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

by Mike Duncan

DRUSUS AND HIS optimate backers also faced stiff opposition from one of the consuls for the year, Lucius Marcius Philippus. Philippus was an old rival of Scaurus and Crassus going back to the crisis years of 104–100. Philippus was the one who said there were only two thousand men who owned property in Italy while proposing a radical land redistribution bill of his own. In fine Roman fashion, now that a similar bill was being proposed by his enemies, Philippus opposed it vehemently. He was backed by the publicani, who rightly felt threatened by Drusus’s package of laws. On the day of the vote, Drusus had done his work well and it looked like everything was going to pass. But then, Philippus marched into the Forum and tried to shut down the Assembly. One of Drusus’s men “seized him by the throat and did not let go until blood poured into his mouth and eyes.” Philippus managed to get away but he was furious at the maltreatment of a consul.23 Given the state of the historical record, it is hard to know exactly which of his reforms Drusus managed to enact. We know he carried the land bill and grain bill, as well as the jury reform. But either because it never made it to the rostra or was voted down, the Italian citizenship bill never materialized. It appeared that the Italians were about to have their prize snatched away. Again. The Italian veterans who had served together under Marius got together with the disgruntled Equestrians who had been kicked out of Rome in 95. Their mu...