicero - 63 bc

🦀Pompey went back to Amisus. Here he found many gifts from Pharnaces and many dead bodies of the royal family, including that of Mithridates. Pompey could not look at Mithridates' body and sent it to Sinope. 

🦀Before he departed for Rome Pompey paid his army, the sum distributed amounted, we are told, to 16,000 talents (384,000,000 sesterces). He then travelled in greater pomp.

🦀On his way to Italy he went to Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. He decided to build a theatre in Rome modelled on that of this city. In Rhodes he listened to the sophist philosophers and gave them money. He also gave rewards to philosophers in Athens and gave the city money towards its restoration (it had been damaged by Sulla during the First Mithridatic War).

 🦀In Rome there were rumours that Pompey would march his army against the city and establish a monarchy. Crassus secretly left with his children and money. Plutarch thought that it was more likely he did this because he wanted to give credibility to the rumours rather than through genuine fear. 

🦀However, Pompey disbanded his army when he landed in Italy. He was cheered by the inhabitants of the cities he passed on his way to Rome and many people joined him. Plutarch remarked that he arrived in Rome with such a large crowd that he would not have needed an army for a revolution.

🦀In the Senate Pompey was probably equally admired and feared. On the streets he was as popular as ever. His eastern victories earned him his third triumph, which he celebrated on his 45th birthday in 61 BC, seven months after his return to Italy. 

🦀Plutarch wrote that it surpassed all previous triumphs. It took place over an unprecedented two days. Much of what had been prepared would not find a place and would have been enough for another procession.

🦀Inscriptions carried in front of the procession indicated the nations he defeated (the Kingdom of Pontus, Armenia, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Media, Colchis, Caucasian Iberia, Caucasian Albania, Syria, Cilicia, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Judaea and Nabataea) and claimed that 900 cities, 1,000 strongholds. 800 pirate ships and 1,000 pirates were captured and that 39 cities were founded. 

🦀Some also claimed that his conquests were adding 85 million drachmas to the 30 million drachmas of the public revenues from taxes and that he brought 20,000 drachmas in silver and gold. 

🦀The captives led in the triumph were the leaders of the pirates, the son of Tigranes the Great with his wife and daughter, a wife of Tigranes the Great, a sister and five children of Mithridates VI, Aristobulus II, the king of the Jews, and hostages from the Caucasian Albanians, the Caucasian Iberians and the king of Commagene.

🦀The tribune Rullus wanted to make a land bill to give the poor land - yet Cicero spoke out agaisnt it. 

🦀This is most likely because Cicero knew it would make Pompey trying to give his veterans land harder. 

🦀Cicero exaggerated the power which the land commission would be given by the bill. He described the commission as "... ten Kings of the treasury, of the revenues, of all provinces, of the whole Republic, of the kingdoms allied with us, the free nations confederate with us - in fact, ten Lords of the world are to be set up under the pretence and name of an agrarian law."

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another note ^-^

if the general event is, for example, more concerned with the time line of Cicero than Pompey, then it will go into Cicero posts instead of Pompey Posts.

This is just to keep everything streamlined so before you freak out just check the rest of the posts (i.e Caesar’s contribution to Catalinarian conspiracy will be in Cicero area) 

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Consulships to Civil war

Now this will be a very long affair

Most likely now will be split into 2/3 parts per person 

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Crassus: Mr Uncle Rich Money Bags Krabs 80-70bc

BACKSTORY

🦖Crassus was a member of the gens Licinia, an old and highly respected plebeian family in Rome

🦖Crassus' father and younger brother were either slain or took their own lives in Rome, in winter 87–86 BC, when being hunted down by the supporters of Marius, following their victory in the bellum Octavianum

🦖Dives cognomen of the Crassi Divites means rich, and since Marcus Crassus,  was renowned for his enormous wealth, this has contributed to hasty assumptions that his family belonged to the Divites. 

🦖No ancient source accords him or his father the Dives cognomen; in fact, one was informed that his great wealth was acquired rather than inherited, and that he was raised in poor circumstances. 

YOUTH AND CIVIL WAR

🐲After the Marian purges and the subsequent sudden death of Marius, the surviving consul Cinna (father-in-law of Julius Caesar) imposed proscriptions on those Roman senators and equestrians who had supported Sulla in his 88 BC march on Rome and overthrow of the traditional Roman political arrangements.

🐲Cinna's proscription forced Crassus to flee to Hispania. He stayed in Spain from 87 to 84 BC.

🐲He sailed his army to Greece and joined Sulla "with whom he stood in a position of special honour". During Sulla's second civil war, Crassus and  Pompey fought a battle in the plain of Spoletium, and killed some 3,000 of the men of Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, the leader of the Marian forces. 

🐲During the decisive battle outside the Colline Gate Crassus commanded the right flank of Sulla's army. After almost a day of fighting the battle was not going very well for Sulla, his own centre was being pushed back and was on the verge of collapse when he got word from Crassus that he had comprehensively crushed the enemy before him.

🐲Crassus wanted to know if Sulla needed a hand, or could his men leave. Sulla told him to advance on the enemy's centre. Sulla also used the news to stiffen the resolve of his own troops. 

🐲The battle still lasted till the next morning, but in the end Sulla emerged victorious. And so Sulla became dictator of Rome. Sulla's victory and Crassus contribution in achieving it put Crassus in a key position. Sulla was loyal towards his allies and Crassus had been a very loyal ally.

CRASSUS AND SPARTACUS

🛀 Crassus was elected praetor in 73 BC and pursued the cursus honorum.

🛀During the Third Servile War, or Spartacus revolt (73-71 BC), Crassus offered to equip, train, and lead new troops, at his own expense, after several legions had been defeated and their commanders killed in battle. Crassus was sent into battle against Spartacus by the Senate.

🛀Some time later, when the Roman armies led by Pompey and Varro Lucullus were recalled to Italy in support of Crassus, Spartacus decided to fight rather than find himself and his followers trapped between three armies, two of them returning from overseas action. 

🛀In this last battle, the Battle of the Silarius River, Crassus gained a decisive victory, and captured six thousand slaves alive. During the fighting, Spartacus attempted to kill Crassus personally, slaughtering his way toward the general's position, but he succeeded only in killing two of the centurions guarding Crassus.

🛀Spartacus himself is believed to have been killed in the battle, although his body was never recovered. The six thousand captured slaves were crucified along the Via Appia by Crassus' orders. 

🛀At his command, their bodies were not taken down afterwards but remained rotting along Rome's principal route to the South

🛀Crassus effectively ended the Third Servile War in 71 BC. In Plutarch's account, Crassus "had written to the senate that they must summon Lucullus from Thrace and Pompey from Spain, but he was sorry now that he had done so, and was eager to bring the war to an end before those generals came. He knew that the success would be ascribed to the one who came up with assistance, and not to himself."

 🛀He decided to attack a splinter group of rebels. After this Spartacus withdrew to the mountains. Pompey had arrived from Hispania with his veterans and was sent to provide reinforcements. Crassus hurried to seek the final battle, which he won. Pompey arrived in time to deal with the disorganized and defeated fugitives. Pompey wrote to the Senate that "indeed, Crassus had conquered the slaves, but that he himself had extirpated the war".

🛀"Crassus, for all his self-approval, did not venture to ask for the major triumph, and it was thought ignoble and mean in him to celebrate even the minor triumph on foot, called the ovation,’ nor did he wish to be honoured for subduing slaves.

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Caesar: I got captured by pirates lol  80-59bc

BACKSTORY

🍄 Born to a patrician family, gens iulia, which claimed descent from Iulus, son of Aeneas, also the grandson of the goddess Venus.

 🍄The Iulii were of Alban origin, mentioned as one of the leading Alban houses, settling in Rome following the destruction of Alba Longa. 

🍄The Iulii Caesares were not that politically influential, although they had enjoyed some resurgence of their political fortunes in the early 1st century BC. Caesar's father, also called Gaius Julius Caesar, governed the province of Asia, Julia, Caesar's aunt, married Gaius Marius (the elder). 

🍄He was 16/17 when the civil war between  Marius and Sulla arose. Both sides carried out proscriptions of their political opponents whenever they were on the rise. 

🍄Marius and his ally Cinna were in control of the city when Caesar was nominated as the new Flamen Dialis (high priest of Jupiter),and he was married to Cinna's daughter Cornelia.

🍄Following Sulla's victory,Caesar's relation to Marius made him a target for the proscriptions. He was stripped of his inheritance, his wife's dowry, and his priesthood, but he refused to divorce Cornelia and was forced to go into hiding. 

🍄The threat against him was lifted by the intervention of his mother's family, which included supporters of Sulla, and the Vestal Virgins.

🍄He showed his military prowess from a young age. Caesar felt that it would be much safer away Sulla, incase the Dictator change his mind, so he left Rome and joined the army, serving under Minucius  in Asia and Servilius Isauricus in Cilicia. He served with distinction, winning the Civic Crown for his part in the Siege of Mytilene.

 🍄He went on a mission to Bithynia to secure the assistance of King Nicomedes's fleet, but he spent so long at Nicomedes' court that rumours arose of an affair with the king, which Caesar vehemently denied for the rest of his life (Queen of Bithynia) 

🍄On the way across the Aegean Sea,Caesar was kidnapped by pirates and held prisoner. He maintained an attitude of superiority throughout his captivity. The pirates demanded a ransom of 20 talents of silver, but he insisted that they ask for 50. 

🍄After the ransom was paid, Caesar raised a fleet, pursued and captured the pirates, and imprisoned them. 

🍄He had them crucified on his own authority, as he had promised while in captivity—a promise that the pirates had taken as a joke. As a sign of leniency, he first had their throats cut.

HIS EARLY POLITICAL CAREER (STARTS 78BC)

🚀On his return to Rome, he was elected military tribune, a first step in a political career. He was elected quaestor for 69 BC, when organising his aunt Julia’s funeral procession, he included images of her husband Marius in the funeral procession, unseen since the days of Sulla.

🚀His wife Cornelia also died that year. Caesar went to serve his quaestorship in Hispania after her funeral, in the spring or early summer of 69 BC. 

🚀While there, he is said to have encountered a statue of Alexander the Great, and realised with dissatisfaction that he was now at an age when Alexander had the world at his feet, while he had achieved comparatively little < big big sad.

🚀On his return in 67 BC, he married Pompeia, a granddaughter of Sulla (signifying end of warring faction), whom he later divorced in 61 BC after her embroilment in the Bona Dea scandal (with Clodius). In 65 BC, he was elected curule aedile, and staged great games that won him further attention and popular support

🚀In 63 BC, he ran for election to the post of Pontifex Maximus, chief priest of the Roman state religion. He ran against two powerful senators. Accusations of bribery were made by all sides. 

🚀Caesar won the priesthood, despite his opponents' greater experience and standing. 

🚀Cicero was consul that year, and he exposed Catiline's conspiracy to seize control of the republic; several senators accused Caesar of involvement in the plot.

🚀After serving as praetor in 62 BC, Caesar was appointed to govern Hispania Ulterior as propraetor, though some sources suggest that he held proconsular powers.

🚀In 61, the trial of the disgraced Clodius began - where Caesar had to change him (since he was pont.max) from patrician to plebeian 

🚀He was still in considerable debt and needed to satisfy his creditors before he could leave. He turned to  Crassus, the richest man in Rome. Crassus paid some of Caesar's debts and acted as guarantor for others, in return for political support in his opposition to the interests of Pompey. < Sugar baby

🚀To avoid becoming a private citizen and thus open to prosecution for his debts, Caesar left for his province before his praetorship had ended.

🚀In Spain, he conquered two local tribes and was hailed as ‘imperator’ by his troops; he reformed the law regarding debts, and completed his governorship in high esteem.

🚀After a great victory, soldiers in the field would proclaim their commander imperator, an acclamation necessary for a general to apply to the Senate for a triumph. 

🚀However, he also wanted to stand for consul. If he were to celebrate a triumph, he would have to remain a soldier and stay outside the city until the ceremony, but to stand for election he would need to lay down his command and enter Rome as a private citizen. 

🚀He could not do both in the time available. He asked the senate for permission to stand in absentia, but Cato blocked the proposal. Faced with the choice between a triumph and the consulship, Caesar chose the consulship.

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Cicero: ‘whiny’ having a drawn-out, high-pitched, unpleasant sound. 80-63bc

BACKSTORY

🦋Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in Arpinum in 106 bc. He was a Novus Homo and belonged to the gens cornelia, apparently.

🦋Cicero's cognomen, or personal surname, comes from the Latin for chickpea, cicer. 

🦋Plutarch explains that the name was originally given to one of Cicero's ancestors who had a cleft in the tip of his nose resembling a chickpea. However, it is more likely that Cicero's ancestors prospered through the cultivation and sale of chickpeas. 

EARLY LEGAL CAREER

🧞‍♂️Cicero wanted to pursue a public career in politics along the steps of the Cursus honorum. 

🧞‍♂️In 90–88 BC, he served both Pompeius Strabo and Lucius Cornelius Sulla as they campaigned in the Social War, though he had no taste for military life, being an intellectual first and foremost.

🧞‍♂️The first extant speech is a private case from 81 BC (the pro Quinctio), delivered when Cicero was aged 26, though he refers throughout to previous defenses he had already undertaken.

🧞‍♂️His first major public case, of which a written record is still extant, was his 80 BC defense of Sextus Roscius on the charge of patricide.

🧞‍♂️Taking this case was a courageous move for Cicero; patricide was considered an appalling crime, and the people whom Cicero accused of the murder, the most notorious being Chrysogonus, were favorites of Sulla.

 🧞‍♂️At this time it would have been easy for Sulla to have the unknown Cicero murdered. Cicero's defense was an indirect challenge to the dictator Sulla, and on the strength of his case, Roscius was acquitted. 

🧞‍♂️Cicero's case in the Pro Roscio Amerino was divided into three parts.

🧞‍♂️The first part detailed exactly the charge brought by Ericius. Cicero explained how a rustic son of a farmer, who lives off the pleasures of his own land, would not have gained anything from committing patricide because he would have eventually inherited his father's land anyway. 

🧞‍♂️The second part concerned the boldness and greed of two of the accusers, Magnus and Capito. Cicero told the jury that they were the more likely perpetrators of murder because the two were greedy, both for conspiring together against a fellow kinsman and, in particular, Magnus, for his boldness and for being unashamed to appear in court to support the false charges.

🧞‍♂️The third part explained that Chrysogonus had huge political power, and the accusation was successfully made due to that power. Even though Chrysogonus may not have been what Cicero said he was, through rhetoric Cicero successfully made him appear to be a foreign freed man who prospered by devious means in the aftermath of the civil war. Cicero said that it showed what kind of a person he was and that something like murder was not beneath him

EARLY POLITICAL CAREER

🦕His first office was as one of the twenty annual quaestors, with a traditional emphasis on administration and rigorous accounting of public monies under the guidance of a senior magistrate or provincial commander

🦕Cicero served as quaestor in western Sicily in 75 BC and demonstrated honesty and integrity in his dealings with the inhabitants. 

🦕As a result, the grateful Sicilians asked Cicero to prosecute Gaius Verres, a governor of Sicily, who had badly plundered the province. His prosecution of Gaius Verres was a great forensic success

🦕Governor Gaius Verres hired the prominent lawyer of a noble family Quintus Hortensius (who was consul elect). After a lengthy period in Sicily collecting testimonials and evidence and persuading witnesses to come forward, Cicero returned to Rome and won the case in a series of dramatic court battles. 

🦕His unique style of oratory set him apart from the flamboyant Hortensius. On the conclusion of this case, Cicero came to be considered the greatest orator in Rome. 

🦕The view that Cicero may have taken the case for reasons of his own is viable. Hortensius was, at this point, known as the best lawyer in Rome; to beat him would guarantee much success and the prestige that Cicero needed to start his career. 

🦕Cicero's oratorical skill is shown in his character assassination of Verres and various other techniques of persuasion used on the jury. One such example is found in the speech In Verrem I, where he states "with you on this bench, gentlemen, with Marcus Acilius Glabrio as your president, I do not understand what Verres can hope to achieve".

🦕Cicero was both an Italian eques and a novus homo, but more importantly he was a Roman constitutionalist. 

🦕His social class and loyalty to the Republic ensured that he would "command the support and confidence of the people as well as the Italian middle classes". 

🦕The optimates faction never truly accepted Cicero; and this undermined his efforts to reform the Republic while preserving the constitution. 

🦕He successfully ascended the cursus honorum, holding each magistracy at or near the youngest possible age: quaestor in 75 BC (age 30), aedile in 69 BC (age 36), and praetor in 66 BC (age 39). 

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Pompey: the adulescentulus carnifex. 87-71bc

BACKSTORY

☄️Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus was born in 106bc to the gens Pompeia - his father being Strabo who was a commander in bellum socii UNDER SULLA and the first person in his gens to be consul.

☄️Strabo died suddenly in 87bc, leaving the 18 year-old Pompey with all of his money and forces.

☄️Sulla was impressed by Pompey’s help during the Sullan civil wars and therefore did not MAKE Pompey disband his forces after 

SICILY, AFRICA, LEPIDUS (81 BC)

AFRICA

💥The survivors of the Marians, those who were exiled after they lost Rome and those who escaped Sulla's prescriptions, were given refuge on Sicily by Marcus Perpenna Vento. 

💥Papirius Carbo had a fleet there, and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus had forced entry into the Roman province of Africa. 

💥ERGO Sulla sent Pompey to Sicily with a large force to fuck them up

💥Pompey went to africa to fight the fled Ahenobarbus and ended up subduing Numidia in forty days 

💥When he returned to the Roman province of Africa, Sulla ordered him to send back the rest of his troops and remain there with one legion to wait for his successor. This turned the soldiers who had to stay behind against Sulla.

💥Pompey said that he would rather kill himself than go against Sulla. When Pompey returned to Rome everyone welcomed him.

💥To outdo them, Sulla saluted him as Magnus (the Great), after Pompey's boyhood hero Alexander the Great, and ordered the others to give him this cognomen. 

💥Pompey DEMANDED a triumph for his huge achievements in Africa, however, these were only given to praetors and consuls. 

💥Sulla said hell no but then Pompey said that more people worshiped the rising sun than the setting sun, implying that his power was on the increase, while Sulla's was on the wane [Plutarch] 

💥His soldiers, who had not received as much of a share of the spoils as they expected, threatened a mutiny, but Pompey said that he did not care and that he would rather give up his triumph than give them their booty

 💥Pompey went ahead with his extra-legal triumph. Sulla was annoyed, but did not want to hinder his career and kept quiet

LEPIDUS

🍑After Sulla's death (78 BC)  Lepidus tried to revive the fortunes of the populares. He became the new leader of the reform movement silenced by Sulla. 

🍑He tried to prevent Sulla from receiving a state funeral and from having his body buried in the Campus Martius. Pompey opposed this. 

🍑In 77 BC, when Lepidus had left for his proconsular command (he was allocated the provinces of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul), his political opponents moved against him. 

🍑He was recalled from his proconsular command. When he refused to return they declared him an enemy of the state via an SCU. 

🍑Catulus (consul) and Claudius interrex) persuaded Pompey, who had several legions' worth of veterans in Picenum ready to take up arms at his command, to join their cause. 

🍑Pompey, invested as a legate with propraetorial (hadn’t even been praetor and was way too young according to the Lex Villia Annalis’s guideline of 40) powers, quickly recruited an army from among his veterans and threatened Lepidus, who had marched his army to Rome. 

SERTORIAN WAR AND THE THIRD SERVILE WAR

SERTORIAN WAR

☢️Quintus Sertorius, the last survivor of the Marian faction, waged an effective guerrilla war against the officials of the Sullan regime in Hispania.

☢️Pompey, who had just successfully assisted the Catulus in putting down the rebellion of Lepidus, asked to be sent to reinforce Metellus. 

☢️He had (illegally) not disbanded his legions after squashing the rebels and remained under arms near the city with various excuses until he was ordered to Hispania by the senate on a motion of Lucius Philippus. 

☢️A senator asked Philippus if he "thought it necessary to send Pompey out as proconsul. 'No indeed!' said Philippus, 'but as proconsuls,' implying that both the consuls of that year were good for nothing." BIG OOF

☢️Pompey’s Proconsular command was extra-legal. 

THIRD SERVILE WAR

🦞While Pompey was in Hispania the rebellion of the slaves led by Spartacus (the Third Servile War, 73–71 BC) broke out.

🦞Crassus was given eight legions and led the final phase of the war. He asked the senate to summon Lucullus and Pompey back from the Third Mithridatic War and Hispania respectively to provide reinforcements. 

🦞"but he was sorry now that he had done so, and was eager to bring the war to an end before those generals came. He knew that the success would be ascribed to the one who came up with assistance, and not to himself."

🦞The senate decided to send Pompey who had just returned from Hispania. On hearing this, Crassus hurried to engage in the decisive battle, and routed the rebels. Pompey cut to pieces 6,000 fugitives from the battle.

🦞Pompey was granted a second triumph for his victory in Hispania, which, again, was extra-legal.

SUMMARY: POMPEY WAS A VERY POWERFUL ZOOMER

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Pompey, Caesar, Crassus, Cicero

this part of the blog will document their young lives (lets say up to their first consulships) 

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Sulla pt. 3  Sulla’s reforms

When Sulla was dictator, 24 fasces were held in front of him as dictator, the same amount that was held before the ancient kings.

He required that a tribune must seek permission from the Senate before introducing a law. 

He got rid of the tribune’s all-important veto power. 

Sulla also stripped the office of its lure and prestige. He decreed that anyone who held the magistracy of tribune should never hold any other magistracy afterward.

He forbade anyone to hold the praetorship until after he had first been a quaestor or to be elected consul before he had been a praetor. 

He decreed that two years must pass in between magistracies.

 He expanded the number of quaestors to twenty and praetors to eight.

 Because there were a greater number of magistrates under Sulla’s reforms, this led to governors not needing to stay in their province long because there were now ample magistrates to fill a vacancy in a province after his one-year term ended. 

Because the Senate had been significantly thinned out by war, not to mention by Sulla’s own proscriptions, he doubled the roll of the Senate from 300 to 600 (he had to fill 400 spaces) 

Sulla reinstated senatorial power into the courts. Court juries were wielded as an extremely powerful tool at the time. A Populare wanted the jury to be made up of equestrians and an Optimate wanted a jury of senators

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Sulla pt.2 Marius’s reforms

Marius’s reforms are hugely important to the politics of the late republic

The pre-Marius Roman army was organised as a militia, with the necessary consuls charged with the duty of recruiting an army from the eligible citizens of the Republic.

 The soldiers would serve the duration of the campaign/war, and then be released back into the populus. To be eligible to serve in this Roman army the citizens had to satisfy stringent property and census requirements, as well as providing their own weaponry, supplies and armour.

This doesn’t excatly make being a soldier seem super fun 

Until the last decade of the 2nd century BC, the eligibility requirements to become a Roman soldier in the service of the Republic were very strict:

He had to be a member of the fifth census class or higher (the adsidui, or "tax-payers").

He had to own property worth 3500 sesterces in value.

He had to supply his own armaments.

Basically he couldn’t be ‘scum of the earth’

Marius had no troops with which to conduct the war in Africa against Jurgurtha, as the eligible men which he could recruit for the army were severely depleted by previous campaigns. It was becoming clear that a consequence of having a temporary army based on volunteers with rigid eligibility requirements was a limited availability of recruits and short-term military shortages. 

To overcome that problem, he introduced a number of reforms.

The foremost of the Marian reforms was the inclusion of the Roman landless masses, the ‘capite censi’, men who had no property to be assessed in the census. 

Instead, they were "counted by the head". The men were now among the ranks of those who could be recruited even though they owned no significant property.

Because the poor citizens could not afford to purchase their own weapons and armor, Marius arranged for the state to supply them with arms. 

He offered the disenfranchised masses permanent employment for pay as professional soldiers and the opportunity to gain spoils on campaign

The second important reform implemented by Marius was the formation of a standing army. Marius was critical of the voluntary organisation of the army which disbanded after temporary service. 

Also he introduced career soldiers, with a contracted employment and standardized training and equipment. 

Drilling and training took place all year round, even in times of peace, not just when war threatened. 

The third reform that Marius was able to introduce was legislation that offered retirement benefits in the form of land grants.

 Members of the ‘head count’ who had completed their service would be given a pension by their general and a plot of land in the conquered region on which to retire

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Sulla pt.1 (out of 3)

Sulla was part of the Gens Cornelia 

A summary of Sulla and Marius 

Sulla and Marius’s happy little relationship

Rome declared war on Jugurtha in 111 BC, but for five years the Roman legions were unsuccessful.

 Several Roman commanders were bribed (Bestia and Spurius), one (Aulus Postimius Albinus) was defeated. 

In 109 Rome sent Quintus Caecilius Metellus to continue the war. Gaius Marius, a lieutenant of Metellus, saw an opportunity to usurp his commander and fed rumors of incompetence and delay to the publicani (tax gatherers) in the region.

 These conspiracies caused calls for Metellus's removal; despite delaying tactics by Metellus, in 107 BC Marius returned to Rome to stand for the consulship.

 Marius was elected consul and took over the campaign while Sulla was nominated quaestor to him.

( Marius, in total, was consul 7 times (6 years in a row) )

In 91 BC the Social War broke out: Rome’s allies in Italy, the socii, rose up against Rome after the Senate refused to give them Roman citizenship. 

The Italians set up their headquarters at Corfinum and were soon able to field an army of 100,000 men.

Marius and Sulla’s rivalry was temporarily quelled by the threat of the Social War in Italy

88 BCThe First Mithridatic War began: Mithridates VI invaded the Roman province of Asia in response to a Roman-backed invasion of Pontus by the neighbouring king of Bithynia, Nicomedes IV.

Also the romans won the social war

That same year, Sulla was elected consul prior, while a proposal to transfer command in Asia from Sulla to Marius was duly decreed.

Sulla, however, refused to give up control of his 35,000 strong army and went on to take Rome and defeats Marius.

Marius, by then aged 70, fled to Africa where he famously despaired of his misfortunes amid the ruins of Carthage.

Marius died on 13 January 86bc, just 17 days into his seventh consulship. 

Following Marius the ELDER’s death, Marius the Younger took control of Rome with the support of the elder Marius’ allies.

Marius was exiled and eventually defeated by Sulla

IN 81 bc Sulla declared himself dictator – the first time the office had been filled in 120 years.

 He then killed all of Rome’s ‘enemies’ in proscriptions and took their property, with much of it being taken later by Crassus.

in 79 Sulla abdicated 

Sulla and Marius had a huge rivalry - Sulla being the new kid in charge and Marius being the old establishment 

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Politics of the Late republic  The Gracchi

The Gracchi - around 133/121bc. 

Plebeian branch of the Sempronia family - both tried to redistirubte Aeger Publicus (farm land of the people)

Tiberius Gracchus in 133 bc tried to impliment a land law to redistirubte land to Urban poor but he was denied by other tirbunes

Tiberius then appealed to the people, and argued that a tribune who opposes the will of the people in favour of the rich is not a true tribune. 

The senators were left with only one constitutional response – to threaten prosecution after Tiberius's term as a tribune ended.

 This meant Tiberius had to stand for a second term

A tribune could not run twice 

Senate called an SCU on him saying he wanted to become king

he was beaten to deaht by the senate and his body was put in a river (no proper burial) 

Gaius Gracchus in 121bc also took office as Tribune of the plebs

He was considered more dangerous by senatores and equites than Tiberius because of his more practical mind

He gained support from the agrarian poor by reviving the land reform programme and from the urban poor with various popular measures.

 He also sought support from those equestrians who had not become senators.

Other reforms made by Gaius included fixing prices on grain for the urban population AND granting citizenship for Latins and others outside the city of Rome < vetoed 

Gaius was tribune two times (ILLEGAL) 

A substantial proportion of the urban and agrarian poor, protective of their privileged Roman citizenship, turned against Gaius.

 With Gaius's support from the people weakened, the consul Lucius Opimius was able to crush the Gracchan movement by force. 

A mob was raised to assassinate Gaius. Knowing his death was imminent, he committed suicide on the Aventine Hill in 121 BC. 

All of his reforms were taken away except for the grain laws. 

Three thousand supporters were subsequently arrested and put to death in the proscriptions that followed.

The emergence of new forces of urban factions, rural voters, and others, engaging in continued conflict with each other for their own interests, meant that the problem of effective governance awaited resolution. 

The reforms of the Gracchi had come to an end by violence; and this provided a brutal precedent that would be followed by many future rulers of Rome. 

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🌞Classics blog for A-Level 2021 revision 

Includes: The Odyssey, The Aeneid, The Politics of the Late Republic, Imperial Image