ROMAN IMPERIALISM

IN THE LATE REPUBLIC

By E. BADIAN
 @ Basil Blackwell, 1968
63r rrrro 7

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

f-f-lHESE lectureswere delivered at a vacation schoolin Ancient

I History o.rganisedby the Universiry of South Africa in July
1965. At the kind suggestion of the Universiry, they are here
published much as delivered. Simple annorarion has been added,
and I should like to thank the University for allowing me the
spacefor this. tt should sufficero draw the attention of the reader
not expert in the subject to the main sourcesand to modern dis-
Fint published 1967 cussionswhere more can be found. The text ofthe lectureshasnot,
Sccond edition 1968 on the whole, been much changed: the only consistentadaptation
has been an attempt to eliminate that ubertaswhich-necessary if
the listener is to follow the spoken word-becomes an irritani in
print. As the revision was completed in December 1965, it was
possible to insert at least some referencesto relevant work that
had appearedby that date.
I should like to thank all those colleagueswho discussedpoints
arising out of the lectures with me ar Pretoria: especiallypro-
fessorsW. den Boer and C. P. T. Naud6, who, while busy with
their own contributions to the occasion,found dme to improve
mine; ProGssorsG. van N. Viljoen and H. L. Gonin, who asked
many searching questions with exemplary courtesy; and also
'White,
ProGssor Mary of Toronto, who, on a short visit to
England, was kind enough to read the typescript. They have all
helped to make what is necessarilya sketchy ffeatment of an
important subject a little lessdefective.
But it is my chief dury and pleasurero thank my South African
colleagues,both at the Universiry of South Africa and at other
Printed in Great Britain by universities and colleges(most of which I visited), for unfailing
'Western
Printing Services Ltd., Bristol and-what is rarer still-self-effacing hospitaliry. Affrid th;

t l

I
problemsfacingtheir country (whichareobviousindeed,though
io the historian no more so than thoseof countrieslessawareof
their own), it wasgratifying to find an interestin Classicalstudies,
and indeedin civiliseduaditions in general,which, if thereis any
valuein thoseaaditions,cannot6i1 to play ia Part in solving the
Problems' INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION
E. Beorers
universityof lzeds,Englanil \Y/HEN the first edition of this book-a Gw hundred copies,
December 1965 W published in a University of SouthAfrica series-wai re-
ported to be out of print, Sir Basil Blackwell ki"dly took charge
ofpublishing it in a slighdy revised form, thus adding to the many
benefuiafor which I owe him gratitude. Though there hasnor yer
been time for reviews that could be taken into account, various
friends have made h"lpfrl commenb that have enabled me to
improve substanceor style. I should especially like to menrion
Dr G.'W. Bowersockand Dr E. S. Gruen-
I have made no changesthat would alter the basic nature of the
book or remove it too far from the seriesof lectures as actually
delivered. Since modern documentation has in any casebeen kept
to a minimum, there has been no need for frantic attempts to
bring it up to date. The only important work bearing on the sub-
ject that has appearedsincethe end of 1965is C. Nicolet, L'Ordre
öquestre ä l'Epoqueräpublicaine (1966),supplying, ar last, part of the
long-needed treatment the Equites the absenceof which I had
noted. This is clearly not the place for a full discussion of that
massivework. I am happy to seethat Nicolet's detailed investiga-
tion has independendy led him to many of the same conclusions
at which I myselfhad arrived, on the economic and social basisof
the orilo, on its interests and on its relations with the Senate.If he
is right in his main thesison the definition of the ordo(i.e., that the
'public
horse' was essentialto it), asI am inclined to think he is, we
shall have to change our terminology in specidist works on the
period down to Sulla: I have always regarded the use of the term
'Equites'
in a wider senseas (for that period) proleptic (see my
references to them in FC). However, as far as the period after
vl vii
 Sulla is concerned (and particularly that after the last successful
censorshipin 7o), it seemsto me that Nicolet has done nothing to
invalidate the common use of the term in modern writers: his
attempt to find an associationbetween the men explicidy called
'equites'
and the public horse for this period is a complete fülure
(seehis pp. r89-r9z); and his final conclusion (p. 744)is only that
the allusion to the public horse belongs essentiallyto the second
'rien
century and n'indique que les autresne I'aient paspossdd6'!
In fact, in the post-Sullan age, there was clearly no recognised
way of either acquiring equestrian status (since there was no
effective censorship and the parade of the cavalry had 6llen into
disuse),or, correspondingly, of stopping anyone with strfücient
wealth and influence from claiming it. Provided he was free-born,
no man of substancewould easily be denied that dignified tide.
It follows that there is, for this age, no reason for changing the
now traditional terminology.
The decisionis more difücult for the age between C. Gracchus
and Sulla. Nicolet's treatment of the Lex Repetundarum is perhaps
the leastsatisfactorypart of his book, both in languageand sense
and from the stricdy epigraphical point of view (which, in fact, is
not considered at dl). Until that work is done again, it will
probably be impossible to decide which of the two possible
definitions of the class of iudices (by wealth or by equestrian
status) should be adopted. For the moment, the definition by
wealth (a censusof 4oo,oooHS, asis-despite Nicolet's contention
to the contrary-the usual opinion of modern scholars)seemsto
me far the more probable: preciselybecausethe Gracchaniiudices,
during the period down to Sulla, do not seemto have been des-
cribed x equites Romani. Pliny's confused, but noteworthy,
exposition (r.0. >ooriü34), and the very fact of the wide extension
of the term in the last generation of the Republic and of its close
connection with the ordo of publicani, seernsto make tlis prima
facie the more likely solution, especially if Nicolet's attemPt to
date the law obliging senators to return the horse after the
Gracchanlegislation is rejected-as it surely must be, in the light
viii
of the well-known allusion to it in Cicero's de republicaand
Cicero's equdly well-known care to avoid anachronism. If the
qualifrcation for enrolment on thejury panel was possession of the
public horse, and senatorsby definition did not possess the public
horse, their specific exclusion from the panel does not appear to
make sense;for we cannot in this instance (as in many others)
operate with the concept of tralatician clauses,since this new
definition of the panel was in fact one of the main points of the
Gracchan law.
I have set this out at somelengtl in order to justify my decision
(not taken lighdy) to make no change ir -y terminology regard-
ing the equestrianorder in consequenceof Nicolet's work. The
'prolepdc' 'Equites'
useof the title for the Gracchaniiudices,bxed
on Cicero's usagefrom the point of view of his own generation,
will continue to have advantages from the point of view of
historical exposition, even if (asI now more than ever believe) it
is not stricdy accuratebetween C. Gracchusand Sulla. Meanwhile
we must all wait for Nicolet's promised prosopography, and for
further and more expert work on the text of the Lex Repetun-
darum.
Since the first edition went to press, Christian Meier's book
ResPublicaAmissahasalso appeared(Wiesbaden 1966).I hope ro
present my views on it in detail elsewhere.Here I would only
note that, in what is relevant to the subject of theselectures,the
views he expressesare very close to mine, especiallyon the aims
and the role of the Equitesin general and thepublicaniinparricular
(pp.6+-gs); though it will be clear that we diverge on the appor-
tionment of blame for the disintegration of the respublica.
&,tfalo, N.Y.
Ocnber 1967
tx
 CONTENTS

AmrsvrarroNs xii

L VIRWS AND IMPERIVM . I

.ECONOMIC
II. THE MOTTVE' . 1 6

il. TTIE SENATE AGAINST EXPANSION . 2 9

W. NEW INTERESTS AND NEIX/ ATTITUDES . M

V. THE NEW IMPERIALISTS: THE MYTH . 6 0

VI. THE NEW MPERIALISTS: THE FACTS . 7 6

Nores 93
Irvonx or Nauns III

)n
 ABBREVIATIONS

Periodicals are abbreviated asinL'Annöe philologique,with slight

simplifrcations that will causeno difficulty. I

The following standard reference works are abbreviated in the

usual manner: VIRTVS AND IMPERIVM
FIR'12 FontesIwis Romani Anteiustiniani, znd ed. (ed. Ricco-
bono) TMPERIALISMT in some senseis asold asthe human race, or at
I leastasits socialorganisation.The extensionof power by one's
ILLRP LatinaeLiberaeReiPublicae(ed. Degrassi)
Inscriptiones own group over othersis only a specid caseof the victory ofone's
MRR The Magßtratesof the RomanRepublic(ed. Broughton) own sideover others: in human terms,it doesnot call for an eiplä:':
OG/S Orientis Graeci InscriptionesSelectae(ed. Dittenberger) nation. The narvejoy in this that we find in Victorian imperialists
or (for that matter) in a modern football crowd is as obvious in
ORF8 OratorumRomanorum
Fragmenta,3rded. (ed.Malcovati)
Cicero, with his numerous proud reGrencesto the glory and the
RE Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Real-Encyclopaeilieder lelassischen victories of the Roman People-which are almost the only
Al tertumswissenschaft seriousideashe developedin public about the theory and practice
SIG8 Sylloge InscriptionumGraecarum,3rd ed. (ed. Ditten- of politics beyond his own community!
berger) What does call for ur exolanation. when it apoearsin historv
The following works are abbreviatedas shown: isthatrelatively
I'tshl.;Jäi;;d"';i#k ;;r'i'JäÄ öil;#:'
Frank,ES/R T. Frank, EconomicSurveyof AncientRome ities for the extension of power. As in the curbiirg of private
(i, rqll) ambition. either or both of two nrotives mav lead to this: we mav
call themc<iniiääratio"r
"f "ifidi.r"y or'tfr&Airy-i" Ro-*
Frank,Rf T. Frank, RomanImperialism(tgrS)
terms,.the utjlg znd the honestum.The individual may realisethat
Rostovtzeff, SEHHW M. Rostovtzeff, Socialanilhonomic History the pGiiuit ofhis ambition may be bad for his health or happiness;
of the HellenisticWorlil (tq+t) or he may come to question the principle of competition and the
Rostovtzeff, SEHREL M. Rostovtzeff, Socialanilkonomic History pursuit of power and distinction as a motive force. Similarly the
'We
of the RomanEmpire, znd ed. (ed. P. M. community. are not going to be concernedwith the meritsof
Fraser,1957) this: in the first caseone may speakof prudenceor pusillanimity,
Naturally, I have had to rely on my own past work and, to save in the second of saintlinessor neurotic decadence.Our point is
space(and not through arry arroga.ntdesireto put myselfon a level only that both these motives, in their different ways, are signs of
with the preceding works), have abbreviated my own books as sophistication, overcoming the deep-seatedurge for domination
follows: and power. 1, .,....l
Poliry at Rome, as we all now know,z was in practice deter-
FC ForeignClientelae(264-70 B.C.) (1954)
mined by a governing.gligarchy, which reached its zenith in the
SGRII Studiesin Greekand RomanHistory (tg6+) secondcentury n.c. Its attituile to our questionwasa highly complex
tcl
 one. It had long butgrown the most primitive stage: indeed, lndeed, this did not work out äi planned: during the next g-.1.-
asMommsen recognisedlongago,3 most of the secondcentury is ]
ration, asone p^fiätt"f""irdidt käpt appealingtJRo-", *--d th"
characterisedby a highly sophiiticated policy of avoiding annexa- clients ignored advice frequendy given but never backed by force,
tion. In the'West, Carthage had been left standing in zor, and its '3'-'"': '' " '
the Senate-against its will, clearly-was drawn more and 661'"
""" "
chancesof furure prospcrity litde diminished. In tlre East,Philip V into perpetual-intervention, both io keep order and to restore its )'
of Macedon h"d ü""ilää6"ted by re6 and " d;;iiiäti"öfprinciple f"diü p'rertig.. Yet the fact is that do*tr to the war with Perseus,
had to be taken. Titus Quinctius Flamininor, äoff6füttg itt" *a "irio "nä, it, +o Rgman governor or soldier was stationed""r, ,.,, ",t1.'1.,.
methods of Roman with the lessonsof Greek history (which he of the Adriatic, despitethe astonishingsuccesses that Roman arms ', , ' :""
will certainly have known), ääti"itiä.d the Se44tetloiRä-" -ott had won as far to the east as Mount Taurus, and the equally
appear ", th! üb"r"to, of tir. Greeks *trit"lfiltiti"g what was in astonishing failure to have Roman wishes in Greece consistendy
effect her traditional policy.4 So the'freedom of the Greeks' was carriedout. :. 1.r,,r:,
proclaimed in a theatiic"l rg"o9 at the Isthmian $F-"t of 196; and When Macedon became more powerful and began to intrigue
ihough there was strong l"r!$pt" "-oog-täitiou, ,.o"io^ fo, among the Greek states,the Senate-righdy or wrongly---came to
the äilitary occupation äräi3ät t"-.li.y?"rtresses in Greece, the conclusion that another war would have to be fought. Ques-
Flamininus in the end overcame it and, after the war with Nabis of donable diplomacy,waq used;6yet in the end there was again no
Soarta. withdrew all the Roman troops. The decision had been annexation. The Aefreä world after the battle-of Pydna_looked ^ ' '::.'-
.
t"k r, *d wasnot ffiilä; aüffi'ti" oppositionof the great very different place from what it had been before. The kingdoffi C,,*.,,,.., ,
Scipio. lndeed, against the threat of advance by Antioüs ü, of Macedon was broken up into its four traditional constituent ." .,
'free' ''
Bo*p (under Flamininus' direction) intensfied its propaganda districts, which were made into separate states.6A thousand"'n.',"'.',,",' .
öffiiü'io
,*,.r'-?. "
appear
.^
as the champion of Greek freedom against öüJ AcJraeans,among them Polybius, were deported to Itdy, and no \,,t. .-:,,r,',
,.
rliyim"ttt to kings.and oppression.Once Antiog$us fud been ':' ' j'-'
doubt numbers of Greeks from other states.Rhodes was left c 'u",".
döfeated,this line p-r.gyedunprofiable and was abandoned:in :
humbled and its naval power broken. Pergamum had fallen into - "'l.'
their cold-bloodedatdtudeover this, the Romansshowed to all |
disfavour and was thrown open to att"cks by hostile.neighbours, -*"';
who would observe,their contemptof foreign opinion when it no Roman interferencein Asia asin Europe had becomeopen and un:"
longer"mättered.To leavedl the Greels free would have led to disguised,leaving no ltrang poweräy*h.." to keep order as )i',.'",rrlr^
anarchy,while Romeqow wantedorder.But theprincipleofnon- before. Yet it was sdll true that not a single Roman governor or l',::"",.,.-'
"r-g*"tior, *"s fieö.io"d-i"deed, thevery desireforääCt shows soldier stood eastof the Adriatic. Methods had chanqed; but the )
its'#iensth: Rome wanted to be sure she would not have to t.+qLdt evenmoreofv,i9y.Ia,
indeedb"p:Tg,
iä1ffirtiE "gain. Eumenesof Pergamumand(to a lesserexten{ the ??"glggt,lt+d
'I'he Td
överfidlng alm, as betore, was to ayorcl annexatlon (w.r[ch,
Republic of Rhodes received large increasesof territory and in terms of power, could easily have bCeniäiosed). The first ,'.,,,.,,,
becamethe protagonistsof the Roman order in Asia. In Europe, method tried had been to leave one or two strong pov/ers to keep 2 .:,,. tt. ,
Macedonwasleft intact, though not allowedto e4pandin Greece; order: they had become too strong and were thus Glt to- b.e ' .-'t'.) ,
and the Greekscontinuedwithout supprvisign.It is clearthat the jr r\ '
dangerous io Rome. ^N-orythe qrrly "il.-rrl"tive that might ".hftüE c' '
'
S..pplt.hopedthey would be ableto"iq1t.4t"itown a.ffaips,'Eki"g th"ä- wastried:#äffiäJ;d fiiä;.ntation, ,$i|. ggnsanr.,,,'
iläiäüi"., "r loyj c[ents,when it was'askedfor orädätäa. inspection-even at the risk of anarchy. But the ä!'sirrinptiönof ",,.,,
' U > 1 .r ) t \ ' 1 ' '
i ." I etl x,:

t , "/.,

I 4l-,. 1 ;
:l ir
1 , . . y ,; i , 1 - ,
' :' i ' , i ; l
ai. LJI,
 Greece(agd it.ya; perhapsnot so very difGrent from what fol-
lowed), aconcä* of Hellenistic powers had existedfor a cenrurv.
L\'."1' ! .
wheni{ome rof iäI""tly iäfir;aäduponit. Th. Fin;ip+l H.eU#
isticstates,
while oftenäneaeed in riarson.r ö6fr'tättäiäil4äri.t
, ) .:.1 andin i"t ffii't" ,#A#fih"" oneanother's infuence,seem, after
rwo qenerations of anarchy
2r /-. | '
followine the death of Alexander the
." .',' 7)"^.ti\JlY ! ar"l,) .,:
(rreat,
: . 1
to nave-recogrused t'
an equlhbnum on tfie _t r
general matn-
tenanceof which the independent existenceof each of them Wä'"'''
based. The Ptolemies, the Seleucids, the Antigonids, as well as
smaller
smallerpowers
powers like Pergam"--,_B1thy"ia
Pergamum, Bithynia or even even rhe
the Aetoliangpy',
Aetolian,and
Achaean Leagues-they all had their part to play, and the äi6l
appearance
appearance
eppearanceof anv
any of themthem_wouldwpuld have
would lpe led to a maior
bave
arNUr-,
major.catastrophe.
catastroohe-
t{Jlt|lta
Veryprobably,tiris*"r'ffiir"ly " r#"gniti"r of tüeli-liäiiö"s of
the various Hellenistic powers-it was based p.urgly on expedi-
ency.t' But it was nerreithelesseffective in iöä?'öäiiäf " .ehärrely
stable world in the third century. The Hellenistic world, like that
of modern Europe for centuries before the Great \)Vpr, was.one
Roman imperialism can therefore still be said to have existed in
basedon q^balaniethat, aseachpower knew, h"d täS:, p?ä#;;f,*'
e East; but it was not of the annexationistkind: it
'hggggnonial' was of *hai at leasti"ä;äiifrln'.
y" T"y call the kind.s on the barbarian1iingeof the
., Ro-p policy, fro- dÄort asfar backas*" "*frf.e ir, was
')l- ., tTptt:: .$"1!tg{w.* "eversropped. rn spainlrlgÄ
I ?""9,h.
or sardrrua
Sardinia'no
different.Of course,for a long rime Rome had toTää$üü:ethe
p" tt-),,].t... no settled
sertledfiontier-gver
ft8rä"t existed,for decadesslowion- equality of someother powers: thus in the eerly treatieswith
Ir,tN,nü..
4l 't rl.u-
dys:!, iy."ypfe,4,
q11g:!,.
interrup!9,{,}1. -*r'i:tb*kt
^br.-"nr'setbacks,
'we
g';iä"*Uy.,lp;a.a it .
;;-ädil;*dä:ili,; Carthagerecordedby Pollbius;]8 Indeed,before zr8 n.c. she
occupred and paclfied zone. hear few details of all these
Er:r. :: r -,,)r,r., could hardly h*e ileniedeqüaliry to Carthageor ro the grear
operations,exceptin.a handful of spectacular cas.es:thpy were pgygrq of tfrg_!as1, But right from the starrtherewasthe deter-
*:o&r,gt"+red.1o Hence, though tie factsareobi,iqüs';ä.;;i, i"l""fit!f, to'dffiiräte rylaiever waswithin reachand to build up
yet
*"it:gryF,q1."j it easilyoverlooked. both theii-il"riti., äd strengthtö äiteäd that iä"Jtt.Equalirywasconcgdedonly b.yorrä
the drtterencesberween
\pr"r1f* policy towards civilised and to- the range of effectivepower, and every "il,.;-pl,y"s made to
wardsbarbarianstater"r.'lüftittg. U/" -ort comebackto them
build up power where^ithad shownitselfdeficiäqt.It is clearthat
later.
the Rom^ansalways i;d;ä "p by heavily Jfiffi"U.ring their
 Illyrian setdgryent, p th..gonly point where the two powers mer
rivals.lB By the middle of the fourth century, hegemony had
and directly-ahshäd. An attempt had been made at Phoenice to
been claimed over Latium, while the Samnites were an equal
securepeace: but Philip had made it impossible. The result was the
"i?tiry----ot (asin the Latin War), 4ly. Py the time of the w.1, with
"t a hegemonial sfhere,rl war that establishedRoman hegemony over Greece and Mace-
Pyrrhos, the wholg of ltaly, #ailf"i-ää
donial6
*d ni"torv iästified the cläm, By the end of the n,'enties it had
The next tuming-point came WfT,rjl,l rflq!,tg{"rence in ?,',"','.
b."r "itäiidäd to theääjacent islands and to tggl!9.4ps acrossthe
Rome, Titus Quinctius Flamininus frcöfihö en'üoyi öfAntiochus
Ionian and Adriatic Seas.Within the are.31,,thui'itüIiedout, inig-
III and made them an ofGr in terms of cold-blooded geopolitics, ,r,,
pendent stateswere, after a fmhion, däidtt.d and even äüöä.ir- ': ' ' ,
contrasting with his carefirlly developed public propaganda
, "e"d to exist: like the many Italian sates with their dilferent
free cities of Sicily and lllyria.l6 But, position: if the King kept out ofEurope, Rome would keep out of ',1, , ,.,
') täati"r, or the kingdoms and Asia. There is no reasonto doubt that he--and t}e Senate-meant
whatever the exact status of those communities, in what Rome
it. But again an Easrern ki"g, dü;#dtiä'd"nt in his #iiJngtlr,
fo.1.i", po ' l , regarded as essential--th9ir ^Qr9igqPgli.ry;they w-ereeffectively
refused to setde.l?^Tle result was the war drat ended at Magnesia
: ' t, ( otid.t Roman control. Thetlatö of atrairi that we found so char-
and Apamea. U"fülättn-"t least until the Parthians *.rä r..o
acteristic ofRoman policy in the secondcentury, and so surprising
to be dangerous-there were no equals left. Rome never again
in its HellenittiJäJifrdili, had always been the same' asfar asRome
behaved as if there were.
was ibricdrned.
fh;'i;;äli{gcontradiction in Roman poliry---open aggression " .!L\i},,
On two occapions,as Rome came into contact with the Helle-
and expansionigrl against barbarians; hegemonial imperialism lt,c,,",.,,,'
nistic äncärl'of pbwers, it log!1ed,for a moment as though she
with careful döidance of annexation towards cultural equals or ' "'
might adopt its sädards utd äi üöi äiff.t.ot traditions and olsp-
supe{9gq-,thir ptö,tü.r adaptation of Aiüf$e for_dgminagq.$
isaäon intä that Greek world that so obviously attracted her
leading ci$zens.First, in the Pege of Phoenice(zo5 n.c.) it sggngs-a
*ot rfud"tiio.f;"- both cannor,of course,b-".r,häfüftV"fy'6{i"'' "
plained, any more than any other phenomenonof any impoptanceLr" "l
eenuine attempt was made to secureco-9)üstence9n eq\ral ferms
and complexiry in historical "nq,riry. n@ ,
äUr Philip viy leaving an insulating lryer of bufti itates be- .5,t,.,,,-,t,,
.t | ...> ,'
should follow. Firs!, it becameclear to the Roman governing class.),, 1,,,:,,,,,,,1
tween the two powers. Had this succeeded,Rome might have
i

: i a t f i : t l
atanearlystagethatlargeincreasesofterritorycouldnoteasilyls rt,r,tt,,,,-
stopped there (as far.qs the East was concerned)-at least long )', ",.,,,
admilristered within the existine city-state constitution. Rather a':
. \'t\ !? ' t ' ;:
""ä,igh to U.."*Jf,äivadää with-$g negtgnclPt of a polity anä '
*ran change the latter-which ri"r K"rfrlö;l"aHe, though minor . ,'
l ; ' " a baläce of states.but Philip, oväi-confideht, began to interfere
adaptations (suchasthe pron-ragistrary) were freely tried-annexa-
with the buffer statesin Illyria while at the same time extending
his power in the East.The causesof the SecondMacedonian'War
tion^w"r,o' th. wholi,r.t;fr%ulili'äk8a
r.;';ffKaiil;-bt
il; ;,tr;;-;"Ufy discussed.It is clear that it was in f*ct düä treat11.Wit| power expp4i+g beyondItaly, eventhis bgc3metoo
i;;
and ambitious policies on burdensome,since it impöiöd definite and often irüöhvöiüent
to Roman suspicion of Philip's successes
fronti, seen against the background of his
'sab
in the ciymi"tm?ntson Rome.rrBä.äih. further steptoward, 4r. '6."' rr.,u.
various ü 'i
War. But I have elsewhere tried to bring "llt;äry or king, controlledwithout a treaty.I-tmustbe confessed
.J
back' in the Hannibalic
obvious caus*what that under the RomanRepub\c rlg-realsystemof administering,,. , -.,,
out-{ertäinly not as the only, but asa very
overse$ territorieswas ever"äüo"Iv?d: thosethat were annexed,..,,,,.-,1
is indeed obvious in Livy's account: the breakdown of the ,, .,
-,,,,
6 7
,,
 *"r"ää*iy
(likemostof Sicilyurd Sardinia) r1'.$;i"a sP\9res oligarchies,was reluctant to punish its membersfor the sakeof its
subjects. There was more trouble in the fifties.22 The excessive
öf action (prouinciae)of a military commandant (at 6rst normally a
praetor) .iho, tighrootil the end of the Republic, .g:""T"d.:$:t powers enjoyed by the holderc of iruperiurnwere bound to corrupt.
ih"t *"t not iar removed from a Permanent (tho"gh slighdy What is more, they led to an excessof pride and individualism-
for which Hellenistic cultural influence often gets the blame. This
regularised) state of siege.But that is angthel ltory.tt Meanwhile
- - the
to qt thg seco,ndcentury,
-middlepJthg9999,4d
would make men sand out against the Senate.Livy offers many
*ärrr*, ttbti." that, däwn "- ::- ' --
' r>k
d I \ -,la"
" :';
- * P t : 1 P ' ' 11 ;.i
E*4ct;+1t,t
2
'6' theatrebof war-rich
.'t
examples of disobedient magistrates at the height of the Senate's I
all but one of the provincesremained_activetheatres 1t,w1-n$
I
t
in triumphs, bot iöttly to the.,state.Sicily was PlgFlb,rythe only power. Some succeededin their designs or at least went unpun-
^." a diiöIus for the
the Ti6urv. The rest ' ished: it was never easy to exercise efGctive control. Nor could
onethrt-reo,rlerlv
thairegd-ly reelis.d
:g*::S,1 {iiPlus,for Tl:tZr*i::lt
worset4, itt qa$Xfft , the mercurial popular assembly be relied on for a responsible
werea "ooärrt at"itifi^ffiääy-*d,
judgment.a There can be no doubt that these considerations
Ro-" and Italy could hardly coP"*Xi+ thg {gmand-i'-SÄJl
wonder, therefore,that the Senatewas slow to start major wars weighed heavily with.qlrg S.enateas a.whole in its set policy of
when it could be avoided-and cerainly no-t/h1.r$g q*, fl{, orrÄ.", ciitüiffieälil"':"':' ) /:'
minimising
It is significant that the frrst serious attempt to deal with the
arurexation,which, more often than not, proved ineiely a prelude
{ problem of misbehaviour in the provinces comes in r4g.'n In that
to a future of minor wars.
Moreover, early in the second century the Scipios had given a yeax L. Calpurnius Piso, the virtuous,l5lhu+p,.sqrnqned Frugi,
passedtfre first law that was to enableäfipiösed allieiat least to
terrible warning to the majoriry of their peers.Adopting names-to
represent üte oib* terrarrnt they claimgdlg h1yp conquered.(Afri- ;# *f-rfh"t they had lost. A p..*aoeot quaestiorepetundarum
was set up, to take the place of the all too frequent ail ho^c,cornmiv
."ir*, Asiaticus, Hispallus), they had thieatened-not indeed a
military tyranny, assome later Romans thought and some otgd:T sionsof tLe Senatefor this purpose. There *"i. rro tääfu'!ßä.ttio
(if there were any), for th" time being.z5Rightly, otte is iiiöffiSfio
authors still hanker after saying: for this was quite inconceivable
at the time-no, they had threatened to acquire an ovelpowering think. It became only too clear in the later Republic that severe
prestige that might make the egalitarian working of oligarchic extortion laws merely rB.ade.senatorialjuries (and not only them)
impossible.The Scipioshadgone down to more unwilling totäfrä, *d *otJ amenable to the'sort of
!ot"Ä-"ttpractically
example remained, and the lessonwas learnt: appeal for sympathy for a Roman senator against wretched
äefe"t; but iheir
foreigners at which Cicero (when it suited him) was such a master.
great overseascommands were careftrlly avoided-2'
There is another point to consider. We shall have to say some Piso's law seemsto have provided merely for restitution. Ob-
harsh things about the Senatein due course; but letüs give praise viously, it was really meant to work. Now, what is most signifi-
where it is due. It is all the more necessaryto stressthat it looks as cant about it, perhaps, is its date. For in r49 the war against
if concern over sandards of magistrates' behaviour in the pro- Carthage had started, and it is clear that the Senatewas beginning
vinces was another powerful infuence in discouraging annexati,o-n to realise that this time there was no solution short of annexation.
direct administration. There was trouble In the sarneyear, the praetor P. Iuventius Thalna was defeatedby Ä, ,
and its "ot "qo*"",
quite early: in r7r n.c. major complaina came from Spain abott the pretender Andriscus, who had united Macedonia (which the +,,,r
tie actiorx of governors there. Not much was done: some of the Romans had &vided up) agairut the settlementof 167.28Again,
men were *"Il "ot-cted-u The Roman oligarc\, like othcr it is reasonable to thi"k th"t the Senate knew that another
 'w,')
experiment in non-annexation had failed. It is therefore interest-
irrÄ--*d.,lgthecreditof then"$gly;g@J g{9Siyfy.u' y,.-,
*?,
imminent and inevitable, they
with large:scalefurther annexation
mqde anhon€q altggrpt to Protect their subjectsagainstthe worst
"äfiä.m
bf mis6ä1iäüiöuron the part of magistrates.The Senateasa
whole-as it was to show as late as 95, when it sent Q. Mucius
Scaevolato Asia,2?fröföftäiiärf7z, when the consulsproposed
a decreeat leasttrying lotffilerresz8-the Senate,in r49 as at
other times, took its rest'önsibilities seriously. This gives us the
right of positing such considerations asamong the motives for the
avoidance of annexation.
As far asthe Hellenistic Eaqtis concerned, an important political
consideration may b8''ätrd#"harly in tit" t""ättd ""o^to.y t.
Flamininus discovered what monarchs had known for generations:
the power of Greek public opinion. Gradually he c6nvöllöd the
Senateto his views. Pq^litt"pl hegemony in the East traditionally
depended on at least " ffiüäh of co-operation. Hence relations
wi-th at least some gf.thg kings, leagues *d;ig"l weq*most of
the time<arefully wätc[ed, to secureand retain the'aBproval of
t,, ' l those who inattered. It was a civilised and interconnected world,
where-as in ours-political agtions at once received'?ät pub-
I liciw. Ttus had to b"'ää"ääered; and the war againstP"rt.,tt, *ith
ißfräir;i{it&s, made it even clearer. Very diferent was the situa-
'frontier':
tion o^pthe barbarian there no one (except perhaps a
^*' ; äiill},'for their private profi d gteadfräred what was done
to a Liguriur ot tb.ri^arf'[fi6ä. Th; TBöö;ä of Roman war and
policy ltt Sp^itt-"t, in particular, A. Schulteninsiste&O-is one of
liUail ää ti;;A;.{; a-ä'-t' "np"'"ll"td.y Romanhistory.Yet
,rot " ,ingl. commander came d seriouifiäim as a result: not the
perfidious massmurdgrer Ser.SulpiciusGalburo whom Cato tried
io attack, but whdiumiväd to be an honoured master of Roman
oratory; nor C. Hostilius Mancinus, who made a treaty w1+ +"
Numantines which he probably knew the Senate would dis-
honour: handed over to them, naked and bound, in expiation, he
found (ashe had no doubt expected) that the barbarians were far
IO
too humane to punishhim; whereupon he returned to Rome, was
allowed to resume his citizenship and soon rose to be praetor
again.ar
Thus a double standard of bphaviour developed. In the Easr, a
hegemonial policy was pursued in a Ciüäöüi *d, oo th5; wholE,
fairly civilised way, at least without violence and open i{äöhä+
and certainly (aslong asit proved possible) without direct control
and maior wars. But againstthe barbarians.where oubliciw need
notbe-dieä""d *hä",'i'adenillly,a"'gi"äüäf"aüääfi5"r
the frontier did not, on the whole, lead to any major n"*.dhffiifj*'' J
ment at any one time, so that the whole processwould not easily
become obvious-there policy was openly brutal and-aggresive,
and triumph-}ffäiing an-acceptedt..hniqo".
of cour'se,
in this"&siihtffiii$ whar'waspermittedtowards
barbariansand what towar$, Hellenes(i.e., at this time, civilised
states)the Romans weräfiiting themselvesinto a Greek tradition
that went back a long time. In Greece it can be demonstrated as
early as the 6fth centuryisg while in Roman policy, as late as the
First Macedonian'War, there is no sign ofsuch a distinction.s0And
so, even if talesofRoman behaviour in the'West did filter tioppgh .
to Greek cities, the Romans had nothing to fe;u: it is döubtfti{
whether anyone other than a few philosophers"öäled. As for the
principle of fetial law, that no war was acceptable to the gods
unlessit was waged,in dgf!;ncpof one'sown country or one'sallies
-whether dtir
üTHd iä'äiü"" tribes is not quite ".rt"ir; though
in theory it probably did-'n But, asis well known, the law was by
now a mere ritual, robUed of all real content. The Romans had
*eväffiq
"
quite early developed^* a standard technique. f,or ritual
fr"llüeoÄ ''to -"k. "lliance with a state&'/örää to certai; attack
and to defend it when the attack came. A variant of this can be
observed, with a, further loosening of the legal element, in the
ultimatum that precedbdthe Second Macedonian'War.s5But in
the second century, though it is possible that the ritual was still
'Wars-none
performed-perhaps even as late as the Jugurthine
of our sourcespays the slightest attention to it, arrd as far as its
IT
 motive power in policy is concerned, we must clearly follow them
and ignore it.
As we have seen, the double standard of, behaviogT,Xe.t
( went back to a single basic attitude. Both the bälliCos'eannexa-
tio.r-rismand the hägemonial policF spring from deeply'röoted
+r,
feidüTäs of Roman life. It is these that we must now briefy
1;,
consider. .
The:üJuei of Roman eristocratic liG were those characteristic
of that form of sociery.3?High birth and merit (genus end' uirtus)
were chiefy Adqdfed. The formerJescent from distinguished
ancestors-was taken to be a.prima facle guarantee of the lafter,
iäposingloth a standardand a chdlenge. The llaer (uirtus) wes
the real touchstone of achievement an$ ü,reonly claim that could
böää"anced 6y the'new man', who diked the guaranteeofhigh
birth. The aristocratic poet Lucilius, at the end of a long passage
full of high-sounding Greek sentiment, defined it in a few simple
'commoda
words: patriai prima Putare'. Virtus es an aristocratic
Roman concept has been much discussed.It has,evrcnbeen sug-
gested that originally the term qea,nt 1 primitive magic Power, a
kind of mana, which naturally inher'ed in leading men.88 This
meaning, if it ever existed was, of coune, much changedby the
secondcentury, particularly as Greek philosophy began to affect
Roman education. But the quality was always most fully em-
bodied in the commander and statesman: it was very much a
public virtlue, and one of the ruling class-at least, as seenby that
class.Its chief examplewas, aswehave seen,the man who, having
the deedsof great ancestorsas a model, administered the sate in
war and peace to its greatest 1$rg1ng* The Roman aristocracy
--
was always consciousof its desüny.
'What
really counted, by the secondcenturf, is perhaps best seen
in the famous epiaphs of the Scipios.seIt was-if one ignored a
few Greek ideasthat, asLucilius' poetic discuspignshows, did not
count for so very much in the practical test-disCent, ofrces and
military success.
L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus (consul 298 r.c.) boaststhat his
tz
forma uifiutei parisumafuit(thus making his bow to Greek admira-
tion for beauty, but clearly distinguishing it from Roman uirtus).
He goes on, in a very Roman way, to give proof of Iis uirtus,
which is clearly what really counts: he gives his ofrces (consol
censoraidilis ryei fuit apud uos) and finally his great deeds in war
(Tawasia Cisaunia Sannio cepit, subigit omneLoucanamopsülesque
abiloucit). Barbatus' son (consul 259) claims to be, by common
consent, the best man of all Romans (duonorooptumofuise uiro).
Ag"io he illustrates this with his ofrces (consulate, censorship,
aedileship) and his victories (hec cepet Corsica Aleriaque arbe);
fi".tly he cites lrdspietasin dedicating a temple, thus bringing in a
religious element that is surprisingly rare elsewhere.But most elo-
quent, perhaps, is the epitaph of a young L. Scipio, a son of the
great Asiaticus, who died as a guaestorian of 33 and thus had no
chance of demonstrating his uirtus in command and high admin-
istration. He proudly claims: pater regefi Antioco nbegit. At least
he could be proud of his father's uirtus.
Military successand the holding of office: these are the chief
claims to uirtus. Within the aristocracy, as we all know, Roman
politics, especially in the second cenrury 8.c., was a constant
struggle for prestige (dignitas),pursued with single-minded ambi-
tion. It was a highly competitive society. But this presrige, as we
have seeneven from contemporary evidence, found is chief sup-
port in the holding of ofrce and in military success.This requisite
glory had to be gathered somewhere. And since in the second
century major wars, and wars against civilised states,were (aswe
have found) on the whole against public policy, it had to be
gathered on the barbarian frontier. There it would not commit the
Sate (at least at any one time) to more than it could underteke; it
would not endanger Rome's public reputation; and the successes
gained would not be so overpowering asto arousefear and in*iilia
among a man's peers.Triumphs were essentialto the Roman way
of life and politics; and it is not surprising that triumph-hunting
against barbarians became a recognised pursuit-a matter of
political liG or death to many a Roman noble. Even in the first
r3
 through the Senate, that representedRome-the patronal power
cenrury,a man'si.ffi'J r" ffit it couldbe usedby * -in its relations with those clients, thus reinforcing the bonds of
enemy to attack his character and damn his re1ffiüfiffi.n0
in&vidual clientship that personally united many of them ro grear
flhe other aspect-the hegemonial poliry-goes back to an
Romarr houses.It was clear that the whole world owed offcia to
equdly characteristic tradition of the Roman aristocracy: that of
the great power acting through the men who governed it. As
patronage. From the very start of Roman history, power l men
'clients' Roman power increased,it becameimpossible,for thosebrought
had had free attached to their personsand families. These
up under this system, to seeany relationship between Romans and
men, though legally free, were by custom-and by the facts of
foreigners, between Rome and foreign stetes,in other terms than
power---obliged to obey and serve their patron in return for his
these; and this explains what often-by our standards-;eems
protection. In a wider senseofthe word, every benefciumc:.cateda.
arroqa{rqe arrd ev; naivetd in Roman b"h"oioor. the obäiääe
relation of clientship, obliging the recipient to be prepared to
gf d;.'.ffitää tlre strong was, to the Roman aristocrat,nothing I
render offcia. Naturally, the ability to conGr benefuiawas, on the I
lessthan *.6fül rnotJ h*.
whole, also an aristocratic privilege; so that, in addition to their
direct dependants, upper-classindividuals and fimilies vrere sur-
rounded by a circle of others whom they had placed under an
obligation and who were expected to repay them on demand.0
It was in this way, to a large extent, that the oligarchy main-
tained its power for so long in the Roman state; and it was in this
way that rivals fought each other for ofrce and prestige: indeed,
the latter wes, to a certain e4lqnt, visibly measuredby the number
of clients a man codd HfsffIner.itrbly, these'relationships
spread beyond the ciry of Rome and its territory, as Rome came
into contact with placesand peoplesmore and more remote-frst
'free'
to Italy, then to the provinces, cities and even neighbouring
monarchs. Both collecdvely and asindividuals, men abroad owed
oficia to the Roman aristocrats who had conferred benefcia on
them, e.g. by governing them, by sparing them after victory, by
looking after their interestsin Rome. It was a natural consequence
that Roman aristocrats, accustomed to seeing personal relation-
ships, both within the community and outside, in these terms of
moral relationships and duties based (ultimately) on the facts of
power, should ffansfer this attitude to their political thinking: that
Rome, in fact, should appear as the patron city, claiming the
'free'
fficiaboüof actual allies and subjectsand of kings and cities
with which shehad come into contact. Theseattitudes were woven
into the Roman noble's life. Ofcourse, it was the oligarchy, acting
IJ

iäTä""..
II
.ECONOMIC MOTTVE'
THE
i- zt!,,,/ 1..-....
T HAVE been trying to relate fhe complex nature of Roman
I imperialism,..asit is found in the secondcentury n.c., to the
nature artd the conventions'ofRomar,t-aqistocratic society.In.elq-ty
society, there is inevitably a close .8ih;äoit benveen the ""lu!t
and way of lG-the Weltanschauung-of the leading classesof
that sociery at home and the way in which the society, as led by
those classes,will act in its foreign relations. This is particularly so
where, as in the case of Rome, a small and relatively isolated
society has,within a very Gw generations,found ie horizons vasdy
extended, almost to the limits of the civilised world of its time;
and where, moreover, it hasenteredthat world asa superior and a
master, able to make others to a very large extent conform to its
own patterns. We shall seelater that, at a different stageof social
and international development, the influence could go the other
way and the relations of eminent Romans with most of the outside
world could impose a pattern on internal relationships. But at the
point we have ieached that was sdll in the future, even though
dimly visible. The constant interaction of the internal temper and
customs of social life and the external environment of a society is
an important and obvious field of study to the historian trying to
evaluate both. Yet these aspectsare often studied in isolation and
thus individually distorted.
The modern student, accustomed to seeinghistory-at least at
at second or at tenth hand-through the blood-red sPectacJes Pf
Marx, may by now have become impatient with my approach'
observing that a discussion of Romen imperialism in terms of
polidcs, strategy, social ethosand even psychology, surely misses
r6
n*,- a-- 9ct
the point: what fte will say) about revenuesr,m;rkets, exports?
These (we are constandy taueht) are the real stdffof imperialism.
This view ir t"t äffifüiCd?o'the student riffiifüiartwith the
Variants of it have at times been-pr.9po""&d by dis-
tinguished scholars:l we shall never escapecontemporary fashions,
and economic explanations ofpolitical events are commonly sup-
posed to be one of the distinctively modern contributions to
historicd research.Yet this seemsto me an obvious casewhere we
tend to seehistory through äfiftiüfg spectacles.I shall not follow
up thc larger question of whether such views, even in the caseof
our own society and the more recent past, tend to give an in-
adequate and distorted explanation of historical events: though I
wouldnot deny the importance of economic motives for political
actions, it seemsto me clear that this importance can vary con-
siderably in &fGrent conditions and even in different cases,and
that failure to recognise this, and over-emphasis on economic
factors, has led, not only to many mistaken historical interpreta-
dons, but also to many wrong political decisions.However, our \l
main point at present is that no such motives can be seen,on the tr
whole, in Roman policy, during the period that we are now l'
considering.
Naturdly, we have one or two casesof economic privileges
securedfor Romans and Italians: the best-known is freedom from
duty at Ambracia.s There is also that old favourite of economic
historians,the free harbour establishedat Delos n ß7 s.c.s How-
ever, those direcdy benefiting (particularly in the latter case)were
not Romdr aristocrats-though thesemay have got the odd slavea
little more cheaply-nor even, to a large extent, Roman citizens:
apart from numerous Syrians and other Orientals, they were
Italians. M"oy of the'Romans' at Delos come from Oscan It ly.n
The protecting power, acting in the true spirit of a patron, was
mindful of benejcia to confer-at no cost to itself--on its loyd
allies. For in Italy the freedom and dignity of the Italian allies-
whom moderns sometimes still miscall the'Italian Confederacy'o
-had been mortally wounded by the Hannibalic'War and the
r7
 two decadesof disturbancesthat followed. Roman arroganceand
lack of resped for the independence of the allies-whatever their
treaty rights-were becoming painfully evident. But the Senateas
a whole, though it could not always control its members,and
though it might at times not be unwillingqa"111!t Bp1rn* Power
p.rf.Ztly phä itt the Peninsula, catefu$-ffiffi1.ä'ffi obligations
ffipöö64 !y spperior uirtus. Andthe upper classofltaly was, on the
*hol., ääffiä. There is no sign of selrLo, disconteni, no demand
for equaliry (not to mrntiop citize4s\iB)- until Roman demago-
go"r,'fo, ih"lr o*tt$üö'dt* .Hft"ä with internal poliücs,
create it in the rzos.6Had the Senatenot ft:lfilled its obligations-
on the whole-to its clients' sadsfaction, the Social War would
have come much sooner and would perhaps have ended differ-
t entlv. Politics and even economics must be seenin their Roman
t '
I anstocratrccontext.
Strange as it may seem to a generation nourished on Marx,
Rome sought no major economic benefits. In their fourBro.vinces,
the Rom"r.js simply i,n"ot oo "ollecting-with aslittle t.ää$itttf;fttft
as posible-the tribute those regions had paid to their prwious
*"rt"rr, the Carthaginians or their own king. Even the methods of
collection, left essentially unchanged, brought little profit to
-financial Of course, the Romaqs were too prudent in
Roman publicani.
matters to=giyg t1p establishedftyfiuei; but they kepr
them asmuch fronJfiEffi"t fto- töffi* choice,"ttd -ottiy
because the alternativewassimplyiftffiffitb. It is ffid"Jg,."
. w-ehave seen) tlnt at this timeäy province was evenffii t"
""'S6r, exceptfor peacefirland prosperousSicily. In Macedonia,in
t6T, rheroyal mineswerefor a time closeddown, to avoid throw-
ing them opento Romanspeculators:? the motive hasbeenques-
arraigned; but since
the factcanhardlybe denied,
tioned and Livy
it is difrcult to find any other plausiblemotive for sucha thor-
oughly un-Roman action. The tribute that the four regions of
Macedonhad paid to their king was halvedwhen they became
independentrepublics.Perhapsit would have beenunreasonable
to demand the full amount from those weakenedstates.But
r8
exploiters would hardly stop to think of this. [n fact, the tribute
was perhaps imposed-as Frank pointed out-to pay for the
expensesof the war, which could not be charged to anyone else's
account:ERome had certainly come to feel that sheshould not, as
victor, be expectedto pay for her wars.
So much for exploitation. The wars themselves,of course, were
hlgltly profitable-especially the great Eastern wars. After the
,/ triumph of L. Paullus citizens had po more direct ta:resto pay.e
tut"""y, slavesand works "f "rt ffiötinto
\ 'the the city.to Thii *as
ancient law of war. No one would have dreamt of questioning
it. But, as we have already had occa,sionto see,neither this nor
anything elsein fact made ih. S.o"t.ffiFfbr great wars, especi-
"lly i" the rich East. Thslrrofits, whgqthgy;tarqe, were welcome
,' *ä *"r" taken-ap
^ffit:;(";#{.föär,f|&ä-* aneli\Le
&_q.ppltical ur3-rnillary-acrion; they were not activeh sought.
Finally, markets.hr a well-known passagebeloved of gconomic
historians, Scipio Aemilianus is made b/Ci..ro to rffie the
Romans for not allowing Transalpine tribes to plant vines or
olives, in order to make their own farms more profitable.ll
Rostovtzeffcdled this'a prohibition on vine and olive culture in
the Western provinces' and seizedon it as his crowning demon-
stration of economic motives in Rome's foreign policy as early as
r54 (or possibly rz5) n.c.r2 In fact, as Tenney Frank had by then
already pointed out,ls and asRostovtzefwould have seen,had he
looked again at the text, the wording specifies the tribes of
Transalpine Gaul, and th.usexcludesthe other western provinces-
such countries a.sSpain and Sicily, ricfi in vines and olives. What
economic senseis there in that?
But there is, in fact, another consideration that damns this ill-
'We
conceived theory. must remember that the Republic, where
this passageoccurs,has rz9 B.c. asits dramatic date. Now, Roman
treaties were kept in archives or even displayed in public, and
Cicero certainly had accessto the one that contained the provision
he here attacked. So would those who mattered among his
audience. It is inconceivable that he should here be guilry of a
r9

gross chronological blunder and refer to a treafy that was in fact
darcdafter r29: even Rostovtzeff's alternative of n5 will not do.
Had Cicero made the incredible mistake, his füend Atticus, that
careful chronologer, would have corrected it.la A Roman aristo-
cratic reading public did not permit the sort of pseudo-history that
an Athenian orator could get away with in court. However, if the
trsrty concerned was already in existencein rzg, it must belong to
the campaign of r54-the only time before rz9 when Rome had
come into contact with Transalpine Gauls to an extent that could
posibly involve such treaties. This campaign, as Tenney Frank
stressed,had been entered into at the appeal of Massilia; and after
its end" asfar aswe know, the Romans, for a full generation, con-
tinued to have no interest whatever in southern Gaul. They
cerainly did not own an acre of it, or have contects close enough
to lead to differencesof opinion; and so Tenney Frank's.explana-
tion of the treaty Cicero saw is ineviable: the term he objects to
must have been included at the request of Massilia, which itself
had both agricultural and trading interests, and in fact probably
'We
almost a monopoly of trade in the area. must only note, for
future reference, that by Cicero's day, when the actual conditions
of r54 had long been forgotten, and men judged-as men will
judge-the past by the present, the interpretation that Cicero
gives seemedthe obvious one. The passage,therefore, is valuable
evidence on his own day. o'
The whole myth of economic motives in Rome's foreign poliry
\/
I at this time is a figment of modern anachronism, basedon ancient
, \ anachronism, like so many modern myths about the ancient world.
Though exposedby Tenney Frank long ago, it is still from time to
time fashionably reaffirmed; but it should be allowed to die. We
must add, bti"fly, that the destruction of Carthage and Corinth,
sometimes cited against Frank's thesis, in fact confirms it: having
it in their power to setde on those splendid commercial sites (as,
much later, they did), the Romans preGrred to plotrgh them up.
Their motives were purely strategic and political: to strike at
strongly fortified centres of traditional anti-Roman leadership.
.We
might comparethe long hffdil over the foundationof a
settlement at Capua.l5
hFg,,.*1._.ylgo of 148-6showtheSenate'straditionalpoliry
andfiffiifffffifrtr Macedoniahad
to beannexed,
"ftc, corriol.ä
independencehad turned out disastrous: the Romans, on the
whole, never made the same mistake f,wice. The same-from the
Roman point ofview-applied to the small strip of Tunisia which
was all that was lefr of Carthage and its empire.ls But Greece,
despiteall the troublesher citieshad caused,w"i, fot rhe most parr,
still not put under direct adminisrrarion; and a Greeklthe
historian Polybius.-was left to work out rhe details of the final
settlement.l? In Africa, part of the small territory annexed was
immediately handed over ro the possessionof loyal allied cities
that remained'free', i.e. outside the province.rs So iittle did Rome
care aboutthe exploitation even of land that rightly belonged to
her. (Or, if we prefer ir, so seriously did the Senaresri[ tale the
duties f at1ogq3,.:g .$:,*.gl.cr ofRome's economic inrerests.)
3f
h-ep9[cy ot mrruIJ![rng adminisrrative commirments and caring
-l
litde for profit ffiA from provincial territories could hardly
appear more clearly.
And so it remained for the rest of the century. When Attalus
III left his
\ir^rgdom ro Rome (quite without prompting, we may
be sure,and following a precedentthat Rome had almost certainly
done nothing to create)r1e,,the Senatewas not given a "h"rr". of
discussing the strange WffiWe may wel tlink that in some
form it would have been accepted;but we cannot be sure even of
that. it
-As happened,the tribune Tiberius Gracchus,through his
hereditary connecrionswith the royal houseof pergamum,-heard
of the testament first, and, needing money for his ambitious
domestic schemes,he treated it as a vrindfall and passeda law in
the-Assembly accepting the inheritance and diveriing the profits
to his agrari{ plans.ro All this was done without consulting the
_Senat9, even though this action was contrary to all precedent and
bound to arousestrong opposition and the most seriousalarm. In
fact-a fact worth stressing,since it is easy to miss-it was his
2T
dealings with the Pergamene envoy that led immediately to the
chargethat Tiberius was aiming at a regnumand thus to his down-
fall.'r That he omitted the obvious conciliatory step of consolti"g
the Senate may in part have been due to his awarenessof the
personal antagonism he had by then arousedin it. But it is also
ionceivable that he was not at all sure that Senatepolicy would
favour accepting the bequest he so urgently needed. Tiberius
could not afford to tal(e chances,if his scheme was not to be
.n'
.feopardised.
Önce the People had accepted the bequest, the step-in the
political situation of the time-could not be reversed, and the
S"tt"t" had to mal<ethe bestof what it found. Forced to carry on
Tiberius' acrual scheme, it had to get the funds. As we shall see,
this situation was not unique: it was to become a common setting
for annexation and exploitation in the later Republic. Even so, it
was decided to minimise commitments as far as possible. The
'free'
cities of the kingdom were left (asAttalus had intended),rt
and five men were sent to Pergamum to organisethe royal pro-
perty on behalf of Rome. Their leader-ensuring that no irre-
iponsible step was taken-was none other than the PontiGx
Moi-ot P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, Tiberius' chief enemy and
murderer.2s There would be no unnecessaryannexation. In fact,
what was done was probably much the same as later in Cyrene,
when its king left it to Rome in 96: there the proper organisation
of a province was not even begun until 7J, and then only because
disorder had become endemic and dangerous.2a All that was done
(ine{Iiciently,it seems)was to arrangeto draw someof the profits.
That this policy was alsopursuedin rl3 is-even in the absenceof
clear direct evidence-a legitimate and even necessaryconjecture:
in Rome, when an unusual situation arose, it was natural to con-
sult nos maiorum;and in 96 there would still be senatorsalive who
remembered-what the archives would in any caseshow-how a
similar bequesthad been dealt with in rll.
We mry find confirmation in a small fact: the name of the
province of Asia. When Aristonicus attempted to seizewhat he
claimed was his inheriance, various Roman commanders were
sentout to fight him-last of them M' Aquillius (cos.n9), who, as
proconsul, completed the setdement.26Naturally, their ytrouincia
for the waf, was Asia, as (e.g.) that of the Scipioshad been against
Antiochus.26Long before Sulla-in fact, asfar back aswe know-
a Roman commander was not allowed to leave his prouinciawiü-
out specialpermission: in t7r, in a causecöläbre,a consul trying to
do so had been peremptorily stopped by a Senate embassy.s?
Conseguently, in a major war, the definition of the prouinciahad
to be wide and elastic, to ensure that the commander would be
able to do his legitimate task without restriction. Hence 'sicilia'.
'Africa', 'Asia'
are allotted esprouinciae,even though thosewords
embraceareasmuch wider than the probable scenesof action. As
we have bri.fy seen,the Romans never evolved a systemof civil
provincial administration: the conditions of warrime were
standardisedand continued in adapted form. Hence the Tnouinciae
of Sicilia, Africa or Asia becamethe provincesof Sicily, Africa and
Asia-even though still much smaller than the areasro which the
name concernedproperly applied. Asia owed irs name to its origin
in e prouincid,not to a previous proclamation of annexation.We
may compare and contrastBithynia, duly annexedrn74z' and left
under that name (aspart ofa largerprovince) afterits reoccupation.
Had Amalus'kingdom beenformally annexedir r33, we may well
believethat its name would have beenthe province of Pergamum.
In 6cq there was-as so often-no annexation until revolt and dis-
order had made it inevitable. Theprovince kept its militaryname.
'Vfhile
Policy is, on the whole, similar in the West. triumph-
hunting (aswe have seen)continues to perform its essentialfunc-
tion in the domestic Roman political and social framework, and
small-scale annexation is an inevitable consequence(e.g. in the
Balearic Islands or in lllyria),sg large opportuniries for major
expansion are ignored. A war in Transalpine Gaul, lasting from
rz5 until at least rzo, with several commanders winning great
victories, did not lead to the establishmentof a provinceeo-and
that in an areawhere we are sometimestold the Romanshad had a
23
 The ineviable conclusion ofall theseconsiderations is that there
major interest thirry years earlier ! The great road built by Cn.
is no evidence for an expansionist plicy even after the Gracchi, if
Domitius, meant to ensure-for the first time-land communica-
we think in terms of annexation. And we can "lt""dy seethat this
tions between Italy and Spain, was largely given over to Massilia
does not fail to take account of the newly-formed (or at least
to protect, with (perhaps) the help of a Gw small Roman garri- 'Equestrian'order,
newly-aroused) and of rhe very Plebsunder its
,oÄ.tt only years later-possibly as late as rr5-when danger
demagogic leaders-not to mention the Senateoligarc\ which,
from the north becameobvious, was a colony set uP on the site of
most of the time, still governed the state according to its old-
the settlement of Narbo Martius: a key site, speculapopuli
establishedideas.
Romaniacpropugnaculumtgainst'the Gauls.gzAnd this was done by
This conclusion is borne out by the event for which, of all
the faction o? Domitius himself;, whose son became one of the
events in the late second century, we have the best evidence-the
founders of the colony; and it was done againstthe wishesof the
Senateas a whole, which tried to deal with this colony as it had Jugurthine War. ln an old (but still valuable) paper,87De Sanctis
showed that Sallust's account is utterly unreliable in its imputa-
deelt with the Gracchan Junonia. Naturally, the colony was a
it called up memories of C. Gracchus' venture tions of incompetence and venality to the governing oligarchy.
popularis catrsaiss
The fact is that Numidia was being treated according to the tradi-
impoverished citizens could expect to setde there and to
*ä -*y -Baut-pace
many modern scholars-there is no record of donal canonsapplied to client statesthat were troubled by internal
prosper.
disorder: with advice and awtoritas-including both that of
iny inte.estin it on the part of the F,quites,no record-of anybody's
personal patroni and that of the Senate as a whole, as weightily
being aware that it was an excellent commercial site, as our
expressedin the embassyled by its princepsM. Aemilius Scaurus-
scholan are, and as Romans also were by the time of the early
but with no thought of armed intervention. Rome was accustom-
Empire.3aAnd the argument is not merely one from silence.The
ed to loyal obedience, and not least from the royal house of
absürdity of its opposite is demonstrated by a litde-noticed inci-
'When Numidia under Masinissaand Micipsa. Moreover, there was, for a
dent of i"tt y."tt 1"ter.s6 C. Marius, waiting for the Ger-
heavy on his legions' hands, he made long time, every reason to trust Jugurtha more than most bar-
mans in Gaul, found time
barian kings: after all, he had fought at Numantia, under Scipio
them dig a canal from the Rhone (above the Delta) to the sea,by-
Aemilianus,e8and had there met many young men who, by this
passingihe mouths that were always {lti"g up. Having dug this
rime, were middle-aged men of considerable,irnpgryapc*e and in-
gold-mine, worth a fortune even in tolls and dues,he presentedit,
fuence in the state.st'what Sallustdescribes"t'üä"tili#as, in the
än his departure,to the loyal allied city o614x55ilia.(Naturally, the
main, merely. thp natural unwillingness to think ill of an old
Massiliots proceeded to make the most of it.) This was the action
of the greit Popularis,the trusted champion of the Equites,just
fti;;ä, *rt" 6t#ä'nisverypositionä s"ipio',personal
S'fimft:J
dation4oand whom it would have been rank dislovalty to susppctr- n-. ,.
before roo B.c. It is a fit comment on Roman economic interestsin -
or to ill-treat without very good reason. we may ""[ thit g^üf,*c;
Gaul, then or earlier. By this time, however, failure to annex and
ibility; it is at least a vice common to oligarchies, to which paral-
govern had had its usual consequences:when the Germans came
lels are easyto find in more recent affairs-and one due to what is
äo*tt on Gaul, tlere was no Roman governor there to meet them
basically an amiable human trait.
or to impressthe restive Gallic tribes with Roman strength--Weall
It is hardly necess:rry,nowadays, to re-argue the casefor the
know the result. After Marius' victories a province had to be
Senate'spolicy in Numidia in greater detail. But if the oligarc\
established.s6
25

is acquitted of positive crime and malice, there is a temptation to
put another villain in its place. For De Sanctis the answer was
clear: the war was wanted by the Equites,al who profited by war
and hoped to profit by its results. It was their aggressiveinter-
ventionism that-more even than Jugurtha's own actions-helped
to precipitate a costly war. Persuasivelyas he arguesthe case,we
can hardly acceptit asit stands.We have already seengood reason
to believe that the Equites-to judge by the actions of their
c.hampioaMarius, who retained their support-did not, at any
rate, älärfiäur for annexation. After all, opportunities for banking
(their chief source of income) did not depend on it-as the very
situation we are discussingshows: for in Numidia there was a
massiveItalian colony at Cirta.a2There will be more to say about
this. But it is dificuli to seethat the unpredictable hazardsof war
would have been more welcome to traders and bankers than the
security of peace;or that, after a war was won, their situation was
likely to be in any way improved,.,,",
Similarly the Pfebs: itro"gh,W#d by its tribunes, it was only
too willing-after the events of the past rrventy years-to believe
the worst of the oligarchs, and though it undoubtedly demanded
a vigorous policy, to restorethe honour of the Roman name, there
is no sign ofany demand for conquestor annexation,or of delight
in war as such. That this was not the point is shown by the fact
that all pressureceasedwhen Marius took over; asfor the Equites,
it was only the murder of the ltalians in Cirta (at least some of
whom will have been Romans, and all connected with Roman
families) that produced a marked efGct. There was an outraged
clamour-and againtherewas every reasonto believethe worst, in
the light of the developing differences between the two orders
that prompted Varro's famous saying that C. Gracchushad made
'rwo-headed'.nt
the state The Senate'sfailure was naturally ex-
ploited to the disadvantage of some hated figures. This explains
the Mamilian commission.aaBut again, there is no reasonto think
that, apart from revenge, more was wanted than a seriouseffort to
restoreRoman honour and that securePeacethat is always in the
'What
interests of trade and finance. Marius promised, in his
intrigues against Metellus, was a quick end to the war. As for
annexation,it was never even contemplated.Not only was Marius
personally entirely indifferent to it, ashe was to economic exploita-
tion-this his record in Gaul was to show; not only did he not
mention either of theseprizesin his propagandabefore his election
(which, evenifwe cannot acceptSallust'sactualwords, is probably
well mirrored in the speechthat Sallustassignsto him after);aEbut
he did not in fact annex an acre of Numidian soil after his victory.
The final setdement was entirely on traditional lines, dividing
the country berween an obscure Numidian (perhaps the only
member of the royal family available) who got the easternhal{,
and Bocchus of Mauretarria, who got the western hal[ which
Jugurtha had already promised him when he was still his ally.ro
Basically,it was the samesetdementthat a Senatecommissionhad
imposed berweenJugurthaand Adherbal, and that Sallust,on that
occasion,had viciously and unjustly attacked as corrupt and dis-
honourable.a?The only real difference was that Bocchus, unlike
Jugurtha on that earlier occasion,already possessed a large king-
dom of his own, which he now retained in addition to half of
Numidia. He thus becamefar more powerful than the proposed
settlementon that earlier occasionwould have made Jugurtha-
to whose bribes Sallustclaims it was due. But then (we may re-
member) even the Scipios had been able to boast that it was
Roman practice to make friends of small chieftains and make
'We
them into powerful kings.as could hardly ask for plainer proof
that nothing had changed. Nor (as we have seen)did Marius, after
making this settlementthat did not seemto confer any advantage
on arry class at Rome, and that did not add an inch to Roman
territory, lose the support and the confidenceof Equitesand Plebs
-quite the opposite: he was elected, in his absence,to another
consulship,which implied the command againstt}re Germansand
Gauls. As we also saw, he was to repeat his policy with regard to
peacesettlements in Gaul-and, after this, receive a sixth consul-
ship, without (to say the least) any recorded opposition from
27
disappointed supporters.as He had clearly dole prgcisely what
.rr"ryoo" wantsd. At the same time, a long line of aristocratic
statesmencould look down with approval on this new man Per- m
meated with their spirit, who wanted nothing more than to bc
like them. THE SENATE AGAINST EXPANSION

I\TEITHER in the Jugurthine War, with all the bitter party

I \ politics that it called forth, nor in the German'Wars at the
end of the secondcentury, was the maditional policy of avoiding,, . ".,{1,-
t'-"
major aggressivewars and administrative commitments abäi:'
doned: Numidia, where war had become inevitable, was not
annexed after it; and Transalpine Gaul was at last made into a
province (we do not know preciselywhen and bv *hqt-")..{bf th"
äU r""ron that non-ann"*"tioo had turned out ffi#ää'ry'*d
even dangerous: two or three garrisons, plus the seryicesthat
Massilia could render, were insufrcient for the proper protection
of the invasion route into Italy. Indeed, not only had the tradi-
tional policies continued unchanged: it looked as if the new
elements in politics-the Plebs and the Equites-which under the
leadershipof demagoguesseemedto be challenging the oligarc\
in the running of the state merely wanted a.firmer policy (and, in
- its afup.{rce,were ready to susPectthe worst), but had no desireto
'*'"ffiif.
ön a policy of "ggtÄtin. *", *d territorial expansion.
The continued loyalry they showed to Marius, who did not
promise or perform anything of that sort, sufrcesto proye i.L.
That the Senatewas still firmly in control on major iöruöi wäs
soon conclusively demonstratedby the caseof Cyrene, to which
we have already alluded. This kingdom, after a fashion that had
begun in the middle of the previous century, was left to Rome by
its last king, Ptolemy Apion, when he died in 96. Now, it is far
from clear precisely what the Romans did with it, although the
complex .oid"o." h", b..n cat"frllyKr*Ed.l But what is ceitain is
that the Senatedid not proclaim the annexation of the territory
and made no attempt to take over administrativeresponsibility. ln
fact, in the unfortunate country the next rwo decadesare mostly a

z8
 In Egypt a seriesof rather strange events-to which we shall
period of anarchy,during which-strange as,in the circumstances
retum in a dif,erent connection-led to another royal testament of
of the bequest,this must seemto us-there is barely a record of
the type we now know so well: Ptolemy Alexander I, in 88,
any appealto Rome, and certainly none of seriousRoman interest.
followed several precedents in leaving his country to Rome.a It
All that the Senateappearsto have done was to arrange for the
was surely the richest bequest ever received, far surpassingeven
collection of some of the profits. Even this was not properly
is no reGrenceto that of Attalus III. The Senate (under rhe PopularesCinna and
organised:no regular systemwas installed; there 'When
the Romans Carbo) did not bother to talceup the hereditas,merely taking care
publicaniduring the next rwo decadesor more.
valuable drug, of which Cyrene to collect a large debt owed to Romans.Nor, when things changed
wanted to import silphium-a
in Rome, did the victorious Sulla reverse that strange lack of
was the main supplier-they seemto have paid for it (if we are to
'W'e interest in the rich prize that had so unexpectedly fällen to Rome.
take Pliny's words at their face value).z can see,not only the
Far from it: he in fact sentPtolemy Alexander I[, with his blessing,
remarkabledegreeto which the Senateretained control of policy,
to claim the kingdom. And though this Ptolemy was almost at
but the absenceof any major Pressurein the important field of
once murdered, and this surely must have shown anyone who
foreign policy and imperial revenues-at a time when political
' would look that the Ptolemies were no lonser able to hold their
strugglesin the ciry were at their fiercest and (on occasion)their
kingdom and that annexation could hardl| U.äS.ä (not to
most violent. The People and the Equitesclearly made no attemPt
mention the affront to Roman auctoritasthat was implied in the
to force the Senateinto expandingthe sourcesoftheir profits, even
murder of a king installed by Sulla)-though, moreover, only
where this could be done aseasily asit in fact had been done in the
dubious claimants to the vacant throne remained-yet, despite all
daysof Tiberius Gracchus.We shall seethat the administration of
this, it'was not until the sixtiesthat we can seeany seriouspressure
Cyrene was properly taken in hand only n 75la-md even then
in Rome to claim the estateof Ptolemy Alexander I. And even
(it is legitimate to think) only in a temporary form. Indeed, it is
this pressure,for various reasonsthat do not concern us yet, in the
this that gives us a clue as to what the Senate had originally
end came to nothing.6
intended to do about the bequestof Attalus:8 the similarity bet-
Egypt, despitescrappyevidence,is a striking case.Asia is better
ween the fwo situationswas so sffiking that, even in a socieryless
attested.The Senate'scare for the provincials of Asia is demon-
bound by tradition, the parallel would impose itself. To the
strated, as late as the nineties, b-y th" mission of Q. Mucius
historian, this is one of the most interesting aspectsof the strdrge
ScaevolaPontifex, to reform *1c strffrin-g province: not that we
affair of Cyrene.
need think this care intpir.dffiäyt]' *;rd principles, since the
Cyrene in 96 was a wealthy, profitable and-under a Ptolemy
-a well-organised country, where annexation would have been constantirritation and unrestpresentedobvious political dangers.o
But we must remember the original lex repetundarum, and bear in
both lucrative and easy; yet it was allowed to slip into anarchy in 'reformed'
mind that at this time the Senate had not yet been by
preference; and, in a period of bitter political controversy in
Sulla. hr any case,whatever the motives, the poliry is clear. An-
Rome, not a voice was raisedin protest. This is a clear example of
other aspectemerges,again according to pattern, in the caseof
Roman attitudes towards expansion and exploitation at this time,
Cappadocia and Paphlagonia.?They had been trouble-spots for
and indeed an outstanding one. But it is not the only one.'We can
years. Mithridates of Pontus, with Nicomedes of Bithynia, had
seeSenatepolicy at work elsewhere,along its traditional lines and
invaded Paphlagonia about ro4; they had partitioned it and for
(on the whole) equally unchallenged.
3r
some time held it in defianceof the Senate'sorders. As so often,
the Senate,for a long time, seemednot to care' Cappadocia,which
alsolacked a lawful king, was the next object of their intrigues: it
was no doubt in preparation for his attack on it that Mithridates
was there when he met Marius. Marius visited Cappadociain 99,
when he preferred to leave the city (it was said) rather than seethe
triumphant return of his enemy Q. Metellus Numidicus.s It was
also said-later-that he was looking for a chance of a miliary
command for himself His words and deedsbelie the ex postfacto
rumour, For when he met Mithridates in Cappadocia, he gave him
the famous warning: either to be stronger than Rome or to do her
bidding.' It can hardly have been unexpectedwhen Mithridates,
oo "ooiid.tation, chose the more peacefirl alternative. Whatever
his immediate plans had been, it was clear that he could not face an
ultimatum so plainly delivered. The words had been those of a
man who prefeirred peace(with honour for Rome) to an unneces-
sary war; and it was probably as a result of this patrioti. Td
successfirlfirmness that Marius' enemies in Rome agreed to the
signal honour of his augurate in absence-an unexP-ect:dhonour,
difficult to explain without this, but one that enabled Marius to
return to Rome with his dignitas safe and that led to a general
compromise in his struggle with his enemies.
However, the Senatestill failed to act decisivelyin Cappadocia:
Marius' brave words were not followed .ltÄj*r" SgfJ,.ll.hg
fashion. Nor was anything done tö'älffiiäe bääiöd ödiliänce to
the Senate'scommand in Paphlagonia.As a result of this, Mith-
ridatesproceededto seizeCappadociathrough a PuPPetking;-and
Nicomides, worried at this, sent an embassyto Rome, which
Mithridates countered with one of his own. This time the Serute
made its purposeclear: the answerwas that the kings must evacu-
ate both Cappadocia and Paphlagonia. It was a stern command,
which was bÄught to Asia by a weighty embassyheaded-as an
equally difrcult embassy to Numidia had been sixteön y^ears
eirlier-by theprinceps Senatushimself,the (now) aged and infrm
M. Aemilius Scaurus.l0The outcome of all this, and its importance
32
in the history of Rome at this time, I have discussedelsewhere.
What concerns us here is the obvious fact that even now no
attempt was made to seizethe vacant territories. In fact, they werö
declared'free', and the Cappadocians,disliking this dangerousand
unaccustomed state, ultimately chose a king (Ariobarzanes),
whom a Roman commander had to go to much trouble to instal
for them. Throughout this whole affair, Senatepoliry is precisely
what it had been in the sameareain the secondcentury: to Prevent
any dangerous accumulation of power-it was becoming clear
that Mithridates would have to be carefully watched-but to do
so with a minimum of commitment. Even Sulla, when he installed
Ariobarzanes in his kingdom, seemsto have had only allies and no
Roman forces with him.
Now that we have incidentally come upon him, we may Pro-
perly conclude this part ofour survey with L. Sulla. He, ofcourse,
is the type and symbol of both the old and the new in the Roman
Repub!.ic. For the moment, let us note that he fu"tly set his face
against any expansion. His treaty with Mithridatesll-an alliance
of two dynastsagainstthe government ofRome-cannot properly
be cited in support, since at the time he was not in a position to
dictate terms. But when he was alreadv securely in power,.he
ä#"fr.? r. Murenafto- ffiffig vtiihridat.r*d tüAitnäg$ -
him back to Rome, compensatinglim with a totally *iäärär#ä'"
riumph.l! Moreover, we have seenSulla'saction in Egypt, when
he could have won ready popularity by simply accepting the
bequestmade some years earlier and claiming that he had added
Egypt to the possessions of the Roman People-a claim that was
' left fo: another dynast to make, many years later.l3 We may also
n.publicaom"girtr"-
iä#;lä"ffiäwholetf sulla'ssettlemenioithe
cies. By raising the number of praetors to eight and that of
qu:restorsto twenty he precisely provided-as Mommsen sawl4-
for the administrative needs of the existing ten provinces, on the
basis of normally annual succession.The implication is clear: he
did not conceive, at least for the near future, of the annexation of
any'more provinces. His actions in the casesof EgyPt and of
33
Murena vrere not isolatedincidents,but part ofhis generalscheme
for Rome ashe meant to establishit.
Sulla rejected the easychanceof claiming glory for the annexa-
tion of Egypt-a major acquisition if ever there was one. It is
interesting,next, to note that he neverthelessconspicuouslychose
to arrogate to himself the glory of having extended the bounds of
empire. He had, of course, celebrated a magnificent triumph-
not to mention the vicarious glory of those of Murena and young
Pompey'E-to surround his usurpation with the aura of glory
that, by impressingthe populace,might help to erasehis past and
dezzlethe eyes of those who disliked the armed present. But he
rÄrenteven further. From the annalsof the distant past, he seemsto
have revived a long-forgotten ritual: he advanced the pomoerium
of the city-e solemn and laborious rite, diffrcult enough of
execution to account for the toal neglect into which it had fallen
for centuries.lo This (we are told) only a marr who had advanced
the boundaries of Roman territory was entided to do-in fact,
stricdy one who had done so in ltaly: there could be legitimate
doubt, sincethe ceremony had not been performed sinceRoman
expansion beyond Italy began. Sulla (we must suspect with
Mommsen) arrogated this right to himself by a trick in the best
tradition of Roman legal dodges.Though he had not conquqred -
an acre ofnew territory "try*h.r. (that we ktto;p of), he e?terfdöä'
of rtily, fo, administrativ.ffii*är,
the boundaries from the
Aesis to the Rubicol?-1eg a necesseryor inescapablereform in
itself: the Rubico (as historians know to their cost) was not a
conspicuous landmark. tt is dificult to find any good reason for
this action except in support of his ytomoeriumceremony-and
dificult to find any legal basisfor the latter except the unnecessary
reform.
'We
can be sure that Sulla aimed at no conquest, nor foresaw
any in the immediate future. It is interesting (if the interpretation
here suggestedis right) that, among many actionshe took for the
underpiÄing of hii detestedr6giÄe by display and glory* *gg-"
was a claim that was to make it appear that he had rcIievid,
conquest.Hemust have been aware that the traditional policythat
he representedand reinforced was no longer one calculatedto win
active popularity-and that its opposite, or an appearanceof it,
might now do so.
Sincewe have anticipated to this extent, let us anticipate a little
further: we are not bound to annalistic tradition. History is a
seriesof strands,increasingfrom beginnings asthin asfine hairs to
form stout cords, inextricably interwoven so that beginnings and
endsare concealed.Sometimesa sectionat a given time will clarrfy
relationships hitherto unsuspected;at other times it is best to
follow individual strandsbefore turning to the .weav_e as,1.whole.
The Senaregovernment that Sulla.eitored iffüit?iffi-.d
the generallines of the sametradition. There were indeed exten-
sionsof territory: in Isauriathe conquestsofP. ServiliusVatia laid
the foundations of the proper territorial province of Cilicia, as
distinct from the oldprouincia.lsBut this was not a caseof annexa-
tion for pro{it. Those hardy mountaineers,whom it took Servilius
at least three years to subdue,were surely going to cost more to
police and keep in order than they were likely to produce in
revenue. The conquest ful{illed the demand-which had turned
out to be inescapable-for a securehinterland to the precarious
coastd strip of Cilicia and for proper protection of the allied cities
in the area. Seenfrom another point of view, ega:n,the Isaurian
war is not all that different from many other limited wars against
barbarian ffibes, mostly fought further viest: in this case,at least,
a genuine strategicneed was happily combined with a comman-
der's wish for a triumph.
Then, again, t}ere was Cyrene.le In zsl+ the quaestor(or ex-
quaestor) P. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus was sent therc (pro
praetore,it seems,though Sallust doesnot actually say so), to end
the anarc\ that had been qllowed to prevail there for twenfy
years. This'was done "t th" ?tiS'tläc.of ,'o-" politician-pethaps
(it hasrecently been suggested)the cons^ulQ. Cotta, whom Sallust
i. did rrot lik.. il.rt it is d]ftcult ttot to'ä&in$it. ro.ollus with the
move, as consul designate in 75 and consul n 74-the man who,
35
asproquaestor under Sulla, had cdled in at Cyrene, seenthe con-
diüotr äf ü" country and done what, in his limited time, he could
do to settlesomeof its problems and disputes.Ir" *y cese,in75l4
someone vmth imperiufttwas at last specially sent there.
It must be noted thzt 75 was a year of famine and financial
stringency-so much so that the consul C. Cotta had to make a
t".tfrl and apologetic speechto the People (which Sallust parodies
with great relish) and the praetorian candidate Q. Metellus was
almosi lynched by a hungry mob.so Nothing could bedone to end
the famine until, in 73, funds at last aPPearto be available. A law
of the two consuls of that year (the lex Terentia Cassia)provided
for the purchaseof extra grain in Sicily (at a fair price) and for'We
its
distribution to the People, at the rate of five moilii per man.21
may wonder at the sudden affiuence, et a time when a major war
aqainstMithridates in the Easthad just begun, Sertorius in Spain
'Creticus'
oi", t ot yet defeated, and M' Antonius was being very
unsuccessfulagainst the over-powerful pirates: in fact, in every
wav there were far more commitments than there had been in 75,
when C. Cotta had ofGred uP his body in expiation for the in-
evitable famine to the enraged crowd. The answer, of course, is
easy,once the right question is asked: the money from Cyrene
had come in. The People'sright to profit by empire-established,
as we shall see,by Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus-was beginning
to break through the raditions of foreign Policy. The Senatehad
to acceptand even to encouragethe organisation of a province for
immediate profit. The precedentwas to be remembered.
Nevertheless,it was still a very hesitentstep.The Sullan Senate,
clearly, was unwilling to send a senior magistrate to unde-rtake
proper administration. A junior magistrate was chosen, with the
b"rärt minimum ofpower.tt He could not be a danger to the state
or commit it to unwanted nouble. Moreover, it is not by *y
means certain that there was henceforth a permanent administra-
tion, with govemors regularly sent out.is In 67, another (a
Gnaeus) Lentulus Marcellinus is found at Cyrene as a legate of
Pompey; and in that capaciry he performs some of the firnctions
36
that, had there been a governor, were properly the governor's.
FIe even seemsto supply a date for counting years! The easiest
conclusion is that there was no governor, and that P. Lentulus
Marcellinus (the quaestor)had been sent,not as'thefrst of a series
of regular governors, but on a special mission for a particular
'What
purpose. the purpose was, we have already seen:he was to
reorganise the finances of the province and restore peaceftrl con-
ditions, so that the Romans would at last derive a worth-while
revenue from the royal estates there, which they had been
exploiting ever since the will of96, but (it seems)haphazardly and
ineffectually. A large sum of money was urgently needed to
relieve the dangerous famine, and p. Lentulus' main task was to
find it. The choice of a quaestor was appropriate enough. Yet,
however alarming the precedent, Cyrene was (of course) not an
example of annexation. Quite the opposite: it provides anorher
example of how, even at this late date, commitments were cut to
a bare (indeed, an unsatisfactory) minimum-ofhow responsibiliry
that was morally Rome's was avoided, rather than of a greedy or
ofrcious search for new responsibility.
Let us fir"lly consider L. Lucullus, who (aswe have had reason
to suppose)was connected with the Cyrene affair. If the supposi-
tion is correct, his ideasare clear even before he went out to Asia
Minor. But let us look more closely at this man whom Ferrero
considered the founder of real expansionism in Rome and the
creator ofa new erain poliry'n-th. greatestofRoman conquerors
(at any rate before Pompey), who stormed through Asia Minor,
first crossedt}re Euphrates, invaded Armenia and sackedits capital
Tigranocerta. He had shown at home that he was ready to use
untraditional and unsavoury methods for the sake of gaining a
major command: he had intrigued with the mistress of an
influential wire-puller, his own enemy P. Cethegus,in order te
achieve this. Lr the field he was equally ready to ignore tradition:
when battle was to be joined on an unlucky day (diesaterzit was
October 6th, 69, the anniversaryof the batde of Arausio in ro5)
'But
and his officers drew his attention to this, he replied: I shall
37
rnake it zlucleyday for Rome.' And he went on to win the most
brilliant victory in the annalsof the Rcman Republic: !h: :*
never saw *oih., like ir.'as The shadesof P. Claudius Pulcher
and of c. Flaminius could not have been more ostentatiously
delied.
Lucullus advanced asfar as Gordyene, intending (it was said) to
march against the Parthians; and he was -stopped only b;'$9
mutiny Jf hi, -"tt. personal hostiliry and the obvious parallel of
the storv of Alexander the Great have done their worst: there is
oo nooä reason for believing the unfulfilled intention.26 But the
"hrig" i6elf is significant. Lucullus was accusedof overweening
r-bitior' he *"i charged with ruling like an absolute monarch
Paphlagonia, Galatia, Pontus,
over Cilicia, Asia, Bithpi",
Armenia and all the lands up to the river Phasis; of trying-to
extend his proconsul", "o--*d and piling warj'rPon war to this
end. However exaggerated, these chaiges contain a modicum of
ffuth; we have alr-e-adyseen that L. Lucullus, the relative (\
-".ri"g") of L. Sulla and the only one of his ofücerswho, in 88,
had reäained loyal to the rebel marching on Rome,8zwas not a
conservative,robl", but a man remarkably free from traditional
restraints. He was an example of the kind of ambition that was
undermining the Republic. witness the fact that, deposed from
Iu, prorinriiby Senaieand People, \e y-etclung to his command
*i*ould .teo h"t" liked to invade Cappadocia,md his men
refused to follow him: a story that' this time, we may well
believe:sBir was a matrer of making good his own failure, and the
him in the source'
^ooint is not laboured against
Y"t what were his actual arrangements? Of course, they never
reached final form, and Pompey later deliberately reversed some
not as good as we
of them; so that our information on them is
should like. But we can see,in outline, what he meent to do. First
of all, we nore thar he askedfor the traditional commission of ten
,.o"an and was going to Put his plans before them in the
traditional w"y. (ti fac-t, they *et" thete when Pompey took
over.)" He ceitainly meant to annex Pontus' This, of course,was
38
now necessaryon traditional grounds: it had beerrleft free once
before after defeat and had shown that it could not be trusted.
We have had occasion to observe that, in such a case,the pattern
of mosmaiorumdemandedannexation. But Lucullus seemsnot to
have gone beyond this in any way. Machares,son of Mithridates,
was recognised asking in the rest of his father's dominions, in the
Crirnea and round the north and eastof the Black Sea.Larer, afrer
the conquestofArmenia, its vassalsin Commageneand Gordyene
were also recognised.When Lucullus crossedthe Euphratesat the
strategic site of Tomisa, fm from putting a garrison into that
important fortresslong occupied by the Armenians, he presented
it to Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia-who could hardly even be
trusted, on an objective assessment, to hold it securelyfor himself
once he had it. Most astonishingof all: Syria and Phoenicia,from
which Tigranes of Armenia had expelled the miserableepigoniof
the Seleucids,at leastfourteen and perhapseighteenyearsearlier,
were returned to Antiochus XIII of that dynasty-again a man
most unlikely to be able to deGnd his properry, and one who had
never in fact been master of those regions.so
Lucullus'personal ambition is by no meansa negligible pheno-
menon. Yet it is clear that, as far as foreign policy is concerned,
he still stood firmly in the senatorial tradition of minimising
administrative responsibiliry. He set our to win glory and wealth
for himself and (ashe might argue) for the Roman People.But he
did not aim to annex territory, except that of Pontus, which zos
maiorumrequired him to. Nor, to his cost, did he aim to exploit
provincials.
It is tempting to look for the persistenceof this attitude right
down to the end: the long opposition to the ratification of
Pompey's acta tfter his return from the Easr;3l the objections to
M. Crassus'Parthian lMar;t, Cato's proposalthat Caesar,after his
Gallic victories, should be handedover to the enemy for perjury.es
Perhapsthe genuine remains of an old attitude of restraint enter
into these.There is reasonto think, even at this late time, that the
best traditions of the oligarchy were to some extent surviving,
 Cyrene did not become matters of public contention. There was,
among men now often powerless to influence events' But one
at most (asin Numidia), pressureto protect existing oPPortunities.
"*oi insist: considerationsof principle were by now far too
What we do not know is how far, in the time before the Social
much interwoven with internal politics and personal antagonisms. 'War,
'We senatorsthemselveshad economic interests abroad. Even
have had to abandon chronological order, to show that in
Cato the Elder, it will be remembered, had been interested in
our field, as in others, nothing at Rome changed quickly: in all
rade through freedmen.taThis sort of indirect interest must have
its manifestations, that which in the end added uP to what we call
been common, on a small scale.But it did not add up to much.
the Roman Revolution was a slow-an almost incredibly slow-
The lex Claudia had clearly been, on the whole, successfulin
Drocess,measuredby what we are accustomedto nowadays. The
^most concentrating the interest of senatorson Italian land and minim-
terrifying and violent upheavals-riots, seditions, murders
ising the commitment of their wealth to the chancy businessof
and full-scai" "i.ril wars-were remarkably unsuccessfirlin causing
trade or even fi.nance. That this-fully in line with responsible
convulsive transformations of the sort we regard as almost com-
senatorialthinking-had been its purposeis, of course,clear from
monplace.Right up to the early part of the first century, theforces
the fact that no effort was ever made to repealit;86 and its success
unleashedby-th. ör"""hi were nor so much unable as (it -seems)
is shown by the scandal that Cato seemsto have caused-and by
unwilling to press for major changes_I the traditional lreign
the very foreign policies *rat we have been considering. No ruling
poliry: tio, " -* like Marius rerainedthe trust and.the afection
class whose interests were intimately bound up with overseas
äf e""pt. and Equites in spite of-his tloroughly traditional
investment has ever behaved asthe Senatedid during the time we
hurdling of foreign and imperial affairs._And, following events
have been considering. There had always, of course, been some
almost Io th" enä of the Republic, we have seen that, even at
exploitation of provincials by governors and their staffs.As early
times of great internal tensions, the Senateand its rePresentatives
"r i7r *e have evidenceof it, and of the Senate'sunwiüingnessto
could anä did continue, on rhe whole, to pursue the traditional
punish it.30 But, as we saw, the prelude to further expansionin
policy.
^ o--.r-\-: e-l
of ihe r4or was a law intended to deal with this (the lex Calpurnia
All thi, time, of course,the Processof economic ffiltätioi
was continuing. we shall have to look at it in more repetunilarum);"ttd when this failed to be fully effective in due
the provinces
cour*e, it was-as we shall see-suPersededby the legislation of
d.tä. For the moment' lei us ttote that it was, in the second
C. Gracchus,which distinctly improved matters.s?But this, in
century and for some time after, a very- slow Proc:ss' limited by
alry case,was on the whole the limit of senatorialprofits from the
the small number of Roman citizens of the requisite wealth and
provinces.
sanding and by the comparalively srnall amount of capital
It is only at the very end of the century that we perhapsbegin
availabl"e,most of which was tied up rnthe publica(taxesand army
to glimpse major overseasinterestson the part of senators-not
supplies) or, when withdrawn from them, invested in land 1o
thai we can be at all sure even then. M. Scaurus, rhe princeps
*"ke ir, owner socially accepable. As for Italians: they would be
Smdtus, clearly kept up a profitable connection with the Equites,
consideredand protecied; but they were in no position to dictate
despite his position as head of the Senateand of the house of the
poUcy.
^ Meielli. We remember how he was made one of the chairmen of
This must constantly be bome in mind when we notice that
the Mamilian commission, \Mith its Gracchani He, in a
^iudices.ss
rherewas, at the time with which we are now dealing,no Pressure
famous but desperatelydifücult phrase,*"t öfiä?i,iil probably at
on the Senate to increase economic opportunities: Egypt and
40 4r
 ü&r4Ä Q*9rYa2,*1
his trial for ixiortion,-wittr berng rapinarumprouincialiumsinus.ss with one; the ltalians were not yet able to exercise political
'We pressure; and the Plebs, while it certainly welcorned increased
are left to guess\ow- th e rcpinaeactuaily reachedhis pocket:
however, h. ät fitS#Aa iepetundarum^,P?,PA^we benefits, had no leaders to demand them. Hence the casesof
^most lay
{trffih" ih"t h" at got his^share of the fftfttr& Cttters had Cyrene and Egypt; and, due to Roman conservatism,the later
taken during provincial commands, or was too lavishly enter- tracesof the sameattitude in foreign policy. Sulla's, as so often, is
tained *h* he travelled through Asia. There is no real sign of the really interesting case: pretendingr with hallowed and
provincial investment. antiquarian ritual, to have achieved conquests,when in fact he had
'We avoided them. It is the first real sign that new forces were begin-
Marius is more important. cannot really prove his pro-
vincial inreresrseither; but his connecrion with the Equites is ning to stir.
obvious and need not be argued again at length; in particular, it is
notewothy that he joined them in 92 in t|r9 prosecution of
P. Rutilius Rufus.a0The political situation of the moment, and
old ininicitiae, can accounifot thir r P. Rutilius was a hanger-on of
the Metelli who had remained loyal to them, and whom Marius
had no doubt learnt ro hate even in Numidia.al But it is at least
possiblethat Marius' own economic interests,aswell ashis political
äo.r, *"r" involved in the case,together with those of the Equites'
There must always have been some investment overseasby
senators.But we have no reasonto doubt that it was small, mosdy
indirect, and marginal in its efGcts. This much th9 facls of policy
force us to concluäe. For thesemen had the world at their mercf,
and, even at their best, they were not superhuman in their code of
conduct. Scaurus' rapinae may be of the old-fashioned sort
(whether or not he was g"ilty)- Marius, closely linked with.the
iquites throughout his political career,may well have sharedtheir
firiancial inteiests. But then, Marius is a new type of consular,
unusual in his age; and even he shows no initiative in foreign
oolicy. His only lontribution to the exploitation of overseaslands
i..*r to be the seftlementofhis veteransin Numidia; and, aswe
shall see,it is very doubtful whether that was his own idea'
To sum up the conclusions we have reached: senatorial capital
-which, by and large, far surpassedequestrian-was not available
on a large scalefoioverseas investment before the Social War:
equestrian was, on the whole, fully-committed and needed nf,
laige-scale expansion-in fact, could probably not have coped
43

w C. Gracchus himself sarted from this point: it was this same
NEW INTERESTS AND NEW ATTTTUDES
OR, naturally, there was a new breathin Roman politics, by
the endof the secondcenturys.c. The new intereststhat had
now been given leadershipwere bound to make themselvesfelt in
due coursel Led by dissidentand ambitious members of the oli-
the non-
garc\ itsel{ who were pursuing their own PurPoses,-
political classeswere bound to become aware of their own
i-port*"" in the game of politics and hence, where their own
interestswere concerned,to challengethe oligarchy and to extort
consessionsin foreign policy as well as in donr.estic affairs. The
astonishing fact is thai Roman conservatism which caused the
chanqesto come glout as sloq,ly g they did and which, right up
,o th". ""a, |,äbHGd a real dg#Ii over foreign policy between
the governing classand the governed.
Ai in other spheres,it was the Gracchi who had been the origin-
ators, setting in motion forces that were ultimately able to over-
'We
turn establishedpractices. have noted Ti. Gracchus' use of
Attalus' bequest for popular domestic purposes.l It was the first
time that the Plebshad had a major tasteof the benefitsof empire.
Hitherto there had been distributions after a triumph, and the
provinces of the Roman People had been laid under t^#-tä6üfüfis
for the purpose of pre-electio4.geperosityby aristocratic candid-
ates. But these were isolated o'.LF.ii"ifin"t did not add up to
much. Attalus had made the Roman People heres,and this time
there was a leader who saw to it that it äp?dthe full benefits-
As conservativesßared at the time, the precedent was bound to
have far-reaching effects. Hitherto the benefits of ernpire-and
they were not large, if we exclude, as we must, the immediatq
benefits ofmilitary victory-had gone to the ruling classand those
it choseto associatewith it. As Ti. Gracchusis said (by his brother)
44
to have put it: those who had fought to win them had not even a
roof over their heads.2This is what he set out to change.
idea that, with the greater clarity and logic that distinguisheshim,
he carried a good deal firther. To what extent he was following
in his brother's footsteps, carrying out his announced intentions,
we shall never know. Tiberius, to us, is a dim figure, seenthrough
the distorting mirrors of his enemies' propaganda on the one hand
and his brother's on the other. His plans and motives are hardly
worth investigating. But what Gaius did was certainly following
up the implications of Tiberius' action in assuring the firll benefit
of Attalus' bequestto the Plebs. Going several stepsfurther, he
applied the principle on a large scale.He undertook nothing less
than to rationalise the system of provincial administration (a task
which, of course, he did not live to complete) and to convert the
profits to the benefit of the Pmple of Rome as a whole, as far as,
in the conditions of his time, this could be done. His reforms have
been discussedoften enough, and this is not the placefor a list or a
general discussion.Nor are we here concerned with the question
'parry'
of factional or interests. I will merely rePeat the warning
I have often expressed:that no major political action can find one
exdusive explanation, and that difGrent ways of approach are
always legitimate and, in fact, necessary.In particular, politicians
inevitably act with an eye to political profit; and this aim must
neither be ignored and denied nor occuPy us to the exclusion of
anything else. My comments on C. Gracchus in this Present
context are (I hope) valid and important; they do not claim to be
an exclusive explanation-indeed, I have myself elsewhere had
occasionto stressother facets-and should not be criticisedfor not
being what they do not setout to be. In any case,our investigation
will show a carefirl-and, in its context, surely intended-inter-
"or-..tiotr in the major reforms undertaken by that remarkable
man.
Cicero charges C. Gracchus with having pretended to care for
the Treasury, while in fact draining it dry. The charge, often
45

repeatedin our sources,is basedon contemPorary charges:com-
pa^tethe anecdoteof the honestL. Piso, who queuedupto-collect
Lis share of the cheap grain, the distribution of which he had
strongly opposed.t lvtodern scholarssometimesdeny that ü. h*
of C. Gr;;hus involved a subsidy-thereby demonstrating the
arrogancethat is the besettingsin of a certain type of appro"* ,"
the iources. The evidence is conclusive: in Particular, we have
Cicero, who contrastsC. Gracchvs' magnalargitiowith the moilica
of M. Octavius' law.a Since he must have had the evidence for
this statement, while we-with the best will in the world-know
practically nothing about the day+o-day price of wheat in Rome
at this time, an argument that rejects tfie former by starting from
the latter must be dismissedasnonsense.This has had to be stated
at length, sinceit is important to recognisethat the grain law did in
fact involve r mogni laryitio-i.e. a considerable subsidy from
public funds. But this wes not all. C. Gracchus also, for the first
iime, distributed provincial land to the Roman and Italian poor.6
In view of what we have seenof the Senate'scare for the interests
of provincials-a care that was genuine enough rÄrithin its limits,
it slems, even though it would balk at sacrificing a senator to thgm
-we can understand that chagrin at the popularity that this
measurewould gain for Gaius will have been reinforced, aTong
thoughtfirl senat;rs,by uneasiness at the precedentset: at the franlc
claim that empire was for the benefit of the ruling people. The
consequences-foreseeable consequences---offurther application
'We
of Gaius' logic might horrify any honest man. have com-
mented in passingon the fierce resistanceby the Senatemajoriry
to the proposal to colonise Narboo-even though there were
sound rir"tägi" reasonsfor reinforcing tlat splen&d site, whici
experienced soldiers (such as most senatorswere) could lardly
gainsay. There were honourable men who thought that this ap-
proach to empire should not be allowed to spread.
But Gaius' ideas were not at the naive level suggested by,
Diodorus: to provide a dole so asto gain a following for himselet
This is his enemies'proclaimed view of him, as transmitted, e.g.,
46
'We
by Cicero. must not be uncritical in accepting it. As I have
said: one motive of a politician is always that of securing a follow-
ing. But Gaius had more serious aims, which he pursued with
unusual logic. As fu as the Treasury was concerned, the crucial-
'We
reform was that in the collection of the new Asian tribute.
have seen that, up to the middle of the century, few of the pro-
vinces had been profitable and constant warfare had been a drain
on Roman resources.Down to the fall of Carthage, Sicily was
probably the only province that yielded a regular surplus-
perhaps it was the most profitable even for some time after, until
the slavewars came and began to ruin it. But Sicily was under the
lex Hieronica, which no honourable senator could attempt to
abolish where it was, and no realistic politician would think of
using elsewhere.s
lt was the addition of Asia that made the real difference. The
facts are clear, perhaps more so in the ancient sourcesthan in most
of the modern books. On its wealth and possibilities-which we
need not doubt C. Gracchuscould see: for he was an intelligent
and educated man, and connected with Pergamum by family ties
-we have the explicit testimony of Cicero, applying aslate as66,
when Rome had severalmore provinces than shehad had in rz3.
Even then it could be said (probably with some exaggeration,but
at least without that obvious distortion that would produce what
rhetors calledfrigus) that the others merely paid for themselves,
while Asia was by far the most profitable oflands.o The provincial
revenuesof the Roman People at that time amounted to about 5o
million denarü (seebelow), from (perhaps)melve provinces; the
sum-sdll only about 8,ooo alents, to convert to the common
way of calculating such large sums-was considerably more than
the proceedsof half that number of provinces in r33: the annexa-
tion of Asia, in its day, must have made a positively shattering
difference. Under the administration of Cicero's client L. Flaccus,
a Roman was said to have paid goo,ooo sesterces(: 22J,o@
denarü or 3T|,talents) for the taxes of Tralles alone !1oThe wealth
of Asia, as compared with most other provinces, explains its
47
peculiar position in both Roman and international affairs from its
coming into Roman possessionright down to the end of the
Republic. It is a phenomenon that deservesattention-
It cannot be pure chance that with the acquisition of this gold-
mine the theory of the systematicexploitation of the provinces for
the benefit of ihe ruling people first appearsin Roman politics. It
was,basically,Asia that transformedthe nature both of the Roman
.We
empire and of Roman attitudes to it. need not doubt that all
this could not be foreseen in 133: though informed about the
Ro-mansplg-bably
wealth of the kings of Pergamum, the 'ffiff.fthis had no
very accurate idei of the äcto"l {igures was one
thing that the commission of five was to find out. In the end it was
M'Aquillius who made the arrangements,and made them for a
new piovince. M' Aqrrilli$, we are informed, was one of those
ttt"o *hot.^rcq.uütal on a charge of repetundae was the talk of
Rome *d f,##f,to C. Gracchoi th. b"i"i"g need for a new law
on this crime.ll In fact, the judicial asPectsof his lex remained to
plague the unhappy province undl Q. Mucius Scaevolawas sent
äoito reform it- As for finance,we cannot tell how Aquillius hao
arrangedthe taxesof Asia-perhaps (in view of the bribes he had
pocketed) not for the maximum benefit of the Roman People.lz
Technically, we may tal<eit for granted that he Put the Roman
People in the place of the deceasedKing and that-as elsewhere-
the quaestorhad to collect the taxes due. $9gr. Roman magis-
tr"t"i h*d shown that they could not beiitiifieö once they were
out of the Senate'ssight: Aquillius was one of the prime examples.
It is not di{frcult to imagine, in view of later attested parallels,
that men who extorted money from the provincials would seeto
it that quite a bit stuck to their hands before it reached the
Treasury in Rome. In the past, with no province really l maj9r
sourceof profit (exceptfor Sicily, well and safelyregulatedby the
unique lei Hieronica),this had not mattered so very much, from
the public point of view. There was not very much to be lost.
No* matters were different. It is very likely that, whatever the
faults of the settlement of Aquillius, the amounts that began to
+8
come in after he left the province and normal administration began
to function (in rz6, presumably, so that tJre{irst regular tribute
would reach the city late in rz5) proved nothing lessthan stagger-
irg. A man like C. Gracchus, in love with honesty and efüciency,
must have thought it a major challenge: here was a chance of
ridding Roman public finance of much ofits happy-go-lucky pro-
cedures; of protecting the exploited provincials, while actually
increasing revenue to an extent quite undreamt of,, and applying
to it the idea of his brother Tiberius, that such revenuesshould be
used for the good of the People. This, and nothing less,was the
aim of C. Gracchus'major reform.ls The proceedsof the wealthi-
est province-so much the wealthiest that even unsatisfactory
methods of collection had produced vast sums-were to be pro-
perly securedfor the Treasury, and that in easilybudgetableform;
the provincials were to be protected from the proved rapaciry of
magistrates, who were to ceasecollecting money and to return to
their proper function ofjudicially watching over both collectors
and taxpayers; and in the exerciseof this function they were to be
subjected to a stringent law and made answerable to a tribunal no
longer manned by their too indulgent Peers. Meanwhile the
Treasury, filled from this source,and assuredof a regular income,
could use a für portion of it for the benefit of the People.f
This is surely the basisof the Gracchanreform. Much falls into
place and our admiration for this man increases.To a large extent
(it must be stressed)his schemewas successful.The grain subsidy
and other expensesbenefiting the People did not actually exhaust
the Treasury, ashis enemieshad claimed; the long-range budget-
ing made posible by censorialocatio no doubt helps to account for
th. ."s" with which armies were henceforth put into the field,
against the Numidians and then the Germans, in spite of disaster
after disaster:this time there was no sign of the seriouseconomic
strain that had been so noticeable a generation earlier. As long as
Asia was safe, there was no'w no need for scraping and pinching.
The Senate'scarefi.rlattention to Asia in the nineties, which I have
often tried to point out asa neglectedthread in Romur politics of
the period,la becomeseasilyintelligible. Moreover, the Gracchan
law-courts also seemto have worked-at leastfor a long time. We
tend to think of Rutilius; but that was thirry years later, and there
are few well-meant reforms that retain their primitive glory for a
whole generation. As a salutary anddote, we would do well to
remember Cicero's enthusiasticpraise for equestrianjuries in the
Verrines.r6Perhapsspecialpleading, in part. But in fact we know
that some senators were convicted, and no one (in their cases)
suggestsmalice. To underline the strictnessof the courts at their
best,in this period, we have the caseof C. Cato (consul rr4): this
man, to the amazementof later generations,was convicted of the
misappropriation of the pdtry sum of (probably) 8,ooo sesterces
(: 2,ooo denarü, or $ talent).16
Of course, as we know, the system broke down in the end,
owing to factorsthat C. Gracchusprobably shouldnot be expected
to have foreseen.Like the best-laid schemesof mice and econo-
mists, it failed to anticipate future developments that, to the
censorioushistorian, seeminevitable. It would take us too far out
of our way to investigate this in detail. Sufice it to say that what
happenedwas, above all, that the systemproved a goldmine for
the publicani,who thus came to dominate the very classthat C.
Gracchushad put in charge of the jury courts: a classthat had
always been of varied composition, and probably based on
hominesmunicipalesand domi nobiles.But there is every reasonto
think that the trial of Rutilius was not the culmination of a long
process(no sourceimplies this), but a suddenexplosion, due to an
unusual situation that concentratedthe worst potentialities into a
horrible actualiry.lT The shock and the horror are unmistakable in
our accounts: they should help to emphasisethe long successof
C. Gracchus'scheme,well comparableto the best of thoseof our
own public planners.
However, what concernsus is the obvious fact that henceforth,
if they but thought about it, and if certain opportunities presentedr
themselves,both the Plebs and the most powerfirl section among
the Equites (aswe may call the new class)could hope for benefits
Jo
fi"- #;"ä;t*fm; and from further enlargemenrof the
empire. This, for our presentenquiry, is perhapsthe chief effectof
the reforms of the Gracc"hi.
Yet, as we have seen,it took a long time for the consequences
to be Glt. The main reason, of course, is simply Roman tradi-
tionalism: a full generation passedbefore it occurred to anyone
that a serious challenge to the Senate on principles of foreign
policy was possible.It took even longer to develop an dternative
'We
policy. have seenthat theJugurthine'War brought to a head
the suspicion of the ruling classthat (asSallust saw) had long been
building up and now erupted into open attacks on the superbia
nobilitatis.But there was as yet no alternative policy-not even
alternative leaders. The choice of Q. Metellus proved, for the
moment, quite satisfactory and ended discontent. It was only
Metellus' failure to plrt a speedy end to the'War, and the mis-
chanceof Marius' intrigues againsthim, that led to Marius' elec-
tion.l8 Even then, after a. passing difficulty, Metellus got his
triumph-no. mean achievement for a man who (whatever
modern scholarsmay have to say on who really won the war
againstJugurtha) had obviously not finished his war and had no
right to that honour.le It shows the hold that the oligarc\ still
retained. Of course,Marius was örtunate, up to a point: he was
an alternative leader, free from the taint of nobiliry and with
impeccable equestrian connections. Unfortunately, he had no
ideas:his aim was merely to succeed.As we have seen,his settle-
ment of Numidia is not only fully traditional, but in fact revived
the Senate'searlier dispositions.The next developmentwas due to
another man, following up what C. Gracchushad begun. We have
noticed how, in specialcircumstances,C. Gracchus' schemefor
overseassetdementhad been successfullyrevived a few yearslater,
in the caseof Narbo.zo Twenty years after C. Gracchus,it was
carried much further by L. Appuleius Saturninus.
It was Saturninus who, in ro3, enabled Marius to satisfr his
obligations of patronage towards his army by distributing large
holdings (of roo iugera eech)to his veteransin Africa.zl Unlike
5r
C. Gracchus' colony at Carthage, these holdings-for the most
part not in colonial form-survived, and their importance for tle
later Romanisation of Africa is well known.sz That the idea was
not the general's,but the tribune's, seemsclear. For one thing,
Marius had been consul in the preceding year, and had been back
in Rome; yet nothing had been done for his veterans.And yet the
man who hadjust been dispensedfrom the laws to hold a second
consulship could almost certainly have had something done, had
he known what to do. Moreover, we find Saturninus himself
developing and generalisinghis idea in his next tribunate:'as the
samesourcetells us, he now planned for settlementsofveterans in
Sicily, Greece and Macedonia, as well as those in Gaul that were
'War.3s
meant for the veterans of Marius' German Indeed, this
excessiveambition is what embroiled him with Marius and led to
his downfall.2aHowever, the idea itself was not forgot-ten: it was
taken up and vigorously pursuedby Sulla in Corsica, by Pompey
in the East,and then by Caesarand the Emperors.zsThe settlement
of soldierson conquered land becamea standardbenefit that the
ruling people could expect; and, at leaston occasion,the poor of
the city and of ttaly shared in it.
It is about this time that we seethe Senate,for the first time,
take effective action against piracy. [n roz (as far as we can tell),
the praetor M. Antonius, perhapswith consularimperium,was sent
to a new prouincia of Cilicia-a prouincia that was not really a
territorial province, but the name of a command against the
pirates basedon that coast.26It has always been recognisedthat
this new departure-the engagementofconsiderableforceson this
quite new task of clearing the seas-was to some extent due to
pressurefrom equestriancircles. Moreover, M. Antonius, a man
with many Arpinate connections, was one of Marius'. friends and
protdgds.It is not fancifirl to seein his selectionthe work of the
man who, in this very year, was consul for the fourth time and
who, incidentally, had in that very year helped the much-defeated
Q. Catulus to a consulshipthat he probably no longer expected.rt
He was always the friend of the Equites.
'We
must add-so obvious that they tend to be overlooked-
'We
Italian traders. remember that mäv of the Italian traders in
the East come from southern Italy and Ä*y, at this time, are not
Roman citizens; but the Senate,in its role of patron of the ltalian
allies, carefully watched over their interests in the provinces-
thus incidentally disrracting attention from certain things that were
happening in kaly. By roo, of course,we are within i decadeof
the Social'War. The problem of Allied enfranchisemenrappeared
to have faded into the background, afrer the acure phasäof the
rzos. But that is at ieast to some extent due to the nature and
interestsof our sources.That it was very much there still is clear
from some small facts: Marius' illegal enfranchisemenrof rr,vo
Camertine cohorrs on rhe battle{ield; the settlement of Italiarr
4ong with Roman vereransin Africa (to judge by the families
later found there); Saturninus' attempt to secuieroundabout en-
franchisement for Italians yia the army and colonisation. and
the reaction of the Roman Plebs to this;'finally the action of the
censors_ of 9716, M. Antonius and L. Flaccus, in opening the
crizenlists to ellieswho had no right to be rhere.ssThis brings us
back firll circle to M. Antonius: a picture of the man begins to
emerge, very diferent from Cicero's pious fictions.'We neid not
doubt that the vigorous action against piracy, at a time when
Rgme hardly
-cou$ 1fford ir, was (at least in part) deliberately
taken for the sake of the Italians affected, when Italian dissatis-
faction at home was becoming dangerous. M. Antonius, the
friend of Marius and of the ltalians, musr have his proper place in
this.
The pressureon the Senatefrom the new classescan be dis-
cerned; and, not unexpectedly, it is Marius and his circle whom
we find transmitting it. But, just asin rheJugurthine'War, ir is a
limited pressure-a pressurefor the protection ofexisting interests,
and in general for a more vigorous policy than the Senätewould
wilingly have chosen:we must remember rhat, at this very time,
the Germans were undefeated,the slave war in Sicily was going
very badly, and there was fighting in Spain and perhaps in
J3
Thrace.aoThere is as yet no Pressurefor expansion.As we have
seen, it is very probable that the Equites had as m19h a1 they
wanted, since their numbers were comparatively small and their
capital normally fully employed. In Asia itself-where, even in
thä sixties, elergeparr of the capital of the societateswas tied u5
they were not häving an altogethet-"fY$.Irofitable tiEi Off
a few years later, the situation had cleteriorated to an e1tent that
-"d. th. mission of M. Scaurusand that of Q. Scaevola neces-
sary.so Even earlier, the diplomatic succtcss. Marius against
Bf
Milhridates must have btought welcome räüöf iö'very sensitive
investors.
In any case,however' aswe shdl increasinglysee,good business
could be done without annexation. We must remember Nico-
medesIII of Bithynia, who could nor send Marius auxiliary forces
becauseso many'of his subjectshad been taken away as slavesby
Romans.g1Despite control of the law-courts in Rome, it was
perhaps-or. .ä-fortable for some to be beyond the imperiumof
a Roman governor.
'We
have seenthe limits of equestrianPressure:it was, as yet,
far from alarming. The first alarming incident was -of a very
different nattre; and it occurred in 89, while the Social'W'ar was
still raging in Italy.
This tiÄe it was not a question of financiersor demagogues,of
the new classesbrought into prominence and made consciousof
,fr.i, inr"r"rt, by th""Gr"""hil It was the innate'?ficFof the oli-
to control its membert-*gä"t
garchy-its inabiliry'd.ng.r, suddenly
,""o ä be the ,eal coupled with the däffiF in the stan-
dards of many of thosemembers. Even in the second century, the
ambition and greed of individual nobles had sometimes set them
at odds with the consideredpoliry of the Senate.But that ambi-
tion had usually found fairly harmless ourlers (harmless from the
point of view of public poliry) on the barbarian frontier in
Ligori", Spain and other such plr."tt many were allowed a1d
"rräo "o.o^*aged to indulge their ambition and their greed;
others who diä so against the Senate'swishes or to excessusually
54
got away with it and did no grear damage to the public inrerest.
In their dealls wit{r majo-r powers and civilised srares,rhe repre-
sentativesofRome showed, on the whole, a praiseworthy ,"ni of
responsibility, and t}re Senateassertedsuficient control over them,
so that ougrageous behaviour was rare indeed and confined to
conditions.of spegafi1r.qn, Havrng (as we have seen)
*g"S"jg{_
econoruc lnrerestsabrg3$sSgman anstocratswere lessürcliried to
n v !
let personal factors impede their judgmenr. The dichotomy in
Roman policlt which we noticed at the beginning, is refectä in
differeni standards of individual behavio"ur *ä of collecdve
control.
By 89, many factors had combined to undermine that state of
affairs.Above all, Roman nobles had simply becomei'creasingly
and_excessively arrogant and confident. For one thing, tlieir
heads were turned by excessivepowers and excessivehonours in
the provinces. The Roman governor, with his permanent emer-
gency powers, subject to no appeal and defactoro-no-enforceable"
law, would have had to be more than human to [iä'6trI*Jäär*.-:
ation and self-restraint. Änd ifany praetorialr or consular governor
became the patron and benefactor and saviour of famous cities,
with statues and heroic honours to him everywhere; if the
queestorM. Annius could have gamesfounded in his honour,ssit
was not surprising that even the civilised part of the non-Roman
world gradually came to appear beneath serious notice and un-
worthX ql,*gt* consideration. The consent of the governed
came tö matial fessand less.outside the parts directly controlled,
Rome had had no major war ro fight for a long time. Ali the wars
in the East, from ,oö to rzo n.c.lhad endedIn triumph ""a *-
richment; in the nineties of the first century, the worfu had seen
the spectacleof the great ldngs of Asia Minor meekly-as usual
-accepting the Senate's command, conveyed to them by the
auctoritasofan unarmed commission. The effect can again be most
typically seenin Sulla-the man whose acrions so often summarise
and illustrate all that one has ro say about his period. when strila
had installed Ariobarzanes in his kingdonr- (without meeting
5J
seriousopposition) in 95, he met a Parthian embassyon the banks
of the Euphrates. It was the first time that the rwo powers had
come into diplomatic contact. Sulla ceremonially took up his seat
between Ariobarzanes, the loyd and dependent client, and the
Parthian envoy-thereby indicating that he regarded the Parthians
in the samelight as Cappadocia.(And this was well rurderstood
by the Parthian King: the envoy, on his return, was execüed for
submitting to it.)3s The incident is worthy of contemplation, as
showing the attitude of Roman nobles towards what remained
.We
outside the orbit of their influence. must bear it in mind when
we come to the incident of 89 r.c.
The story is most fully told by Appian.s Some years after
Sulla's return to Rome, Mithridates had again occupied Cappa-
docia and had expelled Nicomedes IV from Bithynia, hoping that
Rome's preoccupations nearer home would prevent her from
interGring. In 89, with the Social War approaching its end, the
Senatesent an embassyto restorethe two kitgt. It was headedby
M' Aquillius, son of the man who had organisedAsia (and there-
fore one of the petrons of the whole area) and a friend and
prot6gd of C. Marius: he had been Marius' chief legate in Gaul
(ro3) and later his colleagueasconsul ror, and Marius had success-
fully deßnded him (with the help of M. Antonius) against an
extortion charge a Gw years1ater.35 It was perhapsdue to Aqoil-
lius' hereditary connections that he soon succeededin getting a
force of allies together and (with the help of C. Cassius,governor
of Asia) in restoring the kings. His mere Presencehad been
enough, and there was no resistance.Mithridates, cautious as
before, again preferred to pull out and wait for a better chance.
But Nicomedes, the restored King of Bithynia, had issued
promissory notes for large sumsto the commandersrestoring him
*d to various eminent men in their suite: it was coming to be an
expensivebusinessto be restored to one's throne by Romans. As
he had no funds for immediate Payment, and his future ProsPects
looked very uncertain (particularly in view of Mithridates' be-
haviour in the past), Aquillius and his friends decided that they
s6
must try to get their money as soon as they could. They black-
mailed Nicomedes into plundering Pontic territory, partly per-
haps (if we may give them the benefit of the doubt) in order to
impress Miduidates with a show of strength, but largely to get
him some funds to pay his debts. But Mithridates was not pre-
pared to be insulted and intimidated: the result, before long, was
the First Midridatic War.
Appian makes out (no doubt from his source) that Aquillius
positively wanted to start a war, without reGrenceback to Rome
(he insistson this), and that this was the real aim ofhis pressureon
Nicomedes. On generalgrounds this might appearquite credible;
but it is belied by the factsof the caseasAppian himselfgives them,
and it may be regardedasan obvious expostfactocomment. When
Mithridates sent an embassy to protest at the raids into his
territory, the reply he received was in fact anything but pro-
vocative or insulting. The Romans replied that'they would not
wish Mithridates to suffer harm at the hands of Nicomedes, but
would not permit Nicomedes to be attacked by armed force'-
i.e., Mithridates could not expect reparationsand would not be
allowed to extort them (it is this that makesthe chief object of tlq '' '
exercis;--,$ggy.ipf.rirg of booty-.lear); but that, if h"" r.ftäoäf
from retaliating, there would be no further attacks.It looked asif
Aquillius had achievedhis limited objectives,and the reply quoted
makesit clear that he had no intention of going further.
".. .^pgllutithridates, outraged by what had happened, refused to
ni:gotiate. He felt strong enough to fight, and he now had an
excellent pretext: indeed, it looks as though he was already
regretting his earlier decisionto pull out, perhapsin the light of
more accurateinformation about the strengthofthe forcesactually
at Aquillius' disposal. His propaganda line could now be the one
that is reproduced for us, on a later occasion,by Sallust: that the
Romans were seekingto subject the whole world to their greed,
that they were latronesgentium.s6Having his pretext, he at once
invaded-not Bithynia, which had technically been the guilty
pury, but Cappadocia,where he easily expelled the unfortunate
57
and quite guildess Ariobarzanes. At this point, of course, the welcomed the war that resulted from it. The personal foreign
Romans had no option but to fight, even though their forces were interestsof Roman senatorshad made an impressiveentranceon
inadequate and their allies unreliable. M' Aquillius, captured by the stageof history.
Mithridates, was killed by having molten gold poured down his The Jugurthine War had already produced the suspicion rhat
tlrroat-a public illustration of the King's ofücial casusbelli. the ruling classwas sacrificing the national interest to that of its
It was the first time that a major war had been brought about individual members. It was of coursetrue (and always had been)
by an individual Roman acting on his own initiative. Yet, despite that great men received worthy presentsfrom their clients abroad
what was to be said about it latqg.,.ipErose(it seems)from a mis- for the patronal services that they performed. That was mos
calculation rather than from ffilffit. pävo."tion: it is clear maiorum,inextricably interwoven with ancient social conventions.
that it was ultimately Mithddates, and not Aquillius, who really It was only when things went wrong, and when slowly develop-
wanted to fight. Unaccustomed to opposition, and treating easten ing suspicion was stirred up by orators, that people began to
kings ashelples clients (in thq.lighp of pastvictories and past and suspect this traditional practice.ss At the time (as we saw) they
Aquiiius bff;äe"älnto war while tfung to
pr.i.o, servliliry), were wrong: there is no evidencethat the presentsthatJugurtha
satsifyhis own greed urd that ofhis associates; though it can even must undoubtedly have given to his Roman patrons made any
be argued that he may have conceived of the raids asa py Roman differenceto Roman policies.
9f Ag-rh:$t$e in the moraliry of
tradition) legitimate terrorising operation and that, had he suc- the upper classis becoming visible: rhe 3fffi were now enormous,
ceeded,he would have earned nothing but praise in Rome. The
+fugfS"&tt that therewasno longerTyJf_9+ 1ogive careful
real signficance of the incident is that it was an attempt at blatant consrderatronto the consequences of the putsuit'of private inter-
enrichment by a senator at the expenseof a king who, up to that estsin public policy. It was an early sign of the storms to come.
point, had loyally obeyed Rome's command-and an attempt
entered into, as was to appear only too clearly, without adequate
consideration of the probable consequencesand without even
sufücient force to back it at all plausibly. SinceAquillius was such a
close associateof Marius, it has inevitably been asked whether
Marius was also.involved. Certainly Marius, by now, had no fear
at the propect of an easternwar. Having failed to gain the distinc-
tion he wanted in the Social'War, he had withdrawn from it in
disgust: he now seemedeagerfor a specialcommand that would
at last bring him another appeal to save his country and would
fulfil the seer'spromise of a seventhconsulship.s?PerhapsMarius
had been one of those who had lent Nicomedes money towards
his restoration,or had beenpromised somefor favouring it: with
his Asian connections, he could hardly fail to be courted. h *y
case, it is very likely-though we cannot prove it-that he
approved of Aquillius' handling of the situation and actually

J8 J9

v course, was what Roman upper-classopponents of this reform-
THE NEW TMPERIALISTS: THE MYTH
rf-1HE Social War and the civil wars that followed hastenedthe
I declitreand completely changedthe picture. Theyhad a Pro-
found effect on both the moral climate and the social and political
structure of the Roman Republic. Let us first look at the social
and economic results.
We have noted that in the secondcentury there does not-at
leastuntil near the end-appear to be any large-scale exploitation
of the Empire. Individual members of the ruling oligarchy derive
their profits, lawful and illicit. But the Senateas a whole seems
sincerely concerned (though not always successfirlin its efforts) to
stop the illicit sort; and excessivepro{its by citizen contractors
are for a long time discouraged-as is clear from the outstanding
exampleof the Macedonianmines.l On the other hand, trade and
finance by Romurs and by Italians flourish under official Protec-
'free'
tion, in provinces and territories, particularly in the East.
But again, there is no sign of serious exploitation. ln the free
harbour of Delos, where the Italians attain the summit of their
power and prosperity, that of the Syrian colony almost equals
theirs.2C. Gracchus,for the leading and most urterprising men of
non-senatorialrank, laid the foundations of the wealth and power
that would end by rivalling those of the Senate.But there were
few of them; and, aswe saw, their capital was probably too lim-
ited for any major expansion of investments, even had the chance
offered. In fact, imperialism in its economic aspectsis still very
restrained, in comparison with the size of the empire and the
extent of Roman Power and infuence.
The war that began in 9r and lasted, in some form, until about
8o had one important result, and an immediate and practical one
60
-one so familiar that we are in danger of overlooking its conse-
quences: Italy received the Roman citizenship. The chief conse-
quence was the transformation of the Roman upPer class.This, of
men like the consul L. Marcius Philippus and those senatorsand
equites who rallied in his support in gr-had always feared.sNot
indeed that there was a flood of new men in the highest places:it
is unlikely that anyone had seriously expected this. Syme and
others have fully demonstrated the extreme slowness of this
particular process,due to the restraintsof the system and to the
conservatismof the Roman electorate.In 63 n.c., defending L.
Murena-a man of distinguished and long-standing praetorian
family who had won the consulateagainsta.nobilisof ancient,but
not recently prominent, lineage-Cicero had to meet a strong
primafacie presumption that such a successcould be due only to
corrupt practices.aThe most interesting feature of his remarkable
and instructive speechon that occasion is the fact that this argu-
ment could not be simply laughed out of court: the immense
seriousness with which the orator treatsit-devoting a large part
of his speechto its thorough refutation-shows as nothing else
can the enduring and even increasingright to high ofüce of the
old nobilitas. HJwever. "t lätuei t.l7öfiab"tticul*arlv where the
of #itfi1äbd -.o L"d by mid-
comitiatributaelected-the*iriöfue
century become a steady stream; and most of Italy was by then
represented among the back-benchers: hominesnoui et parui
senatores,6.who neverthelesscould at times-ryake their presence
felt. Many of thesemen belong.d to th.'#üä€ipal aristoc^racies of
Italy and had wealth not out of place even in the Roman Senate.s
And many of them were related to the negotiatores (financiers and
traders) who, generations ago, had already been making their
fortunes overseas.At the same time, all of them were amply
endowed with Italiur lurd. In this way new links were forged and
maintained between Senateand Equites, who had been drifting
'threw
apaxtfor political reasonsever since C. Gracchus daggers
into the forum' and who had reachedan impasseof opposition by
6r
90 B.c. Sulla himse[ by his adlectionofabout 3oo equitesinto the
Senate,had made a decisive start.?Flenceforth there is no clear
boundary between the orders, in status or interests. The post-
Sullan-much more than tlre immediate pre-Sullan-Senate is
linked with the equestrian order through its lower representatives,
sharing interests and interrelationships; and this wes soon to
eppear clearly in politics: not only in the provincial interests of
senators, which now take on increasing importance and more
clearly defined shape(as we shall soon have occasion to see), but
in the accord of 7o over the law-courts. This accord, acceptedby
the best men in the Senateand causing no dissatisfaction among
the Equites, would have been quite inconceivable a generation
earlier-indeed, when the consul Q. Servilius Caepio tried'to
achieve something very like it in ro6 r.c., it lasted only for a
short time and was much disliked.s Now, agreement continues
undisturbed until the nature of the law-courts themselves is
radically changed under the Empire. Nothing c:rn more clearly
illustrate the immense change-despite occasional dlfferences
between them-that had come over the relationship between the
fwo orders; and it was, of course,againstthis background, much
better known to him than it is to some moderns, that M. Tullius
Cicero developed his scheme for t concordiaordinum to save the
Republic-for which he has many times been unreasonably
criticised.
But the ordo equesteritself demands our careful scrutiny. It is
odd that until quite recently it had never been properly surveyed
and discussed,in spite of all the interest that modern scholarship
has shown in this period. The details of how the early equites
Ronani (limited in numbers and duly enrolled by the censors-
and alone entided to certain specified privileges) were merged
arrd submerged in the in-flated ordoequesterof Cicero's day are, in ,
important respects,still impenetrable and, it *y case,carurot be'
discussedhere.e The fact is that equestrian status in Cicero's day
was basedon a mere qualification ofwealth;lo hence the wealthiest
element was dominant, particularly the publicani of the big
This, however, meant that the ordoequester.unlike most
societates.
things at any period of Roman history, was radically transformed
almost overnight by the Socid War. For once, the food-gates
were open, and all municipal notables, as far as we can see,could
soon claim tobe equitesRomani.The effectsof this must have been
considerable, and only some of them (of relevance to us) can be
considered here.
The conuentu.sof Italians in the provinces (including Roman
citizen$ had always been in a favoured position, owing both to
the presence of those Roman citizens and to the protection that
the Roman state accorded to tlre nearest of its clients. But now
they were no longer clients. They were all full members of the
master race. It was these men (the prouinciales)who were the
chief advisers of the governor, sitting on his consilium,providing
his juria and his agents, and (in general) furnishing that necessary
element of local expertise and continuiry that the Roman official
machinery conspicuously lacked. They, among hostile or fawning
subjects,were the only men whom the governor could fully trust.
As Cicero makes clear to his brother Quintus, they were also his
chief temptation and worry.rr Especially as they must on no
account be oflended: the governor's future-even his caput,i.e.
his status as a full and honoured citizen-depended on them and
on their Roman friends and associates,the senatorsand equites
who sat on the juries. A {älsestep could end a great man's career.
L. Lucullus, by , fair and reasonablesettlement of debts in the
ruined province of Asia, incurred their dislike-and had to pay
the penalty, with Senateand People *iti"g to divest him of his
powers, despite the friends and relations he had among the
noblest in the land.rs Things had been very different in the
nineties. L. Lucullus was recalled in disgrace, and it was several
yearsbefore he was, almost contemptuously, allowed to triumphlt
-a blow that broke his strong and acute nünd and made him end
an active life in shallow seliindulgence and ultimately madness.
Speech after speech by Cicero, in prosecution and defence-
the Venines, the pro Flacco, the pro Fonteioand others-attests the
63

power and the connectionsof theseprovincial Romans, many of
whom, a generation ago, would at best have been cliens of the
great Roman families. And we can see the multiPlicity of their
interests,espublicani,negotiatores and large provincial landowners
-all interlaced. They were all citizens now, and the richest of
them equitesRomani: the publica (and especiallythe taxes) were
open to them, and they could combine them with other interests
in a formidable power. The ordoequester asa whole, therefore,was
immensely strengthened by this infusion of new blood and new
capital, and (not least important) new experience of provincial
business.These men could exercisepower hitherto undreamt of
and form ambitions hitherto inconceivable.The'resourcesof the
provincesaccumulatedin their hands.Their dedicationsto Roman
magistrates survive in large numbers-from Delos, Aegium,
Argos, Cos; from Agrigentum and Panormus (to take only those
representedin our most accessibleselection of inscriptions).ra
Their immense wealth and power are sometimes illustrated in
starding flashes-all the more startling (to us in our ignorance of
the basictone of ancient life, even at well-attestedperiods) when,
asso often happens,they arouseno interest in our sourcesand no
comment asbeing out of the ordinary.
The Civil'War, particularly, forced some of theseinterestsinto
---often unwelcome-publicity. In the 'free ciry' of Utica a body
of 3oo seemsto be a kind of governing body of the Romatr
conuentus:no doubt the wealthiest among the communiry, from
whom the other negotiatores are distinguished. They chose to
support the Pompeiansand at one time seemto have been practi-
cally in control of the ciry; but they were punished by Caesar.l8
ln the little town of Thysdra Italian negotiatores aratoresque(note
the combination) had deposited 3oo,ooo bushels of wheat.lo In
Sp"ir, Romans (including Roman ktightt) of local origin or
connectionsfight prominently on both sides:there is Q. Pompeius
Niger of ltalica, who is the Caesarians'champion in a famous
duel that gives our pedestrian author the churce of emulating the
grand historical tradition; Baebius, Flavius and Trebelliut ("ll
64
'their
tfuee equitesfrom the little town of Asta) desertto Caesar,
horsesalmost covered with silver' (as the author disapprovingly
notes), and report that all the Roman knights in the Pompeian
army (ie. all those recruited in the province?) had wanted
to desert,but had been found out and imprisoned.lT A Caesarian
party sent to (Jrsao contains senatorsand knights, including some
(knights, presumably) belonging to the ciry.tt Of the 3,ooo
knights who fell at Munda, some were from Rome, others from
the provinces.le
'We
cannot tell how many of all theseand other men mentioned
were veterans recently setded there, how many enfranchised
natives (as----onewould think-Q. Pompeius Niger was), how
many settlers of ltalian origin and how many actual Italian
businessmen.No doubt all theseclasses were represented.They all
now formed the ruling classof provincial society and politics,
dominating the provinces of the Roman People, and in constant
touch with their associates,their friends and their families at home.
The ordoequester had absorbedttalian notablesand (like the roll of
citizens as a whole) had thereby become wide open, recruiting
new strength from provincial sources.It is strangethat the story
hasnot beenproperly told. Even Rostovtzefl who well knew how
greatly the enfranchisementof Italy increasedthe resourcesof this
class',was unfortunately the captive of his own theory of an over-
tidi"g conflict between the proletariate and the upper class: he
saw in rhe ordo equesterof the Ciceronian age only a force that
'strerigthened
the ranks of the edsting order' against proletarian
revolution-a view that has an element of truth, but, like many
such, is all the more misleading on account of it-and that sup-
ported the Roman government's policy of imperialism which he
claims to recogniseeven in the secondcentury.soWe have already
seen that this last view fies in the face of the evidence; and we
must now note the havoc that it wrought-except where his pro-
found knowledge of the facts broke the shacklesof theory-in his
whole interpretation.
There is a major task----orrather, severalmajor tasks-still to
6S
 'We
be done. cannot do it here. Let us, however, briefy glanceat
two provinces, representativein their diversity, for which we
have rather more detailed evidence.tl
In Asia, as is well known, Italian interests were prominent
enough-and ltalians sufüciently hated-for Mithridates' order
for the slaughter of Italians to meet with overwhelming success.
8o,ooo Romans-as they now were, in law as well as in name-
are said to have been killed in one day.zr It was only in 8r, after
Sulla'svictory and the return of setdedconditions in the Roman
world, that any large number of men expelled from the province
can have returned. In 74 there was no massacre;but we can be
certain that the old memory causeda massexodus of Romans. It
took some time to reconquer Asia and make it safefor exploita-
tion once more. Lucullus' settlement is probably to be dated
around 7o.To what extent the Romans in the province had soon
recovered and consolidated their power there is clear from the
pro Flacco,dealing with the situation only a few years later. The
speechis (it might seem to us) quite disproportionately full of
Roman interestsin Asia: three Roman knights in the province
(t. lt); an estate at Cyme belonging to a Roman orphan and
bought by a Greek with money he has borrowed from two
Romans (apparently coming to Rome for the purpose: s. 46);
'free'
property at Temnus and at Apollonis (a city) owned by
Decianus, one of the prosecutors (5rf. and 7of.); payment of a
large debt extorted by the Roman Castricius-member of a
family of negotiatoreswell known in the East-from Tralles (Slt);
the interestsoflurco and Septimius(87f.). And there are two very
odd incidents: Cicero's client, asgovernor, had (it seems)got hold
of the estate of a Valeria who had died intestate---one of his
actions that even his attorney can hardly j"rofy as anything but
dubious (a+f,); and Falcidius,a Roman living (asis clear) in Asia,
had given the governor 5o talents (: t,roo,ooo HS)-or so he
said-and had almost ruined himself by doing so: this man (we
learn) had paid goo,oooHS for the taxes of Tralles alone (9of.)-
no doubt regarding this as a sound investment. As can be seen,
much of the speechis taken up with the interests of Roman citizens
in Asia.
But we know, in a more general way, that even by 66 the
Romans had fooded back--only three or four years after
the completion of thp r.econquest.In that year, Asia was by far the
principi source "f%üäüd'for the Treasury, atd *osi of the
property of the honourable gentlemen of the tax companies was
invested there; otherswere engagedin businessthere and had most
of their capital actually in the province : a large number of citizens
was involved in all this; moreover, asCicero points out (asa well-
known and universally acceptedfact), a collapseof credit in Rome
itself was the inevitable consequence of even a mere threat to
Asia.z3So much had been restored in a very few years.
Next, Transalpine Gaul.zaAs we have had occasionto notice,
there is no sign of seriousRoman interest there before the German
wars.'We can therefore all the more easily observe the speedof
Roman penetration after. It was aPparently the German wars that
first led to the establishment of a regular province-and to penal
confiscation of land. This kind of purrishment seemsto have been
Seatly extended in the province during the next few decades,as
repeatedrevolts had to be suppressed. Around the middle 8oso.c.,
we gei a sudden glimpse of what was going on in the province.
An early speechof Cicero's (the pro Quinctio of 8r, dealing with
events of a few years earlier) turns on the exploitation, by two
Roma4s in partnership, of a highly productive farm and ample
grazng lands in Gaul. Even as early as that, this was apparently
nothing at all out of the ordinary, and no word of explanation or
comment is given-or felt to be needed-for this background.
Around 7s, the govemor M. Fonteius (later another of Cicero's
clients) is found evicting Gauls from land that had been con-
fiscated-some (if not most) of it apparently by Pompey on his
way to Spain.r5Cicero, speaking in the early 6os,insiststhat helv)t
confiscations were specially characteristic of the province. By that
'reGrta
time it'was negotiatorum, plena ciuium Romanorum'.
In fact, he adds, no business in the province is carried out w'ithout
67

the intervention of a Romur cttizen, no money changes hands
without being recorded in a Roman ledger. But there is not only
finance (always the specialiry of Roman citizens). The large
numbers of Romans in the province are analysed for us as con-
'publicani
sisting of the colonists at Narbo and agricolaepecuarii
ceteri negotiatores'.2oThe stresson land, of course,fully confirms
what we have inferred must have been the position asearly as the
8os. It is at this time that the old prohibition of vine and olive
culture, which Cicero found in an early trea.ty,z1must have talen
on the significance that he then (as we saw) retrojected-mis-
leadingly for the modern scholar-right back to its origin. In fact,
the prohibition, as is clear from the wording quoted, does not
apply to all land in the province (asis often mistakenly suggested
by modern interpreters): it is limited to land in the hands of
the natives (transalltinae gentes).It would in any casehave been
di-fficult to believe, at this time, in a provision forbidding the
growing of vines and olives on land held urywhere by Roman
citizens; but as it happens,there is no mention of thern in the
prohibition asreported-surely not through Cicero's carelessness.
The old treaty had developed-accidentally, but much to the
liking of many Romans-into a highly protective measure,
favouring, not so much Italian land as against provincial, as the
interests and the profits of the numerous Italians whom we find
owning and holding land in the province at this time. The de-
velopment is a measureof the change in the situation as a whole.
We have looked at two provinces. But, where we have the
evidence, a similar picture can be glimpsed in others. Cicero's
lefters of recommendation (Book xiü of his ktters to hß Friends)
provide interesting material, despite their superficially dull uni-
formity. Large interests,landed and commercial, can be docu-
mented in several provinces. There is other sporadic evidence,
illuminating even the most obscurecornersof the Roman world.
In lllyria, Salonaewas probably conquered (by C. Cosconius) as
late as 78 r.c., in one of the border wars that-as we saw-
continued in this period as before.28By the time of the Civil
68
'W'ar,
its Roman conuentuswas a firm and important ally of
Caesar.zeThe island of Issa,long a 'free' city, is found sending
an embassyto call on Caesarduring his proconsulate:the embassy
is hea.led by a Gavennius, clearly " Rom"n cirizen.soThe Illyriur
city of Lissus, in fact, appearsto have been handed over io its
Roman conuuttusby Caesarat some time (we cannot tell how
long) before the Dyrrhachium campaign, possibly owing ro some
act of disloyalty on the part of the narives.sl
There is no doubt that imperialism, in the senseof exploitation
by the mling po'wer, developed enormously after the enfran-
chisementof Italy and the consequenrstrengtheningof the eques-
trian order. The rapidity of the Romans' return to Asia (followed,
no doubt, by further expansionthere), of their penetration of the
province of Transalpina and even of little-noticed Illyricum, and
the speedwith which they succeededin seizing an important and
powerfirl position there, is particularly starrling in view of the
general sloyness of transformations-political and economic-
under ancient conditions. Nothing quite like this, probably, can
be seenin antiquiry, except perhapsthe Greco-Macedonianpene-
tration of the Middle East after Alexander the Great. In Romarr
history, certainly, the phenomenon is unusual.tt will be our next
question whether and to what exrent this affectedimperialism in
'W'e
the other main sense-that of actual expansion. have seenthat
right up to the Social War there is no evidence of expansionist
pressure by the Equites; and perhaps we have even caught a
glimpse of the answer to our question about what followed.
However: what differencedid the enormousincreasein the power
and the resourcesof the order make to foreign policy?
It might seem obvious, from all the facts we have been in-
vestigating, taken in tlre context of our modern experience,that
the ordo equesterof the age of Cicero, with its greatly increased
capial and its power in the law-courrs, urd with its almost un-
cannily dynamic expansionin the provincesof the Roman People,
must have been constantly pressing for ftrrther increasesin- its
opportunities by further extensionof the frontiers, for more roorn
69
to ploueh back its profits and thus expand them. It might seem-so still technically 'free'. Yet in the first century, despite the far
.Uii."i6"t orr. ti.d not Prove it. Thus for Tenney Frank' who larger reso'rces and the rapidly increasing p.o.tritioo of the
knew Roman economic 6istory better dran almost anyone else provinces that we have noticed, there is litde evidence for such
has ever known it, and who was the foremost oPPonent of those movements. In distant Noricum (it has been said)ec Roman
who (like Rostovtzeff) saw an imperialist policy based on econo- lr"do:
appear by the middle of the firsr century; but reviewers
mic motives in Roman expansion in the second century-even have been very hesitant to believe it, and the evidence for such
Lucullus'
ä, t""""y Frank there w^as1o_question about it: L. infiltration during the late Republic appears rather weak. Le
fülor. ,o *rr"* Syria aruroyed those interests in Rome; and the Germany, Caesar reGrs to trade with the Suebi;soand manv-
result was that Pompey, whom they had learnt to tn$t' was including no less an authority than Sir Mortimer WheeleCl_
,oCrrir"r"a for Lucullus,'on the understanding that there would be have taken him to meart Romar traders. yet it is surely odd that
'Three
,ä-" highly ^k profitable annexarion after all: years later CaesardoeslTt s1yso: why not 'nosrri', sinceit was anything but
(^fte, Zoi th" righ* had their reward when the same elements selievident? such silence is ar least suspicious. tn inäeperident
""*birr"d in a defiand that Pompey clear the seas of pirates . . . Gaul ft.efore Caesar's conquesr) ro-. Rom*r, objects b-egin to
and
*J ifr" ye,o efter commissioned him to destroy Mithridates spreadnorth. Bur again, they appearto be few;s? äd th.rJi, oo
orsanize the East in a seriesof provinces which would b-eopen real reason to think that it was Romans who carried them-no
"
io io--.r.ial development".'i, Fortunately, this thesis.hT To, mention, e.g., in Caesar,who could hardly have failed to come
has
foond general ".""pr*ri".; but even where not accePted'it acrosssuch men.
*or" oä.o been igntred-by scholarslessfamiliar with economic Of course, there are the Roman negotiatoresat Cenabum, who
there-
hirrory than Franf-than considered and refuted; and it is were massacredat the outbreak of the final revolt.ss But bv then
at times fashionably revived's It caesar ha{ bgen figlolg in Gaul for six years-long .noogh fo,
for", "t least as a general thesis,
will thus now be ivotth our while (before we look at the positive the army (and its rich boory, nor ro -.ntion its neeJ of suöp[es)
.o*"rr, of Roman'imperialism' towards the end of the Republic, to have attracred the usual following of civilians. rh"t this was
and at its real base$ to show that the conclusion to which our the origin of the Romans rhere is suggestedby the fact that amonE
"rgo-.ot in the precedingpagesseemsto have been leading with them there was killed an equeshonestuswho, by Caesar'scom]
iräsistible for""lthrt it wäs pt"sor" from the Equites, after-the mand, was in chargeof the food supply ofthe army. It is not dif[-
Social War, that trrnsformed the nature of Roman rmperialisl cult to deducethe nature of the main 'business'done by theRomans
and made ir consciouslyexpansionist-is in fact totally-invalid; at Cenab-um.The pi99ur-ewe are given of the Belgae at the begin-
o."p, for what *e h^rrealräadydiscused at length, the thorough lrns ofthe'war-still almost uncorrupted by imports of luxriries
exoläit"tion of the empire witirin its existing boundaries,and of from the Province-makes it clear that thäre h-ad,at least, not
ter'ritori., beyond thoseboundaries,which we mayjustly describe ' beenany very thorough and far-ranging penetration by Romaru.oo
as itself a form of imPerialism. Similarly in Syria, with which we stirted. Before annexation-
There is surprisingly linle evidence that at this time trade as Rostovaeff acknowledges,thou#lrg"ooddly denies that it is
preceded the flae. Thisir surprising becausein the secondcentury significanco-there is a remarkable TJaiffiof ltomans; yet after-
i". i" {ind largJcolonies ofitalians beyond the boundaries of the wards they soon appear in large numbers. perhaps one should not
empire in its irict sense-at Delos, at Cirta, and in other places pressmere arguments from silence: we cannot deny that a certain

7o 7r
amount of trade will have been carried on by Roman citizens,in
Syria as in Gaul. But it is surely significant when a dearth of
evidenca..aloqt their doings before annexation contrasts both
with abüädää& of it after and with the ample attestationof their
presence,both in literature and in the documents, within the
bounds of the empire.
We should probably accePt the conclusion suggestedby the
evidence:that,it the time we are considering,Roman capital was,
on the whole, concentrating on the thorough penetration of the
existing provinces.Under the protection of the Roman name, and
of magistt"teswho sharedin theseinterestsand whose future was
in the hands of the businessmen'sassociatesin Rome, this was
very much easier and more convenient than pioneer work in
,"*ot" Pafts-and by now, Partsnot under Roman control were
in fact getting more and more remote. [n other words: the-
perhapsparadoxical-effect of the transformation and explosive
gto*ih in manpower and resourcesof the ordoequester se-ems to
f,ate b".o " totoittg inward, upon the empire as it was, of all the
vast resourcesnow available.That this would not have remained
the casefor long can easilybe argued: there was to be no chance
to find out. But it does seemto be true of at least a moment in
time-and, of course, it makes the startling development of
Roman penetration in the existing provinces, on which we have
commented, very much easierto understand.
There is arrotLet point to consider. The very wealthiest of
Roman negotiatores (a1least of those in the ciry) were prgb-ably
sdll in finance rather than in trade. This was the traditional form
of Roman negotia,andwe have it attestedfor Gaul and elsewhere.
And this kind of business,far more than trade, could be very
satisfactorilycarried out in setdedand dependentclient states-as
Roman senatorswere also to find. Kings were always clamouring
to be recognised or supported against enemies, and they were
chronically short of money and forced into borrowing, both to
pay for thlse servicesand even to keep up with the accumulating
ioi.r"tt they already owed. For the really large-scalefinancier-
72
and, as we shall see,he was more likely to be a senator than a
'We
knight-kings were profitable business. remember how, even
around roo, Nicomedes III had had massesof his subjectssold
into slavery.a1In the first century we find that a senatusconsufuurn
had apparently forbidden the malcing of loans to foreigners in
Rome.a2A. Gabinius, as tribune (07) or asconsul (58), confirmed
the prohibition.as By 58, aswe shall see,it was both highly neces-
sary and bound to be ineffective. But the efGct of this regulation
was that the most lucrative businesswas reserved for those who
could'obtain exemption from the law at the handsof the Senateaa
-and that their interest rates became all the higher. We shall
come back to this.
But it is at this point and in this rather unexpected connection
thet equitesRornaniappearin high politics, and make it clear how
litde they cared about annexation-or needed to.
As early as 88, we find someone-and it is surely Roman-
financiers-lending a large sum of money to an Egyptian king
(Ptolemy Alexander I) to enable him to collect a feet and regain
his throne.a6The circumstancesof the time were exceptional,
since Mithridates had made investment in Asia temporarily
impossible, and some people no doubt had money to spare.As a
security, they got a will bequeathingEgypt to the Roman People.
'When
Alexander failed to regain his throne and was killed in the
attempt, the Senate(by then under the Cinnani) made sure they
got the money back; but no action was taken to annex the king-
dom: this, as we had occasionto notice earlier, still seemedto be
too contrary to traditional policy. It was only twenry yearslater,
in very changed conditions, that the action of reclaiming the
money could be interpreted by those in favour of annexation
aspro heredegestioas-eventhen unsuccessfirlly,asit turned out.
In the early fifties, a similar situation arose.a?Some equestrian
circles had lent what was probably an even larger sum (6,ooo
talents: r{{,ooo,ooo HS) to Ptolemy Auletes who, though
he had occupied the Egyptian throne, was much concerned to
securerecognition: for his legitimacy was impugned and there
were at that time circles in Rome-led by M. Crassus,who had
represented similar interests even some years earlier-that fav-
oured annexation, basedon the old testamentarydisposition. But
in j9, for the large cash payment mentioned, Caesar as consul
secured Ptolemy's recognition, and the old will is not heard of
again. A little later, however, Ptolemy was expelled by his suh-
jects: his large investment had bought him only a year's respite.
He now began trying to get some Roman to restore him-an
issue that kept politicians agitated for years. In the end, he
borrowed the truly fantasticsum of to,ooo talents(: 2{o,ooo,ooo
'equestrian
HS)-6oo times the census' and more than the total
of Roman revenuesfrom the provinces before Pompey's eastern
conquests.a8This was the sum he paid to Gabinius-and perhaps
to others who backed Gabinius' action-in order to be restored
and have a Roman garrison to protect him. We happen to know
about this only becausea marr called C. Rabirius Postumus-son
of an old client of Cicero's-arranged the loans and, when
Ptolemy returned to Alexandria, became his minister of finance,
to seethat the interest was paid and the debt collected; and because
both Gabinius and Rabirius were later prosecutedfor their parts
in the affair and defended by Cicero.ae This incident is the best
example we have of the enormous sums now at the disposal of
Roman capitalists, and of the infuence they could exercise on
international a{fairs. It also satisfactorily proves that this influence
was not exercised in favour of annexation and direct control.
lndeed, we begin to seethat there might after all, in a specialcase,
be something to be said for being well away from the scrutiny of
a Roman governor.
Nor-since this is the point with which we started-had the
Equitesmuch to do with the annexationof Syria.'Wehave already
seen that they seem to have shown little interest in that region
before its annexation. The latter was entirely conditioned by
political and strategic considerations of a traditional sort. For
Antiochus XIII, to whom Lucullus had given the counry, was
almost at once captured, and a pretender called Philip, after paying
74
a heavy sum to the governor of the adjacentprovince of Cilicia,
was at that time struggling hard to maintain himself against two
Arab chieftains. Soon he too disappearsfrom our accounts,and
Antiochus briefy returns.so Whatever precisely was happening,
it is clear that Lucullus' experiment had failed and that by the
time of Pompey's arrival the Seleucidshad shown themselves
completely incapable of holding what they had been given:
peace could no longer be guaranteed without annexation.
Lucullus himself, had he steyed on, might well have had to change
his mind: he would hardly have left mere disorder behind him.
The local siruation sufrces to explain the decision: there is no
need even to tlink that Pompey was dreaming of a Parthian
War, or that the Syrian coast was a basefor pirates.6l
'We
do not know for certain what Pompev did with the taxes
of Syria; or, for that matter, with thoseofnitliy"i"-fonrus, which
'We
he also organised as a province. hear of pactioresby cities
withpublicani, in which Gabinius, as governor, interGred: within
a few years the publicani were clearly becoming a scourge and
Gabinius, at what he must have known was great risk to himsel{,
took strong action againstthem, in deGnceof nations bom to be
slaves.srThis makes it most probable (though admittedly not
certain) that Pompey h"d extended the sysremthat had worked
so well-for the Treasury-in the case of Asia, i.e. censoria
locatio.(This, of course,would also help to explain the numerous
attempts made after that time to get censorselected.) Naturally,
such a policy would also gain him friends among the richest of
the Equites-not to mention senators: it is a very reasonable
assumptionthat many senators,by now, had an interest (perhaps
even an open one) in theselucrative contracts,and that M. Crassus,
when he worked for remission of the Asian contract in the late
sixties, had more motives than mere benevolenceand justice.ss
Indeed, the enormous sumsinvolved in the contracts would much
more easily be found, if the larger fortunes of senatorswere also
engaged-and this is surely how there could still be enough left
over for Ptolemv Auletes.
75

VI
THE NEW IMPERIALISTS: THE FACTS
t]-1HE imperialism (in Tenney Frank's sense)of the Equites
I turns out to be a myth-another example of compelling
modern analogies applied without due scrutiny of the ancient
background. But what about the tlgbrJ,At we have seen,even
Sulla had recognisedthat it *"rfi#$&tFto the glory of con-
quest; and Pompey did not fail to celebratea magnificent triumph
and gamesto paradehis own. Cicero's speecheslare full of naive
patriotic appeals.Moreover, the actual profits of empire now had
to go to the Plebsasmuch asto the upper classes-not, of course,
becauseof any newly-developed sympathy for it, but becauseof
its greatly increasedpolitical importance in the struggles of the
oligarchs. This power, ever since the Gracchi, had often been
demonstrated to full effect. The Plebs had come to regard the
economicbenefitsof empire, first handedover to it by the Gracchi,
as its birthright. Again urd again we seethe ideasof the Gracchi
and of Saturninus taken up, and the oligarchy has to submit, in
'We
at least some casesunwillingly. have seenhow a shortageof
grain and money brought about some action on Cyrene n zsl+,
after the Senatehad neglected it for rwenty years.sIt was this
precedent that P. Clodius remembered when, in 58, at another
time of shortage,he wanted to gain support for himself by making
the grain distribution an entirely free gift. This, ofcourse, imposed
an unparalleled and unbearable strain on the Treasury.3 But
Clodius calmly proceeded to provide the necessaryfunds by
passinga law annexing Cyprus-another rich Ptolemaic posses-
'free'.
sion, still recognisedas The proceeds of the royal estates
alone were to come to 7,ooo talents and proved welcome indeed
in 56.4
76
lt is easyenough to seethe line t}rat goesfrom Tiberius Gracchus'
useof the Attalid inheritance, through the organisation of Cyrene,
to the culmination of the Cyprus incident. As in the other cases,
the Senatecould not resist.For Clodius' law was there to stay, for
obvious political reasons,and the money simply had to be found.
And so the virtuous M. Cato himself went out to sell the King's
property and ensure that every last penny was squeezedout and
accounted for;6 and the King committed suicide in shame and
despair.The organisation of the new province was setdedby the
Senate:it wasjoined to Cilicia and received itslex prouinciaefrom
P. Lentulus Spinther, first proconsul of the united province. Thus
the Senate assumed full responsibility. The thinking of the
majority of its members was by now no longer guided by prin-
ciples of--even limited-morality: such opposition as rhere was,
to this most disgracefirlact of Roman imperialism aparr from rhe
Gallic'War, was obvioudy basedto a large extent on reasonsof
internal politics and personalantagonism.br 63, when P. Servilius
Rullus proposed a major distribution of overseaslands to Roman
settlers(to the detriment, no doubt, of vast numbers of natives),
it was not on moral principle that men like Cicero (in the speeches
de lege agraria), opposed him and his backers-and the People
turned the proposal down becausethey were persuadedthat it
was an attack on the absentPompey.
It was Pompey who was the People'schief hero and benefactor
-t}e man who carried the ideas of the Gracchi in this field to
their dazzling conclusion.Compared to him, P. Clodius is merely
an isolated brigand. Pompey, of course, was an efücient admin-
istrator, who did not abandon the tradition of avoiding excessive
administrative commitments. lndeed, he could hardly have done
so: for since Sulla the shortageof administratorshad been worse
than ever. Pompey addedterritory to Cilicia, organisedBithynia-
Pontus (asa single immense province, in order to savepersonnel)
and annexed Syria. Moreover, he was a great founder of cities in
all those areas(especi"lly i" Bithynia-Pontus, which was shorr of
them), in order to simplify what administration was undertaken.
Pompey did not irresponsibly burden the state.cIn fact, he found
the perfect soludon.
The separation of libertas and immunitashrd been theoretically
possibleever sincethe Romans first came acrossit in the Seleucid
kingdom; it had occasionallybeen practised soon after (notably
'free'
in the case of the tribute imposed on the Macedonian
republics efter 167)7 and was accepted in the orgarrisation of
Greece in 146. In Sicily, in the lex Rupilia of t3z, we find the
'freedom'
of the ciuitatesliberaehedged about with numerous
restrictions, all to the economic profit of Rome.8 br the first
century irnmunitasis still often conferred, but as a specialfavour.
However, it seemsto have been Pompey who first systematically
extended this idea to client princes. His eastern provinces were
protected, as had been the tradidon, by a layer of client states
acting asbufGrs-tradition, but now first worked out consistently
and coherenth, *d with attention to the frontier as a whole.
Pompey (ashe himselfwas to say)t found Asia a frontier province
'With
and left it in the heart of the empire. Pompey, the client
princes become a real part of the empire (reichsangehörig,rn
Mommsen's word), in a sensein which they never had been
before. They now pay tribute to the Roman People. The best-
known case is Judaea.lo How widely the principle applied, we
are not told. But there is a well-known fact that mav be inform-
ative if scrutinised. ln his triumph, in addition to ,"th., extra-
vagant claims of victories won and cities founded, and the booty
(zo,ooo talents: 48o,ooo,oooHS) depositedin the Treasury, he
assertedthat he had raised the uectigalidof the Roman People from
2oo,ooo,oooHS to j4o,ooo,ooo HS.1l Of course,he is obviously
claiming more than his due: Bithynia had been left to the Roman
People by will tn 74,hed been cleared of the enemy by Lucullus
and had never again been lost. The fact that it was Pompey who
had organised it was, in a way, accidental. However, even so, the
'free'
figures conclusively show the tribute coming in from
clients.Pompey had added two provinces (plus a strip of Cilicia).
These couJd, by themselves,never have produced r.7 times as
Z8
much as all the ten old provinces together. Sincehe certainly did
not increase the revenue from eight of those provinces, which
were not concerned in his war, and probably-ir view of the
state of the country-did not add much to the sum squeezedout
of Asia, it follows that a large part of the increasemust have been
due to a consistent policy of taxing clients. ln fact, Pompey had
combined the advantagesof the traditional policy (freedom from
administration) with the chief advantage (as it now was) of im-
perialism-large revenues. Vectigalia were clearly a prime con-
sideration of Pompey, as they had been of C. Gracchus. The
People h-dly neededCicero to remind them of whar ro expec:
uectigalianow.meant their own profits.
Pompey, of course,did not act entirely on political theory. He
aimed at keeping the support of the masses,asothers did, and he
usedhis chanceof doing more to merit it. However, we must see
him in his context. He merely carries to extremes what is the
common tone in his day. For it is the senatorsthemselveswho
now take the lead in imperialism in both its principal senses:in
exploitation and in aggression. Not surprisingly (in the Roman
schemeof thing$, it is the political class,not the various non-
political pressure-groups,that ultimately decides d1e temper of
policy.
The moral eflects of the Social and Civil Wars of the decade
after 9r have often been noted and need no elaboratetreatment.
Sulla showed what an unscrupulous and selfish man could now
hope to achieve with an army of have-nots closely attached to
himself and accustomed to the devastation of Italy-an army
resembling its leader in its unhesitatingpursuit of its own profir,
'Sulla
without any considerationfor its country. In Syme'swords,
could not abolish his own example."t He did try, of course, by
administrative checks and saGguards,which added up to a well-
conceived and (on paper) promising setdement.ls But for many
reasons-which this is not the place to discuss-he failed. Hence-
forth it was apparent to anyone who considered the matter with
detachment that immense wealth and personal power were
79
within the reach of any man who could obtain a large enough
command and, winning the loyalty of his men, was prepared to
use it with sufücient lack of scruple.
'Worse
sdll, perhaps: Sulla's victory and its consequences
proclaimed the bankruptcy of the oligarc\. Sulla had shown
that outstanding successcould be achievedby ruthlesspursuit of
self-interest.The hollowness of the aristocretic res publica now
stood revealedfor all to see: the arcanumimpeii was out, that its
rulers and chief benefrciariesno longer seriously believed in it.14
They had adopted successas their chief criterion. The lessonwas
bound to sink in sooner or later. Those-and especiallyordinary
Italians-who had suffered for their loyalry to the res publica,
although, after all, it had never brought them very much profit,
were bound to remember. A generationlater it becameclear that
they and their sonswere no longer willing to defend what their
rulers had so shamelesslyabandoned.
So much for the general efGct on the fabric of society. As for
the point that particularly concerns us: we have seen that re-
straints on aggressiveness and expansion and exploitation, in the
secondcentury, were not entirely due to moral scruples.Victory
and conquest, at any rate, remained in principle desirable ends.
The motives that had restrained dreams of personal glory (and
enrichment), and of the aggrandisementof the Roman People in
accordancewith the censors'ritual prayer, had largely been social
and political ones.They had gradually ceasedto oPerate.This-
as we have seen-was becoming clear even by 89.tu It was when
it was just beginning to appear that the decadeof internal war
and rebellion smashedthe strained fabric. After Sulla, men could
seekpower and profit without restraint and useit without fear of
really firm opposition. Both leaders and men, in the new era,
were going to be much more ready for adventureand its rewards.
Pompey wes one of the first to learn the new methods-from
his father, who had probably been the first to learn them from
Sulla,r6and then under Sulla himself. He turned them first against
the lawfirl government and then against his benefactor Sulla.r?
8o
Holding impeium without a break from 83 to his consulshipin
7o,he acquired immense clientelaeand probably immense wealth
in all the westem provinces; then, after his consulship, he refused
to take up a paltry province and waited for his chance. It came in
'With
e7f', and. he eagerly seized it. ufter contempt-openly
displayed-for his rivals and enemies, he used it to become the
patron of the East, which, without consulting Senateor People,
he organised like a monarch. The financial profits of this deserve
to be stressed.teAt the end of his Asian campaign Pompey dis-
tributed the sum of 16,oooalents (nearly 4oo,ooo,oooHS) to his
soldiers, who had already received prize money and a great deal
of booty in the campaign. 6,ooo HS went to eachsoldier, and the
senior oftcers (we know the names of menry) received, alto-
gether, the magnificent sum of roo,ooo,oooHS. It hasbeen shown
that centurions probably got twenty times as much as common
soldiersand tribunes tzo times as much: a similar distribution in
66 indicates Pompey's scales. If so, it can be calculated that
Pompey, at the time of the final distribution, had eight (rather
depleted) legions. With these whole-heartedly loyal to him, he
would have power such as no man in Rome had ever had,
dwarfing the resultsof the great wars of the secondcentury; not
ro mention the fact that Sulla had shown to all that the new
armieshad no thought for the respublicaand a good deal for those
who led and rewarded them.le
Not only power due to devoted veterans, but wealth as the
basisof a more solid and lasting ascendancy.Marcus Crassus-
as we all know-said that no one was wealthv who could not
afford to pay for a legion.zo Marcus Crassus,by display and
magniloquence, attained and still rehins the reputation of having
beenthe richestman in Rome, at leastin his day. In jJ B.c.he made
it abundandy clear, before leaving for the East, in order to safe-
guard the attachments he had won in his absence,which was
expectedto be prolonged.2r He sacrificeda tenth of his estateto
Hercules (we may be sure that he computed it generously),
feastedthe whole people, gave every ciazen enough to live on for
8r
three morrths, and then announced that he still had 7,ooo talents
left-no one should be in any doubt that he was a man worth
remembering even when away. His forttne, we may say (recog-
oirirg that we have only his word for it, and that he did nothing
to understate the fact$, had amounted to about 8,ooo talents
before the display. Certainly enough to pay for a legion or two:
private soldiers,at any rate, were not expensive,22 and someof the
ofücerswould be men whom one had in one's pay in any case,as
politicians. Pompey did not advertisehis wealth: he had no need
to. Yet he could have bought Crassusout without feeling the
pinch. The personal profits of the eastem campaign were enor-
mous. As we saw in the caseof Nicomedes asearly as 89, Roman
commanders now expected to be well rewarded for aiding an
ally-and in default of money they might accept a promissory
note, with regular payment of interest. The 16,ooo talents dis-
tributed to the army (a quarter of it to the senior officers)give us
some idea of what must have been the scaleof the commander's
own profit. Naturally, investments on this scalecould not go into
Italian land: there was not enough of it. Fortunately, we can form
some idea of what happenedto at leastsome of them.
Cicero, in Cilicia, ttad to look after the repayment of huge
sumsowed to Pompey by AriobarzanesIII of Cappadocia.With
this man, Pompey had had no personalcontact: their only relation
was thet Pompey had witnessed and approved the transfer of
power from his grandfather (AriobarzanesI) to his father (Ario-
barzanesII)-a very indirect and entirely hereditary benefcium.zs
There is no doubt that the poor king paid heavily for it. He also
had other debts,of which we shallhave more to say.Cicero found
him besiegeda Pompeiprocuratoribus sescentis and trying hard to
pay at least the interest that he owed. Thirry-three talents was all
he could find per month, and this was in fact not (though it was
nearly) enough to cover the interest. Pompey was pleasantand
accommodating about it aX: clementerid fert.z No wonder: after
all, he hardly neededthe capital and, if he got it back, would only
have to find a place for reinvesting it. With all prominent Romans
8z
in businessin a big way, investment oPPortunitiesfor large sums
cannot have been unlimited. Not to mention the advantage of
having Ariobarzanesbound to himself by his debt. Pompey knew
both businessand politics.
A calculation is worth attempting (though necessarily un-
certain). At the legal rate of interest $o/o per month) this interest
means a principal of 3,3oo talents-and even if (asis very likely)
the great man was not satisfied with the legal maximum, he will
hardly have been getting more than rwice as much; which still
leavesa tidy sum (r,65o talentsor 4o,ooo,oooHS) for the indebted-
nessof a king for whom Pompey, after all, had not done very
much. 4o,ooo,o@ HS, one might point out, was just enough to
provide roo men widr the minimum equestrian census. IJn-
fortunately we cannot tell whether the principal consisted of a
sum acftally invested in the kingdom or in a promissory note by
Ariobarzanes' father for servicesrendered: we shall not go far
'We
wrong if we assumea little of both. can now imagine what
other kings and dynasts,with whom Pompey was in closecontact
and for whom he had done a great deal, owed him or had paid
him. The ro,ooo talents that Rabirius Postumus had scrapedto-
gether for Ptolemy Auletes pale into insignificance in comparison
with such sums-not to mention the miserable 8,ooo talents that
were apparently, even at his own optimistic valuation, the total
property of Marcus Crassus.
Then there were the cities. From his province Cicero writes a
lefterz5to the govemor of Bithynia, which Pompey had organised
as a province, asking him to help one Cluvius of Puteoli (of a
family of financiers) to collect his debts-which, without official
help, he thinks will be a hopelesstask; Mylasa, Alabanda, Carian
Heiaclea, Bargylia and Caunus owe him money, as well as
'Agitur
various private individuals. And Cicero adds discreetly:
res Cn. Pompei etiam.' Cluvius, as scholarshave recognised,was
'Mit
Pompey's financial agent. Drumann summed it all up:
Schuldscheinenbeladenkehrte er nach Italien zurück.'26Pompey
left the East not only as its patron, but to a considerableextent
8l
 (and one hard to realise nowaday$ literally as irs owner. Having
assignedit to cities and kings and to the Iioman people as far as
administration was concernäd,he held the mortgagjonds; and,
unlike a modern investor in foreign states,he ."Ja U" sure that
financial control meant political cöntrol, aswell as a safeincome.
One can only wonder how much he invested in the numerous
cities that he actually founded and where he was worshipped as
letistes.
This was busines on a grand scale,dwarfing the doings of the
negotiatoresthat tend to fill our textbooks. Indeed, "s we have
seen,thesemen might well be only the agentsof senators.pompey
was the outstanding example; the greaiest of the owners ofih"
captive world. Others had their share.We all know about the
noble Brutus: cicero was as shockedas each student still is when
it first dawned on him.zz Brutus' loan to Cyprian Salamishad
been made when he was on the island "r " p-tirr"t. man, and a
young man at that (not yet quaestorian),under his uhcle M. Cato
T Jq/6.'8 And sincesuchloans were illegal under the lex Gabinia,
he charged 48o/ointeresr instead of the legal no/o and used rwo
'lvhen
procuratoresas men of straw. the Salaminians fell into
arrears,one of thesemen, Scaptius,went to Cicero's predecessor
Ap. Claudius, got himself appointed prefect, was given a force of
cavalry-and proceeded to Cyprus to sqoe.z. -oo"y out of the
bouleof Salamis-to such effect that (we are told) äve of them
starved to death while he held them besieged in the council
chamber. But that failed to get him *y -oi.y, and as a result
Cicero had to ake cognizance of the affair. Ae refused ro re-
appoint ScaptiuspreGct (we hear incidennlly that this gave grear
offence, since such appointments were regarded "r oJrrnal"*d
were expected by the great men in Rome interested in such
btrsiness),but ordered the Salaminiansro pay-which rhey were
willing to do, at the legal rate of interest.-At this point Scaptius
produced a senatusconsuhumthat Brutus had proc'red and^that
(a) gave legd exemption from the lex Gabn;a to this whole
trursaction; and (b) gave similar exemprion from the maximum
84
interest rate and ordered the contract to shnd as signed (i.e. at
4ffi instead 9f y%).Brutus had assumedopen reiponsitiliry,
when he saw his financial interesrs endangered,-andhaä evidentiy
had n9 dificulry in securing the suppoit he wanted. Cicero_-
who detestedthe whole affair, but *"t oot willing to be a marryr
on behalf of his principles-could do tto -orJ tlan refuse io
adjudicate on tlose terms, and held the matter over for his
successor, who would no doubt be more complaisant.This is only
an outline of the famous Scaptiusaffair. But it is clear thrt .rr.r,
an unusually- honest governor could not risk giving serious
offence to such asBrurus, who could get senatorial?""rä., passed
in his private interest even in the most disreputablecircums-tances
-not to mention offence to Cicero's own friend Atdcus, whose
aid Brutus had enlisted, and who 'now begs his dear friend to
let Scaptiush1v9 a troop of horse-only a little one, just fifty
swords-which he Glt sure would make the Salaminians sel
reeson'.2tIt is to Cicero's credit that he acted even ashe did; and
it is clear *nt ßw others would have done so.
The amount of the loan cannot be ascertained,since we have
no idea how much the Salaminianshad been able to pay and for
how lo-ng. It has been worked oü (exempligratia) th"i, if th.y
never did p^y &y,of the inreresr due (which is in fact unlikelyj,
the sum borrowed in 56 need have been only rz talents to give
a debt of zoo talents(the actual figure we have) in 5o.s0Thiiis a
measureof_tle profits that were made by senatorswho-to say
the least-did not have a repuarion for being unscrupulous: wL
can imagine what dealsan Ap. Claudius or a p. Clodius would be
involved in. The most alarming feature of the whole case,how-
ever, is the fact that senators-even philosophersamong them-
were quite pfepared to profit from their position in ordir to pur
-th.
themselves above the law-and that in this thev could ,."or"
total and unquestioning support of the Senatäas a whole, ap-
garendy as a matter of course. Attempts to protect the weak
became-as has so often been the result of *ell-meant social
legislation-merely anorher way of reinforcing the profits of the
85
powerftrl. The lex Gabinia, as far as the provincials were con-
l"rned, had only made the terms of loans much worse than they
need have been.
The sameBrutus had also lent Ariobarzanesmoney: no doubt
(in the light of what we have seen) ü: Ki"g needed i1.1o pal
iro-p.y.-nut Ariobarzanes really could not pay this additional
debt: he was bankrupt and in fear of his life ! Even so, Brutus was
so persistentthat Cicero-who, no doubt, did not want to aPPeaI
qui^teunreasonableto his Roman friends and enemies-managed
ä ,qrr"."" no lessthan roo talentsout of him over six months:
prop-o.tionately more (he tells "t) q* Pompey-had got (2oo
irl.tttt in six months).31Thus, even if the King's debt to Brutus
was lessthan a quarter of what he owed to Pompey, it was quite a
sizable sum to o*" to a young man barely of quaestorian status.
For throughour it is Brutus' age and status that lends terrible
significance to his financial manoeuvres.
:Ih"r"
are the best-known casesillustrating the way in which
senatorsnow profited personally from the empire of tl: Roman
'We
People. They cannot be unique. know them well because
Cicäro happänedto ger involved in them and to write about them,
in letters that happento be preserved.There wer€ many provinces
that had no Cicero astheir governor, and Cicero'sown behaviour,
as well as that we seeof that of his friends and of the Senateas a
whole in theseaffairs, clearly shows us-as against the attempts of
apologists among historians-that we have here stumbled upon
*h.t i". -"y t"!".d aswidespreadand indeea typi"-d' We-need
hardly "dd i*"-ples from men's actual governorships' Things
*.r" obrriorrtly "äry much worse when men of the cast of mino
of the hot ooäbl" brotot (not to mention worse) had supreme
power, without appeal and with little ßar of punishment (p19-
irid.d th"y pl"y"d^ ihe political game in Rome with reasonable
"are), ov"i the ilves and ptopetrybf a whole province-and.when
ple"ry of Roman friends, both in their retinue and at home,
ä*p."t.d to be satisfied.As early as7o, the Vertinesshow us what
" Ä* could at leasthope to get away with-and that a new man'
86
with no claim to nobility. It is human nature-as our own genera-
tion has seen-to refuse to believe what seems monstrous and
simply to closeone'smind to it, however well-attestedit may be.
There have been those who have urged that Verres was not
typical. Yet we have little seriousreasonfor such a view. He was
unfortunate in having Cicero as his prosecutor. Had he been
luckier at this final stage,there is no real doubt that he would have
survived in Rome, reaching honour and a consulship, and perhaps
joining in the defence of the Republic against Caesar. \Vhere
Cicero speaksfor the defence,as he usually did, the caseis made
to look very different. Yet we can often tell, by his incidental
admissionsand appealsto precedent, what was regarded as fair
and tolerable, and by how much his clients at times surpassed
even that very generous measure.No administration in history
has ever d"noi"J itself so whole-heartedly to feecing its subjecis
for the private benefit of its ruling classasRome of the last age of
the Republic. It is, as usual, the litde touches-the reGrences to
what did not (apparently) arouse astonishment or disgust-that
prove most revealing. Thus, before Cicero's governorship the
cities of Cyprus had been accustomedto pay zoo talents a year
(- 4,8oo,oooHS) to the Roman governor-i.e. to men ashonour-
able as P. Lentulus Spinther-in order to escapehaving troops
quartered upon them in winter;3z and that, of course, after M.
Porcius Cato, honest and unrelenting, had removed 7,ooo talents
from the island when it was annexed. We begin to understand
why the Salaminianswere hopelesslyin debt to Cato's young
kinsman. All this is well known, to those familiar with the evi-
dence.s Laws like the lexJulia were probably not even intended
to strike at the chief beneficiariesof the system.It is pretty clear
that Caesar and his friends ignored them as light-heartedly as
anyone.
i.I"tur"lly, there are now no limits except äiinäin.#. ä"
calculated aggressionby Rome's representatives.Again a small
case may be cited as typical, for motives and techniques.saM.
Scaurus,Pompey's proquaestor, had been left with two legions,
8l
 -went home. He
pro praetore,to look after Syria when Pompey
decided to take up for his own benefit an idea that Pompey, for
political reasons,had abandonedand to attack the Arabian dynast
Ar.t"r. This man had done homage to Pompey and had given no
pretext for war.35Yet Scaurushad no scruplesabout launching
Lis att"ck. Things did not go asplanned, and in the end the young
commander had to ask Antipater (of the Jewish dynasty) to
mediate and get him the best terms possible. For payment of
a lump sum of 3oo talentsby Aretas, Scauruswithdrew. (He was
later, ascurule aedile,to boastquite unashamedlyof his victory.)g
'We
are not told whether the money went to the treasury or into
Scaurus' pockets-probably a little of both. But it is clear that
Rome's international behaviour had followed thd line indicated
as early as 89 and had degenerated, at its worst, into highway
robbery.
The natural consequencesbecome clear with M. Crassusand
C. Caesar.Crassus,in his Parthian war' was mere$ following in
Pompey's footsteps. For Pompey himself-for his part, as we
have seen, following in Sulla's-had made an agreement with
Phraatesof Parthia when he neededhis helP against Tigranes of
Armenia; had calmly broken it when Tigranes submitted to him;
had written Phraatesan insulting letter when he dared to complain
and then crossedthe Euphratesand even the Tigris to punish him.
Lr the end Phraatesseemsto have come to an agreement with
'We
Tigranes, and no harm came of it all.3? must remember that,
only a generation earlier, Sulla, while behaving with characteristic
insolenie towards the envoy of the Parthian king, had never had
any intention of breaking the agreementhe had made with him-38
The difference is apparent. And Pompey's actions gave Crassus
his idea. Parthia was clearly just another client state, and one
whose insolence had shown that it had not been sufficiently
humbled; and M. Crassus,asclearly, was the man to do it, to his
own political and (no doubt) economic advantage: the wealth
that Pompey had gained in the Eastcan safelybe assumedto have
been aspowerful a motive ashis glory. ln 5J, after obtaining the
88
province of Syria, he invaded Parthian territory without pretext
or declaration of war.se The result was Carrhae, and a dangerous
conflict ended (temporarily) only by Aggustus,-.fgp..oncearro-
ganceandgr..d l'"a fb;ä th.iflffiK*ffiff,"ff Ro-.',
good fortune that Parthia, essentially unstable, was in no position
to take advantage of her own strength and Rome's weakness-
and that no better opponent remained. We have seenthe attested
hatred for Rome among the subjectsshewas exploiting. But they
remained impotent.
Very di:fferent,of course,is the story of C. Caesar,the greatest
brigand of them all, applying and perfecting the lessonsof Pom-
pey both at home and abroad, with a single-mindednessnot weak-
ened (asin Pompey's case)by scruplesabout traditional forms or
by desire for the approval of his peers. The sweet reasonableness
of the Commentaiescannot disguise the fact that Caesar started
a major foreign war and then a civil one-for a variety of reasons,
as we all know, but chiefy (as he at times comes close to ad-
'We
mitting) for his personal glory and profit. know how well
he succeeded.Unfortunately we have no lettersof Cicero's to give
us a deailed idea of Caesar'sprofits in Gaul and their investment.
In this as in other respectshe was more fortunate than his rival.
'buy'
But we have some facts, above all the millions spent to
'enormous
friends in Rome: an wage'nofor thc tribune Curio
(the figures vary from ten to sixty million sesterces);4lr,5oo
talents(36,ooo,oooHS) for the consul L. Paullus;a2large-though
ultimately ineffectual-loans to Cicero (who, as we have seen
before, behaved in ways that were unintelligible to his less
scrupulous contemporaries);asnot to mention his well-known
liberalitasto those who joined him in Gaul, from L. Balbus and
the'ghasdy Mamurra'4 to Cicero's young friend, the lawyer C.
Trebatius Testa, to whose prospectsof quick enrichment Cicero
never fails to refer in their surviving correspondence.aEAt his
triumph in arby which time (admittedly) he had conquered
not only Gaul, but the world-Caesar, in addition to lavish
banquets on 22,@o triclinia and gifts to all citizens, not to
8g
mention gamessuchasno one had ever seenbefore, paradedbooty
worth 65,ooo talents and gold crowns weighing 2o,4r4lbs in the
procession,and gave each soldier 5,ooo denarif(Pompey in Asie
had been able to afford only r,5oo). These figures are official and
well-attested.{0 And in view of Caesar's actions, there is no
doubt that, at leastin some cases,the öpportunity for such profits
had been deliberately sought and created. This is the striking
diference between the late and the middle Republic.
It has recendy been arguedn? that Caesar was not really an
imperialist: he did nothing aggressive at the start of the Gallic
War, but was merely led from one thing to another; and at the
end of it all, after (admiaedly) much cruelty and plundering, he
merely created client states(under the supervision of the Aedui
and Arverni) rather than a province, and did not tax Gaul too
heavily. The points are worth making, and repeating in our
context: there is much about Caesarthat can fairly be called tradi-
tional, much that was dictated by circumstancesrather than deli-
berately willed. Yet there is another side. That Caesar did not
aim at the conquest of t}e whole of Gaul at the very start of the
war is certain; but no lesscertainly, he was not merely led on by
circumstances, but, with callous brutality and treachery (sur:
passingthe worst that Roman commandershad done in second-
i"ntury Sp^io), seized every chance of further conquest, never
stopping until (by 57) conquestwas total. After that, of course,
leläUa no longer withdraw, even if he had wished to (which
there is no reason to suppose). Moreover, he had learnt all
Pompey's lessons.There was no need to saddleRome with the
direci administration of a vast tribal area, as had been done-
with such dire consequences-in second-century Spain. Pompey
had founil the happy solution: they could be taxed without being
governed. Admittedly, ten million denariidoesnot seema heavy
iar<.Caesar,at the time when he imposed it, had to count on the
loyalty of newly-won Gaul in his rear during the civil war that
he could foresee.But let us not go too far in depreciating the
'We
figure. must not be misled by the vast figures with which
we have lately been dealing. The sum was, we must remember,
one eighth of what Rome, only rwenty years earlier, had been
gening out of ten provinces.asIt was not an exceptionally light
burden for a province that had been bled white and had been
subjected to what we nowadays call genocide during eight years
of warao-and a province that had made many private Roman
fortunes.
After victory, of course,Caesaris the great imperialist, able to
deal with the conquered world without being distracted by
thoughm of opposition abroad or rivalry at home. Annexation
(as in Africa Nova), semi-annexation(asin Gaul), clienr sraruses
of various sorts (as frequently in the East)-all can be used and
altered as he thinks fit. Colonisarion becomesmore lavish than
ever before. Sincehe had so little time, we do not know what he
meant to do in the end. Nor, of course, did he. When he died
he was preparing *",fr".p*thi* *lit'frt his poliry h"d com"
'Er
to a dead end: wollte den Knoten zerhauen,indem er in den
Krieg zog' (as Gelzer has put it).50 The robber barons bred by
the removal of the traditional resrrainrs that had governed both
personal behaviour and public policy had gained wealth and
glory that had previously been only a distant dream; they had
gained it both for Rome and for themselves,assertinguirtus with-
out a care for morality or even expedienry. They had raised an
astonishing structure, founded on ambition, greed and lust for
power, bringing out the v/orst rhar had perhaps been implicit in
the Roman way of life from the start; and they had killed one
another off in the process,until the last and greatest of them,
fetlx opportunitatemortis, was slaughtered by men no better than
himself, for the sake of ideals that they themselves no longer
either practised or believed in-in rime to prevent him from
plongg into what would almost certainly have been defeat, and
quite possibly chaoseven worse than what in fact followed.
We have had to stressthe horror, the degenerary, the degrada-
tion. They do not always appear as clearly in the books of
benevolent historians as the glories of the Ciceronian age-rhe
9r
freedom, the tolerance, the magnaingeniaand the gracious living'
If the Roman empire had bröken up before 3r B'c" wiat hi1
torian would h".'" rh.d a rear for it? we should all have hastened
to point the moral of the inevitable nemesis'
fohy, in fact, it dtd not break up, in spjte of all that we have
,."o-*hy, in the end, Augustus managed to save and restore it;
to ,ubdo" the explosio' o?.rr"tgy fty then almost exhausted)
tlat had madeRoäe great and burnt it out; and how, incidenally,
r. In a.iustlyfamousarticleW. Capelle
he came to realise, aher trials and errors of his own, thet impe-
rium sinefne (in both a spatid and a moral sense)was not glyen
to any -L ot p.opl.-*hy and how this came about, instead of
the eäneral disintegratiott tlot was expected by many at the time
and"would cerraiJy not have surprised the historian, that is a
very large and quitä different question. We have gltmpsed.some
good fortune for a start (asin the long life of
o"r| ofih..rrroi.r,
hoeurt,rr); "rrd so-i Roman qudities that, on the whole' sur-
.rrirrädorriii they could play their decisive part: the tenacity that
had many times lost battles and won wars; thef du thal consis-
tently rewarded friends and never sacrificed them to placate an
.rr"-y, the network of personalallianceswith the ruling-elements
"rr.ry*h"r. that openeJto them the hope.of sharing T !h: Po*tt
"rrd th" glory of tle Roman name, and ultimately, of f-ull accelF
t"oc" ioö the ruling race.ElThey are qualitiesthat we do not put
high on the scaleoi*or"l values.nut ihey are qualitiesthat make
for survival.
perhaps there is also a lesson we have learnt as historians of
Rome. hh" ,tody of the Roman Republic-and that of the
Empire to a corrsiäerabledegree-is basicallythe study, not of its
economic developrqe^nJ, pl"of its masses,or even of great mdr-
rt'ling class.
its ruling
.'.--tüe studv of_..--------:-.
viduals: ir is;hiefii'ii,ätiqdy class.
.'.., .'':
./"
z.
92
NOTTS
Cnerrru r
(Klio ry32,86)irvestigated
the de-
velopment of a Greek (and particularly Stoic) nadition that provided a
iustificadon for Roman impeiialism on an etftical plane, after the familiar
iattern (ultimately derived-from Aristotle, who applied it i.a. to slavery)
ihat it is better foi someto be ruled by their superiors.Someof this tradi-
tion-whic.h, as Capelleargues,was frst formulated ty Panaetiusin tlre
secondcenturyn.c. andpassed on to the
'scipionic
circle'-not unexpectedly
recursin Cicero'sphildsophicalwritings, ä.g.the de re publiea.Sdchide;
naturally and inevitably fi'tted into the äristoiratic Weltänsehauungthat had
evobithe concept of.clientela;and I am not unawareof this co-nceptand
its importance.As for the Greekinfluence,it seemsto me that-here aselse-
wherö-Roman aristocratsmerely acquired a certain skill at formulating
Roman ideasin Greeklanguage;and asfar astle conceptsareconcerned,it
is largely the Greektraditi-on-thatadaptsitself to that oTthe Roman aristo-
"r..yl ti it cliefly for this reason(andnot through ignorance)that, both in
my-ForeignClientclaeand here, I have preferred to concentrateon the
Roman tradition and not on the Greeklanguage-though I do not under-
estimatethe importance of the latter, especiallyin making Roman'rule
acceptableto the Eastandin providing-as philo-sophers aregiven to doing,
now asin antiouiw-an acceptablebasisfor the factsof power. Perhapsthis
approachis iniomplete. Bd it will at leastavoid t}e äbvious trapi of its
oobosite:it will be rememberedthat Capelleendsup by convincins him-
räli th"t .h" ideaof a iustun bellum(rn facf enshrinediir aütochthottori ltrli.
ritual) was a contribution of Hellenistic philosophy ("q4 of ?anaetiusin
partiärlar) to Roman drinking (ot. c!t. r rzf. and especially : 'bei
'qrlli genti per iniuriam bello inlato' (RG 26, is dacribed9z)
Augustus'
t)
'Erweiterung
as einem
Römei sehräufallend' and saidto refer to the der Grenzpro-
vinzen'-in fact it is snangely(onemight say)limited to Italy and is clearly
a survival offetial ritud. It is perhapsbetterto leaveGreektheory out ofthe
reckoning; th""gh a major task remainsto be donein determiningits true
place in"eoabldg the ilellenistic world to accept the faa oiRoman
Power.
-this
is now a commonplace,especidly sinceGelzer'sepodr-making Die
Nobilitätdn römischen Ripublik(r9rz: now nhts KleineSchrifuni (1962)-
a fitting jubilee occasion).
93
 NOTES TO CIIAPTER I NOTES TO CIIAPTER
3. Mommsen,RG rz (r9zo) i 78t et al.
4. On this and what follows, seeFG espccially73f., and SGRH rrzf. ('Rome
and Antioctrusthe Great').
S. On this seenowJ. Briscoe,-fRS1964 66f..
6. On this and what follows, seeFC 96f. (with references).
7. r4zB.c.i seeVal. Max. iv r, ro. The faa of t"hechangemust be excepted,
evenif the anecdoteis fictitious. (On this, seenow Astin, ScrpioAemilianus
$se7), 325f.)
8. On the famousdebate,seeespeciallyGelzer,Kl. Schr.ü (ts6l) 39f.: it
becamea favourite of moralising Greek historiogaphy. We haverecendy
been(very properly) warned by a careful studentof Roman poliry against
overesrimatingthe political importance of tfie debate at the time (W.
Hofrnann, Historia196o,34o).In so far asScipiodefendedCarthagein the
Senate,he would do sochiefy asits patron, advancingwhateverarguments
would bestsupport his case.
9. It was Rostovtzeff who most clearly drew the distinction and warned
'hegemonial 'Im-
againstexcluding imperialism' from our considerations:
perialismdoesnot alwaysinvolve the intention of acquiring an increeseof
territory. The desirefor political hegemony. . . cannotbut be regardedas
a form of imperialism' (SEHHW i 7o).
ro. On Spain (where there is more-but not much-information) see,for a
generaloutline, C. H. V. Sutherland,The Romans in Spain(1939);and, for
a more thorough treatment, vol. ü of the monumentil Hisnria deEspafta
(ed.R. Mendndez,Pidal, 1935),Part I (by P. BoschGimperaandP. Aguado
Bleve).chaptersII-IV.
rr. Thii t'oint öf view hasrecedy beenstrongly put by H. Braunert, Histotia
1964,8,and should certainly be borne in mind throughout. But he finally
refusesto recognisethe existenceof the equilibrium as such,and in this I
cannot follow him.
rz. Pol. äi zz-4. The fust is dated by Polybius-we do not know on what
evidence-to the first yearof the Republic.It must certainly havebeor very
old, and the datemay well be corröct.
13. This thesisis very effectively arguedin two works by thc Danish scholar
A. Afzelius: Die römßche ErobaungItaliens$g4z) zrd Die ömischeKrieg*
machtwährenililcr Auseinanilersetzung mit den hellenistischcn
Grossmöchtcn
Ggu).
14. On the epoch-makingspee& of Appius Claudiusthe Blind, which Cicero
still read(whether or not in an authenticversion), seeA. Garzeni,Athcn-
aeumt947, ztgf.
15. I have treatedtheseexterxively in FC, particularly "s-s4.
16. This interpretation, which l fint advancedrn r95z (seeSGRII zzf..),wx
developedin FC s8-66. It hasnot-to my knowledge-been disprovedby
any of the numerouswriten who have addedto the vast bibliography on
the problem of the outbrealcof the SecondMacedonianWar. Sec,e.g.,
94
I
B. Ferrua,I* originidellaII guma Maceiloniu(rS60),in which all views up
to that time are firlly (tho"gh not alwaysaccurately)summarised.
17. On thi5,56sSGRH rz6f. (with notes).
18. I hope to develop my views on it in a forthcoming book on Romanho-
üneial Alninistration in tlp Republic.
19. On the increasingshortagcof manpower, sceespeciallyE. Gabba,Athen-
aum tg4g, ry5f..
zo. SeeFC t66 (with referenccs).
zr. Livy xlüi z.
zz. SeeiVfRRi 45er (with n. z).
23. Seethe cases(to mention only a few) of M. Furius Crassipes (:oo<ix3); M.
Claudius Marcellus (ibid. S+); A. Manlius Vulso (xli ro-r); Q. Fulvius
Flaccus(*lü l); M. PopilliusLaenasand C. PopilliusLaenas(xlä 7-r2;2ri
zz); C. CassiusLonginus(xlüi r). The worst (andperhapsdecisive)example
was Ser. SulpiciusGalba,the perfidious murderer and brilliant orator (see
ORFa,no. r9). My discussionis in no way intended to deny the obvious
connectionbetweenhisacquittalby aiudkiun popr.l/iandthe Senate's decision
that su&enquirieshad betterbe takeninto more competenthandsinfuture.
24. MRRi 459.SeeW. S. Ferguson,.fRS r9zr, gTf.Henoticesthe probabilty
of a cormectionwith the imminent creationof new provinces,but strangely
tries to explain the annexationsby the successfulpassingof. the lex Cal-
pumia. I cannot acceptE. S. Gruen's attempt to ascribethe lex Calpumia
chiefly to the Senate'idesirenot to seesuchcasesdealtwith by rhePopulus;
tho"gh he is undoubtedly right in drawing attention to the fact that the
Populushadjust acquittedSer.Galba.(Seen. 23, abcive.)
25. On thepoenarepetunilarum and its development,seeA. N. Sherwin-White,
PBSR1949,5, and-fRSr91z,43(successfully controveüingM. L Hender-
son).E. S. Gruen'sforthcoming book (which he haskindly allowöd me to
see)throws much new light on the political implicaaonsof repetunilaelaws
in the late Republic.
26. For theseevents,seeMRR i 458.
27. Se my discussionof this in Athenaeumtgs6, to4i cf. SGRI{ r7zf.
28. Cic, z Ven. i g4f.Yet the SenaterenewedVerres' imperiumafter this.
29._See,e.g., Ceschichte vonNumantia(tSlS) Z+; CAII ,tr\ $qo) 3zaf..
'Sulpicius'
3o. On Galba, seeRE,
'Hostilius'
s.v. J8; OR-F, no. 19.
3r. RE, s.v. 18.The praetorshipis not registeredin MRR. I feelno
doubt that his quaestorTi. Gracchuswas acting in good faith.
32. SeeKiechle,Historia1958,rz9f.
33. This is clear from the brutal franknessof the Roman treaty with the
Aetolian League:seeFC 56f. and,for further references to discussionsof the
cpigraphic&agment,SEG xvi (1959)rro; *"ü (rc6o) zJ. On this treaty
and its implications dhee:rcellentwork of G. A. Lehmann, Untersuchunpen
überitiehßiorkcfuGtaubuürdigluitdesPolybios (1967)mustnow be consultäd;
though his apologetict.nd.iry should'not i*"yi b" followed.
95
 NOTES TO CHAPTERS I AND
'fetiales',
34. Or the fetial law, seeRE, s.v. especially-coll.226fi.
li. se" McDonald and Walbank,,fRS1937,r8of.; cf. FC 6f.-
16. As hasbeensuggestedby S. I. Oost, AJP 1954,r47.
i7. On this,secooi"p. C. EL\ TheMorulind PoliticalTraditionof Rone$967),
id. O" uirtus, seeBar\ op. cit. and ThePolitieatThu,tghlof Sallust(196r) r8f.
'mana' view, A, N. van Omme (a pupil of 'Wagenvoon), Virtus
For the
(Diss.Utrecht, n.d.).
39. Th.r. are conveniendy printed n ILLRP i t77-86. The numbers herc
quotedarenumbers36, 3ro, 313,all of the secondcentury.
4o. S." Cicero'sattackson L. Pisoon this scorein the 1zPisonemandchcwherc.
Clearlv. this was expectedto be acceptableto readers.
4r. SeeFÖ, especially"iopt.tt I and VII (with references). The recognition of
this, as of-so much else,goes back (in its modern form) principally to
Gelzer'sNobilitat(cited n. z).
CHeprsR Il
r. Notably by Rostovtzeffin his SEHTIZ and SEHRE 91 xll this, seenow
the illu'rnlnating discussion by P. A. Brunt, in SeconilIntetnational Con-
fercneeof Econoili, Hittory, tg6z $965) u7-49, which unforttrnately I saw
oollr rorn" time after these lectures were delivered. It will be clear from
whit follows that, as usual, I agree with all his main points, even where hc
takcs pairu to make clear that his approach differs from mine. His anicle
has mäde it easierfor me to keep thesenotes short.
z. Livy xrorvüi u G8l n.c.). Cf. Fienk, RI 279f., arguing that this provision
is eiceptional. We have no meansof knowing; though it was cerainly not
universal.
3. SeeRostovtzeff, SEHHW li 787f., n67.
4. Sec the instructive collecdon of material (especially names) by J. Hatzfeld,
Its Ttafiquan* italiensdans l'Oient hellCnique(r9r9) and in BCH t9rz,
s-zr8; arid compare the useful discussion by Frank, kI z8+f..A. J. N.
Wißon(Emi4rationJrom ltaly in the RepublkanAge of Rone, 1966) has shown
that Haüfel<l underestimated thc number of ltalians on Delos who might
be Roman citizens. The whole matter needs renewed tt"dy, i" the light of
what facts we possess,Seenow Donati, Epigraphicar96J, 3.
5. The populariry of this term is, of course, due to K. J. Beloch's great work,
Der iniische Bunil untn RomsHegemonie(r88o), whic}, despite its great
merits, introduced confusion by secing Rome's Italian alliance in terms of e
confederacy or a Greek symmachy. It,has done a great ded of harm, even
leading scholars into talking of federal instruments and institutioru, where
in fact there were none.
96
6. Seemy treatment of this in FC ry6f.., ghowing how the proposal for-
cnfranchisementarose out of the Gracchanagrarian schcmes,This, of
course,is not to assertiüat the commissioners,for their own PruPoses,
createda demandthat would otherwisenot have arisen-no one hascver
said this. But it is plain fact that it doesnot appearin polftics until they
introducc it, and Appian (b.c.i zt) righdy sressesthis.
7. Li'ty xlv rs. the.Jtiro*.if ro97a'1jtinR i +r+) had hed troublewith the
publicani.
s. Frank, Rl zpgf.As I havesuggesced, in this corurecrion(FC 97) and others,
wc must alsoremember,beforewe searchfor elaboratelegal concepts,thet
it could seemnothing lessdraninsaneto Romansto give up collectingcon-
tributions that peoplewere accustomedto paying and thereforewilling 'We to
pay. It is rhe riduciionthat is surprising and worthy of comment. do
iroi ktto* whether the MacedonäntriEute originally had a time-limit.
9. Pliny, n.lu.:oorüi 56. tndirect taxesto ,o-. .ti.ttt toolc their place.
ro. For a descriptionof this, seethe discussionof I'or hellenistique in Bloch-
Carcopino,Hist.rom.(ed.Glotz) ü 63f.
'nos
rr. Cic. tip,nrc; uero iustissimihomines,qui nansalpinas gentesoleam
et uitem sererenon sinimus,quopluris sint nostraoliuetanostraequeuineae.'
rz. SEHRE2izz;i 548,o.r7: äo{ueot on economic'parallels', büt ignoring
the actualtext and its meaning.
13. Rf z8of.(Cf. ES/IR i ryzf..l
14. For the great careuken by Cicero and Atricus over the historicalsettingof
the dialögues,seethe careful investigation of the Commission of 146 in
Att. äi.is"" -y study of this n Mitangu M. Renmd(forthcoming).)
15. See,e.g.,Cic. l. agr.i76,86f.
16. ReferencesMER i +62.
17. Pol. :oorix rf. For a detailedsurveyof what is known of the organisationof
Greeceafter 146n.c., secS. Accame,IJilominioromanoin Grecia$946).
18. Seebx Agroüa(FIRAz8) 79f..
19. ThepreceJentwasthewili of Ptolemy'Physcon', madewhenhefearedassas-
sination. SeeFC ro9f. (with references)and clLttzzttto, SDHI rg4r, z1gf..
zo. SeeFC r74. My interpretation hasbeen acceptedby D. C. E*\ Tibeius
Tracchus$99).
zr. This is clear-though not cxplicidy stated-in Plutarch's account: it was
allegedthat the Per"gamen" *o*'oy h"d brought Tiberius a diadem(Ti. Gt.
ra). The kernel of ruth in this story (the allegationwes madeby a respect-
abieand responsibleman) is, of course,that his high-handeddealingswith
the envoy, who stayedat his houseashis client, erousedresentmentend
suspicion.
zz. Cf..OGIS +rS.
4. MRRi +q9.(But the deparnreof the missionis probablyto be put in lll.)
The era of the provincaof Asialater datedfrom 134/3,tüe,year 9f AgtalSi
death.Indecd,it is dilEcult to seehow elseit could have been dated after
97
 NOTES TO CHÄPTER II
enne:ration.Therecould hardly be a gapin the record.Our earliestevidencc
on the era comesfrom the 6rst century.
a4. Sccpp.zgf.
25. MRR i 5o4,5o6, So7,S@.
26. Livy:oo<vü z, 3; 58,6f. On the nomenclatureof the Romanprovinccssee
P. P. Spranger,lJntercuchungen zu ilenNamenilerrömischen Provinzn (19551.
He fails to explain the nomenclatureof tle mlhtary prouinciae.
27. Livy xlittt r.
28. App. Mithr, T;Livy, pn, xcäi et al,
29. MRR i 5r8, 5ar; SzS,Sz9.
3o. For the war, seeMRR i 5ro-24(pasin). It hasbecomcan acceptedmodern
myth that a province (in the full senscof the word) was esteblishedby Cn.
'frontiers'
Domitius Ahenobarbus; and its have cven becn specified. I
protestedagainstthis inFC 264,n. 3 and 287f..endhaveargucdthe caseet
greaterlengthtn Mölanges Piganiol(1966),9oIf.: thereis certainlyno acrual
referenceto such a province in any urcient source,and there are gooo
reasonsfor denying its existence.
3r. Cf. Straboiv r,5 (r8o C). Seemy discussion (ail. cit.,lastnote).
32. Cic. Font. 13.On the date,seeH. B. Mattingly, Mölanges Grnier (196z)
rrjgf., almost decisiveagainstthe traditional view. The nurnismaticevi-
denceis at presentstill ambiguous,though it is becoming likely that thc
coinswill haveto be put nearerrr8 than Mattingly thought. (I shouldlikc
to thank Mr Michael Crawford for informing me of somc important
resultsofhis carefulsortingofthe Republicancoinage.)L. Crasus'speech
cited by Cic. Br. 16oand obviously (asMattingly hasshown) to be dated
someyearsafer rß seemsin fact to havebeendelivered,not on the occa-
sion of the proposalto found the colony, but in oppositionto a move to
dissolve the colony alreadv founded. This is made clear bv the more
precisereferencein'Cluent.i4o, which must surelyrefer to the s'amefamous
speech:asone of the ofücial foundersof the colony, Crassushad a primary
right anddury to opposesucha movc. For the move itself, we may comparc
the caseofJunonia,foundedin rz3 and disbanded in rzr (MRR i 5r9, n. 5,
correctedin Sr/ppl.sl; ibid.,5zr,under'Tribunesofthe Plebs').But it is un-
likely that a fully establishedcolony would be disbandedfive yearsafter its
foundation. Since rr3 is the most probable date for Crassus'speech,thc
coins of the Narbo foundadon shouldin any casebe somewhatlatcr than
rr8.
33. Cic. Br. r&.
34. Straboiv r, rz (rs6 C).
For this story, seeStraboiv r,8 (r83 C).
35. 'Wc
36. do not know preciselywhen and by whom. Äs I have pointed out
(afi. cit.,n. 3o above),thc absenceof ettestedgovemorsat the time of thc
fust German attack strikingly contrastswith their attested prescnceat
various times in ghsninstis5.
NOTES TO CHAPTERS U AND III
'sallustio
37. e la guerradi Giugurta',ho-blenidi StoriaAntica(rqz) r87. Cf'
mv discussionof Numidia rn FC rgzf.
38. O; this, seeSali.. Jug.gf..
39. Someoi th.* "tä fno*tt (MRR i 4gr); but theremust havebeenmany
more. One wonders*her. M. Scauruihimselfwas in 134/3:he was old
cnough to be an oftcer, perhapsjust old .no.,18hto be quaestor'His
selectionto head the missionto ]ugurtha, aswell asthe later susPrqonot
briberv. may be due to pre-exisdn[petsottallinks withJugurtha-so well
kn"*n that no one hasbotheredtJinfot- us of them-no lessthan to his
olf,cial standing.
ao. Sall.Iup.l.c,
ir. This-tei- (usedby De Sanctis)still seemsto me at leastuseful:seemy
Introduction,pp.vüf.
42. SÄl-Jug.26.
'- Varrö ä. No.t. Marc. p. zz8 L. This famousiudgmentis, of course,vastly
ar.
.*"gg.ät.d: asI haveäften tried to point out, tfie Equitesasan orderhad
no ööhtic"l ambitions(thouqh indiviäual membersmight have). But it is
literily true in that C. GraZchushad grven tle non-political part of .the
upp.t .l"tt a recognisedpart in the governmentxrd therebyrecognised
päiiti."t power. f'f,at poliiical differencesbefweenthe two ordersensued,
io oo" *ho ktto*. the hittory of extortion legislation down to -7o can
deny: thoueh we must avoid füe conunon erroi of interpretingthem in
termi of *-"n.tnpt by the Equitesto oust the senatefrom its traditional
dudesand privileges.
" MRR i 546.The-corurection
U. betweenthe Commission(withthe iudk-ium
that followed) and the Gracchantroubles hasbeenconvincingly tracedby
D. C. Earl,Latomus1965,11,2f.
a5. Sall.Jrg.85.
+ä. fo. ih.-r.tti.menr, seeCAHrx r3o. Thereis no goodevidencefor the view
'buffer
that a state'was createdbetweenthe two Parts.
47. Sell.Jug. 16.
+ 8 . P o l . : o r ir r , 6 [ .
': on the contrary, one strandof the varied tradition eventells usthat he was
49.
aiclaimed by hit ,tery enemies(Livy, pu. txviü)j The conventionalcharge
of massive6.ib"ty i"tr be confidintiy ignored: the man-who had just
savedItaly had no needfor it. The story-*"t spread-much later-by his
principal Lnemy P. Rutilius Rufus, and even Plutarch, usually far from
..iti.i of goodmen, is unwilling to accePtit (Mar. zs).
Cserrm III
r. S. I. Oost, CP t963, rrf. (I have discussedsome mafters relating to Cyrene
inJRS 1965, rrof.) A dedication by the Cyrenaeansto C' Claudius Pulcher

98 99
 (cos.9z), apparentlydatedin his consulship,h"r j,ttt beenexcellcndypuL
lished by L. Gasperini,Quademidi Arcluologiadella Libia v (1967) 53f.
Gasperini(probably righdy) arguesfrom this and the dedicationto Aeg-
'freed'
lanor (seeSEG roc, rydr, 1rzg)that the cities must havebeen by thc
Senate(in accordancewith the will of Ptolemy) and that relationsbetween
Rome and them were good up to this time; he alsoseemsright in moving
thc tyranny mentioned by Plutarch (seeOost, op, cit.) down to a slighdy
later date(after 9r?), when Rome v/astoo busy to interfere. It will, how-
ever,be clearthat I do not agreewith his statement(p. sz) that the Senatc,
'alienated
by its refusalto annex, . . . the sympathiesof the middle class'.
It is quite possiblethat the period of turbulencebeganbefore the actual
tyrannies-whictr are more often a symptom of trouble than its beginning
-and that the merit for which C. Claudiusis honoured was someofrcial
acdon(probably e senatus consuhum, which, asconsul he would initiate, or
a lettcr written in his ofrcial capacity)aaempting a peacefulsettlementof
the situation asit had developedup to this point. This, aswe have seenin
the caseof Jugurtha, would be normal Senatepractice where no inter-
vention by armed force was deemednecessary.
'publice'
z. Pliny, n,h',xtx 39: 6s11rinlyc"nnot ief.r to a paymentof tribute
andis mostnaturallyhken asmeaning(assooften)'at the public expense'.
3. p. zz above.
'Physcon',
4. The precedentsof Ptolemy Attdus III and Ptolemy Apion have
beennoted. That the testarnentis that of AlexanderI (madein 88) and not
that of AlexanderII (someeight yearslater) is arguedin RhM ry67, q8f.,
where the whole matter is discussed in detail.
5. For the Egyptian problem in the sixties,seeespeciallyCicero's specches
Iegeagraria,
6. SeeAthenaeurz :ooriv (1956)ro4f.
7. Sceibid.and SGRH r57f.
8. On this and what follows, seemy discussionin SGRH-where (howcvcr)
I failedto seethe obviousexplanationfor the partialrehabilitationof Marius.
9. Plut.Mm.3t.
ro. On this and what follows, seeSGRH, Lc. (n. 7). For the precedent(the
mision to Jugurtha) seeSall.Jrg. 25.
rr. Livy, per. booriü; Plut. Sd/a zzl et al. On this peace,seeSGRH zz5f.
(with notes).
tz. MRRid64"7.o,77.
r 3 . Augustus,RG 27,r. For Sulla'sactionon Egypt, seep. lo above.
r4. Hßtoryof Rome(cr. W. P. Diclson, r88o-r) iü 168f.This is still the only
valid explanationfor the numbers6xed by Sulla.
r5. MRR ä 74,j7,84 (misdated:seeSuppl.47).
r6. Sen.ür. uit. 13, 8. On the pomouiumand its ritual, seeRE, s.v., wherc the
cvidenceis collectedaud discussed.
r7. Srabo v y rr,fn.(:zr7 C). Mommsenfirst made this connection(1.c.
roo
(o. rf)), and it is generallyaccepted(e.g. Nissor, Ital, I-andcsk.i (1883)76;
Thomsen,Italk Regions (r9a7) rr3)-
18. MRR ä 87; 88,n. J;90; 92,n.6;99; roJ. SccSyme,Buckler Studies(1969)
299f.
19. Seemy discussionin FC r4o arndart. cir. (n. r).
zo. Sall. hkt. i +s and +z M. Sallust'sdislike for Cotta palpablein tle speech,
has been confnned by Dr G. Perl's work on the Berlin palimpsest(sec
n. zz). Seenow Perl, PhilohgusrN7,l37f.
z r . C i c .z V m . ä r . 6 3 ; v S z .
zz. Not a suiable person, according to Sallust. (This appearsftom a new
readingof the palimpsestat tlis point, which Dr G.'nPerl intendsto publish
and haskindly commtmicatedto me; cf. his views Philologus1965,75f..)
23. For what follows, secReynolds,-/RS1962,97f..,er^dmy discussion,ar!. ct|.
(".t).
24. Ferrero, Greatrcssand Declineof Rone i (tr. Zimmern, rycr7) r49f. On
Lucullus, secaboveall Plutarch'sLf.
25. Thc election:Plut.Luc.6; Cic.parad.v 4o.The battlc:Plut.Lac.z7,fn.-28.
The comment by the philosopherAntiochus was almost certainly written
after Pompey'seasterncampaignsand not in ignoranceof thcm.
'Licinius',
26. Plut. Luc. 3of..Gelzcr(RE, s.v. col. 4oo) rightly rcjcctsit.
a7. I suggestedthis identification of Sulla'sururamedquaestor(Irgp. b.c.i 57)
in a lccnrre to the Roman Societyin rq6o (seenow SGRII zzo).
28. Plut.Luc.35.
29. MRRIrzg; r55.
3o. For Syria"secDowney, Historyof Antioch 49f..
& 3r. SceSyme,RomanRevolution $y9) 32f..
32. SeeMRR ü zr5.
33. On this, seeGelzer,Caesaf(196o)lr8f.
34. Plut. CatoMaior zr. Someof the Italianson Delos may be freedmen(and
their desccndants) of senatorialfamilies. (Seen. 4, p. 96 above.)
3J. on the lex Claudia(MRR i 238) much hasbeenwritten, somc of it pure
f.ot"ty. Thcre is not eoough cvidence to make it probablc that a fully
satisfactoryexplanation will ever be found. But, as agairut the variour
'combinationsöf supposedparry interestsand differences,the statemcntin
the text s@rnsan unexceptionablemiqimum.
36. Livy xlüi z.
37. Secp.48 abovc.
38. Whateverdre phrasemeans.(Seenow Brunt, op.cit.(ch.2, n. r), reviving
'parry'latel.)
the old suggesüonthat it is meant to be a
39. Pliny, n.l.-io"i 116.I tried to explain this i,brise (tentätivdy and witü no
pretensionsto fnaliry) in the political context of the nincties,in Athenaewt
1956, rzo, n. 3. For the trial, seeAsc.zr C.
4o. Dio, h.gl B.
4r. I have developedthis aspectof the trial in SGRH 39 and Ji (with notcs).
IOI

Csrrrm IV
r. Seepp. zrf. abovc.
z. Plut. Ti. Cr.9.
3. Cic. Tusc.disp.m 48.
4. Cic.of.nzr.
''*JHff "i#y.'ff
6. p. z4 above.
äm*y;llil'äHtö,ff:*intcrpcnri-
z. Diod. :ooff 2J.
8. On the lex Hiuonica, amply dacribed and discussedin thc Vmines, w.
Carcopino,Ia l-oi deHihon et lesRomains (rgr4)-still the standardmodern
work. flicro's systemwas basedon Ptolemaice4perience,u adaptedto a
regionwhich(unlike Egypt)coruistedlargely of Greekcities.(SeeBengtson,
Kokalosrg64ls,3r9f) The Romanswere not capableof introducingthir
sophisticatedschemebeyond Sicily, though they did spreadit over the
whole of the island after annexingall of it.
9. Cic. i^p. Cr. Pomp.r4l.'nam ceterarumprouinciarum uectigdia Quirites,
. tante suut ut eis ad ipsasprouinciastuendasuix contenti essepossimus.
Asia uero tam opima est ac fertilis ut et ubertate agrorum at uarietate
fructuum et magnitudine pastionis et multitudine eanrm renrm qu:re
exportenfir facile omnibus terris antecellat.'
'Whether
ro. Cic, Flaa.9t. theseare local or provincial taxesmakesno great
differencefor our pu{pose.
rr. App. b.c.i zz. Thiorganisationimposedby Aquillius,throughall troubles
and changes,continuedofrcially to be the basiclaw of Asiaand is attested
assuchevenin the time of Augustus(Straboxiv r, 39, 646C).
rz. That publicaniwere conspicuowly acrive in the new province as early as
r2g ß.c, (/GRRP iv z6zi seenow R. K. Sherk,GRBS 1966,36rf.) cannot
be chargedto the debit of C. Gracchus! On the other hand, it is worth
consideringthat this casemay haveplayedits pan in making him formulate
his plansfor provincial reform: it showedtfrat, t'rlike Romanmagistrates
and promagistrrtes,publicaniwere subject to the effecdvescnrtiny of thc
Senateand(asfar ascould be foreseen)not likely to becomeanuncontrolled
menece.
13. See Cic. z Vm. iü rz. It is a fiaing cornmentary on the quality of our
sourcesfor this period that the Asian tax law is nowhere sctout for us in
detail in the main tradition. Apart from Cicero's passingreference(1.c.),
we carl only glean scatteredinformation about is working in the age of
Cicero himself-we do not know how close,by then, it wasto its original
form.
14 Seee;peanllyAthenaeumt956, ro4f. and SGRII r57f.
rJ. E.g. Vm. i 38:,'nullo, iudices,equite Romano iudicantene tenuisime
quidem suspicioacceptaepecuniaeob rem iudicandam'; ibid. 5r:'qua lege
[A.ili"] populus Romanusde pecunüsrepetundisoptimis iudicüs seueris-
simisqueiudicibusususest.' Thesepassages, incidentally, still seemto mc to
&U
)TES TO CIIAPTER IV
make the traditional view that the lex Acilia was C. Gracchus'law in its
final fonn quite certain,and the further identification with the epigraphical
kx Repetundarun highly probable.Nothing that I havereadonih-e sirbiect
in tlre yearssinceI w_roteon it (n AJP 1954,37+f.)-and I hope I haveiead
everything publishedup to the end of r967-has given me any reasonto
changemy mind on this aspectof the quesrion.Nicolet's cbmplicated
speculationson the text and substa.nce of C. Gracchus'law (L'Orlre Cq.i
475-SrS)are quite unacceptable.
r6. Cic. z Ven iü r84; iv zz: the mTuscripts do not quite agree,and Vell. ü
8,r gives a diferent figure. But the ranle is rurrori and öiceio's stresson
the amazingsmallnessof the figure surelyjustified.
1 7 . Most of the (exceedinglynumerous) sourtesare collected in Greenidge-
Clay, Sources,'t"S-7. I am glad to seethat on the efGcrirr*essof t.
Gracchus'jury law Nicolet hasonceagainindependentlyreachedthe same
conclusion.
r 8 . SeeSallust'sinsistenceon the changemade by Q. Metellus in the conduct
of the war and his accounrof Metällus'initäi suicesses.
r 9 . Metellus'nialrepetunilarum, at which equesrrian jurorsrefusedto insulthim
by actuallyinspectinghis books(Cic. Batb.r r),-mustcomeafterhis rerurn
from Numidia. Sallust'sclaim that he had a friendly receptionassoonas
he reachedRome (,/rg.99,r) ir worrh no more thanmanf anotherof that
author'sassertions,
author's assertions,
notablv his famousdescription
notably descriotion/(.fug.
Iuo.63,3
6z-zf
[).\ of Marius'
Mr.i,r"'
brilliant anj{ un}rampered early-career._Metellus' triurnfh was debyed until
early ro6 (Inscr.It. "+ r, S+ and 56r: date unknown, .*cept that ii was not
later than August rst), i.e. certainly for severalmonths; atid thls triumphal
dgnomenappears to have been due to rhe Senare(Vell. ü rr). The irial
mentioned by Cicero is convenrionally- placed after hii (unrecorded)
praetorian command; but such extreme defeienceseemsquite inappropriate
in the case,of a mere praerorian, however distinguished-in birth^.^
20. Seep. z4 above.
2 t . rtir. ill.7.
zz. Seethe small,but useful,selectionof sourcesin Greenidge-Clay,Sourcesz,
94.
23. y. ill. 4. For Gaul,seeApp. bt i zgr-not quite clearasto which Gaul,
but by his wording--apparently suggesringTräsalpina (which alsomakes
bettersensepolitically: on this, seeFC zo8f.).
24. Ihave arguedthis in FC zo8f.
25. Fgr Aleria in Corsica,seePliny, n.h.u Bo; Sen.ddHelu. 9. On the whole
subject,particularly in the later Republic,seeVittinghofi, Röm.Kolonisation
undBtugerech*politib ft95t) 54.Tfus kind of sealeÄenrwassoonso much
taken for qpnted that we hearof it only by accidentor in specialcases(e.g.
Caes.ü.c.üi 4).
26. On.Cilicia, seeSyme,Brcfrlu Studiesftq69) zg9f..On Antonius' command,
seeMRR i 568-7o.The detailsare not at all clear. One mnsr herementron
H* r03
 )TES TO CHAPTERS IV AND V
NOTES TO CHAPTBR IV
'PirateLaw'found at Delphi in the rgth century, andnot edited suggestive, it is not really -of
parallel to the -by
phenomenon of the early nineties:
the famous the wholesale arrogation
no.9-,PP.rzrT.)Like s:.manyancientdo:llTo',il citizenship -en who had no riqht to it.
..tii rgzt. (SeeF/R.l4.2, And it takes more faith than I can mu}er to believe (as Brunr's iiew im-
survivesonly to taunt us with our ignorance.I hough-lt looKsasü rl $rouo
plies) that masses of them invaded the citizen lists, är had this invasion
fit into this ieneral politicalcontext,it seemsto be ot roo; and norhtngm
confir,med, in the censuspreceilingthat of 97 l6-i.e. that of roz lr, by two
our fairly "üundant'iit.rature on drat year had led dlyone. to exPectit or, Metelli (MRR i 567), agen noied for severity.
,row thai we have it, gives any real clue to its interpretation. There rs no complexity can always be substituted for the
Though any'desiee of
-simplest-explanatio-n,
need to detail the giiant, but rather fancidul' aIePPis that have been more reasonableto draw tle obvious conclusion främ the close sequence
it is
,o"d" to explain it aäd assignit a place.(SeeFIRAz, t':) , - . - of censorship aqd revision law than to go to exrremes of paradox to "äia ir.
27. On M. Aätonius "nd hf "o*t.-"tioot, see now SGRH, Index' Some
-'' ,g. TFy (T. Didius):MRR i 57r; Spain(M. Marius):rVrnni 568;Sicily
Johxs havequestionedmy con-clusions from the evidenceI cited; but I
,"*ot to change my mind on any signi6cantpoint' (C. Servilius):
iüil.
il;. ;; f"r foünd oo
3o. Seeop. cit (n. 4).
itrit ir "ot the placeto re-arguethe Äattei' O.nQ latulus.' seeSGRH 37f'
(with notes). the consult iarurot be dissociatedftom Antonius' extrr- 3r. Diod. :oorvi 3.
32. For M, Annius, see SIG3 Zoo. In general, seenow the useful collection of
Ltditov co'tn-and: a point often forgotten' such honours (unfortunately without dates, even where they are known)
,s. All thiJit dir.orr.d in'FC, ch. IX. För someof it, in greater-dt'31' :t' r1 G. W. Bowersock, Augustusanil the Greeh World
SGRH azf.(with notes).P. A. Brunt basnow (JRS 1965'ro6t') deniedthat $965) r'5of.
it "f gzle who enrolledthe;tdiaru whosearrogation of 33. Plut. Sulla 5.
;;;,ilj; 'the 34. Mith. nf.
citizenshipgave rise to the ler Licinia Mucia of 95. He claims-that
parallelol tfie expultiono[ r87 suggests. that it.had be:n a gradualProcess'. 3t. Se9_SGRH +Sf. (with notes).
f6. Sdl. hist. iv 69, J and zz M.
i "- "fr"ia that,'fo, once,I cannJt-understandor follow his argument.ln
i"t th.t *"tt..,'parrly even n r77) there was n9 qu3stio.nof 37. Plut. Mm.36.
;;;i;t,
38. See'W. Allen, CP 1938,9of.; and FC ry3.
illesaliw in eaining citizenship:what the Latinsaskedtor and actuevedwas
;-i;";il;r:;n (fi th. phvsicalsense)of the citizensthey had lost' even
ilioosfi th" lott h"d be.n p.tfectly legal(it seems)'TheRoman-s' h 9*?1ng
oot ih. expulsionof r87, basedthemselveson the census-ot2o.-413 \LLvy
CnaprEn V
-"4- l, s)',which was ih" fittt reasonablycomplete9n9 f9r a.long time
and
iü;,#;?, +f., i, alsoincluded,at Rome, a iecord of t1e citizcns r. Liny xlv 18, 3; seep. 18 above.
;;;"" ;fffiäioduin coloniae,which must have been-a great help in r87)'
it was legal z. Sec Frank, RI z8+f..
ilä;;;;;r h"d gorr. on for a long timc simply because
By r77 (which Brunt omits to mentlon), 3. For-this interpretarion of L. Philippus asan extreme optimate, co-operating
-Drusui
andno onethoughtoI stopping-it. ü$ ü: Equites from common hostiliry to the reform, of M.
,hi";;;;;. "k.?dv " ftää dff.'*i. Thii time therc was a complaint of
rather than trom_ any positive community of interests, see R. Thomsen,
illes"aliw. and evidenceof evasionby legal trickery' This time th3 ble
fi*ä ;; the censorshipof 189/8(i.e' of only twelve yearsbetote)-the _?t J"t" 9r v. Chr. gnd peine Vorausserzungen', C E M v, 1942,r 3f.
4. This lias one of Gelzeri.starting-points i_i the argum."t i.".top.a
;; b;il,h. fi.rt d..r'.. h"d bletip"ssed. It ii unlikely that the.illegalities Die Nobilitöt ilu röm. Republik.
i"
lää"fä.ä "i t.i f.." connivedät (or "t leastoveilooked)by-of all
5. If we yy $apt a_contemptuous phrase by an unknown oflicer of C.
^*:-th. censorsof 184/3,L. FlaccusandM. Cato,whoseseverrtybecame Caesar(t. Art. Sz)abour a man serving in thö opposinq armv.
oroverbial.In fact,it wasalmostcertainlythe censorsoI r7918-i.e. the last
'b;i;;h. 6. The names and provenance of many öf them can easiiv be sattrered from
**pl"ittt-*ho were to biame in thil case.l$eY had reor-
MRR, together wirh such works as Syme, The Ronan {euolution, and
qanisedthe .trotiirglists and introducednew criteria for tribal membe':shlP' Taylor, The Voting Districts of the Ronan Republic.The wealth of these
:Jil ;;u, ;r ü a confusedaccountthat makesit clear he himself was
'**"tu":,lg1qi" circles is proclaimed by the records of their mrrnifi6gn6s survivine in
;;p;ilg;; *tt", tt. did not understand(*l sr, s innumerable inscriptions all over Italy. one of the (minor, it appäars)
,.äioo.'ti-qo. generibus hominum causisqueet quaestrbustrrbus drs- duties of colonial aediles and duumvirs was the contribution of n"t Lrl
crioserurrt'-lreefRS 1962,zo4f.).It was not surprisingthat someT'egu- than z ooo HS each towards the cost of games toJupiter,
irriri.rlf,.rti ii* .r."p.ä troti.. itt the reorguriiation-. However,though Juno and Minerva

r04 IOJ
 NOTESTO CHAPTER V NOTES TO CHAPTER V

fiex IJrs.lx rc-zr: FIRA i rs-l). A duumvir of Sinuessaentertained the 26. Ibill. n; 46.
lrhole of th.population of the:olony (aswell asthat of a suburb, apparently 27. Se pp. r9f. above.
not included'in it\ to mulsumeüustuft, and the population of the colony as 28. SeeMR.R ü 86. On border wars, seeChapter I above.
well as all lis gens(all who w,uld come along?) to dinner and gladiatorial 29. Caes.b.c- ili g, r.
samesand p,tiop " monumet costing rz,ooo HS, all (it seems)in honour 3o. This is recorded in an irxcription that is not very accessibleto the ordinary
öf " de"d rÄlativÄ (u-Lw n 6'7). student. It was lest published fto -y knowledge) by Rendiö-Mioöeviö in
7. This was noted particularly b g"Uq", Athenaeumxliv, 1956, rz4f'; this Stuili Btusin (tssi, A7tr.
survey finally deitroyed the ryth of Sulla's hosriliry to the Equites as.a 3r. Caes. b.c. Ii zg.
.1"r..'See tto* .lto the same arthor's discussionin,'{SNP 1965,relating the 32. Frank, EconomicHistory of Rome,275f. (Similarly in Rf.)
programme o{ Sulla to that o M. Livius Drusus and his circle. 33. Rostovtzefi, SEHHW 87o, was tempted, but (perhapssurprisingly) did nor
s. bn"th. reform of 70, seeMR.n rz7. (Seenow R. Rossi, PP 1965, r33; quite fall. He admits the motive of opening Syria to Roman businessmen
'groups'
thoueh I carurot accept the wble of his analysis of the a'mong the as a secondarv one.
oüe;chs.) On ro6,^ see the frequent references by Cicero, collected 34. R. Egger, fii, Stodt auf denr Magdalensbug(196r). See Schleiermacher,
Gänidgi-Clay2 78. How loq Caepioi l"T *T in force is not certain: it Cnomon l.962,3r6f.
deoends"on*h.t *" put theaw of Glaucia, which seemsto have super- 35. Caes.b.G.iv z.
,eäed it. But this ."ttnot belater than roo, since that was the year o[ 36. Romebeyondthe Imperial Frontiers(tSS+), Z.
Glaucia's death. 32. SeeO. Brogan, Rouan Gaul (1953), r3zf. (wine-jars); cf. t43.
period, see A. Alföldi, Du fr;ih- 38. Caes.ü.G.'Belgae
vü f .
'o. For an interestinq study of te earlier
rönischeReiterddeiund söineEienabzeich[n$952). IlIl, The Roman Middle lg. Ib,id. i r . ... a cultu atque humanitate prouinciae longissime
c/ass (rosz), fails even to see he problem. I heve aftempted a brief sketch absunt, minimeque ad eos mercatores saepecommeant.'
'Equites'.
in OÖDt, s.v. Niolet-has now partly filled the gaP; see my 4o, SEHHW 98r and n. 7o.
cornments in the krtroductior' 4r. Seep.J4 above.
ro. See.e.e.. A. Srein,Der Römisc,e Rittustanil $927) 4f.It should be added, as 42. Asc. 57C.
" *inäi qualification (iruistd on by Stein), that free birth was a pre- 43. MRR ü r45 and r5o, n. 8. Cf. the SC mentioned in Cic. Au. i 19, 9, about
requisite, in normal times. which very little is known. (See Shackleton Bailey's note in his edition of
r r . S e äC i c . Q . f . i r , 1 5 ; ß : 3 z { ; 2 , 6 ; r o f . Cic. Au. i and ü (1965),vol. i, p. f fO.)
'Licinius'
rz. SeeRE. s.v. ro4, co. 4oo; and cf. MRR ä t33, t39; 146' aa. Mainly senators,of course,but not entirely: Atticus, at least, was expecting
r3. MRR ü r6e (mid-63). something of the sort to be done for him (Cic. An. i rS, S).
ti. ntne i 1;lo)y4,376, 38o,,!1.,+9s; and many from Delos' 45. I have discussed this testament and tried to place ir in its background in
'rh.
,i. rto* il toia, "ät ,t.ry clitly (sincehe wroie fot people who probably RhM ry62, r78f. Mr Michael Crawford tells me that he has noied excep-
knew thä condidons), by thc:fficer rvho wrote b' afr. (t7[')' tionally large issuesof silver coinage in the middle 8os n.c.-which, in tire
ß. lbid.97 (note'humilitas ciuiteis'); 36. triennium sbteannis, seem surprising. The large amount of money collected
17. b. Hisp. z5f. . from Tyre at this very time may have something to do with it.
ß. lhid. zz. 46. See Cic. l. agr. i 4of.
'Rabirius',
ry. Ibid.3r. 42. See(most conveniently) RE, s.v. no. 6.
"o. süUfun'i zzf.(QuotationP.24.) 48. This is given by Plutarcl (Ponp. 45, apparently quoting, ultimately,
,t. O" Roman t.ül.-.ttt in-tlese provinces, see now A' J' N' Wilson, Pompey's triumphal tables) as zoo million HS.
Emigrationfrom Italy in.the Roublkan Age.of Rome. 49. The pro Rabirio Postamosurvives, the pro Cabinio, which would have been
,r. tut.i.,',or, (Fgrgistil+) r?. Chen givJditferent figures; but the extent of at least equally interesting (in the light of what Cicero had said about the
the massacreis, in general tems, not rn cloubt' accused after his return from exile), unfornrnately does 16s-perhaps for
za. Cic. imp. Ctt. PomP. ßf' drat verv reason.
'disc*sed
,i. t l"*r" this provinc-from rather a different point of view-in 5o. See the iummary in Downey, Hßtory of Antioch 49f.
M\langesPiganiol (1966), 9or; 5r. The former (a wild fancy) is Rostowzeff's (SEHHW ii 87o), the latter
25. Cic. Font.4t. Downey's (1.c.).

r06 r0f7
 NOTES TO CHAPTERS V ÄND VI NOTES TO CHAPTER VI

sz. Viz. Iews and Swians(Cic. prou.cons.ro). This kind of interventionwas 16. On Cn. Pompeius Strabo the sandard discussionis srill Gelzer'sepoch-
rareind ("s bec"mecLar) dangerous.The lex Pompeiaof Bithynia-Pontus making essay(now in his K/. Sclr. ü ro6).
is amply attestedin the tenth book of Pliny's lttters. r7. On this, seemy discussion in FC 267f.,z7zf..;cf. Hermesr9JJ, rrJ.
53. Ontüir't..RE,s.v.'Licinius',no.68,col"3r4.Forsenators'sharesinthe r8. For the figures, with evidenceand discussion,seeDrumann-Groebeiv
tax companies,seeCic. Vat. z9 (partesheld by Caesar-quite openly, it +86f.;cf. Gelzcr,Pompeiusz rrr and 263,n 243.
seems). r9. This, of course,is the backgroundto the fear t]rat Rome felt in the lastyears
of Pompey'sabsence; tho"gh in fact he hadno revolutionarydaigns.-(On
thir 6riciple in the interpritation of Pompey'saims atrd chl".tei, I fl[y
agreewith A. N. Sherwin-White,JRS1956,j-9; though I think it docs
not apply to the very beginning of his public career.)
zo. The sayingis variouslyquoted,e.g. Plut. Cr. z; Cic. of. i "5. The most
CnaprEnVI preciseversion(Pliny, n.h. rorüi r34) deserves 'nisi
preference: qui redditu
annuo legionem tueri posset.'
r. SuchesthedeimperioCn. Pompeiandthede,prouinciis consularibus(thelttter- zr. For what follows, seePlut. Cr. z.
deliveredin the Senate,but, in its published-version,intended asa political zz.For ratesof pay at this dme, see(with somecaution!)'Watson, Histotia
palnphlet for wide circulation). 1958,r13.
z. p.36above. zl. Val. Max. v 7, ext. 2.
-l. batticularly as Clodius apparentlydid not limit the number o[ recipients. 24. Cic.Att. i t, 3i d. 2,s.
This ** doo. by Caesaräuring his reorganisationof the state.He fixed it 25. Cic.fam. xiü 56 (seeTyrrell-Purser'snote üi2 r39).
at rJo,ooo,.eduäng it by morJthan haF.(Suet.,ful.4r;Dio, xJä.zr,fn-; 26. Drumann-Groebeiv 479.
Plut, Caes.55; cf.Livy, per.c)<v,apparently-connecting the reductronwrth 27. Fo,r,a frtting commentary,seeTyrrell-Purserüia, pp. :ocüf.and 337f.(with
his policv of settlinq iriletnü in ovörseascolonies). full references).
4. Oo^this*d *h"t fäfows, seemy discussion inJRS 1965,rrof. 28. On this, seeOost, CP r9JJ, 98. It can hardly have been when he was
j. SeeOost'sperceptivestudyof Cato'spersonalityandmethodsin CP 1955, qn:restorin Cilicia under Appius (uir. ill. 82, 3z).
e8f. 29. Tyrrell-Purser iü2, p. :onri,
6. bn Pompey'sachievementin the East'seeGelzer,Pompeinsz (1959),ch' 3o. SeeTyrrell-Purser iü', 339f.(citing Mommsen).
VI: T. vai öoteehem, Pompäe le Grand(rgs+)' z++f-(the bestsummary). 3r. Cic. Att. vi 5, 5.
Ponipeyhimself-claimed to-havefounded39 cities(Plur''Pomp.+s, l\. 32. Cic. Att. v 2r,7.
7. On this, seemy FC 88f. 33. Seeespeciallythe usefulcollection of the evidencein R. O. JolliIG, Ph*es
8. Ibid.74; cf..l:4, with note4. of Conuptionin RomanAdministration (r9r8).
9. Pliny, n,h.vid99. 34. The story is told inJos. ant.Äv 8of.
to. ott'tkr, r." Jos.ant.Äv 7a:b'J' i r54 (contrastingit with Syria' asnot 35. Zon. x 5.
beine undera Roman govemor). 36. Sydenham,Coinageof the RomanRepublic(1952),nos. 9rz-4: Aretas
u. plutipomp.as. plutarc['sword lor rheserevenues is 2dtr1,which is surelya kneeling, with cameland olivebranch with fillets (5Sn.c.).
must
translatioi oi-uectigalia.It hererefer to income from provinces,whictr 37. SeeDrumarur-Groebe iv 467.
alone is to the po-int.Drumarur-Groebe,rather oddly, took it to refer to 38. Seepp. Jie above:havingmadehis prestigepoint, Sullawithdrew.
tarifs (iv a94). 39. SeeMRR ü 2r5. Oppositionin Rome (bestknown the cursesof Ateiu$
tz. Svme.Rom.Reu.17. was almost certainly due chiefly to arrtagonismto Crassus-and, in any
- Thi, is discused-though not alwaysadequately-in all the standardworls
13. case,was totally inelfecdve,bringing trouble upon trheopponents.
and does not need dei"iled doc.tmettt"üon here. The sourcesare well 4o. Suet..prLz9 (alsoPaullus).
collectedin Greenidge-Cltyzzt r-zz' 4r, References Drumarur-Groebe iü 345.
14. I havealludedto this"aspectof Sulla'svictory in sGRH z3z. There is more 42. Plut. Caes.29.
to be said. 43. On.theseloans,seeCic. Att. vü 3, rr, with the notesin Tprell-Purser (üi2
15. Seepp. J6f above. 3o6);8, S.
r08 r09
 NOTES TO CTTAPTERYI

44. The ph,raseis Syme's(CP rg51 47)' 'qur

viü 4' z):
ä. ci.. 1"m. "ü sirr. ci. th" i"fur""ttt of Caelius(Cic' fam'
tlpensa adrungere,
soletinfimorum hominum amicitiamsibi qudibet
mutetue
16. Sourcesin Gelzer,cdesar$264(selection).c. Hirrus lent him 6,oo
*'
i;J;-b*["" n.h. tx\71. Suetonius givesthc sum disributed to
1lfty, INDEX OF NAMES
the legionariesas24'oooHS, Dio as2o'ooo'
+2. Sherr,ün-White,G Ü R tgs7, 36f.
48. Seep.78 above.
'Gdr"r, Ttis Index includesboth personaland geographicalnames,except (in general)
;;. S..
"' Caesm;r5z, whirh Sherwin-rphite doesnot suffrciendycon- thosementionedonly once.Roman namesare given under the nomen(except
'Augustus'),
,id"r. Caes"r,in his dafic triumph, claimedthat over a million Gaulshac for the familiar with a crosrreGrenceunder the cognouetwhere
di.d (pütv,'n.h' vigz); the figure is given as a round one by Plutarch nccessary.Roman senatoßare identified, if consular,by the date of their con-
(Caes.rs,'fin.), with the additionthat asmany were caPrur.€d: Probably sulship; if not, by the date of the highestregular office held. Only the fust
ihit i"fo.Ä"tion also goesback to Caesar'sF"PPh,' T, *:u T *".tLltt tenureis noted. Namesof citiesand countriesinclude thoseoftheir inhabitants;
'Italians'.'Rome'
,h., ,h;r; .n my lossä amounted to two thirds of all who. had fought e.g., for'Itdy' read, where appropriate, (abbreviated'R.'
;S"il hlr": G.tr's statementt6at the cguntry lost two thirds of all men throughout)hasnot beenindexed.The indexingofend notes,asusual,poses
;EL;; ü; "r*t resmon a misunderstandingdf this claim. Still, the losses problems. [n general,noteshave been separatelyindexed only for items that
;;h..t "rroogh, il thereis-any truth-whätever in these9ma{ fsqres' would havebeen,if the note had been (whereall notesought to be) at the foot
C.1"., drd iome usefulfiguresto documentthg *1Y in which gaul
girres of the page: exceptionshave been made in a Gw cases,to provide more
had been dr-ainedof its resources:thus the price of gold seems-tohave information.
quarter! It is in the light of all theseknown tactsthat
suddenlvfallen bV a'ciem.ncy'
one mustjudg. tL. of the Gallic settlement' (szlc) freely enrols Italians J3,
acHAEA 3,5
5o. C.t.r, oi. ci|.3ot. Cf. A. Fi'euss, Rön. Gesch'(196o)zos:'Flucht in die
AemiliusScaurus, M. (cos.rr5) per- ro428; friend of Marius 5z
Aussenpolitik.' 'Creticus',
hapsquaestor4413? ggss1' princeps Antonius M. (pt.74) un-
,r. i h"d;;';;rhirg ro sayaboutthisin FC, e.g. r65f.It hasnow bcencaref'lly
'-' Senatus, headsmissionto Numidia succesfulagainstpirates 36
,,raiJ *J "U"*ra*ity documentedin ö. W. Bowersock, Augustusanil 25,3z; headsmissionto Asia 32f., Appuleius Decianus,C. prosecutes
theCreeh,World(196). 42, 54; Equestrianconnections 4r Cicero'sclient Flaccus 66
Aemilius Scaurus,M. br. J6), son of Appuleius Saturninus,L. (tr. pl, rc3)
preceding attacksAretas 8f. programme on Gracchanfounda-
Aetolia J, 9J88 tions jrf.; and Italianallies 53
A&ica 23, 5rf., 9r; litde of it Aquillius, M' (cos. n9) completes
annexed$46) zr settlementof Asia 4, 48, s6;
Alexander m (the Great'), King of probably comrpt 48
Macedon j, 38, 69 Aquillius, M' (cos.ror); son of pre-
Antiochus Itr ('the Great'), Seleucid ceding protdgd of Marius i6;
King 13,23; envoysconferwith bringsaboutFirst Mithridatic'War
Flamininus and refuse geopolitical s6f.; death s8
terms Z; defeatby R. and conse- Areas, Arabian dynast pays Scaurus
quences 2 for peace 88
An-tiochusXItr Philadelphus,lastKing AriobarzanesI, King of Cappadocia
,of Syria given Syria by Lucullus, 39,Sf.,8z; installedby Sulla, 33,
fails to retain it 39,74f. Jif.
Antonius,M. (cos.gg) i6; preetorin Ariobarzanes III Xusebes,King of
Cilicia (roz) 521' in censorship Cappadocia,grandsonof preceding
III
IIO
 in debt to Pompey 82f., 86; in (cos.ro9) 27,32; poprtrariry Sr; Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, P. (cos. DECIANUS seeAppuleius
debt to Brutus 86 trial ro31o 57) gives lex prouinciaeto Cyprus Delos Italianson 17, 6o,64,7o
Aristonicus, Pergamene pretender Caesar seeTulius 77; exploits Cyprus 87 DomitiusAhenobarbus, Cn. (cos.nz)
fishts asainst
- R. zzf. Calpurnius'Piso Frugi, L. (cos. r33) Cornelius Scipio Africanus, P. (cos. settlesGaulwithout annexationz4
Aröenia rzf,; annexationnot in- passesfust extorrion law (r49) 9, zos) 23, 27; opposedto evacu- 9830; his faction supportsfounda-
tended by Lucullus 39; and see 4r; opposesdistributionofgrain 46 ation of Greece z tion of Narbo z4
Tieranes Cappadocia 38; Bithynian and Cornelius Scipio Africanus Aemili- Drusus seeLivius
Asialprovince) 38; namezzf.; era Pontic intrigues in 321' Marius anus,P. (cos.47) r9; at Numan-
9725; firstorganised(corruptly)bymeets Mithridates in 32i seized aa z5; patron ofJuguftha 2i EGYPI 43, roz8; willed to Rome,
'freed'by but not annexed 3r, j3i no
Aqrrilliu5 48, J6; C. Gracchus' by Mithridates, R. 3zf.; Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus,L. (cos.
reform of tribute collection 47, Ariobarzanes chosen King ß, r9o) 8, 13,23,27 strong feeling over this 4of.; not
+gf.; Scaevolasent to reorganise Ariobarzanes installed by Sulla 33, Cornelius Scipio Nasica,P. (cos.ßz) annexedby Sulla 3r, ßf., 731
ro, 3r, 48,s+; left by Pompey'in 5Jf; reoccupied by Mithridates opposesCato on foreign policy(?) agitation for annexation in 6os
heart of empire' 78; its tribute and'freed' by Aquillius s6; itr- 4,948 nf.i restoration of Ptolemy
'Auletes'to
transforms empire 4zf.i Italian vaded by Mithridates (88) SZf.; Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio, P. 7f,
interests in 66f., 6q; basic to Pompey its patron, to his pro6t (cos.r38) kills Ti. Gracchus zz; Euphrates crossedby Lucullus 37,
Romaneconomicactivity 67; not 821, and seeAriobarzanes in drarge of annexation of Per- 39; andby Pompey 88
Carthage t8, 42, g48i left standing
alwaysprofitable for publicani 54, gamum 22 Europe 3; claimedby R. assphere
7s; distressof 3r, 48, 69, 66, (zor) 2; ffeaties with R. i; Co"rneliusSulla,L. (cos.38) 23, 36, ofinfluence 7
79 purposeofdestructiou 20; anncx- 38, 52, 55f.,66,88; instalsArio-
Asia Minor 3rf, JJ; organisation ation necessary after new war 9f,; barzanes 33:. adlects3oo equites FArcIDrus overbids for taxes of
after Syrian'War z; intervention C, Gracchus' colony at 24, 5tf., to Senate,creating link between Tralles 47, 66
by R.'after war with Perseus 3; 98az orders 6z; refuses to annex Flaccus seeValerius
oif.r.d to AntiochusIII assphereof
Cato seePorcius Egypt 3r, 33f.; foreign poliry Flamininus seeQuinctius 'eco-
in-fuence 7; mission of ScaurusCicero seeTullius not expansromst3r, 33t.; darms Frank, Tenney rightly denies
to 32f.,42,54; Lucullus^ lz; Cilicia 18, 75i command against to havi extendedfrontiers 34, 43, nomic imperialism' in secondcen-
Pompey'sprofitsin 8r, 9o pirates, established (roz) with 76; effec:ts of his rebellion 79f. tttry ryf., 7o; wrongly assertsit
Attaluili PLilometor,King of Per- Marius' co-operation 52; terri- Cotta seeAurelius in.first centwy 7o,76
gamum g7i leaveskingdom to torid province after Servilius Vatia Crassus seeLicinius
R. zrf., 3o(.,Mf., 48,77,rcpa 35,52; increasedby Pompey ZZ; 'eato annexedandsqueezeddryby cABrNrus,e. (cos. 58) prohibits
Cyp*
Atticus seePomponius joined to Cypras 77; Cicero its to provide money for grain loans to foreigners n; his law
Augustus 89,gz, g3L governor 82f.,86 disriburion 26f., 8z; joined to evaded by powerfrrl men 8+f.;
'Auletes'
Auielius Cotta, C. (cos.75) con- Cirta Italians at 26,70 Cilicia, receiveslex fuom Lentulus restores Ptolemy 74;
cerned in organisation of Cyrene
Claudius Pulcher, C. (cos. 9z) dedi- Spinther 77; extortionby gover- interGreswith publicaniin Syria 75
3t; in famine 36; disliked by carion to him at Cyrene 991 nörs before Cicero 8z; Brutus' Galba seeSulpicius
Sallust 35f, Clodius Pulcher, P. (aed. 56) 8i; relationswith 84f. Gaul (Transalirine) 27, 39, 52, 56)
grain law (58) and effects 76f. Cyrene 4; left to Rome (90) and not annexedaftermajorwar in rzos
BrrHYNrÄ J, 38; occupiedby Cornelü Scipiones aim at excessive exploited, but not organised 22, z3f.; organisedaftei Germanwars
Mithridates S6i made province auctoita 8; epitaphs of rz zgi.; no strong feelings over this 24, z9i prohibition of vine and
by Pompey 2s,77,83; Pompey's Cornelius Ientulus Marcellinus, Cn. 4of.; anarchythereseenby Lucul- olive culture in r9f., 68; no
profits from this 83; keeps its (cos.56) legate at Cyrene 36f. lus 36; organised(zs) to provide economicinterestbv R. beforeroo
name z3; ard seeNicomedes Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus, P. money for grain distribution 22, 24; Italian interests in, in fint
Brutus seeJunius (q, zs ot z+) organises Cyrene 30, 3;f.; ferhaps no permanent century 67f.; trade beyond pro-
3jf.; sent to 6nd money for grain administradontherebeforePompey vince 7r; Caesar'swar in, with
CAECIIIUS MITELLUS NUMIDICUS, Q. purchase 37 361 consequences89f.

TT2 II3
Gracchus seeSempronius
'liberated'
Greece 5, 5z; as politi-
callv convenient 2; till 146 in-
tervention without annexation
3; Roman hegemony established
7; not much annexed rn 46 zt1'
public opinion in g; double
standard ipplied to G. and barbar-
ians ro
Hosrrlrus MANcINUS, c. kot.
r37) treaty with Numantines and
suriender ro; return and second
praetorship rr
TLLYRIÄ free allies left in 6;
triumph-hunting and small-scale
arurexltion in z3; R. in, in fint
century 68f,
ll;rly za, sz, g3Li hegemonial sPhere
oiR. by zso 6; growth ofRoman
controi over r7f.; Protection bY
R. secures privilegei abroad for
r7f., s3,6o; strongest communiry
on Delos 17, 6o; sharein Satumi-
nus' colonies fi; cannot dictate
poliry before 90 4c,,43; boundary
extended by Sulla 34; enfranchise-
ment problem 18, 53; Social'War
s+, s6, s8; effects of enfranchise-
ment, especially on ordo equester
6of., 65, Agf., Zgf.; in Senateafter
Social'War 6rf.; provincial settle'-
ment and interesls after Social
War 63f.,66f,
yuoena 78,88
-Tugurtha,KingofNumidia 5r; war
ägainst R. zsf.; connections in R'
25, 59, ggse
-fulius Caesar,C. Gos.sq) 39, 52,64f.,
68f., 8d., ro83; refers to trade in
Gaul 7r; securesrecognition for
'Auletes'
Ptolemy 74; ignores
own extortion law 8z1, war in
Gaul I ),
Pompey's example 89; profits
from war 8sf.; setdement of
Gaul after war 9of.; settlement of
the world after Civil War 9r; rwo
wars fought for personal reasons
89
-ft'nius Brutus, M, (Q. Caepio Brutus)
(pr.U) loantoSalamis 84f.; loan
to Ariobarzanes 86
Jwronia seeCarthage (C. Gracchus'
colony at)
LrcrNrus cRAssus, L. (ros. 9J)
speechon Narbo 9832
Licinius Crassus, M. (ros. 7o) urges
uurexation of Egypt 73f.; Parthian
War, irupired by Pompey's example
39, 88f.; interest in tax companies
75; tries to appear richest man in
R. 8rf.; less rich than Pompey
8zf.
Licinius Lucullus, L. (cos.74) Sulla's
quaestor in march on Rome 38;
probably corurectedwith organisa-
iion of Cyrene 3sf., 37; reftEns
Syria to Seleucids g, %f; farir
settlementofAsia ruins him 63,66;
ambitious and unconventional 3f.;
not expansionist l8f.; misinter-
preted by Ferrero 3?; and by
Frank zo
Licinius Murena, L. (pr- year un-
known) restrained by Sulla 33f.
Licinius Murena, L. (cos.6z), son of
orecedinq Cicero's client 6r
Lisuda *ild ttiU"t frontier 4, ro, 54
Liäus Drusus, M. (rt. pl. gi ro58,
;.c67
Luolius, C., poet deßnesuirtus rz
Lucullus seeLicinius
MAcEDoNIA 2, 52i hegemony
of R. over 7a broken up, with
tribute halved, after war with Per-
seus 3, r8f,; royal minesthentem-
porarily closed 18, 6o; reunited
by rebel Andriscus 9; arurexation
oä"..t".y after his defeet gf., zr
Mamilius Limetanus, C. (tr. pl. rcg)
establishesquaestio 26, 4r
Mancinus seeHostilius
Marcius Philippus, L. (cos.9r) oppo-
sesItalian enfranchisement 6r
Marius, C. (cos. ro7) intrigues for
consulship 5r; has canal dug
for Massilia's benefit 24; warns
Mithridates in Cappadocia 32, 53;
given augurate in absence 32i
involved in outbreak of First
Mithridatic War? J8f.; setdements
in Africa 5rf.; Equestrianconnec-
tions 42, S2i connection with
Antonius 52; connections with
Italians j3; not expansionist, yet
popular 24,26f.,29, 4o
Marx, K. 16, 18
Massilia loyal ally, given economic
privileges 2c., 24; protects ura
Domitia 24, z9
Metellus seeCaecilius
Mithridates VI Eupator, King of
Pontus 39, 7oi early policy in
Asia 3rf,; meets Marius in Cappa-
'free'
docia 32, s3; ordered to
Cappadocia andPaphlagonia 3zf.;
outbreak of first war with R. 56f.;
orders slaughter of Italians in Asia
66; treary with Sulla 33; pre-
vents investment in Asia 73
Mommsen, Th. 2,34,78
Mucius Scaevola (Pondfex), Q. k*.
9J) sent by Senate to reorganise
Asia ro, 3r, 48, j4
Murena seeLicinius
NARBo MARTIUs 68; founded
for military and social purposes
(perhaps c. rr5) 24, Sri Senate
opposition to 24,46
Nicomedes III Euergetes, King of
Bithynia ally, tllen enemy, of
'free'
Mithridates 3rf.; orderedto
Paphlagonia 3zf.; his subjects
enslaved by Romans 54,73
Nicomedes IV Epiphanes,King of
Bithynia S6f.,8z
Numidia 32, p, 49i war against
Jugurthain zsf.; no annexadon
altcr war 27, 29, 'ti veterans
settledthereby Saturninus42,5rf,,
J3
relrracorre 38; occupied by
'freed'
Midridates and Nicomedes,
by R. 3rf.
Parthia 7, 38, 39i negotiationswith
Sulla JJf., 88; Pompey'streat-
ment of 75, 88f,; M, Crassus'
athckon 88f.; notstrongenough
to attackR. 89
Pergamum J, 48; chiefbeneficiary
in Syrian'War 2l in disfavour
after war with Perseus 3; settle-
ment after annexationby R. zzf.
(andseeAsia); connectionof royal
6milywithGracchi z{., 47; ar'd
seeAttalus
Perseus, King of Macedon war with
Rome 3, ro
Philip V, King of Macedon R.'s
attempt to make peacewith him
fails 6f : causesof R.'ssecondwar
with him 6; defeated$96) z
Philippus seeMarcius
Piso seeCalpurnius
Polybius of Megalopolis, historian
deportedto Italy 3; works out
details of seftlement of Greece
ß+als) zri rePortstreatiesbe-
tweenR. and Carthage 5, 9412
'Porn-
PompeiusMagnus, Cn. (:
pey') (cos.7o) 34, 36, 37, 64f.,
87f., ror25; Sullan methods in
youth 8of., rogle; confiscates

rr4 IIJ
 land in Gaal 67; reverses Lucul- Ptolemy (XI) Äexander tr, King of Satuminus seeAPPuleius for massmurders in Spain ro,
lus' arrangements 38; founds Egypt sentto Egypt by Sulla 3r, Scaevola seeMucius gizsf" becomeshonouredorator
colonies in East J2; his arrange- roo4 Scaptius, M. Brutus' financial agent IO
ments in East 77; secures vast Ptolemy (XII) NeosDionysos
ysos ('Aule-
( aaue- 84f. Syria returnedto Seleucidsbylucul-
increase in revenues, especially tes'),-King of Egypt borrows to Scaurus seeAemfius lus 39, 7o; annexation by Pom-
through client princes ZBf.; obtain recogniaot 7f.; expelled, Scipio seeCornelius pey not due to Equites 7of.; due
"rranje-ents in Syiia 7i; makes borrowsmorefor restoration 74f., Seäpronius Gracchus, C. (tr. pl. n3) io'traditional t.itons 74f., 77;
andbieakstrearywithParthia88; 83; restoredbyGabinius,appoints zi, +o, S+; extortion law 4r; Pompey's tax arrangements there
profits of easterncampaigns 8r; Rabiriusfinanceminister 74 scheme of administrative reform 75; M. Scaurus in 8Zf.; M.
iurp.s.r M. Crassus iniäth az; Ptolemy Apion, King of Cyrene 45t., 49f., toztz; its breakdown Crassus'province 88f.
Ariobarzanes' debt to him 8zf.; leaves kingdom to R. zgf., 5of.; his colony at Carthage 24,
opposition to him in R. 39; rooa; andye Cyrene rrcRANEs r ('the Great'), King of
trf., 98s2; establishesPeople s right
alleeedrepresentative of Equestrian PulcherseeClaudius,Clodius to profit by empire 36, 44t., 48t., Armenia 39, 88
imp"erialism 7ci; exaniple to Pyrrhus, King of Epirus war with 76, 79; ihplicitions of this for Tralles, ciry of Asia 47, 66
Crassus and Caesar 88f. R. 6 provinces Transalpina seeGaul
46; pushedto conclttsion
-by
Pomponius Atticus, T. 2c, g7r4i Clodius and Pompey z6f.; Tullius'Cicero, M. (cos.63) \ 47, s3,
plelds with Cicero to collect QUINcrrusFLAMIMNUs, r. (cos.r98) eitablishes power of Equites Jo, 67,69,74,79,86f., 89, 9714; arouses
'liberation' 'makei sympathy for Roman clients against
Brutus' debt 8s; expectsspecial policy of of Greece 2; 6o: state two-headed' 26,
dispensationfrom debilaw ioTaa conferswith Antiochus III's envoys 6r, ggas foreigners g; on prohibition of
Pontirs plunderedby Nicomedes[V in Rome T discoverspower of SemproniusGracchus,Ti. (tr. p\.43) vine and olive culture in Gaul rgf.,
for Roman benefit ir; annexa- Greek public opinion ro 68; on C. Gracchus 4jf.;
z i , 3 o , 4 o , J r , J 4 , 9 i 3 1 , 9 7 2 1 ;u s e s on
tion necessaryafter Mithridates' Attalus' bequestfor his plans zrf., importance of Asia 47,67; p.reises"
deftat :8; made province by RABIRTus PosruMus, c. (pr. 48?) 44f.; assertiPeople'sright to profit Equestrian iuries Jo; on rise ot
'Auletes' non-noble tä consulship 6r; advice
Pompey 7s, 77; arrAseeMithri- agentfor Ptolemy 74, 83; by empire 16, uf., 49,76f.
datei defendedby Cicero 74 Servilius-Caepio, Q. (cos. ro6) fails to brother in Asia 6l; attests
PorciusCato, C. (cos.rr4) convicted Rhodes_powerfirl ater SyrianWar to reconcile Senateand Equites 6z power of provincial Romans 63f.;
jo z; humiliated after war with Servilius Rullus, P. (tr. p\.63) land on confiscations in Gaul 67; op-
PorciusCato ('Censorius'),M. (cos. Perseus3 bllof n poses Rullus' btll ll; in Cilicia,
r95) opposedby ScipioNasica(?) Rostowzeff,M. ro7'ri on'economic ServiliusVatia, P. (cos.79) Isaurian involved in debts owed to Pompey
4; attacks Galba ro; trading imperialism' in second century conquests of 35 and Brutus 8zf.; social back-
'hegemonial -
interests 4r tgf., 7o, 96r; on Si.ily 23, 52; madeprouincia 8; sronnd tohis concordiaordinum6zf.
PorciusCato ('Uticersit'),M. (pr. Sq) imperieli.sm'94e; on enfranchise- probablyprofitablefor R. 8, r8, Trilius Cicero, Q. kr. 6z), brother of
ment of Italy 6S; on R. and 'hei' rllies left there 6; preceding receives advice on
8+; annexesCyprus to pay for bf.;
grain distribution 77; squeezes Syria 7r, ro733 extra grain purchasedthere 36; frovinciil government from his
Iarge sum out of Cyprus 77, 87; Rullus seeServilius
'iurrender slavewar in 53 brother 63
ptöpor.r Caesar's to RutiliusRufus,P. (cos.ro5) on Marius 's+; 24,62; wild tribal frontier 4,
Spain
enemy 39 99ae;prosecutionof 42, 5o maladministrationin (r7r) S; VAIERIUS FrÄccus, L. (cos. roo)
Ptolemy (VII) Euergetes('Physcon'), cruelw and perfidy in R.'s wars in in censorship (lz16) freely enrols
King of Egypt wills kingdom to sALAMIs, city on Cyprus in debt to to, 96 1*i rrr S,tlpi.iut Galba); Italians 53, ro428
R. 9210,rooz Brutus 84f.,87 fighting in (c. roo) 53; Sertorius Valerius Flaccus,L. (pr. Q) governs
Ptolemy (X) Alexander I, King of SallustiusCrispus,C. (:'Sallust') (pr. i" lO; in Civil War 6+f' Asia +Z
Egypt borrowsfrom R. 73; in a6), historian 27,35f.,tr; biased Sulla seeComelius Verres,C.(pr.z+) aof.; consuls(zz)
t.-iüio, *illr kingdom to R., but onJugurthineWar zs,z7i dislikes SulpiciusGalba,Ser. (cos.44) at- try to curb his maladministration in
will not accepted 3t,73, tcr.a;ac- C. Cotta 35f. ticked by Cato ro; not punished Sicily ro,9528
ceptanceurged by M. Crasus 73f. Sardinia4; madeprouincia I
I16 r17