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

by Mike Duncan

THE CITIZENS OF Rome did not know what they were getting into when they rejected the Italian citizenship bill. Given the surprise they all showed when the Social War erupted under their feet, they were clearly oblivious to the ramifications of dropping the bill. For the Romans, it was just another rejection in a long series of rejections of Italian citizenship. No big deal. But for the Italians it was the last straw.32 Ignorant of the hornet’s nest they had just bashed with a stick, it slowly dawned on the Romans that something might be wrong. At the very least, Silo and his march of ten thousand men was enough to put the Senate on notice that something was happening out there. So after Drusus’s murder, the Senate dispatched agents to various Italian cities to take the temperature of the Allies. Most of these agents reported no trouble at all—at least on the surface. But in the city of Asculum, located on the far side of the Apennines northeast of Rome, a report came in that Roman citizens had been seized as hostages. A praetor hurried to the city to investigate. With the residents of Asculum on the verge of revolt anyway, they attacked the praetor and murdered him. Then the insurrectionaries rampaged through the city killing any other Roman citizen they could find. These murders marked the beginning of the revolt of Asculum and the beginning of the Social War.33 The speed with which the revolt spread is a testament to how long the Italians had been planning. A wide cresce...