by Woolf, Greg
The enemy of consistency was ambition. Many senators never won more than a single magistracy in their lives. For the rest a provincial command would come once, or maybe twice in a lifetime. With competition at home becoming more intense and more expensive, many governors clearly felt they had to make their year of service pay. The infamous Verres, whose prosecution in 70 BC established Cicero’s reputation, allegedly quipped that a governor needed to raise three fortunes in his provinces, the first to pay back the debts he had incurred in getting elected, the second for himself, and the third to bribe the jurors on his return. Then there were the many other groups with vested interests in the provinces, Roman landowners and traders, those who lent money to provincials, and most of all those with public contracts, like the tax farmers. These were well connected, and an ambitious politician dared not offend, in his one year in office, a constituency who could help or hinder him for the rest of his career. Even Cicero, who tried very hard to govern justly during his single period as a governor in Cilicia in 51–50, found it hard to resist demands from back home. One man wanted help recovering sums he had lent provincials at ruinous rates, another wanted Cicero to find some panthers he could display in Rome, and even Cicero wondered if the risk of suppressing some banditry would be worth it if he could return to celebrate an ovatio, a sort of lesser triumph. Others had fewer scruples. Pro-magistrates exercised the power of life and death in their provinces, gave justice to cities and kings, and when far enough away from Rome they could behave like little autocrats. Many did. Verres allegedly crucified his enemies in sight of Italy. Another governor, when drunk, ordered an enemy envoy to be executed on the spot, to please his lover who complained that by accompanying him on campaign he was missing the games in Rome. Not all governors were wicked, but none wished to be regulated.
To the other structural deficiencies of the Republican hegemony, then, we can add an inability to operate effectively on any scale larger than could be handled by one man with a moderate-sized army and an oversized ego; and a system of government that more or less promoted corruption. Extortion, whether by governors themselves or conducted by tax farmers and other publicani with the governor turning a blind eye, increased the support that provincials gave figures like Mithridates. The reluctance of governors to work together made it difficult to tackle very large-scale problems. There had always been stories of failures of cooperation between consuls, both at home and on the battlefield. But as the empire grew, the problems became more acute.
Piracy is a case in point.4 The enemy was highly mobile, not confined to one particular sphere of command, and indeed could move rapidly between them. Pro-magistrates commanding in Macedonia and Asia, the free cities of the Aegean, and the kings of western Asia could not work together effectively. The first Roman attempt to deal with piracy was probably the campaign waged by Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony’s grandfather) in 102 BC. It seems a Roman fleet was moved into the Aegean, based first in the allied city of Athens, then campaigned off the southern coast of Asia Minor, supported by other allies including two Greek cities with small fleets, Rhodes and Byzantium. After victories in Cilicia, Antonius was awarded a triumph. But whatever solution he achieved was merely temporary. The popularis law on provincial government was passed just a year or two later, and piracy clearly remained a major priority. A new pro-magistrate is now mentioned in Cilicia, notorious as the ‘bad lands’ of Asia Minor. Yet the problem persisted. Some pirate bands cooperated with Mithridates against Rome in the 80s. Pirates were able to kidnap a young Julius Caesar in the mid-70s. Kidnapping for ransom was a nuisance but the real risk came from the pirates’ capacity to interrupt the supply of grain to the city of Rome. The conquest of Crete in 69 was largely motivated by the desire to shut down other pirate bases. Yet pirates were mobile and had many bases. Food shortages and rising prices in Rome pushed piracy to the top of the political agenda. With hindsight we can see the problem was systemic, the product of the absence of any permanent security system in the region. The great Greek kingdoms could no longer maintain fleets, and naval powers like Rhodes had been humiliated. No permanent fleets or naval patrols were created until the reign of Augustus.
This was the context for Pompey’s first great command. One of the tribunes for 67 BC, Aulus Gabinius, passed a law stating that a single commander be appointed against the pirates, with power to coordinate up to twenty-five legates (deputy commanders) and a fleet that perhaps numbered between 250 and 300 vessels not counting the contribution of allies. Even more radically, the commander would have authority to raise troops in any Roman territory and would outrank (literally have greater power, imperium maius, than) any pro-magistrate in an area extending 50 miles inland from the coast. The idea of giving any single magistrate or pro-magistrate the right to command other senators, both his deputies (legates) and other regular pro-magistrates in their own provinces, had no precedent. The command was to be for three years. It was designed for Pompey and, after some manoeuvring, he was given it. In practice he needed only three months. The Mediterranean was swept end to end, piracy was eliminated, and the captured pirates resettled in provincial communities. Pompey’s reputation was extraordinary, hence the award of the other major command, that against Mithridates. But the bigger lesson was also clear. Look at how much could be achieved with a new style of general and a new style of command.
During the 50s the lesson was applied elsewhere. Caesar’s command in Gaul included not only a number of legions, but also a number of senatorial deputies. As a result he could divide his army and organize much more complex operations. He was also able to return periodically to southern Gaul or north Italy, leaving his legions under the command of others. Pompey was allocated another great command in 57 BC —a five-year commission to secure the grain supply of the capital—and like Caesar was allocated senatorial legates. Pompey develop a further variant on this theme in 55 BC when he obtained permission to rule a vast province (and command its armies) from a distance, again through his legates. Crassus’ five-year command in Syria was clearly intended to be on the same scale as Caesar’s in Gaul, which was renewed for five years at the same time. Brutus and Cassius were given great commands in the east as part of the settlement after their murder of Caesar in 44: they used their commands and provinces to prepare for war against Octavian and Antony, who in their turn acquired vast commands as a means of dividing the spoils of victory at Philippi (and to help them prepare for the next civil war, against each other).
Romans had no special term for these super-commanders. None was needed, since they were so few in number. But there was clearly some recognition that something new had appeared. Greek cities gave them godlike honours similar to those they had previously lavished on the greatest kings. Among Romans a fascination with Alexander the Great appears. Pompey was said to have worn Alexander’s cloak in a triumph; Caesar reputedly wept before a statue of the Macedonian king, because he had achieved so little by the age at which Alexander died; Octavian paid homage at Alexander’s huge tomb in the heart of Alexandria. With hindsight we see the role of emperor emerging from the actions of these individuals. Interestingly it emerges first in the provinces, where the need for coordination of military power and revenues over great regions was most obvious. Only once it was established there was the controlling power of emperors applied to the bitter division of politics in the capital. The empire, in other words, had saved (and captured) the city.
More concretely the experience of the 70s, 60s, and especially the 50s had created a series of institutional innovations which would provide important precedents for the emperors. First, governors (or their equivalents) could now in effect be appointed not elected, and in ways that separated the role from that of civil magistrate. Second, the effectiveness of one commander coordinating operations over geographically vast areas and huge armies had been demonstrated. Cicero’s speech On the Command of Gnaeus Pompey even provides an explicit statement along these lines, the first draft of an imperial ideology. Third, vast a
rmies were now recruited and commanded, deployed, and resettled in ways over which the Senate and people had effectively no say. Finally, systems of revenue raising had in a rather piecemeal manner begun to be fitted to the needs of the imperial state. These innovations were resented by many, most of all by those senators who were not beneficiaries. Yet they would be imitated and adapted over the years of civil war that followed, and provided inspiration in the years ahead. Caesar as dictator initiated great colonial ventures to settle his veterans, and planned wars against Parthia and Dacia on the same scale as that of Pompey against Mithridates. Antony and Octavian settled their own veterans around the Mediterranean. Whenever there was only one such super-general on the scene—Pompey in the 60s, Caesar in the 40s, and Octavian after Actium— Roman military and political action briefly achieved a new coherence. From the chaos of the Republican empire, Rome had sleepwalked into military autocracy, and it worked.
Civil War
Crassus had perished in the aftermath of Cannae in 53 BC. By 50 BC both Pompey and Caesar were preparing for war. Perhaps the pact between the two great generals was inherently unstable. Their marriage alliance had ended in 52 with the death of Pompey’s much younger wife Julia, Caesar’s daughter. And then there were the efforts of more than half the Senate fuelling distrust and jealousy. The war was mostly fought in the Balkans. Defeated at Pharsalus in 48, Pompey fled to Egypt, the last great kingdom not to have succumbed to Roman arms. There he was killed in an attempt by those in power to ingratiate themselves with Caesar. Caesar himself spent much of the time between Pharsalus and his own assassination in 44 BC tracking down Pompey’s supporters. The provinces were easier to master than the capital. Despite granting amnesties to most of his former enemies, and lavishing games and monumental building on the city of Rome, he failed to rally Rome around him. Politics was no more free than it had been in the 50s, and neither Caesar nor anyone else had much idea of how his position could be institutionalized. Many of those involved in the conspiracy that led to his murder on the Ides of March, 44 BC, were former supporters of Pompey, but the initial euphoria waned when it was clear they had no solution for Rome’s ills. Besides, the army and Caesar’s followers could not forgive the murder.
A phoney peace followed. But within two years civil war had resumed, this time with Caesar’s heir Octavian allied with Caesar’s deputy Mark Antony against the ‘Liberators’, Brutus and Cassius. Both men died after their defeat at Philippi in 42 BC. Octavian and Antony nearly came to blows the next year, but in the event a new pact was negotiated and each had their great commands. Neither Octavian in the Balkans nor Antony in a campaign against Persia was very successful, and the balance of power was unchanged. Pompey’s last son, Sextus, survived until 36 BC. After that everyone was a Caesarian and it was only a matter of time before conflict between the two broke out. From 33 BC a propaganda war was in full swing, and in 31 the two sides engaged in north-west Greece at the battle of Actium, a victory for Octavian. Like Pompey before them, Antony and Cleopatra made for Egypt where both committed suicide in 30 BC. Once again there was only one super-commander in place.
The domestic politics of the last generation of the Republic are documented in great detail by Cicero’s correspondence, and also by the works of Sallust and Caesar written in the 40s. Contemporary historians were also aware of the importance of this period, but very little of their accounts survives. It has been a major aim of recent scholarship to try to recover their perspective.5 Writers of the imperial period, including the biographer Plutarch and the historians Appian and Dio, had access to histories that are now vanished, and they used them to write vivid accounts of what they knew to be the last days of the Republic.
All these accounts focus on the struggle between personalities: Marius versus Sulla; Sulla’s dictatorship; the competition between his lieutenants Lucullus, Pompey, and Crassus; the abortive coups of Lepidus and Catiline; the alliance between Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus in the 50s; and finally a series of civil wars, Pompey versus Caesar, Caesar’s murderers versus Octavian and Antony, Octavian and Antony versus Pompey’s son Sextus, and finally Octavian versus Antony. Told in this way, the history of the provinces often seems peripheral. As it happens there were some universal historians in the tradition of Polybius, but almost none of their works have survived.6 Much missed is the historical work of the philosopher Posidonius which picked up where Polybius left off and narrated events into the 80s BC. Like Polybius he knew the greatest Romans of the day, and had travelled widely within their empire. The fragments of his work show he thought hard about the nature of the Roman Empire.7 Diodorus’ Library is the last great work composed before Actium, or the latest that has survived. As far as we can tell, this generation of provincial observers accepted the fact of Roman domination, the creation of which had so astonished Polybius, but they found the Roman world a very precarious one in which to live. So much depended on whether a community picked the right side in a civil war, attracted the patronage of a winner, or found itself caught up in a conflict originating far from home. The same picture emerges from the great inscriptions set up by eastern cities, recording honours given to one or another Roman general in the hope of staying on his good side. Rome’s subjects feature in much civil war history mostly in a subordinate role. Northern Greece was the setting for three major civil wars in the 40s and 30s, Asia had to pay for the armies raised by Brutus and Cassius, Egypt was acquired by Octavian almost accidentally, because Cleopatra had picked the wrong ally. A few cities consistently chose well, others badly—Sparta and Aphrodisias were exceptionally fortunate, Athens seemed unable to pick a winner (even after Actium). Added to this, Roman civil wars offered opportunities for old enemies to settle scores— within or between cities—and even for foreign powers like Parthia to take advantage. Episodes of peace might bring land confiscations and the imposition of colonists. And when rivalry between Roman generals resulted in grandiose foreign wars deep in temperate Europe or on the Persian frontiers, allies and subjects were dragged along. All this is exactly what we would expect. An empire’s provinces genuinely are peripheral; their history is always driven by conflicts in the metropole, as it has been in recent times from Eretria to Cuba.
The fall of the Republic probably was good news for many provincials if only because the emperors took the long view and in the end preferred to rule in partnership with provincial elites.8 Certainly the impact of Augustan autocracy is immediately visible in the works that follow that of Diodorus, including Livy’s vast history, the Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and the Geography of Strabo. Peace at the centre made the empire itself more predictable, allowed provincial communities and their leaders to plan in the long term, to invest in strategies of loyalty and collaboration. Tacitus put it pithily in a coda to his account of the origins of the Principate:
The provinces had no objection to the new state of affairs. For they distrusted the empire of the senate and people because of the rivalry of the most powerful men and the greed of the magistrates, against which the laws gave no protection, since they were corrupted by violence, ambition and most of all by bribery.9
Conquest Unlimited
The same generation that tore Rome apart in civil wars was also responsible for the most dramatic period of Roman expansion. Vast armies marched out in all directions, on the flimsiest of pretexts. They reached the Atlantic Ocean and the Caspian Sea, plunged deep into temperate Europe, and challenged the greatest empire of the day, Parthian Persia.10 Great tracts of territory were annexed, the number of provinces increased enormously, and military colonies were scattered around the Mediterranean. There were spectacular defeats too: Crassus’ invasion of Parthia in 53 BC ended with 20,000 Romans dead and 10,000 captured. There were catastrophic defeats in Germany too, most dramatically the loss of three entire legions in AD 9 during a three-day-long battle in the Teutoberger Forest near present-day Osnabrück.
Other great campaigns almost happened. The Bastarnae of the northern Balkans defe
ated the governor of Macedonia, Antonius Hybrida, in 62 BC. Cicero’s correspondence from the early 50s shows him apprehensive of Burebista, king of the Dacians in what is now Romania, who spent much of the last century BC creating a great tribal federation of peoples. Aulus Gabinius, who had served under Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompey, was proconsul of Syria between 57 and 54 BC: he used it as a base to impose a new king on Egypt and to intervene in the politics of Judaea. Cyrenaica drifted in and out of Roman influence over the same period. Elaborate arguments were made to justify this or that campaign, but there is no doubt that the main driver was competition between the most powerful men in the state. The collapse of the Senate’s authority, the creation of super-commands, and most of all the success of Pompey had altered the rules of the game. And it did not matter if ridiculous risks were taken, since if one general failed, there would always be another waiting to take his place.