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

by H. H. Scullard

  In 67 two tribunes became very active. C. Cornelius sponsored some measures to improve the administration of justice,13 and A. Gabinius proposed that drastic action should be taken against the pirates whose raids were affecting the corn-supply of Rome itself. He moved that a man of consular rank, obviously Pompey was meant, should be given for three years an imperium infinitum by sea throughout the Mediterranean, and authority equal to that of all provincial governors for fifty miles inland, together with vast supplies of men, ships and money.14 This proposal provoked a storm of protest in the Senate, where it was denounced by Optimate leaders such as Catulus and Hortensius and where Julius Caesar alone supported it. The Senate found two tribunes to resist Gabinius: Roscius Otho urged that Pompey should have a colleague, and Tribellius vetoed the bill. Gabinius, however, had recourse to the tactics of Tiberius Gracchus when faced by Octavius, and threatened to depose Trebellius. Amid scenes of great disorder the lex Gabinia was passed, but with increased supplies for Pompey which now included 6000 talents, 500 ships, 120,000 infantry and the right to appoint 24 legates.

  Meantime the conduct of the Mithridatic War by Lucullus had caused discontent in Rome. His enemies alleged that he was needlessly prolonging the war for his own glory, and his just settlement of the financial affairs of Asia angered the Equites. In 69 therefore the province of Asia was withdrawn from him, in 68 Cilicia likewise, and in 67 Gabinius carried a law to assign Bithynia and Pontus to the consul Acilius Glabrio. Then in 66, as Pompey had finished off his pirate campaign with lightning speed, a tribune C. Manilius proposed that Cilicia, Bithynia and Pontus and the command against Mithridates should be entrusted to Pompey, who should still retain the command and forces granted to him by the lex Gabinia. In view of Pompey’s spectacular success against the pirates, the Optimates could hardly prevail against Manilius when they had failed against Gabinius. Caesar supported the bill and Cicero, now praetor, gained further favour with the populace and Equites by delivering a speech (Pro lege Manilia or De imperio Cn. Pompeii) in which he advocated the appointment and lauded Pompey’s past achievements.14a Thus Pompey received unprecedented powers and was little short of a monarch in the East. How he would use this power when he returned to Rome was a question that men began to ask before long with increasing anxiety, but in the meantime it was clear that the ramparts which Sulla had attempted to erect around the Senate were breached irrevocably by such action as the People had taken under the stimulus of the unfettered tribunes. Pompey might or might not remain loyal to the constitution, but even if he did, other tribunes might be used to elevate less scrupulous army commanders to positions of unassailable power.

  7. THE PIRATES

  One hundred years before the lex Gabinia Rome had dealt so harshly with Rhodes that this island-Republic lost its power to keep the eastern Mediterranean free of piracy: the increasing weakness of Egypt and Syria also helped the pirates. Rome made some half-hearted efforts against them between 102 and 100 B.C. (see pp. 47 and 49 f.), and Sulla possibly intended further action, but little was done until P. Servilius Vatia (cos. 79) was sent out to reduce Cilicia which was their main lair.15 After a naval battle off the Lycian coast (77) he reduced Lycia and Pamphylia (76) and then by over-running Isaurica he opened up the way for an attack by land from the north on Cilicia Tracheia (75); but the outbreak of the Third Mithridatic War (74) halted these operations. In 74 the Senate tried to shut the pirates out of Cyrene by declaring it a province (p. 77) and conferred a special command on M. Antonius (son of the man who had campaigned against the pirates in 102); after long preparations Antonius decided to concentrate on Crete, where he did little except suffer a defeat at sea. The pirates gained a few years’ respite when Rome devoted her attention to Mithridates, who was in alliance with them. This they used both to increase their organization and strength which was said to have reached 1000 ships, and to extend the range of their operations which now included the coasts of Italy itself. Then Q. Caecilius Metellus (cos. 69) was sent with three legions to reduce Crete, which he did with such cruelty (68–7) that the Cretans preferred to surrender to an officer sent by Pompey. After a tussle Metellus asserted himself and Crete was declared a Roman province.

  Pompey’s appointment under the lex Gabinia created such confidence that the price of corn in Rome dropped immediately, and he was quick to justify the trust he inspired.16 He divided the Mediterranean and Euxine into thirteen sections under legates, and took command of a mobile squadron of 60 ships. Cutting the area into halves at the ‘Sicilian Narrows’ between Sicily and Africa, he dealt first with the western area, which he swept clear in forty days by driving detachments of the enemy into the arms of the section commanders. He then turned to the eastern half: after a naval victory off Coracesium in Cilicia and the capture of the pirates’ mountain stronghold there, he brought the whole campaign to a victorious end within three months, and crowned his achievement by the moderation of his settlement. He settled many of these desperate and ruined men in Cilicia and elsewhere: the old man, whom Virgil (Georgics 4, 125 ff.) described as passing the evening of his days keeping bees in an idyllic setting near Tarentum, has long been thought to be one of these ex-pirates from Cilician Corycus.

  8. THE THIRD MITHRIDATIC WAR: LUCULLUS

  Although Mithridates had received lenient terms from Sulla under the Treaty of Dardanus (p. 64 f.), this treaty had not been formally ratified by the Senate, despite a direct request from the king in 79, partly because of the confusion that followed Sulla’s death. Mithridates’ suspicions were naturally aroused and he began to build up his resources. He recovered control of the Crimea, intrigued with the Thracians, negotiated with Sertorius and the pirates, established good relations with Egypt and Cyprus, and supported his son-in-law Tigranes, who had built a grand new capital for Armenia at Tigranocerta, and had annexed part of Syria and Cappadocia. Mithridates’ forces were said to number some 100,000–150,000 men and 400 ships, and he had received help in training them from a former Roman quaestor sent to him by Sertorius. All this must have appeared to Rome to portend action.

  When Nicomedes III of Bithynia bequeathed his kingdom to Rome (75/4) and Rome declared it a province,17 Mithridates was unwilling to see control of the entrance to the Black Sea pass to Rome or to accept the changed balance of power in Asia Minor. He therefore invaded Bithynia. Of the two consuls of 74 M. Aurelius Cotta was assigned to the new province of Bithynia, while his colleague L. Licinius Lucullus, a former friend of Sulla, by intrigue secured Cilicia and Asia.18 Lucullus raised five legions and advanced through Phrygia on Mithridates’ flank, while Cotta, based on Bithynia, conducted naval operations. Eager to win the war himself, Cotta rushed into action and after defeat by land and sea he was besieged at Chalcedon.19 Mithridates then advanced to Cyzicus, which he started to besiege, but Lucullus arrived and managed to cut off the king’s supplies. As the siege dragged on Mithridates in desperation sent away his cavalry and then during the winter was compelled to withdraw his army: Lucullus defeated both forces and in the following spring (73) beat some naval forces that had got into the Aegean. Mithridates escaped with difficulty to the Euxine, where he suffered further losses by storm, and retired to Pontus. Thus within two years his immense expeditionary force was shattered, with the loss of perhaps 100,000 men.

  Each leader then took a resolute decision: Mithridates to continue resistance despite past disasters, and Lucullus not to attempt a compromise, such as Sulla had reached, but to invade Pontus and drive the king out. This he did in some three years of systematic warfare. Behind the screen of his fortress towns (Amisus, Themiscyra, Eupatoria and Amasia) Mithridates tried to build up new forces at Cabeira, but Lucullus advanced, besieged Amisus, took Eupatoria and defeated the king at Cabeira (72). As his troops panicked, Mithridates was forced to flee and took refuge with Tigranes. The other fortress soon fell to Lucullus, who also reduced Armenia Minor: by 70 he was master in Pontus. He was, however, angered by the fact that his troops had disobeyed his orders and plundered the Gree
k city of Amisus when it was captured. While waiting for the return of Appius Claudius, whom he had sent to Tigranes to demand the surrender of Mithridates, Lucullus overhauled the finances of Asia which was still reeling under Sulla’s settlement (cf. p. 64). He reduced the rate of interest to 12 per cent, cancelled arrears of interest that exceeded the principal, allowed no more than a quarter of a debtor’s annual income to be seized by a creditor, and met the indemnity by a 25 per cent levy and some taxes. These measures cleared the province of debt within four years and many grateful cities established festivals called Lucullea in his honour. But he had antagonized the Equites, who began to work for his suppression by alleging that he was prolonging the war for his own glory.

  Once again Lucullus decided that Asia would never remain at peace while Mithridates was still at large. When Tigranes refused to hand over his father-in-law, Lucullus resolved to invade Armenia, a policy which might commend itself to him more readily than to his troops, who were wearying of the long and gruelling campaigns, or to the Senate, which had not authorized such an advance. It also provided the Equites with ammunition against the man who had dared to protect the provincials from their exactions, and it encouraged the demagogues to denounce the ambition of the Optimates. Thus, as has been seen (pp. 82–83), his provinces were gradually taken from him until he was recalled home. His invasion of Armenia, however, started well. Reaching the upper Tigris he advanced to Tigranocerta, defeated Tigranes by skilful tactics in a decisive victory and captured Tigranocerta (69), though Tigranes himself managed to escape and was joined by Mithridates in the heart of Armenia. Undismayed, Lucullus in 68 advanced into the highland plateau, threatened Artaxata, the old capital, and defeated the two kings in battle. His men, however, long restless, now refused to go farther and thus compelled him to turn south where he captured Nisibis and wintered. Meanwhile Mithridates had managed to return to Pontus, where a ding-dong struggle ensued with the Roman troops there until in the spring of 67 Triarius was defeated at Zela by Mithridates with the loss of 7000 men. When Lucullus finally arrived, he could do little, since his successor, Glabrio, refused to leave Bithynia, and Lucullus found his troops taken from him. By a stroke of irony a senatorial commission, which included his brother, arrived to help him organize the province of Pontus, but Rome was no longer in control: Mithridates had regained his old kingdom, and Tigranes, the King of Kings, was attacking Cappadocia. Lucullus lingered on in Asia until the arrival of Pompey with whom he had a stormy interview. On his return to Rome he ultimately secured a well-deserved triumph, after which he retired into private life, devoting his time to cultural pursuits and the luxurious living for which he became notorious.

  Lucullus had failed to bring the war to an end by capturing Mithridates, but for that the blame must go in part to his political opponents, but not entirely. Despite brilliant strategy and tactics, despite courage and a high sense of discipline, he was too aloof and lost touch with his men, who resented his ban on unrestricted plundering and failed to respond to his appeals to go ever farther into the unknown East. But he had saved Roman Asia from conquest by Mithridates and exploitation by the Equites, and though the final phase of his service in the East was an anticlimax, yet there can be no doubt that he had broken the real strength of the two kings and that Pompey merely arrived to give the final push to an already crumbling edifice.20

  9. POMPEY’S VICTORY

  Pompey was in Cilicia when news reached him of his appointment under the lex Manilia. He succeeded in persuading the Parthian king Phraates to invade Armenia and thus distract Tigranes, while he himself marched into Pontus against Mithridates. Unlike Lucullus in 74, who was outnumbered by five to one, Pompey had some 20,000 more men than Mithridates, whom he defeated near Dasteira (which was later named Nicopolis, the City of Victory). This time Tigranes, who had driven back the Parthians, was unwilling to receive Mithridates, who was forced to flee northwards. Indomitable as ever, Mithridates succeeded in wresting his Russian possessions from his treacherous son Machares (whom Lucullus had recognized in 70) and raised fresh troops (65–63) with which he was alleged to be planning an invasion of Italy via the Danube. But he was pushing his subjects too hard; revolts followed, and even Pharnaces, another son, turned against him and drove him into the citadel of Panticapaeum. There the old king, now sixty-eight, ordered one of his Celtic bodyguards to kill him (63).

  It was Mithridates’ tragedy to fall between two worlds. He championed the Greek world like a Hellenistic monarch, and yet he could not entirely divest himself of the role of Oriental despot: the western and eastern elements in his culture and character never really fused. He showed extraordinary powers of mind and body, of generalship and diplomacy, but he failed to win the wholehearted devotion of his supporters: the magic touch of an Alexander or Caesar eluded him. But it he had failed to free the Hellenistic world from Rome, his career demonstrated the unity of that world, which must come under one rule: Rome’s political horizon must now reach the Euphrates, beyond which lay the great Parthian Empire. Thus he both opened up new problems of foreign policy for Rome and at the same time by his stubborn resistance he had forced Rome to entrust unusual powers to ambitious men for long periods of time and in consequence hastened the downfall of the Republic.

  Meantime Pompey had advanced into Armenia, where he received the surrender of Tigranes, who was allowed to keep his throne and Armenia, though deprived of all his foreign acquisitions. Pompey then turned north to the Caucasus area, where he crossed swords with the Albanians and, in 65, with the Iberians (in modern Georgia), and advanced nearly to the Caspian.21 He also made further diplomatic contacts with Parthia, but foolishly took a stronger line after the defeat of Tigranes: by refusing to allow Phraates to occupy Gordyene and Nisibis which he had previously promised to the king, he broke his word and thereby laid up trouble for Rome in the future. In 64, judging that Mithridates could be left to the effect of Roman naval pressure, Pompey went to Amisus and thence to Syria, which was in a state of great disorder.

  Since 67 Palestine had seen civil war between two sons of Jannaeus, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. Pompey’s legate Gabinius settled the struggle in favour of Aristobulus, who was being besieged in Jerusalem. But Pompey himself after settling Syria and receiving deputations from the two Jewish princes at Damascus, decided to reverse Gabinius’ decision and to favour Hyrcanus (63). Though Aristobulus reluctantly submitted to this order, his followers refused and fortified themselves in the Temple quarters of Jerusalem. Pompey soon arrived and occupied the lower town, but only after three months’ siege did he break the stubborn resistance; he then entered the Holy of Holies in the Temple but did not touch the treasures within. Hyrcanus was recognized as High Priest and ruler, though not king, of Judaea.22 This flare-up in Jerusalem had diverted Pompey from an expedition which he had planned to the caravan-city of the Nabataean Arabs, Petra: he may have had commercial gain in mind, but he also wished to carry Roman arms to the Red Sea. In the event he sent his quaestor Aemilius Scaurus, who retired when the Nabataean king Aretas bribed him and made a show of submission.23 It was while he was near Jerusalem that Pompey received a messenger, bearing a laurel-bound spear, who reported that Mithridates was dead. He could now turn to the task of reconstruction.

  10. POMPEY’S SETTLEMENT OF THE EAST

  Unaided by the customary decemviral commission of senators, Pompey redrew the map of Anatolia in the way which he considered would best secure the peace and security of this vast area.24 His scheme was to have a continuous line of Roman provinces around the coast of Asia, from Pontus on the Black Sea in the north to Syria in the south (apart from the small strip of Lycia). These were Bithynia et Pontus (i.e. Bithynia extended to embrace the western part of Pontus), Asia, Cilicia, which was enlarged, and Syria which Pompey annexed as a new province: there would be outposts at Crete and (later, in 58) Cyprus. The eastern frontiers of these provinces were guarded by a large number of client kings, i.e. native rulers left in control of their own lands as friends o
r allies of Rome whom they must consult on all matters of foreign policy; in return, they received peace and considerable internal independence. The chief client kingdoms were Galatia (under Deiotarus, who received eastern Pontus), East Galatia (under Brogitarus), Paphlagonia (under Attalus and Pylaemenes), Cappadocia (under Ariobarzanes), Armenia Minor (perhaps granted to Deiotarus), Commagene (under Antiochus I), part of eastern Cilicia (under Tarcondimotus); in the north Bosporus (under Pharnaces, who had betrayed his father Mithridates); east of the Euphrates an Arab sheikh Abgar received Osrhoene, while Tigranes retained Gordyene (around Nisibis); east of Syria were Sampsiceramus of Emesa and Ptolemy of Chalcis, while the Nabataeans regained Damascus. Beyond all these states loomed the Parthian Empire. Thus Rome was forced to advance her strategic frontier, though not the sphere of her direct administration, to the Euphrates and Syrian desert. As long as Armenia remained friendly to Rome and hostile to Parthia, and Commagene continued to safeguard the crossings of the upper Euphrates in Rome’s interests, Pompey might feel that the western empire was well protected by this shield of provinces and its cushion of buffer states beyond.

  It was necessary for Rome that this whole block of country should be made to face westwards away from the Parthian east, and Pompey helped to achieve this by developing one feature that was characteristic of the Hellenistic culture that united all this region, namely the city-state. Like Alexander and the Hellenistic monarchs he therefore founded or restored a large number of cities with Greek institutions, thirty-nine in Asia and Syria, and eleven in Bithynia and Pontus. One of his main motives may have been administrative convenience: in Bithynia and Pontus in particular, where the centralized bureaucracies were too complicated to be worked by existing Roman methods, administration had largely to devolve on local authorities; these therefore had to be created. But that is not to say that Pompey will have been blind to the wider benefits that such a system would create, even if his primary purpose was not cultural or civilizing. There was a further consideration: the cities might enjoy considerable autonomy, but few were immune from taxation, in the form of tithes, and the provincial revenues were collected by Roman publicani. Not only did Pompey distribute vast sums to his soldiers and pay 480 million sesterces into the Roman Treasury, but his reorganization of the East raised the annual revenue of Rome from tribute from 200 million to 340 million sesterces. In return for its taxes the East received a considerable measure of peace, security and the possibility of economic prosperity. The proof of the pudding is in the eating: when Civil War developed between Pompey and Caesar, the East supported Pompey as its benefactor. In the meantime it was no little gain to Pompey in the political field when he returned to Rome that he had added this vast array of eastern peoples to his clientela. Though it is partly true that in the military field he had reaped what Lucullus had sown, he had nevertheless shown himself a competent soldier and an outstanding administrator: what he would achieve at home among his peers, time would soon reveal.