The History of Rome, Book V - Theodor Mommsen
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Senate, Equites, and Populares
The retirement of the man, to whom as things stood the first place
belonged, from the political stage reproduced in the first instance
nearly the same position of parties, which we found in the Gracchan
and Marian epochs. Sulla had merely strengthened the senatorial
government, not created it; so, after the bulwarks erected by Sulla
had fallen, the government nevertheless remained primarily
with the senate, although, no doubt, the constitution with which
it governed--in the main the restored Gracchan constitution--
was pervaded by a spirit hostile to the oligarchy. The democracy
had effected the re-establishment of the Gracchan constitution;
but without a new Gracchus it was a body without a head,
and that neither Pompeius nor Crassus could be permanently such a head,
was in itself clear and had been made still clearer by the recent
events. So the democratic opposition, for want of a leader
who could have directly taken the helm, had to content itself
for the time being with hampering and annoying the government
at every step. Between the oligarchy, however, and the democracy
there rose into new consideration the capitalist party,
which in the recent crisis had made common cause with the latter,
but which the oligarchs now zealously endeavoured to draw over
to their side, so as to acquire in it a counterpoise to the democracy.
Thus courted on both sides the moneyed lords did not neglect to turn
their advantageous position to profit, and to have the only one
of their former privileges which they had not yet regained--the fourteen
benches reserved for the equestrian order in the theatre--now (687)
restored to them by decree of the people. On the whole, without
abruptly breaking with the democracy, they again drew closer
to the government. The very relations of the senate to Crassus
and his clients point in this direction; but a better understanding
between the senate and the moneyed aristocracy seems to have been
chiefly brought about by the fact, that in 686 the senate withdrew
from Lucius Lucullus the ablest of the senatorial officers,
at the instance of the capitalists whom he had sorely annoyed,
the dministration of the province of Asia so important
for their purposes.(8)
The Events in the East, and Their Reaction on Rome
But while the factions of the capital were indulging in their
wonted mutual quarrels, which they were never able to bring
to any proper decision, events in the east followed their fatal course,
as we have already described; and it was these events that brought
the dilatory course of the politics of the capital to a crisis.
The war both by land and by sea had there taken a most unfavourable
turn. In the beginning of 687 the Pontic army of the Romans
was destroyed, and their Armenian army was utterly breaking up
on its retreat; all their conquests were lost, the sea was exclusively
in the power of the pirates, and the price of grain in Italy
was thereby so raised that they were afraid of an actual famine.
No doubt, as we saw, the faults of the generals, especially
the utter incapacity of the admiral Marcus Antonius and the temerity
of the otherwise able Lucius Lucullus, were in part the occasion
of these calamities; no doubt also the democracy had by its
revolutionary agitations materially contributed to the breaking up
of the Armenian army. But of course the government was now held
cumulatively responsible for all the mischief which itself
and others had occasioned, and the indignant hungry multitude
desired only an opportunity to settle accounts with the senate.
Reappearance of Pompeius
It was a decisive crisis. The oligarchy, though degraded
and disarmed, was not yet overthrown, for the management of public
affairs was still in the hands of the senate; but it would fall,
if its opponents should appropriate to themselves that management,
and more especially the superintendence of military affairs;
and now this was possible. If proposals for another and better
management of the war by land and sea were now submitted to the comitia,
the senate was obviously--looking to the temper of the burgesses--
not in a position to prevent their passing; and an interference
of the burgesses in these supreme questions of administration
was practically the deposition of the senate and the transference
of the conduct of the state to the leaders of opposition. Once more
the concatenation of events brought the decision into the hands
of Pompeius. For more than two years the famous general had lived
as a private citizen in the capital. His voice was seldom heard
in the senate-house or in the Forum; in the former he was unwelcome
and without decisive influence, in the latter he was afraid
of the stormy proceedings of the parties. But when he did show himself,
it was with the full retinue of his clients high and low,
and the very solemnity of his reserve imposed on the multitude.
If he, who was still surrounded with the full lustre of his extraordinary
successes, should now offer to go to the east, he would beyond
doubt be readily invested by the burgesses with all the plenitude
of military and political power which he might himself ask.
For the oligarchy, which saw in the political-military dictatorship
their certain ruin, and in Pompeius himself since the coalition
of 683 their most hated foe, this was an overwhelming blow;
but the democratic party also could have little comfort in the prospect.
However desirable the putting an end to the government of the senate
could not but be in itself, it was, if it took place in this way,
far less a victory for their party than a personal victory
for their over-powerful ally. In the latter there might easily arise
a far more dangerous opponent to the democratic party than the senate
had been. The danger fortunately avoided a few years before
by the disbanding of the Spanish army and the retirement of Pompeius
would recur in increased measure, if Pompeius should now be placed
at the head of the armies of the east.
Overthrow of the Senatorial Rule, and New Power of Pompeius
On this occasion, however, Pompeius acted or at least allowed
others to act in his behalf. In 687 two projects of law
were introduced, one of which, besides decreeing the discharge--
long since demanded by the democracy--of the soldiers of the Asiatic
army who had served their term, decreed the recall of its
commander-in-chief Lucius Lucullus and the supplying of his place
by one of the consuls of the current year, Gaius Piso or Manius
Glabrio; while the second revived and extended the plan proposed
seven years before by the senate itself for clearing the seas
from the pirates. A single general to be named by the senate
from the consulars was to be appointed, to hold by sea exclusive command
over the whole Mediterranean from the Pillars of Hercules to the coasts
of Pontus and Syria, and to exercise by land, concurrently
with the respective Roman governors, supreme command over the whole
coasts for fifty miles inland. The office was secured to him
for three years. He was surrounded by a staff, such as Rome
had never seen, of five-and-twenty lieutenants of senatorial rank,
all invested with praetorian insignia and praetorian powers,
and of two under-treasurers with quaestorian prerogatives, all of them
selected by the exclusive will of the general commanding-in-chief.
He was allowed to raise as many as 120,000 infantry, 5000 cavalry,
500 ships of war, and for this purpose to dispose absolutely
of the means of the provinces and client-states; moreover, the existing
vessels of war and a considerable number of troops were at once
handed over to him. The treasures of the state in the capital
and in the provinces as well as those of the dependent communities
were to be placed absolutely at his command, and in spite of the severe
financial distress a sum of; 1,400,000 pounds (144,000,000 sesterces)
was at once to be paid to him from the state-chest.
Effect of the Projects of Law
It is clear that by these projects of law, especially
by that which related to the expedition against the pirates,
the government of the senate was set aside. Doubtless the ordinary
supreme magistrates nominated by the burgesses were of themselves
the proper generals of the commonwealth, and the extraordinary
magistrates needed, at least according to strict law, confirmation
by the burgesses in order to act as generals; but in the appointment
to particular commands no influence constitutionally belonged
to the community, and it was only on the proposition of the senate,
or at any rate on that of a magistrate entitled in himself
to hold the office of general, that the comitia had hitherto
now and again interfered in this matter and conferred
such special functions. In this field, ever since there had existed
a Roman free state, the practically decisive voice pertained
to the senate, and this its prerogative had in the course of time
obtained full recognition. No doubt the democracy had already
assailed it; but even in the most doubtful of the cases which had
hitherto occurred--the transference of the African command
to Gaius Marius in 647(9)--it was only a magistrate constitutionally
entitled to hold the office of general that was entrusted
by the resolution of the burgesses with a definite expedition.
But now the burgesses were to invest any private man at their
pleasure not merely with the extraordinary authority of the supreme
magistracy, but also with a sphere of office definitely settled
by them. That the senate had to choose this man from the ranks
of the consulars, was a mitigation only in form; for the selection
was left to it simply because there was really no choice,
and in presence of the vehemently excited multitude the senate
could entrust the chief command of the seas and coasts to no other
save Pompeius alone. But more dangerous still than this negation
in principle of the senatorial control was its practical abolition
by the institution of an office of almost unlimited military
and financial powers. While the office of general was formerly
restricted to a term of one year, to a definite province,
and to military and financial resources strictly measured out,
the new extraordinary office had from the outset a duration
of three years secured to it--which of course did not exclude
a farther prolongation; had the greater portion of all the provinces,
and even Italy itself which was formerly free from military
jurisdiction, subordinated to it; had the soldiers, ships,
treasures of the state placed almost without restriction
at its disposal. Even the primitive fundamental principle
in the state-law of the Roman republic, which we have just mentioned--
that the highest military and civil authority could not be conferred
without the co-operation of the burgesses--was infringed in favour
of the new commander-in-chief. Inasmuch as the law conferred beforehand
on the twenty-five adjutants whom he was to nominate praetorian
rank and praetorian prerogatives,(10) the highest office
of republican Rome became subordinate to a newly created office,
for which it was left to the future to find the fitting name,
but which in reality even now involved in it the monarchy.
It was a total revolution in the existing order of things,
for which the foundation was laid in this project of law.
Pompeius and the Gabinian Laws
These measures of a man who had just given so striking proofs
of his vacillation and weakness surprise us by their decisive energy.
Nevertheless the fact that Pompeius acted on this occasion
more resolutely than during his consulate is very capable of explanation.
The point at issue was not that he should come forward at once
as monarch, but only that he should prepare the way for the monarchy
by a military exceptional measure, which, revolutionary
as it was in its nature, could still be accomplished under the forms
of the existing constitution, and which in the first instance
carried Pompeius so far on the way towards the old object
of his wishes, the command against Mithradates and Tigranes.
Important reasons of expediency also might be urged for the emancipation
of the military power from the senate. Pompeius could not
have forgotten that a plan designed on exactly similar
principles for the suppression of piracy had a few years before
failed through the mismanagement of the senate, and that the issue
of the Spanish war had been placed in extreme jeopardy by the neglect
of the armies on the part of the senate and its injudicious conduct
of the finances; he could not fail to see what were the feelings
with which the great majority of the aristocracy regarded
him as a renegade Sullan, and what fate was in store for him,
if he allowed himself to be sent as general of the government
with the usual powers to the east. It was natural therefore
that he should indicate a position independent of the senate
as the first condition of his undertaking the command,
and that the burgesses should readily agree to it. It is moreover
in a high degree probable that Pompeius was on this occasion urged
to more rapid action by those around him, who were, it may be presumed,
not a little indignant at his retirement two years before. The projects
of law regarding the recall of Lucullus and the expedition against
the pirates were introduced by the tribune of the people Aulus
Gabinius, a man ruined in finances and morals, but a dexterous
negotiator, a bold orator, and a brave soldier. Little as the assurance
of Pompeius, that he had no wish at all for the chief command
in the war with the pirates and only longed for domestic
repose, were meant in earnest, there was probably this much
of truth in them, that the bold and active client, who was
in confidential intercourse with Pompeius and his more immediate
circle and who completely saw through the situation and the men,
took the decision to a considerable extent out of the hands
of his shortsighted and resourceless patron.
The Parties in Relation to the Gabinian Laws
The democracy, discontented as its leaders might be in secret,
could not well come publicly forward against the project of law.
It would, to all appearance, have been in no case able to hinder
the carrying of the law; but it would by opposition have openly
broken with Pompeius and thereby compelled him either to make
approaches to the oligarchy or regardlessly to pursue his personal
policy in the face of both parties. No course was left
to the democrats but still even now to adhere to their alliance
with Pompeius, hollow as it was, and to embrace the present opportunity
of at least definitely overthrowing the senate and passing over
from opposition into government, leaving the ulterior issue
to the future and to the well-known weakness of Pompeius' character.
Accordingly their leaders--the praetor Lucius Quinctius, the same
who seven years before had exerted himself for the restoration
of the tribunician power,(11) and the former quaestor Gaius Caesar--
supported the Gabinian proposals.
The privileged classes were furious--not merely the nobility,
but also the mercantile aristocracy, which felt its exclusive
rights endangered by so thorough a state-revolution and once
more recognized its true patron in the senate. When the tribune
Gabinius after the introduction of his proposals appeared
in the senate-house, the fathers of the city were almost on the point
of strangling him with their own hands, without considering in their
zeal how extremely disadvantageous for them this method of arguing
must have ultimately proved. The tribune escaped to the Forum
and summoned the multitude to storm the senate-house, when just
at the right time the sitting terminated. The consul Piso,
the champion of the oligarchy, who accidentally fell into the hands
of the multitude, would have certainly become a victim to popular fury,
had not Gabinius come up and, in order that his certain success
might not be endangered by unseasonable acts of violence, liberated
the consul. Meanwhile the exasperation of the multitude remained
undiminished and constantly found fresh nourishment in the high
prices of grain and the numerous rumours more or less absurd
which were in circulation--such as that Lucius Lucullus had invested
the money entrusted to him for carrying on the war at interest in Rome,
or had attempted with its aid to make the praetor Quinctius withdraw
from the cause of the people; that the senate intended to prepare
for the "second Romulus," as they called Pompeius, the fate
of the first,(12) and other reports of a like character.
The Vote
Thereupon the day of voting arrived. The multitude stood densely
packed in the Forum; all the buildings, whence the rostra could
be seen, were covered up to the roofs with men. All the colleagues
of Gabinius had promised their veto to the senate; but in presence
of the surging masses all were silent except the single Lucius
Trebellius, who had sworn to himself and the senate rather
to die than yield. When the latter exercised his veto,
Gabinius immediately interrupted the voting on his projects of law
and proposed to the assembled people to deal with his
refractory colleague, as Octavius had formerly been dealt with
on the proposition of Tiberius Gracchus,(13) namely, to depose him
immediately from office. The vote was taken and the reading
out of the voting tablets began; when the first seventeen tribes,
which came to be read out, had declared for the proposal
and the next affirmative vote would give to it the majority,
Trebellius, forgetting his oath, pusillanimously withdrew his veto.
In vain the tribune Otho then endeavoured to procure that at least
the collegiate principle might be preserved, and two generals
elected instead of one; in vain the aged Quintus Catulus,
the most respected man in the senate, exerted his last energies
to secure that the lieutenant-generals should not be nominated
by the commander-in-chief, but chosen by the people. Otho could
not even procure a hearing amidst the noise of the multitude;
the well-calculated complaisance of Gabinius procured a hearing
for Catulus, and in respectful silence the multitude listened
to the old man's words; but they were none the less thrown away.
The proposals were not merely converted into law with all the clauses
unaltered, but the supplementary requests in detail made by Pompeius
were instantaneously and completely agreed to.
Successes of Pompeius in the East
With high-strung hopes men saw the two generals Pompeius and Glabrio
depart for their places of destination. The price of grain
had fallen immediately after the passing of the Gabinian laws
to the ordinary rates--an evidence of the hopes attached to the grand
expedition and its glorious leader. These hopes were, as we shall
have afterwards to relate, not merely fulfilled, but surpassed:
in three months the clearing of the seas was completed.
Since the Hannibalic war the Roman government had displayed
no such energy in external action; as compared with the lax
and incapable administration of the oligarchy, the democratic--
military opposition had most brilliantly made good its title
to grasp and wield the reins of the state. The equally unpatriotic
and unskilful attempts of the consul Piso to put paltry obstacles
in the way of the arrangements of Pompeius for the suppression of piracy
in Narbonese Gaul only increased the exasperation of the burgesses
against the oligarchy and their enthusiasm for Pompeius; it was nothing
but the personal intervention of the latter, that prevented the assembly
of the people from summarily removing the consul from his office.
Meanwhile the confusion on the Asiatic continent had become still
worse. Glabrio, who was to take up in the stead of Lucullus
the chief command against Mithradates and Tigranes, had remained
stationary in the west of Asia Minor and, while instigating
the soldiers by various proclamations against Lucullus, had not entered
on the supreme command, so that Lucullus was forced to retain it.
Against Mithradates, of course, nothing was done; the Pontic
cavalry plundered fearlessly and with impunity in Bithynia
and Cappadocia. Pompeius had been led by the piratical war to proceed
with his army to Asia Minor; nothing seemed more natural than
to invest him with the supreme command in the Pontic-Armenian war,
to which he himself had long aspired. But the democratic party did
not, as may be readily conceived, share the wishes of its general,
and carefully avoided taking the initiative in the matter.
It is very probable that it had induced Gabinius not to entrust
both the war with Mithradates and that with the pirates from the outset
to Pompeius, but to entrust the former to Glabrio; upon no account
could it now desire to increase and perpetuate the exceptional
position of the already too-powerful general. Pompeius himself
retained according to his custom a passive attitude; and perhaps
he would in reality have returned home after fulfilling the commission
which he had received, but for the occurrence of an incident
unexpected by all parties.
The Manillian Law
One Gaius Manilius, an utterly worthless and insignificant man
had when tribune of the people by his unskilful projects of legislation
lost favour both with the aristocracy and with the democracy.
In the hope of sheltering himself under the wing of the powerful
general, if he should procure for the latter what every one knew
that he eagerly desired but had not the boldness to ask, Manilius
proposed to the burgesses to recall the governors Glabrio
from Bithynia and Pontus and Marcius Rex from Cilicia, and to entrust
their offices as well as the conduct of the war in the east,
apparently without any fixed limit as to time and at any rate
with the freest authority to conclude peace and alliance,
to the proconsul of the seas and coasts in addition to his previous
office (beg. of 688). This occurrence very clearly showed how
disorganized was the machinery of the Roman constitution,
whenthe power of legislation was placed as respected the initiative
inthe hands of any demagogue however insignificant, and as respected
the final determination in the hands of the incapable multitude,
while it at the same time was extended to the most important questions
of administration. The Manilian proposal was acceptable to none of
the political parties; yet it scarcely anywhere encountered serious
resistance. The democratic leaders, for the same reasons which had
forced them to acquiesce in the Gabinian law, could not venture
earnestly to oppose the Manilian; they kept their displeasure
and their fears to themselves and spoke in public for the general
of the democracy. The moderate Optimates declared themselves
for the Manilian proposal, because after the Gabinian law resistance
in any case was vain, and far-seeing men already perceived
that the true policy for the senate was to make approaches
as far as possible to Pompeius and to draw him over to their side
on occasion of the breach which might be foreseen between him
and the democrats. Lastly the trimmers blessed the day
when they too seemed to have an opinion and could come forward
decidedly without losing favour with either of the parties--
it is significant that Marcus Cicero first appeared as an orator
on the political platform in defence of the Manilian proposal.
The strict Optimates alone, with Quintus Catulus at their head,
showed at least their colours and spoke against the proposition.
Of course it was converted into law by a majority bordering on unanimity.
Pompeius thus obtained, in addition to his earlier extensive powers,
the administration of the most important provinces of Asia Minor--
so that there scarcely remained a spot of land within the wide Roman
bounds that had not to obey him--and the conduct of a war as to which,
like the expedition of Alexander, men could tell where and when
it began, but not where and when it might end. Never since Rome
stood had such power been united in the hands of a single man.
The Democratic-Military Revolution
The Gabinio-Manilian proposals terminated the struggle between
the senate and the popular party, which the Sempronian laws had begun
sixty-seven years before. As the Sempronian laws first constituted
the revolutionary party into a political opposition, the Gabinio-
Manilian first converted it from an opposition into the government;
and as it had been a great moment when the first breach
in the existing constitution was made by disregarding the veto
of Octavius, it was a moment no less full of significance
when the last bulwark of the senatorial rule fell with the withdrawal
of Trebellius. This was felt on both sides and even the indolent
souls of the senators were convulsively roused by this death-
struggle; but yet the war as to the constitution terminated
in a very different and far more pitiful fashion than it had begun.
A youth in every sense noble had commenced the revolution;
it was concluded by pert intriguers and demagogues of the lowest type.
On the other hand, while the Optimates had begun the struggle
with a measured resistance and with a defence which earnestly held out
even at the forlorn posts, they ended with taking the initiative
in club-law, with grandiloquent weakness, and with pitiful perjury.
What had once appeared a daring dream, was now attained; the senate
had ceased to govern. But when the few old men who had seen
the first storms of revolution and heard the words of the Gracchi,
compared that time with the present they found that everything
had in the interval changed--countrymen and citizens, state-law
and military discipline, life and manners; and well might those
painfully smile, who compared the ideals of the Gracchan period
with their realization. Such reflections however belonged
to the past. For the present and perhaps also for the future the fall
of the aristocracy was an accomplished fact. The oligarchs resembled
an army utterly broken up, whose scattered bands might serve
to reinforce another body of troops, but could no longer themselves
keep the field or risk a combat on their own account. But as
the old struggle came to an end, a new one was simultaneously
beginning--the struggle between the two powers hitherto leagued
for the overthrow of the aristocratic constitution, the civil-
democratic opposition and the military power daily aspiring
to greater ascendency. The exceptional position of Pompeius
even under the Gabinian, and much more under the Manilian,
law was incompatible with a republican organization. He had been
as even then his opponents urged with good reason, appointed
by the Gabinian law not as admiral, but as regent of the empire;
not unjustly was he designated by a Greek familiar with eastern
affairs "king of kings." If he should hereafter, on returning
from the east once more victorious and with increased glory,
with well-filled chests, and with troops ready for battle and devoted
to his cause, stretch forth his hand to seize the crown--who would
then arrest his arm? Was the consular Quintus Catulus, forsooth,
to summon forth the senators against the first general of his time
and his experienced legions? or was the designated aedile Gaius Caesar
to call forth the civic multitude, whose eyes he had just feasted
on his three hundred and twenty pairs of gladiators with their silver
equipments? Soon, exclaimed Catulus, it would be necessary once
more to flee to the rocks of the Capitol, in order to save liberty.
It was not the fault of the prophet, that the storm came not,
as he expected, from the east, but that on the contrary fate,
fulfilling his words more literally than he himself anticipated,
brought on the destroying tempest a few years later from Gaul.