The Storm Before the Storm полностью

After Lucius Caesar promulgated the Lex Julia, he presided over the consular elections for 89 that saw Pompey Strabo elected. A severe and ambitious novus homo, Strabo was not particularly liked by his colleagues, but his military talent was undeniable. Strabo was cut from the same mold as Marius, an ambitious novus homo provincial who was raised to be a soldier, and disdained the pampered old men of the Senate. Strabo also had ancestral ties to Picenum, which would allow him to use his personal influence to end the war. But before he left, Strabo carried a bill through the Assembly that unilaterally conferred Latin Rights on all communities in Cisalpine Gaul north of the Po River. There had been heavy Italian migration to the region after the Cimbrian Wars, but most of the population lacked any formal rights at all. Not only would the Lex Pompeia prevent the war from spreading north, it gave Strabo himself a wide base of support to draw on, not only to prosecute the war against Asculum, but also to be ready for whatever happened next.⁵⁵

Once Strabo returned to Asculum, a rising tribune named Gnaeus Papirius Carbo helped pass a further law called the Lex Plautia Papiria. Young Carbo was the son of the Carbo hounded to suicide by Antonius in 111, and the nephew of the Carbo hounded to suicide by Crassus in 119. It is not surprising that young Carbo bore a special hatred for such leisurely optimate scum. Just getting started in politics, Carbo passed the Lex Plautia Papiria, a law extending citizenship even to Italian communities still under arms. The law said that “if any men had been enrolled as citizens of the confederate cities, and if, at the time that the law was passed, they had a residence in Italy, and if within sixty days they had made a return of themselves to the praetor,” then they would receive full citizenship. The Lex Julia and Lex Plautia Papiria combined to do the trick and prevent the Italian rebellion from spreading—but that did not mean there were not still plenty of Italian rebels.⁵⁶

THOUGH 89 WENT better than 90 for the Romans, the year still began with another dead consul. Lucius Porcius Cato ^* arrived to take over the troops under Marius in early 89, and like Lupus and Caepio was dismissive of the old man. Cato forced Marius to resign his legateship by claiming Marius was in poor health. But Cato promptly led his men in disastrous attack on a Marsic camp and was swiftly killed in the fighting.⁵⁷

But elsewhere things went better. A nascent rebellion in Umbria and Etruria fizzled out between the promise of citizenship and a sharp campaign from the new consul Pompey Strabo—aided now by both his teenage son Pompey and a young staff officer named Marcus Tullius Cicero. Strabo then returned to Asculum and continued the siege. The Italians mustered an army numbering in the tens of thousands to dislodge Strabo, but Strabo would not be dislodged. After the last relief effort failed, despair in the city led the Italian commander in charge to lose faith in his countrymen. He threw himself a great banquet and at the end drank a goblet full of wine and poison.⁵⁸

Its capacity to resist exhausted, Asculum finally surrendered in November 89. Strabo was not forgiving in victory. When he entered the city he had “all the leading men beaten with rods and beheaded. He sold the slaves and all the booty at auction and ordered the remaining people to depart, free indeed, but stripped and destitute.” But though the sack of Asculum was expected to raise funds for the wider war, Strabo kept control of most and embezzled the rest, earning him the enmity of all sides. Everyone was soon calling Strabo the “Butcher of Asculum.”⁵⁹

The remaining rebels had counted on a quick strike to bring the Romans to their knees, but instead now faced a prolonged war. The offer of citizenship was not coming after a clear defeat—which left many Italian leaders suspicious of Roman intentions. But with the legions pressing on all sides, the Italian government decamped Italia and moved deep into Samnite territory, a region of implacable ancestral hostility to Rome. They still had plenty of men and strategic strong points, but the rebellious crescent was collapsing. Of the remaining leaders, the old Marsic general Silo was put in overall command of what was left of the Italian armies. They still had fifty thousand men under arms but could expect no further help with the promise of enfranchisement now spreading across Italy.⁶⁰