Transition to the Roman Empire

The **Transition to the Roman Empire** lasted from about 146 BC until 30 BC. It began with the emergence of the Roman Republic as the dominant power in the Mediterranean. It then ended, after a century of political instability and social unrest, with a single man ascending to the throne of power; Caesar Augustus, the first Roman Emperor.

For three-hundred years, the Republic had grown, contracted, grown again, survived, and thrived. Through it all, the Romans never forgot from their most founding principle; that no king shall rule in Rome. Every year men stood for election; every year free ballots were cast by free citizens; and every year power was transferred peacefully. At no point did ambitious men step outside the bounds of the constitution to seize control of the state. But alas, the Romans, for all their strength on the battlefield and moral rectitude, could not stem the tide of greed and ambition that lurks in the hearts of men in all times and all place. Roman success would be the undoing of the Republic. The leaders of Rome became more focused on personal ambition for wealth, power, and glory, rather than the stability of the state. But this story of success leading to moral decay only affected a few leading families. For the majority of Romans, the conquest of the Mediterranean meant impoverishment, not prosperity, as the Italian countryside was transformed from a land dominated by small landowners, into one of large estates worked by slaves. There was no place for poor Roman families. The gradual impoverishment of the Italian peasantry, and the deafness of the ruling elite to their plight, was to prove fatal in the end. After a century of political intrigue and violence, the dam would break, and, in defiance of all that had once been held as good and true, the exhausted Romans would fall into the safe and comforting arms of a single man, a king in all but name.

Whatever had bound the leaders of Rome to the traditional Republican institutions, and its built-in check-and-balances on power, slowly came apart. Later Romans, such as Cicero, looked back to the murder of reformer Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC a turning point for the Republic. It marked the start of a cycle of increased political violence to suppress popular reforms wanted, as in Tiberius’ rhetoric, by the people. In truth, however, Tiberius himself struck the first blow, with his wholesale abandonment of constitutional norms. The great general and statesman Gaius Marius hammered the point home, when he brazenly stood for *Consulship* after *Consulship*. His rival Sulla then struck the killing blow, when he twice marched on Rome and had himself declared "*Dictator for life*". For all his well-meaning attempt at constitutional reform, Sulla proved another step on the Republic’s fall. He showed that a naked power grab could be done; that power had a way of retrospectively legitimising even the most illegitimate of actions, because, once in power, the rules could be changes, and those who disagreed eliminated.

The generation who killed the Republic grew-up in the shadow of Sulla. Two of his leading supporters, Pompey and Crassus, formed an uneasy alliance with an up-and-coming young popularist named Julius Caesar, who eventually outshone them both. The death of Crassus broke their alliance, and the political factions realigned for a showdown between Caesar and the *Senate*. After crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC, he defeated all his enemies and had himself declared *Dictator for Life*. When it became clear that he did not intend to relinquish his unlimited power, Caesar was murdered on the Ides of March by a cabal of *Senators*, led by Brutus and Cassius. In the aftermath, Caesar's closest lieutenant Mark Antony, and his heirs Octavian, combined to defeat the remnants of the *Senate*, and then waged a civil war against one another for control of the empire. Victorious over all his enemies, Octavian transformed himself into Augustus in 27 BC, and the Roman Republic transformed into the Roman Empire.

## History

### Late Republic

From 146 BC, the focus of Roman history returns to Italy, after years abroad. The expansion of Roman rule continued, of course; southern France, for instance, was incorporated as the province of Transalpine Gaul in 121 BC. Yet the long period of a unified people holding fast against foreign threats was at an end. The counterpoint to Rome's apparently irresistible success abroad, was growing strife at home. With Carthage destroyed and Greece pacified, Rome had conquered all of the ancient powers that lay within easy reach. Ptolemaic Egypt, the Parthians, and the remains of the Seleucids, still lay beyond, but there were no great powers left to challenged Roman dominance of the Mediterranean. Though Celt-Iberian tribes long resisted Roman rule, and Gallic incursions remained a constant threat, for the most part, the hard part of winning the empire was complete. It was at this point that the Romans lost a crucial unifying force - a worthy enemy. Without some exotential threat, like a Hannibal, to keep ambitious men in check, Roman competitiveness and rivalry began to turn inward, and many of its leading figures began to look for enemies, not outside the empire, but within it.

Historians have long recognized that the political institutions of the Republic had come to work differently during the Punic Wars. Theoretically at least, the three elements of the Roman constitution existed in a balance that prevented any one element from dominating; the executive element (the *Consuls*), the aristocratic element (the *Senate*), and the democratic element (the *Popular Assemblies* and *Tribunes of the Plebs*). The *Senate* had emerged from the Punic Wars stronger than it had ever been. During prolonged warfare, the annual changeover of magistrates had become a hindrance to military planning. The example of Fabius and Varro, military commanders with diametrically opposes strategies, illustrates the confused Roman approach to the early war that had easily been exploited by Hannibal. But, after the disaster at Cannae, the *Senate* collectively began to take the lead in developing and executing policy. The *Popular Assemblies were* increasingly shut-out of decision making. The ruling class also became adept at ensuring that subservient "clients" were elected as *Tribunes*; the traditional guardians against *Senatorial* abuse. Over generations, Roman society had organized itself into a complex client-patron network, that worked down from *Senatorial* elites (patrons), through all levels of common citizenry (clients). A client could expect what we might call social welfare services (loans, pensions, and legal assistance), and, in return, he was expected to support his patron in the political arena. This can seem a trivial thing, but, in Roman politics, a great deal depended on a man's ability to turn out a favourable crowd. And these bonds were strong enough for clients to vote against their own self-interests, for his patron's preferred candidate or policy. By 146 BC, then, the *Consuls*, the *Tribunes*, and the *Assembly* no longer acted as a check on the *Senate*, but as an extension of it. One of the ways that the *Senate* wielded power was by keeping tight control on who would be elected to high offices. By the late Republic, most distinctions between *Patricians* and *Plebeians* had faded away. The sons of the old *Patrician* families had fallen is such numbers, that, by necessity, *Plebeians* who showed skill and initiative found themselves thrust into leadership positions, which they could never have dream of before. But as one aristocracy fell, another rose to take its place. A new distinction emerged: a family that could claim a *Consul* as an ancestor was now referred to as *Senatorial* ranks. Men without *Consular* ancestors were derisively called *Novus homo* ("New Men"). This new elite worked hard to ensure that their families continued to monopolize power; by 146 BC, no *New Man* had attain the *Consulship* for a generation. The Republic was sliding into closed oligarchy.

    For all these years the Republic had survived for two overarching reasons: the lower-class had not been so impoverished that they were driven to violent revolution to improve their lot in life; and the elites was united enough that their private rivalries did not spill-out into the public arena. Both of these lynchpins were to be pulled by the same hand; victory overseas. When the Second Punic War ended in 202 BC, the Italian economy began to endured a massive upheaval. The senior commanders who conquered Spain and North Africa returned home with riches on an unprecedented scale. These newly enriched Romans spent their money on luxuries that would have been unimaginable to the frugal and austere ancestors. Every few years, the *Senate* would attempt to rein in ostentatious displays of wealth, but the resulting restrictions went unheeded and unenforced; "*by a fatal coincidence, the Romans acquired both a taste for vice and a license for gratifying it*". Fifty years later, the Romans controlled, not only the Italian peninsula, but Sicily, Sardinia, Greece, Macedonia, North Africa, and Spain. For the governor of a province, or a general on campaign, the fortunes to be made, and made quickly, were immense. Much of this was legal; some was simple theft or extortion. Whatever its nature, these prizes could only be accessed through politics, since it was from the *Senate* that governors and generals were chosen. For the ruling elite, the essence of life had always been competition; wealth and votes the accepted measures of success. But the years after 146 BC began to exhibit an escalation in this competitiveness that would prove fatal in the end. The elite, which had for all these years understood that solidarity kept them firmly in charge, saw men break off to pursue their own personal ambition, forcing the others to compete or lose whatever status they had. In a way, the problem can be traced back to Scipio Africanus, who inadvertently introduced the cult of personality into Roman politics. In his time, there was no man more admire, more beloved, and more deeply hated in Rome. To some he was a great hero; to others he was arrogant, self-indulgent, and a potential threat to the stability of the state. In the face of political enemies, Scipio opted to retire from public life, disillusioned by his ungrateful peers; later prominent Roman would not back down so readily.

    But this story of fabulous riches leading to moral decay only affected a few noble families. For many Roman citizens, the conquest of the Mediterranean meant impoverishment, not prosperity. It had several causes. but the root of the matter was conscripted soldiers who had to serve in foreign campaigns that dragged on for years. The backbone of the Roman army had always been the small independent citizen farmer, who could meet the property requirement for service in the legions. After conquering half the known world, a discharged soldier would often return to find his property fallen into a state of terminal neglect. As those who had been lucky enough to amass wealth in imperial enterprise looked to invest their newly acquired riches, they found thousands of dilapidated plots just waiting to be scooped up. Many destitute families sold willingly; holdouts were often bullied into quitting their land. In the past, thing would not have been so bad for dispossessed families, who simply transitioned from small landowner into tenant farmers. But now, the same wealthy nobles who bought up all the land, brought in slaves, made cheap by wars, to work their growing estates. As Italy transformed into a fully fledged slave economy, there was no place for the poor Roman families, who had to make their way to the cities and fend for themselves as best they could. Yet as a citizen, he still had a vote. Because the road to political office still lay through popular election, to those with wealth and political ambition, he became someone to buy; or to intimidate. Thus, the politics of the Republic could hardly fail but to increasingly reflect the power of money. By 140s BC, most members of the *Senate* recognised the problem of economic dislocation, and particularly its effect on military recruitment, since conscript soldiers still needed to meet the minimum property requirement. Rome was relying on an ever-shrinking pool of manpower to fight her interminable wars and garrison her provinces. However, since most *Senates* were themselves large landowners and thus part of the problem, very few of them wanted to do anything about it. Instead, the property requirement for service were lowered to bring more men under arms; and when citizens could not meet even these lowered requirements, they were lowered again. This process would be brought to its logical conclusion in 107 BC, when the great general and statesman Gaius Marius abandoned property requirements altogether. Yet such changes had the unforseen effect of turning the army into a new kind of political force, available to men like Marius, who were able generals.

Over the past century the Republic had undergone a massive transformation without any comprehensive attempt to refit the ship-of-state to survive the new waters within which it sailed. The gradual impoverishment of the Roman peasantry, and deafness of the ruling elite to their plight, was to prove fatal in the end. The slow slide from oligarchy into tyranny began when some ambitious men realised that all they had to do was promise the masses their fair share of the pie, and they themselves could have the whole world.

### Gracchi Brothers

The first major reformer to this badly planned system was **Tiberius Gracchus** (d. 133 BC). Tiberius was firmly in the Roman ruling elite, the scion of an illustrious family. And the Gracchi were an illustrious family; over a storied career, his father had served twice as *Consul* and been awarded two *Triumphs*; while his maternal-grandfather was the great Scipio Africanus himself. Tiberius never doubted that it was his destiny to have a distinguished public career. It began promisingly enough. In 147 BC, he served under his brother-in-law, Scipio Aemilius, at the Siege of Carthage; a typical first step for a young Roman aristocrat, to learn the basics of military life. By all accounts, Yiberius served with distinction, winning a coveted award for being one of the first men over the enemy walls. In 137 BC, Tiberius was elected *Quaestor*, which was supposed to be a routine first official step on his ascent up the *Cursus Honorum*; the hierarchy of elected magistracies. Instead, it almost ended his public career. Tiberius was attached to the staff of *Consul* Gaius Hostilius Mancinus, and served his term in Spain. There, he witnessed the Spanish quagmire that the Romans had made for themselves. Roman rule in Spain, a land of lucrative silver mines, was riddled with double-dealing, extortion, and greed-driven atrocities, which continued to provoke endemic revolts among the Celt-Iberian tribes. Mancinus was a man more stateman than general, and his campaign against the Numantian revolt proved a debarcle. After a series of poorly executed skirmishes and a confused night retreat, his army found itself hopelessly surrounded, with no choice but to surrender. It fell to young Tiberius, rather than Mancinus, to negotiate the terms; the Numantian chieftains had recognised the name Gracchus, from dealings with his father a generation earlier, and trusted the son to play as fair and honourable as the father. On his second campaign and with thirty thousand lives on the line, Tiberius successfully negotiated a truce that saved the army. Though there was little else Tiberius could have done, when the *Senate* learned of the humiliating terms, both Mancinus and his officers were recalled to Rome, and severly reprimanded. Mancinus was not only stripped of his *Consulship*, but sent back to the Numantines in chains, to signal Rome's rejection of the terms. Tiberius and his fellow officers escaped official censure, but that did not spare them a tongue lashing. In contrast to the self-righteous fury of the old men, when Tiberius emerged from the Senate House, he was greeted by cheers from the families of the men he had saved. Feeling aggrieved, Tiberius stood for the *Tribunate* in 134 BC. The office was somewhat beneath his station, but he would use his term to boldly vault himself to the forefront of Roman politics. Tiberius joined a group of reform-minded *Senators*, led by his father-in-law Appius Claudius Pulcher, who sought to do something about the widening gap of rich and poor in the only way open to an agrarian economy; land reform. It was ridiculous, Tiberius argued in his public speeches that it was ridiculous for the *Senate* to send soldiers to fight for heath and home, when those very soldiers had not a foot of land to call their own; “*He told them,*” Plutarch relates, “*that they fought, and indeed died, but it was to maintain the wealth and luxury of other men*". Once elected, Tiberius proposed an ingenious piece of legislation, called the *Lex Agraria*, that would hopefully rebuild the population of small citizen-farmers. without running afoul of iron-clad private property laws. It would focus exclusively on state owned land. As the Romans conquered Italy, they typically confiscated a third of a defeated enemy's territory, much of which was illegally occupied by wealthy families; Roman law restricted a family to leasing three-hundred acres of state land. But this prohibition was largely ignored, since the magistrates tasked with enforcing it were themselves wealthy landowners; everyone colluded to get away with it. The legal rationale of the *Lex Agraria* was simple; the three-hundred acres limit would be strictly enforced; families would be forced to relinquish the excess back to the state; and the land could then be divided up into small plots and redistributed to landless citizens. The bill Tiberius proposed would have crimped the estate-building of the rich, and was naturally unpopular with the Senatorial elite. So, Tiberius opted to present the bill directly to the popular assembly (the *Assembly*), bypassing the Senate altogether. This was not strictly breaking any law, but certainly violated all constitutional norms. Tiberius would surely win the vote, so his *Senatorial* opponents hit back with their own bag of tricks; they recruited Marcus Octavius, one of Tiberius’ fellow *Tribunes*, to veto the bill. Tiberius tries various tactics to persuade Octavius to abandon his veto: publically debating him in the Forum, offering him a bribe, and even threatening to block every piece of public business until his bill was brought up for the popular vote. But when the *Assembly* once again convened, Octavius remained intractable. Never before had a *Tribune* so obstinately blocked the clear will of the people. By tradition, when past *Tribunes* had vetoed popular bills, at the next session, they withdrew it after expressing their symbolic disapproval. Alternatively, the *Senate* could mediate a compromise, but instead, they heaps abuse on Tiberius, just as they had after the Numantine debackle. As Tiberius grew more and more exasperated, he turned to radical action, introducing an unprecedented bill at the next scheduled *Assembly*. Arguing that a *Tribune* who defied the people's will was no *Tribune* at all, he moved for Octavius to be deposed from office. But Tiberius had packed the *Assembly* with his supporters, and, fearing a riot, Octavius did not veto the deposition bill. Tiberius understood that he was suborning a fellow *Tribune*. When the first tribe voted for depose, he halted the proceedings and begged Octavius to withdraw his veto, but Octavius refused; the Romans were divided into thirty-five tribes for voting purposes. The next sixteen tribes deposited their ballots; every single one for depose. On the brink of victory, Tiberius again halted the proceedings and gave Octavius one last chance. Octavius again refused, and the eighteenth tribe then cast their ballots. When the herald announced that a majority had been reached: Octavius was deposed from office. This was a fateful step in the battle over the *Lex Agraria*. Until then, Tiberius had enjoyed the support of many reform-minded *Senators*. Now he was toxic, and most were happy to set the controversial bill aside, let things cool off, and try again later. But Tiberius' future career depended on passing the *Lex Agraria*, so he could not back down. Unable to prevent the *Assembly* overwhelmingly passing the land bill into law, conservatives in the *Senate*, led by Publius Scipio Nasica (the *Pontifex Maximus*), reached into their bag of tricks onve again. Enforcing the new law meant a land commission with a small army of clerks to survey state owned land, determine ownership, and parcel it out. It was the *Senate*’s responsibility to allocate the funding, and, at Nasica's uring, they allocated a pittance. This calculated stinginess left Tiberius the captain of a boat with no oars, until fate intervened. The far-off event was the death of Attalus III of Pergamum. Pergamum, a Hellenic kingdom in western Anatolia, had been a Roman ally for more than a century, ever since the First Macedonian War. As Attalus III had no sons, and feared a civil war among his potential heirs, he willed his entire kingdom and his treasury to "the people of Rome". Tiberius was himself among the first in Rome to learn the terms of Attalus' will; his father had served as ambassador to Pergamum, and, when Attalus had once visited Rome, he stayed at the Gracchi home. Tiberius convened the *Assembly*, and announced that a portion of Attalus’ treasury would be used to fund the land commission. This bold gambit sent the *Senate* through the roof; Tiberius was attempting to wrestle state finances away from them. Soon after, Tiberius made another shocking announcement: he was going to run for re-election, claiming that he needed to protect the *Lex Agraria* from repeal, but also perhaps to retain the legal immunity his office provided. No law forbade a *Tribune* from serving consecutive terms, but it was against all precedent. To his political enemies, this was the final straw. On the morning of the elections, Tiberius was on the Capitoline Hill with his supporters, when Nasica arrived at the head of a mob of like-minded Senators and clients, armed with clubs and sticks. Tiberius' men readied for a fight, but hesitated when they saw the mob included Nasica, dressed in his formal attire as *Pontifex Maximus*. The casualties in the resulting riot were entirely one-sided. When the dust settled three-hundred people lay dead. Tiberius, of course, was the principle targetted. Though he was still a sacrosanct *Tribune*, Tiberius Gracchus was beaten to death. He was barely thirty-one. The *Senate* made no apologies for the attack. All the bodies, including that of Tiberius, were denied traditional funeral arrangements, and dumped *en masse* into the Tiber. This was, in itself, a shocking affront to tradition. But the story was now that Tiberius had been trying to make himself king; the most taboo of crimes. In just a few short months, a dangerous game of mutual brinkmanship had escalated to violent massacre. The ultimate triumph of naked force was a lesson no one could unlearn. As the ancient Greek historian Velleius Paterculus later observed, "*No one thinks a course is base for himself which has proven profitable to others*".

Tiberius would not be the only Gracchus to be reckoned with. The younger **Gaius Gracchus** (121 BC) was destined to live his life in the footsteps of his brother; a combination of family obligation and personal revenge. Gaius took his first step into public life a few months after his Tiberius' death, when he was called to defend a family friend in court. The power of his oratory was the stuff of instant legend. Plutarch makes much of the different temperaments of the Gracchi brothers. Where Tiberius was calm and composed, Gaius was vehement and exuded charisma. In public speaking, Tiberius relied on quiet empathy, while Gaius was a firebrand. Even Cicero, an unrelenting critic of the Gracchi, reckoned that Gaius was the finest orator of his generation. He pioneers a new style of oratory: he was the first Roman to address himself directly to the crowd rather than to his opponent; to pace the rostra theatrically; and to pull his toga from one shoulder in passion. Gaius' performances put the political elite on notice, and there was a general consensus that he must be kept out of Rome. He was elected *Quaestor* in 126 BC, and posted to the staff of the governor of Sardinia, where he continued to make a name for himself. During a harsh winter, he was successful in procuring supplies from the Sardinians for the hard-pressed Roman troops. When the *Senate* heard, they were not so much pleased, as fearful over what might happen should this persuasive young man return to the Forum. So they extended the Sardinian governor for another year, and it was perfectly normal for his staff to stay on with him. But then, the following year, the *Senate* extended everyone again, which was highly irregular. Gaius, suspecting the reason, broke out a highly irregular response. He simply packed up his belongings and headed back to Rome; there was nothing illegal about leaving office, but it was completely unheard of. Immediately upon his return, Gaius was hauled before the Censors to answer for abandoning his post. It was while defending himself that he delivered one of his most brilliant speeches, railing against the men accusing him of civic immorality, many of whom had used their provincial postings to oppress the locals and make themselves rich. The *Tribunate* election for 123 BC was particularly fierce as the bulk of the nobles organized their clients to oppose Gaius' election. But the broad popularity of the Gracchi name and the power of Gaius' oratory were irresistible. After what must have been years of careful preparation, Gaius Gracchus entered the *Tribunate* with a broad program of general reform. It was later said that when he was done, almost every aspect of Roman society had been touched by one or other of his reforms. He began innocuously enough by addressing an evidently pressing problem; the skyrocketing price of grain. Just as Gaius was coming to office, a plague of locusts decimated crops in north Africa, causing supply shortages in Rome. Gaius introduced legislation directing the state to purchase and stockpile grain, and then sell it to citizens for a fixed price. The *Senate* was by no means pleased, but there was nothing they could do, since the urban *Plebs* loved the bill. Further expansion of subsidized grain became their central political demand for the next hundred years, ultimately leading to the free grain doll that would be a hallmark of imperial times. With the people now fully behind him, Gaius took care of some family business with two bills; one prohibiting any magistrate deposed from office to serve as a magistrate ever again; and another reaffirming appeal to the *Assembly* in capital cases. The first was aimed squarely at Octavius, the *Tribune* whose obstinacy had contributed to Tiberius' death; though Gaius later withdrew the bill at his mother's request, or perhaps this was a stage-managed affair to establish Gracchan benevolence. The second was aimed at Publius Popillius Laenas, who had prosecuted Tiberius' surviving followers; when the bill passed, tearful friends accompanied Laenas to the gates of Rome as he departed into exile. With that, Gaius moved swiftly back to implementing his reforms. Tiberius' land commission still technically existed, but its work had been stalled for years by the Senate. Almost all the state owned land bordered some Italian ally or other, and the *Senate* had full jurisdiction over disputes with Italians. Gaius cut through the red-tape by passing a bill establishing that the land commissioners had final jurisdiction over disputed boundaries. But Gaius wanted to do much more than settle landless *Plebs* on small plots; he wanted to create a whole network of new communities. To this end, he launch a broad project to improve and extend the roads of Italy, that, in the long run, greatly improved lines of communication, supply, and trade. Gaius followed this with measures to redress the ruinous burden of military service, including a law providing the legions with adequate clothing from the public treasury; until then, the expense had been deduced from a soldier's pay. This was a small step on the century-long journey from the ad hoc armies of the middle Republic to the professional legions of Augustus. Rounding out his first term in office, Gaius took aim at corrupt provincial officials, a rampant problems that had been ignored for years. Each new governor arrived at the pinnacle of his career, often having taken on huge debts to make it this far. His one-year term was understood to be a time to remake a man's fortunes, invariably by extorting money from the provincials. The Extortion Court was supposed to investigate and punish this sort of abuse, but jurors had always been drawn from the *Senate*, who turned a blind eye. Gaius passed a law that opened the jury pool to the ranks of the *Equestrians* (the non-political rich). This earned Gaius backing from some of the richest and most influential men in Rome, who were already impressed with his public works projects. When he was done with all this legislation, Gaius succeeded where his brother had failed in winning a second term in office. As elections approached, Gaius appeared ready to pass the baton to his old friend and ally Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, who put himself forward for the *Tribunate*. With Gaius' backing, Flaccus won election easily, but then immediately resigned from office. In such cases, it was the other *Tribunes*' prerogative to assign a man to fill the vacant seat, and Gaius Gracchus was appointed. In his second term, Gaius attempted to tackled one of the thorniest issues of the day; citizenship for the Italians. He proposed that Latins be elevated to full Roman citizens, while Italian allies would be granted "Latin Rights"; citizenship without the vote. This was, of course, a radical proposition that sent shivers up the spines of the conservative nobility in Rome; they could not stand the thought of their subjects becoming their equals. As had happened to Tiberius, Gaius' enemies tapped a rival *Tribune* named Marcus Livius Drusus to do their dirty work. Drusus was himself eloquent, and persuaded the urban *Plebs* that sharing the privileges of citizenship was against their interest; since a vote had a price, extending voting rights could only devalue it. Facing a population thoroughly hostile to the bill, Gaius quietly let it die. Italian citizenship was an idea whose time had come, but it would take the devastating and pointless Social War to finally get it over the line. After this setback, Gaius focused a new colonization project, this time in the provinces. Unfortunately, this meant frequent absences from Rome, which provided an opportunity for his political enemies to plot the downfall of the troublesome *Tribune*. Gaius returned to Rome to find his personal standing had plummeted; one scurrilous rumour claimed that his new colony at Carthage was courting the wrath of the gods themselves. But, to ensure the survival of his legislation, Gaius decided against all precedent to run for a third consecutive term. On election day, he won enough votes to secure re-election, but the observers monitoring the election tripped over themselves challenging his ballots, alleging that most were fraudulent. There was nothing Gaius could do; the magistrates declared him defeated. Nearly as bad as losing the election was watching Lucius Opimius win the *Consulship*; an avowed enemy of the Gracchi. Opimius planned, not just to systematically repeal Gaius' legislation, but to provoke him into doing something illegal. Gaius tried to avoid taking the bait, but when Opimius let it be known that he was going to abandon the colony at Carthage, Gaius finally organized some of his old supporters to stage a demonstration. On the faithful morning, two rival factions converged on the the Forum in boisterous mood. One version of the story say that one of Opimius' attendants (*Lictors*) made his way through the crowd, merely bearing the entrails from a sacrifice; Plutarch claims he demanded that the Gracchan "rascals" make way and cursed their impetuousness. Both versions end the same way; an over-zealous Gracchan supported stabbed him to death with a writing stylus. The *Senate* did not take long to jump from a murder charge against the man responsible, to a charge of sedition against Gaius himself. Opimius called out the militia, while Gaius fled Rome. He made it as far as the Sacred Grove, an ancient patch of trees on the outskirts of Rome. There, Gaius Gracchus took his own life. As many as three-thousand people were identified and executed in the days to come as Opimius purged Rome of Gracchan partisans.

As the years passed the Gracchi brothers were transformed into legendary martyrs of the people. Citizens dropped offerings and sacrifices at shrines erected on the spot where each had been slain. The Gracchi name came to mean something more: a new *Populare* movement in Roman politics that harnessed the democratic power of the *Assembly*, rather than the aristocratic weight of the *Senate*. Opposing them were the *Optimates*, who represented the old oligarchic supremacy of the *Senate*. Between these two opposing worldviews the state was torn to pieces. Cicero later accused the Gracchi of introducing "*daggers into the Forum*", but, of course, the *Optimates* had murdered thousands in the name of public order. The streets of Rome would soon run red with the blood of mobs and counter-mobs, egged on by leaders who craved triumph over rivals at any cost.

### Marius and Sulla

Unlike the aristocratic Gracchi brothers, the next in line of "champions of the people" was a man from a virtually unknown provincial family. **Gaius Marius** (d. 86 BC) was born in Arpinum, a small hill town a three-day journey from Rome. Though later denigrated as "*a man of rustic birth, rough and uncouth*", he was in fact the son of a prosperous landowner, raised in comfort and privilege. But Marius was a *Novus Homo* ("New Man"), without sufficient ancestry or political connections to dream of anything more than a respectable career in local government. He wanted more, so took the only path to prominence available to a relative outsider; service in the legions. Despite his social background, Marius did have one thing going for him; he was a hereditary client of the Metelli, then one of the most important noble families in Rome. So he began his career, not as a common soldier, but attached to the personal staff of the great general Scipio Aemilianus, on the final campaign against the Numantine Revolt in 134 BC. During his service in Spain. Marius proved time and again that he was a man to be counted on; brave, dilligent, and honest. According to an oft-told tale, a friend asked Aemilianus one night where the Rome would find a man to replace him. Aemilianus put his hand on young Marius' shoulder, and said, "*Here, perhaps*". After Numantia's fall, Marius likely joined the scramble for the spoils, which in Spain meant lucrative claims to unexploited mines; that would explain how he funded an expensive political career in Rome. In 122 BC, Marius parlayed his years of military service into a successful run for a *Quaestorship*, his first step up the *Cursus Honorum*. In office, he probably served in the legions that were by then advancing into southern Gaul (or Transalpine Gaul), to establish supply and communication lines between Spain and Italy. In 109 BC, Marius transitioned from military to civilian life, winning the *Tribunate*. Against the wishes of his Metelli patrons, he pushed through a bill that restricted aristocratic interference in elections. Shortly afterwards, he vetoed a bill for the expansion of the ever-popular grain dole. Marius' political views were complicated: though he used *Populares* rhetoric as a path to power, he also burned to be accepted by the nobility, to be recognized as their equal. On leaving office, he managed to be as disliked by the radicals, as he was by the *Optimates*. But despite his shaky political instincts, Marius let his ambition propel him forward, and ran for an *Aedileship* in 118 BC (or perhaps 117 BC); and promptly lost that election. His humiliating defeat left his budding political career near death's door. But on the other side of the Mediterranean, events were unfolding that would propel him to the inner circle of Roman power.

Down in North Aftica, the Kingdom of Numidia had been a staunch ally of Rome ever since the Second Punic War, when their great king Masinissa defected to the Roman side. Masinissa had passed his throne on to his son Micipsa. This son, now getting on in years, had two sons Hiempsal (d. 117 BC) and Adherbal (d. 112 BC), plus an adopted nephew **Jugurtha** (d. 104 BC). Jugurtha was so popular among the Numidians, that Micipsa's saw him as a threat to his sons, so sent him away to Spain, in command of Numidian troops, to assist the Scipio Aemilianus against the Numantine Revolt. Unfortunately for Micipsa, this only served Jugurtha, who made several influential Roman friends. On their recommendation, the king formally made him co-heir with his own children. When Micipsa died in 118 BC, the three men agreed to partition the kingdom equally. But Jugurtha was not one for sharing. He immediately quarrelled with Hiempsal, and had him assassinated, which led to open war with Adherbal. Jugurtha easily swept his army aside. Unsafe anywhere in Numidia, Adherbal fled to the only place of refuge available; Rome. The *Senate*, vexed at unrest in Numidia, agreed to let Jugurtha explain himself, and sent a ten-man commission to North Africa to render informed judgment. The head of the commission was none other than Lucius Opimius, now an elder statesman after a career spent crushing the Gracchi. After interviewing both sides, Opimius' commission settled the fight by deposing neither king, and dividing Numidia once again; the fertile interior went to Jugurtha, and the coastal plains to Adherbal. But this settlement was tainted by accusations of bribery to favour Jugurtha; to the point where the *Consuls* castigated the commissioners upon their return to Rome. While these events unfolded, Gaius Marius, undeterred by his failure to secure an *Aedileship*, aimed higher and ran for a *Praetorship* in 116 BC. Though the Metelli opposed their erstwhile client, he won election in the last spot, and was promptly accused of electoral fraud; a common occurrence during the laat century of the Republic. Marius, however, was acquitted, and spent an uneventful year as *Praetor* in Rome. The next year, as a *Propraetor*, he was sent to govern the highly sought-after province of Further Spain. Little is known of his time there, but he would have gained his first opportunity at military command; the province was a hot-bed of brigands and unpacified tribes. On his return to Rome, his wealth greatly enlarged, the now 45 year-old Marius married Julia Caesaria; aunt of Julius Caesar. The Julii-Caesares were were a *Patrician* family, with roots older than the Republic itself, though their influence and wealth had waned over the century. This match was mutually advantageous: Marius gained respectability; the Julii got a much needed injection of energy and money. Numidia exploded into chaos once again in 133 BC. Jugurtha and Adherbal maintained a tense coexistence for three years, but then Jugurtha made another bid to become sole ruler. He marched into Adherbal's half of Numidia, blew through his army, and besieged his capital of Cirta. Adherbal sent envoys to Rome begging for help, but the *Senate*, distracted by a looming war in the north, wanted no part of a war in Numidia. Adherbal was soon forced to surrender, asking nothing more than his own life; a fatal error. As soon as he walked out of the gates, Jugurtha had his half-brother killed. Had Jugurtha stopped there, the whole affair might have blown over. But he allowed his army to sack Cirta, leading to a general massacre that consumed hundreds, including a group of Italian merchants who lived in the city.

Even a Senate that did not want to get involved in Numidia could not ignore this; the **Jugurthine War** (112-106).. In 111 BC, a *Consular* army, under Lucius Calpurnius Bestia, sailed for the province of Africa, and, from there, advanced into Numidia. Jugurtha could think of only one thing to do. He dispatched one of his sons to Bestia, who told him that conquering Numidia would be a long and expensive affair, and that it would be much better for everyone if an agreement could be reached. Then the two men sat down for a private conference, during which, Bestia allowed himself to be bribed into granting him a treaty on extremely lenient terms; Jugurtha would pay a token fine, “*thirty elephants, many cattle and horses, and a small amount of silver*”, Rome would recognise him as sole king of Numidia, and everyone would go home. But the charade was not enough. Public opinion now recognized that the *Senate* had been mismanaging Numidian affairs for years. The rumours of bribery and corruption had long been swirling in the Forum. When news of the perfunctory campaign and easy terms hit Rome, all hell broke loose. A populist *Tribune* named Gaius Memmius persuaded the popular assembly (the *Assembly*) to order a *Praetor* to go to Numidia, and bring Jugurtha back to Rome to identify the *Senators* he had bribed. Jugurtha's arrival in Rome was a sensation; he himself was there to testify, not be punished. When the *Assembly* met, the crowd waited expectantly for the big moment when the king would reveal all. But Jugurtha did not speak. He had already bribed another *Tribune* to veto the proceedings. As he departed, Jugurtha looked back at Rome and issued his famous judgment, “*There is a city put up for sale, and if it finds a buyer, its days are numbered*”. This parade of bribery inflamed the people of Rome, who saw in it everything they hated about their own corrupt government. In 110 BC, the *Senate* was forced to send more legions across the Mediterranean. In response to this second invasion, Jugurtha launched a yearlong campaign of evasion, delay, and trickery, until, in January 109, he lured the Romans into a trap. With the army hopelessly surrounded, he offered simple terms: to leave Numidia, but only after the humiliation of "passing under the yoke". The trapped Romans accepted. This humiliating defeat finally shook the *Senate* from its lethargy, appointing as commander in North Africa the Metellan noble, Quintus Caecilius Metellus; stern, disciplined, and honest. Metellus proved the soundness of his judgement by enrolling the best officers he could find, including Gaius Marius as second-in-command. Though Marius had run afoul of the Metelli politically, there was no questioning his ability. But the campaign was frustrating for both sides; Metellus was not a man who could be bribed, and Jugurtha was too wily to be pinned down. As before, Jugurtha was able to lay an ambush for the Romans at the Muthul River. But rather than forcing a quick surrender, the legions managed to hold out until nightfall, with heavy losses on both sides; at which point Jugurtha withdrew. Metellus determined that this war required a more methodical approach; he broke his army into smaller units, and sent them out to ravage communities that remained loyal to Jugurtha, to cut-off his access to men. The strategy was militarily sounds, but, as weeks turned into months, it only fed the general belief back in Rome that the only thing the nobles did in Numidia was drag their feet. While Metellus focused on Jugurtha, an even greater danger lurked within his own ranks. Gaius Marius had always kept his eye on the *Consulship*. A year on campaign had reminded everyone that he was an excellent soldier and popular with the men; generous with spoils, mingled easily with common legionaries, and joined in with camp labour. Marius thought Metellus far too cautious, and mnaged to convince himself that, if given the command, he could end the war in a matter of weeks. So he resolved to request a leave of absence, and return to Rome to run for the *Consulship*. Metellus refused at first, telling him such dreams were not for all men. But, with Marius openly griping about the camp, he ultimately agreed to let him go. Marius campaigned as a defiantly proud *New Man*. In a clear break with tradition, he routinely denounced Metellus as too much in love with imperious power to conduct the war properly. Above all, he made a single forthright promise; if they would make him *Consul*, he would within a short time deliver Jugurtha alive or dead into the hands of the Roman people. Not only was Marius elected *Consul*, but the *Assembly* voted to override the *Senate*'s decision to keep Metellus in command; Jugurtha was now Marius' problem. But upon his return to Africa, Marius soon realized that ending the war was more difficult than he had previously boasted. During that first year, he found no magic strategy that would work better than what Metellus had already been doing. But Jugurtha continued to pop-up and disappear at will, and always danced just beyond the reach of the legions. The *Assembly* kept its faith in him, however, and extended his command for two more years. As time passed, the inhabitants of Numidia tired of the criss-crossing armies, and blamed Jugurtha for provoking the Romans to war. And Marius sought to exploit that resentment. He dispatched his talented lieutenant, Lucius Cornelius Sulla (d. 78 BC), to open clandestine talks with Jugurtha's most important ally and father-in-law, King Bocchus of Mauretania; roughly corresponds to modern-day Morocco, The final act of the Jugurthine War played out as a high stakes game with treachery always a distict possibility. Sulla met Bocchus openly in the Mauretanian court to discuss defecting to the Roman side. But this was merely a trick played on Jugurtha's spies, who dutifully raced to his camp. Jugurtha promised Bocchus anything he wanted to restore the alliance, and the pair agreed to meet at a secluded spot. Bocchus stayed up the whole night before the rendezvous, deciding what to do: betray his fellow king to the Romans, and perhaps risk the wrath of his subjects; or betray Sulla, and ransom him to force the Roman into withdrawing from Africa. To Sulla's relief and satisfaction, Jugurtha drew the short straw. When the Numidian king arrived, he was seized and handed over to Sulla in chains. The war was over. Jugurtha was paraded through the streets of Rome as part of Marius' *Triumph,* a symbol not just of Roman victory, but of the triumph of common honesty over aristocratic corruption. But the proud and ambitious Lucius Sulla was not able to enjoy the day. According to tradition, the man who held imperium received all the credit. Sulla was annoyed that Marius happily took credit for capturing Jugurtha, often failing even to mention his actions. This was the first seed of that bitter and incurable hatred between Marius and Sulla, which nearly brought Rome to ruin.

While Marius had been winning glory in the south, to the north, an old enemy, long dormant, was back with avengence; the Gauls, the stuff of Roman nightmares ever since the days of the sack of Rome in 390 BC. Sometime after 120 BC, a great northern tribe called the Cimbri left their homeland near modern Denmark, and migrated south toward the Alps; the **Cimbrian War** (113–101 BC). By 113 BC, local Gauls were warning the Romans of the sudden appearance of a horde of three hundred thousand strangers. Alarmed, the *Senate* ordered *Consul* Gnaeus Papirius Carbo to take legions north to guard the frontier. The Cimbri sent envoys to meet with Carbo, saying they sought no quarrel and were simply looking for a safe place to live. In an apparent gesture of friendship, Carbo assigned some local guides to lead the Cimbri into Gaul. But this was a deadly ruse. Spoiling for glory, Carbo took his legions, and laid an ambush for them as they crossed the Danube at Noreia. But he dramatically underestimated the size of the enemy; the Romans were quickly overwhelmed, and forced into a disorganized retreat. Fortunately for the Romans, it really did seem like the Cimbri were searching for someplace to settle, and they departed for parts unknown for four years. But, in 109 BC, the Cimbri reappeared, ready to try their luck in southern Gaul. The same year that Metellus first departed for Numidia with Marius, the Senate ordered his colleague Marcus Junius Silanus to muster what forces remained in Italy. Silanus found himself drawing from a thin pool of manpower, but managed to dredge up an army to march through the Alps into Gaul. As the two sides squared off, Cimbric envoys travelled to Rome, offering friendship in return for some land. The *Senate* refused; Rome made treaties with defeated enemies, not defiant tribes. Instead Silanus attacked. All we really know is the outcome; once again the legions were crushed, and the Cimbri withdrew back north. But another tribe called the Tigurini, from modern Switzerland, decided to take advantage of the power vacuum in southern Gaul. So as the newly elected *Consul*, Lucius Cassius Longinus raised legions to march north, defeat the Tigurini, and repair some of Rome's damaged reputation. Longinus shadowed the Tigurini west towards the Atlantic coast, looking for an opportune moment to attack. Instead, it was the Tigurini who laid a trap. The oblivious Longinus walked right into the ambush, and died in the ensuing battle. Like Tiberius Gracchus in Spain, a young *Legate* was forced to make a life or death decision on behalf of the survivors. He also chose life; the battered Romans were allowed to depart after passing under the yoke. Back in Rome this defeat was greeted with the same anger and shock that always greeted legions that surrendered; the unfortunate *Legate* was exiled. But if there was one thing the Romans had never done, it was give up. In 106 BC, the *Senate* dispatched the *Consul* Quintus Servilius Caepio to settle the matter once and for all. The noble Caepio was everything that was wrong with the *Senate* in the late Republic; he was arrogant, greedy, and self-glorifying. And at his feet would be laid one of the greatest defeats in Roman history. Arriving in Gaul, Caepio finally delivered some good news, when he captured the city of Tolosa (modern Toulouse). There, he stumbled across 50,000 bars of gold and 10,000 bars of silver, which had been stolen in a famous Gallic raid on the Temple of Delphi in Greece in 279 BC. Caepio ordered the treasure shipped back to Rome, but only the silver made it; the gold went missing on route. Though widely suspected of stealing the Tolosa gold, Caepio's command in the north was extended into 105 BC. But the Cimbri had now come back, after another four-year hiatus. So a new *Consul* for the year, Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, was order to join him in Gaul, doubling the Roman strength to 80,000 men. Mallius was, like Marius, a *Novus Homo*. In the Roman military hierarchy, no one outranked a *Consul*, but Caepio, being an arrogant noble, refused to cooperate with his superior. There was not one 80,000-strong Roman army, but two 40,000-man armies, and the Cimbri fatally exploit the situation at the Battle of Arausio (October 105). When Mallius unexpectedly encountered the main body of the Cimbri, he begged Caepio to cross the Rhône, and join their armies together. Caepio mocked him, saying he would happily help the *New Man Consul*, who was obviously quaking in his boots over nothing. He crossed the river, but camped his army well north of Mallius position, putting himself between his colleague and the Cimbri. It is generally believe that Caepio's grand plan was to bring the Cimbri to battle first, force Mallius to play a supporting role, and win all the glory for himself. When battle began, Caepio's forward army was quickly overwhelmed, and then reteated back right into Mallius' army, creating a confused tangle. With all order lost and pinned against the Rhône, the Cimbri consumed the trapped legions. The Romans were not just defeated, they were annihilated; almost no one made it out alive. In terms of losses, the defeat was comparable with Cannae. All now seemed lost in Gaul, but then a funny thing happened, the Cimbri withdrew yet again. Back in Rome, the people viewed this entire debacle as another example of the haughty oligarchs disrespecting anyone who did not come from their own closed caste. Caepio would not have left another *Patrician* cousin out in the cold like that; it was only because Mallius was a *New Man* that so many Roman sons and husbands were dead on the banks of the Rhône. With the *Consul* elections approaching, there was no question who the people wanted to save Roman civilization; Gaius Marius. The *Assembly* tossed aside two more pieces of the Roman constitution to get their wish. Roman law still forbade a man from serving a second *Consulship* within ten years of the first, and a candidate had to be physically present in Rome to stand for election. Although he was still settling loose ends in Numidia, Marius was elected in absentia to his second *Consulship* in three years.

    While he waited for the Cimbri to return, Marius introduced an array of strategic and logistical reforms that revolutionized how the Roman army functioned in the field; the **Marian Reforms**. As he prepared to raise new legions, Marius ran into the same problem that had plagued Rome for a generation; fewer and fewer men met the minimum property requirement for service in the legions. So he requested an exemption from the property qualification. Any citizen, no matter how poor and destitute, could now serve in the army. Emergency exemptions were not without precedent; a legion composed of former slaves and gladiators had been formed during the darkest days of the Second Punic War. But what makes this moment so important is that it marked a permanent transition from temporary armies conscripted from among the richest of the rich, to professional armies composed of the poorest of the poor. From now on, possession of a farm was no longer the qualification for military service, but the reward. And, for the men who made their careers in the army, their loyalty would be to their generals, rather than to the *Senate and People of Rome*. But Marius wasn't thinking about the grand sweep of history; he was just preparing a defence against the Cimbri. The most important of Marius' innovations was the reorganisation of the basic tactical unit of the Roman legion, from the small *Maniple* (160 men) to the larger *Cohort (*480 men): a full strength legion (4,800 men) consisted of ten *Cohorts*. These larger squares allowed for stiffer resistance against mass barbarian charges. *Cohorts* also abandoned the traditional three-line formation based on experience, for mixed ranks that were drilled to rapidly cycled forwards, with the idea of always having the freshest troops on the front line. Marius then introduced improvements to the weaponry his soldiers carried, most prominently a new type of spear. The standard weapon was usually hurled at the enemy at the outset of any battle, but the weapons were often then picked up and chucked back at the Romans. So Marius developed a spear that used lead to join the steel tip to the wooden shaft. When it hit its mark, the soft lead would buckle, and leave the spear of no use to the enemy, who still had to disentangle themselves from the awkwardly protruding projectile. But Marius did not stop just with how his army found; he also changed the entire outlook of what it meant to be a soldier. He placed a heavy emphasis on the physical conditioning of his men. Concluding that the endless baggage trains that followed any Roman army hindered mobility, he decreed that his soldiers would now carry their own gear; their weapons, blankets, clothes, and rations would be hoisted on their own backs. Old-school officers took to derisively calling them *"Marius's Mules*", but it was effective: speed and cohesion became vital assets to the legions. Marius also promoted a pan-legionary *esprit de corps* by ending the practice of each legion having its own animal symbol, ordering instead that the eagle be the universal symbol of the legions; the *Aquila* became something between a modern regimental badge and a religious idol.

Marius wound up spending the entirety of 104 BC waiting for the Cimbri, who never materialized. But unwilling to allow any other man to take over the Gallic frontier, the *Assembly* elected Marius to a second consecutive *Consulship*. Only a few scattered times in the whole history of the Republic had a man ever served two *Consulships* in a row. And yet, at the end of 103 BC, the Cimbri had still not reappeared. With the sense of emergency fading, it was not a foregone conclusion that Marius would win a third consecutive term as *Consul.* Indeed, Marius feared even seeking re-election might seem arrogant and vain. Instead, he employed a proxy to test the limits on his behalf; a young *Populare* *Tribune* named Lucius Appuleius Saturninus. Marius returned to Rome in the lead-up to the election, and grandly announced that he was not interested in running. Right on cue, Saturninus loudly proclaimed that Marius was leave the people of Rome defenceless, and demanded that he take back the *Consulship*. The gambit worked, and Marius was duly elected to a completely unprecedented third term in a row. In the spring of 102 BC, the moment Marius had been waiting for finally arrived; the Cimbri came back. He also learned that another tribe called the Teutones had joined them in a grand anti-Roman alliance, intent on breaking into Italy on two fronts. The Teutones would advance east along the coast, and enter Italy from the north-west; the Cimbri were to attempt to cross the Alps into Italy from the north-east. The division of the invasion meant the Romans had to divide their own defences, with Marius remaining in southern Gaul, and his *Consular* colleague, Quintus Lutatius Catulus, heading east to hold the Italian Alps. Having scouted southern Gaul for over two years, Marius knew exactly where he wanted to confront the enemy. He built a fortified camp on steep hill next to the Rhône, where he could observe the Teutones. When the barbarian horde arrived, they attempted to attack the Roman camp, but were beaten off. Then, when they moved-on towards Italy, Marius broke-camp, and raced along a parallel path to a carefully selected location, where the Teutones were bound to halt for water. The legions would hold the high ground, while some 3,000 troops had been hidden in a nearby wood. The Battle of Aquae Sextiae (102 BC) began with a preliminary engagement that saw Marius eliminate 30,000 isolate Teutones. A few days later, the Teutones counter-attacked up the hill. But as soon as contact was made, the hidden unit burst out of the woods into the exposed Teutone rear. By the end of the afternoon, Marius had destroyed an entire branch of this two-pronged invasion of Italy. But he did not have long to bask in the glow of victory. Reports came from the east that his colleague Catulus had failure to hold the Alpine passes. And, over the winter of 102-101 BC, northern Italy found itself playing unwilling host to 200,000 Cimbri. Marius entered his fourth consecutive *Consulship* in 101 BC, and, in the spring, led 50,000 men across the Po River to confront the barbarian sqatters. At the Battle of Vercellae (July 101 BC), superior Roman training and discipline proved the difference over the much larger barbarian horde. The legions remained stationary as the Cimbri launched themselves across the battlefield. When the infantry lines clashed, with Romans on the defensive and being pushed back, Marius' cavalry routed their counterparts in short order. Then, both cavalry wings delivered a deadly flanking shot into the exposed enemy rear. The Cimbri were virtually annihilated; all their leaders and warriors were dead; their womenfolk killed their children, and then took their own lives, rather than be enslaved. Marius returned to Rome, and celebrated his second *Triumph*. At this point, only the great Scipio Africanus loomed larger in the Roman imagination. He was duly returned as *Consul* for a fifth consecutive year; his sixth in total. While it appeared as though Marius only wanted to use his *Consulship* to secure land grants for his veteran, he came to office flanked by *Populare* radicals who had a much more aggressive agenda. Lucius Appuleius Saturninus had been elected *Tribune* for the second time. During this fateful year it becomes difficult to disentangle who was using whom. Saturninus pushed a more overtly sinister version of the Gracchan reforms. Where Tiberius had been pulled into violence against his will, Saturninus pursued it without compunction. Where Gaius sought to restore the balance of the Roman constitution, Saturninus wanted to topple the old *Senatorial* order completely. His alliance with Marius was as much about winning over Marius' veterans to provide much needed muscle. He pushed for bills that would drive political opponents into exile, greatly extend the grain dole, and give Equestrians complete control of the Extortion Court, as well as granting land to all veterans of the Cimbric wars. When another Tribune vetoed one of his bills, Saturninus simply ignored him. A veto had once been enough to grind the Republic to a halt; now it was tossed aside. As Saturninus pushed forward, Marius drew back, and the stage was set for a final bloody confrontation. The political break was confirmed when the *Consular* election for 99 BC began. Marius attempted to disqualify Saturninus' ally Gaius Servilius Glaucia from standing. But as befitted the age, Glaucia ignored the disqualification, and continued to canvass for votes, precipitating a crisis. On election day, when it became obvious that Glaucia would lose, Saturninus directed a gang of supporters to break up the voting; a rival candidate was killed in the ensuing riot. With the election thrown into bloody confusion, the Senate met in emergency session, and instructed Marius to restore order by any means necessary. Saturninus, Glaucia, and their follower tried to barricade themselves inside the citadel on the Capitoline Hill, but Marius made short work of them. After the surrendered, Marius afforded Saturninus and Glaucia the dignity of being placed under house arrest, until he could figure out how best to deal with them. But an angry mob answered the question for him; they broke into the buildings, and lynched them both. With the radicals safely dumped in the Tiber, the *Senate* set about picking up the pieces. Marius decided it would be prudent to absent himself from Rome for a while. After a year-long circuit of the Aegean, he retired to a villa in the country. But like many an old war horses, Marius was uncomfortable being put out to pasture, and soon found himself burning to get back in the game. This insatiable craving for more glory would lead Marius to put "*the ugliest possible crown upon a most illustrious career*".

    The dangerous developments in Rome, were marched by developments in Italy. Until the late Republic, the Italian allies had prized their local autonomy within the Roman led Italian confederation. The complaints they lodged in the Senate usually had to do with arbitrary abuse at the hands of Roman officials. In one case, an Italian peasant moved aside for a magistrate being carried in a litter, and asked in jest if they were carrying a corpse, The insulted magistrate ordered him beaten; the peasant died. But there was one persistent complaint lodged by the Italian communities: they contributed upward of 60% of the soldiers in Roman armies, but received a disproportionately small share of the spoils-of-war. The struggle for full Roman citizenship picked up momentum during the *Tribunates* of the Gracchi, but the Senatorial elites had always managed to block it; more concerned with denying the *Populares* a victory, than actually addressing whether the policy was right or wrong. Gaius Marius reintroduced the Italian question, by routinely exercising his power as *Consul* to reward exemplary Italian soldiers with citizenship. Matters came to a head in 91 BC, when a *Tribune* named Marcus Livius Drusus picked up the issue. Oddly enough, Drusus was no radical *Populare*; quite the opposite. His bill would have admitted more level-headed middle class Italians into the electorate. Had Drusus succeeded, the Italians might have been satisfied; the *Senatorial* elite could have been safer from ramble rousers swaying the masses against them. Unfortunately, the short-sighted *Senate* was more conscious of the loss than of the gain; the man who finally delivered citizenship to the Italians would have a client-patron network that dwarfed his colleagues. First, a group of *Optimate* grandees killed Drusus' bill; and then they killed Drusus. For the Romans, it was just another rejection in a long series of rejections of Italian citizenship. But for the Italians, this brusque dismissal, of rights that they considered to be long overdue, was the last straw. In the city of Asculum, the residents murder a visiting *Praetor*, and then rampaged through the street killing any Romans they could find. The speed with which the revolt spread is a testament to how greatly angered the Italians were. It became known as the "War of the Allies", which is how the Latin word *Socii* ("Ally") led to the English name for the conflict: the **Social War** (91–88 BC). The Latins remained loyal to Rome, and the Umbrians and Etruscans kept aloof, but central and southern Italy departed the Roman confederation *en masse*, The rebels not only planned a formal separation from Rome, but organised their own independent federation called *Italia*, with a capital at Corfinium (modern Abruzzo), and a government based on the Roman model. Since all the Italians were intimately familiar with Roman politics and war, the first order of business was preparing for the inevitable response. The Italian, led by the Samnites in the south and Marsi in the north, immediately seized control of the roads to cut-off Rome's ability to communicate outside their hinterland. The peope of Rome were dumbfounded as each scrap of news revealed yet another city or tribe in revolt. The Senate, quick with the rod, sent out their *Consular* armies in opposite directions in the spring of 90 BC. To the north went Publius Rutilius Lupus, who coaxed a famous uncle out of retirement as his *Legate*; Gaius Marius. It did him little good. An entire detachment of his army was lost on patrol. He then divided his troops between himself and Marius in order to build two bridges across the Tolenus River. The next morning, Marius noticed that Lupus' division had been ambushed and destroyed when the bodies floated down river. For the first time in a decade, Gaius Marius was in command of an army. But Marius had plenty of enemies in the Senate, who, afraid of the old Consul returning to the political arena, gave command in the north over to Quintus Caepio the Younger; the son of the infamous Caepio who caused the disaster at Arausio. Not without reason; Marius, now almost seventy years old, moved hesitantly and achieved little. Caepio did even worse; he was tricked out of his secure camp and assassinated. With the situation in the north a bit of a mess, the focus of the war shifted to the south, where Lucius Julius Caesar (a distant relative of a certain ten-year-old boy) faced the horrible *deja vu* of crossing swords with the Samnites. After an ineffectual campaign season, Caesar left his army under his *Legate,* Lucius Sulla, while he himself returned to Rome to lay the political foundation of the war's end. He pushed through the *Lex Julia,* offering full Roman citizenship to any Italian who had not yet taken up arms; prompting a nascent rebellion in Umbria and Etruria to fizzled out. A further bill extended citizenship to any Italian resident, if, within sixty days, they had laid down their arms. Most jumped at the chance; this was all they had ever wanted. But the Samnites and a few others held out. In 89 BC, Sulla was given full command in the south, and proved himself a brilliant tactician and leader of men. After saving a besieged legion at the city of Nola, his army awarded him the prestigious "grass crown", the rarest of all military decorations. Now brimming with confidence, Sulla went on to win victory after victory, which made him hugely popular in Rome just in time for the *Consular* elections for 88 BC. This did not sit well with Marius, who had been shunted aside again, when the *Senate* sent Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo (father of Pompey the Great) to take over command in the north. A severe and ambitious *Novus Homo*, Strabo was not particularly liked, but his military talent was undeniable. He led a sharp campaign, culminating in the Siege of Asculum, where this had all started. The Italians mustered a relief effort numbering in the tens of thousands, but Strabo would not be dislodged. When the city finally surrendered, Strabo was not forgiving in victory; all the leading men were beaten to death, and their belongings auctioned off. He embezzled most of the proceeds, earning him the enmity of all sides; and the nickname "*The* *Butcher of Asculum*". By the end of 89 BC, the Social War was winding down, but the two year conflict had devastated Italy even more than the invasion of Hannibal.

Sulla emerged as the clear hero of the Social War, and was handily elected to his first *Consulship*. He fully expected to be granted the plum military command of the year, which was to lead the legions into Anatolia. The bequest of the old Kingdom of Pergamum to Rome presented serious implications for neighbouring territories. The new province (called "Asia" by the Romans) was destined to become a hotbed of extortion and abuse, as Rome meddled in the interminable squabbling between the many small kingdoms. For the last few years, the neighbouring kingdoms of Pontus and Bithynia, located side-by-side along the Black Sea coast, had allied to divvy up the kingdoms of Anatolia between them. Roman envoys ordered them to desist, but with Rome tied-up with wars, there was little they could do. In 101 BC, the two kings had a falling out over control of Cappadocia, which served as an important overland route between the Black Sea and Mediterranean. **Mithridates VI of Pontus** (120–63 BC) personally slit the throat of its king, and placed his own son on the throne. This was the settlement that the Pontic king expected the Senate to ratify, but Bithynian envoys arrived in Rome loaded with lavish promises; and the Romans decided to back them. Mithridates VI, hitherto a friend of Rome, grudgingly accepted this setback. Manius Aquillius, the Roman governor Pergamum, now leaned heavily on the Bithynian king to make good on his promises. When the king claimed poverty, Aquillius encouraged him to raid Pontic territory for spoils. But Mithridates was no empty shirt. The Pontic army was well-trained, disciplined, and experienced. They sent the Bithynians limping home in a broken heap. Mithridates complained to Aquillius about the encroachment, but got no response. So he concluded that Rome planned to use its client kingdom to squeeze Pontus off the map, After years of careful groundwork, Mithridates was ready to reveal the full potential of his kingdom. To get Aquillius' attention, he recaptured Cappadocia, chasing its king out of the country. Then he sent an ultimatum to Pergamum, saying that if Rome was not careful they risked losing their dominions in Anatolia. It was not a declaration of war. but it was an invitation for one. Aquillius responded by garrisoning Bithynia; he had only a single legion at his disposal, but an abundance of conscripts. But, when Pontic forces invaded, they disintegrated upon contact with the enemy. Mithridates proceeded to envelope the entire province of Pergamum; Aquillius fled to the island of Lesbos, but the locals handed him over to Pontus. Mithridates knew exactly how to introduce himself to his new subjects. He announced that he was here to liberate the people of Anatolia from the yoke of the Roman oppression. If the Romans really had intended to provoke Mithridates into a war, they had done a fine job. Because he needed the entire region to be united in opposition to Rome, the Pontic king ordered a blood pact. In the summer of 88 BC, he sent out letters to every city under his dominion, ordering the authorities to apprehend and murder every Italian within their jurisdiction. The dead totalled as many as 80,000 men, women, and children in these "*Asiatic Vespers*". There was no going back now.

    **Lucius Cornelius Sulla**'s star burned hotter than any man's in Rome. He was the obvious choice for the eastern command, But Marius had grown increasingly jealous of his old *Legate*. Even though he was now elderly and frequently ill, he had his mind set on one last fling with glory. But if Marius really thought he could secure the eastern command, he was deluding himself. The Romans did not send seventy-year-olds to run their wars. Marius had not lived through decades of Roman politics to no avail, though. He decided to throw in his lot with a *Populare Tribune* named Publius Sulpicius Rufus. Sulpicius' great contribution to Roman politics was the invention of the professional street gang; he was constantly surrounded by 300 armed men, with thousands of retainers on call. His proposal to transfer the eastern command to Marius led to riots in the streets. Sulla was already at his camp near Nola in southern Italy, preparing for the upcoming campaign. He rushed back to Rome, entered the *Forum*, and used his *Consular* authority to declare a religious holiday, ceasing of all public business. Instead of meekly submitting, Sulpicius gang pulled out weapons. With threats getting specific, Sulla found the closest safe haven near at hand; Marius' house. What was said between the two men is unknown, but Marius must have told Sulla that the only way he was getting out of this alive, was to rescind the religious holiday, and allow the vote. Sulla agreed. Sulpicius reconvened the Assembly and carried his bill, more or less at sword-point. Sulla was already on his way back to his camp. Marius' selfish pursuit of glory would triggered a wholly unprecedented response from Sulla. He had led these six legions during the Social War, and he had earned their devoted loyalty. Though he had the unmistakable air of a *Patrician*, he always had an easygoing rapport with common soldiers, and never let his men down. Sulla addressed his troops, described what had happened back in Rome, told them about his maltreatment at the hands of Marius and Sulpicius. The soldiers were outraged; not only at their chief being stripped of the eastern command, but alsa that they would likely be left behind. and miss out on the riches. Marius had his own vast recruiting network of veterans to draw on. Believing he had successfully outmanoeuvred Sulla, Marius sent two *Military Tribunes* to Nola to begin the process of taking over the command. The two men, whose names are unrecorded, became unfortunate first casualties of the civil war. Sulla's inflamed legions stoned them to death. Sulla then took a conference with his senior officers and made his audacious proposal; he was going to lead his army back to Rome. This was a dreadful breach of the Roman constitution; never before had a Roman general marched legions against Rome itself. But, as far as Sulla was concerned, Marius had already violated the constitution by employing Sulpicius' thugs. Almost to a man his officers refused to participate. Sulla, knowing how serious an offence he was about to commit, did not even reprove them; he simply marched without them. Sulla was not in any great hurry. He hoped the very fact of his approach would force Marius and Sulpicius to back down. Sulpicius used his own powers as *Tribune*, combined with Marius' new military authority, to seize control of Rome. Partisans of Sulla were assassinated, and the *Senate* was cowed into submission. Sulla's *Consular* colleague Pompeius managed to dodge the assassins, and slipped out of Rome for the safety of Sulla's army. When Sulla arrived at the outskirts of Rome, he invited the Senate to find a way to broker a peace. But as soon as word reached him that his friends inside the city were dead, he told his men to suit up for battle. The Marians prepared a defence of the city from their supporters, and slave and gladiators promised freedom. The call for the people of Rome to join them produced a pitiful response; they wanted no part of this grudge match between nobles. Unsurprisingly, this makeshift force proved no match for trained soldiers. With troops stationed all over the city, Marius fled. He narrowly escaped capture on several occasions, and eventually found safety with his veterans in North Africa. During his stay in Rome, Sulla walked a fine line between restoring order and behaving like a military dictator. He went out of his way to single out soldiers caught looting and punished them for all to see. He summoned the *Assembly*, and told the people that his anger was only directed at a few select men. To prove his point, he announced the names of just twelve enemies-of-the-state; Marius and Sulpicius were at the top of the list. Of the twelve, only Sulpicius was put to death, after being betrayed hiding in a villa in Latium. Sulla then had Sulpicius' legislation invalidated on the grounds that they had been passed by force; he would still have the eastern command. He tried to explain himself to the *Senate*, claiming that he was following the precedent of Marius himself in 121 BC; quelling a violent political faction. But of course, Marius had operated under the Senate's authority; Sulla acted under his own authority only. To demonstrate he was not a tyrant, Sulla presided over free elections for the *Consulship*. Whatever Sulla's crimes, he was fundamentally a conservative Republican; at least in his own mind. In 87 BC, the people of Rome did themselves no favours by electing Gnaeus Octavius and Lucius Cornelius Cinna; the one sympathetic to Sulla, and the other hostile to him. Though he accepted the election, Sulla extracted a sacred oath from Cinna, in front of a large crowd, to be loyal to the *Senate* and to his *Consular* colleague; and to accept exile if he broke him word. Leaving his domestic troubles behind, Sulla left Rome, mobilized his legions, and marched east, headed for Pontus and war. It did not take long for Cinna to break his oath. Arguing that it should not prevent him from helping the people of Rome, he proposed a radical bill supporting so many disparate issues that many suspected he chose them based on bribes. One cause predominated, that of full political equality for the newly enfranchised Italians. His colleague Octavius was appalled. With political debates now inevitably decided in the streets, both sides rallied large armed gangs. Cinna called in throngs of Italians, while Octavius mustered the urban *Plebs*. Outnumbered inside Rome, Cinna was forced to flee the city. Octavius then induced the *Assembly* to strip him of his *Consulship*, and elevate a nonentity in his place. The choice was no accident; Octavius would wield sole power in Rome. Fuming outside the city-walls, Cinna rallied the communities that had lately been fighting for *Italia,* with the intention of following the precedence just set by Sulla, and marching on Rome. While Cinna built his army, his consular colleague Octavius could call on few forces outside Rome itself. The armies of Pompey Strabo had not yet been disbanded after the Siege of Asculum, but his loyalty was unclear. Strabo would not likely support Cinna, but he had also quarrelled with Sulla. Marius, down in North Africa, heard the news and returned at once, landing in the northern Italy. He was beloved here, having saved them from the Cimbri, and soon commanded an army 6,000 strong, including an infamous band of Illyrian mercenaries. Marius agreed to place them under Cinna's command to retake Rome. After considering all his options, Pompey Strabo decided to fight Cinna, rather than join him. If he swooped in to save Rome, he would make himself a hero of the hour. When Cinna's forces finally launched a direct assault on Rome in late 87 BC, the city withstood the attack thanks to Strabo's reinforcements. It appeared that Strabo really would be the hero; but it was not to be. Over the winter, plague swept through Rome, killing more than ten thousand, among them Pompey Strabo. After his death, the *Senate* despaired of the situation, and moderates, looking to keep the peace, came to terms with Cinna; his *Consulship* was restored, and in return he promised to reenter Rome peacefully. Settlement in hand, Cinna and Marius entered the city at the head of an army. They immediately convened the *Assembly* to lift the banishment on the twelve Marian exiles, including Marius, and then turned the table on the man responsible; Sulla was declared an enemy-of-the-state. For a few hours everything was calm. Then the killing began. Though Cinna had pledged not to go on a punitive purge, what his men did of their own accord was beyond his control. So for five days, the people of Rome cowered under a bloody terror. The killing began with the supporters of Sulla. No man had a bigger target on his back than Cinna's colleague Octavius. Furious the Senate had surrendered, Octavius refused to flee; he refused even to hide. It did not take long to track him down, and unceremoniously murder him. His severed heads were posted in the Forum, to terrorise the political opposition. But the bloodbath soon expanded to anyone in the wealthier quarters of the city. This helped form a perverse bond between the soldiers and the lower-class *Plebs*; both sides discovered they had a common enemy in the rich nobles on the Palatine Hill. Over the course of these bloody five days we know of fourteen named victims, including a shocking six former *Consuls*. Not all the killings were carried out in the street. Marius's old cavalry commanded Quintus Lutatius Catulus, who had tried to claim credit for the Battle of Vercellae, was offered the courtesy of a show trial; he elected to commit suicide instead. Marius’s behaviour suggests that he was sinking into senility. One poor soul named Ancharius was also offered a formal trial. When he approach Marius to beg clemency, Marius pointed at him, and his Illyrian bodyguard killed him on the spot. By the end, even Cinna was looking at Marius sideways, and ordered his own troop to restore order with one last brutal slaughter. In the middle of the night, they massacred the Illyrian mercenaries to the last man. With competitors suitably frightened, elections were held for 86 BC. That Marius and Cinna won the *Consulship* came as no surprised to anyone; everyone who opposed them was either dead or fled. The division of labour in the Marian regime was clear; Marius would assume command of the war against Mithridates, while Cinna remained in Rome. Unfortunately, it didn't go like that. Though he had long denied it, Marius was an old man in bad health. He contracted pneumonia, and fell into delusions, shouting out battle orders at odd moments. Just seventeen days into his seventh *Consulship*, Gaius Marius died an anticlimactic deaths. Cinna now ruled alone.

    Meanwhile, in the east, Sulla was covering himself with glory; the **First Mithridatic War** (89–85 BC). After the slaughter of the Italians, Mithridates had let his ambitions grow. Cast himself as the liberator of the Greeks, he sent out a two-pronged invasion of Greece. By land, an army invaded Thrace and threatened Macedonia. By sea, his most trusted general, Archelaus, led a great fleet across the Aegean Sea to Athens. There, with the help of a friendly political faction, he secured an Athenian declaration of allegiance to Mithridates. When Athens threw-off Roman authority, most of Greece followed its lead. With only the few lonely legions to hold the line, Rome risked losing Greece as quickly as she had lost Anatolia. Luckily, help was on the way. In the spring of 87 BC, Sulla sailed across the Adriatic. As he marched his five legions east, every city he passed declared their undying allegiance to Rome. Athens, however, remained loyal to Mithridates. When the Athenians refused to surrender, Sulla set about besieging the city back into the fold; not an easy task since the Pontic fleet.controlled the seas. To deal with this problem, Sulla dispatched a trusted lieutenant to scrounge about for allied naval forces. It was while Sulla sat unhappily outside of Athens that refugees from Rome arrived with the news that the Marians had captured Rome, his friends were dead, and Sulla himself was an enemy-of-the-state. After a winter of bad news, Sulla got a bit of good luck. Some Greek deserters informed him of an ill-attended corner of the wall. One night, a few soldiers used tall ladders to climb into Athens, threw open the gates, and let their comrades in. What followed was like the bloodbath in Rome, only worse. Sulla vented his frustrations on Athens, giving his men rein to rob, kill, and rape at their pleasure. Only after the desperate pleading from both Greek and Roman friends did Sulla allow himself to be persuaded to end the sack. Consolidating his victory, the legions overwhelmed the Athenian port of Piraeus, and forced the Pontic fleet to retreat out to sea. Sulla then ordered its famous walls destroyed. Sulla now turned his full attention to Archelaus. After departing Athens, the Pontic fleet put back to shore in Thrace, and disembarked his army, bring the Pontic strength to 120,000 men. Racing up to meet them, Sulla manoeuvred Archelaus into battle at Chaeronea (86 BC). Despite being outnumbered, the legions destroyed the Pontic army without breaking a sweat. Archelaus himself managed to escape, but with no army to command, it looked like the brief Pontic occupation of Greece was over. But Mithridates still had manpower left to draw on. The next year, Archelaus returned with at the head of another army 120,000 strong. The two armies met at the Battle of Orchomenus (85 BC). and this time Sulla's troops wavered in the early stages. Archelaus' cavalry attack on the Roman left almost succeeded. But Sulla saved the day by confronting a retreating cohort and yelling, "*For me, an honourable death here; but you, when men ask you where you betrayed your commander, remember to tell them, at Orchomenus*". Shamed, the men turned and stabilized the situation. The Pontic army was once again destroyed. Even Mithridates did not have the resources to come back this. He sued for peace, and accepted Sulla's hurriedly negotiated terms; Pergamum would return to Roman provincial status; Cappadocia and Bithynia would be ruled by Roman client kings; and Mithridates would return to Pontus. Mithridates also equipped Sulla with seventy warships, and paid a heaping load of silver in war reparations; later put to good use in Italy Given all the trouble, this was an incredibly good deal for Mithridates, which would allow him to rebuild his power and plague Rome again in the years to come. The explanation is, of course, simple. The lenient terms left Sulla free to turn his attention to his domestic enemies.

In 84 BC, Sulla turned back towards home with his army; **Sulla's Civil War** (83–81 BC). Back in Rome, Cinna had dispatched an army under Lucius Valerius Flaccus to relieve Sulla of his command in the east. However, the Marian regime could only fund five legions, because, after the Social War, the Italian economy was in shambles. The two sides were evenly matched at first, but, as soon as Flaccus' approached Sulla's army, some advanced units defected to his side. Flaccus, unable to make Sulla stand-down, led his army into Thrace, to put some distance from Sulla's magnetic pull. But the desertion in the ranks spread, and eventually Flaccus was murdered in a mutiny, led by his *Legate*, Flavius Fimbria. Fimbria's motives are difficult to discern; a staunch Marian, he certainly had no intention of joining Sulla. He may have felt that Flaccus was too weak, since he tried to regain the troop's loyalty by allowing them to plunder Thrace. As soon as peace was reached with Mithridates, Sulla moved against Fimbria's army, which promptly deserted their upstart commander; Fimbria himself took his own life. With the east fully pacified, Sulla left the forces originally under Fimbria to maintain peace in Anatolia, and began to march his five veteran legions back towards Italy. But Cinna was not some unimaginative tyrant, who used brutality only to satisfy petty whims and pleasures. He had fulfilled his promise of full Italian equality, so could expect their staunch support in the looming confrontation. Cinna and his *Consular* colleague, Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, gathered together an army, and prepared to ferry it across the Adriatic to confront Sulla in Greece. But in his haste, bordering on panic, Cinna decided to put his men on ship in the winter 83-84 BC, rather than wait until spring; with fatal consequences. The first convoy crossed fine, but a second was caught in a terrible storm, drowning half the men. Cinna was forced to come in person to confront the mutinous survivors. But, when he tried to frighten his army back into obedience, one soldier pulled his sword and cut him down where he stood. The path to Italy now lay open, and, hearing the news, now sole *Consul* Carbo spent all of 84 BC raising another army for its defence. Despite the mutiny, it was not inevitable that Sulla would win the looming confrontation. Even if they cared little for high Roman politics, Italians feared the return to power of reactionary conservatives would strip them of all their recent gains. So the Marians entered 83 BC feeling good about their chances. On the other side of the Adriatic, Sulla was also preparing. He opened talks with the *Senate*, and hinted that he would accept Italian equality without argument. In the spring, Sulla finally crossed the Adriatic with the best-trained and most experienced army anywhere in the Mediterranean. Arriving at Brundisium, he followed through, and promising to respect Italian citizenship as much as his enemies. Rather than a long fighting slog to Rome, Sulla set out on the principal road to Rome, the Appian Way, without having yet drawn his sword. Back in Rome, the news of Sulla's arrival sounded like deliverance to the nobles who had fled the Marian regime, and more and more of them flocked to his banner, until he was “*surrounded by what was to all intents and purposes a Senate*”. Of these the most important was Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, the governor of North Africa, and a member of the influential Metelli family. Pius was not strictly a partisan of Sulla, but, after carefully consideration, he decided that Sulla represented the more legitimate side of the conflict. Sulla was delighted when this political heavy weight joined his march, and all but named him co-commander. But Sulla also accepted two young men on the rise; Gnaeus Pompeius and Marcus Licinius Crassus. The man known to history as Pompey the Great was the 21 year-old son of the late Pompey Strabo, and a man operating well above his station. Despite being a private citizen (he was still too young to hold a magistracy), Pompey had taken the unheard-of step of recruiting a personal legion from his father's impressive client network in north-eastern Italy, thanks to his ambitious charisma. A wild card in all of this, securing Pompey's loyalty was be a key objective of both sides. So when Pompey opted for Sulla, it was a serious blow to the Marians; not only were they denied the forces at his disposal, but the north-east went from friendly to hostile territory. Eager to cement Pompey's loyalty, Sulla indulged the brash and cocky young man. Also joining Sulla's slow-moving army was a man who would become Pompey's great rival in the years to come; Marcus Licinius Crassus. Crassus' family was old and highly respected, but had run afoul of the Marian purge. While his father and older brother were killed, Crassus himself got away to Spain. Like Pompey, he raised a personal army from his father's extensive network of clients to contribute to Sulla's war effort. Sulla also attracted former enemies now looking to secure a spot on the winning side; among them Publius Cornelius Cethegus, who had been among the twelve named men specifically proscribed by Sulla after his first march on Rome. Though Sulla knew how to nurse a grudge, he welcomed these supplications as a chance to display clemency and forgiveness. Despite Sulla's momentum, however, the war was far from over. Most of central Italy remained in opposition, suspicious of Sulla's ultimate intentions. Carbo was able to raise fresh armies under two stalwarts of the regime. Gaius Norbanus finished his preparations first, and deployed his forces in Campania, blocking the final approach to Rome. The Battle of Mount Tifata (November 83 BC) became the first engagement of the civil war. Sulla later said that, even on the eve of battle, he was not sure how his men would respond to the order to fight fellow Romans. But the next morning, they more than proved their loyalty, fighting as tenaciously as they had against Pontic armies, and sending Norbanus' shattered army back behind the safety of Capua's walls. With Norbanus cooped up in Capua, Scipio Asiaticus approached Sulla from the north. But where Sulla's men had just proved their loyalty, Asiaticus' men were wavering. Sulla's victory, combined with his promise to respect Italian citizenship, made fighting seem as pointless as it was dangerous. With his men deserting in droves, Asiaticus was forced to surrender without even drawing his sword. Trying to display benevolence with every step, Sulla interviewed Asiaticus, and then let him go free. But this marked the limits of his magnanimity; anyone left on the other side would be treated as enemies to be destoryed, rather than potential allies to be won over. As 83 BC drew to a close, it was clear that Sulla would soon be marching on Rome itself. So Carbo engineered his re-election to the *Consulship*, and for a colleague chose Marius' son, Gaius Marius the Younger, in an attempt to inspire his father's old supporters. With the noose closing around their necks, the Marians grew more savage. Most of the Sullan partisans had long since departed Rome, leaving behind only staunch supporters, or a small collection of neutral *Senators* who had remained in the hopes of brokering a peace; now suspected of being in league with Sulla. The newly elected *Consuls* convened the *Senate* under false pretenses, and there, in the Senate House itself, the marked men were cut-down by assassins. The big name on the list was Publius Mucius Scaevola, the *Pontifex Maximus* and last of the old generation of *Optimates*. As the campaign year of 82 BC opened, Carbo took his forces to the north to oppose Pompey and Metellus Pius, while Marius moved against Sulla in the south. The younger Marius engaged Sulla in a long and desperate battle at Sacriportus (April, 82 BC), but, as before, defections cost Marius too many men, and he was forced to withdraw behind the walls of Praeneste. Leaving a siege to a subordinate, Sulla himself moved north against Carbo. Since most of the hard-core Marians were in Carbo's army, there would be no defections this time. Sulla was unable to dislodge Carbo from his stronghold in Etruria, but the beleaguered *Consul* knew that his cause was lost; rather that make a last stand, he fled and spent the next year hiding out in Sicily. This was not yet the end of the resistance, however, as the remaining Marian forces, mostly composed of Samnites, gathered together under Pontius Telesinus, and attempted to relieve young Marius at Praeneste. Unable to break the siege, Telesinus moved back towards Rome, and met Sulla just outside the walls. The ensuing Battle of the Colline Gate (November 82 BC) was a huge and desperate final struggle, with both sides certain that only their own victory could save the Republic. The left wing of Sulla's army buckled so dangerously that he personally took command to try and salvage the situation. In the confusion of battle, he believed all was lost. But what Sulla did not know was that on the other side of the battle, Crassus had comletely routed the enemy right, and turned their flank. It was only hours later that Sulla realized he had actually won the battle; when messengers arrived from Crassus asking for supplies to break for supper. Some 50,000 combatants lost their lives that day. Telesinus himself was found mortally wounded on the field. His head was cut-off and paraded before the walls of Praeneste, where Marius the Younger committed suicide in despair. Sulla now stood alone as the master of Rome.

    Inside Rome, Sulla went to address the *Senate*. They did not discuss the civil war, but instead repealed the decree making him an enemy-of-the-state, accepted his report on the Mithridatic War, and confirmed all the settlements he had made in Anatolia. But all of those decrees still left Sulla holding no official position. His only claim to authority came from his five-year old *Proconsular* assignment to a war that had already been won. So Sulla offered a radical suggestion: revive the ancient *Dictatorship*. Once a ubiquitous office in the early days of the Republic, it had been 120 years since Rome gave itself over to the hands of a *Dictator*. The Senate complied and passed the bill unanimously. But there was one unusual omission from the bill naming him *Dictator*: no expiration date. Lucius Cornelius Sulla had become Rome's first ***Dictator for Life***. There was a dark backdrop to this charade. Before addressing the Senate, Sulla had ordered 6.000 prisoners (all men who had fought against him in his approach to Rome) herded into the adjacent Circus Flaminius. In the midst of his address, his troops methodically massacred the defenceless prisoners. “S*ulla continued speaking with the same unmoved, calm expression on his face*,” Plutarch says, “*and told them not to pay any attention to what was going on outside, which was just some criminals being punished on his orders. As a result of this, even the densest person in Rome came to understand that they had merely exchanged one monstrous tyranny for another*". When the killing was done, and the disturbed senators departed, Sulla called an open meeting to address the people of Rome. He reiterated that only his personal enemies need fear his wrath. With anxiety running high in the city, a small deputation of *Senators* approached Sulla, and asked for some relief; "*Let us know whom you intend to punish*". Sulla took their words to heart, and spent the night with his closest advisers to produce a "proscription list" containing eighty names. The people of Rome breathed a sigh of relief. Yes, it was a great increase of the twelve men named after the first march on Rome, but a lot had happened since then; eighty seemed a bargain to atone for all that. But the next morning, men awoke to a frightening revision; overnight Sulla had posted a new list with 220 additional names. The following morning another new list went up, containing 500 names. Some 1,100 nobles (*Senators* and *Equestrians*) would ultimately be consumed, with the total death toll as high as 3,000. Far from relieving tension, the proscription blanketed Italy under a reign of terror. Sulla not only paid a bounty for every head delivered, but allowed the murderers a share of the victim's property. This led to an odious mingling of political and personal profit, as men with hard hearts and empty wallets fanned out across Italy to get rich killing Sulla's enemies. Marcus Licinius Crassus, the hero of the Battle of the Colline Gate, became an expert at this swift and profitable justice. Sulla also dispatched Pompey to Sicily to personally hunt down Carbo, who was soon to be executed. Aside from Sulla's formal representatives, unofficial muder gangs became a lucrative business to get into. Joining these gangs were two greedy and brutal youths; Gaius Verres and Lucius Sergius Catilina. As the official murder continued, the promise to limit victims to Sulla's enemies went up in smoke. Plutarch writes, “*Even the executioners tended to say that this man was killed by his large house, this one by his estate, that one by his warm springs*”. The orgy of terror finally wound down after Sulla announced that no more names would be proscribed after 1 June 82 BC. In the meantime, men might use influential friends to get their names off the list. The most famous case of this kind was a young man named Gaius Julius Caesar. Sulla noted in his memoirs that he regretted sparing Caesar's life; "*In this Caesar, I see many a Marius*". Sulla now embarked on the rejuvenation of the Republic made possible by the purge of his enemies. He wanted the Romans to return to their roots. Sulla used his *Dictatorial* powers to place the *Senate* back at the center of the Republic, including requiring *Senatorial* approval before a bill could be presented to the *Assembly*, and tilting voting heavily towards major landowners. With the *Tribunate* so often used to by anti-Senatorial demagogues, Sulla severely curtailed their power, including severely restricting the all-powerful veto. But more important than these procedural measures, Sulla decreed that men elected *Tribune* were barred from all other magistracies, so that ambitious young leaders would never seek the office again. What once had been a springboard into a political career was now a dead end. The *Tribunes* contained, Sulla then formalized the rest of the Republican magistracies. Until now, rules of progression up the *Cursus Honorum* had always been vague and unwritten. Sulla formalized the path. He decreed that two-years had to pass in between offices no matter what, and ten-years must elapse before holding the same office. There would be no consecutive *Consulships* in Sulla's Republic. He also set a minimum ages for the various magistrates, in part to ensure that the future leaders of Rome had the requisite experience to handle the responsibility; candidates had to be at least 30 years-old to stand for a *Quaestorship*; 36 to be *Aedile*; 39 to be *Praetor*; and finally 42 years-old for the highest office of *Consul*. Sulla next doubled the rolls of the *Senate* from three hundred to six hundred. Some of the new Senators were drawn from Sulla's loyal friends and virtuous officers; none were likely from among his opponents; thus creating a *Senate*, loyal not just to Sulla, but to the continuation of Sulla’s reforms. With an enlarged Senate, Sulla could now restore control of the jury pool for permanent courts; a struggle that had been ongoing since the days of the Gracchi. Sulla also addressed the always-vital question of land distribution. The upheavals of the past decade had left wide swaths of Italian land already vacant. In addition, he doled out heavy punishment on regions that had opposed him; Etruria and Samnium, deep wells of Mariaun resistance, were targeted for mass seizure of land for Sulla's own veterans. Sulla's run of reforms was designed to roll the Republic back to its past as a *Senatorial* aristocracy. One problem that could not be solved by looking to the past was the fate of the Italians. He never considered breaking his word to respect Italian equality; Sulla’s coup thus speeded up the integration of Italy after the Social War. Contrary to their fear, the voice of the old Romans was not lost, it simply changed pitch with the addition of new voices. Despite his *Dictatorship* being held in perpetuity, Sulla never intended to stay in power indefinitely. Sulla convened a mass meeting to address all the citizens of Rome, and announced he was resigning the *Dictatorship*; instead, he would be a candidate for *Consul* alongside Metellus Pius, still scrupulously treated as a near-equal. Sulla was serious about shedding power. He and Pius were duly elected, but, after this further year governing Rome, Sulla retired to a country villa in Campania. In between hosting old friends, he spent much of his time composing an enormous memoir that would explain and justify everything he had ever said or done. Sulla remains a singular figure in Roman history; the bloodthirsty tyrant who "*filled the city with deaths without number or limit*", is also humble old man who peacefully stepped away from absolute power. Sulla was suddenly stricken in 78 BC; likely caused by liver failure or a ruptured ulcer. By morning, Lucius Cornelius Sulla was dead. His ashes were laid in his ancestral tomb, and marked by an epitaph he wrote himself, summing up his life better than anyone else could; "*No better friend, no worse enemy*".

The Sullan constitution did not survive. In the first years of the new regime, the senior Sullan leaders were for the most part united around his reformed Republic. But, as the years passed, new political rivalries emerged - Metellus Pius was too imperious; Pompey too arrogant; Crassus too greedy - and they abandoned the Sullan constitution whenever expedient. So it turned out Sulla's "final" settlement was just another milestone on the Republic's road to ruin. In the final analysis, no one was more to blame for its failure than Sulla himself. The biography of Sulla spoke louder than the mundane rules of constitutional order. As a young man he had flouted traditional rules of loyalty and deference to spread his own fame. When challenged back in Rome, he marched legions on the city. While abroad, he ran his own military campaigns, conducted his own diplomacy, and, at the time, held no constitutional authority. On his return, he launched a civil war, killed his enemies, and accumulated unlimited power indefinitely in his own hands. It was Sulla's *Dictatorship*, not Sulla's Republic, that would be his lasting legacy. He had proved that a naked power grab could be done. By twice marching on Rome without any consequences, Sulla demonstrated that power had a way of retrospectively legitimising even the most illegitimate of actions, because, once in power, the rules could be changes, and those who disagreed eliminated.

### Pompey and Crassus

    Whatever good work Lucius Cornelius Sulla accomplished, saving the Republic was not among them. Indeed, the generation that killed the Republic grew-up in the shadow of Sulla, and some of the ringleaders of its demise were two of his leading supporters; **Marcus Licinius Crassus** (d. 53 BC) and **Pompey the Great** (d. 48 BC). Crassus was born into a wealthy and illustrious family; his father was *Consul* in 97 BC, governor of Spain for four years, and awarded a *Triumph* in 93 BC. Although originally supporters of Marius, the family had adopted a more neutral position opposed to the methods of both Marius and Sulla, and eventually ran afoul of the Marius-Cinna purge. While his father and older brother had been killed, Crassus himself got away to Spain. In Spain, Crassus had laid low among loyal clients his father had established as governor. Then when news of Cinna's death reached him, Crassus emerged from hiding, raised a personal legion, and led it round the Mediterranean, testing alliances with various anti-Marian factions, before finally throwing in his lot with Sulla. He fought alongside Metellus Pius in northern Italy, until they all merged into Sulla's army for the decisive Battle of the Colline Gate. It was in that battle, that Crassus stepped onto the historical stage, commanding the right flank, shattering the enemy before him, and winning for Sulla, not just the battle, but complete control of Rome. Crassus' contribution to the victory put him in a key position, but, in the first chapter of what proved to be the defining story of his life, Crassus was overshadowed by the younger and more glamorous Pompey. What Pompey and Crassus had both realised was that civil war transformed the rules of the political game. The most ruthless and clear sighted of the younger generation had been presented with an unparalleled opportunity to leapfrog their elders. For now, Crassus focused on rebuilding the fortunes of his family, which had been expropriated in the Marian purge. No one exploited the Sullan reign-of-terror more profitably than Crassus, who had the nose for gain and little sympathy for the men who had killed his father and brother. As the general who had saved Sulla at the Colline Gate, he was in a privileged position to throw his weight about; first in line to snapped up cheap whatever proscribed victims left behind. At length, however, when Crassus flagrantly added the name of an innocent man in Bruttium just to seize an attractive estate, Sulla lost patience. In the resulting scandal relations between the two men broke down irreparably, and Sulla withdrew his favour from his former lieutenant. Crassus was already so rich that he could afford not to care. And his unconventional career was only beginning. Slave trafficking, silver mines and real estate remained his principal investments, but he regarded no scam as too low if it would add to his coffers. Whenever a building went up in flames, Crassus would have his private fire-brigade rush to the scene, then refuse to extinguish the fire until the distraught owner had sold him the property cheap. Money was easily Crassus' favourite instrument of power. Despite his reputation for avarice, Crassus could be notoriously generous. The more eminent the citizen, the more spectacularly he would be encouraged to fall into debt to him. The threads of gold he spun entangled the whole Republic. Little could happen of which Crassus was not immediately aware, sensitive as he was to every flutter of every fly caught in his web. Yet, to his chagrin, he found himself overshadowed by one rival to whom the laws of political gravity appeared simply not to apply. The show-stealer, as ever, was Gnaeus Pompeius. Precocious swagger, a genius for self-promotion and an almost childlike relish for the perks of success: these were to be the defining characteristics of the man known to history as Pompey the Great. Sulla had been perfectly content to flatter the young man if it helped to ensure his allegiance. Pompey both merited and required courting. From his father, the no-so-loved Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, he inherited, not only an impressive client network in Italy, but an aptitude for switching sides. Unlike Crassus, Pompey had no personal feud with the Marian regime. Before Sulla's arrival, he had been spotted visiting Cinna's camp. Evidently the spectacle of Cinna's lynching in a mutiny persuaded him that Sulla would be the better man to back. Sulla found young Pompey useful, even as he moved to forbid anyone under the age of thirty from holding political office. Pompey was dispatched to Sicily to hunt down Marian partisans. He threw himself into this task with a ruthlessness that reminded some of his father; his enemies dubbed him *Adulescentulus carnifex* ("teenage butcher"). When some Sicilians protested that his methods were perhaps illegal, Pompey dismissed them with a remark that revealed his personal philosophy; "*Won't you stop citing laws to us that have swords by our sides*". After Sicily, Pompey sailed next for North Africa, where the Marians had assembled a modest force. After defeating them, he crossed back to Italy, and tested the limits of Sulla's patience by demanding a *Triumph*. Sulla naturally refused, since the rules allowed only *Consuls* or *Praetors* to recieve this highest military honour; Pompey was not even old enough to be a *Senator*. It was for this impetuousness that Sulla first dubbed him, in mockery, *Magnus* ("the Great"); a title Pompey enthusiastically embraced. Pompey, typically, had met refusal with impudence; he refused a direct order to disband his legions, until an exasperated Sulla at last gave way, crying out twice "*Let him have his triumph!*". After the excitement of an extra-legal *Triumph*, the grind of a conventional political career was not for Pompey the Great.

    When Sulla died in 78 BC, the aftershocks of the civil war rumbled on. Marcus Aemilius Lepidus tried to revive the fortunes of the *Populares* movement, by preventing Sulla from receiving a state funeral. He failed, and, after leaving Rome to govern Cisalpine Gaul, his political opponents moved against him. Many proscribed families joined the subsequent armed revolt. Though quickly suppressed, it showed how tenuous the peace really was. The province of Spain was still infested with Marian rebels. Having helped put down Lepidus' revolt, Pompey then pulled his favourite stunt of refusing to disband his troops, until he was given a command in Spain. The *Senate*, in agreeing, was merely surrendering to blackmail; the campaign promised to be arduous and unglamorous, and Rome would be glad to see the back of Pompey. In Spain, Quintus Sertorius (d. 73 BC). the last great Marian general, had won the enthusiastic support of the native Celt-Iberians by the simple means of treating them with fairness and honesty. Another army had to be sent east in an attempt to wrap up the war against Mithridates VI of Pontus, which Sulla himself had left unfinished when he returned to Rome. The *Senate* had never ratified the lenient treaty that their own general had signed, and continued to encourage governors of Pergamon to lauch raids into Pontus, to try and provoke him into rashness. Not that Mithridates himself had ever given up on his own ambitions. He had been rebuilding his forces, and even secured an alliance with Marian rebels to help introduce Roman-style military discipline and efficiency. The immediate cause of the Third Mithridatic War (73–63 BC) was the death of Nicomedes IV of Bithynia without heirs in 75 BC, bequeathing his kingdom to Rome. Bithynia was a small but strategically important kingdom in north-west Anatolia, spanning the all important Bosporus strait between Europe and Asia. In 73 BC, before Rome could consolidate her control, Mithridates launched an invasion of Bithynia. Between wars to the east and west, much of Rome’s army was off the Italian peninsula. This absence tempted a band of gladiators to launch a slave revolt; the **War of Spartacus** (73–71 BC), also called the Third Servile War. Gladiatorial combat for the entertainment of onlookers had been going on since the days of the kings, and, as time went by, became an increasing part of Roman public festivals, with foreign wars having brought more and more slaves suitable for the games into the Republic. A successful gladiator could attract his share of hero worship; “*Men give them their souls, women their bodies*”. Yet he remained a particularly despised member of Roman society; "*the art they glorify, the artist they debase*", writes Tertullian. These slaves were skilled fighters, so training schools tended to be concentrated in Campania, at a safe distance from Rome. In the summer of 73 BC, some 200 gladiators in the Capuan school owned by Lentulus Batiatus plotted an escape. When their plans were betrayed, 73 of them managed to seize kitchen implements, and fight their way free from the school. When the local militia came after them, the fugitives polished them off and took their weapons too. The gladiators elected as their leader a man named Spartacus (d. 71 BC); Plutarch says that he was a Thracian “*from the nomadic tribes,*” but “*most intelligent and cultured, being more like a Greek than a Thracian*”. This was the beginning of a revolt that would go on for more than two years, with Spartacus proving to be excellent tactician. Spilling out across Campania, the escaped gladiators began plundering the region, recruiting more slaves into their ranks, and then retired to a defensible position on Mount Vesuvius. Even though the number on the run was well below a hundred trained fighting men, the Romans still sent a *Praetor*, along with a militia of 3,000 men, to deal with them. There was only one routes of escape from Mount Vesuvius: a pass guarded by the Romans. Gladiators, however, knew all about lunging at an opponent's weak spot. Finding the slopes of the volcano covered with wild vines, they wove ladders, and scrambled down a steep cliff-face on the other side. Then they went around to where the Romans were encamped, totally unprepared, and took the whole camp. A second expedition dispatched against Spartacus was also defeated. With these victories, more and more slaves flocked to the rebel army. which, at its height, swelled to 70,000. They spent the winter of 73-72 BC training, and expanding their raiding territory; Nola was looted once again. This alarmed the *Senate* to such a degree that two *Consular* legions were dispatched, under Lucius Gellius and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus; “*Ridiculous and contemptible in the beginning*,” Appian says, "*the war had become formidable*”. In the spring, Spartacus, who apparently just wanted to go home, began to head north towards the Alps, where they could then scatter to their homelands. However, there was now a factional split, with a Gallic gladiator named Crixus, and some 30,000 followers, wanting to stay in Italy, and continue plundering. In the south, Gnaeus engaged the group under Crixus near Mount Garganus, and annihilated them. In the north, Lentulus deployed his troops in a defensive position, to bar Spartacus' escape, and then waited for Gnaeus to arrive and close the trap. But Spartacus' army did not wait, attacking up the slope, and defeating Lentulus. The route over the Alps, and to freedom, now stood wide open. But they did not take it. Instead, Spartacus and his army retraced their steps back into Italy. Unfortunately, we have only the Roman version of events so do not know the reason. Perhaps, the opportunity for violent freebooting was simply too tempting to resist. Alarmed, the *Senate* charge Marcus Licinius Crassus with the task ending the rebellion. Having won the chance to be the saviour of the Republic, he did not intend to waste it. After an ignoble start, Crassus imposed military discipline with the ruthlessness that characterized Sulla’s lieutenants. He revived the ancient practice of *Decimation*, whereby one in every ten men was selected by lots, and put to death, while their fellows watched. With his authority firmly established, Crassus set-ut in pursuit of Spartacus, who had moved steadily south until he reached the coast near Rhegium, at the very tip of the Italian boot. He knew that Sicily was where he was most likely to find new recruits. Spartacus made a deal with pirates to ferry his army across. However, the pirates took the money and sailed away, leaving his army stranded on a little peninsula. With winter closing in, Crassus raised a barricade stretching from shore to shore to ensure that his quarry could not escape. Spartacus made two desperate attempts to storm the ditch and wall. but both were repulsed, to Crassus' immense relief, for time was running out. An enemy far more threatening than Spartacus was looming. Pompey had finally extracted himself from the Spanish quagmire, by orchestrating the assassination of Sertorius; he was on the way home. Spartacus learned of this, and redouble his efforts to escape. He offered to negotiate to capitalise on Crassus' impatience. When Crassus refused, he crucifyied Roman prisoners in full view of the barricades, trying to provoke a battle. And then, one dim and snowy evening, Spartacus made a third attempt to force the barricades. This time, with heavy losses, he broke free. Spartacus zigzagged towards Brundusium, with Crassus pursuing him at a frantic speed. With all discipline breaking down, as small groups fled independently, Spartacus was forced to turn and prepared to fight; he killed his own horse, spurning further flight, and pledging himself to victory or death. The rebelled were completely routed, with vast majority slain alongside their general; Spartacus' body was never found. The great slave uprising was over; Crassus had saved the Republic. Except that, at the very last minute, his glory was snatched away. As Pompey headed south with his legions, he met with 5,000 fugitives from before Spartacus' final defeat. With brisk efficiency, he slaughtered every last one. Ever the self-promoter, he wrote to the *Senate*, boasting that, while Crassus had won a battle, he, Pompey Magnus, had “*dug the war up by the roots*”. In an attempt to counteract Pompey's glory-hunting, Crassus ordered all his prisoners crucified along the Appian Way. For over a hundred miles, along Italy's busiest road, a cross with a nailed slave stood every forty yards, a gruesome billboard advertising Crassus' victory. To most Romans, however, the war against Spartacus had been an embarrassment, compared to Pompey's far-off slaughter of tribesmen in a far-off provincial war. This is why, even though both men were awarded Triumphs, Crassus had to be satisfied with a second-class parade; touring the streets of Rome on foot. No walking for Pompey, of course. While Pompey preened in a chariot pulled by four white horses, his train of loot and prisoners snaking ahead of him, Crassus could only watch and fume.

    All the same, Crassus was careful not to let his resentment show. Cheering crowds, for Crassus, were only means to an end, and that end was the ***Consulship***. With elections fast approaching, he adroitly suggested to his great rival that they run on a joint ticket. Pompey was thirty-six years old, well below the minimum age set by Sulla. Uniquely for a *Consul*, he had never even been a *Senator*, let alone climbed the *Cursus Honorum*. But both men commanded large armies, camped outside the walls, and refused to disband them until an understanding was reached with the *Senate*; and once again, the rule-of-law was waived for the sake of expediency. Pompey and Crassus were duly elected unopposed as *Consuls* for 70 BC. However, in office, they did not remain friendly. Pompey immediately introduced a crowd-pleasing bill, restoring to the *Tribunate* all its ancient privileges abolished by Sulla. The people had been demanding just such a measure for almost a decade. Crassus, not wishing to miss out on the credit, was careful to co-sponsor the bill. The cornerstone of the Sulla's constitution was thereby casually demolished, and a potentially destabilising element restored to Roman polical life, made worse by his intervention. Even Quintus Lutatius Catulus, the arch-consevative of his day, withdrew his opposition, sensing the way the wind was blowing. Not that this implied the *Senate* was happy; far from it. Pompey's greatness, and his extra-legal *Consulship*, remained deeply offensive. This allowed Crassus to present himself as the *Optimate* champion, by blocking any further popularist measures. As a result, they quarrelled the whole time, and got nothing done. Towards the end, however, Pompey and Crassus realised that they were both being damaged by their feud, and publicly reconciled. After his consulship, Pompey deliberately declined a provincial governorship, as would have been normal. It was his new favourite stratagem to lay low, and employ proxies to get him the things he most wanted - a shrewd gambit, especially when his ambitions aimed as high as they did now. Not for nothing had he rolled-back Sulla's reforms. It was a *Tribune,* in 67 BC, who proposed that Pompey be granted sweeping powers to deal with piracy. By the 1st century BC, what had long been a pirate nuisance became a plague, especially the Cilician pirates of southern Anatolia. Ironically, it was Rome's supremacy in the East that had allowed pirates to range far from their havens. By maintaining weak client states lest they pose a threat to her interests, the Republic had left the field clear for the triumph of brigandage. One of the pirates' sources of income was kidnapping Romans, and holding them for ransom; most famously, a certain Julius Caesar. Pompey was to have dominion over the entire Mediterranean, and up to fifty miles inland, together 500 ships and 120,000 men. Despite vehement opposition from the *Senate* against concentrating so much power in the hands of a single man, the *Assembly* rapturously ratified the bill. As it proved, to sweep the seas clear of pirates, storm their strongholds, and end a menace that had tormented the Republic for decades, took Pompey a mere three months. The Mediterranean was divided into thirteen districts, to each of which was assigned a fleet and a commander. Pompey then criss-crossed the sea in his own powerful fleet, scattering every pirate fleet they came across, and, either, driving them to port or back towards their Cilician strongholds. Pompey then attacked Cilicia with overwhelming force. Left without ships, Pompey induced the remaining pirates to surrender, by promising them clemancy; not merely refraining from crucifying them, but setting them up on plots of land as farmers and tax-payers. It was a brilliant victory, a triumph for Pompey himself, and an eye-opening demonstration that there was still no withstanding Rome should her patience be pushed too far. But Pompey, greedy as ever, wanted more. From his earliest days, teasing his quiff in front of the mirror, he had dreamed of being the new Alexander. Now he was determined to seize his chance of glory in the East.

    Back in 74 BC, when Pompey was still in Spain, the Senate had appointed Lucius Lucullus (57 BC), another of Sulla's old lieutenants, to the eastern command against **Mithridates VI of Pontus**. By all accounted Lucullus exhibited extraordinary generalship in the course of the Third Mithridatic War (73-63 BC). He marched into Bithynia with his five legions, and forced Mithridates to retreat back to Pontus. Then, in the spring of 72 BC, he launched an invasion of Pontus itself, and, over the next two years, systematically destroyed the king's grip on power. By the end of 71 BC, virtually the whole of the kingdom was in Lucullus hands, and Mithridates himself fled into exile. The war appeared to have been brought to a triumphant close. However, Mithridates, dodging every Roman attempt to capture him, crossed the mountains into neighbouring Armenia, where he threw himself on the mercy of his son-in-law, King Tigranes II (95–55 BC). Lucullus promptly dispatched an envoy to demand the surrender of the Pontic king. This was the first contact between Rome and Armenia, a kingdom beyond Rome's sphere of influence, which was at the height of its power. In little more than a decade, Tigranes had enlarged his kingdom so much that he adopted the grandiose title, "*King of Kings*". The proud Armenian king, not wanting to look like a puppet of Rome, refused to give up his father-in-law. So it was that Lucullus, without any official authorisation, prepared for war with a country of which few back in Rome had even heard. In the summer of 69 BC, five legions invaded Armenia, marching straight for the new capital of Tigranocerta, which Tigranes had only just lovingly built from scratch. The Armedian king came storming to its relief, which was exactly what Lucullus had been banking on; despite the fact that his army was outnumbered more than two to one. When Tigranes saw the pitiable size of the Roman force opposed to him, he joked that they "*were too many to be an embassy, and too few to be an army*". The royal quip provoked much sycophantic mirth, but the smiles were soon to be wiped from Armenian faces. This was the famous Battle of Tigranocerta (October 69 BC), where Lucullus not only annihilated the Armenian army, but stormed Tigranocerta and literally stripped the city bare; Lucullus taking the royal treasury, his men everything else. Tigranes, a fugitive within his own kingdom, retired to his old capital of Artaxata in the northern highlands to gather another army. But this proved to be the high point of Lucullus' career. Throughout 68 BC, he found himself on a wild-goose chase through the badlands of Armenia, harried by Tigranes, who now knew better than to meet him face to face. In Pontus, the irrepressible Mithridates popped up with yet another army, and won a series of quick victories over the Roman garrisons. Over the winter, Lucullus captured strategically important city of Nisibis in a surprise attack. Bit it made no difference. The gravest threat to his position no longer came from Tigranes or Mithridates. Instead, as he was soon to discover, it was Pompey, who coveted the eastern command, and had few quarms about stabbing a collegue in the back to get it. He was almost at the summit of Roman politics, with a client network throughout the empire ready to help him get there. Back in Rome, tame *Tribunes* began snapping at Lucullus like wolves on the trail of a wounded beast. In his own camp, Lucullus' authority over his men was seriously undermined by Publius Clodius Pulcher, apparently acting in the interests and pay of Pompey. In the spring, Lucullus was able to persuade his mutinous legions to march back towards Pontus to protect Roman interests there, but they refused to fight. And so 67 BC was marked by an unusual stand-off, with Lucullus forced to watch helplessly as the Pontic king entrenched himself once again in his old kingdom. The Pompey faction in Rome could thus argue that Lucullus was unable to finish off Mithridates. In 66 BC, the Senate recalled him and sent Pompey to take over the eastern command. However he achieved the command, it was during this campaign that Pompey truly earned his honorific, *Magnus* ("the Great"). At the head of eight legions, and wihout the back-stabbing Lucullus had endured, Pompey marched into Pontus, and easily swept Mithridates from his kingdom for the last time. As usual he vanished into the mountains, but, this time, Tigranes, sensing the way the wind was blowing, denied him refuge. Instead, Tigranes sued for peace, and hurriedly accepted Pompey's terms; the Kingdom of Armenia was to become a Roman client state. Thus began Armenia's long and complicated history as a buffer state between Rome and the Parthians. From Armenia, Pompey pursued Mithridates east. Once he had been hailed as Rome's most implacable foe, and the "great liberator" of the Greek world; now he was little more than a fugative, his influence all but gone. Pompey was halted at the banks of the Caspian Sea by the news that Mithridates was dead. He fled over the Caucasus Mountains to Crimea, and threw himself on the mercy of his son, a local ruler. When even his son turned against him, the old king chose suicide. Pompey, after announcing the news to his cheering legions, sped back to Pontus, where Mithridates' body had been brought by his son. Not caring to inspect the corpse, Pompey contented himself with rifling through the dead king's belongings. Among them he found a red cloak that had once belonged to Alexander. Looking ahead to his *Triumph*, he promptly tried it on for size. Concerned about instability to the south of Roman Anatolia, Pompey then swept down along the coast of the Mediterranean. In Syria, he found the remnants of what had once been the vast Seleucid Empire. Those glory days were long gone. In 83 BC, Tigranes of Armenia had invaded Syria at the invition of one faction in a civil wars, and virtually ended Seleucid rule. Only Lucullus' defeat of Tigranes, in 69 BC, had allowed a rump Seleucid kingdom to be resurrected. However, the civil wars continued. Pompey solved the issue, by deposing the sitting king, and impose direct rule as an official Roman province. In the autumn of 64 BC, Pompey headed south from Syria to bag a few more. His first target was a series of ten Hellenistic coastal cities, known as the Decapolis. He then moved inland, and occupied Jerusalem. The Temple, despite desperate resistance, was stormed. Pompey, intrigued by reports of the Jews' peculiar god, brushed aside the protests of scandalised priests, and took a quick look into the Temple's "Holy of Holies". This shocked the Jews, but they were soon reconciled to the heathen invaders, when Pompey granted control of the city to a tame high priest named Hyrcanus. By 62 BC, Pompey decided that it was time to return home. By now, the whole Mediterranean was ringed with Roman provinces and client states. At this time, Ptolemaic Egypt, once the greatest power in the East, was already, in effect, a Roman client state, after a series of sordid dynastic squabbles had left it too weak to resist. The *Senate* did not wish to assume responsibility in Egypt, so a succession of kings had limped along, paying vast bribes in order to secure the throne, and squeezing their subjects dry on behalf of their patrons. So Pompey wound his way back to Rome, at the head of 40,000 men, to celebrate the most spectacular *Triumph* of his career.

### Catilinarian Conspiracy

Much had happened back in Rome during Pompey the Great's five-year absence. Once again, the Republic had found itself in the grip of crisis. Until now, the quasi-religious sanctity of the electoral system was unquestioned. Though bribery was so rampant that it was seen as a normal part of the political process, everyone abided by the eventual result. But, by the 60s BC, the sickness had finally reached the heart of the Republic. At the center of this turmoil were two men; **Lucius Sergius Catilina** and **Marcus Tullius Cicero**. Catiline (d. 62 BC) was born to an ancient *Patrician* family; his great-grandfather had been a celebrated war hero, fighting against Hannibal with a prosthetic iron hand. But the family had fallen into poverty and obscurity since then. So Catiline combined all the arrogance of a well-pedigreed aristocrat, with a fierce determination to lead his family out of the political wilderness. His career began promisingly enough, serving with distinction in the Social War under Pompey Strabo, alongside Pompey and the man who would become his arch-raval, Cicero. During Sulla's civil war, Catiline joined the winning side, and made himself a rich man by profiteering from the Sullan proscriptions. The young man seem well positioned for an honourable career. But scandal was to constantly dog Catiline. In 73 BC, he was prosecuted for adultery with a *Vestal Virgin*; a capital crime. Though the case against him was clear, he secured an acquitted, almost certainly with the assistance of hefty bribes. The bullet successfully dodge, Catiline went on to serve as *Praetor* in 68 BC, and then governor of North Africa for the next two year. Upon his return to Rome, he stood for the *Consulship* of 65 BC, but his candidacy was rejected by the *Censors*. Instead, he was prosecuted againd, this time for corruption during his governorship. But the trial held few fears for him, and, sure enough, he was speedily acquitted; bribery was again rampant. He was now free to run for the *Consulship* of 63 BC; Catiline and Cicero would be going head to head. Marcus Tullius Cicero (d. 43 BC), like Marius, was a native of the small hill town of Arpinum, he was a "*New Man"*, and he was ambitious. There the resemblance ended. A gawky and sensitive man, Cicero was never going to make a great soldier. Instead, even from childhood, he planned to become the greatest orator in Rome. After serving in the legions with resigned ill-humour, Cicero began his career as a lawyer around 81 BC, and quickly made a reputation. After barely two years of public life, he headed to Greece for six months, to hone his oratory skills. He established himself as star pupil of Greek rhetorician Molon, who famously lamented that even in the field of oratory Greece had now been surpassed by Rome. Full of self-confidence, Cicero returned to his legal practice in the Forum. At the same time, he took his first step on the *Cursus Honorum*, winning a *Quaestorship* in 75 BC, which he served in Sicily. Cicero's big breakthrough came in 70 BC, when he prosecuted a highly politically sensitive case. The defendant was Gaius Verres, a governor of Sicily, whose plundering of the province had exceeded even the modest standards of Roman provincial administration. After a lengthy period in Sicily collecting testimonials and evidence, Cicero presented his case in a series of dramatic court battles. He argued with a perfectly straight face that if Verres were not convicted, then the Republic itself was doomed; that his corruption struck at Rome's most passionately held conviction - that Rome was good for the world. Though he had many friends in high places, Verres was unable to escape conviction. Cicero was no *Populare*, though; he defended the Senatorial elites as often as not, presenting hair-raising corruption as commonplace and acceptable. After the Verres case, his oratory began to weave its magic, not only in the law courts, but in politics too; he served as *Aedile* in 69 BC; *Praetor* in 66 BC. And in 63 BC, Cicero stood for the Consulship. His whole career had been a preparation for this, but Catiline, just as desperate, was seeking to make good a century of family failure. Catiline was bankrolled by Crassus, who feared Pompey’s return, and sought a tame *Consul* to make his own power impregnable. The third canditate was another aristocrat, Antonius Hybrida, a man of debauched and thuggish reputation. Confronted by two such disreputable candidates, the *Optimates*, led by Cato the Younger (d. 46 BC), held their noses, and voted for the least bad option. So too, with a good deal more enthusiasm, did the *Equestrian* classes. Cicero won by a mile. Hybrida beat Catiline to a distant third place. For any *Patrician*, this would have been a humiliation. For Catiline, it threatened disaster. He had staked everything on a single throw; his debts were staggering, and Crassus must have abandoned him. In another time, Catiline might have sulked and rages, but then gone on with his life. But in this age, whatever magic had held ambitious men in check was broken. As he openly bemoaned his plight, Catiline found that Italy seethed with the resentments far beyond his own gilded circle. He began to conspire actively with other disaffected citizens. The size and scope of the conspirators was to shock Rome: bankrupt aristocrats; landless peasants; ambitious men whose careers stalled out; urban *Plebs* from the festering tenements of Rome; ex-*Senators* purged by the *Cansors* for immorality or corruption; and Sulla's veterans, mortgaged to the hilt, scratching out a living, and recalling the fat days of civil war. Their plan was simple; to assassinate prominent citizens, beginning with the *Consuls*; plunge Rome into further chaos by lighting fires across the city; and then seize control of the government with an army gathered in Etruria. In the autumn in 63 BC, Cicero heard rumours of a plot. Few in the Senate believed him; Cicero, the upstart, had manufactured the crisis. And hard proof was lacking. Then, just as nervousness was turning to mockery, letters were delivered to Cicero's house, describing the planned massacre. The man who handed over this first concrete evidence was none other than Crassus. When Cicero confronted Catiline openly in the Senate House the following morning, he dissected his enemy with forensic brilliance, exposing his conspiracy to such effect that *Senators,* one by one moved away from Catiline, leaving him physically and politically sitting alone. That very night, Catiline fled Rome, ostensibly towards exile in Marseille. In fact, he headed for Etruria to take command of a ragbag army of peasants and war veterans; the coup was still on, even without Catiline overseeing things in Rome. Meanwhile, more spine-tingling details of his plot had started to emerged. The conspirators had attempted to involve the Allobroges, a tribe of Transalpine Gaul, in their scheming. The Allobroges, however, took the opportunity to win Rome's goodwill by exposing the ringleaders in Rome, including a signed letter. On 5 December, Cicero convened a crisis meeting of the *Senate*, to announce that Catiline's henchmen had been identified and arrested. The *Senate* then deliberated upon their punishment. Some were of good family, and there were limits to the *Senates*' power, even with martial law was in effect. Many *Senators* feared that house arrest and a proper trial – the standard option – would not remove the threat to the state. Decimus Junius Silanus was the first to demand their execution. Julius Caesar opposed him, decrying the precedent it would set, and proposing the novel idea that the conspirators should be imprisoned for life. However, Cato the Younger rose in defense of the death penalty, and swayed the Senate on the matter. Cicero had the conspirators taken to the Tullianum, the notorious Roman prison, where they were strangled. Cicero emerged triumphant, acclaimed as *Pater patriae* ("Father of the Country"). His collegue Hybrida was dispatched to Etruria, and easily defeated Catiline's makeshift army. His men deserted in droves, but Catilina himself fought bravely and died of frontal wounds. Cicero was proud of his accomplishment. But the heroes of one year might be the villains of the next. And so it proved; the extra-legal killing of Roman citizens haunt Cicero's career, and, five years later, he was exiled from Rome.

### Caesar’s Early Career

Not many men build a legacy so indelible that, 2,000 years later, their name literally means "*emperor*". Yet such is the case with **Guais Julius Caesar** (d. 44 BC), the origin of both Germany's "*Kaiser*" and Russia's "*Tsar*", among others. Caesar was born into one of the most ancient *Patrician* families*.* Though the Julii could trace their lineage back to the days of Romulus himself. the family, like Catiline's, had in recent generations fallen on hard times. Young Caesar grew up in the Suburra, a lower-class neighbourhood of Rome, far from the wealth and privilege of his fellow *Patricians* on the Palatine Hill. No doubt, being raised in what amounted to a tenement house owned by his parents had a great impact on Caesar's later popularist politics; despite his impeccable aristocratic credential, Caesar would always position himself as the champion of the common man. The marriage of his aunt Julia to Gaius Marius was a boon for the family. It was no doubt Marius who arranged for Caesar's father to be appointed governor of Pergamum, a plum posting; this was before Mithridates launch his first war with Rome. His father died a year after Marius in 85 BC, making fifteen-year-old Caesar head of the family. He must already have cut an impressive figure, because Cinna, Rome's strongman following Marius' death, offered him the hand of his daughter. When Cinna was lynched at the hands of his own mutinous soldiers, however, the marriage must have suddenly seemed like a liability. When Sulla When Sulla returned from the east, it transformed into something worse. As Marius' nephew and Cinna's son-in-law, Caesar was targetted for purging, and forced to go into hiding. But the world of the aristocracy was a small one, and the web of marriage alliances entanged even the bitterest rivals. His mother's family included influencial supporters of Sulla. It is said that Sulla gave in reluctantly, and warned that he saw many a Marius in the young man. Even so, Caesar felt that it would be safer to be far away from Sulla. He joined the army as a staff officer, serving under the governor of Pergamum. At the time, Mithridates was licking his wounds and rebuilding his power. Everywhere there was military and diplomatic confusion. It was a situation tailor-made for a young man on the make. Caesar served with distinction, winning the "Civic Crown", a raw honour bestowed for displaying conspicuous valour. From now on, whenever Caesar wore his wreath of oak leaves, even *Senators* would have to rise to their feet to salute him. In the courts of Eastern kings, aristocratic lineage was much admired. Caesar was accordingly dispatched to Bithynia, to secure the assistance of King Nicomedes, who was indeed charmed by his Roman guest; too charmed, perhaps. He tarried so long at Nicomedes' court that rumours arose of an affair with the king, a scandal that was to provide Caesar's grateful enemies with gossip for decades. All the same, his diplomatic mission was a success. In 78 BC, once Sulla was safely dead, Caesar finally returned to Rome. Like Cicero, he first made a name for himself as an exception orator in the law couut. Crowd-pleasers though he was, his efforts were largely wasted on lost causes; his words no match for the defendant's bribes. Aiming at rhetorical perfection, in 75 BC, Caesar travelled to Greede to be tutored by the same masters who had brough Cicero to such great heights. But he never got there. On the way across the Aegean Sea, Caesar was abducted by Cilician pirates, and held for ransom. The pirate took a liking to the confident young man, who treated his captivity as no big deal. When he learned his ransom was twenty talents, Caesar indignantly claimed that he was worth at least fifty. He ate meals with his captors, and joined in their games. He also joked that, when free, he would raise a fleet, hunt them down, and crucify them all. They laughed of course, but, when the ransom was paid, he immediately did just that. After his pirate adventure, Caesar was called back into military service, first in Anatolia in the build-up to the Third Mithridatic War, and then in Italy under Crassus in the War of Spartacus. On his return to Rome, in 69 BC, he was elected *Quaestor*, a first step in a political career. In that year, Caesar committed himself publicly to the *Populare* cause. He delivered the funeral oration for his aunt Julia, and included images of her husband Marius, unseen in Rome for more than a decade. This earned him the grumbles of conservative *Senators*, but much love of the common people, who now remembered Marius, not as he was in his final years, but as the great man; the man who had turned the poorest citizen into honourable soldiers; who brought the corrupt war with Jugurtha to an end; who defeated the dreaded Gauls. Caesar served his *Quaestorship* in Spain, where he earned himself a reputation for fair dealing and competent administration; a stern but understanding hand would be the hallmark of Caesar's career. On his return, he took a new bride, Pompeia, a granddaughter of Sulla no less. Though the match seemed to signal a shift towards the more conservative, Caesar merely used her familial connections without letting it interfere in own popularist politics. His career continued to advance, becoming *Aedile* in 65 BC. This was not a obligatory magistracy for would-be *Consuls*, but it was popular all the same, because *Aediles* were responsible for the staging of public games. As such, it was an opportunity tailor-made for a showman such as Caesar. But this was also a gamble, for he got into considerable debt staging lavish games and festivals. It was during this time that he fostered friendship with Crassus, the richest men in Rome, who paid some of his debts, and acted as guarantor for others, in return for political support in his opposition to Pompey. Even so, Caesar's life would be defined for years by a running battle with his creditors. So in 63 BC, he took the unusual step of running for *Pontifex Maximus*, chief priest of Rome. The office had always been considered suitable for an elder statesmen. Caesar, however, was not the man to be put off by a minor detail of ancient traditions; the office came with numerous opportunities to generate personal income. The electorate was bribed on a monstrous scale. stretching Caesar's credit to the limit. On the morning of the election, he told his mother "*Today you will either see me as high priest or I will be heading into exile*"; he won comfortably. Caesar would indeed be moving out of the Suburra, not into exile, but to his new official residence right in the political heart of Rome. The next year, Caesar served a *Praetorship*, and was touched by scandal. Each December, women from the noblest families would gather, at the residence of the *Pontifex Maximus*, to celebrate the mysterious rites of *Bona Dea* ("the Good Goddess"). The occasion was strictly off limits to men; even males statues had to be veiled. However a disreputable young aristocrat named Publius Clodius Pulcher gatecrashed the sacred ritual disguised as a woman. The scandal swept like wildfire around Rome. Friends and enemies of Caesar alike huddled to swap the salacious details; it was also rumoured that Clodius had been planning to sedue Caesar's wife, Pompeia. The *Pontifex* would have been justified in dragging Clodius through the courts. But he had a problem; despite his elevated religious status, he had a well earned reputation as a philanderer. Caesar cheated on his wives, early and often; to adopt the tone of the moral highground might open him to even greater ridicule. In the end Caesar resolved his dilemma by divorcing Pompeia, but refusing to say why; "*Caesar's wife must be above suspicion*" was his only comment. Then, before anyone could press him further, he slipped away to Farther Spain, where he was due to serve as governor. This was a turning point in Caesar's career, providing him with his first opportunity at military command; which, of course, he excelled at. A dashing little war in what is now northern Portugal had not only enabled him to recoup many of his debts, but had led the *Senate* to award him a triumph. This enabled him to return to Rome, and seek election as *Consul* for 59 BC.

### First Triumvirate

As Pompey the Great prepared to cross the Adriatic in the winter of 62 BC, the East finally pacified, his immense task done, there were few of his fellow citizens who did not find themselves unsettled by the prospect of his return. His wealth was beyond the dreams of avarice even of Crassus himself. His glory was so dazzling as to blot out every rival. Would the great man march his army against Rome and establish a monarchy? There were plenty, as they waited for him, prepared to fear the worst. However, Pompey's arrival passed off without any alarms. Rather than marching on Rome, he immediately dismissed his army, then headed for the capital "*unarmed, with no one to escort him save a few intimate friends, for all the world as though he were returning from a holiday abroad*". Pompey's shows of modesty were always ostentatious. The crowds who lined the route of his progress duly cheered themselves hoarse. Few could denied that a *Triumph* was his by right. On 28 September 61 BC, fourty-five-year-old Pompey rode for the third time through the streets of Rome. Even by his own standards it was a show of unparalleled magnificence. Two entire days were scheduled for the enormous parade of spoils, prisoners, soldiers, and banners depicting battle scenes. At its heart, naturally, was the conquering hero himself, sporting the red cloak as well as the quiff of Alexander. To conclude the festivities, Pompey offered an immense triumphal banquet, and made several donations to the people of Rome. But while Pompey's admirers thrilled to the gargantuan scale generosity, his rivals in the *Senate* did not. Now that they no longer needed to fear Pompey, they could concentrate on the far more pleasurable activity of cutting him down to size. Cato the Younger remained unbending as the champion of tradition. In association with the inveterately envious Crassus, he constructed an unshiftable bloc of opposition to Pompey's interests, reducing the great general, in the midst of all his glory, to a hurt, perplexed impotence. The *Senate* refused to ratify his settlement of the East, and denied his veterans the land they had been promised. If Pompey wanted to break the impasse, then he would need a strong ally as *Consul*. There was one obvious candidate for this role, and, in the summer of 60 BC, Julius Caesar return to Rome, flushed with success from his Spanish campaign, and determined to win the ***Consulship***. Caesar could recognise the chance of a lifetime when he saw it. To seize it, however, he would have to be bold. Candidates for the elected had to declare themselves in Rome by the start of July. Until he had celebrated his *Triumph*, he remained officially under arms, and therefore forbidden to enter Rome. With a day to spare, Caesar applied for the right to stand by proxy, a request that the *Senate* appeared perfectly content to grant. Cato, however, was not. Knowing that a vote would have to be taken before sunset, he rose to his feet and spoke the session out. A furious Caesar found himself having to choose between his *Triumph* and the *Consulship*. Ever the unpredictable, he entered Rome, abandoning an honour that might come around once in a lifetime; unlike Pompey, Caesar wanted the substance of power, not the trappings. The fact that Caesar could rely, not only on Pompey's backing, but on his own immense popularity, served to make him the favourite. The full weight of Pompey's enemies swung behind an earnest and somewhat plodding conservative named Marcus Bibulus (d. 48 BC), who loathed Caesar. The election was sordid affair; even Cato, with his reputation for incorruptibility, is said to have resorted to bribery. But the money proved to have been well spent. Caesar was duly elected *Consul* for 59 BC, but at his elbow Bibulus promised him unwavering opposition. In the *Senate*, Cato's faction formed a strong and cohesive bloc. Crassus, with his allies, could surely be relied upon as well: if there was one constant in Roman politics, it was that Crassus would oppose Pompey's interests. Perilous as the contest promised to be, Cato could feel grimly confident of victory. Caesar's consular year began with his proposal of a bill for the settlement of Pompey's veterans. Moderate and carefully written, brought in the normal manner, and deferential to *Senatorial* interests, Cato rose in kneejerk opposition. On and on he talked, repeating his filibuster tactic, until an enraged Caesar ordered Cato improsoned for obstructing *Senatorial* business. This proved one of his few political miscalculations. As one of its most respected members was dragged off, the seats of the Senate House began to empty. Caesar caught one synpathetic *Senator*, and demanded to know why he was leaving; "*Because I'd rather be with Cato in prison"* he spat back, *"than in the Senate House with you*". Caesar was forced to back down, and Cato was released. The two men had gone eyeball to eyeball, and Caesar had blinked. Or so it appeared. Abandoning the Senate House altogether, Caesar took the campaign for his land bill directly to the *Assembly*. As he did so, Rome began to fill with Pompey's veterans. Though disconcerted by the increaslngly menacing backdrop, Cato still believed that Caesar was bluffing. To go against the stated will of the *Senate* was the tactic of a gangster. If he persisted with it, then his credibility among his peers would be destroyed, and his career would be over. Caesar's game plan, however, was soon to become all too clear. In the run-up to the vote on the bill he paraded his celebrity supporters. Few could have been surprised when Pompey stepped forward, but the identity of the second speaker came as a thunderbolt; Marcus Licinius Crassus, In his cold and calculating soul, not even the pleasure of opposing Pompey's goals, it appeared, could compete with the passion for power. The pre-eminence that he had never quite been able to obtain on his own was now within his grasp. Pompey and Caesar on their own might have been withstood, but the addition of Crassus made their alliance in effect masters of Rome. The three men would be able to carve up the Republic as they pleased, ruling as a triarchy; the ***First Triumvirate*** (60–53 BC). Cato and Bibulus threw themselves into a desperate rearguard action to halt the land bill. On the day of the vote, Bibulus appeared in the Forum to announce that he had observed unfavourable omens, and all public business would therefore have to be suspended. Without a legal leg to stand on, Caesar ignored him, and continued with the vote. Bibulus was bundled from the Forum by Pompey's veterans; assaulting his *Lictors*, breaking his *Fasces* (the symbols of his office), and emptying a bucket of dung emptied over the hapless *Consul* himself. The land bill was duly passed. To set the seal on his victory, Caesar demanded that the *Senate* swear an oath not to repeal his new law. Intimidated and disoriented, his peers meekly complied. Only two men held out; Bibulus and Cato. Both were finally persuaded to give way by Cicero, who pointed out that exile would hardly serve their cause; "*You may not need Rome, but Rome will need you*". After this second humiliation, Bibulus stopped attending meetings of the *Senate*, leading to the quip that the two *Consuls* were "*Julius and Caesar*". With the opposition out of the way, Pompey had his settlement of the East ratified, Crassus toyed profitably with the tax laws, and Caesar enacted a major piece of legislation dealing with abuses in provincial administration. The *Lex Julia* brought much needed rule-of-law to a rampantly corrupt system, providing limits on how much money governors could take from their province, procedures for enforcement, and punishment for violations; the law would remain in effect well into imperial times. Meanwhile, Caesar scouted around for a proconsular command. He settled on the governorship of two provinces, Illyria in the Balkans, and Cisalpine Gaul on the northern frontier of Italy itself. Then, in the spring, the governor of Transalpine Gaul, on the far side of the Alps, suddenly died of an illness, and Caesar eagerly snaffled up a third province. This was a province, temptingly menaced by barbarians, that offered much scope for flamboyant conquests. The term of his command, for all three provinces, was set at an unprecedented five years.

Before leaving Rome, Caesar cemented his alliance with Pompey, and did so in the most traditional manner; by giving him the hand of his daughter, Julia. Julia had been betrothed to another powerful *Senator*, but Pompey assuaged the man by offering his own daughter in exchange. All this prompted Cato to spit that it was disgusting how Roman politics was now based on the trading of women. Insults such as this drew blood. Although Crassus, slippery as ever, evaded much of the blame, Caesar and Pompey both grew steadily more reviled for having played fast and loose with the constitution in 59 BC. They kept their grip on the reins of power, but, for a Roman statesman, that was never enough; he also had to be respected, honoured, loved. For Pompey, unpopularity was especially hard to bear. Spurned by Rome, he turned for comfort to his young bride. The couple grew helplessly smitten, and spent more and more time secluded in a love nest in the country. Pompey's fellow citizens, unaccustomed to genuine affection in the chilly political marriages of the aristocracy, sniggered in prurient disapproval. The public resentment of Pompey became tinged with scorn. Cato, observing the spectacle, could begin to hope that the Republic might be saved after all. True, there remained the menace of the third head. Caesar had Gaul waiting for him, and the war he was almost bound to start. No matter how much glory he won, and no matter how much gold, he left behind him in Rome a legacy of hatred and fear. For as long as Caesar remained a *Proconsul* he was safe from prosecution, but he could not remain in Gaul forever. And Cato would be waiting. Justice demanded it, as did the needs of the Republic. A republic ruled by criminal violence would barely be a republic at all.

### Caesar in Gaul

In 58 BC, Julius Caesar took over the governorship of his three provinces, setting the stage for one of the most famous military campaigns in Roman history; the **Gallic Wars** (58-50 BC). Not to take anything away from his exceptional campaign, but the real reason the Gallic Wars are so famous is because Caesar wanted them to be famous. He was a master of self-promotion. Even in the dankest reaches of Gaul, he never forgot his audience back in Rome, taking every opportunity to send breathless reports, full of exaggerated claims about the number of Gauls killed, the courage of his men, and, of course, his own genius. Alhough the Romans considered the Gauls to be barbarians, the land north of the Mediterranean basin was relatively civilized. Most tribes had contact with Roman merchants, and some enjoyed stable political alliances with Rome. By the 1st century BC, free Gaul was becoming urbanized, with towns and cities mirroring those of the south. They struck coins, traded extensively, accumulated much wealth, and developed a taste for Roman wine. And even the Romans recognised that the Gauls were fierce warriors, with frequent inter-tribal warfare keeping their skills sharp. Geographically, Gaul was understood to end at the River Rhine, beyond which lay the even more "barbaric" Germanic tribes.

There is no doubt that, from the very beginning, Caesar was looking for any opportunity to conquer and plunder at least some Gallic territory, in order to get himself out of the huge debts he had accumulated as *Consul*. He had four veteran legions under his direct command, and the legal authority to levy more; the assignment of Cisalpine Gaul, with its large population of Roman citizens, gave him a recruiting ground for his ambitions. All he needed was an excuse to pick a fight. Right on cue, a Gallic tribe called the **Helvetii**, living near Lake Geneva, had tired of the increasing pressure from Germanic tribes to the north, and decided to migrate en masse westwards, in a lumbering wagon train; more than 100,000 men, women and children on the march. The new governor, recognising a golden opportunity, played for time. First, he announced to the tribesmen that he would consider their request for safe passage through Roman territory, and then promptly sealed off the border with a huge fortified wall. Five legions, two of them raised from scratch, were force-marched to man it. The Helvetii, finding the frontier blocked, did not give up their planned emigration, but took the more difficult northern route through the Saône Valley. The threat to Rome seemed over, but Caesar marched across the frontier into free Gaul. He caught the Helvetii in the middle of crossing the river Saône. When about three-quarters had crossed, he surprised and slaughtered their rearguard. Caesar then shadowed them, waiting for another opportunity to strike. But he had failed to secure his supply lines, soon found himself to turn aside towards Bibracte, a well-stocked town. The Helvetii, catching wind of Caesar's plight, themselves changed direction to pursue the Romans; the hunted becoming the hunter. They caught up with Caesar just outside the walls of Bibracte, and forced him to turn and fight. The ensuing Battle of Bibracte (June 58 BC) was hotly contested for the better part of a day, but the legions eventually gained the upper hand. The Gauls knew of no other way of fighting than to charge en masse, which provided plenty of opportunity to prove the personal bravery so prize in their warrior culture. The Romans, on the other hand, fought in their disciplined *Cohorts*, never breaking ranks, and working with steady, methodical efficiency. The battle lasted many hours into the night, until the Romans broke through the enhausted Helvetii, and took their baggage train. Caesar's had to grant his army three-days rest, before pursuing the surviving Helvetii, who promptly sued for terms. Caesar ordered them back to their homeland, to prevent the Germans from settling there; he much preferred Gallic to Germanic neighbouts. It was a stunning victory, and flagrantly illegal according to Caesar's own *Lex Julia*, designed to restrain the ambitions of provincial governors. His enemies in *Senate* were quick to point this out. Not that most citizens cared; after all, barbarian migrations had always been the stuff of Roman nightmares. Next, Caesar turned his attention to the Rhine frontier, which was known to be unstable. Some time before his governorship, a Gallic tribe had defeated their rivals with the help of a Germanic warlord, Ariovistus, king of the **Suebi**. To the dismay of his allies, Ariovistus decided to stay in Gaul, seize land from friend and foe alike, and bring more and more Germans across the Rhine; a Germanic kingdom on Gallic soil. Since Ariovistus had only recently been declared a "*friend and ally of Rome*", Caesar took particular pains to justify this further intervention. According to his narrative, after his victory over the Helvetii, a group of Gallic leaders came to congratulate him, and implored him to intervene on their behalf. Caesar had the justification he needed for war. His account of the campaign against Ariovistus is quite brief, compared to his desciprion account of the preliminary diplomatic back-and-forth. Caesar presents himself as acting as an honest broken in the conflict; however, as Caesar himself relates, Ariovistus later accused him of seeking to provoke a war right from the outset. Whatever the motivation, Ariovistus overestimated the strength of his position. He apparently believed his much-vaunted friendship with Rome meant that Caesar would not attack him; that their relationship was one of equals, but Rome accepted no equals, only vassals. Unable to provoke Ariovistus into battle. Caesar launched an unprovoked attack on his camp. If the Germans were unprepared, then it did not show, counter-attacking with such speed that the Romans were unable to throw their javelins. and hand-to-hand fighting started at once. Caesar was victorious in large part to the charge made by Publius Crassus (d. 53 BC), son of Marcus Crassus. The Germans fled, and did not halt until they were back across the Rhine. Ariovistus himself, abandoning his own wife and daughter to the Romans, escaped in a boat; never to engage Rome in battle again. For a brief moment the native Gauls hailed Caesar as the saviour, rather than the conqueror, of Gaul". But that winter, rather than withdrawing back into his province, he billeted his legions deep in supposedly independent territory. The implications of Caesar's true intentions were by now starting to hit home. Some tribes, bowing to the inevitable, sought alliances with Rome, but many others began preparing for war. As did Caesar, recruiting two more legions without any reference to the *Senate*; he had now doubled the number of troops originally allocated to his province. In the sping of 57 BC, he struck camp, and led his eight legions north against the **Belgae**; a large confederation of tribes covering roughly modern Belgium. Because they were furthest removed from the civilisation, the Belgae were reckoned the fiercest in Gaul. Caesar struck against them hard and fast, with all the brutal efficiency he could bring to bear. Tribes who submitted were treated with ostentatious generosity; those who resisted were wiped out. This had a ripple effect; more often than not, tribes saw the writing on the wall and surrendered. Not all were so cowed, though. The Nervii set an ambush on the river Sambre, lying in wait for the Romans to arrive and started setting up camp. In the ensuing battle, the Romans were caught off-guard and almost shattered, before their experience and discipline kicked-in, to turn disaster into total victory. The Nervii were broken, and most of the Belgic tribes offered submission to Rome.

Back in Rome, events did not stand still just because Caesar was absent. His *Consulship* had been controversial, but, in many ways, was mild in comparison with the turbulent years that followed. Roman politics was full of suspicion and violence, much of it stirred up by Publius Clodius Pulcher. Cold-shouldered by the *Senate* after the "*Bona Dea scandal*", Clodius contrived to be adopted into a *Plebeian*, renouncing his *Patrician* status, and allowing the colourful demagogue to be elected *Tribune* for 58 BC. During his term of office, he pushed through several crowd-pleasing bills. including an ambitious extension to the grain dole, originally set-up by the Gracchi brothers; the grain would no longer be subsidized, but free. With the full backing of the common people and Crassus as his chief patron, Clodius now set about ridding the *Triumvirate* of their most obstinate *Senatorial* opponents. He proposed a law that any citizen guilty of putting another to death without trial should be sent into exile. Though dressed up as a pious Republican principle, everyone knew its target; Marcus Tullius Cicero had done exactly that during the Catiline Conspiracy four years earlier. Cicero scrambled desperately for an escape, but found his way blocked at every turn. The *Senate* and *Consuls* were cowed. Pompey was apologetic, but said, as a private citizen, he could do nothing against a *Tribune*. Crassus likewise put him off. And Caesar, when Cicero brought himself to grovel in his tent, shrugged, and suggested silkily that Cicero might reconsider his opposition to the *Triumvirate*. Under the circumstances, Cicero did not even wait for the vote on the bill, and went into voluntary exile in Macedonia. As the news spread through Rome, Clodius was as stunned as everyone else. In an ecstasy of triumphalism, his mobs surged up the Palatine and ransacked Cicero's house. Then the *Tribune* rushed through another bill, formally condemning Cicero by name and confiscating his property. On the site where the criminal's house had once stood, a temple to Liberty was raised. With Cicero out of the way, Clodius next set his sights on another dangerous man, Cato the Younger. Back in 88 BC, the island of Cyprus had become a Roman client state. Clodius passed a bill formally annexing Cyprus, and nominating Cato to administer Rome's new possession, which would keep him away from Rome for some years. Cato did not want to leave Rome at this crucial time, but felt duty bound to go. Clodius appeared to be the master of Rome. But only fleetingly. Clodius next turned against Pompey, harassing him in the street and even blockading his house. Pompey was in no doubt who the mastermind behind this, and it was not Clodius. For three years he had been in an alliance with Crassus, and still he was quick to blame his old nemesis. Pompey decided to have Cicero recalled from exile. Fighting fire with fire, he gave his approval for another *Tribune*, Titus Annius Milo (d. 48 BC), to recruit gangs of his own. These were well-trained heavies led by gladiators. At a stroke, Clodius' monopoly on street violence ended, a challenge to which he rose with predictable gusto. The gang warfare escalated daily. By such desperate measures did Pompey impose his authority back on Rome. The Senate, as well as the streets, had to be bent to his will, and the obvious means for achieving that was to recall Cicero from exile. Street fighting continued through the first half of 57, but Clodius' attempt to prevent Cicero's recall eventually failed. In August 57 BC, the orator was greeted at Brundisium by a cheering crowd, and, to his delight, his beloved daughter Tullia. A grateful Cicero stopped opposing Pompey, and found himself in the Senate House proposing that Rome's entire grain supply be put into his hands. By 56 BC, the bonds between Pompey and Crassus were openly fraying; Pompey told Cicero that he blamed his *Triumvirate* partner for Clodius, for everything. It seemed clear that the *Triumvirate* was finished. In the Senate, Caesar's enemies began to stir, stretch their limbs, wake from slumber. Early in 56 BC, Cato's brother-in-law, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, announced that he would stand for the *Consulship*, and openly declared that, if elected, he would have Caesar's command declared invalid. At his back the establishment bayed its approval; the would-be tyrant was doomed. Or so everyone assumed. It has often been suggested that Caesar summoned the **Luca Conference** of spring 56 BC. In fact, a month early, Crassus had travelled north alone, to accuse Pompey and his friends of plotting Caesar's downfall. His proposal was simple; he would cooperate with Caesar to restrain Pompey, if Caesar would help him get what he wanted; otherwise, he support the growing effort to remove Caesar's command. A few weeks later, Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus all met in Luca, a town just inside his province of Cisalpine Gaul.. What exactly happened is uncertain, but Caesar must have shown masterful tact in reconciling Pompey and Crassus for a second time. He probably painted a lurid picture of Pompey's prospect of coming to terms with the *Senate*, which once more felt strong. It was agreed that the danger of Domitius' *Consulship* was to be removed by Pompey and Crassus themselves assuming the *Consulship* for 55. Once elected, they would extend Caesar's command in Gaul by five years. Then, after the joint *Consulships*, Crassus would get the governorship of Syria, to use as a base for a grand campaign to the east against the Parthians. Pompey would get the lucrative governorship of Spain. The *Triumvirate* was thus renewed.

    While he saw to these negotiations, Caesar was receiving most disquieting news from Gaul. A legion had been stationed in Brittany for the winter, and, with food supplies running low, its commander had been forced to send out foraging parties. Straying into the territory of the **Veneti**, some officers had been taken prisoner, to be released only in exchange for Gallic hostages in Romans hands. This was a calculated move; the Veneti had good reason to believe they could withstand Rome's wrath. A maritime tribe, they built their strongholds on the tips of coastal promontories, difficult to assault or besiege. They were versed in sailing the rough waters of the Atlantic. Veneti vessels had sails, whereas the Romans relied on oarsmen. Rome might be a feared naval power in the Mediterranean, but there the waters were calm. Caesar understood that to defeat this enemy he would need a fleet, so ordered Decimus Brutus (d. 43 BC). a most talented young officer, to construct one near the mouth of the river Loire. The Veneti held the upper hand for much of the campaign: they manoeuvred their ships so skilfully that boarding was impossible; when their stronghold were besieged, they were connected to endless supplies by sea; the less sturdy Roman fleet was often stuck in harbour by the weather. Yet once again, Roman technical ingenuity proved decisive. At the Battle of Morbihan (56 BC), the Romans rowed hard for the enemy ships, and used grapple-hooks to shred their rigging and sails. Thereupon the stricken vessels could be boarded. The Veneti realized the grappling hooks were a game-changer, but a fortuitous drop in the wind, left them sitting ducks. Without a navy, the tribe had no choice but to surrender. Caesar, on this occasion, decided to make an example of the Veneti; their leaders were executed and the rest of the population sold as slaves. The Gauls had to be woken up to a new reality; rebellions were things of the past; the region was to be at peace; a peace policed and upheld by Rome. The brutal example had its desired effect. That winter, the mood throughout Gaul was one of sullen submission. Only in the dense forests of Germany, it appeared, had the news failed to penetrate. In the spring of 55 BC, two Germanic tribes had tired of growing pressure from the powerful Suebi, and **crossed the Rhine** in search of a new home. Caesar not only denied their request to settle in Gaul, but summarily wiped them out. Then, in order to deliver these savage barbarians beyond the Rhine an unmistakable warning, he decided to cross the river himself. He did this not in boats, but over a specially constructed bridge. The engineering brilliance required to build it spoke loudly of Roman ability to go anywhere; if only for a few days. The fabled forests of Germany were the subject of many tall tales. Caesar, peering into their murk, had no intention of putting such stories to the test. He burned a few villages, and then crossed back to Gaul, before the Seubi could mobilize a response. The bridge, constructed with such skill and effort, he ordered to be pulled down. The crossing had whetted his appetite for even more spectacular exploits. In August 55 BC, Caesar **crossed the Channel** to Britain. In his reports to the Senate, he states that he was concerned about the security of Gaul, because the Britons had helped the rebellious Veneti. and that, anyway, the country was rich in silver and tin. This was not entirely convincing, for Caesar had brought only two legions and left it very late in the campaigning season. A need for prestige more than tactical concerns likely determined Caesar's decision. As *Consuls* for 55 BC, Pompey and Crassus could easily sway and buy public opinion; Caesar needed to stay in the public eye. This first tripe can't be discribed as anything but a debacle. Caesar wanted to land on the south-east coast, near modern Dover, but was met with fierce resistance on the shore with its steep cliffs. He therefore sailed further west, and dropped anchor off a flat beach. But the barbarians had followed fielding an impressive force with cavalry and chariots. The legions were hesitant to disembark, until a standard bearer, clutching his eagle, plunged into the waves alone, and started wading towards the shore. His comrades, shamed into action, piled into the water, and, after some messy fighting, a beach-head was established. The Romans' luck did not improve; a storm wrecked some of their ships and damaged others. A beleaguered Caesar put on a brave face, made contact with a few local tribes, and then withdrew back across the Channel. Apart from the fame of having landed an island drenched in mystery, he had nothing to show. The following year, 54 BC, Caesar returned on a far larged and better planned campaign. This time the landing went without difficulty. The sight of eight hundred ships, and five full legions, caused the Britons to withdraw from the shore. When the two met about twelve miles inland, the Romans were cause great diffuclty by the extremely mobile British tactics. Their chief weapon was war-chariots, from which they attacked at various points; fighters would jump from moving chariots, be taken aboard again when necessary, and driven to another part of the field. Even the Roman cavalry was no match for them. But the Britons were eventually repulsed, and scattered. From now on the Britons avoided pitched battles, instead using guerilla tactics, with their superior mobility allowing them to easily evade and harass the Romans. Caesar marched inland, and reached the Thames. But victory eluded him. A few tribes submitted, but only because they were at enmity with Cassivellaunus, the most powerful warlord of southern Britain. As Caesar crossed the Thames in search of his elusive enemy, ominous news arrived from Gaul: the harvest had failed; rebellion was threatening; Caesar was needed back in person. He decided to cut his losses. A face-saving treaty was patched up with Cassivellaunus. He then left, leaving not a single Roman soldier in Britain to enforce his settlement. It would be another century before Rome returned to fully incorporate Britain as a province.

Although he disguised the painful truth as well as he could from his fellow citizens, Caesar had over-reached himself. At stake now was not the conquest of Britain, but the very future of a Roman Gaul. If he did not already know this, events soon made it clear. Shortage of grain forced Caesar to spead-out the winter quarters for his troop, so they would not overburden one tribe. But this isolated the legions, making them easier to attack. In north-eastern Gaul, the Eburones, under the cunning Ambiorix, lured one and a half legions out of their camp, with a false report of a Germanic incursion across the Rhine. Ambiorix offered them safe passage to another of Roman camps to better resist the invasion. As soon as the Roman left camp, they were ambushed and massacred all but to a man. This was an unprecedented loss for Caesar. Then the Eburones, now joined by the Nervii and Atuatuci, tried the same trick on another Roman camp, under Quintus Cicero, brother of the great orator. Cicero was not so gullible, but had to withstand a fearful siege, before Caesar arrived with two under-strength legions, scattered the besiegers, and finally rescued Cicero's men; ninety percent of them were dead or wounded. In the year 53 BC, Caesar had only on thing on his mind; revenge. Down to seven legions, he recruited two more, and borrowed one from Pompey. Then, even before the winter was over, he brought the full weight of his army down of the rebellious tribes of north-eastern Gaul; laying waste to the fields, burning every village, slaughtering every man, and selling the woman and child into slavery. Caesar himself says that he wanted to annihilate the Eburones and their name; and indeed history records no more of the tribe. The general, nervous that the flames of rebellion might spread, was everywhere, crisscrossing the country, stamping out the sparks. Sometimes he would leave the Gauls themselves to do the fire-fighting, handing over the territory of rebellious tribes to their neighbours to plunder as they pleased; an effective policy of divide-and-rule. Caesar also crossed the Rhine a second time, to prevent any aid and succor coming from the Germans. However, as the Suebi retreated, trying to draw him deeper into Germany, he quickly turned back. This time, he destroyed only half his bridge, on the right bank, leaving the rest standing as a permanent threat. Summer 53 BC passed and still there had been no general conflagration. Caesar began to relax. To his anxious fellow citizens, he announced, yet again, the pacification of Gaul. That winter of 52 BC , the snow never stopped falling. Caesar's legions, stationed across the country, were cut-off from their general, who was in Cisalpine Gaul. Despite the bad weather, the Gauls were able to make contact with one another. Each year, a great druidic assembly took place at Avaricum (near modern Orléans) to mediate between the tribes. That winter, all the talk was of the political situation at Rome, where events were beginning to turn against Caesar, after the death of Crassus. The Gauls concluded that it was now or never, if they wanted to escape Roman oppression. Across the central and northern Gaul, dozens of tribes began to negotiate an unprecedented grand coalition, burying their differences in the face of the common foe. The organiser of this alliance, and its ultimate leader, was the charismatic king of the Arverni tribe, **Vercingetorix** (d. 46 BC). He detested the invaders, but had studied their tactics assiduously. As a commander, he imposed his authority through harsh discipline and taking hostages, for he was determined to whip waverers into line. Everything was expertly prepared, with each tribe ordered to send him a specified quota of troops by a certain date. These were qualities that even Caesar could respect, as well he might, for they were Roman qualities. It was still winter when Vercingetorix launched his revolt by embarking on an early example of scorched-earth tactics. For all these years, the Roman legions had been living off the land, allowing them greater mobility and freedom from supply lines. Vercingetorix put towns and villages to the torch along Caesar's path from Italy. It was cruel, punishing his own people as much as the Romans, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Only the holy city of Avaricum was spared. Vercingetorix had wanted to raze and abandon it, but the druids persuaded him otherwise; a decision he would soon regretted. In February, Caesar crossed the Alps, despite deep snow, gathered his scattered legions, and made straight for Avaricum. Leaving the city to its fate, Vercingetorix focused on harassing advanced Caesar's units and subduing Gallic tribes that remained loyal to Rome. When Avaricum, after a brutal 30-day siege, the starving Roman soldiers indulged in a terrible massacre; Caesar states that 800 survived, out of a population of 40,000. More importantly, he had secured enough food for the next few weeks. Caesar then turned towards Gergovia, the capital of Vercingetorix' own tribe. The fortified town stood on a high hill, making it difficult to besiege. Compounding matters, Vercingetorix had pitched his own camp nearby, and controlled all the high ground; he was unassailable and would have the advantage in any hostilities. What happened in the ensuing Remon defeat remains somewhat unclear. Caesar claims that he just ordered his men to take a hill near Gergovia, but overzealous soldiers then assaulted the town directly, and ignored an order to retreat. His dubious claim was likely intended to distance himself from the failute of his own planned assault. According to Caesar, only 700 men died, but we know 46 of them were *Centurions* (almost one in seven), so the losses were likely much higher. Caesar retreated towards the territory of the Aedui, his most steadfast Gallic ally. But the defeat at Gergovia had broke the aura of Roman invincibility; even Rome's friends had joined Vercingetorix cause. The loss of the Aedui was a particularly severe blow, as Caesar had deposited all the Gallic hostages there, together with his stocks of grain. The whole of Gaul seemed lost. When the Gauls called a war council in Bibracte, it was attended by all the tribes except three. Caesar had moved eastwards towards the Rhine. Believing that the Romans were about to quit Gaul, Vercingetorix pursued him, intent on inflicting one last heavy blow. In fact, Caesar had called upon Germanic allies to supply a sizeable contingent of cavalry. In the ensuding battle, the Romans were at first hard pressed, but the imperious German horsemen, who were accustomed to fighting together, secured victory. Vercingetorix therefore withdrew to Alesia, a fortified town, near modern Dijon, so impregnable that it had never before been captured. This was to be the site of the decisive encounter. In a flash Caesar grasped the changed situation, and began to enclose the town with a cordon of siege works over ten miles in length. Vercingetorix was barely able to get his cavalry out, with orders to bring the whole army to his relief; then the lines closed for ever. Weeks of excruciating tension followed, while the might of the whole of Gaul gathered and marched on the town; and Caesar, for his part, ordered a second line of fortifications to be built, this time facing outwards. The Romans were by no means well supplied, but inside Alesia the food was running out. Vercingetorix resolved to send away everyone who could not fight; the old, the sick, the women and the children. They approached the Roman lines in a long procession, and begged to be taken in, if only as slaves. Caesar refused, so that the enemy's would starve all the sooner. His decision was harsh, but the Gauls showed no more humanity; the men, women and children were not allowed back in the town, so camped miserably under the walls, where most of them presumably died. Shortly afterwards, the huge Gallic relieving army arrived at last. On the very next day, they attacked. All day, wave after wave of screaming warriors broke against the Roman defences. Next day there was calm, but at midnight the Gauls attacked again, while Vercingetorix' men sallied out from the town. Daybreak brought respite, but no end of the ordeal. The Gauls had been testing the Roman defences, filling in the trenches, and searching out a weak point. And they had found it. To the north of the town, a hill directly overlooked the fortifications. Around midday on the fourth day the final storm burst; the relievers put forth their full strength. A contingent of picked men, said to be 60,000, began to attack the weak-point from above, while Vercingetorix attacked from the other side. At the same time, new attacks began on other points. Both sides knew that the decisive moment was at hand. Caesar galloped along the line of fortifications, shouting encouragements to his men, and following the rhythms of the desperate struggle. But the enemy was too strong. From the hill, the Gauls pelted the Romans with missiles, and began to tear down the rampart. The generals withdrew men from other points, and threw them into the fray. It was not enough. Finally, Caesar ordered his cavalry reserve to follow him, sallied out from a relatively quiet point, and attack the Gallic relief force from the rear. His arrival galvanised the legions. The Gauls, caught in a pincer movement, broke off the attack and took flight. Outnumbered by the army he was besieging, and vastly outnumbered by the army that had been besieging him in turn, Caesar had defeated both. It is considered the greatest military achievement of his career. In Alesia, Vercingetorix realized that the dream of Gallic liberty was over. According to Plutarch, Vercingetorix surrendered in a dramatic fashion, riding his beautifully adorned horse out of Alesia, dismounting in front of Caesar's camp, stripping himself of his armour, and kneeling at his conqueror's feet. Caesar, in no mood to be merciful, had him loaded with chains and thrown into prison; where he would remain for almost six years, until being publicly displayed in Caesar's *Triumph* of 46 BC. The war was not quite over, but it was already won.

The victory had come at a terrible cost. Caesar claimed over one million Gauls had been killed, a million more enslaved, and 800 cities and towns stormed, Whatever their exaggeration, these are near-genocidal figures. Ultimately, however, the great task was done and there was peace. The Republic owed Caesar much. Surely, with his term of office now drawing to its finish, there would be magnificent honours waiting for him in Rome. The acclamation of his grateful fellow citizens, a splendid *Triumph*, high office once again? After all, who could justly refuse any of these to Caesar, the conqueror of Gaul? After almost a decade away he was ready to head for home.

### Caesar's Civil War

Back in 55 BC, Pompey and Crassus had stood for the *Consulship*. Opposition was instantaneous and implacable, but neither one intended to leave the election to chance. After an amount of bribery which exceeded anything ever seen before in Rome, they duly secured their second joint *Consulship*. Even now they had not finished with their election rigging. When Cato won a *Praetorship*, Pompey had the result declared void. The *Aedileships* were shamelessly parcelled out to supporters; so much so, in fact, that election day erupted into fresh violence. In the following weeks, a tame *Tribune* came forward with a bill granting the *Consuls* the provinces of Syria and Spain for five-years. Cato fought against the bill with great courage, but it was pushed through amidst much violence. A separate bill fulfilled their obligations towards Caesar. Apart from thar, the *Consulate* of Pompey and Crassus was distinguished only by a great festival. Pompey opened the permanent stone theatre that he had built on the Campus Martius with the spoils of his eastern war. "*The Roman people hates private luxury, but loves public altruism*", Cicero tells us. Roman grandees therefore built no palaces; some did build temples, but most were content to be remembered for great festivals or performances. But none had conceived anything so grand and splendid as Pompey's inauguration games. He had to surpass everything that had gone before; and that was not easy. The *Triumvirs* were now poised, as far as all three were all concerned, on the very edge of their ultimate ends. Caesar believed that, if he could survive the mandated ten-years between terms, and then win a second *Consulships*, he could do enough to insulate himself from prosecution for the rest of his life. Crassus, despite being in his sixties, still dreamed of a *Triumph* of his own, and matching Caesar's military exploits in Gaul. While he left Rome in the middle of November, Pompey, despite his governorship, remained in the city. Not that he wished to forfeit his command, or the legions that came with it. Rather, he planned to govern Spain through lieutenants. Let Crassus go and fight the Parthians, and Caesar the Gauls, Pompey the Great had already triumphed over three continents.

In late 55 BC, Crassus arrived in his new province. There were many fabulous tales of the riches of the East. It was said that in Persia there was a mountain formed entirely of gold; that in India the whole country was defended by a wall built of ivory; and that in China silk was woven by beetles. No intelligent man believe such ludicrous stories, of course, but the fact that they were told served to illustrate an indubitable and glittering truth: the man who made himself master of the Orient would have wealth beyond compare. In the past, Crassus, confirmed in his contempt for Pompey's braggadocio, had felt no need to play the world conqueror himself. But then Caesar had taken up the role. Crassus, cold and calculating, had not been slow to recognise the implications. So, a mingling of greed and fear prompted Crassus to gaze east and dream; a rampant avarice, and a dread of being left behind. The first year of his governorship was spent preparing. With his immense wealth, Crassus was able to recruit an army truly worthy of his ambitions; seven legions (about 35,000 men) and 10,000 cavalry. Among the horsemen was an exotic touch; a thousand Gauls commanded by Crassus' son, Publius, who had served with such dashing under Caesar. Immediately beyond Syria stood the empire of Parthia. Not much was known about it, except that the natives, like all Orientals, were effeminate and deceitful. Lucullus and Pompey had both signed peace treaties with them; an inconvenient detail that Crassus had not the slightest intention of respecting. In the spring of 53 BC, all was ready. Artavazdes II, the client king of Armenia, advised him to take a route through Armenia to avoid the desert, and offered him futher reinforcements. Crassus, confident of success, refused to delay, and marched across the Euphrates river, which served as the border with Parthia. There, he encountered a seemingly friendly Helenized chieftain named Ariamnes, who had assisted Pompey in the past. However, Ariamnes was not so much friendly, as treacherous; he had been paid by the Parthians to lead Crassus's army into the most desolate part of the desert. Meanwhile, the Parthian king, Orodes II (57-37 BC), had divided his army; he himself took the bulk of them to punish Armenia for aiding the Romans, while a 10,000 strong cavalry force under Surena was sent to scout-out, harass, and delay Crassus' army. Orodes did not anticipate that Surena's small force could be so successful; the **Battle of Carrhae** (June 53 BC). Crassus' legions found themselves marching across a desolate plain, with not a stream in sight, only the haze of the heat. The Romans began to wilt. His ablest *Legate*, Gaius Cassius Longinus (d. 42 BC), urged him to turn back, but Crassus would not hear of it. On the legions advanced. Then came the news which Crassus had been hoping; the Parthians were near. Eager to ensure that the enemy did not escape him, Crassus ordered on his legions. Seeing cavalry ahead, Crassus formed up for battle, but the Parthians fled every effort to engage. First came the horse-archers, showering the Romans with arrows, and then wheeling away. The legionaries were protected by their large shields and armour, but they could not cover the entire body. Plutarch describe arrows nailing the shields to limbs, and nailing their feet to the ground. Crassus redeployed his men into a hollow square; a formation that would protect them from being outflanked but at the cost of mobility. Surena then ordered his *Cataphracts*, very heavily armoured horseman, to charge the sweating, parched, immobile ranks of legionaries, causing panic, and inflicting heavy casualties. And all that long day was to have the pattern of a bad dream. Crassus could only hope that his legions could hold out until the Parthians ran out of arrows. However, Surena had hundreds of camels to resupply their horse-archers. Crassus eventually ordered his son Publius to lead-out the cavalry, and drive off the horse archers. The horse archers feigned retreat. Once Publius' men were sufficiently separated from the rest of the army, the Cataphracts confronted them, while the horse-archers cut-off their retreat. They were slaughtered to a man. Crassus, unaware of his son's fate but realising the danger, ordered a general advance. He was confronted with the sight of his son's decapitated head on a spear. With the blessed coming of dusk, the shattered remnants of Crassus' great expedition began to withdraw, retracing their steps to Carrhae, the nearest city of any size; some 4,000 wounded had to be left behind, to be presumably slaughtered; another 2,000 men got lost in the dark, and suffered the same fate. The next day, Surena sent a message to Crassus, offering to parlay. Crassus, fearing a trap, was understandably reluctant, but his mutinous soldiers more or less forced him to go. At the meeting, whether by accident or design, a scuffle broke out, and Crassus was killed. Plutarch reports that the Parthians poured molten gold down his throat in mockery of his renowned greed. Clearly, the Parthians knew more of the Romans, then the Romans had known of them. Of the original 40,000 men, only 10,000 managed to make their way back across the Roman frontier, under the resourceful leadership of Cassius. Rome's humiliation was compounded by the capture of several *Legionary Eagles*. Emperor,Augustus would spend a great deal of diplomatic time and effort recovering them.

The *First Triumvirate* had already been weakened by the death of Julia in childbirth in 54 BC. Her husband Pompey and father Caesar were left equally devastated. For Caesar, however, grief was compounded by a political problem. The love that both men had felt for Julia had provided a bond strong enough to survive any number of political tensions. Now that bond was gone. Caesar tried to re-secure Pompey's support by offering him his great-niece in marriage, but Pompey held off, preserving his freedom of action. But then, a year after Julia's death, midway through 53 BC, the news arrived from Carrhae that Crassus was dead. For Caesar this was a second devastating blow, though it is unlikely that Pompey shed a tear. After all, a malign presence had been exorcised from his life. Mutual fear, not affection, was what had provided the *Triumvirate* with its cement. No one partner could stand up to the other two. Now, suddenly, Pompey could exploit any weakness of Caesar's for his own benefit. And the opportunity soon presented itself. As 53 BC drew to a close, Rome descended into anarchy. The election campaigns were especially fierce, and indeed violent. Both Clodius and Milo were candidates; one for the *Praetorship*, the other for the *Consulship*. Both made use of their gangs of thugs. This chaos reached a climax in the middle of January 52 BC. Clodius and Milo met face-to-face on the Appian Way. Taunts flew, followed all too soon by blows, and in the course of the affray Clodius was killed. Feelings ran high among his large following in the city. The corpse was borne to the *Forum*; laid upon a pyre on the floor of the *Senate House*; and a torch was brought. Clodius' body was burnt, and the building with it. In a spectacle loaded with deliberate symbolism, Clodius' followers feasted in honour of their dead leader, amidst the ashes of the Senate's authority. Now at last Pompey's moment had come. Everyone agreed that only one man could restore public order. Even Cato, a blood enemy of Pompey, accepted it. But he still could not bring himself to accept a *Dictatorship*, instead proposing as a compromise; that Pompey should serve for the year as sole *Consul*. The *Senate* met in Pompey's theatre, and invited the great man to rescue the Republic. Pompey immediately assumed the reins of government, and restored peace to Rome with brisk and military efficiency. For the first time since Sulla, armed troops marched into the city. The gangs of Clodius and Milo proved no match for them. Milo himself was speedily put on trial, found guilty, and sent into exile. Other ringleaders of the mob violence were similarly served. In the space of barely a month, the great man was able to announse that the state of emergency in Rome had been brought under control. The state had captured Pompey, or perhaps the other way around. Who was exploiting whom? Pompey now remarried, not Gaesar's great-niece, but Cornelia, a daughter of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nascia. The pedigree of her father is well-suggested by the roll-call of his names; a descendant of Scipio Africanus himself, and head of the exquisitely well connected Metelli family. Pompey had at last attained his goal; power and respect together. And then, of course, there was Caesar. In Gaul, amid the blood and smoke of Alesia, Pompey's partner still looked to him for friendship. But the balance of power between them had collapsed. He needed Pompey, more than Pompey needed him, and both men knew it.

    At the heart of the coming **showdown** was the question of whether Caesar would be obliged to arrive in Rome as a private citizen to stand for the *Consulship*, or have the right to run for election in abstentia. If he were permitted to progress seamlessly from Gaul to a second *Consulship*, then he could at no stage be brought to trial. To Caesar's opponents, Cato and his allies, this was intolerable. The criminal actions of his first *Consulship* had been neither forgotten nor forgiven. There were plenty who tried to reconcile the irreconcilable. Pompey not the least, who had no wish to see his own pre-eminence threatened by alienating either side. Yet no matter how determinedly he closed his eyes, the dilemma refused go away. Interminable disputes over Caesar's future began to dominate the Senate's every session. Both side believed themselves utterly, implacably in the right. Neither would accept any hint of compromise. Both believed that the other would back down. Cato was convinced that Caesar's return to internal politics must be prevented at all costs; that if he were again *Consul* in Rome, he would act arbitrarily and illegally, as he had done before, and that the result would be autocracy. "*Caesar or the Republic*", was his tireless refrain. For Caesar, it was an outrage that he, who had exerted himself titanically in the cause of the Republic, should, as reward, be obliged to guard his back against petty stay-at-homes like Cato. He could not imagine that the *Senate* majority itself was ill-disposed to him. Since time immemorial, the Romans had set the highest value on military leadership. If he was denied recognition and high honour, that could only mean that *Senators* were under pressure from a small but powerful clique of opponents. Caesar's assessment was not entirely wrong. The vast majority cared for neither side, or for both. "*I wish to see Caesar honoured in the manner which is his due*", wailed Cicero, "*and as for Pompey, I would lay down my life for him; all the same, what really counts with me is the Republic itself*". Yet such were the stakes, they could not help but be caught up on the swell and wash of the arguments. Pompey, desperately struggling to maintain control of the situation, vacillated; he gave to Caesar with one hand and took away with the other. The problem with this strategy, as Cicero pointed out, was that "*he lacks the cunning to keep his real views out of sight*". Those views, by the summer of 51 BC, were coming ever more clear. Unspoken behind Caesar's demands lay the menace of his army, swollen by illegal levies, and battle-hardened in the fire of Gaul. This could not help but strike Pompey as a challenge to himself. Honour and vanity alike obliged him to dig in his heels. In September, he finally delivered an unambiguous verdict: Caesar must give up his command. When a nervous supporter asked what forces he would be able to put into the field should Caesar do the unthinkable and refuse, Pompey smiled calmly and told him, "*I only have to stamp my foot, and all over Italy legionaries and cavalry will rise up from the ground*". Now at last the rupture between the two old allies was in the open. If Caesar were to stay in this fight, then he would need tame *Tribunes*, heavyweight supporters with the nerve and spirit to veto any such proposal. In 50 BC, Caesar's cause was championed above all by Gaius Scribonius Curio, a "*brilliant good-for-nothing*" whose support he had bought with Gallic gold. As Curio vetoed every effort to prise Caesar away from his command, demands began to be made of Pompey to make good his boasts of forcing the general to back down. Pompey responded by taking to his bed. Whether his illness was real or feigned, the showdown could be postponed, but not prevented. At the end of November, one of the two *Consuls*, Gaius Marcellus, hoping to force a decision, made a report on Curio to the Senate, demanding that he should be suspended from office. If the majority of the *Senators* had to choose between Caesar and Pompey, they preferred Pompey. Above all, however, they were against a civil war, for that could only make things worse. The *Senate* thus voted in Curio's favour. Marcellus, however, declared that if the *Senate* would not do its duty he, as consul, would. He travelled in the full pomp of his office to Pompey's villa on the outskirts of the city. There, watched by an excited crowd of *Senators,* Marcellus handed Pompey a sword. "*We charge you to march against Caesar,*" he intoned sombrely, "*and rescue the Republic*". Pompey then took command of the two legions in Italy (which had not yet set off to deal with border trouble with Parthia), and set-about raising fresh levies. Caesar, himself stationed menacingly at Ravenna with the 13th Legion, was brought the news by Curio, who no longer felt safe in Rome. In his place, Caesar dispatched a trusted lieutenant by the name of Mark Antony (d. 30 BC) to Rome to act as his new protector. As the tension heightened, on 1 January 49 BC, newly elected *Tribune* Antony read-out a letter to the Senate. It had been penned by Caesar, and hand delivered by Curio, After a lengthy recitation of all his services to Rome, the general cast himself as the friend to peace, and prepared to lay down his command. But only if Pompey laid down his simultaneously. Otherwise he would retain his legions, and "*defend his honour by any means necessary*". Caesar must have calculated that he could intimidate the Senate. If so, it badly backfired. Even the moderates were incensed by these fighting words. and felt compelled to accepted a proposal by Metellus Scipio (d. 46 BC), that Caesar should surrender command of his legions by a certain date, or be considered an enemy-of-the-state. When the motion was put to an immediate vote, only two *Senators* opposed it. Antony promptly vetoed the bill. Some *Senators*, including Cicero and Caesar's father-in-law Piso, still supported a peaceful compromise with the utmost zeal. It turned out that Caesar had a more conciliatory proposal; he was willing to give up his two Gallic provinces and ten legions, retaining only Illyria and one legion, if he would be permitted to stand for *Consul* in absentia. Pompey seemed inclined to accept this, but Cato would have none of it, loudly exclaiming that death was preferable to a citizen dictating conditions to the Republic. On 7 January, the *Senate* declared a state-of-emergency. Pompey immediately moved troops into Rome, and the *Tribunes* were warned that their safety could no longer be guaranteed. Antony and Curio fled north, reaching Ravenna on 10 January. There, Caesar waited with a single legion. The *Senate* had placed the greatest possible legal power in the hands of his opponents. It was clear to him that they would soon deploy the resources of the whole Empire against him. Further diplomatic moves could only be successful if he showed that his military prospects were not hopeless. Caesar used Mark Antony's expulsion as a pretext for marching on Rome; like Sulla be As *Tribune*, his person was person was sacrosanct. In his own account, Caesar acknowledged that not a hair of Antony had been touched, and that the Senate had the authority to declare a state-of-emergency, but denies that there was sufficient cause at this time. Rather than wait for his full complement of legions to arrive from Gaul, as Pompey had expected him to do, that very night, 10 January, Caesar ordered his one legion to follow him across the **Rubicon,** a small river marking the border between his province of Cisalpine Gaul, and Italy proper. Plutarch says that Caesar knew perfectly well that this would start a bloody civil war, and that he halted, before he reached the Rubicon, and shuddered at the prospect. *Alea iacta est!* ("*The die is cast*"). Only as a gambler, in a gambler's fit of passion, was Caesar finally able to bring himself to order his legionaries to advance.

**Italy** was immediately struck with panic. Men and women fled from one coast to the other, trying to get out of the way of the inevitable clash. Reports constantly flew down to the city that Caesar was just over the horizon. His timing was indeed far-sighted: by no stretch of the imagination could Italy have been described as prepared to meet an invasion. Pompey had two legions on hand, but, citically, no one seemed to know how large a force was marching on Rome; surely Caesar would start a war with only one legion. The old general's imagination got the better of him, and, to *Optimates*' fury and disappointment, he declared himself unable to defend the capital. The *Senate* was issued with an evacuation order. Anyone staying behind, Pompey warned, would be regarded as a traitor. With that he headed south, leaving Rome to its fate. That the Pompey and the *Senate* should retreat before Caesar looked like weakness to many. Yet it was based on sound military strategy. As the well-informed knew, Caesar had at least eleven legions, most wintering in Gaul; whereas Pompey commanded only two in Italy and seven in Spain, though he could call upon his clients in the east to supply huge contingents. Convinced of his long-term superiority, he would follow Sulla's example and attempt to recover Italy from the east. Pompey's orders made the schism in the Republic final and irreparable. Every civil war cuts through families and friendships. For many Romans, a choice between Caesar and Pompey remained as impossible as ever. For some, such as Marcus Junius Brutus (d. 42 BC), it was particularly cruel. His mother, Servilia, had been the great love of Caesar's life; his father had been one of the young Pompey's many victims during the first civil war. It was widely assumed that he would favour Caesar. But Brutus, a deep-thinker of rare integrity and honour, could not bring himself to abandon the cause of legitimacy. He abandoned Rome. So too did most of the Senate. Caesar's advance down the Adriatic coast was surprisingly peaceful and disciplined: his agents had been busy softening northern Italy with bribes; the moment he appeared before them, towns opened their gates; and his soldiers did not plunder. Only when he reached Corfinium, a crossroads town due east of Rome, did he encounter serious resistance led by Domitius Ahenobarbus, an old enemy of Caesar. He was inspired less by any grand strategic vision, than stupidity and pig-headedness. Pompey had urged Domitius to retreat south, but could not order him, as he did not have supreme command. Domitius' raw recruits had no intention of perishing in his defence: no sooner had Caesar appeared before the walls than his men arrested him and offered to surrender. Caesar accepted their capitulation gracefully. Next morning, he had Domitius, and some fifty other *Senators* and *Equestrians* brought out of the town and led in front of him. It was widely feared that he would follow Sulla's example, and put at least the more prominent of them to the sword. Instead, Caesar allowed all of them to go free. News of the "*Pardon of Corfinium*" spead fast. It was Caesar's first act of clemency in the civil war, a policy that served his purposes well enough. Not only did it satisfy his own sense of superiority, but it helped to reassure neutrals everywhere that they should remain on the sidelines. Even his bitterest enemies, if they only submitted, could hope to be pardoned and spared. Caesar took into his own army the troops that had surrendered at Corfinium and quickly moved southwards. Pompey was in Brundisium, frantically commandeering ships, preparing for the crossing to Greece. And so now, for both sides, began a desperate race against time. More than anything, Caesar wanted to meet with Pompey; he was convince that, if they could meet privately, the two old allies could hash-out a speedy resolution to the war. Pompey was inclined to consider all proposals, except a meeting. The distrust still prevailing between himself and his *Senatorial* allies did not allow it. They feared a new understanding between the Caesar and Pompey. And Pompey feared their wavering resolve; this was not at all what Cato's *Senatorial* supporters had imagined; they were now keener on peace than on destroying Caesar. In the end, Caesar's attempt to reopen negotiations and to block the harbour were unsuccessful, and Pompey finally set sail on 17 March. Barely two months since crossing the Rubicon, Italy had fallen into Caesar's hands. Caesar understood the strategic trains of thought of his former son-in-law, namely that he would attempt to recover Italy from both the east and the west of the Mediterranean simultaneously. Lacking the ships to pursue Pompey, he therefore decided to go first to **Spain**, in order to neutralise the seven Pompeian legions there. On the way, he stopped in Rome for a few days. Arriving in late March, Caesar found the city sullen and unwelcoming. No matter how many doles of grain he promised the Roman people, they refused to be charmed. The rump of the *Senate* left in the capital was even less accommodating. When Caesar formally summoned them to hear his self-justifications, hardly anyone showed up. From those few who had appeared, Caesar demanded the right to seize Rome's state treasury. The Senators, cowed and nervous, appeared ready to give in. Then a *Tribune*, Caecilius Metellus, had the nerve to interposed his veto. Caesar patience broke. No defence of the sacrosanct *Tribune of the Plebs* now. Instead, troops raid the *Temple of Saturn*, even seizing an emergency fund kept for centuries against Gallic attacks. To make matters worse, the stubborn Metellus persisted in trying to block this sacrilege. Caesar's hypocrisy was on full display, when he said, “*Young man, if you don’t stop interfering, I may just kill you.*" remarked Caesar, "*And I dislike saying this much more than I would dislike doing it*”. Metellus stood aside. Caesar took the gold. Naturally, there was outrage. Caesar ignored it. The appearance of legality mattered to him, but not so much as the reality of power. Leaving Mark Antony in charge of Italy, and dispatching Curio to secure the grain supply from Sicily and North Africa, Caesar himself set out west for Spain. In the middle of April, he reached Marseille by the land route. The judgment of this free city, an ally of long standing, was to remain neutral, and close its gates to him. However, this promise of neutrality was fulfilled quite ambiguously, since the aforementioned Domitius Ahenobarbus was admitted some months earlier; his hatred of Caesar undimmed, but his offence at Pompey's conduct at Corfinium too raw to immediately join him in Greece. Seeing that there would be no quick resolution, Caesar left a besieging force, and continued to Spain, where his subcommanders had already secured the Pyrenean passes. He now stood at the head of six legions, facing enemy five legions under two veteran commanders, Lucius Afranius and Marcus Petreius. The Pompeians were supplimented by many local auxiliary troops, but Caesar was superior in cavalry, having formed squadrons from the foremost Gallic tribes. For the first time since the civil war began, he had to reckon with heavy fighting. In Gaul, against the barbarians, Caesar had preferred to stab hard and fast wherever he was least expected, no matter what the risks. Now, against fellow Romans, his overconfident legions got a bloody nose in the first major engagement on western side of the River Segre; a tributary to the Ebro. But success in the field would not be enough. Caesar secured the submission of many Spanish tribes, by promising to ease the burden of Roman rule. Afranius and Petreius, fearing that Caesar's cavalry would cut them off from their supplies, withdrew to the south. Caesar pursued them, and barred their route with a series of daring and surprising manoeuvres. The Pompeian forces soon found themselves bottled-up, without access to supplies. Wishing to avoid bloodshed, Caesar deliberately refused battle. His soldiers, seeing victory and plunder within grasp, fiercely clamoured for orders to attack. But the disagreement was soon forgotten as events developed. The armies were camped close to each other leading to some fraternization between the two armies. Old friends and acquaintances met. In particular, the Pompeian soldiers learned how rich Caesar’s men had become under the great general. A steady trickle of them began surrendering to Caesar. By the end of July, with water, grain, and fodder running low, the two commanders themselves had little choice but to surrender. Caesar pardoned all the Pompeians, Afranius and Petreius included. A good portion of the army promptly turned around and signed up to fight for the man who had defeated them. Stronger than ever, Caesar marched back to Italy.

In Rome, Caesar took steps to legitimise his position. A compliant *Senate* had already appointed him *Dictator*, his main task being to conduct the elections. Standing in the same elections, he won his second terms as *Consul*, together with a puppet named Publius Servilius Isauricus. Then, after just eleven days, he laid down his *Dictatorship*. The political situation had thus changed. Hitherto, Caesar had been a rebellious governor, while his opponents represented the legitimate government. Now, he was the lawfully elected *Consul*. The military situation had also improved as a result of the Spanish campaign, though not decisively. In other theatres of the war, Pompey and his *Senatorial* allies could point to significant successes too. Caesar's province of Illyria had been forced to surrender. The expedition under Curio had been unable to win the province of Africa; he died, alongside his men, in battle against Juba (d. 46 BC), the king of Numidia, who joined the Pompeian side to avenge an old insult from Caesar. Across the Adriatic, Pompey had had almost a year to gather and train a large army. He brought five legions with him from Italy; four more came from the eastern provinces, and two were on their way from Syria under Metellus Scipio. Furthermore, the Pompeians had assembled a great fleet in the eastern Adriatic under Caesar's old *Consular* foe Marcus Bibulus. Pompey intended to take up winter quarters along the coast, in order to lauched an overwhelming offensive against Italy in the spring. Determined to take the initiative, Caesar ordered an unprecedented crossing of the Adriatic in the dead of winter; not once, but twice, for he had insufficient ships for his whole army. Thanks to favourable winds, and the speed of his operations, Caesar led the first crossing, taking the Pompeian fleet by surprise, and establishing a bridgehead on the Greek coast, near Apollonia. He quickly advanced towards the major Pompeian supply base at Dyrrachium, but withdrew back to Apollonia when Pompey's superior forces reach it first. Worst of all, Bibulus did not allow himself to be taken by surprise a second time, As a result, Caesar was left stranded on the far side of the Adriatic, with only half his army. For a long time nothing happened. Pompey's army was superior, but he saw not reason to risk battle; Caesar was not well-supplied, cut-off from the sea, and might be starved out. Caesar, on the other hand, waited with growing impatience for the remaining legions to arrive. At times, even communication with Italy was interupted, and Caesar began to have doubts about Mark Antony's reliability. He eventually went so far as to attempt to cross back over in a small boat, and fetch the soldiers himself, but was turned back by a storm. Finally in March, with daring and a great deal of luck, the crossing was made. Antony was able to trick the Pompeian fleet with some decoy ships, and managed to escape with minimal losses to join Caesar in Greece. Caesar now had eleven legions (about 34,000 men), and about 1,500 horse, still numerically inferior to Pompey, but enough to begin the great game. He offered battle, but his opponent refused, since Caesar's supply lines were little improved. To force the issue, Caesar made a detour around the enemy through difficult terrain, and advanced against **Dyrrachium** again. Pompey recognized Caesar's intention too late, and had to be content with stationing himself on high ground south of the port-city. From this position, he was able obtain supplies through Dyrrachium, while Caesar was still cut off from seaborne supplies. Nor could he obtain hardly anything from the surrounding countryside, which Pompey had already plundered of grain. In this rather desperate situation, Caesar once more devised a bold and quite unusual strategy. As the land was hilly, he occupied various high points in a wide arc around Pompey's camp, drew field fortifications between them, and encircled his opponent. He had of course successfully used a similar technique at Alesia. Militarily, Caesar wished to stop the Pompeian cavalry from harassing his own foraging parties. Unable to avoid encirclement, Pompey countered this move by building his own fortifications facing Caesar; his line extended fifteen miles, compared to Caesar's seventeen. Caesar's food situation, however, did not improve. His men were often reduced to making do with roots and pulses to bake a kind of bread. When Pompey was brought a specimen, he declared that they were dealing, not with human beings, but with wild beasts. Even the Pompeians, who had much better supplies, were soon unable to feed their horses. After weeks of skirmishing between the lines, Pompey decided to attempt a large-scale break-out. He was helped in this by the defection of two prominent Gallic auxiliaries, who advised him about the weak point in Caesar's fortifications; an old camp that had since been abandoned on the seaward side. In a well-planned operation, Pompey sent sixty cohorts (about 36,000 men) to occupy the camp, which was well-covered by slingers and archers from the high-ground. Caesar's men, unable to withstand the onslaught, finally turned and fled. Mark Antony tried to bring-up reserves to plug the hole, but was driven off by a Pompeian counter-attack. The battle was lost, and Caesar's entire army was sent into a wild retreat without direction. But Pompey, surprised at his own success and fearing an ambush, did not pursue the enemy. "*Today victory would have gone to our opponents,*" Caesar commented, "*if they had had someone who knew how to win*". Caesar, unnerved by his lucky escape, withdrew east into northern Greece, to put some distance between the two armies. Pompey's *Senatorial* allies urged him to return to Rome, but he would not re-cross the Adriatic without having beaten Caesar. He therefore continued to dog him, but tried to avoid battle, wanting to continue his tactics of attrition, and assuming, no doubt correctly, that time was on his side. Yet Pompey was no longer fully in control of events. The *Senators* in his camp could not understand his reluctance to defeat Caesar, and suspected his motives, accusing him of prolonging the civil war to keep himself in supreme command. Finally, in a council a war, they demanded that he should do battle, and Pompey gave way. At the beginning of August, Caesar had pitched camp in the plain of **Pharsalus**. Pompey, who had been joined by Scipio's two legions, occupied an excellent position on the heights to the west. His army now totalled a good 47,000 men were ranged against 23,000. His cavalry outnumbered Caesar's by six to one. The two armies deployed with the river Enipeus on the Cesarean left, so both commanders looked to the right flank as the centre of the action. Surveyed the enemy order of battle, Caesar quickly recognised Pompey's intention, to overwhelm the Caesarian cavalry by numbers, and then flank the infantry as it was pinned by his own infantry forces. To countered this, he detached six cohorts and formed them into an oblique line on his right flank, thereby acting as a reserve for his own cavalry. The battle started when Caesar signalled for his infantry to close against the Pompeian infantry. Standard practice of the day dictated that both armies would advance, and then meet roughly in the middle. Pompey, however, ordered his men not to charge, but to wait until Caesar's infantry came into close quarters, hoping they would be fatigued and fall into disorder if they were forced to cover the entire distance. But Caesar's veterans were not just more experienced, but more disciplined. As they neared throwing distance, without orders, they stopped to rest and regroup, before closing the last few yards. With the two infantry lines collided, Pompey's cavalry charged on the flank. As expected, they easily scattered Caesar's cavalry, before being set upon by Caesar's reserve infantry. In Gaul, the legions had often faced superior Gallic cavalry, and developed a technique for countering it; rather than throwing their javelins, they would thrust them up into the riders’ faces. Pompey's cavalry panicked long enough for Caesar's cavalry to regroup, come about, and charged them. As Caesar's cavalry chased their counterparts from the field, his reserve line charged the exposed left flank of Pompey's legions. Caesar then ordered in all his reserves into the fray, which broke Pompey's left flank infantry. This was where Pompey had stationed himself, and he had little choice but to flee back to his camp, leaving his army to its own devices. With that, the Pompeian line was rolled-up like a carpet. Caesar did not linger over his victory, immediately making for Pompey's camp. But Pompey had already slipped out of the back. That evening, surveying the slaughter-ground, Caesar wailed "*They were the ones who wanted this*". But he was wrong. No one had wanted the slaughter. That was the tragedy. Nor was it concluded yet.

    The next day, Caesar displayed his celebrated clemency to Pompey's army. Of those who accepted it, no one gave him greater joy than Marcus Brutus. This was part personal affection, and part calculation. Brutus was a widely respected defender of the old Republic, and Caesar hoped that his reconciliation might encourage others. He would not be entirely disappointed. Cicero, who had not been at Pharsalus, having stayed behind with Cato on the Adriatic coast, was one of those who decided that the war was as good as over. Cato himself, naturally, refused to countenance any thought of surrender. Instead, embarking with his garrison, he set sail for Africa. This alone ensured that the war would continue. And then, of course, there was Pompey. Now, wounded by his first taste of defeat, Pompey had galloped for the Aegean coast, and, from there, commandeered a ship to take him to Mitylene, on the island of Lesbos, to take on board his wife Cornelia and his son. Yes, a battle had been lost, but not the East, and therefore not the war. He may even have believed it. Many kings who owed Pompey their thrones, and one in particular was the richest in money, provisions, and ships. Moreover, he was only a boy, and his sister was in open rebellion against him, leaving his country easy meat for the master of the East. Or so Pompey hoped. The order was given, and his small fleet headed for **Egypt**. But news of Pharsalus had travelled faster than Pompey. Ptolemy XIII (47 BC) and his courtiers decided to curry favour with Caesar by murdering his advisery. A small Egyptian delegation, including an old comrade on Pompey named Lucius Septimius, sailed out to greet his ship moored off coast, and invited him to board. Pompey did so, having first kissed Cornelia goodbye. As he was rowed towards the shore, he attempted to engage his companions in conversation, but no one would answer him. Unsettled, Pompey felt the keel of the boat run against the sand he rose to his feet. As he did so, suddenly, Septimius drew a sword and ran him through the back; and then two more cut off his head and threw his body into the water. Pompey the Great was sixty-years-old; he had just celebrated his birthday the day before his murder. If Pompey had miscalculated by travelling to Egypt, then so too had Ptolemy. When Caesar arrived three-days later, and was presented with Pompey’s head in a basket, he was, reportedly, furious: no matter how relieved he may secretly have felt at the removal of his rival, he had been robbed his coup-de-grace of pardoning and reconciling with Pompey. But this gave him a marvelous excuse for taking control of Egypt by way of punishment. Trapped in Alexandria by unfavourable winds, he immediately began behaving as though he were a king himself; taking up residence in the royal palace; issuing exorbitant financial demands; and announcing, graciously, that he was prepared to arbitrate the civil war between Ptolemy XIII, and his sister-wife Cleopatra VII (30 BC). Cleopatra was twenty-one and Ptolemy thirteen; for all practical purposes Egypt was ruled by the courtiers, led by a eunuch named Pothinus. Pothinus had lately come into conflict with the queen, and driven her into exile. Cleopatra was now at Pelusium with an army, intent on forcing her restoration to the throne. Caesar instructed both parties to dismiss their armies and meet him. Alexandria, however, was in the hands of the king. It is at this point that Cleopatra staged her famous *coup de théâtre*. One evening at dusk, a small boat sneaked up to a jetty beside the palace. A single Sicilian merchant clambered out, carrying on his shoulder a carpet, tied about with straps, which he carried into the palace, and presented to Caesar as a gift. It was unrolled to reveal the unexpected, but bewitching, sight of Cleopatra. Caesar, as the queen had gambled, was immediately smitten by her grace, charm, and audacity; having slipped through danger in such dramatic fashion. Caesar bedded her that very night. When Ptolemy found out about his sister's conquest, he was thrown into a violent tantrum, rushing out into the streets, tearing his diadem from his head, and screaming for his subjects to rally to his defence. The populace of Alexandria was particularly ill-disposed towards the Romans; in 55 BC, the previous king had been restored by the *Senate* after his subjects had expelled him; in 49 BC, Pompey had demanded, and obtained, substantial deliveries of grain, despire a bad harvest; and now, Caesar, requisitioning part of the palace, flaunted the country's dependence on the Roman super-power. When Ptolemy asked the mob to attack the hated foreigners, it obliged enthusiastically. Besieged in the palace, Caesar's position become so threatened that he was obliged, not only to released Ptolemy from his custody, but recognised him as joint monarch with Cleopatra. Even such concessions did little to ease his desperate straits. A few weeks into the siege, the rioters were joined by Ptolemy's 20,000 strong army. For the next five months, the exploits of his previous campaigns were replayed as farce. Burning the Egyptian fleet in the harbour, Caesar accidentally set fire to part of Alexandria's famous library; more than four hundred thousand papyrus rolls were lost. Attempting to secure the lighthouse of Pharos, he was forced to jump ship and abandon his general's cloak to the enemy. Despite these embarrassments, however, Caesar succeeded in retaining control of both the palace and the harbour. The situation began to turn in Caesar's favour when news reached him in March 47 BC of a relief force arriving overland from Syria. Ptolemy marched against them; Caesar followed, taking a circuitous route by sea. In the ensuing battle, the young king was defeated, and drowned in the Nile attempting to flee, leaving Cleopatra unchallenged on her throne. Uncharacteristically, Caesar lingered in Egypt for the whole of April, in order to accompany Cleopatra on the long trip up the Nile. When he was finally able to tear himself away, she was visibly pregnant; Caesar refused to acknowledge their bastard son, but Cleopatra, undaunted, flaunted the obvious by naming the boy Caesarion (d. 30 BC).

There were few places where Caesar was not desperately required. In Italy, Mark Antony's mismanagement was provoking widespread resentment; in Antolia, Mithridates' son Pharnaces had proved himself a chip off the old block by invading Pontus; in north Africa, Metellus Scipio and Cato were marshalling a vast new army; in Spain, Pompeians were fostering renewed unrest. In late May, Caesar took the road east out of Alexandria, travelling up the eastern Mediterannean coast, and setting things to right in the **East**. For the most part, there was no opposition; Roman garrisons and client kings, previously aligned with Pompey, readily enbraced Caesar. His victory in Pontus over Pharnaces was so swift that in a letter to a friend in Rome, he famously boasted, *Veni, vidi, vici* ("I came, I saw, I conquered"). He continued west through Greece without incident, and returned to Italy late in 47 BC. Back in Rome, Caesar's first order of business was removing Mark Antony from power. Without Caesar to guide him, his chief lieutenant had quickly proved politically naive and personally unpopular. He devoted most of his energies to a lavish lifestyle, billeting a harem of mistresses on *Senators*, vomiting in the popular assembly, or, a favourite party trick, dressing up as the wine god Dionysus in a chariot hitched to lions. His chief political difficulty was a popularist *Tribune* named Cornelius Dolabella, who began to agitate for debt-relief. Antony at first did nothing, and then finally cracked down with such brutality as to forfeit the sympathy of the populace. After bringing a measure of peace to Rome, Caesar had himself reelected *Consul*. He kept Mark Antony on the political sidelines, though, and chose as his colleague a loyal, honest and, diligent cavalry commander named Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (d. 13 BC); the future third leg of the *Second* *Triumvirate* alongside Antony and Octavian. Satisfied that Lepidus could represent his interests in Rome, Caesar finally turned his attention to his *Senatorial* enemies in **north Africa**, who had assembled a vast army; ten Roman legions, and countless horsemen from the Numidian king Juba. It was particularly difficult to assemble the army for this new campaign. Caesar's legions, led by the *Tenth*, had finally had enough. They wished to be released and paid the bonuses they had been promised. Had Caesar not stated at Pharsalos that the war was nearly over? More than a year had passed since then. Deputies, sent by Caesar to parley with the mutineers, were almost killed in a hail of stones. Caesar then went in person, and dealt them a cruel blow; he granted their request of immediate release. Promising to deal with their bonuses and retirement land-grants upon his return from Africa, he bid them goodbye, not as comrade, but as citizen. His men, shamed and shocked by their casual dismissal, begged Caesar to take them back into service; feigning reluctance, he allowed himself to be persuaded. Being militarily inferior, Caesar once again banked on the element of surprise. In late December 45 BC, two years after crossing the wintery Adriatic, he embarked six legions for a similar crossing of the strait between Sicily and north Africa. It was a reckless, irresponsible, and costly undertaking. Most of the ships were scattered by strongs winds. Caesar himself landed with all of 3,000 men and 150 horse in the region of Hadrumetum (now Sousse in Tunisia). Apocryphally, when landing, Caesar got tangled in his cloak, and fell face first onto the beach, but was able to play-off the bad omen; according to Suetonius, he hugged the sand, crying "*I have hold of you, Africa!*". For the first few months, the omens seemed to hold true, and things went badly for Caesar. With the benefit of surprise, he was able to find and reorganise his scattered forces. But they were harrassed with impunity by the superior Pompeian cavalry, and further reinforcements often disrupted by storms. It would be pointless to give a detailed account of the campaign. It took place in a small area and followed much the same course as Caesar's earlier campaigns. But the decisive battle took place at the port-city of **Thapsus** (April 46 BC), whose unique geography led both sides to think they were laying a clever trap for the other. The city lay on a marshy isthmus, with only two narrow strips of dry land connecting it to the mainland. When Caesar marched in and besieged Thapsus to seize some food stores, Metellus Scipio jumped at the opportunity to trap him. Caesar blocked the southern approach with fortifications, forcing Scipio to either attack a well-fortified opponent, or march around the marsh to attack via the eastern approach. Scipio decided on the latter, leaving King Juba to take up position opposite the fortifications to block his escape. The main army marched all the way to the eastern approach and started building a camp opposite Caesar's. The ensuing battle differed from all Caesar's others in that his soldiers started the fighting against his wishes, as good terrain narrowed the front, limiting the enemy's numerical advantage, It is unclear why Caesar himself held back. Plutarch reports that Caesar, seeing that his men could not be restrained, went to address them, only to be "*overcome by an usual sickness*". We have evidence of other sudden seizures, possibly from epilepsy. This might explain why Caesar lost control of the army. Whatever the came, Caesar's veterans charged so unexpectedly and fiercely that victory was soon won. Many enemy soldiers tried to surrender, but were put to the sword, despite repeated orders to spare them; Caesar's men, in their fury, even turned on their own offices, wounding several. Both Metellus Scipio and King Juba managed to escape from their defeat; Scipio tried the flee for Spain to continue the fight, but drowned when his ship sank; and Juba, realising he had backed the wrong horse, took his own life. After Thapsus, Caesar proceeded northwards to Utica, where Cato was garrisoned. Cato received news of the defeat with characteristic stoicism. He conferred with his friends, declaring that he was willing to fight, but would not compel others to do so. When it became clear that there was little will to resist, he evacuated any Pompeians who wished to reach safety. He also enjoined his son, who was with him at Utica, to beg for Caesar's mercy. Asked why he would not do so himself, he is said to have replied, "*I grew up in freedom, with the right of free speech. I cannot change my ways in my latter years and accustom myself to servitude*". Cato retired for the night with a copy of Plato's *Phaedo*, which describes the last hours before Socrates' death. When he was done reading, he stabbed himself below the breast with a smuggled sword. His son rushed in, and the physician bound his wounds, but no sooner was he left alone than he ripped off the bandage and bled to death; defying Caesar one last time. When Caesar arrived at Utica, the inhabitants had already buried him with full honours. Bitterly, he addressed the man who had for so long been his nemesis, as if standing in front of him, "*I envy you this death, just as you envied me the chance to spare you*". Caesar was hardly the man to appreciate being robbed of a grand gesture; to have pardoned Cato would have been to destroy his infuriating hold on the Republic's imagination. Only later did it become clear that, even as a specre, Cato remained Caesar's most obdurate foe. From Utica, Caesar proceeded for Numidia, and, from Juba's old kingdom, carved out the province of Africa Nova. In June 46 BC, Caesar left Africa for Rome, stopping first in Sardinia, and returning to the city near the end of July. However, his opponents were not quite finished yet. The brothers Gnaeus (d. 45 BC) and Sextus Pompeius (d. 35 BC), sons of Pompey, were gathering another army in Spain. Their defeat at the Battle of Munda (March 45 BC), four years after crossing the Rubicon, is generally regarded as marking the final battle of Caesar's civil war. Launched for the sake of Caesar's honour and safety, it had the side-effect of making him the master of Rome.

### Ides of March

Returning to Rome in 46 BC, Caesar prepared to put his dead enemies where he felt they now belonged; in the shade. That September, his fellow citizens were invited to share in his victory celebrations. Rome was held spellbound for many days by the extravagant spectacle. He staged four *Triumphs* in a row, ostensibly held to celebrate his victories over Gaul, Egypt, Pontus and Africa. These were the foreign foes marched in chains before the cheering crowds; Vercingetorix was finally pulled-out of his jail-cell, and publicly displayed, before being ceremonially strangled at the Temple of Jupiter. But even though it would clearly have been obscene for Caesar to have celebrated his victory over Pompey and other fellow citizens in such a manner, he could not resist the occasional gloat. In his African *Triumph*, he had a float illustrating Cato's suicide wheeled through the streets. He justified this by claiming that Cato and others had been collaborators of the Numidian king. The watching crowds did not agree. They wept at the sight of the float. Cato still eluded the reach of Caesar's hatred. But the Republic itself was now securely in his hands. The *Senate*, stupefied by the scale of Caesar's victory, scrabbled to somehow reconcile it with the cherished traditions of the past. During his travels, Caesar had been re-elected *Consul* four times, and twice accepted the *Dictatorship*: first, in 49 BC for eleven days when he had presided over his own hurried election to his second *Consulship*, and then, in late 48 BC for some months when he was trapped in Egypt towards the end of his third *Consulship*. Now, in 46 BC, he was awarded a *Dictatorship* for the third time; and for the unprecedented span of ten years. Already *Consul*, Caesar was also awarded other titles and honours; permanent *Tribunician* powers, which made his person sacrosanct and allowed him to veto the *Senate*; and permanent *Censorial* powers, which he used to appoint many of his own partisans to the *Senate*. Never before, not even under Sulla, had there been such a concentration of power in the hands of one man. Yet the example of Sulla's retirement did offer at least a glimmer of hope. And who, after all, knew how the Republic was to be healed of the wounds of civil war? There was even a measure of sympathy for the man burdened with its cure; "We are his slaves," wrote Cicero, "*but he is the slave of the times*". Assuming control of government, he set out to pass an ambitious legislative agenda to right the ship of state. Much time was taken up by the settlement of his veterans. He founded Roman colonies in the provinces; not only in Gaul, but in Spain, Africa, Greece, and Anatolia. He was especially proud of having restored the cities of Carthage and Corinth. He thus had his veterans dispersed throughout the Roman world; this, if nothing else, safeguarded his rule. The same may be said of granting citizenship to towns and eminent provincials on a grand scale. These were substantial moves towards fusing the provinces of the empire into a single cohesive unit, and embracing its multi-national character. This may have been Caesar's intention, though we have no evidence of it. All we know for certain is that he strengthened the depth and breadth of his supporters, and his position. Countless other matters required his attention. He conduct the first proper census in years, forced a reduction in the grain dole, reformed the lawcourts, set strict term-limits for provincial governors, passed sumptuary laws that restricted the purchase of certain luxuries, and decreed that one third of farm-workers on large estates should be freemen. But perhaps his most consequential reform was introducing the *Julian Calendar*. The Romans had hitherto had a lunar year (354 days), which meant that priests were forever inserting holy-days to keep the calendar aligned with the proper seasons. In the confusion of the late Republic this had often been neglected. Caesar replaced it with the Egyptian calendar, based on the solar years of 365 days, with a leap-year every four years. The *Julian Calendar* became the predominant calendar in the Western world for more than 1,600 years, until Pope Gregory XIII promulgated a minor modification in 1582. At the same time, Caesar sponsored a building program in Rome, having realized how unimpressive the city seemed in comparison to Alexandria. As a result, the *Forum Julium* was built to provide more space for lawcourts, and the *Saepta Julia* providing a large enclosure for voting. Even the Senate House was Caesar's work. The old one, destroyed as Clodius' funeral pyre in 52 BC, seems to have been hastily rebuilt, but the *Senate* now gave Caesar the right to build his own. The *Curia Julia* still stands today; though rebuilt according to the same design in the fourth century, and converted into a church in the seventh. These reforms, completed by his successor Augustus, set the stage for another five centuries of Roman dominance.

However restlessly active Caesar was, we still hear of nothing that could be construed as constitutional reform, nor a return to the free elections and institutions of the Republic. He had no solution for the political crisis, other than investing all authority in himself. Among Caesar's peers, bitterness and impotence festered, as did a sense of shame; "*To the free men who accepted Caesar's perks, his very power to dole them out was an affront*". And all the more, because Cato's ghost still haunted the conscience of Rome. Those of his former comrades who had submitted to Caesar, and been rewarded for it, could not help but see in his death a personal reproach. None more so than Marcus Brutus, who was, not only the son of Caesar's mistress, but Cato's nephew. Earnest and high minded, Brutus began to find himself ever more conflicted between remaining true to Caesar, and wishing to honour the memory of his uncle. In this cause, he married Cato's daughter Porcia; her previous husband had been Marcus Bibulus, a bride less popular with Caesar would have been hard to imagine. But he was not done yet. Wishing his uncle's memory to be immortalised, Brutus asked Cicero, as Rome's greatest writer, to turn his hand to an obituary. Cicero, in accepting the commission, was driven as much by shame as vanity. He still clung to his self-image as a fearless spokesman for Republican virtue, but the reality was that, he had not had a good war, and, since accepting Caesar's pardon, his bravery had been confined to an occasional poisonous joke. Now, by lauding the martyr of Utica publicly, he dared to stick his neck out; "*Cato,*" Cicero wrote, "*was one of the few men who had been greater than his reputation*". Caesar, far away in Spain at the time, still kept abreast of Rome's literary scene. When he read what Cicero and Brutus had written, he was toweringly unamused. No sooner had the Battle of Munda been fought and won, than, against all good sense, Caesar was writing a savage riposte. This composition, the *Anti Cato*, lobbed every preposterous slander Caesar could dream-up at his dead rival. It was greeted in Rome with widespread hilarity. It forced people to see a side of Caesar they had never seen before, and did not like; petulant, vindictive, and even a little unhinged. Cato's reputation, far from being diminished by the attack, was raised to new heights. Already, during the Spanish campaign, there had been signs that Caesar's considerable reserves of patience were nearing exhaustion. The war had been peculiarly brutal. Far from treating the rebels with his customary clemency, Caesar had refused to recognise them as citizens at all. Though Sextus, Pompey's younger son, had managed to escape, Gnaeus and other captives had been executed and their heads stuck on poles. These were scenes worthy of Gauls. Yet Caesar accepted no responsibility for the descent of his army into barbarism. His scorn for traditions still regarded as sacred by his fellow citizens was growing more palpable by the day. Far from hurrying back to the capital to consult the *Senate*, he lingered in the provinces, inspecting his colonies, and extending citizenship to privileged natives. Back in Rome, jokes were told of Gauls peeling off their stinking trousers, draping themselves in togas, and asking the way to the Senate House. In October 45 BC, when Caesar finally did return to the capital, Cleopatra had swept into town. Rather than make the slightest allowance for Roman sensibilities, she played-up the role of an Eastern queen to the full. She not only brought her husband-brother, and an entourage of eunuchs with her, but also a one-year-old prince; Caesar's bastard son. Naturally, Rome was scandalised. It was said - and believed - that he wished to marry Cleopatra, despite the fact that he already had a wife. Caesar himself did nothing to discountenance these rumours by setting up a golden statue of his mistress in the *Temple of Venus*; an unprecedented and shocking honour. Then, Caesar announced his intention to set-off to war again. Parthia, taking advantage of the civil war, had been raiding across the frontier into Roman Syria. And there was Carrhae to avenge, and the lost eagles to regain, responsibilities certainly worthy of the *Dictator*'s attention. Yet, coming so soon after his return, Caesar's plan could not help but leave Rome feeling spurned. It was as though the problems of the Republic were too tedious for the man appointed to solve them; as though Rome herself was too small a stage for his ambitions.

    Late in 45 BC, the *Senate* announced that Caesar was henceforward to be *Dictator perpetuo* ("dictator for life"). With this fateful measure the last feeble hope that the Republic might one day be returned to its citizens was snuffed out. Yet whatever honours Caesar had received, one was still missing; the title of "king". The question on everyone's mind was whether he now wanted to break the ultimate taboo, and set a crown upon his head. There were certainly grounds for such a horrific suspicion. In December 45 BC, the Senate voted to bestow a final batch of such honours upon Caesar, and to present them formally at the *Temple of Venus*; this was meant to demonstrate the *Senate*'s independence. When the *Senatorial* delegation arrived, etiquette called for Caesar to stand-up to greet them, but he did not rise. He then joked at their news that his honours needed to be cut-back, rather than increased. By rejecting a *Senatorial* gift and not acknowledging them with proper etiquette, Caesar gave the strong impression that he no longer cared about the *Senate*. Then, one morning in January 44 BC, Rome awoke to discover one of Caesar's statues adorned with a diadem; a familiar symbol of Hellenistic monarchy. Two *Tribunes* were understandably vexed, and immediately ordered the offending object removed. Shortly afterwards, the same *Tribunes* arrested a man who had greeted Caesar as "Rex". The dictator could not contain himslef He summoned the Senate, and accused them of attempting to provoke opposition to him; he then had them removed from office. The common people took *Tribunes* seriously as their representatives; Caesar's actions put him on the wrong side of public opinion. Matters escalated on 15 February. The occasion was a festival, and Rome was heaving with holiday crowds. Mark Antony, who had been elected co-*Consul* with Caesar, climbed onto the Rostra, and placed a diadem on Caesar's head, saying "*The people give this to you through me*". As a groan echoed all the way round the *Forum*, Caesar, reading the mood, put the crown aside to use as a sacrifice to Jupiter; "*Jupiter alone of the Romans is king*", he said, which received an enthusiastic response. The background to this incident remains obscure, but it is hard to believe that it was pure improvisation by Antony. Caesar might have intended to put an end to speculation by an official refusal. If so, then in backfired; the rumour was now rife that Caesar had staged the scene as a way to see if there was enough support for him to become King Julius. In just a few months, he had disrespected the *Senate*, removed two *Tribunes* *of the Plebs*, and toyed with monarchy. As it became ever clearer that Caesar intended to go on extending his power until it amounted to a tyranny, a group of men agreed among themselves that he must be **assassinated**. Many of the conspirators were former enemies who had accepted his pardon, but others were friends. Among them were officers who had served with him in the Gallic Wars, like Gaius Trebonius (d. 43 BC) and Decimus Brutus (d. 43 BC). The leading personalities both stood high in the dictator's favour: Gaius Cassius Longinus and his brother-in-law Marcus Brutus were *Praetors*, and likely intended to be *Consuls* for 41 BC. The conspirators considered numerous assassination scenarios, but finally settled on one of the *Senate* meetings: only *Senators* would be in attendance; Caesar would be without his bodyguards; and daggers could easily be concealed under their togas. Caesar intended to leave for Parthia on 18 March. The last *Senate* meeting before that date was on the 15th, the **Ides of March**. The *Senate* met in the *Theatre of Pompey*, as Caesar was financing construction work in the *Forum*. The conspirators waited for Caesar's arrival, but he did not come. That night, hiss wife had suffered nightmares, and begged him not to attend the *Senate*. Although not superstitious, Caesar decided to be cautious, and sent Mark Antony to dismiss the *Senate*. But eventually Decimus Brutus succeeded in persuading him to change his mind; "*What do you say, Caesar?*" Decimus said. "*Will someone of your stature pay attention to a woman's dreams?*" A seer named Spurinna had prophesied that misfortune would befall him on the ides of March. He is said to have been standing by the door to the Senate. Seeing him, Caesar smiled with an air of mocking superiority and said that the ides of March had come and nothing had happened to him. Spurinna replied, *"Aye, the Ides have come, but they are not yet gone*". Mark Antony started to enter with Caesar, but was intercepted by one of the plotters, and detained outside. The *Senators* rose to greet him. As Caesar made his way forward through their ranks, some of the conspirators took-up positions behind his gilded chair, which stood at the foot of a statue of Pompey. Others crowded round on the pretext of making personal petitions. Then suddenly Caesar felt his toga being pulled down from his shoulders. "*Why,*" he cried out, startled, "*this is violence!*" Then they all attacked him. The first blow did not go deep. Caesar was able to seize the dagger. The rest of the *Senators* looked on in horror, as the other conspirators drew their daggers. They had agreed that each must strike once. Twenty-three dagger-blows rained down on the *Dictator*. For a while Caesar defended himself, trying to evade the blows. At last, not wishing to be witnessed in his death-agony, he drew his toga over his head. The pool of his blood stained the base of Pompey's statue. Julius Caesar lay dead in his great rival's shadow. Legend would have Caesar in anguish seeing Brutus among his attackers, crying "*You too, child*?"; or in Shakespears poetic turn, "*Et tu, Brute?*". However, these last words did not appear until much later; they are first mentioned by Suetonius (d. 122) as a popular myth that he dismisses. A similar embellishment has Brutus crying *Sic semper tyrannis* ("thus always to tyrants"). Dramatic, memorable, but a complete fiction.

In the beginning there had been kings, and the last of them, a tyrant, had been expelled by a man named Brutus. And now, 465 years later, another Brutus, his descendant, had struck down a second tyrant. Leading his fellow conspirators to the *Forum*, he proclaimed the glad news: Caesar was dead; liberty was restored; the Republic was saved. As news spread across the city, there was only silence. Far from rushing to acclaim their liberators, citizens were rushing to their homes and barring their doors.

### Second Triumvirate

The result, unforeseen by the assassins, was that Julius Caesar's death precipitated the end of the Roman Republic. In Cicero's famous judgement it was "*a fine deed, but half done*". He was right. Brutus, Cassius, and the other conspirators, believed that, once the tyrant was removed, they would have achieved their aim. They made no preparations for a seizure of power, without which they could hardly guarantee that the *Senate* would be able to take over the leadership of the Republic. They had understood nothing of the conditions that made his ascendancy possible; now that Caesar was gone, the ambitions of Rome's leading men once again had free play, but hardly in the manner that Brutus and Cassius had anticipated. After all, Mark Antony was the duly elected *Consul* and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus was Caesar's deputy as *Dictator,* a position officially entitled the "*Master of Horse*". They both had several legions at their disposal, and apart from anything else Caesar's veterans were bound to try to avenge him. It was Antony who kept a cool head and soon took the initiative; “*It was his character in calamities to be better than at any other time,*” Plutarch says. “*Antony, in misfortune, was most nearly a virtuous man*”. In the immediate aftermath Caesar's murder, he had fled Rome disguised as a slave, fearing that he would be targetted too. When it was clear that his life was in no danger, he returned to find the conspirators, who styled themselves "*The Liberators*", had barricaded themselves on the Capitoline Hill for their own safety. Though they saw Caesar's murder as a glorious event, Caesar had been immensely popular with the Roman lower classes, who became enraged upon learning a small group of aristocrats had killed their champion. Antony, as sole *Consul*, reassembled the *Senate* and patched-up an awkward truce, in which all of Caesar's appointments would remain valid, and, in return, his assassins would be pardoned of their crimes. Antony also agreed to accept the appointment of his old rival Dolabella as his *Consular* colleague to replace Caesar. This kept Rome calm. But in the next days, the calm was wrecked when Brutus, against the advice of Cassius, agreed Caesar would be given an honorable funeral. Antony, as Caesar's faithful lieutenant and incumbent *Consul*, was chosen to deliver the eulogy. During the demagogic speech, he enumerated the deeds of Caesar, and the donations Caesar had left to the Roman people. Antony then seized the blood-stained toga from Caesar's body, presented it to the crowd, and, pointing to each stab-hole, named the assassin; here Brustus, there Cassiau. This bloody spectacle was the last push needed to send the people over the edge. The crowd boiled over, throwing dry branches, furniture, and even clothing onto Caesar's funeral pyre, causing the flames to spin out of control, seriously damaging the *Forum*. The mod then rioted through the streets, waving torches, and yelling for Brutus and Cassius to be found and torn to pieces. Panicked, most of the *Liberators* fled Italy for the East. This was a great success for Antony, who had managed to simultaneously keep Brutus and Cassius far from Rome, appease Caesar's veterans, and reconcile the *Senate* majority. But then, Caesar's will was opened and read. In it, Caesar, who had no living legitimate children, had posthumously adopted his great-nephew Octavian, and named him his principal heir, bequeathing him the immensely potent Caesar name and making him one of the wealthiest citizens in the Republic. To Antony's surprise and chagrin, he had a dangerous rival to his leadership of the Caesarian faction.

There did not seem to be anything remarkable about 18-year-old **Gaius Octavian** (d. 14 AD); the future Caesar Augustus and first Roman emperor. In fact, Octavian seemed to lack all the qualities expected of young Roman men: he was fragile, prone to illness, not particularly athletic, and forever hovered over by his protective mother. But he was an good student, showed promise in oratory, and, most importantly, seemed to attract the right kind of friends. It was at school in Apollonia, Illyria (present-day Albania) that he met Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (d. 12 BC) and Gaius Maecenas (d. 8 BC). Agrippa, the low-born son of a nobody, would go on to be the most gifted general of his generation; whenever the history books say Octavian won this battle or that battle, what they really mean is Agrippa won the battle for him. If Agrippa was Octavian's chief military advisor, then Maecenas was his chief political adviser, and an important moderating influence on Octavian's more bloodthirsty tendencies. The three friends would conquer Rome together; Octavian handling the politics, Agrippa handling the armies, and Maecenas managing things back in Rome in their absence. It was one of the most successful partnerships in history. Octavian was still studying and undergoing military training in Apollonia, when Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March. His mother begged him not to get involved in the political fallout, but Octavian, revealing some of the steal resting in his heart, was determined to claim his inheritance in full. With little more than the magic of his name, he crossed the Adriatic and proceeded to Rome for the first time. Mark Antony had positioned himself as Caesar’s friend, so could not exactly oppose the man’s nephew. But he quite rightly saw Octavian’s arrival as a threat to his own power. He treated the young man with indulgence, asked him whether he really thought he was up to the task of dealing with Caesar’s estate, laughed at his serious manner, and continued to act as leader of the Caesarian faction. He enacted a number of populist laws, that he claimed to have found in Caesar's papers, in an attempt to consolidate his position with Caesar's veterans. He solidified an alliance with Lepidus by obtaining him governorships of Gaul and Spain, and the office of *Pontifex Maximus* succeeding Caesar. He also enacted the *Lex Antonia*, formally abolished the *Dictatorship*, in an attempt win over the *Senatorial* class. Although Antony amassed political support, Octavian still had opportunities to rival him as Caesar's true successor. Even the gods seemed to bless the young Caesar with proof of their favour. When Octavian was staging games in honour of his murdered "father", a comet blazed over Rome. It was hailed by the excited spectators as the soul of Caesar ascending to the heavens. "*You, boy, owe everything to your name,*" sneered Antony, but he was already finding himself outplayed. Requested to hand over Caesar's fortune so that certain donations promised to the people could be paid, Antony proved obstructive; Octavian, speculating to accumulate, coolly borrowed heavily to fulfill the bequests. His reward was spectacular popularity, not only with the urban mob, but with Caesar's veterans too. Recruiting head to head with Antony, Octavian soon had a private, and wholly illegal, bodyguard of 3,000 men. “*Each of them hurried about all through Italy to engage, by great offers, the old soldiers that lay scattered in their settlements,*” says Plutarch, “*and to be the first to secure the troops that still remained undischarged*”. Cicero’s silver tongue helped to tip the balance. with Brutus and Cassius gone, all eyes turned to the great orator to defend the Republic. He viewed Mark Antony as the greater danger of the two. As with Catiline, so now with Antony, he delivered a series of electrifying speeches, known as the *Philippics*. "*Life is not merely a matter of breathing. The slave has no true life. All other nations are capable of enduring servitude; but our city is not*". Elevated calls to Roman freedom alternated with the crudest abuse, as caricatures of a pleasure-loving and exhibitionist Antony were conjured. For too long Cicero had felt himself gagged. Now, for his swansong, he touched the heights, and in his next breath plumbed the depths. Little by little, the sly young fox and eloquent elder statesman were chipping away at the position of dominance that Antony had achieved, and forcing him to react in order to reaffirm his grip on power. With his term of office drawing to its close, Mark Antony endeavoured to secure a favorable provincial assignment to secure an army to protect himself. The Senate, as per custom, had assigned him Macedonia to govern in 43 BC, but Antony preferred Cisalpine Gaul, which had been assigned to Decimus Brutus, one of Caesar's assassins. Despite a very specific law passed by the *Senate*, Decimus refused to surrender his province to Antony, an act of provocation to which Antony was only too happy to respond. Defeating Decimus Brutus would regain Antony's ascendancy among Caesar's veterans, and secure control of Cisalpine Gaul, from which he could overawe Rome, or even directly march on her, as Caesar had in 49 BC. In late November, Antony marched north in late November with five legions - all of them understrength due to defections - and besieged him in Mutina (today’s Modena, just west of Bologna). The new civil war, long threatening, had finally begun.

Back in Rome, a formidable coalition was coming together in opposition to Antony. Two moderate Caesarians, Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Vibius Pansa, took office as *Consuls*. Octavian, now with two legions played one of his masterly strokes of opportunism; deciding that revenge could wait, he was to be the defendant of the Republic. And the *Senate*, at Cicero's urging, split with Antony, declaring him an enemy-of-the-state, and legalizing the actions of Decimus and Octavian. During this time, the *Liberators* enjoyed the support of the *Senate*, appointing Marcus Brutus and Cassius commands in Macedonia and Syria, respectively. In March, before the winter thaw, both Consuls led armies north to the relief of Mutina, and Octavian marched as their lieutenant. In order to ensure victory, the Senate also summoned Marcus Aemilius Lepidus from Gaul. But Lepidus prevaricated, recommending negotiation with Antony. Mark Antony was a formidable and experienced commander, but heavily outnumbered. The **Battle of Mutina** (April 43 BC) consisted of two engagements, six days apart. The first was bloody and uncertain, but the second was more than Antony's exausted troops could handle. He was beaten, but proved remarkably resilient under the circumstances. He reformed his battered army, and skillfully withdraw across the Alps. News of the victory, when it was brought to a waiting Rome, appeared to vindicate Cicero's high-risk, high-stakes policy. The Republic appeared to have been saved. Then fresh messengers arrived with cruel and bitter news. The two *Consuls* were both dead; one in battle, the other of mortal wounds. At Mutina, the only winner was Octavian, who was left in sole command of the Senate's legions. He immediately rethought his position, refusing to cooperate with Decimus Brutus, or pursue Antony. Within a few weeks, Antony had recovered his position, by marching into Lepidus's province with his remaining forces. Lepidus tried to sit on the fence as long as he could, reassuring the *Senate* of his loyalty, while engaging with Antony. But his men, seasoned Caesarians all, were already making up his mind for him, embracing Antony's cause. On 30 May, Antony and Lepidus formally joined their forces. Decimus Brutus, who with Cicero's urging had crossed the Alps in pursuit of Antony, was now hopelessly outnumbered. With Octavian, an unreliable ally at best, standing between him and Rome, Decimus was forced to flee east towards Macedonia, where Cassius and his cousin Marcus Brutus had stationed themselves. But he betrayed and killed by a Gallic chieftain; Mark Antony received a head-in-a-box a few days later. Which way would Octavian now turn? Rome sweated on the answer. He had skilfully been used by Cicero and the Senate; or perhaps vice versa. But, in the weeks after Mutina, Octavian realized that they would never be fully behind him; their apparent support had merely been to emilinate Antony, in the hope of a return of the Republic. But Octavian didn’t want the return of the Republic; he wanted his great-uncle’s power, and Cicero was not going to help him there. In late July, a centurion from Octavian's army suddenly appeared in the Senate House. From the assembled *Senators,* he demanded the *Consulship*, still vacant, for his general. The Senate refused. The centurion brushed back his cloak, and laid his hand on the hilt of his sword; "*If you do not make him consul,*" he warned, "*then this will*". And so it happened. Once again a Caesar crossed the Rubicon. By now Octavian's army numbered eight legions, and there was no one to oppose him. Cicero, sick at the ruinous end of all his hopes, trudged out, with the rest of the Senate, to welcome the conqueror. On 19 August Octavian, still not yet twenty, was formally elected *Consul*. Then, he left Rome and marched north towards the advancing army of Antony and Lepidus. There was to be no war between the rival Caesarian leaders. Instead, Lepidus acted as a facilitator and guarantor for a meeting near Bologna. Octavian and Antony advanced with their legions to the opposite banks of the Reno river, where an island was conveniently situated. At a signal from Lepidus, both men crossed, kissed each other's cheek, and got down to business. The ***Second Triumvirate*** (43-32 BC) was no loose and shifting alliance, as had been established between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. This time the Romans could have very specific expectations on how the new Republic was going to function, in accordance with the *Lex Titia* that was promulgated on 27 November of that year. For an initial term of five years the *Triumvirs* were to exercise *Proconsular* authority over the entire empire. The powers they granted themselves were endless; the prerogative to appoint all key magistrates, even the *Consuls*; the right to pass or annul laws as they pleased, without reference to the *Senate* or the *Roman* people; martial law was extended into the sacred district of Rome herself. And the Republic's death, fittingly, was sealed in blood. The *Triumvirs*, pronouncing Caesar's policy of clemency a failure, looked back to an earlier *Dictator* for inspiration. Within days of their armed entrance into Rome, the proscription lists went up. Ruthless bargaining among the three men had determined whose names appeared on them. One factor more than any other influenced their decisions: with some forty-five legions needing to be paid, the *Triumvirate* desperately need of funds. As it had been under Sulla, to be rich meant death. Some were murdered to remove potential opponents of the new regime, and others were victims of personal enmities and feuds. Most chillingly of all, as proof of their commitment, Antony, Lepidus and Octavian each sacrificed a man they might otherwise have felt obliged to save. So it was that Antony had agreed to the proscription of his uncle, Lepidus his brother, and Octavian his ally Cicero. News of his proscription reached Cicero well in advance of the bounty-hunters. Typically, however, he panicked and vacillated over what to do. Trapped at last, Cicero leaned out from his litter, and unflinchingly bared his throat to the executioners. He died as he would surely have wished: a martyr to freedom and to freedom of speech.

    The last hopes for the survival of a free Republic rested on the *Liberators*. Due to the infighting within the *Triumvirate*, during 43 BC, Brutus and Cassius had assumed control of much of Rome's eastern territories, and amassed a large army. In the summer of 42 BC, Antony and Octavian crossed the Adriatic with nineteen legions, the vast majority of their army, leaving Rome under the control of Lepidus. History, once again, repeated itself. The *Liberators* did not wish to engage in a decisive battle, but rather to attain a good defensive position and disrupt the supply-lines of a 100,000 strong force, exactly like Pompey had done with Caesar before Pharsalus. They had spent the previous months plundering Greece of supplies, and positioning their forces to hold the high ground near the town of **Philippi**, Macedonia. The configuration of the site was ideal; two hills on either side of the Via Egnatia dominated the way east; the northern position was anchored on steep, rocky hills, while on the south lay a supposedly impassable marsh; and easy access to supplies through the port-city of Neapolis . When two fortified camp and a connecting north-south wall were completed, with a ramparts, towers, and ditches, it was an excellent defensive position. The only drawback was that the camps were about one mile away from each other, which would make mutual support problematic. The Battle of Philippi (October 42 BC) was Mark Antony's finest hour; Octavian's role was negligible, bed ridden by illness for most of the campaign. Just like Caesar had done, and for the very same reasons, Antony moved fast. He knew from the experience of 49 BC the difficulties of hunting a better supplied enemy, which could afford the luxury of fighting a war of attrition. In the end the risky march was completed so swiftly and effectively that Cassius and Brutus had little chance to lay ambushes, or otherwise obstruct their progress. Arriving in late September, Antony offered battle several times, but the *Liberators* would not be lured from their fortifications. But little did they know that the daily lining-up of his legion was merely a decoy. With great effort, Antony’s men were clearing a path through the marshland south of Cassius' camp, throwing-up a causeway over them. On 3 October, Cassius realized what was happening and reacted, fortifying in haste the space between the causeway and his camp. Antony saw a window of opportunity to force a battle. He immediately launched his troops across the last few yards of muck, and directly across the plain to attack Cassius’ powerful fortifications. The audacity of the manoeuvre paid off. Brutus’ men, who were witnessing the developments from their camp, were wounded in the pride as they saw Antony’s bold offensive storm Cassius' camp. Instinctively, they counter-charged across the plain, attacking the *Triumvirs*' camp. Octavian was supposed to be leading the camp forces, but there is no accounting for him when Brutus’ legions captured the camp; Pliny bluntly reports that Octavian went into hiding in the marsh. The first day of battle ended, then, in a perculiar draw; Antony had stormed Cassius’ camp and inflicted heavy losses, but Brutus had done the same and captured Antony’s camp. But the main consequence of that day happened on another nearby hill, where Cassius had retreated with his surviving men. Without knowing that Brutus had the upper hand at the other end of the battlefield, he assumed the worst. In fact, according to Appian, *Triumvirs* had actually lost more troops than the *Liberators*. Discouraged, Cassius opted for suicide to avoid capture. In all the accounts of the event, he missed the good news of Brutus’ victory by minutes. Brutus was deeply affected by the loss of his partner Cassius. He took his body for the funeral service to the Island of Taros, just off the coast, so that the troops would not dwell on the consequences of having lost their most experienced military leader. It must have become clear to Brutus that the attritional statategy, adopted so far, remained his best bet for final victory. Antony's troops had already been diverted from fighting to raid Achaia, 200 miles to the south, to gather whatever food they could find. Over the next three weeks, Antony was able to slowly advance his forces south of Brutus's camp, making sure that the enemy was always on the defensive. And he continued his daily daily provocation, knowing from experience that the enemy would feel humiliated at having to refuse to fight day after day. Finally, one morning of early November 42 BC, the imponderable happened; Brutus forfeited his advantage, and accepted Antony's offer of battle. Brutus, more statesman than general, could not command the respect of his troops, and yielded to their plea to fight; "*I seem to be conducting my campaign like Pompey Magnus, no longer giving the orders but receiving them*". The battlefield at Philippi was extremely narrow, because of the marshes, so there was no preliminary manoeuvres or fancy tactics. The two armies of well-trained veterans made contact immediately, skipping even the usual skirmishing and hurling of javelins. Gradually the Triumviral legions gained ground inch by inch, the centre of the Republican army started to crumble and the usual panic in their ranks began to take over. Some, like Cato’s son Marcus, stood their ground and fought heroically; at the end, removing his helmet and charging into the enemy ranks, consciously followed his father in preferring death to slavery. The vast majority fled for their lives. Brutus, like Cassius, retreat to a nearby hill, and committed suicide. The battle of Philippi was the final victory over the remnants and the legacies of an old world. Of the *Triumvirs*, it was Antony who sensed this most clearly. He was not incapable of mourning its passing. Searching out Brutus' corpse, he covered it respectfully with his general's cloak, then had a funeral pyre built for him, and sent the ashes to his mother Servilia, Caesar's old lover. Octavian, on the other hand, yielded to his worst instincts, presiding over the slaughter of many of the prisoners. The Republican resistance had been definitively crushed, whether at the hands of executioners or amid the dust and flies of Macedon, leaving the *Triumvirate* in control of the Roman world.

### Division of Territory

Just two years after the assassination of Julius Caesar, an assassination that was supposed to herald a return of the Republic, the Romans were as far removed from that as they had ever been. The *Second Triumvirate* was, in effect, a three-man military dictatorship, with each of the *Triumvirs* assuming charge of an individual set of provinces. After Philippi, the dynamic between the passionate and temperamental Mark Antony, the cold and vengeful Octavian, and the prudent and cautious Lepidus began to change. By remaining in Italy and transferring his legions to his two colleagues, Lepidus had effectively eliminated himself as an equal partner in the *Triumvirate*. With Lepidus sidelined to North Africa, Antony and Octavian agreed to divide the provinces of the Republic into spheres of influence. Antony took control of the east, Octavian of the west; Antony, as the clear senior partner, also retained the whole of Gauls, which he ruled through lieutenants. Rather than return to Italy, he elected to stay in the east, and play at being Pompey the Great. His pleasures, as he progressed through Greece and Asia, were those that had long been traditional among Romans: posing as a lover of Greek culture while leeching the Greeks; patronising local princelings; fighting the Parthians. To die-hard Republicans, this was all reassuringly familiar, and gradually, in the months after Philippi, the shattered remnants of Brutus' army gravitated, for lack of something better, towards Antony. Octavian was the man chiefly reviled as the murderer of liberty. Nor, in the months and years that followed, did his reputation grow any less sinister. It was to the youngest member of the *Triumvirate* that the most unenviable task had fallen: finding land for tens of thousands of battle-hardened veterans. There was no more state-owned land to allot, so Octavian had two unenviable choices: alienating Roman soldiers who could easily ally with his political opponents, or alienating Roman citizens by confiscating their land. Unsurprisingly, Octavian chose the former, causing widespread unrest. Farmers, evicted from their land and without any other means of subsistence, often turned to brigandage. With armed gangs daring to raid even towns, the countryside slipped into anarchy, and Rome began to starve. The hunger was worsened by the last great *Liberator* general, Sextus Pompeius, Pompey's own son. Sextus, having escaped Caesar's vengeance at Munda, had profited from the chaos of the times to establish himself as master of Sicily, and admiral of two hundred and fifty ships. Preying on the shipping lanes, he was soon throttling Rome. Although Sextus was more than capable of bringing misery to his country, he was never a fatal threat to the Caesarians. A much greater danger, and one that cast its shadow over the entire Roman world, was that, just as the *First Triumvirate* had torn itself to pieces, so too might the *Second*. In 41 BC, only months after Octavian's return from Philippi, this came perilously close to happening. With Mark Antony absent in the East, his pugnacious wife Fulvia (d. 40 BC), stirred up a rebellion in Italy. Fulvia had been unusually visible in public affairs for years, attracting the criticism of Cicero. But left behind in 42 BC things were different; she was the most powerful woman in Rome, as, not only the wife of Antony, but the mother-in-law of Octavian, who was married to her daughter Claudia. According to Cassius Dio, it was Fulvia, rather than Lepidus, who controlled the politics of Italy in their absence. A clash between Octavian and Fulvia, when he divorced her daughter in an attempt to appease Sextus by marrying his sister-in-law. Together with Lucius Antonius, she decided to embrace, or rather leverage, the cause of expropriated Italian landowners and disgruntled veterans. They managed to raise some legions, but could not tempt other Antonian leaders into their half-baked revolt, without clear direction from Antony himself. Octavian sent his friend Marcus Agrippa to deal with the floundering rebels, who retreated to Perugia. When the city finally fell, Octavian gave more proof of his ruthlessness, executing some 300 prisoners, mostly *Senators* and *Equestrians*. His revenge on Fulvia herself, however, was limited to the penning of vulgar verses. She was permitted to go into exile in the east, where she died of an illness, shortly after an emotional reunion with Antony, who blame her for the whole debacle. The real consequence was that Octavian used the revolt as a pretext to break a clear provision in his arrangement with Antony. When the governor of Gaul, a staunch Antonian named Calenus, suddenly died, he went north without consulting his *Triumvirate* partner, and took command of the province, further consolidating his control over the west. Mark Antony was furious, and sailed for Italy. When Octavian’s soldiers at Brundisium denied him entry, he put the port to siege. After a few skirmishes, however, cooler heads prevailed. The soldiers in both their armies did not want to fight a war, that was a feud between their two leaders, rather than an enemy of Rome. After much haggling the pact between the two men was reconfirmed. Crucially, Antony formally conceding Gaul to Octavian in exchange for goodwill alone. To cement their renewed alliance, Octavian gave to the widowed Antony the hand of his sister, Octavia.

Only **Sextus Pompeius** and Lepidus still obscured the neat division of the Roman world in two, and they were soon swept from the gaming board. Octavian lacked the resources to confront Sextus alone, so a new n agreement was reached with reached with Antony at Tarentum in 38 BC; Antony provided 120 ships for Octavian to use against Sextus, while Octavian was to send 20,000 legionaries to Antony for use against Parthia. With the defection of one one of Sextus' captains, a man named Menas, Octavian was ready to deal with the meddlesome Pompey once and for all. However, few Roman commanders, including Julius Caesar, fully adapted their thinking to naval warfare, and his heir was no different. The ability of Sextus’ men to raid any port within range of Sicily, meant that the forces had to be prepared a considerable distance away from their objectives. The plan was for the two Caesarean fleets to unite at sea and co-ordinate their attack on the island, but this never happened. Menas' fleet, coming south, was challenged, defeated, and forced to retreat. While Octavian's fleet, coming west, was caught in a storm, and dashed to pieces on the shore. By the next day, young Caesar was left with less than half of his fl eet, and the campaign was over. Humiliated but undeterred, Octavian turned to his right-hand-man, Marcus Agrippa. to plan a new invasion. He had missed the first, because he had been in Gaul suppressing a revolt and emulating Julius Caesar by bridging the Rhine in an expedition against the Germanic tribes. Competent and modest, he had justifiably been awarded a *Triumph*, but chose not to celebrate it, for fear of highlighting his chief's failures. Instead, behind Cumae on the Bay of Naples. he excavated a canal connecting Lake Avernus to the sea. providing an extensive port for the creation of a new, more powerful fleet, and a safe expanse of water for training of the crews. Sextus was also busy, and the opposing sides now mustered more than 300 ships. In July 36 BC, two Caesarian fleets sailed from Italy, and another fleet, provided by Lepidus, sailed from North Africa, to attack Sextus' stronghold in Sicily. There were some of the same problems as two years earlier: the three-pronged attack on Sicily was difficult to co-ordinate; Octavian was beaten by Sextus, losing most of his ships, and having to flee ashore; and only Lepidus was able to land legions on the island. Yet over the days to come, Lepidus besieged and captured Sextus’ bases one by one. With the odds turning ever more decisively against him, Sextus was left with little choice but to fight a major naval battle. At Naulochus (September 36 BC), Agrippa met and defeated the Pompeian fleet; his large, heavily constructed ships proving difficult for the more manoeuvrable but smaller enemy warships to damage. Sextus Pompeius abandoned Sicily and fled to Greece, preferring to deal with Mark Antony rather than with Octavian; but he was soon captured and executed by one of Antony' minions. The final end of Pompeian resistance immediately highlighted Lepidus' resentment at being a mere rounding error in the equation since Philippi. He had been the first to land troops in Sicily, and had captured all the main towns. The main Pompeian army had surrender to him,  and agreed to serve under his command, swelling his army to more than twenty legions. For the moment Lepidus felt strong, and was determined to add Sicily to his African provinces. Yet Octavian’s agents were soon at work among the  soldiers. Octavian himself followed, riding at the head of his cavalry. He left these outside, and boldly entered Lepidus' camp accompanied by just a few offi cers and guards. There was an echo of Julius Caesar’s ice-cool confrontation of the mutinous *Tenth*, when he broke their spirits by calling them "citizens". Addressing the soldiers, Octavian urged them to spare Rome from civil war by deserting Lepidus' cause, and then marched out of camp trusting that the men would follow. Some did, but it was not an instant defection. For the moment the bulk of the troops were unsure what to do. The arrival of more of Octavian’s men outside their camp may have helped make up their minds. More important was Lepidus’ inability to ignite their passion on his behalf, and his soldiers left him; at first in dribs and drabs, and finally *en masse*. The abandoned commander took off his armour and military cloak, and went to surrender clad in the civilian toga. Julius Caesar paraded his clemency, but Octavian had openly followed a different path. Now he decided it was both practical and worthwhile to emulate his "father". Lepidus was expelled from  the *Triumvirate*, and stripped of his provinces, but his life was spared; Marcus Lepidus remained *Pontifex Maximus* until his death many years later. The young Caesar could afford to shrug aside Antony's inevitable protests. Still only twenty-seven, he was now more firmly established in half the Roman world than ever.

    Throughout these year, Mark Antony remained in the eastern provinces. While overseeing Caesar's planned invasion of Parthia was of paramount importance, it cannot have been the only reason for his prolonged permanence the east. Equally importantly, as far as Antony was concerned, the eastern territories, annexed relatively recently and much disrupted by the civil wars, had never had a chance of being properly integrated into the Roman world. Antony embarked on a grand scale political restructure and reorganization of the Greek East. Approximately half of the territory was controlled by Rome's client-kingdoms, nominally independent kingdoms subject to Roman rule. Specifically, Antony was tired of the weak-willed and half-hearted kings that left Rome without buffer-states she could really rely on. He deposed a string of kings from Pontus to Judea, and replaced them with local potentates he could trust, supported by a layer of capable administrators, fully conversant in the local language, politics, and culture. Many of these representatives were granted Roman citizenship, a bargaining chip that Antony used liberally, in order to constitute the backbone of a decentralized power structure, which was loyal, not just to Antony, but to Rome. One example was to make Herod (d. 1 BC) the new Roman client-king of Judea; a purely secular role, doing away with a combined chief-priest and king of the Jews. Indeed, after Antony's suicide, Octavian would survey the political reorganization of the east, and find no reason to disrupt any of it. In October 41 BC, Mark Antony requested Rome's chief eastern vassal, Cleopatra, meet him at Tarsus in southern Anatolia. Cleopatra knew him of old; unrestrained in his pleasures, his love of flamboyance, his dressing-up as *Dionysus*, and calculated accordingly to win his heart. She sailed up the Kydnos River to Tarsos in a barge with gilded stern, outspread sails of purple, and oars made of silver. She herself lay all alone, under a canopy of cloth of gold, dressed as *Aphrodite*, goddess of love. Beautiful young boys, dressed as *Cupids*, stood on each side to fan her. Her handmaids were dressed like sea nymphs, some steering at the rudder, some working at the ropes. Antony had summoned her, but Cleopatra, magnificently turning the tables, hosted him and his officers on board for two nights of lavish banquets. The alliance they forged was mutually beneficial; Antony got the revenue stream he needed for his military adventures, and Cleopatra got a new Roman patron to guarentee Egyprian independence. "*And the word went out everywhere, that Aphrodite had come to feast with Dionysus, for the common good of Asia*". No role could have been better designed to tickle Antony's fancy; no bed-partner either. He speedily departed from Tarsus, and passed a delightful winter with the enticing queen in Alexandria. As with Caesar, so now with Antony, she was soon pregnant; this time with twins. Yet, belying the gossip that he was besotted with Cleopatra, Antony turned his back on her. For four years, he avoided his mistress, and based himself in Athens, with his new wife; Octavia - beautiful, intelligent, and loyal - provided him with more than ample compensation.

In 36 BC, nearly twenty years after Crassus' failed campaign, and a decade after Caesar's planned invasion, Mark Antony's long-awaited Parthian War got underway. The captured legionary standards of Crassus were still being held as trophies by Parthian king Phraates IV (37-2 BC); Antony intended to get them back, making himself the greatest Roman of all times, and ending forever the dualism with Octavian in the eyes of the Roman people. His first target was the Kingdom of Armenia, ruled by Artavasdes II (d. 34 BC). Armenia had been a Roman ally since the days of Pompey, but, following Crassus's defeat, was forced into an alliance with Parthia. As soon as Antony's army appeared on the horizon - 12 legions (60,000 men), plus 30,000 allied troops and cavalry - Artavasdes surrendered and switched sides without opposition. With Armenia secure, Antony continued south-east into the Parthian province of Media, He meant to capture the city of Phraaspes, spend the winter there, and then progress southward into the Parthia the following spring. Per his usual custom, he moved fast, while the pack animals of his supply column were left behind. In mid-August, the Parthian mounted archers attacked. But they didn't attacked Antony; they attacked his slow-moving and under-guarded baggage train, destroying his supplies and, more importantly, his siege engines. This was a catastrophe for the Antony. He tried to continue with the campaign, deprived of his siegeworks, the siege dragged-on; the region lacked the wood to build new ones. Initially, they were just about able to cope, but, as rations ran short, their foraging parties became easy picking for enemy ambushes. On one occasion, the besieged brazenly sallyied out of the city and attacked Antony’s engineers. So enraged was Antony that he ordered the defendant legion "*Decimated*"; it is one of the few episodes in Antony’s life where frustration got the better of his leadership qualities. Finally, Antony abandoned the siege, and began an arduous retreat through mountainous Armenia with winter closing in, ceaselessly harassed by Parthian ambushes and sudden cavalry raids. While the Armenians prudently avoided openly defecting to the Parthian, they certainly didn't offer any aid or comfort to the beleaguered Romans. By the time they made it back to Roman soil, Antony had lost 32,000 men; and he had not even fought a single battle. Mark Antony's Parthian debacle seriously tarnished his reputation as a leader, and brought the inevitable showdown with Octavian that little bit close.

### Octavian and Antony’s Civil War

    Like the *First Triumvirate*, the *Second* was ultimately unstable and could not withstand internal jealousies and ambitions. By 36 BC, Octavian and Mark Antony faced each other as twin masters of the Roman world, undistracted by rivals. For both men, the challenge was the same: to secure a legitimacy that was not merely of the sword. When Octavian returned to Rome from the defeat of Sextus, he was greeted, for the first time, with genuine enthusiasm. He could at last claim to be labouring in the cause of peace. Taxes were reduced, grain supplies re-established, commissioners appointed to bring order to the countryside. Octavian now began wooing the traditional Republican aristocracy to his side. He married Livia Drusilla (d. 29 BC), a member of the ancient and influencial Claudii family. He restored the responsibilities of the annual magistrates, at least in theory. He even claimed that, since the civil wars was over, he was willing to step down as *Triumvir* - if only Antony would do the same. For Antony, the restoration of the Republic hardly registered as a pressing issue. Indeed, his ambitions were tending in the opposite direction. Ever since the Republic had begun involving herself in the affairs of the east, there had been nothing more calculated to generate moral outrage than the spectacle of a Roman citizen "going native". And, if Octavian's propaganda were to be believed, Antony was going native with a vengeance. He sent his wife Octavia back to Italy, and returned to his lover Cleopatra. This time there would be no backtracking from the affair. Octavian privately fumed at the disrepectful treatment of his sister; and pretty soon publicly. Why rejected a fine upstanding Roman woman in favour for some Eastern temptress? Antony, playing the bluff man of the world, chose to treat it all with disdain; "*So what if I'm fucking the Queen?*" he complained to Octavian. In order to make amended for his disastrous Parthian invasion, he needed Egyptian financial support for another eastern expedition; this time, successful. In 34 BC, he invaded Armenia once again, and, flashing some of the old brilliance, deposed the offending monarch without diffucult. Upon his return, Antony staged his most spectacular offensive of all. Instead of returning to Rome for his *Triumph*, Antony held a pastiche of Rome's most important military celebration in Alexandria. For the finale, the whole city was summoned to hear an important political statement. Surrounded by Cleopatra and her children, Antony distributed kingdoms among his children. Young Alexander was named king of Armenia, and promised Parthia. The other children were presented with more modest territories. And in the most provocative move of all, Caesarion - Cleopatra's son by Julius Caesar - was was proclaimed *King* *of Kings* and *King of Egypt*, to rule alongside Cleopatra. The fact that some of these were provinces of the Republic, held in trust for the Roman people, failed to inhibit his generosity. This was partly because, in one sense, he was not being generous at all. Antony had no real intention of handing over the administration of Roman provinces to his children. The so-called *Donations of Alexandria* were show and nothing more. Antony sought to secure Roman rule in the Greek East, by adopting the pose typical of an oriental dynastic monarch, and making use of Cleopatra's royal Hellenistic lineage in the region. But Alexandria's meat, of course, was the Republic's poison. Antony's friends back in Rome, of whom there were still many, alerted him to the public-relations disaster. He hurriedly wrote to the *Senate*, explaining himself. But it was too late. When Antony turned his gaze back to Rome, he found a most disconcerting sight: the heir of Caesar, adventurer and autocrat, posing resplendent as the defender of the Republic. Not everyone was convinced by the young Caesar's impersonation of a constitutionalist. For two years, a propaganda war was fought in the political arena of Rome, with accusations flying between sides. In the meantime, Octavian had a problem; he could not disband his legions, which he would need for the coming conflict with Antony, but, with Sextus gone, he had no real reason to keep them mobilized. So he looked around for some trouble to get mixed-up in, and settled on Illyria (the Adriatic coast of the Balkans). The region had been a nominal Roman province for well-over a century, but remained a wild place of fiercely independent and rebellious tribes. Octavian spent two years, off and on, in Illyria and beyond, leading the legions himself, and forcing tribe after tribe to acknowledge Roman rule. It is possible that one expedition reached as far as the Danube River, which Octavian dreamed would one day be the stable border of the empire. In one siege, he even displayed some of the personal courage, that had always been conspicuously absent from his career. When his men hesitated on a bridge over the enemy rampart, Octavian grabbed a shield from a soldier, and rushed across, accompanied only by Agrippa and a few bodyguards. The episode mirrored something  famously done by Julius Caesar in another moment of crisis, leading some contemporary commentators to suspect the incident was a publicity stunt engineered to dispel the persistent rumours of cowardice. In Egypt, Mark Antony was also arming himself, ostensibly for his planned re-invasion of Parthia; though why he needed a massive fleet (250 warships and many forms of transport) to invade the Iranian plateau remains hard to explain. In 33 BC, Octavian slated himself in to hold the *Consulship*, intent on baiting Antony into making the first move, so that Octavian would not look like the aggressor. His most venomous attacked were reserved for Cleopatra, who was built into some kind of villainous sorceress, who had bewitched an infatuated Antony, controlling him like a puppet. He was hoping to induce the *Senate* into declaring war, and knew that it was easier for people to pretend that they would be fighting a foreign threat to Rome, than yet another civil war. Unfortunately for Octavian, neither the *Senate* nor the people of Rome were much convinced. In fact, after his term, two stauched Antonians were elected *Consuls*, who introduced a bill censoring young Caesar for his slanders. Unwilling to accept the rebuke, Octavian was forced to reveal his true colours; he didn't give a damn about the Republic. He summoned a meeting of the *Senate* to address the charges, with army guards conspicuously stationed behind the magistrates' chairs. This proved to be a fatal breach of protocol; fully one third of Senate House abandoned Rome and went to join Antony in Alexandria. Among their ranks were both *Consuls*, who took with them all the official executive authority of the state. Also in Antony's camp was a grandson of Cato. Their flight precipitated events: those who had been uncertain began taking sides, and a series of defections ensued. In Autumn, two defectors from Alexandria brought Octavian the information that he needed to finally induce a declaration of war. He forcibly entered the *Temple of Vestal Virgins*, the sacred record keepers, and seized Antony's recently deposited will. Romans everywhere were shocked by this highly illegal and almost blasphemous act, but once the *Assembly* heard the content of the document, skilfully presented by Octavian, they quickly forgot the procedural fault. The will would have given away Roman territory to his children, endorsed Caesarion as a legitimate heir of Julius Caesar, and, most shocking of all, proclaimed his wish to be buried next to Cleopatra in Alexandria rather than Rome. It was all very shocking; perhaps suspiciously so. Yet if there was much careful distortion to Octavian's *coup de theatre*, it was not all spin. Antony's marriage to Cleopatra, formalised in 32 BC with his divorce of Octavia, was instinctively recognised by most Romans as a betrayal of the Republic's most ancient ideals. That the Republic was dead did not make its prejudices any less savage. The moment of truth had come; Octavian and Antony were finally going to war. Soon, the Roman world would have but one master.

    Like other recent civil wars, the **War of Actium** (32-30 BC) would be fought on an immense scale. When Mark Antony counted the men, he must have had almost 100,000; nineteen understrength legions (60,000 men), the rest from his client kingdoms. Octavian gathered roughly the same number. It was too late in the season for either side to strike, but Antony maneuvered his army and fleet onto Greece’s western coast. It seems that his plan was to wait and fight the war in Greece; the same strategy adopted unsuccessfully by Pompey in 48 BC, and Brutus and Cassius in 42 BC. Cleopatra could not be dissuaded from participating in the expedition; after-all, her contributions to the war was greater than all the other kings’ together. In general, the key men in Antony’s closest circle were uneasy with her presence. Regardless of her undisputed intelligence and leadership, for these Roman commanders, who had grown-up in the male and misogynistic environment of the Roman army, the presence of an opinionated and unpredictable oriental woman was an element of disruption. The resulting tension would have very negative consequences on the conduct of the war, as we shall see. Antony set-up his camp in the Gulf of Ambracia. which has a very narrow mouth; the village of Actium lay near the straits. It is not entirely clear what Antony’s real intentions were when he chose to establish his defensive line so far to the south; ceding Octavian the opportunity to ferry his soldiers across the Adriatic Sea. In all likelihood, Antony was concerned about looking like the aggressor, and wanted to clearly signal that his intention was not to invade Italy, which would certainly have been deeply damaging. The result was to hand the initiative over to the enemy. Marcus Agrippa began the attack; and it was probably he who masterminded the entire campaign. In a series of lightning attacks, he raided and destroyed Antony’s base at Methone in the southwestern Peloponnese, then sailed north and captured Corfu, thereby threatening his supply lines. As the enemy reeled from these blows, Octavian crossed the Adriatic with his main army, having left Gaius Maecenas hehind to control Rome; a  role he performed with subtlety and skill, despite the fact that he had no official office; he wasn't even a *Senator*. While Octavian landed much to the north, he quickly closed on Antony’s main base at Actium, beginning a blockade that was soon pressed by land and sea. From the end of spring throughout the summer, Antony’s men failed to break this stranglehold, or lure the enemy into a pitched battle. Octavian, for all his propaganda and slanders, never once under-estimate Antony as a general. He was determined to engage in a war of attrition. As the summer ended and autumn set-in, the strategy of delay began to pay dividends, as morale sank and defections came. Their camp lay in an unhealthy spot, and disease accelerated the process. Deserters – first ordinary soldiers or auxiliaries, and then prominent Romans – slipped quietly away from Antony’s camp to be welcomed by Octavian. Even Domitius Ahenobarbus, one of the *Consuls*, among the deserters, many of whom cited the presence of Cleopatra in the Antonian headquarters as an inexcusable affront. On the morning of 2 September 31 BC, Antony’s fleet sailed out to challenge the enemy; the **Battle of Actium** (September 31 BC). At least some of the ships carried sails on their masts, when it was normal for warships to manoeuvre exclusively by rowing when fighting. The decision is a clear sign that Antony's intention was to break-out; to scatter Agrippa's naval blockade, using the impetus of his larger ships, retreat to the safety of Egypt with the best part of their forces intact, and wait for better times to fight on land. Perhaps he still hoped to  change his fortunes by winning a naval battle, but was also planning  for failure; scarcely an optimistic frame of mind for a commander. Unfortunately, the Caesarian fleet was probably a little more numerous, and its captains, and Agrippa in particular, were certainly far more skilful, after years of the navel warfare against Sextus Pompey. It took hours for the two fleets to form in battle lines. As Antony’s fleet advanced, Agrippa had his ships back water, neither side wanting to fight too close inshore. Shortly after midday, the fighting began and raged all afternoon. Since both fleets included many large warships, head-on ramming tactics were impossible, so most of the fighting was with missiles and grappling-and-boarding the enemy.  As individual ships manoeuvred for advantage, the neat Caesarian line broke-up and gaps appeared. Taking advantage, Cleopatra's squadron of ships suddenly hoisted their full sails, and came from behind the main fleet to funnel through a large gap into the open sea. Ignoring the fighting, they kept going. This was probably by design; Cleopatra's flagship, the financial war chest it carried, was the cornerstone of his project to bounce back. Antony abandoned his flagship, and caught up with her on a swifter vessel. He no doubt hoped the rest of his fleet would follow; for the most part, they could not. Some seventy ships escaped; at most a quarter of the fleet and probably less. Some captains, left behind, continued to fight with great determination, but eventually withdrew sullenly back into the harbour. His legions had been left behind too. They resisted the attempts of their commander, Publius Canidius, to march them away, and quickly deserted and joined the winning side, The remnants of the fleet surrendered with them. Antony had survived, but lost the war; all the money in the world would not buy him a new army.

    Octavian's pursuit of Mark Antony had to be postponed by a few months, due to more immediate problems. There was pressure from time-served legionaries for immediate demobilisation, along with bonuses and farms promised to them. Faced with the threat of mutiny, Agrippa was sent to pacify them, followed by Octavian himself with nothing more than generous promises. If he wanted to avoid a return to the confiscations and upheavals that had followed the defeat of Brutus and Cassius, then hard coin was needed to fund purchases. So, rather than sail directly to Egypt, Octavian headed east. The enthusiasm of the many client-kings wishing to transfer their loyalty from Antony helped to provide what he needed. Trapped in Egypt with the remnant of his army, Antony refused to bow to the inevitable, and continued to make plans for the defence of Alexandria. But Cleopatra perhaps started to view him as a liability. Whatever her feelings for him, Antony could not be saved, and Cleopatra was a survivor. She preferred to negotiate her own peace terms. Octavian cynically offered her some encouragement, but had already made up his mind; he wanted to seize Egypt, and hold it for himself. The conclusion of the ordeal for Antony and Cleopatra came one year after Actium. Four legions invaded Egypt though Libya from the west, while Octavian appeared on the eastern frontier. They encountered little resistance from the Egyptian troops, and were soon outside Alexandria. Despite being severely outnumbered, Antony relished the opportunity to go down in glory. Throughout July, Octavian launched probing assaults on the city-walls, but Antony's troops were well-trained and battle-hardened, some having fought alongside him for twenty years. On 30 July, Octavian launch an all-out assault. Antony, not only able to resist, but sallied out, leading the cavalry himself, inflicting heavy casulaties. That cavalry charge was to be his swan song. That same evening, his remaining fleet raised their oars in surrender, soon followed by his cavalry and scores of soldiers. With the surrender of the last semblance of a military force, Antony could finally go to meet his fate. According to tradition, Cleopatra helped orchastrate his suicide, hiding in her mausoleum, and sending word that she had already committed suicide, so that Antony would have dispatched himself, and leave her in a better position to negotiate her way-out. The story certainly adds pathos to the tragic end. Whatever the reason, Antony ordered one of his freed slaves to stab him to death, but instead the man killed himself; the cruellest and noblest of all betrayals. But it was also a hard to ignore example; he extracted the sword and stabbed himself through the stomach. It is not easy to stab oneself; the survival instincts is strong. Antony botched the job in the manner of Cato, inflicting a mortal wound and dying slowly of internal bleeding. Learning that Cleopatra was still alive, he demanded to be taken to her. Mark Antony exhaled his last breath in his lover's arms. Alexandria fell the next day. For more than a week the queen lived on, hoping to make a deal with Octavian. It was not to be. She had become too great a rallying cry during the war to be left in power, and the same was true of her children; the very existence of Caesarion (Julius Caesar's son) jeopardized Octavian’s position; her other children were Antony’s offspring. She weighed up carefully her real chances of saving crown, family, and dignity, simply by kowtowing to the victor, and accepting to be parade in chains through Rome at his *Triumph*. Though held under house arrest, it was not difficult to have an asp smuggled to her in a bowl of figs. She then poked at the snake, until it sank its venomous fangs into her, which caused numbness and gentle drowsiness before death. The scare that Cleopatra had given Rome doomed her dynasty. For Caesarion, aged 17, surviving had never been an option; he was quietly executed. As one Alexandrian philosopher put it, "*two Caesars are one too many*". The deaths of Cleopatra and Caesarion marked the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty. On temples across Egypt, artisans began sculpting the image of their new *Pharaoh*: Octavian himself. Henceforward, the country would be ruled not as an independent kingdom, nor even as a Roman province, but as a private fiefdom. Antony's three children by Cleopatra were spared and sent to Rome. Such clemency, of course, was the prerogative of a master, a demonstration of his greatness and power. All the Roman world had fallen into Octavian's hands. He relished his victory, and touring the magnificent city of Alexandria, Of particular interest was the cities most famous relic; the *Tomb of Alexander*. Alexander the Great had long been the benchmark by which politicians and generals judged themselves. The man, who had conquered his way to India before his thirtieth birthday, was typically a humbler of great men; but not for 33 year-old Octavian. The greatest challenge, he argued sternly, was not the winning of empire but the ordering of it. The transformation from mere Octavian to the divine Augustus was no doubt already on his mind.