(Gorgias Studies in Classical and Late Antiquity 2) Seth Kendall - The Struggle For Roman Citizenship - Romans, Allies, and The Wars of 91-77 BCE (2013, Gorgias Press)

The Struggle for Roman
Citizenship
Gorgias Studies in Classical and Late Antiquity
Gorgias Studies in Classical and Late Antiquity contains

monographs and edited volumes on the Greco-Roman world and
its transition into Late Antiquity, encompassing political and social
structures, knowledge and educational ideals, art, architecture and
literature.
The Struggle for Roman
Citizenship
Romans, Allies, and the Wars of 91–77 BCE
Seth Kendall
9
34 2013
Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
www.gorgiaspress.com
Copyright © 2013 by Gorgias Press LLC
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright

Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the
prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC.
2013 ‫ܘ‬
9
ISBN 978-1-61143-487-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data
Kendall, Seth, 1975-

The struggle for Roman citizenship : Romans,
allies, and the wars of 91-77 BCE / Seth
Kendall.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and
index.
ISBN 978-1-61143-487-3
1. Rome--History, Military--265-30 B.C. 2.
Rome--History--Social War, 90-88 B.C. 3.
Citizenship--Rome. 4. Sulla, Lucius Cornelius.
I. Title.
DG256.2.K46 2013
937’.05--dc23
2013020623
Printed in the United States of America
To my beloved and beautiful wife Tiffany,
and to my wonderful son, Isaac, whom she made for me:
καί ποτέ τις εἴποι πατρός γ᾽ ὅδε πολλὸν ἀμείνων.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents ...................................................................................vii

Acknowledgements ................................................................................. xi
Introduction .............................................................................................. 1
Chapter 1: The Nature of the Evidence ............................................. 29
1. The turbulent years of 91–77 BCE ........................................ 29
2. The histories never composed ................................................ 33
3. The histories that are lost ......................................................... 36
4. The histories that are incomplete: Diodorus ........................ 40
5. The histories that are incomplete:
Livy and what remains of him ............................................ 43
6. Appian of Alexandria................................................................ 55
7. Cassius Dio................................................................................. 61
8. Other sources: biography, exempla, geography ................... 62
9. The Sources: a summary .......................................................... 66
Chapter 2: Causes of Italian Desires for the Roman Citizenship ... 69
1. Allied desires for the civitas—the evidence .......................... 69
2. The nature of Italian alliances with Rome............................. 76
3. The Drawbacks of Allied foedera:
costs of military service ....................................................... 88
4. The Drawbacks of Allied foedera:
treatment of Allied soldiers ...............................................109
5. Merchants, contractors, and overseas ventures ..................119
6. Romans and Allies in Italy .....................................................126
7. Citizenship as redress of grievances .....................................134
8. Dissatisfaction with Rome and the Road to War ...............138
Chapter 3: The Sparks to Light the Flame .......................................139
1. The question of when: Why 91? ...........................................139
2. Tiberius Gracchus and the ager publicus ............................142
3. The year 125: Fulvius Flaccus, Fregellae,
and the lessons learned ......................................................166
4. Caius Gracchus ........................................................................181
vii
viii ROMANS, ALLIES, AND THE STRUGGLE
5. An uneasy quiet and the strange career

of M. Livius Drusus ...........................................................200
6. War ............................................................................................220
Chapter 4: The Ignition of Hostilities ...............................................223
1. Secessio .....................................................................................223
2. The chronology of Allied actions .........................................233
3. Asculum and the end of 91....................................................241
4. The Winter of 91—Allied activity and its meaning ...........254
5. The Roman rejection and their decision for war ...............269
6. The Aims of the Allies before Asculum
Chapter 5: War in Earnest, 90 BCE ..................................................287

and the changes in tactics for the sping ..........................284
1. The Allied army at the beginning of 90 BCE:

Commanders and Strategies..............................................287
2. The Southern Theater ............................................................2 90
3. The Northern Theater ............................................................308
4. Fighting in other areas: the sea, Etruria, and Umbria .......328
5. Roman vulnerabilities
and the steps taken to correct them ................................340
6. The downhill slope from the summit:
the end of 90 and the beginning of 89 ............................352
Chapter 6: Imperfect Defeat and Incomplete Victory, 89–88 ......353
1. The lex Julia..............................................................................353
2. The battles of Asculum and the march down the coast ...366
3. The war on the other side of the Appenines ......................380
4. The developments of winter, and the spring of 88............397
5. The end of the war: what was reaped
and what was sewn by the extension of the civitas .......417
Chapter 7: New Citizens: Marius, Sulpicius, Sulla,
and the March on Rome.............................................................419
1. The “retirement” of C. Marius ..............................................419
2. The strange career of P. Sulpicius Rufus, the Allies,
and the unlikely partnership..............................................431
3. The spectacular rise of L. Cornelius Sulla ...........................442
4. The leges Sulpiciae, Sulla, and the unthinkable act ............452
5. Sulla, the laws made, unmade, and proposed,
and the end of 88 ................................................................466
6. The shadow of Sulla ...............................................................478
TABLE OF CONTENTS ix
Chapter 8: Progress and the Promises of Cinna ..............................479

1. Cinna, Sulla, and the Beginning of 88 ..................................479
2. Legislative proposals and their results .................................487
3. Preparations for the return ....................................................493
4. Bellum Octavianum and the real end of the Allied War ...501
5. The violent restoration of Cinna and Marius .....................522
6. The year 86 and the problem of unpaid balances ..............539
7. The year to come .....................................................................546
Chapter 9: The Return of Sulla and the Civil War ..........................547
1. An uneasy peace ......................................................................547
2. Dealing with Sulla in the East ...............................................551
3. A war of words and the raising of armies ...........................563
4. Civil War, 83 BCE...................................................................588
5. Civil War, 82 and 81 ...............................................................610
6. Sulla Victor ...............................................................................630
Chapter 10: The End of the Struggle—
the Dictatorship of Sulla and its Consequences .....................633
1. Rome, Italy, and the Italians
and the End of the Civil War ...........................................633
2. Proscriptions and their consequences..................................635
3. The leges Corneliae .................................................................646
4. The Italians and Sulla..............................................................666
5. The Persistence to the Sullan System...................................673
Epilogue: Romans Old and New .......................................................675
Appendices ............................................................................................681
Appendix A: The Allied Embassy of 91 ..................................683
Appendix B: The Debate over the inclusion of the Allies
in the redistribution of the ager publicus
by Tiberius Gracchus .........................................................694
Appendix C: The date and purpose of the expulsion law
of M. Junius Pennus ...........................................................703
Appendix D: The ius adipiscendi civitatem Romanum
per magistratum ..................................................................716
Appendix E: M. Livius Drusus
and the outbreak of the Allied War .................................722
Appendix F: Some questions concerning the investigators
sent by Rome into Allied territory, 91 BCE ...................730
Appendix G: The chronology of the Periochae of Livy .......738
Appendix H: The Italian commanders ....................................741
x ROMANS, ALLIES, AND THE STRUGGLE
Appendix I: Appian and the ordering of events

of the Allied War ................................................................750
Appendix J: Some notes on Sextus Julius Caesar’s defeat of
the Paeligni in 90 BCE.......................................................756
Appendix K: Marius, Sulla, Messala, and the Battle
of the Vineyards, 90 BCE .................................................764
Appendix L: The nature and timing of leges Calpurniae
and the lex Julia....................................................................775
Appendix M: The battles in the neighborhood
of Asculum, early 89 BCE.................................................785
Appendix N: Cinna, Caecilius Cornutus,
and Metellus Pius ................................................................793
Appendix O: Some details about Sulla’s march
through southern Italy, 89 BCE .......................................808
Appendix P: The acquisition of the civitas by the rest
of the Allies and the lex Plautia Papiria ............................816
Appendix Q: The Unusual Consular Candidacy
of C. Julius Caesar Vopiscus .............................................831
Appendix R: The military career of P. Sulpicius Rufus .........837
Appendix S: The chronology for the end
of the trials conducted by Cinna and Marius .................841
Appendix T: Cinna and his unredeemed promise
to the former Allies, 87–86 ...............................................845
Appendix U: Ancona and the sentiments of the novi cives .....848
Appendix V: Q. Sertorius and the affair of
Suessa Aurunca ...................................................................853
Bibliography ..........................................................................................859
Maps and Figures..................................................................................867
Index .......................................................................................................875
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A common feature found in the acknowledgements of academic

works is a disclaimer which usually follows hard upon a list of
individuals by whom help has been given, advice offered, favors
done, corrections rendered, and general inspiration provided. Such
a disclaimer typically observes that, should there be any errors in
the text to follow, they belong solely to the author, and in no way
derive from the persons to whose succor allusion was just made. It
is also customary for this qualification to come near the end of the
acknowledgements, and not infrequently stand as the last words
written, perhaps so that the readers may keep the proviso fresh in
their minds as they proceed forward into the pages to follow.
In this case of this essay, however, it seemed more fitting to
me to offer this understanding as the very first words to be
encountered by the reader. Therefore, let it be understood in no
uncertain terms that, for the essay to follow, the ultimate
responsibility is mine, which is especially true of whatever errors
(factual or typographical) or infelicity of expressions may be found
in it. This having been said, if the culpability for whatever
blemishes that may be encountered rests with me, then credit for
whatever there may be of quality herein must to some degree be
shared first and foremost with my one-time graduate mentor, Dr.
Daniel Gargola of the University of Kentucky. Professor Gargola
has provided a great deal of guidance over the years in general, has
suggested studies and interpretations which strengthened especially
flimsy parts of this work, and indirectly suggested the level of
excellence to which I could aspire by means of his own
scholarship, which figures prominently in several chapters
presented here. For all that he has done for me, I offer my most
profound gratitude.
It almost goes without saying that any study of the ancient
world will require the aid of a legion of talented librarians,
archivists, and other persons whose happy duty is to be around
xi
xii ROMANS, ALLIES, AND THE STRUGGLE
books and readers. Those whose help I have enlisted include those
associated with the University of Kentucky, the University of
Tennessee-Chattanooga, and Georgia Gwinnett College. A special
mention also must be made of the Trustees of the British Museam,
who have generously allowed me the use of images of Italian coins
which are reproduced here. Without these fine people, and by
extension those working in the various libraries across the world to
whom my requests for materials were passed along and by whom,
in turn, they were granted, this project would have come to naught.
To all of them I extend my sincerest apperciation and thanks.
It would be impossible to give appropriate credit to all of the
many, many classical scholars with whom conversation has
provided enlightenment, encouragement, and assistance.
Nevertheless, the contributions of a few of them require specific
identification. In the summer of 2010 the apparently indefatigable
Dr. Saskia Roselaar organized a conference at the University of
Manchester whose theme was “Integration and identity in
Republican Italy”, at which I was fortunate enough to be allowed
to offer a paper. At Roselaar’s insistence, the fruit of the excellent
presentations there was ultimately gathered in the form of essays
produced, edited, and published as Processes of Integration and Identity
Formation in the Roman Republic. Yet what could not be reproduced
in this work is the genial atmosphere, spirit of collaboration, and—
most importantly—brilliant commentary during the sessions
themselves and amongst the participants afterwards. This event
allowed me the privilege and genuine pleasure of dialogue with
such luminaries as Roselaar herself, Tim Cornell, Altay Coşkun and
Nate Rosenstein, all of them exceedingly warm and good-natured,
the latter even in light of the fact that the presentation I gave there
reached a conclusion at odds with one of his. Such conversations
were directly influential on the analysis of some of the issues
discussed here, although, again, responsibility for them is firmly
lodged with me.
Spread out over the years have been numerous conversations
with Dr. Gaius Stern, a friend of long standing and frequent
collaborator in conferences held over the last decade. His area of
expertise is in the period of the Early Principate, slightly later than
the period under survey here, but his mastery of all epochs of the
Roman world has allowed him the ability to offer many insightful
comments, and me the opportunity to collect them. Finally, of
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xiii
great utility have been exchanges with Dr. Richard Rawls, my great
friend and colleague at Georgia Gwinnett College. All of my fellow
Historians at this institution have been unceasingly supportive and
amiable, but due to our similar interests in the ancient world, it has
been Richard who has been most influential on this work, acting as
a sounding board for the matters it discusses and occasionally
offering his expertise in untangling particularly thorny expressions
in Greek. A colleague in the true sense of the word, I am lucky to
call him comes, amicus, and, perhaps appropriately given the theme of
this work, socius.
Likewise, to my students I owe a great debt. Four of them
specifically were directly useful in the final stages of getting this
book to press: Erin Corrigan-Smith, Christin Funderburk, Laura
Valiani, and Kathryn Nikolich all spent much time poring over the
text for the purpose of compiling an index; if that instrument
proves useful, they are to largely thank for it, and I extend those
thanks here. Additionally, Ms. Nikolich proved to be of great aid in
the production of the maps to be found in this work. More
generally, my students collectively have proved most inspirational
over the years. It is one of the peculiarities of this profession that
one can devote one’s entire life to the study of an event or person
and yet only get to spend a few minutes of time discussing the
significance of these in the classroom. Fortunately, during the one
lecture of the year in which I get to discuss the Italian Allies and
their quest for the Roman citizenship, my students always seem to
respond to it with an enthusiasm that, in turn, motivated me to
return to this project with renewed vigor. It is hoped that some of
them will recognize that enthusiasm in this project, and understand
that it is, in part, theirs.
Finally, this essay rests to an enormous extent on the support
that has been offered of a more personal nature by friends and
family. The latter has been for me a veritable stone column
bolstering my efforts, and time spent with them has inevitably
resulted in rejuvenation and the redoubling of efforts. As to the
former, priceless levity, companionship, and the occasionally
much-needed respite from my labors has been offered by bosom
companions past and present, a number which would most
definitely include Robert Osborne, Kelly McKenzie, Christy
Freadreacea, and Ashley Rousselle. Almost in a different category,
however, are Wally and Shannon Edmondson. Their love and
xiv ROMANS, ALLIES, AND THE STRUGGLE
support of me and their unaffected interest in my work has

manifested itself in ways too many to count, of which the most
significant likely took the shape of a trip to Italy taken together in
the summer of 2011. Ostensibly a research trip, at least in part, the
two of them undertook a sojourn with me through the
Mezzogiorno so as to allow me to follow the injunction of Polybius
(12.25e) and actually see first-hand the lands about which I would
presume to write. In their company I was able to visit the proud
remains of Corfinium and Aesernia, with the two of them snapping
photographs I could consult later amidst the bemused stares of the
denizens of the pleasant Italian towns those ancient cities have
become. With Wally expertly navigating the roads of the Appenines
at breathtaking—and sometimes stomach-turning—speeds, I was
allowed to travel across what were once the lands of the Marsi,
Paeligni, Samnites (a region still called Sannio by some in the
region) and Campani, beholding sights which would once have
crossed the eyes of Q. Poppaedius Silo, C. Papius Mutilus, P.
Vettius Scato, and Marcus Lamponius. The direct benefit of such
sights may, it is hoped, be discerned in this essay, and for the two
of them who made it possible, my love and gratitude knows no
bounds.
Also with us for part of that Italian excursion was my beloved
wife Tiffany. About the debt she is owed words simply fail. Were
there any which would be adequate to the task, they would find a
way to quantify the just the depth of her love, understanding, and
almost inexhaustible patience with which she has supported both
me and this project over the long period it took to compose it. To
be fair, she has also brought distractions, including a most welcome
one which, unbeknownst to us at the time, she was in the process
of creating during that summer drive in Italy. As it would turn out,
it was more than just the four of us in the rented car that day; there
was also a fifth, who would reveal himself fully in February of
2012. In addition to all the other things she has done for me,
Tiffany has also borne me a splendid son, Isaac. He is at the
moment perhaps too young to know how proud I am of him, how
difficult it has sometimes been to tear myself away from him to put
the finishing touches on this essay, and how very much I love both
him and the woman who gave him to me. Yet someday, perhaps,
he will read this work, and on that day, I hope he will find it worthy
of him.
INTRODUCTION
The decade of the 80s BCE was one whose importance to the
history of the Roman Republic is difficult to overestimate. During
this time Rome fought two enormously bloody wars and one
smaller one within the Italian peninsula. It suffered the
unprecedented calamity of being attacked by one of its own armies
under the command of one of its own generals, and then witnessed
this action repeated twice. It endured several massacres of its
citizens by means of proscription lists, and finally was subjected to
a radical alteration of its free institutions through the actions of a
Dictator whose laws were eventually overturned but whose
example, in the aphorism of Sir Ronald Syme, could never be
abolished.
Moreover, the very definition of what it was to be “Roman”
was changing during this decade. Before 91, Italy had long been
under the sway of the Romans and its inhabitants had effectively
become Rome’s subjects, but it was during this decade following 91
that all of the Italians were finally enfolded into the
Commonwealth as citizens. This incorporation was by no means a
smooth, gentle, and easy one, having come as the response to force
brought to bear by those very Italians against Rome, and it was
conducted in such a way that reflected reluctance, mistrust, and
even malfeasance. These created pressure points of lengthy
duration, which would in time respond remarkably well to the
touch of men who would later attempt to use the lingering tensions
of this decade to their own advantage. The 80s had begun in the
aftermath of the death of a tribune and would end with the near-
destruction of the tribunate itself, had seen the end of Caius Marius
and the spectacular rise of his detested one-time subordinate L.
Cornelius Sulla, and had provided the stage for the introduction of
M. Licinius Crassus, of Cn. Pompeius—soon to become
“Magnus”—and, for the barest of seconds, of C. Julius Caesar,
whose life was in danger due to his defiant refusal to divorce his
1
2 ROMANS, ALLIES, AND THE STRUGGLE
wife and in the process showed some of the fire that would soon
erupt into a conflagration that would consume the entire Roman
world.
For all of these reasons, then, it is not difficult to see how this
decade—as well as the years leading up to and immediately
following it—would readily attract the interest of modern students
of Roman history. Nor, indeed, has scholarly attention to this
decade been lacking. To the ground-breaking studies which had
begun in earnest in the 1950s and 60s, the last fifty years have
added significant contributions along a number of different
avenues, of which one has been biography. Among the figures who
have benefited from this scrutiny have been Lucius Cornelius
Cinna, whose life and times—the oft-noted tempus Cinnanum—has
been the subject of Michael Lovano’s The Age of Cinna, which was
published in 2002. Another has been Caius Marius, who was elderly
as the 80s opened and would not live for much longer, but
managed nevertheless to make his impression felt in the brief time
he had left. The brief and older (but still quite serviceable) A
Biography of Caius Marius by Thomas Carney was supplemented in
1994 by Richard Evans, whose Gaius Marius: A Political Biography
offers commentary on what the author considers the
disproportionate recognition Marius receives as a general as
opposed to that due to his skill as a politician.
It was as a subordinate to Marius in the last years of the
second century that Quintus Sertorius first began to make his real
mark on the Roman world, a minor figure then, but one who
would stride across the stage towards the end of the eighties.
Phillip Spann’s Quintus Sertorius and the Legacy of Sulla is devoted to
that commander, whose prominence only begins towards the end
of the period but who still plays a sizeable part in the Civil War and
the subsequent domination of Sulla. Spann’s text, too, shows some
signs of age, but it remains the authoritative study of this
complicated figure. Adding to it has been the more recent Plutarch’s
Sertorius of Christoph Konrad, which adds a great deal of
information about Sertorius and his world in its capacity as a
historical commentary on the ancient biography that is its subject.
Cinna, Marius, and Sertorius were all men who helped shape
the decade of the eighties, but there can be little doubt that the
Roman whose actions most defined it was L. Cornelius Sulla. He,
too, has been the subject of biography during the last thirty years,
INTRODUCTION 3
having been treated comprehensively in Arthur Keaveney’s Sulla:

The Last Republican, of which a second edition has recently been
produced.1 His life has also been explored more recently in Karl
Christ’s Sulla: eine römische Karriere.
Such, at least, are the most important of the book-length
studies of Roman figures from this period, though they are
supplemented by a number of smaller articles and monographs
which focus on certain aspects of the careers of these men and
their times which will be discussed below.
As mentioned above, the 80s had begun with the Romans
already engaged in warfare with their Italian Allies, a war known by
a number of names even in classical times.2 This war and its causes
1 In fact, Keaveney’s updates are less extensive than the production of

a second edition would seem to indicate. Other than the addition of better
maps and moving the supporting notes to the back of the text, rather than
at the end of each chapter, very little of the actual text has been changed;
about seven pages have been significantly altered, and these alterations
almost always involve rearrangement of paragraphs. Nor has the
apparatus been changed in a profound way; the notes and citations that
existed before are supplemented by the addition of an article which came
out after 1981, but with the exception of this addition, the notes
themselves and the conclusions they draw remain essentially the same.
For this reason, this essay will retain the use of Keaveney’s original text
and its pagination when citing this work.
2 For a thorough discussion on the nomenclature of this war, see
Domaszewski, p. 3–10. Haug also discusses at great length the various

names by which the war was known, observing in the process that the
preferred term for the conflict changed over time. In fact, Haug uses the
name by which the war is identified in various ancient authors as a tool to
determine the sources those authors used; her investigation along these
lines begins on page 128 and continues for most of the rest of her article.
Of all these various names, the two most prominent in the ancient
sources were Bellum Italicum and Bellum Sociale. The second of these two
has become the more popular in modern literature, usually given by the
English semi-translation of “Social War”. Still, for a number of reasons
“Social War” is not the most precise rendering of this epithet. What the
term bellum sociale actually means is something along the lines of “Allied
War”, since in essence the Romans were fighting with men who were
once their Allies (socii), and were men who—for the purpose of the war
have also been the subject of much historical assessment. Any

understanding of why the war took place must first begin with the
relationship between the Italian Allies and the Romans, and for this
Ernst Badian’s Foreign Clientelae is perhaps the best introduction.
Badian’s work was published in 1958, and in the decades since then
many of his theories have been discarded, modified or more fully
explored by other authors. For this reason Foreign Clientelae is
perhaps cited less often in more recent works than the importance
just attributed to it above might seem to demand. Even so, it
continues to be a fact that Badian’s work remains a standard whose
consultation is necessary for any understanding of the period, and
especially on the climate which led to the war between the Romans
and their Allies.3
As Badian notes in that work, the principal component of the
ties between Rome and the Italians was the set of military alliances
that existed between them. These almost always specified that the
Allies would supply armed men for Roman use. If, then, an
understanding about the cause of the war between the Romans and
the Italians which led off this decade—henceforth the Allied
War—is predicated on the nature of the relationship between the
Romans and the Italians, and if that relationship is in turn based on
the military alliances between them, and if at last a major
component of those military alliances is the contribution of soldiers
required of the Allies, then it becomes critical to explore this
contribution of soldiers in greater depth to be able to understand
the war. Such an exploration is made with great thoroughness in
P.A. Brunt’s Italian Manpower. Yet that same author would also
hasten to observe that, while the most important locus of
connection between Romans and the Allies who would eventually
fight them was that of their military ties, there was nevertheless
more to that connection between Romans and their Allies, or socii,
they were fighting—remained allied to each other. For this reason, this
latter translation of the name is the one which will be used in this essay,
and while “Italian” and “Italic” will occasionally be employed, “Allied”
and “Allies” shall be the primary words which shall be used here to
describe both the war and the men who fought in it against the Romans.
3 Nor is this his only important work; others will be discussed below.
INTRODUCTION 5
than just the soldiers furnished by the latter. There were also
economic, social, and cultural intersections, and Brunt has devoted
a sizeable portion of his smaller volume Social Conflicts in the Roman
Republic to the study of some of these, as well as to the overall
conditions prevailing in Italy during the time leading up to the war,
and their repercussions on that war. As Brunt makes clear, such
conditions had an effect on the relationship between the Romans
and Italians, and therefore proved influential on the war in
particular and the entire decade as a whole.
Brunt, however, is not the only author to direct his attention
to them. A study of some of these conditions within Italy, and
especially the economic climate of the agricultural countryside
throughout the third and second centuries, takes up a substantial
portion of Arnold Toynbee’s Hannibal’s Legacy. This work, as its
name implies, narrates the long-term affects of the Second Punic
War on subsequent Roman history. Edward T. Salmon, too,
undertakes an investigation into the political, economic, and
military landscape of Italy, as well as the actual landscape of Italy,
as the backdrop to his more central themes in The Making of Roman
Italy. One of these central themes is the way by which Roman
culture spread throughout the peninsula and the ultimate result of
this diffusion, which is that it culminated in an Italy that had
become thoroughly “Romanized” by the beginning of the first
century. This cultural diffusion also plays a noteworthy role in P.A.
Brunt’s essay “Italian Aims at the Time of the Social War”, 4 about
which more will be said directly.
As has been mentioned earlier, the 80s BCE started with a war
already in progress between the Romans and their Italian Allies.
That war and the results of it set the tone for the entire decade, and
understanding the causes of it contributes mightily to a fuller
comprehension of the events of that period. It has been suggested
that the causes of that war could in no small part be found in the
4 This article, found originally in Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 55 (1965),
90–109, was revised—according to its author—for its appearance in his

later Fall of the Roman Republic, where it appears on pages 93–130; citations
made to it in this essay, which will not be infrequent, will use the latter
version.
ways Romans and Italians interacted with each other, creating a

friction that would kindle armed conflict. Perspective on those
interactions can also be gained through study of certain Italian
populations and groups within those populations, and some of
these, too, have been received scholarly attention over the last half-
century. One of the most important of these studies is Salmon’s
Samnium and the Samnites, a work which not only describes the land
and people of its title, but also discusses Rome’s involvement with
both. In the process, it takes note of some of the ways by which
that involvement was unique by comparing the differences and
similarities between the way the Romans engage with the Samnites
as opposed to that engagement with other Allies.5 In the process,
therefore, Salmon sheds light not just on relations between
Romans and Samnites, but also on relations with Rome and other
communities which he describes in making his comparisons.
William Harris provides a similar comparison and contrast, and
investigates another unique realtionship between the Romans and
some of its Italian Allies, in his study of two of them found in his
Rome in Etruria and Umbria. As part of his inquiry into these peoples
and their interplay with Rome, Harris applies scrutiny to the
closeness that arose between the élites of the communities which
are his subject and the Romans; Salmon does likewise, but to a
much lesser extent, owing to the difference in the level of regard
that Rome had for the Samnites as opposed to the Etruscans. This
theme, the intimacy between Roman aristocrats and their
counterparts in the the Italian communities, also receives a fair
amount of concentration in Timothy Wiseman’s New Men in the
Roman Senate. All of these works describe some of the motivations,
goals, and desires of the wealthiest members of these Italian
communities, which was also one of the several subjects surveyed
in Emilio Gabba’s “Origins of the Social War and Roman Politics
5 It also supplies a brief overview of the war itself, which is in many
places little more than a sketch but occasionally offers some very valuable
insights, of which many have been incorporated into this essay.
INTRODUCTION 7
after 89 BC”.6 Of particular interest to Gabba are some of the

economic motivations of the affluent within the Allied
communities and the specific ways these motivations contributed
to the war to come. This is also one of the several matters for
review in Brunt’s aforementioned article “Italian Aims at the Time
of the Social War”, in which an attempt is made to provide a broad
overview of what the Allies hoped to gain from this war and
fought.7
Almost all of the authors cited above, no matter what their
specific topic happens to be, venture an opinion in their various
works about the reason or reasons war broke out between the
Romans and their Italian Allies. While several different things are
mentioned among them as having had a part to play in causing the
conflict, there is a consensus that borders on unanimity in these
authors that the Allies went to war out of a frustrated desire for the
Roman citizenship.8 This opinion is also held by Adrian Sherwin-
White, who explores the value of that commodity in some detail in
his The Roman Citizenship. This is also the opinion expressed by
Arthur Keaveney in his Rome and the Unification Of Italy, which
appeared in 1987 and incorporates a great deal of the theories of
those authors mentioned above whose work dates from the 1950s,
1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Keaveney’s book takes as its topic the
6 This article appears in the collection Republican Rome: The Army and the
Allies, p. 70–130, and will be cited as part of that overall collection in the
text to follow.
7 By whom the war was fought—in other words, the specific Allied
peoples who took arms against Rome and their leaders—is explored in
greater detail by E.T. Salmon in his “Notes on the Social War”, published
in the Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, vol.
89 (1958), p. 159–184. The very important findings of this article will be
cited frequently throughout this text.
8 This is not, however, to say that these scholars all agree that the war
was fought to force the Romans to make this bequest. Indeed, many hold
that while the frustrated hopes for it led the Allies to arms, once in battle
they did not necessarily fight to secure what they had once wanted, but
rather developed a new aim, which was independence. This is an
important distinction, which will be explored much more extensively in
the chapters to come.
Allied War, on which it is the first major volume-length work in

modern scholarship,9 and it treats not only its causes, but also the
events of the war, those who fought in it, and its ultimate
consequences. As implied above, Keaveney believes the war was
brought about by the inability of the Allies to obtain the civitas, and
he therefore treats the reasons why they wanted it in the first half
of the book. He then proceeds to narrate the military operations of
the war itself and its conclusion in the second half,10 ending with a
brief survey of Roman politics thereafter.
Keaveney builds on a scholarly tradition whose contributors
all essentially work from the same basic premise concerning the
origins of the war. This premise, again, is that the Allies were
moved to war by Rome’s refusal to grant them the citizenship,
something they wanted so badly as to fight for it. Such a premise
has not been uncontested, however. The conclusions reached by it
have recently been disputed by Henrik Mouritsen’s Italian
Unification, a work which revisits the causes of the war with the aim
of challenging the underlying notion about these causes that is
9 Keaveney’s work is aging rapidly, even if it is still of great worth for
students of the period. As was the case with his Sulla, a recent “Second
Edition” of this work which came out in 2000, but this “Second Edition”
is far from being a substantial revision of the original. Instead, with the
exception of a few pages in the introduction answering some criticism
which has been directed at this book since its initial publication, and some
addenda to the bibliography which directly follows this response, nothing
of the actual body of the text has been altered. Therefore, when this work
is cited in present essay—as will often be the case—it will reflect use of
the original volume, and as such it is identified in the Bibliography.
10 In this Keaveney brings together the description of fighting
provided by Alfred von Domaszewski, whose small Bellum Marsicum was,

up to Keaveney, the only work of any size devoted exclusively to the war
in modern scholarship. This earlier work was primarily concerned with the
combat itself, and its insights can therefore be added to the discussion of
it in Keaveney as well as the sketch of it provided in Salmon’s Samnium
and the Samnites. An overview of the war is also provided in Fernando
Wulff-Alonso’s Roma e Italia de la Guerra Social a la retirada de Sila (90–79
a.C.) in a thirty-page outline treating the events of the entire decade.
INTRODUCTION 9
described above.11 Mouritsen argues that the abovementioned

scholarly tradition is built upon interpretation of ancient sources
such as Appian, whose description of the war and its causes is the
longest and most complete of any of the extant classical accounts
and has provided the principal support for most of the modern
historical analysis of these events. In spite of the general consensus
in the modern scholarship derived from them, however, Mouritsen
contends that the ancient sources are not necessarily unanimous in
what they have to say about the stimuli for the conflict. By
highlighting what he holds to be evidence of other causes for it
asserted by those sources, he offers a competing model for the
understanding of the war. Mouritsen refutes the suggestion that the
cause of the war was the the frustrated Italian desires for the
citizenship, which was actually something he holds that the Italians
who fought did not want. Instead, he argues that they fought with
the aim of achieving independence from Rome and Roman
domination. In this, Mouritsen acknowledges that none of the
classical authorities explicit offer this as the cause for the war, nor
in many cases offer it as even a cause for the war; all of them
instead directly state that the Italians fought because they were
denied the franchise. However, he believes that a closer look at
these ancient sources reveals hidden meanings about the cause of
the war, and thus and offers penetrating insight into the ancient
accounts of the bloodshed.
As can readily be inferred from the above, modern
scholarship has done much within the last fifty years to aid in the
acquisition of knowledge concerning of the war being fought at the
opening of the crucial decade of the 80s. The causes of this war
11 Although of less importance to this essay than the above-mentioned
work, Mouritsen had also contributed to the debate on the “democratic”

nature of the Roman Republic and the influence wielded by the urban
masses in his Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, itself a response of
sorts to the theories found in Fergus Millar’s The Crowd in Rome in the Late
Republic. Mouritsen’s conclusions were themselves then challenged—or at
least refined—by Robert Morstein-Marx’s Mass Oratory and Political Power in
the Late Roman Republic. None of these works specifically focus on the
80s BCE, but all provide insights into some of the things that happened in
it, and why.
have been extensively treated and observed from a variety of

vantage points. Furthermore, the actual combat has also been
investigated, as well as the results of it. If, then, the 80s BCE
cannot really be appreciated without an understanding the fighting
which took place at its opening, the last fifty years have been
extremely fruitful in work that can provide such clarity.
A proper appreciation of the war between the Allies and the
Romans, the environment in Italy which helped lead to it, its causes
and specifically the acquisition of the citizenship which is
commonly held to be chif among these, are all of great importance
to understanding the 80s BCE. So, too, are Roman statesmen who
contributed laws and leadership to this decade, both during that
initial war and beyond. As suggested earlier, L. Cornelius Sulla may
have done more than any other of these statesmen to influence the
course of the 80s BCE, making an awareness of his life and deeds
paramount to comprehension of the time. Fortunately, Sulla and
his actions have also been a source of scholarly concentration. As
has been seen, his early life and role both in the Allied War and in
the politics of Rome which transpired as that war was ending is
treated in the abovementioned biography by Christ and in the
works of Keaveney,12 both the biography devoted especially to
Sulla as well as that treating the Allied war, in whose fighting Sulla
was a prominent captain. Sulla also features prominently in the
biographies of Marius, Cinna, and Sertorius, commensurate with
the extent to which he was bound up in the lives and careers of
their subjects.13 Moreover, at the end of the 80s, all of Italy was
involved in a Civil War, of which Sulla, his legions, and his
supporters formed one of the two contending sides. He is
therefore by definition inextricably liked to that War and its
12 Sulla’s career is also examined in Ernst’s Badian’s Lucius Sulla, The
Deadly Reformer, the small but worthwhile essay which preceded the major
works cited above, and briefly by Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp in one of the
essays found in his collection Vom Romulus zu Augustus, an essay which
describes him as a “Revolutionary and Restorative Reformer”.
13 Furthermore, Sulla is also very much a part of the opening chapters
of Peter Greenhalgh’s Pompey, The Roman Alexander, the first volume of

that author’s excellent biography of Pompeius the Great (about which
more below).
INTRODUCTION 11
aftermath. Part of that aftermath, and perhaps the most significant

part of it, was the proscriptions. These, too, have been well-
represented as subjects for study, both in Salmon’s study of the
Samnites, in the biographies of Sulla, and in numerous books and
articles about figures which either suffered from them, profited
from them, fought against them, or evaded them, a list which
would include Caius Julius Caesar, Marcus Licinius Crassus, Lucius
Licnius Lucullus, Marcus Tullius Cicero, and Gnaeus Pompeius
Strabo. All of these have seen books published about them in the
last five decades (in some cases, several), and all of them treat the
proscriptions in the context of their subjects’ involvement with
them, or lack of it. Other works which focus on the proscriptions
include such articles as Keaveney’s “Sulla and Italy”,14 which
mostly concerns itself with Sulla’s colonial distributions in Italy but
also discusses his attitude to the former Allies following the Civil
War, as well as the punishments in the form of confiscations which
he visited on his opponents and the rewards he gave to his
partisans after its conclusion. Ernst Badian identifies some of these
enemies and friends in his “Waiting for Sulla” which not only
discusses the perception of Sulla in the primary sources but also
describes the “Sullan party” who gained from the proscriptions.15
The aftermath of the Civil War is also important for Sulla’s
assumption of the Dictatorship and the ways he used that office to
remake the Roman state. These, too, are treated in the biographies
of Sulla and in those of his various supporters which are cited
above. Sulla’s arrangements and their effects on the Italians after
the war is treated at length in Fernando Wulff-Alonso’s Roma e
Italia de la Guerra Social a la retirada de Sila (90–79 a.C.). In addition,
they are the subject of “M. Livius Drusus and Sulla’s Reforms” and
14 Critica Storica, vol. 19 (1984), p. 499–544

15 This essay, found originally in Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 52
(1962), pp. 47–61, is also reprinted in the author’s collection of essays
Studies in Greek and Roman History, which in addition includes the essay
“Caepio and Norbanus” describing the intense partisan squabbling within
Rome in the decade before the Allied War, as well as “Sulla’s Cilician
Command”, describing some of Sulla’s activities before the war which
would ultimately make his reputation. Future references to these articles
will use their pagination from this collection.
“The Equestrian Class and Sulla’s Senate”,16 two articles by Emilio

Gabba which analyze the modifications to Rome’s political
machinery which Sulla attempted to make in 88 and actually
brought to pass in 82. The latter, as its title implies, specifically
centers on the Sullan Senate, which is also treated in some detail by
Ronald Syme in his “Caesar, the Senate, and Italy” (much of the
fruits of whose research later making its way into his grand The
Roman Revolution).17 The former also touches on Sulla’s redefinition
of the powers of the tribunate and modifications to Roman
officeholding, as does Alan Astin’s The Lex Annalis Before Sulla,
which mentions Sulla’s changes as a way to illustrate what had
come before. All of these changes to the government are likewise
were discussed in a chapter introducing the ultimate dismantling of
Sulla’s programme in Erich Gruen’s Last Generation of the Roman
Republic.
Because Sulla’s victory in it allowed him to become Dictator,
proscribe his enemies, and reconstruct the Commonwealth as he
saw fit, the Civil War was a conflict of almost boundless
importance; it may not have destroyed the Republic (the Second
and Third Civil Wars would do that), but it provided the impetus
for that final destruction. Because of this, the ultimate
consequences of the Civil War have certainly come under much
scholarly inquiry, as has been seen above. Perhaps surprisingly,
however, the Civil War as an independent subject has been left
alone by the scholarship. There exists no broad monograph on it,
and as a result, what can be discerned of it in modern studies (in
terms of such matters as the battles fought in it and the generals
who led them) is filtered through the prism of larger works in these
issues sometimes find mention. Fortunately these disparate studies
provide a wide variety of vantage points: Lovano approaches it
from the point of view of the Cinnani (as, in a sense, does Spann in
his description of the role of Sertorius), while Keaveney18 gives the
perspective of Sulla and his supporters, as does Allen Ward in his
Both found in Gabba, op. cit., p. 131–141 and 142–150.

16
In Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. 14 (1938), p. 1–31.

17
18 The treatment given to the war in Christ’s biography likewise
proceeds from the perspective of Sulla.

INTRODUCTION 13
biography of Crassus19 and Peter Greenhalgh in the first volume of

his biography of Pompeius Magnus.20 Yet none of these treatments
are extensive, taking up no more than sixteen pages in any of these
texts,21 and usually hastening over the conflict so quickly that
thorough tactical analysis is omitted, as is any snarls or conflicts in
the sources. Much can be learned about the war from these
sketches, but they collectively do not really form a comprehensive
treatment of the subject.
The brief and by no means exhaustive survey presented above
demonstrates at the very least that the decade of the 80s BCE has
not gone unnoticed by modern Roman historians, and has
attempted to suggest that there is a not inconsequential body of
scholarly literature which deals in some way with the period.
Nevertheless, as a whole the decade and the years adjacent to it
have decidedly not exhausted their potential for study, and indeed
there are substantial lacunae in the scholarship which remain. In
the first place, the Allied War itself has received only one extensive
account in a major European language, that of Keaveney, and while
that account is in many ways excellent, it is not without difficulties.
It is, most importantly, extremely terse: in what appears to be a
conscious effort to employ a economy of language, its author
nevertheless drastically compresses his text and in the process
weakens many of his arguments, or at the very least does not given
them adequate strength. While this is evident in the first several
chapters involving the causes of the war, it is especially noteworthy
in the last few, in which the events of the years following 87 are
narrated in great brevity. The eighteen pages in all which are given
to these years are by no means sufficient to give anything but the
barest outline of the results of a war whereby the Roman citizen
body was practically doubled and its entire political structure was
transformed. Keaveney ends his work with the assertion that
ultimately the Italians ended up the winners of both the Allied and,
later, the Civil Wars due to the fact that by the end of the latter
19 Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic.

20 Pompey, The Roman Alexander.
21 Similarly brief is Wulff-Alonso’s overview, consisting of about
thirteen pages.
their ultimate purpose was achieved.22 As Mouritsen would later

demonstrate, however, what evidence that exists suggests that such
a statement is a great overstatement of what actually occurred. In
sum, Keaveney’s work provides a starting point for filling the gap
in the scholarship on this period, but there is decidedly ample room
for addition; his work does not therefore deserve to stand as the
last word on the conflict.
Keaveney himself recognizes that the “Italian Question” was
not completely resolved by 88, the traditional date for the ending
of the Allied War, nor even by 87, when the last embers were
alleged to have been extinguished completely.23 In fact, the Allies
would play a role in the political crises in the years to come, but
since Keaveney’s piece was primarily concerned with the war and
its causes, his treatment of the immediate consequences of that war
is of necessity an epilogue. Nevertheless, few other modern studies
step in to fill the gap. Like Keaveney, Mouritsen is also concerned
with the Italians, but he too draws his work to a close with the end
of major operations in the war and furnishes an account of merely
six pages which describes the fate of the Allies thereafter. Thus,
Mouritsen likewise leaves the “Italian Question” unsolved. The
years between the departure of Sulla and his return are most
notable for the rise and political dominance of L. Cornelius Cinna,
a politician in whose career the Allies played no small part. Hence,
it would seem suitable that while Lovano’s biography of Cinna is
concerned with the life a Roman statesman and his actions within
the Roman state, he would devote some attention to the Allies
commensurate with the role they played in that statesman’s deeds.
However, Lovano accords very little space to the socii (about four
pages in all). His almost exclusive concentration on the political
maneuvering and activities of his subject is thereby somewhat
poorer for the lack of a slightly more wide-ranging treatment of the
status of the Italians and of Italy during which these activities
occurred. Keaveney’s biography of Sulla is similar to Lovano’s in
this respect; the focus of that work follows Sulla to the east rather
than dwell at any length on what was happening in Rome after his
22 Keaveney 1987, p. 187.

23 Doing so on page 204 (op. cit.).
INTRODUCTION 15
departure, and although upon Sulla’s return Keaveney

acknowledges that most of Italy was against him, he does not delve
extensively into why. Thus, neither Lovano nor Keaveney (in either
of his full-length works mentioned so far) spends much more than
a few paragraphs describing the status of the Allies during the 80s
BCE.
Brunt, by contrast, does offer some commentary on what the
legal status of the Allies became in his Italian Manpower, but this
mention is made far more with a view to explain census results
than the influence this status had on of future events. Wulff-
Alonso also treats some of these topics. However, his presentation
is offered thematically, and because he has provided a (brief)
summary of the entire decade in an early chapter, his later ones,
dealing with the former Allies and their integration into the state,
jumps around quite a bit without providing a chronological
framework for the developments he describes. A true and
comprehensive narrative which begins with the status of the
Italians after the last skirmishes of the war are ended in 87, and
then follows the changes of that status throught the remainder of
the decade, cannot therefore be gotten from Wulff-Alonso’s work.
Finally, Harris and Salmon, in works directly concerned with
individual Italian peoples that have been encountered above, do
discuss the conditions encountered by their subjects after the
conflict ends and likewise furnishes an analysis for what they would
subsequently do, but in both cases this analysis is restricted
specifically to the individual peoples under survey. Therefore, the
overall role of the Allies after 87 is under-studied, even though
actions undertaken by them or ostensibly on their behalf did much
to shape the history of the 80s BCE.
A full and extensive description of the final resolution of the
Allied War and the “Italian Question” in the years leading up to the
Civil War, one discussing specific events presented in a linear
narrative, is not to be found in the works cited above. Nor, indeed,
do these works pay a great deal of attention to the Allied position
in the latter disturbance, though again some of this slack is taken
up Wulff-Alonso in a very brief section on the Civil War, and some
by Harris and Salmon, who provide the point of view of at least
some of the Allies. The aftermath of the Civil for for the (by now,
former-) Allies and what became of them has received somewhat
greater notice, particularly in the form of the penalties exacted
from them by Sulla’s proscriptions. Likewise, the changes in the

governments of former Allied communities have been examined by
Sherwin-White, Wulff-Alonso, and Edward Bispham in his From
Asculum to Actium: The Municipalization of Italy from the Social War to
Augustus. However, it cannot be denied that, if there are not holes
in the modern scholarship, it is certainly very thin in terms of the
Allies for most of this decade. The limited details supplied result in
a an unsatisfying and incomplete picture of this span: much is
written of the Allies and there role in its early years and they
reappear in its final years, though what happens in between and,
therefore, why they do what they end up doing is not extensively
examined.
In fact, this difficulty underscores another, more considerable
gap which exists in modern scholarship in the decade: there has of
yet been no large work in any important scholarly language (and
certainly nothing of the kind in English) which attempts to provide
a comprehensive narrative history of the entire decade as a whole
beyond such surveys of it as are found in textbooks or reference
works like the Cambridge Ancient History. All of the works mentioned
above deal with certain episodes from the decade (or, in some
cases, with the period of time leading up to it) or important aspects
thereof, but an all-inclusive evaluation of the period is absent.24
This is puzzling, all the more so because many of these events and
aspects are interrelated, and some indissolubly so: Sulla’s ability to
effect his march on Rome, for example, only completely makes
sense in the context of the changed political climate in Rome
brought about by the extension of the franchise to former Allies.
The ferocity of the fighting he encountered towards the end of the
Civil War is likewise only fully explicable by his actions during the
Allied War and after that march on Rome. Indeed, the
connectedness of the decade is underscored by Syme, whose Roman
Revolution goes so far as to refer to the actions of these years
24 Similarly cursory is Karl Christ’s treatment of the decade in his Krise
und Untergand der Römischen Republik, in which the entire period is given
sixty pages (of a total of 466) of which close to a third is occupied with
the Mithridatic War; the rest is told from a Roman perspective, in which
the Italians figure very little.
INTRODUCTION 17
collectively as the “Ten Years’ War”.25 As a consequence, the lack

of an overarching portrait of the Italians in the decade of the 80s is
partly the result of the fact that there exists no overarching portrait
of the 80s BCE of any kind whatsoever.
Clearly there is room in the historical structure for a work
which would gather together the strands of research done on the
period and present it as a cohesive whole, yet at present none such
exists. It is the intention of this essay to bridge such a span. It will
not, however, probe every facet of the Roman and Italian world of
the period, a project for which many tomes would be required.
Rather, it will instead focus on one element which simultaneously
binds the decade and nevertheless presents the opportunity for a
different angle on many of the inquiries already made into the
period. The element in question is the Italians and their quest to
obtain the rights of Roman citizenship, to secure those rights in full
after their acquisition in diluted form, and to maintain the
enjoyment of those rights against potential threats, a process which
persisted throughout the 80s BCE. That quest, the circumstances
which led the Italians to undertake it, the various events and
persons they encountered along the way (helpful and harmful), and
its ultimate outcome will be the subject of this project. Moreover,
the essay will adopt, whenever the sources make this possible, the
perspective of the Italians themselves, though on occasion the
Roman slant towards their endeavors must be taken.26
Of course, objections to this chosen approach immediately
present themselves. First of all, it has been alluded to in several
places above that the Italian aspiration for the citizenship has been
widely recognized as the central stimulus for the fighting which
erupted in 91, a recognition which has become the standard
explanatory model for the outbreak of hostilities. As such, this
aspiration has featured prominently in the previously cited works
25 Page 17; he gives the war the same appellation in his Tacitus, p. 139.
Likewise, Ernst Badian states that “The war that began in 91 … lasted, in
some form, until about 80” in his Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic
(p. 60).
26 This is particularly true of chapter 3, for example, and from chapter
7–10 on, though by this point the Italians had received the citizenship and
therir perspective was, in a manner of speaking, the Roman one.
of Brunt, Gabba, and Salmon, who disagree among themselves on

why exactly the Italians wished to obtain the franchise but are in
accord that the wish was nevertheless paramount. It also looms
large in the studies made by Keaveney, who devotes much of the
first half of his work specifically devoted to the war to that desire
and its expression. However, it is likewise a feature of these works
that the Italian aims are held to have been fulfilled for some in 89
BCE, when laws were passed to give many of them the citizenship,
and for all the others by the middle of the decade. It was at that
point, it is broadly agreed, that the “somewhat later” (οἵδε τυχεῖν,
ὧν ἔχρῃζον, ὕστερον), described by the Appian as the time when the
rest obtained the franchise, had come (1.6.53). Therefore, the
question could easily be raised as to why the Allies would continue
to be motivated by the acquisition of citizenship rights after the
middle of the decade, since by that time the civitas was theirs, and
how this could therefore be a suitable axis running through the
decade as a whole.
As an answer to such a question, it should be observed that
form of the citizenship which the Allies were given was one which
had been divested of a great many of its political rights from the
outset. It was additionally weakened by purposeful tampering with
the operations of the apparatus of enrollment thereafter. Even in
this watered-down form, the civitas which had been given was by no
means guaranteed, and could have been revoked. The ancient
sources make all of these things clear, and they likewise make clear
that the Allies-turned-citizens were aware of these facts and were
unhappy about them, as this essay will show. The passage of laws
granting the citizenship in 89 and 88 BCE had led some of the
Italians to lay down their arms, and had quite probably gone far to
convince those who had been defeated in the field but not yet
broken completely to accept that they were overcome and
surrender, rather than make more desperate last stands of which
the Allied War had already seen several. The fact that the Italians
had been defeated but not destroyed (and, it should be observed,
many of them had not even been weakened even to that extent at
the traditional stopping point of the war) means that their
willingness to give up had in a sense only been provisional on the
basis of receiving the franchise. When it was discovered by them
that the concession had been incomplete, they proved willing and
able to fight on under the banner of those who had promised to
INTRODUCTION 19
them their rights in full. From this recognition and effective desire
to obtain in full what had been promised to them comes the Italian
support of L. Cornelius Cinna, C. Marius, and their successors in
the tense years following 88.
Moreover, the Italians would later prove to be equally willing
to defend what they had been given, or had at last finally taken,
from those who they had reason to suspect would attempt to wrest
it away from them again. Such a person was L. Cornelius Sulla, for
whom there seems to have existed a robust loathing amongst the
Allies which was apparently enthusiastically returned. Many Allies
therefore resumed their weapons against Sulla upon his return
from the East, and as events would turn out, the suspicions which
led them to do so were amply justified: despite the assertion that
Sulla actually made good on his promise to “respect all the
concessions the Italians had won”, as one scholar puts it, the facts
bear out that Sulla intentionally and actively re-engineered the
Roman political structure to make sure many Italians—save those
he handpicked—would never attain equal political rights with the
cives veteres. Futhermore, this treatment was what was meted out to
the Italians who had not fought against him; those who had were
treated worse still. In creating a phantom citizenship which he
eventually compelled some of the Italians to accept, Sulla was still
more generous than to those many others whose citizenship he
removed entirely, or to those whose property he confiscated, or to
those whom he had slaughtered in the Campus Martius.
The upshot of all of this is that “Italian Question” persisted
after the end of the Allied War because its fundamental cause had
not been resolved. The Allies had not been interested in a nominal
citizenship in Rome but in an actual one, and the sources
demonstrate that only complete destruction of their ability to fight
on would cause them to accept anything less. Less was all they had
been given by 88, when they had been battered but not broken;
thus they followed the banner of those who promised them more
in 87, and remained true to those banners when another came to
take back what they had at long last gotten in 83 and fought him
until they were completely broken in 82. Because the Allied
struggle persisted throughout the decade, a study of the decade
with that struggle as its focal point seems appropriate.
Another and indeed more significant objection can be raised
from the very beginning concerning the fundamental assumption
upon which this essay is based, which is that it was in fact the
desire for citizenship and the rights thereunto which had motivated
Italian activities throughout the 80s BCE and for years after. Such
an assumption, which is common to most modern scholarly works
on the period, seems to preclude another possibility, which is that
the Allied War was never actually spurred on by the desire for the
citizenship at all, but rather from a wish amongst the Italians to
separate from and overthrow the Romans. This latter possibility
has occasionally been raised and indeed was notably propounded
by no less magisterial a voice than that of Sir Ronald Syme, who
had explicitly proclaimed that the Allied War had been a war of
independence.27 Syme does not give grounds for his assertion, and
about the closest he comes to doing so is when he cites a passage
from Ovid as evidence of a tradition kept alive by the Paeligni that
they had fought for libertas.28 Nevertheless, but the possibility
inherent in this argument has recently been the subject of a study in
great detail by Henrik Mouritsen, which has been briefly described
above. Mouritsen, like the other scholars with whose propositions
he disagrees, argues that the Allies elected to go to war in response
to discontent with their association with the Romans. But, as has
been seen, it is his belief that this discontent and the specific
grievances which had led to it had make it unlikely that the Italians
would choose redress through seeking to become closer to the
Romans through the civitas. Instead, he argues, they sought
satisfaction by dissolving ties and fighting for their “freedom”, and
this motivation was once widely recognized in ancient times as the
reason for the war. Evidence for this conception of the conflict as
27On more than one occasion, in fact. In his “Caesar, the Senate, and
Italy” Syme’s exact comments were: “The peoples of central Italy from
Picenum through the Apennine lands down, to Samnium and Lucania
rose in arms against Rome in 91 B.C., for liberty and justice. Crushed or
submitting, they were by no means satisfied, still less reconciled. They had
not been fighting for the Roman franchise” (emphasis added); a decade later
Syme had apparently not changed his opinion, referring to the struggle of
the Allies as one for “freedom and justice” in The Roman Revolution. Thus
he does specifically on page 16, and says the same thing on page 86, where
he uses almost the same exact phrasing as the earlier article.
28 Syme 1951, p. 86.
INTRODUCTION 21
one fought for independence can be discerned, according to

Mouritsen, in passing references found in most of the ancient
sources. These references represent for Mouritsen an “alternative
tradition” which had once been the common explanatory model
for the war but which has since become buried, both in the ancient
sources and the modern authors who draw from them. In its place
is the current model emphasizing the need for the citizenship. As
far as the ancient sources were concerned, this burial was due to a
number of factors: to deliberate distortions attached to statesmen
of the period due to the fractious Varian trials of 91 and shortly
after; by later conciliatory authors whose aim was to convince their
audiences that the Italians, who at the time of their writing had
actually become part of the fabric of Roman society, had nobly
fought to achieve equality and had not committed the less
pardonable sin of trying to destroy the Commonwealth, a threat
implicit in their fight to sever ties; by sympathy on the part of
authors like Appian who had retrojected his own desire for the
franchise into Rome’s past and employed the propaganda of
conciliation to do so;29 and by writers of an even later time who
were unable to recognize the distortion and thus accepted what
they read in earlier sources as accurate. The attempt to disguise the
truth was not entirely successful, Mouritsen argues, because
scattered references exist in the extant authors to the real reason
for the war, which was fought for “liberty”, id est independence.
Yet the burial was successful enough that that almost all of the
sources which contain the traces of “alternative tradition” which he
describes also contain direct references—and more frequent ones
at that—to the cause of the war being, not about independence,
but about citizenship.
Mouritsen’s interpretation would have it that when words like
“liberty” or “freedom” appear in the ancient sources as a cause for
which the Allies fought, it was not mere rhetorical flourish. Instead,
it was the dimly remembered true reckoning for why the war broke
out, which was so that the Allies could become independent from
Rome. If his assertion is is correct, then the struggle for the
citizenship did not exist amongst the Italians, as they were
29 Mouritsen 1998, p. 5–22.

struggling in fact for something else. It therefore cannot explain

Italian movements in the early part of the 80s BCE. Even if the
Allies later did in fact support Cinna, Marius, and the Mariani
against Sulla over citizenship rights, this was due to their
attempting to make the most out of what was left to them after the
failure of their bid for separation. The modern tradition which uses
the civitas to explain why the war broke out is therefore flawed,
having been deceived by the cosmetics which overlay—but does
not completely cover—the real motivations for the Italians, which
was independence.
Mouritsen’s arguments are cunning, certainly, but they
ultimately founder on one point which he readily concedes, which
is that he is rewriting “a story-line against the sources”.30 If what he
suggests about independence to be true, nearly all of these sources
must be flawed—either by design or accident—in their explanation
for the basis of the hostilities. For this in turn to be so, the sources
would have had to have been completely deceived about this
pivotal event, or to have themselves engaged in such deception.
Among those who would have had to have taken part in the
mendacity would have been men like Cicero and the anonymous
auctor ad Herennium, both of whose writing dates from the period
immediately following the 80s and who thus could not have been
led astray by later interpretations of events with which they were
contemporaries. Indeed, if Mouritsen’s conjecture is to be believed,
these authors would have been involved an attempt to deceive
audiences whose members might very well have fought in the war,
as Cicero himself did. Since Cicero takes note of a meeting he
himself witnessed between Pompeius Strabo and Vettius Scato in
which he records that Scato declared in no uncertain terms that he
fought for the franchise (Phil. 12.27), according to Mouritsen this
record would have had to have been a lie, and indeed was exactly
that. The reason given for why Cicero would want to perpetrate
such a falsehood was that he “had an obvious political interest in
portraying the Italian élite, whose descendants were now domi nobiles,
30 Mouritsen, op. cit., p. 4.

INTRODUCTION 23
as worthy members of Roman society”.31 Yet even if Cicero would

have been able to accomplish this trick, which is unlikely (it is
difficult to see how even as artful an orator as Cicero would have
been able to convince an audience of the truth of something they
might well have known for certain to have been false), he would
not have been the only contemporary Roman whose complicity
would have been required for the deception to work. The lie would
also have had to have included Sulla, whose memoirs were widely
used by later authors, and Sisenna, who almost certainly took part
in the war, as Sulla did, and from whose now-lost histories many
later authors drew. Yet neither of these men would have had the
“obvious political interest portraying the Italian élite ... as worthy
members of Roman society” that Mouritsen claims Cicero did.
Indeed, Sulla would certainly have had very little desire to massage
the feelings of the Italian domi nobiles, for whom the Dictator’s
actions suggest nothing but loathing, as events will show.
Mouritsen does not consider this necessity, although it is difficult
to see how an invented “desire for the citizenship” could replace
the true “desire for independence” so thoroughly in the later
sources if Sulla and Sisenna had told the truth and identified
independence as Allied goal. These two are known to have been
widely-consulted authors, and even though their works are lost, it is
probable that those who drew on them later would likewise almost
certainly have identified independence as the goal of the Allies if
Sulla and Sisenna had done so, even if later authors may have
attempted to lead them astray. The fact that none who drew on
them did identify independence as the casus belli makes it reasonably
clear that Sulla and Sisenna had not mentioned it as such, and that
they, like Cicero, attributed the war’s cause to the desire for the
citizenship. Since neither man was trying to flatter an electorate
like, it is presumed, Cicero was, and thus had no cause to lie, it is
reasonable to assume that their accounts about what led the socii
into arms was a truthful one. As a consequence, Cicero’s testimony,
31 Or, alternatively, that even if this encounter took place as
mentioned, it took place late in the war after the tide had already turned
against the Allies and thus did not represent why they had fought in the
first place; Mouritsen, 1998, p. 164–165.
which agrees with theirs, can reasonably be assumed to be accurate

as well.
Therefore, if independence had actually been the real cause of
the fighting, the preponderance of the need for the civitas in later
works as the explanation for it, supplanting independence, could
only have come about under a series of increasingly unlikely
circumstances. For example, it may have been that the Allies really
had fought for independence, and the later authors who claimed
the war had been fought for the citizenship did so because both
Sulla and Sisenna avoided any mention at all as to why the war was
fought. It stretches the imagination to the breaking point that both
men would write about the war and yet elide any statement about
why it came about, but had they made such an omission, it would
allow later authors to draw their own (wrong) conclusions, ones
perhaps based on Cicero. Alternatively, it may have been that the
Allies really had fought for independence, but Sulla and Sisenna,
who knew this full well, still falsely suggested the cause of the war
was the citizenship. Of course, neither man seems to have had a
reason for concocting this lie, but if Sulla had had such a reason to
deceive, it might be easier to explain why no one would question it;
as dictator, it can be presumed that Sulla could reinvent history as
easiliy as he had reinvented the institutions of the Republic, and the
proscription lists could always make room for those who gainsaid
him. Sisenna, his friend and lieutenant, would likely be quick to
perpetuate it to maintain Sulla’s favor. Sulla, therefore, might have
had the clout to change history without anyone daring to question
him. However, it remains difficult to see why he Sulla would want
the desire for the citizenship to replace independence as the reason
for hostilities, and indeed it might have served his propaganda
interests much better for the reverse to be the case.32 In the face of
32 It does not seem likely that Sulla would have wanted to disguise a
war fought to overthrow Rome, since a war fought for such a purpose
would make his later bloody revenge on the Allies during the Civil War
much more palatable. It therefore seems that Sulla would be far more
interested in a like which would argue that the Allies did indeed fight for
independence instead of the civitas, as opposed to one stating the exavt
opposite. This point seems to have eluded Mouritsen, and in fact he
himself punctures an episode that might have been another indicator of
INTRODUCTION 25
such difficulties, the idea that this would have been a desired, much
less a successful, aim of Sulla’s fails to convince.
In the final analysis, then, Mouritsen’s argument will not
overturn the overwhelming edifice presented by the sources. These
are almost uniform in their claim that the Italians went to war
because most, if not all of them, thirsted for the franchise and had
continually been frustrated in their attempts to get it. This thirst,
more specifically, was for the citizenship in its complete form and
for all the rights that citizenship entailed, and it was not fully slaked
by what was offered to the Allies in 88. The need to obtain
complete satisfaction persisted throughout the decade of the 80s
the Allied desire for independence. An anecdote from the Civil War of
83–82 involves Pontius Telesinus, who led an army of Samnites against
Sulla at the battle of the Colline Gate. According to Velleius Paterculus,
Telesinus had attempted to rally his men during a critical moment in the
battle by urging them to rid themselves of the wolf by destroying the
forest which harbored them, id est push forward into Rome itself and
destroy it (2.27.2; see also chapter 10). Mouritsen might have used this tale
to suggest that it reflected Samnite feelings towards Rome, not just during
the Civil War, but also during the Allied War. Doing so would add more
corroboration to his hypothesis that the earlier war was fought to break
free from Rome and topple Roman power, yet according to Mouritsen,
the entire tale was based on a fiction from Sulla’s memoirs, invented as an
excuse to turn the war into an anti-Samnite crusade (1998, p. 10). If Sulla
had indeed been forced to invent this tale to amplify the Samnite enmity
against the Romans so as to justify his massacre of them, then it hardly
follows that it was common knowledge that the Samnites had been out to
destroy Rome from the beginning; the tale suggests that there was no such
popular reasoning, and Sulla’s that atrocities required that in be invented.
In sum, Sulla would have been far more likely to gain profit from
promoting or even manufacturing a tale of the Allies attempting to free
themselves from Rome rather than from suppressing it. A lie to the effect
that the Allies were only fighting for the citizenship might have made
them even more sympathetic. Yet the accounts of later authors which
used Sulla as a source do not contain the interpretation Sulla would have
favored, but all alike ascribe the war to a need for citizenship. This
strongly implies that Sulla recorded the same thing, even if ultimately he
would have been better served to have his contemporaries and posterity
believe he quite literally spearheaded an effort to wipe out those Allies
who attempted to break free from, then destroy, Rome.
BCE. It was a factor, almost certainly the principal one, in the

participation of the socii in first the Allied War, when they fought
Rome to gain the franchise, and then in the Civil War, when they
supported the Mariani against Sulla out of fear that Sulla would take
away the rights they had gained. Therefore, the aim of the present
essay is to describe this struggle for the Roman citizenship
undertaken by the Allies, how and why it came into being, and its
impact on the 80s. In sum, it will attempt to explain why the Allies
came to covet the civitas so badly, what they did about it, and the
results of their actions. However, it will be seen that this struggle
did not begin with the decade of the 80s, nor, properly speaking,
did it end then; as a result, this study must similarly assess events
and forces which arose over several years prior to this time, and
trace the ultimate resolution of the quest which did not come to
pass until several years later, if even then.
Such, then, will be the chronological parameters of the
present work. It will furthermore attempt to take the perspective of
the Italians on the way they and the Romans related to each other,
on the characteristics of their relationship with Rome which made
the citizenship so important, and on the manner whereby the
Romans reacted to the Italians in their petition for that citizenship.
Although such an attempt will be made, its successful execution
will not always be possible, for reasons which will be described
below. Sometimes it will be necessary to present the Roman
outlook on certain circumstances, and in truth it will sometimes be
desirable to do so to present as complete an image of these
circumstances as possible. In the end, it must not be forgotten that
ultimately the activities of the Allies in this period gain most of
their importance from the effect these activities had on the history
of the Roman civilization, a civilization and thus a history into
which ultimately the Italians would become inseparably linked.
Nevertheless, by assuming the Italian vista when it is possible,
many facets of Rome’s history from this period will be illuminated,
providing some exterior light on things which are often only
examined as internal matters of the Roman people.
The analysis to follow will be drawn in part from numismatic,
epigraphical, and archaeological evidence. Most of it, however, will
come from literary sources. It is an unfortunate fact that the literary
sources available for this period are not ideal; many of them are
fragmentary, most were composed centuries after the events they
INTRODUCTION 27
describe, and several of them were written in Greek by authors

whose Latin may not have been superlative. A more extensive
analysis of these literary sources will be the first order business for
this essay, and it will be provided in chapter 1.
Based on what will be drawn from these texts, chapter 2 will
argue that a great desire for the Roman citizenship emerged
amongst a great many of Rome’s Italian Allies, and that this desire
became so strong that it ultimately led to a war. The testimony of
the literary sources makes this demonstration fairly easy, as, again,
almost all of them indicate that there was such a wish for the
citizenship. As it would turn out, that wish became so great that
when it was imperfectly granted at that war’s conclusion, further
blood was shed by the socii in the effort to gain what they lacked
and, upon its acquisition, to secure it from those who sought to
have it taken away from them. It will therefore be necessary to try
to identify what precisely it was which made the civitas such a
fervently desired commodity. This will be slightly more difficult,
because while almost all of the sources indicate that the citizenship
was sought to alleviate dissatisfaction over the relationship between
the Allies and the Romans, they do not explain in detail why that
attitude of dissatisfaction came into being. It will, therefore, also be
the task of chapter 2 to offer some conjectures as to the reasons
for this discontent, and to describe how redress for it could best be
gained by the civitas.
While chapter 2 will show that some of ways by which the
Romans made themselves disagreeable to the Italians were of long
standing, others were of more recent occurrence and almost
certainly played a role in determining, not only that there would be
war, but also when it would come. These latter, the specific
greivances with Rome that not only impelled war, but impelled it to
occur when it did as opposed to earlier or later, will be the subject
of chapter 3. The outbreak of the war itself, as well as the
preparations made by the Allies for it, will be narrated in chapter 4.
That chapter will also venture an attempt to ascertain what the
Allied strategy for fighting the Romans might have been. Chapters
5 and 6 will describe the Allied commanders, the battles which they
fought, and the general progress of the conflict up to the laying
down of arms by most but not all of the combatants. These
chapters will also describe the Roman response, both on an off the
battlefield, including their enactment of several laws between 89
and 88, which are usually known as the lex Julia and the subsequent
lex Plautia Papiria, which gave the citizenship to those allies who
had not yet committed to battle or who quickly withdrew from the
conflict. By means of these and other measures, the Allies were
finally given the franchise, and this process will also be described,
both as the laws were promulgated and enacted, and in period to
follow when they were executed.
As will be seen, these laws and their implementation did not
occur in a vacuum, as this very period saw the election of Sulla as
consul and his march on Rome. This event and its consequences—
and especially those for the Italians—will be discussed in chapters
6 and 7. Among the specific consequences of the march on Rome
to which chapter 6 and 7 will be devoted will be the exile of Marius
and Cinna, their return and installation as the official government
of the Republic, and to the affect this had on the former allies, by
this point become citizens. Chapters 8 and 9 will deal with the
return of Sulla and the Civil War, while the final chapter will
describe the consequences of that War and the Dictatorship which
followed. This too had an impact on the novi cives, and that impact
will be given especial emphasis. The final chapter will also serve as
is an epilogue to the decade and will inquire into the ways by which
the death of Sulla and the erosion of many of his laws influenced
the possibilities for how the Allies might participate in the running
of the state of which they were now members, and how this
participation played a role in the beginning of the Last Generation
of the Roman Republic and in the rise of Caesar and the Principate.
CHAPTER 1:
THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE
1. THE TURBULENT YEARS OF 91–77 BCE

The period between 91 and 77 BCE was one of the most
important expanses of time in the history of the Republic, one
which saw changes to the Roman society of greater magnitude than
any which had occurred since Hannibal, and may have surpassed
even those. By its end, the city may, perhaps, have looked little
different than it always had, and no changes may have appeared
visible and on the surface. Its government was still firmly
ensconced in the hands of the ruling class that had watched over it
for centuries, and from that ruling class the people chose
magistrates in the time-honored way. The people who elected these
men could look forward to a year of their service as lawmakers,
generals, and judges, and when their term of office expired, could
perhaps expect their continued efforts as governors of the empire’s
provinces. At the very least, the people would know that the men
they had chosen would lend their wisdom and experience to the
Senate, the great council upon whose advice all magistrates
depended and into whose membership all former magistrates were
installed. Different worthy men would then be elevated to replace
those who moved from office into the provinces or the Curia.
Indeed, the Senate had recently attained a level of authority by
77 which it had not enjoyed in centuries, the magistrates they
advised had recently seen their powers clarified, and candidates ran
under qualifications for holding elected positions which had lately
been strictly defined in a manner conforming to the most ancient
customs, ending some irregularities which had until very recently
been troublesome. All was, at first glance, as it should be, and,
more importantly, as it had always been, and the apparatus of the
state functioned which suggested a renewed dedication to its
hallowed traditions.
Below the surface, however, was a Rome that in many ways
was nothing like the one that Appius Claudius Caecus or Publius
29
Decius Mus had known centuries earlier. During the decade—

more-or-less—of the 80s BCE, Rome, and what it had meant to be
Roman, had changed in substantial ways. In the first place, there
were thousands upon thousands of people who could now claim
that status who could not have just a little while before. Such men
had been, until just recently, Rome’s Italian socii; the word meant
“Allies”, though in many ways what these had been were Rome’s
subjects. For centuries, these Italians had been obligated to send
soldiers that had been gathered, armed, supplied and paid from
their own resources to the Romans, ones who would serve in
Rome’s armies, fight in Rome’s wars, and build Rome’s empire
under Rome’s generals in numbers that exceeded Rome’s
contributions of its citizens to its own military. To the Romans
they also had owed respect and deference, which was not often
returned, and while the Allies came from nominally independent,
self-governing communities, they were also occasionally expected
to obey some of Rome’s laws and sometimes cater to the whims of
its magistrates. Such men were now Roman citizens, something
which might have been incredible to previous generations, and they
were made so because in the early part of the 80s BCE they had
risen against the Commonwealth and had battered it into what was
very close to defeat. Ultimately these Allies had been beaten, but
they had held on so stubbornly and exacted such a dreadful cost
that in the end they were given the citizenship so as to spare the
Romans the further losses that that would seem to be necessary
either to get them to surrender, or to wipe them out completely.
These former Allies had, in fact, fought so ferociously towards that
very end, even if the citizenship into which they had been admitted
was one which, at first, had been deprived of certain political rights.
They had not been satisfied with this, however, and on several
occasions during this important decade they had taken arms again
and fought some of their now-fellow citizens to secure these
missing rights. As the decade ended, they had taken to battle one
more time to defend these privileges from what they perceived to
be a danger to them, again fighting men who had been their enemy
from 90 to 87 and who were ostensibly their countrymen in 83 and
82. Over these ten years it may have become difficult to find a time
when men who had not been born Romans were not in arms
against those who had been, and while there were such lulls, it may
have seemed at the time like Rome and its one-time Allies were in
THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE 31
the grip, not of several wars, but of one, bloody, decade-long

conflict.
Perhaps most remarkable still was that, for many of those ten
years under arms, the former Italians had been fighting against their
putative Roman brethren alongside other Romans engaged in the
same enterprise, all under the leadership of Roman magistrates and
generals. For the first time in its history Rome had fallen to civil
war, and while the Commonwealth would not see the first one of
these until past its four-hundredth year, it would see its second
within months of its first, and its third within three years of that.
The first of these had, admittedly, been small in terms of its
duration and numbers slain. For all that, its implications had been
seismic, having been started by a Roman magistrate who felt his
government had fallen short of what it had owed him and who had
determined to use his army to seize what he felt was his due.
Astonishingly, he had obtained the willing cooperation of his army
in this enterprise, in the process ringing a bell which could not be
unrung: after 88, what was once something no Roman could even
contemplate had became something which was rather easily
achieved. Six years later, the same man who had put into motion
Rome’s first, small civil war would put into motion a third, far
more devastating one, whose ultimate result—and perhaps its very
purpose—had been his takeover of the entire government. In a
sense, all the blood he had spilt both before and after his war may
have been less destructive than the precedent he had set, and no
matter how he had tried to remake the state to prevent it, there
would ever after be the possibility that others might imitate him.
The man who had first marched on Rome with the intent to
use its own soldiers against it had done so for his own reasons, but
in a very real way, the Italian Allies had been involved at every step.
That he had been able to lead an army at all was due to his
experience fighting against those very Allies in the war they had
launched to get the citizenship, in which the success he had won as
a subordinate commander had persuaded the people to deem him
worthy of his own major command as consul. His term in office
coincided with the ending of that war, one brought about in part by
Rome’s extension of a defective version of the citizenship to the
beaten Allies in the hope that it would persuade their former socii to
accept defeat and not keep in arms until their annihilation. The
Italians had accepted this offer, but not happily, and they therefore
rejoiced when a Roman tribune proposed a law which would

supply them with the rights that had been withheld. But a political
bargain designed to ensure the passing of that law had deprived the
consul of the military command that had been promised to him,
and it had been to get it back that he had led his march. Because
doing so would involve erasing the law which gave the new citizens
their full privileges, these new citizens had fought against the man
who was now technically their chief magistrate, only to be
overpowered by him. Later, another Roman politician, this one a
consul, also promised the former Italians their missing rights, but
was thrown out of the city for doing so. His call for their aid in his
own bid to get back by force what he felt was rightfully his was
enthusiastically answered, and with Italian help he made his own
march on Rome, defeating in the process a large Roman army
attempting to stop him. The Italians contributed their weapons to
his endeavor, and by doing so had brought him to victory; having
fought against one Roman waging civil war against his state, they
would follow and fight for another doing likewise, this time with
greater success. Once they had helped their champion take Rome
and assume the reins of its government, the man who had been
responsible for the second civil war declared the man for who had
been responsible for the first an enemy of the state, and although
he would not live to redeem his pledge to the Italians, his successor
and right-hand man in that second civil war would do so. The
outlawed Roman vowed to unmake the laws of men who had
declared him an enemy, laws which may have included that which
gave the Italians their long-awaited rights, and the end of the
decade saw these two men, both leaders of a successful civil war
against Rome, fight each other in the third. For fear that their
rights would evaporate if they did otherwise, the Italians stayed
firm in their support of the one and remained enemies with the
other, only to be beaten by him a second time.
And so it was that Lucius Cornelius Sulla, primum mobile and
victor of two civil wars against Rome’s government, had his career
in no small part shaped by his opposition to the Italians and their
efforts to gain and keep the full unabridged enjoyment of the
Roman citizenship. In a very real sense, this struggle of theirs was a
cord which ran through the entire decade, and was connected in
some way to practically important event in it. If the years between
91 and 77 had brought about some enormous changes to the
Roman state, ones that revealed a new meaning to what it was to

be Roman and a new understanding of what a Roman would now
be capable, the Italians and their quest provided the opportunity
for, instruments of, and participants in such changes. For these
reasons, their struggle, the men who led it, the men who fought
against it, and the events that occurred along the way, seem
inherently worthy of investigation. It will be to this investigation
that the essay to follow will be devoted.
Any endeavor to narrate the Allied quest for the Roman
citizenship, its origins, and its outcome, will perforce need to draw
upon the body of evidence left behind by the Romans and the
Italians, and by those outsiders who were interested in the
developments between them. It so happens, however, that the
quantity and quality of evidence that has been passed down is far
less profound than the importance of the epoch might seem to
suggest. The caprices of transmission have been most unkind to
this period, falling as it does between two eras which are fairly well-
lit in comparison. Literary sources are there, of course, and with the
aid of material and archaeological remains, they do manage to
reveal a great deal about this age. Nevertheless, it must be
acknowledged that the ancient sources which provide such a survey
are far from perfect, and present a not inconsiderable challenge to
the crafting of a historical reconstruction to be built upon them.
2. THE HISTORIES NEVER COMPOSED

Indicative of the nature of this difficulty with the sources is the vast
amount that simply was not written. Specifically, there remains no
evidence to suggest that any of the Italians who participated in or
were at least contemporaries of the events by which they ultimately
became Romans ever composed a history of this period, eyewitness
or otherwise. Exactly why this is so is unknown, especially since
there is evidence to suggest that at least some of the Italians who
would participate in the struggle were known to have kept
historical records which would have, or at least could have, aided in
such a composition.1 For whatever the reason, the voices which
1 Salmon (1982, p. 157–158) specifically cites the Samnites and the
Etruscans as peoples who did so.

eventually do describe the Italians and their pursuit of the civitas are
ultimately not their own but are rather almost wholly those of their
Roman adversaries, of their descendants,2 or of Greeks, many of
whom were writing much later. The result of this in terms of
factual distortion and bias of sympathy can only be imagined.
Almost as unfortunate as the lack of a history of the war
composed by the Italians themselves is another work which was
suggested by its potential author and even earnestly petitioned
from him by his friends but, finally, was never actually composed.
This refers to a proposed history from Marcus Tullius Cicero, one
described by one scholar as “the most important (historical work in
Latin) that was not written”.3 It must be admitted that because
Cicero never wrote his history, there is no guarantee that he would
have chosen the period currently under survey as his subject if he
had he done so. Other periods were available for his pen, as can be
seen from one of Cicero’s philosophical writings in which he
records a suggestion made to him for his potential topic, one which
came from his brother, that he focus his efforts on Rome’s
beginnings. In this, Quintus Cicero opposed the proposal of
Atticus, who is made to ask that M. Cicero narrate the events of his
own lifetime.4 Yet had he chosen this time as his subject, he would
have been able to contribute more than just the eloquentia of an
orator which Cicero himself insisted was needed for a proper
2An objection may be raised that an exception to this statement may

be found in the person of Velleius Paterculus, who proudly notes his
descent from an Italian who was given the franchise for his loyalty to
Rome during the war. However, as in the case with L. Cornelius Sisenna,
himself held to be of Etruscan origin and to have been sympathetic to the
Allies because of such a heritage (Rawson 1979, p. 328–329; more below),
there is no question that Velleius was anything but thoroughly Roman in
his perspective. Therefore, for all intents and purposes Velleius ought to
count less as an “Italian” and more as the Roman that he most certainly
was, which is doubly true of Sisenna, who was himself.
3 Rawson (1979, p. 372)
4 See Wiseman 1979, p. 18–19, citing De Legibus 1.8.
historian.5 He would have also been able to contribute his own

eyewitness testimony as an actual participant in the war.6
Furthermore, in several of his extant dialogues Cicero propounds
certain standards for historians, of which eloquentia, as was just
seem, was one.7 If he had adhered to these principles in his own
work, Cicero would have included the causes and origins of the
conflict, would have given the character and spirit of the
participants, would have taken pains to describe things in proper
chronological order, and finally would have done so without bias
or anger: sine gratia et simultate, in his own words, generations before
Tacitus would make a similar vow for his own composition.
As it ultimately transpired, however, Cicero was never able, or
perhaps never willing, to devote himself to this task. As a result, his
historical value for this period lies solely in the comments he made
about it in speeches, letters, and treatises. These remarks, despire
having not been intended to conform to his historical precepts, are
still of definite worth. Nevertheless, their value is diminished by the
fact that in many cases they are introduced without background or
context, which is especially true of those which are found in letters
to friends who did not need an explanation for Cicero’s references.
Likewise, those which occur in speeches are especially susceptible
to accusations of exaggeration or whatever other kinds of fact-
manipulation a declamation in court might require, or at least
allow.8
5 De Oratore 15 (2.62–64). It should be observed here that whenever
possible the Loeb version of ancient texts will be cited, mainly for ease of
access and for consistency in pagination.
6 Phil.12.27, where he describes the meeting between Pompeius Strabo
and the Marsic commander Vettius Scato which occurred during his
service on Strabo’s general staff first-hand; see chapter 6 for this
conference.
7 Most importantly, in De Orat., loc. cit. For an additional discussion of
Cicero’s historical ideals, see Walsh (1961, p. 32–33), and Syme (1958,
p. 133–134).
8 For some of Cicero’s occasional tinkering with historical facts, see
Morstein-Marx, p. 199. Elsewhere, Morstein-Marx notes that—especially

in speeches before the people—Cicero’s public claims do not necessarily
always match what he says in letters, essays, or in speeches in the Senate
An Italian account of the war was apparently never composed,

nor certainly was a history from a contemporary Roman as
trustworthy as Cicero seems like he would have been. These would
have been ideal sources, and the fact that they never came into
being is a fact which the modern historian must regard with
considerable disappointment. Almost as frustrating, however, are
the notices which reveal that several accounts were written—sources
not as optimal as those just mentioned might have been but which
doubtless would have been incredibly beneficial for acquiring
knowledge of the decade—but have since become lost. Some of
these are gone completely, to which number may be added the
history of the Etruscans which Suetonius claims had been written
by the emperor Claudius (Div. Claud. 42). It may well have been
that the twenty books of that composition had included an account
of their participation in the war, as it is known from other works
that they were indeed belligerents on the war. Others remain only
in fragmentary form, with the quotations of them in extant writers
providing tantalizing glimpses of what could once have been
known, and throwing into stark relief the limitations on what is
known based on still-extant texts.
3. THE HISTORIES THAT ARE LOST

Among the texts known to have existed once due to quotations of
it by later writers, one of the most important seems to have been
the Histories of L. Cornelius Sisenna, whose significance is attested
by the breadth of its certain use by extant sources and and its
apparent use by others. This work seems to have covered the
period of 91–77 exactly: it is known that the Allied War was
Sisenna’s topic, but that it ranged as far ahead as to have been able
(an example is held to be found in his alleged support of the Gracchi and
agrarian laws asserted while addressing the crowd, p. 194–195; 207–212),
although this is not the same as outright lying, since an outright lie—id est,
the claim of something which was either known to be false by, or could
be revealed to be false to, the crowd—presented the danger of ruining the
very credibility upon which Cicero depended. In sum, according to
Morstein-Marx Cicero could certainly distort the truth, but apparently
never directly contradicted it.
to record the dictatorship of Sulla; the suggestion of Syme that

Sulla’s funeral would have made a suitably dramatic point of
conclusion seems plausible enough.9 For the excellence of
Sisenna’s work there is the testimony of Cicero, who has Atticus
declare in the de legibus that Sisenna outstripped any history yet
written at that time in style (1.7). Similarly, there is Sallust’s
declaration that Sisenna’s work on the life and times of Sulla was of
such surpassing quality that Sallust himself would eschew writing a
competing account of these events of his own (BJ 95.2),10 and
Velleius Paterculus accords him pride of place in his list of the
historians of the period (2.9.5). Sisenna was thus certainly known to
Velleius, and was probably also familiar to Valerius Maximus and
perhaps even Appian.11 There is likewise a broad consensus that he
was a main source for this period for Livy,12 alongside Posidonius
9 Rawson (1979, p. 327), quoting Syme’s Sallust, p. 180 n. 10. On
Sisenna’s flair for the dramatic, see Rawson, op. cit., p. 339.
10 Neither Cicero nor Sallust are unqualified in their praise, however.
In the places cited above, Cicero holds that Sisenna’s work is the best but
still too filled with “puerility” to attain the heights of the ideal historian
(omnis adhuc nostros scriptores ... facile superauit. Is tamen ... in historia puerile
quiddam consectatur), while Sallust believes that he did not speak of Sulla
with sufficient frankness (Neque enim alio loco de Sullae rebus dicturi sumus et
L. Sisenna, optime et diligentissime omnium, qui eas res dixere, persecutus, parum
mihi libero ore locutus videtur).
11 So Rawson (1979 p. 335 and 338).
12 So Rawson (1979, p. 327) and Walsh (1961, p. 135–136; 1974,
p. 16). Badian (1962, p. 50) notes that Claudius Quadrigarius also had
some material which covered this period, but while Livy certainly used
Claudius for earlier centuries, given the availability of Sisenna it is unlikely
that Livy would have chosen Claudius over him. Indeed, if—as is
sometimes asserted—Livy did in fact only follow one source at a time as
per the so-called “Nissen’s Law”, Sisenna seems to be the more obvious
candidate, since certainly Livy did use him (Badian, loc. cit.). Therefore, if
Claudius was used by Livy for the Allied War at all, it was probably as a
check-source, which Livy did use (Walsh 1961, p. 139–141), to Sisenna.
On the other hand, see Haug p. 215–217, who notes the differences in
arrangement—geographical in Sisenna, chronological in Livy—which she
avers makes use of Sisenna by Livy “impossible”, or at least impossible
without rearrangement; at best Livy used facts from Sisenna but not his
and the Memoirs of Sulla (more below). Of the Allied War itself
Sisenna probably knew a great deal, as he had almost certainly
fought in it, perhaps under the command of Sulla.13 Furthermore,
Sisenna seems to have treated the Italians with a certain degree of
sympathy, perhaps due to what may have been his own Etruscan
origins.14 If so, than he might well have provided the “pro-Italian”
sentiment found in Appian, assuming Sisenna was actually used by
that author.15 Whatever his sentiment or bias may have been, the
fact remains that nothing exists of his work beyond a few
fragments. Even so, the nature of his work and its attested
excellence, and thus by extension its accuracy and trustworthiness,
is important to note, due to the fact that occasionally use can be
made of some of the few fragments that remain. More importantly,
probable or actual use of Sisenna may add to the merit of those
later authorities who did make such use, of which a few have been
mentioned above.
Also important for the extent to which they were used by later
authors are two other lost sources known once to have existed and
to have dealt with this period. One of these was the Memoirs of
Sulla, directly mentioned in the work of Plutarch and very likely
structure, at least for the Allied War. See also Appendix A for further
discussion of Livy and his sources for 91–77.
13 For the near-certainty of his military servce against the socii, see
Rawson (1979, p. 333–334). His friendship with L. Lucullus and Q.

Hortensius, the fact that he was elected praetor with Sulla still alive, and
his subsequent favor with Pompeius Magnus (who had chosen him as
legate during the Pirate War, on which expedition the author died),
strongly suggest close ties with the Optimate party (Rawson, op. cit., p.
327–330, 333–335; Badian 1962, p. 50–51). It is perhaps to this that
Sallust alludes when he suggests that Sisenna was not completely
forthcoming about Sulla’s actions, for which see earlier note. However,
given Sallust’s own loathing of Sulla (one apparent in the reading of his
Catiline and Jugurthine War) this may be a bit of an overstatement.
14 Rawson (op. cit., p. 328–329; 334–338).
15 Rawson (op. cit., p. 339). Emilio Gabba, however, takes a different
view in his work on Appian and the Civil War (1956, p. 80–88), and Haug
does as well (p. 231–232).
one of his main sources for the life of Marius,16 as it almost

certainly was for those of Sulla himself and of Lucullus,17 to the
latter of whom the Memoirs were apparently dedicated (Plutarch,
Sull. 6). Based on what Plutarch chooses to cite from these Memoirs
it is reasonably certain that what Sulla recounts of himself is heavily
shaded by self-promotion and the desire to blacken his opponents,
but even accounting for such a bias it is possible that there would
have been no small amount of serviceable material in them if only
due to his eyewitness testimony.18
Of what may have been greater merit were the Histories of
Posidonius, alleged to have begun where Polybius left off and
continued in fifty-two books until 88 BCE. This work was a source
for both Livy and Diodorus Siculus,19 though exactly how much of
what they report has been derived from Posidonius is difficult to
determine given the nature of what survives from their own works.
What is known about the work of Posidonius is that he apparently
departed from the strictness of Polybius and allowed himself to
affix the cause of moral degeneracy and decay to the misfortunes
of the Romans.20 How much this tendency affected his objectivity
can only be conjectured, but as someone actually in Rome during
the period in question (he found himself there as a diplomat in 87)
16 Evans speculates that Marius himself might also have written such a
memoir, though no trace of it is found in the sources (p. 7–8), and such is
not entirely in keeping with the image of the gruff soldier Marius
deliberately cultivated. At any rate, given the overall timbre of Plutarch’s
commentary in his Marius, it is fairly certain that far much of his material
came from the work of the general’s rival and rather little from sources
sympathetic to his subject.
17 See, for example, Sulla 6; 14; 17; and 23; also, Lucullus 1; 14.
18 Indeed, Badian 1962 (p. 57–59) holds that Appian used Sulla’s
memoirs frequently, and in fact used them directly, without the

intermediary of Sisenna or Livy (but see Gabba, op. cit., 80–99). For
further discussion about the extent to which Sulla’s memoirs influenced
later portrayals of him, see Behr (p. 9–113).
19 For Livy’s use of Posidonius see Walsh (1961, p. 135–136), but see
also Haug p. 118–119 (about which more later); for that of Diodorus, see
Sacks (p. 12, 41–47, 121).
20 Sacks, loc. cit. This was a favorite topic of Livy’s, as well, for which
see Walsh (1961, p. 65–55).

he would have had a chance to observe much and perhaps directly

question those involved in the Allied War. This might have made
his insights all the more penetrating, especially when combined
with the freedom bias due to lack of attachment to either side
which his status as an outsider would have accorded him.
Nothing remains of the work of Sisenna, Sulla, and
Posidonius, save for scattered quotations form them in later
authors. All of these would have been primary sources in the most
literal sense of the term: they wrote about what they had seen
directly, and may have done so with a wealth of detail that only
autopsy can provide. Admittedly, these works were, according to
descriptions of them, not without faults. Sulla’s, it seems, was
guided by his own impulse to show himself in the right and his
opponents in the wrong, and Sisenna’s, by the desire not to offend
Sulla. Posidonius apparently had an axe to grind, as well, and it can
be wondered how his need to show that a depraved Rome was
suffering due to its own decadence might have tinctured his
reports. Still, what was lost might well have been better than what
remains, and since they are deprived by the vagaries of
transmission of these primary sources, modern historians are
compelled to rely on the work of later authors for an account of
the period under investigation. Frustratingly, time has also been
unkind to a number of these later authors, and especially to two
who also happen to have been writing fairly close to the period
they describe.
4. THE HISTORIES THAT ARE INCOMPLETE: DIODORUS

One of the more important authors whose work has suffered from
the ravages of the millenia was Diodoros of Agyrium, a Sicilian
Greek known more commonly as Diodorus Siculus. His
ι λιο κ , or Library of History, was a general world history from
the Trojan War until at least 60 BCE and was one which definitely
included an account of the conflicts between the Romans and the
Italians during the 90s. This work was composed between the
decades of 60 to 30 BCE.21 Since this time of composition was not
thirty years removed from the Allied War of which Diodorus
21 Sacks, p. 6, 161–168.
himself may have witnessed certain events, there is the possibility

that the books covering this period might have included details
drawn from personal testimony or from conversations with those
who had participated in the fighting.22 The collection of these
details would have been aided by the fact that Diodorus was a
speaker of Latin, which he claimed to have learned from Romans
living in Sicily, and that he actually resided for many years in Rome,
where he claims to have had had access to Roman documents.23
Additionally, Diodorus drew heavily on Posidonius, whose
potential value has been noted above.
What Diodorus could conceivably have offered from this
period there can be only speculation, since very little of his vast
project has been passed down in its entirety. Only books 1–5 and
10–20 have been preserved in toto, and those remaining books have
led scholars to take a dim view on the quality of Diodorus as a
historian. To him has been affixed a reputation for being a
mindless copyist whose insertion of his sources verbatim is often so
flagrant that he seems to make cross-references to matters which
do not themselves appear in his work, having literally copied even
the references from his sources. In the author’s defense, it has been
argued in counter that these “broken citations” were due less to
stupidity on the part of Diodorus and more to the fact that his
work was published before it had been completely revised, to the
author’s occasional carelessness, and to errors in transmission.24
22 Diodorus himself put great store in eyewitness accounts; for the
importance he attaches to these, see Sacks, p. 110–116.

23 Diodorus 1.4.3–44, quoted by Sacks, p. 161 (for his residence in
Rome), and p. 119, 164–165 (for his knowledge of Latin, though page 164
suggests that Diodorus’s “complete mastery of the language has been
questioned”, a comment explained in note 21 of that page). In the latter
two pages Sacks notes that Diodorus does not claim to have had any
personal contact with high-ranking Roman politicians and would likely
have spoken of it if he had had such contact. Based on this assessment,
which there seems to be no reason to question, it seems unlikely that
Diodorus would have consulted any noble Roman participant about the
affairs of the 90s, though his speaking with witnesses from a lower social
order cannot be ruled to have been completely impossible.
24 so Sacks, p. 83–91, 164.
Either way, in addition to whatever errors this tendency may have

caused, there is also the matter of what has been perceived as an
“Anti-Roman” sentiment on the part of the Diodorus. On some
occasions this appears to have taken the form of passing along the
belief of Posidonius that the Romans were falling victim to
profligacy and were becoming soft due to the luxury of empire (for
which see above). On others, it seems to have manifested itself in
what was apparently the author’s own belief that the Romans were
falling on troubled times because of their deteriorating relationship
with their subjects and allies, which had degenerated from
moderation to terrorizing despotism.25
All of these characteristics are evident in the complete books
and may very well have affected the remainder of it, including
those parts covering the Allied War. However, those books are not
among those which are preserved in complete form, even though
some of the extant fragments from them are fairly extensive and
detailed. These, derived largely from what were apparently chapters
37 and 38 of the Library, do preserve some enormously valuable
material, the most notable of which being the discussion of the
form of confederacy the Italians organized, how their commanders
were selected, and what theaters of warfare were chosen (37.2.
6–9).26 On the other hand, many of these fragments are also rather
anecdotal in nature (serving to illustrate the “decay of morality”
theme mentioned earlier)27 and almost always lacking the context in
25 On Posidonius’s charge of moral decay in Rome, see, again, Sacks
(p. 46–48) and above. On Diodorus’s preference for the abuse of

hegemony, see the same author, p. 51–52, 117. In fact, Sacks goes further
still: Diodorus was mildly critical of Rome, he claims, but hints that the
criticism would have been more severe had Diodorus not enjoyed
patronage and protection in Rome during his stay there from 46–30, a
period of great instability in the city. Apparently his work was popular
enough to warrant circumspection in the opinions he voiced, as he
himself complained that it was circulated in unfinished form without his
permission (op. cit., p. 126, 164).
26 See chapter four for an extensive discussion of these.
27 And, in fact, were preserved for that very reason: the majority of the
fragments which remain come from Photius and an author once assumed
which they may have been found in the original. Even through this
filter, what does remain are pieces of a story which quite often
takes the Italian outlook. This is apparent in such episodes as the
march of Poppaedius (37.13), the trials of the Allies during various
sieges (37.19–22), and in the attribution of the cause of the war
(37.18, where the offer of the franchise to a Cretan in return for aid
given to the Romans is met with laughter and the suggestion that
cash would be a better recompense, citizenship being best offered
to the Allies, “who do battle for that very thing”).28 Whether
Diodorus acquired these facts through Posidonius, through his
own eyewitness observations, through interviews with participants
in Rome, or through another source, his account sheds a great deal
of light on the period in spite of its fragmentary nature and is thus
an important source for the war, its causes, and effects; that it
might have shed a great deal more illumination in its complete
form cannot be doubted.
5. THE HISTORIES THAT ARE INCOMPLETE:

LIVY AND WHAT REMAINS OF HIM
Of even greater import than the missing books of Diodorus are
those which the centuries have taken from the narrative of Livy.
The value of Livy’s extant work speaks for itself, and the likelihood
that the lost books were of similar quality is high. Lamentably, it so
happens that among these are the books treating the years between
91 and 77, a loss whose depth for students of the period is
incalculable.
Of course, it must be averred that Livy was not a flawless
historian, and modern studies on the composition of his history
to be the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitos, both of

whom writing their works with a heavily moralistic tone.
28 τὰ δὲ τῆς πολιτείας τίμια τοῖς περὶ ταύτ ς νῦν διαφερομένοις
διαφερομένοις, οἵτινες αἵματος ἀγοράζουσι λῆρον περιμάχ τον. Diodorus
would later go further even than this, declaring (in 37.2) that the war was a
result of citizenship which had specifically been promised to the Allies, on
whom the Senate had called for assistance against the plebs after Senatorial
indolence and love of luxury had put them at odds with the lower class;
the breach of this promise had led to the war.
and his tendencies as a scholar have revealed deficiencies which

have made his extant books far from perfect accounts of the events
they describe. In the first place, his history was composed under
certain limitations which in some instance were due to
circumstance, others to inclination. From among the latter, the
most telling is Livy’s use of sources. His relationship with primary
sources is particularly unfortunate: like many other Greek and
Roman historians,29 Livy rarely made use of artifacts, preserved
copies of treaties, magistrate lists, and the annales maximi, even
when these were readily available for his consultation.30 As a result,
he is dependent on his secondary sources, and even these he
apparently did not always use in the best possible manner: he often
seems to have tended to follow one of them at a time, even if
frequently consulting others, and rarely attempted to reconcile
conflicting information, contenting himself instead to note that
“others relate” contradictory assertions which he places at the end
of an episode. This sometimes leads to a great deal of confusion,
29 See Wiseman, p. 16–17, 44 for a discussion of this characteristic of

ancient historical writing.
30 This was observed most notably by Patrick Walsh (1961, p. 14–15,
110–114; 1974, p. 13–14), who by way of example relates an episode in

4.20.7, where Livy describes the alleged dedication of spolia opima by
Cornelius Cossus even though as military tribune Cossus would not have
been allowed to do any such thing. According to this passage, Augustus
himself claimed to have found the spolia while renovating the temple of
Jupiter Feretrius. These included a linen corslet bearing an inscription
stating that Cossus was in fact consul at that time and not tribune, and
was therefore eligible for the spolia. Livy thereupon dutifully reports the
spolia, but never mentions venturing himself to the temple so as to verify
the evidence. Obviously there might very well have been compelling
reasons not to question the ruler of the world in this instance, for which
see Appendix A. Nevertheless, there are several other examples where
such danger would not have been present, in which documents and
materials were not only extant but even fairly convenient and yet were not
employed by the author, even under circumstances in which, by Livy’s
own admission, what these materials contained might be at variance with
the (secondary) sources from which he drew instead. Indeed, it is often
only by his direct testimony of what he does not use that it is known that
such sources existed in the first place.
such as repetition of occurrences in his text generated as he passed

from one source to another. Moreover, examples of mistranslation
and unwillingness to part from a favored interpretation of an event
in the face of superior evidence are all noteworthy in his extant
books.31 Ameliorating this somewhat is the fact that Livy did seem
to have selected the sources he used with a fair degree of
discernment: his use of Polybius for eastern affairs until the end of
the latter’s material and, probably, of Posidonius thereafter, were
probably the best choices to have been made, as was his use of
Sisenna and possibly Rutilius for internal matters.32 Allowing for
this, it is still the case that his unwillingness to consult primary
material almost certainly impaired the quality of the evidence he
provides, as is not infrequently hinted, albeit unintentionally, by
Livy himself.
Additionally, the circumstances of Livy’s own life made at
least one deficiency in his writing inevitable: namely, his difficulties
with military matters. Of these, one modern scholar has gently
suggested that “(t)he battle pieces of that admirable man of letters
do not reveal just what we want to know.”33 Another is more
direct, reckoning that Livy “certainly had no military experience; he
is so ignorant of the practical aspects of soldiering that he can
never have thrown a pilum in anger”, a weapon which Livy at one
point claims was thrust as well as thrown, further illustrating his
ignorance.34 Furthermore, Livy often elides important tactical
details for sake of clarity of expression, masks strategic operations
due to his desire to avoid mention of ill-considered battlefield
decisions made by commanders he wishes to praise, and even
disguises Roman losses, which are transformed into draws or even
31 See Luce (1977, p. vii, xix) and Walsh (1961, p. 130, 133, 139–146,
150, 153; 1974, p. 14, 19.

32 So Haug, p. 118–119, who postulates that Livy only used
Posidonius for eastern matters and employed Rutilius for domestic ones,
which explains the occasional favorable description of Drusus found in
some of Livy’s descendants like Florus and Cassius Dio. As far as use of
Sisenna, see Haug p. 215–217, as discussed above.
33 So Adcock, p. 8–9.
34 The words are those of Walsh (1961, p. 4); the note about the
mistaken nature of the pilum is, as well (p. 157).

victories.35 Alongside this lack of military experience is his lack of

involvement in politics, which perhaps deprived him of insight into
the intricate game of maneuvers and factions amongst the Roman
aristocracy36 and, perhaps, led to credulity in character assessments
of such men as Gracchus and Drusus (more below). This would
also have kept him from the clearest possible understanding of the
conduct of Roman diplomacy and perhaps of the economic forces
which shaped events.37 Finally, Livy is notoriously weak in his
knowledge of geography, not only of lands overseas but even of
those in Italy, and he apparently took no steps to correct this
weakness by travel.38 In this regard, as in others, Livy seems to
have disregarded the maxims of Polybius (12.25e) that a competent
historian make an “industrious study of memoirs and other
documents and a comparison of their contents, then a survey of
cities, places, rivers, lakes, and in general all the peculiar features of
land and sea and the distances of one place from another”.39
Finally, Livy was limited by his own personal perspective and
bias. A comparison between his text and that of Polybius covering
the same events, for example, shows that just as Livy is often
willing to reshape the outcome of battles (as noted above), so too is
he willing to recast, downplay, or even omit unsavory actions
undertaken by statesmen whom he admires. Livy was known even
in his own day for his strict devotion to the old-fashioned
Republicanism which marked Padua and Patavians, and it was very
likely this which was meant by the description of his “Patavinitas”
35 See Walsh (1961, p. ix, 4, 98–99, 105, 157–159, 162, 166, 197–201,
204; 1974, p. 19).

36 So Syme (1958, p. 136–137) and Walsh (1961, p. 20–21).
37 So Walsh (1961, p. 34–35, 98–99, 101–102, 166–167).
38 Syme, loc. cit.; Walsh 1961, p. 9, 153–157. There, however, the latter
author does note that Livy should be given credit for his efforts to
describe topography, even if those efforts consisted solely in referring to
sources which could make these features clearer rather than expeditions to
see the lay of the land itself.
39 τὸν αὐτὸν δὴ τρόπον καὶ τῆς πραγματικῆς ἱστορίας ὑπαρχούσ ς
τριμεροῦς, τῶν δὲ μερῶν ... ἑτέρου δὲ τοῦ περὶ τὴν έαν τῶν πόλεων καὶ τῶν
τόπων περί τε ποταμῶν καὶ λιμένων καὶ κα όλου τῶν κατὰ γῆν καὶ κατὰ
άλατταν ἰδιωμάτων καὶ διαστ μάτων (12.25e).
by the somewhat more worldly Asinius Pollio. It is doubtless this

way of thinking which led him frequently to adopt a strictly
“Optimate” outlook and thus take the dim view of popularly-
elected consuls,40 of the tribunate in general, and specifically of
such notorious tribunes as the Gracchi, Saturninus, and Drusus,
which emerges in the characterizations of all of these men found in
the authors who drew from Livy.41 It may well be wondered if his
opinions on these matters clouded his objectivity, or led him to
depict events in such a way as to emphasize unsavory elements of
events involving figures whom he found distasteful, in the same
way that he disguised such elements involving men he admired.
All of these weaknesses notwithstanding, it is nevertheless
nothing short of a calamity that only outlines and fragments remain
of the books dealing with the period under survey in this essay.
Even with the difficulties cited above (and it very well have been
that many of these may have been substantially diminished in later
books approaching the period in which the author lived), Livy’s
tendency towards thoroughness would doubtless have supplied a
great deal of illumination on years and even decades on which
practically no information currently survives. It seems this would
have been especially true of the 80s BCE, as it is fairly apparent
that the period beginning with the rise of Drusus was of interest to
Livy, and certainly by contrast to the decade prior: if the Periochae
(more directly) are accurate, the year 91 alone is the subject of
books 71 and 72, whereas 98 through 92 are all encompassed in the
single book 70.42 In fact, most of the years between the 91 and 86
get all or most of one book, and many extend over two. This
provides a hint as to the wealth of detail which once existed in
Livy’s composition but has now mostly evaporated.
What remains of Livy’s direct work on this period is very little:
apart from scattered fragments quoting him, there are left the
40 Id est those whose office was due more to the outcry of the masses
than of the more considered opinion of the Senate and the élite, especially
as a result of episodes when electoral irregularities such as improper age
or inappropriate iteration were involved.
41 So Haug (p. 103–112) and Walsh (1961 p. 37; 1974, p. 10).
42 See also Luce 1977, p. 18.
Prodigies of Julius Obsequens, which are not of great utility for a

historian, as well as the Summaries of most of the missing books,
which are usually referred to by the translated Greek title of
Periochae.43 “Summary” is a very generous assessment of what are
often eight-line descriptions of entire lost books, whose brevity has
been the subject of much frustration among the modern historians
compelled to use them;44 as one of them puts it, the Periochae are
really nothing more than “a stylistically revised table of contents”.45
These are better than nothing, however, and in spite of their drastic
truncation the Periochae do provide many details whose accuracy is
generally held to be fairly high. Moreover, they also use language
which, when compared to other authors known or strongly
suspected to have used Livy whose phrasing is similar, seems to
have given some sense of the words actually used by the author,
and thus can convey some sense of his judgment, as well.
It was once fashionable to assume that the Periochae were
themselves not based on Livy’s own original text but instead drew
from an intermediate Epitome, and that this indeed provided the
source for most of the authors who were asserted to have used
Livy. The improbability of this theory has been demonstrated
rather convincingly, and it has since fallen by the boards.46 There
have also been speculations as to the existence of several
collections of exempla which were also taken from Livy and used by
later authors instead of him, although no proof of these exists, and
one of the scholars behind this speculation concludes that even if
there were collection of exempla, it was still probably the complete
text of Livy was what was used by later authors, which seems most
43 And will be referred to in this way throughout the remainder of this

essay.
44 Indicative is the commentary offered by J. P. V. D. Balsdon in his
“Review of Ernst Badian’s Studies in Greek and Roman History”, Journal of

Roman Studies, vol. 55 (1965), p. 229–232. That author makes reference to
the Periochae and includes mention of their “bungling author <who> can
never have been more flattered than in being treated with the seriousness
with which B(adian) treats him”.
45 Haug, citing Alfred Klotz (p. 102).
46 By Haug (p. 101–102) and Begbie (p. 337–338).
likely.47 Those later authors are numerous, and as a result the

influence of Livy on the picture that is drawn of this period is
profound even in the absence of his text: of the writers who
convey an overall description of this period—namely, Florus,
Velleius, Eutropius, Orosius and Appian—Livy was probably a
source for all of them, and may have been the main source for all
but Appian.48
Of these, the earliest in terms of the date of its composition
was the work of Velleius Paterculus, which is believed to have been
finished by 30 CE.49 His was a short book written as a very brief
universal history, perhaps either for employment as a textbook, or
as a summary useful for those circumstances in which the larger,
fuller history of Livy would have been too cumbersome.50 Not
47 Haug, p. 102, 109.

48 The assertion made above departs somewhat from Haug (p. 120–
125), who argues that Livy could not have been the source for Velleius,
or, at least, not for his discussion of the career of Drusus, due to the great
differences between the representations of that tribune as he is depicted in
Velleius as opposed to the assessment of him in Orosius and Florus
(whose dependence on Livy is certain). This does not seem to allow much
agency to Velleius, who is assumed simply to be an automaton copying
out his source without the ability both to cull the facts and assign to them
a valuation of his own choosing. It is, as a result, not terribly convincing.
As for Appian, both Haug (p. 224–231) and Gabba (1956, p. 89–101)
offer fairly persuasive evidence that Livy was used by him, though
probably that use only really began around his treatment of events
beginning in the year 88; prior to that, another unknown source was used.
49 As to when it was begun, Woodman (p. 275–282) has demonstrated
that the once-popular assumption that the text was written in a white heat
in the year immediately preceding the elevation of to the consulate of
M. Vinicius, to whom the work was dedicated, is quite probably flawed.
Vinicius and presumably Velleius himself might have known about the
plans of Tiberius to elevate Vinicius years earlier, and thus the oft-
mentioned brevity of the work may have been less from necessity than by
design.
50 So Starr (p. 162–164, 172–174), following the suggestion of Sumner,
p. 282. In this assessment, Starr is somewhat more charitably disposed to

the author than Frederick Shipley, the editor and translator of the Loeb
edition of the work, whose introduction to the text notes that “Velleius
much of the first volume of Velleius, whose remnants deal with

Greek matters, is extant, but the second volume, which primarily
treats Roman affairs (among which those occurring in the years
between 91–77), is fairly complete.
The worth of Velleius’s history tends to be quite low in the
estimation of many modern historians, who note with dismay his
adulation of Tiberius in the latter half of the second book which,
they believe, compromises his integrity; “sleazy toady” is the way
one scholar suggests he is sometimes regarded.51 More damning
still is the brevity of his account, which in parts is quite stark. By
way of illustration, his account of the tribunate of Drusus and the
hostilities of 91–88 together take up but four short chapters, the
equivalent of about four pages of Loeb text. In fact, his entire
account of Roman affairs from the tribunate of Ti. Gracchus to the
death of Sulla amounts to something like forty pages of Loeb text
in toto, of which the greatest amount is given to the deeds of Sulla.
Even so, his prose is not without the occasional adornment,
and reveals a proclivity towards the inclusion of exempla, an
inclination he shares with his contemporary Valerius Maximus.52 In
fact, it is this propensity for anecdote and his sharp disagreements
with Livy in terms of his assessment of men like Ti. Gracchus and
Drusus which have led to some debate as to whether or not
Velleius used Livy at all,53 though it has demonstrated fairly
convincingly that at least the parts in the work of Velleius dealing
with the outbreak and operations of the Allied War must derive
from the earlier author.54 Nevertheless, it is fairly clear that Velleius
Paterculus does not rank among the great Olympians of classical literature
either as stylist or as historian” and later suggests that the author is not to
be reckoned as belonging amidst the great classics, in part due to the great
terseness and difficult language of the book (p. viii); see below.
51 Sumner, p. 257.
52 Starr, op. cit., p. 163, in addition to Haug (see earlier note).
53 So Shipley, p. xiv note 1.
54 So Haug (p. 223–225); earlier (123–125) she suggested that the
variations in the lives of Gracchus and Drusus must have meant that
Velleius used as his source an exempla-collection dating back to the days of
the Republic, from which Valerius Maximus and even Cicero had
occasionally drawn.
used sources other than Livy in at least parts of his account, and by
virtue of this use, he contributes additional facts than those found
in the remains—and in the other descendants—of the more
expansive historian. A divergence from Livy seems to be present in
those elements in the narration of Velleius which seem to denote a
great deal of sympathy for the Allies. It is tempting to attempt to
locate the origin of this sympathy in his other sources, although
caution must be employed here. After all, Velleius had a somewhat
unique perspective due to his lineage: as he takes pains to observe,
one of his ancestors fought in the war at the head of his own legion
drawn from the Hirpini. While that ancestor himself did not take
part on the Allied side (his loyalty to the Romans is noted with
pride by Velleius), it seems that the scion may have recognized the
justice of the cause.55 On the other hand, it might very well be that
the other source he followed alongside Livy was one with Italian
sympathies. Additional departure from Livy is discerned in the
small amount of space he devotes to the Allied War and the years
to follow, hardly reflective of the fascination this period seems to
have held for Livy.
What the above seems to indicate is either a different source
used by Velleius alongside Livy, a willingness to depart from Livy
from time to time, or both. At the very least, Velleius adds a
different perspective and sometimes different, additional details,
and this makes him valuable even in the face of his deficiencies.
This all the more true in light of the fact that his account,
condensed though it may be, is yet larger than any other existing
historical source besides Appian.
Another follower of Livy, one writing later and with an even
greater economy in his treatment of this epoch than Velleius, is
Florus. His work was written somewhere in the neighborhood of
the mid-second century CE, possibly during the reign of the
Emperor Hadrian: the latter was friends with a poet named P.
55 For a different interpretation, however, see Mouritsen (1998, p. 10),
who holds that Velleius projected this sympathy with the Allies trying to
win citizenship because Velleius was himself aware that the war had been
about independence, making his ancestor’s unwillingness to take part
tantamount to treason to his own people and thus embarrassing.
Annius Florus, and it is sometimes argued that this poet is the same
man as the historian.56 Whether or not he is to be identified with
this intimate of Hadrian, Florus the historian composed a piece
that is best described as a short summary of all the major military
conflicts of the Empire up to the Pax Romana of Augustus, and was
designed to be thus. Given that this was the purpose of his work,
Florus does not necessarily present a complete picture of the
decade and its aftermath, but chooses to focus instead on internal
and external disputes and particularly those which brought violence
with them. His summary of the decades leading up to 91 is
contained in a few short passages representing no more than four
Loeb pages in length, while the remaining period up to Catiline is
covered in no more than ten, exclusive of a brief discursus on the
Servile Wars. Moreover, his presentation is episodic and by no
means adheres to a strict chronology. By way of example, between
his chapters on the “Bellum adversus socios” and the “Bellum
civile Marianum” (the titles Florus himself gives to these episodes),
there comes an account of the Servile War in Sicily which was
actually put down, according to the Periochae, shortly after the
downfall of Saturninus. In other words, Florus places an event
occurring well before two later episodes between those two later
episodes, and these three—the two later ones bookending one
from much earlier—are immediately followed by an account of the
Servile War under Spartacus, which was suppressed many decades
later than all three of them.
Although opinion of him was once much higher,57 Florus is
rarely regarded by modern scholars as a first—or even second-rate
historian for a number of reasons. The first and most significant of
this is his aforementioned extreme brevity. Another is the fact that
56 A possibility mentioned in Edward Forster’s Introduction to the
Loeb text (p. vii–viii), and in den Boer, p. 6.

57 Den Boer, p. 2, where the popularity of Florus in the Middle Ages
receives comment. Also p. 5, where the popularity of Florus in the

centuries leading to Augustine led the latter to draw from Florus almost
extensively, since he could be certain that his own audience would have
been far more likely to have read the “pious and ecstatic” work of Florus
(the words are those of Syme 1958, p. 503) than the more august and less
accessible histories of Livy, Sallust, or Tacitus.
he is prone to moralizing and digressing on the invincibility of

Rome, although this might have been appropriate if, as one scholar
hypothesizes, his work was written to be a textbook, just as was the
case with Velleius.58 The current low opinion of him
notwithstanding, Florus does provide a fair deal of detail which can
usually be attributed to Livy. His connection to that author was so
great that the title of the work, according to the Bambergensus
manuscript which is considered to be the best, is Epitome ... de Tito
Livio Bellorum Omnium Annorum DCC,59 even though it is fairly
certain that Florus used other sources on occasion.60
Much later descendants of Livy are the brief narratives of
Eutropius and Paulus Orosius. The former, composed sometime
towards the end of the fourth century of the Common Era,61 is a
very brief history of Rome from its foundation to the end of the
brief reign of the emperor Jovian. Along the way, he gives a very
short account of the war between the Allies and that fought
between the factions of Marius and Sulla, amounting to no more
than three pages of the same dimensions as those used in this
essay. Most of the information in it is drastically truncated and
incomplete, but similarities between it and the accounts given in
the Periochae and Florus make it fairly certain that Livy was his
primary source for this period, as indeed does his use of ab urbe
condita dating (in fact, the title of his work is Breviarium AUC).62
Orosius began writing a few decades later, producing a work which
was primarily designed as a catalogue of horrors from pagan
58 Den Boer, p. 2.
59 Ibid. It is by no means certain that this was the original title, a fact
noted by Haug, p. 106.
60 Forster, p. viii–ix, mentions Caesar and Sallust as having been used
by Florus for certain, while Haug (loc. cit.) mentions a “Varronian

expression” which found its way into the discussion of Drusus in Florus.
61 Confusions over the author and his life abound, with his identity
generally supposed to be an official in the service of the government

under Gratian, known to be active around the year 381; see den Boer,
p. 114–115.
62 See Haug, p. 213–214; den Boer also speculates that perhaps
Eutropius might have made use of Florus, as well (p. 138).

antiquity, amiong them the “burdens of war”.63 Its purpose was to

show that such recent calamaties as the Sack of Rome in 410 was
not the result of the empire’s conversion to Christianity, and was
designed to supplement Augustine The City of God, which was
written for the same purpose, by its author’s own request (1.1).
Like Eutropius, whose work Orosius was believed to have
consulted, Orosius uses a.u.c. datings, and similarities between his
accounts and those of Florus show that both drew directly from
Livy.64 In fact, in parts of his work—especially in his discussion of
the events of 91–88—Orosius presents a much more detailed and
full account than Florus does. As does Velleius, Orosius provides
information not found in or in the Periochae, but the tone of
language used in these details and the type of facts provided, such
as casualty lists, makes it likely that this information was drawn
directly from Livy as opposed to some other source. In this way,
Orosius contributes to an understanding of the period which in
some small way offsets the loss of the earlier historian.
Such, then, are the remnants of the missing books of Livy. All
of them are brief, especially in their coverage of the 80s BCE,
collapsing into a few pages or even paragraphs what had once been
given many times that amount. The sad contrast between what
once was and what now is having been noted, it remains true that
Livy’s summaries and descendants do provide a not unsubstantial
amount of useful information, supplying names, events, and,
importanty, enough dates that a rough chronology of the decade
63 praeceperas ergo, ut ex omnibus qui haberi ad praesens possunt historiarum
atque annalium fastis, quaecumque aut bellis grauia aut corrupta morbis aut fame
tristia aut terrarum motibus terribilia aut inundationibus aquarum insolita aut
eruptionibus ignium metuenda aut ictibus fulminum plagisque grandinum saeua uel
etiam parricidiis flagitiisque misera per transacta retro saecula repperissem, ordinato
breuiter uoluminis textu explicarem; Orosius, 1.10
64 So Haug, p. 111, 207–212. The wealth of detail given by Orosius in
what he writes of the 80s BCE, which in some parts exceeds that of
Florus (as is mentioned above), shows that Florus could not have been
the only source of these reports and that Livy was used directly, though
there is nothing to preclude the fact that Florus and Eutropius might have
been used for other periods than that surrounding the Allied War; so
Deferrari asserts in the Introduction to his translation (p. xx).
can be constructed. This allows for some measure of a check to be

provided for the main existing source for the decade, that of
Appian of Alexandria.
6. APPIAN OF ALEXANDRIA
Appian, a contemporary of Florus,65 provides what is in terms of
sheer space the largest amount of narration on the period of the
80s BCE as part of his Civil Wars. This, in turn, is a component of
his much larger history of Rome’s expansion, encompassing many
volumes.66 Partly due to the size and completeness of his account,
his has been the most influential study of the age. So dominant is
his text that, it has been argued by by one modern scholar,
Appian’s explanation for the cause of the Allied War—that it was
grounded in the Italian desire for the citizenship, and eventually
erupted after a series of events steadily multiplied that desire until
the Italians were so desperate for the franchise that they resorted to
arms—has blinded modern students to the presence of an
Alternative Tradition, causing them to accept Appian’s aetiology
without putting its veracity to a rigorous test.67 Appian’s
interpretation, this argument continues, rests on the idea that the
citizenship was a commodity of great value, a concept to which
Appian clearly gave credence, since he himself had been born a
non-citizen and acquired the franchise through service to Rome.
Holding this belief himself, Appian is alleged to have applied it to
the Allies when he wrote of thie 80s BCE, which he did in a
section which amounted to a lengthy introduction to the real
subject of his work, the great Roman civil wars. The Allied War
thereby became for Appian a stepping stone leading towards those
65 Den Boer, p. 11.

66 Although on occasion some of the other works will be used,
particularly the Mithridatic Wars (from which a good many of the details
found in chapter 9 are drawn), for the purposes of this essay the things
cited as having come from Appian ought to be assumed as having been
drawn from the Civil War work unless it is stated otherwise in the citation.
67 This is the argiment of Henrik Mouritsen, one made throughout his
Italian Unification but especially on pages 5–22 of that work; see also the
Introduction for a lengthier discussion of Mouritsen’s theory.
wars, it is held, and it is therefore presented as something like a

civil war itself. For Appian, the desire for the citizenship, which he
certainly held, had made a similar aspiration amongst the Italians
the logical explanation for the outbreak of the hostilities in 91.
Because of this, it is argued, Appian does not dwell on the
particulars of why that citizenship was so desired, summarizing the
origin of this craving in the wish on the part of the Allies to “share
in [Rome’s] power and not be subjected to it”, which could only be
granted by being made citizens.68
Other than the fact that desire for the citizenship always
seemed to rise in connection with agrarian reformers,69 the specific
68 τοὺς Ἰταλιώτας ἐπι υμεῖν τῆς Ῥωμαίων πολιτείας ὡς κοινωνοὺς τῆς
ἡγεμονίας ἀντὶ ὑπ κόων ἐσομένους (1.5.34); a similar phrase is found later

on in the same passage, as well as in a later place (1.5.35)
69 It is in part this peculiarity that led Emilio Gabba (1956; note 1,
p. 81–82) to determine that Appian derived much of his early account

from a source which was used up to the end of the Allied War, a source
which was Roman but was not Livy, although the latter was in turn
followed by Appian for the time of Sulla and the subsequent Civil Wars.
Gabba’s reasoning for this speculation is that, while perhaps Appian
might have already selected the desire for the citizenship as that which
drove the Italians to war before he set about writing his text and found a
source friendly to this point of view, it is not necessarily a foregone
conclusion that he did so; it may have been instead that he got this
explanation from his source. After all, Gabba continues, by the time of
the Antonines distinction between citizens and non-citizens had
sufficiently blurred to the point that the franchise would not have been
seen as the only way to participate in the Roman ἡγεμονία. Thus,
Romans—and non-Romans—living in a later age may not have equated
the wish to be equals with the Romans as tantamount to wishing to be
made Roman citizens, as there were other avenues to achieve that end.
Appian’s attribution of the citizenship as the means to gain equality is
therefore somewhat unique, Gabba argues. Furthermore, he continues,
there is the fact that agrarian legislation always seems to attend the debate
over citizenship in Appian, and the passage of these laws seemed to
sharpen the wish for the citizenship (see chapter 4). This, Gabba argues,
was not something which would have been seen as an obvious factor
influencing the urge for the civitas from the perspective of a Greek writing
centuries after the fact, unless it just so happened that agrarian legislation
was of particular interest to Appian, which Gabba held to be unlikely.
circumstances which created or exacerbated this desire are mostly

absent in Appian. Nevertheless, this recent theory continues,
Appian’s explanation proved quite compelling to Theodor
Mommsen, in no small part—according to this scholar—because
Mommsen was living through the period in which an integrated
Germany was being built, and indeed took part in the building of it.
Mommsen therefore understood the need for being a part of a
greater nation and the struggle for full rights against an oligarchy
out to deny them. Because the reasoning of Appian had resonance
with his own particular sensibilities, Mommsen enfolded Appian’s
aetiology of the war into his account, fleshing it out with discussion
of the growing exploitation of the Italians by the Romans which
was made all the more piquant by the fact that the Italians had in
many ways already become throroughly Romanized. It was onto
this foundation that later scholars contributed, by means of the
addition of further economic and politial details.70
The suggestion that Appian selected and arranged his facts to
show the desire for the franchise as the motivating influence
behind the Italians and their involvement in the events of the
period under review, and did so due to his own empathy for that
desire, does not seem too far-fetched. What is slightly less plausible
is a concomitant assertion, which is that Appian chose a source
Therefore, Gabba concludes, while it might have been the case that
Appian chose his source because he already thought that the desire for the
franchise had led to the war, it was more probable that the reverse was
true: Appian had this conception because it was in the source he was
using. This source, Gabba later argues, was one that had to be Roman,
due to its attention to such particulars as the land laws, but also had to be
friendly to the Allies. Gabba has a candidate in mind: he believed
Appian’s source followed to the end of the Allied War to be Asinius
Pollio (p. 79–88; see below).
70 Mouritsen 1998, p. 11–14 (where he diverges sharply from Gabba
by suggesting that Appian’s unique arrangement of facts regarding the war

and its causes, his nuanced chronology, and his understanding of the laws
were the result, not of following a source superior to or at least different
from Livy, but because of his own peculiar desire to have the Allied War
blend into his long chain of events lead directly to the Civil Wars) and p.
23–28.
based on this empathy and following it while willfully ignoring and

thus suppressing—perhaps deliberately—an “alternative tradition”.
This lack of plausibility is in no small part due to the fact that little
compelling evidence for this “alternative tradition” can be adduced.
Moreover, it may have been difficult for Appian to have found
sources which did not attribute the cause of the war to the Italian
desire for the franchise, since the evidence of Cicero, the auctor ad
Herennium, Posidonius (by means of Diodorus), and Livy (as
derived from the Periochae and his abovementioned descendants), all
state that the need for civitas was what inspired the Allies. This
implies that such an explanation was the common one in
thesources from which Appian could have drawn. Finally, it
assumes that Appian used the reasoning for the war as a selection
criterion for his source from the outset, and even that he himself
always had this opinion and did not derive it from the source he
ended up choosing, as others have suggested he might have done.71
It therefore seems reasonable to acquit Appian of burying
some sort of “Alternative Tradition” involving the cause of the
war. Of greater purchase is the assessment that Appian presented
his discussion of the Allied War as part of a greater narrative, and
shaped the events he presented so as to make it fit more easily into
that larger framework. It is to be noted that Appian’s narrative of
the years leading up to the Allied War, and his narrative of the war
itself, is to found in that part of his history specifically devoted to
Rome’s Civil War. That narrative clearly follows a central thesis,
which is that the activities of Gracchi led directly to the Allied War,
which was itself something of a “civil war”,72 and that the
aftermath of that confilict in turn led to the greater Civil War
fought by Sulla. That this theme would influence what Appian
71Gabba, as discussed in earlier note.

72Appian does not, in fact, ever explicitly refer to the Allied War as
kind of a “Civil War”, though interestingly his contemporary Florus does
(2.6.5); perhaps this was a belief then in vogue amongst the historians of
the Antonines. On the other hand, there is Velleius, whose reference to
the Allies as “men of the same race and the same blood” as the Romans
they were fighting could also suggest that the idea of the Bellum Sociale as a
civil war existed even earlier (homines eiusdem et gentis et sanguinis, 2.15.2); this
at least is the thought of Mouritsen (1998, p. 10 and note 18).
chooses to present and what he chooses to omit is patent: years

and sometimes entire decades are left out of his accunt completely,
so as better to illustrate the direct connection between the Gracchi
and the Civil War of Sulla. Perhaps the best example of Appian’s
shading may be found in the rapidity with which his account of the
activities of Saturninus are followed by those of Drusus, completely
passing over the nine years between them in the process (1.4.33–
1.5.35). People and events which are described in other sources and
which seem like they would be important to the Allies and their
cause, such as the revolt of Fragellae (described in Periocha of book
60) and the involvement of the Allies in the Jugurthine massacres
at Cirta (described in Sallust B.J. 26), are left out, while some events
which are included and emphasized by him have, in many
instances, only the nebulous connection of land distribution, the
involvement of the Allies, and some sort of domestic rioting to
justify their mention. Appian apparently feels bound to include the
affair of Saturninus, for instance, but treats it like a digression, and
in his reprise of events leading up to Drusus the connection of the
latter to Fulvius Flaccus and C. Gracchus is given additional
emphasis, while the episode of Saturninus is swiftly forgotten.
Appian is thus interested primarily in illustrating the straight road
between the Gracchi and Sulla. His account would have it that
popular tribunes attempting to redistribute Roman public land and
enlisting the aid of the Allies by promising them the citizenship
brought about war when that promise was not fulfilled, allowing
Sulla to build on his victories as a commander in it such that
eventually he was able to wage a successful war against his own
people that brought him mastery of Rome.
This single-mindedness, for lack of a better word, limits the
information which can be drawn from Appian’s text. Furthermore,
the facts he presents are not proof against doubt, as he also
demonstrates a pronounced tendency towards mistake: his constant
confusion of Lucius Julius Caesar with Sextus Julius Caesar in his
battle-narrative of the year 90 is but one example. Nevertheless,
Appian is valuable due to the fullness of his account and to the fact
that his source for a good portion of the events leading up to the
80s and for much of the war itself was apparently not Livy.
Evidence for this has been discerned in the fact that Appian seems
to entertain a much different opinion of the career and merits of
men like Gracchus and Drusus than is found in the assessment of
the Periochae, Florus, and Orosius.73 Furthermore, in terms of his

arrangement of events and especially in the chronology of the
Allied War, Appian’s account has substantial differences from that
of Livy and his descendants. Rather than assume that Appian used
Livy but rearranged his facts, these differences which appear in his
work are very probably due to the influence from a differnt
source.74
Exactly who this source of Appian’s was remains inscrutable.
One scholar argues that Appian did use Livy even for the Allied
War, but that Livy was used in tandem with a a “geographical
source” which was perhaps Posidonius,75 since the latter’s
employment of geographical arrangement is proven via his use by
Strabo. Another believes that chapters 7–53 of the Bellum Civile
present a unified account, derived from an author who had the
perspective of an Italian, but whose knowledge of Roman politics
and laws make it clear that he was a Roman citizen of some
standing. This author may have been Asinius Pollio: he was known
to have written a work on the Civil War between Caesar and
Pompeius, and his descent from Italian leader Herius Asinius may
have given him the sort of pro-Italian sympathy that is found in
Appian.76 Yet this latter theory is only valid first and foremost if
Pollio wrote an extensive introduction to his subject, which was the
events of almost two generations later than the 80s BCE, and
packed into that introduction the relative wealth of detail that
Appian would take from it. Furthermore, if Pollio was indeed the
unknown source, then Appian would follow him for the 80s. Yet it
is fairly clear that Appian abandons the source he follows up to this
point after chapter 53, and used a different one for the Civil War of
Caesar. Thus, Appian apparently does not use Pollio (if such was
indeed his source) for the very period which was Pollio’s actual
subject, a curious fact for which no sufficient explanation is
73Haug, p. 131–133; Gabba 1956, 13–25.

74For Appian’s chronology, see Appendix I. For arguments against
the interpretation that Appian’s source was Livy all along, from whom he
drew facts but disdained the sequence of events in favor of one of his
own choosing, see Haug (p. 227).
75 Haug, p. 227.
76 Gabba (1956, p. 79–88); see also earlier note.
given.77 In the end, use of Pollio or Posidonius by Appian has not

been, and likely cannot be, determined conclusively.
No matter what his source actually was, however, Appian’s is
a complete account of much greater amplitude than the other
surviving ancient authorities. In addition, Appian not only provides
more information than these other authorites, but often provides
different information than they supply. For these reasons, any
survey of the 80s BCE must rest on this author, and relegate to
lsser importance the descendants of Livy, as well as the other, less
robust texts covering this period.
7. CASSIUS DIO
To judge from the lengthy fragments concerning the Allied War
and its aftermath which are all that remain of them, the coverage of
the 80s BCE in the missing books of Diodorus Siculus was
apparently fairly extensive. So, too, seems to have been the case
with the work of Cassius Dio. The remnants of his books 20
through 35 include snippets of information about the period from
the Gracchi to the death of Sulla of such length and detail that the
loss of this source, even though it was composed at a fairly great
distance from the events they describe, can be met with some
dismay. As to the excerpts that still exist, many of them are
anecdotal and tend to be concerned either with the personal
conflicts of major Romans (Ti. Gracchus vs. Octavius and Scipio,
Drusus vs. Caepio, Lupus vs. Marius) or the grisly (as in the
example of the atrocities committed by the Picentines). Regardless
of these limitations, Dio’s fragments are certainly useful, especially
as many almost certainly descend from Livy. Dio was probably
quite familiar with the earlier historian as part of the extensive
programme of reading he claimed to have made in preparation for
his own work, and while this claim does not necessarily prove use
(as it turns out, Livy is never directly quoted),78 the similarity of
facts found in fragments of Dio to those found in the Periochae,
77This was pointed out by Cuff, p. 186.

78 So Millar (1963, p. 34–38) in a rather cranky section expressing
exasperation with Quellenforschung and exposing its limits.
Orosius, and Florus, as well as the similar tones espousing the

Optimate mindset, accords well with such employment.79
8. OTHER SOURCES: BIOGRAPHY, EXEMPLA, GEOGRAPHY

Apart from the extant works of narrative history and the remnants
of those which have since become lost,80 facts from this period can
also be drawn from a variety of alternative literary sources. Chief
among these are works of biography, of which the best are the
Lives of Plutarch of Chaeronea.81 Among the men about whom
Plutarch has written, his portraits of the Gracchi, Marius, Sulla,
Sertorius, Lucullus, Pompeius, Crassus, and Cato the Younger are
the most important for the decade of the 80s and the events
leading up to it, though some references are also made in his Life of
Caesar. While Plutarch was not writing history in and of itself, the
fact that his subjects were involved in the pivotal actions of this era
led him to include a great deal of historical information in his
biographies. Much of this is of great utility to the modern scholar,
especially as Plutarch often mentions episodes which were either
left out of the extant historical works or were included in sections
which have since become lost. Nevertheless, there are certain
parameters governing the utility of the material supplied by this
author. One of these is the fact that Plutarch was not a historian
but a biographer, and while he seems to have made use of excellent
sources (Livy is certainly one of these and is cited often, as are the
Memoirs of Sulla) the use to which he put the facts he drew from
them was not necessarily historical: events were only included to
the extent that they had a significant impact on the subject, or
79Haug, p. 133–134, 250–252.

80Mention here might also be made of Granius Licinianus, a historian
of the second century CE among whose remnants are some concerning
the years 87–78, which were apparently derived from Livy, and Julius
Exsuperantius, a fourth century author of what is most generously called
an “Opusculum” (it amounts to eleven Teubner pages) derived primarily
from Sallust and containing references which are so general and in many
cases wrong that they are of scant value for the modern historian.
81 Plutarch also supplies the occasional important fact from other
works, such as his Moralia, but the Lives are the more important fountains
of information for this era.
illustrated some important characteristic of his to which Plutarch

wished to give emphasis. Plutarch himself takes note of this fact in
his Alexander: “[I]t is not histories that I am writing, but lives; and
while in the most significant deeds there is not always the
appearance of excellence or wickendess, often some small action or
little joke gives greater insight into the character of a man than his
leadership in battles where thousands fall, or the greatest of
campaigns, or the sieges of cities”.82 Therefore, often things which
the historian, ancient or modern, finds extraneous appears in the
Lives, while that which might otherwise be considered vital is
omitted. Furthermore, Plutarch is often only as good as his
sources, and when these sources were biased, an echo of that bias
is often found in Plutarch. His biography of Marius, for example,
seems rife with a concerted effort to rob its subject, a seven-time
consul renowned for his military prowess, of any ability in the field
whatsoever. There can be little doubt that this effort descends from
Sulla’s attempts to arrogate the accomplishments of his former
superior to himself in his Memoirs, which Plutarch uses almost as
extensively for his Marius as he does for his Sulla.83
These idiosyncracies notwithstanding, Plutarch is often an
excellent source, and certainly of far greater worth than the
collection known as the de Viris Illustribus, which was once
attributed to Aurelius Victor but is now widely held to be of
uncertain authorship and written at an uncertain time.84 This work
mostly consists of the briefest of summaries, very rarely of longer
than a page in length, of the lives of famous men. These are
arranged thematically rather than chronologically (though there is
some chronological order): chapters 64–66 deal with “famous
82 οὔτε γὰρ ἱστορίας γράφομεν, ἀλλὰ ίους, οὔτε ταῖς ἐπιφανεστάταις

πράξεσι πάντως ἔνεστι δ λωσις ἀρετῆς ἢ κακίας, ἀλλὰ πρᾶγμα ραχὺ πολλάκις
καὶ ῥῆμα καὶ παιδιά τις ἔμφασιν ἤ ους ἐποί σε μᾶλλον ἢ μάχαι μυριόνεκροι καὶ
παρατάξεις αἱ μέγισται καὶ πολιορκίαι πόλεων, 1.2. See also Konrad, p.
xxviii–xxi, for the way in which this shading determined what was
presented in the Lives.
83 For a more extensive discussion on the anti-Marian bias in Plutarch,
see Carney (1960, p. 24–31; 1970, p. 2–7).

84 So Walter Sherwin on the first page of the introduction to the
translation he made of most of the text.

tribunes” (to which the chapter on Saturninus, 73, seems clearly to

have belonged, unless his biography was a later addition), chapters
67–70 on Marius, his son, Cinna, and Fimbria (thus the “Mariani”),
and chapters 74–77 on Sulla and men associated with him either in
friendship (Lucullus and Pompeius) or enmity (Mithridates). As to
the contents, they are often a hodge-podge of anecdotes and not a
few of them somewhat lurid, such as those dealing with the final
destinations of the heads of Saturninus and that of Pompeius.
These are mixed in with epigrams, and fairly naked character
assessments,85 of which the former and perhaps the latter too may
all possibly derive from Livy.86 Despite this provenance, if indeed it
exists, much of what is found in the de Viris Illustribus is fairly
useless for the historian, though some facts are of interest (the
alleged suicide of Marius, for example). Nevertheless, even these
must be approached with suspicion, as often the slipshod nature of
the composition lends the strong suspicion of error.
Finally, facts pertinent to the decade of the 80s and the events
before and after can also be found in references made in sources
which are neither historical nor biographical in nature. Some of
these are speeches or political treatises, such as those of Cicero.
Cicero includes allusions to all periods of history in his
declamations and writings, and is therefore hardly surprising that
he would make references to the recent past. The value of these
references has been discussed above, and of similar value are those
make by another writer long thought to be Cicero,87 the now-
anonymous author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium.88 This book, a
manual describing the proper techniques of oratory, was composed
sometime before the advent of Sulla but following the end of
85 See, for example, the first sentence of the life of Cinna: “Lucius
Cornelius Cina flagitiosissimus rempublicam summa crudelitate vastavit”.

86 So Haug, who notes the similarities in the life of Drusus in the de
viris illustribus to the presentation of that figure in the Periochae, Florus,

Orosius, and Dio Cassius; p. 103–125.
87 Cicero makes a number of historical references in his philosophical
treatises, as well.
88 However, see Harry Caplan’s introduction to the Loeb volume,
where evidence for reassigning authorship to one “Cornuficius” is

presented on pages ix–x.
major hostilities in the Italic War, and in the process of raising

points about the methods of crafting and delivering successful
declamations, it quotes many speeches which have bearing on the
period. The references are scattered and lack background, and they
tend to betray a certain popularis sympathy, but they provide detail
found nowhere else and often confirm facts of an improbable
nature found in the greater historical works.
As the Rhetorica ad Herennium is in large part a collection of
excerpts of speeches, so the Strategems of Frontinus is a book
illustrating noteworthy military tactics, some of which also pertain
to this period. Almost all of those which describe events after the
year 100 BCE are drawn from Livy, as seen by the fact that most of
them correspond closely with similar reports (albeit less detailed)
either in the Periochae or other sources derived from that author.
Frontinus therefore occasionally provides some additional
battlefield illustration to supplement the accounts of the major
narratives.
Another source of information about this period can be found
in the exempla provided in the Memorable Deeds and Sayings of
Valerius Maximus, which was composed during the reign of
Tiberius and drawn primarily from Cicero and Livy. His work was
not designed to be a work of history but rather simply as
collections of anecdotes illustrating common philosophical or
rhetorical themes, and as a result the items found in them are
disjointed and often lack contexts at the very least, and are prone to
errors and inaccuracies at the very worst.89 Though he is to be used
with appropriate caution, Valerius Maximus occasionally brings a
personal anecdote to add to the fabric woven by the major
historians. Additional anecdotal material is supplied by Aulus
Gellius, and when this author records events which are also
mentioned in the Periochae, he employs language so similar to that
used by the Epitomator that it can be assumed that, at least for
these episodes, Livy was the source for his Attic Nights. Livy is
assumed also to be thus for Pliny, whose coverage of topics in his
89 See, for example, the footnotes in Shackleton Bailey’s Loeb
translation of Valerius, where such mistakes and the tendency of the

author to make them are noted with great frequency.
Natural History often touches on historical matters and in so doing

not infrequently quotes Livy directly. Furthermore, the geographer
Strabo often cites historical anecdotes in the course of his work,
which often covers the same material as Diodorus Siculus such that
the common source of Posidonius can be assumed for both.
Finally, there are occasional references in such disparate works as
the poetry of Lucan and Ovid and the philosophical dialogue of
Macrobius.
As can be seen, none of these are works of history per se, but
in the course of their exposition they make the occasional historical
reference that provides confirmation of matters covered in these
histories, provides additional insight into those whose details are
sparse, and even offers the occasional sliver of fact not found
elsewhere.
9. THE SOURCES: A SUMMARY

If the time were to be taken to gather together all the written
material in the strictly historical works which treat the years
between 91–77 BCE, it is probable that they would take up fewer
pages of the same dimensions than the chapter of this essay
describing them has thus far taken. This paucity of material can be
supplemented by works which are not strictly historical, such as
those just described, but the result would probably not add more
than fifty additional pages.90 This does not provide the wealth of
evidence for which any modern historian of the period might wish.
Archaeology adds more, but not much: there are coins, whose
value is often pictographic, and the occasional sling-bullet, but that
is about the extent of what artifacts can reveal about the Allies and
their struggle for the citizenship.
The picture that results from the consultation of these sources
must therefore be sketchy at points, and sometimes even the
outline is so faded that the canvas is nearly blank. Yet there is
enough there to produce at least a foreground and the main scene,
90 Greenidge and Clay’s collection of this material runs to about 120
or so pages of this size, although a great deal of that is padded by

narrations of matters outside of Italy, and thus not all of it pertains to the
topic of this essay.
and for reasons cited above, it is a picture that is worthy of being

painted. An attempt to produce such a picture will be provided in
the text to follow. From time to time—and perhaps too often for
comfort—conjecture must be employed to fill in the empty areas,
and sometimes it msy appear to have been daubed on as if with a
knife rather than a fine brush. Even so, it is hoped that the result
will be comparatively life-like, enough to show that the subject is as
noble as any other even if the painter’s technique is sometimes
faulty.
CHAPTER 2:
CAUSES OF ITALIAN DESIRES
FOR THE ROMAN CITIZENSHIP
1. ALLIED DESIRES FOR THE CIVITAS—THE EVIDENCE

In 91 BCE the Italian alles of Rome set into motion a series of
events which brought about warfare with the Romans, and while
the war which began in earnest in 91 had largely died down by 88,
armed violence between Italians and Romans would persist in
some form for the remainder of the decade. As mentioned in the
previous chapter, it is the fundamental argument of this essay that
the actions of the Italians during this period were primarily driven
by their desire, first to become Roman citizens, then to gain full
political and social equality as Roman citizens, and finally to protect
the rights they had won from those who would modify or remove
them. Such an assertion clearly gives rise to some questions, of
which perhaps the most obvious is “Why was the citizenship
sought with such urgency that the Allies went to war to get it and
then keep it?” Unfortunately, the answer to such an inquiry is not
easy to come by. The task is made especially difficult by the fact
that (as mentioned in chapter 1) the sources which are preserved
do not include any which were written by the Allies themselves. As
a consequence, their own justification for the measures they would
ultimately take is absent. Indeed, perhaps a single account
encapsulating the reasons behind the actions of the socii could not
have been written at all, as it might very well have been that not all
of the Allies wanted the same things or wanted them for the same
reasons. It is not beyond reason to suspect that some of the
communities who became members of the Alliance may have had
69
different desires than others, and some of these communities may

have had differences amongst themselves.1 Similarly, the wealthy
amongst the Allied peoples may have had different desires than the
middle class and poor, et cetera. Finally, it may very well have been
that some Allies—either individuals or entire communities—may
in fact have desired complete separation from Rome, and simply
made common cause with the others. Admittedly, there is little
evidence in the sources to confirm their existence, but it perhaps
goes too far to claim that there were not at least some socii who fit
this description.2
Nevertheless, the fact that the franchise was desired by the
Allies is something which almost all the major sources explicitly
state. Pronouncements to this effect are found in the Periochae and,
probably due to their connections with Livy, also in Florus and in
Velleius. Yet they also appear in sections of the narrative of Appian
in which it is not entirely clear that Livy was the source, in Strabo
by whom use of Livy was unlikely, and in Cicero and in Diodorus
Siculus by whom use of Livy was impossible.3 That the civitas was
wanted by the Allies is therefore well attested. On the other hand,
why it was wanted is not so well explained in these sources, and
many of them do not venture an explanation for that desire of any
kind. Others, however, do provide something by way of a reason
1 And in fact this was certainly the case, given the notices that some
cities within an area that mostly went to the Alliance refused to fight
against the Romans, and vice versa (see Chapters 4–5).
2 Contra Henrik Mouritsen (1998, especially pages 5, 5–22), who claims
that the very lack of mention of an Allied independence movement in the

ancient authors is itself evidence that such a motivation did exist, and was
in fact the principal cause for the war, an explanation which has since
been buried (see also previous chapter). In so doing Mouritsen goes in the
opposite direction in terms of the Allies and separation vs.
enfranchisement: according to his account, the socii who made war on
Rome only wanted independence and not the citizenship. For some of his
theories, additional analysis will be provided later on in this chapter.
3 Specifically, Per. 71; Flor. 2.6.18; Cicero, Phil. 12.27; Diodorus 37.18
(see also the related anecdote in 37.13), and in the passages of Velleius,
Appian, and Strabo which are about to be cited in the text above. For the
unlikelihood of Strabo having used Livy, see Haug, p. 133.
CAUSES OF ITALIAN DESIRES 71
for it, which is this: the Allies wanted to be partners in the Empire
which was largely built on their military contributions, rather than
its subjects. This justification is found in Appian4 (1.5.34, 1.5.35),
and a very similar sentiment5 is found in Velleius Paterculus
(2.15.2), while Strabo likewise suggests that “begging for freedom
and political rights without getting them, [the Allies] revolted and
… persisted in the war for two years, until they achieved the
partnership for which they went to war”.6
The implication of these passages seems to be that
dissatisfaction had developed amongst the Italians concerning the
nature of the relationship which governed their interaction with the
Romans, and that they sought the citizenship as a way to redress
this dissatisfaction. What the origins of that dissastisfaction were—
4 Appian mentioned that the Allies οὔτε γὰρ ἠξίουν ἐν ὑπηκόων ἀντὶ
κοινωνῶν εἶναι μέρει (1.5.34; emphasis added); in the very next section
(1.5.35), he describes how the proposal of Drusus to grant the civitas to
the Allies appealed to them τούτου γὰρ δὴ μάλιστα ἐπε ύμουν ὡς ἑνὶ τῷδε
αὐτίκα ἡγεμόνες ἀντὶ ὑπηκόων ἐσόμενοι (again, emphasis added).
5 To prevent confusion later on, at this point it should be pointed out
that while Appian often mentions the citizenship in relation to proposed

land distribution (such as those carried out by the Gracchi and planned by
M. Livius Drusus), he never actually refers to this as a reason for why the
Allies wanted the citizenship. Indeed, this desire apparently predated these
distributions of the ager publicus, as seen by the fact that some of the Allies
wanted the citizenship to such an extent that they are mentioned as willing
to trade whatever they used of that land which held in exchange for it.
Nor, indeed, does that author provide any other reason more concrete
than he nebulous wish to exchange “subject” for “partner” status as
described above. Certainly Appian does state that the socii wanted the
citizenship, and he also quite clearly notes that the land redistribution was
a matter of concern to them, but there is never an explicit comment or
even an implicit hint that the land distribution impelled the Italian urges
for the franchise. To be sure, there very probably was a connection
between the land laws and the heightened need for the citizenship, even if
Appian does not indicate this fact it himself; more on this relationship will
be discussed in the following chapter.
6 δεόμενοι τυχεῖν ἐλευ ερίας καὶ πολιτείας μὴ τυγχάνοντες ἀπέστ σαν καὶ
… δύο δ᾽ ἔτ συνέμειναν ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ μέχρι διεπράξαντο τὴν κοινωνίαν περὶ
ἧς ἐπολέμουν; Strabo, 5.4.2 (emphasis added).
what, in other words, made the Allies feel like “subjects” instead of
“partners”—is never explicitly stated by the sources just cited, nor
indeed by any others. Even so, what seems clear is that, whatever
their grievances were, many of the Italians located amelioration for
them in the acquisition of the citizenship rather than by some other
method, such as separation.7 Why this last would be the case is
7 In his discussion of the “Ancient Tradition on the Social War”,
Mouritsen (1998, p. 5–22) argues that there is ample evidence that the
Allies did want separation rather than integration. In support of this
assertion, he cites several passages of Didodorus in which the Allies are
mentioned as trying to shake off Roman ἡγεμονία in favor of their own,
and to fight for ἐλευ έρια (freedom); 37.2, 37.22, and 37.14 are specifically
noted. Likewise, Mouritsen observes, the very passage of Strabo cited
above (5.4.2) also mentions ἐλευ έρια. Eutropius (5.3) mentions that the
Italian libertatem sibi aequam asserere coeperunt, and Orosius 5.18.2 mentions
that the socii were agitated into arms spe libertatis. Finally, Plutarch in the
Marius states that the Allies 32.3 “came within a little of destroying the
Roman domination” (τὰ γὰρ μαχιμώτατα τῶν Ἰταλικῶν ἐ νῶν καὶ
πολυαν ρωπότατα κατὰ τῆς Ῥώμ ς συνέστ σαν καὶ μικρὸν ἐδέ σαν συγχέαι τὴν
ἡγεμονίαν).
In spite of what Mouritsen claims, however, none of these passages
actually really suggest that separation was sought. Nor do they suggest
that the alliances between Romans and Italians be recast through some
elaborate scheme whereby the Italians would provide half the senate and
one of the consuls in a manner similar to the proposal of the Latins in 340
that is described in Livy 8.4. Mouritsen asserts (op. cit., p. 138–139) that
this passage was not really indicative of the situation in 340, but instead
more actually reflected the desires of the Italians in 91 retrojected into the
past. These claims will be treated more extensively in Appendix A; for the
present, it will suffice that the passages of Diodorus, Strabo, Eutropius,
Orosius, and Plutarch referenced by Mouritsen can be squared completely
and easily with the demand for the citizenship. In the first place, while
Roman ἡγεμονία, which was tantamount to their exploitation of the
Italians, could indeed be broken by total loosening of ties, it could also
easily be broken if the Allies and Romans became equals as citizens. By
attaining equality (libertatem sibi aequam asserere coeperunt, as Eutropius would
have it), the socii could shake off Roman exploitation and therefore be
“free”. It is to be noted that amongst the many connotations for the word
libertas as employed by Roman authors, one of them was certainly a state
of not living under ἡγεμονία (for such interpretations of libertas, see
equally left unexplicated in the sources. It might have been,

perhaps, that there were some injuries which could be better
mended through the franchise rather than by a parting of the ways.
The again, it might also have been that separation would have
satisfied some of the Italians just as well as citizenship would, but
that they believed the Romans would be far more inclined to
incorporate them and thus still have access to their manpower
(more below), albeit under different circumstances, than allow for
complete independence which would deny the Romans that access.
Indeed, several episodes which occurred in the decades before the
outbreak of the war would have illustrated to most of the Italians
that attempts to break away from the association with Rome would
stand little chance of success,8 and that by default more luck could
logically be expected from attempting to join themselves to the
Romans than from attempting to part from them. Too, it might
also have been that the citizenship was desired for more than just a
salving of perceived abrasions. In other words, the Italians may
have wished to become amalgamated with the Romans, not just to
redress greivances, but also because they inherently desired to
become part the Roman culture, or to acquire certain benefits (or
keep those which they had) which could be obtained only through
becoming Romans and would not accrue to the socii through
breaking away from the latter. All of these things might have been
reasons for why the Italians wanted the civitas instead of, or at the
very least more than, they seemed to have wanted separation. It is
likely there were others, ones which will never be learned for
Morstein-Marx, p. 216–222). It was the hope of this—the spes libertatis of

Orosius—that motivated their desire for the citizenship, allowing them to
be partners and not subjects (as per the places in Appian quoted above),
and it was to attain this κοινωνία (partnership) and the ἐλευ έρια it would
bring that the Italians fought (see, again, the quotation of Strabo above).
Therefore, all the passages in the ancient authors just cited easily fit into
the model adopted by this essay, one of the Allies wanting the citizenship
and taking up weapons to demonstrate their displeasure when the hope of
acquiring it was taken from them one time too many; for more on these
refusals, see next chapter.
8 More below; see also Chapter 3.
certain due to what the sources say and, more importantly, what
they do not.
The fact of the matter is that those sources only directly assert
that the Italians wanted the franchise because they felt entitled to it
due to their extensive role in the construction of an empire in
which they were not “partners”. Having often voiced this
aspiration, they ultimately fell to the casting of pila when that
citizenship was denied to them repeatedly and in such a manner
that it became obvious that Rome was never going to acquiesce to
their petition voluntarily. In sum, why specifically the citizenship
was desired by the Allies—if to eliminate distress, than what the
cause of that distress might be; if to gain or keep benefits particular
to the franchise, what those benefits were—has not been preserved
in the accounts which remain.
The lack of the exact reasons which impelled the desire for
the franchise therefore represents a lacuna in the sources. Another
lacuna is why that desire became so acute that it led to bloodshed
at the particular time that it did, as opposed to earlier or later.
These grievances, benefits, or both—were they of such a nature
that they had sprung into being or become overwhelmingly
important around the year 91? If so, why? If they were not, and if,
for example, they were of long duration, why did they lead to a
conflagration (as the sources clearly state that they did) specifically
in 91 as opposed to a hundred, fifty, or even ten years earlier, or
the corresponding amount of time later?
The next two chapters will attempt to find answers to the
questions discussed above. These answers will be conjectural,9 to
9 On page 12 of his monumental work Italian Manpower, which is

critical to any understanding of Roman and Allied relations during the
Republic, P. A. Brunt feels the need to apologize for the fact that
throughout his work he will have to keep reminding the reader that many
of his theories are just that: theories, and ones which lead to conclusions
which—due to the evidence from his sources which is occasionally
unreliable and sometimes actually even missing—are far from certain. In
this apology, he notes how a philosopher chided him for such reminders
that by observing that, in stating something may have been the case, he is
invariably setting up the possibility that the exact opposite may be true.
Nevertheless, Brunt apparently felt that this was the only way he could
be sure: again, none of the sources were written by the Allies

themselves, making their exact motivations impossible to
determine with certainty. Nor, indeed, do the extant Greek and
Roman sources bring even a biased attempt to provide this
knowledge, let alone an impartial one. Nevertheless, there is
enough evidence in both literary and non-literary sources to make a
fair amount of speculation possible. Based on these speculations
the pages to follow in the current chapter will attempt to bridge the
first of these gaps in understanding, id est the possible reasons for
wanting the citizenship.
Some of these conjectured reasons will have been of a long-
standing nature, dating back to the circumstances which dictated
the creation of the treaties which bound the Allies to Rome in the
first place. Others will have come into being after those foedera were
cast—some gradually over the centuries, some rather more
suddenly—as the result of a variety of political, social, and
economic changes which occurred within Italy and amongst the
Italians. Because many of these progressed over an extended
period, they resist incorporation into a larger, more chronologically
delineated narrative, and require a separate chapter for their
justify many of his conclusions, and while “(r)eiterations of uncertainty

make for tedious reading”, these reiterations would ultimately serve the
interests of candor and truth.
As much as this was true for his project, so much—and perhaps more
so—is it true for this one. As mentioned above and in the previous
chapter, the Allies apparently never wrote their own history and therefore
never passed down their own reasons for going to war. If they did indeed
want the citizenship, as the Greek and Romans who wrote about them
almost unanimously assert, they gave no reasons why they wanted it, and
these extant sources (as seen above) do not provide even suggestions of
their own for why that might be beyond noting their need to be “partners
instead of subjects”. Therefore, “conjecture”, “probable”, “possible”, and
“perhaps” (along with many synonyms) will appear frequently in this
chapter and throughout this essay, even though such words run the risk of
weakening the force of the argument. It is a risk which must be taken,
however, since to those who attempt to explain an occurrence in the
absence of concrete facts, plausibility is all that remains. Following the
reasoning of Brunt, this fact must be acknowledged ab initio and
perpetually throughout the explanation.
analysis lest overly frequent asides interrupt later chapters. Such an

analysis will be presented here. This analysis will in turn form the
basis of an argument, one stating that the reasons it will conjecture
for why the Allies wanted the civitas were also ones which led to an
increasingly overwhelming urge to obtain it. This urge then created
or contributed to a rising tension between Rome and the Italians,
tension that was from time to time exacerbated by specific persons,
laws, and episodes which began to occur more frequently from the
time of Tiberius Gracchus and culminated at last in the events at
Asculum. Those specific events lend do themselves to a larger,
more chronologically delineated narrative, and will therefore be the
topic of the chapter after this one.
To conclude: the function of this chapter will be to attempt
provide an understanding of the ways by which the Romans and
the Allies were connected to each other, and why that connection
eventually became unbearable to the point of explosion. It will thus
provide the scenery and the prologue, as it were, to the more
dramatic episodes to follow in the next chapter.
2. THE NATURE OF ITALIAN ALLIANCES WITH ROME

An element crucial to the survival, success, and growth of the
Roman commonwealth was the series of alliances it contracted
with other powers and communities it encountered as it expanded
through Italy. Because Roman foreign policy in all aspects evolved
gradually over the course of time, and because Rome came into
contact with its neighbors under a variety of different
circumstances, it is impossible to give a precise, standard set of
procedures which governed the way these alliances were struck.10
10 That the nature of Roman alliances changed over time is argued
convincingly by Sherwin-White, who postulates that Rome, having

discovered that the early alliance it made with the Latins did not entirely
serve its later manpower purposes, first attempted different kinds of
Alliance based on the civitas sine suffragio (about which more below) before
settling into the foedus arrangements which it made with states like those of
the Samnites and others (p. 26–33, 56). Nor does the assertion that the
Romans often adjusted and altered their foreign policy initiatives—and
occasionally changed the instruments by which that foreign policy was
conducted—rest entirely on the development of the foedus; it can also be
Over the centuries Rome entered into alliances with states with
whom there had been no antipathy or rivalry of any kind, had made
alliances with potentially hostile powers to forestall a threatened
war, had used alliances to end wars in progress but not yet decided,
and had constructed alliances with enemies it had thoroughly
defeated, ones into which the beaten party would be compelled as
part of the terms by which peace would be declared. The specific
terms of the each treaty (foedus) creating the alliance would be
peculiar to the situation which dictated its creation,11 although
some commonalities definitely existed. For example, defeated
peoples compelled by loss in battle to enter a foedus would typically
be subjected to certain kinds of penalties—such as confiscation of
territory—which would generally not attach to others who had
seen in the evolution of the use and meaning of the term provincia (as
discussed by Richardson 1986, p. 5–10). Nevertheless, while the results of
Sherwin-White’s analysis are persuasive as far as its claim that the nature
of treaties changed over time, that analysis still proceeds from the
assumption that Rome was gradually working through trial models which
eventually led to a fixed policy represented by the so-called foedus iniquum.
This latter assumption will be rejected in this essay due to the compelling
arguments against such a thing made by Badian and Gruen (see below).
11 This difficulty of defining a set pattern to Roman treaties of alliance
has not deterred a number of scholars in the early part of the twentieth
century from attempting to provide just such a pattern. Following a few
short passages in Cicero and Livy, there was for long a tendency to
identify two types of Roman alliance. Those between Rome and another
Italian community entered into as equals which were the results of a type
of treaty called a foedus aequum. By contrast, those made between those
states which Rome had either compelled through defeat or intimidated
into an agreement with Rome, one which clearly recognized as the
superior power, were made by a so-called foedus inequum. This dichotomy
was shown to be suspect by Badian (1958, p. 25–29, citing the ancient
authorities on which they were based) by means of arguments neatly
summarized and expanded by Gruen (1984, p. 14–15). It has thankfully
now largely been abandoned in favor of the approach which holds that
the wide variety of treaties Rome made suggests that foedera were each
independent entities, not the result of an aequum/iniquum pattern (Lomas,
p. 39; but see Hantos 1983, p. 150–183).
readily entered the arrangement with Rome.12 Thus, despite the

many variations in the foedera enacted between the Romans and the
Italians, it is possible to speak of a few elements which they all
shared. An understanding of these is vital for an appreciation of the
ties between the Romans and the Italians before the outbreak of
the long war they were about to wage, a war fought ultimately for
the purpose of altering the nature of those ties.
The first of these common features of the foedus is the patent
assumption on both sides that it was to be permanent. Evidence
for this can be drawn in the first place by one of the earliest
treaties13 which Livy records as being made by the Republic
(2.32.4), one drawn up between the Latins and the Romans during
the consulate of Spurius Cassius in 493 BCE and thus just a few
years after the expulsion of the Tarquins. The terms of this treaty,
the so-called foedus Cassianum, are also recorded by Dionysius of
Halicarnassus (6.95). Among these provisions is one stipulating
that, once made, its terms were expected to be followed “as long as
the heavens and the earth occupy their current position” (μέχρις ἂν
οὐρανός τε καὶ γῆ τὴν αὐτὴν στάσιν ἔχωσι), a fair indication of its
intended perpetuity.
Because specifics on other treaties are often lacking,14 it
cannot be claimed with absolute certainty that this treaty is
paradigmatic of others. That said, the existing evidence strongly
suggests that this perpetuity was a feature of all foedera. For one
12 So Lomas, loc. cit.. Moreover, in his study of Roman treaties with the
Greek East, Gruen (op. cit., p. 16–25) states that—some differences caused
by the specifics of the events which created them notwithstanding—
foedera conducted with foreigners outside of Italy often differed from the
ones established with the Italians due to a more “bilateral” nature of the
former, patterned on the sort of compacts the Hellenic states had used
between themselves.
13 It was also apparently a fairly important one; Cicero (Pro Balbo
23.54) could speak of its having been engraved on a bronze column

standing at the back of the Rostra until his own time.
14 While Livy will mention what properties were confiscated to end
wars, his notices about the language of the treaties themselves tend to be
brief, usually restricted to “a treaty was made”; see, for example, 7.11.15,
9.45.16, 10.3.2, and 10.12.2.
thing, those states which entered into a covenant with Rome and
then broke it would be forcibly returned into the alliance, as
happened at the conclusion of both the Second and Third Samnite
Wars, when Livy reports “the old treaty was restored to them”
(foedus antiquum Samnitibus redditum; 9.45) and the Periocha of his
book 11 reports that “the treaty was renewed for the fourth time”
(Pacem petentibus Samnitibus foedus quarto renovatum est). Moreover, the
idea that these foedera were expected to be eternal rather than
temporary is further reinforced by the existence of the indutiae, a
series of temporary non-aggression pacts often employed by
Romans in the third century which were patently distinguished
from foedera by their temporary nature. Indeed, on several occasions
Italian communities asked for foedera with Rome to secure a
permanent alliance and were turned down in favor of indutiae of
varying lengths.15
On occasion foedera could be renegotiated, and sometimes
substantially: for example, Dionysius notes a provision in the foedus
Cassianum that allowed for alterations to be made by mutual
consent.16 In fact, Livy records that this very treaty was altered after
the Latins broke it and had to be defeated in a large war in 339
(8.13–16), and the same author notes that Ardea successfully
petitioned to have a slight modification in their foedus (4.7.10). What
never appears, however, is a complete dissolution of an alliance
with any Italian people once it had been made. The attitude which
Rome manifestly took about the adamantine nature of the foedera—
as revealed by what happened when the Italians attempted to break
them, by the contrast between foedera and indutiae, and by the terms
recorded in the foedus Cassianum—provide the clear signal that
alliances once made were designed by the Romans to last forever.
In addition to their unending nature, another aspect of the
foedus was the obligation of the signatories—both Romans and
those who, by means of the treaty, were now known as socii or
“Allies” of Rome—to support each other in warfare, specifically by
means of providing soldiers for each other in future wars. Alliances
15 Lomas, p. 39; Harris 1971, p. 48–57

16 ταῖς δὲ συν καις ταύταις μ δὲν ἐξέστω προσ εῖναι μ δ᾽ ἀφελεῖν ἀπ᾽
αὐτῶν, ὅ τι ἂν μὴ Ῥωμαίοις τε καὶ Λατίνοις ἅπασι δοκῇ; loc. cit.
with these terms are encountered from the most ancient history of
the city,17 and were certainly a standard component of Roman
policy from the earliest days of the Republic. This can readilty be
seen in the aforementioned foedus Cassianum, among whose terms is
that the Romans and the Latins would “assist each other when
warred upon with all their forces” ( ο είτωσάν τε τοῖς
πολεμουμένοις ἁπάσῃ δυνάμει; Dion. Hall., loc. cit.). Clearly mutual
military aid of some magnitude was expected from each party,
although it is quite probable that the “all the forces” part was an
exaggeration.
As it happened, this initial treaty with the Latins actually
allowed them considerable freedom to contribute troops to Rome
on a basis short of complete commitment of all of their available
manpower. These freedoms included the right to refuse to supply
troops if the security of the Latiar was not threatened, such that it
allowed them not to take part in Rome’s adventures in the southern
Italy. Furthermore, the Latins retained the liberty to make war
independently of the Romans, and to do so without Roman
approval or consent.18 So flexible were the terms of the foedus
Cassianum, it seems, that Rome presently grew to find them
problematic for their eventual military aims. Hence, the
Commonwealth did not incorporate them into its future Alliances,
and indeed removed them from the alliance with the Latins in
17 According to Livy (1.27), as far back as the monarchy: following the
fabled victory of the Horatii over the Curiatii, an alliance was made
between Rome and Alba Longa which involved the Albans pledging to
provide soldiers for future Roman campaigns. The terms of this
agreement were violated in a most treacherous way by Mettius Fufetius,
with the result that Alba Longa was absorbed into the Roman state after
his gruesome end (for which see also Dion. Hal. 3.28–30).
18 So Livy 2.53.5; 3.6.5–6; 4.45.4; 8.2–4. These passages are all cited by
Sherwin-White (p. 22–25), who has a great deal to say about the initial
Roman-Latin compact and the extent to which Rome eventually found its
terms “inconvenient”; having subsequently come to recognize their
mistake in making a treaty with a League, in the future the Romans would
only make treaties with individual towns, thus allowing them better to
assert their manpower demands with the other signatory.
338.19 The modifications made to subsequent foedera gradually

brought it to pass that the military association between Rome and
her Allies evolved to the point where the decision to make war
rested entirely with the Romans, the socii having become limited
only to providing troops when these were demanded. The role the
Allies eventually came to play is described in a passage of Livy
describing the Rome’s preparations for war against the Ligurians, in
which the Allies are recorded as playing no other role than
furnishing men for the Commonwealth (34.56). It is more explicitly
laid out in the exposition of Polybius on the Roman “constitution”,
in which that author states that the Romans could command a
great deal from the Italians: when war was declared, the consul
“could ask whatever he wanted from the Italians by way of
soldiers” (καὶ γὰρ ἐπιτάττειν τοῖς συμμαχικοῖς τὸ δοκοῦν), and they
were expected to comply.20 In practice, how many soldiers each
Allied community furnished probably varied, but by the second
century BCE the total numbers of socii serving with the Roman
army very probably excelled those of actual Roman citizens in the
legions, and by a wide margin: modern scholarship has estimated
that Romans contributed a little more than a third of their own
army, with the rest supplied by the Allies.21
In addition to their permanent nature and the manpower
contributions which they required, there was another common
element in the Roman treaties. This was the implicit understanding
that they were struck between Rome and the other parties which
were to be regarded as separate communities, ones which remained
for the most part free and independent after the treaty was made.
This likewise seems to have been true from the beginning: while in
Rome’s earliest history there is occasionally a notice that the
19 Livy 8.13–16; see also Sherwin-White, loc. cit.

20 Polybius 6.12; 6.21. That author’s implication that Roman demands
for soldiers was unbounded is apparently somewhat inaccurate, as most
modern scholars believe that the expected contribution was set by each
individual foedus per a formula whose specifications were apparently
outlined between the Romans and representatives from the Allies as each
war arose, as per (Nicolet 1988, p. 34).
21 So Brunt (1971, p. 677–668); Mouritsen (1998, p. 43–44) agrees,
although see Rich (p. 321–323) for some disputes with this figure.
Romans gave their citizenship to certain Italian allies,22 those Allies

to whom such an offer was not made, or who received an offer but
did not accept it,23 retained their nominal independence from
Rome and continued their existence as individual, unconnected
states. In other words, while the socii were bound by certain
obligations to Rome, their people were not made Roman by the
Alliance, something which all understood.
That the foedera did draw some socii close to the Romans
cannot be denied, to the extent that some of them were accorded a
status known as civitas sine suffragio. Recipients of this were made
Roman in almost every aspect, lacking only the vote.24 As such they
were entitled to certain wartime considerations not available to
other socii. One of the most important of these was that cives sine
suffragio were apparently numbered on the Roman census and were
chosen for service in Rome’s armies by means of the dilectus (the
process by which Roman citizens were mustered into service)
instead of supplying contingents by means of the formula togatorum
(that by which the Allies supplied their required numbers).25 This
would be especially meaningful under those circumstances in which
a dilectus was cancelled (about which more below). Moreover, cives
sine suffragio were grouped with the Romans in the field and treated
22 Tusculum, Antium, Lanuvium, and Satricum, for example; see Livy

8.14.2, 9.15.7
23 As was the case with the Hernici in 305, according to Livy 9.45
24 Sherwin-White (p. 40–46), however, argues convincingly that the
civitas sine suffragio was more even than that: it was, by his argument,
originally a grant of the citizenship in all respects, including the vote,
provided that the recipient relocated to Rome. This is plausible enough,
especially for the early Republic.
25 So Sherwin-White (p. 58). Brunt, however, is not entirely in
agreement with this assessment, and expresses some doubt about the
mechanism by which cives sine suffragio raised their men (1971, p. 16–21).
Due to the testimony of Polybius and Livy stating that the dilectus was
conducted by tribe (to which the cives sine suffragio did not belong), Brunt
suggests that instead the cives sine suffragio drew up their contingents locally
(p. 631), in a manner similar to the way in which the Allies had done ex
formula togatorum.
as Romans in camp.26 Despite these and various other wartime

benefits (about which more later), there is some indication that the
bequest of the civitas sine suffragio was not at first entirely appreciated
by those to whom it was given. Indeed, it was apparently resented
early on, having been seen as a punishment by the Italians on
whom it was visited since it meant giving up their own local laws,
institutions, and magistrates in favor of those of the Romans,
which they had had no part—and would have no part—in
making.27 Over time, however, it would come to be highly prized.
At any rate, whether it was welcomed or not, the civitas sine
suffragio was not bestowed often. On the other hand, slightly more
common was another type of association with Rome known as the
nomen Latinum. Originally an association made, as its name implies,
between the Romans and the Latins, those with whom this
arrangement was installed enjoyed, like the cives sine suffragio certain
26 So Brunt (op. cit., p. 19), adding that, if this was not from the
beginning, it was at least true by the Hannibalic war. The consequence for
this in terms of military discipline will be explored below.
27 Lomas, p. 31; Nicolet 1988, p. 26. It is important to remember that
until after the Allied War there existed no concept of “dual citizenship” in
the Roman community. Before the 80s BCE, one was either a Roman
citizen or a citizen of another community, and becoming one necessarily
meant abandoning the status of the other, for which see also Gabba
(1976, p. 100–103) and Sherwin-White (p. 111). The latter also argues that
the civitas sine sufragio had initially been bestowed as an intermediate step to
allow those who received it to become Roman if they wished but, should
they elect to continue to reside in their own communities, would not
forfeit the Roman privileges accorded to them (p. 40–46). Salmon (1982,
p. 162–163) believes that there was in addition an “honorary citizenship”
with which the civitas sine suffragio was sometimes confused, due to the fact
that it, too, did not bring the vote but did rid those to whom it was given
of other responsibilities such as military service (such recipients included
Caere, Fundi, and Formiae, as reported in Aulus Gellius 16.13.7 and Livy
8.14.10). The basis for his argument is that this “honorary citizenship”,
one which was apparently not called civitas honoraria but may have been
referred to as hospitum publicum, was apparently always welcomed, whereas
the civitas sine suffragio was not (see text above). This argument is not
terribly persuasive, and seems to multiply the issue needlessly; hence, it
plays no role in the analysis presented here.
additional privileges over and above those spelled out in their

foedera. These included the right of legally recognized marriages
with Roman citizens (conubium), that of drawing up legally binding
contracts with Romans (commercium), and the ability to become a
Roman citizen by taking up residence in Rome (ius migrationis),
though this last was subject to certain provisions.28 It also appears
that any Latins happening to be in the city when voting was to be
done could cast a ballot, albeit in one tribe determined randomly by
lot.29 While this status, as mentioned above, was originally drawn
up between Rome and the Latins through their treaties, “Latin
privileges” were occasionally extended to Italians of other
ethnicities (the Oscans of Southern Italy, for example) who had not
been granted them in their initial Alliance, usually as a reward for
some extraordinary service done for the Republic.30 The nomen
Latinum also came to govern the manner by which many of the
colonies Rome founded were associated with the parent city, with
that rank accruing not only to those Allies who joined the venture
but also to those Romans who took part. Since the change in
residence meant a change in citizenship, those Romans who joined
the colony would be Roman no longer, but as members of the
28 On the nomen Latinum see Nicolet (1988, p. 31–37) and Stockton,
p. 108–109. See also Sherwin-White (loc. cit.), who postualtes that the
nomen Latinum came from the original foedus Cassianum and that the civitas
sine suffragio (whose privileges are substantially much the same as the nomen
Latinum) in turn derived from it. Both allowed the Allies to become
Roman citizens merely by changing domicile but extended certain
privileges to those who elected to remain where they were, and, in the
case of the nomen Latinum, to remain there under their own laws and
institutions.
29 So Sherwin-White (p. 91) and Nicolet (1988, p. 231).
30 So Sherwin-White (loc. cit.), who argues that both the civitas sine
suffragio and the nomen Latinum—whose regular appearance in foedera

represented steps in the evolution of Rome’s policy of alliance which
would lead to the foedus iniquum model—had brought certain difficulties to
the Romans, such that they eventually stopped offering them as part of
their foedera. It has been suggested by some scholars that this alteration in
policy represented a change in Rome’s willingness to offer the citizenship
to the Italians from their earlier, more generous attitude; these are cited by
Badian (197l, p. 385–387), who argues against this position
nomen Latinum they could always return to Rome and resume their
former civitas.31 Furthermore, as members of the nomen Latinum
colonists became Rome’s socii, which meant that they would be
expected to furnish troops for the Roman army. In this way,
colonization posed no diminishment to Roman military
manpower.32
As can be seen, then, some Italian Allies were more intimately
bound to the Romans than others. These notwithstanding, a good
many were formally connected to Rome only on a military basis. In
a number of ways informal connections brought even these latter
Italians closer to the Romans than their treaty-status would
indicate, but legally speaking such Italian communities remained
what they had been before the foedus had been made: separate
states, whose connection to Rome was military and for whom there
was no question that they would be integrated into the Roman
citizen body.
It bears repeating that, the relative degree of affinity of some
the Italian Allies to the Romans notwithstanding, Rome and
Rome’s socii were mainly connected through treaties which formed
alliances primarily of a military nature. It may therefore be argued
that the most important provision of these treaties was that which
gradually became standard in the foedera, one which called for the
placing of Italian soldiery at Rome’s disposal, to fight in wars
declared by Rome and for purposes devised by Rome, for which
31 Either through the ius migrationis or through another privilege of the
nomen Latinum, that of postliminium, whereby Romans or Latins who

voluntarily renounced their citizenship in their hometown by moving to
the city of the other people might get it back if they returned; see
Sherwin-White, p. 292–293.
32 In fact, Rome very likely increased her manpower through this
process. Nicolet (loc. cit.) argues that—based on the assumption that only
the poorest of Romans would voluntarily renounce their home and
citizenship in exchange for the grant of land in a Roman colony—most of
the Roman colonists were the so-called capite censi. Their lack of property
meant that they would not have been eligible for military service while still
citizens of Rome. However, once enriched by the land grant in the colony,
they now could be called on to fill out the contingents sent by the colony
to Rome through its duty as a Roman socius.
Allied permission was unnecessary and their advice not

infrequently unsolicited. It is not difficult to perceive the
advantages these arrangements brought to one side of the equation,
id est the Roman side: after concluding the foedus, the Romans could
ever after call upon its socii to aid them in battle at practically no
cost to themselves (in terms either of liquid assets or political
capital).33 Rome could thereby employ mammoth numbers, which
were all the more valuable in an age when simplicity of tactics not
infrequently meant that numerical superiority could win battles and
even wars for armies despite the occasional strategic deficiencies of
their commanders.34
The socii were clearly less well-treated by these arrangements,
though their connections with Rome certainly did have some
benefits. First among these would be the simple fact that through
these foedera the Allies no longer had to worry about Rome as a
potential enemy (in the case of those who had made a foedus in the
absence of hostilities), or a present one (in the case of those who
made a foedus to stave off an imminent war or conclude one already
underway). In the latter case, a treaty with Rome would likewise
have presented the considerable advantage of preventing the
complete destruction of the city by Roman hands. Moreover,
affiliation with the Commonwealth meant that the safety and
security of Allied communities would be guaranteed by Rome,
which could come to their aid in times of trouble with an immense
army drawn from its own large pool of military manpower
supplemented by that of all of its other allies. Furthermore, by 293
Rome’s stature in the peninsula and the network of alliances it
For more on these costs, see below.

33
34For such deficiencies see Adcock, who ventures so far as to assert
that, while Rome must have had excellent generals during the early
Republic, the first Roman in whom real strategic brilliance may be
discerned is Scipio Africanus (p. 105–109). This assessment is probably
excessive, but it is worthwhile to remember that Pyrrhus of Epirus lost his
war, not through poor planning and execution, but through realization
that the Romans would always have more men than he would: he was not
outgeneralled, but outmanned. Badian also comments on Roman practice
of always outnumbering their enemies, or of trying to do so if they could
not (1968, p. 5–6).
maintained with the other communities in it virtually guaranteed

that no state in Italy would attack another.35 It was therefore with
some justification that Rome could claim—as it frequently did—
that it had brought peace to a land not entirely known for it,36
whose benefits to the Italians are obvious. Additionally, Rome
played a substantial role in safeguarding Italy from outside threats,
and had done so as recently as the year 100, just ten years before
the outbreak of war between Rome and her Allies.37 Likewise, as
associates—albeit not equal partners—in Rome’s victories and,
35 Except, again, when Rome was the state undertaking the offensive
to punish those breaking the terms of the foedera; for more on this internal
peace, see below.
36 As observed by Brunt (1988, p. 111–117) and Salmon (1967,
p. 293–294; p. 312–313; 1982 p. 72, p. 82–83). Doubtless this

peacemaking was appreciated by some of the Allies but, as will be seen
below, it was not always seen as an advantage by all of them, a perception
for which in some instances there was good reason.
37 By way of repelling the Germanic invasions of the Teutones and
Cimbri. Indeed, Brunt (1988, p. 129–130) and Salmon (1967, p. 335)

suggest that this conflict posed a turning point in Roman-Allied relations,
about which more below. Mouritsen also comments on the role of Rome
as guardian of Italy (1998, p. 42–44). His commentary makes the point
that the Romans may deserve less credit than they claimed for this role,
observing that, in the first place, the large percentage of Italians in the
Roman army meant that the Italians were more or less defending their
own peninsula as much as Rome was defending it for them, and in the
second, that Rome was hardly motivated to fight for the safety of Italy by
anything but self-interest. However, these arguments do not entirely
diminish the stature of the Romans as protectors of Italy. On the one
hand, the fact that the Commonwealth was helping to protect Italy out of
self-interest does not negate the fact that it was nevertheless still so doing.
Furthermore, even if his estimation (or, rather, that of V. Ilari, whom he
cites on page 42 n. 17 and page 44 n. 22) of the numbers involved is
correct and the non-Latin allies contributed as much as forty percent of
the Roman army alongside the twenty-seven percent contributed by the
Latins, then the remainder would still have been sent by Rome, and the
numbers of its contingents would have far outnumbered those from any
one single Allied state. The Allies may thus have played a large role in
defending their own land, but Rome played a larger one by far, in whose
absence such a defense might very well have failed.
later, in her hegemony, the Allies could likewise find a number of

avenues for economic advancement; these and other certain
benefits will be discussed later.
It has been observed thus far that from the very beginning of
the Republic, and indeed almost from the very foundation of the
city, Rome had forged bonds between itself and the Italian
communities it had come across by means of treaties of alliance. By
the first century BCE these treaty connections extended to almost
every community throughout the whole of Italy. Such treaties were
to be perpetual, and while they did not absorb the Italians with
whom they were made into Rome, they did allow the Romans to
make use of a fairly colossal host of soldiers to accomplish its
military objectives. These objectives were ones that the Italians
came to play no part in framing, and were ones about which they
were frequently not even consulted. Yet in spite of the unequal
standing in their relationship, the Allies stood to gain a great deal
from Rome; some of these benefits have been described above,
and others will be described below. The fact that alliance with
Rome did have its rewards had been true from the beginning and
would continue to be true until the very brink of the cataclysm that
erupted in 91. Nevertheless, these gains at all times came at the
price of shouldering burdens even beyond that imposed by the
underlying inequality of the affiliation with the Romans. Such
burdens must always have been inconvenient at their very least; at
their very worst, however, they could become so intolerably
oppressive that eventually a change was demanded. What those
additional burdens were will be described below.
3. THE DRAWBACKS OF ALLIED FOEDERA:

COSTS OF MILITARY SERVICE38
As the Romans became more and more powerful, their obvious
utility as allies and the terror they inspired as enemies seems to
have done much to discourage their socii from attempting to break
away from their compacts with the Republic by force. While these
attempts had happened on occasion in the fourth century, they had
38 Much of the analysis to follow was presented, albeit in a greatly
truncated form, in Kendall, p. 105–123.

almost completely ended (with one notable exception to be

discussed in the next chapter) after the Second Punic War, in which
Rome had suffered a savage beating but had emerged, if not
stronger than before, than certainly stronger than any other major
power in the Western Mediterranean by dint of being the only such
power left. By the year 91, the realities of post-Hannibalic War Italy
were such that it was almost certainly understood by any aggrieved
ally that to make war on the Romans and stand any chance of
success would require help: no one Italian community could ever
stand alone against the Romans. If such a war was attempted to be
and help were sought, the obvious source for such aid would be
other Italians. These would have the advantages of being close at
hand, familiar to their would-be partners, and have the additional
effect of reducing Roman numbers by denying them their own
soldiers. In fact, when the Allied War came this is exactly what
occurred: twelve peoples, all Italian socii,39 combined to wage war
on the Romans.
That this combination could come into being at all meant that
all twelve peoples in it had been persuaded to fight a war whose
victory was by no means a foregone conclusion. Studies of the
specific peoples who engaged in it reveal that such a motivation
was not based on ties of tribal affinity; in other words, common
cultural, ethnic, and linguistic elements among the Allies were
either absent, or not strong enough to guarantee that the
communities would risk annihilation at Rome’s hands merely based
on the urge to support each other on the basis on consanguinity.40
39 See chapter 4 for a list of these and the sources for that list.
40 As Salmon’s studies have shown (and as he explicitly states: 1967,
p. 341–344), all of the peoples who formed the initial Alliance against the
Romans were either Oscan-speaking Sabellians or had spoken a related
dialect in the past; in fact, he even goes so far as to venture that Roman
malfeasance towards them (see below) was at least in part due to their
non-Latin origins (1958, p. 168 n. 38). However, while some of these
communities were doubtless close to each other and had had a history of
cooperation (as can be seen, for example, in their cooperation in running
their port of Pescara; Salmon, op. cit., p. 161; also 1982, p. 24), others were
not particularly intimate with their eventual partners. By way of example,
see Salmon’s discussion of the reaction of the Frentani to the expansionist
This in turn means that all of the members of the confederacy

must have been convinced to join it, not by kinship, but by the
prospect of what a successful war would bring: it would either
result in their acquisition of something they wanted, or would lead
to an end of something they did not want. According to almost all
of the ancient sources, the Roman citizenship would essentially
represent both of these possibilities. As mentioned before, these
sources state that the Allies wanted the civitas, and that this desire
was motivated to a great degree by a need to be treated as partners
in an empire they had helped to build rather than as subjects to it.41
In other words, the foundation of the desire for the franchise
amongst the Allies—a commodity they wanted—was to be found
primarily in their discontent with the way they were treated relative
to the way they felt they ought to have been, a disparity in
treatment they wished to end. The acquisition of the citizenship,
they believed, would accomplish this aim, simultaneously making
them partners in and raising them from the condition of being
subjects of the empire.
If the sources are correct and the war was in fact fought to
gain the franchise, then the need for it—one created in no small
part by the fact that it would end an intolerable state of affairs—
tendencies of the Samnites (1982, p. 21–22). Common Oscan ancestry

had not impelled these groups to get along with each other, and it almost
certainly would not have been sufficient in and of itself to guarantee
mutual cooperation against a dangerous opponent like Rome.
Furthermore, the Etruscans and Umbrians later briefly joined the
uprising, and these were culturally greatly dissimilar from other
participants. It therefore cannot be claimed that the war to come was a
battle between Oscans and Latins, as a list of the participants might imply
at first glance.
41 As will be seen below, for some Allies the civitas doubtless not only
represented an end to their hardships with Rome, but also certainly

offered things which were actively agreeable (as opposed to merely an end
to those which were disagreeable). The sources are fairly silent on what
these congenial facets of the civitas were, although it is certainly possible,
based on what these sources do reveal to present speculation as to what
they may have been. Such presentations will soon be encountered in the
pages to follow.
must have been one which was first and foremost keenly felt. After
all, it was enough to cause the Italians to fight the Romans to get
what they wanted and in the process risk destruction, which was
always a potential outcome of armed conflict with Rome. This may
perhaps be even more graphically illustrated by the fact that the
war had not erupted, as had the revolts that had been attempted by
various Allies during the Second Punic War, under circumstances
whereby the Romans would be distracted by other difficulties.
Rather, it ignited during one of the rare periods when Rome was
not fighting any major enemy external or internal,42 and therefore
was one to which the Romans could give their undivided
attention.43 That the Allies chose—more or less—the particular
moment that they did, as opposed to an hour in which the Romans
might have been weaker, additionally insinuates that their
dissatisfaction had reached the point where it could be borne no
longer, even although a delay until the Romans did become
preoccupied might have provided a more opportune time to
achieve their ends.
Moreover, since the coalition encompassed so many separate
communities, it is clear that the dissatisfaction of the participants
for which the civitas was sought as the remedy was not a
phenomenon local to merely any one of them. Instead, it must
have been shared at least in some measure by many communities
all over the peninsula, and very probably even by those who for
whatever reason did not join the effort. Because this dissatisfaction
motivated peoples separated from each other by distance and to
some extent by language and custom, it is difficult to resist the
inference that its source was in something which all the Italians had
in common. That common link was that they were all Rome’s
Allies, and thus the implication emerges that this far-ranging
dissatisfaction had its origins in the nature of the alliance itself.
What was the reason behind this dissatisfaction? Or, to put it
another way, what had made the Allies feel like subjects to the very
42 With the exception of the Thracians fought by Sentius as reported
in Per. 70, which did not seem to merit a major expedition.

43 Although this Roman inactivity was actually used by the Allies to
their advantage, for which see chapters 4–5.

imperium whose architecture had been based in no small part on

their efforts? Again, the Allies themselves do not say, nor do the
Roman and Greek sources who describe the conflict. To explain it,
then, the modern scholar must attempt to hazard a guess, or
several of them. It does not seem inappropriate to base these
guesses on the testimony of the sources describing the way
Romans and Allies interacted. If such guesswork is the only option,
then it might very well begin at the most obvious point of
interaction between Rome and the Italians, which was in the army.
More specifically, it might begin with the military service the socii
were obligated to render to Rome.
That this military service would be the principal font of
dissatisfaction for the socii does not seem far-fetched, and in fact
there are indications that such was indeed the case. According to
Livy, during the Second Punic War the Campanians demanded as
one of the terms under which they would break their alliance with
Rome and join Hannibal that no Campanian ever again be forced
to perform military service against his will.44 If this was, in fact, a
condition for the accord made with Hannibal,45 compulsory
military service must therefore have been onerous indeed for the
Campanians, since they were at this point cives sine suffragio and thus
the demands made upon them would have been far less severe in
terms of compensation rendered than those visited on other allies
(about which more below). Thus, if the Campanians could be
seduced away from Rome based on the promise of an end to
military service,46 very likely the other Allies would have resented
44Legati ad Hannibalem uenerunt pacemque cum eo condicionibus fecerunt ne

quis imperator magistratusue Poenorum ius ullum in ciuem Campanum haberet neue
ciuis Campanus inuitus militaret munusue faceret; Livy, 23.7 (emphasis
added).
45 Livy cites no source directly for the terms which went into the
forging of this compact, although there seems to be no reason to believe

that he had simply invented the tale that aggravation with military service
was one of them.
46 On the other hand, at the point at which this negotiation was made
with Hannibal, the Roman requests for men were weighty indeed.
According to the words Livy puts in the mouth of consul M. Terentius
Varro, the Campanians were asked “not to help (the Romans) in the war
such service equally, if not more so. What it was exactly about this
service that the Campanians, and by extension the rest of the Allies,
found so exasperating is not known, though it is not hard to
speculate on what a few of the particulars may have been.
In the first place, service in the Roman army would have been
fairly expensive for the Italians. This cost was exacted in a number
of ways, the most basic of which being the value of the men
themselves: each man who was gone on campaign with the
Romans would simply not be at his home doing anything else,
depriving his family and his community of any contribution he
might otherwise have made (more below). Such a value resists
precise measurement, but a more concrete price would have been
that which the Allies paid to equip and provide provisions for their
soldiers. As was the case amongst the Hellenic states, in Rome
soldiers were drawn from the class of citizens who could afford to
furnish their own arms (men whom the Romans called assidui),
and—at least in the earliest period—it seems that the Roman
soldier was expected to do exactly that: at the beginning of the
Republic, a soldier provided his own weapons and his own supplies
for the campaigns in which he participated. For neither these nor
the time he spent in the army was he compensated, as service was
considered the munus—“duty”—of a citizen.47 As time went on the
but almost to undertake the war for us” (itaque non iuvetis nos in bello oportet,
Campani, sed paene bellum pro nobis suscipiatis) and to furnish 30,000 infantry
and 4000 cavalry (23.5). Indeed, in light of this fact, and in light of that
fact that the consul was making these requests in part to men who had
been given a form of the Roman citizenship and thus to people who
“have suffered this defeat as much as we have, and to feel that we have a
common country to defend” (itaque communem vos hanc cladem quae accepta est
credere, Campani, oportet, communem patriam tuendam arbitrari esse), the
Campanians emboldened to reply with an ultimatum: to prevent their
defection to Hannibal, the Romans would have to agree that henceforth
one of the consuls and half of the Senate would should therefore be
Campanian. However, in relating this report Livy notes that he believes it
to be specious, since it sounded way too much like a similar request made
by the Latins in the past (specifically, the incident related by Livy at 8.4;
see also Appendix A).
47 Gabba (1976, p. 2).
Romans soon found that the chaos presented by armies composed

of men with different types of equipment, varying according to
what each man could afford, untenable. It therefore eventually
came to set standards for what weapons were to be borne, and
supplied them to those who were lacking, with the expectation that
this equipment was to be returned at the end of the campaign. It
also deducted from the pay of the assidui, which was introduced at
about the same time as the issuance of weapons (about which
directly), a sum for what amounted to the “rental” of the needed
gear.48 If this state of affairs obtained amongst the Italians as well
as the Romans (and there is nothing in the sources to suggest
otherwise), then before their foedera with the Romans, the Italians
likewise fielded soldiers for their military actions who served at
their own expense. It is almost certain that they continued to do so
as Allies when these men were raised for the Roman army, since it
beggars the imagination that the Romans would not equip their
own soldiers free of charge but would do so for their Allies.49
Hence, one sum for which the Italians were liable from the
outsetwas that of providing weapons for their soldiers.
As discussed above, the circumstances of war led Rome to
provide weapons for their soldiers, albeit not without some cost to
the latter. These circumstances of war also led to other changes in
military policy. As campaigns grew longer, the Romans realized the
impossibility of soldiers being able to supply their own provender.
This came to be collected for by the Commonwealth and, like the
weapons it bore, was distributed to the army, with the cost of his
victuals likewise deducted from the soldier’s pay. This pay itself was
yet another modification in Roman procedure, one similarly caused
So Gabba (op. cit, p. 9), who cites Polybius 6.39.15. Contra Nicolet
48
(1978, p. 3), who argues that the initial set of weapons given to soldiers
were free of charge, and that the milites only paid for the cost of
replacements. The Greek reads τοῖς δὲ Ῥωμαίοις τοῦ τε σίτου καὶ τῆς
ἐσ ῆτος, κἄν τινος ὅπλου προσδε ῶσι, πάντων τούτων ὁ ταμίας τὴν
τεταγμέν ν τιμὴν ἐκ τῶν ὀψωνίων ὑπολογίζετα. Gabba seems to render τινος
ὅπλου προσδε ῶσι as “any needed equipment”, as opposed to the “any
equipment that needs replacing” of Nicolet, a reading which seems most
unlikely. Gabba’s reasoning, therefore, is followed above.
49 Additional evidence to this effect will be provided below.
by the lengthening of Roman expeditions. These eventually

extended beyond the agricultural off-season, and as a result money
was disbursed to the milites to compensate them for the financial
loss that such prolonged absences from their farms would cause.
To raise the sufficient funds for the supply of food, salary
(stipendium), and arms for its soldiery, the Commonwealth levied on
those its people who met certain property requirements a tax
known as the tributum.50 Numerous references in Livy, others in
Polybius, and epigraphical evidence all make it a practical certainty
that the Allies did likewise,51 and at least in one case, did so by
direct Roman compulsion.52
In addition, then, to supplying weapons for their men, the socii
also furnished their food and payment, presumably by means of
taxing its citizens for the required funds. In this, the Romans and
Allies were at one point both alike encumbered financially by the
requisites of military service, each by their own respective
governments. However, this state of affairs would change as a
result of the battle of Pydna in 168. After the great victory of
L. Aemilius Paullus there, such astronomical sums were brought
back to Rome in the form of both spoil and taxes—ones which
had formerly been paid to the defeated Perseus but were now paid
to Rome—that until the very end of the Republic the tributum was
no longer levied on the Roman people.53 There is no indication
50 Nicolet (1976, p. 20–21) seems to indicate that the tributum was
levied only for the payment of soldiers, although in a later article (1978,
p. 2) he makes clear his belief that this tax furnished for food, clothing,
raiment, and replacement weapons (see earlier note).
51 These are all collected and analysed by Nicolet (1978, p. 1–11).
52 During the Hannibalic War twelve Latin colonies had pleaded
inability to provide the troops asked for by the Romans as grounds for
their refusal to do so. When the imminent danger had passed, Rome
visited these colonies with a number of punishments for their shortfall
which included the institution of a census conducted on the Roman
model and a payment of tributum to be deposited in the treasury on Rome
for the payment of soldiers supplied by those colonies in future wars; so
Toynbee, p. 17–20, 115–116, citing Livy 29.15. See also Nicolet (loc. cit.).
53 So Nicolet (1976, p. 1–12). This is not, as that author hastens to
remind the reader, that Romans no longer paid taxes of any kind (they
that the Romans used these Eastern funds to supply and feed the
Italians who served with them, and in fact there is compelling
evidence to the contrary.54 See, for example, Appian (1.1.7), who
continued to pay port duties, for example), nor that the Romans were no
longer liable for the tributum, just that it never needed to be collected from
them between 167 and 43. See also Nicolet (1978, p. 7–8) and Brunt
(1971, p. 21 and note 5, p. 21–22).
54 So Keaveney (1987, p. 15 and note 27, p. 20). Salmon (1982 p. 84
and note 198, p. 318) refutes the assertion that the Romans supplied the
Allies on active duty with rations made by Tenney Frank (and, by
extension, by Rosenstein, who makes the same claim himself on page 30
with supporting note 16 on p. 204, and repeats it on pages 49 and 64).
Salmon argues that this assertion is based on a misinterpretation of
Polybius 6.39.13–15, whose Greek text reads σιτομετροῦνται δ᾽ οἱ μὲν πεζοὶ
πυρῶν Ἀττικοῦ μεδίμνου δύο μέρ μάλιστά πως, οἱ δ᾽ ἱππεῖς κρι ῶν μὲν ἑπτὰ
μεδίμνους εἰς τὸν μῆνα, πυρῶν δὲ δύο, τῶν δὲ συμμάχων οἱ μὲν πεζοὶ τὸ ἴσον,
οἱ δ᾽ ἱππεῖς πυρῶν μὲν μέδιμνον ἕνα καὶ τρίτον μέρος, κρι ῶν δὲ πέντε. δίδοται
δὲ τοῖς μὲν συμμάχοις τοῦτ᾽ ἐν δωρεᾷ.
This passage often translated to suggest that these victuals were given
to the Allies by the Romans for free; it is rendered by the Loeb translation
of W.R. Paton, for example, as “the allowance of corn to a foot-soldier is
about two-thirds of an Attic medimnus a month, a cavalry-soldier receives
seven medimni of barley and two of wheat. Of the allies the infantry receive
the same, the cavalry one and one-third medimnus of wheat and five of
barley, these rations being a free gift to the allies” (emphasis added).
However, the very next sentence states that the Roman soldiers
themselves had their rations deducted from their pay by the questors ( τοῖς
δὲ Ῥωμαίοις τοῦ τε σίτου καὶ τῆς ἐσ ῆτος, κἄν τινος ὅπλου προσδε ῶσι,
πάντων τούτων ὁ ταμίας τὴν τεταγμέν ν τιμὴν ἐκ τῶν ὀψωνίων ὑπολογίζεται).
It is very difficult to see how the Romans would provide free food to the
Allies while charging their own soldiery for their corn. Furthermore, the
Greek could be translated in such way as to state that the Allies did not
deduct the cost of rations from the pay they issued to their own soldiers,
as the Romans did with theirs, and hence the grain by which the Allied
soldiers were fed was “a gratuity to the Allies” (in the sense that these
themselves did not pay for it as much as their taxpayers at home did).
Based on the passage of Appian cited, it seems far more likely that the
Allies adopted a more enlightened policy towards providing food for their
men than that the Romans paid for this food on their behalf, and thus the
arguments of Salmon (and Nicolet, who argues the same points; 1978, p.
7) are more convincing. For this reason, they are followed here.
notes that “the Italians became few and lacking in manpower,

having been wasted by poverty, taxes, and military service” in the
time before the Gracchi (τοὺς δ᾽ Ἰταλιώτας ὀλιγότ ς καὶ δυσανδρία
κατελάμ ανε, τρυχομένους πενίᾳ τε καὶ ἐσφοραῖς καὶ στρατείαις;
emphasis added). In this passage, Appian uses a word—εἰσφορά—
which carries the specific connotation of property tax paid for
military support, implying that the Allies still paid this at the time
of the Gracchi and therefore after Pydna.55 It is reasonable to
assume that the continued to do so later still, probably right up to
91. Thus, it seems to be the case that the Italians not only furnished
vast numbers of men for Rome’s armies, but did so entirely at the
expense of their own taxpayers, a cost which was not exacted from
Roman citizens in support of their own contingents.
As has been seen, after some early experimentation with the
foedera they had made with their Italian Allies which had given the
latter some room for maneuver in terms of what had been
expected of them, the Romans eventually struck agreements with
their socii whereby the Italians provided soldiers for Rome’s use
whenever these were demanded. These soldiers were fully equipped
and fully supplied at the expense of their native communities,
expenses almost certainly met through taxation. The Romans were
therefore able to use these men without having to pay for them,
and indeed while the Romans themselves were relieved of the
hindrance of taxation for the purpose of supplying their own
soldiers after 167, the Allies still shouldered this onus. However,
the price of this service in the economic sense was not measured
only in the amount paid in taxes. There were others, ones which
increased as the nature of Rome’s warmaking changed over time.
Before the beginning of the second century BCE, the military
activities of the Romans and the Allies were largely confined to
Italy. These campaigns were not always of brief duration, but the
comparatively short distance travelled from home by both Romans
and Italians meant that soldiers could remain engaged with their
55 This was noted by Nicolet (op. cit., p. 7–12), who likewise takes note
of the use of εἰσφορά. Moreover, he provides additional evidence for the
continued assessment of stipendia amongst the Allies after 167 even in the
absence of an express statement to that effect in the sources.
communities, with their families, and—importantly—with their

farms, such that the deleterious effects of their absence from these
on campaign could be managed before things got utterly out of
hand. By the late 200s, however, Roman involvement throughout
the ancient Mediterranean had brought with it increasingly
lengthier terms of service for its armies. Among other assignmens,
such service regularly involved deployment for extended
peacekeeping purposes in the east, as well as interminable
pacification efforts in Spain, whose unfriendly climate, hostile and
warlike natives, and small opportunity for easy victory led to an
especial dread of being dispatched there.56 Horror stories of legions
kept abroad for sixteen years at a stretch were apparently somewhat
embellished, though six-year continuous tours of duty did not seem
to be uncommon. The psychological effects of such prolonged
absences can only be guessed,57 but the economic impact on small
farms can be more readily appreciated, especially in the aftermath
of the Hannibalic War during which devastation of fields was a
common occurrence. Moreover, there was at this time a great
increase in pastoralism and transhumance farming, which required
great tracts of land for pasturage and led the owners of the flocks
to attempt to acquire such land by means of buying or seizing
whatever was available.58 Increasingly fields were obtained for this
purpose by the purchase of the farmlands of debtors, and this
practice led, in time, to a decline in the numbers of yeoman
farmers, on whose manpower the Roman army had always
56 Toynbee, p. 53–55.
57 Toynbee speculates on some of them, particularly those generated
by travel to such faraway places as the Greek Middle East, quite literally
on the other side of the known world; see p. 61–63.
58 For a discussion of the importance of flocks to large-scale farmers
(id est, to those who used land to make money as opposed to subsistence
farmers), see Morley (p. 67–68, 151–158). That author cites the low
transportation costs of animals, the relative lack of labor intensity for
caring for them, and the Roman demand for meat, cheese, and wool, all
of which combining to convince wealthy agriculturalists to devote land to
flocks, and, eventually, to seek more for them. In addition, Brunt (1972,
p. 32–38) provides a more detailed description of the decline of small
farming in the face of transhumance.
depended. In turn, the diminution of the numbers of these farmers

led to increased burdens of service on those who remained. Thus, a
vicious cycle ensued: yeomen farmers would be called to service of
long duration; their lands would suffer in their absence, leading to
debt; their farms would in time be lost to debts; with the loss of
their property the former farmers were no longer eligible for
service; and finally Rome’s pool of potential soldiers decreased all
the more.59 If this was true for the Romans, it cannot be doubted
59 This is the picture painted by Stockton of the situation in Italy by

the 130s (p. 6–21). It is, however, important not to overestimate the
impact of this trend, as has been pointed out by a number of other
scholars. In the first place, Rich has observed that the changes in
agricultural practice certainly had not affected enough Roman small
farmers that the Commonwealth simply could not find enough adsidui to
staff its legions due to lack of numbers; if there were occasionally
difficulties in recruiting men, he asserts, it was due to the unpopularity of
the commanders or the perceived unprofitability of service, not to a lack
of men eligible to bear arms (p. 287–305). Rich is in turn cited by
Rosenstein, who goes further and suggests that lengthy service and even
the death in battle of the men taken from farms to fight would not
automatically result in impoverishment or the decline of those farm
(especially doing so in chapters two through four of Rome at War, p. 26–
141).
This having been acknowledged, it can be offered in response that
neither scholar claims that the decline of Roman small farms and their
seizure by wealthy landowners did not ever happen. Both instead claim
that it did not happen often enough to bring about a “manpower crisis”.
Hence, the sequence of events described by Stockton did probably occur
and probably frequently, even if the consequences may not have been
quite as dire for the Romans as he implies.
Additionally, matters might very well have been different for the
Italians, and probably were. In the first place, as has been seen, their
communities suffered the hardships imposed by taxation, as the Romans
did not, at least after 167. In the second, Roman small farmers were aided
in their ability to gather enough food both to support themselves and to
sell for cash to defray their debts (and Rosenstein does not take sufficient
account of debt in his portrait of the small farm enduring in the long
absence of its menfolk) through their use of the ager publicus. Rosenstein is
certainly aware of this, and repeatedly stresses the importance of the
public lands for the Roman small farmer. Allied small farmers, however,
that it was as true for the Allies, and was perhaps even more acute
for them. It would be especially so if, as many scholars speculate,
the Romans kept the Allies in the field long after they allowed their
own units to return home.60
This situation is given emphasis in the sources due to the fact
that it was said to have been observed by Tiberius Gracchus during
his travels through the countryside of Etruria en route to military
service in Spain (Plutarch, Ti. Gracc. 8; Appian, 1.1.9). Such
may not have had legal access to Roman public land. Even if the Allies
did use it illegally (for which see chapter 3), they could always be pushed
off of it, either legitimately by those entitled to its legal use, or by force by
those who were not but were more powerful. These latter could have
been either Roman or Italian (for seizure of the ager publicus see also
Morley, p. 79–81), but the result would be the same: deprivation for these
small farmers from land which might otherwise have been of great
assistance to them.
Nor would an Allied soldier’s pay have necessarily have made the
difference, as Rosenstein asserts. The indication from the sources seems
to be that in the Roman army pay was distributed at the end of the
campaign (or, later on, at the end of the year), not at its beginning. Those
who had died in the meantime could not collect it, and there is no
evidence that this money was ever sent to the families of the deceased. If
the Allies adopted the Roman model, as they almost certainly had, then
their small farms and the families on them would be in the same position
as those of the Romans upon the deaths of soldiers.
Rosenstein’s argues that “by drawing off a large number of young men
from a population suddenly deprived of much of the land that had
formerly enabled it to feed itself, Rome brought its victims’ agricultural
resources more into balance with the demands placed upon them. In this
way, Rome palliated at least somewhat the impact of conquest upon the
agrarian economies of its victims” (p. 79). Even so, the changes in use of
land coupled with long tenures in the army may in fact have been quite
deleterious to the Italians (and more so than to the Romans), even if not
catastrophically so, for the reasons cited above.
60 So Adcock (p. 19), Toynbee (p. 130–135) and Salmon (1982,
p. 119–120 and note 353, p. 200). The latter cites a fragment of Lucilius as
evidence that Allied soldiers served in Spain for up to eighteen straight
years, though this evidence is flimsy at best. Rosenstein (p. 44) also cites
evidence for Allies being kept in the field when the Romans were allowed
to go home taken from Livy (43.9.3; 45.12.10–12).
observations would eventually lead him, by his own admission, to

attempt to provide a remedy for the Roman victims of it by means
of his agrarian legislation, about which more will be discussed in
the next chapter. It is not unlikely that the sources themselves may
have exaggerated this state of affairs somewhat, especially if they
were influenced by the speeches of the Gracchi, or by propaganda
spread by them. As it happens, there are indeed some indications
that matters do not seem to have been as dismal as Gracchus
himself made them out to be,61 and since it seems to be the case
that the Gracchi had designed these laws at least in part to serve
their own political ambitions, it would be in their interest to
magnify the danger such laws were supposed to diminish so as to
get them passed. Even so, it is almost certain that, if the inopia
bonorum was not yet as overwhelming as it was made out to be by
the Gracchi, it was very close to being thus. Nor was the problem
apparently solved by the subsequent Sempronian legislation, due to
the various barriers put up against its successful enactment. In fact,
since the measures of these laws seem to have been aimed at
helping Roman citizens alone—or, if that was not the aim, that was
at least the result62—but at the same time involved reclaiming the
ager publicus from all its illegal occupants whose numbers seem to
have included quite a few Italians, it might even have exacerbated
this situation for the Allies. More on this will be discussed in the
next chapter.
Therefore, in addition to those deriving from the costs of
fielding soldiers, the Italians were further subject to the economic
pressures created by the absence of those soldiers on protracted
campaigns and the resulting lack of men to manage farms. This
could and likely did lead to the failure of these farms, and as a
consequence to a reduction in the numbers of men eligible to
contribute to Rome. Worse, this was also occurring at the very time
when Roman demands on Italian manpower were at their greatest.
61 So Nagle 1973 (p. 386–372), who points out that archaeological
evidence suggests that agriculture was actually in far better shape in

Etruria and elsewhere in this very period than Gracchus lets on, about
which more below.
62 See Appendix B.
Of course, precisely how exacting these demands were is difficult

to quantify, since it is not certain just how many men Rome
demanded from any of its individual socii at any one time. In theory
the Allies must have been liable to offer Rome all of its men who
were suitable for service, but it does not seem likely that Rome
would often demand so much. Instead, the Romans seemed to
have given the Allies a certain number of men they were to
contribute, the so-called formula togatorum, which called for men
from Allied peoples in numbers which varied from community to
community.63 How the Romans arrived at this number is unknown.
It may very well have been one that was fixed for each community
at the installation of its foedus, or, as is perhaps more probable, it
may have risen or fallen based on information derived from a
census conducted by Allied districts.64 Based on available annalistic
data it can be guessed how many total soldiers the Allies
collectively provided, and approximately the amount each people
provided as an aggregate, but with rare exceptions it cannot in turn
be discerned how many came from each individual oppidum and
what percentage of the overall available Allied manpower this
contribution represented, either to the population in question as a
whole or to its individual settlements. It is not difficult to
conjecture that it was probably a considerable number of the able-
bodied men of each community.65
63 As claimed by Salmon (1982, p. 169–170).

64 The latter is advocated by Brunt (1971, p. 40–41, 57, 545–548) and
Salmon (loc. cit. and page 206 note 498), who is vehement in his belief that
a fixed number would not have been feasible. For the opposing view,
both cite Toynbee 1.424–427 (Brunt also cites Beloch, but notes that he
later changed his mind, p. 546 note 1). For such a census amongst the
socii, see Nicolet (1978, 4–7).
65 This data is provided in the first hundred pages of Brunt (1971)
which are grounded in census figures from 225; based on the Hannibalic
War and the effects of that war on the economy, agriculture, and eventual
birth-rate in Italy and Rome, Brunt therefore argues that what the
Romans and Allies could muster in 91 was very close to the numbers that
had been available in 225.
If the Allies did conduct a census, as it seems that they did,66

then the contribution they would make to the Roman army was
probably similar to the manner in which the Romans assessed their
own contribution to their armies. This was done based on census
ratings and property qualifications, with those Romans selected to
comprise a legion who theoretically could have supplied his own
arms and provisions, even though the actual need to do so no
longer applied. For the Roman citizen, military duty was a munus,
which could not be evaded without stiff penalties. Similarly, for the
Allies, supplying men was also a duty (in this case imposed by
treaty), and the Romans were inclined to be just as harsh to those
Italians perceived as attempting to shirk it as to their own citizens
who attempted to do so.67 Yet there were ways whereby Romans
could avoid military service if they so desired, options which were
not available to the Allies. At Rome, if the unpopularity of
conscription was made manifest enough, the consuls could have
the levies cancelled, something which seems to have happened in
the year 140 (as related by the Oxyrynchus Epitome of book 54 of
Livy). If no consul did so, the tribunes could act directly to stop the
dilectus, which they did in 151 and again in 138 by imprisoning the
consuls (Per. 48, 55). They could also forbid the consul to leave
with his army, as the tribune Ti. Claudius Asellus unsuccessfully
attempted to do in 140—it was apparently an eventful year—until
the consul Q. Servilius Caepio drove off the tribune’s lictor at
sword-point (Caepio cos. intellegens Ti. Claudium Assellum trib. pl.
interpellantem profectionem suam lictorem stringens ensem deterruit;
Oxyrynchus Epitome of book 54).68
Citizens could be spared duty in this manner. Nor, apparently,
did their ability to do so end with magisterial action. A closer look
at the imprisonment of the consuls in 151 and 138 show that the
tribunes acted, less because they wished to impede the dilectus itself,
66 See, again, Nicolet (loc. cit.).

67 See, for example, the by-now well-known incident of the twelve
Latin cities during the Hannibalic War which pleaded inability to provide
their required number of men and the Roman response to it, discussed
above and in Toynbee (p. 17–21) and Nicolet (loc. cit.).
68 Discussed in Brunt (1972, p. 397–398) and Salmon (1967, p. 306–
307).
and more because the consuls did not allow exemptions from it for
certain cives. The steps taken by the tribunes imply that such
strictness was unusual, and that other consuls had been more
lenient. It is known that at least one of them,
Q. Fabius Maximus, took very special care in his raising of
supplementa from those who had not already served in the Carthage
and Greek wars just recently concluded, restricting himself to those
who had not done service up to this point (φειδοῖ τῶν ἀνδρῶν τῶν
ἐκεῖ εν ἐλ λυ ότων κατέλεγε πρω ας, οὐ πρὶν πολέμου
πεπειραμένους; Appian, Hisp. 1.11.65).69 The counterparts to these
men amongst Allies could not necessarily be so spared even had
their local mustering officers been inclined to exempt them, since
Italian numbers were not raised by the dilectus but by a
predetermined number; if that number demanded that some
veterans of lengthy serviced be called back into it, the Italians
would be compelled to comply. Nor, apparently, did cancellation of
the dilectus at Rome relieve Allies from contributing their quota: it is
to be observed that for all of the years just mentioned—151, 145,
140, and 138—one of that year’s consuls would be seen later
leading men into their provinces. These supplementa almost certainly
included Allies, something directly stated about those of Fabius in
145. All of this was true even though it can be inferred that military
service was even more unpopular amongst the Allies than the
Romans, given that they were still subjected to taxation to supply
their men. Possibly as a consequence of this inability of the socii to
avoid service, the Romans increasingly made greater and greater
use of Allied numbers: Velleius Paterculus claimed that a principal
complaint of the Italians was that their numbers defended the
imperium of the Commonwealth in which they desired the
citizenship, furnishing twice as many men as Rome did (2.15.2).
Modern scholarship seems to confirm that, by the year 91, this
claim was not far from the truth.70
69As noted by Brunt, loc. cit.

70 So Brunt (1971, p. 686); Salmon (1982 p. 80) suggests that this may
have been an overstatement for the Hannibalic War but implies that it was
probably true for the beginning of the second century (1967 p. 306).
The above examples show that military service was on

occasion a much resented assignment amongst the Romans, and
that this resentment increased towards the end of the second
century. It may have been more onerous if the conditions which
Gracchus described in the process of seeking to pass laws to
remedy them were indeed reflective of what conditions in Italy
actually were, since these conditions would mean that, as the pool
of manpower diminished, so would the burden required of each
Roman soldier who remained in it increase exponentially (as noted
above). The Allies have no voice for this period, but it can hardly
be doubted that their irritation was equally acute. As far as the
Romans were concerned, the difficulty of raising soldiers from the
Roman citizen body came to a head in the year 107, when
something of a solution was found due to the actions of Gaius
Marius. While more will be said of him in chapters 3 and 7, of
import at the present is the solution which he found. The election
of Marius to the office of consul in the aformementioned year
brought with it the (deliberately sought) commission to conclude
the war with Jugurtha in Numidia. Upon accepting his new
command, Marius sought reinforcements for the army then in
being in Africa, and was given the right to hold a supplementary
draft. This was conceded by his political enemies in the hopes that
his demands for soldiery from a citizen body, one already tired of
war and ill-disposed for further service, would lead to his
unpopularity unpopular and put a check on his political success
(Sallust, BJ 84).71 Marius, however, side-stepped this pitfall by
means of an innovation: instead of conscription, the new consul
71 In reference to the unpopularity of service in 107, see Brunt (1971,

p. 401 and note 4, p. 407), who describes how, just two years earlier, the
consul M. Junius Silanus repealed an unknown series of laws which
Asconius (68.C) describes as “reducing the amount of military service
required” (leges … quibus militiae stipendia minuebantur; Cicero himself
apparently suggested that they rem militarem impedirent in the passage under
commentary). Perhaps Silanus blamed a dearth of men for his lack of
success against the Cimbri (Per. 65, Velleius 2.12.2). At any rate, such a
repeal would likely have been wildly disliked, but the fact that it
nevertheless passed suggests that the shortage of men must have been
acute.
instead called for volunteers, and included in his call even those
Romans who had hitherto not had sufficient property qualifications
to be accepted into the legions (the so called proletarii or capite censi).
The numbers Marius intended to raise were probably not large, as
he only needed reinforcements and not an entirely new
expeditionary force,72 but the numbers he actually got were
apparently even more than he has sought (aliquanto maiore numero
quam decretum; Sallust, op. cit. 86). The possibilities presented for the
future use to which men raised in such fashion could be put were
fairly staggering. For this reason, while the recruitment of proletarii
was vilified at the time and for some time to come (as seen in the
language of Plutarch’s description of it and in a brief notice in
Valerius Maximus,73 both written centuries after this step was first
taken), the Senate made no move to put a stop to it nor to abolish
it as an option in the future.
From 107 on, then, Roman citizens were less and less likely to
be drafted into service (though they would always remain eligible
for it),74 and instead saw their legions manned by volunteers who
72 So Brunt, op. cit., p. 407, and Evans, p. 74–75.

73 Marius. 8; Val. Max. 2.3.1.
74 Brunt (1971, p. 407–408, reiterated in 1972, p. 15) argues that the
real significance of the reforms of Marius is not that conscription was

ended, but rather that it was extended even to the hitherto ineligible
proletarii, and that the idea that legions consisted of volunteers was “an
illusion”. Of the former proposition there can be no doubt: certainly
conscription did continue at intervals throughout the remaining years of
the Republic, and just as in the case of the laying of the tributum after 167,
so did the Romans remain susceptible to conscription even after 107.
However, the idea that conscription now fell primarily on the capite censi is
not persuasive: the examples Brunt cites are all drawn from accounts of
times of the most dire emergencies, but in times of dire need the proletarii
had always been liable for service, as Emilio Gabba has conclusively
demonstrated (1976, p. 5–12). That fact did not change after the reforms
of Marius. Instead, Gabba is far more convincing in his assertion that
after 107 more and more of the proletariii looked to military service as a
profession deliberately entered into, and that after Marius, the legions of
the standing armies were drawn from those volunteering for such a career.
These, of course, could be supplemented by conscripts as need be, and
somewhat more enthusiastically accepted the call for military duty

as an opportunity for employment and advancement.75 This, again,
meant that for Roman citizens, undesired military service could
increasingly be avoided after 107. With the legionary quotas filled
by poor men looking for a career under the colors, it does not
stretch the imagination to suggest that members of the upper and
middle economic class in Rome could, and doubtless did, elect not
to serve at all (with the exception of those who wanted a political
career, as military service remained a prerequisite for eligibility to
run for office).
If this was true for the Romans, there is no concrete evidence
that it was thus for the socii: there are no indications in the sources
that the Allies adopted this innovation of Marius and accepted
volunteers for their quota to Rome from their own lower economic
classes76. If they did not, the responsibility for raising, and serving
when combined with the contributions of the socii, such numbers would
almost be adequate for Rome’s need for manpower.
75 On the other hand, see Rich (p. 327), who argues that the
volunteers would have been few after Marius. This, he argues, is because
“(f)ew commanders would have been as ready as Marius to brave the
senate’s (sic) disapproval or could have offered attractions comparable to
those which had made men flock to serve under him”. However, this
assertion is unconvincing, and Rich supplies nothing by way of evidence
which would support his claim.
76 Gabba (op. cit., p. 16) argues that they did not do so, though the
evidence he cites is comparatively flimsy, coting for this purpose merely

one line of Sallust. That line (BJ. 95.1) describes the arrival of Sulla to the
camp of Marius in Africa with some Allied cavalry he had gathered:
Ceterum dum ea res geritur, L. Sulla quaestor cum magno equitatu in castra venit,
quos uti ex Latio et a sociis cogeret, Romae relictus erat. Gabba seems to impute
to the verb cogerat in this passage the sense of “compelled”. However, as
this verb is not infrequently used to mean “collect” without a connotation
of coercion, Gabba’s assertion is hardly impregnable. Badian, for his part,
responds to Gabba’s assumption (made in its original form, as an article
published in 1949), or, more appropriately, raises the question—
unanswered by Gabba—as to why the Allies would not have recruited in a
similar manner (1958, p. 197 note 5). It should be noted that Badian does
not himself attempt to provide answers to it, however. Nicolet, for his
part, is content to leave the matter as an unknown quantity (1978, p. 11).
as, soldiers for Rome would have remained squarely on the

shoulders of those of the socii eligible for conscription, the
equivalent of the Roman adsidui who would have been drawn from
the wealthy and the middle class. Since these were, in addition, the
very people on whom taxation would most likely have been levied,
the entire onus for the military obligations of the socii would have
fallen upon these men, who would therefore have paid far more for
the cost of Rome’s wars than any Roman citizen would have after
167.77
It is easy to see how the Italians might have felt ill-used
financially by the military demands of the Romans, whose own
citizens were progressively liberated from the loads their leaders
imposed on the socii. The men whom they sent to the legions were
paid, equipped, and fed from the taxes they extracted from their
own communities, an affliction from which the Romans had been
able to extricate themselves. Their men were gone for lengthy
periods, longer than the Romans alongside whom they fought, and
in their absence the farms of all but the wealthiest undoubtably
suffered,78 some of which—and perhaps many of them—beyond
recovery. Assuming that the Allies adopted the same property
qualifications for their soldiery as the Romans did, the failure of
77 Even if they had raised recruits in the Marian manner, the upper
classes from amongst the Italians would probably have found it far more
difficult to raise volunteers than the Romans did. The Roman
commanders could always entice recruits with the promise of land, for
example, which the Allies did not have at their disposal. A Roman
volunteer could expect to retire to the relative comfort of a farm after his
service, while an Italian volunteer had no such assurance. Furthermore,
even if, by use of the equivalent of capite censi, the wealthest Italians could
evade direct service, they would still have had to come up with the funds
for their pay, nourishment, and arms from taxation, as has been seen. A
“proletarianization” of the Allied contingents may therefore have lessened
the weight on their upper classes, but only to a slight degree.
78 Even Rosenstein does not go so far as to suggest that small farms
did not have to absorb some sort a financial debility, as has been seen.
Without the labor of the men who were away fighting, less land could be
cultivated, and in turn less of its produce could be sold, a fact which he
does not try to deny. Instead, he merely argues that this damage did not
necessarily have to be irreparable (p. 63–106).
these farms meant that the men who occupied them would no
longer be qualified for service; this would mean a correspondingly
greater imposition on those who were still eligible for it.79 Nor
could this imposition be escaped, as it could be by Roman citizens.
In fact, the very ability the Romans possessed for eluding the
standards seems to have forced the Commonwealth to make up for
the shortfall by beckoning even more Allied soldiers. For all these
reasons, the Allies paid substantial sums to fulfill the manpower
stipulations of their foedera, more indeed than the Romans did.
However, this inequality was not only limited to the fiscal
expenditures; as difficult as these were, almost as difficult was the
considerable differences in the ways that the Allied soldier was
treated once he presented himself in arms. Though he fought at
Rome’s behest, the Italian miles was not a Roman soldier, and
profound distinctions existed between the two in terms of their
experiences in the camp, on the field, and at war’s end, distinctions
which were almost never beneficent in their operation on the socii.
These distinctions and the sentiments they almost certainly
engendered will be explored more extensively below.
4. THE DRAWBACKS OF ALLIED FOEDERA:

TREATMENT OF ALLIED SOLDIERS
When the Roman army took to the field, it was manifest to both
the Roman and Allied milites in it that, even though they bore the
same equipment,80 fought in the same fashion, engaged in the same
maneuvers, and in many cases spoke the same language (see
79 According to Rich, however, loss of property may not have mean

disqualification from military service. His speculation is that many censors
may have been reluctant to believe that the erstwhile adsidui had really lost
sufficient wherewithal, and cites passages in Appian (1.1.7, which does not
entirely support his assertion) and Plutarch (Ti. Gracc. 8.3, which is more
persuasive) to support his claim. Even is this was the case (and it is by no
means certain that it is), it does not alter the fact that the law still claimed
that a loss of sufficient property meant a corresponding loss of liability for
service, and the fact that occasionally the censors might not have chosen
to believe that some men were too poor to fight does not imply that they
never recognized the restriction.
80 So Keppie, p. 22.
below), there were nevertheless significant differences between

them. These differences were reflected in the diversity in the way
they were treated. Some of these disparities were innocuous
enough. For example, at one point Allied units were placed
exclusively on the wings of the army during combat, though this
seems to have changed over time. Presumably as an echo of this
ancient deployment, when encamped, the Allied soldiers—in
groups known as alae, “wings”—placed their tents on either side of
the Roman legions, from whom they were thus kept apart.81
Additionally, individual Allied units or turmae were commanded by
officers from their own people, who were usually magistrates from
their home towns. These variations were minor and were almost
certainly not met with acrimony, even if they subtly illustrated the
separations between Romans and the Italians who served with
them.
Other differences in treatment were greater, and not
improbably more annoying. These might have included the fact
that, while the command of smaller Allied units were held by Allied
officers (as mentioned above), command of larger ones—cohortes—
were almost always commanded exclusively by Roman officers
known as praefecti sociorum, as were their cavalry by Roman praefecti
equitum. These officers were drawn from the Roman equestrian
class and may often have been quite young, with the result that
seasoned veterans and senior magistrates who happened to be
Italians could have found themselves under the direct command of
Roman youths. The reverse—Allied officers commanding native
Roman soldiers—never occurred, and it is not difficult to
conjecture that this fact gave rise to pique from time to time.82
Furthermore, it went without saying that the overall command of
the united army was under a Roman general, and according to Livy
umbrage at this was voiced at least once.83
81 Keppie, p. 22–23; 36–37.

82 So Hill (1952, p. 29), Keppie (p. 22–23), and Salmon (1982, p. 170).
83 Implied in the Campanians terms offered to Hannibal in 216, of
which one was that no Catrthaginian general ever hold command over
them (ne quis imperator magistratusve Poenorum ius ullum in civem Campanum
haberet; Livy 23.7) See also the discussion above.
Yet even these distinctions were, in the grand scheme of

things, not of overly great import, even if the slight on Allied
command abilities may have been vexatious. In many ways it was
probably comparatively easier to bear than the actual danger which
Roman commanders posed to the Allied soldiers—and in many
ways, disproportionately to the Allied soldiers—under them, which
was a much larger issue. Part of this danger came from Roman
discipline, which was notoriously harsh and often involved the
meting out of humiliation and even death for even the slightest of
infractions. Both socii and Romans were subjected to it, but the
Roman citizen was in a sense protected on the field from excesses
of severity in a number of ways. In the first place, a citizen’s
commander was either a former or a current magistrate who
needed the vote to continue in office, to secure future honors such
as a triumph (which by custom needed the approval of both the
Senate and the people),84 and to maintain the popularity of his
name in front of the Roman people for the sake of his descendants.
Anything which would bring about odium would be avoided by a
sensible politician,85 and since a reputation as a martinet would
almost certainly provide such an odium, a general would probably
be inclined to be more lenient to his own men in light of the fact
that their votes and their voices might someday be important to
him. Moreover, by probably as early as 191 the two most feared
punishments—the flogger’s rod and the death penalty—could no
longer be visited upon Roman citizens following the passage of
the leges Porciae.86 Non-Roman citizens, however, lacked both
84 Payne, p. 41 (though see Chapters 3 and 6 and the supporting

notes).
85 For the importance of fame and name-recognition see Flower,
p. 60–90.
86 For limits on scourging specifically, see Cicero (In Verr. 2.5.163, Pro
Rab. Perd. 12), Sallust (Cat. 51.20); Livy (10.9.4). The latter source also
mentions that the leges Porciae forbade the death penalty for military
infractions (as does Cicero’s Pro Rab. Perd. 8 and Sallust Cat. 51.40),
although it is implied by that author that this protection extended from
civilian execution without right of appeal. This did not necessarily prevent
soldiers from being executed for military infractions per se, but rather kept
them from being summarily killed on the spot. Cicero suggests the same
protections, and this is borne out by evidence of several occasions

on which Roman commanders visited fairly brutal penalties on
Allied soldiers for battlefield errors. The Periochae of Livy’s book
reports that, during the Numantine War in 134, P. Scipio
Aemilianus, in the successful attempt to restore order to the army,
commanded that Roman soldiers found out of ranks be beaten
with vines—they could not be scourged—while socii were to be
beaten with rods. Worse, according to the same source (Per. 51)
that commander also ordered deserters be thrown to the wild
beasts during gladiatorial shows he put on after the overthrow of
Carthage in 146; Valerius Maximus also took note of this but adds,
significantly, that it was only extararum gentium transfugas (“Allied
deserters”) who were so treated (2.7.13). The Epitomator suggests
thing (De Repub. 2.54). Even so, Nicolet (1988, p. 109) notes that there
were examples of decimation after the passage of the leges Porciae, though a
passage in Plutarch mentions that the practice had been of long desuetude
when it was revived by Crassus (Crass. 10). Furthermore, the majority of
ancient passages which mention decimation date from the Caesarian civil
wars and beyond (see entry in Smith, p. 327), which seems to confirm that
by 91, at least, decimation had not been visited upon cives for some time.
Nicolet himself is willing to concede that the leges Porciae protected citizens
from execution on the orders of the consilium without appeal, and
therefore comes into alignment of opinion with the assertion made by
Salmon (1967 p. 307) and Keaveney (1987, p. 14–15) that the leges Porciae
removed the threat of the death penalty and essentially eliminated the
danger of execution on the spot. As to the date of these enactments,
Nicolet places there enactment to the early second century (p. 321). A
passage in Festus (266–268) mentions that an M. Cato spoke about
shoulders and the injuries of flogging, and likewise had cross words with
an M. Caelius (pro scapulis cum dicit Cato, significat pro injuria verberum. Nam
complures leges erant in cives rogatae, quibus sanciebatur poena verberum. his significat
prohibuisse multos suos cives in ea oratione quae est contra M. Caelius). Since Aulus
Gellius reports that M. Porcius Cato (cos. 195) had crossed words with an
M. Caelius (M. Cato ... in oratione, quae inscripta est si se Caelius tribunus plebis
appellasset, 1.15.9; Idem Cato in eadem oratione eidem M. Caelio tribuno plebi
vilitatem obprobrans non loquendi tantum, verum etiam tacendi; 1.15.10), it seems
probable that a law against scourging dates to Cato’s officeholding, either
to his praetorate in 198 or his consulate in 195. For this see also Oakley,
p. 132.
that in this Scipio had taken as his model the behavior of

L. Aemilius Paullus, his biological father and commanding general
at Pydna, who according to Valerius (2.7.14) had similarly ordered
Allied deserters to be placed before wild elephants and trampled in
168. Even as late as 107, a Latin is seen being to death by scourging
for dereliction of duty, as the affair of Turpilius during the
Jurgurthine War indicates (Sallust BJ, 66–69); Plutarch suggests that
Marius was responsible for it so that it would prove distressing to
his then-superior Metellus, due to that general’s guest-friendship
with the condemned man (Marius 8). A Roman commander who
wished to inspire fear as a disciplinarian could therefore
demonstrate such tendencies on the Allies, on whom an example
could be made without fear of potential political repercussion.87
The differences in treatment between Roman soldiers and
their Italian socii may have carried even more perils than those
offered by Roman rods and axes. There is evidence that the
difference between the Roman soldier and his Italian ally extended
even to their battlefield use. Roman commanders, after all, desired
the gloria which came with victory,88 and sometimes victory
required maneuvers which would claim a high rate of casualties
even for the most masterful of tacticians. Furthermore, sometimes
brute force could carry the day when strategic brilliance was
lacking, which it seems that it occasionally was.89 If victory could
be purchased with high casualties, then often commanders would
have found this a bargain worth making. On the other hand, a
general who acquired a reputation as a butcher would also very
likely find himself extremely unpopular amongst his men. This led
87 The extraordinarily limited voting rights of whatever Latins

happened to be in the city (see above), dependant as they were on being
allowed to stay there and not be expelled ahead of time (more below), and
casting all ballots in one randomly determined tribe, must have been so
negligible as to have been ignored in these contexts.
88 For the importance of warfare and, more importantly, victory to the
Roman governing class, see Harris (1979, p. 17–41).

89 Adcock suggests that a lack of strategic brilliance in Roman
commanders might have been the case for much of the Commonwealth’s
history, when good soldiers and simple tactics did more to win battles
than genius (p. 16–17, 105–108).
to a difficulty: as was just mentioned, it was in an imperator’s interest

to remain popular with those of his men who mattered, and these
would be the citizens, since they could express their displeasure by
means of the vote. For these reasons, a commander would likely
have been inclined to be sparing in the hazards to which he
exposed citizens through overly risky tactical decisions. If such
decisions could not be avoided, then they would logically have to
be shifted to the Allies, whose voice did not matter. At least one
scholar has noted that it seemed to be the case that Roman
commanders assigned particularly dangerous objectives to Allied
units in just such a way; in his particularly eloquent phrase, the
Romans were frequently prepared to fight to the last Italian.90
Furthermore, particularly unpleasant types of service, in addition to
the deadliest ones, could also have been dealt to the Allies for the
same reasons, and it appears such duties were thus assigned (see
the aforementioned extended service in Spain). Hence, both the
treasuries and the actual persons of the Italians were taxed far more
severely for the purpose of fighting Rome’s wars than were the
Roman citizens whose forces they augmented.
The obligations of their foedera with Rome as far as the
commitment of soldiers were not entirely to the detriment of the
socii, however. As mentioned above, the Romans kept the peace in
the peninsula and played a significant role in its defense from
foreign invaders. There were, in addition, more tactile benefits to
service alongside the legions, in the form of the spoils of conquest.
Roman victories almost always involved praeda (loot), at whose
collection the methodical thoroughness of the legions guaranteed
the extraction of everything of value to be gotten and drew the
commentary, if not the admiration, of Polybius (6.10). Of this,
everything which was not specifically designated as manubiae (more
90 Credit for this splendid maxim belongs to Salmon (1967, p. 307),
who cites the high casualty rates suffered by Italians as reported in the
sources; Badian also mentions the high casualty rates of socii and likewise
attributes them to Roman tactics and the use those tactics made of
Allied soldiers (1958, p. 149). Toynbee (p. 133–135), too, makes such an
observation, drawing conclusions from a telling passage in Livy (40.40)
listing enormous numbers of Allied losses compared to those suffered by
Romans in the same engagement.
below) was, by Roman custom, to be divided equally among all the

soldiers, a partition which included the Italians. In fact, this right
was specifically included in at least one foedus, the ancient foedus
Cassianum,91 although it does not seemt to have been amongst the
terms of most foedera. An Allied soldier could, then, find
opportunities for enrichment by fighting in the Allied cohortes,
especially if his tour of duty took him to places where wealth was in
abundance and the fighting was frequent but not particularly
difficult, like the Greek East.
Even these benefits could occasionally turn sour, however. In
the first place, the socius might draw service in Spain, where the
fierceness of the natives as well as the lack of established, ancient
towns led to few opportunities for sack and despoliation.
Furthermore, even when victory did bring ample supplies of
plunder, there was no guarantee that the Italians would see any of
it: cities which were not sacked but surrendered apparently had
their spoil designated as manubiae, whose ultimate destination lay at
the hands of the commander of the army. Manubiae, a category into
which fell land, objets d’art, and certain large articles taken even from
91 So Sherwin-White (p. 22). Theoretically this applied only to the
Latins, but there is no evidence to suggest otherwise than that all Italians
were given equal shares. Mouritsen (1998, p. 43) supports the hypothesis
that the Allies received an equal amount, at least of the moveable goods,
as do Keaveney (1987, p. 15) and Badian (1958, p. 150–151). Salmon, on
the other hand, disagrees, arguing that the Romans always got a larger
share of the praeda (p. 126), and that by 177 the Allies got only half as
much (1967, p. 309). However, the evidence cited for this claim consists
of a contrast between two passages of Livy, specifically 41.13 (where the
Allies are given only half as much of the spoil as the Romans in 177; more
below) and 45.40 and 43 (where they are given equal shares in 167).
Salmon seems to be arguing that the unbridled joy with which the latter
act was met indicates that the disparity of 177 had become the rule and
that 167 was thus the exception. However, the evidence can point in
exactly the opposite direction: the joy shown by the soldiers (and it is not
specified that only the Allies were jubilant) could have been at the large
amount they were given in 167, and the sullenness of the Allies in 177
could—and most often is—interpreted to mean that their treatment in
this episode was exceptional.
cities which were sacked,92 was apparently public property

earmarked for being put to use to benefit the Republic. It was
within the prerogative of the general to liquidate this property and
distribute the money to the soldiers, but he could alternatively
decide to hand all of it over to the aerarium or devote it to public
projects such as temples or aqueducts.93 Spoil used in this fashion
would thus render no benefits to those Italian soldiers94 whose own
homes or communities were not thus adorned.95 Admittedly, this
sort of allocation did not happen often, since Roman soldiers grew
to expect their share of loot directly, as opposed to enjoying the
indirect benefits of tax relief, more ample water, or more splendid
temples. Commanders therefore did not often devote all of their
campaign’s loot to such public benefits, lest they risk the
displeasure of their men which could, again, express itself at the
92 For this definition of manubiae see Churchill (p. 91–93).

93 That manubiae was public property in the care of the general with
certain acceptible uses is the argument of Churchill’s article (loc. cit.). In
this he opposes the earlier assertion of Israel Shatzman (p. 177–205), who
claimed that commanders could do with the manubiae whatever they liked,
including keep all of it for their own use.
94 In fact, the aqueducts might actually have been positively harmful to
the Allies. Morley (p. 104–105) reports that Roman use of water was
sometimes a source of great inconvenience to the areas which depended
on the rivers for agriculture. More on this point will be found in some of
the notes supporting the text to follow.
95 So Nicolet (1988, p. 119) and Flower (p. 70). There are indications
that from time to time Roman commanders would send gifts to Allied
communities: Scipio Aemilianus made a restoration of the treasures
plundered by Carthage, both to Sicily (Cicero makes many allusions to this
in his speeches against Verres; notice of it is also found in Valerius
Maximus 5.1.6, Per. 51, and Appian’s Punic Wars 133) and perhaps also to
Italian towns (Eutropius 4.12.1). Similarly, Lucius Mummius is alleged to
have distributed statues and paintings amongst the Italian towns following
his triumph (Oxyrynchus Epitome of Livy’s book 53; Cicero, In Verr. 2.155,
de Off. 2.22.76; Strabo 8.6.23; and several references in Pliny’s Natural
History). These appear to have been the exceptions rather than the rule,
however.
polls.96 Because generals were also allowed to split the proceeds of

the manubiae between the treasury and the men (the portion which
went to the latter was then divided equally), and since apparently
the Senate also grew to expect that the aerarium receive some share
of the spoil,97 the commanders would most frequently elect to
exercise this option. Still, the fact that it was always a possibility
that the aerarium would get all of the loot and the soldiers none of it
must not have been lost on the Italians, who would have been
further aware that their opinion of the matter would not have had a
jot of influence on the decision of the Imperator.
Worse still, while mos dictated loot was to be distributed
evenly when it was distributed, lex apparently did not so dictate.98
Equal apportionment of the spoil could, it seems, be denied to the
Allies, as it was in 177, when Livy records that C. Claudius Pulcher
gave only half as much to the Italian allies as to the Roman citizens
in his army and that the fury of the former was displayed by their
silence in following the commander’s triumphal car.99 While this
seems to have been an isolated incident, the fact remains that it was
not an illegal one: Claudius was apparently perfectly within his
rights to give the Italians less. Perhaps more importantly, the
Romans seemed to have kept the land they won, as opposed to the
moveable property, mostly to themselves. There is only one
recorded episode in which Allies received any land seized by Rome
after a victory, and in that episode each Roman soldier received ten
96 Shatzman (p. 188–198) provides examples of the anger of the

troops when commanders did exercise the option of not distributing
directly, as does Nicolet (loc. cit., whose note 9 cites Shatzman’s article).
97 Shatzman (loc. cit.) also provides examples of the Senate’s anger
when this was not done.

98 Save, again, in the case of the foedus Cassianum cited above.
99 C. Claudius consul ... tulit in eo triumpho denarium trecenta septem milia et
victoriatum octoginta quinque milia septingentos duos. militibus in singulos quini deni
denarii dati, duplex centurioni, triplex equiti. sociis dimidio minus quam ciuibus
datum. itaque taciti, ut iratos esse sentires, secuti sunt currum; 41.13
(emphasis added).
iugera of land apiece, while the Latins (who are the only Allies
mentioned as taking part) got only three.100
The message must have been clear to all the non-Romans
serving in the Roman army that they were always liable to receive
less of a reward for their actions than the full citizens. To be sure,
sometimes they were given an equal share of loot as the rest of the
soldiery. Yet if the commander followed the custom and gave part
of it to the aerarium or to the city in the form of a public work, then
some percentage of what they might have been able to collect from
plunder, after battles in which they had fought just as hard and had
risked just as much as the Romans (if not more; see above), would
go to Rome and to the benefit of the Romans alone. Perhaps all of
it might be so disposed, leaving Allies with nothing.
Allied soldiers marched alongside Romans, fought alongside
Romans, and carried arms and armor which rendered them
indistinguishable to the outside observer from the Romans.
Presumably they also fought just as hard and just as well, especially
in light of what could happen to them—but not their Roman
counterparts—as a penalty for poor performance. Nevertheless,
the Romans certainly knew the difference between themselves and
their Allies, and they acted accordingly. Kept apart from the
Romans in camp, at all but the smallest of levels socii were never
commanded by one of their own, as the Romans were. Rather, all
of their officers were Romans, who punished Italian infractions
more ruthlessly than they did those committed by Roman citizens.
In combat they were often sent into the most perilous of situations
to win victories for Romans without the shedding of an undue
amount of Roman blood. On some occasions they would reap the
same rewards as Roman soldiers, but in many cases they would not:
some or all of the spoils their fighting had won belonged to the
Roman commander, who could at his discretion use that spoil in
such a way that the Italians would see less of it than his Roman
counterpart, or indeed none at all. The Roman imperium could
100 Eodem anno, cum agri Ligustini et Gallici, quod bello captum erat,
aliquantum vacaret, senatus consultum factum, ut is ager viritim divideretur ...

diviserunt dena iugera in singulos, sociis nominis Latini terna; Livy 42.4
(emphasis added). But see Badian (1958, p. 149, note 5).
indeed be quite profitable to the warriors whose steel contributed

to the campaigns fought to add to it, and the Italians must have
recognized this. However, they must also have been compelled to
recognize that, as non-Romans, their own profit would be small
indeed in comparison.
Nor was this only true of soldiering. The empire the Romans
and Italians had won also brought many other opportunities for
enrichment than simply praeda. However, here again the Italians
found themselves increasingly more limited in the wealth that could
be gained and protected than were those Romans engaged in the
same enterprises. These enterprises, and the impediments which
were encounted by the socii (but not the Romans) who were taking
part in them, will be described below.
5. MERCHANTS, CONTRACTORS,
AND OVERSEAS VENTURES
Italians serving in the alae sociorum with Rome’s legions may, from
time to time, have met with some wealth by means of their share of
spoils that were taken from defeated enemies (if, of course, that
spoil was to be shared at all). In addition, some of them may also
have come across other chances to win fortunes by means of the
Empire, namely through trade abroad. Italians became increasingly
more prominent overseas as merchants and traders in the period
following the Hannibalic War. While it seems that there had existed
activity of this sort amongst the Italians earlier, it increased
dramatically in the second century, establishing a greater foothold
in areas where Roman influence had become paramount alongside
the Roman merchants (negotiatores) also engaged in the same
undertakings there.101 It is likely that many of these merchants had
at some point served in the cohortes which had been sent into these
101 Hill (1952, p. 79), and Gabba (1976, p. 76–77) both observe that,
while doubtless some Italians had always ventured abroad for trading
purposes, their trade began in earnest after 202. This line of reasoning is
also followed by Keaveney (1987, p. 4–5). For a discussion of some of the
agricultural goods which the Italians were known to have exported, see
Morley (p. 147–150); doubtless a great deal of these goods were destined
for lands exterior to Italy.
areas, had seen first-hand the possibilities to be found there, and

had came into contact with locals in the process.102 Indeed, the fact
that—like the Romans—they came from Italy, were engaged in
trade in the same fashion as Roman negotiators,103 and in many cases
had initially come to the area first as soldiers or sailors serving with
the Roman armies and navies, had led to their identification with
the Romans. In the Greek East the terms Ῥωμαῖοι and Ἰταλιώται
became synonymous,104 both used interchangeably to describe
Romans or Italians no matter what the latters’ actual community of
origin.
Such an identification would obviously be useful on certain
occasions. As representatives of the conquering peoples, Italian
102 So Badian (1968, p. 17–18, 96 n. 4), who observed that the free
port of Delos eventually drew a large number of merchants who had once
been in Rome’s Allied contingents, and specifically from Oscan-speaking
regions. This echoes the findings of Frank (1913, p. 242), who notes the
overwhelming presence of Oscan names in inscriptions on that island and
attributes this to the fact that it had been socii from Southern Italy who
had served in the fleet as Rome’s “naval allies”. Gabba (loc. cit.) also
observes the connections between the military and the merchants in Italy,
noting that many Italian businessmen trading in lands brought under
Rome’s sway were connected to the upper classes in their home
communities, and would thus have likely served as officers in the Allied
contingents supplied to the Romans (see also notes 55 and 56, p. 222–
223).
103 That they often worked closely together has been demonstrated by
excavations at Delos, which shows a number of inscriptions containing

non-Roman Italian names in the Roman merchant colony there; so Frank
and Gabba in the places already cited. As far as Roman negotiatores in the
East, it was once commonly supposed that the interests of Roman
businessmen were confined to tax-farming and that that their involvement
in other trade was light (see, for example, Badian 1958 p. 152, and Hill
1952, p. 49). This has recently been shown to be in error, as Gabba
himself admits as much in his chapter in the Cambridge Ancient History
(p. 106–108), where he explicitly contradicts his own earlier statement that
the Roman businessmen confined their interests to the West and Spain
rather than the Greek East (1976, p. 229 in notes 111–112).
104 As pointed out by Badian (1958, p. 149 note 3) and Gabba (loc. cit.),
among many others.

merchants would have been accorded the same measure of respect

as would the Romans. This perhaps accorded them some
protection from time to time from disgruntled natives who, for fear
of the might of the legions, might otherwise have been tempted to
offer violence to them. The Romans themselves must often have
had similar difficulties differentiating Romans from socii, especially
if those socii were Latins and thus indistinguishable in language and
custom from the Romans themselves, and as a result the Roman
governors and the legions they commanded probably did provide a
measure of protections to the Italians under their purview.105
Moreover, to the extent that their interests coincided, the Italian
merchants enjoyed the results of whatever influence Roman
negotiatores had on Roman foreign policy.
These advantages notwithstanding, the Italian merchant
would have faced difficulties abroad which would not have
confronted his Roman counterpart. In the first place,
incomprehensible sums of potential wealth in the form of Roman
contracting were automatically closed to him because they were
reserved for Roman citizens. The Romans hired contractors to
furnish weapons, clothing, and supplies for the army, which, given
the broad extent of Roman military involvement at this time, would
likely have been lucrative enough in and of itself. However, they
also probably employed contractors for the sale of captured
105 So Badian (1958, p. 152), who cites the fact that the Senate
interceded to protect Italians who ran blockades set up by Carthage in the
third century and refused Achaean requests to put a stop to such activity
in 149 (as reported in Polybius) even though the Commonwealth had no
interest in the wars into which the Italians had thereby inserted
themselves. Elsewhere, he notes the campaign of M. Antonius to suppress
the Cilician pirates (1968, p. 52), which Sherwin-White suggested was an
indirect action on Rome’s part to help the Italian negotiatores, since control
of piracy would benefit them as well as the Romans (p. 142). As events at
Cirta would show, however, Rome’s active role in protecting Italian
merchants of any citizenship, Roman or Allied, was apparently somewhat
limited, a point made by Hill (1952, p. 95).
spoil,106 definitely availed themselves of the services of contractors

for the operation of state-owned works, and—most significantly—
employed them as collectors of taxes (publicani) in the provinces.107
All of these were apparently awarded only to Roman citizens,108 a
fact which, if not unfair on its own, must have been lamented by
the socii.
Additionally, because Italians were not Roman citizens, they
could have no vote in those elections which determined what
consuls would be elected and thus which men would ultimately be
sent to serve as governors of the provinces.109 In fact, they would
have no voice in foreign policy whatsoever, which would not only
affect them as soldiers and taxpayers, but might also affect their
business interests. Unlike their counterparts amongst the Roman
commercial class, the negotiatores from the Allied communities had
no input as to where or when Rome would commit soldiers, how
long they would stay there, or how the relationship with overseas
communities and Rome would be decided.110
Of course, in some ways they could count on the Roman
commercial class to work on their behalf to the extent that they
106 Hill (op. cit., p. 49) describes the entrepreneurs who accompanied
the Roman armies and essentially liquidated the praeda for cash; the
opportunities for enrichment thereby are manifest.
107 A summary of contracting opportunities are found in Hill (op. cit.,
p. 52–59). They include: the manufacture of weapons; operations of state-

owned mines, fisheries, and forests; collection of rents from ager publicus
(scriptura), harbor duties (portoria), and all other taxes owed to the Roman
treasury, either from its citizens or from its overseas subjects; and
responsibility for transport of food. Morley (p. 6) and Brunt (1980, p. 85)
also comment on this last.
108 So Brunt (1988, p. 127).
109 Save, again, the very restricted voting rights of Latins who
happened to be present in the city when voting was done.

110 The relationship between the Roman ruling class and Rome’s
overseas entrepreneurs is difficult to define precisely. They were certainly

close (see Hill, op. cit., 50–51; Wiseman 1971, p. 78–79), and the merchants
could thereby possibly command a great deal of indirect influence on
Rome’s foreign policy. Harris (1979, p. 93–102), in fact, gives several
convincing arguments for why their influence in that realm might be
considerable, and the extent to which it affected the Roman state.
and the Italians had a common interest. This sort of things

happened during the 120s, when laws were passed to help them by
the Gracchi and their associates: as a check on the more flagrant
abuses of power by their magistrates, the Romans did grant to the
Italians the right to bring charges of repetundae (extortion) against
Roman governors in Roman courts. Likewise, C. Gracchus had
passed laws which determined that the courts for hearing such
cases be made up of the Roman equites111 as opposed to Senators.
On the surface that seemed as if it would be beneficial, since it was
argued that the former—defined as such by their lack of elected
office—would be more inclined to prosecute Roman governors
than the peers of these governors in the Senate would (as the latter
were themselves ex-magistrates and Senators). Since extortion,
either of merchants or provincials, would be bound to create a
hostile climate and indeed create a situation where less money
could be spent on goods, restraining it must have been seen as
good for business.
Nevertheless, it apparently did not take long before the courts
were turned to far different purposes than intended: those
negotiatores from the Roman equestrian class whose negotia was the
collection of taxes now had an instrument whereby, due to their
influence over friends and relatives who sat on the courts, they
could compel the promagisterial governors to allow them to collect
as much as they could squeeze out of the provinces through threat
of prosecution of any governors who attempted to restrain this.
From fear of this outcome, many promagistrates were now kept
from interfering in the collection methods of the publicani, could
not put a curb on the interest rates that financiers charged, and
could even be forced to use the armies at their disposal to collect
outstanding debts.112 By means of their rapacity, the Roman
111 Stockton, p. 139; for a more detailed discussion of the Gracchan
extortion laws, see next chapter.

112 So Harris 1979, p. 96. For examples of the abuses of the courts of
repetundae, see Hill (1952, p. 101–113, 128–131), all culminating in the

infamous case of P. Rutilius Rufus, who was prosecuted for extorting a
province which then welcomed him in exile, effectively demonstrating the
illusory nature of the charge. About this case more will be discussed in the
next chapter.
publicani often themselves impoverished the provinces,113 making it

even more difficult for the Italians to conduct trade there.
Furthermore, their greed not infrequently led to hatred against all
Italians. This would, on occasion, explode into violence, with the
innocent negotiatores and guilty publicani slaughtered alike, as
happened at Cirta during the Jugurthine War in 112.114 The sequel
to Cirta is illustrative of a final point: after a desultory invasion by a
Roman army, Jugurtha was able to use his wealth and contacts in
Rome to negotiate a peace (although that would end messily).
Without the vote, the Italians could play no part in any future
declarations of war to punish him and avenge their slain
compatriots, even though that war would eventually be fought
anyway.
The rise of Roman influence in the Mediterranean had in part
been accomplished through warfare, and the Italian who fought in
those wars might find himself with some extra coin through spoil.
Service under the eagles also introduced those Italians to areas of
the world that they had not seen before and to the opportunities
for commerce there, and those eagles similarly accorded protection
to whatever Italian and Roman negotiatores could be found in the
regions to which they were sent. Since the locals had a difficult
time discriminating between socius and Roman, the Allies were also
endowed with what the respect the nomen Romanum could conjure.
But the Italians were also apparently subjected to whatever
animosity was levelled at all Ῥωμαῖοι, in whose number the Greeks
were far more inclined to place the Italians than the Romans were.
At the same time, they were confronted with the certain knowledge
that their discomfiture would not necessarily result in action on
Rome’s part; if they sometimes enjoyed the protection of Rome’s
legionary umbrella, they were also well aware that this umbrella
could not be moved though their appeals alone. What was perhaps
more galling still was that such antipathy towards all Ἰταλιώται was
probably engendered by Romans taking advantage of a way of
accumulating riches which was closed to the socii, namely by the
113 Hill, op. cit., p. 68–69.

114 In fact, according to Sallust (BJ 25), most of the inhabitants of that
city were Italians, not Romans.
collection of taxes as contractors. Such employment, as well as the

providing of transport, food, weapons, and clothing for Rome’s
armies, were reserved for citizens. While the Italians engaged in
foreign commerce were eventually protected from the rapacity of
Roman administrators, they could not always be protected from
fallout from the rapacity of Roman taxmen, which sometimes put
their lives in danger. Just as in the army, Italians engaged in
moneymaking ventures essentially took greater risks but reaped
smaller rewards than the Roman citizens alongside whom they
worked.
It can hardly be doubted that these facts were a source of
choler for the Italians, but initially it seemed quite likely that they
would not be antagonized by their treatment at Roman hands all
that often. For a citizen of a state considered a socius of Rome, the
military alliance which bound the two together might mean that he
would be called to serve in the Roman army from time to time, and
would mean that he would pay taxes whether he served or not.
Beyond that service, his contact with the Romans may—if he so
desired—have been limited. Quite probably the wealthy and the
powerful from the two respective communities would have had
stronger ties, since the ruling class of the Allies would be the ones
directly dealing with the Romans. The élite would likely also have
deliberately sought out that contact or been sought out for it by
means of the cultivation of guest-friendships.115 This was probably
especially true if the member of the élite had chosen to go into
overseas trading. For the non-élite, that closeness need not have
existed; non-merchant small farmers could have kept to themselves
and lived under the reasonable expectation that the Romans would
leave them alone when not in the ranks, an expectation that seems
to have been realized for a time.
115 Mentioned in Badian (1958, p. 154–155) and elaborated upon by

Wiseman (1971, p. 28–29, 33–38, 47–64), who describes the process by
which bands of hospitium might have come into being and the advantages
which could be expected as a consequence from both sides. The Marsi
seem to have enjoyed a particular closeness with the Romans, which is of
great significance for the events of 91–88 (see chapters 3–6).
Such a state of affairs also began to change over the course of

the second century, as Rome began to play a more active role in the
affairs of the peninsula. Its role in keeping the peninsula safe from
internal military conflict has already been described, but in stages
the Romans were more and more often either asked to intervene in
other matters, or took such intervention upon themselves. Such
interventions will be described in the pages to follow.
6. ROMANS AND ALLIES IN ITALY

As described above, the foedera which united Rome and the various
Italian communities with which they were concluded left the latter
as independent, sovereign states. Generally speaking, it seems that
the Romans did not have much of a desire to impinge upon that
independence beyond the military demands it made, leaving to the
Allies the tasks of running their own domestic affairs. However, on
some occasions the Romans did involve themselves more
intimately with the non-military lives of the Italians. Many of these
episodes took the shape of Rome responding to a request for help,
as it did by coming to the aid of the Etruscans and Umbrians when
they were wracked by serf uprisings in 196 (Livy 33.36), by helping
to end the civil war in Venetia amongst the Patavians in 174
(41.27), by ridding Apulia of highwaymen and brigands in 185
(39.29.8), and by giving relief to those same Apulians when they
were suffering from a plague of locusts in 172 (42.10). Similarly, the
Romans were called in by Pisa and Luna to settle a boundary
dispute in 168 (Livy 45.13), as they had seventeen years earlier
when they were invited to settle the disputed boundaries between
Nola and Neapolis, though according to Valerius Maximus there
apparently had been some chicanery in the settlement of that earlier
dispute.116 Roman activity amongst the Allies under such
116 The episode is worth reporting in full, using D. R. Shackleton-

Bailey’s Loeb translation: “Q. Fabius Labeo was appointed by the senate
as arbiter to fix boundaries between Nola and Neapolis. Arriving at the
scene, he advised both separately not to be greedy but to go backwards
from the nodal point of the dispute rather than forwards. Both sides did
accordingly, swayed by his authority, leaving a tract of unclaimed land in
the middle. Then having fixed the boundaries as the parties themselves
circumstances was probably much appreciated by those who were

helped by it.117 Likewise, the building of Roman roads through
Allied territory—another intrusion of sorts—was probably also
appreciated, if not perhaps always at first.118
Nevertheless, on other occasions Roman involvement was
more intrusive, as in the case of their suppression of the Bacchic
had determined them, he awarded whatever ground remained to the

Roman people.”(Val. Max. 7.3.4a). Ths anecdote is clearly derived from
Cicero’s de officiis 1.33, who notes that this was not arbitration, but
swindling (Decipere hoc quidem est, non iudicare).
117 Activity of this kind is discussed by Badian (1958, p. 146–147,
discussing arbitration) and Sherwin-White (p. 128), who attributes it to a

“growing sense of responsibilities towards the Italian allies” amongst the
Romans. On the other hand, Mouritsen holds that Rome’s arbitration was
merely the result of no one left to arbitrate, and when the Italians could
settle their matters amongst themselves, did so (1998, p. 143 and note 20),
while Salmon (1982, p. 93) argues that “energetic measures to minimize
the effects of floods, fires, famines, earthquakes and other natural
disasters of a wide-ranging kind” sapped the Italian tendency towards self-
reliance, and elsewhere suggests such sapping had been purposeful: Rome
wanted the Allies to be dependent on them (1967, p. 311–313).
118 Potter (p. 132–133) suggests that there was a “huge impact that the
vast works of engineering must have made upon the local populations”,
which may not have always been positive. For example, there was the fact
that the roads going through Allied land would require those socii to give
up the territory upon which those roads would be built, and they would
also have to endure disruption caused by construction and by the army of
workmen—which was sometimes the army itself—engaged in that
building. Nevertheless, the resulting improvement of infrastructure would
more than compensate for the land involved and the inconvenience of the
presence of the workmen, especially since the aerarium paid for these
improvements; so Wiseman (1970, p. 125, 144–146). Indeed, Wiseman
additionally observes that by means of his road-building initiatives
C. Gracchus had made himself very popular with “a multitude of
contractors and artisans” (ὁ δὲ Γράκχος καὶ ὁδοὺς ἔτεμνεν ἀνὰ τὴν Ἰταλίαν
μακράς, πλῆ ος ἐργολά ων καὶ χειροτεχνῶν ὑφ᾽ ἑαυτῷ ποιούμενος, ἑτοίμων ἐς
ὅ τι κελεύοι, καὶ ἀποικίας ἐσ γεῖτο πολλάς; Appian 1.3.23), with the
implication that these were possibly Italian workmen and artisans hired to
build the roads by the Romans who had acquired the contracts. (1971, p.
44; also note 3, p. 139)
cult in 186. There were also apparently other laws passed from time
to time at Rome which demanded certain kinds of behavior from
the Allies, even if the laws were not necessarily binding on
the whole of Italy (which would be inconsistent with Italian
independence as guaranteed by their foedera).119 These occurrences
illustrate that the Romans were on occasion willing to take a more
active position in the domestic lives of their allies, whether invited
or otherwise. Such domineering behavior soon led to abuse, a term
which might well be used to characterize Rome’s occasional use of
Allied cities either as safe havens for those it wished to protect or
as prisons for those whom they wished incarcerated.120 It almost
119 So Keaveney (1987, p. 29–30). Into this category may fall Rome’s
laws forbidding use of rivers for agriculture in ways which might diminish
Rome’s water supply or make rivers like the Tiber more difficult to
navigate; for these see also Morley (p. 104–105). Harris (1971, p. 108–113)
discusses others of these statutes and their possible ramifications on the
Italians. It is his opinion that these were exceptional, and that Roman
need for Italian manpower would preclude their over-involvement in the
internal affairs of Allied communities, which would violate their
sovereignty. Mouritsen (1998, p. 39–58) agrees, and even goes so far as to
suggest that even the Bacchanalian suppression was not extended to the
Italian communities, an argument which is, however, not very persuasive.
120 Instances of this type of quartering are noted in several passages in
the ancient sources; they include Livy 32.26, where it is narrated that
conspirators of a foiled slave revolt were stationed in Latin towns; 45.42,
which describes how noble prisoners from the Macedonian War were
established at Carseoli and Alba; 45.43, where the responsibility for the
exiled Gentius king of the Illyrians was placed on Iguvium; Pausanias
7.10.11, which describes how Etruria became the holding cell for 1000
Achaeans in 167; Diodorus Siculus 37.16, where it is told that in 91 the
Cilician pirate Agamemnon was freed from prison in Asculum, where the
Romans might well have kept him since 100, the year after Antonius
celebrated his triumph over the pirates; and Appian 1.5.42, where Venusia
is shown to have looked after Oxynta son of Jugurtha (these latter two
instances would be the cause of Roman headaches in the Allied War, as
will be seen). Some of these instances are noted by Harris (1971, p. 110–
111), and others by Mouritsen (1998, p. 43 note 16, although additional
examples provided there all date from the Hannibalic War and thus may
have been temporary wartime measures).
certainly applied to the affair of L. Postumnius Albinus. This man,

as consul in 173, went on a trip through Praeneste and sent ahead
his demands for lodgings, pack animals, meals, and an honor guard
from the city, even though according to Livy (42.1.8, where this
anecdote is narrated), pack animals, food, and tents were
customarily furnished by the Republic to consuls that they not be
burdensome to the Allies. This incident had actually been
motivated by a petty personal grudge, as it seems that Postumius
had once gone to Praeneste as a private citizen to attend a religious
service and had not received any form of recognition from the city,
which infuriated him (Livy, loc. cit.). Still, by acquiescing to his
demands the Praenestines opened the door for future consuls to
behave as Postumius had done, and presently Livy asserts that the
example was indeed followed. This would seem to be corroborated
by a speech of Gaius Gracchus preserved in Aulus Gellius, which
recounts how a consul ordered a local magistrate at Teanum
Sidicinium to be flogged for not having the public baths cleaned
and available for his use on arrival and how a praetor had done
likewise at Ferentinum (10.3.1–3). Since Gellius avers that he had
gotten the anecdote from a published speech of Gracchus made
while the latter was promulgating some of his laws, so it may be
wondered whether the tribune may have been exaggerating
somewhat. Yet that he was not can be inferred from a similar
episode recounted in a speech made by Cato preserved in the same
author (10.3.17–19). This one involved the consul Quintus
Thermus, who had had local magistrates in what was probably
Etruria, where he had been stationed for his war against the
Lugurians (Livy 34.56), out to the lash for not having attended
properly to his supplies.121 Moreover, during the same year as the
incident at Praeneste, the censor Q. Fulvius Flaccus practically
destroyed a temple of Juno in Bruttium to gain access to its roof
tiles, which he wished to use on a temple of his own which he had
121 Gellius also cites an episode quoted by Gracchus in which a young
man who was not yet a magistrate had a Venusian flogged to death for a
jest made about his litter (10.3.5).
vowed in Rome (Livy 42.3).122 This behavior was apparently

disapproved of by traditional moralists, but nevertheless the very
fact that it occurred at all suggests that Roman magistrates had
progressively become more and more comfortable with the idea of
treating their Italian allies with contempt, in the manner of a
subject people. Such incidents, had they been perpetrated by
Roman magistrates upon Roman citizens, would have been met
with outrage that could have cost the offender his office, his
property, and possibly even his life, but the Allies had no recourse,
and in many of the above episodes they do not even register a
protest.
Finally, the ultimate intrusion into Allied sovereignty came
with the Gracchi. A more complete discussion of these men and
their associates, the laws they passed, and the events around them
will take place in the next chapter. For this one, it will suffice to
note briefly that the Gracchi concerned themselves extensiverly
with the ager publicus, the tracts of lands owned by the entire
Commonwealth as a whole, which they wised to apportion and
divide amongst the Roman poor. This process, as will be seen,
involved reclaiming enormous amounts from those who had used
it illegally, Roman or otherwise. The passage of the leges Semproniae
involved the confiscation of quite a bit of land held by Italians;
some of this was held illegally held ager publicus, but some of it
doubtless was their own legitimate property lying near Roman
lands, a fact which the Roman assessors do not seem to have
regarded with much compassion. This confiscation no doubt
represented for many Italians the final alarm as to what their status
relative to the Romans actually was: the Romans would now
directly affect the everyday lives of many Allies with laws that could
cost them enormous amounts of their property, laws which they
had had no voice in making or approving and from which (barring
122 The passages above are cited by Toynbee (p. 114–115), Badian
(1958, p. 148), Mouritsen (loc. cit.), and Salmon (1982, p. 198 note 326, as
well as more extensively in 1967, p. 323–326, where he suggests that since
many of these episodes occurred in southern Italy, perhaps Sabellic
ancestry of the people on whom they were visited encouraged such
misbehavior).
the intercession of a friendly magistrate) they could have no

protection.
It has been shown that in the second century BCE, Rome’s
Italian allies were increasingly subjected to maltreatment at the
hands of the Romans in a manner which more than suggested that
the former were regarded as substantially less than equals by their
ostensible partner in alliance. This occurred whenever Romans and
the Italians came into contact, both under the vexilla, in the
provinces, and increasingly in the peninsula itself. It is fairly easy to
imagine that this attitude inspired a great deal of indignation, and
this indignation was perhaps exacerbated by the fact that, through
close contact with the Romans, the socii were drawing closer to
them socially and culturally in a number of ways. As mentioned
above, in the field socii and Romans fought the same enemies, used
the same equipment, participated in the same maneuvers, were
trained by the same drills, and were subjected to the same brutal
discipline. As comrades in arms, the Italians faced the same
hardships, suffered the same reverses, and gloried in the same
victories, and they were doubtless proud and most certainly aware
of their importance to the success of the ever-invincible Roman
war machine. An illustration of this may be found in a report of
Appian, who notes that, during the war between the Allies and the
Romans the Marsi reminded themselves and their adversaries of
that fact that no Roman had ever triumphed over the Marsi or
without the Marsi (λεγόμενον πρότερον οὔτε κατὰ Μάρσων οὔτε ἄνευ
Μάρσων γενέσ αι ρίαμ ον; 1.6.46). Adorned in battle array a socius
must have been practically indistinguishable from a Roman whose
identical arms and armor he wore, and indeed to his enemy no
difference may have appeared at all. The equation made between
the two by the Greeks would have been understandable, as only the
most astute would have noticed that the Romans may have spoken
a different language than their Allies. And this, of course, proceeds
along the assumption that there was a difference in language, which
by the end of the second century was by no means always the case.
In addition to the Latins themselves, to whom it had always
belonged, many of the Italians had picked up the Latin tongue
through long acquaintance with the Romans. Latin would have
been the language used by their commanding officers in the field,
for instance, as well as the only language spoken by visiting Roman
magistrates, assuming an anecdote provided by Valerius Maximus
to the effect Romans on official business only spoke Latin that

holds true for all foreign people and not just the Greeks (2.2.2)).123
This use, not to mention its employment in barracks, inns, and
other places where Italians and Romans would gather together,
caused the language to spread throughout progressively Italy, as
inscriptional evidence shows.124 Likewise, in Italy itself Roman
coins were the only ones used,125 Roman titles gradually supplanted
Italian ones for the names of magistrates in Italian communities,
Roman weights and measures became the standards employed, and
in some areas even Roman dress began to be worn.126 In short, in
almost every way the Roman and the Italian who had mastered his
arms, language, and customs could not be told apart by outside
observers, and even by themselves.
123 The full text is as follows: Magistratus vero prisci quantopere suam
populique Romani maiestatem retinentes se gesserint hinc cognosci potest, quod inter
cetera obtinendae gravitatis indicia illud quoque magna cum perseverantia custodiebant,
ne Graecis umquam nisi latine responsa darent. quin etiam ipsos linguae volubilitate,
qua plurimum ualent, excussa per interpretem loqui cogebant. Greeks are the only
ones mentioned here, and that this was indeed the policy towards the
Greeks seems to be corroborated by the testimony of Cicero. In that
orator’s second speech against Verres (4.147), he relates how he once was
visiting Sicily and addressed the Syracusan Senate in Greek. Despite the
fact that he was not at that time a magistrate, he was criticized for doing
so. Valerius suggests that one of the reasons Romans behaved in this way
is to deprive the Greeks of their ability to weave a mist of words around
the Romans, but he continues that the practice was followed scilicet
Latinae vocis honos per omnes gentes venerabilior diffunderetur. This
suggests that they acted in the same manner towards more succinct
peoples, such as the Italians.
124 So Brunt (1988, p. 112–120), Salmon (1982, p. 21–23, 88–89, 122–
124, 154–156), and Harris (1971, p. 169–181). However, see Mouritsen

(1998, p. 79–83), who argues that this “Latinisation” of the Allies is an
overstatement.
125 Salmon (op. cit., p. 70, 86–87, 98). This was not, Salmon argues, by
compulsion, but apparently out of willingness to let the Romans take the
lead and assume the expense of coining money. Likewise, Morley (p. 78)
suggests that it was a stimulus to trade, since conversion rates could
thereby be avoided.
126 Brunt, loc. cit.
Nevertheless, in almost every theater in which there existed

the potential for a difference in treatment between the two by
those very Romans, the Italians came off the worse for it. On
several occasions this was drastically underscored in Rome itself,
when even freedom of the city was sometimes denied to Italians,
who were bade to quit the metropolis by means of laws designed to
expel them. To be certain, on some occasions these expulsions
were executed at the requests of the Allies themselves—such was
the case in 187 and 177—though no such request is given for the
expulsions which took place in 173, 126, 122, or 95. While it is
commonly accepted that these last were done because matters
directly affecting the Allies themselves were being voted on, and
thus there was a need to prevent illegal voting,127 it nevertheless
must have been disruptive and insulting for the socii who were in
the vicinity of Rome to have to depart from it, and sometimes even
depart from it permanently. Just how badly the Italians took some
of these laws may be derived from a passage in Diodorus, which
describes a band of 10,000 men who were even tempted to take
arms against the capital in the aftermath of an expulsion law of 95,
men whose numbers were probably derived mainly from traders
and merchants thrust out of the city (ὁ τῶν Μαρσῶν ἡγούμενος
Πομπαίδιος ... μυρίος γάρ ἀναλα ών ... ἔχοντας ὑπό τοῖς ἱματίοις
ξίφ , προῆγεν ἐπὶ τῆς Ῥώμ ς; 37.13, about which more will be
discussed in the next chapter). As long as they were not cives, such
men could be forced to quit the capital at any time in a manner that
never would befall a Roman citizen.128
127 But see Appendix C for one of these; see also Tweedie for another,
as well as a more extensive discussion in chapter four.
128 Husband (p. 320–321) argues that the law of 126 was possibly, and
that of 121 was definitely, only temporary and designed to prevent

fraudulent voting. Baldson (p. 100) agrees (however, in the case of the law
of Pennus his determination has difficulties; see Appendix C). These laws
were applied to all non-Roman citizens, and the fact that the laws of 187
and 177 were requested by the Latins did not mean that all Allies were not
subjected to it. Husband attempts to argue that only the second affected
both Latins and Allies, but is not convincing. If anything, his examination
of the vocabulary used shows that, if only one of the two laws affected the
Allies as well as the Latins, it would have been the first of the two. More
7. CITIZENSHIP AS REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES

It cannot be denied that the Roman government demanded a great
deal from the Allies, and in the pages above many of these
demands have been described. An attempt has also been made to
illustrate some of the benefits that accrued to the Allies through
this association. Pains have also been taken to show that in spite of
these, the Allies suffered far greater hardships due to their
involvement with the construction of Rome’s empire than the
Romans themselves did: both endured harsh Roman discipline, but
it was visited on the Italians with much greater severity; both
fought in the same battles, but it was often the Italians who drew
the most difficult assignments and suffered the heaviest casualties;
both were subjected to being called up for lengthy periods in
faraway places, with a similar toll taken on farms and families in
their absence, but the Romans could sometimes avoid unpleasant
service in a way that the Italians could not, and—importantly—
after 167 the Romans did not pay taxes, but Italian communities
did. It has also been seen that even the rewards the socii could claim
from Rome’s imperium were such that Romans nearly always
received a far greater portion of them: Roman generals, not
Italians, earned gloria, rank, and titles; spoil from looting which did
not get divided amongst the troops would often be used to provide
Rome, and not the Italian cities, with temples, aqueducts, and
roads, and even if it was shared with the soldiers, the Italians could
and sometimes did receive less; the taxes which flowed from
provinces conquered by both Romans and Italians would wind up
in the Roman treasury, not in those of the Italians, with the
collection of such taxes reserved for Roman contractors; and while
Italians could benefit from any Roman foreign policy which
favored overseas commerce, they would have no voice in the
making of that policy. Indeed, the Romans often extended their
reach even beyond what was allowed to them by foedera and
tampered with Italians in their own communities. All of this must
have been extremely bitter for the Allies, especially since many of
likely still, however, is that fact that both laws did so. Another expulsion
of some foreigners took place in 115, but this only pertained to
practitioners of the theatrical arts; see Noy, p. 45.
them were so culturally similar to the Romans that outsiders could

not tell them apart: alike in arms, armor, fighting ability,
appearance, clothing, custom, and language, many of the Italians
were so similar to the Romans that the Romans themselves could
not tell them apart, let alone the Greeks.
A way to resolve all of these difficulties for the Italians would
be to become Roman citizens. On the one hand, the Roman civitas
would certainly have been very valuable to the élite of a great many
of the Italian communities, and the fact that it was they who were
responsible for the ultimate decision to go to war in 91 is usually
not disputed: as one scholar put it, “It was they who determined, in
unison or by the will of a dominant faction, the course their
communities were to take. Their ambitions and interests were
decisive, and it is their motives in seeking the citizenship that we
must try to discover, not those of Italian peasants who would for
the most part be willing to follow the lead they gave”.129 On the
other hand, while the assertion about the lower classes in that
quotation might very well have been true, it seems difficult to
imagine that loyalty to local potentates alone would motivate over
100,000 Italians (Appian 1.5.39) to venture in arms against a people
whose battlefield ability had played a dominant role in subjugating
a good deal of the known world, even if they knew that on the field
they would be equals to their opponents in combat ability. In other
words, while it seems fairly patent what the citizenship could offer
the upper classes, these were of only a small percentage of the
armies which fought against the Romans. The remainder would
probably have needed some convincing to engage in such an
endeavor beyond deference to their social and economic superiors.
That they eventually were so convinced suggests that the
citizenship was valuable to them, also.
Of course, it is not difficult to imagine that the Italians of the
lower and middle classes could easily have been persuaded to fight
to bring an end to the many ways by which the Romans had
exploited and oppressed them, which the citizenship would have
129 This remarkable phrasing belongs to Brunt (1988, p. 100), and is
echoed by Keaveney (1987, p. 13): “Their role is almost always

subordinate and supportive of those who were their lords”.
done. As most of these would have come into contact with the
Romans only in the camps, for the lower and middle classes of the
Italians the citizenship would at the very least have meant a less
strenuous military service. As citizens, the ways they had been used
as soldiers would have to be altered due in part to their abilities to
use their vote to protest maltreatment, and in part to the protection
they would gain through the laws forbidding deadlier punishments.
Additionally, citizenship would have guaranteed the quondam Italian
soldier equal shares of distributed praeda, or freedom to come to
the city to enjoy public works built with undistributed manubiae
without fear of expulsion. As cives, Italians could also make use of
the city for any other purpose to which they might put that access,
such as the search for employment or markets for the sale of
goods.130 It might also have meant the end of taxes or a great
reduction in them,131 and an end to the brazen misdeeds of visiting
Roman magistrates. For the upper middle classes (the equivalent of
the Roman equites), civitas would offer more besides: the chance to
compete for public contracts, to frame policy affecting commerce
(and elect the men by which such policy was conducted) or at least
vote on it, to halt future agrarian laws which might affect their
holdings, and perhaps even barter their vote through direct bribery
or for other commodities and enrich themselves that way,132 would
all be acquired through the franchise. The citizenship would also
mean public equality with the Romans, to complement the private
130 For the importance of the city itself as a marketplace and source of
employment, see Morley (p. 51, 167–170).

131 As will be discussed in chapter 4, the result of extending the
citizenship to the Allies would mean at the minimum that the Romans
would have to pay their stipendia and furnish their equipment from the
Republic’s funds, which might well have been so drained by the additional
expenditure that the tributum would need to be reinstated. This might very
well have played a part in Rome’s reluctance to grant the franchise, as will
be discussed below. However, even if taxation were visited upon them as
citizens, it would be diffused amongst all of the Roman citizens, whose
numbers would be much greater by the inclusion of the socii. The result
would be that the amount paid would almost certainly be smaller than
what the Italians paid as non-citizens to furnish contingents to Rome.
132 So Brunt, op. cit., p. 127.
equality that many of the upper classes enjoyed already.133 It might

even present the possibility of joining Rome’s loftiest heights by
means of officeholding, which would bring the concomitant ability
to lead armies and win fama.
Such considerations would almost certainly have led the Allies
to come to want the citizenship, and then persuade them to seek it
even if by arms. Independence, by contrast, would not have
brought the same opportunities, although certainly it would have
presented an end to many of the Allied causes for distress with the
Romans: if cleft from them successfully, the Romans would be out
of Allied lives forever, but that would also mean that the empire
which the Romans had built would be denied to them. After all, the
foreign nations within which the Italian merchants had done their
trading had signed their treaties with the Romans. As long as the
Italians were more-or-less joined to them, the easterners need not
know the difference between Ῥωμαῖοι and Ἰταλιώται, but when
parted they might have to learn with possible consequences not to
Italian liking. Domestically, too, the use of the city would not be
guaranteed to them, as it would be if they had acquired the
franchise. An additional economic drawback would present itself
for Italian communities which became independent in every way, in
that they would still need to defend themselves; to do that they
would need to have armies and, probably, would probably pay the
same taxes to maintain them. Italian armies would also have to
fight to protect themselves without Roman help, a military loss of
some magnitude which may not have been balanced by the fact
that all the rewards of victory, if achieved, would be entirely theirs.
Independence was by this point probably something which
could never be achieved anyway, as the more farsighted Italians
probably would have recognized. The Italians would have to unite
to defeat the Romans, who would—if past history was any
indication—not let them go without a fight, and unless Rome was
133 For which see Wiseman (1971, p. 63). That this equality was not
complete may be observed from the fact that all of the magisterial
misdeeds described above, the ones quoted in Livy and Gellius, were
directed by Roman aristocrats against Italian domi nobiles, their ostensible
compeers.
destroyed completely, the newly independent Italians would have

to stay united if anything just to ward off future Roman attack and,
if not that, to ensure the safety of the peninsula to which they
would have gotten accustomed for the previous century. Thus,
while some of the military debilities might be counterbalanced by a
new nation-state (which some have argued was the principal goal of
the Allies during the war) it would still in a sense not give the Allies
full independence, as necessity would then compel the Allies to
remain joined to each other. It is not unlikely that some Italians
desired independence for all that, but the others would likely have
seen that citizenship would mean not only liberation from the
inequality, but full use of the benefits of Rome’s power and status.
In other words, citizenship would be the only way whereby they
could be partners in Rome’s empire and not be subjects to it, which
is the very thing for which the sources state they went to war in the
first place.
8. DISSATISFACTION WITH ROME AND THE ROAD TO WAR

In the pages above it has been argued that the citizenship was a
thing to be desired by the Allies due to the fact that on the one
hand it would remove the unpleasant facets of their alliances with
Rome, while on the other it would leave them with access to all the
positive aspects and, indeed, to enjoy those advantages to their
fullest degree. Such a desire eventually emerged amongst the socii,
and it eventually led them to fight the Romans in 91.
Nevertheless, it is one thing to ask and seek the answers to the
question of why the Italians wanted the citizenship at all. It is
another to ascertain why it is that this desire led to action, and why
it led to that action when it did. The latter inquiry will be pursued
in the following chapter, where it will be shown that events in the
last half of the second century sharpened the desire of the Italians
to gain the franchise until it reached an acuity too great to be
resisted, and that the ultimate result was war.
CHAPTER 3:
THE SPARKS TO LIGHT THE FLAME
1. THE QUESTION OF WHEN: WHY 91?

In the previous chapter an exploration was made of the possible
grounds for which dissatisfaction with Rome arose or drastically
increased amongst Rome’s Italian Allies. This dissatisfaction was, it
was speculated, directly attributable to the nature of the Allied
connections with the Romans, and all which those connections
implied. It should be reiterated that the possible grounds for
dissatisfaction are in fact the only ones which can be described: the
exact nature of Allied dissatisfaction remains uncertain, due to the
fact that—for reasons observed in Chapter 1—the guidance as to
their reasoning which can be gained from the primary sources has
been severely limited. As a result, the investigation which was
attempted into the cause(s) of Italian displeasure above was largely
hypothetical. In the absence of reasons explicitly cited for their
discontent, such reasons have been sought in part in the well-
attested features of the treaties which bound the Italians to the
Romans, ones which could reasonably be assumed to be irritants,
and also in part from Rome’s documented behavior towards their
socii.
What specifically bothered the Allied has not been, and indeed
cannot be, positively identified. Nevertheless, what is fairly certain
is that the socii went to war due to a disjunction which they believed
had come to existe between the way they felt they ought to be
treated by Rome and they way they actually were so treated. In the
oft-repeated phrase which stands as the only thing resembling
justification for their mood to be found in the ancient authors, the
Allies wanted to be “partners in Roman power, rather than its
subjects.” If that was truly the case (and this essay holds that it is),
the question thus far considered has been “What made the Allies
feel like subjects?”. The series of conjectures and theories—which
139
is, once more, essentially the best that can be done—have been
offered in the previous chapter to try to answer that question.
However, it is one thing to ask what in essence amounts to
“Why did the Allies go to war?”. A somewhat separate line of
inquiry is “Why did the Allies finally go to war when they did?”. As
has been seen, while some of the (speculated) grievances may have
arisen or become more acute over the course of decades or even
centuries, others must have existed from the beginning of the
striking of the foedera. If even a few of these latter did indeed exist
(and almost certainly more than a few of them did), the tension
caused by them might have rendered matters in Italy volatile for
hundreds of years. Violence therefore might well have been
detonated at earlier points, and if that is so, why did the
conflagration occur in 91, as opposed to earlier than that?
Alternatively, why did it not occur later?
It will be the purpose of this chapter to find possible answers
to this second line of inquiry; to seek, in sum, the answer to the
question “Why did the Allies finally go to war when they did?”.
The supposition of the previous chapter has been that matters in
Italy were made inflammable due to the way the Allies were treated
by the Romans, and that all that would be needed to set the
peninsula ablaze in warfare would be a spark. The specific
circumstances which aggravated the tensions mentioned above into
actual combat—the spark, as it were—will be sought below.
Pursuant to this aim, the first logical step would be to attempt
to locate the moment at which the wheels of violence had begun to
turn. Velleius Paterculus locates it in the tribunate of M. Livius
Drusus, at whose death the “long smouldering fires of an Italian
war were now fanned into flame” (2.15).1 In this—either by
coincidence or by design—he follows what was apparently in the
missing text of Livy,2 as seen by the fact that works known to be
1 Credit for this turn of phrase must go to Velleius’s translator

Frederick Shipley (Loeb, 1924), whose English is somewhat more elegant
than the rather prosaic iam pridem tumescens bellum excitavit Italicum of the
original.
2 See Haug (p. 120–125) on the use of Livy by Velleius, which is
considered by her to be improbable for this section.

THE SPARKS TO LIGHT THE FLAME 141
descendents of the latter also attribute the war to events

surrounding the life and death of Drusus. These include the
Periochae of the lost book 71, Florus (2.5–6), and Orosius (5.18).
The remnants of the text of Diodorus Siculus covering this period
are a mess, but one excerpt notes that the war began when the
Senate at some point called on the Italians for aid against a popular
uprising and promised them the citizenship by law in exchange for
it, a promise which was broken (37.2).3 This episode, too, seems to
refer to events from the life of Drusus. Finally, Appian directly
notes that the war was triggered by the death of Drusus (in 1.4.38).
All of these sources name Drusus as the flashpoint for the war. All
are similar in one other aspect, as well: almost all of them agree that
the reason why Drusus was responsible for the war was that either
he himself, or his political enemies in opposition to him, promised
the civitas to the Allies but did not, or could not, deliver it, a failure
which pushed the socii to arms.4
This harmony of sources would seem to make the tribunate of
Drusus the obvious starting point for the war. However, beginning
with Drusus gives rise to difficulties to which the sources
themselves make allusions. In the first place, there is the
aforementioned reference in Velleius which indicates that the war
had been on the verge of erupting for some time when the final
shove came (iam pridem tumescens bellum). Likewise, there is a notice
in Plutarch (Sull. 6.2) which does not itself identify the cause of the
war but does mention that it had been simmering for awhile before
it boiled over into bloodshed (ὁ συμμαχικὸς πόλεμος πάλαι
τυφόμενος ἐπὶ τὴν πόλιν ἀναλάμψας). If, therefore, the object is to
find when “the wheels of violence had begun to turn”, these
3 ἐκ γὰρ τῆς διαφ ορᾶς ταύτ ς στασιάσαντος τοῦ δ μοτικοῦ πρὸς τὴν
σύγκλ τον, εἶτα ἐκείν ς ἐπικαλεσαμέν ς τοὺς ἐκ τῆς Ἰταλίας ἐπικουρῆσαι καὶ
ὑποσχομέν ς τῆς πολυεράστου Ῥωμαϊκῆς πολιτείας μεταδοῦναι καὶ νόμῳ
κυρῶσαι, ἐπεὶ οὐδὲν τῶν ὑπεσχ μένων τοῖς Ἰταλιώταις ἐγένετο, ὁ ἐξ αὐτῶν
πόλεμος πρὸς Ῥωμαίους ἐξεκαύ .
4 The exception is Orosius, who merely mentions that the Latins were
stirred up by “hope of liberty” (spe libertatis), a fact of which Mouritsen

(1998, p. 5–22) makes much in his attempt to attribute the cause of the
war to the urge for independence. His arguments are not terribly
persuasive, however, for reasons mentioned in the previous two chapters.
passages of Velleius and Plutarch suggest that it was at a point

earlier than the tribunate of Drusus. Finding that earlier point may
well explain why it is that the deeds and death Drusus proved to be
the final straw, and thus may be a more suitable point to locate the
answer as to why the war broke out in 91.5
As it happens, a number of sources suggest this more proper
time in which to discover the acceleration towards war. One of
these is Florus, who places Drusus as the last link in a chain which
ultimately begins with Tiberius Gracchus (1.47; 2.1–6). Tacitus, too,
indicates that the Allied War ultimately began due to the actions of
the Gracchi which continued on through their spiritual successor
Drusus, men whose efforts resulted in Allies “ruined by hopes”
(corrupti spe … socii; Ann. 3.27). Finally, Appian very clearly indicates
that the Allies turned to war after the many episodes in which the
possibility of acquiring the citizenship was extended to them and
then snatched away again, episodes which ended with Drusus but
which began with the Gracchi (loc. cit.).
All of these sources make explicit the connections between
the tribunates of the Gracchi, that of Drusus, their promises of
citizenship implicitly or explicitly extended to the Allies, the
breaking of those promises, and war. For this reason, it seems
appropriate here to begin the search for why the war broke out in
91 with the events of forty years previously, just as the
abovementioned ancient authorities all did.6 Accordingly, this essay
will do so, starting with Tiberius Gracchus and winding its way
ultimately to Drusus, identifying along the way additional
happenings which contributed to the strain before the murder of
Drusus furnished the occasion at which the cords would snap.
2. TIBERIUS GRACCHUS AND THE AGER PUBLICUS

The career of Tiberius Gracchus has been ably narrated elsewhere,7
so the briefest of a summary will be needed here. Descended from
5 See also Appendix E.

6 Such an approach is also used by Thomsen (p. 13–47) and Keaveney
(1987, p. 47–115).
7 The definitive work is still David Stockton’s The Gracchi, from which
much will be cited in the following pages.

the highest levels of nobility through both parents, Gracchus had

enjoyed a distinguished early military career that was eventually
marred by the misfortune of serving as quaestor under the consul
C. Hostilius Mancinus in Spain, who was not only defeated there in
battle by the Numantines in 137 BCE but also prevented from
returning to his camp afterwards (Florus 1. 34; Per. 55–56; Plut.
Ti. Gracc. 5–6; Vell. 2.1–2). Thereupon surrounded and in dire
straits, Mancinus was able to negotiate his way out of danger by
means of a truce which all accounts suggest was a disgrace to the
commonwealth8. Gracchus had played a major role in these
negotiations, since according to Plutarch he was not only the
quaestor of Mancinus but was also trusted by the Numantines due
to his reputation for honesty and to his father’s connections to the
area. Accordingly, when the Senate refused to ratify the terms of
the treaty Gracchus was much discomfitted, both because his name
had been sullied and because there was the possibility that he
himself could have met the same fate as Mancinus, who was bound
and sent naked to the Numantines.9 Such a fate Gracchus avoided,
though from this point on it is observed that Gracchus found
himself at odds with the dominant party in the Senate.10
This newfound antagonism undoubtably played a significant
role in the series of events which happened next: once some time
had passed after the Mancinus incident, Gracchus proceeded to run
for the office of tribune, and in 133 was elected to it. Not long
after his election he came forward with a series of laws of
enormous import. It is with these laws that Gracchus had his
8 Plutarch (loc. cit., supra) mentions merely that the Numantines

retained all property from the camp as plunder; Florus adds that, in
addition to this, the legionaries were also stripped of their arms.
9 Per. 56, Florus 2.2, Plut. Ti. Gracc. 7, Vell. 2.2; the latter three of
which note that there really had been some danger to Gracchus.
10 Stockton (p. 29–31) notes that this enmity found additional
expression in the association of Gracchus with Appius Claudius Pulcher

and P. Licinius Crassus, political antagonists of both Scipio Aemilianus
and of the established party Scipio represented. This ill-will of Gracchus
(Stockton maintains) was especially pronounced towards the general, who
had apparently been at the forefront of the opposition to the treaty with
Numantia, perhaps for the purpose of being sent to fight them himself.
primary effect upon the Allies, and thus influenced the eventual
war. Because of this, a digression describing the context under
which these leges Semproniae were presented and passed (both in
terms of the situation to be address by them and the method by
which they were enacted), as well as their operation and the
consequences, may be justified.
As is well known, the Roman commonwealth owned a certain
amount of land which it had acquired by various means, usually
through conquest. This land was held by the entire state and thus
belonged to the people as a whole, hence its name: ager publicus.
This ager publicus was put to various uses: on some of it colonies
were founded; some of it was given to individual Romans for their
own private use; some of it was sold; and some of it was let out to
Romans for use on terms of payment of rent. There was also part
of the ager publicus for which no official use had been designated,
and this land the government of Rome allowed its citizens to use,
albeit under certain restrictions. Some of these restrictions formed
the basis of a lex de modo agrorum,11 under whose terms a citizen
could not legally hold more than 500 iugera (about 333 acres) of this
land for his own use, nor to give pasture on it to more than 100
large or 500 small beasts (Appian 1.1.8).12 Violation of this law was
11 According to Livy (6.35) this law dates back to a plebiscitum carried
by the tribunes C. Licinius Stolo and Lucius Sextius in 367. Plutarch also
mentions this in his Camillus (39) in a passage possibly drawn from Livy,
where it is added that Licinius was later ironically convicted of violating
his own law. It may be for this reason that the law is often referred to as
the “Licinian Law”. Appian (1.1.8) merely mentions that the law was the
work of “the tribunes” but does not specify by which ones, when, or why
it was enacted.
12 The exact nature of this law has given rise to a scholarly dispute of
some duration, as Forsén has chronicled (p. 13–28). Some aspects of this
debate has involves such matters as whether or not this law could ever
have been passed in 367, whether references to it actually reflect a later
law pushed back in time by chroniclers (of whom Licinius Macer is the
usual culprit, although Forsén suggests L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi as the
one responsible; p. 79–81), whether the tradition suggests not one but two
separate laws, whether it was a complete fabrication and that no such law
ever existed at all, et cetera. Forsén’s own conclusion is that there likely was
a law from 367 which in some way limited the holding of ager publicus,
punishable by what Appian describes as “fixed penalties” (ζ μίαν

ὥρισαν, 1.1.8), which are perhaps the same as those alluded to in a
speech of Cato the Elder in 167 BCE (cited by Aulus Gellius,
6.3.37), which was a fine of a thousand sesterces.13 In the passage
based in part on a passage of Livy (10.23) which states that there were
prosecutions for violating it as early as 298. This evidence is also cited by
Gargola on pages 136–138 and the supporting endnotes on pages 234–
235. However, Forsén continues, due to Rome’s lack of mastery of
surveying techniques in the fourth century—knowledge which only came
to them later on—a precise limit was not specified in this law. Instead, the
500 iugera limit is a detail derived from a later piece of legislation of
unknown authorship enacted sometime before 167, when it was
mentioned by Cato the Elder in a speech (see below).
This is fairly persuasive, although Forsén’s speculation as to the
enactment of this later in the neighborhood of 180–167 rests on rather
flimsy reasoning and does not rule out the likelihood that it was carried
earlier (p. 66). Either way, there is broad agreement in the argument that,
older laws notwithstanding, the 500 limit was at the very least the current
law in the time of Tiberius Gracchus, which can be supported by evidence
in Appian (1.1.9) and Plutarch (Ti. Gracc. 8).
13 The passage is a tricky one because it involves a debate over the
penalizing of the island of Rhodes, which had wished to make war on the
Romans but had not actually done so. Cato then argues that it is not a
crime to “wish” to do something, citing how laws would be ridiculous if
they contained terms such that if someone “wished to do a thing, let his
fine be a thousand sesterces if this is less than half his estate; if someone
wished to have more than five hundred iugera, let his fine be so much; if
someone wished to have a greater number of animals, let his penalty be so
much” (si quis illud facere voluerit, mille minus dimidium familiae multa esto; si quis
plus quingenta iugera habere voluerit, tanta poena esto; si quis maiorem pecuum
numerum habere voluerit, tantum damnas esto). It is not certain is if the tanta and
the tantum refers to the thousand referred to in the previous clause ( and
thus, “let his fine be just as much (as the thousand)”) or to is simply some
indefinite sum (“let his fine be some unspecified amount”; “let his fine be
thus-and-so”). J. C. Rolfe, who produced the Loeb translation of the
Noctes Atticae, gave it the latter interpretation in his translation of the
passage. On the other hand, such a fine would accord well with a passage
in Livy (33.42.10) which records that in 195 three violators of land laws
were prosecuted by the plebeian aediles Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus and
C. Scribonius Curio. Upon conviction, the guilty parties paid fines
of Gellius in which the speech is quoted, Cato mentions the

provisions of the law in such a way as to make it apparent that he
was expecting his audience—the Senate—to recognize them. This
would be an unlikely expectation if the law was of long disuse.
Therefore, it can be inferred that the law or its penalties were
known to the Senate in the generation before Gracchus.
However, as Appian and Plutarch make clear (Appian, 1.1.8; Plut.
Ti. Gracc. 8), by the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus these penalties
were no longer being paid and the laws themselves were practically
ignored, or at the very least they could not stop vast amounts of
public land from falling into the hands of the wealthy).14 It was to
remedy this state of affairs that Gracchus put forward his first
piece of legislation.
Unfortunately, no text of the law remains, and the sources are
not completely consistent as to its terms. However, the crux of the
legislation was that it required that all who were holding public land
in excess of the legal amount established earlier (500 iugera) be
required to vacate it. No further punishment—such as a fine—
would be levied on those with illegal holdings, as had happened in
the past, and according to both Plutarch and Appian, transgressors
between the three of them to provide sufficients funds for the building of
a temple to Faunus on the Tiber Island directed by the aediles, suggesting
pretty substantial sums. However, see Forsén (p. 75–76), who suggests a
connection between this prosecution to the lex de modo agrorum is not
necessarily airtight.
14 According to Stockton (p. 47–48), the gradual cessation of
prosecutions for violating this law and its subsequent abuse had become
noticeable by the time of Laelius, who contemplated his own land law to
rectify this situation but by not promulgating it earned the cognomen of
Sapiens (so Plutarch, loc. cit). However, it seems that offenders were never
really prosecuted in great numbers nor, perhaps, all that often (Gargola
130–136). It might be for this reason that Appian states that the law never
accomplished its aims (loc. cit). On the other hand, Plutarch (in the passage
above) does indicate that there was once a time when the law was
effective. Perhaps, then, the situation was such that the severity of the
punishment—even if rarely exacted—provided a deterrent sufficient to
discourage breaking the law early on, but by the time of Gracchus the
small number of those convicted and the fine they were levied might no
longer have done so.
would be given a further an incentive to comply with its terms. The

latter authority states that not only were possessores15 allowed to keep
the legally-held 500 iugera of land outright as inalienable private
property,16 but they would also be given a parcel of half that
amount for each child the possessor may have had (1.1.11).17 Plutarch
(Ti. Gracc. 9) does not mention either of these provisions, but states
that those quitting the illegally-held land would be given
compensation (ἐκαρποῦντο χώραν). This is not necessarily
contradictory to Appian’s account, as it could very well have been
that the compensation in question was being allowed to keep
legally a part of what they had taken possession of unlawfully. The
Periochae of Livy’s book 58 also seems to add detail about the
incentives in the law, stating baldly that the maximum amount of
ager publicus which could be claimed by one-time possessores under
this lex Sempronia was 1000 iugera, not 500. The de viris illustribus does
likewise (64). Yet these, too, do not necessarily contradict Appian’s
account, as it may well be that possesores could only claim the 250
iugera for two children total. Like Plutarch, neither of these latter
sources mentions the offer of secure title, although none of them
contradict it, either.
15 Possessor is used here to mean those holding the ager publicus as
occupants but not in actual ownership of it, since they could not legally
have owned this land. This is because it belonged to the commonwealth,
from which land could not be alienated by long use (as was the case with
privately-owned land); for more on this, see Gargola, p. 130–131.
16 By which it was apparently meant that this land would become ager
privatus under ownership of those to whom it was given; so Keaveney

(1987, p. 48), Richardson (1980, p. 6–8), and Gargola (p. 149). As ager
privatus the Roman state would no longer have ownership of this land nor
assess the vectigalia which apparently had always been supposed to have
been collected from possessores, a sum whose collection Appian suggests
had also long been in abeyance in the place cited above; see also Stockton,
p. 215–216.
17 Appian’s text uses the term παῖς rather than υἱός, which Stockton (p.
41) argues is proof that “child” was meant; Gargola also renders the term
as “child” (p. 149). Both also believe it unlikely that a two-child limit was
imposed, as some scholars do in the attempt to reconcile Appian with
figures cited in the Periochae and the de viris illustribus (for which more
directly in the text above).
At any rate, Gracchus clearly hoped that these concessions

would help quell objections to his laws (see below).18 But it was
clearly not only for the purpose of ending the abuse of the ager
publicus that Gracchus proposed his lex agraria, for this law was to
have both positive and negative provisions. Unlike the previous lex
(or leges) de modo agrorum, which fined lawbreakers but still left the
land itself without an official use, Gracchus instead proposed to
assign the ager publicus thus reclaimed, granting it to the “poor”
(πέν τες; Appian, 1.1.9).19
Tiberius Gracchus was a Roman aristocrat, one who was
elected to a Roman office, and who proposed a law which was
aimed to halt abuse of Roman land. Nevertheless, the
consequences of this law (as will be seen) would spread beyond
Rome and Roman citizens and touch upon the Italian allies, and
indeed it may well be that an effect on the Italians had been the aim
of Gracchus from the very beginning. Certainty on this point is
impossible, since any attempt to discern the motivations Gracchus
may have had when he put forward his law is clouded by the fact
that there is no uniformity in the ancient authors as to what those
motivations were. Authors who are less charitable to him suggest
that the reason for the lex was simple spite or a seditious spirit;
these include Velleius Paterculus, who hints that Gracchus did
what he did so as to set the Roman world “upside-down” (summa
imis miscuit, 2.2). Others who are more kindly disposed to the
tribune suggest that he may have been motivated by pure
“goodness and justice” (aequo et bono ductus; Florus 2.2.14). This is
18 However, see Stockton (p. 210–212), who mentions the possibility

that this douceur was slightly sharper than meets the eye in that it did not
include title to land for pasturage. Nevertheless, Stockton himself is not
entirely convinced of this possibility, observing that pasturage would
mostly have taken place on marginal land of little use for farming, and
that the Gracchan redistribution was far more concerned with cultivable
land. Thus, it seems to him more likely that Gracchus included in his offer
the right of pasturage above the 500 iugera allotment of cultivable land,
moving only that the numbers of animals would now be more rigidly
enforced. This seems probable, even if it is not overpowering in its
persuasiveness.
19 More on the specific identify of these “poor” will be discussed later.
similar to the attribution of his being impelled by feelings of

altruism that is offered by Cicero, who indicated that the people
felt the law would bolster the fortunes of the indigent (fortunae
constitui tenuiorum videbantur; Pro. Sest. 103).20 Assuming any of these
alleged impulses actually drove Gracchus, the two main sources,
Appian and Plutarch, state that in addition to them or whatever
others might have existed Gracchus had a specific goal in mind
with his lex:21 he sought to rectify the abuse of the public land
because he hoped that he could redistribute this land and give it to
the landless for the specific purpose of increasing Rome’s supply of
military manpower (Appian 1.1.11; Plutarch, Ti. Gracc. 8–9). This
had, in fact, been the land’s original purpose, both sources explain:
in the distant past the ager publicus had been used to help support
the yeoman farmers. Its gradual absorption by the wealthy drove
off the free tillers of the soil and left in their place gangs of slaves,
who not only multiplied to abundance in the countryside but were
exempt from military service, making them preferable to free labor
due to their ability to stay at work, which increased the profits to be
made by their use.22 Plutarch states that this trend was first made
manifest to Gracchus in graphic fashion as he was traveling
through Etruria and observed no free man to be found in the
20 Although see Morstein-Marx (p. 194–195) for the context in which

this was uttered. Cicero’s attribution of this noble cause to Gracchus likely
stemmed from his need to flatter a popular hero in public. Elsewhere, his
opinions on the Gracchi which were not expressed before the people are
rather less generous to them. See also Appendix B.
21 Though it should be noticed that even Plutarch listed reports stating
that Gracchus was also impelled into this course by his very personal
desire to outstrip one Spurius Postumius, a rival whose political influence
had grown greater than that of Gracchus during the latter’s absence on
campaign. He also mentions the influence of the philosophers Diophanes
of Mitylene and Blossius of Cumae, as well as prodding from Cornelia
that Gracchus should make a name for himself lest she always be known
more as the mother-in-law of Scipio than as the mother of the Gracchi.
22 Plutarch, loc. cit.; Appian 1.1.7–9, specifically mentioning the
attractiveness of slave labor due to their profitability, specifically their

unfettered ability to multiply due to exemption from military service ( πολὺ
κέρδος ἐκ πολυπαιδίας εραπόντων ἀκινδύνως αὐξομένων διὰ τὰς ἀστρατείας).
fields, as reported by his brother Caius in a pamphlet cited by that

author (Ti. Gracc. 8). Appian has it Gracchus was not only sensitive
to the lack of free small farmers men in the countryside, but was
also disturbed by the proliferation of slaves there, due in part to the
Servile War which had recently been fought in Sicily (1.1.9–11). He
would also know doubt have been aware of the recent problems
the Romans had been having filling its levies: as mentioned in the
last chapter, not five years earlier in 138 tensions over sparing men
from service had led the tribunes to imprison the consuls (Per. 55).
Furthermore, it will be recalled that in the year 140 Appius
Claudius—perhaps uncoincidentally, the father-in-law of
Gracchus—seems to have advised the consuls to cancel a second
levy due to its massive unpopularity, and the consuls apparently
complied (Oxyrynchus Epitome of Livy’s book 54).23 It is not difficult
to see how such events would have made an impression on the
tribune.24
23 These and other episodes of resistance to the dilectus occurring his

own lifetime are noted in the previous chapter; see also Toynbee (p. 95–
97).
24 Of course, it is probably necessary to evaluate this “epiphany” of
Gracchus with a certain degree of skepticism in light of some modern

scholarship on the conditions under which he proposed his bill. Some of
this was done by Rosenstein (p. 8–17), who disputes the idea that a
dramatic increase in the number of slave-run estates was ruining free
farms. He also argues against the idea that Italy was becoming
depopulated as a result, and concludes that there was no “manpower
crisis” caused by lack of men (see previous chapter). If Rosenstein is
correct, it would seem to be the case that things were not quite as bad as
the ancient sources claim Gracchus made them out to be.
Still, Rosenstein’s evidence does not completely contradict either
Appian or Plutarch. In the first place, Rosenstein does not venture to
deny that the ager publicus was being illegally appropriated by the wealthy
(for the land-hunger of the Roman élite, see also Stockton, p. 6–22, and
Heaton, p. 10–11; see also Brunt 1972, p. 26–38). Moreover, Rosenstein
postulates a post-Hannibalic War “baby boom” that was causing an
increase in the population of small-holders. This, in turn, led to an ever-
increasing division of farmland amidst their heirs (p. 154–157), making
dependence on the ager publicus more and more acute amongst the yeomen
farmers at a very time when Rosenstein concedes it was being illegally
As hinted at above, Appian’s report suggests that Gracchus

was concerned with more than just the difficulties of the Roman
small-farmer, but was moved by the condition of the Italian farmer
as well, insofar as the latter also contributed soldiers to Rome’s
armies. This suggestion has given rise to a fairly active debate
amongst modern scholars as to whether or not the tribune had
intended to include the socii in his division of the ager publicus and, if
so, to what extent. From this debate no consensus has yet been
reached,25 although it does not seem impossible that, if the Allies
appropriated by the owners of latifundia (p. 77–79, 94, and 145; see also
Brunt, loc. cit.). This misappropriation had the effect of denying the smaller
farmers use of it, and further denied them the chance to supplement their
incomes by seasonal employment on the estates of the wealthy, because—
as he does not dispute—these were indeed resorting more and more often
to servile labor (p. 165; see also Brunt 1971, p. 107, 131; Heaton, loc. cit.).
Rosenstein himself speculates that the consequence was that smaller
farmers were compelled to sell their meager free-holdings and migrate to
Rome to search for employment. Hence, while the difficulties in the levy
which have been mentioned above and detailed more fully in chapter 2
were more likely caused simply by an unwillingness to serve, Rosenstien
asserts, there probably was a non-negligible drop in the numbers of men
who held a sufficient property rating to be eligible for military service
(assidui). This drop continued even after the rating had been lowered to
practically nothing (Gabba 1976, p. 5–13). Such a decline in assidui might
very well have contributed to, even if it did not cause, difficulties in
recruiting, as the effect was to increase the burden of military service to
which the remaining assidui were liable.
What can therefore be concluded from Rosenstein is that the
conditions described by Appian and Plutarch—of smaller farmers being
discomfited by misallocation of ager publicus by those who used it to create
slave-run latifundia—did exist, even if a countryside completely denuded
by small farmers did not. Moreover, this discomfiture did cause a drop in
assidui, although that may not have been the main cause of recruiting
problems. It is therefore not beyond reason to state that the dire
conditions Gracchus claimed to have seen in the Italian countryside may
at least have appeared to exist to Gracchus himself, and he in turn
probably would not have found the simultaneous phenomena of
conscription problems, a countryside bereft of small farmers but filled
with slaves, and a crowd of landless rustics in Rome entirely coincidental.
25 For some of the arguments made in this debate, see Appendix B.
were not the primary concern of Gracchus, they nevertheless did in

some way figure into his overall scheme as recipients of reclaimed
land.26 Still, whether or not Gracchus planned to grant land to the
Italians, it is certain that there were to be some—and likely not a
few in number—who would in some manner or another be
affected by his laws, if by no other way than through the very act of
repossession and redistribution. The reason for this had to do with
some important features of the new law. As discussed above, the
lex Sempronia was in a sense a supplement to an earlier law or laws
which put a limit on the amount of public land any Roman could
hold. Where it apparently differed from the earlier legislation was
in the diligence with which, and manner by which, that limit was
enforced. Rather than leave punishment for its breach up to the
aediles, who had apparently exacted the punishment called for by
the older law(s) by means of a fine and had done so infrequently,
the law of Gracchus proposed to seize lands held in excess of the
legal limit directly and immediately, and then turn them over to the
proletarii. This meant that the lands once taken would be completely
removed from the possessor. This removal was made even more
permanent by another element of the law mentioned in Appian:
Gracchus sought to make the grant of land which would be given
to its new owner inalienable by means of sale (1.1.10). This would
prevent the wealthy from regaining it by “purchase under
persuasion” (ὠνούμενοι πει οῖ) in a manner similar to the way by
which Appian had stated these men had increased their holdings in
the past.
As far as the Allies were concerned, what this meant first and
foremost was that if there any among them who had continued to
hold onto their lands after the Roman conquest of their regions
and the confiscations which followed—if, in other words, there
were some Allies which continued to use lands that had once been
theirs, but were now clearly and without doubt part of the Roman
ager publicus—they could now expect to be ejected summarily from
it. That there were some these is practically certain: it was common
for Rome to deprive their many former enemies of some of their
26 Even if, in the end, they actually received none; see below and
Appendix B.
agricultural lands upon defeating them in war,27 but while these

lands as a consequence legally belonged to Rome, the
Commonwealth lacked the state-sponsored apparatus to monitor
all of its holdings (see below). This inability almost certainly
allowed many of the communities to continue to work the fields
that had always been theirs with the (perhaps tacit) understanding
that they would only be free to do so until the Roman
commonwealth devised an official use for these lands. Moreover, it
is not implausible that the landholding élites of the Allied
communities had made especial extralegal use of Roman agri. After
all, the economic advantages which could be derived from latifundia
were just as manifest to the socii as to the Romans, and these
advantages would in all likelihood have led them to commit some
of the same behaviors—buying up parcels of land from the poor,
sweeping them off whatever part of the Roman ager publicus they
had gotten away with using, and arrogating that ager publicus for
themselves—as their Roman counterparts had done. Admittedly, in
so doing the wealthy socii must have needed to reach some
accommodation with Roman magnates whose own holdings were
in the area, but this need not have been too difficult. In fact, it is
quite probable that many of these Roman magnates would have
quite willing to enter into such compacts with the Italian principes,
since it was in the best interest of the Roman latifundists that too
close attention not be paid by authorities in the capital to use of the
ager publicus by Italians, lest their own abuse of it be discovered and
fines assessed accordingly. If this was the state of affairs (and it
seems incredible that something like it did not obtain), then these
comfortable arrangements were to be disrupted by Gracchus. Thus,
it may or may not have well be that poorer Italians would be given
27 According to Brunt 1972 (p. 4), the Romans regularly exacted as
much as a third of this land, and Toynbee (p. 552–554) cites some cases
where the Romans took almost all of it. The same author discusses
examples of Allies who nevertheless continued to use these fields,
especially at Atina amongst the Lucani, where the presence of Gracchan
cippi—indicating reclamation—shows that the Lucani had apparently
continued to use much of the territory which by treaty they had ceded to
Rome until the enactment of the leges Semproniae, at which point these
fields were redistributed.
land, but it is reasonable to assume some of the wealthier ones

would have some of it taken.
Therefore, any Italians who continued to use land which had
once been theirs but had become Roman by right of conquest,
Italians allowed to do so by lack of Roman supervision and a
concerted effort not to see that rectified, were presented with the
sudden and permanent deprivation of that use by the Gracchan
scheme. In this they faced a similar outcome to that which
confronted Roman abusers of the ager publicus. However, there was
one critical distinction between them and their Roman
counterparts. As mentioned above, when the lex Sempronia was
being proposed, its author had apparently tried to take the sting out
of the repossession measures by offering to Roman citizens the
secured title and additional lands or some other compensation.
Plutarch and Appian both infer that Gracchus added these
provisions in the attempt to smooth over the protests he was
certain would come at the measure: the confiscation of the land
was in and of itself just, but the added consolation would in theory
appeal both to a sense of fairness28 and to a sense of economy, as
the possesores would in essence be getting something for nothing. It
is highly doubtful that the Allies were shown the same courtesy. As
would have been apparent, the objections of Roman possesores could
pose a threat to the ability of Gracchus to pass his law,29 and it
would therefore have been expedient for Gracchus to extend such
concilatory gestures to them. Because the Allies had no political
rights, and therefore no political pull, in Rome, it seems unlikely
that their feelings were taken into consideration, since they could
not translate their feelings into the same actions that Roman
citizens could. Thus, the Gracchan law and its commissioners
28 So Gargola (p. 154), who suggests that Gracchus was aware that
many of the Roman possessores had held onto these lands illegally for
generations, and that the compensation he offered would mitigate any
feelings of unfairness at the loss of something which was theirs by long
practice, even if in theory they were not entitled to it. Whether or not
Gracchus exercised himself about the law’s fairness to the Allies is
unknown, but he probably did not (as hinted above).
29 And did, as the well-known episode with Octavius (described in
Appian 1.1.12, among other narratives) demonstrates.

theoretically could, and very probably did, remove whatever

amount of land that was known to be ager publicus from Allied
hands without anything resembling recompense, resulting in
annoyed socii for whose irritation many Romans were unlikely to
have held much sympathy.
From the perspective of at least some Italians, removal of
what was patently Roman land from the hands from those
indulging in its extralegal use would no doubt have been vexatious
enough even if the Gracchan legal programme (and, ultimately, the
commission it established) had merely exerted sway over lands
which were indisputably owned by the Republic. It became all the
vexatious when, as events would turn out, the law and the
commission came to involve itself, if unwillingly, with rather more
than just these lands of unquestionable ownership. According to
the Periochae of Livy (68), Gracchus passed an additional law soon
after his first one, a law which not only allowed the Triumvirate
that had been created by the first law to distribute the ager publicus
to continue to do so, but also enabled it to evaluate for itself what
was public land and distinguish between that and what which was
privately held. This was in all likelihood not a power which
Gracchus had initially intended to seek for his commission; it
probably was the case that he had hoped the possessores would have
come forward voluntarily with lists of all of their extra-legal
holdings—perhaps on the condition that only by so doing they
could receive the holding of their 500 (or 1000) iugera—and that
the commission would be able to use these lists to identify the
lands to be reclaimed.30 Nevertheless, a somewhat chronologically-
suspect passage of Appian (1.3.18)31 reveals that the commission
had begun to encounter difficulties which were due in part to the
fact that such lists had apparently not been forthcoming. As a
consequence, the second law was passed, informers were called in,
and the commission went to work carefully measuring and
30 So Gargola, p. 149–151
31 Suspect, in that it suggests that the commission had not been
formed until after the deaths of Tiberius Gracchus and Appius Claudius,
in spite of the contrary evidence offered by the Periochae (58), Plutarch
(Ti. Gracc. 13), and Velleius Paterculus (2.2), among others.
reassessing exactly what lands belonged to Rome and what did not.
This evaluation soon led to problems of its own, of which Appian
details some:
“Wherever a new field had been bought adjoining an old one,
or wherever a division of land had been made with Allies, the
whole district had to be carefully inquired into on account of
the measurement of this one field, to discover how it had been
sold and how divided. Not all owners had preserved their
contracts, or their allotment titles, and even those that were
found were often ambiguous. When the land was resurveyed
some owners were obliged to give up their fruit-trees and
farm-buildings in exchange for naked ground. Others were
transferred from cultivated to uncultivated lands, or to
swamps, or pools. In fact, the land having originally been so
much loot, the survey had never been carefully done.”
(Appian, 1.3.18; Horace White, trans.).
Moreover, Appian continues, since Rome had apparently
allowed any citizen to use that part of the ager publicus which had
not been immediately been designated for an official use, and since
some of that land had not been given an official use for a long
time, many had felt the urge to merge pieces of public land to their
own estates which lay nearby, “until the line of demarcation
between [ager publicus and ager privatus] had faded from view” (loc.
cit.).
Although it is tempting to locate hyperbole in this description
of the problems faced by the triumviri, it must not be forgotten that
the structure of the Roman government was such that the
Commonwealth had given itself very few instruments by which its
lands could be surveyed and maintained. During the period of the
mid-Republic, Rome had very few elected officials and no real
bureaucracy, and indeed one scholar estimates that by the first
century the regularly elected magistracies were filled by as few as
fifty men, though these numbers could occasionally be augmented
by temporary expedients.32 This would have left the Romans
unequal both to the task of maintaining regular observation of
public land which by the 130s had become vast, and of preventing
32 Gargola, p. 13–19.
its abuse.33 Even though periodically attempts were made to

investigate such practices as tampering with boundaries and
overemployment of the ager publicus,34 these must have been
infrequent and were in all likelihood not terribly effective.35 In the
absence of adequate policing, then, the limits of the ager publicus and
33 As seen above, aediles did occasionally prosecute Romans for abusus
modi agrorum but did so infrequently; indeed, they could hardly have done
otherwise, if for no other reason than they had so many other
responsibilities. For other factors inhibiting their vigilance into illegal
encroachment upon the ager publicus, see below.
34 In 173, when the consul L. Postumius Albinus made his infamous
visit into Campania (see chapter 2), he was dispatched there to assess the
limits of the Roman ager publicus and to investigate reported malfeasance.
The undertaking was apparently a gigantic one, occupying his entire term
in office (although he apparently did find time to expel the Allies from
Rome; see below). For additional discussion of these attempts at
investigation, see Gargola, p. 123–126.
35 As has been noted, discovery of such law-breaking could result in
prosecution by the aediles and fines under the earlier lex de modo agrorum.
Nevertheless (as noted by Gargola, p. 130–136), the powers for making
such discoveries were limited by the fact that, again, the aediles do not
seem to have been given a staff sufficient to watch for transgressions, and
could not do so themselves if for no other reason that their office tended
to keep them in Rome. For this reason, the aediles who conducted those
trials usually had instead to wait for a complaint, and though some
evidence suggests that informants were encouraged, these were probably
not always easy to find, for reasons that can be guessed. Even when
grounds for it were at hand, evidence suggests that the aediles fell to
prosecution infrequently, and it is not difficult to discern at least two
reasons why that would be so. In the first place, the Roman calendar left
very few days of the year on which such prosecutions could take place. In
the second, trials of the men most likely to have broken the law—almost
certainly belonging to the Senatorial class, whose wealth was by necessity
drawn from land—could potentially have resulted in enmity. This was
something the aediles could ill-afford, as they would themselves have
come from the same social and political class as the offenders, and would
need them for support in the climb up the cursus honorum. Therefore,
aediles rarely had both the abilty and the inclination to pursue action
against transgressors of the earlier agrarian laws, and consequently seem
not to have done so often.
its divisions from whatever ager privatus lay adjacent to it—especially

on lands that lay at a greater distance from Rome and thus from
more watchful eyes—could be and apparently were blurred, either
by deliberate action (“injustices done by the rich”—πλουσίων
ἀδίκ μα—to use Appian’s words in a later part of the passage cited
above) or by accident.
All of this meant that, due to the powers of adjudication given
by the second lex Sempronia to the triumvirate set up by the first,
landholders throughout Italy were soon subjected to investigations
by the Gracchan commission, whose task it was to reclaim and
repossess Roman land whose boundaries had either never been
officially delimited, or whose limits had since been obliterated
through the involvement of either natural or human agents.
Possesores were subsequently faced with seizure of land that was part
of or near to the ager publicus, land which either did belong to them,
was truthfully thought to have belonged to them, or which was at
the very least claimed to have belonged to them. The result of
faded divisions of land and the commission’s attempt to redefine
them was a series of “irksome lawsuits” (δικῶν χαλεπῶν; Appian,
loc. cit.) in which the Triumvirate soon became embroiled. As
Appian makes clear (1.3.19), the Allies just as much as the Romans
seemed to have been involved in such suits, since lack of Roman
oversight would have allowed for just as much perplexity as to the
status of Allied lands as to those held by Romans. For the socii,
then, the leges Semproniae very quickly came to mean that the Roman
government sent deputations not only to claim territory which
clearly belonged to Rome, but also to take that for which a title was
unclear, and perhaps even to take what was legitimately the
property of Allied communities.
As can be seen, repossession of the ager publicus affected both
the Romans and the Italians. It would almost certainly affect the
wealthiest of the latter, since, as mentioned above, it is very
probable that amongst the socii the richer elements of their
communities extensively impinged upon the Roman ager publicus,
just as was the case with the Romans. Like their Roman
counterparts, the richest Italians probably drove their less affluent
members off of this land, and purchased fields next to it so that
through manipulation of boundaries (especially those boundaries
which had never been permanently fixed by stone termini, which
Appian suggests were many) they could augment their legitimate
holdings with Roman plots which did not belong to them.

Additionally, repossession might very well have also touched some
Italians from the lower classes. Just as with the case of the upper
classes, some of these might have held a legal title to land nearby
that belonging to Rome, but through accidental obliteration of
natural landmarks—trees, steams, an the like—they simply did not
know where their land ended and where the Commonwealth’s
began, just as the Commonwealth itself did not. It must often have
been the case that, when the commissioners came and made a
judgement on this land, that which had never belonged to the
Romans was nevertheless taken by them. Others might have
worked unoccupied ager publicus illegally from sheer necessity,
needing it for subsistence.36 All of these now faced potential
confiscation at the hands of a triumvirate charged with
reinterpretation or restitution of the original limites, whose decision
on what land belonged to Rome and what did not was apparently
one which had the force of law.
To be sure, there is evidence which suggests that the
Triumvirate’s decision was not final, since the aforementioned trials
noted by Appian hints that the arbitration could be appealed,
modified, or overturned (1.3.18–19). Nevertheless, it is doubtful
that the socii could gain much relief in Roman courts, if for no
other reason than logistical ones. In the first place, these trials
would almost certainly have taken place in Rome, to which few
beyond the wealthiest of the Allied communities could afford to
travel conveniently.37 In the second, if the suits were as numerous
as Appian suggests, the diminutive Roman judicial system would
have been clogged completely by complaints and overwhelmed,
resulting in aggrieved Allies never actually getting to voice their
36 See, for example, Rosenstein’s observations (cited above) on how
vital the ager publicus had been for Roman small-farmers. Presumably, if
some Roman land had been available to Allied communities, Allied small
farmers would have been impelled to make use of it in a similar fashion,
whether entitled to do so or not.
37 Mouritsen raises the point of the prohibitive nature of travel to
Rome, although in a different context (that of Roman citizens living far

away from the capital being kept by these distances from participating in
lawmaking and elections; 2001, p. 94–95).
appeal. As a result, the agrarian commission and the land division

in which they were engaged caused headaches for at least the
landowning class of the Allies and possibly many others,
representing in irruption into their lives about which they had not
been consulted, which they did not want, and which for some may
have threatened their very survival.
The commission which at the very least victimized some
Italians continued to due its work throughout the tribunate of
Gracchus, in spite of the stiff opposition it had encountered in thr
Senate. One of its chief opponents was one Scipio Nasica, whose
antipathy had been aroused, according to Plutarch, by his own
status as a holder of large tracts of ager publicus (Ti. Gracc. 13).38
Shortly after the laws were passed, this man had been the prime
mover for an initiative to strip the commission of its funding, and
as a result of this effort Gracchus had been forced to use the
revenues from Pergamum to supply his commission39. This
maneuver of Gracchus was novel approach, and had drawn even
more Senatorial opposition. Nasica had in turn taken advantage of
the enmity of the patres to try and put a stop to Gracchus in
another way towards the end of 133, using the chaos surrounding a
riot on the Capitoline as an excuse to summon the enemies of
Gracchus in the Senate to slay the tribune. Even the death of its
leader had not halted the activities of the Triumvirate, which
shuffled members around but was still at work in 129.40 Yet as
powerless as the Allies may have been to halt the land reclamation,
it would finally be their protests which brought about its end in
that year through the somewhat unlikely advocacy of Scipio
Aemilianus,41 who appears to have interceded on their behalf upon
38 Nasica was probably also an enemy of the tribunate in general, as he
was one of the consuls to be imprisoned by the tribunes over the dilectus in
138 (for which see above and chapter 2).
39 So Plutarch, Ti. Gracc. 14. For more in this action and its
consequences, see below, as well as Appendix B.

40 For the events of the years leading up to the intervention of Scipio,
see Stockton, p. 87–94.

41 An unusual choice, given that Aemilianus had proven himself a
harsh disciplinarian of the Allies in his various campaigns (see chapter 2).
Nevertheless, Appian holds that he was willing to act on their behalf in
his return from Spain. Aemilianus, in his bluntness, had hardly

been the most astute of politicians and was certainly not one with a
tender regard for the opinion of the populus in general,42 but even
he could likely see that any move to stop the distribution of what
had already been reclaimed might cause an uproar amongst the
urban poor.43 As a consequence of this recognition, Aemilianus
seems to have found it impolitic to attempt to have the lex
Sempronia overturned or the commission abolished, no matter what
urging he may have gotten from the optimates or the socii. However,
what apparently was more acceptable to the people was to move to
have the commission denuded of its powers to arbitrate what land
belonged to Rome and what did not, something which, as it
involved foreign nations, usurped the power of the consuls and the
Senate. This he arranged to happen, transferring those powers
instead to the consul C. Sempronius Tuditanus (Appian 1.3.19).44
part because he depended on the zeal of the Allies to furnish men for his
wars. Moreover, there was certainly there was no love lost between
Aemilianus and Gracchus due to the Numantine affair (see above), during
which Scipio spoke out against the settlement of Mancinus because, it was
speculated, he wanted a command in Spain himself. As it happened,
Scipio was in Numantia holding precisely such a command when he heard
of the death of Gracchus, and the line from the Odyssey which he let slip
on the occasion—“thus may anyone fall who would do such deeds” ( ὣς
ἀπόλοιτο καὶ ἄλλος ὅτις τοιαῦτά γε ῥέζοι, Od. 1.47) testifies to the lack of
affection between the two (Plutarch, Ti. Gracch. 21). Keaveney (1987 p.
59) also comments on the odd selection of Scipio, but explains that Scipio
would have played his part, not only form an interest in securing Allied
military cooperation, but that also from his sense of Roman justice would
lead him to ensure that treaty obligations would be fulfilled.
42 For example, Polybius describes his disdain for seeking popularity in
the forum, choosing instead to occupy his time with hunting (31.29.8–9);
see also below.
43 Appian (1.3.19) even speaks of his unwillingness to speak against
the laws for the sake of the people (τὸν μὲν Γράκχου νόμον οὐκ ἔψεγε διὰ
τὸν δῆμον σαφῶς).
44 So Stockton (p. 92), who argues that the issue at stake was
essentially one of foreign policy. Earlier, he had charmingly noted that

Gracchus had “set the cat among the pigeons” with his requisition of the
revenues from Pergamum (Orosius suggests that one Pompeius had
Tuditanus, for his part, would have none of it, and promptly
marched away to fight a war in Illyria. According to Appian, his
absence forced the commission into a paralysis in which it
languished, although Cassius Dio (24.84) and the Periochae (59)
suggests that the commission regained its strength soon thereafter,
occasioned by the death of Scipio in late 129.45 What is more likely
threatened to prosecute him on his return to private status over this issue;
5.8.4), so Scipio’s receptivity for a policy leading to the restoration of
Senatorial powers in this regard might be understandable. Gargola, on the
other hand (p. 151–152) argues that that Scipio’s objection may have been
based on the fact that the decision of determining what belonged to Rome
and what did not was one that custom had invested in the censors,
consuls, and praetors as part of setting out the official uses of public
places, a competence which the commission had illegally usurped. These
are not necessarily incompatible views: Scipio might well have argued
both points, and was at any rate successful, as seen above.
45 Murdered because of his earlier opposition to Gracchus, according
to hints dropped by Appian, Cassius Dio, the Periochae (in the places cites
above), as well as by Cicero (De Orat. 2.40.170, where it is suggested that
anyone who aided the laws of Gracchus was complicit in the murder of
Aemilianus). Certainly Scipio had had an unfortunate habit of speaking
badly of his brother-in-law, to whose “just murder” he had apparently
alluded more than once. Indeed, he seemed to have had a habit of coining
aphorisms at inappropriate times, as can be seen in an episode from
Velleius Paterculus in which he derided a crowd furious at one of his
pronouncements as one to whom “Italy is but a step-mother” (qui possum
vestro moveri, quorum noverca est Italia?; 2.4). Indeed, according to that author
the crowd was stirred against him because he has voiced after another
“justly slain” remark about Tiberius Gracchus to a tribune named Carbo;
Plutarch’s Moralia (201) also mentions this episode, but in the latter’s
telling, the opponent is C. Gracchus. For more on this latter episode see
Morstein-Marx, however, who attributes it not to Scipio’s lack of subtlety
but more as a pointed effort to suggest that the crowd which had begun
to roar its disapproval at his opinion—an opinion which, Morstein-Marx
points out, was essentially extracted from him against his will by the
tribune who “produced” him at a contio and demanded he make his
thoughts known—was not Roman, and thus not one whose displeasure
should move him (p. 149–150). This, again, was an interesting attitude for
a man selected to carry the banner of the Italians against the Gracchan
commission.
is that the transfer of adjudication to Tuditanus and his speedy

egress meant that, for the moment, there was no longer an effort to
define Roman public land beyond what the commission had
already accomplished, which is likely what Scipio’s intention had
been all along.46 This did not necessarily end the commission or
leave it idle, as there might have been much land already delimited
that had yet to be distributed, and the commission could have
concerned itself with that.47 At any rate, for the time being it
looked like there was a suspension in the reclamation of public
land, which caused the Allies some relief in the sense that, while
what they had lost was now gone forever, at least for a time no
more would be taken away.
For both Romans and Italians the tribunate of Tiberius
Gracchus had been momentous. The effects on the former have
been extensively discussed elsewhere and thus need not receive an
additional rehearsal here. As to the latter, there are difficulties in
assessing exactly what they felt about it and how important what
had occurred as a result actually was to them, due again to the fact
that no source written by one of the Italians discusses these events.
Nevertheless, it is possible to surmise what his activities those of
the commission he established had probably meant to some of
them. In the first place, the land commission signified a more
direct involvement of Rome into the daily lives and dealings of the
Italians than had come before, and it was an involvement which
affected great numbers of them. Up to this point the Romans had
certainly interacted with the Italians in a variety of ways, many of
which exasperating (see the previous chapter), but on the whole
that involvement had been limited and fairly infrequent. Beyond
46 A curious notice in Appian (loc. cit.) raises the possibility that Scipio
committed suicide due to his failure to deliver his promises to the Allies,
though this is highly improbable.
47 But see Gargola (p. 162–163), who suggests that the removal of the
power to determine what land belonged to Rome or not from the

commission and its placement in the hands of Tuditanus may have
vacated when Tuditanus went on campaign. The commission then got
this power back, but given the uproar caused by the Allies, its members
might have voluntarily refrained from its use from 129 on. This would, in
effect, produce the same result as described above.
the military service, the occasional visiting magistrate, road-

building, and unusual crises like the Baccahanlian one, the Italians
could, if they so desired, live as if they remained what their treaties
had suggested they were: independent people who paid taxes to
their governments as they always had done, elected and obeyed
their own magistrates as they always had done, and tilled their lands
as they always had done without molestation. Even those farming
lands near the ager publicus need not have ever seen Romans beyond
the slaves and bailiffs representing faraway landlords, nor have had
to concern themselves with the Roman government looking too
closely at washed-out boundaries of that public land which that
government had itself seen fit to neglect. Upon the advent of
Gracchus and his commission, however, the Italians were now
treated to Romans coming into their towns and visiting their farms
to survey their lands, to set up new boundaries, and, in the course
of so doing, quite often to take away some of the land that Italians
had come—whether legally or not—to call their own. Soon after,
different Romans would appear when those who had been given
land came to claim it, and their stay was to be permanent, or so it
would have seemed at the time. Long accustomed to being
compelled to follow Rome’s dictates in matters foreign, the Allies
were now met with direct interference into their everyday, domestic
affairs.
In the second place, the lex Sempronia and the apparatus
whereby its provisions were executed probably represented a blow,
and perhaps a not slight one, to the financial affairs of many of the
Italians. Again, connection to the Romans had always exacted a
cost of some kind, if only in the form of whatever taxation was
required to feed and supply the men Rome needed for its armies.
However, as irritating as that must have been, in all likelihood it
was not entirely novel: the Allies had probably always paid taxes to
support their soldiers even before those soldiers were put at the
service of the Romans. Moreover, even after the foedera were made
the Allies probably paid these taxes infrequently. Rome’s sudden
reinterest in its lands—and theirs—was something else entirely: it
was sudden, it was new, and unlike taxes, it was not restricted to
appear but once in a while only to go away until the next year, but
instead represented a permanent loss. Further, the land
commission would also have affected Italians at all economic
levels, in a way that military service may not have if, like the
Romans, Italian soldiers were drawn from those meeting a certain

property rating (akin to the Roman assidui). If the wealthiest of the
Italians had behaved as the Roman upper classes had, they would
have had the most taken away from them in terms of iugera, but
their loss could also be more easily absorbed than that facing the
small farmers. Some of these latter may have used the ager publicus,
and probably did, to supplement their holdings; without such use
these men might be ruined completely. This ruination would in
turn bar them from military duties. Therefore, a chain reaction
might very well have been set off by the Gracchan commission: all
those who suffered loss by the reclamation would have become
instantly poorer, with some sliding into complete poverty. This
would have augmented the burdens of soldiering and taxation on
those left who could still afford to do both (and this is to say
nothing of the very poor, who may have encroached on the ager
publicus to guarantee their subsistence). Thus, two additional
sources of frustration with the Romans which already existed
would simultaneously have been enlarged.
Finally, the Gracchan commission and its aftermath would
have thrown into sharp relief the exact nature of the association
between the Romans and the Allies. Whether or not the Roman
governing class supported his plans, the fact remained that an
elected magistrate of the Roman Republic had passed a measure
which directly affected the quotidian, non-military lives of the socii,
who had not given their permission to that measure nor, indeed,
had been asked for it. The Allies had never had a voice in the
Roman state, even though that state regularly made decisions, such
as those which led to war, which directly involved some of them.
Now the Romans made laws which affected civilians, which was
something comparatively new. In fact, at least one scholar has
suggested that, since the Romans who held areas of the ager publicus
were voters and thus could make their displeasure felt through the
ballot, that the commission specifically selected the lands held by
the Allies (who could not) as their first targets48. As it turned out,
48 Toynbee, p. 554. Gabba (1956, p. 51–53), on the other hand, holds
that this does not seem to have happened while Gracchus lived. He seems
to have seen to it that the initial confiscations were restricted to citizens,
the Allies were ultimately able to find a sympathetic Roman to aid

them in their difficulties with Gracchus, but doubtless Scipio had
been willing to help as much for the discomfiture of Gracchus and
his circle as for the aid of the Italians. Had the measure not been as
unpopular as it turned out to be in Rome, there would have been
no guarantee that such powerful help could have been found, and
without it the objections of the Allies would have amounted to
nothing. Nor—as it would no doubt have been made very clear—
could anything be done by the Italians should some future measure
be proposed which would affect them if that measure but proved
more agreeable to the ruling élite in Rome. If they had not been
aware of it before, the Italians would now have come squarely to
face the fact that they and the Romans were most unequal partners:
the description of Appian and Pompeius Trogus, to the effect that
the Allies did not share power with Rome but were rather
subjected to that power, would (after the passage of the lex
Sempronia) have become more obvious to the Allies then ever it had
been.
3. THE YEAR 125: FULVIUS FLACCUS, FREGELLAE,

AND THE LESSONS LEARNED
The turbulence caused by the Gracchan land commission had likely
proven most unsettling to the Allies, so much so that even if it was
the case that the relocation of the power of deciding what
constituted the ager publicus had indeed reverted back to the
commission at some point after 129, that commission decided on
its own to suspend use of that power until the difficulties the socii
were eased.49 At the very least, no disturbance caused by the
commission in 129 and afterwards is recorded, but then again very
little from the years 129 to 126 has been. For example, the Periocha
of Livy’s book 59 ends with the war waged by Tuditanus against
the Illyrians in Spain. That of book 60 begins with a war being
although the commission moved on to the socii after he had died. Either
way, if Gracchus was not doing it himself, it was his law which was
responsible for this treatment of the Allies, which probably happened
eventually if not initially.
49 So, again, Gargola; see earlier note.
waged in with the consulate of Aurelius Orestes in 126, with no

record of anything in between. It is to this same year 126 that
Appian likewise jumps after his account of the death of Scipio (or,
rather, Appian resumes his narrative some time before or during
the consulate of Flaccus, which was in 125). Orosius, too, moves
directly from the death of Scipio to an eruption of Aetna in the
consulate of Orestes (and thus 126; 5.10.11). Velleius, after a brief
digression on wars taking place before the fall of Numantia, picks
up after the death of Scipio well into the career of C. Gracchus in
126 (2.6.), and Florus proceeds directly from the death of Tiberius
Gracchus to the career of Caius, which he states happened
“immediately after” (statim et mortis et legum fratris sui vindex non minore
impetu incaluit C. Gracchus; 2.3). Even Plutarch’s Life of Caius Gracchus
says nothing of its subject’s activities before he was sent as
Quaestor to Sardinia in 126, and by extension says nothing about
anything that may have been happening in Rome, beyond mention
of the defense Gracchus had made of one Vettius in a trial at some
time prior to his quaestorate.50
The years 128 and 127, then, seem to have been quiet. Events
of interest begin to recur in 126, however, and a description of one
of these events is recounted by Cicero. According to the De Officiis,
one M. Junius Pennus, a tribune for that year,51 proposed a law that
“would prevent strangers from using the city and expel them”
(peregrinos urbibus uti prohibent eosque exterminant, ut Pennus apud patres
nostros; 3.47). Very little is known about this law, such as why the
tribune had been impelled to promulgate it, but what does seem
likely is that it differed from previous expulsion laws in that it was
not requested by the Allies themselves.52 Of course, as long as the
the Italians remained socii—that is, as long as they continued as
Allies and not Roman citizens—they would never have had secure,
inviolable rights of access to the city, so while later generations
50 For an illustration on how little is said about events in Italy from

this period, see Greenidge and Clay, p. 24.
51 Based on additional evidence supplied by Cicero in the Brutus 28,
who mentions the tribunate of Pennus as having occurred during the

consulate of Orestes, id est 126.
52 For more about what can be known about the law, and for
additional speculation on it, see Appendix C.

would remember this law of Pennus as ungenerous and unkind,53

the Romans could hardly be accused of trampling on privileges
which the Allies could claim as theirs. Nevertheless, there can be
little doubt that the lex Junia caused inconvenience and hardship to
any Italians who dwelt in Rome or did business there, an
inconvenience which they would simply have had to endure as long
as they had no secure tenure in the city, of the sort the citizenship
would bring. Here again, then, was another example of a Roman
magistrate making laws which would affect some of the Allies and
doing so without having sought, or been concerned by, the wishes
of those Allies themselves.
In the following year 125 M. Fulvius Flaccus was consul. He
was also a member of the Gracchan land commission, as is known
from Appian (1.3.18), and as such it is difficult to doubt that he
was a staunch supporter of agrarian reform. As such, in addition to
whatever significance the acquisition of the consulate may have had
for Flaccus personally, election to that office might also have been
important to him because it placed him in the best possible
position to further the cause of the Triumvirate, because as consul
Flaccus could see to the resumption of assessing what land
belonged to Rome and what belonged in Allied or private hands.
Such a resumption would provide the means by which more land
could be potentially amassed for redistribution, and as consul, any
actions taken by Flaccus in this regard could raise no questions of
impropriety in the Senate on grounds of foreign policy, since he, as
the chief magistrate, was the executive of that policy. Even so,
Flaccus must have been aware that the main reason why the
commission had been impeded in this process—or, perhaps more
accurately, had forborne to continue it after having been
impeded—had been the complaints which had arisen from the
Allies when the commission had begun to determine and reclaim
Rome’s holdings. These complaints, as has been seen, had
furnished the excuse employed by the Senate to obstruct the
Triumvirate. Presumably the Senate could make use of the same
excuse to find other avenues to block the Triumvirate if, once the
53 Among them Cicero, in the place cited above; see, again,
Appendix C.
commission resumed its adjudication, the Allies were also to

resume their protest. Therefore, it almost certainly occurred to
Flaccus that he would need to find a way to eliminate that excuse,
or at the very least would want to do so.
It was apparently to effect this end that Flaccus seems to have
set upon a unique course of action: according to Appian, Flaccus
decided that he would offer to the Allies the citizenship in
exchange for their cooperation with reclamation of the ager publicus
(1.3.21). Why it is that the new consul chose this route is not
mentioned by Appian, but the passage of the law of Pennus
mentioned above may have inspired his decision. As Flaccus and
everyone else in Rome must have been aware, there were numbers
of the Allies who had wanted to become citizens, some of whom
frequenting the city and even going so far as to pass themselves off
as cives. The expulsion laws of 187 and 177 would have illustrated
this amply to the previous generation, and there may have been a
similarly large number of these who were expelled by Pennus; there
were doubtless many others who were not necessarily in Rome to
usurp the privileges of civitas but who still wanted it just the same.
Even were there no other indicators, from the mass of Italians who
found their way to Rome alone it would have been easy to
conclude that the citizenship would be a commodity much desired
by many of the Allies.
Armed with this knowledge, it apparently came to be
wondered by Flaccus if the civitas was desireable enough to induce
the socii to trade their lands for it. For obvious reasons, this would
probably be a question of greater significance for the wealthiest
Italians on their latifunfia in the countryside rather than those
crowding the urbs, since the former would suffer the greatest
potential repercussion from what Flaccus and the Triumvirate
would do after such a bargain was struck. Unlike, perhaps, a great
many of those who had recently come to Rome and been expelled,
people who were probably poor and landless and therefore had
been attracted to the metropolis by the opportunities for
employment,54 the more affluent would likely be landowners whose
54 See Morley (p. 51) for just a hint at some of the work that was to be
found in the capital.

property might be affected by the resumption of land assessment.

By extending the offer of the citizenship, it appears that Flaccus
contemplated providing these men of property amongst the Allies
with a choice. On the one hand, by trading the rights of the
citizenship for their silence, their lack of protest of new land
adjudication would deprive the Senate of an instrument by which
that adjudication could be halted. Accordingly, this would mean
that they would risk the loss of whatever land, if any, they used
from the ager publicus, and might possibly even lose some of their
own legitimate holdings, should the commission resume
adjudicating and determine that what they had thought was theirs
actually belonged to Rome. On the other, as compensation they
would get protection from magisterial misbehavior; the possibility
of winning public contracts; freedom, if not from conscription
(they would still be liable for service in the new all-Roman army),
then at least from taxation of a sort not paid by the Romans, an
absence of tax which would continue as long as the aerarium
remained full; the possibility of running for public office and by
this a shot at real power; and a myriad of other privileges which
they did not have but which would come to them as Roman
citizens (about which see the previous chapter). Through
unspecified mechanisms Flaccus seems to have found a way to
inquire whether this arrangement would be acceptable, and the
answer was apparently in the affirmative. According to Appian, the
Italians “preferred the franchise to the use of fields” (καὶ ἐδέχοντο
ἄσμενοι τοῦ ᾽ οἱ Ἰταλιῶται, προτι έντες τῶν χωρίων τὴν πολιτείαν;
1.3.21) and were ready to accept the bargain.
So, at least, Appian alleges, although there is a curious
divergence from this account appearing in Valerius Maximus which
demands comment. According to this latter, there were some
communities who did not want to change their citizenship status,
and that the ius provocationis—the right to appeal magisterial and
military punishments—was offered to them by Flaccus instead (M.
Fulvius Flaccus consul M. Plautii Hypsaei collega, cum perniciosissimas rei
publicae leges introduceret de civitate [Italiae] danda et de provocatione ad
populum eorum, qui civitatem mutare noluissent; (9.5.1). Such an offer is
difficult to explain. It does not seem logical that, when given the
choice, a community would prefer to part with their lands and
obtain merely this right and not the full complement of them
which would attach to the civitas, especially since such a right of
prosecution would be enveloped into the citizenship anyway.55 Yet

perhaps there is more underlying what that author is attempting to
communicate. Valerius does not mention the circumstances behind
the offer of Flaccus, merely noting that such an offer was made.
Appian, however, seems to do so. In that author’s account, Flaccus
was apparently inspired to make his offer at the suggestion of an
anonymous “some people” who advised the franchise as a means
to quiet Italian protests to the land distribution, obviously under
the impression the Allies would be pleased with the trade. The
question is whether these “some people” advised Flaccus to extend
the franchise to all the Italians, or just the ones who were the most
vocal about the adjudication. The text of the critical sentence in the
original Greek text runs as follows: καί τινες εἰσ γοῦντο τοὺς
συμμάχους ἁπαντας, οἱ δὴ περὶ τῆς γῆς μάλιστα ἀντέλεγον, εἰς τὴν
Ῥωμαίων πολιτείαν ἀναγράψαι, ὡς μείζονι χάριτι περὶ τῆς γῆς οὐ
διοισομένους.56 Appian leaves it ambiguous as to whether τοὺς
συμμάχους ἁπαντας specifically refers to “all the Allies”, or “all the
Allies who were especially speaking out on account of the land (οἱ δὴ περὶ τῆς
γῆς μάλιστα ἀντέλεγον)”?
If the latter, then a possible solution for the troublesome
notice in Valerius presents itself. If the triumviri began to focus its
attention especially on the lands held by the Latins, as has been
speculated fairly convincingly by some modern scholars, then
perhaps it had been they specifically who would have had sufficient
cause to protest the most vigorously.57 It had also been the Latins
who had also manifested the greatest visible desire for the
citizenship, as has been seen; without doubt other Allies had
55 Sherwin-White seems to think that this would have been an

attractive enough alternative to the citizenship (p. 135), as does Keaveney
(1987 p. 61–63), who attributes this preference to Italian short-
sightedness. Neither assertion is convincing, nor is Badian’s attempt to
show that Flaccus intended that these rights would be extended only to
individuals as opposed to entire peoples (1971, p. 388–391).
56 “And some people suggested that all those Allies who strenuously
voiced opposition about the land be brought into the citizen-registry of

the Romans, so that in gratitude for the greater (favor) they not persist (in
their protests over the land)”.
57 So Keaveney (op. cit., p. 64).
harbored such a desire, but it had been the Latins who had sent
embassies asking for their men back in 187 and 177, suggesting it
had been their people who had most translated their desires for
enfranchisement into action by moving to Rome to attempt to steal
into it. If these desires had been held by all levels of the Latin
society, then perhaps that desire would have been strong enough to
make the fulfillment of it soothing enough to to assuage the
discomfort caused by the loss of fields. The one could thereupon
be required from the Latins in exchange for the other.58
As for the other Allied communities, perhaps Flaccus had let
it be known that the commission only intended to adjudicate land
in Latin areas, and so to them alone would the civitas be offered.
Those not involved in this deal would would lose nothing in terms
of the ager publicus, and as a pledge of good faith for this promise,
he might have extended the ius provocationis. In so doing, he would
be giving this privilege to those who did not wish to change their
citizenship by means of surrendering their lands to do so, if for no
other reason than that were not asked.59 This would square with
the alternative proposal found in Valerius Maximus, who was
aware that Flaccus had offered one or the other—that is, civitas or
ius provocationis—but but may have been unclear as to the specifics
as to whom and why.60 Such an interpretation of Valerius is a novel
one, to be sure, but it is not beyond the pale of possibility. By
means of a proposal of this type, the Triumvirate would gain the
unfettered ability to resume judgment of lands in Latin areas, the
Latins would be compensated for their loss, and the other Allies
would not lose their lands at all and at the same time would gain
for free a right whereby they could potentially diminish Roman
magisterial abuse.
58 Arguments similar to this one, suggesting that Flaccus, Gracchus,
and later Drusus aimed only at enfranchising the Latins, can be found in
Mouritsen (1998, p. 109–122).
59 It might also have been a salve to those who would have felt ill-used
by being left out of the offer made to the Latins which they might equally
have been willing to accept.
60 And indeed, Valerius was prone to mistakes and confusions; see
chapter 1.
If this was what actually occurred, then Flaccus seems to have

made it clear to the Allies that he had plans to have the Triumvirate
resume the adjudication of some of the ager publicus, but intended to
have it do so in a way designed to be less sharp and painful to
those living near where he intended to do so than had been done in
the past. He also seems to have alerted the Senate to his plan, and
Appian lists the reaction of the patres to it as anger at the possibility
of having their subjects equal to themselves (ἡ ουλὴ δ᾽ ἐχαλέπαινε,
τοὺς ὑπ κόους σφῶν ἰσοπολίτας εἰ ποι σονται; 1.3.21). That very
well may have been the source of their discomfiture, although it is
also extremely likely that there were also other and quite probably
more compelling causes for it. Most importantly, resumption of the
land division and reallocation by the commission would doubtless
continue to affect the illegal holdings of those Senators who
encroached on the ager publicus in Latin areas. Furthermore, if the
gambit of Flaccus were to pay off as well as Appian suggests it was
going to, the Senate would lose the powerful weapon of Allied
protest to stifle the commission, as those who might otherwise
have complained would have held their tongues in exchange for the
civitas. Flaccus was almost certainly aware of the Senate’s opinion,
and as a result seems deliberately to have avoided attending the
curia. When he finally did go under summons (Valerius Maximus—
loc. cit.—reports that Flaccus aegre conpulsus est ut in curiam ueniret), he
apparently met their harangue against what he was intending with
silence (ibid.).
Tensions were apparently building over the designs of
Flaccus, but at that moment foreign policy providentially
intervened, just as it had done in 129. In this case, Massilia, being
pressed by the Salluvii, appealed to Rome for military aid (Flor.
1.37). Flaccus was then dispatched to deal with the situation (Per.
60; Appian 1.5.34). It seems that the consul never got the chance to
bring his proposal to the vote while he was in Rome, and during
his tenure in Gaul his term expired, although he was apparently
successful enough there (or dangerous enough back at home) that
the Senate was willing to keep him in the field until 123 and even to
vote him a triumph when he returned (Fast. Triump.; Plutarch
C. Gracc. 17, 18).
Appian remarks that Fulvius Flaccus was the first to rouse the
Italians to set their hearts upon the citizenship (Φούλ ιος Φλάκκος
ὑπατεύων μάλιστα δὴ πρῶτος ὅδε ἐς τὸ φανερώτατον ἠρέ ιζε τοὺς
Ἰταλιώτας ἐπι υμεῖν τῆς Ῥωμαίων πολιτείας ὡς κοινωνοὺς; 1.5.34).

Clearly this was not true, if what is meant is that that Flaccus
installed into the Italians a desire for the citizenship that had not
been there earlier. If nothing else, the expulsion laws of 187 and
177 (and possibly those of 173 and 126), and the reasons given for
their enactment, volubly attest that large numbers of Italians had
already had such a desire, and had it for some time.61 What Appian
probably meant instead was that Flaccus was the first Roman
politician whose activities indicated to the Allies that their
enfranchisement was something that might be won by means of
applying pressure upon, or lending support to, the right politicians.
Before 125, the attainment of the civitas may have been an empty
wish, but after Flaccus it might have appeared to them that it was
something they could actually achieve with enough determination.
There is, of course, no evidence that Flaccus himself ever stated
this to the Allies, explicitly or otherwise, and indeed it was an
erroneous assumption (as events will show). Nor is there any
indication that Flaccus attempted to persuade the Allies to agitate
for a citizenship they did not already want. Rather, it is more likely
that all he was doing was merely responding to an urge whose
existence was already present, in the effort to accomplish a
61 Keaveney (1987, p. 53–55) also wishes to use as evidence for the

Italian desire for the citizenship the episode of M. Perperna, cos. 130, who
according to Valerius Maximus was not even a citizen (3.4.5); his father
had assumed the citizenship illegally, and was expelled when the
“Sabellians” claimed him back under the “Papian law”. However, the
many problems with the passage itself (among which its claims that
Perperna was allegedly a triumphator, that his father was a Sabellian and not
an Etruscan, and that he would have fallen victim to a law that was not
passed for another 65 years, claims which were all patently untrue) are
more than enough to lead to the conclusion that this anecdote should be
thrown out of consideration for being relevant to this period. Also
compelling are objections raised by Matthias Gelzer and William Harris,
which are cited by Keaveney in his extensive endnote 35, found on p. 72.
Their arguments are convincing enough that, while it seems appropriate
to recognize the existence of the anecdote, it will not be used as evidence
here as it is in Keaveney.
particular political goal.62 From this the Allies drew their own
conclusions.
But if Flaccus inadvertently disclosed or seemed to disclose
the path to the franchise to the Allies, he also demonstrated
something else to Rome and Roman politicians: he revealed that
the civitas was apparently valuable enough for the Allies, or at least
some of them, to be willing to part with ager publicus—which might
have been worth a great deal to them—to get it. Therefore, the
franchise itself was worth even more to these Italians than the land
was, and that knowledge could potentially be used by those Roman
statesmen who might need something from the Allies in the future.
Such a person would now have the means to purchase the favor of
the socii, to get them to fight with enthusiasm on the battlefield or
in the streets of Rome, to reward such service after it had been
done, and perhaps to acquire their gratitude for a lifetime. Indeed,
this would have been apparent both to those who might
contemplate such possibilities, and to those for whom such policies
would be unthinkable. It is therefore probably not much of an
exaggeration to suggest that the law Flaccus had been considering,
and what it seemed to imply both to Romans and to Allies, had the
potential for profound consequences, some of them undoubtedly
quite beyond the wildest imaginings of Flaccus himself. One
scholar has suggested that his proposal was merely an attempt by
the consul to send up a “weather balloon” to ascertain the way the
winds were blowing for both Allies and Romans.63 The breeze, as
Flaccus soon ascertained, was apparently strong enough to propel
the measure he had had in mind almost to the point of execution,
even if he was dispatched to Gaul before he could actually launch
it. It would not be long, however, before those particular gusts
would be employed again.
62 Keaveney (op. cit., p. 63) comes to the same conclusions, and
likewise believes that neither the agrarian laws nor their commissioners
instilled in the Italians a desire for the citizenship, but instead used that
desire as a means to barter co-operation with the land scheme.
63 Yet another bon mot of Stockton (p. 96).
Shortly after Flaccus had departed to Gaul, the colony of

Fregellae broke into revolt.64 The timing of this event was probably
more than coincidence,65 even if amongst the many sources which
describe or make reference to the event no reasoning of any kind is
provided for why it took place. (Per. 60, Plutarch, C. Gracc. 3, and
de vir. ill. 65 are but a few of them) Indeed, most of these sources
limit their notices to the revolt’s outcome, which is that it was
crushed by the praetor L. Opimius,66 who had been sent to contain
the uprising. Having broken this uprising, Opimius proceeded to
destroy the town. Fregellae’s insurrection had apparently been
doomed from the start, since it was not aided by any other city (the
notice in the de viris illustribus that Asculum had also risen is usually
explained away as an error by modern scholars).67 As a result, it
represents a rather odd episode in Roman history, and gives rise to
several unanswered questions. Chief among them is why Fregellae
had revolted at all. Additionally, how could its inhabitants possibly
have believed that they would meet any fate other than the one it
ultimately encountered as one small city against the vastness of
Rome?
Some answers to these questions are occasionally sought in
the fact that in 177 Fregellae had attracted a large number of
64 Before the year had finished according to the Periochae, which also
places it after Flaccus had left.
65 So Mouritsen (1998, p. 118) and Keaveney (1987, p. 64–68); it is
also implied by Gabba (1976, p. 217 note 11). See also below.
66 With the aid, it seems, of the treachery of a Fregellanus named Q.
Numitorius Pullus; so Cicero, de inv. 2.34.105, Phil. 3.17, de fin. 5.62.

67 For example, Keaveney (loc. cit.) mentions that since Asculum was
not completely destroyed as Fregellae had been, it must have been that
Asculum had not risen, since its destruction would certainly have occurred
had it done so. Asculum may have considered taking part but ultimately
did not do so, which would explain the reference in the de viris illustribus.
Since Asculum was later the site of the uproar in 91, the combination of
that event—which would demonstrate a proclivity to revolt—and the
reports that Asculum might have entertained ideas of joining Fregellae led
the anonymous author of that work to transpose the later event of 91 into
his life of Gracchus in the de viris illustribus, in which work mistakes are
frequent. This theory is fairly convincing, and is therefore followed here.
Samnite and Paelignian settlers (Livy 41.8). These, it is argued, had

decided on independence, and had taken over an otherwise loyal
colony and attempted to tear it away from Rome.68 Further
evidence for this is discerned in the sequel, which is that a new
colony was founded from those of its occupants who were spared.
This has been taken to mean that once the Oscan elements had
been dispensed with, the more loyal (Latin) segments were
repatriated.69 Such an explanation is not entirely convincing, but
allowing for the moment that independence was the motive, this
projection nevertheless does not take into account the other
unknown, which is how Fregellae could possibly have hoped to
challenge Rome. Surely its people must have understood that they
would be defeated if war in earnest is what they had had in mind.
Why, then, would they risk certain destruction in an enterprise
conducted in this manner?
Such a question is, again, not answered in the sources.
Nevertheless, it is possible to derive from those sources a different
perspective on Fregellae in light of the proposal of Flaccus, one
which simultaneously answers the question of why the city rose in
the first place and why it rose in the peculiar way that it did. A few
modern scholars have made just such a derivation. As has been
suggested above, the prospect of gaining the citizenship through
the potential lex Fulvia, even at the cost of the use of ager publicus or
of their own lands lying adjacent to it, had proven very attractive to
those to whom it was offered, id est the Latins. According to this
theory, when that possibility was shelved, the fact that potential
redistribution was also shelved did not assuage those Latins at
Fregellae. These then resorted to a violent demonstration to voice
their displeasure at the situation. Yet a serious armed effort against
68So Stockton, p. 96–97, and Salmon 1967, p. 326, 334.

69 Salmon (loc. cit.) goes further still, arguing that the destruction of the
city was calculated by Rome to send a message to the Latins, but without
actually having to slaughter Latins, for whom the Romans had a deeper
affection than other Italians. Instead, the less desirable Samnites were
subjected to Roman brutality; in this manner, the Romans acted as they
did with the Allied soldiers in the army, displaying their harsh discipline
but studiously avoiding its application to people whose injuries suffered in
the process might cause difficulties.
the Romans by that city alone would have had no chance at all, and
the suicidal nature of such an enterprise would have been obvious
to everyone. As a result, it is sometimes maintained that the
Fregellani must have believed that they would have help, either
from fellow Latins who would be persuaded to join them, or those
already been so persuaded but had not yet finished preparations
when Fregellae made its move.70 In response to this, it should be
noted that in the former case it would seem that this would be a
wild gamble to take in the absence of guaranteed assistance, and in
the latter case, that there is no evidence of any other cities even
taking part in the planning for an uprising, other than the notice
that Asculum played some undefined role. Finally, if there had been
some sort of a coniuratio of this kind it is therefore curious as to why
none of the sources would remember it. Thus, the postulated
missing help on which Fregellae is claimed to have counted does
not really unravel this particular mystery.
Moreover, it is to be observed that both of these suppositions,
and in fact all of the explanations offered thus far for what
happened at Fregellae, depend upon the assumption that Fregellani
had really determined to revolt. However, it is possible that there is
another way to explain what transpired. It may be that Fregellae
had not actually contemplated a full-scale revolt at all, but instead
may have had something else entirely in mind. As encountered
above, it has been suggested that Flaccus initially only floated his
proposal to enfranchise the Latins to see if they would be willing to
accept the civitas as compensation, of sorts, for not causing
difficulties should the commission resume its reclamation of ager
publicus. Upon the apparent discovery that such a trade was
amenable, he then seems to have decided to move forward with it
until sent away to his eventual victories in Gaul. Perhaps Fregellae
was then responding to the ballon d’essai of Flaccus with one of their
70 These are the theories of Keaveney and Mouritsen, respectively, in

the passages mentioned above. Neither believes that Fregellae had been
left to their own devices by the Latins either from the irritation which had
allegedly attached to them from 177, when they had poached so many
men from the surrounding areas, or due to the fact that it was an all-
Oscan affair, as implied by Badian (1971 p. 390), Salmon, and Stockton
(also in the places cited earlier).
own. If, in fact, they had intuited that at least one segment of the
Roman ruling class had come to regard the citizenship as
something they might be willing to concede to avoid one form of
disturbance, maybe they would trade it to end another kind. If so,
they might have launched their demonstration to see what the
Roman response would be, perhaps in the hope that the Romans
would grant the franchise rather than commit to the hassle of an
armed expedition. As events turned out, however, Fregellae had
seriously miscalculated the temper of the Roman government.
Possibly out of recognition of the message that such a concession
might send, the Republic instead replied in a more sanquinary
manner, and the result was the brutal suppression of the “revolt”
and the sack of the city. Such a theory for what happened at
Fregellae is, of couse, only that: a theory. However, nothing in the
sources suggest things could not have occurred in this way, and
indeed it might very well explain why Fregellae decided to engage
in what appears to have been a hopeless endeavor, why that
endeavor failed so spectacularly, and why Rome reacted to it as it
did.
Whether that was what happened at Fregellae or not,
however, what is almost certain is that the year 125 was of
monumental importance for the Allies, and from the events in it
two lessons might have been learned. The first of these was that
there were members of the Roman ruling class for whom support
of the grant of the citizenship was not inconceivable, if by means
of this grant the Allies could give the men from that class
something they wanted in return. It is not impossible that Fregellae
might have caused some doubt about this receptivity on the part of
the Romans, but the later activities of Caius Gracchus and others
(see below) would have reaffirmed the assumption. Of course,
what this apparent willingness did not necessarily guarantee was
that support of enfranchisement amongst these Roman statesmen
would lead to laws to that effect. This fact the Allies would
gradually have to discover, to their considerable frustration. Still, it
seems the willingness to consider enfranchisement was there for
the right price.
Beyond that, 125 had showed something else to the Allies: it
had made clear that whether or not some part of the Roman
governing order could be persuaded to grant the civitas, it would
certainly not be so persuaded by forced extortion in the weak
manner that Fregellae had attempted. It may very well be that the
success of force was not out of the realm of possibility, but
Fregellae had not had sufficient muscle to accomplish it and had in
essence been treated like an irritating nuisance:71 it had been easier
71 Signs of this contempt might be observed from a passage in
Valerius Maximus 2.8.4 about the sequel to Fregellae. According to that

authority, the praetor who had destroyed the city, L. Opimius, had asked
for a triumph for his action and had been refused. The reason given by
Valerius Maximus for the denial had been that Rome did not grant
triumphs for recovering territory which had been lost, and he couples the
discomfiture of Opimius with that of Q. Fulvius Flaccus (cos. 237 and
grandfather of the Marcus Fulvius Flaccus mentioned above), likewise not
given a triumph for suppressing a revolt in Capua in 211. Ammianus
Marcellinus mentions this policy also (25.9.10). The comments of both
Valerius and Ammianus following their reports suggests a firm custom
amongst the Romans; namely, that no triumph had ever been awarded for
regaining what was Roman, but only for increasing Rome’s territory. This
does not, however, accord well with the well-attested triumph later given
to Pompeius Strabo for his exploits against the Picentes, one mentioned
in the Fasti Triumphales as well as Velleius 2.65.3, Pliny NH 7.43.135,
Gellius 15.4.3, Dio 43.51 and 49.21, and Valerius himself in 6.9.9, to name
just a few sources (usually in the context of an episode in the life and
remarkable career of P. Ventidius, about which more later). Of course,
triumphs could be celebrated without the consent of the Senate—
C. Marcius Rutilius had gotten one by the consent of the people in 356—
or even that of the people, assuming the triumphator opted to hold it at his
own expense (Payne, p. 41). Hence, it could have been that Pompeius
held his in just such a fashion. On the other hand, the fact that the
triumph of Pompeius is included on the Fasti speaks against it having
been celebrated under either of these latter conditions. Alternatively, it
could also well be that Opimius was denied a triumph but Pompeius
granted one because of some distinction was observed between the
Latins/Campani and the Picentes which escaped commentary in the
sources. Finally, it may have been that the later triumph was was allowed,
contrary to custom, to brighten the spirits of the Romans after a
strenuous war which, as will be seen, had definitely sapped morale.
Barring these eventualities, it might also simply be that the triumph of
Pompeius was allowed because his campaign had been greater than that of
Opimius; perhaps the Senate saw nothing in what Opimius had done as
worth rewarding, indicative of contempt for the operation.
for the Romans to eradicate the community in its relative weakness

than to accede to its demands, which could have set a dangerous
precedent for the other Allies to follow. Through its answer to
Fregellae, Rome had treated the town as if it had wished to make
an example of the city and to send a message. It certainly did that,
though that message might not have been the intended one:
henceforth the Allies would have understood that if they were ever
to attempt compulsion to get what they wanted from Rome, they
would have to be stronger than Fregellae had been. To acquire this
strength, they would have to unite.
4. CAIUS GRACCHUS
To Rome and Roman politics, as mentioned above, the issue of
mass enfranchisement for Allied communities—or, at least, for
some of them—had been introduced for the first time by M.
Fulvius Flaccus.72 That man had declared his intention to propose a
law granting the civitas, or at the very least some important political
rights, to the Allies during his tenure as consul. He had done this to
win Italian co-operation and to quell potential Italian complaints
with his scheme to resume assessment of what land belonged to
Rome through the commission established by the earlier leges
Semproniae. If Appian is to be believed, Flaccus would have been
successful both in passing the law and in achieving the goal for
which the law would have been passed (id est acquiescence in the
resumption of land adjudication) had not military responsibilities
kept him from doing so.73 Whether it was his intention or not,
Flaccus had in the process uncovered the truth that the citizenship
was worth so much to some of the socii that they would be willing
to trade land of potentially great value for it. The possible ends to
which this enthusiasm might be put were endless, but one of them
was certain: the grant of the citizenship would buy the silence of
the Italians over having their lands assessed, and thus remove from
72 So Badian (1971, p. 389).

73 In fact, that authority specifically states that Flaccus had been sent
to war in order to kill his franchise bill, indicating that the Senate had had
some grounds for concern that the law might otherwise have passed (loc.
cit.).
the Senate one method by which they could obstruct redistribution

of the ager publicus. It can never be known how things would
have turned out if the would-be lex Fulvia had passed and the
Triumvirate had gone back to defining the public land, because, as
has been seen, Flaccus was sent off to glory in Gaul before it could
be voted. Even so, a tool which had not been available before now
presented itself for use by Roman statesmen, especially those
devoted to the cause of land reform.
That Caius Gracchus, younger brother of Tiberius Gracchus,
was devoted to such a cause is beyond doubt. He, too, served on
the Triumvirate, and Tiberius had been so often on his mind since
his murder that he even visited Caius his dreams.74 It seems that it
had been the shade of Tiberius which had prompted Caius
Gracchus to run for quaestor, and he had in turn done so in 127,
serving his year of office fighting under the consul L. Orestes in
Sardinia and then continuing as proquaestor for 125. In 124,
however, Gracchus returned to Rome. It seemed fairly clear to
everyone that he had done so with the intention of running for the
tribunate of 123, and that he would in fact be elected if the
thunderous popular ovation which he encountered on his return
was any indication of what the voting public thought of him (καὶ
καταπλέοντι ἐκ τῆς Σαρδόνος συν ντα, καὶ ἐκ άντα μετ᾽ εὐφ μίας καὶ
κρότων ἐδέχετο. τοσαύτ πρὸς αὐτόν ἦν εὐνοίας ὀχλικῆς ὑπερ ολ ,
Diodorus Siculus, 37.24). The Senate was apparently quite troubled
by this possibility and attempted to forestall it in a number of ways.
First it attempted to extend his promagistracy by continuing that of
Orestes, and since it was apparently irregular that a (pro)quaestor
should return before the commander,75 the prorogation would in
74 As stated by Plutarch (C. Gracc. 1). Cicero (de div. 1.26.56) states that
he publicly related the occurrence, and Valerius Maximus (1.7.6), who

almost certainly took the anecdote from Cicero, observes the same thing.
75 Plutarch’s narrative makes it clear that the Senate was determined to
keep Caius Gracchus from following the steps of Tiberius into the
tribunate, which is almost certainly true. It should be pointed out,
however, that Gracchus (by Plutarch’s own admission) had been an
extremely capable officer. His aplomb at gaining clothing for the army
from the Sardinians in spite of their petition to the Senate to be relieved
of such a requisition, and the grain later delivered from Africa by the
theory compel Gracchus to remain in Sardinia until the return of

Orestes (Plutarch, C. Gracc. 2). When Gracchus returned in spite of
this, the Senate charged him with dereliction of duty before the
censors. It did not take him long to extricate himself from that
accusation; having been allowed to speak on his own behalf,
Gracchus was able to demonstrate that by the law he had done his
requisite service and had done so with scrupulous honesty,
intimating that the same could not be said of those with whom he
served (Plutarch, loc. cit., Gellius, 15.12). He was then promptly
accused of complicity in the revolt at Fregellae, charged specifically
with having stirred up the Allies to revolt, as well as of knowing,
but not disclosing, what their intentions were. It was presumably
just as is difficult to see then, as it is now, how Gracchus would
have had the ability to work this mischief from farway Sardinia, and
Plutarch speaks of the ease with which these charges were also
defeated (C. Gracc. 3).76 No sooner were they dismissed, Plutarch
relates, then Gracchus at last stood for the tribunate, and there are
indications that the Senate continued to do all that was in their
power to stop his election once his candidacy could no longer be
Numidian King Micipsa due to his personal admiration for Gracchus,

makes his military qualities manifest. These would have made Gracchus a
soldier of great use to any commander, who for legitimate military reasons
may have been unwilling to lose those to politics. Thus, the Senate may
have had more reasons for keeping Gracchus in Sardinia than simply
keeping him out of the tribunate.
76 The absurdity of this arraignment may explain the curious notice in
Appian that Gracchus was held “in contempt” by the majority of the
Senate (πολλῶν δ᾽ αὐτοῦ καταφρονούντων ἐν τῷ ουλευτ ρίῳ; Appian 1.3.21).
Given that the patres were well aware of his popularity and may have
gotten a sense of his skill as an orator during debates surrounding the
expulsion law of Pennus (although see Appendix C), its struggle to
prevent his candidacy is more indicative of great respect and anxiety as to
the means to which he could turn his marvelous abilities. In all likelihood,
therefore, Appian’s words refer to the indictments levelled at him in the
effort to keep him from office, charges which were so ridiculous as almost
to convey contempt for their intended target and recognized as such by
everyone.
blocked. It is probably for this reason that he was returned fourth

rather than first when the votes were returned.77
Upon assuming office in December of 124, C. Gracchus was
now tribune, and with that office found himself in the position to
be able to propose laws. It was therefore now within his power to
reintroduce the proposal of Flaccus to enfranchise the Allies (or, at
least, some of them) and, having carried it, to resume the land
assessment towards the ultimate aim of continuing the
redistribution of the ager publicus. However, Gracchus would likely
have been highly cognizant of the extent to which he would be
opposed by the Senate, as his labors to be cleared of the alleged
misdemeanors brought against him to prevent his candidacy would
have made that manifest. Such opposition would raise serious
difficulties in getting his laws passed against their objections. In the
first place, in order to pass any laws which he may have
contemplated bringing forward, he would need votes. Traditionally
lawmakers who were in alignment with the Senate and the
wealthier elements of Roman society had not encountered great
impediments in enacting their measures, provided that such
measures did not directly harm the lower classes. In fact, it is one
of the oddities of Republican Rome that, as far as the evidence
from the sources can show, the legislative assemblies almost never
rejected a bill that had been put to it unless, again, that bill had
been immediately and drastically harmful to the poor.78 However,
77 So Stockton, p. 163.
78 Mouritsen raises this point (2001, p. 64–67, citing also a number of
other scholars in note 2, p. 65), which he explains by his belief that, before
the year 133, the lower classes tended to stay away from lawmaking
assemblies unless the bill in question specifically concerned them.
Furthermore, what he has to say about electoral assemblies (op. cit., 91–
101) applies to lawmaking ones, which is that the lower classes rarely
participated in them unless they lived within the boundaries of the urbs.
This lack of participation was partly due to distance, which was
prohibitive to those who did not live in the city itself. It was also partly
due to the amount of time voting would take, which would be prohibitive
for those who had to make a living and thus could not spare that time.
Finally, it was possibly due to a feeling if uselessness: measures put to the
assembly would pass (and candidates would be elected) once they had
passing a law which had the approval of the wealthy and Senate
was one thing; passing one over their opposition was another, since
that process would involve finding enough voters to overcome the
bill’s opponents. In this case, Gracchus would have to draw votes
from large numbers of the lower classes, since the upper classes
would probably oppose such a measure strenuously in light of the
fact that Latin citizenship would lead to renewed attention in the
ager publicus, which stood to cost them much. The lower classes, for
their part, would need to be persuaded to commit to the sacrifice
reached a majority of tribal votes, at which point voting ceased. There was
therefore never the guarantee that a citizen could actually get to cast his
vote even if he were to go to the balloting. For a thorough discussion of
the Roman voting procedure see Nicolet (1988, p. 224–289), and below,
chapter 6.
Thus, unless the vote in question involved a law which directly stood
to harm or help them, the lower classes stayed away. This left the upper
classes and especially those from the non-urban tribes to be the ones
primarily responsible for enacting proposals into law, as they could afford
to take the time to vote and therefore did so more often. As voters they
would generally be inclined to pass whatever laws were proposed by
magistrates, since for most of the history of the Republic, these had
Senatorial approval and would therefore likely be helpful—or at least not
damaging—to their interests. The only time a bill which had the support
of the Senate and the wealthy stood in danger of failing was if it contained
provisions which would cause the lower classes to turn out in force to
oppose it, as noted above.
Bills therefore could be, but rarely were, rejected even if they were
supported by the wealthy and the Senate. As for bills being passed
without the consent of the patres and the wealthy who shared their views,
these faced the significant roadblocks of finding someone to propose
them, which the typical Roman lawmaker either would not have the
inclination to do, or could be persuaded not to do. Additionally, there was
the challenge of getting enough voters together to outnumber well-to-do
opponents, and from the majority of tribes, as opposed to the four into
which urban voters were registered. This, as can be imagined, would have
been no an easy task. For these reasons, Mouritsen claims, the Gracchi
(and specifically Caius) became the first Romans to be able to do this on a
consistent basis in the long history of the Republic, and while this may be
overstating the issue somewhat, the basic premise of his argument is not
at all far-fetched.
of time and the hassle of going to vote, something they tended to

do only when infused with sufficient motivation that was usually
self-interest.79 Still, Gracchus probably had every confidence that
he could persuade the people to vote for an enfranchisement bill if
it were to be put to them in language that would make it patent that
the law’s enactment it would lead to further land reclamation and
redistribution. After all, Flaccus seemed to have been very close to
doing that very thing a few years earlier.
Still, the Senate had other means to defeat legislative
proposals other than simply having them voted down. In fact, the
patres almost never attempted to have a popular law which it
opposed defeated either through the gathering of enough contrary
votes to overwhelm it, or by attempting to persuade the people
who gathered at the traditional pre-vote contio, where debate was
allowed, not to support it.80 Instead, the Senate typically employed
79 So Mouritsen (op. cit., p. 85–88); it appears that gratitude could also
secure a turnout, but less reliably.

80 Mouritsen (op. cit., p. 68–76) takes note of this fact, which he
attributes to the fact that mobilizing large crowds to enact—or defeat—a

law had not been necessary until around the time of Tiberius Gracchus
and that the Senators had thus never learned the techniques such
mobilization required. Up to that point, he argues, the well-to-do had
primarily been the ones involved in voting (see above) and since
legislators had tended to put forth laws which were in their interests and
had obtained Senatorial approval ahead of time, they were almost certain
to pass in the assembly in which the non-urban tribes were primarily
represented by the wealthy, id est the people who lived outside Rome but
could afford the expense of traveling to vote. Once the so-called populares
had found ways to summon large crowds whose numbers consisted of
representatives from all the tribes (the latter most likely supplied by
migrants to Rome from the countryside who now lived in the city but
were still registered in the “rustic” tribes), the Senate was simply
outnumbered, its members lacking either the knowledge or the will to take
appropriate countermeasures amongst the voters. Morstein-Marx, for his
part, adds that attempts to sway the voters by oratory during the final
assembly before a measure was put to the vote—an assembly at which
custom dictated that opponents could speak against a bill—were almost
always doomed to failure. Such meetings were under the effective control
of the magistrate who called them, who were alomost always those
a variety other obstructive methods by means of which a law could

be kept from being put to a vote at all. A glance at the Senate’s
response to Tiberius Gracchus and Fulvius Flaccus reveals a few of
these. In the case of Flaccus, it had dispatched Fulvius Flaccus to
war before he could put his law to the vote (as has been seen).
Tribunes could not be disposed of in such a manner, of course, but
Gracchus could look to his brother’s term for examples of other
tactics the Senate might employ: in 133 the Senate had attempted
to use M. Octavius, a colleague of Ti. Gracchus in the tribunate, to
veto the reading of the law in the final assembly before a vote was
taken.81 More drastically, it had resorted to his murder of Gracchus
when the use of their pocket “counter-tribune” had failed, an
action which may not have been authorized by that body but
without doubt approved of by many of its members. The brother
of Tiberius Gracchus, therefore, had probably wanted to neutralize
these kinds of obstruction as much as possible before the franchise
bill could be brought forward. Yet the measures he intended to
enact against Senatorial opposition ran the risk of not being able
draw enough voters from the lower classes to get them to come to
officials about to promulgate the bill, and it was they who could decide
who could or could not speak. Furthemore, in cases of popular
enactments, raucous crowds could shout down those trying to speak in
opposition (p. 160–203). The result, both scholars note, was that the
Senate resorted to—or were forced into—use of obstruction instead,
employing tactics of which a few are to be narrated above.
81 Of the many accounts of this, the most extensive are found in
Plutarch (Ti. Gracc. 10) and Appian (1.1.12). According to Morstein-Marx,

the timing of this veto contributed to the ultimate deposition of Octavius,
since tradition demanded that the law had to be heard and debate
entertained before the veto could be interposed. As Appian notes,
Octavius twice interrupted the clerk and forbade him from completing his
reading of the law (ἐκέλευε τὸν γραμματέα σιγᾶν ... [and on the next day, the
γραμματεύς] ἀνεγίνωσκε καὶ Ὀκταουίου κωλύοντος ἐσιώπα). By violating this
custom, Octavius left himself open to the accusation of trampling the
rights of the people to hear the law and be informed of its positive and
negative elements so as to guarantee an educated decision. Because of
this, Octavius was not acting in the best interests of the plebs as per his
charge when elected. This gave Gracchus the grounds to remove him (p.
173–175).
the polls, and indeed it is hard to imagine anyone being able to

inspire the lower classes to come to vote for some of those which
Gracchus ended up proposing. Because of their apathy, Gracchus
would also need some voters from outside the poor and the
working class. Obviously the majority of the upper classes—
concerned as they logically would be about their lands—would be
against him, but eventually Gracchus seems to have found some
support from the negotiatores, overseas merchants, entrepreneurs,
and contractors employed by Rome (see previous chapter). These
men were wealthy, but in many cases their wealth did not derive
solely from their land, and less steadfastly opposed to reclaiming
the ager publicus. At the very least, they did not depend upon that
land to such a degree that they could not be tempted to go along
with Gracchus in return for other concessions, even if their
landholdings suffered. Thus, in exchange for laws which suited
their concerns (ones for which they themselves could be relied
upon to vote, having both the inclination and wherewithal to do
so), the negotiatores could be used by Gracchus to help pass other
measures which would either gratify the people or circumscribe the
ability of the Senate. Once he had earned their favor and then
mobilized it to clear Senatorial impediments, the path to a final
enfranchisement bill seemed open to Gracchus. When in turn that
law passed, the agrarian commission could resume its adjudication
without Allied protests, and the redistribution of land could
continue.
These things, it seems, were on the mind of Gracchus as he
began his tribunate in 123, one in which he would pass a broad
range of laws.82 The exact measures passed by Gracchus have been
82 Not, of course, that this was necessarily the only impetus for the
laws Gracchus passed. Indeed, most of them have a certain aesthetic

appeal in that they served a variety of functions. Of those which fenced in
the Senate, for example, several addressed what were likely longstanding
abuses perpetrated by members of that body both at home and abroad
(the law concerning extortion is a good example). Likewise, others must
have been designed both to pre-empt the obstructionism of the patres as
well as exact revenge for the death of Tiberius. Thus, almost all of them
were worthwhile bills for their own sake in addition to the part they
discussed elsewhere and therefore do not need to be repeated in

any detail here.83 It will suffice to mention that almost all of them
had the effect either of pleasing the people, of gratifying the
contractors and merchants, or of warding off the Senate. The first
of these aims seem to have been achieved by a law which made it
impossible for youths under the age of seventeen to be recruited
for service; that same law also made the cost of the equipment,
clothing, and presumably food supplied to the soldiers the
responsibility of the aerarium, and thus no longer to be deducted
from soldier’s pay. The people were also served by another bill
which called for the foundation of colonies on already-determined
ager publicus outside of Italy, as well as another still, which provided
that grain be purchased by the state and made available to the
people at fixed, low prices. This last also probably provided the
additional benefit of providing employment to dockworkers and
laborers, as would the construction of warehouses and storage
units.84
Such construction was, in turn, given to the contractors,
which thereby accomplishing the second of his goals, that of
earning the favor of the negotiatores. Contractors would also be
helped in by the many roads his laws intended to build. To pay for
these projects, Gracchus proposed to raise new taxes, which others
from the merchant class, the publicani, would collect. These imposts
included new harbor duties, as well as the collection of tribute from
Asia. Gracchus also engineered it that tax contracts were to be
awarded by the censor in Rome as opposed to the previous
practice, by which the governor had assigned them in the province
itself. Finally, overseas businessmen—publicani or otherwise—
would be aided by a series of laws which provided for harsher
penalties for Senatorial governors convicted of extortion. They
played towards furthering Italian enfranchisement and the agrarian

commission.
83 See, for example, the detailed treatment in Stockton, which also
details the various ancient sources which make reference to these laws
(p. 114–161 and 228–239); they are compiled in tabular form by
Williamson (p. 459–460).
84 See, again, Stockton and Williamson for the ancient sources for
these laws in the places cited directly above.

were also helped by a reform of the courts, which rendered

Senators and their families ineligible from serving on the juries
which decided extortion cases, and thus making these juries
theoretically more independent and likely to convict.
These laws were probably not designed to overpower
Senatorial obstruction, although others seem to have been. For
example, a law which prevented any man who had ever been
deprived of his office by the people from holding any future offices
would serve as warning to any tribunes who tried to do as Octavius
had done in standing in the way of the vote on the agrarian law of
Tiberius. Octavius had been deprived of the tribunate by Tiberius
to override his veto, and now Caius made it clear that, if such a
procedure needed to occur again, it would also result in the end of
the obstructionist’s political career. In the end, Gracchus withdrew
this law (Plutarch, C. Gracc. 4; Diodorus 35.25.2), but it apparently
served its function as a warning well enough. In a similar vein, a
law was proposed which made it a capital offense to execute any
Roman citizen without trial. Moreover, this law was to be applied
retroactively; the same was also true of the lex de abactis just
mentioned, but unlike that law, the penalties were not rescinded for
this additional legislation, and the result was that the murderers of
Tiberius now had to go into exile. Revenge may have been the
motive, but so too a deterrent, lest the Senate decide that Caius
should be killed as Tiberius had been. Another law made it
mandatory for the Senate to announce what province a consul
would govern before the elections, which may have been designed
to take from the Senate the power to buy the cooperation of
consuls with a plum promagisterial command or to make use of a
convenient emergency in the empire to have one sent away, as had
been done with Tuditanus and Flaccus, respectively (as has been
seen). Finally, a law which made it a capital offense for any Senator
found guilty of using bribes to secure an unwarranted acquittal or
conviction in a trial would, Gracchus doubtless hoped, prevent any
jury tampering in the attempt to enforce all of the laws just cited.85
85 For the sources of which see, again, Stockton and Willamson in the
places cited in the notes above.

In fairness, no ancient source explicitly says that Gracchus had

this sort of master plan which guided his tribunate. Instead, the
sources, a great many of them hostile, suggest that he was fueled by
wide range of desires, some more likely that others. The more
probable attribute his actions to a thirst for vengeance, either for
the death of his brother or his own maltreatment;86 among the
frankly incredible, an impulse to overthrow the Senate and
substitute either monarchy or democracy.87 Nevertheless, one
priority which his actions suggested was a high one for him was a
need to finish what his brother had started with agrarian reform.
The consulate of Flaccus had suggested to Graccus that a powerful
new implement which could be used to accomplish this existed, in
the form of quelling Allied opposition to additional adjudication by
means of the grant of the citizenship.88 Towards the end of using
86 So Appian (1.3.21), suggesting he was driven to enact retribution for
the “contempt” directed at him by the Senate, and Velleius Paterculus,

offering his apparent need to avenge his brother (vindicandae fraternae mortis
gratia ... tribunatum ingressus; 2.6.1).
87 So Velleius, loc. cit., whose full text presents both the need for
revenge and the urge to sieze royal power: vel vindicandae fraternae mortis
gratia vel praemuniendae regalis potentiae eiusdem exempli tribunatum ingressus).
Likewise Diodorus Siculus, who states that Gracchus had actually spoken
in public to that effect (ὅτι ὁ Γράκχος δ μ γορ σας περὶ τοῦ καταλῦσαι
ἀριστοκρατίαν, δ μοκρατίαν δὲ συστῆσαι; 35.25.1).
88 Indeed, the citizenship may have been made even more attractive by
the laws Gracchus had passed. For the poorer, the grain law (lex
frumentatia) would now mean there was cheap grain to be had and
probably at prices far less that what Allies were paying in their
communities. This point is made—albeit for slightly different purposes
than those to which it is being turned here—by Brunt (1972, p. 26–27).
Brunt argues against Toynbee’s suggestion that the vine had supplanted
wheat in Italy, and says “The city of Rome was fed at the expense of the
subjects; imperial revenues were not available for other Italian towns. The
costs of transportation made it inevitable that the inhabitants of the
interior should grow their own food.” By implication, the grain imported
to Rome by foreign providers like Sicily was not available to the Allies at
the inexpensive rates at which they were made available by Gracchus, and
probably not even at the cheapness of the rates even before his lex
frumentaria. These prices would be available to them as citizens.
this implement, Gracchus passed a series of measures which seem

to fit so easily into a pattern that it is difficult to believe it was a
coincidence. Rather, it seems that it was his design to use his
legislation to win enough votes amongst the lower classes and the
mercantile elements that they would be able to pass a citizenship
bill over the opposition of the landed wealthy, and a series of
others which limited the extent to which the Senate could resort to
some of the obstructive tactics they had employed in the past to
thwart his designs. Having managed therefore to legislate his way
through the reefs barring him from a law to grant the citizenship to
the Allies, one which would enable the further acquisition of ager
publicus and its subsequent distribution, all that would now be
needed was to promulgate it.
Yet for reasons which cannot be known for certain, Gracchus
had apparently decided that he was not going to propose the law
himself. Perhaps he had come to believe that the law might have
more authority if a friendly consul proposed it, and as luck would
have it, one was at hand in the form of Caius Fannius. According
to Plutarch, that consul’s election to office was largely won through
the aid of Gracchus (C. Gracc. 8), suggesting that his cooperation
would be forthcoming. Alternatively, he may have decided that the
introduction of a law which for all intents and purposes was the
same one that Fulvius Flaccus had contemplated in 125 should be
introduced by its creator. The latter, having returned in triumph in
123, had lent whatever support he could to Gracchus and the leges
Semproniae that tribune had passed. Flaccus now came forward and
was himself elected tribune for 122. With the election of a friendly
consul and tribune, Gracchus may well have decided that his work
was done; his tribunate was set to expire in December of 123, and
he may well have been content to leave office at that time.
Instead, Gracchus found himself elected again for 122.
Sources which are obviously biased against him claim that he had
Furthermore, as citizens the former Allies could potentially take part in

the land redistribution itself, while for the wealthy (who would likely be
giving up whatever land was to be sequestered) there was the prospect of
being eligible for the contracts which Gracchus had made available
alongside the negotiatores of original Roman extraction.
wished for this to happen, but both Plutarch (C. Gracc. 8) and
Appian (1.3.21–22) state that he had not looked for iteration, but
had rather had it thrust on him. Indeed, that fact that he had
evidently been planning a trip to Africa to oversee the foundation
of the colony at Carthage proposed by Rubrius (a trip he ultimately
made) seems to confirm this (Plutarch, C. Gracc. 10; Appian,
1.3.24).89 Nevertheless, the people desired it so, and elected him sua
sponte. A statesman who had passed many measures which centered
on the rights of the people—ones which helped prevent them from
executed without trial, for example, or which reaffirmed their rights
to make and unmake magistrates—would be hard-pressed to refuse
an office which the people had spontaneously given him. Therefore
he accepted the tribunate, but he was apparently determined to go
ahead with his African visit anyway (a special dispensation for the
people was needed for that, but apparently it was obtained easily
enough).90 After carrying bills to found colonies in Tarentum and
Capua and perhaps lending his support to the franchise proposal
beginning to be promulgated by Flaccus (Plutarch, C. Gracc. 8),
Gracchus departed and left the latter to complete the process of
89 In Stockton’s attempt to ascertain the motives of Gracchus in his
re-election (p. 169–175) the fact that it actually was thrust upon him
unbidden is never seriously considered. He allows that Gracchus may not
have actually run—a calculated move designed to show just how popular
he was by being elected without running for office—and even that he did
not want it until very late, but he never postulates that Gracchus never
wanted it at all and had to accept it when given. However, this latter
circumstance would explain why it is that Appian notes that the election
only came about when less than ten qualified candidates emerged (1.3.21).
If the Senate had thought that Gracchus was going to run again, its
members doubtless would have found someone to run in his place. But
the Senate had not made such precautions (although it did have plans for
ways to take care of Flaccus, as will be seen), and presumably it would
have been on the lookout for Gracchus as a candidate. The patres
therefore must have been convinced that no re-election was imminent.
Moreover, the fact that Tiberius had ultimately come to grief in a re-
election bid also argues against the desire of Caius to make the same
mistake.
90 Stockton, p. 172; Plutarch (C. Gracc. 8) notes that the people would
have been willing to do practically anything he asked.

enacting the measure.91 In his anxiety to go, Gracchus may not

have noticed that there were signs that something was amiss, in
that Fannius seems to have changed his demeanor towards
Gracchus after the election (Plutarch, loc. cit.). The reasons for this
tergiversation and ingratia are not recorded. It may be that the
consul had been disturbed by the iteration of the Gracchus;
Plutarch mentions that the popularity of Gracchus had been so
great that at in 123 he could even have been elected to the
consulate (loc. cit.), so a fear of a tyranny may have thus been
aroused. Alternatively, Fannius may have had an enmity with
Flaccus, or was simply opposed either to adjudicating the ager
publicus or to extending the citizenship. A speech made by him
quoted by Julius Victor certainly indicates a strong antipathy to the
latter (more below). Perhaps he was hostile to both outcomes.
91 Plutarch mentions that Gracchus himself had attempted to carry
this measure before he departed for Africa, but he also mentions similar
proposals earlier (5) and later (9). Surely Gracchus did not attempt to
pass the same law three times, so Plutarch must be somewhat out of
chronological order. How is it to be arranged, then? Possibly a key is
found in 12, when throngs of supporters from all of Italy came into the
city to support the bills he officially promulgated after his return from
Carthage. It is at this juncture that Fannius had them expelled (more
directly). Possibly Plutarch is merely foreshadowing in 5, 8, and 9 what
was actually voted in section 12, which came after the return of Gracchus
from Carthage. The earlier mentions were possibly in connection with the
bill that Flaccus had proposed and was to attempting to carry, but was
one which Gracchus had let the people know that it had his support.
Confident that the people were so firmly in his camp that Flaccus could
get the law passed through such an endorsement—and indeed Gracchus
had just been elected to the tribunate unbidden, indicating that this
confidence in his own popularity was not misplaced—he departed to
Africa. This interpretation of Plutarch is similar to the one offered by
Stockton (p. 177–178), and is to be preferred to that of Appian (1.3.24),
who states that the franchise bill was both proposed and rejected before
the departure to Africa. According to that authority, Flaccus had joined
him on the expedition, which is clearly in contradiction to Plutarch’s
narrative, which places him in Rome doing battle against the Senate’s
method to foil the Gracchani (see below). As such, it is followed by Badian
(1988, p. 301), and is also followed here.
Either way, if there were these dark clouds on the horizon,

Gracchus did not seem to have been troubled overmuch by them,
and left the city anyway.
It soon became patent that the personality of Gracchus had
played a large role in getting his measures passed, because in his
absence the cause for which he seems to have been working began
to founder.92 The franchise proposal was the last piece of the
puzzle to be fit before adjudication could be resumed, but it soon
ran into some significant obstacles. Part of that seems to have been
due to Flaccus, who is presented as having been a difficult person:
blunt, outspoken, and apparently rather artless,93 he seems to have
been prone to shortness of temper,94 and for these reasons
he apparently came to be loathed by the Senate (Plutarch,
C. Gracc. 10). This loathing was compounded by his obvious
continued support of policies which that body had found
disagreeable, and his behavior towards that body as consul had
hardly increased their affection (see above). Indeed, a sense of
betrayal might also have played a role: if a triumph had been
granted by the patres to Flaccus as a way to buy his support (as
perhaps Gracchus had considered his electoral aid would be such
for Fannius), he must have disappointed them with his persistent
adherence to Gracchus and by his election to the tribunate.95
Flaccus was therefore not the ideal spokesman for the citizenship
bill in 122 despite the success he had had with a similar proposition
earlier.
92 For the crucial role leadership played in passing popular legislation,

see Mouritsen (2001, p. 85–88).
93 Cicero’s characterization of his oratory was “workmanlike” (M.
Fulvius Flaccus et C. Cato Africani sororis filius, mediocres oratores; Brut. 108).
94 Traits he seemed to have shared with his enemy Scipio Aemilianus,
in whose murder Flaccus was apparently suspected; Plutarch, C. Gracc. 10.

95 Then again, the fact that he had been elected both consul and
tribune seems to suggest that, if he was unpopular with the nobiles, he was
less with the populus as he is sometimes made out to be. The rumors of his
involvement with the death of Aemilianus (see previous note), for
example, do not seem to have hindered his career, as he was elected
consul subsequent to this event.
Nor were the particular shortcomings of Flaccus the only

source of the law’s problems. Adding to them was the fact that the
Senate had now discovered a new weapon at their disposal in the
form of a tribune of their own, M. Livius Drusus. It was the aim of
Drusus to serve the Senate, as it would be that of his son years
later, and he seems to have been one of the few Romans of his
time to realize that the only way the people could be detached from
those men who had courted them personally and promised them
benefits would be for a competitor to take similar steps. In other
words, the only way the people could be mobilized against
Gracchus (or, rather, against his plans as being put forward by
Flaccus) would be to use the same mobilization techniques which
had been used by Gracchus himself, and it seems that Drusus did
not disdain to do this very thing. Helping in this endeavor was the
fact that Gracchus himself was away and could not provide an
adequate response to what Drusus would be attempting. Armed
with such a combination of insight and opportunity, Drusus went
to work: through oratory and what seems to have been a not
inconsiderable personal magnetism, Drusus began to draw crowds
and discuss the possibility of founding colonies of his own. The
difference would be that he offered more of these than Gracchus
had done (Appian 1.3.23), had proposed to free those given land in
them of the vectigal they paid on that land. To remove even the
suspicion of embezzlement or impropriety from himself, Drusus
also moved that he himself not administer the founding of his
proposed colonies. This had been a sticking point for the Gracchi,
who had both served on the commissions established by their laws.
There was, of course, no discussion by Drusus of either re-
evaluation of ager publicus nor of citizenship for the Latins to buy
their acceptance of it, but as a particularly magnanimous gesture to
the latter, Drusus did promise an end to their susceptibility to
scourging on the battlefield (Plutarch, C. Gracch. 9–10). In all of
these promises he not only had the support of the Senate96 but
96 It is debated whether or not the Senate actually favored any of these
measures, or if indeed Drusus did himself. On the one hand, nothing

ultimately came of his laws, but he was able to enjoy a career crowned by
a consulate and, later, a censorate; this suggests that the he had been
advertised that fact. Up to this point, the Senate, in the words of

one scholar, had “allowed itself to be increasingly separated from
the masses”97 in its apparent opposition to the laws which would
help them. Drusus doubtless hoped that his conspicuous display of
Senatorial support would illustrate that it was not the benefits of
the Gracchan programme to which the patres had been opposed,
but that what appeared to be aims at tyranny which Gracchus
harbored had drawn their ire instead.
The lack of flair on the part of Flaccus and the newfound
popularity of Drusus both alike meant trouble for the franchise bill,
but part of its lack of success may have been in the nature of the
bill itself. For a variety of reasons, the mass enfranchisement of the
Latins would have been opposed by the Senate and the wealthy
(see chapter 4). Now reservations amongst the lower classes were
being cultivated, with the consul Fannius apparently played to their
fears of being frozen out of the voting places, games, and during
holiday celebrations by throngs of new citizens of Latin extraction
(quoted in Julius Victor 6.4.).98 Such harangues by Fannius on the
one hand and the promises of Drusus on the other, as well as the
latter’s personal attacks on Flaccus himself (Plytarch, C. Gracch. 10),
finally led to the failure the franchise plan. Flaccus was
outmatched, and the momentum which the franchise proposal had
generated had begun to wane (Appian, loc. cit.; Plutarch, C. Gracch.
11).
Had he stayed in Rome, Gracchus may have been able to have
overcome the opposition of the Senate, the reluctance of the
people, and the counterproposals of Drusus, but this feat had
proved quite beyond the capacity of Flaccus. Flaccus himself seems
to have been aware of that fact, and he thus sent to Gracchus for
help. The latter returned to Rome in haste, for a new complication
had arisen in the fact that the consular elections were approaching.
rewarded for his services by a grateful curia. On the other hand, both of
these measures would have been far less objectionable than what
Gracchus offered, so perhaps the Senate acquiesced to them (or made the
show of doing so) as the lesser of two evils.
97 Mouitsen 2001, p. 141
98 See Morstein-Marx p. 126–127 for a discussion of the significance
of what Fannius seemed to be suggesting.

In these, the candidacy of L. Opimius—who was denied the office

for 122 in part by the support Gracchus had given to Fannius—
was now being backed extensively by the Senate (Plutarch, C. Gracc.
11). This was the same Opimius who as praetor had razed Fregellae
to the ground (see above), and as such his opinions about the
franchise for the Latins were probably obvious. Plutarch he was a
man of “oligarchical sympathies” (ἀνὴρ ὀλιγαρχικὸς; loc. cit.), and
such a man could be a powerful obstacle in the way of Italian
enfranchisement. Because of this, Gracchus must have figured that
if the franchise was ever to be won for the Latins, it would have to
be won in a hurry. He apparently decided that he would propose
the law himself this time, but before he could do so he would need
to regain some of the popularity lost through of his absence, his
association with Flaccus, and his competition in the form of
Drusus.
To that end, Gracchus moved from his opulent dwelling on
the Palatine into the poorer section of town and published the laws
that he intended to have enacted in what remained of the year (C.
Gracc. 11–12). One of these was apparently the franchise law, which
resurrected the initial proposal of Flaccus from three years before:
it would offer the complete citizenship to the Latins99 and Latin
rights to the Allies. This apparently drew a crowd of Latins into the
city,100 and either from fear of voting fraud or from fear of
violence, the consul Fannius was persuaded to pass an enactment
99 This runs counter to the statement of Velleius Paterculus in 2.6 that
Gracchus was for giving the citizenship to all the allies and extending it as
far as the Alps (dabat civitatem omnibus Italicis, extendebat eam paene usque
Alpis). The same thing is said by that author of Tiberius Gracchus,
although no evidence for a law to this effect seems to exist (see above).
This fact, along with the fact that two of the three references to the law in
Plutarch and that in Appian specifically mention the Latins, leads to the
conclusion that perhaps Velleius was exaggerating here; so also Mouritsen,
(1998, p. 119 note 32).
100 As discussed in chapter 2, it was apparently a law of long standing
that Latins who happened to be in the city on the days when laws were to
be voted could cast their ballots in one of the tribes, randomly chosen by
lot. Very likely they also came to provide physical support for Gracchus,
as well.
ejecting all non-citizens from Rome while voting was to be done.

Based on his reaction as described by Plutarch, Gracchus seems to
have been surprised by this move and vowed to use his intercessio to
protect any who stayed in defiance of the measure. However, when
one of his supporters actually began to be taken away he ultimately
did nothing. Reasons for his inactivity are not explicitly stated, but
are not difficult to conjecture. Gracchus was doubtless aware that
his list of enemies was growing (he had alienated a few of his other
fellow-tribunes over a dispute involving a gladiatorial show;
Plutarch, loc. cit.), and it is possible he feared a tumult which would
give the Senate cause to move against him as they had done his
brother irregardless of the laws he had passed to protect himself
against that very thing. Hence, when his franchise law finally came
to the vote, the actions of Fannius and what was apparently some
inspired oratory from Drusus against the bill (so Cicero, Brut. 99)
finally led to its defeat.101 When elections came shortly thereafter,
L. Opimius was voted in as consul and Gracchus was not returned
as tribune, if indeed he had run for that office a third time.102 The
new consul and tribunes then set apart taking down his laws, and a
dispute over one of them involving the planting of the colony at
101 According to Plutarch, the theat of a veto by Drusus was what
doomed the measure; as Morstein-Marx would have it, the veto must have
come in the pre-vote contio which prevented a vote from being taken, and
it was not actually voted down (p. 190 note 123). The result is, of course,
the same for either possibility.
102 Plutarch states that through some chicanery of his fellow tribunes
involving the aforementioned gladiatorial seats, Gracchus was not elected

in spite of having the most votes (see above). However, Appian does not
mention a defeat for a third tribunate, nor does Velleius, who was so
scandalized by a second tribunate that a third seems like something he
would have mentioned. In addition, neither the Periochae, Orosius, Florus,
Eutropius, nor Cicero mention such a third attempt, and this lack of
mention gives cause for doubt as to the reliablility of the anecdote in
Plutarch. Doubt, but not proof; it may very well be that he did run and
Plutarch just happens to be the only source to mention it.
Carthage was attended by violence which soon led to the death of

both Gracchus and Flaccus.103
For the Allies the death of Caius Gracchus had probably been
sobering. He, like his friend Flaccus who was also slain, had not
only been friendly to enfranchisement, but had even introduced a
law which would grant the franchise to some of them. Gracchus
had even taken the step of including in his extortion law the ability
for all Allies to bring suit against Roman magistrates in Rome for
this offense, an ability which further allowed those who succeeded
in gaining conviction the right to become citizens.104 His murder
could hardly be seen by the socii who followed Roman affairs as
anything but a stark indication of the extent to which the
citizenship as a tool towards agrarian reform was despised. Indeed,
the rhetoric of Fannius and his expulsion law may have indicated a
hostility against citizenship for the Allies which may not have been
expected.
The defeat of Gracchus had been so spectacular that the
proposals of citizenship in exchange for land reclamation would be
tabled for decades after his death, but it would turn out that the
issue would not die completely; almost a half-century later it would
be raised again. However, things had gotten much more volatile in
the meantime due to the politics of Rome on the one hand and the
ways it treated the Allies on the other. The death of Gracchus had
made it such that violence had attended the last citizenship
proposal, but that violence had been confined to the city itself. It
would attend the next proposal as well, but by that time the
violence no longer be contained to Rome and would eventually
engulf the entire peninsula.
5. AN UNEASY QUIET AND THE STRANGE CAREER

OF M. LIVIUS DRUSUS
Shortly after the death of Caius Gracchus, the laws that both he
and his brother had enacted began to be stricken. The colonial laws
103 Among the many sources dealing with the end of Grachus
are Appian, 1.3.24–26; Plutarch, C. Gracc. 13–19; Florus 2.3, Velleius

Paterculus 2.6–7; and the Periocha of Livy’s book 61.
104 Stockton, p. 139.
had already begun to be overthrown while he was alive; the

legislation on grain subsidies, the adjudication and distribution of
ager publicus, the inalienability of land already distributed from it to
the poor, and the vectigal charged for it are all mentioned specifically
as being overturned later (Cicero, de off. 2.72; de orat. 2.70.284; Brut.
36.136, 62.222; Appian 1.4.27).105 Very few of the leges Semproniae
survived the decades following 121, although the law concerning
the composition of the courts was one of them. This law would
ultimately become a matter of some significance in both Rome and,
based on an attempt that was made to repeal it, ultimately in Italy
as well.
With Gracchus also died his advocacy of citizenship for the
Allies, or at least for some of them. As for the vows of Drusus
made in part to weaken popular support for that advocacy, it
uncertain whether or not that made by him to end flogging for the
Latin soldiers went the way of his colonial legislation and thus
failed to be enacted. Still, in spite of the deaths of Flaccus and
Gracchus and of their legislative initiatives, the Allies perhaps could
take consolation in the fact that the land commission had
apparently stopped. Some of them might have gotten even more
than that to console them: at some point prior to 89, the ius Latii
was apparently broadened to allow magistrates amongst the Latin
communities to seek and claim Roman citizenship causa honoris.
When precisely this right was given is unclear, although it might
well have come from the period after the death of Caius
Gracchus.106 Why it was given is also unclear, but it is not hard to
imagine some potential reasons. In orderto prevent another
Fregellae from occurring, or to blunt the effectiveness of other,
later offers of citizenship to the Latins made in exchange for their
silence over adjudication of the ager publicus, the Romans might well
have sought to pacify the governing élite of Latin cities by means of
this concession. The Latins might find it hard to launch similar
revolts without such men. Furthermore, if the Romans found
105 The exact chronology of these latter measures is not known; for a
more complete discussion of them see Gabba (1956, p. 59–64), D’Arms

(p. 232–245), and Badian (1964, p. 235–242).
106 For a more through discussion of this right see Appendix D.
enfranchising all of the Latins too much to bear,107 they might have
looked less harshly on giving the civitas to a few of these every year.
Assuming the Latins elected the same sort of men the Romans did
(id est the landed wealthy of distinguished lineage), such men, who
would thus be enfranchised, would very likely be the sort of people
who would be most agreeable to the Roman ruling class for the
citizenship. It is likely that many of these Italians were already likely
hospes of the Roman nobility whose ranks they would be joining
(see earlier chapter).
At any rate, the Allies do not rate mention in almost any of
the historical or literary accounts of the next twenty years. If they
were as disappointed with the death of Gracchus and the doom of
his plans to give them rights—and it is difficult to see how they
would not have been—they nevertheless did not translate that
disappointment into any action worthy of note.
Even so, it is clear that the Gracchi had brought about a
change in the way the Italians and Romans would relate to each
other. As mentioned above, the Gracchani are claimed to have been
the first Roman politicians to have introduced citizenship for the
Allies into Roman politics.108 If that was so, then the Gracchani must
also have introduced Roman politics to the Italians in a way that
they had not been accustomed to seeing it before 133. Doubtless
some of the Italians had long kept abreast of Roman affairs. If they
were to fight the wars, many socii must have listened for news
which could affect their deployment, and in a similar manner, those
with commercial interests overseas likely kept their eye on Roman
policy. After 133, however, all Allies could potentially be affected
by Roman policy, since at any point some new would-be Gracchus
could follow the example of the earlier ones and come along to
tamper with Allied land holdings, offer them the citizenship or
increased privileges, or both. The activities of men like Poppaedius
Silo of the Marsi and his cultivation of friendships with Roman
politicians for the purpose of winning their support for the
franchise reflect that increased interest (see below). Moreover,
107 For Roman objections to mass enfranchisement, see chapter four
(building on arguments found in Kendall, 105–122).

108 So Badian (1971 p. 389), specifically referring to Flaccus.
there is nothing to indicate that desire for the citizenship became

less for the Allies during the quiet years following the death of
Gracchi,109 even if grants of the civitas to former Latin magistrates
may have sated a few of them. The rest would still have wanted it,
and wanted it badly enough to exchange land or other commodities
to those Romans willing to make a deal and give them what they
wanted for in exchange for what the Allies could provide.
One of these men seemed to have been C. Marius, the
politician and general whose meteoric rise to the top of the Roman
power pyramid coincided almost exactly with the fifteen years
following the death of C. Gracchus in which most of the laws of
the latter were undone. Marius and his conflicts with the Roman
political establishment are well known: the consummate self-made
man who had won his fame through military service, he was, in
spite of his battlefield prowess, despised by the traditional nobilitas
who are painted as having done all in their power to keep him from
the prestige and prominence that were rightfully his.110 There is a
temptation to draw from this depiction and from his own later
actions that Marius had a certain sympathy for the Allies, who like
himself were, or at least perceived themselves to be, men of quality
109 The fact that Fregellae, the proposal of Flaccus, and the later one
of Gracchus had all only concerned the Latins need not mean that it was
only they who wanted the franchise or who would have traded land for it,
as Mouritsen holds (1998, especially p. 118–119). It may very well have
been that, as asserted above, they were only ones who were asked, and
were by consequence moved to revolt from disappointment when the
offer was revoked.
110 The classic portrait of Marius as the gruff soldier, unpolished by
aristocratic ways but at the same time uncorrupted by aristocratic vice, is

given by Velleius Paterculus (2.11) and Sallust (BJ 63). Marius himself
deliberately cultivated sich an image—or, rather, the lack of an imago—in
his speeches to get himself elected consul; see, for example, Sallust (op. cit.,
85) and Plutarch (Marius 9). However, modern scholars dispute much of
this assessment. Den Boer (p. 4) refers to Marius as a “respectable
burgher”, and much of the work of Evans (especially pages 68–70; 76–
81), which debates the conclusions of Carney that Marius had always been
frozen out due to his novitas (1970, p. 25–44). For more on Marius, see
chapter 7.
rarely given their due. To borrow a phrase from Suetonius, perhaps

Marius saw in his sociis multos Marios inesse.
Of course, it is important not to overstate the extent to which
Marius may have been a champion for the Allies. Certainly the
sources show that there were limits to his friendliness to the Allies:
for example, to suit his ends he had seen to the execution of a
Latin, one Turpilius, during the Jugurthine War (Sallust BJ, 66–69,
Marius 8; see previous chapter). He would also apparently have had
no qualms at all about killing thousands of them in battle when war
finally came (see chapter 5). These things having been
acknowledged, Marius certainly offered the citizenship to more
than a few socii during the course of his career. In an episode from
the Cimbric Wars which has become well-publicized in the sources
due to the epigram that was coined as a result of it, Marius had
spontaneously offered the civitas to 1000 soldiers from Camerinum.
When it was protested that this was illegal, either because it
violated the foedus with Camerinum or because he had done this
without consulting the people, Marius curtly replied that the clash
of arms had drowned out the voice of the law (Valerius Maximus
5.2.8; Plutarch Marius 28, Moral. 202C; Cicero, Pro Balb. 46–50).
Later, when Saturninus111 put forth his laws founding colonies on
behalf of Marius for his men, the general is said to have gotten an
enabling law passed which allowed him to make citizens out of
111 The connection of Saturninus himself to the Allies is practically
negligible, as is noted (almost certainly correctly) by Keaveney (1987,

p. 76), Gabba (1956, p. 73–79), and Crawford (p. 37–38), the latter
refuting—in a rather nasty scholarly exchange in Classical Philology—the
numismatic evidence offered by Richard Rowland suggesting otherwise
(1967, p. 185–189; 1969, p. 38–40). The notices in both Appian and
Cicero involving Saturninus and the Italians (cited presently in the text
above) all have to do with his proposals of land for the veterans of
Marius, with the provisions about land for the Allies apparently included
at the request of the latter. Saturninus, it is therefore argued, was primarily
interested in the wishes of Marius in this regard; the enfranchisement law
was made at his behest, indicating that the concern for the socii was his
own, not that of Saturninus. Such is the interpretation followed above.
three Allies in every colony.112 In so doing Marius apparently

exposed himsef to opposition from the urban populace and, later,
from the upper classes in the law courts (Appian 1.4.29; Cicero, loc.
cit.).
In sum, it is likely that the Allies would probably have had
cause to be well-disposed to Marius. It had been he who had
promised a swift resolution to the Jugurthine War and fulfilled that
promise, in so doing bringing vengeance upon a man who had
massacred so many Italian traders at Cirta (Sallust, BJ 26) and
clearing up danger to commerce in the area. It had likewise been
Marius who had ended the last major external threat to the
112 On the other hand, see Evans (p. 122–123), who follows a
suggestion in Brunt (1988, p. 131, a suggestion which the latter himself

mentions only to claim immediately afterwards that he believes it unlikely)
that the word ternos in Pro Balbo 48 might be amended to trecenos, meaning
that Marius would be enable to enfranchise, not three men, but three
hundred. This would square with Appian’s report—about which
directly—that the people were not pleased with the share given to the
Allies, but Evans would have it that the amount was not the problem,
which was instead fact that by this law one man alone, and not the entire
populus Romanus, could enfranchise so many. Therefore, according to
Evans, the opposition was not to what Marius intended, but the way by
which he went about executing his aims, a theme to which Evans returns
on many occasions in his work. As Evans would have it, Marius, far from
being the nobilitati semper inimicus as described by Florus, found himself
being opposed rather consistently less for who he was and his novitas, nor
even for what he wanted to accomplish, but due to the fact that he
constantly resorted to the tribunate to achieve these ends. Thus, the
subsequent opposition in the courts to Titus Matrinius, enfranchised due
to the part he was going to play in one of the colonies of Saturninus
which was never founded (as described in Cicero) was less a sign of
Senatorial spite or a desire to disparage Marius than a need to register a
challenge to the law itself and its tribunicial origins.
There is much in this argument and in others along these lines made
by Evans which seem plausible, amidst a great deal which is not, but for
present purposes it matters little whether Marius wanted three or three
hundred men, and whether the Senate opposed him because he was a
novus homo or because he employed the tribunate. The effect was still that
Marius proposed to benefit some of the Allies, and that the Senate stood
against that benefit.
peninsula by his victories in the Cimbric and Teutonic Wars.113 Yet

it is unlikely that Marius was ever viewed by them as a propugnator
sociorum, or nor as a role model and pattern of the success to which
they themselves might rise upon enfranchisement. Nor did Marius
himself seem to have any interest in the Italian citizenship save as a
reward for valor: his willingness to enfranchise men came less from
compassion for their plight and more from his remarkable ability to
understand what would motivate his men, and in the case of some
of the Allies, that apparently was the citizenship. His defense of his
right to extend the civitas and later to defend those to whom it had
been extended had almostr certainly stemmed from his need to
preserve his prerogatives as imperator and to maintain his own
dignitas, not from pro-Allied sentiment.114 It may very well be that
Marius was not opposed to enfranchisement en masse for the Allies,
but it is unlikely that his empathy went much further than this,
something likely understood by the socii themselves.
No matter what their opinion of the general may have been, it
may nevertheless have been the case that Marius represented a
113 Brunt (op. cit., p. 129) notes that this war was pivotal moment in the
chain of events which led to war with the Allies because it taught them
how valuable their battlefield contribution was to Rome (Badian 1971,
p. 406 agrees). Moreover, Brunt adds that the socii they could look to the
career of Marius as one which closely resembled what members of their
élite could enjoy, as his status as a Volscian from a recently-enfranchised
community meant that, in a sense, he was one of them. Mouritsen can be
seen to agree in the first of these propositions, but rather in a negative
sense. As he asserts, Rome may have claimed to have defended the
peninsula, but the Allies knew better, since their growing awareness of the
size of their contributions and their battlefield skill relative to their Roman
counterparts led them to come to believe they were defending the
peninsula themselves anyway (1998, p. 41–43; 68–69). As far as the
second proposition, this stretches credibiliy: Marius himself was—in spite
of his treatment by the Senatorial order—thoroughly Roman, and hardly
an “Italian” success story. It is unlikely that the Allies saw him as “one of
theirs”, and it is almost certain that he did not consider himself such.
Thus, Marius ought not be treated as a pro-Italian paradigm, and is not so
treated in this essay, as will be seen.
114 So Keaveney (1987, p. 80), who is almost certainly correct in this
opinion.
hopeful sign to the Allies to the effect that at least some Roman
politicians might be willing to grant them the citizenship, either in
recognition of their value to the Commonwealth, or in exchange
for their land or other services rendered. Along those lines, there is
mention of one Sex. Titius offering an agrarian law in the year 99
which was opposed by the consul Antonius and, apparently, omens
(Valerius Maximus 8.1.damn.3; Obsequens 46; Cicero, de orat.
2.11.48, Brut. 62.225, de leg. 2.14, 2.31). None of the sources directly
say so, but it is at least possible that this Titius also considering
dividing the Italian ager publicus, for which he might have needed
Allied help and sought to acquire it in the same manner that
Flacccus and Graccus.115 In the years between 123 and 91, then,
Marius and perhaps others might have led the Allies to believe that
the old equation dating from Flaccus still applied, even if Flaccus
himself had been treated so violently. It might also be that the
Allies allowed themselves to believe that there emerged a softening
on the Roman stance on giving them the franchise in the
intervening decades. On the other hand, what any agrarian law
might also mean is that Allied lands might be affected, so any
Roman proposing one would likely have been watched carefully by
the Allies: this vigilance may have been hopeful to see if signs for
proposing an enfranchisement bill were also to accompany agrarian
reform, or fearful to see if such reforms might affect their holdings
without such a compensation, but either way it was probably close.
Agrarian activity therefore kept the citizenship alive in the minds of
the Italians on the occasion in which it was introduced in the years
following the death of Gracchus,116 since each time it was proposed
115 However, both Cicero and Valerius Maximus mention him

alongside Saturninus (according to the latter and to the pro Rab. Perd. 9.25,
Titius was condemned for having a portrait of Saturninus in his house),
whose unpassed laws called for colonies to be planted overseas. Thus,
perhaps Titius would not have needed the Allies after all, having all the
support he minght need amongst the populus. On the other hand, since
Saturninian colonies were designed to give the citizenship to at least three
Allies (as was seen above), perhaps the laws Titius had in mind would do
the same thing.
116 There was at least one more agrarian law between 122 and 91,
namely that of one Saufeius which established a board of which M. Livius

or even debated there represented a reminder to them that what

Romans may do to affect their lands might very well be done
without their permission, or even consultation.
It seems not unreasonable to conclude that, while there is no
hard evidence that granting the citizenship was much on the minds
of the Romans in the years following the death of C. Gracchus, it
nevertheless seems to have continued to be a matter of vital
importance for the Italians. This desire for the franchise as a means
to have a say in how the empire they had helped build would be
governed, or even to have a say in what went on in their own
territory—in other words, to guarantee that they not simply be at
the mercy of Rome’s dictates abroad and, increasingly, at home as
well—must have been sharpened even further by an enactment
which was passed in 95. In that year, the consuls L. Licinius
Crassus and Q. Mucius Scaevola passed yet another law concerning
Italians in the city of Rome. Just what this law entailed is difficult
to ascertain completely. Cicero suggests that it had an expulsive
element, making reference to the orator Lysias, a resident alien in
Athens who suffered and attempt to be cast back to Syracuse quasi
Licinia et Mucia lege (Brut. 16.63). However, Cicero elsewhere
contrasts this law of Licinius and Mucius with the earlier law of
Pennus, which had apparently thrust foreigners out of the city
simply to get them out (de off. 3.47).117 The point of difference
seems to have had to do with the fact that the law of Pennus
presumably operated only on those known to be foreigners, while
lex Mucia Licinia did not. Instead, the latter was designed to expel,
not all foreigners, but foreigners who had assumed the citizenship
illegally (others, who has apparently made no pretence of being
Romans, were presumably allowed to stay). It also set up special
courts of inquiry to make this determination as to who was making
this assumption and who was not.118
Drusus (more below) was a member (see Greenidge and Clay, p. 128–
129). Beond this, nothing at all is known about this law or the man who
enacted it; as this is the case, it is passed over for consideration here.
117 See above as well as Appendix C.
118 For the sources for the lex Licinia Mucia, see Greenidge and Clay,
p. 119–120. That the law was not a general expulsion act as in the case of
previous laws was first determined by Husband, p. 321–323; see also
Why it was that a need was felt to pass this law is not
known,119 nor is it known for certain what its penalties were. At
least one scholar, drawing an analogy between the prospective
victims of the lex Licinia Mucia and the later case Cornelius Balbus,
suggests it might have been capital. Others argue with greater
plausibility that flogging, or expulsion and debarment from the city,
was what befell the condemned;120 perhaps both obtained. What is
sure, however, is that even this relatively softer punishment would
have been more than enough to cause dismay for men who lived in
Rome and perhaps conducted business there, men who could by
means of the law be abruptly expelled and perhaps also severely
discomfitted on charges of “usurping the franchise”. Diodorus
reports that Poppaedius Silo could later collect ten thousand such
men who feared judicial investigation (ὁ τῶν Μαρσῶν ἡγούμενος
Πομπαίδιος ... μυρίος γάρ ἀναλα ών ἐκ τῶν τἀς εὐ ύνας φο ουμένων;
37.13).121
Badian 1958 (p. 213–214, and note R, p. 247), Sherwin-White (p. 140,
following Badian 1958), Badian 1971 (p. 406–407), Keaveney (1987,
p. 81–83), Mouritsen (1998, p. 121), and most recently Tweedie (p. 123–
128) for its importance.
119 It has been suggested, although not terribly convincingly, that the
need arose due to laxity on the part of the censors of 97 which had
allowed many non-citizens to register. Since, according to this same
argument, these inappropriately-registered citizens were supporters of
Marius, the law was thus designed in some way or another to embarrass
the general. So, at least, Badian (1964, p. 47–49, as well as in the works
cited in the previous note). See also Tweedie (p. 128–132), who does not
fully subscribe that the alleged laxity on the part of the censors was
necessarily to help Marius, and law in response to it was not in turn
necessarily aimed at the general.
120 For the potential death sentence, see Badian (1971, p. 406–407); for
the latter, comparatively milder punishments, see Baldson (p. 100–101)

and Tweedie (p. 134–137).
121 It was probably as much these men, who did not claim the
franchise but faced prosecution as if they had, as it was men who had
been registered in 97—who legitimately felt that they were already citizens
and thus faced “disenfranchisement”, as Sherwin-White (loc. cit.) holds—
who formed Silo’s band.
No matter what the cause of the law or its terms, however,

one thing seems clear: Rome was sending a message to the Allies
that they still very much observed the distinction between citizen
and non-citizen, and that even though the latter could still make
use of the capital and even live beside the Romans, they were not
to make the mistake of believing that this would translate into
admission into the Roman state. The implied corollary—that the
socii remained unworthy of the franchise, and that it was not going
to be forthcoming anytime soon—very likely led to the
animadversion caused by this legislation which is mentioned in
Asconius 67C. According to that authority, the frustration
produced by this law was a main cause for the coming war, and it is
by no means unlikely that, if indeed the signal was received that
Rome was still unwilling to give the franchise anytime soon,
alternative methods of getting it may have begun being
contemplated at this time (see next chapter).
One of the authors of the lex Licinia Mucia was the consul
Q. Mucius Scaevola, and it is he who seems to have introduced the
final straw which broke the patience of the Allies, albeit in a most
indirect manner. Following his consulate, Scaevola was apparently
dispatched as proconsul to oversee the province of Asia,122 where
he conducted affairs there with such a scrupulous honesty that he
later became a model of correct conduct for future provincial
governors.123 Scaevola had as his legate P. Rutilius Rufus, a former
consul and man of apparent high-minded Stoic ideals whose
reform of the army had already shown his devotion to discipline.124
Such a man, it seems, would be well-disposed towards executing
other needed reforms no matter what the potential political cost
(Cicero, Brut. 30.114). Scaevola and Rutilius worked together to
enact some progressive improvements in the government of Asia,
122 Contra Broughton (vol. 2, p. 7), who argues that this had occurred
earlier; the chronology and interpretation of events above owes much to

Hill (1952, p. 130–131).
123 Cicero, for one, claims to have followed the pattern of Scaevola in
his own proconsulate; so ad Att. 6.1. See also Valerius Maximus (8.15.6)
and Diodorus Siculus (37.5–6) for Scaevola as a paradigm.
124 It had impressed Marius, certainly; see Frontinus (4.2.2) and
Valerius Maximus (2.3.2).

and since part of these had included taming the depredations of the
publicani there (Diodorus, 37.5–6), the latter vowed their revenge.
For some reason they ended up taking it, not on Scaevola,125 but on
Rutilius, whom they caused to be brought up on charges of
extortion and actually to be convicted of it in a case that has
become well-represented in the sources as a travesty of justice.126 It
is perhaps no small sign of how misguided the verdict was that
Rutilius was welcomed back into the Asia he was convicted of
extorting as his place of exile (Dio Cassius frg. 97).
The publicani had been able to accomplish this because one of
the laws of C. Gracchus which the Senate had been unable to undo
permanently127 had been his judiciary law, and as a result, the
Senators still lacked control of the extortion court. Instead, it
remained in the hands of non-Senators who held property rating
sufficient to rate service in the cavalry (the so-called equites), one
connected in various ways to the negotiatores and publicani. It seems
these men were more apt to convict thouse accused of repetundae
and, it appears, were more susceptible to bribery.128 To at least one
Roman, and very probably to many others, the case of Rutilius
seems to signalled an urgent need to change to this state of affairs:
if the equestrian jurors could commit an injustice of this
magnitude, their powers clearly could not be limited by decency or
125 According to Badian (1958, p. 214; 1964, p. 39–44; 1968, p. 42), he

was an adfinis of Marius and thus too powerful.
126 For the many, many authors to comment on this trial, see
Greenidge and Clay, p. 125–127. Maddeningly, none of these give a

precise date for the trial, though it is generally accepted to have occurred
in 92.
127 A law was apparently passed in 106 by the unfortunate Q. Servilius
Caepio to restore Senatorial control, as is evident from the many

references in Cicero to speeches made by L. Crassus in support of it (most
notably in de orat. 1.52.225; see also Morstein-Marx, p. 235–236). This
control did not last long, and was soon taken from the Senate and put
into the hands of the wealthiest non-Senators via a law passed by Servilius
Glaucia (Asconius 21 B).
128 The lex Sempronia forbidding bribery had, it appeared, only operated
against Senators accused of the offense; so Cicero in several passages of

the pro Cluentio.
restraint. Something, therefore, would need to be done to curb that

power, or so it seems was the thinking of one M. Livius Drusus,
who resolved to accomplish this curtailment of equestrian judicial
abilities on behalf of the Senate and, perhaps, at their suggestion
(Per. 70).129
Drusus was perhaps an ideal candidate to have been deputed
to this task, or, alternatively, would easily have been the sort to
have taken it on himself. He was the son and namesake of the
Drusus mentioned above, the tribune who had managed to seduce
the people away from Gracchi. As such he had an impeccable
pedigree and a family tradition of saving the Senate from its
enemies, and it is most likely that he thought of himself as the
Senatus propugnator by which he is referred to in Cicero (pro Milo.
7.16) and Diodorus (μόνος ἔδοξεν ἔσεσ αι προστάτ ς τῆς συγκλ του
37.10). Thoroughly aligned with the nobility, he also had other
personal reasons for removing the courts from the domination of
the equites: Rutilius had apparently been his uncle,130 and Caepio, a
former friend and brother-in-law who had become his enemy, was
supporting the equestian side.131 Drusus had history and possibly a
sense of familial obligation, along with other enmities, as stimulus
to act, and he also seems to have believed he had the means. He
was, first of all, supported by the Senate, and secondly, he was also
apparently well-liked by the people, an affection which sprung both
from his name and from the sumptuous games he had held as
aedile (de vir. ill. 66.). For these reasons he had every cause to
believe that he might become tribune, enabling him to use the
powers of that office for his project, and was soon confirmed in his
belief.
Once in office, Drusus could turn to the plan he had
apparently formed, one which was apparently rather complex. One
aspect of it was to double the number of the Senate by means of
129 For additional sources, see Haug, p. 101–139.

130 So Badian (1964, loc. cit.); see also Haug (p. 105–118).
131 See Florus (2.5.4–6), de vir. ill. (66), and Cassius Dio (frg. 96.1–3).
Pliny (NH 33.6.20) mentions the quarrel arose out of a ring sold at an
auction. See also Badian (op. cit., 34–71) for further discussion of this
inimicitia.
adding 300 members to it from the equites. Having done so, the
courts would then be transferred to this amplified Senate, with
juries composed equally of old Senators and new (so Appian 1.5.35;
Per. 71).132 He would also now make equites susceptible to
accusations of bribery and of all other offenses by means which
unjust acquittals or convictions could be secured, and perhaps
would even make this penalty retroactive and thus strike at those
who had condemned Rutilius.133
Drusus was probably under no illusions as to the extent of the
potential opposition to this plan, which would almost certainly face
the antagonism of the equites and the publicani. For them this
alteration in the courts was bad for business; after all, the courts
had likely been stripped from the Senate due to the willingness of
fellow Senators to overlook extortion coming from their own,
especially since the penalty for it was so sharp (fines, and exile from
Rome). The equites had no such reluctance to prosecute, and this
was very useful to the publicani and other merchants whose business
would suffer in the face of gubernatorial excess. Perhaps less
legitimately, it would also remove from the latter a friendly judicial
system which could be used to frighten overzealous provincial
governors who would attempt to curb their own rapacity, and from
the former the chance for gain derived from massive bribery.
Drusus apparently had hoped to quiet the protests of equites
through promotion of some of them to the Senate,134 but this
132 This is the interpretation accepted by Seymour (p. 417–425) and
Gabba (1976, p. 131); it also has the effect of confirming the statement of
Velleius, which states that the courts went back under the purview of the
(now-enlarged) Senate. However, see also Hardy (1912, p. 218–220) for
contrary considerations.
133 See Hands, p. 268–274.
134 Almost certainly not those members of the equites involved in
negotia or public contracts, since unless those men were prepared to give
up this enterprise they could not sit in the Senate anyway. Moreover, since
this was the very class of people against whom Drusus had set his sights,
it is unlikely that he would have had them in mind for his augmented curia.
More plausibly, the men he wanted instead were landowners who made
their living by means other than commercial ones, the sort of men who
might have been eligible for the Senate but for some reason or another
would not mollify all of them.135 Those who could not be brought
over would simply have to be overpowered.
Overpowering the equites would, however, not be an easy task.
For one thing, these were men whose property qualifications
guaranteed that they were by and large men of leisure, the sort who
could and did take part in politics and lawmaking in Rome.136 In
fact, it has been argued that they were the class primarily
responsible for the passage of laws, since the poorer people could
only be stirred to take part in the political process when a law being
proposed contained an obvious benefit to them (as has been
noted). The equites would therefore have enough votes to defeat
whatever Drusus was intending unless he could find a way to
mobilize the rest of the populus in large enough numbers to have
them enact his laws over equestrian resistance. A way to win over
the people in such numbers need not have been too difficult to
find, and would indeed have been suggested to him by his own
family history. The populace could be brought over in the same
way Gracchus had done, by promises of cheap grain and
distribution of public land, and Drusus promtply proposed these
(Florus 2.5 even refers to the laws which were eventually carried by
Drusus to that effect as leges Gracchanae). At these measures the
Senate might well grumble, but, Drusus seemed to have reasoned,
they would surely see the greater advantage of having the threat of
the equestrian courts removed. Drusus would therefore go the
Gracchan route, just as his father had, but he would do even better
than Caius Gracchus had done. The latter had attempted to bring
the laws of his brother to fruition by winning the support of the
urban populace, the equites, and the Allies such that the objections
had either never chosen to run for office, or had run and been defeated.
These would have far more in common with the Senators into whose
ranks they would be adlected than with the overseas tax collectors with
whom they currently sat on juries, but having never been in the Senate,
they would have made no connections and thus could be impartial.
135 Appian mentions that tension was fomented amongst them when
this proposal first emerged, due to the fact that comparatively few of their
numbers would acquire the honor of Senatorial membership.
136 So Mouritsen 2001, p. 41–45; 64–68 (although see Morstein-Marx,
p. 41–42, for some important qualifications to Mouritsen’s arguments).

of the Senate could be disregarded. Drusus would include

something for all of them—people, equites (or some of them), and
Senate alike—and at the same time restore the power of the Senate
to the heights it had enjoyed before the Gracchi.
This entire elaborate scheme, however, would depend to a
large degree on the land laws to gratify the people, and for these
Drusus would need available ager publicus. Some of this might still
have existed from Gracchan days (it would have lain, without
official use but clearly demarcated), but clearly more would come
to be needed. To get it, he would eventually have to reclaim some
from the possessores, just as the Gracchi had. However, if the aim
was to build up as much popularity as could be had, Drusus would
likely have avoided taking it from Roman citizens. This left the
possessors amongst the Allies. Yet without doubt some of these
would likely vigorously protest and possibly raise an objection in
the Senate, where members likely to be displeased with even the
idea of adjudication might take up their cause, as had happened in
the past. Drusus would therefore have to find a way to win the
Allies over to his plans, to prevent their protest and the use of it as
an excuse to stifle distribution. To this end, too, the route he
ultimately took was the familiar Gracchan one: he would offer
them the citizenship, as a way to buy their acquiescence to
adjudication of the ager publicus near their lands.
The irony of the son taking the path that the father had
apparently eloquently opposed must not have been lost on anyone.
Nevertheless, it was what the overall strategy demanded. Very likely
Drusus only intended to go as far as Flaccus and Gracchus had
gone and offered the complete franchise to the Latins alone, which
would be consistent with the notices in Orosius and the de viris
illustribus,137 although it may be he considered giving the Latin
rights to the rest. But at some later point Drusus seems to have
137 Orosius 5.18.2: Livius Drusus, tribunus plebi, Latinos omnes spe libertatis
inlectos cum placito explere non posset (emphasis added); de viris illustribus 66.4: unde
Livius anxius, ut Latinorum postulata differret, qui promissam civitatem flagitabant
(again, emphasis added).
changed his mind and offered citizenship to the whole of Italy.138

Why he did this cannot be ascertained; perhaps he was persuaded
by the eloquence of Q. Poppaedius Silo, a prominent Marsian
noble who was at one point a guest in the house of Drusus and
whose persistence in obtaining the franchise had even caused him
to make threats (probably playfully) to a very young M. Porcius
Cato, the nephew of Drusus (Plutarch, Cato min. 2; Valerius
Maximus 3.1.2 and de vir. ill. 80.1).139 Alternatively, perhaps he
would need more land than Gracchus and Flaccus had needed, and
had to go into more Italian communities to get it. The number of
colonies Drusus had proposed to found is not known, but a bon mot
recorded in Florus (2.5) suggests that after his laws had been
executed nothing would be left to distribute save caenum …aut
caelum,140 so a need for a larger amount is a possibility. Either way,
138 For the initial restriction of the franchise to the Latins see
Mouritsen (1998, p. 118–124), though his reasoning concerning the

possibility of a later broadening of the offer is not followed here.
139 According to the story, Silo demanded that Cato speak to his uncle
Drusus on behalf of the Allied cause and, when Cato refused, threatened
to hurl him from the roof of his uncle’s house. It seems highly unlikely
that Silo would have ever actually threatened real harm to the relative of
the man in whose house he was staying and whose goodwill he was trying
to court for his cause, especially since the boy whose cooperation he was
trying to get at the moment was four years old (at his death in 46 Cato
was forty-eight years old, according Periochae 114, while during Sulla’s
occupation of Rome he was fourteen, according to Plutarch Cat. Min. 3.5,
making him four in 91). Rather, this was almost certainly horseplay with
the child, as the reaction of his half-brother Caepio in the episode strongly
suggests. Cato’s gravity in the face of the game elicited comment from
Silo, much as Cato’s later threat to murder Sulla would from his tutor
some time later. However, see Mouritsen (1998, p. 124) for this anecdote,
who questions its veracity and the implied closeness in it between Drusus
and Silo, which he argues is a distortion based on later propaganda.
140 But see also de vir. ill. 66.4, where this quotation is taken to refer to
the personal extravagance of Drusus and not to his agrarian law. Haug
(p. 108–109) suggests a reason for the variance between the de viris
illustribus and Florus rests in the fact that this quotation was once in Livy
and eventually made its way into a collection of exempla from which the de
viris illustribus took it. The anonymous author of that collection reported it
the bargain was apparently struck:141 in exchange for Italian

cooperation with Drusus and, perhaps, their physical presence in
Rome around election time, the citizenship would at last be theirs
(Appian 1.5.35–36; Per. 71; Velleius 2.14, amongst others).
Unfortunately, things did not go to plan: while it seems the
people were well-pleased with the agrarian and colonial laws,142 his
legislative program met with more opposition in the Senate than
apparently Drusus had been led to expect. Various reasons have
been given for why the Senate disapproved. According to Appian it
did not wish to admit equites into its membership (1.5.35–36), while
Cicero finds Senatorial objections in the neglect of procedure in the
circumstance of the passage of the laws (de domo 16.42),143 or even
in out-and-out fraud alleged to have occurred in the voting. The
patres might also have feared violence involved in their passage, of
which Florus (2.5), the Periochae (71), and de vir. ill. (66) all provide
testimony. Finally, Velleius identifies jealousy at the no doubt huge
in its proper context, while Florus, who took it from Livy directly, kept
the epigram but moved it so that it applied to the laws, and not the private
life, of Drusus. This is not impossible, but there is nothing which prevents
the reverse from being true: the proper context for the epigram may have
been in the events surrounding the agrarian laws and it was reported there
accurately by Florus, while the de viris illustribus moved it, perhaps as it had
with details about the revolt of Asculum (see below). This latter
possibility, as is seen, is followed here.
141 However, the “Oath” which Diodorus Siculus reports the Allies
had to take to that effect (37.11) is almost certainly a piece of fiction, as is

argued convincingly by Haug (p. 119).
142 So Appian (in the passage cited below); there seems to be no
evidence of the unpopularity of the law suggested by Mouritsen 2001,

p. 66, 85.
143 Among the procedural rules which were bent, according to Cicero
in the passage cited above, was that found in the lex Caecilia Didia,
forbidding laws to be carried per saturam, or admixed with other laws on
different subjects. It is possible that the judiciary law of Drusus was
specifically targeted on these grounds, especially if the legislation covering
the composition of the Senate, the composition of juries, and the
extension of bribery charges were contained in the same omnibus bill.
This might have given the passageway needed by the patres to effect their
revocation, and perhaps all the other would-be leges Liviae as well.
clientelae which Drusus would win from the people as the source of
the opposition (2.13).
All of these might have played a role, but what is more certain
is the result, which is that the laws which had been passed were
soon declared invalid in the Senate. Drusus seems to have taken
this decree with a fair degree of resignation. According to
Diodorus, he refused to use his powers as tribune to disrupt the
Senate meeting which were unmaking his laws (37.10), and Florus
(loc. cit.) also suggests that he had become exhausted with the whole
business and probably a little disgusted at the Senate, which Sallust
also seems to observe (Ep. Caes. 6.3–5). Even the Allies seem at
this point to have let him down: Etruscans and Umbrians had been
brought to Rome for the specific purpose of complaining about the
possibility of redistribution, and other Allies might have joined
them if Appian is to be believed (1.5.36). Then again, these specific
Italians would have been particularly susceptible to opposing the
laws of Drusus, since they, or at least their upper classes, seem
mainly to have wanted the citizenship precisely to avoid having
Rome look to reclaiming its ager publicus,144 the very price that
Drusus was asking in exchange for the citizenship. As will be seen,
other Allies were far more wiling to conduct such a transaction,
and so Drusus had apparently felt himself honor-bound to fulfill
his bargain to these latter. Even though the failure of the main
components of his programme had probably made manifest what
144 Badian (1958, p. 218–219), Harris (1971, p. 218–229), and
Keaveney (1987, p. 90) all believe that the laws at which these were
coming to ditrect protest were the colonial laws, although the franchise
law may also have been a possible subject if it was suspected that by
means of it Drusus would begin reclaiming land. Either way, the purpose
behind the protests was ultimately a fear of land reallocation, and not
necessarily a reluctance for the citizenship itself, especially one based on
the idea which states that the equality it would bring would somehow ruin
their societies (Harris is particularly effective in his refutation of this idea).
The Etruscans and Umbrians, these scholars suggest and almost certainly
correctly, would have welcomed the citizenship if given without a price,
but the cost of their lands made such an offer unappealing, at least to the
magnates (see also chapter 5).
the fate of the citizenship law would be, he seems to have persisted
in his determination to raise it regardless.
Violence was apparently in the air. According to the de viris
illustribus, a plot to kill the consuls at the Latin festival of the Alban
mount was discovered to Drusus and foiled once the tribune
reported it to the authorities, although suspicion now redounded to
him as a result (loc. cit.; Florus 2.6 also reports a similar plot). This
plot was not, apparently, the only one, as Drusus himself also
seems to have been a target of another, a fact of which—according
to Appian (1.5.36)—he was aware. Nevertheless, knowledge of that
plot does not seem to have prevented its execution. One night in
the fall145 as Drusus was accompanied into his atrium by a crowd of
followers he was stabbed, and soon died. The law for the franchise
seems to have perished with him; it was probably never voted.146
In the thirty years following the death of Fulvius Flaccus and
Caius Gracchus it seems probable that the Italians would have kept
their eyes fixed on Roman political developments, since these were
now more and more likely to have a bearing not only merely on
when and where these socii were to be sent to war, but also on their
lands and property at home. It is not hard to imagine how this
monitoring would have led to increasing anxiety each time an
agrarian bill arose and was defeated, and how this anxiety would
likely have contributed to a sense of helplessness based on the
ironclad knowledge that the Romans could make such a law at any
time without even a glance in the direction of what the Allies
thought about it. The Romans were, it must have seemed, quite
cavalier about their superiority to the Italians, a superiority which
was reinforced by three separate expulsion laws—all quite
unbidden—which unceremoniously drove the Allies out of Rome.
At several points during these intervening decades the Allies were
145 That this occurred in the autumn is inferred by Cicero, whose de
oratore (3.1.1–2) states that Drusus was still alive on the Ides of September,
when he called a meeting of the Senate at which L. Crassus delivered a
blistering speech against the consul L. Philippus (mane Idibus Septembribus et
ille et senatus frequens vocatu Drusi in curiam venit; ibi cum Drusus multa de
Philippo questus esset, rettulit ad senatum de illo ipso, quod in eum ordinem consul
tam graviter in contione esset invectus; emphasis added).
146 Badian, loc. cit.
therefore denied the use of Roman markets, its warehouses and

docks where employment might be found, its temples, bathhouses,
and fountains, and may have been beaten for having attempted
such a use, treatment which they simply had to endure. More and
more often the Romans manifested this imperious attitude towards
the socii, which must have been hard to bear in light of the fact that
imperium which had helped create the markets, warehouses, docks,
temples, bathhouses, and fountains had all been built with Allied
help. At the end of this decade there emerged one final chance for
the Allies to bargain their lands (in a sense) for the franchise, a deal
they were—for the most part—very willing to make. What is more,
it seems that the people were also willing to make this deal, but,
just as before, the prize was snatched from the socii in the last
moment before it could be won, with the final champion of the
Allies dead in a pool of his own blood. The death of Drusus and
his franchise proposal was, however, finally more than the Italians
could bear: having seen the Romans murder all who voiced support
of giving them the franchise, they apparently decided to fall to
slaying some Romans of their own until their wishes were granted.
6. WAR
With the death of Drusus, the last hope of Rome granting the
citizenship to the allies peacefully had perished with violence. It
would be to violence that the Allies would now resort. As has been
seen, the events of the previous forty years leading up to the
autumn of 91 had been trying for the Allies: the abrupt interest the
Romans now took in their own public property must have evoked
shock and distress, especially to those who had used that property
since time immemorial and now faced its immediate sequestration.
The Allies must have known that this always could have happened,
but now suddenly it was happening. This probably led to no small
amount of turmoil, and the less-than-surgical precision with which
ager publicus was severed from lands in private ownership would
have increased it exponentially. A stop was soon put to this, but the
specter of its return never seemed to go away, and as long as the
Allies were not citizens they had to depend upon the whims of the
Roman people as to whether or not it would come back. So rapid a
development was matched by the appearance an even greater
thunderbolt, which was the possibility of attaining the citizenship
for at least some of the Allies (and of gaining rights by which
Romans abuse could be curtailed for others). The Allies do not

seem to have been prepared for either stroke, but they apparently
jumped at the latter offer only to have it taken away again almost as
immediately as it had been presented.
For the next several decades the Romans offered the Allies
mixed messages, or so it must have seemed: an offer of the
franchise would be followed by its revocation; the apparent
warming of the Romans to the prospect of extending the civitas
would be followed by an insulting and humiliating expulsion law
and, often, of the murder of those Romans who seemed to have
Italian interests in mind; and all the while, agrarian legislation
lurked in the background. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that
the Allies felt that the Romans were toying with them, and
progressively their patience for it came to an end. Rather than act
as suppliants to the superior power which in no small part had
been constructed with their help, they would presently stand up
and demand to be treated with the respect they deserved: they
would be partners in that imperium, not cringing subjects. However,
Fregellae had once determined to put vigor in their demands, and
had been annihilated; the Allies would not make the mistakes that
that city had. When the time had finally come to stand, they would
stand together.
CHAPTER 4:
THE IGNITION OF HOSTILITIES
1. SECESSIO
The previous two chapters have attempted to show that Rome’s
Italian Allies had become dissatisfied with their standing in the
relationship they had with the Romans due to the exploitative
nature of that relationship. This, at least, can be derived from what
the sources explicitly state, and although these are not specific as to
the exact injuries which led to the unhappiness, reasonable
conjectures can be—and have been—made to arrive at what they
might have been. The upshot of these speculations can be
condensed into a simple and well-nigh irrefutable truth, which is
that what the Romans demanded of the Allies proved to be far
more valuable ultimately that what the Allies were getting from
Rome in return, to the extent that the Romans clearly reaped the
lion’s share of the benefits from the association. It cannot be
determined for certain whether the Romans were aware of this
imbalance and the unhappiness in created, although it seems rather
likely that they were. What seems more obvious, and more
signficant, is that it did not particularly concern them. As can be
seen in numerous examples, the Romans consistently treated the
Allies in a way far different than the worth of their contributions
seemed to merit, and did so without apology and, often, without
tact or finesse. Yet whether or not the Romans were aware of and
concerned by this discrepancy in treatment, the Italians certainly
were. While it cannot be doubted that they did derive advantages
from the continued connection, they got far less than was possible
and certainly far less than what they felt they deserved, and they
knew it.
It has likewise been suggested that this exploitation was the
prime reason—although there were others—for why the Italians
desired to alter that relationship. However, because of the profits
223
that they did obtain, and the potential ones that they could obtain,
from it, the socii seemed to prefer to effect this modification by
means other than that of severing the affiliation, even though this
latter course of action would certainly have removed the
mistreatment. Instead, they sought to become part of the Roman
state, which would in theory not only alleviate the inequalities, but
would also allow the Allies to continue to enjoy—and, indeed,
enjoy to the fullest possible extent—the rewards of the union.
This desire amongst the socii to become Roman citizens seems
to have increased between the years 132 and 91 BCE, during which
time the Italians were made aware for the first time that the grant
of citizenship was not necessarily merely an idle wish, but could
actually be a proposition that at least some Romans from the ruling
class were prepared to consider in exchange for certain things those
Romans wanted from the socii. The Allies in turn expressed their
enthusiasm each time that consideration seemed imminent, and
their disappointment each time the prospect inevitable evaporated.
The distress and anxiety caused by such occasions was frequently
heightened by the fact that very often promises of the civitas
accompanied proposals of laws calling for things like land
redistribution, laws which would directly affect the Italians and
usually in negative ways.
It should be noted that, while, offers of citizenship were
usually extended at the same time as laws to redistribute land were
being contemplated, such redistribution measures were not
inextricably linked to granting the franchise. This was graphically
demonstrated by Tiberius Gracchus, or, more probably, the
Triumvirate in its operations after his death, whose activities
illustrated that the Romans could enact such reforms even without
giving the civitas to the Allies. In other words, while the some
Romans may have wished to ease the passage of such painful laws
by extending this much-desired commodity, they did not have to
do so. Romans could therefore do Allies harm without having to
compensate them, and could do so at any time that they wished.
This possibility would exist for as long as the Allied feelings could
be safely disregarded, as they more or less could be while the Allies
lacked the vote. The result was that the tensions which may very
well have existed for centuries were drastically increased in the
years following the Gracchi.
THE IGNITION OF HOSTILITIES 225
As the second century drew to a close, the Romans seemed to

give the Allies many occasions to believe that the possibility of
better treatment might be available to them, only to remove that
possibility with a vehemence that seemed designed to broadcast the
message that the Romans were never going to give them this better
treatment willingly, no matter what a few of their statesman might
say. While they were doing so, the Romans also continued to
behave in such a way as to remind the socii that they were in fact
not Romans, and that this distinction was one of which those who
were Romans were certainly aware. In their abuse of their Allies the
Romans gave constant memoranda as to why the citizenship that
presented the key to the end of the abuse was something very
much to be desired, while at the same time persisted in refusing to
satisfy that desire. Eventually, this behavior led to such frustration
that war was declared.
What the Allies had wanted before the war seems, therefore,
to be clear, as do the reasons why the war eventually broke out, and
when. What those Allies hoped to accomplish by that war is
another matter, and one of much less clarity. Indeed, this last
question often serves as a reef on which the attempts by several
modern historians to explain the origin and unfolding of the event
that would come to be the Bellum Sociale tend to founder. On the
one hand, these scholars tend to recognize that there is ample
support in the sources for the claim that the Allies wanted the
citizenship, and most of them agree that the constant withholding
of it is what drove the Allies to bloodshed. On the other, any of
these modern accounts imply or directly state that, once the Allies
once taken to arms, their objective seems to have been the
acquisition citizenship no longer. Instead, once swords were in
hand, the Allies used them towards the aim of gaining
independence.1 In such constructions, the Allies, having been
pushed past their endurance by Roman refusals to grant their
wishes, decided to wash their hands of Rome entirely and construct
1 Such arguments are put forward in the pages of Brunt, Sherwin-
White, Keaveney, and Salmon, for example (see below), as opposed to

Mouritsen, who states that independence was the motivating factor all
along.
their own state built on freedom and an end to Roman military

parasitism. In part such conjectures are based on the description of
Allied wartime measures found in sources like Diodorus Siculus
(37.2.4) and Strabo (5.4.2). Alongside the evidence from these
sources, scholars take note of the clear presence of a fairly
sophisticated command structure and tightly-orchestrated joint
military maneuvers that the Alliance would demonstrate, such as
those detailed in the battle narratives such as those of Appian.
Furthermore, there is the iconography of the coins the Alliance
used, and indeed, even the very existence of these coins.
All of these are read as hinting at extensive planning beyond
what would be demanded by the allegedly simple requirements of a
war to force the citizenship. They can only be justified, it is held, as
signs of something different and more extensive, id est that the
Allies had brought them into being as part of an initiative to create
a separate country of their own. In the words of one author, an
“attempt to explain away the … organization set up by the allies as
merely an arrangement for managing the war, rather than an
indication of their objectives [id est, independence], is inept”.2
Moreover, it is alleged that further support for the theory of
independence can be gathered from scattered references in the
literary sources, ones which—it is claimed—suggest that the Allies
wanted to part ways with the Romans completely. These include a
remark of Eutropius that the Allies were fighting for aequa libertas
(5.3.2), and one of Orosius that these allies were stirred to arms by
Drusus instilling in them an unfulfilled spe libertatis (5.18.2). These
passages bear similarities to a notice in Diodorus which stated that
the Allies were fighting for their “freedom” (ἐλευ έρια; 37.14).
Additionally, Appian (1.5.38), Strabo (loc. cit.), and Diodorus
(37.2.1) all elect to describe what the Allies were doing by means of
use of some variation of the verb ἀφίστ μι, which typically means
“break away”.3 For all these reasons and for others, it has proven
2 So Sherwin-White (p. 147).

3 These passages are discussed by Sherwin-White (p. 145), who argues
that the Allies turned to independence after the continued opposition to
their citizenship in Rome led to their despair of ever acquiring it; they also
difficult for many modern scholars4 to resist the conclusion that

eventually the Allies did indeed decide that, when violence was to
be employed, it was to be employed to detach from the Romans
and strike out on their own. Along these lines, the Allies had taken
mighty strides by means of the ways that they “had so ably
disposed their affairs and had organized a government” (οὕτω
πάντα δεξιῶς καὶ ... τὴν ἀρχὴν δια έμενοι; Diodorus 37.2.4).5
Nevertheless, a rather large obstacle to this theory exists,
which is that if such a push were successful, it would lead to results
quite at variance with what a great many of the Allies have been
shown to have wanted before the war. This was to become one
with the Romans, not disengage totally from them, and this desire
to merge rather than separate was one that—per many other
passages in the sources— the Allies wanted still at the time of the
war. It is puzzling that the Allies would change their minds so
thoroughly and commence to fight and kill for a cause that would,
in a sense, take them in the exact opposite direction of where they
had seemed to have wanted to go.6 This is a quandary that has not
figure largely in the arguments of Mouritsen, whose theories on this

subject have been encountered earlier.
4 For example, Keaveney (1987, p. 125) notes that a decision for
complete cleavage from the Romans reached by the Allies would be

the natural reaction of men forced to endure Roman arrogance and
exclusivity, especially in light of a nascent loyalty to a concept of an
“Italy” and local pride.
5 Specific scholars who describe the aims of the socii at the time of the
Allied War thus include Keaveney (1987, p. 120–127), Brunt (1988,

p. 111–112), Salmon (1967, p. 339), Nicolet (1988, p. 42, 232). Sherwin-
White (p. 148) is critical of the work of Brunt and Salmon in their
insistence that the franchise was the sole motivator for all of the Allies,
but not of their conclusion that it was a motivating factor for many of
them. Like the others, he, too ultimately holds that those Allies who had
wanted the franchise joined the cause for independence when they could
not get it.
6 Of course, these scholars could have explained this sudden shift in a
number of ways, even though they fail to do so. For example, they may
have argued that there was a division amongst the Allied communities as
to what they ultimately desired to happen concerning their association
with Rome, with some communities desiring independence instead of the
yet been resolved satisfactorily by any modern scholar who takes

the simultaneous position that the Allies had wanted the citizenship
up to the war, but would subsequently go to battle for
independence (and quite ferociously at that) when that war erupted.
Nevertheless, no other explanation for Italian aims has been
offered save by those who jettison the well-documented desire for
citizenship and argue it was independence that was wanted all
along. Faute de mieux, this curious line of reasoning discussed above
is the one which is adopted in most of the modern scholarly
accounts of the Allied War.
In light of this puzzling explanation, the question can be
raised as to whether or not another, better answer can be found for
what the Allies hoped to realize by the fighting. Such an answer
would have to reconcile what appear to be steps taken towards
citizenship. These latter, it could be argued, had then seduced the others
over to their side during the heated moments after the death of Drusus.
Again, none of these scholars make such an argument, and in fact most of
them are adamant that all the Allies had the same aim. As these modern
scholars would have it, none of the Allies were ever shown to have a
variation in goal from those of the others, and especially not the Samnites,
who were variously held to want the citizenship just as much as the others
(so Brunt and Salmon in the places cited above, and also Walbank, p. 153)
or to have been just as fervent for independence as the others (Mouritsen
1998, p. 7). There is some justification for these opinions in that, indeed,
there is no evidence to suggest such a division, although it is not unlikely
that some individuals or even whole towns might have favored
independence over the citizenship for all that (see below).
Another argument that it was independence that was sought by the
war might have made along the lines that this became the goal, not
because it was what was most desired, but because the Allies may have
considered it to have been more achievable through military action.
However, for some of the reasons detailed in chapter 2 (see also below), it
is hard to surmise how the Allies might have thought that it would be
easier to wrest independence from Rome than the civitas. Either way, even
such an argument as difficult to prove as this last might have been made
by these modern scholars, but was not. Instead, nearly all of them insist
that the Allies had wnated the civitas before 91, wanted independence
afterwards, and provide no explanation of any kind as to why this shift
occurs in their accounts.
creating an independent state with what the sources say the Allies
had actually wanted, which was to be come Roman. Ultimately, one
extremely hypothetical possibility does suggest itself: it might
perhaps have been what the Allies had actually been preparing was
not a bid for independence, but more along the lines of a secessio.
This last, in spite of the modern connotations attached to the
derivative “secession” due to its significance in the American Civil
War, is not the same thing as a bid to go separate ways. In essence,
a secessio was a physical self-removal of a people from a larger group
to which it had belonged upon the emergence of dissatisfaction
with that larger group. Such a removal was attempted towards the
end that the original group would attempt to heal the breach
through concessions. There had been several of these throughout
Roman history, and this maneuver may well have been fresh on the
minds of Romans—and possibly the Allies—due to the turbulence
of the Jugurthine War. According to Sallust, that war was almost
brought to a premature conclusion in 111 due to bribery of the
consul L. Calpurnius Bestia by the Numidian, which bought
Jugurtha peace on fairly ridiculously light terms (BJ 29). Upon
hearing of the peace, the tribune C. Memmius gave a rousing
speech to the populace, in which he reminded the plebs that they
had twice seceded from the Commonwealth in the face of similar
injustice (BJ 30–31), even if he was quick to point out that he was
not advising they do so in this instance (BJ 31.6). Perhaps the Allies
were inspired bu the episode to do something comparable, and if
that was the case, such a procedure would go far to span the
apparent gulf between what the Allies seemed to have wanted and
the means by which they went about trying to get it.
It might also explain whatever confusion exists in the sources:
just as the distinction between secessio and “secession” is difficult to
distinguish by modern scholars, so too might it have been to
Greeks attempting to interpret Allied actions, or even to Romans
engaged in the same endeavor but far removed by time from the
events in question. From a distance of time or across the gulf of a
language barrier, both independence and secessio would have equally
presented the appearance that what the Allies were attempting to
do was to split off from the Romans. Indeed, during the secessio of
494 the plebs had (as one modern historian has observed)7 “created
their own organization … formed their own assembly … and
elected their own officials”, which are exactly the sorts of things
which people striving for independence would do. Nevertheless, as
events were to show in that case (as well as in thyat of the secessio of
449 and 287), what the plebs had actually wanted was not to leave
and dissolve their association with Rome as a whole, but rather to
return and arrive at a settlement whereby they could manage an
integration into the Roman state on a more equitable basis. This
wish happens to fit precisely with the pattern of what the sources
cite as the aspirations of the Allies as well, and it is probably not a
coincidence that a great many of the measures the plebs are
described as having undertaken are the very things which the Allies
would subsequently do as reported in Diodorus.
There is, of course, almost nothing in the sources which
proves that this was what the Allies had in mind, but there is
likewise nothing in those sources which rules it out, either. It is
therefore at least possible that this was what the Allies were
considering. If it was, what could not have been known by them
was what the Roman reaction to their enterprise would be,
although it could probably have been guessed. When faced four
centuries earlier with the secessio of the plebs, negotiation and
yielding by the Senate had taken the day, and doubtless this was
what the Allies wished to occur in this instance as well. However,
while the Plebeian secession had been peaceful (as it is described by
Livy 2.32), the Allies apparently had decided to use a more forceful
form of persuasion if necessary. Force against the Romans, as
recent history would certainly have taught them, would not be
undertaken lightly. Therefore, the endeavor upon which they had
made up their minds would be one of enormous gravity, and the
Allies would need to treat it as such.
Adding to the seriousness of what they may have been
considering would be the fact that not only would the manner of
the Roman response remain a mystery, but the magnitude of it
would be as well. On the one hand, there was the chance that the
Commonwealth could be brought to terms quickly, for reasons
7 Cornell, p. 255.
which will also be described below, and it cannot be questioned

this would have been the ideal resolution for the Italians.
Alternatively, their response could turn into a full-scale bellum
which had the potential to be both lengthy and grim, an eventuality
which the Allies would need to face both intellectually and
materially.
Finally, even a long war fought and won by the Allies might
not necessarily guarantee them citizenship. The Romans might
decide to let them go and strike down the foedera, granting them
independence whether that were sought or not. It may be
remembered, and may have been by the Allies, that Appius
Claudius advised the Patricians simply to bid farewell to the
secessionist plebs in 494 (τοὺς ... χαίρειν ἐᾶν; Dionysius of
Halicarnassus 5.68). Such an ending was not, again, what the
sources say the Italians had wanted, but it had already become clear
that if things remained as they were, they were not going to get
what they had wanted anyway. Being granted an unsought
independence would cost the Allies the advantages that did accrue
and could accrue from the association with Rome, but if that also
meant losing the burdens of that association, of which the latter
had become manifestly greater for more of the Allies than the
former, it would doubtless be better than their present conditions.
Those who wanted citizenship, in other words, might have
accepted independence if that were the only alternative to the state
of things as they were in 91. Of course, this last possibility—that of
simply being let go by Rome—was infinitesimally small at best, but
the Allies would have needed to have taken steps to allow for it
should it have occurred.
What would have been far more likely, and indeed would have
been a near-certainty, was that the Romans would attempt to break
up the Alliance by granting the franchise to some of its members
and then crushing the rest. To protect against this circumstance,
the Allies would have to combine and to combine fully, so that the
Romans could not following their usual policy of divide et impera. By
presenting a united front, the Romans would be compelled to have
to deal with the Allies all together. If indeed they contemplated
something like a secessio, then, the Allies would have to prepare for
all of these contingencies and more besides: they would have to
make ready for a fight which might be of some duration and of
great bitterness; they would have to make ready for Roman
attempts to lure them away from each other and then destroy them
piecemeal; and would have to make ready for the sliver of
possibility that the Romans would simply let them loose, by having
machinery in place for how they would handle themselves if this
should happen. Great care, therefore, would have to be taken, and
such care is fully consistent with the extensive preparations such as
those seen in Diodorus and Strabo (about which more directly): the
Allies would have to fortify themselves for all outcomes, and it is
not improbable that that is exactly what they were doing.
As has been mentioned earlier on several occasions, a great
many of the sources directly and clearly indicate that the Italians
wanted the citizenship. By contrast, none give unambiguous
evidence that they desired independence. This does, however, not
necessarily mean that there were no socii who desired separation,
and it may very well be that some of them desired precisely that.
Indeed, in spite of the fact that a total dissolution of bonds tying
them to Rome would also cost these Italians all the opportunities
which could still be obtained from such bonds, there may have
been many individuals and perhaps entire communities in Italy who
were willing to sacrifice such opportunities for independence. Still,
these would have found common enough cause with those trying
to wrest the citizenship from the Romans, since at least one of
fundamental aim—an end to the Roman ill-use of them—would
have been desired by both. Additionally, in is not difficult to
conjecture that, just as those Allies who wanted the citizenship
would have accepted independence as preferable to their current
state of subjection, so too those who preferred independence
would have accepted the franchise as an alternative to the state of
things as they were. To effect either outcome, however, they would
need to unite, as the sad affair of Fregellae had illustrated.
As is the case with so much concerning the Italians during this
period, the sources fail to give specifics as to what the Italians were
thinking and what motivated their actions when they finally
decided upon war. However, the rather nebulous details which do
exist will at the minimum permit the possibility that what they had
intended to do was akin to the secessio attempted by Rome’s own
plebs centuries earlier. The parallel is, perhaps, not exact: the Allied
secessio, as events were to show, was going to be a good deal more
violent than that of the Plebeians, and had probably been designed
to be such from the outset. Nevertheless, by forcefully tearing
themselves away from Rome the Allies could have used their
absence to compel Rome to grant their wish for the citizenship, the
thing which most of them seem to have wanted and which was
quite probably a thing which even those who desired independence
(assuming that there were such) would have accepted as better than
leaving things as they were. That the Romans might need a great
deal of convincing would have been faced squarely by the Allies,
and if such convincing needed to be forceful, the mobilization of
men, material, and other resources would be required, which is
what several sources attest the Allies undertook. They also would
have had to brace themselves for the outside possibility that Rome
would simply let them go, an outcome which would have pleased
whatever independence-minded Allies there were and which, again,
the others might have been willing to accept as better than their
current situation. Preparations towards that end would require the
mobilization of all sorts of men and material, and the sources say
the Allies also gathered these. At the very least a secessio makes sense
of what the sources say, and by employing it, the question of what
the Allies hoped to do with the war soon to erupt and why they
made the extensive preparations that the sources (both literary and
numismatic) show that they had is given at least a tentative answer.
There does, however, remain one final question. The raising
of armies and the acquisition of all the other necessities for war
takes time, and given the amounts of these resources that would
later be displayed by the Allies (more below), that amount of time
must have been great. However, the sources also strongly imply
that the fighting broke out hard upon the death of Drusus. If that
is right, and the Allies had only resolved for war on his murder in
the autumn of 91, they could never have gathered together the vast
resources they would be revealed in their possession by as early as
the spring of 90. The inescapable conclusion is, then, that the socii
must have started planning years in advance of 91. If that is so,
then when did they begin? And what connection is there between
that beginning, the start of the war, and Drusus?
2. THE CHRONOLOGY OF ALLIED ACTIONS

As has been argued above, while there is nothing in the sources
which unequivocally points to the fact that a secessio of sorts was the
road which the Allies had chosen, there is likewise nothing in those
sources which conclusively renders it such a decision impossible.
But if the socii had in fact determined upon this route, they would
have had to have recognized the risks involved, and accordingly to
have taken the necessary precautions against them. Fregellae had
illustrated that no single community could stand against Rome, and
that those who would stand against them would have to have the
help of others in such a way that the Romans could not separate
them with bribes and blandishments. Simply put, the Allies would
need to combine so completely that the partnership could be safe
from the dangers of seduction, as well as those of force. That, in
turn, would involve a series of negotiations and delicate diplomatic
maneuvers amongst Italians who often differed sharply one from
another in language, customs, and outlook, and to do so in secrecy
lest the Romans catch on and stamp out the endeavor before it
could even begin. These actions would take time, but they were
only the beginning of the process. After that initial stage, the Allies
would then have to proceed to logistics: since it was likely beyond
question that the Romans would need to be compelled by violence
to reach an accommodation of any type with the Allies, armies
would need to be created. Men therefore would have to be found,
gathered, equipped, supplied, paid, and furnished with the
apparatus of leadership, and all of this, too, would also have to be
done in secret.
All of these measures would have taken months and possibly
years to execute. However, a great many of the sources explicitly
state or strongly infer that war became inevitable upon the blocking
of the attempts of Drusus to grant the citizenship he had promised
the socii and his subsequent murder,8 which occurred in the fall of
91.9 Based on the high level of readiness the Allies would show as
early as the spring of 90, it cannot have been that planning for war
started with the death of Drusus. How, then, can the fairly clear
evidence of lengthy planning be reconciled with the perfectly clear
testimony of the sources connecting the war to the slain tribune?
8 These sources include Appian I1.5.38), the Periocha of Book 71 of
Livy, Florus (2.6.3–4), Orosius (5.18.1–2), and Velleius (2.15.1–2).

9 As discussed in the notes for the previous chapter, Drusus was still
alive on the Ides of September (Cicero, de orat. 3.1.1–2).

Assuming that this connection should not simply be

scrapped,10 the proper relationship between of the death of Drusus,
the Allied war preparations, and the actual flareup might be found
in the evidence provided on the one hand by Asconius and on the
other by Velleius Paterculus. The first of these has to do with a
comment made by Asconius concerning the lex Mucia Licinia (67C).
This law, as discussed in the previous chapter, had been one of
many which had put restrictions on how the Italians were to make
use of the city of Rome. However, this one was special. Earlier
expulsion laws in the early second century had been passed at the
behest of the ruling classes of Allied communities to force their
citizens to go home so that those communities might meet their
military obligations to Rome. The lex Mucia Licinia was not like
these, nor was it like the law of Pennus, which, it has been argued,
removed the Italians because they were making a nuisance of
themselves and contributing to an increased agitation for land
redistribution.11 Nor was it even like the lex Fannia, which simply
excluded non-citizens from the city while voting was taking place.
All of those laws had involved mass expulsion from Rome, which
the lex Mucia Licinia did not; indeed, the lex Mucia Licinia seems to
have allowed most non-citizens to stay in the city as before. Those
who were to be expelled were specifically those Italians who were
found to be acting like citizens but who did not in fact have this
status; after a trial to determine what their status actually was, those
found guilty of pretending to be citizens were expelled at the very
least, and maybe even worse.12
Amongst the many implications of this law were the clear
messages it seemed to be sending to the Allies, which were that
Romans were now to be quite jealous of their citizenship, still
rigidly observed the difference between citizens and non-citizens,
and were to be watchful for any socius who attempted to claim
rights which were not his. Such a law does not indicate that a
friendliness to the grant of citizenship was widespread, and indeed
suggests that the Romans were even more uncompromising in their
10 For additional reasons why it should be retained, see Appendix E.

11 See also Appendix C for the lex Junia.
12 See, again, chapter 3.
antipathy to enfranchisement than ever. This attitude seems to

have impelled the Allies into motion: according to Asconius, by
means of this law the sentiments of the magnates of the Italians
were set against Rome, and it became the greatest cause of the war
three years later (Verum ea lege ita alienati animi sunt principum
Italicorum populorum ut ea vel maxima causa belli Italici quod post triennium
exortum est fuerit; 67.C). It may be, then, that the first stages of
planning for the confrontation with Rome might reasonably be
postulated to have begun here.13 If in fact this law made it clear
that the Romans would never grant the franchise sua sponte, then
the Allies must have decided to attempt to employ a more forceful
means of persuasion and may have begun slowly to make ready for
such aggressive negotiations soon after 95. This would accord well
with the assertion of Velleius that the war had been brewing for
some time before the draught was ready to drink in 91 (iam pridem
tumescens bellum excitavit Italicum; Velleius 2.15).
It may, then, not be too far-fetched to assume that, beginning
shortly after the passage of the lex Mucia Licinia, the Allies
progressively started to formulate ideas as to what move they
would make, and to discuss those with each other. The discussions
might have taken a great deal of time to establish, as the Italians
were not known for their co-operative tendencies,14 and once it
was determined what was to be done, it quite probably took a
substantial amount of convincing to draw in all the eventual
partners. After all, the example set by Fragellae not quite two
generations earlier might well have given some communities pause
about challenging the Romans.15 Moreover, the utmost secrecy
would have to be maintained lest the Allies forfeit the advantage on
which they were counting (which will be discussed below), as well
13 Salmon (1967, p. 335) and Keaveney (1987, p. 91) hold likewise.

14 So Brunt (1988, p. 115) and Salmon (1967, p. 293–294). Both
suggest that the only reason peace had existed in Italy at all was because it
had been imposed on it by Rome. Indeed, even during the war the Italians
were far from united, as revealed by the many communities which stayed
loyal to Rome even amongst the Italian peoples who decided on war;
more of these will be discussed below.
15 For more on this see Brunt (1988, p. 100–101) and Mouritsen
(1998, p. 130).
as for safety’s sake. Nevertheless, while the results of these designs

would eventually become known, little else about the initial stages
of the revolt being contemplated is. It seems clear, however, that a
major participant in them was the Marsic nobleman Q. Poppaedius
Silo,16 due to the position of command he would subsequently play
in the hostilities.17
Silo more than anyone is held to be responsible for the
creation of the Alliance, and he would later become a principal
commander of its army in war. Even so, as successful as he was in
that conflict, it seems he also had apparently worked as hard as he
could to prevent it by means gaining the bequest of the citizenship
before action was to be taken. Silo may, in fact, provide the link to
why the war ended up occurring when it did relative to Drusus.
These two men had apparently been friends, as has been seen, and
to such an extent that at one point Silo seems to have been the
house-guest of the tribune while in the city to discuss the franchise.
To gain this, Silo had been so anxious to enlist the aid of Drusus
that he even recruited the help of the latter’s nephew Caepio to
plead the case of the Allies, an endeavor which met with greater
success than that directed at that man’s other nephew, Cato the
Younger.18 It was perhaps on the urging of Poppaedius that any
16 For the proper spelling of the nomen, see Appendix H.

17 Of the importance of Poppaedius, see for example Florus 2.6.10,
Strabo 5.4.2, Plutarch Moralia 321F, and Plutarch Marius 33.
18 See previous chapter. Mouritsen (op. cit., p. 125 note 51)
nevertheless suggests that the intimacy between Silo and Drusus reflected
in this anecdote had been invented or at the very overblown by the Varian
trials (see Appendix E). On the other hand, if Haug (p. 136–137) is
correct, the story ultimately derives from Cicero’s biography of Cato, and
having lived through the events in question, Cicero might very well have
been able to discern any maiupulation in the record due to the Varian
trials which was patently contrary to fact. Salmon (1967, p. 336 note 2)
draws the additional conclusion that Poppaedius was also an intimate of
Marius based on the warmth displayed during an encounter between their
armies which is reported in Diodorus Siculus (37.15), though in Plutarch’s
Marius the exchange between the two is somewhat more terse; see next
chapter (loc. cit., where Silo is called “Publius Silo”, almost certainly in
error).
move the Alliance would make would be delayed until the close of
the year 91, to give Drusus every chance to put forward a plebiscitum
in favor of the citizenship. It may also have been by Poppaedius
and his connections that Drusus was informed about the plot to
murder the consuls (see previous chapter), a plot which seems to
have been Latin in origin and thus not connected with the future
insurgents.19 Silo could therefore reveal it because this plot was be
unconnected to the activities of the Alliance and could be foiled
without compromising Allied plans, and at the same time it might
in the process obtain the goodwill of the Senate.
It may also be that the march of Poppaedius related in
Diodorus 37.13 (see previous chapter) had taken place while
Drusus was still living. According to the story, Poppaedius led ten
thousand men, those most injured by the lex Licinia Mucia, towards
Rome, carrying with them concealed weapons. When encountered
by one Caius Domitius and questioned as to his intent, replied that
he was headed to Rome to get the citizenship at the summons of
the tribunes (κεκλ μένος ὑπὸ τῶν δ μάρχων). This passage is riddled
with questionable notices, as for one thing it states that Silo
intended to use the ten thousand to force the Senate to extend the
franchise, or to ravage the capital if they proved unwilling to do so.
It is exceedingly doubtful at a mere ten thousand would have been
able to accomplish any such thing. Furthermore, the Caius
Domitius mentioned occupies no other role in all of recorded
Roman history. In this, the sole even in which he appears, he
dissuaded Silo from his aims by pointing out that the Senate would
in fact be wiling to grant the citizenship if it were approached with
a petition rather than a division (ταύτ ν γὰρ ούλεσ αι τὴν χάριν
δοῦναι τοῖς συμμάχοις μὴ ιασ εῖσαν ἀλλ᾽ ὑπομν σ εῖσαν), even
though all the other sources indicate nothing even resembling such
a willingness. Leave may be granted to suspect that no such
episode occurred.20 Still, if it did actually take place, the fact that
19 Florus (2.6.8) mentions that the assassinations were to take place on
the Alban Mount at the Latin festival, while de viris illustribus 66.12 adds
that it was foiled by Drusus.
20 Mouritsen (1998, p. 125 note 51) doubts it happened, stating that
“the Marsic march on Rome is clearly too fantastic to be accepted at face

this Domitius took it upon himself to talk Silo out of this action,
and the fact that Silo would allow himself to be persuaded, suggests
that this episode occurred before the war had started rather than
afterwards, even though the latter is where most scholarly
assessments assign it.21 If, thus, the war had not yet started when
Silo’s march was took place, then it must have transpired at some
point prior to the autumn of 91. Drusus would have been alive
then, and Poppaedius may have been leading his band to support
Drusus or to protect him.
Either way, an explanation for the evidence that connects the
murder of Drusus to the outbreak of the war can thus now be
value”. Skepticism about this maneuver is shared by Haug (p. 239), who
believes the entire passage is suspect. Most modern authorities part
company from this, and accept the story.
21 Mouritsen (1998, p. 130), however, also notes the possibility that the
march of Silo took place before the death of Drusus, assuming it had
taken place at all; as for his thoughts on the latter possibility it did not, see
earlier note. The more common approach, though, has been accept the
tale and to place it chronogically either after the death of Drusus and
perhaps even after the flare-up at Asculum or very shortly before; by this
reading, the “Domitius” in question was one of the men sent to
investigate the rumors of coniuratio amongst the allies. However, it is
difficult to see what purpose could have been accomplished by Silo in
leading a band of men towards Rome after the uprising at Asculum had
taken place. Under such circumstances, the Romans would likely have
been less inclined to send one man to drive off thousands by reasoning
with them (indeed, Roman unwillingness to negotiate will be described
presently) and more inclined to send a legion to annihilate them. If this
event took place, it therefore probably happened before Asculum. As to
the identity of the otherwise unknown “Caius” Domitius: Francis Walton,
the translator of the Loeb edition of Diodorus Siculus (p. 219 note 1),
states that the praenomen “Caius” was not used by the Domitii and thus the
text should be corrected to “Gnaeus”, perhaps the consul of 96.
Domaszewski (p. 17), on the other hand, believes that Lucius Domitius
Ahenobarbus (consul 94) is meant, while Keaveney (1987, p. 118) states
that perhaps the Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus is either that proposed by
Walton or another man later killed by Pompeius in Africa (Broughton vol.
2, p. 69). In light of this confusion, the present essay is content to let the
question of nomenclature remained a vexed one and present the name in
a Latinised form of the way it is found in the text of Diodorus.
postulated. As events began to multiply in the years following 95

and the passage of the detested lex Licinia Mucia, the Allies
gradually perfected their plans for the coming altercation with the
Romans and drew together the means by which it could be
attempted. These designs were nearing completion as Drusus
entered his tribunate, during which time he showed an early
inclination to grant the citizenship to the Latins. Due, perhaps, to a
need for even more land than could be gotten from the ager publicus
held by the latter, or to the persuasion of his friend Silo, or to both,
Drusus widened his offer to all of the Allies. Because Silo was a
prime mover for the Alliance, it is likely that he could persuade the
others to hold off action until after the end of 91, to allow Drusus
to accomplish all that he could. After all, if unpleasantness could be
avoided, that policy would make simple good sense. Moreover, as
events would show, perfect readiness had not yet been achieved by
the Allies, and they could therefore make use of the remaining time
to finish what was left to be done. Drusus therefore represented
the one last chance the Allies would extend to the Romans to grant
the citizenship without violence, and the obstruction of his laws
and his subsequent assassination was therefore taken as the signal
that secessio would move forward.22
It has thus far been argued that once the Allies had become
convinced that the Romans would never willingly enfold them into
the Commonwealth as citizens, they plotted to take more forceful
action to see if the civitas could be wrung from Rome. This plan
22 That the Allies held off to see what Drusus could do is also
interpretation of Keaveney (1987, p. 82–83, p. 94 note 34; p. 91–92),

Salmon (1967, p. 338), and Brunt (loc. cit.). For rather different reasons,
Mouritsen also subscribes to the idea that the Allies had been in long
preparation for the coming war (1998, p. 131), and that Drusus had
provided the impetus for the revolt (p. 143–151). In his view, the laws of
Drusus proposing land distribution had been the final straw to jolt the
Allies into independence, while the death of Drusus (which caused an
uproar amongst the Latins who had been promised the franchise) meant
that the Allies could take advantage of Latin disaffection and alienation
from the Romans in order to obtain a military advantage. Some of
Mouritsen’s assertions will be discussed in greater length in the following
chapter.
involved the enaction of something like a secessio, whereby they

would forcibly withdraw from Rome and use violence to negotiate
the civitas. Employing arms against Rome was a dangerous
proposition, as Fregellae had graphically illustrated, and not one to
be undertaken without every possible precaution. The Allies would
therefore need to make sure they would be as ready as possible for
whatever repercussions their decision might unleash. Such
arrangements would take time, however, and the fact that they had
managed their affairs to the extent that they had by 91 suggests
they had been at it for a while. A logical starting point for their
undertaking might be identified with the passage of the lex Licinia
Mucia, which probably underlined the reality that any other way to
obtain the civitas than bloodshed would not be met with success.
But one last chance to avert war came with the legislative activity of
M. Livius Drusus, which may itself have been influenced by its
author’s amity with Q. Poppaedius Silo, one of the principal
architects of the Alliance. Silo may have persuaded the Allies to
hold off acting prematurely by allowing the laws of Drusus a
chance, and in the meantime to use the year 91 to make sure
everything was set for what was to come. As events would turn
out, however, the laws of Drusus and the tribune himself would be
struck down before the end of the year, and in the meantime
rumors of a coniuratio amongst the Allies began to reach the Senate.
This would lead to an unexpected occurrence which may have
done much to prolong the coming war and indeed to shape its
outcome.
3. ASCULUM AND THE END OF 91

It may very well have been that in the opening months of 91, the
Allies, who were possibly persuaded by Poppaedius Silo to restrain
their movements until the outcome of the proposed leges Liviae
could be seen, had nevertheless been able to predict their failure
which was soon to follow. They could probably have also predicted
the murder of Drusus, as the fates of Flaccus and C. Gracchus may
have given them some insight as to what would become of tribunes
associated with enfranchisement for the Italians. Even so, with a
guarded optimism they seem to have planned to let 91 unfurl as it
would while planning their movement for the next year. But as
autumn arrived, events suddenly seem to have taken a direction
that had not been anticipated. According to Appian, the Romans
had gradually become aware that the socii might have been planning
something, and sent men into the various Allied territories to
discover what it might be (1.5.38). How it is they had come by this
awareness is uncertain; perhaps the plot to murder the consuls
(described above and in chapter 3) had set into motion an
investigation that had turned up something to this effect, launching
a separate investigation into Allied doings.23 At any rate, discretion
had apparently been what was ordered to these investigators, as
may seen from the fact that Appian notes that those who men were
sent into Allied areas were ones who knew these areas best, and
who thus could conduct their enquiries without arousing suspicion
(περιέπεμπον ἐς τὰς πόλεις ἀπὸ σφῶν τοὺς ἑκάστοις μάλιστα
ἐπιτ δείους, ἀφανῶς τὰ γιγόμενα ἐξετάζειν; loc. cit.).
This command was apparently lost on a praetor named
Servilius,24 who was in the neighborhood of Asculum and was
informed by one of Rome’s agents that a young man had been
observed there being sent as hostage to another town. Servilius
apparently took it upon himself to threaten the Asculani into
submission, and interrupted a religious festival to deliver a
harangue to that effect. Diodorus takes note of the same action,
and also notes that the tone employed by Servilius was not one
used between free men and allies, but was that usually directed to
slaves promising dire punishments (ἐκεῖνος γὰρ οὐκ ὡς ἐλευ έροις
καὶ ὁμιλῶν ἀλλ᾽ ὡς δουλοῖς ἐνυ ρίζων; 37.13). It would prove to be a
most unfortunate miscalculation on his part: whether from fear of
discovery or from fury at the tone being used, the Asculani soon
fell upon the praetor and killed him, and then proceeded then to do
his legate Fonteius likewise (Cicero, Pro Font. 41 and Velleius
2.15.1, in addition to Appian, loc. cit.). This, in turn, was followed
23 So Keaveney (1987, p. 117).

24 Praetor, according to Appian and Velleius Paterculus (2.15.1);
proconsul, according to Periochae (72, where his praenomen is given as
Quintus); praetor sent as legate, according to Orosius, who refers to him as
“C. Servius” (5.18.8). Domaszweski (p. 17) names him “C. Servilius” and
states that he was a praetor proconsule; Haug likewise refers to him as Caius
(p. 207, 239). Keaveney (1987, p. 117–118) prefers Q. Servilius, as does
Salmon (1967, p. 339, though his note 7 takes account of the difficulties in
assigning him a proper name and title).
up by indulging in a general slaughter of all the other Romans in

the city (Per. 72, Florus 2.6.9, and Orosius 5.18.8, in addition to the
sources already named).
Appian speaks of the massacre at Asculum as occurring
because the language of Servilius was not only overly haughty, but
also suggested to the Asculani that the plot had been discovered.
This indicates that the Alliance as a whole had not yet been ready
to strike when, in essence, the initiative was taken out of their
hands in this regard. It has been theorized above that the war itself
had been the result of deliberate planning on the part of the Allies,
who had been forging their partnership and staging their intended
motion since the aftermath of the passage of the Lex Licinia Mucia.
In order to give Drusus space in which to bring forward what he
promised them, the Allies probably agreed on what was perhaps
the urging of Silo to delay their action until after 91. If this is true,
then while death of Drusus would have sent the signal that the plan
was to be executed, it likely did not signal that it was to be executed
immediately. It seems more probable that at this point—namely,
autumn of 91—it had already been decided to put off the
demonstration until the following year. Indeed, the lateness of the
season would likely have made it unwise to have proceeded
immediately with the secessio for strategic purposes, and that the
next year would be better.
It seems manifest that the Allies had a plan for what they were
going to do when the appropriate time came, and while for reasons
that are by now familiar the sources do not specify exactly what
that plan might have been, one can be surmised given the few basic
facts which are known. Most importany of these is that the Italians
were to face extremely long odds in a struggle with Rome, whose
military resources were vast even without Allied contribution, and
certainly sufficient to keep up with the Italians if the struggle were
to be of extended duration. Furtheremore, in a protracted contest
the Romans might be able to overwhelm them if in addition they
could bring to bear the men and material they could obtain from
overseas. The Italians were almost certainly aware of these facts,
and any hope of victory would likely have hinged on their finiding a
way to diminish these Roman advantages. One possible way to do
this would be to catch the Romans off guard. If taken by surprise,
the Romans might be deprived of the assistance they could expect
from outside and might have to fight on their own while that aid
was being gathered and sent. Indeed, if the surprise was fairly total,
the Romans might even find themselves having to act even before
they could completely mobilize their own forces. Under such
circumstances, the odds would perhaps be far more level: cut off
from their remaining socii and left only with their own men, the
Romans still might perhaps be able to field slightly more soldiers
than could the Italians, but not overwhelmingly many more.25
Moreover, the quality of the men the Romans had at hand
might have been suspect. After all, part of the reason for why it is
speculated the Allies had had grounds for complaint in the first
place was that the Romans had become increasingly accustomed to
the over-use of Allied soldiery, due in part to the unwillingness of
the Romans themselves to serve as conscripts (see chapter 2).
Friendly tribunes could save citizens from this service, and
eventually the Romans could evade military duty altogether due to
the Marian reforms. The Italians, however, apparently could not, so
the chances that a Roman soldier had less experience that his
Italian foe was high. Additionally, by a rare coincidence there had
been a fortuitous lull in external wars fought by Rome during this
period, or so the (admittedly very fragmentary) sources suggest: the
last major campaign described is that of T. Didius in Spain in the
year 97 (Per. 70, Appian, Bell. Hisp. 99–100, and Frontinus 1.8.5,
where, it should be noted, Didius was said to have been concerned
due to the small size of his forces). The consul of 94, L. Crassus,
was so discomfitted by this lack of action that is described by
Cicero as “triumph hunting”, tramping all over Gaul looking for
enemies worth fighting, and without success (de invent. 2.37.111; in
Pis. 62). With the exception of what is apparently some desultory
fighting in Thrace conducted by propraetor C. Sentius in 92 (Per.
70)26 and some maneuvers of uncertain date27 in the East by Sulla
25 In fact, Appian suggests that the numbers were more-or-less equal
at the start of the first full year of the war, and this after a season in which
the Romans had time to prepare themselves for the campaign (1.5.39).
26 See also Broughton (op. cit.), p. 49.
27 Greenidge and Clay state 92, but they cite Badian (1964, p. 157–162,
168–170), who fairly persuasively argues that Sulla had been sent on this
expedition in 96 after his year as Praetor; contra Broughton, vol. 2, p. 14,
18.
as praetor (apparently accomplished with forces raised from

Eastern Allies; Plutarch, Sull. 5), the Roman world had for some
time been largely at peace (Eutropius 5.3.1).28 What this meant is
28 Brunt (1971, p. 435) asserts that as many as six legions were in the
field at various locations throughout the empire upon the outbreak of the
war, but it is difficult to see how he arrives at this number. Three of these
legions were held to be in Spain, but earlier (p. 431) he notes how
consular armies were present in Further Spain only until 94 and in Hither
Spain until either 92 or 90; if the former of these two years was the
correct one, then no record of consular armies in Spain exist at all from
92 forwards. In the absence of evidence, it cannot be stated positively that
there were any legions in Spain, let alone three. Brunt also mentions (on p.
664) his belief that a P. Servilius Vatia mentioned by the Fasti as
celebrating a triumph in 88 won it from actions in Spain. Broughton,
however, disagrees (vol. 2, p. 28 and page 30 note 5); since all men
awarded triumphs from Spain listed on the Fasti were noted as proconsule,
and Vatia was listed as propraetor, Broughton believes that Vatia actually
served in Sardinia and may not have even been sent there until 89 (see
also Appendix F).
Another of these six was said to have been with Sentius in the East.
While Brunt allows that Sentius might have relied extensively on local
levies, just as Sulla had been forced to do in Cilicia, he finds it incredible
that he did not have at least one legion under him. This is plausible
enough. The remaining two legions are are stated to have been
commanded in Gaul by a man who won a victory over the Salluvii in 90
(Per. 73; see also chapter 5), who Brunt believes to be C. Coelius Caldus,
the consul of 94. For victory to have been won in 90, Coelius would have
had these men since sometime earlier point, perhaps 93. However, the
text of the Periochae identifies this general as “Caecilius”; Broughton
believes his actual name was C. Caecilius Caelius, that he was not the same
person as the consul (vol. 2, p. 25, 27, and note 1, p. 30), and that he
might have been sent there in 90 as Praetor. Brunt is probably correct in
his assertion that the man in question is in fact Caldus, but there is at least
the possibility that these legions were not there since 93, or at least that
only one of them was, as opposed to two.
Therefore, none of the six legions attested by Brunt as serving abroad
in 91 can actually be placed anywhere with certainty; it is almost certain
that a few of them were in such service, but it may very well be that far
fewer than six were actually serving. On the other hand, such service does
give rise to another question: since these legions would presumably have
that the Allies would have most of its available manpower

accessible for the cause, and that this manpower would almost
certainly include a larger number of trained soldiers than Rome
could muster by itself. In other words, the Allies had the potential
to raise a larger and better Roman army than the Romans could,
and if they could catch the Romans out of balance with it, their
chance of beating the untried armies which Rome could send,29 and
thus ultimately to force concessions, seemed good.30
had a complement of Allies with them, what became of these when the
war erupted? Were they disbanded, or were forced to stay in the field? If
the latter, did any of them desert, and if so how many? Alternatively, did
any of them stay with the legions, and if so, how in what numbers? It is at
least possible that the legions were not in fact discharged, and that some
Allies in them chose to stay with the signa. It may have been for them that
a law referred to in a fragment of Sisenna, the lex Calpurnia, was passed.
This law is referred to as giving soldiers the civitas, and it might either have
rewarded those who chose to stay with the foreign legions or persuaded
them to do so; see chapter 6 and Appendix L for further discussion on
this point.
29 If this represented Allied thinking, then their confidence in their
own soldiers and negative assessment of the skill of the men Rome would
field seems to have been pretty accurate. While, perhaps, Rome had
superior commanders (the men listed as commanding the armies include
no less than three former Triumphators), the milites themselves were
suspect: Marius, who knew a thing or two about the training of soldiers
(Keppie, p. 64–69; Carney 1970, p. 31–34), had grave doubts about the
abilities of the men he commanded under Rutilius Lupus in 90 and argued
that they be given more training before being sent into action (Dio, frg.
98, and Orosius, 5.18.11). Rutilius ignored the advice of Marius to his cost
(see next chapter). Even after some engagements under Marius had
seasoned them, these men apparently still proved difficult to bring to full
fighting form, as Plutarch seems to attest (Mar. 33). Presumably the other
Roman commanders had similar experiences with their men which are not
recorded, though various other infractions of discipline that certainly are
passed on may have come from newness to the service; for these lapses,
see chapter 6.
30 Much of the arguments above are made by Salmon (1967, p. 346).
They are disputed, but not very well, by Mouritsen (1998, p. 157–159),
who seems to have taken objection both to Salmon’s suggestion that the
Allies might even have outnumbered the Romans at first (which is not
If this approach had been what the Allies had had in mind, the
events at Asculum would have been an unfortunate disruption.
This would explain Appian’s comment, mentioned above, on the
panic that seems to have occurred amongst the Asculani at having
it appear that they had been found out: the Allies, thinking they
would have a few more months remaining before they would act,
were themselves caught out of position at the apparent Roman
awareness of their intentions, and they reacted somewhat
thoughtlessly. Indeed, another indication that Asculum had been
contrary to design is the lateness of the season. Assuming that the
sources are correct in that the slaughter took place following the
death of Drusus, it cannot have happened before late September of
91,31 and may have transpired as late as mid-October. If Allied
military planning had been as was put forward above, then a key
element to that planning would have been to go on the move and
press the Romans without break. The regular campaigning season
would have been much better suited for this operation than late
autumn, since such a date would mean that winter would soon put
a stop to whatever military exercise could be launched and thus
give the Romans some breathing room, as indeed it ultimately did.
Finally, that the Allies had not yet been completely ready for
combat can be derived from a further passage in Appian, narrating
that an embassy was sent to Rome which attempted to forestall
further violence by negotiation (1.5.39). No doubt this embassy
represented the sincere hopes of the Allies that they could reach
their desires without additional fighting, though it is not difficult to
entirely what Salmon is suggesting; his argument is rather than the Allies
had a larger pool of trained manpower from which to draw than the
Romans did) and that they were caught off guard. Mouritsen himself
believes that the Romans had begun to muster forces even before
Asculum, due to events which took place in Nola (p. 130–132, about
which more below). As to the difference in quality of men, Mouritsen
dismisses these as “negligible” in spite of the evidence that amply attests
that the Roman legions in 90 and even 89 consisted of poor stuff indeed;
see above and chapters five and six below for further discussion of these
soldiers and their (lack of) quality.
31 See earlier note.
suppose that some attempt at delay was also taking place.32 As it

happens, the passage in Appian in which it is described is not filled
with specific details, and since the legation that is mentioned there
is described nowhere else, there is much that remains obscure
about it. It cannot, for example, be determined when exactly it took
place, since the only temporal clue provided is that it was deputed
some time after Asculum. That it was sent before the end of 91 is
probably to be assumed from the additional statement made by
Appian at the end of the episode, to the effect that the Allies
continued in their mobilization after the failure of the ambassadors.
Since all mobilization seems to have been finished by the start of
90, the end of the previous year seems to be proper time for the
dispatch embassy. Neither is it revealed who was sent to Rome, nor
the exact nature of the message they conveyed.33 This last may be
due to the fact that ultimately the deputation was not received:
according to Appian, the emissaries made their initial complaint
about how the Allies had helped build the empire but had not been
given the citizenship, whereupon the Romans dismissed them with
the admonishment that they would only hear from Allies who had
repented of Asculum and presumably were ready to accept Roman
punishment. There was, then, to be no diplomatic way out. Rome
had made it clear that they would only respond to action, and
action was now to be prosecuted to the fullest possible extent.
The Allies, therefore, fell to it with vigor. If the chronology of
the Periocha of Livy’s Book 72 is to be trusted, shortly after
Asculum a Roman named Servius Galba was soon captured by the
Lucani, but was freed by a woman with whom he had been lodging
somewhere in Lucania. He is never explicitly stated as such in the
Periochae, but the fact that this person had been important enough
to be mentioned in this work but not stated to be in command of
32 Admittedly, such a delay would in theory help the Romans as much
as the Allies, but in this instance the latter had the edge of having already
known that conflict was coming; theirs was the task of putting into hasty
execution the plans already they had already laid, as opposed to having to
react to situation about which they had not been warned.
33 This has not, however, prevented some scholars from using these
envoys as evidence of what the Allies wanted from the war; for their
thoughts, see Appendix A.
an army has led to a scholarly consensus that he, like Servilius, had
also been one of the men sent prior to Asculum to investigate
goings-on amongst the socii.34 When the violence erupted, Galba
seems to have found himself in a very tight spot indeed before his
timely liberation. Perhaps the city from which he fled was
Grumentum, which seems to have been a divided town that
changed sides several times over the course of the war (see next
two chapters).
The same passage of the Periochae notes that Alba Fucens, just
north of Marsic territory, and Aesernia, in the land of the Samnites,
were both attacked by the Allies but apparently could not be taken,
and both were thereupon put under siege. This notice gives rise to
the question as to who it was who resisted the Allies at these two
cities. Were these loyalists alone, or were they stiffened with
Roman soldiers? Of the former town, the effusion of praise for the
Albans in the Rhetorica ad Herennium (2.45) implies that it had done
some signal service to Rome which may have taken the shape of
withstanding a large siege without Roman help. Likewise, the fact
that the Epitome of Book 72 mentions only that stories of aid
rendered to the Romans by auxilia could be found in that original
book, but gives no indication that specific actions that the Romans
themselves undertook were described therein, may be interpreted
to mean that there were none. This would mean that Alba was on
its own and without aid from the capital, though as a Roman
colony the city likely would have had in it some men who had once
seen service in the legions.35 As to the other, Aesernia was likewise
a Roman colony and likewise may also have been the home of
some former soldiers, who would help resist the Allies. These may
possibly have been helped by a small force of Romans under the
command of L. Scipio and L. Acilius. Appian states that these two
men were “in command there” (αὐτὴν οἱ μὲν συντάττοντες, Λεύκιός
τε Σκιπίων καὶ Λεύκιος Ἀκίλιος; 1.5.41). This intimates that they had
men to command, although nothing further is said of soldiers.
Since this same source describes how both of these men would
eventually escape the city (somewhat ignominiously, for which see
34 See Appendix F.
35 This interpretation is favored by Haug (p. 202).
next chapter), they would need to have gotten into it in the first
place, and it seems more likely that they had been in Aesernia when
it was invested than that they broke or stole in only to have to steal
back out again in the next year. In fact, these two men may also
have been contributing to the detection of the rumblings in Italy, as
some scholars believe.
Finally, there is the siege of Nola, an event which is
mentioned in the Periochae as having come to an end in early 90 (73;
the conclusion of the investment is also mentioned in Appian,
1.5.42). Thus, it probably had begun in late 91. The defense of the
city had devolved upon Lucius Postumius, testified as being
Praetor and in command of a garrison of some 2000 soldiers when
the city fell. It may be that this man, too, was involved with the
investigation, unless he had marched there with these troops for
the specific purpose of defending the city at some later time, or
happened to be in the area with men under his command for some
other unspecified purpose.36
These are the only specific operations mentioned in the
Periochae as undertaken by either Romans or Allies before the notice
of “L. Iulius Caesar cos.” with which Per. 73 begins, which gives
the signal of events which can certainly be dated to the year 90. On
the other hand, between mention of Aesernia and Alba in the
Periochae there is noted that book 72 had told of the various
expeditiones invicem expugnationesque urbium which are not named in
the summary. Conventional wisdom states that such actions also
took place in the year 91, and that among these expugnationes urbium
besieged might have been Nola and very likely also Pinna, a city
whose investment gave rise to accounts of all sorts of horrors, as
will be seen directly.37 Certainty cannot be had on this account due
36 See also Appendix F.

37 Domaszewski (p. 19) and Haug (p. 211–213) propose that there
were other cities which may have also seen action at this time that are
included in this line from the Periochae, and that some of these are
described in a rather corrupt passage of Florus (2.6.11). This passage
mentions Ocriculum, Grumentum, Faesulae, Carseoli, Nuceria, and
Picentia—and in this order—as ferro et igni vastantur. In between Carseoli
and Nuceria a word is clearly there, but the text is corrupt. Aesernia, Sora,
and Reate are all conjectured as having filled this spot. If either of the
to the peculiarities of chronology in the Periochae,38 but it

nevertheless might be reasonably asserted that winter set in very
soon after the investment of Aesernia. The Allies, thus, had
probably managed to set up siege lines around Nola and Pinna just
in time to suspend operations for the rest of the year.
As has been mentioned above, Appian recounts how the
Allies made one last overture of peace to the Romans after what
seems certain to have been the unplanned eruption at Asculum.
The actions just mentioned were probably launched after this
embassy failed in its task, a failure brought about when it was
rejected out of hand, and, it seems, unheard, by the Romans, for
reasons which will be speculated later. Nevertheless, for the
moment it is sufficient to note that the lordly demeanor of the
Romans revealed in this anecdote was apparently at great odds with
their state of military readiness in 91. After the rejection of their
envoys, the Allies proceeded to launch a number of strikes at
latter two are correct (Forster’s Loeb text substitutes Aesernia, while Haug
and Domaszewski both prefer Sora), then with the exception of
Grumentum these cities are arranged geographically from north to south.
It probably does not reflect a chronological ordering of events, in spite of
what Haug and Domaszewski maintain. Haug’s reasons for thinking thus
is that the passage presents a “confused patchwork” if ordered
geographically. However, the confusion of the geography is only created
by the displacement of Grumentum, and that city might well have been
placed outside of where it ought to be following the north-south
arrangement due to a copyist’s error (the text is far from certain in this
spot, making such a mistake likely). Furthermore, several of the ancient
sources state that Umbria and Etruria, where Ocriculum is to be found,
did not see fighting until late in the year 90, well after the fighting
recorded near Carseoli in the summer of that year. Thus would tend to
make a chronological arrangement a far better candidate for the
assessment of bunt durcheinander bringt. In fact, action is recorded at having
taken place in the vicinity of all of these cities over the course of the war,
but in a different time than 91. It may well be that some of these cities
were those besieged during the invicem expugnationesque urbium of late, but it
almost certainly oversteps to locate details as to what is contained in the
abovementioned line in the Periochae in the statement of Florus, and Haug
and Domaszewski do.
38 See Appendix G.
various locations throughout Italy. The Romans were chased away

from some of these, and shut in to others, but in many there is no
record of any Roman presence at all, and in none of them are the
Romans found defeating the Allied assault. The surprise achieved
by the Allies was, it seemed, fairly total: no named actions are
recorded as having been launched by the Romans in answer to the
insurgents in what remains of year,39 and other than swift advances
to safe locations undertaken by whatever men they had in the field,
the only type of response to the Allies which is attributed to the
Romans collectively seems to have been sartorial. After the death
of Servilius the Romans donned the saga, or war cloak, temporarily
putting aside what one source refers to as the “classic elegance of
the toga” (Per. 72, Orosius 5.18.15).
It should be acknowledged here that one of the reasons for
Roman lassitude had probably been the chaos surrounding the
death of Drusus from which the city had not fully recovered. This
turmoil is reported by Appian, even though he is probably
incorrect in stating that the tumult was due to the Varian trials,
which seem to be more properly placed in the following year
(1.5.38).40 These trials, according to Asconius (22) and Appian
(1.5.37–38), were in theory aimed at prosecuting those accused of
stirring the socii to rebel, a charge which possibly was cast as a
specific form of maiestas. In application, it seems that what they
actually were is what Appian represents them to be: a way by which
the opponents of Drusus went about settling scores with his
supporters.41 Yet whether they occurred in 91 or 90, they were
39 Almost all the sources are firm in their assertion that 91—or, rather,
the year in which Julius and Marcius were consuls—was thus the year in
which the war started. The only notable exception is in Velleius, but his
statement that “All Italy took up arms against the Romans” only in the
next year (id est 90, L. Caesare et P. Rutilio consulibus) may be justified by the
fact that it would not be until that year that the war would start in earnest;
so Salmon (1958, p. 171).
40 For a discussion of these, including Appian’s incorrect chronology
involving them, see Haug (p. 243–247), Keaveney (1987, p. 165–169);

Mouritsen (1998, p. 133–137), and Gruen (1965), p. 59–73.
41 For the lex Varia as a law on maiestas which superseded a law of
Saturninus on the same charge, see Gruen (op. cit., especially p. 59–61).
soon suspended, and when they resumed a reaction had set in such
that upon their resumption the very men who had pushed the
Along the way he convincingly explains how first the friends of Drusus
could be accused under the law, then later his enemies could, and then
finally Varius himself could fall victim to it. In so doing, Gruen provides a
way to unknot a curious comment in Asconius 22C, which said that the
people had voted for the Varian trials due to the unpopularity into which
the ruling class had fallen which attached because of their refusal to grant
citizenship to the Allies (cum ob sociis negatam civitatem nobilitas in invidia esset).
The implication would seem to be that the trials would in some way
punish the nobilitas for that which had brought about the invidia, which
was the denial of the citizenship. Yet Asconius himself says this was not
the case, and that Varius sought to try those who firnished consilia and opes
to the Allies. Appian confirms this, noting that the Varian trials sought to
prosecute those who encourage the Allies to hoped for the citizenship ( οἱ
ἱππεῖς ... Κόιντον Οὐράιον δ μαρχον ἔπεισαν εἰσ γ σασ αι κρίσεις εἶναι κατὰ
τῶν τοῖς Ἰταλιώταις ἐπὶ τὰ κοινὰ φανερῶς ἢ κρύφα ο ούντων), and likewise
to be internally inconsistent, as Asconius state the Varian trials. It is
difficult to see how the people would use the hatred engendered by the
refusal to give the franchise to the Allies to set up courts to try those who
sought to grant the Italians this very thing, or who at least stirred up the
Allies from hope of it.
Yet if the lex Varia was a general law against maiestas, as Gruen
proposes, then a solution might be be found to this quandary. In response
to Asculum, the populus would be called upon to fight a war with a very
determined Alliance, a war which soon proved so unpopular that at least
one man maimed himself to avoid service (Valerius Maximus 6.3.3). The
populus may have equated Senatorial obstinacy with the cause for the
fighting, and were thus susceptible to the promises of a tribune who
vowed to punish those responsible for driving the Allies to arms. The
people might have thought that his intention was to go after those whose
refusal proved to be the final straw. Instead, he prosecuted those who
gave the Allies reason to believe that the citizenship could be theirs and
thus instilled in them the passion that led to the war, men who
conveniently were among the enemies of his supporters. Since both those
who persuaded the Allies that citizenship could be theirs and those who
denied it both contributed to the rising of the Italians, both injured the
commonwealth and thus committed laesa maiestas, and both could be
prosecuted. Later, the tumult caused by this very law could also been seen
as having stirred sedition, so Varius fell victim to it, too.
quaestiones found themselves tried by them, including Varius himself

(Cicero, de nat. deor. 381; Valerius Maximus 8.6.4). Even apart from
these, Rome was still likely diverted by other internal difficulties in
the weeks before Asculum, especially if Plutarch is to be believed
about the conflict between C. Marius and L. Cornelius Sulla, which
that author says would have erupted into a war of its own had not
the Allies risen (Plutarch, Sull. 6; Mar. 32; see also chapter 7).
Whatever the reasons for it may ahve been, in spite of the
inklings that something was amiss amongst the socii, the Romans
seem to have been stunned by the massacre at Asculum and caught
entirely off balance in the operations to follow. Their lackluster
response to the conflict shows that they were completely
unprepared for a rigorous prosecution of it, suggesting that the
original Allied strategy in that regard had been sound. It is
tantalizing to speculate on what the Allies could have accomplished
had they been able to implement those plans with more time left in
the year, taking full advantage of surprise and the momentum they
soon gathered without having to give the Romans an apparently
much-needed breathing spell for the winter. Nevertheless, such was
what the circumstances demanded, and when the spring came,
matters would be somewhat different.
4. THE WINTER OF 91—ALLIED ACTIVITY

AND ITS MEANING
With operations in late 91 either adjourned entirely during the cold
or confined to siege operations, the Romans were given a respite in
which they could shake off the initial surprise which seems to have
left them completely paralyzed. They would use that interval to
some effect and proceeded to organize their war effort, meeting
the Allies at the start of the campaigning season of 90 with
100,000 men, if Appian is to be believed (1.5.39). Yet even this
response indicates that the Romans had not been able to take the
threat that was being posed to them seriously even as late as 90:
according to that authority, more men and generals were sent into
the field by Rome only “when it became clear the war was
labyrinthine and and complicated” (τότε ποικίλον τοῦ πολέμου καὶ
πολυμερὲς ἐν υμούμενοι; Appian 1.5.40). The inference can be
drawn that the Romans may have thought at first that they effort
they faced would be a simple and light one. This would turn out to
be a significant mistake, but their underestimation of what
confronted them in 90 may have helped play a role in their

rejection of the Allied embassy a year earlier 91. There might have
been a variety of factors which went in to why the Romans refused
negotiations; indeed, it will be argued later that the Romans may
have felt that they had had no choice but to dismiss them. Still,
there is nevertheless the sense that the Romans simply could not
see the enormity of the threat being posed to them, an attitude
which persisted through the winter of 91 even after they had been
roughed up as they were in the last months of that year. If,
however, they not come to the realization of the gravity of what
they faced by the beginning of the year 90, it would soon be made
clear to them, as will be seen in the next chapter.
Regardless of their apparent inability to shore up weaknesses
in their thinking about their opponents, the Romans had taken the
winter of 91/90 to put themselves in order for the coming year of
fighting. The Allies, for their part, likewise took the occasion to
complete the implementation the plans they had already made. By
the end of the fighting in 91 the only people who had
demonstrably risen had been the Picentes,42 the Marsi, the Lucani,
and presumably the Samnites.43 When it would resume in the
spring of 90, the remaining members of the Alliance had declared
their colors and contributed their soldiery and material to the
effort. Membership in the Alliance was likely somewhat fluid, with
some who are recognized as having been major participants only
joining later, but it is not unreasonable to assume that by when the
campaign season of spring 90 had begun twelve main peoples had
joined: in addition to the Picentes at the very northernmost, there
were their neighbors the Vestini, the Marrucini, the Frentani, the
42 For the correct spelling of the ethnic see Salmon (1958, p. 160 n. 4).
The list presented above is in something of a contrast to Appian, who

states that the more central states of the Marsi, Peligni, Vestini, and
Marrucini rose first, to be followed by the others. However, it is difficult
to see how the Picentes could not be claimed to have risen, since Asculum
was the first action, and that the Lucani had not, based on the affair with
Galba (see above).
43 Domaszewski’s theory that the Samnites did not engage in 91, and
may not even have been ready until far into 90 (p. 19), is rather fanciful
based on the evidence he provides.
Paeligni, and the aforementioned Marsi. Alongside these were the

Samnites and Lucani (mentioned above), as well as the Hirpini, the
Venusini, the Apuli, and the Campani.44 Nevertheless, while these
were the main members of the Alliance, they were not the only
ones who would take up arms against the Romans: various sources
note that other peoples, like the Etruscans and Umbrians, also
joined in the fighting, although the lateness of their decision to do
so meant that the aid that was sent to them by the others did not
reach them in time, and their participation was rather brief (see
chapters 5 and 6).
It is also important to observe that many of the peoples who
did join were not undivided in their decision to secede, in a manner
of speaking, from the Romans. Amongst the Campanians, for
example, Nola either did not or could not take part in the
confederacy at the beginning. Velleius Paterculus records a
“legion” raised by his great-grandfather Minatius Magius from his
fellow Hirpini who fought for Rome, taking part in
the capture of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Compsa (2.6.4).45
Additionally, Picenum supplied a number of men to Pompeius
Strabo,46 bespeaking of a divided loyalty which is probably reflected
in the nastiness reported there by Cassius Dio (fragment 98).
Finally, Pinna also stubbornly remained in favor of Rome, or, more
appropriately, a segment of its population did: Diodorus records
that those holding out were threatened with the murder of their
children unless they were to surrender (37.19.3–37.21), and
Valerius Maximus suggests a young man was also threatened with
the murder of his father there (5.4.7). How it is that an outside
enemy managed to get their hands on these children and elderly is
unexplained and inexplicable, unless those doing the threatening
were fellow townspeople who had managed to capture them as
hostages.47 Division of feeling in some of their communities
44 See Salmon (1958, p. 159–169) and Keaveney (1987, p. 119).

45 Velleius is, however, silent as to whether or not Magius took part in
Sulla’s looting of Aeclanum—his hometown—after its surrender, as
described by Appian 1.6.51 (see chapter 6).
46 See Salmon (1967, p. 344 n. 5).
47 So theorized Francis Walton in a note attached to his translation of
this section in the Loeb volume; p. 227.

notwithstanding, these peoples—Hirpini, Vestini, Picentes, and

Campani—would play a more prominent role against Rome as
some of their people did for the Commonwealth in the war now
underway.
Having not been able to begin this war at the time of their
choosing, the Allies were probably aware, as the winter of 91
closed, in that a swift conclusion to the fighting would not now be
possible. This was likely disappointing but probably not too
demoralizing, since—for reasons stated above—they had likely
been prepared to face that eventuality anyway. If they could not
bring Rome to negotiations by means of the lightning strikes that
had apparently been contemplated, they would now have to grind it
out, doubtless in the hope that they could inflict so many casualties
that the Roman people would call for peace. This hope might not
have been too far-fetched, as it will be remembered that protracted
warfare fought primarily by Romans had been something to which
the Romans themlseves had by this point grown long
unaccustomed. Since it is doubtful that the Commonwealth further
taxed the patience of those socii who remained on their side by
asking them to contribute enough extra men to offset the missing
third of the “Roman” army which the Allies in arms against them
had usually provided, the legions that they fielded were likely
composed primarily of Romans, and in amounts which they had
not had to raise in a long time.
Even so, to fight this kind of a war, whose necessity the Allies
had hoped to avoid but for which they had almost certainly taken
precautions, organization would be needed. In the first place, a
base of operations would have to be found in which the men and
their supplies could be concentrated. Selected for this base was
Corfinium, a city well-chosen based on its proximity to the
northern areas of the Alliance as well as its command of the Via
Valeria, giving it a pathway to points east, and its ease of access to
the south by way of Sulmo. It is described as the “metropolis of the
Paeligni” by Strabo (τὴν τῶν Πελίγνων μ τρόπολιν, 5.4.2) and as
having recently been completed by Diodorus (ἄρτι συντετελεσμέν
37.2.4). What this last likely meant is not that it had been newly
built, but rather that it had apparently undergone a major
renovation,48 and since it had probably already been decided that

the city was to serve as the new center for the Alliance, it had been
given a new forum and assembly hall. In addition to the new space
and new building it was also given a new name, reported by Strabo
(loc. cit.) and Velleius Paterculus (2.16.4) as “Italica” but in
Diodorus as “Italia”, the latter being the term which epigraphical
and numismatic evidence suggests was the preferred appellation.49
This numismatic evidence is taken from coins adorned with the
new name of the city to symbolize the solidarity of the Alliance,
ones that were being minted to pay the soldiers who Strabo reports
were being gathered in the city alongside the weapons to arm them
and the victuals with which they were to be fed, a collection
Diodorus also relates. Diodorus further tells that with the soldiers
apparently there were also dispatched to Corfinium a body of
representatives from each of the people who had joined the
Alliance, and these in turn selected a council of war. This latter
body then decreed that two “consuls” (ὑπάτοι) were to be chosen
annually, as well as twelve “praetors” (στρατ γοί), whose creation
Strabo also mentions.
As mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, a great deal has
been made of the two passages just cited, both pertaining to the
extent of their accuracy and, ultimately, to their significance. The
developments they narrate, along with existence of coins and the
symbols on them, have been taken as fairly insuperable evidence
that the Allies were ultimately fighting for independence, either
because that independence had always been their desire, or because
they had been pushed to this extreme by the final straw that was
the rejection of the laws of Drusus. These developments are,
however, hardly irrefutable confirmation of such an objective,
either as the culmination of a long-standing wish or as a more
recent measure, and much of what is taken as conclusive in favor
of such an end readily admits to other interpretations. For this
reason, a closer look at these activities and precisely what they do
and do not reveal about Allied intentions seems warranted.
48 See “Corfinium”, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (William
Smith, ed.). Walton and Maberly: London, 1854.

49 See Domaszewski (p. 16) for further discussion of the name.
In the first place, focus is turned on the comment of Strabo in

which the Allies “proclaim[ed] Corfinium, the metropolis of the
Paeligni, as the common city for all the Italians instead of Rome”
(Κορφίνιον, τὴν τῶν Πελίγνων μ τρόπολιν, κοινὴν ἅπασι τοῖς
Ἰταλιώταις ἀποδείξαντες πόλιν ἀντὶ τῆς Ῥώμ ς). It has been
determined in some modern accounts that what is meant by this
remark is that the Italians intended that Rome was to be replaced
or possibly destroyed by the Allies,50 following which their new city
was to occupy Rome’s former position and prominence. Support
for this theory that ‘Italia’ was intended to supplant Rome is found
in the new forum and assembly-hall which Diodorus mentioned
had been built there, to be taken as a symbol of the (eventual)
might of the city. These facts can easily point in other directions,
however. In the first place, a city would be needed as a place where
supplies and men could be gathered and co-ordinated for the war
effort, something which military sense reasily suggests is to be
preferred to an an attempt to have the war directed from more
than one point. As has been seen, this was the very use to which
Corfinium had been put, such that Strabo even refers to Corfinium
as a war base (ὁρμ τ ριον τοῦ πολέμου; loc. cit.). Its relative
convenience to all the Allies meant that it could be used by all them
as a base of operations, and thus be a “common city” (κοιν πόλις)
to those Italians united in war. Its new name would reflect that
status as center of the effort. In addition, it may have attempted to
assume some commercial function for the insurgency, in place of a
Rome which was now very likely hard to reach with goods and may
have even been closed to southern commerce, and for this reason a
forum of the sort described by Diodorus would have been useful
indeed. As far as the assembly hall, there is certainly the possibility
that it was never actually built.51 Even if it had been, if the secessio
50 So Salmon (1967, p. 350), Brunt (1988, p. 111–112), and Keaveney
(1987, p. 125)
51 So Brunt (loc. cit.) and Keaveney (1987, p. 122), both suggesting that
the time between the passage of the lex Licinia Mucia and the outbreak at
Asculum would have been insufficient for the erection of these structures;
by extension, this would seems to speak against the confederacy coming
into being at the death of Drusus, since the time from that point would be
woefully inadequate for such construction.
had been planned for some time, as it seems that it was, a war-
council would certainly have been recognized as necessary. A place
for it to meet would need to be provided, and this the Paeligni of
Corfinium seemed to do, perhaps with a hall which had been
started simply to serve a local purpose but had been enlarged and
adorned when it became known what the role of the cty would be.
Finally, it is not improbable that the structure itself was not quite as
monumental as Diodorus has been read to suggest: after all, the
building of an assembly hall on a scale much more massive than
necessary for local use might have attracted the attention of the
Romans as it was being built, which would have been undesirable.
Thus, perhaps this assembly hall was new but not necessarily grand,
with its novelty suggesting more of a magnificence than may
actually have been there, as novelty so often does. In that case,
both it and the city in which it was built may well not have been
designed to rival that of the Romans in opulence and majesty, but
to serve specific functions in a military setting.
The selection, enlargement, and function of Corfinium, then,
can be seen to have been directed by nothing more than military
exigencies. So, too, may have been the establishment of that group
of men which Didodorus describes as a “Senate” (σύγκλ τον
κοιν ν). Clouding the issue as to the purpose of this assembly is a
comment made by Diodorus which asserts that the Italians had for
the most part imitated the Romans in the steps that they took to
arrange their affairs (οὕτω πάντα δεξιῶς καὶ κατὰ μίμ σιν, τὸ
σύνολον φάναι, τῆς Ῥωμαϊκῆς καὶ ἐκ παλαιοῦ τάξεως τὴν ἑαυτῶν
ἀρχὴν δια έμενοι; 37.2.6). Many scholars have accordingly taken
Diodorus at his word and assumed that the Allies created a new
state with a Roman-style government. Yet this parallel claimed by
Diodorus is at best an enormously strained one, since many of
these enactments which are held to mirror similar features of the
Roman state are hardly exact counterparts. More examples will
follow directly, but for the moment it will suffice to show that
hyperbole has certainly played a role in the “Senate” described by
Didodorus. In the first place, its numbers were different, with that
at Corfinium numbering 500 as reported by Diodorus, as opposed
to the 300 that had apparently been the number on which the
Senate had settled in 91 (Per. 60). Different, too, as was its
composition, as its members could not have been drawn in Roman
fashion from the putative new state’s ex-magistrates, since, indeed,

there were none.52
Of what may be greater importance than this inexact parallel
of its numbers and selection of its members is the fact that there is
nothing in Diodorus or Strabo—not indeed in any other source—
of of what the powers and functions of this “Senate” might have
been.53 There is certainly no record of it ever debating laws, nor of
it offering advice to leaders. Lack of such activity has been
explained away by some scholars with the suggestion that the
Italian “state” was one in which local autonomy was jealously
guarded. Of course, no evidence for this assertion has been or
indeed can be presented,54 but even if it were true, it would only
underscore the assertion that this “Senate” was nothing like that of
Rome. In fact, there is no evidence of this “Senate” ever doing
anything, except for “promoting men capable of making decisions
and providing for public safety” (ἐξ ὦν οἵ τε τῆς πατρίδος ἄρχειν
ἄξιοι προαχ σεσ αι ἔμελλον καὶ οἱ προ ουλεύεσ αι δυνάμενοι περὶ
τῆς κοινῆς σωτ ρίας; Diodorus, loc. cit.) In other words, the only
recorded action of this “Senate” was to name a war council,55 the
latter a group of presumably of much smaller size (though
Diodorus is silent on this matter), which would see to the
prosecution of the hostilities. It is not unlikely that this was the
only function it had ever been intended to perform, and if that was
the case, then the “Senate” of the Allies as such it was hardly
52 So Brunt (ibid.).
53 Contra Keaveney 1987, p. 122–123, where the (alleged) broad
powers of the “Senate” are also described.
54 See Sherwin-White, p. 147.
55 Sherwin-White (ibid.) forcefully argues against this. In his view, the
Senate was given sole responsibility for wartime measures. The “men
selected from their body” were, in fact, the “consuls” and “praetors”, to
whom the conduct of the war was entrusted while the Senators retained
full powers. However, this interpretation of Diodorus does not explain
the very next sentence in that author’s text, which proceeds to discuss the
very naming of consuls and praetors which—according to Sherwin-
White—had already been described; the separate mention implies that the
“men selected” was a war-council, and this council in turn named the
generals and officers.
anything like Rome’s Senate. Instead, it appears simply to have

been a delegation designed to establish a Directory to be chosen
from its own membership. To this Directory consisting of
“Senators” the conduct of the fighting would be entrusted.
Furthermore, just as there is no evidence of a real “Senate”
for the Italians, nor is there any evidence of an additional “voting
assembly” which elected magistrates, although the passage of
Strabo mentioned above (5.4.2) has sometimes been invoked to
suggest such a thing.56 The reason for this is that that it mentions
Corfinium as a common city to the Allies where they could choose
their leaders (Κορφίνιον ... ὁρμ τ ριον τοῦ πολέμου, ... καὶ ἐνταῦ α
δὴ τοὺς συνεπομένους ἀ ροίσαντες καὶ χειροτον σαντες ὑπάτους καὶ
στρατ γούς). Strabo’s use of the verb χειροτονέω makes it
reasonably clear that these leaders were elected, although that
author does not specify who precisely was doing the electing,
merely mentioning that it was done by the “assembled
confederates” (συνεπομένους ἀ ροίσαντες). This description is
ambiguous enough to allow for the conjecture that these were all
the Allies in some form of voting assembly, perhaps meeting in the
new forum with which Corfinium was equipped. Indeed, this
would seem to be demanded by the statement of Diodorus
describing how the Allies adopted similar mechanisms of
government to the Romans. Yet Strabo’s statement also allows for
the interpretation that these men were “elected”, not by all the
Allies as a whole, but by a select few,57 which is the very thing
Diodorus suggests was done (ἐξ ὦν [συγκλ του κοινοῦ πεντακοσίων
ἁνδρῶν] οἵ τε τῆς πατρίδος ἄρχειν ἄξιοι προαχ σεσ αι ἔμελλον καὶ οἱ
προ ουλεύεσ αι δυνάμενοι περὶ τῆς κοινῆς σωτ ρίας ... οὗτοι δ᾽
ἐνομο έτ σαν δύο μὲν ὑπάτους κατ᾽ ἐνιαυτὸν αἱρεῖσ αι, δώδεκα δὲ
στρατ γούς; loc. cit.). Strabo’s comment is therefore by no means
irresistable proof that all the Allies gathered in Corfinium for the
purpose of choosing their leaders by election. Other than the large
forum mentioned by Diodorus which is held to have been its
meeting place, one whose other potential uses have been described
56 For assemblies see Salmon 1967, p. 350–351; contra, Sherwin-White,
p. 147, and Keaveney 1987, p. 122–123.

57 This is, in fact, the interpretation favored by Jones in his Loeb
translation of Strabo.
above, there is as little evidence for a popular assembly in the

manner of Roman assemblies as there is for a Senate in the manner
of the Roman Senate. This, again, leads to the distinct impression
that Diodorus attempted to draw an analogy between Allied
measures and Roman forms of government based on parallels
which did not really exist.
For all these reasons, it does not seem unreasonable to
dispense with the “voting assemblies”. Instead, it seems that Allied
leaders were elected either by the “Senate” or by the war-council
which that “Senate” selected. Since it seems the sole purpose of
that “Senate” had been to name the Directory (which is certainly
the only thing it is ever recorded as actually doing), it appears a
stretch to suggest that there was an Allied “Senate” at all. It is even
more of a stretch to extend further to the idea that the Allies had
signalled their intention for permanent independence from Rome
by such a Senate. In fact, that smaller Directory itself is somewhat
idle in the sources, as there is little evidence of it doing much of
anything, either. It is tempting to suggest that the only purpose of
this war-council was to name leaders, yet this may go too far. For
one thing, there is some scant literary evidence that such a council
remained in being after the leaders were chosen, which seems like a
waste of time once it had made its selections. Such evidence can be
drawn from a a notice in Appian that the Allies decided to follow
the Roman decision to bury the dead on the spot to prevent
discouragement at the numbers of the casualties and enacted a like
measure for themselves (Appian 1.5.43). Furthermore, there is the
statement of Diodorus that the consuls (and possibly the praetors)
were chosen annually. If the war council had chosen these men, as
had been argued, than they would have had to exist in the
following year to select them again.58 Beyond these references,
however, the only real evidence for the continued activities of the
war-council comes from the coins that were minted, over which
58 Annual re-election of consuls and especially of praetors, and the
role this may have played in the wide variety of men named in the various
sources as being leaders of the Allies, is discussed by Salmon (1958,
p. 164, 169–179). See also Appendix H.
they may have had supervision, but even those may have been
under the direct purview of the “consuls”.59
There is, then, very little in what has been described by Strabo
and Diodorus that, on closer inspection, actually suggests a
government of a free state designed to supplant Rome, nor much
testimony of any kind of government at all. What appears to be
being described by them instead, in spite of the best efforts of
Diodorus to make it into a government, is a Directory overseeing a
war in tandem with the generals it selected. Nor can there be any
doubt that this is exactly (and solely) what the ὑπάτοι and στρατ γοί
described by Diodorus and Strabo actually were. The fact that
these terms were the ones that were used by the Greeks who
describe the war and its leaders need not suggest that these men
had anything like the lawmaking or juridical powers of the Romans
given these titles, nor does such use, in their Latin equivalents, by
those Allies themselves amongst the Latin-speaking section of their
population.60 The number of the στρατ γοί alone shows the
inexactness of the correspondence, as during this period the
Romans only elected six praetors, while the Allies chose twelve.61
Rather, the evidence more persuasively points to the fact that the
men so named were actually generals of the line (στρατ γοί) under
the direction of “marshals” or theater-commanders (ὑπάτοι).
Because this would have been the function of the Romans referred
to as consuls and praetors on the battlefield, their titles—in the
absence of any better official terms to describe what they were
doing—were chosen to designate the Italian officers with similar
duties. It would, of course, have been immediately necessary for
the socii to name generals for the war that was then underway. Their
59 Domaszewski, p. 16. However, this assertion is based on his
statement that only the two “consuls” had the right to have their names
appear on coins, which ignores a coin found in the British Museum which
bears the legend of Ni Lukvi Mr (see image X). This “Lukvi” is not named
by any of the sources as one of the “consuls”, so unless he became one at
some unrecorded point, Domaszewski would seem to be in error. For
more on this coin, see Gruebner, p. 333–334 and notes.
60 See Salmon (1958, p. 164); see also previous chapter on the spread
of the use of Latin, including nomenclature.

61 So Salmon (1967, p. 350).
elevation most definitely served a military purpose, and their

selection is a very thin indicator of any Allied desire for
independence under magistrates of the Roman type, which it
appears that these “consuls” and “praetors” were not.
Finally, the coins which the Allies minted are sometimes seen
as clear signs that the Italians were aiming for their own nation. In
the first place, the coins themselves were taken as symbolic of
defiance by the socii, taking upon themselves “the right which
Rome had hitherto guarded jealously (viz.: the right to mint
silver)”.62 It is therefore argued that the very existence of the coins
had a propagandistic purpose, designed to show an independent
Italia assuming her natural rights. Amplifying this message are the
designs of the coins themselves: bearing the name of Italia, both in
Latin and in Oscan, some show a few of the ancient gods of the
Italians, such the Dioscuri, Heracles, and Bacchus, who are
presumably blessing the Allied enterprise.63 Others show a
personification of the cause crowned by Victory, occasionally
sitting on shields, and others still show her riding in a triumphal
car.64 Several show soldiers, either making oaths over a sacrificial
pig raising their weapons,65 clasping their hands in friendship near
the prow of a ship,66 or astride a fallen Roman standard (sometimes
62 Salmon (1958, p. 164). However, a later assessment of that same

author states that earlier Rome “began to strike coins … [and t]hese issues
were clearly intended for circulation throughout Italy. One consequence
was that a number of Italian states now ceased minting, probably not because
of any positive order from Rome to do so [emphasis added], but out of a prudent
desire to avoid the appearance, and the expense, of competing with her”
(Salmon 1982, p. 70). By this later reckoning, the Allies had abstained
from minting voluntarily, content to let the Romans go to the trouble of
striking the coins they would use until such times as they were forced by
necessity to begin coining again.
63 Sydenham, n. 617, 625, 628, 631, 636. For an example, see also
image 1, depicting the Dioscuri.

64 Sydenham, n. 618, 622, 623, 624, 633. See also images 2 and 3
65 The numbers of these soldiers—2,4,6, 8—have been used to
suggest the numbers of peoples in in the Alliance at various points in the

war; see Salmon 1958, 162–164. See also images 4, 5, and 6.
66 Sydenham n. 632. See image 7
amidst scattered weapons), with the bull who was apparently the
symbol of Italy nearby.67 The bull itself also appears in the most
dramatic of the coins issued by the Allies: it is depicted there goring
a wolf, the ancient symbol of the Romans.68 The images on these
coins, it is believed, clearly show how the Italians were advertising
that they would overcome Rome and perhaps even destroy her;
hence, the coins are (according to this theory) a tactile declaration
of Italian intent.
However, in the first place it must be noted that while the
coins almost certainly do convey a propagandistic intent, first and
foremost they were struck out of necessity: men needed to be paid
and supplies requisitioned, for which tasks dependence on Roman
money might be dangerous. Hence, while one of the purposes of
coins may indeed have been to shake a fist at the repression of the
Romans, their main purpose would have been to be used as money
with which to conduct a war, as most modern scholars readily
concede. If the Allies were compelled to strike coins, it seems
logical that these coins would be emblazoned with images
conveying optimism. Hence, the gods themselves would appear
speeding the Italian cause, and ultimately the cause would be
depicted as successful and Allied arms triumphant. In all of these
images the implication is that the Romans would have to be
defeated, but from the moment that force was decided upon that
necessity became patent, and the Romans confirmed this decision
by their rejection of the Italian envoys mentioned in Appian (as
described above). “Success”, therefore, is the message found on
these coins, a message not at all inconsistent with a war fought to
force the Romans to give in to the demands of the socii for the
citizenship; in fact, it would exactly align with such aims.
Hence the soldier trampling the Roman standards amidst
scattered arms:69 this depiction would be exactly the sort which
67 For use of the symbol see Salmon (1967, p. 339 n. 9), as well as
image 8.
68 Sydenham 628, 641. Also Keaveney (1987, p. 123), who also
mentions the utterance of Telesinus before the Colline Gate in Velleius

2.27.2; but see (Brunt 1988, p. 110). More on this episode will be
discussed in chapter 9. See also image 9.
69 See image 8.
would convey the accomplishment of an Italian goal of beating the

Roman army until the Senate and the people were willing to
negotiate. This coin, therefore, does unassailably prove that the
Allies were fighting for independence. Neither is it proved by those
coins showing the Allies vowing an oath. The design on these is
need not be indicative of anything other than Allied mutual
cooperation in combat, illustrative of the same spirit as that which
motivated the renaming of Corfinium. This cooperation would be
both by land and by sea (hence the men greeting each other by a
ship).70 Even the coin with the bull and the wolf71 does not compel
an interpretation that the Romans were to be overthrown, but
merely defeated and ultimately brought to heel. The coins are
indeed purveyors of propagandistic messages, but only of that
demonstrating the certainty of victory. They provide little
indication on how victory would be defined in terms of long-range
objectives, but only convey that it would have to come by means of
the military.
Coins, captains, council of war, and Corfinium: all of these
were reported by Diodorus and Strabo as having been prepared by
the Allies, and all of them have been shown to have filled some
definite requirements for the conduct of a war. There is nothing in
these measures which make it certain that had any additional
purpose beyond the obvious military ones. There may very well
have been propaganda intended by some or all of these measures,
but that need not have been a cry of determination for
independence. Rather, the message may have been sent to the
Romans that by such actions the Italians would prove a formidable
foe, capable of organizing armies and pursuing their desires with
great resolve. Such men would be terrible enemies but valuable
fellow citizens; as one of them would himself say later on, he was
by compulsion one, but by inclination the other.72
The Allies, it seems, wanted to become Roman but on equal
standing with other Romans, and if the latter doubted if the Allies
70 See images 4, 5, 6, and 7.

71 See image 9.
72 Cicero, Phil. 12.27 (for more on this passage and its context, see
chapter 6).
were worthy of such a right, the socii would prove that worth
through arms. Measures were therefore taken by the Allies to
ensure that those arms would be as successful as possible. These
measures might in the process also demonstrate Italian ability to
survive without the Romans, if indeed it came to that, and thereby
conceivably assure some members of the Alliance themselves who
might very well have doubted it that such was possible. If, in other
words, the Romans resorted to letting them go, then the
instruments by which soldiers were summoned, fed, equipped and
paid, as well as those by which plans for their use were drawn up
and commanders to lead them were named, could then be
employed to design new arrangements after the war if an
unexpected and (largely) undesired independence was to be thrust
upon them. The Allies therefore set out to win the citizenship or
accept independence, and made themselves ready for any amount
of fighting that would lead to either result.
As the winter of 91 gave way to the spring of 90, the Allies
found themselves confronted with a war that was now to be fought
using a strategy which was not the one it seems they had initially
wished to employ. Instead of overwhelming the Romans through
rapid strikes before the latter had had a chance to bring the weight
of their resources to bear, the Italians would instead have to set
themselves squarely against an adversary with all the strength
remaining to it fully online and available. Nevertheless, it seems
that the Allies had always envisioned that this outcome would have
been a possibility, so they steadied themselves for it; they
assembled men, struck the silver to pay them, determined their
leaders, and established a a supervisory council for the coming
struggle. During the early collection of these, the Allies may in their
opimish have hoped that they would not be needed, but for the
sake of prudence they were gathered regardless. These may not
have been in perfect readiness when Asculum erupted, but when
the war that the Romans had essentially declared inevitable through
their rejection of the final embassy finally came, the Allies had all
the appropriate apparatus to meet it.
The episodes of that war will be the subject of the chapter to
follow, but before it will be explored a final subject needs
examination. That subject is this: why had the Romans sent away
the deputation and chosen to settle affairs, not with
plenipotentiaries, but with pila? After all, it is known now that the
war that the Romans had chosen was well-nigh ruinous. Their
arrogant dismissal of the embassy and their somewhat lackadaisical
approach to raising men suggests one answer, which is that they
were deceived (or deceived themselves) about the destructive
power that the Allies had at their disposal. Yet was it more than
this? Could it be that they were fully cognizant of what lay ahead of
them but believed it to be a better alternative that acquiescing to
Allied demands? Some attempts to find answers to some of these
questions will be essayed below.
5. THE ROMAN REJECTION

AND THEIR DECISION FOR WAR73
According to an account found only in Appian, the Italians gave
the Romans a final chance to prevent the clash of arms in 91 when,
shortly after Asculum, they sent a delegation to the Romans. This
delegation was promptly dismissed, as has been mentioned briefly
above. With the perfect hindsight that the knowledge of
subsequent events bestows, it would seem that the Romans made a
grievous error in electing to follow this course of action: here was a
chance to avoid a war that would prove to be devastating, and the
Romans arrogantly rejected it. Interestingly, this episode does not
receive a great deal of analysis in modern accounts in general, and
very little indeed is offered by these modern works towards the end
of specifically explaining why Rome acted as it did. This may, in
fact, have to do with the fact that so little is known about what the
ambassadors presented to the Romans, a lack of knowledge which
makes it impossible to rule out the possibility that the embassy
included stipulations so outrageous that the Romans could not help
but refuse them.74 Yet part of the reason for why this is the case—
73 Much of the analysis presented in the following section of this

chapter builds on the findings presented in a different and shorter form in
Kendall, p. 105–123.
74 So Mouritsen (1998, p. 138–139), who asserts that the Allied
ambassadors demanded from the Romans that for one of the consuls and
half of the Senators to be drawn from their number. Hence, Mouritsen
implies somewhat later (p. 141), it is unsurprising that the Romans
id est, part of the reason why Appian neglects to provide the

specifics as to what the negotiators were to demand of Rome—is
that it seems the embassy was never actually heard. Appian’s
account seems to imply that the Romans allowed the envoys to
make some initial comments but dismissed them before they could
make their full petition. Therefore, whether the Allies had intended
for their negotiators to make the fairly modest request for the
citizenship as a way halt the hostilities, or had instead sent them to
ask for extravagant concessions, seems to be a moot point:
according to what the only ancient source to mentions this episode
appears to indicate, the embassy was not even allowed to deliver its
message, and this in turn means that the Romans based their
dismissal of the embassy not on what it offered but rather for
reasons of their own.75 In the end, the limits of what is known
about this embassy prevent any certainty as to the extent to which
it influenced Rome’s decision for war, and it may be wondered if
speculation on that end is a worthwhile aim.
But if it was not the terms offered by the Italian delegation
which led the Romans to resort to war, then the question remains
as to why they in fact made that choice. To put it another way:
the Romans seem to have made the choice to fight the socii in the
absence of knowing what the Allied envoys might have said, which
means that that such a course of action would be preferable to the
Romans than even to hearing, much less to acquiescing to, Allied
demands. Save for Appian, whose account is (again) the only one
to mention a delegation, the impression gained from all the other
sources is that Rome commenced to battle immediately after the
attack on their citizens at Asculum. Thus, all these sources give no
hint as to why the Romans opted to take up arms, but rather frame
rejected these stipulations. The basis for Mouritsen’s claim, however, is

exceedingly shaky, for which see Appendix A.
75 So Keaveney (1987, p. 126 and 130 note 58), who does not bother
to speculate on why the negotiators were not heard, having enumerated

earlier (p. 99–113) the reasons why he believes the Romans were set
against granting the civitas on any occasion, much less one which followed
hard upon the murder of one of its magistrates and many of its citizens.
His theories will be explored more fully in the pages to follow.
their narrative in such a way as to imply that the only reason

needed was the slaughter of their people.
None of these other texts show the Romans pondering the
issue as to whether or not to go to war, nor any occasion—such as
a delegation to the city from an Allied embassy—in which such
consideration might take place. Because of their silence, it is at least
possible to infer that no such occasion actually existed, and that the
notice in Appian may be in error.76 On the other hand, that silence
does not make it impossible that things did not transpire just as
Appian said they did, and for that reason, it does not seem
extravagant to retain his account. If Appian’s evidence is to be
kept, then the Romans really did face an alternative to combat
which they rejected, and no source can provide explicit reasons
why they did so. Even Appian is silent on the matter, providing
only a circumstance in which the Romans might have voiced their
reasons for going to war but, in the end, not actually supplying
those reasons.
Still, when the sources have neglected to furnish the opinions
of the socii during this period, it has seemed worthwhile to employ
conjecture to try and figure out what these might have been. It
seems that attempting to do something similar to attempt to
discern the reasons which might have driven the Romans to act as
they had might likewise be a profitable endeavor. If, therefore, it is
to be accepted that the Romans had a chance to select some
response to Asculum other than full-scale war as per Appian, then
conjecture to seek out what that author does not supply, which is
the logic behind why they believed that war was to be preferred to
avoiding it through concessions, appears suitable. Such will be
attempted in the pages to follow.
First and foremost, it may have been that the Romans chose
bellum in ignorance as to the extent of the Allied willingness and
capacity to wage such a war. Such has been hinted at above, and it
is not hard to see from where that lack of understanding may have
come. After all, the language in Appian states that the Romans
were only beginning to catch wind of what the Allies had been
doing in secret when Servilius barged into Asculum (1.5.38). If this
76 See, again, Appendix A.

is so, it may well have fallen out that the Romans had an
incomplete understanding of the size of the coniuratio against them
and of the material which the coniurati at their disposal. If the
Romans had cause to believe that Asculum was merely a repetition
of Fregellae, then they would have had no cause for undue alarm;
they could simply go and extinguish it with the same relative lack of
difficulty with which that earlier unpleasantness had been met.
Indeed, this would very likely have seemed to be a path than
undertaking intricate negotiations with the Allies, especially in light
of the message these discussions might send to others of Rome’s
subjects. If the application of a little violence could remove their
difficulties with the Italians efficiently and swiftly, as the Romans
may have had reason to believe to be the case if they did in fact
lack a full comprehension of the magnitude of what was to be
arrayed against them, then it seems well within their character to
resort to this violence.77 Therefore, it is not completely unthinkable
that lack of perfect intelligence may have helped cause the Romans
to reject the delegation, treating it with a certain amount of
indifference that might have come from the absence of clarity as to
the gravity of the situation.
However, the fact that the Romans had sent investigators at
all (see above) must have allowed for at least some recognition of
the chance that the conspiracy was larger in scope than that of
Fregellae had been. If such were the case, then by extension
quashing it would be a less easy matter than Fregellae had been. It
is therefore difficult to believe that it had not occurred to at least
some members of the Senate that a major revolt might be in store
for them if things continued on their present course. As would
have been recognized by those who has discerned this possibility,
such a major revolt carried with it implications as to what would be
required to suppress it. For one thing, it would require fighting, and
fighting would in turn call for a great deal of men. Just how many
men for which the fighting might call may not have been known,
although even the most conservative estimate would have
77 The words of Polybius are perhaps instructive here: “Generally, the
Romans tend to rely on force in all their enterprises” (κα όλου δὲ Ῥωμαῖοι
πρὸς πάντα χρώμενοι τῇ ίᾳ; 1.37.7)
suggested a few legions’ worth at minimum. Yet summoning even a

few legions would pose difficulties in light of the fact that, in
essence, Rome’s own soldiers, or soldiers they had come to treat as
theirs, would be rising against them. There would perforce be
fewer men available for the army, and depending on the extent of
the uprising (which may not yet have been revealed), perhaps fewer
by a considerable amount. Worse still, the army which would be
raised in the absence of the contributions of the refractory Allies
would by necessity have to include a greater percentage of Roman
citizens than the Commonwealth’s armies had for some time
typically enlisted. Very likely bringing these forth would involve
conscription, at least to some extent.78 This would in turn have
involved all the problems which conscription brought (as described
in chapter 2).
This larger proportion of Roman soldiers might not only pose
problems to the mustering officer. It might also make things far
more complicated for the generals who would be commanding
them. In the absence of the Italian contributions, such captains
would lack the large numbers of disposable bodies with which
victories had customarily been be purchased by brute force without
consideration for casualties, and this would compel commanders to
plan their battles knowing that all the deaths and wounds that
would happen in them would now be borne by Roman soldiers,
with all the potential political consequences that that outcome
would entail. Nor would the much greater number of Roman
casualties have been the only source of worry for the men tasked to
put down the Allies. They would also have to take into account the
fact that this war would be taking place on Italian soil, near or even
on Roman property. The millions of sesterces to be lost through
burned fields, butchered livestock, liberated (or murdered) slaves,
and wrecked villas would almost certainly be on the minds of the
men sent to direct the campaign, as well as on those of the
Senators who dispatched them to do so. Finally, there was the
additional fact that using de iure Romans soldiers to fight de facto
Roman soldiers would have a profound effect on the Roman army
78 And, in fact, it did; see Valerius Maximus, 4.3.3c, about which more
later
that would emerge after the war’s conclusion, in that every man
lost by death or incapaciting wound was one which would be taken
from the Commonwealth’s forces. Even a victory for Rome would
mean that upon the war’s conclusion, only armies much weaker
than what they had been before the hostilities had erupted would
be on hand to cope with whatever unknown perils might develop
in years to come.
None of these problems were unforeseeable, even in the
absence of certainty about how many of the Allies intended to
revolt and how ready they were to do so. As speculated above, if
the Senate was not aware of the scope of what challenged them,
many of its members may have believed that it was something akin
to another Fregellae. In that case, war would be a simpler if less
elegant solution to their problems with the Allies than reaching
some sort of accomdation with them, and it is easy to see why they
would have elected to employ such a solution. However, this belief
would itself be predicated on the assumption that the Allies had
not learned the lesson from that affair which Opimius had taken
such pains to teach them, which is that no single city could
withstand the might of Rome. If that assumption was an error, and
the Allies had in fact internalized this lesson, then by following the
implications of both Asculum and the dispatch of an embassy to its
logical conclusion it would seem to be obvious to any man of
strategic imagination or vision that the Asculani were not acting
alone. The Roman Senate was—and was designed to be—filled
with experience politicians and, what is more, with experienced
soldiers, the exact sort of men who should have been able to make
such a mental leap. The very personnel of the embassy might have
aided in such a bound; Appian, again, is extremely parsimonious in
terms of the specifics which he relates about the embassy that was
sent, and it thus cannot be known who the ambassadors were and
who specifically they represented. If, however, they included
delegates from all the members of the Alliance, then the Romans
might very well have known exactly what they were facing, which
was a confederacy of several peoples. In spite of this, they still
chose to wave off discussing terms. Even if the embassy was not so
constituted, the potential for what could be coming was almost
certainly not completely absent from the appreciation of everyone
the Senate. Surely somebody could have been able to make a fair
prediction about all that war with the disgruntled socii would mean.
Neverthless, the Romans collectively persisted in their choice to set

themselves on a course which promised them harm, and perhaps
harm of enormous proportions.
The Romans are now presented as having arrived at a
situation in which they had to make the choice either of acceding
to Allied demands, or otherwise. They may have believed that the
exertion of a war would be light, it is true, but there is also the
distinct possibility that they recognized that a great struggle was
coming, and still chose to undertake it. The war that they chose
might have been recognized at the time as one whose potential for
injury may have been so great that it sustaining it would be contrary
to Rome’s best interests. Yet when faced with an alternative—one
which would itself not be without difficulties, but which might well
have resulted in less damage to the Republic than the war which it
would prevent could be anticipating as bringing—the Romans
collectively chose not to exercise it, and selected the path which led
to bloodshed. These conditions—the decision to act contrary to
self-interest, a decision made collectively by people who could see
the dangers involved at the time when the decision was made, and
in the presence of a viable alternative such that the decision was
not one of compulsion—are exactly those which constitute the
definition of what the popular historical writer Barbara Tuchman
identifies as “folly”.79 At first glance, it would appear that by
sending away the embassy and choosing war, the Romans had
fallen victim to it.
Then again, foolishness if not a trait typically applied to the
Romans, so such an assessment may go too far. It may be more
generous to claim that they had made a mistake, but even that may
not be a foregone conclusion. It could have been that the patres
weighed all the potential outcomes on their state that peace on
Allied terms would bring on one hand, versus war and all it might
do on the other. They then came to the determination that the
second of the two, with all that would accompany it, was still seen
as preferable. All that would happen over the next several years
would make it appear that they were clearly in error, but this fails to
consider the prospect that what peace seemed to represent may
79 The March of Folly (Ballantine Books: New York, 1985), p. 5.

have been even more hateful to the Romans than even a strenuous
war which, if won, would prevent that peace. Given that they made
their choice based on this prospect, it must be wondered what the
Romans thought peace on Allied terms would mean.
As has been seen, the only thing Appian states the embassy
was able to verbalize before being silenced, and therefore the only
thing resembling a demand of the Allies that the Romans would
have been able to consider, was the citizenship; before being
summarily dismissed, the embassy expressed their frustration at
having built the empire with the Romans but being considered
unworthy of being citizens within it (πέμψασι δ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἐς Ῥώμ ν
πρέσ εις αἰτιωμένους, ὅτι πάντα Ῥωμαίοις ἐς τὴν ἀρχὴν
συνεργασάμενοι οὐκ ἀξιοῦνται τῆς τῶν ε ο μένων πολιτείας;
1.5.38). It stands to reason that the Senate’s decision was made on
this appeal alone: the Romans considered the prospect of
enfranchising the socii on the one hand and war on the other, and
found that war was the better option. Their decision, it seems,
boiled down to these options, but the question remains as to why
they had made the choice that they had: why was the thought of
extending the civitas so unpleasant to the Romans that they believed
a possibly, and as it turned out actually, catastrophic war to be a
more attractive option?
This is a component of the struggle for the citizenship that
has not yet fully been examined in previous chapters. While it has
been seen thus far that the Romans consistently voted down or by
some means stifled the laws that were proposed to grant Allied
citizenship, it has not been undertaken to investigate all the reasons
behind why they had so done. As the battles which were now to
take place as a result of this final refusal were approaching, a survey
into the reasons for that refusal, and by extension for the others
which have been narrated, seems appropriate.
In the first place, it should be noted that the previous
franchise opportunities which have been discussed so far had never
arisen on their own, but had almost all come associated with
ancillary developments that were found intolerable either by
Rome’s governing class, its people, or both. Specifically, they had
apparently always come connected with agrarian reform dealing
with the use of the ager publicus. These reforms were attractive to
the populace, it seemed, but not to Roman large landowners from
whose numbers the majority of the Roman Senate and its
magistrates were drawn. By inclination and indeed by law, the
Roman magisterial order drew the greatest share of its wealth from
land, land which they either owned or used without owning it
(illegally or othewise). As this class would have been the one which
the reclamation of the ager publicus would strike hardest, it could be
expected that they would oppose that reclamation almost as a
matter of course. Any legislative act which would be seen to
facilitate agrarian laws would immediately garner the same
opposition, and since that had indeed been the main motivations
behind the franchise laws which Flaccus, Gracchus, and Drusus
had promulgated, they would be doomed from the outset.
It bears repeating that the proposals for enfranchising the
Italians did not arise in isolation. Rather, they arose because the
Romans who proposed them needed the land that Allies held to
win over the favor of the (Roman) people, and the citizenship was
to be used to purchase—in a manner of speaking—that land. Up to
the year 91, therefore, it seems that the only way Italian
enfranchisement had ever been considered would be in trade, and
that Romans never seemed to contemplate granting the civitas in
any other way. Since the question of giving the franchise for some
other reason was therefore never really asked, it cannot be known
for certain what the answer would be, although a great deal of
evidence can be amassed to show that the Romans would have
opposed—and strongly opposed—giving the citizenship simply as
a bequest, even if unconnected to the ager publicus.
In the first place, the repercussions of mass enfranchisements
would have been considerable. As has been seen, the typical point
of intersection between the Allies and the Romans had been
military: the Romans made use of the Italians to field huge armies
with which they would defeat their enemies by weight of numbers
if by no other means. These numbers would still in theory be
accessible to the Romans upon Allied enfranchisement, but they
way in which they were to be employed would have to undergo a
sizeable transformation. For one thing, as citizens the Italians
would now have rights: at the dilectus their objections to service
would now have the same force and could perhaps lead to the
same outcome as the objections which the older Romans had, and
they therefore simply could not be compelled to serve as they
could be while they remained non-citizen Allies bound by
obligations of their foedera. In addition, upon enlistment the one-
time Allies would then have to be treated the same way as Roman
soldiers in camp, with the laws which protected citizens from

flogging and death now covering them, as well. Furthermore, in the
field generals could not simply use them as “expendables” whose
liberal employment could win the day, but would rather have to be
as sparing of them as they had been of Romans in the past, and for
the same reasons. Since the Senate had consisted of men who had
likely done military service and even had commanded armies, they
would have been well aware of the impact which this new
utilization of former Allied soldiers—made necessary due to the
rights they would have as citizens—would have on the army, and
even if this would have been the only consequence to attend
granting the civitas, it might well have been enough to defeat a
motion seeking to do so.
This was not, however, the only effect that the Senate would
have to ponder. There were, in addition to strictly military
considerations, also economic ones. To some degree these were
related, in that one of the other primary advantages of the foedera
which the Romans had made with the socii was that the latter would
not only furnish soldiers, but would pay for them, as well. Upon
grant of the citizenship, the responsibility for paying for any
soldiers from the former Allied communities would now be in the
same hands as those which paid the costs for soldiers drawn from
the citizen body (of which these former Allies would now be part):
id est, such a burden would have to be shouldered by Rome. Hence,
to field the same number of men in the legions as before
enfranchisement, the Romans would now have to pay as much as
triple the price for them, with obvious implications for the
treasury.80 Not only might bestowal of the citizenship drain the
aerarium dry through military expenses without gaining any
additional benefit, but it would lead to something else. When
emptied, the aerarium would of course have to be replenished. As
things stood in 91, revenues from the East had been sufficient
enough to meet Roman expenditures and had been thus since 167,
which meant that throughout the last half of the second century
and the beginning decade of the first, the Romans did not have to
80 Based on the assessment that the Allies contributed two-thirds of
the “Roman” army; see chapter 2.

pay the tributum to furnish the state with capital. However, as the
arguments posed by the Senate against the Gracchan lex
frumentaria81 show, the proposal of even the slightest additional
outlay of funds brought with it the terror that such an outlay would
empty the state’s coffers. Even if allowance is made for rhetorical
hyperbole in that instance, there nevertheless can be little doubt
that the added money needed for enfranchised soldiers would put a
severe strain on Roman assets. Enfranchisement, therefore, would
very probably mean taxes on all citzens. For a generation of
Romans who had never paid these, the unpopularity of their
sudden appearance requires no explanation.
These influences on the fisc resulting from the conversion of
former Allied soldiers into citizens notwithstanding,82 there were
likely other pecuniary reasons for opposing the franchise which
would have been appreciated, not just by the magistrates, but by
other elements of Roman society. For example, enfranchisement
would mean that quondam Allied businessmen would now be
eligible to vie for contracts. Furthermore, while large numbers of
Italians probably already made use of Roman water supplies,
enjoyed Roman games, and feasted at Roman banquets as resident
aliens, now they would be legally entitled to do so without any
future possibility of expulsion (something which, it will be recalled,
the consul Fannius had reminded the Roman populace in 122; see
chapter 3). They would, in so doing, diminish the availability of
such services for current citizens, with whom new citizens would
also come to compete for bribes at election-time and other sundry
plums of being cives. In addition, therefore, to the impressions that
enfranchisement would create on Roman arms, there were also
those it would create on Roman finances, and they all spoke against
cheerful acceptance of extending the civitas.
81 See, for example, Cicero’s recollection that Gracchus had depleted

the treasury through his corn laws in both the De Officiis (2.21.72) and
Tusculan Disputations (3.20.48).
82 And there might well have been others, such as the additional outlay
of land which would now have to be given to them in equal measures as

reward for services, as was not the case in the years before 91.
Many of the reasons the Romans might have had for

opposing the franchise are, as can be seen, directly related to the
reasons why the Allies may have wanted it in the first place (see
chapter 2): by granting the citizenship the Romans would have to
stop abusing the Allies, which was a much more attractive outcome
to the latter than the former. This abuse was both military and
economic, as has been shown, and therefore the incentives for
opposing a measure which would end that abuse would be based
on such grounds. But citizenship for the Allies would not just
affect Rome’s legions and its pocketbook. It would also affect its
politics. As equal citizens, the former Allies would be able to vote,
and their votes could shape Roman domestic and policy in a way
that could lead it in directions not anticipated or desired by Rome’s
older citizen body. This was all the more true because Rome’s allies
far outnumbered actual Romans, as the sources make clear.
Concerns along these lines are recorded as having been very much
present amongst the Romans (Appian 1.6.49). Not only would the
new citizens be able to vote and thus express their will about the
laws and the magistrates who would govern them, but they would
also be able to run for office and thus take a direct hand in such a
government. Whether these were elected or not, it could probably
have been anticipated that Allies, as citizens, would at least field
candidates for offices, with the result that a limited number of
magistracies would potentially have far greater pool of potential
applicants for them, making the competition for them—which was
already fierce—even more brutal.
Nor, indeed, need sharing power with new would-be
statesmen have been the only worry about which the Roman
magisterial class would have felt anxiety. There was also the fact
that a law which would grant the Allies the citizenship would have
to be proposed and promulgated by an already-elected Roman
magistrate. If this were to be done successfully, then the magistrate
who had so acted might win the gratitude of an enormous host of
persons, and, importantly, voters, aided by the law which would
bear that magistrate’s name for time immemorial. The potential for
any one Roman to gather that much influence would probably have
been met with great antipathy by his peers. Indeed, there are
several incidents recorded throughout Roman history in which men
proposing laws which were even widely acknowledged as good and
useful were opposed and defeated due to the popularity that their
passage would bring.83 Consequently, even if all the other reasons

cited above would not have been enough to sink a bill offering the
citizenship, these last considerations might have been: what
enfranchisement might mean for the forum and the curia, as much
as for the camp and aerarium, would have earned it the enmity of
the Roman governing class.
All of these reasons are, perhaps, short-sighted and self-
serving, but they are understandable: the incorporation of the
former Allies would pose substantial disruptions in Rome’s
military, economic, and political institutions. There are, however,
other reasons which have been asserted by some scholars as to why
Rome desired not to enfold their Allies into their citizen body,
reasons which are even less attractive and more difficult to
vindicate. One of these is a feeling of superiority, derived from the
conquest of such a vast area, which had in turn led to arrogance
and exclusivity, a feeling akin to what might be referred to as
chauvinism.84 The Romans, it is argued, had come to think of
themselves as the “master race”, and thus to think that the Italians,
by dint of not being Roman already, were unworthy of being given
the citizenship. Some evidence of this feeling amongst the Romans
may be found in the sources: as has been seen earlier, Appian notes
that part of the opposition to the franchise proposal of Flaccus was
due to the detestable notion that Rome’s subjects might become
equal citizens with themselves (ἡ ουλὴ δ᾽ ἐχαλέπαινε, τοὺς ὑπ κόους
σφῶν ἰσοπολίτας εἰ ποι σονται; 1.3.21). Diodorus likewise observes
that, during the war to come, the Romans drew inspiration for
greater efforts from the fear lest they be seen as inferior to those
83 For numerous examples of this tendency in the first century see
Gruen (1974, p. 211–259). Other examples from earlier are provided by

Keaveney (1987, p. 99), as well as earlier in his discussion of the Gracchi,
whose enemies repeatedly expressed a fear that the brothers were aiming
at a tyranny which they could gain through the popularity they obtained
by means of their laws.
84 Keaveney (1987, p. 99–113) makes much of this, citing what he
believes to be examples of it in the form of Rome’s expulsion of rhetors,

actors, and other purveyors of non-Roman culture (specifically, on p.
102).
whom they considered their own inferiors (φανῆναι τῶν ἡττόνων

ἡττους; 37.24).
Others have attributed this reluctance to give the civitas to
more than just chauvinism, but to a sentiment similar to racism.
This feeling, it is held, can especially be glimpsed in the ways the
Romans treated the Samnites and others of Oscan heritage, a
treatment which did not come as much because these were not
Romans as much as because they were Oscan.85 Human nature
being what it is, it is possible that there were Romans who
harbored such prejudices. Even so, it does not seem that these
“racist” attitudes or the more “chauvinistic” ones described above
had been held by the majority of the Romans, or, at the very least,
that they had always so affected Roman citizenship policy. On the
contrary, evidence has been collected by some scholars which
demonstrates that the Romans had once been extremely generous
with their citizenship.86 The testimony of Cato regarding the
admission of foreigners as a source of Rome’s strength seems to
indicate this one-time favorable attitude towards enfranchisement
(as quoted in Aulus Gellius 18.12.7), as does Cicero’s paean to
Roman openness found in Pro Balbo 13.31. Addtionally, there is the
Roman grant of the ius adipiscendi civitatem Romanum per magistratum
85 A favorite theme of Salmon, who has located anti-Samnite hatred in
magisterial abuse of Italians (see chapter 2) and in Rome’s suppression of

Fregellae (see chapter 3). The subject of racism in the classical world in
general and amongst the Romans in particular is addressed by Isaac
(2004). That scholar asserts that racism as it is known today, one which is
essentially predicated on physical differences and those of appearance, did
not really exist in the ancient world. Instead, what Isaac calls “racism” was
a set of attitudes and behaviors attached to peoples from diffferent
geographical areas or to those with physical characteristics suggesting
similarities to those from diffferent geographical areas (23–25). The
Samnites and other Italians apparently did not qualify for this sort of
hatred, due to the fact that they and the Romans were all alike Italian.
Isaac would likely judge the anti-Samnite attitudes discussed in Salmon
more as ‘ethnic prejudice’ than as racism. This, neverthess, does not rule
out an irrational dislike of Oscans on grounds of their ethnicity and/or
culture, which was certainly possible and may have influenced at least
some Romans; for more on this point, see chapter 10.
86 Most notably Badian 1971, p. 375–385.
to the Latins.87 This would seem to show that Rome apparently

retained some willingness to give the franchise to individuals, if not
to entire communities. Such an attitude speaks against a general
feeling that others were inferior to Romans by virtue of their not
being Roman, and by dint of not being Roman, that they were
unworthy of being made Roman through the civitas. Instead,
according to these scholars, Rome did not seem to object officially
to the idea of giving the citizenship per se. What drew their
objection was giving it to large numbers of people, and for reasons
detailed above.
For any number of the reasons discussed above, therefore, the
Romans might have objected to giving the Italians the citizenship,88
and had stood against doing so from the time of the Gracchi to
that Drusus. If all of them obtained, or indeed, if any of them did,
then such an objection need not just be due only to the franchise
being brought up as a way to facilitate reclamation of the ager
publicus. Instead, it would have been because the extending the
franchise would have drawn disfavor in and of itself. Such an
antipathy need not have been vocalized—and thus may have gone
unmentioned in the sources—because up to the autumn of 91,
citizenship was only considered a means to resume adjudicating the
public land. Yet Asculum and the Allied embassy meant that giving
the civitas would have to be considered on its own, and weighed
against the prospect of going to war. Both would represent an
upheaval, but it seems that the Romans believed that war would be
a less catastrophic one than granting the civitas, especially if the war
looked like it might easily be won. War would mean deaths,
wounds, loss of property, and perhaps even famine and plague, but
these would obtain temporarily and would abate on Roman victory.
The grant of the citizenship, however, would bring about changes
in the way Rome governed itself, in the way it made war, in its
finances, and perhaps in the character of its people, and these
changes would be permanent.
87 See Appendix D.
88 And it might well be that they had other reasons for opposing the
franchise which are less easy to discover.
It can well be doubted if very many Romans would have

considered this a bargain worth making even in the absence of the
strained circumstances in which it was being offered in 91.
Asculum, however, meant that this final plea for the franchise had
come after the Allies had shed Roman blood, and the affect this
might have had on Rome’s willingness to entertain negotiations for
peace can be guessed. Therefore, the Romans sent the emissaries
away, though in so doing they brought war upon themselves. It
apparently seemed easier to fall to violence than open their state to
those upstart Allies who had attempted to force their way into it.
For whatever the reason, the Romans refused to entertain the
deputation that was sent to them after Asculum, and let it be
known that they would entertain none other save those consisting
of suppliants. Having risen from their knees, however, the Allies
seem to have proved unwilling to resume them. Since they were
now given no other choice, they therefore resolved to meet the
Romans not with hands outstretched, but with arms upraised.
6. THE AIMS OF THE ALLIES BEFORE ASCULUM

AND THE CHANGES IN TACTICS FOR THE SPING
It has been suggested by this chapter that what the Allies had
planned was something rather like the secessio of the plebs in 494.
That action had executed to compel the Romans to concede to
those who had embarked upon it greater rights within the Roman
state. It had not really been a bid to separate, though by the steps
that were taken, the plebs had shown that they could get by without
their fellow Romans if they needed to do so. The Italians, it has
been argued, were in the exact same position, and with the exact
same goals. There was, however, one main difference between the
secessio occurring 494 and that conjectured in 91, which is that there
had been no violence in that earlier secessio, and there certainly had
been some in this one. Because it has further been conjectured that
preparations for the secessio had been in the making since the
passage of the lex Licinia Mucia, and because these preparations
eventually led to vast numbers of men who would be raised and a
very sophisticated system used to command, equip, and pay them,
it is difficult to resist the conclusion that violence of some sort had
always been the intent. Matters had gotten out of hand at Asculum,
as the evidence cited seems to suggest, and had led to an
unexpected turn of events, but that which was contrary to Allied
intention seems not to have been the use of force, but rather its
timing. Force, it appears, had been a possibility from the beginning,
and the steps they took shows that the Allies had always had the
prospect of going to war firmly in view.
Preparing for a war and desiring it are not the same things,
however, and the fact that the Allies proved themselves able to
fight did not necessarily mean that this is what they had hoped
would occur. Of course, the nature of the sources makes it such
that nothing can be certain about their thinking, but it is not
impossible that what the Allies had originally planned was
something like this: come the spring of 90, the Italians would have
assembled stores and weapons in Corfinium, while soldiers would
stand in readiness all throughout Italy. These latter would then be
set in motion, while at the same time an embassy would be sent to
Rome to give it one last chance to give the Allies what they wanted.
If they agreed, no blood would be shed, and the war could be
averted. If they did not, the Allies would move swiftly against
predetermined targets en route towards Rome. Assuming their
buildup had evaded detection, the Romans would have had almost
no warning and thus no time to set their own war machine into
motion, and the same would be true for whatever of the
Commonwealth’s remaining allies who might have offered help.
Under these circumstances, the Italians might have been able to hit
the Romans just hard enough that they would sue for peace.
Whether such was the Allied plan cannot ever be known for
certain, but even if it had been, it would depend upon stealth;
already by the autumn of 91 the Romans seem to have been dimly
cognizant that something was afoot, so even if Asculum had not
occurred as it did, the Allied plan still may not have worked as they
had intended. Whether or not that had been the war they had
wanted to fight, the fact remained that, as 91 came to an end,
things that had transpired in its final months that would not now
allow for the execution if such a strategy if, in fact, that had been
the one which had been designed. The Romans had indeed been
astonished in 91, but there had been too little time to exploit that
surprise. The only way the Allies could now wrest the citizenship
from Rome would be to make the effort to subject them so
dreadful that perhaps they could convince the Romans to make
peace on Allied terms.
If this was to be the character of the fight to come, the socii

would still have retained a certain edge in such combat. Their men
would likely be better trained, and probably a lot more accustomed
to facing ghastly casualty rates. After all, the Allies had become
used to the concept of fighting under men showing the will to fight
to last Italian, while the Romans had been spared such a grim use.
Neverthless, one thing was certain: whether or not it had been the
hope the men orchestrating the secessio to fight a fast, limited war,
or that of the Romans who rejected the embassy for a small and
easily crushed insurrection, what now lay before the eyes of both
was something quite different. As the ground begin to thaw in 90,
what confronted both Rome and the Alliance was the prospect of a
very bloody affair, and as events would prove, that was exactly
what they got.
CHAPTER 5:
WAR IN EARNEST, 90 BCE
1. THE ALLIED ARMY AT THE BEGINNING OF 90 BCE:

COMMANDERS AND STRATEGIES
When the spring of 90 finally came, and perhaps even a little before
that, the Allies—now bolstered by a definite, clear base of
operations and equipped with a fully formed, supplied, and battle-
ready army—set forth to implement their strategy of holding on
and making the war as hot for the Romans as they could. They
were led, according to Diodorus (3272.5–7) and Strabo (5.4.2), by
two “consuls” (ὑπάτοι), who were in effect basically theater
commanders. Approximately half of the territory then in arms
placed under the oversight of each. The sources are fairly clear, and
modern scholars have generally agreed, that these two marshals
were Q. Poppaedius Silo of the Marsi and C. Papius Mutilus of the
Samnites (Diodorus, loc. cit). Since the subsequent activities of these
men shows one primarily operating in the area near and north of
Alba Fucens, and the other in the vicinity of Nola and in
Campania, it is likely that the purview of each one was determined
by the community from which he had come, and was delineated
from that within the supervision of the other along linguistic and
geographical grounds. Silo, therefore, seems to have taken
command of the more northern, Latin-speaking areas, although the
Frentani, who were Oscan but closely associated with the Marsi,
apparently also fell into his bailiwick. Mutilus, for his part, took
control of the southern, Oscan-speaking regions. A geographical
287
boundary of some sort called the Cercolae formed the division

between the two spheres of command (Diodorus, loc. cit.).1
Each “consul” was in turn assisted by six “praetors”
(στρατ γοί), or division generals.2 It is broadly assumed that the
forces placed under command of these στρατ γοί consisted of units
drawn wholly from each of the individual communities of which
the Alliance was composed, and that these στρατ γοί were placed in
charge of the forces raised by the community from which they
themselves had come, although events would show that sometimes
the generals would command men of different origins than
themselves. While the sources are clear about who the ὑπάτοι were,
however, enormous difficulties exist in precisely identifying these
στρατ γοί, due to the bewildering diversity of descriptions of them
in the sources. Nevertheless, because some of the interpretations of
military events to follow often depend upon knowing who the
generals directing them were (as will be seen), it seems suitable that
an attempt should be made at such an identification of these
“praetors”. Therefore, during the course of this chapter, the main
subordinates to Silo and Mutilus in the year 90 are going to be
assumed—very, very conjecturally—to be as follows:3 from the
north to south, the Picentes were led by
1 This is assumed to be a mountain or mountain range by
Domaszewski (p. 12), and Salmon thinks likewise (1967, p. 344 note 1).
The latter cites both J. Carcopino and H. Nissen as to which mountain
was meant by the “Cercolae”. Of these, Nissen’s hypothesis that what is
now the Monti della Meta was meant is more convincing than
Carcopino’s suggestion that the word signified the Maiella. The former
would put all Alliance forces Italy north of (and including) Sora under the
command of Poppaedius Silo, the precise area where he is seen operating,
while the latter would have his command end somewhat north of that
city. Of course, given the extent to which the generals of the Alliance
cooperated, coammanders and troops regularly fought in both regions.
Thus, the precise division of where the theater of Silo was to be
distinguished from that of Mutilus is not terribly important for the
analysis to follow. See also Appendix I.
2 For the proper meanings of these terms—“ὑπάτοι” and
“στρατ γοί”—see previous chapter.

3 For the reasoning which led to the selection of this list, see
Appendix H.
WAR IN EARNEST, 90 BCE 289
C. Vidacilius (Picenum also seemed to furnish a naval commander

for the Allies, in a manner of speaking, as will be discussed below);
the Vestini by T. Lafrenius; the Marrucini by Herius Asinius; the
Paeligni by P. Praesentius;4 the Marsi by P. Vettius Scato;5 the
Frentani by one Fraucus; the Samnites by Marius Egnatius; the
Apuli by Trebatius; the Hirpini by Duillius (or Lucilius); the
Campani by Lucius Cluentius; the Venusini by T. Herennius; and
the Lucani, by Marcus Lamponius.
Such men were the generals chosen by each of the peoples in
the Alliance, although it seems important here to observe the fact
that one of the attributes of the Allied war effort appears to have
been the extent to which individual commanders would wander
from region to region. Vidacilius, for example, is believed to be
fighting in Apulia at one point, a substantial distance from
Picenum. Lafrenius is certainly seen operating deep in Picenum, far
away from the home of the Vestini, and Lucilius deep in the heart
of Samnium, while Herennius seems eventually to have taken his
men into battle as far away from his apparent home of Venusium
as Sora. Moreover, another such hallmark seems to have been the
extensive cooperation between generals, who would often combine
for some enterprises but then separate for others, and on other
occasions apparently lend men to one another. In addition to the
tactical needs this behavior may have served, it was also perhaps
deliberately done so as to keep the Romans from attempting to
drive them apart by promising the civitas to some socii to get them
to turn on the others. Either way, the result was that Italians from
any one area seem frequently to have encountered the possibility of
serving outside of their home regions, and perhaps serving with
4 The correct spelling of the name, according to Salmon (1967,
p. 353), who prefers it to that of “Presenteius” which is suggested by

Haug (p. 242).
5 Salmon (1967, p. 354 and especially note 2) is followed by Keaveney
(1987, p. 216) in the belief that Cicero was correct in his statement of
Scato’s complete name. That authority gives the Praenomen as Publius, as
opposed to the Caius stated by Seneca and the Titus listed by Eutropius,
the latter of which at one point preferred by Salmon himself (1958, p.
173).
men and even under generals not from their own communities, in
pursuit of the common goal.
2. THE SOUTHERN THEATER

It has been suggested in the previous chapter that the Allies were
deprived of the chance for implementing their original plans by the
sudden outburst Asculum. They thereupon settled on a new
approach to the conduct of the war, one involving objectives which
had the virtue of being simple to grasp even if hard to implement:
they were going to fight as hard as they could and hold out for as
long as they could, in the hope that they could cause the Romans
so much suffering that the latter would trade the citizenship for an
end to the bloodshed. The strategy of the Romans now ranged
against them, however, must have been slightly more complex. No
official reference to their master plan exists, if there really was one,
but it seems reasonable to assume that there was, and that the
Roman priorities went as follows. In the first place, the Allies had
to be contained and Latium and the perimeter of Rome secured.
The Tolenus river, to the north of Latium, and the Liris river, to its
south, would make logical enough lines of defense or offense from
which to effect this, as both could be accessed by major Roman
roads (the Via Valeria and Salaria to the upper and lower runs of
the Tolenus, the Via Latina to the Liris). The insurgents would
therefore need to be kept from pressing west of these rivers. If this
end could be achieved, perhaps the next move would involve a
Roman advance to be made along the length of the Via Valeria.
That road, which ran from Rome to the Adriatic through the lands
of the Marsi, Paeligni, and Marrucini, might serve to divide the
Alliance and perhaps to allow the two sections of it to be separated
and crushed in turn. Having therefore established these lines along
the rivers, the Romans would then proceed to penetrate into
territory of the socii, relieve the towns still loyal to Rome which
were being besieged, and finally wipe out the Allied armies, destroy
their cities, and bring them into submission.
If such was their strategy, one other element would seem to
be a critical part of it: the Romans would want to accomplish all of
this as quickly as possible, not the least of which because a
protracted war might bring about the very internal difficulties

which the Allies had possibly predicted and counted upon for their
success.6 That having been said, it is not easy to discern the extent
to which the Romans appreciated the enormity of the task now on
their hands. As they sources make clear, they certainly did designate
both consuls to this war and sent with them several subordinates of
proven ability. Still, it has been seen that Appian seems to convey a
kind of nonchalance about the employment of their full military
capacity, which (in his words) was only initiated when the war was
eventually found to be “complicated and many-sided” (τότε
ποικίλον τοῦ πολέμου καὶ πολυμερὲς ἐν υμούμενοι; Appian 1.5.40)
and when they “came to recognize that it was a serious matter” (ὡς
ἐς μέγαν ἀγῶνα; loc. cit.). Moreover, they would eventally put
considerable constraints on one of their generals, C. Marius, in
spite of his unparalleled war record and proven skill (more below).
These difficulties were almost certainly political in origin, allowing
the message to be gotten that no matter what the danger from the
Allies might have been, these threats did not appear to compel the
senatorial opponents of Marius to set aside their personal and
political agenda, nor to prevent them from making what seems like
a concerted effort to reduce his battlefield role as much as they
could, possibly for the express purpose of humiliating him. If all of
these facts can be taken to reflect that a blasé outlook on the war
was present, it was one which the Romans would maintain to their
great detriment.
Such possible indifference notwithstanding, the Romans also
seem to have resolved to divide their efforts in a manner similar to
that adopted by the Allies, with the armies under the consuls
apparently partitioned into a northern and a southern theater. To
the south, L. Julius Caesar7 apparently took seven legions8 in order
6 See previous chapter.

7 Lucius Julius Caesar is generally recognized as having been the consul
meant by Appian in almost all of the instances in his narrative in which he
refers to “Sextus Caesar”. The latter, who had been consul in the previous
year, did indeed play a part in the war: although it seems Sextus Caesar had
gone to his province before the explosion at Asculum and took a while to
get back to Italy, he appears to have returned in time to take over the
siege of Asculum from Gn. Pompeius Strabo so the latter could betake
to direct operations there, legions whose first order of business

seems to have been setting up a defensive line of the kind
described above. This Caesar executed by placing the armies under
his legates in positions beginning from the northernmost at
Casinum (held by P. Lentulus),9 then down to Capua (held by T.
Didius), with P. Crassus forming the anchor to the extreme south.10
himself to Rome to run for consul. Sex. Caesar would ultimately die of
disease during the siege (Appian 1.6.48). These actions will be discussed
below and in chapter 6; for a further discussion of Sextus Caesar, see
Keaveney (1983, p. 273–274; 1987, p. 141). That this was not the only
military action in which Sex. Caesar was involved is speculated by
Domaszewski (p. 25), who holds that he was in Italy in time to fight in an
additional major engagedment before arriving at Asculum. More about
this will also be discussed later in this chapter and in Appendix J. At the
very least, it was certainly not Sextus who was fighting in the Southern
theater, but was rather Lucius, and this will be reflected in the narrative to
follow.
8 Two for himself and one for each of his five legates; so Salmon
(1967, p. 353) and Domaszewski (p. 22–23)

9 For the selection of Casinum as the southern theater’s northernmost
flank, see the discussion of the placement of the legates of P. Rutilius

Lupus later in this chapter.
10 These dispositions follow those proffered by Domaszewski (p. 23–
24), whose theories about the placement of the Roman southern army and
the overall strategy which that placement seems to convey is generally
convincing. Domaszewski’s placements do contain a few minor points of
difficulty, principal among which is his placement of T. Didius in Capua.
Such a posting is specifically mentioned nowhere in the sources, though
this fact need not throw Domaszewski’s placement into doubt. For one
thing, Didius does not seem to have done anything worthy of record in
the first year of the war other than being sent as legate to Caesar,
specifically attested as such in Appian (in the place cited in the text
above). Because he is not to be found anywhere else, or doing anything
else, it is not impossible that Didius could have been sent to Capua.
Secondly, that city is attested as an ally to Rome in a rather hyperbole-
laden passage in Cicero in which the Capuans are mentioned as having
stayed loyal during the bella cum sociis (specifically during the bellum
Marsicum) and offered weapons and quarters to the Roman armies (de leg.
agr. 2.90). It would therefore stand to reason that some force of Romans
be sent to protect it and take advantage of the weapons and lodgings the
From this line M. Marcellus was apparently detached (about which

more later), as was L. Cornelius Sulla, who seems to have been
employed as Caesar’s immediate subordinate directly under the
consul.
Capuans extended. Finally, Didius would be in the neighborhood next

year, operating around Herculaneum (for which see next chapter). For all
these reasons, it may have seemed only logical to Domaszewski that, if
Didius must be accounted for in the year 90, he ought to be put in a place
where a Roman commander would be needed and where Didius was
known to have been the following year.
Admittedly, if Didius was in Capua, he does not seem to have done a
particularly good job at defending Campania as a whole. Then again, that
may have been a task assigned to Crassus to the south of him, whose
record for the year 90 is hardly stellar (see below). Nor is Didius
mentioned as having been of much help with the later battle Caesar
fought near Acerrae, though this, too, may have the fault of Crassus: if, as
speculated below, the battle of Acerrae took place towards the end of
campaigning season, it seems to have occurred after the fiasco at
Grumentum. Following that debacle (about which more below), Caesar
may have sent Didius south to act bring relief to Crassus. Indeed, it may
very well have been that Didius was sent to relieve Crassus entirely. The
latter would definitely be in Rome by 89, there to be made censor with his
erstwhile commanding officer Caesar. This would also explain how it is
that Didius was in the neighborhood of Herculaneum the next year.
Domaszewski’s arrangement is one which is constructed on his belief
that Appian listed the Roman commanders geographically from north to
south. This should mean that L. Cornelius Sulla and M. Marcellus, the last
two to be named, ought to be operating in the very far south. However,
both men are only specifically recorded in the sources as having fought in
and around Aesernia. Domaszewski’s theory is that these were both on
the front line, which is basically the approach adopted here, with Sulla
asserted to be Caesar’s right hand man. No ancient source states that he
was such, but it should be noted that in Appian’s ordering of the northern
commanders, C. Marius is listed fourth in order going north to south. As
he was certainly the right hand man of Rutilius, perhaps Sulla occupied an
analogous position. At any rate, no ancient source renders this
construction impossible. All told, then, Domaszewksi’s arrangements
seem sound and are accepted by Salmon, although he likewise observes
some of the difficulties with Domaszewski’s conjectures (1967, p. 353
note 1).
Prevented by these arrangements from being flanked to the

north or south, Caesar put himself in the center of this line at
Teanum, and from there he marched on Aesernia in the attempt to
relieve it.11 Near that city he was encountered by Vettius Scato,
who had quite possibly just gotten to the area after helping Titus
Lafrenius and Vidacilius repulse the army of Gnaeus Pompeius in
Picenum (about which more will be discussed below). A battle
promptly took place in which Caesar was worsted with a loss of
two thousand men, which probably caused him to fall back on
Teanum.12 Scato then moved on to replenish the besiegers at
Aesernia or at least to hold the cordon around the city until
additional reinforcements arrived, which seemed already to have
been on the way under the command of Marius Egnatius (Appian
1.5.40–41).13
While this was taking place, Marcellus had probably already
been sent by Caesar towards Aesernia from Beneventum by means
of the road going past Saepinum.14 Quite possibly a two-pronged
11 For Caesar jumping off from Teanum, see Domaszewski (loc. cit.).
12 On the other hand, Keaveney (1987, p. 133) follows the suggestion
of Salmon (1967, p. 354) that this battle took place near Atina rather than
Aesernia. In part this placement had been made necessary based on their
later interpretations of the activity of Vettius Scato, about which more
later; if this initial battle was in fact situated at Atina, then it would almost
certainly mean that Caesar had not launched from Teanum and may not
have attacked at all, but perhaps had even been attacked himself en route to
the south. Even if this reconstruction is the correct one—and it certainly
is not impossible—the ultimate result is the same, which is that Caesar
was repulsed and either fell back to the line he had already created as
described above or created it upon his defeat.
13 This interpretation of events, which follows Domaszewski (p. 24),
almost completely rearranges the chronological order of Appian. For a

more detailed discussion of this reordering and the reasoning behind it,
see Appendix I.
14 This route is found in the map supplied by Domaszewski at the end
of his monograph (see also Map 1). Additional evidence is found for it in
Salmon (1967, p. 21), who states that it definitely existed in Republican
times. For the stationing of Marcellus around Beneventum see
Domaszewski (p. 23), who argues that since Beneventum was never
mentioned as having gone to the socii, it was instead Roman throughout
attack was envisioned by the consul, with his own second attempt
on Aesernia to be coordinated with the arrival of Marcellus.
However, Marius Egnatius disrupted this plan by means of going
on the offensive himself, attacking Venafrum and taking it—by
treachery, according to Appian (1.5.41)—at the cost of two Roman
cohorts. By whom these cohorts had been commanded is not
mentioned; perhaps they were those of Sulla, who may have been
in the area,15 or—as is perhaps more likely—they were those of
Lentulus, who close by by at Casinum. Either way, it apparently did
not entirely have the effect Egnatius desired. Caesar, recognizing in
in this action that Egnatius was away from Aesernia, may have
sensed an opportunity to pounce on that city, whose envelopment,
in the absence of Egnatius, was denuded of the reinforcements he
had brought. Alternatively, Caesar could tie up egnatius should he
give chase, according Marcellus time to strike against the weakened
attackers there. Therefore, the consul apparently changed or
adapted his plan of a simultaneous thrust with the Marcellus (if
such, indeed, was his plan) and attempted a second attack on
Aesernia himself. This time he went in greater force, with 30,000
the war. This may be overstating the issue somewhat: while it is possible
that Beneventum was not yet in Allied hands in 90, events in 89 strongly
suggest it was Allied by then (see following chapter). As for Marcellus, he
would certainly end up at Aesernia, since the Periochae 73 records that he
was captured there, probably in late autumn. Moreover, Cicero records
that his son later received the cognomen Aeserninus from the episode
(Brut. 136; more below about the actions of Marcellus). Since Marcellus is
known to have come to Aesernia and probably not by means of the
central route through Venafrum or Teanum, ones occupied by the consul
himself, it is logical that he would have come from the southeast by
means of the road from Beneventum.
15 So Domaszewski, loc.cit., who places Sulla “on the connecting line
against Teanum, somewhere near Allifae” and thus potentially in range of

Venafrum. Contra Salmon (1967, p. 356), who places Sulla near Sora; this
placement, however, is almost certainly due to his interpretation the
“Battle of the Vineyards” in which Sulla was said to have taken part (see
below). Keaveney also follows Salmon in his location of Sulla and for the
same reason (1987, p. 139), but, as shall be seen, the sources may allow a
different interpretation of the Battle of the Vineyards than that of both of
these authors, and thus of Sulla’s location before and after that event.
infantry and 5,000 cavalry (Appian 1.6.45). Such numbers suggest

that Caesar added to his own two legions the legion of another
commander. As speculated above, L. Cornelius Sulla was Caesar’s
direct subordinate, one whose service in the Cimbric Wars (see
chapter 7) suggested an ability for command which would have
made him useful in an endeavor to pull off a sizeable expedition
such as the kind apparently being essayed. Hence, these additional
men probably belonged to him.16
Fortune, however, was against Caesar—and, perhaps, Sulla—
this time, bad luck to Appian suggests poor reconnaissance may
have contributed (1.6.45). Caesar’s command ability may have been
affected by the illness which Appian reports had beset him, and
thus he may be excused of the responsibility for the poor scouting.
At any rate, in a narrow mountain passage en route to Aesernia the
Roman force was suddenly attacked by Egnatius and driven back
through the defile. Apparently the only way out of it was over a
stream spanned by but a single bridge. While the Romans were
expending the effort to cross it, Egnatius and his Samnites17
renewed their attack and fell upon them. Many of Caesar’s men
were subsequently killed—the greater part of the army, according
to Appian—in fighting so fierce that it was only with great
difficulty that the consul was able to escape, again, to Teanum
(Appian, loc. cit.; Per. 73; Orosius 5.18.14).18
After these two setbacks Caesar would not make any more
efforts on Aesernia himself, but he was manifestly not yet ready to
give the city up for lost. This is made evident by the operation of
Marcellus, who, as has been mentioned, was already on his way to
Aesernia while Caesar’s two attacks on it failed. At some point
Marcellus made his move, about which there are no details in the
sources whatsoever other than its ultimate outcome, which was its
16 But see Domaszewski (p. 26), who says these belonged to Lentulus,
albeit for reasons he does not provide.

17 See Appendix H.
18 This follows the basic chronology established for Caesar by
Domaszewski, p. 23–26, although he believes that the reference in the

Periochae cited above refers to the earlier defeat of Caesar by Scato, not
that Egnatius. As can be seen, this is not the interpretation taken above,
for the reasoning behind which see Appendix I.
failure. The fact that Marcellus himself was captured when city fell
allows some inferences to be drawn on the way his operation went:
possibly taking advantage of the absence of Egnatius fighting with
Caesar, Marcellus seems to have driven off the besiegers
temporarily, or at the very least managed to into the city. Since the
previous commanders, L. Scipio and L. Acilius, are recorded as
having made their escape in a most ignominious manner (Appian
1.5.41),19 his presence might have been what allowed the city to
hold on for as long as it did, with the heroic measures taken by him
justifying his later receipt of the cognomen Aeserninus.20 Presumably
at some later time but before the town’s capitulation, a final
attempt was made on the rescuing it by yet another of Caesar’s
legates, L. Cornelius Sulla. This foray is recorded by Orosius
(5.18.16), and Frontinus adds details (1.5.17): Sulla was apparently
caught in yet another pass near the city and attempted to ask for
terms (possibly in the attempt to buy time) from the enemy
commander, one Lucilius.21 These were rejected, but Sulla was able
to take advantage of the lack of vigilance he observed in the
opposing bivouac to extricate himself from his own, using a
trumpeter to create the illusion of a busy camp and thereby to
disguise the removal of his men from it. According to Orosius,
Sulla then managed to free the city and its Allies. This is at the very
best an exaggeration,22 since the clear report of both Appian
(1.5.41) and the Periochae (73) is that the city ultimately fell. It is
19 They escaped disguised as slaves. Indeed, during his report of the
horrors within Aesernia, Diodorus does mention an expulsion of slaves

from the city in the effort to conserve food for militarily useful persons
(37.19). His account continues that these expelled slaves were treated with
kindness by the Allies. It is not implausible, based on the actions of
Vidacilius in Apulia (more directly) that the slaves were freed, possibly on
the condition of serving with the Italian army. Under this guise, the
Roman commanders may thus have been allowed to make their escape
from the city, then slip away from the Allied encampments back to Rome.
21 Duillius in the text of Frontinus; for the use of the different name,
see Appendix H.
22 Salmon (1967 p. 359) stops just short of referring to this event as a
fiction in Orosius inspired by lies told by Sulla himself in his Memoirs.

unlikely but not impossible that Sulla did manage somehow to save
the garrison, although for some reason he apparently could not
liberate Marcellus, who is explicitly stated by the Periochae as having
been captured with the city (loc cit.) On the other hand, the dire
hunger which is stated by other sources as having been experienced
by those within the city does not seem to allow for even the
temporary lift of the siege, and as a result city soon fell into
Samnite/Hirpine hands, and Marcellus with it (Diodorus 37.19;
Appian, loc. cit.; Periochae, loc. cit.).23
While Caesar had fought his own battles and presumably
ordered those of his subordinates in the vicinity of Aesernia, he
apparently allowed P. Licinius Crassus to detach from his line and
do what he could in southern Campania and Lucania. For some
reason the relief of Nola was either not ordered of him or Didius
by Caesar or, if it was, the command was not carried out by either
man. Possibly the city did not seem either to the consul or his
subordinates to have been in as dire of straights as Aesernia had
been, and therefore it was believed that it did not require
immediate rescue; Nola had, after all, withstood numerous
attempts by the ever-victorious Hannibal to overwhelm it once
upon a time. Direct assault might therefore not have been
contemplated, but it may have been that what Crassus had in mind
would involve a relief of Nola which could be obtained indirectly,
accomplished by means of drawing some of the besiegers away in
the attempt to stop a Roman expedition further to the south. If the
Allies could be forced to diminish their press of the town
23 Contra Domaszewski (p. 27), who arranges events such that the
rescue of the garrison occurred before Sulla’s escape from Lucilius. By
this reasoning, the city fell when Sulla managed to denude it of its
defenders. Such a construction does not explain how Marcellus came to
be captured with the city, however. Keaveney, for his part, places the
attack on Aesernia after the episode in the defile mentioned by Frontinus,
and asserts that Sulla freed the garrison and even briefly lifted the siege
before the onset of winter drove him away (1987, p. 139–140). But this
construction does not explain how the city continued to suffer the hunger
reported in Diodorus which ultimately led to its fall, an aetiology which
Appian affirms. Thus, if Sulla managed to rescue anyone, it must at most
have been the rescue of only part of the defenders, as argued above.
somewhat in this attempt, the Nolani could perhaps break the siege
of their town themselves and spare the main army the trouble.
Crassus could then crush the besiegers thus lured off and then
return his attention to Campania and Lucania, and this may have
been the overall strategic role of his expedition. Such is, to say the
very least, conjecture of the most speculative sort to explain, on the
one hand, an apparent gross oversight by the Romans, namely that
of not relieveing Nola, since of their thinking in this regard nothing
can be certain. On the other hand, it also seeks to come up with a
theory as to what the exact mission of Crassus may have been
beyond simply that of than bringing the war to the Lucanians.
Having acknowledged the speculation as such, there is nevertheless
nothing in the sources that renders it impossible that the task of
Crassus was, in part, to draw away men from Nola at the beginning
stages of a campaign, one whose additional and more important
ultimate aim may have been a march towards Venusia, either to
stop the insurrections being stirred up there (more below), or, even
more daringly, to attempt to get around the Apennines to strike at
the enemy on the Adriatic coast.
What is beyond speculation is that Crassus entered into
Lucania and soon arrived at Grumentum. That city had apparently
been persuaded to open its gates to Crassus: enough of it stood for
him to use as a safe haven later on to speak against a lengthy siege
or an assault undertaken to force his way in. This apparent lack of
action necessary to win the city over may have been because
Grumentum lacked the means to defend itself Alternatively, it
might simply have been inclined towards the Romans. If the latter,
then perhaps Marcus Lamponius and an army of the Lucanians had
been approaching the area to besiege the town, but regardless of
the reason as to why he came there, Lamponius and his soldiers
presently materialized near Grumentum. Battle between his forces
and those of Crassus was soon joined. Crassus seems to have
disdained a challenge of Lamponius to single combat, but the
Romans still came off the worse in the engagement (Diodorus
Siculus 37.23). This defeat was compounded by the fact that they
had apparently made the mistake of setting up camp too close to a
forested area, allowing Lamponius to burn the forest and thus the
Roman camp with it (Appian 1.5.41; also Frontinus 2.4.15–16, an
anecdote he repeats in 4.7.40–41). The Lucanians seem to have
offered a much deadlier opposition than the Celtiberi over which
this same Crassus had celebrated a triumph three years before, and
he now found himself seeking refuge in Grumentum.24 No further
action is reported of him by the sources for 91, but since there is
some evidence that the Allies took possession of Grumentum
sometime later, and that the city was still standing and in decent
shape when they did,25 it is unlikely that it the Allies subjected the
24 For the triumph, see the Fasti Triumphales, Asconius (14B) and the
Scholiast of Bobbio (131); see also Broughton, p. 14.
25 Seneca (de ben. 3.23, quoting book 18 of Quadrigarius) reports an
anecdote of a local woman saved by two slaves during an assault on

Grumentum which came at the end of a strenuous siege. These slaves,
who had ostensibly defected to the enemy, led her away (under guise of
putting her to death as a cruel mistress) and hid her until those destroying
the town recovered from their frenzy and “began to behave like Romans
again” (miles cito ad Romanos mores rediit). Nothing is provided in this
passage which might fix the time in which it occurred, but it must have
taken place in a war during which Grumentum was destroyed by the
Romans, in order for the soldiers to take leave of, and regain, their mores
Romani. The fact that this passage is immediately followed by another in
the same aithor about Vettius Scato suggests that the destruction in
question happened during the Allied War, as Haug also believes (p. 256).
The fury of the attack described by Seneca would almost certainly have
weakened or even destroyed Grumentum’s fortifications, and since
Crassus was able to retreat there after his defeat, it is therefore most
unlikely that this devastation was done under his command when he had
the upper hand in the area. If this hypothesis accurately reflects what
occurred, then it is equally unlikely that Grumentum was subjected to a
lengthy investment by Lamponius, since the assault on and capture of the
city by the Romans (which, following the reasoning presented this far,
must have come later than its occupation by Crassus) took place,
according to the anecdote just quoted from Seneca, after such a long
siege. Such a lengthy siege would be unnecessary if Lamponius, for his
part, had weakened the city’s defenses by his own actions. Therefore, the
fact that the city could hold out for an extended period against Roman
besiegers, and that when it at last fell it was of sufficient wealth to be
looted thoroughly by them, leads to the conclusion that it had not
endured an envelopment of any great moment at an earlier time.
Therefore, since the fortifications at Grumentum appear undamaged and
its resources seem relatively undisturbed by either Crassus or Lamponius,
it is most improbable that either man subjected it to a blockade. If no
town to a lengthy siege. Nor is it likely that it was at this time

destroyed by an extensive assault, a fate to which Florus states that
it was eventually subjected (Grumentum … ferro et igne vastantur;
2.6.11). It is far more probable that Grumentum fell by a brief
storm sometime soon after battle, though Crassus himself seems to
have escaped, as he would be in Rome to be made censor the next
year.26 Perhaps Didius was moved south in his place, as he would
be seen near Herculaneum the next year.27
At the same time as all of this was occurring, the Picentene
Vidacilius had been making his way into south from Asculum,
where earlier he had united with Vettius Scato and Titus Lafrenius
to defeat Pompeius Strabo (more below).28 After the three of them
siege had thus occurred, then Crassus perforce must have gained the city
without exertion, and Lamponius probably did, as well. The devastation
described by Seneca (and Florus; see above) therefore likely transpired
when Gabinius tore through Lucania in the following year, as will be
described in the next chapter.
26 So Broughton, vol. 2, p. 32.
27 See earlier note; for the activities of Didius, see later in the chapter
and Chapter 6.
28 This interpretation relies upon the conjecture of Domaszewski
(p. 23–24) that the events of the first half of Appian 1.6.47 took place
before those events related in 1.5.41 (see Appendix I). Following Orosius
(5.18.10), that scholar postulates that the battle in which Gn. Pompeius
was recorded as having been beaten by Picentes was the opening
engagement of the war (about which more will be discussed later). For
this action, Scato, Vidacilius, and Lafrenius combined forces, and after
driving Pompeius off they separated, with Lafrenius keeping Pompeius
pinned in the north. Vidacilius then went adventuring in the South until
changing circumstances in Asculum forced his return. Keaveney (1987, p.
135) is also willing to believe that Vidacilius was operating in the south,
though Salmon (1967, p. 357) disagrees, stating—albeit unconvincingly—
that the actions attributed to Vidacilius, a Picentene far from home,
belong instead to Trebatius, whom he suggests may have been either
Venusian or Apulian. Salmon’s opinion on the identity of Trebatius as an
Apulian generates a certain degree of traction; see Appendix H. However,
Salmon’s assignment of the deeds of Vidacilius to Trebatius runs counter
to what Appian states, which is that it was indeed Vidacilius responsible
for these exploits. Yet whether these maneuvers were executed by
had shut Pompeius in Firmum, Lafrenius was left to hold him there
while Scato and Vidacilius went to the southern theater. Scato, as
has been seen, soon found himself engaged with Caesar. Vidacilius,
in the meantime, began some maneuvers in Apulia. Here Vidacilius
won support for the insurgency from towns in the neighborhood,
towns which eventually included Venusia, among others (Appian
1.5.42). That same author reports that some of the cities had to be
forcibly persuaded into this support by means of sieges, which
presumably meant that the élite of these towns had wished to
remain loyal to Rome. That being the case, upon capitulation, the
“principal Roman citizens” (καὶ τῶν ἐν αὐταῖς Ῥωμαίων .. ἔκτεινε)
and the pro-Roman Apulians in these municipalities were executed,
while the commoners and slaves—very likely the ones liberated
from the wealthy—were enrolled into the Allied army.
This last seems to have been standard Italian procedure, as it
is also attested in Campania.29 It was possibly likewise implemented
at Aesernia, whose slaves were driven from the city by its pro-
Roman defenders during its siege in order to reduce non-combat
personnel, and who thereupon found “consideration shown to
them by the enemy” (τῶν πολεμίων ἐπιεικείᾳ διωρ ώσαντο;
Diodorus 37.19). Such a move would be entirely consistent for an
Alliance whose strategy was to last as long as possible: as the Allies
may still have been collectively outnumbered by the Romans and
the other socii whom the Romans managed to retain, they would
probably have embraced anyone who would volunteer, or could be
made to volunteer, for service. This pertained not only to liberated
slaves, but apparently to liberated prisoners, as well. As was
mentioned earlier, the Romans had often used Allied cities as
places of incarceration for various inconvenient figures (see chapter
2). Some of these were now set free by the socii and apparently put
to gainful employment for the cause. Towards this end, the holding
cells of Asculum seems to have furnished the useful services of one
Agamemnon, an archpirata who in gratitude for his freedom was
Vidacilius or Trebatius, the purpose of the enterprise was the same: to

gather more men and materials for the war against the Romans. This was
accomplished successfully, as can be seen in the text above.
29 As was also observed by Salmon (1967, p. 358).
apparently willing to ply his trade on behalf of his liberators against

his former captors. For this purpose he seems to have been given
with a small force and sent against the Roman countryside (more
below). So, too, did Vidacilius now set free a son of Jugurtha
named Oxynta who had been imprisoned in Venusia, and sent him
to the “consul” Papius Mutilus in time for the latter to make use of
the prince at Acerrae (Appian 1.5.42; more directly).
According to the chronology postulated above, such activity
may have been going on in Apulia by mid-spring to early summer
and possibly earlier.30 It may very well have been to put a halt to it
that Crassus had been dispatched into Lucania. As events would
unfold, Crassus would fail in this objective (if indeed his was such),
and if he also had the idea that he would drain men away from
Nola, that scheme also seems to have been frustrated. In fact, not
only did the cordon around Nola remain unloosened, but the
absence of the legion of Crassus meant that the Allies could send
more even men to it without concern for his interference. This was
precisely what the “consul” Papius Mutilus proceeded to do, and
he soon took the city, apparently by treachery (Periochae 73; Appian
1.5.41).31 The city would henceforth become a bulwark for the
Samnites, who would hold it throughout the rest of the war,
continue to hold it through the interlude of peace in the rest of
Italy, and would indeed maintain their grip on it until the
conclusion of the Civil War at the end of the next decade, as will be
seen.
The Periocha of Livy’s book 73 makes references to some
unspecified complures populi who went over to the “enemies” (that is,
the Allies) during the early part of 90. By this statement the cities of
Apulia are perhaps meant, along with those in Campania that soon
joined the insurgency. These Campanian cities included Pompeii,
30 Assuming, for example, that the Allied leader in question was in fact
Vidacilius, who is seen operating in Picenum at the opening of the war,

and Trebatius or some other local leader. If this latter was the case, then a
trip from Picenum would not have been necessary and these operations
could have taken place even earlier. Nevertheless, although for reasons
cited earlier Vidacilius is held to have been the agent responsible, with all
the implications for chronology that this assertion entails.
31 See also Appendix F.
which had apparently been part of the Alliance from the beginning
(Appian 1.5.39). They now also came to include others in the area,
which joined the uprising either by their own volition or by
compulsion (1.5.42). Among the former may perhaps be included
Herculaneum. Velleius (2.16.2) notes that this city was later
conquered by Romans under Didius and Hirpini under Minatius
Magius, implying that the city had gone to the Allies and thus had
to be taken. Appian omits it from a list of towns which had to be
coerced, from which it can be inferred that Herculaneum went to
the Alliance of its own accord. By contrast, those cities which had
to be compelled may have included Nuceria, which apparently saw
its territory ravaged, as is mentioned in Appian (loc. cit.).32 Having
32 From this ravaging, however, Keaveney (1987, p. 134) draws a

different conclusion. He states that Nuceria was always devoted to the
Allied cause, but that the cities around it, like Herculaneum and Pompeii,
were the ones convinced by this demonstration. This is an odd claim,
given that the Pompeiani are mentioned by Appian 1.5.39 as having been
with the Allies from the start (as seen above). Nevertheless, a passage in
Cicero (pro Sulla 22.58) which shows the faithfulness of the Nucerian P.
Sittius even while the rest of his family defected, is interpreted by
Keaveney to mean that Nuceria was actually always on the Allied side.
Furthermore (he continues), while Appian suggests ravaged territory, he
does not specifically state that it belonged to Nuceria: his words ( ὡς δὲ καὶ
Νουκερίας τὰ ἐν κύκλῳ πάντα κατέπρ σεν; 15.42) can be interpreted to mean
territory nearby, rather than that of the city. Keaveney additionally
believes that the fragment of Sisenna (56) which speaks of fields “being
laid waste up to Nuceria” (agros populabundus ad Nuceriam) does not apply
to this episode, as he makes clear in note 19 on page 148. In same note
Keaveney disputes Salmon (1967, p. 344 and note 8), and states that the
reference of Florus to the wreckage of Nuceria ferro et igne (2.16.11) must
refer to its treatment by Roman hands in 89.
What, then, Keaveney seems to be asserting is that the territory all
around Nuceria which Appian describes as having been devastated refers
to Herculaneum and Pompeii, not Nuceria. The agros populabundus ad
Nuceriam in Sisenna refers to Nuceria, and not Herculaneum and Pompeii.
Since both passages are equally imprecise, however, it is just as likely that
Appian means Nuceria in his passage and Sisenna meant Herculeaneum
and Pompeii in his; since Pompeii was known to be pro-Alliance, and
since Herculaneum seems to have been as well (see above), this may in
been convinced in this manner, it supplied Papius with 10,000 men

and 1000 cavalry. Picentia probably also joined the Alliance at this
point, although it cannot be determined whether it did so
voluntarily or not. Its ultimate destruction, as mentioned in Florus
(2.6.11), was likely effected not by the Allies, but by the Romans in
the next year, as described in the next chapter. Cities which leave
no doubts as to whether compulsion was used included Stabiae,
Surrentum, and Salernum, as their rough treatment by Papius
makes makes clear (Appian, loc. cit.). Upon their capture, their
prisoners and slaves were added to the Samnite forces, following
the pattern already discussed above.33
Armed with such men, and apparently reinforced additionally
by men sent from Lucania by Marcus Lamponius34 and possibly
still further by others from Vidacilius (assuming he was still in the
area, if he ever had been),35 or perhaps with Apuli sent by
Trebatius, Papius Mutilus advanced on Acerrae and put it under
siege (Appian, 1.5.42). He seems to have encountered no resistance
from Didius, although it may have been that the latter had been
sent south to do what he could to repair the situation in Campania
and Lucania. Instead, it seems that meeting this challenge fell to L.
Julius Caesar, who managed to pull himself together after his last
defeat in Aesernia and marched on Acerrae with what remained of
his legions. Caesar had also been reinforced, with 10,000 infantry
coming to him from the Cisalpine as well as with additional
fact be the better interpretation. Therefore, it will be assumed here that

Papius Mutilus had to ravage some Nucerian territory to obtain the
compliance the Nucerians, and that it was this ravaging to which Florus
refers. Sisenna, for his part, refers to Roman treatment of Herculaneum
and Pompeii in 89, which will be described in the next chapter.
33 Although see Salmon 1967 p. 358, which is at slight variance with
the account presented above in that he argues that the capture of Nola
was subsequent to this activity, and not prior to it.
34 Orosius 5.18.14–15 mentions that Caesar fought against Samnites
and Lucani in the battle to come. Assuming the internal chronology of

Appian 1.5.42 is reliable (see Appendix I), the latter may have already
defeated Crassus and taken Grumentum, leaving him able to lend his men
to Papius and thus furnish the Lucani noted by Orosius.
35 See earlier notes, as well as Appendix H.
infantry and cavalry from Mauretania and Numidia (Appian, loc. cit).
These helped offset the twenty cohorts which Orosius states were
with Sulla, probably at that moment en route to Aesernia.36 When
Ceasar arrived, his opponent immediately made use of a present
sent to him from Venusia in the form of the newly-freed Oxynta,
son of Jugurtha. This man was dressed in royal purple by the
Alliance and revealed to Caesar’s men, whose African forces
acknowledged Oxynta as king and propmptly defected. As a result,
Caesar was compelled to send the rest home as untrustworthy
(Appian 1.5.42). Soon thereafter, Papius, emboldened, attacked and
was making an inroad into the Roman camp when Caesar stuck
back and killed 6000 of the enemy.37
Caesar’s victory seemed to put an end to Allied advances in
the area. It is probable that winter was coming on now; at any rate,
a line of Appian makes it reasonably clear that, while Papius
remained in the area, he did not attack, leaving the two armies to
eye each other uneasily (καὶ οἵδε μὲν ἀλλ λαις ἀντιστρατοπεδεύοντες
οὐκ ἐπεχείρουν οὐδέτερος οὐδετέρῳ διὰ φό ον; 1.6.45).38 The victory
36 The chronology of Orosius makes it clear that Sulla’s Aesernian

expedition was defeated after Acerrae, though it is not unlikely that they
were on their way there as that battle was taking place.
37 Caesar may have had help: it is perhaps shortly before the battle at
Acerrae that Caesar received an offer from a Cretan for “a betrayal”

(προδοσίαν), as a reward for which Caesar proposed granting the man
civitas. This was laughingly refused by the Cretan, whose sense of irony
was apparently high: he wryly suggested that the consul could save himself
a lot of trouble by offering the franchise to the very men against whom he
was fighting, since that was their ultimate object (τὰ δὲ τῆς πολιτείας τίμια
τοῖς περὶ ταύτ ς νῦν διαφερομένοις διαφερομένοις, οἵτινες αἵματος ἀγοράζουσι
λῆρον περιμάχ τον). The Cretan accepted a thousand drachmae instead
(Diodorus Siculus, 37.18).
38 Appendix I suggests that the battle described in section 1.6.45 has
been misplaced in Appian’s narrative from where it should have come,

which is between sections 1.5.41 and 1.5.42. In that case, this line about
the two sides not daring to attack each other may belong to before the
battle at Acerrae, not afterwards. Nevertheless, the fact that Caesar was
able to quit the scene and go back to Rome (1.5.42) is itself an indication
that Papius was done for the year, so it may be that after Acerrae both
of Caesar had hardly been overwhelming, but it had been enough:

Acerrae had not fallen, and the morale of the soldiers had been
sufficiently boosted to declare Caesar imperator (Orosius 5.18.14–
15). Likewise, back at Rome the Senate—presumably desperate for
some good news after a string of abysmal failures (about which
more will be discussed presently)—put aside their saga (Orosius, loc.
cit., Periochae 73). The victory also allowed Caesar to quit the field
(App. 1.5.42): aided, no doubt, by the return of Sulla from the last
attempt at Aesernia, Caesar seems to have taken the opportunity to
leave this subordinate in command while he returned to Rome to
hold consular elections39 and propose a law which might very well
have greatly shortened the war, about which more later.40 In this
sides resumed the position they had occupied before it, which was
anxious watchfulness towards each other.
39 As proposed by Domaszewski, p. 26.
40 Keaveney (1987, p. 134–135, 138) has a completely different order
of events, which struggles to preserve the chronology found in Appian

(a consistent feature of his work). Thus, Keaveney has the victory at
Acerrae occur before the disaster at the hands of Egnatius. While other
reasons for adjusting the chronology of Appian in the way that is followed
above have been presented in Appendix I, some additional military
considerations also suggest that Keaveney’s construction is implausible.
In the first place, it does not seem likely that Caesar would leave
Acerrae to engage in a relief attempt against Aesernia with an enemy
defeated but by no means destroyed at his back. If nevertheless he had
done so and then suffered a catastrophic defeat of the type he is described
as having suffered at the hands of Egnatius, it seems incredible that the
Caesar would not have been attacked in his weakened condition again at
Teanum, especially if Papius was still in the neighborhood of Acerrae, less
than two days’ march away. At the very least, it is almost inconceivable
that Papius would not have made one more attempt at Acerrae with
Caesar quite literally recovering from his wounds in Teanum, whether that
involved having a go at Caesar or not. Yet despite the fact that it is almost
beyond doubt that a chance to strike at a weakened foe at one place or
another would have been irresistible to a commander as seasoned and
bold as Papius proved to be, Keaveney nevertheless would have it that
Papius spent the rest of the year idle.
Furthermore, section 1.5.42 of Appian (that part of his work
concerning Acerrae) mentions reinforcements as already having recently
way, the operations in the south, ones which had largely been ones
of great success for the Allies, came to an end. Their successes
here, however, were more than matched by some early victories for
the Allied cause in the northern theater, to which attention will
next be turned.
3. THE NORTHERN THEATER

While the Romans in the south were being battered by Scato,
Marius Egnatius, and Papius Mutilus, things in the north were
going equally poorly for the Commonwealth, and thus equally well
for the Allies. It is not unlikely that, if the strategy in the south was
what was conjectured above, then that for the north (if there was
one) was constructed along the same lines. Assuming that such is
the case, then the consul P. Rutilius Lupus set out with seven
legions under his overall command. Three of these he seems to
have dispatched under three of his legates along the course of the
Tolenus and upper run of the Liris river for the purpose of
establishing a defensive line, from which an offensive operation
could, in turn, be conducted. Quintus Servilius Caepio seems to
have been stationed at the northern terminus of this line near Reate
on the Via Salaria so as to keep communications open between the
army and Umbria and Etruria (or perhaps to help keep the peace
there; more below). South of him, C. Perperna was placed towards
the end of the Tolenus. Between them, the consul seems to have
arrived shortly before that battle, as has been discussed above. These
would have been vital for a campaign conducted by Caesar after a
shattering defeat such as that dealt by Egnatius, and indeed 1.6.45
mentions those reinforcements as having been sent to Caesar for the
specific purpose of being used at Acerrae after the episode in the defile.
Therefore, 1.6.45 seems to show reinforcements being sent to Caesar for
Acerrae, and 1.5.42 shows their arrival. For this reason, and due to the
strategic irregularities that would otherwise result if Appian’s chrionology
is retained just as it appears, make it almost certain that Haug (p. 227–230)
and Domaszweski (p 24) were correct to intuit that 1.6.45 is a
disconnected passage from another source which describes events prior to
the battle at Acerrae, one which should more properly have been inserted
between 1.5.41 and 1.5.42. As such, their hypothesis is accepted above,
and Keaveney’s is discarded.
placed himself and C. Marius, whom Rutilius seems to have kept

close by as his direct legate, taking up a position in the
neighborhood of Carseoli. Finally, Valerius Massala seems to have
taken the southernmost position of the line on the upper run of the
Liris, guarding the rest of the army from the Marsi from a position
near Sora.41
Just as Marcellus had been detached from Caesar’s line in
south, so too was Gn. Pompeius Strabo, the remaining legate of
Rutilius, was detached from northern line and sent into territory
slightly to the north of the end of it. His role was not to be
defensive but offensive, having apparently been given by the consul
the task of advancing to capture Asculum. This was almost
certainly ordered with the aim of opening the coastline and
attacking those Allies who were behind the Appenines. It was en
route to Asculum that the first action of the northern theater—
action which Orosius gives as the first overall in his account of the
war (5.18.10)—took place: at some time which was likely around
the beginning of the campaign season in 90 and thus early spring,
Pompeius engaged with the Picentes and was beaten. This sounds
almost exactly like an engagement described in Appian, in which a
combined army led by Lafrenius, Vidacilius, and Vettius Scato met
41 These positions, again, follow Domaszewski (p. 21–23), based on

the record of the activities of the legates which strongly suggests that, here
again, Appian arranged them north to south. As was in the case for the
south, there seem to have been two exceptions to this. Like Marcellus to
the south, Pompeius Strabo was not part of the northern line, and was
instead sent forward into Picenum to attack the Allies in something of a
flanking operation. Furthermore, Marius deems to have been the right
hand of Rutilius, in much the way that it is speculated Sulla was for Caesar
(for which see earlier note). Both, as has been observed, were listed fourth
of the five legates for their respective consuls, and neither seem to have
fought in the region to which this place in the order would seem to
consign them. As far as the boundaries of the consul’s territory,
Domaszewski suggests that Sora was the southern terminus for Rutilius
(hence Massala’s placement there) and Casilinum, the northern terminus
for Caesar (hence the placement there of Lentulus). He offers no reason
for this delineation, but there seems to be no good reason to doubt it;
hence, it is retained here.
Pompeius near Falerio,42 defeated him, and drove him to Firmum,

where he was subsequently enclosed by Lafrenius (1.6.47). Because
of these similarities, the battles are often seen to be the same event
in modern scholarship.43 If this is the case, then by virtue of its
42 As noted by Salmon (1967, p. 353 note 5), Appian’s Φάλερνον ὄρος
is certainly an error, as that mountain is nowhere near Picenum; Falerio,

however, is.
43 However, see Keaveney (1987, p. 132), who holds that these were
two separate engagements. This, however, stems from his attempt to take
Appian’s narrative as strictly chronological, attempts which generally end
unhappily. If, however, the opinion of Haug is followed (p. 227) and it is
assumed that Appian is arranging his events first geographically, then
chronologically within his designated geographical divisions (see
Appendix I), then no conflict appears between the statements of Orosius
and Appian. Thus, while the event which the former describes as the first
of the war is to be found towards the end of Appian’s narrative of the
year 90, it is to be found at the beginning of his record of what happened
in northeastern Italy (described in sections 1.6.47 and 1.6.48). These
events took place over the whole year, as do the events in southern Italy
(narrated over sections 1.5.41 and 1.5.42 (with 1.6.45 between them; see,
again, Appendix I) and central Italy (discussed in sections 1.5.43 to
1.6.46), so it may well be that the engagement with which 1.6.47 opens
was the very first of the year. For this reason, it is assumed as much
above.
Keaveney is, on the other hand, almost certainly correct in that this
engagement was not a siege of Asculum from which Pompeius was driven
by Lafrenius, Vidacilius, and Vettius Scato. In this he disputes
Domaszewski (p. 23). The logic of the latter author is as follows: Appian
notes that Lafrenius definitely fought against Pompeius in a battle which
shut him into Firmum. The same author notes Lafrenius died in a later
battle against Pompeius, when the latter broke out of that town. Since, in
turn, that battle was the prelude to the siege of Asculum, which came after
the breakout and thus the death of Lafrenius, the sling bullet must date
from an earlier engagement (in which Lafrenius would have been alive to
be a target for it). However, that bullet was apparently found in Corropli,
about twenty miles due east of Asculum and thus forty miles from Falerio;
see Kathryn Lomas and Edward Herring, The emergence of State Identities in
Italy in the first millennium BC. Accordia Research Institute: London (2000),
p. 191. The bullet was thus found rather far from Falerio, where Appian
holds that this battle took place, and as a result (Domaszewski reasons),
placement in Orosius and the subsequent activities of the men

involved in it, it would seem that this battle would have occurred
very early in the year.44 After his defeat Pompeius spent some time
there must have first been a siege, one lifted by Lafrenius and his
confederates in an operation so successful that it forced Pompeius to flee
thirty miles to the north (the approimate distance betwen Asculum and
Falerio). There the Alliance caught up with him, defeated him, and drove
him another sixteen miles into Firmum.
This seems exceedingly unlikely, especially since another possibility for
how the sling bullet came to be found at Corropoli suggests itself. This is
the second battle between Pompeius and Lafrenius mentioned in the same
section of Appian (see below). That author’s very words state that, after
some time elapsed after his initial defeat, Pompeius erupted from
Firmum. After a close fight which was lost by the Italians when they lost
heart after the death of Lafrenius, the socii were driven all the way to
Asculum. It is conceivable that they were pursued along the coastal road,
and the bullet—intended for Lafrenius while the latter lived—was slung at
his retreating army after his death. If this is so, then the epigraphic
evidence need not separate the battles mentioned in Orosius and Appian,
and, again, they are assumed to be the same event in the text above.
44 Haug’s conjecture about the chronology of 91/90 as it appears in
the Periochae would mean that this battle could have been amongst the
many nameless engagements at the end of Periocha 72. It might therefore
have been mentioned in Livy but may not have seemed appropriate to be
singled out by name in the Periochae, for reasons unknown. Orosius, on the
other hand, had apparently considered it to be a matter of greater interest,
and gives more details. Presumably Appian is doing so, as well; however,
to get the battle mentioned in the latter to align with that discussed in
Orosius, it becomes necessary to alter the chronology of Appian in a
manner similar to that proposed by Haug and Domaszewski (cited in an
earlier note), for which see Appendix I. Assuming that the rearrangement
offered there is valid, then the events in 1.6.47 begin early in the year,
extend through the summer, and culminate with the siege of Asculum
sometime in the fall, a siege whose conduct and outcome is described in
1.6.48 and whose beginning was contemporaneous with the happenings at
Acerrae described in 1.5.41. The siege continued through the fall of 90,
stretched through the winter (during which Pompeius Strabo would have
left it and gone back to Rome to run for the consulate) and ended in early
89, for which see next chapter. This reconstruction makes sound sense,
and is more convincing than that of Keaveney (1987, p. 131–132, 140–
in Firmum reorganizing and reforming but holding quiescent,

though exactly how much time cannot be determined. If he was
finally compelled to move by the approach of another Roman army
(as asserted below), he might have spent much of the summer
closed within the city before that army could arrive.
The expedition of Pompeius had perhaps not been designed
to draw off some of the enemy, although it managed to accomplish
this very thing. At least, it may have appeared to do so to the
consul directing the northern theater: with three separate armies
dispatched to defeat Strabo, Rutilius may have seen an opportunity
to send one of his legates to relieve Alba Fucens and perhaps
proceed on to Pinna. It seems that the otherwise unknown C.
Perperna45 was selected for this task, but P. Praesentius and an
army of Paeligni46 were apparently waiting for him: in the battle
which ensued the latter extracted from Perperna 4000 casualties as
well as much of his armament (Appian 1.5.41). Rutilius then took
the unusual step of cashiering Perperna and adding what remained
of that legate’s command to the forces already under C. Marius, a
relative of the consul’s (Orosius 5.18.11; Dio, frg. 98). Given that
both Marius and Rutilius were soon both engaged in building
bridges across the Tolenus river, it appeared that the next push
towards Alba was going to be theirs and was going to be
undertaken together47 (a joint attack perhaps along the same lines
as that which may have been attempted against Aesernia by Caesar,
141), who rejects it in the attempt to save the chronology in Appian (a

feature of his which work will recur in practically all of his interpretations
of battles in this war, as has been and will be seen).
45 Perhaps Marcus Perperna, consul of 92, is meant here, since all the
other legates were ex-consular or ex-praetorian. As will be seen, Perperna

would not exactly show a spectacular amount of battlefield ability for an
ex-consul, though in this war such stumbles were by no means unusual;
the triumphator Crassus had likewise hardly covered himself in glory (as has
been seen).
46 For this attribution of command, and therefore for the location of
the battle (which is not disclosed in Appian) see earlier in the chapter, as
well as Appendix H.
47 Keaveney (1987, p. 135) suggests they were to advance on either
side of the Via Valeria towards Alba, which is almost certainly right.
as described above). This construction work would have made it

difficult to conceal Roman intentions from the Allies, but in order
for them to make sure that an offensive towards Alba was in fact
the Roman plan, Marsic spies were sent to infiltrate the enemy
camp. These mixed in with a foraging party and for a time were
apparently quite successful in gathering and passing on information
to the socii about Roman movements (Dio, loc cit.).
One of the things the spies might well have been able to
observe is what was likely a rift that beginning to emerge between
the Roman consul and his most able legatus. As the building was
continuing Marius looks to have spent much of his available time
attempting to convince Rutilius that the troops they were leading
were not yet fit for battle and needed additional training; in fact,
the old general have lacked confidence as much in his commander
as in his men. Rutilius, suspecting Marius had ulterior motives for
this advice, grew more and more exasperated, and on top of it had
begun to notice that intelligence about his movements was finding
its way to the hands of the enemy. The work of the spies then
seems to have brought about the additional benefit for the Allies of
causing Rutilius to suspect the nobiles amongst his staff of betrayal,
leading him to send complaints along these lines to the Senate
before any hard evidence had been found to support his
accusations. Eventually the Allied spies were discovered, but
Rutilius seems to have become no less paranoid even as the bridges
neared completion (Dio, loc. cit.). At this point Vettius Scato
appeared48 and built his camp across the river between the two
camps of the Romans (Appian 1.5.43).
48 Salmon (1967, p. 354) argues that before Scato arrived he had

fought his way up the Liris valley and had defeated Valerius Messala, who
had been stationed there. This had led Rutilius to replace Messala with
Sex. Julius Caesar, the returning proconsul. A number of reasons led
Salmon to this conjecture (of which more will be discussed further
below), but one of them was geographical. As was seen, Salmon argues if
the first defeat of L. Julius Caesar, one dealt to him by Scato, had
occurred near between Aesernia and Atina, rather between Aesernia and
Teanum as speculated above (see earlier notes). Thus, for Scato to get to
the area of Carseoli from that locality, the most logical route would be
through the Liris valley, where presumably Messala was stationed (see
A stratagem attempted more than once by the Allies during

this war involved their building of camps near their enemies in the
hopes of luring the Romans into battle.49 This seems to have been
the very thing Scato was hoping to do with Rutilius, whose itch for
a brawl might well have been reported to Scato by his spies.
Whether or not this was a deliberate aim to force a battle on
Scato’s part, it successfully did that very thing in spite of the
attempts of Marius to dissuade Rutilius from this course of action.
As seen above, Dio reports that Marius had advised the consul
against engagement and proposed a delay instead. At this juncture
he also seems to have pointed out that by holding their position
but not fighting, the Romans could be resupplied indefinitely from
home by means of the unimpeded eastward track of the Via
Valeria. At the same time, their presence would simultaneously
compel the Marsi to stay where they were but force them to live off
their land, which would soon be exhausted (a condition to which
Diodorus 37.24 may point).
above. Scato would then have had to have fought his way through the
legate, and Massala’s defeat would have led to his replacement.
None of this, however, is required by what the sources report. If, as
conjectured above, L. Caesar had launched his attack from Teanum and
not Atina, then Scato would have beaten him closer to Aesernia and then
moved to help press the siege at the latter, which is exactly what Appian
says that he does. He could then move towards Rutilius by means of first
the road connecting Aesernia to Sulmo, and then on the Via Valeria past
Alba Fucens (see Map 1). This region would, in turn, have been cleared of
danger thanks to Praesentaeius and his defeat of Perperna (see above). In
fact, even if this engagement with Caesar had taken place near Atina,
Scato could still have fallen back and taken the Sulmo—Aesernia road
described above, and thus need not have gone by Sora and Messala at all.
Moreover, even if he had in fact gone up the Liris valley by Sora, Scato
could very well have evaded, and therefore did not necessarily have to
fight, Messalla. Finally, there is no record of such a defeat of Massala by
Scato anywhere in the sources. For this reason, the Salmon’s advocacy of
Messala’s replacement is not overwhelming, and there is ample room to
suggest that Messala remained where he was. This will become important
directly, as will be seen. For more on this, see also Appendix J.
49 See, for example, Appian 1.6.50 (an episode which will be described
in the next chapter).

Rutilius, however, would have none of it, and immediately

decided to take advantage of what he believed to be a mistake on
the part of the enemy: since Scato had made his camp nearer to the
bridge of Marius, Rutilius believed he would have an opportunity
to cross over the Tolenus by means of his own bridge without
opposition, and then hit Scato from the south.50 In the meantime,
Marius would cross the bridge he had built so that he could pin the
Marsi to the north as Rutilius advanced. With this plan in mind, in
the early morning of the eleventh of June Rutilius seized what he
had believed was his opening and began his crossing. This he
pulled off, but once on the other side he fell into the trap which
Scato had set for him in the form of a sizeable portion of men
concealed in some nearby ditches, men who pounced when
Rutilius emerged on the eastern bank of the river. The surprise was
apparently total: in Ovid’s rather lurid phrasing, the river ran purple
with the blood of the Roman dead, among which being that of
Rutilius himself, who was apparently slain by a head wound.51 The
river also apparently carried not just the blood but also the bodies
of some of the many men who were reported as having been
driven into the water. When their corpses and weapons floated
downstream, Marius—who was crossing his bridge to implement
the prong of the attack assigned to him—seems to have guessed
50 That Marius was to the north of Rutilius may be seen by the flow of
the Tolenus, which is from south to north (Domaszweski, p 22); this will
become important momentarily.
51 This battle is reported in great detail by a variety of sources. These
include the descendants of Livy: it is found in Orosius (5.18.12–13), in

which the greatest amount of detail can be found from those drawing
from the abovementioned historian; in Obsequens (55), where it is noted
that Rutilius apparently disregarded the advice of the gods as well as that
of Marius when he pressed the attack in spite of having found that the
liver of his sacrifical victim had had no head; and in the Periocha of
Book 73 (Eutropius 5.3.2 and Florus 2.16.12 also mentioned the death of
the consul in battle, but only so much, and Florus even gets that wrong,
stating that it was Caesar who had died). The sources also include Appian
(1.5.43), who describes the battle’s overall strategy and most of the
particulars, including the death blow to Rutilius, and Ovid, whose Fasti
(6.563) provides its exact date.
(correctly) that the enemy in front of him was a small holding force
and spurred his men on with vigor. These responded by driving the
enemy off and capturing their camp, forcing the Marsi to sleep on
the ground where they had won their victory over Rutilius (Orosius
also mentions that the counterattack of Marius killed 8000 of the
socii, almost certainly an exaggeration). When the next day arrived
those Marsi were compelled to withdraw due to lack of supplies.
It had been a great victory, if not a perfect one, for the Allies:
Marius had driven Scato back, but not before the latter had
accomplished the destruction of what was sure to have been a
considerable number of men in the legions under the command of
Rutilius. Indeed, the bodies of those sent back to Rome for burial
had caused such inordinate wailing that the Senate declared that
henceforth the dead would be buried on the spot (Appian 1.5.43).52
Unfortunately, Scato and his men do not seem to have been able to
take advantage of the momentum from the battle and had to halt
the press along the Via Valeria due to the need to bring in the
harvest. For his part, Marius, almost never in the mood to rush to
the attack under any conditions and certainly not with soldiers of
unproven ability, seems to have contented himself with pulling
together the remnants of the legions of Rutilius, instilling discipline,
and committing the occasional detachments to disrupt the
harvesters (Diodorus, 37.4.2). In the meantime, he awaited the
appointment of a new consul to take over the command of the
northern theater. As it would turn out, L. Julius Caesar apparently
had no time to return to preside over the election of a suffect (his
second assault on Aesernia was about to get underway), and he
seems to have left the matter of command of the northern theater
in the hands of the Senate. The six-time consul and savior of the
Republic might have seemed like the ideal candidate to assume the
vacant command, but the Senate apparently had reservations about
entrusting him with it. This might have been due to enmity
52 The Allies do not seem to have lost anywhere near that many men
in this engagement (the testimony of Orosius notwithstanding), or, to this

point, in any other (Acerrae had not yet occurred). However, they seem to
have recognized this idea of burial in situ as a good one, since Appian
reports that they too implemented a similar program.
for Marius amongst the optimates, or even suspicions of the

commander’s over-fondness for the enemy,53 but it might also have
been from the simple consideration that Marius was by now close
to his seventieth year, and if a reference in Plutarch is to be
believed, he was feeling his age (Marius 33–34).54 Furthermore,
Marius and his defensive proclivities were well known, which might
make him ideal for repelling Allied incursion but perhaps not the
best sort for swift strikes designed to humble the enemy rapidly.
The Senate might well have desired someone better suited for
these. Finally, there was a chance that he too might die in battle,
leaving the army leaderless again and thus in the position of
requiring another replacement general.
It might therefore have been for any, all, or none of these
reasons that the Senate decided to divide the command formerly
held by Rutilius between Marius and Q. Servilius Caepio. He, like
Marius, had been a legate under the dead consul,55 and had shown
sufficient fire escaping a siege in which he had been trapped earlier
in the year (Per. 73) that he seems to have earned the confidence of
the patres. It is unknown exactly how this joint command was
envisioned to work, or if, where, and when Caepio received some
of the forces under the command of Marius. If Caepio did receive
such reinforcements, Marius may have had to move away from
Carseoli and perhaps gave the Allies the chance to lay waste to it, as
Florus asserts occurred (2.6.11). This, however, does not seem
likely, as it seems difficult to believe that Marius would have moved
from a position which lay on a direct path to Rome, and therefore
Carseoli must have been lain waste—if indeed it was—at some
later period.
53 For Marius and the enemies he tended to make, see chapter 7; for
his connection to the Allies, see chapter 3.

54 On the age of Marius, see Carney 1970, p. 8.
55 As their powers were equal, they were perhaps both named
propraetor; Keaveney (1987, p. 137) postulates that the Senate initially

formalized Marius’s command by having him named as legate to the
urban praetor so that “the imperium he exercised was the praetor’s, not his
own”. He provides no citation for this, however, and none of the ancient
sources mention anything of the kind; hence, this argument is not
followed here.
The placement of Caepio as co-commander seems to have

given an opportunity of sorts to the Marsi, however, and they soon
attempted another gambit, this one under the direct command of
their marshal Q. Poppaedius Silo. Silo’s plan was to pretend to
defect to the Romans (Appian 1.6.44), presumably in exchange for
the citizenship. Silo, as has been seen, had been a well-known
petitioner for the civitas before the war (see chapter 3). The idea
that he would be willing to betray the Allies cause to acquire
personally that which for which he had been agitating for some
time might not have been a difficult one to sell. Moreover, Caepio
would be just the sort to whom Silo in particular could make such a
sale, since very likely the two men had known each other before
the war. It will be recalled that Silo had been an intimate of Drusus,
the one-time best friend and former brother-in-law of Caepio (Dio
frg. 93).56 Due to the well-known falling out between Drusus and
Caepio, he and Silo need not have been friends; Caepio, upon
becoming an inimicus of Drusus, might very well have placed
himself amongst the staunchest of opponents of Italian citizenship,
and his enmity towards Drusus might well have extended to Silo.57
Yet at the very least their knowledge of each other may have given
Silo an insight into Caepio’s personality, such that he could discern
whether the ploy he had had in mind would work. Confident that it
would, Silo appeared in the Romans camp along with his
“children” (in reality two slaves disguised in purple and passed off
as his sons) and a great deal of “treasure” (actually gold—and
silver-plated ingots of lead), and presented both to Caepio along
with himself and a scheme for capturing or destroying the Marsic
army now bereft—or so it seemed—of leadership. It may very well
have been this last that finally won Caepio over, since such a great
success would perhaps restore his family name; this had been
stained by his father’s criminally arrogant behavior at Arausio in
105, a disgrace about which a man with Silo’s connections would
56 For a full discussion of Caepio and his relationship with Drusus, see
Badian 1964, p. 36–70 and especially p. 39–45. For the bonds between
Silo and Drusus, see earlier chapter.
57 Indeed, based on what was soon to take place, a friendship seems
quite unlikely.
doubtless have known very well. Led therefore by gullibility,

recklessness, or ambition, Caepio followed Silo right into the trap
which had been laid somewhere near Amiternum.58 Once there,
Silo mounted a hill as if to look for his former command, and in so
doing gave a signal to it. At this signal, rather than delivering the
men he had promised into Caepio’s hands, Silo instead delivered
Caepio and his forces into the hands of the Marsi and Vestini. No
casualty figures are given, even by Orosius, who is normally quite
free with these. All the sources which comment on the battle itself,
though, are unanimous in that Caepio’s army was completely
destroyed.59 Following this disaster, the Senate seems to have
decided that the best use of Marius would be to stop saddling him
with inepts as nominal superiors or colleagues and gave command
of the remnants of Caepio’s forces to him, which they did.60
At some point prior to Caepio’s fatal adventure, and thus
probably around the beginning of July, the Senate commissioned
soldiers to the proconsul Sextus Julius Caesar (the consul of 91),
and sent him towards Asculum. Very likely Caesar had started
towards his province before the autumn of his year in office and
had just now returned61, perhaps having been recalled specifically
58 So Domaszewski (p. 26) and Salmon (1967, p. 355 and note 1),
citing epigraphic evidence.

59 These sources include the Periocha of Livy’s Book 73; App. 1.6.44;
Orosius 5.8.14 (who mention both Marsi and Vestini as those who
defeated Caepio); Florus 2.16.12 (who mentions only that Caepio’s forces
were annihilated, but does not discuss the circumstances around that
destruction); and Eutropius 5.3.2 (who comments on Caepio’s death
alone).
60 Contra Keaveney (1987, p. 141), who, as mentioned earlier, states
that Sextus Caesar was given the command of the entire theater based on
the claim of Appian that Caesar was given proconsular power after the
expiry of his office (Σέξστος δὲ Καῖσαρ ἐξ κοντος αὐτῷ τοῦ χρόνου τῆς ἀρχῆς
ἀν ύπατος ὑπὸ τῆς ουλῆς; 1.6.48). Yet Appian’s can just as easily be
interpreted as claiming that Caesar was only given charge of the relief of
Picenum, and is so interpreted here.
61 Such is the hypothesis of Keaveney (1983, p. 273–274; 1987,
p. 141), as cited above. Other elements of his interpretation of Periochae 73

are at odds with the interpretation of that passage which is to follow
below, and these will be discussed presently.
by the Senate., and was given command of some of the soldiers

with which Appian claims the Romans were eventually compelled
to furnish their commanders upon their discovery of Allied resolve.
To stop him, Silo seems to have sent a force of Paeligni in the
consul’s direction, probably those of Praesentius which had earlier
defeated Perperna and had since then had likely been sent to guard
Silo’s flank as he attempted to ensnare Caepio near Amiternum. It
was probably somewhere along the Via Salaria that the two armies
caught up with each other, and a great battle ensued. It seems
that the proconsul surprised the Paeligni—about 20,000 strong,
according to Appian (1.6.48)—as they were changing camps and
heavily defeated them, slaying 8000 and capturing a great amount
of weapons. Nothing more is heard of Praesenteius, who may not
have survived the battle. If he did, then at this point he conceivably
fell back with what remained of his men, either on Alba or on
Amiternum and Silo; if he did not, perhaps just his men did so.
Sex. Caesar, for his part, continued on his way to Asculum.62
News of his approach seems to have reached Pompeius
Strabo, who was at this time still shut up in Firmum. He had been
enclosed there since the early spring following his aforementioned
defeat by Scato, Lafrenius, and Vidacilius.63 Heartened by these
62 The interpretation of this event is much different from what
appears in several works of modern scholarship; for the nature of these

differences and the reasons for why they exist, see Appendix J.
63 As mentioned above, Keaveney (1987, p. 131–132, 140–141) has a
rather different interpretation of what was happening in Picenum which

attempts to preserve the chronology of Appian. His understanding is that
the accounts of Orosius 5.18.10 and Appian 1.6.47 describe different
events, and following his argument Pompeius first arrived in Firmum
(which he used as his base), sallied out, fought against the Picentes under
an unnamed commander (perhaps Vidacilius), and lost. He then retreated
and remained quiescent for quite some time until the battle described in
Appian 1.6.47 (“the two bouts are obviously months apart”, p. 141),
before coming to grips with a combined force of Vidacilius, Lafrenius,
and Ventidius (Keaveney holds that that it was Ventidius and not Vettius,
putting him at odds with what the most common textual emendation
would have; see Salmon 1958, p. 170). This force, Keaveney continues,
defeated Pompeius a second time, again drive him back on Firmum, and
this time besieged him there under Lafrenius. This would account for
developments, Pompeius seems to have decided upon a breakout,

to be effected by means of sending his apparent legate Sulpicius64
epigraphic evidence placing Lafrenius at a battle near Asculum (see earlier

note). In the meantime, Vidacilius and Ventidius went their separate ways.
Where the former ended up going is not mentioned. As to the latter, since
this battle took place (according to Keaveney) in mid-summer, Vidacilius
would have had plenty of time to make his Apulian journey and then
return late in the year as per Appian 1.6.48. Pompeius, on the other hand,
remained in Firmum until the approach of Sextus Caesar. Keaveney is
reasonably firm that no siege of Pompeius took place after this first battle
(it would only come after the second), and therefore offers no explanation
as to what Pompeius did during these months between the first and
second battles. Apparently he was simply idle for these weeks.
These lost weeks notwithstanding, Keaveney’s explanation of the
activities of Strabo are not at great variance with the one suggested above.
The main difference (beyond the removal of Scato for Ventidius) is that
Keaveney separates into two battles what is taken to have been only one
here. By contrast, the assessment presented above is even further
congruent with the more convincing elucidation of Salmon (1967, p. 353),
which also holds that the battles mentioned in Orosius and Appian are
identical but rearranges the chronology in Appian. By this rearrangement,
the deeds described in 1.6.47 are placed at the very beginning of 90, but
the internal sequence of events contained within the episode narrated
between 1.6.47–48 is retained. Thus, an initial assault on Asculum by
Pompeius never made it there but was met to the north by Lafrenius,
Scato, and Vidacilius, and was repulsed by them with sufficient
vehemence to force Pompeius into Firmum. There he was then besieged
by Lafrenius until the arrival of Caesar (Domaszewski, p. 23–24 has a
similar interpretation to this one, but he suggests that an initial siege of
Asculum was what was driven off by the Allies, based on evidence derived
from the sling bullet discussed earlier). Salmon’s interpretation does less
violence to the substance of the sources that what is offered by Keaveney,
and is thus the basis for what is argued above.
64 Servius Sulpicius Galba, according to Domasewski (p. 27) and
Salmon (1967, p. 356); P. Sulpicius Rufus, according to Keaveney (1987,

p. 141). The latter’s assumption partly rests on the preservation of Servius
Sulpicius in Per. 73, a passage discussing a Roman commander’s defeat of
Paeligni which this essay assumes to have been undertaken by Sex. Julius
Caesar. For more on this point, see earlier notes, as well as Appendices J
behind Lafrenius while Pomperius himself was to hit Lafrenius in

front. The fighting was apparently ferocious, and was finally
decided when Sulpicius effected the burning of the enemy camp.
This proved too much the Allies, whose commander had in the
meantime fallen in battle, and they fell back to Asculum. Pompeius
then followed and thereupon lay siege to the city.65
News of this victory spread quickly: at Rome the magistrates,
who had doffed their saga due to the victory of L. Julius Caesar at
Acerrae somewhat earlier, now felt sufficiently relieved that they
resumed the purple-bordered toga and other insignia of office (Per.
74; Orosius 5.18.17). It also spread to southern Italy, at which
point Vidacilius, whose home was at Asculum, hastened back from
Apulia with the apparent aim of attacking the Romans from
without the siege lines while the men inside were to attack him
from within. Yet this plan failed to materialize, due to the refusal of
those inside the city to act. Instead, Vidacilius only managed to
break into the city himself. When exactly this took place is difficult
to ascertain, though possibly it occurred in late fall of 9066 and may
and R. See also additional discussion on this matter to be found in

Broughton, vol. 2, p. 30.
65 Appian 1.6.47; Periocha 74; Orosius 5.18.17. The latter two specify
that the Picentes were the ones defeated, not the Vestini, of which people
it was argued above that Lafrenius was the leader. Nevertheless, this
evidence need not be overly worrisome: the fact that battle took place in
Picenum would mean that it would be easy for the anonymous compiler
of the Periochae and Orosius to assume that the men defeated there were
Picentes. Very likely many of them were, perhaps added to the command
of Lafrenius by Vidacilius before his great sweep through Apulia (see
above).
66 Salmon does not seem to commit to a date for this event, though
the position of it in the narrative in one of his works (1967, p. 364–365)

suggests that he believed it might have occurred in early 89. That author
certainly seems to believe that Vidacilius was still alive in that year (ibid.;
see also 1958, p. 174, though he there maintains that Vidacilius died later
in that year than will be speculated in chapter 6). By contrast,
Domaszewski seems to suggest the breakthrough took place during the
larger battle of 89 described in Velleius Paterculus 2.21, Per. 74, and
Appian 1.6.48, 50, which is certainly when its sequel ran. Keaveney,
however, interprets the arrival at Asculum and the breakthrough at the
have been the last action in which Pompeius took part in that year.
He was soon replaced by the arrival of Sextus Julius Caesar, who
held the siege together while Pompeius headed to Rome and,
exploiting his victory in battle, was subsequently elected Consul for
89.
While this was occurring in Picenum, Poppaedius Silo turned
his attention towards getting rid of the remainder of the army of
Rutilius to the west. He thereupon cast his eye towards Marius, in
the direction of whose position he began to approach with what
was presumably the largest element of the Allied northern army.
Marius, for his part, determined to hold firm. Plutarch records an
exchange in which Poppaedius Silo (to whom he mistakenly refers
as “Publius Silo”) taunted Marius with the barb that, were Marius a
great commander, he would come out and fight, to which Marius
replied that, were Silo a great commander, he would compel Marius
to do so (Marius 33). Silo almost certainly knew better than to hope
that such name-calling would work on this particular subject, as
Marius was not the sort to be ambushed in the way that the
impetuous Rutilius and the gullible Caepio had been. Accordingly,
Silo seems to have resorted to a new strategy. A gap in the Roman
line existed between Marius, who was near Carseoli, and Valerius
Massala, who was near Sora. This was caused by Perperna’s
command having been transferred to Marius upon his defeat by
Praesentius. Silo seemed aware of this, and based on his next series
of actions, he looks to have planned to move down the Tolenus
valley and slip through the gap. In this way he could outflank
Marius, perhaps with the aim of crossing the river and gaining
command of the Via Latina, from which he could possibly threaten
Rome itself.
Of course, Marius certainly would no more allow this to
happen than he would allow himself to be goaded into battle by
Silo’s taunts, so the general seems to have responded to Silo’s
movements by similar ones of his own, always putting himself
between Silo and the road to Rome. As both armies progressively
moved southward there was probably some desultory skirmishing
end of 90 (1987, p. 151), which is fairly convincing. For Vidacilius and his
role in the battle at Asculum of early 89, see next chapter.
between them, and it is not unlikely that these little scraps did not
go very well for the Romans at the beginning. It may be to one of
these small fights that Plutarch refers in an episode he relates, in
which the Romans, having caught up to the Marsi, met the enemy
on the field and bested them, but, on the retreat of the latter, did
not charge and finish them. This led Marius to express disgust and
voice his inability to decide about which soldiers were worse, the
cowardly Marsi who showed the Romans their backs or the
Romans who refused to stab them there (loc. cit.). At any rate, by
means of these minor scuffles the Romans under Marius were
becoming progressively more seasoned, but they were not yet ready
for a major engagement, and Marius knew it. He would therefore
not risk battle which could lead to their destruction, and thus open
the Roman flank and leave undefended a direct path to Rome, until
his milites were capable of better.67
Yet as much as Marius may have contented himself with the
minuscule clashes to which both the commanders restricted their
armies as they maneuvered into the area north of Sora, the fact that
a great battle sure to come seems to have been recognized by both
Silo and Marius. To help his chances in it, Silo appears to have
summoned the army of the Marrucini for the attack he was to
make, which promptly arrived under its commander Herius
Asinius. Silo was also perhaps reinforced from the south by his
fellow marshal Papius Mutilus, who may have sent some Venusini
under the command of T. Herennius by means of the overland
route past Aesernia into Marsic territory (Servius ad Aen. 9.587).68
67 Adcock (p. 60–61; 90–91) speculates that Marius was on the

defensive throughout his command at least partly out of a desire to
resolve the conflict by means of a settlement with the Allies. This is not
likely, but is nevertheless not completely out of character for the general,
who had shown some sympathy for Italians in the past (see chapter 3). On
the other hand, Marius was also a master of defensive tactics and
recognized the weaknesses in his soldiers, so it was probably far more
these considerations, and less the leaving open of the possibility for a
resolution without fighting, that made his evasive tactics seem to him to
be the best option.
68 This summoning and itinerary of Herennius is based on the
postulate that the Herennius mentioned in Servius ad Aen. 9.587 as having

Marius, in turn, seems to have gotten the word to Valerius Messala,

who took advantage of Italian preoccupation with the Sulla’s last
advance on Aesernia (see above) to risk detaching himself from his
post near Sora to move north to the aid of Marius. While he
awaited Messala, Marius had apparently sealed himself and his men
in camp in a manner reminiscent of his earlier behavior at Aquae
Sextiae during the Teutonic and Cimbric wars of the previous
decade. In that instance, Marius had fortified his camp and kept his
men off the field until their blood was up for battle, all the while
exposing them to the taunts of cowardice by the enemy.69 In this
one, he seems to have done the same thing (Marius 33), and
apparently continued to do so until such a time that Marius felt
battle could be joined. When at last the time finally came, Marius
was struck by an onslaught of the attacking Marsi and Marrucini.
Upon these enemies Marius proceeded first to inflict a heavy
defeat, and then next to drive them from the field, pushing them
deep into Marsic territory. There it seems the fleeing Allies only
won escape from him by scaling the walls enclosing their vineyards.
Once on the other side, however, a sickening surprise awaited
them: Messala had not much earlier appeared from the south and
was encamped nearby. He then proceeded to attack the erstwhile
socii70 on his own side of the vineyard walls. The Allies were
fought apud Soram was from Venusia (see above). It is at variance with
Salmon’s assertion (1967, p. 355–356) that Herennius was terrorizing the
Liris valley, having evaded Sulla, whom Salmon maintains as having been
stationed there. In the face of this difference it can be observed on the
one hand that Sulla—as will be seen below—may very well have not been
in the region where Salmon places him at all. On the other, it is just as
plausible that Herennius, if he had started from Venusia, got to Sora (or
near to it) by going by means of the roads through the territory of the
Hirpini and Samnium (see Map 1) rather than by having fought his way up
the Liris. If so, the affray referred to in Servius may be a part of the larger
battle described below, which is the interpretation which will be followed
here.
69 As recorded by Florus, 1.38, Plutarch, Marius 18 and Moralia 203;
Orosius 5.16.9–13; and Frontinus 2.7.12. See also chapter 7.

70 Interestingly, Messala may have been the son of the Valerius
Messala who was prosecuted by Metellus Numidicus for crimes against

doubtless exhausted from the earlier battle and flight and probably
had little energy left to withstand this strike of Messala’s, and as a
result their rout was soon total. Six thousand men were alleged to
have been killed in this battle, many others were taken prisoner,
and seven thousand were stripped of their arms. Among the dead
was Herius Asinius, the commander of the Marrucini.71
Following this battle, the Marsi apparently had not completely
lost their fighting spirit and quickly reformed again, but no great
battle is reported as having taken place in the aftermath of the
Vineyards. Winter was probably coming on now, and the fact that
the campaigning season would soon be over perhaps contributed
to the lack of will for any further hostilities. It seems likely that this
formed the backdrop for an anecdote related by Diodorus Siculus
(37.15, where he reports it as having occurred in Samnite territory;
this is almost certainly an error). According to that author, the grim
legions of Romans and Marsi advanced towards each other in what
would probably be the final battle of the year in which they would
participate. However, as the men drew within range of individual
sight and both sides began to distinguish the features of their
opponents, there arose a spontaneous compulsion to stop the
battle. Diodorus relates that the soldiers beheld on the other side
personal friends, kinsmen related by intermarriage, and former
comrades-in-arms; in fact, it might very well have been that some
of the older soldiers of both armies had once served side by side
under Marius himself during the Jugurthine and Cimbric Wars.
This recognition, combined with the lateness of the season and the
exhaustion which the campaign had likely produced, sapped the
impulse to kill. The men then yielded to the urge to suspend the
bloodshed and began to lay aside their arms and embrace each
other. At this point Marius and Silo came to the front themselves,
and upon observing the mood of their men decided not to force
Allies (Gellius 15.14.1; so Broughton, vol. 3, p. 212), so doubtless no love

would have been lost between them when the legate went on the attack.
71 The details of the battle are reported in Appian 1.6.46; mention of it
is likewise made in Per. 73, which reports the slaying of Herius, and
Orosius (5.18.15), which confirms the number of the slain, as it that
author’s wont.
the issue. Instead, they decided to parley about citizenship, while

the battlefield “lost its martial aspects and assumed a festive air”
(ἡ πᾶσα σύνοδος ἐκ πολεμικῆς τάξεως εἰς παν γυρικὴν διά εσιν
μετέπεσε). With that, the hostilities seem to have stopped for the
remainder of the year (Appian, loc. cit.)72.
In the final analysis, the counter-campaign of Marius can only
be described as a success: the general had performed with his usual
éclat and had managed to avoid being flanked in a spectacular
fashion. Plutarch’s unflattering portrayal of the old man as “tardy,
unenterprising, and timid”, either because “his age was now
quenching his former heat and vigor or … some distemper affected
his muscles”73 seems most unjust here. All told, the Roman efforts
in the northern theater, of which this counter-attack was a part,
seemed to have fared better in the than in the southern one. As the
campaigning season ended there, the Picentes were successfully
shut up in Asculum under the watchful eye of a proconsul who had
already crushed the Paeligni on the Via Salaria, while the Marsi had
temporarily succumbed to exhaustion and held quiescent further
south. On the other hand, it cannot be forgotten that those Marsi
had defeated three separate Roman armies that year (those of
L. Julius Caesar, Rutilius, and Caepio) and but for Marius may have
wreaked even further destruction, while the Paeligni and Picentes
had effected a substantial thrashing of Pompeius and Perperna
earlier on. In the north the Alliance had driven one Roman
commander from the field in disgrace and had claimed the life of a
consul and the deputy who had been tasked to succeed him, in
addition to the death they had dealt to the thousands of soldiers
under the leadership of these unfortunates. Thus, the socii in the
north had decidedly made the Romans feel the effort it would take
to subdue them, and had perhaps done so with even greater
effectiveness than their southern brethren. What was more
72 It will be immediately recognized that much of the way this

campaign is at profound variance with the interpretation of it which is
found in other scholars. For the nature and reasons behind this
disagreement, see Appendix K.
73 εἴτε τοῦ γ ρως τὸ δραστ ριον ἐκεῖνο καὶ ερμὸν ἐν αὐτῷ …
εἴτε … περὶ νεῦρα γεγονὼς νοσώδ ς καὶ σώματι δύσεργος; Marius 33.
important still was that many of these socii apparently yet possessed
a will to fight on which was undiminished despite the late victories
of the Romans, and doubtless the potential for carnage which that
unbroken will portended must not have been lost in the capital.
4. FIGHTING IN OTHER AREAS:

THE SEA, ETRURIA, AND UMBRIA
With the approach of winter, the hostilities of the year 90 had
ground to a halt in many places. To the south, Aesernia had fallen
to the Allies but a fairly large Roman army hovered between
Teanum and Acerrae, one almost certainly commanded by L.
Cornelius Sulla while L. Julius Caesar had gone back to Rome.
There it was eyed distrustfully by Papius Mutilus, whose string of
splendid successes had been halted by a loss to the aforementioned
L. Caesar. To the very northernmost Picenum was engaged in a
siege overseen by Sex. Julius Caesar, who had relived Cn. Pompeius
Strabo in time for the latter to return to Rome to run for the chief
magistracy. Between Asculum and Acerrae, Silo and his men had
for the moment yielded to the same fatigue which it seems had
affected their Roman adversaries, and had suspended the
operations in Marsic territory. Other than the fall of Pinna, which,
if it fell to the Allies at all, seems to have done so sometime after
Aesernia was taken and thus in late fall,74 no more action is
recorded as having taken place in these areas.
74 So Domaszewski, p. 27, following what seems to be the
chronological arrangement in the fragments 19–21 of book 37 of

Diodorus. That Pinna fell is believed by Salmon (1967, p. 353) and by
Keaveney (1987, p. 118). The latter cites for Pinna’s fall evidence from an
anecdote in Valerius Maximus 5.4.ext.7, in which a young man named
Pulto rescues his father from the Romans during the Allied War (Italico
bello Pinnensem iuvenem, cui Pultoni erat cognomen … cum obsessae urbis suae
claustris praesideret et Romanus imperator patrem eius captivum in conspectu ipsius
constitutum destrictis militum gladiis circumdedisset, occisurum se minitans, nisi
inruptioni suae iter praebuisset, solus e manibus senem rapuerit; emphasis added).
This implies that the Romans were attempting to reduce an Allied town,
which in turn implies that Pinna had become such and had fallen to the
Allies despite the admittedly ambiguous indication that it had withstood
the siege and remained loyal to Rome. On the other hand, Smith (p. 631)
There were, however, other theaters than the ones described

above which saw action in 90. Apparently one of these was the sea.
It seems some Allied naval operations took place, due to the fact
that the Romans responded to them: a certain legate Otacilius is
mentioned in a fragment of Sisenna has having done something
“with light boats and cutters” (cum scaphis ac lembis, frg. 38P). What,
presumably, he did with these was sail with them.75 Another
fragment of Sisenna refers to the setting afire of twenty fast ships
and as many transports (actuarias ad viginti navis item complures onerarias
incendunt), although by whom it is not said. If, however, it was the
Allies who were doing the latter, then it may very well have been
that they made use of the archpirata Agamemnon in this capacity.
Diodorus mentions that this man “ravaged the countryside of the
enemy” (τὴν πολεμίαν χώραν κατέτρεχε; 37.16).76 It was very
believes that Valerius has made a mistake here, a skepticism shared by D.

R. Shackleton-Bailey in his Loeb translation (p. 506–507 note 15 refers to
this as “probably another of [the ancient author’s] blunders”).
75 Keaveney (1987, p. 134 and note 20, p. 146–147) disagrees with
Broughton (vol. 2, p. 37) that Otacilius served in 89, probably correctly:

fragment 38, in which Otacilius is mentioned, comes from Sisenna’s third
book, which seems to have been devoted primarily to the year 90 (so
Haug, p. 215; see also earlier note on Nuceria). Since Aul. Plautius
Albinus is reported as being commander of the fleet in 89 (Per. 75, for
which see next chapter), he probably relieved Otacilius, who had served in
the previous year.
76 This is the conjecture of Salmon (1967, p. 345 note 4). The passage
in Diodorus Siculus over this remarkable man (37.16) is usually translated

in such a way as to suggest that he led a band of soldiers, not sailors.
However, the text allows for the possibility of naval service: the verb used
to state that he volunteered for service is στρατεύω, which can mean “lead
a fleet” (Xenophon uses it this way in Hellenica 1.5.21). Given his
experience, it is likely that the Allies recognized that his particular talents
could best be used by sea, and he was given men (στρατιῶται, a noun
Thucydides—2.88—once used to describe sailors serving on naval vessels,
possibly marines) with whom he ravaged the countryside of the enemy
from aboard ship (the verb used for this activity in Diodorus is κατατρέχω,
which is often used in a nautical capacity; Thucydides 2.94). It is most
unlikely that he was set as leader of the Marsi in the same way as Papius
Mutilius had been for the Samnites, as Orosius asserts (5.18.10). On the
probably in response to this threat from the sea that Roem resorted
to using freedmen to garrison the coast of Cumae, as mentioned in
Appian (more below). Therefore, Agamemnon not only may have
disrupted Roman shipping, but also conducted ship-borne raids
against coastal settlements, for which reason Otacilius was sent to
stop him. Indeed, since in the next year the Roman fleet is in the
neighborhood of Pompeii, it is quite probable that that city, once
acquired by the Alliance (see above), became the base of operations
for its naval effort.77 However, no source mentions any great clash
of vessels, so it can probably be safely intuited that the sea played a
relatively small role both in the first year of the fighting and,
ultimately, in the war itself.
Two other operations are worthy of note in this year, and
while the first is of only indirect bearing on the Allied War, the
second is larger import. The former is mentioned only in one line
of the Periochae 74, in which is described the suppression of a revolt
of the Saluvii in Transapline Gaul by C. Caecilius Caelius. From the
short notice it cannot be determined whether the Caelius in
question was already in the Transalpine as a promagistrate,78 or if
he had specifically been dispatched by Rome to meet this threat. If
it was the latter case, and he was specifically sent to suppress the
Salluvii in 90, it would follow that such an expedition and the army
which would be raised to embark upon it would place a still further
other hand, it may very well be that the Marsi (or, rather, the “northern
Allies” who were sometimes referred to collectively as “Marsi”; see
Salmon 1958, p. 170–171, and earlier notes above) put him over their fleet
operations.
77 So Keaveney (loc. cit.).
78 Broughton (vol. 2, p. 25, 27, and note 1, p. 30) suggests that he
either was sent as praetor or might have been a promagistrate in Gaul

already; Keaveney (1987, p. 208) follows the suggestions of Broughton,
though for reasons he does not cite he shifts the rebellion to the
Transpadane (and even offers it as the Cisalpine on p. 140, which is
probably a simple error on hias part) as opposed to the Transalpine, and
speculates that the Roman commander might have been C. Coelius
Caldus (cos. 94), but was probably not C. Caecilius Cornutus. Badian also
believes that Caldus was the commander in question here (1964, p. 90–
95).
demand on Roman manpower. Even if it was not and he was

already there, then his activities sill employed soldiers who
represented men who might have been brought home to serve
against the Allies.
Of greater significance, however, is the revolt of the Etrurians
and Umbrians which, following the chronology of the Periochae of
Livy (74), broke out somewhat late in 90. Exactly when this took
place is uncertain, especially its beginning, although the source just
named places its conclusion after the breakout of Pompeius from
Firmum and about the same time as when Marius was fighting
dubio eventu against the Marsi. Orosius likewise places its end after
both the Battle of the Vineyards and the events in Picenum
(5.18.17), while Appian too states that it happened while “such
things were occurring on the Adriatic side of Italy”, namely the
defeat of Lafrenius and investment of Asculum by Pompeius
Strabo (τάδε μὲν ἀμφὶ τὴν Ἰταλίαν ἦν τὴν περὶ τὸν Ἰόνιον, 1.6.49).
What this combination of sources probably implies, then, is that
the Etruscans and Umbrians rose at about the same time as Sex.
Caesar started towards Picenum, perhaps waiting until the
proconsul and the men he commanded were at a safe distance. The
campaign against them to follow probably took the rest of the
summer and most of the fall, in light of the fact that the Romans
would first have needed to have gathered soldiers for it and then
mobilized them. This was eventually accomplished under the
leadership of the legate Aulus Plotius, who was dispatched to deal
with the Umbrians, and the propraetor79 L. Porcius Cato, who was
sent against the Etruscans.
These expeditions do not seem to have lasted very long, and
the details of combat are very few indeed: their mention in Sisenna
seems to indicate that fighting may have taken place in or near
Iguvium, Perusia, and Tuder (fragments 94, 95, and 119), and a
passage in Florus (2.6.11) states that Faesulae and Ocriculum were
amongst the areas destroyed during the war. If such speculations
79 Praetor, according to both the Periochae and Orosius, but seeing as
how Cato was consul the next year, service as praetor for 90 may be
doubted. Thus his designation as a promagistrate by Broughton (vol. 2,
p. 28, 32) is generally accepted.
about these cities are correct, then a possible reconstruction of the

campaign might be posited. It would appear that Cato and Plotius
started through the newly-insurgent territory along the Tiber valley
and stayed together perhaps as far as Perusia, with Cato parting at
that point from Plotius to advance ultimately to Faesulae by the
Via Cassia while Plotius took the Via Flaminia to Iguvium.80 This
reconstruction is, again, is nothing more than a theory: certainly
Livy’s Epitomator gives no detail about any operations whatsoever,
Appian is equally silent, and the only evidence to be drawn from
Orosius is that the fighting must at times have been intense, as
victory was only won through plurime sanguine impenso et difficilimo
labore.81 At any rate, the expedition seems to have wrapped up in
time for Cato’s ultimately successful campaign for the consulate,
and so must have been over some time in advance of early
November (see below).
The hypothesis above has been offered in the attempt to offer
some description, however conjectural, about what seems to have
80 See map 2.
81 Harris (1971, p. 215–217) takes note of the fragments of Sisenna
and suggests that Iguvium, Perusia, and Tuder may have been the sites at
which action took place, or at the very least where the uprising had taken
hold. On the other hand, his belief is that the fighting had been fairly
light, and that descriptions of difficulty in Orosius are a “characteristic
exagerration” Likewise, he seems to think that while fighting could have
taken place at Ocriculum and Faesulae, the cities themselves were not part
of the uprising, although it must be noted that his reasoning is not
convincing here. Salmon believes that the latter two cities were in some
way involved, but, for reasons he does not provide, also holds that the
campaign in Etruria and Umbria had taken place after the elections and
thus later in the year (1967, p. 360). Hence, in his account Cato is
designated as consul-elect. Again, Salmon gives no reasons for why this
expedition must have taken place after November. Certainly there is
nothing in the sources which would make it impossible that it did not
happen earlier, and was over by that month. Therefore, if chronology
above is correct, then the operations in Etruria and Umbria were hard-
fought but rapid ones. These may have launched in late summer and
ended as fall was coming on, in time for Cato to make his way back to
Rome to stand for the consulate. This is the construction which is
adopted above.
happened in Etruria and Umbria, when it happened, and where

specifically it was in those regions that the activity that is
mentioned occurred. What is missing is who amongst the
Etruscans and Umbrians undertook these actions, and why. In the
first place, it does not seem terribly likely that Etruria and Umbria
had been part of the original Alliance whose formation and
mobilization had almost been complete in 91. Reasons for this
conjecture fairly readily suggest themselves, some with more
likelihood of being the correct ones than others. For one thing,
there was a matter of proximity to Rome and inaccessibility from
the rest of the Alliance. Even if Etruria and Umbria were
sympathetic to the Allied cause from the beginning, then
considerations of distance may have prevented them from
supporting it in arms early on. Both areas, it will be observed, lay
very close to Rome, and in the case of Umbria there were a large
number of Roman settlements both along the Via Flaminia, which
went through that territory, and to the east of that road. This
would mean that a Roman offensive into the Umbria would have,
and apparently did have, a relatively unobstructed path. By
contrast, reinforcements from the other Allies (such as the
Picentes, for example) would have to pass the barrier of Roman
these colonies to bring aid. Therefore, the simple fact that the
Etruscans and Umbrians would be within easy striking distance for
the legions but would be far less accessible to assistance from their
would-be partners, a fact which all sides would have recognized,
may have influenced the decision of these peoples at the beginning
of the war.
Additionally, the élite of the Etruscan and Umbrian
communities might not have been as desperate for the citizenship
as those of the peoples lying further the south. On the one hand,
their mercantile element—to whatever extent these actually had an
influence in any of the Allied communities—was much less
substantial in Etruria and Umbria, and their landowning segment
had apparently proved very unwilling to part with what they held of
the ager publicus, or to risk assessment of the land they owned near
to it, in trade for the franchise. Indeed, the last time the issue of
land reclamation in exchange for the civitas had arisen in the form
of the proposals of Drusus, Umbrian and Etruscan hostility to
these proposals might very well have led an agent of theirs to
murder him (see chapter 4). Moreover, while the Etruscan and
Umbrian upper classes did see a fair amount of Roman interference

in their domestic affairs and experienced the occasional abuses, as
was the case with the other socii, they had also been aided quite a
few times by Roman intervention which was often directed against
their own lower classes (see Chapter 3). Thus, even though they
suffered from the same burdens of military contribution and the
attendant taxation as the other Allies, they apparently considered it
worth the price to have the protection of Rome to ensure their
external safety, and the support of the Romans to guarantee the
perpetuation of aristocratic power within their own borders.82
None of these factors necessarily indicate that the leading men
of the Etruscans and Umbrians did not desire the citizenship, nor
that they would not have welcomed it were it freely given. They
merely suggest that these leaders were neither willing to barter their
land for it, which was the exact price asked by Drusus. It may
actually have been primarily to protect their lands that they wanted
the franchise in the first place. Moreover, these factors also suggest
that the Etruscan and Umbrian élite were unwilling to use force in
the attempt to seize the civitas from Rome given the risks involved.
Without the support of the upper classes, the communities of the
Etruscans and Umbrians likely could not have been a part of the
Alliance at the start. Indeed, it seems likely that many of these
communities never actually took participated in the war at all.
Appian can certainly be interpreted in such a way, since he never
mentions any actual fighting amongst the Etrurians and Umbrians
who were “incited to revolt” (ἐς ἀπόστασιν ἠρε ίζοντο, 1.6.49).
Appian’s silence on any battles carries the additional inference that
the Etruscans and Umbrians were mollified by news of the Senate’s
approval of what would become the lex Julia (see next chapter), a
law which had “made more friendly those who were already
friendly [and] stabilized those who were in doubt” amongst them
(τῇδε τῇ χάριτι ἡ ουλὴ τοὺς μὲν εὔνους εὐνουστέρους ἐποί σε, τοὺς
82 For the rigid aristocracy that seems to have been the prevailing
social system in Etruria/Umbria, see Harris (op. cit., p. 114–129, p. 202–

212). For the military, political, social, and economic motivations which
would have dissuaded their principes from war, see the same author
(p. 212–229).
δὲ ἐνδοιάζοντας ἐ ε αιώσατο; loc. cit.). The conclusion can be drawn

that Appian meant to indicate that no fighting took place amongst
the Etruscans and Umbrians, and that there was more the threat of
a revolt than the actual execution of it. Of course, this would run
counter to the other sources presented above which state that
some of the Etruscans and Umbrians did fight, and indeed may
have fought bitterly. Nevertheless, it is fairly easy to reconcile all
the sources by simply assuming that the people of Etruria and
Umbria were divided in terms of the war, with some ultimately
siding for the Alliance and others for Rome, the assertion of Florus
(loc. cit.) that the revolt encompassed omnia Etruria notwith-
standing.83
This assumption is not without problems of its own, to be
sure. Most importantly, if the position of the principes of Etruria and
Umbria was as described, then it is necessary to explain why that
position would have changed (or at least, would have changed for
some of them) by mid-summer of 90 from that of the previous
year. The answer may lie in the fact that the Romans had been
faring poorly thus far in the war, and had drained its manpower
reserve fairly dry in the process. Indeed, at about the time of the
Etruscan/Umbrian revolt the shortage had become so acute that
liberti were soon being enrolled in the army and given the task of
guarding the coasts. Since both Appian and the Periochae take note
of this situation in the same part of their respective narratives
which describe the disturbances in Etruria and Umbria, the soldiers
sent into these regions might well have brought Roman manpower
needs to such an extreme.84 Perhaps, then, the Etruscan and
Umbrian towns which did rise considered themselves relatively free
83 Harris comes to this conclusion, as well (op. cit., p. 217–218).

84 This is mentioned as occurring before conclusion the Etruscan/
Umbrian situation in the Periochae (74) but after the latter people were
noted as “incited to revolt” in Appian (1.6.49). This difference in the
sources need not imply a contradiction: the need to gather men to send
them into Etruria and Umbria might have denuded the coastal guard, and
thus required supplementing by the freedmen, as in Appian; this
denudation in turn would have happened before the defeat of the
Etruscans and Umbrians, explaining its notice before that signaling this
defeat in the Periochae.
of the danger of reprisals from Rome due to the Commonwealth’s

defeats elsewhere. Alternatively—or perhaps additionally—it might
also very well be that the Etruscan and Umbrian communities
which fought Rome did not do so at the bidding of, or even with
the assistance of, their ruling classes, and may have actually done so
against the desires of that class. The fact that the principes of Etruria
and Umbria might not have considered the civitas as grounds for
war by no means rules out the fact that the lower classes might
have had a difference of opinion about it. It was, after all, these
elements of Etruscan and Umbrian who would have felt the onus
of Rome’s military needs the most, both in terms of the soldiers
required to serve and the taxes (relative to their wealth) it took to
support them. It might well be the case that the acquisition of the
franchise to bring relief to these burdens would have provided a
suitable casus belli for these.85 Under such circumstances, if their
aristocrats would not lead them against Rome to wrest the
citizenship for them, then it is not difficult to imagine they would
make the attempt on their own. In fact, the Etruscan and Umbrian
lower classes had had a history of acting contrary to the wishes of
85 In his discussion of the potential for Roman citizenship in Etruria
and Embria, Harris argues that the civitas would not necessarily have
brought about a profound change in Etruscan and Umbrian society of the
sort which would have ended the dominance of the aristocracy (op. cit., p.
222–224). Nor would the citizenship have won for the lower classes—
whose status he compares (p. 121–123) to serfdom, albeit with property
rights as well as eligibility for taxation and military service—some sort of
“possibility of getting hold of power in their towns”. In so arguing, he
disputes Emilio Gabba, whose words uses, and the latter’s conviction that
the possibility of changes of these kind was an inducement for why the
lower classes in Etruria and Umbria ultimately sought to join the war
(1976, p. 73). Harris is probably correct in his skepticism, and his
reasoning for it is convincing. Nevertheless, Roman citizenship would
almost certainly have reduced the military responsibilities the lower classes
were expected to discharge and likely also the amount of taxes they would
have been compelled to pay, a fact for which Harris makes no allowance.
Therefore, even if the Roman citizenship would have left them in relative
“serfdom”, at least it would have been serfdom whose burdens of
conscription and taxes would have been easier, and this alone might well
have been a suitable reason to fight.
their leaders,86 and if in general it was true that the “Italian peasants
… would for the most part be ready to follow the lead” of their
upper classes, that does not seem always to have been so amongst
the Etruscans and Umbrians.87
It is, therefore, not beyond the realm of possibility that the
Etruria and Umbria may have been of divided loyalty to the
Romans. This was certainly true of the other areas from which the
Alliance had acquired members, although circumstances for the
division in the north seem to have been slightly different in the
southern regions. A revolt limited only to a few towns in Etruria
and Umbria may explain why the Periochae, Florus, and Orosius
would all indicate fighting, while Appian would assert that the
region persisted in their allegiance to the Commonwealth. This sort
of limited uprising might also explain an aspect of the lex Julia. This
law will be discussed more extensively in the next chapter, but for
the moment it is pertinent to note one of its provisions as
mentioned by Velleius Paterculus, who states that by this law the
franchise would be extended to those who had qui arma aut non
ceperant aut deposuerant maturius (2.16.4).88 The use of the pluperfect
tense in this description strongly implies that those qui arma …
deposuerant maturius were communities who had already given up
fighting by some point in time determined by the Romans, one
which is not specified in the sources but which was certainly prior
to the passage of the law in the fall of the year 90. The only Allies
for whom this condition seems to have applied were the Etruscans
and Umbrians. Why the Romans would have shown such
generosity to these becomes easier to explain if Etruria and Umbria
had been divided in terms of holding to the Commonweath: they
would simultaneously “have not taken up arms” and “have laid
86 Harris, op. cit., p. 114–118.

87 The phrase is that of Brunt 1988, p. 100; but while he notes
elsewhere that these principes might not always have had the best interests
of their lower classes in mind and specifically mentions the Etruscans and
Umbrians in this regard, he does not list them as those to whom an
exception to his rule might be made.
88 The above assumes that the provision found in Velleius actually
pertains to the lex Julia and not to the so-called ‘lex Plautia Papiria’, a
position generally agreed upon, as will be discussed later.
them aside shortly”, and if those communities which had joined the
insurgents had done so against the wishes of their ruling classes,
then the Romans might well have decided not to punish those
communities whose lower classes had resorted to such acephalous
adventuring by excluding them from the civitas. Indeed, these
communities would be exactly the sort whose doubts would need
stabilizing, which Appian notes was precisely the effect for which
the law was intended, and was the very effect which it ultimately
had.89
89 Keaveney (1987, p. 142) takes a slightly similar position to the one
presented here. His view seems to be that the lex Julia was passed after the
revolt in Etruria and Umbria had erupted but before it had come to a
conclusion, although his interpretation still allows for the possibility that
events transpired as related above. Mouritsen, however, has a substantially
different opinion (1998, p. 153–166). According to his theories, the
Etruscans and Umbrians—as was the case with all the other Allies in the
war—fought for independence from Rome, but they happened to have
waited until late in the year so that they could join when Rome’s defeat
seemed imminent. The signal of this inevitable defeat was the enrollment
of the freedmen into the coast-guard, which in Mouritsen’s view took
place before the revolt of these areas, as opposed to afterwards. Contrary
to the evidence of Appian, Mouritsen continues, the lex Julia was not
passed in order to appease the Etruscans and Umbrians, because it had
actually been passed before their insurrection. Part of Mouritsen’s
arguments center another law, the lex Calpurnia, which he argues was an
enabling law designed to enroll new citizens into tribes and therefore must
have been passed after the lex Julia, which would have created enough
new citizens to make new tribes necessary (for more on this, see
Appendix L). Mouritsen uses the commonly accepted chronological
parameters of what was covered in the missing books of Sisenna to date
the lex Calpurnia mentioned in fragment 17 (see, again, Appendix L) to the
summer of 90. Hence, if this law had been passed after the lex Julia, then
(Mouritsen argues) the lex Julia must also have been passed in the
summer. If this is so, then the Etruscans and Umbrians would have
known that they would be given the citizenship through remaining loyal,
but chose to revolt anyway.
All of this is less than perfectly convincing for a number of reasons. In
the first place, the fragment of Sisenna does not allow for as precise a
dating as Mouritsen would have it (see, again, Appendix L). Secondly, for
the lex Julia to have been passed at any time, L. Caesar would have had to
The quelling of the revolt in Etruria and Umbria was over

before the winter of 90 and therefore was brought about at close to
the same time as Acerrae, the Vineyards, and the investment of
Asculum. As has been seen, these victories halted the string of
Roman defeats which had been taking place all over Italy early in
the year. Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that the year seemed to
be ending on a positive note for the Romans, it would be difficult
to suggest that the year had been little short of disastrous for them.
The affect of the earlier losses and even the victories on Roman
morale can be guessed from their wearing of the saga, from the
edict mandating the burial in situ of fallen Romans, and from the
case of one Caius Vettienus, who cut off two fingers of his right
hand to avoid service in the Allied War, for which misdeeds his
property was confiscated and he was reduced to slavery (Valerius
return to Rome. This he clearly did not do after June 11, since no suffect
for the fallen Rutilius was elected, and he was obviously busy in the south
before June. Mouritsen sidesteps this absence of a suffect election by
stating that it was possible that Caesar had returned at some time after the
death of Rutilius but before Nivember, and simply chose to elect no
suffect during this return because the legates had already been placed in
control of the army, a situation Caesar would have been content to let
stand. Such an argument is extraordinarily weak, and it may actually have
been illegal for Caesar to have acted in such a way (see, for example,
Chapter 9 and the difficulties the consul Cn. Papirius Carbo would
encounter as a result of his hesitation to elect a suffect upon the death of
his colleague in 84). Finally, Mouritsen argues that the real purpose of the
law was not to prevent uprising in Etruria and Umbria, but to guarantee
the loyalty of others whose vacillation was depriving Rome of vital
manpower (see below). This last point is far more convincing than the
others, but it still presents a final problem. Mouritsen argues that once the
lex Julia was passed, those who were wavering promptly affirmed their
commitment to Rome with gusto, tipping the manpower odds in Rome’s
favor. However, if the passage of lex Julia was in the summer of 90, and
the law was designed to address manpower concerns, it does not seem to
have done so in the fall, as not only Appian (whose account Mouritsen
frequently discards) but also the Periochae seem to indicate.
Due to these problems, Mouritsen’s reasoning concerning the lex Julia
and the timing of its passage ultimately fails to persuade completely, and is
therefore not followed here.
Maximus, 6.3.3c). If, has been suggested above, it was indeed the
strategy of the Allies to wear the Romans down by means of
tenacious fighting and count on Roman weaknesses to bring them
to terms, signs such as those just described point to the fact that it
might well have been working.
As the end of 90 approached, then, the Senate must have
contemplated the sobering fact that Rome’s armies not fared at all
well in the year, and that unless they did better in the very near
future, the Allies might continue to inflict such horrible casualties
on them in the year to come that the patres might be compelled by
popular pressure to sue for peace. It would therefore be incumbent
on the Romans to ascertain why they had met with such reverses
and to take steps to reverse the trend. An analysis of their
performance would probably have led to the conclusion that some
of their troubles came from matters beyond their control, but at
least one of their possible weaknesses was within Roman power to
correct. What that weakness was, and what the Romans did to
diminish it, will be the next topic of survey.
5. ROMAN VULNERABILITIES
AND THE STEPS TAKEN TO CORRECT THEM
It is, perhaps, somewhat remarkable that the state whose legions
had conquered a good portion of all it surveyed would have such
trouble in battlefields that were essentially in its own backyard
throughout the year 90. Given that these failures may at first glance
appear unusual, it might be worth asking why had the Romans
done so poorly. In part, reasons for it might lay in the very
debilities which (it has been suggested) the Allies thought that
Rome might have. First among these was the fact that, in contrast
to Rome’s opponents in previous wars, the men at whom the
Romans now found themselves casting pila could not be overawed
by the experience, training, discipline, and the inherent Romanitas of
their antagonists. Rather, the Allies against whom the
Commonwealth now fought had the exact same training,
experience, and discipline as the Romans did. In light of the ways
Romans could evade service and the severity of penalties for
military infractions, the socii very likely had had even more of this
training, experience, and discipline that the Romans themselves did.
Nor should it be forgotten that the Romans were invading
what was essentially the territory of the enemy, territory which in
many case may have been quite unknown to them. This element of
the war is, perhaps, not always appreciated; because by 90 BCE the
Romans essentually held sway over almost all of Italy, it may simply
be intuited that they were familiar with the entirety of “their”
peninsula. Yet that does not seem to have been the case, and it
stands to reason that, no matter how extensive Roman power over
and involvement in Italy may have been, they would not be as
familiar with the land they had taken by conquest as those who,
while beaten, nevertheless still actually resided in “Roman”
territory. The battles fought against the Romans during the year 90
were often waged by those very Allies who had spent their whole
lives in the area where these actions took place, and the superior
knowledge of geography on the part of those native to it seems to
have proved crucial in many of these engagements. By way of
illustration, Marius Egnatius in his defeat of Caesar, Scato in his
ambush of Rutilius, Lucilius in his outmaneuvering of Sulla, and
Silo in his deception of Caepio were all apparently helped by
knowing and making use of the terrain.
In addition, the Italians seemed to have been helped by the
lack of quality of the Roman commanders. P. Crassus, for example,
had made an exceptionally poor choice of encampment at
Grumentum, one which had left the avenue open for the
employment of a stratagem by the enemy which had almost
destroyed his army. Likewise, L. Caesar’s blunder in the defile in
Samnium suggests poor reconnaissance, although perhaps the
commander had been too ill to order the necessary scouting; Sulla’s
suggest the same thing, though apparently without the excuse of
illness. Scipio and Acilius seem to have been sadly lacking in all
aspects of command ability at Aesernia; Rutilius was apparently
paranoiac and rash before the Tolenus; and Caepio was either
tragically naïve, disastrously arrogant, or uncommonly stupid
enough to fall for Silo’s trickery at Amiternum. Against such men
were ranged commanders who seemed to have a talent for ambush
and guile and whose bravery would be lauded; see, for example, the
assessment made by Diodorus of Marcus Lamponius (37.23.1),
along with Appian’s assessment of Vidacilius (1.6.48) and Cluentius
(1.6.50) from later in the war. This acknowledged, it is to be
observed that, beyond these traits, the Italian commanders were
otherwise presented as merely adequate and not particularly
brilliant. This would in turn suggest that the captains who had so
beaten the Romans in 90 had been men of valor but not, it seems,
men of genius, with strategic capacities reaching little more than
simple competence. Competence, however, seemed to have been
sufficient; in other words, while it does not seem that there was a
new Hannibal risen amongst the Allies, their generals apparently
had had talent enough to capitalize on Roman blunders, of which
the year 90 BCE had presented several.
In the first full year of the war, then, the Romans could not
“outsoldier” their former Allies, nor apparently could they
“outgeneral” them, and were compelled to fight in areas where the
enemy knew the lay of the land better than they did. Yet all of
those deficiencies, even in combination, had at some point or
another beset the Romans in earlier wars in which they acquitted
themselves much better than they had in year 90. On those earlier
occasions, the Romans had always had one major advantage which
offset the imbalance in those times when the enemy had better
knowledge of the ground, one which helped compensate for those
rare occasions when the enemy held superiority in quality of soldier
and the slightly less rare circumstances when the enemy had
superior commanders. That advantage was weight of numbers, and
it was one which the Romans in theory should have been able to
exploit to the fullest after regaining consciousness following the
initial stunning blows of 91. Even if it is to be allowed that the
peoples who had joined in the secessio may have supplied some of
the best soldiery of the “Roman” army, they did not provide the
majority of it, and indications are that the manpower resources left
to the Commonwealth ought to have been ample enough to
guarantee a sizeable battlefield disparity in favor of the Romans.
However, the indications of the sources are that such was not
the case. Indeed, Appian asserts that the numbers fielded by
Romans and Italians were equal (Ῥωμαῖοι τὸν ἴσον αὐτοῖς
ἀντεξέπεμπον; 1.5.39). Significantly, by the end of 90 the Romans
had begun to behave in such a way as to suggest a shortage of
men.90 As seen above, freedmen were enrolled in the army (Per. 74,
90 In fact, the Allies apparently experienced a similar shortage, as
evidenced by their willingness to co-opt slaves and even surrendered

Appian 1.6.49), and the testimony of Dio (frg. 100) suggests that in
the next year, newly-minted consul L. Porcius Cato was forced to
make war with superannuates and other men unfit to serve, about
which more will be discussed in the following chapter. As will be
noted there, the standard interpretation of this fragment of Dio’s is
that it pertains to men under Cato’s command in 89, as opposed to
those with whom he defeated the Etruscans in 90. Unless these
second-rate soldiers were men whom Cato brought with him as
supplementa upon taking the field in 89, then it is likely that these
also were the men who had fought in 90 under the command of
Cato’s predecessor Marius, of whom Cato assumed command as
consul. If so, the flaws described by Dio might further explain the
difficulties Marius had had with the men during the maneuvers
leading to the Battle of the Vineyards.91
soldiers (see above) into their ranks; however, this was to be expected
from what ought to have been a numerically inferior side.
91 Of course, it must be noted that Dio himself gives nothing of the
context into which his narrative of the troubles that Cato had with
soldiers under his command could be placed. In that fragment, Cato is
saddled with suboptimal troops who even engage in a small mutiny, which
Dio adduces as evidence of their their lack of combat-readiness. Cato is
not referred to as Consul, nor is anything said about the season other than
that the ground was wet, so it may be that Dio is mentioning an episode
from the Etruscan expedition. Still, a fragment of Sisenna mentions a
mutiny of soldiers under a name similar to that of the man held
responsible for it in the section of Dio mentioned above (Γάιος Τίτιος in
Dio; C. Titinnius in Sisenna). Since this fragment comes from Book IV,
and since Sisenna’s book IV is held to narrate the year 89 (see Haug, p.
215, who asserts that book IV stretched from Autumn of 90 to Autumn
of 89), then the spring of 89 is generall accepted by modern scholars as
the time in which this episode occurred. Of course, because Autumn of
90 is held to be covered by Sisenna’s Book IV, it is not impossible that the
both authors describe a mutiny occurring in late 90. Nevertheless, this
essay follows the typical ordering of things and places the uprising in 89,
and thus occurring with Cato commanding the (former) troops of Marius;
it is treated as such, and more extensively at that, in the next chapter.
Besides, even if Dio refers to events from the Etruscan campaign, it does
not detract from the ultimate point that the Romans were forced to make
use of soldiers that were lacking in firmness and overall excellence in 90.
These sources all lead to the conclusion that in the year 90 the
Romans had apparently begun to suffer from a want for soldiers,
and were forced because of it make use of the infirm or the
otherwise deficient. Yet why they would have come to this paucity
of milites is a bit of a puzzle. Of course, the Romans would
obviously lack the services of the twelve peoples who had seceded.
Moreover, the Etruscans and Umbrians eventually joined the
uprising, and the relative lateness of the hour for when they did so
suggests that the matter was being debated amongst the Etruscan
and Umbrian communities for some time before this move was
ultimately taken by those parts which did revolt. Such
circumstances make it probable that even those who ultimately did
not join the other socii probably still did not furnish their
contingents to Rome until after they had made up their minds. On
top of this, many of the other Allies who did show up had had
their effectiveness diminished by craft, such as the Numidian horse
whose wavering loyalty had caused Caesar to send them home (as
described above). Finally, there had been the revolt in the
Transalpine, which had either required more men to be sent or had
kept the legions already in Gaul from being used against the Allies
(see above). Indeed, these Gauls seemed to have been sympathetic
to the Allied cause enough to send reinforcements later used by
Lucius Cluentius against Sulla in the following year (Appian 1.6.50,
about which more in the next chapter). Thus, the Romans
appeared to have lost the full use of several of those Allies who
were not actually fighting them, and suffered the constraints which
resulted from it.
But even accounting for all of these diminutions, matters
should not have come to such a pass that the Romans would be so
desperate for men as the steps they took that were mentioned
above might indicate. After all, a number of the Allies still clung to
them, and their men and were apparently entirely at Rome’s
Indeed, if Dio and Sisenna refer to troubles the future consul had with his
men in 90, it simply means that both Cato in Etruria and Marius
approaching Sora alike had men of poor quality under their commands in
90, as opposed to the same men commanded first by the one, and then by
the other.
disposal. Among these were apparently the Cisalpine Gauls, as can

be derived from the success enjoyed by Q. Sertorius recruiting men
and requisitioning weapons for the Roman effort among them
(Sallust, Hist. 1. 77/1. 88; Plutarch, Sert. 4). More importantly, it
also seems—at least at first glance—that Rome still enjoyed the aid
of the Latins. According to estimates given by various scholars,92
the Latins ultimately supplied something along the lines of a fifth
to even a third of the combined Roman-Italian army, and with their
92 According to Brunt (1971, p. 3–91), due to various factors which he

describes in greater detail than needs mention here, the population as
reflected by the census data available for the year 225 was not
substantially lower for any Italian people (Romans included) than what
would have been the case in 91. In that year, the Latins had numbered
about 134,000, as compared to Rome’s available manpower of around
300,000 and the 320,000 available to the other Allies (see specifically the
table on p. 54 of Brunt’s text). Moreover (he argues), it is quite likely that
the Allies would have had good reasons for misrepresenting the number
of men they could field, claiming far fewer than the numbers of which
they were capable. Assuming Brunt’s thesis is correct and these various
peoples could field the same basic percentage of manpower from their
several populations in 91 as they could in 225, the Latins would have been
able to field about half as many men as the Romans could to a “Roman”
army, with the rest of the Allies able collectively to contribute about the
same number as the Romans themselves. However, Mouritsen (1998, p.
158) claims that the various changes in Italy between 225 and 91 would
have been far more deleterious to the other Allies than to the Romans and
Latins, leading to “substantial emigration to Roman and Latin areas” (but
see Chapter 2 and 3 for Rome’s response to that migration). Moreover,
the same scholar notes that “income from the empire and territorial
expansion in Italy and Gallia Cisalpina in the second century would have
allowed for a greater growth in the Roman population. In short, the
demographic changes since 225 were all in favour of Rome and the
Latins”. Thus, it might very well be that the numerical odds of 4.5 to 3
against the Alliance might be scaled even further in Rome’s favor, and
that the Latins had in turn increased their fecundity and their
contributions to Rome such that the disparity between Romans and
Latins may have drifted to less than two to one (p. 161). If this was so, the
Latin contribution to the “Roman” army had perhaps reached as high as
thirty percent of it by the outbreak at Asculum, consistent with the figures
from Ilari which Mouritsen quotes on page 44.
help the Romans ought to have had half again as many men as the
Allies, and nearly double the numbers of the Italians before the
revolt of Etruria and Umbria added to the insurgency. The Allies
had achieved some stunning successes, to be certain, but it is
doubtful that they managed to kill twice as many Romans/Latins in
every engagement they fought, victory or loss. It was far more
probably the case that, with perhaps the exceptions of the second
assault on Aesernia, the Battle of the Tolenus, and the ambush of
Caepio at Amiternum, all of the Allied victories had probably seen
a comparable number of men killed and wounded between the two
armies, and their losses likewise. Hence, unless every battle was a
bloodbath which resulted in fearsome Roman losses relative to the
Italians, as was probably not the case, with the manpower still
available to them the former ought to have been able both to meet
the latter on the field with superior numbers and to have done so
with little difficulty.93 Nevertheless, the fact persists that the
sources seem to suggest quite the opposite. This means either that
some unmentioned external factor was diminishing Roman
numbers, or that there is an error about some of the propositions
mentioned above which, absent such an error, would seem to
guarantee a Roman surfeit of men.
It is possible that such an erroneous assumption may involve
one source of manpower held to be available to the Romans which,
more than any other, would have served to furnish their numerical
superiority over the Allies. That source is the Latins, and a
correction of such a mistake involving them might very well
provide the solution to the difficulty of Rome’s apparent poverty
of soldiers. According to most modern accounts, the Latins
remained faithful to their compacts with Rome while the rest of the
Allies went to war.94 Yet this attitude of theirs is strange in light of
the fact that throughout the second century it had been the Latins
who had most often demonstrated to acquire the civitas. It had been
the Latins who in 187 and 177 had specifically asked for Roman
help in getting their men back because so many of them had
93 Indeed, Salmon also noticed this very fact (1967, p. 344–345).

94 A sampling would include Haug (p. 110 note 6; p. 211); Brunt
(1988, p. 102), Keaveney (1987, p. 119), and Salmon (loc. cit.).
migrated to the city and attempted to assume that citizenship

illegally that it imperiled their ability to meet their quota of soldiers.
It had also been the Latins who had had led the revolt against the
Romans at Fragellae to gain the franchise by arms; and it had even
been the Latins who had conspired to murder the consuls during
their festival on the Alban Mount in frustration for the failure of
the franchise bill of Drusus (de vir. ill. 66; see previous chapter). If
any people would have seemed to have been the logical choice to
have fought Rome to gain the coveted franchise, it would have
been the Latins above all. Nevertheless, the Latins were
conspicuously loyal, or so many modern scholars assert. Their
explanation for this loyalty rests in part on the fact that Latin upper
classes could become citizens through the ius civitatis per magistratum
adipiscendae, whereby their magistrates could become Roman
citizenship ex officio. This right, it is held, had existed since the time
of the Gracchi, and it kept the élites connected to Rome; apparently,
as the élites went, so went everyone else in the Latin communities.95
Even so, among the ancient sources only the Periochae
specifically mentions that the Latins sent help to the Roman people
(Per. 72). Appian refers to help rendered to Rome by “other people
of Italy allied to them” (Ῥωμαῖοι … ἀντεξέπεμπον ἀπό τε σφῶν
αὐτῶν καὶ τῶν ἔτι συμμαχούντων σφίσιν ἐ νῶν τῆς Ἰταλίας, 1.5.39)
but does not single out the Latins.96 No other source does, either,
and even the reference in the Periochae about “help from the
Latins… sent to the Roman people” (Auxilia … Latini nominis et …
missa populo R[omano]) could be explained away by assuming that
such help came from Latins who were merely defending their own
cities without calling for Roman help, such as at Alba, Firmum, and
Aesernia. Moreover, there is the fact that at least one Latin colony,
Venusia, definitely went over to the other side (see above), and
there is the notice in Florus (2.6.5–2.6.6) which mentions “all of
95 So Sherwin-White, p. 111–112; 215–216; Keaveney (loc. cit.)

mentions that it paid “handsome dividends” in the Allied War. For more
on this right, see Chapter 3 and Appendix D, where the objections of
Mouritsen (1998, p. 100–108) are noted.
96 As Mouritsen (1998, p. 163) observes, “In the entire first book of
Appian’s Civil Wars the Latins are mentioned only twice—in connection
with C. Gracchus’ citizenship bill.”
Latium” in revolt, and names a general, Afranius, who led the

“Latins” against the Romans.97 It is generally agred upon by
modern scholars that Florus is mistaken in this statement. Even if
he is, it nevertheless remains true that while the Latins are notable
in their absence from the Alliance, they do not stand out in their
support of the Romans. This is still more strange in light of the fact
that other Allies who helped Rome—such as the Mauretanians, as
well as the abovementioned Gauls and Numidians—do find
mention in sources (see, for example, Appian 1.5.42; Sisenna,
fragments 29 and 71).
It might very well be that this lack of mention is merely a
vagary of transmission, and that the Latins and the other
unmentioned but still loyal socii sent their contingents just as before
the war erupted. Likewise, it could also be coincidental that the
Romans just happened to fare badly in the war in 90 only to
recover in 89 (as shall be seen), after the passage of the lex Julia.
This was a law which, again, enfranchised all the Allies which had
not taken up arms or had laid them down again swiftly, a law
specifically designed to “make more friendly those who were
already friendly [and] stabilize those who were in doubt”, and one
which was passed due to the Senate’s fear, as Appian specifically
states, that the Romans be surrounded on all sides (δείσασα οὖν ἡ
ουλ , μὴ ἐν κύκλῳ γενόμενος αὐτοῖς ὁ πόλεμος ἀφύλακτος ᾖ; 1.6.49).
Nevertheless, that the Romans started making substantial
battlefield gains in 89 after such a law was enacted the year before
may be post hoc, but not necessarily propter hoc.
On the other hand, it may be that another explanation exists,
which is that the Latins were not as loyal as has been represented in
the modern scholarship. Of course, no Latin city is mentioned as
having gone over to the Allies with the exception of the
abovementioned Venusia, and even that is usually explained away
by the excessive “Oscanization” of that community.98 On the other
hand, the distance of Venusia from Rome might provide an equally
compelling elucidation for why they joined the Alliance: Venusia
could fight with the other Italians in arms because the Venusians
97 omne Latium … consurgerent (2.6.5–2.6.6).

98 So Salmon 1958, p. 167.
both wanted the citizenship and were close enough to the other
Allies that they could give their support without fear of Roman
reprisal, which may not have been an option the other Latin towns
enjoyed. It may be that the other Latins might have done the same
thing if they shared Venusia’s position.
Yet even if they could not or would not actually join the other
insurgents, one thing the Latins might have done is hold aloof
from the struggle, neither fighting nor contributing their soldiers.99
If this was what occurred, it is not hard to see why the Latins
would have chosen this route: in so doing they would attempt to
use the Roman need for their manpower to blackmail the Romans
into giving them the franchise, since without Latin soldiery the
Romans could not attain a substantial numerical superiority over
the Allies. Roman numbers would therefore be drastically
diminished, which accords well with the desperation for men that
the accounts of the first year of the war seem to indicate.100 The
99 Sherwin-White hints at this, but does not explicitly state that the
Latins withheld their support; p. 149.
100 This is the theory of Mouritsen (1998, p. 151–166), which is
attractive in spite of the fact that, in his interpretation, the deliberate

inactivity of the Latins was not due to calculation on their part as much as
to a dissimilarity of interests between them and the other Italians. As
Mouritsen would have it (and consistently argues throughout his work),
the other Allies wanted independendence, in which the Latins were not
interested. Indeed, he even cites the inactivity of the Latins as evidence
that the other socii wanted a separation, and specifically a separation which
was possibly to be based on the destruction of Rome. According to his
construction, the Alliance wanted to overthrow and wipe out the
Commonwealth, something to which the Latins would not acquiesce due
to their “cultural and historical link” to the Romans. Of course, this
affinity did not deter the Romans on their end from razing Latin Fragellae
to the ground some thirty-five years before, but Mouritsen would have it
that it was potent enough to cause the Latins to stand apart from the
other socii. As a consequence, they did not take part in the Allied scheme.
Instead, they would let the Romans fight the Italians on their own until
the former became so desperate for Latin numbers that they would grant
the citizenship to the Latins to get them. Apparently, then, the Latins
were willing to risk Rome’s destruction at Allied hands but not to take
part in it, hoping that the latter would come to its senses and extend the
civitas to the Latins before it was doomed.
In this way, Mouritsen neatly solves the apparent problem (mentioned
in the text above) of why the Latins would not join the uprising if all the
socii concerned wanted the citizenship, since the Latins seemed to have
wanted it the most. Accoding to his argument, the Latins did want it, but
the other Allies did not, hence the Latin absence from the Alliance. Such a
solution, however, is not the only one which could un-knot this particular
dilemma. An alternative to it readily suggests itself, one which preserves
the Allied quest for the citizenship which has so much support in the
sources, but at the same time attributes the same desire for the franchise
amongst both the Allies and the Latins in spite of the latter’s lack of
battlefield appearance alongside the others to fight for it. This solution is
one based on simple self-interest and conservation of effort. In the first
place, for reasons narrated in the text above, it may be safely assumed that
the Latins wanted the citizenship as much as the other Allies, and quite
probably wanted it even more than the others did. They were also
probably just as willing to fight for it, but if they could get what they
wanted by not fighting, this would be a better outcome still. Such an
outcome could be accomplished by simply holding out from the Romans,
since essentially the Latins had nothing to lose by doing so. In the first
place, the Latins doubtless foresaw the possibility that events would
unfold as they eventually did, and could therefore bide their time until the
Romans would be willing to buy their help by the citizenship. In the
meantime, they would defend their cities from invasion by the other
Italians, but do nothing more. The Romans would have too much on their
hands to attempt to force the Latins to send the contingents they would
be withholding, and even if they made such an attempt, the Latins could
always threaten to defect to the enemy, a situation Rome clearly could not
afford. Admittedly, there was always the possibility that the Romans
would fare better than they actually ended up doing and would therefore
never place the call for Latin help to be given at the price of the
ciizenship. However, should the Romans have gained the upper hand
before seeing the wisdom of granting the civitas, the Latins retained the
option of joining the Alliance late, and it is probable that the Alliance
would probably have welcomed them in spite of their earlier stance. With
Latin help the balance of numbers would then lie in favor of the Allies,
and would probably lead to Roman capitulation to Italian demands. This
route would be more costly in terms of men, but if it came down to this
extremity, the Latins would still get what they wanted. The Latins
probably knew that they would have to fight eventually, either for Rome
Latins might easily have guessed that which had dawned on both
the Romans and the Allies by the winter of 91, which was that the
war would be protracted and bloody. If they could get their wish
for the citizenship—one which they had repeatedly expressed, as
demonstrated above—but could get it either without having to
expose themselves to the perils of such combat, or by limiting that
exposure, such a policy would immediately become the obvious
path of action. Nor need this policy have originated with the élite of
the Latin communities, who might very well have been too content
with the privileges they got from the Romans to risk them with this
kind of defiance.101 If that were the case, the lower classes—who
were subjected to the demands of Rome without this potential for
reward—might have simply refused to muster, and they might even
have spoken of joining the Alliance without their upper classes.102
Such muttering, coupled with the defection of the Etruscans and
Umbrians, may in turn have led or at least contributed to the sort
of anxiety about a multiplication of enemies and encirclement
described which is described in Appian (loc. cit.), and might further
have led to the passage of the legislation which ultimately brought
about the full cooperation of the Latins. Once put into the field
fighting for Rome, such men and their numbers might well have
made an immediate difference in the tide of battle, and their
appearance may, perhaps, go a long way towards explaining Rome’s
reversal of fortune in 89.
as Roman citizens against the Allies, or as members of the Alliance against

the Romans to get the franchise. However, by keeping aloof from the war
for as long as they could, the Latins could save their men until they could
be most usefully applied to further their cause. The indications of Rome’s
manpower shortfalls can easily be read to provide testimony that the
Latins did exactly that.
102 Indeed, there is the remote chance that they had actually done so:
while (as mentioned above) it is commonly assumed that Florus is simply

wrong in the oft-cited passage of 2.6.6, a few Latins may actually have
decided to serve with the Alliance under the mysterious Afranius. Such
service, however, is at the very least extremely unlikely, and is as such not
considered to have occurred by this essay.
6. THE DOWNHILL SLOPE FROM THE SUMMIT:

THE END OF 90 AND THE BEGINNING OF 89
By the end of 90 the Allies had met the Romans in open battle and
had traded blows with them to their advantage: against an
opponent that had matched the Romans in ability, manpower, and
leadership, neither Roman muscle nor Roman tactics had made
much headway. As far as the Romans were concerned, it was now
clearly time for a new strategy, and one was presently adopted. This
strategy—one which very well might have brought ultimate victory
to the Romans in the war—did not take the form of a battlefield
maneuver, but rather of a legal one. By means of it, the Romans
were finally able to overwhelm their antagonists to such an extent
that a peace could be found. This legal maneuver was the passage
of the lex Julia. The timing and the purpose of this law has been
alluded to above, but its exact shape will be described in the next
chapter. So, too, will be described its consequences, ones which
brought the Allies to their knees but which would ultimately cause
them to rise to their feet again in the future.
CHAPTER 6:
IMPERFECT DEFEAT
AND INCOMPLETE VICTORY, 89–88
1. THE LEX JULIA

The experience of L. Julius Caesar commanding the southern
theater of Rome’s effort against its disaffected Allies in the year 90
was in a sense one shared by many of the Commonwealth’s
commanders in that year: defeated several times,1 he had
nevertheless managed to salvage something of his campaign with a
victory late in the warmaking season.2 As winter of that turbulent
year approached, Caesar’s area of oversight had apparently become
quiet. This stillness was apparently enough that the consul
developed sufficient confidence in the theater’s stability to risk
leaving his command in front of Acerrae in the hands of a legate,
quite probably L. Cornelius Sulla, while he himself went back to
Rome to hold the consular elections.3 This was probably the first
time that Caesar had been able to return to the city since taking the
field. If this was in fact the case, it is very unlikely that he had had
an opportunity to propose any laws during his tenure as consul up
to this point, in light of the military responsibilities that kept him
from Rome. The occasion of presiding over the comitia, however,
apparently gave Caesar such an opportunity, and with what seems
1 Including one absolute catastrophe in the mountains of Samnium, as
has been seen; see previous chapter.

2 Specifically, that at Acerrae; see previous chapter.
3 For the chronology of the passage of the lex Julia, see, again,
previous chapter, as well as Appendix L.
353
to have been the approval of the Senate (Appian 1.6.49; Per. 80),4
he availed himself of it to offer a groundbreaking piece of
legislation, the lex Julia.
Information about this law is fairly sparse, and certainly
scholarly opinions on its contents are far from unified.5 Still, a few
of its provisions are fairly well-attested in the ancient sources and
generally agreed upon by the modern scholarship which is built
upon them. First and foremost, this law almost certainly gave the
citizenship to the Latins, as Aulus Gellius and Cicero explicitly
state.6 Furthermore, it seems that the law also gave the citizenship
to other Allies, as Cicero also explicitly mentions in the same place
where he discusses the bequest to the Latins: Iulia, qua lege civitas
est sociis et Latinis data (pro Balbo 21; emphasis added). Who
specifically these other Allies were is not described by Cicero in this
passage, although if it is to be assumed that he is accurate in his
report (and there is no evidence to the contrary), then it is likely
that the lex Julia can be connected to a law referred to but not
named in both Velleius Paterculus (2.16.4) and Appian (loc. cit.), one
stated by each to have given the citizenship to some of the Allies.7
4 There is a broad agreement that the lex Julia is the unnamed law
mentioned in Appian, about which more directly (see also Appendix L).
As for the approval of the Senate, Appian’s evidence is supported by the
Periochae of Book 80 of Livy, or at the very least is not overturned out by
what is found there; more on this point will follow.
5 See, again, Appendix L for a further discussion of some of the
provisions of this law.

6 Gellius: civitas universo Latio lege Iulia data est (4.4.3); Cicero: Iulia, qua
lege civitas est sociis et Latinis data (Pro Balbo 21). As for reasons why the
Latins would have been so enfranchised, see previous chapter.
7 Furthermore, Appian explicitly states that this bequest was made
around the time that the Etruscans and Umbrians revolted, which is
known from the Periochae to have occurred in 90 (74); hence, Appian
almost certainly refers to the Lex Julia. As far as Velleius is concerned, the
objection could be raised that he is not necessarily referring to one
individual law, but to a process, since he claims that by means of
enfranchisement the Romans regained their strength not all at once, but
“little by little” (Paulatim deinde recipiendo in civitatem, qui arma aut non ceperant
aut deposuerant maturius, vires refectae sunt; loc. cit.). Yet the lex Julia would
certainly have been part of that process, perhaps supplementing the lex
IMPERFECT DEFEAT AND INCOMPLETE VICTORY 355
If that is the case—if, in other words, the lex Julia named in Gellius
and Cicero as having enfranchised some of the allies is identical to
an unnamed law referenced in both Appian and Velleius as having
done the same thing—then further provisions of the law can
be found in the sources. According to the accounts of the
aforementioned Appian and Velleius, this law gave the citizenship,
not to all the Allies, but only to those who were not actively in
arms against Rome at the time of its passage, either because they
had never joined the uprising, or because they had but had already
withdrawn from it. It is not impossible that this latter provision
was likely added on behalf of the Etruscans and Umbrians, who fit
precisely the description of Allies who were once in uprising but
were in it no longer by the passage of the law in the late fall of 90
(for which see previous chapter).
With the use of this testimony from Appian and Velleius to
fill in some of the details, then, the socii who Cicero mentions as
having been eligible for enfranchisement alongside the Latins
become easier to identify. Attention can then be returned to
Cicero’s aforementioned oration for a few further aspects of the
Julian law which it appears to illustrate. One of these was that the
citizenship it offered was to be accepted on a voluntary basis: those
peoples who did not approve the measure would not be made
citizens against their will and have their own sovereignty violated.
This seems to have been a serious concern for Heraclea and
Naples, as Cicero directly indicates.8 Another article of the law was
that it was to affect entire communities, as can be inferred from
Cicero’s use of populi to describe those by whom approval was
needed within the communities to whom the franchise was
Calpurnia (see below and Appendix L), so the proviso that the civitas was
only extended to those who remained loyal or whose dalliance with
disloyalty had been brief can with confidence be claimed to have been
part of all the laws which contributed to it.
8 Cicero, loc. cit. The full text of the passage is: ipsa denique Iulia, qua lege
civitas est sociis et Latinis data, qui fundi populi facti non essent civitatem non
haberent. in quo magna contentio Heracliensium et Neapolitanorum fuit,
cum magna pars in iis civitatibus foederis sui libertatem civitati anteferret (emphasis
added).
extended.9 The use of universo in the description of the breadth of

the law’s application in Gellius likewise attests to this feature
(4.4.3). Finally, Cicero seems to indicate that only Allies from Italy
were being offered the franchise. Although the orator does not
declare this in so many words, nor mention any restrictions on the
places where these other socii who might benefit from the lex Julia
could live, the only communities besides those of the Latins which
he does name are Neapolis and Heraclea, as has been seen. This,
too, accords well with what is stated both in Appian and the
Periochae, who also note that only Italian nations were given the
citizenship by this law.
Why it is exactly that L. Caesar decided to introduce this
statute cannot be known, although it is likely that the recent
eruptions in Etruria and Umbria helped prompt the decision, as
Appian suggests (loc. cit.). Furthermore, if there were any threats of
a similar eruption amongst the Latins, these threats would also
undoubtably have been extremely influential. Certainly at the time
in which it was being drafted and debated the Roman military
machine was taxed to the breaking point: in addition to the legions
in the Transalpine and those in winter quarters at Acerrae, in the
Liris/Tolenus valleys, and investing Asculum, there were others
which were in November of 90 probably just returning from
Etruria with Cato, escorting the commander who was attempting
to win the consulate through the victory he had latterly won, or
perhaps still in the field with conducting mop-up operations under
Plotius in Umbria. Whether the Latins were making noise about
defecting or not, if they had indeed withheld their men from the
army in 90, as chapter 5 suggests, then the Romans would likely
have been most anxious to have these. If the Latins had not done
so, then the Romans were in their overextended condition even
9 A similar use of the word populus is found in the Periocha of Livy’s
book 80: Italicis populis a senatu civitas data est. Use of this passage as
evidence for the terms of the lex Julia is, however, problematic; it appears
in the context of the Samnites and Lucani finally being given the
citizenship in 87, and the mechanism by which civitas data est is not
mentioned. It is also extremely vague about who these Italicis populis were.
Therefore, while this may be an aside, in which a law passed in 90 was
brought up in the book covering the year 87, no certainty may be had.
with Latin help. Either way, the Commonwealth could not afford
to let what one scholar refers to as the “horrid prospect of further
serious defection” come to pass,10 and the wisdom and even
necessity of preventing this through the grant of the citizenship
must now have become patent.
As it happened, Roman commanders already seem to have
had the power to bestow the citizenship on individual soldiers even
before the lex Julia, if a fragment of Sisenna is to be believed.
According to the notice described by this fragment (frg. 120), a lex
Calpurnia allowed certain combatants to be given the civitas.11 This
law may have been employed—it may even have been designed—
to grant the franchise to any Italians who may have been serving in
the legions overseas and chose to adhere to the standards,12 and
may also have been the law which granted the authority by which
Caesar had been authorized to make his offer to the Cretan that is
related by Diodorus Siculus (37.18).13 Perhaps the consul had
10 Keaveney 1987, p. 171.

11 See Appendix L.
12 As mentioned in Chapter 4, Brunt (1971, p. 435) is probably correct
in his claim that a few legions were serving overseas at the outbreak of the
Allied War, even if his figure of six of these may be an overestimate.
13 So Gabba (1976, p. 91), Brunt (loc. cit.) and Keaveney (1987, p. 170).
Of course, there is no indication that the Cretan in question was a miles,

the only sort of person who Sisenna’s fragment suggests was eligible for
the citizenship under the lex Calpurnia. This problem can be overcome
with no great difficulty by assuming that the lex Calpurnia may have
authorized the grant of citizenship to anyone who had done Rome a good
turn, and that miles were the only ones who happened to be mentioned by
Sisenna. Even if the lex Calpurnia was meant only for soldiers, Caesar
could probably have accepted the Cretan into the colors easily enough and
then granted him civitas, had the Cretan chosen that option. The objection
could be raised that Caesar actually had no authority and was simply
acting as Marius had done, allowing the clash of arms to drown out the
voice of the law, although the presence of such an enabling law as the lex
Calpurnia makes such a stance improbable. Thus, the theories of the
scholars cited above are probably the correct ones, and Caesar had almost
certainly extended his offer based on the legal authority given to him as a
general by that lex.
found that interview with the Cretan inspirational:14 as the story

goes, in exchange for some favor to the consul the Cretan had been
offered citizenship, which he laughingly refused—he wanted coin
instead—with the suggestion that Caesar would do far better to
make his offer to his enemies, since they were fighting for that very
thing. In light of the current lengths to which Roman manpower
had been pulled, Caesar may have figured that the cause might be
helped better by a law which could enfranchise entire peoples as
opposed to giving the civitas to individuals one at a time.
For whatever the reason, sometime after his return to Rome
Caesar proposed his law. In so doing, he tendered that which
earlier had only been offered to individuals in return for signal
displays of loyalty to entire communities of Italians so that they
might persist in allegiance. At the same time, he apparently made
sure to incorporate the provisions of the lex Calpurnia into his new
law so that it would continue to allow commanders to advance the
franchise singulatim to those not otherwise qualified for the grant
given to communities. This would have been important, because
the Romans would have needed to retain ways to reward those
who had rendered signal aid to Rome but were not included in the
bequest en masse, such as soldiers from non-Italian Allies. Indeed,
Pompeius Strabo seems to have made use of the lex Julia for exactly
this purpose, as an inscription recording his grant of the franchise
to some Spanish cavalrymen indicates (ILS 8888). Likewise,
individual enfranchisement would enable commanders to reward
persons who had come from communities that had joined the
Alliance, but who had themselves defied their neighbors and
persisted in supporting the Romans.15 It might also allow for the
14 See chapter five and notes for more on this offer.

15 So Keaveney, loc. cit.; also p. 178 note 26. In this note he speculates
that it may very well have been that Minatius Magius, the ancestor of
Velleius Paterculus whose acquisition of the citizenship is emphasized by
his descendant (2.16.3), was enfranchised by the lex Julia, although the fact
that Magius associated himself with commanders in the Southern theater
who did not have consular or even praetorian imperium leads to the
question of who would have given him this privilege. Perhaps Pompeius
went out of his way to award the man before the passage of later franchise
laws made such a viritane award unnecessary (more below). Such a
enfranchisement of those who themselves wished for the civitas but

came from cities to whom that commodity offered but had been
rejected.
Since, as has been seen, the lex Julia had the approval of the
Senate, it seems that the Council had accepted the idea that the
citizenship be given to some of the Italian states, although not the
ones still under arms. This represented a partial alteration in its
stance on such mass enfranchisement maintained hitherto (see
chapter 4), but it can be doubted whether the Senate’s overall
attitude towards that enfranchisement had changed drastically. As
has been argued earlier, the main objections to mass enrollment on
the scale before the lex Julia had likely involved the effects it could
be foreseen as having on Rome’s military, economic, and political
landscape. The potential repercussions on the first two must now
have appeared acceptable enough to allow (admittedly limited)
enfranchisement to occur. To the Senate’s thinking, a future in
which soldiers of Latin, Etruscan, and Umbrian origins would have
the be given the same respect and consideration as Romans might
have been easier to swallow than the alternative of prolonging or
even losing the current war without them. Furthermore, footing
the bill for future use of one-time Allied soldiery would possibly be
less devastating for the aerarium than more years like 90 had been.
Nevertheless, even in this extremity in which the Commonwealth
had drifted, it seems that the latter point—the potential impact on
Rome’s political machinery—continued to prove troublesome. As
Appian himself observes, the Romans and their governing body
continued to be very aware that the new citizens about to be
created would be numerous, and that in theory their votes might be
overwhelming at the comitia (loc. cit.). This was plainly still not
acceptable to the patres, and a way was therefore apparently sought
whereby the Italians could be given the citizenship to fulfill
strategic aims, but given it in such a way whereby the intolerable
consequence that their voting rights would be equal to that of the
old Romans could be avoided.
citation would be of a special type, which the notice in Velleius indicates

was the sort given to Magius (cuius [Minutius Magius] illi pietati plenam
populus Romanus gratiam rettulit ipsum viritim civitate donando).
Such a solution seems eventually to have been found. As per

another provision of the lex Julia, upon their admission to the civitas
the new citizens would not be mixed into the thirty-five existing
voting tribes, but would instead be restricted to voting in special
tribes set aside for them. That this made its way into Caesar’s law is
attested by Appian (1.6.49) and Velleius Paterculus (2.20.2). These
sources agree only so far, however: in terms of the fine points,
these two—and Sisenna (fragment 17), who also seems to provide
some details—diverge, particularly on how many tribes there were
to be and when they were created. So also diverge the theories of
the modern scholars who interpret these authorities. A veritable a
minefield of varying opinions results, through which no certain
path can be found. Since, however, a great deal of what occurs in
the year 89 and thereafter hinges upon the various citizenship
measures passed by the Romans and the restrictions on voting
which those measures stipulated, some effort to make sense of
them must be essayed even if such an effort depends upon a great
deal of speculation. This will be attempted below.
Nothing in what the sources state make it impossible that the
sequence of events involving the lex Julia and the incorporation of
the Italians went as follows: when Caesar proposed his law he
probably did not include provisions which he knew would lead to
anger on the part of those for whom he was proposing it. This
would be an especial concern if his purpose was to forestall the
possibility of future desertions, or calm areas where fighting had
occurred in pockets but had not encompassed the entire area,
conditions which may have prevailed amongst the Latins,
Etruscans, and Umbrians, respectively. Therefore, if his bill even
addressed the issue of incorporation at all—and, if one scholar is to
be believed, “it is impossible that the lex Julia would have left vague
a point as important as the position of the new citizens vis-à-vis the
established body of old citizens”16—it might initially only have
stated that the Italians to be enfranchised would be incorporated
into the Roman state by means of new tribes created especially for
them (the ancient and traditional operating procedure until 241, if
16 Gabba 1976, p. 92.

not thereafter).17 The lex Julia did not necessarily create these tribes,
nor even specify how many of them there were to be. Instead, it is
possible that it merely went only so far as to enumerate that new
tribes were to be created, although it is not unreasonable to
suppose that it further directed that no matter what number would
ultimately come into being, they would come into being two at a
time, as this would continue to keep the tribes at an uneven
number.18 The text of Appian admits such a conjecture: as seen
above, it certainly states that by the decree of the Senate giving
them the citizenship the novi were not incorporated into the
existing tribes but rather parcelled out into different ones.
However, Appian’s choice of vocabulary in his description of this
tribal assignment is unfortunate, in that the participle used to
indicate the assignment, δεκατεύοντες, derives from an unusual verb
whose meaning has been debated. It has often be translated as
“break into ten”, which seems to indicate that the lex Julia did in
fact create tribes, and specifically created ten in all, into which the
novi would be shunted. However, because the more standard usage
of this verb is one in which it means “tithe”, “devote”, or
“dedicate”, its presence in the text has sometimes been held to be a
mistake by some scholars, while others suggest that it means
nothing more than “divide” and that no specific number of tribes
is therefore indicated.19 Given the purpose for the law cited above,
17 Salmon 1958, p. 180–181.

18 Salmon, loc. cit.
19 Among the many scholars who have rejected the conclusion that
the use of δεκατεύοντες means that there were ten tribes is Nicolet (1988,
p. 233–234), although his interpretation of the mechanism of the lex Julia
is complex, unwieldy, and ultimately unconvincing. Another is Salmon
(1958, p. 180–181; 1967, p. 361–362 and note 4), whose opinions will be
discussed below, and Keaveney (1987, p. 170–171 and p. 178
note 28); the latter does so to account for the statement in Velleius
Paterculus that there were not ten tribes created, but rather eight. Gabba
also opts for this (1976, p. 92–95), but does so as much to accept what he
believes to be the certainty in Velleius (his language is at least
unambiguous) and forego the “desperate undertaking” of trying to
interpret Appian than from his conviction that eight was the real number.
Sherwin-White, for his part, seems content to let the matter stand as a
and the fact that the initial reaction Appian describes as having met
the lex Julia was one of happiness which only gradually turned to
disappointment,20 it seems rather unlikely that an ironclad
limitation of tribal assignments was included in the initial law (for
reasons to be described below). Rather, it is easier to imagine that
Caesar left the number of new tribes to be brought into being
unspoken, with the inference that it would be in a number that
would indicate parity with the old number of tribes. A fragment of
Sisenna seems to record that one Calpurnius created two new
tribes, a fragment from a book from that author which described
events around late 90.21 It may very well be that what occasioned
the creation of two new tribes was the first influx of citizens from
the lex Julia, as a fairly broad scholarly consensus holds.
As it would eventually be uncovered, however, the Romans
actually intended nothing like parity. The number of tribes to come
into being would be small indeed, and may ultimately have been as
few as eight; certainly Velleius mentions that only eight ended up
being created.22 What was worse still was that apparently those
vexed question (p. 155, where he adds that discussion over it is

“somewhat profitless”), as does Mouritsen (1998, p. 163).
20 ὅπερ ἢ λα ὸν αὐτίκα ἢ καὶ ὣς αὐτὸ ἀγαπ σάντων τῶν Ἰταλιωτῶν
ὕστερον ἐπιγνωσθὲν ἑτέρας στάσεως ἦρξεν [emphasis added]; 1.6.49

21 It reads in full L. Calpurnius Piso ex senati consulto duas novas tribus; no
verb is associated with it. See also Appendix L.
22 Salmon (1958, p. 182–184) has a different opinion. According to his
construction, Velleius is in fact not referring to the creation of tribes at all,

but is rather indicating that the novi cives were mixed into only eight
existing tribes after the war had more-or-less ended, and even then only
those novi who had taken part in the Alliance; those who had not, those
who had been enfranchised by the lex Julia, had in fact been mixed into
the original thirty-one rustic tribes. Further, Salmon continues, the Allies
themselves had demanded that the situation end up this way, as opposed
to accepting what the original Roman designs for them had been. Indeed,
this was the way the Allies ultimately were incorporated into the state after
the chaos of the mid-eighties was decided, during which they had
accumulated a great deal of political capital and had presumably spent it in
this fashion. Salmon cites as support for the conclusions epigraphical
evidence which had been shown to him privately by Lily Ross Taylor,
who would later publish what she found in her Voting Districts of the Roman
tribes were forced to vote last in the comitia tributa; this Appian
specifically mentions in the passage cited above and repeats the
claim later (in 1.8.64), rendering it likely that this was not a mistake
on his part but rather a deliberate assertion. That author further
states that this would eventually cause a great deal of displeasure
amongst the newly enfranchised, for reasons which are easy to
understand: due to the way the comitia tributa operated, measures
Republic (from which it would be quoted by Sherwin-White, p. 155–157).

Salmon also puts forward the conclusion that the mixture of the loyal
former socii into most of the original thirty-one rustic tribes and former
insurgents into eight of them happened after the agitation of the mid-
eighties; as he puts it, these arrangements “were made or completed by
the radical leaders who had espoused the Italian interest after the Social
War, <and thus> do not seem to be malicious or partisan”.
On the basis of this chain of evidence such a theory is attractive,
although it runs into problems. In the first place, Velleius mentions that
this voting restriction was the cause of later agitation, not the outcome of
it. Salmon does not really account for this fact, save in his assertion that
the Velleius was writing his work “with a maximum of haste and a
minimum of space” and therefore “expressed himself imprecisely”.
Moreover, there is the fact that Sisenna definitely mentions that new
tribes were created, and Appian also expressly states that the Allies were
divided, not into the existing thirty-five tribes (οὐκ ἐς τὰς πέντε καὶ
τριάκοντα φυλάς), but rather into new tribes (ἑτέρας).
Additionally, Appian is just as unequivocal in his statement that the
tribes in which the former Allies were to vote had been compelled to vote
last, making these tribes essentially powerless (see below). If the Allies
were mixed into existing tribes from the very beginning, this would seem
to condemn the votes of Romans already in that tribe to the same sort of
powerlessness, and it is hard to see how they would have stood for it.
Salmon seems to meet these objections with the observation that both the
new tribes and the voting last was what the Roman plan for the Allies was
originally to be, but that the Allies would have none of it and eventually
managed to effect the distribution described above. All in all, this codicil
is also fairly convincing, even though the solutions to the aforementioned
difficulties which Salmon offers are not always as penetrating as could be
hoped, especially in his somewhat cavalier selection of what to believe
from Velleius and what not to believe. Even so, his theory will be
accepted in this essay, albeit via a modification which will be found in the
pages to follow.
were passed and men were elected once a simple majority was
reached, at which point further the voting on the matter ceased.
Tribes which voted first thus had the greatest amount of influence,
and correspondingly those which voted last had the least. In fact,
since a popular measure might attain majority status early on, many
of the tribes scheduled to vote last would never even get the
chance to cast ballots at all.23 This placement in the voting order,
coupled with the fact that the number of tribes was to be so small,
meant that an arrangement the kind enacted for the novi cives would
almost guarantee that, unless the other tribes were deadlocked, they
would have practically no voice of any kind in the assembly which
both decided the lower magistracies—and it is to be remembered
that only through these could candidates become eligible for the
higher ones—and which passed or rejected most of the laws.24
In light of these facts, it is puzzling that Appian would claim
that these dispositions had been part of the lex Julia, all along but
that they did not create an uproar when the law was first passed.
He attributes this initial lack of outrage either to the fact that the
peoples who obtained the franchise thereby were content with
what they acquired, or that they simply did not notice the debilities
that were attached to that acquisition.25 This strains credibility.
What would have been more likely is that if indeed the lex Julia
been equipped with such terms from the beginning, the loyal socii
would have been more likely to have been insulted rather than
overjoyed (the reaction Appian specifies at least for the Etruscans,
who are described as ἄσμενοι at the bequest). On the other hand, it
is possible that what happened instead is that they recipients were
deceived through omission about what they would be getting, but
when the deception was revealed to them they would express their
dismay in the manner Appian records.
23 For a throrough discussion of the Roman voting procedure see

Nicolet 1988, p. 224–289; see also Mouritsen 2001, p. 94–101, for
additional emphasis on the order of voting.
24 For the lawmaking role of the comitia tributa, see Williamson, p. 20–
23, Millar (1998, p. 16–18; 150–15), and Mouritsen (2001, p. 88).

In other words, the lex Julia might well have been passed with
the vague indication that the new citizens created by it would be
enfolded into the citizen body through new tribes created for them.
What they did not know at the time was how many tribes there
were to be, but they trusted that they would come into being in
numbers of tribes that their vote would not be meaningless. The
tribal activity of Piso described in Sisenna was the first step in this
process. In point of fact, however, the lex was not going to give the
new citizens anything like effective voting power, which may have
been the intention from the very beginning. The Allies did not
notice this (per Appian) because they did not yet know just how
few tribes were to be created for them and were therefore pleased
with what they got (also per Appian). When the truth came out,
their happiness turned to anger.
If such an interpretation of Appian—conjectural though it
certainly is—is anywhere close to describing what actually
occurred, the fact remains that by the end of 90 the Romans had
shored up any wavering amongst those socii which had not taken
arms against them, and may have regained the devotion of those
which had taken weapons only in part. This possibly brought to
Rome a vast pool of manpower which had been kept from the
Commonwealth throughout this year. It was, however, only to be a
temporary expedient; not long after, the willingness of the Romans
to give the citizenship on such terms would be extended, while that
of the Allies to accept it on such terms would diminish. The
measure which the Romans decided to enact with the apparent aim
of helping end a destructive war would ultimately not do so in the
way that they had planned, and indeed it would hold the cause for
much greater bloodshed in the future (as will be seen). At the
moment, however, the year 89 dawned with the Romans in much
the same military position as they had been in the year before: their
aim was still to protect the advances on Rome, to contain the
uprising and prevent its spread, and then to crush the armies of the
Allies, destroy their cities, and finally bring them into submission.
The way they went about doing so will be the next subject to which
attention will be turned.
2. THE BATTLES OF ASCULUM

AND THE MARCH DOWN THE COAST
As these legislative developments were occurring in Rome, the final
months of the year 90 gave way to the opening of 89. The old year
had not seen much progress in the Commonwealth’s efforts to
crush the Alliance, and indeed the Romans had lost territory to the
insurgents: Alba still hung on, and Pinna may have, but Aesernia,
and Nola had certainly fallen to the Italians, and almost certainly
Grumentum had gone over to them as well (see previous chapter).
Likewise, the socii had built a fleet which had yet to be chased from
the seas. Still, there were some new alterations in circumstances
which would potentially affect operations in the coming year.
Importantly, throughout 90 the Romans had been hindered in their
offensives by the fact that the Appenines protected the territory of
much of the Alliance. The defeat of Crassus in Lucania, the early
enclosure of Pompeius in Picenum, and the destruction of Caepio’s
force in Amiternum had meant that this defensive ridge could not
be flanked to the north or the south, while the Allied victories at
Carsioli, Venafrum, and Aesernia meant that it could not be forced
by means of a frontal assault, either.26 Yet towards the end of 90,
the various phenomena occurring at Asculum had pushed the door
to the Adriatic coast ajar, and with enough added force it might be
opened completely. This would in turn present the potential to
acquire a direct path through the lands of the Vestini, Marrucini,
Frentani, Apuli, and Venusini.
If Asculum represented a potential vulnerable spot in the
Allied holdings, it was the only one which could be seen at the
conclusion of the first full year of the war. In fact, to the south the
Allied position had gotten stronger. In that region, the Allies held
the entire southern run of the Via Appia south of the Liternus
from Nola to Grumentum by the start of 89. They also seem to
have remedied a weakness in their line from the previous year. In
90 they seem to have allowed the Romans access to the eastbound
arm of the Via Appia by their apparent failure to hold or take
Beneventum, a failure which probably allowed for Marcellus to
strike at Aesernia from there (as described in the previous chapter).
26 See Domaszewski (p. 28) for a similar analysis.

His expedition, ill-fated though it was, would have advertised the

potential dangers of leaving Beneventum unoccupied, especially as
it lay in a position which oversaw the route to Aeclanum, one that
might give access to first to the territory of the Hirpini and then,
beyond that, to the Allies behind the Apennines.27 It is almost
certain that, after the failure of Marcellus, the Allies had indeed
proceeded to make Beneventum theirs, even if no specific
campaign to seize it is recorded. In fact, Roman activity in the
coming year emphatically suggests that the eastern branch of the
Via Appia had been shut off, and that such an obstruction had
come through Allied command of that city. If the Allied defensive
line had been lengthened in such a way, any attempt by the
Romans to flank the Italian position from the south would have to
begin with fighting through Alliance-held Campania; as it
happened, this was indeed the exact route the Romans took.
Therefore, the precarious situation at Asculum may have meant
that there was the beginning of an opening which might be
exploited to create an avenue into the Alliance. Other than that
one, however, there seems to have been no other weakness.
Everywhere else, the Allied defensive barriers stood firm. As a
consequence of these facts, the task which lay ahead of the Romans
in 89 was the same as the year before, but no less difficult for all
that.
As for the former Allies, on the other hand, their aims would
also have remained the same as those of the previous year: hold on,
hold together, and make the cost of defeating them so bitter that
the Romans might resort to alternative means than conquest to
settle the unpleasantness. The Allies had definitely managed the
former two, as they had plenty of fight left and remained steadfast
to each other. As to the last, the Allies had certainly inflicted
enormous casualties on the Romans in a string of spectacular
victories over them in the previous year, and the wearing of the
saga, the burial edict, and the case of C. Vettienus indicates that the
Republic had felt those casualties keenly28 (see chapter 5). Likewise,
the vehemence of Roman resolve recorded in Diodorus 37.22 may
27 See map 1.
28 For these, see previous chapter.
also be telling: in that fragment, the Romans give voice to their

grim determination that they not be “shown to be inferior by their
inferiors” (φανῆναι τῶν ἡττόνων ἥττους). The fragment cannot be
dated, but it might well belong to 90, when the Romans had come
to discover that their opponents could strike with far more ferocity
than they may have anticipated. As a result, they vowed their
resolve not to be bested, making a tacit admission in so doing that
being bested was a possibility which now confronted them.29
To be sure, by the end of the year the Romans had answered
back with some victories of their own, but even these losses need
not have been a source of much lamentation by the Allies: if their
overall object was less to beat the Romans than to make even the
very act of fighting excruciating for the Republic, then they had
effected this with aplomb, the late victories of the Romans
notwithstanding. Battered a little but doubtless still resolute as 89
dawned, the Allies may well have derived encouragement from the
passage of the lex Julia (as Appian denotes, 1.6.49), with its
implication that the Romans were at some level willing to concede
the franchise to abate the threat of continued war. A signal might
thus have been sent to the Allies which confirmed that their
pressure was paying dividends. All that remained was to keep it up
until the Romans could be persuaded to extend that willingness to
enfranchise to those remaining in arms, and then their ultimate
aim, it seemed, would be won.
If these were in fact the goals of both sides, then fighting in
pursuit of them started early in 89, although the continuous sieges
of Alba and Asculum had probably meant that some sort of
desultory skirmishing had occurred all through the winter. It had
probably been in late 90 that C. Vidacilius had managed to force
his way back into his native city in a maneuver which had been
designed to lift its siege but had failed to do so.30 Vidacilius had
been notable for his energy earlier in that year, and he seems to
have been quite disgusted at the lack of fighting spirit the
demoralized remnants of the army of Lafrenius had shown in their
29 Such is the reading given to this fragment by Haug, p. 219–220.

30 See last chapter for arguments as to the timing of this action and the
scholarly disagreements about it.
inability to break out and drive off the Romans; Appian mentions
that he rebuked them for their cowardice (ὠνείδισε μὲν αὐτοῖς τὴν
ἀτολμίαν; 1.6.48). It is therefore very likely that he busied himself
for the remainder of the year 90 restoring discipline and making the
occasional efforts at the Roman lines.31 In the meantime, Sex.
Julius Caesar seems to have died,32 leading to his temporary
replacement by one C. Baebius by decree of the Senate (Appian, loc.
cit.). Baebius would not hold this commission long, however, as the
newly-elected Cn. Pompeius Strabo was soon on his way back to
Asculum. His alacrity may have derived from a personal eagerness
to resume the siege of that city, or perhaps from some anxiety that
it would capitulate before his arrival, allowing a measure of the
gloria for Asculum’s capture to devolve upon Baebius (such would
31 According to that passage of Appian, upon breaking into Asculum
Vidacilius first subjected the people in it to the aforementioned harangues,

but he eventually succumbed to despair over his inability to free the city,
massacred his enemies, and committed suicide (more below).
Domaszewski (p. 28–29) believes that this entire episode constitutes a
single incident unfolding over perhaps one or two days, and sets it during
and shortly after the climactic battle between Pompeius and the Marsi
(again, more below), and thus to the year 89. For this belief he draws
upon the statements of Orosius (5.18.21) as support. Salmon (1967, p.
364–365), by contrast, also believes Appian is describing a single episode
of no more than a few days’ length, but holds that it fell out sometime
after the aforementioned battle. For a variety of reasons, some of which
involving the battle and thus to be described extensively below and in
Appendix M, both of these interpretations lack persuasiveness.
By contrast, there is the possibility that Appian is describing, not the
happenings of a few short days, but of a longer span of time. If so, then
Vidacilius may have spent the weeks after his irruption into Asculum in 90
chastising his men, and perhaps even executing a few for lack of discipline
and insubordination. That such activities may have taken weeks or even
months is certainly not at variance with what Appian reports. He would
then be prepared to play a role in the events which would follow in early
89. Such is the interpretation which is followed here.
32 Contra Domazewski and Salmon in the places cited above, which
both hold that Caesar was still alive at this point.

not be out of keeping with the character of any noble Roman).33

Alternatively, he may have had concerns that the Allies would
launch a more concerted, well-planned drive to lift the siege.
Pompeius may very well have gotten intelligence towards the
last, as it seems that the Allies were indeed on the move in very
early 89, and may have been even earlier that that. According to the
sources, 15000 men from the insurgents along the Adriatic coast
under one Fraucus, and so possibly Frentani, had been sent to
bolster the uprising in Etruria and Umbria but had arrived there
after that uprising had ended.34 Upon discovery of this, these Allies
may have decided at this point to fall back upon Asculum and see
if they could aid the Picentes currently besieged there. Such a
deployment may have been coordinated with Vettius Scato, who
was apparently also headed towards Asculum for the same purpose
(see below). Either way, as they made their way to the Via Salaria
33 On fears of losing the gloria on the part of Roman commanders, see
Harris (1979, p. 138–141). The fear described by Harris is that of losing it

to successors, but it is not at all unlikely that a similar concern may have
arisen in Pompeius regarding his placeholder Baebius; if the new consul
was to gain any prestige from victory in taking Asculum, that victory
would have to be his beyond dispute.
34 That the commander was Fraucus is certain, if Orosius is to be
trusted; he states this directly (5.18.8). What is in doubt is who the men
under him my have been. Orosius calls them “Marsi”, but may have done
so because the label “Marsi” might have been a convenient catch-all term
for all the non-Samnites in the Alliance (see Salmon 1958, p. 170–171;
also, see discussion of Fraucus in Appendix H). On the one hand, there is
the statement in Appian that these men were from the Adriatic coast ( οἱ
δὲ περὶ τὸν Ἰόνιον οὔπω; 1.6.50). The Marsi were not a coastal people (see
Map 1).
A way out of this apparent snarl may be found by assuming Orosius
was in error about the Marsi. Perhaps he had noted in the original Livy
that many Marsi had fought in the great battle to come around Asculum
(see below). If these two engagements had happened illo tempore, which
may be reflected in the statement—possibly mistaken or at the very least
imprecise, for which see below—that they happened eadem die, then it
might have been assumed by the later author that if Marsi were fighting in
that later battle, they had also fought in an earlier one, which is about to
be described in the text above.
they seem to have encountered Pompeius, who was probably

leading reinforcements from Rome towards Asculum on this road.
These supplementa may have been augmented by a sizeable number
of newly-minted citizens from the former Latin areas, and perhaps
also by some men lent to the consul from the south (more below).
Irrespective of the composition of his soldiers, Pompeius was
marching in some strength, as will be seen. At the sight of the
Romans, Fraucus seems to have made the decision to offer battle.
In so doing he may have believed that he could defeat Pompeius,
or at least buy some time for Scato to arrive at Asculum and drive
off the defenders there. Pompeius, in turn, decided to accept the
invitation, and in the ferocious fighting that commenced he
managed to get the better of Fraucus, who was named as being
among the many thousands who fell in combat. Three thousand
more appear to have been captured, while the rest seem to have
been positioned in such a way that they could not retreat to the
south but had to fall back into the north into Umbria. These
survivors also seem to have been deprived of their baggage, and
perhaps also of their guides; Appian mentions that they became
lost in a “trackless region” (ἀπόρου χώρας; 1.6.50), and that they
were reduced to subsisting on acorns. A sudden winter snowstorm
seems to have befallen them as they were surmounting a ridge, and
as a result of it a great many of them froze to death (Oros.
5.18.19).35
In the meantime, Pompeius then seems to have resumed his
march to Asculum shortly after attaining this success. He was
probably just in advance of the aforementioned Allied relief army
under the command of Scato. This army was huge, if the numbers
reported by Velleius (2.21) are even close to the correct ones,36 and
consisted consisting not only of Marsi, but probably also of forces
35 For a lengthy discussion on the reasons as to why the interpretation
of this battle and the one to follow has taken the shape it has been given
above, see Appendix M.
36 But see Haug (p. 225) for doubts on this score; she claims, although
not too convincingly, that the numbers were magnified in a biography of

Pompeius Magnus to make the battle fought by his father seem far more
important than it was, and that this biography was used as a source by
Velleius.
from all over the area. Opposed to it, the army commanded by
Pompeius, which would have been composed of auxiliaries and
perhaps even soldiers from the southern theater added to the men
that had remained at Asculum under Sex. Caesar and now Baebius,
may have been more immense still. A titanic battle was therefore
about to take place on a scale of greater enormity then in any
previous confrontation in the war thus far. Indeed, the earlier
victory of Pompeius on the way had already represented one which
was an equal to any contest from the previous year, if the casualties
reported in Appian and Orosius are to be trusted, and this one
looked to be larger still.
It is therefore understandable that there might have been one
last overture of peace before it was joined, and there seems to have
been a meeting to this effect between the commanders. According
to Cicero (who claims to have been there in person), Scato,
Pompeius Strabo, and Strabo’s brother Sextus met and, upon
salutation by Strabo and the question as how he wished to be
addressed, Scato replied that he wished to be hailed as a friend but
was compelled to be hailed an enemy (Phil. 12.27).37 It is not
37 Cicero’s presence at this battle has been a matter of some debate,
since he is claimed by Plutarch (καί τινα χρόνον καί στρατείας μετέσχεν ὑπὸ
Σύλλᾳ περὶ τὸν Μαρσικὸν πόλεμον; Cicero 3) to have done his service with
Sulla and seems to indicate this himself in his de divinatione (et ut in Sullae
scriptum historia videmus, quod te inspectante factum est, ut, cum ille in agro
Nolano immolaret ante praetorium [emphasis added], 1.72; nam de angue illo, qui
Sullae apparuit immolanti, utrumque memini, et Sullam … [emphasis added],
2.65). However, a number of solutions to how Cicero could have been
with Strabo at Asculum for this tête-a-tête with Scato and yet later with
Sulla have been presented by modern scholars, and all of them are fairly
plausible. According to one, Cato may have lent Pompeius some of his
men from the south to aid in this in this epic engagement, of which
Cicero may have been one, due to the proximity of Arpinum to the
southern theater. If Cicero had thus served and had even been recruited in
the south, then after the battle of Asculum he was returned there along
with the other men in time to take part in Sulla’s offensive which led to
Nola, the specific set of engagements mentioned in the passages from the
de divinatione cited above. This is the argument of Domaszewski (p. 9) and
Haug (p. 254). Keaveney (1987, p. 159 notes 2–3), however, finds this
unlikely due to the sheer distances to be travelled alone, believing instead
unlikely that peace based on the gift of the citizenship was

discussed by these men in light of the recent lex Julia,38 but no
matter what the conversation between Scato and Pompeius
involved, it did not avert the coming violence. Accordingly, an
engagement commenced in which Pompeius defeated not only the
Allied relievers but also repulsed a simultaneous sortie from the
city itself, one which had apparently been led by Vidacilius (Per. 74).
The remnants of that foray apparently fell back into Asculum,
while what was left of the Allied army which had aimed to free the
city retreated back into their own lands in disarray, leaving the
Roman blockade around the city as tight as ever.
the theory of Cichorius (summarized in Ward, p. 121–123), which is that

Cicero had started in the service of Pompeius Strabo and was later sent
south to join the command of Sulla. Why he would have been transferred
is unknown: maybe Cato had indeed sent soldiers from the south directly
(the presence at Asculum of sling-bullets from Legio XV, which had been
stationed in the south near Sora, can thus be explained), or “lent”
Pompeius the use of all of the auxiliaries raised in early 89 with the
understanding that the latter would send Cato’s share of these south if he
attained victory. Pompeius then traded some of his men, which may have
always been under his service and, back to Cato as part of his share of
auxiliaries, and Cicero was one of these. Perhaps both conditions applied,
and Cicero was either one of the southerners sent north and then
returned, or was one of the men in Cato’s share of auxilia sent to him
after Aculum. Alternatively, Cicero may have even requested the transfer
either as part of the return of the borrowed men, or just for himself if no
such lending had taken place; his brother was certainly serving in the
southern army, and Cicero may have wanted to serve with him or be
closer to home. Either way, there seems no substantive reason to doubt
either Cicero’s presence at Asculum or his later presence in the army of
Sulla, and if indeed he was transferred, it was probably very near the
beginning of spring (see below). Mouritsen, who believes that this
conference took place later in 89, would therefore be mistaken, since by
that point Cicero would had begun his service with Sulla (1998, p. 164–
165). Such is the stance taken here.
38 So Keaveney, 1987, p. 151–152. In the same passage but a few lines
later, Cicero himself notes that non enim ut eriperent nobis socii civitatem, sed ut
in eam reciperentur petebant, perhaps an echo of something Scato himself said
in negotiations with Pompeius.
As it turned out, no other expeditions would be made to lift

the siege, although Asculum stubbornly held on for almost a year
before finally opening its gates to the Romans around the
beginning of November.39 At some point prior to this it had lost
the services of its commander, C. Vidacilius. As mentioned above,
this man had apparently been an individual of remarkable
animation and, to judge from the exploits he is postulated to have
undertaken in the previous year, a bit of an adventurer. He was, as
a consequence, probably not the sort who would take well to
prolonged inaction and the boredom and deprivation of a siege. He
soon apparently hit upon a way to end it, in a manner of speaking:
according to Appian (1.6.48) and Orosius (5.18.22), Vidacilius
invited all of his lieutenants and friends to a great banquet, where
feasting and drinking on a grand scale commenced. At the height
of the festivities, he proceeded to poison himself, exhorted his
friends to do likewise, and then had himself placed on a
conveniently waiting pyre and cremated; apparently the deed was
much admired at Asculum, but not duplicated. No enlightenment
is provided by the sources as to who took over the command of
Asculum upon the death of Vidacilius, which, due to the apparent
abundance of food, wine, and flammable objects, probably
occurred not too long after the battle described above, before
starvation and scarcity of fuel set in. Perhaps C. Pontidius, who is
believed to have been a “praetor” of the Vestini40—likely he had
replaced the fallen Lafrenius, who had been killed during the
breakout from Firmum—had deferred command of the defense of
Asculum to Vidacilius while the latter lived (it was, after all, his
native city) but resumed leadership after the deadly banquet.41
39 See Appendix M for sources.

40 See the discussion of the commanders in the previous chapter and
in Appendix H for the command of Pontidius.
41 Such an attribution seems more convincing than another possible
alternative, which is that a “Ventidius”—the father of the Senator,

triumphator, and apparently one-time “muleteer” P. Ventidius Bassus—
took over. Such an assertion rests upon the well-known story that this
Ventidius Bassus had come from Asculum and had even been led as an
infant, along with his mother, in the triumph of Pompeius (more below).
Because of this anecdote, both Haug (p. 242, 257–258) and Keaveney
In the meantime, Pompeius possibly waited for a few weeks

after his victory against Scato before moving again, so as to make
sure that there would be no additional thrusts at Asculum. If, as
some scholars suggest, he had been lent the use of soldiers from or
destined to the southern theater,42 he seems to have returned them
before the arrival of spring. Satisfied as to the security of his
designs for the city’s envelopment when that season arrived,
Pompeius then decided to risk leaving Asculum at his back in the
custody with part of his army, and to bring the war to the territory
of the Vestini with the rest of it. The expedition launched for that
pupose looks to have been a great success and soon led to the
surrender of a number of the towns in that area (Per. 75), after
which the consul apparently decided to return to Picenum and
concentrate on the siege. In the meantime, he seems to have sent
some lieutenants forwards against the enemy. One of them,
Caecilius Cornutus, seems to have betaken himself through the
now-pacified territory of the Vestini in the direction of the lands of
the Paeligni, perhaps heading west and towards the city of
Corfinium itself. In so doing, he would defeat the Paeligni and,
presumably, the Marsi under Vettius Scato, who undoubtably had
been tasked to defend the Allied base of operations in that town
(1987, p. 141, 217 and 219 note 19) hold the belief that this Ventidius held
a subordinate command in the war, drawing also in part upon the fact that
a single manuscript of Appian mentions that a “Ventidius” as being one
of the commanders who helped defeat Pompeius at Firmum (see
last chapter). Keaveney also cites Syme (1951, p. 92), discussing the
prominence of the Ventidii at Asculum.
Nevertheless, other than the aforementioned Appian manuscript
(whose “Ventidius” most editors amend to “Vettius”), there is no
additional evidence that any Ventidius served in the Allied War, as Salmon
notes (1958, p. 170). On the other hand, Appian does explicitly mention a
Pontidius, and Velleius does likewise. There is wide agreement that he was
a commander of the Vestini who may have served as subordinate to, and
then replacement for, Lafrenius (see Appendix H). As such, he might very
well have been amongst the men who were chased into Asculum in 90,
and still available to assume or resume leadership there in 89. For this
reason, Pontidius as successor to Lafrenius and then Vidacilius seems
more plausible, and such is suggested above.
42 See above.
(see below). This would apparently be the mission of Caecilius for

the rest of the year.43 Two other legati of Pompeius seem to have
likewise gone through the regions of the Vestini and into those of
the Marrucni. One, C. Cosconius,44 merely passed through en route
to the coast of the Adriatic, on his way to a remarkable series of
escapades there of which more will be mentioned directly. The
other, Ser. Sulpicius Galba,45 was in the meantime sent to protect
Cornutus from the east and C. Cosconius from the north by
neutralizing these Marrucini. A terrible brawl between the Romans
under Galba and the Marrucini and Vestini seems to have taken
place in Marrucinian territory at a place called the Teanum river by
Orosius (5.8.25). By this identification, Teaté, the Marrucinian
capital (whose whose name was pronounced “Teanum” in Oscan),
was almost certainly meant instead.46 Among the Marrucini and
43 See Appendix N for the identification of this Caecilius as Caecilius
Cornutus and for a more detailed discussion of this assignment.

44 Domaszewski (29) implies that Cosconius, whose actions in Apulia
are certain, had been a legate of Pompeius. Keaveney (1987, p. 153–154)

also allows for this possibility, although references to him by Appian as
στρατ γός, and, later, to his successor being mentioned as taking over for
him ἐπὶ τὴν στρατ γίαν gives him some difficulties; these he works out
fairly successfully on pages 211–212.
45 On the identity of Galba as the Sulpicius in question see Salmon
(1967, p. 365). Keaveney (loc. cit.) and Domaszewski (p. 30) disagree,
holding the Sulpicius in question to be P. Sulpicius Rufus, tribune of the
following year. However, since a Sulpicius seems to have been a
subordinate to Pompeius in the previous year (Appian 1.6.47), and since it
is likely that this was Servius Sulpicius Galba (see Domasewski, p. 27 and
Salmon in the place just cited; both are also cited in chapter 5), it makes
more sense that he and not the tribune of 88 would be the commander
for this expedition. Such an assumption would be more likely if the
surrender of the Marrucini did not actually occur until late in 89 or early
88 (see below), at which time P. Sulpicius would have needed to have
been in Rome to run for and take office. See also Appendix R for the
military service of Sulpicius Rufus.
46 For the pronunciation of “Teaté” see Salmon (1958, p. 174 and
notes), which also makes clear the distinction between this city and both
the “Teanum” on the other side of Italy and the “Teanum” in Apulia. For
the placement of the battle at Teaté, see Salmon (in the place cited above
Vestini to be killed in the battle was one Obsidius, styled as an

imperator by Orosius; this man probably led the Marrucini as the
replacement for Herius Asinius, since the latter had been killed in
action against Marius the year before (see previous chapter).
Galba’s actions seem to have been sufficient to cause the Marrucini
to become quiet and possibly led to their surrender in the next year,
as both the Periocha of Livy’s book 76 and Appian (1.6.52) seem to
indicate that the Marrucini surrendered in 88, just as the Marsi and
Vestini did. After this battle Galba may remained in the
neighborhood as spring gave way to summer and fall, possibly
wandering from the territory of the Marrucini from time to time to
launch attacks on whatever Vestini in the neighboring area still
remained in arms.
As Galba and Cornutus continued at their missions to his
north, Cosconius seems to have proceeded forward on his
southern march whose destination was ultimately to be Apulia
(Diodorus 37.2.8). Along with one Lucanus or Lucceius, who was
likely his subordinate, Cosconius probably managed to ravage the
territory of Larinum (Appian, 1.6.52) before coming to grips with a
as well as 1967, p. 365 and note 3) and Keaveney (1987, p. 155). Contra
Domaszewski, who believes that this passage of Orosius is instead
reporting the battle at which Poppaedius Silo was killed fighting against
one Mamercus Aemilius, as reported in Per. 76 and Diodorus 37.2 (more
below). This would mean that Orosius has mistaken both the Roman
leader—“Sulpicius”—and the place where this occurred, which
Domaszewski believes to be the Trinius river in the land of the Frentani.
Yet for this conjecture he gives no evidence at all, and it is presumably
based on the fact Orosius named Poppaedius as having died in this
engagement (he clearly did not). Orosius has almost certainly made at least
one error in his description of this engagement, but it seems less probable
that Orosius he mistook the Roman commander and the place and got
the Italian generals right, than that he instead mistook one of the Italian
captains, placing Poppaedius where he does not belong. If the latter was
in fact the case, then both Roman leader, one of the Italian leaders, and
the place is accurately presented. This would make the battle at Teaté as a
different event as that fought beween Aemlius and Poppaedius Silo, as per
the opinion of Salmon and Keaveney. This is what is advocated above.
force of Samnites under Marius Egnatius (Per. 75).47 This he

defeated, causing the death of Egnatius in the process.48 Cosconius
then resumed his march and took Salapia, which he burned, and
then moved on to Cannae, which he also subjected. The Samnites,
in the meantime, had apparently reformed and joined forces with
the Apulians under one Trebatius, and together launched a
counterattack against Cosconius while he was besieging Canusium.
After fighting described by Appian as having been especially
bloody (loc. cit.), Cosconius fell back on Cannae, and Trebatius
presently followed. Upon the latter’s arrival at the river Aufidus, on
one side of which Cosconius had apparently formed his men, a
curious exchange seems to have followed in which Trebatius (who
47 This engagement would therefore have taken place in the land of

the Frentani, although there is no real reason to doubt the report of the
Periocha of Livy’s book 75 that it was the Samnites under Marius Egnatius
who fought against Cosconius and perished here. Indeed, if, as has been
speculated above and in Appendix M, it had been Fraucus who had been
sent into Etruria and died on that mission, then the Frentani could very
well have used reinforcements along with a proven commander, as
Egnatius had shown himself to be. Such an explanation is far more in line
with the explicit notice of the Periochae that he was Samnite than
Domaszewski’s construction (p. 18, 30), which holds that he was actually
from the Frentani. For this, see also Appendix H.
48 Keaveney (1987, p. 153–154) speculates that Cosconius had made a
detour into Samnium to fight Egnatius, only to return to the territory of

the Frentani to continue stabbing southwards. His justification for this is
that it was not certain that the nations between Asculum and the Frentani
would allow Cosconius passage, and that he would need to seek an
alternate route to Apulia. Yet why Cosconius would have thought a
sojourn into Samnium would be any easier is not explained. Furthermore,
Keaveney’s conjecture does not seem to have taken into account a
crossing in force through the lands of the Marrucini of the sort speculated
above, which could have compelled such passage even if no engagement
seems to have been fought which reflect such compulsion. Moreover, his
uncontested trek may have been the result of the Marrucini being tied up
by Galba and the Paeligni by Cornutus. With these out of his way,
Cosconius could easily have made the crossing cited above. This would
make Keaveney’s proposed detour something of a needless addition, and
it is therefore one that is excised from this essay.
was on the other side) apparently asked Cosconius either to cross

the river and join battle, or, failing that, to withdraw so that
Trebatius could himself cross towards that end. Cosconius
accepted the latter proposal and withdrew, quite probably in
something close to shock at his good fortune. It is difficult to see
why Trebatius would ever have believed that he would be allowed
to execute such a maneuver without the Romans falling upon him
and tearing him to bits, but it seems that he believed exactly that.
In the security of this belief, he then began to traverse the river,
and while he was at it Cosconius promptly fell upon him and tore
him to bits, slaughtering close to 15,000 of his men.
After this debacle, Trebatius and what remained of the
Samnites and Apulians fled back to Canusium, where they seemed
to have been content to stay and where Cosconius seems to have
been content to leave them. Reasons for this attitude on the part of
the latter are not difficult to intuit: while Cosconius had managed
to cover a remarkable amount of ground in his expedition, he had
probably lost a substantial number of his men in the process. Such
losses, and the possibility of the onset of winter, may have slowed
Cosconius and hindered his ability to launch major campaigns in
Apulia once he had gotten there. Therefore, except for his
conquest of a people called the Poediculi, Cosconius seems to have
restricted his movements for the rest of the year to ravaging the
territory of Ausculum and Venusia.
The battles along the Adriatic coast had apparently been
nothing but successful for the Romans, and disastrous for the
Alliance. In two engagements near Asculum the Italians had lost
several thousand men and one of its commanders, while another
general and indeed one of their most successful was lost in the
coastal run of Cosconius. The brief check on the latter in the form
of his at Canusium had led his brutal mauling of Trebatius at
Cannae, where the ghosts of Hannibal’s victims may have looked
sympathetically on the horrible losses of the defeated socii. Such a
string of defeats appear to have led to cracks in the Alliance. Blood
had, of course, likely been accepted by the socii as the price for
winning the war; even in 91, the Allies had probably accepted that a
certain amount of it would need to be drawn to convince the
Romans to give them what they had wanted. By the end of 89,
however, the amount of it being shed by them was apparently
starting to become more than they could bear, if the beginnings of
surrender noted above were any indication. Such, at least, was what
was transpiring along the Mare Superum; matters on the Mare Inferum
will be the next object of survery.
3. THE WAR ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE APPENINES

It is possible that in the winter of 90 the Senate and the newly-
elected consuls may have decided to alter their approach to the war
from the previous year, with efforts being divided less into
southern and northern theaters and more into an eastern and
western ones. As to the former, Pompeius Strabo seems to have
been allowed to build on the momentum he had acquired in
Asculum by returning to press the siege there, which worked out so
well that he began to extend his reach into the lands of the Vestini,
Marrucini, Paeligni, and ultimately down the Adriatic coast. In the
meantime, the direction of the war on the western side of Italy fell
to the other consul of 89, L. Porcius Cato. To accomplish this,
Cato seems to have been given command of what remained of the
armies of Rutilius and L. Julius Caesar, perhaps on the condition
that he temporarily lend some of his men and, perhaps, most of the
supplementa to Pompeius Strabo (as has been speculated above).
Cato seems to have spent the early months of 89 organizing
his department, a process which seems to have included replacing
some of the legates of his predecessors with other men of his
choosing. A substitution certainly had had to be made for
P. Crassus, since he seems to have escaped Grumentum only to be
elected Censor in Rome.49 Aulus Gabinius was apparently sent into
his spot, as he is soon reported as having been operating in
Lucania. The other men to be replaced may have included
Otacilius, since Aulus Postumius Albinus was next reported as
being commander of the navy,50 and possibly P. Lentulus also, as
no further mention of him is made. Valerius Messala probably also
went, since he, too, is recorded as having no part in the war in 89.
Since both Messala and Lentulus had been operating in the same
area, the lower and upper valley of the Liris,51 Cato may have
49 So Broughton, vol. 2, p. 32; see also chapter 5, and chapter 7.

50 By the Periocha of book 75 of Livy; for Otacilius, see chapter 5.
51 See chapter 5 and Appendices K and L.
deputed into that area single legate to replace them both.

This legate did not see a great deal of action, just as his
predecessors had not; he may have been Q. Catulus, the consul of
102.52
What may have been the most significant change in command
personnel, however, was the dismissal of the other consul of 102,
C. Marius. A great deal of speculation has been offered as to why
Marius was sent home. Among the reasons given have been his
supposed difficulties with superior officers; the determination of
the Senate to thwart his ambitions for command against the war
that Marius, and probably everyone else, was sure was coming with
Mithridates; his disappointment over not being offered the
supreme command of the rest of the Allied War as proconsul;
Senatorial suspicions of the possibility of inappropriate sympathy
with the enemy; and the Optimate unwillingness to let him retain a
command of any sort where further success might lead to greater
popularity.53 Any of these may have been the reason for his
removal, or, alternatively, all may have acted in concert to influence
Cato’s decision to dispense with him. Then again, it may have been
that none of them did. This modern speculation on the departure
of Marius notwithstanding, of the ancient sources only Plutarch
52 This follows Domaszewski (p. 20), who believes that the “Lentulus”
of Appian 1.5.40 was not an error for the “Catulus” of Cicero pro Font. 43.
Lentulus, by Domaszweski’s reckoning, was therefore a legate in 90, and
Catulus was thus legate of 89. While this conjecture does not end the
confusion which exists on this score (see Keaveney 1987, p. 208–209 for
additional vexation over Lentulus/Catulus), such confusion ultimately
does not play a crucial role here: if the “Catulus” of Cicero was in fact the
same as the “Lentulus” of Appian, than quite possibly he was taken as
legate by Caesar and simply retained by Cato. Neither man performed any
action of note.
53 Speculations of this sort are found in Salmon (1967, p. 363),
Keaveney (1987, p. 152), Carney (1958, p. 121–122; 1970, p. 52–53), and

Luce (1970, p. 182–185). As was mentioned in the last chapter, the
Senate’s use of Marius does seem to denote an unwillingness to give him
an independent command no matter what the reason for it may have
been, although some possible causes for this attitude will be discussed in
the next chapter.
gives a definite explanation for his withdrawal: Marius had retired

because of illness, through which he had tried to persist through
the year 90 out of a sense of duty but which finally compelled him
to seek rest in the winter (Marius 33). This same author’s notice in
Sulla 7, which suggested he retired due to his age, does not
necessarily contradict this statement, since age may have played a
role in the malady.54 At any rate, Marius would spend part of 89
recuperating, and the rest apparently did him good (as shall be
seen).55 In the meantime, his position on the Tolenus was taken by
Cato himself, with the possible support of troops given to L.
Cornelius Cinna as his principal legate.56
Amidst these replacements, two men whom Cato seems to
have left in place from the staff of Caesar were T. Didius and
L. Cornelius Sulla. Both of these men kept in a defensive posture
during the winter, during which the detachments which may have
been sent from the southern theater to Pompeius and Asculum had
54 However, see Carney (1958, p. 121–122), who argues that Marius

was not exactly the picture of health that he had been before 100 but was
by no means an invalid, either. Carney’s suggestion is one also made by
many of the scholars quoted above, which is that that this alleged ill-
health was merely a pretext. He adds to this an assertion that while the
death of Marius in 86 finally came about due to a pulmonary condition,
and that he was in fact suffering from an illness of a similar nature in 89,
although perhaps that earlier sickness had not been a debilitating one. It
may well have been, then, that Marius persisted in duty for the duration of
90, but accepted being cashiered in 89 with no ill-will, as it would give him
a chance to recover from his malady.
55 It is perhaps at this point that he underwent the less than
completely successful surgery for varicose veins described in Plutarch

(Marius 7). Due to mention of his ownership of it the context of his
retirement, an inference might be drawn that Marius had spent some part
of 89 at the house he held at Misenum, making use of the warm springs at
Baiae nearby (see Badian 1973 for a discussion of this house and its exact
location), to which he had bidden (to return?) by the people to restore his
health (Marius 34). However, it is difficult to see how Marius could have
spent too much time in Misenum, as Campania was still very much a war
zone. Instead, he probably took his rest in Rome, which seems to have
proved sufficiently curative (see next chapter).
56 See Appendix N for assigning Cinna to Cato.
possibly been drawn from their forces (see above). If these had
been lent, they seem to have been returned by early spring.
Regardless of the reason for the stillness in the western department
beforehand, however, on the advent of spring it came to an end.
While Cato moved to his north (more below), Sulla was apparently
ordered to advance on Pompeii and wrest it from the Allies,
possibly due to its use as a base for Allied shipping (for which see
chapter 5). Such use would be consistent with the fact that Aulus
Postumius Albinus, a legate and commander of the navy, was also
sent to Pompeii to cooperate with the land activity there.57 Almost
immediately upon his arrival a success was scored for the Allies, in
a manner of speaking, but this was due not to combat, but rather to
mutiny: Albinus was murdered by the men under his command,
either because they had suspected him of treason (Per. 74; hinted at
in Valerius Maximus 9.8.3) or because of his “arrogance”, which
may have been his insistence on discipline (Orosius 5.18.22–23).
Sulla made no moves to punish the assassins, and indeed may not
have been able to had he wanted, as the men could have just as
easily turned on him had he tried.58 Making the best of a bad
57 Salmon (p. 364) doubts the statement in Orosius 5.18.22 that
Albinus was a “legate to Sulla”, almost undoubtably correctly. Certainly

Sulla had not yet been elected consul, as Orosius wrongly states (Valerius
Maximus 1.6.4 also describes him as such at a battle slightly later than
Pompeii). Moreover, the chronology of the Periochae 75 and Orosius
himself demonstrates that Cato was still alive when Sulla went to Pompeii.
This would mean that Sulla would have had no call for an extraordinary
proconsular command of the sort which would render Albinus his
subordinate, expecially in light of the fact that Albinus was a former
consul (of 99). More likely is that both of Valerius and Orosius are in
error here, and that Sulla and Albinus were following the orders of the
living Cato and were of equal authority under him as legates.
58 So Keaveney (1987, p. 152–153 and p. 160 note 10). Salmon (1967,
p. 366 and note 3) perhaps goes too far in his suggestion that Sulla himself
instigated the murder for the purpose of acquiring the command of
Albinus. Since Marius had also had problems with his soldiers (see
previous chapter), and since Cato would, too (see below), it is probably
closer to the truth to suggest that the men were fractious and
demoralized, especially since they had spent much of the previous year
situation, Sulla instead merely proclaimed to the men of whom he

now assumed command that they could atone for this crime by
greater valor on the field, which seems to have had the additional
effect of drawing his men closer to him (Plutarch, Sull. 6). This
would not be the last time Sulla would make use of individuals who
had compromised themselves through questionable acts and bind
them to his will, and in this instance he seemed content to let some
of the men stone an admiral, to encourage the others.
The soldiers did not have long to wait for their contrition, as
an Allied force under Lucius Cluentius promptly arrived near
Pompeii to relieve the siege.59 Perhaps following the example set by
Scato at the Tolenus from the previous year, Cluentius seems to
have chosen a place to set up his camp so close to Sulla that it
indicated contempt, in the hopes of luring the Roman into battle.
Taking the bait,60 Sulla duly attacked in spite of having sent out
foragers who had not yet returned, and he was subsequently beaten
back with a ferocity that was apparently enough to cause his men
to begin to flee. The providential return of the foragers prevented a
rout, however, and Sulla was able to launch a counterattack which
in turn caused Cluentius to have to quit both the field and his
camp; this was then relocated to a more suitable distance (Appian
being defeated by the Allies, and thus would have behaved in this manner
no matter who commanded them.
59 This arrival might have been very near to the time of the mutiny;
according to Frontinus (1.9.2), Sulla was only able to restore calm by

claiming the enemy was close at hand. That author suggests that this
assertion was dissimulation on Sulla’s part, but it may well have been that
Cluentius was coming, even if he had not yet made it to Pompeii. It is also
not improbable that Sulla might have used a pre-battle speech to
announce his amnesty in exchange for combat performance, thereby
making use of Cluentius to calm his men.
60 Sulla was prone to the occasional fit of recklessness and attacking
before all was in complete readines, as illustrated by this episode, by his

first attempted frontal assault on Athens when in the east in 87 (Appian,
Mith. 30; see also Keaveney 1982, p. 133), and during his first encounter
with Norbanus in the Civil War (see chapter 9).
1.6.50). Upon the acquisition of Gallic reinforcements,61 Cluentius

went on the offensive again shortly thereafter. This time he was
thoroughly defeated, losing 20,000 men62 which the sources claim
were killed by Sulla’s men both in the battle and throughout the
running mélee afterwards. This was pressed all the way to Nola,
and during the course of it Cluentius himself was slain (Per. 75;
Orosius 5.18.23–24; Appian, 1.6.50; Eutropius 5.3.2). Sulla was
apparently given a grass crown at this battle (Pliny, NH 22.12),
following which he seems to have put Nola under siege. He would
prove unable to take it, however, an inability which may have
derived from the fact that he must have left some of his men
around Pompeii to continue the siege there. He would now further
divide his men, leaving some around Nola to press that siege while
returning to Pompeii.
If the casualties were anywhere near as weighty as the sources
make them out to have been between Pompeii and Nola, then the
entire Italian army in Campania may have been destroyed, and
possibly much of the available soldiery in the area of the Hirpini
and Lucanians had been as well. Probably for this reason no more
Allied operations are recorded by the sources in the former area,
where the initiative seems to have passed to the Romans. This is
61 Possibly Transalpine; Domaszewski (p. 29) claims they were
deserters from Roman armies, but offers no evidence whatsoever for this
assertion.
62 Orosius states 18,000; Appian states 3,000 in battle and another
20,000 outside Nola (see below). The Periocha of Livy’s book 75

summarizes both battles, describing an initial skirmish followed by the
major engagement which would account for the expulsion of the socii
from two of the camps (L. Cornelius Sulla legatus Samnites proelio vicit et bina
castra eorum expugnavit). Orosius and the Periochae both claim the opponents
in these battles were Samnites, but Salmon (1958, p. 175–176; 1967,
p. 366; see also Appendix H) claims that Cluentius was Campanian
(Appian and Eutropius give no tribal designation for Cluentius, who is
called “Aulus” in the latter but “Lucius” in Appian and Orosius). Salmon
further argues that given the tendency of Roman authors to conflate all
the enemies in the southern theater with the Samnites, such a mistake is
explicable (1958, p. 170–171). Roman casualties cannot be determined but
they certainly numbered more than one man, which is the most
implausible number of them given in Eutropius.
not to say that no Italians were fighting in Campania, because some

certainly were. However, they were fighting against the Allied
cause, as recorded by Velleius Paterculus (2.16.2). He refers
specifically to the activity of his great-grandfather Minatius Magius
of Aeculanum, who raised a body of men from the Hirpini (a
legion, according to his descendant) and then took it west into
Capua.63 He apparently had arrived there in time to take part in
what remained of the siege of Pompeii, which presumably ended in
its capture sometime before April by Sulla.64
63 Keaveney (1981, p. 294–296) fairly persuasively argues that the
speech recorded by Aulus Gellius as having come from the Memoirs of

Sulla was made to him by Magius upon his arrival at Sulla’s camp (20.6.3).
64 For the fall of Pompeii see Domaszewski (p. 30), who places it
before the fall of Stabiae (more directly); Keaveney does likewise (1987, p.
153). The latter states that even a relative chronology of these events
cannot be established, but this perhaps overstates the case. Stabiae would
fall in late April (see below), so if the above construction is accepted, then
Pompeii would have to have fallen earlier than that. Assuming it would
have taken a month to approach Stabiae, invest it, and take it, then the fall
of Pompeii would by consequence have to be placed in late March, if not
earlier. If it can be accepted that the first elements of the siege were put
down at the beginning of the campaigning season, that the death of
Albinus took place shortly thereafter (perhaps the start of March if not
earlier), and that the remainder of the month of March was spent in the
battles with Cluentius, then Pompeii would fall shortly after the defeat of
the latter; thus, late March. This is what is suggested by the chronology of
the Periochae and Orosius, as noted above; in both sources Cato’s death
(about which more below) followed a great victory won by Sulla which is
almost certainly his defeat of Cluentius.
Appian, however, places Cato’s death in the wintertme (1.6.50), which
would perforce mean that the fighting around Pompeii transpired at the
same time. Yet report can perhaps be reconciled to the chronology just
speculated by placing the death of Cato in the very early spring instead. If
he fell at the beginning of April, there might still have been a chill in the
air, enough to count as winter. Haug (p. 252), however, objects that his
death must have been later, to the circumstances suirrounding a mutiny
Cato is said to have dealt with just before the battle in which died. Dio
(frg. 100) describes this mutiny as taking place in lands which were wet
and under cultivation (ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸ χωρίον ἐν ᾧ συνειλέχατο ἐγεωργεῖτο), but
this evidence is not in and of itself sufficient to overturn the chronology
The approximate date for this expedition would be mid-

spring, which renders the type of command exercised by Sulla
difficult to define due to the fact that by this point Cato had almost
certainly died (more below). As in 90, the surviving consul was
unable to return to Rome to preside over the election of a suffect
due to his involvement in battle (in this case with the Vestini; see
above). Since things were apparently going fairly well in the western
department, the death of Albinus and temporary setback near
Pompeii notwithstanding, Pompeius apparently decided to direct
the officers already in command there to continue to manage the
war according to the strategy they had hitherto been following.
Who then specifically was given senior command cannot be
determined, but as T. Didius was a former consul (and a triumphator
at that), command may have devolved upon him.65 Nevertheless,
Didius would probably have seen no reason to direct Sulla
otherwise than to pursue his current course, which was to move to
the south to attack Stabiae. This was soon accomplished, and it just
so happens the exact date for this feat is known: according to Pliny,
it was April 29 (NH 3.70). That author also mentions that Sulla
destroyed the city in the course of his assault, to such an extent that
it was thereafter only good for villae. At the same time, Didius, to
whom Sulla had sent the Hirpini under Minatius Magius, went on
the move against Herculaneum (Velleius, 2.16.2). That city must
have been captured some time before June 11, since on that day—
the anniversary of the battle of the Tolenus—Didius was killed in
battle, as reported by Ovid (Fasti 6.563).
It is assumed that at this point Sulla was allowed by Pompeius
and the Senate to take command of the whole of the southern area
just speculated. The passage in Dio mentions the cultivation of the land
merely to show that there were no rocks to be found on it. Such a clearing
could have taken place months before the soldiers were camped on it, and
therefore need not indicate that the episode took place during planting
season. For this reason, it seems best to adhere to the chronology just
described, as will be done in the text above.
65 The nature of Sulla’s command up to this point is the subject of
speculation by Salmon (1967, p. 364, 366–367), who argues that Sulla was
nothing more than a legate until fairly far along in the campaign. This is
almost certainly right.
of the western department, and indeed he may have been the only
commander there other than Gabinius, who stationed a little to the
southeast. As mentioned above, this man would certainly be seen
in Lucania later, and he was perhaps operating there just below
Sulla at the beginning of 89. If this is correct, than perhaps it was
Gabinius who was responsible for the ravaging of territory near
Nuceria of which mention seems to be made in some fragments of
Sisenna.66 In theory either Sulla or Gabinius could have been given
charge of the south. However, Sulla’s subsequent actions make it
likely that it was to him that the south was authorized rather than
to Gabinius, who now became his subordinate. Upon such an
authorization, Sulla apparently soon put into action a plan which
would require that he and Gabinius part ways. Sulla’s exercises will
be described directly; Gabinius, for his part, would move further
66 Fragments 55 and 56. These fragments of Sisenna are, however,
imprecise, as was mentioned in the previous chapter (see the description

of the movements of Papius and the supporting notes). There it was
speculated that, in the somewhat similar passage in Appian describing
land around Nuceria being devastated by the Samnites, Nucerian land was
meant (Νουκερίας τὰ ἐν κύκλῳ πάντα κατέπρ σεν; 1.5.42). This was being
ravaged by the Italians to get Nuceria to join the Alliance. Since, however,
Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae were near Nuceria and were part of
the Alliance, it is probable that their lands would have be burned by the
Romans, and this would have taken place in 89, during the Roman
assaults in that region which occurred during this year. Since the
fragments of Sisenna taken from Book IV, which—as has been noted on
several occasions—mostly deal with 89, then it is likely that the agros
populabundus ad Nuceriam refers to the lands of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and
Stabiae being wrecked all the way up to the borders of Nucerian land.
Presumably Nuceria itself was spared, as its treatment at the hands of
Papius suggests it was of dubious loyalty to the Alliance, and it might well
have defected (back) to Rome at this time. Alternativley, Nuceria suffered
the same penalty twice, first at the hands of the Allies to get them to join
the Alliance and then, later, at the hands of the Romans, who removed
them from it and completed the devastation such that Florus (2.6.11)
could list Nuceria amongst the cities destroyed by fire and sword. Such an
outcome is unlikely but possible. Either way, land in the neighborhood of
Nuceria was being ravaged, and it might well be that Gabinius was the
commander responsible for it.
south into Lucania, and he seems to have destroyed Picentia on his

way to Grumentum, which he then took with some violence
(Florus 2.6.11; Seneca, de ben. 3.23).67 Gabinius continued on his
campaign until sometime around the time of consular elections at
the end of the fall. The fact that he was apparently alive at some
point subsequent to when Sulla had returned to Rome to run for
consul, but had died before Pompeius is listed as Proconsul in the
Periocha of book 76, means that it is fairly certain that Gabinius
either died in the winter of 89 or early in the following spring,
either just before or right as the campaigning season of 88 was
starting. Moreover, that he seems to have met his end in the middle
of another victory while assaulting an enemy camp may suggests
the latter possibility, although 89 had certainly seen more than its
share of winter campaigns. Either way, it was into his place Gn.
Papirius Carbo seems to have been sent, assuming that the notice
in Florus is not an error (discutit ... Carbo Lucanos).68 Carbo would
then hold the southernmost of the theater for what remained of
the year 88 and possibly until 87 (see chapter 8).
67 See the notes concerning the defeat of Crassus in the previous
chapter for a discussion of that city and its destruction.

68 Salmon (1967, p. 366 note 2) has cause for doubting the accuracy of
this report, observing that this passage in Florus states that “Gabinius
defeated the Marsi, Carbo the Lucani”. The former assertion is certainly
wrong, and perhaps, Salmon states, the latter might be as well, although
he ultimately arrives at no conclusion on the matter. Keaveney (1987,
p. 157), for his part, is untroubled by the passage in Florus but believes
that the Carbo in question is C. Papirius Carbo Arvina, cousin to the
consul of 85, following a suggestion of Broughton (vol. 2, p. 37).
Broughton himself did not believe this was the case, however, as will be
seen momentarily. Domaszewski is equally unconcerned with the error in
Florus and follows that authority for Carbo, noting that a Carbo over
Lucania (p. 30) but specifying which Carbo is meant. On the other hand,
while Broughton allows for the possiblity that Carbo Arvina is he who
was meant by Florus, he is more firmly persuaded that that the future
consul Carbo was in fact the man in question, having been sent to Lucania
as a promagistrate (loc. cit., p. 33). If Carbo the future consul was sent to
Lucania, it would better explain how he suddenly ended up in the army of
Cinna in 87 (see chapter 8). Broughton’s therefore opinion seems the
most valid in this instance, and guides the text above and in chapter 8.
In the meantime, while Gabinius was making Lucania howl,

Sulla began to engage on an eastward march through the territory
of the Hirpini. Even without the men who must have been left
behind to continue the investment of Nola,69 Sulla must have had
with him a sizeable collection of soldiers: these included those who
had remained from the legions under his command in 90, the land
forces of Albinus (nothing is said as to who took over command of
the fleet), and the legion of the fallen Didius, as well as the
supplemental forces raised by Minatius Magius. With these men
Sulla headed towards Compsa and took it, perhaps leaving it under
the occupation of Magius (Velleius 2.16.2). Such an arrangement
would have protected Sulla from any attack from the south which
had managed to evade Gabinius, while from the east he was
apparently becoming freed from danger due to the remarkable
campaign being waged by Cosconius, which must have been well
underway by now (see above). That expedition would drain Allied
forces slightly to Sulla’s north or pin them away from him to his
east as Cosconius progressed.
So shielded, Sulla then moved west-by-northwest against
Aeclanum, assaulted the town, and drove its defenders back within
its gates. According to Appian, the residents of the town evidently
expected succor from the Lucani, and when Sulla asked for their
surrender they therefore requested time, allegedly to deliberate but
in fact in order to give the anticipated aid a chance to arrive. If the
Aeclani had in fact made such a request, they had made it to the
wrong person. Use of parley to buy time or gain information would
become something of a trademark of Sulla’s in the years to come,
and he had already made use of such a tactic himself during this
very war (in the defiles near Aesernia, as discussed in the last
chapter). Understanding, therefore, what the Aeclani seem to have
had in mind, and quite probably confident that no aid from the
69 It is unlikely that Sulla “ignored the threat to the rear from rebel-
held Nola” (Salmon 1967, p. 367). Rather, he probably detached some
men, and probably not a few of them, to hold that city while he
proceeded with his expedition. It is also quite probable that Sulla kept in
constant communications with Gabinius, who could in theory also act as
something of a rear guard.
Lucani was going to arrive one way or the other, Sulla acquiesced
to the delay, but gave them one hour only. In the meantime, he
busied himself gathering bundles of wood, and since the defenders
were bound not to shoot down his men during the hour, he was
able to place these by the walls of the city, which were also made of
wood. Upon the expiry of the allotted time Sulla set fire to the
piles, and in terror the inhabitants surrendered before the walls had
ignited. Sulla then argued that they had surrendered by compulsion
and therefore had been beaten into submission; thus, he opened
the city to pillage (Appian 1.6.51). Sulla’s manipulation of the rules
of war may have been motivated by more than simple greed or
cruelty in this instance. Appian reports that the other Hirpini were
more inclined to surrender whole-heartedly thereafter, and setting
an example of a city towards such an end was a time-honored
Roman custom.70 However, the fact cannot be ignored that the city
was looted after it had opened its gates and almost certainly under
the impression that by doing so Sulla would not despoil its
inhabitants. They may have even gotten his word to that effect.
The Italians were thus given an introduction to Sulla and his unique
understanding of the terms of law and promises, and there can be
no doubt that the lesson was not forgotten.
For the moment, Sulla had discovered that the result of his
stabbing through Aeclanum was that he now had unfettered access
to the via Appia and, as a result, to a highway that connected to a
road which led from Beneventum to Aesernia and ultimately to
Corfinium.71 Accordingly, it seems that Sulla thereupon took to the
via Appia and headed northwest on it towards Samnium. Such a
direct route had the principal disadvantage of being easy to
anticipate, however, and in fact Appian states that it was so
anticipated by Papius Mutilus, who set up a position guarding the
roads (Appian 1.6.51). The location of the Allied position is not
given, but it was very probably at Beneventum,72 since from there
70 See Harris (1979, p. 50–53).

71 See Map 1.
72 Contra Keaveney (1987, p. 156), who assumes that Sulla returned to
Capua and approached from the west, thereby hitting Papius between
the pass to Aesernia from both Capua and from Venusia could be
defended. Yet Papius was foiled, as Sulla seems to have abandoned
the Via Appia at some point and found a less obvious approach
into Samnium, by means of which he there was able to attack
Papius from an unexpected direction. Papius and the Samnites
were defeated in this engagement, which sent the survivors reeling
northwards; Papius was himself wounded in it, and was evacuated
to Aesernia. While this was occurring, Sulla proceeded to destroy
the Samnite encampment and continue on his advance.
The next target of Sulla’s that is specified in Appian is
Bovianum; Saepinum seems to have been bypassed or in some
other way spared. Some doubt exists as to exactly what city is
meant by that author, but if it is to be assumed that Sulla’s ultimate
aim was Corfinium and that he was headed in that direction by way
of Aesernia, a city by the name of Bovianum (the so-called
Bovianum Undecimanorum) lay squarely in his way.73 This city was
apparently well-fortified with three separate citadels, but after a
hard-fought battle Sulla was able to take it by storm. This left only
Aesernia, the site of his previous defeat the year earlier, between
himself and Allied headquaters at Corfinium. But Aesernia Sulla
would not take: after his string of victories Sulla broke off—or was
stalled—here, and decided to return to Rome to run for the
consulate.
Thus did things come to pass in the southern sector of the
western department in 89. In the meantime, shortly before the
latter offensive had been set in motion, L. Porcius Cato, the
conqueror of the Etruscans, had begun to stir from the position
formerly held by Marius between the lower run of the Tolenus and
upper run of the Liris. Here he had remained during the early part
of 89, a stance attributable, perhaps, to the good sense of not
campaigning in the winter months, and perhaps also to the fact that
he may have lent some of his men to Pompeius for the Battles of
Asculum. During this time the Allies had apparently decided not to
Aesernia and Bovianum, where the latter is held to have been stationed.
For further discussion of this campaign, see Appendix O.
73 See, again, Appendix O for this part of Sulla’s campaign; see also
map 1.
attack in the south as they had in the north, possibly due to the
numbers of men they themselves had sent to Asculum. Yet Cato
was not content to hold still for long, and at about the same time
that he had ordered Sulla to begin his advance on Pompeii, the
consul seems to have decided that he too, was going to move.
Having perhaps heard of the numbers of Allied men which had
fought in the battles around Asculum, Cato may have figured that
the Allies would be so weakened by losses that they had become
spread thin. If they had become spread too thin, perhaps a move to
lift the siege of Alba would at last be possible.
Such an expedition seems to have been so decided, but before
Cato could get underway he had had deal with a brief insurrection
amongst his own soldiers. These were the men who, according to
Orosius, had formerly belonged to Marius (Porcius Cato consul
Marianas copias habens; 5.18.24), and thus likely had first served
under Rutilius. It may be recalled how Marius had consistently
advised that consul against their use due to their lack of battle-
readiness when the latter was alive. When Marius himself was given
command of them, he had kept them mostly on the defensive
while maneuvering towards Sora before finally entrusting the one
great battle to them (see previous chapter). Dio may provide some
insight into that lack of confidence: it seems that these men had
been from the city and inexperienced, and many of them were too
old for duty74. Perhaps these had been the men given to Marius as
something of a grim joke involving superannuation: they, like their
commander, were too old for this game. Either way, Marius
eventually had been able to coax fine service out of them at the
Battle of the Vineyards. In spite of the fact that throughout the
campaign he had apparently not been silent in his displeasure at
their occasional poor performance, the auctoritas he had wielded
may have allowed him to get away with his harangues (see, for
example, his harsh words as recorded by Plutarch Mar. 33).
Further, if he had been as ill as Plutarch reports that he had been
(see above), his personal example might well have been inspiring.
But in 89 Marius was in command no longer, and it seems
either that Cato simply did not have whatever quality Marius
74 ἀστικόν καὶ ἀφ λικέστερον τὸ πλεῖον τοῦ στράτου; fragment 100.

possessed that had enabled him to motivate these men, or else that
he had not yet earned their respect. For whatever the reason, Dio
records that when the consul adopted a tone of reproach to these
men for some infraction—and it seems that Cato was rather prone
to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong people,
as will be seen below—their reply was to pelt him with lumps of
mud (fragment 100). Cato was left no doubt furious and humiliated
by this experience but was at least alive, a condition which Dio
suggests might not have obtained had the men not taken up a
position on farmland that had been cleared of rocks and thus
deficient in deadlier missiles. Such a spontaneous display of ill-
temper did not seem to have been premeditated, but soon one
C. Titius or Titinnius75 was singled out to blame for it as leader of
the “mutiny”; perhaps he had cast the first lump, or—as Dio
hints—he may just simply have been so annoying that his presence
proved disruptive. For whatever the reason, this man was sent back
to Rome, where it seems the tribunes interceded for him and saved
his life.
Having dealt with this irritant, Cato then ordered his advance
against the Marsi in the direction of the Fucine Lake. En route Cato
fought a series of battles which the Periochae label as rebus prospere
gestis fusisque aliquotiens (75) but which Orosius labels as having been
fought strenue (loc. cit.). It seems likely that one of these may finally
have resulted in the deliverance of Alba Fucens.76 It may have been
on this occasion that Cato uttered the boast that even the elder
Marius had not done greater things, an outrageous claim that was
of dubious accuracy for the Allied War and was patently false for
the rest of his predecessor’s career. In addition to its spurious
relationship with the truth, such a comment was additionally
unfortunate in light of the fact that the son of Marius was still in
the army and may even have been on the general staff. According
75 The latter spelling is found in a fragment of Sisenna, 52, which

seems to be dealing with the same episode.
76 This is conjectured by Domaszewski (p. 29–30), who likewise places
this event in early spring due to the fact that the city likely could not have
held on for much longer. Keaveney agrees (1987, p. 152), and there seems
to be no good reason to dispute their conclusions.
to Orosius (who describes the episode in 5.18.24) the boast had so

infuriated the younger Marius that in the thick of the next battle he
cut Cato down, allowing it to seem as if the consul had been slain
by the enemy. That anything of the kind had actually happened is at
the very least wildly improbable; it might, for example, be exactly
the sort of story that an enemy of both Marius and his son might
spread in order to label them as murderers and traitors.77 Still, in
one sense it does accord with the stories found in the Periochae (loc.
cit.) and Appian (1.6.50), in that both relate that Cato had died in
battle with the Marsi.78 It is therefore reasonably certain that Cato
did fall in combat. By whose hand cannot be determined, though it
is more likely that it was the Marsi, as opposed to Marius, who
felled him.
Irrespective of whoever had actually laid him low, Cato was
definitely now dead. Who his replacement would be for the Marsic
line cannot be determined exactly, but there is a strong possibility
that it was L. Cornelius Cinna.79 If so, then Cinna does not seem to
have been involved in any epochal battles for the rest of the year,
but rather engaged in several minor actions against the Marsi.
77 Salmon (1967, p. 364 and note 3) believes that the story of Cato’s
death at the hands of the younger Marius may have been believable due to
the discontent of the soldiery at Cato. As Salmon would have it, Marius
the Younger himself acted from resentment that the command that
should have been his father’s had gone to Cato, and perhaps he had been
abetted by the disgruntled men. Keaveney blames the “savage
disposition” of the Younger Marius and a family which was “notoriously
touchy when they thought they had been robbed of what they believed to
be rightfully theirs” (1987, p. 152). Both, it would seem give far more
credence to this tale than it deserves, as Haug points out (p. 209): if
Orosius obtained the story from Livy, than it was probably reported by
him as a rumor, since the Periochae states that Cato died in combat. Such a
rumor might very well be something reported—or, more accurately,
invented by the Sullani much later in the eighties, once Marius and his
men had become enemies of the state. But for reasons of his own,
Orosius parted from his source, whose proper telling seems to be in the
Periochae, and passed that rumor on as truth of the event.
78 Eutropius 5.3.2 and Velleius Paterculus 2.16.4 merely report that
Cato was killed during the war

79 See Appendix N.
These latter were probably led by “consul” Q. Poppaedius Silo,

who may also have been Cato’s opponent earlier80 (see below), and
whose aim may have been to prevent or at least delay the
implementation of what was presumably the Roman plan. This
plan was that Cinna would coordinate with Cornutus, the legate of
Pompeius Strabo who had likely already commenced his operations
in the land of the Paeligni (see above), and that the two of them
would approach Corfinium simultaneously: Cinna would head
towards Italia from the west, and Cornutus, from the east. Delay, in
fact, was ultimately all that Silo from the Marsic side and Scato
from the side of the Paeligni (for which see above) would be able
to accomplish, and as the autumn and winter of 89 approached it
must have became clear that Corfinium would have to be
abandoned. According to Diodorus (37.2.9), this would not occur
until after the Marsi and the surrounding peoples had yielded, and
since this is mentioned by the Periochae as having happened at a
time in which Gn. Pompeius Strabo could be referred to as
“Proconsul” (Per. 76; see below), such a submission can be dated to
88.81 Therefore, by the winter of 89 Corfinium was still the central
stronghold of the Alliance, but as the year drew to a close that city
in a sense mirrored the condition of the entire northern front: it
was wavering, and was about to be taken out of the war if it had
not been taken out already.
As has been seen, during the spring, summer, and early fall
of 89 the men under the command of L. Porcius Cato scored a
number of victories against the Allies, and they continued to do so
after the consul’s death. Gabinius had slashed through Lucania to
the very south. Above him, Sulla (after isolating Nola, which was
still under siege) had completed a tear through the lands of the
Hirpini, had forced open the Via Appia, and had taken Bovianum
by means of taking a course which would have ultimately led him
to Corfinium, had there been enough time. Above them both,
Cinna was pushing towards the aforementioned Corfinium through
the territory of the Marsi. The accounts of the exploits of the latter
two commanders illustrate additionally that the Allies against
80 See also Appendix N.

81 So also Domaszewski (p. 31).
whom they fought were becoming exhausted, a condition which

appears to have been shared by the Italians on the other side of the
Appenines: the Vestini, Marrucini, and Paeligni—through whose
lands Cornutus was also driving to rendezvous with Cinna at
Corfinium—were all fading, and indeed a few of the Vestini had
already lain down their arms. Despite this weariness, all of these
areas still stubbornly held on as the winter of 89 approached, but it
was clear that they could not stand for long. In the months to
come either a victory or a defeat was sure to arrive. As will be seen,
it turned out that what was coming was both.
4. THE DEVELOPMENTS OF WINTER,

AND THE SPRING OF 88
An indication, perhaps, of the status of the whole northern sector
of the Alliance towards the winter of 89 might be found in the fate
which of one of its ablest commanders, Vettius Scato, would
ultimately meet at that time. As has been seen above, Scato had last
been seen at Asculum. There his attempts to forestall the huge
battle that ultimately took place through a parley about the
citizenship failed, and he was thereupon defeated in the
engagement he could not prevent. It seems likely that after that
battle, he and what remained of his army drifted back near the area
of Corfinium. Even though he had by this point suffered a massive
defeat, Scato was still one of the ablest commanders left to the
cause of the socii. Consequently, it seems probable that he had been
put over a force of Marsi and Paeligni and bidden to try and put a
stop to the advance of the Romans coming through the lands of
the Paeligni under Caecilius Cornutus.82 It seems that it was in this
capacity that Scato, according to Seneca, had at some (unspecified)
point been captured by some (unidentified) soldiers, who
proceeded to lead him to an (unnamed) Roman commander (C.
Vettius, praetor Marsorum, ducebatur ad romanum imperatorem; de benef.
3.23.5). Macrobius adds that he had been handed over to the
Romans by his own men, and that he was to be surrendered
specifically to Pompeius (C. Vettium … comprehensum a cohortibus suis,
82 See above and Appendix N.

ut Pompeio traderetur; Sat.1.11.24).83 No specific time is given for this

event by either authority, and therefore in theory it could have
happened at any point after the last time Scato was known to have
been alive, which was early 89 around the Battles of Asculum.
However, there are some pieces of evidence which may point to
the seizure as having happened late in 89 as opposed to it either
having happened earlier or later; in other words, that Scato’s
delivery to the Romans happened in autumn of 89 as opposed to
spring of 89, or the summer or spring of 88. The first of these is
the description given by Diodorus of the Allied situation after they
given up Corfinium (loc. cit.). As will be seen, once they had quit
this city, the Alliance took stock of what remained of their forces
83 This same passage in Macrobius also refers to the prisoner as being

C. Vettium Paelignum Italicensem, which is in clear contrast to Seneca’s
reference to him as praetor Marsorum. For this reason, Haug (p. 256) has
held it unlikely that Macrobius took the anecdote from Seneca, but rather
that both took the story from Claudius Quadrigarius (or, rather, an exempla
collection taken out of Quadrigarius). Seneca actually claims he has taken
the material which immediately precedes the passage in question in that
author. Macrobius, in Haug’s view, would thus be supplying the extra
details from Quadrigarius which Seneca omitted, such as Scato’s capture
by his own men and his being handed over to Pompeius, rather than
simply taking Seneca’s story and adding details to it for poetic license. If
this is true (and it seems likely enough), then either Macrobius got the
national origin of Scato wrong and it had originally been correctly stated
in Quadrigarius, as reflected in the excerpt of Seneca, or Quadrigarius
himself had erred and Seneca had silently corrected him in relating the
story based on his knowledge that Cicero (who had actually seen Scato
and may have spoken to him directly) had labelled Scato as Marsic. Either
is easily possible, but the former seems more so than the latter, especially
if—as will be argued presently—Scato was captured in Paelignian territory
and perhaps handed over by a Paelignian squad. Of course, this can lead
to the question as to whether any of the other details related by Macrobius
are equally mistaken. There is no evidence as to why this is not the case,
but more importantly there is no evidence for it, either, and so in lack of
anything better, it seems fair to assume that Macrobius only erred in the
one element and not in the others. Thus, the rest of his information, upon
which is based the construction related above, is solid, and is treated
accordingly.
and reorganized the military leadership under Poppaedius Silo and

a five subordinate “praetors”. These included Papius and
Lamponius, who had held commissions in the previous years, but
Scato is not mentioned. Since it seems most unlikely that the man
who had enjoyed so much success in the previous two years would
not be continued in high command, it is probable that he was no
longer available for duty in 88. This, in turn, would suggest that his
capture came before 88. Secondly, Seneca passes on the story of his
capture after he had just related on an anecdote taking place during
a siege of Grumentum which had likely dated to the Allied War, an
anecdote that he had specifically mentioned having from the eighth
book of Claudius Quadrigarius. If Quadrigarius was mined by
Seneca for both stories, id est that set in Grumentum and the one
immediately to follow about Scato, then perhaps the latter event
was contemporaneous with the former, which likely transpired
during Lucanian offensive of Gabinius and thus towards the fall of
89 (see above). Finally, Seneca speaks of Scato being led to an
unnamed Roman imperator. This word may have been chosen a
general term meant to signify “commander”, but it also has a more
specific meaning, which is that of a general who has won a great
battle. If the imperator in question was Pompeius (as per Macrobius),
then it may refer to the point at which that general would have
earned the title, which was at the surrender of Asculum in late 89.84
For these reasons, it seems plausible that Scato’s arrest
occurred in late 89,85 with the Marsic general having been betrayed
84 See Stevenson, p. 95.

85 As opposed to early 88, as Salmon suggests in two separate works
(1958, p. 174, 178; 1967, p. 369). In the latter instance he offers no
evidence from the ancient sources to suggest that Scato was caught in 88
as opposed to 89 (as, indeed, there is none) nor any particular reason for
his own preference for that date. In the former, his thoughts are partially
informed by the fact that he believed Scato to be a commander of the
Paeligni; since the implication is that these did not surrender until 88
(Per. 76), Salmon’s logic seems to have been that Scato led them as long as
they were in arms. However, even if that was the case—and Salmon
would later come to believe that it was not, as in Appendix H—then it did
not necessarily mean that Scato could not have been apprehended earlier,
or later. Both of which are equally possible, but since there is at least some
by the men under his command. Since it seems difficult to believe

that the Marsi would turn on one of their own people, it may well
have been that the deed was the responsibility of other members of
the Alliance who were a part of his forces. If Scato was in fact
leading a combined force of Marsi and Paeligni in the defense of
Corfinium (as was suggested above), it might very well have been
that the latter decided to deliver him in their own territory
somewhere close to that city. At any rate, while the when, where,
and by whom of Scato’s capture is not definitely known, the result
of it is certain: before Scato could be handed to Pompeius, a loyal
slave managed to snatch a sword from the scabbard of one of
Scato’s own guards and stabbed the captive with it before turning
the blade on himself (so Seneca and Macrobius in the places cited).
Scato’s talents had been used to great effect by the Marsi and
the other Allies, and his loss was probably a blow which may have
helped set the tone for what would transpire in the following year.
Moreover, the fact that it happened at all may reveal much about
the state of mind of the members of the northern part of the
Alliance at the conclusion of 89. No reason is given in the sources
for why Scato was extradited over to his enemies, and there may be
an infinite variety of reasons which may have motivated his soldiers
to commit this act of betrayal. Yet it is at least possible that they
had wished to surrender to the Romans and that Scato had
forbidden it, or that they wished to curry favor with the Roman
commander prior to the collapse of the Alliance whose inevitability
must have been manifest, a process which they now hastened.
While the capture and death of Scato was occurring,
Pompeius was still waiting outside of Asculum, to which locale
Scato was probably to have been taken before his unexpected end.
The consul, then, seems to have missed out on the opportunity to
have Scato drawn in his triumphal van, although he would soon
have the chance to exhibit some prisoners from Asculum: by
November and perhaps even earlier it seems that city had fallen.86
indication—however tenuous—that he was seized in late 89 and none for

any other time, it seems justifiable to hold this last is the better date.
86 For the November date see earlier discussion of the Battles of
Asculum and supporting notes, as well as Appendix M. However, there is

Pompeius apparently allowed his men to ravage and loot the city
fairly extensively (Florus 2.6.14; Orosius 5.18.26), in the process
falling into some disrepute for not using the spoils to fill the
exhausted aerarium. In reference to this, one scholar refers to
Pompeius having “lived up to his reputation as a money-grubber”
by this behavior.87 On the other hand, it is difficult to see how
Pompeius could have done otherwise for his men—men who had
endured the miseries of conducting a siege for well over a year—
without risking a mutiny of the kind which had apparently been
commonplace during 89. Moreover, it is likely that both Pompeius
and the Romans wanted to send a message to the Asculani, since
the hostilities which had claimed so many Roman lives had started
here and with the slaughter of a magistrate of the Republic along
with innocent Roman men and women who had just happened to
be in the town when the outburst occurred. For this reason
Pompeius seems to have been considerably less than charitable to
the leading men of Asculum, its officers (who were flogged and
then beheaded, according to the passage cited by Orosius), and its
property, but overly so to his soldiers. The Senate might well have
hoped that he would contribute some of the loot to the treasury, as
indicated, but probably understood why he did not. As for
accusations of the personal greed of Pompeius, these do not to be
substantiated by any evidence of a vast personal share of the
plunder. According to the sources, the only thing Pompeius seems
to have gotten were books and fishing nets, and even these would
be seized from his house later by Cinna (Plutarch, Pompeius 4).
Whether they were disappointed by his actions or otherwise, the
patres apparently did not begrudge Pompeius a triumph, which the
Fasti lists as having been celebrated on December 25th of 89.88
the possibility that the city had fallen slightly earlier, giving Pompeius time
to go back to Rome to hold the elections at or near the usual date (so
Mitchell, 201–202).
87 So Salmon (1967, p. 365).
88 See also the commentary of Asconius on Cicero’s In Pisonem 58
(14b), Gellius 15.4.3; Cassius Dio 43.51.4–5 and 49.21.3; Pliny NH.
7.53.135; Valerius Maximus 6.9.9. Most of these authors mention the
triumph in reference to the remarkable career of P. Ventidius Bassus, who
as a young man had been carried by his mother in this triumph but would
While in Rome to celebrate this victory, Pompeius had

apparently had time to hold the elections, which resulted in the
return of L. Cornelius Sulla and Q. Pompeius Rufus as consuls for
the coming year. There are some indications that Pompeius Strabo
had desired iteration for 88, but if so, he seems to have borne his
disappointment with no great difficulties. In the meantime, he had
apparently been prorogued in his command and seems to have
gone directly from his triumph back to Asculum, where he would
continue operations in the months to follow.89 As such a positing
indicates, as 89 gave way to 88 the war was nevertheless not yet
over, in spite of the phenomenal Roman victories during the year
about to pass, and in spite of the fact that though by this point a
number of participants had surrendered—cities of the Vestini and
Hirpini, for example—and a larger number were on the verge of so
doing.
For the year to come a few changes seem to have been made
in the command structure, as Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius was sent
south, presumably as a repacement for Cosconius for reasons
which are not entirely certain (Diod. 37.10; Appian 1.6.53).90 Still, it
would seem that Cosconius still had some exploits left to perform.
According to the Periochae, a certain Asculum is mentioned as
later as a citizen celebrate a triumph of his own after a long career as an

officer in Caesar’s (and later Antony’s) army. The triumph of Pompeius
does not draw a lot of commentary from modern scholars, even though
there are elements of it which are somewhat irregular: principally,
triumphs were not usually given for recovering lost territory, but only for
augmenting what Rome already had, as has been pointed out earlier
(specifically chapter 3, in the notes supporting the discussion of Fregellae
and its aftermath). However, an exception may have been made in this
case for a variety of reasons, not the least of which a boost in morale.
After all, the Romans had previously only been treated to the spectacle of
dead bodies coming into the city, so this sight of a victorious army making
its way through instead might have been a welcome corrective.
89 It has been argued that Pompeius wanted re-election in part so that
by means of the lex Memmia he could avoid the prosecution for maiestas,
which apparently was threatening him on the expiration of his office. For
more on this see chapter 8.
90 For more on the command of Metellus Pius in 88, see Appendix N.
having fallen to Pompeius, who has already been named as a

proconsul and therefore allows this capture to be dated to 88 (Per.
76). As has been seen, Asculum in Picenum had already fallen in
the previous year, but what this report may signify is that Ausculum
in the south had now been taken. In order for Pompeius to have
been given credit for it, it must have been taken by one of his
legates, as Cosconius, who was last mentioned as having been
operating in the area of Ausculum, seems to have been. Therefore,
the Periochae seem to be describing a last success for Cosconius
before Metellus relieved him.91
The surrender of the Marrucini had probably also allowed
Ser. Sulpicius Galba to be relieved (nothing more is heard of him in
command), and that of the Marsi in 88 may similarly have allowed
Cinna to go home as well. Cinna would certainly be in Rome by the
fall of 88, in time to run, successfully, for a consulate of 87 (as will
be seen). The relief of these commanders left the region of the
Picentes, Marrucini, and Vestini to be overseen by Pompeius
91 So Domaszewski (p. 31), although he believed the legate who had

taken Ausculum was Metellus Pius; see Appendix N for why it is
improbable that Metellus served under Pompeius. Haug, however, has a
different explanation for this odd, apparently anachronistic notice about
the surrender of an Asculum (p. 204). According to her account,
surrender of Asculum in Picenum, which had in fact occurred in 90, had
included with it a number of Vestini, and that this event is mentioned in
Per. 75. This would be the only reference to the fall of the city in the
Periochae, which contains no other mention of the siege and its conclusion.
When the rest of the Vestini gave up in 88, it provided the occasion for
Livy to recall the earlier Vestini and to mention the fall of Asculum during
an aside. This digression which made its way into the Periocha of book 76.
This is in theory possible, although by Haug’s own reckoning of the
chronology of the Periochae, such a mention would place this event well
before the same Summary’s notice that Sulla had run for consul in
November of 89. In other words, the fall of Asculum is reported in such a
way as to indicate it happened earlier in the year than it actually did. For
these reasons, Domaszewski’s simpler interpretation of both this passage
(with a suitable change of personnel) and the one involving the Vestini,
one which holds that some of these people had capitulated after a battle
that paved the way for the southern campaign of Cosconius (p. 29; see
above), seems more likely; it is therefore the one followed here.
himself (Per., loc. cit.). Finally, one Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus was
apparently sent south, if he was not there already. The fact that he
was soon to engage with Poppaedius Silo, who will next be seen in
the vicinity of Aesernia (Diodorus 37.2.9–14), makes it probable
that Lepidus was sent to take charge temporarily of the men
commanded by Sulla in the latter’s absence for the conduct of his
candidacy, and to oversee the oversee the siege of Nola in Sulla’s
absence (Per. 76).
On the Italian side, the beginning of 88 saw the Allies
reorganizing what was left of their army and their general staff,
according to Diodorus (loc.cit.). The apparently single commander-
in-chief was to be former “consul” Poppaedius Silo. He had
apparently proved himself sufficiently as a general to merit the
appointment even over his fellow consul Papius Mutilus, who
apparently still lived but was possibly still recovering from his
wounds in the start of 88 and hence not entirely fit for sharing
supreme command. Four additional commanders were nominated
alongside and subordinate to Silo, of whom two—M. Lamponius
and Ti. Cleppius—are named as having come from the Lucani.92
Another, one “Pompeius” (Πομπ ιος)—which is almost certainly a
miscopied “Papius”, id est Mutilus—is also mentioned. Who the
fourth was cannot be determined, since the commanders listed
above are the only ones named by Diodorus, the lone source for all
of these developments.93
92 For Lamponius see the previous chapter as well as Appendix H; for
“Cleppius” as opposed to “Clepitius”, as it appears the text of Diodorus,

see Salmon (1958 p. 178).
93 One of the usual candidates to be put in this spot is Pontius
Telesinus. His nomination is in part due to references to him as having

fought, not just in the Civil War, but in the Allied War as well (Velleius
2.16; Florus 2.6.6), and in part due to the testimony of Diodorus that by
this stage only Samnites and Lucanians were left in arms. Since Cleppius
and Lamponius were both Lucani, it is held that the other two
commanders must have been Samnite, from which people Telesinus
came. Arguments for Telesinus are made by Domaszewski (p. 18), who,
like Haug (p. 212, 224, 243), asserts that Telesinus had fought in the war
from the beginning, and Salmon (1958, loc. cit.) ,who only argues for a later
role, and even that opinion would change later on (1967, p. 79).
Diodorus further relates an additional undertaking by the

Allies, which was a deputation sent to the East to see if help could
be obtained from Mithridates (Athenaeus also makes a reference to
petitions from Italian nations for alliance with Mithridates;
5.50.213). A coin which was struck bearing the name of Minius
Iegius on the one side and eastern symbols on the other has been
interpreted as displaying hopes for the success of this mission.94 It
is possible that this embassy was sent in 89 and only arrived back in
Italy after the fall of Venusia, whose capture (about which more
below) provides the context in which the embassy is mentioned in
Diodorus. Whether or not this was so, the mission was a failure:
Mithridates, it is reported, would send succor to the Allies only
after he had quelled Asia, with which he was occupied at the
moment. That ruler would later prove no friend to Italians of any
kind, as his subsequent slaughter of thousands of them in his
realms would graphically illustrate,95 but at the beginning of 88 he
Alternatively, due to the appearance of the name of a Minus Iegius on a

coin (more directly), this individual is sometimes presented as the possible
missing commander (Salmon, p. 369), although Keaveney presents a
different suggestion for why he would appear there (1987, p. 157). As it
turns out, the missing leader is mentioned in no action named as having
fought in what remains of the war, so in a sense the quest for his identity
is academic.
94 So Sydenham 643 (p. 95) and note; also Salmon 1958, p. 175, 1967,
p. 369–370.
95 For sources of this event, see Greenidge and Clay, p. 168–169.
Among them is Diodorus (loc. cit.), who states that that this embassy to
Mithridates had been sent before Sulla’s march on Rome (see chapter 7).
Since another, the Periochae of Livy’s Book 77, reports that the slaughter of
Italians had taken place after that March, it can be inferred that this
massacre had not yet transpired when Mithridates was contacted by the
Alliance. Memnon also places the massacre after Sulla’s march on Rome
(22.6–9), as does Appian (Mithr. 22–23); Velleius, for his part, implies that
the massacre had only occurred after the Alliance had been defeated
(2.18). Such evidence leads to the fairly firm conclusion that—contra
Keaveney (1987, p. 157)—the Allies had not turned to Mithridates even in
the face of his butchery of “so many of their cousins in the East”, since
that had not yet occurred. Rather, they had sought his help before his true
feelings towards them were displayed.
possibly looked like a suitable enough source of aid. Admittedly,

inviting Mithridates to Italy might have given the latter an excuse to
mount a full-scale invasion, but in 88 the Allies might well have
figured that even this possibility would be worth it if the specter of
it caused the Romans to bring the war to an equitable conclusion.
Finally, Diodorus also relates that the Allies were finally
compelled to give up Corfinium and relocate to Aesernia.
Preparations for this must have been made throughout the winter,
but when spring arrived and the Vestini, Paeligni, and Marsi
succumbed to exhaustion, the inevitable evacuation could no
longer be postponed.96 Therefore, the Allies removed from
Corfinium, which was probably occupied by the Romans soon
after without a great deal of resistance. It was thus probably not
destroyed, and its later prominent role in the Civil Wars of Caesar
suggests it was not wrecked past the point of fairly timely repair.
No Roman commander is mentioned as having finally taken
possession of this city, which leaves open the possibility that it was
Cinna who marched into it after receiving the surrender of the
Marsi. Certainly such a symbolic gesture might have helped in his
bid for the consulate of 87.97
Having transferred their headquarters, the Allies were on the
move again in 88. Yet much of that movement led to positions of
submission: along with the Hirpini (who gave in to Sulla in
the previous year; Appian 1.6.51), the Picentes (who probably
surrendered at the capture of Asculum), and probably the
Marrucini (who had either surrendered in 89 or very early in 88),
the spring saw peace being sought by the Vestini, Paeligni, and
Marsi (as mentioned above). These notwithstanding, there were still
Italians who continued in the struggle. Those who remained in the
fight included Poppaedius Silo and his subordinate commanders
mentioned above, as well as a not insignificant army under them
96 Salmon posits that in the meantime the Allies had moved their flag
to Bovianum, based on a line in Appian which suggests that this was the
capital for the insurgents (1958, p. 177–178; 1967, p. 367). For a further
analysis of this hypothesis, see Keaveney (1987, p. 156) and Appendix O.
97 This is, of course, pure speculation, although it is not impossible
that it was Cinna who took possession of this town.

which had been cobbled together during the winter and early
spring. Its ranks were reported as having been filled with 30,000
free men and an additional 20,000 infantry and a thousand cavalry
recruited from freed slaves (Diodorus, 37.2.10). So enforced, Silo
decided to go on the offensive at the opening of the campaign
season. He therefore proceeded to essay forth from Aesernia and
soon used part of this army to recapture Bovianum, even
apparently celebrating a triumph of sorts upon its capture
(Obsequens 56).98
In the meantime, the Romans were on the move as well.
While Silo was celebrating the return of Bovianum to Allied
possession, Metellus Pius completed his journey down the Adriatic
seaboard and arrived in Apulia, where he took over the soldiers of
Cosconius. With these he then marched on Venusia and laid
siege to it (Diod. 37.2.10). Upon getting word of this action, Silo
then proceeded from Bovianum to Beneventum (or circumvented
it) and headed towards Metellus. However, at this point Lepidus
appeared, possibly from Nola where he may have been directing
the continuing siege there. Diodorus (loc. cit.) and the Periochae (76)
suggest that what happens next is that Silo engaged with Lepidus in
a battle in which he was defeated by the latter. If Silo’s movements
(and those of Lepidus) are as described above, then it may well be
that Lepidus had pursued Silo for some time and only caught up
with him after he had reached Apulia. This would accord well with
Appian, who says that Silo had reached the latter territory (1.6.53).
Diodorus, as has been seen, mentions the engagement and the
defeat of the Allies, but is silent about one other result of this battle
about which the Periochae and Appian are more explicit (as also is
Obsequens, assuming this was the proelium proximum to Bovianum;
loc. cit.). That result is that Silo himself was killed in battle.
A divergence from the sources may appear to arise in the
account of Silo’s final campaign as just presented, in that Appian
seems to state that that Silo was defeated, not by Lepidus, but by
Metellus (Καικίλιος δ᾽ αὐτῷ Μέτελλος ἐπελ ὼν ἐπὶ τὴν στρατ γίαν
διάδοχος, ἐς Ἰάπυγας ἐμ αλὼν ἐκράτει καὶ ὅδε μάχῃ τῶν Ἰαπύγων.
καὶ Ποπαίδιος, ἄλλος τῶν ἀφεστώτων στρατ γός, ἐνταῦ α ἔπεσεν; loc.
98 For its capture by Sulla in 89, see above.

cit.). In fact, this contradiction is mostly ephemeral. In the first

place, although Appian says that Metellus defeated the Apulians, he
does not explicitly say that Metellus defeated Silo. Likewise, while
Appian says that Silo died in Apulia where Metellus was
maneuvering, he does not say that Silo died fighting the latter. This
can easily be reconciled to the other accounts if it is accepted that
Silo had almost gotten to Venusia when Lepidus caught him and
defeated him, as postulated above. After Silo’s death in that battle,
what remained of his army had probably fled in all directions and
gradually drifted to Metellus in scattered units, which is the very
thing Appian describes as having happened next (οἱ δὲ λοιποὶ
σποράδ ν ἐς τὸν Καικίλιον διέφυγον).99
Although the Periochae and Appian both end their accounts of
the Allied War with the death of Silo (and Orosius ends his with
the fall of Asculum), it is clear that the conflict was not yet over
everywhere. This fact is recognized by Velleius, who mentions that
hostility lingered on at Nola (2.17) and by Appian himself, who
notes that some Samnites and Lucani remained unbeaten (1.6.53).
Only Diodorus (37.2.10–14) goes unto further details about what
remained of the war. According to this authority, the Allies seem to
have spent much of the remainder of the year 88 recovering from
the loss of Silo and, perhaps, waiting to hear from Mithridates.
However, sometime in early 87—the occasion was Sulla’s departure
from Italy, about which, about which more next chapter—they
seem to have sallied out and sent an army under Marcus
Lamponius and Papius Mutilus into Bruttium.100 These two then
attempted to capture Isiae by siege unsuccessfully, but while so
99 This construction of Silo’s last campaign differs from that

postulated by Keaveney (1987, p. 158), who holds that Silo was first
defeated by Lepidus and then captured Bovianum. Metellus then arrived
in Samnium and joined with Lepidus, Keaveney continues, and together
they defeated Silo. Such an interpretation places an extra battle in the
campaign, for which no good reason is given. It therefore seems
reasonable to reject it in favor of the interpretation above.
100 See Salmon (1967, p. 369) for this correction to the text, which
reads “Pompeius”; he prefers the reading of “Papius” to that of “Pontius”

(id est Telesinus). This emandation appears sound, and is likewise adopted
here.
engaged they seem to have lit upon an additional scheme whereby

they would capture Rhegium and from there perhaps invade Sicily.
This, too, was foiled when C. Norbanus, the Roman governor of
Sicily, collected a huge army and navy and broke the siege. Thus
defeated, the remnant of the Allies apparently spent a little while
longer conducting sporadic raids in Bruttium before they were
finally reconciled to the Romans later in the year,101 about which
more will be described later.
Thus, it is clear that the Alliance—or at least a very small part
of it—survived for some time after the death of Silo, who had been
its principal architect and one of its most accomplished warriors.
Nevertheless, there is a shift in focus away from this vestige in all
of the sources except Diodrorus, and what remained of the war
was shunted by these other narratives into the background.
Reasons for this apparent abandonment of the socii are not difficult
to find. In the first place, almost all of the sources are concerned
with either Roman history or Romans themselves, as has often
been mentioned previously. After the surrender of most of their
communities and the death of their main leader, the Allies still in
arms became a fairly insignificant factor militarily; they could
therefore be relegated to the same brevity of discussion that any
other small conflict would merit. Secondly, while the embers of the
Alliance were being stamped out in 88, events whose importance
were of nigh-titanic proportions were transpiring in Rome itself,
and the impact of these would dwarf whatever influence the dying
throes of the Allied War could have. Therefore, as a foreign event
(in a matter of speaking), the Allied War had become a minor issue,
and less deserving of focus than other things which were going on
at this time of greater impact for the Romans.
However, a more compelling reason for this treatment of the
rest of the sources is at hand. As it turns out, these sources do not
abandon the former Allies at all, since additional developments
occurring over the year 89 and 88 had meant that the history of the
Allies would be identical to the history of the Romans. According
to notices in Appian (1.6.53) and Velleius Paterculus (2.17),
passages which are confirmed by a notice in the Periocha of Livy’s
101 So Salmon 1967, p. 369–370.

Book 80, the remainder of those socii who had not yet been given
the civitas by means of the lex Julia had finally acquired it through
subsequent legislation (with the exception of the Samnites and the
Lucani who were still in arms). This acquisition had come to them
at the very least upon the defeat of Silo in 88, but had probably
begun to be attained by some of the Allies even earlier (more
below). Unfortunately, these passages are fairly meager in the detail
that they provide about this process, such that first and foremost
there is no indication of the name of the law by which this bequest
was made, or even whether it was just one law as opposed to
several of them. Appian, for his part, merely notes that “all of Italy
was enfolded into the Roman commonwealth (Ἰταλία πᾶσα
προσεχώρ σεν ἐς τὴν Ῥωμαίων πολιτείαν, χωρίς γε Λευκανῶν καὶ
Σαυνιτῶν τότε). Velleius likewise only notes that the Romans gave
the citizenship to the Allies (Romani … civitatem dare maluerunt),
while the Periochae adds the additional detail that it was apparently
done with the consent of the Senate (Italicis populis a senatu civitas
data est). As a result of this lack of attribution, it is not only
impossible to know which tribune(s), praetor(s), or consul(s) made
such an authorization. It is also very difficult to come up with more
then a vague indication of when he (or they) did so, and,
importantly, why.102 Nevertheless, while too little is given by the
sources to permit certainty on any of these points, enough is given
by them to permit conjecture on what may be the more important
elements, such as when, why, how the citizenship was given. Since
these issues are fairly vital towards an understanding of both the
end of 88 and what comes after, such a conjecture and an
examination of the evidence upon which it is based will follow
below.
In the first place, it will be assumed here that the passages in
Appian and Velleius listed above are not, in fact, simply hearkening
102 This claim seems to fly in the face of the received wisdom that
such a law can, in fact, be identified as the lex Plautia Papiria, probably
passed sometime in 89. Certainly the lex Plautia Papiria did enfranchise
some Italians, but based on what is known of both the timing and the
terms of this law, it seems fairly clear that it was not the one which gave
the franchise to the rest of the Italians (save the Samnites and the Lucani).
For a more extensive look at the lex Plautia Papiria, see Appendix P.
back to a law which both likewise described (but did not name) in
earlier passages. In other words, these authors are not describing
the lex Julia, but a different law. This is fairly easily supported by
the texts: in addition to the fact that this second legislative initiative
is placed later in the narrative of these two authors, the language
used by each to describe this later law is different and less
restrictive than that used to describe the lex Julia. In Appian, for
example, the earlier law gave the franchise only to those Italians
who had clung tight to the terms of their alliance with Rome
(Ἰταλιωτῶν δὲ τοὺς ἔτι ἐν τῇ συμμαχίᾳ παραμένοντας ἐψ φίσατο εἶναι
πολίτας), as opposed to “all of Italy” (Ἰταλία πᾶσα) described in the
second. In Velleius, the law named earlier likewise only gave the
franchise to those who had never fought or who had surrendered
by a predetermined point (recipiendo in civitatem qui arma aut non
ceperant aut deposuerant maturius), as opposed to it giving the
citizenship to all the remaining defeated states (victis adflictisque …
universis civitatem dare maluerunt). Therefore, it seems sound to believe
that Appian and Velleius are not recalling the lex Julia, but are both
naming a different law. Having made this assumption, it is also held
that both Appian and Velleius are here also both describing the
same (unnamed) law as opposed to separate ones, as it was also
believed they were so doing with the lex Julia in earlier passages.
The placement chronologically in their respective texts103 and the
similarity in the language used by both seems to make this
hypothesis a sound one.
If both of these assumptions are correct, then Velleius may
also be read to suggest why it is that the Romans chose this course
of action, and this in turn might suggest when they did so. As can
be readily be seen, such a mass enfranchisement marks quite a
departure from what it has argued was the Roman attitude towards
such an action. As was speculated earlier, that attitude was generally
a negative one, due to the changes which would be wrought by
such admissions on the economic, political, and military apparatus
of the Republic.104 Admittedly, that they had altered their position
103 Although see Appendix P for the difficulty with this, one centering
around the praetor Asellio.

104 See chapter 4.
somewhat is evident by the lex Julia, but it has been argued that this
law was passed from sheer necessity: faced with the possibility of
the Latins defecting to the Alliance or at the very least deprived of
their manpower, and needing either to bring about the surrender of
the Etruscans and Umbrians or make sure those communities
stayed surrendered (preventing flareups for the future), this earlier
legislation had been enacted with no doubt begrudging approval of
the patres in 90. There was, however, little danger of the Alliance
gaining more members after mid-89. The Allies were not, perhaps,
completely destroyed at that time, but their power had been
diminished to such an extent that their eventual submission seems
certain, as any would-be latecomers to the confederacy would have
recognized. Why, then, would the Romans have chosen to give the
franchise to a defeated enemy (as the language of Velleius), rather
than simply resume—to the extent that such was possible—a status
quo ante bellum?
One explanation which modern scholars offer is that the
Romans, having foreseen future difficulties with excluding Italian
allies from the citizenship contrary to their desires, decided to bow
to inevitability and grant the civitas to the conquered Allies to
guarantee the peace.105 Such is, of course, quite possible, but it does
indicate a generosity on the part of the Romans which is somewhat
contrary to their previous demeanor. On the other hand, it is not
difficult to see how perhaps the Senate and the people may have
altered their stance somewhat based on the length and the ferocity
of the war. Just as may have been part of the logic behind the lex
Julia, the Romans must have arrived at the conclusion that
whatever economic drain on the aerarium might have been caused
by having to pay for what were once cost-free Allied contributions
to the legions, it would likely have been insignificant in comparison
to the millions and millions of sesterces already lost attempting to
defeat these. Additionally, the potentially slight military
consequences of having to treat such soldiers as Romans would
probably have been of no moment in light of the more dire military
consequences of having been forced to treat them as enemies.
105 This seems to be what is contemplated by Badian (1958, p. 226)
and Keaveney (1987, p. 170–171).

Having endured such an ordeal once, it stands to reason that the

Romans would not be sanguine about going through something
similar at a later time by Allies who still wanted the franchise.
Giving them what they wanted could forestall such a future
development.
Similarly, there may have been Romans who opposed sharing
the citizenship and the city to the Italians based on beliefs about
the inherent inferiority of the latter before the war. Such beliefs
may well have been challenged and even changed by the battlefield
performance of these ostensible inferiors, who certainly displayed
skill and valor which matched the Romans. Likewise, sharing the
Commonwealth with such men may have become more palatable
than leave open the possibility they might return to arms in the
future, and once again kill pure-blooded Romans in great numbers.
As the war continued, then, than even Romans who held on to
their prejudices may have come to feel that it was better to give the
Italians a citizenship they may not have merited than have them
continue as non-citizens in enmity to the Republic, an enmity
which might once more boil over into violence if their wishes were
not granted.
Finally, a way had also been found to blunt the potentially
deleterious effects of huge numbers of new citizens on the political
structure of the Commonwealth. The new citizens to be
enfranchised could simply be incorporated in the tribes in the same
manner as those given the citizenship by the lex Julia, and indeed,
Appian asserts that this is precisely what occurred.106 In this
instance, however, there may have been one critical difference:
whereas in 90 the Romans may very well have disguised the ways
by which they would enervate the vote of the novi cives, now they
probably made clear how this was to be done. Since those Allies
who had already lost and had surrendered would have faced no
better alternative, it is probable that they accepted this offer as
better than nothing. In this way, the defeated Allies could be given
the citizenship to make sure they never erupted against Rome in
the future, figuring that the damage to the treasury and diminished
battlefield power would be easier to handle than another
106 For a similar opinion see Mouritsen, 1998, p. 166.

insurrection, and their effects on the government of the Roman

state if which they were now members would be negligible.
Therefore, even though the Romans were on the verge of
winning the war, they might have chosen to make this concession
to a defeated foe through having foreseen a similar war in the
future if the citizenship were withheld at this point. This is not
impossible, and may very well have been the deciding factor. Such
clairvoyance nevertheless continues to seem strangely out of
character for what is typical Roman behavior towards a vanquished
foe. On the other hand, it may well have been that the laws was
passed, not so much for the Allies who had surrendered, but for
the ones who had not. Vellieus may be interpreted in such a way:
he writes that the Romans foolishly seem to have preferred to grant
the citizenship when they themselves were exarmati, rather than
when they were integri; when, in other words, the Romans were
“weakened from fighting”, rather than when they were “whole and
sound”. Perhaps this reflects that the Romans had become
exhausted and had given the citizenship as a means to induce those
who had been beaten, but had not yet given in, to surrender and
therefore end the combat. The fact that the Italians were on the
brink of defeat did not mean that they could have found ways to
limp on, perhaps for years to come. Rather than commit to such
protracted, if minor, hostilities, and in the process further drain the
treasury while simultaneously denying themselves use of what
remained of Italian manpower, the Romans may have decided that
giving the citizenship to end the fighting would result in a better
outcome that continued efforts to beat the socii back into line, even
ones which were functionally already defeated. If so, then the very
thing that the Allies may have hoped would happen as the result of
the war had apparently come to pass, although the result was not
exactly as they had predicted.
Assuming that Roman thinking on the matter was thus, then it
is not difficult to envision how events may have unfolded:
sometime in late 89 or early 88 a law was passed allowing
commanders in the field to offer the citizenship to the Allies as the
basis for surrender, an alternative preferable to the leaders of the
Commonwealth than the exertion it would take to bring the
worsted but still defiant Allies to their knees by force. In this, an
extension of the lex Calpurnia and lex Julia was created: now
commanders could enfranchise, not just soldiers, but whole
communities. However, this citizenship would come with certain

debilities, namely those of the lex Julia. Unlike what had happened
in early 89, in mid-88 the Romans did not even try to maintain any
subterfuge about how many tribes would be created: there would
be very few of them, and they would vote last. Peace on such terms
would possibly have been very attractive to those communities
which had taken a savage beating the year before, such as the
Marrucini, Marsi,107 Vestini, and Paeligni, and according to the
Periochae all of these had begun to surrender right around the
beginning of campaigning season of 88. Yet for the others, such as
the Samnites and the Lucani, it was not enough. They may not
107 Of course, there remains one final, minor detail which is not
completely satisfactorily resolved by this construction, and it involves the
fate of Q. Poppaedius Silo. As has been seen, Silo was still not only
fighting with the Alliance but even leading its soldiers in battle past the
point at which—as per the construction above—his own community, the
Marsi, had surrendered and been given the franchise. Theoretically, Silo,
the most noteworthy of advocates for the civitas, should have taken it wih
his countrymen, and it its therefore somewhat puzzling not to seem him
do so.
A number of possible solutions to this riddle present themselves,
however. One the one hand, it may well be that Silo, like the Samnites and
the Lucani, would not accept anything less than a complete citizenship,
and resolved to lead these men until they got it. On the other, he may
have wanted to give in and accept what the Romans had offered, but had
given an oath to stay with the Allies until all gave in together; the Marsi
may have broken that pact, but, perhaps, Silo would not. Thirdly, it may
well have been that he suspected, or was told in no uncertain terms, that
while the Romans would embrace the rest of the Marsi, they would never,
causa vitii, accept the leader of the Alliance and the man who had led
Caepio into ambush on false terms (this last is the opinion of Brunt 1988,
p. 109). Silo, then, would have no other choice than stay where he was, to
fight and die for a cause which, ironically, he had to a certain extent
actually already won.
In the end, however, nothing can be known about Silo’s motivations
beyond that that they were strong enough to see him remain in arms
against Rome until his death, although it is apparent that no matter what
they were, his services would have been, and were, gratefully retained by
the Allies.
have been as badly hurt as the northern communities had been, and
Rome’s readiness to make this concession to the latter had signified
weakness and a willingness to make sacrifices to secure an end to
the fighting. If they were to hold out against the Romans a little
longer, they could perhaps get even more favorable terms, such as
citizenship for those who deserted to them, the right to keep their
plunder but have their own property returned, and the return of
their captives. As it happened, they were perfectly correct in their
belief, and they therefore remained in the field until they got what
they wanted, as well be seen.108
In such a way peace, for the most part, seems to have been
acquired at long last between the Romans and their former Allies,
who were now the Republic’s newest citizens. However, those
newest citizens were still to be distinguished from Rome’s older
cives due to the restrictions which had been put on the way they
would take part in the government of the Commonwealth. To
those who had already submitted to Rome’s mercy, this may have
seemed like a good deal, and to those who had not but whose
ability to hold out was almost gone, it might very well have been
more acceptable than more campaigning and dying towards an
ultimate outcome which might be even less favorable than this one.
The offer was therefore taken by most of them for lack of anything
better which could be anticipated. Yet it would seem unusual that
men who had sacrificed so much to gain all the rights and
privileges of being Roman citizens, as the ancient sources
108 Mouritsen (1998, p. 165–166) also has opinions along these lines,
although in his conception the offer of franchise was made to the others
after their surrender and not before. The Samnites, for their part, had then
demanded it as a condition of their capitulation, fearing lest the Romans
would not give it to them after their surrender as they had with all the
others and thereby make an example out of them. Such fears may have
been well-founded, as Sulla’s later activities would show. Such terms,
along with the other conditions, were refused at first. However, Mouritsen
concludes, Cinna later granted these concessions. This construction is not
impossible, but it is based on the premise that the Romans only offered
the citizenship after the Allies had surrendered; this premise seems less
likely than that they had used it as a bargaining chip to effect that very
capitulation, as argued above.
repeatedly stress that they had, would be satisfied with anything

less than these. What they had been given was in fact less, and the
sources suggest the very sort of dissatisfaction that might be
expected. For the time being, however, peace of a sort was brought
about with the former Allies, and this allowed the ancient
authorities to divert their attention to matters brewing in 88 and 87
which would be of profound significance for all Romans, old and
new. As will be seen, these matters not only concerned the new
citizens, but would eventually actually involve them, as well.
5. THE END OF THE WAR: WHAT WAS REAPED

AND WHAT WAS SEWN BY THE EXTENSION
OF THE CIVITAS
By the middle of 88 it seems that all of the men who had gone to
war to acquire the citizenship, and even some who had not, had at
least received an offer giving it. Those Allies who had put aside
their weapons by the middle of 88 actually took the offer, and if—
as has been consistently argued up to this point—their struggle had
been for such an outcome, then the history of that struggle should
come to an end here. However, it does not do so, because the
civitas they accepted was not the citizenship for which they had
taken up those arms, but was instead one lacking almost anything
resembling the ability to make their voices heard in elections or in
the ratification of laws. To those who had accepted it because they
were beaten, or because they were nearly so, this seems to have
been adequate enough to call an end to the fighting, at least for the
time being. But it cannot be doubted that they still wanted what it
had turned out they had not had the power to take. What that was
was the Roman citizenship in its full and complete form, and not
just the skeletal version they had received. Their ultimate goal—a
secure claim to a Roman citizenship which was the equal to that of
the original Romans, whereby they could be full partners in the
Empire—had, then, still not yet been won. Superior force had
made them take less at a time when it looked like war until
extinction, fighting to the last Italian, would still not achieve their
ends. Sound military sense, and indeed simple common sense, had
dictated that, in a circumstance wherein the only options they could
take would result in varying degrees of getting less than their full
desires, they had taken that which had offered them the most.
In fine, the Italians, having found themselves in a situation in

which they could not win, had chosen the route whereby they had
lost the least. That did not mean, however, that their resolve was
broken: it seems clear that as long as fighting could have gotten
them their wish, they would have fought on. Nor did it mean that,
if returning to fighting would get them their wish, they once again
turn to arms. As it turns out, such a scenario soon presented itself
to the ex-Allies, and when it appeared to them that combat would
bring about the accomplishment of their goals, the former socii took
their up pila again. Soon their struggle began anew, as will be seen:
the Allies who had fought for the rights and privileges of the
citizenship are soon seen fighting for those selfsame rights once
more, and those who did so were not only the Samnites and the
Lucani (who remained in the field), but others as well. The
circumstances under which the struggle resumed, and its outcome,
will be described in the chapters to follow.
CHAPTER 7:
NEW CITIZENS: MARIUS, SULPICIUS,
SULLA, AND THE MARCH ON ROME
1. THE “RETIREMENT” OF C. MARIUS

As has been seen, the assassination of Drusus and the opening of
the Allied War caused in Rome a general state of anxiety which
resembled a fairly dire depression, one which extended through the
final months of 91 into many of the first few weeks of 90.
Expression of this malaise apparently toom many forms, of which
one was various legal actions against members of the aristocracy
who were blamed for the misery caused by the war. It also seems to
have presented itself in the hysterical wailing with which the steady
stream of bodies and the endless procession of funerals following
in the wake of Asculum, Aesernia, the Tolenus, and the ambush of
Caepio was met. Eventually, however, the city seems to have begun
to right itself after the panic which had set in, and aiding in that
restoration of calm had been some victories won fairly late in the
campaigning season of 90 by L. Julius Caesar at Acerrae, by Gn.
Pompeius Strabo near Asculum, and by L. Porcius Cato in Etruria
(alongside Aulus Plotius in Umbria). Rewards had in turn fallen on
almost all of these men: Cato and Pompeius, as has been seen,
were named consuls of 89, while L. Julius Caesar became censor,
joining in that office his former legatus P. Crassus, who seems to
have made his way back to Rome after his loss at Grumentum
relatively unscathed.1
One name, however, is conspicuously absent from the list of
honored commanders from 90, and that is C. Marius. In spite of
1 More on the actions of these censors will be narrated below.
419
having first prevented a complete rout at the Tolenus, and then

won the major Battle of the Vineyards, Marius received no
triumph, no additional office, nor anything else of the kind. In fact,
the year 89 found him not only unpromoted, but actually out of the
field entirely. A number of reasons have been speculated for this
retirement in the previous chapter, including that which, according
to Plutarch, Marius himself propounded. This was was ill health,
and given his age, it is not hard to imagine that ailments may have
been the actual, or at least a main, cause for his withdrawal from
action. On the other hand, it has also been suggested above that
Senatorial enmity towards Marius also had a hand in his relief, just
as it had had an influence in the way Marius had been compelled to
handle the troops put under his command after the death of the
consul P. Rutilius Lupus. That enmity also may well have played
a role in the events of 89 and 88, events which were of such
great import to both to the Commonwealth and to those former
Allies who had become the Commonwealth’s newest citizens that it
may be forgiven if a brief digression on the sources of that enmity
may be undertaken before those events that may have been
affected by them are analyzed. Such a foray need not be extensive,
as the life of Marius has been amply and ably described elsewhere,2
but a few important aspects of his political and military career
deserve some mention here.
In the first place, it has been much observed that Marius was
something of an arriviste, a term for which the Roman equivalent
was expressed in Latin as novus homo. A “new man”, as Cicero
explained—in reference to himself, as he was one of them—was a
person who lacked distinguished ancestry, or, more specifically, a
person who could not identify someone in his family who had been
elected to high magistracy in Rome (de leg. agr. 2.3). It seems the
Roman nobility tended to look with disfavor upon such men
becoming consul, if the sources are to be believed: Cicero had said
of his own candidacy for the office of consul that the aristocracy
had practically sealed off that magistracy as if by armed guards (loc.
cit.), while Sallust in writing about that same election asserted that
2 See especially the small monograph and supporting articles by
Thomas Carney, as well as the more recent study by Richard Evans.

NEW CITIZENS: MARIUS, SULPICIUS, SULLA 421
the nobiles had regarded an election to the post by a new man as a

“pollution” (nobilitas invidia aestuabat et quasi pollui consulatum credebant,
si eum quamvis egregius homo novos adeptus foret; Cat. 23.6). Such an
attitude had also apparently confronted Marius when he had run
for the magistracy, as Sallust additionally notes in a different work
but using almost the exact same language (B.J. 63.6–7).3 It has been
speculated that the influence of this prejudice on Marius and has
career has been exaggerated,4 and that perhaps the demeanor
against such men in general has been overblown. Nevertheless,
even if this bias was not as concrete nor widespread as Cicero and
Sallust claim, it is certainly likely that there were at least some
Romans who held this sentiment, and the result of it might well
have been that those who held such thoughts were inclined to
regard Marius with suspicion from the very beginning. If that is so,
then the novitas of latter may have played a part in the attitude of
the ruling class towards him, which is perhaps best described as a
coolness bordering on loathing.5
Even if this “newness” had only been a fairly small element in
that attitude towards Marius amongst the Roman aristocrats, there
were also the brutal realities of the electoral politics in Rome which
would only add to whatever hostility may have already existed.
Elections were often a source of new enmities or for the
exacerbation of existing ones: since very often there was nothing
resembling a platform upon which Romans ran for office,
candidates usually sought to secure votes by showing why they
themselves were the best men for the job, and this task often
involved demonstrating why they were to be preferred to their
3 Sallust’s exact words in this later passage are Novus nemo tam clarus
neque tam egregiis factis erat, quin indignus illo honore et is quasi pollutus haberetur.
For additional discussion of this attitude amongst the nobilitas regarding
new men gaining the consulate in general, see Gelzer (p. 33–36), Wiseman
(1971, p. 104–107), and Epstein (p. 55); for its specific application to
Marius, see Epstein (loc. cit.), Carney (1970, p. 26); and Badian 1964(b), p.
144–147.
4 Evans, p. 68–70
5 See, again, the biographies of Carney and Evans for examples of this
hostility, although the work of the latter has different explanation for it
than the former.
opponents.6 Personal attacks could and not infrequently did ensue,

and as a result the emergence of every successful candidate almost
always left an unsuccessful one who was frustrated in his ambitions
(it seems unlikely that there were many elections in which
candidates ran unopposed)7 and probably inclined to hold a grudge
against the victor, both from jealousy and for whatever may have
been said during the canvassing. It may well be wondered if a
Roman from any background could have become consul without
making at least some inimici;8 it can therefore only be imagined how
many Marius had made in his election, not just to one term in that
office, but to the five subsequent terms during the Cimbric and
Teutonic wars which followed a few years after that initial one. If
the nobility had already had their reservations about Marius due to
his origins, it is not too difficult to conjecture how much those
reservations would have been increased by his repeated iterations
as consul. After all, such a monopoly on Rome’s must powerful
position would perforce freeze other candidates out of it, a fact
which may have been enough to engender virulent animosity in and
of itself. Worse still, each re-election brought about the
accumulation of a vast amount of power in the hands of one man,
power with possibly limitless potential for abuse; to the minds of
those Romans for whom fear of tyranny not just a rhetorical device
but a real concern, the consulates of Marius must have brought
some genuine anxiety.
Every term served by Marius, therefore, had represented on
the one hand a year in which at least one putative “worthy”
candidate had not been given power, to be taken amiss by not only
the disappointed candidates themselves but perhaps also by those
other members of the aristocracy who already begrudged novi
homines. On the other, each one provided one more prospective
6 Rather than on anything resembling issues or a platform; so
Mouritsen (2001, p. 92–94, 117) and Morstein-Marx (p. 275–276). See

also Appendix C.
7 A brief overview of the Roman candidacy is provided in Frank Frost
Abbott’s A History and Description of Roman Political Institutions (Athenaeum

Press: New York, 1901), p. 169–170; see also Nicolet 1988, p. 298–310.
8 See Epstein, p. 1–28 for the extent to which the making and holding
of enemies was commonplace in Republican Rome.

opportunity for Marius to decide that he was growing over-fond of

the authority he could wield and to act to make it permanent, even
if during every previous election he had been given the same
prospective opening for tyranny and had in fact never done what it
may have been feared that he would do.
Marius, therefore, might have been difficult to bear as parvenu,
resented by the aristocracy for denying some of them the
consulates which they might have felt they had deserved, and
dreaded as a would-be tyrant. Added to all of these sources of
irritation there was the final fact that Marius had displayed a
willingness from almost the very beginning of his public life to take
steps to thwart the will of the Senate or diminish its power and
prestige, if by so doing he could accomplish his own aims. For
example, during his tenure as tribune in 119 he had passed a voting
measure which helped eliminate the ability of unscrupulous
individuals to intimidate men on their way over the bridges to cast
their ballots, which apparently had been a familiar tactic in the
employ of the aristocracy to ensure that voting went their way.9
Ten years later, Marius had gathered support during his first bid for
the chief magistracy by means of speeches which had been most
unflattering to the élite (Sallust, B.J. 85).10 Having successfully
attained the consulate, Marius had often either solicited or at the
very least accepted the aid of tribunes to override various Senatorial
dictates. By means of their assistance, he had been given command
against Jugurtha during the Numidian war in spite of the fact that
that province had already been allocated to Metellus. His success in
that war brought him fame for his command abilities, and based on
9 Carney 1970, p. 20–21; Evans, 96–107. The latter also speculates as

to whether or not the opposition of Marius to a corn-pricing law (both
measures are reported in Plutarch Mar. 4) was to the lowering or raising of
the price; if the opposition was to the latter, this would be another
popularis standpoint (see Chapter 3 for the response amongst traditionalist
Roman politicians to corn laws).
10 Plutarch Mar. 8 only reports that his speech contained “slanders
against Metellus”, the commander in Numidia whom Marius hoped to

replace, although it is not unlikely that these “slanders” had also included
a searing condemnation of the whole order along the lines of the speech
put in his mouth by Sallust.
that reputation, he received dispensation to hold consular power

again in 104 in spite of the customary ten year’s interim between
re-election not having elapsed. This unorthodox re-election sent
him to fight the war against the Teutones and Cimbri, and paving
the way for four additional reelections in a row to bring the war to
a conclusion.11 There can be little doubt that the Senate seethed
over these irregular elections, even if Cicero is quick to point out
that they put patriotism ahead of their feelings and did nothing to
stop them (Prov. Con. 19). In a very real sense, then, the brilliant
military career of Caius Marius, by which he earned the glory that
persists to this day, had been won over the objection of the Senate,
whose rules had to be countermanded at every point along the way.
There was, then, probably very little in the career of Marius
which would have made the aristocracy trust him, and much that
would likely have incited the exact opposite feeling. In their
thinking, Marius was a man who was essentially an outsider and
thus perhaps not imbued with the centuries-old respect for Roman
laws and customs, one who had won great popularity by means of
his martial gifts and had been given power by the people
unsanctioned by and indeed in the face of the disgust of the Senate,
and one who seems to have taken a cavalier attitude about slipping
past the reach of the Senate to circumscribe his actions. This sort
of man might well use his popularity to bring about a despotism, a
danger which in essence would attach to him as long as he lived.
As it turns out, Marius had never actually translated his
military victories into such a despotism, and he had even been
acknowledged as savior of the state for his defeat of the Germans
and, later, for quashing what looked like rebellion launched by
Glaucia and Saturninus (the latter a former associate who had
played no small part in several of his consulates). However, for a
variety of reasons Marius had seen his power and prestige ebb
11 Evans (77–96) believes that the Senatorial opposition recorded as

having been levelled at Marius was due far more to his use of the
tribunate and of plebiscita to circumvent their prerogatives than his novitas
or even his iteration as consul. This may go too far, but it is certain that
the Senate was greatly disturbed by such tactics, and it may very well have
added to their discomfort with Marius even if it did not create that
discomfort.
somewhat in the period between 99–91, and his gradual fade from
the pinnacle of prestige must have been a matter of some pleasure
to the Senate. Even so, there was no telling what Marius could find
himself doing if he ever returned to those heights of fame to which
his former triumphs had once carried him in the 100s, and this was
likely well-known to the Council in 90.
For all these reasons, the selection of Marius as legatus by
Rutilius Lupus probably had not been met with relish by the
Conscript Fathers. Rather, any chance for Marius to have another
command and demonstrate his excellent generalship (which was
probably acknowledged even by his worst enemies) was very likely
one which would have caused the nobiles some considerable dismay.
If such consternation did exist, it might well explain, or at the very
least help to explain, the particular—and, it may be allowed,
peculiar—ways by which the Senate chose to make use of the
talents that general throughout the campaign of 90. As has been
seen, Rutilius had died in June of that year. When it turned out that
the other surviving consul had not had the leisure to return to
Rome to preside over the election of a suffect, Marius could easily
have been given proconsular powers by the patres and placed in
charge of the entire northern theater: indeed, his vast experience
and apparently undiminished skill might have made such a decision
seem like the obvious one. Instead, command of uncertain
authority was divided by the Senate between Marius and
Q. Servilius Caepio, the latter presumably to oversee the more
northerly half of what had once been the armies of Rutilius, the
former to oversee the more southern half. To the modern scholar,
Caepio presents what might be deemed an interesting choice as co-
commander for Marius. He had, it seems, never held a significant
command in his life,12 and while he was the son of a man combat
proven ability, his name had been tarnished somewhat by the
12 Broughton (vol. 2, p. 20, 25 note 5, 28, 30) speculates that he had

been praetor in 91, due to the fact that in the first place nine years had
elapsed between this year and the year of his quaestorate, and in the
second all the legati in whose company he had found himself were ex-
consular or ex-praetorian. No proof for this assertion can be found,
however, and whether or not Caepio had attained the office, certainly no
evidence can be located to show his leadership of men before 90.
disaster at Arausio which seems to have been of his father’s

making. As events have shown, the Younger Caepio was certainly
not up to this commission, something which his inexperience
might have allowed to be predicted, although that foresight seems
to have escaped the Senate. It has been speculated that Marius was
friends with the younger Caepio,13 but even if such a fondness had
existed, it is difficult to see how Marius would not have perceived
an insult in having such a person placed as his equal, regardless of
whether such an insult had been planned.14 At any rate, the joint
commission would not last long, as has been seen. The destruction
of Caepio’s army may have overcome Senatorial resistance to
giving Marius the responsibility for what remained of the northern
army, and it seems he was placed in charge of what remained of the
original forces of Rutilius thereafter. With these men and with the
help of Valerius Massala15 he had managed a southern campaign
that culminated in the Battle of the Vineyards, which must have
been a matter of hesitant rejoicing for the Senate: it is perhaps
noteworthy that it was not, in fact, this victory which had led to the
resumption of the purple-bordered togas and insignia, but rather
that of Pompeius in Picenum which had done so.
Necessity had brought to Marius another command, and he
had made the most of it. Nevertheless, when the opportunity to be
rid of Marius and arrest his gain of any additional gloria et fama
finally presented itself by the election of the new consuls in 89, it
13 So Badian 1964, p. 55.

14 See chapter 5 for some reasons why this command may have been
given to Caepio, a choice which, though ultimately an unfortunate one,
may not have been entirely designed as an insult to Marius.
15 See Appendix J and K. Badian (1964, p. 230) adduces pre-existing
connections between Marius and Massala, which may explain why the
latter was replaced in 89; indeed, if it is in fact the case that both Lentulus
and Massala were both simultaneously replaced by Q. Catulus (see chapter
6), the insult would have been a double one if the command changes in
that year had in fact been politically motivated: not only was Marius
himself sent home, but his friend Massala was replaced by a man who had
since become a dire enemy since their former cooperation in the
Teutonic/Cimbric war (see Carney 1970, p. 37–39; Badian 1964, p. 37–39;
more on this hatred will also be discussed below and in the next chapter).
seems to have been one of which those who disliked Marius

amongst the nobility had been able to take advantage.16 If indeed
the Latins had sat out the first year of the war and had been
persuaded to join it by the lex Julia (see chapter 5), then their sheer
numbers might have seemed to put the ultimate outcome of the
war beyond doubt. Consequently, the Senate may have been
accorded the luxury of dispensing with an inconvenient but
capable—and in fact inconvenient for that very reason—general.
Marius would therefore play no part in the campaigns of 89, either
because he had by his own admission become worn out by the
previous year’s fighting, had become exasperated with the Senate’s
intransigence, or had simply not been invited by either of the
consuls for 89 to accept a post.17
Therefore, Marius had apparently retired after 90. Where it is
that he went once he left camp cannot be known; the fact that he
had a villa in Misenum in Baiae which was supposed to be healthful
may suggest that this as where he spent the next several months
(assuming he was actually ill), although the fact that there was
heavy fighting in the immediate vicinity may tell against this
possibility, as mentioned in the previous chapter. Whether he
recovered his health in Misenum or—as is more likely—found it
again in Rome, cannot be known; what is certain, however, is that
soon Marius appeared in the Campus Martius and proved still
capable of taking exercise with youths in training (Plutarch, Mar.
34). Why it is Marius felt the urge to put on this display is usually
attributed to his desire to take the field again, this time against
Mithridates in the east.18 Plutarch (Sull. 8 and more extensively in
16 It may very well have been that Cato, the consul of 90 who
cashiered Marius, had been one of these enemies; certainly his disparaging
remarks about the general reported in Orosius 5.18.24 might suggest
inimicitia (for which see previous chapter). See also speculation to this
effect in Badian 1964, p. 41.
17 See, again, previous chapter for various reasons suggested for his
removal, self-initiated or otherwise.

18 The various misdeeds of this king are not of great importance for
this essay; it will suffice to note that by early 90 it seemed almost certain
that the Romans were going to declare war on him in the immediate
Mar. 34–35) and Appian (1.7.55) both mention such a desire

explicitly,19 and some scholars have suggested that it had been a
desire of a lengthy duration, arising shortly after his final consulate
in 99. In fact, it is sometimes argued that Marius had even
attempted to foment the war both during his Eastern visit in 98—
Plutarch seems to denote a certain bellicosity in his blunt interview
with the Mithridates on this voyage (Mar. 31)—and afterwards,
since the ambassadors sent to attempt to get the monarch to desist
in his misbehavior were alleged to be creatures of Marius.20 This
agitation had been rooted in his hope that he would be the one
named to fight the war when it occurred. Whether or not Marius
actually was able to instigate the war, or even inclined to make the
attempt, it is not at all difficult to believe that he may have looked
to a potential conflict against Mithridates as a chance whereby he
might win an easy victory and collect massive amounts of loot in
the process, educate his son in generalship,21 or simply alleviate the
boredom he may well have felt from inactivity. Since it was most
future. Indeed, even the Allies knew this, as their embassy to him (see last
chapter) indicates.
19 Velleius does not directly state that Marius wanted the command,
but only that Sulpicius proposed to give it to him (2.18); about this more
below.
20 So Luce 1970, p. 187–194. This interpretation is not unconvincing,
although it does bespeak of a certain power Marius would have had in

getting his men named to the deputation, or the ease with which the
Senate was willing to accept the nominations of such known associates
even if Marius himself had not pushed for them. Moreover, it implies that
these men would be willing to provoke an unauthorized war merely on
the chance that Marius would be named to oversee it, a possibility which
is by no means certain. In fact, it might just as easily have been the case
that Aquillius, former legatus of Marius and later his co-consul of 101,
wanted the command himself, perhaps for the easy spoils to be won
there; his ultimate fate (as recorded by Appian, Mithr. 21) is illustrative.
Hence, Marius may very well have supported such a war, and that support
may have been based in part in the hope that he would be chosen to
command it, but his ability and even his wish to place ambassadors to
provoke the conflict seem doubtful.
21 Plutarch claims Marius himself gave this as the reason for his fervor
for command, which was apparently universally derided; Mar. 34.

unlikely that the Senate would itself give him such a charge, by
advertising his health he seems to have let the Roman people know
that he still had some vim left in him.
In fact, Marius may even have been testing the waters to see
whether a run for yet another consulate would be feasible.
Apparently a wish for a seventh term was commonly suspected of
him: Dio (fragment 98) mentions misgivings along these lines as
having occurred to Rutilius as an explanation for the constant
advice to delay before the Tolenus, and perhaps Marius himself
was vocal about it.22 Given the potential field of candidates in late
89, Marius may have thought he stood a decent chance for re-
election: with the exception of the Sulla, the only obvious other
candidates of recent substantial military accomplishment may have
been Galba, Gabinius, Cosconius, and Pompeius, already consul,
who seems to have desired re-election (Velleius 2.21). Since the
consular provinces for those elected in 89 would doubtless be Italy
and Asia,23 Marius, if elected, would have faced the prospect of
what everyone believed would be easy war in one and the remnants
of what had been a very difficult war in the other, and it may very
well be wondered if the Italian theater would not have suited him
just as well. Another consulate could therefore bring him command
in either place and might present ample opportunity to win
renewed gloria, instruct his son, and find something useful to do
with his time, and it is not beyond the pale of possibility that
22 Plutarch mentions that Marius himself circulated the prophecy of
the seven eagles shorltly thereafter, when he was on the run from Sulla
(more below), and it was known well enough to be recorded, albeit
disputed, in several authors (Mar. 36). It may have been that he spoke of it
earlier than his flight, perhaps to feel out how receptive the people would
be for a candidacy.
23 The opinion of Mitchell (p. 202–203 and note 18), that the Senate
only allocated the provinces after the consuls had been elected—which
they could apparently do in emergencies—fails to persuade; it seems far
more likely that the lex Sempronia would have continued to be followed in
this instance. Besides, even if provinces had not explicitly been assigned in
89, in the absence of a major catastrophe between 89 and 88 in any of the
others it was probably beyond question that these would have been the
ones alotted even if they had not been by the time of the candidacy of 89.
running for the office may have been contemplated by the old
man.
Nevertheless, as the year went on Marius must have
abandoned his plans for the seventh eaglet,24 if he had ever really
had them. It would turn out that the Senate had discovered a
suitable colleague for Sulla in the form of Q. Pompeius Rufus, and
faced with what would almost certainly be active opposition from
the nobiles, Marius decided to stand down (there is certainly no
record of him canvassing in 89).25 Yet the fact that Sulla and
Pompeius Rufus seem to have won election with no real difficulties
did not necessarily mean that Marius also had to put an end to his
aims for another command. In the past, Marius had found ways to
obtain commissions by means of using the tribunes, as has been
seen. So, too, would it be possible for him to do now: the people,
he must have figured from a great deal of personal experience,
could easily be persuaded to vote to transfer the governorship of a
province from one former consul to another, and a plebiscitum to
that effect might be all the more assured of passage with the
support of the mercantile class with whom Marius had always
24See earlier note.

25At first glance, this statement seems to run counter to the statement
of two sources which both seem to indicate that Marius not only thought
about running for the consulate, but actually did so. One of these is
Orosius, who states that Marius aimed at a seventh consulate and the
command against Mithridates (Marius, Sylla consule et contra Mithridatem in
Asiam cum exercitu profecturo ... adfectauit septimum consulatum et bellum suscipere
Mithridaticum; 5.19.3) The other is Diodorus, which mentions that several
Romans wanted the commission against Pontus and that Marius
contended for it with C. Julius (Caesar Vopiscus). (ἀντιποιουμένων πολλῶν
ἐνδόξων τυχεῖν τῆς κατὰ Μι ριδαάτου στρατ γίας διὰ τὸ μέγε ος τῶν ἐπά λων.
Γάιός τε γὰρ Ἰούλιος καὶ Γάιος μάριος ὁ ἑξάκις ὑπατεύσας ἀντεφιλονείκουν;
37.2.14). The fact that the latter is known to have sought permission to
run for consul (more below) strongly implies that he and Marius ran
against each other. However, neither source explicitly states that Marius
ran. The verb used by Orosius, adfectare, can mean simply “desire”, and
need not necessarily be read to declare that Marius submitted a candidacy.
Likewise, the verb used by Diodorus, ἀντεφιλονεικέω, merely means
“oppose”, opposition that need not have come during an election. For
more on this point, see Appendix Q.
maintained a fairly close bond,26 since their economic concerns in

Asia would be best served by a man of considerable ability and
sympathy to their interests. Indeed, Marius may not have bothered
with explorations of a seventh consulate at all, but may have looked
to the tribunate for a command from the beginning, as Appian
seems to suggest (1.7.55).27 All that would be needed would be a
friendly tribune, and as luck would have it, one of those was soon
found early in 88. However, the tribune in question was of a most
unusual background, and the process by which he became available
for use by Marius involved a bizarre sequence of events and, as it
turns out, the former Allies. Because an understanding of this
man’s life is vital to why he found himself in the orbit of Marius,
and why in turn the novi cives also soon found themselves in the
picture, a second digression to discuss these circumstances seems
appropriate here.
2. THE STRANGE CAREER OF P. SULPICIUS RUFUS,

THE ALLIES, AND THE UNLIKELY PARTNERSHIP
When P. Sulpicius Rufus took office as tribune in December of 89,
there was little to suggest that he would ever become anything but
a traditionalist conservative Roman statesman, and much instead to
suggest that he would become precisely that. He had been an
intimate of the most august circles of the Senate, connected by
bonds of amicitia with those who had once been the firmest
supporters of Drusus, a man with whom, according to Cicero,
Sulpicius himself had been good friends (adulescentes et Drusi maxime
familiares ... C. Cotta .... et P. Sulpicius [emphasis added]; de orat.
1.7.25). Sulpicius appears to have liked and had been liked in turn
by all the right people, had disliked and had been disliked by all the
26 This connection between Marius and the Roman financial interests

is emphasized in several places by Carney (1970, p. 15–6, 21–26, 40, and
54, for example); nut see the objections of Evans (p. 129–131), who
argues that such a closeness may be overrated.
27 Plutarch indicates that he did not seek the aid of a tribune, but that
Sulpicius came directly to him (Mar. 34).

right people, and had seemed to believe in all the right things.28
Therefore it probably came as no surprise that sometime in the
early part of his tribunate he found himself opposed to the attempt
of C. Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus to obtain senatorial
dispensation to run for the consulate of 87 in spite of not having
served as praetor.29
Exactly why it is that Caesar coveted this office so badly that
he could not wait and follow the established cursus is not known for
certain,30 although it is perhaps not too far-fetched to speculate
that he may have wanted to capitalize on the luster which recent
events had brought to his family name. As has been seen, within
the last three years one Julius Caesar—Sextus, a relative of some
unknown degree of affinity—had been elected consul and had died
after performing some heroic deeds in the late war. Another,
Lucius—brother of the would-be candidate—had been elected
consul the very next year. He, too, had also enjoyed some success
in the war against the Allies, and was currently censor.
Furthermore, he had passed a law which had enrolled many former
Allies as citizens, and thus may have accumulated a formidable
clientelae in the process. Caesar Vopiscus may have believed that the
Julii Caesares stood in such good stead with the people that he
could skip the praetorate, an office which, even if he won it, would
cause two years to elapse in which his momentum might be stalled.
However, such a candidacy would be illegal withough Senatorial
approval, and “infringed almost every rule in the book”, according
28 For the early career of Sulpicius see Mitchell (p. 197–198 and
supporting notes) as well as Badian (1958, p. 230–231, and 1964, p. 41).
See also Appendix R for his military career.
29 Cicero describes this attempt and the opposition of Sulpicius to it
on several occasions, including in the Phillipics (11.11), where another man

attempting to run for the consulate without having been made praetor is
said to be “another Caesar Vopiscus”; in Brutus 226, where the eloquence
the speech of Sulpicius in opposition to the candidacy is compared
unfavorably to that of Antistius on the same subject; and in the Responses of
the Haruspices 20.43, where the opposition is described as the first step that
set Sulpicius down a fateful path; more on that path below.
30 See Apendix Q for some of the speculations as to his reasoning.
to one scholar.31 Since electoral regularity had been a concern of

the best men from at least the time of Scipio Aemlianus and
probably long before (Per. 50; Appian, Pun. 112), it would stand to
reason that a firm Optimate as Sulpicius seems to have been would
immediately set himself against Caesar’s request.
If it cannot be known for sure why Caesar wanted to run for
office before his proper eligibility for it, what is more certain is that
he seems to have wanted to run badly enough either to instigate
violence towards Sulpicius to remove the latter’s obstruction, or to
return violence which was directed at him by Sulpicius, as Asconius
illustrates (25).32 Cicero appears to suggest that this opposition to
Caesar marked a change in Sulpicius and his policies, in that he was
soon carried away from the good graces of the Senate by his
popularis methods (Sulpicium ab optima causa profectum Gaioque Iulio
consulatum contra leges petenti resistentem longius quam voluit popularis aura
provexit; Resp. Har. 43).33 This may be taken to mean that the Senate
supported Caesar contrary to the expectations of Sulpicius, who,
like the people, opposed the candidacy, that he was censured the
Senate for his use of violence, or both. The second of these may be
supported by a notice in Asconius, who notes that Caesar’s contest
with Sulpicius was the cause of the civil war because Sulpicius had
carried his (rightful) resistance to Caesar to inapprioriate lengths by
31 The words of those of Powell, p. 458.

32 For Suplicius as the instigator, see Mitchell, p. 200; for Caesar as this
instigator, see Badian 1958, p. 231 (the same is implied in Lintott, p. 446).
33 This follow’s Lintott’s translation of the phrase, which suggests it
was a sailing metaphor, and that the popularis aura blew him ab optima causa
(away from the best cause). Charles Duke Yonge’s translation of that
passage, however, would have it that Sulpicius first tacked to the popularis
breeze “in a good cause” (The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero. George Bell
& Sons: London, 1886, p. 91), which has the support of Powell (p. 456–
457). Either translation works in the context of the passage of the de
Haruspicum Responsis, however, which is one describing how various men
were either alienated from the Senate because they turned popularis, or
turned popularis because they had been alienated from the Senate. Thus,
Sulpicius was either blown by a popularis wind from the side of the best
men, or was blown from them for the best possible reason (id est,
opposition to the candidacy of Caesar).
having resorted to weapons (Nam et sperabat et id agebat Caesar ut

omissa praetura consul fieret: cui cum primis temporibus iure Sulpicius
resisteret, postea nimia contentione ad ferrum et ad arma processit; Asconius,
loc. cit.). Thus, perhaps Sulpicius had gone too far in his gangsterism
for the comfort of the patres, and a breach occurred. Alternatively,
perhaps Sulpicius had tasted the methods of the other side and
found them to his liking, leading to his desertion of the optimates.
Either way, Sulpicius and the nobiles began to diverge at or near this
time, and if the breach recorded by Cicero between Sulpicus and
his former close friend Q. Pompeius Rufus had not yet transpired,
it soon would (de amict. 2).
Even assuming Sulpicius had survived the controversy with
Caesar still in the good graces of the Senate, the laws he was
apparently contemplating at this time would easily have caused him
to forfeit that standing. Since on the surface none of them seem to
have been specifically designed to injure the nobiles, and all can
easily be viewed as having been divised to extend Senatorial power,
it may well be that he, like Drusus, had made them with the best of
intentions towards his faction but was met with a reaction he did
not expect. Among these laws were a measure mentioned in
Plutarch which decreed that no Senator be allowed to incur a debt
of over 2000 drachmas (Sull. 8). On first glance this seems punitive
and thus to date from after his departure from the boni. However, it
may have been designed initially to diminish the power of money-
lenders (who would almost certainly have been equites, for whom
Sulpicius may have inherited the distaste his friend Drusus had
once had for them), or reduce the role of bribery in electoral
canvassing. It may also have been a simple protective measure:
there certainly was a debt crisis in Rome at this time (see following
chapter), and Sulpicius may have been attempting to save the
Senators from falling into debt at mammoth interest rates by means
of passing this legislation for their own good.
Another law Sulpicius put forward proposed the recall of
exiles or, more appropriately, for the recall of “those expelled by
violence” (as the Rhetorica ad Herennium specificies; 2.28.45). This,
too, seems like a change of allegiance on the part of the tribune,
since he had apparently interposed his veto on something vey
similar (so the same ancient source). However, in this case it may
simply have been that Sulpicius forbade the bill because he wanted
the credit for passing something similar; having changed the
wording of the legislation, he then put it forward under his own

name34. To which exiles specifically this measure was to apply is
uncertain: some scholars hold that it was extended to those
expelled from Rome in the aftermath of the turbulent tribunate of
Saturninus, while others that it was designed to bring back those
men forced out by the trials of the Varian quaestiones either in its
early or later stages (men who perhaps included some of the
tribune of 88’s own friends). However, neither the ad Herennium
nor the Periochae (77) specifies who was to benefit, and both of
them suggest instead something of a blanket amnesty: it may have
been draughted to allow that exiles from all the previous periods of
turbulence perhaps even going back to the time of the Gracchi
could all come home. If indeed Sulpicius had not in fact yet split
from the optimates, this measure might have been designed to win
their favor, since it called for an impartial return of all men
regardless of faction.
As has been suggested above, it is certainly possible to
construe both laws in such a way as to read into them a malicious
intent. Sulpicius, it can be argued, had structured the first to strike a
blow at the most powerful men in the Senate (since likely they had
run up debts to attain office), and had designed the second to
embarrass the patres by bringing their enemies back. On the other
34 This practice—of voting against or vetoing a law only to promulgate

or support something similar under a different name—was apparently not
at all uncommon in the first century, as Gruen (1974, p. 211–259)
illustrates; see also chapter 4. Keaveney (1987, p. 172 and p. 178 note 33)
puts forth the belief that recall the Varian exiles was the reason C. Caesar
Vopiscus had run for consul, and that the opposition of Sulpicius to his
candidacy was on these grounds. However, Keaveney cites no evidence
for this beyond the passage from the ad Herennium already noted, which
certainly says nothing of the kind. On the other hand, Lintott (p. 453)
offers the theory that what Sulpicius was proposing was not a recall of the
Varian exiles, but was rather a return of the Saturninian exiles; perhaps
this was to show his new colors, since Sulpicius had first made a name for
himself attempting to prosecute Norbanus, a colleague and almost
certainly a close associate of Saturninus (Mitchell, p. 197–198; Badian
1964, p. 35–36). However, since the primary sources do not specify either
group as beneficiaries, perhaps both were meant; see above.
hand, they may just as well have been intended to promote the
Senatorial position, and it could be that they were first constructed
while Suplicius and the Senate got along.
If, then, these laws which are so often read to signify a
vindictiveness engendered by a falling out with the nobiles actually
predates that separation, then perhaps Sulpicius believed he would
garner Senatorial support for them. In this way, he may have
behaved just as Drusus had done and put forward measures which
had an initial sting but which ultimately were intended to have
helpful results for the boni. Such may also have been the case for a
third law, involving the tribal distributions of the Allies.35 As was
seen in the last chapter, both the lex Julia and that unknown law (or
laws) by which citizenship was given to those Allies not included in
the lex Julia all seem to have included the same limitation on Allied
voting, which is that all the novi cives would be relegated into new
tribes which would vote last in the comitia tributa. It has been
suggested in the previous chapter that at first the lex Julia had not
specified how many tribes there were to be, and that it therefore
allowed for the misapprehension that the new tribes would be
created in numbers similar to the old ones and that something like
equality would be effected thereby. This misapprehension may
possibly account for the lack of the protest at these restrictions, a
remonstration which might well have been expected from Allies
had they been aware that they were being cheated. Since the lex
Julia had been designed in order to keep some of these Allies loyal
or to prevent their resumption of an earlier disloyalty, the Senate
would not wish to drive to anger, and thus led them astray by the
false hope of more complete voting rights. Only later would it be
revealed that the tribes would actually be very few in number,
35 Sources for this law include Appian (1.7.55) and the Periochae (77).
The latter suggests that freedmen, too, were also to be distributed in the
same way as the new citizens. Thus Asconius seems to confirm, taking
note of a law passed by Manilius twenty-three years later which also dealt
with freedmen voting and mentioning the law of Sulpicius in the same
context. Plutarch (Sull. 8) also makes a reference to this law and to the
others just described, which he mischaracterizes in a most uncharitable
way that is almost certainly derived from the way they appeared in the
Memoirs of Sulla, which the biographer uses as a source.
certainly far less than the original thirty-five, and the votes cast in
them potentially worthless in terms of being able to elect junior
magistracies and pass laws. Such a weakness of voting had almost
certainly been the design of the Senate from the very beginning as a
way to reconcile themselves to the mass enfranchisement, a fact
which at first they wished to keep hidden from the first groups of
novi cives.
There can be little doubt that the men made citizens by the lex
Julia were furious upon the discovery of this duplicity. As for as the
former Allies who would later be made citizens in 88 and after,
they probably disliked the situation no less, but since they had
accepted the citizenship as an alternative to continuing a war they
were losing and had probably known what the terms would be
from the outset, they may not have been as vocal. There was, in
short, almost certainly a great deal of discontent amongst Rome’s
newest citizens, and it might not have been difficult for a
thoughtful Roman to predict that in that displeasure lay the seeds
for great future mischief should an unscrupulous sort of person
come along. Should some popularis tribune emerge someday and
promise the former socii to win enhanced rights for them, he could
potentially mobilize a large following for whatever end he wished.
Worse still, should such a demagogue be able to make good on his
promise, he could then potentially make use their gratitude and
apply it to all sorts of unpleasant ends for the Senate.
Sulpicius may himself have been that very sort of man, or may
have recently become that sort of man, having been blown by the
popularis breeze far far indeed from his earlier pro-aristocratic
sympathies. Alternatively, prehaps he was still a would-be
propugnator Senatus, but may have came to the conclusion that, if a
strong optimate partisan carried a law of this kind instead of a
popularis, then the favor of the novi could be harnassed on behalf of
the Senate instead of against it. Such an accumulation of power in
one man’s hands would of course be dangerous, but it might well
be preferred to have that dangerous accretion be in the right hands
rather than in the wrong ones. Should he be trustworthy, an
optimate who proposed and carried the law could use the resulting
favor with the novi to get them to support optimate candidates,
withhold that support from optimate enemies, and approve
optimate-sponsored laws, building over time a following which
would make the rule of the Senate ever stronger.
Thus, there is the possibility that all of his laws may have
dated to a period before his strife with the Senate and may have
been designed to further the aims of the boni. Some additional
support for this conclusion may also be found in the nature of the
laws themselves. On the one hand, it has been shown that the
provisions of such laws, if examined from a certain point of view,
may be seen as inclined to favor the Senatorial party. However,
they also appear to lack any aspects which would be especially
attractive to the populace at large, as there was nothing really in
them for the general public.36 The personal finances of Senators
and the recall of exiles may have been a matter of only marginal
interest to the urban or agrarian working class, and if they did in
fact care anything at all about tribal redistribution for the former
Allies (and for freedmen, who also seem to have been included),37
they might very well have looked upon the idea with disapproval
based on residual ill-will from the Allied War which, it should be
observed, had not yet died down completely. Given these facts, it
may be wondered how Sulpicius hoped to pass them in the face of
a disinterested populus. Obviously the support Sulpicius could
expect to gather from the former Allies and freedmen after the law
was carried would be immense, but during the law’s promulgation
they would have been unable to be of much help to him due to the
very impotence of their voting which his law attempted to remedy.
Admittedly, if there was no salient reason for why the people
at large would support these bills, it may also very well have been
that there would be no strenuous outcry against them, either. Even
if there was, it seems that Sulpicius was discovering rather forceful
ways to overcome opposition. Nevertheless, ceteris paribus Sulpicius
could only expect the odds to be even as to whether the people
would approve his measures or reject them without some powerful
persuasion as to why they should do one or the other. The Senate
36 For the necessity of attracting popular support to pass laws in the

face of opposition, see Mouritsen 2001, chapter 4 and especially p. 80–88.
37 For the inclusion of the freedmen in this bill see the Periocha of
Livy’s Book 77; an allusion to this may also be found in Plutarch (Sulla 8),
where Sulpicius is presented as offering various rights to freedmen and
slaves for sale.
could furnish such persuasion to support the laws, so it might have

been that Sulpicius, like Tiberius Gracchus and Drusus before him,
presented his laws to that body in the hope that he would thereby
gain its endorsement. If he did so, their reaction must have been
one of horror and disgust, leaving Sulpicius without assistance
amongst his one-time factio and, it may be speculated, thoroughly
disillusioned. If he then continued to harbor any hopes of pushing
through his legislative agenda, as it certainly appears that he still
did, he would have to find a way not only to convince the people
to vote for his laws, but he now had to do so over the objections of
the Senate, which would now be ranged against him.
Such, at least, is a hypothesis about the timing of the laws of
Sulpicius and their relation to his controversy with the patres; it is
nothing more than that, of course, but it does not seem impossible
that Sulpicius could have framed his laws before the split. Whether
his laws were divised before or after he had drifted too far from the
optima causa, however, the result would have been the same: just as
before, Sulpicius would need to find some way to vouchsafe
approval for his laws, and he would now have find it in the face of
strenuous Senatorial displeasure. This need not necessarily have
come from the urban plebs; the mercantile class could provide
sufficient numbers to pass the law, and could probably do it more
effectively that the urban plebs.38 But to enlist their aid the tribune
would need to have something with which it could be purchased,
since it can be doubted that their reaction to his proposals would
have been substantially different than that of rest of the citizen
body. The merchants they may have been more enthusiastic about
the recall of exiles, or less so about the debt law, but it seems
doubtful that they would have exerted themselves against the
Senate based solely on the contents of the legislation in and of
itself. Indeed, by his association with the cause of Drusus, Sulpicius
38 Indeed, Mouritsen (2001, p. 43–45; 78–80) suggests that it was

primarily this class who did most of the voting unless the people at large
had a good reason for appearing at the comitia; this conclusion is disputed
somewhat but not completely refuted by Morstein-Marx (p. 41–42),
whose objections still allow for the assertion that, all things being equal, it
was the well-to-do who passed most of the laws unless the larger urban
populace had an especial stake in the legislative issue in question.
may very well have earned the dislike of the business interests,
which he might well have reciprocated. If the businessmen were
ever to grant their aid to Sulpicius, they would likely require some
convincing. Sulpicius would probably have very much liked to have
the help of a person with influence amongst the mercantile class,
by means of whom its favor could be won so that the laws he
would propose could be carried by means of their votes.
Conditions, therefore, ably suited the creation of an alliance
between two men who each had something to offer each other.
Marius, for his part, wielded the necessary influence with the
businessmen and was certainly on the outs with the Senate. If he
brought over the former (along whatever voting strength his
veterans could present), then with that aid Sulpicius could quite
probably steer his laws to enactment. The laws themselves were
probably not hateful to the general anyway: very likely the exiles
had included some of his former supporters, his wealth would have
made the debt provision irrelevant, and he seemed to have retained
a friendly demeanor—if not a burning zeal—for the Italians.
Nevertheless, that the laws were unobjectionable to Marius did not
mean that there was anything in them which would cause him to
put in the effort to mobilize the mercantile class to secure their
passage. To obtain this effort, Marius would require additional
payment in the form of the Mithridatic command as proconsul
(and it might very well have been with this that he persuaded the
negotiatores to do their part; see above). This could easily be obtained
through a plebiscitum, about the proposal of which Sulpicius, for his
part, might not have had all that many reservations.
Of course, such a plebiscitum would, if carried, mean that the
man who had currently named for the Asian expedition would have
to be disappointed. That would-be proconsul, however, was L.
Cornelius Sulla, and it is unlikely that the new partners cared a whit
for his discomfiture: his status as new darling of the Senate would
have little endeared him to either man, of one of whom he was
already a dire inimicus. Above and beyond Sulla, however, they
could expect additional stubborn resistance from the Senate and,
perhaps, from fellow tribunes (although as events would turn out,
resistance from the latter did not actually come; see below); what is
more, that resistance could very well be violent, as has been seen in
the case with Caesar Vopiscus. While Sulpicius appeared to know
how to handle himself in that regard, both men would have wanted
to take care that an inconvenient shoemaker’s knife stay out of the

side of the tribune, or that a broken table leg stay far away from his
head. Therefore, as Marius and Sulpicus made their compact, both
probably took precautions to see to the safety of the latter, and
soon a body of young men from the well-to-do took to hanging
around Sulpicius to whom he may well have given the sardonic
nickname of “Anti-Senate”.39
Marius and Sulpicius, then, found each other useful for their
own particular aims, and soon the partnership was struck. It may
very well also have been that the two men kept their accord a secret
as they put their plan into motion, which was probably sometime
around the middle of spring;40 Marius continued his daily exercises
with the recruits on the Campus Martius, apparently drawing the
amused pity of the “better part” (τοῖς ελτίστοις) of the crowd who
occasionally watched (Plutarch, Mar. 34). These aristocratic
onlookers at least in the early part of the year may have included
such optimates as the consuls of 88, Q. Pompeius Rufus and
L. Cornelius Sulla. The latter, as has been seen, has already played a
fairly sizeable role in the quest of the Allies for the civitas, and he
would soon play an even larger one, due in no small part to the
enmity he shared with Marius to which allusions have been made
earlier. Just as was the case with Marius, a brief look at the career of
Sulla up to this point may be in order, as an examination of his past
does much to explain his position in 89 and the attitude he would
take subsequently. His life, too, has also been described in greater
detail elsewhere,41 so this final digression will, again, need not be
lengthy: it will suffice merely to glance at those aspects which
explain his relationship with the nobiles, with the man who designed
39 Alluded to in the context of what is to follow in Appian 1.7.56;
named and probably distorted by Plutarch in his Marius 35 and even more
grossly distorted in Sulla 8, where Marius and Sulpicius are alleged to have
operated beside these a stable of almost a legion’s worth of blades whom
Sulpicius is claimed to have kept in the city.
40 Lintott suggests as much about the secrecy (p. 449–453); the timing
is provided by Luce 1970, p. 193–194.

41 See Badian (1970, p. 4–13), Keaveney (1982, p. 1–55), and Christ
(2002, p. 54–77) for Sulla’s early personal and political life; for his role in
the Allied War see previous two chapters.
to replace him in Asia, and with the Italians against whom he had
already found himself contending.
3. THE SPECTACULAR RISE OF L. CORNELIUS SULLA

Lucius Cornelius Sulla was born to a branch of the patrician gens
Cornelia which had perhaps achieved its greatest heights in the
person of P. Cornelius Rufinus, who had been consul twice (in 290
and 277) and Dictator. In the former capacity capacity Rufinus had
served on campaigns against the Samnites, had helped bring about
the conclusion of the Third Samnite War, and had celebrated a
triumph; however, during the “Fourth” Samnite War he had been
involved in a defeat at the Cranite Mountains. At least one scholar
suggests that this defeat helped bring about an end to the
popularity of Rufinus, a disfavor that his enemy C. Fabricius was
able to exploit by engineering against him a charge of possessing
too much silver plate in 275.42 This was probably an infraction—
like that of holding too much ager publicus—of which most Senators
were guilty, but it carried with it the penalty of expulsion from the
Senate, and to this punishment Rufinus was duly consigned. The
many, many sources which attest to this occurrence43 lend the
impression that the story was probably extremely common, and if
this were so, it must have been that Sulla himself was very familiar
with the exploits of his ancestor—twice consul, Dictator, and
implacable foe of the Samnites—and the circumstances which
ended his career. He would also have known of the consequences,
which is that the expulsion of Rufinus had sent the family was in
something of a political decline ever after: for the next two
centuries this line of the Cornelii, who became Sullae in the
generation after Rufinus,44 would boast of praetors but no consuls.
In the case of L. Cornelius Sulla, that political decline was
accompanied by financial decline as well: it appears that the
42 Salmon 1967, p. 282–285, 383

43 Merely a few would include Dionysius of Halicarnassus 20.13.1–3,
Per. 14, Gellius 4.8.7, Valerius Maximus 2.9.4, Plutarch Sulla 1, Florus
1.3.22, and Pliny NH 33.50.142 and 33.54.153, thought this last does not
refer to Rufinus by name.
44 Keaveney 1982, p. 6–7.
allegedly vast fortune of Rufinus had dwindled away, and on the

death of his father, Sulla himself—who had been left nothing by
way of an inheritance, in all likelihood because his father had had
nothing to leave—was quite destitute indeed. For a while in his
youth Sulla lived in the poorer section of Rome, decidedly not a
part of the aristocratic milieu to which his patrician lineage and
distinguished ancestry might have entitled him but for lack of
funds. His poverty had made a political career impossible,45 and
therefore he seems to have spent his days in the company of actors,
courtesans, and other merry-makes throughout the course of his
twenties. In this condition he lived the life of a voluptuary who was
likely either despised, pitied, or ignored by the nobilitas, with the
possible exception of the Julii; the name Plutarch gives to Sulla’s
first wife—Ἰλία—may in fact be read as Julia (Sull. 6),46 and that
family did have a habit of marrying its women to men who looked
like bizarre matches (men such as Marius, who also famously
married a Julia).
Such a marriage to an ancient if recently eclipsed family may
have brought some luster to Sulla’s name, if indeed it occurred, but
but that borrowed majesty would not have been enough to bring
him to complete respectability on its own. Certainly that marriage
did not seem to have curtailed his profligate ways, as Plutarch
reports that he enjoyed the company of many lovers, among whom
was an older, wealthy lady of the world called Nicopolis.47 In a
45 Sulla seems to have been too poor to merit equestrian rating, and
since infantry duty would probably not even have been considered an
option for a Patrician, he seems to have not done the compulsory service
required of all who would run for magistracies; Sallust, BJ 95.
46 Keaveney 1982, p. 9–10 (Christ mentions that Julia might have been
her name but offers no comment on it; 2002, p. 199). As it is known from
Plutarch that this first wife bore Sulla a daughter (Sull. 6), and that this
daughter was almost certainly the one who married the son of the
Pompeius Rufus (Appian 1.7.56), and that Plutarch also refers to Sulla as
having been fairly young when the match was made, it seems probable
that this first wife of Sulla married him before his change in fortunes
which are to follow; more later.
47 That this affair occurred when Sulla was married to “Ilia” can be
inferred by the fact that Plutarch refers to the marriage as taking place
sense, however, this affair also helped to propel him out of

debauched obscurity: Nicopolis seems to have died, according to
the chronology of Plutarch, sometime before 107, and when she
did she left her property to Sulla. At about this time his father’s
second wife also died, and likewise left her property to him. Sulla
was now a man of means, and his new financial windfall left him
sufficient census ratings to run for public office. This he seems to
have done, possibly being permitted to do so because of a loophole
in the law which allowed men of suitable property who had
reached thirty years of age to hold a magistracy without having had
military experience.48 He was soon elected quaestor for the year
107, possibly with the help of the Julii.
As luck would have it—and quite literally luck, in the form of
random sortition49—this office led to Sulla’s introduction to the
man perhaps most responsible to his spectacular rise to fame, C.
Marius. Sulla was chosen to serve under Marius in the Jugurthine
War of which the latter had just been given oversight, and there
can be little doubt that at first the commander was not terribly
pleased with his new officer. Here was, by all appearances, an
indolent libertine who had not done a day’s worth of fighting in his
life, a degenerate aristocrat who had spent his youth in tavens and
when Sulla was still a youth (μειράκιον ὢν; Sull. 7), the same stage of life in
which the biographer says he fell in with Nicopolis (ὥστε νέον μὲν ὄντα καὶ
ἄδοξον; Sull. 2)
48 So theorized by Keaveney (1982, p. 12), possibly drawing on the
fact that when Sulla fixed the ages of the magistracies on the cursus as
Dictator (see chapter 9), he set the minimum age to obtain the questorate
at thirty years (ibid., p. 173–174). As to Sulla’s age, the fact that Plutarch
refers to him as having been fifty years old when he became consul
(Sull. 6; Velleius Paterculus reports that he was 49 when he was elected;
2.17), made him over thirty in 108, when he first attempted to become
quaestor (Sull. 3).
49 Badian (1970, p. 7) mentions that quaestors were usually chosen by
lot in this period, although he believes that it was possible that Marius
picked Sulla on his own; based on what Valerius Maximus states (see
above) this latter is most improbable. Keaveney (loc. cit.) is more firm in
his belief that Sulla was assigned to Marius through lot, and is probably
correct in this assumption.
brothers while Marius had spent his own in the tent, a reprobate
who had become accustomed to being slapped on the back by
actors and prostitutes now sent to the staff of a general whose own
shoulder had once been clasped by the great Scipio Aemilianus.
Sulla would seem to be the very epitome of the sort of person
against whom Marius had made his passionate campaign speeches,
and Valerius Maximus records his initial disappointment at Sulla
(2.9.6). However, the fact that Marius immediately gave him the
important task of raising cavalry suggests that that this mistrust was
soon overcome; it may have been that the Julii had interceded for
Sulla, or it might have fallen out that, as one scholar has suggested,
“Marius—a snob like all new men—had a soft spot for
Patricians”.50 Perhaps, however, Marius simply became impressed
by Sulla’s abilities and may have even had some sympathy for his
plight. Marius, after all, had been given the chance to make up for
the lack of a famous name by using his abilities to make his name
famous. It would only be fair to give Sulla the same break. Besides,
if the anecdote about Rufinus had been as commonplace as it
seems it was, then Marius might well have known almost as much
about Sulla’s lineage as much as Sulla himself had, and might have
counted on the fact that Sulla would go to any lengths to restore
his family’s glory. Such enthusiasm might be of no slight utility in
the coming campaign.
Marius seemed to have an eye for men whom the optimates
scorned but who might still be useful, and here was his greatest
investment. Sulla apparently found soldiering agreeable—like
Achilles in the Greek classics for which his passion was well
known, Sulla resolved that no one excel him as a speaker of words
or a doer of deeds (tantum modo neque consilio neque manu priorem alium
pati, plerosque altevenire; Sallust 96; compare the Iliad 9.443)—and by
means of his soldiering found himself in turn agreeable to Marius,
who assigned to him greater and greater responsibilities. Indeed, it
was by means of one of these that Sulla first achieved fame:
Bocchus, the king of Mauretania with whom Jugurtha had taken
refuge, soon decided to betray his suppliant, and it was to Sulla—
sent by Marius for this precise purpose—that Jugurtha was
50 Keaveney 1982, p. 14; Badian 1970, p. 7.

surrendered to end the war.51 Marius was therefore probably very

aware of Sulla’s value, and, what is more important, Sulla himself
was aware of it as well: back in Rome he advertised his role in the
war frequently in speech and, indeed, by a signet ring depicting
Jugurtha’s surrender (Plutarch, Mar. 10, Sull. 3). Plutarch reports
that Marius was rather annoyed by this braggadocio, but apparently
not enough to disdain Sulla’s services in the Germanic campaigns
to which, by the will of the people, Marius had been dispatched as
marshal by means of being elected a consul for a second time. Nor
did Sulla decline the appointment, serving Marius first as a legatus
and then, in the next year, as a military tribune, in which capacity
continuing to be helpful as Marius spent these two years mostly in
maneuver in northern Italy, waiting for the Gauls to arrive.
It has usually been asserted that during these two years the
enmity between Marius and Sulla that had begun with the affair of
the signet ring started to become acute. Plutarch, obviously
drawing from Sulla’s autobiography, suggests that Marius became
so jealous of his subordinate’s successes that he stopped giving
Sulla assignments, leading to the latter’s transfer to the command
of Catulus, the other consular general sent to fight the Germans.52
51 For sources see Keaveney 1982, p. 26–27, notes 40–47.

52 Spann, for example, goes further and suggests that Marius pointedly
stopped giving Sulla anything to do but gave assignments to Sertorius
instead (p. 24–25), which would have been made doubly annoying to Sulla
because Sertorius was a “new man” (the theme of Sertorius being blocked
throughout his career on account of his novitas is a motive running
throughout Spann’s biography). If this was the case, however, Spann does
not pick the best possible illustration for it: after all, what Sertorius ended
up doing in the Cimbric/Teutonic wars amounted to espionage based on
his apparent ability to dress like a Gaul and speak some of the language.
Employment of Sertorius on such a mission seems less like a purposeful
desire to slight Sulla then simple use of the means available; assuming
Sulla did not also know the Gallic tongue, then Sertorius would be
preferred for this duty because he would have had the knowledge to do
what was required. As will be seen later, Sertorius and Sulla do seem to
have become enemies, and their enmity may well have dated to this
period, but it is difficult to see how Sertorius could be blamed for a lack
of missions for Sulla, as the mission he took was one for which Sulla was
linguistically ineligible.
Sulla would, of course, be much concerned later on with

highlighting anything resembling pettiness or mean-spiritedness on
the part of his former commander, and as a result it is highly likely
that this episode as reported by Plutarch has become extensively
misconstrued. There is possibly a germ of truth in that Marius and
Sulla may have begun to become annoyed with each other over
Sulla’s seeing less action, but it is likely that this inaction was less
the result of plum assignments being kept from Sulla and more
because there were none to be had: Marius spent much of the first
two years of the Teutonic and Cimbric wars training his men while
the enemy had not yet come, and thus the chances for significant
engagement were almost nil. This would probably have worn upon
Sulla, who (as the last chapter has shown) tended to be fairly
energetic by nature and who needed continued action to build a
name for himself for subsequent offices. In his boredom he
probably grew to annoy Marius, but that may have played a less
substantial part in the transfer to Catulus than the fact that in 102 a
change in circumstance had arrived, in that the invaders seemed to
have been on the verge of returning. Knowing Sulla’s sanguinary
disposition (and probably also aware of the lack of military gifts on
the part of Catulus, who seems to have been elected consul in 102
with the help of Marius), and knowing perhaps still further that in
the coming year he himself would probably on occasion continue
resort to prolonged inactivity of the kind Sulla seems to have come
to detest,53 Marius consented to send Sulla to Catulus and thus to
bring about the best possible outcome for all concerned. Success
for Sulla and Catulus was not immediate—while Marius destroyed
the Teutones at the battles of Aquae Sextiae, Catulus had been
unable to prevent Cimbric crossing of the Alps at the Tridentine
53 See, for example, the circumstances surrounding the first battle of
Aquae Sextiae in Florus (1.38), Plutarch (Mar. 18; Moralia 203), and
Orosius (5.16.9–13): Marius encamped in the vicinity of the enemy in a
strong site but one lacking in water, to obtain which his men became so
keen that it added in their valor when they finally engaged with the enemy.
Frontinus (2.7.12) suggests that this was not done purposefully by Marius
but by oversight (Florus also raises this as a possibility), but the testimony
of Plutarch is clear in its assertion that Marius chose the site on purpose
and precisely because of its lack of water.
Pass, and then later suffered another reverse at the hands of the
Cimbri at the river Adige54—but eventually it came and came in
grand fashion: after being elected consul a fifth time and providing
encouragement to Catulus (who may have only been prorogued
through the influence of the newly-elected consul), Marius, Catulus,
and Sulla combined for a huge victory at Vercellae.
It can hardly be argued that Marius had been anything but
overwhelmingly generous both to Catulus and to Sulla. To Catulus
he gave the consulate after three repulsae, may have defended him in
the Senate against loss of command based on incompetence after
the Tridentine Pass, and ultimately shared the glory of the defeat of
the Cimbri. Moreover, he eschewed a well-deserved triumph for his
victories at Aquae Sextiae and took special pains to make sure that
Catulus took part in his equally well-deserved triumph for
Vercellae, which went above and beyond the call of courtesy no
matter how much Catulus may have contributed to the latter
victory. To Sulla, he had opened the path to military glory in
Africa, had kept him on it in the north, and had approved the
transfer so that he might have the most possible chances for
victories by which he could make a name for himself. For that
reason, the enmity which seems to have emerged between these
two men and Marius must have been received with great bitterness:
Catulus, it seems, had first tried to claim the lion’s share of the
credit for the war (perhaps he was feeling touchy about his own
failures in it and was attempting to rewrite history in a light more
favorable to himself), and then later openly sided against Marius
during the various conflicts of the 90s, a tergiversation which
54 Plutarch Mar. 15, 23, Moralia 202; Per. 68; Florus 1.38; Ampelius 22,
Frontinus 1.5.13 (for a disgraced officer after the first of these defeats see
Frontinus 4.1.13, Valerius Maximus 5.8.4, Ampelius 19). Conspicuously
lacking mention of these disasters is Plutarch’s Sulla, from the reading of
which it is possible to derive the idea that Sulla put down the Alpine tribes
while preventing Marius from starving; this might very well have been
what Sulla wished to have remembered of the war, which thus deprives
not only Marius of credit but also deprives Catulus of it, as well (the
latter’s gallantry after the second retreat of his soldiers at the Adige is
mentioned by Plutarch in his other works, for example, but not in the
Sulla).
would later end tragically.55 Sulla, for his part, apparently also tried
to bolster his gloria at the expense of Marius: it is to be observed
that an anecdote in which Catulus had ordered Sulla to gather
supplies for his army before Vercellae, resulting in enough food to
feed his own soldiers and those of Marius, is found only in
Plutarch’s Sulla, which drew heavily from its subject’s
autobiography.56 In this effort to steal some of his old general’s
thunder, success seems to have eluded Sulla, as the tales of his
exploits were apparently insufficient to secure Sulla’s election to the
praetorate, something he later tried to fob off by noting that his
bribe to the people had been insufficient.
As far as Marius was concerned, the six-time consul probably
would have understood Sulla’s motives to gain as much glory as
possible for the purpose of winning the election, but there was a
limit in how much he could take. Indeed, if Sulla’s maneuvers were
transpiring while Catulus was also busily attempting to diminish his
one-time colleague’s fama, then it may well have been that Marius
was even less inclined towards sympathy for Sulla than he had been
after the Jugurthine War. A split may well have begun at this time,
if it had not existed earlier; if it had, it might have become
irreparably exacerbated. Perhaps Sulla’s wives may also have played
a role: Plutarch records that before Metella, whom he married in 89
(more below), Sulla had married three times, including Metella’s
immediate predecessor Cloelia, whom he divorced for barrenness
(amicably, according to one source consulted by Plutarch; less so,
as hinted by another; Sull. 6). Before her, there was one Aelia, and
the aforementioned “Ilia”. What the fate of his first wife was is not
known, nor when Sulla married the second; perhaps the first wife
had died, or perhaps Sulla had divorced her. If that woman had
been a Julia, it might be that it was after the Cimbric Wars that she
and Sulla parted, either by death or divorce; if the latter, it may
55 So Badian (1964, p. 38–39, 51), who suggests that the enmity may
have been fully exposed during the affair of Saturninus.
56 Keaveney (1982, p. 33–34) seems ready to believe this story whole
and entire; Epstein (p. 50), following Badian (1970, p. 9) is less so,
believing that the story had its origins in Sulla. The people of Rome were
either unconvinced by the claims of Catulus and Sulla or unmoved by
them, as will be seen below.
have been acrimonious, as Plutarch hints (Sull. 2) and Sallust

directly states (BJ 95) that Sulla was not the best possible husband.
Their separation—for whatever the reason—may explain a curious
exchange reported in Plutarch: when angered by C. Julius Caesar
Strabo Vopiscus for some reason after Sulla had finally obtained
the praetorate, the latter apparently threatened to direct against
Caesar the power of his office. Caesar’s retort—Sulla was indeed
entitled to call it “his” office, as he had purchased it fair and
square—suggests a hostility between the two men that may have
arisen after Sulla had ceased to be married to Julia, if indeed he ever
had been. Such a distance from the Julii may have also had
repercussions on Sulla’s relationship with Marius, who was
certainly related to the Julii by marriage (as has been seen); it would
not be the only time that the end of a marriage to a Julia would
help put distance between two prominent Romans.
Either, Sulla and Marius seem to have had a falling out which
definitely dated to the early 90s, if not earlier than that. As was the
case with most enmities, the inimicitia that emerged between the
two found expressions in all sorts of ways, one of which was the
courts. After his return from his propraetorian commission to
Cilicia, Sulla—who had apparently done very well there—must
have considered himself ready to run for the consulate. He was
halted, however, by a prosecution for repetundae brought against
him by one C. Marcius Censorinus (Plutarch, Sull. 5). According to
Cicero, Censorinus apparently detested all matters forensic (Brut.
237), and indeed does not seem to have pursued this indictment
with any vigor; Plutarch reports that he did not even attend the
trial, and the affair was promptly dropped. However, it may very
well never have been intended to succeed, but rather to blacken
Sulla’s name just before his run for the higher office; given that
Sulla had at one point been very poor, that he was once a notorious
pleasure-seeker, and his ancestor’s reputation, it did not perhaps
take a great deal of effort to spoil whatever fame he had acquired in
the east through such an accusation of extortion. Given that
Censorinus was later a partisan of the side of Marius in the
conflicts to come, it might very well be that he was acting on the

latter’s behalf in this instance, as well.57
This action seems to have kept the consulate out of Sulla’s
hands for the rest of the 90s, and if Censorinus had in fact been
doing the bidding of Marius, then doubtless Sulla welcomed the
opportunity take some revenge and embarrass his former superior
which came to him in 91. In this year, Bocchus of Mauretenia—the
man who years before hand handed over Jugurtha to Sulla—now
decided to install statues showing that event on the Capitoline, and
in these sculptures Marius, apparently, was nowhere to be seen.58
Since Bocchus had to have obtained the Senate’s permission to
have put these sculptures on the Capitoline, the fact that he was
able to do so meant either that the Senate had either embraced
Sulla as a member of their cause, had used the episode as an excuse
to show their own contempt for Marius, or both. Either way,
Marius exploded, and made moves to have the statues torn down.
Open violence threatened to erupt between the supporters of
Marius and the supporters of Sulla when news of Asculum arrived
(Plutarch, Sull. 6; Mar. 32).
By the beginning of the Allied War, then, Sulla had
permanently lost the friendship of Marius but had, perhaps, gained
that of the optimates. As has been seen, in the fighting against the
Allies that would follow, Marius had done well, but Sulla had done
better: after what seems to have been a rocky start in 90, he
recovered to have a brilliant campaign in the following year. As a
reward for his string of victories in the south in 89, Sulla was
elected consul for the next year, a position which in and of itself
suggested Senatorial approval which would be telegraphed all the
more graphically by Sulla’s marriage to Caecilia Metella, a woman
of such breeding that even some of the boni were appalled by the
unequal match (Plutarch, loc. cit.). When the spring of 88 rolled
around, Sulla had a new wife, had restored his family’s nobilitas, and
could look forward to the possibility for an extremely profitable
war which had come to him by lot in the form of his proconsular
57 As argued by Badian (op. cit., p. 10; also 1964, p. 170) and Keaveney
(1982, p. 43–45).
58 Badian 1970, p. 10–12; Keaveney (loc. cit.).
provincial allocation; his opponent would be Mithridates, an enemy

whose mettle he had already tried during his propraetorian service.
Sulla might well have looked down with great satisfaction on his
former commander cavorting in athletic contests with the boys on
the Campus Martius, watching Marius as he compounded his lack
of power by adding the trappings of a clown. Such a man may
seemed to have been little further threat to Sulla, and just as Marius
was said not to have given vent to his annoyance at Sulla’s signet
ring in 105 as beneath his dignity (Plutarch, Sull. 3), with such
contempt Sulla might now have regarded the old man in his
callisthenics on the Plain of Mars.
The year 88 had opned with Sulla firmly ensconced in the
Senatorial élite, in whose upper echelons he had at last won that
place by election and by marriage to which his lineage should have
entitled him. This élite had recently turned its back on Sulpicius and
had never accepted Marius, since the (relatively) humble upbringing
and occasional employment of tribunes towards personal ends by
the latter and the recent political thinking of the former had made
both a bit too revolutionary for the taste of the patres. It is, then,
somewhat ironic that a revolutionary act was indeed coming, but
that the person to instigate it would be he who had just recently
confirmed his thoroughly noble and patrician credentials. It is to
that act, its immediate causes, and its profound consequences upon
not only the older Romans but also upon the Republics newest
citizens, that attention will next be turned.
4. THE LEGES SULPICIAE, SULLA,

AND THE UNTHINKABLE ACT
If, as has been speculated above, Sulla had ceased to think of
Marius as relevant and had even come to regard him as a buffoon
as he engaged in his daily regimen, he should, perhaps, have known
better. At any rate, it seems he ignored Marius and his drills and
apparently returned to Nola, where he presumably continued to
press the siege while making arrangements with the army there for
its eventual departure for the East.59 In the meantime, Sulpicius
began to propose his debt, recall, and tribal laws with the support
59 Velleius 2.18; this is followed by Keaveney 1982, p. 59–60.

of the mercantile class and, it seems, the novi cives. Appian records
that violence erupted as these measures were being promulgated,
with the veteres set against the new citizens and the two turning
sticks and stones on each other (1.6.55);60 possibly the former were
being instigated by C. Caesar Strabo, whose enmity with Sulpicius
and willingness to use force has already been attested and who, like
the majority of the Senate, probably had ample reason to oppose
the latter’s bills. This violence increased as the day of voting on the
plebiscita approached, and according to the abovementioned source,
the consuls—it seems that Sulla had returned to Rome in light of
the events transpiring there—became so concerned by it that they
attempted to diminish it by declaring feriae, holidays during which a
suspension of public business was effected.
Appian’s assertion that crowd control was what motivated the
declaration of the holiday is not impossible to believe, but it seems
odd that this would have been the method chosen by the
magistrates to defuse the situation in the face of urban tension.
After all, while the postponement of voting might have gratified
that segment of the population opposed to the enactment of the
leges Sulpiciae at any cost, it would hardly have calmed the supporters
of the laws. Rather, it would likely have made them more
exasperated, and therefore potentially more violent, than ever. Of
course, another reason for the feriae may perhaps be at hand: it may
very have been be that the laws stood an excellent chance of
passing, the opposition of the prisci notwithstanding. It is significant
that no tribunes are recorded as having stepped in to intervene
against Sulpicius up to this point. Of course, if—as Plutarch
alleges—Sulpicius had surrounded himself with a corps of hired
cutthroats, then the absence of hostile tribunes might be explained
as their prudent desire to avoid being brutally murdered.
Nevertheless, the consuls seemed to have suffered from no such
terror which impeded their own intervention, and their persons
were not sacrosanct as those of tribunes were, nor—it is to be
conjectured—would their lictors have been of much use against an
60 It is, perhaps, noteworthy that “swords” are not mentioned by
Appian in spite of the legion Sulpicius is alleged to have in his employ by

Plutarch, a charge believed by Keaveney (1982, p. 58–59).
angry mob if such a mob was being used to intimidate magistrates.

This lack of dread on the part of Pompeius Rufus and Sulla may
have been a testament to their fortitude, but it may very well have
been that it was not in fact violence or the quieting of it which
motivated their objection to the proposals.
If it was not the threat of murder which kept the tribunes
from prohibiting the bills, then it is not beyond the realm of
possibility that the absence of their opposition might be a signal
that the people actually supported the measures.61 If this
assumption was in fact what was actually the case, then Sulla and
Pompeius Rufus probably stepped in to block laws which were
favored by the populace but which were doubtless strenuously
opposed by the Senate, not because of danger to the
Commonwealth, but merely to keep these laws from being enacted.
Perhaps the consuls had the additional hope that whatever former
Italian supporters Sulpicius had collected would go home in the
interim, since the traditional method of depriving tribunes of
partisans from the Italian countryside—expulsion laws—could no
longer be employed. The hooliganism displayed both by those in
favor of the Sulpician laws and those against them simply furnished
Sulla and Rufus, who themselves were almost certainly steadfastly
opposed to the laws, with the excuse to prevent anyone from being
able to express their opinion by means of the vote.
No matter what the actual motives of the consul were, the
result of this action was certain: the voting on the measures was
suspended, and apparently suspended for a period of time which
had no well-defined end. However, from the very beginning of the
tribunate the ancient prerogative—and indeed the duty—of that
office had been to do the will of the people and remove obstacles
placed in the way of the people’s will by the nobiles. This apparently
Sulpicius set out to do, and to this end he apparently sought out
the consuls as they were emerging from a meeting of the Senate at
the temple of Castor, decreed the feriae illegal, and possibly
threatened to have the consuls arrested if they did not declare the
61 For the difficulties faced by tribunes who attempted to veto
legislation which obviously had support of the people, see Morstein-Marx,

p. 124–126.
holiday over (Appian, 1.6.56; Plutarch, Sulla 8, Marius 35). This the
consuls apparently refused to do, and it seems this declaration was
accompanied by some insolence on the part of the son of
Pompeius Rufus (who had incidentally married Sulla’s daughter),
who may have come on the scene with some hoodlums of his own.
While Sulla and Pompeius seem to have withdrawn from the
situation “to seek counsel” (ὡς ουλευσόμενος ὑπεχώρει; Appian, loc.
cit.), Pompeius the Younger still confronted Sulpicius and perhaps
said something unpleasant along the lines of wishing for a Scipio
Nasica. For whatever reason violence soon broke out, and as
Sulpicius was surrounded by his bodyguards who were apparently
armed with daggers, they soon drove off his opponents. The son of
Pompeius was apparently slain in the fighting. With their blood up,
the Sulpicians apparently went in search of the consuls, at which
Pompeius seems to have fled the city but Sulla seems not to have
been able to do so. If this was the case, his situation might have
become a straightened one indeed.
Plutarch’s Sulla represents what happens next as a frightened
Sulla running from Sulpician murderers and desperately choosing
the only port which presented itself in such a storm, which seems
to have been the house of Marius near the forum which the latter
had purchased on his return from the East (Sull. 8; on the house,
Mar. 32).62 That same author’s biography of Marius presents
another possibility based on what Sulla asserts in his own Memoirs,
which is that Sulla sought out the old general to seek his advice on
what Sulpicius was trying to force him to do (Mar. 35). As wildly
improbable as the either account may appear, there might well have
been some truth to them: Sulla, who seems to have departed from
the forum before his son-in-law was killed, probably caught wind
of the slaying soon enough and may have felt that his own life was
in jeopardy. At the very least, he was probably a little disturbed at
this news as he approached the house of his former general. Here,
at least (Sulla may have reasoned), was somewhere where the men
of Sulpicius might not look assuming they were hunting him, and
here might present an opportunity of another kind: if, as is likely,
Sulla did not know of the partnership which Marius and Sulpicius
62 So also Keaveney (1982, p. 60) and Badian (1970, p. 14–15).

had made (one which the two men had deliberately kept secret),
then perhaps Sulla may have thought that he could get Marius to
help put a stop to the tribune by an appeal to his vanity. Towards
that end, the consul might very well have implored the former
savior of Rome to use his influence with the mercantile interests to
get them to cease in their support of Sulpicius, and with both these
and the Senate ranged against the tribune, the domestic tumult
could end before laws which would be devastating to the power of
the upper classes could be enacted. Sulla may have presented to
Marius a last chance for the latter to earn the respect and
admiration of the Senate, and take his proper place as elder
statesman which the optimates had so often denied him.
Of course, this entire exchange is nothing but conjecture,
though there is nothing in it which contradicts either what is said
by the sources or what is known of the character of both men. At
any rate, if Sulla had made such an appeal, an amused Marius may
in turn have stated that he would see what he could do; in the
meantime, he probably would have intimated to Sulla that he had
probably better rescind the feriae, lest some violence be done to
him. Sulla himself may have seen the necessity of withdrawing
them, since the tribune was well within his rights to have Sulla
imprisoned unless he did so. Yet whether he was led to this
conclusion by the interview with Marius or simply had come to it
on his own, it is recorded by both Plutarch and Appian that Sulla
did indeed call an end to the vacation; he may even have done so
from the courtyard of the house of Marius. Having taken this
action, Sulla was apparently allowed to go in peace by Sulpicius,
who would indeed have no real grounds to hold him (although it
may well have been that Marius smuggled him out the back door to
protect him from the supporters of Sulpicius just in case, as one
version reported in Plutarch—Mar. 35—indicates). Having made
good his escape, the consul proceeded to speed himself back to
Nola and the legions he had left still pressing the siege there.63
63 Such a reconstruction essentially agrees with Lintott to the extent
that Sulla did not know that he was to be superseded (p. 449–453);
Keaveney (1982, p. 60–62) has a similar belief, and it seems their
interpretation is more likely than that which claims that Sulla would have
With Pompeius nowhere to be found and Sulla back with his

army, Sulpicius put forward his bills and swiftly had them passed
(Velleius 2.18; Per. 77). Shortly thereafter, Marius and the business
interests received their part of the bargain: Sulpicius proposed that
the Senate’s allocation of provinces to the consuls of 88 be voided,
and that the command of the Mithridatic expedition be reassigned
to Marius.64 This was probably not done without opposition, and it
may very well be that the sort of scuffles which had taken place
earlier continued; it is known from Diodorus that C. Caesar
opposed Marius over the Mithridatic command,65 and may have
lent his oratory and perhaps his goons to the cause. Nevertheless,
there is no cause to believe, as some scholars have,66 that any of
these laws were passed through vis: compulsion had perhaps been
threatened against the consuls to get them to remit their feriae,
which the tribune held to be illegal, but the fracas that erupted after
the confrontation may not have been the plan of Sulpicius and may
even have been opposed by him, since a dead son of a consul
would by no means help him in his aims. It is perhaps noteworthy
made any sort of bargain with Marius to have his life spared, as is implied
by Badian (loc. cit.; followed by Luce 1970, p. 193–194). On the other
hand, even if Sulla did not know of the tie between Marius and Sulpicius,
he might very well have been suspicious that something was amiss where
Marius was concerned. This would explain his rapid departure for Nola,
as per the argument of Keaveney, which is almost certainly the correct
one.
64 Plutarch (Sull. 8) states the Sulpicius also had the consulate of
Pompeius Rufus voided completely; this is believed by Lovano (p. 24) but
is almost certainly not true and is probably either a misreading of his
source, which may have stated merely that Pompeius had his provincia
taken away, not his office. It may also be that either Plutarch or his source
had confused what happened with Pompeius and what would
subsequently happen with Cinna, whose consulate was indeed voided by
Octavius; alternatively, there may have been deliberate distortion
attributable to that source, especially if that source was Sulla’s
autobiography, which is quite possible. A similar hypothesis—id est, that
the province but not the magistracy was taken from Pompeius—may be
found in Keaveney (1982, p. 61).
65 See earlier and Appendix Q.
66 Keaveney, loc. cit.
that neither the Periochae, Appian, Velleius, Orosius, nor even

Plutarch mention that—once the feriae were removed—Sulpicius
gained approval of his legislation through intimidation and force,
something they might well have brought up had there been even a
suspicion of this. In other words, nothing Sulpicius had done had
been indisputably illegal (the altercation over the feriae could be
justified as tribunicial removal of consular obstruction), and
therefore had done nothing for which he could expect drastic
action would be taken in counter. Certainly neither he, nor Marius,
nor anyone in the Senate may have had cause to expect the
sequence of events which were to follow, much less prepare for it.
After his departure from Rome, Sulla made his way back to
Campania and gathered six legions in Capua (presumably at least
one or two were left at Nola under the direction of Mam. Aemilius
Lepidus). It is almost certain that he had suspicions that something
might happen concerning his command, but in the meantime he
seems to have busied himself with preparations for the East as if all
were normal (Plutarch, Sull. 9; Appian, 1.7.57). As this went on,
Sulla very likely he encouraged his men with the prospect of the
easy victory, the ample spoil, and the wide tracts of land that would
soon become theirs after the war was over, as per Appian, who
suggests that the men had been promised as much (loc. cit). As
Sallust notes (BJ 96), Sulla had the unique ability to create a rapport
with the common soldier—very likely many of them had been
brought up in conditions not dissimilar to what he himself had
experienced in his late adolescence and early manhood—and had
used generosity and understanding to great effect in his campaigns
against the Allies in 89 (see last chapter). In fact, he might even
have kept the goings-on in Rome from the men in order to exploit
the shock of what would come next: when messengers arrived to
tell the army of what the Sulpician law had decreed, the surprise of
the legions would probably have been great.
It was at this juncture that Sulla—no stranger to actors and to
the world of the theater, for which he had composed comedies in
his youth67—promptly composed and performed in a dramatic
piece of a different kind, taking upon himself the role of the
67 Athenaeus 6.261c.
maligned victim of injustice. The staging of it took the form of an

address Sulla made to his dumbfounded soldiers, of which Appian
suggests the substance: Marius and Sulpicius had done Sulla a
signal indignity, had taken away a command which had been
rightfully given to him by the Senate, and had even murdered his
son-in-law. All of this was, to an extent, true enough, though
Appian suggests that he went on to play on his soldiers’ fears that a
different army be chosen to conduct the expedition against
Mithridates, something which was probably far from the mind of
Marius at the time, as the evidence will show directly. In spite of all
of this, Sulla continued, the men should continue to follow orders
just as before; Appian claims that Sulla’s unspoken implication—
that the orders they should continue to follow be his own—was
received clearly by the troops. When the military tribunes arrived to
take over command of the legions from Sulla, they were stoned to
death (Plutarch, loc. cit.;68 Sulla’s army had apparently become quite
proficient in this activity, as the affair with Albinus described in the
last chapter indicates).
Why it is that Sulla’s men had done this is not necessarily
clear: the tribunes had come, according to Plutarch, to lead the
army to Marius, so their dread of not being led east—one stirred
up by Sulla—would seem to have been alleviated by the arrival of
the tribunes, not exacerbated by it. However, the behavior of the
soldiers in this instance was probably less motivated by a fear of
missing out on the east and more from an intense loyalty these men
had developed to Sulla himself. This was a man who, after all, had
shown a great respect and appreciation for them and a willingness
to overlook minor infractions as long as success was obtained.
Marius might not be so indulgent, and at the very least he was not
Sulla; having apparently come to the conclusion that that they were
Sulla’s soldiers first and foremost, their general’s enemies became
their own, and they demonstrated as much. Moreover, they may
68 This event is also mentioned in Plutarch’s Marius (35), and
additional information is provided by Valerius Maximus (9.7.mil.1) and

Orosius (5.19.3), which both identify one of the unlucky tribunes as
Gratidius (both also refer to him as a legatus), an adfinis of Marius from
Arpinum.
very well have felt that it was their duty to rescue Rome from what
had been presented to them (by Sulla) as tyrants, a city under the
sway of demagogues abetted by men who just a few months before
had been their deadly enemies but were now to be regarded as
“fellow citizens”, equal to the original citizens in every way.
Whether it be for these reasons, or for others which have not been
recorded, the tribunes were killed. Sulla’s men were now
compromised yet again, and in this state they presented themselves
to their general and bade him to use them to restore his rights and,
by extension, theirs.
It seems that this was exactly the thing for which Sulla had
hoped, and he soon set out to do precisely what the men had
asked. It soon fell out that he would do so without his senior staff,
as all of them resigned their commissions (except the quaestor L.
Lucullus)69 and went back to Rome. These became part of what
was according to Plutarch (Sull. 9) a fairly constant passing of men
which began between Sulla and the metropolis, some of whom
refusing to take part in Sulla’s march and returning to the capital,
others coming from there eagerly looking to join Sulla’s endeavor
(it may well be that Appius Claudius Pulcher—who is soon to be
found overseeing the men at Nola—was one of the latter). The
same source suggests that some of those seeking the consul had
been encouraged from the revenge taken by Marius and Sulpicius
on some of Sulla’s partisans, whose property they plundered (also
Marius 35), although no other ancient author mentions this; quite
probably it was manufactured by Sulla in his Memoirs in the attempt
to justify his exploit. It is not improbable that Plutarch’s report—
almost certainly of similar origin to the anecdote just described—
that the Senate was being held hostage by Marius and Sulpicius was
also part of a determined effort to disguise what was probably far
more likely to have been the situation, which is that that the
Council was appalled by what seemed to be going on. In fact,
Appian indicates that it may have been in disbelief, hence their
sending of envoys to Sulla to ask his intent, even though his intent
must by this point have been plain (1.7.57).
69 So Badian (1980, p. 16) and Keaveney 1982, p. 63.

Given the enormity of what Sulla seems to have been up to,

such a reaction from the patres is perfectly understandable without
the speculated puppeteering of Marius and Sulpicius. The Fathers
may very well have detested the former two, deplored the violence
surrounding the feriae, and loathed the laws that the two men
collaborated to pass; they may even have had deep sympathy for
Sulla because of the deprivation of command, and for Pompeius
for the loss of his son. Nevertheless, what Sulla was now doing was
something far different in magnitude of wrong than anything he
had suffered, and whatever irregularity (if any) may have
surrounded the Sulpician tribunate paled in comparison to the
gross indecency one of Rome’s consuls leading one Rome’s own
armies against Rome itself. Incredulity might well have been the
appropriate emotion under such circumstances, and it seems to
have gripped even Marius: as unorthodox as his career had been, it
seems he had himself never contemplated doing was his former
lieutenant what was attempting, and did not quite know how to
react.
It has been speculated that Sulpicius and Marius were
stunningly naïve not to believe that Sulla would not resort to his
march, trading one illegality for another.70 In response to that
speculation, it is difficult in the first place to assert that what
Sulpicius had done by way of the transfer of command was illegal,
since laws had specifically been passed for that purpose. By
contrast, Sulla had no such laws to authorize his action, nor even
the Senate’s ultimum consultum, but had made his move sua sponte.
Even if it had been, it seems that no illegalitry would have been so
colossal as to allow any loyal Roman to predict what Sulla was in
the process of doing. Marius was not prone to underestimating his
opponents, and had never been slow in moving to counter a blow
that could conceivably have been levied towards him: a soldier of
his caliber would have become accustomed to being able to foresee
any move an enemy might possibly be expected to make. Thus, his
tardiness, which was almost certainly due to being surprised in a
way that was not typically part of his character, suggests that
70 As is intimated by Badian (1970, p. 15–16) and Carney (1970, p. 54–
56) and stated directly by Keaveney (1982, p. 64).

neither he nor anyone else had believed any Roman capable of

what Sulla was now setting into motion. Marius could claim to have
seen practically everything which could confront a soldier over his
long carer, but he never saw this coming; the sources report that
much of the city was thunderstruck by what looked like was about
to happen, and it seems that Marius and Sulpicius could be
included in that number.
Plutarch (Sull. 9) notes that Marius had been in the process of
preparing for his coming expedition when Sulla’s men killed the
tribunes. After shaking off what seems to have been complete
astonishment, the old general then apparently switched gears and
attempted to gather men to defend the city, perhaps including
some of the auxiliaries he had been raising for the east. However,
Sulla had six legions with him, and Marius would not be able to
raise that many men in the time it would take for Sulla to advance
up the Via Appia to Rome. Probably he summoned whatever able-
bodied men he could find in the city itself, and likewise appealed
heartily to the freedmen, on whose behalf the tribal law of Sulpicius
had also been enacted.71 In desparation, he may have even
promised any slaves who would help him their freedom, as
Plutarch and Appian suggest (an appeal to slaves is also mentioned
in Valerius Maximus 8.6.2). The slaves, however, were no fools: by
staying out of the fray they would remain slaves but alive, while
fighting for Marius would mean the possibility of wounds and
death even in victory; in defeat, such men could potentially face
crucifixion. Therefore, it seems most unlikely that very many servi
were raised in this way, and Marius had to make do with the best
he could raise in the time remaining to him.
The Senate, in the meantime, dealt with Sulla by means of
sending out envoys, as mentioned above (Plutarch, loc.cit.; Appian
1.7.57). The first of these deputations was manned by the praetor
M. Junius Brutus and by another praetor identified only as
Servilius,72 and while Appian suggests they merely asked Sulla what
he was doing, Plutarch suggests that they also attempted to forbid
71 For the sources for inclusion of the freedmen in this bill, see earlier
note.
72 Broughton, vol. 2, p. 40–41.
whatever it was that turned out to be. In this their tone was
apparently far more stern than Sulla’s men were prepared to hear.
In reaction to it, these praetors were stripped of their togas, had
their fasces broken, and were savagely beaten by Sulla’s men. They
were then sent back to Rome with a message from Sulla: in
response to their query as to what he was doing, he answered that
he was coming to free Rome of tyranny, presumably that of
Sulpicius and Marius, as well as the exiles, freedmen, and novi cives
aided by their laws. The two additional embassies which are
recorded as having been sent thereafter (Appian, loc.cit.) presumably
did not strike so lofty a tone, but Sulla seemed to have answered
them similarly, if not as brutally. Along the way Sulla seems to have
been met by Pompeius Rufus, whose cooperation with Sulla was
total (so Plutarch and Appian describe in the places cited above).
As he was approaching very close to Rome a final set of
envoys arrived, and to these Sulla promised he would meet with
Marius and Sulpicius on the Campus Martius. As the ambassadors
hastened back to Rome, Sulla continued on, until they returned
with the counter-offer: if Sulla would halt at a distance of forty
stades from Rome, the Senate would review the state of affairs and
find some way of guaranteeing him his rights. This proposal Sulla
made an ostentatious show of accepting, and began to make his
camp in the sight of the envoys, who then hurried back to the city.
They had just gotten out of sight, however, when he dispatched a
legion after them to capture the Esquiline gate, followed by three
others to take the Colline gate, the Pons Sublicius, and the area
outside city walls. Sulla then followed with the rest of his troops.
Upon his arrival he discovered that his men were being pelted by
roof tiles and bricks, to put a stop to which Sulla ordered that their
houses from which these missiles were launched be burned down
with torches and flame-arrows (Plutarch, Sull. 9, Florus 2.9.6;
Appian 1.7.58 states that this was only threatened).
Having thereby set the city on fire but driven off the
defenders, Sulla made his way in. He was soon met by Marius with
those forces he had managed to gather. These engaged Sulla in the
Esquiline Forum, and the two sides battered each other fairly
fiercely for a time; indeed, Sulla’s line was wavering until he
personally took the standard and bolstered their courage. At the
same time, he brought his men from outside the walls to come up
the Via Subura and take the forces of Marius from behind. Having
become exhausted from fighting Sulla’s initial forces, the city’s

makeshift defenders seem to have lacked the strength to deal with
these newcomers. A final repeated appeal to the slaves to help was
met with no response, and at last the defenders were forced to
flee.73
It had been a near-run thing: in spite of overwhelming odds
Marius had come close to beating back what may have been four
legions of Sulla’s ever-victorious army, and had only failed in the
end due to lack of numbers sufficient to handle a fifth which Sulla
brought up on the verge of defeat. Where Marius had gotten his
men is, again, difficult to ascertain. In 88 most of Rome’s available
legions were either in Picenum with Pompeius Strabo, at Nola with
Lepidus, or assaulting the city under Sulla’s own leadership.
Perhaps the soldiers Marius had led consisted in some part of
former Italians from the Allied War.74 If, as has been speculated
above, the preparations Marius had been making for the
Mithridatic command had included raising supplementa, then it may
well have been that some of these were drawn from former Allies,
possibly even the Marsi who had surrendered in early spring (see
previous chapter. These men would have cause to remember
Marius with warmth—throughout 90 he had been an adversary
worthy of admiration—and all knew his skill in battle. Moreover,
an eastern campaign would bring adventure and quite possibly
great rewards in the form of praeda, and while it seems obvious that
Marius intended to draw the main body of his expeditionary force
from Sulla’s legions, he might very well have sought some excellent
soldiers from the Marsi or other former socii who could thus share
73 In addition to the passages in Plutarch and Appian mentioned

above, Sulla’s march is also mentioned in an extremely cursory way in
Plutarch’s Marius (35), and similarly by Velleius (2.19, although he would
be more explicit about the outcome), Eutropius (5.4.2), Florus (2.9.6) and
Orosius (5.19.14); reference is also made to it in Augustine’s de civ. (2.24,
discussing the omens which seemed to surround Sulla as evidece of
demonic activity) and in an extremley confused passage of Exsuperantius
(19, where Murena's takeover of the soldiers of Valerius Flaccus is also
mentioned, although it would actually be several years before this would
occur).
74 As much is speculated by Keaveney 1982, p. 66.
in a war whose benefits would have been tangible. Indeed, if

Marius had thrown his weight behind the tribal reallocation law,
the former Allies might have had and even further cause to regard
him affection.
This, again, is conjecture, but it stands to reason that some of
Rome’s newest citizens might have been attracted to a war against
an opponent far softer than their last had been, under a proven
general, and with the tantalizing prospect of high rewards. If these
men were therefore with him, as Sulla approached Marius would
probably not have had to do much to motivate them, especially
since Sulla’s own interactions with the Allies had not been nearly as
cordial. Fighting, therefore, for the chance to accompany Marius to
the east and to keep the new voting rights which they had won, the
former Allies—if these had indeed been the men employed by
Marius in the Esquiline forum—had acquitted themselves
amazingly well: the soldiers and their commander seemed an
excellent fit. As it was, however, both alike had succumbed to
superior numbers, and both alike had fled, leaving Sulla master of
the city.
If Marius had in fact managed to gather former Allied soldiers
to use in his effort to defend Rome from Sulla’s march, these had
shared the fate of the general in his defeat and, it can be little
doubted, followed his lead in flight from the city. Even if he had
not, Sulla’s victory might very well have portended evil tidings for
the one-time socii. After all, Sulla’s avowed aim was to undo what
Sulpicius had managed to enact, and while the legislation that had
been of primary concern to him had been the law involving the
transfer of the Mithridatic command, Sulla would also almost
certainly had been an opponent of tribal reassignment from the
very beginning. Furthermore, the sources may suggest as much if
Sulla’s reference to the “tyrants” from which the consul vowed to
deliver Rome included the new citizens (Appian 1.7.57), who in
concert with Marius and Sulpicius had—as Sulla may have
presented things—usurped control of the city. Therefore, Sulla’s
assault on the capital must have been welcomed by very few, and it
is impossible to believe that the Italians would have been in that
number. Exactly what would befall them, and everyone else in
Rome, will be described below.
5. SULLA, THE LAWS MADE, UNMADE, AND PROPOSED,

AND THE END OF 88
Once the capital was his, Sulla and Pompeius took some measures
to secure it, and to make sure his occupying legions would be sadfe
from the people, and vice-versa (Appian, 1.7.59). Sulla’s next order
of business was to declare Marius, Sulpicius, the praetor Brutus,
and some other men public enemies; all in all, twelve were so
designated (Appian 1.7.60; Plutarch, Sull. 10; Cicero, In Cat.
3.10.24). As befitting their status, these could be killed with
impunity by any who should happen upon them, but Sulla was to
take no chances with Marius or Sulpicius: the one had a fame
which would make him a standard around which future opponents
might rally as long as he lived, and the other had—inadvertently or
otherwise—killed the son of Pompeius, the husband of Sulla’s
daughter. Therefore, he sent men to find these two and make sure
they ended up dead. Sulpicius was swiftly located and executed, but
Marius and his son proved more elusive; both would find their way
to northern Africa, where some veterans of the father’s had been
settled, and they began to plot their next move.75 Having taken
these measures to dispose of the persons of their enemies, Sulla
and Pompeius next disposed of their laws. All of these which had
been passed after the suspension of the feriae were thereupon
declared invalid, including the tribal reallocation law.
According to Appian (1.7.59), however, the consuls were not
yet done with legislation for 88. As they explained to the populus,
the ultimate cause of the recent unpleasantness had been a tribune
who had proposed disastrous laws against the wishes of the Senate,
and had seen them enacted with the help of lowest sort of people
(or so they alleged) whom they had suborned for this purpose.
Therefore, the consuls first of all proposed that no more laws
could be passed in the comitia tributa, and furthermore that no law
even be proposed which had not first been approved by the Senate.
In this, they were not proposing anything revolutionary, but for a
return to what had once been Rome’s ancient traditions, going
back even to the regal times (ὡς Τύλλιος ασιλεὺς ἔταξε). Additional
75 For sources on the other exiles, the flight of Marius, and the death
of Sulpicius, see Greenidge and Clay, p. 164–165.

measures were also promulgated to diminish the power of the

tribunate, which Appian mentions but does not describe in great
detail; finally, the consuls proposed to adlect 300 men into the
Senate to restore its diminished numbers.
It is difficult to ascertain whether or not these laws were
actually carried in 88. Appian himself (the only source for them) is
unclear on this point, mentioning that the consuls had proposed
these laws (εἰσ γοῦντό), but never explicitly stating they passed.
Instead, the only laws which that authority definitely mentions as
having been brought through by Sulla and Pompeius were those
reversing the legislation of Sulpicius. Certainly in 81 Sulla would
return to Rome and pass edicts which were very similar to these in
practically all respects, and for this reason, some scholars see these
earlier laws (which are mentioned only in Appian) merely as a
doublet for those passed later. Others believed that these laws
described in Appian were passed in 88, but were undone a short
time later.76 As to the latter alternative, on the surface it is hard to
see how Sulla and Pompeius could be able to pass these measures
other than by force, and indeed the fact that Sulla would later have
cause to add 300 more men to the Senate (see chapter 10) seems to
suggest that his scheme to do so seven years earlier had never been
be enacted. Still, it need not be that Appian has made an error of
transposition here; it is instead quite likely that he has recorded
laws which the consuls offered but were possibly never put to the
vote, or were voted upon but rejected. Since Sulla had made
himself despised by this point (as Plutarch attests; Sull. 10) and
since the same voting public subsequently rejected a number of his
candidates for office (more below), they might just as well have
rejected his laws out of hand as well. But whether they were
promulgated and passed but were later overturned, or were
promulgated but rejected, these laws would nevertheless give the
Romans an indication of the sort of Rome which Sulla envisioned
both for old citizens and for new; this indication would play a not
76 Gabba (1976, p. 134–135), Keaveney (1982, p. 67), and Willaimson
(p. 342–343) believe that these laws were both promulgated and carried.
Opposed to their view is Badian (1970, p. 16) and Weinrib (p. 32–43; see
next chapter).
insignificant role in their reaction to his later return after his

eventual trip to the east.
As far as the new citizens went, they very likely found
themselves in an extremely constrained position after Sulla’s march
and his subsequent victory over Marius and Sulpicius. In the first
place, the tribal restrictions which had been imposed upon them
earlier (through the lex Julia and the later unnamed franchise bills;
see chapter 6) were now reinstated, along with which the resulting
limitations on their voting powers. What this would mean first and
foremost is that the new citizens they would have practically no
ability to help determine the outcome on voting on laws in the
comitia tributa, assuming that Sulla and Pompeius had not been
successful and that such lawmaking powers still remained with that
assembly. What it also meant is that they would have practically no
say in the election to junior magistracies, since these were also
elected by the comitia tributa. As a result it would be very difficult
for the novi to elect anyone of their own choosing—and of their
own people—to those offices.
In fact, it might have very well been impossible that they be
able to do so, as Sulla’s proposed adlection bill may indicate. This
law, as has been seen, proposed to add great numbers to the Senate
through its enactment. However, addition to the Senate by
legislation—either consular or tribunician—was not the usual way
by which new Senators were made. Instead, these were typically
drawn from a pool of former officeholders and confirmed in their
status by the censors. It just so happens that there had been new
censors elected in 89, and, as mentioned at the beginning of this
chapter, they are familiar faces: according to a number of
authorities, they were L. Julius Caesar, the consul of 90, and P.
Licinius Crassus, his one-time lieutenant. Curiously, knowledge of
this censorate does not come from those sources which would be
labelled as historical. Instead, testimony for their tenure in office
comes from more indirect authors, such as Cicero (who mentions a
Julius and a Crassus as having been censors in his Pro Archia 11,
though he does not specify a date for this service), Festus (p. 366
L), and Pliny.77 This last not only mentions that both men served
together but also provides the additional illumination as to the
dates for their office, which was at the time when Antiochus of
Asia was subdued in the 565th year from the foundation of the city
(certum est Antiocho Rege Asiaque devictis, urbis anno DLXV, P. Licinium
Crassum L. Iulium caesarem censores; NH 13.5.25; likewise, he
mentions the same date in 14.16.95, where he notes censores anno
urbis conditae DCLXV). Pliny also mentions some of the things
Caesar and Crassus did while in office, including their fixing of
prices for the sale of Greek and Ariminian wine, and their
prohibitions on the sale of ointments. Yet the more expansive
chroniclers of the period, such as Appian, Velleius Paterculus, and
the Periochae, do not mention this service at all.78 While he silence of
the former two are less surprising, as they do not often record the
measures of individual censors, that of the latter may be slightly
more so, since this source has mentioned the deeds of several
censors from earlier periods (cfr. Per. 56, 59, and 63, though these
notices begin to disappear in later summaries following that of
Book 63). Moreover, since their election is fairly irregular in that it
was too early in 89 for censors to have been named at all—the last
two, Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus and L. Licinius Crassus, having
held the post as early as 92—it may be even more puzzling that no
historical account mentions Crassus and Caesar in office. The
preponderance of citation in other authors—especially Cicero, a
contemporary of their tenure—makes it near certain that the
holding of the office Caesar and Crassus did indeed occur and is
not simply an error. For reasons not readily identified, it just so
happens that the historians speak nothing of it.
It therefore seems justified to note that there were censors in
89–88. Since that is the case, Sulla’s adlection law would seem
otiose: why would Sulla frame such a bill rather than let the censors
77 Valerius Maximus 9.2.2 also mentions a Caesar as consularis et

censorius but gives his name as C. Caesar; similarly, Plutarch names the
father of M. Licinius Crassus as a man who had been censor, but says
nothing more about it (Crass. 1).
78 Nor do the less voluminous descendants of Livy, like Florus,
Orosius, and Eutropius.

determine Senatorial membership, as was traditional? An answer to

this question may be found in the attempt to determine why there
were censors in 89 at all, since—as mentioned above—it was not
yet time for them. On the one hand, Ahenobarbus and L. Crassus
had apparently not gotten along in 92 and had abdicated their
posts, almost certainly before their completion of their census and
the lustrum.79 Doubtless this failure of the previous censors to
number the citizens may have played a part in the demand that a
census take place which was earlier than usual.80 What may have
been more urgent, however, was the fact that thousands of new
citizens had been created by the lex Julia and the additional
franchise laws of 89 and 88. These novi cives needed—or, at least,
would want—to be enrolled within the citizen body, since by
means of their registration they would be given a property rating,
allowed to vote in the centuriate assembly, and become able to run
for office.81
Thus, in addition to the reasonable certainty that there were
censors for 89/88, there can be added a plausible reason for why
they were chosen. But if the reason why Crassus and Caesar were
elevated to the post was to make such a registration, they would
prove a disappointment: while they were apparently able to get
around to the lustrum—though under circumstances whereby its
religious correctness was eventually to be invalidated (Festus p. 366
L.)—they did not seem to have gotten around to counting the
citizens, either old or new ones,82 as Cicero’s pro Archias states
(primis Iulio et Crasso nullam populi partem esse censam; loc. cit.).83 Such an
79 So Broughton, vol. 2. p. 17 (which also provides the sources for

their deeds in office).
80 Ibid., p. 37–38 n. 1. This would apparently set a precedent, as well;
within three years after this Censorate, new censors were chosen for the
purpose of numbering the citizens and reviewing the Senate.
81 See Brunt (1971, p. 15–16) and Nicolet (1988, p. 49–72).
82 On this point see Haug, p. 249
83 Cicero’s statement seems to refute the theory of Wiseman (1969, p.
63–64) that no lustrum could have been undertaken without an

enumeration and vice-versa, as well as its consequence, which is that
Crassus and Caesar had conducted a registry but for some reason it had
been vitiated later. In fact, Wiseman makes the rather confusing
inability might go far to explain why no strictly historical work tells

of them: they did not complete the census, so no discussion of
what would amount to a non-census needed to be made. Still, if the
silence of the chroniclers is an effect of this failure, the cause of
that failure is more difficult to ascertain: Cicero gives no reason for
why Caesar and Crassus did not conduct the census, and no other
certain aetiology can readily be discerned. One scholar has made
what seems to be the reasonable assertion that “internal and
external confusions must have prevented them from the practice of
their office”,84 and there were decidedly more than enough of these
between January of 89 and July of 88 amidst the war was still raging
in Italy and the domestic dissensions of Caesar Strabo, Sulpicius,
and Sulla which occupied most of the latter year. It therefore might
very well be that the census could not be completed due to these
disturbances.
On the other hand, perhaps this inability to complete the
enumeration might have sprung from other causes. One possibility
is that the censors refused to conduct the enumeration precisely
because it would seal the rights given to the former Allies by the
enfranchisement laws, rights to which they were opposed. As it
turns out, however, the attitude of the censors towards the Allies is
difficult to discern. One of them, Caesar, had been an active
participant in the war had seen a measure of victories over and
defeats at the hands of the Allies. Furthermore, in his career prior
to his consulate and the war he seems to have been fairly firmly in
the Optimate camp, which was, as has been seen, far from kindly
disposed towards Italian desires. But while these facts seem to
indicate that Caesar would not be terribhly inclined to be generous
towards the former socii, it should also not be forgotten that it was
suggestion—based solely on the Antium Fasti—that there had been an

enumeration in 89, it had been vitiated and replaced by the census in 86,
that this latter was in turn struck down by Sulla in 81 (and the returns of
89 reinstated), and that the numbering of 86 was made valid again after
Sulla’s death. What is more likely than this bewildering sequence of events
is that the census of 89 was never actually completed, and that if the
lustrum was, it was soon declared unlucky, perhaps for the very reason that
no count had been made.
84 Haug, loc. cit.
he who had proposed the lex Julia, which may have indicated a
softening of this stance, or the lack of it in the first place.85 As for
his colleague: Crassus, too, had fought in the war and had not only
been defeated but had even apparently been captured at
Grumentum, he does not seem to have been harmed there (see
pervious chapter). Additionally, Cicero reports that he had once
given the franchise to a citizen of Heraclea, which may imply a
friendliness to the incorporation of the former Allies into the
citizen-body. Therefore, it is not entirely easy to tell where the new
censors stood on the enrollment of the Allies; there is evidence to
suggest that they could have been perfectly disposed to enroll them
with no reservations, and evidence to imply a reluctance to do that
very thing.
Either way, what seems clear is that while the main reason for
censors to be named at all in 89 seems to have been that the new
citizens be registered, this was not done. While the violence of 89
and 88 might have disrupted this registration, it might also have
been that the censors elected not to undertake it due to concerns
about the additions to the citizen body. However, one additional
possibility to explain their failure might also exist: it could have
been that the men deputed to the post might would have been
amenable to suspend the enumeration of the citizen body if the
right persuasion was used on them by those who were interested in
fencing the new citizens out of the centuriate assembly and the
candidate’s rolls. A person who might have been able to bring a
great deal of persuasion to bear in the year 88 would have been L.
Cornelius Sulla, who had recently made himself very persuasive
indeed.
Of course, the fact that Sulla may have had the ability to put
pressure to bear on the censors does not make it certain that he
actually did, nor that he would have even desired to do so.
Nevertheless, a great deal of indirect evidence insinuates that he
might well have had the desire, at least.86 In the first place, Sulla
85 For Caesar’s military exploits, see chapte 5; for the lex Julia, see
chapters 5 and 6, and note L.

86 Keaveney (1982b, p. 499), for example, strongly infers that Sulla had
the traditional Roman aristocratic bias against the Italians at least before
was not entirely known for friendliness to the Allies, and his
conduct in the war would certainly have indicated as much. That
hostility may have manifested itself in an active wish to curtail their
citizenship rights, and to do so by means of keeping the census
from confirming them. To be sure, the halt of a census would not
remove those rights completely and thus take away the civitas; as
Cicero indicates, registration is proof of citizenship, but the
absence of it is not proof of lack of citizenship (pro Arch. 11)87.
Furthermore, since participation in the comitia tributa did not
involve a centuriate rating, the novi would still retain the whatever
presence they had in this body given to them by the lex Julia and
the other enabling laws. However, once the revocation of the tribal
redistribution had been brought about, as it was by the reversal of
all of the leges Sulpiciae, then the presence of the former Allies in
that assembly would have had been reduced to near
meaninglessness. A lack of a census would diminish the political
privileges of the new citizens still further for the reasons cited
above: it would prevent a placement in the comitia centuriata and thus
on voting for all non-tribunician laws, as well as a role in the
election of higher magistracies, and it would keep the one-time
Alles from running for any offices, for which a census rating would
be required.
It has been seen in the previous chapters that one of the main
objections which had led to the fighting which broight about
citizenship for the Allies in the first place had been an
unwillingness by the nobilitas to allow for the extension to the
Italians of an effective sharing of power within the Roman state. If
Sulla had shared this same reluctance—and his later alignment with
those who had earlier been most strident in their opposition to the
Allied franchise seems to make this conjecture plausible—then he
might have used his extralegal influence to dilute the powers of the
84; as he notes, “As far as [Sulla] was concerned, the Italians should be
treated with all the consideration due to one’s inferiors (especially when
one relied upon them in one’s campaigns), but it was unthinkable they should
be allowed to have an equal share in the government with those who were real Romans”
(emphasis added). On page 507 he explicitly states that this was Sulla’s
attitude in 88.
87 So Brunt 1971, p. 91–92.
new citizens still further by preventing a census. That Sulla was

quite concerned to make sure that Rome’s magistracies and its
council of State consist of individuals of whom Sulla personally
approved is clear by the attention he paid to the composition of the
Senate. This concern drew repeated legislative efforts on Sulla’s
part. The adlection law of 88 described above is one such effort,
assuming a law of this kind was actually one which Sulla had either
passed or proposed in 88. It corresponds well to one which would
later be presented in 81. Moreover, in the latter instance such an
adlection law was also passed in a similar absence of a census (no
census is reported from the time of Sulla’s return in 82 until the
year 70; one—admittedly flawed—source even states that Sulla had
abolished the censor’s office altogether).88 It seems to have been
the case that Sulla was determined to bring about an ideal Senate,
and did not trust censors with this task; as master of Rome in 81,
he simply kept them from being elected, and chose the Senate
through a lex. It may be wondered if he did not do the same thing
as master of Rome in 88, using his considerable influence to
convince or compel the censors to hold off on the registration. A
side-effect of so doing would be the exclusion of the Italians from
being elected to office, and, as a consequence, from being named
to the council. It is distinctly within the realm of possibility that this
was not by chance, but by a design on Sulla’s part.89 Such a design
may go far to explain future moves Sulla would make, and these
will in turn be described later.
Therefore, the Italians had been greatly limited int heir
political rights as Romans by the actions of 88, and Sulla had
played a large role in that limitation: he had reversed the tribal
redistribution, and had perhaps also prevented Italians from being
88 Schol. Gronov. Ad Cic. Div. in Caecil. 3, p. 384, ed. Orelli, quoted in
Smith, p. 260–266. Gabba (op. cit., p. 147–148), however, disagrees, as will

be seen later (Chapter 10).
89 Frank (1924, p. 336–337) certainly implies that this was Sulla’s
intent in 81: he had suppressed the consorate in order to keep out those
Italians who had not been registered in the census up to that year.
Wiseman (1969, p. 65) infers a similar motivation to Sulla, as does Salmon
(1967, p. 378 and note 4), suggesting that the Samnites specifically were
the targets of the expulsion.
registered by the census. Exactly when in the year he did this

cannot be determined with pinpoint accuracy, since the precise
month of 88 in which Sulla made his march is not given by the
sources. Certain elements of its sequel—id est the flight of Marius
chronicled by the Periochae, Appian, Velleius, and Plutarch—all
suggest that the Sulla’s march must not have been too late in the
year: Plutarch mentions the old general attempting to evade Sulla’s
cut-throats by swimming away from them to ships off the coastline
of Italy, wandering aimlessly on the beach for a time, and spending
the night outside in the forest, and that authority (and others)90 also
tell of Marius spending some time hiding in swamps. Since the
ability to spend a great deal of time out of doors and in water
suggests it was still warm enough outside to do so, it was perhaps
mid to late summer when this flight occurred. This, in turn, might
suggest that Sulla took control of Rome sometime in June or July, a
timing that would also square with a conjectural disruption of the
censors.
Yet while it is not known when Sulla took control of Rome,
there are better indications for how long he would stay there,
which would be the rest of the year. It was apparently agreed upon
that it would be he who would preside over the elections of next
year’s consuls, while Pompeius would go forth to his province,
which was to be Italy (if it had not been this before Sulpicius
rearranged the proconsular arrangements, it was apparently made
such now). This would mean the relief of Pompeius Strabo, who
was then still at Picenum with his armies. Figuring that in this way
his colleague would be so ensconced with the legions that he would
be safe from the fruits of any assassination conspiracies that
according to Appian were all over Rome, Sulla also saw to it that
Rufus went out to the legions while still consul to supersede Strabo
by means of his superior imperium; such is the implication of the
Periochae and Appian, who both mention this departure and its
sequel before the next consular elections.91 Thise sources, as well as
90See earlier note

91Acccording to Sallust—quoted in Gellius 10.20.10—Sulla somewhat
hypocritically attempted to have Pompeius Strabo’s proconsular
command abrogated by law, but was vetoed by the tribune C. Herennius.
Velleius Paterculus and Valerius Maximus, all record what must

have been the original notice in Livy that Strabo was much
displeased by this event,92 but nevertheless yielded his command.
To this, it seems, his soldiers were disinclined, and they promptly
slaughtered Pompeius Rufus either at assembly (Appian) or while
offering a sacrifice (Valerius). Strabo therefore resumed charge of
them. Neither Sulla nor, apparently, the Senate much felt like
pressing the issue further, since the last attempt to deprive a
general of his army had ended rather messily (although it might
very well be this episode which led to the indictment of Pompeius
on charges of maiestas recorded by Asconius 79; see next chapter).
Strabo, therefore, retained his men, while Sulla looked to holding
the elections.
Fall was coming on now, and soon Sulla would be departing
for the east. To prepare for this he sent the army back to Capua,
although his concern against assassination had led to his
surrounding himself with bodyguards (Appian, 1.8.64). There is
nothing in what is known of his life up to this point to suggest that
Sulla was a timid man, so for him to have taken this step implies
that there was a great deal of hostility directed towards him by the
people. This rancor did not, as it turned out, result in Sulla’s
murder, although Plutarch does report that the public delighted in
favoring the candidates with whom he would be displeased in the
elections and rejecting the ones he sponsored.93 Accordingly, Sulla
92 Specifically, Appian 1.7.63, Per. 77, Velleius 2.20, and Valerius
Maximus 9.7.mil.2.
93 These would almost certainly have included M. Marius Gratidianus,
a relative of the exiled general who was apparently made tribune of 87 (see
next chapter). It is commonly assumed that Sulla had been able to block
the candidacy of Q. Sertorius for the tribunate (so, for example, Keaveney
1982, p. 70–71). However, Spann (p. 23–25, 162–164) has pointed out
that it is hardly likely that Sulla could have prevented a popular candidate
like Sertorius from attaining office given the nadir of his own popularity
in late 88. However, Spann continues, Sulla might very well have been
able to use his popularity and influence as returning hero of the Allied
War and the consul-elect to block a candidacy of Sertorius in 89 for the
tribunate of 88. Plutarch, after all, does not specify a date for this action,
had to endure his inability to ensure the election to the consulate of

P. Servilius Vatia, a triumphator recently returned home.94 Instead,
the successful candidates for the office in that year were C.
Octavius and L. Cornelius Cinna, the latter fresh from his fairly
succesful campaign against the Marsi and perhaps the captor of
Corfinium.95 Sulla seems to have distrusted Cinna for reasons
which are not entirely known; perhaps he simply had a feeling
about him, the way he would about Julius Caesar some years hence.
Nevertheless, he did not block Cinna’s candidacy and made no
moves to prevent his assumption of office after Cinna was duly
elected, although he would try to limit Cinna’s actions in a different
way, about which more will be discussed in the next chapter.
As 88 turned into 87, Sulla began the process by which he
take up the command for which he had committed an act so
contrary to the mores of the Republic that no defense against had
been mounted. In no small part this was probably because none
would ever have been planned, because no need for it would ever
have been conjectured: in spite of threats against it in the past, no
Roman had ever actually led the commonwealth’s own soldiers
against it, and it must have been earthshaking to the sensibilities of
all classes, high and low, that one had now done so. Following
this first shocking act, those others which he had also commited
in 88—refusing the law of the people to surrender his army to a
proconsular replacement, condemnation of men to death without
trial, and the authorization of the killing of a sacrosanct tribune—
seem pale in comparison, although any one of these in different
times might well have marked him for death. Nevertheless, he was
able to weather the last few months of 88 unscathed. Reasons for
this are probably twofold: in the first place, his bodyguard seems to
have been in place for the entirely of his sojourn in Rome,
preventing any would-be tyrannicides from attacking him. Military
and based on Spann’s arguments, it seems rather more probable that

Sertorius was kept out of the tribunate of 88 than that of 87.
94 So Keaveney (1982, p. 71), following Badian (1964, p. 82–83), who
is in turn following Mommsen’s emendation of Plutarch’s Sulla 10 that

“Servius” there be “Servilius (Vatia)” instead. See also his note 74, p. 100.
95 See chapter 6 and Appendix N.
intervention could easily have overcome these, but the only legions
in the area were those of Pompeius Strabo, and for a variety of
reasons it seems that he would probably wish to avoid coming back
to Rome for the purpose of inciting trouble. Therefore, Sulla
remained unmurdered, and even though by doing so he would
could no longer stay and exert direct pressure on the city to keep
himself and his arrangements secure, shortly after the new consuls
took office Sulla rejoined his army in Capua. Soon he was gone,
although, to an extent, he remained very present, as will be seen.
6. THE SHADOW OF SULLA

The year 88 and the only remaining consul who had served in that
year departed Rome at close to the same time. Nevertheless, the
residual effects from the year would linger, as, in a sense, would the
presence of Sulla himself; his figure loomed over everything which
would transpire over the next few years. This thing that Sulla had
done was very new, a res nova in every possible meaning of the
word, and it must have occurred to all thinking Romans that others
could follow the trail that the consul had quite literally blazed.
Indeed, Sulla might treat the capital to a repeat performance do so
when he came back from the east. If he would return, when, and in
what manner—these must have been matters of great concern to
the entire peninsula and helped shape the thoughts and actions of
those who remained there, old Romans as well as new ones, in the
months and years to come.
It is difficult to dispute the claim that, while the last several
years had hardly proved to be amongst the most stable ever
experienced by the Republic, the one which had just elapsed may
have been the most volatile in over a century. Over the course of it,
men who were once shedding Roman blood were now Roman
citizens, men who were already Roman citizens were now shedding
Roman blood, military commands and voting privileges were
granted and revoked, and one of Rome’s most sacred traditions
had been shattered. What must have also been on the minds of
everyone in Italy was a great anxiety about what was going to
happen next. What that was will be the topic of the next two
chapters.
CHAPTER 8:
PROGRESS AND THE PROMISES
OF CINNA
1. CINNA, SULLA, AND THE BEGINNING OF 88

Over the course of the fifty years that had led up to 87 BCE, the
Italians had had a strange series of men who could be counted as
their champions in regards to their acquisition of the Roman
citizenship and the full rights associated with it. All of them had
been Roman aristocrats, and all of them had had to fly in the face
of the traditional establishment, which had been set against
granting these rights. Indeed, the fate of the first two such
advocates, C. Gracchus and M. Flaccus, had demonstrated just how
intransigent the boni would be to the proposal of enfranchisement
for the Allies. Of course, its should be observed that part of the
hostility directed at those two had stemmed from the fact that the
proposals for extending the civitas had come as a gateway to
agrarian reform, to which the patres would always be opposed. On
the other hand, part of it had almost certainly derived the fears
those Fathers had about the financial, military, and political
consequences which would attend on the Allies becoming Romans
of equal standing to those who were already cives.
The Gracchi and Flaccus had managed to polarize a large
number of men amongst the élite who opposed their laws—both in
what they contained of themselves and in the way the tribunate was
used to advance them against the will of the Senate—and caused
them to unite. While it has often been asserted that this coalition
was not a party in the modern sense of the term, it might be
appropriate to compare it to the following of a particular kind of
political philosophy. The bedrock of this philosophy was first and
foremost the maintenance of Senatorial influence in the passing of
laws both foreign and domestic, and secondly an automatic
479
opposition to tribunes who sought to pass legislation which had

not first gained Senatorial approval. For this reason, the next two
proponents of Allied rights were especially odd, since both seem to
have been true believers in this philosophy. The first of these was
M. Livius Drusus, who, in his early career, had once been such a
firm partisan of the curia that he was later remembered as being a
propugnator Senatus. Yet in the year 91 this man found himself—after
various twists and turns of fate—using the tribunate in the same
basic ways that C. Gracchus had done, and for the purpose of
enacting laws which in some cases were very similar to those of the
latter, including the extension of the citizenship the the Italians.
Unrelenting Senatorial opposition had led to the downfall of these
proposals, and assassination would eventually put an end to any
others Drusus might make.
Ironically, soon thereafter measures required by wartime
hardships had led to the Allies being given a weakened form of the
citizenship anyway. Nevertheless, in 88 still another tribune and an
apparent firm adherent to the principles of Senatorial supremacy
found himself opposed by that selfsame Senate due to his own
advocacy of Allied prerogatives. In that year, P. Sulpicius Rufus, for
reasons which are not entirely unobscure, had come to advocate
that the Italians who had been recently given the citizenship be
distributed throughout the Roman voting tribes in such a way in
that their ballots would carry the same force as that of the longtime
citizens. The case of Sulpicius is somewhat different from the
others, in that Flaccus, Gracchus, and Drusus had intended to use
their laws as a boon whereby they could purchase Allied
cooperation in land reallocation, whereas Sulpicius had apparently
pursued bestowal of equal rights as an end of itself. In so doing, it
is highly unlikely that he was any more motivated by simple
altruism than his friend Drusus or the earlier Gracchus had been.
Rather, Sulpicius may have wanted to amplify Allied voting rights
so he could then use the gratitude he would earn thereby to
increase his own following, perhaps for the purpose of furthering
the ends of the Senate, but perhaps not. Nevertheless, Sulpicius
seems to have found himself just as staunchly opposed by the so-
called optimates as the others had been, and had come to just as
sticky an end. A familiar pattern had thus reasserted itself in the
affair of Sulpicius: just as in the past (and in the case of Drusus, the
very recent past), the promoters of Allied privileges found
PROGRESS AND THE PROMISES OF CINNA 481
themselves in conflict with the Senate, which either frustrated the

passage of their laws or overturned them when passed, and in the
end such promoters were compelled to desist in their efforts due to
an involuntary but permanent retirement brought about by means
which were most unquiet.
The next major champion of (former-)Allied rights was, in a
sense, an even more bizarre choice to be selected by Fate for such
a task than the others had been. At time when this man came to
their defense, the only thing for which he had apparently been
known by anyone had been his dealing of death, destruction, and
defeat to those Allies in battle. It may be that this seeming
inconguity in why he would come to stand up for Italian rights has
to do with that fact that so much about the life and early career of
this individual, L. Cornelius Cinna, is obscured, due to lack of
mention of it in the sources. He was apparently a nobilis, the son of
a like-named L. Cornelius Cinna who was consul in 127,1 although
nothing more than this fact is known of the father, and therefore
no hint can be found of his personality, deeds, or politics. The
elder L. Cornelius Cinna therefore seems to have been a perfectly
unremarkable politician, who did not earn memory for anything
other than his inclusion in consular lists due to his holding of an
office of which there is no other record. Nor, apparently, did the
son do anything worthy of preservation before the Allied War,
although at some point he must have been a praetor. Cicero
testifies that he was a legate of praetorian rank in that war (scietis
fuisse tum M. Cornutum, L. Cinnam, L. Sullam, praetorios homines,
belli gerendi peritissimos [emphasis added]; pro Font. 43), and his
subsequent run for the consulate seems to confirm this assertion.2
It is generally agreed, by process of elimination through cross-
checking between the other sources, that Cinna served as legate in
1 Lovano, p. 27.
2 No disturbance seems to have attended his run as it had for the
earlier candidacy of C. Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus, who earned
notoriety for attempting to run for consul without having first attained the
praetorate. Furthermore, his election occurred under the watchful eyes of
L. Cornelius Sulla, who, as later events would show, was a stickler about
the following of the prescribed path of the cursus honorum (see previous
chapter and chapter 6).
89 rather than 90. Under whom he served meets with less

agreement, but by where Cinna is seen operating later on, he seems
to have been a subordinate of Cato rather than of Pompeius
Strabo.3 In this capacity he seems to have gathered the divisions
directly under Cato’s command after that consul’s death and
assumed leadership of them, pressing Cato’s line of attack against
the Marsi while his fellow legate Sulla achieved his own successes
in the south. Sulla’s victories led to his election to consul for 88,
during which time Cinna might very well have come under Sulla’s
imperium or, as is more probable, that of Pompeius Rufus.4 Under
such command, Cinna, along with Caecilius Cornutus5—with
whose campaign through the territory of the Paeligni en route to
Corfinium from the east Cinna seems to have cooperated by
himself converging on Corfinium through Marsic territory to the
west in the previous year—may have captured the former Allied
capital in early 88. Upon the surrender of the Marsi, Cinna may
have been relieved of duty and allowed to return home, or had
perhaps instead obtained a dispensation from Rufus (before he
died) to return to the city to run for consul. Either way, he was
indeed back in the capital for such a candidacy, one which probably
rested on the strength of his battlefield accomplishments: Cinna’s
military record may not have been as flamboyant as Sulla’s had
been, but it was solid enough, and might very well have stood him
in good enough stead for the office.
On the other hand, Plutarch indicates part of the reason why
Cinna was elected—as he eventually was—was that he was thought
to be displeasing to Sulla. This accords well with Dio, who states
that the Sulla thought Cinna to be a “base fellow” (ἐκεῖνον δὲ εὖ
3 See Appendix N and chapter 6 for more on these points.

4 As discussed in the last chapter, Rufus would ultimately be assigned
the province of Italy and would take over the troops of Pompeius Strabo.
Since Sulla was allowed to keep the men he had commanded in 89 for the
expedition to the east, it is likely that all of troops north of Aesernia were
to be transferred to Rufus upon his taking the field, though until such
time as he did so the commanders of these men—Pompeius Strabo
generally and Cinna, specifically—would remain in charge of those
soldiers whom they had led in 89.
5 See Appendix N for this identification.
ᾔδει κακὸν ἄνδρα ὄντα; frg. 102), while Plutarch additionally reports
that Cinna belonged to the bloc which opposed Sulla
(Exsuperantius does likewise).6 Why it is that Cinna would have
been so identified is difficult to discern. If he had been a Marianus,
he was not one so prominent as to compelled to join the eleven
sent into exile along with the general by Sulla in 88, although even
if he was a staunch but unrevealed partisan of Marius, it might have
been wise for him to have kept this leaning a secret during the
aftermath of the March on Rome. On the other hand, if it can be
assumed that Cinna was not a high-profile supporter of Marius,
then why else Sulla would have formed such a low opinion of him
is not revealed. However, it almost certainly did not arise because
the candidate had unveiled his tribal reallocation plans (see below)
before his election, as Sulla might very well have rejected his
professio out of hand if he had done so.7 Nor was it probable that
Cinna had made promises to prosecute Sulla, as some scholars
6 Plutarch: εραπεύων τὸ τῶν πολλῶν μῖσος ὕπατον κατέστ σεν ἀπὸ τῆς
ἐναντίας στάσεως Λεύκιον Κίνναν (Sulla 10); τῶν δὲ ὑπάτων Ὀκτά ιος μὲν ἐπὶ
τῆς Σύλλα προαιρέσεως ἔμενε, Κίννας δὲ νεωτερίζων ὑποφερομέν ν ἀνεκαλεῖτο
τὴν Μαρίου στάσιν (Sert. 4); Cinna de partibus Marianis fuit
(Exsuperantius, 23).
7 So Keaveney (1982, p. 72). By contrast, Lovano holds that Cinna
may indeed have voiced sympathy for the novi cives and for those exiled by
Sulla (p. 27–28). But candidates for office in Rome almost never ran on a
“platform”, as has already been observed (see chapters 3 and 7, as well as
Appendix C). This fact alone makes it improbable that Cinna would have
offered such sympathy in public, an unlikelihood which is all the more
acute given the fact that Italian sympathies would probably not have
carried much purchase with the centuriate assembly whom he would need
for election, in which, indeed, the Italians could not take part due to lack
of census registry (see previous chapter). Further, publicly acknowledged
feelings might well have gained Sulla’s refusal to let his candidacy stand (as
noted above). Probably Cinna had campaigned primarily on his lineage
and on his military record. Sulla’s suspicion of him may have been based
on a simple feeling—his later moment of prescience in the case of Julius
Caesar is to be recalled—or from some disagreement they may have had
during their service under Cato in 89, a possibiity for which Lovano has
also allowed.
believe, for the same reason.8 Nevertheless, Sulla clearly seemed to

regard Cinna as someone not to be trusted, even if the latter’s
popularity made it less than wise to dismiss his petition out of
hand. Therefore, Sulla did not move to halt Cinna’s election,
though he does seem to have required that the latter take an oath
to “be well disposed to his arrangements” (ἀραῖς καὶ ὅρκοις
καταλα ὼν εὐνο σειν τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ πράγμασιν; Plutarch, Sull. 10),9
whatever that may have meant.
8 Keaveney (loc. cit.) is far from convincing in attributing this to Cinna.
Sulla may have gritted his teeth and borne the deliberate rejection of his
candidates with a false delight in the people “exercising the freedom
which they enjoyed solely due to him” (ὁ δὲ τούτοις τε προσεποιεῖτο χαίρειν,
ὡς τοῦ δ μου τῷ ποιεῖν ἃ ούλοιτο δι᾽ αὐτὸν ἀπολαύοντος τῆς ἐλευ ερίας;
Plutarch, Sull. 10), but it does not seem likely that he cheerfully would
have allowed a direct challenge to himself in terms of such an intended
prosecution, no matter how much of a following Cinna seems to have
developed (one indicated by Dio, frg. 102: οὐκ ἠ έλ σε δὲ ἐκπολεμῶσαι
δυνάμενον τέ τι αὐτόν ἤδ ). Keaveney himself seems to have backed off
that assumption a bit in his later work (1987, p. 175–176), in which it is
asserted (as above) that Cinna’s platform probably involved nothing
which would arouse Sulla’s immediate disapproval.
9 Dio reports something similar, to the effect that Cinna had
apparently assuaged Sulla’s fears about him by repeatedly stating and then
swearing an oath to the effect that he would “assist him in all things” ( καὶ
ἔλεγε καὶ ὤμνυεν πᾶν οἱ ὁτιοῦν ὑπουργῆσαι). Keaveney (1982, p. 72–73)
states that both consuls were compelled to do this, following the Scholia
Gronoviana, p. 286 (Fecit Sulla duos consules, Cinnam et Octaviam, iure iurando
astrinxit eos, ut nulliis contra acta Sullana faceret). However, his explanation for
the evidence in the Scholia—that the oath was required due to Sulla’s
reservations, not about Cinna, but about Octavius, who is held to have
detested the march on Rome and the exile of Marius—is not supported
by what is found in that source, and runs directly counter to the assertion
in Dio that Sulla found Octavius completely amiable (τοῦτον μὲν γὰρ ἐπὶ τε
ἐπιεικείᾳ ἐπαινούμενον ἠπίστατο καὶ οὐδὲν παρακιν σειν ἐνόμιζεν; loc. cit.).
Plutarch’s Life of Sertorius also states that Octavius “adhered to Sulla’s
following” (τῆς Σύλλα προαιρέσεως ἑμενε). Probably the oath was of a fairly
routine sort calling for magistrates-elect to respect the laws, an opinion
favored by Lovano (p. 31 note 22; such an oath is also mentioned by
Morstein-Marx, p. 10).
Upon taking office, therefore, Cinna essentially represented an

uncertain quantity. Sulla suspected him but apparently did not
know what his intentions were, and this suggests that no one else in
the city or outside of it really did, either. This would have included
the novi, who would probably not have been able to locate in Cinna
a standard-bearer for their cause, as it might very well have been in
Cinna’s interests to disguise any sympathy he may have had for the
former Allies. Even if the new citizens had been able to detect such
a partisanship in the new consul-elect, the oath he had taken—one
which the sources state had specifically included a pledge extorted
by Sulla not to reinstate the laws of Sulpicius—might seem to have
to tied his hands fairly effectively.
For these reasons, as far as the novi cives themselves were
concerned, at the beginning of 87 they were in the exact same
position that they had been in before the laws of Sulpicius. This
meant that they were citizens but possessed of no real voting
power in the assembly which made most of the laws and elected
the lower magistrates, and unregistered by the census whose rating
determined the property qualifications for holding office and the
ability to vote in the assembly which elected the highest
magistrates. If and when there were to be any changes to that
status was uncertain, but what was more than overwhelmingly
probable was that their situation was not bound to improve as long
as Sulla remained in Italy.
It would turn out that he would not so remain for long. It was
apparently in everyone’s best interest—the new citizens, the friends
of Marius, Cinna, and Sulla himself—that he leave the peninsula
immediately, and that is exactly what he did. Before he went,
however, a certain tribune of the people named M. Vergilius (or
M. Verginius) looks to have had the temerity to attempt to put him
on trial, allegedly at Cinna’s behest (Plutarch, loc. cit.). If Cinna was
in fact behind the indictment—Plutarch says that it was, although
Cicero (Brut. 179), the only other source for the episode, mentions
nothing of him—it cannot have been a serious attempt to get Sulla
to come back and answer for his crimes, of which the specific
charge in this case probably had to do with his role in the murder
of of Sulpicius (although a number of violations could probably
have been adduced against him). This is because Dio expressly
states that Cinna wanted Sulla gone (frg. 102). Moreover, the
Republic had no legal machinery in place whereby Sulla could be
forced to come and answer this charge anyway. Although Sulla was
technically liable to prosecution (the lex Memmia apparently did not
protect promagistrates from tribunician action), tribunes were not
allowed to send viators to beckon the men they accused, but had to
do it in person. Since a tribune could not leave Rome for longer
than a day without losing their sacrosanctity, which would in this
case mean putting himself in the imperium of Sulla as proconsul,
Vergilius would have had no way of compelling his defendant to
come to court as long as the latter retained his command. Even if
Vergilius could legally have sent viatores, there is little possibility that
Sulla would have answered such a summons. He would in all
probability do exactly what he ended up doing anyway, which was
to ignore the situation. If Cinna had been involved with this
putative prosecution, it would probably have been for the purpose
of using it to send the message to the people in Rome that Sulla
had respect neither for the laws nor for the tribunes, and that he
stood still in the taint of having committed the sacrilege of killing
of one of them. Such a message would, perhaps, be useful for what
he seems to have had in mind to do next.10
10 For the legality of the prosecution see Weinrib, p. 32–43. In fact,
here might very well be another reason for doubting that the laws Sulla
proposed during his occupation of the city were ever actually passed (see
previous chapter). If there had been such a push to curtail the “tyrannical”
powers of the tribunate, as Appian suggests (πολλά τε ἄλλα τῆς τῶν
δ μάρχων ἀρχῆς, τυραννικῆς μάλιστα γεγεν μέν ς, 1.7.59), then it seems odd
that the ability to prosecute promagistrates would have been one which
was left to it. The fact that Sulla subsequently removed all such powers (in
81; see chapter 10) is less satisfactorily explained as a correction to a
simple oversight from earlier (caused by the fact that no tribune had
apparently ever attempted such a prosecution before this), as Weinrib
suggests, than by the far greater likelihood that he had never been able to
enact such limitations in 88 at all. It will be recalled, again, that Appian
never mentions that the proposed leges of Sulla and Pompeius had ever
actually been enacted, only proposed.
Otherwise, the above account more or less follows Lovano (p. 32) as
opposed to that of Keaveney (1982, p. 75–76; 1987, p. 175–176), who
states that Cinna attempted to do to Sulla what he would later do to
Claudius—id est strip him of his imperium so that he could stand trial—and
that this gambit had failed. After all, it would have been known that
2. LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS AND THEIR RESULTS

Casting Sulla as irreligious might have enabled Cinna to justify
breaking—albeit in spirit—the oath he had made upon his election.
If, as has been speculated, that vow had taken the form of both
consuls vowing to uphold the laws that had been made and not to
declare that Sulla’s arrangements were illegal, then the letter of the
oath may not have been breached by the subsequent maneuver
Cinna is recorded as made, which was putting forth his own
proposal that the novi cives be distributed amongst all the tribes.11 In
tribune would not be able to send viatores (just as argued above) and Sulla
could simply ignore the tribune even without legal imperium. Worse, if
such an attempt had been made, Sulla could have reacted to this motion
to deprive him of his command as he had acted to the last one, which
would decidedly be against Cinna’s interest. The indictment was therefore
far more likely a façade designed for the purposes of propaganda (as
suggested above), and little more than that.
11 For this proposal see Exuperantius (23–24), Cicero, Phil. (8.7),
Velleius (2.20), and Appian (1.8.64) These sources also add that it was
during the assembly for this specific law that violence erupted, which led
to Cinna’s eventual expulsion from the city (more below). This
connection between his redistribution law and violence also seems to have
been indirectly referred to by Cicero in his pro Sestio 77. In that passage,
the orator mentions the expulsion and follows the reference with a
description of how often civil strife is caused by the wickedness of men
who propose laws that will grant favors to those who are excitable and
easily led (culpa atque improbitate latoris commodo aliquo imperitis aut largitione).
Since the implication seems to be that Cicero is referring to a large
number being granted such largesse—as would be the case in a tribal
rearrangement—as opposed to the few who would be benefitted by the
restoration of the exiles, the other measure of Cinna’s which would seem
to excite strong feelings (more directly in the text above), his comment
seems properly to be added to the testimony of the other sources claiming
that Cinna’s eventual expulsion was caused by the redistributions. By
contrast, the de viris illustribus (69) and Florus (2.9) state that is was the
recall of the twelve exiles which led to the conflict between Cinna and
Octavius. The Scholia Gronoviana adds a third possibility, which is that
the breach was caused by Cinna’s actions de libertinorum suffragiis, although
this may in fact also refer to the redistribution law, assuming that it, too,
had a provision about freedmen, just as Sulpicius had (chapter 6). In the
so doing, the consul would not technically be declaring that what

Sulla had done was invalid, and thus reinstating the law of
Sulpicius. Instead, Cinna was simply replacing that vitiated law with
a new one of his own creation.
Why it is that he promulgated such a measure is uncertain, as
the silence on his political beliefs before his election as consul
means that Cinna’s motives cannot be easily ascertained.
Exsuperantius mentions it was propounded in order to gratify the
associates of Marius,12 but it is difficult to see how Marius and his
followers would have been helped by this action in and of itself,
since it was likely that the only reason the similar measure of
Sulpicius had gained the support of the general, rather than his
indifference, had been the promise that the newly redistributed
voters would help Sulpicius get Marius the Mithridatic command.
On the other hand, Appian (1.8.64) states that the redistribution
was to be a prelude to the recall of the exiles. By this, Appian may
have meant that once the novi cives had been granted voting equality,
Cinna could then carry a measure to bring back the exiles which
would have failed without the new citizen vote. But this scenario is
also doubtful: after all, if the numbers of the Mariani could be
harnessed to pass a terribly unpopular law involving voter equality
without the enhanced vote of the novi (as they had been by
Sulpicius), then it seems more than probable that their numbers
would also have been sufficient to pass a measure bringing back
the exiles without such help. This is especially true in light of the
fact that much of Rome may have had been sympathetic to such a
face of such a divergence in the sources, the numbers and greater

reliability of those blaming the expulsion on the law covering tribal
distribution make it more likely that their account is closer to accuracy
than those blaming it on the recall measures; such an opinion is also held
by Lovano, p. 32–33. See more below.
12 (Cinna) legem tulit ut novi cives, qui aliqua ratione Romanam acceperant
civitatem, cum veteribus nulla discretione suffragium ferrent. Hoc videlicet in eorum
gratiam faciebat qui Mariuni suffragiis suis extulerant; Exsuperantius 22.
recall law, a sympathy which Plutarch observes.13 They would

probably be less so for a redistribution law.
Alternatively, what Appian might have been hinting at is that,
by promising a recall, Cinna could gain the support of the friends
of Marius and Sulpicius which he would find useful in enacting the
voting measure. Once enacted, it is inferred, Cinna would then
propose an additional law to bring the exiles home. To put it
another way, Cinna used a recall measure to buy the support of the
apparently still large numbers of Mariani for his redistribution
measure, rather that used the redistribution measure to gain the
numbers needed for the recall bill, numbers which the Mariani
would have been able to furnish on their own.
This is more likely just how things transpired. If it was, the
conclusion cannot be evaded that the return of the exiles was not
the primary desire of Cinna. This conclusion would accord well
with his abovementioned lack of obvious pro-Marian sympathies
before the election, as well as some difficulties he may have had
later on with accepting Marius as an ally (about which more later).
This would in turn mean that the recall of Marius was rather an
instrument towards his ultimate purpose, which was gaining the
tribal reallocation for the novi. Cinna therefore seems to have
wanted to redistribute the new citizens, and not as a means to an
end, but rather as an end of itself. The question remains as to why
that might be the case.
Of course, there is definite answer to why it was that Cinna
sought to redistribute the tribes for its own sake that can be
unearthed in the sources. Possibilities suggest themselves, of which
some seem more far-fetched than others,14 but one which seems to
13 ἐφ᾽ οἷς ὁ Σύλλας τὴν μέν σύγκλ τον ἀδ λως ἠνίασεν ἡ δὲ παρὰ τοῦ δ μου
δυσμένεια καὶ νέμεσις αὐτῷ φανερὰ δι᾽ ἔργων ἀπ ντα; Sull. 10. See also
previous chapter.
14 Appian (1.8.64) mentions that there was a rumor that he had
received a 300-talent bribe by the novi cives for his support (Κίννας μὲν τοῖς
νεοπολίταις συνέπραττε, νομιζόμενος ἐπὶ τῷδε τριακόσια δωροδοκῆσαι
τάλαντα), which Lovano observes was merely that: a rumor, as Appian
well knew (p. 28–29). Appian did not seem to believe it himself, as his use
of the participle νομιζόμενος indicates, and Lovano does not either; the
have the greatest purchase is that he may have hoped to gain their
thankfulness by means of this favor and use it build a huge clientela,
as Sulpicius, who had attempted much the same thing, himself may
have desired. A passage in Plutarch mentions Cinna’s attempt to
“restore the flagging party of Marius” (Κίννας ... ἀνεκαλεῖτο τὴν
Μαρίου στάσιν; Sert. 4), which may in fact be a reference to Cinna’s
urge to build a following, although not in fact for Marius, but
rather for himself.15 For whatever the reason, sometime in early 87
the former Allies found yet another improbable activist on their
behalf, and when he called them into the city to help him promote
the measure which would grant their equality, they seem to have
responded in great numbers (quo nomine ingentem totius Italiae
frequentiam in urbem acciverat; Vell. 2.20).
If, however, the motivations for Cinna’s proposals are
unknown, their outcome nevertheless is more certain: Cinna and
the Italians, who had come into the city at his request to vote on
this measure, apparently ran into the objections of some of the
tribunes (Appian 1.8.64). A tumult then arose between supporters
of the bill, who had been carrying daggers, and its opponents who
were armed likewise, and the novi seem to have gotten the best of
the engagement. In the meantime, Cinna’s colleague Octavius had
latter scholar is almost certainly correct in dismissing it, and it will likewise
be dismissed here.
15 Keaveney argues that the law was not proferred by Cinna but rather
by tribunes, pointing to language in Appian which can be taken to suggest

as much (1987, p. 180 and 187–188 note 1). This, however, presents an
irresolvable conflict with Keaveney’s own earlier opinion that Sulla had
passed his laws limiting tribunicial powers (1982, p. 68–69), which would
seemingly prevent a tribune from doing any such thing without the
approval of the Senate, which the redistribution measure certainly did not
have (as will be seen below). This would seem to suggest either that Sulla
had not been able to enact in 88 the sort of legislation he would enact
later, or that the tribunes had not proposed the Cinnan measures. Besides,
even if the tribunes retained their powers (as has been argued in this
essay), their action would not be needed; as consul, Cinna would be well
within his competency to propose any laws as he may have wished. For
these reasons, the interpretation that Cinna was himself the primum mobile
for the voting law seems the more likely, and is adopted here.
been informed of the riot and appeared with a large force, one
which had apparently been supplemented by senatorial supporters
(Appian, loc. cit.),16 with the aim of putting a stop both to the
disturbance, and, it may be inferred, to the voting on the proposed
lex Cornelia as well. In the ensuing scrap Octavius soon got the
upper hand: Cinna was expelled from the temple of Castor and
Pollux, and in the meantime the veteres cives—unbidden, according
to Appian—started to kill the new citizens in great numbers.
Cicero mentions the city bestrewn with bodies and red with the
blood of citizens (Cat. 3.10.24), although the dead probably
amounted to less than the 10,000 mentioned as having been slain
by Plutarch (Sert. 4).
All the sources cited above indicate that Cinna was driven
from the city,17 with the implication that he had not merely fled,
but had been actively forced out of town. Such an inference makes
the legal grounds for what happened next somewhat slippery.
Appian says that Cinna was presently removed from office and
from membership in the Roman commonwealth itself on grounds
of abandoning the city while it was in danger (ὡς ἐν κινδύνῳ τε τὴν
πόλιν καταλιπόντα),18 a charge something akin to desertion or at the
very least dereliction of duty. Military misconduct had, of course,
16 Further descriptions of this sizeable force under can be found in
Exsuperantius (22), Velleius (2.20), and Plutarch (Ser. 4).

17 As does Cicero (pro Caec. 30.87), the Periochae (79) and Granius
Licinianus (35), the latter two of whom likewise mentioning that six
tribunes were expelled with him. This would seem to give lie to the report
which Appian says was given to Octavius, which is that “a majority of the
tribunes” applied their veto to Cinna’s law (τοὺς πλέονας δ μάρχους
κωλύειν τὰ γιγνόμενα, in the place cited in the text above). Plutarch’s Marius
also mentions the exile, but states that Cinna was cast out for “playing the
tyrant” (ἀρχειν τυραννικώτερον; Mar. 41).
18 Appian also reports that shortly before departing Cinna had
attempted to stir up the slaves to revolt and that this charge was also
levelled against him by the Senate (Κίννας ... ἀνὰ τὴν πόλιν ἔ ει τοὺς
εράποντας ἐπ᾽ ἐλευ ερίᾳ συγκαλῶν; 1.8.65). Lovano (p. 34–35) is almost
certainly correct in his assertion that this charge was false, and was
attached to Cinna by his enemies after his death. What probably happened
instead is that Cinna was driven away by the same forces which pursued
his followers to the city gates, as Appian mentions a few lines earlier.
led to stripping of imperium and exile in the past (it had been visited
upon Caepio and Mallius for the Arausio debacle of 104, for
example), but the circumstances surrounding this conviction beg
the question as to how Cinna could have acted otherwise: he
appears to have been stripped of his rights after being forced from
the city, on the grounds that he had left the city from which he had
been forced.19 Something questionable was going on here, as is
intimated by a few authorities which claim that this divestiture of
both consulate and citizenship was illegal. These include Velleius
Paterculus(2.20), and Cicero’s willingness to concede that Cinna
had behaved recte, immo iure implies that he, too, believed that what
had befallen Cinna was contrary to law (Ad Att. 9.10). Equally
illegal, it would seem, was Cinna’s replacement by L. Cornelius
Merula, a flamen dialis whose priesthood (which he never laid aside)
contained so many prohibitions that consular duty seemed almost
impossible.20 This was not itself the difficulty, which lay instead in
the fact that he seems to have been simply appointed by the Senate
rather than elected.21 Assuming that what seems like lawbreaking in
the fate of Cinna was in fact exactly that, then Octavius, Merula,
the Senate, and Cinna himself would almost certainly have been
19 So Lovano, p. 34–36.
20 A lengthy listing of these is supplied by Aulus Gellius (10.15), who
himself notes that flamines were rarely made consul.
21 According to Carney (1970, p. 61), the nomination of Merula as
suffect would in essence mean that practically all consular duties would be
performed by Octavius, and that this had been by design: the latter was
henceforth for all intents and purposes sole consul. The people are
mentioned as having no part in the deprivation of office nor in the
replacement of Cinna with Merula, and the implication is that both were
undertaken directly by the Senate (Cinna’s speech in Appian 1.8.65 says
this explicitly). Merula himself would later say that he had not desired the
magistracy (Diodorus 38.3; see below), which implies that he did not run
for election but accepted the office when it was in essence thrust upon
him. His appointment is mentioned by Plutarch (Marius 41), Velleius
(2.20), and Appian (1.8.64); it is also mentioned by Dio (64.49, echoing
Obsequens 70), who both alike also report the omen that all who had
been responsible for having the authority of a magistrate removed did not
manage to live out the year of having done so. This was also the case in
this instance, as will be seen.
well aware of the transgression; indeed, there could have been little
doubt of it. The only doubt that would have remained would be as
to what the object of these crimines would do next.
The Gracchi, Flaccus, Drusus, and Sulpicius had all moved to
act on behalf of the Allies or former Allies, and, as mentioned
above, all had suffered the same fate: a violent death at the hands
of Senatorial opponents. Cinna, who had now also shown a
willingness to help the former socii gain complete citizenship rights,
had also been roughly treated. Indeed, the violence attending his
flight suggests that he might have only narrowly escaped the
destiny of the tribunes just named. Even so, although Cinna
remained alive, he had now been stripped of his office and even his
status as civis by his Senatorial opponents. But because he still lived,
Cinna had a choice about whether to accept his figurative
annihilation in a way that the others (or most of them) did not have
in accepting their literal destruction. Cinna, it seems, had won
election at least in part due to antipathy to Sulla, and the actions he
had taken in his consulate had shown his willingness to contest the
intentions of the former. Such a willingness had now landed him in
his current parlous state. Perhaps, it may now have occurred to
Cinna, the time had come for him to leave off opposing Sulla and
take to imitating him instead, and this is the very thing which he
proceeded to do.
3. PREPARATIONS FOR THE RETURN

Sulla’s March had shown that what was once unthinkable was now
achievable: a Roman (and indeed, a Roman noble and Patrician)
had overcome whatever innate revulsion the thought of advancing
on Rome at the head of forces might have existed within himself
and, with a friendly army at his back, had made such a move. If
Cinna could likewise overcome a similar revulsion—and events
would show that he could—then the work was halfway done:
having come by the will, all that he would now need was an army.
Joined by the six tribunes which the Periochae and Granius
Licinianus22 state had been expelled with him, and by Sertorius,
who seems to have attached himself to Cinna’s cause earlier upon

Sulla’s preventing him from attaining the tribunate for 88 (Plutarch,

Sert. 4),23 the (for the moment, ex-)consul now headed away from
Rome for the purpose of obtaining this necessary commodity.
Cinna must have figured that the novi cives who had been willing to
bleed—and, for that matter, to shed blood—for their rights in the
Forum would be willing to do so again,24 so it seems that logic
would dictate that his first order of business be to recruit his army
from the former Allies. Appian indicates that this is precisely the
action he took, visiting such cities as Tibur and Praeneste for this
purpose (1.8.65). Nor was he mistaken in his belief that the one-
time socii would come to his aid; if Velleius is to be believed, the
ultimate result of Cinna’s labors was an army which approached a
strength of thirty legions, of which the majority must have been
Italians (see below), motivated either by gratitude to Cinna for what
he had done on their behalf, self-interest as to what he could yet
do, or both.
However, the gathering of this force would likely have been a
process that took some time, and as it was being undertaken Cinna
continued on his travels headed southward. It seems that he had a
specific destination in mind, namely Campania. It was here that a
portion of the army which Sulla had commanded in 89 had been
left before Nola under the command of Appius Claudius Pulcher,
who must have been installed by Sulla as a propraetorian legate
sometime in 88.25 The number of men deputed to Claudius was
23 For 88 as opposed to for 87, see Spann (p. 23–25, 162–164) and the
previous chapter; likewise, Spann, p. 28–31 for additional discussion of

how Sertorius came to the camp of Cinna.
24 If any of that crowd had survived, that is; see above. However, even
the dead ones would be useful in raising men to avenge them, and it is not
at all unlikely that Cinna made use of their example for just such a
purpose.
25 So Broughton (vol. 2, p. 48). Possibly Sulla had installed Claudius in
place of Lepidus, who probably was taken east with him, as a Lepidus
would later be seen in his service when Sulla returned from Italy. It is
almost certain that this Lepidus, the one fighting for Sulla in 81, was
Mam. Lepidus (see chapter 9) and not M. Aemilius Lepidus, the turbulent
consul of 78 whose dislike of Sulla seems to have been mutual (see
probably not very large—possibly no more than a legion or two—

but Cinna would nevertheless need them. In the first place, he
would quite probably require all the men that he could get if the
Senate and Octavius were preparing for his eventual return, as he
must have known that they were doing (see below). Moreover, by
having soldiers from the veteres as well as the novi amongst his army,
Cinna would present less of an appearance that he was leading
Italians to take over Rome. He would instead look as if was leading
an army of Roman citizens of all kinds to restore his injured rights,
a presentation would present a far less damaging spectacle to the
Senate and to the urban populace than would the other. Finally,
Cinna was an experienced commander of some talent, and he
would know that even a single hostile legion to his rear might be
troublesome.
Therefore, the fugitive (still ex-)consul would have to have the
support of the men at Nola. As it turns out, it did not take much to
get them. Appian mentions that Cinna merely put forth some
apparently impassioned oratory about his wounded rights, and, by
extension, theirs. Having been elected by the people but deposed
by the Senate, it could be argued that in essence the Senate had
deprived the populus of the consul of its choice, as Cinna seems to
have asserted (1.8.65–66). This apparently was all that was needed
to win over the legion; alternatively (or additionally), there is also
some mention of bribery (Per. 79, Vell. 2. 20; Schol. Gronov. 286
St.).26 This may actually have been cash that was dispersed, as
Appian mentions that the Allied states had come forward with
chapter 10). This would have been the same Lepidus who had defeated
and killed Silo in 88, for which see previous chapter.
26 So also Salmon (1967, p. 374). Lovano (p. 36–37) argues that the
bribery in question may have been nothing more than the typical promise
of loot made by all commanders, and that this common practice was
given sinister overtones by later accounts looking to blacken Cinna’s
name. On the other hand, since the men were to march on Rome itself, it
is difficult to see from whence spoils would come save from Rome. Thus,
the promise of looting would hardly have been an innocuous one, since
the men would be pillaging their own homes. If bribery did occur, it was
more likely either in the promise of extra pay, of an end to service, or
both, as is argued above.
ready coin for his disposal (οἱ δὲ χρ ματά τε αὐτῷ καὶ στρατιὰν
συνετέλουν, 1.8.86), although it may have been that the bribe in
question took the form of a promise made by Cinna that, by
following him, the soldiers could go home when the business at
hand had come to an end. After all, some of these men might well
have been in the field since 90 without break, and were now stuck
in onerous siege duty and mired in the soul-sapping boredom
which such duty implied. It cannot be doubted that the prospect of
being relieved might very well have been extremely appealing.
Regardless of what the specifics may have been, Cinna seems
to have won over the legion at Nola rather easily. This is perhaps
somewhat remarkable in light of the fact that these had once been
Sulla’s own men now pledging themselves to an inimicus of his,
although in this case of this legion loyalty to Sulla did not seem to
have made much of a difference. Reasons for that can probably be
intuited: Sulla had left them in Italy while he had gone to the East
with the other legions, and in the process deprived them of the
rewards which had seemed certain to flow from such an adventure.
Likewise, many of the same arguments which Sulla had used on his
men before his March on Rome could have been employed by
Cinna for that he was about to make: he was, in the words of one
scholar, “a proved soldier, a genuine noble, a patrician no less, and
a legitimately elected consul”, just as Sulla had been, and
theoretically just as potentially evocative of sympathy in his current
state.27 For those who cared about the constitutional niceties, such
credentials may very well have been compelling; for those who did
not, denarii or the prospect of discharge (or both) might have been.
In this manner, Cinna seems to have acquired the services of these
men, if not their commander: Claudius seems to have refused to
join Cinna in his march, for which he apparently went into a
voluntary exile. That was made permanent when Cinna later made
use of friendly tribunes first to strip him of imperium and then
prosecute him, in a manner similar to what it is argued he may have
27 Salmon, loc. cit.

attempted to do with Sulla,28 only this time with actual weight

behind the effort, and success in it (Cicero, de dom. 83–84).29
Cinna now had the legion of Claudius in his command, and
not long afterwards he seems to have been joined by Cn. Papirius
Carbo, who may have been operating in Lucania; his subsequent
presence in Cinna’s army is well attested.30 Why it is that Carbo
attached himself to Cinna’s cause is unknown, as this man’s origins
are just as obscure as Cinna’s are.31 Perhaps he had become Cinna’s
friend at an earlier time, had had a falling out with Sulla, had felt
cheated about not getting to go east, or simply thought that what
had happened to Cinna had been an injustice. No matter what the
reason for his allegiance, however, Carbo would soon become
Cinna’s most trusted subordinate. This can perhaps be explained
the more readily in light of the fact that if, as is probable,32 Carbo
had actually been sent to Lucania as replacement for Gabinius, he
would have been in the area with troops at his disposal.33 These he
seems to have promptly placed at Cinna’s, and very likely won the
latter’s trust and gratitude in so doing.
Carbo’s presence as a commander in the region and
subsequent adherence to Cinna would explain the notice in
Diodorus that the Samnites and Lucani, who were operating in
Bruttium at this time (37.2), but were only stopped in their siege of
Rhegium by an amphibious operation from Sicily. It may be
reasonable to infer from such a description that the reason they
had penetrated so far is that there were no Roman forces on land
to stop them. If Carbo had in fact once been in the area but was
there no longer through having gone over to Cinna, then the result
would have been an absence of men which gave the Samnites and
Lucani their opportunity. In fact, this may have been a deliberate
strategic move on Cinna’s part, as leaving Lucania bereft of men
28 As pointed out by Badian (1970, p. 17); but see earlier on in this
chapter for comment on this attempt against Sulla.

29 Weinrib, loc. cit.
30 See, for example, Appian (1.8.67), the Perioca of Livy’s book 79,
Orosius (5.19.9), and Florus (2.9)

31 This is also observed by Lovano (p. 58).
32 Although not completely certain; see Chapter 6.
33 Lovano (loc. cit.) says that Carbo was in such a position explicitly.
might very well have made things very hot for the only other
Roman army in the area, that of Metellus Pius, who was probably
in the vicinity of Aesernia. Based on the future behavior and the
well-known pedigree of the latter, it is most unlikely that Cinna
would have thought it possible to persuade him to join the cause,
making Metellus a possible enemy whose command abilities would
have made him formidable (see Chapter 6). It would be dangerous
for Cinna to have such a threat at his back, but Metellus would
have found it difficult to act against Cinna from the rear if could be
forced to occupy himself in dealing with the Samnites and Lucani
in Bruttium. Nola, too, might have distracted Metellus: Granius
Licinianus (20) records that the inhabitants of Nola burst forward
and burnt Abella, located some six miles to the north. This may
have represented a brief stop on the part of an army headed
northeast towards Aesernia, one allowed to do so by the removal
of the Romans which had been investing Nola.34 Cinna therefore
may have taken the gamble that the Samnites and Lucani would
busy themselves relieving Aesernia instead of attacking him, a
gamble which paid off. It would not, however, be the last time in
which Samnites and Lucani would be heard from, as will be seen
below.
With his army thus augmented by the southern legions, Cinna
began his return voyage to Rome up the Via Appia.35 He was soon
to have more of everything: more men, more money, and presently
a great deal more military experience in the form of C. Marius, who
had recently come back from Africa along with several others of
the men Sulla had exiled. While in exile it seems that Marius had
begun the slow process of acquiring followers to attempt a return
to Italy of his own,36 but upon hearing of the disturbances in
34 Also observed by Salmon (1967, p. 374).

35 The report in Exsuperantius (27) and a similar notice in Florus (2.9)
to the effect that Cinna made an additional voyage to Africa are almost
certainly mistaken.
36 Granius Licinianus (35) mentions that he already had about
1000 men in Africa, and Plutarch (Mar. 41), says likewise, consisting of
some Moorish horseman and whatever Italians had made their way to the
island of Cercina where he had set up a base. Appian says he had about
Rome, he had apparently decided that Cinna’s troubles furnished

the opportune time to make his homecoming. It may very well be
that he was specifically sent for by Cinna: the Periochae (79),
Plutarch (Sert. 5), Velleius (2.20) and the Scholia Gronoviana (286 St.)
all state this, although Appian (1.8.67) and another work of
Plutarch (Mar. 41–42) rather indicate that Marius presented himself
to Cinna somewhat later in the hope that the two of them could
cooperate in their similar interests.37 If the latter was actually the
case, then Marius had certainly made such cooperation all the more
attractive by the soldiers he now had at his command: upon
landing at Telamon in Etruria, the general had been joined by
Brutus (presumably the same Brutus who as praetor had been
abused so soundly by Sulla before his march; see Chapter 7) and
some followers from Spain, and had managed additionally to
recruit others from amongst the Etruscans through his personal
magnetism, through his promise to advocate the voting rights of
new citizens, and through freeing slaves and breaking open
prisons.38 It therefore with about 6000 men and apparently a small
flotilla of forty ships in addition (Plutarch, Mar. 41; Appian, loc. cit.,
Florus (2.9) that Marius approached Cinna and put himself at the
latter’s disposal. Cinna apparently overcame the doubts of Sertorius
and whatever reservations he himself may have had as to whether
or not to employ the old man in rapid order (Plutarch, Sert. 5)39 and
500 slaves who had joined their exiled masters in Africa, although he may
simply have omitted the Moorish cavalry (1.8.67).
37 The latter view is taken by Carney (1970, p. 62), Keaveney (1987, p.
180–181), and Lovano (p. 38–39). Badian (1964, p. 222) and Katz (p.
335–336) further suggest that this alliance was made with some
discomfort on Cinna’s part, which does not accord well with the latter
having been deliberately summoned by him. It may well be that Marius
presented himself to Cinna unbidden and proved too attractive an ally to
resist; the indication of Florus, that Cinna fled to Marius, seems most
unlikely (2.9).
38 See sources cited in the text immediately above, as well Florus (2.9).
39 Reasons for these doubts of Sertorius are not well-explained. After
all, Sertorius had served with Marius at least once during the Teutonic/
Cimbric Wars, and had perhaps done so again if Spann’s conjecture—that
Sertorius had been associated with the Caepiones, had served with Caepio
thereupon offered him a proconsular command. Marius, for his

part, declined the proconsulate, as he was still a public enemy and
would not accept the honor until he was specifically recalled.
However, he did accept the commission (Plutarch, Mar. 41–42),
and the army of Cinna was thereupon divided between himself,
Marius, Sertorius, and Carbo (Per. 79, Florus 2.9, Orosius 5.19.9,
Appian 1.8.67).40
An army consisting of exiled Romans, some forces remaining
from the previous year the south, and thousands of new citizens
had therefore coalesced and approached Rome. It had numbers,
experienced captains (and experienced men), and apparently a
decently-sized war-chest. But what it did not have was the element
of surprise, as the last march on Rome had had: that which in 88
had seemed incredible was now almost certainly to suspected, and
plans could therefore be made against it. The odds were that Cinna
the Younger in the Allied War, and had later been transferred to Marius
with the remnants of Caepio’s command (p. 21–23)—is an accurate one
(and it seems convincing enough). Plutarch suggests that he either feared
the consequences of the old man’s anger or simply was afraid Marius
would outshine him in war. Neither are terribly credible, the latter perhaps
less so than the former: although not impossible, it seems less than likely
that a soldier of the quality of Sertorius would let his own narcissism
stand in the way of the prosperity of his cause. Moreover, Sertorius may
have observed instances of a terrible temper in Marius in the past, but if
he had there is no record of it in the sources. By contrast, the career of
Marius thus far had been notable for its moderation in victory (see
discussion of Ostia below and notes), which suggest no cause for concern
about his fury. This leaves the source of the reservations of Sertorius
unknown, as they must remain here.
40 Plutarch (Sert. 5) omits the command given to Carbo. Perhaps he
misread his source, which stated that Cinna divided his command among
his three commanders (and himself), and assumed that the command was
merely divided into three. Alternatively, perhaps Carbo was not given a
separate command until somewhat later, and served as Cinna’s immediate
lieutenant early on. This might better explain the curious notice in Appian
(cited above): having—like Plutarch—observed that the command was
split into three, he proceeds to name the four men who led the three
parts. It may be that he intended to impy that Carbo served in a
subordinate capacity to Cinna.
would not gain the capital with the same ease that Sulla had
enjoyed, a contingency of which the men under his command
probably recognized. Nevertheless, these men had found the
expedition to be worth the risk. For some the outcome was loot,
for some the chance to go home, but for the former Italians,
motivation almost certainly consisted of the desire to repay the
efforts of the consul who had been injured while acting on their
behalf and to help him complete the task he had been compelled to
leave undone, which was to bring to them the unfettered rights of
civitas. It was motivation enough for them to exert themselves most
strenuously in the events to come, as will shown below.
4. BELLUM OCTAVIANUM AND THE REAL END

OF THE ALLIED WAR
As Cinna and his army of exiles and ex-Allies approached Rome,
those who had taken charge of the city in his absence had been
preparing to meet them. Although slowness of action on the part
of Octavius is mentioned in Dio, Plutarch, and the Periochae,41 he
had apparently managed enough alacrity to see that the defenses of
the city had been repaired and engines had been put on the walls
(Appian, 1.8.65). What it seems he could not do is raise an army to
attack Cinna as he drew closer. Appian records that he sent for
men to the Cisalpine and to those cities in Italy that had not gone
over the Cinna towards this end, but they apparently did not reply
in great numbers (1.8.66). Octavius also seems to have sent to
Pompeius Strabo in Picenum and bade him return to Rome to fight
off the invaders. The latter and his army apparently complied,
although the majority of the sources aver that they did not get to
the city in a timely fashion, apparently due to some vacillation on
the part of the proconsul. Appian himself does not record any
hesitancy on Pompeius Strabo’s part, but his indecision is attested
in the Periochae (79), Orosius (5.19.9–13), Obsequens (56a) Granius
Licinianus (35.13), and Velleius (2.21) as a cause for the holdup. All
41 Dio (fragment 102) refers to the nature of Octavius as ραδὺς;
Plutarch (Sert. 4) describes him as being ἀμ λύτερον; the Periochae of Livy’s

Book 79, in taking not of the disaster to come, blamed it on the consul’s
segnitia.
of these latter authorities censure Pompeius for temporizing and

delaying, the Periochae going so far as to claim that Pompeius could
easily have ended the bellum Octavianum (as it is sometimes called)
before it had begun by leading his troops—a veteran army of at
least three years’ continuous service under him—against Cinna
directly (Et cum opprimi inter initia potuisset, Cn. Pompei fraude, qui
utramque partem fovendo vires Cinnae dedit nec nisi profligatis optimatium
rebus auxilium tulit). However, he did not do so, just as he had not
led his legions against Sulla when the latter had occupied the city in
the previous year. Why Pompeius had acted like he had is not
entirely easy to discover, since almost all of the sources treat him
with such loathing that his actual motives are somewhat obscured
by the monstrous vices attributed to him: greed, opportunism,
treachery, and ambition—one so all-encompassing that he was
willing to have men killed and to put the state in jeopardy to
achieve his desires—are apparently his main faults. Nevertheless,
since his actions were to play a prominent part in what is about to
transpire, a closer look at this figure, his past associations in Roman
politics, and his possible thought process in 87 does not seem
entirely inappropriate.
Before the start of the Allied War the career of Pompeius is
not well known, though the fact that his famous son would later be
defended in a criminal suit by L. Philippus, the consul of 91, may
suggest that Pompeius was rather to be reckoned amongst the
partisans of the chief magistrate and the Senate than with those of
M. Livius Drusus in the time just before Asculum.42 However, such
a posture apparently did not mean that Pompeius had been
opposed to extending the civitas or other privileges to the Allies,
and in fact he seems to have felt quite the opposite, as his conduct
during the war seems to illustrate. During that conflict, he had used
the lex Julia to grant the citizenship to a troop of Spanish
cavalrymen (see chapter six); he had also given citizenship rights to
one P. Caesius of Ravenna (Cicero, Pro Balb. 22.50), possibly also
by means of the lex Julia; and had extended the Latin rights to the
peoples of the Transpadane (Asconius 3A–B).43 The cordial
42 So Gruen (1965, p. 70).

43 See Stevenson (95–101), as well as Appendix L.
relations between him and Vettius Scato (see Chapter 6) further

seem to illustrate his lack of strenuous objection to the ultimate
aim for which the socii were fighting. It would turn out that he
could not use the meeting with Scato to bring about peace, as has
been seen, but very likely this was not because Pompeius himself
was set against Italian citizenship, but was instead because his
hands were tied as far as being able to negotiate. Since he could not
bring about peace with the Italians, he continued to prosecute war
against them most successfully during his consulate. There have
been suggestions that his bequest of the ius Latii to the
Transpadanes and the failed embassy with Scato put him in odium
with the Senate,44 although it is difficult to see how they would
have let him triumph (as it has been seen that they did) if he had
been thoroughly detested by that body. This was, perhaps, the
crowning achievement of a most successful consulate. At its end,
Pompeius may have wanted to be re-elected, as Velleius (2.21)
implies, but if so he seems to have endured his disappointment
gracefully and presided over the elections without any incident that
has drawn the comment of the sources. Following this he went
back to Picenum, where he seems to have stayed on, and fought on
with the same skill and dedication, as proconsul.
Between 91 and 89, then, Pompeius seems to have held
something of a middle course in most of the conflicts inside and
outside of Rome: although apparently a friend of Philippus, he did
not seem to be an enemy of Drusus or to Allied enfranchisement;
although possibly sympathetic to the Allied cause, that sympathy
did not keep him from mauling the Italians in battle. During the
turbulence of 88 Pompeius seems to have continued to hold that
middle course and did nothing, holding aloof from the violence
which led to the flight of the consuls and likewise from Sulla’s
return at the head of an army. Exactly why he kept his distance is
44 This is one of the arguments of Stevenson (loc. cit.). Gruen (1965,

p. 70–71), however, disagrees with Stevenson, and is similarly
unconvinced by the idea that Strabo’s troubles with the Senate dated from
the Allied War. His disagreement with that idea is for different reasons
than those presented in the text above, although those which he gives are
very likely just as valid as the ones presented here.
impossible to tell. There has been some suggestion that he stayed

away because he supported P. Sulpicius as a former legate of his,45
but a number of facts make this unlikely. In the first place, it is by
no means certain that P. Sulpicius actually was a legate of
Pompeius in the war;46 in the second, his support certainly did not
motivate him to interfere to prevent Sulla from hounding Sulpicius
to death, as was seen. Yet if Pompeius did not aid Sulla, he
certainly did not impede Sulla in any way, either. Perhaps Pompeius
disapproved of the March, or approved of the Sulpician laws, but
was fearful of Civil War. On the other hand, perhaps he thought
Sulla’s cause was a just one—his son would later be a notorious
associate of Sulla’s—but not one sufficient to merit his
involvement. At any rate, for all intents and purposes Pompeius
cooperated when his replacement, Pompeius Rufus, came to take
over his command, and was conspicuous in yielding to the consul
and expressing outrage when that consul was murdered by his
troops (Appian 1.7.63), whether as part of an elaborate act or
because such was his honest reaction. With his replacement dead,
Pompeius resumed command of these men, and Sulla did not press
the issue (as has been seen). Sulla’s reluctance may have come from
an observation that the situation with Pompeius and his
replacement bore an uncomfortable resemblance to his own
predicament and portended a similar outcome, and Sulla, too,
might have feared Civil War. Either way, Sulla left Pompeius in
command of his army, which the latter continued to exercise
throughout 88 and into 87.
Such was the condition of Pompeius when Sulla departed
from Italy, and such it was a little later on when Octavius sent for
his legions as Cinna approached. Therefore, the inactivity seen as
so sinister by the sources47 may actually have had a number of
possible causes. This is not to say that Pompeius did not look upon
45 So Stevensonn (p. 98).

46 Gruen (loc. cit., esp. note 144); see also Appendix Q.
47 Ancient and modern: Salmon (1967, p. 374) actually refers to him as
“the sinister Pompeius Strabo” (he had earlier referred to Pompeius as a

money-grubber, p. 365), while Carney (1970, p. 64) refers to his later
demise, by either plague or lightning (see below), as a “fitting death”.
the present circumstance as an opportunity to further his own

ambitions: Velleius (2.21) and Orosius (5.19.10) both seem to
indicate that Pompeius attempted to extort concessions from both
Cinna and Octavius, which presumably meant a second consulate.48
Then again, Pompeius may have truly been torn as to which side
was the better, that of the Senate or that of the banished consul.
This perplexity may have been heightened if he actually had had
Italian sympathies (as his abovementioned behavior might imply).
Finally, Pompeius may have had one further reason for pause:
according to Cicero (as quoted in Asconius 79), the proconsul
faced prosecution under the lex Varia. If, as one scholar has
convincingly argued, the lex Varia was ultimately a law which
redefined the offense of maiestas,49 then a wide variety of potential
causes for this charge being attached to Pompeius may suggest
themselves: his (possibly unauthorized) bequest of the ius Latii
mentioned above, his association with Sulpicius (if there was such),
his refusal to halt Sulla’s march, his suspected involvement in the
death of Pompeius Rufus, and perhaps even his very unpopular
refusal to replenish the aerarium with manubiae from Asculum (see
Chapter 6) may all have been dredged up as grounds for
accusation.50 If indeed he was as detested by the nobility as the
48 This is the opinion of Katz (p. 328–334), who notes that Pompeius
was primarily motivated by this second consulate and shopped his

services to both parties; both declined due to a surfeit of men available for
the office. Carney (loc. cit.) also holds this view, as does Greenhalgh (p. 7).
49 Gruen (op. cit., p. 59–60).
50 Gruen (op. cit., p. 70–71) objects to most of these as the basis for
Strabo’s indictment under the lex Varia, which he believes was caused by
the rumors swirling around the death of Pompeius Rufus. On the other
hand, it is possible that while Strabo’s enfranchisements, his putative
involvement with Sulpicius, and his dispensation of the spoils of Asculum
were not the direct cause of his accusation, they may have been indirect
sources of motivation. Likely any or all of these caused intense resentment
of Strabo, and some of this may have led an accuser to come forward with
the charges of maiestas. Gruen would have it that his connection with the
murder of a consul, not his connections to a murdered tribune, may have
rendered him susceptible to the lex Varia.
On the other hand, Shatzman notes how generals who devoted all
manubiae from a campaign either only to the army or only the the aerarium
quotation of Cicero in Asconius suggests (hominem dis ac nobilitati

perinvisum Cn. Pompeium), then Pompeius might have legitimately
feared conviction and may have sought assurances from Octavius
that the charges be dropped before he would co-operate against
Cinna. In so doing, Pompeius found himself dealing with Octavius,
who seems to have been both obstinate and dense: such may be
discerned from an anecdote from Plutarch, which recounts how
Octavius refused to liberate slaves to fight against Cinna’s forces
because it would be wrong to admit slaves into the commonwealth
from which he was trying to exclude Marius (Marius 42). If the
consul was, in turn, as thickheaded and stubborn as this anecdote
seems to indicate, then he might very well have been slow to
guarantee Pompeius this immunity.
Under these circumstances, Pompeius may then have turned
to the other side and offered his legions in exchange for the
consulate (which was rebuffed, according to Orosius). Shortly after
he had done so, Octavius may finally have been persuaded by
emerging necessity to grant Pompeius what he asked. Whether or
not that was so, Pompeius did at last move his army to defend
Rome, and got there in time to prevent Cinna from taking it
unguarded. It seems to have been a race that the proconsul barely
won: Granius Licinianus reports that Marius sent a body of
horsemen under Milonius—possibly the C. Milo that is mentioned
in Appian 1.8.65—ahead to Rome in the expectation that it would
not be protected (35.10–11), so it must therefore have been by the
slimmest of margins that that the soldiers of Pompeius had been
able to had got there in time.
Pompeius was, however, not in time to engage Cinna before
the latter got to the environs of the city, and his forces soon began
often found themselves liable for prosecutions, albeit not on charges

directly related to his disposal of that manubiae (p. 188–198). It is quite
possible that the hatred incurred for his (quite legal) distribution of the
goods taken from Asculum led Strabo’s Senatorial opponents to attempt
to destroy him via a trial. All tht would be needed would be a convenient
excuse to charge him something, and the matter with Pompeius Rufus
furnished them with the necessary mechanism for his destruction.
the work of isolating Rome and putting it to siege.51 The army was,
as mentioned above, divided into four parts, of which the
placement of two—those of Marius and Sertorius—can be fairly
well divined: the former, according to Appian took up a position to
the southwest of Rome—“towards the sea”, or πρὸς τῇ αλάσσ
(1.8.67)—and threw a bridge across the Tiber, while the latter did
likewise from a position to the northwest (“above the city”, ὑπὲρ
τὴν πόλιν; loc. cit.). This would halt any supplies which had already
been sent by river from reaching the capital. Where exactly Cinna
and Carbo were stationed is less obvious; Appian, who tells of all
these arrangements, mentions that they were placed “over against”
or “opposite—ἀντικρύ—the city, so possibly all four divisions were
on the western bank of the Tiber.52 From here Cinna seems to
have had a command of the Via Flaminia, and to counter the
appeal for men Octavius had made to the Cisalpine (Appian 1.8.66,
as described above), he seems to have sent men an expedition of
his own there. These men first captured Ariminum (Appian
1.8.67),53 and then apparently Placentia. In the latter they seem to
have ordered the execution of a man named Caelius—who had
been placed there as governor by Octavius—in spite of the best
efforts of the former’s loyal dog, though Caelius cheated them of
his death by having his friend Petronius aid him in suicide (Valerius
4.7.5; Pliny, NH 8.61.144).
While this action was being undertaken to separate Rome
from succor and reinforcements from the north, Marius departed
with some of his men to effect the same separation to the south.
51 Plutarch (Mar. 42) suggests that Marius called the shots in this army,
and Carney—perhaps unsurprisingly—agrees (op. cit., p. 63), although

Lovano (p. 40) is probably more correct in that the strategy was one
agreed upon by all of the commanders; each of them, it should be
remembered, had seen some significant combat experience.
52 This is also the opinion of Lovano (p. 39–40).
53 The capture of Ariminum is also mentioned by Granius Licinianus
(35.28), who assumes it was undertaken by Marius as opposed to Cinna,

Quite possibly this source, like Plutarch, made the—perhaps logical—
assumption that Marius directed all operations.
According to Plutarch (Mar. 42),54 he had apparently already sent

the ships he had assembled in Etruria to Ostia, there to make it
more difficult for grain ships and merchant vessels to enter the
harbor and from there have their goods taken by land to Rome.
Marius then seems to have moved his land forces to bottle up
Ostia completely. According to that author (loc. cit.), the city was
taken when the gates were opened to Marius by treachery. This was
presumably instigated by one Valerius, the commander of the
cavalry garrison there, who was responsible for its defection
according to Granius Licinianus (35.14). Since the city had not
surrendered of its own accord but had been taken by subterfuge,
Marius apparently had decided to allow his men to plunder the
port. The savagery of the sack must have impressed Livy, since it is
mentioned in such descendants as the Periocha of his book 79,
Orosius (5.19.17), and Florus (2.9.12). Plutarch (loc. cit.) also
mentions mass murder in addition to plunder, although Appian
merely mentions the looting (1.8.67). Some scholars have
speculated that the ferocity of the affair may have signalled a
change in Marius, who had hitherto been notably abstemious about
such things: Ostia, it is asserted, was symbolic of his desire for
vengeance on his inimici, since in spite of the extensive profits
which had come to that city during his campaigns and consulates, it
had nevertheless not furnished him sufficient aid in his flight from
54 The chronological order in this source seems to be the reverse of
what is presented in Granius Licinianus, Orosius, and Appian. As Plutarch

presents it, Marius first captured grain-ships and mercantile vessels with
his fleet, sailed to the coastal cities and attacked these, captured Ostia, and
finally built bridges across the Tiber. Such an order of operations does not
make a great deal of military sense, and gives rise to several questions.
Why would the bridges need to be built over the Tiber, if Ostia and all the
ancillary cities had already been taken and thus there were no ships to
stop? And why attack the smaller cities while leaving the main port open,
rather than choke off the main source of supplies first? When slightly
rearranged, however, the steps Marius are said to have taken are far more
comprehensible; Appian seems to provide such a rearrangement, so for
what is to follow his framework will be used and the details from Plutarch
will reassembled into it.
Sulla55. This may very well have been the case, but it is also quite
possible that the sack of Ostia also served a strategic purpose of its
own, in that it might make other cities in the area reluctant to resist
should an army from Cinna or Marius be sent there. Either way, in
this manner grain and men were kept away from Rome from the
north and from the west.
There was still, however, the south and the east, and if Cinna
and the others were stationed on the west bank of the Tiber, then
presumably there may have been some way to supply the city from
those directions. Given his general method of operating, Marius
might very well have desired to close these off as well before
launching into a grand assault on the capital. The actions he would
take slightly later probably represent his original strategic plan (see
below). However, for some reason a battle soon erupted at the
Janiculum at about the time that Ostia was being taken, one which
required his attention back in the city. The sources give several
accounts varying accounts of the action: according to the Periocha
of book 80, it happened after the capture of Ostia and took the
form of an attack made by Marius and Cinna, later to be joined by
Carbo and Sertorius, that ended in a defeat inflicted on them by
Octavius. Tacitus (Hist. 3.51), who cites Sisenna as his source,
mentions that at this battle—he specifically cites it as taking place
at the Janiculum—a soldier in the army of Pompeius found,
amongst the corpses of the slain from the army of Cinna, the body
of his own brother, a discovery which led to that soldier’s suicide.56
This makes it reasonably clear that some or all of the men under
Pompeius took part in it, a supposition that finds support in the
55 So Carney (1970, p. 64 and note 278), citing Plutarch Mar. 35 as the

example of the meager support they had provided to him in his hour of
need, and Mar. 7, about how he was not usually accustomed to display
such strong emotions.
56 The same anecdote is told in the Periocha of book 79, in which the
tale looks to have been placed in a spot where it does not belong (it
comes just after the takeover of the legion of Appius Claudius by Cinna,
for which see above). The way it is reported does not seem to connect it
to any particular battle, rather noting only that it happened “in this war”
(in quo bello). The story may, then, actually belong to the battle around the
Janiculum, the context in which it is placed by Tacitus.
narrative of Orosius (5.19.11–14), who mentions the same story

right after a depiction of a battle in which Pompeius had engaged
Sertorius and had fought until night parted the sides (the story is
also found in Valerius 5.5.4). This would similarly accord well with
Granius Licinianus (35.24–26), who also supplies the story and
explicitly mentions Pompeius as having taken part in the fighting,
as does Valerius Maximus (5.5.4) Presumably, then, this is the
“great and monstrous battle” (magno atrocique proelio) described as
having been fought between Cinna and Pompeius by Velleius
(2.21), and that all alike are part of the same battle on the Janiculum
described by Appian (1.8.68), as opposed to different conflict.
If all of this is true, then the various sources allow for a bit
more to be learned about this climactic event, which seems to have
transpired in the following way: according to Appian, the defensive
line at the Janiculum was overseen by a military tribune named
Appius Claudius, for whom Marius had once done a favor. Quite
probably at Cinna’s urging, Marius persuaded the man to open the
gates to him near dawn, at which point he and Cinna both entered
(Plutarch also mentions that Marius had occupied the Janiculum;
Mar. 42).57 Granius Licinianus (loc. cit.) supplies what transpired
next: in his account, Octavius and Pompeius seem to have caught
wind of what was going on, and together—Octavius with six
cohorts borrowed from the army of Pompeius—they attacked,
driving back Marius and Cinna and killing the cavalry commander
Milo in the process. By this point, however, Sertorius and
presumably Carbo had been able to deploy, and they in turn
engaged in hard fighting with Octavius and Pompeius which
resulted in the deaths of at least a thousand of the defenders and
seven times that number of Cinna’s men. Octavius apparently
wanted to press the attack and seems to have sent men forward
under Crassus (presumably P. Crassus, the former consul, censor,
and triumphator; he would figure as a commander later in this
57 Granius Licinianus (in the place just cited in the text above) also
mentions that Marius had taken the Janiculum, but then implies that a
massacre of the garrison had taken place on the orders of the general; this,
however, seems most unlikely, especially since such would have taken
time and the opening at dawn suggests the desire for surprise and secrecy.
conflict war, for which see below), but Pompeius seems to have
persuaded Octavius to the contrary and got him to recall Crassus.
According to the most uncharitable account of Granius Licinianus,
this was a mistake, but one deliberately made so that the battle
might not have ended the chances of Cinna then and there, as it
might otherwise have done. By means of this error, Pompeius
prevented a coup de grâce so that the fighting could continue until the
elections and win him another consulate for his deeds. More
probably, however, night may actually have been coming, as
Orosius suggests, and Pompeius did not want to be drawn any
further away from Rome in the dying light lest the fortune of the
battle turn against them. Either way, the battle was soon over, and
as consul Octavius could claim credit for the victory even if the
battle had been fought primarily with the men of Pompeius.58
Those sources which supply details about the beginning of the
Battle of the Janiculum mention that it was Marius who had set it
into motion, displaying a forwardness which runs somewhat
counter to his style. Then again, the Battle of the Tolenus had
shown that Marius was not above rapid movements to exploit an
advantage, so it might well have been that he attempted to seize
the opportunity that his recognition of Claudius provided.
Alternatively, perhaps he had succumbed to the wishes of his more
aggressive co-commanders against his inclination, which had been
to let the siege and privation take its course. Either way, it seems
that Marius returned to his earlier strategy at this point, and soon
thereafter he captured the coastal town of Antium, which may have
been funneling supplies to Rome by means of the Via Appia. He
then proceeded to capture other cities on the path northwards
from the coast to that road, taking Lanuvium, and finally gaining
mastery of the highway by means of his capture of Aricia, which
would also put him in a position to monitor the Via Latina (Per. 80;
58 For the battle see also Lovano (p. 41). Katz (p. 332), somewhat less
generously, follows the notice in Granius Licinianus, and rejects the

notion that there might have been sound military considerations for what
Pompeius had done.
Appian, 1.8.69; Orosius, 5.19.19).59 By this point the lack of food in

Rome must have started to become severe: having been denied
whatever could be gotten from Etruria, Umbria, and the Cisalpine
by Cinna’s control of Ariminum and the Via Flaminia, from the sea
by the capture of Ostia, and from Latium and Campania by the
presence of Marius on the Via Appia and Via Latina, all that
remained open to Rome were highways into areas like Picenum,
ones which had just seen several years of hard fighting in the Allied
War. Indeed, Appian seems to be suggesting just this state of
affairs, mentioning that the Senate had begun to fear what might
happen if there were a scarcity of corn, a possibility which must by
now have started to become more and more imminent (loc. cit.).
In the meantime, Cinna, Sertorius, and Carbo remained
outside the city of Rome, whose defenders were not only suffering
from want, but were also beginning to suffer from disease. Granius
Licinianus states that 17,000 were felled in this manner (35.35), a
number which corresponds exactly to the numbers of those said to
have become ill in Orosius (5.19.18). Pompeius—who might never
have been adamantly opposed to the cause of Cinna and Marius in
the first place—seems at this point to have argued for
accommodation and to have prevailed upon the Senate to receive
the envoys of Cinna (Granius Licinianus, 35.32). These pleas were
rebuffed by the optimates, who apparently still considered
themselves unbeaten, as they would continue to think for some
time to come (so Appian, 1.8.69). As a consequence, Pompeius
59 See map 1. Orosius source omits mention of Lanuvium in this list
of victories and further adds that Marius pillaged the towns he seized,
although no other authority mentions this (it is believed, however, by
Carney; 1970, p. 64 note 281). This might well have been an exaggeration
on the part of Orosius. It is not impossible that Marius may have burned
whatever was being sent to Rome to keep it from the enemy, or despoiled
those cities which resisted him. For example, Appian mentions other
cities besides those just named in his description of the campaign,
including some taken by treachery, and it may be that of those which did
not yield to him he the same example that he had made of Ostia. Still, it
seems unlikely that a campaign of devastation through Latium would have
gone completely unnoticed in the other sources, ones which make such a
point of mentioning what had occurred in Ostia.
apparently continued the parley on his own initiative in private.

This is often seen as even more duplicity on the part of the
proconsul, but it could just as easily have been that Pompeius was
tired of having to watch his men60 die in droves from sickness
during yet another siege. He had already endured a lengthy one at
Firmum in the Allied War, it is to be recalled, and had subsequently
conducted one at Asculum. His willingness to subject his men to
such misery for a cause in which neither men nor commander may
have believed all that strongly seems to have been limited.
Indeed, if a story found in Plutarch (Pomp. 3) is not to be
dismissed as complete fabrication, it may very well be that
Pompeius had already seen an erosion in the morale and discipline
of some his soldiers, who seem to have planned to mutiny and
perhaps even to murder their general and his son. The fact that the
uprising was so swiftly and easily suppressed, and the fact that only
a few of the conspirators subsequently deserted, suggests that
disaffection had probably not yet gotten to an uncontrollable pitch,
but it seems clear that the soldiers were tired, hungry, and ill. Cinna
is recorded by that source as having tried to bribe at least one of
these men (πεισ εὶς χρ μασιν), and it may have been that to the
others he an extend offer to defect and enjoy the relative plenty of
his camp. This may have been a bribe in and of itself, and it may be
wondered whether Pompeius himself had become tempted by it.61
60 Katz (p. 334) is almost certainly correct in dismissing the view that
Pompeius was hated by his soldiery. For one thing, none of the sources
observe this (save one; see below). For another, these men had certainly
endured epic hardships and managed amazing feats under his command,
and had killed his would-be successor Q. Pompeius Rufus on his behalf, if
not at his behest. He, in turn seems to have endured some substantial
damage to his reputation as a result of his letting them keep the spoils of
Asculum. For all that Pompeius may have been hated “by the gods and by
the nobiles” (Cicero apud Asconius 79) and even by the Roman people (see
below), his men seem to have held him in high regard, and it is not
improbable that he esteemed them likewise.
61 Badian suggests that the story is at the very least hyperbole designed
to magnify the love felt for Pompeius Strabo’s son by his soldiery and his
role in suppressing the mutiny (according to Plutarch, it was suppressed
by the soon-to-be Pompeius Magnus by his evasion of his erstwhile
Whether he was or not, however, his personal role in the war was
soon over. Not long after the battle of the Janiculum, Pompeius
was deed, either having been stricken by illness (as Velleius
Paterculus holds; 2.21) or struck by a bolt of lightning (Plutarch,
Pomp. 1, and Orosius, 5.19.18; Appian 1.8.68 and Obsequens 56a
likewise both describe a terrific storm which arose at some point
after the battle in which Pompeius and several others were killed).62
murderer and his tears before the men; 1958, p. 239–240 note 6. Katz, on
the other hand, believes that there was slightly more substance to the tale,
and is alos willing to believe the rather unflattering report about Cinna
which it contains, whereby the exiled consul had allegedly paid a young
man named Terentius to murder the future Pompeius Magnus and burn
his father’s tent (p. 332–333; Greenhalgh does likewise; p. 7–8). However,
it is difficult to see what Cinna would hope to accomplish by killing the
man with whom he seems to have been in secret negotiations, unless on
the one hand he had come to believe that with Pompeius out of the way
his soldiers would desert the cause of the optimates, and on the other he
had grown tired of bargaining with the commanders of the other side.
The former may have been true, but the latter seems unlikely for a
number of reasons, not the least of which the very negotiations in which
he and Pompeius were supposed then to have been engaged. Indeed, the
fact that these negotiations are claimed to have taken place at all also
makes it improbable that the assassination attempt had taken place before
the Janiculum (as Katz—who divides this event into two separate battles
and places the plot before the second—would have it, and Greenhalgh as
well). It is difficult to believe that Pompeius would have been wont to
open or maintain a dialogue with those who had plotted the killing of
himself and his son, if Cinna and his supporters had actually so done. Far
more likely, then, is the fact that Plutarch is instead portraying a simple
mutiny which was perhaps led by Terentius—apparently a Picentine from
Firmum whose interests in his rights, along with the hardships he was
enduring, may have made the cause of Cinna the more attractive—and
involved a few hundred men. It is also likely that Strabo may have played
a far more active role in quelling it than Plutarch implies, as Katz states,
almost certainly correctly.
62 Carney, as seen above, believes Pompeius met a “fitting death”
during the plague (1970, p. 64 and note 281). Katz also states that he
succumbed to illness (p. 333 and note 20), and chides Gabba for not
having noted this “correct interpretation”, at the same time dismissing
unsupported theories that either the Senate or Cinna had him murdered.
Obsequens additionally reports that his corpse was abused by the

people for his treachery and greed, perhaps a lingering echo of
resentment for his unwillingness to share the proceeds of Asculum
(loc. cit.), as does Plutarch (loc. cit.; also Moralia 553). Ultimately the
death of Pompeius did not have any immediate effect on the
condition of his army, which did not defect (Granius Licinianus
reports that Octavius promptly assumed control of them), although
this stage of negotiations with Cinna was now closed.
What the death of Pompeius did mean, however, was that
Octavius was now without his services as a general; as loathed as
the dead proconsul may have been by both the populace and the
optimates, his talent in the field could not have been denied. The
Senate would now need a suitable replacement, and would likely
have already come to appreciate a need for more men even before
the Janiculum. The casualties from that battle and the loss of the
many thousands which the plague carried away thereafter would
have made this desire for more soldiers even more urgent. As a
consequence, even before that engagement had been joined
commissioners were sent by the Senate to Metellus Pius. The latter
was still trying to subjugate what remained of the Alliance in the
south where Cinna had left him, and he was thereupon bidden to
fashion a settlement with the latter that he might come and save
Rome from destruction (Appian, 1.8.68; Dio, frg. 102; Granius
Licinianus, 35.29–30).63 As has been seen, for some reason or
another the Samnites had not taken the earlier offer of the
citizenship. Perhaps it had not been offered to them or the Lucani,
Lovano (p. 42) presents both alternatives. It should be noted that Granius
Licinianus (35.31–42) describes how Pompeius had caught ill and was in
his bed when a bolt of lightning struck his tent, shearing off its top and
injuring him in the process; perhaps both the plague and the injury from
the thunderbolt contributed to his demise.
63 See also the so-called Commenta Bernensia and the Adnotationes supra
Lucannum, which make reference to this embassy in their notes on Lucan

2.121 and the speech made by as part of it by M. Antonius (sent, along
with Q. Catulus [cos. 102] and his son, to Metellus, according to Granius
Licinianus 35.23) calling for Metellus to come save Rome from Marius,
who was preparing to do to it what the Gauls had done. See also
Elizabeth Rawson (1987, p. 163–164; 167; 177–180).
or—more probably, given what is about to occur—it had been, but

they had held out for the opportunity of obtaining better terms
than merely the franchise alone.64 Now they seem to have found
such an opportunity, and they made the most of it. According to
Cassius Dio, from Metellus they demanded first and foremost the
citizenship for themselves and for their companions, such as the
Lucani.65 The same author records that they also asked for the
return of their prisoners and deserters (who would presumably also
be given the franchise, at least in the case of the former), as well as
the right to keep any spoil they had collected. Granius Licinianus
adds that they also asked for the return of what had been taken
from them in plunder. To this patres even in their desperation could
not agree (so Dio and Granius in the places cited; likewise Appian,
1.8.68), and so it seems that Metellus he broke off the conference
and the campaign against the Samnites was resumed. However,
Metellus himself did not lead it, as he is next seen approaching
Rome with his men (Granius Licinianus, 35.47–49; Plutarch, Mar.
42, Appian 1.8.69). Instead, it seems he delegated these
undertakings against the Samnites to his legate Plautius, witth
whom he probably left a small force (Per. 80). In the meantime,
Marius and Cinna seem to have heard of the offer made to
Metellus by the Samnites and found it more acceptable than the
patres had, and through the agency of C. Flavius Fimbria they
concluded a peace of their own with the Samnites and Lucani.66
64 This is also argued in chapter 6.

65 Salmon’s conjecture on this point is almost certainly the correct one
(1967, p. 375), although perhaps the Samnites also had in mind the slaves
who had defected to their cause from places like Aesernia; maybe even a
provision was thrown in for their pirate admiral Agammemnon.
66 So Granius Licinianus, 35.28–30. The Periochae seems to mention
this in a two-line reference that is extremely confusing in its brevity. The

text of that reference reads: Italicis populis a senatu civitas data est. Samnites, qui
soli arma recipiebant, Cinnae et Mario se coniunxerunt. This would imply that
that the Samnites had either not been offered the citizenship until now or,
as is more probable, had received such an offer but only now accepted it
after Marius and Cinna agreed to their stipulations. On the other hand,
why they remained in arms is a mystery, unless the Epitomator meant to
suggest that these people retained their arms and made common cause
In this way the Allied War had finally ended; the Samnites and
Lucani who promptly made short work of Plautius (Per., loc. cit.) did
with Marius and Cinna. Recipiebant can be used to mean “keep” or

“retain”, and as the very next line shows Plautius being defeated by these
people (Ab his Plautius legatus cum exercitu caesus est), the notice may refer to
them defeating Plautius for these Marius and Cinna. A similar notice in
Granius Licinianus probably means the same thing. This seems to have
been the only fighting they did subsequent to joining themselves to
Marius and Cinna, and beyond a nebulous phrase in Granius Licinianus
that Cinna accepted the Samnites into his own forces (eos recepit et copiis suis
iunxit; loc. cit.) no source record that the Samnites actually fought alongside
them anywhere else. This was observed by Lovano (p. 40) and Salmon
(1967, p. 375). Instead, they seem to have kept to themselves in what is
sometimes referred to as a state of de facto independence, although the fact
that they stopped minting coins and gave over the other apparatus of self-
government means that actual independence was not assumed or,
probably, sought (so Salmon, op. cit., p. 381).
What becomes of the Lucani in this period cannot, strictly speaking,
be known, but as they were last seen in the company of the Samnites still
fighting against the Romans, it is probable that they likewise negotiated
with Marius and Cinna, and likewise accepted their offer (the Samnites ...
soli of the Periocha notwithstanding). There is no evidence to support
Keaveney’s assertion that they were still in Bruttium holding Roman
territory in arms (1982b, p. 501). That which he takes as evidence for such
is a passage in Appian describing an event from five years later, in which
Samnites and Lucani rush to aid the cause of Carbo against Sulla (1.10.90).
Since these people emerge in 82 in the same places where they were
fighting in 87, it is held that they had retained these regions as
independent territories. However, the actial text of Appian states nothing
of this kind, and merely notes that in 82 the Lucani were led to Praeneste
by Marcus Lamponius, the same general under whom they had last been
fighting in 87. This man was likely their best general, so it seems logical
that he would be at their head then next time they went to war. In the
meantime, Lamponius and the Lucani could have spent the intervening
years enjoying a rest from the combat in which they had been engaged
from 90 to 87, just as the Romans themselves took to repose during the
triennium sine armis (see next chapter).
As for the Fimbria with whom the Samnites and Lucani, made these
negotiations it appears he had held some form of command in the
division of Marius, as events will show; see Rawson 1987, p. 168.
so as Roman citizens on behalf of Marius and Cinna. After four

years, all of the Italians were finally made citizens of the Republic,
and even if there were some from the old Alliance who had not
fought for such a privilege as the rest of their comrades had, it was
now theirs nevertheless. Yet these citizens still did not yet have
equal rights with the Romans of older vintage, and their acquisition
of these seemed to be something which the veteres cives would
continue to be willing to oppose with violence and bloodshed.
Furthermore, the Samnites and Lucani had only gotten the
franchise at all through their agreements with Marius and Cinna.
Both of these men had been declared outlaws by the Roman state,
and still were when the Samnites and Lucani had treated with them.
Should these men fail in their current struggle and remain such, or
if, upon its success, there should ever be a move to return them to
that status in the future, than the Samnite and Lucanian civitas could
be declared invalid. The only way that all of the former Allies could
remain citizens and the equals of the older Romans would be if the
cause for which Marius and Cinna were fighting would both be
won and preserved against whatever threats to it might be made by
future challengers. This fact must have been apparent to all of the
one-time socii as the summer of 87 continued.
In the meantime, Metellus and much of his army had
detached from Samnium and had headed to Octavius and Rome,
possibly up the Via Latina before Marius had managed to close it.
Shortly thereafter, it seems, Marius had managed to commence
impeding the southern advances to the capital, which had in turn
started to make getting supplies increasingly difficult, as has been
seen. There was as yet probably no question of being able to starve
the city into submission, but the inconvenience was likely
beginning to tell. Moreover, if the plan of Marius was to keep
approaching Rome while at the same time extending his lines
eastward to occupy the roads—or more accurately, to do so while
at the same time getting the rest of the Cinna’s army then nearby at
the north of the city to begin to do likewise—then a cordon
around the city might soon become a possibility. This, it seems,
became a matter of come concern to the Senate, as Appian notes (ἡ
ουλὴ ταραττομέν καὶ πολλὰ καὶ δεινά, εἰ ραδύνειεν ἡ σιτοδεία;
1.8.69). In response they collected their forces and sent most of

them67 forward under Octavius, Crassus, and the newly arrived
Metellus, whose adherence to propriety had prevented him from
taking command of the city’s defense in spite of a petition to that
effect by some soldiers (one whose refusal had caused the
defection of some of the men formerly under Pompeius to Cinna,
according to Plutarch; Mar. 42). Their objective was to get to the
Alban hills, some tweve-odd miles from the city. Once there it
seems they spent some time deliberating as to what to do next,
since in spite of what they perceived to be their own numerical
superiority they did not wish to join into a decisive battle without
careful planning. Granius Licinianus describes a disturbing episode
which may have contributed to this hesitancy (35.47–49). At some
earlier point Metellus had approached the army of Cinna, perhaps
to join battle with him. All of a sudden his signiferi had cried out in
friendly greeting to Cinna’s men and had received an encouraging
reply from them. Metellus clearly feared to entrust battle to men of
such dubious loyalty, a wavering allegiance to which Periocha also
refers, adding that the men had been bribed by Cinna (Per. 80).
Such bribery is not impossible, but what is more likely is that they
had tired of war and simply did not want to fight any more, as
some of these were men may have been in the field since 90.
Metellus proceeded to advise negotiations. In this he seems to
have been overruled by Octavius, who appears to have given ear to
the wish of P. Crassus, the lieutenant who was recalled as the light
was fading at the earlier battle around the Janiculum. As was
mentioned above, at least one source holds that this retreat had
prevented the Janiculum from turning into a total victory which
would have put an end to the war. Perhaps Crassus wished to
finish what he had started, and recapture some of the glory that
had once been his in 93 (when he was granted a triumph over the
Lusitani) but which had faded due to his disappointing
performance in 90.68 Yet whether it was for this reason or not,
67 But probably not all, as there is no report of the immediate entry
into the city by Cinna as would doubtless have occurred if all of its
defenders had moved south; this is observed by Lovano (p. 43).
68 See chapter 5 and notes.
Crassus seems to have requested from Octavius that he be sent to

attack the opposing army, a request which was granted. Crassus,
however, was then badly defeated by Fimbria, in which only the
timely intervention of Metellus seems to have prevented
annihilation (Granius Licinianus, loc. cit.). Presumably Crassus was
at this point now more tractable to the idea of reaching an
understanding with Cinna, and overtures were soon made to that
effect. In the meantime, Cinna continued to gain strength, as
deserters both from the armies of Octavius and from the city itself
came to his camp (Appian, loc. cit.).
Accordingly, a deputation was sent to Cinna to ask for peace.
Cinna, upon receiving it, wished to know on what terms he was to
be addressed: was he a citizen? Was he consul? The Senate had, it is
to be recalled, stripped him of both titles. Apparently not
anticipating such a question, the embassy went back to the Senate
to ask what was to be done. In the meantime, Cinna and his men
moved closer to the city and were apparently unchallenged by
Octavius, who may have been back in the city consulting with the
Council. The immediate problem of addressing Cinna as consul in
spite of the fact that there were already two of those currently
serving was promptly solved by Merula, who resigned the post
(Appian 1.8.70; Velleius 2.22; Diodorus 38.1–3). Given the extent
to which he had taken his priestly duties seriously (Appian 1.8.74;
more below), there seems little doubt that he had never really
wanted the office anyway, as Merula himself would later claim. The
Senate was now free to restore Cinna’s rank to him, and the next
set of envoys—which seems to have included Metellus—dutifully
acknowledged his title. When Metellus returned to the city he was
apparently roundly abused for this by Octavius, obdurate as ever,
who accused him of treason and betrayal. However, in the face of a
collapsing army it is difficult to see how Metellus could have done
any differently; since fighting Cinna had become out of the
question, it would be the duty of any patriotic Roman to avoid the
further effusion of blood. It may very well have been Metellus who
attempted to extract a promise from Cinna not to massacre his
enemies, which is reported by Plutarch (Mar. 43) and Appian (loc.
cit.). According to the former source, Cinna gave a “friendly
answer”, although the latter paints matters somewhat differently:
Cinna could not make such a promise, Appian has him say, but he
did pledge his word that he personally would never willingly cause
anyone’s death. Having said that, Cinna added that it would

probably be best for Octavius to avoid the Forum, lest someone
other than Cinna decide to harm him. Both sources also observe
that Marius apparently was not asked to make such a vow, and the
expression on his face seemed to indicate that he would not have
made it if he had. Metellus, for his part, got the hint, and while
Octavius swore he would resist Cinna and Marius to the last,
Metellus soon betook himself into exile, perhaps that very night
(Appian 1.9.80; Plutarch, Mar. 42). It was, as one scholar rather
amusingly put it, “a family tradition”.69
In theory, the restoration of the rank and status of Cinna had
put an end to the second march on Rome and the so-called Bellum
Octavianum which accompanied it. In fact, there was still a great deal
more blood to be shed, as will be seen. Nevertheless, to some of
Rome’s former Allies and erstwhile enemies—specifically, the
69 This excellent turn of phrase is that of Katz (p. 334–336) referring
to the exile into which the father of Metellus, the former commander of
Marius in Africa, had gone so as not to swear an oath of allegiance to the
laws carried by Saturninus in 100. The bon mot notwithstanding, that
scholar’s interpretation of most of year is somewhat unsatsifying. As has
been seen, he attributed the wavering of Pompeius to the latter’s apparent
urgent need to secure a second consulate, and likewise suggests that
Metellus may have shown less vigor at the Alban Hills because he, too,
hoped for election to the magistracy for 86. Hence his willingness to
negotiate rather than fight, the course that Crassus had urged. But it has
been seen that Crassus was probably unwise to have fought himself, and
the garbled text of Granius Licinianus seems to indicate that it was only
due to the swift action of Metellus that Crassus did not end up dead on
the field. As a strict conservative who refused to take command illegally
of the legions of Octavius even when urged by the soldiers themselves to
do so, it does not follow that Metellus was the sort who would cynically
betray the commonwealth to secure election to an office for which his
military accomplishments and pedigree would probably have already
stood him in excellent stead anyway. Further, there is no evidence that
Metellus and Cinna had broached the subject of getting the former to
change sides and that this deal was scuttled by Marius and his refusal to be
put aside, as Katz also strongly infers. Rather, Metellus seems to have
acted to save as many lives as he could—including his own—against odds
that were not in his favor.
Samnites and the Lucani—the wars were at last over. In exchange

for peace, they were provisionally awarded the citizenship and the
plunder they had taken through years of hard fighting, which was
presumably to be put towards repairing their losses from that
combat. That provisional title became an actual one when the
deposition and outlawry of Cinna was repealed: upon becoming a
civis again himself, his grant of the civitas to the southern Italians
was made valid. But if his promises to some of the former Allies
had been kept, there was still an outstanding debt to be discharged
to others, including the many that had helped secure Cinna’s
victory. It would, however, take some time before that debt could
be paid. Concerns had arisen in the meantime which were pressing
on all Romans, not just new ones. These took precedence, and
Cinna had to put out some fires—in a manner of speaking—before
tending to the novi cives, whose needs could for the time being be
left to simmer. Even so, the means by which Cinna extinguished
some of these fires added fuel to others, and eventually violence
would again boil over in Italy, as will be seen.
5. THE VIOLENT RESTORATION OF CINNA AND MARIUS

As Metellus took to flight, Cinna was now free to return to Rome:
the size of his army, the skill of his commanders, and his abilities to
persuade the soldiers of his enemies to leave off further fighting
had brought him to victory.70 He and his comrades therefore
proceeded to make their way to the city, but just outside the gates
Marius stopped. He was still an outlaw, the old general pointed out,
and it would be illegal for him to go any further (it was for this
70 In this way, the contradiction which Lovano (p. 44–45) seems to

discern between those sources who seem to assert that Cinna forced his
way into the city and those who claim he had been peaceably received can
be reconciled: Cinna certainly had used an army to get the Senate to agree
to his recall, both at the Janiculum and Alban hills as well as by means of
the gradual severing of Rome’s supplies, but he had not battered his way
into the gates. That outcome had been avoided, as Lovano himself
concludes. The “sack” which Orosius, Florus, Velleius, and the Periochae
(all in some measure descendants of Livy, it is to be observed) seem to
describe is an exaggerated account of the trials and executions that would
soon take place, as will be narrated below.
same reason that he had refused the proconsular insignia which

Plutarch suggests Cinna had offered him earlier, as has been seen).
Cinna, however, had been restored to his status, as presumably had
the tribunes who had been ousted with him, and together they
entered the city to have Marius and the other exiles recalled. Since
Cinna had taken an oath not to invalidate any of Sulla’s laws, it
seems probable that this was done through the tribunes, as Appian
asserts (loc. cit.).71
When this was accomplished, Marius regained his city,
attended by his bodyguard of freed slaves called the Bardyaei, or
“Spiked Boots”, as one scholar would have it.72 Once inside, Cinna
and Marius are presented in Diodorus (38.4) as having held a
meeting with their most eminent supporters to decide what was to
be done with their enemies. “In order to establish peace on a
lasting basis” (ὅπως ε αίως καταστ σωσι τὴν εἰρ ν ν), they came to
the conclusion that it would be necessary to eliminate the chief
men of the opposing side. Reasons for this may have varied. In
addition to the possibility of further sedition they could stir up in
Rome, which would have been an obvious concern, there was also
the fact that Marius was probably just as thirsty for revenge as the
sources assert (more below), and it seems likely that Cinna desired
71 Dio (frg. 102) and Velleius (2.21) state that Cinna himself proposed
the law. If Cinna still cared anything for the oath he had taken to Sulla, he
might well have justified this measure by framing a new law recalling the
exiles, rather than through restoring the laws of Sulpicius which had been
vitiated by Sulla. He had likely done the same thing earlier in the year,
before the unpleasantness with Octavius. It was therefore possible that he
drafted and passed the law himself, but it is just as possible that this was
done through friendly tribunes. In the presence of equal likelihoods, while
there seems no reason to prefer tribunicial recall, there is likewise no
reason not to do so. Therefore, this essay will follow Lovano (p. 45) and
assume that tribunes did it, while acknowledging the possibility of the
other option.
72 Carney 1970, p. 63 and note 276, where he also speculates that these
were not slaves but rather Etruscan serfs who were mischaracterized as
slaves later (see Harris 1971, 114–147 for the distinction); thus, for
example, does Plutarch refer to them here and in his Sertorius (5), as does
the Commenta Bernensia commenting on lines 114 and 120 of Lucan (as per
Rawson, op. cit., p. 165–166).
it, too. Moreover, Sulla was still in the east, but would return some
day. If a bloc of his friends, supporters, or even former opponents
who considered his side the better than that of Cinna and Marius
still remained in Rome when he did, they could cause problems,
especially if such men were possessed of great authority, influence,
or military experience. Since it was almost certain that many of the
very men with whom Marius and Cinna desired to settle scores
would be the same as those who would make trouble, would
support Sulla, or both, the need for their removal would be doubly
great.
The question became how to go about getting rid of them.
Simple murder would work, of course, but it would also be ugly
and would perhaps alienate the people. Moreover, Cinna had
recently vowed that he would not willingly cause anyone’s death,
although it can be questioned to what extent he considered himself
bound by that vow. Certainly there was one person whom most of
the sources explicitly state was killed by Cinna’s direct order,
namely his colleague Cn. Octavius.73 However, it seems that
Octavius had provided Cinna with an excuse, and indeed a
necessity, to give this order. Not at all disposed to go into exile as
Metellus had done, Octavius (as has been seen) apparently
announced during his harangue against the former that he was
going to resist Cinna and Marius unto the last, even to the extent of
burning down his own house while still inside it if he could find no
one to join him in that resistance (Diod. 38.3). Encouraged in his
resolve, apparently, by soothsayers and prophets (Plutarch Mar. 42;
Appian 1.8.71), Octavius stood firm in his decision to remain
defiant and according to Appian betook himself with a small
remnant of his army and his noble friends to the Janiculum, which
he occupied. Here, then, was open armed hostility to Rome and the
government, and it could be handled as such: Appian reports a
squadron of cavalry was sent to the Janiculum by Cinna under one
C. Marcius Censorinus, the apparent friend of Marius who seems
73 In addition to the lengthier accounts to be cited below, Cicero (Tusc.
Disp. 5.19.55), Velleius (2.22), Asconius (23), Plutarch (Sull. 13), and the
de viris illustribus (69) all explicitly state that Octavius was slain by orders of
Cinna.
to have prosecuted Sulla on the return of the latter from his

propraetorian command several years before.74 Marcius promptly
drove off the defenders and attempted to arrest their leader. The
latter refused to move, so Censorinus struck off his head and
brought it to Cinna, who displayed it in the forum (Appian, loc.,
cit.).75 So much, then, for Octavius. But the others remained, and
the matter of how to deal with them persisted.
The questions about the niceties of putting away men that
Cinna and Marius wanted gone may presume a sort of hesitation to
resort to massacre of them on the part of these two men, a
hesitation which may not be justified. In fact, the way the events
for the rest of the year are reported in most of the sources suggests
that massacre was precisely what occurred by the order of order of
one, the other, or both of these men. Together, it is claimed by the
ancient authors, they treated the city to the sort of slaughter and
murder which an invading army would have visited upon it (Per.
80), just as if Rome had been a town of belonging to the
Carthaginians or the Cimbri (Florus 2.9.13). Lurid details abound in
these sources: women and children were violated and then
murdered (Plutarch, Mar. 44), bodies were left in the streets
unburied (Plutarch, op. cit. 45; Appian 1.9.72; also Mithridatic
Wars, 60), and an overall orgy of homicide gripped Rome for five
full days (Dio, frg, 102). Indeed, one modern scholar even
suggested that Marius was “guilty of proscriptions far worse than
Sulla’s”.76
In spite of all of these notices, however, a few curious facts
exist. In the first place, there remain actually very few men whose
names are known as having died at this time, reports of the alleged
74 See chapter 7.
75 The de viris illustribus also confirms that Octavius died occupying
the Janiculum, and it is almost certainly to this event that Florus refers in
his account, rather than to the earlier narrow victory won by the consul
there (2.9.13). For other sources who report the death of Octavius and
Cinna’s responsibility for it, if not the other details, see earlier note.
76 A. Cameron, Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius,
Oxford 1970, p. 338, as cited in Evans, p. 12. Of course, it is difficult to

reconcile this claim to the thousands upon thousands of men who were
destroyed by Sulla, about which see chapter 10.
bloodbath notwithstanding. Perhaps a grand total of fifteen men

are singled out by name as having died. “Countless”—and
nameless—others are reported as having been killed by the sources,
but for all that, there is no mention of anything like the assemblage
of thousands of men to be crowded into one location and cut
down there, as Rome would see a few years later. Secondly, a
contemporary of the events, Cicero, does not mention widespread
butchery, but notes that the slayings, which were still plenty
deplorable, were aimed only at the heights of the nobility. Aside
from the anachronistic notice that Marius and Cinna had multos
proscripserunt, whereby there is attributed to these men a method of
dealing with enemies that was said to have been invented by Sulla
four years later (see chapter 10), Eutropius also only mentions the
principes as their targets (5.7.3). Indeed, it is doubtful whether Cinna
could have retained control of the city if he had allowed
widespread carnage, and even more doubtful that he would have
wanted such a liquidation.77 Finally, the deaths seem to have taken
place within a very limited period: with one exception (an alleged
attempted murder of Mucius Scaevola by Fimbria; Valerius
Maximus 9.11.2, Pro Rosc. Amer. 12.33, Lucan 2.124–129), all of
them had concluded by the second week of January, and may have
ended well before that. It is reasonably certain that the hecatombs
of Roman dead described by the later sources are an exaggeration,
and that what happened is more along the lines of what Diodorus
relates (38.4): Cinna and Marius had determined to dispose of the
principes amongst their enemies, but not many more persons than
that.
If Marius and Cinna had thus decided that mass murder was
out, as it seems that they had, then the question still confronting
them was how these principes would be made to disappear. One
possibility is that they were simply brought up on capital charges.
Cicero seems to be indicating that this was the case in the Tusculan
Disputations (5.19.55), where, in reference to the deaths of some
prominent men which Cinna is blamed for having caused, he states
77 This point is observed by Lovano (p. 46–47), Keaveney (1987,
p. 184), and Rawson (1987, p. 175), who all suggest that the purges of
Cinna were rather limited in terms of both numbers and duration.
that the consul acted as if everything was done according to law

(ita se gessit, ut ea facere ei liceret). Dio and Diodorus, to be sure,
mention a widespread extinction of men without a hearing of any
kind (loc. cit.). In spite of that, it is fairly clear that at least two inimici
of Marius and Cinna were legally indicted: Appian specifically
mentions that Q. Lutatius Catulus and L. Cornelius Merula were
treated in such a fashion (1.8.72; indeed, Diodorus himself notes
this). The charge each man faced is not known. In the case of one,
it was perhaps perduellio: since Catulus had been part of the embassy
to get Metellus to join Octavius and make war on one of Rome’s
elected officials, high treason seems like a charge that could
reasonably be made to stick.78 For the other, it was perhaps maiestas
for his role in the illegal deposition of a consul.
No matter what the legal particulars may have been, it is likely
that there were both to be merely show trials: a guilty verdict was
almost assured, and both men probably knew it. Typically the
outcome of certain prosecution could be evaded by exile, but
Appian reports that such was not to be the case this time, since
both men may very well have been too dangerous to let live.
Furthermore, the fact that Marius had not been given this privilege
by Sulla, but had had to escape through his own wits, may have
influenced such a decision. Accordingly, both men were put under
surveillance to prevent escape,79 which must have come to the
attention of Catulus. Several sources note that he sent to Marius to
ask for his help, which probably meant that he asked to be allowed
to escape and avoid the death penalty (Cicero, de orat. 3.3.9;
Diodorus, 38.4; Plutarch, Mar. 44). This ultimately proved
unsuccessful—Marius merely responded “He must die”—and
rather than be executed, Catulus found a way to asphyxiate himself
78 So Rawson (loc. cit. and especially note 80).

79 Appian directly refers to this surveillance in the passage cited above,
and Dio (frg. 102) also seems to be making reference to it, albeit in a
much-overstated fashion, in his comment that the gates of Rome had
been shut to prevent escape (καὶ ἐκείνας [τὰς πύλας] τε ἔκλεισαν ὥστε μ δένα
διαδρᾶναι); what this probably means is that the roads in and out of the
cities were watched to prevent the flight of the accused.
using fumes from burning lime.80 Merula, whose prosecution is

deplored by the ancient sources for its patent injustice, likewise did
not wait for conviction, but rather chose to open his veins.81
Merula and Catulus had therefore been tried, but had not
waited for the verdict. It is exceedingly likely that these men were
not the only ones brought into the courts, and that other
prominent optimates were similarly impeached. If so, some of these
others may also have elected not to face justice, if it can be called
that, and likewise attempted to evade it, but through escape rather
than suicide. One of these was probably M. Antonius, who was
80 Plutarch and Appian in the places cited above as well as Velleius
2.22, Florus 2.9.15, and Valerius Maximus 9.12.4; Augustine (de Civ. 3. 27)
incorrectly reports that Catulus drank poison, while Cicero (op. cit., as well
as de nat. deor. 3.80 and Brutus 307) mentions his death, but not the method
by which it was accomplished. According to the Commenta Bernensia and its
notes on Lucan 174, Catulus had been tried by M. Marius Gratidianus in
the latter’s capacity as tribune of the people (the Adnotationes super Lucanum
also notes that Gratidianus had done the prosecuting), which would have
a most unpleasant sequel when the son of Catulus returned to Rome with
Sulla (see chapter 10). The notice that Gratidianus “fixed a cross” for
Lutatius probably means that he was going to have him thrown from the
Tarpeian rock, a penalty which was sometimes referred to colloquially as
“the cross”; for the role of Gratidanus see Rawson (op. cit., p. 164–175).
She likewise takes note of the fact that the Tarpeian rock was sometimes
referred to as the cross, mentioning the observation to that effect by
William Oldfather, who in turn cites Seneca (Controv. 1.3.4) on p. 63 note
47 in his “Livy I.26 and the Supplicium de More Maiorum”, Transactions of
the American Philological Association, vol. 39 [1908], p. 49–72). See also
Appendix S.
81 Velleius 2.22 (who adds that Merula prayed for vengeance before
his suicide), Florus 2.9.16, Valerius Maximus 9.12.5, and Augustine, de civ.
3.27. A line from the thirty-first book of Dio, which is usually
incorporated into fragment 102, may also refer to this, as its subject, who
despaired of divine deliverance from something, committed suicide (this is
noted by Cary on p. 476–477 of the Loeb volume). Appian adds that he
left a note on a tablet in which made sure to let it be known that he had
taken off his flamen’s cap before he had done it, as otherwise it would be
a sacrilege (1.8.74), while Tacitus observes that the post of flamen dialis lay
vacant for seventy-five years after Merula (presumably meaning to imply
that Julius Caesar’s term in office was too brief to count; Ann. 3.58).
likely brought up on the same charge as Catulus had been, as he

had also been on the embassy to Metellus (see above). Whether
prosecuted or not, Antonius definitely went into hiding with a
rather poorer friend,82 whose desire to impress the great man led to
his guest’s undoing. Upon sending out a slave to get better wine
than usual, the attention of the merchant selling it was aroused, and
he managed to discover the reason for the purchase. The wine-
seller then went to Marius to inform him of the fugitive’s location,
at which knowledge Marius became so pleased and excited that he
sprang forward as if to deal with Antonius himself, ultimately
having to be persuaded to send a detachment of soldiers for this
purpose (Plutarch, Mar. 44; Appian, 1.8.72). Antonius then appears
to have summoned the best speech of his entire life, one which had
been notable for them, and wove a spell of oratory around the
milites sent to dispatch him which had them rapt and weeping until
the commanding tribune interrupted the declamation and cut off
the speaker’s head.83 This was taken to Marius,84 and it soon joined
82 A poor farmer in the countryside, according to Appian 1.8.72; a

plebeian, according to Plutarch Mar. 44 (the ciusdam pauperculae mentioned
in the Commenta Bernensia on Lucan 121 may have been his wife).
83 So Velleius 2.22, as well as Appian and Plutarch in the places cited
above; the latter notes that the name of the tribune who finally killed
Antonius was one P. Annius, which is confirmed in Valerius Maximus
(8.9.2). Plutarch’s Antony (1) and Asconius (25) merely report that
Antonius died, and Cicero is also content with a brief note to that effect
in his Brutus (307). His Tusculan Deputations (5.19.55) and First Philippic
(1.34) offer more, in that they attribute responsibility for the deed to
Cinna, rather than Marius.
84 Cicero, de orat. 3.3.10; Per. 80. Florus (2.9.14) adds that the head
spent some time on the dinner table of Marius before it made its way to
the Forum (see immediately below). This was also mentioned in Lucan
(2.121–124). The commentary of the Adnotationes super Lucanum on this
line contributes more information still, noting that Marius seems to have
embraced the man who brought him the head of Antonius warmly and
invited him and his gruesome guest to dinner. If this man was the military
tribune P. Annius, as Valerius Maximus would have it (9.2.2, which also
reporting on this anecdote), then he would likely have been a suitable
dining companion for the old soldier; so Rawson 1987, p. 167. Similarly,
the Commenta Bernensia—which also describes the head on the dinner
that of Octavius on the rostra.85 P. Crassus also looks to have

decided to make a break for it, perhaps to evade a penalty for
maiestas, but was hunted down by a troop of cavalry under Fimbria,
his adversary from the Alban hills (Per. 80, Lucan 1.24). According
to most of the sources, Crassus committed suicide before he could
be taken (Cicero, Pro Sest. 48, de orat. 3.3.10, Asconius, 23, 25),86 and
his head was then dutifully sent by Fimbria to Marius and Cinna to
add to their collection (Adnotationes super Lucanum on line 124).87
Fimbria also seems to have captured Lucius Julius Caesar and his
brother, Caius Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus, the latter almost
table—supplies one last detail, which is that Marius punctured the tongue
of Antonius repeatedly with a γραφεῖον, a somewhat ironic ending for the
grandfather of the man who would one day treat Cicero in a similar
fashion.
85 In fact, the placement of the head of Antonius on the Rostra may
have been something of a grim joke. According to Morstein-Marx, the

Rostra had since the fourth century been used as a place to commemorate
“ambassadors who had been outrageously killed on their missions”
(p. 48–50). If the crime with which Antonius had been charged had had to
do with his embassy to bring back Metellus, then perhaps this was a way
for either Cinna or—as is more likely—Marius to given him a place
alongside other envoys who had found unexpected hazards in the
performance of their duties.
86 According to Cicero’s Pro Sestio, this took place in Rome, although
the implication from the other sources is rather that Crassus was in flight.
The scholiasts on Lucan 2.124 each suggest a different location for where
he was caught, with the Adnotationes super Lucanum suggesting Minturnae
and the Commenta Bernensia mentioning Volaterrae (for additional
discussion see Rawson, op. cit., p. 168–169; see also maps 1 and 2). Both
these scholiasts and the poem upon which they are adding commentary all
hold that Crassus did not perish by his own hand, but rather that Fimbria
killed both him and his son; Florus (2.9.14) and Augustine (3.27) does
likewise, as does Cicero’s Tusculuan Disputations (5.19.56) and Plutarch
(Crass. 4, 6). The latter reports that Sulla would later use their murder as a
way to inspire the remaining son of Crassus, the future triumvir. Appian,
for his part, holds that Crassus had managed to kill his eldest son to keep
him from savagery at the hands of Fimbria’s horsemen, but was prevented
from turning the blade upon himself (1.8.72).
87 See Orosius 5.19.23 and Diodorus frg. 102 for the size of the
collection.
certainly having been prosecuted for his activities in the tribunate

of Sulpicius (see previous chapter and Appendix Q). The crime of
which L. Caesar had been charged is more difficult to ascertain. It
may be that none had yet been levied against him, but that thought
that consulares had not been faring too well of late may have
occurred, and that his authority, military experience, and family
connections might make him a target. Hence his flight with his
brother. If, in fact, Appian was correct in that P. Lentulus, Caesar’s
legate in 90, was also his (uterine) brother (1.5.40), then he may
also have fled with them. Caesar was apparently correct in his
suspicion that he would be marked for death: Fimbria was soon
after them, and apparently caught them when a man named
Sextilius, whom C. Caesar had once defended in a trial, turned
them over to their pursuers near Tarquinii. So, at least, according to
Valerius Maximus 5.3.3,88 who also adds a note not found
elsewhere: according to a later passage, C. Caesar was dragged to
88 Cicero (de orat. 3.3.10) also takes note of C. Caesar’s death,

observing merely that it followed betrayal by an Etruscan host. Actually,
neither Cicero nor Valerius mentions that Lucius Caesar was captured
with his brother, although it is probable that they fled together. Appian
(1.8.72) claims that these two were arrested in the street and killed along
with Lentulus, whose death is only mentioned in this passage. Florus
(2.9.14) has a most unusual report which claims that Caesar and Fimbria
were killed in their respective houses, which is probably the result of a
copyists’s error. It seems reasonable to assume that the text should be
emended from Caesar et Fimbria in penatibus domuum suarum trucidantur to
Caesares Fimbria in penatibus domuum suarum trucidantur (Augustine uses very
similar language in de civ. 3.27, and Forster’s apparatus in the Loeb text
notes that there is a problem in the Latin here). Assuming such an
emendation should be made, there may be a way to reconcile all of these
various accounts. It may have been that Caius Caesar had managed to
make his getaway and got to Etruria, but Lucius Caesar and P. Lentulus
were apprehended before they could do the same. Catulus and Merula had
been under surveillance, after all, and these men might have been as well.
If so, then Appian, Florus, and Augustine refer to Lucius Caesar and
P. Lentulus, rather than to these and Caius together. Unfortunately,
Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations (5.20.56) provides no illumination, noting
merely that the Caesares were killed.
the tomb of Varius and killed upon it (9.2.2).89 Whether this

occurred or not, the Caesares were likewise added to the new
voiceless speakers on the rostra (Per. 80), and it seems that presently
Attilius Serranus90 (cos. 106) would also make his appearance there
(Appian 1.8.72). M. Cornutus, however, seems to have managed to
avoid joining them. According to Plutarch and Appian, Cornutus,
too, found himself a hunted man for reasons which can only be
guessed,91 but with the help of some cooperative slaves he was able
to acquire a dead body and pass it off as himself, hanged to avoid
execution. The agents of Marius who had come for him were
satisfied, and Cornutus was apparently able to use this ruse to make
his escape to Gaul (Plutarch, Mar. 43; Appian, loc. cit.).
With the deaths of these men and the manner of them Cinna
might well have been satisfied, and indeed the sources show that
for several he may have been directly responsible. What may have
pleased him much less, however, were some other deaths that
occurred at this time; some the victims in question were probably
also amongst the accused, but rather than suicide or execution by
soldiers, it seems that these men ran afoul of the Bardyaei, the
bodyguard of Marius. Perhaps the most well-known victim of these
89 Frederick Shipley, the translator of the Loeb volume of Valerius,
suggests in his notes on this passage (p. 310–311) that if this story were
true, it does provide an interesting parallel to the fate of Marius
Gratidianus upon Sulla’s return, which would therefore not be entirely
novel (see next chapter).
90 For this identification see Lovano note 90, p. 48–49.
91 If, as has been speculated in chapter 6, the campaign which brought
about the surrender of the Marsi had been conducted by Cinna and
Cornutus, not Caecilius Pius, and if that campaign had gone along the
lines speculated for it, then Cornutus would have been a legate of
Pompeius Strabo and one of some talent (see also Appendix N). Perhaps
he had continued to fight under Pompeius during the latter’s maneuvers
against Cinna and Marius and was prosecuted for that offense alone, or
perhaps some enmity had developed between he and Cinna during the
earlier campaign. Either way, if for any reason Cornutus had come to be
an enemy of Marius or Cinna, or was even perceived to be such, then his
military gifts would have made him dangerous and would require his
elimination. Charges could probably be found or invented against him to
accomplish this if necessary.
is one Q. Ancharius, who is described by Plutarch as being a man

of Praetorian rank (Mar. 43).92 According to that author and
Appian (1.8.73), this man came to Marius, whose friend he had
apparently once been but seems to have been no longer (Appian
seems to suggest a quarrel), possibly to do as Catulus had done and
beg for exile. Marius, who seems to have feared assassination,
apparenty devised a signal with his bodyguards whereby he could
indicate that the men who approached him were either dangerous
or otherwise: if he stretched out his hand to the individual in
question, the Bardyaei were to leave him alone, but if not, they
were to use force to repel him (Plutarch, loc. cit.).93 For some reason
Ancharius did not get the benefit of this signal. It may have been
that Marius did not intend to allow him to go into exile, and the
fact that his head would soon make its way to join the other
prominent men on the rostra gives this impression (Appian, loc. cit.).
Alternatively, Marius may have had cause to fear murder from him,
or actively wanted him dead for some other reason. The again, it
may simply have been Marius had been surrounded by so many
people at that moment that he was not able to make the gesture to
guarantee the safety of Ancharius before it was too late, as Dio
suggests (frg. 102). Either way, Ancharius was promptly stabbed by
92 In its commentary on Lucan 2.124, the scholiast behind the
Adnotationes super Lucanum lists this man’s name as “Euanthius”, for which
(as well as for analysis of the rest of this passage) see Rawson 1987, p.
165–166).
93 Augustine (de civ. 3.27) and Dio (frg. 102) also observed that this was
the signal to be used, and Lucan (2.124) likewise makes an allusion to it;
according to the latter, those to be spared were required to kiss his hand,
which is almost certainly a poetic invention (see Rawson, loc. cit.). Of
course, these sources attach a more sinister undertone to this signal and
emphasize the tyrannical aspects of what it implied. For example, Dio
suggests these orders had been given to the Bardyaei because Marius
wearied of specifying the men whom wanted slain, and and figured it
would be easier just to single out those he wanted to live. These
notwithstanding, it would seem to make better sense that Marius would
have cause to be concerned about the prospect of being murdered amidst
a throng of putative supporters—Drusus, it is to be recalled, had met his
end in just such a way—and that such his order to bar those who did not
get the signal was likely a defensive measure on his part.
the bodyguards,94 and his body—or part of it—was disposed of in

the way suggested above.
As time went on, the Bardyaei seem to have been becoming
progressively more and more unruly: the fragment of Dio just
mentioned hints that more persons then Ancharius met his end
from the inability of Marius to gesture to him in time, while
Plutarch mentions that they took advantage of their station to rape,
loot, and vandalize as they saw fit (Mar. 44; Sert. 5; so also Appian
1.8.74). As former slaves they may have had some scores of their
own to settle, and it is not difficult to imagine that men who had
gotten used to being bullied by Roman and Etruscan nobiles would
not have relished their chance to manhandle a few of these in
return.95 At any rate, they soon began to overstep their bounds in
ways which presently became intolerable: one of the scholiasts on
Lucan (Adnotationes super Lucanum, line 2.120) reports that the
particularly gruesome death of one Baebius96 was caused by fugitivi
after they were told the whereabouts of this man. If these fugitivi
were the Bardyaei, then they might have gone after this Baebius on
behalf of their benefactor, since this individual was described by
that same scholiast had as an enemy of Marius who had often
spoken against the general in the Senate (inimicum Marii qui multa in
senatu contra Marium decrevisset).97 Baebius, too, may have been one of
94 Plutarch and Appian in the places cited above; also Florus, 2.9.16.
Appian, for his part, omits the reference to the signal but rather states that
Marius actually ordered him to be murdered, although the setting of the
anecdote at a sacrifice and the actual stabbing just as the sacrifice was
beginning may have meant that Marius was too preoccuped to notice until
it was too late. For the timing of this event, see below.
95 Carney (1970, p. 65) is probably correct in this assessment.
96 Named by Appian as Marcus Baebius, and thus not the officer who
briefly pressed the siege at Asculum in the winter of 90–89; 1.8.72.

97 According to this source, he was betrayed by a certain Terentius;
Rawson (1987, p. 166) believes this man to be the eques Terentius Hispo
rather than that this Terentius was an actor (Terentius histrio). This
Terentius is also given responsibility for finding Baebius by the Commenta
Bernensia on line 119, although in that source the subsequent
dismemberment was done by milites as opposed to fugitivi; Florus, Lucan,
the men being tried who had gone into hiding; the abovementioned
scholiast of Lucan, as well as the Commenta Bernensia on the
preceding line, suggests that Baebius had had to be found, and
therefore may have fled from the possibility of condemnation by
tribunal as the others had. Yet found he was, and these fugitivi
proceeded literally to rend Baebius limb from limb and then
dragged his remains on hooks through the Forum.98 For him to
have met his end in this way would be both repulsive and below
the dignity due his station as a Senator, a travesty compounded by
the fact that one Numitorius—also a Senator—was treated in a
similar fashion, and possibly by the same men (Florus, 2.9.15).99 If
this was so, then it might well have been that the Bardyaei had
gone too far; Appian seems to indicate that Cinna had urged
Marius on several instances to restrain them, but this Marius either
could not or would not do (1.8.74). Finally, Cinna and Sertorius
decided to take matters into their own hands, and Sertorius sent a
detachment of soldiers to enter into their encampment at night,
and they felled all the Bardyaei with javelins (Plutarch Mar. 44, Sert.
5; Appian, loc. cit., Orosius 5.19.24).100 With the removal of the
and Augustine (in the places cited in the text bellow) give no indication
about the men responsible for this action.
98 See Florus (2.9.26) and Lucan (2.119–120) for the dismemberment;
Florus (2.9.13–14) and Augustine (de civ. 3.27) for the hooks. Rawson (loc.
cit.) believes that Florus 2.9.26 is a doublet caused by Baebius being put in
the wrong place. Appian also mentions the end of Baebius, as has been
seen, but just says that he was killed in the street.
99 Also indicated in Appian, 1.8.72. For the Senatorial standing of
Numitorius, see Broughton vol. 2, p. 433; Harold Mattingly—“The Date

of the Senatus Consultum De Agro Pergameno”; American Journal of
Philology, vol. 93, no. 3. (Jul., 1972), p. 420—shares this opinion.
100 For a further duscussion of this event see Carney (1970 p. 65–66
and note 285), where it is referred to as a “terrifying object lesson, of

which Marius is reputed not to have had forewarning”. Carney’s
interpretation is that the soldiers of Marius and Cinna went on a rampage
for “five days and nights”, just as Dio’s fragment records (see above), with
the violence made all the more sharp by the fact that some of their
soldiers—and indeed large numbers of them, per Carney—were freed
slaves with long memories (see above). Cinna could not afford to alienate
Bardyei, the killings seem to have come to an end for the most
part. Based on what can be derived from the various sources which
describe the homicides, that end might be dated to sometime
before November of 87.101
In the interim, Sulla was declared a hostis, his property was
apparently confiscated, and his house destroyed.102 Still, it was
inevitable that, unless he died in Asia, Sulla would eventually come
home, sentence of outlawry notwithstanding. For this reason, a
number of men who had either been condemned by the trials and
had made their escape, or who simply could not stomach the
current regime, made their way to him (Plutarch, Sulla 22; Appian
all of these, Carney continues, so he singled out the guards of Marius as a

way to get the hint to the others and cause the violence to discontinue.
Doubtless there are some elements of truth to this account, but it is to
be wondered as to just how large the population of freed slaves of freed
slaves in Cinna’s army actually was. Marius is mentioned as having raised a
few, but the largest part of Cinna’s army was apparently Italians. Either
way, Cinna probably would not have hesitated to do away with the
Bardyaei if they showed signs of continuing to menace Senators, whether
prosecuted or not. In fact, if Dio is to be believed, Marius himself may
have had difficulty restraining them, and may have also desired their
removal. Therefore, the auspicious incident which Sertorius initiated may
have had the approval of Marius and may not have been a move by Cinna
“to improve his own position at M(arius)’s expense”, as Carney would
have it.
101 The Periochae, Appian, Velleius, Orosius, Florus, and Lucan all
indicate that the executions had ceased before the election of Marius and
Cinna to the consulate of 86, about which more below. For a minor
exception—albeit one with some bearing on the chronology, not just of
the trials, but on the officeholding of Marius Gratidianus (more below)—
see Appendix S.
102 Velleius (2.22), Valerius Maximus (4.3.14b), and Ammianus
Marcellinus (30.8.9) clearly indicate that there were eventually

confiscations of property, although the latter two somewhat improbably
suggest that this was put of for sale and no one came forth to buy. As for
Sulla, Appian is the only source which mentions that Sulla was declared a
public enemy (six times, according to Lovano, p. 49 note 3; a few of these
would include 1.8.73, 1.9.77, and Mith. 51), but a few others mention the
destruction of his house and loss of his property which suggests such a
sentence (these include Eutropius. 5.7.3, and Plutarch, Sulla 22).
1.9.77; Orosius 5.20.1; Velleius 2.23–24;103 Eutropius 5.7.3). Sulla’s

return was very probably going to mean war, as everyone likely
knew, and Plutarch reports that false rumors to the effect that this
return was imminent had helped lead to the choice of Marius and
Cinna as consuls for 86 (Mar. 45). According to the Periochae there
was nothing resembling an election in which this outcome was
obtained, although Plutarch and Appian do not suggest otherwise
than that the elections were perfectly standard (Per. 80; Plutarch,
loc. cit.; Appian, 1.8.75).104 Either way, Marius would not live to
enjoy his seventh eaglet105 for very long; on the Ides of January he
died of an illness which, as it apparently left him bed-ridden for
several days prior and prone to delirium, was one that was thus was
probably on the order of pneumonia.106 In his place L. Valerius
103 Specifically mentioned are the other colleagues of Laenas who
apparently fled after he had killed Lucilius; see Appendix S.

104 As has been observed by Lovano (p. 49–50 and note 94), amongst
the many sources which make reference to this consulate there are a few
which can be read to suggest that typical electoral procedure was not
followed; along with Periochae, which states this explicitly, Velleius 2.23
seems to hint at it in vague way, as do Orosius 5.19.23, Lucan 2.134, and
Florus 2.9.17. Still, in light of Appian and Plutarch, who are no less
explicit that the election was legal and valid, it is nevertheless quite
possible that elections were held. That these men might have been chosen
is all the more to be believed if the comment in Plutarch which indicated
that Sulla was returning had any basis in fact: as it happened, Marius and
Cinna might very well have been the only experienced commanders left it
Rome who could stand a chance of opposing him, given the
condemnations of L. Caesar, Crassus, and Cornutus, the self-imposed
exile of Metellus, and the death of Didius in the war. Of course, it is quite
probable that, if there were elections, they were rigged from the outset,
but for sake of appearances at least it stands to reason that they were held.
This is also the thought of Carney (1970, p. 70).
105 See previous chapter and supporting notes for Marius and his
eagles.
106 So Carney 1958, p. 118–120, 1970, loc. cit. A number of the ancient
sources merely report that he died in the first month of 86 (Cicero, de nat.
deor. 3.81, Per. 80, Florus 2.9.17, Orosius 5.19.23, Appian 1.8.75, Lucan
2.74, 130–133). Velleius reports on his illness (2.23), which is discussed in
much greater length in Plutarch (Mar. 45), who reports the malaise,
Flaccus was chosen (Velleius 2.23; Plutarch, Sull. 20; Appian, 1.8.75
and Mith. 51), and for the rest of the year no more disturbances are
recorded at Rome.
Upon his homecoming to the capital, then, Cinna had in
essence done some housecleaning: he returned Marius to where he
belonged in Rome, had restored the tribunes who had been
compelled to flee by Octavius, and had gotten rid of both the latter
and a number of the most powerful and influential optimates who
might have continued to pose difficulties had they been allowed to
live. But this activity had apparently taken up the entire year, and
when 87 came to a close the former Allies still had yet to see a law
designed to do what that of Sulpicius had done. Still, Cinna had
been reelected for 86, and he no doubt continued to extend
promises that he would do right by the men who had fought for
him. Unfortunately, difficulties still lay in the way. In the year to
come Cinna had yet another crisis to resolve, and at the same time
he might very well have been frustrated in his attempts to
redistribute the Allies by the Senate, which he needed to conciliate
and which seems still to have opposed equality for the Italians.107
In a small way, however, 86 would bring the Allies incrementally
closer to their goal, as a measure was enacted which may at least in
part have been designed to help them. That measure, and other
matters with which Cinna’s second consulate was consumed, will
be described below.
weakness, and hallucinations Marius suffered. Diodorus (37.29) and de vir.

ill. (67) bear the curious suggestion that Marius may have committed
suicide, although perhaps it was that as his illness progressed, he endured
a weakness that was such that it caused him to meet his death willingly
when it came.
107 Both Lovano (p. 56–57) and Badian (1964, p. 223) not that the
Senate consisted not merely of Cinna’s friends and sycophants but

retained a large percentage of its membership, with whom Cinna seems to
have made some effort to work. It is therefore not terribly difficult to
conjecture that even if Cinna had proposed laws in favor of the former
Allies, these might have been scuttled by the Senate, and that Cinna would
have to keep working on them.
6. THE YEAR 86 AND THE PROBLEM OF UNPAID BALANCES

By February of 86 some semblance of order had returned to the
peninsula. Cinna, who had desired to return home after his
unwilling departure, had managed to do this very thing, and had
even won a second consulate in the bargain. In the process,
however, he had also incurred some obligations, as has been seen.
These had only partially been fulfilled. Marius had been recalled, of
course, as had all of those exiled with him, but there remained the
novi cives and the freedmen who had been called to his aid, and
these were still waiting for their compensation. Yet the indications
from the sources are such that in early 86 Cinna still could not yet
attend to their wishes, but was compelled to concentrate on the
problem of debts of much greater magnitude than the political
ones he still owed.
This was debt in the literal sense, and it seems to have caused
a full-financial crisis which affected the entire Commonwealth and
had done so for several years.108 Its first symptoms were recorded
as early as 89, when private creditors began demanding immediate
repayment of loans with interest in spite of the pleas of debtors
concerning the difficulties of such repayment due to the war. The
praetor A. Sempronius Asellio apparently was petitioned by both
lenders and borrowers to do something, but after attempting to
work out an unofficial compromise which ended in failure, he
allowed the suits to go to the courts. Since this apparently was
tantamount to siding with the debtors—according to Appian, the
interest which the creditors attempted to collect was permitted by
custom but strictly prohibited by law, and therefore the rates would
likely be voided and perhaps the usurers even fined for their
infraction if the cases went to trial—Asellio was soon murdered.109
108 The specific causes and effects of the debt problem are fully and
excellently described by Lovano (p. 70–76), from which only the most
relevant details will be drawn for use here.
109 The exact place where this occurs differs according to Valerius
Maximus (9.7.4), by whom it is placed near at the Temple of Castor at one

end of the Forum, and Appian (1.6.54), who locates the murder near the
Temple of Concord on the other side. This is not an entirely academic
puzzle, as Domaszewski uses the account of Appian to place this event at
Nor was private debt the sole problem, but rather seems to
have mirrored the exhausted public finances, as well. It will be
recalled the objections mentioned by Orosius on the part of the
Senate to the generosity Pompeius showed his soldiers in letting
them keep the spoil of Asculum were in part predicated on the
exhausted state of the aerarium (5.18.26; see chapter 6). Further,
many sources show that Sulla went off to war with very little gold
in his war-chest (Plutarch, Sull. 12, and Appian, Mith. 4.22, both
testify to his lack of funds). It was doubtless hoped that the
treasury eventually could be restored with time, since revenues
from the western provinces (if not the eastern ones) might be
enough to replenish it once the major expenditures of the Allied
War had ceased. But it was by no means a foregone conclusion that
this would be the case, and if western revenues proved insufficient,
then taxes might have to be collected, something certainly could
not happen until the debt crisis in the private sector could be
solved.
For these reasons, Cinna might very well have spent much of
his second consulate in cooperation with his colleague attempting
to hammer through a debt bill proposed by the latter. According to
the sources, the substance of this lex Valeria seems to have
involved a great reduction in the amount to be paid by debtors:
debts incurred with silver coin could be paid in copper (argentum
aere solutum est; Sallust, Cat. 33), which essentially mean that three-
fourths of such debt would be wiped clean (Velleius, 2.23). The
winning of support for this bill very likely consumed all the
available energies Cinna had to spare in 86, meaning that for a time
the Italians would have to be sacrificed for the greater good of the
city at large.
This debt laws may very well have been of no great interest to
the Italians whose redistribution was being delayed by Cinna’s fight
for its enactment, although another which was to be passed in the
next year would have been of greater use to them. This was the
the festival of the Dioscuri in January of 89 (p. 29), thus affecting the
timing of the laws used which gave the franchise to the rest of the Allies
(see Appendix P). Lovano, for his part, follows Appian’s construction
(p. 71).
reform of the coinage which was accomplished through the efforts

of the collected college of tribunes and the praetor M. Marius
Gratidianus (Cicero, de off. 3.80; Pliny, NH. 33.46.132, 34.12.27).110
Still, as important as this measure may have been, it still did not
correct the fact that the Italians had been promised enhanced
voting rights but had yet to get them, which was likely a source of
some dismay in their communities.111
Promising, perhaps, to do better by the novi cives, Cinna seems
to have managed to win an election to his third consulate at the
end of 86 along with his right-hand man Carbo (Appian, 1.9.76;
Per. 83), an election and a term in office about which more will be
discussed in the next chapter. In the meantime, Cinna might have
been able to claim with some justification that he had at least made
an effort on the part of the Allies even if the redistribution had not
yet been effected, since it seems that it was he who was responsible
for yet another premature nomination of censors in 86. These
officers were apparently tasked with charge of both numbering the
people and reviewing the Senate, and according to the sources both
were done: Cicero clearly states that one of the censors, Philippus,
reviewed the Senate (and in the process passed over for
membership his own uncle App. Claudius, the one-time
commander of the legion seduced by Cinna and forced into exile as
a result, as described above; de domo 32.84). The remarkable
longevity of the other censor, M. Perperna (who apparently died at
the astonishing age of 98), provides the occasion in the sources
which take note of it for additional evidence of the review of the
110 There was apparently some chicanery at work here according to

Cicero, whose account tells of how Marius and the tribunes had agreed on
the measure, but before all of them could announce the joint efforts he
stood up and feigned as if it was of his devising alone, for which he
received an enormous surge in popularity; statues were even erected in his
honor which were pulled down by Sulla when he entered the city,
according to Pliny.
111 The assumption here and in the pages to follow is that Cinna was
not able to redeem his pledge to the former Allies to effect their
redistribtion in either 87 or 86. This assumption is generally agreed upon,
although that agreement is not unanimous; for some of the arguments
about the dating of the redistribution, see Appendix T.
Senate to be supplied: in commenting on his lifespan, Pliny (NH.

7.157) mentions that he had outlived all but seven of the men he
confirmed in the Senate (a detail confirmed by Valerius Maximus
8.13.4; Cassius Dio 41.14.5 suggests he had outlived all of them).
All of these references show that the Senate was reviewed,
and it seems that the people were numbered also, though evidence
for this last is much more scanty. It comes, in fact, from only one
source: St. Jerome, whose chronicle mentions that in the 173rd
Olympiad a census was held, and that 463,000 citizens were
counted. Such information has become a subject for a great deal of
scholarly controversy due to the fact that the numbers are so
incredibly low: it represents only an 18 percent increase over the
numbers which had come from the last known census to have
preceded it, that of 115 (which listed 394,336), and this in the face
of the fact that the Roman citizen body had ostensibly been
augmented by hundreds of thousands of Italians. It is, of course,
possible that what is here cited represents a scribal error
somewhere along the line, and that the numbers actually given
should be much, much higher.112 There is no evidence for these,
however, and it may well be that this was the number counted. But
if the figure given was, in fact, number counted, this leaves the
obvious question as to what could account for such a small census.
Certainly the smaller returns cannot be easily accounted for by
Roman military losses: obviously Arausio in 105 and the disasters
during the Allied War had led to the deaths of many thousands of
Romans, but even if 100,000 Romans had died in that war, another
30,000 had died in the Bellum Octavianum, and Sulla’s soldiers in the
east had not been counted, then the numbers still indicate nothing
like full registration of Romans and former Allies. Even assuming
that Italians had suffered the same number of casualties in the war
with Rome, the total would still fall far short of the numbers which
ought to have been transmitted. The evidence then suggests that
the census was in some way deficient, and that far more people
ought to have been counted than it seems actually were; if that is
the case, the next question which arises is why it should be so.
112 This possibility is presented in Brunt (1971, p. 91–99) and Harris
(loc. cit.), among others.

A variety of answers suggest themselves. In the first place,

voting in the comitia tributa did not depend on census registration, as
has been seen, but a number of other things did: registry in the
census determined property rating, and that in turn classified how a
citizen was to vote in the comitia centuriata, if he met the minimum
standards for being able to run for office, whether or not he would
be eligible for conscription, and the extent to which he might be
called upon to pay the tributum if it should ever transpire that this
would be collected again. Of these rights and responsibilities, it
may well be imagined that the former two were of little use to most
of the Italians. The system had been set up to guarantee that only
the wealthiest Romans would have their voice heard, so the ability
to vote in the comitia centuriata for those who were not in the richest
centuries was probably of little consequence. Likewise, most
Italians probably would have had neither the means nor the
motivation to seek office in Rome. Thus, the rights which would
be conferred upon census registration might have appealed only to
the wealthiest of the Italians; it would be they who would have an
influence in the Centuriate assembly, would have the denarii and the
desire to hold office, and simultaneously would have the leisure
time required for a trip to register for the census in the capital. On
the other hand, the responsibilities which went along with
registration—eligibility for the draft and for taxes—might have
provided positive inducements to stay away from the numbering,
especially since there was the distinct possibility that both draft and
taxation might soon make an appearance in the peninsula. As to
the former, the return of Sulla almost guaranteed the possibility of
war for which conscription might well be a resort; as far as the
latter goes, the depletion of the aerarium has already been discussed.
Indeed, Cinna might well have called for censors in part to meet
precisely these exigencies. For a great many of the Italians whose
supplies of blood and coin available to be expended for the
Republic might have been at a low ebb indeed, the census might
well have been something that they actively avoided save by those
wealthiest for whom the numbering meant more benefits than
burdens. This might well explain the low numbers, especially since
it seems that by this period census registration was no longer

compulsory on pains of the fierce penalties which once had
attached.113
It is therefore probable that many Italians did not exert
themselves to register. It is also not unlikely that the censors
themselves were hardly keen to include as many Italians as they
could have in their count. As has been seen, one of the men who
were chosen to perform this duty were L. Philippus, who had been
the stanchest opponent of Drusus and according to reports in
Florus (2.6.8) and the de viris illustribus (66.12) was so detested by
the Allies that they had actually planned to murder him. Little love
could have been lost between the one-time socii and the man who
was going to guarantee their inclusion into the citizenship rolls.
The other, M. Perperna, had been consul in 92 but was otherwise
unknown, having taken no part in the Allied War—unless he was
the same as the C. Perperna cited by Appian 1.5.40–41 as having
been stripped of command following his defeat by Publius
Praesenteius—nor in the bellum Octavianum or the war on the return
of Sulla. His politics are unknown, and his feelings towards the
Italians (his own Etruscan origins notwithstanding) are equally
obscure, but in an age not noted for seeing prominent Romans die
in their beds, Perperna’s celebrated lifespan could only have
achieved by being agreeable to the right people, which meant that
he probably had at some point defected to Sulla. Therefore, it may
very well be that he, too, shared no great love for the former Allies,
especially if he had been the man cashiered by Rutilius for his
defeat in the war against them. If so, then the men who were
named censors might very well have gone about the numbering of
the people rather judiciously, and this may also help to explain the
much smaller returns than expected. Indeed, at least one scholar
113 These are in part the arguments of Frank (1924, p. 333–334),
although the sources make clear that his assertion to the effect that voting
did not matter to the Allies is not entirely accurate. Tribal voting, in which
all citizens could take part in making laws, apparently mattered a great
deal, to them although it can be doubted whether centuriate voting was a
zealously pursued. Wiseman agrees (1969, p. 60–62), as does Brunt (1971,
p. 16, 24), who likewise notes the easing on punishments for evasion of
registration in the post-Jugurthine war era.
suggests that these low numbers were purposefully engineered to

undercut Cinna’s credibility with the former Allies, which would
certainly have met with Sulla’s later approval.114
Either way, Cinna could in some way claim to his Italian base
of support that he had made strides on their behalf. To the wealthy
who had been registered in the census, he could assert that the
censors had been nominated due to his influence. He could
likewise perhaps arrogate to himself credit for the debt-relief and
coinage laws, which might very well have favored the larger
landowners. To those who had either been passed over in that
census, or who were disgruntled about the tribal redistribution, he
could plead Senatorial obstruction and with what was probably
with a great deal of truth. Cinna, it seems, had become signally
excellent in getting men to support him due to self-interest, and he
doubtless could point to the fact that he had done something for
the Italians who had fought for him while simultaneously vowing
to complete his promise in the future. He could therefore call upon
desire for gain and gratitude to win their continued favor, and
almost certainly made liberal use of fear as well: there was, as Cinna
probably had no hesitation in mentioning, the specter of Sulla in
the East remained unvanquished, and Sulla would eventually come
back. When he did, only the Gods knew what sort of designs he
may have had upon his enemies and the Italians. Sulla was, it could
have been argued, certainly no friend of theirs, and if he had in fact
blocked the census of 89, that fact might have been brought up by
Cinna to the former Allies. Of course, a new census had since been
taken, but who really knew if its results were to be considered safe:
his March on Rome and slaying of Sulpicius had shown that Sulla
had apparently considered no law or tradition inviolate, amd Cinna
might well have introduced the possibility that Sulla could find a
way to strike down the census and reduce the wealthy Italians back
to political powerlessness again. Finally, if Sulla were to come back
before the tribal reallocation had been completed, then there would
doubtless be no hope of that law ever coming to pass; indeed, even
if he came back afterward the redistribution had carried, Sulla could
always have the law reversed, by compulsion if necessary. He might
114 This is the conjecture of Brunt (op. cit., p. 91–990).

even attempt to remove the citizenship from the Allies entirely, or

at the very least from the Lucani and the Samnites. The only way to
guard against this was to continue to support Cinna, as both Cinna
and the Allies were likely quite aware. The latter almost certainly
used this awareness to bid for the continued support of the new
citizens, even in the face of his inability to get enacted for them the
law they wanted, and as the years to come will show, he did so
successfully.
7. THE YEAR TO COME

As the summer of 86 passed by, then, the former Allies would have
found that mighty strides had been made towards the ultimate aim
of full and equal civitas within the Roman state. Nevertheless, the
journey was not yet completed; indeed, there remained the
possiblilty that not only could forward progress be halted, but even
a violent retrograde movement could be forced on them. There
was also the possibility that the same violence which would deprive
them of their newly-won rights could deprive Cinna and his
supporters of more even than that. To ward off that possibility,
Cinna would still need the former Allies in the years to come, and
the Allies would still need him, as well. In the future which was just
upon the horizon, they would have to continue to depend upon
each other. As events will show, the new citizens continued to
adhere to Cinna and his cause until the end of the decade.
CHAPTER 9:
THE RETURN OF SULLA
AND THE CIVIL WAR
1. AN UNEASY PEACE
After the disturbances of 87 and 86 had come to an end, there
existed in Italy a period of relative calm and quiet, as indicated in
the previous chapter. At least in the capital itself, Cicero could
somewhat generously characterize the age between January of 86
and early 83 as triennium fere fuit urbs sine armis (Brutus 90.308). But
while Italy was free of tumult, it remained a fact that this serenity
did not obtain everywhere: if the urbs Romana was at peace, it was
without question that the orbis Romanus was not. The Romans were
most notably at war in the East, fighting against an opponent who
had apparently turned out to be a much more formidable enemy
than those who had resorted to violence to obtain the command
against him had possibly realized. Mithridates had been able, it
seems, to raise vast forces for his war with the Romans.
Furthermore, while he had briefly been courted by the Italians still
trying to wrest the rights of civitas from those selfsame Romans, he
had turned down these requests for aid, and then sealed his
hostility to everyone from the peninsula by means of a general
massacre of all who had come from there in his own domains and
in the domans of those who sought his favor.1 Just as Jugurtha had
done earlier at Cirta, Mithridates had demonstrated once again that
the only people who had truly insisted on treating the Allies
1 See Chapter 6 for the embassy to Mithridates from the Allies and its
timing; for sources on the Mithridatic massacre, see Greenidge and Clay,
p. 168–170.
547
differently than the Romans had, in the end, been the Romans
themselves. It may not therefore be too much of a stretch to assert
that Mithridates had represented a significant threat to all of Italy,2
and that ending that threat once and for all would likely have been
as matter of some concern for all Romans, new and old alike.
Yet it may also not be unreasonable to assume that the man
who been given the duty of dealing with Mithridates, had then
insisted on being allowed to discharge that duty (an insistence
which manifested itself in force), and was at the moment in the
process of so discharging it, represented a not insubstantial threat
to Rome in and of himself. From Rome’s government and
governing aristocracy L. Cornelius Sulla could claim injury and a
loss of rights, and under similar circumstances he had used his
army to secure restitution. Nor was it necessarily the case that such
an outcome be avoided by means of the complete restoration of
these privileges; given his temperament and past actions, it must
have been feared by many throughout Italy that he would similarly
employ that army to seek, not just restoration, but also revenge. As
it would turn out, he would soon make it certain that he intended
to do precisely that (see below). Such revenge-seeking would mean
even more deaths, trials, and banishments, and potentially would
also mean the sowing of the seeds of discord for generations to
come.
Added to the menace that Sulla’s return would signify to the
nobiles was that which he would pose to the middle and lower
classes, for whom he presented the specter of a loss of political
power and the capacity to make their voices heard. Before his
departure Sulla had, it seems, attempted to pass legislation which
would place all lawmaking power in the hands of only those who
had gained the approval of the Senate and ratifying power only in
the comitia centuriata, the assembly which gave disproportionate
influence to the wealthy (see chapter 7). Such a transfer of power
would have meant that the ability to have an effective direct say on
the way they were governed would be greatly diminished for the
less affluent, and it might very well be that on Sulla’s return he
would attempt to see to it that such laws would be brought forth
2 Keaveney (1982, p. 79) makes such a declaration.

THE RETURN OF SULLA AND THE CIVIL WAR 549
again. Furthermore, such a proposal would be doubly dangerous to

some of the novi cives. In the first place, those who were not from
the élites of their communities would be under the same pains as
their older Roman counterparts: only the rich, and not they, would
have votes with any sway at all. This fact was probably of less
concern to the lower classes of those Italians who remained in the
areas where they had always lived as to those who had migrated to
Rome, since it would have been rare for the former to have been
able to afford the journey to Rome to vote anyway.3 But those who
had moved to the capital would found themselves in the same boat
as the veteres of similar financial standing should Sulla’s laws be
enacted, and therefore facing the prospect that the expression of
their will at the polls would be subverted in favor of the greater
voice given to the wealthy.
Matters would be much the same even for the wealthier
segments of the Italians. It presumably took a census rating to take
part in the Centuriate Assembly, and, as has been seen, the census
numbers for 86 had been very low indeed. It could therefore have
been the case that a good many Italians had not been numbered in
it, and as a result at least a few of the dives and the domi nobilies
former Allied communities might have found the exercise of their
rights in that body in jeopardy. Furthermore, they may have been
unable to run for an office, should they have been so inclined,
without a census-rating, depriving them of another benefit of the
citizenship. If Sulla was able to resurrect his proposal to install
legislative approval in only the Centuriate Assembly, the result
would be that at the very minimum only the well-off of the novi cives
would be able to take part in that approval, and even then only
those very few who may have been enrolled in the census of 86.
For everyone else, there may have been the comitia tributa, where
they could vote without necessarily having been registered, but the
powers of that congregation would be greatly curtailed by the
removal of its statute-making powers to the other voting body.
The result would be that the only political matters over which
the less-moneyed new citizens could exercise influence would be in
the election of lower magistracies. These would still be of some
3 Ao Mouritsen (2001, p. 117–123).

use, as the lower offices determined eligibility for upper ones, even
if the candidates for whom they would vote would almost certainly
not include anyone from their original communities so long as such
men lacked a census rating. Yet even that power would be
eviscerated as long as the novi cives remained undistributed amongst
all the tribes. Cinna had promised them that they soon would be so
redistributed, but when and if he did so, it would still in no way be
a foregone conclusion that the distribution would be permanent.
On his return, Sulla might be able to find a way to undo that, in the
same way that he had undone the laws of Sulpicius aimed at
bringing about the redistribution. Sulla, therefore, might very well
have been perceived as a distinct hazard to whatever powers the
Italians had been able to acquire in his absence, and if the worst
were to come to pass, he might reduce the citizenship rights of
many to practically nothing.
Finally, Sulla might very well strip some of them of even these
almost non-existent rights. It is to be remembered that the
Samnites and Lucani had been enfranchised through the bargain
they had struck with Marius and Cinna. These two had both been
outlawed by the Senate at the time they had made it these
arrangements, a verdict they had ultimately changed by force. If
Sulla could manage to effect a reinstitution of outlawry to which
these men had been sentenced and on that account revoke their
edicts, than these Italians would lose the franchise and go back to
being what amounted to a subject people to the Romans. Of
course, Sulla himself might very well promise on his return not to
do any of these things, and ultimately did proffer such a vow. But
Sulla’s promises had not always carried great weight: he had in the
past demonstrated a great proclivity towards vowing to do one
thing but then finding a pretext for doing the opposite, as he had
shown to the Allies at Aeclanum and to his own people during his
March on Rome.
Therefore, to Romans of practically all stripe Sulla very likely
presented the potential for a great deal of harm. If the triennium sine
armis presented to the external viewer the appearance of a lack of
turmoil, a veritable tempest of anxiety must have been brewing
under the surface. The government controlling the capital was
faced with the choice of either waiting for Sulla and yielding the
initiative to him, or seizing that initiative and doing something
about him. The man in charge of the government, L. Cornelius
Cinna, ultimately chose the latter course, choosing put into motion
a course of action apparently designed to deal with both
Mithridates and Sulla. What the course of action was will be
discussed below.
2. DEALING WITH SULLA IN THE EAST

If popular sentiment in Rome could be ascertained by the laws that
were passed there, then the threat posed by both Sulla and
Mithridates must have been fairly clearly perceived in Rome: as
early as 86, measures began to be put into place to deal with both
of the aforementioned sources of peril to the government in the
East. The urgency may have been occasioned by the rumors of
Sulla’s immediate return from Asia which Plutarch where swirling
in Rome in late 87 (Mar. 45). If there had been such reports, they
turned out to be false ones, as Sulla in fact extremely busy in late 87
with the lengthy siege of the Piraeus of Athens in which he had
become mired. It is therefore difficult to see how any of these
stories could have made it back to Italy at all; perhaps the news that
Sulla’s subordinate Lucullus had been sent to procure ships—as he
had been sent to do near the end of the campaigning season of 87
(Appian, Mithr. 7.33, 11.51; Plutarch, Luc. 2–3)—had been
misinterpreted to mean that Sulla was going to use those ships to
ferry his army back to Italy. Either way, the upshot seems to have
been that it became imperative that two men of recognized martial
skill be elected (or elect themselves) consul, and as a result Marius
and Cinna soon were voted to fill those magistracies.
Marius, however, promptly died, and to his vacant office was
elected L. Valerius C. f. Flaccus. The Valerii Flacci had apparently
had connections to Marius, as a relative of the consul of 86—the
similarly named L. Valerius L. f. Flaccus—had been consul in 100
along with the general. Yet unlike many associates of Marius, this
attachment does not seem to have put the entire family under a
cloud amongst the nobiles. Instead, the fact that the family
continued to be respected by the patres can be seen by the elevation
of that same L. Valerius L. f. Flaccus to the censorate in 97, and
had since become princeps senatus. Due to this position of respect
amongst both the Mariani and the optimates, the man chosen to
succeed Marius looks to have been acceptable to a broad segment

of the Roman aristocracy.4 For all that, what it seemed that the new
consul was lacking was a great deal of proven military aptitude
(Appian refers to him as ἀπειροπόλεμος “inexperienced”; Mith.
8.51). With that being the case, he may not perhaps have seemed
like the ideal choice to send to prosecute the Mithridatic War as
proconsul. Even so, Flaccus was soon dispatched to Asia for that
very purpose before the end of 86.
It may be wondered why Flaccus was chosen for that
assignment over Cinna, whose military capabilities were proven.
No answer to this question can be found in the sources. Perhaps it
was that the proconsular provinces were assigned ahead of time,
and that Marius would have been the one sent to deal with Cinna
had he lived. This would accord well with the old general’s long-
standing desire to best Mithridates, one which, if the sources are to
be believed, he had been harboring for over a decade (see chapter
7). The acquisition of that command had caused Marius a great deal
of grief over the past three years, and it therefore seems unlikely
that he would have given it up in favor of his colleague once it had
finally come to him. Furthermore, this assignment carried with it
the prospect of doing battle with Sulla, whose reluctance to be
superseded by anyone, let alone his detested rival, could be readily
imagined. The last time Marius and Sulla had fought it out had
been in the streets of Rome, where Marius had scraped together a
makeshift force and had nearly managed to repulse the ever-
victorious flagellum Samnitis in spite of the vast numerical disparity
in favor of the latter. It becomes staggeringly difficult to imagine
that Marius would not have have been thirsting for for a rematch.
In light of these facts, Cinna might well have yielded to his
associate, and let him fill the consulate whose province was already
determined to be Asia; this would leave Italy to Cinna, where he
had work to do anyway.
Even were that the case, the death of Marius may have
changed these, and it seems reasonable to assume that Cinna could
have altered the assignment of provinces and taken the eastern
4 For the connections of Marius and L. Valerius L. f. Flaccus, see
Badian (1964, p. 47–48).

command had it suited him. Clearly it did not, and Cinna elected
not to go. It may have been that he elected to say in the peninsula
because perhaps he did not trust the Senate not to condemn him in
his absence. Then again, Cinna may not have trusted Flaccus with
the work of calming the financial catastrophe. Finally, it was
reasonably clear that Sulla would return to Italy unless he were
neutralized in Asia, and that would certainly mean war. Cinna may
have lacked confidence in the ability of Flaccus to ready the
preparations for it, and felt that he himself, with his strategic gifts
and connections with the Italians, would be a better selection to
stay and play a direct role in raising the army which would be
needed to defend the Commonwealth against the proconsul’s
return. For any, some, all, or none of these reasons, Cinna
remained in Italy, and Flaccus was sent towards the east to
confront the perils to be found there.
Yet if the sending of him may have seemed like the best
option at the time, it must nevertheless have been clear to the
government in Rome that someone inexperienced in was was now
being dispatched to Asia, and would there encounter either a now-
intimidating Mithridates, the proconsul already sent to fight that
monarch, or both. Hence, there was the distinct chance that
Flaccus would be overmatched by what he might in the easy. In
order to compensate in some way for this situation, Cinna
apparently took a few distinct steps. In the first place, Sulla had has
his hands full throughout 87 contending with the armies of
Mithridates commanded by the latter’s subordinates in Greece. If
he were so occupied throughout 86 as well, then Flaccus might be
presented with an opportunity to avoid a confrontation and slip
past Sulla. Once he had done so, he could proceed directly to
Pontus, and it is probably the case that Flaccus had been given the
good advice (or even the explicit order) to do this very thing. Such
an evasion might potentially lead to a number of useful
consequences. It would first and foremost hold off battle with Sulla
himself, of which the benefits would be obvious. Secondly, it might
allow Flaccus end up in an Asia and there attack a Mithridates
substantially weakened by the absence of men needed to pin down
Sulla in Hellas. If, as it seems, Mithridates had committed a good
portion of his available forces to that end and thus had few men
closer to home, then Flaccus might be faced, not with a daunting
and terrible antagonist, but with a much more manageable one. An
easy victory, a defeated foe, and the gain of massive amounts of

supplies from the East might then ensue.5
In fact, Cinna may have been contemplating an even grander
enterprise, as his subsequent actions may indicate. Perhaps the
consul had it in mind to raise an army of his own in Italy, lead it
into Greece, and combine efforts with Flaccus—who would be
fresh from overwhelming Mithridates and flush with the resources
of the latter’s kingdom—to bring the recently-declared hostis to
heel. There is nothing to prove this was Cinna’s design, although
there is nothing to make it impossible, either, and a good deal to
recommend it as an option he might have considerd. At the very
least having Flaccus steer clear of Sulla would make good sense
even in the absence of such a larger design. Flaccus had therefore
doubtless been sent to replace Sulla, but not to displace him if he
could avoid it: given the disparities of numbers between Flacccus
and Sulla, the vastly differing levels of skill possessed by each, and
the ultimate Roman interest in the area (id est, to get Mithridates)
the option of staying away from Sulla entirely would have been the
soundest choice to make.
Failing that, the hope seems to have been retained by Cinna,
the Senate, or both, that some sort of accommodation could be
reached with Sulla. A reference in Memnon of Heraclea suggests
that Flaccus had been bidden to offer Sulla the chance to
acknowledge Senatorial authority should the two of them come
into contact after all.6 If Sulla did so, then presumably the sentence
of outlawry passed against him would be revoked, and the two
proconsuls would share the command. If Sulla did not submit, then
he was to be asked to avoid fighting fellow Romans and let
Mithridates be put out of the way before he and Flaccus could fall
5 Lovano (p. 98–99) and Frier (p. 588) also suggest that deliberate
avoidance of Sulla may have been the mission of Flaccus.

6 ἡ δὲ σύγκλ τος Φλάκκον Οὐλεριον καὶ Φιμ ρίαν πέμπει πολεμεῖν
Μι ριδάτῃ, ἐπιτρέψασα καὶ Συλλᾳ συλλαμ άνειν τοῦ πολεμοῦ. ὅμοια
φρονοῦντι τῇ συγκλ τῳ. εἰ δὲ μ , τὴν πρὸς αὐτὸν πρότερον συνάψαι μάχ ν ;
Memnon 24.
to making war upon each other.7 Of course, it is difficult to believe

that Sulla would have accepted either offer: on the one hand, if he
had chosen the first option, then at best the victory achieved and
the credit for it would be shared, rather than Sulla’s alone. This
would be an outcome no Roman general would logically be
expected to prefer.8 But should Sulla have chosen the second, then
he would be expected to let Flaccus go his own way while he
continued defeating the generals of Mithridates. If Mithridates in
Asia was as weakened as has been suggested by his expenditures in
Hellas, the Flaccus could win a cheap victory against an enemy
debilitated by Sulla’s efforts and claim the victory, the glory, and
the spoils. Should Flaccus prove unable to do so, then it would fall
to Sulla to have to fight the king after vanquishing his deputies. In
the worst case scenario, this could potentially result in Mithridates
actually having been defeated by Sulla but going to Flaccus to
surrender, robbing Sulla of the fruits of his efforts; he more than
anyone else would likely understand how important it was to the
reputation of a victorious commander to obtain the surrender of
the enemy directly, as the signet ring of Jugurtha surrendering to
himself and not Marius (one which he may still have worn in 86)
would remind him.9 Even if Mithridates did not do this and
surrendered to Sulla, the proconsul would have have expended a
great deal of resources and manpower in earning it. It would be in
this shape that he would be compelled to grapple with Flaccus.
Sulla’s attitude could therefore probably have been anticipated
on this score. Hence, if it was indeed the case that Flaccus was
given this brief, it was probably to be used only if it turned out that
he could not elude Sulla. If the latter could in fact be sidestepped,
that would continue to be the better option (as noted above). For
all these reasons, it becomes less and less probable that the army of
Flaccus was being sent against Sulla, as Plutarch, who was
doubtless influenced by Sulla’s own account of the enterprise,
7 So Badian (op. cit., p. 223–224); in a similar vein, Keaveney (1982,
p. 120). Lovano believes that Memnon’s account is “highly improbable”

(loc. cit. and especially note 63).
8 See Harris (1979, p. 138–141).
9 See chapter seven for this ring and its significance.
maintains (Sull. 20).10 Instead, it seems that Flaccus was sent in the
sincere hope that he would not chance upon the hostis at all, and if
he did, that he would try to conciliate him with this offer rather
than risk coming to blows.
Regardless of whether or not he could circumvent Sulla, it was
reasonably patent that Flaccus was going to have to do some
fighting with someone. To help in that endeavor, Cinna seems to
have sent along with him the energetic C. Flavius Fimbria as legate.
Fimbria, as has been seen from his activity during the Bellum
Ovtavianum, had proved himself an able diplomat, as it was he who
brought to a successful conclusion the deal with the Samnites. He
was also a more than competent soldier: he seems to have defeated
a former triumphator in battle, and to have shown a remarkable
efficiency in hunting down fugitives from the trials of the optimates
(for all of which see previous chapter). It is highly probable that in
the execution of this last assignment, Fimbira had not only
displayed his worth to Cinna and Marius, but had also likely made
himself detested by the nobility; there were even accusations that
he had attempted to murder Mucius Scaevola (Cicero, Pro Rosc.
33).11 Sending this beau sabreur with Flaccus would encompass the
best possible outcome for all concerned, as it it would give the
proconsul a subordinate of demonstrable talent and enthusiasm,
and at the same time keep a potential political liability and threat to
concordia out of Rome.12
10 Badian, loc. cit.; contra Keaveney (1982, p. 96), in which Flaccus is
depicted as the head of “usurpers who were attempting to wrest [Sulla’s]

province from him”.
11 So also Valerius Maxiumus 9.11.2, almost certainly gotten from
Cicero.
12 So Badian (1964, p. 223); Keaveney (1982, p. 119–123) holds that
Flaccus the princeps (Lucius L. f. Valerius Flaccus, not the current consul)
had been responsible for the offer made to Sulla and possibly over the
objections of Cinna, which is not entirely unlikely, but that Fimbria had
been attached to the expedition by the latter to monitor what Flaccus was
doing. Keaveney also darkly hints that Fimbria’s own specific mission was
to murder his commander before terms with Sulla could be made. For the
launch of the expedition see Memnon and Plutarch in the places cited
above; also Per. 82, Appian 1.8.75, and Mith. 8.51. For Fimbria sent as
Under such instructions, Flaccus and Fimbria departed

towards Asia from Brundisium. It was not an auspicious journey;
Appian mentions that a storm which had arisen while the majority
of the army was crossing had sunk some of the ships, and that
those men that landed safely were thereupon roughly handled by
forces sent by Mithridates (Mith. 11.51). Because of this, the
advanced columns which had gotten to Greece ahead of the main
body was now isolated from it, in very few numbers, and in hostile
territory. Figuring that to do otherwise was to commit themselves
to destruction at the hands of the soldiers of Mithridates or his
allies, this vanguard betook itself to Sulla and was added to his
army (Plutarch, Sull. 15; Appian. Mith. 11.51). Sulla, it seems, had
welcomed them, thus beginning a policy which reward him amply
in the future (see below). When at last Flaccus did land, Sulla
headed in his direction and was apparently intent on repelling him
by force until distracted by the arrival of more soldiers from
Mithridates, which he turned to fight (Plutarch, Sull. 20). In this
way, Flaccus accomplished his aim of forestalling a dustup with
Sulla, and his army was allowed to continue on the Via Egnatia into
Asia.13 This bit of good luck notwithstanding, the campaign which
had had an unfortunate beginning apparently got no easier as the
weeks progressed. Memnon speaks of a want of supplies (24),
which may have contributed to the inability of Flaccus to restrain
his men from looting Byzantium, as described by Dio (frg. 104)
and Diodorus (38.8). A notice in Cicero suggests that many Asian
cities shut their doors to him, possibly as a result of that looting
(Pro Flacc. 26.61), which made the requisition of supplies all the
more difficult .
Still, Flaccus was able to surmount these challenges and had
begun to win some victories in Asia (Memnon, loc. cit.). In spite of
legate to Flaccus see Orosius (6.2.9), de vir. ill. (70), and Dio (frg. 104);
Diodorus (38.8) merely notes that he was there in a subordinate capacity,
as does Memnon, while Strabo (13.1.27) speaks of him as a quaestor.
Appian speaks of him as a privatus and volunteer, one sent specifically to
compensate for the military inexperience of Flaccus (Mith., loc. cit.). More
on Fimbria’s command can be found Rawson (1987, p. 168).
13 For an additional account of this series of events see also Keaveney
(1982, p. 92, 96–97).

these, it seems that he had started to become disliked by his men.

Appian states that this sentiment had begun to arise even before
the crossing from Italy had been completed, and that indeed
Fimbria had had to exert himself mightily to keep the rest of the
army from joining Sulla as the vanguard had done (loc. cit.). Fimbria
himself was presently added to the list of men disenchanted with
the commander. All the sources which describe this rift between
the proconsul and his soldiers, as well as that between him and his
lieutenant, give a consistent explanation for why they occurred. In
their telling, Flaccus had alienated officers and soldiers because he
was a bad man brimful of greed and harshness (Memnon 24,
Appian Mith. 8.51–52, Dio, frg. 104). This demeanor was such that
Fimbria was soon seen as preferable to the men due to his
friendliness, consideration, and superior leadership abilities. Such a
sentence passed on Flaccus may not have been entirely just; for
example, it may well have been that the “greed” in this case was the
sensible policy of forbidding looting, so as to make it easier to
drum up support in the areas of the campaign. Likewise, the
“harshness” could have been merely an insistence on discipline. On
the other hand, the preference for Fimbria may have more
understandable. It had already been seen that this man was a gifted
leader, and he is represented by the sources as one who seems to
have been possessed of some charm, prone to boldness and fond
of a jest.14 He was, then, not entirely unlike Sulla, who had also
14 Of course, his humor was of a fairly grim sort: Cicero reports that,
having unsuccessfully attempted to stab Scaevola to death, Fimbria next
resorted to prosecuting him. When asked what the charge was to be, he is
claimed to have said that Scaevola was to be accused “of not having
received my blade generously enough” (quod non totum telum corpore recepisset;
Pro. Rosc. 33; see above). Likewise, Fimbria was not above pointing out
irony: late on, he is said to have esponded to Sulla’s accusations of being
an usurper with a joke about Sulla in turn being an outlaw ( Σύλλας δὲ
Φιμ ρίου δύο σταδίους ἀποσχὼν ἐκέλευε παραδοῦναί οἱ τὸν στρατόν, οὗ
παρανόμως ἄρχοι. ὁ δ᾽ ἀντεπέσκωπτε μὲν ὡς οὐδ᾽ ἐκεῖνος ἐννόμως ἔτι ἄρχοι;
Appian, Mith. 1.9.59). He could also be self-effacing, as seen in the
aftermath of his capture of the city of Troy (for sources see Greenidge
and Clay, p. 185). Subsequent to this event, Fimbria is said to have
engaged in banter with a resident in which he boasted that he captured in
once been a protégé of Marius and like him was eventually much
liked by the men under his command.
However, Fimbria seems to have inherited from Marius a
certain lack of patience with the foolishness of superior officers.15
This may have led him to help stir up feelings against Flaccus by
mispresenting the latter’s unwillingness to let them collect loot as
avarice, whereby his own apparent willingness to allow it would be
seen as generosity (Dio and Diodorus both imply that this was the
case in the places cited above). Things between the proconsul and
his legate came to a head over a quarrel which apparently had
begun as a dispute between Fimbria and the army’s quaestor about
their lodgings. In this squabble Flaccus sided with the questor, and
threats of resignation and a public dressing-down soon followed.
The soldiers had also apparently taken sides in favor of Fimbria
and things quickly degenerated until finally Flaccus was killed by
his soldiers (or, as some sources assert, by Fimbria himself).
Fimbria was then given command of the expedition by the men,
and with this sorted out, they continued on the campaign.16
Fimbria’s conduct of the war with the men he had gotten
from Flaccus soon led to some fairly amazing successes. He
notably captured the city which stood where Troy once had been,
by his own boast accomplishing in eleven days what had taken
Agammemnon ten years to accomplish, even if he was compelled
to acknowledge a resident’s point that the defenders in this case did
eleven days what it had taken Agammemnon ten years to storm. The reply
to this was that in this case “the defender was no Hector” ( οὐ γὰρ ἦν
Ἕκτωρ ὁ ὑπερμαχῶν τῆς πόλεως; Strabo, 13.1.27), at which Fimbria was
apparently amused. Humor of this kind might very well have been
appealing to the men under his command, especially if there was implied a
certain willingness to make light of himself (as the exchange at Ilium
indicates). Flaccus, by contrast, seems to have been considerably more
dour.
15 See, for example, chapter 5 for Marius and the travail he suffered at
the hands of the stupidity of Rutilius Lupus.

16 See Memnon, Appian, and Dio in the places cited above; also
Velleius 2.24, Plutarch, Sull. 23 and Luc. 7, 34, Strabo 13.1.27, Per. 82,
Orosius 6.2.9, de vir. ill. 70.
not have a Hector.17 He also subjected Nicomedia and Cyzicus, all

the while allowing his soldiers their loot (Diod. 38.8; Dio frg. 104).
In fact, after seizing Pergamum18 from the son of Mithridates, he
even managed to come close to getting his hands upon the king
himself at Pitane. Yet the chance to end the war then and there was
missed due to the inactivity of Lucullus, the subordinate of Sulla
who had come to the area with the fleet he had finally acquired.
This man was entreated to use that fleet to cut of the enemy’s
escape route by sea and thus bring about his capture, but perhaps
from fear of what Sulla’s reaction would be if he and Fimbria were
to receive credit for the king’s capture, Lucullus refused to help
(Plutarch, Luc. 3).19
Mithridates was therefore allowed to escape to Mitylene, and
from there he soon began to make overtures, not to Fimbria, but
to Sulla, who had defeated his armies in Greece. These overtures
then led to negotiations, and these in turn culminated in Sulla’s
traversing into Asia with the ships of Lucullus, where in the city of
Dardanus he and Mithridates concluded peace by means of a fairly
generous treaty.20 With the war finished thereby, Sulla could next
17 Per. 83; Strabo 13.1.27 (who includes the joke, as has been seen in
the previous note; Dio, fr.104, Appian, Mith. 8.53; Obseqens 56b; de vir. ill.
70, Augustine, De civ. 3.7; Orosius 6.2.11.
18 Per. 83, Memnon 24; Appian, Mith. 8. 52; de vir. ill. 70; see also
Frontinus, 3.17.5 (mentioning a battle near the river Rhyndacus); and

Orosius 6.2.10 (though it only describes the flight of the son of
Mithridates).
19 The other sources for this episode—Per. 83 and Appian, Mith.
8.52—merely report that Fimbria failed to catch Mithridates, omitting the

role Lucullus may have played in it
20 Plutarch (Sull. 23) reports that Mithridates had begin to make such
overtures to Sulla before the fall of Pergamum. The terms eventually

agreed to are spelled out in outline by Appian (Mith. 56–58; Per. 83, Florus
1.40.11–12, and Strabo 13.1.27–28 all merely note that Sulla crossed over
into Asia to make the peace), to which other sources have supplied
specifics. These terms included the evacuation of Asia; a fine of some
denomination (according to Memnon 25, this was 3000; according to
Plutarch in the place cited, 2000); the return of Roman prisonders and
deserters; and some portion of his fleet (half of it, according to Velleius
2.23; seventy bronze-plated ships, according to Plutarch and Granius
direct his attention to Italy, as the many fugitive optimates who had
fled to him were doubtless entreating him to do (Orosius 5.20.1,
Plutarch, Sull. 22; see previous chapter for the fugitives).
This he was not going to do right away, as first and foremost
he could not go back home and wrestle with armies there while
leaving Fimbria at his back. Therefore, he soon led his army
eastwards to remove the latter threat, and near a place called
Thyateira he found Fimbria and commanded him to relinquish his
illegal command. When Fimbria did not do so, Sulla began to
besiege the latter’s camp. Fimbria’s men began to desert him in
droves—it was one thing to attack cities and collect spoil, but
another to make war on fellow Romans who outnumbered them
and from whom no loot could be taken—and Fimbria was soon in
dire straits indeed. Appian circulates the story that he then tried to
Licinianus 35.78; eighty triremes, according to Memnon, loc. cit.). Memnon

(loc. cit) also states that Sulla was to promise not to punish the states which
had declared loyalty to Mithridates. It may well be imagined that Sulla had
not agreed to this stipulation (Keaveney—1982, p. 108–109—is almost
certainly correct in that he did not), and at any rate he did not abide by it
if he had. Indeed, Plutarch (Sull. 25, Luc. 4) states that 20,000 talents were
laid as an indemnity upon Asia beyond what Mithridates paid, presumably
as recompense for their desertion.
What all of this means is that as a result of the peace, Sulla was fairly
well-stocked with coin and with ships. Plutarch further mentions that the
treaty had infuriated the soldiers under Sulla’s command, who had wanted
to make the butcher of so many Italian men pay far more vigorously
(Sull. 24). Sulla defended himself to them by claiming that he feared the
king would make an agreement with Fimbria to get better terms, a
agreement which might involve joining forces with the latter against
himself (indeed, Appian claims that Mithridates had in fact threatened to
see if better terms could be gotten from Fimbria; loc. cit.) According to
Florus, however, Sulla had made his peace with such easy stipulations
because he had wanted to defeat Mithridates more quickly than
completely (triumphare cito quam vero maluisset; loc. cit.). This is almost
certainly true; Sulla wanted to end the war with a victory so he could
return to Rome, and for this reason chose a partial triumph over a more
complete one which might have taken several additional years of warfare
to achieve. This, also, is the opinion of Keaveney (1982, p. 105) and
Badian (1964, p. 225–226).
have Sulla assassinated by a slave to no avail, and that as the army

continued to desert, Fimbria asked for terms (Mith. 9.59–60). Sulla
did not come to speak to him in person, but let it be known that
Fimbria would not be harmed if he chose to fly to the coast and
repair to any location of his choosing. It is, however, improbable
that either the attempted murder or the negotiation and promise of
safe conduct had occurred. Sulla had, after all, not exactly been
receptive to letting his enemies go peacefully into exile, as his
unsuccessful hunting down of Marius illustrated, and would almost
certainly be even less inclined to allow this had his life been
threatened. Nor is it likely that his past record of keeping promises
would have convinced Fimbria of his safety even if Sulla had so
pledged. At any rate, the ultimate outcome of the circumvallation
was that Fimbria soon committed suicide, and his forces now
belonged to Sulla.21 Appian also notes that Fimbria was
conspicuously allowed burial, since Sulla had apparently decided at
this point to present the image that he was not going to imitate
Marius and Cinna in their behavior towards the dead.22
The Mithridatic War was therefore finished, and Sulla
emerged from its conclusion as the supreme commander of all
Roman forces in the East. This meant a number of things for Italy
and for the men currently running the Roman government, none
of them pleasant. On the one hand, peace had been made with
Mithridates, but the latter had not been eliminated. This left open
the possibility that he would be able to make trouble for Rome in
the future, as would in fact end up being the case, albeit years later.
More immediately, it meant that Sulla was now free to come home.
Not only that, he was free to come home with the reputation as the
conqueror of the East, and with the vast wealth gotten from
looting and from the settlement with Mithridates, which included
ready money and ships. Adding to his advantages was the fact that
opposition to him could be found neither anywhere along the path
21 In additon to the place cited by Appian, see also Per. 83; Plutatch,
Sulla 25; de vir. ill. 70; Orosius 6.2.11 (Diodorus 38.8 mentions only the
suicide).
22 See also Keaveney for the capture of the army of Fimbria (1982, p.
100).
back to Italy, nor behind him and he proceeded upon that path: the
army which—it has been conjectured—had been sent to stop him
from making peace with Mithridates had in fact ensured that very
thing, and it in turn had been so spoiled by being allowed to take
loot that it killed one of its commanders who tried to curtail that
activity and deserted another when he proposed to make them
fight against an enemy from whom more peril that profit could be
expected.
Over and above all these other things, the principal asset
which Sulla retained was his army. Already battle-hardened from
the Allied War, it had gained even more experience in the process
of defeating an enemy which had turned out to be surprisingly
more difficult than had been suspected. The fighting had been
hard, but while the rewards had been ample, there can be no doubt
that Sulla’s army was ready to come home and be given land on
which to settle, which had almost certainly been promised to them
by their general. To get it, that general would need to be safe,
sound, and a legitimate pro-consul: it is greatly to be doubted that
the Senate would furnish farms to the soldiers of an outlaw who, it
is not to be forgotten, had led them against Rome itself. With this
sort of an army—tempered by hard fighting and devoted to his
cause, because, in fact, it was their own—Sulla could now begin to
wind his way back to Italy.
3. A WAR OF WORDS AND THE RAISING OF ARMIES

Although nothing can be found in the sources to confirm or refute
it, speculation was made above that Cinna may have come up with
a strategy whereby Sulla would be caught in the East between the
victorious arms of Flaccus—ones supplemented by Asian supplies
given as indemnities by Mithridates and other local potentates—
and the new army Cinna himself would be raising. If such a plan
had existed, it was now wrecked. In the first place, Flaccus had not
been victorious and had not brought Mithridates to terms. Instead,
he been killed and was replaced by Fimbria, who then prosecuted
the war with such proficiency that he made Asia howl. Yet Fimbria,
too, had not accepted the capitulation of Mithridates, who had
sought peace, not from him, but from Sulla. This had meant that
the wealth of Asia would now fall into Sulla’s hands, as indeed it
had. Worse, Fimbria had also lost his command, but not to one of
his legates, as Flaccus had. Instead, he had lost it to Sulla, and had
gotten himself killed along the way. It was bad enough that Cinna
was now bereft of Asian resources, and it was worse that Sulla now
had them, but what was worst of all was that he had even lost the
army to be used as the “anvil” upon which Sulla was to be struck.
Even if such a grandiose strategy had not been on Cinna’s mind, it
still was calamitous that nothing barred the way back to Italy for
Sulla, victor over Asia, and his army.
This was not the extent of the bad news, however. Sulla’s
apparently sudden victory against Mithridates had come at a time
when Italy did not seem in any way to have been prepared to
confront the victorious proconsul adequately should he decide to
make a swift return. It is almost certain that Cinna had dismissed
the army with which he had converged on Rome by early 86, if not
sooner. The balance of two legions had been sent east with Flaccus
(Appian, Mith. 8.51), but the rest seem to have been sent home,
and for many of them it may very well have been their first
furlough since 90. Indeed, it may very well be that Cinna had
gotten these men to follow him by means of promising such a
demobilization (see Chapter 8). Italy had probably been desperate
for an annus sine armis, and it is difficult to see how Cinna could
have denied it. If this was the case, and doubtless it was, to have
sent requests for men in 86 would have been a difficult venture at
the very least. Moreover, it is perhaps not unreasonable to assume,
as some scholars have,23 that there was a “peace faction” in the
Senate who would have made the gathering of forces in 86 and
early 85 difficult even had Cinna been so inclined to raise them. It
may have been they responsible for the pocket commission Flaccus
carried offering amnesty and a joint command to Sulla, and they
definitely seem to have obstructed Cinna in other ways (for which
mire below). Therefore, Cinna must have received word from the
East—which would have made it progressively more evident that a
war with Sulla was coming—with increasing displeasure and worry,
and his reaction can only be imagined when he received the news
that put the eventuality of that return beyond doubt. As Appian
reports, such news came in the form of a dispatch that was sent by
23 So Keaveney (1982, p. 121–124), Lovano (p. 53–54), and Badian
(1964, p. 222–224).
Sulla shortly after the suicide of Fimbria (doubtless in the form of a

typical proconsular report), which let the Senate know all that had
transpired with the Mithridatic war24 and that the fighting in the
East was over, leaving him free to come back home (Mith. 9.60).
Sulla’s missive probably informed the Senate of the surrender
of Mithridates and the terms he had obtained. It might also have
spelled out the exact nature of the warmaking apparatus he had at
his disposal in terms of men, money, and naval vessels, and
possibly had let it be known the fate of Fimbria, as well. Hence, it
might serve as something of a warning as to what might be in stre
for Rome should they attempt to bar his homecoming. What
probably was not made obvious was exactly when Sulla’s
homecoming with these soldiers and equipment was going to take
place, though that may have been guessed by the time of year in
which the letter was received. It cannot be known for certain when
that was, although Appian (the only source to mention the missive)
seems to indicate that it was sent close to late summer, and had
24 On the nature of Sulla’s note as a typical proconsular dispatch, see
Frier (p. 590–591). He, like Keaveney (1982, p. 117), takes note of the
final line of that section of Appian cited above, one which states that Sulla
had not acknowledged that he was a public enemy (οὐχ ὑποκρινόμενος
ἐψ φίσ αι πολέμιος). Frier builds upon that line the speculation that Sulla
deliberately avoided making any reference to his outlawry in this post,
with the implication being that he was sending the exact response which
would be expected from a legitimate promagistrate, as he considered
himself to be. Frier interprets this as perhaps the beginnings of an
overture to the nobility, who by accepting the report might overturn the
sentence of public enmity e silentio.
Keaveney, for his part, claims that the dispatch was tantamount to a
“dare” to Cinna to dispute Sulla’s status as proconsul. Yet Sulla must have
figured that an antagonism with Cinna was more than probable already. It
would make better sense if Sulla had used this note to reinforce his
contention that he had done nothing contrary to law and that, by
extension, the move to declare him a hostis was itself illegitimate. He could
therefore claim status as the aggrieved party, and perhaps attract those
whose feelings were undecided as to whom to support. A softer stance
taken by Sulla better explains what happens next, and his dispatch is
interpretated as taking such a stance in the text above.
therefore arrived in early fall, of 85.25 If that was the case, then it
may have been safe to guess that Sulla’s return would not antedate
the beginning of 84. There was, after all, likely still a great deal to
arrange in the East, upon which the Senatorial hearers of the
dispatch may have been able to count. In the meantime, personal
responses to this communiqué of Sulla’s seem to have varied,
although there seems to have been no official reply which was
25 Appian suggests that the post was sent after the death of Fimbria
(loc. cit.). That death is recorded in the Periochae, but attempts to triangulate
the date of the letter based on the report of that source is frustrated due
to the fact that the Summary of book 83, in which Fimbria’s suicide is
mentioned, has a chronology which is difficult to untangle. In that text,
Fimbria’s end is reported after a notice which mentions that Cinna had
been killed, which is known to have occurred in his second consulate with
Carbo and fourth overall, and thus mid–84. This would seem to imply
that both the suicide of Fimbria and the settlement of the Asian affairs
had happened after Cinna had died. This is almost certainly false; Appian
(BC 1.9.76) mentions that Cinna was alive when he heard of Sulla’s
victory, and Velleius likewise mentions his death after Sulla had settled the
East but before he had landed at Brundisium in 83 (2.24).
What may account for the twisted sequence of events in the Periochae is
a digression in Livy’s original book which was occasioned by mention of
Sulla’s return. In other words, Livy contained a brief notice about the
Asian events early on in book 83, but gave fuller details when it came time
to describe Sulla’s landing much later in the book. In this aside, focus was
shifted away from Rome to Asia, where Sulla’s victory and the death of
Fimbria were given the complete attention with which Livy did not
interrupt his narrative earlier on. Haug maintains that this sort of thing did
not typically occur in Livy (p. 205), but the conjecture that it did in this
case seems a better alternative than assuming an error on the part of Livy,
on the part of Velleius and Appian, or from all three.
All this having been said, the Periochae gives nothing by way of
concrete details in terms of when such a dispatch may have been sent, and
in fact does not mention the dispatch at all. In the absence of such reliable
guidance, the only source giving any sort of chronology is the Mithridatic
Wars, which suggests that winter quarters were taken by Sulla’s army
shortly after the report was sent to Rome. It is this timing which is
followed above.
made to it by the Senate at all. The notice was therefore either

rejected or ignored, but for a time the patres held to silence.
On the other hand, the lack of official acknowledgement for
this epistle did not mean that there was nothing being done about
it. Cinna, for his part, already seems to have begun to draft a
reply—in a manner of speaking—in the previous fall, when he
managed to see to it that two men of some not inconsiderable
command experience were elected consul. He himself was one of
these two men, and his right-hand man Gn. Papirius Carbo—who
had apparently fought the Lucani during the Allied war and had
definitely served at Cinna’s side during the Bellum Octavianum26—
was the other (Appian, 1.9.76; Per. 83). This election would manage
to serve two purposes, in that it would not only give imperium to
two seasoned generals, but it would also reward Carbo for his
service. It may also have been a candidacy to which the nobiles
would not object, at least at first.27 Having managed to come by a
26 See previous chapter for Carbo’s military résumé.

27 Concern for public opinion would seem to run counter to what is
stated in the de viris illustribus (69), which declares in no uncertain terms
that Cinna had made himself consul without the help of the people and
proper election (iterum et tertio consulem se ipse fecit). Appian also seems to
suggest he and Carbo did this for 84 as well as 85 (1.8.77), and the Periocha
of book 83 hints at something similar. However, both Badian (1964, p.
223–227) and Lovano (107–108) think that the elections for both 85 and
for 84 were legitimate ones. Lovano draws on the pressure put on Carbo
to name a suffect later on as the grounds for his evidence (see below), and
Badian on the acceptability of both men and the need to continue them in
wartime as his. These arguments appear to be weakened by the
aforementioned troublesome notice in Appian, which mentions that
neither man would return to Rome to hold the comitia, and that they
proclaimed themselves consuls. The full text reads τοῖς δ᾽ ἀμφὶ τὸν Κίνναν
εἴρ το μὴ στρατολογεῖν, ἕστε ἐκεῖνον ἀποκρίνασ αι. οἱ δ᾽ ὑπέσχοντο μὲν ὧδε
πράξειν, οἰχομένων δὲ τῶν πρέσ εων ἐς τὸ μέλλον ἑαυτοὺς ἀνεῖπον ὑπάτους
αὐτίκα, τοῦ μὴ διὰ τὰ ἀρχαιρέσια θᾶττον ἐπανήκειν (emphasis added). Such
an irregularity on the part of Cinna and Carbo does not square well with a
theory that their offices were on the up and up. But it is possible to
interpret this passage another way. Perhaps Appian had meant, not that
the consuls did not return to Rome at all, but merely that they had
arranged for elections to be held earlier than usual—id est, right after the
capable and congenial colleague, Cinna now went to work

arranging a proper reception for the returning conqueror Sulla,
sending deputations throughout the peninsula to obtain goodwill,
money, provisions, and soldiers (Per., loc. cit.; Appian, 1.8.76–77).
It may be wondered the extent to which the novi cives, to
whom Appian especially mentions that Cinna and Carbo made
their appeals, would have been inclined to proffer their support. If,
as has been speculated, the promised tribal rearrangements had not
yet taken place, then they had still not gotten that for which they
had shed blood in 87 after two years of waiting. Yet it may have
also have been that the former Allies were willing to grant some
sort of latitude to Cinna on account of the extenuating
circumstances which attended the inactivity. It seems likely that
Cinna had not regained Rome until late summer of 87, and had
spent the rest of the year removing his opposition and conciliating
a Senate whose members presumably were still as opposed as ever
to equal rights for the ex-socii. Having done that, during the next
year it seems that Cinna’s major legislative initiative was dealing
with the financial crisis, whose necessity would likely have been
patent. It could not be denied that the former Allies had been put
off as Cinna scrambled to accomplish these things, but given that
this delay was by compulsion and was for all that only for a year
and a half by this point, the former Allies might have been inclined
to be forgiving. It is probable that Cinna and Carbo may have
pointed out during their recruiting drive that they had failed to
deliver on their promise due to obstinate members of the Senate,
but promised the novi that next year would finally be their year;
dispatch from Sulla was received, which was possibly in fall of 85 anyway
(see above)—and thus would not have to be interrupted in their recruiting
to hold them at the usual time (Badian does note that the elections were
perhaps a little earlier than usual, but does not justify why; it may be that
this was his thought, as well). Such a theory may explain why there was no
return to Rome, but that does not necessarily do away with the indication
from both Appian and the de viris illustribus that both men had essentually
made themselves the chief magistrates without election, something which
the other sources neither confirm nor deny. Thus, any attempt to cast
these two as scrupulous adherents to the letter of the law must at least be
treated with skepticism.
indeed, according to the Periochae (84) it was a promise that was

kept (about which more below). Moreover, Cinna had actually
accomplished some things for the Italians. As the consul of 86 he
had seen to the election of Censors well before the year in which
those officials were supposed to have been chosen, and even if
their accounting had been defective, at least some Italians must
have been registered and were thus able to vote for the highest
magistracies and run for the lower ones. Finally, Cinna and Carbo
likely would not have hesitated for a moment to point out that,
even if they themselves had been tardy in fulfilling their obligations
to the new citizens, the latter would doubtless do far worse with
Sulla. Just as before, then, Cinna had made an appeal to the former
Allies, and just as before they seem to have come through for him
and, after his death, for his cause (as will be seen). It was, as Cinna
almost certainly framed it, their cause too.
While consuls were industriously engaged in such activities,
Sulla had occupied himself putting matters in order in Asia and
letting his men rest from battle there, busying themselves in
collecting the indemnities their general had assessed but otherwise
recovering from the strenuous campaigns they had carried out over
the previous six years (Plutarch, Sull. 25; Appian, Mith. 9.63).28 In
neither Italy nor in the camp of Sulla did there seem to have been
any question as to the proconsul’s ultimate aim of returning to
Rome and waging war on his enemies, an object which Vellieus
claims had never been hidden (Vix quidquam in Sullae operibus clarius
duxerim ... neque inlaturum se bellum iis dissimulavit; 2.24). Up to this
point, the only real ambiguity had been whether or not he would be
able to do so—he might, after all, have died in battle—but now
even that uncertainty had been removed. It is, then, perhaps to be
considered a matter of some curiosity that Appian would record a
second letter sent by him to the Senate, in which he claimed that he
would soon be coming to avenge himself on those who had
wronged him, but that to everyone else (and especially the new
citizens) he meant no harm (ἀλλ᾽ αὐτίκα καὶ τοῖσδε καὶ τῇ πόλει πάσῃ
τιμωρὸς ἥξειν ἐπὶ τοὺς εἰργασμένους. τοῖς δ᾽ ἄλλοις πολίταις τε καὶ
28 See also Keaveney (1982, p. 110–112); Badian (1964, p. 227, 1970,
p. 19) takes a slightly more cynical view of this activity.

νεοπολίταις προύλεγεν οὐδενὶ μέμψεσθαι περὶ οὐδενός [emphasis

added]; BC, 1.9.76).
The tone of this missive was clearly threatening—Appian
comments on its haughtiness (φρον ματος)—and it is to be
wondered what Sulla sought to accomplish by it. Obviously he
hoped to minimize resistance to himself by illustrating that he
contemplated nothing ill for those who were not his enemies29
(whoever those actually were), but to what end? Even if this letter
would have succeeded to absolute perfection and deprived Cinna
and his supporters of any effective army with which to ward off
Sulla, having lost it due to widespread belief in Sulla’s intentions
not to harm anyone other than his enemies, it still indicated that
Sulla would be taking certain vengeance on his inimici. But by
returning to Rome, Sulla would theoretically lack any legal means
to punish these enemies. It should not be forgotten that he was no
longer consul, and his proconsular imperium would—in theory—
vanish when he crossed the pomerium. How did he then intend to
mete out the justice to his foes? Did he intend to prosecute them?
This would seem to place a far greater trust on the ever-tentative
outcome of trials than his expression of the certainty of his revenge
would indicate. Did he hope by such a letter to persuade the Senate
to grant him dispensation to enter the city armed (again, but legally
this time) for the purpose of rooting out his adversaries and
slaughtering them? And, if so, what else did he contemplate? Did
he intend to use his army to change the laws? The fact that he
pointedly mentioned not tampering with the rights of the new
citizens seemed designed to reassure on that score, but, again, how
could he have legally hoped to change the laws anyway as a
proconsul? Did he intend on winning another consulate for
himself, by sword-point if necessary? Or was he already
contemplating the revival and modification of an ancient and long-
unused office by which his very word would become law, one he
would eventually claim for himself?
An attempt to use this letter to try and ascertain what Sulla’s
mindset was, and, more importantly, what he envisioned for the
29 As pointed out by Keaveney (1982, p. 119), Lovano (p. 107), and
Frier (p. 590–591).

future, is by definition speculation of the profoundest sort.

However, the question is not entirely uninteresting. When Sulla did
finally return, he set about fashioning changes to a great many
aspects of Rome’s society, changes whose bredth indicate lengthy
contemplation and planning. This would seem to imply that such
contemplation and planning had started in Asia, if not sooner.30
Then again, Sulla could only make those changes legally by means
of extraordinary powers endowed upon him by the Senate, ones
given (or, rather, forcibly extracted) as a response to the
devastations of the previous year. It is difficult to see how those
powers Sulla attained could have been acquired save through the
same emergencies. Yet it seems that these were the very
catastrophes that he was now trying to avoid, even though doing so
would deprive him of the chance to acquire the powers needed to
bring about what may have been his already-formed conception of
what the Commonwealth ought to be. If Sulla had planned on
remaking Rome, he would need an authority which had only been
given in answer to the direst emergences. He therefore needed
those emergencies to come to pass, but it seems that he was
simulataneously trying to negotiate out of these.
In then end, Sulla’s thought process cannot be known, and
hence might be most profitably left here. To return to the matter at
hand: it is hard to see how a letter with such ominous connotations
might have actually brought about the peaceful resolution Sulla
seemed to want by it. Still, a different and more plausible intent for
Sulla’s letter may be closer at hand than the above might indicate.
Sulla was likely too much of a realist to think that war at this stage
could be evaded, but things might be easier for him when that war
inevitably came if there was already in place a well-articulated and
repeatedly offered justification for his actions. This letter might
have been the first step towards the construction of that
justification, one establishing that his only motivation would be the
restoration of his injured rights. Such a line of reasoning might win
supporters to his side, keep certain parties from getting involved,
acquire the approval of those from whom approval was desired, or
ease the consciences of those who would otherwise be troubled by
30 So Keaveney (1982, p. 163–165) and Badian (1970, p. 20).

what he had done and would do. Hence, Sulla might have been
creating a role for himself of the maligned proconsul merely trying
to return home in peace in the face of the wicked designs of the
criminals who had wronged him. It was a role similar to the one he
had played in 88, and Sulla may have hoped to have similar success
with it.
No matter what Sulla’s intentions with that missive actually
were, the response he ended up getting was an embassy sent to him
from the Senate at the bidding of its princeps, L. Valerius Flaccus.
Flaccus had perhaps observed that Sulla had pointedly mentioned
that he had been named a hostis in this second letter, something he
had not done in the first.31 As a consequence, the princeps may have
believed that this was the sticking point which seemed to gurantee
war, and if that condemnation could be revoked, perhaps war
might be averted. At the very least, the Senate could at least try to
make offers of peace and thereby deflect accusations of having
determined for war without having explored every alternative.32
Envoys were then duly sent to Sulla as winter approached (Per. 83,
Appian 1.9.77). In the meantime, the Senate seems to have come
up with the idea that, as a show of good faith, the consuls should
stop their recruiting until Sulla’s response was heard. To Cinna and
Carbo such a decree would have instantly been perceived as exactly
what it was, which was the very height of optimistic foolishness.
Even had Sulla not been known for his swift movements (which he
was), to discontinue making ready in the face of a potential enemy
who already had his army in place would have been madness.
Therefore, the recipients of these orders—not being insane—paid
little heed to them, but continued on gathering men and materiel as
earlier. If, as has been speculated, the consuls had already held the
electoral comitia right after the receipt of Sulla’s first dispatch, they
may already had had themselves re-elected for 84 and thus were
free not to have to go to Rome to hold elections (which Appian
states is the case, 1.9.77), leaving them to continue their work
uninterrupted.33
31 τοὺς ἐχ ροὺς πολέμιον αὑτὸν ἀναγράψαι;Appian, loc. cit.

32 This is the thought of Frier, p. 592; more below.
In spite of his reputation for celerity, for the moment, Sulla

did not appear to be making haste towards Rome, and devoted
himself to correspondence and the collection of indemnities while
Carbo and Cinna devoted themselves to the collection of men.
These were coming along nicely for the latter, but it still must have
troubled Cinna that Sulla’s army would have a great advantage in
terms of experience and cohesion than his own armies would when
the showdown inevitably came. It is for this reason that Cinna
proceeded to make a terrible and, it would turn out, fatal error, one
which ultimately showed the boundaries of his leadership abilities.
Throughout his career Cinna had shown himself to be a capable
politician, an occasionally fine orator, and a soldier of some
excellence: he seemed instinctively to know how to motivate men
and in particular to know how to motivate them to act to his
advantage, as well as to their own. However, as a strategist he was
not, perhaps, of the highest order. His campaigns in the Allied War
had been crowned with success, but in that war he had inherited
the army and perhaps the tactics of his predecessor L. Porcius
Cato. He seems to have had the good sense to use his men to
complement the plans of Pompeius Strabo, but even this he may
well have done so at the explicit orders of the then-consul to
whom (in theory) he would have become subordinate on Cato’s
death. In addition, his maneuvers during the Bellum Octavianum had
been first-rate, but they also may not have been his: his general
staff contained at least one full-fledged military genius in the
person of C. Marius, and another one in the making as represented
by Q. Sertorius. It is hard to imagine but that their counsel had
done much to promote Cinna’s cause, up to and including the
designing of his plans for military success. Too, Cinna himself had
probably been wise enough to have counselled Flaccus not to close
with Sulla, but if his grand strategy really had been as speculated
above—id est, to raise an army in Italy and crush Sulla between this
force and that of Flaccus in the East—then it was one which was
certainly full of daring, but which might generously be categorized
as one that depended on a number of variables and outright luck,
to say the very least. All of these facts may indicate that Cinna’s
own strategic vision was somewhat limited, and perhaps point to a
way of thinking which tended to contemplate broad, bold moves
without taking into account all the potential outcomes and sources
of difficulty.
Such a tendency might well explain the disaster which soon

befell the consul. According to the narratives, as the gathering of
men continued, Cinna seems to have decided to collect all forces in
Ancona; this was likely done sometime towards the end of winter
in early 84 (although winter was apparently not quite over, as will
be seen). What it was they were to do there is not entirely obvious,
although those accounts which give any indication as to their
purpose suggests that it was from Ancona that they were to board
ship to go and fight Sulla. So far, at least, do those sources—the
Periochae (83) and Appian (1.9.77–78)—agree, but while the Periochae
only states so much, Appian adds more. According to that author,
Cinna intended to embark his men onto ships at Ancona and sail
from thence to Liburnia on the Illyrian coast, which was to be their
base of operations against the returning proconsul.
Why it is that Illyria would have been chosen for the place to
begin an assault on Sulla is not explained, and indeed such a bizarre
move resists easy explanation. In the first place, if Cinna had
intended to fight Sulla somewhere in Hellas, then crossing into
Illyria from Ancona seems like a far more difficult and dangerous
undertaking than simply going by ship from Brundisium into
Epirus, and doing battle with the proconsul there or nearby. Nor
does it seem that this latter route was rejected because it was barred
to them, as it seems to have been wide open. Sulla, it seemed, was
still in Asia, and if it is to be assumed (as it has been above) that his
second letter to the Senate had been received towards the
beginning of winter, then very likely he would continue to be in
Asia until spring. If Cinna’s object was to get at Sulla, why would
they take an indirect path to and through Liburnia, instead of the
open straight one right ahead of them?
To answer this question, at least one scholar has come up with
a hypothesis as to what Cinna’s plan may have been. According to
this theory, Cinna was considering making the voyage to Liburnia
in order to give the soldiers a training mission in Dalmatia, and
therefore give them some experience before coming to blows with
Sulla’s armies in the war to come. After all, very few expeditions
had ever been fought in the area before this time, and against an
unknown opponent the combat may have been easy. Furthermore,
in 78—the first year after the disturbances in Rome and Italy had
finally become manageable—an expedition would be sent there,
suggesting that the Dalmatians may have needed chastising anyway,
and that this need may have existed for several years. Finally,
Cinna’s son as suffect consul of 32 may have advised Octavian to
do the same thing before confronting Antony.34 There may also be
other explanations for why Cinna would choose to go there. Italy,
it will be remembered, had endured four years of hard fighting
from 91 through 87. Perhaps Cinna thought to take the war
elsewhere to spare the land from even more devastation,35 from
which it may just have been beginning to recover (although Greece
had also just seen three years of fighting of its own).
Such a plan would certainly be audacious, but—as may have
been the case with many of Cinna’s plans—it did not take into
account certain factors, of which what may have been the most
important was that Sulla’s whereabouts may not have been known
for certain in the winter of 84. When last heard from he was in
Asia, as has been seen, but even as Cinna was doubtless drawing
together his forces, Sulla seems to have been setting sail for
Greece; he made the Piraeus in three days, according to Plutarch
(Sull. 26). It turns out that Sulla was to stay in Greece for the rest
of the year, but he also had the luxury of being able to take the
leisurely pace of someone who was not in a hurry. If he had
managed to discover that the majority of the army to be used
against him was somewhere in Dalmatia, it is not inconceivable that
someone of his typical speed of action would have immediately
sailed for Italy. If he were to do so, then the homes of those on the
Dalmatian exercise would be defenseless in the face of such a
threat, denuded of men who were instead engaged in a training
mission across the water. This was something which must have
crossed the minds of Cinna’s men as they assembled into the
harbor at Ancona, where ships might take them away from Italy
and leave their homes vulnerable to a swift attack.
Moreover, there were a number of potentially unforeseen
factors that could have lurked in Illyria: the tribes there might be
far fiercer than had been anticipated, leaving the army to have to
34 So Badian (1964, p. 226–228), followed by Frier (p. 592–594); contra
Keaveney, who seems to think they were to be led directly against Sulla
(1982, p. 121–122).
35 Greenhalgh also holds this as a motive for Cinna (p. 13).
contend with a tough enemy on foreign ground with possibly little

chance for spoil. There could also have been disease, or famine,
and in this way the army there might be destroyed; such would
mean that even if Sulla did not pounce the moment they left Italy
and took his time, he could still return and have his way with the
peninsula, whose defenders had been wiped out. The result was
that a campaign there was probably a frightening proposition, and
one which Cinna’s new army apparently did not cherish. This army
might well fight and die for him in Italy, but a pointless sortie into
Dalmatia would not seem to serve any purpose other than to put
them and theirs in harm’s way.
Accordingly, as Cinna summoned his transports to ferry the
men to Liburnia, these may have started to succumb to the fear and
resentment to which such a deployment might well have given rise.
The first set of departures seem to have made it to their destination
without incident, but the second set encountered a storm which
sapped their resolve to fight and caused them to desert (Appian
1.9.78).36 Having heard of these desertions, the remaining soldiers
in Italy refused to board their transports. Upon getting wind of
this, Cinna seems to have become infuriated and to have called an
assembly of the men for the purpose of delivering a harangue to
upbraid his men and restore order. Based on his earlier experiences
as legate to Cato, Cinna probably ought to have known better than
attempt to chastise men who were frightened and near mutiny, but
apparently he had forgotten the lessons of the episode.37 At any
rate, as he was headed to address the troops, the lictor who was
clearing a path for him struck a soldier, at which point the soldier
struck him back. Cinna then ordered that soldier’s arrest, and soon
stones were being hurled and daggers drawn. One of the latter
seems to have found its way into Cinna,38 whereupon he then died.
36 Much has been made about a line in this passage of Appian which
suggests that the reason the soldiers became disaffected was their lack of
desire to fight their fellow Romans, although the bases for such a claim
are actually rather slight. For a more complete discussion of the
significance of Ancona, see Appendix U.
37 See chapter 6.
38 In addition to Appian and the Periochae in the places cited above,
Cinna’s murder by his soldiers is also mentioned by the de vir. ill. (69, in
Cinna’s murder had not necessarily been an indication that the

men under his command no longer meant to fight for his cause.
Very likely it signified merely an unwillingness to fight overseas
away from Italy, and it may very well have not even meant that, but
rather broadcast only a fear of taking to sea before storm season
had ended.39 The undisputed result of it, though, was that all
consular power was now in the hands of Cinna’s colleague. Carbo’s
next step was to take the wholly sensible action of bringing back
which it was attributed to “too much cruelty”, on Cinna’s part, which in

this case as in many others is likely a cipher for an attempt to exercise
discipline), Orosius (5.19.24), Exsuperantius (29), and Velleius (2.24). Dio
also notes his murder (45.47.2 and 52.13.2, observing in the latter passage
that it came as a punishment for wanting supreme power), as does
Plutarch’s Sertorius (6). The latter’s Pompeius, however, has a much more
interesting account of Ancona (5). According to this text, the youthful
Pompeius nondum Magnus had at one point joined Cinna’s army, but due
to some unspecified accusation of wrongdoing levelled against him, he
deserted from it. When his absence was noted, the men believed Cinna
had killed him and grew furious due to their abundant love for the
putative victim. Their rage then soon gave way to violence on account of
the alleged tyranny Cinna exercised over them, and a would-be regicide
centurion caught up with the consul as he fled and stabbed him.
Interesting, again, but probably not accurate; Badian’s comment on this
passage—“this has rightly caused nothing but amusement”—is perhaps
the best evaluation of a rather risible anecdote (1964, p. 226–227).
39 Even Keaveney will concede this point (1982, p. 131); it is also
advocated by Lovano (p. 109). The latter mentions that the conditions
which led to the mutiny—if such a brief outburst can appropriately be
referred to as such—may have been exacerbated by the younger
Pompeius and his recruitment efforts nearby; Frier (p. 593) also refers to
“the sinister Pompey”—apparently the adjective seems to attach itself
naturally to this family (see previous chapter)—who was lurking in the
area, fanning dissent. Such may very well have contributed to the
difficulties encountered by Cinna, although such a conjecture is ultimately
based only on Plutarch’s rather comical anecdote about the disruptive
influence he was having on Cinna’s army (see previous note). All the other
souces describing the recruiting the young Pompeius would eventually do
tend to suggest that he had begun undertaking rather later, and if indeed if
he had withdrawn from Cinna’s expedition, he likely would have wanted
to have drawn as little attention to himself as possible.
the men from Liburnia (Appian, loc. cit.), canceling the abortive
expedition, and reassigning the ships assembled from Sicily and
elsewhere (ones which had been intended for transport) to coastal
duties. Despite these redeployments, the consul seems to have
been left with some anxiety about the condition of his army. For
this reason (according to Appian) he did not immediately return to
Rome to oversee the election of a suffect, concerning himself
instead with steadying the troops under his command and with
continuing the preparations for the war. The Senate, however,
became insistent, and upon threats of deposition from office,
Carbo did come home (Appian 1.5.78, Velleius 2.24). It appears
that the interval which had elapsed before the summons to return
and his capitulation to it had not entirely restored Carbo’s faith in
his soldiers, and it may have been for this reason that he
contemplating asking the Senate for authorization to ask the
Italians for hostages as an additional pledge of security, as it seems
he had already done with the Gauls in Placentia (Valerius Maximus
6.2.10). This last, it seems, had not apparently gone so well, and the
Senate denied his request (Per. 84).
Carbo seems to have been looking for pledges of faith from
anyone who could give them, and in this light he may very well
have decided that the best way to acquire the faith of others would
be to make a show of his own. Therefore, it was probably at this
time that he finally redeemed the promise made by Cinna and
secured the redistribution of the ex-Allies into all the tribes
(Periochae, loc. cit.).40 By means of this good turn, Carbo may have
40 There was apparently one small punitive provision in this new tribal
redistribution law, which was that only those Italians who had accepted
the citizenship via the lex Julia were to be merged into most of the 31 rural
tribes. Those who had surrendered later were still subjected to the penalty
of being restricted to fewer tribes (some distinction, it is presumed, had to
be made between “loyal” and “disloyal” former Allies), but these tribes no
longer voted last. This did not bring about complete voting equity
between the former Allies and the Romans, but it was probably about as
close to it as could be approached. Additionally, to the Allies who had
held out until 88 and 87 and had initially accepted a citizenship whose
rights had been far more limited than this, these measures seemed to have
represented a compromise they could endure (see also Salmon 1958, p.
hoped to garner both the gratitude of the Italians as well as their

support based on simple self-interest. As far as the latter, Carbo
could point out that Sulla’s latest letter may have included a
promise to respect the rights of the Italians, but that promise may
have been merely to respect those which they had won up to when
the letter was sent (which was probably the Fall of 85). These rights
would have been few enough: some of the Italians had been
registered in the census, and the Samnites and the Lucani were
given the civitas, but up to 84 (it has been argued) they lacked
effective power in the comitia tributa. Now that they had it, it
remained to be seen if Sulla would be quite so willing to promise to
leave these rights alone. Given his previous hostility to the measure
which was at least apparent, if not actual,41 the redistribution might
be the very thing Sulla would be inclined to annul if he gained the
power to do so. Furthermore, even if Sulla would give a vow that
he would not take this action, Carbo could still exploit the unique
ways by which Sulla had fulfilled his pledges in the past, ones not
designed to inspire confidence in the air-tightness of his word.
Carbo’s legislative initiative in this direction seems to have
been crowned with success, and the redistribution law was carried.
His endeavors to elect a suffect to replace Cinna had not done
182–184, and Sherwin-White, p. 155–157). As for the dating of this

measure, see the discussion on the census and the supporting notes in the
Chapter 8, as well as Appendix T, in which it is argued that it should be
placed somewhere between 85 and 84. That it was in 84 when this
occurred and not 85 is the opinion of Salmon (p. 377 and note 2),
Keaveney (1982, p. 121 and 1987, p. 184), Lovano (p. 62–63, although he
states that it may have come earlier), and Frier (p. 598). That it was Carbo
and not Cinna who had done this is advocated by Frier and Keaveney (in
the latter of his two works just cited; in the earlier, he believed it had been
done by Cinna, as he does in another article; 1982b, p. 507). Since Lovano
and Salmon attribute it only to the “Marian” and “Cinnan” factions,
respectively, there seems to be little basis for rejecting the notion that it
was passed in 84 and by Carbo, as is stated above.
41 See Salmon (1967, p. 378), who argues that Sulla could claim—
however truthfully—that he had never actually opposed the redistribution

of the novi into all the tribes, but had simply set himself against the
transfer of his Mithridatic command which required that he vacate the
redistribution laws of Sulpicius alongside his provincial assignment.
quite so well. The sources report an almost comedic set of barriers

to this election, of which bad omens cancelled one, and a
thunderstorm cancelled another. After this last he seems to have
resolved to leave off further elections and remain sole consul for
the remainder of the year, which may have been more than halfway
over by this point (Velleius 2.24; Appian, 1.9.78).42 The Senate
could not deny that Carbo had done his duty in finding a colleague,
even if he had failed to locate one, and let this measure stand.
Yet if Carbo would have no partner in the highest magistracy,
he would at least have the renewed partnership of the novi cives. His
redistribution of them—one to which it seems the Senate gave its
endorsement—would give the one-time Italians a further reason to
stay fast and maintain their loyalty to the government in a way
which would conceivably have worked even better than hostages
would have.43 There can be little doubt that in this fashion Carbo
did much to guarantee for himself large forces (more directly) in
the war which was almost certain to come.
Such a war was, again, almost certain to come, although it was
perhaps not inevitable just yet. At about the same time as Cinna
was collecting his forces for the ill-starred Dalmatian expedition,
42 This passage in Appian states that the second attempt had happened
just before the summer solstice.

43 Frier’s dismissal of this measure as “certain to antagonize the
nobility further, but … ill-suited to persuade Italians of the need for war”
(p. 598) seems to take insufficient notice of the implications of this law.
Up to the point of its passage, Sulla could promise to abide by the
privileges which the Italians had hitherto attained and may even have been
inclined to keep his word, since these privileges were not substantial. The
future Dictator might not have been pleased by the gift of the civitas to the
Samnites and the Lucani, but since they and all other Italians had very
little political power before the redistribution, he may not have been too
exercised by it. Things would be different after redistribution: by means of
the new law, what amounted to full political equality with the Romans
would be given to the Allies, something the nobilitas had opposed for
decades and which Sulla might very well have continued to oppose as
well. If such an opposition was made clear to or even suspected by the
Italians, they might very well respond to the threat of Sulla with great
vigor. After all, to gain these rights the Italians had fought for Cinna, and
to keep them, they would quite probably fight for Carbo as well.
Sulla seems to have left Asia and sailed to Greece, as has been seen
(Plutarch, Sull. 26; Appian, Mith. 63). Very likely in the same launch
went some agents of his who accompanied the returning envoys
which Flaccus the princeps had sent in response to Sulla’s letter.
These quite probably made it back to Rome as Carbo’s
redistribution laws and abortive suffect elections were being
pursued. It has been convincingly argued44 that what those
ambassadors of Flaccus had represented was what seems to have
become a standard senatorial legation to recalcitrant magistrates or
former magistrates: in response to Sulla’s threatening epistle, the
Senate had sent representatives asking if he was willing to put
himself into the fides of the Senate and acknowledge its authority.
This legation probably had not specified any specific protections it
was to accord to Sulla, and may have been sent so that, officially,
the Senate could absolve itself of any responsibility for the Civil
War. This absolution would put the blame for any future nastiness
on the ex-magistrate, who could now be cast as an enemy invader.
Yet if this was their mission, the emissaries may also have
communicated the Senate’s amenability to compromise, and to
what may have been their surprise, Sulla seems to have projected a
similar amenability on his part. Appian and the Periochae state that
Sulla indicated that war could be forestalled if first and foremost
the declaration of his status as outlaw would be revoked and he
would be restored to his rights, titles, honors, and property (Per. 84;
Appian 1.9.79). Appian adds that Sulla also demanded the same for
the others who had taken refuge with him, and in addition wanted
a priesthood. As far as his enemies went, Sulla continued, he would
never deviate from his hatred of those whom he claimed had
wronged him, but he would not act against any of those whom the
Senate had declared were not to be touched. He would, however,
not be disbanding his army, at least not right away: that would stay
together as long as it would be needed to guarantee his safety and
that of the state. Under such terms, Sulla would come home
without violence (Appian, loc. cit.).
Most of these terms may very well have seemed perfectly
reasonable, and in fact they were designed so to seem: it would be
44 By Frier, p. 592; se also above.

difficult to argue that an erasure of his prior condemnation, the

restitution of what had been his, and protection for his friends and
associates would be too much to ask for someone who had done
so much for the state. Furthermore, a priesthood could easily be
granted. But this last part provided the difficulty: Sulla was
expecting to come back into Italy and return to Rome with his
army, over which he would exert control to ensure the “safety” of
himself and the Senate. It could probably well be imagined the
ways in which Sulla would chose to keep himself and the patres
secure with such men, and as a result the final provision doomed
the measure. Carbo and any men towards whom Sulla had inimicitiae
could never afford to let him keep his army in being, and even
those who were not amongst Sulla’s enemies might well have
recognized that what Sulla was proposing was only a short step
away from undisguised tyranny. It may well have been that to those
who looked upon Sulla’s demands in this way, “war seemed more
useful” (bellum videbatur utilius; to used the words found in the
Periocha of Livy’s book 84): it would indeed more useful than,
perhaps, submission to slavery, which was not entirely far away
from what would have been the outcome of Sulla’s maintaining his
army in or near Rome.
Even so, by rejecting these terms, Carbo and those who
agreed with him would present the image of arrogance and refusal
to reach an equitable settlement, while Sulla could simultaneously
assume the mantle of the injured party and frustrated peacemaker.
He could also attract those members of the nobilitas who were truly
torn about whom to support, and these—alongside those who
simply detested the government of Cinna and Carbo, or who had
had personal grudges against the consuls—would soon find their
way to the Sulla when he came to Italy, as he would in the next
year. Nor does this necessarily indicate that Sulla attepted
deception with his terms, as it might very well have been that Sulla
would have put off war if the Senate had acquiesced to his
proposals, since their doing so would effectively put the
commonwealth at his mercy. However, Sulla must have known full
well that these terms would not and could not be accepted, and he
planned accordingly.45
If in fact Sulla had thought his terms would be rejected, then
he was correct. On the other hand, it does not seem that his
messengers even waited to hear what the resolution of the Senate
on the matter was one way or the other. Upon arrival in
Brundisium Sulla’s heralds had made the discovery that Cinna had
45 So argued by Frier (p. 595–596), although he does not mention the

implications of Sulla’s retention of an army and of the salut public he would
be feared to guarantee with it. Frier’s consistent assertion is that Sulla’s
exchange of letters with the Senate was carefully designed propaganda,
and that Sulla never really intended on having his proposal accepted, but
rather only wanted to make it appear that he was willing to find a peaceful
solution. Very likely it was indeed propaganda, but it may go to far to
claim they were a tissue of lies; he may very well have meant what he said,
given the powers that his terms—if accepted—would leave him.
Keaveney is far more generous to Sulla, making him out to be a
determined advocate of peace and protector of the best men, although he
also acknowledged that Sulla had nothing to lose by these negotiations
(1982, p. 122). Indeed he had not, and this is seen by some of the things
which are not mentioned in the final letter, namely the Allies. No more
promises are made to guarantee their rights, because in theory Sulla could
not make such guarantees: the upshot of his letter was that he was willing
to return to Rome as a privatus, who would therefore had no choice but to
recognize whatever laws were in force and could not—legally, at least—
do anything to change them other than speak his mind in the Senate.
Likewise his vow that he would not harm his enemies, since as a privatus
he would have no legal power to do so.
In sum, Sulla might very well have been willing to return to private
standing on the stipulation of keeping his army, since with it he would
have more than enough de facto power to achieve whatever he wished and
at the same time keep himself safe from prosecution and murder. If the
Senate was so thirsty for peace that they would accept it at such a price,
then it cannot be doubted that Sulla would have sold it to them for this
amount. However, he must also known or at least suspected that the
Senate had more vim that this, at least for the moment. Sulla could
therefore present the illusion of compromise which would cost him
nothing and let his opponents reject it, which would at least put Sulla the
moral high ground through having had his reasonable demands countered
with an unreasonable rejection.
died, and they swiftly returned to inform of this fact. Sulla seems to
have regarded this this situation as one of major advantage to
himself: Cinna’s murder had deprived the peninsula of one of its
best remaining commanders, its acknowledged leading citizen, and
a figure whose talent for attracting the devotion of men seems to
have been substantial. Moreover, there were other indications
which seemed to suggest that, without Cinna’s aid, the remaining
consul Carbo would not possess the strength to keep a tight grip
on the Roman world. As evidence for this apparent weakness,
there was the situation in Spain. There, M. Licinius Crassus, the son
of the former consul slain during 87, had emerged from hiding
upon the death of Cinna and began to gather a small army, with
which he allegedly captured the Spanish town of Malaca and
plundered it (although Crassus himself always denied having done
so; Plutarch, Crass. 6). Likewise, Q. Metellus Pius had, it seems,
been found: he had gone to Africa—understandably enough, given
his father’s successes there—and had raised an army. In fact,
Crassus had briefly gone to join Metellus before a squabble
between the two had led the former to go directly to Sulla
(Plutarch, loc. cit.). Metellus himself apparently still held aloof from
Sulla for a time, but upon being defeated in battle by C. Fabius
Hadrianus, the governor sent to Africa by Cinna, he seems to have
reconsidered his position; he would soon be joining Sulla as well
(Per. 84; Appian 1.9.80). Finally, in Picenum Pompeius Stabo’s son
seemed to have been similarly engaged in the beginnings of
recruiting men for uncertain purpose,46 recruitment which was
unimpeded—for the time being—by the consul. To Sulla it may
very well have looked like Carbo was beginning to lose his handle
on the machinery of government, having proved unwilling or
unable to prevent the seeds of three potential challenges to it, and
that this was the time to march.
46 The raising of his own small army is described briefly in several

sources, including Cicero (de leg. Man. 21.61, Phil. 5.43–44); Hirtius (Bellum
Africanum 22.2–4), the Periochae (85), Velleius (2.29), and Appian (1.9.80);
the reports in Dio (frg. 107), Diodorus (38.9), and Plutarch (Moralia, 203;
Pomp. 6) suggests that what he intended to do with this army might not at
first have been entirely clear, on which more below. See also Greenhalgh,
p. 13.
Nevertheless, matters were not as hopeless as all of that for

the government in Rome. For one thing, a “peace party” may have
been active in the Senate, but this merely indicates that the
functions of the city were proceeding as normal. Indeed, the fact
that the tribunes threatened Carbo with deposition unless he were
to elect a suffect is a sign that throughout this period the organs of
the Roman state continued to function as they always had, even if
there were the irregularities of iterated consulates for Carbo and
Cinna. Ultimately Carbo would not manage to elect a suffect, as
has been seen, but in spite of the claims of some modern scholars,
this does not seem to have offended the majority of the Senate in
such a way that their offense was recorded in the sources, and it
certainly does not seem to reflect the desires of a dominatio Carbonis
which caused the nobilitas to turn to Sulla in disgust. Carbo had
exerted himself twice in the effort to elect a colleague, and the two
unsuccessful attempts seem have been enough; Carbo was
apparently allowed to retain power without difficulty for the rest of
his term, power which he would dutifully lay down at the end of
the year. Crassus and Metellus Pius may indeed have been
operating in the provinces, and Pompeius beginning to in Picenum,
but all three presented challenges to stamping them out beyind the
strength or resolve of Carbo, which both seem to have been
victorious. In the first place, if Cinna’s soldiers had revolted over
heading to Illyria due to the prospect of Sulla’s return in their
absence, then there was little chance they could be persuaded to go
to Spain to eliminate Crassus, whose numbers were fairly
insignificant anyway. Had Crassus come to Italy, Carbo and his
men would probably have trimmed him with no difficulty.
Likewise, Carbo’s soldiers would not be taken to Africa to deal
with Metellus, not due to fear of the latter nor of lack of devotion
to the former, but because they needed to guard theor homes
against Sulla. In fact, Metellus was eventually taken care of by the
Praetor in Africa without help from Rome anyway. As far as
Pompeius, it is to be wondered on what legal authority the latter
was to be stopped by the government, as it does not seem that
recruiting soldiers was illegal. In fact, it may very well be that the
decree which the Periochae reports as having arisen in the Senate at
about this time, a law advocated by both Carbo and Marius the
Younger which called for the dissolution of all armies everywhere,
was probably designed to address this very fact (Per. 84). Almost
certainly this law did not call for disarmament of armies raised by
the government, as it is difficult to see how the provinces could be
maintained without them. What it probably was instead was a
declaration that forces raised without an officially-sanctioned
dilectus would now be contrary to law, thus making private armies
illegal.47
Finally, Carbo himself may not have been as inspiring a
commander as Cinna had been, but he seemed to have most of the
peninsula behind him (Appian, 1.9.81–82). His successors in the
consulate would, as well (Appian, 1.10.86), such when the war
finally came they would provide him with an army which,
according to various sources, may have numbered as many as
100,000 men.48 For all these reasons, it may very well be that Sulla’s
agents were a bit over-hasty in their rush back to Sulla if they
believed that Cinna’s loss was a crippling blow to the government
in Rome; Cinna was, as has been seen, a fine commander, but it
seems that under Carbo and his successors there was plenty of
fight to be had in Italy, and Sulla was soon to discover this fact.
As the end of the autumn of 84 approached, the entire Roman
world seemed to be making preparations for war. In Africa and
Spain fighting men had been raised by the opponents of Cinna and
47 This would seem to make more sense than a law designed as a

propaganda move to force Sulla to persist in keeping his army in being
against the will of the Senate and thereby forfeit his image of peacemaker,
as Keaveney (1982 p. 123), Lovano (p. 110), and Frier (p. 596) seem to
indicate; it is, after all, difficult to see what sort of propaganda advantage
casting Sulla as a lawbreaker on these grounds would have for the side
that would obviously be doing the same lawbreaking. On the other hand,
by making private legions illegal, the government would have justification
for moving against Pompeius, and indeed it would do soon thereafter
(Diodorus, 38.9; Plutarch, Pomp. 7).
48 According to Appian, 200 cohorts of 500 men each at first,
although later this would be increased according to that same authority

(1.9.82); hence, perhaps, the report in Florus of 500 cohorts (or eight
legions, 2.9.19–22), or that which Plutarch says was Sulla’s own estimate
of 450 cohorts (Sull. 27). The number given by Velleius (2.24) of
200,000 stretches credibility. For additional speculation on the forces
faced by Sulla, see Lovano, p. 113–114 and note 25.
his right-hand-man-turned-successor Carbo, and some of these

were already en route to join Sulla’s considerable forces in Hellas.
Armies inimical to the government were even being mustered in
Italy itself, but a far larger force in that peninsula was being
assembled to defeat and destroy the returning hostis. In spite of the
elaborate choreography of correspondence between Sulla and the
government, each of which seeming to propose peace, that was
decidedly not what loomed on the horizon. Among those who
braced themselves to weather that was coming were thousands of
people who had been born Italici but were now Romans. These
had, indeed, become fully Romani thanks to the passage of long
overdue law which gave them nearly complete voting privileges,
and the posture they assumed as the dark clouds were gathering
was one in support of the consul who finally repaired their broken
rights. However, it was probably as much fear as gratitude which
led them to take up arms again, since they faced an opponent who
claimed to have no interest in wresting away what they had finally
won, but who was known for deception.
Indeed, it may well have been that Sulla could do no other
than to take away their rights in the same manner as he had done
earlier. In order to erase his sentence of outlawry, he would have to
annul all the legislation made by the government which had
declared it and its successors, just as he had been forced to do with
the Sulpician laws. Furthermore, the army at his back would not
only want Sulla to be a citizen in good standing for the sake of their
general, but would need him to be thus if they ever hoped to gain
the lands he had almost certainly promised them on their discharge.
The sources are almost unanimous in their assertion that—no
matter what his dispatches may have said—it was Sulla’s intention
from the beginning had been to return to Italy in arms; Velleius
(see above) states this, as does Appian, who at no place ever
mentions Sulla’s willingness to disband his army (nor does any
other source). Since a return at the head of legions would mean
blood, Sulla seems to have become determined to have it.
Thus, it seemed patent to all concern that there was no longer
a question of whether blood would come. Nor was it likely any
longer a question of when that blood would come: it would begin
when the spring came and the season for safe crossing from the
ocean arrived. Rather, what remained uncertain is how much of
that blood was to be spilt, and as events would show, it would be

more than many, perhaps, could have imagined.
4. CIVIL WAR, 83 BCE

During what must have been the very tense winter of 84 to 83,
L. Scipio and C. Norbanus were elected consuls. It was a fairly wise
choice, in the sense that both were men who, as promagistrates,
had achieved some military success. Norbanus had managed to
repel the remnants of the army of the Lucani and Samnites at
Rhegium and had prevented their invasion of Sicily in 87 (see
previous chapter). Scipio, for his part, had apparently recovered
admirably from the ignominy of having to sneak out of Aesernia
disguised as a slave during that self-same war and had later been
sent into Macedonia, where he had successfully fought various
Illyrian tribes there (Appian, Ill. 5, Plutarch, Num. 9; Jerome, 174th
Olympiad).49 These were the men who would take upon
themselves with dealing with whatever Sulla would do upon his
return, and if it became clearer that that was going to be, it was
probably no less nerve-wracking for those who waited.
The anxiety of those months in Rome does not seem to have
been experienced by Sulla, who on the surface seems to have had a
more relaxing time of it while enjoying his sojourn in Greece. In
addition to such administrative tasks as settling various Hellenic
affairs, he also attempted to take curative waters for his gout, and
collected artistic treasures and works of philosophy.50 Yet Sulla
must have dealt with some anxiety if the account of Plutarch, to the
effect that he feared his army would immediately disband upon its
return to Italy, is to be believed (Plutarch, Sull. 27). Even so, when
49 See also Salmon (1967 p. 328 note 3) and Broughton (vol. 2 p. 58
and 62) for the identification of the consul with that Scipio who slipped
out of Aesernia; for more on that episode, see chapter 5.
50 For the administrative functions see Appian (Mith. 6.39); for the
cure for his gout see Strabo (10.1.9) and Plutarch (Sull. 26); for his
collection of art works, Lucian (Zeux. 3) and Pausanius (10.21.6); for the
books, see Strabo (13.1.54), Plutarch (loc. cit.), and Lucian (Ind. 4). A more
extensive account of Sulla’s adventures in Hellas is found in Keaveney
(1982, p. 124–125) and Christ (2002, p. 83–99).
the weather finally permitted Sulla took to ship and soon effected a
crossing, with his men landing at Brundisium51 in a force
numbering around 40,000 men all told (Appian, 1.9.79). Scipio and
Norbanus do not seem to have fortified the port, so Sulla
apparently landed there unopposed; for their congeniality in letting
him do so—the Brundisians apparently disdained suicide—the city
was given a tax indemnity by Sulla when the war was over. With his
army collected, Sulla then proceeded to march along the Via Appia
towards Capua and thence to Rome. Velleius Paterculus (2.25) and
Plutarch (Sull. 27) both assert that Sulla gave strict orders against
plunder and sack along the way, which is not entirely outside of the
realm of possibility. It certainly would not have been wise on
Sulla’s part to antagonize any Italians who were not yet committed
to either cause and delay his campaign by interminable actions in
southern Italy. As far as the Italians were concerned, even those
who opposed Sulla might have reasoned that a stand would better
be made all together in Campania rather than piecemeal nearer to
their homes. Since the outcome of the latter would almost certainly
be combat followed by massacre and ravaging, the Hirpini
especially may have wanted none of it in their domains. Sulla had
already been that way once before, and those who lived there were
probably still quite familiar with the consequences of fighting him.
Sulla, therefore, made his march unmolested. Appian (1.9.80)
and Velleius (loc. cit.) states that it was during this journey that he
began to acquire additional men and support from other Romans
who had decided to aid his cause. He had, it seems, already been
joined by M. Licinius Crassus, who may have gone over to Sulla in
the previous year and thus been with him since the landing; this
seems to be the implication of Plutarch (Crass. 6).52 Apparently en
route to Campania—perhaps even in Tarentum, since Plutarch
reports he spent some time there (Sull. 27)—Sulla was met by
51 Plutarch (Sull. 27) also reports that some landed on Tarentum. But
this may be the result of confusion on that author’s part, since almost
certainly Sulla would have gotten to Tarentum on the Via Appia anyway,
and might well have made the sacrifice which Plutarch reports being
offered there somewhat later, as opposed to on first landing.
52 This is also the opinion of Ward, p. 61; Keaveney (1982, p. 130)
disagrees, believing Appian’s chronology.

Metellus Pius, come with what remained of his army after its defeat
by Fabius in Africa. This, along with its commander, was now
given over to Sulla for whatever use he saw fit. In this way Sulla got
a few extra men and a general of some talent, and Dio reports he
also got something else (frg. 106): the reputation and reverence for
Metellus was at this point now attached to Sulla’s undertakings, a
reputation and reverence which could be used to add luster to
these efforts and apparently persuaded not a few who had been
vacillating to come over to his side.53 It was probably for all of
these reasons that Sulla made an ostentatious display of treating
Metellus as an equal, as both men were proconsuls of Rome. Other
men soon joined them, including Cornelius Cethegus, a former
enemy who had even been exiled alongside Cinna but who now
seems to have believed Sulla’s cause to be the greater and was
reconciled to him (Appian, 1.9.80). Also appearing alongside Sulla
was the former consul L. Philippus, who would later be given a
naval command by Sulla (Per. 86; more below).54 Others would
come, about whom more will be narrated later, but with these men
acting as subordinates to Metellus and himself, Sulla continued his
journey into what was by now the familiar Campanian landscape.
Not long after his arrival in Campania Sulla found an
opposing army waiting for him under the consul C. Norbanus,
possibly north of Capua near the conjunction of the Via Appia and
Via Latina hard by the Volternus river.55 A battle looked very much
53 πρὸς γάρ τοι τὴν δόξαν τῆς τε δικαιοσύν ς αὐτοῦ [Μετέλλου] καὶ τῆς
εὐσε είας οὐκ ὀλίγοι καὶ τῶν τἀναντία τῷ Σύλλᾳ πραττόντων, νομίσαντες
αὐτὸν οὐκ ἀκρίτως οἱ συνεῖναι ἀλλὰ τά τε δικαιότερα καὶ τὰ τῇ πατρίδι
συμφορώτερα ὄντως αἱρεῖσ αι, προσεχώρ σαν σφίσι
54 It is presumably this “greatest enemy” to whom Cicero refers as
having been reconciled to Philippus; Cons. Prov. 9.21.

55 For this place, see map 1. That the encounter took place here is the
conjecture of Keaveney (loc. cit.), which seems plausible enough. As for

the sources which report on the battle, the Periochae says nothing of its
location (85), while the recognized text of Velleius (2.25.2), Eutropius
(5.74), and Orosius (5.20.2, which is almost certainly derived directly from
Eutropius) merely add that it was near Capua. Florus adds that it was near
the Volternus (2.9.19), while both Plutarch (Sull. 27) and an addition to
Velleius reports that it was near the Tifatan hill. For this reason, it is held
like it was going to take place here, but Sulla was apparently not
unwilling to see if he could conserve his effort and avoid fighting if
possible. It seems to have been towards this end that envoys were
sent to discuss peace with Norbanus, as per the report of the
Periochae (missisque legatis, qui de pace agerent; Per. 85). The presumably
meant that agents were sent to try and persuade the consul to join
Sulla’s side, but Norbanus seems to have declined and perhaps with
some vehemence: Sulla’s agents were “maltreated” by Norbanus,
according to that same authority” (et ab cos. C. Norbano violatis).
Battle was then joined, and of the several accounts to describe the
engagement, Plutarch’s is the most extensive. That description,
which seems to have come from Sulla himself, notes how Sulla did
not even bother gathering his men into formation, but let their
vigor defeat the consul (ὁ Σύλλας οὔτε τάξιν ἀποδοὺς οὔτε λοχίσας
τὸ οἰκεῖον στράτευμα, ῥώμῃ δὲ προ υμίας κοινῆς καὶ φορᾷ τόλμ ς
ἀποχρ σάμενος ἐτρέψατο τοὺς πολεμίους; Sull. 27), apparently to the
loss of 7000 men and 6000 prisoners from the latter.56 Such a
haphazard engagement was not out of keeping with Sulla’s style of
command; from time to time he had demonstrated something of a
reckless streak, which had worked against him when he faced
Cluentius in the Allied War and again in his first assault on Athens
in the East,57 but did not result in any ill-effects here. The beaten
Norbanus fell back on Capua, and Sulla probably deputed a few
legions to watch him (in the event which happens next Plutarch
states that by Sulla’s own admission he only had twenty cohorts
with him, Sull. 28). He then parted from the Via Appia and took
the Via Latina towards Teanum, where he was apparently to have a
similar appointment with another consular army.
that Appian’s “Canusium” is an error, probably for Casilinum ( so Salmon

1967 note 1; Keaveney (op. cit., p. 131 and note 5, p. 145).
56 6000, according to Appian; 7000, according to Plutarch, Eutropius,
and Orosius (who both also mention 6000 prisoners and only 124 losses
of his own; Appian gives the even more improbable figure of seventy,
though he adds that many men were wounded).
57 See Chapter 6 for the battle against Cluentius; for the opening
stages of Sulla’s attack on Athens, see Appian, Mith. 6.30–1 (as analysed
by Keaveney 1982, p. 83).
The force which he was about to face was commanded by

L. Scipio Asiaticus, with Q. Sertorius along with him, probably as
his principal legate. It was, moreover, apparently in some strength,
outnumbering Sulla’s army two to one according to Plutarch
(loc. cit.). Nevertheless, as Sulla approached he again attempted that
which had failed in the case of Norbanus, which was to see if he
could negotiate with the consul. In this case Sulla seems to have
varied his tactic, and unlike what was probably the case with
Norbanus, Sulla seems to have proposed discussing an end to
hostilities by means of a settlement, rather than Scipio’s betrayal.
This is according to the report of Cicero, although that authority
would add that there was a possibility that good faith was not
wholly at work here (non tenuit omnino conloquium illud fidem; Phil.
12.27). About this possibility Appian (1.10.85–86) and Plutarch (loc.
cit.) express no uncertainty whatsoever: no matter what the topics
of discussion for the dialogue was ostensibly going to be, both are
explicit in their statement that Sulla’s actual purpose was the
seduction of Scipio’s armies, a gambit he was to attempt either
because he had heard that Scipio’s were demoralized and unwilling
to fight, or because he intended to make them so.
Scipio, for his part, seems to have been advised with great
vehemence by Sertorius not to engage in any such parley
(Exsuperantius 45; Plutarch, Ser. 6). Sertorius would, perhaps, be
uniquely qualified to provide an insight into the opponent Scipio
now faced, as the two men had known each other from at least the
Cimbric Wars, during which time they had both served on the staff
of Marius (see chapter 7). Yet it was also probably the case that
such insight, or any special knowledge beyond common sense,
would have been unnecessary to show that the proposed
negotiations would be a pointless exercise. As Sertorius must have
foreseen, in all likelihood Sulla would not present any terms which
the Senate would find acceptable, would perhaps lie about them
even if he did, and was at any rate clearly trying to win over Scipio’s
army as he had done with that of Fimbria in the east. Nevertheless,
the consul chose to ignore this sound advice for what may have
been a variety of reasons (more below), and if Plutarch is to be
believed, he and Sulla apparently communicated over the course of
the next several days, laboriously determining the time, place,
number of participants, and hostages to be brought to the
conference.
When all of that had finally been established, the two men
finally met and discussed the “authority of the Senate, the voting of
the people, and the rights of the citizens, amongst other laws and
conditions”, according to Cicero (de auctoritate senatus, de suffragiis
populi, de iure civitatis leges inter se et condiciones contulerunt; Phil. 12.27).
What this probably meant was that first Scipio put forward the
usual question which had already been presented to Sulla by the
envoys of Flaccus in the previous year: would Sulla submit to the
authority of the Senate and dismiss his army (hence, Cicero’s
attribution that they conferred de auctoritate Senatus … inter se)? Sulla
countered with what had by now become his own standard reply:
he would not, but he would respect the rights of everyone, even his
enemies and the new citizens, whose rights he would leave alone
(hence, Cicero’s contention that they conferred de suffragiis populi, de
iure civtatis leges inter se et condiciones contulerunt). As has been seen,
Cicero observes that faith did not entirely obtain here, which
means that at least one of the two parties must have been
disguising his true aims. It is very likely that both of them were. In
the meantime, however, an armistice was agreed upon while Scipio
was ostensibly to pass along Sulla’s terms to Norbanus (Appian, loc.
cit.).
To Sertorius this must have seemed like lunacy, and he
certainly would have known something about bad commanders: he
had, according to Plutarch (Sert. 3) and Ammianus Marcellinus
(29.6.7), been present in the armies of Q. Servilius Caepio the Elder
in 105, and had been forced to swim across the Rhone in full
armor to escape being slaughtered by the Cimbri at Arausio, a
debacle caused by the very acme of Roman command stupidity.
Moreover, if—as has been speculated fairly convincingly58—he had
later served with Caepio’s son in the Allied war, he would also have
known about the dangers into which gullibility in the face of
treachery could lead an army, for which Ariminium would have
provided a stark illustration (see chapter 5). Finally, Sertorius had a
certain astuteness at reading men, for which both Marius and
Didius had once employed him as a spy (see chapter 7). Having
come to know Sulla through their service under Marius in what
58 Spann, p. 21–22
remained of the Teutonic and Cimbric war, Sertorius could

reasonably have expected such treachery from Sulla even if what
had happened to Fimbria had not been common knowledge.
Sertorius therefore did not need his missing eye to see what seemed
like imbecility on Scipio’s part.
For this reason, it must have been something of a surprise for
him to get what was very likely his next assignment. During the
armistice, Sertorius may have been ordered by Scipio to take what
must have been a large number of men, slip out of camp, and take
Suessa Aurunca, a city known to have been devoted to Sulla’s cause
(ἣ τὰ Σύλλεια ᾕρ το; Appian, loc. cit.).59 Sertorius may have been
impressed with this order, as it may have reflected an
understanding hitherto unsuspected of Scipio as to the nature of
Sulla’s true plans. Rather than the ignorance suspected by Sertorius,
it may have been that Scipio knew exactly what Sulla intended, but
affected a seemingly pliant demeanor to lull Sulla into a sense of
security. In such a state, Scipio could perhaps lure him into a trap,
or keep him in one: while pinning him at Teanum, Scipio could
perhaps summon Norbanus from Capua and catch Sulla between
two armies. Furthermore, if Sertorius could capture Suessa, it
would close off a line of retreat and potential help from the west
and Via Appia.60 The only direction Sulla could then go would
northeast, into Samnium and the same foothills and mountains
where he had come to grief at least once in 90.61 Best of all, if
Scipio could find a way to summon aid from the Samnites, then
Sulla could be surrounded on all sides (and Plutarch does suggest
that being surrounded was a fear of Sulla’s, loc. cit.).
Such a plan would depend on help from the Samnites, of
course, with whom Scipio had had less than a perfect history: it had
been from them that he had been compelled to escape dressed as a
59 As will be apprehended immediately, the account of Suessa
presented here is quite at odds with the way it appears in other modern
accounts. For some reasons for this, see Appendix V.
60 For the strategic value of Suessa, see Appendix V.
61 And possibly more than once. Admitedly, Sulla had since enjoyed
great success in Samnium, but had won it by going around this area and
attacking it from the road leading from Beneventum (see chapter 6 and
Appendix O).
slave in 90. Still, Scipio may have had some assurance to this effect
already. According the passage of Cicero already cited, the
conference between Scipio and Sulla had been attended by “the
flower of the nobility on the one hand, and the other by Allies in
war” (alter nobilitatis florem, alter belli socios adhibuisset). There can be
little doubt that the flos nobilitatis was with Sulla, who, as has been
seen, had amongst his following a constellation of optimate
luminaries who had fled to his camp from the government of
Cinna and Carbo. The socii belli would therefore have been with
Scipio, perhaps an anachronistic indication that notables from the
novi cives (until just recently socii) attended the consul. Indeed, they
might have paid close attention to the discussions de suffragiis populi
[et] de iure civitatis leges going on between the two men. If some of
these had been Samnites, and Scipio had disclosed such a plan to
them, then they might be willing to help him execute it. All that
would then be needed would be to neutralize Suessa, the mission
now being deputed to Sertorius. Of course, such a scheme would
require a great degree cunning, guile, and craft from Scipio, but this
would not entirely have been out of character for him; this was,
after all, a man who had slipped past these selfsame Samnites
during the investment of Aesernia while disguised as slave. Given
his own past experiences with clandestine missions, Sertorius might
have appreciated the artistry in this one.
That Scipio had developed such a strategem can in no way be
proven, of course, as the only source to mention anything about
the capture of Suessa Aurunca is Appian (1.10.85), and his account
does not place that capture as part of a grand plan to ensnare Sulla.
Rather, it states that it had been done by Sertorius as the latter was
en route to carry the substance of the negotiations to Norbanus in
Capua. On this Appian can, perhaps, be doubted, as it is very
difficult to believe that Scipio would have entrusted the carrying of
such a message to Sertorius. In the first place, Sertorius had made it
very clear that he believed the negotiations with Sulla to be a
mistake (Plutarch, loc. cit.). For Scipio would chose him as the
purveyor of its outcome in light of this fact is most unlikely, even if
such were only a ruse de guerre to allow him to detach from the main
body of the army and sieze Suessa. Sulla himself might have
prevented such a dispatch of Sertorius, given that—as has been
seen—the two of them shared an intense mutual dislike. Indeed,
Sulla had actually acted on this recently, blocking of the candidacy
of Sertorius for the tribunate in 88, and this hated went back
several decades. Even had both Scipio assigned, and Sulla allowed,
Sertorius to be the messenger to Norbanus, it is inconceivable that
he would have gone to Capua, which was about seventeen miles
southeast of Teanum, by any route other than the Via Latina up
which Sulla himself had come.62 Suessa was not on that road,
however, nor was it even in the same direction coming from
Teanum, but was instead about nine miles almost immediately due
west of that city. Suessa was simply not located in such a way that
Sertorius could have taken it while “on the way” (δ᾽ ἐν παρόδῳ) to
Capua, which was twenty miles away and in a different direction.
Of course, it could have been that Sertorius went along the
Via Latina long enough to persuade Sulla that he was headed to
Norbanus, only to abandon that road once out of sight and then
move on Suessa. But even if he had done this, Sertorius would
have needed to have men at his disposal, and probably not a small
number of them. These he could not have taken with him to Capua
along the Via Latina for even a short distance without arousing
suspicion, since, as was mentioned, Sulla’s army had travelled to
Teanum by this route. Sertorius would have had to travel past, and
possibly through, Sulla’s army with this expeditionary force, one
likely far larger than he would need or be justified in having as a
personal escort and thus bound to raise suspicions. To capture
Suessa δ᾽ ἐν παρόδῳ to Capua, Sertorius would have first been
delegated with the task of going there, and almost certainly stared
for that city along a road taking him in a different direction that
Suessa. That road would have taken him trhough the army of Sulla,
leading to his design’s instant detection. Perhaps it was that
Sertorius started towards Capua without his soldiers, abandoned it,
doubled back to collect his men, and then moved on the city. Yet
this would involve a series of steps so convoluted as to invite—
perhaps even demand—disbelief.
Rather than leap through this series of hurdles to preserve
Appian’s report, it would be easier to assume that his account may
have mistaken a detail it. Such a candidate for a mistake is at hand,
however. What was probably the case was that Sertorius slipped
62 See map 1.
away west to Suessa, possibly under the cover of darkness; he had

conducted similar night missions as a legate to Didius in Spain. At
about the same time, other men were dispatched to Capua with the
fruits of the negotiations between Scipio and Sulla. Suessa was then
captured while these messengers were “on the way” (δ᾽ ἐν παρόδῳ),
but Sertorius was not one of these, contrary to what Appian
suggests. If, indeed, Scipio had been attempting to trap Sulla, such
messengers would have been vital to this effort: they would have
arrived at Capua, but rather than apprising Norbanus of what had
been discussed at the peace talks, they would have bidden him to
hasten and contain Sulla at Teanum. If it can be allowed that
Appian did commit an error, which would almost certainly have to
be the case to allow Sertorius to have captured Suessa at all, then
there is nothing in the sources which renders Scipio’s putative
attempt to surround Sulla impossible. It therefore might very well
have been that this was what was afoot while he and Sulla engaged
in their talks.
Although there is no way to be certain that this plan existed,
what is certain is that, if it did, it did not succeed. Sertorius, as has
been seen, came through with his part of it, as Suessa was indeed
captured by him. There are also indications that Norbanus was in
the process of playing his role in it, as well, as the very next section
of Appian describes him as on the move, having issued forth from
Capua. It may be that the Samnites had failed Scipio in this
instance, and the promised help never materialized; alternatively,
perhaps Norbanus had moved too slowly for his design to succeed.
At any rate, Sulla soon learned of the capture of Suessa, and at this
point the talks between them ceased.
Scipio, it seems, had failed to envelop and destroy Sulla
though his arrangement. Yet Sulla’s destruction still potentially lay
within his grasp, if through no other mechanism than brute force.
Scipio’s army was, as has been seen, twice the size of Sulla’s, and
now that there was to be no peace, pretenses to that effect could be
dropped and battle could commence. This, however, was not to be,
for while Scipio may or may not have been at work on a secret plan
to enmesh Sulla, Sulla had definitely been at work on the
captivation of Scipio’s army. According to Plutarch (Sull. 28), Sulla
subtly went to work towards this aim by sending his soldiers to
fraternize with the enemy, and to use a combination of lies,
flatteries, promises, and outright bribery to make that enemy more
sympathetic to Sulla’s cause (Diodorus also mentions that his

forces had been “corrupted with money”, διαφ αρῆναι χρ μασι;
38.16). When the capture of Suessa was then uncovered,
accusations of perfidy could also be raised,63 especially in light of
the fact that Scipio made no response to Sulla other than to send
back the hostages which Sulla had given while at the same time not
asking for the return of his own (Appian, loc. cit.), an apparent
admission of false dealing. All of these were apparently enough for
Sulla to win over the men: having given Sulla indications that they
would desert to him if he moved within attacking distance, when
he did so, Scipio’s men kept to their word. Several sources describe
Scipio as having been left completely alone in his tent when Sulla
found him (so Plutarch, Diodorus, and Appian in the places cited
above; the latter mentions that he had his son with him). Sulla
seems to have spent some time trying to win Scipio over, but when
he could not, he let the consul go,64 apparently with no strings
attached.
This gesture seems to be one of enormous, perhaps even
uncharacteristic, generosity for Sulla. After all, here was a man who
had played Sulla false, and had secretly acted the enemy while
pretending to be a friend, or at least to allow for the possibility of
such amity. Sulla’s motto had always been that he would let it never
be said of him that he could be surpassed in benefiting a friend and
smiting an enemy, one which he intended to have as his epitaph (οὗ
κεφάλαιόν ἐστιν ὡς οὔτε τῶν φίλων τις αὐτὸν εὖ ποιῶν οὔτε τῶν
ἐχ ρῶν κακῶς ὑπερε άλετο; cited in Plutarch, Sull. 38). Scipio, then,
should have been in line for a most terrible reprisal, but such did
not come. However, a closer look reveals that this gesture would
have, in essence, cost Sulla nothing, as was true of so many of his
magnanimous gestures. The door for it had been left open upon
Sulla’s discovery of Suessa. According to Appian, when Sulla heard
63 Scipio’s men likely did not know his machinations, since necessarily
the capture of Suessa would have to be done secretly (see, again,
Appendix V); they would therefore have little alternative but to believe
that bad faith had presented itself here.
64 Also mentioned by Velleius (2.25) and the Periocha of Book 85;
Exsuperantius (45) and Eutropius (5.7.4) only mentioned the desertion of

the army.
what had happened, he made complaint of it to Scipio. The latter

offered no response, “either because he was party to the plan or
because he did not know how to account for the bizarre act of
Sertorius” (εἴτε τῷ γενομένῳ συνεγνωκὼς εἴτε ἀποκρίσεως ἀπορῶν ὡς
ἐπὶ ἀλλοκότῳ δὴ τῷ Σερτωρίου ἔργῳ). Given Sulla’s own enormous
capacity for guile, it is to be doubted that he would have believed
that Scipio was not responsible for Suessa for an instant, and
Scipio’s silence, return of hostages, and refusal to ask for his own
would have made his complicity manifest to someone far less wily
than Sulla himself.
Yet by not voicing his culpability aloud, Sulla could choose to
believe that Scipio had not been behind the capture of the town if
he had so wished. Now that his army had deserted him, Scipio was
no longer a danger to Sulla, and while he may well have deserved to
be killed for his deception, Sulla would gain no strategic advantage
from Scipio’s murder. On the other hand, if Sulla had already
begun the justification for his actions speculated above (namely,
that he was only motivated by the restoration of his rights and
those of his supporters), then a critical aspect of this would be to
sieze and maintain the moral high ground. This he could do by
sparing a consul who was now helpless and in his power. To
preserve his image of always providing just desserts to both friends
and enemies, he would find it useful to shift the blame for Suessa
away from Scipio. This could be done easily enough: in order to
keep this operation from being noticed by Sulla’s many spies, of
whom Scipio was probably quite aware, and then related by them
to their commander, Scipio had probably kept it a secret from his
men that he had ordered Sertorius to take the town. It could
therefore be made to seem that his legatus had done this unbidden,
rendering the consul guilty of nothing than an inability to rein in
his subordinates. Foisting the blame upon Sertorius would make
him richly deserving of Sulla’s vengeance, but Sertorius was already
an inimicus of Sulla and bound to suffer some evil should Sulla win
the war anyway.
The Suessa affair, therefore, accorded a man known to have
consorted with actors in his youth yet another opportunity to
participate in some political theater of his own. For this scene, Sulla
played the part of the scrupulous, law-abiding promagistrate and
generous conqueror to those who surrendered in time. Scipio, in
turn, would have to perform the role of unfortunate bungler, but
he, too, had once play-acted as a man far beneath his station to
escape certain death at Aesernia. It may well have been that he
offered a similar performance at Teanum, earning his life in the
process. In fact, at least one author suggests that this drama
worked out even better than Sulla might have hoped, in that upon
his return to Rome, Scipio was given another command, and this,
too, he squandered (Diodorus, loc. cit.; more below).65
All of these reasons may have been the basis for why Sulla
chose to let Scipio go. He would very likely have been much less
generous to Sertorius if in fact he had captured him, as Velleius
states that he had, under circumstances which that author does not
relate (2.25). Such a scenario, however, is most improbable. For
one thing, it is mentioned in no other source. For another, it is
difficult to see how Sulla could have pulled off this feat, unless
Sertorius had moved from Suessa to Capua and Norbanus. This is
because Sulla was apparently already on his way to that city to deal
with Norbanus. A second embassy was apparently sent by him to
that consul, unless Appian’s account of this is a misplacement for
the first offer of negotiation made earlier (1.10.86).66 To this no
reply was made. Norbanus, for his part, had either slipped past or
driven away any force which had attempted to keep watch on him
at Capua and was actually headed in Sulla’s direction, but rather
than move towards him directly he apparently chose to remain on
the Via Appia and in the meantime devastated all the land in the
area, possibly from the suspicion (as it turns out, the correct one)
that Sulla would go into winter quarters in Capua and that the
wasted land would make it harder for him to find provender there.
Sulla turned to the very same enterprise along the Via Latina,
perhaps with the hope that in the process he would make the path
of Norbanus back to Rome so much more difficult. Neither man
apparently wanted to cross the area between the two roads and
attack the other, for reasons which may be readily guessed: Sulla
perhaps did not yet completely trust his new erstwhile
reinforcements from Scipio and did not want to give them a chance
65 A point raised by Spann, p. 36.

66 Keaveney, at least, believes there were two seperate embassies
(1982, p. 135); he may very well be correct in this belief.
to go back over to Norbanus in a critical moment, while Norbanus

for his part was probably now outnumbered—perhaps even
significantly—and had already lost to Sulla once. The antagonists
therefore avoided each other, and in this way, according to Appian
(loc. cit.), the rest of the campaigning season was spent in the south.
Norbanus, it seems, was gradually making his way back to
Rome, soon to hold elections there. Along the way it seems likely
that he had been joined by Sertorius, who had probably been
holding quiet in Suessa. Norbanus may have relieved him of his
command, either outright or because he believed that the talents of
the latter might be better employed raising men in Etruria, where
Exsuperantius (46–47) says he was next sent.67 The fear of Sulla’s
67 The latter source implies that there was a defeat of some kind
inflicted upon Sertorius, and that he escaped to Etruria lacking the
protection of an army and fearing Sulla’s anger. However, no such defeat
is recorded anywhere else, and the last action recorded in which he
participates, the expedition to Suessa, is described as a success by Appian.
There is, of course, the simple possibility that Exsuperantius is wrong
here, and may be confusing the flight of Scipio with that of Sertorius.
That source is certainly error-prone: in section 30, for example, he reports
that Marius replaced Cinna upon the latter’s death with Carbo for his
colleague in his seventh consulate, even though Marius died within days
of assuming that seventh consulate and was himself replaced by Cinna
with L. Valerius Flaccus (see previous chapter). Sections 46–47, describing
Sertorius and his recruiting drive, precede section 49, in which the
relection of Marius to his seventh consulate is repeated. Sertorius could
then take advantage the protection of Marius and return to Rome (Tunc
Sertorius, de Marii potestate secures Romam venit), even though Marius was this
point long dead. It seems clear that Exsuperantius confuses Marius with
his son, who would serve with Carbo (as will be seen). He may also have
confused Scipio’s desertion with a defeat for Sertorius.
Alternatively, it might have been that Sertorius did not take Suessa, as
Appian reports, but was repulsed there, leading to his loss of an army and
fear of Sulla. It may also have been that Suessa was retaken and Sertorius
defeated in the process, or that sometime after Suessa there had been a
skirmish between Sertorius and Sulla that had let to the latter’s capture of
the former, thus reconciling Appian, Velleius, and Exsuperantius. It is
difficult to see why Sulla would have let Sertorius go, however: he was a
apparently a non-nobilis, an enemy, and a commander of proven ability (or
potential action against their citizenship was apparently powerfully

motivating for the Etruscans, and they are reported as flocking to
the standards of the consuls in droves; ultimately they came
forward in numbers that approached forty cohorts, if
Exsuperantius is to be believed, a turnout which corresponds to
Appian’s statement that a good portion of Italy still adhered to the
consuls in spite of the defeats (loc. cit.). Some of those recruits may
also have been from the remnants of Scipio’s army, of which it can
perhaps be doubted that it joined Sulla’s side whole and en masse;
while it seems likely that many of these men did change allegiances,
others may perhaps simply drifted off and deserted while their
comrades switched sides. In particular, that the Italians in Scipio’s
army68 would have been taken in by Sulla seems most improbable
despite the latter’s promise to the consul that he meant to keep
Italian privileges secure,69 and at any rate, whatever promises Sulla
had made to Scipio along those lines would have been rendered
void on the discovery of Suessa and the end of their negotiations.
Rather than join Sulla and hope for the best, it seems far more
likely that the units of the novi would simply have gone home and
waited for the opportunity to fight again. Indeed, Exsuperantius
specifically mentions that this exact thing occurred (loc. cit.).
Sertorius, it seems, made himself useful in this manner during
the remaining days of summer. In the meantime, the government
was simultaneously dealing with other troubles, of which one,
which had begun in the year before but was now a full-fledged
nuisance, was located in Picenum. In that area, the future
Pompeius Magnus had started raising an army, as has been seen.
had been before the putative defeat), so Sulla would have had far more
incentive to kill rather than release Sertorius (Spann also takes note of
this; p. 36). This incentive would be all the greater if he had managed to
deflect the blame of Suessa and attach it Sertorius, as speculated above.
None of these facts make it impossible that an unknown loss inflicted
upon Sertorius existed, but it seems the most likely that Exsuperantius is
simply confused in section 46 instead, and this interpretation is followed
here.
68 See, again, the belli socius described by Cicero (Phil. 12.27) as
mentioned above.
69 Contra Keaveney (1982, p. 132).
Once it had gained sufficient manpower, Pompeius began to eject

his enemies from Picenum—according to Dio (frg. 107) and
Plutarch (Pomp. 5–6)—and had apparently operated the region as
something of his own private regnum for a time (δυναστείαν ἰδίαν
συνίστ , to use Dio’s very words). Even if this did not signify full-
scale revolt, at the very least it meant that Pompeius was in
defiance of the decree bidding that all private armies be disbanded.
Accordingly, a legal army under the command of one L. Junius
Brutus Damasippus was sent to stop him, but after an engagement
in which the cavalry—under the direct command of both
captains—played a prominent role, Brutus was defeated (Diodorus
38.9, Plutarch, op. cit. 7).70 With this victory, Pompeius had
apparently now decided that he could join Sulla’s cause without
going to him as a suppliant, and sent letters to Sulla which spelled
out his accomplishments and his intentions. Sulla probably received
this résumé with more amusement than concern for the safety of the
sender (the latter assertion is probably an exaggeration of Plutarch),
but sill bade that its sender come immediately. This Pompeius
would do, but apparently not before besting yet another army:
Scipio, having come back to Rome, seems to have been given
another command (Diodorus 39.16), and this was sent north into
Picenum against Pompeius. This, too, was soon worsted, although
probably not without a single javelin cast, as Plutarch reports (loc.
70 The latter source mentions three separate armies sent to stop him at
this time, of which Pompeius only defeated one before forcing the others
to retire in confusion. This may well have been the case (Greenhalgh—
op. cit., p. 14–15—accepts this chronology, for example), but the passage
seems fairly plagued with chronological errors. It is reported in Appian
that Metellus fought (with Pompeius) against one of these commanders
allegedly sent after him, Carinas, in the following spring, and another
exploit from passage (the routing of Carbo’s horsemen) is also reported as
having been done by Pompeius in the following year. It is, therefore,
perhaps more probable that Pompeius only fought and defeated Brutus
initially, a not insignificant achievement in and of itself. For the
identification of this man—known only as “Junius” in Diodorus and as
“Brutus” in Plutarch, see Broughton (vol. 2, p. 65).
cit.).71 Pompeius was apparently then able to make his way to Sulla
unopposed some time in the fall, perhaps travelling down the same
coastal roads his father’s lieutenant Cosconius had travelled, and
then parting from them and taking the Via Appia to Capua.72 Sulla
seemed impressed, and so much so that when Pompeius arrived
with a strength of three legions and saluted the future dictator as
imperator, he was given the same greeting in return (Per. 85, Appian
1.9.80; Plutarch, Pomp. 8).
For part of what remained in the summer and early fall of 83,
the government in Rome was engaged in putting out fires, so to
71 Plutarch suggests that just as the two sides were within pilum’s
distance (πρὶν ἐν ἐμ ολαῖς ὑσσῶν γενέσ αι τὰς φάλαγγας), Scipio’s men

spontaneously deserted. There is the possibility, as Bernadotte Perrin
notes in her Loeb translation of the Life (p. 133–137), that this is a
misattribution to Pompeius of an anecdote belonging to Sulla, as the
behavior of Scipio’s men sounds much like that of his men who defected
to Sulla when he, too, came within striking distance (καὶ αὐτίκα ὁ στρατὸς
αὐτοῦ [Scipio] … κρύφα τῷ Σύλλᾳ συνετί εντο μετα σεσ αι πρὸς αὐτόν, εἰ
πελάσειε.). The theory that Scipio had a new army at all is based only on
these two sources named above (Diodorus and Plutarch), which may
make the entire episode an unreliable one due to the unlikely coincidence
of Scipio losing two armies to desertion. On the other hand, it is not
impossible that it did happen in such a manner (Keaveney is not too
troubled by this lack of likelihood, and he may very well be correct in his
opinion; 1982, p. 134), although it seems more probable that there actually
was an engagement, if only a small one, and not a complete .
72 Appian seems to place the arrival of Pompeius to an earlier time
(1.9.80), coinciding with the arrival of Metellus into the camp of Sulla and
thus before the battle against Norbanus and the (first) desertion of the
army of Scipio. Yet this seems to be contradicted by the evidence of the
Periochae, which mentions the joining of Pompeius to the cause of Sulla as
having happened after both of these events. But this need not cause
undue hardship, as Appian’s notice is clearly part of a digression on the
various lieutenants making their way to Sulla; indeed, it seems to have
spawned another digression of its own, one listing the accomplishments
of Pompeius. The fact that the arrival of the latter is placed in Appian’s
text right after the arrival of Metellus need not indicate that Pompeius
came to Sulla shortly after Metellus did. Hence, an arrival in the fall is not
necessarily ruled out by Appian. It is therefore postulated here (contra
Keaveney 1982, p. 130, who suggests the earlier date).
speak, although it seems it was even less successful doing so in the

figurative sense (id est Pompeius) than in the literal one. According
to Appian (1.10.86), sometime near when things were transpiring
between Sulla and Norbanus in the south, a conflagration erupted
on the Capitoline, a disaster for which Plutarch gives the sixth of
July as the exact date (Sull. 27, although it seems to have broken
out the night before; Obsequens 57). Responsibility for this
catastrophe, according to Appian, was apparently attributed by
some to Carbo, by some to Sulla, although Julius Obsequens (loc.
cit.) merely states that it fraude aeditui ... conflagravit during the night.
This is slightly more believeable than the assignment of blame to a
demon laboring on Sulla’s behalf, which is that attached to the
event by Augustine of Hippo (de Civ. 2.24).73 It is to be assumed
that this fire was fairly devastating for antiquarians, as can be seen
from notices in Livy observing the loss of a shield belonging to L.
Marcius celebrating a victory over Hasdrubal which dated to the
Hannibalic Wars (25.39.17) and golden bowls dating from the time
of Camillus (6.4.3, although perhaps these were simply taken away
by Marius the younger, who is reported as having stored some gold
from the Capitoline in Praeneste; Pliny, NH 35.5.16). Priests, too,
must have been heartbroken, both by the destruction of the temple
of Jupiter74 and the loss of the Sibylline books, or at least two of
them (Pliny, NH 33.16.88; Tacitus, Ann. 6.12).75 Beyond this,
however, the blaze does not seem to have had any lasting
repercussions, nor to have damaged the war effort significantly, as
73 The fire is also mentioned by Sallust, Cat. 47.2 (in mentioning the
events of the Catilinarian conspiracy, he notes that it took place twenty

years after the Capitol had burned); Plutarch, Mor. 379C (which mentions
the destruction of the temple in the Civil Wars); and Jerome, 174 th
Olympiad (which has a similar mention under the date).
74 It would later be rebuilt by Sulla, although he apparently would not
live to see its dedication. That task would therefore fall to Q. Catulus, the
son of the consul who took his own life in 87 (Plutarch, Pub. 15; Tacitus,
Hist. 3.72; Per. 98)
75 Tacitus incorrectly dates this fire to the Allied War in the Annales,
although in the Histories he correctly notes that it occurred in the

consulates of Scipio and Norbanus; see earlier note. Given the
participants in both wars, this may be a reasonable mistake to have made.
recruiting apparently continued apace (Appian, loc. cit.). In fact, in a

sense it may be asserted that this recruitment took as much from
the temples as the fire did, since in the next year the consuls, falling
short of funds with which to pay their men, would be authorized
by the Senate to melt down the gold and silver which could still be
found in Rome’s aedes and use this as payment for soldiers (Valerius
Maximus, 7.6.4).
That, however, was yet to come. At any rate, as the summer of
83 gave way to the fall, Rome’s legislative machinery continued to
operate in spite of the various difficulties with which it had to
contend. Carbo, presumably as a consular member of the Senate
but still a private citzen proposed that the patres declare the
followers of Sulla public enemies, and this was apparently duly
enacted (Appian, 1.10.86). Carbo would not remain a privatus for
long, as when the elections came he was elected to the consulate
yet again (Appian, 1.10.87). As his colleague C. Marius, son of the
seven-time consul, was chosen de spite being legally underage
(Appian, although the younger Marius is referred to as the nephew
of the great general: Μάριος ὁ ἀδελφιδοῦς Μαρίου τοῦ περιφανοῦς,
loc. cit.; Per. 86; de vir. ill. 68). Why this choice was made is perhaps
not too difficult to seek: according to Diodorus, it had been the
latter’s name which had caused a good many of the volunteers who
joined the consular armies to enlist (Ὃτι τῷ Μαρίῳ τῷ υἱῷ Μαρίου
ὑπατεύσαντι οὐκ ὀλίγοι καὶ τῶν κατὰ νόμον τετελεκότων τὴν στρατείαν
ἐ ελοντὴν ἔσπευσαν τῷ νεανίσκῳ κοινωνῆσαι τῶν κατὰ τὸν πόλεμον
ἀγώνων; 38.12). These volunteers were older men, almost certainly
veterans who had once served the father, and they now expected to
serve under the son.76
Additionally, it was about this time that the government had
made another decision, which was to send Sertorius away from
Italy and into Spain (Appian 1.10.86, 1.13.108; Plutarch, Sert. 6;
Exupersantius, 48–50).77 Of the sources which mention this, two
two suggest that the departure of Sertorius had not been the
76 So also Francis Walton, in the apparatus to his Loeb translation of
this passage (p. 258–259).

77 Orosius (5.23.13), Appian’s Spanish Wars (16.101), and Florus
(2.10.1–2) also take note of his departure and subsequent arrival, without
adding further details as to the reasons for it.
happiest one: according to Plutarch, he had objected to the

consulate of Marius and had come to feel that the indolence,
timidity, and even duplicity of Rome’s magistrates and
commanders was to doom the city (Sert. 6). That author also states
that he had left for his western command right after the loss of
Scipio’s army (Appian agrees with this timing; 1.10.86). According
to Exsuperantius, however, Sertorius had stayed for a while and
recruited men in Etruria (as has been seen), but had soon grown
disillusioned with the government, disparaged its idleness, and had
even spoken approvingly of the energy, at least, which had been
displayed by Sulla, prophesying a victory for the latter unless the
defenders of the city were to find a similar dynamism. At least one
modern scholar suggests that the font of the disgust felt by
Sertorius had been that he himself had been passed over for the
consulate in favor of someone who was not eligible for it by law on
account of youth78, and this may well have rankled. Still, what
78 Such is the argument of Spann, p. 37–39. Throughout his work,

Spann consistently returns to the theme of Sertorius as an outsider, a novus
homo whose political and even military career was hindered by such a
status. Even in this dangerous hour, Spann asserts, the stubborn
arrogance and élitism of the Roman nobiles persisted, and as a result the
ruling party froze Sertorius out of office and the high command which
would come from them due to his humble birth. It may very well have
been that such was the case, but in this instance there are a few difficulties
in asserting that Sertorius was driven to disgust due to attitudes towards
his novitas and his exclusion from the highest magistracy that allegedly was
its consequence. Principal amongst these difficulties is the fact that novitas
did not to be excluding too many men in recent years. After all, the
younger Marius was hardly much higher than Sertorius on the ladder of
nobility. It was true that he was the son of a consular, but his father had
been perhaps the most famous novus homo in Roman history, and it is most
unlikely that the son would have been much more acceptable even though
technically novitas no longer attached. Secondly, the consul of the previous
year, C. Norbanus, had also been a novus homo (as Badian—1964, p. 230—
and Frier—p. 598—have pointed out). He had held the consulate without
too many obstacles.
This would tend to imply that, if Sertorius was left out of the
consulate, that it was for different reasons that his newness. In fact, it
might even imply that Sertorius was not necessarily excluded at all. For
seems to have bothered Sertorius far more than Marius was the
fact that the government was taking no swift action to destroy
Sulla. As it must have seemed to Sertorius, the latter was notorious
for his rapidity of movement but seems to have become stalled,
presenting the ideal moment in which to strike him while he was in
such a torpor. Exsuperantius seems to imply this line of thinking of
his clearly, and also that progressively his cavilling towards this end
became increasingly difficult to bear by the Senate and by the
consuls. It may well have also been that the government was itself
purely symbolic reasons, Carbo’s selection to fill one of the available posts
made sense: he was Cinna’s right hand, and the gravity of Cinna’s cause
seems to have devolved upon him as a result. Furthermore, Varbo had
accomplished the tribal reorganization, an action for which the vast
majority of Romans—its novi cives, who outnumbered veteres by a
significant amount—might have registered their gratitude at the polls.
Marius, for his part, had the luster of his father’s name. It may seem
bizarre that the Romans would have chosen a name over the military
genius that certainly was vested in Sertorius, but it is also to be
remembered that history accords him that status due to what he alter
accomplished in Spain. In 83, Sertorius may have looked like nothing
more than a fine officer, but not necessarily a better choice to lead men in
battle as consul than either Carbo or Marius, who had both also done
impressive things in war in 87 (see chapters 6–8 for these).
If Sertorius was not injured beyond endurance by such a haughty
attitude of the nobiles, then perhaps his distemper lay elsewhere. It might
have been, for example, that Sertorius may have objected to the election
of Marius on grounds of tradition: Marius was still too young. Yet
concern for tradition did not prevent Sertorius from marching on Rome
with Cinna, and no outrage seems to have come from him when Cinna
was reelected thwice in a row without a biennium, nor when he and Carbo
appointed themselves consuls for 84 (if, indeed, they had done so).
Furthermore, there was precedent for the will of the sovereign people of
Rome overriding tradition and making consul whomever they liked, as
they had been doing since the Scipiones. Perhaps his anger was personal,
stemming from jealousy and frustration in his own hopes for the office.
Certainly Sertorius was as human as anyone else. Yet what seems to have
been more important to him than the delay in his progress on the cursus
was the danger in which the state found itself, as the sources make clear
(see text above), and it was this which drew his commentary and,
ultimately, led to his appointment overseas.
not too pleased with Sertorius, especially if Scipio had circulated

the story that Suessa had not been ordered by him, as he may well
have done. Yet simply dismissing Sertorius might have been
dangerous, and especially so if he had indeed been speaking in a
praiseworthy manner of Sulla. After all, both Cethegus and
Phillippus, described as dire enemies of his, had found ways to
bury their differences with Sulla, and it may have been feared that
Sertorius, too, could find some way to effect a similar reconciliation
and go over himself to the enemy. It was perhaps for all of these
reasons that Sertorius was given his Spanish commission, and for
such reasons that he decided to take it. Alternatively, the consuls
may have legitimately felt that Spain was in danger, or at the very
least that someone who had made a reputation for himself there
could aid in recruiting men (at which he also had displayed a
singular talent), perhaps to lead them back to Italy the next year. If
that was the case, though, it would turn out that before Sertorius
could make it back into Italy the cause for which he fought was
dead, and not much later he would be, too.
Either way, Sertorius was soon headed west. The absence of a
commander with the gifts Sertorius possessed would have been a
boon to Sulla, even if at the time he may not have been aware of
this fact. What he probably did know as the fall approached was
that much of Italy was still against him, although the primary
sources of opposition seemed to have been Etruria and the
Cisalpine. He was also still probably heavily outnumbered, and to
do something about both of these problems he seems to have
dispatched several of his subordinates northwards. One of these
was M. Licinius Crassus, who seems to been assigned the task of
raising soldiers for Sulla from the Marsi. Here was an unusual duty
indeed, involving first and foremost a recruiting drive amongst a
people whose demand for the citizenship had been the strongest
before the Allied War and who, by extension, might have been
most protective of the rights that attached to it. Moreover, it would
involve having Crassus go by the territory of the Samnites who, as
shall be seen, were quite supportive of the opposite cause, making
their lands into what was in effect enemy territory. This promised
to be dangerous work, and Crassus, perhaps not unreasonably,
asked for an escort, only instead to receive the stinging rebuke
from Sulla that the ghosts of his murdered father and brother
would serve nicely in that capacity. Crassus therefore fell to his task
with enthusiasm, and apparently raised a not inconsiderable force

in the process. It is likely that this occupied him for the rest of the
year, or it may well be that once this was accomplished he returned
to Sulla and spent the winter in Capua with his new recruits. Either
way, Crassus sees to have suspended his activity somewhat earlier
than might otherwise have been expected before the end of 83, and
in fact actions all over seem to have died down about the same
time. The climate may have had something to do with this
suspension of activity: Appian seems to suggest that the winter
which was coming was a particularly cold one (1.10.87), and
Plutarch mentions storms in the moutains of Gaul that might very
well have struck the peninsula as well (Sert. 6). It is not impossible
to conjecture that the cold had not come as late in the year as it
usually did, and that both sides of the war intelligently elected to
cease fighting and prepare for the following spring.
5. CIVIL WAR: 82 AND 81

During what remained of 83 and the opening months of 82, signs
were beginning to emerge that the tide was slowly turning in Sulla’s
favor, or at least such could be divined based on what was
occurring in the provinces. In Spain, Sertorius had found that the
promagistrates he was to succeed had declared for Sulla, and it
apparently took a significant effort to expel them (Appian
1.13.108). It may well have been that there was a similar aetiology
behind the troubles C. Fabius Hadrianus is reported as having
suffered in Utica. This man, who had earlier defeated and driven
out Metellus Pius, might reasonably be adjudged to be a partisan of
Cinna and Carbo, and it may have been to win the favor of Sulla as
well as (or perhaps instead of) the greed for which the sources have
made this man notorious that the Romans at Utica acted against
him, promptly burning him and his family alive.79 If Sulla did not
suborn this action, he must at least have considered it as fairly
helpful to his cause. Soon other provinces were to receive his
attention, as well: as soon as he could spare the men, soldiers were
sent into Spain against Sertorius (Plutarch, loc. cit.), and others were
79 As mentioned in Cicero, Verr. 2.170; Diodorus, 38.11.1; Per. 86;
Valerius Maximus 9.10.2; and Orosius 5.20.3.

later shipped off to Africa and Sicily. Perhaps as a precursor to this

latter action was the first military event which the Periochae records
for the new year: L. Philippus, the old consul of 91 who had last
been seen in the company of many nobiles making their way to
Sulla’s side in the previous year, had been given a legate’s
commission and ships, and with these he had sailed to Sardinia and
had won over that island for his benefactor, killing praetor Q.
Antonius in the process (Per. 86).
Nevertheless, all of these happenings did not change the basic
circumstances within Italy itself. Sulla was relatively secure in
Campania and had managed to acquire a number of talented
subordinates and even some additional men, but was still faced
with a northern Italy which seemed uniformly hostile, and had
expressed that hostility by providing a massive army to Carbo and
the younger Marius, mostly from Etruria. Moreover, just as Cn.
Octavius had done in his own defense of Rome in 87, Carbo also
seems to have made an especial appeal to the Cisalpine, although in
this instance Gaul seems to have been more responsive to those
appeals than had been true of the earlier ones (Plutarch reports that
an abundance of Gallic horsemen fought for Carbo; Pomp. 7).80 For
the coming year, Sulla’s main objectives, then, would likely have
been to neutralize all three problems: he would have to prevent any
more Italians and Gauls from joining the enemy, if possible, and
then he would have to crush the supporters of the consuls in the
Cisalpine, and then in the area closer to Rome. On their end, Carbo
and Marius would have on the one hand the task of preventing
Sulla from accomplishing these objectives, and on the other of
finding a way to overcome Sulla’s mystique, his tactical abilities,
and the quality of his men, and use their own advantages to defeat
and destroy him.
80 This is also Keaveney’s assessment of the situation (1982, p. 132–

135). As will be seen, these men would ultimately prove unreliable,
although Keaveney consistently assumes that it was less the Gauls and
more the Italians in the government’s army who would eventually both
refuse to fight and later change sides. He continually neglects to provide
evidence for this assertion, however, and as such it is rejected here.
It is therefore not surprising to read that the spring of 82 had

begun with these aims in mind. Sulla, for his part, seems to have
signed pacts with several Italian communities which in some way
guaranteed that he would not snatch away their newly-acquired
voting privileges (Sulla cum Italicis populis, ne timeretur ab his velut
erepturus civitatem et suffragii ius nuper datum, foedus percussit; Per. 86).
Who these populi Italici were and what Sulla was to get from them in
turn cannot be known for certain, but can probably be guessed.
The Italians were probably the Marsi, the Picentines, and the Apuli,
who would all either contribute to his cause or at the very least
would not oppose him, along with the Latins and anyone whose
territory lay near where he was to be traveling or where he
currently was. What Sulla probably wanted from them was that
they either join him or keep out of the conflict.81 As usual, Sulla
really had everything to gain and nothing to lose from this policy. If
he had intended to remove or diminish the lawmaking powers of
the comitia tributa, as it has been suggested he had wanted to do in
88, then he probably would have had little enough to fear from
keeping the redistribution in place, either because the census had
registered few enough of the élites, because it did but he intended in
some way to vitiate the last census, or because he figured the
wealthy classes, even if registered in substantial numbers, would be
sympathetic enough to his aims. Thus, it was essentially to buy
noninterference from these Italians or their participation on his
81 Keaveney (1982b, p. 511–513) takes note of most of the same
peoples. Both he (op. cit., p. 509–511, 1982, p. 136–137) and Salmon

(1967, p. 332–383) also believe that Sulla did not include the Samnites and
Lucani in this arrangement; they would continue to fight him, as
Keaveney points out, and furthermore Sulla may very well have felt some
sort of ancestral or racial hatred towards them, as Salmon speculates
(although Keaveney disagrees; 1982b, loc. cit. See also chapter 4 and the
supporting notes for Roman “racism” in general, and chapter 10 for
Sulla’s demeanor towards the Samnites and Lucani). Whether this bigotry
existed or not, a more simple explanation is at hand for why Sulla did not
seek an arrangement with these: Sulla did not believe he would be in the
area of these people, and need not have secured their neutrality right
away.
side, rather than concern for their rights, that led Sulla to make his
deals, and as usual he came out far ahead in the bargain.
With these accords in place, Sulla seems to have left a small
holding force in place in Capua to guard his rear while he moved
north. This holding force was, it seems, a precaution against
whatever Campanians were against him, and it seems there were
some: Appian describes how Neapolis was to be taken by
treachery, its inhabitants put to the sword, and its fleet confiscated
by the Sullani, so it seems that that city had either always been
hostile to Sulla or had soon gone over to Carbo and Marius
between Sulla’s landing and the city’s sack (1.10.89). With these
Campanians neutralized or held at bay, Sulla proceeded northwest,
moving along first the Via Appia and then, at the junction with the
Via Latina, dividing his forces, with he himself taking part of his
main body along the Via Latina headed north, while a lieutenant
took another part in the same direction but along the Via Appia
guarding his western flank. The man chosen for the task was
probably Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella, who is mentioned in
Plutarch as having been a subordinate who was directly under Sulla
during this campaign (Sull. 28).82
Somewhat earlier Sulla seems to have put another phase of his
plan in operation, id est the detachment of the Cisalpine. Towards
this end, he seems to have sent Metellus north, perhaps by ship
(Metellus is later seen sailing to Ravenna; Appian 1.10.89). When
this force was sent and when, in turn, it arrived is difficult to tell
from the sources. According to Appian’s account, it seems already
to have been there in the spring (1.10.87), so perhaps it had been
sent in late 83 or early 82. Pompeius was soon sent to join
Metellus. Plutarch suggests that Metellus had been a little too
sluggish in his movements for Sulla’s taste and that Sulla had
initially had thoughts of replacing him with the youth, although it
was likely that it was apparently an unusually cold winter and this,
and not age, had been dampening “the bold and warlike spirit of
82 So Keaveney (1982, p. 137–138) in his interpretation of the great
battle to follow; more below. Broughton (p. 70) suggests that the
Dolabella in question is the one named above, who would be consul
under Sulla in 81.
the proconsul”. At any rate, Plutarch also reports that Pompeius

asked not to go unless Metellus requested his presence, which he
soon did (Pomp. 8).
Soon after the arrival of Pompeius it seems that both he and
Metellus found themselves in a strenuous battle with Carrinas,
Carbo’s legate, near the river Aesis close to the Adriatic coast south
of Ariminum (Appian, loc. cit. and Orosius 5.20.5).83 Metellus soon
won the victory, and as a result several towns in the region
switched sides. To put a stop to that sort of thing, Carbo himself
arrived on the scene and besieged Metellus somewhere in the area
(presumably in one of the cities which defected) until news had
come of the defeat of his colleague Marius at the Sacriportus (more
below). These reports almost certainly included information to the
effect that this loss had involved spontaneous defection on men
under the government’s command, and as Carbo was and already
inclined to mistrust the loyalty of the men under his command, he
apparently decided to break off his investment of Metellus and
retreat northwards to make sure of the morale of his men in the
safety of Ariminum. Carbo had no sooner begun to disengage,
however, then Metellus sent Pompeius after him. The latter
catching up with what was apparently the rear guard of Carbo’s
cavalry near the Aesis and attacked. Since the ground was not
suitable for horsemen, these were apparently badly defeated by
Pompeius and were compelled to surrender with all of their
equipment.84 Soon thereafter Metellus apparently proceeded
northwards along the coastal road, defeating an army of Carbo
along the way at an unnamed location which resulted in the
83 See Map 2.
84 Appian and Orosius in the places cited above; Plutarch also
mentions a battle fought on the river Arsis (περὶ τὸν Ἄρσιν) at which
Carbo’s cavalry was defeated by Pompeius, and it is likely to this
engagement that he refers in Pompeius 7 rather than to an exploit
mentioned before his journey to Sulla, for which see earlier in this
chapter. Objections to this construction may be found in the fact that the
text seems to read Arsis, not Aesis. However, the Arsis for Aesis confusion
in this passage has been suspected by several of Plutarch’s translators; see,
for example, the edition of Aubrey Stewart and George Long (vol. 3, p.
202 note 202; London, George Bell and Sons, 1892).
defection of five cohorts to his command, and in the meantime

Pompeius defeated another army under Marcius—almost certainly
C. Marcius Censorinus, who had earlier been seen commanding
cavalry for Cinna—near Senae (presumably Sena Gallica, which is
en route between the Aesis and Ariminum towards which Metellus
was almost certainly headed).85
Once they had gotten to the arterial line of the Via Flaminia,
however, Pompeius and Metellus apparently parted company: Sulla
had by this time no doubt arrived in Etruria, and he likely wanted
as many men as could be gotten to harass Carbo in as many places
as they could be sent (more below). Therefore, Pompeius betook
himself southwards to join Sulla, while Metellus apparently
proceeded on his steady pace towards Ariminum. But it seems that
Metellus had found that city difficult to take, and therefore
apparently decided to disengage, making use of the navy (which
was probably following along the coast) to have himself shipped
further north to Ravenna. Of this city Metellus looks to have
gained possession without too much difficulty, allowing him to
enjoy the use of its grain fields (Appian, 1.10.89). In addition,
Ravenna had some strategic value: if he were to sally forth from
that town, he could possibly gain possession of the Via Aemilia and
perhaps reduce further south Ariminum by cutting off its supply
line.86 At the same time, his ships could p resumably block it off by
sea, and as Pompeius was already holding possession of the Via
Flaminia while travelling down it in Sulla’s direction, Ariminum
could be isolated. Whether or not this was his strategy, it is on the
Via Aemilia that Metellus would next be seen later in the year after
the battle of Clusium (more below).
While all of this was going on to the north, Sulla was making
his advance in that direction from Capua. A number of cities in
Latium seem to have stood by Carbo and Marius, of whom the
latter had apparently been sent to command in the region, and Sulla
first seems to have been diverted by the need to take one of them,
Setia. It has been suggested that Sulla’s men were split for this
85 Keaveney also makes this determination (1982, p. 140).

86 See map 2.
journey and that Dolabella took the city,87 although it very well
might have been that Sulla converged on it from the Via Latina and
Dolabella from the Via Appia and that they both took the town
together, depending on how much resistance was encountered.
Marius fell back from here and Sulla followed; presumably
Dolabella was at some point engaged in trying to take Norba,
although that city would not fall until later (Appian, 1.10.94).
At some point near Signia, which lay a little further up the road,
Marius apparently decided to take his stand at a place whose exact
location is uncertain but which is called Sacriportus in the
Periochae (87), Orosius (5.20.6), the de viris illustribus (68.3, 75.8),
Florus (2.9.23), Velleius (2.26.1), and Lucan (2.134).88 All of these
87 So Keaveney (1982, p. 137–138), in what appears to be the attempt

to reconcile the reports of the coming battle in Appian (who seems to
suggest that it took place near Setia—Σύλλα Σ τιον καταλα όντος, ὁ Μάριος
ἀγχοῦ στρατοπεδεύων ὑπεχώρει κατ ὀλίγον—and thus to the Via Appia;
1.10.87) and Plutarch, which mentions that it occurred near Signia—περὶ
Σίγνιον; Sull. 28—and therefore on the Via Latina). In this way he
compromises between Rawson (1987, p. 170–172), whose argument is
that Appian’s text is to be preferred, and Salmon (1967,
p. 384–385), who follows Plutarch and places this event in the Trerus
valley, taking no notice of the line in Appian (Lovano takes note of both
possibilities but offers no opinion on them; p. 123–125). Keaveney’s
suggestion is more than plausible: as will be seen directly, for the great
battle against Marius to come Plutarch states that Sulla would have to
summon Dolabella from a sufficient distance that it would take some
effort on the latter’s part to get his commander, and in the meantime had
to cut his way through enemy forces barring his path. Thus, it seems more
than likely that Keaveney is correct, and Sulla did not take Setia. That was
done by Dolabella, who was on the Via Appia substantially to the west of
the Via Latina, and he either took Setia himself, or did it with Sulla’s help,
but definitely played an important role.
88 The location is unnamed in Diodorus (38.15), who only mentions
Praeneste in the aftermath, as is also true of Plutarch (28) and Eutropius

(5.8.1). In fact, the name of the place may be Sacriportum, as only the
accusative (apud Sacriportum in Velleius, Florus, Orosius, and de viris
illustribus; apud Sacri … portum in Lucan; ad Sacriportum in the Periochae) is
used; Appian, for his part, refers to it as the “so-called Sacred Shore”
(ἐπὶ τὸν καλούμενον Ἱερὸν λιμένα). The derivation of the term is of some
sources describe a great battle which then took place there, but
most of the details concerning it are supplied by Appian (1.10.87)
and Plutarch (Sull. 28). According to the latter, Marius arranged
himself and his eighty-five cohorts and offered battle to Sulla, who
was eager to accept it on that very day due to a prophetic dream he
had had. Before he could fight, however, he needed to have the
men under Dolabella, and therefore summoned him. But Marius
had managed to block off most of the avenues to Sulla and thus
compelled Dolabella to have to fight his way to his commander’s
position, all the while in a driving rain which must have made both
fighting and marching a complete misery. When Dolabella finally
arrrived, he pleaded that the men not be made to fight in their
exhaustion, an entreaty to which Sulla finally yielded.
What happened next, however, is somewhat confused:
according to the de viris illustribus (68.3) Marius had been worn out
by his labor and by watchfulness and was asleep when the ensuing
battle took place, suggesting that perhaps it occurred very early in
the morning (Plutarch, quoting Fenestella, offers a similar report as
one of the alternatives explaining the action of the encounter).
Such would make what happened next more plausible, since it
involved a chase to Signia which is over twelve miles from
Praeneste, and it is to be wondered how much of a running fight
could be made late in the evening.89 On the other hand, Plutarch
himself holds that Marius actually attacked as Dolabella was
arriving, and that Sulla’s men—angry, no doubt, at the prospect
that the evening meal and the sleep which was to be theirs after
fortifying the camp was now to be stolen from them by the
onslaught—violently repulsed them. Appian also suggests that, if
not attacking, that Marius was at least present for the battle, and
fills in the reason for why the flight to which his army was soon put
took place: the left wing of Marius began to collapse, at which
point five cohorts of infantry and two of cavalry spontaneously
deserted to Sulla. This soon led to a rout and a pursuit all the way
concern to Rawson (loc. cit.), whose assumption that it must have been
named for an actual port is used in her attempt to pinpoint its location.
89 Rawson (loc. cit.) notes the twenty kilometers of distance between
Signia and Praeneste.

to Praeneste (a city in which Marius had already apparently taken

the time to store a large quantity of gold; Pliny, NH 35.5.16),90 with
Sulla’s men slaying all those they caught along the way. Marius
himself arrived somewhat later than the main body of his men,
who had found shelter in the city (so Appian; 15,000 of them made
it into the city, according to Diodorus Siculus 38.15). His father’s
son, Marius had perhaps tried unsuccessfully to rally his defeated
troops, and on his own arrival at Praeneste he discovered the gates
had been closed. Fortunately for him, a rope was soon lowered,
and he was thereupon hauled over the walls into the city. The rest
of his men were not so lucky: all told, Sulla’s army had managed to
kill many thousands of the enemy,91 and were now about to kill
more of them, since according to Appian, all of the Samnites who
were found amongst the large number of those who surrendered
were then slaughtered for being “ill-disposed” towards the Romans
(ὧν τοὺς Σαυνίτας ἔκτεινε πάντας ὡς αἰεὶ χαλεποὺς Ῥωμαίοις
γενομένους). 8000 prisoners in all met their end in such a fashion,
according to Plutarch.
Sulla seems to have tarried for a time near Praeneste to make
sure that Marius would not try to break out and harass his rear as
he moved north. According to the Periochae (loc. cit.), one such
attempt was indeed apparently made without success, and Appian
records that several other sallies were attempted later which fared
similarly. Sulla then set up siege lines and entrusted them to one Q.
Lucretius Ofella, who was apparently renowned neither for his
90 See also Rawson, loc. cit., for this maneuver.

91 Exactly how many thousands is not agreed upon by the sources.
Appian does not give casualty figures, but Plutarch lists 20,000 slain
acccording to Sulla’s own estimates (Plutarch also makes the wildly
implausible claim that Sulla had lost only twenty-three himself). Orosius
(quoting “Claudius”, who is doubtless Claudius Quadrigarius via Livy) lists
25,000, and Eutropius 15,000, while Florus mentions that the battle
contributed to the more than 70,000 which Sulla killed in battle here and
at the Colline gate (apud Sacriportum, apud Collinam septuaginta milia amplius
Sulla concidit, although since 70,000 is the exact figure given by Eutropius
for the latter battle, it may be that the septuaginta …milia refers solely to the
Colline Gate, and the amplius refers to the additional casualties from the
Sacriportus on top of those numbers).
generalship nor his longstanding loyalty (Dio—frg. 108—implies

that he was a recent addition to Sulla’s cause whose abilities were
suspect, and Velleius 2.27.6 describes the novelty of his support for
Sulla explicitly). Still, Sulla apparently deemed that he could be
trusted to oversee this task, in which seems to have been
competent enough (more below). Leaving Ofella to this work, and
perhaps either allowing Dolabella to continue with Norba or
replacing him with Mam. Aemilius Lepidus (Appian 1.11.94),92
Sulla then resumed his northern trek. His aim was almost certainly
Rome, which seems to have been left almost undefended by
Carbo’s operations in Gaul and by the envelopment of Marius in
the south. Before Sulla got there, however, Marius had had time to
send an order to L. Junius Brutus Damasippus to liquidate various
political enemies, whose numbers at the very least included C.
Carbo Arvina, P. Antistius, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, and Q.
Mucius Scaevola.93 Why it is that Marius would choose to order
this atrocity is unknown, nor is the reason why Damasippus would
92 For the identification of this Lepidus see chapter 8 concerning

Cinna’s luring of the legions under Claudius and supporting notes.
93 So Valerius Maximus (9.2.3) who mentions only the death of Carbo
specifically and the display of his mutilated body; Velleius (2.26.2–3) and
Orosius (5.20.4) mention all four men, with Orosius adding the detail that
they were pierced with butcher’s hooks and dragged to the Tiber into
which their bodies were cast. Appian (1.10.88) also names all four men
and adds a further detail: apparently the men were slain when they had
come to a meeting of the Senate which was convened just for this
purpose (the de viris illustribus does not provide names but likewise
mentions that the deaths occurred under a pretext of the Senate meeting
and the casting into the Tiber; 68.2), and while three of the men actually
perished in the curia, Scaevola fled a short distance; it is known from other
sources (Per. 86, Florus 2.9.21, Diodorus 38.17, and Augustine, de civ. 3.28.
3.29) that he was apprehended at the Temple of Vesta and was even killed
before her statue, a detail confirmed by Cicero (de nat. deor. 3.32.80; a letter
to Arricus—ad Att. 9.21.3—also mentions the death of Carbo, and his
Brut. 311 likewise mentions the death of Carbo and Scaevola along with
Antistius) and seems likely to have motivated the indirect reference in
Lucan 2.126–129 that “blood and flame” still remained in aged Scaevola
even though he had escaped Fimbria’s knife (parvum sed fessa senectus /
Sanguinis effudit iugulo, flammisque pepercit).
elect to obey the order. Appian and Florus (2.9.21) both make it
clear that by this point Marius had come to believe that his cause
was hopeless, although perhaps prematurely, and it would seem
that there was little this crime could do which would substantively
help things. Perhaps, then, it was simple vengeance which
motivated the order, since revenge was fairly brutal at this time.94
Appian records that shortly after the men were slain, Sulla brought
his army to the Campus Martius with the possible intention of
preventing any further homicides of this kind, at which he seems to
have been fairly effective: all the men of the opposite faction fled,
and Sulla was now master of the city, into which he entered and
bade the remaining citizens be encouraged, adding that they would
soon be “safe” (1.10.89). Probably under threat of compulsion, it is
assumed that what remained of the Senate voted to restore to Sulla
the proconsular power he would have lost upon entering the city
(assuming he was still preserving the appearance of law-abiding
proconsul), whereupon he proceeded with his army to go north to
face what remained of the opposition to him in Etruria.
In this region M. Licinius Crassus was soon seen operating
(Plutarch reports his ravaging of Tuder; Crass. 6). Perhaps he had
arrived there earlier in the spring, taking advantage of Carbo’s
absence dealing with Metellus and Pompeius (see above), or—as is
perhaps more likely—he had represented the vanguard of the army
which Sulla was himself to lead there after he had dealt with Marius
further south and had “reassured” Rome. Very likely the presence
of Crassus had caused Carbo to hurry from Ariminum back
towards the capital, and either in pursuit of Carbo, on a summons
from Sulla, or both, Pompeius was soon to follow on the Via
94 For the particular lengths to which vengeance would be taken by
Sulla, for example, see Epstein (p. 74), as well as next chapter. For the
reasons why these men were singled out, Keaveney (1982, p. 139) has a
number of theories, all of them plausible, including the fact that at least
three of these had relatives or in-laws amongst the prominent supporters
of Sulla and that all four had supported the embassy of reconciliation sent
by Flaccus (although Flaccus was himself was not listed amongst the
victims). It may also be added that at least three were apparently
prominent, famous orators, and all may at some point have spoken out
against Cinna, Carbo, Marius father and son, or all of them.
Flaminia (as has been seen). Nevertheless, it seems that Sulla caught
up with Carbo first. Having detached Censorinus from his main
body to deal with Pompeius (more below), the consul soon ran
into Sulla’s men somewhere on the Glanis river probably near the
Via Cassia.95 Sulla had likely marched there after first defeating
some opponents under an unnamed commander near Saturnia
(Appian 1.10.89), allowing him then to send M. Lucullus (brother
of L. Lucullus, Sulla’s admiral of sorts) up the Via Cassia to
complete the detachment of the Gauls from Carbo’s cause.
Lucullus would then leave the Via Cassia and would then move
along the Via Aemilia in the direction of Placentia where he would
next be seen.
In the meantime, it was Sulla’s cavalry which made contact
with that of Carbo at the Glanis. The skirmish which then took
place does not seem to have been terribly serious in terms of
battlefield death, as Appian reports that Carbo only lost fifty men.
What was more important in the fact that some 270 of his
Celtiberian cavalry sent by “the praetors”, presumably the same
ones who had switched loyalties to Sulla in the meantime, are said
spontaneously to have deserted in the midst of the battle. Carbo
then broke off and proceeded to kill the rest of the Celtiberi,
probably less from frustration than from fear of similar desertions
at a crucial time (Appian, loc. cit.). Shortly thereafter a savage battle
apparently took place near Clusium at which, according to Appian
(loc. cit.), neither side emerged as the clear winner, although
apparently Sulla withdrew from it. This was probably less from
defeat, in spite of the fact of a convenient nightfall mentioned in
the sources which is so often the code for that very thing, and
more because he needed to betake himself south to Praeneste to
tighten the noose around that city against the threat of penetration
from outside, about which more directly.96
95 See map 2.
96 This is the interpretation of Keaveney (1982, p. 141–142), following
the testimony of Appian and the Periochae stating that Sulla personally
helped ward off attempts at the relief of Praeneste; he is almost certainly
correct in his view.
As Sulla was departing, Carbo first seems to have decided to

send some men back east to Spoletium to the relief of Carrinas, the
subordinate who had been given the task of keeping Pompeius
from linking with Sulla. There Carrinas had been defeated not just
by Pompeius but by Crassus as well, and the two of them had
cooperated—a precedent which would not continue long—in
driving their opponent into the town, which they then surrounded.
As it turns out, Carrinas would prove more successful in extricating
himself that the relief army would be in aiding him do so. That
army was defeated by Sulla somewhere en route, although Carrinas
seems to have taken advantage of a heavy rainstorm and thick
darkness to elude his besiegers and make his way back to Carbo at
Clusium (Appian 1.10.90). With the men of Carrinas and the
remnants of those defeated in their attempt to aid him now
gathered to himself, Carbo seems to have sent some of them
southward in another attempt to relieve Praeneste, as will be seen.
In the meantime, he apparently left the city of Clusium in the
hands of Damasippus while he and the proconsul Norbanus
worked their way northwards to see if they could arrest the tide of
defeat in the Cisalpine (the other consul of 83, Scipio, seems to
have betaken himself into exile at Massilia, thus depriving Sulla of a
powerful if unwitting agent acting on his behalf).97
In this enterprise, Carbo and Norbanus would be
spectacularly unsuccessful. Having apparently decided to attack
Faventia and thus open the Via Aemilia to Ariminum, they
approached Metellus towards the end of the day guided by what
seems to have been the hope that they could use gathering
darkness to surprise their antagonist. However, there were
vineyards in the area, and in the gloom the men of Carbo and
Norbanus became entangled in them. These were then easily
spotted by Metellus, whose soldiers fell upon the consul’s men and
killed 10,000 of their number (Appian, 1.10.91; Orosius mentions
9000). What was worse than that was the 6000 more who deserted,
and the rest fled in confusion, such that only 1000 men managed to
97 So, perhaps, Cicero pro Sest. 3.7, although the Scipio named there is
given the praenomen Caius. What is above is, at least, the interpretation of
Keaveney (1982, p. 155).
make it into Ariminum in anything resembling discipline and order.

Some of those who had scattered apparently were able to be
reformed, as it looks like they would soon be sent up the Via
Aemilia to see if they could deal with M. Lucullus at a somewhat
later time. Meanwhile, Carbo seems to have left Norbanus in
Ariminum to undertake this task while he himself made his way
back to Clusium to continue to direct efforts to relieve Praeneste.
Norbanus could not arrest the decline of the cause, however:
shortly after the debacle at Faventia, a legion of Lucanians under
Albinovanus, upon hearing of what had transpired, deserted to
Metellus in spite of what seems to have been the efforts of their
leader. The latter, however, seems to have had a change of heart of
his own soon thereafter: while still in the camp of Norbanus he
made overtures to Sulla, who promised him amnesty if he could
make a display of loyalty. This he decided to do by means of
inviting those legates of Norbanus as were present to a dinner (one
of them, the otherwise-unknown Quinctius, seems to have been
sent towards Fidentia by this point; more below), whereupon
Albinovanus killed all of them and then defected to Sulla.
Norbanus himself had not attended this banquet, but upon hearing
rumors (although apparently not true just yet) that Ariminum and
the neighboring towns were changing sides, he decided to flee,
ultimately to Rhodes and to eventual self-destruction there
(Appian, loc. cit.), about which more below.
Attempts in the meantime continued to be made by various
forces to relieve Marius in Praeneste. One of these, according to
Appian, took the form of eight legions under C. Marcius
Censorinus sent by Carbo shortly before the consul went on his
Gallic foray. In response, Pompeius swiftly went after Censorinus,
perhaps sped by memory of the good luck he had had against
Censorinus before at Senae. He was presently able to ambush
Censorinus and the relief expedition in a defile at some location
which is not named but which was was probably near the Via
Flaminia, kill many its soldiers, and then isolate the rest on a hilltop.
Censorinus managed to escape by means of a trick which would
work on Pompeius at least once more in his career,98 which was

leave his fires burning while withdrawing the rest of the men under
cover of darkness. This success notwithstanding, however, the men
apparently blamed Censorinus for the ambush and began to desert
him. Some of these went up the road back to Ariminum, and some
gave up the war altogether, with the result that Censorinus was
only able to bring seven cohorts back to Carbo (Appian, 1.10.90).
This entire operation had been a complete fiasco with
incompetence displayed on both sides, but it was catastrophically
more so for the government than for Sulla, whose reverses had
been lighy. Perhaps slighly more serious for Sulla was the news that
a combined force of Samnites under Pontius Telesinus, Lucani
under the old Allied War commander M. Lamponius, and
Campanians under the otherwise unknown general named Gutta,
was moving in a strength of 70,000 men towards the position of
Marius. According to Appian, Sulla himself moved to stop them
and managed to occupy all the passes which might lead to
Praeneste, causing the Samnites considerable difficulties in these
passes through which they now apparently began trying to force
themselves (Appian, 1.10.90–92). Marius, for his part, could
therefore neither get this help nor, it seems, could he help himself
very much, as his several attempts to batter his way through
Ofella’s siege lines ended in failure (Appian, loc. cit.; Per. 87). Not
even the pressure applied by two additional legions sent by
Damasippus seems to have been able to penetrate Sulla’s barrier
around Praeneste, and the city which would ultimately never be
relieved; it was instead violently captured by the Sullani (see below).
As badly as Carbo’s designs in the south were going, those in
the north were faring no better. Orosius describes a sharp
confrontation between M. Lucullus and one Quinctius, a
commander of Carbo’s who once may have been attached to
Norbanus and who managed to evade slaughter by the renegade
Lucani under Albinovanus earlier (see above). This battle took
place at Fidentia, some fifteen miles from Placentia along the Via
Aemilia (5.20.8). Plutarch (Sull. 27) adds the additional detail that
98 During his campaign against the armies of Mithridates; see
Greenhalgh, p. 111.
Lucullus was outnumbered to the tune of sixteen cohorts to fifty,

and that even the cohorts he had lacked weapons. Nevertheless, a
gentle breeze apparently caused flowers to fall upon the men of
Lucullus and made it appear as if they had already been given a
victory garland, and Lucullus interpreted this as a favorable sign.
Indeed, the outcome was just as the omen seems to have
portended, for when Quinctius attacked, Lucullus inflicted a heavy
loss upon him (18,000 men and the loss of their camp, according to
Plutarch; more than ten thousand, according to Orosius).99
Appian also mentions this battle, and likewise mentions a
result of it: upon hearing of this defeat, of the stalling of
Damasippus near Praeneste, and of the defection of the Gauls to
Lucullus in the aftermath of the murder of the officers of
Norbanus, Carbo apparently decided to emulate his predecessor of
the previous year and flee from Italy (Appian 1.10.92). Leaving the
not inconsiderable forces still under his command to Carrinas and
Marcius Censorinus, Carbo he made his way for Africa, ultimately
with tragic results for all three men (see below). Shortly thereafter
Appian describes yet another battle between Pompeius and what
remained of Carbo’s army near Clusium, in which the former
destroyed another 20,000 men, following which the consular army
continued its disintegration (Appian, loc. cit.). At a loss for anything
better to do, Carinas, Brutus, and Censorinus apparently then
decided to see if they could make one more attempt to break Sulla’s
grip on Praeneste. They could not, it seems, so they then decided
to turn back and head for home, since the capital itself had been
left undefended.
At this point Sulla, either from fear that the city would be
(re)taken or from a desire to crush what remained of the armies of
Carbo once and for all, sent his cavalry in pursuit of his three
opponents, and he himself withdrew his army from the passes
99 A brief reference both to this battle, as well as to Clusium and that

at Faventia preceeding it, is also found in the Periocha of Livy’s Book 88,
and also in Velleius 2.28, although that authority is almost certainly
incorrect in claiming that all three of these battles took place before the
Sacriportus (contrary to the chronology of Appian, the Periochae, and
Orosius).
around Praeneste and headed north in support of his horse. At the

same time he seems to have summoned Pompeius and Crassus
from the north. If it was his plan to annihilate Carinas,
Damasippus, and Censorinus, then such a strategy did seem to
involve the risk of allowing Marius to break out of Praeneste. This
was apparently acceptable enough to Sulla: if he could completely
wipe out any hope of aid from the north, then he could wheel
about with his entire army—including the legions of Marcellus,
Lucullus, Crassus, and Pompeius—and destroy Marius at the time
of his choosing, along with whatever remained of his Samnite and
Lucanian confederates. What he had not counted on was that the
Samnites would also move on Rome, but this is precisely what
Pontius Telesinus and 40,000 Samnites (according to Velleius
2.27.1–3) proceeded to do; their mission was to root out the
wolves by burning down the forest which harbored them,
according to a speech put into their leader’s mouth by Vellieus.
Telesinus and the remaining generals of Carbo soon seem to have
met in the Alban hills and coordinated their efforts. This is how
Appian presents it (1.10.92), although Plutarch, deriving his
information no doubt from Sulla’s own memoirs, omits any
references to the Romans who had joined the Samnites; it instead
becomes a life and death struggle between Rome and the Samnites
and Lucani, “[Rome’s] most ancient and inveterate enemies” (τὰ
ἔχ ιστα τῇ Ῥώμῃ καὶ τὰ πολεμικώτατα φῦλα; Sull. 29–30).
These were soon at the gates of Rome itself, and here they
were temporarily delayed, first by the city’s garrison under Appius
Claudius, and then later by the arrival of Sulla’s cavalry under
Balbus. Sulla himself arrived soon after, and he ignored the pleas of
his subordinates to let the men rest, throwing them directly into
battle. The results were mixed. On the right side, M. Licinius
Crassus apparently completely routed the Samnites and drove them
some distance from the city; it was probably with considerable
effort that Crassus was able to restrain his men from further
pursuit and get them to hold up at Antemnae, from which location
he sent back to Sulla to ask for provisions for his men (Appian—
loc. cit.—omits reference to Crassus and his role, though it is
supplied by Plutarch both in the passage of his Sulla cited above
and in his Crassus, 6). Sulla himself apparently had had a much
more difficult time of it. In spite of his urging and personal
appearance on the front lines, his left wing had given way and had
fled to the city before the gates were actually closed on them,
forcing them to fight. Sulla’s part of the battle been a very near-run
thing indeed: while Velleius states that the Samnites apparently had
begun to give way by nightfall (loc. cit.), Appian reports that fighting
continued into the night, and Plutarch notes that panicked
messengers had been sent to Ofella bidding him to lift the siege
and come destroy the Samnites before Sulla and his men were
overwhelmed.
By early morning of the next day, however, it had become
clear that Sulla had won the battle. Telesinus was found wounded
and dying but with an expression of triumph and serenity on his
face; if he knew that he had lost, he had at least been aware that he
had cost the Romans dearly, and had poured every last drop of
himself into the combat. Censorinus and Carrinas were taken
prisoner but were summarily executed, and the heads of all three
men were collected and used to some purpose at Praeneste (more
below). Appian states that 50,000 men on both sides had been
killed during this engagement alone, although most accounts dwell
on the Samnite (and non-Sullan Roman) losses here, which was
supposed by many to have been slightly higher that Appian’s
estimate.100
This fight, according to Plutarch, had been fought on the
kalends of November, which means that winter was soon to be
beginning. In its aftermath, it was perhaps to be wondered how
much longer Praeneste could hold out, especially since Marius had
been suffering from hunger from the time of Carbo’s first attempt
to relieve him (Appian, 1.10.90). The answer, it seems, was not very
long. Along with news of the battle, Sulla had sent to Ofella the
heads of the generals who had died there, and these were put on
display on Ofella’s camp (Velleius, 2.27.3; Appian, 1.10.94;
100 50,000 on both sides, according to Appian (as mentioned); 70,000
according to Eutropius (5.8.1; Florus gives that figure for the combined
total of the Sacriportus and the Colline gate, but, as has been seen, he
does say “more than 70,000”, which therefore would include the numbers
of deaths at the latter battle to which the unnumbered thousands who fell
at the former are encompassed by the amplius; 2.9.23); 80,000, according
to Orosius (5.20.9). The battle is also mentioned but with no relevant
details by Lucan (2.135–138) and the Periochae (88).
Frontinus, 2.9.3). According to Appian, the sight of them had led

the Praenestines to come to realize that their cause was hopeless,
and they they gave in to the besiegers and opened the gates to
Ofella. During the widespread looting which Ofella granted to his
men, he had likely come across two discoveries in short order. One
of these was the 13,000 pounds of gold and 6000 pounds of silver
which Marius had taken there, and this was soon seized, finally
ending up on display during Sulla’s triumph (Pliny, NH 35.5.16).
The other would probably soon have been the dead bodies of both
Marius and the younger brother of Telesinus. These two had
apparently tried to escape from the city by means of the
underground channels for which Praeneste was famous (Strabo
5.3.11). However, Ofella had apparently taken precautions against
this, and finding all the passageways guarded, the fugitives had
determined on mutual suicide, which was eventually accomplished
with the help of a loyal slave (Diodorus 38.15; Orosius 5.21.8–10).
Ofella in turn returned the present Sulla had made to him in the
form of the head of Marius, at which Sulla made a jest from
Aristophanes (Appian, loc. cit.). In the meantime Praeneste, like
much of the rest of Italy, was at Sulla’s mercy.101
Not long thereafter all of the Italy would likewise be in his
hands. Various sources suggest that Norba, Volaterrae, and Nola
were still offering resistance after the sack of Praeneste (Nola and
Volaterrae, Per. 89; Norba, Appian 1.9.94), but they would soon
fall. The first of them was taken by Mam. Aemilius Lepidus by
means of treachery, though even as the city was being delievered,
its inhabitants apparently had no desire to see themselves enslaved
and their goods confiscated. Therefore a mass suicide was initiated,
followed by arson which, by means of helpful winds, burned the
town so thoroughly that no loot could be taken from it (Appian,
loc. cit.). The Periochae states that Sulla himself had a hand in
subduing the other two, and Cicero’s speech on behalf of Sextus
Roscius notes the same thing (20–26; 110–115). According to
101 Further mention of the death of Marius in varying degrees of detail
is found in Per. 88; Lucan 2.193–195; Plutarch, Sull. 32, Mar. 46; Diodorus
37.29, 38.15; Valerius Maximus 6.8.2, and de vir. ill. 68
Granius Licinianus (36), this action had taken place sometime

during 81, the year in which Pompeius triumphed.102
Once he had gotten the land, Sulla next needed to take care of
the men who were still his enemies, and presently any of them with
military talent were hunted down and killed. For this reason Scipio
apparently was left conspicuously alive in Massilia, but Norbanus,
who had slipped away to Rhodes, was found there by Sulla and
killed himself to avoid extradition to the latter’s agents (Per. 89;
Appian 1.10.91). Even while the war had not yet been decided, a
new if minor danger had arisen in Sicily: the governor there, M.
Perpenna, had apparently held the island with some men, with
which an expedition to relieve Praeneste had apparently been
threatened but ultimately never effected (Diod. 38.14.1). According
to Plutarch, after that city fell Perperna established a haven of sorts
for refugees from the defeat. These soon included Carbo, who had
apparently in the meantime gathered a fleet from Africa (Pomp. 10),
presumably with the help of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus,
replacement of Fabius Hadrianus and son-in-law of Cinna.103
Carbo would presently be joined in Sicily by Brutus Damasippus
(Per. 89, Valerius Maximus 6.2.8). Pompeius was soon dispatched
against them, and short work was apparently made of all three men.
Brutus, sent by Carbo in a fisherman’s boat to see if Pompeius had
landed at Lilybaeum, soon discovered to his misfortune that he had
in fact done so; surrounded, he proceeded to take his own life.
Perpenna fled Sicily and went into hiding for a time, only to re-
emerge sometime later (see next chapter), and Carbo was himself
soon captured and ultimately met an end which was less than
102 On the other hand, while Nola seems to have fallen in that year,
Volaterrae seems to have been slightly more troublesome; according to

Strabo (5.2.6), this city included companies of the “proscribed” who
endured a siege of two years which was only ended by a truce (he also
mentions that Populonium which also sustained a siege at the same time).
It may well be, however, that a two-year siege is something of an
exaggeration: if both were invested in late 82 and fell in 81, the
chronology in Granius and Strabo can be reconciled.
103 Greenhalgh, p. 24; Badian 1964, p. 93, 218.
dignified.104 Pompeius was then sent into Africa to deal with

Ahenobarbus, and did so with dispatch.105 Presently the only man
left to challenge Sulla was Sertorius, and by 81 even he was not
faring terribly well (although he would soon find his bearings, as
will be seen). At any rate, neither he nor the now-vanished
Perperna was much of a threat, and more importantly none of
them could be found in the Italy itself.
6. SULLA VICTOR
Upon the conclusion of these final operations, the wars were now
over, and Sulla was (more or less) master of the Roman world. Part
of that Roman world were the Italians who had once been Rome’s
allies but were—for the time being, at least—now citizens, and
citizens with in theory the same rights as all other Romans. Sulla
had promised to the Senate, to Scipio, and perhaps even to many
of these Italians themselves that they would have nothing to fear
from him, and that the rights which they had finally made theirs
were to be secure as long as they did not challenge him. Many of
these Italians, however, had challenged him: what was to become
of them? And would he keep to his word as far as the others? All
of these must have been painful questions on the minds of the
inhabitants of the peninsula as the last fragments of resistance to
Sulla were finally ground into nothingness. Certainly by 81 all the
wars—or the one long war, The Ten Years War in the words of Sir
Ronald Syme—had finally come to an end, but this warfare had
been of the most confusing sort, involving many promises,
betrayals, and frequent changes of side. Who had actually won it?
Was a winner even possible to determine, based on the closeness
104 Valerius Maximus 9.13.2 and Plutarch, Pomp. 10, which give a
slightly more amplified acount than the terse messages found in earlier
passages of Valerius (5.3.5 and 6.2.8) as well as those of Periochae (89),
Orosius 5.21.11, Appian 1.11.96, and Eutropius 5.8.2; the chronology in
the latter supports the claim of Keaveney (1982, p. 160) that Sulla waited
until after Carbo had died and thus two vacancies existed in the consulate
before calling for the Dictatorship.
105 Per. 89, Valerius Maximus 6.2.8, Plutarch (Pomp. 11–12; Moralia
203); Eutropius (5.9.1; Orosius 5.21.13 was almost certainly taken from
this passage); a reference to this is also made by Dio 36.25.2.
of the participants? Could it be that neither side had? And what

would happen in the peace to follow? Over the next several years
the answers to those questions would be revealed as a new order
would be created from the wreckage of the Roman world and a
new Commonwealth was to be created. What that new
Commonwealth was to look like, and how the former Italians were
to fit into that it, will be seen in the next chapter.
CHAPTER 10:
THE END OF THE STRUGGLE—
THE DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA
AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
1. ROME, ITALY, AND THE ITALIANS

AND THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR
At some point prior to the year 91, the Italians who lived alongside
the Romans in the peninsula in a state of alliance with them had
begun to conceive of the desire to merge with them into one
commonwealth and become Roman. To the extent that any literary
evidence from the ancient world for this period is reliable, this
seems to be a definite fact. Furthermore, these sources indicate
something else about that desire, which is that these Italians did not
simply want the hollow name of citizen, but rather wanted the
civitas in its full and complete form: they wished to obtain all the
rights and were willing to shoulder all the responsibilities which
that status entailed. The sources do not, unfortunately, provide the
exact date at which this desire first manifested itself, nor do they
give the exact reasons for why it existed, although what evidence
the texts do provide allows for conjectures to be made about both
the when and the why that attain a fairly high level of plausibility.
Such conjectures were made in the previous chapters. Yet if the
sources do not give a date for when this urge arose, nor the reason
for it, the ancient authors do say what the Italians were willing to
do about their desire. In the end, they were willing to fight to get
what they wanted, and to keep fighting until they got what they
wanted ad unguem. Warfare launched to accomplish this goal first
erupted in 91, when many of the Italians under their own
leadership rose up to wrest the franchise from a recalcitrant Rome
by force. It would turn out that after three years of fighting they
proved unable to do this, in the sense that they had not battered
633
the Romans into submission and extracted what they wanted from
a beaten enemy. On the other hand, what their raw strength could
not obtain, their endurance fairly nearly did. The Romans ended up
being able to absorb the worst of blows of the Italians and to
return these in kind, but while Rome ultimately proved the stronger
on the field, they had grown so sick of the contest that they offered
the Italians a compromise in the form of a version of the
citizenship which gave them all that the Romans got from the state
except full political rights. Because the Allies had essentially been
beaten and could hope for nothing better, they accepted the offer
(or, at least, most of them did).
It should not, however, be assumed that the former Allies
were satisfied with this partial gain, and indeed events would soon
show that they were not. Somewhat later, the opportunity to obtain
more was offered: under the leadership of some Roman aristocrats,
the Italians—now Romans, or very close to it—mobilized again,
fought against the full-fledged Romans one more time, and this
time were victorious. The nobles who had obtained their support
of the ex-socii through pledges of getting them their full rights did
in fact eventually fulfill their promises, and by means of this
fulfillment, the former Italians at last acquired the privileges for
which they had so long thirsted. From this point forward, they
were legitimately Roman in every way. But due to the delays which
had held up those nobles whom the novi cives had followed from
attending their obligations, the rights that were acquired were very
late in their arrival. As a result, the one-time Italians did not get a
chance to enjoy them for very long, because at practically the same
time as the laws were passed to give them what they had so long
wished for, a threat to these privileges appeared. This threat took
the form of another Roman aristocrat, whose attitude towards their
new standing seemed hostile and whose aims might have been to
take that standing away. Based on fears of this outcome, the now-
Roman Italians took the field again alongside fellow Romans who
likewise had an interest in repelling that aristocrat, and together
they fought him.
The result was unambiguous: they had lost, and their
opponent had conquered completely. When he had done so, both
Rome and the entirety of Italy were his, and the destinies of all
Romans—no matter how recently they had become such—were
completely in his hands. The war which had led to that conclusion
THE END OF THE STRUGGLE 635
had, however, been extraordinarily nasty. Tergiversations, lies,

massacres, and pledges of vengeance had been commonplace, and
so even when the last battles in it had finally been fought to their
conclusion, there was the not unreasonable fear that the blood
would continue to flow. As that combat came to an end, the losers
found themselves not only defeated, but doubtless in the grip of a
fear which was terrible. What was going to happen next? Would
they be killed, and, if so, how many were to die? What was going to
happen to the living? And would there ever be the possibility for a
lasting peace, or would vendetta beget vendetta and repression lead
to uprising into perpetuity? No one really knew, not even the man
whose power at the end of the combat had become supreme.
Nevertheless, if that man could not be certain as to what the
outcome of his actions was going to be, he must at least have had
some ideas about it as he put his plans into motion. His design, it
seems, was nothing less than a completely new society, and it was a
society which was to be both perfect and permanent. The steps he
took to bring that design into existence, the extent to which those
steps were successful and achieved their aims, and the final results
for both Romans of all stripe will be narrated below.
2. PROSCRIPTIONS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES

When the battle at the Colline Gate had finally ended, L. Cornelius
Sulla found himself the undisputed master of Rome. A short while
later, the remainder of peninsula was firmly in his hands, as well: all
the armies which had been opposed to him had been destroyed,
and their leaders (or, rather, most of them) had been killed. Once
Sulla’s mastery in Italy had become a certainty, the remaining
question, simple but overwhelmingly important in spite of its
simplicity, was what was to become of its inhabitants. If Appian
(1.9.77) is to be believed, Sulla had himself made it no secret that
he intended to wreak terrible vengeance on those who he believed
had harmed him, and had made this intention manifest in the
exchanges of letters between himself and the government then in
control of Rome in the years which had preceded his return (as has
been seen). Even before the war had fully ended and with himself
the clear victor, Sulla had already effected part of this vengeance by
confiscating the property of some of the opposing side who had
fled when he approached the capital after the initial investment of
Praeneste (Appian, 1.10.89; see previous chapter). But his fury had
not gone much further than this in later 82, and this may have
inspired some to hope that Sulla would restrain himself to just this.
During Sulla’s first march on Rome in 88, it could be claimed—by
him if by no one else—that that he had displayed relative mildness.
As 82 was coming to an end, there have been some left in the city
who held out the hope that, dire warnings of retribution
notwithstanding, Sulla may have expended his ire on those who
already been killed in arms, a number which was not
inconsiderable.
If there were any who held out this hope, however, quite a
few were soon to see it evaporate in a most graphic manner.
According to the Periochae (88), Sulla had all the prisoners from the
Colline gate assembled in the Villa Publica and ordered the
execution of all the Samnites, some 8000 men, while the
Praenestines who had surrendered at their city were soon given
similar treatment; a variety of other sources confirm this
information.1 Dio Cassius (frg. 109) and Plutarch (Sull. 30) both
1 These include Appian, who reports three specific massacres: one

subsequent to the battle leading to the siege of Praeneste, where he
specifies that Samnites were singled out for death (1.10.87); another after
the conclusion of the Colline Gate, where again Samnites were specifically
mentioned and the figure of 8000 from the Periochae (loc. cit.) was retained
(1.10.93); and one more after the fall of Praeneste, where all male
prisoners who were not “Roman” were cut down (the implications of that
last will be discussed later; 1.10.94). These were all before the
proscriptions, in which many others would be convicted and killed
(as intimated later on in Appian; 1.11.96; see below).
By contrast, the Periochae 88 specifies only two such bloodbaths, those
of the Samnites in the Villa Publica and the Praenestines, before the
proscriptions. Valerius Maximus (9.2) also mentions two, one of “four
legions” (quattuor legiones contrariae partis fidem suam secutas in publica villa) in
the Villa Publica and one of 5000 men after Praeneste, in addition to the
4700 to follow in the proscriptions. Plutarch, mentions one after the
Colline Gate of 6000 men and then another of 12,000 upon the surrender
of Praeneste, where apparently Sulla had attempted to hold trials of some
sort but then resorted to mass slaughter after these were found to be
taking too long (Sulla 31–32).
Florus (2.9.25), for his part, only cites one, at which 4000 were killed,
but then goes on to mention a general bloodbath during the proscriptions.
state that Sulla used the former event to provide the suitable
atmosphere for an address he was to make to the Senate, which
was conducted at the same time as the slayings were occurring and,
according to the sources, had to be made over the screams of the
dying, which were plainly audible. The details of this particular
speech are not recorded, though Appian preserves an account of
an address made sometime thereafter in which Sulla vowed a new
order which would prove profitable for those who followed
willingly but catastrophic to those who did not. It also promised
that Sulla’s “enemies” would soon be dealt with in a most grim
fashion (τῶν δ᾽ ἐχ ρῶν οὐδενὸς ἐς ἔσχατον κακοῦ φείσεται; 1.11.95).
There can be little doubt that Sulla meant what he had said,
and that evil was in store for his inimici. What was not known for
This corresponds fairly well with Orosius (5.20.9), in whose narrative one
slaughter of 3000 men is followed by over 9000 killed during the
proscriptions. The de viris illustribus (75) similarly mentions but one
massacre, in which 9000 men were killed in the Villa Publica, and one is
also mentioned by Dio Cassius, fr. 109, who gives no figures; Strabo
(5.4.12) also cites one of three to four thousand men in the Villa Publica,
but notes that during the proscriptions the Samnites were targeted
specifically and killed in such numbers that they were practically
exterminated (οὐκ ἐπαύσατο πρὶν ἢ πάντας τοὺς ἐν ὀνόματι Σαυνιτῶν
διέφ ειρεν ἢ ἐκ τῆς Ἰταλίας ἐξέ αλε ... τοιγάρ τοι νυνὶ κῶμαι γεγόνασιν αἱ
πόλεις).
The broad similarity in these stories all suggest a common source,
possibly Livy (though see Haug, p. 133 for doubts on the extent to which
Strabo would have used this author). Then again, it might very well have
been a topic covered in a variety of authors, with relevant details (if they
were known at all) obscured or exaggerated; for example, Dionysius of
Halicarnassus (5.77.5) is hardly to believed when he suggests that
40,000 men were slain and tortured after surrender ( πολίτας τε χωρὶς τῶν
ἐν ταῖς μάχαις ἀπολομένων τοὺς παραδόντας αὐτῷ σφᾶς αὐτοὺς οὐκ ἐλάττους
τετρακισμυρίων ἀπέκτεινεν, ὧν τινας καὶ ασάνοις πρῶτον αἰκισάμενος,
5.77.6) At any rate, all that can safely be asserted from all of these sources
is that Sulla authorized at least one general holocaust of prisoners prior to
the proscriptions, and that these latter would later claimed many more
lives but not all at once. Based on the general reliability of Appian, the
Periochae, and Plutarch relative to that of Florus, Orosius, and the de viris
illustribus, it is probable that there were two such slaughters, one at Rome
and one at Praeneste, and that is the approach taken above.
certain was who these enemies were: other than any military
officers who had remained in the field after the conference with L.
Scipio, which Sulla had specified, no one else was nominated as an
ἐχ ρός.2 The result of this lack of specification led to a mood after
the address to the Senate and the speech to the people which was,
according to Dio and Plutarch, panic bordering on hysteria (loc. cit).
Florus (2.9.25) and Orosius (5.19.21) confirm this mood, which
was doubtless shared by all Romans, old and new alike. Sulla had,
after all, consistently demonstrated that he was a capable of
inflicting violence and even atrocity upon those against whom he
bore a grudge, or whom he had considered dangerous, and in this
number a good portion of the population of Italy might be
included. Indeed, this terror at what Sulla might do next may very
well have explained what was to happen at Norba (see previous
chapter), which was still being besieged by Lepidus while these
events were transpiring at Rome. If reports of the massacre of
surrendered prisoners from the Colline Gate and Praeneste had
reached Norba, they would hardly have engendered an inclination
in the few remaining pockets of resistance there to give up their
arms peaceably. Death in battle likely would have seemed
preferable to what could have awaited them upon capitulation, and
once Norba was betrayed, its inhabitants seem to have chosen to
end their lives by their own hands rather than fall into the clutches
of a man who very well might offer them worse.
In addition to the slaughter of the prisoners, who were
presumably combatants from the war, the sources also indicate that
people within Rome, who were presumably civilians, had already
begun to be subjected to execution, adding to the general terror
over who would be next.3 Soon thereafter the mystery as to who
was an “enemy” of the new regime was clarified somewhat by an
2 This address in 1.11.95 cites specifically the officers, but also
mentions the ὁσοι—“others”—who violated the agreement with Scipio.

This does not by any means suggest that “(t)he rank and file would be
spared”, as Keaveney (1982, p. 150) asserts, but rather the opposite: that
more names could be added at Sulla’s discretion (as they very shortly
were), and that these names could belong to anyone.
3 Plutarch (Sull. 31), Dio (frg. 109), Florus, and Orosius (in passages
cited above) all state this.

innovation: the proscription list, which Velleius (2.28) and Appian

(1.1.95) suggest was an invention of Sulla’s own. Plutarch (Sull. 31),
Florus, and Orosius (loc. cit.) all suggest that it was created by Sulla
by request—whose is not certain—in order to dispel doubts as to
who was to be killed or not, and, perhaps, to signal the limits of his
vengeance.4 Sulla might not, as an anecdote in Plutarch observes,
have known who all of his enemies were,5 but he did know some of
them, and the identities of these he began to publish. As to be
expected, these publications were filled first and foremost with
Roman aristocrats and men he could personally recall as needing
punishment. Soon they extended beyond the city and encompassed
all of Italy. The sources are filled with stories about how in both
the capital and in the rest of the peninsula men were killed and
their property seized, property which was then either sold very
cheaply or given away to those who had proved useful either in
slaying the new public enemies or revealing their whereabouts.
Because the proscriptions were such a searing experience for
the history of the Romans, it is difficult at times to get a clear
picture of just what the ramifications of these lists were, and to get
a complete handle on why they and the murders to which they led
had come into being. Certainly all of the ancient sources recoil
4 Plutarch (loc. cit.) asserts that the lists were published either at the
request of one C. Metellus, who made it a special point not to try and
dissuade Sulla from “punishing the guilty” but merely wished to know
who these were, or at that of a sycophant named Fufidius. This last is the
one mentioned by Florus, who suggests that the appeal was made lest the
murders get so out of hand that Sulla would soon no longer have anyone
to whom to give orders. In Orosius, it is Catulus who suggests them lest
by the hitherto indiscriminate slaughter the reputation of Rome would
become damaged, since armed combatants and unarmed civilians were
both put to the sword (a somewhat ironic observation, given the bloody
request he himself had made of Sulla in regards to M. Marius Gratidianus,
about which more below). See also Keaveney (1982, p. 150–151 as well as
p. 165, n. 3), who speculates that the lists were proferred amidst the
backdrop of unrestrained massacre of the kind implied by Plutarch.
5 Sulla did not know whom he intended to spare, and thus by
extension everyone he intended to destroy: ἀποκριναμένου δὲ τοῦ Σύλλα

μ δέπω γινώσκειν οὓς ἀφί σιν (loc. cit.).
them with justifiable loathing, and it is difficult to resist the

temptation on the one hand to pass them over rapidly as a
profitless cataloguing of horrors, or on the other (depending on the
inclination of the student) to dwell on them, either for the purpose
of condemning the man responsible for him, or to attempt to
diminish their magnitude and acquit him. What might, perhaps, be
of more value then either of these endeavors is an attempt to look
at them for what they accomplished, and why this accomplishment
was a desirable goal.
In the first place, the proscriptions seemed to have served a
number of purposes, of which one is the most obvious: they were a
means by which Sulla himself could exact the reprisals for which
the authorities are fairly unanimous that he hungered. Sulla had up
to this point assumed the persona of the much-maligned proconsul
of Rome and had taken great pains to justify the legal
underpinnings of his actions. Even his march on Rome, as
revolutionary as that had been, had been claimed by Sulla to have
been launched to “free her from her tyrants”.6 Now that he had
defeated his enemies in war, however, Sulla seems to have let that
persona slip,7 and in its place there was simple, naked, brutal
superior force without the restraint of law or pretence at obeying it.
Without the constrictions of the role he had been playing up to this
point, Sulla could give full vent to the fury and hatred of which his
personality, according to both his ancient and modern biographers,
made him abundantly capable. In fact, it seems likely that the
culture in which he had been raised had made a thirst for
vengeance something to be expected: Sulla’s Rome was one which
tended to encourage and even praise inimicitia, and while Sulla
would perhaps take it further than anyone before him, the extent of
his vengeance was merely a matter of degree.8 Sulla himself might
have argued that his anger was great because the injuries he had
suffered had been such, inspiring in him a willingness to condemn
6 The response he gave to emissaries from Rome while he was en route
in 87 was ὁ δ᾽ εἶπεν, ἐλευ ερώσων αὐτὴν ἀπὸ τῶν τυραννούντων (Appian.

1.7.57). See also chapter 7.
7 He would, as will be seen, presently don it again.
8 So Epstein, p. 74.
to death all those who crossed him and to deny them even the
opportunity for exile, just as he had in 88 (an example which Cinna
and Marius would follow). The recompense for this injury would
lead Sulla to extend his hatred further even then death, causing him
even to disturb the remains of his enemies who had died.
According to several sources,9 this fate that was visited on the
remains of Marius, as well as his monuments and those accorded to
other enemies, such as M. Marius Gratidianus10 (the amusement he
had derived from the head of the son of Marius has also been
described). Sulla’s memory was long, and he never seems to have
had any difficulty whatsoever in ordering the repayment in a most
terrible coinage of those who crossed him.11
Additionally, Sulla had for long maintained that his actions
were in part directed by the need to settle accounts, not just for his
own outrages, but also for those borne by the nobiles who had fled
to him. Accordingly, it would be rather more surprising to find that
Sulla had not allowed some of his followers to make use of the
proscriptions to satisfy their own thirst for vengeance than to
discover that he had. Therefore, while the lists were primarily
composed of Sulla’s enemies, the new master of Rome was also
apparently not above broadening his enmity to people against
9 Such as Cicero (de leg. 2.56), Valerius Maximus (9.2.1, which is almost
certainly probably derived from Cicero and mentioning that the remains
were scattered in the Anio), Granius Licinianus (35.26), and Pliny (NH
7.54.187), the latter two of which adding that Sulla’s daughter would later
ask that her father be cremated so that he avoid a similar posthumous
fate.
10 For the monuments of Marius, see Suetonius Div. Iul. 11; for
Gratidianus, see chapter 8 for sources, as well as below.

11 Keaveaney (1982, p. 156–158) cites this as the primary cause of the
carnage in his analysis of the proscriptions. As that scholar would have it,
the humiliations visited upon Sulla, his outlawry, and the threats to his
wife added an edge to Sulla’s thoroughness. Moreover, Keaveney asserts,
there was the epigraph Sulla composed for himself about not being
outstripped in kindness to his friends and terror to his foes ( οὗ κεφάλαιόν
ἐστιν ὡς οὔτε τῶν φίλων τις αὐτὸν εὖ ποιῶν οὔτε τῶν ἐχ ρῶν κακῶς
ὑπερε άλετο; cited in Plutarch, Sulla 38). Sulla had apparently been
determined to live by this principle, and now he was going to—for lack of
a better word—execute it to the fullest.
whom he had initially apparently felt no actual malice, on behalf of

those of his adherents who desired the unfortunates dead in order
to satisfy their own grudges. In this manner he allowed entries on
the rolls to be made as they were being composed, additions to
them to be inserted afterwards, and further emendations made to
proscribe those who had already been killed so that their deaths
became sanctioned and their property alienable (more below).12
Perhaps the best example of this, albeit the most gruesome, is the
case of M. Marius Gratidianus. His responsibility for the
prosecution and ultimate suicide of Q. Catulus was now to earn
him the horrific repayment of that man’s son, who (with the
apparent help of L. Sergius Catilina) had the wretch literally torn
asunder.13 In sum, the proscription list first and foremost gave to
Sulla, and then secondly gave to those of his followers who had a
need for it, the opportunity to satisfy their craving for revenge.
But beyond this visceral gratification was also the fact that the
proscriptions could also obviously be used to put known enemies
out of the way, for the purpose of keeping them from posing
difficulties to the reconstitution of the commonwealth which very
likely Sulla had already begun to contemplate and may have been
contemplating for some time. Whether these difficulties took the
form of actual dangers or simply annoying hindrances, it would
likely have seemed best to dispense with them from the outset. The
lists would, then, make known all those who were unambiguously
enemies of the state, and promptly have them put out of the way.
Indeed, they might also be used to sound out those whose loyalty
might be in question based on the reaction of these unknowns to
seeing the lists: those who disclosed dismay either due to scruple or
to connections with the condemned men might become
troublesome in their own right, and their discovery would allow for
them to be dealt with in turn. That the lists were also being used in
this was soon noticed by the Roman people, such that they started
to make a great display of enthusiasm for the murders and in this
way they could shown their loyalty and deflect suspicion from
themselves, as Dio suggests (frg. 109). The proscriptions were
12 Plut., Sull. 31; Cassius Dio, fr. 109.

13 For sources see Greenidge and Clay, p. 200.
therefore motivated in part by hatred, and part by common sense:

by means of them Sulla could remove anyone who had in any way
already harmed him and his associates, and could discover and
dispense with anyone who might do so at a later date.
As has been seen, one of the purposes of the proscriptions
had been been the fulfillment of Sulla’s desire to give satisfaction to
his adherents and, in a sense, to reward them for their support. It
then follows that the element of reward was part of the
proscriptions, both in the sanguinary sense and in the literal
financial one: there was profit to be reaped from the killing, as men
were given bounties for bringing in the heads of those who were
declared meritorious of death. Moreover, appearance on the
proscription lists did not just spell the end of a man’s life, but also
meant the seizure and permanent alienation of his property. Some
of this confiscated property was given by Sulla to his comrades,
some sold to them at prices so low that they were very nearly
outright gifts, and some sold at auction for equally ridiculous
bargain rates. Fortunes could therefore be made even for those
who did not personally execute or inform on the proscribed
through the sale of confiscated lands and goods, a condition of
which advantage was probably taken by many others besides such
famous examples as Chrysogonus, the much-despised villian of
Cicero’s Pro Roscio, and M. Licinius Crassus, who fell to buying up
the property of the condemned with such enthusiasm that it soon
alienated even Sulla.14
Yet the purchase and use of property acquired in this manner
did have one fundamental condition: in order for it to be legal, then
the proscriptions had to be legal as well. What this condition
further meant was that Sulla could never be allowed to be declared
retroactively an outlaw and his deeds vitiated without affecting the
fortunes of the many who had attained profit by them. In a sense,
this was merely an extension of the same basic policy Sulla had
14 So Appian (1.11.96) and Plutarch (Cras. 2; 6). Nor were his
supporters amongst the nobiles the only ones to prosper. If Plutarch’s

Sull. 33 is to be believed, Sulla liberally dispensed some of the property of
the condemned men to his favorites from his earlier life in the slums of
Rome.
used from the Allied War after the stoning of Albinus (see chapter
6). When this murder had occurred, Sulla had allowed the men
guilty of it to atone for their crime and evade punishment by valor
in battle, with the implicit understanding imparted to those
compromised men that forgiveness could only come from their—
and his—continued success. Sulla’s authority would protect the
men who had killed Albinus, but it was clearly to be understood
that should anything have happened to him—should he be
declared a hostis, for example, and the protective aegis of his
authority in some way weakened—then the avenue would be open
for later prosecutors to come after the guilty parties whom he had
sheltered. That policy had the result of making men who had been
compromised some of Sulla’s most valuable supporters. As has
been seen, Sulla’s soldiers had become his partners in crime during
the march on Rome, towards the end that they be led east. They
came home much wealthier from the excursion, and were soon also
to enjoy estates given to them that were supplied by the property of
those Italian communities which had chosen the wrong side. But
these soldiers were still guilty of a stunning offense from whose
consequences they would be shielded only as long as Sulla lived
and his arrangements were in place, and they could definitely still
be condemned if those arrangements and their author were
threatened. The same held true for the soldiers who would bind
themselves to Sulla’s cause during the Civil War, and applied with
even more force to those partisans who had taken part in the
bloodshed of the proscriptions for personal motives. To a less
dangerous but no less effective extent, it would also attach to those
men who received some sort of monetary benefit from the
proscriptions.
Thus, those who had during the proscriptions quenched their
thirst for blood, had made fortunes from the property of
comdemned men, or both—these would be invulnerable as long as
Sulla’s auctoritas obtained and provided them with immunity from
prosecution or vendetta, but they would stand to lose in a
significant way if that auctoritas were ever questioned. There were
very few of Sulla’s supporters who did not in some way or another
profit from an illegality committed by them or on their behalf:
Crassus and his millions, Pompeius and his standing both as

imperator and, later, triumphator15 in spite of his legal ineligibility for
both, and countless others all owed something to Sulla and his
willingness to stretch, bend, or break laws to keep their favor.
Finally, Sulla’s willingness to twist leges et mores for the benefit
of his partisans would have other effects as well, most notably the
seizure of moral high ground. As has been seen, large numbers of
people stood to gain from Sulla’s enactments, of whom the most
obvious were members of his own factio. It may have been that not
only the proscriptions but also other, later elements of the policy
which Sulla would pursue had met with private reservations from
these men, but it was doubtful whether they would ever speak
these reservations aloud, much less publicly; it would be difficult to
decry some of Sulla’s measures as contrary to law while gathering
the harvest planted by his other illegalities. In this way, then, Sulla
had used the proscription lists to remove his enemies and clear his
path of danger, while simultaneously both rewarding his own
following and effectively binding their hands and tongues. As long
as Sulla’s actions were lawful, than the men killed and that property
taken arrived at that status lawfully, but should any moves later be
made to declare Sulla a criminal or undo his edicts, than the status
of the men and property would be questioned and those who been
involved with them would find themselves in jeopardy.16
It seems, then, that Sulla had arranged for both the massacres
and proscription lists in large part out of the desire to strengthen
links with his supporters and destroy his enemies, thereby
removing any resistance to himself and his cause. In the corporeal
sense there can be no doubt that he had been quite effective: the
rivers of blood shed after the Colline Gate had gone far to
eliminating his antagonists or intimidating those who were still
15 For this triumph see the Periocha of Livy’s book 89, and Plutarch
(Pomp. 14). This triumph was not granted without some reluctance on
Sulla’s part, since the request of Pompey had been made somewhat later
when Sulla was more inclined towards lawfulness (see below).
16 Cassius Dio, frg. 108, offers a similar explanation, as does Appian
1.11.96 (concerning lands for Sulla’s veterans) and 1.12.104 (by way of
offering a justification for the sang froid with which he was able to lay
down his power). See also Gruen 1974, p. 8–9.
alive. However, there was a limit to what simple murder could do.
Admittedly, the removal of thousands of Romans, old and new
alike, and the redistribution of their goods had gone far towards
painting over the blemishes which Sulla seems to have perceived
on his picture of an ideal Rome. Of these Sulla had thus far
provided erasure. However, events would show that he was not
satisfied with that erasure, but also intended to add his own
touches to the painting. For that, a different type of force than
physical would be needed, and that force—and the way it was
applied—will be discussed next.
3. THE LEGES CORNELIAE

At some point Sulla seems to have come to the conclusion that the
Roman Commonwealth was in need of repair, and it could not be
denied that the decade of the 80s had indeed seen to the wreckage
of a great deal of it. As the sole wielder of power in Italy, Sulla was
in a prime position to remake the state in whatever way he saw fit,
and it seems he had a design for how to do so for how to do so. In
fact, it was one whose intricacy and thoroughness indicates that it
had been one of lengthy contemplation. Just when and where this
contemplation had started cannot be determined. Nevertheless, at
some point the voluptuary who had spent his youth amongst the
actors, prostitutes, and poor of Rome, the sort who had not only
not held office but had not even done basic military service, had
become a legal theorist. In 82, with practically limitless powers of
compulsion at his command, Sulla stood ready to become the
architect of a new Commonwealth, or, as one biographer referred
to him, a “Deadly Reformer”.17
However, Sulla was doubtless aware that anything established
in Rome by compulsion could always later be undone. Lasting
repairs could only be made by means of laws, and it seems that
Sulla had a few in mind for the creation of his new society. His
attempts at lawmaking activity after the March on Rome years
earlier almost certainly represent an early attempt at enacting these.
Yet it appears that those early attempts had failed, having been
rejected by the people. Sulla was now ready to try again, and the
17 So Ernst Badian in the title of his very short work on Sulla.

speech he is reported as having made to the Roman people by

Appian indicates as much (see above). But such laws needed to be
made by legal means, and to pass them, he would need to gain the
power to make laws in a way that was unimpeachably proper. This
need was for more than appearance’s sake, although it was certainly
the case that a concern for legality had been a hallmark of Sulla’s
public persona from the beginning, as seen above. Since 88, Sulla
always framed it that his opponents had violated the existing law,
had disregarded vows to uphold the statutes he had made, and had
held offices illegally due to iteration or youth. This justified his
actions, as he himself was Rome’s consul proconsul entitled to a
command taken from him without justice. Furthermore, these
offices conferred upon Sulla the responsibility to save the state for
those who would destroy it (as he claimed his enemies were doing)
by any means necessary. Even the proscriptions could in a sense be
justified legally: assuming that the Senate had reinstated the
imperium he had lost when traversing the pomerium, Sulla still held a
command.18 By treating the executed as enemies not just of
himself, but of Rome, he could justify their deaths as within his
18 On the other hand, see Keaveney (1987, p. 162). The assumption
made throughout his account was that Sulla had not himself ever entered
Rome during the whole affair, since that would have cost him his office,
although it seems fairly obvious from the statements of Appian that, just
as in 88, he had indeed crossed the pomerium in 82 (1.10.89 states that
while Sulla had left his men outside the gates of the Campus Martius, he
himself crossed in; αὐτίκα ἐπελ ὼν τὴν μὲν στρατιὰν ἵδρυσε πρὸ τῶν πυλῶν ἐν
τῷ Ἀρείῳ πεδίῳ, αὐτὸς δ᾽ εἴσω παρῆλ εν. Later, 1.11.98 says that Sulla went
outside the city while the people chose an interrex, implying that earlier he
had been inside; αὐτὸς μέν που τῆς πόλεως ὑπεξῆλ ε). Keaveney himself
strongly hints at that that earlier crossing on pages 65–67 and later on p.
221. Of course, it is possible that Keaveney is right, at least for 82; while
Sulla had indeed crossed in 88 as consul, he had not crossed over again
once named proconsul, and that the entry into Rome mentioned by
Appian had been into districts over which the pomerium had not extended.
Alternatively, it is equally possible that the Senate simply extended his
proconsular powers after he had driven out Damasippus, as has been
argued here. The result was nevertheless the same: whether he had had his
imperium restored, or whether he had never lost it, he almost certainly had
it in after the Colline Gate.
purview as proconsul and the seizure of property as the spoil of

war. In this way, Sulla may have pulled and twisted at his consular
powers earlier and his proconsular imperium now to show that he
was not only right in his actions, but even duty-bound to perform
them. Yet no amount of pushing and shoving could entitle Sulla to
make laws as a proconsul.19 To do that, another kind of authority
would be needed, one which would not only have to be accepted
but which would even have official sanction.
Legislative power could come from three offices available to
Sulla, of which two were inadequate for his particular needs. These
were the praetorate and the consulate,20 of which the former
would, perhaps, not have the required maiestas for what he was
contemplating. It would also involve colleagues and potentially
inconvenient and time-consuming elections. As everything true of a
praetorate was also true for a consulate, it too would not suffice,
and less still a suffect consulate, which would have become
available when the deaths of Carbo and Marius the Younger had
left these magistracies open. Further, such magistracies would
involve not only assemblies for election, but also assemblies of the
people to approve the laws passed. Given what seems to have been
Sulla’s rebuff with these in 88, it seems that neither these offices
nor the lawmaking capacity inherent in them had the potency for
what Sulla wished to accomplish.
The third office, however, would, and to attain it, Sulla
ordered the Senate to appoint an Interrex. The man chosen for it
was L. Valerius Flaccus,21 who had likely suspected that he would
be presiding over a comitia, as tradition stated Interreges should do in
the absences of consuls. Appian records his surprise that Sulla
instead wished Flaccus to use the powers of the Interrex to perform
another function of the consuls, which was to name a Dictator
19 For the inability of a promagistrate to summon the assembly (and
thus propose a law), see George Willis Botsford, The Roman Assemblies from
their Origin to the End of the Republic (MacMillan Company: New York,
1909), p. 141.
20 As a patrician the tribunate was closed to him, but given his hatred
for that office it seems that he would not have desired it even if it were
available.
21 See also Bellen, p. 55–569.
(1.11.99). This position, according to Velleius (2.28.2), Plutarch

(Sull. 33) and Appian (loc. cit.), had been in long desuetude and was
therefore itself something of a novelty.22 In addition, to judge from
Cicero’s recollection on the nomination in a letter to Atticus, the
use of an interrex to name a dictator in this way was either not legal
or at least violated custom (Att. 9.15.2).23 But Sulla would go a step
further even than this breach of orthodoxy. Since in this instance
the post would be for a specific legislative purpose, that of “the
enactment of such laws as he himself might deem best and for the
regulation of the commonwealth” (ὅτι αὐτὸν αἱροῖντο δικτάτορα ἐπὶ
έσει νόμων, ὧν αὐτὸς ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ δοκιμάσειε, καὶ καταστάσει τῆς
πολιτείας), Sulla additionally managed to orchestrate it that the
appointment be indefinite instead of fixed with the limit of six
months that usually devolved on the office (Appian 1.11.99;
1.0.3).24 Appian then laconically adds that “the Romans did not like
22 Both the former sources state it had not been occupied for
120 years at the time when Sulla took it; the latter states “400 years”
(παυσάμενον ἔ ος ἐκ τετρακοσίων ἐτῶν), a mistake which Gabba attributes
to carelessness on Appian’s part (1956, p. 96). Instead of noticing that 400
years had elapsed since the appointment of Titus Larcius, the first
dictator, and that of Sulla, Gabba argues that Appian had mistakenly
combined his awareness of the fact that there had been a long time since a
dictator had been appointed with this interval of time and came up with
the flawed figure.
23 For a further discussion of the legitimacy of the office so conferred,
see Wittmann (p. 563–572).

24 Indeed, Keaveney (1982, p. 160–165) notes that in all likelihood
Sulla had waited until he had evidence of the deaths of Carbo and Marius
the Younger before suggesting the office and had deliberately chosen an
interrex to select it, since, due to the fact that this would not be a
traditional Dictatorship, he would not want to be elevatted to it in the
traditional way. This is not entirely congruent with with the elements of
the Dictatorship which, as Keaveney himself notes, Sulla conspicuously
adopted, such as the proper number of lictors (so Appian 1.11.100,
although the Periochae 89 notes that this was an anomaly) and the fact that
he had magistrates elected after his assumption of office. In this instance,
as in many others, it seems Sulla was adopting that ambiguous approach
to the law which was a hallmark of his career: obeying it—and insisting on
it its obedience—when it suited him, bending it when it suited him, and
it, but they had no more opportunities for elections according to

law, and they considered that this matter was not altogether in their
own power”.25 By this last, the powerlessness of the Romans, the
author was probably making reference to the proscriptions which
were, of course, continuing at this time and would not ultimately be
ended until the next year. Since presumably anyone who
complained too loudly about the irregularities of this proposed
Dictatorship would soon find himself a public enemy, Sulla seems
to have achieved a silence for what he was doing which he
interpreted as tacit approval.26 Having killed or terrified into silence
any potential enemies to his scheme, and having thus quieted by
many favors any objections it, from his supporters, Sulla was
therefore named Dictator, and in addition Flaccus attached the
provision that “everything which he has done should be ratified”
(L. Flaccus interrex de Sulla tulit, ut omnia quaecumque ille fecisset essent
rata; Cicero, de leg. agr. 3.5).
Having assumed this new office with its indefinite expiry and
practically limitless powers, Sulla then went to work remedying the
ills he perceived in the Republic. Over the course of his next few
years in office the laws he passed to that effect were many, and
some were of fairly small consequence in the long run:27 the
reconstruction and expansion of the Curia Hostilia (Dio 40.5.3)28
and the rebuilding of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus (Plutarch
breaking it when it suited him. Witness, for example, his looting of

Aeclanum, his compassion for the murderers of Albinus, his march on
Rome, and the triumph of Pompey, as compared to his vengeance on
those who violated the peace terms proposed by Scipio and the fate of
Ofella (about which more directly).
25 Ῥωμαῖοι δ᾽ οὐχ ἑκόντες μὲν οὐδὲ κατὰ νόμον ἔτι χειροτονοῦντες οὐδὲν
οὐδ᾽ ἐπὶ σφίσιν ἡγούμενοι τὸ ἔργον ὅλως; 1.11.99. The English translation
here and in the passage above is that of Horace White from his Loeb
version of the text.
26 They would continue until the Kalends of June 81, according to the
evidence of Cicero (Pro Roscius 44.128).

27 For a lengthier discussion of Sulla’s laws, see Hantos 1988, p. 19–
167.
28 Although for the symbolic nature of this project, see Morstein-
Marx, p. 55–57.
Publ. 15.1–2, Tacitus Hist. 3.72) are examples, as were also his
sumptuary laws (Gellius 2.24.11, Macrobius Sat. 3.17.11–12; it was
presumably these to which Plutarch makes reference in his account
of the funeral of Sulla’s wife, during which he broke his own law
himself; Sull. 35). These edicts, like a number of others (such as the
setting up of permanent courts for apparently persistent offenses,
to be staffed only by Senators), were in some cases not
revolutionary in and of themselves, and in others were hardly of
sweeping significance for the Commonwealth.29 In essence, all of
these laws these basically were of concern to very few of either the
new or the old Romans. Yet others of his laws were of decidedly
greater import, and involved a wide circle of Romans of every
description.
Among these decrees of greater weight were the ones dealing
with public enemies. In the first place, the sons and future
descendants of all those proscribed would, in addition to
permanent loss of their father’s property, ever after lack the ability
to hold office.30 There were a number of reasons for enacting such
a measure, over and above the reasons attached to the
proscriptions already discussed. Visiting the sins of the fathers onto
the sons and grandsons in terms of officeholding was well within
Sulla’s revenge aesthetic, and while what the confiscation and resale
of the proscribed man’s property had already made it probable that
their heredes unable to meet the property qualifications for
candidacy, this additional debility would guarantee that inability.
Furthermore, such a measure also effectively debarred any potential
future incident whereby some later magistrate who was son or
grandson to the proscribed could propose laws to undo Sulla’s
whole system.
Nevertheless, even if such men lacked the power to reverse
their own reversal of fortune, it might be possible that they could
29 For an excellent survey of these laws, see Keaveney 1982, p. 176–

179.
30 Among many other sources for this (the proscriptions and their
consequences was a favorite topic in antiquity), see Cicero (Ep. ad Fam.

13.5) the Periochae of Livy’s book 89; Velleius Paterculus (2.28), and
Cassius Dio (51.21.6, and also 43.50.2, in which the magnanimity of
Caesar is contrasted to the cruelty of Sulla in this regard).
gain the sympathy of a latter-day statesman who could remove

these debilities on their behalf. It is also likely that Sulla resurrected
one of his attempted leges from 88, one whose terms mandated that
only those laws which had gained the approval of the Senate could
be voted upon by the people,31 which would also help in squashing
any future attempts to undo his reforms. Whether or not that law
was brought forward in 81, it is definitely known that another one
from 88 was, namely that which deprived tribunes entirely of their
ability to introduce legislation (Per. 89).32 In this way, only higher
magistrates could make laws at all, and if the Senatorial approval
law was enacted, those who might endeavor to make future laws
which would undo the new order would first have to go through
the body which would likely have benefited most from that order
and from its architect. Moreover, the hamstringing of the tribunate
would have the additional effect of greatly diminishing the appeal
of that office in the eyes of those who might run for it. In the past,
this post had often become a stepping stone for politicians looking
to build a following for a run at later high office by playing the
popularis and introducing crowd-pleasing legislation. The tribunate
could now no longer provide this opportunity.
Yet it seems Sulla wanted to take no chances with this
magistracy, one which had been in no small part responsible for
many of his own difficulties. For this reason he went to even
greater lengths to weaken it further still. To make sure that the
tribunate would ever after suffer from a lack of ambitious, well-
connected men to seek and hold it, Sulla additionally decreed that
any man who had held this post in the future would never be
31 See Chapter 7 for these laws and the question as to whether or not
they had passed.
32 See also Caesar, Bell. Civ. 1.7.3, claiming that Sulla had stripped the
tribunate of all powers save the intercessio, although Cicero (2 Verr.

1.50.155) seems to imply that even that had been diminished (in the de
legibus he notes only that their power to do harm had been eliminated;
3.22). Gruen disagrees with the removal of the intercessio, quite probably
correctly (op. cit., p. 23, where he bases his argument in the words of
Caesar). Suetonius (Div. Iul. 5), the de viris illustribus (75.11), Appian
(1.11.100; 2.29) merely note that tribunicial powers had been diminished,
but do not specify how.
eligible for any higher magistracy after so doing (Appian 1.11.100;

Asconius 67, 78). In such a way, then, Sulla produced a tribunate
which could neither propose nor pass laws and whose holders
would commit political suicide by being elected to it.33 It would
thus be desirable only to men who lacked desire or hope for
climbing higher, and thus probably second-rate figures anyway. By
these means, Sulla had indeed turned the office into an imaginem sine
re, as Velleius claims (2.30).
What seems to have motivated Sulla in his legislative initiative
was in part his own personal motives (to obtain revenge, and to do
well by his friends), and in part simple good sense (to remove
opposition and keep his friends close by means of favors
conferred). It also seems indubitable that another motivation was
his own particular political philosophy. As has been seen,
somewhere along the line the one-time dissolute youth had
developed a profound conservatism about Roman policy. Thus,
even though his own career in its breaking of countless Roman
laws was far from the standard one,34 when put in the position to
remake the Republic into whatever form he chose, the form he
selected was one of fairly rigid tradition. An important aspect of
the programme he then inaugurated seems to have been his
concern to make sure that power in Rome be kept out of the hands
of the wrong people, as Sulla defined them. Sulla defined these,
based on his laws and actions, as his own political and personal
enemies, who now acquired the status of enemies of the state and
were either dead or well-hidden. He also defined these as their
descendants, and further still defined them as tribunes of the kind
who had existed before his reorganization of that office. This was
33 Keaveney (1982, p. 169) also argues that the tribunate had also been
stripped of the power of summoning and dismissing the Senate, based on

the implication of Appian (2.29) that Pompey had restored that very right,
a restoration the general would come to regret. He also argues that the
intercessio was greatly diminished, although two passages in Julius Caesar’s
Civil Wars (1.5.7 and 1.7.3) clearly state that Sulla left the intercessio
untouched (as, again, noted by Gruen, loc. cit.).
34 Laws which he would continue to violate, as has been hinted in his
grant of a triumph to Pompeius; moreover, on the death of his wife he

broke his own sumptuary edict at her funeral (see above).
the sort who had once either been ambitious men seeking to gain
name recognition for future elections by means of currying favor
with the populace, serious revolutionaries, or been both. Now that
these wrong people had been neutralized,35 it fell to the Dictator to
strengthen the powers of the right people, especially their grip on
the Senate and the higher magistracies whose nominees would
work in cooperation with that body. The power of both of these
had been bolstered by the diminution of the tribunate, which had
the effect of guaranteeing that all future legislation would come
from the higher magistrates, and may also have been further
augmented by the requirement of Senatoral approval of laws these
higher magistrates would promulgate. Having broadened their
capabilities, however, Sulla then apparently went about changing
the numbers of the men who would serve either in the Council or
in the offices whose tenure would lead to a Senatorial seat.
The Senate by 81 was in somewhat sorry shape, having
endured losses of its members through deaths in battle, riots,
murders, and massacres. Assuming it had managed to achieve
300 members during the lectio of 86, which was by no means a
foregone conclusion, proscriptions since then had taken away at
least ninety of them and perhaps as many as 200.36 To supplement
the Senate’s numbers, both for the sake of the dignity of the body
and because they would be needed for the permanent courts he
was establishing (as mentioned above), Sulla used the powers of his
office to add men to the Council. Exactly how many men were to
be added is a matter of debate, since neither the precise numbers of
men in the Senate after the proscriptions nor the numbers of
Senatorial membership after Sulla’s reforms are known. However, a
letter of Cicero (ad Att. 1.14) suggests that after Sulla the Senate
numbered over four hundred at least, and scholarly consensus
35 And other “wrong men” could be defined as the equites, at least

when it came to the courts; these were now no longer to serve on juries
(Vell. 2.32).
36 For the former figure, Appian (1.12.103); for the latter, Orosius
(5.22.4) and Eutropius (5.9), though this reckoning may have included all
the Senators who fell in the Allied War and the unpleasantness after the
return of Marius and Cinna.
suggests its body included at least 600 men.37 The only number
given concretely by way of Sulla’s own additions is that mentioned
in Appian (1.11.100), who suggests that Sulla increased the Senate
by 300 men. Who these men were is also a matter of conjecture.
Sallust, a by no means unbiased author, mentions common soldiers
gaining the Curia (multi memores Sullanae victoriae, quod ex gregariis
militibus alios senatores videbant; Bell. Cat. 37.6), and Dionysius of
Halicarnassus likewise mentions “common people” placed therein
( ουλ ν τε γὰρ ἐκ τῶν ἐπιτυχόντων ἀν ρώπων συνέστ σε, 5.77.5).38
Appian and Periochae of Livy, however, specify that the new
senators came from the equites.39 This last might be surprising, given
Sulla’s apparent distaste for that class from whom he would take
the courts (more below). But it can be explained rather easily by
assuming that the equites in question were those men who were of
property rating to merit service in the cavalry but who had not
gone into politics. These would be the sons and brothers of
Senators who had possibly not yet been able to run for office due
to military service, or who had met with electoral misfortune, but
who were otherwise of the right class, background, ability, and
outlook.40 Given the specific purposes for which Sulla reordered
the Senate, which was, again, in part to dispense the proper kind of
justice in the courts, it seems more likely that the new Senators
would have mostly been these men rather than the rough soldiers
that Sallust describes, though it is not impossible that Sulla
included a few of those as well (including the same Fufidius
described by some sources as having played a prominent role in the
37 So Syme (1938, p. 10) and Gabba (1976, p. 142).

38 Then again, Dionysius makes this claim in the same passage where
he mentions 40,000 men massacred by Sulla during the end of the Civil
Wars, so the accuracy of the statement is therefore susceptible to doubt;
see earlier note.
39 Appian 1.11.110; Per. 89.
40 So Hill (1932, p. 170–177). Gabba, however, believes that Hill was
too exclusive in his definition of equites (1976, p. 146), in agreement with

Syme (1938, p. 22–23). It will perhaps be observed that this plan is in
many ways identical to the Senatorial increase which has earlier been
attributed to Drusus (see Chapter 3), a fact which Gabba (op. cit., p. 136)
also noticed.
proscriptions).41 Such an adlection would accord well with the sort

of scandalous generosity displayed by Sulla that as described by
Plutarch (Sull. 33), although it was probably the case any of these
milites to be so adlected were almost certainly in numbers so small
that they would be harmless.
As mentioned above, it was apparently of concern to Sulla to
make sure that the right sort of men acquire or retain power, and
that the wrong men be deprived of or kept from it. The right men
in this case would be those who he personally elevated to the
Senate, but since these would no more be immortal than Sulla was
himself, a mechanism had to be installed to guarantee replacements
for these men when they inevitably died or retired. This was
accomplished by means of a regularization of the cursus honorum,
whose first step—the quaestorate—would bring automatic entry
into the Senate (Tacitus, Ann. 11.22). The numbers of the
quaestors were also increased to twenty (about which more will be
discussed directly), which meant that every year twenty additional
Senators42 would be added to the chamber by the people
themselves through election. It is probably in reference to this edict
that Appian makes the otherwise highly unlikely claim that the
tribes approved each addition to the Senate made by Sulla from the
equites (αὐτῇ δὲ τῇ ουλῇ ... προσκατέλεξεν ἀμφὶ τοὺς τριακοσίους ἐκ
τῶν ἀρίστων ἱππέων, ταῖς φυλαῖς ἀναδοὺς ψῆφον περὶ ἑκάστου;
1.11.100). That author’s source probably mentions that the number
of quaestors would added to the Senate in addition to the numbers
which Sulla elevated directly, and thus the comitia would indeed—in
a manner of speaking—approve men from the equites (or, rather,
from the equestrian property rating, necessary for election to
office). Yet those who gained the Curia in this fashion were almost
certainlty not the same as the men enrolled by Sulla’s adlection,
which would have almost certainly have been done by dictate and
therefore not susceptible to popular approval or denial.43
41 So Syme (op. cit., p. 13).

42 Give or take, depending on whether these quaestors were already
men in the Senate seeking re-election to that office for some reason.
43 This is the argument of Hardy (1916, p. 61–62), and is almost
certainly the correct one.

Having exerted himself to ensure that the Senate would always

be staffed by the right sort of men, steps would need to be taken to
thrust (and keep) the wrong sort of men out of it. Who these
wrong men were can, again, in part be defined as the enemies of
Sulla, and by means of the proscription these men were either dead
or exiled. Likewise, their sons were deprived of their property, and
even if these sons still managed to maintain the sufficient property
rating to run for office in spite of this, they were nevertheless kept
out of elected office by law (as discussed above). The wrong men
apparently also included most of the Italians and especially men
from the communities of the Marsi, Marrucini, and Paeligni, who
by the time of Cicero had yet to have sent a single man to the
Senate.44 This may, of course, have been a coincidence, and
certainly in the aftermath of the Civil War it can be imagined that
other difficulties not directly attributable to lawmaking by the
dictator would have stood in the way of the gaining of office for
men from these peoples. Of course, Sulla may have been
responsible from keeping out some of these by acta, if not the his
leges, as those whom Sulla would have considered enemies would
have taken care of the proscriptions; these would either have been
killed or would have had to go into hiding.45 Moreover, it will be
seen that additional confiscations beyond those of the
proscriptions were also visited on some of the former Allied
communities, and the loss of property which resulted from these
might have rendered even more men ineligible through lack of the
necessary wealth. However, it is to be doubted that these forces
alone would be enough to keep all of these men out for such an
extended period of time, and it is additionally possible that their
exclusion was not coincidental but deliberate. In fact, Sulla himself
had as his disposal powers which would be more than adequate to
exclude them if he so desired.
That he held this desire is occasionally disputed, and it is
sometimes argued that, no matter what his stance on Italian rights
had been in 88, by after 84 he is alleged to have undergone a
44 So, again, Syme (op. cit., p. 5–6).

45 Likewise, the sons of such men would have been made ineligible by
law, as was the case with other Romans.
substantial alteration in the position and had no difficulties with

them, as his attitude during the Civil War is taken to illustrate.46 But
an analysis of his behavior over those years suggests no profound
transformation. Barring the assumption that Sulla’s attitude
towards the Italians was not based on something like racism47 and
was instead informed by a desire to keep them from holding any
real power so as to preserve it for Romans of older lineage, there is
little in the actions he took during the Civil War that is indicative of
a change of his opinion about their inclusion in the Roman state.
Those actions which do seem to indicate such a change are
generally explained instead good strategic sense. For example, it
seems he did indeed make of Marsi and even Samnites amongst his
soldiers, left alone those communities which did not attack him,
and negotiated favorable terms with some of the Italian peoples (as
has been seen). However, to have done otherwise would have been
folly, given the multitude of enemies already ranged against him.
Of greater import may be his promise to preserve the tribal
redistribution, a promise he seems to have kept. On the surface this
may indeed indicate a perspective on Italian rights than was not a
determined opposition to them, and suggests that the worst fears
of the former socii, on which Cinna and Carbo had so artfully
played, were unfounded. Yet here again, as was often the case with
instances of Sulla’s alleged generosity, he actually lost very little
from keeping his promise in this case, and his doing so certainly
made so little difference towards a sharing of power that a
46 This point is made repeatedly by Keaveney (see 1982, p. 121; 1982b,
p. 499).
47 See, again, Isaac (5–23), whose analysis of racism in the classical
world concludes that it was focused on those from different geographical

areas than the Mediterranean, as opposed to those from different
ethnicities and languages. As the Samnites and other Italians came from
essentially the same region that Sulla did, it is unlikely that racial prejudice
in the modern sense (a feeling Isaac implies that Sulla would not have
understood) motivated his actions. As mentioned in chapter 4, however,
Isaac does not make a convincing case for the impossibility of an
irrational hatred of Samnites based on perceived cultural or thenic
differences, and this in turn means that Sulla might well have harbored
these.
conversion experience towards a newfound support for the former

Allies cannot really be discerned. Having been left redistributed by
Sulla, former Allies could, it is true, vote in the comitia tributa, which
could approve or reject laws.48 This posed no real danger to the
Senatorial control of legislation, since through Sulla’s programmthe
comitia tributa could no longer be used by tribunes to pass laws and
thus bypass Senatorial approval, as they once could do. The votes
of neither former Allied citizens not those of any others could
therefore be mobilized by radical tribunes to change to fabric of
the Roman state against the wishes of what was without question
its most conservative members. In this sense, the former Italians
were just as powerless to help unmake or alter the Commonwealth
as Romans of more ancient pedigree, and it can be doubted
whether Sulla considered it worth the hassle to take from the Allies
a legislative power which was practically negligible.
There was still the fact that the comitia tributa also elected the
lower magistrates, and this could theoretically have led to a
scenario in which Allied voters could, over time, have caused some
disturbances for any arrangement by which Sulla may have sought
to exclude them from influence by means of electing such
magistrates. Due to Sulla’s own reform of the cursus (more below)
former Italians could, by their vote, help name men to the Senate,
perhaps even men from their own communities. The men so
named would, of course, not be very influential in the curia in the
beginning, but even as “back-benchers” the men so endorsed by
the novi could indicate acceptance or rejection of laws proposed by
the higher magistrates. Over time, these men—some, perhaps, of
Italian origins themselves—might be able to make progress along
48 Appian does not mention that Sulla put forward any act to take
away the right of approval of laws from the comitia tributa; indeed, the fact
that lawmaking power was retained by the comitia tributa is suggested by
Millar’s assertion that lawmaking by the comitia centuriata was so rare in the
late republic as to be anomalous (1998, p. 16–18; 150–151). Indeed,
Mouritsen states that the comitia centuriata had not actually voted to pass a
legislative act since the third century (2001, p. 88), although Cicero notes
that they had voted to take away the citizenship of some Italian towns (de
dom. 30.79). Perhaps Mouritsen draws the distinction between an
annulment and a positive enactment.
the cursus, and their ex-Allied supporters might even be able to help
them advance towards magistracies with real legislative power.
Sulla seems to have foreseen this, however, as other aspects of
Sulla’s lawmaking diminished this possibility. In the first place, part
of the power of the Dictatorship was the right to name Senators, a
power which Sulla seemed to have exercised. In this way, Dictators
were given powers that were more often associated with another
magistracy. As was mentioned during the discussion of what seems
to have been Sulla’s earlier adlection proposal from 88,49 such a
nomination was traditionally the function of the censors. No
census is recorded for having taken place in 81, and indeed none
would be again until the year 70. This seems to provide evidence
for a contention that, while Sulla did allow some magistracies to be
filled by election during his tenure as Dictator (more below), the
Censors were not among them. One consequence of this is readily
apparent: without censors, Sulla himself as Dictator would be the
individual who to determine who would sit in the Senate, and who
would not. Sulla could therefore easily expunge would-be Senators
ex officio, including those from Allied communities who had become
eligible through election to lower magistracies.
Another less obvious result of the absence of the censors
would be that no enumeration of the people would have taken
place during his Dictatorship, and none indeed seems to have been.
This would mean that the last counting of the populus would have
taken place in 86, and for reasons described earlier, this produced a
number of citizens which was quite low, perhaps artificially so.50 If
this was in fact the case, then very few of the former Italians may
have managed to acquire a census rating necessary to be able to run
for office (save, presumably, by a special dispensation from Sulla
himself), and this fact would also keep such former Italians from
joining the Senate through officeholding. The absence of censors,
and thus the absence of census ratings, would also carry another
consequence for the political participation of the novi cives. As has
49 See chapter 7, which also includes an investigation as to whether or
not this law was in fact properly dated to this time by Appian in the first
place.
50 See chapters 8 and 9 for this census.
been discussed, while the comitia tributa elected the lower offices,
the comitia centuriata—in which membership was determined, as its
name implies, by the census rating—elected consuls. Therefore,
while all Italians in Sulla’s Republic could vote on laws in the comitia
tributa and on the lower magistracies (with certain exceptions; see
below), they could only vote on laws put to them by magistrates for
which many may not have been able to vote, ones which probably
had to have gotten the approval of the Senate into whose numbers
even the wealthiest of former Allies may not have been able to be
elected, or from which Sulla could summarily expel them if they
had been. Speculation that Sulla’s earlier stance on the Italians may
have softened may therefore not be warranted. Sulla’s powers
allowed him to keep anyone he wished from having power in the
state he was building, and the evidence suggests that many of the
former socii were within that segment from which he did not care to
see the Senate or the magistracies drawn.51
By these measures Sulla revitalized the Senate and made
certain that it was filled with those of whom he approved. For what
must have been a similar purpose, Sulla also turned his attention to
the magistracies. Since these men would be supplying future
members of the Senate, trying cases under the permanent courts he
had established, governing the provinces, leading Rome’s armies,
and making and approving laws after such a time when Sulla
himself would no longer be doing so, it would stand to reason that
he devote some attention to these men. These offices also had to
be filled by the right people, and as has been seen above, steps
were taken that would at least keep the wrong people, as defined by
51 Syme 1938, p. 5–6. However, Syme does recognise that some

former Allies did make it to the Senate, among them a Samnite who had
gone to Sulla’s side (p. 22–23). Gabba, whose desire to acquit Sulla of
anti-Italian prejudice appears often in his works (see, for example, 1976,
p. 97, 136–137, and 140, where he himself makes note of this tendency)
has likewise compiled a list of seventeen “Sullan” senators who were or
might have been former Allies, mostly of them Campanian (1976 p. 62 as
well as note 29, p. 214). It will be observed that eighteen men out of 600
in the Senate (see above) hardly speaks to Sulla’s cheerful commitment to,
or even a grudging acceptance of, former Italian participation in his new
state.
Sulla, away from them. Assuming that, by the excision of the

wrong people, only the right people would be left, it was apparently
additionally deemed necessary that there be more of these right
people in some of the offices than had been the case previously.
For this reason, measures were enacted which increased the
number of quaestors to twenty (as seen above), and the number of
praetors to eight.52 The purposes of such measures are not hard to
seek: since the quaestorate automatically conferred membership in
the Senate, twenty men each year would add to its ranks and would
provide plenty of jurists for the courts (as explained by Tacitus,
Ann. 11.22). These courts were now under Senatorial control per
the Dictator’s decree, having been removed from the equites who
had served as jurists for decades (Tacitus, loc. cit.; Velleius, 2.32).
This increase in the number of quaestors would also have the
consequence of allowing more new men to gain Senatorial
membership by means of the first rung of the cursus honorum, and
make it slightly easier to climb to the next, since eight of these
former quaestores instead of six could now hope to become
praetor.53 These eight would in turn provide ample judicial officials
and then, following their year in office, supply governors for
provinces without resulting to extended promagistracy.54
52 Sulla also responded to a shortage of priests and augurs by
increasing their numbers, as well: Per. 89; de Vir. Ill. 75.11. Dio (37.37) also
seems to suggest that Sulla had restricted these priesthoods to Patricians,
though this appears nowhere else and is fairly unlikely.
53 While Pomponius (quoted in the Digest 1.2.2.32) seems to suggest a
total of ten as a result of Sulla (four added to the six that had been
the number since 198, as mentioned in Livy 37.27.2), Velleius (2.89)
specifically mentions Caesar as having added two to the eight that then
existed, and Cicero (Ad Fam. 8.8) mentions provinces governed by the
eight annual former praetors in the years before 44.
54 This is the interpretation of Keaveney (1982, p. 171–172), who
suggests that the increase in praetors would not end promagistracy but
would provide a larger pool of men with imperium (or prorogued imperium),
so that too much power for too long would not coalesce into the hands of
too few men. Interestingly, Keaveney cites Marius as a possible reason for
this, although Marius had won his gloria (and infamia) as a fully elected
magistrate. Perhaps his meaning was that Marius had been elected to his
iterated consulates because too few men of proven ability presented
On the other hand, the extension of the praetorate did not

make it easier to reach the highest office, since the number of
consuls remained fixed; now eight men instead of six were vying
annually for the consulate in suo anno alongside all those
disappointed in previous elections. This would have had the effect
of increasing the exclusivity of the consulate, and Sulla increased it
even further by legislation on the way officeholders could submit
their candidacies and when they could do so. Thus involved the so-
called cursus honorum, whose traditional steps he now fixed by law.
Mindful, perhaps, of the struggles in 88 involving C. Julius Caesar
Strabo Vopiscus, or of the more recent example of Marius the
Younger, whose youth seems to have precluded election to the
praetorate before he was elected consul,55 by Sulla’s dictate no one
could become praetor without first being questor, nor consul
without first having been praetor (Appian 1.11.100). Sulla may also
have been responsible for another restriction on officeholding
which is described by Cicero, during whose time apparently a
biennium had to be observed between the holding of curule
positions (Ad Fam. 10.25). Additionally, scholarly consensus seems
to be that his lex annalis also fixed the minumum ages, not only for
themselves for prorogation, which is possible. Bit as far as trouble from

promagistrates, that had come primarily from Sulla himself, and Keaveney
alludes to the fact that Sulla here may have been attempting, in the
immortal words of Syme, to “abolish his own example”. This might also
have underlain his reasons for extending the pomerium (Tacitus, Ann.
12.23; Gellius 13.44.4; Cassius Dio 43.50.1). If he had not in fact crossed
it as proconsul, then he would have discovered the relative ease with
which a promagistrate could influence Rome without violating its present
boundaries, and perhaps took steps to make that more difficult.
55 That Sulla was offended, not just by the background of the junior
Marius, but also by his youth, may be reflected in the quip he made at
receiving the latter’s head. Referring, perhaps, to the apparent
presumption of Marius in holding the highest magistracy at such a tender
age, he offered his lifeless enemy a quotation from Aristophanes
suggesting that he ought to have learned how to row before he took upon
himself the task of steering the ship (ἐρέτ ν δεῖ πρῶτα γενέσ αι, πρὶν
π δαλίοις ἐπιχειρεῖν; Appian, 1.10.94)
the curule offices, but also for that of Quaestor, as well.56 Finally, in
what was certainly a decree inspired by so many of his enemies
who had been able to secure iteration in office (Cinna, Carbo, M.
Marius Gratidianus, and even Marius himself had all been allowed
to be re-elected during their careers), Sulla also decreed that a ten-
year period had to elapse between holding an office and holding it
again (Appian, loc. cit.).
Having reformed officeholding in this way, the Dictator
established boundaries which he apparently took very seriously,
as the unfortunate Q. Lucretius Ofella discovered to his cost.
Thinking, perhaps, that his service to Sulla at Praeneste had
merited an exception to the law in much the same way that that of
Pompeius would win himself an illegal triumph, Ofella presented
himself as a candidate for the consulate though he had been neither
praetor nor even quaestor. Sulla had apparently attempted to
dissuade Ofella from this course of action to no avail, and when he
persisted in his canvass, Sulla sent a centurion to cut him down
while the Dictator watched from a tribunal from the Temple of
Castor. When the people seized the centurion, Sulla bade the man
be freed and explained what had happened through a charming
parable about a flea-ridden shirt being burned by a farmer after the
fleas, having been shaken out twice, would still not stop biting. In
this way he illustrated what might happen to those who ignored his
future warnings, and it seems his message was clearly received.57
In this manner, Sulla established a series of safeguards as to
who would be assuming power in Rome when he himself vacated
it. It was a process far more restrictive than it had been earlier, at
least in terms of ascent to the offices carrying imperium and true
legislative power. Men who would hope to make such an assent
found that the newfound ease of obtaining the quaestorate in many
ways limited their advance in and of itself: with a much larger pool
from which to fill a slightly augmented roster of praetors, the
Roman voter would need a definite reason to know a candidate’s
name so as to be able to make the determination that any one of
56 See Keaveney 1982, p. 173–174; Astin, 5–45; OCD, “cursus
honorum”.
57 Per. 89; Plutarch, Sull. 33; Appian 1.11.101.
them might be worthy of the higher office. Those lacking a name

could no longer rely on the tribunate, which had once provided a
vehicle for acquiring recognition by the urban masses58 through the
laws tribunes could make, but whose desirability had now been
poisoned by the new drastic restrictions of that post as have been
described above. To be sure, there remained the office of aedile,
whose duties included the holding of public games and in the
process a sure avenue to recognition and affection amongst the
populus. But the number of these magistracies had for some reason
seemed sufficient to the Dictator, so no additional seats had been
added to them. As a consequence, in any given year only four
spaces at most were opened for former quaestors, and these, too
carried a biennium. The aedilate therefore became highly
competitive, and in turn presented few openings for the completely
unknown man trying to use it to gain a following.
By means of all these newly established or permanently fixed
parameters, Sulla’s restrictions on officeholding—while apparently
opening more positions for qualified men—very likely served to
help restrict those posts higher than that of quaestor only to those
who had a name and a lineage. That doubtless went very far
towards excluding the outsider, the unproven, and the unknown, in
whose numbers the Italians would be fit squarely.
The laws which were passed by Sulla as Dictator were
designed to rid the Commonwealth of elements which Sulla
considered disruptive, and to prevent further possible pathways to
disruption from emerging. His principal efforts seem to have been
both to keep lawmaking away from those to whom it could not be
trusted, such as the lower classes and those who would mobilize
them to pass laws over the objections of the Senate, while
simultaneously augment the numbers and power of the more
reliable members of the citizenry. However, many of the very laws
passed in the furtherance of this aim also had the effect of severely
curtailing the rights and powers of the Italians, and it is unlikely
58 An urban populace to which Sulla added substantially by setting free
10,000 slaves of the proscribed, gaining in the process a sizeable number

of men to be named after himself and who presumably would obey his
commands and follow his political wishes (Appian 1.11.100, 1.12.104).
that this fact was a mere happenstance. Like the older citizens, the
new citizens would have found their ability to give their voice to
the passing of laws greatly diminished by a rule that only laws
proposed by the higher magistrates and approved by Senate would
be available for passage, if Sulla had indeed decreed that to be the
case. The difference between these two groups of cives was that, due
to the fact that the last census before the Civil War had probably
seen very few Italians registered and by the fact that Sulla assumed
the powers of the censor himself, many of the Italians would
neither have been able to vote for these officials nor become them
through election. The new order that Sulla was building left little
room for their participation, and it seems that Sulla had intended
that very thing.
4. THE ITALIANS AND SULLA

Just as it seems the Italians, in Sulla’s thinking, had perhaps merited
special attention when he reordered the state, so had they also
when he had been meting out his punishments to those who had
annoyed him. It has already been seen that the Italians taken
prisoner after the Colline Gate and the fall of Praeneste were
earmarked for death. There are no recorded additional massacres
elsewhere, but then again the Italians at Norba had saved Lepidus
and Sulla the bother by slaughtering themselves. Otherwise, while
Granius Licinianus does mentioned a roundup of condemned men
who were cut down by cavalry, these were not mentioned as
“prisoners” but, rather, as men who had been proscribed (36). This
notice, however, underscores a point made earlier, which is that the
proscriptions were certainly extended to all of Italy. It has been
speculated that the proscriptions were justified as being aimed at
the “enemies of Rome”, however they may be defined. Since the
enemies of Sulla and his supporters definitely qualified, it was to be
expected that the supporters of Cinna and Marius would be the
primary targets, and Appian attests this very thing (1.11.96). Old
scores of an even earlier vintage were also settled by them; Granius
Licinius (36) and the Periochae (89) note that one of their victims
was Samnite “consul” Papius Mutilus, who was refused admission
into his wife Bastia’s house and committed suicide on her back
door. Moreover, just as was the case at Rome, the proscriptions
throughout Italy also soon involved men who may have guilty of
nothing other than having been an enemy of a Sullan supporter, or
having possess lands and goods that such a supporter may have
wanted.
In this manner the novi cives suffered in the exact same way as
the veteres, but this would not be the only way that the former Allied
communities would feel Sulla’s lash. As has been seen, the
proscription lists were aimed at individuals, and at the very least
there were over by the Kalends of June of 81 (according to the
evidence of Cicero, pro Rosc. 44.128). However, Sulla had other
things in mind for the former Allies, which extended beyond a few
individual slayings. Soon entire communities were punished by
means of mass confiscation of lands. While there were almost
certainly others,59 among those specified as having been subjected
to this treatment were Spoletium, Interamnium, Florentia, and
Sulmo; this is according to Florus, who goes further and states that
the latter city was itself entirely destroyed (2.9.27–28). Florus
almost certainly exaggerates the fate of Sulmo, as enough of it
remained for Caesar to order an occupation of it by Antony during
the next Civil War a scant thirty years later (Caesar, B.C. 1.17), and
it would later be remembered by Ovid as the place of his birth.
This would mean that Sulmo either made a hasty recovery or was
not as injured as Florus claims, and it is more probably the latter
that was the case. Still, it is not improbable that Sulmo was one of
the cities whose citadels were demolished and walls destroyed, as
described in Appian.60 Praeneste, in addition to the looting
described earlier, was apparently treated likewise (Florus, loc. cit.), as
was Arretium, according to Cicero (Ad. Att. 1.19.4).
In fact, Cicero mentions the fate of Arretium, as well as that
of Volaterrae, on a number of occasions. Against these places Sulla
seems to have taken an especial disliking, as in addition to
confiscating their lands, Sulla also issued a decree having their
citizenship taken from them. Sources are contradictory as to
whether this decree was enacted: on the one hand, Cicero
59 For an additional comprehensive discussion of various cities subject
either to confiscation or subjected to colonies of Sulla’s soldiers, see

Keaveney 1982b, p. 515–544.
60 ἐπὶ τὰς πόλεις ὁ Σύλλας μετῄει καὶ ἐκόλαζε καὶ τάσδε, τῶν μὲν
ἀκροπόλεις κατασκάπτων ἢ τείχ κα αιρῶν; 1.11.96).

apparently won a case defending a lady from Arretium by his

argument that this deprivation was an illegal procedure, a case
won even while Sulla was still alive (pro Caec. 95–98, 100–102;
Ad Fam. 14; de domo 30.79). Cicero’s speeches leave the impression
that Sulla was opposed in this move by the populus itself, which
agreed to the confiscation but not the loss of the franchise. On the
other hand, it is difficult to imagine that Sulla would have left this
decision to the people at all, and that they would have cared about
the Volaterrani and Arretines enough to risk the wrath of the
Dictator.61 Further, the very fact that Cicero would have to argue
that such an enactment was illegal is suggestive that it was at some
point actually executed. A highly rhetorical fragment of Sallust also
seems to confirm this, one which cites Sulla’s vengeance, singular
because it even was to be extended against the unborn, as having
deprived the “vast multitude of the Latins and the Allies” of the
citizenship (Sociorum et Lati magna vis civitate pro multis et egregiis factis a
vobis data per unum prohibentur; Hist. 1.55.6–12, whose text recounts a
speech against Sulla by Lepidus). Perhaps it was a measure that was
proposed by Sulla and enacted, but was swiftly undone upon his
retirement.
It is clear that, while the impetus for Sulla’s mass confiscation
was partly a thirst for vengeance or a desire to dole out his
particular brand of justice to these communities, there must have
been other motivations for it. Indeed, the sources give a precise
indication as to what another motivation must have been: land for
his soldiers, which the sources state took place in the form of
colonies at such places as Urbana, Faesulae, Aleria, Praeneste, and
Pompeii, as well, presumably, as the places cited by Florus62
61 On the other hand, see Keaveney 1982, p. 203, who suggests this
proposal had been made when Sulla had set aside his Dictatorial powers,
and that the people thus rebuffed him; this does somewhat belie his
earlier assertion that Sulla never in fact retired, and in theory could still
have commanded the ability to terrify into submission even after laying
aside the Dictatorship.
62 For evidence of the colonization, see Greenidge and Clay, p. 216–
217, Salmon 1982, p. 132–133, Harris 1971, p. 261–271, Wolff-Alonso,

113–138, and Keaveney (loc. cit.). As that last notes elsewhere (1982,
p. 182; 189 n. 38), most of this land was in Campania, Etruria, and
(interestingly, Arretium and Volaterrae were apparently destined

for colonization but the land seems not to have been distributed
completely, according to Cicero; ad Att. 1.19.14). Appian notes that
Sulla eventually settled twenty-three legions of men in this way
(1.11.100). Obviously, the colonies planted thus were a means by
which Sulla could pay a debt to his men: as seen above, Sulla had
been used to bestowing favors upon his men as reward for service
to him even during the Allied War. For their willingness to march
on Rome and fight against their own government they were now
given one last compensation in the form of land taken from the
Italians.63
In addition, as in the case of the proscriptions, the land
distribution bound Sulla’s men to him and his regime; should
anything threaten Sulla’s laws, these veterans would find their new
property at risk and thus they would in theory be, as Appian notes,
Sulla’s stoutest champions after his passing from the scene.64 The
extent to which Sulla’s land measure continued to guarantee the
preservation of his new Commonwealth can be seen a full fifteen
years after Sulla had died. In 63 the tribune P. Servilius Rullus 65
seems to have borrowed a page from the by-now ancient playbook
of Tiberius Gracchus and proposed an agrarian law with a fairly
broad scope, seeking to make a distribution of public land and
apparently appoint commissioners to investigate and decide what
property belonged to the state and what belonged to private
persons. All property, according to the words of Cicero speaking in
Umbria, places suitable for small-farming. Areas less well suited for this
purpose but were more useful for flocks were given to others, as well as
whatever choice pieces of land were bought at auction by individuals
during the proscriptions.
63 For more on the affect of Sulla’s colonies, see Wolff-Alonso (p.
259–288).
64 ὡς γὰρ οὐχ ἕξοντες αὐτὰ ε αίως, εἰ μὴ πάντ᾽ εἴ τὰ Σύλλα έ αια,
ὑπερ γωνίζοντο αὐτοῦ και μεταστάντος, 1.11.96; ἀμφὶ δὲ τὴν Ἰταλίαν δυώδεκα
μυριάδες ἀνδρῶν ἦσαν ἔναγχος ὑπεστρατευμένων καὶ δωρεὰς μεγάλας καὶ γῆν
πολλὴν παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ λα όντων ... εὔνους αὐτῷ καὶ φο ερὸς ὢν ἔτι τοῖς ἑτέροις
καὶ τὸ σφέτερον ἀδεές, ὧν τῷ Σύλλᾳ συνεπεπράχεσαν, ἐν τῷ Σύλλαν περιεῖναι
τι έμενοι, 1.12.104
65 As will be seen later, the tribunes soon recovered their legislative
powers after Sulla’s death.

opposition to the tribune, was to be investigated, with the

conspicuous exception of that which had been given and assigned
by Sulla (de leg. Agr. 3.6–7). Cicero uses this fact to pillory Rullus, a
so-called “Marian tribune” who would not utter Sulla’s name and
instead refers to the excepted land as all which has been assigned
“since the consulship of Caius Marius and Cnaeus Papirius”, yet
who nevertheless seemed to be bending over backwards to make
sure that the Sullani knew their property would be protected.
Cicero’s jabs notwithstanding, it is difficult to see how Rullus could
ever have hoped to pass his laws without obstruction, or even
revolution, unless he included such guarantees.66 Sulla had
doubtless foreseen the ways by which his bequests would unite the
majority of Italy behind his system, but it is not improbable that
even he might have been awed by the extent to which his policies
had become successful.
The Italians, therefore, had received some additional interest
of this kind from the Dictator. As has been seen, Strabo suggests
that the Samnites received even further attention still, and that Sulla
launched a special campaign to exterminate them as a separate
people, holding that no Roman would be safe as long as the
Samnites remained (5.4.11).67 Appian specifically mentions the
killing of Samnites at the battle leading up to the siege of Praeneste
(1.10.87), and states that that massacre after the Colline Gate was
approved because the prisoners were mostly Samnites (1.10.93). He
also notes that when Praeneste finally fell, the Romans were spared
but the Praenestines and the Samnites were killed (1.10.94).
Furthermore, an especial enmity towards the Samnites is implied by
a statement of Cassius Dio, which records that Sulla effectively
considered the war over when the Samnites had been defeated
(ὁ γὰρ Σύλλας ὡς τάχιστα τῶν Σαυνιτῶν ἐκράτ σε καὶ τέλος τῷ
πολέμῳ ἐπιτε εικέναι ἐνόμισε; fragment 109).
66 See also Morstein-Marx (p. 199) for Cicero’s attack on Rullus due to
this concession to civic harmony.

67 προγραφάς τε ποιούμενος οὐκ ἐπαύσατο πρὶν ἢ πάντας τοὺς ἐν ὀνόματι
Σαυνιτῶν διέφ ειρεν ἢ ἐκ τῆς Ἰταλίας ἐξέ αλε: πρὸς δὲ τοὺς αἰτιωμένους τὴν
ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον ὀργὴν ἔφ καταμα εῖν ἐκ τῆς πείρας, ὡς οὐδέποτ᾽ ἂν εἰρ ν ν
ἀγάγοι Ῥωμαίων οὐδὲ εἷς, ἕως ἂν συμμένωσι κα ᾽ ἑαυτοὺς Σαυνῖται.
Why it is that Sulla took a particular dislike to the Samnites, as

these sources suggest that he did, is difficult to determine:68 as had
been seen earlier, certainly he had made his military name in the
Allied War in battles against them, even if at Aesernia they had
worsted him, and before Pompeii Cluentius had briefly gained the
upper hand against Sulla by luring him into battle through camping
overly close to his position. If Sulla had built a reputation as
“chastiser of the Samnites”, perhaps he found it a convenient
reputation to continue ever after, and if he were to uphold his
claim that none were to surpass the harm he did to his enemies, the
Samnites would have to suffer most. On the other hand, since in
fact the Samnites had only quit the Allied War after Sulla had gone
to the east, perhaps he regarded them as still under arms against
Rome. Then again, when Sulla had crossed into Campania in 82, he
had gone through Samnite territory in doing so and had neither
caused, nor suffered, any disturbance there (Vell. 2.25.1). It may
well have been that Sulla meant it when he said that he would not
harm those who were not his “enemies”, and that by their passivity,
Sulla came to understand that the Samnites accepted the deal. It
therefore may have been that their he regarded their later activity
against him as an especial irritation, since after an opportunistic
neutrality they had come in “like a third wrestler who sits by to
contend with a weary victor”, as they are described by Plutarch in a
biography of the Dictator which was certainly influenced by the
latter’s memoirs (κα άπερ ἔφεδρος ἀ λ τῇ καταπόνῳ προσενεχ εὶς;
Sull. 29). For all these reasons, it does seem like Sulla had treated
the Samnites with especial ferocity, and whether it was due to this
additional effort or simply due to the fact that, as a poor region,
Samnium proved less able to recover from the Allied and Civil
Wars as other regions had been,69 Samnium was nevertheless
68 Salmon (1967, p. 382–384) suggests the grudge might have been
borne by his entire family, due to a defeat inflicted on Sulla’s last consular
ancestor at the battle of the Cranite Mountains which was the actual
reason for that ancestor’s expulsion from the Senate (the official charges
had been possession of too much silver plate; see chapter 7) and the
political decline of Sulla’s branch of the gens Cornelia.
69 This is the argument of Keaveney (1982, p. 182, 189 n. 39), who
attempts to acquit Sulla of “some sort of racial hatred”. His argument in

effectively wrecked (τοιγάρ τοι νυνὶ κῶμαι γεγόνασιν αἱ πόλεις;

Strabo, loc. cit.).
These were, then, the conditions in Italy which prevailed
during Sulla’s Dictatorial rule. Of course, it cannot be denied that
for at least some former Italians, matters were not so dire as for the
Samnites, Etruscans, and other peoples visited with extensive
confiscations. For these, the slow process of healing from a decade
of warfare continued, while their people figured out ways to be part
of their home communities and yet be Roman at the same time70.
Among such people, the struggle had indeed ended, and they made
their way into the future as Romans, even if that newfound
this particular instance is full of special pleading, however. First and

foremost, his sole note about Samnium involves the Strabo passage
mentioned above and its claims that Sulla felt that Rome would never be
safe as long as the Samnites were a separate people. Thus, Keaveney
would have it that the Samnites were treated as they were due to fear and
precaution. Appian, however, does not attribute Sulla’s fixation on the
Samnites as due to fear, but due to simple hatred of them and as
punishment for being “ill-disposed towards Rome” (ὧν τοὺς Σαυνίτας
ἔκτεινε πάντας ὡς αἰεὶ χαλεποὺς Ῥωμαίοις γενομένους; 1.10.87). Keaveney
ignores this evidence of Appian. Because of this fact, Keaveney’s claim—
that “such treatment differed not one whit from what he meted out to
Cinnans on the grounds that they were public enemies”—is clearly
mistaken, as Appian records just such a disparity in treatment following
the final surrender of Praeneste. If, on the other hand, Plutarch’s notation
of that event—which is that Sulla spared no one and killed all 12000 men
(Sull. 32)—is correct, then there might be firmer ground for this
statement.
Furthermore, Keaveney does note that Samnium was spared a colony
(as described above), but points out—almost certainly correctly—that this
was because Samnite land would be unsuitable for colonization, and that
it was rather given as presents to the wealthier supporters who used it for
pasturage. In the end, the point is probably a moot one: Sulla’s actions are
offensive enough that the additional charge of genocide would only be
one more unsavory attribute among many, and whether he attempted to
extirpate the Samnites or simply treated them as he did all the other
Italians, the poverty of Samnite land and the lack of men from ten years
of fighting accomplished the same thing.
70 For a lengthier description of this process, see Wolff-Alonso,
chapters 4–6; see also Sherwin-White, p. 119–174.

Romanitas had slightly more restrictions than that of others. Yet

subsequent events would show that a small, thin remnant of the
former Italians would chafe under the Sullan system, and would try
to find ways to shake off some if the debilities that were imposed
by it. What was done by these, and the ultimate fate of them and
the system against which they demonstrated, will be discussed
below.
5. THE PERSISTENCE OF THE SULLAN SYSTEM

In late 81 Sulla began the process of divesting himself of his
powers, first laying aside the Dictatorship and holding the office of
Consul for 80 instead, and then allowing himself to hold no office
at all when January of 79 rolled around. It can well be imagined
that Sulla continued to have an influence even during his so-called
retirement, but he would not have such an influence for long: by
March of 78 he had died. Upon that death, questions must have
arisen again as to what would happen next. The answer, ultimately,
was very little, at least as far as Sulla’s new Republic was concerned:
over time his laws would be repealed one by one,71 but there would
be no counterrevolution after Sulla’s death which would declare
him an outlaw and reverse his measures.
There were, of course, some attempts at this: shortly after
Sulla’s death, the consul of 78, M. Aemilius Lepidus, was sent into
Etruria to suppress a revolt launched against the colonies Sulla had
planted there. It was, perhaps, an unwise choice of commanders on
the part the Roman government, as apparently Lepidus had had
some sympathies for the one-time Italians in their treatment by
Sulla. Thus, and instead of suppressing the revolt, he soon joined it.
In so doing, he availed himself of the aid of M. Junius Brutus, the
one-time fellow exile of C. Marius, and of M. Perperna, the former
governor of Sicily under Cinna and Carbo, who had both somehow
managed to escape death during the proscriptions. This assistance
notwithstanding, Lepidus was soon defeated in battle by his
colleage Catulus, the son of the consul of 104 and inimicus of
Marius who had been hounded to suicide by followers of that
71 See, for example, Gruen (1974, p. 1–46).

general. The remaining supporters were defeated by Cn. Pompeius,

and Lepidus himself soon retired to Sardinia, where he died.72
As has been seen, Lepidus was given his excuse for, and a
great deal of support in, his actions against Rome by the Etruscans.
These would some years later also support the revolutionary
L. Sergius Catilina when he, too, launched his own war, and for the
same reasons: Etruria had been reduced to poverty by Sulla’s
consfiscations. They had also provided men to Sertorius, who had
taken a legion of the men he had apparently raised in Etruria
during the Civil War with him to Spain,73 and would add to it when
Perperna took the remnants of the force of Lepidus west to join
him. These Etruscans would remain with Sertorius until the very
end in 72, which came about Sertorius was slain by Perperna
himself.
For at least some Italians, then, fighting against the Sullan
system continued even throughout the 70s BCE. Yet that fighting
took place elsewhere than Italy, and other then the Etruscans, no
other Italians are mentioned as having taken up weapons against
the government in Rome. It seems that they understood the futility
of fighting Sulla’s new Commonwealth, and elements of that state
would survive for the remainder of the Republic even if some of its
laws were overturned or modified, which eventually allowed them
greater participation in it. By 77 the struggle for the Roman
citizenship was over. As was the case in 88, so it was nine years
later that the Italians were forced to take what they could get from
the victors: they had fought as long as there was any possibility they
could win, but when those possibilities disappeared, they settled for
the best they could get.
72 For a summary of the revolt of Lepidus, see Gruen (op. cit.,
p. 11–17). For sources, see Greenidge and Clay, p. 234–240.

73 So Spann, p. 40.
EPILOGUE:
ROMANS OLD AND NEW
Sir Ronald Syme occasionally referred to the events of the decade

of the 80s BCE as a collective, unified whole with his description
of its fighting as a “Ten Years War”. In fact, if the “Ten Years
War” can be said to have begun in Asculum with the murder of
Servilius, extended through the conduct of the Allied War and the
Marches on Rome, the massacres, the Civil War, and the
proscriptions, then its end—at least in Italy—had taken a little
longer to arrive than the span allotted to it by the epithet. It has
been the thesis of this essay that Syme’s description is accurate on
the whole if somewhat imprecise in the specifics: as he suggests,
the decade is connected by a thread, which was the warfare to
which the then-Allies resorted in order to gain the citizenship, the
warfare to which the now-Romans returned in order to gain the
complete citizenship and all of the rights associated with it, and the
warfare in which they threw their support to protect the rights they
had won against a threat who claimed he was no danger but had
proven to be untrustworthy in the past. By the conclusion of the
year 77, however, all the warfare in Italy was over, and if at the end
of it the former Allies found themselves in the mood to reflect on
their position, they themselves could not have escaped the
conclusion that they had lost. In a narrow sense, they did indeed
have the status of Roman citizens; those who were still alive could
expect the same treatment at the hands of their officials and
officers as other Romans, and in battle they could now serve
alongside their fellow Romans without having to tax themselves for
the privilege, could perhaps make careers out of that service, and
retire to farms provided for them by their generals. They had free
access to the city, and could claim, without qualification, whatever
protections the declaration “Cives Romanus sum” might offer
675
abroad, along with its risks. Those who had felt exploited—those
closer to the bottom of the social and political hierarchy—could
perhaps now feel less so.
On the other hand, for several years to come they would lack
almost completely anything resembling the ability to take part in
the government under whose protection they had now been placed.
It would not be until 70 that the power of the tribunes was
restored, and at the same time censors were finally elected to
register the people. Both of these were measures were, ironically,
carried out in the joint consulate of M. Licinius Crassus and Cn.
Pompeius (the Pompeius who had progressed far from his
δυναστεία near Picenum and had in the intervening years become
Great), two of Sulla’s most famous partisans. After twenty years,
then, the Italians were finally full-fledged Romans. However, the
price they had paid for this much-delayed goal had been the deaths
of many thousands in battle, of additional thousands in wanton
murder, and of poverty through proscription and confiscation that
the reform of 70 did nothing to erase. Land taken from them
would still be in the hands of others as late as 63, as has been seen,
and the injustice of it could still be called to mind by the man
who—in public, at least—called himself “the People’s consul”1 in
that year.
“It is allowed to be called the Allied War, that we might
diminish the infamy of it, but if nevertheless we wish to tell the
truth, it was a Civil War”. This is the assessment of the cataclysm
of 91–87 offered Florus (2.6.1).2 Certainly many of the men
fighting in that war, which to Florus was more properly labeled a
bellum civile, would to a large degree also take part in the next war
whose ability to be described as a Civil war was beyond doubt. If it
can be allowed that Florus is correct in his judgement, then the
usual outcome of civil wars appeared in this one, too, which is that
both sides ultimately lost. One of the combatants in the war was
the Roman commonwealth, whose citizens had expended oceans
1 For Cicero’s references to himself as a consul popularis in his speeches
against the Agrarian laws, see Morstein-Marx 194–195, 206–208.

2 Sociale bellum vocetur licet, ut extenuemus invidiam, si verum tamen volumus,
illud civile bellum fuit.

EPILOGUE 677
of blood and mountains of coin to beat back the efforts of their

one-time Allies only to grant that which they had been so dead-set
against giving, and in the process had provided the opening for the
violation of its most sacred laws and, ultimately, for a violent
reshaping of their society which had been conducted against their
will. As a result of that reshaping, what it meant to be Roman
changed, with extensive additions to the citizen body made by all
sorts of people, many of whom speaking a different language and
having profoundly different customs than the original Romans and
who had been deadly and virulent enemies just moments before
their addition. Was this the same Rome which had stood for eight
centuries? Would the “old Romans” be as strongly attached to their
city now as before, be as willing to rid her of tyrants and maintain
their freedom?
The answer, apparently, was “no”, and it seems to have
resonated from all levels of the new society. In the distant past, a
Roman military hero had been falsely accused of a crime whose
penalty was not the loss of a military command, but perpetual
banishment from Rome; he had been tempted, but had ultimately
forborne the use of arms to gain his rights back. More recently,
another Roman military hero had been pressured by a tribune
merely to give an oath to support a law with which he did not
agree, an oath whose swearing would ultimately would have cost
him nothing, and he likewise had been willing to accept perpetual
banishment rather than accede to it. Sulla, however, was
confronted merely with the loss of his proconsular assignment and
in theory with the gift of leisure, but in the face of this perceived
wound he would play neither the part of Coriolanus or Metellus.
By rejecting these paradigms, he would establish one of his own. It
could hardly be surprising that the next powerful man faced with
what he believed to be—and by all rights was—an injustice would
likewise eschew the role of martyr, and instead be governed by the
exemplum Sullanum. It can also be little wondered at if the common
people followed suit, and followed the men playing it. Should they
be expected to act any better than the men who referred to
themselves as the “Best Men”, and defend a Rome which was
hardly theirs anymore? Indeed, these were the very men who
received such an appellation because they had made it a practice
not to appeal to the people, and had traditionally opposed many
laws and lawmakers who claimed to have the interest of the people
at heart. Was this a government for whom death was a worthy

sacrifice? Or, given the turbulent times, would it not be wiser to
side with those who could promise them the most?
As for the other combatant in that war: if those Roman
citizens with the most distinguished lineage and ancient families
would behave in the manner of Sulla, Caesar, and the soldiers who
marched with them, it would be very difficult to expect that new
citizens would act much differently. These were men who had
believed that Rome had been not only worth dying for but also
killing for, and had recently killed a great many Romans to prove
their devotion. However, this was also the same Rome which had
spent decades, even centuries, making them aware of just how little
they were appreciated. Many Romans had fought to the death to
prevent these would-be citizens from mixing their blood—which
they had often shed in defense of the city and its interests—with
their own, and it was only after they were finally worn down by
years of disastrous war that the citizenship was wrung from them.
That citizenship had been defective, however, and the new citizens
and old citizens alike both knew it. Rather than make it right, some
Romans had been willing to fall upon their own city and kill their
own magistrates, and to do this repeatedly. The end of the decade
had seen a new government created which was based in part on an
attempt to revive the privilege and power of Rome’s traditional
aristocracy, a revival which kept magistracies and influence out of
the hands of the men who were now citizens but lacked sufficient
pedigree. That revival had been based on civil war, usurpation,
theft, and murder, but it had benefited so many of the right people
that undoing it would be unthinkable. Is it any wonder that the new
citizens should persistently support the regime’s enemies, and deny
that support to the regime’s friends? These new citizens, the
aristocrats had so often said during the decades before 88 when
they were merely socii, were not worthy of the republic. In the end,
they had returned the reply—silently but deafeningly in impact—
that the republic was not worthy of them, either.
In 91 the Romans and their Allies had gone to war over,
ultimately, the rights and responsibilities that attended membership
in the Roman commonwealth. The Allies fought because they
believed that by doing so they could come by those benefits which
they believed were rightfully theirs, while the Romans had fought
because they believed that by doing so they could prevent the
EPILOGUE 679
diminution of those privileges. Both were, ultimately, wrong in

their beliefs. Through their fighting the Allies ultimately only
gained an incomplete version of those cherished rights, and even
when these were in theory made whole, they would never really get
to enjoy them. By the time they were at last eligible to begin to
exercise the true rights of a Roman citizen, those rights were
simultaneously taken away from everyone by Caesar and his heirs.
On the other hand, the Romans could not entirely stave off Italian
demands by force nor for long make them accept a diminished
answer to their plea even after mostly defeating them. By their
stubborn attempts to do so and to preserve their cherished status,
they gave the ways and means to those individuals who would in
turn leave them with just what they were attempting to give to their
former Allies: the appearance of a full participation in a Republic
but with no real ability to govern their state and share completely in
its blessings.
In the end, the Italians had wanted to become Romans, and
the Romans had wanted to prevent it, and neither succeeded. The
Italians ultimately became the equals to the Romans, but the
Romans they would become were not the Romans of 92. For their
part, the Romans kept the full blessings of their Romanitas out of
Italian hands, but had done so at the expense of ultimately losing it
themselves. Both, in the end, were forced to become something
different than what they had been, and what they eventually would
become, they would become together.
APPENDICES
681
APPENDIX A:
THE ALLIED EMBASSY OF 91
As has been mentioned frequently throughout this essay, it has
occasionally been asserted in the modern scholarship investigating
the Bellum Sociale that the true desire of the Allies in the years
leading up to war was for independence, not citizenship. Evidence
that such a desire motivated the socii is alleged to be found in an
episode from the year 91. In the autumn of that year, on the eve of
the war about to be fought in which such an independence could
potentially have been won by the Allies, an alternative to the
complete dissolution of ties was presented by the Italians to the
Romans. The specifics of what the Italians offered to the Romans
(it is alleged) plainly demonstrate that the Italians did not wish to
be enfolded into the Roman state, but desired instead something
that, if it was not a total separation, would nevertheless guarantee
to the Allies complete freedom of action and autonomy: in other
words, equality with the Romans but not as Romans was what they
proposed.
The argument that the Allies wanted independence, as
opposed to the citizenship, is one which patently flies in the face of
the argument on which this essay rests, which is the precise
opposite. That this essay has been allowed to continue to rest on
such an assertion implies that evidence of the kind just mentioned
has been considered, and, ultimately, rejected, as indeed it has. Not
only that, but the embassy just described has been interpreted in a
completely different way in the pages above, having been taken not
as an indication that the socii wanted independence, but as further
evidence that what they really wanted was the civitas. That the
embassy therefore is not only not construed as weakening the
primary assertion of the present work, but is rather construed as
adding strength to it, makes it clear that the embassy is not as
straightforward as some scholars might suggest. As a result, a
proper understanding of what occurred with the embassy, what
that in turn implies about the mindset of the Italians about to
engage in a war, and what that mindset suggests was what they
hoped to accomplish with that war, seems exceedingly appropriate.
Lest such an analysis interrupt the narrative supplied in chapters 4
and 5, it seems better that it be conducted here.
683
An investigation into the embassy sent to Rome and what it

hoped to accomplish ought to begin with the primary source in
which a description is found. That source is Appian, in whose text
the Italians are portrayed as having sent emissaries to the capital in
what was probably the hope of forestalling the hostilities which had
begun at Asculum before they got out of hand (1.5.39). That this
embassy hoped to effect a peace is evident, although Appian
himself does not furnish specifics as to the terms on which that
peace would be built. Instead, according to his account (which is, it
should be noted, the only ancient source to mention this
deputation), the Allied ambassadors arrived in Rome and made a
complaint to the Romans that they had helped build the empire but
had not been granted the civitas (οὐκ ἀξιοῦνται τῆς τῶν ε ο μένων
πολιτείας). At this point the Romans curtly replied that they would
accept deputations only from those who had repented of what they
had done and who were ready to face Roman punishment, at which
point the negotiators went home.
At first glance, it is difficult to see how Appian’s text may be
used to support the claim that the Allies wanted independence, or
indeed anything other than the citizenship. This was the only thing
they are cited as having mentioned, and even if the embassy had
intended to demand something else, Appian indicates they were
not allowed to do so. However, this lack of anything resembling
concrete details about the embassy in the only narrative in which it
is mentioned can be explained, by those holding that the Allies did
want independence, by the simple fact that it is not an accurate
depiction of what transpired. Bluntly put, Appian (the argument
goes) flatly misconstrues what had occurred when the Allied
envoys reached Rome. According to some scholars, the Allies had
in fact presented their demands to the Romans, demands which
Appian does not pass along. What is more, these demands did not
ask for the citizenship, and the protest about the lack of having
attained it was apparently Appian’s own invention. Rather, they
called for a comprehensive overhaul of the Commonwealth.
According to this interpretation, the Allied terms would have them
remain socii, but they would govern the empire with the Romans as
equals: to them would be given half the seats in the Senate and one
of the two consulates to fill with their own candidates. Only in this
way could peace be maintained.
APPENDICES 685
The evidence for these stupulations cannot, of course, be

found in Appian, nor in any source which purports to cover the
year 91. Yet it is claimed that an indication that such stipulations
were actually the ones voiced by the Italian deputation exists, albeit
in what is referred to as “an unlikely source”. This unlikely source
is eighth book of Livy (specifically, 8.4) in which the Latins who
were about to face the Romans in war in the year 340 are
represented as having made the same demands. Clearly, it is argued,
these terms could not have been what the Latins actually wanted in
340. Instead, Livy—or whatever source he used—has removed the
embassy of 91 from its proper time, putting the demands of the
Allies in that year into the mouths of the disgruntled Latins of 250
years earlier.
So, at least, it has been argued.1 However, a number of
problems with this hypothesis immediately present themselves. In
the first place, there is no way to verify this interpretation, since the
extant literary sources provide no clue as to what demands the
ambassadors made to the Romans, if indeed they were allowed to
1 Primarily by Mouritsen (1998, p. 138–139). For his claim that Livy
8.4 more properly reflects the demands of the Allies from 91 he offers no
real evidence, save that the demands presented as having been made in
340 were “clearly anachronistic”. For this Mouritsen cites T. J. Cornell’s
“The Conquest of Italy” (Cambridge Ancient History 7.2, p. 361). However,
Cornell likewise does not provide any justification for this claim. Emilio
Gabba (1956, p. 27) also suggests that 8.4 was influenced by the embassy
of 91, but only in the sense that in that passage the Latins justified their
demands because of their military contributions, just as the Allies had
done in the passage of Appian cited in the text above. The actual demands
of 91, however, did not take the form of the elaborate scheme which Livy
reports in 8.4 by Gabba’s reasoning. These, in turn, come from another
episode still: specifically, from what was demanded of Rome by Capua in
216 (reported in 23.6). In other words, Livy took from his source the
demands actually made by Capua in 216 but claimed by that source to
have been made by the Latins in 340. The Latin explanation for why they
deserved these concessions was in turn taken from the Allied embassy in
91, which for its part had not made given the exorbitant terms found in
Livy, but rather appealed only for the civitas. This is, admittedly, an
elaborate construction, but it is no less of one than Mouritsen’s, and is
followed here.
make any of them at all. As will be remembered, Appian is the only

source to mention the negotiations, and the clear indication gotten
from his account is that the ambassadors were cut short before
they could make any demands whatsoever. Nothing remains in the
record, then, to confirm this theory about Livy’s anachronism.
It can be objected in counter that absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence: it could very well be that these demands were
heard, and that Appian simply omitted them, putting in their place
a falsehood about the Allied complaint about not being given the
civitas before being silenced by the Romans. Indeed, some modern
scholars assert that this is the very thing Appian might do, since his
main theme—that the Allies went to war through a frustrated
desire for the citizenship—would not be well served by any
stipulations which patently sought to acquire something else.2 This
does, of course, assume that Appian was more than willing to
perpetrate historical dishonesty of the grossest kind. However,
laying aside for a moment this unflattering assessment of Appian,
there remains the fact that he is the only author to mention this
embassy at all (whether accurately or not). This is curious, and all
the more so in light of the existence of several sources which cover
the period but do not mention this affair. Some of these would
include Velleius, Eutropius, the Periochae, Orosius, and Florus. All
of these drew from Livy, and indeed the last three were all directly
descended from him (see chapter 1). Their silence on the matter
allows the inference to be drawn that the embassy is not mentioned
in their work because it could not be found in their main source:
that is, they omit it because Livy himself likewise omits it in what
are now the missing sections of his full work, where it
chronologically would belong. Those who argue that the Italians
did make their substantial demands would, it seems, have it that
Livy mentioned them in book eight—two-and-a-half centuries
prior to when they were actually made—but did not include the
demands or even mention of the embassy in its proper
chronological place, id est in 91.
Such an assertion raises still further questions, of which the
most important may be why Livy would permit such a hiatus in his
2 A favorite theme of Mouritsen’s; see Introduction.

APPENDICES 687
narrative. Speculation on this point hinges on one of two

possibilities: either Livy knew about the embassy, when it occurred,
and what it demanded, or he did not. If the former, then Livy—for
reasons known only to himself—deliberately occluded it in his
book describing the year 91 but made a veiled reference to it in an
account describing an earlier time. If the latter, than it would seem
that Livy’s sources led him astray: someone other than Livy failed
to report the embassy when it actually occurred, but placed the
essence of the event in a different chronological context for, again,
reasons unknown.
Both of these possibilities are fraught with difficulties. As
mentioned, one of the possibilities for the omission is that Livy did
know about the embassy and all its attendant details, but simply
excluded them. It may well be wondered why he would do so. That
he passed over the embassy as simply unimportant seems highly
unlikely. In the first place, Livy’s remaining books are all
exceedingly detailed, and filled with specifics that in some cases
border on minutiae. It is not unreasonable to assume the missing
books were equally replete with particulars; see, for example, the
notice that the Romans at one point in the year 90 decided to wear
their saga instead of the toga, one found in three of the sources
which drew from Livy that are mentioned above.3 Furthermore,
Livy apparently devoted an entire book to the year 91, perhaps to
accommodate such details (see chapter 1, as well as Appendix G).
Those who hold that Livy did include the details of the embassy of
91 in book eight make it clear that Livy did think the embassy was
important enough to mention, even if in the wrong place. For these
reasons, it seems manifest that an event as significant as the Allied
embassy would not escape Livy’s notice as too trivial. Indeed, this
last would be a logical impossibility if he had displaced the terms of
the embassy to 340. Finally, given his thoroughness, it is even more
difficult to believe that he left out mention of it as an oversight,
especially as he allegedly went through the trouble of recreating the
episode in the guise of the Latin War in an earlier section.4
3 Specifically: Velleius 2.16, Orosius 5.18.15, Per. 72.

4 And a second time in the guise of the Second Punic War, for which
see earlier note and below.
It seems exceedingly improbable that, if Livy knew about the

embassy, he failed to include a notice about it due to carelessness.
Furthermore, it would also be most unlikely that, if he knew about
it, he would have rated it too immaterial to mention. Therefore,
absence of mention of the embassy in Livy’s descendants in their
discussion of the year 91 would suggest that, if he knew about it
and its importance (as he clearly did, based on his inclusion of it in
8.4), he still did not discuss it. This, in turn, begs the question of
why this would be the case. An answer for this has been located by
some in in the fact that Livy was writing during the early
Principate, whose princeps made Italian unity one of his
watchwords. As they would have it, the creation of the tota Italia of
Augustus was, it seems, the culmination of a number of historical
processes, of which the Bellum Sociale was one of the most
significant ones. According to what it is claimed that Augustus
projected, Roman Italy was not the result of the Italians having
been broken in their last bid for independence (even though,
according to this interpretation, such was what was actually the
case). It was instead completed by the grant of their longstanding
wish to become Romans, and granted as a reward for their valiant,
if unsuccessful, attempt to acquire it by force. Augustus therefore
wanted history to reflect that Romanitas was fervently desired by the
Allies who wished, through enfranchisement, to end their
independence of their own accord. The demands made by the
Allies—if they were indeed the same as those Livy describes as
being made by the Latins in 340—did not fit with this theme. For
this reason, Livy apparently dutifully submerged them through his
silence, lest he displease the First Citizen.5
It is, perhaps, not implausible that Livy would be capable of
letting himself be persuaded to alter history so as better to suit a
favored interpretation of Augustus. There was, for example, the
alleged spolia opima of Cornelius Cossus, reported in Livy (4.20)
having been won and dedicated to the temple of Jupiter Feretrius
in 428 by a man who, as military tribune, would not have been
5 So Mouritsen seems to imply (1998, p. 138–139), noting in another
part of his work how Livy was “inspired” by the tota Italia byword of
Augustus (p. 47).
APPENDICES 689
allowed to do anything of the kind. Livy specifically mentions this

difficulty in his text. Nevertheless, because the princeps had let it be
known that he had personally seen these during his renovation of
the temple, and Livy promptly includes mention of them and their
illustrious discoverer in his work in spite of the problems this
would entail. Modern scholars often attribute this episode to
laziness on the part of Livy, as it presumably would have been no
difficult task for the author to betake himself to the temple and see
the spolia, or lack of them, for himself.6 However, it could also be
that Livy found the idea of disagreeing with Augustus unpleasant,
and did not press the issue. So, too, it may have been for the Allied
embassy. Including the terms it demanded might conflict with the
history of Italian unification which Augustus wanted told, so he
buried them to avoid this conflict.
Yet if Livy was moved to excise the Allied embassy from
book 72 for such a reason, why would he then include the episode
(in what would have been a thinly-disguised form) in book 8?7 He
must have at least suspected that this book and the episode within
it might be brought to the attention of Augustus, who would very
probably have recognized what Livy had done. Was the anecdote
so precious to him that he would risk the displeasure of the princeps
to include it? Those who argue for such an anachronism have no
answer for this question, to which, it is probable, there is none.
Based on all of these considerations, it seems unlikely that
Livy knew about the Allied embassy and the circumstances
surrounding it but failed to report them for his narrative of 91, only
to include them in book 8. The possibility remains open, however,
that he did so inadvertently, due to what his own sources may or
may not have reported. This would in turn imply that Livy’s
sources—whoever they may have been—likewise did not mention
the embassy in their accounts of the year 91 in such a way as to
attract the notice of an author as painstaking and conscientious in
terms of detail as Livy seems to have been. Yet that they did know
about it is clear from the fact that they placed the missing details in
6 As it is by Patrick Walsh (1961, p. 14–15, 110–114; 1974, p. 13–14).
See also Chapter 1.

7 And, it would seem, for a similar episode in Book 23; see below.
their own accounts of the year 340, from which Livy drew for his
version found in 8.4.8 Why the earlier writers would do this seems,
again, to boil down either to carelessness, to their belief that the
episode was too inconsequential to merit discussion, or to
deliberate concealment of it for some unknown reason. Of these,
the second of these can likely be ruled out safely. Such authors
clearly considered the embassy important enough to mention (if
not in its proper setting), and did so, so they must not have
considered the event one too minor to record. It is possible that
Livy’s sources deliberately excluded the embassy for their
discussion of year 91 for some unknown reason, though it is not
easy to speculate as why any of them would do so. None of them,
after all, would have a princeps to please by perpetuating a myth of a
war for Italian unity, as they were writing before this princeps came
on the scene. Sulla might have functioned as the nearest earlier
equivalent of Augustus, but there is no indication he harbored any
fondness for a tota Italia. In fact, the war (and by extension his
heroics in them) might be all the more justified if the Italians had
made such enormous demands, ones that would have so
profoundly altered the Republic as to have practically destroyed it
(see Introduction). If there was therefore no political reason for
Livy’s sources to remove the details of the embassy from their
accounts of 91, there is likewise no reason for these authors to
have left the details out of their actual chronological location only
to reinsert them, in disguised form, in 8.4, where they would be
found and used by Livy.
That does not rule these authors as having deliberately
excluded the embassy on other grounds. For example, it may have
been that Livy’s source had no details at all about what the Latins
had wanted in 340, and simply borrowed the stipulations from
those of the embassy of 91. To avoid detection, this source may
8 Assuming, of course, that Livy followed the same source or sources

for the events of 340, 216, and 91. At least four sources directly cited by
Livy covered such a broad span: Aelius Tubero, Valerius Antais, Claudius
Quadrigarius, and Licinius Macer. For Livy’s use of all four, see Walsh
(1961, p. 121–122, 139–141; 1974, p. 16). For the chronological scope of
these four, see von Albrecht, p. 385–389.
APPENDICES 691
thereupon have elided these particulars from his later section. But
this, too, is rendered vulnerable by the fact that this unknown
author apparently reused the details from 340 in his discussion of
the Second Punic War, when the Campanians are recorded by Livy
as giving the same demands in 216 as the Latins are held to have
done in 340. Livy himself makes note of this as a possible
reduplication (23.6, noting the silence of Caelius on these terms).
All that therefore remains is carelessness, whereby Livy’s unknown
source either forgot to drop the terms of 340 from his account of
the year 216, or forgot to include them for the year 90. This is not
impossible, but is not terribly believable for all that.
Given this extended chain of implausibilities, it become
increasingly harder to accept the idea that an embassy was sent
in 91, its demands were heard, and that they were the same as those
put by Livy into the mouths of the Latins in book 8, but that no
notice of this occurrence of any kind could be found in Livy’s
account of the year in which it occurred (and thus could not be
found in his descendants). This, then, leads to the final question: if
Livy writing in the late first century could find no source with
mention of the embassy, which seems to be the only believable
explanation for why it appears that it was missing from his
narrative, how could Appian writing almost two centuries later
have found one so he could include it in his?
It is obviously not impossible that Appian was able to find a
description of the embassy in a source which eluded Livy. Nor is it
impossible that he simply invented the story. As has been seen,
some scholars assume that Appian would have had no
compunction about distorting what had actually occurred with the
Allied embassy (namely, that it made a list of stipulations like those
found in Livy 8.4 and, it seems, 23.6) by leaving out the demands
they made and substituting in their place an Italian protest about
the citizenship and its subsequent silencing by the Romans. By
means of this distortion, such modern scholars hold, Appian
produced a doctored version of history so as better to suit his
interpretation of the cause of the war. For reasons cited above, it
seems that he can be acquitted of having done this last. After all,
had the Allies made such demands, it seems reasonable to assert
that someone one have noticed and preserved them, allowing Livy
to be able to do so, as well. Yet the fact that Appian almost
certainly did not grotesquely transfigure something that did happen
does not mean that he could not have simply invented an embassy
that never existed and put on their lips complaints about not
having been granted the civitas. Such a fiction would serve his
explanation for the casus belli just as well as a deliberately altered
account of the kind described above. No evidence can be found to
prove that he did so, of course, but by the same token evidence can
be produced to prove that he did not. It therefore remains
conceivable that Appian may not have recast what had occurred,
but did invent something which had not for the purpose of his
narrative.
On the other hand, another possibility exists which preserves
Appian’s integrity while still explaining the apparent absence of the
embassy in Livy. This possibility depends first of all on the
assumption that everything concerning the embassy happened just
as Appian said that it did. This would essentially make the embassy
a non-event: the Allies came to negotiate a way out of the war, but
the Senate silenced their envoys after hearing no more than their
initial complaint. Such a non-event might well not have registered
as important enough to mention in Livy’s text. This still assumes—
as has been assumed for the last several pages—that a record of the
embassy is not, in fact, to be found there. This is not an
unjustifiable conjecture, based on the fact that no mention of it
occurs in any of his descendants covering this period. Yet Livy’s
aforementioned attentiveness to detail continues to speak against
this possibility, as does those of his descendants: it is far easier to
believe that they could not relay it because Livy had never included
it, and may not have included it because it was an episode of no
major import.
Then again, it should be pointed out that none of these
descendants are very extensive in their coverage of the Bellum
Sociale. Indeed, the Latin text of the parts of the Periochae, Velleius,
Orosius, Florus, and Eutropius narrating the war takes up a
combined total of nine pages with dimensions similar to the one
used in this essay, with the accounts of the latter two authors taking
up a page apiece. By contrast, one extant book of Livy (Book 45)
takes up over forty such pages. The Periochae suggest that Livy
devoted no less than six of these books to the war, including one
entirely dedicated to the year 91 (as has been seen). It does not
seem too far-fetched to assert that the majority of what was in the
lost books did not make it into the authors which drew from them;
APPENDICES 693
in fact, a side-by-side comparison of the Periocha of Book 45 and

the full text graphically underscores what was left out. Admittedly,
these descendants do preserve details which seem to have much
less weight than the Allied embassy (see, for example, the inclusion
of the saga as noted above). Still, it is also true that this detail is
found only in the three largest of Livy’s descendants; the other,
smaller two did not include it, perhaps due to their compression of
the original text.
For later authors summarizing in few pages what probably
took a few hundred in Livy, choices had to be made as to what to
include and what to discard. A non-event like the Allied embassy,
one which did not halt or even delay the coming war, might have
been a prime candidate for rejection. Yet an author who devoted
much more space to the war, such as Appian (whose Greek text of
his treatment of the hostilities takes up about as many pages as the
Latin text of all the other author just cited combined) might be
more disposed to include it. In fact, his source for the embassy
might well have been Livy himself, whom Appian is known to have
consulted9 (see Introduction).
Either way, the mention of the embassy in one ancient
authority and its elision from the descendants of another need not
require chicanery on the part of either of these. Such a difference
could easily be attributable to a set of editorial choices on the one
side which do not agree with those made by the other. For these
reasons, there is no reason not to regard Appian as trustworthy on
the matter of the embassy and what it was allowed to say before
being muted, and he is regarded as such here. Furthermore, there is
likewise no evidence to suggest that this embassy had been sent to
ask for anything other than the citizenship, about which it had
started to speak before being silenced. It therefore seems like
evidence, not that the Allies wanted independence, but wanted the
civitas after all, and it is taken as such here.
9 Although see Haug (p. 131–133) and Gabba (1956, 13–25) for the
improbability of Appian’s use of Livy for the year 91.

APPENDIX B:
THE DEBATE OVER THE INCLUSION OF THE ALLIES
IN THE REDISTRIBUTION OF THE AGER PUBLICUS
BY TIBERIUS GRACCHUS
Appian’s description of the circumstances surrounding the
formulation of the lex Sempronia gives the distinct impression that
the tribune was not only concerned with bolstering the Roman
small-farmer, but also with doing so for his Allied counterpart, and
for the same reason: to ensure the continued depth of the pool of
manpower available for Rome’s armies. Indeed, Appian’s words
may even be read to suggest that the Allies were his primary
concern. His introduction to the time of Gracchus describes how
the Romans had initially intended to use the ager publicus to provide
for future generations of the Italian allies,1 a purpose which had
been frustrated by Roman landowners who consumed the land and
drove away everyone else who would use it. This had contributed
to the poverty of the Italians and to the loss of their strength
through taxes and military service, and Gracchus decries the
misfortunes of a people who were both useful in battle and related
to the Romans (τοῦ Ἰταλικοῦ γένους ὡς εὐπολεμωτάτου τε καὶ
συγγενοῦς [emphasis added]; 1.1.9), clearly indicating that non-
Romans were meant. The implication of Italian involvement in his
land redistribution is reinforced by Appian’s use of phrases like that
attending his discussion of the debate leading up to the voting on
the lex, in which he states that Gracchus declared that he believed
of his legislation “that nothing more advantageous or admirable
1 Ῥωμαῖοι τὴν Ἰταλίαν πολέμῳ κατὰ μέρ χειρούμενοι γῆς μέρος

ἐλάμ ανον καὶ πόλεις ἐνῴκιζον ἢ ἐς τὰς πρότερον οὔσας κλ ρούχους ἀπὸ σφῶν
κατέλεγον. καὶ τάδε μὲν ἀντὶ φρουρίων ἐπενόουν, τῆς δὲ γῆς τῆς δορικτ του
σφίσιν ἑκάστοτε γιγνομέν ς τὴν μὲν ἐξειργασμέν ν αὐτίκα τοῖς οἰκιζομένοις
ἐπιδιῄρουν ἢ ἐπίπρασκον ἢ ἐξεμίσ ουν … καὶ τάδε ἔπραττον ἐς πολυανδρίαν
τοῦ Ἰταλικοῦ γένους, φερεπονωτάτου σφίσιν ὀφ έντος, ἵνα συμμάχους οἰκείους
ἔχοιεν; 1.1.7. The question has been raised as to whether Appian’s τοῦ
Ἰταλικοῦ γένος meant “Italians” or plebs rustica; this is addressed by Shochat
(39–40), whose conclusion—that Appian did indeed mean use the term to
signify the Italians and not the Romans of the countryside—is
overwhelmingly convincing.
694
APPENDICES 695
could ever happen to Italy” (ὡς οὔ τι μεῖζον οὐδὲ λαμπρότερον

δυναμέν ς ποτὲ πα εῖν τῆς Ἰταλίας; 1.1.11), and finally by the
tribune’s pleading with Octavius (apparently in a contio before the
final contio in which the vote was taken)2 that the law was to be “for
the good of all Italy” (χρ σιμώτατον Ἰταλίᾳ πάσῃ; 1.1.12). Finally,
when Gracchus had carried his laws into passage Appian claims
that he was escorted home by an ecstatic throng as if he were a
father and founder, not of any one people, but of all the races of
Italy (Γράκχος δὲ μεγαλαυχούμενος ἐπὶ τῷ νόμῳ ὑπὸ τοῦ πλ ους οἷα
δὴ κτίστ ς οὐ μιᾶς πόλεως οὐδὲ ἑνὸς γένους, ἀλλὰ πάντων, ὅσα ἐν
Ἰταλίᾳ ἔ ν , ἐς τὴν οἰκίαν παρεπέμπετο; 1.1.13). In addition to these
reports, there is also a notice in Plutarch which seem to confirm
that Italians figured into the thinking of Gracchus: in his Life of
Tiberius (9.5) the biographer cites a speech—perhaps the same just
mentioned by Appian, of which Plutarch is supplying details—in
which the tribune justifies his programme by showing the contrast
between “the wild beasts which roam Italy” who have a lair of their
own and the “men who fight and die for Italy”, who have only the
open stars to shelter them (ὡς τὰ μὲν ρία τὰ τὴν Ἰταλίαν νεμόμενα
καὶ φωλεὸν ἔχει καὶ κοιταῖόν ἐστιν αὐτῶν ἑκάστῳ καὶ καταδύσεις, τοῖς
δὲ ὑπὲρ τῆς Ἰταλίας μαχομένοις καὶ ἀπο νῄσκουσιν ἀέρος καὶ φωτός,
ἄλλου δὲ οὐδενὸς μέτεστιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἄοικοι καὶ ἀνίδρυτοι μετὰ τέκνων
πλανῶνται καὶ γυναικῶν).3 There are, therefore, several indications
that Gracchus intended for all of Italy—and thus the Italians, as
opposed to just the Romans—to to be aided by his law.
On the other hand, neither Appian nor Plutarch are
completely unambiguous in this matter. First and foremost, there is
the fact that, once passed, these selfsame Italians would protest the
operation of the lex Sempronia (Appian, 1.3.18, which specifies that
they objected to the Triumvirate and they way it conducted
adjudication of what land belonged to Rome, not necessarily the
law itself). This somewhat accords ill with the idea that they
themselves received benefits from it, unless the protestors were
2 So Morstein-Marx, p. 164.
3 This passage would seem to blunt the force of Shochat’s assertion
that “there is not a single mention” of Italians in the Tiberius Gracchus, a
claim also made by Mouritsen (p. 15), unless the “men who defend Italy”
to which Plutarch refers are Romans; more below.
only the wealthy socii and not the poor for whom the land was
intended.4 Secondly, in the same speech discussing the landless
who had fought for Rome, Plutarch refers to those exhorted to
defend the (non-existent) shrines of their fathers as “these
Romans” (τῶν τοσούτων ' Ῥωμαίων).5 Nor is there any other
evidence in that author, who briefly discusses the operation of the
Triumvirate while Gracchus was alive, that any land actually went
to the Italians. This last also holds true for Appian, and there is the
additional fact that, in the protests against the law made during its
proposal, the wealthy Romans complained that what they have
come to regard as their property—fields they had worked and had
improved through their expenditures, gardens, homes, and the
graves of their family, all of which they had placed on lands they
had thought theirs, and which had even been given to them as
bequests or dowries from their fathers—would be given to the
πέν σιν, not to the Allies, something it seems likely would have
been mentioned had the Allies been intended to be significant or
even primary recipients of the land. Moreover, on the day of voting
one of the questions Gracchus advances in the debate is whether it
would be more just that the common land be occupied by a slave
or a πολίτ ς (citizen) due to the ability of the latter to serve in the
army (1.1.11). The question as to whether or not justice would be
similarly wounded if that land be occupied by a slave rather than an
Allied Italian is not raised, which may indicate that the land was not
intended to be removed from the former and given to the latter.
Other sources likewise cast doubt on the role Gracchus
intended for the Italians to play in his redistribution plan, of which
one is Cicero. In his speeches on a later agrarian law, the Orationes
de lege agraria, that orator twice seems to suggest that only the
4 In addition to Appian, Sallust also hints that the Allies were not
terribly sanguine about the redistribution (BJ 42). This can be inferred
from the fact that this passage states that the Senate attempted to doom
the lex Sempronia and made common cause with socios ac nomen Latinum.
Also enlisted were the equites Romanos, and although the text does not spell
this out explicitly, it may be wondered whether the socii et nomen Latinum
were specifically those who were the equivalents of the equites, and thus
the wealthy.
5 This was observed by Badian 1958, p. 171 note 1.
APPENDICES 697
Roman people had been the beneficiaries of the earlier one. In the
first of these passages, Cicero comments that he has no problem
with the idea of an agrarian law, since one had earlier been
proposed by the illustrious Gracchi, “men most thoroughly
attached to the Roman people” (Nam vere dicam, Quirites, genus ipsum
legis agrariae vituperare non possum. Venit enim mihi in mentem duos …
amantissimos plebei Romanae viros, Ti. et C. Gracchos … qui agri a
privatis antea possidebantur [emphasis added]; 2.5.10). In the second,
Cicero discusses the former inviolability of the Campanian land,
noting that it was untouched by the Gracchi “who thought a great
deal of what was advantageous for the Roman people,” (nec duo
Gracchi qui de plebis Romanae commodis plurimum cogitaverunt
… agrum Campanum attingere ausus est [emphasis added]; 2.29.81).
Additionally, there is a fragmentary notice in the De Republica which
asserts that Gracchus, for the sake of the cives, “neglects the rights
and treaties of the socii” (Gracchus, perseveravit in civibus, sociorum
nominisque Latini iura neclexit ae foedera; 3.41), which some have taken
to mean that there was no distribution amongst the latter.6
6 The evidence from Cicero is far from clear-cut, however. In the first
place, in his speeches on the agrarian laws cited above Cicero is pointedly
trying to paint a contrast between Rullus, the author of the bill, and the
Gracchi. This contrast revolves around the fact that the former was
working only for the advantages of the Sullan possessors, while the latter
were civic-minded Roman heroes. It would therefore be in his interest to
show the extent to which the Gracchi were acting for the benefit of the
Roman people, and to emphasize such actions over and above—and
possibly instead of—whatever efforts they may have put in for the socii, if
indeed there had been any (Morstein-Marx, p. 212–217).
As can be seen above, in this speech, Cicero—as was apparently often
the case when Cicero was addressing the populous—proclaimed a reverence
for the Gracchi. In speeches delivered in the Senate, and in essays
designed for less public readership, his attitude was frequently not as
laudatory. In fact, the assessment of Morstein-Marx is that Cicero actually
to be not only less fulsome in his praise of the Gracchi, but actually ill-
disposed towards them, public persona notwithstanding (p. 194–195,
although a closer reading of the sources found in note 144 do not entirely
warrant that assumption). If that was in fact the case, it would not be
surprising that Cicero might want to emphasize irregularities in the
Gracchan laws, such as any trampling on Allied rights, in a philosophiocal
Finally, in the Periochae (of Book 58, specifically) there is a

discussion of the revenues from Pergamum, whose management
was bequeathed to the Roman people after the death of king
Attalus III. Gracchus was able to appropriate these revenues by
means of his status as tribune and through the involvement of his
family with Eastern affairs,7 eventually used them to provide
funding for the work of the commission. The Periocha here suggests
that Gracchus was pressed to take the novel step of appropriating
the Pergamene funds because the amount of land he had promised
the plebs had turned out to be more than he could readily obtain
treatise such as De Republica. Of course, this assumes that the passage in

question—which is quite corrupt—refers to the Gracchi at all; that this
may not be the case has been pointed out by Shochat (27–29). Yet if it
does, it is not entirely outlandish to suppose that Cicero might be willing
to exaggerate the extent to which the Gracchi violated Allied iura.
For a violation of rights to be exaggerated, though, presupposes that
the Allies had any sort of rights that Graccus neglexit by not giving them
land that belonged to the Roman people. It has been wondered just what
these rights may have been (by Shochat, loc. cit.). An answer may be
possessory rights to lands adjacent to the ager publicus which might have
been abrogated by the reclamation, as detailed in Appian 1.3.18 (see
chapter 3). It may have been these about which Cicero speaks, putting
words into the mouths of Scipio and Laelius, two of the main characters
in the dialogue, which are not entirely inconsistent with what the historical
figures might have thought (see Chapter 3).
In light of this speculation, the assertion of Stockton that Cicero could
not have written what he did if he knew that non-Romans would be
included in the distribution fails to convince (p. 42–49). Even if some
Allies were to be included in the assignment of reclaimed ager publicus, if
contracts and possessions of others were trampled by the commissioners,
then it is fairly easy to see how the inclusion by Ti. Gracchus in the
distribution of some non-Romans would simultaneously ignore the
“treaties and rights” of others. Cicero would thus not have been referring
to the rights of those being given land, but rather to those having it taken
away. Thus, what remains of Cicero—either in this dialogue or in the
speeches against the agrarian law—is not completely clear in terms of
what Gracchus intended for the Allies, and must be used with appropriate
caution.
7 Polybius (31.15) recounts that the father of Gracchus had spent time
in the east and in Asia.

APPENDICES 699
from the ager publicus (cum minus agri esset quam quod dividi posset sine
offensa etiam plebis, quoniam eos ad cupiditatem amplum modum sperandi
incitaverat, legem se promulgaturum ostendit, ut his qui Sempronia lege agrum
accipere deberent pecunia, quae regis Attali fuisset, divideretur). The
Summaries do not explicitly state as much, but if Gracchus was
having difficulties of this kind distributing land to the cives, then it
seems unlikely that he would have offered any to the socii.8
Ultimately, the guidance offered by the sources does not lead
to a resolution to the vexed question of whether or not Tiberius
Gracchus had ever intended for the Italians to take part in the
distribution of the public land, and modern scholars do not seem
to have reached a consensus on the matter either.9 Nevertheless, if
8 However, in Plutarch (Ti. Gracc. 14) that money is used to furnish
supplies to those who had already been given the land, so it may have
been that the land was not the issue, but finding for incidentals was the
problem. This leaves open the possibility that the Allies were given land at
least, whether or not they, too, were given supplies purchased through
Pergamene funds.
9 A sample of some of the arguments concerning this issue which have
been propounded might include those of Nagle (1970, p. 372–394), whose

assertion is that Appian had blundered when he suggested that the Allies
were to be included in the land distribution. This was not a blunder of
language, but rather one of fact: Appian mistakenly believed that those
men who lived in the Italian countryside who were to be the beneficiaries
of the law were socii, rather than Romans dwelling outside the city. Badian,
for his part, believes that Tiberius Gracchus never intended to involve the
Italians in his land reform, but that Caius Gracchus had, and that the latter
had deliberately exaggerated the aims of his brother to win the support of
the Allies later on. By his reckoning, Appian’s account must have derived
from this embroidery of Caius Gracchus (Badian 1958, p. 168–174).
Mouritsen also argues that Appian was influenced by the sources derived
from the propaganda of C. Gracchus, although this does not lead him to
the definitive conclusion that no Allies were included. Rather, he asserts
that if they were, they were only included as secondary to the Roman
citizens, who were the main targets for distribution. That Appian
emphasizes them both as those chiefly helped and harmed by the law
stems from his need to highlight the discontent of the Allies and show
how it was the first step on the way to the war (1998, p. 15–19).
Running counter to these are the conjectures of Shochat (op. cit.),

which hold something of the contrary position to Mouritsen: whereas for
the latter Appian should be held as suspect due to the evidence of
Plutarch, who does not mention the Allies at all (or so both Mouritsen
and Shochat claim; see above for possible evidence to the contrary),
Shochat argues the other way around, and states that Plutarch deliberately
omitted the Allies in the Tiberius Gracchus to focus on the specifically
Roman activities of his subject. Thus, Appian did not let the needs of his
narrative thread cause him magnify Allied participation in the land
reassignment which, as per Plutarch, was either nonexistent or minor;
instead, it was Plutarch who minimized them out of his need to show that
his subject only had Romans in mind. For his part, Stockton (p. 42–47)
believes it “unthinkable” that Tiberius Gracchus would not have wished
to aid to poorer Italians in some fashion. The evidence of Cicero’s de
Republica he explains as special pleading derived from propaganda, which
attempted to show that the objections of some of the Allies to the
operation of the law—more directly—represented (falsely) the will of all
of them. Moreover, Stockton notes the implausibility of Caius being able
to misrepresent the laws of his brother which were not yet even a decade
old and still in effect. Thus, the law of Tiberius must have included the
Allies.
Finally, Richardson (1980, p. 1–11) goes further still, and claims that
Gracchus not only wanted to give land to the Allies, but intended to give
them the citizenship as well. Only by such means could he avoid the
religious and legal prohibition which prevented land from being sold or
given to non-citizens. Enfranchising and bestowing land upon poorer
Italians would, Richardson argues, greatly bolster Roman manpower, the
avowed aim of Gracchus. Additionally, in this way the notice in Velleius
that Gracchus intended to enfranchise Italy (2.2–3), those of Appian
which claim on the one hand that Gracchus enjoyed the support of the
whole of Italy (1.1.12) and then make the apparently contradictory claim
that the Italians protested at the same time (1.3.19), and that of Cicero
that Gracchus “violated treaty rights” (de Rep. 3.41) can all be squared:
Gracchus did propose to give land and citizenship to some of the Allies—
the poorer, using land most likely reabsorbed from the holdings of the
wealthy—which would in turn increase the tax burden and the terms of
military service for these wealthy, leading to their protest about violated
iura.
However, it may be objected that (assuming the Allies used the
Roman system) those poorest Italians would not have been either
taxpayers or soldiers, so presumably the Allies would not have missed
APPENDICES 701
a reasoned conjecture is to be employed, it is probably safe to

venture at the very least that the Allies may well not have been the
principal concern of Tiberius Gracchus. It is far more likely that he
was motivated by the plight of Romani in the countryside, not that
of the socii, and when he began his thinking on the law he did so
with Romans first and foremost in his mind. As his thought
process evolved, it probably soon encompassed more than just the
rustic agrestes, and whether from compassion or necessity, it began
to touch on the poor living within the city as well.10 Certainly the
evidence of Plutarch shows that the urban poor began to look to
him for succor, calling for his aid by means of graffiti on buildings
and monuments (Ti. Gracc. 8).11 If, as Plutarch and Appian jointly
indicate, his motives were to bolster manpower—if his aim was less
εὐπορία than εὐανδρία, to use Appian’s pithy phrase—then Roman
poor, first rustic and then urban, would have remained his primary
interest.
Yet in this regard it would also make sense that he would
eventually look after the soundness of the Allies as well, both those
still struggling to hold on in the field and those driven away from it
by latifundia and ultimately landing in Rome, where their presence
combined with their unemployment and idleness would have made
them and could hardly claim violated treaty rights on their account.
Moreover, Tiberius and his knowledge of the law could have found a way
around the formula pertaining to the land he wished to distribute without
making the recipients citizens, assuming some of the intended recipients
were, in fact, not citizens. In the end, even if the grant of the citizenship
was the intention of Gracchus, he did not live to see it enacted (for
additional discussion on Richardson’s thesis, see Keaveney 1987, p. 48–
50).
As has been seen, certainty about what Gracchus wanted is not to be
derived from these arguments. All that can therefore be done is add to the
conjecture, which, ultimately, is what will be done here.
10 See Nagle (1970, p. 376–381) for theories on Gracchus only coming
to the urban poor fairly late.

11 Presumably at least a few of the urban poor could read, even if not
very many; Morstein-Marx believes the estimate of W. V. Harris of twenty

percent (cited in note 12, p. 70) to be too low, but even that would make
it likely that some of the Roman lower classes were literate.
them useless and, indeed, perhaps even a danger to the

commonwealth. If what some of the literary sources indicate, that
none save the Roman plebs ultimately received any land by the lex
Sempronia, was actually the case, that need not indicate that such
was the intention of the law’s author, whose aims may have been
thwarted by the coalition of Roman nobiles which had formed
against Gracchus and his laws from the moment he had proposed
them. The machinations of these opponents, and the
countermeasures taken by Gracchus, are well-described
elsewhere12; it had been one of them, an attempt to restrain the
commission by means of drastically reducing its operating budget,
that had led to the arrogation of the Pergamene finances
mentioned above (Plutarch, Ti. Gracc. 13). This particular gambit
did not meet with success, but others taken after his death were of
more efficacy (see Chapter 3). Either way, for the purposes of this
essay the question does not necessarily need to be solved; in the
end the Allies almost certainly received no land, whether or not any
had been intended for them.
12 See, for example, Plutarch’s life, as well as Appian 1.10.10–1.2.17,
Velleius 2.2–2.4, Periochae 58, Cassius Dio frg. 83, Florus 2.2, as well as
Stockton’s excellent biography of the Gracchi.
APPENDIX C:
THE DATE AND PURPOSE OF THE EXPULSION LAW
OF M. JUNIUS PENNUS
As was seen in Chapter 3, one of the very few things reported by
the sources as occurring in the year 126 in Rome was a law passed
by the tribune M. Junius Pennus.1 This law, according to Cicero in
his De Officiis, “would prevent strangers from using the city and
expel them” (peregrinos urbibus uti prohibent eosque exterminant; 3.47). It
is usually held to be the same law found in Festus (388L) whose
passage gave C. Gracchus an excuse to decry the “imbecility and
greed” which motivated such measures (Eae nationes, cum aliis rebus
per avaritiam atque stultitiam, respublicas suas amiserunt).2 Other than the
expulsive element suggested by Cicero, nothing else is known
concerning the terms of this law, nor why it was carried, and both
of these unknowns (especially the latter) have become subjects of
scholarly debate. Given the connection this law seems to have with
C. Gracchus, as well as the connections it is alleged to have had
with other important Roman figures, its potential impact on the
socii, and what it may reveal about the Roman attitudes towards the
latter at the time of the passage, it seems to be worthwhile to see
just what can be discovered about this law. On the other hand, this
law is not one of the so enormous an import as to justify
interrupting the narrative presented in Chapter 3, where it is briefly
discussed. For this reason, such a brief investigation into the lex
Junia will be attempted here.
One of the most important strands in the modern scholarship
on this legislation is one which seeks to connect it with the
franchise law to be proposed in 125 by M. Fulvius Flaccus (see
Chapter 3). The theory is that the tribune had hoped by this
legislation to prevent foreigners already in Rome from trying to
1 According to Cicero who mentions the tribunate of Pennus as

having occurred during the consulate of Orestes, id est 126 (Brutus 28).
2 Offered, it is alleged, either in 126 before his departure for
quaestorian service, under Orestes or later upon his return; so Stockton,

p. 94–95; Keaveney 1987, p. 53–53 and p. 70–71 notes 30–33. More will
be explored in this point directly.
703
vote to pass the would-be lex Fulvia illegally, or to keep those not
yet in Rome but contemplating a trip for such illegal voting from
doing so. Indeed, some state that he wished to accomplish both of
these goals, in much the same way that the expulsion act passed by
Fannius in 122 would attempt to do (see Chapter 3).3 Evidence for
this Pennus acting with this purpose seems to come from the
quotation of Gracchus in Festus that was just cited. By this
reckoning, the words which Gracchus was using indicate his
disapproval of the law. That disapproval, in turn, came from the
fact that it was designed to frustrate a legislative initiative of
Flaccus, a friend of Gracchus and fellow participant on the
commission which adjudicated the ager publicus per the terms of the
leges Semproniae.4 By this interpretation, the younger Gracchus was
apparently suggesting that the foreigners (presumably the Allies)
were acting out of the avaritia and stultitia he mentioned. In other
words, they had “lost their states through [their own] foolishness
and greed”: they had unwisely attempted to vote illegally from
thirst for the benefits of citizenship, and it had caused their
expulsion by this law. The objection of Gracchus seems to be that
the punishment was too harsh: the allies may have acted from
greed and stupidity, but that did not justify expelling them from the
city. Furthermore, by this construction, the opposition to the law
reveals not only the meaning of the phrase, but also the
circumstances under which it was uttered: they were given in a
public address opposing its passage. Finally, this construction runs,
the speech was part of an active effort to get the people to reject
the bill; thus, it was delivered, not after the law had been passed,
but beforehand, in 126.
Objections to this construction immediately present
themselves, of which one of the most significant is timing.
Assuming that Gracchus was delivering a speech to persuade the
3 This is believed by Badian, who states as much in Foreign Clientelae

(p. 176–177) and repeats the assertion later (1970, p. 388–389); Baldson
(p. 100) agrees, while Husband (p. 320) is undecided, for reasons to be
described below.
4 Badian (1958, p. 177–178) argues that such a connection ought to be
made, although he admits of the difficulties caused by the sources.

APPENDICES 705
people not to vote for a law he despised because it was designed to

impede a law to be passed by one of his friends—which is in fact
an extended chain of four separate assumptions linked together,
none of them supported by any evidence—then it is likely he
would have needed to do so in early 126, the year in which he was
quaestor and Pennus the tribune. This is because, while he could
have made the speech at any time between when he knew that the
law was to be debated and when it was to be voted, he would have
his greatest chance of reaching the most people most effectively as
the law was being promulgated, id est in a contio. Contiones could only
be called by sitting magistrates,5 and it was rare for those
magistrates who were proposing the laws to invite opponents to
speak against them save during the customary suasio/dissuasio which
occurred directly before a vote was to be taken.6 Since that is the
case, then a speech made by Gracchus in opposition to this law
would probably not have been given in a contio called by Pennus, to
which, as an opponent of the bill, it is unlikely that Gracchus
would have been invited. That being the case, then the only way he
could have made his alleged speech would be in a contio more
amenable to hearing him speak.7 As quaestor in 126 Gracchus
could have summoned such an assembly, but he would have had to
have done it early in 126, as he was soon sent off with the consul
to fight in Sardinia (see Chapter 3). He might have departed for
that island as early as January, which would not give him much
time to derail the law, since for the next several years he would be
with the army and does not seem to have made it back to Rome
during that service. The chain of hypotheticals mentioned above
therefore adds a fifth link, which is that the law of Pennus was
promulgated in early 126. This, in turn, gives rise to another
problem, which is how the lex Junia could have been designed to
5 Morstein-Marx, p. 38.
6 Morstein-Marx, p. 160–203.
7 Alternatively, Gracchus could have been called to speak in a contio
called by another magistrate opposed to the law in the period during

which the proposal was put to the people but before the final vote, but
that too would likely have been in early 126, since Gracchus would soon
depart to Sardinia and would be there for the remainder of that year and
the next (see Chapter 3).
impede the would-be lex Fulvia, whose proponent would not be

elected consul until the next year.
More on this last problem will be explored below, but for the
moment, it will suffice to observe that any connection between
Flaccus and the purpose of the lex Junia that draws support on the
passage in Festus just described depends on the string of
conditions which is vulnerable at practically every point. First of all,
Gracchus may not have actually disapproved of the law. As was
seen, all Festus notes is that he said things about many republics in
what he wrote about the law of Pennus and about foreigners
(respublicas multarum civitatium pluraliter dixit C. Gracchus in ea, quam
conscripsit de lege Penni8 et peregrinis, cum ait…). Those pluraliter dixit
could have been, but were not necessarily, disparaging. Use of
strong words like stultitia and avaritia may suggest censure, but does
not prove such.9 Admittedly, in writing about this law of Pennus
years later, Cicero (loc. cit.) refers to it as sane inhumanum, especially
in contrast to the later expulsion law of Crassus and Scaevola (on
this point more will be discussed presently). It may well be that
Cicero’s disapproval echoed that of contemporaries of Pennus. If
so, then it may also very well have been that this enactment quite
unpopular in its own day, a disapprobation which Gracchus may
have shared and which may be reflected in the text quoted by
Festus.10 But there is also the firm possibility that both the Romans
acive in 126 and Gracchus specifically had a difference of opinion
to that of Cicero, as certainly Cicero seems to have disagreed with
Gracchus in other contexts quite often (for which, see Appendix
B).
Even assuming Gracchus did dislike the law about which he
wrote, it need not have been the case that what he wrote was ever a
speech delivered in public. It could just as easily have been
something like a letter or a pamphlet. Examples of each of these
8 He accepts the emendation of Müller, as do most other scholars, of

Penni for p. Enni.
9 Stockton (p. 94–95) points out this very possibility, noting that
Festus states that Gracchus conscripsit de lege Penni, but not contra legem Penni.
10 Keaveney (1987, p. 55) cites this as a possibility which he believes to
be true, although his description follows a slightly different sequence of

events than the one postulated above.
APPENDICES 707
are known to have been preserved, as both Cicero and Plutarch

claims to have seen them.11 Still, if it were further allowed that
Gracchus did put forth an oratio in which he attacked the law, that
speech need not have been made before the law was passed, but
could well have been made years after its passage. Finally, whether
Gracchus offered an address assailing the legislation before or after
it was carried, it need not have been on behalf of the proposed law
of Flaccus, but could have been for entirely separate, unknown
reasons of his own.
If any or all of these conditions described above were
reflective of what was actually the case, the result would be that
Gracchus had not spoken so as to check the law of Pennus, lest
this law pose a barrier to the designs of Flaccus, in early 126, in a
contio of his own calling, before he was called away for military
service. The quotation in Festus could easily point to a variety of
other possible conclusions, and since that is so, there arises the
distinct possibility that this lex Junia may, in fact, have had nothing
to do with Flaccus.
Such a possibility of a disjunction between the legislation of
Pennus and the initiative of Flaccus is not only found in the
absence of any evidence for a connection to be drawn from Festus.
There are other reasons to doubt it, and these, too, also depend in
part of chronology. In the Brutus, M. Junius Pennus was claimed by
Cicero to have been tribune during the consulate of Orestes (Fuit
enim M. Lepido et L. Oreste consulibus quaestor Gracchus, tribunus
Pennus [emphasis added]; Brut 109). This suggests that Pennus was
tribune at some point between the first of January and the end of
December of 126, the year in which Lepidus and Orestes were
consuls.12 It is most probable that Cicero meant that Pennus was
tribune for the majority of 126, which would have had him take
office on December 10 of the previous year.13 It is, of course,
11 Plutarch notes in his biography of Tiberius Gracchus that Caius had

written of his brother’s trip through Tuscany “in a pamphlet” ( ἔν τινι
ι λίῳ, Ti. Gracch. 7), and Cicero quotes something that Caius Gracchus
had written to Marcus Pomponius (C. Gracchus ad M. Pomponium scripsit;
de. Div. 2.29.62)
12 Consuls took office on the first of January after the year 153; Per. 47
13 Tribunes took office on December 10 (Dion. Hal. 6.89)
possible that Cicero was instead indicating the other possibility,

which is that Pennus was elected on December 10 of 126, to serve
the majority of his term in 125, although it is something of a
stretch for Cicero to date Pennus to a consulate which had but
three weeks left to it when he took office.14
Either possibility, however, carries with it difficulties for the
speculation that the expulsion law of Pennus was aimed at
disrupting support for the potential law of Flaccus. If Pennus
served in the earlier period (December 10 of 127 to December 9 of
126), then he would have been out of office for almost a month by
the time that Flaccus spent his first day as consul, which would
have been the very earliest in which he could have promulgated his
franchise bill.15 A law of Pennus designed passed to prevent illegal
Italian voting for this law at about the time that such illegal voiting
would have been occurring—in other words, passed as the law of
Flaccus was being prepared to be put before the assembly—would
therefore have been impossible.16
Of course, there was nothing to have prevented Pennus from
passing the expulsion law in 126 in anticipation of the proposal of
Flaccus and whatever extralegal Italian endorsement it might have
gained. However, this would have depended on Pennus knowing
ahead of time that Flaccus had such a bill in mind. It is exceedingly
unlikely that Pennus would have had such knowledge, however,
unless Flaccus exhibited behavior must unlike typical Roman
candidate for office, who tended to avoid any discussion of the
policies and legislative projects they intended to pursue while
14 So Stockton (loc. cit., especially note 37) disputing Carcopino’s

advocacy of this very thing. Stockton is probably correct in his skepticism
of what would amount to a “solecism” of Cicero.
15 This has been pointed out by Stockton and followed by Keaveney
in the passages already cited.

16 That this law was at least promulgated can be inferred from the
evidence of Appian (1.3.21) and Valerius Maximus (9.5.1), which both

suggest that the law was being pursued in such a way that it would
eventually be put before the people. It is therefore possible that someone
could have hastily passed a law to prevent Italian fraudulent voting for the
law in anticipation of the comitia if they had reason to suspect that such
might exist.
APPENDICES 709
campaigning.17 Even if Flaccus had been so inclined to telegraph

the law he may have been contemplating, simple prudence would
have warned against him doing so. In order to be elected, Flaccus
had to win a majority of votes in the comitia centuriata, in which the
centuries of the wealthy and upper middle classes held almost a
majority of those who would vote. These would be the exact sort
of people who would oppose a citizenship bill whose goal was to
buy Allied co-operation in the resumption of the assessment
activities of the Gracchan commission, which was the very thing
the law of Flaccus intended to do (see Chapter 3).
What this would mean was that Pennus probably could not
have framed his law to prevent the Italians from voting on a
measure which Flaccus would be known to be intending to
propose on his election, since it is almost certain that Flaccus
would not have disclosed his intention to promulgate such a law
before he was elected. Pennus would thus have had no knowledge
of it, and no need to stand in the way of its putative Italian
supporters. Moreover, even if Flaccus had announced his object, it
would have been far from certain that there would have been any
Italian supporters for his measure. As has been seen, the Italians
had previously indicated their great displeasure at the activities of
the triumviri, and had exerted themselves mightily to bring about an
end to them (see chapter 3). That they would turn from this
position in exchange for the citizenship was by no means a sure
thing, or would not have been as far as anyone knew in 126.
Neither Flaccus nor Pennus could therefore have been sure Italians
would support a citizenship bill to pave the way for more land
reclamation even if Flaccus had broadcast his decision to propose
one before his election. Finally, even if Pennus had known what
Flaccus was thinking of doing and had some further insight that
17 In fact, as Mouritsen (2001, p. 92–94; p. 117) points out, candidates
almost never ran on a legislative agenda or on what might otherwise be

called “the issues”; as he puts it, “Political issues, it seems, were avoided at
all costs, and not simply those that might cause controversy, but issues in
general”. This is also noted by Morstein-Marx (p. 275–276) although he is
less vehement in his assertion. Thus, it is most unlikely that Flaccus would
have run for consul on the “platform” of the legislation he intended to
pass.
the Italians would be so in favor of it as to attempt some sort of

ballot-stuffing to ensure its success, a law to restrain them would
be useless if Flaccus would have failed in his candidacy. Pennus
would consequently have had to wait until November to see if
Flaccus were returned, giving him very little time to frame and pass
his measure before his office expired.18
Then again, Pennus may have pushed his proposal to keep
fraudulent Italian voting from helping Flaccus get elected consul in
the first place.19 However, for Pennus to do this he would, again,
have needed to have grounds to suspect that Italians might try to
do such a thing. For the reasons listed above, he likely would have
had no grounds for such suspicion: Flaccus would probably have
kept any plans for making his law a secret, and therefore Pennus—
and, almost certainly, the Italians themselves—would not have
known about them. The Italians would, then, have had little cause
to exert themselves to see to the election of Flaccus, and his
participation in the Triumvirate may have even engendered an
antipathy towards him amongst the socii. It therefore seems just as
impossible that Pennus could have passed an edict in 126 whose
ultimate purpose was to keep Italians from illegally voting to elect
Flaccus as it is that he passed such an edict in that year to keep
them from potentially voting on a law of his once elected. In the
absence of knowing what Flaccus intended to do, the Italians might
not have seen him as a particularly desireable candidate for consul,
nor might Pennus have seen him as a particularly objectionable
one.
Of course, this might have changed if an inundation of
Italians had beset the city at election time, indicating their intent to
use their numbers to get Flaccus elected. Pennus would then have
had ample grounds to suspect chicanery, might have intuited that it
involved something Flaccus was planning, and therefore the
impetus to pass his law in the last days of his tribunate to prevent a
18 For November as the time when consuls were elected, see Nicolet
1988, p. 238.
19 Andrew Lintott (in Cambridge Ancient History, Volume IX: The Last
Age of the Roman Republic, 146–143 B.C. Cambridge University Press:

Cambridge, 1994, p. 76) mentions this as a possibilty.
APPENDICES 711
repeat performance in the following year. Yet there is no evidence

for this massive influx of Allied would-be voters,20 and therefore
nothing that would have seemed amiss to Pennus in such a way as
to force his law.
For all these reasons, it becomes exceedingly difficult to
believe that Pennus put forward a law in 126 so as to prevent illegal
Allied voting and thereby to block the election of Flaccus, nor that
he put it forward to constrain the passage of a law Flaccus intended
to advance in 125. At least, it is difficult so to believe if the
chronology of the tribunate of Pennus is what it is claimed to have
been, namely that he served from late 127 to late 126. However,
there remains the possibility, however unlikely, that Pennus took
office in December of 126, still technically during the consulate of
Orestes, to serve until December of 125. It will be recalled that this
was deemed most improbable, but not impossible, above. If it had
actually turned out this way, then such a term in office would
remove the need to assign Pennus any sort of prescience about
what legislation Flaccus might propose, and to rush to pass a
plebiscitum in the attempt to weaken that law’s chance of being
enacted. By December of 126 the election of Flaccus would have
been an accomplished fact, one Pennus could not have influenced.
Rather, Pennus would have the time, in 125, to react to the
20 And it is also most unlikely that such would have been successful in
the first place. While it has been observed that there were no identity
checks during voting (see Mouritsen 2001, p. 28–29), if Italians had
attempted to sneak in to vote in the comitia centuriata so as to elect their
man, then they would probably have wanted to vote in the wealthiest
centuries, since these wielded the most influence. However, they also
almost certainly would have been recognized there due to the relatively
few numbers of the wealthiest in Rome, and this would have led to a
voting irregularity which probably would have led to a prosecution, given
the unpopularity of Flaccus during his consulate (see Chapter 3). On the
other hand, they might then have attempted to vote in the centuries of the
less wealthy, but his would have been to no avail if the wealthiest
centuries managed to elect two consuls before the vote got to the poorer
ones. Therefore, it is difficult to see how Italians could have hoped to
influence an election to a magistracy as important as the consulate
through fraudulent voting.
lawmaking efforts of Flaccus, without the need to predict them.

Once it came out that Flaccus had a citizenship law in mind,
Pennus might then have put forward his own law in the attempt to
obstruct it. Yet if Pennus served the greater part of his tribunate
during the consular term of Flaccus, a much easier and a simpler
means to make difficulties for the erstwhile lex Fulvia than an
Italian expulsion could have been availed by the tribune Pennus.
He could simply have vetoed the law, and been done with it.21
All these arguments serve to illustrate the difficulty of
assigning to the law of Pennus the purpose of preventing the socii
from electing Flaccus or helping pass his laws through illegal
voting. To these may be added another objection, one which may
be raised due to the description of the lex Junia by Cicero. His
testimony is practically all that exists to demonstrate the timing of
this law, and is also the only real evidence as to what that law
actually did. Pennus, according to the de Officiis, looked to debar
foreigners from the city and keep them outside its borders
(peregrinos urbibus uti prohibent eosque exterminant; usu vero urbis prohibere
peregrinos). Of this action, Cicero attaches his opinion that it was a
bad one (male), one that was very close to transgressing the bounds
of human behavior (sane inhumanum). To be sure, Cicero continues,
under some circumstances this sort of procedure would be
warranted: it would not be right for those who were not citizens to
pass themselves off as if they were, and to prevent this, an
expulsion law would not have been indecent. As Cicero notes in
the same passage as that in which he censures the lex Junia, a law
for such a purpose was enacted by the consuls L. Licinius Crassus
and Q. Mucius Scaevola, men of surpassing wisdom (Nam esse pro
cive, qui civis non sit, rectum est non licere; quam legem tulerunt
sapientissimi consules Crassus et Scaevola [emphasis added]; 3.47).
21 Of course, Tiberius Gracchus had showed the potential dangers of
using the veto to obstruct a law supported by the people (as Appian
suggests had been the case with that of Flaccus; 1.5.34). Still, in this case it
seems unlikely that Flaccus could do what Gracchus had done and simply
have Pennus deposed, because Flaccus was not himself a tribune as
Gracchus had been, but was a consul instead. Therefore, there seems little
which could have been done to prevent Pennus from using a veto if he
were tribune for 126–125 and opposed to the law of Flaccus.
APPENDICES 713
Cicero’s actual thoughts about Crassus and Scaevola—which seem

to change in other writings—notwithstanding, it seems reasonably
clear that in this passage Cicero is drawing a contrast. One the one
hand, there is the action undertaken by sapientissimi consules Crassus et
Scaevola, who drew up a law to prevent usurpation of the rights of
Roman citizens by those not entitled to them. On the other, there
is the action of Pennus, one which is sane inhumanum. It is difficult
to resist the conclusion that the law of Pennus, which drew
Cicero’s displeasure, was markedly different that that of Scaevola
and Crassus, whose wisdom is acknowledged. If, then, the latter
was a law whose purpose was to prevent the usurpation of
citizenship privileges, then that of Pennus must not have done so.
Correspondingly, it becomes equally difficult to believe that
Pennus passed it to prevent the Italians from illegally voting to
elect Flaccus, pass his laws, or both. Such activities would by
definition involve the usurpations of the rights of citizens, whose
prevention Cicero acknowledges as just. That the enactment of
Pennus is described as almost barbaric must mean that it did not
serve to deflect such illegal usages, but must have done something
else. For these reasons, attempts to pose the expulsion act of
Pennus as a potential shield against the election or the laws of
Flaccus are probably mistaken.
If the arguments above are correct, and Pennus did not design
his law to thwart the aid of Flaccus through voting irregularities,
then it was apparently passed merely to get foreigners out of the
city. It is not certain why Pennus would have thought it necessary
to remove them, though there has also been the suggestion that
this law was yet another which was passed at the behest of the
Allies, due to the fact that so many of their citizens had come to
Rome that they were having difficulties meeting their military
obligations. This would put it into the same category as those laws
which had been passed at the request of the Latins in 187 and 177
(Livy 39.3; 41.8–9).22 In both of those years there was to be a
census within the next eighteen months, which might have added a
sense of urgency to the need to recover as many Allies by their own
cities as possible before they became Roman citizens through their
22 So Keaveney 1987, p. 53–55.

(fraudulent) enrollment as such by the censors (Per. 60). There was

also to be a census in 125, the year after the law of Pennus was
passed. In fact, there may have been a precedent for an expulsion
taking place in the year before a census, since the consul
L. Postumius Albinus also seems to have done such a thing in 173
(Livy 42.10).
However, since it is widely considered that the law of 187 had
put a severe limitation on the former Latin right of the ius
migrationis, which may in turn have been revoked completely shortly
after that year,23 an Allied request for laws to bring about the return
of their citizens would have rested on the grounds that their
citizens had come to Rome illegally to pose as citizens there. If the
Allies had made such a request in 126, it would perforce have been
to stop an activity which would qualify as an usurpation of
citizenship, and therefore Pennus would indeed have legislated
against such an usurpation. Yet Cicero seems to suggest he did not
act to debar improper arrogation of the iura civium, as the wise
Scaevola and Crassus had done, but had done something else,
something repugnant. Attributing the law of Pennus to a request
for the Allies along these lines continues to leave the question as to
why it would be condemned by Cicero.
A further possibility exists, which is that this law had been
carried to expel foreigners but without having been asked for by
the Allies themselves.24 If it had thus been enacted unbidden, such
23 That it may have been curtailed as early as 268 is debated (see
Sherwin-White, p. 103–104); by 177, at least, it seems that the law

required that only those who had progeny to leave behind could assume
Roman citizenship, and since loopholes were being found to that, the
Romans may have ended the ius altogether by either the law of 177 or in
173, when the aforementioned L. Postumius Albinus had ejected
foreigners under the Claudian law of 177 which he may have modified in
the process.
24 And it is to be noted that all the other expulsion laws—ones
requested by the Allies—seem to have been enacted by consuls, not

tribunes; this would be appropriate, since it would in essence be a matter
of foreign policy (the return of foreign nationals to their communities to
facilitate the ability of those communities to make their manpower
contributions).
APPENDICES 715
might explain Cicero’s condemnation of it (and that of C.

Gracchus, since without the request of the Allies for its passage
such a law might be interpreted as being motivated by meanness,
greed, or stupidity). Yet there remains the question of why Pennus
acted, if it was not at the request of the Italians on the one hand
nor to frustrate Flaccus on the other. Unfortunately, the sources
give no guidance through whose use such an explanation can be
found. In their absence, some speculation might be permitted, and
this will be attempted below.
Given the historical attraction Rome seems to have held for
the Allies, it is not impossible to conjecture that enough Allies and
foreigners had managed to make their way to Rome by 126 to
catch the notice of the tribune. It might even have been that many
of these peregrini were in the city because the activities of the
Triumvirs has stripped them of their land on or near the ager
publicus and left them nowhere else to go. If this was so, then the
urban populace must have thus been increased by their numbers,
making the cry for land even louder. Consequently, fresh urgency
may have been put into the commission. It is perhaps for this
reason that Appian mentions that there were “some” during the
consulate of Flaccus who put forward the suggestion that the Allies
be given the franchise, or at the very least that it be given to those
who complained most volubly about the redistribution, so that
their complaints might be silenced and the commission could
acquire more land (1.3.21; see also chapter 3). Who these τινες were
is unknown, but if they reached the ear of the Triumvirate, then
they might have proved influential to Flaccus. In a sense, then,
perhaps the measure enacted by Pennus and that which was nearly
carried by Flaccus were connected, in that both alike may have
been motivated by the pressure put on the urban populace by the
presence of Italians. By casting out all non-citizens, Pennus moved
to relieve that pressure in his way. Flaccus, by acquiring more land
for distribution for the Roman poor, would attempt to relieve it in
his.
APPENDIX D: THE IUS ADIPISCENDI CIVITATEM
ROMANUM PER MAGISTRATUM
According to Asconius 3C, the so called “Latin Rights”—ius
Latii—included a certain privilege which has become known as the
ius adipiscendi civitatem Romanum per magistratum, by means of which
those men from the Latin communities who had attained certain
high electoral offices could attain the Roman citizenship causa
honoris. There is a scholarly consensus that this had not always been
the case, and that this right was added to the ius Latii at some point
after those iura were first given. However, the question of exactly
when it came into being is by no means a matter of scholarly
agreement.
One of the arguments that have been advanced for the timing
of the addition of the ius adipiscendi civitatem Romanum per magistratum
to the ius Latii holds that it added to the Latin rights sometime
around the tribunates of Caius Gracchus.1 This argument rests in
part on evidence derived from a fragmentary extortion law (known
for the medium on which it was discovered as the tabula Bembina),
which is believed to date to the second tribunate of Gracchus. The
law seems to have had a provision which excludes magistrates from
Latin towns from making use of the right to seek citizenship by
means of successful prosecution, with the presumption being that
they already had this right from having held office. Assuming that
this evidence is sound, the question becomes whether that right
existed before the time postulated for the enactment of the law
found on the tabula Bembina or not.
The testimony of some of the literary sources has been
advanced in favor of the suggestion that the ius adipiscendi civitatem
Romanum per magistratum did indeed exist before the tribunates of
Gracchus, but not much before. In the first place, there are
speeches by C. Gracchus describing abuses inflicted upon Italian
magistrates in Latin towns by Roman magistrates, ones quoted by
Aulus Gellius (10.3.3–5).2 These are said by Gracchus to have
1 Such an interpretation is favored by Sherwin-White (p. 111–112,
215–216) and Stockton (p. 189–190).

2 See also chapter 2.
716
APPENDICES 717
happened nuper. Since through the per magistratum privilege these

men would have been Roman citizens, and as such the magistrates
visiting from Rome would not dare to mistreat them, the ius
granting the citizenship to Allied officeholders could not have too
much before the floruit of Gracchus in 123. Secondly, there is
another passage of Asconius (17), one discussing Lucius Opimius.
This passage observes that at the time of the revolt of Fregellae,3
many other allies—specifically, Latins—who did not take part in
the uprising revolt were nevertheless grumbling (ceteros quoque
nominis Latini socios male animatos). Such conditions might have been
a cause of concern for the Senate, and this new privilege may have
come into being as an effort to conciliate the disaffected Latins.4
Therefore, Gellius seems to indicate that there was a time within
the living memory of C. Gracchus in which this ius did not exist,
and that an occasion for it to come into being was the
animadversion of the Latins engenderd by Fregellae.
As can be seen, this evidence is hardly overwhelming. In the
first place, it is by no means certain that Roman officeholders so
arrogant as to have committed the misdeeds which Gracchus
describes would have shrunk from them even if the Italians they
abused were Roman citizens. Thus, the ius might well have
stretched into antiquity, but the citizenship it gave to the local
authorities need not have restrained the superbia of the travelling
Romans.
However, if it may be conceded that Roman abuses were
more likely to be visited on non-citizens than citizens, then such
visitation would indeed tend to suggest that the ius adipiscendi
civitatem Romanum per magistratum did not exist before circa 130–123.
It may also be conceded that the Fregellae affair and the resulting
dissension amongst the Latins might have made it advisable for the
Senate to search for a way to ease the tension, and that extension
of this privilege might have gone far to do so. Yet this in no way
proves that the Senate actually did so by the ius, or indeed by
anything at all. In fact, if the somewhat extraordinary ferocity
displayed by Opimius at Fregellae is any indication, it is unlikely
3 For which see chapter 3.

4 So Stockton, loc. cit.
that Rome was in any mood to soothe any of Allies, Latins

included. Fregellae therefore hardly makes and ironclad case for the
inclusion of the ius adipiscendi civitatem Romanum per magistratum into
the ius Latii, but could easily point to the Romans being less
conciliatory than ever in 125.
Even the evidence of the tabula Bembina is not unassailable.
Those who hold that it presumes the existence of the ius assume
the law engraved on it makes specific reference to Latin
magistrates, something which—as has been pointed out5—is far
from certain. Hence, while the law on the tabula may very well date
to the time of Gracchus, it may have nothing to do with the ius
adipiscendi civitatem Romanum per magistratum.
For all these reasons, the argument in favor of the addition of
the ius adipiscendi civitatem Romanum per magistratum to the Latin rights
in the mid-120s is a far sight from irresistible. This has also been
discerned by other scholars, and in recognition of the weaknesses
of this argument, another has been advanced which asserts that this
ius did not in fact exist at all before 90.6 This other construction
does not necessarily do violence to Asconius 3C, since in that
author the privilege is mentioned in the context of Gn. Pompeius
Strabo (cos. 89) founding Transpadane colonies, almost certainly in
the year of his consulate, to whom he gave the ius Latii. The text of
Asconius is reasonably clear that the ius adipiscendi civitatem Romanum
per magistratum was one that already attached to the ius Latii at the
time of the foundation of the colonies. This would perforce mean
that, if Asconius is to be believed, the ius adipiscendi civitatem
Romanum per magistratum existed by the year 89, although it cannot
be known if it existed earlier than this year, and no unambiguous
textual attestation can be found to provide a more concise dating.
In the absence of such precision, leave may perhaps be
granted to employ conjecture. Clearly the evidence renders it
entirely possible that the ius adipiscendi civitatem Romanum per
magistratum was added to the ius Latii very close to the year 89; it
5 The arguments of Bradeen in this regard are persuasive (p. 221–224)

6 So Bradeen (p. 225), although his evidence is not convincing on this
point, the opinion of Mouritsen notwithstanding (1998, p. 100–108; more
below).
APPENDICES 719
might well have dated to 90, and perhaps to fairly early in that year.
It is speculated in chapter 5 that the Latins held aloof from the war
during its first year. Perhaps the ius adipiscendi civitatem Romanum per
magistratum was one that was added to their iura in an attempt to
persuade them to join the struggle, one whose lack of success
would ultimately lead to the lex Julia.
Such, at least, is one possibility, though it certainly cannot be
proved. It is not the only one. Indeed, it may still be that case that
the ius adipiscendi civitatem Romanum per magistratum does actually date
back to the time of C. Gracchus. The evidence for this hypothesis,
as has been seen, is flimsy, but that does necessarily result in its
impossibility, nor even to the impossibility that the ius was added in
the aftermath of Fregellae. Even if the latter was not what
occurred, other potential points for the addition of the ius may
present themselves at about the time of Graccus. As chapter 3
notes, the sources cearly state that C. Gracchus and Flaccus had
primarily been interested in enfranchising the Latins, in part
because they wanted to adjudicate land in Latin territories, and in
part because history suggested they these had particularly wanted
the citizenship.7 Once the plans of Gracchus and Flaccus were
defeated, it might be plausible to suppose that the Senate would
look for ways to ward off any seeking to follow in their example in
the years to come. One way to do this might be to offer the chief
men of the Latin communities the citizenship. This would be easier
economically than enfranchising all of them,8 and would give any
future would-be agrarian reformers nothing with which the
cooperation of the Latins could be bought. Such a difficulty in
winning the support of the Latins after the addition of the ius
adipiscendi civitatem Romanum per magistratum would be all the more
true in light of the fact that the men chosen to be magistrates in the
Latin communites (and thus enfranchised by the ius) would likely
be the wealthiest of them, and thus would probably have the most
land to lose if the ager publicus were to be redistributed. Finally, as
the wealthiest these would be of the proper conservative bent to
preserve the privileges of the Roman élite as voters, and as such
7 For which see chapter 3.

8 For the economics of enfranchisement, see Chapter 4.
their enfranchisement would likely not cause significant ripples in

Roman politics.
At least one significant problem nevertheless exists with this
last construction, one serious enough to throw the dating of the ius
adipiscendi civitatem Romanum per magistratum to the 120s period into
doubt. That problem revolves around the fact that the exercise of
this right would seem to result in a constant loss of Latins to
Rome. Those men who had become Roman citizens would by
definition cease to be Latin citizens, and at the same time lose their
eligibility for service in Allied contingents and, presumably, for
taxation in their home communities. Because drainoff of
manpower had already been a concern for the Latins as early as
187, as the expulsion law enacted at their request in that year
illustrates,9 it is therefore difficult to see how the Romans would
allow this to continue by means of the grant of citizenship to the
Latin nobility through this ius.10
By way of answer to this objection, it should be noted that
there need not be a foregone conclusion that a great diminution of
Latin soldiery would be the result of this privilege. In the first
place, such a conclusion presumes at the outset that a form of dual
citizenship had not yet been developed,11 or that some other
unnamed mechanism had not been devised whereby the Latin tax
base and pool of military manpower could be retained. Yet even
allowing that such an apparatus was not in place, it still need not be
the case that the Allies would have lost vast numbers of soldiers
through election. If their magistracies and the qualifications for
them were similar to those of Rome, then the offices to which this
right would attach would be open only to those men amongst the
Latins who had passed through their mandatory period of military
service. Since no more service would therefore be required of
them, these men had already been “lost” to their communities by
the full discharge of their obligations (save through volunteering,
which was unlikely based on the unpopularity of serving in Rome’s
armies). Moreover, if such men had adult sons, these would not
9 For which see chapter 3 and Appendix C.

10 These are the objections of Mourtisen, loc. cit.
11 As per Sherwin-White, who clearly states that it had not (p. 111).
APPENDICES 721
necessarily have become citizens alongside their fathers. The

younger men would, perhaps, remain in their communities, retain
some of the family property, and continue supporting the Latin
community with taxation and military service.12
Even if none of the options presented above are correct, then
it still might be that the ius adipiscendae would not have been a major
problem for the wealthiest of the Latins, especially if it was a recent
development. The loss of perhaps four men per year from the
Latin upper class might have been absorbed with some grace if it
mean that the men they left behind—who may indeed have
shouldered a greater burden on the field and a greater loss to the
tax collectors—would face reduced competition for gaining office
(and the franchise) themselves. What it might do, however, is
create a great deal of difficulties for the non-élite middle classes, and
thus keep the desire for mass enfranchisement (as opposed to
individual grants) alive. This in turn might explain Latin behavior in
the Allied War, as citizenship was still something they would want
but was still out of reach for most of them. As chapter 5 discusses,
it seems that in this circumstance their numbers—or rather the lack
of Roman access to them—eventually provided the leverage they
used to get what they sought.
12 In fact, the ius migrationis had stipulated that no Latin could
exchange his citizenship for Roman without leaving behind a son,

presumably to replace his father in the army.
APPENDIX E:
M. LIVIUS DRUSUS AND THE OUTBREAK
OF THE ALLIED WAR
A good many of the ancient sources which discuss the beginnings
of the Allied War attribute its outbreak in some way or another to
the frustrated legislation and subsequent murder of the tribune
M. Livius Drusus. The Periochae of Livy’s Book 71, for example,
directly states that when Drusus could not keep his promises of
granting the franchise, the Allies began to engage in rebellion (Cum
deinde promissa sociis civitas praestari non posset, irati Italici defectionem
agitare coeperunt; emphasis added). Orosius asserts much the same
thing even though he (mistakenly) mentions that it was only the
Latins and not the Allies who fought.1 Florus, also, blames the
outbreak of the war to the failure of Drusus to bestow the civitas.2
Finally, Diodorus attributes the war to a promise made by the
Senate, then on the outs with the plebs, to give the citizenship to the
Allies in exchange for their support, a promise on which they
reneged (37.2).3 This happened when Philippus and Sex. Julius
Caesar were consuls, and thus the civil disturbance was probably
that surrounding the various laws of Drusus.
What is more, the language used by each of these authors can
be read to suggest, not only that the Allies fell to war on the failure
of the tribune’s laws, but that indeed they had not even
contemplated such a course of action until then: the use of verbs
like agitare (Per. 71), excitare (Orosius), and accendere (Florus), which
1 siquidem Livius Drusus, tribunus plebi, Latinos omnes spe libertatis inlectos
cum placito explere non posset, in arma excitauit; 5.18.1–2 (emphasis

added).
2 Itaque cum ius civitatis, quam viribus auxerant, socii iustissime
postularent, quam in spem eos cupidine dominationis Drusus erexerat,

postquam ille domestico scelere oppressus est, eadem fax, quae illum cremavit,
socios in arma et expugnationem urbis accendit; 2.6.3 (emphasis added).
3ἐκ γὰρ τῆς διαφ ορᾶς ταύτ ς στασιάσαντος τοῦ δ μοτικοῦ πρὸς τὴν
σύγκλ τον, εἶτα ἐκείν ς ἐπικαλεσαμέν ς τοὺς ἐκ τῆς Ἰταλίας ἐπικουρῆσαι καὶ
ὑποσχομέν ς τῆς πολυεράστου Ῥωμαϊκῆς πολιτείας μεταδοῦναι καὶ νόμῳ
κυρῶσαι, ἐπεὶ οὐδὲν τῶν ὑπεσχ μένων τοῖς Ἰταλιώταις ἐγένετο, ὁ ἐξ αὐτῶν
πόλεμος πρὸς Ῥωμαίους ἐξεκαύ .
722
APPENDICES 723
can apply both to mental as well as physical action, might easily

imply that the planning of the war began with the death of Drusus
as much as the action of it. These sources would in turn seem to
corroborate the evidence found in Appian, which appears to state
fairly clearly that the coniuratio amongst the Allies started to be
formed around the time of the death of Drusus.4
Such a reading is, however, problematic, based on the
preparations which the Allies had obviously managed to complete
by the spring of 90, a few short months away from the murder of
Drusus in the fall of 91.5 By that time the socii had accomplished a
number of time-consuming tasks in a span which seems far too
little for what would be required to execute them. In the first place,
the Alliance itself had been made, and Appian states that it had
already existed even by the time of Asculum (the massacre at which
described a few lines after those describing the beginnings of the
compact). It beggars the imagination that a few short weeks
between late 91 and early 90 would have been enough to construct
this coalition. After all, some of the communities which joined the
Alliance were in some cases located at great distances from others
members of it, in many cases spoke different languages, and may
have been hostile to each other in the not-so-distant past. That
these could band together in so little time is all the more
remarkable in the Alliance which would be formed would have to
be one which could resist what would almost certainly be a
dedicated Roman effort to split them it and destroy its members in
turn. The trust which would have to be engendered—and which
was so engendered, if the tight co-operation which they would
display in 90 is any indication (see chapter 5)—would almost
certainly have taken much longer than a single season, even if it
could be done freely and in the open.
4 καὶ οἱ Ἰταλοὶ τοῦ τε Δρούσου πά ους πυν ανόμενοι καὶ τῆς ἐς τὴν φυγὴν
τούτων προφάσεως, οὐκ ἀνασχετὸν σφίσιν ἔτι ἡγούμενοι τοὺς ὑπὲρ σφῶν
πολιτεύοντας τοιάδε πάσχειν οὐδ᾽ ἄλλ ν τινὰ μ χανὴν ἐλπίδος ἐς τὴν πολιτείαν
ἔτι ὁρῶντες, ἔγνωσαν ἀποστῆναι Ῥωμαίων ἄντικρυς καὶ πολεμεῖν αὐτοῖς κατὰ
κράτος. κρύφα τε διεπρεσ εύοντο συντι έμενοι περὶ τῶνδε καὶ ὅμ ρα διέπεμπον
ἐς πίστιν ἀλλ λοις; 1.5.38.
5 For Drusus still being alive on the Ides of September, see Cicero de
orat. 3.1.1–2.
It was not, however, done openly; Appian notes that the Allies
first began to form their confederation κρύφα, in such a way that
the Romans would remain in the dark about it (ὧν ἐς πολὺ μὲν οὐκ
ἐπῄσ οντο Ῥωμαῖοι; loc. cit.). This element of secrecy also suggests
that even more time would be needed, with all the slow and
cautious overtures and the painstaking employment of arts of
persuasion needed to convince potential partners to make war on
the most powerful state in the world made even more slow and
cautious by the fact that they would have to be extended in such a
way as to prevent the Romans from discovering and destroying the
Alliance in its formative stages. Once the Alliance was finally cast,
the soldiers, materiel, and the machinery for leadership would also
have to be created in this same atmosphere of secrecy.
Therefore, it is little wonder that the sources suggest that the
Allies were not quite ready when the war broke out (see Chapter 4).
It is rather more to be marveled that they had advanced as far as
they had. Yet none of the patient, stealthy, and above all time-
consuming serioes of maneuvers just postulated conforms with
what the sources mentioned earlier seem to suggest, which is that
the Alliance was formed ab initio and ready to move within a few
short weeks of the death of Drusus. Months or even years would
be required, and this Velleius Paterculus is probably correct in his
assertion that the war was the result of a momentum which had
been gathering for some time (Mors Drusi iam pridem tumescens
bellum excitavit Italicum [emphasis added] 2.15.1–2).
How, then, can the claims of the sources that the death of
Drusus had started the war be retained in light of these facts? At
least one scholar suggests that they should not be.6 According to
his account, Drusus did not offer the franchise to the Allies at all,
but only to the Latins, just as Gracchus had done. After all, the
Latins had most frequently and consistently demonstrated an
ardent desire for the citizenship.7 Furthermore, it is alleged that
6 Mouritsen (1998, p. 129–151).

7 And, it is to be remembered, it is Mouritsen’s thesis that the other
Allies did not want the citizenship at all. Therefore, because they did not
seek the franchise, Drusus did not offer it to them, or at least did not do
so at first (Mouritsen later brings up the possibility that Drusus may have
APPENDICES 725
Drusus would have believed that granting the citizenship only to

the Latins was something that the Senate could swallow more
readily than giving it to all of the Italians, to which the Senate had
traditionally been opposed. As propugnator Senatus and as an astute
politician (see chapter 3), Drusus would not have deliberately done
anything of which he knew the Senate would disapprove.
Therefore—according to this construction—Drusus was not
offering the Allies anything they wanted, and they therefore would
not have been moved by his death. Why it is then alleged that
Drusus and his tribunate was the flashpoint for hostilities, and why
he held to have been an apparent advocate for the Allies—as
exemplified in part by his intimacy with Silo—is explained (this
argument continues) by exaggeration and distortion from the later
politically-motivated trials, at which supporters of the now-dead
Drusus were condemned for inciting the Allies to revolt. For such
charges to have been considered valid, it had to be established that
there was collusion or at least connection between the revolt and
Drusus (and thus his supporters by proxy), and if this did not exist,
it would have to be invented.
Therefore, it is asserted, a rhetorical fiction was employed to
create a linkage between Drusus and his friends to the actions of
the Allies, a linkage which had not really been there. Since the war
conveniently broke out shortly after the tribune was killed, a neat
correlation between the two events could be drawn at these trials.
That the warmaking ability demonstrated by the Allies (as
described above) must have been much longer in the manufacture
than the space between the murder and the outburst to follow was
one which, it is alleged, the prosecutors ignored. Later, this
propaganda was incorporated into the material from which the
subsequent historical accounts were drawn. Therefore, this
argument concludes, the actual coincidence of the commencement
of the war immediately after the death of Drusus was interpreted
by those later historians as having been nothing of the kind.
Instead of these hostilities merely erupting after the murder, that
changed his mind about this, although he discounts this possibility just as
quickly; op. cit., p. 124 note 45).
eruption was stated by the sources as having come about because

of the murder.
Such an argument is quite cunning at points, although it
ultimately fails to persuade for a number of reasons. First of all, it
makes the suggestion that Drusus would not have included any
Allies other than the Latins in his proposal, in part for the simple
reason that he would have known it would be doomed to failure.
The Senate was, per this construction, dead set against the franchise
for all of Italy. Yet the Latins and their enrollment were held to
have been more acceptable to the patres. Why it is that this would
be so is not well-explained. Certainly the Senate had not shown a
ready willingness to enfranchise entire communities of Latins in the
recent past, even if they may have enfranchised some individuals by
means of the ius adipiscendi civitatem Romanum per magistratum.8 Rather,
they had shown quite the opposite tendency, as the fate of the
proposals made by Flaccus and Gracchus show. Indeed, because of
his unique family history, Drusus would probably have been as
aware as anyone of the failed laws of Gracchus (as has been seen),
and because of his closeness to the optimates, would have been
equally aware of the demeanor of the Senate towards bestowing the
civitas on any Allied populus. The likelihood is that enfranchisement
of the Latins alone would not have been a more palatable option,
or if for some reason it was, then it would probably have been only
very, very slightly more palatable. This, by extension, would have
meant that enfranchisement for the other Allies would have only
been very, very slightly less so. Such odds do not make an
overwhelming case for the suggestion that Drusus would have
elected not to offer the citizenship to the other Allies because
doing so would have guaranteed failure of his bill. More likely, his
bill would have stood equal chances for success or lack of it no
matter who the intended recipients of the franchise would be.
Secondly, the objections to the grant of the franchise do not
seem to have doomed the bill of Drusus on its own accord, just as
it had probably not doomed similar proposals from three decades
earlier. This is because in every instance in which citizenship was
8 Although Mouritsen also argues against the existence of this very
right, for which see Appendix D.

APPENDICES 727
offered to the Allies from the Gracchi on, land distribution was
always associated with it, just as it was in this case. If, as has been
asserted in chapter 3, the citizenship was to be offered to the socii as
a way to quiet their protests at the resumption of adjudicating the
ager publicus both in 125 and 91, then laws to that affect would
almost certainly be doomed to failure for that very reason. The
extent to which citizenship for just the Latins would have been
more or less objectionable than citizenship offered to all the Allies
cannot therefore be determined, since it never seems to have come
up as an independent measure. Instead, it always seemed to arise
adjacent to a proposal which would never be met with pleasure by
the Senate.
Hence, if Drusus would not have automatically ruled out
extending the franchise to all the Allies, as opposed to the Latins
only, based on the fact that doing so might diminish the chances of
his bill’s success, then it remains possible that he would have been
open to the suggestion of including all the Allies in his offer.
Certainly by not restricting adjudication of the ager publicus to Latin
areas, but instead trading with all the socii so as to open up that land
lying all over Italy, might have given Drusus a great deal more land
with which he could requisition the support of the plebs for his
judicial bill. The problem then would have been whether the other
Allies would have been amenable to the suggestion. That they
would have been would have been disclosed to Drusus by his
friend Poppaedius Silo, whose closeness with Drusus is described
in several sources (see chapter 3). It seems difficult to believe that
this acquaintance was completely manufactured during the Varian
trials. It may, perhaps, have been possible to exaggerate its extent
for a jury, but to lie to one directly and assert an association which
did not exist, and to do so in trials conducted in the open (as trials
were so conducted in Rome), strains credibility. Furthermore, as a
man of substance in Rome Drusus almost certainly had friends and
contacts amongst the Allies, as indeed almost all Romans of
substance did, and it is highly probable that Silo was one of them.
Therefore, it might well have been that Silo could have informed
Drusus of the Allied position, and Drusus might well have been
influenced by this knowledge to include the Allies in his franchise
proposals. The defeat of such proposals would doubtless have
inspired the very rage and determination described by Appian and
all the other sources, and may indeed have led directly to war.
Therefore, a connection between the death of Drusus and

Asculum is not successfully disproven through the argument that
Drusus and his legislation had nothing to do with the Allies.
Obviously there is value in recognizing the possibility that a post hoc
ergo propter hoc situation might exist here, but the fact that Drusus is
represented as having proposed to offer the citizenship to all the
Allies in exchange for their cooperation with his proposed land
laws, that the Allies are presented as having accepted it with
enthusiasm, that he proved unable to deliver it (having been
frustrated by the Senate and the urban populace and then silenced
by assassination, as seen in that selfsame chapter), and that a revolt
broke out shortly after the last possibility of its delivery was
extinguished, all rather robustly suggest that there is more than
mere accident at work here, and that there is indeed some
connection between the death of Drusus and the war.
What cannot be true, however, is the apparent assertion from
the sources that planning must have started with the death of
Drusus. However, a closer look at the sources reveals that this
suggestion may not actually exist. In the first place, it was observed
above that the verbs used in the Latin sources may indicate that
planning as well as action began with the death of Drusus. On the
other hand, they may not. All of these verbs may be used to
describe actions alone, and if they are properly read as doing so,
then the Latin sources may not have been referring to the planning
at all. Livy’s placement of the Allied activities sees to confirm this.
According to the passage of the Periochae cited above, the Allies
began to move when Drusus was not able to come through with
the civitas, but while he was alive. This suggests at least the
possibility that they had been planning something for some time
before his death. Appian, to be sure, seems to contradict this, but
Appian may simply be in error, and even he suggests that the
Romans were unaware of the formation of the Alliance “for a long
time” (ἐς πολὺ μὲν οὐκ ἐπῄσ οντο; loc.cit.). Furthermore, it will be
seen from chapter 5 that Appian’s chronology is not always
airtight.9
9 So also Gabba 1956, p. 8–9. A mistake in his account due to error is
probably a more charitable argument than that of Mouritsen, which is that

APPENDICES 729
In sum, the sources reveal that Allied planning for the war
may have gone back for several years (as is argued in chapter 4).
This would mean that the murder Drusus may have only provided
the occasion, but not the impetus, for action. Such a conclusion
accords exactly with the simple sentence of Velleius quoted above,
claiming that “at the death of Drusus the Allied war burst out,
having been simmering for a long time” (2.15.1).
Appian’s narrative is “an elaborate and fully consistent piece of fiction”

(1998, p. 133). See also Appendix I.
APPENDIX F:
SOME QUESTIONS CONCERNING
THE INVESTIGATORS SENT BY ROME
INTO ALLIED TERRITORY, 91 BCE
According to Appian, in the autumn of 91 the Romans had begun to
get wind of suspicious activities amidst the Allies and sent
investigators into the lands of the socii to try and discover what was
happening.1 These investigators apparently answered to high-ranking
Roman officers sent to manage the inquiry; Appian says that these
officers were proconsuls (ἀν ύπατοι) who at that time accustomed to
oversee all of Italy, an administrative measure that would later be
revived by Hadrian. That last detail was probably an error of
Appian’s part,2 and it may well be the former was, as well; in other
words, it is possibly the case that Appian is mistaken, not only in his
assertion that proconsuls managed Italy in 91, but also in that
claiming that the men managing the investigation were proconsuls.
The only officer Appian specifically names in the passage is Q.
Servilius, and of the various other sources to mention him and what
happens next, most name him as a praetor instead.3
Yet whether Servilius was a praetor, proconsul, propraetor, or
proconsul, and whether the other men supervising the investigation
were likewise, it seems clear that their mission was to find out what
was going on and to do it quietly. If they had any other mission than
that, they appear to have been limited in its performance by the fact
that no soldiers in any large quantities seem to have put at their
disposal. Given what happned to Servilius at Asculum and the easue
with which the Picentes dispatched him, it certainly seems that he had
no forces under his command. Likewise, if the Servius Galba
mentioned by the Periochae of Livy’s Book 72 as having been nearly
1 ὧν ἐς πολὺ μὲν οὐκ ἐπῄσ οντο Ῥωμαῖοι διὰ τὰς ἐν ἄστει κρίσεις τε καὶ
στάσεις: ὡς δ᾽ ἐπύ οντο, περιέπεμπον ἐς τὰς πόλεις ἀπὸ σφῶν τοὺς ἑκάστοις
μάλιστα ἐπιτ δείους, ἀφανῶς τὰ γιγόμενα ἐξετάζειν; 1.5.38.
2 Salmon argues this point convincingly (1958, p. 168).
3 These sources are collected in Broughton, p. 19. They include the
Periochae (72), which names him a proconsul, as well as Velleius (2.15.1)
and Diodorus (37.13) which name him praetor, as does Orosius (5.18.8),
assuming that the Servius there can be emended to Servilius.
730
APPENDICES 731
captured in Lucania shortly after the outbreak of hostilities at

Asculum was also such an investigator,4 then the ease with which he
was hemmed in suggests that he, too, lacked men. Certainly it would
not have been the first time that praetors or proconsuls were sent
into potentially dangerous situations without milites, or at the very
least, without great numbers of them: as proprietor, Sulla had been
sent into Cilicia to restore ousted Cappadocian king Ariobarzanes in
the mid-90s without a great force, and he was compelled to make use
of locally-drawn contingents of Asiatic allies for this purpose (ἰδίαν
μέν οὖν δύναμιν οὐ πολλὴν ἐπ γετο, χρ σάμενος δὲ τοῖς συμμάχοις
προ ύμοις; Plutarch, Sull. 5).5 Perhaps the investigators were merely
sent into the areas with a token force as escort, and it was these who
were the unnamed Romans listed as having perished with Servilius
and his legate Fonteius (see chapter 4). This might be understandable
if the Romans were sent to investigate under cloak of secrecy,
beneath which fewer men would be easier to conceal than more.
As stated above, the only officer supervising the investigation
who is mentioned by name as such in any of the sources is Servilius.
The names of others can be guessed, however, and it might be useful
to hazard a few. Knowing whether or not some Romans named in
the accounts were, in fact, engaged in this enterprise may shed some
light on some of the developments which would occur in 90 that
were of not inconsiderable importance, and may help explain why
the war went the way it did in that first year. For that reason, a brief
glance at some likely candidates for having served as members of this
investigation will be attempted, and in order that it not cause the
narrative in chapter 4 to wander too far afield, it will be conducted
here.
Other than Servilius and, possibly, Galba, it has been
speculated that the L. Scipio and L. Acilius who were later seen “in
command” at Aesernia may have been as investigators there when
the outbreak occurred and that with their escorts they took over
4 Domaszewski (p. 17) Haug (p. 201), Salmon (1967, p. 347), and
Keaveney (1987, p. 117–118) all claim that he was. The latter, following
the account in Appian 1.5.38, further speculates that Galba had been a
praetor just as Servilius had been (Broughton—vol. 2, p. 21—agrees).
5 See Badian (1964, p. 157–162, 168–170).
the defense of the city (Appian 1.5.41).6 This is plausible enough,

although the further speculation that L. Postumius7 is another
might give cause for further analysis. This man is mentioned by
Appian and Livy’s Epitomator as commanding the resistance to the
Allied envelopment of Nola (Per. 73; Appian 1.5.42 describes the
end of the siege). His case is unlike that of Servilius and Galba, and,
perhaps that of Acilius and Scipio, in that Postumius actually did
have a fairly sizeable force at his disposal: two thousand men were
with him, according to Appian (Ῥωμαίοις, δισχιλίοις οὖσιν; loc. cit.).
With this body, it has been argued,8 Postumius had fled to Nola on
the outbreak of the war, was given refuge, and held the city until a
relief effort by L. Julius Caesar failed. On that occasion, he was
subsequently forced to ask for terms and was summarily executed
(see chapter 5). It is difficult to see why Postumius would have
2000 men with him for his part in the investigation, while Galba,
Servilius, Scipio, and Acilius had none, although it may be that
there was something special about the area where he was sent.
Akternatively, it may have been that the men he had with him had
not originally been under his command, but had just happened to
be in the area for some undisclosed reason in time for him to take
charge of them. The sources are silent about either possibility,
allowing no certainty to be had as to why his case would have been
different from the other investigators.
On the other hand, there has also been some speculation that
Postumius was not part of the inquiry at all, but rather that he had
been sent to Nola with his men either to protect that town from the
Alliance or keep it from defecting.9 Because “(N)othing suggests that
Nola was particularly pro-Roman”,10 and since the fact that it
ultimately fell by treachery implies that at least one Nolanus sided
with the Allied cause, it is believed that the latter option is to be
preferred, and that Postumius was sent to hold the city for Rome. By
6 By Salmon, Domaszewski, and Keaveney (cited above), and by

Haug, p. 239. Keaveney also suggests that these, too, were Praetors,
though Broughton (vol. 2, p. 28–29) believed they were Legates.
7 By Salmon, Domaszewski, and Haug (loc. cit.).
8 By Salmon, loc. cit.
9 This is the opinion of Mourtisen (1998, p. 130–131).
10 Ibid.
APPENDICES 733
this argment, Postumius got there at some point between the fall of
Asculum and the time the Allies had been able to move on the town,
and since the forces of the Alliance were not there to help them
resist, the Nolani was forced to open their gates to him.
This speculated move to defend Nola would have therefore
transpired sometime in the late fall of 91.11 Ultimately Nola was
taken by the Alliance, which occurred in in 90, as it is mentioned in
the Periochae as happening after Caesar is referred to as being consul.
In fact, the fall of Nola is one of first things mentioned in the Periocha
of Livy’s book 73, suggesting it occurred at the very start of the
campaigning season. Since it seems unlikely that the Romans would
have had time to arrive at Nola, take it, and lose it all in the space of
a few short weeks at the beginning of spring of 90, it is held that the
Romans must have gotten there earlier. Moreover, while by the
autumn of 91 war will have already been declared and a few
campaigns will already have been launched (see chapter 4), the
Alliance was not yet in full readiness at that time, making it more
likely that Nola could have been taken then rather than later. Indeed,
it is difficult to see how a 2000-man Roman army could force its way
into Nola if the Alliance had fully mobilized, as it seems to have
done by spring of 90, since this outcome would have required that
Nola either be undefended by the Alliance (which is unlikely, given
that it was important enough to the Allies for them to have taken it
back the next spring) or defended with so few numbers that the
small force of Postumius could have defeated it in a battle which is
completely unrecorded in the sources and promptly taken the city.
Thus, Nola appears to have been seized, or at least reinforced,
by the Romans in 91, and their defense was overcome and Nola
taken by the Alliance around the spring of the next year. But the
timing and the purpose of the arrival of Postumius gives rise to
questions, if his movements really were as they were just speculated
to have been. One of these is how Postumius could be referred to
as “Praetor” by the Periochae. If, his arrival in the spring of 90 is to
be ruled out, then he must have held that office when he arrived at
the city in 91; by the next year, when Nola fell, his term would have
11 Salmon, Domaszewski, and Haug agree with Mouritsen on this
point, although Keaveney (1987, p. 118) does not.

expired. Additionally, thereis the question as to why he had

soldiers, while Servilius and Galba did not. This is easily answered
by the assumption that either he just happened to fall into
command of these men by happenstance, or that he was not a
Praetor looking into the activity of the Allies, as they were. If it was
the latter of these, and he was in Nola —as has been implied12—in
a military capacity instead, a final question concerns his ability to
have arrived in Nola so swiftly. If he was coming all the way from
Rome, he would have had a fair distance to cover in the short
interval following the unpleasantness in Asculum (over 150 miles,
in fact). This apparently he did, all the while with Allies on the
move in Samnium and Lucania. To this last, it might be argued that
Postumius may not have come all the way from the capital but may
have been in the neighborhood already with his men. However, if
he was not an investigator, why would he be in Campania?
An answer to this may be found in something of an unlikely
source, which is the career of P. Servilius Vatia in the years
following 90. Vatia celebrated a triumph in 88, according to the
Fasti, for a command as propraetor in some undisclosed location,
which is occasionally argued to have been either Sardinia or Cilicia.
It may well have been the latter, in light of the fact that the area
had apparently been troublesome earlier in the decade (see above,
for Sulla’s service there); furthermore, Vatia would be sent there in
77, where the victories he won over the Isauri that would earn him
the cognomen Isauricus may have been helped by familiarity with
the region.13 Vatia would alo run for consul in the year of his
triumph, 88, with the approval of Sulla, who as at this point
running the city (see chapter 7). Sulla would likely have taken a dim
view of anyone trying to run for office without observing the
customary biennum since his last magistracy, and would later pass a
law to this effect in 81 (for which see chapter 10). If that was the
case, then—according to this argument—the latest Vatia could
have been praetor in order to gain Sulla’s approval is 90. However,
12 By Mouritsen, loc. cit.

13 Broughton (vol. 2, p. 28 and page 30 note 5) makes this argument;
see also Chapter 4.
APPENDICES 735
this does not rule out an earlier service; he could have been held
this post at any point before 90, just not after.
If it was the case that Vatia was praetor, not in 90, but even
earlier, then his officeholding might make it such that there was a
different explanation entirely for the men under Postumius in
Campania, to which Vatia’s military command provides a clue. It
may have been that the Cilician command that won him his
triumph was one that was not originally intended for Vatia, but for
Postumius instead. His 2000 men may have been with him for the
expedition he was to lead and may have been travelling south en
route, ultimately, to Brundisium and embarkation for the east in the
late summer or early autumn of 91. Before he arrived, however, he
may have been called upon by the Senate to put off his voyage due
to the outbreak at Asculum, and bidden to lead his men to Nola
instead. When Postumius became trapped there, the command for
Cilicia may have then been transferred immediately to Vatia (or
perhaps was given to Vatia in the next year), who apparently raised
enough men to replace those trapped with Postumius in Nola and
acquired glory with them. If this is the case, then Postumius would
have been praetor when he arrived in Nola and retained his
command when trapped there as de facto propraetor; legally the last
office he would have held, however, would have been praetor, and
as such he is named in the Periochae.
It is patent that this construction is extremely speculative,
although it does clear up some of the differences between the
activities of Postumius and those of the other investigators.
Scholars who comment on these differences and theorize that
Postumius was not inquiring into the Italian movements are
therefore correct in that claim, as they are in the additional
assertion that he came to defend Nola. Those who claim that this
defense of Nola was undertaken before Asculum would be
mistaken, however; if the conjecture above is right, than Postumius
was indeed in the region before Asculum, but was diverted to the
defense of Nola by the massacre there. Nevertheless, one question
which is left unanswered by the mission hypothesized to have been
that of Postumius involves the nature of the men he had at his
disposal. The obvious answer is that they were Roman, but doubt
can be thrown on this assumption based on what became of them
upon the eventual fall of the city into which they had been led.
Both the Periochae and Appian record that the city was
eventually taken in the places cited above. Yet while the
Epitomator does not provide a great deal of specifics, Appian’s
narrative is more complete. The latter source notes that Nola was
taken “by treachery”(Γάιος δὲ Πάπιος Νῶλάν τε εἷλεν ἐκ προδοσίας;
1.5.42), and while he does not state exactly what that treachery was,
it may perhaps have involved an offer made by Papius to the 2000-
man garrison to be spared should they agree to change their
allegiance and serve under him. This change of allegiance is the
very next thing that Appian relates. Of course, as Appian presents
it, the offer was made after the capture of the city, although it is
not impossible it was made beforehand: it is certainly not too
fanciful to suggest that Mutilus let it be known that if the defenders
would defect and open the gates to him, they could save
themselves the agonies of an envelopment and the terrible
punishment that might follow afterwards if that envelopment
should prove successful. Whether such an offer was made before
or after Mutilus gained the city, however, apparently the entire
garrison took him up it with the exception of its officers, including
its commander Lucius Postumius; these holdouts men were then
executed, according to Appian by starvation.
This offer of Papius is somewhat remarkable, not only
because it was extended in the first place, but also because it was
universally accepted by all the rank-and-file soldiers in the city,
ones who were ostensibly Roman citizens. Service in Rome’s army
may have been unpopular, and perhaps there were those in Rome
sympathetic to the Allied cause, but it stretches credibility to the
breaking point to be asked to believe that Roman soldiers would be
willing to join an enemy army even under duress. Likewise, as
much as Papius would have needed men, it is difficult to imagine
that he would have offered such service to, and then accepted it
from, men whose loyalties would at best be questionable.
On the other hand, if the interpretation of what brought L.
Postumius to Nola offered above is the correct one, it might be
possible to make better sense of the offer and its acceptance. It is
within the bounds of believability that, as a praetor with auxiliaries
heading towards his province, the soldiers with whom he was
holding Nola were not entirely Roman at all, but may have been
supplementa consisting largely of hitherto-loyal Allied soldiers. These
men, who may have fully supported the Allied cause, might have
APPENDICES 737
found themselves unwillingly caught up in the siege in spite of

loyalties that may not have been firmly affixed to Rome. An appeal
to such men along the lines of what Papius is held to have offered
them could conceivably have had great purchase: the officers might
themselves have been Roman, which would explain their refusal to
join Papius, but the lower-ranking infantryment might have had
different sentiments.14 They therefore may well have defected, and
may even have served in the Allied cohorts ever after, once they
had left the praetor to his unfortunate fate.
14 Keaveney (1987, p. 134) notes that “(i)t has been suggested that this
incident shows Papius trying to demonstrate that the blame for the war
rested with the Roman upper classes”, but does not note by whom it was
so suggested. At any rate, the actions of Papius are far more explicable by
military and strategic necessity than by a desire to send a message, and, as
Salmon (1967 p. 358) notes, this action is consistent with Allied behavior
elsewhere; see chapter 5 for similar instances at Aesernia and in Apulia.
APPENDIX G:
THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE PERIOCHAE OF LIVY
It is generally held that the chronology of the Periochae of Livy’s
missing text is for the most part accurate, in the sense that the
order of events which are preserved in it correspond to the
procession of occurrences as they actually transpired. However,
while the Periochae may be relied upon to supply the correct
sequence of happenings, using it to supply precise dating must be
done with some care, especially for the period under review in this
essay. This caution is warranted due to the peculiarities which
apparently existed in the original text (extrapolated from the same
peculiarities seen it its surviving books), ones which, it seems, have
found their way into the summaries.1
As is well known, Livy does not conform to any set pattern in
the amount of space he allots to individual years: the majority of
the first and second Samnite Wars (some forty years) is covered in
book 9, for example, while almost the entirety book 37 is devoted
to the single year 190. Thus, there is the clear indication that some
individual years were important enough to have an entire book
devoted to them, and in some cases certain years get the better part
of two books. So it appears was the case for books 71 and 72,
whose Periochae suggest were devoted almost entirely to events
from the year 91; likewise book 73, which seems to have been
entirely devoted to the year 90.
Nevertheless, just as in the case of the extant text, soo, too, it
appears for the Periocahe that books devoted primarily to individual
years do not necessarily start with January of that year, nor end in
December. Hence, the aforementioned book 37 does not end in
December of 190, but sees the last several chapters devoted to
events that happened during the following year of 189 (as indicated
by the fact that the consuls of that year, are not only mentioned as
having been elected, but are shown engaging in activities as
consuls). This clearly happens in the Periochae, as well, as is evident
in the Summary of book 74. Line one of this Summary begins with
an action undertaken by Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo. Another action
1 For this entire line of reasoning see Haug, p. 206, 211–213.
738
APPENDICES 739
of his is described in line 7, but in that line he is especially noted as

Cn. Pompeius cos. This clearly indicates that 90 gives way to 89—
when Strabo was in office as consul—by line 7, and that
correspondingly all the events remaining to that epitome and the
next belong to 89. This last is likewise clearly indicated by the fact
that, in the summary of book 75, L. Cornelius Sulla is referred to as
a legatus in line 2, and the Periocha ends with his running for consul
(which must have happened in 89, since Sulla was made consul in
88).
Identifications of Romans as consul are clear indicators of the
passage from one year to the next, and that all events following
such markers must belong to the year in which the person named
consul served. Unfortunately, these indicators do not always work
in the opposite direction, id est everything listed as happening
before an individual is named as a consul do not necessarily belong
to the year before that person took office. This is especially true of
battles, due to the fact that Consuls took office in January but
campaign season did not typically begin until March. Thus,
Pompeius is referred to as “proconsul” midway through book 76
accepting the surrender of some defeated Italians, dating this
surrender to 88 (since he was consul in 89, he could only be
described as proconsul after 89 had expired). However, the events
mentioned immediately beforehand in that summary—specifically,
the campaigns of Gabinius in Lucania and those of Sulpicius
against the Marrucini—could equally well have taken place in either
late 89 or early 88. This is because the last notice in the previous
book—Sulla’s aforementioned campaign for the consulate—would
have been in 89. These expeditions of Gabinius and Sulpicius
would probably have been winter campaigns, fought between
November of 89 and the regular campaign season of 88, and their
placement in the Periochae cannot make their precise dating
possible. In fact, given Sulla’s later importance, it might well have
been that Livy devoted a good deal of the first parts of book 76 to
Sulla’s actual election and whatever legislation he passed in office,
picking up from where he left on in book 75, which was Sulla’s run
for office. This would mean that lines 1–2 of Per. 76 and the
military events they narrate could belong to either year (thus, winter
of late 89 or winter of early 88).
For this reason, it is important to observe that events like the
intermittent warfare placed in the Periocha of Book 72, occurring
chronologically between the massacre at Asculum and the very next

event described, consul L. Julius Caesar’s loss to the Samnites
which opens the Periocha of 73, may have taken place either in the
winter of 91 or the early spring of 90. They may indeed have been
continuous actions, like sieges, which spanned the entire period.
An exact reckoning is therefore impossible from placement in the
Periochae alone, and reasonable guesses must therefore be used to
try and determine a more precise timing for these occurrences
when such precision is necessary (it is not in the case just
mentioned). Sometimes the simple realities of warfare or common
sense aids in this process: for example, a notice in Per. 72 which
mentions the arrival of foreign allies (auxilia deinde Latini nominis et
exterarum gentium missa populo Romano) after its record of the
massacre at Asculum but before L. Caesar is seen in battle (which
was almost certainly in late spring) probably describes an event
which did not transpire until after the winter weather
of 91, and thus may be reasonably inferred to have taken place
early in the spring of 90. Likewise, the previously mentioned
campaigns of Gabinius and Sulpicius (Per. 76) could either both
have taken place in the winter of 89, both in the spring of 88, one
in one season and one in the other, or both persisting from winter
to the following spring to the other. To sort them out, the most
reasonable guess is all that is at hand, and that is what is used in
those sections of the Periochae dealing with events of this kind.
APPENDIX H:
THE ITALIAN COMMANDERS
The determination of which men led the various Italian forces
during the Allied War is of more than simply an antiquarian
interest. As has been demonstrated in chapters 5 and 6, the
identification of a captain, the men under his direction, and the
place they occupied can often play a vital role in the proper
interpretation of operations and, by extension, in the analysis of
what repercussions those operations may have had outside of the
battlefield. However, there is widely varying information about
these Allied commands in both the literary and archaeological
sources. This state of affairs not helped by the fact that Italian
leadership was not static, but changed frequently over the course of
the war due to a variety of circumstances, such as battlefield deaths
or in some instances replacement by vote. This makes providing an
identification of Allied commanders for this war a by no means
easy task.1
On the one hand, it is generally agreed by both ancient and
modern sources that two supreme commanders—given the
somewhat misleading title of “consul” (ὑπάτοι)2—oversaw the
Allied war efforts. It is likewise agreed as to who these were:
Q. Poppaedius Silo of the Marsi and C. Papius Mutilus of the
Samnites (following Diodorus, 37.2.5–7). The type of command
bestowed on these men is discussed in chapter 5. According to the
sources, each of these men were, in turn, assisted by six
subordinates (twelve total) who were given the equally misleading
title of “praetor” (στρατ γοί). It is, finally, generally accepted that
these στρατ γοί were in fact the leaders of contingents drawn from
the communities from which they themselves had come.3
1 The names of those who led the armies of Rome are somewhat
clearer; for any controversies about these, see the notes supporting
chapter 5.
2 For the imprecision of this nomenclature, see chapter 4.
3 So, for example, Sherwin-White (p. 147), Salmon (1967, p. 351 ff.),
and Keaveney (1987, p. 122).
741
Nevertheless, the consensus only holds so far; beyond that,

both ancient and modern accounts disagree widely on who exactly
these men στρατ γοί, when they held their commands, and whom
specifically they led. The variety and permutations of these
scholarly differences is enormous: for example, the ancient sources
might all agree that a particular man was a “praetor” but diverge on
his place of origin and thus whom he led. Alternatively, some
ancient accounts might identify a man as “praetor” who is not so
named or even mentioned in other accounts. Some men might be
shown by the sources to be holding commands but not be named
either “praetor” or “consuls”, men who are occasionally referred to
in modern accounts—albeit not ancient ones—as “legates” and
believed to have held commissions subordinate to the “praetors”
and “consuls”. Finally, the forces of one people might be claimed
to have been led by several men who are all described as “praetor”.
It is not difficult to see why some of these confusions may
have arisen: the sources for this period are hardly superlative, so
some of the variations may simply be due to error on the part of
the original historians or on their later copyists. Additionally, these
“praetors” may also have been elected annually, just as the
“consuls” were supposed to have been (see chapter 4). The
outcome of these elections might have meant that men who were
held a command in one year might simply have been removed for
the next. Some replacements, at least, seem to have come from less
delicate circumstances: several of these “praetors” are recorded as
having been killed in battle, which would seem to indicate a
necessity to supply successors for them.4 This confusion in the
ancient literature about these commanders has contributed mightily
to the frequent disagreement about them in the modern. The result
is that it is difficult to offer a list of these “praetors” (the “consuls”
are, again, fairly well agreed-upon) with confidence.
The perils involved in such a compilation notwithstanding, the
importance of an identification of the Allied leaders is of sufficient
enormity that one was proffered in chapter 5. That list attempted
to name which men were in positions of command for the Allies at
4 For a fuller analysis of these difficulties see Salmon, 1958 p. 169–

171.
APPENDICES 743
the start of the war, with emendations made to it throughout the

narrative as needed. It should, nevertheless, probably go without
saying that the identifications offered in that chapter involved a
great deal of conjecture, and required coming to grips in some
instances with a myriad of different assertions made by both the
ancient authorities and by the modern scholars who depend upon
them. On the many occasions when no consensus could be
reached, a best guess as to who the most likely individual was had
to be employed. As can be imagined, this list departs, and in some
ways considerably, from those created by other modern historians.
Because it does, it seems appropriate to supply a fuller explanation
behind the reasoning for it. Rather than interrupt the narrative,
such considerations will be provided here in the pages to follow.
As was stated above and in chapter 5, there is broad
agreement on the fact that the two overall commanders of the
Allied armies were Q. Poppaedius Silo of the Marsi and C. Papius
Mutilus of the Samnites. A general accord has also been reached
about the commander of the Picentes, who is held to be
C. Vidacilius.5 There is not as much harmony concerning the
placement of T. Lafrenius6 at the head of the Vestini, as at least
three scholars believe that he was instead the commander of the
Marsi7 and hold that that a C. Pontidius should be placed at the
head of the Vestini.8 The improbability of Lafrenius as “praetor” of
the Marsi is discussed below; as for Pontidius, it is not only
possible but even likely that he did indeed command the Vestini,
since it turns out that Lafrenius died in battle before the end of 90
(see chapter 5). Since the description of Pontidius in Velleius and
Appian admits the possibility that he was praetor either in 90, 89,
or both,9 it might well be that he was elevated after the death of
5 Salmon (1958, p. 174; 1967, p. 357, 364) Keaveney (1987, p. 217)
Domaszewski (p. 14) and Haug (p. 241) all agree on this point, based on
the ancient evidence which they cite.
6 Salmon (1967, p. 353) and Keaveney (1987, p. 217) advocate this
position.
7 Specifically, Domaszewski, Haug (in the places already cited) and an
earlier work by Salmon (1958, p. 172–173).

8 The preferred spelling of the name, according to Salmon (loc. cit.).
9 So Salmon, loc. cit.
Lafrenius and kept on for the next year. It is thus it is possible to

retain the assertion that both men were leaders of the Vestini, as
was done in this essay.
Continuing from north to south, there is additionally a
consensus that the Marrucini were led by Herius Asinius.10
On the other hand, chapter 5 claims that the Paeligni were
commanded by P. Praesentius,11 which is by no means a universally
shared opinion. Still, this seems a better fit for him than that made
by those who claim either that he led the Frentani12 (more below)
or that he was a subordinate to someone else leading the Frentani,
like Vettius Scato.13 On the one hand, there is the fact that
Praesentius appears at the beginning of the war in combat with C.
Perperna (who likely had been sent to Alba Fucens and thus closer
to the territory of the Paeligni than the Frentani; see chapter 5). On
the other hand, there is a far more convincing theory put forward
for Scato’s command: Scato was almost certainly in command of
the Marsi. Support for this theory rests in part on the evidence of
Cicero (Phil. 12.27), who refers to Scato as dux Marsorum. As an
eyewitness to the war who had even seen Scato up close, Cicero’s
evidence appears to be much more credible than that of Macrobius
(1.11.24),14 who claims that Scato led the Paeligni. Further
10 So Salmon (1958, p. 173–174; 1967, p. 356); Keaveney (1987,
p. 216), Domaszewski (p. 14), and Haug (p. 241) also find agreement in
this assertion.
11 As argued by Salmon (1967, p. 353); Keaveney (1987, p. 216–217)
agrees.
12 This was an earlier opinion of Salmon (1958, p. 174–175), from
which he departed later, perhaps having recognizing that the bases he

presents for this assertion in his earlier work are incredibly weak.
13 Haug (p. 242) argued that Praesentius was a subordinate, while
Domaszewski (who mentions him briefly on page 19) gives no opinion

about his rank or nationality. Both Haug (p. 241) and Domaszewski
(p. 14) believe that the Paeligni were instead commanded by Vettius Scato,
about whom more directly.
14 The notice of Macrobius was, however, enough to convince Haug
(p. 241) and earlier Domaszewski (p. 14) that his designation of Scato to
the Paeligni was the more appropriate. Domaszewski reinforced his
opinion as to the suitability of this attribution with what seemed to be the
additional contention of Seneca (de benef. 3.23) that Scato was a native of
APPENDICES 745
weakening the claim of Macrobius is the fact that Seneca also

identifies Scato as Marsic (Vettius, praetor Marsorum; de benef. 3.23).15
These sources seem to provide ample evidence for affirming of the
nature of Scato’s Marsic command and for discarding the objection
that Lafrenius could not be commander of the Vestini because he
himself was leading the Marsi.16 To return to Praesentius: given his
role in battle it seems likely that he held a command of his own,
and in the absence of a better candidate for whom he led on the
one hand, and of better evidence for someone else leading those
whom he is occasionally thought to have commanded on the other,
Corfinium, whic h would perforce make Scato a Paelignus. Problematic to

this data is the fact that on the one hand Seneca, as will been seen above,
states explicitly that Scato was Marsic. Moreover, Seneca does not actually
note that Scato was from Corfinium at all. Keaveney (loc. cit.) postulates
that Domaszewski became confused, owing to the fact that Corfinium is
mentioned by Seneca in reference to Julius Caesar (de benef. 3.24) only a
few lines after the comment about Scato. This led Domaszewski to
assume—mistakenly, per Keaveney—that Seneca was likewise making
reference to Corfinium in the anecdote about Scato. This is a more
generous assumption than that of Haug, who acidly writes that
Domaszewski drew this inference “from thin air” (“Die Behauptung
Domaszewskis S. 14, die Heimat des Scato sei Corfinium, ist aus der Luft
gegriffen”; loc. cit.), although she retains her belief that Scato led the
Paeligni.
Salmon, for his part, ventured even to dismiss the identification by
Cicero as a mistake or—better—an imprecision, one attributable to a
tendency for Romans to conflate peoples from the same general area
under blanket terms (“use of the term ‘Marsic’ and possibly of the term
‘Samnite’ to designate anyone who belonged to the central Italian or to
the southern group of the rebels respectively” was common, he observes;
1958, p. 170–171). His belief then was instead that Scato belonged to the
Paeligni, although he would change his mind later, almost certainly
correctly.
15 Salmon (1967, p. 354 and especially note 2) is followed by Keaveney
(1987, p. 216) in the belief that Cicero’s superior credentials make it more
likely that his statement of Scato’s nationality is to be preferred to that of
Macrobius (changing his mind from his earlier position) and thus that
Scato was actually the praetor of the Marsi and not of the Paeligni.
16 See above, where the apparent conflict with the evidence that
Pontidius was leader of the Vestini has also been discussed.

it seems most likely that this captain was in command of the

Paeligni.
As for the Frentani, chapter 5 claims that they were led by one
Fraucus, a conjecture based on the fact that Orosius (5.18.18)
mentions a certain Fraucus—no praenomen is given—as being
associated with the Marsi in a battle in the neighborhood of
Picenum in 89. In fact, Orsius claims that Fraucus led the Marsi in
what is the the only recorded exploit performed by him, one in
which he dies in combat. Yet this battle is very similar to an event
described in Appian (1.6.50), and it may very well be that the two
authors describe the same battle (see Appendix M). In Appian, the
men who are fighting against the Romans are described as having
come from those people “on the Adriatic” (οἱ δὲ περὶ τὸν Ἰόνιον).
The Marsi do not answer to this description, but the Frentani
certainly do. Since Fraucus almost certainly was not commander of
the Marsi despite what Orosius says17 (Orosius makes a similar
mistake about the archipirata Agammemnon), if such a Fraucus was
in the neighborhood of the Marsi in command of men, it may well
be that these men belonged to another member of the Alliance
which is both on the Adriatic coast and close to the northeastern
sector. Since commands for the Picentes, Marrucini, Paeligni, and
Vestini have already been speculated, then only the Frentani
remain, and certainly no better candidate for their leadership in 89
is supplied by the sources.18 Nor can one be found for them in 90,
17 Perhaps Orosius or his sources may have employed the Salmon’s
“common use of the term ‘Marsic’ … to designate anyone who belonged

to the central Italian” group of the Alliance in reference to Fraucus (see
earlier note).
18 This reasoning is admittedly less than bulletprood, but there is also
the speculation of Salmon (1958, p. 174), who allows that Orosius might
have made some error in regards to Fraucus, one which might well be
misidentification of his homeland. Salmon also suggests that, if Fraucus
had been in command in 89, he might well have been such in 90 as well.
Thus, it is not impossible that Fraucus led the Frentani and did so in 90.
As for other scholarly opinions, Domaszewski has none which he
mentions about this Fraucus, while Haug (p. 241–242) believes he may
have been a subordinate, as does Keaveney (1987, p. 216). On the other
hand, Keaveney believses that nothing can be determined about who
APPENDICES 747
so if Fraucus commanded them in 89, he may also have done so in

the previous year.
The “praetor” of the Samnites is claimed in chapter 5 to have
been Marius Egnatius, attribution of command of this people to
either Duilius or Trebatius notwithstanding.19 The fact that
Egnatius is seen operating in Samnite territory, has a well-
recognized Samnite name, and is specifically mentioned as
commanding Samnite troops (by the Periocha of Livy’s Book 75)
makes it far more likely that he was in fact Samnite.20 Continuing
down the peninsula, in spite of the belief of one scholar that
nothing conclusive can be said about Apulian leadership,21 one
Trebatius (he is only known by his nomen) is put forward in chapter
5 as commander of the Apuli. Because this commander can be seen
fighting in Apulia in 89, it may very well be that he was from the
region, a claim no evidence exists to refute. If he was “praetor”
in 89 he may also have held the same command in 90, with the
commanded the Frentani, as opposed to both Domaszewski and Haug,

who are firm in their belief that command of the Frentani was held by
Marius Egnatius (see immediately below). However, as will be asserted
directly, Egnatius more properly belongs to another group. If this is so,
then there remains no better candidate for leadership of the Frentani, so
Fraucus is placed in the position he occupies at their head.
19 So Domaszewski (p. 27, 30) and then Haug, p. 242. However, it is
more likely that Duilius and Trebatius were in command of other peoples,
as will be seen. As for Egnatius, he is held by these two authors to be
leader of the Frentani, based on a very questionable reading attempting to
extract something from a passage of Florus (2.6.6) whose Latin makes
little sense, probably due to textual corruption (Domaszewski, p. 14, 18;
Haug, loc. cit.). This led Salmon (1958, p. 177) to claim that such an
interpretation is “utterly incredible”, almost certainly correctly.
20 So Keaveney (1987, p. 217) and Salmon (loc. cit.), where he takes
note of the evidence above and asserts that “only a hardened sceptic
would refuse to regard him [as] anything but Samnite”. For this reason,
his own later skepticism—he would place a question mark in a
parentetical reference to Egnatius which has the force of suggesting he
was from the Hirpini in a subsequent work (1967, p. 358, 366)—is
probably unwarranted.
21 So Keaveney (1987, p. 216), and by their silence on the matter
Domaszweski and Haug might have held similar opinions.

silence of the sources about this due to the fact that he was
involved in no action of note, or had no noteworthy action in any
otherwise noteworthy event.22 This is hardly the most compelling
of arguments, but those claiming that he was a Samnite legate are
no more convincing,23 nor is the hint that he may have been from
Venusia.24 Moreover, he was almost certainly not the overall
commander of the Samnites, as is noted above.25
A certain Duilius is mentioned by Frontinus (Strat. 1.5.17) in
what seems to be a command role near Aesernia (see Chapter 5). It
has been argued that he could have led the Hirpini, and that he
might be the same person as a Lucilius named on a coin with an
Oscan inscription which could easily have come from the Hirpini.
This argument is persuasive.26 For lack of anything better, it is
assumed in chapter 5 that the Campani were led by Lucius
Cluentius.27 This is at variance with the unlikely suggestion that the
22 This is the belief of Salmon (1958, p. 176–177).

23 Such as that of Keaveney (1987, p. 217).
24 So Salmon implies, contradicting his own earlier claim by means of
a question mark in a parenthetical reference to Trebatius as being from

Venusia (1967, p. 366). Since, however, he offers nothing for why he
might be inclined even to suggest this, his earlier explanation (as weak as it
is) is probably the better one.
25 A claim advanced by Domaszewski and Haug, as noted above (see
earlier note), although they present no real evidence for why they hold this
belief.
26 Salmon (1958, p. 175). This assertion it is more convincing than yet
another question mark in a parenthetical note connecting him to the

Pentri (1967, p. 358), which he offers later. Keaveney’s belief that nothing
can be known about the leaders of the Hirpini, and that this Duillius/
Lucilius was a legate of the Samnites, also fails to persuade (1987, p. 216–
217), as does Domaszewski’s assertion that Duillius was a praetor of the
Samnites (p. 27; he offers no opinion on the Hirpini). Finally, Haug’s
belief that the praetor of the Hirpini was Aulus (her preference for the
praenomen) Cluentius will be discussed immediately below.
27 Salmon believes that a Cluentius (Aulus Cluentius in Eutropius,
Lucius Cluentius in Appian) found operating in Campania in 89 was

actually Campanian, and may also have commanded the Camapnians in 90
(1958, p. 175–176; 1967, p. 366, even if ten pages prior to that he
suggested that the Campanian commander was T. Herennius; more
APPENDICES 749
Campanians were led by T. Herennius. As far as this man is

concerned, although there have been assertions that he was either a
legate of the Picentes or the Samnites,28 it is more likely that he was
a commander of the Venusini,29 a position taken in chapter 5.
Finally, the assertion that Marcus Lamponius commanded the
Lucani is generally agreed upon by modern scholars.30
In the face of the thicket of contradictory evidence from the
ancient sources and the equally snarled collection of ideas from the
modern ones, much of what is stated above is, again, highly
speculative. Nevertheless, it is hoped that these speculations—
which are the foundation for the commanders of the Allied peoples
named in chapter 5—are reasonable ones, and that the inferences
made in them are not without basis.
below). Domaszewski offers no opinion, and Keaveney’s assumption

(ibid.) that he was a Samnite legate (and that no commander can thus be
attributed to Campania) is unsatisfying. Finally, Haug’s assertion that he
was from the Hirpini due to the fact that their lands were close to
Campania seems to multiply the issue needlessly (p. 242). In the face of
this less compelling evidence, Salmon’s contention seems the best.
28 The former a proposition of Keaveney (1987, p. 217) the latter of
Haug (p. 242).

29 So Salmon (1958, p. 176), who argues that his name amidst a list of
“Picene and Marsi” commanders by Eutropius (5.3.2) is a mistake, of

which Eutropius made several, and that the later appearance of a
“Herennius Picens” on the Augustan consular fasti is inconclusive. For his
part, Domaszewski believes him to be a praetor, but does not say of
whom (p. 19). The question mark placed behind a parenthetical reference
to him as possibly Campanian in Salmon’s later work (1967, p. 356; see
above) adds little enlightenment, and ultimately contributes nothing to
refute his own earlier conclusion. It is therefore the one which is followed
in this essay.
30 Salmon (1958, p. 177; 1967, p. 357), Keaveney (1987, p. 216), Haug
(p. 241), and Domaszewski (p. 15) all agree on this point.
APPENDIX I:
APPIAN AND THE ORDERING OF EVENTS
IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE ALLIED WAR
An attempt to work out the precise chronology of the military
events in the first year of the Allied War is by no means an easy
task, complicated mostly due to the fact that Appian’s account (the
most complete of all of the ancient sources) is so difficult to
follow. This is in part due to the fact that that author’s presentation
is made geographicaly rather than chronologically,1 with events in
one theater being placed in his narrative after events in another
theater which, other sources suggest, may have occurred
simultaneously or even slightly before the events which precede
them in the Appian’s text. Futhermore, in at least one instance
(1.6.45, the defeat of L. Julius Caesar in the defile near Teanum by
Marius Egnatius) Appian seems to be relating an event which
occurred much earlier than its placement in his narrative indicates.2
1 So Haug (p. 225–233, and explicitly states that Appian used and
followed a geographically-arranging source on p. 227.
2 Haug (p. 227–230) attributes this jumble to a change of sources:
essentially, Haug believes Appian follows one source for the southern
theater from its beginning to its end in sections 1.5.41–42, but after he
had finished his account of battles in that region and moved on to those
occurring in the northern theater, he found details of another battle from
the south—one which he had not found in his source for that section and
had therefore omitted it—in a different source. He therefore took details
from that battle (which became section 45) and placed them between two
events from the northern theater which took place much later, rather than
rework sections 41–42, where clues in Appian’s text itself suggests the
battle from section 45 actually belonged. It is reasonably clear that the
defeat of Caesar in the defile occurred, and should have been inserted in
appian’s text, between the fall of Venafrum and the victory of Acerrae,
since at the end of section 45 L. Caesar is shown regrouping after his
defeat to attack Papius Mutlius, who was still besieging Acerrae. To do
otherwise would assume that Caesar left Acerrae with Papius at his back,
was attacked and defeated in the defile, and then returned to Acerrae
ultimately to do nothing, as Keaveney does (1987, p. 133–141, where his
attempts to preserve Appian’s chronology—as in the case of similar
efforts made elsewhere in his account—meets with unhappy results).
750
APPENDICES 751
Nevertheless, by cross-checking the events described in

Appian with other sources whose chronology is less suspect, it
becomes possible to untangle Appian’s chronology. In the first
place, Appian does indeed appear to be arranging the events of 90
geographically, although his geographical divisions do not seem to
correspond to a northern and southern Italy into which Diodorus
(37.2.7) suggests the Allies parcelled out the peninsula to Q.
Poppaedius Silo and C. Papius Mutilus, one which Rome
presumably imitated in assigning commands to P. Rutilius Lupus
and L. Julius Caesar (and followed in chapter 5). Instead of this
bipartite arrangement of events happening to the north and the
south of the Κερκώλαι of Diodorus (whatever that may have
been),3 Appian seems to have come up with four separate sections.
The first of these encompasses Italy between Sora and
Grumentum, whose battles are narrated in chapters 1.5.41, 1.5.42,
and 1.6.45, of which the latter should probably be placed between
the former two.4 The next region is that between the Tolenus river
and Sora, the subject of chapters 1.5.43, 1.5.44, and 1.6.46 (1.6.45,
again, should go between 1.5.41 and 1.5.42). The third includes the
land between Firmum and Asculum, and the combat waged there is
discussed in sections 1.6.47 and 1.6.48. The final area is Etruria,
Umbria, and the coast of the Tyrrhenian sea, whose military action
is the briefly recounted in 1.6.49.
Having divided his chronicle of the year 90 into these
geographical sections, Appian proceeds to present what happened
in them chronologically. Thus, in the south L. Julius Caesar is
defeated by Samnites (1.5.41), Nola falls (1.5.42), and Caesar wins a
great victory (at Acerrae; 1.5.42), which is the exact order of these
events in the Periochae presents it. Likewise, in central Italy Rutilius
is defeated and killed, leaving Marius to rescue what remains of his
army (1.5.43); Caepio is given equal powers with Marius, but is
Military logic would seem to justify the conclusion that 1.6.45 should be
placed between 1.5.41–42, and that Caesar’s departure from Acerrae at the
end of 1.5.42 is not that of his army but of himself, to return to Rome to
hold consular elections (as assumed in Chapter 5 and 6, as well as
Appendices and P).
3 See Chapter 5.
4 See earlier note.
killed due to a stratagem of Poppaedius Silo (1.6.44); Marius

defeats the Marsi at the Vineyards (1.6.46); and some apparently
desultory skirmishing takes place between the Marsi and Romans as
the year draws to a close (1.6.46). Once again, the chronology is the
same as in the Periochae. The first battle between Pompeius Strabo
and T. Lafrenius is not singled out for mention in the Periochae, but
Appian’s account of this battle, the subsequent rematch and defeat
of Lafrenius, and the siege of Asculum, all follows the chronology
of Orosius, whose text drew on Livy (see chapter 1). Appian
reports the enrollment of freedmen into the Roman military and
the revolt of Etruria and Umbria as separate events, not as a
sequence of them, and does not mention the campaign to suppress
the latter at all. However, the Periochae reports that freedmen were
enrolled and then the Etruscan/Umbrian uprising was crushed,
implying that at about the same time as the freedmen were
mustered, this rising was beginning (as the report of the rising is in
the pluperfect tense); in this, too, there is a correspondence
between Appian and the Periochae.
Therefore, within each geographical section the events are
presented chronologically. Nevertheless, that chronology is not
absolute, as it is in the other sources. This is, perhaps, a point that
needs additional emphasis: Appian presents the events that occur
within each region chronologically, but that chronology only
applies within each region. The result is that occurrances presented
in later parts of Appian’s narrative might very well be
contemporaneous with, or even antedate, events presented earlier
in the text; to put it another way, events narrated in sections
1.5.41–1.5.42 are happening at the same time as events discussed in
sections 1.6.47–1.6.48. Indeed, the defeat of Pompeius Strabo by
Lafrenius, Vidacilius, and Vettius Scato is the first battle of the war
to be mentioned by Orosius (5.8.10), but is not mentioned by
Appian at all until 1.6.475 (although it is the first battle mentioned
in the section dealing with land between Firmum and Asculum, the
subject of sections 1.6.47–16.48).
5 As recognized by Domaszewski (p. 24–29), who attempts to present
a strictly chronological list of the battles in 90 drawn from all the available
sources, one which is largely followed in Chapter 5.
APPENDICES 753
In sum, the various battles and other happenings during the

year 90 are dealt with by Appian based first on where in four parts
of Italy they occurred, and then when they occurred in that area.
All the events of that region are narrated in order, then the author
moves to the next region, goes back to the beginning of the year,
and narrates what happened in that section in order. The
occurrences in 1.6.47 (the defeat of Pompeius at Falerio and his
holding quiescent in Firmum) are therefore happening at about the
same time in the year 90 as those related in 1.5.41 (the fall of Nola
and the defeat of Crassus at Grumentum) and 1.5.43 (the defeat of
Rutilius Lupus). By the same token, those discussed in 1.6.46 (the
Battle of the Vineyards) are transpiring at much the same time as
those found in 1.5.42 (Caesar’s victory at Acerrae) and 1.4.48 (the
siege of Asculum).
It must be acknowledged that there are a few probelms with
this construction. One of them involves the defeat of Praesentius
by Marius Egnatius which is mentioned in section 1.5.41.
Praesentius, as Appian makes clear, was a legate of Rutilius Lupus,
who seems to have been given command of the Northern Theater
and whose forces—save those under Pompeius—are only to be
found in the area between the Tolenus and Sora, whose events are
throughly discussed in sections 1.5.43 through 1.6.46. The
placement of the defeat of Praesentius in the sections dealing with
the southern theater seems to violate the greographical
arrangement of Appian.6 No suitable explanation seems to present
itself for this misplacement, nor indeed does any explanation at all
save simple error on the ancient authority’s part. This is, obviously,
deeply unsatisfying, but it will perhaps be sufficient to state that the
displaced notice about Praesentius does not seem to warrant
discarding the geographical arrangement of Appian, which will be
retained in this essay in spite of the uncomfortable record.
Two other problems revolve around the aforementioned
section 1.6.45. It has been argued that this section—which, again,
describes a colossal defeat of L. Julius Caesar by Marius Egnatius—
should be inserted between 1.5.41 and 1.5.42.7 Doing so seems to
6 A fact which goes unnoticed by Haug.

7 See, again, earlier note.
solve the problem of its present disjunction in space and time in

Appian’s text. Nevertheless, another difficulty arises from that
problem-laden section. As has been seen, Appian makes references
to two defeats suffered by L. Julius Caesar in 91, one coming at the
hands of Vettius Scato (1.5.41), the other at the hands of Marius
Egnatius (1.6.45). The Periochae, however, only mentions one of
them. It has been speculated that the one which is omitted is the
second one fought against Egnatius.8 At first glance this would
mean that whoever compiled the Periochae chose to omit a major
battle against that commander, one presented in 1.6.45 in which
Appian states that Caesar lost “the greater part of his army” (τὸ
πλέον τῆς στρατιᾶς ἀπολέσας) which consisted of of 30,000 infantry
and 5,000 cavalry. Having left out this engagement, the Epitomator
managed to include mention of tje much smaller engagement
against Scato, where Caesar’s loss was only 2,000 men. This is odd,
and what is more odd still is that if a defeat of Caesar mentioned by
Orosius in 5.18.14 is indeed a different battle than another
mentioned in 5.18.11, and not simply a reference back to that
earlier battle,9 then Livy’s original text must have included mention
of both. There is, however, a solution to this difficulty: it is by no
means improbable that if two unsuccessful battles were in fact
8 So Domaszewski, p. 23–26
9 Complicating matters is the fact that Orosius mentions that Caesar
fought against Samnites (and not Marsi) in both battles. Based on what
has been argued about the command of Scato (see Appendix H), this is
troublesome, although it could simply be an error; immediately prior to
his mention of the first battle he mentions the Marsi under command of
the pirate Agammenon, which is almost certainly wrong (see Chapter 5).
There is also possibility that Scato was commanding a joint operation with
the Samnites when he attacked Caesar, and that Orosius mentioned the
Samnite component of the Italian army but neglected to mention the
other (this is the solution proposed by Keaveney 1987, p. 133). Thus, it is
not at all inconceivable that Orosius is correct in mentioning the existence
of two battles, and likewise correct in describing when and how they
transpired, but was wrong (or not as precise as he could have been) in the
detail about the specific enemy who engaged the Romans in these battles.
APPENDICES 755
fought in the vicinity of Aesernia by Caesar,10 as seems likely, then

the Periochae may have omitted one of them if it was a prelude to
a later victory. The second of Caesar’s defeats would qualify as this,
and thus it may have been that the Epitomator glossed over the
defeat by Egnatius, although it was once included in the original
Livy (where it could be found and passed on by Orosius).
It seems therefore that such a proposed understanding of the
chronology of Appian as that just described makes sense, and that
those efforts to keep his sequence of events as they are presented
in the text create more complications than they solve (for which
see chaper 5 and Appendices J and K). For this reason, this
hypothesis concerning Appian’s arrangement of events is the one
which has been followed in this essay.
10 Appian mentions Aesernia as the location of the defeat by Scato in
1.5.41; Orosius mentions it as the location of another at the hands of an

unnamed enemy in 5.18.16.
APPENDIX J:
SOME NOTES ON SEXTUS JULIUS CAESAR’S DEFEAT
OF THE PAELIGNI IN 90 BCE
Chapter five describes how, sometime before the winter of 90,
Sextus Julius Caesar was en route to Picenum to aid the efforts of
Pompeius Strabo there. Along the way he met a host of Paeligni
under P. Praesentius, who had been in the neighborhood of the
Via Valeria since his defeat of C. Perperna; he was, perhaps,
guarding the flank of Vettius Scato and Q. Poppaedius Silo as these
men were busily defeating Roman armies under the consul Rutilius
and his replacement Q. Servilius Caepio. Battle then commenced,
in which Praesentius was sharply defeated, after which Caesar
continued towards Picenum.
The defeat of Praesentius by Caesar was fairly important, as it
aided Pompeius Strabo in his attempt to break out of Firmum and
thus ultimately made the reduction of Asculum possible. It
therefore had a direct bearing on the great victories against the
Allies in the northern theater and along the Adriatic coast in the
following year, which could not have occurred without the
neutralization of Asculum. In addition, many of its finer details
have a bearing on a number of other battles and the generals who
fought them, battles which made or enhanced reputations and led
to a great deal of the conflict in the years to come. Because of its
importance, it seems suitable to explain why it is that the conduct
of the battle is narrated as it is in chapter 5, a narrative which is in
many points at great variance with the opinions of several modern
scholars. Because a more complete justification of the arrangement,
one required due to the significance of the battle, might interrupt
the course of the exposition if it were presented in an aside or long
footnote, it seems best to remove it from chapter 5. A discussion
of these differences and why they exist will be presented in the
pages to follow.
The sources of this battle are the Periocha of Book 73 of Livy,
in which a Roman whose name is not agreed upon defeats the
Paeligni, and Appian, in which Sextus Caesar—the expiry of whose
consular power and his investment with proconsular power is
specifically cited—achieved a great victory against an unknown
opponent at an unknown location during an unknown time prior to
his death at Asculum (1.6.48). On one thing all the modern
756
APPENDICES 757
accounts tend to agree, which is that in this instance Appian does

have the correct Caesar; in other words, in this episode that
authority correctly identifies Sextus Caesar and does not mistake
him for Lucius Caesar, as he does practically everywhere else in
Book 1 of the Civil Wars. They are, however, in accord about little
else. In the first place, it has been wondered whether Appian and
the Periochae are describing the same event, or different ones.1 The
reasons for this doubt are as follows: the most common textual
rendition of the passage of the Periochae holds that the victor against
the Paeligni is one Servius Sulpicius, believed perhaps to be a
legate,2 and not the proconsul Sextus Caesar. Appian mentions no
such victory won by Sulpicius, so if the victor was indeed Sulpicius
and not Caesar, then the battle described by the latter is not the
same as that in which he did so is recorded in the Periochae (and
recorded as occurring at about the same time as the battle of the
Tolenus, possibly slightly later).3 The consequence of this is that
Appian does not mention the battle described by the Periochae. On
the other hand, that source does not mention any victory won by
Sextus Caesar, so the immense battle recorded by Appian, one
mentioned as being fought by Sextus Caesar on the way to
Asculum, was likewise left out of the Periochae of Book 73. The two
sources therefore describe separate events, and that described by
one is left out of the other.
There is nothing which makes this assertion impossible, but it
is weakened by several facts. In the first place, it seems difficult to
believe that either Appian or the Periochae would omit a battle of the
importance that each ascribes to the (allegedly separate)
engagements that each one does report. In other words, if there
were two different, highly important battles, it is hard to believe
that either would leave out one of them. More importantly, even
1 This is the belief of Keaveaney (1987, p. 136–141).

2 But not, according to Keaveney, the same Sulpicius mentioned in
Appian 1.6.47 as being a subordinate to Pompeius Strabo; this man
Keaveney believes to be P. Sulpicius Rufus (op. cit., p. 141; also p. 209–210
and p. 213, notes 22 and 24), based largely on the evidence of Cicero that
this man was a legate in the war (Brutus 304). For a more extensive
treatment of this P. Sulpicius, see Appendix R.
3 For the chonological peculiarities of the Periochae, see Appendix G.
those who assert that the battles are separate recognize that the
manuscript of the Periochae has to be emended from what it actually
lists as the name of the Roman commander in question: the
manuscript names him as Sex. Sul., a name which has no precedent
in Roman history4 and is almost certainly due to a copyist’s error.
That emendation could take the form of a modification of what the
praenomen should be (to Serv. Sul.), but it seems equally likely that
nomen should be changed (to Sex. Jul.), as many scholars believe.5 If
it is, then the commander named by the Periocha of Book 73 is, in
fact, Sextus Julius (Caesar, the proconsul), and this would seem to
bring the accounts of Appian and the Periochae into alignment.6
If it is to be assumed, then, that the two sources are speaking
of the same battle, and that by extension it was one in which the
proconsul Caesar routed the Paeligni, the next question involves
where this took place. Chapter 5 asserts that it was fought on the
Via Salaria as the Roman was headed into Picenum. This
placement is also at variance with some scholars, due to the curious
existence of some sling bullets bearing the marking of Legio XV in
the neighborhood of Asculum. Since it seems that Messala was in
command of Legio XV,7 and since it appears that Messala had been
posted to the southern end of the northern theater, these scholars
assert that the best way to explain these bullets at Asculum would
be to assume that Messala lost his command, and that his legions
went north under a replacement. Because Appian observes that
4 See, for example, the notes in the apparatus of the text in the Loeb
edition of the Periochae, p. 90, although the translator (Alfred Schlesinger)

opts to revise the text to Ser. Suplicius and to connect him with the Galba
from the Periocha of 72 (p. 91 and note 4).
5 Domaszewski (p. 25–26), Haug (p. 202), and Salmon (1967, p. 354)
all believe that the repair of the manuscript of the Periochae should be done
in such a way as to to replace Sex. Sul. with Sex. Iul., and their argument is
convincing.
6 Keaveney (op.cit., p. 209) also has the final objection that Caesar
could not have taken the field so early in the year (the chronology of the
Periochae would imply that the battle was fought towards the beginnings of
autumn). However, he gives no real evidence for this assumption, and as
such the assertion lacks persuasiveness.
7 So Domaszewski and Salmon, loc. cit.
APPENDICES 759
Caesar also went north to Asculum, it is argued that the legions

were taken from Messala and given to Caesar.8 Therefore, since
Messalla’s legion was at Sora, the proconsul would have to have
begun his trek to Asculum from that area, and would therefore
either have fought the Paeligni somewhere nearby (according to
one scholar)9 or would have fought them at some unnamed point
further removed from Sora but along the way into Picenum.
Some objections to both of these interpretations can be raised
immediately, however. As to the first of them: if Caesar started
from Sora, where he is alleged to have received the legion of
Messala, and took a direct path between that city and Asculum, he
would have gone up the Liris valley through Marsic territory.10 If
the Paeligni he defeated (Per. 73) were the same men as those who
had earlier defeated Perperna (id est, those under the command of
Praesenteius), then it seems almost certain that he would have to
have engaged them somewhere near where they had last been seen,
in the neighborhood of Alba Fucens. However, no mention is
made of the proconsul then moving on to relieve that city after
defeating the Paeligni, but instead he left it to its own devices and
allowed it to continue to be enveloped. Furthermore, this route
would also take Caesar through Carseoli and thus into the vicinity
of the victorious army of Scato, and yet no move is recorded as
having been made by Scato to halt Caesar’s advance. It seems very
difficult to believe that Scato would allow a force of Romans to
operate to his rear, which at the very least might menace him and at
the very worst move to invest what must have been recognized as
8 Salmon (1967, p. 354) further speculates that the reason for the
transfer was that Messala was cashiered due to a battle Salmon postulates
Messala had lost to Scato shortly before the latter emerged at the Tolenus,
for which see chapter 5 and the notes supporting the discussion of the
battle of the Tolenus. As was argued there, the battle in which Salmon
claims Messala was defeated has gone unreported in the sources and is
certainly not required to explain the movements of Scato between his
defeat of L. Caesar and his later defeat of Rutilius, and there is therefore
no evidence of incompetence on the part of Messala which demanded his
replacement by Caesar.
9 Salmon, argued in the place cited above.
10 See Map 1.
the strategically important city of Asculum. Finally, Caesar’s trek

might also conceivably have brought him within range of
Amiternum, yet there is no mention of a move made by the
conquering Poppaedius Silo to strike at the Romans; Silo would
therefore be guilty of the same tactical inactivity as Scato. Thus, if
Caesar took a direct path from Sora to Asculum, his route took
him deep into enemy territory past a city desperate for relief which
he did not bring to it, along which he slipped past what may have
been three enemy armies (Scato’s, Silo’s, and the besiegers of Alba)
without engaging a single one of them, which is difficult to
believe.11
Alternatively, Caesar could have taken Messala’s army,
retreated to the Via Latina, taken that road all the way to Rome,
and then around the city before going up the Via Salaria all the way
to Asculum (and defeating the Paeligni somewhere in the process).
This would explain why he did not move on Alba, and why he
encountered no opposition along the way from Scato or Silo (even
though, theoretically, the Via Salaria might have been within
striking distance of both. But there remains the fact that Caesar
eventually arrived at Asculum in time to press the siege there in
relief of Pompeius, who went home to run successfully for consul.
This would mean that Pompeius would have had time to be
relieved, make it all the way back to Rome, and canvass for votes
before the elections in November, a scenario which in turn
demands that Caesar would have been able to cross a good portion
of Italy—even the direct path between Sora and Asculum is well
over 100 miles over mountainous and hostile territory; the indirect
path adds much more distance—and defeat the Paeligni in order to
arrive to give Strabo time to do this. The very earliest point at
which Caesar could have won his victory was the middle of June,
since the Periochae places it after the defeat of Rutilius on the
eleventh of that month (see chapter 5). This would give the
proconsul less than four months to accomplish everything he is
said to have done to give Pompeius his relief before November.
11 And this says nothing of the terrain of the area, which becomes
extremely mountainous in the neighborhood of Carseoli and difficult to

traverse even in modern times; see below.
APPENDICES 761
Given the distance and the various tasks involved, this feat does
not seem particularly likely.
Laying aside for a moment the extraordinary circumstances
which almost certainly must have attached to a northward journey
from Sora, it is also held that the very fact that Caesar is said to
have fought the Paeligni is a support for his takeover of the legion
of Messala, since in no other way could these two opponents have
come to grips with each other: since on the one hand Picenum had
been temporarily freed of Romans (by the combined actions of
Scato, Vidacilius, and Lafrenius to defeat Pompeius near Firmum
and then bottle him there), and on the other because the Tolenus
area was already occupied with activity against Rutilius and then
Marius, there is no reason why Paeligni would have been in either
place.12 Thus, if Caesar had not come from Sora with Massalla’s
army—if, for example, he had come from Rome with auxiliaries
and taken the Via Salaria towards Picenum instead—he would
have had no occasion to run into the Paeligni, who (it is argued)
simply would not have had any reason to be in the neighborhood.
Where they could have been found, this assertion continues, was in
the Liris valley near Sora. In fact, the argument runs, it appears the
Paeligni they were for the express purpose of attacking the
proconsul, and that his defeat of them was in a battle they had
instigated.
Yet this construction, too, admits a great deal of skepticism.
In the first place, an argument stating that the Paeligni attacked
Caesar runs cleanly counter to Appian, who says the exact opposite
occurred. In addition, even if it is granted that the Paeligni had
attacked, it is by no means a foregone conclusion that Picenum
could not have offered them a place to do battle; there is, in fact,
ample reason to think that the Paeligni were closer to the area
where they had been last seen, especially as Silo might have needed
their support as he was engaged in his gambit with Caepio at
Amiternum. Finally, even if it is accepted that the Paeligni had
attacked and that they had done so near Sora, then the problem of
Sextus Caesar’s long march to Asculum through enemy territory
past enemy armies after this victory still remains, unless he then
12 By Domaszewski, loc.cit.
took the time to double back to the Via Latina as described above,
with all the problems attendant on that course of action.
Finally, the underpinning of any attempt to have Caesar take
over the division of Messala is the evidence of the bullets from
Legio XV near Asculum. These bullets do not, however, inexorably
demand that Sextus Caesar would have had to have relieved
Messala: the bullets found at Asculum could have dated from later
in the war, such as from the climactic battle of the following year.
It is at the very least possible that soldiers from the southern
theater were present at that battle, having been loaned briefly to the
newly-minted consul Pompeius Strabo at the beginning of 89 (for
which possibility, see chapter 6). Indeed, some soldiers from the
area of Arpinum may have been sent to take part, which would
explain how Cicero could claim to have served in the south under
Sulla and at the same time to have been at Asculum to witness the
conversation between Pompeius and Scato that he narrates in the
Phillippics (12.27; see, again, chapter 6). Since, then, the bullets from
Legio XV near Asculum need not have been slung in 90, but could
have been launched at a later time, and since it is possible that
soldiers from that legion were sent to Asculum at a later time, there
is no epigraphic requirement for Messala’s loss of command.
Since there is not, it may well be that he retained his
commission.13 If, in turn, Caesar did not replace him, then there is
no reason why the proconsul would ever have needed to be near
Sora at all. In fact, it is certainly within reason to assume that
Caesar’s soldiers could have been brought by him from his
province, or drawn from the many reinforcements which Appian
says the Romans were continually sending to commanders (καὶ
αὐτοῖς οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι καὶ ἑτέρους ὡς ἐς μέγαν ἀγῶνα ἔπεμπον ἑκάστοτε;
1.5.40). Caesar could therefore either have assembled his forces in
Rome and then departed from there, or simply set off from the
capital with the men already under his command. From the
metropolis he then could easily have led them towards Asculum by
means of the Via Salaria, on which route he could thus just as
easily have encountered Paeligni sent from the region of Alba
13 See Chapter 5 and Appendix K for other reasons to assert that
Messala kept his command.

APPENDICES 763
Fucens or even from Corfinium. It is for these reasons, then, that

Caesar is held to have done just such a thing in chapter 5.
APPENDIX K:
MARIUS, SULLA, MESSALA, AND THE BATTLE
OF THE VINEYARDS, 90 BCE
One of the few victories achieved by the Romans during the first
full year of the Allied War was one which C. Marius won against
the Marsi in an unnamed location, probably in the neighborhood
of Sora. The proximity of the battlefield to some vineyards
(through which the Marsi would later try to escape) has led to it to
be referred to in this essay—perhaps somewhat unimaginatively—
as “The Battle of the Vineyards”. This battle is described in chapter
5, but it must be observed that its appearance there is much
different than the form it takes in some other modern accounts,1
both in its timing2 and in some of the personnel involved. Perhaps
the most notable variation in the description in that chapter as
opposed to that found elsewhere is the role which is attributed to
L. Cornelius Sulla, who is held to have been a factor—and maybe
even the very one which determined Roman victory—in other
accounts, but does not appear in the discussion of the battle in
chapter 5 at all. Why Sulla is held to have been involved in the
action at the Vineyards by these other works is due to narrative of
Appian, which directly states that Sulla took part (1.6.46). However,
in following Appian and putting Sulla at this event, a great strain is
placed by these scholars on the timing and chronology of other
battles and maneuvers in the war; in some cases, this leads to
constructions about the overall bellum which make little sense in
light of the ancient evidence and which not infrequently seems to
transgress the bounds of simple good military sense. In light of
these difficulties and due to what can be derived from the sources,
in addition to and including Appian, Sulla’s participation is omitted
in the discussion of the Vineyards in chapter 5. However, since this
deletion not only signals a departure from other interpretations of
this battle, and but it also seems to risk the considerable peril of
1 Specifically those of Alfred von Domaszewski in his Bellum Marsicum,
E. T. Salmon in his Samnium and the Samnites, and Arthur Keaveney in his
Rome and The Unification Of Italy,.
2 See Appendix I for the reordering of Appian’s text.
764
APPENDICES 765
flying in the face of Appian’s authority, a brief account of what

factors led to the interpretation presented in this essay seems
suitable, and will follow in the pages to come rather than add yet
another aside or lengthy footnote in the narrative of chapter 5.
By way of starting, Appian’s account would have it that
Marius and Sulla cooperated to defeat an attack of the Marsi which
seems to have come in Marsic territory. According to the
interpretation of the disposition of troops which is generally agreed
upon by most sources, the lands of the Marsi are held to have been
part of the Northern theater under the command of Rutilius.3 Yet
Sulla was not stationed in the Northern theater under Rutilius,
but—according to the direct testimony of Appian (1.5.40)—was
posted to the the Southern as a legate to L. Caesar instead. If the
Marsi were indeed defeated in Marsic lands, then for Sulla to have
been able to take part in this battle them at all, he would have had
to have been close enough to the southern end of the Northern
theater that he could cross into it to form the anvil against which
the Marsi were struck by the hammer blows of Marius. However,
this runs counter to the accepted construction of where he was
placed, which was not terribly near the northern territory but was
rather closer to Allifae. It is from this region that Sulla could have
most easily executed the only action of 90 which any sources other
than Appian attribute to him, id est the final assault on Aesernia.
Likewise, Sulla may have taken part in an earlier operation which is
not directly attested but is speculated for him in chapter 5, where it
was suggested that Sulla may have accompanied L. Caesar on an
earlier assault on that city. Appian seems to make it clear that
Caesar made such an attack with more men than the two legions he
is held to have kept under his personal command. It was theorized
that Caesar took men from a nearby subordinate, which would
either have been either Lentulus or Sulla.4 Sulla’s position at the
3 See chapter 5, derived from the evidence of Domaszewski (p. 23–

24).
4 Domaszewski, loc. cit. and p. 26. In the latter place he asserts that
Caesar must have taken the soldiers from Lentulus, but he gives no
evidence for this whatsoever; quite probably it was the only conclusion
which he could have reached based on Appian 1.6.46 (more below).
Allifae and thus his proximity to Caesar (who is speculated to have

been in the neighborhood of Teanum, a base from which he could
strike at Aesernia, and, later, Acerrae) as well as his proven
command ability would likely have recommended him as a good
man to have on this assault. In addition, by taking Sulla instead of
Lentulus, Caesar would not have denuded the northern boundary
of the Southern theater as he would have by taking the legion of
Lentulus and thereby sidestepped the possibility of being flanked
from the Samnites from the north (Didius at Capua—see chapter
5—would have protected the assault from being flanked from the
south). Taking Sulla along for this mission would also have given
that subordinate the lay of the land and would make him the logical
choice to send on a third expedition against Aesernia, which is
precisely what Caesar would do, probably at the same time as the
consul himself was defeating Papius at Acerrae or shortly after. Yet
the only way Sulla could have been available for this expedition
would be if he were close reasonably close to Teanum and
Aesernia. Allifae is within twenty five miles of Teanum; Marsic
territory, over sixty miles away. If in fact Sulla did accompany
Caesar on his ill-fated expedition against Aesernia, then he would
not have been near enough to the Northern theater to act as
Appian said that he had, and in fact would have had plenty with
which to occupy his time in the south.5
5 Keaveney (1987, p. 134–140) suggests otherwise, however. In the
first place, in his exertion to describe the events of 90 as having transpired

in the order in which they appear in Appian’s narrative, Keaveney places
the second attempt on Aesernia (leading to Caesar’s defeat in the defile) as
having occurred after Acerrae rather than before (for the rearrangement
of Appian see chapter 5 and Appendix I). Additionally, according to
Keaveney Caesar did not take Sulla and his men with him on this second
try at Aesernia, but instead sent him north as he was launching the assault
to aid Marius, and in fact to rescue him (see below). However, this
deputation would depend upon three circumstances, and each of them is
unlikely (and this does not even factor in the chronological problems with
this construction). In the first place, if Acerrae came before Aesernia, it
would mean that Caesar would leave an enemy army—one which had
been beaten but not destroyed after his victory—under Papius to his back
as he got underway for Aesernia, and another under Lamponius in what is
APPENDICES 767
As has been seen thus far, then, in order for Appian’s

placement of Sulla at the battle of the Vineyards to be correct, first
and foremost that officer would have needed to be close enough to
where the battle was fought that he could have joined in it. The
unlikelihood of that closeness has just been dicussed. Additionally,
Sulla’s participation would fairly demand that there be no other
Roman commanders in the neighborhood who could be
summoned by, or be sent to, Marius instead; had there been
presumed to be same the area, with only Didius left to ward off an attack.
In the second, by sending away Sulla, Caesar would diminish his available
troop strength just at the moment he was about to assault Aesernia; in
spite of the military unsoundness of this maneuver, it also disagrees with
the evidence of Appian, which suggests Caesar had more soldiers, rather
than less. Finally, it would mean that Caesar would have sent Sulla on this
task rather than send Lentulus on it, even though the accepted
interpretation is that Lentulus was closer to the land of the Marsi.
As to these last two points, it could be answered that the soldiers
which augmented Caesar’s forces (as per Appian) were those of Lentulus
rather than those of Sulla. Yet unless this meant that the two legions
merely swapped commanders, and thereby put both men under troops
with which they were unfamiliar, then both men would be required to
take their legions on a march of some distance—close to sixty miles, in
fact—only to change places with each other. Secondly, it would mean that
at some point while they were on this redeployment Caesar’s northern
flank would be exposed. Lastly, Keaveney argues that the last assault on
Aesernia, one which Sulla definitely led, happened after the Vineyards.
This would have to mean that Caesar’s northern flank, which had been
denuded of men for both the Vineyards and the battle culminating in
Caeasar’s defeat in the defile, then that flank would be completely in the
air when Sulla moved out of Marsic territory to head to Aesernia, as
Keaveney asserts that he did shortly after the Vineyards. This would have
been the case even though the Marsi apparently still had a great deal of
fight in them after the Vineyards and could easily have charged through
the opening in the line to strike the consul (and it is argued was what they
had been attempting to do this very thing in the days leading up to the
Vineyards, taking advantage of the consolidation of the legions of Marius
and Rutilius after the Tolenus river which may have left an opening
between Marius and Messala). For these reasons, Keaveney’s attempt to
conserve Appian’s account fails to persuade, and has been abandoned
accordingly.
anyone else closer by than Sulla, he would likely have represented a

better choice. This is not necessarily due to the hatred of Marius
for Sulla, although that loathing was well known and so intense that
according to Plutarch—admittedly, a by no means unbiased
source—a Civil War between the two was on the verge of erupting
when the Allied War struck (Mar. 32; see also chapter 7). As much
as Marius detested him, if Sulla represented the only means by
which a victory could be won, it is difficult to see how Marius
would refuse to summon him in spite of their enmity (or how
Caesar would fail to send him). But if another Roman were closer,
than due to the combination of inimicitia and distance to be
covered, it would make more sense logistically that such a
commander would be called upon by, or sent to, Marius. As it
turns out, according to the accepted arrangement of the Roman
armies for 90, there were two of these who would have been closer
to him than Sulla would have been. One was Lentulus, the legate of
L. Caesar’s who was posted at the very northern edge of Caesar’s
oversight.6 Almost nothing is heard of Lentulus throughout the
war, which probably means he saw little direct action himself.7 It
could be that this was because it was with his soldiers, and not
Sulla’s, that L. Caesar reinforced himself for the second assault on
Aesernia. However, as this ran the risk of opening a gap in Caesar’s
northern flank, it is suggested above that such a course of action
was unlikely.8 If Lentulus had not been summoned south to
reinforce Caesar, he would have been available to aid Marius at the
Vineyards, and would have been closer, making him a far better
choice than Sulla irrespective of the latter’s abilities.
An even better choice than Lentulus, however, would have
been the other Roman commander who would have been closer to
Marsic territory still. This was Valerius Messala, who was—as it is
generally agreed upon—placed at the southern end of the defensive
6 See earlier note for additional reasons why Sulla would not be
substituted for Lentulus.
7 For more on the difficulties with Lentulus, including the possibility
that Appian may have confused P. Lentulus for Q. Catulus, see

Domaszewski (p.20), and Keaveney (1987, p. 208–209).
8 See, again, earlier note.
APPENDICES 769
line of the northern theater by Rutilius. Messala would have had

the advantage of propinquity, and, what is more, was attached to
the northern theater whose command Marius had inherited (as was
not the case for either Lentulus or Sulla, both under the command
of Caesar). However, many modern scholars state that this would
have been an impossibility due to the fact that Messala (or so they
argue) was no longer there: rather, he had been removed and the
men under him taken over by Sextus Julius Caesar. This was either
because Messala had been beaten by Scato at the opening stages of
the latter’s march up the Liris valley which culminated in Battle of
the Tolenus, or simply due to the proconsul’s greater need for
Messala’s men for his march to Asculum.9 However, neither
Messala’s defeat nor Caesar’s takeover of his command (for
whatever reason) is mentioned in the sources, and it is quite
probable that neither occurred.10 If it did not, and if the speculation
about Lentulus is correct, then it is by no means impossible that
both men were in fact in the positions where it is speculated they
had been since the beginning of the war, namely guarding
(respectively) the flanks of Caesar and—eventually—of Marius.
This removes any need for Sulla to be anywhere in the area,
allowing him to remain in the south where he would eventually be
found storming Aesernia. As far as who would be dispatched to aid
Marius at the Vineyards, Massala would have fallen under the
imperium of Marius after the death of Rutilius and Caepio (see
chapter 5), making him a preferable assistant in the coming battle
than Lentulus.
Indeed, if the Marsi were making the sort of effort that
chapter 5 argues that they were—namely, an attempt at an end run
around Marius—then the general’s move to stop them by
summoning Messala would make far more sense if Lentulus were
in position. By remaining in position, Lentulus could in essence
9 Domaszewski (p. 25–26) imputes no blame to Messala but simply

assumes the loss of command had been out of necessity to give soldiers to
Sex. Caesar; Salmon (1967, p. 354) also states that Messala had lost his
men to Caesar, but believes that his failure to stop Scato as well as
Caesar’s need for men had dictated the decision.
10 For a further discussion of these matters, see Appendix J.
defend both Caesar’s assault to the south and the endeavor to trap
the Marsi to the north against reinforcement or flanking attacks
from either direction. There is, as has been seen, little reason to
suggest that Marius could not have done precisely this, id est
summon Messala. There is, however, one substantial reason to
claim, irregardless of whether he could have summoned Messala
with Lentulus in position to protect against flanking maneuvers,
that he nevertheless did not do so, and that is the abovementioned
statement of Appian that Sulla was there. Appian’s text is
unambiguous as to Sulla’s presence, and seems to provide the
barricade at which point the hitherto-offered conjecture ought to
stop.
Nevertheless, Appian’s testimony is not entirely above doubt.
In the first place, it is fairly odd that he is the only source to
mention Sulla’s role in the Vineyards. Among those other sources
which describe the battle, none mention Sulla’s alleged part in it.
These sources include the Periochae of Livy (73) and Orosius
(5.18.15), which neither take note of Sulla’s fighting, although the
latter immediately mentions him in the next sentence describing the
last assault on Aesernia. This would seem to suggest that Livy,
from whom both of these descend, likewise did not have a record
Sulla at the battle. More remarkable still is the fact that Plutarch
similarly does not observe Sulla’s presence at the Vineyards in
either his Marius or his Sulla. It is known that Plutarch made use of
Sulla’s memoirs for both of these biographies (see chaper 1). It is
staggeringly difficult to imagine that the Dictator would not have
written extensively of his role in such a great victory had he actually
been there, and had he done so, it is almost as difficult to believe
that what he wrote would not have relayed by Plutarch in one or
the other lives (see, for example, his description of Sulla at Aquae
Sextiae, where both men certainly fought). That Plutarch goes into
great detail about the Vineyards in his life of Marius, but leaves
Sulla out of it, suggests that Sulla does not have anything to say
about the episode. This at least allows room to doubt where Sulla
really was there at all.
Sulla’s absence might also explain why it is that his run for the
consulate was delayed until 89. During the elections in 90 the
Romans were apparently desperate to elect men of military
promise, resulting in the return of Pompeius Strabo and L. Porcius
Cato. Presumably, Strabo’s recovery from Firmum and assault on
APPENDICES 771
Asculum seems to have been enough to win him election, as does

Cato’s Etruscan expedition. If Sulla had in fact been present at the
Vineyards and had either actually done much to secure victory
there or could reasonably feign that he had (something with which
he had had experience, as the events following the Jugurthine War
illustrates; see chapter 7), then surely he could have attempted a run
at the chief magistracy based on these credentials: his record would
have stood favorably against that of Strabo, and perhaps even that
of Cato, as well. Instead, he delayed his run until late 89, after a
string of undoubted successes. This implies that Sulla did not run
in 90 because he had taken part in no pugna for which he deserved,
or could arrogate, credit for victory, compelling him to wait until
he could acquire some.
Admittedly, all of these arguments are e silentio, and it may be
that they are not strong enough to overturn an explicit statement
by Appian. Yet there is an aspect of Appian’s work which leaves a
final avenue for doubt. As is well known, Appian occasionally errs;
throughout book one of the Civil Wars, he routinely confuses Sex.
Julius Caesar (cos. 91) for L. Julius Caesar (cos. 90), and indeed
correctly identifies L. Julius Caesar but one time (1.8.72,
mentioning his death at the hands of Cinna and Marius in 87; see
chapter 8). It is at least possible that Appian has mistaken Sulla for
someone else here, and it should be noted that the cognomina “Sulla”
and “Messala” are fairly similar. Perhaps Appian confused them.
Indeed, since Sulla would go on to play such a prominent role in
the campaigns of 89 and Messala would disappear from the
accounts,11 the likeness of their names and the relative importance
of the two may have led Appian to err by adding to Sulla’s victories
in the following year recognition for an action actually undertaken
by Messala, who was otherwise a nonentity.12
11 And indeed from history; no more offices or honors for this man
are found, according to Broughton (vol. 2, p. 30 and note 19; likewise vol.
3, p. 212).
12 That Appian could have made such an error is speculated by Haug,
p. 229; Keaveney does not take note of this, although he believes Appian
could have made a similar error regarding Lentulus/Catulus (see earlier
note).
If Appian’s evidence should be reconsidered in this fashion

and brought into line thereby with the other sources, then it also
seems fitting to clear both Marius and Sulla of charges of
incompetence which have sometimes been attached to them by
some modern accounts. For example, one rendition of the battle13
holds that Marius had essentially got himself trapped in the
southern edge of the Northern Theater, drawing on the references
in the Periochae that Marius had fought unsuccessfully with the
Marsi (C. Marius cum Marsis dubio eventu pugnavit; 74) and that of
Plutarch Marius that he had been “hemmed in with trenches”
(περιταφρευόμενος ἠνέσχετο καὶ χλευαζόμενος καὶ καλούμενος οὐ
παρωξύν ; 33). From this snare, it is argued, Sulla had rescued
him, after first defeating the forces of Herennius in the Liris and
driving him north to the Vineyards.14 By way of response, it should
be noted in the first place that Marius needed no such rescuing, as
the same passage of Plutarch makes abundantly clear; rather, he
had extricated himself from whatever straits into which he had
fallen. In the second, the evidence discussed above readily yields
the inference that Sulla was not in the position he would have
needed to occupy to undertake this rescue even if one had been
needed.15 Finally, it was seen in chapter 5 that Herennius may have
come to the aid of Silo by means of the road going through
Aesernia from Venusia, avoiding the Liris altogether and thus the
need for anyone, Sulla or otherwise, to come to grips with him
there.16 Moreover, the suggestion in that modern account that
Marius had gotten himself into such a fix by going on the offensive
is most unlikely, as Marius had consistently proven reluctant to
attack until completely ready (see, for example, his posture at the
Tolenus as described in chapter 5). Equally dubious is its claim that
the vignette in Diodorus, in which a battle between Marius and Silo
13 That of Keaveaney (1987, p. 139), whose antipathy to Marius might
well be expected of a biographer of Sulla.

14 For Herennius at the Vineyards, see chapter 5.
15 Indeed, Keaveaney himself argues that there is no reason to believe
that Valerius Messala had been relieved of his command (1987, note 38
p. 148–149), though Messala is nowhere to be found in his interpretation
of the Battle of the Vineyards.
16 For this route see chapter 5.
APPENDICES 773
collapses (see chapter 5), more properly belongs before the battle
of the Vineyards rather than afterwards, due to the fact that after
the Vineyards, the Romans would not be “reluctant to engage an
enemy they had defeated once before”. Countless examples
throughout history can be dredged up to show just such a
reluctance, especially when coupled with exhaustion after a long
campaign. The fraternization found in Diodorus may have
occurred before the Vineyards, but it could just as easily have
happened afterwards, and the battle became a non-starter because
of the lateness of the season and fatigue (so chapter 5).
On the other hand, if Sulla cannot be shown to have rescued
Marius (nor that the latter needed rescue at all), than neither can
Marius be claimed to have undone any negligence or ineptitude of
Sulla’s, which is claimed by a different scholar.17 According to this
rendition, Sulla was put in charge of containing the force of Marsi,
who had slipped past him and had to be dealt with by Marius.
Thus, this account would have it, it had been Sulla and not Marius
who had demonstrated poor generalship by allowing the Italians to
get as far as Marsic territory. Although Marius had restored the
situation, this version continues, Sulla later lied about this in his
Memoirs, from which the source of Appian drew his narrative.
Based on many of the reasons already cited, the part of this
construction which concerns Sulla should also be discarded. Other
elements of the account of the engagements surrounding the
Vineyards are more plausible, such as its additional claim that
Marius fought a defensive campaign, which is almost certainly
correct. This account, too, would have it that the fraternization
between the armies of Marius and Silo described in Diodorus took
place to the early summer, before the Vineyards;18 again, this is not
impossible, but it is no more plausible than that it took place
afterwards (as asserted in chapter 5). Indeed, it may be that the
account presented in chapter 5 does perhaps explain the behaviors
of the soldiers a little better, and it similarly preserves the account
of Periochae 73–74. In that source it is stated that after the battle in
17Specifically, Salmon (1967, p. 355–356).

18Salmon, loc. cit. See also p. 363 note 3, where doubt is cast upon
whether Marius and Silo discussed the citizenship at this conference.
which the Marsi were routed, Marius cum Marsis dubio eventu pugnavit;
this “doubtful outcome” might easily have been because battle did
not take place, under which circumstances a “draw” in which
neither side won or lost would have transpired.
For all of these reasons, the account of the campaign of
Marius—one which culminated in the Battle of the Vineyards,
whose sequel was the abortive battle in which the soldiers took to
embracing over fighting—departs from other accounts. Due to the
improbability of his appearance there, the claim of Appian that
Sulla fought and played a crucial role in the battle is abandoned,
and both he and Marius are absolved from any danger brought
about by poor leadership from which the one needed to save the
other.
APPENDIX L:
THE NATURE AND TIMING OF LEGES CALPURNIAE
AND THE LEX JULIA
As chapter 6 illustrates, there are many difficulties which beset an
attempt to discover the exact process by which the Romans began
to concede the franchise to some non-citizens in the year 90. One
of these has to do with the timing of the adoption of the lex Julia:
while it can be stated with close to perfect certainty that it was
passed by L. Julius Caesar and therefore must have been voted on
at some point in the year 90, what is less certain is precisely when
in the year 90 this occurred. Another involves the intended
recipients of this offer. It was speculated in chapter 5 that it was
primarily designed in order to keep the Latins from joining the
Alliance and to get them to contribute the soldiers they had
hitherto withheld, and to secure the same from those Etruscans
and Umbrians who had not revolted while helping pacify those
who had. There nevertheless remains the question as to whether
other Allies may have been involved in this offer, and if they had
been, how it affected the rest of the course of the war.
Finally, whetever the precise dating and specifications of the
lex Julia may have been, it was apparently not the only law dealing
with Allied enfranchisement and its effects which can be dated to
around the year 90. Evidence for this statement can be drawn from
two fragments from the now-lost work of L. Cornelius Sisenna,
both referring to legislation involving citizenship, and both from
part of Sisenna’s text which seems to deal with the year 90. One of
these fragments (120) describes how a lex Calpurnia conceded the
citizenship to non-Roman soldiers as a reward for exceptional
service, and the other (17) seems to indicate that L. Calpurnius Piso
created two new tribes.1 As mentioned, the reports come from
1 The actual fragment reads in full L. Calpurnius Piso ex senati consulto

duas novas tribus, and therefore has no verb is associated with it. It could
easily be the case that the missing verb might have indicated something
other than that Piso created these tribes. The text does not allow for
certainty, but in its absence, scholarly consensus is for Piso’s creation of
the tribes. This theory will be followed here.
775
fragments of Sisenna, whose surviving words are too few to allow

for a precise determination as to what these initiatives exactly
circumscribed, and, importantly, exactly when they were passed.
Since both of these (apparent) laws are described nowhere else in
the ancient sources, neither of these problems with them is easily
solved; in fact, given the state of the sources, it is probably
impossible to arrive at a permanent and uncontestable solution to
them.
Pinpoint accuracy about the exact date and scipe of the lex
Julia cannot be acquired, nor can absolute clarity be had on
precisely what these would-be leges Calpurniae were, when they were
passed, and what role they may have played in enfranchising Allies
in the year 90. Nevertheless, since all of these elements touch on
matters of great significance for understanding both the events of
the Allied War and, ultimately, for what transpired in the rest of the
decade, even solutions which may leave themselves open to
question should be attempted. Such have been suggested in
Chapter 6. However, the full rationale behind the interpretations
given in that chapter for the chronology and extent of the lex Julia,
and for the true nature of the laws which Sisenna’s fragments
describe, have been left out of that chapter. Given the importance
of these laws and their provisions, and since the speculations made
about them is sometimes at variance with scholarly consensus, it
seems inappropriate simply to leave that complete explanation out
of this essay. It has therefore been relegated to the pages to follow,
so that the various scholarly opinions which went into that
interpretation could be given a full hearing, and the decisions made
about the evidence be justified. Moreover, and since it was argued
in chapter 6 that the Calpurnian laws and the Caesar’s measure are
related, they will be considered together here.
In the first place, what is certainly known of the lex Julia is that
it gave the citizenship to those Italian communities who either had
either never joined the rebellion or who had withdrawn from it
prior to a date which was almost certainly specified in the law itself,
but which is not known now (see chapter 6)2. Interestingly, a lex
2 Based on the conjecture—commonly accepted by the modern
scholarship—that the lex Julia mentioned in Cicero (Pro Balbo 21) and
APPENDICES 777
Calpurnia also allowed for something like this: fragment 120 of

Sisenna states that someone (presumably a commander) was
allowed to give the citizenship to soldiers, almost certainly
individually, as recompense for merit by means of a Calpurnian law
(milites ut lex Calpurnia concesserat virtutis ergo civitate donari). As can be
seen, this fragment reveals nothing alse about the law, and among
the missing particulars are when the law was passed, and when it
was in effect. Since Sisenna is the only source ever to mention it,
no further enlightenment about this lex Calpurnia can be found
anywhere else. However, textual evidence involving what can be
known about the work of Sisenna suggests that the book from
which this fragment came dealt with the period of around the year
90 (more below). If this is so, then the lex Calpurnia would have
existed around that year. As a consequence, there seem to have
been two laws which existed in or around the year 90 which
bestowed the civitas on persons who did not have it, and the exists
at least the possibility that they did the same thing.
It would seem odd that the Romans would have two laws with
identical provisions in being at the same time; one of them,
obviously, would be redundant. Yet this situation would make
sense if the two laws were different to each other; it would make
even more sense if they did similar things, but one was more
expansive than the other, and was passed at a different time.
Evidence can be found to suggest that this last was actually the case
with these leges, and that the earlier law was the lex Calpurnia. In the
first place, lex Julia seems to have far more sweeping terms than
those which are known of the lex Calpurnia: the latter is only
mentioned as being able to give the franchise to soldiers, while the
former seemed to have been able to give the franchise to entire
communities. Because a law which would enfranchise entire
communities would also give it to the soldiers within them, it
Aulus Gellius (4.4.3) is to be identified with the unnamed law described

by Appian (1.6.49) as giving the citizenship to the Allies who had
remained loyal (more below), and likewise to be identified as the first of
the two equally-unnamed laws mentioned by Velleius Paterculus which
not only gave the civitas to the Allies who remained loyal and those who
had lain aside their arms maturius. See chapter 6 for more on this
identification.
makes little sense that the more limited law would have been
passed after the more expansive one. Rather, it is much more easily
believed that a larger lex Julia would be passed to broaden and
extend a fairly limited lex Calpurnia, which had come before it. That
it did so may be discerned in an inscription (ILS 8888) which
describes individual soldiers—in this case some Spanish—cavalry
being given the citizenship by Gn. Pompeius Strabo based on the
powers given him ex lege Iulia (see below), but not ex lege Calpurnia.
The inscription’s mention of the lex Julia, as well as its reference to
Pompeius as imperator (a status he likely could only have had as a
commander with imperium, such as a consul, rather than as a
subordinate) places the year in which the bequest occurs as 89.3
The fact that Pompeius was not giving the franchise to the entire
communities from which the cavalty came, but gave it to the
horsemen alone, clearly indicates that the lex Julia allowed both
communities and individuals to be enfranchised by it. From this,
the inference can readily be drawn the lex Julia did everything the
lex Calpurnia did and more besides, making the latter a better
candidate for having been the earlier of the two, with the former
building on and extending it.
Furthermore, there is also evidence that Roman commanders
had the ability to grant the citizenship to individuals before the
passage of the lex Julia, as an anecdote from the life of the very
man who draughted the law shows. As was seen in chapter 5,
during his time in the field Caesar could be shown offering the
citizenship to a Cretan in exchange for military information (Diod.,
37.18). Since it is overwhelmingly probable that Caesar was kept
away from Rome by responsibilities in the field for the entirety of
his consulate (more below),4 and probably also never made it back
into the field once he returned to the capital, then this offer must
have been made before he had passed the lex Julia which would
give him the power to make it. This, in turn, means he either made
3For more on this point, see Stevenson p. 95.

4See also chapter 5 and 6, as well as Appendix I for the chronology in
Appian which might otherwise throw doubt on this.
APPENDICES 779
the offer illegally, or that he was given the right to do so by an

earlier law, which was probably the lex Calpurnia.5
Of course, an objection can be raised to this construction
based on the fact that the fragment describing this lex Calpurnia had
evidently been taken from book IV of Sisenna, a book which was
apparently mostly concerned with the year 89. Nevertheless, in the
first place it has been noted that book IV might well have included
events from the summer and fall of the previous year.6 If that is so,
then the lex Calpurnia could be asserted to have existed in 90, at
least. In the second, even if the lex was mentioned in the context of
events happening in 89, the use of the pluperfect concesserat means
that it could be describing a law which had been passed earlier,7
and possibly earlier by far. For these reasons, there can be little
doubt that the lex Calpurnia antedated the lex Julia, which
superseded it. Firmer dating of this lex Calpurnia is not possible;
indeed, it may have dated to before Asculum. However, what does
seem certain is that it had been passed at some point prior to the
late fall of 90, when it would have been rendered obsolete by the
lex Julia.
It remains to be answered whether this lex Calpurnia is to be
connected with the L. Calpurnius Piso who was responsible for the
creation of two new tribes mentioned in fragment 17, as described
above. This is a possibility: indeed, it might be that this tribal
creation was a part of his law which took care of how those milites
so enfranchised would vote. On the other hand, it hardly seems
possible that a law granting citizenship to a few soldiers would
make two new tribes necessary. Such a measure would be
5 See also chapter 6 for more on this point.

6 So Mouritsen (1998, p. 155–156), and Haug (p. 215), depending on
how neatly the books were divided. According to Mouritsen, Sisenna’s
third book only extended through the summer of 90, which would mean
that book IV would have to begin with either the late summer or the fall
of that year. On the other hand, Haug woild have it that Book III
included references to the fall of Aesernia, which proably took place in
the autumn of 90 (see chapter 5); if book III ended there, then book IV
would have begun with late autumn of 90. Either way, these scholars
allow that book IV may have included events from 90.
7 Brunt 1988, p. 133.
appropriate instead only on a mammoth influx of new citizens.8

For this reason, it may be that the fragment discusses an action
more properly to be connected with the lex Julia than with the lex
Calpurnia of the other fragment. Indeed, this second fragment may
be discussing a law by which those who were beginning to be
enfranchised by the lex Julia were given their tribal designations, as
argued in chapter 6. Thus, while the first lex Calpurnia very
probably antedated Caesar’s law, the second may have been passed
shortly afterwards.9
Having postulated that the leges Calpurniae were different
measures, of which one came before the lex Julia and the other
quite probably came afterwards, it remains to be seen when the lex
Julia itself was passed. It has been argued in chapters 5 and 6 that
this initiative was passed in the late fall of 90 following the revolt of
Etruria and Umbria, and that it was indeed partly passed in
response to that event. Such a circumstance would be consistent
8 This is the stance taken by Keaveney (1987, p. 170) and Mourtisen

(p. 155), and is convincing enough.
9 There are also objections which could be raised to this construction,
however, which are based on Sisenna. Fragment 17 is held to have come

from book III, and (as mentioned in an earlier note) book III seems to
have ended with either the summer of 90 or the fall of that year. If the
former, it seems impossible to date this second lex Calpurnia to after the
passage of the lex Julia (more below); if the latter, it becomes possible, but
still difficult. However, the ambiguity of the fragment makes it such that
certainty cannot be vouchsafed: the verb which is missing may be in the
future tense, which means that fragment 17 may refer to something done
by L. Calpurnius Piso in early 90, the same man who presently (id est, by
the end of 90 or even later) would go about creating new tribes. As far-
fetched as this suggestion may be, it illustrates that even if it can be
guessed what the chronological parameters of Sisenna’s lost books may
have been, the incompleteless of the two fragments in question cannot be
positively taken to refer to events within those parameters. Thus, the
pluperfect used in reference to the lex Calpurnia of fragment 120 may
suggest that the law itself had been passed much earlier than 89, the year
alleged to have been covered in the book from which that fragment was
taken, and likewise the lack of the verb in fragment 17 may mean that it
foreshadowed an event which happened later than early 90, the year held
to have been described in the book from which that fragment was taken.
APPENDICES 781
with what has been theorized about the chronology of the year
90,10 according to which L. Julius Caesar spent the almost the
entirety of that period either planning, fighting, or recovering from
battles: so busy was the consul that he proved unable to return to
Rome to name a suffect after the death of his colleague at the
Tolenus river (Appian 1.6.44). By the fall of 90, however, things
had quieted down enough in the south after Caesar’s victory over
Papius near Acerrae that the consul could afford to leave the army
under a subordinate (perhaps L. Cornelius Sulla) and return to
Rome to preside over the elections of his successors.11 That one of
these would ultimately be L. Porcius Cato strongly suggests that the
campaign against the Etruscans and Umbrians had already been
concluded, allowing for Cato to capitalize on his victories and
parley them into electoral success (just as his colleague, Cn.
Pompeius Strabo, would capitalize on his recovery of the situation
near Asculum). On the other hand, there has been the suggestion
that Caesar had arrived a little earlier and passed his lex Julia while
these campaigns were still being waged, thus helping to pacify the
region, and this is not impossible.12 Either way, the picture emerges
of a lex Julia being passed towards the end of 90 rather than in the
10 See chapter 5 and Appendix I.

11 According to Nicolet (1988, p. 238), at this time consular elections
were held in Rome around the beginning of November, which aligns well
with a notice in Sallust that in the previous decade consuls had been
elected shortly after news of Arausio (fought on October 6 th) had come
back to Rome. Caesar would very likely have been able to have made it
back to Rome by then. Appian’s assertion that he had not been able to go
home to hold elections pertained to the election of a suffect following the
death of Rutulius on June 11th, and thus need not necessarily mean—as
Brunt (1988, p. 133) would have it—that Caesar could not return for the
usual consular elections and thus had to wait until very late in the year.
Rather, as things became stable (as they had after the Vineyards and
Acerrae), Caesar could afford to absent himself from his troops to hold
elections and, perhaps, pass laws.
12 So Keaveney (1987, p. 138, 142, 170, and 177 note 24). Mouritsen’s
objections—namely, that the laws were passed in the summer and the
Etruscan/Umbrian revolt occurred even afterwards—have already been
encountered in chapter 5, while the views of Brunt (loc. cit.) are discussed
in the note directly above.
middle of it, which allows one lex Calpurnia to have been passed
either in early 90 or before, while another could have been passed
at the same time or later.
If the conjectures above are correct, then the timing of the lex
Julia can be settled: it was passed around the time of elections in
Rome, which is to say November, in the year 90. Likewise, its
relationship to the leges Calpurniae, which were two laws and not
one, can be discerned. The lex Julia replaced the first lex Calpurnia, a
law which already existed but was now rendered unnecessary, and it
inspired the second, which allocated the citizens created by the lex
Julia into two new tribes. The only mystery which remains involves
the specific Allies who were made cives by Caesar’s law.
According to Appian, the lex Julia bestowed the franchise on
those Italians who had “adhered to the alliance”. (Ἰταλιωτῶν δὲ
τοὺς ἔτι ἐν τῇ συμμαχίᾳ παραμένοντας ἐψ φίσατο εἶναι πολίτας;
1.6.49). “Adhered to the alliance” was apparently so loosely defined
that it included the Latins, who may not have fought against Rome
but—as is speculated in chapter 5—may not have contributed their
soldiers to the armies of the Commonwealth either. Velleius
Paterculus is more precise in that regard, as his claims that the law
gave the civitas to the Allies who “had not taken up arms” (qui arma
aut non ceperant). It also apparently made this bequest to those who
had resorted to fighting but had desisted from it maturius. However,
there is some controversy concerning this last provision mentioned
by Velleius: did it only give the franchise to those who had
surrendered by a certain point before the law had been passed (the
position taken in chapter 5 and 6),13 or did it contain a period in
which those who wanted to surrender on the basis for the franchise
might do so after the law was enacted?
There certainly have been those who have argued for the
latter proposition,14 and some evidence is found to support it in the
vocabulary used by Velleius: it would be unusual, the argument
13 That position of Chapters 5 and 6 is also advocated by Brunt (1988,
p. 108, 132) and Salmon (1967, p. 360–361, where his comments are
slightly different than they way they are portrayed by Mouritsen, 1998,
p. 153), and seems also to be held by Keaveney (1987, p. 142, 170).
14 It is most notably asserted by Sherwin-White, p. 148.
APPENDICES 783
runs, for this author to employ the word maturius in describing of

the applicability of the law to those who had surrendered in the
past (id est, before the law had been approved), and all the more so
since other adverbs better suited to that meaning were available to
Velleius. Such usage, along with the statement in Appian that this
law encouraged those Allies still in arms to hope for similar
treatment (καὶ τῇδε τῇ χάριτι ἡ ουλὴ … τοὺς δὲ πολεμοῦντας ἐλπίδι
τινὶ τῶν ὁμοίων πραοτέρους ἐποί σεν; loc. cit.), encourages the
inference that the law contained a provision which allowed for
those who surrendered after it was adopted to be enfranchised.15
However, such an assertion is vulnerable on several points. In the
first place, no people are actually mentioned as having surrendered
to take advantage of this provision, either in the account of Appian
or anywhere else. If it is to be accepted that the Allies had
ultimately taken up arms because the citizenship had been denied
to them,16 then it becomes strange that none of them would have
availed themselves of the opportunity to get it in this fashion.17
Additionally, the contention rests on an interpretation of Appian’s
sentence which is quite tenuous. A much stronger impression from
the line is that the law gave hope to those Allies still in arms that a
15 Sherwin-White, loc. cit; Badian (1958, p. 226) seems to believe
likewise, holding that the lex Julia was the only franchise law.
16 As Sherwin-White (and indeed Velleius) suggests.
17 Sherwin-White’s additional claim that the Allies were fighting for
independence will not resolve this quandary; he, like almost all the other
scholars with the exception of Mouritsen who claim that the Allies did
indeed fight for this purpose, further notes that they did so only after the
civitas had been consistently denied to them, and that independence was
really the second prize to the more precious object which was the
franchise; it seems like the very height of folly that they would now adhere
to the less valuable commodity when the more valuable one was suddenly
made available to them. Indeed, events at Asculum (see Chapter 6) show
that the Allies still wanted the citizenship in 89 after the passage of the law;
if that law had decreed that all they had to do to get the franchise was
surrender immediately, it seems apparent that they would have done so
rather than continue prosecuting the war (and, it should be pointed out,
an immediate surrender would have prevented the battle to come, whose
outcome was at that point of course still unknown but whose violence
and magnitude might easily have been guessed.
future law might eventually be passed to give them the citizenship

too, strongly indicating that they were not included in the lex Julia
and would not be. Finally, the weakness of the verbal argument is
apparent: Velleius might have chosen that particular “peculiar”
word for any number of reasons—as an expression of his style, for
example, or from personal fondness for the word—which may
have had nothing to do with the actual content of the law he was
describing.
For these reasons, the argument that the lex Julia contained
the possibility for Allies in arms to gain the citizenship through
surrender fails to persuade. The idea that the lex Julia only applied
to those not currently in arms—either because they had never been
taken up or because once taken up they were put away swiftly
before the law was passed—is far more convincing, for the reasons
cited above and for the additional reason that a limited grant would
be far less disruptive than a broader one: if the Romans could
enfranchise some, get their soldiers, and crush the remaining Allies
in arms, the political, social, and financial repercussions described
in chapter 4 would be far less. Therefore, it is this latter
interpretation which has been adopted in chapters 5 and 6.
APPENDIX M:
THE BATTLES IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
OF ASCULUM, EARLY 89 BCE
In most of the Appendices attached to this essay, the reasoning for
various interpretations presented in the main body of the project—
interpretations which are at substantial variance with those found
in other scholars of this period—are reported at great length in the
attempt to show why the opinions of these other scholars have
been modified or rejected. Frequently these issues are of fairly
broad significance, and since often more than one construction
depends upon the same line of reasoning, a certain degree of
indulgence is begged for what amounts to a digression. However,
in the case of this particular Appendix matters which are only of
military importance are discussed. The matter in question involves
the way two battles from early 89 are postulated as having been
fought, a postulate which is most unlike the way these battles are
presented in other works. Such a matter may be of slight
importance for the overall picture of the 80s BCE, but it is
included here because it is a weakness of many scholars writing on
the Allied war that they frequently offer accounts of military
matters which seems to disagree with the sources but provide no
explanation for why that disagreement exists. It has been the aim of
this project to provide such an explanation when a similar
departure from modern sources or apparent variance from the
ancient authors seems to arise.
In chapter 6 Gn. Pompeius Strabo is described as having
defeated an Allied army on the way to Asculum, a defeat in which
he inflicted horrific losses on the enemy as a prelude to a much
larger battle which would soon transpire outside that city. This
description involves the use of four sources, which all tell of battle
that took place between Pompeius and the Allies in early 89; three
of them add the additional observation that such battle took place
at, near, or en route to Asculum. First and foremost, the Periochae
mentions this combat in all of a single sentence which is fairly
bereft of specifics (Cn. Pompeius cos. Marsos acie vicit; Per. 74). This
sentence confirms that Pompeius defeated the Marsi, and that he
did so as consul and thus in the year 89 (of which year it is the first
event which can be so specified, thus allowing the impression that
it happened fairly early on). It does not pin down where or how
785
many times he did so—acie might mean “in a battle” or “in battle”,
which could mean more than one—is not pinned down by the
remark. Appian, for his part, mentions only one such battle taking
place in the winter of 89, connecting it with the Etruscan and
Umbrian insurrection which the Allies had sent forces to support
(1.6.50). His account is mostly followed in chapter 6, albeit with
some deviations (more directly). Velleius also mentions one battle,
and only one, which was fought near Asculum (2.21). He he
describes it as being vast in scope, involving 75,000 Romans and
60,000 Allies. Finally, Orosius mentions two battes, or rather two
separate engagements as part of the same battle: in the narrative of
that author, Pompeius first defeats the Marsi, and then on the same
day (eadem die) the Picentes sally forth and are also conquered
(5.18.18–21). Orosius does not identify the Roman general who
defeated the Picentes, merely noting that they congressi and then capti
sunt. However, his text seems to imply that the battle won by
Pompeius was fought close enough to Asculum that the Picentes
could engage him alongside the Marsi, and thus that Pompeius
fought and defeated both peoples. Because the number of
battlefield deaths and the ultimate fate of some of the survivors of
the encounter described by Appian bears striking similarity to the
number of battlefield deaths and ultimate fare of some of the
survivors of one of the battles asserted as having taking place on
the same day in Orosius, it is easily inferred that the same event is
described by both men. Likewise, the complex two-day affair in
Orosius might have involved the gigantic numbers of combatants
depicted in Velleius. Hence, the temptation is to connect Velleius,
Orosius, and Appian assume they all refer to one battle, the same
as that described by the Periochae. All four sources have one other
thing in common, as well, which is that the battle that is described
in each is last major engagement fought around Asculum;
subsequent to it, that city eventually capitulated to the siege by
which it had been pressed since late 90.
Several modern historians attempt to describe this one battle
by combining the sources just mentioned in various ways. One of
them combines the account of the Periochae and Orosius, although
details from Velleius are not included in his rendering, and while he
APPENDICES 787
draws upon Appian to suggest that the battle involved an army sent
to relieve the Etruscans and Umbrians, he neither cites that
authority nor draws any other details from him.1 According to his
account, soldiers sent from Allied communities on the Adriatic
attempted mount a winter campaign and “thread their way through
the Apennine passes to the Umbrians and Etruscans”, to whom
they were bringing support. These suffered a shattering defeat by
Pompeius, who then “sealed off the passes”. This compelled the
survivors to attempt to return home “over the snow-clad heights of
the Gran Sasso”, during which retreat many Allies perished.
This construction of the battle gives rise to several problems,
mostly involving location. In the first place, the clear implication is
that the Allied relief army was encountered by Pompeius just as it
had finished crossing the Apennines headed northwest towards
Etruria and Umbria. Having been beaten, they were forced back
across the mountains and, whose passes were “sealed”, and they
made their retreat by the Gran Sasso. This would seem to demand
that the battle was fought on the western side of the Apennines
near the Gran Sasso, and thus near Amiternum.2 The sources cited
in this recounting do not necessarily make such a placement
impossible, yet the evidence of Orosius seems to make it very
difficult. As was seen, that author appears to state that on the same
day as the Pompeius was winning his victory, Picentes sallied forth
and were conquered. If, as was speculated above, the text of
Orosius is to be read that they joined in the battle alongside the
others, then they would have had to cover quite a bit of distance to
do so: the Gran Sasso alone is over thirty miles from that city, and
Amiternum further still.3
1 Salmon, 1967, p. 362–363.

2 See map 1.
3 As it turns out, Salmon makes no mention of the Picentes taking
part in the battle in the main body of the text, mentioning only in a
footnote that Orosius claims that some of the men defeated were from
Asculum. This claim Salmon neither explicitly accepts nor explicitly
rejects, thus sidestepping the problem of Asculum and the distance its
men would have to cover to take part in any sort of battle fought where
he places it.
Additionally, this account would have it that the Allies were

driven back over the Apennines by Pompeius upon their defeat,
many of whom perishing in the cold of the mountains. Yet if
Orosius is correct and the Picentes did take part in this defeat, it is
to be wondered why it is that the Allies went back by way of the
Gran Sasso, rather than fall back on that city. It may be assered in
response that, according to that scholar, Pompeius had “sealed off
the passes”, thus preventing a retreat to the north to Asculum. It is
difficult to see how Pompeius could have done this, but what is
more important is that it appears that he did not do so even if he
had been able. For one thing, Asculum would apparently still have
enough men to continue its resistance for some time. Orosius
mentions a lengthy siege, and it is commonly accepted that
Asculum held out until November,4 since the inscription whereby
Pompeius enfranchised soldiers honoris causa5 at Asculum shows
that he did so on November 17th. Due to the fact it was apparently
the customary practice to give out honors only after the successful
conclusion of operations,6 Asculum must have fallen at that time or
before. If, in fact, the Picentes from that city had contributed large
numbers of men for this battle (as Orosius asserts),7 then some of
the Picentes must have fallen back on that city to enable it to last
for so long, which means the route there must have been open.
This fact implies that that Pompeius had not been able or had
elected not to “seal off the passes”, and thus leaves unanswered the
question as to why those miserable men who chose the retreat that
led to their deaths in the snow did so rather than join the flight to
Asculum.
On the other hand, another construction8 (which is slightly
more convincing than the one given above) also holds that there
was but one battle, and that Appian, Orosius, Velleius, and Periochae
are all describing that single event in their texts. This account draws
4 So Badian 1964, p. 78; Domaszewski, p. 31; Salmon 1967, p. 365;

Keaveney 1987, p. 155–156.
5 See Chapter 6 and Appendix L.
6 For which see Stevenson, p. 95.
7 And, again, Salmon mentions the possibility of their playing a role
without further comment about it.

8 Domaszewski, p. 28–29.
APPENDICES 789
details from all of these sources. As this interpretation would have

it, Pompeius was met in early 89 by an army aiming to relieve
Asculum—which, following Orosius, is specifically named as
consisting of Marsi—and by another consisting of Picentes under
C. Vidacilius. Both attacked Pompeius Strabo on the same day as
something of a two-pronged assault, a sort of maneuver strongly
hinted at by Orosius. This occurred somewhere near Ad Aquas on
the Via Salaria, and in numbers like those reported by Velleius;
thus, 75,000 Romans against 60,000 total Allies. Upon the victory
of Pompeius, 15,000 of those who were not killed or captured fled
to their nightmarish deaths in the cold in the mountains of Umbria,
as per both Orosius and Appian (who both mention their fate, if
not the place where they met it). These did not include Picentes:
according to this account, Vidacilius had not led the Picentes out of
Asculum to fight in this battle, having never made it to his
hometown in 90. Instead, he was headed north from Apulia (where
he was seen operating in 90; see chapter 5) towards that town when
he ran across Pompeius. Vidacilius then hit Pompeius from the
south while the Marsi hit him from the west. In defeat, Vidacilius
was able to make it to Asculum and then to make it inside, taking
advantage of the loosening of the cordon around that city due to
the major fighting at ad Aquas. Once he had made it in, Vidacilius
fell into despair over his belief that he could not withstand the
siege, and committed suicide shortly thereafter (so Orosius, who
mentions the suicide but not the cause in the passage cited; the
despair is found in Appian, 1.6.48).
This rendition includes evidence from more of the sources
and does not postulate impossible distances to be covered by the
Allies, nor some the other difficulties entailed by having Pompeius
“seal off the passes” of the Apennines. Yet it, too, is not without
difficulties. Most of these revolve around the way it chooses to
ignore evidence from Appian’s account. In the first place, it follows
the numbers of Velleius and holds that 60,000 Allies fought, four
times the number Appian gives. In the second place, it holds that
the army of relief was not sent to bolster the Etruscans and
Umbrians, but to relieve Asculum; in support of this claim, it cites
a passage of Appian that says nothing of the kind (1.6.46).
Furthermore, it claims that these relievers were Marsi, following
Orosius. Appian, however, explicitly states that this relief was sent
from those on the Adriatic (οἱ δὲ περὶ τὸν Ἰόνιον; 1.6.50), clearly
implying the coastal socii like the Frentani. The Marsi were not on
the Adriatic, making it difficult to believe these were the men
Appian meant.
The most significant drawback to this construction involves
Vidacilius. If he was—as is claimed by this version of the battle—
south of Asculum headed northeast, and therefore hit Pompeius on
the Via Salaria in concert with the relief army, then it seems that at
some point Vidacilius could have gained access to a road which led
straight to Rome with no one between him and that city. Why,
then, would he head north to engage Pompeius, rather than simply
move on Rome instead? By way of reply, it could be noted that
Vidacilius was clearly concerned for the safety of his city (Appian
makes this clear: πατρὶς δ᾽ ἦν Οὐιδακιλίου τὸ Ἄσκλον, καὶ δεδιὼς
ὑπὲρ αὐτῆς ἠπείγετο, 1.6.48). Yet his city’s safety could be
guaranteed if a lightning strike on Rome met with success and
forced the Romans to terms. There was, then, a chance to the
capital without an army to defend it, and even if Pompeius turned
around to deal with this threat, he would have to be drawn away
from Asculum. The Marsic relief army, if such there were, could
then hit Pompeius from the other direction, or could ignore him
completely and provide succor to Asculum. Instead of this plan,
one of Alliance’s best generals—one known for his audacity—
decided not to attack a Rome which must have been fairly denuded
of defenders, and instead moved to close with a much larger force,
which then repulsed him and the other army and pushed a fourth
of its men into the frozen snows of Umbria.
Of course, for Vidacilius to have had and squandered this
golden opportunity, he would have to have been south of
Pompeius in the first place. But Appian clearly states that Vidacilius
made his way into Asculum by 90, and may indicate that he was
dead by the time this battle was fought (1.6.48). Admittedly, the
chronology in that particular section of the narrative is flawed, and
the passage can certainly be read in such a way as to allow that
Vidacilius lived through 90 and took part in battle in early 89. Still,
whether alive or dead in 89, Vidacilius was almost certainly in
Asculum in that year, if Appian’s testimony is to be believed. If
alive, he may well have taken part in this battle with Pompeius, but
he must have broken out of the envelopment first, having already
broken into it the year before.
APPENDICES 791
For all these reasons, this second reconstruction of the battle

raises so many difficulties that it is not compelling.9 There is,
however, a better way to reconcile the evidence. In the first place, it
is indeed likely that Appian and Orosius refer to the same occasion;
even the numbers agree, if it is assumed that Orosius did not say
18,000 men died, but rather 8000 men did (and a simple copyist’s
error might have led to this higher figure). If so, then the total
number of Allies engaged would be 15,000 (8000 dead, 3000
captured, 4000 frozen), the exact number Appian mentions the
Allies brought. The 4000 mentioned as having died would square
with Appian’s estimate that half of the survivors died (slightly more
than half, if there were 7000 survivors; slightly less, if there were
10000). Of course, this does not square precisely with Appian’s
figure of 5000 men dead, so perhaps one of the two authorities
were in error about the exact number of battlefield losses. This
variance notwithstanding, it seems reasonable to connect the
engagement described in Appian with that mentioned by Orosius.
Moreover, it can also be possible that Orosius and Velleius are
also describing the same event, a huge battle involving an attack of
the Romans from without and within Asculum. It is known from
both Appian and the Periochae that that at some point a great
engagement was fought between Pompeius and the Marsi (Appian,
1.6.52; Per. 74). It is also known from Cicero that Pompeius and
Vettius Scato were encamped close enough to each other that they
could engaged in a parley witnesses by Cicero, and that this
happened during 8910 What may be in error is the statement in
Orosius that the attack happened eadem die, id est, that both
happened on the same day. If instead there was more than one
operation which happened relatively close in time and place to each
other, then Appian, Velleius, and Orosius can align: they are
describing two battles waged fairly in near physical and
9 Likewise that of Mouritsen (1998, p. 155), which states that there

was only one battle—that which is reported in Orosius—and that
Appian’s details were to be applied to that battle; as he often does,
Mouritsen calls for Appian’s account to be rejected out of hand, an
outcome which is unsatisfying.
10 Cn. Pompeius, Sexti filius, consul me praesente; Phil. 12.27
chronological proximity to each other, one on the way to Asculum,

and the other slightly later just outside that city’s walls. In the first
engagement, men sent from the Adriatic coast sent a relief force
towards Etruria and Umbria, which was beaten by Strabo. Strabo
then proceeded to Asculum, where a short time afterwards a large
army of Marsi under Scato arrived in the attempt to lift the siege
(an arrival not mentioned by Orosius). These then fell to battle,
with Picentes from within Asculum breaking out of it to try and
help their own case. Such This arrangement seems more logical
than yet another interpretation which also posits two battles but
believes that both ended with thousands of men dead in the ice of
the winter.11 Therefore, a conjecture which would divide the
fighting in Orosius into separate engagements along the lines listed
above seems to be the most convincing, and it forms the center of
the argument which is unfolded in chapter 6, even though it agrees
with practically none of accounts of the modern scholarship on the
Allied war.
11 Keaveney 1987, p. 142, 151, and 159 notes 2–3; in the latter place
he also asserts his belief that the men first encountered by Pompeius were
not coming to aid Asculum, and that they were led by Scato, for which see
chapter 6.
APPENDIX N:
CINNA, CAECILIUS CORNUTUS, AND METELLUS PIUS
Chapter 6 describes how the year 89 opened with a grand battle at
Asculum, in which the huge numbers of Allies under Vettius Scato
and Vidacilius were defeated by an even larger force under the
consul Gn Pompeius Strabo.1 Having defeated Scato, Pompeius
resumed the siege of Asculum, but at some point he decided to
leave a subordinate in charge of the envelopment and take the war
into the territory of Vestini. There he achieved some victories and
won the surrender of some cities before returning to Picenum to
resume direction of the siege. It seems that Pompeius was
encouraged enough by the outcome of this excursion into enemy
ground to undertake some more of them, even if he himself would
not lead them personally. He therefore dispatched a number of his
subordinates towards that end. At least one of these—held to be
Caecilius Cornutus in chapter 6—probably conducted a campaign
in the territory of the Paeligni, and this campaign is narrated in the
chapter mentioned.
However, such a campaign is not explicitly described in the
sources. As a result, the account of it in chapter 6 is based on a
number of conjectures, some of which encompassing broader
issues than the military operation to which they are attached. One
involves its commander. By naming Caecilius Cornutus as its
leader, chapter 6 distinguishes this man from Q. Caecilius Metellus
Pius, the man who the Epitomator of Livy seems to suggest was
operating in the vicinity (specifically, in the territory of the Marsi).
To put it another way, the “Caecilius” named in that source as
“Caecilius Pius” (Marsi quoque a L. Cinna et Caecilio Pio legatis
aliquot proeliis fracti petere pacem coeperunt; Per. 76, with emphasis
added) is held in this essay not to be Caecilius Metellus, but rather
Caecilius Cornutus instead.
The account provided in Chapter 6 is therefore in apparent
contradiction with the Periochae. The reason for this divergence is
that the evidence of other sources involving the career of Q.
1 See also Appendix M for further discussion of the circumstances
surrounding this battle.
793
Metellus Pius makes it improbable that he was the lieutenant of

Pompeius who engaged in this enterprise. This in and of itself
seems to warrant further explanation, especially of the nature of
this evidence. Moreover, those aspects of the career of Metellus
Pius which provide the basis for the disagreement are also
important for other campaigns occurring both in 89 and later,
supplying yet another reason to make explicit the reasoning behind
placing Caecilius Cornutus in the area of the Paeligni and taking
Metellus Pius out of it. Finally, the campaign in which Cornutus is
substituted for Metellus Pius as described in chapter 6 also involves
L. Cornelius Cinna, and in the process chooses but one of several
possibilities offered by modern scholars as to what that man’s role
in the Allied War had been. Such a role may have been of
considerable influence on Cinna’s later career, such as his election
to the consulate in 88. Some justification for having him do what it
it claims he did in 89–88 therefore also seems proper. For all of
these reasons, a closer look at Caecilius Cornutus, Q. Caecilius
Metellus Pius, L. Cornelius Cinna, and what is known of their
political and military careers during the Allied War seems like an
appropriate exercise. Since such an analysis would otherwise
involve a digression (or a series of them) in chapter six, it seemed
better not to overburden that chapter with asides and instead offer
the necessary exploration in the pages to come.
In the first place, while it is not stated explicitly in the sources
that Pompeius Strabo dispatched any of his subordinates into the
territory of the Paeligni, it is hard to imagine that he did not do so.
This difficulty draws upon information from two authorities which
seems to support such an expedition. One of these sources is
Diodorus (37.2.9), who notes that Corfinium would eventually
have to be abandoned after repeated Roman blows which started
to fall on the Italians in increasing sharpness “after Cosconius was
sent to command affairs in Apulia” (ἐπολέμ σαν δ᾽ οὗν καὶ ἔτι ἀλλὰ
Γαΐου Κοσκονιου εἰς Ἰαπυγίαν στρατ γοῦ ἡττ σαν), an expedition
known to have been launched in 89 (based on Per. 75). Pompeius
would certainly be in an excellent position to deliver these blows to
the Allies in the area of Corfinium, either by electing to strike them
himself, or by means of having them struck by subordinates sent
into that region from Asculum. It is more likely that he did the
latter than the former after his defeats of the Vestini, especially in
light of the fact that he seems to have sent his subordinate Servius
APPENDICES 795
Sulpicius Galba against the Marrucini (see chapter 6).2 C.

Cosconius, who was sent against the Apulians, was also almost
certainly under his command (see, again, chapter 6). If Pompeius
had sent two legates south against the Marrucini and the Apulians,
and he himself had taken care of the Vestini, then it stands to
reason that he would also want to see to the Paeligni. But the
distance between the lands of the Paeligni and where Pompeius
was operating in Picenum would preclude him from doing it
himself, as Asculum is about a hundred miles from Corfinium.
Pompeius may have allowed himself to drift as far afield from
Asculum as Pinna (itself over sixty miles away), it seems difficult to
believe that he could both manage the siege at Asculum and still
range much further than that into the territory of the Paeligni.
Hence, if he wanted the Paeligni neutralized, he would need to
send a subordinate to accomplish this.
Alongside Diodorus, there is the statement of the Periochae,
which mentions that in 88 the Paeligni and whatever Vestini had
remained in the field would surrender to the proconsul Pompeius
(Cn. Pompeius procos. Vestinos et Paelignos in deditionem accepit; Per. 76).
For him to accept their surrender suggests either that he personally
had beaten them in battles for which there are no other record, or
(as is more probable) that the generals who had done so were
under his overall imperium. The evidence from these sources allow it
to be asserted with some certainty that Pompeius authorized an
offensive into the territory of the Paeligni, and it is likewise almost
certain that the target of this expedition would be the center of
Alliance, Corfinium.
It also seems likely that the Alliance would want to preserve
this city, and probably dispatched their best commanders and much
of their available forces left in the north to see to its defense. If
Pompeius had indeed ordered such an assault on Corfinium, then
the logicl jumping-off point for it would be Asculum, and thus that
it would be coming from the northwest. Vettius Scato—assuming
he was still alive at this point, as chapter 6 argues he was—would
2 See also supporting notes of Chapter 6 and Appendix R for why the
Sulpicius legatus mentioned in Per. 76 and Orosius 5.18.25 is Ser. Sulpicius

Galba, as opposed to P. Sulpicius Rufus.
be a sensible choice to defend against it. Earlier that man had been
mauled at Asculum, and it is not improbable that he had fallen
back from there to Corfinium along the same path that the legate
of Pompeius had taken. In fact, he may have still been on that path,
and thus in a position to fend off the Romans. If that was the case,
then Scato was therefore probably tasked with keeping the legate
dispatched by Pompeius at bay and defending the Allied base, and
did so within in the territory of the Paeligni. To accomplish this, it
is probable that Scato had some Paeligni under his command, even
though as he was Marsic himself, the majority of his men were
probably Marsi.3
Of course, there may have been another commander besides
Scato who was available for the defense of Corfinium and was
possibly in the neighborhood. This is Q. Popppaedius Silo, who
was last seen being defeated by C. Marius and Valerius Massala in
the southern part of Marsic territory.4 After this defeat, Silo might
well have marched north and shielded Corfinium. But it is more
probable that he was busy in the defense of Corfinium from the
other direction, as speculated by chapter 6. At any rate, it is
reasonably clear that he was tied up in the lands of the Marsi early
on in 89, as it is most likely that it was he who led those Marsi that
were initially defeated by L. Porcius Cato in that year until Cato’s
death in battle.5 Cato, as has been seen, had likely taken charge of
all the forces south of Asculum as consul, probably lending some
to Pompeius at the start of the year. The men of whom Cato
almost certainly took direct command were almost certainly those
led by C. Marius in 90, as Orosius explicitly states (Porcius Cato
consul Marianas copias habens; 5.18.24). If so, then Cato may also have
inherited the opponent of Marius, as well, and thus fought against
Silo just as his predecessor had. But whereas Marius had
maneuvered south to keep Silo from marching on Rome, so it now
3 See also Appendix H.

4 See chapter 5 and Appendix K for more about this battle and its
captains.
5 See chapter 6; that Cato died in combat with the Marsi is attested by
the Periochae: L. Porcius cos. rebus prospere gestis fusisque aliquotiens Marsis, dum
castra eorum expugnat, cecidit (emphasis added; Per. 75).
APPENDICES 797
seems that Silo moved north to keep between Cato and Corfinium,
as there can be little doubt that this was his ultimate objective. It is
probable that Cato had been pressing northeastward towards
Corfinium when he died, and just as probable that whatever
commander took over the legions that had been directly under
Cato’s command after the consul’s death continued along this line.
This disposition of both Scato and Silo corresponds well with
the notice in the Periochae (76) that the Marsi were beaten by two
commanders until they were compelled to seek terms. It could then
very well be that one of these commanders defeated the Marsi
under Poppaedius Silo, who was attempting to bar the approach to
Corfinium from the Romans headed in that direction through
Marsic territory; as Silo was also Marsic and fought in Marsic lands,
the Marsi doubtless comprised the greatest part of his forces. The
other Roman commander defeated Vettius Scato, who was
defending the aforementioned Paelignian city in Paelignian lands,
but very likely with a significant number of Marsi alongside the the
Paelignian troops. As was seen above, the Roman captains who
defeated the Marsi are named in that source: they are L. Cinna and
Caecilius Pius, who were also specifically observed to be legati. If all
the previous assumptions accurately reflect what the situation
actually was, then it is fairly easy to come to the conclusion that
one or both of these men were legates of Pompeius. This would
also accord well with a notice in Appian to the effect that
Pompeius was responsible for subjecting the Marsi, as well as the
Vestini and Marrucini (Γναῖος δὲ Πομπ ιος ὑπ γάγετο Μάρσους καὶ
Μαρρουκίνους καὶ Οὐ στίνους, 1.6.52). Just as one of his
subordinates had taken out the Marrucini, so, too, does it seem that
another had taken out the Marsi, and it may well have been that
this subordinate had done so in the process of working towards a
larger aim, which was capturing Corfinium.
Nevertheless, if one of these two men who bested the Marsi
was a legate of Pompeius, it may well have been that both of them
were not. It is also probable that at least Cinna was in fact initially
the legate of L. Porcius Cato instead. It is known from Cicero (Pro
Font. 43) that he had seen service as a legate under one of the four
consuls of 90–89, and that it had not come with under Rutilius or
Caesar can be intuited from his lack of mention in Appian 1.5.40,
which describes the Roman commanders of 90. It would therefore
seem that he fought under the command of either Pompeius or
Cato in 89. Since Cato had been operating in Marsic territory until
his death (as chapter 6 described), and since Cinna is next shown in
the passage in the Periochae which has just been cited defeating the
Marsi, it is conceivable that his role in defeating the Marsi was
performed in Marsic territory. If that was the case, then it seems
likely that Cinna had been attached to Cato rather than Pompeius6.
It is also quite probable that it was Cinna who took over the
legions under the direct command of Cato when he died. No other
subordinate is named as doings so, and it is almost certain that
those forces were not disbursed among the other commanders
then engaged. Such a course might have been dangerous: if, upon
the death of Cato, his men were sent south to Sulla, or north to
Pompeius, then a gap would open, allowing for a Marsic
counterattack that might have been able to gain the Via Valeria and
move directly on Rome. Thus, just as Sulla would eventually do for
those forces of the western department which were operating
further to the south, so probably Cinna did for Cato’s forces to the
north (as speculated in chapter 6).
A snarl then appears to emerge. On the one hand, it is likely
that Pompeius would want to crush the Paeligni, but could not
afford to move too far away from Asculum to do it himself. Just as
he certainly had with the Marrucini and probably had with the
Apuli and Frentani, Pompeius may have entrusted that task to a
legate, or perhaps more than one. The move against the Paeligni,
whose ultimate objective was the capture of Corfinium, may have
had the added bonus of overwhelming the Marsi, who were
cooperating with the Paeligni in that city’s defense. Since Caecilius
Pius and Lucius Cinna are are mentioned as legates overthrowing
the Marsi, these might have been the deputies sent to attack
Corfinium, allowing Pompeius to be credited with the defeat of
both the Paeligni (as he is in Per. 76) and the Marsi (as he is in
Appian, 1.6.52). But even though Cinna is specifically mentioned as
playing a part in reducing the Marsi, there is other evidence to
6 Lovano (p. 17) argues that Cinna had served under Cato and not
Pompeius, though the latter as is speculated by Broughton (vol. 2, p. 36)

and Salmon (p. 365); Keaveney (1987, p. 154–155, 210–211) allows for
either possibility.
APPENDICES 799
point to his service under Cato. How can all this evidence be
reconciled?
One a way out of this maze is to combine the various
possibilities. Since it is clear from Appian that the Pompeius was
responsible for overwhelming the Marsi, then one of the legates
mentioned by the Periochae as having helped to do this did so under
his authority. This legate was Caecilius, and based on the evidence
of Diodorus to the effect that the string of the events that led to
the abandonment of Corfinium started around 89, Caecilius would
have been sent by Pompeius against the Paeligni in 89. His
objective was Corfinium, and in the drive towards that city, he
defeated enough of the Paeligni that by 88 that surrendered to
Pompeius, his superior officer. These Paeligni were commanded by
Vettius Scato, last seen leading—and losing—large numbers of
men to Pompeius at Asculum. Upon his defeat, he and the
remnants of his men—of whom large numbers could have been
Marsi—fell back southwards towards Corfinium, ending up in the
territory of the Paeligni to the north of that city. They then moved
to intercept Caecilius, suffering losses at his hands in sufficient
quantity that the Marsi, too, were sent reeling and brought to the
point of considering surrender.
What finally tipped the Marsi towards capitulation was what
was going on to the south and west of Corfinium while Caecilius
was battering Vettius Scato northast of it. Upon the death of L.
Porcius Cato, the men under his direct command could almost
certainly not be removed from their position defending the
approach to Rome over the Via Valeria. It therefore would have
made sense that Pompeius would leave command of them in the
hands of on of Cato’s legates. Since L. Cornelius Cinna was known
to have been a legate in 89 (so Cicero, in the place cited above),
and since he is next seen battering the Marsi, it is probable that he
was the man who succeeded the dead consul. With these men
under his command, Cinna apparently decided that a good offense
would serve as an excellent defense, so rather than remain static
and monitor the Marsi, he continued Cato’s attack on them instead.
Thus, he also drove towards towards Corfinium in the opposite
direction, inflicting so many losses on the Marsi trying to stop him
that they succumbed to the need to yield in the following year.
It is certain that no source explicitly mentions or even hints at

the commissions of either Ceacilius or Cinna, and so the conjecture
that they each were legati of different men engaged in something of
a joint operation for the purpose of capturing Corfinium is
precisely that: pure conjecture. Yet none of the sources make this
an impossibility, either. Furthermore, a venture of this kind may
shed some light on some other developments from 89, 88, and
beyond. One of these involves the campaign undertaken by Ser.
Sulpicius Galba against the Marrucini, a people he seems to have
had no problem in defeating and knocking out of the war. Part of
this may be explained by Galba’s skillful leadership, of course, but
that may have been helped by an enemy which was separated from
outside assistance. The Vestini were certainly in no position to aid
the Marrucini due to their defeat by Pompeius himself, and thanks
to the actions of Cosconius, the Frentani and Apulians were
likewise unable to lend a hand. If the Paeligni were tied up in
defending Corfinium from an incursion by another legate of
Pompeius, then the Marrucini could be isolated completely and
much more easily crushed, as it seems they were. Further, as he was
making his spectacularly successful coastal run, Cosconius was
apparently quite unmolested by any other Allies save the Samnites.
This lack of interference from the Marrucini can be explained by
the exploits of Galba; that of the Paeligni, by their distractions
trying to hold Corfinium.
Finally, such a combined effort against Corfinium suggests
that the men making it may have been in close cooperation, and
perhaps to have developed a working relationship that may have
even bordered on amicitia. On the other hand, the push towards the
Allied headquarters may have been less of a collaborative and more
of a competitive one, perhaps in the manner of the much-
celebrated—and probably exagerrated—contest between George S.
Patton and Bernard Montgomery in Sicily during the Second World
War. Such a competition may well have led to antagonism and even
hatred, and if the Caecilius listed as Cinna’s counterpart in this
endeavorby the Periochae was indeed Q. Metellus Pius, than Cinna’s
hostility to him in 87 may be better explained (see chapter 8).
If such a construction—one which the sources do not make
impossible at least—is to be employed, then the role of L.
Cornelius Cinna in the Allied war becomes clear: he started as an
officer of L. Porcius Cato, took command of the men directly
APPENDICES 801
under that consul when the latter was slain in battle, and used them
to beat those Marsi trying to keep him from Corfinium into
submission. It may even have been he who finally captured the city,
as chapter six argues, even though the surrender of the Marsi was
credited to Pompeius, and the surrender of the Paeligni was made
directly to him. Cinna’s approach to Corfinium and his defeat of
the Marsi in his way was mirrored by that of Caecilius, the legate of
Pompeius, who encountered so many Marsi in defense of the city
that his actions helped bring about the surrender of both peoples,
even if the gloria went to his superior. As mentioned, the Periochae
clearly states that the Caecilius in question was (Quintus) Caecilius
(Metellus) Pius. Yet a number of factors call this identification into
question, and that the other legate who toppled the Marsi was a
different man altogether. It is to these sources of doubt that
attention must next be turned.
In the first place, if Metellus Pius was a legate to Strabo or
anyone else in 89, a service which extended into 88 (and the
passage of the Periochae just cited above makes it clear that the
person it names was in fact a legate),7 then it seems highly
improbable that he would be holding any sort of magistracy in 89.
Yet it is known from Cicero that Metellus Pius held the praetorate
at some point subsequent to the passage of the lex Plautia Papiria, a
law in whose operation he took part (pro Arch. 3.7–5.9 and 12.31,
about which more below). Unfortunately, there is ambiguity in the
exact date for that passage. As is discussed elsewhere,8 it is
reasonably certain that one of the men responsible for this lex
Plautia Papiria is a M. Plautius Silvanus. Asconius mentions this
man as having passed a judicial law while Cato and Pompeius
Strabo were consuls (M. Plautius Silvanus tribunus plebis Cn. Pompeio
Strabone L. Porcio Catone coss.; 79). Such a dating very strongly
implies that the tribunes took office in late 90 and served the
majority of their post in 89, when Cato and Pompeius Strabo were
consuls. If Carbo and Silvanus were elected in 90, as they probably
were, then it would theoretically be possible for them to have have
7 That he was not a legate in 90 can be derived from that passage in
Cicero’s defense of Fonteius which is cited above.

8 See Appendix P.
passed their law as early as the final days of that year. Metellus
could therefore have played the role he had in the enactment of the
law in the last few hours of the year 90 as praetor for that year. If
this was the case, he would have been in office in 90, would have
left it in 89, and could therefore have served as the legate of
Pompeius whom the consul would send to sieze Corfinium and in
the process crush the Marsi.9
Yet this eventuality hinges on the ability of Carbo and
Silvanus to pass a law between their election on December 10 and
the end of the year.10 Given that a law required between seventeen
and twenty-four days between its announcement and the day when
voting could occur,11 the so-called tres nundinae mentioned in Cicero
(Phil. 5.8) and Macrobius (Sat. 1.16.35), a legislative enactment
whose rapidity beggars the imagination. Rather, it is far and away
more probable that the law could not be enacted until 89. If that
was so, then for Metellus Pius to have played a role in
administering it, he would have to have been Praetor in that year,
and to have spent 89 in Rome undertaking the judicial duties of
that office. This, in turn, would have made it impossible for
Metellus to have been a legate to Pompeius in 89, and to have been
sent against the Paeligni by him.
It can, perhaps, be offered in response that praetorian office
did not necessarily prevent Metellus from serving as a commander
in 89, and to have fought in such a way as to have defeated the
Marsi. It could have been instead that the lex Plautia Papiria was
indeed enacted in 89, and that Metellus spent the first few months
in Rome before accepting a praetorian field command against the
Marsi, one which was prorogued until 88, when that people began
to sue for peace according to Livy’s Epitomator (Per. 76). But
objections to this construction appear immediately. For one thing,
for Metellus to have fought as a sitting praetor in the war would
have been so unusual as to consist of an isolated case, as there is no
record of any other praetor holding a field commission during the
9 In fact, Domaszewski (p. 31) argues for this very outcome.

10 For the terms of tribunes, see Appendix C.
11 See Smith, p. 815–816.
APPENDICES 803
Allied War.12 For another, it seems odd that the Senate would give
a sitting praetor a command which would put him in the field fairly
close to where the sitting consul was also conducting operations.
That it may have done so as a special case due to the fact that Cato
had died, and that it therefore dispatched Metellus to take over his
men in Marsic territory, fails to convince. There is no evidence of
any kind that he actually replaced Cato, and no other praetor seems
to have been sent to assume control of Cato’s other legions, such
as those in Campania, Lucania, and Samnite territory. These were
taken over by his legates, and it is far more likely that the legions in
the land of the Marsi were, as well. Such a procedure also
corresponds to the precedent set by what had happened in the
similar case of Rutilius in the previous year.
Finally—and most importantly—a praetorian command for
Metellus exercise against the Marsi directly contradicts the Periochae,
as such would mean that Metellus was not a legate, as that source
explicitly says he was. Further, it becomes impossible to see how
whatever success against the Marsi that would have befallen
Metellus could redound to Pompeius, credit which Appian clearly
assigns. Thus, if Metellus Pius did hold the praetorate in 89, as the
dating of the lex Plautia Papiria (under whose terms he discharged a
legal responsibility) denotes, then he would not be a legate, as per
the Periochae, and would lead no men against Corfinium at the order
of Pompeius in that year and along the way overwhelm the Marsi.
If he instead held an independent praetorian commission (for
which there is no evidence), then he still would not be a legate, as
per the Periochae, and his accomplishments wielding such a
command would be his own, and not those of Pompeius.
Clearly Pius did fight in the Allied War, but he probably did so
as the holder of a promagisterial command in 88.13 This could have
12 See Haug, p. 204, for the improbability of sitting praetors holding
line commands in the Allied War.

13 That Metellus saw service holding a a promagisterial command
beginning in 88 would, of course, first require that he was not already in

the field in another capacity earlier than this. As it happens, no source
mentions any battlefield activity on his part prior to that year, so no
objection can be raised on this account. Furthermore, it would tend to
require that the migistracy he had held first—specificallty, the
praetorate—would have concluded by either the end of 90 or 89. As has

been seen, the almost insuperable obstacles to the lex Plautia Papiria
having been passed before the end of 90 means that, due to actions
Metellus is recorded as having taken after the passage of that law as
praetor (see Appendix P), he almost certainly could not have held such an
office in 90. As a consequence, he would have to have held this position
later.
That the praetorate of Metellus came in 89 is almost certain, but not
completely thus. It is possible that he became praetor later than that year,
and that he was elected in 88 instead. As has been seen, there is a notice in
Cicero stating that Silvanus, one of the men responsible for passing the lex
Plautia Papiria, was tribune when Cato and Pompeius Strabo were consuls.
The logical way to interpret this report is that Silvanus was elected in
December of 90 to serve the majority of his year in office in 89, but that is
not the only way that passage can be read. It is possible that Silvanus was
elected in December of 89, while Cato and Pompeius were consuls, and
therefore served the majority of his term in the following year. Such a
dating of a tribunate to the consulate which expired within weeks is so
unusual as to be called a “solecism” by David Stockton (p, 94–95,
speaking of a different set of tribunes; see Appendix C), but that does not
make it impossible. Such a tribunate would date the lex Plautia Papiria to
88, and the praetorate of Metellus to that same year.
Yet the military events of 88 in which Metellus took part speaks
against this chronology. Under the terms of the lex, a citizenship law more
amply desribed elsewhere (see Chapter 6 and Appendix P), those who
were eligible to be made cives by it had to appear before the praetor within
sixty days of its passage to take advantage of the offer. Metellus is known
to have registered at least one person under its terms, and the inference to
be drawn is that Metellus had to make himself available for such
regsitration during this two month period. However, it will be discovered
above that Metellus was also in the field in 88 and in Apulia, far from
Rome. This voyage may have been just possible if the law were passed in
early 88, allowing Metellus to depart from Rome in the spring and make it
to Apulia and the command he held there by autumn or thereabouts. In
this case, Metellus would hold his command as a sitting praetor, a
circumstance for which there may be evidence: Metellus is mentioned by
Appian as having succeeded Cosconius ἐπὶ τὴν στρατ γίαν, while the de viris
illustribus states that Metellus defeated Silo as a praetor (praetor bello sociali
Q. Popedium Marsorum ducem interfecit; 63).
In response, it should be observed that Appian’s use of στρατ γία
could simply be employed to mean “command” (he uses it once in such a
APPENDICES 805
enabled Pius to go to Marsic territory in the beginning of the year

and, alongside Cinna, deliver a sharp enough series of blows against
the Marsi to make them sue for peace before headed south to
Apulia, where he would next be seen (see chapter 6). Furthermore,
the timing of this event in the Periochae suggests that this humbling
of the Marsi had cause them to sue for peace at a time when
Pompeius Strabo could be called proconsul, hence in the year 88.
But, again, whatever actions undertaken by Metellus as a
promagistrate would be his own, and not devolve upon Pompeius.
Laying this objection aside, there is the additional one of timing.
Appian states that Metellus was in Apulia, probably in relief of
Cosconius (see chapter 6) before the death of Poppaedius Silo, in
which he participated (1.6.53). This event, following the
chronology presented in the Periocha of Livy’s book 76, dates to
before the end of 88. Diodorus Siculus (37.2.10) also places
Metellus in Apulia at a time before the death of Silo, and hence
before the end of 88. Metellus would therefore have had to fight
hard enough to defeat the Marsi so badly that they considered
surrender, and then travel half the length of Italy, in the space of a
few months. Such a speed of movement is not an impossibility, but
it strains credulity.
way with the Samnite ὕπατος Papius Mutilus), while the de viris illustribus,
for its part, is notorious for errors of fact. There is, again, also the fact
that no sitting praetor is known to have held a commission during the
Allied War, as mentioned above. These facts may, perhaps, be enough to
conclude that dating the lex Plautia Papiria and thus the praetorate of
Metellus to 88 is so unlikey as to be discarded, and if it is, then the
command Metellus held in 88 would have been either propraetorian or
proconsular. Appian suggests this latter (1.9.80; see chapter 9), and that
his proconsular assignment was that of bringing the war to its conclusion,
since he was dispatched to fight in areas that would still be in arms during
the spring campaign season of 88: most of the communities in the north
had surrendered by that point or were on the verge of doing so, as
chaper 6 describes.
Yet whether the command of Metellus was praetorian or
pormagisterial, it seems reasonable to assume that he was not the
Caecilius mentioned in the Periochae, and that a better candidate for the
man named as such in that source is at hand; for this identity, see above.
For all these reasons, it seems unlikely that Metellus Pius

fought against the Marsi, independently or under the command of
either Cato or Pompeius Strabo, in either 89 or 88. Furthermore,
while it is almost certain that Metellus did hold held a
promagisterial command in 88, that commission was for the
replacement of Cosconius, as is discussed in greater detail in
chapter 6. This would seem to suggest that the Periocha of 76 is to
be rejected outright, a possibility which is always to be approached
with caution. Nevertheless, it may not be that the Epitomator got it
completely wrong. There is a Caecilius, specifically M. Caecilius
Cornutus, who is mentioned by Cicero as having done service as a
legate in the Allied War in 89 (Pro Font. 43). It may therefore have
been he who was the “Caecilius” who fought and defeated the
Marsi in that year. If he was, then it might help shed some light on
the identity of a Cornutus who is mentioned as having been
marked for execution and hunted, unsuccessfully, in the year 87
when Marius and Cinna took Rome, for reasons which are not
reported (Appian, 1.8.73, and Plutarch, Mar. 43; see also chapter 8).
This Cornutus might have been the same man as the legate of 89.
If he was, then as a legate of Pompeius in 89 and 88, he might have
remained with that general in 87 and fought under him against
Cinna and Marius. Thus support of the wrong side during the
Bellum Octavianum may have earned him his unfulfilled sentence of
death. Alternatively, Cornutus may have drifted into inimicitia with
Cinna during their race to Corfinium, causing Cinna to wish him
put out of the way in 87; or he may have impressed Cinna so much
with his skill that Cinna continued him too dangerous to live.
For this is so would, of course, require attributing an error to
Livy’s Epitomator: namely, that he had gotten the wrong Caecilius.
However, this would not be the first occurrence of an error in the
Periochae,14 and in this case the mistake is very small. This aspersion
on the accuracy of the Periochae is not overly troublesome to some
14 See Appendix J concerning Sextus Caesar and Servius Sulpicius
Galba, for example.

APPENDICES 807
modern scholars, who are willing to accept that it was Caecilius

Cornutus who took part in the overwhelming of the Marsi.15
For all these reasons, then, a two-pronged attack aimed at
Corfinium, led by legates Cinna in Marsic territory and Cornutus in
that of the Paeligni, seems possible. Both sides of this attack would
have involved defeating the Marsi, leading to their surrender and
those of the Paeligni in the following year shortly before the
abandonment of Corfinium. This is the sort of attack which is
described in chapter 6. As for Metellus Pius, his role was something
different, a campaign against the Apulians waged in 88 under his
own authority that would become something else entirelty in the
next years, as described in Chapter 7.
15 Broughton (p. 28–36 and especially p. 31 note 13) and Keaveney
(1987, p. 155, 210) accept that it was Cornutus, and not Pius, who was
legate in this year.
APPENDIX O:
SOME DETAILS ABOUT SULLA’S MARCH
THROUGH SOUTHERN ITALY, 89 BCE
Chapter 6 describes the enormously successful campaign
conducted by L. Cornelius Sulla through southern Italy. This
enterprise was in no small part the result of the death of first
L. Porcius Cato, consul of 89, and then later that of T. Didius, a
man of consular rank who was likely Cato’s immediate replacement
in the lower half of the western department. These casualties had
put Sulla in charge of the all the men in that area. It seems likely
that, once in command, Sulla launched his expedition with the aim
of taking Aesernia: other than whatever emotional significance this
may have had for Sulla, who had been involved in at least one and
possibly two earlier unsuccessful attempts to capture that city (see
chapter 5 and Appendix K), it would also have the additional
strategic benefits of taking from the Allies a powerful stronghold.
It would also have led to an opening of the road headed to the
Italian capital of Corfinium.
If, in fact, this was Sulla’s goal from the beginning, then he
would doubtless have recognized from painful experience that it
would be better to take a direct path towards Aesernia, rather than
attempt to get at it by going through the mountains in such a way
that both L. Julius Caesar and he himself seem to have done in the
previous year. Such a direct path existed, and it is overwhelmingly
likely that Marcellus had used it in his own unsuccessful stab at the
city in 90.1 By the middle of 89, however, it seems that it was no
longer as accessible to the Romans as it had been in 90, due to the
fact that Beneventum, which commanded it, had almost certainly
had been taken by the Alliance in the interim. For this reason, it
seems Sulla had elected to go around Beneventum to the south by
means of an anabasis through the territory of the Hirpini before
turning east and heading to that city, or very nearly to it, on the Via
Appia. Such an expedition may have been tactically necessary for a
number of reasons. One of these may have come from recongition
that, while Beneventum would have to be forced eventually,
1 See discussion in chapter 5 and supporting notes.
808
APPENDICES 809
attempting to do so directly from the west would have left eastern

path of the Via Appia unobstructed to the Allies. These could
continue to use this road to bring reinforcements and supplies
westward to ward off assault, assistance which might have made an
assault on Beneventum lengthy and, what is more, costly. However,
if Sulla could first reduce the Hirpini and gain access to the Via
Appia, he could shut off any aid from the west along that route
before making his run on Beneventum. This plan involved risks, to
be sure, as it would remove many of the soldiers in the area to the
west of Beneventum and potentially leave it open to Allied
counterattack, but Sulla seems to have been inclined to take that
risk. He was probably influenced in this attitude by the Roman
presence at of Catulus2 in the Liris valley, which would not leave
the Via Latina and a path to Rome completely clear to the Allies,
and by the continuing siege at Nola. Roman positions to the west
of the Allied front would mean first and foremost that if the Allies
attempted to go north on the Via Appia towards Teanum, then the
besiegers at Nola would be at their back. If they instead went south
to attempt to lift the siege at Nola, then Catulus would be at their
back; and all the while, either path might diminish their own
defenders at Beneventum. This would in turn allow Sulla the
opportunity to overwhelm the garrison or even go around it and
gain a foothold on the Aesernia road, an outcome which may have
been very much to Sulla’s liking. As it turns out, the Allies did not
take the bait, and as a result Sulla had to attack them more directly
to effect the opening of the road; this action is described in chapter
6.
Such a construction, however, is somewhat at variance with
the description of Sulla’s campaign found in other scholarship,3
which attributes to the future Dictator movements that seem to
suggest neither that Beneventum was in Allied hands in 89, nor
that his aim was Aesernia. These renditions do not deny Sulla’s
march through the lands of the Hirpini, which is well-attested in
the sources, but it does rob those movements of the significance
attached to them above, reducing Sulla’s strategy by implication to
2 For whom see chapter 6.

3 That of Keaveney (1987, p. 156).
one designed merely to inflict hurt and loss on the Allies. That
Sulla may have lacked an overall scheme beyond this last is not
impossible, of course, but the way it is suggested that he went
about it in other accounts seems to involve a great deal of wasted
time and energy for the Romans and an increased risk to them. For
this reason, the way in which the other accounts describe Sulla’s
campaign will be analyzed, and the reasons for departing from
those other narratives will be noted. In the process of so doing, it
will also take a look at another small controversy in which the
interpretation of chapter 6 is compelled to take a side, offering an
explanation for why the side which was taken seemed to be most
consistent with the evidence and thus was adopted in this essay.
According to the text of Appian (1.6.51), after Sulla tore
through the lands of the Hirpini he found a way to attack the
Samnites under their marshal, Papius Mutilius, from a direction not
anticipated by the latter, who is described as “guarding the roads”
(οὐχ ᾗ Μοτίλος, ὁ τῶν Σαυνιτῶν στρατ γός, τὰς παρόδους
ἐφύλαττεν). It is argued in chapter 6 that the place where Mutilus
was on this vigil was at Beneventum, since from there he could
guard the road to Aesernia from either the eastbound or
westbound track of the Via Appia. Such a posture would be useful
in light of where Sulla had been operating just before this battle,
and even if Sulla did not come, such a station would perhaps have
served as an added precaution against Cosconius if it had turned
out he had been able to penetrate further than he did, or from
Gabinius should he also turn northwards (see chapter 6). It is then
further suggested in chapter 6 that the “other, unexpected flanking
[route]” (ἑτέραν ἀδόκ τον ἐκ περιόδου) must have been from the
east, having been discovered by means of Sulla’s detachment from
the Via Appia just before landfall of Beneventum. However, there
is another interpretation4 which instead suggests that Sulla instead
started from the neighborhood of Capua and approached from the
west, thus hitting Papius between Aesernia and Bovianum, where
the latter is held to have been stationed (on which see below). It is
possible to explain in this way how Sulla was able to surprise
Papius, but in the first place such a route would also have involved
4 That found in Keaveney, 1987, p. 156.

APPENDICES 811
taking an enormous amount of time. As was seen in chapter 6,

Sulla had ultimately managed to range as far into the lands of the
Hirpini as Aeclanum, whose investment by Sulla had ended
messily. To be able to approach where Papius is claimed to have
been struck and surprise him from the west, a return march from
Aeclanum would have involved. This would have taken some time
even if the direct path to Capua from Aeclanum by the Via Appia
had not been blocked at Beneventum. However, if—as argued
above—the road at Beneventum had been blocked, something
which Sulla’s very march through the lands of the Hirpini suggests,
then a return to Capua would have essentially meant that Sulla
would have had to have gone all the way back the way he came
before launching his assault.
Laying this difficulty aside for a moment, having Sulla emerge
at a point between Aesernia and Bovianum, where it was argued
that Papius was stationed, and then turn to the south to attack
Bovianum makes little sense. If Papius were in Bovianum, that
would almost certainly mean that there would be no armies
standing between Sulla and Aesernia. With the huge army he now
had under his command, the obvious question becomes why Sulla
would not have moved directly against Aesernia itself instead of
making a detour to face Papius. For one thing, if Papius was in
force to the south, it might very well have been that Aesernia
would be relatively lacking in defenders, and by taking it Sulla could
then proceed to Corfinium. Even if he could not make it to take
the latter city, Sulla must have known pressure was being put on it
(see chapter 6 and Appendix N), and by taking Aesernia he could
deprive the Allies of a major city which could be—and was, as it
turned out—used as a base for further resistance after Corfinium’s
fall. Of course, it could be answered in counter that Sulla was in
fact headed towards Aesernia on this path when Papius sallied
from Bovianum and attacked him, but Appian quite clearly states
that it was the latter who was surprised and not the former.
Alternatively, it may be argued that Sulla was determined to
rid himself of the menace to his rear by defeating Papius first and
then moving on Aesernia. This would definitely make strategic
sense. Upon defeating Papius, however, Sulla did not in fact move
north towards the heart of Allied resistance. He proceeded to take
Bovianum instead, even though the path to Aesernia would now
have been free (according to such a construction) and the threat to
his back had been destroyed (Appian, loc. cit.). This interpretation
would seem to suggest that Sulla’s goal was the capture of
Bovianum in the first place. In response, this course of action
seems to make little sense strategically, although more will be
offered on this point momentarily. Moreover, there returns the
difficulty of the return from Aeclanum. If Papius was at Bovianum
and not Beneventum, which seems to be suggested by this
construction, then the track from Aeclanum to Capua by means of
the Via Appia would be unimpeded. If that was the case, why
would Sulla have come all the way back to Capua at all, when he
could have taken the—apparently unblocked—direct road from
Beneventum to Bovianum, if the latter city was his objective
anyway?
Finally, there also exists the problem of the aftermath of the
battle. According to Appian, Papius was wounded and took refuge
with some followers in Aesernia. However, if Sulla had attacked in
the way which was hypothesized, then his army would now lay
between Aesernia and Bovianum. This begs the question as to how
the Samnite marshal could get there with the Roman army in the
way.
Based on all these considerations, it is far more likely that
Sulla’s progress was not overland from Capua, but rather from the
Via Appia. This would require a battle be fought against the
Samnites, either at Beneventum (if they were positioned there
guarding the roads, as Appian strongly infers) or between
Beneventum and Bovianum, which was Sulla’s next destination.
Such a battle was fought, forcing a wounded Papius to retreat
overland to Aesernia and leaving Sulla to attack Bovianum next.
This, according to Appian, is precisely what he did, overcoming the
difficulties to its capture posed by its three strong citadels.
Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that a Bovianum (modern Boiano,
sometimes referred to by its imperial name of Bovianum
Undecimanorum) lay directly between Sulla and Aesernia, it has
been argued that the “Bovianum” in question was not this city but
rather the so-called Bovianum Vetus,5 a site commonly identified
5 Specifically Domaszewski, p. 30.

APPENDICES 813
with the modern city of Pietrabbondante.6 Unfortunately, the

scholars who make such an argument give no real reasons for why
Pietrabbondante should be preferred to Boiano; while it is true that
this city does have the required three citadels, many cities in the
region do also, including the other Bovianum.7 Indeed, “Bovianum
Vetus” lay quite far off the main road to Aesernia and Corfinium, if
the latter two cities had in fact been Sulla’s objective.
Admittedly, Appian’s account does not make an assault on
Bovianum Vetus impossible, and it must be allowed that Sulla
might have had quite a different strategy in mind than one
mentioned above. It may be that Sulla pushed north from
Aeclanum and penetrated deep into Samnite territory, and that
Appian’s testimony to the effect that he struck Papius from an
unforeseen place may be interpreted to mean that Sulla hit the
Samnites much further north than either Beneventum or Bovianum
Undecimanorum. This does beg the question of just what roads
Papius was guarding if not the obvious ones just mentioned, but
there could easily have been some of these these over which he had
set himself. Sulla may have then attacked Papius somewhere to the
immediate east of Aesernia, to which Papius would be compelled
to retreat. Sulla could then continue to sack Bovianum Vetus, and
then head immediately northwest from there towards Corfimium.8
Such a path is, again, by no means impossible, but speaking
against it in the first place is the fact that Bovianum Vetus appears
to have been a city seems to have no strategic value (although see
more on this point below), as opposed to Aesernia. Furthermore,
such a path up Samnium would require Sulla to leave Aesernia,
untaken, to his rear. Since such a city could apparently hold a great
deal of men and material, as its successful stand against three
separate attempts to besiege it in the previous year makes clear, it
6 Among those to make this identification is Salmon, who does so
fairly often throughout Samnium and the Samnites in spite of the fact that on
p. 12–13 he provides evidence for why such an identification might be
invalid.
7 A fact which is not noted by Domaszewski, but is supplied by
Salmon (op. cit., p. 357).

8 This would also explain why there is no record of him taking
Saepinum, which also lay between Beneventum and Aesernia.

would be a dangerous thing for Sulla to have at his back. Nor

would it be merely a danger to Sulla; it would also be dangerous to
the Roman cause, due, again, to its ability to serve as a fallback
position upon the siezure of Cornfinium, a role it would ultimately
come to play (see chapter 6). Finally, an untaken Aesernia would
remain a reminder of his failure from the year before, and it would
be well within Sulla’s personality to have that blunder expunged.
All of these reasons make it far more likely that Sulla would take a
route that would lead him to Aesernia, as the road which
connected with the Via Appia at Beneventum would have.
However—as mentioned above—Bovianum (Undecimanorum)
stood between Beneventum and Aesernia, compelling Sulla to fight
there, as he did.
Such a view, at least, is shared by many scholars,9 although at
least one of them10 has an additional conjecture about Bovianum
(Undecimanorum) which might make it a worthwhile objective for
more than just the barrier it posed on the road to Aesernia.
According to this historian, Bovianum had by this point become
the new headquarters of the Alliance. Such a reading is based on
the report of Appian (loc. cit.), which notes that this was “a place
where there was a common council for the insurgents” (ᾗ τὸ
κοινο ούλιον ἦν τῶν ἀποστάντων) at the time when Sulla moved on
it. That Bovianum had acquired such a status is, however, doubtful.
First of all, Diodorus (37.2) mentions that Corfinium was
abandoned only after the Marsi had capitulated, which would have
been in early 88 rather than 89 (Per. 76; see also chapter 6). By this
time Sulla would have already taken Bovianum, as this action was
completed in 89. Secondly, from a military standpoint the choice of
Bovianum would have meant that the Allies would have elected to
bypass Aesernia to go south in spite of the (apparently) great
strength of the latter. Aesernia had probably suffered some damage
during the first siege which had led to its fall to the Allies, and may
9 These scholars include Haug (p. 210) and Keaveney (1987, p. 153),
although in the latter case due to his belief that Sulla had taken the route
from Capua through Teanum.
10 Salmon (loc. cit.), who here and elsewhere (1958, p. 178) refers to a
“Bovianum phase” of the Allied War.

APPENDICES 815
have suffered some more during the attempts on it launched by

Marcellus, Caesar (if he had ever gotten close enough to it), and
Sulla during 90, but it was apparently undamaged enough after the
first siege (which the sources report had ended due to starvation,
not to frontal assault or breach) to resist three subsequent Roman
attempts to take it. Therefore, it seems almost certain that
Bovianum had not been the Allied capital before Sulla stormed it.
That it may have become the capital later—in other words, that it
became the capital after the fall of Corfinium in 88 but before
Aesernia was selected (after Sulla himself had departed)—also
seems most unlikely. In the first place, while it has the advantage of
retaining the line in Appian and not rejecting it entirely, but it does
assume that the line is wrong in its timing. Further, movement of
Allied headquarters to Bovianum after 89 would, again, have meant
that Aesernia would have been deliberately overlooked after the fall
of Corfinium in favor of a move even further south, and unlike
Aesernia, Bovianum definitely had been taken by assault in 89 (by
Sulla, as has been seen) and likely had suffered all the damage that
such would have entailed. Finally, the report in Appian can be read
to mean, not that Bovianum had become the capital of the
Alliance, but rather had been a city of singular importance to the
Samnites11. The last remaining option—that it was the capital
before Sulla took it, was evacuated after, and then became the
capital again later—begins to delve into the realms of the
ridiculous. It is therefore improbable that Bovianum
(Undecimanorum) had ever been an Allied capital,12 and while Sulla
seems to have taken it, it was likely as part of a plan—ultimately
unsuccessful, due to the lateness of the year—to capture first
Aesernia, and then probably Corfinium.
11 As Salmon himself notes (op. cit., p. 81).

12 See also Keaveney (1987, p. 156), whose arguments along these
lines are convincing.
APPENDIX P:
THE ACQUISITION OF THE CIVITAS BY THE REST
OF THE ALLIES AND THE LEX PLAUTIA PAPIRIA
In chapter 6 a construction is offered for the process by which the
rest of the Italians, the ones not enfranchised through the lex Julia,
finally came by the civitas. Such a construction is based on a number
of assumptions drawn from what seems to be the evidence of the
sources. The most fundamental of these is that the remaining Allies
did indeed acquire the citizenship. It seems fairly safe to draw this
initial inference based in the first place on the Periochae, which
claims that in or by the year 871 the Romans had given the
citizenship to Italian peoples by order of the Senate (Italicis populis a
senatu civitas data est; Per. 80). This notice is not terribly specific,
either in the scope of this bequest nor when exactly it was made,
but what it seems to be suggesting is that all Italians had been given
the civitas in or before the year 8. Thus, the Latin should be read
“citizenship was given to [all the] Italian peoples”, as opposed to
“citizenship was given to [some unnamed] Italian peoples”. The
former reading corresponds well with what is narrated by Appian
and Velleius Paterculus, who claim that—save for those Italians
who were still actively in arms against Rome, specifically the
Samnites and the Lucani—all the others had been accepted into the
civitas (Appian, 1.6.53: ἕως Ἰταλία πᾶσα προσεχώρ σεν ἐς τὴν
Ῥωμαίων πολιτείαν [emphasis added]; Velleius 2.17: Romani victis ...
universis civitatem dare maluerunt [emphasis added]). Thus, the
evidence derived from these authors in the passages just named
makes it reasonable to assert that the citizenship was, in fact,
actually given to the remaining Allies (save for a few holdouts), and
chapter 6 makes such an assertion.
But if—based on the evidence presented above—it is possible
to claim with some certainty that the remaining socii were actually
given the citizenship, it is less easy to claim certainty about other
aspects of this enfranchisement. One such difficulty concerns when
this endowment occurred. As has been seen above, the notice of
1 It comes after summary of chapter 79, in which L. Cornelius Cinna is
referred to as consul, id est 87.
816
APPENDICES 817
the Periochae only goes so far as to state that this had happened by
87. Nevertheless, the aforementioned passages of Appian and
Velleius seem to allow a slightly more definite chronology. Appian
notes that this enfranchisement had happened after the death of
Poppaedius Silo which occurred, according to the Periochae, in 882.
Velleius, for his part, states that it occurred in the year in which Q.
Pompeius and L. Cornelius Sulla were consuls (Romani … universis
civitatem dare maluerunt, consulatum inierunt Q. Pompeius et L. Cornelius
Sulla), also in 883. Based in these notices, it seems fairly clear that at
some point in 884, and certainly by 87, all the Allies save those who
2 The placement of this event in the Periochae (id est, in the summary of
Book 76) comes after the point at which Cn. Pompeius Strabo is referred
to as “proconsul” and before L. Cornelius Cinna coukd be referred to as
“consul”; thus 88.
3 This dating is not necessarily contradicted by the evidence of the
Periochae cited above: if it is to be assumed that the notice in the Periocha

simply meant that the Italians had been given the citizenship by 87, and
not that it was given to them in that year, then it actually supports the
claims made by the other authors.
4 However, a problem to this dating does seem to exist in the form of
the very next thing which Appian reports. According to his text, “at the
same time as” (ᾧ ταῦτα προσέκειτο) this legislation was being passed, the
praetor Asellio was murdered at the height of the debt crisis with which
Rome was then beset, killed because he decided too debt cases in favor of
the debtors (1.6.54). Livy’s Epitomator fixes this murder towards the
beginning of 89 (Per. 74, where the sentence immediately preceding this
report notes that Pompeius Strabo was consul). As a consequence, it
appears that one of these reports must be wrong. If so, the question then
becomes which one: is the Periocha of book 74 in error, placing an event in
early 89 which should have been placed later? Or is Appian in error, either
by placing the citizenship law in 88 which should have been put in 89, or
by putting Asellio’s murder in 88 which should have been put in 89?
There is no way to be certain which of these authors is mistaken
(assuming any one actually is), but several ways to unknot the problem do
appear, each of which might actually save the accuracy of both sources. In
the first place, the death of Asellio is the only domestic event other than
consular elections which is reported in the Periochae between early 89,
which was about the time when Pompeius had been elected consul and
was about to fight his winter battle at Asculum, and sometime in mid-88,
when the disturbance of P. Sulpicius Rufus is narrated (in Per. 77, after the
summary of the book 76 has already explicity mentioned Pompeius Strabo

as proconsul). It might very well be that the death of Asellio was an event
from late 89 or mid-spring of 88 which had been removed from its proper
time and placed in the context of early 89 in Livy’s original book so that
the historian would not otherwise have to interrupt his continuous battle
narrative, perhaps with a disclaimer to that effect. It is to be observed that
a financial crisis is mentioned in Orosius (5.18.27–29) and is presumably
the same financial crisis in which Asellio persistently decided suits against
the creditors, as is described in Appian. In Orosius, that crisis is reported
as having come to a head after the sack of Asculum, and thus to be placed
in late 89. If, therefore, the enabling law which gave the franchise to the
Allies had been passed in late 89 to take effect in 88, at the same time that
a debt crisis beset Rome in which creditors killed the praetor, then Appian
is correct: the law had been passed ᾧ ταῦτα προσέκειτο as the murder of
Asellio but was executed a little later, with the murder having been moved
to slightly earlier in Livy for stylistic reasons.
Alternatively, perhaps Appian had made such a stylistic rearrangement
in his own account. His report on Asellio comes after his account has
concluded its description of all the battles remaining in the Allied War, so
perhaps Asellio is mentioned at the place in the text where he appears in
that author (hard by the events of 88, as opposed to earlier in late 89,
where he properly belongs) lest Appian himself otherwise have to
interrupt his continuous own battle narrative. In this way, the ᾧ ταῦτα
προσέκειτο in Appian is thus to be interpreted as “at the time while this
combat (and its aftermath) was occurring” without specifying which
combat from all three years of it is meant, but intending it to be that of
late 89. That this is what Appian did—finish his account of the major
operations of the Allied War before returning to an event he had been
compelled to pass over, and as a result making it such that the place where
appears in that author cannot be used to indicate when the law was
passed—seems to make better sense of the evidence than can be derived
from following Domaszewki’s admittedly cunning arguments explaining
why Asellio’s murder took place in January of 89 (p. 29).
Finally, it may have been that both Appian and Livy made alterations
of this kind: perhaps Asellio’s death ought to be placed in late 89
(Domaszewski notwithstanding), after where it is mentioned in the
Periochae and before where it is placed by Appian. This would also allow
for the passage of the law in late 89 but for its execution in 88. If any of
these propositions are true, however, then the apparent chronological
difficulty caused by the notice on the death of Asellio is untied, and
nothing stands in the way of an unnamed law going into effect in 88
APPENDICES 819
persisted in fighting the Romans were enfolded as citizens into the

Republic. A more definite dating than this proves elusive.
Furthermore, and if these sources go only so far in their
description of when the (now, ex-) socii came by this commodity,
they are silent about the mechanism by which it came. It is beyond
reasonable doubt that the civitas was granted by legislation, but
which law or laws effected this state of affairs, the initiative’s
author(s), what terms may have been found in such legislation, and
the specific set of circumstances which led to its (or their) passage5
cannot be discerned.
This paucity of details on when, and the fairly complete
absence of details on both the legal vehicle by, and the
circumstances under which, the Allies acquired the citizenship,
leaves several fairly important questions unanswered. One of these
is obvious: why is it that the Romans decided to make such a
present to the Allies, especially since—as has been seen—the latter
were pretty much defeated by the end of 89? A rather equally
obvious response to it is hand: they had hoped by so doing to bring
about or preserve peace in Italy. However, as chapters 7 through
10 illustrate, peace was not the result, and if this was the intention
on the part of the Senate, it seems to have miscalculated badly.
Indeed, not only did warfare not end in 88, but it would resume as
hot as ever in 87 and be re-ignited after a lull in 83, with many of
the very men supposed to have been pacified by this gift taking
part in the fighting. If it can be assumed that the bequest of the
civitas to the defeated Allies was designed by the Romans to usher
in a lasting peace, why did it so utterly fail to do so?
Chapter 6 also attempts to offer some (highly hypothetical)
answers to these questions. According to the interpretation there,
beginning in 88 the Romans proposed the citizenship to various
Allied communities which had not yet surrendered, but were
granting the franchise to the Italians which was either passed in that year
or in the previous fall.
5 There is a suggestion in the Rhetorica ad Herennium (3.2) that the
Senate had debated giving the citizenship to the Allies at some point, but
that source is silent on when this occurred and its outcome, and it is
therefore not terribly useful in terms of its ability to supply answers to the
questions asked above.
nevertheless beaten, as a way of acquiring their submission. Thus,

the offer was indeed designed to buy immediate and lasting peace.
It must be admitted that such an offer does hint at a demeanor
taken by the Romans which seems to be quite at variance with the
great resistance to giving the franchise to the Allies attributed to
them in chapter 4. On the other hand, the mounting monetary and
military costs of the war eventually made it imperative to have
them stop, and to prevent the conditions under which they might a
return. This impulse was probably enough to quiet any hesitation
about enfranchisement based on worries over its effects on the
treasury and the legions. As far as those whose opposition had
been based on chauvinistic concerns about preserving Romanitas
from pollution from non-Romans, or from active dislike of thse,
the valor and toughness displayed by the former Allies may
changed some minds in this regard. Finally, the political
repercussions seem to have been greatly diminished by means of
the tribal restrictions of new citizens to which the Romans resorted
after the passage of the lex Julia, restrictions which were almost
certainly built into the later enfranchisement laws as well.
Therefore, the Republic seemed to have come to the conclusion
that accepting the Allies as citizens with these limitations would be
easier than continuing to fight.
The Romans, then, may have been persuaded by these
considerations. As far as the Allies went, it cannot be denied that
this brand of the civitas was not that for which (it has been argued)
they had fought. Still, for those who had already given up this
diluted citizenship would be better than nothing, and to those who
were on the brink of doing so it probably seemed good enough,
especially if in their current position—defeated in every way but
name—they could not envision being able to force anything more
generous from the Romans. Therefore, all of the Allies took the
deal except, it would appear, the Samnites and the Lucani. These
were either in better shape than their erstwhile confederates or
were simply more stubborn, and they continued to hold out in the
belief—a correct one, as it turned out—that they could eventually
acquire more. Of course, none of the sources explicitly state that
this is what either the Romans or the Allies had in mind, but none
of them explicitly state that this mindset did not exist.
Therefore, chapter 6 uses the evidence of the sources first to
speculate that the former Allies were given the citizenship. It then
APPENDICES 821
continues by adding to that first speculation the additional one that

such a gift was offered to the socii (and accepted by most of them)
by mid-88, although it is not impossible and is perhaps even likely
that the law which had authorized such an offer may have been
enacted in 89. Finally, a conjecture is made as to why this offer was
made, which was to secure the capitulation of those Italian
communities which, though defeated, nevertheless had not given in
and therefore perhaps threatened to be a nuisance for some time,
and the permanent surrender of those which had. The citizenship
which was offered lacked certain rights, however, and this lack was
a key to why the grant of it ultimately failed to provide for a lasting
peace. Eventually the novi cives were courted by Roman statesmen
who promised to furnish the missing rights in exchange for
support both in the comitia and in the battlefield, and the former
Allies proved receptive to such promises. In fact, if it was the case
that the offer of the civitas was extended to purchase peace, its lack
of success at doing so was fairly total, since the continued
operations launched by the Samnites and Lucani show that and end
to the fighting was accomplished neither in the short nor, as hinted
at above, the long run. Yet the fact that enfranchisement failed in
this aim does not mean that this was not, in fact, what the Romans
hoped to accomplish with it.
Beyond its existence, its timing, and its purpose, one final
guess is made about the law through which the remaining Italians
were offered the franchise. As has been discussed, it is surmised in
chapter 6 that the unnamed law which did this as mentioned in
Appian and the similar law which is mentioned in Velleius were
probably one and the same, based on its chronological position in
the respective texts and some similarities in the language used to
describe it in both authors. What chapter 6 does not do is attempt
to pinpoint precisely when this law was made and by whom,
contenting itself instead leave it without a name, and to place this
unnamed law amongst of series of enactments which gave the
franchise to some of the Italian allies over the period between 90
and 88. This series included the lex Calpurnia and the lex Julia, and it
also included a law known to modern scholars as the lex Plautia
Papiria. This latter is definitely known to have granted the
citizenship to some Italians, and it was apparently passed in the
neighborhood of mid-89 to early 88. In fact, these well-attested
features of the lex Plautia Papiria have led some scholars to assume
that this was itself the very law which completed the
enfranchisement of Italy.6 After all, the lex Plautia Papiria was a
franchise law and was passed at the appropriate time, so not only
would it be easy to make such an assumption, but Occam’s razor
seems to urge that it be made. Yet such a conclusion is not reached
in chapter 6, which prefers instead to hold that the bestowal of the
civitas on those Italians who had not been given it by the lex Julia
came by an unnamed law which distinct both from the lex Julia7
and from the lex Plautia Papiria. Since such a construction seems to
run counter to the opinions of several scholars8 and adds a law
which might appear unnecessary, it seems appropriate to cite the
reasons for why it has been made. These mostly revolve around
difficulties squaring what is known of the lex Plautia Papiria with
what the sources above seem to indicate about the enfranchisement
of the remaining Italians. Therefore, in the pages below such
difficulties and the ways by which their reconciliation can be
effected by the insertion of the aforementioned unnamed law will
be described.
First and foremost, chronology speaks against the
identification of the unnamed franchise law with the lex Plautia
Papiria. According to Cicero, whose speech in defense of the poet
Archias the only ancient source for the law,9 one of the terms of
6 For example, Gabba assumes that the lex Plautia Papiria performs this
function and somewhat imperiously dismisses further debate on the
subject as unnecessary (1976, p. 89–92); Keaveney believes likewise (1987,
p. 170–171). For some other scholars who have taken that the lex Plautia
Papiria enfranchised the Allies as “an article of faith”, see Badian 1973, p.
128 note 43.
7 There is an overwhelming scholarly consensus on this point, id est
that the law which gave the citizenship to all of the Allies was not the lex
Julia, which was insted more limited in scope.
8 Although it does have the support of Brunt, who argues directly that
it was not the lex Plautia Papiria which enfranchised the remaining Allies in
one place (1988, p. 107–109) and pointedly avoids mention of it his
discussion of the enfranchisement of all of Italy in another (1971, p. 168).
9 Whatever credibility any “evidence” coming from the Scholiast of
Bobbio (p. 175) once may have had has been effectively destroyed by the
penetrating analysis of Badian (op. cit., p. 125–135).
APPENDICES 823
what he calls the lex Silvani et Carbonis which gave the citizenship to
some residents of Italy was that anyone who wished to claim the
franchise had to appear before a praetor within sixty days of the
passage of the law (Pro Arch. 4.7). One of the praetors in question
is named by that speech as Q. Metellus Pius. Since this man was
later in the field as a commander in mid-to-late 88 in Apulia (see
chapter 6), a command which suggests that he was at least of
praetorian rank by that time, it seems logical to assume that this law
of Silvanus and Carbo had been passed—or at the very least went
into effect—in, around, or at the very least by early 88. As it turns
out, Asconius (79) mentions a Silvanus enacting a judiciary law as
tribunus plebis Cn. Pompeio Strabone L. Porcio Catone coss, and this
Silvanus is almost certainly the same man who passed the
citizenship law described in the Pro Archia. For him to be named
tribune in the consulate of Cato and Pompeius Strabo means that
he would either have been elected in December of 90 for 89 or in
December of 89 for 88, which means that the law he passed with
Carbo could conceivably date to any point between late December
of 90 and December of 88.
Thus far there is no conflict: as has been seen, the sources say
the remaining Allies were given the civitas by 88, and the lex Plautia
Papiria seems to have been passed at that time, especially if Silvanus
was tribune for the period between December 89 to December 88.
Admittedly, the law would still have to have been passed or had its
terms go active early in the year, in order for Metellus to have
registered those who were made citzens by it within sixty days of its
passage and then have time for his military service in mid-88 on the
other end of Italy.10 This is not impossible, but it does involve an
unusual use of language for Cicero: to date a tribunate from a
consulate which would expire three weeks into it would be so
strange as to be assessed by one scholar has called a solecism.11
Common sense—and common usage—would be to connect a
tribunate with the consulate with which it shared most of the year,
10 See also Appendix N.

11 See also Stockton (p. 94–95) and Appendix C for an episode of
similar irregulatity involving dating tribunes to soon-to-be-expiring
consulates.
and thus if Silvanus was “tribune while Gn. Pompeius Strabo and
L. Porcius Cato were consuls”, it would make far more sense that
he was elected in December 90 to serve until December 89.
The military service of Metellus seems to make it reasonable
to assert that the lex Plautia Papiria could not have been passed later
than early 88. The dating by Cicero would seem to indicate that it
was passed even earlier, as its authors were tribunes for the
majority of 89 (though perhaps the law had a provision which
made it effective on the first of the new year). But if the evidence
suggests that the law could not have gone into effect before early
88, there is nothing in them which conclusively rules out that law’s
passage earlier than 88, and it very probable that this was in fact the
case. As mentioned above, if it can be assumed that Silvanus and
Carbo served most of their terms in 89, their citizenship law could
have been passed as early as late 90, the year in which they were
elected. Yet dating the law to that earliest possible point also
presents problems. In order for this to have occurred, Silvanus and
Carbo would have to have put the law forward immediately upon
their election and had it passed before the end of December, with
all the procedural hurdles this might entail.12 This does not mean it
could not have been passed in 90, but it is much more plausible
that the lex Plautia Papiria was passed over the course of 89.
The chronological parameters just mentioned render possible
that the lex Plautia Papiria was passed at any point between
December of 90 to December of 88, but far more likely that it was
passed in 89. If that is so, then it then becomes difficult to ascribe
the enfranchisement of all of Italy to this lex. In the first place, if it
had been passed in the earlier range of dates—December 90 to
spring of 89, for example—then it would indicate Rome’s desire to
give the civitas to all of Italy by this point. If such a willingness
existed, there might just as easily have terms to this effect in the lex
Julia, which was probably passed just a few short weeks earlier. As
has been seen, the evidence of Cicero, Appian, and Velleius makes
clear it that enfranchisement of all the Italians was not a part of
12 See also Appendix N for these.

APPENDICES 825
that law.13 Appian makes it clear that the offer of the citizenship in
the lex Julia had been inspired by anxiety over the very real prospect
of losing the war and being surrounded, but it is clear that this
anxiety was not enough to induce the Romans to include all of Italy
in the bequest. The overall quiet that descended on peninsula
during the winter makes it unlikely that the Romans were
persuaded to broaden the scope of enfranchisement due to a
worsening military situation in the month that elapsed between the
passage of the lex Julia in November of 90 and the assumption of
office by Silvanus and Carbo on December 10 of that year. Nor did
matters in the field change that much as the tribunate of Sivanus
and Carbo progressed: as late 90 became early 89, hostilities
resumed with a lopsidedly enormous Roman victory at Asculum.
Thus, the fear inspired by the course of the war that impelled the
Romans to give some of the Italians the citizenship in late 90
would not have been augmented by battlefield losses in early 89.
As the year 89 continued, the Allies continued to suffer
greater and greater losses: victories at Canusium and Pompeii could
not have even begun to offset such losses as Teaté, Cannae, and
the successful campaigns of Cosconius, Gabinius, and Sulla. By the
13 As has been cited at several points in this essay, Cicero describes
witnessing the Cn. Pompeius Strabo—and thus in 89—in parley with P.

Vettius Scato shortly before the battle outside of Asculum; the subject of
their conversation was the citizenship, which Scato sought, not to snatch
from the Romans, but that it be given freely by them (non enim ut eriperent
nobis socii civitatem, sed ut in eam reciperentur petebant). That Scato might still be
seeking such a bequest in 89 makes it practically certain that it had not
already been extended to him in 90. Furthermore, Appian mentions that
the lex Julia inspired the hope of similar concessions amidst those still in
arms, implying that there were those still in arms which were not
enfranchised by it (τοὺς δὲ πολεμοῦντας ἐλπίδι τινὶ τῶν ὁμοίων πραοτέρους
ἐποί σεν; 1.6.49). Additionally, Velleius mentions that the law gave the
civitas to Allies who “had not taken arms or had not been slow to lay
them down again” (deinde recipiendo in civitatem, qui arma aut non ceperant aut
deposuerant maturius), allowing for the reasonable inference that there were
some socii who fit neither description and thus not included in the
provisions of the lex Julia. Finally, both of the latter sources explicitly
mention the remainder of the Italians being enfranchised later (and thus
not by the lex Julia), as will be discussed directly above.
end of 89 the Alliance was clearly defeated. In spite of that obvious

fact, it continued in arms into the following year. Very probably the
persistence of the Allies proved so wearisome that the Romans
bowed to the necessity of gaining peace by the franchise as
indicated above. Vellius suggests as much, indicating that the
Romans only acquiesced to give the franchise to the rest of the
Italians when their enemies were beaten to their knees and they
themselves were substantially weakened (Romani victis adflictisque ipsi
exarmati quam integri universis civitatem dare maluerunt; 2.17). That state
of affairs did not exist in 90 or early 89, though it more accurately
describes conditions slightly later.
What the evidence cited above seems to suggest can be
summarized as follows. By the middle of 87, the only socii who had
ever taken up arms against Rome in the Bellum Italicum who had not
yet become Roman citizens were the Samnites and the Lucanui;
once they were enfranchised, all of the quondam Allies had become
Roman citizens. Some of the others had been given the civitas by
the lex Julia in late 90; everyone else must have acquired it between
late 90 and 87, and Velleius and Appian state that it happened in
88. This probably coincided with the series of surrenders in the
Periocha of Livy’s Book 76 and with the surrender of Ausculum also
noted in that source, id est in late spring of that year (and thus after
Metellus had already left Rome to go south; see chapter 6). These
sources do not mention the precise date of the extension of the
citizenship, nor by what laws this was effected. At first glance, a
likely candidate may seem to be the lex Plautia Papiria, a law known
to given the citizenship to some people and to have been passed
between the end 90 and the end of 88. Nevertheless, for a variety
of reasons this law was probably passed in mid-to-late 89, which
seems to make it earlier than the point at which Appian and
Velleius suggest the enfranchisement occurred. Thus, the
chronology of the sources, flawed though it is, tends to rule out the
mass enfranchisement coming as the result of the lex Plautia Papiria.
In addition to the problems with the timing, there are other
aspects of this law which seem to make it unlikely as the vehicle by
which the socii became cives. In the first place, the provisions of the
law are described by Cicero, and nowhere in his description of
these is it directly stated that the lex Silvani et Carbonis was designed
to enfranchise all the Italians. The fact that Cicero took such pains
to spell out precisely who benefitted from the lex Julia makes it
APPENDICES 827
difficult to believe he would pass over such an important

component of the lex Plautia Papiria, if, indeed, there was such a
component. Added to this (admittedly weak) argument e silentio are
the stipulations which are listed that were incumbent on those who
wanted to claim the civitas which the law offered. Such individuals
apparently had to show that they were residents of Allied cities,
that they maintained a residence in Italy, and that they had made
the aforementioned appearance before the praetor within sixty days
of the law’s enactment. Of these, the third is the most significant
point against the lex Plautia Papiria being the law which
enfranchised Italy. This is because if all Italians not already made
citizens by the lex Julia were to be enfranchised by the lex Plautia
Papiria, the sheer numbers of those to be involved in this grant of
the civitas would be enormous. Even accounting for casualties
suffered over the course of the war, it seems quite probable that
the Allies—id est all those who were still in arms after the year 90—
would have had at least 150,000 men who would be eligible for
registration under such a law.14 All of these men would have to go
to Rome to appear before six praetors for registration within two
months of the law’s passage.15
Given the very small size of the Roman government at this
time (see chapter 3), it is difficult to believe that these praetors
would have had anything like a bureaucracy in their employ, and
indeed Cicero’s account shows that at least one praetor had had
such a direct oversight of his cases that he could later complain
14 Factored by means of taking the data presented in Brunt (1971,
p. 3–99 and especially the table on p. 54) and subtracting 100,000

battlefield deaths; this is, of course, a very conservative estimate of the
numbers of men who would be left alive, which could have been much,
much higher.
15 See chapter 10 for the number of praetors before 83. Of course, it
could be responded that perhaps the praetors went to the Italians, and the
text of the pro Archia (loc. cit.) does not rule out that they did so. But this
would effectively denude Rome of all its judicial officers for the two
months, something to which it seems difficult to believe Rome would
acquiesce. At any rate, there is no evidence for praetors travelling into
Italy to perform registrations. In light of these facts, it seems more likely
that the praetors remained in Rome.
about an erasure in a name (the praetor was Metellus himself; Pro

Arch. 9). Therefore, it is likely that each praetor met with every
registrant in person, asked him the necessary questions and
obtained proof of the necessary data, and then had each return
recorded. If this process took merely two minutes per person
(which would be astonishingly rapid and efficient), then one
praetor and presumably his scribe working uninterrupted for
twelve hours could perhaps enroll as many as 360 men in a day; all
six praetors on the same relentless schedule could handle—all
told—2160 men per diem. Working at that rate, even the determined
labor of two months would only get to 130,000 men, and this
assumes that there would be no holidays in the interim. The
limitations of the apparatus of Roman government and of human
beings in general would make a mere two months far too small a
window of time to register all those who would have been
eligible.16
Moreover, such a process would have required a massive
influx of Italians into the city of which there is no record, which
would hardly have been a desirable outcome in an age before a
standing police force.17 Nor would insufficient law enforcement
have been the only concern, either for the current Romans and
those travelling the city to obtain the franchise. Others would have
included finding places for the Italians to stay during the slow, slow
process of becoming enrolled, as well as places to eat (and the
victuals themselves). There would also of necessity be a complete
halt to any judicial business in the city, assuming all the praetors
were at work on this undertaking (and if they were not, that drops
the number of those who could potentially be registered by one-
sixth). The logistical nightmare of such a mass registration, one
required by the lex Plautia Papiria if the terms in it described by
Cicero were to be considered binding on all who wished to register,
16 And this says nothing of the hardships imposed on the Italians

themselves, who at the very least would have had to travel across war-torn
Italy in two months to take advantage of the offer.
17 See Wilfried Nippel’s Public Order in Ancient Rome (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1995), especially p. 35, for a discussion of

such an absence.
APPENDICES 829
renders it difficult to believe that it was the law of Silvanus and

Carbo was that which gave the citizenship to the rest of the Allies.
When combined with the chronological difficulties already
encountered, such a belief practically becomes an impossibility.
If, then, the lex Plautia Papiria was not enacted to give the
franchise to the Allies, then it may well be asked on the one hand
what that law was designed to do, and on the other which law did
give them the franchise. As far as the latter, it is impossible to tell.
The best that can be done is to suggest that probably what
occurred is that a law was enacted giving field officers the ability to
register entire peoples either at the point of surrender or
afterwards. Possibly this unknown edict had been passed before the
fall of Asculum, and may have proved an inducement to that city
finally to give in. This is hardly satisfying, but the sources allows for
nothing better to be gotten.
On the other hand, it is much easier to come by answers to
the former question as to the true purpose of the lex Plautia Papiria.
Very likely the intention of that law was to extend the franchise to
those who lived in communities which were eligible for
enfranchisement by means of the earlier lex Julia but were not
natives to such communities,18 such as non-Italians who had
moved into and accepted citizenship from them. This was, in fact,
the exact circumstance of Archias, the poet whom Cicero was
defending: a Greek originally from Antioch, he had migrated to
Heraclea, made it his home, and had became a citizen there, but
when the opportunity for Roman franchise became available, he
took it. Possibly also it was meant to include individuals whose
towns had been eligible for mass enfranchisement under the lex
Julia but had refused it or had been slow to ratify the acceptance of
the gift.19
If that was in fact what the lex Plautia Papiria had been
designed to do, then the restrictions described by Cicero make far
greater sense. In the first place, in order to prevent fraudulent
18 Such is the interpretation of Sherwin-White (p. 151–152), Badian
(loc. cit.), Brunt (1988, p. 107–108), and Mouritsen (1998, p. 167).

19 A condition which Cicero claims had obtained in Heraclea itself
(Pro Balb. 8.21); see chapter 6.

claims of the franchise, steps would have to be taken to show that

these individuals coming forward to claim the civitas really were
citizens in those eligible communities. By being compelled to
demonstrate to the praetor that they both lived in and were citizens
of such places before the time of the law’s passage, those who
would attempt to sneak into the Roman citizenship by means of
buying a house in the Allied city or bribing an official to give
testimony of citizenship there would be frustrated. This registration
itself would be far more manageable even for Rome’s small
government, since it is to be assumed that the law only pertained to
the relatively few individuals whose circumstances were similar to
those of Archias (that is, men who had been given citizenship in an
Italian community but who had been born elsewhere, of whom
numbers would probably not be large).
For all these reasons, the lex Plautia Papiria seems a most
doubtful candidate for the legislation by which the vast numbers of
Italians to be given the citizenship. Instead, it was probably enacted
for a far more restricted purpose, probably in early to mid-89,
when individuals worthy of the franchise but for some reason
could not be given it by the lex Julia and lex Calpurnia had been
discovered. The law or laws which did accomplish Allied
enfranchisement, however, are unknown, and that is the position
which is taken in chapter 6.
APPENDIX Q: THE UNUSUAL CONSULAR CANDIDACY
OF C. JULIUS CAESAR VOPISCUS
According to a series of notices which come either from Cicero
or from a commentary on Cicero, at some point between 89 and 88
BCE one Caius Julius Caesar Vopiscus attempted to gain the
Senate’s permission to run for the office of consul in spite of the
fact that he had never been elected praetor.1 Such a dispensation
was apparently strenuously—and, it seems, violently—opposed by
the tribune P. Sulpicius Rufus. In this, Sulpicius was almost
certainly motivated by what were his pronounced Optimate
sensibilities, althought he vehemence of his opposition seems to
have alienated him from the boni. Having deserted or been deserted
by his one-time factio, Sulpicius soon found himself in partnership
with Caius Marius; the fateful consequences of this alliance are
narrated in Chapter 7.
The ultimate results of this unusual candidacy are well-known,
yet remaining unclear is the reasoning behind why it came into
being in the first place. Why is it that Caesar had to run for office
before he was eligible to do so? In spite of what is sometimes
construed as a clear indication of what this motivation was, there is
actually no unambiguous answer given in the sources as to why
Caesar could not adhere to the cursus honorum. In fact, there has
been quite a bit of scholarly debate on this subject, but in spite of
many cunning arguments made in these disputes, the speculation
offered in chapter 7 as to what impelled to Caesar seek the office
when he did does not really conform to any of them. Because that
is true, it seems appropriate to summarize the conculsions reached
by modern scholarship in a fairly comprehensive manner and spell
out why this essay has departed from them, and to do so away
1 That this was the illegality may be inferred from the Phillipics, in
which a man who attempts to run for consul inspite of having failed to
become praetor is referred to as alter Caesar Vopiscus (11.11). Cicero
therefore hints at what Asconius says explictly: in his commentary on
Cicero’s Pro Scauro (25), he refers to the two Julii Caesares, of whom Caius
Gaius aedilicius quidem occisus est. Having only achieved the rank of Aedile
before he died, sperabat et id agebat [Caius] Caesar ut omissa praetura consul
fieret.
831
from the main narrative. Such a summary will follow in the pages
below.
Most of the modern scholars who attempt to locate the reason
for Caesar’s candidacy find it in the war that was to be fought
against Mithridates. Specifically, many scholars have suggested that
Caesar’s impatience to win the consulate stemmed from his thirst
for command of that war.2 Their suggestions are grounded in a
passage from Diodorus Siculus, one which implies that the
leadership for the war in Asia was sought by many prominent men,
and that Marius and Caesar were “pitted against each other” for the
consulate that would bring it (ἀντιποιουμένων πολλῶν ἐνδόξων
τυχεῖν τῆς κατὰ Μι ριδαάτου στρατ γίας διὰ τὸ μέγε ος τῶν ἐπά λων.
Γάιός τε γὰρ Ἰούλιος καὶ Γάιος μάριος ὁ ἑξάκις ὑπατεύσας
ἀντεφιλονείκουν; 37.2.14). Since Caesar is thus described as being
opposed to Marius over the Pontic command, and since he known
from other sources to have sought the consulate although not
qualified for it, the inference becomes that he sought a consulate
for the command it would bring, and was opposed by Marius in the
process because he, too, wanted the post (see chapter 7).
However, there are other possible readings of the language used
by Diodorus. In the first place, all Diodorus says is that Marius and
Caesar were opposed to each other over who should have the
Mithridatic command. That could mean that Caesar wanted it for
himself, and that Marius opposed him because he objected to
Caesar’s leadership. It could in theory also mean that Caesar did
not himself want it, but rather wanted it to go to someone else, a
person whom Marius found objectionable. It could further mean
that Marius wanted it to go to a specific candidate, to whom Caesar
for some reason objected; finally, it could mean that Marius wanted
it, and that Caesar objected to the leadership of Marius. Some of
these possibilities are admittedly more far-fetched than others, but
the Greek allows for all of them and does not explictly point to any
one over the others.
2 This has been asserted by Badian (1964b, p. 151; 1970, p. 13–14),
Spann (p. 26), Mitchell (p. 197–201), and Lintott (p. 446–451).
APPENDICES 833
This having been acknowledged, several other sources explicitly

state that Marius was himself interested in the post.3 This would
tend to speaking against the idea that Marius and Caesar were at
odds over rival candidates each man may have supported. Thus, if
the modern speculation that Caesar’s candidacy is connected to the
Mithridatic War is correct, then it is almost certainly the case that
he and Marius were opposed either because Caesar wanted the
command for himself, or did not but did not want it to fall to
Marius.
Of these possibilities, a few curious facts exist which cast
doubts on it being the former of them, id est that Caesar wanted the
legions for himself. In the first place, Caesar’s career up to this
point seems to have included no military commands of any kind.
Instead, it is most notable for its oratory, wit, and cultivation of
literary pursuits, in which there is revealed little that would suggest
either ability at, or zeal for, combat leadership.4 Of course, there
may have been the idea in Rome that the war would be an easy
one. Appian seems to suggest that Marius thought as much
(Μάριος δὲ τὸν πόλεμον εὐχερῆ τε καὶ πολύχρυσον ἡγούμενος; 1.7.55),
and it indeed may have been for someone of his abilities.5 Caesar,
however, was no Marius, and even an easy war may have been
more than a little daunting for an inexperienced general. Unlike a
later C. Julius Caesar who was both a man of action and a man of
letters, this one seems to have been far more the latter than the
former.
Secondly, it seems that Caesar made his bid for ambitio in 88 and
not 89. This can be gathered from the testmomony of Cicero, who
notes in the Brutus that Caesar’s attempt to run for consul was
opposed by speeches given by both P. Antistius and P. Sulpicius,
who were then colleagues in the tribunate (Coniunctus igitur Sulpici
aetati P. Antistius fuit ... in tribunatu primum contra C. Iuli illam consulatus
petitionem extraordinariam veram causam agens est probatus; et eo magis quod
3 These include Orosius (5.19.4), Plutarch (Mar. 34; Sull. 7), and
Appian (1.7.55); see also chapter 7.

4 This was noted by Luce (1970, p. 192–193).
5 Although Sulla would certainly have a time of it; see chapters 8 and
9.
eandem causam cum ageret eius conlega ille ipse Sulpicius, hic plura et
acutiora dicebat [emphasis added]; Brut. 226). As the other sources
make clear, Sulpicius was during the majority of 88, and thus was
elected in December of 89. Since Caesar’s petitio was opposed by
Sulpicius as tribune, that petitio had to have been made in 88, as the
elections of 89 for one of the consulates of 88 would have already
occurred by the time Sulpicius took office in December of that
year.6 By 88 the command against Mithridates had already been
assigned to Sulla, and while there was apparently no love lost
between these two (see below), it seems most unlikely that Caesar
had in mind superseding him in his province and finishing the war
Sulla had started.7 After all, when Marius had done the same thing
to Q. Caecilius Metellus in 107, a sympathetic Senate awarded him
both a triumph and the cognomen of “Numidicus” (Velleius, 2.11),
and it was this selfsame Senate that Caesar was now petitioning to
be given the right to run for Consul.
For these reasons, it seems that Caesar did not seek to be
allowed to run for the consulate so as to secure leadership of the
Asian expedition. If Caesar did not burn for command against
Mithridates, there still remains the possibility that Caesar wanted to
run for the office to keep the war against Mithridates out of the
hands of Marius. If the latter was indeed running for consul, Caesar
may have run himself in the belief that his election was the best
means to keep Marius from securing the appointment. Precisely
why Caesar would be so adamant about blocking Marius cannot be
known, if indeed he did feel this way. Perhaps Caesar’s opposition
came from the fact that, as a nobilis, he would have been reluctant
to see Marius get either the office or the command, lest the general
gain yet another chance for popularity and martial success which
could be translated into the establishment of a tyranny. If so, it is
6 Badian (1964, p. 77–79) suggests that consular elections may have

been held later than usual in 89, allowing Caesar to run in what would
have been the early part of the tribunate of Sulpicius, but he is fairly
successfully refuted by Mitchell (p. 201).
7 Contra Lintott (loc. cit.) and Powell (p. 452–453), who suggest Caesar
aimed to do that very thing.

APPENDICES 835
not impossible that Caesar would have gone to fairly considerable

lengths to prevent it.
However, it seems that Marius never actually did run for consul,
either in 88 or 87.8 Instead, he seems to have looked instead to
have Sulla’s proconsular command transferred to himself by means
of a plebiscitum, as Appian explicitly states (loc. cit.)9. If this was
indeed the case, than Caesar could not have run to keep Marius out
the office, because the general was not actually seeking it. If it was
also the case that Caesar did not seek the commission in Asia for
himself, then his run for the consulate would have had as its aim
neither the winning of the ability to fight Mithridates, nor the
prevention of the same going to Marius. Why, then, did Caesar
seek approval for his candidacy, if not for these purposes? And
what is to be made of the passage of Diodorus, which directly
states that there was a conflict between Marius and Caesar
concerning the Mithridatic War?
An answer to the latter may be found in the timing of the
plebiscitum of Sulpicius which sought to give the proconsular
assignment to Marius. Although the passage in Plutarch’s Sulla
concerning this transfer is far from biased (as it almost certainlyhad
as its source Sulla’s Memoirs),10 his indication seems to be that the
transfer was proposed after Sulpicius was already well known for
having advanced a series of laws of surpassing wickedness (about
which, see chapter 7). This suggests his tribunate was already
somewhat far along. If his opposition to Caesar’s candidacy had
come earlier, then it may be that Caesar opposed it out of nothing
more than revenge, given the fact that that opposition had
apparently been both nasty and violent. Caesar may then have
attempted to thwart the plebiscitum, not because it proposed to
invest Marius with proconsular imperium for the war in Asia, but
simply to frustrate Sulpicius. Alternatively, Caesar may have
objected equally both to Marius and to the man proposing to give
him the east-bound legions, and set himself against the law for
8 For the seemingly contradictory evidence of Orosius, see chapter 7.

9 Plutarch agrees, though he states that this proconsulate was the idea
of Sulpicius (Mar. 34).
10 Sull. 8; see chapter 1 for Plutarch’s use of Sulla as a source.
both purposes. In this way, Caesar and Marius would have come
into conflict over the Mithridatic War, but not because they were
competitors either for the command itself or for the consulate.
A final enigma remains, which is why Caesar would want to
run for the consulate at all. Chapter 7 speculates that Caesar may
merely have sought to do so because he sensed an opportunity: 90
and 89 had been relatively good years for the Julii Caesares, as
Lucius, brother of Caius, had become consul and censor in those
years, respectively. Furthermore, another Julius Caesar, Sextus, had
been elected consul the year before Lucius in 91, and had won
some renown in the later war. Perhaps Caius sought to strike while
the iron was hot and not wait for the intermediate steps of the
cursus, which might diminish the newfound luster on his family
name. Admittedly, there is no clear statement to this effect in any
of the sources, but there is no explanation for his desire to be given
the privelege of an early campaign at all. Further, the theory put
forth in chapter 7 does have the advantage of not resting on a
putative hunger for a military command for which his Caesar’s
career and personality would seem to make him somewhat
unsuited.
APPENDIX R:
THE MILITARY CAREER OF P. SULPICIUS RUFUS
Very little is known about the public life of P. Sulpicius Rufus
before his tribunate. Included in the knowledge that is missing are
details about his military career, if he had had one. It is often
assumed that he had served in the Allied War, but it cannot be
certain that he did so, or in what capacity. Obviously this
uncertainty bespeaks of a lack of extensive mention of Sulpicius in
a martial capacity in the sources, from which it can be inferred that
any service he may have done must not have been of great
importance. Yet modern scholarship has attempted to fill in the
details in ways that have bearing on some of the events of that war,
and on some of the events which followed; particularly, the
behavior of Pompeius Strabo on the approach of Sulla (see chapter
7) has been sometimes attributed to his relationship with Sulpicius.
Therefore, it is perhaps not entirely inappropriate to investigate
what can be known about Sulpicius Rufus and his record in the
war, and to see what conclusions can be drawn from such an
investigation.
Cicero claims Sulpicius Rufus had been a legate in the Bellum
Sociale (Erat Hortensius in bello primo anno miles, altero tribunus militum,
Sulpicius legatus [emphasis added]; Brut. 304).1 For this reason, it
has sometimes been speculated that it was he who was the
Sulpicius referred to in the sources as having helped break
Pompeius out of the siege at Firmum,2 and likewise the Sulpicius
described as having defeated the Marrucini (see chapters 5 and 6,
respectively).3 However, doubt can be cast on this assumption for a
number of reasons. In the first place, Sulpicius Rufus is not
1 Actually, this work claims that a Sulpicius was a legate in a war.
However, the war in question is said to have put an end to the Varian
trial, making it certain that the Allied War is meant, and the Sulpicius in
question would be noted as having both become tribune in the consulate
of Sulla and having lost his life in that year, making it clear the P. Sulpicius
Rufus is meant.
2 So Keaveney (1987, p. 141; also p. 209–210 and notes 22 and 24,
p. 213).
3 Keaveney (loc. cit.), as well as Domaszewski (p. 30).
837
recorded as having held a high office before his tribunate nor ever
to have led men in battle, and for this reason, it seems difficult to
believe that such a man would have been assigned to any important
military duties by Pompeius. Appian certainly does not mention
him as among the main commanders of 90 (1.5.40), nor does
Cicero list Sulpicius amongst the men singled out for notice in a
passage of the Pro Fonteio which list other luminaries from that war
(43). Additionally, another Sulpicius—Sulpicius Galba—seems to
have been praetor already, and if he had not necessarily covered
himself in glory during his year in office (see chapter 4),4 he was
nevertheless a man of ex-praetorian rank, a status which seems to
have been attained by most of the men who received any sort of
command in this war.5 To be sure, Galba may have had no more
leadership experience than Sulpicius Rufus had had: praetorian
rank did not necessarily imply familiarity with or even ability in the
leading of men, as the case of the unfortunate Q. Servilius Caepio
in 90 perhaps illustrates (see chapter 5). Furthermore, Galba is
likewise also unmentioned as having led men in the passages of
Cicero and Appian just cited. However, he had attained a superior
magistracy, making it more likely that important service would have
devolved upon him.
Secondly, while the Periochae does not allow the time in which
the Marrucini had been defeated and surrendered to be stated with
pinpoint accuracy, it does seem to indicate that it had occurred
after Sulla had gone back to Rome to run for the consulate. It had
probably therefore occurred either before or at the same time as
Pompeius could be described as proconsul (in other words, either
in late 89 or early 88).6 During this time Sulpicius Rufus would
have had to have been back in Rome to run for and serve as
tribune, making him the unlikely conqueror of the Marrucini.
Sulpicius Galba, by contrast, was under no such restraint, and it
could well have been he who had beaten them.
If both of these premises are to be accepted, it would seem
more likely that Galba and not Rufus was the legate of Pompeius
4 See also appendix F.

5 As observed by Haug, p. 204; see also Appendix N.
6 See also Appendix G for the dating in the Periochae.
APPENDICES 839
from 90–88, and that this it was he who was responsible for the
actions at Firmum as well. This is the position taken in chapters 5
and 6.7
Yet this does not necessarily completely rule out that Q.
Sulpicius Rufus had seen service in the Allied War as a legate
completely, as there seems no good reason to hold that Cicero was
simply wrong on this point. After all, Cicero does not say in what
year, under whom, and in what capacity Sulpicius served. It may
well have been that he did indeed hold a legate’s commission,
perhaps involved in administrative service and involved in no
significant operations. Under whom is a different matter. The
hypothesis of one modern scholar is that the commanders of 90
were essentially split into the boni and Mariani.8 If that was in fact
the case, then—given his optimate connections which are
described in chapter 6—Sulpicius Rufus might very well have
served in that year under the command of L. Caesar, due to the
latter’s connections with the optimates. He might then in turn have
been one of the officers discharged by Cato in early 89, allowing
him to go back to Rome and run for the tribunate of 88 (for which,
see, again, chapter 6).
Either way, it seems very likely that Sulpicius had no particular
connection to Pompeius Strabo, contrary to the assertions of some
scholars that Strabo was in danger of prosecution due to his
7 E. T. Salmon also believes that it was Sulpicius Galba who was the
legate of Pompeius and therefore played the significant role at Firmum

in 89 (1967, p. 356), and that it was also he who overwhelmed later the
Marrucini (op. cit., p. 365). The former proposition agrees with the opinion
of Domaszewski (p. 27), who likewise holds at it was Sulpicius Galba at
Firmum, but parts company with Domaszewski’s interpretation of the
Marrucinian campaign, which is asserted to have been conducted by
Sulpicius Rufus (p. 30, as noted above). Keaveney, for his part, believes
that Sulpicius Rufus was responsible for both of these actions (op. cit.,
p. 136–141), while Sulpicius Galba fought the action in 90 against the
Paeligni which is usually attributed to Sex. Julius Caesar by most scholarly
accounts, including this one (see chapter 5 and Appendix J). For more on
the service of Ser. Sulpicius Galba, and his potential earlier employment
into the Allied coniuratio as an investigator, see chapter 4 and Appendix F.
8 So Badian (1964, p. 55).
connection with Sulpicius9 and thus did nothing to halt Sulla’s

march on Rome, perhaps hoping thereby to make some sort of
arrangement to avoid it. Pompeius certainly had his reasons for
holding back from Sulla’s March on Rome, but whatever they were,
it does not seem that some sort of trouble due to connection to P.
Sulpicius as a one-time subordinate was one of them, since it seems
that neither the service together nor the attendant loyalty existed.
9 For this see Stevenson, p. 98

APPENDIX S:
THE CHRONOLOGY FOR THE END
OF THE TRIALS CONDUCTED BY CINNA AND MARIUS
As chapter 8 describes, after returning to Rome from the exile
which had been imposed upon them and defeating the armies
raised to stop them from doing this very thing, Marius and Cinna
found themselves in control of the city, which was now been
forcibly occupied for the second time in less than two years. The
two men apparently then decided to liquidate those members of
the optimates towards whom they either bore a personal grudge or
whom they believed to be dangerous, men who would very likely
these would be the same people. The evidence suggests that Marius
and Cinna decided that these men would be best removed after
being tried and convicted of some offense, rather than have them
simply dispatched in a more direct but less formal manner.
As mentioned in chapter 9, the Periochae, Appian, Velleius,
Orosius, Florus, and Lucan all indicate that the executions had
ceased before the election of Marius and Cinna to the consulate of
86. There were, however, probably some exceptions to this, and at
least one is known: on the Kalends of January a senator named
Sextus Lucilius—a former tribune, according to Velleius—was
thrown from the Tarpeian rock (2.23). The Periochae and Plutarch,
whose accounts also contain notices concerning the death of this
man, both state this was done at the orders of Marius,1 and in this
way such a deed may be related to an anecdote reported in Dio
(frg. 102) in which the son of Marius is claimed, amidst such other
offense as having deprived two praetors of fire and water and killed
a tribune with his own hands, to have had a tribune thrown from
the rock. Since the Commenta Bernensia on Lucan 2.125 mentions a
tribune named Caelius who was ordered to that place on the
Kalends of January and then hurled from it, presumably at the
same time that Lucilius met the same end (an event also mentioned
in that source), it seems likely that all the ancient sources refer to
the same event.
1 Per. 80, where he is called Lucinius; Mar. 45, where he is named
Lucinus.
841
But in working out the specifics of it some problems with the

chronology of 87 and 86 present themselves. Since these also touch
on more important matters from that year, it does not seem a
useless effort to try and untie some of these knots. Following the
logic applied to the untangling of other minor but important
problems throughout this essay, this task will not interrupt the
current of the main narrative, nor encumber it with yet another
lengthy footnote of the sort that, it may be argued, is present in too
great a quantity anyway. Rather, it will be presented here.
As has been seen, it is hard to reconcile the statement in the
sources that the executions stopped before the elections of the
consuls for 86 (and thus November of 87) with this other, and
possibly more besides, transpiring with what appears to be official
sanction several months later. This difficulty may be surmounted
by simply noting that there were exceptions to the cessation of
executions, ones that are not mentioned in the sources which
declared their ending but which others note. Less easily dispensed
with is the indication that individual held personally and directly
responsible for this deed actually appears to have had the authority
to carry it out. In November of 87 this authority seems to have
resided only with consuls, praetors, and tribunes, but Marius the
Younger was none of these in 87 or 86.
On the other hand, it has been seen that Marius Gratidianus
was tribune in some part of 87, as it was he who as, tribune,
prosecuted Q. Catulus on charges whose punishment was
apparently so horrible that the latter first pleaded for exile and then
ultimately committed suicide to evade them (for which see chapter
8). Marius Gratidianus could therefore have legally thrown these
men from the Tarpeian rock, and indeed there has been some
speculation that it was he who did so.2 But for this to be the case,
his tribunate would have to be moved from December 88 to
December 87 to December 87 to December 86. Such a
rearrangement creates additional problems, of which one it that it
would compel the indictment of Catulus to late December of 87 at
2 By Rawson (1987, p. 169–170, 175), who holds that Dio and
apparently the Commenta Bernensia had confused Gratidianus for Marius

the Younger.
APPENDICES 843
the earliest. It is difficult to believe that the trial to accompany it

would have taken place in less than three weeks, so it would have
continued into January.3
As it turns out, there is at least one source which suggests that
precisely this occurred. Florus states that all of the deaths decided
upon by Marius and Cinna had happened between the Kalends and
Ides of January 86 (Haec tot senatus funera intra kalendas et idus Ianuarii
mensis septima illa Marii purpura dedit; 2.9). This is often considered an
error of the grossest osrt, and indeed it is almost certainly is partly
mistaken: the other sources clearly indicate that most of the
executions happened before Marius was elected consul. Yet if a few
happened afterwards, the notice in Florus can be partly
rehabilitated: perhaps what his source told him was that the death
of Lucilius and Catulus happened in January of 86, and he
mistakenly assumed all the others had, as well. Furthermore, that a
few deaths happened after November of 87 would make sense of a
curious detail Appian passes along about the slaying of Ancharius
(described in chapter 8). That author says Ancharius was killed
while trying to reconcile with Marius during the latter’s sacrifice on
the Capitoline, which is held to be a consular activity and thus not
to be undertaken until January.4 Likewise, it also rescues from error
a statement by the Commenta Bernensia that the head of Antonius
(see, again, chapter 8) had been put on the table of Marius on the
Kalends of January.
The principal problem with this construction, however, is that
all the other sources strongly indicate that the slayings had stopped
before the consuls of 86 were chosen, which would be in
November of 87. Moreover, the tribunate of Gratidianus would,
again, have to have been for the majority of 86, and that the
praetorates held by Gratidianus would come directly after his
tribunate without anything like a biennium, if the widely-accepted
date of his first praetorate was indeed 85. Although this was a
minor enough law to break in a period of greater lawlessness, it
may be wondered if there is some way to explain all the various
divergences without assuming such misdemeanors. Is there a better
3 As Rawson argues (loc. cit.).

4 Auc. cit., p. 167.
way to describe this trial and execution while simultaneously

retaining the evidence of the sources about the officeholding of
Gratidianus and the testimony that the trials had ended before
November 87?
One (extremely hypothetical) way to do so might be to
assume that this Lucilius had been convicted in 87, but like several
others who had been prosecuted in that year, he had fled. He was
subsequently caught by an officer dispatched for that very purpose.
It seems that Marius the Younger had been an officer under his
father in 90 and under Cato in 89, and presumably had been made
a legate again by his father during the advance to Rome. It may
have been that he was the one sent after Lucilius and caught him
late in December of 87, perhaps hiding in the home of the newly-
elected tribune Caelius. This latter might then also have been
prosecuted for aiding the fugitive by his colleague, fellow-tribune
Publius Laenas, whereupon Marius the Younger brought both of
them under guard to the rock, from which Laenas threw Lucilius
(so Velleius 2.24).5 If Caelius then resisted, Marius may have killed
him outright and then completed the sentence by having Laenas
throw the body, thereby providing the basis for the statement of
Dio. It might also be that the two unnamed praetors also
mentioned in that passage had also in some way helped the
fugitive, for which they were denied fire and water. Marius then
may have done what he did as a soldier authorized to oversee the
carrying out of the sentence. Thus would allow Gratidianus to have
served as tribune in 87 with a biennum before his praetorate in 85,
and, finally, preserve the chronology asserted by the sources: the
trial did in fact take place before November of 87 (Caelius was
brought up on a different charge), but due to flight the execution
had to wait until the Kalends of January.
5 It is sometimes thought that Velleius errs here and attributes the

death of Lucilius to the eve of Sulla’s return, as he says the execution took
place “at the same time” as that return. Yet earlier in the passage Velleius
makes reference to Fimbria’s slaying of Valerius Flaccus and defeat of
Mithridates (see chapter 9). That happened in 86, and it is not improbable
that the execution of Lucilius took place eodem anno as Fimbria’s
adventures (86) rather than eodem anno as the return of Sulla (83).
APPENDIX T:
CINNA AND HIS UNREDEEMED PROMISE
TO THE FORMER ALLIES, 87–86
An assumption crucial to much of chapters 8 and 9 is that Cinna
was not able immediately to redeem his pledge to the former Allies
to effect their redistribution into all the tribes, one which he had
attempted before his expulsion from Rome in 87 and which had
almost certainly promised to those Italians who would aid him on
his return to the city. This inability is agreed upon by a great
number of modern scholars,1 who all draw upon a cryptic notice in
the Periochae suggesting that sometime in 85–84 the new citizens
were given the right to vote (novis civibus S.C. suffragium datum est, Per.
84). Since, however, the new citizens already had the right to vote
(or, at least, had the rights to vote in the comitia tributa), the passage
has been interpreted to mean, not that the vote was given at this
time, but that it was the point at which the redistribution was
finally achieved.
Such is the consensus, although this interpretation has not
been without challenges. At least one scholar reads that same
passage differently, and argues that Cinna had not waited until 85
or 84 but had accomplished the redistribution as early as 86.2 This
understanding is not entirely without support in the other sources;
there is, for instance, the notice in Appian which indicates that the
“laws enacted during Sulla’s consulate were repealed” immediately
upon the re-entry of Cinna into the capital (ἀνατροπαὶ τῶν ἐπὶ
Σύλλα τε έντων νόμων; 1.8.73).3 Since this would presumably
reinstate the redistribution enacted by Sulpicius, then Appian may
well claim that redistribution was effected earlier than 85. Nor
would this compromise another notice in the Periochae in which
Sulla promises to respect the rights recently won by the Italians.
The words used there—nuper datum—are hardly precise: “recently”
1 Including Spann (p. 330), Lovano (p. 61–63), Badian (1964, p. 223),
and Keaveney (1982, p. 121; 1982b, p. 506–507).

2 Frank (1924, p. 335–336).
3 Frank did not actually seek corroboration there, but Salmon makes
precisely such an argument (1967, p. 375–377).
845
could mean “since Sulla’s eastern expedition”, in which case it

would pertain to anything passed between when Sulla left in early
87 and early 82, which is the time in which this agreement between
Sulla and the Italian peoples is claimed to have been struck. The
entirety of 86–84 falls well within this timespan.
The irregularities in the account have led one scholar4 to
postulate that what was meant by the Periochae and other sources
was that Cinna did in fact effect such a redistribution in 87, but
that it was not sealed and made legal until the census of 86/85,
which assigned the Italians to their proper places (see chapter 8).
The census returns were ratified by the Senate in 85, hence the
placement in the Periochae (the chronology does allow for such a
dating; see chapter 9). The connection between redistribution and
census is logical enough: when would be a better time to rearrange
the Italians then when they were being registered?
Yet this argument, too, is not airtight: a census could easily
still have been taken under the earlier tribal restrictions, and thus
need not have pointed to changed circumstances, such as
redistribution. In fact, it has been persuasively argued5 that the
fairly limited census of 86 displays a continued reluctance to give
the Italians equal rights which might have mirrored on the part of
the censors the general senatorial obstruction of the redistribution
laws. Indeed, the argument continues, this reluctance has no better
face than L. Philippus, one of the censors of this year who as
consul had opposed the measure of Drusus to grant the civitas (as
has been seen) and regretted enfranchisement still in 776. It is
highly likely that Philippus he would not have wanted to distribute
them in such a way as to give them the equality which he seemed
determined to have kept from them. Thus, it seems most unlikely
that a redistribution brought about in 87 would have been
formalized by the census conducted under such an opponent of the
rights of the one-time socii. Finally, a redistribution would
4 Brunt (1971, p. 92–93).

5 By Harris (1971, p. 232–236).
6 So Harris, loc. cit.; the regret of Philippus is probably based on his
speech to the Senate in the fragments of Sallust’s Histories (1.65–67)

APPENDICES 847
essentially bring about full voting rights in the comitia tribute,7 which
would not have been dependent upon a census.8 The census could
have been conducted under the voting restrictions, or under the
removal of the, equally well, and thus cannot confrim when
redistribution took place.
In the face of such arguments and given all the contradictory
data, it seems not unreasonable to assume that what had actually
transpired is that the redistribution law—which would have been
most objectionable to the Senate—had been put off until later than
87, since Cinna would have to use all of his available political
capital to see to the passage of the debt legislation of Flaccus (see
chapter 7). In the meantime (and, perhaps, in a not entirely
unrelated maneuver), Cinna did appoint censors to register the
Italians, such that he could claim that he was working in the
interests of extending their rights. In this manner he could win
their continued electoral support, since he could not use their votes
to get himself re-elected in the absence of a census, while holding
out the redistribution to keep themselves bound to him. How
much later is another question: the passage in the Periochae could be
read to imply that distribution happened at any time between 85–
84, and thus may have been effected while Cinna lived or after he
had died. Yet based on the other chronological indicators, it also
seems reasonable to assume that it happened later rather than
sooner, and that Cinna was himself not responsible for the measure
but rather Carbo was; reasons for this are discussed in chapter 9.
Either way, it seems fairly safe to assert that in neither his first or
second consulates was Cinna able to come through for the Allies,
which may have been exasperating for both consul and former socii
but did have the effect of keeping them close, as chapter 9 shows
that they were still on the eve of the Civil War.
7 So also Keaveney 1982b, loc. cit.

8 See chapter 7 involving the census of 88.
APPENDIX U:
ANCONA AND THE SENTIMENTS OF THE NOVI CIVES
A significant component of the way the Civil War of 83–81 is
described in this essay is the contention that the former Italians,
ones enfranchised between 90–87, overwhelmingly sided for the
government of Rome against L. Cornelius Sulla. For confirmation
of this sentiment amongst the former Allies the specific testimony
of Appian and other sources has been invoked, as may be
discerned in the reading of chapter 9. As is claimed there, the
support of the novi cives was not only present, but was also fervent
and active, translating itself into strenuous military action against
the future Dictator. The ferocity with which they fought Sulla and
his army would seems to furnish irrefutable evidence to their
willingness to cross swords even with the men who were in theory
now their fellow Romans. Yet such a willingness is not entirely
accepted by all modern scholars, and a challenge to it has been
located in the circumstances surrounding the death of L. Cornelius
Cinna in 84. Due to the importance placed on the backing of
Cinnan government by the Allies, a closer investigation to this
challenge to it appears warranted, and such will be provided in the
pages below.
The episode in question is the mutiny in Ancona, during
which the Cinna was killed. Although it is probable that there were
many causes for that affair, there are some who have discerned in it
reasons to doubt the enthusiasm of the Italians for the
government’s cause. Based, perhaps, on the comment of Appian
that those soldiers who survived shipwreck dispersed because they
“did not relish the prospect of fighting their fellow-citizens”,1
Ancona is believed to be symptomatic of a larger phenomena,
which is that there was a general lack of a desire to do battle, not
just with fellow-Romans, but with Sulla specifically.2 This
reluctance is in part held to be a product of skillfully crafted
propaganda which had been employed by Sulla in the guise of his
1 εὐ ὺς ἐς τὰς πατρίδας διεδίδρασκον ὡς οὐ στρατεύσοντες ἑκόντες κατὰ
πολιτῶν; Appian, 1.9.78

2 Keaveney 1982, p. 121–122; 1982b, p. 506–509.
848
APPENDICES 849
letters to the Senate,3 propaganda to which the Italians were

particularly susceptible. This unwillingness to fight (this argument
continues) ultimately led to an insurrection amongst Cinna’s men,
and to the death of the man who intended to lead them into battle,
their hesitation notwithstanding.
One of the inferences drawn by this theory is that the mutiny
at Ancona was primarily the doing of the ex-socii. This is somewhat
puzzling, as neither Appian nor any other source singles them out
for culpability. Indeed, Appian’s words can be read to suggest that
he was in fact indicating that it was veteres who were to blame for
what occurred.4 Nevertheless, Ancona, along with other
developments (such such as the fact that later Carbo would feel the
need to secure hostages from the Italians, and the lack of
opposition encountered by Sulla upon his landing at Brundisium
and his subsequent trek to Capua)5 are all held to be illustrations of
the wavering demeanor of the former Allies in the face of the
returning commander.6
Such arguments are vulnerable in several areas, not the least of
which in the very ones which are supposed to give it strength. For
example, the taking of hostages may indeed represent an attempt to
diminish the effects of divided loyalties in those cities wherein
there was some doubt; certainly not all Italians supported Carbo,
just as not all Italians had supported each other during the Allied
War. On the other hand, it should be pointed out that Carbo is
recorded as having actually demanded any hostages from only one
place, Placentia, where there seems to have been unpleasantness in
the bellum Octavianum of the sort that indicated wavering loyalty to
the government (Valerius Maximus 4.7.5, 6. 2.10; see also Chapter
8). It is likely that Carbo would have asked for hostages from other
3 Frier, p. 588–593.
4 A reluctance to fight “fellow citizens” might be more expected from
men who had been “fellow citizens” for centuries, rather than from some
who had just come to share that parity within the last five years. Badian,
for his part, does not mentioned the Italian components of Cinna’s army
at all in his discussion of this episode (1964, p. 226–228).
5 As related in Chapter 9.
6 Frier, p. 598.
cities had he thought they might give him difficulties, and the fact
that he had no cause to do so may be telling.
Additionally, it is true that Sulla was not opposed at
Brundisium. Yet the simple common sense of that city in itsa
decision not to hold out against an army of five legions need not be
taken as indicative of an overall tendency amongst all Italians not
to want to fight him. The Brundisi had made their decision out of a
desire to survive, and as they were later rewarded with a remission
of customs duties it might be that self-interest was sweetened with
bribery in this case (Appian 1.9.79). It is also a fact that Sulla was
not impeded in his march along the Via Appia. However, he was
not ravaging territory either (Velleius 2.25), so it may well have
been the Italians along his line of march were perfectly content to
let him pass as he proceeded towards the army which was waiting
for him in Capua.
If these occurrences are not necessarily indications of an
uncertain Allied resolve, there nevertheless remains Ancona, and
the apparent lack of volition on the part of the Cinna’s men to
fight Sulla which seems to be illustrated by what happened there.
In response, it should be acknowledged that the entire strength of
this interpretation is based on apparent qualms against combat
which is only recorded in Appian, and he (as was noted) does not
specify that this hesitation was exclusively, or even partially, one
felt by Italians. Admittedly, Appian is not the only author to take
note of a disinclination to sail to Liburnia. The Periochae also
mentions an unwillingness a reluctance to take to ship to go against
Sulla, one which led to Cinna’s murder when he did not take heed
of it (Cinna ab exercitu suo, quem invitum cogebat naves conscendere et
adversus Sullam proficisci, interfectus est; Per. 83). Yet the Latin used here
only states that the army was unwilling to board and set out against
Sulla. This is not the same thing as stating that the army was
unwilling to fight Sulla under any circumstances. Rather, it specifies
that the army did not with to advance against him by ship. It may
well have been that embarkation, and not battle, was the source of
the objection: if the sea near Ancona was still prone to storms due
to the season (as Appian states it was), the latter might easily be the
more proper explanation for the recalcitrance of Cinna’s men. His
army may have been perfectly willing to test conclusions with Sulla,
but were less sanguine for a fight against an angry Neptune.
APPENDICES 851
Nevertheless, although the hostages, Brundisium and the

march to Capua, and Ancona might not be the best possible
illustrations for it, it might very well be that there were in fact some
reservations on the part of the Allies when it came to taking part in
this conflict against Sulla. Reasons for why it might have existed
include a natural desire to continue in the calm and restfulness of
the triennium sine armis and continue repairing the enormous losses
inflicted on the men and the land in one-time Allied areas.
Neutrality at first may very well have been sought by many Italians,
if for no other reason than as an avenue to remain in the quiet of
the previous months. Moreover, there may have been the fear that,
by fighting Sulla, they might lose: there was the distinct possibility
that a proven captain at the head of experienced veterans might
very well win, and that taking “unalterable stands against him too
early” might be unwise.7 There was also Sulla’s promise to restrain
his enmity to those who were ἐχ ροί, which may have led some
who did not believe themselves in that number to eschew combat
and escape any unpleasantness. Such considerations might have
obtained to anyone in Italy; with the former socii especially, there
was Sulla’s assertion that he had never opposed the redistribution
of the novi into all the tribes, but had simply set himself against the
transfer of his Mithridatic command. Vacating this would require
declaring Sulpicius hostis, and in the process vacating all of the leges
Sulpiciae, including the redistribution laws.8 The letter sent to the
Senate by Sulla (Appian 1.9.11) seems to have promised to leave
the new rights of the Allies alone, and as one scholar would have it,
“since [Sulla] was a man who prided himself on keeping his word,
few doubted that, despite his earlier bitter opposition to
redistribution, he would fully redeem his pledge”.9
All of those reasons might well have obtained, but there is no
evidence that any or all of them gained any particular traction with
the the Italians. Moreover, the evidence which does exist
(particularly in the form of Appian’s repeated statements of it) is
that not only the majority of Italians but even the majority of
7 As Frier notes, p. 590.

8 So Salmon, 1967, p. 377–379.
9 Keaveney 1982, p. 121–122.
Romans were against Sulla upon his return, and thus after Ancona.
Such indications as there are show that Cinna and Carbo had, in
fact, no problems recruiting Italians, which they did in large
quantities. Since their purpose in raising men was only that of
fighting Sulla, a lack of wanting to do so is not easy to detect,
probably because it did not exist. For all these reasons, it is perhaps
appropriate to discard the occasional claims that the Italians had no
urge to fight Sulla. If the sources are to be believed, the Italians did
have precisely that impulse, and they apparently acted upon it in
great numbers.
APPENDIX V:
Q. SERTORIUS AND THE AFFAIR OF SUESSA AURUNCA
As was described in chapter 9, according to a report found in
Appian (1.10–85–86; 1.13.108)—and, it should be pointed out, it is
found in Appian alone—Sulla and the consul L. Scipio were
engaged in negotiations to try and end the nascent civil war near
Teanum when Sulla abruptly broke off peace talks broke off due to
what deemed to be treachery on Scipio’s part. The offense which
led Sulla to this action had been the capture of Suessa Aurunca—a
town friendly to Sulla which lay between Teanum on the Via Latina
and the Via Appia—by Scipio’s apparent legate Q. Sertorius.
Sertorius had done this while being dispatched to bear the results
of negotiations between Sulla and Scipio to Capua and the other
consul of 83, C. Norbanus. Because Sertorius was Scipio’s
lieutenant, Sulla could claim that the capture was the fault of the
consul. When upbraided by Sulla, Scipio did not give answer to
accusations of false dealing “either because he was party to the plan
or because he did not know how to account for the bizarre act of
Sertorius”,1 id est that Sertorius had perpetrated this act without his
knowledge.
In their interpretation of this event, a number of modern
scholars seem far more willing to believe the second of the two
options which Appian presents about this action, which is that
Scipio was speechless because he had been caught unawares by this
unauthorized action which Sertorius had undertaken it sua sponte,
than the first, which is that it had been done with his knowledge.2
Of course, the offer of such an opinion is first and foremost
predicated on their willingness to believe that the capture of Suessa
Aurunca had actually taken place at all, even though there is only
one source for it, unless Cicero’s comment about the talks between
Scipio and Sulla, that non tenuit omnino colloquium illud fidem, is meant
1 εἴτε τῷ γενομένῳ συνεγνωκὼς εἴτε ἀποκρίσεως ἀπορῶν ὡς ἐπὶ ἀλλοκότῳ

δὴ τῷ Σερτωρίου ἔργῳ, Appian, 1.10.85.
2 Keaveney (1982, p. 132–133), Spann (p. 35–37), and Salmon (1967 p.
382 note 3) all believe the capture was the idea of Sertorius undertaken
without consulting Scipio.
853
to be a reference to this deed of Sertorius (Phil. 12.27, about which

passage more below). If Cicero is not so referring, than Appian is
the only author to mention this episode, although he does so in
two places. Silent on the matter is Cicero himself, who hints at, but
never mentions, this treachery on the part of Sertorius. Likewise,
Plutarch also omits it, despite the fact that he composed
biographies of both Sulla and Sertorius in which the story appears
nowhere; since his life of Sulla was in no small part drawn from the
subject’s own Memoirs, it is especially puzzling that this offense
would not be mentioned in that Life, at least. Velleius, too, says
nothing about it, even though he takes very special pains to show
how reasonable Sulla was during this whole period, a task for
which this anecdote might have helped considerably. This would
tend to suggest that some skepticism may be in order here, and is
perhaps enough to give rise to doubt whether this event ever
happened.
Yet this alternative to accepting the story—that is, simply
rejecting it as untrustworthy—has rarely been considered.3 In this,
at least, modern scholarship is probably justified; as has been
mentioned often throughout this essay, Appian sometimes gets his
facts wrong, but he is not exactly known for simply inventing
stories out of wholecloth. Having thus decided to retain the story,
these scholars tend to assume that Scipio was sincere in his
negotiations and that Sulla was, as well. One scholar presents the
image of both Scipio and Sulla as earnest peacemakers whose
“well-meaning efforts” were ruined by Sertorius, who was dead-set
on disrupting the peace talks and did so by means of this appalling
insubordination.4 In the words of another, the assault on Suessa
was a “foolish action” but for which “full-scale civil war might
even at that late stage have been avoided”.5
3 Spann (loc. cit.) is probably correct in that it would have been hard to
have invented this tale, and at any rate the silence of other sources is
hardly compelling enough to overturn a direct statement in the one where
it is mentioned
4 Keaveney, loc.cit.
5 So Salmon in the passage cited above, an opinion which Spann (loc.
cit.) believes to be “not unjustified”.

APPENDICES 855
In spite of these interpretations, the account of the

negotiations between Sulla and Scipio, the affair of Suessa Aurunca,
and the actions of Sertorius are presented in a completely different
way in Chapter 9. The reasons for this departure from modern
scholarship are several, and since that is the case, a brief discussion
as to what those reasons might be seems suitable, one which seems
most appropriately conducted out of the main current of the
narrative. It will therefore be presented here.
In the first place, the modern scholarship which assumes that
Sertorius did what he did without the authorization, and even
knowledge, of Scipio, tends to stress the point that the consul and
his adversary really were trying wok out a settlement in good faith.
This gives Sulla a far greater measure of good faith than the
sources indicate he deserves, as Cicero hints that he was plotting
against Scipio’s army (loc. cit.), and Appian and Plutarch explicitly
state that such was the case (Appian, 1.10.85–86; Plutarch, Sull. 27).
In so doing, Sulla was attempting a maneuver that he had tried
before against Fimbria (see chapter 9). It is distinctly probable that
Scipio knew precisely what Sulla’s game was, although the modern
narratives do not give him credit for his insight. Instead, they
generally paint Scipio as an oblivious naïf whose lack of insight into
his adversary borders on stupidity. These depictions do not seem to
be commensurate with his actual qualities, ones that included the
ability to decieve and therefore probably the ability to detect
deception (see chapter 5 and Scipio’s flight from Aesernia).
But Scipio is not just viewed by modern scholars as a man
hoodwinked by his craftier enemy. He is also seen as a commander
completely taken in by his own subordinate, who was able to pull
off a non insubstantial military maneuver without Scipio’s
awareness of what he was doing. It becomes increasingly difficult
to imagine that Scipio would be incognizant of the movement of
the thousands of men necessary for this venture. Nor can this
difficulty be resolved by assuming that these men were given to
Sertorius as some sort of bodyguard for his trip to Capua6 before
6 This is to say nothing of the improbability of Scipio’s having given
responsibility for conveying the proceedings of the investigation to

Norbanus, given that Sertorius had strenuously opposed these
he turned them to nefarious ends, as it beggars the imagination that

Scipio would have granted more than a few men at most for this
venture.7 Yet the modern scholars assume that Sertorius would
have been able to assemble enough men to assault and take a town,
that he did so in complete secrecy from his commander, and that
he managed to fool that commander and his enemy into thinking
he was headed to Capua before doubling back and initiating his
attack.8
Finally, the modern reports seem to assume that Sertorius was
capable of a military infraction of the most grotesque kind, in spite
of a career that up to this point had shown no evidence for such a
thing. Obviously, men do things that are out of their character
from time to time, and perhaps the long history Sertorius had with
command stupidity had pushed him into acting in the face of the
negotiations.9 Furthermore, his hatred for Sulla was apparently
profound, and may have been enough to push him into
insubordination in and of itself. Still, there is nothing in the sources
to suggest that Sertorius had ever been anything but a model
soldier to this point, nor anything that would show him being
driven to recklessness due to his passions before and after this.
This personality assessment may not be airtight, but it is at least
enough to allow it to be questioned whether Sertorius really had
done what he did unbidden.
For all these reasons, it can be wondered whether Appian may
not have misreported what happened at Suessa, not in the sense
that he passed along an event that never happened at all, but that it
may have transpired in a way different to the way he reported it.
negotiations and personally despised Sulla, a feeling which was shared.

For more on this point, see chapter 9.
7 Furthermore, even if Scipio had acquiesced to his request for men, it
would almost certainly have raised the alarm of Sulla if Sertorius would
have taken them by the only obvious route to Capua, which was by the
Via Latina. For more on this point, see, again, chapter 9.
8 Doubling back, because Suessa was not on the Via Latina, but was
some distance from it and in the opposite direction; see previous note.
9 For his certainly-attested service under Q. Servilius Caepio the Elder
at Arausio, and his possible service under Q. Servilius Caepio the Younger
at Amiternum, see chapter 9.
APPENDICES 857
Perhaps that variation involved the way that the assualt on Suessa
was decided. This would seem to give rise to a question: was it relly
that Sertorius took the town unasked by and unbeknownst to
Scipio? Or was it possibly the case that Sertorius tooks Suessa by
Scipio’s command?
Chapter 9 holds that the latter was the case. In so doing, it
takes not of the strategic significance that Suessa might have held
for a seasoned commander. In Appian, the only value displayed by
Suessa was that as a goad: since it have gone over to Sulla ( ἣ τὰ
Σύλλεια ᾕρ το; loc. cit.), its seizure could impel him to fight. Yet as a
town friendly to Sulla, Suessa represented a source of danger to
Scipio: if negotiations were to fail and battle commence, Suessa
could deny the consul the Via Appia, and there was even the
possibility that Scipio could be enveloped by Sullani from the front
and right rear flank.10 This possibility would vanish if Suessa were
taken. Furthermore, if Sulla himself were worsted in battle against
Scipio, he would be denied a place to which he could have
retreated. Without Suessa, Sulla could only have retreated eastward
into Samnium, which the reception he would have received can be
guessed, or back down the Via Appia to a waiting Norbanus.
These facts would almost certainly have been recognized by a
commander as competent as Scipio had become in the years since
90. In fact, Scipio could easily have had something more ambitious
in mind. Rather than attack and see what shook out or let Sulla do
the same, Scipio may have intended to pin Sulla near Teanum
under guise of negotiations. He could then send for Norbanus
through the messenger ostensibly carrying the terms of the
armistice and have him attack Sulla from the rear. Scipio might
then have been able to trap Sulla between his army and that of
Norbanus (and possibly surround him on three sides with the held
of the Samnites from Aesernia, who might well have come in to aid
an army fighting Sulla). If successful, Sulla could be annihiliated
between three armies; if not, then, Scipio himself could escape to
Suessa, regroup, and remain a menace in Sulla’s back as he resumed
his path to Rome along the Via Latina.
10 Spann (p. 36–37) recognizes this possibility but dismisses it.

All of this, however, would likely have been depended on the

capture of Suessa conducted with the utmost of secrecy, which
would provide two distinct advantages: in the first place, Sulla
would obviously not know about it until too late, and therefore
could not stop it; in the second, Scipio could retain plausible
deniability later, should his strategy fail to yield results. Blame could
be shifted to Sertorius under such circumstances, and Sulla, whose
inimicitia with Sertorius was likely well-known, might—it is
hoped—have believed the latter capable of such perversity. Even if
he did not, it would give him a convenient way to seem that he did.
As it happens, Sulla was able to make much of the capture of
Suessa—far more, certainly, than Scipio did—and used it as the
final reason to seduce Scipio’s men from him. His subsequent
treatment of Scipio (see Chapter 9) strongly suggests that he did
not think him culpable for the double-dealing, or at least publicly
let it be known that Scipio was not to be held accountable. Scipio,
for his part, probably wisely refrained from disclosing his
authorization.
Furthermore, Scipio might have continued this denial in
Rome itself, leading to a cloud hanging over Sertorius that might
well have influence the Senate’s decision to allow him to go to
Spain and, ultimately, to immortality. Either way, the blame for the
continuation of the Civil War should almost certainly be taken
from Sertorius, who almost certainly acted upon orders and only
disrupted a parley which was merely a ploy of Sulla from the
beginning.
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MAPS AND FIGURES
Map 1: Central Italy.
867
Map 2: Northern Italy.

MAPS AND FIGURES 869
Figure 1: Allied coin with an image of the head of personified

Italia above the mutilated inscription reading Mutilus in Oscan
(obverse); Castor and Pollux, presumably lending support to the
cause above the name Papius, also in Oscan (reverse).
© Trustees of the British Museum

Italia, identified as such in Latin (obverse); Italia sitting on shields
crowned by the Goddess Victory (reverse).

Italia (obverse); Italia in a triumphal car (reverse).

Italia (obverse); eight Allies, weapons extended, swear an oath of
friendship and mutual support (reverse).

Italia, or possibly the god Mars, with the inscription Italia in
Oscan (obverse); four Allies, weapons extended, swear an oath
of friendship and mutual support above the name C. Papius f.
C., also in Oscan (reverse).

Italia with the inscription Mutilius Imperator in Oscan (obverse);
two Allies, weapons extended, swear an oath of friendship and
mutual support above the name C. Papius f. C., also in Oscan
(reverse).

Italia (obverse); two Allies swear an oath of friendship and
mutual support near the prow of a ship (reverse).

Italia with the inscription Italia in Oscan (obverse); Allied soldier
with the bull, a sacred Italian symbol, looking on (reverse).
Figure 9: Allied coin with an image of the head of the god

Bacchus (obverse); the bull, a sacred Italian symbol, goring the
Roman wolf over the inscription Italia in Oscan (reverse).

Italia with the inscription Italia in Oscan (obverse); Allied soldier
with the bull, a sacred Italian symbol, looking on, over the
inscription Ni. Luvki, also in Oscan (reverse).
INDEX
125 BCE, lessons for Allies taught by year: 73, 89, 174–175, 179–182, 191 and
note 88, 203, 221, 230, 232, 234, 236, 241, 274
Acerrae
defeat of C. Papius Mutilus by L. Julius Caesar (90 BCE): 303, 305–306
and notes 35–36, 331, 339, 353, 368, 750 note 2, 751, 766 and note 5,
781
Acilius, Lucius
Roman investigator into Allied war preparations (91 BCE): 250, 731–732
and note 6
defense of Aesernia by (with L. Cornelius Scipio) (91 BCE): 249–250, 297
and note 19, 731–732 and note 6
Aeclanum
capture of by L. Cornelius Sulla (89 BCE): 256 note 45, 390–391
capture of, treachery employed by L. Cornelius Sulla (89 BCE): 390–391
Aemilius Lepidus, Marcus (cos. 78)
enmity with L. Cornelius Sulla: 494 note 25
revolt of: 673–674
Aemilius Lepidus, Mamercus (cos. 77)
continues siege of Nola (88 BCE): 404, 407
defeats Q. Poppaedius Silo, who dies in battle, in Apulia (88 BCE): 407–
408 and note 99, 494 note 25
relieved at Nola by L. Cornelius Sulla (88 BCE): 458
resumes siege of Nola when L. Cornelius Sulla marches on Rome (88
BCE): 464
replaced at Nola by Ap. Claudius Pulcher (88 BCE): 494 note 25
probably relieves Cn. Cornelius Dolabella at Norba (82 BCE): 619 note 92
captures Norba, whose inhabitants commit suicide (82 BCE): 628, 638,
666
Aesernia
siege of (91–90 BCE): 249–250
875
falls to Allies (90 BCE): 328, 366, 419

assaults on by L. Julius Caesar and subordinates (90 BCE): 94–298 and
supporting notes, 302, 306 and note 36, 307 note 40, 313 note 48,
326, 341, 353, 390, 419, 740, 750–751 and note 2, 765–766 and
supporting notes, 808
becomes headquarters of Alliance after abandonment of Corfinium (88
BCE): 406, 811, 813–815 and supporting notes
Aesis river I
Carrinas defeated by Q. Metellus Pius and Cn. Pompeius Magnus (82
BCE): 614
Aesis river II
Cn. Papirius Carbo defeated by Cn. Pompeius Magnus (82 BCE): 614 and
note 84
Agamemnon (archpirata)
service on behalf of Allies: 302–303, 329–330 and note 76–77, 746 and
note 17
ager publicus
definition of: 144
terms of legal use of before 133 BCE and consequences for violating:
144–146 and supporting notes
and connection with citizenship laws: 56 note 69, 70 note 5, 169–170, 173,
175, 177–181 and supporting notes, 185–186, 194, 202, 207 and note
115, 215–216, 218 and note 144, 219, 220–221, 224, 240, 276–277,
333–334, 479, 493, 693–702 and supporting notes, 709, 719, 726–727
importance of (extralegal) use of to socii: 142–143, 152–155 and note 27,
159 and note 36, 165, 170, 188, 218 and note 144, 220, 333
importance of use of to Romans: 99 note 59, 149–150 and especially note
24, 151, 153, 159 and note 36, 173, 185, 276–277, 283
Alba
siege of (91–89 BCE): 249 and note 35, 376
attempts to relieve: 312 and note 45, 393
successful relief of by L. Porcius Cato (89 BCE): 394 and note 76
Alban Hills
P. Licinius Crassus is defeated by C. Flavius Fimbria before rescue by Q.
Metellus Pius (87 BCE): 519–520, 556
Allied embassy to Rome after massacre at Asculum (late 91 BCE): 247–248 and
note 32, 251, 255, 266, 268, 269–271, 274, 276, 284, 683–693
alleged terms presented by: 251, 269–270 and note 74, 276, 683–693
INDEX 877
as evidence of Italian desire for independence: 247–248 and note 32, 269,
683–693
Allied enfranchisement
Roman reactions to: 136 and note 131, 200, 202, 210, 225, 235–236, 238,
269–283 and supporting notes, 411, 473, 479, 708–709, 724, 819
repercussions on Roman politics: 280–281 and note 83, 359–365 and
supporting notes, 411, 479, 820, 821
repercussion on use of public facilities in Rome: 197 and note 98, 279, 411
Allied wish for “partnership” in Roman empire: 70–71 and notes 4–6, 90, 138,
139, 417
Allied soldiers
importance to Romans: 86 and note 34, 88, 89, 97, 104 and note 70, 128
note 119, 131, 244, 257, 272–274 and note 78, 278 and note 80, 340,
342, 359
treatment of by Romans
general maltreatment: 110, 479
commanded by Roman officers: 110 and note 83, 118
division of battlefield spoil: 114–118 and supporting notes, 119, 124,
134, 136, 675
high rate of casualties: 113–114 and note 90, 118, 134, 274, 278, 286,
675
military discipline: 111–113 and supporting notes, 118, 131, 134, 136,
196, 200, 277–278, 340
Allied War
names of: 3 and note 2
as a “civil war”: 55–59 and especially notes 70 and 72, 676 and note 2
preparations for by socii: 226, 228–229, 231–234, 236–237 and supporting
notes, 240–241, 257–268 and supporting notes, 723–724 and
preparations for by socii
as evidence of desire for independence: 226, 228–229, 258–267 and
supporting notes
Roman investigation of: 241–242 and note 23, 271–272 and note 77,
285, 730–735
Roman lack of preparation for: 244–246 and supporting notes, 251–254,
285
timing of outbreak of: 74, 210, 233–286 and supporting notes, 722–729
and supporting notes
cooperation amongst Italian commanders and armies during: 288 and note
1, 289–290, 723
initially not taken seriously by Romans: 254–255, 269, 291

Italian commanders of: 287, 288 note 2, 741, 743
tendency to operate outside of their home territory: 289–290, 723
Italian strategy for before Asculum: 243–247 and supporting notes, 254,
257, 268
Italian strategy for war after Asculum (91–89 BCE): 257, 268, 285, 290,
368, 340, 379, 751
Italian strategy for in 88 BCE and change in command structure: 404 and
note 92
Roman strategy for: 290–291, 308, 751
possible modifications to in 89 BCE: 365
finally comes to an end (87 BCE): 516–518 and note 66
Amiternum
ambush, defeat, and death of Quintus Servilius Caepio near at hands of
Quintus Poppaedius Silo: 318–319, 320, 323, 341, 366, 415 note 107,
419, 426, 593, 752, 756, 759, 760–761, 838
Ancona
mutiny of soldiers under L. Cornelius Cinna which leads to his death (84
BCE): 576–577 and notes 38–39, 848–852 and supporting notes
Annaeus Florus, Lucius
as contemporary of Appian: 58 note 72
utility of as source for the events of 91–77: 51–53
sources of: 49, 53 and notes 59–60, 70, 86, 141
Antonius, Marcus (cos. 99)
sent by Cn. Octavius along with his Q. Lutatius Catulus and his son to
summon Q. Metellus Pius back to Rome (87 BCE): 515 and note 63
possibly brought up on charges of perduellio for role in summoning Q.
Metellus Pius back to Rome (87 BCE): 528–529
attempts to flee and goes into hiding to escape prosecution (87 BCE):
528–529
discovered and decapitated (87 BCE): 529 and note 82
head placed on the rostra (87 BCE): 529–530 and notes 84–85
Appian
and explanation of cause for Allied War as desire for citizenship: 9, 21,
55–58 and note 67, 684, 686
trustworthiness of: 271, 684–693, 854
and the “Alternative Tradition”: 55–58 and note 67, 70
INDEX 879
tendency towards error: 59, 271 and note 76, 291 note 7, 756, 771 and
notes 11–12, 854
as contemporary of Florus: 58 note 72
utility of as source for the events of 91–77: 55–61 and especially pages 59–
61, chronology used by: 60 and note 74, 305 note 34, 306 note 38, 307
note 40, 310 note 43, 311 note 44, 320 note 63, 750–755, 757, 766
note 5
personal value of Roman Citizenship: 21, 55–56 and note 69, 57
purpose of work: 55–59
sources of: 37, 38 and note 15, 39 note 18, 49 and note 48, 56 note 69,
57–61 and supporting notes, 70, 693 and note 9, 750 and note 1
Appuleius Saturninus, Lucius
association with Caius Marius: 204 and note 111, 424
Apuli
as members of Alliance in 90 BCE: 255
Arretium
citizenship possibly taken from by L. Cornelius Sulla (81–79 BCE): 667–
668 and note 61
Asculum
and connection with uprising at Fregellae: 176 and note 67, 178
massacre of Romans in (91 BCE): 233, 243, 419, 451, 684, 730, 731
unplanned: 240, 243–247, 251
strategic importance of (90–89 BCE): 309, 366–367, 759–760
expedition against by Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo and defeat by T. Lafrenius,
C. Vidacilius, and P. Vettius Scato near Falerio, close to (90 BCE):
294, 301–302 and note 28, 309–311 and notes 42–44, 321 and note 63,
366, 751, 752, 753, 761
second attack against by Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo and siege (90–89 BCE):
311 note 44, 339, 368, 419, 751, 752, 753, 770–771
Fraucus defeated and killed in battle against Cn. Pompeius Strabo near (89
BCE): 370–371 and note 35, 785–792 and supporting notes, 817 note
4
P. Vettius Scato and C. Vidacilius defeated by Cn. Pompeius Strabo (89
BCE): 373, 785–792 and supporting notes, 817 note 4
falls to Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo (late 89 BCE): 400–401 and notes 86–88,
403 note 91, 419, 752
looted upon capture (late 89 BCE): 400–401 and notes 86–88, 513 note 60
Asinius, Herius
commander of the Marrucini (90 BCE): 289, 744 and note 10
fights under Q. Poppaedius Silo against Marius at Battle of the Vineyards

(Sora), dies in battle: 324–336 and note 71
succeeded by Obsidus as commander of the Marrucini, (89 BCE): 376–
377
Asinius Pollio, Caius
as source for Appian: 56 note 69, 60–61 and notes 76, 77
Ausculum
captured by C. Cosconius (88 BCE): 402–403 and note 91, 826
Bacchic cult, Roman suppression of in Italy (186 BCE): 127–128 and note 119
Bardyaei
bodyguard of freed slaves employed by C. Marius (87 BCE): 523 and note
72
excesses of and slaughter by Q. Sertorius (87 BCE): 533–536 and
supporting notes
Baebius, Caius
succeeds Sex. Julius Caesar on latter’s death besieging Asculum (89 BCE):
369, 372
Bellum Octavianum (87 BCE): 493–521 and supporting notes
Beneventum
strategic importance of (90–89 BCE): 294 note 14, 366–367, 391–392,
808–809
C. Papius Mutilus defeated and wounded in battle against L. Cornelius
Sulla near (89 BCE): 391–392, 810–812
Bovianum (Undecimanorum)
captured by L. Cornelius Sulla (89 BCE): 392, 396, 407 note 98, 811–815
alleged second headquarters of Alliance (88 BCE): 406 note 96, 814–815
Brundisium
offers no resistance to L. Cornelius Sulla’s landing (83 BCE), for which it
is later rewarded: 589, 658, 849–850
Caecilius Cornutus
probably not the officer responsible for defeating the uprising of the
Salluvii (90 BCE): 245 note 28, 330 note 78
legate of Cn. Pompeius Strabo (89 BCE): 396 and note 80, 806
INDEX 881
sent by Cn. Pompeius Strabo into territory of Paeligni, possibly against

Corfinium and P. Vettius Scato (89–88 BCE): 375–376, 396 and note
80, 397, 482, 793, 806, 807, 811
reasons for attempted execution of (87 BCE): 532 and note 91, 806
fakes own death and evades execution (87 BCE): 532
Caecilius Metellus Numidicus, Quintus (cos. 109)
exile of (100 BCE): 677
Caecilius Metellus Pius, Quintus (cos. 80)
serves as praetor and plays role in the operation of the lex Plautia Papiria
(89 BCE): 801–804 and notes 7–13, 823–824, 827–828
replaces Caius Cosconius on Adriatic coast (88 BCE): 402–403 and notes
90–91, 407, 803–806 and note 13, 808
assaults, besieges, and captures Venusia (88 BCE): 407
alleged role in defeat and death in battle of Q. Poppaedius Silo (88 BCE):
407–408 and note 99
directed by agents of Cn. Octavius to make peace with Samnites and
Lucani and return to defend Rome from the forces of L. Cornelius
Cinna: 516
does not accede to demands of Samnites and Lucani, and leaves legate
Plautius to carry on war with them: 516
returns to Rome, but refuses leadership of the defense of Rome in
deference to Cn. Octavius: 516, 518
unsuccessfully advises Cn. Octavius to make terms with L. Cornelius
Cinna before Alban Hills (87 BCE): 519
rescues P. Licinius Crassus from defeat by C. Flavius Fimbria at Alban
Hills (87 BCE): 520
alleged attempt to prolong war at Alban Hills by poor performance in
order to win consulate (87 BCE): 521 note 69
alleged maneuvers to defect to L. Cornelius Cinna before Alban Hills (87
BCE): 521 note 69
member of party sent to convey restoration of citizenship and office to L.
Cornelius Cinna (87 BCE): 520
is perhaps responsible for attempting to get L. Cornelius Cinna to vow
not to conduct a massacre (87 BCE): 520
carries response and warning of L. Cornelius Cinna to Octavius and falling
out with latter (87 BCE): 520–521 and note 69
heeds warning of L. Cornelius Cinna and goes into exile (87 BCE): 520–
521 and note 69, 522
raises a small army in Africa and is briefly joined by
M. Licinius Crassus (87–84 BCE): 581
defeated by Pro–Cinnan governor of Africa C. Fabius Hadrianus, and

makes his way to join L. Cornelius Sulla (83 BCE): 581
joins L. Cornelius Sulla in Italy, where he is hailed as proconsul and given
both respect and a command (83 BCE): 589–590 and note 53
sent to northern Italy with a navy and makes little initial progress until the
arrival of Cn. Pompeius Magnus (82 BCE): 613–614
defeats Carrinas near the Aesis River with Cn. Pompeius Magnus (82
BCE): 614
besieged by Cn. Papirius Carbo at an unknown location before latter
disengages (82 BCE): 614
defeats an army of Cn. Papirius Carbo and receives defection of five
cohorts south of the via Aemilia (82 BCE): 614–615
separates from Cn. Pompeius Magnus and heads north (82 BCE): 615
unsuccessfully besieges Ariminum and seizes Ravenna (82 BCE): 615
heavily defeats Cn. Papirius Carbo and C. Norbanus at Ravenna (82
BCE): 622–623
Caelius / Coelius Caldus (?), Caius
suppresses uprising of Salluvii (90 BCE): 245 note 28, 330–331 and note
78, 344
Calpurnius Piso, Lucius
creates two new voting tribes (ca. 89 BCE): 361–362 and notes 18–22, 365
Campani
Cannae
captured by C. Cosconius (89 BCE): 378
Trebatius defeated by C. Cosconius near (89 BCE): 378–379
Canusium
unsuccessfully besieged by C. Cosconius
C. Cosconius attacked there and defeated by Trebatius, causing retreat
(89 BCE): 378, 825
place of retreat by Trebatius after his defeat at Cannae by
C. Cosconius (89 BCE): 378
Carrinas
defeated by Q. Metellus Pius and Cn. Pompeius Magnus near the Aesis
River (82 BCE): 614
defeated and surrounded by M. Licinius Crassus and Cn. Pompeius
Magnus at Spoletium (82 BCE): 622
INDEX 883
escapes investment of M. Licinius Crassus and Cn. Pompeius Magnus at

Spoletium and returns to Cn. Papirius Carbo (82 BCE): 622
left along with C. Marcius Censorinus with remnants of army by flight of
Cn. Papirius Carbo (82 BCE): 625
attempts at final relief of Praeneste with C. Marcius Censorinus and M.
Junius Brutus Damasippus thwarted by L. Cornelius Sulla (82 BCE):
625
falls back on Rome after unsuccessful final relief of Praeneste with C.
Marcius Censorinus and M. Junius Brutus Damasippus (82 BCE): 625
defeated with C. Marcius Censorinus and Pontius Telesinus at the Colline
Gate, taken prisoner, and beheaded (82 BCE): 627
head taken to Praeneste, where it helped induce surrender to Q. Lucretius
Ofella (82 BCE): 627–628
Carseoli
devastated by Allies: 317, 366
Casilinum
C. Norbanus defeated by L. Cornelius Sulla near (83 BCE): 590–591 and
notes 55–56
Cassius Dio, Lucius
utility of as source for the events of 91–77: 61–62 and supporting notes
census, Roman
lack of in 92 BCE: 469–470 and note 79
lack of in 89 BCE: 470–471 and notes 82–83, 545
deficiencies in that of 86/85 BCE and reasons for: 542–545 and
supporting notes, 660, 846–847 and note 6
lack of from 82–70 BCE: 484, 660
significance for novi cives: 660–661, 666
chauvinism, Roman: 173, 177 and note 69, 281–283 and notes 84–86, 423
as held by L. Cornelius Sulla: 472 note 86, 658 and note 47, 671 note 69
Cirta
massacre of Romans and Italians during the Jugurthine War (112 BCE):
59, 114 note 114, 547
civitas sine suffragio: 76 note 10, 82–85 and supporting notes, 92
civitas
advantages of for Allies vs. independence: 73–74, 135–138 and supporting
notes, 223–224
Allied desire for: 223–334
as cause for war: 7–9 and supporting notes, 17–18 and notes 25 and
26, 25–26, 30–33, 43 and note 28, 69–70, 70–71, 74, 76, 91, 135,
138, 139, 142, 181, 200, 220, 221, 225, 226–227 and note 6, 240–
241, 247–248 and note 32, 252 note 41, 357–358, 417, 633, 683,
782 and note 16
reasons behind: 70–74 and note 9, 90 and note 41, 135–138, 167–168,
191 and note 88
evidence in the sources: 43 and note 28, 70–71 and notes 3–4, 73, 90,
91, 135, 142, 169, 173–174, 225, 228–232, 247–248 and note 32,
252 note 41, 306 note 37, 327, 349 note 100, 357–358, 372 and
note 37, 397, 417, 633, 762, 773 note 18, 791 and note 10, 825
note 13
Claudius Marcellus, Marcus
legate to L. Julius Caesar (90 BCE): 292–293 and note 10
positioned near Beneventum (90 BCE): 292–293 and note 10, 294 and
note 14, 367
assault on Aesernia (90 BCE)
defeat and capture there: 294 and note 14, 297–298 and note 23, 367
Claudius Pulcher, Caius (cos. 177): 117 and note 99
Claudius Pulcher, Appius (cos. 79)
relieves Mam. Aemilius Lepidus in command of siege at Nola: 494–495
and note 25
deprived of imperium by L. Cornelius Cinna and goes into exile: 496–497
and notes 28–29
removed from Senate during census of 86/85 by his own nephew L.
Marcius Philippus: 541
Cleppius, Tiberius
commander of Lucani under Q. Poppaedius Silo (88 BCE): 404 and note
92
Cluentius, Lucius
commander of the Campani: 289, 385 note 62, 748–749 and note 27
attempts to relieve siege of Pompeii (89 BCE): 384
successfully attempts to lure L. Cornelius Sulla into battle outside of
Pompeii (89 BCE): 384 and note 60, 591
narrowly defeated by L. Cornelius Sulla at Pompeii (89 BCE): 384–385
receives reinforcements from the Salluvii (89 BCE): 384–385 and note 61
defeated in battle by L. Cornelius Sulla at Pompeii, driven back to Nola,
and dies in combat (89 BCE): 385 and notes 61–62, 386 note 64
INDEX 885
Clusium
L. Cornelius Sulla fights Cn. Papirius Carbo to a draw near (82 BCE): 621
and note 96
Cn. Pompeius Strabo defeats an army of Cn. Papirius Carbo’s soldiers
near (82 BCE): 625
coins, Allied: 66, 226, 258, 263–264 and note 59, 265–268 and supporting notes,
516 note 66. See also plates.
coins, Roman
sole currency in Italy: 132 and note 125
Colline Gate
high numbers of casualties inflicted by L. Cornelius Sulla in (82 BCE): 618
note 90, 627 and note 100
narrow victory of L. Cornelius Sulla over Pontius Telesinus, C. Marcius
Censorinus, and Carrinas (82 BCE): 625–627
Compsa
capture of by L. Cornelius Sulla (90 BCE): 390
consuls (ὕπατοι), Allied: 258, 262––265 and supporting notes, 287, 288 note 2,
741, 743
Corfinium
as headquarters of Allied war effort (90–88 BCE): 257–260 and notes 50–
51, 262–263, 396
maneuvers against by Caecilius Cornutus (89–88 BCE): 396 and note 80,
397
maneuvers against by L. Cornelius Cinna (89–88 BCE): 395–396 and note
80, 397
ultimate abandonment of by Alliance (88 BCE): 396 and note 80, 398–
399, 406
possibly falls to L. Cornelius Cinna (88 BCE): 406 and note 97
not destroyed in fall to Romans (88 BCE): 406 and note 96
Cornelius Cinna, Lucius (cos. 87)
early career of: 481
as legate to L. Porcius Cato (89 BCE): 382 and note 56, 395 and note 79,
482, 483 note 7, 576, 797–798, 800–801
succeeds to command of soldiers directly under L. Porcius Cato upon his
death (89 BCE): 482 and note 4, 573, 797–798, 800–801
defeats Marsi, possibly under Q. Poppaedius Silo (89 BCE): 395–396 and
note 80, 397, 796–799, 800–801
possible maneuvers against Corfinium in concert with Caecilius Cornutus

(89–88 BCE): 395–396 and note 80, 397, 482, 796–799, 800–801,
806–807
possibly captures Corfinium (88 BCE): 406 and note 97, 477, 482
receives surrender of Marsi (88 BCE): 406 and note 97
returns to Rome to run for consul: 403, 406 and note 97, 481, 482
elected consul for 87 BCE: 403, 406 and note 97, 477, 482–484
enmity with L. Cornelius Sulla: 477, 482–483, 484 note 8
as partisan of C. Marius before 87 BCE: 483, 488
scheme to redistribute novi cives into all the voting tribes (87 BCE): 32, 483
and note 7, 485, 486, 487–490 and supporting notes
alleged attempt to have L. Cornelius Sulla prosecuted (87 BCE): 483–484
and note 8, 485–486 and note 10, 496–497 and notes 28–29
compelled to vow to support L. Cornelius Sulla’s arrangements (88 BCE):
484 and note 9, 485, 523 and note 71
alleged violation of vow to support L. Cornelius Sulla’s arrangements (87
BCE): 487–488
scheme to bring back C. Marius and supporters from exile (87 BCE): 487–
489 and notes 11, 12
expelled from Rome and declared a hostis by Cn. Octavius (87 BCE): 32,
457 note 64, 487 note 11, 490–493 and supporting notes
raises an army for a march on Rome: 493–500 and supporting notes
alleged trip to Africa (87 BCE): 498 note 35
overcomes initial reluctance and joins forces with C. Marius (87 BCE):
499–500
shares command of his army with Q. Sertorius, C. Marius, and Cn.
Papirius Carbo (87 BCE): 500 and note 40, 507
rebuffs negotiations with Cn. Pompeius Strabo (87 BCE): 506
as supreme commander of his faction’s forces in 87 BCE: 507 and note 51
and 53
begins investment of Rome (87 BCE): 507
captures Ariminium and Placentia (87 BCE): 507 and note 53
counterattacked by Cn. Octavius and Cn. Pompeius Strabo at Janiculum
with C. Marius (87 BCE): 510
reopens negotiations with Cn. Pompeius Strabo (87 BCE): 512–513 and
notes 60–61
alleged attempt to have Cn. Pompeius Strabo and Cn. Pompeius Magnus
murdered by their own troops during siege of Rome (87 BCE): 513
and note 61
INDEX 887
directs C. Flavius Fimbria to accept terms of peace with Samnites and

Lucani, who are made citizens in the process (87 BCE): 516 and note
66, 546, 550
negotiates with Senate and has his rights and office restored (87 BCE):
520, 539
makes vow not to harm any Roman personally upon return to Rome,
perhaps to Q. Metellus Pius (87 BCE): 520, 524
issues warning to Cn. Octavius and his followers to avoid the Forum upon
return to Rome (87 BCE): 521
obligation to novi cives to redistribute them in all the tribes: 522, 538, 539
obligation to novi cives to redistribute them in all the tribes– difficulties
fulfilling: 538, 539–541 and note 111, 546, 549, 564–569
Rome not sacked by (87 BCE): 522 and note 70
restores Marius to his status as citizen (87 BCE): 523 and note 71, 538,
539
decides with his followers to eliminate chief men of the opposition (87
BCE): 523–524, 538, 841
severity of “massacre” ordered by (87 BCE): 525–526 and notes 76–77,
possible use of prosecutions to condemn enemies (87 BCE): 526–527 and
note 77, 841
orders the slaughter of Bardyaei (87 BCE): 535–536 and note 100
puts an end to executions by November of 87 BCE: 536, 841–844 and
supporting notes
re-elected consul amidst rumors of the return of Sulla (87 BCE): 537 and
note 104, 551
works with L. Valerius Flaccus to pass law to ease debt crisis (86 BCE):
540
calls for appointment of censors (86 BCE): 541, 547, 847
re-elected consul a third time with Cn. Papirius Carbo (86 BCE): 541
declares L. Cornelius Sulla a hostis (87 BCE): 536 and note 102
not sent as proconsul against Mithridates: possible reasons for (86 BCE):
553–553
possible grand strategy against L. Cornelius Sulla and Mithridates (86
BCE): 553–556 and supporting notes, 562–564, 573
probably orders C. Flavius Fimbria to east with L. Valerius Flaccus (86
BCE): 556 and note 12
begins making preparations for the return of L. Cornelius Sulla (85 BCE):
567–569, 572 and note 33
re-elected consul a fourth time with Cn. Papirius Carbo (85 BCE): 567
note 27, 572
possible strategic limitations of: 573

gathers men at Ancona to embark for Illyria, possibly as a training exercise
before attacking L. Cornelius Sulla (84 BCE): 573, 574–576 and
supporting notes
difficulties in crossing from Ancona leads to mutiny amongst his soldiers
and to his murder (84 BCE): 576–577 and notes 38–39, 848, 850
ultimate failure to redistribute novi cives into all the voting tribes: 32, 569,
577, 633, 845–847 and supporting notes
Cornelius Dolabella, Gnaeus (cos. 87)
right hand to L. Cornelius Sulla during his trek from Campania (82 BCE):
613 and note 82
possible role in defeat of C. Marius the Younger at Setia alongside L.
Cornelius Sulla (82 BCE): 615–616 and note 87
probably involved in unsuccessful attempt to take Norba (82 BCE): 616,
619
possibly replaced at siege of Norba by Mam. Aemilius Lepidus (82 BCE):
619 note 92
role in defeat of C. Marius the Younger by L. Cornelius Sulla at
Sacriportus (82 BCE): 616–618 and notes 88–91
Cornelius Lentulus, Publius
legate to L. Julius Caesar, possibly his uterine brother (90 BCE): 292 and
note 9, 531
as possible Roman commander defeated at Venafrum by Marius Egnatius
(90 BCE): 295 and note 15, 366, 750 note 2
as possible legate to L. Julius Caesar in his second assault on Aesernia (90
BCE): 295–296 and note 16, 765–766 and notes 4–5, 768–769
dismissed by L. Porcius Cato (88 BCE): 380–381 and note 52
hunted down and killed by C. Flavius Fimbria (87 BCE): 531 and note 88,
556
Cornelius Merula, Lucius (cos. 87)
appointed consul to replace L. Cornelius Cinna by Senate (87 BCE): 492
and notes 20–21, 520
resigns consulate, which is restored to L. Cornelius Cinna by Senate (87
BCE): 520
commits suicide to escape prosecution, possibly on charges of maiestas (87
BCE): 528 note 81
Cornelius Rufinus, Publius (cos. 290)
ancestor of L. Cornelius Sulla: 442
successes of in politics, Samnite Wars: 442
INDEX 889
downfall of 442 and notes 42–43, 671 note 68

tale well known amongst Romans: 442 and notes 42–43, 445
Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, Publius (cos. 147)
and Italian Allies: 112–114, 160 and note 41, 162 note 45
and Tiberius Gracchus: 160 and note 41, 162 and note 45, 165–166
and Caius Marius: 445
Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, Lucius (cos. 83)
Roman investigator into Allied war preparations (91 BCE): 250, 731–732
and note 6
defense of Aesernia by (with L. Acilius) (91 BCE): 249–250, 297 and note
19, 588, 594–595, 731–732 and note 6, 599–600, 855
elected consul (84 BCE): 588
meets L. Cornelius Sulla and negotiates with him at Teanum over the
advice of his legate Q. Sertorius (83 BCE): 592
possible unsuccessful secret plan to entrap L. Cornelius Sulla near
Teanum, involving capture of Suessa Aurunca by Q. Sertorius (83
BCE): 594–597 and supporting notes, 598–599 and note 63, 856–858
army deserts to L. Cornelius Cinna, who lets Scipio go after failing to
induce him to desert as well (83 BCE): 598–600 and note 64, 858
possibly remnants of army of deserts and rejoins the government forces
later (83 BCE): 602
given a second command, and is defeated by Cn Pompeius Magnus in
Picenum (83 BCE): 600 and note 65, 603–604 and note 71
goes into exile at Massilia: 622 and note 97, 629
Cornelius Sisenna, Lucius
and L. Cornelius Sulla: 24, 37 note 10, 38 and note 13, 40
and the “Alternative Tradition”: 23–25
apparent pro-Italian bias of: 34 note 2, 38 and note 14
as a Roman, not Italian, source: 34 note 2
as combatant in Allied War: 23, 38 and note 13
as source for Appian: 37, 38 and note 15
utility of as source for the events of 91–77: 23–25, 36–38 and supporting
notes
as source for Livy: 37 and note 12
as source for Valerius Maximus: 37
as source for Velleius Paterculus: 37
Cornelius Sulla, Lucius (cos. 88)
lost Memoirs of: 23–24, 38–39 and notes 16–18, 40, 854
and L. Cornelius Sisenna: 24, 37 note 10, 38 and note 13

and the “Alternative Tradition”: 23–25 and note 32
as source for Plutarch: 38–39 and notes 16–18, 63, 448 and note 54, 449
and note 56, 770, 854
and use of ‘compromised’ men and defectors: 384, 458, 459–460, 557,
562, 563, 643–645
recklessness of: 384 and note 60, 591
attitude towards socii: 23, 32
as novi cives: 18, 23, 465, 472–474 and notes 86 and 89, 633, 657–661
and supporting notes, 670–672 and supporting notes
descendant of P. Cornelius Rufinus: 442
family’s lapse of nobilitas due to fate of ancestor P. Cornelius Rufinus:
442–443
aware of and motivated by fate of ancestor P. Cornelius Rufinus: 442, 671
note 68
early poverty of: 458, 599–600
initially kept from military career due to poverty: 443 and note 45, 646
possible marriage connections with Julii: 443 and note 46, 444, 445, 449–
450
inheritances and successful run for questor (108 BCE): 443–444 and notes
46–48
assigned to general staff of C. Marius (107 BCE): 444–445 and note 50
service on general staff of C. Marius (107–102 BCE): 445–446
role in ending Jugurthine War (106 BCE): 445–446 and note 51, 451, 555
enmity with C. Marius: 254, 440–442, 446–452, 768
reasons for: 446 and notes 51–52, 449, 555
enmity with Q. Sertorius: 476 note 93, 494 and note 23, 592, 593–594,
595, 599, 855–856 note 6, 858
service under Q. Catulus during Cimbric Wars (102–101 BCE): 446, 447–
448 and note 54
electoral difficulties during the 90s BCE: 450
service as praetor of: 244–245 and note 27, 450, 451, 731 and note 5
enmity with C. Marcius Censorinus: 450–451 and note 57
enmity with C. Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus: 450
relationship with optimates during late 90s BCE: 451–452
alleged defeat in the Liris Valley by Titus Herennius (90 BCE): 334 note
68
possibly the commander defeated by Marius Egnatius at Venafrum (90
BCE): 295 and note 15, 366, 750 note 2
as possible second–in–command to L. Julius Caesar in second assault on
Aesernia (90 BCE): 295–296 and note 16, 594, 765, 808
INDEX 891
leads assault on Aesernia (late 90 BCE): 297–298 and notes 22–23, 305
and note 36, 326, 341, 594, 765–766 and note 5, 769, 808
leads assault on Aesernia (late 90 BCE), trickery employed against
Lucilius/Duillius there: 297, 390
alleged role in the Battle of the Vineyards (90 BCE): 763–774 and
supporting notes
probably given command of L. Julius Caesar’s forces when latter returns
to Rome (late 90 BCE): 307, 328, 353
retained as legate by L. Porcius Cato (89 BCE): 382, 808
southern campaign of (89 BCE): 382–392
besieges Pompeii with aid of Aul. Postumius Albinus (89 BCE): 383, 392
does not prosecute murderers of Aul. Postumius Albinus (89 BCE): 383–
384 and note 58, 458–459, 643–644, 650 note 24
takes over land forces of Aul. Postumius Albinus at Pompeii (89 BCE):
383–384 and notes 58–59, 387–388 and note 65, 390
successfully lured into battle against L. Cluentius at Pompeii (89 BCE):
384 and note 60, 59
narrowly defeats L. Cluentius outside Pompeii (89 BCE): 384–385
defeats L. Cluentius, who is driven back to Nola and dies in battle, outside
Pompeii (89 BCE): 385
captures and destroys Stabiae (89 BCE): 386 note 64, 387
unsuccessfully besieges Nola (89 BCE): 385, 390 and note 69, 404
takes over command of southern elements of L. Porcius Cato's army after
death of Titus Didius (mid–89 BCE): 808
captures Pompeii (89 BCE): 386 and note 64
defeats C. Papius Mutilus, who is wounded and evacuated to Aesernia,
near Beneventum (89 BCE): 391–392, 810–812
captures Compsa (89 BCE): 390
captures Aeclanum (89 BCE): 390–391, 811
treachery employed by in capture of Aeclanum (89 BCE): 390–391, 550
captures Bovianum (Undecimanorum) (89 BCE): 392, 407 note 98, 811–
815 and supporting notes
receives surrender of Hirpini (89 BCE): 391, 396, 402
returns to Rome to run for consul (89 BCE): 392
blocks election of Q. Sertorius for tribunate of 88 (89 BCE): 476 note 93,
595–596
elected consul for 88 BCE (89 BCE): 402, 441, 451
assigned war with Mithridates as proconsul: 440, 451–452, 544
resumes siege of Nola (88 BCE): 452 and note 59
marital connection with Q. Pompeius Rufus (88 BCE): 443 note 46, 455
declares feriae to end voting on laws of P. Sulpicius Rufus with Q.

Pompeius Rufus (88 BCE): 453
reasons for: 453–454 and note 61
threatened with arrest with Q. Pompeius Rufus by P. Sulpicius Rufus
unless he suspends feriae (88 BCE): 454–455
flees violence after P. Sulpicius Rufus declares feriae illegal and is harbored
by C. Marius (88 BCE): 455–456, 466
declares end to feriae (88 BCE): 456
departs Rome and returns to Nola (88 BCE): 456 and note 63, 458
Mithridatic command of transferred to C. Marius by P. Sulpicius Rufus (88
BCE): 31, 457, 461, 677
persuades/is persuaded by men to march on Rome (88 BCE): 31, 460,
544, 563, 677
reasons given for march on Rome (88 BCE): 640 and note 6, 647
does not prosecute soldiers under his command for murder of military
tribunes sent to lead them to C. Marius (88 BCE): 460
deserted by all officers save L. Lucullus during March on Rome (88 BCE):
460 and note 69
property of supporters of allegedly plundered by P. Sulpicius Rufus and C.
Marius (88 BCE): 460
deceives deputation sent from Senate during march on Rome (88 BCE):
463, 550
burns houses near the Esquiline forum to halt maltreatment of men
during march on Rome (88 BCE): 463
narrowly defeats C. Marius in Esquiline Forum (88 BCE): 463–464
declares P. Sulpicius Rufus, M. Junius Brutus, and C. Marius outlaws (88
BCE): 466, 477
undoes laws of P. Sulpicius Rufus with Q. Pompeius Rufus (88 BCE): 32,
466, 486 note 10, 490 note 15
proposes end of tribune’s ability to make laws, with Q. Pompeius Rufus
(88 BCE): 466–467, 544–545, 612, 652 and note 32
proposes no laws be proffered without Senate’s approval with Q.
Pompeius Rufus (88 BCE): 466–467, 544–545, 651–652
proposes to adlect 300 men into the Senate with Q. Pompeius Rufus (88
BCE): 467–468, 660
reasons for: 467–474 and supporting notes
possible pressure of upon L. Julius Caesar and P. Licinius Crassus not to
complete census (88 BCE): 472–475, 545
probably unable to pass laws proposed with Q. Pompeius Rufus save
restoration of proconsular commands (88 BCE): 467 and note 76, 486
note 10, 646, 648, 651–652
INDEX 893
hated by people of Rome after march on city (88 BCE): 476–477

employment of bodyguards by (88 BCE): 476, 477
holds elections for 87 BCE (88 BCE): 475–476
favored candidates rejected: 476–477 and notes 93–94, 482
alleged attempt to strip Cn. Pompeius Strabo of proconsular command
and veto of (88 BCE): 475 note 91, 476
enmity with L. Cornelius Cinna: 477, 482–483, 484 and
note 8, 9
alleged prosecution of (87 BCE): 483–484 and note 8, 485
compels consuls of 87 to vow to support his arrangements (88 BCE): 484
and note 9, 485–486 and note 10
departs for war against Mithridates in the East: 485, 544
enmity with M. Aemilius Lepidus: 494 note 25
declared a hostis by L. Cornelius Cinna (87 BCE): 536 and note 102
receives refugees from L. Cornelius Cinna (87–82 BCE): 536–537, 561
rumors of imminent return from East (87 BCE): 537, 551
and the rights of the novi cives: 549–550, 570, 587, 851
receives into his army vanguard of L. Valerius Flaccus (86 BCE): 557, 558
prevented from doing battle with L. Valerius Flaccus (86 BCE): 557
similarities to C. Flavius Fimbria: 558–559 and note 14
receives surrender of Mithridates (85 BCE): 560–561 and note 20, 563
vast resources put at his disposal from surrender of Mithridates (85 BCE):
560 note 20, 562–563
confronts C. Flavius Fimbria and besieges his camp (85 BCE): 561–562
receives deserters from C. Flavius Fimbria’s army (85 BCE): 561–562, 855
alleged attempt to have assassinated by C. Flavius Fimbria (85 BCE): 562
alleged promise of safe conduct made to C. Flavius Fimbria (85 BCE): 562
allows burial rites to C. Flavius Fimbria upon his suicide (85 BCE): 562
takes command of soldiers of C. Flavius Fimbria (85 BCE): 562, 563
return from East
lack of preparations for in Italy in 86–85 BCE for return of: 564–565
sends a dispatch to Rome discussing his victory and the terms of it (85
BCE): 565–567 and especially notes 25–25, 848–849 and note 3
sends second dispatch to Rome vowing only to harm his enemies (85
BCE): 569–572, 848–849 and note 3
vows to respect rights of novi cives (85 BCE): 570, 612–613 and note 81,
851
concern with public persona as law-abiding proconsul (88–82 BCE): 562
and notes 21–22, 571–572, 586 note 47, 599–600, 620, 636, 640 and
notes 6–7, 647–648 and note 18, 649 and note 24, 651, 653 and note
34
receives counteroffer offering to revoke his outlawry for forestall war (85
BCE): 572 and note 31, 581
spends a quiet winter of 85 and tarries in Greece for the rest of 84: 573,
574–576, 580–581
sends third missive to Rome asking only for restoration of his rights and
those of exiles, but vowing to keep the army together (85 BCE): 581–
hears of death of L. Cornelius Cinna and recruiting activities of Q.
Metellus Pius, Cn. Pompeius Magnus, and M. Licinius Crassus (84
BCE): 583–584
joined by M. Licinius Crassus (83 BCE): 584, 589
encounters no opposition upon landing at Brundisium and subsequent
trek to Capua (83 BCE): 589, 658, 849–850
is joined by Q. Metellus Pius, whom he gives a command and respect as a
fellow proconsul (83 BCE): 589–590 and note 53
is joined by L. Marcius Philippus, to whom he gives a naval command,
and other nobiles (83 BCE): 590 and note 54
unsuccessfully attempts to persuade C. Norbanus to join his side, and then
defeats him in battle near Casilinum (83 BCE): 591
leaves men to watch C. Norbanus at Capua, then continues north towards
Teanum (83 BCE): 591
pretends to negotiate with L. Cornelius Scipio while trying to seduce his
army at Teanum (83 BCE): 592, 597, 855
able to complete seduction of L. Cornelius Scipio’s army (83 BCE): 597–
598, 858
tries to win over L. Cornelius Scipio, and lets him go when unsuccessful
(83 BCE): 598–600, 858
probably never defeated and caught Q. Sertorius after Suessa Aurunca,
nor let him go afterwards (83 BCE): 600, 601 note 67
turns south to face C. Norbanus, but avoids him for the rest of the year,
ravages territory, and goes into winter quarters in Campania (83 BCE):
600–601
receives Cn. Pompeius Magnus, and returns salute of “Imperator” by the
latter (83 BCE): 604
supporters declared public enemies (83 BCE): 606
sends M. Licinius Crassus to recruit from the Marsi (83 BCE): 609–610,
658
dispatches men against Q. Sertorius in Spain and L. Marcius Philippus to
Sardinia, who wins the island for him (82 BCE): 610–611
begins trek northwards from Campania on via Appia and via Latina (82
INDEX 895
sends both Q. Metellus Pius and Cn. Pompeius Magnus north (82 BCE):
613–614
probably played secondary role in defeat of C. Marius the Younger by Cn.
Cornelius Dolabella at Setia (82 BCE): 615–616 and note 87
defeats C. Marius the Younger at Sacriportus (82 BCE): 614, 616–618 and
notes 88–91
massacres surrendered soldiers of C. Marius the Younger and Samnites
after Sacriportus at Praeneste (82 BCE): 618 and note 91
enters Rome unopposed (82 BCE): 620, 635
defeats enemy under an unnamed commander near Saturnia (82 BCE):
621
defeats Cn. Papirius Carbo in a small engagement near the river Glanis (82
BCE): 621
fights Cn. Papirius Carbo to a draw in a major engagement at Clusium (82
defeats relief army sent by Cn. Papirius Carbo to aid Carrinas at Spoletium
(82 BCE): 622
returns to help press siege at Praeneste (82 BCE): 621 and note 96
thwarts attempt to relieve Praeneste by M. Lamponius, Pontius Telesinus,
and Gutta (82 BCE): 624
thwarts attempt to relieve Praeneste by C. Marcius Censorinus, M. Junius
Brutus Damasippus, and Carrinas (82 BCE): 625
sends cavalry north against C. Marcius Censorinus, M. Junius Brutus
Damasippus, and Carrinas, and follows with his army (82 BCE): 625–
626
summons Cn. Pompeius Magnus and M. Licinius Crassus south against C.
Marcius Censorinus, M. Junius Brutus Damasippus, and Carrinas (82
BCE): 626
narrowly achieves victory at the Colline Gate over Pontius Telesinus, C.
Marcius Censorinus, and Carrinas (82 BCE): 626–627
receives and mocks the head of C. Marius the Younger (82 BCE): 628 and
note 101, 641, 662 and note 55
subdues Nola and Volaterrae: 628–629 and note 102
orders the massacre of the Samnites after the Colline Gate and the
prisoners from Praeneste (82 BCE): 636–637 and note 1, 645–646,
666, 670
causes hysteria in Rome by promising to destroy his enemies but not
naming them in a speech in the Senate (82 BCE): 637–638 and notes
2–3
introduces proscriptions (82 BCE): 526, 638–639 and notes 4–5
desecrates the graves and monuments of his enemies (82 BCE): 641 and
note 9
distances himself from M. Licinius Crassus due to latter’s purchase of
property from proscribed men: 643 and note 13
named dictator (82 BCE): 570–571, 649–650
reasons for (82 BCE): 648
irregularities in (82 BCE): 649–650 and supporting notes
laws passed as dictator (82–79)
construction projects, special courts, and sumptuary legislation: 650–
651, 654
prohibits sons of proscribed men from holding office: 651 and note
30, 653, 657
possibly attempted to pass legislation forbidding any new laws that
lacked approval of the Senate: 651–652, 654, 666
removes ability of tribunes to make laws: 652 and note 32, 660, 665
removes ability of former tribunes to run for higher offices: 652–654,
665
regularizes the cursus honorum and increases the numbers of quaestors:
656 and note 42, 662 and supporting notes, 663–664 and notes
55–56
increases the number of praetors, extends the pomerium: 662 and
supporting notes
adlects large numbers of men, mostly from those with the property rating
of equites, to the Senate: 484, 654–656 and supporting notes, 660
does not alter Cn. Papirius Carbo’s redistribution of the novi cives (82–79
BCE): 658–659
functionally freezes novi cives from political power (82–79 BCE): 657–661
and especially note 51, 664–666
possible concern about extended promagistracy (82–79 BCE): 662 and
note 54
orders death of Q. Lucretius Ofella when latter attempts to run for consul
without first having been made praetor (82 BCE): 664 and note 57
no record of census exists from time control is taken of Rome until well
past death of (82 BCE): 484, 660
and office of censor: 438 and note 88, 660
confiscates massive amounts of land from and demolishes defensive
works of Italians towns: 667–668 and note 60
possibly removes citizenship from Arretium and Volaterrae: 667–668 and
note 61
practically exterminates the Samnites: 670–672 and supporting notes
INDEX 897
retirement of: 673

endurance of the “Sullan system”: 669–670, 673–674, 676
cremated upon death: 641 and note 9
changes made to Roman government by (82–79 BCE): 571 and note 30,
646–673
Cosconius, Caius
legate of Gn Pompeius Strabo (89 BCE): 376 and note 44, 403 note 1,
794–795
Adriatic coastal campaign of (89 BCE): 376 –380 and supporting notes,
390, 794, 800
ravages territory of Larinum (89 BCE): 377–378 and notes 47–48
defeats Marius Egnatius, who dies in battle, at Larinum (89 BCE): 377–
378 and notes 47–48
sacks and burns Salapia (89 BCE): 378
captures Cannae (89 BCE): 378
unsuccessfully besieges Canusium, and retreats upon defeat there by
Trebatius (89 BCE): 378, 825
defeats Trebatius at Cannae (89 BCE): 379
remainder of coastal campaign of after Cannae (89 BCE): 379
captures Ausculum (88 BCE): 402–403 and note 91
replaced on Adriatic coast by Q. Metellus Pius (88 BCE): 402–403 and
notes 90–91, 407
de viris illustribus
utility as source for the events of 91–77: 63–64
biases of: 64
sources of: 64 and note 86, 216 note 140
thematic arrangement of: 63–64
dictatorship (Romans)
long disuse of in 82 BCE: 649 and note 22
usual mechanism for election of: 648–649 and note 24
usual duration of office: 649
Didius, Titus (cos. 98)
Spanish campaigns of (96 BCE): 244
legate to L. Julius Caesar (90 BCE): 292 and note 10
positioned near Capua (90–89 BCE): 292 and note 10, 766 and note 5
captures Herculaneum (89 BCE): 304, 387
retained as legate by L. Porcius Cato (89 BCE): 382
probably takes over command of L. Porcius Cato’s southern troops upon
Cato’s death (89 BCE): 387 and note 65
killed in battle (89 BCE): 387

possibility of being succeeded in command of L. Porcius Cato’s southern
troops upon death by Aulus Gabinius (89 BCE): 388
probably succeeded in command of L. Porcius Cato’s southern troops
upon death by L. Cornelius Sulla (89 BCE): 387–388 and note 65, 390
dilectus
cancellation of by consuls or tribunes: 82, 103 and note 68, 150 and note
23, 160 note 38
Diodorus Siculus
and ‘anti–Roman’ bias: 42–43 and notes 25, 27
Italian outlook found in: 43
as potential eyewitness to events of 91–77 BCE: 40–41 and note 22
sources of: 39 and note 19, 41, 70
utility of as source for the events of 91–77: 40–43 and supporting notes
Domitius Ahenobarbus, Gnaeus (cos. 96) censor in 92 whose quarrels with
colleague L. Licinius Crassus prevents completion of census: 469–470 and
note 79
Duilius, commander of the Hirpini: see “Lucilius”
Egnatius, Marius
commander of the Samnites (90 BCE): 289, 747 and notes 19–20
defeats Romans (possibly commanded by L. Cornelius Sulla) at Venafrum
(90 BCE): 294, 295, 366, 750 and note 2
defeats L. Julius Caesar near Aesernia (90 BCE): 295–296 and notes 16–
18, 307 note 40, 341, 353, 750 and note 2, 754–755 and supporting
notes, 808
defeated and killed in battle against C. Cosconius at Larinum (90 BCE):
377–378 and notes 47–48
enfranchisement law(s) of 88 BCE
that described in both Appian (1.6.53) and Velleius Paterculus (2.17): 409–
411
not ‘lex Plautia Papiria’: 821–829 and supporting notes
not lex Julia: 410–411, 822 and note 7, 824–825 and note 13
reasons for: 411–414 and supporting notes, 819–821, 824–826 and
supporting notes
timing of: 414, 819–821
allowed Roman commanders to grant civitas to whole communities as basis
for surrender: 414–415
grants civitas to Italians not otherwise eligible under lex Calpurnia or lex
Julia: 410, 414–415
INDEX 899
groups new citizens into separate voting tribes which vote last: 18, 25, 30,
415, 417, 436: eventual dissatisfaction with: 416–417, 436–437
Etruscans
as a people known to have written about their own history: 33 note 1
late entry into Allied war: 89 note 40, 255, 344
campaign of L. Porcius Cato against (90 BCE): 256, 331–333 and
supporting notes, 356, 370, 392, 419, 752, 771,781, 786–787, 789, 790
difficulties of: 332 and note 82, 343 note 91
effect of lex Julia on: 334–335, 337–338 and note 89, 355, 356, 365, 360,
775, 781
contribute money and materiel to C. Marius and L. Cornelius Cinna (87
BCE): 499
role in the revolt of M. Aemilius Lepidus (78 BCE): 673–674
role in the revolt of L. Sergius Catilina (63 BCE): 674
role in the resistance of Q. Sertorius in Spain (82–72 BCE): 674
expulsion laws, Roman: 133 and note 128, 136, 157 note 34, 167, 169, 174, 219,
279, 346–347, 675, 720. See also “Lex Junia”, “Lex Fannia”, and “Lex
Licinia Mucia”.
Exsuperantius, Julius
utility of as source for the events of 91–77: 62 note 80
Fannius, Caius (cos. 122)
initial amity with C. Sempronius Gracchus and departure from: 192, 194,
197 and note 98, 279
passes expulsion law: 198–199. See also “Lex Fannia”
Faventia
Cn. Papirius Carbo and C. Norbanus heavily defeated by Q. Metellus Pius
near: 622–623
Fidentia
Quinctius, a legate of either C. Norbanus or Cn. Papirius Carbo, defeated
by M. Lucullus near: 624–625 and note 99
Firmum
siege of Gn Pompeius Strabo within by T. Lafrenius (90 BCE): 302, 311–
312, 321, 366, 513 note 60, 751, 760
defeat and death of T. Lafrenius against Cn. Pompeius Strabo outside (90
BCE): 321–322 and notes 64–65, 331, 419, 751, 770–771
Flavius Eutropius
sources of: 49, 53, 686
as source for Orosius: 54
Flavius Fimbria, Caius
successfully concludes peace with Samnites and Lucani, who are made
citizens in the process, at behest of L. Cornelius Cinna (87 BCE): 516
and note 66, 546, 549, 556
probably a subordinate to C. Marius in Bellum Octavianum (87 BCE): 516
note 66
defeats P. Licinius Crassus at Alban Hills before rescue of latter by Q.
Metellus Pius (87 BCE): 520, 556
catches P. Licinius Crassus, who kills son and commits suicide to avoid
execution (87 BCE): 530, 556
hunts down and kills L. Julius Caesar, P. Lentulus, and C. Julius Caesar
Stabo Vopiscus (87 BCE): 530–532 and notes 88–89, 556
attempted murder of Q. Mucius Scaevola (86 BCE): 526, 556, 558 note 14
sent with L. Valerius Flaccus against Mithridates, probably on order of L.
Cornelius Cinna (86 BCE): 556 and notes 11–12
favored by soldiers of L. Valerius Flaccus, and prevents them all from
defecting to L. Cornelius Sulla (86 BCE): 558
quarrels with L. Valerius Flaccus (86 BCE): 558–559
as possible killer of L. Valerius Flaccus (86 BCE): 559 and note 16, 844
note 5
takes command of the soldiers of L. Valerius Flaccus on the latter’s death
(86–85 BCE): 559 and note 16
successes against the forces of Mithridates and near capture of him (86
BCE): 559–560 and notes 17–18, 563, 844 note 5
similarities to L. Cornelius Sulla (86 BCE): 558–559 and note 14
alleged overtures of surrender by Mithridates made to (85 BCE): 560 note
20
bidden to relinquish his command by L. Cornelius Sulla and besieged in
camp (85 BCE): 561–562
desertion of army of to L. Cornelius Sulla (85 BCE): 561–562
alleged attempt to have L. Cornelius Sulla assassinated (85 BCE): 562
alleged promise of safe conduct made by L. Cornelius Sulla to (85 BCE):
562
commits suicide and is conspicuously allowed burial by L. Cornelius Sulla
(85 BCE): 562 and notes 21–22
INDEX 901
foedera
definition of: 77
differences between: 77–78 notes 11–12, 80, 82, 83 and note 27, 84 and
note 30
lack of specifics about in extant sources: 78 and note 14
permanence of: 78–79, 88
did not remove independence from signatories: 81–82, 85, 88, 126, 128
and note 119
advantages of for Allies: 87, 114, 126, 126–127 and notes 116–118
military contributions demanded by: 79–81 and supporting notes, 85, 88,
92–93, 97, 102 and note 64, 125, 276–278
Allied numbers in Roman army: 81 and note 21, 86 and note 34, 87
note 37, 88, 89, 92 note 47, 104 and note 70, 244 and note 25, 246
and notes 29–30, 272–274 and note 78, 278 and note 80, 340, 342,
344– and note 92
costs in money: 86, 88, 93–97 and supporting notes, 99 note 59, 101,
104, 107–108 and notes 76–77, 114, 125, 134, 136 and note 131,
165, 278–279 and notes 80–81, 411
extensive overseas service and economic results: 98–99 and notes 56–
58, 101, 108 and note 78, 134
extensive overseas service and effect on manpower: 99–101 and
supporting notes, 102–107 and supporting notes, 108–109, 114
possibly not met by volunteers: 107–108 and notes 76–77
Roman reprisals for non–compliance: 87 note 35, 95 n 52, 103 and
note 67
foedus Cassianum: 78 and note 13, 79–81 and note 18, 115, 117 note 98
Fraucus
commander of the Frentani: 289, 370, 744, 746–747 and notes 18–19
leads expedition to Asculum, perhaps to aid Etruscans and Umbrians (89
BCE): 256, 370, 378 note 45, 786–787, 789, 790
heads to Asculum to attempt to relieve siege (89 BCE): 370, 378 note 45,
defeated and killed in battle against Cn. Pompeius Strabo near Asculum
(89 BCE): 370–371 and note 35, 378 note 45, 785–792 and supporting
notes, 817 note 4
freedmen
enrolled into Roman army for coastal duties (90 BCE): 330, 335, 338 note
89, 752
Fregellae, uprising against Rome at (125 BCE)

possible reasons for uprising: 176–179 and supporting notes
timing behind: 176 and notes 64–65, 177, 179
Latin Role in: 177–178 and note 70, 203 note 109, 347, 349 note 100
not supported by other Italians: 176 and note 67, 177–178 and note 70,
271–272 and note 77
crushed by L. Opimius (125 BCE): 73 and note 8, 176 and note 66
and C. Sempronius Gracchus: 183
connection to insitution of ius civitatis per magistratum adipiscendae: 717–718
and notes 4
Frentani
Fulvius Flaccus, Marcus (cos. 125)
as supporter of the Gracchi and the lex Sempronia agraria: 168
proposed enfranchisement law of (125, 122 BCE): 169–175 and
supporting notes, 177–179, 181, 184, 186, 191–192 and note 88, 193,
195–198 and supporting notes, 199 and note 99, 199 and note 101,
200, 201–202, 207, 479, 703–713 and supporting notes, 715, 719
proposed enfranchisement law of only restricted to Latins (125, 122
BCE): 170–172 and supporting notes, 177–179, 199 and note 99, 201,
203 note 109
Fulvius Flaccus, Quintus (cos. 179): 129–130 and note 12
Gabinius, Aulus
replaces P. Licinius Crassus as legate to L. Porcius Cato (89 BCE): 380
operations in Lucania (89–88 BCE): 380, 388 and note 66, 390, 396, 399,
739, 810
possible successor to command of L. Porcius Cato’s southern soldiers
after the death of T. Didius (mid–89 BCE): 388
captures Grumentum (89 BCE): 300 note 25, 389
lays waste to Nuceria (89 BCE): 388 and note 66, 825
destroys Picentia (89 BCE): 388–389, 825
death of (late 89–early 88 BCE): 389
Gellius, Aulus
as source for the events of 91–77: 65
Glanis river
minor battle in which L. Cornelius Sulla defeats Cn. Papirius Carbo (82
BCE): 621
INDEX 903
Granius Licinianus
utility of as source for the events of 91–77: 62 note 80
Grumentum
defeat of P. Licinius Crassus by Marcus Lamponius (90 BCE): 292 note
10, 312 note 45, 341, 366, 389 note 67, 419, 472, 751, 753
city not destroyed by: 299–301 and note 25, 389 note 67
falls to Allies (90 BCE): 300–301, 366
captured by Aulus Gabinius (89 BCE): 300 note 25, 389, 399
Gutta
attempt to relieve Praeneste with M. Lamponius and Pontius Telesinus
thwarted by L. Cornelius Sulla: 624
Herculaneum
joins Alliance (90 BCE): 304 and note 32, 388 note 66
capture of by Titus Didius (mid–89 BCE): 304 and note 32, 387
Herennius, Titus
commander of the Venusini: 289, 749 and notes 28–29
possible role in Battle of the Vineyards (Sora) under Q. Poppaedius Silo
(90 BCE): 324, 772
Hirpini
surrender of to L. Cornelius Sulla (89 BCE): 391, 396, 402
Iegius, Manius
possible commander of Samnites in 88 BCE: 404 note 93
possible diplomat sent to seek aid from Mithridates (late 89– early 88
Independence,
advantages of for Allies vs. enfranchisement: 72–73, 137, 231, 232
alleged Allied desire for: 8–9 and note 11, 21–26 and supporting notes,
177, 225–227 and notes 1–5, 338 note 89, 349 note 100, 683, 782 note
17
alleged Allied desire for in the “Alternative Tradition”: 8–9 and note 11,
21–26 and supporting notes, 70 note 2, 72 and note 7, 226
Italia
significance of name: 258, 259, 267
Italian negotiatores
mercantile activity increases dramatically after Second Punic War: 119 and
note 101
likely consisted in large part of former soldiers in Rome’s armies: 199–120

and note 102, 124
eventually allowed to bring charges of repetundae: 123
ineligibility for fulfillment of Roman contracts: 121–122 and notes 106–
108, 124–125, 134, 136, 191 and note 88, 279
no voice in making of Roman foreign policy: 122 and notes 109–110, 124,
136
protected by Roman governors in the East: 121 and note 105, 124
victimised in the East by rapacity of Roman publicani: 123–124, 125, 675
ius latii
rights included in: 83–85 and notes 28–35
timing of: 84 note 28
ius civitatis per magistratum adipiscendae
provisions of: 201, 282–283, 720–721 and notes 9–12
timing of addition to ius latii: 201, 347 and note 95, 716–721 and
supporting notes
as alternative to civitas: 200–201, 347 and note 95, 719, 726
ius provocationis
as alternative to civitas: 170–172 and supporting notes, 199
Janiculum, battle of (87 BCE)
timing of and participants in: 509–510
Julius Caesar, Caius (cos. 59)
inaugurates Civil War (49 BCE): 677, 679
Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus, Caius
enmity with L. Cornelius Sulla: 450, 834
attempts to run for consulate of 87 without first having held praetorate
(88 BCE): 432, 831 and note 1
reasons for: 432,435 note 34, 831–836
timing of: 432, 833–834 and note 7
use of violence against P. Sulpicius Rufus during: 433–434, 835–836
opposition to C. Marius and possibility of Mithridatic command for him
(88 BCE): 457, 832–833 and notes 2–3, 834–836 and supporting notes
may have led violence during opposition to voting on laws of P. Sulpicius
Rufus (88 BCE): 452–453, 457
hunted by C. Flavius Fimbria, probably for opposition to C. Marius and P.
Sulpicius Rufus in 88 (87 BCE): 530–531, 556
betrayal, capture, and possibly gruesome death of (87 BCE): 531–532 and
note 88
INDEX 905
head sent to rostra (87 BCE): 532

Julius Caesar, Lucius (cos. 90)
attitude towards Allies: 471–472 and note 85
attitude towards novi cives: 471–472 and note 85
commands southern theater (90 BCE): 291–292 and note 8
legates of: 292–293 and supporting notes
first assault on Aesernia and defeat by P. Vettius Scato (90 BCE): 294 and
note 12–13, 302, 353, 740, 751, 754–755 and supporting notes, 808
second assault on Aesernia and defeat by Marius Egnatius (90 BCE): 295–
296 and notes 16 and 18, 307 note 40, 341, 353, 750 and note 2, 754–
755 and supporting notes, 808
defeats C. Papius Mutilus at Acerrae (90 BCE): 303, 305–306 and notes
35–36, 339, 353, 368, 419, 750 note 2, 751, 753, 766
and parley with Cretan: 43, 306 note 37, 357–358, 778–779
unable to return to Rome to elect a suffect after death of P. Rutilius Lupus
(90 BCE): 781 and note 11
holds consular elections in Rome (late 90 BCE): 307, 338 note 89, 353,
781
holds consular elections in Rome, timing of return for (late 90 BCE): 307
and notes 39–40, 316, 353, 781
passes lex Julia: 307, 353–354 and note 4, 432, 472, 781
becomes censor (89 BCE): 419, 432, 467
irregularities in being able to be elected and reasons for: 469–470 and
notes 79–81
brevity of mention of service as censor in sources and reasons for: 468–
469 and notes 77–78, 470–471
accomplishments as censor with P. Licinius Crassus (89–88 BCE): 469
unable to complete census as censor with P. Licinius Crassus (88 BCE):
470–471 and notes 82–83
hunted for unknown reasons by C. Flavius Fimbria and killed, with head
sent to rostra (87 BCE): 531–532 and note 88, 556
Julius Caesar, Sextus (cos. 91)
Allied plot to murder foiled by M. Livius Drusus (91 BCE): 219, 238 and
note 19, 242 and note 23, 347, 544
given a command against the Allies in mid–90 BCE: 319–320 and note 61
alleged placement in command of northern theater (late 90 BCE): 319
note 60
alleged replacement of Valerius Massala (90 BCE): 313 note 61, 758–762
and supporting notes, 769 and notes 9–10
defeats P. Praesentius on via Salaria (90 BCE): 291 note 7, 319–320 and
notes 61–62, 321 note 64, 327, 331
relieves Cn. Pompeius Strabo at Asculum (90 BCE): 291 note 7, 323, 327,
328
death during siege of Asculum (89 BCE): 291 note 7, 319–320 and notes
61–62, 756–763 and supporting notes
Julius Frontinus, Sextus
utility as source for the events of 91–77: 65
Junius Brutus Damasippus, Marcus
defeated by Cn. Pompeius Magnus in Picenum: 603–604 and note 71
slaughters political enemies of C. Marius the Younger: 619–620 and note
93–94
left in charge of Clusium (82 BCE): 622
unsuccessfully leads two legions to relieve Praeneste (82 BCE): 624, 625
attempts at final relief of Praeneste with C. Marcius Censorinus and
Carrinas thwarted by L. Cornelius Sulla (82 BCE): 625
makes way to Sicily, where he is caught by Cn. Pompeius Magnus and
commits suicide (81 BCE): 629
Junius Brutus, Marcus
as Praetor, sent by Senate to ask Sulla’s intentions during March on Rome
(88 BCE): 462–463
exiled with C. Marius by L. Cornelius Sulla (88 BCE): 466
gathers forces in Spain and returns to join C. Marius and L. Cornelius
Cinna: 499
joins the revolt of M. Aemilius Lepidus (78 BCE): 673
Junius Pennus, Marcus
date of election to tribunate: 703, 707–709, 711–712
expulsion law of (126 BCE): See “lex Junia”
Lafrenius, Titus
commander of the Vestini (90 BCE): 289, 743 and note 6, 745
cooperates with C. Vidacilius and P. Vettius Scato in defeating Cn.
Pompeius Strabo at near Falerio, close to Asculum (90 BCE): 294,
301–302 and note 28, 321 and note 63, 366, 752, 753, 761
besieges Cn. Pompeius Strabo at Firmum (90 BCE): 302, 311–312, 366,
513 note 60, 751, 752, 753, 761
defeated by Cn. Pompeius Strabo at Firmum and killed in battle (90 BCE):
321–322 and notes 64–65, 331, 368, 419, 752, 756, 770–771
possibly succeeded as commander of Vestini by Caius Pontidius (90–89
BCE): 374
INDEX 907
possibly succeeded as commander of Vestini by “Ventidius” (90–89

Lamponius, Marcus
commander of the Lucani (90 BCE): 289, 749 and note 30
may have supplied troops to C. Papius Mutilus on his advance towards
Acerrae (90 BCE): 305 and note 34
defeats P. Licinius Crassus near Grumentum (90 BCE): 292 note 10, 299 –
301, 305 note 34, 312 note 45, 341, 366, 389 note 67, 419, 472, 751,
753
continues fighting against Romans under Q. Poppaedius Silo (88 BCE):
399, 404 and note 92
unsuccessful siege of Isiae with C. Papius Mutilus (87 BCE): 408 and note
100
defeated with C. Papius Mutilus by Caius Norbanus at Rhegium (87 BCE):
408–409, 497, 588
probably defeats Plautius, legate of Q. Metellus Pius, with C. Papius
Mutilus (87 BCE): 516 and note 66, 517–518
attempt to relieve Praeneste with Pontius Telesinus and Gutta thwarted by

L. Cornelius Sulla (82 BCE): 624
Larinum
Marius Egnatius defeated and killed in battle against C. Cosconius near
(89 BCE): 377–378 and notes 47–48
latifundia
effects on Italians: 153, 169
Latins
early arrangements of alliance with Rome: 78 and note 13, 79–81 and note
18, 83–85 and notes 28–35, 87
as those to be given full citizenship in the proposed enfranchisement laws
of M. Fulvius Flaccus, C. Sempronius Gracchus, and M. Livius
Drusus (125, 122, 91 BCE): 170–172 and supporting notes, 177–179,
199 and note 99, 201, 203 note 109, 215–216 and notes 137–138
possible lack of participation in Allied War throughout 90 BCE: 338 note
89, 342–352 and supporting notes 356, 371, 427, 718–719, 721, 775
internal divisions over remaining loyal to Rome: 347 and note 95, 351,
356, 721
and lex Julia: 354 and note 6, 356, 360, 371, 719, 775, 782
lex Calpurnia
provisions of: 245 note 28, 338 and note 89, 357 and note 12, 776–777
timing of relative to lex Julia: 338 note 89, 357, 776–779, 782
enfolded into lex Julia: 358, 777–779, 782
probably described in L. Cornelius Sisenna fragment 120, but different to
what is described in Sisenna fragment 17: 245 note 28, 357, 361–362
and notes 18–22, 365, 775 and note 1, 779–780 and notes 8–9
lex Fannia (122 BCE): 198–199, 200, 235
lex Julia (90 BCE)
as citizenship law mentioned in Appian 1.6.49 and Velleius Paterculus
2.16.4: 354 and note 7, 355, 776 note 2
reasons for: 334–335, 337–338 and note 89, 348, 354 and note 6, 356–357,
358, 360, 436
general provisions of: 18, 354, 480
eligibility for: 337–338 and note 89, 354–355 and note 6, 348, 356,
358, 776, 782–784 and supporting notes, 824–825 and note 13
enfolds provisions of lex Calpurnia into: 358, 777–779, 782
voluntarily accepted: 355 and note 8
enrolled whole communities: 355–356
grouped new citizens into separate voting tribes: 18, 25, 30, 360–361
and notes 16–17, 414–414, 436, 480
mandated creations of, but did not create, new voting tribes: 361–362
and notes 18–21, 364–365, 414–414, 436
specified that new voting tribes for novi cives would vote last: 18, 25,30,
362–365 and notes 22–25, 414–414, 436, 480
timing of: 307 and notes 39–40, 316, 337–338 and note 89, 353–354 and
note 7, 775, 778–779, 781–782 and notes 11–12
eventual dissatisfaction with amongst novi cives: 362–365 and notes 20–25
not enfranchisement law of 89 BCE: 410–411
Allied reaction to (89 BCE): 368, 373 and note 38, 436–437
lex Junia (126 BCE)
terms of: 167–168, 169, 235, 703, 712–713
timing of and causes for: 133 and note 128, 235, 703–707
connections to the activities of M. Fulvius Flaccus: 169, 703–713 and
alleged opposition of C. Sempronius Gracchus to: 703–707 and
supporting notes
lex Licinia Mucia (95 BCE)
as cause for Allied War: 210, 235–236 and note 13, 241
reason for: 209 and note 119, 712–713
terms of: 208 and supporting notes, 209 and note 120, 235
INDEX 909
lex Plautia Papiria (“lex Plautia Papiria”) (88 BCE): 410 note 102, 801–806 and
supporting notes, 821–830 and supporting notes
lex Sempronia agraria (133 BCE)
effects on Allies: 130–131, 136, 152–163 and supporting notes, 164–165
and note 48, 168–169, 202, 224, 695–696 and note 4
inclusion of Allies in distribution: 151–152 and notes 25–26, 154 and note
28, 693–702 and supporting notes
motivations behind: 99 note 59, 101, 148–152 and supporting notes
terms of: 146–148 and supporting notes, 152
leges Sulpiciae: see “Sulpicius Rufus, Publius”
lex Varia (90 BCE)
terms of: 252 note 41, 505 and note 50
lex Valeria on debt (86 BCE)
terms of: 540
Licinius Crassus, Lucius (cos. 95): 208, 244, 469
as censor in 92, quarrels with colleague Gn. Domitius Ahenobarbus and
does not complete census: 469–470 and note 79
Licinius Crassus, Marcus (cos. 70)
evades capture by C. Flavius Fimbria and flees to Spain: 584
recruits an army in Spain and plunders Malaca before joining Q. Metellus
Pius in Africa (84 BCE): 584
quarrels with Q. Metellus Pius and joins L. Cornelius Sulla (83 BCE): 584,
589
sent by L. Cornelius Sulla into the lands of the Marsi, where he
successfully recruits men for Sulla’s cause (83 BCE): 609–610, 658
ravages Tuder in Etruria: 620
defeats and surrounds Carrinas with Cn. Pompeius Magnus at Spoletium
(82 BCE): 622
evaded by Carrinas at Spoletium (82 BCE): 622
summoned with Cn. Pompeius Magnus south against C. Marcius
Censorinus, M. Junius Brutus Damasippus, and Carrinas by L.
Cornelius Sulla (82 BCE): 626
completely defeats the Samnites on L. Cornelius Sulla’s right at the Colline
Gate (82 BCE): 626
enthusiasm for purchase of property of proscribed men alienates L.
Cornelius Sulla (82–81 BCE): 643 and note 14, 645
restores all traditional powers of the tribunate with Cn. Pompeius Magnus
(70 BCE): 676
Licinius Crassus, Publius (cos. 97)

attitude towards Allies: 472
attitude towards novi cives: 472
once gave citizenship to a citizen of Heraclea: 472
as legate of L. Julius Caesar (90 BCE): 292 and note 10, 468
military operations in Campania (90 BCE): 292 and note 10, 298–299,
303
defeated by Marcus Lamponius near Grumentum (90 BCE): 292 note 10,
299, 312 note 45, 341, 389 note 67, 366, 419, 472, 751, 753
becomes censor for 89 BCE (90 BCE): 292 note 10, 301, 380, 419, 467
irregularities in being able to be elected and reasons for: 469–470 and
notes 79–81
brevity of mention of service as censor in sources and reasons for: 468–
469 and notes 77–78, 470–471
accomplishments as censor with L. Julius Caesar (89–88 BCE): 469
unable to complete census as censor with L. Julius Caesar (89–88 BCE):
470–471 and notes 82–83
possible reasons for: 471–474 and supporting notes
succeeded as legate to L. Porcius Cato by Aulus Gabinius (89 BCE): 380
sent forward by Cn. Octavius in unsuccessful attempt to destroy the
forces of L. Cornelius Cinna at Janiculum and recalled by Cn.
Pompeius Strabo (87 BCE): 510–511 and note 58, 519
dissuades Cn. Octavius from making terms with L. Cornelius Cinna, and
advises attack at the Alban hills instead (87 BCE): 519–520
defeated by C. Flavius Fimbria at Alban Hills, before rescue by Q.
Metellus Pius (87 BCE): 519–520, 556
advises Cn. Octavius to negotiate with L. Cornelius Cinna after Alban
Hills (87 BCE): 520
flight to escape execution, possibly for maiestas (87 BCE): 530 and note 86
caught by C. Flavius Fimbria and kills eldest son and self to escape
execution (87 BCE): 530 and note 86, 556
head taken to rostra (87 BCE): 530, 556
Licinius Lucullus, Lucius (cos. 74)
only one of L. Cornelius Sulla’s officers not to withdraw from him during
March on Rome (88 BCE): 460 and note 69
role in near capture of Mithridates by C. Flavius Fimbria: 559–560 and
notes 17–18
Liris river
strategic importance of (90 BCE): 290, 308
INDEX 911
Livius Drusus, Marcus (cos. 112): 196–198 and note 96, 199 and note 101, 201,
212, 214
Livius Drusus, Marcus
bias of Livy against: 45–47 and notes 35, 40, 50
motivated by extortion trial of Publius Rutilius Rufus (pre–91 BCE): 212–
213 and notes 130 and 133
friendship with P. Sulpicius Rufus (pre–91 BCE): 431
connection with Q. Poppaedius Silo: 202, 216 and note 139, 237–241 and
supporting notes, 243, 318, 725, 727
enmity with Q. Servilius Caepio: 212 and note 131, 318 and note 56
legislative programme of (91 BCE): 71 note 4, 212–217 and supporting
notes, 480, 654 note 36, 725–725 and notes 6–7
proposed law for Italian enfranchisement (91 BCE): 215–216 and notes
137–138, 141 and note 4, 217 and note 141, 218–219 and note 146,
237–238, 240–241, 347, 480, 724–728 and supporting notes
proposed law for Italian enfranchisement (91 BCE), reasons for: 726–727
manner of death (91 BCE): 219 and note 145, 234, 333, 480
time of death (91 BCE): 723 and note 5
death as cause for outbreak of Allied War: 141–142 and note 5, 233, 235,
240 and note 22, 243, 247, 419, 722–729 and supporting notes
Livius, Titus
utility of as source for the events of 91–77: 43–45 and especially page 47
alleged alterations of history made to suit Augustus: 44 note 30, 688–689
biases and prejudices of: 39 note 20, 45–47 and notes 35, 40, 50
lack of involvement in politics: 46 and notes 36–37
lack of knowledge of geography: 46 and notes 38–39
lack of military expertise: 45–46 and notes 33–35
sources of: 37 and note 12, 45 and note 32,
carelessness with: 44–45 and notes 29–31
Epitomes of: see “Periochae”
as source of de viris illustribus: 64 and note 86, 216 note 140
as source for Appian: 49 and note 48, 56 note 69, 58–61, 70, 693 and note
9
as source for Aulus Gellius: 65
as source for Cassius Dio: 61–62 and supporting notes
as source for Eutropius: 49, 53, 686
as source for Florus: 49, 53, 70, 141, 686
as source for Frontinus: 65
as source for Orosius: 49, 54, 140, 686
as source for Pliny: 65–66
as source for Plutarch: 62

as source for Velleius Paterculus: 49 and note 18, 50–51 and notes 53–54,
686
Lucani
as member of the Alliance in 91 BCE: 248, 255, 285
continue fighting until 87 BCE: 415–416, 418, 820–821
reasons for: 415–416 and note 108, 515–516 and note 66, 820–821
exorbitant terms made to Q. Metellus Pius to bring about peace, which are
rejected (87 BCE): 515–516
conclude terms and receive civitas from L. Cornelius Cinna (87 BCE): 356
and note 9, 409, 416, 515–516 and note 66, 546, 549, 826
defeat Plautius, legate of Q. Metellus Pius, probably under M. Lamponius
(87 BCE): 516 and note 66, 517–518
Lucanus/Lucceius
lieutenant of Caius Cosconius (89 BCE): 377–378 and notes 47–48
Lucilius
commander of the Hirpini (90 BCE): 289, 748 and note 26
deceived by L. Cornelius Sulla near Aesernia (90 BCE): 297–298, 341, 390
Lucretius Ofella, Quintus
oversees siege of Praeneste and repulses attempts of C. Marius the
Younger to escape (82 BCE): 618–619, 624
uses heads of generals from Colline Gate to induce Praeneste to give in,
and loots (82 BCE): 628 and note 101
killed by order of L. Cornelius Sulla when he attempts to run for consul
without completing earlier steps of cursus honorum (82 BCE): 664 and
note 57
Lucullus, Marcus: see “Terentius Varro Lucullus, Marcus”
Lutatius Catulus, Quintus (cos. 102)
initial amity with C. Marius: 447, 448
served by L. Cornelius Sulla as legate during Cimbric Wars (102–101
BCE): 446, 447–448 and note 54
military incompetence of: 447–448
enmity with C. Marius: 448–449 and note 55, 673
as possible legate during Allied War: 380–381 and note 52, 809
sent by Cn. Octavius along with his son and M. Antonius to summon Q.
Metellus Pius back to Rome (87 BCE): 515 and note 63
possibly brought up on charges of perduellio for role in summoning Q.
Metellus Pius back to Rome (87 BCE): 527 and note 78
INDEX 913
possibly tried by M. Marius Gratidianus (87 BCE): 528 note 80, 642, 842
commits suicide when C. Marius refuses to let him to go into exile to
escape execution (87 BCE): 449, 527–528 and note 80, 842
Lutatius Catulus, Quintus (cos. 78)
role in suppression of the revolt of M. Aemilius Lepidus (78 BCE): p. 673
sent by Cn. Octavius along with his father and M. Antonius to summon
Q. Metellus Pius back to Rome (87 BCE): 515 and note 63
role in invention of proscription list by L. Cornelius Sulla (82–81 BCE):
639 note 4
murders and dismembers M. Marius Gratidianus for latter’s role in death
of his father with L. Sergius Catilina (82 BCE): 528 note 80, 639 note
4, 642 and note 13
March on Rome, Sulla’s (88 BCE): timing of: 475 and note 90
persuasion of Sulla’s soldiers to engage in: 31, 460
utter novelty of: 31, 461, 477
met with incredulity in Rome: 460–462
recruits gained for during: 460
deputation sent by Senate to: 460, 462–463
maltreatment of: 463
deception of: 463
lack of initial preparation to resist: 462
Marcius Censorinus, Caius
partisan of C. Marius: 450–451 and note 57, 524–525
enmity with L. Cornelius Sulla (early 90s BCE): 450–451 and note 57,
524–525
sent by L. Cornelius Cinna to dislodge Cn. Octavius from the Janiculum,
killing him in the process (87 BCE): 524–525 and note 75
probably commander defeated by Cn. Pompeius Magnus on the Adriatic
coast, likely at Sena Gallica (82 BCE): 615 and note 85, 623
sent by Cn. Papirius Carbo to relieve Praeneste, but ambushed and
defeated in a defile near Via Flaminia by Cn. Pompeius Magnus (82
BCE): 623–624
trapped on a hilltop by Cn. Pompeius Magnus and escapes, but is deserted
by all by seven cohorts (82 BCE): 624
retreats back to Cn. Papirius Carbo (82 BCE): 624
left along with Carrinas with remnants of army by flight of Cn. Papirius
Carbo (82 BCE): 625
attempts at final relief of Praeneste with Carrinas and M. Junius Brutus
Damasippus thwarted by L. Cornelius Sulla (82 BCE): 625
falls back on Rome after unsuccessful final relief of Praeneste with

Carrinas and M. Junius Brutus Damasippus (82 BCE): 625
defeated with Carrinas and Pontius Telesinus at the Colline Gate, taken
prisoner, and beheaded (82 BCE): 627
Ofella (82 BCE): 627–628
Marcius Philippus (cos. 91)
Allied plot to murder foiled by M. Livius Drusus (91 BCE): 219, 238 and
note 19, 242 and note 23, 347, 544
defends Cn. Pompeius Magnus in a criminal case (86 BCE): 501 and note
42
staunch opponent to Allied enfranchisement and rights of novi cives: 544,
846 and note 6
named censor and completes both review of the Senate and census with
M. Perperna, passing up his own uncle App. Claudius Pulcher in the
process (86/85 BCE): 544
joins the cause of L. Cornelius Sulla and receives a naval command from
him (83 BCE): 590 and note 54
wins over Sardinia for L. Cornelius Sulla (83 BCE): 611
Marius, Caius (cos. 107)
lost memoirs of?: 39 note 18
and Italian Allies: 113, 203–207 and notes 111–114, 317 and note 53, 237
note 18, 324 note 67, 440
as novus civis: 206 n. 113
and novi cives: 464–465 and note 74
calls for volunteers among capite censi (107 BCE): 105–107 and supporting
notes
hostility of Senate towards: 105–107 and note 75, 203, 206 note 113, 290,
420–427, 430, 451, 456, 461
reasons for: 105–107, 203 note 110, 205 note 112, 420–427
use of tribunes to gain commands and other considerations: 205 note 112,
423, 431 and note 27, 440, 452
use of men deemed undesirable by Senate: 445
assigned L. Cornelius Sulla as quaestor: 444–445 and note 50
L. Cornelius Sulla on staff of (107–102 BCE): 445–446
enmity with L. Cornelius Sulla: 254, 440, 441–442, 446–452, 768
reasons for: 446 and notes 51–52, 449
initial amity with Q. Catulus: 447, 448
enmity with Q. Catulus: 448–449 and note 55, 673
service of Q. Sertorius during the Cimbric Wars: 446 note 52, 592, 593
INDEX 915
desire to lead war against Mithridates: 427–429 and supporting notes, 440,
552, 833 and note 3
association with C. Marcius Censorinus: 450–451 and note 57, 524–525
association with L. Apuleius Saturninus: 204 and note 111, 426
constraints put on by Senate during Allied War (90 BCE): 291, 316–317
and notes 52–53 and 55, 426, 751
as legate to P. Rutilius Lupus (90 BCE): 292 note 10, 308–309 and note
41, 425
positioned on the via Valeria (90 BCE): 312 note 47, 314
given command of soldiers under Perperna after defeat of latter by P.
Praesentius (90 BCE): 312
quarrels with P. Rutilius Lupus: 246 note 29, 313–314, 341, 392, 429, 559
unsuccessfully attempts to dissuade P. Rutilus Lupus from giving battle
against P. Vettius Scato at the Tolenus River (90 BCE): 314, 315 note
51, 429
assumes command against P. Vettius Scato after death of P. Rutilius
Lupus at the Tolenus River (90 BCE): 315–316 and note 50, 419–420,
511, 751
compelled to divide command of northern army with Q. Servilius Caepio
after death of P. Rutilius Lupus (90 BCE): 317 and note 55, 426, 751
alleged subordination to Sex. Julius Caesar after the death of Q. Servilius
Caepio (90 BCE): 319 note 60
placed in command of northern army after death of Q. Servilius Caepio at
Amiternum (90 BCE): 319 and note 60, 426, 752, 769
maneuvers against Q. Poppaedius Silo in the Tolenus Valley (90 BCE):
323–324, 393, 761, 769
fights Q. Poppaedius Silo to a draw in the Tolenus Valley (90 BCE): 323–
324, 393, 761
defeats Q. Poppaedius Silo at the Battle of the Vineyards near Sora (90
BCE): 325–326 and notes 69 and 71, 331, 339, 368, 393, 430, 751,
752, 753, 763–774 and supporting notes
faces Q. Poppaedius Silo in abortive skirmish after the Battle of the
Vineyards (Sora) (90 BCE): 237 note 18, 326–327, 331, 368, 752, 772–
773, 796
dismissed as legate by L. Porcius Cato (89 BCE): 381, 420
reasons for: 381–382 and notes 53–54, 420, 427
enmity with L. Porcius Cato: 394–395 and note 77, 427 and note 16
illness of (90–89 BCE): 317 and note 54, 420, 427
recovery from: 427, 441
desire for seventh consulate (88 BCE): 429–430 and notes 22–23, 537 and
note 105
putative candidacy for seventh consulate (88 BCE): 429–430 and notes
22–23, 832–836 and supporting notes
opposition to C. Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus (88 BCE): 832–836 and
supporting notes
association with Publius Sulpicius Rufus (88 BCE): 440, 441, 455–456 and
note 63, 465, 831
reasons for: 440
kept hidden until Spring: 441
harbors L. Cornelius Sulla during latter’s flight from violence surrounding
the declaration of the illegality of his feriae (88 BCE): 455–456
command of Mithridatic War transferred to by Publius Sulpicius Rufus
(88 BCE): 457
prepares for Mithridatic War (88 BCE): 462
possibly recruits heavily from novi cives: 462, 464–465 and note 74
caught by surprise by Sulla’s March on Rome (88 BCE): 461–462
prepares to resist Sulla’s March on Rome (88 BCE): 462
enrolls freedmen: 462
attempts to include slaves: 462, 464
includes men recruited to be sent east: 462, 464–465 and note 74
includes men recruited to be sent east, possibly large numbers of novi
cives: 462, 464–465 and note 74
narrowly defeated by L. Cornelius Sulla at Esquiline Forum (88 BCE):
463–464, 552
flight of after defeat by L. Cornelius Sulla at Esquiline Forum (ends up in
Africa; 88 BCE): 464, 465, 466 and note 75, 475 and note 90
declared outlaw by L. Cornelius Sulla and Q. Pompeius Rufus (88 BCE):
466, 477
relative of Marcus Marius Gratidianus: 476 note 93
recruitment of men in preparation for return to Rome (88–87 BCE): 498–
499 and notes 36, 388
joins forces with L. Cornelius Cinna and refuses proconsular insignia, but
accepts one of the four commands of L. Cornelius Cinna’s army (87
BCE): 499–500 and note 40, 522–523
sends cavalry to attack Rome, which is defeated by Cn. Pompeius Strabo
(87 BCE): 506
begins investment of Rome from the southwest (87 BCE): 507
mildness in treatment of defeated enemies: 499 and note 39, 508–509
begins campaign south and east of Rome to starve city of supplies: 508
and note 54
assaults and sacks Ostia: 508–509
INDEX 917
breaks off southern and eastern campaign for battle at Janiculum (87
BCE): 509–510
receives betrayal of one Appius Claudius at Janiculum (87 BCE): 510 and
note 57, 511
counterattacked by Cn. Octavius and Cn. Pompeius Strabo at Janiculum
with L. Cornelius Cinna (87 BCE): 510
resumes southern and eastern campaign after battle at Janiculum (87
BCE): 511
captures Antium, Lanuvium, Aricia, and seizes control of both Via Appia
and Via Latina (87 BCE): 511–512 and note 59
restored to his full rights as citizen by L. Cornelius Cinna (87 BCE): 523
and note 71, 538, 539
employs a bodyguard of freed slaves called “Bardyaei” (87 BCE): 523 and
note 72
refuses to let Q. Lutatius Catulus go into exile (87 BCE): 527
abuse of the head of M. Antonius (87 BCE): 529–530 and supporting
notes
excesses of bodyguards of, and their execution (87 BCE): 533–536 and
supporting notes
declares L. Cornelius Sulla a hostis (87 BCE): 536 and note 102
re-elected consul amidst rumors of the return of Sulla (87 BCE): 537 and
note 104, 551
dies a few weeks into his final consulate (86 BCE): 537 and notes 105–106
grave desecrated by L. Cornelius Sulla: 641 and note 9
Marius the Younger, Caius (cos, 82)
legate to L. Porcius Cato and enmity with (90–89 BCE): 394–395 and note
77, 844
alleged murder of L. Porcius Cato (90–89 BCE): 394–395 and note 77
evades sentence of outlawry and joins father in Africa (88 BCE): 466 and
note 75
stores treasure in Praeneste (83–82 BCE): 605, 618
elected consul with Cn. Papirius Carbo: 606
defeated, probably by Cn. Cornelius Dolabella, at Setia (92 BCE): 615–616
and note 87
retreats from Setia to Sacriportus (82 BCE): 616 and note 88
defeated at Sacriportus by L. Cornelius Sulla (82 BCE): 614, 616–618 and
notes 88–91
besieged at Sacriportus by Q. Lucretius Ofella (82 BCE): 618–619, 621
and note 96
orders the slaughter of political enemies in Rome by L. Junius Brutus
Damasippus (82 BCE): 619–620 and note 93–94
repulsed in numerous attempts to break out of Praeneste by Q. Lucretius

Ofella (82 BCE): 624
commits suicide to avoid capture by Q. Lucretius Ofella when Praeneste
opens its gates to him (82 BCE): 628, 650 note 24
head taken to L. Cornelius Sulla, who mocks it (82 BCE): 628 and note
101, 641
Marius Gratidianus, Marcus
relative of C. Marius: 476 note 93
elected tribune for 87 BCE: 528 note 90, 841–844 and supporting notes
possibly prosecuted Q. Lutatius Catulus (87 BCE): 528 note 80, 842
as praetor, passes coinage reform (85 BCE): 541 and note 110
death of at the hands of Q. Lutatius Catulus the Younger and L. Sergius
Catilina (82 BCE): 528 note 80, 639 note 4, 642 and note 13
monument to destroyed by L. Cornelius Sulla: 641 note 10
Marrucini
surrender of (89 BCE): 377, 403, 800
Marsi
tendency to refer to all Allies despite their actual origins as in Roman
authors: 744 note 14, 746 note 17
surrender of to L. Cornelius Cinna (88 BCE): 406 and note 97
successful recruitment of some to join the cause of L. Cornelius Sulla by
M. Licinius Crassus (83 BCE): 609–610, 658
military service, Roman resentment towards and reluctance to undertake: 99 note
59, 103–105 and supporting notes, 150 and note 23, 160 note 38, 244,
257, 272–273 and note 78, 277
Minucius Thermus, Quintus (cos. 193): 129 and note 12
Mucius Scaevola, Quintus (cos. 95): 208, 210–211 and notes 123–125, 526, 556,
558 note 14, 619–620 and note 93–94
Mithridates
Allied Embassy to seek aid from, possibly led by Minius Iegius (late 89–
early 88 BCE): 405–406, 408, 547
slaughters Italians and Romans in Asia (88 BCE): 405 and note 95, 547–
548
Mommsen, Theodor
sympathy for Appian’s explanation for the Allied War: 57 and note 70
nomen Latinum: see “ius Latii”
INDEX 919
Nola
siege of by Allies (91–90 BCE): 250, 732–737 and supporting notes
not lifted by P. Licinius Crassus or any other Roman general in 90
BCE: 298–299
capture of by C. Papius Mutilus (90 BCE): 303, 732 and note 8, 733, 735–
737 and note 14, 751, 753
survivors of defeat of L. Cluentius at Pompeii by L. Cornelius Sulla take
refuge, besieged in (89 BCE): 385
unsuccessfully besieged by L. Cornelius Sulla (89 BCE): 385, 390 and note
69, 809
unsuccessful siege continued under Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus (89
BCE): 407–408 and note 99, 494 note 25
siege directed by Appius Claudius Pulcher, replacing Mam. Aemilius
Lepidus (88 BCE): 494–497 and supporting notes
siege lifted when legions surrounding it join L. Cornelius Cinna’s March
on Rome (87 BCE): 494–497 and supporting notes, 498
falls to L. Cornelius Sulla (81 BCE):628–629 and note 102
Norba
unsuccessfully attacked, probably by Cn. Cornelius Dolabella (82 BCE):
616
siege continued under Mam. Aemilius Lepidus (82 BCE): 619 and note 92
falls to Mam. Aemilius Lepidus, but inhabitants commit mass suicide (82
BCE): 628, 638, 666
novi cives
perhaps heavily recruited by C. Marius for Mithridatic War (88 BCE):
464–465 and note 74
extensive support for C. Marius (88 BCE): 464–465 and note 74
extensive support for L. Cornelius Cinna in Bellum Octavianum and later
(87–82 BCE): 494 and note 24, 496, 501, 518, 521, 547, 568–569, 577,
580 note 43, 634, 819, 821, 847
plans of L. Cornelius Cinna to redistribute into all the tribes and
difficulties encourered with: 483 and note 7, 487–490, 522, 538, 539–
541 and note 111, 546, 549, 564–569
redistributed in all the tribes by Cn. Papirius Carbo (84 BCE): 32, 569,
578–579 and note 40, 587, 847
extensive support for Cn. Papirius Carbo and the government against L.
Cornelius Sulla in the Civil War (83–82 BCE): 577, 580, 847–852 and
supporting notes, 586 and note 48, 602, 609, 611, 633, 819, 821
redistribution in all the tribes by Cn. Papirius Carbo (84 BCE),
arrangement not undone by L. Cornelius Sulla: 658–660 and note 48
functionally kept from much political power by the legislative programme

of L. Cornelius Sulla as dictator (82–79 BCE): 657–661 and especially
note 51, 664–666
mass confiscation of lands of, and city defense demolished by, by L.
Cornelius Sulla as dictator (82–79 BCE): 667 and note 60
very few have become members of the Senate by Cicero’s time: 657 and
note 44, 661 and note 51
Norbanus, Caius (cos. 83)
defeats M. Lamponius and C. Papius Mutilus at Rhegium (87 BCE): 408–
409, 497, 588
elected consul for 83 BCE (84 BCE): 588
unsuccessfully courted by L. Cornelius Sulla to change sides, then defeated
in battle near Casilinum (83 BCE): 590–591 and notes 55–56
retreats to Capua (83 BCE): 591
advances from Capua, possibly upon summons from L. Cornelius Scipio
so as to entrap L. Cornelius Sulla (83 BCE): 597
turns north to face L. Cornelius Sulla, but avoids him for the rest of the
year, ravages territory, and returns to Rome (83 BCE): 600–601
travels into the Cisalpine with Cn. Papirius Carbo (82 BCE): 622
heavily defeated with Cn. Papirius Carbo by Q. Metellus Pius at Faventia
(82 BCE): 622–623
betrayed by a legion of Lucani, which butchers his officers (82 BCE): 623
flees to Rhodes (82 BCE): 623
suicide of (81 BCE): 629
Nuceria
forced to join Alliance (90 BCE): 304 and note 32, 388 note 66
territory ravaged by Aulus Gabinius (89 BCE): 304 note 32, 388 and note
66
Obsidus
succeeds Herius Asinius as commander of Marrucini (late 90 BCE): 376–
377
defeated and killed in battle against Ser. Sulpicius Galba at Teaté (89
BCE): 376–377 and note 46, 378 note 48, 825
Otacilius
Roman naval commander (90 BCE): 329–330
replaced by Aulus Postumius Albinus (89 BCE): 329 note 75, 380 and
note 50
INDEX 921
Octavius, Cnaeus (cos. 87)

elected consul for 87 (88 BCE): 477
compelled to vow to support arrangements of L. Cornelius Sulla: 484 and
note 9, 487
expels L. Cornelius Cinna from Rome and declares him a hostis (87 BCE):
457 note 64, 487 note 11
preparations of for the return of L. Cornelius Cinna (87 BCE): 495, 501
and note 41, 506
summons Cn. Pompeius Strabo to help defend the city (87 BCE): 501 and
note 41, 506
stupidity and obstinacy of: 501 and note 41, 506, 520–521
successful counterattack against C. Marius and L. Cornelius Cinna at
Janiculum with Cn. Pompeius Strabo (87 BCE): 510
sends P. Licinius Crassus forward in unsuccessful attempt to destroy the
forces of L. Cornelius Cinna at Janiculum (87 BCE): 510–511
rebuffs suggestion of Cn. Pompeius Strabo to open negotiations with L.
Cornelius Cinna during siege of Rome: 512
assumes direct command of Cn. Pompeius Strabo’s soldiers upon death of
their general (87 BCE): 515
dispatches M. Antonius, Q. Lutatius Catulus, and son to bring back Q.
Metellus Pius to help defend Rome (87 BCE): 516
rules against suggestion of Q. Metellus Pius to make terms with L.
Cornelius Cinna before the Alban hills at advice of P. Licinius Crassus
(87 BCE): 519
sends P. Licinius Crassus to attack at the Alban hills, where he is defeated
by C. Flavius Fimbria before rescue by Q. Metellus Pius (87 BCE):
519–520
advised by P. Licinius Crassus to negotiate with L. Cornelius Cinna after
Alban Hills (87 BCE): 520
falling out with Q. Metellus Pius over latter’s negotiations with L.
Cornelius Cinna (87 BCE): 520–521
refuses to heed warning of L. Cornelius Cinna and vows to fight to the
last (87 BCE): 520–521
occupies Janiculum and is slain by C. Marcius Censorinus on order of L.
Cornelius Cinna (87 BCE): 524–525 and note 73
head placed on the rostra after death (87 BCE): 530 and note 83
Opimius, Lucius (cos. 121)
suppresses uprising at Fregellae (125 BCE): 73 and note 8, 176 and note
66, 179–181 and note 71, 198, 274, 717–718
elected consul: 199
Orosius, Paulus
utility of as source for the events of 91–77: 54 and note 64
sources of: 49, 54, 141, 686
Oxynta: 302–303, 306, 344
Paeligni
Papirius Carbo, Gnaeus (cos. 85)
succeeds Aulus Gabinius at latter’s death in Lucania (late 89–early 88
BCE): 389 and note 68, 497 and notes 32–33, 567
joins L. Cornelius Cinna for march on Rome with troops in Lucania (87
BCE): 389 note 68, 497 and notes 32–33, 567
adherence to L. Cornelius Cinna: possible reasons for: 497, 567
accepts one of the four commands of L. Cornelius Cinna’s army, possibly
initially as a subordinate to Cinna himself (87 BCE): 500 and note 40
redistributes novi cives into all the voting tribes (84 BCE): 32, 569, 578–579
and note 40, 847
joins the battle at the Janiculum (87 BCE): 510, 567
elected consul with L. Cornelius Cinna (86 BCE): 541, 567–568 and note
27
begins making preparations for the return of Sulla (85 BCE): 567–569,
572 and note 33
re-elected consul a second time with L. Cornelius Cinna (85 BCE): 567
note 27, 572
assumes command of all Roman forces in Italy on death L. Cornelius
Cinna (84 BCE): 577
brings back troops from Ancona and continues recruiting (84 BCE): 578
pressured to name a suffect consul upon death of L. Cornelius Cinna (84
BCE): 567 note 27, 578
unsuccessful attempt to elect a suffect consul (84 BCE): 578, 579–580 and
note 42
re-elected consul a third time with C. Marius the Younger (83 BCE): 606
receives reinforcements from Cisalpine Gaul (82 BCE): 611 and note 80
heads north to shore up Adriatic coast and besieges Q. Metellus Pius
somewhere close to the river Aesis (82 BCE): 614
defeated by Cn. Pompeius Magnus on the river Aesis (82 BCE): 614 and
note 84, 620
defeated by Q. Metellus Pius south of the Via Aemilia (82 BCE): 614–615,
620
heads back towards Rome pursued by Cn. Pompeius Magnus (82 BCE):
620–621
INDEX 923
defeated in a minor engagement near the river Glanis by L. Cornelius Sulla

(82 BCE): 621
fights L. Cornelius Sulla to a draw at Clusium (82 BCE): 621 and note 96
sends soldiers under C. Marcius Censorinus to relieve Praeneste (82 BCE):
621
sends soldiers to relieve Carrinas (82 BCE): 622
receives Carrinas and the remnants of the relief army at Clusium (82
BCE): 622
sends more soldiers to help relieve Praeneste (82 BCE): 622
leaves Clusium in the hands of L. Junius Brutus Demasippus (82 BCE):
622
heads to the Cisalpine with C. Norbanus (82 BCE): 622
heavily defeated with C. Norbanus by Q. Metellus Pius at Faventia (82
BCE): 622–623
heads back to Clusium after defeat at Faventia (82 BCE): 623
receives C. Marcius Censorinus and remnants of his army (82 BCE): 624
abandons Rome for Africa (82 BCE): 625
makes way to Sicily, where he is caught by Cn. Pompeius Magnus and
executed (81 BCE): 629–630 and note 104, 650 note 24
Papius Mutilus, Caius
Allied ‘consul’ (90 BCE): 287, 741, 743
theater of command (90 BCE): 287–288 and note 1
captures Nola (90 BCE): 303, 732 and note 8, 733, 735–737 and note 14
defeated by L Julius Caesar at Acerrae (90 BCE): 303, 305–306 and notes
35–36, 339, 353, 368, 750 note 2, 751, 766, 781
remains quiescent after Acerrae (90 BCE): 306–307 and notes 38–40, 328,
353, 781
defeated and wounded in battle at Beneventum against L. Cornelius Sulla
(89 BCE): 391–392, 810–812
continues war against Romans under overall command of Q. Poppaedius
Silo (88 BCE): 404
unsuccessfully besieges Isiae with M. Lamponius (87 BCE): 408 and note
100
defeated with M. Lamponius by C. Norbanus at Rhegium (87 BCE): 407–
408 and note 99, 497, 588
probably defeats Plautius, legate of Q. Metellus Pius, with M. Lampoinus
(87 BCE): 517–518
proscribed by L. Cornelius Sulla, commits suicide when refused admission
to his house by his wife (82–81 BCE): 666
Periochae
chronological peculiarities of: 250–251 and note 38, 738–740 and note 1
brevity of: 48 and notes 44–45
Perperna, Caius (Marcus?)
as legate of P. Rutilius Lupus (90 BCE): 308–309 and note 41
positioned south of Reate (90 BCE): 308–309 and note 41
defeated by P. Praesentius, possibly near Alba Fucens (90 BCE): 312 and
note 45, 313 note 48, 320, 323, 744, 754, 756, 759
cashiered and troops transferred to Caius Marius (90 BCE): 312, 323
Perperna, Marcus (cos. 92)
possibly legate of P. Rutilius Lupus who was defeated and cashiered in 90
BCE: 312 note 45, 544
named censor and completes both review of the Senate and census with
L. Marcius Philippus (86 BCE): 544
long lifespan of: 541–542, 544
and Italians/novi cives: 544
Perperna, Marcus
governor of Sicily, provides safe harbor to Cn. Papirius Carbo and M.
Junius Brutus Damasippus (82 BCE): 629
evades Cn. Pompeius Strabo, sent by L. Cornelius Sulla against him, and
goes into hiding (82 BCE): 629
joins the revolt of M. Aemilius Lepidus (78 BCE): 673
murder of Q. Sertorius (72): 674
Picentes
surrender to Gn. Pompaeus Strabo (89 BCE): 406
Picentia
forced to join Alliance (90 BCE): 305
destroyed by Aulus Gabinius (89 BCE): 305
Pinna
siege of (91 BCE): 250, 366
falls to Allies (90 BCE): 328 note 74
Plautius, Aulus, see “Plotius, Aulus”
Plotius, Aulus
campaign against Umbrians: 256, 331–333 and supporting notes, 356, 370,
752, 781, 786–787, 789, 790
difficulties of: 332 and note 81
INDEX 925
Plutarch
and prejudice against Caius Marius: 63 and note 83
sources of: 38–39 and notes 16–18, 62–63, 854, 770
Pompeii
membership in Alliance (91 BCE): 303–304 and note 32, 388 note 66
as naval base for Allies (90 BCE): 330 and note 77, 383
capture of (89 BCE): 304 note 32, 386 and note 64, 825
timing: 825
put under siege by L. Cornelius Sulla and Aul. Postumius Albinus (89
BCE): 383
siege of (89 BCE): 383–384
L. Cluentius narrowly defeated by L. Cornelius Sulla outside (89 BCE):
384–385, 591
L. Cluentius defeated a second time outside of, driven back to Nola, and
killed in battle against L. Cornelius Sulla (89 BCE): 385, 386 note 64
Pompeius Magnus, Gnaeus (cos. 70)
popularity amongst soldiers of his father Cn. Pompeius Strabo (89–87
attempted murder of by soldiers of his father at the alleged behest of L.
Cornelius Cinna and role in foiling the plot (87 BCE): 513 and note 61
defended in a criminal trial by L. Marcius Philippus (86 BCE): 501 and
note 42
alleged role in the mutiny against L. Cornelius Cinna at Ancona (84 BCE):
576 note 38, 577 note 39
begins recruiting soldiers for the coming war (84–82 BCE): 577 note 39,
584 and note 46
probably inspires a law making the raising of private armies illegal (84–82
BCE): 585–586 and note 47
defeats armies sent against him under L. Junius Brutus Damasippus and L.
Cornelius Scipio in Picenum (83 BCE): 603–604 and note 71
decides to join L. Cornelius Sulla, and greeting of “Imperator” is returned
by same (83 BCE): 604
sent north by L. Cornelius Sulla to aid Q. Metellus Pius at latter’s request
(82 BCE): 613–614
defeats Carrinas near the Aesis River with Q. Metellus Pius (82 BCE): 614
defeats Cn. Papirius Carbo near the Aesis River with Q. Metellus Pius (82
BCE): 614 and note 84, 620
defeats an army probably commanded by C. Marcius Censorinus on the
Adriatic coast, likely at Sena Gallica (82 BCE): 615 and note 85
separates from Q. Metellus Pius and heads down the Via Flaminia (82
BCE): 615
defeats and surrounds Carrinas with M. Licinius Crassus at Spoletium (82
BCE): 622
evaded by Carrinas at Spoletium (82 BCE): 622
ambushes and defeats C. Marcius Censorinus in a defile near Via Flaminia
(82 BCE): 623–624
traps C. Marcius Censorinus on a hilltop, but is evaded (82 BCE): 624
defeats army of Cn. Papirius Carbo at Clusium (82 BCE): 625
summoned with M. Licinius Crassus south against C. Marcius Censorinus,
M. Junius Brutus Damasippus, and Carrinas by L. Cornelius Sulla (82
BCE): 626
dispatched by L. Cornelius Sulla to hunt down M. Junius Brutus
Damasippus and Cn. Papirius Carbo, who are both soon dead (82
BCE): 629–630 and note 104
triumph of: 645 and note 15, 650 note 24, 664
role in suppression of the revolt of M. Aemilius Lepidus: 674
restores all traditional powers of the tribunate with M. Licinius Crassus
(70 BCE): 676
Pompeius Rufus, Quintus (cos. 88)
elected consul for 88 (89 BCE): 402
one-time amity with P. Sulpicius Rufus (88 BCE): 434
enmity with P. Sulpicius Rufus (88 BCE): 434
marital connection with L. Cornelius Sulla (88 BCE): 443 note 46, 455
assigned province of Italy (89 BCE): 482 note 4
declares feriae with L. Cornelius Sulla to end voting on laws of P. Sulpicius
Rufus (88 BCE): 453
reasons for: 453–454 and note 61
threatened with arrest with L. Cornelius Sulla by P. Sulpicius Rufus unless
he suspends feriae (88 BCE): 454–455
loses son in violence which erupts after P. Sulpicius Rufus declares feriae
illegal (88 BCE): 455, 461
flees Rome after death of son (88 BCE): 455
consulate allegedly voided by P. Sulpicius Rufus (88 BCE): 457 note 64
joins L. Cornelius Sulla’s march on Rome (88 BCE): 463
declares P. Sulpicius Rufus, M. Junius Brutus, and C. Marius outlaws with
L. Cornelius Sulla (88 BCE): 466
proposes no laws be proffered without Senate’s approval with L.
Cornelius Sulla (88 BCE): 466–467, 544–545, 651–652
proposes end of tribune’s ability to make laws with L. Cornelius Sulla (88
BCE): 466–467, 544–545, 612, 652 and note 32
INDEX 927
proposes to adlect 300 men into the Senate with L. Cornelius Sulla (88
BCE): 467–468
probably unable to pass laws proposed with L. Cornelius Sulla save
restoration of proconsular commands (88 BCE): 467 and note 76, 486
note 10, 646, 648, 651–652
persuaded to go to province and relieve Cn. Pompeius Strabo (88 BCE):
475–476
timing of: 475 and note 91
killed by soldiers of Cn. Pompeius Strabo (88 BCE): 476, 513 note 60
Pompeius Strabo, Gnaeus (cos. 89)
as legate to L. Julius Caesar: 308–309 and note 41
detached from line of L. Julius Caesar and sent into Picenum: 308–309
and note 41
defeated at Falerio near Asculum by T. Lafrenius, C. Vidacilius, and P.
Vettius Scato (90 BCE): 294, 301–302 and note 28, 309–311 and
notes 42–44, 321 and note 63, 366, 752, 760
besieged by T. Lafrenius at Firmum (90 BCE): 302, 311–312, 321, 366,
513 note 60, 752, 760
defeats T. Lafrenius, who is killed in battle, at Firmum (90 BCE): 321–322
and notes 64–65, 331, 368, 419, 752, 756, 770–771
launches second assault on Asculum, puts it to siege (90 BCE): 339, 368,
513 note 60, 752, 759, 770–771
attacked by C. Vidacilius near Asculum (late 90 BCE): 322–323 and note
66, 368
relieved at Asculum by Sex. Julius Caesar (late 90 BCE): 291 note 7, 323,
328, 759
elected consul for 89 (late 90 BCE): 323, 369, 419, 781
returns from election to Asculum (89 BCE): 369–370 and note 33, 371,
786, 817 note 4
possibly lent soldiers from the southern army for assault on Asculum (89
BCE): 371, 372 note 37, 375, 380, 392, 383, 762, 796, 817 note 4
defeats Fraucus, who dies in battle, near Asculum (89 BCE): 370–371 and
note 35, 378 note 45, 785–792 and supporting notes, 817 note 4
engages in parley with P. Vettius Scato before battle outside Asculum (89
BCE): 22, 35 note 6, 372–373 and notes 37–38, 397, 501–502, 762,
782 note 17, 785–792 and supporting notes, 817 note 4, 825 note 13
defeats P. Vettius Scato and C. Vidacilius outside Asculum (89 BCE): 373,
397, 785–792 and supporting notes, 817 note 4
continues siege of Asculum after defeating P. Vettius Scato and C.

Vidacilius (89 BCE): 373–374, 513 note 60, 785–792 and supporting
notes
wages brief but succcessful campaign into the territory of the Vestini (89
BCE): 375, 387, 793
returns from foray against the Vestini to press siege of Asculum (89 BCE):
375, 380, 793
captures Asculum (late 89 BCE): 400–401 and notes 86–88, 752, 786
receives surrender of Paeligni and Vestini (88 BCE): 406, 739, 795
receives surrender of Picentes (late 89 BCE): 406, 795
allows soldiers to loot Asculum (late 89 BCE): 400–401 and notes 86–88,
513 note 60
allegedly falls into disfavor in Rome for not donating spoils from Asculum
to the treasury (89–88 BCE): 400–401 and notes 86–88, 503, 505–506
and note 50
celebrates triumph for capture of Asculum (late 89 BCE): 180 note 71,
400–401 and notes 86–88, 503
holds elections in Rome (late 89 BCE): 402
alleged desire for second consulate (88–87 BCE): 402, 503, 504–505 and
note 48
prorogued for 88 (89 BCE): 402, 464, 482 note 4
enfranchises Spanish cavalry per lex Julia (89 BCE): 358, 501, 778
Senatorial displeasure towards: 503 and note 44, 505
does not attempt to halt L. Cornelius Sulla’s March on Rome (88 BCE):
503–505
reasons for: 503–504
to be relieved by Q. Pompeius Rufus (88 BCE): 475–476, 503–504
timing of: 475 and note 91
displeasure at being superseded by Q. Pompeius Rufus (88 BCE): 475–
476 and note 92
resumes charge of his men after their murder of Q. Pompeius Rufus (88
BCE): 476, 503–504
not prosecuted for murder of Q. Pompeius Rufus (88 BCE): 476
possibly charged for maiestas for murder of Q. Pompeius Rufus (88 BCE):
476, 505–506 and note 50
possible attempt of L. Cornelius Sulla to have him removed from
command vetoed (88 BCE): 475 note 91, 476
slowness in responding to summons of Cn. Octavius (87 BCE): 501
and thoughts on extending the civitas to the Allies: 502–503
INDEX 929
relationship with P. Sulpicius Rufus: 504 and notes 45–46, 505–506 and
note 50, 837–840 and supporting notes
attempts to negotiate with L. Cornelius Cinna (87 BCE): 506
arrives at Rome and wards off a cavalry attack by C. Marius (87 BCE): 506
successful counterattack against C. Marius and L. Cornelius Cinna at
Janiculum with Cn. Octavius (87 BCE): 510
recalls P. Licinius Crassus in the dying light of the battle at Janiculum,
allegedly for sinister purposes (87 BCE): 510–511 and note 58, 519
general popularity of amongst soldiers: 513 note 60
erosion of morale of soldiers during siege of Rome (87 BCE): 513
mutiny against and attempted murder of during siege of Rome, allegedly at
behest of L. Cornelius Cinna: 513 and note 61
suggests negotiating with L. Cornelius Cinna during siege of Rome, and
conducts these personally when his suggestion is refused: 512–513
and note 61
death of (87 BCE): 504 note 47, 514–515 and note 62
soldiers of whom upon his death taken over by Cn. Octavius (87 BCE):
515
Pontidius, Caius
succeeds to command of the Vestini upon death of T. Lafrenius (90–89
BCE): 374 and notes 40–41, 743–744 and notes 8–9
defers command of resistance of siege of Asculum to C. Vidacilius (90–89
BCE): 374
resumes command of resistance of siege of Asculum upon suicide of
Vidacilius (89 BCE): 374
Poppaedius Silo, Quintus
as a major organizer of the Alliance: 237–241 and supporting notes, 243,
409, 415 note 107
connections with M. Livius Drusus: 202, 216 and note 139, 237–238 and
supporting notes, 239–240, 725, 727
alleged march to Rome in response to the lex Licinia Mucia: 209 and note
121, 238–239 and notes 20–21
as Allied ‘consul’ (90 BCE): 287, 741, 743
theater of command (90 BCE): 287–288 and note 1
pretended defection to Q. Servilius Caepio (90 BCE): 318, 323, 341, 752
ambushes and defeats Q. Servilius Caepio at Amiternum, leading to
Caepio’s death (90 BCE): 318–319, 320, 341, 366, 405 note 107, 419,
426, 751–752, 756, 759, 760–761, 838
maneuvers against C. Marius in Tolenus Valley (90 BCE): 323–324, 393,
761, 769
fights C. Marius to a draw in Tolenus Valley (90 BCE): 323–324, 393, 761
defeated by C. Marius at Vineyards (Sora) (90 BCE): 325–326 and notes
69 and 71, 331, 339, 368, 393, 426, 751, 752, 753, 763–774 and
supporting notes
faces C. Marius in abortive skirmish after Vineyards (Sora) (90 BCE): 237
note 18, 326–327, 331, 368, 752, 772–773, 796
possible defeat by L. Porcius Cato (89 BCE): 796–797
possibe maneuvers against L. Cornelius Cinna, and defeat by him (89–88
BCE): 796–797
continues fight against Romans as overall commander of remaining Allies
(88 BCE): 398–399, 404
reasons for: 415 note 107
recaptures Bovianum Undecimanorum and celebrates triumph for it (88
BCE): 407, 408 note 99
defeated and killed in battle against Mam. Aemilius Lepidus (88 BCE):
407–408 and note 99, 494 note 25, 817 and note 2
Porcius Cato the Younger, Marcus: 216 and note 139, 237 and note 18
Porcius Cato, Lucius (cos.89)
campaign against Etruscans (90 BCE): 256, 331–333 and supporting
notes, 356, 370, 392, 419, 752, 771, 781, 786–787, 789, 790
difficulties of: 332 and note 81, 343 note 91
elected consul for 89 (late 90 BCE): 380, 419, 781
poor quality of soldiers under in 89 BCE: 246–247 and notes 29–30, 342–
343 and note 91, 393 and note 74
replaces legates inherited from L. Julius Caesar (89 BCE): 380–381 and
notes 49–52, 796
possible enmity with C. Marius: 394–395 and note 77, 427 and note 16
perhaps lent soldiers to Cn. Pompeius Strabo for Asculum campaign (89
BCE): 371, 372 note 37, 375, 380, 383, 392, 762, 796
takes up position on the Tolenus River (89 BCE): 381 and note 56
mutiny of soldiers under (89 BCE): 343 note 91, 393–394, 576
launches campaign to relieve Alba Fucens (89 BCE): 393
successfully relieves Alba Fucens (89 BCE): 394 and note 76
successful campaigns of (89 BCE): 394, 796 and note 5
death of (89 BCE): 387, 394–395 and notes 77–78, 796
timing: 386 note 64
soldiers under direct command of led by L. Cornelius Cinna after death of
(89 BCE): 395
soldiers south of Alba Fucens taken over by T. Didius upon death of (89
BCE): 387
INDEX 931
Posidonius
and theme of moral degeneracy: 39 and note 20, 40, 42 note 25
as eyewitness of events of 91–77: 39–40
as source for Appian: 60 and note 75
as source for Livy: 37, 39 and note 19
as source for Diodorus Siculus: 39 and note 19
as source for Strabo: 66
lost work as source known to have covered the events of 91–77: 39–40
Postumius Albinus, Lucius (cos. 174): 129 and note 12, 250
Postumius Albinus, Aulus (cos. 99)
replaces Otacilius as legate over Roman navy (89 BCE): 329 note 75, 380
and note 50, 383 note 57
helps L. Cornelius Sulla besiege Pompeii (89 BCE): 383
murdered by his own men at Pompeii (89 BCE): 383, 387, 459
timing: 386 note 64
Postumius, Lucius
diverted from Cilician command to defend Nola, and death at the hands
of C. Papius Mutilus (91–90 BCE): 732–737 and supporting notes
as alleged Roman investigator into Allied war preparations (91 BCE): 732–
Praeneste
C. Marius the Younger stores treasure in (82 BCE): 605, 618
besieged by Q. Lucretius Ofella (82 BCE): 618–619, 621 and note 96
unsuccessful attempts to relieve by Cn. Papirius Carbo and M. Junius
Brutus Damasippus (82 BCE): 621, 622, 624
unsuccessful attempts by C. Marius the Younger to break out of (82
BCE): 624
attempt to relieve by M. Lamponius, Pontius Telesinus, and Gutta
thwarted by L. Cornelius Sulla (82 BCE): 624
attempt to relieve by Carrinas, C. Marcius Censorinus, and M. Junius
Brutus Damasippus thwarted by L. Cornelius Sulla (82 BCE): 625
opens gates to Q. Lucretius Ofella, who loots town (82 BCE): 628
prisoners from ordered butchered by L. Cornelius Sulla (82 BCE): 636
and note 1, 666, 670
Praesentius, Publius
commander of the Paeligni (90 BCE): 289, 744, 745–746
defeats Caius (Marcus?) Perperna (90 BCE): 312 and note 45, 313 note 48,
320, 323, 744, 753, 756, 759
defeated by Sex. Julius Caesar on the via Salaria (90 BCE): 291 note 7,
319–320 and notes 61–62, 321 note 64, 327, 756–763 and supporting
notes
praetors (στρατηγοί), Allied: 258, 262–265 and supporting notes, 288 and note 2,
741
commanded men from their own communities: 288, 741 and note 3
prisoners
enrollment into Allied army: 302–303, 305 and note 33
proscription
Sulla’s invention of: 526, 639
terms of in regards to property: 642 note 12, 643
Quinctius
legate either of C. Norbanus or Cn. Papirius Carbo defeated by M.
Lucullus at Fidentia (82 BCE): 623, 624–625 and note 99
Ravenna
Cn. Papirius Carbo and C. Norbanus heavily defeated by Q. Metellus Pius
(82 BCE): 622–623
Rhegium
defeat of C. Papius Mutilus and M. Lamponius by C. Norbanus (87 BCE):
408–409, 497
Rhetorica ad Herennium
and the “Alternative Tradition”: 22
utility of as source for the events of 91–77: 64–65 and notes 87–88
roadbuilding, Roman: 127 note 118
Roman involvement in Italy: 126–131 and supporting notes, 134, 164, 334
Roman use of Allied towns as safe havens/prisons: 128 and note 120, 302–303
Romans
and Allied requests for aid: 126–127 and notes 116–117, 334
as “guardians of Italy”: 87 and note 37, 114, 137–138
as peacekeepers within Italy: 86–87, 114, 126, 206 and note 113, 236 note
14, 334
Rome
siege of by forces of L. Cornelius Cinna (87 BCE): 507, 511–512
debt crisis in (89–86 BCE): 434, 539–546 and supporting notes, 817 note
4
INDEX 933
“Romanization” of Allies: 73, 85, 131–132, 134–135

Rutilius Lupus, Publius (cos. 90)
commander of the northern Roman forces (90 BCE): 308
legates of (90 BCE): 308–309 and note 41
quarrels with C. Marius (90 BCE): 246 note 29, 313–314, 341, 392, 429
lured into battle at the Tolenus River by P. Vettius Scato (90 BCE): 313–
315, 323, 384
defeated and killed in battle at the Tolenus River against P. Vettius Scato
(90 BCE): 315–316 and notes 50–51, 338 note 89, 341, 419, 751, 753
Rutilius Rufus, Publius (cos. 105): 123 note 112, 210–211 and notes 124–126, 212
extortion trial of as motivation for Marcus Livius Drusus (91 BCE): 212–
213 and notes 130 and 133
Sacriportus
location of: 616 note 88
defeat of C. Marius the Younger by L. Cornelius Sulla in (82 BCE): 614,
616–618 and notes 88–91
Salapia
burned by C. Cosconius (89 BCE): 378
Salernum
Sallustius Crispus, Caius
as source for Exsuperantius: 62 note 80
as source for Florus: 53 note 60
deference to L. Cornelius Sisenna: 37 and note 10, 38 note 13
Salluvii
revolt of suppressed by C. Caelius/Coelius Caldus (?) (90 BCE): 245 note
28, 330–331 and note 78, 344, 385 and note 61
send reinforcements to Allies (89 BCE): 344, 385 and note 61
Samnites
tendency to refer to all Allies despite their actual origins as in Roman
authors: 385 note 62, 744 note 14
as a people known to have written about their own history: 33 note 1
not observed in the sources as varying from the other socii and instead
desiring independence: 228 and note 5
continue fighting until 87 BCE: 415–416, 418, 820–821
reasons for: 415–416 and note 108, 515–516 and note 66, 820–821
exorbitant terms made to Q. Metellus Pius to bring about peace, which are
rejected (87 BCE): 515–516
conclude terms and receive civitas from L. Cornelius Cinna (87 BCE): 356
and note 9, 515–516 and note 66, 546, 549, 826
defeat Plautius, legate of Q. Metellus Pius, probably under
C. Papius Mutilus (87 BCE): 517–518
as soldiers fighting under C. Marius the Younger, massacred by L.
Cornelius Sulla after Sacriportus (82 BCE): 618 and note 91
soldiers butchered by L. Cornelius Sulla after the Colline Gate (82 BCE):
636–637 and note 1, 645–646, 666, 670
practically driven to extinction by L. Cornelius Sulla (82–79 BCE): 670–
secessio
Allied War as a type of: 229–233, 234, 240–241, 243, 285–286, 342
Second Punic War (218–202 BCE)
effects on Italy and Italians: 98, 119 and note 101
Sempronius Asellio, Aulus
murder of (89 BCE): 539 and note 109, 817 note 4
Sempronius Gracchus, Caius
alleged opposition to the lex Junia (126 BCE): 703–707 and supporting
notes
early career of (126–124 BCE): 167, 182–184 and supporting notes
trial of for alleged involvement with Fregellae (124 BCE): 183
and Italian enfranchisement (123–122 BCE): 184–186, 188 and note 82,
191–192 and note 88, 193–195 and note 91, 195, 198–199 and note
101, 200, 201–202, 479, 699 note 2, 703–707 and supporting notes,
714–715, 719
legislative programme of (123–122 BCE): 123 and note 111, 127 note 118,
188–192 and note 82 and 88, 211 and notes 127–128
necessity of winning broad appeal for (123 BCE): 184–188 and
Sempronius Gracchus, Tiberius
activities a cause for Allied War: 130, 142, 224
passes the lex Sempronia agraria (133 BCE): 146
and concern for the Italian Allies (133 BCE): 142, 148, 151–152 and notes
25–26, 154 and note 28, 693–702 and supporting notes
death of (133 BCE): 160, 167, 199
INDEX 935
Sena Gallica
probably location for defeat of C. Marcius Censorinus by Cn. Pompeius
Magnus (82 BCE): 615 and note 85, 623
‘senate’, Allied: 258, 260–262 and supporting notes, 263–264
Senate, Roman
and tactics used by to obstruct legislative bills of which it disapproved:
186–187 and note 80, 190, 193 note 89, 297 and note 97
hostility to C. Marius: 105–107 and note 75, 290, 381 and note 53, 420–
427, 430, 456, 461
membership greatly diminished between 87–82 BCE: 642 and note 13
Sergius Catilina, Lucius
role in the murder and dismemberment of M. Marius Gratidianus (82
revolt of (63 BCE): 674
Sertorius, Quintus
early career of: 593, 856
service under C. Marius during Cimbric Wars (103–101 BCE): 446 note
52, 592, 593
possible service under Q. Servilius Caepio and presence at Amiternum:
593 and note 58, 856
recruits aid from Gauls during Allied War: 344
enmity with L. Cornelius Sulla: 476 note 93, 494 and note 23, 592, 593–
594, 595–596, 599, 855–856 note 6, 858
candidacy for tribunate of 87 blocked by L. Cornelius Sulla (88 BCE): 476
note 93, 595–596
joins L. Cornelius Cinna in exile and subsequent march on Rome: 493–
494
cautions L. Cornelius Cinna against employment of C. Marius (87 BCE):
499 and note 39
accepts one of the four commands of L. Cornelius Cinna’s army (87
begins investment of Rome from the northwest (87 BCE): 507
joins the battle at the Janiculum (87 BCE): 510
slaughters the Bardyaei (87 BCE): 535–536 and note 100
as legate to L. Cornelius Scipio, unsuccessfully advises him to avoid
negotiating with L. Cornelius Sulla at Teanum (83 BCE): 592, 595, 855
note 6
captures Suessa Aurunca, possibly on order of L. Cornelius Scipio as part

of a plan to entrap L. Cornelius Sulla at Teanum (83 BCE): 594–597
and supporting notes, 853–858 and supporting notes
probably not defeated, captured and released by L. Cornelius Sulla after
Suessa Aurunca (83 BCE): 600, 601 note 67
possibly becomes disgruntled at the government (83 BCE): 607–609 and
note 78
accepts a propraetorian command in Spain (83 BCE): 606 and note 77
carries on resistance in Spain (82–72): 674
murder by M. Perperna: 674
Servilius Caepio, Quintus (cos. 106): 211 note 127, 318–319, 425–426, 492, 593,
855
Servilius Caepio the Younger, Quintus
enmity with M. Livius Drusus: 212 and note 131, 318 and note 56
alleged friendship with C. Marius: 426
battlefield inexperience of (90 BCE): 425–426 and note 12, 838
as legate to P. Rutilius Lupus (90 BCE): 308–309 and note 41
positioned near Reate (90 BCE): 308–309 and note 41
besieged by Allies and escape (90 BCE): 317
divided command of northern army with C. Marius after death of P.
Rutilius Lupus (90 BCE): 317 and note 55, 419, 426, 751
ambushed, defeated, and killed in battle against Q. Poppaedius Silo near
Amiternum (90 BCE): 318–319, 320, 323, 341, 366, 415 note 107,
419, 426, 593, 752, 756, 759, 760–761, 838
Servilius, Quintus
investigator into Allied activity in 91 BCE: 242, 730 and note 3
murder at Asculum with his legate Fonteius (91 BCE): 242, 730, 731
Servilius Vatia, Publius (cos. 79)
possible Cilician command of in place of L. Postumius (90 BCE): 245
note 28, 734–735
unsuccessful run for consul (88 BCE): 476–477 and note 94, 734–735
Setia
defeat of C. Marius the Younger, probably by Cn. Cornelius Dolabella (82
slaves
enrollment into Allied armies: 302–303, 341, 395 and note 33, 407
socii
ways Allies became: 79
INDEX 937
grievances with Rome before 91 BCE: 20, 74–75, 88–134 and supporting
notes, 139, 164–165, 170, 208, 210, 219–220, 223–225, 280, 333–334,
479, 675
identity with Romans in the Greek East: 120–121 and note 104, 124, 131,
134–135, 547–548
élites and Rome: 125 and note 115, 137, 153, 202
mechanisms for selecting soldiers for Roman army: 82 and note 25, 102
and supporting notes, 104, 164–165, 244, 675
mistreatment by Roman magistrates: 129–130 and note 12, 137, 170, 675
internal divisions about going to war with Rome (91–87 BCE): 69–70 and
note 1, 236 note 14, 249–250 and supporting notes, 256–257 and
notes 45–47, 292 note 10, 302–305 and supporting notes, 334–338
and supporting notes, 358 and note 15, 385–386 and note 63, 849
and L. Cornelius Sulla: 23, 32
sources for the Allied War
lack of those composed by Italians themselves: 33–34, 69, 163, 232, 285
Spoletium
defeat and investment at of Carrinas by M. Licinius Crassus and Cn.
Pompeius Magnus (82 BCE): 622
Stabiae
forced to join Alliance (90 BCE): 305, 388 note 66
captured and destroyed by L. Cornelius Sulla (mid–89 BCE): 386 note 64,
387
Strabo
utility as source for the events of 91–77: 66
Suessa Aurunca
town loyal to L. Cornelius Sulla captured by Q. Sertorius, perhaps as part
of a plan of L. Cornelius Scipio to entrap L. Cornelius Sulla near
Teanum (83 BCE): 594–597 and supporting notes, 853–858 and
supporting notes
Sulpicius Galba, Servius
Roman investigator into Allied activity (91 BCE): 248–249 and note 34,
730–731 and note 4 rescue of (91 BCE): 249
as subordinate to Cn. Pompeius Strabo instead of P. Sulpicius Rufus as his
subordinate: 383 note 45, 837–838 and note 1
subordinate to Cn. Pompeius Strabo also investigator into Allied War
preparations in 91 BCE: 321 and note 64, 838 and note 4
role in defeat of Titus Lafrenius by Cn. Pompeius Strabo at Firmum (90

BCE): 321–322 and notes 64–65, 368, 756, 837
subordinate of Cn. Pompeius Strabo (89 BCE): 321, 794–795 and note 2
defeats Obsidus, who dies in battle, at Teaté (89 BCE): 376–377 and note
46, 378 note 48, 739, 794–795 and note 2, 800, 825, 837
relieved in 88 BCE: 403
Sulpicius Rufus, Publius
friends with M. Livius Drusus (pre–91 BCE): 431
one-time staunch optimate (pre–88 BCE): 431–432 and note 28, 480, 831
and service in the Allied War: 321 note 64, 383 note 45, 757 note 2, 837–
839
one-time friendship with Q. Pompeius Rufus (pre–88 BCE): 434
opposes C. Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus in his run for consulate (88
BCE): 432, 433, 440, 831–836
used violence to oppose C. Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus in his run for
consulate (88 BCE): 433, 434, 831
break from optimates (pre–88 BCE): 434–439, 452, 461, 480, 831
reasons for: 433–434, 831
timing of: 434–439
enmity with Q. Pompeius Rufus (88 BCE): 434
association with C. Marius (88 BCE): 440, 831
reasons for: 440
kept secret until spring of 88: 441, 455–456 and note 63
employs bodyguards (‘Anti–Senate’) (88 BCE): 440–441 and note 39, 453–
454 and note 60
role of in murder of son of Q. Pompeius Rufus: 455
debt law of (88 BCE): 434, 438, 440, 452–453, 466–467
law to recall exiles (88 BCE): 434–435 and note 34, 438, 440, 452–453,
466–467
law to redistribute novi cives into all voting tribes (88 BCE): 32, 436–437,
438, 440, 452–453, 453–454, 465, 466, 475, 480, 488, 490
also included freedmen: 438 and note 37, 462
opposed by L. Cornelius Sulla: 32, 466–467
law to remove proconsular commands from L. Cornelius Sulla and Q.
Pompeius Rufus (88 BCE): 466–467
legislative programme of
reasons for (88 BCE): 480, 488, 490
need to gain popular support for (88 BCE): 438–439
Senate’s opposition to (88 BCE): 480
attempts to pass met with violence (88 BCE): 452–453, 835–836
INDEX 939
voting on halted by feriae declared by L. Cornelius Sulla and Q.

Pompeius Rufus (88 BCE): 453
passed upon lifting of feriae (88 BCE): 439–441, 457
legality of passage (88 BCE): 457–458 and note 66, 461
declares feriae enacted by L. Cornelius Sulla and Q. Pompeius Rufus illegal
and threatens to arrest them unless ended (88 BCE): 454–455
declaration of illegality of feriae met with violence (88 BCE): 455, 461
allegedly passes legislative programme through vis (88 BCE): 457–458 and
note 66
allegedly voids consulate of Q. Pompeius Rufus (88 BCE): 457 note 64
transfers Mithridatic command from L. Cornelius Sulla to C. Marius (88
BCE): 457–458
allegedly plunders property of supporters of L. Cornelius Sulla with C.
Marius (88 BCE): 31, 460
declared outlaw by L. Cornelius Sulla and Q. Pompeius Rufus (88 BCE):
466, 477
relationship with Cn. Pompeius Strabo: 321 note 64, 383 note 45, 504 and
notes 45 and 46, 837–840 and supporting notes
murder of: 466, 480
Surrentum
Teanum
as base of operations for L. Julius Caesar (90 BCE): 294 and note 12 and
14, 766
Teaté
Obsidus defeated and killed in battle against Ser. Sulpicius Galba (89
BCE): 376–377 and note 46, 378 note 48, 825
Telesinus, Pontius
a possible commander of the Samnites (88 BCE): 404 note 93, 408 note
100
attempt to relieve Praeneste with M. Lamponius and Gutta thwarted by L.
Cornelius Sulla (82 BCE): 624
breaks through passes at Praeneste and heads north towards Rome (82
BCE): 626
exhorts men to “kill the wolves by destroying their lair” at the Colline
Gate (82 BCE): 24 note 32, 266 note 68, 626
defeated with C. Marcius Censorinus and Carrinas at the Colline Gate, and
dies in combat (82 BCE): 627

Ofella (82 BCE): 627–628
Terentius Varro Lucullus, Marcus (cos. 73)
sent into the Cisalpine by L. Cornelius Sulla (82 BCE): 621
defeats Quinctius, a legate of C. Papirius Carbo or C. Norbanus, at
Fidentia (82 BCE): 623, 624–625 and note 99
Titius/Titinnus, Caius
ringleader of mutiny against L. Porcius Cato (89 BCE) 394 and note 75
Titius, Sextus (99 BCE): 207 and note 115
Tolenus River
strategic importance of (90 BCE): 290, 308
P. Rutilius Lupus defeated and killed in battle against P. Vettius Scato (90
BCE): 315–316 and notes 50–51, 341, 419, 751, 753
Trebatius
commander of the Apuli (90–89 BCE): 289, 301 note 28, 378, 747–748
and notes 21–25
may have supplied troops to C. Papius Mutilus for Acerrae (90 BCE): 305
other speculated actions in 90 BCE: 301 note 28
defeats C. Cosconius at Canusium (89 BCE): 378, 747, 825
defeated by C. Cosconius at Cannae, retreats to Canusium (late 89 BCE):
378–379, 747
Tribunate
proposals to diminish powers of offered by Q. Pompeius Rufus and L.
Cornelius Sulla (88 BCE): 466–467, 544–545, 612, 652 and note 32
laws to diminish powers of by L. Cornelius Sulla (82–79 BCE): 652–654
and note 32, 660, 665
triumviri ad dividendum agrum
creation of (133 BCE): 155
difficulties encountered from and impediments to land adjudication: 156–
158 and supporting notes, 160–163 and supporting notes, 166, 168–
169, 181–182, 184, 185–186, 188, 191–192 and note 88, 200
Tullius Cicero, Marcus (cos. 63)
utility as source for the events of 91–77: 21–25 and note 31, 35 and note
8, 64
and the Gracchi: 35 note 8, 697 note 6, 706
and the “Alternative Tradition”: 22–25 and note 31
on the excellence of L. Cornelius Sisenna’s work: 37 and note 10
INDEX 941
role in the Allied War: 22, 35 note 6, 372–373 and notes 37–38, 501–502,
762, 782 note 17, 785–792 and supporting notes, 817 note 4, 825 note
13
unwritten history of: 34–36 and supporting notes
Umbrians
late entry into Allied War: 89 note 40, 255, 344
campaign of Aulus Plotius against (90 BCE): 256, 331–333 and supporting
notes, 356, 370, 752, 781, 786–787, 789, 790
difficulties of: 332 and note 81
effect of lex Julia on (90 BCE): 334–335, 337–338 and note 89, 355, 356,
360, 775, 781
Valerius Flaccus, Lucius (cos. 100)
may have been behind attempt to bestow a “pocket commission” on L.
Cornelius Sulla if necessary (86 BCE): 554–555 and supporting notes
has Senate send a counteroffer to L. Cornelius Sulla offering to revoke his
outlawry for forestall war (85 BCE): 572 and note 31
named interrex and bidden by L. Cornelius Sulla to name him dictator (82
Valerius Flaccus, Lucius (cos. 86)
chosen as suffect consul to succeed C. Marius (86 BCE): 537–538, 551
passes law to ease debt crisis (86 BCE): 540
military inexperience of: 552
sent as proconsul against Mithridates (86 BE): 552
possible reasons for (86 BCE): 552–553
probable intent to avoid combat with L. Cornelius Sulla in the East, rather
than to fight him (86 BCE): 553–556 and notes 5–10, 557, 564, 573
initial difficulties of Mithridatic campaign (86 BCE): 557 and note 13
becomes detested by his men (86 BCE): 557–558
quarrels with subordinate C. Flavius Fimbria (86 BCE): 558–559
killed in a mutiny, possibly by C. Flavius Fimbria (86 BCE): 559 and note
16, 563
Valerius Massala
as legate of P. Rutilius Lupus (90 BCE): 308–309 and note 41, 426 and
note 15
positioned on the southernmost flank of the army of P. Rutilius Lupus (90
BCE): 308–309 and note 41, 380 note 51, 426 and note 15, 768–769
alleged defeat of by P. Vettius Scato and replacement by Sex. Julius Caesar

(90 BCE): 294 and note 12–13, 313 note 48, 758–762 and supporting
notes, 769 and notes 9–10
role in Battle of the Vineyards (Sora) (90 BCE): 43, 295 note 15, 325–326
and note 70, 426 and note 15 763–774 and supporting notes
dismissed as legate by L. Porcius Cato (89 BCE): 380–381 and note 52
Valerius Maximus
utility as source for the events of 91–77: 65 and note 89
sources of: 37
as contemporary of Velleius Paterculus: 50 and note 52
Varian trials (91–90 BCE): 21, 237 note 18, 252–254 and note 41, 435
Velleius Paterculus
utility as source for the events of 91–77: 49–51
and the “Alternative Tradition”: 51 and note 55
apparent sympathy towards Allies: 34 note 2, 51 and note 55
as a Roman, not Italian, source: 34 note 2
as contemporary of Valerius Maximus: 50 and note 52
comments about L. Cornelius Sisenna: 37
sources of: 37, 49 and note 48, 50–51 and notes 53–54, 70, 140, 686
Venafrum
defeat of Romans by Marius Egnatius (90 BCE): 366, 750 and note 2
Ventidius
alleged successor to T. Lafrenius (90–89 BCE): 374 and note 41
Venusia
as members of Alliance in 90 BCE: 255, 347
joins Alliance in part due to actions of C. Vidacilius (90 BCE): 302, 347,
348–349 and note 99
besieged and captured by Q. Metellus Pius (88 BCE): 405, 407
Vestini
surrender of (88 BCE): 377, 793, 795
Vettienus, Caius: 252 note 41, 339–340, 367
Vettius Scato, Publius
commander of the Marsi: 289, 298 note 83, 399 note 85, 744–745 and
notes 14–15
INDEX 943
cooperates with T. Lafrenius and C. Vidacilius against Cn. Pompeius

Strabo near Asculum (90 BCE): 294, 301–302 and note 28, 309–311
and notes 42–44, 321 and note 63, 366, 761
defeats L. Julius Caesar at Aersenia (90 BCE 294 and note 12–13, 302, 313
note 48, 353, 750 and note 2, 754–755 and supporting notes, 808
alleged defeat of Valerius Massala (90 BCE): 294 and note 12–13, 313
note 48, 759 note 8
lures P. Rutilius Lupus into battle of the Tolenus River (90 BCE): 313–
315, 323, 384
defeats P. Rutilius Lupus, who is killed in combat, in battle of the Tolenus
River (90 BCE): 315–316 and notes 50–51, 341, 751, 753, 759
leads relief expedition to Asculum (89 BCE): 370–371
confers with Cn. Pompeius Strabo outside Asculum (89 BCE): 22, 35 note
6, 372–373 and notes 37–38, 797, 501–502, 762, 782 note 17, 817
note 4, 825 note 13
is defeated, with C. Vidacilius, by Cn. Pompeius Strabo outside Asculum
(89 BCE): 373, 397
retreats after defeat by Cn. Pompeius Strabo outside Asculum (89 BCE):
373, 397, 795–796
defends Corfinium, probably against Caecilius Cornutus (89 BCE): 397,
795–799
capture of by Romans (89 BCE): 375–376, 378 note 48, 396–397, 397–
400
timing of: 39–399 and notes 83–85
handed over to Romans by his own soldiers (89 BCE): 397–400 and notes
83–85
death of (89 BCE): 400
Vidacilius, Caius
commander of the Picentes (90–89 BCE): 288–289, 743 and note 5
cooperates with T. Lafrenius and P. Vettius Scato against Cn. Pompeius
Strabo near Asculum (90 BCE): 294, 301–302 and note 28, 309–311
and notes 42–44, 321 and note 63, 366, 752, 761
operations in Apulia (90 BCE): 301–303 and note 28, 320 note 63, 322
note 65
may have supplied troops to C. Papius Mutilus for Acerrae (90 BCE): 305
and note 35
may have lent troops to T. Lafrenius for siege of Cn. Pompeius Strabo at
Firmum (90 BCE): 322 note 65, 366, 752
unsuccessfully attacks Cn. Pompeius Strabo at Asculum (90 BCE): 321–
322 and notes 64–65, 368 and note 20, 789, 790
joins the besieged at Asculum and assumes direction of resistance to siege

(90–89 BCE): 322, 368–369 and note 32
is defeated with P. Vettius Scato by Cn. Pompeius Strabo outside Asculum
(89 BCE): 374, 785–792 and supporting notes
returns to Asculum after defeat by Cn. Pompeius Strabo (89 BCE): 374
commits suicide in Asculum (89 BCE): 374
allegedly succeeded to direction of resistance to siege of Asculum upon
death by Ventidius (89 BCE): 374 and note 41
probably succeeded in direction of resistance to siege of Asculum upon
death by C. Pontidius (89 BCE): 374
Vineyards (Sora), Battle of
C. Marius defeats Q. Poppaedius Silo (90 BCE): 325–326 and notes 69
and 71, 331, 339, 368, 393, 751, 752, 753, 763–774 and supporting
notes
Volaterrae
taken by assault by L. Cornelius Sulla (81 BCE): 628–629 and note 102
citizenship possibly removed from by L. Cornelius Sulla (81–79 BCE):
667–668 and note 61
voting tribes, Roman
distribution of novi cives in: 361–362 and notes 18–22, 413–414, 819
number of those created by lex Julia and enabling laws: 361–362 and notes
18–22, 819

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The Struggle for Roman

Gorgias Studies in Classical and Late Antiquity contains

Romans, Allies, and the Wars of 91–77 BCE

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Kendall, Seth, 1975-

Table of Contents ...................................................................................vii

5. An uneasy quiet and the strange career

Chapter 5: War in Earnest, 90 BCE ..................................................287

1. The Allied army at the beginning of 90 BCE:

Chapter 8: Progress and the Promises of Cinna ..............................479

Appendix I: Appian and the ordering of events

A common feature found in the acknowledgements of academic

support of me and their unaffected interest in my work has

having been treated comprehensively in Arthur Keaveney’s Sulla:

1 In fact, Keaveney’s updates are less extensive than the production of

Domaszewski, p. 3–10. Haug also discusses at great length the various

have also been the subject of much historical assessment. Any

4 This article, found originally in Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 55 (1965),

90–109, was revised—according to its author—for its appearance in his

ways Romans and Italians interacted with each other, creating a

5 It also supplies a brief overview of the war itself, which is in many

after 89 BC”.6 Of particular interest to Gabba are some of the

Allied War, on which it is the first major volume-length work in

9 Keaveney’s work is aging rapidly, even if it is still of great worth for

provided by Alfred von Domaszewski, whose small Bellum Marsicum was,

described above.11 Mouritsen argues that the abovementioned

11 Although of less importance to this essay than the above-mentioned

work, Mouritsen had also contributed to the debate on the “democratic”

have been extensively treated and observed from a variety of

12 Sulla’s career is also examined in Ernst’s Badian’s Lucius Sulla, The

of Peter Greenhalgh’s Pompey, The Roman Alexander, the first volume of

aftermath. Part of that aftermath, and perhaps the most significant

14 Critica Storica, vol. 19 (1984), p. 499–544

“The Equestrian Class and Sulla’s Senate”,16 two articles by Emilio

Both found in Gabba, op. cit., p. 131–141 and 142–150.

In Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. 14 (1938), p. 1–31.

proceeds from the perspective of Sulla.

biography of Crassus19 and Peter Greenhalgh in the first volume of

19 Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic.

their ultimate purpose was achieved.22 As Mouritsen would later

22 Keaveney 1987, p. 187.

departure, and although upon Sulla’s return Keaveney

from them by Sulla’s proscriptions. Likewise, the changes in the

24 Similarly cursory is Karl Christ’s treatment of the decade in his Krise

collectively as the “Ten Years’ War”.25 As a consequence, the lack

of Brunt, Gabba, and Salmon, who disagree among themselves on

one fought for independence can be discerned, according to

29 Mouritsen 1998, p. 5–22.

struggling in fact for something else. It therefore cannot explain

30 Mouritsen, op. cit., p. 4.

as worthy members of Roman society”.31 Yet even if Cicero would

31 Or, alternatively, that even if this encounter took place as

which agrees with theirs, can reasonably be assumed to be accurate

BCE. It was a factor, almost certainly the principal one, in the

describe, and several of them were written in Greek by authors

1. THE TURBULENT YEARS OF 91–77 BCE

Decius Mus had known centuries earlier. During the decade—

the grip, not of several wars, but of one, bloody, decade-long

rejoiced when a Roman tribune proposed a law which would

Roman state, ones that revealed a new meaning to what it was to

2. THE HISTORIES NEVER COMPOSED

1 Salmon (1982, p. 157–158) specifically cites the Samnites and the