The Reaction of the Oligarchs 77–60 BC

Introduction

Nevertheless, Sulla made two mistakes: first, he spared the life of the young, spirited, and clever Gaius Julius Caesar, son and nephew of his enemies. Caesar was just entering his twentieth year when he passed through his period of proscription and exile. Sulla first marked him for death, but at the earnest entreaty of common friends he spared him. In any case, Sulla was not wrong when he said: “In that young man there are many Mariuses.” His second mistake was perhaps that he retired too soon from public life and, through dissipation, met an early death. If Sulla’s patience and foresight had matched his ruthlessness and courage, he could have saved Rome from half a century of turmoil and bestowed upon his country in 80 BC that peace, security, and orderly prosperity that Augustus later brought after Actium.

Government

Ten years after Sulla’s death, all the fruits of his labors and services were swept away. The patricians, lulled in the arms of victory, neglected the duties of government in order to amass wealth through commerce and spend it in luxury. The struggle between the “Better Sort” and the “Popular Party” continued with such violence that it sowed the seeds of another bloodbath. The “Better Sort” had made “nobility” their creed—not in the sense of “magnanimous virtue,” but in the belief that good government requires confining high offices to men whose ancestors had held high offices. They contemptuously called anyone who sought office without such a pedigree a “new man” or “upstart.” The “Popular Party” demanded that “every office be open to talent” and that all power rest with the assemblies, and that land be distributed free among veterans and the poor. Neither group believed in democracy; both sought dictatorship and both shamelessly and openly spread fear and corruption. The collegia, once organizations of mutual aid among workers, became institutions for the wholesale purchase of plebeian votes. The trade in vote-buying became so extensive that division of labor and specialization were necessary: there were those whose business was buying votes, those whose business was brokering them, and those whose business was holding the money until the votes were delivered. Cicero says that candidates, purse in hand, wandered among the voters in the “Field of Mars.” Pompey, by inviting tribal leaders to his garden and buying their votes, secured the consulship for his mediocre friend Afranius. So much money was lent to ensure the success of candidates that the interest rate rose to eight percent a month.

The courts, now under the absolute monopoly of the senators, rivaled the vote-buyers in corruption. The oath had lost its value as testimony; perjury was as common as bribery. Marcus Messala was brought to trial for securing his consulship by bribery, but he was acquitted unanimously, although his friends admitted his guilt. Cicero wrote to his son: “The administration of justice is now so thoroughly a matter of money that henceforth no one will be condemned except for murder.” He should have said: “No rich man will be condemned,” for one of the advocates of that age wrote: “If money and a good advocate are lacking, an ordinary and simple defendant will be charged with a crime he did not commit and will undoubtedly be convicted.” Quintus Calidius, a praetor, after being condemned by a jury of senators, calculated that “the jurors really could not have taken less than three hundred thousand sesterces to condemn a praetor.”

The proconsuls in the Senate, the tax collectors, the moneylenders, and the traders all, under the protection of such courts, exploited the provinces so thoroughly that their predecessors would have been moved from envy to rage. In the provinces there were a few honest and upright governors, but what could a minority do? A governor usually served for one year without salary and in that short time was forced to raise money to repay the loans he had taken out and to buy another office so that he could raise himself to the level of living like the great men of Rome. The only check on their bribery was the Senate, and even the senators were expected to remain silent, since all of them had done the same thing before or would do it afterward. Caesar, when he went as proconsul to Further Spain in 61 BC, had debts of about 7,500,000 dollars, and when he returned in 60 he paid them all at once. Cicero, who considered himself a man of strict integrity, collected only about 110,000 dollars in the year he governed Cilicia, and he wrote many letters marveling at his own moderation.

The generals who conquered the provinces were the first to profit from them. Lucullus, after his eastern campaigns, became synonymous with luxury and extravagance. Pompey brought from the same region nearly 11,200,000 dollars for the state treasury and 21,000,000 dollars for himself and his friends. Caesar brought millions in wealth from Gaul. After the generals came the tax contractors, who collected from the people in return for what they paid to Rome. When a province or city could not raise enough money from its subjects to pay the “tribute” or tax, Roman moneylenders or politicians lent the necessary funds at interest rates ranging from twelve to forty-eight percent; these sums, if necessary, could be collected by siege or seizure and plunder with the Roman army. The Senate had forbidden its members from engaging in this moneylending, but distinguished aristocrats like Pompey and saints like Brutus evaded the law by lending through agents. The province of Asia, for years, paid twice as much to the pockets of Roman men, as interest on its loans, as it paid to the tax collectors and the state treasury. The interest paid and unpaid on the money that the cities of Asia Minor borrowed in 84 to meet Sulla’s demands had by 70 grown to six times the principal. To pay this interest, cities sold public buildings and statues, and fathers and mothers sold their children into slavery, for the debtor who could not meet his obligations was tortured with instruments of torture. If any wealth remained, hordes of contractors, who had received from the Senate the right to “exploit” the mines, timber, or other resources of the province, poured in from Italy, Syria, and Greece; commerce followed the flag. Some bought slaves, some bought and sold goods, and the rest bought land and formed latifundia larger than those of Italy. Cicero, with his usual exaggeration, said in 69 BC: “No one in Gaul carries on trade without a Roman citizen’s hand in it, and no penny changes hands without passing through a Roman’s pocket.”

The ancient world had never seen a government so rich and powerful and corrupt.

The Millionaires

The commercial classes reconciled themselves with senatorial government, for they were better prepared than the aristocracy to exploit the provinces. That “harmony of the orders” or cooperation between the two upper classes, which Cicero praised as his ideal in his works, had been realized in his youth. These two classes had agreed to unite and conquer. Merchants and their aggressive agents filled the streets and basilicas of Rome and poured into the markets and capitals of the provinces. Bankers issued drafts on their agents in the provinces. They lent money for every purpose, even for advancement in political office. When the self-centered Senate became inactive, the merchants and landowners used their influence in favor of the “Popular Party,” and when the popular leaders tried to fulfill their election promises to the proletariat, they again supported the “Better Sort.”

Crassus, Atticus, and Lucullus represent the three stages of Roman wealth: acquisition, accumulation, and luxury. Marcus Licinius Crassus was of noble birth. His father was a famous orator, consul, and censor who fought for Sulla and chose death rather than surrender to Marius. Sulla rewarded his son by granting him the confiscated property of the proscribed at a nominal price. Marcus studied literature and philosophy in his youth and devoted himself diligently to the practice of law; but now the scent of money had robbed him of his senses. He organized a fire brigade, which was a novelty in Rome. His organization sent men to places where fire had broken out to extinguish it and collected their fee on the spot or bought the endangered buildings at nominal prices and then put out the fire. In this way Crassus acquired hundreds of houses and estates and rented them at high prices. After the state mines were taken out of state ownership by Sulla’s order, he bought them. Soon he increased his wealth from seven million to one hundred and seventy million sesterces, an amount equal to the entire annual revenue of the state treasury. Crassus believed that no one should consider himself rich unless he could raise, equip, and maintain an army of his own. It was his fate to become the victim of his own definition. After becoming the richest man in Rome, he still felt unhappy and coveted a high office in the government, a province, and the command of an army in one of the Asian wars. Humbly, he canvassed for votes in the streets and squares; he memorized the names of countless citizens; he practiced obvious frugality in his life; and to win over influential politicians he lent them money without interest on condition that he could recall the loan whenever he wished. Despite all his ambitions, he was a kind and generous man. He showed proper magnanimity toward his friends and, with the double wisdom that has always been characteristic of men like him, aided both political groups in Rome. He achieved all his ambitions: in 70 BC, and again in 55 BC, he became consul and governor of Syria and helped raise the great army that fought the Parthians. At Carrhae (Harran) he was defeated and, through treachery, taken prisoner and brutally killed (53 BC); the victorious general cut off Crassus’s head and poured molten gold into his mouth.

Titus Pomponius Atticus, although of noble birth, surpassed Crassus in aristocratic refinement and was richer than he. In integrity he rivaled Mayer Amschel Rothschild, in learning Lorenzo de’ Medici, and in financial shrewdness Voltaire. We first hear his name as a student in Athens whose company and knowledge of Greek and Latin poetry so charmed Sulla that the bloodthirsty general vainly tried to take him to Rome and make him his companion. He was a scholar and historian who wrote a brief history of the world and spent most of his life in the circles of Athenian philosophers, earning the nickname “Atticus” for his scholarship and philanthropy, which were characteristic of the people of Attica. His father and uncle left him about 960,000 dollars; he invested all this wealth in a large stock farm in Epirus, in the purchase and rental of houses in Rome, in breeding gladiators and secretaries and hiring them out, and in publishing books. When suitable opportunities arose, he lent his money at profitable rates, but he took no interest from the people of Athens or his friends. Men like Cicero, Hortensius, and Cato the Younger entrusted their savings and the management of their finances to him and respected him for his caution and integrity and the share of profit he paid. Cicero eagerly accepted his advice not only in buying a house but also in choosing statues to adorn it and in buying books. Atticus was economical in his entertainments and lived with the modesty of a true Epicurean; but his good nature in friendship and his learned company made his house in Rome the salon of all the luminaries of the political world. He aided all political groups and his name never appeared on the lists of the proscribed. At the age of seventy-seven, finding himself afflicted with an incurable and painful disease, he starved himself to death.

Lucius Licinius Lucullus, of a distinguished patrician family, came to Sulla’s aid in 74 BC to finish his war against Mithridates. Then, just as his campaign was nearing victory, his weary troops mutinied, and he led them through dangers as great as those that immortalized Xenophon from Armenia back to Ionia. When he was removed from command through political intrigue, he spent the rest of his life in peace but extravagant luxury. He built a palace on the Pincian Hill with halls, porticoes, libraries, and vast gardens; in Tusculum his estates were extended for several miles; at Misenum he bought a villa for ten million sesterces and turned the entire island of Nisida into his summer resort. His gardens were famous for the innovations he introduced in horticulture; for example, he brought the cherry tree from Pontus to Italy, and from there it spread to northern Europe and America. His banquets were the great events of the Roman year. Once Cicero wanted to see how Lucullus ate in private; so he asked Lucullus to invite him and a few friends to dinner, but made Lucullus promise not to tell his servants of the guests’ arrival. Lucullus agreed and only asked permission to tell his servants that he would dine that night in the Hall of Apollo. When Cicero and his friends arrived at Lucullus’s house that evening, they found a sumptuous table spread. Lucullus had several dining rooms in his city palace, each reserved for a separate banquet. The Hall of Apollo was always reserved for banquets that cost two hundred thousand sesterces or more. But Lucullus was not a glutton. His houses were treasure houses of choice works of art, and his libraries were resorts for scholars and friends; he himself was well versed in ancient literature and in all branches of philosophy and naturally preferred the moderate Epicurean philosophy, which he later expanded in his treatises on religion, government, friendship, and old age. He mocked Pompey’s laborious life; to him one campaign was enough for a lifetime and anything more was mere self-advertisement.

Lucullus’s style, without his taste, became fashionable among the rich of Rome; soon the patricians and nobles vied with one another in displays of luxury. While revolts broke out in the impoverished provinces and men died of hunger in the slums, senators slept until noon and rarely attended sessions. Some of their sons dressed and walked like courtesans, wearing flowing gauze robes and women’s sandals, adorning themselves with jewels, sprinkling perfume on their bodies, and avoiding marriage or fatherhood. Both men and women imitated the Greek custom of interest in both sexes. The cost of senators’ houses reached ten million sesterces; Clodius, the leader of the plebeians, built a villa costing fourteen million eight hundred thousand sesterces. Advocates like Cicero and Hortensius, despite the Cincian law forbidding legal fees, rivaled one another in house-building as in oratory; Hortensius’s garden included the largest collection of wild animals in Italy. All the ostentatious nobles had villas at Baiae—where the aristocracy bathed—enjoyed the view of the Bay of Naples, and for a time abandoned the custom of single dining. Other villas rose on the hills outside Rome; the rich had several villas and moved from one to another with the seasons. Wealth was spent on the interior decoration and furniture or silverware of the houses. Cicero paid five hundred thousand sesterces for a table of citrus wood; a million sesterces was sometimes spent on a table of cypress wood; it is said that even Cato the Censor, the sturdy pillar of all Stoic virtues, paid eight hundred thousand sesterces for Babylonian tapestries for his tables.

In these palaces groups of trained slaves—servants, letter carriers, lamp lighters, musicians, secretaries, physicians, philosophers, and cooks—served. Now gluttony became the main occupation of the aristocracy’s minds; according to the moral code of Metrodorus in Rome, “every good thing had some relation to the stomach.” At a banquet given by a high priest in 63 BC, in which the Vestal Virgins and Caesar also participated, the appetizers consisted of two heaps of oysters, mussels, sea urchins with asparagus, fat chickens, Adriatic shellfish, purple shellfish, venison, and singing birds. The main course included sow’s udders, boar’s head, fish, duck and teal, hare, and cakes and pastries. From various parts of the empire and other countries all kinds of edible animals were brought. Peacocks from Samos, francolins from Phrygia, cranes from Ionia, tuna from Chalcedon, eels from Gades, oysters from Tarentum, dogfish from Rhodes. Food prepared in Italy itself was considered vulgar and fit only for the common people. The actor Aesopus gave a banquet at which singing birds costing about five thousand dollars were consumed. Laws limiting personal expenses still forbade expensive foods, but no one paid any attention to them. Cicero tried to observe these laws, so he ate the vegetables permitted by law and suffered ten days of diarrhea.

Part of the newly acquired wealth was spent on the expansion of theaters and gymnasiums. In 58 BC Aemilius Scaurus built a theater with a capacity of eight thousand spectators, containing three hundred and sixty columns and three thousand statues, and a three-story stage with three rows of columns—one of wood, another of marble, and the third of glass; his slaves, overwhelmed by the weight of the work, revolted and shortly afterward burned the theaters, causing a loss of one hundred million sesterces. In 55 BC Pompey provided the funds for building Rome’s first stone theater; this theater had seventeen thousand five hundred seats and a vast porticoed garden for the spectators’ recreation between acts. In 53 BC Scribonius Curio, one of Caesar’s generals, built two wooden theaters, each in the shape of a semicircle, one behind the other. In the morning actors performed in these theaters and then, while the spectators were still in their seats, the two buildings rotated on their axes and wheels and formed semicircular “amphitheaters” that became the arena for gladiatorial shows. These shows had never been so frequent, costly, or prolonged. In a single day in one of these shows, organized by Caesar, ten thousand gladiators participated, many of whom were killed. Beasts fought with men and men with beasts; and countless spectators waited to see death.

The New Woman

The increase in wealth, together with political corruption, helped to undermine moral foundations and break the marriage bond. Despite increasing competition from men and women, the business of courtesans continued to flourish and expand; their brothels and taverns became so popular that some politicians secured their votes through the “Brothel Association.” Adultery was so common that it rarely attracted attention unless its scandal was exploited for political purposes. Every aristocratic woman divorced at least once. Adultery was not the fault of women, but largely resulted from the custom of the upper classes treating marriage as a matter of money and politics. Men chose wives, or young men arranged for wives to be found for them, only with the intention of gaining a large dowry or marrying into prominent families. Sulla and Pompey each married five times. Sulla, wishing to make Pompey his relative, encouraged him to divorce his first wife and marry Aemilia, Sulla’s stepdaughter, who was already married and pregnant. Aemilia reluctantly agreed, but died shortly after entering Pompey’s house during childbirth. One of the conditions for establishing the First Triumvirate between Caesar and Pompey was that Caesar give his daughter Julia to Pompey, and so it was done. Cato lamented that the Roman Empire had become a marriage brokerage. These marriages were called “political marriages,” and as soon as their purpose was achieved, the husband sought another wife to advance one more step toward higher office or greater wealth. A man did not need to give any reason for this action; he simply sent a letter to his wife announcing her freedom and his own. Some men never married and cited their aversion to the boldness and extravagance of the new-style women as the reason for this avoidance. Metellus Macedonicus, the censor (131 BC), urged men to regard marriage as a duty to the government, even though a wife might be “a source of torment.” But after he made this plea, the number of unmarried men and childless fathers and mothers increased more rapidly than before. Childbearing had now become a luxury that only the poor could afford.

Under such circumstances women could not be blamed. If they despised the marriage contract and sought in the arms of their lovers the love and affection that political marriage did not bring them. Of course the majority were virtuous women, even among the nobility; but the new freedom undermined the old principle of “paternal authority over children” and the ancient family system. Roman women were now as free as men in their promiscuity. They wore transparent silk garments from China and India and searched every corner of Asia for perfumes and jewels. The cum manu form of marriage (in which the wife was completely under her husband’s power) disappeared, and women divorced their husbands as easily as men divorced their wives. An increasing number of women tried to shine through the acquisition of learning: they learned Greek, studied philosophy, wrote poetry, spoke in public; they acted in theaters, sang, danced, and held literary salons; some also engaged in commerce and others practiced medicine and law.

Clodia, the wife of Quintus Caecilius Metellus, was the leader of the women who in this period always had, in addition to a husband, a crowd of “attendant cavaliers.” Her interest in women’s rights was mixed with liveliness. After she married, her wandering without supervision among her male friends alienated the older generation; in these wanderings, instead of lowering her head like chaste women and hiding her face in her carriage, she bumped into men she had previously seen and known and sometimes kissed them in public. While her husband, like the Marquis du Châtelet, faithfully absented himself from his house, she invited her lovers to banquets. Cicero, whose word cannot be trusted, “describes her loves, adulteries, debaucheries, singing and chanting, and banquets and drinking parties at Baiae, on land and sea.” She was an intelligent woman who could yield to sin with irresistible charm, but she underestimated men’s self-love. Every lover adored her to the point where his passion cooled, and when Clodia found another friend, her former lover became her blood enemy. Thus it was that Catullus (if we take Clodia to be his Lesbia) reproached her with his abusive lampoons, and Caelius, referring to the low fees of poor courtesans, called her the “woman of a quarter as” (about one and a half cents). Clodia accused Caelius of attempting to poison her; Caelius hired Cicero to defend him; and the great orator, without hesitation, called Clodia an adulteress and murderess and claimed that he himself “had no quarrel with women, let alone a woman who has been the friend of all men.” Caelius was acquitted, and Clodia, on the charge that she was the sister of Publius Clodius, the most reformist political leader in Rome and Cicero’s implacable enemy, paid a fine.

Another Cato

Among this corruption and debauchery only one man remained a symbol and teacher of the old ways. Marcus Porcius, surnamed Cato the Younger, by learning Greek, disobeyed one of his ancestor’s orders; from his study of Greek works he drew the Stoic philosophy, which agreed with his republican beliefs and his uncompromising ascetic life. He inherited one hundred and twenty talents (about 432,000 dollars), but he always lived in simplicity. He lent money, but took no interest. He did not have his ancestor’s harsh temper and alienated people with what they saw as stubborn incorruptibility and untimely addiction to principles. His life was in fact a judgment on the lives of others; people wished that Cato, out of a little regard for human habits, would sin a little. When Cato “lent” his wife Marcia to his friend Hortensius—to the extent that he divorced her and then participated in the marriage ceremony with Hortensius—and then, when Hortensius died, married Marcia again, people should have been pleased; because in this way Cato, like the Cynics, presented woman merely as a tool for satisfying bodily needs. Cato could not be popular because he was the implacable enemy of all wrongdoing, the staunch defender of the principle of “paternal authority over children,” and a sterner “censor of morals” than Cato the Censor himself. He rarely laughed or smiled, never thought of winning people’s hearts, and harshly rebuked anyone who tried to flatter him. Cicero says that Cato could not attain the consulship; because instead of living like a Roman among the “rabble born of Romulus,” he behaved like a citizen of Plato’s ideal state.

As quaestor (treasurer) Cato struck terror into the hearts of the incompetent and the dishonest and protected the treasury against all political raids; even after his term of office ended, his vigilance did not diminish. He accused all groups of wrongdoing and thus made thousands of admirers but rarely one friend. As praetor he persuaded the Senate to issue a decree that all candidates must appear before the court shortly after the election and, under oath, report in detail their expenses and actions during the election campaign. This decree so disturbed many politicians who had come to power through bribery that when Cato appeared in the Forum the next day they showered him with abuse and stoned him. Cato then mounted the speaker’s platform and, with a determined face, faced the people and forced them to submit by the power of his speech. When he became tribune he attacked Macedonia with his legion; while his attendants rode, he walked. Cato despised the commercial classes and defended the aristocracy or government by birth, because he saw it as the only remedy against plutocracy or government by wealth. He relentlessly fought those who were ruining Roman government with money and Roman character with luxury and also, to his last breath, resisted every attempt by Pompey or Caesar to establish a dictatorship. When Caesar overthrew the Republic, Cato, with a philosophical book at his side, killed himself.

Spartacus

Now governmental corruption reached its peak, and democracy sank to a depth rarely matched in the history of governments. In 98 BC the Roman general Didius repeated the conquest of Sulpicius Galba; that is, he lured a tribe of discontented people to a camp in Spain on the pretext that he wanted to register their names for land distribution among them. Then, when the discontented people arrived there with their women and children, he killed them all. When he returned to Rome he was received by the populace like a victorious general in war. A Sabine official in the Roman army, named Quintus Sertorius, who had become deeply disgusted with the savageries of the empire, joined the Spaniards, organized and trained them, and defeated legion after legion sent to suppress them. For eight years (80–72 BC) he ruled a rebellious country and won the affection of the people with his just rule and the establishment of schools for the education of its youth. Metellus, the Roman general, offered one hundred talents (about 360,000 dollars) and twenty thousand acres of land to any Roman who would kill him. Perperna, a Roman refugee in Sertorius’s camp, invited him to dinner and then killed him and took command of the army Sertorius had trained. Pompey was sent against Perperna and easily defeated him; Perperna was executed, and the exploitation of Spain began again.

The next revolution came not from free men but from slaves. Lentulus Batiatus had established a school for training gladiators in Capua and taught slaves or condemned criminals the art of fighting beasts or one another for killing and being killed in public arenas or private houses. Two hundred of them attempted to escape; seventy-eight succeeded and seized a ridge of Mount Vesuvius and attacked neighboring cities to obtain food (73 BC). They chose as their leader a Thracian named Spartacus, who, according to Plutarch, “was a man not only spirited and courageous but superior to his fellows in understanding and nobility.” He sent a message to the slaves of Italy to rise in revolt. Before long seventy thousand men thirsty for freedom and revenge gathered around him. He taught them to make weapons and fight with such discipline that the rebels were able to defeat every force sent against them for years. His victories terrified the rich of Italy and gave hope to the slaves of that land. Many of these slaves tried to join him. But after Spartacus increased his force to one hundred and twenty thousand, he refused to accept more volunteers, for he found it difficult to supervise them. He led his army toward the Alps with the intention that when all the slaves had crossed that mountain each slave would return to his home. But his followers had no such delicate and conciliatory feelings and, after revolting against their leader, began to plunder the cities of northern Italy. The Senate then sent both consuls with sufficient forces against them. One army met a band of slaves who had left Spartacus and killed them all. Another army attacked the main rebel force and was defeated. Spartacus again took the road to the Alps and met a third force under Cassius and routed it; but when he saw other legions in his path he turned south and headed for Rome.

Half the slaves of Italy were on the verge of revolt, and no one in the capital could say when the revolution would break out, even in his own house. The entire pampered city, which enjoyed all the luxuries that slaves could create, trembled at the thought that it might lose everything—dominion, property, and life. Senators and millionaires called for a more capable general; but few stepped forward, for everyone feared this new enemy. Finally Crassus came forward and took command of an army of forty thousand men. Many aristocrats, who had not yet completely forgotten the traditions of their class, volunteered for this army. When Spartacus realized that a country had mobilized against him and that his men would never be able to administer an empire or a capital, he passed Rome and took the southern road to Turia, hoping to transport his men to Sicily or Africa. In the third year he again repelled all attacks. But again his impatient soldiers revolted against him and began to plunder neighboring cities. Crassus attacked these plunderers and killed them all, twelve thousand three hundred in number, who fought to the last breath. At the same time the legions of Pompey, returning from Spain, came to the aid of Crassus’s forces. Spartacus, despairing of victory over this vast host, attacked Crassus’s army and, throwing himself into the heart of the enemy force, accepted death. Two centurions (commanders of companies of one hundred or centuria) fell by his hand; he, after receiving a blow and being unable to rise, continued to fight on his knees; finally he was so cut to pieces that his body was unrecognizable. The vast majority of his followers fell with him, and some fled and were trapped in the forests of Italy. Six thousand prisoners were crucified along the Appian Way from Capua to Rome (71 BC), and their rotting corpses hung for months until the gods were appeased and the slaves learned their lesson.

Pompey

When Crassus and Pompey returned from this battle, they did not, as the Senate wished and the law commanded, free or disarm their troops at the gates. These two, while encamped outside the city walls, asked permission to stand for the consulship without entering the city, which was also a breach of another tradition; moreover, Pompey asked for land for his soldiers and a triumph for himself. The Senate rejected this demand, hoping to set one general against the other. But Crassus joined hands with Pompey and both suddenly allied with the “Popular Party” and the commercial class and, with lavish bribery, won the consular elections in 70 BC. The influential men united with two immediate aims: first, to regain control of the juries that tried them; second, to replace Lucullus—who had governed eastern Rome honestly and without expectation of profit—with a man of their own class and outlook. They therefore found Pompey the ideal man.

Pompey was now thirty-five years old and had passed through the furnace of many battles. Born into a noble and wealthy family, he had made himself universally popular through his courage, moderation, and mastery of every branch of sport and war. He had cleared Sicily and Africa of Sulla’s enemies and, by virtue of his victories and pride, had earned the title Magnus or “the Great” from that witty autocrat. Before his beard had grown he had achieved a victory. He was so handsome that Flora, a Roman courtesan, said she could never say goodbye to him without biting him. He was a sensitive and modest man who blushed when he wanted to address a crowd; but in his later days he was bold and courageous in battle. In later life his shyness and corpulence hindered his command, and he hesitated so much that he finally lost. His mind was neither brilliant nor profound; his policies were made by others, not himself—first by the “Popular” politicians and then by the influential senators. His enormous wealth protected him from crude political temptations and, with his patriotism and integrity, he shone like a jewel in the sea of self-interest and corruption of his age. His great fault was pride. His early victories led him to think more highly of his own merit than it deserved and to wonder why Rome was so slow in granting him an office that lacked only the name of king.

The two companions of Sulla, now consuls together, devoted all their energy to repealing the Sullan constitution. Pompey and Crassus, by passing a bill to restore all the powers of the tribunes, paid their debt to the “Popular Party.” With Lucullus’s guidance they secured the complete transfer of the tax-collecting duty in the East to agents, strengthened their alliance with the merchants, and supported a law that divided the selection of jurors equally between the Senate, the equestrian class, and the treasury tribunes. Crassus was forced to wait fifteen years for his reward, which was the concession of the gold mines of Asia. Pompey received his reward in 67 BC, when the assembly gave him unlimited powers to suppress the Cilician pirates. For a time the island of Rhodes had kept these plunderers away from the Aegean Sea; but Rhodes was now so crushed and plundered by Rome and Delos that it could no longer provide the fleet necessary for this task, and the landed aristocracy, which controlled the Senate, was not very interested in maintaining the security of the trade routes. The merchants and the common people felt the effects of this situation more keenly: in the Aegean, and even in the central Mediterranean, commerce became almost impossible and grain imports decreased so rapidly that the price of wheat in Rome rose to twenty sesterces or three dollars per bushel. The pirates, using golden masts, purple sails, and silver oars in their thousands of ships, flaunted their victories. They captured and held four hundred coastal cities and plundered the temples of Samothrace, Samos, Epidaurus, Argos, Leucas, and Actium and kidnapped Roman officials and raided the coasts of Apulia and Etruria as well.

To meet this situation, Gabinius, Pompey’s friend, proposed a bill according to which all Roman fleets and all persons within eighty kilometers of any Mediterranean coast should be placed under Pompey’s command for three years. All the senators except Caesar opposed this bill, but the assembly approved it with enthusiasm and placed an army of one hundred and twenty-five thousand men and a fleet of five hundred ships under Pompey’s command and ordered the treasury to pay him one hundred and forty-four thousand sesterces. This bill in effect deprived the Senate of its power and ended the validity of the Sullan laws, whose aim was to restore the old order, and created a temporary monarchy that was both a prelude and a lesson for Caesar. The results of these measures strengthened the premises. Just one day after Pompey, the price of wheat fell. Within three months he had performed his task; that is, he captured the pirates’ ships, seized their forts, and killed their leaders, and yet he made no improper use of his extraordinary powers. The merchants regained their courage and commerce on the seas began again, and a river of gold flowed toward Rome.

While Pompey was still in Cilicia, his friend Manilius presented a bill to the assembly to transfer the command of all the armies and provinces, then (66 BC) held by Lucullus, to Pompey and to extend his powers according to the Gabinian law. The Senate resisted, but the merchants and moneylenders strongly supported this proposal. They hoped that Pompey would be less conciliatory than Lucullus toward their debtors in Asia and would entrust the collection of taxes to agents and would conquer not only Bithynia and Pontus but also Cappadocia, Syria, and Judea and that these fertile plains, under the protection of the Roman sword, would become the playground of the lords of trade and money. Marcus Tullius Cicero, one of the “new men,” who that year had been elected praetor with the help of the commercial class, spoke in defense of the Manilian law and, with a bold eloquence unmatched in Rome since the Gracchi and with a sincerity that moved politicians, attacked the influential group in the Senate:

The entire system of credit and finance that operates here in Rome is inseparably linked with the revenues of the Asian provinces. If these revenues are lost, our credit system will collapse. If a group loses all its wealth, many others will be dragged down with it. Save the country from such a calamity. … Fight with all your might against Mithridates, for in this way the greatness of Rome’s name, the security of our allies, our valuable revenues, and the prosperity of countless citizens will be properly preserved.

The assembly promptly approved the proposal. The common people did not care about the wealth of the capitalists, but they saw the granting of extraordinary powers to a general as the only way to repeal the Sullan laws and overthrow their old enemy, the Senate. From that moment the days of the Republic were numbered. The Roman Revolution, with the eloquence of its greatest enemy, took another step toward Caesar’s government.

Cicero and Catiline

Plutarch thought that Marcus Tullius was called Cicero because one of his ancestors had a wart on his nose shaped like a chickpea (cicer); but it is more likely that Cicero’s ancestors earned this nickname for their fame in growing chickpeas. Cicero was born in a humble village near Arpinum, between Rome and Naples, at the foot of the Apennines. His father was wealthy enough to give his son the best education of the time. He appointed Archias, a Greek poet, as Marcus’s teacher in literature and Greek, and then sent the young man to study law under Quintus Mucius Scaevola, the greatest jurist of the age. Cicero eagerly listened to the trials and debates in the Forum and soon learned the techniques and secrets of judicial oratory. He said: “To succeed in advocacy, a man must renounce all pleasures and avoid all amusements and abandon merrymaking, games, banquets, and even the company of friends.”

Cicero soon took up the practice of law himself and with his eloquent and bold speeches won the affection of the middle classes and the common people. He brought one of Sulla’s companions to court and in the heat of Sulla’s reign of terror (80 BC) harshly denounced the decrees of proscription. Shortly afterward, perhaps to escape the dictator’s revenge, he went to Greece and continued his studies in oratory and philosophy. After three pleasant years in Athens he traveled to Rhodes, where he benefited from the lectures of Apollonius, son of Molon, on rhetoric and the philosophical teachings of Posidonius. From the first teacher he learned the style of short, clear sentences that later became his characteristic style, and from the second the moderate Stoic philosophy that he later expanded in his treatises on religion, government, friendship, and old age.

When he returned to Rome at the age of thirty he married Terentia and, using her large dowry, was able to engage in political activities. In 75 BC, by his just administration as quaestor of Sicily, he distinguished himself among all. In 70 BC, after resuming the practice of law, he aroused the anger of the aristocracy by accepting the defense of the cities of Sicily and bringing a suit against Gaius Verres. He accused Verres of having, during his governorship of Sicily (73–71 BC), taken bribes for appointments and decisions, fixed the amount of individual taxes in inverse proportion to the bribe, stolen almost all the statues of Syracuse, given all the revenues of one city to his mistress, and, in short, committed so much injustice, usurpation, and theft that Sicily had become blacker than in the time before the “Slave Wars.” Worst of all, Verres had kept for himself some of the spoils that usually belonged to the tax agents. The commercial class supported Cicero in this suit, while Hortensius, the leader of the aristocracy, rose among the Roman advocates to defend Verres. Cicero was given one hundred days to gather his evidence in Sicily. He spent only fifty days on this task, but in his opening speech he presented so much damning evidence that Hortensius—who had adorned his garden with some of the statues Verres had plundered—abandoned his client. When Verres was condemned to pay a fine of forty million sesterces he fled the country. Cicero published five more speeches he had prepared, in which he boldly attacked Roman wrongdoing in the provinces. Cicero’s passion, ardor, and courage so endeared him to the people that when he ran for the consulship in 63 BC he was elected with universal approval.

Cicero, who had risen from the lower stratum of the aristocracy, naturally sided with the middle class and disliked the pride, privileges, and misdeeds of the aristocracy in government. But he was more afraid of those reformist leaders who, in his opinion, placed the principle of property in danger through their programs. Therefore, when he came to power, he based his work on the principle of “harmony of the orders,” that is, cooperation between the aristocracy and the commercial class to prevent the return of the revolutionary wave.

But the causes and forces of discontent were too deep-rooted and varied to be easily removed. Many of the poor listened to preachers of the ideal state, and some of them were ready for bloodshed. Slightly above them were the plebeians who, because of their inability to pay their debts, had lost their mortgaged property. Some of Sulla’s veterans had also become unable to pay the installments on the price of their lands and were alert for any disturbance that would bring them unearned wealth. Among the upper classes there were also insolvent debtors and bankrupt speculators who had given up hope of meeting their obligations or had no intention of doing so at all. A few revolutionaries were also sincere idealists who were convinced that only by completely overturning the situation could an end be put to corruption and injustice in the Roman government.

A man tried to create a single political force from these scattered groups. We know Lucius Sergius Catilina only through his enemies—that is, through the story of his movement as written by the millionaire Sallust and through Cicero’s vehement and abusive speeches against Catiline. Sallust considered him “a criminal man, at odds with gods and men, who had no peace in waking or sleeping, for a ruthless conscience tormented his weary mind. Therefore he had a pale color, bloodshot eyes, and a gait that was sometimes quick and sometimes slow—in short, madness was evident from his face and every look.” Usually those who fight for life or power depict the faces of their enemies in war in this way. When the struggle ends, these images are gradually moderated, but in Catiline’s case no such moderation has taken place. In his youth he was accused of deflowering one of the Vestal Virgins, the sister-in-law of Cicero’s former wife. The court acquitted the virgin, but the rumor-mongers not only did not acquit Catiline but added the story that Catiline had killed his son to please his mistress. But against these stories we can only say that four years after Catiline’s death the simple people of Rome or, according to Cicero, “the wretched hungry rabble” covered his grave with flowers. Sallust quotes the substance of one of Catiline’s speeches as follows:

From the time when the government came under the control of a powerful group … all influence, office, and wealth have been in their hands. They have left us dangers, defeat, prosecution, and poverty … what is left to us but our last breath? … Is it not more fitting that we should bravely go to meet death than that we should lose our wretched and shameful lives that have been trampled by the arrogance of others?

His program for uniting the diverse elements of the revolution was simple: “A new day, a new day,” or in other words the complete cancellation of all debts. To achieve this purpose he used all the power of Caesar; in fact he also enjoyed Caesar’s favor for a time; if we do not say that he relied on his secret support. Cicero said: “There was nothing he could not endure, no pain that could prevent him from cooperating, being vigilant, and toiling. He could bear cold, hunger, and thirst.” His enemies certainly say that he mobilized four hundred men with the intention of killing the consuls on the first day of 65 BC and seizing the government. That day came and not a leaf stirred. At the end of 64 Catiline again ran for the consulship against Cicero and fought a hard campaign. The capitalists became alarmed and sent their wealth out of the country. The upper classes all united in support of Cicero; the “harmony of the orders” that he desired lasted one year, and he was its leading advocate.

When Catiline saw that every political door was closed to him, he prepared for war. His followers secretly raised an army of twenty thousand men in Etruria and also gathered a group of conspirators in Rome, including representatives of every class, from senators to slaves, and two urban praetors named Cethegus and Lentulus. In September of the following year Catiline again ran for the consulship. The traditionalist historians relate that he plotted to kill his rival during the election campaign and at the same time to assassinate Cicero as well. Cicero, claiming that he had learned of this plot, filled the “Field of Mars” with armed guards and supervised the voting. Despite the enthusiastic support of the proletariat, Catiline was again defeated. Cicero says that on November 7 several conspirators attacked his house, but his guards drove them away. The next day, when Cicero saw Catiline in the Senate, he delivered that abusive speech that was once the talk of every child. As Cicero continued his speech, the seats around Catiline emptied one by one until he was left alone. He then silently endured the rain of slanders and harsh and merciless phrases that fell upon his head like whips. Cicero aroused all kinds of emotions; he called the nation a common father and Catiline an internal parricide in spirit. He accused him not with evidence but with insinuations and hints of conspiracy against the government, theft, adultery, and sodomy, and finally asked Jupiter to protect Rome and give Catiline eternal punishment. When Cicero’s speech ended, Catiline left the city without anyone blocking his way and joined his forces in Etruria. His general, Lucius Manlius, sent a final request to the Senate:

We call the gods and men to witness that we have not taken up arms against our country or the safety of our fellow citizens. We, the poor and wretched, who because of the oppression and cruelty of moneylenders have been left homeless and condemned to shame and poverty, have no other motive than to protect our personal safety from injustice. We seek neither power nor wealth, which are the great and apparent motives of human strife. We only want liberty, that treasure which no human being surrenders except with his life. Senators! We beg you to have mercy on your unfortunate fellow citizens!

The next day, in a second speech, Cicero called the followers of that rebel a band gathered around a few sympathetic and perfumed pimps and lavished his genius for sarcasm and abuse, ending his speech with a religious note. In the following weeks he presented documents to the Senate proving that Catiline had intended to create a revolution in the land of Gaul. On December 3 Cicero ordered the arrest of Lentulus, Cethegus, and five other followers of Catiline. On December 5 he summoned the Senate and asked what should be done with the prisoners.

Silanus voted that they should be killed. Caesar recommended only imprisonment and reminded them that the Sempronian law forbade the execution of a Roman citizen. Cicero, in his fourth speech, hinted at death in a soft tone. Cato justified this hint with his philosophy, and death prevailed. When Caesar left the Senate hall, some young aristocrats tried to take his life, but Caesar escaped. Cicero went to the prison with armed men and immediately carried out the sentences. Marcus Antonius, Cicero’s consular colleague and the father of a famous son, was sent north with a force to crush Catiline’s army. The Senate offered pardon and two hundred thousand sesterces as a reward to anyone who would leave the ranks of the rebels. Sallust says that nevertheless “not a single man left Catiline’s camp.” The battle took place in the plains of Pistoria (61 BC). Three thousand rebels fought to the last breath against a much larger force around their beloved standards, the eagles of Marius. No one surrendered or fled. All, including Catiline, died in battle.

Cicero, who was originally more a man of thought than of action, was amazed at the courage and skill he had shown in suppressing a dangerous rebellion. He said to the Senate: “It is difficult to believe that the management of such a serious matter could be the work of human reason alone.” He compared himself to Romulus, but considered saving Rome more difficult than founding it. The senators and nobles smiled at Cicero’s tone, but they knew that he had saved them. Cato and Catulus called him “the father of his country.” Cicero relates that when he left office at the end of 63, all the propertied classes of society thanked him and called him immortal and escorted him home with great respect. The proletariat did not participate in these demonstrations. Because it could not forgive his violation of the law by executing citizens—without granting them the right of appeal. And it believed that Cicero had made no effort to reduce the poverty of the masses in order to remove the causes of Catiline’s revolution. The proletariat did not allow Cicero to speak in the assembly on that last day, and when he swore that he had kept the city safe from danger, they heard his words with anger. The revolution had not ended, and with Caesar’s consulship it began again.