The Storm Before the Storm

by Michael Duncan

  The war now over, Sulla reorganized Asia. The former arrangement of the province still traced its roots back to the original will of King Attalus III, which stipulated that many cities would be free of taxation. Sulla swept all that aside. As punishment for collaborating with Mithridates, there were no free cities anymore—they were now all taxpaying cities. What’s more, to cover lost property and emotional distress, Sulla imposed an indemnity equivalent to five years’ back taxes. This was to be paid immediately, and with the old publicani networks destroyed, Roman soldiers spent the winter of 85–84 gathering up everything that wasn’t nailed down to pay for whatever lay ahead in Italy.56

  BACK IN ROME, the city lay quiet under an uneasy calm. Just a few years earlier it had been a war zone; the Forum had been consumed by violent street clashes. Now everything was calm and quiet. After completing his service in the legions under the command of Pompey Strabo, young Marcus Tullius Cicero settled in Rome to study rhetoric and oratory during the years of Cinna’s government. He later reported that in “the three following years, the city was free from the tumult of arms.”57

  For the moment there was not much to fight about. The Italians now had everything they ever wanted. Though there is a great deal of ambiguity in the sources, it is almost certain Cinna fulfilled his promise to disperse the Italians among the thirty-one rural tribes. Though it would not be until after the Civil War that the Italians were fully counted, the years of the Cinnan regime mark the permanent entrance of the Italians onto the citizen rolls. With the grateful Italians squarely behind him, Cinna could expect their staunch support if and when Sulla returned from the east. For the Italians, Sulla was the guy who had marched an army into Rome specifically to stop the spread of Italian equality. Though Italy was quiet for now, the old battle lines of the Social War would be reignited when Sulla came home.58

  But by the end of 85, the anxious fog that hung over Italy began to clear, as the regime made first contact with the victorious Sulla. Pretending that he had not been outlawed, Sulla sent back to Rome a huge official accounting of his campaign, diplomacy, and ledgers. This put the Senate in an awkward position. They sent an embassy to meet with Sulla and sound out his intentions. While they waited, Cinna and Carbo won another controlled election for the consulship of 84 and mobilized the Italians for war.59

  Sulla’s response to the senatorial envoys was furious but exact. Sulla denounced the foul treatment he had received from his enemies. He recounted his victories. Listed his credentials. He had just won back Asia! And his thanks? To be declared an outlawed. To have his property seized and burned. His wife and children forced in exile. But with a magnanimous heart Sulla offered simple terms: the Senate and People of Rome must restore his dignity and his property. That was all. He did also say that when he returned he might not spare his enemies—but if the Senate cared to spare them, he would respect their decree.60

  WHILE THESE ENVOYS went to Asia and back, Cinna and Carbo continued to raise forces. The Senate ordered them to cease preparing for war until the envoys to Sulla returned, but the consuls merely nodded and went back to recruiting. It would be folly to sit back in Italy and wait patiently for their blood enemy to return at the head of five veteran legions. In fact, they now hoped to stop him before he reached Italy at all.61

  With the peninsula only just putting itself back together after the devastation of the Social War, Cinna’s plan was to ferry an army across the Adriatic and confront Sulla in Greece. He already had two legions in Macedonia under Asiaticus. If all went according to plan, by the time Sulla finally made his way home from Asia, he would find his path blocked in Greece by a huge army of implacably hostile Italians ready to fight to the death to protect civitas and suffragium. But the consuls’ impatience to put men into position had fatal consequences. In what remains something of a historical mystery, Cinna refused to wait until spring to ship his new levies across the Adriatic, instead putting them on boats in the early winter months of 84.62

  The first troop transports crossed the water fine, but a second convoy was caught in a terrible storm. The resulting shipwrecks drowned half the men. When the survivors washed up on the beach they promptly mutinied. This incident sent shivers through the rest of Cinna’s army, and a detachment in the city of Ancona refused to make the crossing. Cinna was forced to come in person to confront the men and remind them that the only thing he required of them was obedience. But the new recruits were angry, scared, and hostile.63

  When Cinna arrived, he called for a general meeting to address the troops. But when he entered the throng of assembled soldiers, one man refused to give way and was struck by one of Cinna’s guards. The man fought back, so Cinna ordered him arrested. This order only inflamed the rest of the men. They pelted Cinna with furious insults and then pelted him with stones. Dodging this sudden onslaught, Cinna tried to extract himself from the mob, but he was grabbed by an angry centurion. The apprehended consul allegedly offered the man a ring to let him go, but the centurion growled, “I am not come to seal a surety, but to punish a lawless and wicked tyrant.” Without further debate the centurion pulled out his sword and cut Cinna down where he stood. Having only just appeared from historical thin air three years earlier, Cinna vanished as abruptly as he arrived.64

  While on the public stage, Cinna was the dominant leader of a tense coalition that ruled Rome for three years. And while Cinna obviously had a dismissive attitude toward republican norms, so did everyone else. Despite repeated attacks from men like Cicero who called him a “monster of cruelty,” Cinna was no more a lawless and wicked tyrant than any of the other men who played the deadly new game of violent politics. Cinna was certainly not an unimaginative dictator who used brutality only to secure petty whims and pleasures. The regime Cinna led tried to address the economic devastation of Italy, begin the process of fully integrating the Italians, and lay the groundwork for a return to peace. It was not inevitable that Sulla would win the looming confrontation, and there was a real possibility that it would be the Cinnans, not the Sullans, who would define the future of the Republic. But Cinna would not be there to lead the defense of his regime. Instead, he was murdered by a random soldier in the heat of an argument. The historian Velleius Paterculus concluded, “He was a man who deserved to die by the sentence of his victorious enemies rather than at the hands of his angry soldiers. Of him one can truly say that he formed daring plans, such as no good citizen would have conceived, and that he accomplished what none but a most resolute man could have accomplished, and that he was foolhardy enough in the formulation of his plans, but in their execution, a man.”65

  * They were also pretty mad Sulla had left them behind.

  * Son of the Lucullus who behaved so disgracefully during the Second Servile War. Also probably the unnamed quaestor who remained with Sulla for the march on Rome.

  * The father of THE Marcus Crassus.

  CHAPTER 12

  CIVIL WAR

  Thus the seditions proceeded from strife and contention to murder, and from murder to open war… Henceforth there was no restraint upon violence either from the sense of shame, or regard for law, institutions, or country.

  APPIAN1

  IN THE WAKE OF CINNA’S SUDDEN DEATH, CARBO CANCELED THE plan to fight in Greece. If war came, it would be fought in Italy. Returning to Rome, Carbo faced pressure from the Senate to ensure that it did not come to that. Though he never stopped mobilizing, Carbo did try to outflank his enemies by proposing that both sides demobilize their legions, making it look like he was the one seeking a peaceful solution while Sulla was the aggressor. * While in Rome, Carbo also faced pressure to hold an election to replace Cinna. But Carbo successfully delayed the issue until the regular elections for the following year came around. Cinna’s vacant chair was never filled.2

  Now sole consul, Carbo spent all of 84 BC raising an army. Despite the mutiny in Ancona, it was not hard to raise soldiers. Under Cinna’s guidance the Senate already passed a decree recognizing both citizenship and
voting equality for the Italians. Recruiters made the obvious case that when Sulla came back all these advances would be canceled. Even if they cared little for the dynamics of high Roman politics, every Italian could agree that civitas and suffragium were worth fighting for. As long as Sulla remained hostile to the idea of Italian equality, he could expect endless waves of resistance upon his return to the peninsula.3

  Waves of Italians weren’t the only thing Sulla would face upon his return—also on board with the growing anti-Sullan coalition were the plebs urbana of Rome. The plebs urbana had been staunchly opposed to Italian citizenship and were thus unhappy additions to the Cinnan fold. But they did not have much of a choice. If Sulla returned to Rome, he was not likely to be as benevolent as he was after the first march. The murder of his friends and destruction of his property guaranteed that there would be a vicious punitive response. Tales of the sack of Athens had already filtered back to Italy. Fearing the same treatment, the plebs urbana lined up behind Carbo as he orchestrated a pan-Italian defense. By the time Sulla sailed for Italy, Carbo could call on as many as 150,000 men and the wealth and resources of the entire western empire.4

  Their years of power in Rome had allowed the Cinnan regime to place loyal men in key positions across the empire. Scipio Asiaticus was still out on the Macedonian frontier with two legions. A loyal Cinnan partisan named Hadrianus had secured control of Africa and was raising men and supplies. Sertorius had strong connections in Cisalpine Gaul that could be turned to the cause. The island of Sicily, meanwhile, had long ago fallen into the hands of longtime populare stalwart Gaius Norbanus. As a tribune in 103, Norbanus had worked with Saturninus to stir up the riots that exiled Caepio and Mallius. He had survived the bloody purge of 100 and resumed a regular career, eventually being elected praetor and assigned to Sicily. But shortly after he arrived on the island the Social War broke out and the Senate extended all provincial commands. Norbanus remained in place through the Social War, and when the Cinnan regime captured Rome, Norbanus gladly pledged his loyalty. By the spring of 84, Norbanus had been governing Sicily for at least seven years; its all-important grain and manpower were in his safe hands.5

  A wild card in all of this was Gnaeus Pompeius, the twenty-one-year-old son of the late Pompey Strabo. The man known to history as Pompey the Great was still too young to hold a magistracy, but had become the head of the Pompeius household when his father died over the winter of 87–86. This assumption of authority gave Pompey control over the impressive client network his father had built up in northern Italy. Far more popular than his father, Pompey consolidated personal control over the family network thanks to his ambitious charisma. Cicero says Pompey was “a man who was born to excel in every thing, would have acquired a more distinguished reputation for his eloquence, if he had not been diverted from the pursuit of it by the more dazzling charms of military fame.” Though he had barely emerged into adulthood, Pompey already commanded attention—and securing his loyalty would be a key objective of both sides in the coming civil war.6

  After a year of careful preparation made possible by Sulla’s lingering in Asia, Carbo finally presided over new consular elections. Rather than stay in office himself, Carbo orchestrated the election of two close allies of the regime for the consulship of 83: Scipio Asiaticus and Gaius Norbanus. Though sometimes portrayed as moderate members of the Cinnan party, Asiaticus and Norbanus were amongst Sulla’s most implacable opponents and were elevated specifically because they were men capable of prosecuting a civil war without craving reconciliation like the tired old men in the Senate. Carbo himself meanwhile set down the consulship to become proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul, a country full of resources and men that sat poised atop the peninsula. Carbo’s path from consul of Rome to proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul blazed a trail that would be followed by both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.7

  The elections complete, Carbo settled a matter of pro forma business: he induced the Senate to decree the senatus consultum ultimum. This gave the new consuls the absolute power to do what was necessary to protect the state, which the Cinnans had just as much claim to as Sulla did: “For the sympathies of the people were much in favor of the consuls, because the action of Sulla, who was marching against his country, seemed to be that of an enemy, while that of the consuls, even if they were working for themselves, was ostensibly the cause of the republic.” The decree in hand, Asiaticus and Norbanus received Italy as their consular province. With the entire western empire at their backs, they entered 83 feeling good about their odds of burying Sulla and his vaunted legions.8

  ON THE OTHER side of the Adriatic, Sulla was also preparing. The settlement of Asia was not just about restoring Roman domination: it was about putting the wealth of the province at his disposal. With his coffers stocked from a winter of tax collection, Sulla could afford whatever came next. He also built a fleet of over a thousand ships to ferry his men to Italy and keep them supplied indefinitely from Greece and Asia. As the Cinnans claimed the resources of the west, Sulla claimed the east.

  But while the Cinnans could call upon waves of recruits, Sulla could count on the strength of his five veteran legions that had now been following him since the Social War. In the spring of 83, these five legions were the best-trained and most experienced army anywhere in the Mediterranean. But that did not mean Sulla could trust them completely. The length of their service, and the hardships they had endured, meant there was a strong possibility they would demand to be demobilized upon return to Italy. Sulla had pointed them at Rome once before and they followed. But their obedience had been partly because they sought riches and glory in the east. Now that they had both, would they follow Sulla to Rome a second time? So as he prepared his men to sail for home, Sulla administered an oath that they faithfully fight for him until he released them from service—but how many would hold to that oath Sulla did not know.9

  Sulla finally crossed the Adriatic and landed in Italy in the spring of 83. Arriving in the port of Brundisium, he got his first omen that things might work out. In his talks with the Senate, Sulla hinted that when he returned, he would accept both Italian civitas and suffragium without further argument. When he arrived in Brundisium, he followed through and declared the Italians had nothing to fear. He was as committed to their new place in the Republic as his enemies. The inhabitants of Brundisium were thrilled by this news, and any rising opposition to his arrival evaporated. Rather than fighting the first battle of a long hard slog to Rome, Sulla set out on the Via Appia without yet pulling sword from scabbard.10

  But aside from the immediate impact on the course of the Civil War, Sulla’s arrival in Brundisium also marks the end of the long Social War between Romans and Italians. The question of Italian citizenship had been the third rail of Roman politics for fifty years. The conflict stretched as far back as Tiberius Gracchus’s Lex Agraria, then moved through the legislation of Fulvius Flaccus and Gaius Gracchus, then through the rise of Marius, the revolution of Saturninus, the expulsion bill of Crassus and Scaevola, and the assassination of Drusus. Fifty years of tension and hostility had exploded into the bitter and destructive Social War, which climaxed with Cinna capturing Rome with the help of an Italian army. The looming civil war with Sulla looked like it was going to be an extension of that long-running conflict. Had Sulla maintained hostility to Italian citizenship, it is entirely likely an ocean of Italian resistance would have swallowed his well-trained legions. But Sulla was an astute politician and unwilling to stake his life to the imagined purity of Roman citizenship. By announcing in the spring of 83 that he would maintain Italian civitas and suffragium, Sulla ended the Social War. No matter who won the coming war, the Italians would be integrated equally into the Republic.

  As Sulla advanced up the Via Appia, he continued to demonstrate his benevolent intentions. His troops were not allowed to plunder or terrorize the countryside. And he further trumpeted his respect for the Italian citizenship to undermine whatever resistance might have been brewing the past few years. Wherev
er he passed, cities and towns welcomed him openly—even as he walked through Apulia and Samnium, two of the most implacably anti-Roman regions during the Social War.11

  Sulla’s promulgations and peaceful approach melted armed resistance, but his own civil status remained in doubt. TecÚically his command of the legions since 87 had been illegal. By law, he should have given up his command to Flaccus and gone into exile. Inside the Senate, men who might be willing to compromise with Sulla were troubled that he was operating an illegal command while the executive magistrates, the Senate, and the Assembly still considered him an outlaw.12

  But the hand wringing of these nervous fence sitters was greatly reduced when powerful, but thus far neutral, parties started to join Sulla’s slow moving procession up the Via Appia. Of these the most important was Metellus Pius. After departing Italy, Pius had fled south to Africa to stay out of the way of both Cinna and Sulla. But after carefully considering the situation, Pius decided that Sulla represented the more legitimate side of the conflict—even if the returning proconsul was tecÚically an enemy of the state. So as Sulla moved up the Via Appia, he was delighted when Metellus Pius arrived to join the march. Sulla was aware what a boon this was to his fortunes and grandly welcomed Pius into camp, affording him every honor and all but naming Pius co-commander of the army.13

  But where Pius was a political weight almost as great as Sulla, Sulla also accepted the allegiance of two young men on the rise. Like Metellus Pius, neither were strictly partisans of Sulla, but circumstances conspired to convince both to join. In time, both of these young men would become central figures in the final collapse of the Republic: Pompey the Great and Marcus Licinius Crassus.14

  Still in his early twenties, Pompey was a man operating well above his station. He had never held a magistracy and currently held no official position in the army—but his family’s extensive client network made him a powerful force in Italy. During the years of Sulla’s absence, the Cinnans attempted to secure an alliance with young Pompey, but much to their horror, Pompey raised a personal army and led them to rendezvous not with Asiaticus and Norbanus, but with Sulla. Pompey was brash and cocky, but, eager to cement Pompey’s loyalty, Sulla indulged the boy like he was already a great man, going so far as to stand when Pompey entered a room. The defection of Pompey to the Sullans was a blow to Carbo and the other old Cinnans: not only were they denied the forces at Pompey’s disposal, but northeast Italy went from being a secure base of operations to a hostile front line.15