Rome versus Macedonia

[bluestraggler]

Republic and Empire, Part 5

The exploits of Alexander V, known to his contemporaries as Stratelates (Commander), as Prince and Emperor were grudgingly admired in Rome. Macedonian-Hellene culture was also making inroads into Roman society. While contacts with the Italiotes had introduced Hellenic influences as early as the regal period, it was only after the accession of Megas Alexander that the Romans felt the direct impact of Hellenic civilization. There were two major ironies in this. The more sophisticated Hellenic states, epitomized by Athens, regarded the Macedonians who transmitted Hellenic culture beyond the borders of Hellas as barbarians. Additionally, the initial major influx of Hellenic ideas into Italia had coincided with the Great King’s "orientalizing" programme, which was ultimately repudiated by his successors.
During the long series of wars fought in southern Italia, the Romans encountered an Hellenic culture past its prime - a faded glory, yet exotic and inspirational. During those periods of uneasy peace between the two great powers, Rome came under further Hellenizing influences through commercial interaction with the Hellenes of Sicilia and Massilia. Diplomatic exchanges with the Macedonian court brought uncultivated Romans into intimate contact with scholars, philosophers and rhetoricians, which aroused equal measures of admiration and contempt. Hellenic civilization was seen by conservative, anti-intellectual members of the Roman aristocracy as effete beyond all redemption. However, the military victories of Alexander V dispelled this notion and laid solid foundations for the philhellenism, enthusiasm for all things Hellenic, that gripped the elite in the seventh and eighth centuries. Romans might resent the condescending attitude of the Hellenes, for whom they remained barbaroi - a grievance fuelled in part by their own sense of inferiority. Nevertheless, the more progressive among them opened up to what the Hellenes had to offer, seeking to learn, to imitate, to emulate and eventually to surpass their teachers.
It must also be kept in mind that many Hellenes, never reconciled to Macedonian rule, came to regard the Romans as potential liberators. Accordingly, in much of Hellas pro-Roman sentiment was remarkably strong. Enlightened leaders in Rome, whether motivated by pragmatism or by genuine philhellenism, promoted this bond by establishing contacts with prominent intellectuals, artists and writers. Many of these visited Rome and some migrated permanently, among them the city’s first notable philosophers, scientists and historians. For the modern scholar, the contribution of historical writers such as Aristion to our knowledge and understanding of Republican Rome is inestimable. A veritable flood of refugees and exiles in the late seventh and eighth centuries, fleeing the harsh government of the Dionysian dynasty, enriched Rome immeasurably, whilst impoverishing the cultural heritage of their homeland.
The seven decades of non-belligerence which followed the settlement of AUC 586 gave Rome the breathing space to absorb these Hellenizing influences while consolidating her dominion in Italia and securing the provinces. This was one of the most peaceful periods that the central and western Mediterranean region had enjoyed for centuries. In the east, however, the Macedonian Empire was facing its greatest challenges.
With the death of Alexander V in 608, the last great ruler of Macedonia passed from the scene. In the tradition of Megas Alexandros, he was undefeated on the field of battle; yet his 27-year reign had been spent almost continuously on campaign. Though there were no open revolts after his decease, the empire was proving too vast and too variegated to be ruled as a single unit. In 614, his son Philip IV divided his domains into four quarters, three of which were governed by his brothers (in Aegypt and Syria) and his cousin Amyntas (in Babylon). Philip retained direct control over Macedonia proper. Like his predecessors, the Emperor exercised overall sovereignty, but Philip’s lethargic personality and his disinterest in the minutiae of day-to-day administration weakened centralized authority. His successor, the feeble Alexander VI, was indecisive and self-indulgent, dominated and manipulated by his advisers, in particular the sinister Dionysius, a distant relative who became Emperor following Alexander VI’s mysterious death in 644. The latter had died childless and by this time most of the imperial family, including both the Emperor’s brothers, were dead or in exile. The Argead dynasty, raised to imperial greatness by Philip II and Alexander III, was extinguished. Thereafter, Dionysius and his equally venomous son and namesake presided over the inexorable decline of the Macedonian Empire.*
Notwithstanding the long sequence of wars with Rome, the most discernible challenge to Macedonian power came from the east. Yet it was here that the successors of Alexander V, both Argead and Dionysian, would eventually stabilize their dominion, providing the core of resistance to Roman and barbarian aggression that would, following the demise of the Empire, give birth to a cluster of Hellenized kingdoms, rising like the legendary Phoenix from the ashes of the old imperium.
In the middle of the fifth century, the perennial menace on the fringes of the Empire presented by the Scythians and Sarmatians had been replaced by a more immediate threat, the rise of the Parthians. Related to the Scythians, these people had migrated from central Asia onto the Iranian plateau at around the time of Megas Alexander, and had caused trouble for both the native populations and the provincial governments ever since. In 511, the Emperor Archelaos II was killed in skirmishing with them. Fighting with unconventional tactics, more interested in extortion and plunder than in conquest and settlement, and ineffective against fortified cities, they were more of an irritant than an overt danger; but the almost incessant campaigning required to restrain them was becoming a serious drain on imperial resources.
Alexander V launched several offensives deep into Parthian territory, to break up tribal groupings before they coalesced into a single unit. Yet although they presented an enduring threat to Mesopotamia, Stratelates and his successors had no desire to eliminate them. The Parthians were useful in providing a screen against the barbarians to the north and a caution for recalcitrant governors of far-flung provinces such as Bactria.
Now a new peril had arisen, from a nomadic people known to posterity as the Tocharians (alternatively the Kushans), pressing into India and Bactria from the north-west, driven from the pasturelands of the Tarim Basin in western Sinae by the Hunns, and displacing their cousins the Scythians and Sarmatians. Against them, defending Bactria, Demetrios the son of Polybius fell in 626; and within a generation the trans-Indus provinces were overrun. Dionysius I, brutally efficient at consolidating his personal power, was to prove as unsuccessful at containing these incursions as the ineffectual Alexander VI. During his reign, Bactria was lost and much of Parthia became ungovernable.
The troubles in the far east exposed the fragility of the Macedonian imperium and prompted the last Argead emperors to crack down on dissent in all parts of the Empire. Repression in Hellas, extortionate taxation in Asia Minor and exploitation in Aegypt provoked localized revolts which might have proved fatal to the imperium had the rebels united in common cause, or had the Romans intervened. In fact, the Senate rejected all entreaties from the Hellenes to liberate their lands. Yet Roman reticence did not earn Macedonian gratitude, and a new generation of populares began to urge a final reckoning with the old enemy.
With such pressures bearing down upon it, the enfeebled dynasty of the Argeads sank into a stupor from which it never recovered. The bloated, worthless Alexander VI was found dead one morning, in his bed, and his chamberlain Dionysius promptly declared himself Emperor. The Macedonian nobility and the army assented to the coup, as there appeared no other suitable candidate. The Roman Senate recognized the accession and sent envoys to renew the treaty. However, a momentous occurrence overtook the negotiations. The defining moment in the Roman and Macedonian rivalry took the form of a shock from the north.
* Although technically Dionysius was of the Argead line, the dramatic changes in the Empire’s policies and fortunes in the wake of his accession have prompted historians to designate the Dionysian rulers a new dynasty.

 

[bluestraggler]

Macedonian Emperors

Points to note:
No Macedonian king ever actually used a Hellenic title equivalent to Emperor.
Philip II is acknowledged as the first Emperor rather than his son Alexander.
Philip was either the 22nd or 23rd Macedonian king. There is some dispute over whether he served as regent to his infant nephew Amyntas before proclaiming himself king.

 

[bluestraggler]

Republic and Empire, Part 6

Some time around the year AUC 637, a great migration commenced in northern Europe. Although the origins of this movement are obscure (indeed, at the time the Romans assumed these peoples were Galles), two German tribal associations, the Cimbri and Teutones, formed its core. By 640 the deluge had reached the Danubius, and in 643 Gallia Transalpina. The Romans watched uneasily as the horde worked its way southwards, menacing the north-eastern approaches to Italia but suddenly - no doubt wary of the reputation of Roman arms - veering off and irrupting into western Europe. While some of the local populations resisted, others joined the swarm. The very existence of the Massiliote cities was in jeopardy, and the way into Italia and Hispania seemed open.
Emperor Alexander VI was alerted to the threat and was preparing an expedition when he was assassinated, in the year 644. His successor, the usurper Dionysius I, was not a man for these times. Ruthless and decisive in seizing the throne, in discharging his imperial responsibilities he proved as weak and vacillating as his predecessor. He sent his brother Cassander to deal with the crisis. Inexperienced and subverted by ambitious underlings, the unseasoned general led the Macedonian army to disaster.
The weight of evidence now suggests that the barbarians were perhaps not the dire threat that they were perceived to be at the time. While they plundered the territories through which they passed, they were impelled mainly by land hunger. Abandoning the nomadic lifestyle, they sought fertile fields to settle in permanent occupation. Yet lacking the engineering skills to capture fortified places and the organization, discipline and logistical support to conduct a lengthy siege, they were reduced to looting and foraging. Sedentary occupation of the land meant scattering their forces, which made them highly vulnerable to counter-attack from the walled towns. As they pillaged the countryside to exhaustion, they had no option but to move on.
Discipline and a clear strategic vision might have forged the barbarians into an unstoppable juggernaut; but such were the qualities of Romans and Macedonians, not of a ravening rabble, irrespective of their bravery or desperation. On the other hand, unlike the Galles who had taken Rome two and a half centuries before, these barbarians were ultimately in search not of gold but of land. Once in possession of it, they would not be moving on. Neither Macedonians nor Romans could afford to ignore the threat they posed.
A repulse by the Belgae in north-western Europe diverted the wandering Germans southwards, and a vigorous defence by the Macedonians of the gateway into Hispania thereafter drove them eastwards into Massilia. Cassander might have offered them safe passage into the Rhodanus valley or even Italia; but his subordinates sought confrontation, while Dionysius, safe in Pella and aspiring to emulate his glorious predecessors, urged his brother to be assertive. With no proper training in or understanding of military matters, Cassander formed his troops into a classic phalanx, oblivious to the fact that Macedonian tacticians had declared the formation obsolete.
The result of his impetuosity was a catastrophic defeat in the Rhodanus valley, at Nemausus. The Macedonian army, some thirty thousand strong with an equal number of Hellenes and Gallic allies, was wiped out. Among the dead was the prince, whose blundering into battle ultimately cost Macedonia its dominions in the central and western Mediterranean. The Galles of the littoral rose in revolt, some joining the horde while others organized their own defence against the invaders. The Massiliote cities were overrun. Most, including eponymous Massalia, ceased to exist as Hellenic communities, being abandoned or converted into Gallic settlements, their former inhabitants fleeing to Sardinia and Hispania.
Rome had at first little incentive to become involved in the conflict. However, the extinction of Macedonian power in the region now created a dangerous vacuum. Already, two of Rome’s Gallic allies, the Volcae Arecomici (whose capital was at Nemausus) and the Allobroges, had been exterminated or assimilated by the invaders. Furthermore, the scandalous abandonment of an ally, Massalia, caused a ruction in the assembly, where popularis politicians denounced the delinquency of the Senate, traditionally responsible for foreign affairs and treaties. Thus, in the summer of 646 a Roman army under Sp. Postumius Albinus crossed the Alpes to confront the barbarians; but Albinus procrastinated until his consular imperium expired. By then, in 647, Q. Caecilius Metellus had raised an army of no less than sixty thousand troops to march north in three columns.
The Romans were fortunate that much of the initial energy of the barbarian invasion had by now dissipated and their forces had divided. Lacking the cohesion and regimentation to follow up their victories, they had dispersed to plunder and forage. The Galles who had thrown in their lot with the Germans peeled off to settle in new lands; and the Cimbri and Teutones had separated as local food supplies dwindled from their depredations.
Leaving a force to guard the Alpine passes leading into northern Italia, Metellus advanced rapidly to the Rhodanus, his left flank and rear covered by a second consular army under L. Hortensius. (As noted above, the lex Claudia of 603 was suspended to deal with the crisis.) He also had the support of three major Gallic tribes, the Averni, the Aedui and the Sequani, whose lands had been ravaged by the invaders. Silting of the river mouth necessitated overland transport, and given the length and vulnerability of their supply train, the Romans found these alliances to be of critical importance. The allies kept the enemy engaged in skirmishing until Metellus had established a secure camp at Arausio, a short march up the Rhodanus from Massalia. He met no resistance from the highly disturbed Gallic peoples who had been pushed south by the Germans and had taken over the Massiliote settlements.
In the high summer of 647, the Teutones once again had moved down the Rhodanus valley, by-passing to the west the Romans at Arausio. Metellus set off in pursuit, but after a setback near Nemausus - where the Macedonian dead still lay, decaying where they had fallen three years before - he was forced to retire across the river. The Germans pursued him to Avennio where, in one of the greatest battles fought by a Roman army to that date, the Teutones and their allies, the Ambrones, were all but annihilated. Metellus adopted a defensive posture on a slight rise, using his cavalry to provoke the Germans into assaulting his position. Once they were exhausted and disordered from their fruitless attacks, Metellus ordered his legions forward. The enemy had no reserves to hold the line or to protect their flanks, and only a few escaped death or capture in the ensuing rout. The traditional figure of 100-150 thousand dead is undoubtedly an exaggeration, but the Teutones ceased to exist as anything resembling an organized nation.
Now buoyed with a confidence inspired by victory, the Roman legions turned northwards to deal with the Cimbri, who were heavily defeated at Valentia on the east bank of the river. Metellus first outmanoeuvred the enemy, with a feinting attack to fix his opponents in place, while sending part of his army upriver to descend upon the Germans’ rear. This forced the Cimbri to stand and fight on ground not of their own choosing. Despite their fearsome visage, the undisciplined barbarians proved no match for a well-drilled army capably led. The Roman commander also made use of a recent innovation in battlefield manoeuvres. This was the coming of age of the cohort, previously an administrative entity but now given a tactical role as a unit midway in size between a legion and the manipules. At the height of the battle, Metellus was able to detach several cohorts from the third line, waiting in the rear, to launch a flank attack upon the enemy, who was fully committed on his front. This was not an entirely new development, but it was the first time it had been the decisive factor in battle.
While Metellus continued up the Rhodanus, his colleague Hortensius turned westwards, to clear any remnants of the Germans from the maritime districts. The Macedonian government protested the intrusion into its territory but with the bulk of its army gone was powerless to act. Hortensius probably intended to occupy the entire coastline as far as the Montes Pyrenaeus, but the Senate, which did not want the campaign against the Germanic invasion to become a war of conquest, intervened. The border was established along the Atax River south of Beteris, which had by now become a Roman town (Betarra).
Indeed, by this time war against the Macedonians was unnecessary. The objective in extending the frontier was to annex Gallia Maritima. After a hiatus of over sixty years during which no new provinces had been created, over the next six decades ten more were to be added to Rome’s growing empire. Nevertheless, the Romans were less interested in exploiting the commercial potential of the region than in creating a fortified buffer on Italia’s north-western approaches.
On the other side, the destruction of Cassander’s army at Nemausus signified more than just the loss of Massilia or the eclipse of Macedonian power in the Mediterranean basin. It exposed a fundamental weakness of the Empire. The phalanx as a tactical formation was outmoded. It had proved less than effective during the conflicts with Rome, when its rigidity and susceptibility to adverse terrain contrasted with the mobility and flexibility of the Roman manipular formation. Slow-moving and unwieldy, it was prone to being flanked by a fast-moving enemy and to losing its cohesion while advancing over broken ground.
Philip II and Alexander III had made the phalanx so formidable by their employment of combined arms. In their hands the phalanx, protected on its flanks by light infantry, served as the anvil while the cavalry, swinging around one or both wings, delivered the hammer blow to roll up the enemy’s lines and "shepherd" his infantry onto the Macedonian sarissae (long, two-handed pikes). Thus, far from being inflexible, the fifth century army was highly adaptable. During his campaigns in the east, Megas Alexandros had skilfully adjusted the balance of his units and their tactical deployment to suit the landscape and the dispositions of the enemy.
Two centuries on, the Macedonian system had become a victim of its own success. In the hands of a capable commander such as Alexander V, on open ground with its flanks covered, the phalanx was still virtually impenetrable. However, in hilly terrain, such as that to be found in Italia, it was cumbersome and difficult to manoeuvre. The increasing tendency towards heavier weapons and armour, adopted to compensate for a drop in the quality of the troops, had made it more ponderous than that which had prevailed at Gaugamela, where the rear echelons had disengaged to defend the baggage train.
Alexander V had in fact abandoned the phalanx during his second Italian campaign. It was expensive to maintain and required training and discipline. There was also a marked decline in the calibre of the light infantry whose role was to guard its vulnerable flanks. At Petelia in 557, the Romans almost broke through by exploiting gaps which had opened up in Alexander’s phalanx. The light infantry failed to plug these breaches, and the Macedonians won the day only by the skilful use of cavalry and elephants. The problem was unavoidable given the increasing reliance on mercenaries and conscripts. Elephants, however, were also obsolete, being expensive to keep, difficult to transport, unreliable in battle and most useful against a stationary formation - such as the phalanx.
The major failing of the Macedonian system was the dramatic fall in the number and quality of the cavalry. The incessant demands for a highly mobile force in the vast expanses of the east limited the availability of cavalry in the west, and those units that were at hand tended to be inexperienced and ill-disciplined. Successive commanders had compensated for these weakness by strengthening the phalanx. This only made it more inflexible and incapable of responding quickly to changes on the battlefield.
No reliable record exists of the fighting at Nemausus, but it is believed that the Germans succeeded in routing one or both wings of the Macedonian army, exposing the flanks of the phalanx that was then overwhelmed. The few accounts from the barbarian side, which naturally emphasize their own military prowess rather than the mistakes of their foes, seem to indicate that Cassander dispatched his cavalry to outflank the Germans. This left only his light infantry, already wavering in awe and fear, to protect the wings, with calamitous results.
There is no doubt of the prince’s courage, nor of his folly.

 

[bluestraggler]

Republic and Empire, Part 7

At this time, in contrast to the Macedonian, the Roman army and logistical system, honed by centuries of desperate struggle in the mountains and valleys of Italia, was evolving into a superb war machine. Unlike their enemies, the Romans were willing and able to adjust their weapons and tactics, innovating and borrowing, to try new strategies and to devise new procedures. In AUC 648, less than a year after the victories at Avennio and Valentia, the Consul P. Rutilius Rufus and the Tribune T. Manlius Mancinus pushed through the assembly a programme of military and political reforms. They encountered opposition from the Senate, which seemed to be more interested in preserving its privileges and prerogatives than in modernizing the state.
With the shock of the disorders in Gallia still fresh in the minds of the people, the assembly was responsive to changes that would secure the frontiers of Italia. Rufus and Manlius had the foresight to understand that the army which had recently defeated the Germans was itself rapidly becoming obsolete for the sort of warfare needed in the future. They also realized that a strong Rome needed stability in the provinces and the trust and co-operation of the Italian allies. Their proposals included measures to end rampant abuses and inefficiencies in the provincial administration and corruption in Roman politics, and legislation to address the grievances of the foederati, who were becoming increasingly embittered by their exclusion from a fair share in the fruits of Rome’s victories. Although only a small minority of the allies sought Roman citizenship, they all demanded a greater say in the affairs of Italia and more equitable distribution of the spoils of the wars to which they contributed as much as Rome in terms of money and manpower.
The reforms to the army received the easier passage through the assembly. Although they resented the means by which Rufus and Manlius promulgated their legislation - much in the way of Gaius Flaminius 115 years earlier - the Senators were not so short-sighted as to block these necessary and overdue reforms. In fact, the senatorial party co-opted much of the agenda, and in the course of the next generation the revolution begun in 648 would transform the Roman army.
In the mid-fifth century, the manipular system of open-order fighting had replaced the compact but inflexible Hellenic-style phalanx. At Valentia, in 647, Q. Caecilius Metellus adopted the tactics pioneered on a smaller scale by field commanders after the debacles of 557-58. The cohort, which had formerly served as an administrative entity but was the major formation of the allies, now became the standard tactical unit of the legion. The size of the legion itself varied throughout the seventh century from 4000 to somewhat over 6000, with ten cohorts per legion and six centuries of 70-100 men (compared to three manipules) per cohort. The value of this mid-sized unit was that the cohort allowed the general to maintain the articulated battle order of the manipular formation while creating a larger tactical unit for greater flexibility, cohesion and morale. One or more cohorts could be detached from the rear to act as autonomous units that could be used to outflank the enemy (as Metellus had done at Valentia) or deployed to extend the Roman lines, so as to threaten the enemy’s flanks or to protect the Roman wings and prevent overlapping and envelopment by a more numerous foe.
In 656, following the outbreak of the Sixth Macedonian War, the Consul C. Livius Drusus raised an army that would carry the revolution another step. Anticipating a long overseas campaign, he secured passage of a money bill to provide for standardization of equipment, uniforms and insignia, an innovation quickly taken up for all the Roman armies. As well as putting an end to all practical distinctions between the different types of line infantry - the hastati, principes and triarii - this was the end of the citizen militia, in which each man paid for his own armour and weapons (in reality, in most cases, by a wealthy patron), and the beginning of the professional army.
In that year, Rome intervened in Sardinia. In the 660s Roman armies fought in Africa and Illyria, and in the 670s in Hispania. Two important changes came about during these campaigns. In these new theatres of war, the roads that were so critical to Roman success in Italia were non-existent or controlled by enemy strong points. An army in the field had to be highly mobile and self-sufficient. The troops had to construct roads and encampments as the army travelled. To shorten the length of the supply train, so vulnerable in enemy territory, the men carried their own provisions and equipment. As a result, the Roman army on campaign was more adaptable and more streamlined. It also became possible to transfer these lighter and fast-moving legions from one theatre to another, across the entire breadth of the Mediterranean if necessary, to meet new contingencies.
More controversial innovations were the short throwing spear or javelin (the pilum) replacing the long thrusting spear in the front line, and the short stabbing sword, adapted to cut and thrust, the gladius hispaniensis. These were introduced by Gaius Aurelius Cotta to equip his new proletarian army (q.v.). Based on those used by the Iberian warriors of Hispania, such weapons were ideal for close-in fighting; but the residual prestige of the Macedonian phalanx, with its long-reaching pikes, delayed their general introduction. Ironically, at Etovissa in 662 (q.v.), the Macedonian general Hyperides, in substituting a crescent or wedge-shaped formation for the old phalanx, adopted the weaponry of his native contingents and trained his regular troops in their use. The Romans, one of whose best qualities was the willingness to learn from their enemies, were for once tardy in doing so.
The overseas campaigns of this period reshaped and reinvigorated Roman military institutions. In this respect, despite the innate conservatism of the Roman people, the Republic generally proved more adaptable and more innovative than the ossifying Macedonian Empire.
However, these army reforms also had a profound, long-term social and political impact on the Roman state. The reorganization of the legions created improved career opportunities for the class of "new men" represented by individuals such as Rutilius Rufus. For example, as the army became more professional, the office of military tribune, a number of whom were appointed to assist each legion commander, came to be shunned by the distinguished senatorial families. For the nobility, army service was a step along the cursus honorum, a prelude to and preparation for political leadership. The military tribune, on the other hand, was of a new breed, a career officer from the equestrian class. These men viewed with disdain the nobiles who monopolized the senior magistracies and commands, and whose acclaimed patriotism and civic service were more a screen for protecting the vested interests of their narrow social circle.
An emerging schism in the upper echelons of Roman society had begun to open up new rifts in the state. On a level below the military tribunes were the centurions, normally sixty per legion - tough, experienced professionals, for the most part elected by their companies and thus respected and trusted by the troops. They had virtually nothing in common with the senatorial elite under whom they served. Though not entirely in want of patriotism, their primary loyalty was to the army, to their men and to their generals, provided that the latter were competent in command and cared for the welfare of the common soldiers.
However, the most profound change took place in the late seventh century. Traditionally, Roman armies were recruited from men enrolled in the five property-based classes. This was partly out of necessity, since the troops provided their own equipment (at least in theory). The system facilitated conscription, as most recruits were the peasant clientelae of the aristocratic landowners. It also had the political function, of limiting the franchise. Only during times of dire emergency, such as the Gallic revolt of 530, might the state ignore the property qualification and draw conscripts, on an ad hoc basis, from the capite censi, citizens so poor that the censors took a only head count, not a property assessment. One of the failed reforms of the prescient Gaius Flaminius had been his attempt to enlist volunteers from the proletariat on a regular basis.
In 676, in the wake of a major defeat at Saguntum in Hispania, the popular Consul C. Aurelius Cotta took an unprecedented step. To raise an army quickly for his planned campaign in the west, he accepted recruits from the proletarii. When the Senate refused to provide funds for equipping the troops, he appealed to the popular assembly which passed the requisite bills. Poor men flocked to the recruiting stations, Romans with no realistic career prospects who now saw an opportunity to better themselves. Yet the experiment seemed to have failed when Cotta’s term expired before his army was ready. He failed to win a proconsular command due to senatorial opposition, and the fleet sailed without his troops.
Cotta’s radically new army was raised to meet a specific short-term military need. Its creation nevertheless underscored the manpower dilemma which had the potential to cripple the Roman military machine. Italia was slowly but inexorably being denuded of its population of peasant farmers. These sturdy yeomen formed the backbone of the army which had conquered Italia and extended Roman power beyond the peninsula. However, the overseas campaigns which the army was now called upon to wage demanded long periods of active service. Discharged at the end of their terms, many soldiers returned home to find their livelihoods gone. Those who managed to hold on fell into debt and were eventually dispossessed of their farms, which were swallowed up by vast agricultural holdings known as latifundia ("large estates"). Those who attempted to eke out a living as farm workers were soon displaced by slave labour.
It was the incipient manpower crisis that induced C. Aurelius Cotta to reconstitute the recruiting base, and which the Senators tried to ignore when they blocked his innovation. Yet the Senate itself made no attempt to address the issue. In fact, as the main proprietors of the latifundia, acquiring huge tracts of the ager publicus for their own use and feeling no obligation to release any of this land for distribution to the men who had fought for Rome, the senatorials were responsible for creating the problem in the first place. They then proceeded to make matters worse.
In 677, when the new Consuls took office, the conservative L. Caecilius Metellus ordered the disbandment of Cotta’s proletarian army, which was still in the process of being fitted and trained. His colleague, M. Aemilius Lepidus, was no friend of the populares, but he understood the folly of such a move and attempted to veto it. Denounced in the Senate, Lepidus was forced into hiding, as partisans of Metellus and supporters of Aurelius Cotta battled in the streets.
When word of their impending dismissal reached them in the camps outside Rome, the soldiers marched on the city, even as the rioting spread within. The Senate reconvened, declared a state of emergency (tumultus), and pronounced a senatus consultum de republica defendenda, whereby the Consuls were called on to take all possible measures to ensure the safety of the state. Yet Lepidus was hardly in a position to respond, and Metellus had no army to face down the thousands of angry troops. In a humiliating back-down, the Senators agreed that the demobilization order be rescinded and Cotta’s legions dispatched forthwith to Hispania. The command was, not surprisingly, given to Lepidus. It would keep him out of Rome while the conservatives regrouped; and if the proletarian army failed in the field he would be permanently discredited. In fact, he and his men gave good account of themselves.
The events of 676-677 provided a timely reminder that the fate of Rome and of the Republic was in the hands of the soldiers and their generals, and offered an ominous portent of what might lie ahead. The affair also revived the populares as a force in Roman politics. In 680, the Tribune L. Sicinius, an associate of Cotta, took the next logical step, proposing a law which would have monumental consequences for the Republic.
The issue that haunted both the common soldiers and their generals was that the state lacked any sort of scheme to provide pensions for the veterans. The lex agraria of Sicinius had been intended to address the problem by providing allotments of farmland to the discharged soldiers, as a form of pension, to be worked or sold. However, the myopic response of the Senate, to defeat the legislation by securing a tribunician veto, was to have dire long-term consequences for the Republic. Even conservative generals realized that, in order to maintain the morale and loyalty of their troops, they would have to guarantee, along with plunder for serving soldiers, pensions for the veterans. If the civilian politicians failed to do so, the generals would have to become politicians. Thus, due to a short-sighted policy adopted by the senatorial elite - motivated as much by the fear of an ambitious general acquiring a powerful client base as by the selfish protection of their landed interests - political leadership and military command became inextricably linked.
When the magistrates had been subordinate to the Senate, the principle of cedant arma togae - "arms yield to the toga" - governed the Republic. It applied literally and figuratively. Army commands were assigned by the Senate, and the generals deferred to the collective wisdom and experience of the Senate on matters of strategy. At the end of a campaign, a successful commander could expect to receive the accolades of his fellow citizens and to enjoy the prestige accorded a senior statesman via lifelong tenure as a Senator. Yet this abiding principle, which ensured stability and preserved civil government, was undermined by the actions - or more precisely the inaction - of the Senate. Its self-serving policy, not the behaviour of the generals, was responsible for the creation of a new patron-client relationship, producing a military caste estranged from the traditional government and bound closely to the army commanders by personal and mutual interest. The new breed of career soldier found no good reason to be loyal to the state and every reason to be loyal to his general.

 

[bluestraggler]

Republic and Empire, Part 8

In 651, with the Hellenic presence in Massilia all but extinguished and the Galles in possession of the major settlements, pressure was growing in Rome for direct annexation. This was done without consultation with the inhabitants or the previous overlords. The entire coastline was organized into two provinces, Gallia Transalpina east of the Rhodanus and Gallia Maritima between the Rhodanus and Atax Rivers. The Galles accepted Roman dominion with sullen acquiescence, and benefits soon followed. Roads and ports were constructed, and a canal excavated to bypass the silted-up mouth of the Rhodanus. These projects were devised to assist the passage of the army through the new territories, but the improvements in transport stimulated trade and facilitated cultural contacts.
However, in 653 the Galles rose in revolt when the Romans founded a colony at the mouth of the Atax River. The city of Narbona was destined to become one of the great port cities of the empire, eclipsing Massalia; but its establishment was initially opposed by the Senate, which understood that the planting of a Roman garrison on Gallic land and in such close proximity to the border with Macedonian Hispania was unduly provocative. Nevertheless, colonization and development of the region was popular with the equestrian class, whose support of the populares was becoming a critical factor in Roman politics. As a result, commercial interests prevailed over diplomatic and strategic policy, and the assembly passed enacting legislation. Yet the Senators’ misgivings were confirmed when the Narbonnese colony was besieged and exterminated.
The Consul Q. Hortensius reconquered the province with savage reprisals. The following year, P. Lucullus, in pursuit of the Volcaean tribesmen responsible for the destruction of Narbona, crossed the Atax into Macedonian territory. Whether he was acting with the sanction of the Senate remains debatable, but the incursion was in clear violation of the tacit agreement with the Macedonians on the location of the border. Lucullus then compounded the offence by capturing and plundering the sanctified treasury of Tolosa, a Volcaean city under the protection of the Macedonians. This was an act of aggression which the Senate offered to expiate by handing the general, at the end of his consular term, over to the Macedonians. Such a craven act of submission was denounced and overturned in the assembly, where the popularis faction clamoured for war.
The two Consuls for AUC 655, C. Cassius Longinus and C. Papirius Carbo, were radicals united in their ardour for war but bitter rivals for the sole field command mandated by the lex Claudia. At first Cassius prevailed and he set off for the front with four legions. Back in Rome, Carbo’s henchmen stirred up the mob and succeeded in having his fellow Consul recalled. Although not entirely unprecedented, the assembly’s abrogation of this traditional prerogative of the Senate was highly irregular. It might have had major constitutional implications, except for an event of even graver consequence. Shortly after his arrival in Gallia Maritima, Carbo was murdered by troops loyal to Cassius. This crime, the first of its kind, could not be validated by the reinstatement of his fellow Consul. Thus Q. Hortensius took command of the army in Gallia as proconsul, but was thereafter repulsed in an attack on Ruscino, just north of the Pyrenaeus Mountains.
Cassius Longinus was re-elected for 656, an indication of the severity of the crisis. To avoid a repetition of the outrage of the previous year, both he and his colleague, C. Livius Drusus, were assigned armies in the field. The murderers of Carbo were belatedly punished but Cassius, who replaced Hortensius in the field, took no further action to root out a more general conspiracy.
The Sixth Macedonian War had not begun auspiciously for Rome. On the other hand, the Empire’s lustre had dimmed considerably since the last. This new war would drag on for nearly three decades in several theatres, but Roman resolve to break Macedonian power once and for all never diminished. One measure of their determination was the reform of the new Consul Drusus, to increase the proficiency of Roman arms by standardization of the legions. Such innovation was at first resisted by the conservatives but it would soon prove its efficacy.
Meanwhile, the Senate scored a diplomatic coup by negotiating a secret agreement with Carthage, agreeing to back the latter’s claim on Hispania in return for Poenic support for Roman annexation of Sardinia. The outbreak of hostilities in the Hadriatic diverted Drusus and the bulk of his army to Illyria, but he detached two legions, supported by another dispatched by Cassius, under his legates for an invasion of Sardinia. The island fell with little opposition from the Macedonian garrisons, but native resistance was to prove as troublesome to the new occupiers as it had been to their predecessors. Sardinia was proclaimed a province in 657, but it would take a generation of fighting and much brutal repression to pacify the peoples of the mountainous interior.
With the Romans distracted in Hispania, Illyria and Sardinia, rebellions broke out in Corsica and Sicilia. Despite allegations of Macedonian involvement, the uprisings were probably spontaneous, except insofar as they were encouraged by Rome’s preoccupation with the war elsewhere. However, the Macedonians were also troubled by internal unrest. The Hellenes were simmering under the harsh rule of the new dynasty, characterized by the imposition of oppressive regimes in their cities, interference in their internal affairs, conscription, heavy taxation and a policy of mass deportations to break up alliances and break down parochial loyalties.
Incipient revolt in Hellas prevented the Emperor from sending reinforcements to Hispania. In 658, a Macedonian attempt to outflank the Romans was defeated at Albiga (Roman Albi) on the River Tarnis north-west of Narbona. The Roman frontier was advanced to the Pyrenaeus Mountains and Tolosa occupied, this time permanently. The victor of Albiga, the propraetor L. Cornelius Sisenna, was rewarded with an ovation and the consulship. In the same year, the Romans captured Melita. Carthage, frustrated by the lack of action in Hispania, demanded the islands. The Roman refusal caused their Poenic allies to demand a revision of the treaty.
In 660, Rome turned on Carthage by negotiating an alliance with the western African kingdom of Mauretania. The Carthaginians formed a hasty alliance with neighbouring Numidia and declared war. However, the Numidians were incorrigibly unreliable partners, furnishing the Carthaginians with mercenaries but unsteady in a crisis and untrustworthy in diplomacy. Under Kings Masinissa (c. 514-604) and Micipsa (died 624), the state had developed from a loose federation of nomadic tribes into a fully fledged kingdom but was weakened thereafter by internal dynastic rivalries. King Hiempsal threw his support behind Carthage in order to secure his position by seizing Mauretanian possessions. In the spring of 661, a joint Roman and Mauretanian army defeated the Numidians at Tassacera near Cartenna. A second force failed to capture Utica, the vital port and Poenic ally, but the following year Hiempsal made peace with Rome, ceding territories to Mauretania in return for a promise of Carthaginian lands. He was promptly murdered for such treachery by the faction of his brother, Adherbal, who nevertheless kept to the new treaty.
In Macedonia, the new Emperor Dionysius II had agreed to an informal truce with Rome, after meeting with a senatorial delegation. The Romans had hardly left his court when he invited the hard-pressed Carthaginians to renew their alliance. Despite their troubles in Africa, a Poenic force under the general Malchus was sent to Hispania to bolster the Macedonian defences, 84 years after Carthage had been forced to abandon its historic colony.
Accusing the Emperor of duplicity, the Romans called an end to the informal truce, and an army commanded by the proconsul Cn. Cornelius Lentulus crossed into Hispania in the late summer of 662. Advancing over the River Iberus, the Romans were repulsed at Etovissa, on the coast north of Saguntum, with very heavy losses. The Macedonian commander, Hyperides, made skilful use of a wedge or crescent-shaped formation in place of the phalanx. When the Romans pushed back the apex, the Macedonian battle-line, instead of breaking, bent backwards from a convex to a concave shape, and the wings slowly enveloped the Romans concentrating on the centre. Lentulus compounded his difficulties by sending his cavalry with vague orders to drive off their enemy counterparts. They achieved their mission but continued pursuit too long, and the unsupported Roman flanks were crushed inwards. Only the belated return of the cavalry and a disciplined withdrawal prevented the complete destruction of the Roman army.

 

[bluestraggler]

Republic and Empire, Part 9

The setback in Hispania caused dismay in the Roman assembly, where a remarkable individual now came to prominence. The Tribune Quintus Sertorius, elected for the year 663, was initially concerned with reforming the provincial administration, to end mismanagement and exploitation. One of the most far-sighted statesmen in the history of the Republic, he was a gifted orator and a courageous soldier who had fought with distinction in Gallia and Sardinia. An upright man of principle, he had been critical of the breaking of the treaty terms with Carthage in 658 but served loyally in Africa. He was also deeply troubled by the simultaneous revolts in the provinces - an indication of strong antipathy towards Rome - and the vicious nature of Roman reprisals. He was genuinely committed to Romanitas, the promotion of traditional virtues in Rome, the extension of Roman culture throughout Italia, and Rome’s civilizing mission among the barbarians. Yet as a novus homo, he felt no strong attachment to the ancient traditions of the Republic and its hidebound leadership.
An officer in the army in Hispania, Sertorius had returned to the capital in 662 to campaign for the tribunate just prior to the disaster at Etovissa. He was too young for the consulship and in any case probably did not want to be bound by the constraints and compromises inherent in passage through the cursus honorum. Opposed by the Equites for his promise to clean up the provincial administration, although identified with the populares he formed an unlikely alliance with the Senate, which had its own reasons for checking abuses in the provinces, to ensure stability and to curb the growing wealth and power of the equestrian class. However, dismayed at senatorial corruption in appointments of governors and farming out of tax contracts, Sertorius quickly became estranged from his erstwhile allies.
At the end of 663 he offered himself as candidate for a second term as Tribune, on a popularis platform criticizing the senatorial elite’s failure of leadership. He reconciled himself to the Equites by conveniently dropping those aspects of his provincial reform agenda which might interfere with their profits. He won over the peasant farmers and small businessmen with promises of debt relief. He garnered the support of the urban proletariat with a plan to distribute lands of the ager publicus as allotments to resettled urban plebs and to establish colonies for the same purpose in the provinces. He infuriated the Senate by proposing that proconsular commands and provincial governorships be allocated at the beginning rather than at the end of the Consuls’ term in office, cutting off an important source of senatorial patronage, the rewarding of its favourites with the best appointments.
Although not technically illegal (for just seven years before this, Gaius Cassius Longinus had served consecutive terms as Consul under shady circumstances), re-election was not in the spirit of the mos maiorum (the customary law). It opened the door to prolonged tribunates which - in the Senators’ minds at least - paved the way for demagoguery, the triumph of tribunician power and the popular assembly over the authority of the Senate, inevitably mob rule and ultimately anarchy or tyranny.
Anticipating a Sertorian victory, the Senate used one of its partisan Tribunes to force an adjournment of electoral proceedings. When Sertorius’s adherents attempted to reconvene, rioting broke out. Sertorius was statesman enough to reject violence, and sufficiently astute to recognize that his agenda could be taken up by one of his supporters in the tribunate; so he prudently withdrew his candidature. It was thus the Senate whose image was tarnished through recourse to unscrupulous and arguably illegal measures.
Out of office but still the most influential man in Rome, Q. Sertorius now took up the cause of the disaffected Italian foederati. The allies contributed more than half the contingents fighting in Hispania, and yet they had no say in strategic decision-making and enjoyed few of the fruits of Rome’s victories in its overseas wars. Increasingly embittered, they appeared on the verge of revolt. Sertorius proposed to extend the franchise to the Latins, and Latin rights to the other Italian states. Political equality was an ideal; whereas on a practical level, citizenship would give them protection against oppression and exploitation by Roman officials. Army veterans from allied states were promised pensions of land in overseas colonies on the same basis as those granted to the legionaries.
Sertorius’s principled championship of the allies’ cause did nothing to endear himself to the Roman proletariat. A colleague in the tribunate, Aulus Gabinius, had already proposed an extension of the agrarian law to distribute much of the ager publicus. The Latin and Italian allies had reacted with anger to the proposal, which infringed on their rights; and although the Senators, who saw in it a threat to their landed interests, successfully blocked the legislation, the allies’ forebodings of revolt elicited harsh warnings of retribution. Thus neither the Senate nor the assembly was prepared to address the grievances of the allies and only exacerbated matters with block-headed insensitivity. So when Sertorius embarked on an extensive tour of Italia to consult with the allies, his opponents took advantage of his absence to sow discord within his fragile political alliance.
Sertorius was no democrat. His appeal to the popular assembly over the heads of the Senators had been a pragmatic means of bypassing the obstructionist Senate. Thus he was not highly perturbed when his proposals for the allies incurred the jealous hostility of the multitude. His intention was not to strengthen the assembly - controlled by the urban mob and no more representative of the people of Italia than the Senators - but to bring the most prominent citizens of the municipalities into the Senate. However, snobbery and elitism prevailing over sagacity, fair-mindedness and enlightened self-interest, the Senate would have none of it. In the middle of a war against Macedonia and Carthage, the Senators might legitimately claim that this was not the time for radical reform. However, a legacy of resentment was created that, if not addressed, would sooner or later have dire consequences.
In 668, Sertorius ran for the consulship and was elected with the bland endorsement of the Senate, which had come to regard him as a malleable moderate. Military success in Africa had taken the wind out of the populares’ sails. Yet the failure of his bid to change the selection procedures for proconsular appointments was now turned to his advantage. Assigned a command in Illyria, in 669 Sertorius returned to the theatre where his talents were best applied.
By this time, on all fronts, the tide of war had been turning inexorably in Rome’s favour. In 664, Carthage surrendered to the proconsular army of P. Licinius Crassus. After a four-month siege, the city had fallen due to an act of betrayal by the pro-Roman faction, which probably saved it from destruction. Instead, Carthage became a Roman subject ally, forestalling Numidian claims as King Adherbal squabbled with his neighbour, Bocchus of Mauretania, over their mutual border. This victory helped restore the prestige of the Senate, although Malchus and his Carthaginian forces in Hispania continued to support the Macedonian war effort. The Romans there were making little headway, and the campaign stalled. In 664, however, the Macedonian commander Hyperides died. As a result, the following year saw the renewal of the informal truce in Hispania. The Macedonians retained control of the east coast south of the River Iberus, while the Carthaginians re-established their ancient base at Gades. Despite failing to dislodge the enemy completely, Rome had extended her frontier well beyond the Pyrenaeum.
Instead of petering out, the war shifted its focus, to Illyria and the Hadriatic. In 667, the Consul C. Appuleius led a naval offensive against the petty piratical kingdoms that had operated with virtual impunity in the northern Hadriatic. The rugged, indented coast and screen of islands provided ideal conditions for the pirates to establish their headquarters. Although nominally subject to Macedonian rule they were effectively independent. The Empire in the mid-seventh century had neither the resources nor the will to challenge them. Indeed, imperial policy was to turn a blind eye to the pirates’ activities, particularly when they preyed upon Italian shipping. Macedonian opposition to intervention allowed the Roman government to accuse the Emperor of sponsoring pirate activity. Indeed, the ruthless Archelaos II, and to a somewhat lesser extent his successors, had made a secret alliance with the pirate chieftains to counter growing Roman influence in the region and Dionysius I had gone further, employing them to terrorize the coast of southern Hellas in order to keep his restive subjects in line.
Growing bolder as Pella’s authority waned, the pirate states were becoming more provocative, raiding Italian coastal cities, even kidnapping Roman citizens for the slave markets. They were indeed a formidable foe. In 668 the Romans suffered an embarrassing setback when a naval attack on the island of Pharos, on the central coast of Illyria, failed. Undeterred, Appuleius and his legates reinvigorated their efforts. Rather than strike directly into the heart of enemy territory, they embarked on a protracted campaign to reduce the bases one by one.
An opportunity for Rome presented itself the very next year, 669. In eclipse since the failed bid of Pyrrhus for the Macedonian throne in 478, the kingdom of Epirus and its Molossian dynasty had retained substantial prestige through the family connection with Megas Alexandros. With the extinction of the Argeads, the Molossian Ptolemaeus advanced his claim to the imperial throne. Opponents of the Dionysian tyranny rallied to his cause, allowing him to secure his crown, secede from the Empire and appeal to Rome for assistance. Sertorius was thereupon dispatched with a joint army-naval command to relieve Ambracia, the Epirote capital which was under siege.
Sertorius occupied the entire coastline of Illyria without serious resistance and in 685 this became Rome’s eighth province, Illyricum. He was assisted by good fortune when the despot of Pharos, Agron, died suddenly and his lieutenants squabbled amongst themselves to succeed him. Without consulting or advising the Senate (which belatedly ratified his action), Sertorius despatched one of his legates, the equestrian military tribune Lucius Marcius, to parley with the leading contender, one Helenus. The outcome of this bold move was that Helenus, with the aid of a body of Roman soldiers, murdered or banished his rivals and invited in the Romans as his protectors. His navy switched from being a freebooting pirate fleet to launching plundering raids on the coastal towns of Hellas in support of Roman strategy. It was, however, not long before the indiscriminate depredations of Helenus and Roman encroachments from their Illyrian bases infuriated Ptolemaeus, encouraging the Emperor to try to drive a wedge between the new allies, Rome and Epirus.
The resumption of war with Macedonia in both the Hispanian and the Hadriatic theatres was at first tentative, with no large, set-piece battles but rather a series of probing raids and skirmishes. The Romans, though taking the offensive, avoided direct assaults on fortified cities, utilizing naval operations to harry the Macedonian coastal garrisons in the Hadriatic and to incite the Hellenes to revolt, and in Hispania to force the Macedonians and their Carthaginian allies back to their bases by threatening vulnerable supply lines. In 671, Sertorius’s proconsular army defeated a Macedonian attack at Pelium, a mountain pass on the Illyrian frontier, with a substantially inferior force. The Epirote king prudently renewed his alliance with Rome.
Although a skilled negotiator, Sertorius failed in his diplomatic offensive to stir up the Hellenes against Macedonia. The Hellenes feared that they would bear the burdens of a war for the ultimate benefit of the Romans, while many of the coastal communities were incensed by the devastating raids conducted on Rome’s behalf by Helenus of Pharos. The Roman political strategy in Hellas stalled, but Sertorius and his naval commander, L. Cornelius Cinna, continued to win small but significant victories in that theatre.
In the late summer of 672, however, Sertorius suffered a reverse at Thyrium, a Macedonian stronghold directly south of Ambracia. The battle of Medeon (near Thyrium, where the fighting actually took place) was one of Sertorius’s few defeats, a turning point for Roman strategy in the Sixth Macedonian War and, in all probability, one of the events which prolonged the Macedonian imperium for another seven decades. In the same month, Cinna failed in his bid to wrest the island of Corcyra from Macedonia. An upright man with strong popularis principles, Cinna curtly dismissed the aid proffered by Helenus of Pharos, whom the Roman despised as a common bandit.
Convinced that the Macedonian defences were too strong, the Senate endorsed Sertorius’s proposal that major operations be moved to Hispania, to cut off a key source of money, raw materials and manpower for the Empire, and to secure the same for Rome. There Sertorius obtained the senior command and would restore his reputation somewhat tarnished by the setback at Medeon. In the meantime, Ptolemaeus was given a guarantee of continued Roman support; but in 673, overconfident, he invaded Thessalia, only to be defeated and killed at Elymea, on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia proper. His son, an 18 year-old Alexander, accepted Macedonian overlordship; but with a pledge of non-interference from the Emperor he remained effectively an ally of Rome.
Dionysius had secured his strategic position, but he made a serious blunder when he allowed his troops to plunder Dodona, the most important oracular sanctuary in Hellas after that of Apollo at Delphi. This latest outrage galvanized opposition to his tyranny throughout Hellas, incited by Epirote and Roman agents, and made him so unpopular that he dared not impose his will in Epirus despite the young Alexander’s provocations.

 

[Cockroach]

Damn impressive wolume and quailty of work.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

One of the few TLs that gets posted faster than I can keep up with it. I love it.

How far are you planning to take this?

 

[Communist Wizard]

Very, very good. The people on this website never cease to amaze me...

 

[bluestraggler]

Thanks for the compliments.
My ambition is to carry on this TL for 2000 years. Of course, at the current rate of 151 words per year, that's a 300,000 word tome. I may have expired long before its completion.
At some stage I will try to produce a map and/or glossary of place names; because I have tried to keep in character by using classical names (e.g. Euxine Sea = Black Sea; Padus = Po River, Sinae = China), variations of familiar names (e.g. Hadriatic Sea, Galles, Rhenus River), etc.

 

[bluestraggler]

Republic and Empire, Part 10

As the main focus of the war shifted to the western Mediterranean, the critics of Sertorius in Rome were quickly silenced by a string of successes in Hispania. The Macedonians had reinforced their garrisons with native levies and mercenaries, and installed fortified positions along the vital coast road from Saguntum to Gades. However, their strategy was encumbered by native resentment of the harsh, exploitative policies of the occupiers, which provoked numerous small-scale revolts that forced the Macedonian commander to disperse his army to quell insurrection. This severely restricted his capacity for offensive action and obliged him to remain on the defensive.
A similar situation in Gades made the position of Malchus and his Carthaginians equally precarious. Rebellious locals had won the support of Lusitanian tribes to the west, and even as his prepared his defences against a Roman attack, Malchus found it necessary to dispatch one-third of his forces to deal with this threat. Although a policy of brutal reprisal removed the immediate danger, it made it virtually impossible to win the cooperation of the native population for the securing of provisions and reinforcements.
Had the Romans been able to capitalize on these weaknesses of the enemy, the course of the war in the west might have run smoother. With more deft handling of diplomatic contacts with the native Celtiberian population, Rome could have won valuable allies in Hispania. However, a lack of military success on the peninsula and the refusal of the Senate to guarantee a full-scale commitment kept the Hispanic peoples firmly in the grip of the Macedonian-Poenic alliance. As a result, the Romans also had problems maintaining a large army in Hispania. They had no need to disperse their forces to deal with local insurrections, but supply problems once a field army was away from its bases limited its size and scope of operations. Rome needed a significant victory to win over the Macedonians’ reluctant allies.
In 673, the Romans launched a new invasion of Hispania. The Consul M. Licinius Crassus, the son of the conqueror of Carthage, advanced across the Iberus with twenty thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry, supported by an approximately equal number of native troops. Yet the strength of the Roman force and the confidence of its brash new commander disguised fundamental problems. Most of the soldiers were garrison troops, jaded by years of inactivity. Many had settled into their local communities in Gallia and northern Hispania, marrying native women and even setting up farms and businesses. Those on more active duty were no more enthused. They desired only to end their terms of service and return home, but their commanders were reluctant to release their most experienced men. This was an army plagued by lax discipline, rife with insubordination and with incipient revolt. The native levies, on the other hand, were tough but unreliable.
Crassus delayed his campaign to raise morale and tighten discipline, train his recruits and drill the native troops. Incompetent officers were dismissed and the ringleaders of an attempted mutiny executed. Crassus ignored the grumblings of the faraway Senate, which had anticipated an immediate offensive. In the end, however, impatience prevailed over prudence. At the beginning of 674, the new Consul Cn. Cornelius Dolabella arrived in Hispania to take over the command, with fresh troops. Eager for glory, he did not wait to acclimatize his men or to integrate the veterans into his army.
Incautious and unjustifiably complacent, Dolabella was a lazy strategist and tactician. His neglect of preparation and reconnaissance would have unhappy consequences. In addition, he was resented by Crassus and his staff, whose diligent preparations had earned them demotion. Though loyal to Rome, their discontent made them uncooperative. Friction led inevitably to misunderstanding and, once the army had taken the field, lack of co-ordination.
Compounding his other misjudgements, Dolabella failed to make good use of the naval resources built up during the Illyrian campaign. He threw away a major advantage after the Balearic islands* were occupied by a squadron commanded by Marcus Aquinus. From this new base, the Romans could have landed troops anywhere on the Hispanian coastline, so bypassing Macedonian strong points. Instead, Dolabella embarked upon a laborious advance along the coast, supported and supplied by the fleet but slow-moving and restricted to uneven, dusty roads. Perhaps Dolabella was trying to toughen his men, or he may have been simply unimaginative. He brushed aside a force of Macedonians and native levies on the Setabis River, inland from Etovissa and scene of the major defeat twelve years earlier; but he was routed at Edeta, a few milles west of Saguntum.
The Macedonian commander, Callimachus, occupied a good defensive position on rising ground. The Romans at first refused the bait, but Dolabella was concerned for his troops’ morale and felt that he needed a victory. Stubbornly insisting on a frontal attack against an entrenched position, he became strangely fixated on the struggle in the centre; and fearful of being flanked by the enemy’s cavalry, he kept his own horsemen in reserve, missing an opportunity to turn the Macedonian flanks, which were not well anchored. Wilting under a barrage of missiles, the Roman line at last began to falter. An anonymous centurion rallied his men in a heroic charge, but when he was cut down the centre collapsed. The Macedonians surged forward, exposing their own flanks, but a potential disaster was averted as Callimachus pulled his men back into line before they could be enveloped by the Roman wings, which were still firmly in place. Then the Macedonian cavalry attacked, crushing the Roman right while Dolabella’s own cavalry were engaged on the left by a few enemy horsemen demonstrating on their front.
Due to the incompetence of its general and the inexperience and indiscipline of the troops, the Roman army’s advantages, in numbers, equipment and manoeuvrability, were thrown away at Edeta. Dolabella lost about a third of his entire force even before the native contingents began to desert. Callimachus may have missed an opportunity to destroy the rest by not immediately following up his triumph, but the dispirited Romans limped back to their base at Tarraco. Expecting a Macedonian assault, they began erecting defences, all thoughts of the offensive put aside.
Sertorius arrived at this time without an army, just a small detachment of mainly raw recruits, but with a solid reputation. He won the loyalty of Crassus, even though the latter was no doubt hoping to resume the command himself, and he boosted the aggressive spirit of the demoralized troops by marching the army out of its newly constructed fortifications to a campsite beyond the protective walls of the city. Having turned over his command, Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella went into self-imposed exile in Gallia Maritima.
The defeat at Edeta ensured a long, hard struggle in Hispania, but at no time were the Romans in doubt of ultimate victory. Roman naval supremacy made Macedonian reinforcement virtually impossible. Yet Sertorius was infuriated at being denied use of the fleet for his offensive operations. Underutilized by his predecessor, the navy was now supposedly engaged in harrying operations off Gades; but it was generally inactive, anchored in its new bases in the Baleares or cruising the coast of Gallia Maritima. Sertorius accused its commander, Q. Pompeius Rufus, of dereliction of duty, but there was also a strong suspicion that the Senate was behind this otherwise inexplicable inertia, Its motive would have been to check the progress of the unpredictable Sertorius and thwart his presumed ambition. Back in Rome, the populares charged their opponents with subverting the war effort for partisan purposes.
To regain the initiative, Sertorius determined upon an audacious move, a rapid march south from the Iberus, bypassing Saguntum to capture Massia. A successful campaign provided an opportunity to secure a major port on the south-eastern coast, and to place a Roman strong point between the Macedonians on the east coast of Hispania and the Carthaginians on the south coast. Further, the city offered not just a fine harbour on the sea route to both southern Hispania and North Africa, but also a large treasury, well-stocked warehouses, factories, workshops and nearby silver mines - a most tempting prize.
Massia’s capture would not only be a major blow to Macedonian prestige; it would make the Roman war effort in Hispania virtually self-sustaining. To achieve surprise, or at least to ensure speed and reach his objective before the enemy could respond with reinforcements, Sertorius left behind most of the army’s baggage train and jettisoned all non-essential equipment, supplies and personnel. The legions made rapid progress but, forced to live off the land, the troops resorted to foraging that was tantamount to looting, notwithstanding the general’s orders against pillaging the countryside. The result was to antagonize the local population, who then passed word of the Roman movements to Macedonian agents.
Approaching Massia, Sertorius came to the unpalatable realization that his gamble had failed. The city had been mightily reinforced with strengthened walls and an enlarged garrison, while attacks by local tribesmen on his foraging parties intensified to the point that his troops were forced onto near-starvation rations. Undaunted, Sertorius retraced his steps northwards, turning a humiliating withdrawal into remarkable victory by launching a surprise attack on Saguntum and capturing the city without serious resistance. Callimachus, who had performed so ably at Edeta, failed to foresee and forestall this debacle, and he died shortly afterwards from a fever.
Not a general to rest on his laurels, Sertorius made the most of his triumph at Saguntum, establishing a base of operations for a renewed attempt on Massia. The fleet which he had criticized for its delinquency at last co-operated, bringing in supplies and reinforcements. It was now late summer, but Sertorius believed he had the resources and manpower to resume his mission. Marching south once more, his three legions broke up a Macedonian army of mainly Hispanic mercenaries near Sigisa, just a day’s march north of the objective. He then struck westwards, routing a Carthaginian force at Epora, on the Gades-Massia road, and installing a garrison there to control the upper valley of the River Baetis (the Hellene Tartessus) which linked the Macedonian and Carthaginian domains.
It was now too late in the season to move on his primary goal, but after Saguntum his command was secure. Settling into winter quarters, the Romans sealed off Massia while keeping themselves supplied from Saguntum and Epora, from where raids could be launched into Poenic-controlled territory with impunity. By contrast, in Gades Malchus appeared increasingly unsure about how to respond. Early in 675 he squandered his fleet and a significant portion of his army with a fruitless attack on Cartenna, the town in North Africa formerly Poenic but now Numidian. His motives are unclear. He may have been attempting to relieve the pressure on his base at Gades by diverting Roman attention to Africa, or possibly he intended to evacuate Hispania altogether. The Macedonians, meanwhile, had concentrated almost all of their forces behind the fortifications of Massia, making the city itself virtually impregnable but surrendering control of the countryside.
At the start of spring, Sertorius resumed his campaign. Despite the Romans’ confidence, taking Massia would require a Herculean effort. The city was located on a fortified peninsula that was surrounded by water on three sides, including a shallow salt lake to the north, and approached by land only via a narrow isthmus. The initial assault, a clumsy attempt to escalade the well-defended walls, was beaten back with heavy casualties. Indeed, a major blow had fallen just as the Roman lines formed to begin the attack. The Macedonians launched a sally from the city gates to break up its momentum. They were routed but in the melee Crassus, Sertorius’s best lieutenant, was killed.
A second frontal onslaught was made to divert attention from a surprise attack across the lagoon, north of the town, which almost succeeded in breaching the defences, as this part of the wall was lightly defended. Marcus Aquinus and his squadron, released from their patrolling duties, now belatedly joined the siege for a combined land and sea attack, but were no more successful in breaking through from the seaward side.
Still smarting from his own recent reverses, Malchus sent a part of his depleted forces to threaten the Romans on their flanks. The Carthaginians were driven off but succeeded in weakening the effort against Massia, especially as many of the Romans’ disheartened allies were beginning to desert. It had been just twenty days since the offensive had commenced, but Sertorius was becoming desperate. With two defeats behind him - Medeon and the previous year at Massia - he knew that his career could not withstand another such setback. All the same, one last attempt to storm the fortifications ended in abject failure.
Sertorius was recalled to Rome, despite retaining the confidence of his troops. Back in the capital, the conservatives attempted to put him on trial but rioting ensued and the case was abandoned. To the masses, Sertorius was still a hero, and his popularis credentials remained intact. Nevertheless, his public career was over, and he retired to private life.
Yet the siege of Massia had not been broken, and in the spring of 677 a new Roman commander arrived, the proconsul C. Marcius Figulus. The legions once more wintered near the city, rather than fall back to their established bases. They cut off the defenders from reinforcement by land, while the fleet patrolled and sealed off the coast. The troops inside the city were numerous and well-fed, but morale was low. Most were native conscripts, with little enthusiasm for a fight to the death and no great loyalty to their Macedonian masters. Several more months of tense waiting had begun to undermine discipline.
In contrast to the long and difficult struggle of the previous year, the end came quickly. Marcius maintained the same deployments used by Sertorius the previous summer, with diversionary and probing tactics to keep the defenders from concentrating at any one part of the walls. In a three-sided offensive, the naval detachment on the south wall managed to scale the ramparts, providing enough of a distraction despite severe casualties to allow the main force to launch another frontal assault. Meanwhile, a smaller unit attacked across the lagoon. Brute force at last won out. The city fell amidst a fearful slaughter; however the survivors were spared prolonged massacre and enslavement. Marcius was intelligent enough to realize that the initial bloodletting would act as a deterrent to any of the local population offering further resistance, whereas a magnanimous gesture thereafter would win for Rome valuable allies, securing lines of supply and much-needed recruits. A Roman colony was settled on the coast north of the city. Named, grandiloquently, Colonia Victrix Romanorum, it never supplanted Massia in importance and ultimately faded into obscurity.
In 678, Roman landings near Gades commanded by L. Calpurnius Piso took Malchus and his Carthaginians by surprise, winning a complete victory before a Macedonian relief column could arrive. Malchus and the surviving Carthaginians were executed, their territory in southern Hispania annexed. The last of the Macedonian forces retreated into Lusitania, where they were soon wiped out.
The following year, 679, saw the accession of Emperor Cassander I, a nephew of Dionysius. During his reign Macedonian power continued to decline. The war in the west was abandoned. Marcius and Piso returned to Rome for joint triumphs, but the Hispanian conflict was not yet over. Having conquered their Macedonian foes, the Romans found themselves beset by native uprisings in the northern hinterland.
The troubles originated with a powerful Celtiberian tribe, the Arevaci. A barbarous but courageous people, the Arevaci raided as far as the coast. They were eventually driven back into their heartland, and in 679 a Roman army made up largely of levies from the pacified tribes launched a punitive invasion. It was annihilated near Segontia, a town on the edge of Arevaci territory. The catastrophe resulted in mass defections among Rome’s Hispanian allies and placed the tenuous occupation of the coastal fringe in serious jeopardy.
Fortuitously, at the height of this new crisis, the proletarian army raised by C. Aurelius Cotta had arrived, under their commander the proconsul Lepidus, and was immediately dispatched to deal with this uprising that was threatening Rome’s hard-won dominion. The campaign proved lengthy and arduous, but the troops were eager to prove themselves. In 681 Segovia, one of the main Arevaci towns, fell.
When the term of Lepidus expired at the end of that year, he was replaced by a propraetor, M. Terrentius Varro. The new commander established a good rapport with his soldiers, aided by the disgraced former Consul Dolabella, who returned to serve capably as a staff officer and restore his reputation. The capture of the last of the Arevaci strongholds, principally Segontia and Numantia, completed the pacification of the peninsula. Two provinces were created in 683, Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior.
In 681 the war against Macedonia resumed in Illyria when the Empire launched a counter-attack to eject the Romans from their footholds on the eastern shore of the Hadriatic. A consular army led by C. Claudius Marcellus scored a decisive victory at Lissus after distracting the Macedonians with a diversionary attack on the Aetolian city of Calydon. A further victory at Epidaurum completed the Roman conquest of the Illyrian coast. The following year Marcellus, now a proconsul, captured the strategic island of Corcyra and the vital city of Apollonia, the latter through a now classic strategy of a frontal assault by sea, beaten off with severe casualties but in reality a sacrificial diversion for the main, land-based attack. He thereupon laid siege to Epidamnus, a key town between Lissus and Apollonia. With its capitulation in 683, Cassander agreed to a formal peace, ending after 28 years the longest of the seven wars fought between Rome and Macedonia over a period of three centuries.
Under the treaty, the Emperor recognized the Roman province of Illyricum, created in 685. Corcyra was ceded to Rome’s ally Epirus. In return, the Romans pledged no further encroachments unless provoked, and non-interference in Macedonian affairs.
The Roman victories and the suppression of piracy (facilitated by the death of Helenus of Pharos in 681) proved immensely popular among the Hellenes, inspiring revolts against Macedonian rule which were put down with great ferocity. The reprisals devastated much of the country, creating a residue of hatred which endured until the destruction of the Macedonian imperium, seven decades hence. On the other hand, the Hellenes’ appeals to Rome fell on deaf ears, as the Senate held to the treaty.
The disillusionment felt by the Hellenes undoubtedly represented a lost opportunity; but the Romans, in particular the senatorial class, still had no master plan or any grand strategy for conquest or liberation. Roman policy remained reactive and opportunistic. Most of her wars were defensive in spirit, even though the line between pre-emption and aggression was becoming increasingly blurred. In the meantime, the focus of Rome’s attention had once more shifted, this time northwards, to Gallia Transalpina.
* The Baleares were annexed by Rome, becoming a praefecture under the governor of Sardinia until transferred to Hispania Citerior in 683. Undeveloped but endowed with excellent harbours, the islands experienced one of the first systematic attempts at Romanizing a territory through the planting of colonies. The local inhabitants, unsophisticated but fiercely independent of spirit and skilled in the deadly use of the sling (from which the name Baleares is derived), made excellent mercenaries. A separate province was created in 707; however, the islands were eventually incorporated into Hispania Major.

 

[bluestraggler]

Map and Gazetteer

Here is a brief list of place names used in the ALT so far.
They are listed by OTL name. I have included only those that may be unfamiliar or unrecognizable.
The ATL name is in italics.
COUNTRIES AND REGIONS
British Isles - Britannicae Insulae or Britannia; consisting of Albion, Caledonia and Ierna (also Juverna, Hibernis); later including Sabernia/Sabrina (Wales - from the River Sabrina, the OTL Severn; not Cambria, from Cymru, a later adoption in OTL).
China - Sina or Sinae
Crimea - Chersonesus Taurica or Scythia (Chersonesos, "peninsula"; the Tauric Chersonesus is the peninsula of the Tauric people.)
France - Gallia, land of the Galles (Gauls); western France is Aquitania.
Greece - Due to the persistence of the Macedonian Empire, the Greek name Hellas comes into common Latin usage, replacing Graecia (originating from a contingent of colonists at Cyme in Italia, who came from an obscure place known as Graia, near Tanagra. Somehow the local Italian population came to refer to the settlers at Cyme as Graii, later transformed into the Latin form Graeci).
Phoenicia - modern Lebanon - Punic or Poenic was the Latin version of "Phoenician".
Portugal - Lusitania
Provence - southern France - Gallia Maritima (Maritime Gaul). In OTL, Gallia Narbonensis (after Colonia Narbo Martius, Narbonne) was the first Roman colony outside Italy. The Romans called the province Provincia Nostra ("our province) or simply Provincia ("the province"). Earlier, the region was known as Massilia, after the town of Massalia.
Spain - Hispania
Yugoslavia (former) - Illyricum or Illyria
ISLANDS
Bahrain - Tylos
Malta - Melita
MOUNTAINS
Alps - Alpes
Pyrenees - Montes Pyrenaei or Pyrenaeus Mons; Pyrenaeum
RIVERS
Aude - in the vicinity of Narbonne; Atax
Baetis - in southern Hispania (Baetis apparently of Poenic origin)
Danube - Danubius or Danuvius. The Greeks called the river Istros (Romanized Ister); the lower Danubius was often known by the Greek name.
Ebro - Iberus, in Hispania
Garonne - Garonna or Garumna, in Aquitania
Loire - Liger
Po - Padus, in northern Italia
Rhine - Rhenus
Rhône - Rhodanus
Saône - southern France - Araris
Seine - Sequana
Severn - Sabrina or Sabern
Thames - Tamesis
SEAS
Adriatic - Hadriatic Sea - from the Etruscan city of Hatria, at the mouth of the Padus.
Aral - Oxianus Lacus, Lake of Oxus
Azov - Lake Maeotis
Black - Euxine (Hospitable) Sea
Caspian - Hyrcanian Sea - from Hyrcania, the land to the south; also known as the Caspium Mare, from the tribe of the Caspii.
Mediterranean - The name Mare Nostrum ("our sea") is gradually replaced with Mediterranean.
North - Mare Germanicum or Mare Britannicum
Persian Gulf - Sinus Arabicus
Red - Red Sea, Latin Mare Rubrum or the poetic Mare Erythraeum.
Tyrrhenian - Etruscan Sea, or Mare Inferum ("lower sea", as opposed to the Hadriatic, Mare Superum, "upper sea")

 

[bluestraggler]

Republic and Empire, Part 11

In the latter part of the seventh century, new movements of Galles and Germans on the far side of the Alpes were beginning to arouse concern in Rome, reminiscent of the momentary panic caused by the irruption of the Cimbri and Teutones fifty years earlier. A German people, the Suebi, had long been migrating southwards and had by now reached the River Rhenus. Though details are obscure, around 681 the chieftain of the Suebi, Ariovistus, took advantage of feuding amongst the Gallic tribes, in particular the Aedui and Sequani, who had been moving into the lands formerly occupied by the Allobroges. At the head of a coalition of several German tribes, he crossed the Rhenus into Sequani territory, upsetting the fragile balance between the tribes in the region.
Both the Aedui and Sequani had been allies of Rome during the first German invasion. The Senate had offered to mediate in their dispute, but little positive action was taken, pleasing neither party. In the end, under pressure from the Equites to protect their business interests in Gallia Maritima, the Senate acted, declaring support for the stronger Aedui. This drove their rivals to seek alliance with Ariovistus.
A diplomatic mission in 683 ended in humiliation for the Romans, when Ariovistus rebuffed the senatorial delegation and declared his dominion over all of eastern Gallia. While his effective rule did not extend west of the Rhodanus, such an explicit threat to Rome’s Gallic province could not be ignored. In 685, a Roman army under L. Aurelius Cotta, brother of the reforming Consul, struck northwards from his base at Massalia, taking the Germans by surprise. With just two legions and a few thousand Gallic auxiliaries, he marched through the former lands of the Allobroges to occupy the town of Genava.
Regrettably for Roman strategy in the region, when Cotta’s term of office had expired the Senate refused him a proconsular command. Furthermore, instead of heeding Cotta’s advice to hand the captured lands over to the friendly Aedui, the Senate created a new province - Rome’s ninth - in 688, Gallia Alpina, with its seat of government at Genava. Not only did this alienate one of Rome’s more reliable allies, but Genava proved a poor choice as a capital, being both isolated from Rome and exposed to the enemy.
(Other provincial rearrangements took place around this time. The border of Gallia Cisalpina was set at the Varus River and the Alpes Maritimae. Also in 688, the province of Gallia Transalpina was absorbed into Gallia Maritima.)
Ariovistus responded immediately, laying siege to Genava and exterminating its Roman garrison. One of the Consuls for 688, C. Calpurnius Piso, set off late in the season with six legions, to retake the town and re-establish Roman authority. Ariovistus fell back, seeking to draw Piso into a trap. Good sense and the onset of winter prevailed, however. Unlike his predecessor, Piso was granted a proconsular command and in the spring of 689 he set off in pursuit of the Germans. He advanced on the Sequanian town of Vesontio which Ariovistus had made his capital (to the chagrin of the Sequani who now discovered the price of an imprudent alliance).
The impetuous Piso led his army into the very trap he had avoided the previous year. Enticed into a crossing of the River Dubis when Ariovistus abandoned his capital, the Romans were caught still deployed in columns and butchered. Overconfident, Piso did not seem to have even reconnoitered the field. Nearly half the army was still on the south bank when the Germans attacked and escaped annihilation, but as many as thirty thousand Romans and their allies perished. Piso was among the survivors. He withdrew southwards, harassed by enemy action that claimed another ten thousand men before the dismembered army reached safety.
This latest disaster produced a furious reaction in Rome, against the conservatives who had denied the popular hero, L. Aurelius Cotta, the opportunity to follow up his victory at Genava. Piso’s proconsular imperium was revoked - an act almost unheard of since the days of Tarquinius Superbus. Cotta was appointed to the command of the dispirited army now under virtual siege in Vienna. He rushed north with reinforcements and restored discipline and morale to the beleaguered troops.
Providentially, the Germans did not follow up their victory with an immediate invasion of Roman territory. Like the Cimbri and Teutones before them, the Suebi lacked the skills and machinery to capture fortified positions by direct assault, and the resources and the will to settle in for a lengthy siege. Intent on further pillaging of the fertile fields of Gallia, the Germans moved off to the north-west, allowing the Romans a vital respite to regroup.
Nevertheless, more disagreeable news reached Rome. The Helvetii, a Gallic people pushed southwards by the Suebi, had crossed the Rhenus south of Genava. Disinclined to settle in the valley of the Rhodanus, the upper reaches of which were controlled by their German foes, the Helvetii, led by an inspirational chieftain named Orgetorix, probably intended to migrate into central or western Gallia. In doing so, they would inevitably clash with the Aedui, just as Rome was hoping to repair relations with her allies, damaged by the Senate’s actions in 688. The passage of the Helvetii close to Gallia Maritima was further incentive to intervene.
L. Aurelius Cotta was the best man to deal with the threat, and the Senate was willing this time to extend his assignment. Back in Rome, however, the populares were gathering strength, and Cotta was to be their standard-bearer, not the Senate’s deputy. The Tribune Gaius Manilius sponsored a bill to enable Cotta to stand for election to a second term as Consul in absentia. His supporters did not trust the Senate in its allocation of commands, which were made after the consular elections; and in any case, a proconsul was, disregarding experience and continuity in command, subordinate to the Consuls. The move was not without precedent but it was opposed by the Senate, on the reasonable grounds that Cotta already held a command, and on the more spurious grounds that the lex Valeria annalis forbade re-election after just five years (when in fact the law allowed for suspension of the rule in an emergency). Rioting broke out after one of the Senate’s Tribunes, a Metellan, vetoed the bill. A pro-senatorial mob, mainly hired thugs led by yet another Tribune, Lucius Domitius, attempted to break up the assembly when Manilius called for the deposition of Metellus. Manilius and several of his supporters were killed in the fray. This, the first overt act of political violence in the comitia, perpetrated not by revolutionaries but by the conservative oligarchy, added a new and dangerous dimension to Roman politics. However, if the self-proclaimed guardians of traditional republican values somehow reckoned that their opponents would not learn from this precedent, they were profoundly mistaken.
Cotta’s candidacy failed, but isolated in Gallia he could not be held responsible for events in the capital; and the Senate prudently renewed his proconsular imperium. At the same time, the resort to violence had been productive, as both of the Consuls elected for the year 690 were members of the conservative faction.
Diverted from his campaign against Ariovistus, Cotta set off to deal with the Helvetii, but as the two armies closed on each other, Cotta allowed the enemy to pass to his south. Shadowing the slow-moving Galles, the Roman general was in no hurry to force a battle, instead taking time to train his recruits and restore the morale of soldiers whose confidence had been badly shaken by the disaster that had befallen their compatriots on the Dubis. On several occasions the opposing camps were near enough for the Galles to draw up in battle lines and challenge the Romans. Cotta held his nerve and restrained his men. These noisy encounters served a purpose, conditioning the troops to the sight of the ferocious-looking but undisciplined warriors. The enemy’s taunts also began to chafe at Roman pride, until the legionaries, no longer intimidated, were impatient for action.
Cotta finally intercepted the westward-moving Galles at Valentia, with an assault upon their right flank. Despite their numbers, the Helvetii were no match for the highly trained and well-equipped legions. Their massed formation was frightening in its initial charge but quickly disintegrated against a steadfast defence. Forced to retreat to their wagons, from behind this barrier they initially inflicted heavy casualties on the attacking Romans, but once the wall had been breached all further resistance collapsed. Cotta saw no gain in pursuing and destroying the beaten Galles, who reversed direction, heading back towards the Rhenus. In any case, he was summoned to another theatre.
With Cotta distracted by the Helvetii, the Consul L. Caecilius Metellus took the field with six legions, including two recently raised in Gallia Cisalpina, which was becoming one of the Roman army’s most fertile recruiting grounds. He advanced through central Gallia, planning to strike the Suebi from the north-west, a strategy that was not without serious risks, as the Roman supply lines were stretched to their limits. Although his was an independent command, Cotta heeded an urgent call from Metellus to resume his northward march to catch Ariovistus in a pincer movement. However, the German chieftain was not so easily trapped. Wary of Cotta, or perhaps seeking to extend his dominions to the west, he moved to the offensive, assailing Metellus head on.
Metellus had reached Avaricum, the capital of the Bituriges (a small tribe subject to the Aequi), when he received word that the Germans were moving towards him, and it was here that he chose to make a stand. Later Roman chroniclers claimed that Ariovistus had 200,000 warriors under his command, although the real figures are impossible to estimate with any degree of certainty. Most likely, the Romans (including their allies) and the Germans were comparable in terms of numbers. In the meantime, as Cotta was coming up rapidly to his rear, the Aedui hounded Ariovistus from the north, severely restricting his freedom of movement and preventing foraging, so that the Germans were half-starved going into battle.
Despite their fearsome reputation, the Germans were no match for the Romans. The result was the annihilation of the Suebi on the banks of the Avara River. Survivors were hunted down by Cotta’s forces. In contrast to the magnanimous treatment of the Helvetii (who had been granted allied status), Cotta and Metellus were equally merciless towards the fugitives. Men, women and children were slaughtered, and the Suebi ceased to exist as a people. The fate of Ariovistus himself remains a mystery although it is assumed that he committed suicide in the wake of his cataclysmic defeat
The Aedui, allies of Rome, were now the dominant nation in those parts of Gallia with which the Romans were familiar. Taking their revenge on the Sequani, they attacked and destroyed their old rivals, whose military power had already been broken by their onetime German allies. This, however, brought them into potential conflict with Rome’s new clients, the Helvetii.
At the same time that Metellus was overcoming the Suebi at Avaricum, his consular colleague P. Sulpicius Galba personally led a diplomatic mission to the Helvetii. An arch-conservative who had earned renown as a distinguished jurist, Galba was an ideal partner for the soldier Metellus, but he craved further distinction. The treaty he negotiated with Orgetorix secured peace and a new ally, but at the cost of complicating Rome’s long-term policy in Gallia Transalpina. Permitting the Helvetii to settle in the Rhodanus valley, east of the river, he even arranged for a consignment of grain supplies to ease a food shortage. The Helvetii became loyal foederati, guarding the approaches to the Alpine province and the vital mountain passes that led into Italia.
Unimpressed by this arrangement were the Aedui who, further incensed when the Roman Consul haughtily forbade them from interfering with their new neighbours, fell under the influence of the principatus Dumnorix. He capitalized on the growing disenchantment among his people with the Romans to assert his dominance and transform the traditional elective monarchy into an hereditary one. By 693, he had broken with Rome and had set about consolidating and extending his power in the region. Many smaller tribes, responding to his anti-Roman rhetoric or intimidated by his belligerency, joined his cause.
Intelligence of this renewed threat was received by the Senate which dispatched a commission to the court of Dumnorix. His hostile response baffled and infuriated the Romans. Ten years of campaigning seemed to have accomplished nothing. In fact, the Romans never completely understood the Galles and Germans. Their fluid alliances and shifting allegiances were interpreted by uncompromising Romans not as a manifestation of clan loyalty or codes of personal honour but rather as barbarian caprice, or indeed outright treachery. It appeared that diplomacy, negotiation and treaty accords meant little. These primitives could only be brought into line by application of overwhelming force. On the other hand, the Romans comprehended the significant weakness of their foes. Interminable squabbling between and within the tribal groupings and the demonstrable inability to form more than temporary coalitions to defeat a common enemy made them vulnerable to a determined, co-ordinated offensive.
In the spring of 694, twelve legions, supported by some fifty cohorts of allies and auxiliaries and several thousand cavalry, began a three-pronged offensive into central and western Gallia. To cut off an escape route west, and to prevent support from reaching Dumnorix, one column under the command of a propraetor, Sergius Sulpicius Rufus, marched into Aquitania. Most of the tribes and towns submitted, although the Cadurci in the eastern parts and the maritime Santones offered brief initial resistance. Hostages were taken, and the Aquitani thereafter remained quiescent. Meanwhile a second army led by another of the Caecilii Metelli, Quintus (a cousin of Lucius), struck out to the north-west, capturing Gergovia, stronghold of the Averni tribe who had impetuously joined the Aedui in their revolt. Metellus suffered a major setback assaulting the citadel at Nemossus (and failed to reach Avaricum, taken by his uncle four years earlier), but he had fulfilled his mission of keeping the Galles divided.
A full consular army under M. Claudius Marcellus advanced up the Rhodanus to deal directly with Dumnorix, who had occupied Genava (ostensible capital of Roman Gallia Alpina, deserted since 689) and extended his influence as far south as Vienna. The Galles were repulsed at Lunna, just north of Vienna, whereupon Dumnorix abandoned his territories east of the Araris River, the traditional boundary between the Aedui and Sequani. He retreated to Bibracte, the Aeduan capital, and was shortly afterwards murdered. His brother Divitiacus succeeded as principatus. Although there is no evidence that Divitiacus was involved in the assassination, he declared that he had no quarrel with the Romans and offered his submission. History remains divided about the motives of Divitiacus, but there is no doubt that he saved his people from a conquest they might have delayed but could not have prevented.
The war seemed to be over, but politics and ambition intervened. In Rome, the malignant Lucius Domitius had turned popularis and in his campaign for the consulship he denounced the generous settlement offered by Marcellus. In the meantime, Metellus had resumed his advance through central and western Gallia. Ordered to establish a frontier at the Garumna River, he was reluctant to fall back to this line and occupied the south bank of the Duranius. Although this was in violation of his mandate, the Senate ultimately accepted this accomplished fact. Indeed the Roman camp, called Condate for its location at the junction of the Rivers Garumna and Duranius, became the foundation for the capital of the Roman province of Gallia Aquitanica. (The Garumna, also called the Garonna, rises in the Pyrenaeum and flows north-west to enter the Atlantic Ocean in a broad estuary.)
In the new year as proconsul, Metellus struck eastwards with two legions and ten thousand allies, capturing Nemossus which had eluded him the previous summer. He then turned north to besiege Avariacum, forcing the Bituriges to negotiate. The Averni chieftain, Celtillus, sought refuge in the territory of the Turones, on the south bank of the River Liger. Wanting nothing to do with him, the Turones diverted the fugitive leader and his dwindling band across the river into the lands of the Andecavi. Anticipating this move, Metellus had sent a delegation to meet with the Andecavi, who hastily concluded a treaty of friendship. Rather than be handed over to the Romans, Celtillus and his followers committed mass suicide. The Andecavi, who inhabited the middle and lower reaches of the Liger, would prove valuable allies in the following century’s Gallic and German wars. Civitas Andecavorum was to be one of the major staging posts for the campaigns of Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus. Metellus returned home to a well-deserved triumph.
Lucius Domitius won the consulship of 695. The circumstances are obscure. He owed his success to powerful friends and patrons who apparently intended to use him as their agent. Understandably, they later disclaimed any connection. In any case, he was determined to achieve his gloria. Taking with him the two legions assigned to his imperium, Domitius raised another two in Gallia Cisalpina and set off to relieve Marcellus of his command. Unfortunately, his ambition exceeded his ability. Inept at logistical organization, he had provoked two minor mutinies among his half-starved troops by the time the army had crossed into the province. However, Domitius was not a stupid man. Prudently, he kept his forces out of direct action, splitting them up into garrisons in order to prevent the discontent from spreading.
His fellow Consul, the conservative M. Valerius Messalla, was only too glad to have his vexatious colleague out of the capital. The populares, acutely embarrassed by the manifest shortcomings of their latest champion, fell to bickering amongst themselves. The Senators gloated, but their smug self-satisfaction proved short-lived. The new generation of popular leaders understand that success in politics demanded military honours. They would rise to the challenge.
Lucius Domitius took the opportunity to extricate himself from his discomfiture by ostentatiously returning to Rome to rally his faction, leaving his army in the charge of his legates. These proved competent if not inspirational. Nothing much more is heard of Domitius, except that he retired to his country estate for a long and prosperous life as a private citizen.
The Gallic campaign had ended in farce. Nevertheless, Roman dominion had been extended to the River Liger in central Gallia and westward to the ocean. The capital of the Alpine province was shifted from exposed Genava to the more secure Nicaea. Future generations would complete the pacification of the Gallic and German tribes who continued to threaten Rome’s northern frontiers; but by then the Roman Republic had passed into history.

 

[bluestraggler]

Chapter 4: The Fall of the Republic

Another expository section without any real action, but necessary to set the scene.

By 695 Rome had completed the conquest of southern Gallia. In the 160 years since the creation of the first province, the Roman imperium had become more a true empire ruled by Rome rather than a federation dominated by the Romans. They controlled the Mediterranean Sea and its northern shores west of Hellas, and were on the verge of establishing a new imperium in Africa.
Military and diplomatic success abroad consolidated the political predominance and social pre- eminence at home of the ruling elite, the nobiles. The rising middle class, more interested in profit than politics, and the plebeians, peasant and proletarian alike, gave credit where it was due. As a result, Roman political and social institutions did not progress. Democratic evolution stalled, and the senatorial oligarchy consolidated its hold over the Republic.
Nevertheless, beneath the facade of republican strength, political, economic and social rifts were opening. The fruits of expansion included the bitter as well as the sweet. The acquisition of empire brought challenges and well as opportunities. Yet the ruling elite, and the senatorial government in particular, was slow to recognize the impact of these changes and the extent of the abuses, and reluctant to endorse anything but the most superficial solutions. Instead they were preoccupied with reaping the harvest of empire.
Yet the apparatus of government was in need of drastic overhaul, for the political and constitutional mechanisms devised to govern a city-state proved inadequate in this vaster sphere. Maladministration which led to inefficiency and unrest was a function of both incompetence and corruption.
The economic in Italia transformation wrought by the growth of the latifundia and the importation of slave labour had a political impact in Rome, where a massive influx of dispossessed farmers and labourers created a seething, impoverished proletariat, unemployed or underemployed. Powerless as individuals but potent in numbers, the urban plebs could be mobilized in the assembly, mustered in street gangs and recruited into the army by the populares, ambitious men who harnessed the power of the people and their representatives in the cause of reform or in the pursuit of personal power.
While the alienated proletarians had little to lose if the senatorial oligarchy were overturned, the middle class had much to gain. For also growing resentful of the prerogatives of the nobilitas and the abuses of the senatorial government were the Equites, the entrepreneurial class whose investments in Italia and the provinces had made them wealthy but whose prosperity depended on the caprices of a privileged elite motivated by private gain rather than the public interest. Few of the equestrians sought an active career in politics but most were willing to back - with their votes and their money - men who challenged the status quo.
The constitution had remained essentially intact, but the virtues that sustained the republican system had now become vices. Political life was a furious scramble for offices and honours, ambitious men striving to emulate the achievements of their ancestors and outshine their contemporaries. It was this fiercely competitive character which had preserved and strengthened the Republic, yet ultimately it was what brought about its downfall. For the contest had become an end in itself. Public office was no longer the prize, but instead the means to pursue ever greater prestige and power. State institutions, in particular the lawcourts and the army, became instruments for realizing selfish personal objectives rather than furthering the interests of Rome or the welfare of the people or even the advantages of the entire ruling class.
The early eighth century historian Gaius Sallustius Crispus moralized about the traditional virtues; but in praising them he identified the source of the disorder which undermined the Republic:
"Under kings, the meritorious are greater objects of suspicion than the undeserving, and to them the stature of others is a source of alarm. But when liberty was secured, the state strengthened itself. Every citizen sought distinction, to display his talents. The greatest rivalry was for glory. Each man sought recognition of his exploits. Genuine wealth lay in honour and nobility. Greedy for praise, men were lavish with their money, desiring sufficient wealth but boundless glory."
Libertas, the defining attribute of the Republic, never meant equality, even within the narrow confines of the elite; nor was the republican system strictly speaking a meritocracy. Indeed, the political struggles of the seventh and eighth centuries took place almost exclusively within the confines of a narrow social circle, the political elite, and within strict boundaries. These conflicts, however bitter, were never ideological or revolutionary. They represented a clash of personalities and personal rivalries, a contest for dignitas. The most ambitious leaders sought to dominate the Republic, not to overthrow it, and their hostility was directed against their rivals, not against the establishment as a whole. Populares and conservatores alike fought to protect and project their own status, not change the form of government or the fundamental nature of the state. The agenda adopted by even the most radical of the populares rarely went beyond the redistribution of land and the relief of debt. Such reform was frequently motivated by a genuine desire to improve the lot of the dispossessed and disadvantaged; but the intent was to alleviate suffering, not to eradicate its fundamental causes.
Since the beginning of the Republic, just a handful of great families had monopolized the major political and military offices. Competitive ambition in public and especially military service had always been to some extent self-serving and self-indulgent. However, in the context of empire, the struggle for pre-eminence had developed into a state of perpetual feuding among the leading noble houses. With higher stakes to play for, the prize was no longer mere gloria but rather potentia (power), and the arena was no longer restricted to Rome but encompassed the entire Mediterranean world and, recently, the lands of the Galles. Once wars were fought in self-defence or as a pre-emptive strike. By the mid-seventh century, however, Rome’s foreign campaigns had become more wars of conquest, preventive in intent but nonetheless aggressive.
In the eighth century, external war and domestic political conflict became inextricably linked, in the competition for high offices and military commands. At the heart of much of this bitter rivalry were the patrician Claudii and the plebeian but staunchly republican Caecilii Metellii.
The battle lines were blurred and clan loyalties were rarely clear-cut. Ideology, family histories and personal allegiances sometimes prevailed. The Claudian Marcelli, a plebeian branch of the gens Claudii with a long record of public service, supported the conservatives. That should come as no surprise, since it was in the competitive republican spirit that plebeian families could rise to great prominence (yet the Aurelii Cottae could be counted among the radicals); while some of the most distinguished of patrician bloodlines, such as the Claudii Neroni, had popularis connections.
The political battles of the day were fought out in several arenas, including the lawcourts. A rising politician could make a name for himself by prosecuting, or defending, a prominent member of the elite. The victim might be an opponent, a potential rival or nothing more than a prestigious target of opportunity. Such ways of attaining distinction created enmities and also obligations, political and financial. Debts incurred in the process of forging a public career could be exorbitant. The high expense of an election campaign, including lavish expenditures on public works and spectacles, and the cost of litigation obliged poorer men to seek the patronage of the wealthy.
Yet such patronage was a two-way street. A magnate might gather about him a sizeable retinue; but his clients represented a substantial investment which the patron had to protect and promote. This could become ruinously expensive, and also self-defeating in an environment in which fluid alliances meant rapidly shifting allegiances. The complex web of connections and rivalries could also create animosity where none had previously existed. Furthermore, a patron might find the ambitious young man whose career he had bankrolled suddenly turning on him.
In the end, however, the greatest distinction was achieved on the field of battle, which intensified the competition for the senior commands. In a state built on a foundation of armed might, violence became the instrument of domestic politics as well as of foreign policy. Increasingly, contending factions and individuals resorted to intimidation and outright force to accomplish their goals. In an inevitable escalation, they employed the services first of mobs of clientelae, then of the disaffected veterans, and eventually of the army itself to enforce their will upon the Senate and the populus. What had changed over the last century was that the legionaries of the late Republic constituted a long-term, professional army, no longer a citizen militia of peasant conscripts, but composed more likely of volunteers recruited from the urban proletariat. Although levies might still be drawn from a potentate’s clientelae, most soldiers now saw military service as a career rather than a short-term obligation, and in the absence of action on their behalf from the Senate - such as to secure benefits for retired veterans - they looked to their commanders, not just for the traditional share of plunder, but for pensions in the form of land allotments.
In turn the generals, whose dignitas was a function of their military success, were reluctant to disband their armies at the end of a campaign, as was the tradition. Whereas in the old army the troops expected discharge as early as possible, in this new, professional army both the general and his soldiers saw it in their interest to prolong their service. It was the Senate - or the rivals of a successful general - who pressed for disbandment. Yet the needs of the age were for a standing army, as well as for extended commands. In the old mode or warfare, demobilization at the end of a campaign meant that each new season fresh armies had to be raised, organized equipped, trained and drilled, in an expensive and time-consuming cycle mandated by political, not military, policy. In the new age this was unthinkable.
As a result of the lex Claudia of 603, but also in response to the demands of holding an overseas empire, commands of virtually indefinite duration became the norm. Indeed, the imperium proconsulare became a glittering prize, the pursuit of which was to deform the cursus honorum and corrupt the political system upon which Rome’s empire was founded. Achieving the consulship was no longer the pinnacle of a political career, but rather the conduit towards greater distinction.
Thus the very developments which had propelled the Roman Republic to dominance in the Mediterranean posed the greatest danger to its survival as a constitutional entity. The close bond between a general and his troops, the overweening ambitions of certain members of the elite, and the legionaries’ dependence on soldiering for their livelihood meant that the men who wielded the power in the state - as individuals, in the case of the great commanders, or collectively in the common soldiers - might be indifferent to the cause for which they were called upon to fight, the defence of Rome and the preservation of the Republic. In their hands, the army was to become a double-edged sword. Radical populares and reactionary conservatores alike, provided they were successful on the battlefield and could guarantee their men loot and pensions, could command the staunch loyalty of their troops, professional soldiers whose lengthy terms of overseas service hardened their outlook and cut them off from civil life. These were the men who won an empire and destroyed a republic.

 

[bluestraggler]

The Fall of the Republic, Part 2

By the beginning of the eighth century, as the Roman Republic was facing challenges which would threaten its survival, the Macedonian Empire was in a state of terminal decay.
The sixth war with Rome ended with the loss of all the western dominions and the frontier pushed perilously close to the Macedonian heartland. Sporadic revolts in Hellas proved a constant irritant. However, during this time the eastern provinces had remained relatively quiet. The Parthians, although a nuisance, continued to serve a useful purpose in keeping potentially unruly governors and client kings in line, dependant on the vast resources of the Empire.
Early in his reign, Dionysius II sent an expedition against the Parthians in the vicinity of the River Oxus. In 664, however, he suddenly halted the campaign. This decision coincided with the death of the successful commander Hyperides in Hispania and the armistice negotiated with the Romans soon afterwards. Perhaps the Emperor, for all his shortcomings, foresaw that the theatre of the war against Rome would shift to the Hadriatic, much nearer to home.
A truce was called and the strongest of the Parthian potentates, Mithradates, was proclaimed a king and vassal of the Emperor. His overlordship remained largely nominal. As well as having to contend with rivals from within his own clan and from other tribal rulers, Mithradates had to hold off the Tocharians pushing inexorably westwards out of Transoxiana (the lands beyond the Oxus). His successor, Orodes, demanded ever greater amounts of money from the Imperial treasury to pay for the defence of his realm, with threats of marching on Mesopotamia. The subsidies disbursed by the Emperor to his client kings began to take the form of extortion payments. Since this led to the exorbitant taxation which so galled the Hellenes, to protect his domains in the far east the Emperor risked inciting revolt in his own backyard.
Nevertheless, some time around 680 Bactria passed out of the Macedonian imperium. Such was the state of affairs that we have no reliable record of exactly what happened; but Orodes also disappears from the annals at this time. His defeat and death at the hands of the Tocharians seem the most logical explanation. In the following decade, we find reports of refugees from the Iranian plateau streaming into Mesopotamia, creating food shortages and social tensions.
However, the loose unity of the Tocharians proved their ultimate undoing. They were unable to exploit their success in the long term. By the year 700, several independent kingdoms had been established west of the Indus, and these took to squabbling amongst themselves. The strongest was that of the Sarangians (the Hellenic designation for a people whose own name is now lost), located along the River Etymandrus south of Bactria. A multi-ethnic confederation of Tocharians, Parthians and Persians, the Sarangians expanded relentlessly westward, in 709 capturing the old Persian capital of Persepolis. They were rebuffed in an attack on southern Mesopotamia, by native resistance led by Diomedes, a descendant of the governor Amyntas appointed by Philip IV.
Amyntas had built up a formidable base and was one of the few Argeads to survive the purges that followed the accession of Dionysius I. Following his victory over the Sarangians, Diomedes reigned as a virtually independent monarch.
The Sarangians now turned eastwards, against their kinsmen in Bactria and Arachosia. Within a few decades of continuous warfare, the Tocharians west of the Indus had declined into insignificance. Although reduced to the status of mere spectators in these events, the Macedonians took some comfort in the fact that, in the east at least, their enemies could not unite against them.
Arabia was also becoming restless. The rich provinces of the south resented the taxation and commercial exploitation which had increased under the Dionysian dynasty. As with Bactria, we do not know when exactly this region passed out of the Macedonian orbit. Around the year 700 or shortly thereafter, the Sabaeans appear to have taken control of the fertile coastal zone, with its bustling emporia and lucrative spice trade. A certain Shammar is identified as king, and his realm is described as extending across the Red Sea into the African land of Axum. Not long after, Shammar or his successor fought a war with Omana (also known as Maketa), on the north-eastern corner of the Arabian peninsula. The complete absence of any mention of the Macedonians in the (admittedly fragmentary) accounts of this conflict testifies to the eclipse of Imperial power on the fringes of the imperium.
Meanwhile, two other powers were on the rise, challenging Macedonian sovereignty, to the north-west and the south-east.
Circa the year 690, a tribal chieftain of the Thracian Getae (known to the Romans as Dacians) named Byrebistas was expanding his control north of the Danubius. Defeated by Megas Alexandros in AUC 417, the Getae had apparently achieved a degree of autonomy during the Gallic incursions of 473. For the next two centuries they remained sullen clients of the Emperor until Byrebistas took advantage of Macedonian decline to absorb his neighbours and declare himself king. By prudently avoiding contact with the Macedonians and Romans south of the great river, he extended his dominions across the Carpates Mountains into Pannonia. Around 700, he defeated the Bastarnae and the Scordisci, tribes apparently of Gallic origin who had settled south of the Carpates, and he absorbed these formidable warriors into his growing military power.
In 709, Emperor Dionysius III led in person a large-scale punitive raid across the Danubius. The attack was unprovoked except that Dionysius felt that it was time to bring the defiant Getae to heel. Before his accession to the throne in 698, the young prince had shown some promise, having spent the previous four years on campaign in the east. Yet for the past decade he had been indolent, almost somnambulant, failing to stem the Tocharian advance (indeed, 709 was the year in which the Sarangians had captured Persepolis with virtually no resistance) or to take advantage of Roman problems in north Africa. In 707, he sent a fleet to liberate Carthage, without success (q.v.). He no doubt saw a campaign across the Danubius as a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of his subjects and in particular the army leadership.
On the River Aluta, where it cuts through the southern Carpates, the Emperor was ambushed and suffered a humiliating defeat. Barely escaping capture and forced to negotiate, he ceded to Byrebistas the entire south bank of the Danubius. Thereafter, the Macedonians relinquished the initiative in the region to the Romans, although it would be decades before the region was pacified.
Within three years of his victory on the Aluta, Byrebistas had died after a reign of more than forty years; and his successors struggled to hold the kingdom together under challenge from the dispossessed petty chieftains and from the Dardani, an aggressive Thracian-Illyrian people to the west.
As these events were unfolding, the kingdom of Armenia in eastern Anatolia was asserting its independence. Here the Orontid dynasty had ruled since the early second century, as client kings of both the Persians and the Macedonians, with increasing autonomy. In 698, Hydarnes VI, young and bold, declared himself free of the Macedonian imperium. He took advantage of the recent death of the Emperor Cassander, assassinated by a disgruntled officer during a tour of inspection in Thracia. Hydarnes was careful to avoid provoking the Macedonians. He launched a series of campaigns to consolidate his holdings to the north-east and along the southern shore of the Hyrcanian Sea, pacifying the Parthians and Sarmatians. He even sent a small force to assist Diomedes against the Sarangians in 709. However, after the humiliation of Dionysius by the Getae, he declared his independence.
At its zenith under Hydarnes’ son Arsanes, Orontid Armenia extended from the Anatolian Euphrates in the west to the Caucasus Mountains in the north to the famous Gates of Alexander in Hyrcania. His successors proved excessive in their ambition, overextending themselves in campaigns as far east as the Oxus and across the Taurus Mountains into northern Mesopotamia. Nevertheless, the Emperor in Pella was powerless to stop them trying.
When 22 year-old Dionysius III took the throne in AUC 698, despite recent setbacks his accession seemed to foreshadow great things for the Empire. The promise was never fulfilled. His reign of 46 years was to be the longest of any Macedonian monarch, and one of the most dismal.

 

[Darkest]

Quite an ATL, here. I love Alexander timelines, and yours is one of the best I've seen. I'm glad you've taken it so far. And, as said before, the detail is amazing. I congratulate you. It is an awesome universe that you are developing.

However, you are overdue for a political map!

 

[bluestraggler]

Quite an ATL, here. I love Alexander timelines, and yours is one of the best I've seen. I'm glad you've taken it so far. And, as said before, the detail is amazing. I congratulate you. It is an awesome universe that you are developing.

However, you are overdue for a political map!

Thank you.
My output may be reduced somewhat in the next week or two, for a couple of reasons; but I will update as often as I can.
As for a map... well, I do have a crude one showing the major political divisions.
Cheers.

 

[Max Sinister]

OK. So it's 33 BC, and the Romans have taken all that was to take in the west except Gaul (and even more - Morocco and parts of Iberia only became Roman under Augustus). But the biggest price is yet to take... or will the Macedonians become Rome's eternal enemy, like the Parthians / Persians were IOTL?

 

[bluestraggler]

OK. So it's 33 BC, and the Romans have taken all that was to take in the west except Gaul (and even more - Morocco and parts of Iberia only became Roman under Augustus). But the biggest price is yet to take... or will the Macedonians become Rome's eternal enemy, like the Parthians / Persians were IOTL?

Here are two hints:
Check out the timeline in post # 57 and the list of Macedonian emperors in # 62.

 

[bluestraggler]

The Fall of the Republic, Part 3

After centuries of struggle, Rome had emerged dominant in Italia and, during the course of the seventh century, in the central and western Mediterranean. Yet this pre-eminence rested upon an insecure foundation.
Only the most obstinate and indifferent among the Roman leadership failed to take note of the growing unrest in Italia and the provinces. Nevertheless, personal greed and the excessive displays of wealth which characterized social competition in the late Republic made the majority of the elite indifferent to the wretched conditions prevailing in the countryside and to the threat this posed to political stability.
While the free peasantry seethed with resentment, the most serious manifestation of the ferment was the outbreak of slave revolts in Etruria, Apulia and Sicilia in the 690s. Generally overlooked in the accounts of Rome’s wars, these uprisings were nevertheless difficult to suppress. On more than one occasion, several legions were needed to quench the flames.
In 692-3, the greatest slave revolt of all threatened, for a brief period, Roman control of Sicilia. Here, vast tracts of agricultural land had been taken over by Italian entrepreneurs, greedy absentee proprietors who cared nothing for the welfare of their servile workforce or the dispossessed peasants. Driven by hunger as much as by a desire for liberty, large numbers of slaves had escaped into the countryside, sustaining themselves by brigandage. At first they robbed travellers and attacked isolated villas. The disorder was more an annoyance than an overt danger; but as the areas of lawlessness grew to a critical size, they began to overlap. Suddenly, small bands began to coalesce.
Becoming bolder, the rebels sacked villages and stormed towns, carrying out massacres and recruiting fresh hordes of liberated slaves. Free peasants left destitute and desperate by the expansion of the latifundia, and fired by the insurgency, joined in, pillaging the estates of landowners and managers.
Although most risings were spontaneous, some groups tried to go further than mere vengeance against their masters, attempting to organize governments and independent states. In other parts of the island, plundering mobs wrought nothing but chaos and bloodshed. At the height of the rebellion in the summer of 693, an estimated hundred thousand men and women were on the rampage.
Distracted by events in Gallia, Rome was slow to appreciate the gravity of the situation. It was only after several half-hearted attempts to quell the revolt that a full consular army was deployed under P. Fonteius Capito. Against a valiant defence born of desperation and hatred, the training and discipline of the Romans eventually prevailed, with savage retribution. The final death toll, from the fighting and the mass crucifixions which followed, has never been established.
Fear of further uprisings, combined with some humanitarian concern, prompted the Senate to send a commission to investigate the causes of the revolt. The result of their inquiries was legislation to ameliorate the most inhumane conditions. Although a lack of supervision allowed most of these measures to be ignored, the authorities were more stringent in enforcing laws banning the trade in Italians enslaved by pirates.
While there would be more uprisings, they were sporadic, and none would threaten the Roman imperium. Fortunately for the ruling elite, the servile revolts in Italia and the provinces outside Sicilia did not rouse the free population. The urban poor had nothing in common with the slaves and little sympathy for their abject plight. The dwindling numbers of free peasants and impoverished rural labourers, powerless to take on the magnates who were the cause of their distress, too readily turned the focus of their resentment on the enslaved workers.
However, the same exploitation and brutalization which impelled the slaves to revolt manifested itself in only slightly attenuated form in the treatment of the free population. Unlike the subject peoples of the empire, the Roman proletariat bore the expectations of citizens. They were becoming increasingly and dangerously alienated. With the traditional ties of patronage breaking down, they were losing confidence in the ability and willingness of the traditional leadership to look after their interests. They did not empathize with the slaves, but neither were they inclined to fight to protect the status quo. More and more, they seemed willing to act against it.
Conservatives in the Senate decried the vices of the age and called for a return to old-style values; but their resistance to meaningful reform and their distrust of ambitious members of their own senatorial order turned them into reactionaries, interested only in preserving the privileges of their class while shirking their duties and ignoring their responsibilities. Nothing changed for the better, and the next challenge to the Republic arose inside Italia.
Here the allies were questioning their role in the empire they had helped to create. For their investment in blood, the rewards had been paltry. More and more of the profits were being diverted to Rome. Protests against the frustrating lack of consultation were answered with ever greater centralization and increasing demands on manpower, as the war in Gallia dragged on. In the meantime, colonization schemes and agrarian reform promoted by Roman politicians such as Lucius Domitius, to win support in the popular assembly, threatened the land holdings of the Italian communities.
The Revolt of the Allies began with the Latin colony of Fregellae, which raised the standard of rebellion in the spring of 696. The immediate provocation was a proposed law for the prosecution, on a charge of sedition, of any Roman who colluded with the Italians to help them acquire citizenship. When attempts by moderate tribunes to interpose their veto were met with menaces from the popularis mob, the Fregellans had seen enough to convince them that a peaceful resolution was impossible.
The Romans, believing that concerted hostile action was unattainable, were profoundly shocked as, before long, much of central Italia was ablaze. The Samnites revived their ancient league and declared themselves independent. Several towns in southern Latium joined, and almost all of Campania went over, followed by Umbria and parts of Etruria. The governing classes in the Latin communities, who had been granted citizenship not long after the tribunate of Sertorius, remained loyal; but these small nuclei did not enjoy legitimacy or popular support and were overthrown by democratic factions who declared for the rebellion.
One of the praetors, D. Junius Silanus, accused Macedonian provocateurs of inciting the trouble, and it is a gauge of the Senate’s desire to keep the Empire out of Italian affairs that a diplomatic mission was dispatched to Pella to reassure the Emperor that he was not under suspicion.
War on a large scale was averted because the Senate was, as a whole, astute enough to appreciate the legitimacy of the allies’ grievances, and to understand that the revolt was an act of desperation, not one of treachery. A war on Italian soil, against veterans of Rome’s overseas campaigns, evoked frightful memories of the struggle for survival in earlier times. Fearing that the Macedonians might still intervene, or at least take advantage of the distraction, the Senate offered the Italici full citizenship with suffrage in return for peace. The previous year’s Consul, M. Valerius Messalla, led a delegation to Fregellae, which accepted the offer; and with rare exceptions the other communities fell into line. A few democrats denounced the settlement and demanded full independence, but their calls went unheeded. When it became known that slaves were being recruited and armed, more cities abandoned the cause. Only the most ardent of the firebrands desired outright war.
Here and there, a Roman official was murdered. Generally, they and their families were given safe passage out of hostile territory. The killings were explained away - overzealous Roman agents were seizing hostages or abusing their authority for crude extortion. The sole major engagement was fought at Beneventum between the Samnites and a huge force led by the Consul L. Licinius Murena.
The Romans had fortune on their side. In uncharacteristic panic, dreading the Samnites’ legendary prowess, the Senate ordered Murena to concentrate all available forces under his direct command and advance directly into Samnium. This naturally weakened the other armies in the field, and had they had been obliged to fight, they would most likely have suffered annihilation. In the event, the battle of Beneventum took place in the twilight of the rebellion.
Technically, it was a Roman defeat. As Murena invested the city, his main encampment was attacked and overwhelmed by an enemy relief column while the troops assigned to guard it were preoccupied with foraging. In his haste to take the field, the Roman commander had not brought enough supplies to sustain his vast army. Forced to withdraw across the river Sabatus into Campania, Murena occupied Nola. The city was showing the first stirrings of revolt, having hitherto remained neutral on account of a substantial Roman garrison. The Nolans speedily submitted.
Bowing to the inevitable, despite their victory the Samnites laid down their arms. A condition of the Roman bestowal of citizenship was that the newly enfranchised municipia send troops to suppress their former confederates. Thus Rome grew immeasurably stronger as the rebellion petered out. In Etruria, a number of agitators were summarily executed. At Firmum in Picenum, and at Pompeii, hundreds were slain. Hearing such news, a rebel army gathering at Asculum, near the central east coast, dispersed. There were no reprisals, and even those cities which had mutinied were included in the citizenship grants.
There was, of course, another more cynical dimension to the Senate’s belated generosity. The newly enfranchised citizens represented a novel clientele for the Senators, which might be used to counter the influence over the urban proletariat enjoyed by the popularis faction.
In an outburst of jealous rage fuelled by unscrupulous politicians, the popular assembly opposed the citizenship grants, and a Tribune, one Publius Sextius, applied his intercessio. As violence erupted and the allies vowed to resume their insurgency, Rome was faced with the daunting prospect of civil disorder within the city and war throughout Italia. Taking an almost unprecedented step, the Senate declared a tumultus, a state of emergency. However, rather than appoint a Dictator, as would have been done in an earlier age, the Senate issued the senatus consultum de republica defendenda first used in 677, suspending the constitution, investing the Consuls with extraordinary powers and calling on them (and in theory every Roman citizen) to take whatever measures were deemed necessary to restore order and protect the Republic.
In AUC 696, the Senate’s motives were righteous, if nonetheless self-serving. However, in the political controversies of the late Republic, this form of decree would be used for more partisan and sinister purposes, a declaration of martial law against those whom the conservatores condemned as "enemies of the state". On this occasion P. Sextius and his supporters were intimidated into silence; and a third of a century after Sertorius’s noble failure, the allies won their citizenship and a major step had been taken towards the unification of Italia. The old man was still alive to see it.
Subsequently, it became a governor’s prerogative to bestow citizenship on worthy provincials, an extension of the policy of rewarding loyal Italians before the mass enfranchisement. This, contrary to the intentions of the Senate, allowed commanders to build a clientele in the provinces. It was the paradox of this complex age that the resolution of one crisis created other problems for the senatorial government.
The breakthrough in Italia did not end dissension in Rome. The elections for 697 were thrown into turmoil when Sextius and his partisans seized control of the process to have his strongest critics, members of the conservative faction, removed from the roster. Running for a second term, Sextius claimed he had uncovered an assassination plot against him, and invoked the sacrosanctity of the tribunate. The plebeian assembly voted him an armed bodyguard of three hundred men, giving official sanction to his gangs of thugs who thereupon took over the streets, terrorizing his opponents.
Even his fellow radicals recoiled from such immoderate behaviour, and Sextius was denounced in the Senate as a dangerous revolutionary. Both sides breathed a sigh of relief when, in a confrontation in the forum, Sextius and dozens of his henchmen were beaten to death. Although the crime was deplored in the assembly, no prosecutions were forthcoming. The elections went ahead, only slightly delayed and without further serious incident.
The Publius Sextius episode had no long-term consequences, except to expose the sham of republican government. Neither the populares nor the conservatores (the latter despite their self-proclaimed mission to preserve the Republic) paid heed to constitutional principles in their political struggles. With neither side willing to compromise, the conflict escalated. The assembly became unworkable as violent disorders broke out each time it convened. Whereas the radicals recruited the urban mob to their cause, the conservatives paid the expenses of their rural clients, and in particular the newly enfranchised former allies, to travel to Rome to vote in the assembly and to confront the opposition.
In the end, however, the most important client base was the army. Veterans had already been used to push through bills and to break up a hostile assembly; and it was only a matter of time before a general marched his army into Rome. The recent Gallic war and the Italian emergency had provided new opportunities for ambitious politicians. In the course of the following century, the armies raised to serve the Republic would be used to destroy it.