From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68

by H. H. Scullard

  7. MITHRIDATES, KING OF PONTUS

  Sulla’s opponent, Mithridates, was no common man. His kingdom lay in central Asia Minor, south of the Black Sea.27 Formed some two hundred years before, it was rich in natural resources, especially metals. It remained largely a country of villages, studded with royal castles, in a feudal state of development. Essentially the population was oriental in outlook, though the royal house, which was descended from the nobles of Persia, had acquired a considerable tincture of Hellenistic civilization, the official language being Greek. There were in fact a few Greek cities on the northern coast, but their cultural influence did not spread far inland, and the Greek and Iranian elements in the civilization of Pontus never really fused together. Under Mithridates V (150–121 B.C.) relations with Rome had been friendly and he had lent some help against Aristonicus (p. 33). His son, who secured sole rule by imprisoning his mother and murdering his brother, reigned as Mithridates VI Eupator. He was a man of exceptional physical strength and force of character, of whose energy and exploits many a tale was told. Imbued with a real admiration for Greek culture and art, he yet retained beneath the surface some of the attributes of an oriental despot. His ambitions were great, so that he readily responded to an appeal from the Greek cities of Bosporus and Chersonesus in the Crimea (S. Russia) to help them against the pressure from Scythian and Sarmatian tribes in the north. Posing as a champion of Greeks against barbarians, Mithridates sent the help and as a result became master of the whole north coast of the Black Sea, with a capital for this new Pontic empire at Panticapaeum. This conquest, together with an advance east from his kingdom to Colchis and the Caucasus, provided him with immense supplies of corn, money and men which enabled him to build up and support a large army and navy. Thus within a few years he became one of the most powerful rulers in Asia.

  His ambition, however, reached farther. He sought a large Anatolian Empire in addition to his Pontic realm. Though expansion would bring him into conflict with neighbouring rulers who were friends of Rome, such a thought did not dismay him, especially as at this time Rome had Jugurtha and the Northern menace on her hands. Rather, he may even have dreamed of posing as a champion of the Asiatic Greeks and of sweeping the Roman foreigners right out of Asia Minor. Whether or not his thoughts were yet running on so far, he did not shrink from a clash with Rome, but at first he played his cards with shrewd caution.

  Nicomedes II king of Bithynia, though a ‘friend and ally’ of Rome, had little reason to love the Romans because Bithynia was being exploited by Roman money-lenders; he was thus ready to fall in with Mithridates’ suggestion that they should seize Galatia and Paphlagonia (104). This was done; at Rome only Saturninus raised a protest which was quickly smothered with bribes. The two kings then turned against Cappadocia but soon quarrelled over its control. Marius, who had failed to secure a command in the East as war with Mithridates had been averted, was in the East on his own business in 98 and warned Mithridates to take care; a year or two later the Senate decided to support the claim of Ariobarzanes to Cappadocia. The task of installing the new king was given to Sulla, who was proconsul of Cilicia in 96. He had clashed with some troops of Tigranes of Armenia, and went on to the Euphrates where he accepted an offer of friendship from a Parthian envoy: thus Rome made official contact with the great Parthian Empire which was to cause her so much trouble in the future. Mithridates was thus checked, but he soon secured Tigranes as a son-in-law; he was biding his time, and he did not have to wait long.28

  8. THE FIRST MITHRIDATIC WAR

  As soon as Rome was busy with the Social War Mithridates, helped by Tigranes, seized Bithynia and Cappadocia (90). The Romans, however, sent out Manius Aquilius and a commission to act with the governor of Asia in restoring Nicomedes to the Bithynian throne. Feeling perhaps that a real settlement could be reached only if he made more drastic demands than those of Sulla, Aquilius ordered Mithridates to withdraw from the two kingdoms, which he did, and to supply troops, which he refused (89)29; Aquilius then persuaded Nicomedes to attack Pontus. Careful as he had so far been to avoid responsibility for starting a war, Mithridates now acted and again invaded Cappadocia. In 88 the Romans, who had only one legion in Asia, sent forward the unfortunate Nicomedes, who was defeated, and divided their own forces into three; all were beaten and Aquilius was ultimately captured and cruelly killed. Mithridates then swept through the province of Asia, promising freedom to the Greek cities and cancelling debts; he was received with much enthusiasm, though some cities resisted him and had to stand siege. His victorious fleet sailed into the Aegean, where Rhodes however managed to resist his attack. Hailed as a deliverer, he was then faced with the problem of what to do with the large number of Roman and Italian business men in the province. His solution was simple, but terrible. He ordered that on a fixed day all men, women and children, should be massacred: the victims numbered some 80,000. All the Asiatic cities who complied with his order were thus irrevocably bound to the cause of the enemy of Rome. Lord of Asia, Mithridates now looked westwards to Europe.

  He soon received an invitation from the democratic party in Athens to cross over and liberate Greece. The ambassador, named Aristion, who had brought the message, on his return home managed to become tyrant of Athens and murdered members of the aristocratic party. Mithridates therefore in the autumn of 88 sent a force across the Aegean under the command of Archelaus, who plundered Delos on the way. Rome had few troops in Greece, but a legate, whom the governor of Macedonia hastily sent southwards, managed to save northern Greece and forced Archelaus back into Attica. Then in 87 Sulla landed with five legions in Epirus and marched hurriedly to Athens, where he besieged Aristion and penned up Archelaus in the Peiraeus. But his position was dangerous. Another Pontic army, on its way to Greece through Macedonia, might arrive from the north, and without command of the sea he could not reduce the Peiraeus. He therefore sent Lucullus to collect a fleet, while he plundered the treasuries of Delphi and Olympia for funds. At last early in 86 he carried Athens by assault; Peiraeus fell soon after and Archelaus embarked his troops to join the Pontic army which had now reached Thessaly.29a

  Sulla met these combined forces, which outnumbered his own men perhaps by three to one, at Chaeronea in a set battle.30 By skilful tactics, speed of movement and personal intervention at critical points, Sulla routed the enemy despite their numbers and scythe-chariots. Mithridates, however, made a further effort. Another Pontic army was sent by sea to Euboea, where it joined Archelaus’ defeated survivors. Sulla met them again in Boeotia, at Orchomenus. After digging trenches to cover his flanks against their superior cavalry, he succeeded in driving their chariots back on their phalanx, and thus won his second victory. Archelaus fled to Euboea; the invasion of Greece was ended, and before the end of the year Sulla met Archelaus on the coast of Boeotia to begin negotiating a settlement.

  Sulla, however, had other pre-occupations. Not only had he been declared an enemy of the Roman People by the government in Rome, but Flaccus had been sent out by Cinna against Mithridates (rather than against Sulla, as the latter afterwards claimed).31 Flaccus with his two legions marched straight to his province of Asia. Here he, and then his lieutenant Fimbria who succeeded to his command by murdering him, found great distress. Many of the Greek cities, discontented with Mithridates the Liberator, were in revolt against him and during a reign of terror were discovering in him an Oriental tyrant. They were indeed between the devil and the deep sea because Fimbria also did not hesitate to plunder many of them as he marched to defeat an army that Mithridates managed to put into the field on the banks of the Rhyndacus. He might even have captured Mithridates himself, if Lucullus, who was coasting by with his fleet, had been willing to co-operate.

  At last Mithridates was ready to come to terms. Having in vain tried to play off Fimbria against Sulla, he met Sulla in the summer of 85 at Dardanus near Troy, where he accepted the terms already discussed by Archelaus, who now enjoyed the title of ‘friend and ally’ of the Roman People. Mithrid
ates agreed to surrender seventy ships, evacuate all territory that he had conquered in Asia Minor and pay an indemnity of 2000 talents: in return he was recognized as King of Pontus and ally of Rome. He might well thank his lucky stars that Sulla had business in the west – else he would scarcely have received such lenient terms. Sulla then made short work of Fimbria, who soon afterwards fell on his sword.

  The settlement that Sulla imposed on the unhappy province was bitter. It was now conquered territory, and even the free cities that had been Rome’s allies had, by receiving the enemy, lost their former rights and independence; any privileges they now received were granted by the grace of Sulla and the Senate. Cities that had remained loyal to Rome (e.g. Rhodes) were rewarded, but those that had received the enemy (e.g. Pergamum, Ephesus, Miletus) now lost their freedom and became liable to the regular taxes collected by the publicani; many were plundered and had their walls razed. Sulla imposed on the province an indemnity of 20,000 talents (the cost of the war and five years arrears of taxation) and through the winter of 85/4 he billeted his troops on the unfortunate provincials who had to pay, feed and clothe them.32 Unable fully to meet their obligations, they had to borrow and thus became the victims of heartless exploitation by Roman business-men. A further cause of trouble was the increasing raids of the pirates who were now becoming the scourage of the eastern Mediterranean: they even carried off 1000 talents’ worth of booty from Samothrace, while Sulla himself was staying on the island. Thus when he sailed for Greece in 84, Sulla left debt and despair behind him in Asia.

  Asia even had to endure some further fighting, which has been dignified with the title of the Second Mithridatic War (83–82). Though Nicomedes and Ariobarzanes were restored to their thrones, Mithridates remained quiet until he was stung into action by the aggressions of L. Licinius Murena, whom Sulla had left in the province in command of the two legions that he had taken over from Fimbria. Alleging that Mithridates was rearming, Murena attacked him and continued to raid his territory despite a warning from the Senate. Only after he had been beaten in battle by the king, did he finally obey an order from Sulla to desist. Sulla, now dictator in Rome, had other matters on hand.

  9. CIVIL WAR

  When Sulla landed at Brundisium in 83, he was soon joined by many of the younger generation who thought that he would win. M. Licinius Crassus, whose father (cos. 97) had perished in the Marian terror, came from Spain; Metellus Pius, son of Numidicus, arrived in Italy from Africa; and above all, Strabo’s son, young Cn. Pompeius, raised a force in Picenum and, outmanuvring the opposing armies, reached Sulla with three legions. This mustering of support from the provinces, and still more the raising of a private army, augured ill for the future of the Republic. Sulla greeted Pompey with honour, perhaps even saluting him as imperator, appointed him as his legate, and soon gave him his step-daughter, Aemilia, in marriage. On his march northwards Sulla met no serious opposition until he faced the two consular armies in Campania (p. 61). He made short work of these: he defeated Norbanus near Capua, and then the fox in him triumphing over the lion, he negotiated with Scipio near Teanum, while Scipio’s army began to go over to him. He then disarmed another potential source of opposition by proclaiming that he would respect the rights of the new citizens. During the winter he built up his forces, while his opponents also increased theirs by winning over some of the Samnite tribes against whom Sulla had fought during the Social War.33

  The consuls of 82 were Carbo and the (? adoptive) son of Marius. While the former consolidated in the north, young Marius was to hold Rome. Sulla, however, soon brushed him aside; after defeating him at Sacriportus near Signia, he drove him into Praeneste where he was besieged. Sulla then entered Rome where he found that many leading senators, including the Pontifex Maximus Scaevola, had been massacred on the orders of young Marius. Hastening on northwards, where his lieutenants Pompey and Metellus had been harrying Carbo, he managed to hem in Carbo near Clusium. When news reached Carbo that Norbanus, who had replaced him in the north, had been defeated by Metellus at Faventia, that Cisalpine Gaul was lost to the Marian cause, and that Marius was faring ill at Praeneste, he threw up the sponge and fled to Africa. In fact three attempts to relieve Marius had already been thwarted, partly because of ‘The Narrows’ which in the absence of any corresponding natural features at Praeneste were probably some blockading lines which Sulla had constructed.34 In a final attempt to save the besieged, the Marian forces, which with their Samnite allies numbered some 70,000 men, made a sudden dash on Rome. Sulla raced there in the nick of time: on the afternoon of 1 November he met them outside the Colline Gate. It was a terrific struggle: at one moment Sulla himself on the left wing was at the point of defeat, but Crassus on the right turned the tide. Losses on both sides were heavy, while those Samnites that survived the battle were butchered in cold blood by Sulla’s order. Soon afterwards Praeneste fell: Marius committed suicide and most of the survivors were massacred. A few cities still resisted, Nola until 80 and Volterrae a year longer, but Sulla was clearly undisputed master of Italy.

  A few ‘Marian’ governors in the provinces still remained to be dealt with. Q. Sertorius (p. 60), who had gone out as governor of Nearer Spain, was pushed out of the peninsula by Annius; and Sardinia was secured. To Sicily and Africa, where Carbo and Perperna were organizing resistance, young Pompey, aged twenty-four, was sent, first as Sulla’s legate and then with a senatorial grant of extraordinary propraetorian imperium. He quickly cleared Sicily and put Carbo to death: Pompey might be called ‘adulescentulus carnifex’, but this epithet belied his normally moderate temperament and he may well have acted on Sulla’s orders. Then, leaving his brother-in-law Memmius in charge of Sicily, he crossed to Africa with strong forces and defeated Cinna’s son-in-law Domitius Ahenobarbus who was supported by a Numidian pretender name Iarbas; Pompey restored the throne to Hiempsal. For this speedy and striking victory Pompey, whose troops had hailed him as imperator, hoped for a triumph, but at first his claim met with opposition perhaps rather from Sulla than from the Senate. Sulla, however, finally yielded and even, though perhaps with a touch of sarcasm, called Pompey Magnus, a title which Pompey did not use as a cognomen for some time.35

  10. SULLANUM REGNUM

  In Italy Sulla’s butchery continued, against both individuals and communities. He was grimly determined to eliminate all potential political opposition and, despite the wealth he must have collected in the East, he needed money for land for his veterans and followers. After a period of indiscriminate murders, he was persuaded to post up proscription lists of his victims, by which they were outlawed with a price on their heads; these at first numbered 40 senators and 1600 Equites but no doubt the final figures were much larger (one author, Orosius, goes as high as 9000): the equestrian order suffered particularly severely. Besides confiscating his victims’ property, Sulla permanently debarred their sons and grandsons from office and the Senate. As a further safeguard he freed 10,000 of their slaves and turned them into an unofficial bodyguard, the Cornelii. He then wreaked his vengeance on those parts of Italy that had opposed him: the towns of Etruria, Samnium and central Italy suffered most. He needed land for his veterans and the vicious nexus between an army and its commander, which Marius’ career had first demonstrated, now began to get its stranglehold on Roman life. At least twenty-three legions had to be demobilized and Sulla ultimately secured land for over ten colonies for some 120,000 men. This naturally involved a major social and economic upheaval, but though the new colonists vastly increased the clientela of their new patron and would form a reserve of military strength on which Sulla could call in an hour of need, they did not necessarily all make good farmers and many tended to become restless.36

  When Sulla re-entered Rome, his imperium technically lapsed, but the Senate, which proceeded obsequiously to confirm all his past acts as consul and proconsul, may have allowed him to retain it. It also decreed the erection of an equestrian statue to ‘Cornelius Sulla Imperator Felix’ facing the Rostra in the forum
.37 As both consuls were dead, the Senate appointed an interrex, the Princeps Senatus L. Valerius Flaccus (cos. 100). So far that was normal procedure, but Valerius instead of nominating consules suffecti followed Sulla’s hint and introduced a bill into the Comitia (lex Valeria) which appointed Sulla ‘dictator legibus scribundis et reipublicae constituendae’. Thus Sulla received full powers from the hands of the People to reorganize the constitution as dictator, an office which had lapsed since the Hannibalic War.37a But apart from the name, Sulla’s office had little in common with the emergency magistrates whom the consuls used to name for periods of six months: Sulla held supreme authority as long as he wished, though it should be noted that since he was not vested with the office in perpetuity, he was free to resign when and if he liked. The new dictator received twenty-four lictors, who attended him in the city where he was unhampered by such checks as the veto or right of appeal that curbed ordinary magistrates. Soon after this, he celebrated his triumph over Mithridates in January 81 and turned to his legislative reforms.

  Sulla’s earlier career had not been that of an orthodox Optimate. Though he belonged to an old patrician family, it had long lived in obscurity and poverty. A legacy from his step-mother and another from a mistress helped him, somewhat late, to a public career. As Marius’ quaestor he had captured Jugurtha and won the royal friendship of Bocchus. During the Teutonic wars he had transferred from Marius’ staff to that of the aristocratic Catulus. He failed in 99 to win a praetorship, but secured one for 97, and after service in Cilicia, he rendered such a good account of himself in the Social War that he won the consulship for 88. Up to this point he may not have identified himself closely with the Optimates, but his marriage to Metella (the widow of Scaurus) brought him nearer to the nobility, while the attempt of the popular party and Marius to deprive him of the Mithridatic command forced his hand. As army-commander and dictator he could act with greater independence. He may not therefore always have been the fervent champion of the Senate that he has sometimes been depicted, but he probably came to realize that only if the Senate regained something of its old authority could Rome hope for peace and order.