The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

by Mike Duncan

Who is there so feeble-minded or idle that he would not wish to know how and with what constitution almost all the inhabited world was conquered and fell under the single dominion of Rome within fifty-three years?

What truly bound all Romans together, though, were unspoken rules of social and political conduct. The Romans never had a written constitution or extensive body of written law—they needed neither. Instead the Romans surrounded themselves with unwritten rules, traditions, and mutual expectations collectively known as mos maiorum, which meant “the way of the elders.”

When the Republic began to break down in the late second century it was not the letter of Roman law that eroded, but respect for the mutually accepted bonds of mos maiorum.10

Polybius argued that beyond their obvious military prowess, the Romans lived under a political constitution that had achieved the perfect balance between the three classical forms of government: monarchy—rule by the one; aristocracy—rule by the few; and democracy—rule by the many.22 According to Aristotelian political theory, each form of government had its merits but inevitably devolved into its most oppressive incarnation until it was overthrown. Thus a monarchy would become a tyranny, only to be overthrown by an enlightened aristocracy, which slid to repressive oligarchy until popular democracy overwhelmed the oligarchs, opening the door for anarchy, and so back to the stabilizing hand of monarchy again.

The practical Romans, however, did create an emergency office called the Dictatorship. In times of crisis, the consuls could pass power to a single man who would hold absolute power in order to deliver Rome from danger. And this did not just mean foreign threats: the first dictator was appointed due to plebeian unrest in Rome rather than threat from a hostile neighbor. But, critically, the Dictatorship expired after six months. As the Romans held an implacable hatred of kings, the Senate authorized any citizen, at any time, to kill another citizen caught seeking regal power. For nearly five hundred years Roman dictators never failed to lay down their power.25

But though Polybius was a gifted theorist, by the time he was writing his history in the mid-100s the balance he admired had already been disrupted. The Senate had emerged from the Punic Wars stronger than it had been since the First Secession of the Plebs in the 400s. During the Punic Wars the annual changeover of senior military commanders became a hindrance to war planning and the Senate collectively began to take the lead in developing and executing policy. The senators also became adept at ensuring subservient clients were elected tribunes. By the end of the Punic Wars the consuls, the tribunes, and Assemblies no longer acted as a check on the Senate, but as an extension of it. Even as Polybius wrote his paean to Roman constitutional balance, the senatorial aristocracy was sliding into repressive oligarchy.28

“Audacity combined with weakness should be called madness.”

According to Roman tradition Aemilianus then quoted a line from Homer: “A day will come when sacred Troy shall perish, And Priam and his people shall be slain.” Aemilianus knew that no power endures indefinitely, that all empires must fall, and that there is nothing mortals can do about it.44

Thieves of private property pass their lives in chains; thieves of public property in riches and luxury. CATO THE ELDER1

Aemilianus was living proof of what a charismatic and well-connected general could do. Marius, Sulla, and Caesar all followed Aemilianus’s basic principles of operations: raise a personal army and then use the Assembly to legislate your opponents into oblivion.

Citizens were not called “good” or “bad” according to their public conduct because in that respect they were all equally corrupt; but those who were wealthiest and most able to inflict harm were considered “good” because they defended the existing state of affairs.

As a matter of fact, to one who aspires to power the poorest man is the most helpful, since he has no regard for his property, having none, and considers anything honorable for which he receives pay.”

Why, my son, do you so long for Ambition, that worst of deities? Oh, do not; the goddess is unjust; many are the homes and cities once prosperous that she has entered and left to the ruin of her worshippers.

“How can you be an honest man,” they said, “when your father left you nothing, and yet you are so rich?”

Before he left for the north, Caepio took care of some business on the optimates’ behalf. Likely with support from Scaurus, Caepio carried a bill through the Assembly to roll back the power of the Equestrians. Ever since the experience with the Mamilian Commission, the nobles wanted to regain some control over the courts. Caepio’s bill did not return the jury pool exclusively to the Senate but instead split it between senators and Equestrians. Speaking in defense of the bill, Crassus gave one of his most famous addresses, one that Cicero himself studied throughout his life. In it, Crassus called for the Assembly to “deliver us from the jaws of those whose cruelty cannot be satiated even with blood; suffer us not to be slaves to any but yourselves as a people, whom we both can and ought to serve.” The bill passed.17

The generals of this later time… who needed their armies for service against one another, rather than against the public enemy, were compelled to merge the general and the demagogue. PLUTARCH1

Marius also introduced tactical improvements to the weaponry his soldiers carried, most prominently developing a new type of spear. The standard weapon carried by every soldier was usually hurled at the enemy at the outset of any battle. But the hurled weapons were often then picked up and chucked back at the Romans. So Marius developed a new type of spear using lead to join the steel tip to the wooden shaft. When it hit its mark, the soft lead would buckle and bend and leave the spear of no use to the enemy, who now also had to disentangle themselves from the awkwardly protruding projectile.20

After securing these convictions, Saturninus then passed a law establishing a new permanent court that would deal with cases of maiestas, crimes that damaged the prestige of the state. This law took the ad hoc corruption tribunals and made them a permanent fixture of public life. Any noble who took a wrong step could now expect to find himself brought before the new court and prosecuted before a panel of Equestrian jurors on the flimsiest of pretenses. The new court would not exactly be the Revolutionary Tribunal that became such a feared tool during the French Revolution. But it was close.28

Freedom, democracy, laws, reputation, official position, were no longer of any use to anybody, since even the office of tribune, which had been devised for the restraint of wrong-doers… was guilty of such outrages and suffered such indignities.

The physical intimidation was too much for the Senate to bear, and Saturninus was brought up on charges of violating the sanctity of a foreign embassy. Facing a capital charge, Saturninus used exaggerated theatrics to mobilize sympathy in the streets. “Throwing off his rich apparel, putting on poor and sordid clothes, and allowing his beard to grow, he ran up and down to the tumultuous throngs of people throughout the city… begging with tears that they would assist him in his present calamities.” Saturninus claimed the charges were trumped up and he was really being prosecuted for “the good will he bore the people.” When the day of the trial finally arrived, an angry mob packed the Assembly, making it difficult—even unsafe—to continue. Saturninus was released before the trial even began.8

During the course of the wars he frequently doled out citizenship for acts of valor, even going so far as to enfranchise an entire cohort of Italians from Camerinum after the victory against the Cimbri. When his arbitrary—and possibly illegal—enfranchisement of his soldiers was challenged, Marius caustically retorted that “the clash of arms had prevented his hearing the voice of the law.”26

The Cretan said, “If by my help you defeat your enemies, what reward will you give me?” Caesar replied, “I’ll make you a citizen of Rome.” The Cretan scoffed: “Citizenship is considered a nonsense amongst the Cretans. We aim at gain when we shoot our arrows… so I have come here in search of money. As for political rights, grant that to those who are fighting for it and who are buying this nonsense with their blood.” The consul laughed and said to the man, “Well, if we are successful, I will give a reward of a thousand drachmae.” A Cretan could be bought for a thousand drachmae, but the Italians demanded the Romans pay in blood.

“Either strive to be stronger than Rome, or do her bidding without a word.”

The Senate then sent another group of envoys who asked Sulla why he was marching his army against his own country, to which Sulla responded: “To deliver her from tyrants.”

He said that the Republic had fallen into a terrible state of disrepair and needed to return to the virtuous constitution of their elders. A bill presented to the Assembly should first gain approval from the Senate. Voting should be heavily tilted toward major landowners. Taking a page from Drusus’s reforms, Sulla proposed adding three hundred Equestrians to the Senate to bulk up their numbers and make the institution robust and powerful again. But before he got those wider reforms dispensed, Sulla addressed more specific business. He announced that every law passed since Sulla and Pompeius declared the holiday was null and void. Sulla and Pompeius would still be consuls. Sulla would still have the eastern command. The plan to disperse the Italians throughout the thirty-one rural tribes would disappear into thin air.43

As a sign of mutual solidarity the local magistrates were to wait thirteen days after receipt of the letter and then apprehend and murder every Italian in their jurisdiction—including women and children.56 Under the circumstances, there was little anyone could do but comply. No one was going to risk the wrath of Mithridates just to save a few Italians they didn’t really like anyway. So on the thirteenth day after receiving the letter, every city across Asia arrested and systematically executed all resident Italians. Informers were offered a share of confiscated Italian property, leading neighbor to betray neighbor. Each city soon had a pile of bodies. In total, the dead numbered as many as eighty thousand people. Mithridates himself undertook the central sacrifice of this gruesome pact. Bringing out the captured Manius Aquillius, Mithridates ordered molten gold poured down his throat. There was no going back now. The massacre of the Italians was an act of calculated genocide to bind the eastern cities against Rome. Each was now individually complicit in the murder of Romans. It was now either fight and win with Mithridates, or face the vengeance of Rome alone.57

Sulla also used his dictatorial power to address the always-vital question of land distribution. The chaos of the civil wars—and Sulla’s ultimate victory—opened up wide new swaths of land in Italy for settlement for the first time in thirty years. Tons of Italian land already lay vacant thanks to the upheavals of the past few years, and Sulla also doled out heavy punishment to regions that had opposed him. Etruria, Umbria, and Samnium—deep wells of anti-Sullan resistance—were targeted for mass seizure of property and redistribution to Sulla’s own veterans.28