034 - No Greater Friend, No Worse Enemy

Hello, and welcome back to the History of Rome. It's been a while, I know, so let's quickly recap where we're at. In 85 BC, Sulla won his war in the east against Mithridates and came to terms with the rebellious king. While the war in Asia unfolded, Sulla had been too busy to worry about the fact that technically he was in official exile from Rome, a consequence of his political struggle with the now-dead Marius and the soon-to-be-dead Cinna. But having emerged victorious abroad, it was time to turn back to his domestic political problems. Cinna, who had been in sole control of Rome since Marius's death three years earlier, knew that Sulla's imminent return did not bode well for him, his career, or his life, so he organized an army to stand between Sulla and Rome. But in his haste to block Sulla, Cinna pushed his own troops too hard and was murdered in a mutiny in 84 BC. So that's where we left off, with Sulla preparing to march back to Rome and, well, let's pick it up there.

Inside Rome, news of Sulla's imminent return was met with panic. Please recall that during Marius and Cinna's reign, most of the Sulla supporters had been purged, so the state was staffed with fierce Marian partisans who dreaded the return of their mortal enemy. In anticipation of a coming battle, the consuls chosen for the year 83 BC were both fierce opponents of Sulla. They were also, as it would turn out, no match for him either. Sulla was able to cross the Adriatic unopposed and landed in the heel of Italy at the head of five legions. Both consuls raised armies to prevent Sulla from moving north. Gaius Norbonus finished his preparations first and marched quickly, intent on bottling up Sulla where he had landed. But his army was made up of fresh recruits and he himself was not a general anywhere near his rival's class. Sulla blew through Norbonus without breaking a sweat. The defeated consul was forced to flee with the remainder of his army to Capua. Next, the other consul, Cornelius Assygenus, marched south at the head of his army to see if he could do any better. But he didn't even get as far as Norbonus did. Upon intercepting Sulla, Assygenus' army began defecting in droves to Sulla and the consul was forced to surrender without ever drawing his sword.

To the Roman aristocracy, it was not hard to tell which way the wind was blowing and many nobles who had done their best to ride out the troubles in inconspicuous neutrality now began to openly break for Sulla. The governor of Africa, for example, Metellus Pius, a highly respected general in his own right, took it upon himself to throw Marian partisans out of his province and thus deny Sulla's enemies a source of recruits and supplies. Within the city limits, however, it was still dangerous to support Sulla and one last round of violence against his allies swept through the city. But this would prove to be the final death throes of the Marian power structure and soon enough they would find themselves reaping what they had sown. In addition to Metellus' support in Africa, Sulla also found support in Spain from Marcus Licinius Crassus, who, in due course, would become the richest man of his time and one of the three triumvirs. Crassus marched an army east to Italy where he planned to aid Sulla win control of Rome. The second of the three triumvirs, Pompey Magnus, also decided his ambition was best served by throwing his lot in with Sulla and, raising an army of his own, announced his intentions to fight for the exiled general. We will get to the third triumvir, young Julius Caesar, in a moment.

Near the end of his term in office, the consul Osseo Genes, who had been set free by Sulla, led a new army against the twenty-three-year-old Pompey, who had positioned himself in north Italy. The consul clearly had no wish to relive the embarrassment of losing his army without a fight to the charismatic Sulla. Osseo Genes, however, having the misfortune to be merely a leader in a time of extremely charismatic leaders, wound up in exactly the same boat he had found himself in before when he reached Pompey. His army defected en masse and the consul was once again forced to flee without an army left to lead.

As 83 drew to a close, the Senate leadership knew the noose was drawing close around their necks. So, along with one of Sina's old co-consuls, Papirius Carbo, they elected twenty-six-year-old Gaius Marius the Younger, in an attempt to boost the morale of his father's old supporters. But the younger Marius was not his father, and besides, it is doubtful even the old man in his prime could stop Sulla now.

The campaign season of 82 opened with Metellus Pius arriving with his army in North Italy, where he rendezvoused with Pompey. The newly elected consul, Papirius Carbo, led an army north to face them, while Marius the Younger built an army to face Sulla, who, it was clear, would soon be marching on Rome itself. Marius found willing recruits among the Samnites, who feared the return to power of the reactionary conservative wing of the Roman aristocracy. They had only recently been granted full rights in the aftermath of the Social War, and had no intention of seeing their natural allies in Rome, the Marian popularis, ousted from power. Would the conservative Sulla rescind the suffrage they had so recently won in his inevitable post-victory reorganizations? They had no desire to find out. With the Samnites on board, Marius would now at least be able to make a go of it against Sulla, who thus far looked indestructible.

But Carbo and Marius were simply not up to the task of warding off Sulla's onslaught. This was not to say they were not capable, just that they were facing some of the most accomplished generals in Roman history. In the north, Carbo was defeated by the combined army of Pompey and Metellus, and withdrew to Etruria, where he at least hoped to prevent them from marching on Rome. In the south, Sulla and Marius the Younger met and fought a prolonged battle, but as was the case throughout this civil war, defections cost Marius too many men, and he was forced to withdraw behind the walls of a local allied city. Leaving a siege force in place, Sulla marched north to Etruria, where he planned to crush Carbo and then sweep into Rome. Sulla, however, was unable to dislodge Carbo from his position, but it was clear to the beleaguered consul that he would not be able to hold out forever, and for all intents and purposes, Italy was in the hands of Sulla already. Rather than make a last stand, Carbo slipped out the back and fled, spending the next year hiding out in the small islands off the Sicilian coast.

In November of 82 B.C., an army of Samnites emerged to relieve Marius and his trapped army, but they were unable to break the siege. So the Samnite general tried a different tack, and ordered his army to march straight for Rome. Dismayed that this enemy army was in a position to actually capture the capital city, Sulla swept in from Etruria to stop their advance. The two armies faced each other just beyond the Colline Gate in Rome's northwest quadrant. The ensuing battle was a massive and desperate struggle between two forces who felt their very existence at stake. No victor emerging from a civil war can afford to keep their rivals alive for long. Civil war purges are usually swift and brutal. In the Battle of the Colline Gate, Crassus famously secured victory for Sulla by routing the left wing of the Samnite line. Sulla's army was able to engulf the enemy and destroy them. In all, it is estimated that 50,000 died in the fighting. Marius the Younger, upon hearing the news, committed suicide while still under siege. Sulla now stood alone, the undisputed master of Rome.

The victorious general and the cowed senate that welcomed him into the city, though, were not content to simply let his newly won power go as a tacit understanding between the people and their new master. The nudge-wink dictatorships of Marius and Cinna would not do for Sulla, and the senate proclaimed him dictator. But this would be no standard-issue six-month constitutional dictatorship. No, Sulla's dictatorship, in an unprecedented development, would have no term limit. Thus, Sulla became Rome's first dictator for life, and the doomsday clock of the Republic moved closer to midnight.

Though there were some high-minded reforms Sulla had every intention of carrying out with his newfound, unlimited power, he began his reign in true Machiavellian fashion. Machiavelli, of course, advises that a prince who has entered office through revolution, conquest, or coup, ought to first eliminate all rival claimants to the throne. If one succumbs to compassion too soon, those rival claimants will become centers around which opposition can rally, forcing the prince to initiate ever-escalating cycles of civil repressions that will make him unpopular with the people and lead to his downfall. Better to get all the bloodshed and terror out of the way early. That way there will be no opposition to worry about. The people will soon forget the initial horror, and regard the later, mild disposition of the prince to be a true reflection of his character, and he'll remain popular and, most importantly, in power. Machiavelli pointed to the example of Sulla as the living embodiment of this theory.

Senator for life Sulla posted in the forum a list of Marian partisans, 1,500 men of the aristocracy he considered to be enemies, and therefore now enemies of the state. He announced rewards for killing or capturing the proscribed, among whom were forty senators. In the reign of terror that followed, the murderous frenzy ultimately engulfed some 9,000 men, women, and children, most of whom had nothing to do with the rivalry between Marius and Sulla at all. Have you had your eye on your neighbor's house for a while? Want to get out from under a crushing debt? Want to bury a business rival? Well, here's your chance. Just accuse your chosen victim of Marian sympathies, and voila, your personal beef now becomes state policy. The killing went on for months, and all of Rome lived in fear of waking up and finding their names on the proscribed list, either for real or imagined reasons. In a fun twist, there was also nowhere for the condemned to turn, as harboring the proscribed was itself a capital crime.

One young man in particular found himself in this unenviable position by virtue of having married the daughter of Cinna. Young Julius Caesar hid out for months, hopping from house to house, sheltered by pro-Sulla relatives who begged the new dictator to allow the young man to live. Sulla eventually relented to their entreaties, but with famous reluctance. Sulla could see that the ambitious young noble was dangerous. In Caesar, Sulla said, he saw many a Marius. But with his stranglehold on power now secure, Sulla set out on the reforms he had been planning all along.

A true conservative, Sulla had watched the transfer of power from the Senate to the Tribunate with disgust. Marius, the greatest of the new men, had been a patron saint of the unwashed masses. Sulla aimed to restore the natural order of things, and put the Senate back in the driver's seat. Among the myriad statutory revisions he was able to enact by fiat, Sulla stripped the Tribunate of all the power it had acquired since the first secession of the plebs. He abolished their right to veto legislation, he abolished their right to introduce legislation without Senate approval, and then he doubled the ranks of the Senate, packing it with supporters, to ensure that no legislation was approved that did not have Sulla's personal favor. As a final blow to the once prestigious office, he declared that a man elected Tribune was barred from running for any other public office for the rest of his life. Ambitious men were immediately diverted away from the Tribunate as a stepping stone to power, leaving the office deprived of both talent and power. Exactly how Sulla wanted it.

But where would all those ambitious men go? Well, according to Sulla's new order of things, they would enter into the recently codified cursus honorum, literally translating into the course of honor. Prior to Sulla, the path to the consulship had had its traditional steps, but nothing was written in stone. Sulla decided now was the time to literally write the steps in stone. In part to ensure that the eventual leaders of Rome had the requisite experience necessary to handle the responsibilities of state. But also in part because he wanted to draw out the process. A certain ambitious 24-year-old general named Pompey was already beginning to fancy himself one of Rome's leading men. So Sulla moved to the consulship, by law, at least 15 years in Pompey's future.

The new path to power would start with at least 10 years of military experience, beginning when a man was 20 years old and eligible to hold the office of military tribune, a quasi-political leadership position within the legions. At 30, a man could stand for election as a quaestor, where they would serve either in Rome's financial institutions or as high-ranking aides out in one of the provinces. Quaestors were the keepers of the money, overseeing both military pay and the state treasuries, and as such, found themselves at the center of every important political battle, as all political battles are ultimately about money. If they survived the cutthroat world of high finance, a man could stand for aedile at the age of 36. The aediles were in charge of Rome's public infrastructure, the food and water, the public temples, the sewers, and the roads. Of critical importance for securing long-term public support, the aediles were also in charge of the public games. A man could make a good name for himself throwing lavish games, though in the process it was easy to go broke, and one might find it necessary to forge an alliance with a wealthy benefactor. The aedileship was not a required step, but it afforded the first opportunity for a man to become well known to the general public.

At 39, if he had not gone broke entertaining the masses, one could become a praetor, of whom six were to be elected each year. The praetors functioned primarily as judges, overseeing Rome's complicated judiciary, but they could be assigned to lead armies or provinces and would, in the absence of a consul, hold imperium, granting them the final word in law and order, life and death. The final step was of course the consulship. The minimum age to hold this highest office was 42. You'll notice that the higher you ascend up the ladder, the fewer slots there are available at the next rung. If six patricians are all elected praetor at the age of 39, only two of those will be able to win the consulship at the age of 42. Thus, it became highly prestigious to attain the next office, quote, in your year. Cicero would often point to having achieved every office of the cursus honorum in his year as one of his proudest accomplishments.

Now obviously not every man could pass through the entirety of this course, and one might be tempted to, say, hang out in the questorships for a while and build a base of power by controlling the purse strings. To prevent this, though, Sulla again brought to bear the often acted but often ignored statute that a man must wait ten years before holding the same office again. He also threw in the caveat that the year after holding a particular office, the official in question must spend a year in the provinces as a pro praetor or a pro consul or what have you. The intent here is obvious to physically remove the previous year's office holder from the city of Rome to prevent them from further cultivating any relationships they had acquired while in office. Sulla hoped that his reforms would put a stop to ambitious men skipping ahead in line or building independent bases of support from which they could launch attacks on the Senate and the Republican general. Sulla honestly believed that he had made his own career an institutional impossibility, and hoped to be the only dictator for life Rome ever saw.

And speaking of dictator for life, in 80 BC, believing that he had set the ship of Rome on a safer course by re-empowering the Senate, Sulla announced that he would be stepping down from his office at the end of the year and normal consular elections would resume. It was a decision that came as a shock to the entire empire, and a decision that Julius Caesar would never be able to fully wrap his head around, often mocking Sulla in later years for not realizing what he had had and for his naivete in believing that Rome had seen the last of its absolute dictators. Sulla was not quite ready for retirement though, and decided to stand for election as consul the next year and was, of course, elected. But after this year in legitimate office was complete, he really did retire to his country villa where he worked on his autobiography and tended to his garden, leaving public life behind for good.

Sulla was a complicated man, and his peaceful stepping away from power tells us as much about his character as his violent seizure of power a few years previously does. The bloodthirsty tyrant who had overseen the mass murder of over 9,000 people was also the humble old man who had given up power to retire in peace. Clearly, there is no putting a box around Sulla. He remains a singular figure in world history. He died in 78 BC, and his gravestone was marked by an epitaph he wrote himself, summing up his life as well as anything anybody else could possibly say would. No greater friend, no worse enemy, seems to say it all.

Sulla saw himself as a champion of the old order and believed that he had left Rome with the institutional tools it needed to prolong the Republic indefinitely. The Senate was back in charge, the populist demagogues were silenced, and ambitious men were no longer able to circumvent the traditional path to power nor remain in power past their single year in office. But of course, all the revised statutes in the world could not distract from the very fact of his life and career. The last vestiges of the old Republican virtue had been stripped away by his dictatorship, and all that remained was naked power, to be acquired by any means necessary. Most of Sulla's constitutional reforms would be repealed within a decade of his death, and within three decades, Rome would be engulfed in a war between the men who looked at Sulla's career and asked themselves, as Pompey did, if Sulla could, why not me?