Cataclysm 90 BC

The Forgotten War that Almost Destroyed Rome

Philip Matyszak

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781848847897
• eBook ISBN: 9781473847811
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

A dramatic account of a rebellion against the Roman republic—by a confederation of its Italian allies.
 
We know of Rome's reputation for military success against foreign enemies. Yet at the start of the first century BC, Rome faced a hostile army less than a week's march from the capital. It is probable that only a swift surrender prevented the city from being attacked and sacked. Before that point, three Roman consuls had died in battle, and two Roman armies had been soundly defeated—not in some faraway field, but in the heartland of Italy.
 
So who was this enemy that so comprehensively knocked Rome to its knees? What army could successfully challenge the legions which had been undefeated from Spain to the Euphrates? And why is that success almost unknown today?
 
These questions are answered in this book, a military and political history of the Social War. It tells the story of the revolt of Rome's Italian allies ( socii in Latin), who wanted citizenship—and whose warriors had all the advantages of the Roman army that they usually fought alongside. It came down to a clash of generals—with the Roman rivals Gaius Marius and Cornelius Sulla spending almost as much time in political intrigue as in combat with the enemy.
 
With its interplay of such personalities as the young Cicero, Cato, and Pompey—and filled with high-stakes politics, full-scale warfare, assassination, personal sacrifice, and desperate measures such as raising an army of freed slaves— Cataclysm 90 BC provides not just a rich historical account but a taut, fast-paced tale.

Chapter 1

Prelude to Cataclysmic Adjustment

The disaster of 91 BC did not come as a bolt from the blue. The problems facing the Roman state had begun developing soon after the end of Rome’s drawn-out war with Hannibal of Carthage (218–201 BC). Two generations later, around 150 BC, the fact that the Roman Republic was dysfunctional was obvious enough for contemporary politicians to be aware of it, though no one was willing or able to take action. Why action was difficult became more apparent in the following decades when the politicians who tried to take it paid with their lives for making the attempt. Thereafter the problem was left unsolved. This was the situation until 91 BC.

History tells us that if no remedy is applied to a situation out of balance, matters will eventually resolve themselves by a process known as cataclysmic adjustment. ‘Cataclysmic adjustment’ does not actually solve a problem but rather changes the problem into something completely different and usually more severe. For example, if the foundations of a house need repairs that they do not receive, cataclysmic adjustment will eventually transform the problem into that of removing a collapsed house and building another. This is roughly analogous with what happened to the Roman Republic. An ongoing structural problem with the state was not addressed (and according to Polybius, could not be addressed – see introduction), and the result was that the Republic collapsed, to be eventually replaced with a new structure.

The years between 150 and 91 BC tell the story of the failure to resolve Rome’s structural problems, and the years 91–81 BC describe how the first stage of the collapse took place. It is fair to argue that before 91 BC the Roman Republic might have been saved. After 81 BC failure was inevitable; cataclysmic adjustment had already begun.

There were many things wrong with the Roman Republic of the late second century, but most of these could be traced to one fundamental problem and one major secondary issue. These were, respectively, the failure of inclusivism and dispossession from the land. If we are to understand what happened in 91 BC it is important to first address these two issues at length.

The fundamental problem was the failure of inclusivism. This itself had two parts. Firstly, after the second Punic War the Roman Republic, originally one of the most open societies in the ancient world, changed its policy of absorbing communities into the Roman citizen body. Instead Rome began to guard the citizenship jealously, creating divisions between those who had the privileges and rights of citizenship and those who wanted them. Secondly, the Roman leadership, also once open and inclusive, fell into the hands of a largely closed community of aristocrats. This community defended its privileges and came increasingly to identify its interests as being those of the Roman state as a whole. That is, the Roman political elite, which until then had seen its duty as service to the state, now increasingly adopted the view that the state existed to serve it. This was a substantial change with far-reaching effects to which we shall return.

With inclusivism, there was once a time when access to the Roman citizen body was extremely easy. Mostly it was a matter of turning up and living in Rome for a while. Rome’s ‘open door’ policy was partly because from its earliest days the city was by necessity expansionist. Rome was founded at the lowest crossing point of the river Tiber. This put it right across an ancient trade route that took salt from the coast to the Italian interior – the via Salaria. Furthermore, the Tiber was the unofficial border between Latium and Etruria. Therefore the settlement of Rome managed to displease both Latins and Etruscans. Legend records that the first act of Romulus when he founded the city was to build a defensive wall – it was going to be needed.

Given unfriendly neighbours and local hill tribes with a penchant for pillage, early Rome had to get big or die. To survive, Rome needed new people, and the city was not fussy about how it acquired them. Volunteers were welcome – be they escaped slaves, disbanded mercenaries, reformed bandits or men escaping their creditors. If not enough volunteers arrived, the Romans were ready, willing and able to go out and recruit new members by force; entire communities were unwillingly conscripted into the citizen body. Rome even conquered Alba Longa from whence legend says the original colonists who settled Rome had come. The people of Alba Longa – including the aristocratic family of the Julians – were forcibly translocated to Rome.

Eventually, as Rome expanded, lack of space on the seven hills meant that bringing home entire conquered populations along with the booty became unrealistic. Still, the Romans did not stop making citizens out of those they had conquered. A new policy left those defeated by the legions in place, but now as involuntary Romans amid the still-smouldering ruins of homes which they were free to rebuild as extensions of the Roman state, far from the city of Rome.

Recognizing that defeated peoples might harbour hard feelings about recent events, the constitution instituted a special status for them. They became cives sine suffragio – citizens without the vote. This made a conquered people sort of probationary Romans, entitled to the legal protection of citizenship, but unable (for example) to vote for the immediate execution of the general who had conquered them. If a community behaved itself – and almost all did – then the vote would come along in a generation or two. By that time the grandsons of the defeated were in the legions, enthusiastically expanding the Roman state yet further and forcibly recruiting yet more members of the Roman citizen body.

This openness worked wonders for Roman expansion – as the emperor Claudius later noted. Faced with objections to his giving citizenship to Gauls of the Senones tribe he replied:

Indeed I know for a fact, that the [noble family of the] Julii came from Alba [Longa], the Coruncanii from Camerium, the Porcii from Tusculum. Without going into detail about the past, new members of the Senate have been brought in from Etruria and Lucania and the whole of Italy. The land of Italy itself was extended to the Alps, just so that that not only individuals but entire countries and tribes could be united under our name…

Our founder Romulus was so wise that he fought as enemies and then hailed as fellow-citizens several nations on the very same day. Strangers have reigned over us. That freedmen’s sons should be entrusted with public offices … was a common practice in the old Republic. But, you say, we have fought against the Senones. Then does this mean that the Volsci and Aequi [now communities of solid Roman citizens] never stood in battle array against us?

Tacitus, Annals 11

What applied to the citizenship in general also applied to the most aristocratic Romans. As Claudius said of the Julians and others, not only was access to the Roman citizenship straightforward (and sometimes not even voluntary), membership of the Roman governing class was also highly accessible. The origins of the Roman aristocracy are here described by the later Roman historian Livy.

It was traditional for those founding a city to assemble a horde of the obscure and lowly-born and then make the fictional claim that these people had ‘sprung from the soil’. Following this tradition, Romulus opened a place of refuge at the enclosed space between the two groves of trees that you find as you go down from the Capitol. This became an asylum for an indiscriminate crowd of freedmen and [escaped] slaves looking to better their lot. This influx was the first source of strength for the newly-founded city. Satisfied with this, Romulus took steps to see that this strength was properly directed. He created a hundred senators, either because he felt that number was enough or because the city had only a hundred heads of households.

Livy, From the Founding of the City 1.1.18

How much of Livy’s early history is factual is hotly disputed by academics. Yet just as there is little doubt that the original citizens of Rome were as unsavoury a bunch of riff-raff as any between Sicily and the Alps, the Romans were equally undiscriminating about whom they added to their aristocracy. For example, the name of the Metelli, one of the largest of later Rome’s aristocratic families, appears to originate in the word for a discharged mercenary. One Servius Tullius, who first saw the city as a captive slave boy in a triumphal procession, allegedly went on to become the fifth king of Rome. In contrast to later years, the early Roman nobility was highly accommodating of new members.

As well as those rising to the top from within the state, early Rome also had aristocratic immigrants – for example one Attus Clausus (the ancestor of the accommodating emperor Claudius mentioned above) became disaffected with his native city of Regillum and decamped to Rome with all his household in 504 BC (Livy 2.16.4). As with escaped slaves and bandits on the run, Rome welcomed Clausus with open arms.

Four hundred years later, the descendants of Attus Clausus were known as the Appii Claudii, and any foreign aristocrat was unlikely to get the time of day from them, let alone an invitation to join the senate. True, the aristocracy was prone to regular bursts of xenophobia when it came to outsiders becoming senators. But for most of the senate’s existence, individual senators showed a preference for sons-in-law with money and influence whatever their origin. So outsiders could and did join senatorial families and in time their descendants forced their way on to the benches of the senate house. As the emperor Claudius had noted, Volscians, the Aequi, Etruscans and many others eventually became Roman senators – and in time became as wary of outsiders as others had been of their ancestors.

One reason for this exclusivity was that as the Roman state expanded, so did the rewards of being Roman and of holding office in Rome. This is not to say that Rome was corrupt, because ‘corruption’ implies an alternative system to be corrupted. In ancient Rome nepotism, back-scratching, and the exchange of favours did not corrupt the system – they actually were the system. Without them the administration could not function. The senate was very much an ‘old-boy network’ and took pride in that fact. If a man had done a senator a favour – such as giving him an interest-free loan – not only would that senator support that man in politics, but he would freely admit the reason.

This worked well when Rome was a small, relatively impoverished city with a warrior aristocracy. When Rome controlled an empire that stretched across the Mediterranean, a ‘favour’ from a governor or serving consul could be worth millions. Such favours might include the right to collect taxes in a province, a trade monopoly or receipt of a public works contract. Naturally, the person bestowing such a favour expected a cut of those millions, or an equally valuable favour in return. At this point the system started to break down.

It is a truism that power and wealth generally go together, and through the perks of office, those who exercised political power in Rome became extremely wealthy. They had to be, for Rome was still democratic (for a given definition of ‘democratic’) and competition for votes for public office and its rewards became ferocious. Voters expected to be bribed with gifts, circuses and free dinners. They also rewarded by electing to office those who built civic amenities for them to enjoy, such as fountains, public gardens and temples. The expenses for such amenities came out of a candidate’s own pocket. If he was successful in obtaining high office, the candidate could expect to use that office to regain the money he had spent, and a lot more. Those who failed to be elected were often financially ruined.

This had several effects. Firstly politics in Rome – never a gentle occupation – became increasingly cut-throat and the high stakes meant that elections became ever more competitive. Secondly, Roman aristocrats had their hands full competing with one another. They were extremely reluctant to widen the field by allowing outsiders to join the fray. Thirdly, those who were elected to office were those who had the financial resources to woo voters, buy allies and buy off competitors. As time went on and expenses went up, the only people who could afford to pay for all this were those who had held office already and had reaped the huge financial rewards that came with it. Since they had held office, these men did not pay for their own electoral campaigns, but for those of their children. At this point the top jobs in Rome became virtually monopolized by a small group of very wealthy families.

Families that regularly had their members voted to the consulship – the top executive office in Rome – were called the nobiles; or as Cicero described them ‘those made consuls in their cradles’. Such families were immensely wealthy and hugely influential. Influence was important, for a Roman’s auctoritas mattered at least as much as his money. Auctoritas is a difficult concept to define, but it basically described a man’s power to get things done and to prevent others doing things to him. It was a combination of being respected and having a known ability to help others – with the understanding that such help came at a price for the person being helped. Auctoritas also included the ability to crush enemies. Political battles often spilled over into the courts, and in such struggles auctoritas usually trumped both the law and issues of right and wrong. We shall later (p.78) see the fate of the tribune Varius Hybrida,¹ who was himself accused of the very same charges he failed to press home against an aristocratic Roman and condemned. That was auctoritas in action. In rather the same way, when one of the highly aristocratic Metelli was accused of fraud and peculation, none of the jurymen dared look at the accounts presented as evidence because that would show disrespect to Metellus. Naturally Metellus was acquitted.

Throughout Roman history the aristocracy had been powerful. Once Rome had become a Mediterranean-wide empire, the aristocracy reaped a disproportionate share of the rewards and became more powerful still. The nobiles controlled access to public office, the administrative functions of the state, the top priestly offices and the courts. But they had always been influential in these areas. The problem came when the nobiles began to monopolize land ownership as well. When Rome conquered an enemy, especially in Italy, a commission was sent by the senate to organize how that conquered state would function thereafter. If a city occupied a strategic location, it was highly likely that the original occupants would be displaced and the city occupied by retired Roman legionaries. In such an event, the city became an extension of Rome itself – a colonus. More often, Rome made the conquered city an involuntary ‘ally’ and was content to levy tribute on the original population. This tribute often came in the form of soldiers who then fought alongside the Roman legions in further campaigns. In these cases, Rome also usually took for itself a percentage of the land of the conquered state.

This land was called the ager publicus, the ‘public field’, and as with colonia, the intent was to settle discharged legionaries or soldiers from the Italian allies on the land, which they rented from the Roman state at low or nominal rents. In time the sons raised on these smallholdings themselves became eligible for recruitment to the army and the cycle of conquest, settlement and recruitment was repeated. There was a general sentiment that these sturdy sons of peasant stock were the backbone of the army and of Rome’s military success.

The young men who stained the Punic Sea with blood …

those who assaulted Pyrrhus,

and struck at great Antiochus,

and fearsome Hannibal –

They were a manly bunch of rustic soldiers

taught to dig the fields with a Sabine hoe,

hauling in the firewood they had cut

at their strict mothers’ orders

Horace, Odes 3.4

By the 150s BC Rome was running out of such prime military material. There was a feeling that the peasant farmers were being crowded off the land by the Roman aristocracy. The process was described in detail by the historian Appian who wrote two centuries later. He tells how the Romans created the public land and how it was rented to smallholders, and goes on to say:

They did these things in order to multiply the Italian race, which they considered the most industrious of peoples, so that they might have plenty of allies at home. But the very opposite thing happened; for the rich, getting possession of the greater part of the undistributed lands, and being emboldened by the lapse of time to believe that they would never be dispossessed, absorbing any adjacent strips and their poor neighbours’ allotments, partly by purchase under persuasion and partly by force, came to cultivate vast tracts instead of single estates, using slaves as labourers and herdsmen, lest free labourers should be drawn from agriculture into the army.

At the same time the ownership of slaves brought them great gain from the multitude of their progeny, who increased because they were exempt from military service. Thus certain powerful men became extremely rich and the race of slaves multiplied throughout the country, while the Italian people dwindled in numbers and strength, being oppressed by penury, taxes, and military service. If they had any respite from these evils they passed their time in idleness, because the land was held by the rich, who employed slaves instead of freemen as cultivators.

History of Appian 1.1.7, as translated in the Loeb Classical Library

1913

The process of obtaining public land was relatively straightforward for someone with the power and the money to do so. Even though there were laws that allowed only limited parcels of land to be held by a single individual, the nobility simply held their huge estates under the names of proxies, m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction – the Prophetic Polybius
• Chapter 1: Prelude to Cataclysmic Adjustment
• Chapter 2: The Rivals
• Chapter 3: The State of Italy
• Chapter 4: Livius Drusus, the Failed Reformer
• Chapter 5: The Breaking Storm
• Chapter 6: 90 BC – Backs to the Wall
• Chapter 7: Surrender – an Odd Way to Win
• Chapter 8: Sulla’s March on Rome – this Changes Everything
• Chapter 9: Sulla’s Return – Fighting for Rome
• Chapter 10: Terror and Settlement
• Epilogue – From Sulla to Caesar
• Notes