I just wanted to weigh in and say I really like this timeline. Its so detailed. I'd love to do one this detailed, but I always get bogged down (my original Roman Timeline completely stalled around 300 years into it or so).
Rome versus Macedonia
- Thread starter bluestraggler
- Start date
Ouch! My ATL is at present 288 years past the PoD!
I must admit that it does get harder as one progresses farther from OTL, as the cumulative effects of previous changes have to be taken into account.
The interesting question is: At what stage does counterfactual history become fictional history? Once this "tipping point" is reached, the ATL is freed up to become more speculative, and one can afford to be less rigorous with "historical" details.
The Fall of the Republic, Part 4
At this stage of the ATL, there is an apparent convergence with OTL’s Numidian and Social Wars. Roman expansion into North Africa was inevitable, and given the nature of the landscape, a Jugurthine-style protracted war would have been the most likely outcome. The revolt of the allies was also probably unavoidable.
Even as affairs in Italia and Gallia appeared settled, a new confrontation had developed in Africa, where aggressive Roman diplomacy convinced the Numidian king, Adherbal, that war was inevitable. In 695, a senatorial delegation sent to Cirta, the Numidian capital, to negotiate on secure borders for Rome’s subject ally, Carthage, was subjected to rough treatment at the hands of an unruly crowd. Although Adherbal denied responsibility and promised to punish the perpetrators, the Senate suspected - with good reason - that the incident was a planned incitement.
To pre-empt reprisal, the king mobilized his forces, and in Aprilis 697 he besieged Utica. A Poenic city second only to Carthage in size and strategic importance, Utica was a long-term ally of its neighbour, but not a Roman protectorate. However, it contained a large Italian colony. In any case, the Numidian action posed an obvious danger to Rome’s interests on the continent, and when the Uticenses appealed for aid the Senate resolved on war.
Adherbal’s motives in taking on the might of Rome remain unclear. He was probably encouraged in his inflammatory behaviour by the revolt in Italia and also by the knowledge that a strong anti- Roman faction existed in Carthage. The army sent to relieve Utica was made up largely of Carthaginians, many of whom were sympathetic to the Numidians. The city was betrayed, and in the tumult which followed the Italian traders and their families were massacred.
The outrage at Utica aroused the fury of the Roman people. An expedition consisting of four legions under the command of Appius Claudius Pulcher, one of the consuls of 697, was dispatched. A hostile reception at Carthage, possibly contrived by Roman provocateurs, gave the Senate its excuse to directly annex the city and its hinterland, to be proclaimed Rome’s tenth province. There was little resistance at the time; but the cost of maintaining a strong garrison in the city would be felt during the long campaign ahead.
Adherbal abandoned recently conquered Utica, withdrawing his forces into the country’s rugged interior to wage a campaign of attrition. However, his plans were upset when his bid to forge an alliance with his western neighbour, Mauretania, fell through. The Mauretanian king, Bocchus II, reaffirmed his alliance with Rome and moved on Cirta, which Adherbal was forced to evacuate. Nevertheless, the Numidians repelled a series of Mauretanian incursions on their western border.
Roman domestic politics then intervened. Claudius Pulcher returned to the capital to seek a second consular term, a highly irregular act. As he was virtually guaranteed a proconsular command, his motivation would seem to have been simple pride - resistance to the idea of being outranked, since the proconsular imperium was inferior to that of a serving Consul. In his absence, his legate Q. Titurius Sabinus took the initiative by embarking upon a diplomatic mission to Adherbal, to negotiate a truce. On their way to Adherbal’s headquarters, he and his staff were ambushed and killed.
The Numidians were naturally blamed, although suspicion lingered that the wily and unscrupulous Bocchus was behind the murders. The Senate demanded that the assassins be extradited to Rome to stand trial. Adherbal had a number of the accused executed but this did not placate the Romans. The Numidian king knew now that he was engaged in a struggle to the death. Taking the initiative, he mounted a full-scale offensive into Mauretania, routing his foes and threatening the capital, Tingis (Roman Tingitana).
Back in Rome, this latest debacle had immediate repercussions. Discredited, Claudius abandoned his plans for re-election. The populares capitalized on the affair. Their latest standard-bearer, Q. Cassius Longinus, was a man fired by personal ambition rather than conviction and blessed with no great skill or tact. In reaction to his candidature, the Senate rallied behind a staunch conservative with strong military credentials, Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Cassius and Marcellus were elected amidst disorders in the assembly.
To pre-empt the Senate, a popularis tribune, Publius Vatinius, pushed through a bill granting the African assignment to Cassius. This was to prove an unwise decision, as the new Consul quickly demonstrated. From Carthage, Cassius set off with four legions, at the height of summer in pursuit of Adherbal, who had been conducting raids into the province with virtual impunity. The Numidian king refused battle, retreating into the remote hinterland. By year’s end, Cassius had been forced to withdraw, having lost a third of his men to the desert. Remarkably, his career was not adversely affected. Awarded the governorship of Africa as proconsul, he would continue to play a key role in the campaign that would become known as Rome’s "ulcer".
What saved Cassius from recall and disgrace was the death, in 698, of the Macedonian Emperor, Cassander. Despite its inaction during the great slave uprising of 692-3 and the revolt of the allies in 696, the Empire was still deemed to be a major threat. Dionysius III came to the throne with a solid military reputation. In response to the change of ruler in Pella, Rome redirected her attention there. Africa was still perceived as a military backwater.
Although his generalship had already been demonstrated to be at best mediocre, Cassius cannot be held to blame for the next setback, the loss of his two best legions. These were transferred to Illyricum in anticipation of a Macedonian revival on that front. There they remained idle (as did the Macedonians on the other side of the frontier) while the war effort in North Africa was turning into a drawn-out, confusing and frustrating war of attrition. It was the very type of conflict Adherbal had counted on. Numidian raids into Roman territory were answered with punitive expeditions which rarely found contact with the enemy and ended in withdrawal to the coastal fringe. Cassius and his advisers lacked the initiative to change tactics, but even his best efforts were thwarted by the diversion of resources to Illyricum and the necessity of keeping a large garrison in Carthage.
The public’s growing impatience with the progress of the war and dissatisfaction with the quality of military leadership was reflected in increasing hostility in the popular assembly to the Senate, and resistance to the exercise of its prerogatives. It would seem to have been entirely lost on the popular party that the ineffectual Cassius was their own man.
When Marcellus was given a proconsular command to defend Mauretania, the assembly responded with a bill to deprive him of his legions. This was a clear breach of constitutional convention and a direct challenge to the Senate’s authority. Yet the Senators could do little about it, lacking the will to confront the popular leadership over a war for which enthusiasm was waning. On both sides of the political divide, what was at stake was not a quarrel in some far-off African state but a constitutional issue at home.
The consular elections for AUC 700 were conducted in an atmosphere of mounting crisis. Twice postponed, once due to mob violence and the second time when one of the presiding Consuls, L. Valerius Flaccus, had declared some bad omen, they resulted in another split decision, between the popularis candidate M. Livius Drusus and the conservatores’ Q. Caecilius Metellus (for his second consulship). In violation of the lex Claudia, but to avoid further altercations, both were assigned army commands, Drusus in Illyricum and Metellus in Africa. Since Rome was not at this time at war with Macedonia, there was no actual need for a serving Consul to go to Illyricum, and indeed Drusus remained in the capital, a propraetor acting as his legate in the province. In the meantime, Metellus arrived in Africa, with low expectations for any immediate success.
Inevitably, Drusus took advantage of his colleague’s absence to rally his faction, drive his opponents into submission or into hiding, and establish virtual autocracy in the capital. Following the usual populist route, he introduced legislation to distribute some public lands and relieve debt. To secure the backing of the equestrian class, he moved to tighten the laws pertaining to corruption in the provincial governments, while watering down those regulating the behaviour of investors, speculators and contractors. On a more constructive level, Drusus continued large-scale recruiting for new units to relieve and reinforce those in Africa and Illyricum from Cisalpine Gallia, thereby accelerating the process of integration and assimilation that would lead to the Romanized province being absorbed into Italia before the end of the eighth century.
The following year, Metellus and Drusus were each re-elected. The latter’s motive in not opposing his colleague’s nomination was clear. Away from Rome, Metellus was no threat to Drusus, but should he return to claim his rights, he would doubtless bring with him his army. Yet at the close of his second term, Drusus went to his province, now assigned to him as a proconsular command. Little more is heard of him. In the meantime, Q. Caecilius Metellus was also discovering his limits.
In 703, by which time Metellus had made little headway, the troublesome Adherbal died, and the Mauretanian king Bocchus II took advantage of the confusion to annex Numidia, with tacit Roman approval. The war seemed to be over, and Metellus and his staff prepared to return to Italia. Then Bogud, the brother of Bocchus, conspired with the Roman governor in Carthage, Cassius Longinus, to scythe off Numidia as a separate kingdom.
The action of Cassius was unauthorized and condemned in Rome. He had commanded in Africa for an almost unprecedented five years, and with little success. His compact with Bogud was the final embarrassment. He lost the support of the assembly and was recalled in disgrace. However, the Senate refused to repudiate the alliance, and Roman forces landed in the port city of Cartenna, near the Numidian-Mauretanian frontier, in support of the new client.
Enraged, Bocchus invaded Numidia forthwith, and the defeat and death of his brother in early 705 reunified the kingdom of Mauretania and Numidia. Rome did not interfere during the fighting but at its conclusion insisted that Bocchus surrender lands bordering its African province. However, the Romans dismissed his demand to evacuate Cartenna. The following spring, the city was besieged by the Mauretanians. The garrison commander, Aulus Plotius, organized a stout defence, though lacking any realistic hope of reinforcement or resupply. After three frustrating months, Bocchus withdrew.
In Rome, the populares were clamouring for action, for the relief of Cartenna and the chastening of Bocchus. On the other hand, the Senate proved once more that the lack of wisdom displayed in its handling of domestic affairs did not extend to foreign policy, refusing to escalate the conflict in Africa. Instead, the Romans waited for Bocchus to make the next move; and in 707 he negotiated an alliance with the Emperor Dionysius.
Eager for a quick victory, the Macedonian despatched a fleet to liberate Carthage. His ships were intercepted near Myrmex island, off the coast of western Cyrenaica, and destroyed. The Romans then followed up this naval victory with a full-scale assault on Cyrenaica, swiftly conquering all five cities of the so-called Pentapolis. The spectacular success earned its commander, M. Sempronius Rutilus, the consulship in 709, shortly after the creation of Rome’s twelfth province. (The eleventh, Baleares, had been proclaimed the previous year.)
The chastened Macedonians made no further attempt to intervene in North Africa; but the renewed war dragged on. Anticipating a Roman move on Aegypt, Dionysius built up his forces there, but no attack came. Nevertheless, the distraction in North Africa and the transfer of troops from the northern and eastern frontiers help to explain the Macedonian embarrassments in Dacia, Armenia and central Asia at this time.
In 708, an ambitious Mauretanian attack on Zama, a large fortified town south-west of Carthage, failed. Bocchus was forced back onto the defensive. He reverted to the former delaying tactics adopted by Adherbal. Taking advantage of the Roman command system, his aim was to prolong the war in the hope that a new general might be less competent than his predecessor. He refused open battle, mounting raids on Roman outposts and supply trains. The Romans in turn found the going hard. Abandoning their attempts to bring on a decisive confrontation, they embarked on a methodical but tedious campaign of systematically reducing one stronghold after another.
In this dreary and dangerous type of warfare, a young officer, Tiberius Claudius Nero, distinguished himself in several actions and was eventually promoted to the staff of the new commander in Africa, the proconsul Gaius Antistius Reginus. Born in 680, Tiberius was from the patrician Claudii, one of the most illustrious of all republican families, one boasting thirty consulships, five dictatorships, seven censorships and numerous triumphs and ovations. Gifted, ambitious and ruthless, he gained a reputation as a stern but fair officer, who introduced effective measures to instill discipline and restore morale. Dour and aloof, among the troops he inspired respect rather than affection. He led by example in his bravery and his austerity. Before the age of thirty, Tiberius already commanded two legions as the legate of Reginus
Back in Rome, an important legislative innovation had changed the very nature of command in the provinces. In 707, the lex Rubria laid down that the consuls must remain in Italia during their term of office; with only promagistrates sent outside the country as army commanders and provincial governors. The practical justification for this law was that, as past experience showed, the arrival of a new consul with superior authority upset the continuity of command and created tensions between a less experienced consul and his more seasoned deputies. The political motive behind the measure was that it was easier to control promagistrates in the provinces, appointments being as they were the responsibility of the Senate. At the same time, the lex Fulvia increased the number of praetors to eight, in order to provide ten proconsuls and propraetors for the ten provinces. (Yet in the very same year an eleventh province, Baleares, was created.)
In the spring of 708, Bocchus returned to the offensive, once more besieging Cartenna. The doughty defender during the previous blockade, Aulus Plotius, had been succeeded by the less resolute Lucius Gellius. Ti. Claudius Nero rushed to the scene with two legions and chased away the Mauretanian. By lifting the latest siege of Cartenna, establishing a secure base of operations that split the territory controlled by Bocchus, and most importantly salvaging Roman pride, Tiberius was hailed a hero in Rome. In achieving his distinction, he incurred the jealous enmity of his commander.
Tiberius soon had a falling out with Reginus, accused of insubordination. He returned to Rome to seek the consulship for 709 and was immediately adopted by the populares. However, he refused to publicly attack Roman policy or command decisions in Africa - at least, he held back until the moment suited his own purposes. Instead the popularis faction worked hard to inflate his reputation, fashioning him into the idol of the plebs.
However, the campaign for the consulship foundered. Tiberius’s haughty manner and his arrogant disregard for the cursus honorum alienated the powerful supporters he needed for a successful bid. (On the other hand, the conqueror of Cyrenaica, M. Sempronius Rutilus, was elected.) Instead, Tiberius settled for a praetorship (praetor urbanus), even though this was also highly irregular. He was more than ten years too young for the office, and it was clear to everyone that his motivation was not public service but the securing of a propraetorial command.
At the end of his term, Tiberius was initially assigned an administrative post in Sicilia. A friendly Tribune, Gaius Cornelius, introduced a bill to secure his appointment to North Africa which passed through the assembly, propelled by the usual intimidation.
In 710, Tiberius arrived back in Africa, to take over the province of Cyrenaica (Rutilius having been assigned to Hispania Citerior). Almost immediately he commandeered the fleet and sailed with part of his army to Carthage, still governed by Reginus. He was ordered out. Indeed, the insolent young propraetor’s actions could have been construed as treasonable. However, Tiberius’s supporters in the assembly voted him an extraordinary command over all of North Africa. The humiliated Reginus agreed and allowed his colleague to campaign against Tingis while he maintained the pressure in Numidia. No doubt Reginus expected Tiberius to fail. In fact, he conceded his rival a spectacular triumph.
In all of this, Reginus emerges as a sympathetic character, a competent if not brilliant man of ambition who nevertheless had faithfully observed constitutional tradition. Eclipsed by the more energetic Tiberius, his fate was to become little more than a side note in the history of the late Republic. He was the first of many Romans of his political class to be overshadowed by the rising sun of the Claudians. His political legacy was the passage of the lex Sulpicia, a direct outcome of his dispute with Tiberius. This law stated that there should be no special army commands; all military operations to be conducted under the command of a provincial governor, personally or through legates appointed with the approval of the Senate. Furthermore, a governor must not take or send his army outside his province without the express permission of the Senate. The lex Sulpicia would be flouted many times in the decades ahead.
The year 710 saw the fall of Tingis, the key city of Mauretania. Juba, a brother-in-law of Bocchus, proclaimed himself king and an ally of Rome. Much of the Mauretanian nobility, tired of fighting, rallied to him. The Roman province of Africa Nova was established, essentially the former kingdom of Numidia, with its capital at Cartenna. Still, the war dragged on, as the elusive Bocchus and his supporters retreated into the desert, using mobile, hit-and-run tactics to frustrate his pursuers.
Back in Rome, Tiberius’s supporters demanded a triumph. This the Senate refused, eventually settling for an ovation, which Tiberius in his turn rejected as an insult. In the end, the Senators relented, mainly to get Tiberius back to Rome and deprive him of his command. The conqueror of Tingis came home wrapped in glory, while his former commander Reginus continued with the unglamorous task of reducing the enemy bastions. In 711, a Roman army crossed the wasteland to take on Thala, a stronghold in the Numidian desert. Reginus’s legate, Gnaeus Terentius, failed to capture the town and was forced to retreat with heavy losses, mainly due to thirst. Adding to the horror of the parched soldiers, hundreds of luckless stragglers were killed by the relentless foe.
This latest reverse brought the growing discontent in Rome to a crescendo of outrage. The seemingly endless conflict was unpopular with soldiers, due to the hardships and dangers and the slim prospects for loot. Discipline began to fray, desertions increased dramatically, the demoralized troops took to pillaging the countryside. The Senate was willing to negotiate with Bocchus, but demagogues in the assembly and ambitious would-be commanders demanded total victory.
After the Thala debacle, Reginus was recalled and retired a bitter man.
The following year, still cooling his heels in Rome, Tiberius took the apparently bizarre step of running for and being elected quaestor, a financial official lower in rank than praetor and therefore beneath the dignity of a man on the make. Yet never a conventional politician, Tiberius turned the cursus honorum around, using his office to increase his public profile. Engaging in a massive splurge of public spending - on games, public works and dole distributions - he invested his inherited wealth and his profits and plunder from the African war in self-promotion. When his personal funds ran dry, he ran himself heavily into debt.
Tiberius was incidentally the beneficiary of a recent reform, the lex Lutatia, granting ex-magistrates immediate admission to the Senate, instead of having to wait for enrolment by the Censors. As a leading Senator, Tiberius pushed for a military solution to the North African war.
In 713, the propraetor Q. Curtius lost two legions in a new offensive against Thala, an objective which seems to have become an obsession for successive Roman commanders. Capitalizing on this latest disaster, Tiberius campaigned for the 714 consulship, once more with complete disregard for the cursus honorum. He was elected on the principle of popular sovereignty - what the people ordains overrides what the law prescribes - a dangerous precedent which conservative Senators vehemently opposed. Violent disorders threatened to disrupt the transfer of the imperium to Tiberius and his colleague, P. Aquillius Gallus; but in the end, the Senate decided it was safer to dispatch the new Consul to the African front, ignoring the seven year-old lex Rubria.
Tiberius arrived in Africa to take over a province on the verge of mutiny. The superseded governor, P. Autronius Paetus, had been murdered a few days before, apparently by disgruntled officers as the unbalanced Q. Curtius was plotting the assassination of the newly arrived Consul. It is not known whether Autronius was part of this conspiracy. Tiberius felt obliged to punish the killers, and he then set about restoring discipline.
Despite his bellicose rhetoric back home, Tiberius did not immediately go on the offensive. There was too much damage to repair. He was therefore angered when, in 716, Lucius Caecilius Metellus arrived to take up a proconsular command. The men were assigned separate districts, Metellus the east and Tiberius the west. However, the long, enervating war was about to come to a dramatic close. For in Februarius 717, King Juba was murdered, almost certainly by agents of Bocchus trying to provoke an uprising. The plot was misconceived. In a swift operation, Tiberius advanced on the Mauretanian capital, preventing Bocchus from taking control. Simultaneously, in a lightning strike, Metellus captured Thala. The coup against Juba had rebounded, distracting Bocchus at a crucial time. Although he escaped encirclement, he never again challenged Roman supremacy. Some time afterwards he was reported dead, and Mauretania was incorporated into the province of Africa Nova.
Tiberius returned to Rome expecting to be received with a triumph; but he found only indifference. The African war had dragged on too long. He adopted the cognomen Africanus, but sophisticated Romans mocked his pretension. The Senate instead hailed Metellus, the conqueror of Thala.
This was not the end of Tiberius Claudius Nero Africanus. He was just 37 years of age, still too young to legally hold the consulship and thirsting for greater dignitas and gloria.
At this stage of the ATL, there is an apparent convergence with OTL’s Numidian and Social Wars. Roman expansion into North Africa was inevitable, and given the nature of the landscape, a Jugurthine-style protracted war would have been the most likely outcome. The revolt of the allies was also probably unavoidable.
Even as affairs in Italia and Gallia appeared settled, a new confrontation had developed in Africa, where aggressive Roman diplomacy convinced the Numidian king, Adherbal, that war was inevitable. In 695, a senatorial delegation sent to Cirta, the Numidian capital, to negotiate on secure borders for Rome’s subject ally, Carthage, was subjected to rough treatment at the hands of an unruly crowd. Although Adherbal denied responsibility and promised to punish the perpetrators, the Senate suspected - with good reason - that the incident was a planned incitement.
To pre-empt reprisal, the king mobilized his forces, and in Aprilis 697 he besieged Utica. A Poenic city second only to Carthage in size and strategic importance, Utica was a long-term ally of its neighbour, but not a Roman protectorate. However, it contained a large Italian colony. In any case, the Numidian action posed an obvious danger to Rome’s interests on the continent, and when the Uticenses appealed for aid the Senate resolved on war.
Adherbal’s motives in taking on the might of Rome remain unclear. He was probably encouraged in his inflammatory behaviour by the revolt in Italia and also by the knowledge that a strong anti- Roman faction existed in Carthage. The army sent to relieve Utica was made up largely of Carthaginians, many of whom were sympathetic to the Numidians. The city was betrayed, and in the tumult which followed the Italian traders and their families were massacred.
The outrage at Utica aroused the fury of the Roman people. An expedition consisting of four legions under the command of Appius Claudius Pulcher, one of the consuls of 697, was dispatched. A hostile reception at Carthage, possibly contrived by Roman provocateurs, gave the Senate its excuse to directly annex the city and its hinterland, to be proclaimed Rome’s tenth province. There was little resistance at the time; but the cost of maintaining a strong garrison in the city would be felt during the long campaign ahead.
Adherbal abandoned recently conquered Utica, withdrawing his forces into the country’s rugged interior to wage a campaign of attrition. However, his plans were upset when his bid to forge an alliance with his western neighbour, Mauretania, fell through. The Mauretanian king, Bocchus II, reaffirmed his alliance with Rome and moved on Cirta, which Adherbal was forced to evacuate. Nevertheless, the Numidians repelled a series of Mauretanian incursions on their western border.
Roman domestic politics then intervened. Claudius Pulcher returned to the capital to seek a second consular term, a highly irregular act. As he was virtually guaranteed a proconsular command, his motivation would seem to have been simple pride - resistance to the idea of being outranked, since the proconsular imperium was inferior to that of a serving Consul. In his absence, his legate Q. Titurius Sabinus took the initiative by embarking upon a diplomatic mission to Adherbal, to negotiate a truce. On their way to Adherbal’s headquarters, he and his staff were ambushed and killed.
The Numidians were naturally blamed, although suspicion lingered that the wily and unscrupulous Bocchus was behind the murders. The Senate demanded that the assassins be extradited to Rome to stand trial. Adherbal had a number of the accused executed but this did not placate the Romans. The Numidian king knew now that he was engaged in a struggle to the death. Taking the initiative, he mounted a full-scale offensive into Mauretania, routing his foes and threatening the capital, Tingis (Roman Tingitana).
Back in Rome, this latest debacle had immediate repercussions. Discredited, Claudius abandoned his plans for re-election. The populares capitalized on the affair. Their latest standard-bearer, Q. Cassius Longinus, was a man fired by personal ambition rather than conviction and blessed with no great skill or tact. In reaction to his candidature, the Senate rallied behind a staunch conservative with strong military credentials, Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Cassius and Marcellus were elected amidst disorders in the assembly.
To pre-empt the Senate, a popularis tribune, Publius Vatinius, pushed through a bill granting the African assignment to Cassius. This was to prove an unwise decision, as the new Consul quickly demonstrated. From Carthage, Cassius set off with four legions, at the height of summer in pursuit of Adherbal, who had been conducting raids into the province with virtual impunity. The Numidian king refused battle, retreating into the remote hinterland. By year’s end, Cassius had been forced to withdraw, having lost a third of his men to the desert. Remarkably, his career was not adversely affected. Awarded the governorship of Africa as proconsul, he would continue to play a key role in the campaign that would become known as Rome’s "ulcer".
What saved Cassius from recall and disgrace was the death, in 698, of the Macedonian Emperor, Cassander. Despite its inaction during the great slave uprising of 692-3 and the revolt of the allies in 696, the Empire was still deemed to be a major threat. Dionysius III came to the throne with a solid military reputation. In response to the change of ruler in Pella, Rome redirected her attention there. Africa was still perceived as a military backwater.
Although his generalship had already been demonstrated to be at best mediocre, Cassius cannot be held to blame for the next setback, the loss of his two best legions. These were transferred to Illyricum in anticipation of a Macedonian revival on that front. There they remained idle (as did the Macedonians on the other side of the frontier) while the war effort in North Africa was turning into a drawn-out, confusing and frustrating war of attrition. It was the very type of conflict Adherbal had counted on. Numidian raids into Roman territory were answered with punitive expeditions which rarely found contact with the enemy and ended in withdrawal to the coastal fringe. Cassius and his advisers lacked the initiative to change tactics, but even his best efforts were thwarted by the diversion of resources to Illyricum and the necessity of keeping a large garrison in Carthage.
The public’s growing impatience with the progress of the war and dissatisfaction with the quality of military leadership was reflected in increasing hostility in the popular assembly to the Senate, and resistance to the exercise of its prerogatives. It would seem to have been entirely lost on the popular party that the ineffectual Cassius was their own man.
When Marcellus was given a proconsular command to defend Mauretania, the assembly responded with a bill to deprive him of his legions. This was a clear breach of constitutional convention and a direct challenge to the Senate’s authority. Yet the Senators could do little about it, lacking the will to confront the popular leadership over a war for which enthusiasm was waning. On both sides of the political divide, what was at stake was not a quarrel in some far-off African state but a constitutional issue at home.
The consular elections for AUC 700 were conducted in an atmosphere of mounting crisis. Twice postponed, once due to mob violence and the second time when one of the presiding Consuls, L. Valerius Flaccus, had declared some bad omen, they resulted in another split decision, between the popularis candidate M. Livius Drusus and the conservatores’ Q. Caecilius Metellus (for his second consulship). In violation of the lex Claudia, but to avoid further altercations, both were assigned army commands, Drusus in Illyricum and Metellus in Africa. Since Rome was not at this time at war with Macedonia, there was no actual need for a serving Consul to go to Illyricum, and indeed Drusus remained in the capital, a propraetor acting as his legate in the province. In the meantime, Metellus arrived in Africa, with low expectations for any immediate success.
Inevitably, Drusus took advantage of his colleague’s absence to rally his faction, drive his opponents into submission or into hiding, and establish virtual autocracy in the capital. Following the usual populist route, he introduced legislation to distribute some public lands and relieve debt. To secure the backing of the equestrian class, he moved to tighten the laws pertaining to corruption in the provincial governments, while watering down those regulating the behaviour of investors, speculators and contractors. On a more constructive level, Drusus continued large-scale recruiting for new units to relieve and reinforce those in Africa and Illyricum from Cisalpine Gallia, thereby accelerating the process of integration and assimilation that would lead to the Romanized province being absorbed into Italia before the end of the eighth century.
The following year, Metellus and Drusus were each re-elected. The latter’s motive in not opposing his colleague’s nomination was clear. Away from Rome, Metellus was no threat to Drusus, but should he return to claim his rights, he would doubtless bring with him his army. Yet at the close of his second term, Drusus went to his province, now assigned to him as a proconsular command. Little more is heard of him. In the meantime, Q. Caecilius Metellus was also discovering his limits.
In 703, by which time Metellus had made little headway, the troublesome Adherbal died, and the Mauretanian king Bocchus II took advantage of the confusion to annex Numidia, with tacit Roman approval. The war seemed to be over, and Metellus and his staff prepared to return to Italia. Then Bogud, the brother of Bocchus, conspired with the Roman governor in Carthage, Cassius Longinus, to scythe off Numidia as a separate kingdom.
The action of Cassius was unauthorized and condemned in Rome. He had commanded in Africa for an almost unprecedented five years, and with little success. His compact with Bogud was the final embarrassment. He lost the support of the assembly and was recalled in disgrace. However, the Senate refused to repudiate the alliance, and Roman forces landed in the port city of Cartenna, near the Numidian-Mauretanian frontier, in support of the new client.
Enraged, Bocchus invaded Numidia forthwith, and the defeat and death of his brother in early 705 reunified the kingdom of Mauretania and Numidia. Rome did not interfere during the fighting but at its conclusion insisted that Bocchus surrender lands bordering its African province. However, the Romans dismissed his demand to evacuate Cartenna. The following spring, the city was besieged by the Mauretanians. The garrison commander, Aulus Plotius, organized a stout defence, though lacking any realistic hope of reinforcement or resupply. After three frustrating months, Bocchus withdrew.
In Rome, the populares were clamouring for action, for the relief of Cartenna and the chastening of Bocchus. On the other hand, the Senate proved once more that the lack of wisdom displayed in its handling of domestic affairs did not extend to foreign policy, refusing to escalate the conflict in Africa. Instead, the Romans waited for Bocchus to make the next move; and in 707 he negotiated an alliance with the Emperor Dionysius.
Eager for a quick victory, the Macedonian despatched a fleet to liberate Carthage. His ships were intercepted near Myrmex island, off the coast of western Cyrenaica, and destroyed. The Romans then followed up this naval victory with a full-scale assault on Cyrenaica, swiftly conquering all five cities of the so-called Pentapolis. The spectacular success earned its commander, M. Sempronius Rutilus, the consulship in 709, shortly after the creation of Rome’s twelfth province. (The eleventh, Baleares, had been proclaimed the previous year.)
The chastened Macedonians made no further attempt to intervene in North Africa; but the renewed war dragged on. Anticipating a Roman move on Aegypt, Dionysius built up his forces there, but no attack came. Nevertheless, the distraction in North Africa and the transfer of troops from the northern and eastern frontiers help to explain the Macedonian embarrassments in Dacia, Armenia and central Asia at this time.
In 708, an ambitious Mauretanian attack on Zama, a large fortified town south-west of Carthage, failed. Bocchus was forced back onto the defensive. He reverted to the former delaying tactics adopted by Adherbal. Taking advantage of the Roman command system, his aim was to prolong the war in the hope that a new general might be less competent than his predecessor. He refused open battle, mounting raids on Roman outposts and supply trains. The Romans in turn found the going hard. Abandoning their attempts to bring on a decisive confrontation, they embarked on a methodical but tedious campaign of systematically reducing one stronghold after another.
In this dreary and dangerous type of warfare, a young officer, Tiberius Claudius Nero, distinguished himself in several actions and was eventually promoted to the staff of the new commander in Africa, the proconsul Gaius Antistius Reginus. Born in 680, Tiberius was from the patrician Claudii, one of the most illustrious of all republican families, one boasting thirty consulships, five dictatorships, seven censorships and numerous triumphs and ovations. Gifted, ambitious and ruthless, he gained a reputation as a stern but fair officer, who introduced effective measures to instill discipline and restore morale. Dour and aloof, among the troops he inspired respect rather than affection. He led by example in his bravery and his austerity. Before the age of thirty, Tiberius already commanded two legions as the legate of Reginus
Back in Rome, an important legislative innovation had changed the very nature of command in the provinces. In 707, the lex Rubria laid down that the consuls must remain in Italia during their term of office; with only promagistrates sent outside the country as army commanders and provincial governors. The practical justification for this law was that, as past experience showed, the arrival of a new consul with superior authority upset the continuity of command and created tensions between a less experienced consul and his more seasoned deputies. The political motive behind the measure was that it was easier to control promagistrates in the provinces, appointments being as they were the responsibility of the Senate. At the same time, the lex Fulvia increased the number of praetors to eight, in order to provide ten proconsuls and propraetors for the ten provinces. (Yet in the very same year an eleventh province, Baleares, was created.)
In the spring of 708, Bocchus returned to the offensive, once more besieging Cartenna. The doughty defender during the previous blockade, Aulus Plotius, had been succeeded by the less resolute Lucius Gellius. Ti. Claudius Nero rushed to the scene with two legions and chased away the Mauretanian. By lifting the latest siege of Cartenna, establishing a secure base of operations that split the territory controlled by Bocchus, and most importantly salvaging Roman pride, Tiberius was hailed a hero in Rome. In achieving his distinction, he incurred the jealous enmity of his commander.
Tiberius soon had a falling out with Reginus, accused of insubordination. He returned to Rome to seek the consulship for 709 and was immediately adopted by the populares. However, he refused to publicly attack Roman policy or command decisions in Africa - at least, he held back until the moment suited his own purposes. Instead the popularis faction worked hard to inflate his reputation, fashioning him into the idol of the plebs.
However, the campaign for the consulship foundered. Tiberius’s haughty manner and his arrogant disregard for the cursus honorum alienated the powerful supporters he needed for a successful bid. (On the other hand, the conqueror of Cyrenaica, M. Sempronius Rutilus, was elected.) Instead, Tiberius settled for a praetorship (praetor urbanus), even though this was also highly irregular. He was more than ten years too young for the office, and it was clear to everyone that his motivation was not public service but the securing of a propraetorial command.
At the end of his term, Tiberius was initially assigned an administrative post in Sicilia. A friendly Tribune, Gaius Cornelius, introduced a bill to secure his appointment to North Africa which passed through the assembly, propelled by the usual intimidation.
In 710, Tiberius arrived back in Africa, to take over the province of Cyrenaica (Rutilius having been assigned to Hispania Citerior). Almost immediately he commandeered the fleet and sailed with part of his army to Carthage, still governed by Reginus. He was ordered out. Indeed, the insolent young propraetor’s actions could have been construed as treasonable. However, Tiberius’s supporters in the assembly voted him an extraordinary command over all of North Africa. The humiliated Reginus agreed and allowed his colleague to campaign against Tingis while he maintained the pressure in Numidia. No doubt Reginus expected Tiberius to fail. In fact, he conceded his rival a spectacular triumph.
In all of this, Reginus emerges as a sympathetic character, a competent if not brilliant man of ambition who nevertheless had faithfully observed constitutional tradition. Eclipsed by the more energetic Tiberius, his fate was to become little more than a side note in the history of the late Republic. He was the first of many Romans of his political class to be overshadowed by the rising sun of the Claudians. His political legacy was the passage of the lex Sulpicia, a direct outcome of his dispute with Tiberius. This law stated that there should be no special army commands; all military operations to be conducted under the command of a provincial governor, personally or through legates appointed with the approval of the Senate. Furthermore, a governor must not take or send his army outside his province without the express permission of the Senate. The lex Sulpicia would be flouted many times in the decades ahead.
The year 710 saw the fall of Tingis, the key city of Mauretania. Juba, a brother-in-law of Bocchus, proclaimed himself king and an ally of Rome. Much of the Mauretanian nobility, tired of fighting, rallied to him. The Roman province of Africa Nova was established, essentially the former kingdom of Numidia, with its capital at Cartenna. Still, the war dragged on, as the elusive Bocchus and his supporters retreated into the desert, using mobile, hit-and-run tactics to frustrate his pursuers.
Back in Rome, Tiberius’s supporters demanded a triumph. This the Senate refused, eventually settling for an ovation, which Tiberius in his turn rejected as an insult. In the end, the Senators relented, mainly to get Tiberius back to Rome and deprive him of his command. The conqueror of Tingis came home wrapped in glory, while his former commander Reginus continued with the unglamorous task of reducing the enemy bastions. In 711, a Roman army crossed the wasteland to take on Thala, a stronghold in the Numidian desert. Reginus’s legate, Gnaeus Terentius, failed to capture the town and was forced to retreat with heavy losses, mainly due to thirst. Adding to the horror of the parched soldiers, hundreds of luckless stragglers were killed by the relentless foe.
This latest reverse brought the growing discontent in Rome to a crescendo of outrage. The seemingly endless conflict was unpopular with soldiers, due to the hardships and dangers and the slim prospects for loot. Discipline began to fray, desertions increased dramatically, the demoralized troops took to pillaging the countryside. The Senate was willing to negotiate with Bocchus, but demagogues in the assembly and ambitious would-be commanders demanded total victory.
After the Thala debacle, Reginus was recalled and retired a bitter man.
The following year, still cooling his heels in Rome, Tiberius took the apparently bizarre step of running for and being elected quaestor, a financial official lower in rank than praetor and therefore beneath the dignity of a man on the make. Yet never a conventional politician, Tiberius turned the cursus honorum around, using his office to increase his public profile. Engaging in a massive splurge of public spending - on games, public works and dole distributions - he invested his inherited wealth and his profits and plunder from the African war in self-promotion. When his personal funds ran dry, he ran himself heavily into debt.
Tiberius was incidentally the beneficiary of a recent reform, the lex Lutatia, granting ex-magistrates immediate admission to the Senate, instead of having to wait for enrolment by the Censors. As a leading Senator, Tiberius pushed for a military solution to the North African war.
In 713, the propraetor Q. Curtius lost two legions in a new offensive against Thala, an objective which seems to have become an obsession for successive Roman commanders. Capitalizing on this latest disaster, Tiberius campaigned for the 714 consulship, once more with complete disregard for the cursus honorum. He was elected on the principle of popular sovereignty - what the people ordains overrides what the law prescribes - a dangerous precedent which conservative Senators vehemently opposed. Violent disorders threatened to disrupt the transfer of the imperium to Tiberius and his colleague, P. Aquillius Gallus; but in the end, the Senate decided it was safer to dispatch the new Consul to the African front, ignoring the seven year-old lex Rubria.
Tiberius arrived in Africa to take over a province on the verge of mutiny. The superseded governor, P. Autronius Paetus, had been murdered a few days before, apparently by disgruntled officers as the unbalanced Q. Curtius was plotting the assassination of the newly arrived Consul. It is not known whether Autronius was part of this conspiracy. Tiberius felt obliged to punish the killers, and he then set about restoring discipline.
Despite his bellicose rhetoric back home, Tiberius did not immediately go on the offensive. There was too much damage to repair. He was therefore angered when, in 716, Lucius Caecilius Metellus arrived to take up a proconsular command. The men were assigned separate districts, Metellus the east and Tiberius the west. However, the long, enervating war was about to come to a dramatic close. For in Februarius 717, King Juba was murdered, almost certainly by agents of Bocchus trying to provoke an uprising. The plot was misconceived. In a swift operation, Tiberius advanced on the Mauretanian capital, preventing Bocchus from taking control. Simultaneously, in a lightning strike, Metellus captured Thala. The coup against Juba had rebounded, distracting Bocchus at a crucial time. Although he escaped encirclement, he never again challenged Roman supremacy. Some time afterwards he was reported dead, and Mauretania was incorporated into the province of Africa Nova.
Tiberius returned to Rome expecting to be received with a triumph; but he found only indifference. The African war had dragged on too long. He adopted the cognomen Africanus, but sophisticated Romans mocked his pretension. The Senate instead hailed Metellus, the conqueror of Thala.
This was not the end of Tiberius Claudius Nero Africanus. He was just 37 years of age, still too young to legally hold the consulship and thirsting for greater dignitas and gloria.
Liking this. Nero, I'm assuming, is going to be your first Emperor? Or will he just be the analogue to Julius Caesar?
Not the first emperor, although the first imperial family will be the Claudians. The more one looks at the history of the late Republic, the more likely it seems that some member of the Claudian gens would eventually rise to pre-eminence.
I suppose Tiberius could be seen as Caesar's analogue. The emergence of a Caesar-type figure was inevitable in the late Republic. It was Octavian/Augustus who was the dark horse, so his avatar won't be seen in this ATL.
The Fall of the Republic, Part 5
By the early eighth century, the imprimatur SPQR, Senate and People of Rome, had been exposed as nothing more than a constitutional fiction. The Senate had ceased being the guardian of the constitution and the mos maiorum (ancestral traditions). Corruption and incompetence had undermined its authority. Opponents of the established order, would-be reformers who might yet save the Republic, were treated as public enemies by an elite more concerned with safeguarding its narrow self- interests than in protecting the welfare of the state or the well-being of its citizens and subjects. Men of ability and initiative were suspect. The novi homines, "new men" who might have injected fresh blood into a debased oligarchy, were snubbed. The equestrian order, which might have found common cause with the aristocracy, was embittered by extortion and corruption. Even those conservatores motivated by sincere beliefs were doctrinaire republicans who failed to understand that their reactionary attempts to curb ambition and rein in the popular politicians only served to reward mediocrity, stifle talent and promote sedition.
Disillusionment with the failures of senatorial government brought about a revival of the populares and a change in their political agenda. The popularis tradition had its roots in republican competition, but it was not the public-spirited altruism later celebrated in nostalgic literature. The movement which had produced leaders such as Gaius Flaminius, Quintus Sertorius and Gaius Aurelius Cotta now attracted a more ruthless and self-serving brand of politician, for whom acquisition of empire and interminable warfare were opportunities for self-advancement. These were men who chafed at the restrictions of the cursus honorum and the stuffy elitism of the Senate, who disdained public service except as an avenue for personal promotion, and who scoffed at the traditional civic virtues. They were styled populares, but they were neither revolutionaries nor genuine men of the people. They mobilized the power of the people through the assemblies but they were not democrats. They drew upon the financial resources of the equestrian class, but with few exceptions they came from within the aristocracy. Indeed, the man who in the end destroyed the Republic did not rise from the ranks, nor was he a "new man". He came from one of the oldest and most venerable republican families.
The new breed of political general who came to prominence in the eighth century capitalized on a growing sense of alienation and resentment. Mob violence which had been little more than a spontaneous expression of petulant anarchism was now harnessed to disrupt the constitutional government. The legions raised to defend the Republic became personal armies, as generals employed their soldiers as a clientele to further their own careers. Feuds and vendettas were pursued and perpetuated for the sole purpose of securing a political advantage or to consolidate an alliance. The glory of the enmity itself - ipsa inimicitiarum gloria - became the catch phrase of the men of ambition for whom notoriety and popularity were but the two sides of the same coin.
Against a background of deepening crisis, the issues raised by men such as Flaminius and Sertorius receded into the background as the struggle for reform became a struggle for power. The only solution to enveloping chaos seemed to lie in centralized power exercised through a personal autocracy. By AUC 750, the issue at stake was no longer whether the Republic could survive in anything like its existing form, but rather the nature of the autocratic state that would replace it - a "traditional" rex, a dyarchy, an Aegyptian or Macedonian-style monarchy - and more immediately, who would wield the ultimate power in the state.
As the long war in North Africa moved towards its inevitable if hard-won conclusion, there was little doubt among all but the most myopic of the ruling elite that the next generation of political leadership would come from the upper echelons of the army. The cursus honorum, the lengthy career path which set limits on how much personal power one man could amass, had been distorted almost beyond recognition.
The need for continuity of command during prolonged overseas campaigns and to cater for the administration of the provinces led to breaches of the conventions of the cursus honorum, of the rules of prorogation (which normally set a one-year limit on proconsulships), of the principles of collegiality and annuality which had imposed constraints on the power of the magistracies, and of the limit of two legions assigned to a commander. Tiberius Claudius Nero Africanus personified this new order and yet he was only the most prominent of an entire class.
In AUC 720, the conservatores revived and extended the lex Valeria annalis of 537, with a ban on second consulships, formalized in the lex Varia Claudia (sponsored by both Consuls, P. Attius Varus and C. Claudius Marcellus). It was aimed squarely at the rising power and popularity of Tiberius. His position was strong enough that he could secure any proconsular command he desired, but his reluctance to being outranked and his need to secure immunity from prosecution by his political enemies (since serving officials enjoyed such immunity) had caused him to seek a second consulship, six years after his first.
Tiberius was able to delay the lex Varia Claudia and obtain the election. He still had important backers, in particular the wealthy equestrians who had financed his career. Yet he was prudent enough to pursue a moderate course for the following year. Only once did he confront the Senate when, typically and short-sightedly, it tried to block legislation to provide land grants for his veterans. The populares decried the injustice when similar a law to deliver pensions for the troops of L. Caecilius Metellus was approved. Even some of the conservatores were troubled by such a blatant and dangerous display of partisanship. In a calculated show of statesmanship, Metellus appealed to the Senators not to punish the soldiers for the arrogance and indiscretions of their commander.
It must be kept in mind that the political and social tensions in Rome had little impact in the provinces or on the frontiers. During the course of the long struggle in Africa, the newly conquered territories in Gallia remained quiescent. This was due partly to the fearsome reputation of Roman arms, but also to prudent management and careful cultivation of the indigenous ruling class.
Diplomatic missions and trading contacts, backed up by the occasional punitive raid, kept the peoples beyond the borders in line. The Romans pursued the same policy they had used to pacify the Italian states in previous centuries, negotiating treaties with individual tribes in order to create an intricate network of alliances. Neighbouring chieftains might be hostile to each other and yet equally a friend of Rome. Internal disputes and territorial squabbles were settled by Roman arbitration. Those who upset the status quo were bought off or disposed of.
At the same time, the Macedonians were in no position to take advantage of Roman distractions. In less than two generations, the vast imperium created by Megas Alexandros had lost more than half its territory. The ill-advised intervention in North Africa in 707 resulted in the excision of Cyrenaica and the endangerment of Aegypt, the Empire’s richest province. Nevertheless, it was only a matter of time before Republic and Empire clashed once more.
Metellus was rewarded for his service with a command in Illyricum, still seen by most influential Romans as the most important province. Tensions were escalating, and in Rome the populares were calling for a final reckoning with the old enemy. Yet the Senate was reluctant to engage in a war which could only enhance the reputations - and personal wealth - of the generals who fought in it.
Tiberius instead looked to the north. His command in Gallia would become a classic example of Roman pre-emptive aggression. The Gallic and German tribes were restless but posed no real threat. Nevertheless, Tiberius argued that the North African experience had revealed major problems with the Roman army, which had become flabby, its leadership complacent. It had to be kept on a war footing to maintain and revive the old virtues. His arguments may have been convincing, but there can be no doubting his true motives - to win glory for himself and opportunities, in the form of army contracts and trading concessions, for his creditors.
On the northern frontier of the Gallic province lived the Belgae, a tough and courageous people who had first come to prominence when they deflected the invasion of the Cimbri and Teutones. In the spring of 722, Tiberius contrived a suitable provocation. In response to sporadic raiding over the frontier, Tiberius and his army crossed the River Liger.
At first, Tiberius had just two legions, plus numerous auxiliaries recruited in Gallia, under his direct command. As he embarked on his campaign, he received another legion from a political ally, M. Pupius Piso, the governor of Gallia Maritima, and three more from enlistment drives undertaken by his agents in Gallia Citerior and Hispania. The dubious legality of these reinforcements testifies to the breakdown of the traditional order.
Tiberius advanced slowly and systematically, integrating his new units, gathering intelligence, and ostentatiously constructing bridges and fortified camps to demonstrate his military, engineering and logistical superiority. Along the way he forged new alliances and collected fresh troops, in particular cavalry. Yet he was also capable of great alacrity when the situation warranted.
The Lingones, who occupied the headwaters of the Sequana, yielded and joined the expedition. The Senones contested the Roman crossing of the Sequana. Tiberius sacked the town of Agedincum and moved on. Following the river towards the sea, he conquered the Bellovaci, one of the leading Belgian tribes, then swept eastwards, routing the Suessones. The Remi, who lived to the north of the Suessones, submitted. Tiberius then dealt with the Treveri, a mixed Gallic and German people who dwelt on the fringes of the impenetrable Arduenna forest.
The encounter on the banks of the River Mosa was brought on prematurely when the Roman vanguard, two cohorts of infantry and a contingent of horse, were surprised and butchered. By the time the rest of the Roman army came up, the Treveri had rallied. Yet they were fooled by a crude subterfuge when Tiberius deliberately exposed his supply train in the rear as he formed his line of battle. As they charged, their right wing bent around the Roman left to get at the wagons and their rich stores. Chased off by the sudden appearance of the Roman cavalry, in their flight they opened a breach in the formation which Tiberius immediately exploited. As the Roman infantry pushed into the gap and wheeled right to roll up the enemy lines, the cavalry prevented the rest from regrouping. Refugees from the slaughter fled into the Arduenna or across the Rhenus. They were allowed to escape, so that they might spread the word of Roman might.
So far Tiberius had encountered only moderate opposition or, on the banks of the Mosa, had dealt with an undisciplined foe. Because the tribes were unable to co-ordinate their efforts, he did not have to divide his forces. This was his good fortune, since such a large part of his army consisted of raw troops who needed both combat experience and acclimatizing. However, the advance northwards left his western flank exposed to hostile tribes, the Parisii and the peoples of Armorica, in particular the seafaring Veneti. Informed of the virtually impregnable nature of their coastal strongholds, he sent a delegation led by Lucius Marius to negotiate an alliance with tribal leaders meeting at their capital, Dariorigum. The Veneti agreed to transport Roman troops and supplies; and with the aid of their fleet, Tiberius was able to land his forces on the shore of (what would become known as) the Mare Britannicum. From there he pushed inland, defeating the Morini, the Menapii and finally the Nervii. The latter put up a fierce resistance but were subdued and their chief town, Bagacum, destroyed. The survivors were enslaved. Isolated, the Parisii and Carnutes between the Liger and the Sequanna surrendered hostages.
In a single season of campaigning, Tiberius had extended Roman dominion along the entire length of the Rhenus from the Alpes to the sea. No new provinces would yet be created, but the treaties and alliances he forced on the local tribes would keep the peace for a generation. It was just as well, for his services were now required elsewhere.
The CLAUDII NERONI
Tiberius Claudius Nero Africanus - 680-755
Gaius Claudius Nero Macedonicus - 705-766
Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus Imperator - 727-803
The CAECILII METELLI
Lucius Caecilius Metellus Creticus - 672-738
Lucius Caecilius Metellus Nepos - 696-767
Quintus Caecilius Metellus - 722 -770
By the early eighth century, the imprimatur SPQR, Senate and People of Rome, had been exposed as nothing more than a constitutional fiction. The Senate had ceased being the guardian of the constitution and the mos maiorum (ancestral traditions). Corruption and incompetence had undermined its authority. Opponents of the established order, would-be reformers who might yet save the Republic, were treated as public enemies by an elite more concerned with safeguarding its narrow self- interests than in protecting the welfare of the state or the well-being of its citizens and subjects. Men of ability and initiative were suspect. The novi homines, "new men" who might have injected fresh blood into a debased oligarchy, were snubbed. The equestrian order, which might have found common cause with the aristocracy, was embittered by extortion and corruption. Even those conservatores motivated by sincere beliefs were doctrinaire republicans who failed to understand that their reactionary attempts to curb ambition and rein in the popular politicians only served to reward mediocrity, stifle talent and promote sedition.
Disillusionment with the failures of senatorial government brought about a revival of the populares and a change in their political agenda. The popularis tradition had its roots in republican competition, but it was not the public-spirited altruism later celebrated in nostalgic literature. The movement which had produced leaders such as Gaius Flaminius, Quintus Sertorius and Gaius Aurelius Cotta now attracted a more ruthless and self-serving brand of politician, for whom acquisition of empire and interminable warfare were opportunities for self-advancement. These were men who chafed at the restrictions of the cursus honorum and the stuffy elitism of the Senate, who disdained public service except as an avenue for personal promotion, and who scoffed at the traditional civic virtues. They were styled populares, but they were neither revolutionaries nor genuine men of the people. They mobilized the power of the people through the assemblies but they were not democrats. They drew upon the financial resources of the equestrian class, but with few exceptions they came from within the aristocracy. Indeed, the man who in the end destroyed the Republic did not rise from the ranks, nor was he a "new man". He came from one of the oldest and most venerable republican families.
The new breed of political general who came to prominence in the eighth century capitalized on a growing sense of alienation and resentment. Mob violence which had been little more than a spontaneous expression of petulant anarchism was now harnessed to disrupt the constitutional government. The legions raised to defend the Republic became personal armies, as generals employed their soldiers as a clientele to further their own careers. Feuds and vendettas were pursued and perpetuated for the sole purpose of securing a political advantage or to consolidate an alliance. The glory of the enmity itself - ipsa inimicitiarum gloria - became the catch phrase of the men of ambition for whom notoriety and popularity were but the two sides of the same coin.
Against a background of deepening crisis, the issues raised by men such as Flaminius and Sertorius receded into the background as the struggle for reform became a struggle for power. The only solution to enveloping chaos seemed to lie in centralized power exercised through a personal autocracy. By AUC 750, the issue at stake was no longer whether the Republic could survive in anything like its existing form, but rather the nature of the autocratic state that would replace it - a "traditional" rex, a dyarchy, an Aegyptian or Macedonian-style monarchy - and more immediately, who would wield the ultimate power in the state.
As the long war in North Africa moved towards its inevitable if hard-won conclusion, there was little doubt among all but the most myopic of the ruling elite that the next generation of political leadership would come from the upper echelons of the army. The cursus honorum, the lengthy career path which set limits on how much personal power one man could amass, had been distorted almost beyond recognition.
The need for continuity of command during prolonged overseas campaigns and to cater for the administration of the provinces led to breaches of the conventions of the cursus honorum, of the rules of prorogation (which normally set a one-year limit on proconsulships), of the principles of collegiality and annuality which had imposed constraints on the power of the magistracies, and of the limit of two legions assigned to a commander. Tiberius Claudius Nero Africanus personified this new order and yet he was only the most prominent of an entire class.
In AUC 720, the conservatores revived and extended the lex Valeria annalis of 537, with a ban on second consulships, formalized in the lex Varia Claudia (sponsored by both Consuls, P. Attius Varus and C. Claudius Marcellus). It was aimed squarely at the rising power and popularity of Tiberius. His position was strong enough that he could secure any proconsular command he desired, but his reluctance to being outranked and his need to secure immunity from prosecution by his political enemies (since serving officials enjoyed such immunity) had caused him to seek a second consulship, six years after his first.
Tiberius was able to delay the lex Varia Claudia and obtain the election. He still had important backers, in particular the wealthy equestrians who had financed his career. Yet he was prudent enough to pursue a moderate course for the following year. Only once did he confront the Senate when, typically and short-sightedly, it tried to block legislation to provide land grants for his veterans. The populares decried the injustice when similar a law to deliver pensions for the troops of L. Caecilius Metellus was approved. Even some of the conservatores were troubled by such a blatant and dangerous display of partisanship. In a calculated show of statesmanship, Metellus appealed to the Senators not to punish the soldiers for the arrogance and indiscretions of their commander.
It must be kept in mind that the political and social tensions in Rome had little impact in the provinces or on the frontiers. During the course of the long struggle in Africa, the newly conquered territories in Gallia remained quiescent. This was due partly to the fearsome reputation of Roman arms, but also to prudent management and careful cultivation of the indigenous ruling class.
Diplomatic missions and trading contacts, backed up by the occasional punitive raid, kept the peoples beyond the borders in line. The Romans pursued the same policy they had used to pacify the Italian states in previous centuries, negotiating treaties with individual tribes in order to create an intricate network of alliances. Neighbouring chieftains might be hostile to each other and yet equally a friend of Rome. Internal disputes and territorial squabbles were settled by Roman arbitration. Those who upset the status quo were bought off or disposed of.
At the same time, the Macedonians were in no position to take advantage of Roman distractions. In less than two generations, the vast imperium created by Megas Alexandros had lost more than half its territory. The ill-advised intervention in North Africa in 707 resulted in the excision of Cyrenaica and the endangerment of Aegypt, the Empire’s richest province. Nevertheless, it was only a matter of time before Republic and Empire clashed once more.
Metellus was rewarded for his service with a command in Illyricum, still seen by most influential Romans as the most important province. Tensions were escalating, and in Rome the populares were calling for a final reckoning with the old enemy. Yet the Senate was reluctant to engage in a war which could only enhance the reputations - and personal wealth - of the generals who fought in it.
Tiberius instead looked to the north. His command in Gallia would become a classic example of Roman pre-emptive aggression. The Gallic and German tribes were restless but posed no real threat. Nevertheless, Tiberius argued that the North African experience had revealed major problems with the Roman army, which had become flabby, its leadership complacent. It had to be kept on a war footing to maintain and revive the old virtues. His arguments may have been convincing, but there can be no doubting his true motives - to win glory for himself and opportunities, in the form of army contracts and trading concessions, for his creditors.
On the northern frontier of the Gallic province lived the Belgae, a tough and courageous people who had first come to prominence when they deflected the invasion of the Cimbri and Teutones. In the spring of 722, Tiberius contrived a suitable provocation. In response to sporadic raiding over the frontier, Tiberius and his army crossed the River Liger.
At first, Tiberius had just two legions, plus numerous auxiliaries recruited in Gallia, under his direct command. As he embarked on his campaign, he received another legion from a political ally, M. Pupius Piso, the governor of Gallia Maritima, and three more from enlistment drives undertaken by his agents in Gallia Citerior and Hispania. The dubious legality of these reinforcements testifies to the breakdown of the traditional order.
Tiberius advanced slowly and systematically, integrating his new units, gathering intelligence, and ostentatiously constructing bridges and fortified camps to demonstrate his military, engineering and logistical superiority. Along the way he forged new alliances and collected fresh troops, in particular cavalry. Yet he was also capable of great alacrity when the situation warranted.
The Lingones, who occupied the headwaters of the Sequana, yielded and joined the expedition. The Senones contested the Roman crossing of the Sequana. Tiberius sacked the town of Agedincum and moved on. Following the river towards the sea, he conquered the Bellovaci, one of the leading Belgian tribes, then swept eastwards, routing the Suessones. The Remi, who lived to the north of the Suessones, submitted. Tiberius then dealt with the Treveri, a mixed Gallic and German people who dwelt on the fringes of the impenetrable Arduenna forest.
The encounter on the banks of the River Mosa was brought on prematurely when the Roman vanguard, two cohorts of infantry and a contingent of horse, were surprised and butchered. By the time the rest of the Roman army came up, the Treveri had rallied. Yet they were fooled by a crude subterfuge when Tiberius deliberately exposed his supply train in the rear as he formed his line of battle. As they charged, their right wing bent around the Roman left to get at the wagons and their rich stores. Chased off by the sudden appearance of the Roman cavalry, in their flight they opened a breach in the formation which Tiberius immediately exploited. As the Roman infantry pushed into the gap and wheeled right to roll up the enemy lines, the cavalry prevented the rest from regrouping. Refugees from the slaughter fled into the Arduenna or across the Rhenus. They were allowed to escape, so that they might spread the word of Roman might.
So far Tiberius had encountered only moderate opposition or, on the banks of the Mosa, had dealt with an undisciplined foe. Because the tribes were unable to co-ordinate their efforts, he did not have to divide his forces. This was his good fortune, since such a large part of his army consisted of raw troops who needed both combat experience and acclimatizing. However, the advance northwards left his western flank exposed to hostile tribes, the Parisii and the peoples of Armorica, in particular the seafaring Veneti. Informed of the virtually impregnable nature of their coastal strongholds, he sent a delegation led by Lucius Marius to negotiate an alliance with tribal leaders meeting at their capital, Dariorigum. The Veneti agreed to transport Roman troops and supplies; and with the aid of their fleet, Tiberius was able to land his forces on the shore of (what would become known as) the Mare Britannicum. From there he pushed inland, defeating the Morini, the Menapii and finally the Nervii. The latter put up a fierce resistance but were subdued and their chief town, Bagacum, destroyed. The survivors were enslaved. Isolated, the Parisii and Carnutes between the Liger and the Sequanna surrendered hostages.
In a single season of campaigning, Tiberius had extended Roman dominion along the entire length of the Rhenus from the Alpes to the sea. No new provinces would yet be created, but the treaties and alliances he forced on the local tribes would keep the peace for a generation. It was just as well, for his services were now required elsewhere.
The CLAUDII NERONI
Tiberius Claudius Nero Africanus - 680-755
Gaius Claudius Nero Macedonicus - 705-766
Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus Imperator - 727-803
The CAECILII METELLI
Lucius Caecilius Metellus Creticus - 672-738
Lucius Caecilius Metellus Nepos - 696-767
Quintus Caecilius Metellus - 722 -770
The Fall of the Republic, Part 6
The exploits of Tiberius Claudius Nero excited the admiration of his subordinates, the jealousy of his peers and the hatred of his superiors. Men of honour and prestige, like Metellus in Illyricum, cooled their heels protecting the borders while one man achieved distinction extending the frontiers. In the context of the Republic’s highly competitive social environment and a politicized army, self-aggrandizement prevailed over self-restraint, personal interest over public service. Ambition could not be sated except through conquest; yet in the north (Gallia), the south (Africa) and the west (Hispania), Roman expansion had reached, for the time being at least, its natural limits. The path to glory lay to the east.
It was an enfeebled Macedonian Empire which faced an increasingly aggressive Rome, with a growing desperation. By the early 720s, Tocharians and Parthians had absorbed all territories east of Mesopotamia. Except for the sturdy little Bosporan client kingdom, the lands bordering the Euxine Sea north of the Danubius and the Caucasus were overrun by Sarmatians and their kin. Dacia and Armenia were independent, Arabia lost, Hellas in revolt, Aegypt under threat from the Romans in neighbouring Cyrenaica. Emperor Dionysius III had never lived up to his early promise and had lapsed into a fatalistic lethargy. Lax supervision in the remaining provinces produced maladministration and outright corruption, which either encouraged apathy or fuelled rebellion.
In 722, P. Attius Varus (co-author of the lex Varia Claudia) campaigned in Pannonia on the frontiers of Illyricum, as proconsul with a special command. This was in direct violation of the lex Sulpicia, but the Senate rationalized the illegality on the grounds of necessity. Metellus, charged with the defence of Illyricum, could not be released from his duty. Of course, the Senate’s real motive was to set up an additional counterweight to Tiberius Claudius Nero.
Varus’s expedition was a disaster, although not really one of his own making. The number of legions assigned to Metellus had been increased to eight, to balance the Tiberian forces. As justification, Metellus was assigned a second province, Cyrenaica - this in itself a highly irregular act. Three of his legions were needed there, as tensions mounted with the Macedonian government of Aegypt. For Varus, Metellus could spare only one legion. Tiberius and his allies in Hispania and Gallia Maritima received orders from the Senate to contribute one legion each, and immediately found good reasons to delay compliance. Varus was thus forced to recruit and train his own troops, in northern Italia and Illyricum; but he was not of the calibre of a commander such as Tiberius.
In September, already late in the campaigning season, Varus set out from his base at Senia, in northern Illyricum. He crossed the River Savus with five legions, all but one composed of untested troops, and two thousand cavalry. His enemy were the Pannonians, believed at the time to be Galles but, despite some Gallic infusion, essentially a blend of Illyrian and Thracian peoples. (The Hellenes called them Paeonians.) Numerous, warlike and cruel, the Pannonians had been a nuisance but never a threat. So this conflict was unprovoked and unnecessary. Ostensibly planned to put an end to skirmishing and raids on the frontier and to stabilize the borderlands, the war was designed in fact to produce a general with a reputation equal to that of Tiberius.
The Pannonians were supported by a coalition of Dacians (as the Getae are now known) under King Zyraxes and Sarmatians. The Dardani, hostile to both sides, remained aloof but ready to take advantage of any contingency.
Varus moved slowly upon the town of Siscia. Located at the confluence of three rivers, the position was strongly fortified with walls and a large encircling ditch. Varus blockaded the town, losing valuable time without properly sealing it off from reinforcements or even from resupply. By late October, with winter approaching, he was becoming alarmed by the lack of progress. He decided upon a frontal assault which - given the quality of his soldiers - inevitably failed. As his men fell back, they were distracted by a sally from the town and then hit from the rear by an enemy relief force which had come up undetected by the Romans’ inept reconnaissance.
The proconsul and his staff and most of the cavalry escaped, but the infantry were slaughtered. Only a single legion (Varia IV Illyrica, in the nomenclature of the day) which had been dispersed for foraging was spared. It was a tribute to the skill of the centurions, in contrast to that of their senior officers, that the company commanders of Varia IV Illyrica extricated their units and recrossed the Savus with virtually no further loss.
Varus returned home in disgrace; while Metellus found himself discredited by his half-hearted support for his colleague. Critics in Rome compared his tepid response to the co-ordinated actions of the so-called barbarians.
Only one man, in the eyes of the populares who dominated the assembly, could redeem Rome’s military reputation. Tiberius Claudius Nero, fresh from his triumph in Gallia, was dispatched with four legions to Salona, capital of Illyricum, a province under siege as Pannonian, Dacian and now Dardani poured across the border.
The situation was not as desperate as the demagogues and doomsayers in faraway Rome would have it. Metellus still had five legions, mostly seasoned troops, twenty cohorts of auxiliaries levied from the local population, and four thousand cavalry including the survivors of the Varus expedition. He restored order and in the spring of 723, he penetrated as far as the River Dravus, 300 milles from the Illyrian coast. Siscia, which had held out against the luckless Varo the previous year, was captured and razed.
Having left the settlement of affairs in Gallia to his legates, and accompanied by his 18 year-old son Gaius, Tiberius now set off inland with his four legions, on a direct course into Dacia. He was not acting with the authority of the Senate. Indeed, he had been ordered to stay within the boundaries of Illyricum. In typical arrogant fashion, he contested and then ignored his orders. He reasoned that Illyricum was the province of Metellus and that he could only exercise the necessary independence of command outside the governor’s jurisdiction. He was correct, but no one believed that his sole motivation was to preserve a legal propriety.
Metellus found himself once more outmanoeuvred by his cunning rival. He had committed himself and his troops to an arduous and unprofitable campaign, in a rugged wilderness against barbarians who offered little in the way of plunder. Tiberius, on the other hand, was operating in a region of farming and trading communities that had enjoyed centuries of prosperity under Macedonian dominion. For the next three and a half years, 723-727, he devastated the lands of the Dacians, accumulating vast amounts of loot for himself and his army.
King Zyraxes fell in 725. The Dardani to the west and the Sarmatians to the north were left alone, and Tiberius did not goad the Macedonians. Emperor Dionysius observed these events with impotent dread and protested the incursion, but he did not retaliate. Nevertheless, the Empire was still a force to be not lightly provoked.
Although the conquests were represented as a triumphant march from the Danubius to the Euxine, in fact it was a hard and sometimes frustrating campaign. When Tiberius left the fertile plainlands to pursue an increasingly elusive enemy into the mountains, progress slowed and became more costly in time, lives and treasure. The onset of winter forced the legions to withdraw to their lowland quarters, surrendering hard-won territorial gains. Towns had to be besieged, rivers bridged, roads constructed. In the meantime, Lucius Caecilius Metellus was winning the glory Tiberius sought for himself alone.
The exploits of Tiberius Claudius Nero excited the admiration of his subordinates, the jealousy of his peers and the hatred of his superiors. Men of honour and prestige, like Metellus in Illyricum, cooled their heels protecting the borders while one man achieved distinction extending the frontiers. In the context of the Republic’s highly competitive social environment and a politicized army, self-aggrandizement prevailed over self-restraint, personal interest over public service. Ambition could not be sated except through conquest; yet in the north (Gallia), the south (Africa) and the west (Hispania), Roman expansion had reached, for the time being at least, its natural limits. The path to glory lay to the east.
It was an enfeebled Macedonian Empire which faced an increasingly aggressive Rome, with a growing desperation. By the early 720s, Tocharians and Parthians had absorbed all territories east of Mesopotamia. Except for the sturdy little Bosporan client kingdom, the lands bordering the Euxine Sea north of the Danubius and the Caucasus were overrun by Sarmatians and their kin. Dacia and Armenia were independent, Arabia lost, Hellas in revolt, Aegypt under threat from the Romans in neighbouring Cyrenaica. Emperor Dionysius III had never lived up to his early promise and had lapsed into a fatalistic lethargy. Lax supervision in the remaining provinces produced maladministration and outright corruption, which either encouraged apathy or fuelled rebellion.
In 722, P. Attius Varus (co-author of the lex Varia Claudia) campaigned in Pannonia on the frontiers of Illyricum, as proconsul with a special command. This was in direct violation of the lex Sulpicia, but the Senate rationalized the illegality on the grounds of necessity. Metellus, charged with the defence of Illyricum, could not be released from his duty. Of course, the Senate’s real motive was to set up an additional counterweight to Tiberius Claudius Nero.
Varus’s expedition was a disaster, although not really one of his own making. The number of legions assigned to Metellus had been increased to eight, to balance the Tiberian forces. As justification, Metellus was assigned a second province, Cyrenaica - this in itself a highly irregular act. Three of his legions were needed there, as tensions mounted with the Macedonian government of Aegypt. For Varus, Metellus could spare only one legion. Tiberius and his allies in Hispania and Gallia Maritima received orders from the Senate to contribute one legion each, and immediately found good reasons to delay compliance. Varus was thus forced to recruit and train his own troops, in northern Italia and Illyricum; but he was not of the calibre of a commander such as Tiberius.
In September, already late in the campaigning season, Varus set out from his base at Senia, in northern Illyricum. He crossed the River Savus with five legions, all but one composed of untested troops, and two thousand cavalry. His enemy were the Pannonians, believed at the time to be Galles but, despite some Gallic infusion, essentially a blend of Illyrian and Thracian peoples. (The Hellenes called them Paeonians.) Numerous, warlike and cruel, the Pannonians had been a nuisance but never a threat. So this conflict was unprovoked and unnecessary. Ostensibly planned to put an end to skirmishing and raids on the frontier and to stabilize the borderlands, the war was designed in fact to produce a general with a reputation equal to that of Tiberius.
The Pannonians were supported by a coalition of Dacians (as the Getae are now known) under King Zyraxes and Sarmatians. The Dardani, hostile to both sides, remained aloof but ready to take advantage of any contingency.
Varus moved slowly upon the town of Siscia. Located at the confluence of three rivers, the position was strongly fortified with walls and a large encircling ditch. Varus blockaded the town, losing valuable time without properly sealing it off from reinforcements or even from resupply. By late October, with winter approaching, he was becoming alarmed by the lack of progress. He decided upon a frontal assault which - given the quality of his soldiers - inevitably failed. As his men fell back, they were distracted by a sally from the town and then hit from the rear by an enemy relief force which had come up undetected by the Romans’ inept reconnaissance.
The proconsul and his staff and most of the cavalry escaped, but the infantry were slaughtered. Only a single legion (Varia IV Illyrica, in the nomenclature of the day) which had been dispersed for foraging was spared. It was a tribute to the skill of the centurions, in contrast to that of their senior officers, that the company commanders of Varia IV Illyrica extricated their units and recrossed the Savus with virtually no further loss.
Varus returned home in disgrace; while Metellus found himself discredited by his half-hearted support for his colleague. Critics in Rome compared his tepid response to the co-ordinated actions of the so-called barbarians.
Only one man, in the eyes of the populares who dominated the assembly, could redeem Rome’s military reputation. Tiberius Claudius Nero, fresh from his triumph in Gallia, was dispatched with four legions to Salona, capital of Illyricum, a province under siege as Pannonian, Dacian and now Dardani poured across the border.
The situation was not as desperate as the demagogues and doomsayers in faraway Rome would have it. Metellus still had five legions, mostly seasoned troops, twenty cohorts of auxiliaries levied from the local population, and four thousand cavalry including the survivors of the Varus expedition. He restored order and in the spring of 723, he penetrated as far as the River Dravus, 300 milles from the Illyrian coast. Siscia, which had held out against the luckless Varo the previous year, was captured and razed.
Having left the settlement of affairs in Gallia to his legates, and accompanied by his 18 year-old son Gaius, Tiberius now set off inland with his four legions, on a direct course into Dacia. He was not acting with the authority of the Senate. Indeed, he had been ordered to stay within the boundaries of Illyricum. In typical arrogant fashion, he contested and then ignored his orders. He reasoned that Illyricum was the province of Metellus and that he could only exercise the necessary independence of command outside the governor’s jurisdiction. He was correct, but no one believed that his sole motivation was to preserve a legal propriety.
Metellus found himself once more outmanoeuvred by his cunning rival. He had committed himself and his troops to an arduous and unprofitable campaign, in a rugged wilderness against barbarians who offered little in the way of plunder. Tiberius, on the other hand, was operating in a region of farming and trading communities that had enjoyed centuries of prosperity under Macedonian dominion. For the next three and a half years, 723-727, he devastated the lands of the Dacians, accumulating vast amounts of loot for himself and his army.
King Zyraxes fell in 725. The Dardani to the west and the Sarmatians to the north were left alone, and Tiberius did not goad the Macedonians. Emperor Dionysius observed these events with impotent dread and protested the incursion, but he did not retaliate. Nevertheless, the Empire was still a force to be not lightly provoked.
Although the conquests were represented as a triumphant march from the Danubius to the Euxine, in fact it was a hard and sometimes frustrating campaign. When Tiberius left the fertile plainlands to pursue an increasingly elusive enemy into the mountains, progress slowed and became more costly in time, lives and treasure. The onset of winter forced the legions to withdraw to their lowland quarters, surrendering hard-won territorial gains. Towns had to be besieged, rivers bridged, roads constructed. In the meantime, Lucius Caecilius Metellus was winning the glory Tiberius sought for himself alone.
The Fall of the Republic, Part 7
In 727, Tiberius Claudius Nero Africanus returned home for his second triumph. At 47 years of age he was Rome’s greatest ever commander. He had under his command directly, or through his legates, ten legions - six in Illyricum, four in Gallia - with auxiliaries, a total of perhaps eighty thousand men. Extending a practice begun in Gallia and continued in Africa, he recruited from beyond the Roman frontiers, including Sarmatian horsemen who would prove invaluable in future campaigns.
He also continued to reform the army. The cavalry units traditionally attached to the legions were detached to become a separate arm. To raise new legions, Tiberius built on the experiment of Gaius Aurelius Cotta. Although recruitment among the proletariat was by now routine, the ancient tradition of raising an army for a specific campaign and disbanding it thereafter persisted. However, since most soldiers, who were now professional in all but name, subsequently re-enlisted, the levy had in fact been superseded by a standing army. Tiberius systematized this development by numbering and naming the legions as permanent formations. For instance, the aforementioned Legio Varia IV Illyrica had been so named because it was the fourth legion raised under the command of P. Attius Varus, in Illyricum. When it was disbanded, with substantial honours, in 725, the name was retired even though a significant proportion of the troops re-enlisted. This custom had replaced the earlier convention in which the legions assigned by tradition to the Consuls were numbered I-IV and other legions were given the names of the tribes or peoples from which they were recruited.
Tiberius introduced the system under which legions became permanent institutions. Each received a number that originally followed a strictly sequential order. If the legion won distinction in battle, a laudatory title was substituted for the number, which was then re-allocated to a newly raised unit. As a result, the numbering ceased to have chronological or geographical significance. Thus, the Ninth Legion which would play a crucial role in the civil war was redesignated Legio Audax ("audacious"), and a new Legio IX was created. On the other hand, reusing numbers was considered unlucky if a legion was wiped out or abolished for punitive reasons. Thus, following the catastrophe in Armenia (q.v. Chapter 5), the names and numbers of Legiones Constans, Firma, VIII, XVI and XIX were retired. (The sole exception to this pattern, under the Emperors, was the First Legion, Legio I Pia Fidelis - "True and Faithful" - an appellation reserved for the Emperor’s personal bodyguard, stationed near the capital.)
Learning from his experiences in Africa, and to facilitate the fast-moving campaign in Gallia, Tiberius emphasized the army’s mobility and self-sufficiency. The supply train was considerably shortened by having the men limit their baggage and where and whenever possible carry their own provisions and equipment. He insisted on rigorous training and severe discipline, and he did not spare himself, leading by personal example, enduring the same conditions and privations as the common soldiers, often fighting in the front ranks or hoisting the battle standard.
At the end of his Dacian campaign, Tiberius pulled back into Illyricum. To his chagrin, Pannonia and Dacia were neither annexed nor occupied. Left to be ruled by local clients, and weakened by the recent war, the region was subjected to raids from unpacified tribesmen and to interference from Macedonia. There was no doubt in his mind that the Senate’s failure to create a new province was a direct rebuff to himself. In Gallia, although his settlement was confirmed by the Senate, Lucius Caecilius Metellus Nepos, the son of Metellus Creticus, was sent there in 730 as propraetor.
Following his triumph, Tiberius received no further command. His glittering career had been eclipsed by his old rival.
In 725, L. Caecilius Metellus went to his province of Cyrenaica, taking with him two of his legions and bringing the number under his direct authority to five. Such a gathering of forces could not be seen as anything but a challenge to Macedonian rule in Aegypt; and indeed, envious of Tiberius, Metellus was eager for military success. However, the Senate had no wish to go to war with the Empire without reasonable cause. Metellus needed a pretext, and he found it on Creta.
Hosting the most brilliant civilization of the Bronze Age, and maintaining naval supremacy into the Heroic Age, this island’s numerous, combative city-states had long remained aloof from the affairs of mainland Hellas. Putting aside their differences, they combined against outside threats, until eventually their perennial feuding led to disunity and disorder. Emperor Philip III intervened as mediator on several occasions, and Alexander IV took the inevitable next step, annexing the island. Nevertheless, Creta remained in many respects a frontier province, and with the decline of imperial power in the seventh century it became ungovernable.
To sustain their independence and their rivalry, the major cities turned themselves into pirate bases. By the early eighth century, piracy was again becoming a major problem, infesting the central and eastern Mediterranean. Following their expulsion from the Hadriatic in the 680s, the Illyrian pirates had found new havens along the coast of Asia Minor. Emboldened, and raiding as far west as Sicilia, they preyed on shipping, plundered coastal towns, attacked holy sanctuaries hitherto considered inviolate, kidnapped Roman citizens for ransom or enslavement, and threatened Rome’s grain supplies. Too weak to rein them in, Emperor Dionysius III paid tribute in the form of loans and subsidies, and he collaborated with them when it suited his purposes, using them as mercenaries and encouraging them to attack Roman trading outposts.
Even as Rome was organizing her African provinces, the pirates were establishing themselves on Creta. Until this time, they had rarely worked in concert, although they avoided conflict amongst themselves. With secure bases on the Cretan coast, they now began to co-ordinate their activities. Such a threat to Roman commerce and to the security of her overseas provinces, in particular Cyrenaica, could not be tolerated.
In 727, the Senate dispatched an embassy to Pella demanding immediate action. Metellus acted on his own initiative, sending a naval squadron to intercept a fleet operating out of Cydonia on the north-western shore. The Romans were driven off, but the incident gave Metellus the excuse he needed for a full-scale invasion.
Had the Cretan cities maintained their policy of co-operation, the Roman transports might never have reached the island. Instead, they had resumed their traditional quarreling. Even the pirates, who had previously worked together when circumstances required, joined in the intercity warfare. Hierapytna, the chief city in the south-east, had recently appealed to the Emperor for assistance, but Dionysius had neither the will nor the resources to impose peace. Instead, the Hierapytnians turned to Rome.
In Sextilis 727, responding to a petition from the new ally, Metellus put a legion (Metella II Gallica) ashore at Priansus, a neighbour and ally of Hierapytna. He provocatively demanded hostages and reparations from the other leading cities on the island. These belatedly joined forces, sending a large contingent to expel the invader. The Cretan fighters had an excellent reputation as light troops and archers, and the outnumbered veterans of Legio Metella II Gallica, one of Rome’s toughest, fell back.
However, this operation was but a decoy. Metellus and two legions landed near Phaestus and laid siege to Gortyn, Hierapytna’s main rival on the central south coast. By the time the Cretan army had extricated itself from the fighting at Priansus, the city had fallen, and the victorious Romans barred the way westwards. At Lebena, south-east of Gortyn, the Cretans were caught and crushed between the two Roman forces. In a calculated demonstration of brutality to undermine any further will to resist, the survivors of the battle were massacred.
Nevertheless, most of the walled towns continued to hold out. In Aprilis 728, Metellus besieged Cydonia. When a Macedonian fleet appeared off the coast, he was obliged to storm the fortifications, incurring heavy losses but capturing the city. The Macedonians, rather mysteriously, sailed away.
However, during the siege of Cydonia, a bizarre incident occurred which would tarnish the dignitas of both Metellus and Tiberius Africanus. While the former continued his slow, steady progress in subduing the Cretan cities, Tiberius sent his envoy Lucius Marius, who had negotiated the alliance with the Veneti in 722, on a mission to Gnossus, the famed seat of the legendary King Minos, to arrange a surrender. Angry that his glory was about to be stolen, Metellus accused his rival of treason, in dealing with the enemy. Ordered by the Senate to report in person to Metellus, Marius did so and was promptly executed.
In Rome without his army, Tiberius could do nothing to avenge the killing of his legate and close friend. While he raged against the treachery of the Senate and its general, Metellus was hailed Imperator and awarded a triumph and the cognomen ex virtute "Creticus". In 730, a province was created and Hierapytna was rewarded with the status of provincial capital. Metellus, who had relinquished his proconsular command in Illyricum, was named governor of Creta.
Yet soon after his triumph, Metellus retired into private life. Not yet sixty, he was still in his prime for a Roman politician; but he seems to have decided to make way for his son, Metellus Nepos. In 733, at the premature age of 37, the younger Metellus won the consulship, defeating none other than Tiberius Claudius Nero Africanus, who had impatiently waited the traditional ten years but ignored the lex Varia Claudia prohibiting second consulships. Any objections the conservatores might have expressed at the illegality of Tiberius’s candidacy were undermined by the support for the unlawful bid of Metellus. As they had demonstrated on many a previous occasion, the senatorial oligarchy was willing to bend the rules in its favour, for the benefit of its champion, on the self-serving principle that the safety of the state represented the highest law.
Tiberius called on his veterans and popularis allies to take over the assembly and annul the election. Once again, the mob ruled the streets and the comitia. Once more, foreign victories had been accompanied by domestic turmoil. However, the result was not overturned.
At the end of his term, Metellus Nepos received his proconsular command, in his father’s former province of Cyrenaica. From here, he would launch the next phase of Roman conflict with Macedonia; but the theatre of operations would not be where he or any other Roman anticipated.
The Macedonian Emperor had been powerless to prevent the conquest of Creta. However, the fleet which had reconnoitered Cydonia during the siege in 728 had sailed on to Aegypt. Aboard one of the ships was the man who might have changed Macedonian fortunes, Metrodorus of Sicyon.
Aegypt had been governed since the reign of Philip IV by the descendants of his brother Archelaus. Avaricious, brutal and incompetent, the Archelaids plundered and mismanaged the province and neglected its defences. Sphodrias, the malignant minister of finance, pillaged the treasury until the Empire’s most populous and wealthiest possession was virtually bankrupt.
With the Romans threatening in nearby Cyrenaica, Metrodorus was charged with the daunting task of rebuilding the Aegyptian military and reforming the administration. His first act was to execute Sphodrias, dismiss the other ministers and bring the useless governor, Perdiccas, into line. To defend the country in the event of Roman aggression, he had under his command a hundred thousand troops of varying quality, no match individually for the Romans in Cyrenaica but outnumbering them ten to one.
Metrodorus and his reforms represented a final squandered opportunity for the Macedonian Empire. In 731, the worthless Perdiccas plotted his assassination. While on a tour of the province, Metrodorus was stabbed to death by agents of the governor, and his body thrown into Lake Moeris. A young general, Apollodorus, was so disgusted by the crime that he organized his own conspiracy, to overthrow Perdiccas. A few weeks after the murder, Perdiccas was disposed of. According to local legend, he was fed to the sacred crocodile of Arsinoe, near the lake where Metrodorus had been slain.
Despite protestations from Pella, Apollodorus appointed himself governor of Aegypt and continued the revitalisation process. The inevitable next step came in 735 when he declared his independence.
In 727, Tiberius Claudius Nero Africanus returned home for his second triumph. At 47 years of age he was Rome’s greatest ever commander. He had under his command directly, or through his legates, ten legions - six in Illyricum, four in Gallia - with auxiliaries, a total of perhaps eighty thousand men. Extending a practice begun in Gallia and continued in Africa, he recruited from beyond the Roman frontiers, including Sarmatian horsemen who would prove invaluable in future campaigns.
He also continued to reform the army. The cavalry units traditionally attached to the legions were detached to become a separate arm. To raise new legions, Tiberius built on the experiment of Gaius Aurelius Cotta. Although recruitment among the proletariat was by now routine, the ancient tradition of raising an army for a specific campaign and disbanding it thereafter persisted. However, since most soldiers, who were now professional in all but name, subsequently re-enlisted, the levy had in fact been superseded by a standing army. Tiberius systematized this development by numbering and naming the legions as permanent formations. For instance, the aforementioned Legio Varia IV Illyrica had been so named because it was the fourth legion raised under the command of P. Attius Varus, in Illyricum. When it was disbanded, with substantial honours, in 725, the name was retired even though a significant proportion of the troops re-enlisted. This custom had replaced the earlier convention in which the legions assigned by tradition to the Consuls were numbered I-IV and other legions were given the names of the tribes or peoples from which they were recruited.
Tiberius introduced the system under which legions became permanent institutions. Each received a number that originally followed a strictly sequential order. If the legion won distinction in battle, a laudatory title was substituted for the number, which was then re-allocated to a newly raised unit. As a result, the numbering ceased to have chronological or geographical significance. Thus, the Ninth Legion which would play a crucial role in the civil war was redesignated Legio Audax ("audacious"), and a new Legio IX was created. On the other hand, reusing numbers was considered unlucky if a legion was wiped out or abolished for punitive reasons. Thus, following the catastrophe in Armenia (q.v. Chapter 5), the names and numbers of Legiones Constans, Firma, VIII, XVI and XIX were retired. (The sole exception to this pattern, under the Emperors, was the First Legion, Legio I Pia Fidelis - "True and Faithful" - an appellation reserved for the Emperor’s personal bodyguard, stationed near the capital.)
Learning from his experiences in Africa, and to facilitate the fast-moving campaign in Gallia, Tiberius emphasized the army’s mobility and self-sufficiency. The supply train was considerably shortened by having the men limit their baggage and where and whenever possible carry their own provisions and equipment. He insisted on rigorous training and severe discipline, and he did not spare himself, leading by personal example, enduring the same conditions and privations as the common soldiers, often fighting in the front ranks or hoisting the battle standard.
At the end of his Dacian campaign, Tiberius pulled back into Illyricum. To his chagrin, Pannonia and Dacia were neither annexed nor occupied. Left to be ruled by local clients, and weakened by the recent war, the region was subjected to raids from unpacified tribesmen and to interference from Macedonia. There was no doubt in his mind that the Senate’s failure to create a new province was a direct rebuff to himself. In Gallia, although his settlement was confirmed by the Senate, Lucius Caecilius Metellus Nepos, the son of Metellus Creticus, was sent there in 730 as propraetor.
Following his triumph, Tiberius received no further command. His glittering career had been eclipsed by his old rival.
In 725, L. Caecilius Metellus went to his province of Cyrenaica, taking with him two of his legions and bringing the number under his direct authority to five. Such a gathering of forces could not be seen as anything but a challenge to Macedonian rule in Aegypt; and indeed, envious of Tiberius, Metellus was eager for military success. However, the Senate had no wish to go to war with the Empire without reasonable cause. Metellus needed a pretext, and he found it on Creta.
Hosting the most brilliant civilization of the Bronze Age, and maintaining naval supremacy into the Heroic Age, this island’s numerous, combative city-states had long remained aloof from the affairs of mainland Hellas. Putting aside their differences, they combined against outside threats, until eventually their perennial feuding led to disunity and disorder. Emperor Philip III intervened as mediator on several occasions, and Alexander IV took the inevitable next step, annexing the island. Nevertheless, Creta remained in many respects a frontier province, and with the decline of imperial power in the seventh century it became ungovernable.
To sustain their independence and their rivalry, the major cities turned themselves into pirate bases. By the early eighth century, piracy was again becoming a major problem, infesting the central and eastern Mediterranean. Following their expulsion from the Hadriatic in the 680s, the Illyrian pirates had found new havens along the coast of Asia Minor. Emboldened, and raiding as far west as Sicilia, they preyed on shipping, plundered coastal towns, attacked holy sanctuaries hitherto considered inviolate, kidnapped Roman citizens for ransom or enslavement, and threatened Rome’s grain supplies. Too weak to rein them in, Emperor Dionysius III paid tribute in the form of loans and subsidies, and he collaborated with them when it suited his purposes, using them as mercenaries and encouraging them to attack Roman trading outposts.
Even as Rome was organizing her African provinces, the pirates were establishing themselves on Creta. Until this time, they had rarely worked in concert, although they avoided conflict amongst themselves. With secure bases on the Cretan coast, they now began to co-ordinate their activities. Such a threat to Roman commerce and to the security of her overseas provinces, in particular Cyrenaica, could not be tolerated.
In 727, the Senate dispatched an embassy to Pella demanding immediate action. Metellus acted on his own initiative, sending a naval squadron to intercept a fleet operating out of Cydonia on the north-western shore. The Romans were driven off, but the incident gave Metellus the excuse he needed for a full-scale invasion.
Had the Cretan cities maintained their policy of co-operation, the Roman transports might never have reached the island. Instead, they had resumed their traditional quarreling. Even the pirates, who had previously worked together when circumstances required, joined in the intercity warfare. Hierapytna, the chief city in the south-east, had recently appealed to the Emperor for assistance, but Dionysius had neither the will nor the resources to impose peace. Instead, the Hierapytnians turned to Rome.
In Sextilis 727, responding to a petition from the new ally, Metellus put a legion (Metella II Gallica) ashore at Priansus, a neighbour and ally of Hierapytna. He provocatively demanded hostages and reparations from the other leading cities on the island. These belatedly joined forces, sending a large contingent to expel the invader. The Cretan fighters had an excellent reputation as light troops and archers, and the outnumbered veterans of Legio Metella II Gallica, one of Rome’s toughest, fell back.
However, this operation was but a decoy. Metellus and two legions landed near Phaestus and laid siege to Gortyn, Hierapytna’s main rival on the central south coast. By the time the Cretan army had extricated itself from the fighting at Priansus, the city had fallen, and the victorious Romans barred the way westwards. At Lebena, south-east of Gortyn, the Cretans were caught and crushed between the two Roman forces. In a calculated demonstration of brutality to undermine any further will to resist, the survivors of the battle were massacred.
Nevertheless, most of the walled towns continued to hold out. In Aprilis 728, Metellus besieged Cydonia. When a Macedonian fleet appeared off the coast, he was obliged to storm the fortifications, incurring heavy losses but capturing the city. The Macedonians, rather mysteriously, sailed away.
However, during the siege of Cydonia, a bizarre incident occurred which would tarnish the dignitas of both Metellus and Tiberius Africanus. While the former continued his slow, steady progress in subduing the Cretan cities, Tiberius sent his envoy Lucius Marius, who had negotiated the alliance with the Veneti in 722, on a mission to Gnossus, the famed seat of the legendary King Minos, to arrange a surrender. Angry that his glory was about to be stolen, Metellus accused his rival of treason, in dealing with the enemy. Ordered by the Senate to report in person to Metellus, Marius did so and was promptly executed.
In Rome without his army, Tiberius could do nothing to avenge the killing of his legate and close friend. While he raged against the treachery of the Senate and its general, Metellus was hailed Imperator and awarded a triumph and the cognomen ex virtute "Creticus". In 730, a province was created and Hierapytna was rewarded with the status of provincial capital. Metellus, who had relinquished his proconsular command in Illyricum, was named governor of Creta.
Yet soon after his triumph, Metellus retired into private life. Not yet sixty, he was still in his prime for a Roman politician; but he seems to have decided to make way for his son, Metellus Nepos. In 733, at the premature age of 37, the younger Metellus won the consulship, defeating none other than Tiberius Claudius Nero Africanus, who had impatiently waited the traditional ten years but ignored the lex Varia Claudia prohibiting second consulships. Any objections the conservatores might have expressed at the illegality of Tiberius’s candidacy were undermined by the support for the unlawful bid of Metellus. As they had demonstrated on many a previous occasion, the senatorial oligarchy was willing to bend the rules in its favour, for the benefit of its champion, on the self-serving principle that the safety of the state represented the highest law.
Tiberius called on his veterans and popularis allies to take over the assembly and annul the election. Once again, the mob ruled the streets and the comitia. Once more, foreign victories had been accompanied by domestic turmoil. However, the result was not overturned.
At the end of his term, Metellus Nepos received his proconsular command, in his father’s former province of Cyrenaica. From here, he would launch the next phase of Roman conflict with Macedonia; but the theatre of operations would not be where he or any other Roman anticipated.
The Macedonian Emperor had been powerless to prevent the conquest of Creta. However, the fleet which had reconnoitered Cydonia during the siege in 728 had sailed on to Aegypt. Aboard one of the ships was the man who might have changed Macedonian fortunes, Metrodorus of Sicyon.
Aegypt had been governed since the reign of Philip IV by the descendants of his brother Archelaus. Avaricious, brutal and incompetent, the Archelaids plundered and mismanaged the province and neglected its defences. Sphodrias, the malignant minister of finance, pillaged the treasury until the Empire’s most populous and wealthiest possession was virtually bankrupt.
With the Romans threatening in nearby Cyrenaica, Metrodorus was charged with the daunting task of rebuilding the Aegyptian military and reforming the administration. His first act was to execute Sphodrias, dismiss the other ministers and bring the useless governor, Perdiccas, into line. To defend the country in the event of Roman aggression, he had under his command a hundred thousand troops of varying quality, no match individually for the Romans in Cyrenaica but outnumbering them ten to one.
Metrodorus and his reforms represented a final squandered opportunity for the Macedonian Empire. In 731, the worthless Perdiccas plotted his assassination. While on a tour of the province, Metrodorus was stabbed to death by agents of the governor, and his body thrown into Lake Moeris. A young general, Apollodorus, was so disgusted by the crime that he organized his own conspiracy, to overthrow Perdiccas. A few weeks after the murder, Perdiccas was disposed of. According to local legend, he was fed to the sacred crocodile of Arsinoe, near the lake where Metrodorus had been slain.
Despite protestations from Pella, Apollodorus appointed himself governor of Aegypt and continued the revitalisation process. The inevitable next step came in 735 when he declared his independence.
The Fall of the Republic, Part 8
The 730s were a period of relative peace for Rome, with no major military campaigns. The respite was spent in organizing the new provinces and consolidating power on the frontiers, in Gallia and North Africa. On the major fault lines between the Macedonian Empire and the Roman imperium, in Illyricum and on Creta, tensions persisted. However, both major powers were too distracted by internal matters to risk a direct confrontation.
In Rome, the ongoing disputation between the populares and the conservatores had the city close to civil war, with mob violence bringing the day-to-day government to a virtual standstill. Ambitious politicians continued to exploit social conflict for their own purposes; but the real struggle for power was between two dominant factions. In a system still grounded in patronage and family and personal allegiances, the populares supported the aspirations of the Claudii Neroni, while the Senate looked to the Caecilii Metelli as it champions. Although it was the extremist element which reduced the assembly to chaos and the streets to battlegrounds, both sides resorted routinely to intimidation and bribery to achieve their ends. And if the "respectable" classes had qualms, they accepted the necessity for radical tactics in the belief that their goal - whether it be republican libertas, personal auctoritas or popular sovereignty - should override all other concerns.
That the traditions which the conservatores guarded were those which preserved their own privileged status, and that the institutions which the populares sought to reform were those which impeded their personal ambition - these were issues that received little attention or reflection.
The problems which the Macedonian Emperor faced were of a far greater magnitude, the effective disintegration of his dominions as one province after another slipped from his grasp. The loss of Creta posed a strategic dilemma, but the revolt in Aegypt was a disaster.
Apollodorus was a young, handsome, ambitious military officer. Born in the little Asia Minor town of Pergamon, he improved his social position by marrying the daughter of a Macedonian nobleman. In a short but diverse career, he had battled Parthians in Hyrcania, taken part in a diplomatic mission to the court of the Armenian king and served on the staff of the governor of Syria. Accompanying Metrodorus as an aide to Aegypt in 728, he was appointed nomarch (provincial administrator) of Alexandria and assigned the task of equipping and training the vast but unseasoned army of local conscripts.
An intelligent man of cultivated tastes, but also a ruthless opportunist, he took advantage of the governor Perdiccas’s murder of Metrodorus to stage his own coup. He was genuinely appalled at the crime but was not averse to profiting from it. With the backing of his subordinates, he arrested his fellow officers and appointed himself governor of Aegypt. The authorities in Pella had no choice but to acquiesce, and for the time being at least, he declared his loyalty to the Emperor. In 733, he rebuffed a Roman delegation attempting to negotiate a separate treaty. Nevertheless, he remained acutely aware of the threat to the west and the likelihood of an eventual move against him by the Macedonian authorities.
In the summer of 735 a rebellion broke out in the Aegyptian delta region, amongst the peasant population oppressed by extortionate taxes and corrupt administration. The uprising was suppressed with no great effort and much bloodshed, but Apollodorus saw in the episode the pretext for a second coup, this time against the Emperor.
The revolution of Apollodorus was relatively bloodless. Only a handful of Dionysius’ loyalists who attempted to rally the opposition were executed. All others who refused to collaborate were packed off to Syria. The following year, he took the inevitable next step, crowning himself Pharaoh. Although a Hellene, he was the first independent ruler of Aegypt since the year 409. To win the affection of the native Aegyptian population, he promoted local cults and festivals, initiated extensive public works and building projects, adopted local laws and customs that had survived three centuries of Macedonian occupation and continued to build up the country’s defences.
In 739, Apollodorus concluded a pact with Rome, renouncing all claims to Cyrenaica and any future alliance with Macedonia, in return for a Roman guarantee of non-interference in Aegyptian affairs and a negotiated agreement on their mutual borders. Pella naturally saw the treaty as an explicit threat. Peace in North Africa would allow Rome to adopt a more aggressive policy towards Macedonia, while the military build-up in Aegypt endangered Syria.
Early in 740, a Macedonian army advanced into Aegypt from Syria, commanded by the Emperor’s younger son, Demetrios, and his chief general Cleomenes. Although vast, the force consisted largely of cavalry and light infantry, the latter mostly Syrian conscripts. They were supported by contingents from Mesopotamia, sent by the governor Diomedes, and tough Isaurians from Anatolia. Apollodorus led his army in person, but already his efforts had been subverted by the defection of Macedonian nobles in his own court resentful of his Aegyptianization policies.
At Pelusium, on the eastern edge of the Nile delta, the Aegyptian and Macedonian forces met in battle. Apollodorus had prepared well, blocking the river channels with embankments and flooding the surrounding countryside. Demetrios, impatient to end the campaign, split his forces, sending Cleomenes with half the army on a southward march to circumvent the enemy defences. Meanwhile, Demetrios embarked with the rest of the troops to sail past the Aegyptian stronghold. Apollodorus saw his opportunity and charged out from his fortifications. In a pitched battle lasting the entire day, the Aegyptians prevailed with heavy casualties. Cleomenes extricated himself with the critical assistance of Diomedes’ Mesopotamians but retreated into Syria.
Enraged by the defeat and withdrawal of his deputy, Demetrios brought his troops ashore in the Tanis Lake district, where his cavalry became bogged in the marshes. Apollodorus rushed north with his depleted army and won another dramatic victory. The body of Prince Demetrios was never found.
A major factor in Apollodorus’s spectacular success was the part played by several thousand Libyan and Numidian mercenaries recruited and led by one Gaius Ateius Capito. A shadowy figure, Capito was ostensibly a businessman who turned adventurer after being hounded out of Italia by creditors and expelled from the province of Africa for some unknown offence. Whether he was a genuine soldier of fortune or a covert agent of Rome, he appeared at the court of Apollodorus around 737 and was on hand to play a key role at Pelusium.
Upon hearing news of his son’s death, the distraught Emperor sent the bulk of the Macedonian navy to launch a seaborne attack on Canopus, east of the Aegyptian capital Alexandria. The armada was intercepted and the landing foiled by a combined Roman and Aegyptian fleet. The sea battle was indecisive, but the Macedonian campaign was aborted. Apollodorus would rule his kingdom unmolested for another quarter of a century.
The Senate’s exact motive for despatching the fleet to Aegypt remains unclear. If C. Ateius Capito was indeed a Roman agent, then the reason for shifting to overt military support becomes, if anything, even more mystifying. However, the explanation possibly lies in the identity of the man commanding the Canopus operation, none other than Lucius Caecilius Metellus Nepos. It would appear that the Senate was now engaged in the very game it always accused the populares of playing, provoking a war for domestic political advantage.
Even after the intervention in Aegypt, the Emperor was not yet willing to commit to war with Rome. Metellus was not so reluctant. Chasing after the Macedonians, his ships veered east to the island of Cyprus, to blockade the port of Salamis. In the spring of 741, two legions were landed at Kition (Roman Citium) on the south coast and quickly conquered most of the island. They faced only minor resistance. Paphos, the mythical birthplace of Aphrodite, surrendered without a fight. Long exploited for their resources of timber and copper, the Cypriot people had no devotion to the Macedonian Empire and many welcomed the Romans as liberators. That same year, Cyprus became Rome’s fifteenth province.
When the Macedonian fleet attempted to break the siege of Salamis, Rome scored one of her greatest naval victories. More than two thirds of the enemy ships were sunk and the rest scattered. The Seventh Macedonian War had begun in earnest, and Rome was undeniably the aggressor.
The 730s were a period of relative peace for Rome, with no major military campaigns. The respite was spent in organizing the new provinces and consolidating power on the frontiers, in Gallia and North Africa. On the major fault lines between the Macedonian Empire and the Roman imperium, in Illyricum and on Creta, tensions persisted. However, both major powers were too distracted by internal matters to risk a direct confrontation.
In Rome, the ongoing disputation between the populares and the conservatores had the city close to civil war, with mob violence bringing the day-to-day government to a virtual standstill. Ambitious politicians continued to exploit social conflict for their own purposes; but the real struggle for power was between two dominant factions. In a system still grounded in patronage and family and personal allegiances, the populares supported the aspirations of the Claudii Neroni, while the Senate looked to the Caecilii Metelli as it champions. Although it was the extremist element which reduced the assembly to chaos and the streets to battlegrounds, both sides resorted routinely to intimidation and bribery to achieve their ends. And if the "respectable" classes had qualms, they accepted the necessity for radical tactics in the belief that their goal - whether it be republican libertas, personal auctoritas or popular sovereignty - should override all other concerns.
That the traditions which the conservatores guarded were those which preserved their own privileged status, and that the institutions which the populares sought to reform were those which impeded their personal ambition - these were issues that received little attention or reflection.
The problems which the Macedonian Emperor faced were of a far greater magnitude, the effective disintegration of his dominions as one province after another slipped from his grasp. The loss of Creta posed a strategic dilemma, but the revolt in Aegypt was a disaster.
Apollodorus was a young, handsome, ambitious military officer. Born in the little Asia Minor town of Pergamon, he improved his social position by marrying the daughter of a Macedonian nobleman. In a short but diverse career, he had battled Parthians in Hyrcania, taken part in a diplomatic mission to the court of the Armenian king and served on the staff of the governor of Syria. Accompanying Metrodorus as an aide to Aegypt in 728, he was appointed nomarch (provincial administrator) of Alexandria and assigned the task of equipping and training the vast but unseasoned army of local conscripts.
An intelligent man of cultivated tastes, but also a ruthless opportunist, he took advantage of the governor Perdiccas’s murder of Metrodorus to stage his own coup. He was genuinely appalled at the crime but was not averse to profiting from it. With the backing of his subordinates, he arrested his fellow officers and appointed himself governor of Aegypt. The authorities in Pella had no choice but to acquiesce, and for the time being at least, he declared his loyalty to the Emperor. In 733, he rebuffed a Roman delegation attempting to negotiate a separate treaty. Nevertheless, he remained acutely aware of the threat to the west and the likelihood of an eventual move against him by the Macedonian authorities.
In the summer of 735 a rebellion broke out in the Aegyptian delta region, amongst the peasant population oppressed by extortionate taxes and corrupt administration. The uprising was suppressed with no great effort and much bloodshed, but Apollodorus saw in the episode the pretext for a second coup, this time against the Emperor.
The revolution of Apollodorus was relatively bloodless. Only a handful of Dionysius’ loyalists who attempted to rally the opposition were executed. All others who refused to collaborate were packed off to Syria. The following year, he took the inevitable next step, crowning himself Pharaoh. Although a Hellene, he was the first independent ruler of Aegypt since the year 409. To win the affection of the native Aegyptian population, he promoted local cults and festivals, initiated extensive public works and building projects, adopted local laws and customs that had survived three centuries of Macedonian occupation and continued to build up the country’s defences.
In 739, Apollodorus concluded a pact with Rome, renouncing all claims to Cyrenaica and any future alliance with Macedonia, in return for a Roman guarantee of non-interference in Aegyptian affairs and a negotiated agreement on their mutual borders. Pella naturally saw the treaty as an explicit threat. Peace in North Africa would allow Rome to adopt a more aggressive policy towards Macedonia, while the military build-up in Aegypt endangered Syria.
Early in 740, a Macedonian army advanced into Aegypt from Syria, commanded by the Emperor’s younger son, Demetrios, and his chief general Cleomenes. Although vast, the force consisted largely of cavalry and light infantry, the latter mostly Syrian conscripts. They were supported by contingents from Mesopotamia, sent by the governor Diomedes, and tough Isaurians from Anatolia. Apollodorus led his army in person, but already his efforts had been subverted by the defection of Macedonian nobles in his own court resentful of his Aegyptianization policies.
At Pelusium, on the eastern edge of the Nile delta, the Aegyptian and Macedonian forces met in battle. Apollodorus had prepared well, blocking the river channels with embankments and flooding the surrounding countryside. Demetrios, impatient to end the campaign, split his forces, sending Cleomenes with half the army on a southward march to circumvent the enemy defences. Meanwhile, Demetrios embarked with the rest of the troops to sail past the Aegyptian stronghold. Apollodorus saw his opportunity and charged out from his fortifications. In a pitched battle lasting the entire day, the Aegyptians prevailed with heavy casualties. Cleomenes extricated himself with the critical assistance of Diomedes’ Mesopotamians but retreated into Syria.
Enraged by the defeat and withdrawal of his deputy, Demetrios brought his troops ashore in the Tanis Lake district, where his cavalry became bogged in the marshes. Apollodorus rushed north with his depleted army and won another dramatic victory. The body of Prince Demetrios was never found.
A major factor in Apollodorus’s spectacular success was the part played by several thousand Libyan and Numidian mercenaries recruited and led by one Gaius Ateius Capito. A shadowy figure, Capito was ostensibly a businessman who turned adventurer after being hounded out of Italia by creditors and expelled from the province of Africa for some unknown offence. Whether he was a genuine soldier of fortune or a covert agent of Rome, he appeared at the court of Apollodorus around 737 and was on hand to play a key role at Pelusium.
Upon hearing news of his son’s death, the distraught Emperor sent the bulk of the Macedonian navy to launch a seaborne attack on Canopus, east of the Aegyptian capital Alexandria. The armada was intercepted and the landing foiled by a combined Roman and Aegyptian fleet. The sea battle was indecisive, but the Macedonian campaign was aborted. Apollodorus would rule his kingdom unmolested for another quarter of a century.
The Senate’s exact motive for despatching the fleet to Aegypt remains unclear. If C. Ateius Capito was indeed a Roman agent, then the reason for shifting to overt military support becomes, if anything, even more mystifying. However, the explanation possibly lies in the identity of the man commanding the Canopus operation, none other than Lucius Caecilius Metellus Nepos. It would appear that the Senate was now engaged in the very game it always accused the populares of playing, provoking a war for domestic political advantage.
Even after the intervention in Aegypt, the Emperor was not yet willing to commit to war with Rome. Metellus was not so reluctant. Chasing after the Macedonians, his ships veered east to the island of Cyprus, to blockade the port of Salamis. In the spring of 741, two legions were landed at Kition (Roman Citium) on the south coast and quickly conquered most of the island. They faced only minor resistance. Paphos, the mythical birthplace of Aphrodite, surrendered without a fight. Long exploited for their resources of timber and copper, the Cypriot people had no devotion to the Macedonian Empire and many welcomed the Romans as liberators. That same year, Cyprus became Rome’s fifteenth province.
When the Macedonian fleet attempted to break the siege of Salamis, Rome scored one of her greatest naval victories. More than two thirds of the enemy ships were sunk and the rest scattered. The Seventh Macedonian War had begun in earnest, and Rome was undeniably the aggressor.
The Fall of the Republic, Part 9
If the Romans believed that this latest war against an effete and decaying empire would be short and sharp, they were due for an unpleasant surprise. In defence of their homeland, the Macedonians would prove as resolute and resilient as they had been since the days of Philip II. In the face of a dogged resistance, and in contrast to the swift campaigns on Creta and Cyprus, the Roman army made tedious progress. The senatorial leadership, and particularly the conservatores who had gained the political ascendancy in Rome, would come under harsh criticism, with accusations of incompetence and corruption.
The outcome was almost inevitable: the defeat of Macedonia and the destruction of her empire. However, the consequences for the Republic and its traditional forms of government were nearly as profound.
There was no doubt, in the Roman forum or the court in Pella, as to who had started this war. In Rome, the popularis faction clamoured for it. The equestrian order greeted its outbreak with acclaim for the profits it would bring. The proletarians welcomed the benefits fresh conquests would endow upon the city and their class. Ambitious young noblemen saw the chance for military glory and their generals the opportunity for wealth and power. The Senators were as usual less enthused, but when war became inevitable they revolved to prosecute it to its fullest extent, and not allow the vulgar populares or the upstart novi homines to steal the triumphs.
The Consuls in 741 were the conservative plebeian C. Claudius Marcellus and the moderate patrician M. Aemilius Lepidus. At the end of their terms, both received proconsular commands in strategic areas, Marcellus in Illyricum and Lepidus in Cyrenaica, each with four legions under his direct command. However, their mission was defensive. To carry the war to Macedonia, the man of the hour was L. Caecilius Metellus Nepos.
Once more in violation of the lex Sulpicia, Metellus was granted a special command, with seven legions and an equivalent number of auxiliary troops raised in the provinces. In Aprilis of 742, he started moving his vast army across the Hadriatic, into southern Illyricum. In the meantime, Marcellus and his legions began concentrating on the central Dalmatian coast. The Roman plan was apparently to launch a three-pronged invasion - Marcellus down the valley of the Danubius into Thracia, Metellus’s main corps into western Macedonia and a smaller force into southern Macedonia through Rome’s ally Epirus. The overconfident Romans did not expect the enemy to take the offensive.
The ageing Emperor Dionysius took no part in the operations; but his eldest son Cassander was eager to secure his inheritance and avenge his brother’s death in Aegypt. Pulling the entire fleet back into home waters, he launched a series of highly effective strikes on Roman shipping in the Hadriatic. Unlike the Macedonians fighting for their very survival, the Romans had dispersed their navy in squadrons throughout the central and eastern Mediterranean, and the boldness of the enemy attacks found them unprepared. Metellus was obliged to halt his troop and supply shipments and thus to delay his own offensive.
Nevertheless, the toll on the Macedonian warships was high. By early autumn, Metellus was able to resume his build-up in southern Illyricum; but his campaign was now well behind schedule. In the north, Cassander had negotiated mutual defence pacts with the Dacian, Pannonian and Dardanian tribesmen to oppose the Roman aggression, and Marcellus encountered heavy resistance as he advanced to the River Savus. Without Metellus to relieve the pressure on his southern flank, he was forced to turn north-west, away from his objectives, to drive the allies back across the Dravus. By the time he was able to resume his march, it was too late in the season and he was obliged to fall back to his coastal bases.
The first full year of the war had been an embarrassment for Rome. With no less than twelve legions now on the eastern side of the Hadriatic, the Romans clung to the narrow coastal plain while Cassander and his allies staged galling raids on their outposts and supply trains. Although the sea lanes had been cleared of enemy ships, severe winter storms ravaged the Roman navy.
Ptolemaeus, the king of Epirus, was becoming alarmed. In Septembris 742, the Macedonians had attacked the island of Corcyra, burning the towns and devastating the fields before being driven off by Roman reinforcements. Ptolemaeus was acutely aware that any Imperial counter-offensive would most likely be through his territory. As a consequence, to appease his nervous ally, Metellus was obliged to break up three of his legions for garrison duty throughout the country.
Already in the forum, in the assembly and even in the Senate questions were being asked. Where was the swift victory they had been assured of? Where were the benefits that were promised? The old Roman qualities of patience and perseverance seemed to be lacking in this new generation. People wanted easy conquests and quick profits. When reminded that the sixth war had gone on for almost three decades, they were not inspired but dismayed.
In 743, the initiative was taken by a popularis general, the propraetor P. Sulpicius Quirinius. With two legions, he was assigned the responsibility of plugging the gap between Marcellus to the north and Metellus in the south. Cassander saw his opportunity and attacked in this sector. Sulpicius quickly recovered and drove the enemy back, winning a substantial victory at Celetrum in western Macedonia. The town was located on a peninsula in a lake, and it was to here that Cassander had withdrawn his forces. The position was strongly held and the prince kept an escape route to the east open with his cavalry. Sulpicius took the place by storm; and though Cassander managed to escape, the loss of Celetrum severely dented his prestige and sapped the morale of his troops.
Unfortunately, Sulpicius Quirinius was a "new man" who lacked the indispensable political connections. Criticized in the Senate for exceeding his orders, he was recalled and replaced by a nominee of the conservatores who proved singularly inept. Within weeks of their hard-fought victory, the Romans had abandoned Celetrum and retreated back to the coast. It appeared that political rivalries and personal jealousies would continue to undermine the war effort.
The populares in their frustration turned to a name they could rely upon. Gaius Claudius Nero had already distinguished himself in Gallia and Dacia, and as the son of Tiberius Africanus his pedigree was impeccable. In 744 he was technically too young for the consulship but he was elected anyway. Yet the conservatores were in no position to complain of illegality. Their candidate was Metellus Nepos, and although he had waited the requisite ten years, his election to a second term was in breach of the lex Varia Claudia.
On the war front, that year was relatively quiet. The legions of Metellus had made hardly a move from their bases in southern Illyricum. Remaining in Rome in strict accordance with the lex Rubria, the Consul left the management of his army in the hands of legates who - unlike P. Sulpicius Quirinius - lacked the initiative or the confidence to act without direct orders from their commander. In response to the Macedonian naval raids and the attack on Corcyra, they focused on strengthening their defences. To the north, Marcellus seemed paralysed by the inaction of his colleague.
In the new year, 745, Metellus returned to his inert forces. With the Senate still in control of proconsular appointments, Gaius Claudius Nero was assigned a command in Hispania, once a key province but now a comparative backwater.
Metellus continued to bide his time, even with eight legions now at his disposal. Marcellus, however, was nearing the end of his three-year proconsular command and was anxious to win his triumph. As early in the year as possible, he abandoned his winter quarters and set out for the Danubius. His plan was to penetrate as far as the Carpates Mountains, then turn eastwards to advance to the mouth of the Danubius. Supported by Sarmatian cavalry and guided by scouts from the Dardani - who appear to have changed sides - he at first made rapid progress
The enemy were brave but undisciplined warriors, who fought mainly without armour but with formidable weaponry, in particular the frightening, scythe-like falx. When able to bring them to pitched battle, Marcellus fought in a traditional formation, his legions in the centre, auxiliaries on the wings, his flanks protected by cavalry. When the enemy retired, he plundered the countryside, storming towns, burning villages and devastating farmlands. This was not a war of conquest, despite the steady westward flow of slaves and other booty. The Roman strategy was to force the tribesmen to either commit to battle and be destroyed or else to sue for peace.
In this fast-moving campaign there was no time to construct bridges, and at river crossings the Roman army was at its most vulnerable. However, though intrepid, Marcellus was never reckless. He did not divide his forces, resisted the temptation to chase after the enemy when they refused battle and kept his cavalry in close support of the infantry. The reliance on secure supply lines was reduced by extensive and efficient pillaging of the countryside.
By the end of summer, 745, Marcellus had routed the Pannonians and Dacians and effectively occupied all the lands between the Carpates and the Danubius. In the meantime, the Sarmatian Iazyges had the Macedonian province of Chersonesus (the Cimmerian Bosporus) under attack, preventing the Emperor from relieving his hard-pressed allies by sea. For the winter hiatus, Marcellus finally divided his army, stationing one legion on the middle Danubius at the junction with the Savus (the town of Singedon, Roman Singidunum). Another legion was sent north-west under an ex-tribune, Lucius Faberius, to garrison the upper Danubius (at the site of what would become the provincial capital of Aquincum). With the bulk of his army, Marcellus established a fortified base near the mouth of the Danubius, at Durostorum.
Had the Romans co-ordinated their efforts, with Marcellus advancing from the north and Metellus from the west, the Macedonians would have been crushed as in a vice. Why Metellus still did not act remains a mystery. It may have been that shortly after Marcellus began his offensive across the Danubius, news arrived in Rome that Emperor Dionysius III was dead. He had reigned for 46 years, longer than any other Macedonian monarch, and he had accomplished little of value. His successor, the 38 year-old Cassander II was, on the contrary, an intelligent and experienced commander. His energy, contrasted with the baffling complacency of the Roman commanders, ensured that this war was far from over, and ultimate Roman victory seemed no longer such a sure thing.
Metellus may have delayed in the expectation that the new Emperor would negotiate rather than fight. Perhaps he had simply lost his nerve. In any case, the campaigning season of 745 was wasted in intermittent skirmishing on the frontier.
Cassander knew he could not confront and defeat the Romans in all theatres. He conceded Aegyptian independence and Roman naval supremacy in order to concentrate on the defence of his homeland. He recruited extensively in Anatolia and Syria, and renewed his alliance with the Dacians and Pannonians and with Illyrian rebels. Most importantly, he made an agreement with the Iazyges, who had been acting independently of their Sarmatian kinfolk. Cassander promised them free range in the lands along the western shore of the Euxine sea, between the river Pyretus, which entered the Danubius near its mouth, and the Borysthenes, bordering Chersonesus. This relieved the pressure in the north, somewhat, and gave the Romans there something more to worry about.
It was not until the spring of 746 that the great Roman offensive finally commenced. By now, back in the capital, the populares were calling for the dismissal of the idle Metellus Nepos and the appointment of their idol Gaius Claudius Nero. Goaded by the criticism, at last Metellus set out, on his original course with a two-pronged invasion through Illyricum and Epirus.
The southern column suffered an immediate setback. The Epirote King Ptolemaeus insisted on commanding in person, though with Roman legates to assist him. Soon after crossing the frontier into Thessalia, he stumbled into an ambush. Cassander’s cousin Pausanias, leading a far inferior force, proved more than a match for the blundering Ptolemaeus. Wrong-footed as he tried to cut off the Macedonian from the main army to the north, the Epirote attempted a dash across the mountains; but he was trapped at Phaestus, a few milles south of a Macedonian stronghold at Mylae. Due to excessive haste, the Roman-Epirote army was caught in line of march and routed. In fact, it was because the troops were strung out all the way back into Epirus that only the leading units were massacred.
With his hopes of a quick victory shattered at Phaestus, Metellus was forced into an ignominious retreat. With Cassander now able to bring up Pausanias’s forces on their right flank, the Romans advancing directly into Macedonia risked having their supply lines severed in an inhospitable terrain.
More bad news reached Rome. Far to the north, the garrison at Aquincum was under siege. The commander, Lucius Faberius, refused to withdraw and mounted a gallant defence. Although his courage and that of his troops was lauded back in Rome, this was a strategic error. To save the legion from destruction, Marcellus was obliged to abandon his base on the lower Danubius and return to the west. Faberius and his men were rescued, but the conquests of 745 had been effectively reversed.
Five years after the theatre of war had shifted to Macedonia, Rome had little to show for the investment and the sacrifices. Amidst disorders in the Assembly between the rival supporters of the Metelli and the Claudii, Gaius Claudius Nero was voted the command in Epirus, with P. Sulpicius Quirinius as his deputy. Immediately upon arriving in the Epirote capital, Gaius laid down the law to a chastened Ptolemaeus. From now on, the campaign would be directed by a Roman.
The tide began to turn. In Maius 747, Metellus finally won a decisive victory, defeating a Macedonian force holding the pass of Pelium, on the border between Illyricum and Macedonia. Cassander did not have enough resources to hold all of the passes, but this was a vital passage to be defended at any cost. Pelium occupied an extremely narrow defile which could be held by a relatively small force. Metellus, however, had no alternative but to push his way through, despite inevitably heavy casualties. The Emperor could not spare soldiers to relieve his men at Pelium and eventually the Romans prevailed. The way to Pella was now open.
To the south, Gaius Claudius had assigned a legion - later entitled Silex ("hard like flint") in the naming tradition initiated by Gaius’s father - under the irrepressible Sulpicius Quirinius to drive to the east coast. A fortified position was established at the legendary pass of Thermopylae to prevent Macedonian forces in Hellas from marching north to relieve the capital. Meanwhile, Gaius took Phaestus, where the Romans had been repelled the previous year.
By the beginning of the month of Quintilis, the army of Gaius Claudius Nero was nearing the east coast of Hellas. A Macedonian army commanded by Pausanias had attacked Sulpicius and forced him to quit Thermopylae. Pausanias then occupied Larissa, between Phaestus and the coast, to cut the Romans off from their lines of supply and reinforcement. His position soon became untenable, as Sulpicius and his legion occupied the roads to the north and were gradually reinforced. He abandoned Larissa and returned to the coast, too late to prevent another disaster. On the twentieth of Quintilis, Metellus destroyed a Macedonian army at Pydna, on the Gulf of Therma, less than thirty milles south of Pella. Among the ten thousand dead was Perseus, the brother of the Emperor, who had commanded the Macedonians.
Cassander enjoyed one last victory when the Roman vanguard was stopped on the Haliacmon River midway between Pydna and Pella. Metellus chose prudence over pride and did not force a crossing. Instead, he sent his troops on a circuitous route westwards to outflank the defenders. In the meantime, Gaius Claudius was coming up fast with his legions, the indomitable Silex taking the lead. Pausanias struck out to intercept him but was defeated south of Pydna, beneath the majestic heights of Mount Olympus.
The Emperor realized now that his capital was doomed. On the first of Septembris, he abandoned Pella with most of his army. The Romans entered the city unopposed, under a flag of truce. Although his soldiers lusted for plunder, Metellus did not wish to blemish his illustrious career with unwarranted slaughter and looting.
Cassander was not finished just yet. He skilfully eluded his pursuers, reaching the Thessalian stronghold of Mylae. Here he would hold out for six months, during which time the Romans methodically subjugated his dominions. One by one the Macedonian towns submitted. By contrast, the cities of Hellas unanimously acclaimed the conquerors as liberators.
The end came quickly, in Aprilis 748. Seven Roman legions had converged on Cassander’s refuge, leaving no avenue of escape. Called on for an honourable surrender, the Emperor chose instead a last, futile gesture of defiance. In the predawn darkness on the seventh of Aprilis, he personally led a sortie from the barricades which almost succeeded in breaking through the Roman lines.
Cassander II, thirteenth ruler of the empire created by Megas Alexandros, was cut down, surrounded by his bodyguard who fought to the last man. So ended the Dionysian dynasty, Macedonian independence and more than three centuries of imperial glory.
If the Romans believed that this latest war against an effete and decaying empire would be short and sharp, they were due for an unpleasant surprise. In defence of their homeland, the Macedonians would prove as resolute and resilient as they had been since the days of Philip II. In the face of a dogged resistance, and in contrast to the swift campaigns on Creta and Cyprus, the Roman army made tedious progress. The senatorial leadership, and particularly the conservatores who had gained the political ascendancy in Rome, would come under harsh criticism, with accusations of incompetence and corruption.
The outcome was almost inevitable: the defeat of Macedonia and the destruction of her empire. However, the consequences for the Republic and its traditional forms of government were nearly as profound.
There was no doubt, in the Roman forum or the court in Pella, as to who had started this war. In Rome, the popularis faction clamoured for it. The equestrian order greeted its outbreak with acclaim for the profits it would bring. The proletarians welcomed the benefits fresh conquests would endow upon the city and their class. Ambitious young noblemen saw the chance for military glory and their generals the opportunity for wealth and power. The Senators were as usual less enthused, but when war became inevitable they revolved to prosecute it to its fullest extent, and not allow the vulgar populares or the upstart novi homines to steal the triumphs.
The Consuls in 741 were the conservative plebeian C. Claudius Marcellus and the moderate patrician M. Aemilius Lepidus. At the end of their terms, both received proconsular commands in strategic areas, Marcellus in Illyricum and Lepidus in Cyrenaica, each with four legions under his direct command. However, their mission was defensive. To carry the war to Macedonia, the man of the hour was L. Caecilius Metellus Nepos.
Once more in violation of the lex Sulpicia, Metellus was granted a special command, with seven legions and an equivalent number of auxiliary troops raised in the provinces. In Aprilis of 742, he started moving his vast army across the Hadriatic, into southern Illyricum. In the meantime, Marcellus and his legions began concentrating on the central Dalmatian coast. The Roman plan was apparently to launch a three-pronged invasion - Marcellus down the valley of the Danubius into Thracia, Metellus’s main corps into western Macedonia and a smaller force into southern Macedonia through Rome’s ally Epirus. The overconfident Romans did not expect the enemy to take the offensive.
The ageing Emperor Dionysius took no part in the operations; but his eldest son Cassander was eager to secure his inheritance and avenge his brother’s death in Aegypt. Pulling the entire fleet back into home waters, he launched a series of highly effective strikes on Roman shipping in the Hadriatic. Unlike the Macedonians fighting for their very survival, the Romans had dispersed their navy in squadrons throughout the central and eastern Mediterranean, and the boldness of the enemy attacks found them unprepared. Metellus was obliged to halt his troop and supply shipments and thus to delay his own offensive.
Nevertheless, the toll on the Macedonian warships was high. By early autumn, Metellus was able to resume his build-up in southern Illyricum; but his campaign was now well behind schedule. In the north, Cassander had negotiated mutual defence pacts with the Dacian, Pannonian and Dardanian tribesmen to oppose the Roman aggression, and Marcellus encountered heavy resistance as he advanced to the River Savus. Without Metellus to relieve the pressure on his southern flank, he was forced to turn north-west, away from his objectives, to drive the allies back across the Dravus. By the time he was able to resume his march, it was too late in the season and he was obliged to fall back to his coastal bases.
The first full year of the war had been an embarrassment for Rome. With no less than twelve legions now on the eastern side of the Hadriatic, the Romans clung to the narrow coastal plain while Cassander and his allies staged galling raids on their outposts and supply trains. Although the sea lanes had been cleared of enemy ships, severe winter storms ravaged the Roman navy.
Ptolemaeus, the king of Epirus, was becoming alarmed. In Septembris 742, the Macedonians had attacked the island of Corcyra, burning the towns and devastating the fields before being driven off by Roman reinforcements. Ptolemaeus was acutely aware that any Imperial counter-offensive would most likely be through his territory. As a consequence, to appease his nervous ally, Metellus was obliged to break up three of his legions for garrison duty throughout the country.
Already in the forum, in the assembly and even in the Senate questions were being asked. Where was the swift victory they had been assured of? Where were the benefits that were promised? The old Roman qualities of patience and perseverance seemed to be lacking in this new generation. People wanted easy conquests and quick profits. When reminded that the sixth war had gone on for almost three decades, they were not inspired but dismayed.
In 743, the initiative was taken by a popularis general, the propraetor P. Sulpicius Quirinius. With two legions, he was assigned the responsibility of plugging the gap between Marcellus to the north and Metellus in the south. Cassander saw his opportunity and attacked in this sector. Sulpicius quickly recovered and drove the enemy back, winning a substantial victory at Celetrum in western Macedonia. The town was located on a peninsula in a lake, and it was to here that Cassander had withdrawn his forces. The position was strongly held and the prince kept an escape route to the east open with his cavalry. Sulpicius took the place by storm; and though Cassander managed to escape, the loss of Celetrum severely dented his prestige and sapped the morale of his troops.
Unfortunately, Sulpicius Quirinius was a "new man" who lacked the indispensable political connections. Criticized in the Senate for exceeding his orders, he was recalled and replaced by a nominee of the conservatores who proved singularly inept. Within weeks of their hard-fought victory, the Romans had abandoned Celetrum and retreated back to the coast. It appeared that political rivalries and personal jealousies would continue to undermine the war effort.
The populares in their frustration turned to a name they could rely upon. Gaius Claudius Nero had already distinguished himself in Gallia and Dacia, and as the son of Tiberius Africanus his pedigree was impeccable. In 744 he was technically too young for the consulship but he was elected anyway. Yet the conservatores were in no position to complain of illegality. Their candidate was Metellus Nepos, and although he had waited the requisite ten years, his election to a second term was in breach of the lex Varia Claudia.
On the war front, that year was relatively quiet. The legions of Metellus had made hardly a move from their bases in southern Illyricum. Remaining in Rome in strict accordance with the lex Rubria, the Consul left the management of his army in the hands of legates who - unlike P. Sulpicius Quirinius - lacked the initiative or the confidence to act without direct orders from their commander. In response to the Macedonian naval raids and the attack on Corcyra, they focused on strengthening their defences. To the north, Marcellus seemed paralysed by the inaction of his colleague.
In the new year, 745, Metellus returned to his inert forces. With the Senate still in control of proconsular appointments, Gaius Claudius Nero was assigned a command in Hispania, once a key province but now a comparative backwater.
Metellus continued to bide his time, even with eight legions now at his disposal. Marcellus, however, was nearing the end of his three-year proconsular command and was anxious to win his triumph. As early in the year as possible, he abandoned his winter quarters and set out for the Danubius. His plan was to penetrate as far as the Carpates Mountains, then turn eastwards to advance to the mouth of the Danubius. Supported by Sarmatian cavalry and guided by scouts from the Dardani - who appear to have changed sides - he at first made rapid progress
The enemy were brave but undisciplined warriors, who fought mainly without armour but with formidable weaponry, in particular the frightening, scythe-like falx. When able to bring them to pitched battle, Marcellus fought in a traditional formation, his legions in the centre, auxiliaries on the wings, his flanks protected by cavalry. When the enemy retired, he plundered the countryside, storming towns, burning villages and devastating farmlands. This was not a war of conquest, despite the steady westward flow of slaves and other booty. The Roman strategy was to force the tribesmen to either commit to battle and be destroyed or else to sue for peace.
In this fast-moving campaign there was no time to construct bridges, and at river crossings the Roman army was at its most vulnerable. However, though intrepid, Marcellus was never reckless. He did not divide his forces, resisted the temptation to chase after the enemy when they refused battle and kept his cavalry in close support of the infantry. The reliance on secure supply lines was reduced by extensive and efficient pillaging of the countryside.
By the end of summer, 745, Marcellus had routed the Pannonians and Dacians and effectively occupied all the lands between the Carpates and the Danubius. In the meantime, the Sarmatian Iazyges had the Macedonian province of Chersonesus (the Cimmerian Bosporus) under attack, preventing the Emperor from relieving his hard-pressed allies by sea. For the winter hiatus, Marcellus finally divided his army, stationing one legion on the middle Danubius at the junction with the Savus (the town of Singedon, Roman Singidunum). Another legion was sent north-west under an ex-tribune, Lucius Faberius, to garrison the upper Danubius (at the site of what would become the provincial capital of Aquincum). With the bulk of his army, Marcellus established a fortified base near the mouth of the Danubius, at Durostorum.
Had the Romans co-ordinated their efforts, with Marcellus advancing from the north and Metellus from the west, the Macedonians would have been crushed as in a vice. Why Metellus still did not act remains a mystery. It may have been that shortly after Marcellus began his offensive across the Danubius, news arrived in Rome that Emperor Dionysius III was dead. He had reigned for 46 years, longer than any other Macedonian monarch, and he had accomplished little of value. His successor, the 38 year-old Cassander II was, on the contrary, an intelligent and experienced commander. His energy, contrasted with the baffling complacency of the Roman commanders, ensured that this war was far from over, and ultimate Roman victory seemed no longer such a sure thing.
Metellus may have delayed in the expectation that the new Emperor would negotiate rather than fight. Perhaps he had simply lost his nerve. In any case, the campaigning season of 745 was wasted in intermittent skirmishing on the frontier.
Cassander knew he could not confront and defeat the Romans in all theatres. He conceded Aegyptian independence and Roman naval supremacy in order to concentrate on the defence of his homeland. He recruited extensively in Anatolia and Syria, and renewed his alliance with the Dacians and Pannonians and with Illyrian rebels. Most importantly, he made an agreement with the Iazyges, who had been acting independently of their Sarmatian kinfolk. Cassander promised them free range in the lands along the western shore of the Euxine sea, between the river Pyretus, which entered the Danubius near its mouth, and the Borysthenes, bordering Chersonesus. This relieved the pressure in the north, somewhat, and gave the Romans there something more to worry about.
It was not until the spring of 746 that the great Roman offensive finally commenced. By now, back in the capital, the populares were calling for the dismissal of the idle Metellus Nepos and the appointment of their idol Gaius Claudius Nero. Goaded by the criticism, at last Metellus set out, on his original course with a two-pronged invasion through Illyricum and Epirus.
The southern column suffered an immediate setback. The Epirote King Ptolemaeus insisted on commanding in person, though with Roman legates to assist him. Soon after crossing the frontier into Thessalia, he stumbled into an ambush. Cassander’s cousin Pausanias, leading a far inferior force, proved more than a match for the blundering Ptolemaeus. Wrong-footed as he tried to cut off the Macedonian from the main army to the north, the Epirote attempted a dash across the mountains; but he was trapped at Phaestus, a few milles south of a Macedonian stronghold at Mylae. Due to excessive haste, the Roman-Epirote army was caught in line of march and routed. In fact, it was because the troops were strung out all the way back into Epirus that only the leading units were massacred.
With his hopes of a quick victory shattered at Phaestus, Metellus was forced into an ignominious retreat. With Cassander now able to bring up Pausanias’s forces on their right flank, the Romans advancing directly into Macedonia risked having their supply lines severed in an inhospitable terrain.
More bad news reached Rome. Far to the north, the garrison at Aquincum was under siege. The commander, Lucius Faberius, refused to withdraw and mounted a gallant defence. Although his courage and that of his troops was lauded back in Rome, this was a strategic error. To save the legion from destruction, Marcellus was obliged to abandon his base on the lower Danubius and return to the west. Faberius and his men were rescued, but the conquests of 745 had been effectively reversed.
Five years after the theatre of war had shifted to Macedonia, Rome had little to show for the investment and the sacrifices. Amidst disorders in the Assembly between the rival supporters of the Metelli and the Claudii, Gaius Claudius Nero was voted the command in Epirus, with P. Sulpicius Quirinius as his deputy. Immediately upon arriving in the Epirote capital, Gaius laid down the law to a chastened Ptolemaeus. From now on, the campaign would be directed by a Roman.
The tide began to turn. In Maius 747, Metellus finally won a decisive victory, defeating a Macedonian force holding the pass of Pelium, on the border between Illyricum and Macedonia. Cassander did not have enough resources to hold all of the passes, but this was a vital passage to be defended at any cost. Pelium occupied an extremely narrow defile which could be held by a relatively small force. Metellus, however, had no alternative but to push his way through, despite inevitably heavy casualties. The Emperor could not spare soldiers to relieve his men at Pelium and eventually the Romans prevailed. The way to Pella was now open.
To the south, Gaius Claudius had assigned a legion - later entitled Silex ("hard like flint") in the naming tradition initiated by Gaius’s father - under the irrepressible Sulpicius Quirinius to drive to the east coast. A fortified position was established at the legendary pass of Thermopylae to prevent Macedonian forces in Hellas from marching north to relieve the capital. Meanwhile, Gaius took Phaestus, where the Romans had been repelled the previous year.
By the beginning of the month of Quintilis, the army of Gaius Claudius Nero was nearing the east coast of Hellas. A Macedonian army commanded by Pausanias had attacked Sulpicius and forced him to quit Thermopylae. Pausanias then occupied Larissa, between Phaestus and the coast, to cut the Romans off from their lines of supply and reinforcement. His position soon became untenable, as Sulpicius and his legion occupied the roads to the north and were gradually reinforced. He abandoned Larissa and returned to the coast, too late to prevent another disaster. On the twentieth of Quintilis, Metellus destroyed a Macedonian army at Pydna, on the Gulf of Therma, less than thirty milles south of Pella. Among the ten thousand dead was Perseus, the brother of the Emperor, who had commanded the Macedonians.
Cassander enjoyed one last victory when the Roman vanguard was stopped on the Haliacmon River midway between Pydna and Pella. Metellus chose prudence over pride and did not force a crossing. Instead, he sent his troops on a circuitous route westwards to outflank the defenders. In the meantime, Gaius Claudius was coming up fast with his legions, the indomitable Silex taking the lead. Pausanias struck out to intercept him but was defeated south of Pydna, beneath the majestic heights of Mount Olympus.
The Emperor realized now that his capital was doomed. On the first of Septembris, he abandoned Pella with most of his army. The Romans entered the city unopposed, under a flag of truce. Although his soldiers lusted for plunder, Metellus did not wish to blemish his illustrious career with unwarranted slaughter and looting.
Cassander was not finished just yet. He skilfully eluded his pursuers, reaching the Thessalian stronghold of Mylae. Here he would hold out for six months, during which time the Romans methodically subjugated his dominions. One by one the Macedonian towns submitted. By contrast, the cities of Hellas unanimously acclaimed the conquerors as liberators.
The end came quickly, in Aprilis 748. Seven Roman legions had converged on Cassander’s refuge, leaving no avenue of escape. Called on for an honourable surrender, the Emperor chose instead a last, futile gesture of defiance. In the predawn darkness on the seventh of Aprilis, he personally led a sortie from the barricades which almost succeeded in breaking through the Roman lines.
Cassander II, thirteenth ruler of the empire created by Megas Alexandros, was cut down, surrounded by his bodyguard who fought to the last man. So ended the Dionysian dynasty, Macedonian independence and more than three centuries of imperial glory.
AUC 750:
ROMAN PROVINCES
ROMAN ALLIES
Roman subject allies
ARMENIAN EMPIRE
Armenian client states
INDEPENDENT STATES
UNORGANIZED
ROMAN PROVINCES
ROMAN ALLIES
Roman subject allies
ARMENIAN EMPIRE
Armenian client states
INDEPENDENT STATES
UNORGANIZED
The Fall of the Republic, Part 10
The defeat of Macedonia presented Rome with both opportunities and obligations. The sudden break-up of the empire founded by Megas Alexandros and ruled for three centuries by his successors required speedy and efficient reorganization if dissolution into chaos and violence was to be avoided. Unfortunately, victory over an old rival sparked renewed competition in Rome. Preoccupied with the struggle for power at home, the Roman leadership too often neglected its responsibilities.
Macedonia was not annexed outright, but rather converted into a client kingdom. A suitable puppet was found in the Molossian Prince Alcetas, a nephew of the Epirote King Ptolemaeus IV. Under his rule, the country enjoyed two decades of relative peace and prosperity. Generations of warfare, conscription and taxation had sapped the energy and resources of the land and its people, and for the average Macedonian the imperial legacy of Megas Alexandros had become an intolerable burden. Alcetas was an enlightened administrator, building roads and constructing new towns, encouraging trade and manufacturing. His aim was to diversify an economy based traditionally on agriculture and livestock but also, under the emperors, increasingly dependent on tribute from the provinces. The Macedonians were permitted a small army for defence but the fleet - or at least its remnant - was disbanded.
The post-imperial boom could not last. Ptolemaeus’s successor, Alexander, became alarmed at the Macedonian revival which threatened the predominance of his own kingdom. In 768, taking advantage of imminent civil war on the other side of the Hadriatic, he invaded Macedonia to overthrow his cousin. Alexander could not have acted without the tacit approval of influential Roman Senators, but he misjudged both the strength of his Macedonian opponents and the amount of support he enjoyed in Rome. Advancing down the valley of the Haliacmon River, he suffered a humiliating defeat near Phylacae, on the slopes of Mount Pierus.
The Macedonian kingdom survived but for the next ten years had to endure periodic invasion and incessant raiding. In 778, Alcetas died, and Tiberius Claudius Nero took a personal interest in the land conquered by his father. Having made himself supreme in Rome, he had the power to dictate to the Senate; and one of his first major foreign policy initiatives was to have Macedonia annexed, to become Rome’s seventeenth province. Under the personal protection and patronage of the Princeps, the province flourished, with its new capital at Therma. However, the "silver age" inaugurated by King Alcetas was over. In the following decades, the most important families acquired vast agricultural and pastoral estates, worked by slave labour, and amassed fortunes equal to those of the greatest Italian magnates. While the towns continued to thrive, the countryside became depopulated in a process analogous to what had happened to Italia in the late Republic.
Epirus never recovered from the embarrassing reverse of 768. As Rome’s ally in the Seventh Macedonian War, Ptolemaeus had raised his kingdom to its zenith; but he was astute enough to realize that his power rested upon a Roman foundation. In the post-war settlement, he acquired Thessalia, extending his dominions to the Aegean. His son, unfortunately, overreached himself. Frustrated in his bid to conquer Macedonia, in 772 he turned southwards.
The dissolution of the Empire had freed Hellas from Macedonian domination but raised the prospect of a return to the endless rivalries and perennial warfare which had exhausted the cities in the past. To prevent this, a unique three-tier structure was developed. Rome sponsored the formation of an Hellenic League, consisting of some 300 small states organized into twelve regional associations - Achaea (in the northern Peloponnesus), Peloponnesia (the rest of the great peninsula), Attica, Boeotia, Phocis, Locris, Aetolia, Acarnania, Euboea, Ionia, Aeolia and Aegea. Each city was self-governing, ruled mainly by oligarchies, although some were democracies, such as Athens and Thebes. Each sent representatives to its respective regional association which then sent a delegation to the council of the League. Although nominally independent, Hellas was de facto a protectorate of Rome. Important decisions of the League were referred to Rome, and Roman arbitration was exercised to revolve disputes. Nevertheless, the Hellenes enjoyed far greater freedom and security under Roman domination than they had for centuries.
The seat of the League was Corinth, which had begun to rejuvenate 165 years after its destruction by Alexander V. Under Roman patronage, the city rose to become one of the great metropolitan and cosmopolitan centres of the Empire. Its famed canal across the isthmus was completed in 828, seven centuries after the project was first attempted by the tyrant Periander.
However, the first regional power to emerge after the defeat of Macedonia was the Acarnanian confederacy, located on the northern edge of Hellas, adjoining Epirus. In the fourth century, the Acarnanians were in alliance with Athens, due to their mutual enmity with Corinth. They later became faithful allies of the Macedonians, against their Aetolian neighbours to the east; and they profited from the Hellenes’ revolt in the sixth century. In 749, the new confederation established its capital at Thyrium (where Sertorius had suffered his reverse in 672, during the Sixth Macedonian War). However, in reprisal for Acarnanian support for Macedonia, Rome had granted the Aetolian confederacy some Acarnanian territories west of the Achelous River.
The Aetolians had steadfastly resisted Macedonian rule and gained a reputation as a tough warrior people. Their confederacy was a close and harmonious one, with a democratically elected great council, the Panaetolicon, which met at Thermos (Roman Thermum). The country was devastated after the revolt of 583-5, but they never fully submitted to rule from Pella. Rewarded by the Romans with Thessalian and Acarnanian territory, the Aetolians dominated the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth, with their capital at Calydon, at the mouth of the Gulf. However, squabbling amongst the constituent communities over the spoils and aggressive moves against Acarnania prompted Roman intervention. In 754, an Aetolian army was obliged to withdraw from the border town of Stratus under threat of Roman retaliation.
In 772, on the pretext of defending his capital Ambracia against the Aetolian threat, Alexander of Epirus crossed into Acarnanian territory and swiftly conquered the weakened confederacy. Had he presented the Romans with this fait accompli and gone no further, he would have triumphed. Instead, ambition prevailed over good judgement, and the following year he invaded Aetolia. With a considerable part of his army still engaged in operations against Macedonia, Alexander sent an understrength force against Thermos and suffered a defeat as ignominious as that five years earlier at Phylacae. The Aetolians retaliated with an attack on Argos Amphilochicum, in southern Epirus. They were quickly repelled but the war dragged on for several years.
Irritated by the wayward ally, in 775 Ti. Claudius Nero sent an embassy to Ambracia demanding that Alexander cease hostilities against his neighbours. At first the Epirote king complied, but in 777 he again went to war with Macedonia. This time he managed to capture Phylacae; but he advanced no farther. Thoroughly exasperated, Tiberius despatched two legions to Methone, near the mouth of the Haliacmon. Another two were landed at Pleuron, a strongly fortified town between Calydon and the frontier with Acarnania. Prudently, Alexander pulled his army back to his own borders; but when Macedonia was proclaimed a Roman province the next year he reacted with fury. He could not hope to take on the might of Rome, but he could make a nuisance of himself, closing the roads through Thessalia linking Macedonia with Hellas.
Such provocative behaviour was too much for the noblemen of Epirus, who began conspiring against their king. When it seemed that he might submit to their pressure, Tiberius decided it was time to do away with him altogether. In 779, acting on the instructions of the Princeps, the Senate declared void the agreement ceding Thessalia to Epirus. Alexander was given little time to evacuate the province, and fighting inevitably broke out between his garrisons and Roman troops. In Decembris, Alexander of Epirus was assassinated. His son, another Alexander, lasted only a year before he too died, under mysterious circumstances. The infant Ptolemaeus VI became the pawn of his nobles and, indirectly, of Rome.
Hellas also had not yet found stability. In the three decades since the founding of the new League, many of the democratic governments, including those of Athens and Thebes, had been replaced with oligarchies composed of aristocrats collaborating openly with the Roman legations. The threat of conflict between disillusioned democrats and the oligarchic regimes, and an increase in piracy - in particular on the island of Rhodos - led to direct intervention. In 685, Rhodos was annexed to the province of Creta. Finally, in 688 the Hellenic League was dissolved and all of Hellas became a province.
Roman philhellenism ensured that the new province would receive special treatment. As an indication of its importance, the first governor was Gaius Claudius Nero, the elder son of the Princeps. The cities were permitted to keep their own local governments, albeit oligarchies, and were exempted from most taxes.
After centuries of economic and cultural impoverishment by the ravages of war and revolt, and the depredations of the Dionysian emperors, Hellas experienced an immediate and dramatic renaissance. As refugees and the descendants of refugees returned to their homeland, the close contacts between Italia and Rome fostered a profound cross-cultural interaction which created what was in many respects a new civilization, Romano-Hellenic in character.
Under Roman rule, the Hellenes enjoyed a level of prosperity they had never known before, although the disparity between rich and poor widened and Hellas was never able to match the potential of the provinces of Asia and Aegypt. Athens retained its prestige as the intellectual and cultural capital, where philosophy, science and the various forms of artistic expression flourished. It became a mark of distinction for Emperors to be named Eponymous Archon, the ceremonial chief magistrate of Athens.
(It was around the time that it became a province that the name Hellas became a political as well as a geographic and cultural expression. Up until then, Hellas was still known widely in Rome by the archaic "Graecia". This name was derived from Cumae in Campania, the founders of which came originally from Graice, near Thebes in Hellas. The Italians referred to the Cumaeans as Graeci, and the name was extended to refer to all Hellenes. Such provincialism became unfashionable among sophisticated Romans.)
Reduced to the status of a subject ally, Epirus declined into obscurity, eventually becoming a primitive backwater before being absorbed into the Empire in the ninth century. By contrast, semi-barbaric Thracia emerged as a robust frontier society. Nominally under the authority of the Macedonian king, the region was in fact governed by a legate appointed by the Roman Senate, and in 778 it was incorporated into the new Macedonian province.
Ten years later, with the creation of the province of Hellas, Ti. Claudius Nero took the opportunity to detach Thracia from Macedonia as a separate province. His principal reason for doing so was to prevent the local governor acquiring too much power, but it also made strategic sense. Thracia had been the scene of the only serious revolts against Rome in the aftermath of the last Macedonian War. Never completely reconciled to foreign dominion, the Thracians staged several unsuccessful rebellions during the 750s and 760s. These were put down with great force and the province was not completely pacified for another generation. Several Roman colonies were established, following the usual pattern of settling army veterans who controlled but gradually intermixed with the indigenous population. Rome also continued the policy, successful in other provinces, of cultivating the local nobility and favouring those tribes and clans who willingly accepted Roman authority, in particular the Sapaei, who lived in the southern part of the country, and the Bessi in the west.
To the north lay Dacia, reduced to tributary status following the campaigns of C. Claudius Marcellus, but turbulent under the rule of a weak monarch and strong local chieftains. Romans looked down upon the Dacian people as uncivilized and bloodthirsty; but their interest in the region was an acknowledgement of its strategic importance and of the vital role that the tribes played in providing a screen against the troublesome barbarians to the north. In fact, the Dacians maintained a relatively high standard of material culture. They were kept in line by their dependence on Roman support against the Sarmatian and Pannonian tribes to the north and by the old expedient of playing off one chief against another. Co-operative leaders were given support in the form of financial subsidies and occasional military intervention. Under the guise of hostage-taking, young men who showed promise were educated in Roman ways and even in some cases awarded citizenship. Garrisons were established along the Danubius and its tributaries, and these camps formed the cores around which grew the first sizeable towns. Such policies laid the framework for the progressive Romanization of Dacia which led to its eventual incorporation as a province.
In the far north-east, the little state of Chersonesus survived a Sarmatian onslaught that followed the collapse of the Macedonian imperium. Centuries of struggle had made the hardy Tauri (the local Cimmerian people) formidable in defence of their land. Tales of human sacrifice may have been fanciful, although writers like Herodotus insist they were true. Certainly, even under Macedonian rule the population continued to rely on piracy as a major source of income. The Hellenic influence always remained a thin veneer, and by AUC 700 the provincial governorship had reverted to a native dynasty. In 745, when the last Macedonian Emperor Cassander virtually abandoned the province, the governor, Spartocus, broke from Pella; and after Cassander’s death at Mylae, Chersonesus became a Roman protectorate.
According to the historian Aristion, Spartocus was actually a Hellenized Thracian, Cotys, who took the name of the great ruling house of fourth-century Bosporus. This self-conscious attempt to identify himself with a national movement could not have been successful if he had not been an efficient administrator and military commander. Spartocus was both, and the kingdom prospered under his rule and that of his successors, and under the protection of Rome. Only in the mid-ninth century did Roman interference in local affairs begin to take the form of direct intervention, until the kingdom was annexed as a province during the Armenian War.
The other ally Rome acquired at this time was Lydia, on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the empires of Persia and Macedonia, Lydia was one of the most valuable of provinces but it had lost its national character to the extent that even the native language disappeared. The state which emerged from the destruction of the Macedonian imperium was essentially Hellenic, and as such it looked to the west, and away from its Anatolian neighbours. The Macedonian governor, Xenocles, quickly aligned himself with Rome and so was able to secure his dominion over the entire Aegean coast of Asia Minor.
In the rest of the former Empire, the Macedonian imperium underwent a remarkable revival, although that resurgence was attended by internecine conflict. East of Lydia, the remnant of the Anatolian province split into two robust kingdoms, Cappadocia in the north and Lycaonia (known to the Romans as Lycia) in the south. Ruled by Macedonian dynasts with strong indigenous links, these two states took advantage of their role as strategic buffers between the Roman and Armenian empires to maintain their independence for another century. Eventually they weakened themselves through border clashes and meddling in each other’s dynastic affairs; but as Roman provinces they would again experience dynamic growth.
In Syria and Mesopotamia, each of the former Macedonian governors pronounced himself king and claimed to be the true inheritor of the imperial legacy. The Syrian Arybbas was overthrown in 761 by his general Telephus, who was unable to establish a long-lived dynasty. His attempts to expand his realm ended in failure, but none of his neighbours was strong enough to inflict permanent damage, at least while Rome was on hand to prevent any one power becoming dominant in the region.
Babylon continued to be ruled by the descendants of Diomedes, the victor over the Sarangians and descendant of Amyntas, the governor appointed by Philip IV in 614. The latest Diomedes, who had played a distinguished part in the Aegyptian campaign of 740, made himself king in 749. He fended off an attack by his western neighbour, Arybbas, and suppressed a rebellion by Hermaeus, his general in Susiana, the western part of Persia still under Babylonian control. However, he was less successful when the Hellenized Parthian Heliodorus rebelled and established his own kingdom based on the city of Ecbatana. A capable general, Heliodorus wrested Bactria from the Tocharians with the aid of Azes, a Scythian mercenary; and he conquered Colchis, on the eastern shore of the Caspian (Hyrcanian) Sea. His son, Hegemachus, was less able, losing Bactria to Azes, who decided he should be nobody’s agent, and Colchis to a Parthian rival, Vardanes.
Diomedes recovered from the early setbacks. In 766, he conquered Charcene, the wealthy port city at the head of the Persian Gulf founded by Megas Alexandros; and he launched expeditions as far south as Telmun to reinforce his dominion. In 770, he and Telephus agreed to put aside their differences to counter the dual threats from Rome and Armenia. In 785, the allies made peace with Rome, to which the Syrian king ceded the city of Petra and was compensated with border concessions by Babylon. These arrangements enabled the allies to turn their attention eastwards.
When the childless Telephus died in 790, Attalus, the son of Arybbas, gained the throne with the support of Philippus, the son of Diomedes. His western border guaranteed by his Syrian ally, Philippus thereafter launched a remarkable campaign, inflicting a series of devastating defeats on the Parthians, driving them out of Ecbatana (794) and Colchis (797), invading the Parthian heartland and attacking the Tocharians, reaching as far as the River Oxus (800). This level of success could not be sustained indefinitely, and in 803 Philippus pulled back to the edge of the great salt desert. The peace with Syria also could not last; but for the time being Philippus of Babylon ruled an empire worthy of his Macedonian forebears.
These four successor states, Cappadocia, Lycaonia, Syria and Babylon, would play a key role in the Armenian War, Rome’s greatest conflict since its three-century rivalry with Macedonia. However, in the eighth century it was Aegypt that would be the next focus of Roman attention.
The defeat of Macedonia presented Rome with both opportunities and obligations. The sudden break-up of the empire founded by Megas Alexandros and ruled for three centuries by his successors required speedy and efficient reorganization if dissolution into chaos and violence was to be avoided. Unfortunately, victory over an old rival sparked renewed competition in Rome. Preoccupied with the struggle for power at home, the Roman leadership too often neglected its responsibilities.
Macedonia was not annexed outright, but rather converted into a client kingdom. A suitable puppet was found in the Molossian Prince Alcetas, a nephew of the Epirote King Ptolemaeus IV. Under his rule, the country enjoyed two decades of relative peace and prosperity. Generations of warfare, conscription and taxation had sapped the energy and resources of the land and its people, and for the average Macedonian the imperial legacy of Megas Alexandros had become an intolerable burden. Alcetas was an enlightened administrator, building roads and constructing new towns, encouraging trade and manufacturing. His aim was to diversify an economy based traditionally on agriculture and livestock but also, under the emperors, increasingly dependent on tribute from the provinces. The Macedonians were permitted a small army for defence but the fleet - or at least its remnant - was disbanded.
The post-imperial boom could not last. Ptolemaeus’s successor, Alexander, became alarmed at the Macedonian revival which threatened the predominance of his own kingdom. In 768, taking advantage of imminent civil war on the other side of the Hadriatic, he invaded Macedonia to overthrow his cousin. Alexander could not have acted without the tacit approval of influential Roman Senators, but he misjudged both the strength of his Macedonian opponents and the amount of support he enjoyed in Rome. Advancing down the valley of the Haliacmon River, he suffered a humiliating defeat near Phylacae, on the slopes of Mount Pierus.
The Macedonian kingdom survived but for the next ten years had to endure periodic invasion and incessant raiding. In 778, Alcetas died, and Tiberius Claudius Nero took a personal interest in the land conquered by his father. Having made himself supreme in Rome, he had the power to dictate to the Senate; and one of his first major foreign policy initiatives was to have Macedonia annexed, to become Rome’s seventeenth province. Under the personal protection and patronage of the Princeps, the province flourished, with its new capital at Therma. However, the "silver age" inaugurated by King Alcetas was over. In the following decades, the most important families acquired vast agricultural and pastoral estates, worked by slave labour, and amassed fortunes equal to those of the greatest Italian magnates. While the towns continued to thrive, the countryside became depopulated in a process analogous to what had happened to Italia in the late Republic.
Epirus never recovered from the embarrassing reverse of 768. As Rome’s ally in the Seventh Macedonian War, Ptolemaeus had raised his kingdom to its zenith; but he was astute enough to realize that his power rested upon a Roman foundation. In the post-war settlement, he acquired Thessalia, extending his dominions to the Aegean. His son, unfortunately, overreached himself. Frustrated in his bid to conquer Macedonia, in 772 he turned southwards.
The dissolution of the Empire had freed Hellas from Macedonian domination but raised the prospect of a return to the endless rivalries and perennial warfare which had exhausted the cities in the past. To prevent this, a unique three-tier structure was developed. Rome sponsored the formation of an Hellenic League, consisting of some 300 small states organized into twelve regional associations - Achaea (in the northern Peloponnesus), Peloponnesia (the rest of the great peninsula), Attica, Boeotia, Phocis, Locris, Aetolia, Acarnania, Euboea, Ionia, Aeolia and Aegea. Each city was self-governing, ruled mainly by oligarchies, although some were democracies, such as Athens and Thebes. Each sent representatives to its respective regional association which then sent a delegation to the council of the League. Although nominally independent, Hellas was de facto a protectorate of Rome. Important decisions of the League were referred to Rome, and Roman arbitration was exercised to revolve disputes. Nevertheless, the Hellenes enjoyed far greater freedom and security under Roman domination than they had for centuries.
The seat of the League was Corinth, which had begun to rejuvenate 165 years after its destruction by Alexander V. Under Roman patronage, the city rose to become one of the great metropolitan and cosmopolitan centres of the Empire. Its famed canal across the isthmus was completed in 828, seven centuries after the project was first attempted by the tyrant Periander.
However, the first regional power to emerge after the defeat of Macedonia was the Acarnanian confederacy, located on the northern edge of Hellas, adjoining Epirus. In the fourth century, the Acarnanians were in alliance with Athens, due to their mutual enmity with Corinth. They later became faithful allies of the Macedonians, against their Aetolian neighbours to the east; and they profited from the Hellenes’ revolt in the sixth century. In 749, the new confederation established its capital at Thyrium (where Sertorius had suffered his reverse in 672, during the Sixth Macedonian War). However, in reprisal for Acarnanian support for Macedonia, Rome had granted the Aetolian confederacy some Acarnanian territories west of the Achelous River.
The Aetolians had steadfastly resisted Macedonian rule and gained a reputation as a tough warrior people. Their confederacy was a close and harmonious one, with a democratically elected great council, the Panaetolicon, which met at Thermos (Roman Thermum). The country was devastated after the revolt of 583-5, but they never fully submitted to rule from Pella. Rewarded by the Romans with Thessalian and Acarnanian territory, the Aetolians dominated the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth, with their capital at Calydon, at the mouth of the Gulf. However, squabbling amongst the constituent communities over the spoils and aggressive moves against Acarnania prompted Roman intervention. In 754, an Aetolian army was obliged to withdraw from the border town of Stratus under threat of Roman retaliation.
In 772, on the pretext of defending his capital Ambracia against the Aetolian threat, Alexander of Epirus crossed into Acarnanian territory and swiftly conquered the weakened confederacy. Had he presented the Romans with this fait accompli and gone no further, he would have triumphed. Instead, ambition prevailed over good judgement, and the following year he invaded Aetolia. With a considerable part of his army still engaged in operations against Macedonia, Alexander sent an understrength force against Thermos and suffered a defeat as ignominious as that five years earlier at Phylacae. The Aetolians retaliated with an attack on Argos Amphilochicum, in southern Epirus. They were quickly repelled but the war dragged on for several years.
Irritated by the wayward ally, in 775 Ti. Claudius Nero sent an embassy to Ambracia demanding that Alexander cease hostilities against his neighbours. At first the Epirote king complied, but in 777 he again went to war with Macedonia. This time he managed to capture Phylacae; but he advanced no farther. Thoroughly exasperated, Tiberius despatched two legions to Methone, near the mouth of the Haliacmon. Another two were landed at Pleuron, a strongly fortified town between Calydon and the frontier with Acarnania. Prudently, Alexander pulled his army back to his own borders; but when Macedonia was proclaimed a Roman province the next year he reacted with fury. He could not hope to take on the might of Rome, but he could make a nuisance of himself, closing the roads through Thessalia linking Macedonia with Hellas.
Such provocative behaviour was too much for the noblemen of Epirus, who began conspiring against their king. When it seemed that he might submit to their pressure, Tiberius decided it was time to do away with him altogether. In 779, acting on the instructions of the Princeps, the Senate declared void the agreement ceding Thessalia to Epirus. Alexander was given little time to evacuate the province, and fighting inevitably broke out between his garrisons and Roman troops. In Decembris, Alexander of Epirus was assassinated. His son, another Alexander, lasted only a year before he too died, under mysterious circumstances. The infant Ptolemaeus VI became the pawn of his nobles and, indirectly, of Rome.
Hellas also had not yet found stability. In the three decades since the founding of the new League, many of the democratic governments, including those of Athens and Thebes, had been replaced with oligarchies composed of aristocrats collaborating openly with the Roman legations. The threat of conflict between disillusioned democrats and the oligarchic regimes, and an increase in piracy - in particular on the island of Rhodos - led to direct intervention. In 685, Rhodos was annexed to the province of Creta. Finally, in 688 the Hellenic League was dissolved and all of Hellas became a province.
Roman philhellenism ensured that the new province would receive special treatment. As an indication of its importance, the first governor was Gaius Claudius Nero, the elder son of the Princeps. The cities were permitted to keep their own local governments, albeit oligarchies, and were exempted from most taxes.
After centuries of economic and cultural impoverishment by the ravages of war and revolt, and the depredations of the Dionysian emperors, Hellas experienced an immediate and dramatic renaissance. As refugees and the descendants of refugees returned to their homeland, the close contacts between Italia and Rome fostered a profound cross-cultural interaction which created what was in many respects a new civilization, Romano-Hellenic in character.
Under Roman rule, the Hellenes enjoyed a level of prosperity they had never known before, although the disparity between rich and poor widened and Hellas was never able to match the potential of the provinces of Asia and Aegypt. Athens retained its prestige as the intellectual and cultural capital, where philosophy, science and the various forms of artistic expression flourished. It became a mark of distinction for Emperors to be named Eponymous Archon, the ceremonial chief magistrate of Athens.
(It was around the time that it became a province that the name Hellas became a political as well as a geographic and cultural expression. Up until then, Hellas was still known widely in Rome by the archaic "Graecia". This name was derived from Cumae in Campania, the founders of which came originally from Graice, near Thebes in Hellas. The Italians referred to the Cumaeans as Graeci, and the name was extended to refer to all Hellenes. Such provincialism became unfashionable among sophisticated Romans.)
Reduced to the status of a subject ally, Epirus declined into obscurity, eventually becoming a primitive backwater before being absorbed into the Empire in the ninth century. By contrast, semi-barbaric Thracia emerged as a robust frontier society. Nominally under the authority of the Macedonian king, the region was in fact governed by a legate appointed by the Roman Senate, and in 778 it was incorporated into the new Macedonian province.
Ten years later, with the creation of the province of Hellas, Ti. Claudius Nero took the opportunity to detach Thracia from Macedonia as a separate province. His principal reason for doing so was to prevent the local governor acquiring too much power, but it also made strategic sense. Thracia had been the scene of the only serious revolts against Rome in the aftermath of the last Macedonian War. Never completely reconciled to foreign dominion, the Thracians staged several unsuccessful rebellions during the 750s and 760s. These were put down with great force and the province was not completely pacified for another generation. Several Roman colonies were established, following the usual pattern of settling army veterans who controlled but gradually intermixed with the indigenous population. Rome also continued the policy, successful in other provinces, of cultivating the local nobility and favouring those tribes and clans who willingly accepted Roman authority, in particular the Sapaei, who lived in the southern part of the country, and the Bessi in the west.
To the north lay Dacia, reduced to tributary status following the campaigns of C. Claudius Marcellus, but turbulent under the rule of a weak monarch and strong local chieftains. Romans looked down upon the Dacian people as uncivilized and bloodthirsty; but their interest in the region was an acknowledgement of its strategic importance and of the vital role that the tribes played in providing a screen against the troublesome barbarians to the north. In fact, the Dacians maintained a relatively high standard of material culture. They were kept in line by their dependence on Roman support against the Sarmatian and Pannonian tribes to the north and by the old expedient of playing off one chief against another. Co-operative leaders were given support in the form of financial subsidies and occasional military intervention. Under the guise of hostage-taking, young men who showed promise were educated in Roman ways and even in some cases awarded citizenship. Garrisons were established along the Danubius and its tributaries, and these camps formed the cores around which grew the first sizeable towns. Such policies laid the framework for the progressive Romanization of Dacia which led to its eventual incorporation as a province.
In the far north-east, the little state of Chersonesus survived a Sarmatian onslaught that followed the collapse of the Macedonian imperium. Centuries of struggle had made the hardy Tauri (the local Cimmerian people) formidable in defence of their land. Tales of human sacrifice may have been fanciful, although writers like Herodotus insist they were true. Certainly, even under Macedonian rule the population continued to rely on piracy as a major source of income. The Hellenic influence always remained a thin veneer, and by AUC 700 the provincial governorship had reverted to a native dynasty. In 745, when the last Macedonian Emperor Cassander virtually abandoned the province, the governor, Spartocus, broke from Pella; and after Cassander’s death at Mylae, Chersonesus became a Roman protectorate.
According to the historian Aristion, Spartocus was actually a Hellenized Thracian, Cotys, who took the name of the great ruling house of fourth-century Bosporus. This self-conscious attempt to identify himself with a national movement could not have been successful if he had not been an efficient administrator and military commander. Spartocus was both, and the kingdom prospered under his rule and that of his successors, and under the protection of Rome. Only in the mid-ninth century did Roman interference in local affairs begin to take the form of direct intervention, until the kingdom was annexed as a province during the Armenian War.
The other ally Rome acquired at this time was Lydia, on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the empires of Persia and Macedonia, Lydia was one of the most valuable of provinces but it had lost its national character to the extent that even the native language disappeared. The state which emerged from the destruction of the Macedonian imperium was essentially Hellenic, and as such it looked to the west, and away from its Anatolian neighbours. The Macedonian governor, Xenocles, quickly aligned himself with Rome and so was able to secure his dominion over the entire Aegean coast of Asia Minor.
In the rest of the former Empire, the Macedonian imperium underwent a remarkable revival, although that resurgence was attended by internecine conflict. East of Lydia, the remnant of the Anatolian province split into two robust kingdoms, Cappadocia in the north and Lycaonia (known to the Romans as Lycia) in the south. Ruled by Macedonian dynasts with strong indigenous links, these two states took advantage of their role as strategic buffers between the Roman and Armenian empires to maintain their independence for another century. Eventually they weakened themselves through border clashes and meddling in each other’s dynastic affairs; but as Roman provinces they would again experience dynamic growth.
In Syria and Mesopotamia, each of the former Macedonian governors pronounced himself king and claimed to be the true inheritor of the imperial legacy. The Syrian Arybbas was overthrown in 761 by his general Telephus, who was unable to establish a long-lived dynasty. His attempts to expand his realm ended in failure, but none of his neighbours was strong enough to inflict permanent damage, at least while Rome was on hand to prevent any one power becoming dominant in the region.
Babylon continued to be ruled by the descendants of Diomedes, the victor over the Sarangians and descendant of Amyntas, the governor appointed by Philip IV in 614. The latest Diomedes, who had played a distinguished part in the Aegyptian campaign of 740, made himself king in 749. He fended off an attack by his western neighbour, Arybbas, and suppressed a rebellion by Hermaeus, his general in Susiana, the western part of Persia still under Babylonian control. However, he was less successful when the Hellenized Parthian Heliodorus rebelled and established his own kingdom based on the city of Ecbatana. A capable general, Heliodorus wrested Bactria from the Tocharians with the aid of Azes, a Scythian mercenary; and he conquered Colchis, on the eastern shore of the Caspian (Hyrcanian) Sea. His son, Hegemachus, was less able, losing Bactria to Azes, who decided he should be nobody’s agent, and Colchis to a Parthian rival, Vardanes.
Diomedes recovered from the early setbacks. In 766, he conquered Charcene, the wealthy port city at the head of the Persian Gulf founded by Megas Alexandros; and he launched expeditions as far south as Telmun to reinforce his dominion. In 770, he and Telephus agreed to put aside their differences to counter the dual threats from Rome and Armenia. In 785, the allies made peace with Rome, to which the Syrian king ceded the city of Petra and was compensated with border concessions by Babylon. These arrangements enabled the allies to turn their attention eastwards.
When the childless Telephus died in 790, Attalus, the son of Arybbas, gained the throne with the support of Philippus, the son of Diomedes. His western border guaranteed by his Syrian ally, Philippus thereafter launched a remarkable campaign, inflicting a series of devastating defeats on the Parthians, driving them out of Ecbatana (794) and Colchis (797), invading the Parthian heartland and attacking the Tocharians, reaching as far as the River Oxus (800). This level of success could not be sustained indefinitely, and in 803 Philippus pulled back to the edge of the great salt desert. The peace with Syria also could not last; but for the time being Philippus of Babylon ruled an empire worthy of his Macedonian forebears.
These four successor states, Cappadocia, Lycaonia, Syria and Babylon, would play a key role in the Armenian War, Rome’s greatest conflict since its three-century rivalry with Macedonia. However, in the eighth century it was Aegypt that would be the next focus of Roman attention.
See Part 10 https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=906508#post906508: Post-imperial Macedonia
Cheers. The epic continues.Auch! You are an authentic super writing machine
Very Good timeline! an authentic blitzkrieg timeline (fast and detailed updates)