The History Book Club discussion

***************SPOILER THREAD*********************************

This thread is a "spoiler thread" and is a glossary thread for the book Caesar: Life of a Colossus. This is not a non spoiler thread so any urls and/or expansive discussion can take place here regarding this book.

Additionally, this is the spot to add that additional information that may contain spoilers or any helpful urls, link, etc.

This thread is not to be used for self promotion.

by Adrian Goldsworthy

Note that there is a separate thread carried over from the discussions of books in the Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCullough, titled SERIES - GLOSSARY - POTENTIAL SPOILERS. There are many topics there regarding ancient Rome, and potentially there will be repeats of them in this thread.

Here is the link: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

There is also another great glossary that was done for the book Rubicon.

Here is the link to that glossary: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

by Colleen McCullough

by Tom Holland

Note that there is a separate thread carried over from the discussions of the book SPQR. There are many topics there regarding ancient Rome, and potentially there will be repeats of them in this thread.

Here is the link:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Here is a list of the topics in the Series glossary. Until I can figure out how to post a link to a specific posting, I will copy over pertinent postings into this thread.

P 1
Servilla Caepionis
Marcus Junius Brutus the Elder
Fasces
Lictors
Julia, Daughter of Julius Caesar
Aurelia - Caesar's Mother
Cornelia Cinnilla, Julia's mother
Layout of the Roman Home
Romans: Family and Children
Seven Hills of Rome
Quaestor
all of the Roman Offices
Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus
Lucius Calpurnius Bibulus
Lucius Cornelius Balbus
Lucius Cornelius Balbus Younger
Cato the Younger
Cato the Elder - Marcus Porcius Cato
Julia (gens)
Gaius Julius Caesar (proconsul) - father of Julius Caesar
Marcus Licinius Crassus
Pompey
Julius Caesar
Auctoritas
Lucius Cornelius Sulla
Gaius Marius
Client, plebeian, plebs, praetor peregrinus, praetor urbanus, paterfamilias
Roman Naming Conventions
Saturnalia
Aulus Gabinius

P 2
Plebeians and Patricians
Cicero
The Boni
Gaius Cassius Longinus (post 54)
Lucius Licinius Lucullus
Quintus Hortensius Hortalus
Denarius coins of various periods
Gaius Memmius
Lucius Sergius Catilina
Quintus Servilius Caepio the Elder
Quintus Servilius Caepio the Younger
Aemilia Lepida
Atilia
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica
Military "Crowns"
Junia Secunda, Junia Tertia
Crucifixion
Quintus Lutatius Catulus
Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus
Appius Claudius Pulcher
Publius Clodius Pulcher
Tablinum
Marcus Aemilius Lepidus
Gens Claudia
Clodia Metella
Gaius Valerius Catullus
Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus
Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo
Quintus Sertorius
Aulus Gabinius
Fimbriani
Fulvia
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus
Marcus Aurelius Cotta
Marcus Antonius Gnipho
Quintus Marcius Rex

P 3
King Mithridates
Pharnaces
Gaius Verres
Panares and Lasthenes
Manius Acilius Glabrio
Gaius Calpurnius Piso
Vestal Virgins
Lucius Junius Brutus
Tax Farmers or Publicans
Censors
Equestrians
Lucius Roscius Otho
Lucius Aurelius Cotta
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus
Gaius Servilius Ahala
Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator
Lucius Aemilius Paullus
Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus
Marcus Livius Drusus
Adoption
Julia Antonia
Lucius Cornelius Cinna
Publius Sulla
Quintus Caecilius Metellus
Catulus Caesar
Aedile
Cursus Honorum
Ludi, or games
Funeral games
Titus Pomponius Atticus
Mos Maiorum
Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus
Lucius Gellius Publicola
Third Servile War
Marcus Junius Brutus
Caesar and the Pirates
Tribuni aerarii
Jury trials
Marcus Marius Gratidianus
Lucius Lucceius
Gaius Antonius Hybrida
Novus homo
Gaius Manilius
siege of Mitylene
Assizes
Slavery
Tigranes
Phraates
Marcus Terentius Varro

P 4
Hyrcanus
Antipater
Titus Labienus
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos
Mucia Tertia
Ager publicus
Pontifex Maximus
Sempronia Tuditani
Atropos
hay on his horns
Flamen Dialis
Regia
Numa Pompilius
Rex Sacrorum
Quinctilis and Sextilis
Terentia
Treason Laws
Coercitio
King Nicomedes of Bithynia
Kalends, Nones, and Ides
Roman Triumvirates
Lucius Cornelius Balbus Major
Gaius Matius
Portus Itius
Gaius Trebatius Testa
Dumnorix
Codex
Gaul's three parts
Aulus Hirtius
Gauls/Celts
Druids
Ambiorix
Quintus Cicero
Caesar's bridges over the Rhine
Vercingetorix
Gaius Trebonius
silver eagle
Mark Antony, through reading of Caesar’s will

P 5
The Rubicon (205)
Gaius Scribonius Curio
Battle of the Bagradas River
Ibises
Cleopatra's Alexandria
Potheinus
Mithridates of Pergamum
Achillas
Ganymedes
Silphium
Library of Alexandria
Lucius Marcius Philippus
Atia Balba Caesonia
Publius Cornelius Dolabella
Gaius Sallustius Crispus
Early life of Octavius (later the emperor Augustus)
Julian calendar
Roman triumph
Gnaeus Pompey the Younger
Sextus Pompey
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa
Battle of Munda
Quintus Salvidienus Rufus
Quintus Pedius
Lucius Pinarius Scarpus
Porcia Catonis
Roman dictator
Gaius Maecenas
Adlect
Gaius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus
Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (triumvir)
Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus
Battle of Mutina
Philippics
Battle of Philippi

This is where the glossary for Caesar begins.

Carthage


The port at Carthage

According to legend, Carthage was founded by the Phoenician Queen Elissa (better known as Dido) sometime around 813 BCE although, actually, it rose following Alexander's destruction of Tyre in 332 BCE. The city (in modern-day Tunisia, North Africa) was originally known as Kart-hadasht (new city) to distinguish it from the older Phoenician city of Utica nearby. The Greeks called the city Karchedon and the Romans turned this name into Carthago. Originally a small port on the coast, established only as a stop for Phoenician traders to re-supply or repair their ships, Carthage grew to become the most powerful city in the Mediterranean before the rise of Rome.

A Great Trade Centre
After the fall of the great Phoenician city of Tyre to Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, those Tyrians who were able to escape fled to Carthage with whatever wealth they had. Since many whom Alexander spared were those rich enough to buy their lives, these refugees landed in the city with considerable means and established Carthage as the new centre of Phoenician trade. The Carthaginians then drove the native Africans from the area, enslaved many of them, and exacted tribute from the rest. From a small town on the coast, the city grew in size and grandeur with enormous estates covering miles of acreage. Not even one hundred years passed before Carthage was the richest city in the Mediterranean. The aristocrats lived in palaces, the less affluent in modest but attractive homes, while tribute and tariffs regularly increased the city’s wealth on top of the lucrative business in trade. The harbour was immense, with 220 docks, gleaming columns which rose around it in a half-circle, and was ornamented with Greek sculpture. The Carthaginian trading ships sailed daily to ports all around the Mediterranean Sea while their navy, supreme in the region, kept them safe and, also, opened new territories for trade and resources through conquest.

Carthage Against Rome
It was this expansion which first brought Carthage into conflict with Rome. When Rome was weaker than Carthage, she posed no threat. The Carthaginian navy had long been able to enforce the treaty which kept Rome from trading in the western Mediterranean. When Carthage took Sicily, however, Rome responded. Though they had no navy and knew nothing of fighting on the sea, Rome built 330 ships which they equipped with clever ramps and gangways (the corvus) which could be lowered onto an enemy ship and secured; thus turning a sea battle into a land battle. The First Punic War (264-241 BCE) had begun. After an initial struggle with military tactics, Rome won a series of victories and finally defeated Carthage in 241 BCE. Carthage was forced to cede Sicily to Rome and pay a heavy war indemnity.

Following this war, Carthage became embroiled in what is known as The Mercenary War (241-237 BCE) which started when the Carthaginian army of mercenaries demanded the payment Carthage owed them. This war was finally won by Carthage through the efforts of the general Hamilcar Barca. Carthage suffered greatly from both these conflicts and, when Rome occupied the Carthaginian colonies of Sardinia and Corsica, there was nothing the Carthaginians could do about it. They tried to make the best of their situation by conquering and expanding holdings in Spain but again went to war with Rome when the Carthaginian general Hannibal attacked the city of Saguntum, an ally of Rome. The Second Punic War (218-202 BCE) was fought largely in northern Italy as Hannibal invaded Italy from Spain by marching his forces over the Alps. Hannibal won every engagement against the Romans in Italy. In 216 BCE he won his greatest victory at the Battle of Cannae but, lacking sufficient troops and supplies, could not build on his successes. He was defeated by the Roman general Scipio Africanus at the Battle of Zama, in North Africa, in 202 BCE and Carthage again sued for peace.

Placed, again, under a heavy war indemnity by Rome, Carthage struggled to pay their debt while also trying to fend off incursions from neighbouring Numidia. Carthage went to war against Numidia and lost. Having only recently paid off their debt to Rome, they now owed a new war debt to Numidia. Rome was not concerned with what Carthage and Numidia were involved with but did not care for the sudden revitalization of the Carthaginian army. Carthage believed that their treaty with Rome was ended when their war debt was paid; Rome disagreed. The Romans felt that Carthage was still obliged to bend to Roman will; so much so that the Roman Senator Cato the Elder ended all of his speeches, no matter what the subject, with the phrase, “Further, I think that Carthage should be destroyed.” In 149 BCE, Rome suggested just that course of action.

The Destruction of Carthage
A Roman embassy to Carthage made demands to the senate which included the stipulation that Carthage be dismantled and then re-built further inland. The Carthaginians, understandably, refused to do so and the Third Punic War (149-146 BCE) began. The Roman general Scipio Aemilianus besieged Carthage for three years until it fell. After sacking the city, the Romans burned it to the ground, leaving not one stone on top of another. A modern myth has grown up that the Romans forces then sowed the ruins with salt but this story has no basis in fact. It is said that Scipio Aemilianus wept when he ordered the destruction of the city and behaved virtuously toward the survivors.

Utica now became the capital of Rome’s African provinces and Carthage lay in ruin until 122 BCE when Gaius Sepronius Gracchus, the Roman tribune, founded a small colony there. Memory of the Punic wars still being too fresh, however, the colony failed. Julius Caesar proposed and planned the re-building of Carthage and, five years after his death, Carthage rose again. Power now shifted from Utica back to Carthage and it remained an important Roman colony until the fall of the empire.

Later History
Carthage rose in prominence as Christianity grew and Augustine of Hippo lived there before coming to Rome. The city continued under Roman influence through the Byzantine Empire (formerly the Eastern Roman Empire) who held it against repeated attacks by the Vandals. In 698 CE, the Muslims defeated the Byzantine forces at the Battle of Carthage, destroyed the city completely, and drove the Byzantines from Africa. They then fortified and developed the neighbouring city of Tunis and established it as the new centre for trade and governorship of the region. Carthage still lies in ruin in modern day Tunisia and remains an important tourist attraction and archaeological site. The outline of the great harbor can still be seen as well as the ruins of the homes and palaces from the time when the city of Carthage ruled the Mediterranean. (Source: http://www.ancient.eu/carthage/)

More:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient...
http://www.roman-empire.net/republic/...
https://www.britannica.com/place/Cart...
http://www.livescience.com/24246-anci...
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/e...
(no image) The Life and Death of Carthage; A Survey of Punic History and Culture from Its Birth to the Final Tragedy by Gilbert Charles Picard (no photo)
by Dexter Hoyos (no photo)
by Richard A. Gabriel (no photo)
by Leonard Cottrell (no photo)
by Richard Miles

Polybius


Polybius

Polybius (/pəˈlɪbiəs/; Greek: Πολύβιος, Polýbios; c. 200 – c. 118 BC) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 264–146 BC in detail. The work describes the rise of the Roman Republic to the status of dominance in the ancient Mediterranean world and included his eyewitness account of the Sack of Carthage in 146 BC. Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed constitution or the separation of powers in government, which was influential on Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws and the framers of the United States Constitution.

Origins
Polybius was born around 200 BC in Megalopolis, Arcadia, when it was an active member of the Achaean League. His father, Lycortas, was a prominent, land-owning politician and member of the governing class who became strategos (commanding general) of the Achaean League. Consequently, Polybius was able to observe first hand the political and military affairs of Megalopolis. He developed an interest in horse riding and hunting, diversions that later commended him to his Roman captors. In 182 BC, he was given quite an honor when he was chosen to carry the funeral urn of Philopoemen, one of the most eminent Achaean politicians of his generation. In either 169 BC or 170 BC, Polybius was elected hipparchus (cavalry officer), an event which often presaged election to the annual strategia (chief generalship). His early political career was devoted largely towards maintaining the independence of Megalopolis.

Personal experiences
Polybius’ father, Lycortas, was a prominent advocate of neutrality during the Roman war against Perseus of Macedon. Lycortas attracted the suspicion of the Romans, and Polybius subsequently was one of the 1,000 Achaean nobles who were transported to Rome as hostages in 167 BC, and was detained there for 17 years. In Rome, by virtue of his high culture, Polybius was admitted to the most distinguished houses, in particular to that of Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, the conqueror in the Third Macedonian War, who entrusted Polybius with the education of his sons, Fabius and Scipio Aemilianus (who had been adopted by the eldest son of Scipio Africanus). Polybius remained on cordial terms with his former pupil Scipio Aemilianus and was among the members of the Scipionic Circle. Polybius remained a counselor to Scipio when he defeated the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War. When the Achaean hostages were released in 150 BC, Polybius was granted leave to return home, but the next year he went on campaign with Scipio Aemilianus to Africa, and was present at the Sack of Carthage in 146, which he later described. Following the destruction of Carthage, Polybius likely journeyed along the Atlantic coast of Africa, as well as Spain.

After the destruction of Corinth in the same year, Polybius returned to Greece, making use of his Roman connections to lighten the conditions there. Polybius was charged with the difficult task of organizing the new form of government in the Greek cities, and in this office he gained great recognition.

At Rome
In the succeeding years, Polybius resided in Rome, completing his historical work while occasionally undertaking long journeys through the Mediterranean countries in the furtherance of his history, in particular with the aim of obtaining firsthand knowledge of historical sites. He apparently interviewed veterans to clarify details of the events he was recording and was similarly given access to archival material. Little is known of Polybius' later life; he most likely accompanied Scipio to Spain, acting as his military advisor during the Numantine War. He later wrote about this war in a lost monograph. Polybius probably returned to Greece later in his life, as evidenced by the many existent inscriptions and statues of him there. The last event mentioned in his Histories seems to be the construction of the Via Domitia in southern France in 118 BC, which suggests the writings of Pseudo-Lucian may have some grounding in fact when they state, "[Polybius] fell from his horse while riding up from the country, fell ill as a result and died at the age of eighty-two".

The Histories
Polybius’ Histories cover the period from 264 BC to 146 BC. Its main focus is the period from 220 BC to 167 BC, describing Rome's efforts in subduing its arch-enemy, Carthage, and thereby becoming the dominant Mediterranean force. Books I through V of The Histories are the introduction for the years during his lifetime, describing the politics in leading Mediterranean states, including ancient Greece and Egypt, and culminating in their ultimate συμπλοκή or interconnectedness. In Book VI, Polybius describes the political, military, and moral institutions that allowed the Romans to succeed. He describes the First and Second Punic Wars. Polybius concludes the Romans are the pre-eminent power because they have customs and institutions which promote a deep desire for noble acts, a love of virtue, piety towards parents and elders, and a fear of the gods (deisidaimonia). He also chronicled the conflicts between Hannibal and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus such as the Battle of Ticinus, the Battle of the Trebia, the Siege of Saguntum, the Battle of Lilybaeum, and the Battle of Rhone Crossing. In Book XII, Polybius discusses the worth of Timaeus’ account of the same period of history. He asserts Timaeus' point of view is inaccurate, invalid, and biased in favor of Rome. Therefore, Polybius's Histories is also useful in analyzing the different Hellenistic versions of history and of use as a credible illustration of actual events during the Hellenistic period.

Sources
In the seventh volume of his Histories, Polybius defines the historian's job as the analysis of documentation, the review of relevant geographical information, and political experience. Polybius held that historians should only chronicle events whose participants the historian was able to interview, and was among the first to champion the notion of factual integrity in historical writing. In Polybius' time, the profession of a historian required political experience (which aided in differentiating between fact and fiction) and familiarity with the geography surrounding one's subject matter to supply an accurate version of events. Polybius himself exemplified these principles as he was traveled and possessed political and military experience. He did not neglect written sources that proved essential material for his histories from the period from 264 BC to 220 BC. When addressing events after 220 BC, he examined the writings of Greek and Roman historians to acquire credible sources of information, but rarely did he name those sources.

As historian
Polybius wrote several works, the majority of which are lost. His earliest work was a biography of the Greek statesman Philopoemen; this work was later used as a source by Plutarch when composing his Parallel Lives, however the original Polybian text is lost. In addition, Polybius wrote an extensive treatise entitled Tactics, which may have detailed Roman and Greek military tactics. Small parts of this work may survive in his major Histories, but the work itself is lost, as well. Another missing work was a historical monograph on the events of the Numantine War. The largest Polybian work was, of course, his Histories, of which only the first five books survive entirely intact, along with a large portion of the sixth book and fragments of the rest. Along with Cato the Elder (234–149 BC), he can be considered one of the founding fathers of Roman historiography.

Livy made reference to and uses Polybius' Histories as source material in his own narrative. Polybius was among the first historians to attempt to present history as a sequence of causes and effects, based upon a careful examination and criticism of tradition. He narrated his history based upon first-hand knowledge. The Histories capture the varied elements of the story of human behavior: nationalism, xenophobia, duplicitous politics, war, brutality, loyalty, valour, intelligence, reason, and resourcefulness.

A key theme of The Histories is the good statesman as virtuous and composed. The character of the Polybian statesman is exemplified in that of Philip II. His beliefs about Philip's character led Polybius to reject historian Theopompus' description of Philip's private, drunken debauchery. For Polybius, it was inconceivable that such an able and effective statesman could have had an immoral and unrestrained private life as described by Theopompus. In recounting the Roman Republic, Polybius stated that "the Senate stands in awe of the multitude, and cannot neglect the feelings of the people".

Other important themes running through The Histories are the role of Fortune in the affairs of nations, his insistence that history should be demonstratory, or apodeiktike, providing lessons for statesmen, and that historians should be "men of action" (pragmatikoi).

Polybius is considered by some to be the successor of Thucydides in terms of objectivity and critical reasoning, and the forefather of scholarly, painstaking historical research in the modern scientific sense. According to this view, his work sets forth the course of history's occurrences with clearness, penetration, sound judgment, and, among the circumstances affecting the outcomes, he lays especial emphasis on geographical conditions. Modern historians are especially impressed with the manner in which Polybius used his sources, particularly documentary evidence as well as his citation and quotation of sources. Furthermore, there is some admiration of Polybius's meditation on the nature of historiography in Book 12. His work belongs, therefore, amongst the greatest productions of ancient historical writing. The writer of the Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (1937) praises him for his "earnest devotion to truth" and his systematic pursuit of causation.

First as a hostage in Rome, then as client to the Scipios, and finally as a collaborator with Roman rule after 146 BC, Polybius was not in a position to freely express any negative opinions of Rome. Peter Green advises us to recall that Polybius was chronicling Roman history for a Greek audience, with the aim of convincing them of the necessity of accepting Roman rule – which he believed was inevitable. Nonetheless, for Green, Polybius's Histories remain invaluable and are the best source for the era they cover. Ron Mellor also sees Polybius as partisan who, out of loyalty to Scipio, vilified Scipio's opponents. Similarly, Adrian Goldsworthy frequently mentions Polybius' connections with Scipio when he uses Polybius as a source for Scipio's generalship. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybius)

More:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/...
http://www.ancient.eu/Polybius/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_His...
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/t...
http://www.mmdtkw.org/VPolybius.html
by Polybius (no photo)
by Bruce Gibson (no photo)
by Donald Walter Baranowski (no photo)
by Christopher Smith (no photo)
by T. James Luce (no photo)

Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius, (born c. 157 bce, Cereatae, near Arpinum [Arpino], Latium [now in Italy]—died January 13, 86 bce, Rome), Roman general and politician, consul seven times (107, 104–100, 86 bce), who was the first Roman to illustrate the political support that a successful general could derive from the votes of his old army veterans.

Early career
Gaius Marius was a strong and brave soldier and a skillful general, popular with his troops, but he showed little flair for politics and was not a good public speaker. As an equestrian, he lacked the education in Greek normal to the upper classes. He was superstitious and overwhelmingly ambitious, and, because he failed to force the aristocracy to accept him, despite his great military success, he suffered from an inferiority complex that may help explain his jealousy and vindictive cruelty. As a young officer-cadet, along with Jugurtha (later king of Numidia), on Scipio Aemilianus’ staff in the Numantine War in Spain (134 bce), he, like Jugurtha, made an excellent impression on his commanding officer. Marius’ family enjoyed the patronage of more than one noble family, in particular the distinguished and inordinately conceited Caecilii Metelli, then at the height of their political power. They backed his candidacy for tribune (defender) of the plebs (common people) in 119. As tribune, Marius proposed a bill affecting procedure in elections and legislative assemblies by narrowing the bridges—the gangway across which each voter passed to fill in and deposit his ballot tablet—as a result of which there was no longer room on the gangway for observers, normally aristocrats, who abused their position to influence an individual’s vote. When the two consuls tried to persuade the Senate to block the bill, Marius threatened them with imprisonment, and the bill was carried.

Marius showed himself no unprincipled candidate for popular favour, for he vetoed a popular grain bill, and the following years offered him little promise of a conspicuous career. He failed to secure the aedileship (control of markets and police) and was only just elected praetor (judicial magistrate) for the year 115 after bribing heavily, for which he was lucky to escape condemnation in court. The next year he governed Further Spain, campaigned successfully against bandits, and laid a foundation for great personal wealth through mining investments. After that, he made a good marriage into a patrician family that, after long obscurity, was on the point of strong political revival. His wife was Julia, the aunt of Julius Caesar.

Election to the consulship
The command in the war against Jugurtha (who was now Numidian king) was given to Quintus Metellus, and Marius was invited to join Metellus’ staff. After defeating Jugurtha in pitched battle, Metellus was less successful in later guerrilla warfare, and this failure was exaggerated by Marius in his public statements when at the end of 108 he returned to Rome to seek the consulship (chief magistracy). Marius was elected on the equestrian and popular vote and, to Metellus’ bitter chagrin, appointed by a popular bill to succeed Metellus at once in the African command.

In recruiting fresh troops, Marius broke with custom, because of a manpower shortage, by enrolling volunteers from outside the propertied classes, which alone had previously been liable for service. In Africa he kept Jugurtha on the run, and in 105 Jugurtha was captured, betrayed by his ally, King Bocchus of Mauretania—not to Marius himself but to Sulla, considered a rather disreputable young aristocrat, who had joined Marius’ staff as quaestor in 107. Sulla had the incident engraved on his seal, provoking Marius’ jealousy.

The victory, however, was Marius’, and he was elected consul again for 104—at the start of which year he celebrated a triumph and Jugurtha was executed—in order to take command against an alarming invasion of the Cimbri and Teutones, who had defeated a succession of Roman armies in the north, the last in disgraceful circumstances in 105. For this war, Marius used fresh troops raised by Rutilius Rufus, consul in 105, and excellently trained in commando tactics by gladiatorial instructors. With them, Marius defeated the Teutones at Aquae Sextiae (modern Aix-en-Provence, Fr.) in 102 and in 101 came to the support of the consul of 102, Quintus Lutatius Catulus, who had suffered a serious setback; together they defeated the Cimbri at the Vercellae, near modern Rovigo in the Po River valley, and the danger was over. This was the apex of Marius’ success. He had been consul every year since 104, and he was elected again the year 100. With Catulus he celebrated a joint triumph, but already there was bad feeling between them. Marius claimed the whole credit for the victory; Catulus and Sulla gave very different accounts of the event in their memoirs.

Marius had always had equestrian support, not only because his origins lay in that class but also because wars were bad for trade, and Marius had brought serious wars to an end. The Roman populace liked him because he was not an aristocrat. He had the further support of his veterans, for it was in their interest to stick closely to their general. Marius perhaps did not realize the potency of their force, one that Sulla, Caesar, and Octavian employed with overpowering effect later.

Fall from power
The year 100 saw Marius fail disastrously as a politician. Saturninus was tribune for the second time, and Glaucia was praetor; given the poverty of surviving sources, it is extremely difficult to understand either their political aims or Marius’ relationship to them. The three shared a common hatred of Metellus, who, as censor in 102, had tried to remove Saturninus and Glaucia from the Senate, and in 103 Saturninus had carried a bill, evidently in Marius’ interest, for the settlement of veterans in Africa. Now, with the inevitability of civil disorder—for the Roman populace opposed his measures—Saturninus introduced bills for land distribution of Cimbric territory in the north to Romans living in the country, and probably to Italians, and for the settlement of veterans, evidently including allied troops, in colonies overseas. This bill may have included a powerful command for Marius to supervise the resettlement of the veterans—empowering him to give Roman citizenship to a certain number of the new settlers in each colony.

Marius had already violated the law by granting citizenship on the battlefield to two cohorts of Italians (Camertes) who fought under him against the Cimbri in 101, and conceivably Saturninus and Marius were agreeable to a program of extensive enfranchisement of Italians by means of the new colonial settlements. A breach between them occurred, possibly because Marius, in his jealous way, thought that Saturninus was stealing some of his own thunder or possibly because Saturninus’ lawlessness had reached a pitch that no self-respecting consul could tolerate.

First the land and colonial bill was passed, but with blatant illegality; it required senators to take an oath within five days to observe it. After misleading statements about his own intention, Marius took the oath. Metellus refused, however, presumably because of the way in which the bill had been carried, and, forestalling condemnation in the treason court, he retired to Greece; later he was officially exiled. At the tribunician elections for 99, Saturninus was reelected together with a pretender who, already heavily discredited, claimed to be the son of Tiberius Gracchus. At the consular elections, with Glaucia as a candidate, Marcus Antonius, the orator, was elected, and Gaius Memmius, a man with an excellent popular record, was murdered. In the ensuing pandemonium the Senate passed the “last decree,” calling on the consuls to save the state. Through Marius’ action Saturninus and Glaucia were captured on the Capitol and imprisoned in the Senate house; then a mob stripped off the roof and stoned them to death. Although this was no responsibility of Marius, he was smeared as a man who betrayed not only his enemies but also his friends.

Later years
Rather than attend the inevitable recall of Metellus from exile, Marius went to the east in 99 and there met Mithradates VI of Pontus. He was elected to a priesthood (the augurship) but wisely withdrew his candidature for the censorship of 97. He acted as a background figure in the not fully unraveled politics of the 90s and successfully opposed an attempt in 95 to disenfranchise men to whom he had given citizenship under the terms of Saturninus’ colonial bill, though the law itself had been shelved. In 92 he supported the scandalous prosecution and condemnation of his old associate Rutilius Rufus (in fact a model administrator) for alleged misgovernment of Asia.

Marius was now beginning to show his age. In an Italian rebellion (the Social War) of 90–88, he campaigned under the consul Rutilius Lupus, a soldier far his inferior. In 88, when the tribune Sulpicius Rufus proposed the transfer of the Asian command from the consul Sulla to Marius, presumably on the ground that Marius alone was sufficiently experienced to conduct such a critical war, there was violent public opposition to Sulla in Rome. Sulla went to his army in Campania and marched with it on Rome. Sulpicius’ measures were rescinded, and Marius was exiled.

After a series of near catastrophes, all much embroidered in the telling, Marius escaped safely to Africa. In 87, when Sulla was fighting in Greece, disorder in Rome led to the consul Cinna being dismissed. Marius landed in Etruria, raised an army, sacked Ostia, and, by joining forces with Cinna, captured Rome; both Marius and Cinna were elected consuls for 86, Marius for the seventh time. Hideous massacre followed as Marius ordered the deaths of Marcus Antonius, Lutatius Catulus, Publicus Licinius Crassus, and other distinguished men whom he considered to have behaved with treacherous ingratitude toward him. By this time he was hardly sane, and his death, in 86, was a godsend for enemies and friends alike. If the outcome of his proscriptions was considered to be less disastrous than that of the later proscriptions of Sulla, it was only because they lasted for a shorter time.

Marius’ only son died as consul fighting against Sulla in 82. His widow survived until 69 and received the unusual honour, for a woman, of a public funeral oration by her nephew Julius Caesar, who later won great popularity by restoring to the Capitol Marius’ trophies, which Sulla had removed.

Marius was commemorated by the name Mariana given to Uchi Majus and Thibaris (two African settlements) and to a colony in Corsica, and by the Fossa Mariana, a canal dug by his soldiers at the mouth of the Rhône River. (Source: https://www.britannica.com/biography/...)

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Cursus Honorum



The cursus honorum (Latin: "course of offices") was the sequential order of public offices held by aspiring politicians in both the Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire. It was designed for men of senatorial rank. The cursus honorum comprised a mixture of military and political administration posts. Each office had a minimum age for election. There were minimum intervals between holding successive offices and laws forbade repeating an office.

These rules were altered and flagrantly ignored in the course of the last century of the Republic. For example, Gaius Marius held consulships for five years in a row between 104 BC and 100 BC. Officially presented as opportunities for public service, the offices often became mere opportunities for self-aggrandizement. The reforms of Lucius Cornelius Sulla required a ten-year period between holding another term in the same office.

To have held each office at the youngest possible age (suo anno, "in his year") was considered a great political success, since to miss out on a praetorship at 39 meant that one could not become consul at 42. Cicero expressed extreme pride not only in being a novus homo ("new man"; comparable to a "self-made man") who became consul even though none of his ancestors had ever served as a consul, but also in having become consul "in his year".

Quaestor
The first official post was that of quaestor. Candidates had to be at least 30 years old. However, men of patrician rank could subtract two years from this and other minimum age requirements.

Twenty quaestors served in the financial administration at Rome or as second-in-command to a governor in the provinces. They could also serve as the paymaster for a legion. A young man who obtained this job was expected to become a very important official. An additional task of all quaestors was the supervision of public games. As a quaestor, an official was allowed to wear the toga praetexta, but was not escorted by lictors, nor did he possess imperium.

Aedile
At 36 years of age, former quaestors could stand for election to one of the aedile positions. Of these aediles, two were plebeian and two were patrician, with the patrician aediles called Curule Aediles. The plebeian aediles were elected by the Plebeian Council and the curule aediles were either elected by the Tribal Assembly or appointed by the reigning consul. The aediles had administrative responsibilities in Rome. They had to take care of the temples (whence their title, from the Latin aedes, "temple"), organize games, and be responsible for the maintenance of the public buildings in Rome. Moreover, they took charge of Rome's water and food supplies; in their capacity as market superintendents, they served sometimes as judges in mercantile affairs.

The Aedile was the supervisor of public works; the words "edifice" and "edification" stem from the same root. He oversaw the public works, temples and markets. Therefore, the Aediles would have been in some cooperation with the current Censors, who had similar or related duties. Also they oversaw the organization of festivals and games (ludi), which made this a very sought-after office for a career minded politician of the late republic, as it was a good means of gaining popularity by staging spectacles.

Curule Aediles were added at a later date in the 4th century BC, and their duties do not differ substantially from plebeian aediles. However, unlike plebeian aediles, curule aediles were allowed certain symbols of rank—the sella curulis or 'curule chair,' for example—and only patricians could stand for election to curule aedile. This later changed, and both Plebeians and Patricians could stand for Curule Aedileship.

The elections for Curule Aedile were at first alternated between Patricians and Plebeians, until late in the 2nd century BC, when the practice was abandoned and both classes became free to run during all years.

While part of the cursus honorum, this step was optional and not required to hold future offices. Though the office was usually held after the quaestorship and before the praetorship, there are some cases with former praetors serving as aediles.

Praetor
After holding either the office of quaestor or aedile, a man of 39 years could run for praetor. The number of Praetors elected varied through history, generally increasing with time. During the republic, six or eight were generally elected each year to serve judicial functions throughout Rome and other governmental responsibilities. In the absence of the Consuls, a Praetor would be given command of the garrison in Rome or in Italy. Also, a Praetor could exercise the functions of the Consuls throughout Rome, but their main function was that of a judge. They would preside over trials involving criminal acts as well as grant court orders or validate "illegal" acts as acts of administering justice. As a Praetor, a magistrate was escorted by six lictors, and wielded imperium. After a term as Praetor, the magistrate would serve as a provincial governor in the office of Propraetor, wielding Propraetor imperium, commanding the province’s legions, and possessing ultimate authority within his province(s).

Of all the Praetors, two were more prestigious than the others. The first was the Praetor Peregrinus, who was the chief judge in trials involving one or more foreigners. The other was the Praetor Urbanus, the chief judicial office in Rome. He had the power to overturn any verdict by any other courts, and served as judge in cases involving criminal charges against provincial governors. The Praetor Urbanus was not allowed to leave the city for more than ten days. If one of these two Praetors was absent from Rome, the other would perform the duties of both.

Consul
The office of consul was the most prestigious of all, and represented the summit of a successful career. The minimum age was 42 for plebeians and 40 for patricians. Years were identified by the names of the two consuls elected for a particular year; for instance, M. Messalla et M. Pisone consulibus, "in the consulship of Messalla and Piso," dates an event to 61 BC. Consuls were responsible for the city's political agenda, commanded large-scale armies and controlled important provinces. The consuls served for only a year (a restriction intended to limit the amassing of power by individuals) and could only rule when they agreed, because each consul could veto the other's decision.

The consuls would alternate monthly as the chairman of the Senate. They also were the supreme commanders in the Roman army, with each being granted two legions during their consular year. Consuls also exercised the highest juridical power in the Republic, being the only office with the power to override the decisions of the Praetor Urbanus. Only laws and the decrees of the Senate or the People's assembly limited their powers, and only the veto of a fellow consul or a tribune of the plebs could supersede their decisions.

A consul was escorted by twelve lictors, owned imperium and wore the toga praetexta. Because the consul was the highest executive office within the Republic, they had the power to veto any action or proposal by any other magistrate, save that of the Tribune of the Plebs. After a consulship, a consul was assigned one of the more important provinces and acted as the governor in the same way that a Propraetor did, only owning Proconsular imperium. A second consulship could only be attempted after an interval of 10 years to prevent one man holding too much power.

Governor
Although not part of the Cursus Honorum, upon completing a term as either Praetor or Consul, an officer was required to serve a term as Propraetor and Proconsul, respectively, in one of Rome's many provinces. These Propraetors and Proconsuls held near autocratic authority within their selected province or provinces. Because each governor held equal imperium to the equivalent magistrate, they were escorted by the same number of lictors (12) and could only be vetoed by a reigning Consul or Praetor. Their abilities to govern were only limited by the decrees of the Senate or the people's assemblies, and the Tribune of the Plebs was unable to veto their acts as long as the governor remained at least a mile outside of Rome.

Censor
After a term as consul, the final step in the Cursus Honorum was the office of censor. This was the only office in the Roman Republic whose term was a period of eighteen months instead of the usual twelve. Censors were elected every five years and although the office held no military imperium, it was considered a great honour. The censors took a regular census of the people and then apportioned the citizens into voting classes on the basis of income and tribal affiliation. The censors enrolled new citizens in tribes and voting classes as well. The censors were also in charge of the membership roll of the Senate, every five years adding new senators who had been elected to the requisite offices. Censors could also remove unworthy members from the Senate. This ability was lost during the dictatorship of Sulla. Censors were also responsible for construction of public buildings and the moral status of the city.

Censors also had financial duties, in that they had to put out to tender projects that were to be financed by the state. Also, the censors were in charge of the leasing out of conquered land for public use and auction. Though this office owned no imperium, meaning no lictors for protection, they were allowed to wear the toga praetexta.
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Roman assemblies



The Roman Assemblies were institutions in ancient Rome. They functioned as the machinery of the Roman legislative branch, and thus (theoretically at least) passed all legislation. Since the assemblies operated on the basis of direct democracy, ordinary citizens, and not elected representatives, would cast all ballots. The assemblies were subject to strong checks on their power by the executive branch and by the Roman Senate. Laws were passed (and magistrates elected) by Curia (in the Curiate Assembly), Tribes (in the Tribal Assembly), and Centuries (in the Century Assembly).

When the city of Rome was founded (traditionally dated at 753 BC), a senate and an assembly, the Curiate Assembly, were both created. The Curiate Assembly was the principal legislative assembly during the era of the Roman Kingdom. While its primary purpose was to elect new kings, it also possessed rudimentary legislative powers. Shortly after the founding of the Roman Republic (traditionally dated to 509 BC), the principal legislative authority shifted to two new assemblies, the Tribal Assembly ("Citizen's Assembly") and the Century Assembly. Eventually, most legislative powers were transferred to another assembly, the Plebeian Council ("Assembly of the Commoners"). Ultimately, it was the Plebeian Council that disrupted the balance between the senate, the legislative branch, and the executive branch. This led to the collapse of the republic, and the founding of the Roman Empire in 27 BC. Under the empire, the powers that had been held by the assemblies were transferred to the senate. While the assemblies eventually lost their last semblance of political power, citizens continued to gather into them for organizational purposes. Eventually, however, the assemblies were ultimately abandoned.

Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Kingdom
The Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Kingdom were political institutions in the ancient Roman Kingdom. While one assembly, the Curiate Assembly, had some legislative powers, these powers involved nothing more than a right to symbolically ratify decrees issued by the Roman King. The functions of the other assembly, the Calate Assembly, were purely religious. During the years of the kingdom, the People of Rome were organized on the basis of units called Curia. All of the People of Rome were divided amongst a total of thirty Curia. These Curia were the basic units of division in the two popular assemblies. The members in each Curia would vote, and the majority in each Curia would determine how that Curia voted before the assembly. Thus, a majority of the Curia (sixteen out of the thirty total Curia) were needed during any vote before either the Curiate Assembly or the Calate Assembly.

The Curiate Assembly was the a popular assembly with political significance during the period of the Roman Kingdom, and was organized on the basis of the thirty Curia. The king presided over the assembly, and submitted decrees to it for ratification. After a king died, the Interrex selected a candidate to replace the king. After the nominee received the approval of the Roman Senate, the Interrex held the formal election before the Curiate Assembly. After the Curiate Assembly elected the new king, and the senate ratified that election, the Interrex then presided over the assembly as it voted on the law which granted the king his legal powers (the lex curiata de imperio). On the calends (the first day of the month), and the nones (around the fifth day of the month), this assembly met to hear announcements. Appeals heard by this assembly often dealt with questions concerning Roman family law. During two fixed days in the spring, the assembly was scheduled to meet to witness wills and adoptions. The assembly also had jurisdiction over the admission of new families to a Curia, the transfer of families between two Curia, and the transfer of individuals from plebeian (commoner) to patrician (aristocratic) status (or vice versa).

Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Republic
The Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Republic were political institutions in the ancient Roman Republic. There were two types of Roman assembly. The first was the committee (comitia), which was an assembly of all Roman citizens. Here, Roman citizens gathered to enact laws, elect magistrates, and try judicial cases. The second type of assembly was the council (concilium), which was an assembly of a specific group of citizens. For example, the "Plebeian Council" was an assembly where Plebeians gathered to elect Plebeian magistrates, pass laws that applied only to Plebeians, and try judicial cases concerning Plebeians. A convention (conventio), in contrast, was an unofficial forum for communication, where citizens gathered to debate bills, campaign for office, and decide judicial cases. The voters first assembled into conventions to deliberate, and then they assembled into committees or councils to actually vote. In addition to the curia (familial groupings), Roman citizens were also organized into centuries (for military purposes) and tribes (for civil purposes). Each gathered into an assembly for legislative, electoral, and judicial purposes. The Century Assembly was the assembly of the Centuries, while the Tribal Assembly was the assembly of the Tribes. Only a block of voters (Century, Tribe or Curia), and not the individual electors, cast the formal vote (one vote per block) before the assembly. The majority of votes in any Century, Tribe, or Curia decided how that Century, Tribe, or Curia voted.

The Century Assembly was divided into 193 (later 373) Centuries, with each Century belonging to one of three classes: the officer class, the infantry, and the unarmed adjuncts. During a vote, the Centuries voted, one at a time, by order of seniority. The president of the Century Assembly was usually a Roman Consul (the chief magistrate of the republic). Only the Century Assembly could elect Consuls, Praetors and Censors, only it could declare war, and only it could ratify the results of a census. While it had the power to pass ordinary laws (leges), it rarely did so.

The organization of the Tribal Assembly was much simpler than was that of the Century Assembly, in contrast, since its organization was based on only thirty-five Tribes. The Tribes were not ethnic or kinship groups, but rather geographical divisions (similar to modern U.S. Congressional districts). The president of the Tribal Assembly was usually a Consul, and under his presidency, the assembly elected Quaestors, Curule Aediles, and Military Tribunes. While it had the power to pass ordinary laws (leges), it rarely did so. The assembly known as the Plebeian Council was identical to the Tribal Assembly with one key exception: only plebeians (the commoners) had the power to vote before it. Members of the aristocratic patrician class were excluded from this assembly. In contrast, both classes were entitled to a vote in the Tribal Assembly. Under the presidency of a Plebeian Tribune (the chief representative of the people), the Plebeian Council elected Plebeian Tribunes and Plebeian Aediles (the Plebeian Tribune's assistant), enacted laws called plebiscites, and presided over judicial cases involving Plebeians. Originally, laws passed by the Plebeian Council only applied to Plebeians. However, by 287 BC, laws passed by the Plebeian Council had acquired the full force of law, and from that point on, most legislation came from the council.

Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Empire
The Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Empire were political institutions in the ancient Roman Empire. During the reign of the second Roman Emperor, Tiberius, the powers that had been held by the Roman assemblies were transferred to the senate. The neutering of the assemblies had become inevitable for reasons beyond the fact that they were composed of the rabble of Rome. The electors were, in general, ignorant as to the merits of the important questions that were laid before them, and often willing to sell their votes to the highest bidder. After the founding of the Roman Empire, the People of Rome continued to organize by Centuries and by Tribes, but by this point, these divisions had lost most of their relevance.

While the machinery of the Century Assembly continued to exist well into the life of the empire, the assembly lost all of its practical relevance. Under the empire, all gatherings of the Century Assembly were in the form of an unsorted convention. Legislation was never submitted to the imperial Century Assembly, and the one major legislative power that this assembly had held under the republic, the right to declare war, was now held exclusively by the emperor. All judicial powers that had been held by the republican Century Assembly were transferred to independent jury courts, and under the emperor Tiberius, all of its former electoral powers were transferred to the senate. After it had lost all of these powers, it had no remaining authority. Its only remaining function was, after the senate had 'elected' the magistrates, to hear the renuntiatio, The renuntiatio had no legal purpose, but instead was a ceremony in which the results of the election were read to the electors. This allowed the emperor to claim that the magistrates had been "elected" by a sovereign people.
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Senate of the Roman Republic



The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic. It was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a Roman magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic appointment to the Senate. According to the Greek historian Polybius, our principal source on the Constitution of the Roman Republic, the Roman Senate was the predominant branch of government. Polybius noted that it was the consuls (the highest-ranking of the regular magistrates) who led the armies and the civil government in Rome, and it was the Roman assemblies which had the ultimate authority over elections, legislation, and criminal trials. However, since the Senate controlled money, administration, and the details of foreign policy, it had the most control over day-to-day life. The power and authority of the Senate derived from precedent, the high caliber and prestige of the senators, and the Senate's unbroken lineage, which dated back to the founding of the Republic in 509 BC.

Originally the chief-magistrates, the consuls, appointed all new senators. They also had the power to remove individuals from the Senate. Around the year 318 BC, the "Ovinian Plebiscite" (plebiscitum Ovinium) gave this power to another Roman magistrate, the censor, who retained this power until the end of the Roman Republic. This law also required the censors to appoint any newly elected magistrate to the Senate. Thus, after this point in time, election to magisterial office resulted in automatic Senate membership. The appointment was for life, although the censor could impeach any senator.

The Senate directed the magistrates, especially the consuls, in their prosecution of military conflicts. The Senate also had an enormous degree of power over the civil government in Rome. This was especially the case with regards to its management of state finances, as only it could authorize the disbursal of public monies from the treasury. In addition, the Senate passed decrees called senatus consultum, which was officially "advice" from the Senate to a magistrate. While technically these decrees did not have to be obeyed, in practice, they usually were. During an emergency, the Senate (and only the Senate) could authorize the appointment of a dictator. The last ordinary dictator, however, was appointed in 202 BC. After 202 BC, the Senate responded to emergencies by passing the senatus consultum ultimum ("Ultimate Decree of the Senate"), which suspended civil government and declared something analogous to martial law.

Ethical standards
The rules and procedures of the Roman Senate were both complex and ancient. Many of these rules and procedures originated in the early years of the Republic, and were upheld over the centuries under the principle of mos maiorum ("customs of the ancestors").

The ethical requirements of senators were significant. Senators could not engage in banking or any form of public contract. They could not own a ship that was large enough to participate in foreign commerce, and they could not leave Italy without permission from the Senate. In addition, since they were not paid, individuals usually sought to become a senator only if they were independently wealthy.

The censors were the magistrates who enforced the ethical standards of the Senate. Whenever a censor punished a senator, they had to allege some specific failing. Possible reasons for punishing a member included corruption, abuse of capital punishment, or the disregard of a colleague's veto, constitutional precedent, or the auspices. Senators who failed to obey various laws could also be punished. While punishment could include impeachment (expulsion) from the Senate, often a punishment was less severe than outright expulsion. While the standard was high for expelling a member from the Senate, it was easier to deny a citizen the right to join the Senate. Various moral failings could result in one not being allowed to join the Senate, including bankruptcy, prostitution, or a prior history of having been a gladiator. One law (the Lex repetundarum of 123 BC) made it illegal for a citizen to become a senator if they had been convicted of a criminal offense. Many of these laws were enacted in the last century of the Republic, as public corruption began reaching unprecedented levels.

Debates
Meetings usually began at dawn, although occasionally certain events (such as festivals) might delay the beginning of a meeting. A magistrate who wished to summon the Senate had to issue a compulsory order (a cogere), and senators could be punished if they failed to appear without reasonable cause. In 44 BC for example, consul Mark Antony threatened to demolish the house of the former consul Cicero for this very reason. The Senate meetings were technically public because the doors were usually left open, which allowed people to look in, but only senators could speak. The Senate was directed by a presiding magistrate, who was usually either a consul (the highest-ranking magistrate) or, if the consul was unavailable, a Praetor (the second-highest ranking magistrate). By the late Republic, another type of magistrate, a plebeian tribune, would sometimes preside.

While in session, the Senate had the power to act on its own, and even against the will of the presiding magistrate if it wished. The presiding magistrate began each meeting with a speech (the verba fecit), which was usually brief, but was sometimes a lengthy oration. The presiding magistrate would then begin a discussion by referring an issue to the senators, who would discuss the issue, one at a time, by order of seniority, with the first to speak, the most senior senator, known as the princeps senatus (leader of the Senate), who was then followed by ex-consuls (consulares), and then the praetors and ex-praetors (praetorii). This continued, until the most junior senators had spoken. Senators who had held magisterial office always spoke before those who had not, and if a patrician was of equal seniority as a plebeian, the patrician would always speak first.

A senator could make a brief statement, discuss the matter in detail, or talk about an unrelated topic. All senators had to speak before a vote could be held, and since all meetings had to end by nightfall, a senator could talk a proposal to death (a filibuster or diem consumere) if they could keep the debate going until nightfall. It is known, for example, that the senator Cato the Younger once filibustered in an attempt to prevent the Senate from granting Julius Caesar a law that would have given land to the veterans of Pompey.

Delaying and obstructive tactics
Senators had several ways in which they could influence (or frustrate) a presiding magistrate. When a presiding magistrate was proposing a motion, for example, the senators could call "consult" (consule), which required the magistrate to ask for the opinions of the senators. Any senator could demand a quorum call (with the cry of numera), which required a count of the senators present. Like modern quorum calls, this was usually a delaying tactic. Senators could also demand that a motion be divided into smaller motions. Acts such as applause, booing, or heckling often played a major role in a debate, and, in part because all senators had an absolute right to free speech, any senator could respond at any point if he was attacked personally. Once debates were underway, they were usually difficult for the presiding magistrate to control. The presiding magistrate typically only regained some control once the debating had ended, and a vote was about to be taken.

In the later years of the Republic, attempts were made by the aristocracy to limit the increasing level of chaos associated with the obstructive tendencies and democratic impulses of some of the senators. Laws were enacted to prevent the inclusion of extraneous material in bills before the Senate. Other laws were enacted to outlaw the so-called omnibus bills, which are bills, usually enacted by a single vote, that contain a large volume of often unrelated material.

Laws were also enacted to strengthen the requirement that three days pass between the proposal of a bill, and the vote on that bill. During his term as dictator, Julius Caesar enacted laws that required the publication of Senate resolutions. This publication, called the acta diurna, or "daily proceedings", was meant to increase transparency and minimize the potential for abuse. This publication was posted in the Roman Forum, and then sent by messengers throughout the provinces.

Votes and the Tribune's veto
When it was time to call a vote, the presiding magistrate could bring up whatever proposals (in whatever order) he wished, and every vote was between a proposal and its negative. Quorums were required for votes to be held, and it is known that in 67 BC the size of a quorum was set at 200 senators. At any point before a motion passed, the proposed motion could be vetoed. Usually, vetoes were handed down by plebeian tribunes. If the Senate proposed a bill that the plebeian tribune did not agree with, he issued a veto, which was backed by the promise to literally "'interpose the sacrosanctity of his person'" if the Senate did not comply. If the Senate did not comply, he could physically prevent the Senate from acting, and any resistance could be criminally prosecuted as constituting a violation of his sacrosanctity. If the vetoed motion was proposed the next day, and the plebeian tribune who had vetoed it the day before was not present to interpose himself, the motion could be passed. In general, the plebeian tribune had to physically be present at the Senate meeting, otherwise his physical threat of interposing his person had no meaning. Ultimately, the plebeian tribune's veto was based in a promise of physical force.

Once a vote occurred, and a measure passed, he could do nothing, since his promise to physically interpose his person against the senators was now meaningless. Ultimately, if there was no veto, and the matter was of minor importance, it could be voted on by a voice vote or by a show of hands. If there was no veto, and the matter was of a significant nature, there was usually a physical division of the house, where senators voted by taking a place on either side of the chamber.
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Roman triumph



A Roman triumph was a spectacular victory celebration parade held in the city of Rome for a military commander who had won an important victory on the battlefield. Granted by the Senate, it was a lavish and entertaining propaganda spectacle which reminded the people of the glory of Rome and its military superiority above all other nations. Later, triumphs were reserved for the emperor only but they became ever more extravagant as sometimes unpopular rulers sought to ingratiate themselves with the people of Rome.

Ancient Sources

Many triumphs, as they were so important to political life and were celebrated over such a long period, were well documented by the Romans, even if later sources were keen to impress the royal household and so are prone to exaggeration. Initially, triumphs were for any senior commander who had performed great military deeds (or been in overall command of those subordinate officers who had) and who had brought his army back to Rome, but in the late Republic rules were often bent, and in the imperial period the privilege became less frequent. This was because the emperor, concerned to keep public affection for himself, made the parade exclusively the right of the royal household.

According to the 5th-century CE historian Orosius, there were 320 triumphs in Rome up to the 1st century CE. We also have a fragmentary list (part of the Fasti Triumphales) of all the Republic’s triumphs, which probably first appeared on the 20 BCE Arch of Augustus in the Roman Forum. Regardless of exactly how many there were, though, when the city did host a triumph it must have been one of the most impressive sights the citizens would see in a city by no means short of entertaining spectacles.

Republican Triumphs

Roman historians describe even the early kings as celebrating triumphs, but this is likely pure fiction. The procession may have originally been an entirely religious one (and it did always maintain a religious element) involving the offering of foodstuffs to the fertility god Liber to ensure a good harvest. It may also have been a tradition borrowed from the Etruscans, but evidence is lacking.

The first celebrations of Roman military victories were doubtless much more modest and direct, but from the Punic Wars, a general procedure came to be established. First, a commander might receive from his legions a shouting ovation that he had earned the honorary title of imperator. The general would then send a tablet and laurel wreath (symbolic of victory at the great Olympic Games since the Archaic Period), known as a litterae laureatae, to the Roman senate. If the senate confirmed the victory and its importance his salutatio imperatoria was likewise confirmed. The commander now had the right to attach laurels to his fasces (the bundle of rods and axe which were the symbol of magisterial authority) and call himself, as an honorary title, Imperator. This he could do until the end of his public triumph (should he be granted one) or until he crossed the Pomerium, the sacred boundary of the city of Rome.

The next step was for the commander to go to Rome in person and wait outside the Pomerium. There he would carry his auspicia militaria, the auspices given to him by the city before his campaign. They could only be returned within the city on the day of his public triumph which he now had to petition the Senate for. Rather than the commander going to the Senate, they came to him and convened in the temple of Bellona to hear his claim. Sometimes there would be much debate, but a charismatic leader considered popular with the people and with influential friends always had a good chance of getting his triumph.

The triumph ceremonies varied each time but many common elements are evident. They generally took up a whole day and started with a speech before breakfast. The victorious commander would speak before the senate, magistrates, his army, and the public. The crowd would first salute him, then after appropriate prayers of thanks had been offered to the gods, he would praise his legions and mention specific individuals for their contributions, give out decorations for valour, and distribute money to his soldiers.

After breakfast, the victor put on special purple-coloured robes and offered sacrifices to the gods. He was ready for his big moment. The procession entered the city at a specific point, the Porta Triumphalis, a gate used only for that purpose, and then went through the streets and squares of Rome along a route chosen by the commander. The consuls and politicians would lead, followed by a number of impressive-looking captives from the battlefield – best of all would be a captured royal, perhaps theatrically enchained. Certain episodes of the battle might be represented in the procession via paintings or even enactments involving real captives. If the occasion was marking a naval triumph there might be a nautical theme going on with ships' beaks and captured equipment. There were musicians, torch-bearers, and flag wavers to add to the pageantry, as well as examples of the exotic flowers and animals from the conquered region. Next came the war-booty with the more gold and silver on display the better. After that came the lictors (magisterial attendants) who carried the fasces decked with laurel leaves and then the commander himself.

Star of the show, the god-like victor would ride a spectacular tall-sided chariot pulled by four horses. He wore a laurel crown and carried a laurel branch in his right hand. In his left hand, he carried an ivory sceptre with an eagle at the top, symbolic of the triumph. He was accompanied by a slave whose job was to hold above his head a gold crown and continuously whisper in his ear that, amongst all this adoration, he should remember that he was only a mortal and not actually a god. For this reason, he would repeat respice or ‘look behind’. After the chariot came the commander’s children and officers on horseback. Finally came the troops, who usually sang songs to ward off the jealousy of the gods, and, if there had been any, a crowd of grateful civilians who had won their freedom by the defeat of their enemy in the battle.

When the whole procession reached the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill the commander imperator might magnanimously free a prisoner or two (in the imperial period they were usually killed in the Forum prison en route) and then sacrificed a bull and offered some of the war-booty in honour of Jupiter. He also offered some of his laurel leaves and thus completed the cycle which had begun with his oath of duty before he had set off on campaign. Finally, the VIP guests sat down to a big banquet inside the temple; from the late Republican period a feast might be offered to the general populace too. After the party, a crowd would make sure the commander got home safe and sound after his big day.

Imperial Triumphs

As time went on, each triumph became grander than its predecessor and the whole event could spread over several days. This was especially so when commanders like Julius Caesar in 46 BCE and Octavian in 29 BCE actually celebrated multiple triumphs over successive days. Pompey must take credit for ramping up the spectacle as he had three triumphs in 80, 71, and 61 BCE, each more eye-popping than the last. A master of commemorative propaganda, he even went so far as to build Rome’s first stone theatre to make sure his glory lived on for centuries to come. Julius Caesar went one better and built a whole forum, and thereafter, funding building work from the spoils of victory became common practice.

It would be Augustus, though, Rome’s first emperor, who had the longest-lasting effect on the institution as he ensured that only the imperial family could bask in the public glory of a triumph. The last non-royal triumph was that of Cornelius Balbus in 19 BCE for his campaigns in Africa, and when Marcus Agrippa actually turned down a triumph in 14 BCE, that more or less set the precedent that this greatest of Roman honours was now a whole lot more exclusive. Augustus instead offered victorious commanders the possibility to wear a laurel crown when they attended games, something which had long been a privilege of those who had received a triumph in the Republican era.

The triumph of Vespasian and his son Titus in 71 CE for their victory in Judaea was notable for its flashy display of the riches from the temple at Jerusalem but, thereafter, triumphs became rare events, fewer than 20 perhaps in the next 200 years. Records are patchy for triumphs in the imperial period but we know that one of the last may have been in 303 CE for Diocletian and Maximian, following their victories in Africa and Britain. Some historians regard the last triumph as that of Belisarius who defeated the Persians and Vandals but that procession was held in Constantinople, not Rome.

In another development in the imperial period triumphs, when they were celebrated at all, they were sometimes done for mere political reasons rather than as marks of military success. In addition, the building of monumental arches became the ultimate, and more long-lasting, way for rulers to commemorate their military victories and personal contribution to the greatness of Rome. A wise decision perhaps, as of all the Romans’ buildings, these arches are some of the best surviving monuments of Roman vanity, and they still dominate the urban landscape of many a modern city even after 2,000 years.
(Source: https://www.ancient.eu/Roman_Triumph/)

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(no image) Triumphus: An Inquiry Into the Origin, Development, and Meaning of the Roman Triumph by H.S. Versnel (no photo)
by Mary Beard (no photo)
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Roman forum



The Roman Forum, also known by its Latin name Forum Romanum (Italian: Foro Romano), is a rectangular forum (plaza) surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient city referred to this space, originally a marketplace, as the Forum Magnum, or simply the Forum.

For centuries the Forum was the center of day-to-day life in Rome: the site of triumphal processions and elections; the venue for public speeches, criminal trials, and gladiatorial matches; and the nucleus of commercial affairs. Here statues and monuments commemorated the city's great men. The teeming heart of ancient Rome, it has been called the most celebrated meeting place in the world, and in all history.Located in the small valley between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, the Forum today is a sprawling ruin of architectural fragments and intermittent archaeological excavations attracting 4.5 million sightseers yearly.

Many of the oldest and most important structures of the ancient city were located on or near the Forum. The Roman Kingdom's earliest shrines and temples were located on the southeastern edge. These included the ancient former royal residence, the Regia (8th century BC), and the Temple of Vesta (7th century BC), as well as the surrounding complex of the Vestal Virgins, all of which were rebuilt after the rise of imperial Rome.

Other archaic shrines to the northwest, such as the Umbilicus Urbis and the Vulcanal (Shrine of Vulcan), developed into the Republic's formal Comitium (assembly area). This is where the Senate—as well as Republican government itself—began. The Senate House, government offices, tribunals, temples, memorials and statues gradually cluttered the area.

Over time the archaic Comitium was replaced by the larger adjacent Forum and the focus of judicial activity moved to the new Basilica Aemilia (179 BC). Some 130 years later, Julius Caesar built the Basilica Julia, along with the new Curia Julia, refocusing both the judicial offices and the Senate itself. This new Forum, in what proved to be its final form, then served as a revitalized city square where the people of Rome could gather for commercial, political, judicial and religious pursuits in ever greater numbers.

Eventually much economic and judicial business would transfer away from the Forum Romanum to the larger and more extravagant structures (Trajan's Forum and the Basilica Ulpia) to the north. The reign of Constantine the Great saw the construction of the last major expansion of the Forum complex—the Basilica of Maxentius (312 AD). This returned the political center to the Forum until the fall of the Western Roman Empire almost two centuries later.

Description

Unlike the later imperial fora in Rome—which were self-consciously modelled on the ancient Greek plateia (πλατεῖα) public plaza or town square—the Roman Forum developed gradually, organically, and piecemeal over many centuries. This is the case despite attempts, with some success, to impose some order there, by Sulla, Julius Caesar, Augustus and others. By the Imperial period, the large public buildings that crowded around the central square had reduced the open area to a rectangle of about 130 by 50 metres.

Its long dimension was oriented northwest to southeast and extended from the foot of the Capitoline Hill to that of the Velian Hill. The Forum's basilicas during the Imperial period—the Basilica Aemilia on the north and the Basilica Julia on the south—defined its long sides and its final form. The Forum proper included this square, the buildings facing it and, sometimes, an additional area (the Forum Adjectum) extending southeast as far as the Arch of Titus.

Originally, the site of the Forum had been a marshy lake where waters from the surrounding hills drained. This was drained by the Tarquins with the Cloaca Maxima. Because of its location, sediments from both the flooding of the Tiber and the erosion of the surrounding hills have been raising the level of the Forum floor for centuries. Excavated sequences of remains of paving show that sediment eroded from the surrounding hills was already raising the level in early Republican times.

As the ground around buildings rose, residents simply paved over the debris that was too much to remove. Its final travertine paving, still visible, dates from the reign of Augustus. Excavations in the 19th century revealed one layer on top of another. The deepest level excavated was 3.60 metres above sea level. Archaeological finds show human activity at that level with the discovery of carbonised wood.

An important function of the Forum, during both Republican and Imperial times, was to serve as the culminating venue for the celebratory military processions known as Triumphs. Victorious generals entered the city by the western Triumphal Gate (Porta Triumphalis) and circumnavigated the Palatine Hill (counterclockwise) before proceeding from the Velian Hill down the Via Sacra and into the Forum.

From here they would mount the Capitoline Rise (Clivus Capitolinus) up to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the summit of the Capitol. Lavish public banquets ensued back down on the Forum. (In addition to the Via Sacra, the Forum was accessed by a number of storied roads and streets, including the Vicus Jugarius, Vicus Tuscus, Argiletum, and Via Nova.)
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_F...)

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(no image) The Roman Forum by Michael Grant
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Tiberius & Gaius Gracchus


Tiberius & Gaius Gracchus

Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus were a pair of tribunes of the plebs from the 2nd Century BCE, who sought to introduce land reform and other populist legislation in ancient Rome. They were both members of the Populares, a group of politicians who appealed to the average citizens and that opposed the conservative Optimates in the Roman Senate. They have been deemed the founding fathers of both socialism and populism.

Tiberius Gracchus
Tiberius Gracchus, born in 168 BCE, was the older of the Gracchi brothers. He is best known for his attempts to legislate agrarian reform and for his untimely death at the hands of the Senators. Under Tiberius’ proposal, no one citizen would be able to possess more than 500 iugera of public land (ager publicus) that was acquired during wars. Any excess land would be confiscated to the state and redistributed to the poor and homeless in small plots of about 30 iugera per family.

The Senate was resistant to agrarian reform because its members owned most of the land and it was the basis of their wealth. Therefore, Tiberius was very unpopular with the Senatorial elite. His main opponent was Marcus Octavius, another tribune who vetoed Tiberius’ bills from entering the Assembly and whom Tiberius had previously gotten removed from office.

When King Attalus III of Pergamum died, he left his entire fortune to the people of Rome. Pergamum was one of the richest cities in the ancient world, and Tiberius wanted to use the wealth from Pergamum to find his agrarian law. This was a direct attack on Senatorial power and the Senate’s opposition to Tiberius began to increase.

With his term coming to an end, Tiberius sought re-election as tribune for the following year. This was unprecedented and his opponents claimed that it was illegal and Tiberius was trying to become a tyrant. On election, violence broke out in the Senate between Tiberius’ followers and his opponents. Tiberius was beaten to death with wooden chairs and nearly 300 of his supporters suffered the same fate. These deaths marked a turning point in Roman history and a long-lasting association between violence and the office of the tribune.

Gaius Gracchus
Tiberius was succeeded by his younger brother, Gaius Gracchus, who was also a social reformer. He was quaestor in 126 BCE and tribune of the plebs in 123 BCE. He is generally considered to be a more complex and confrontational figure than Tiberius, and he had a much clearer legislative agenda that extended beyond simple agrarian reform. Some of his laws appear to have been directed toward the people responsible for his brother’s death.

He renewed Tiberius’ land law and founded new colonies in Italy and Carthage. He introduced a law that no conscription of Romans under age 17 would be allowed and that the state would pay for basic military equipment. Previously, the soldier had to pay for his own equipment, which was especially difficult for the lowest census class. Like his brother, he also funded state-subsidized grain. Another law passed by Gaius imposed the death penalty on any judge who accepted a bribe to convict another Roman guilty.

Gaius’ opponents tried to win away his support and he lost popular appeal by 121 BCE. After a riot broke out on the Capitoline Hill and one of Gaius’ opponents was killed, the ‘ultimate decree of the Senate’ (Senatus consultum ultimum) was passed for the first time. This law gave the Senate the power to declare anyone an enemy of the state and execute him without trial by a jury. A mob was then raised to assassinate Gaius. Knowing that his own death was imminent, Gaius committed suicide on the Aventine Hill in 121 BCE. All of his reforms were undermined except for his grain laws. Three thousand of his supporters were subsequently arrested and put to death in the proscriptions that followed.

The tribunates of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus began a turbulent period in Rome's domestic politics, and their careers and untimely deaths emphasize both the strengths and the weaknesses of the tribunate. In the following decades, the tendency toward violence became even more clear as numerous tribunes saw their time in office come to an end with their deaths. (Source: http://www.ancient.eu/article/95/)

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(no image) Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus: Tradition and Apostasy by Alvin H. Bernstein (no photo)
by John M. Riddle (no photo)
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Patricians and plebeians


Patricians and plebeians

Patrician (from Latin: patricius) is a term that originally referred to a group of ruling class families in ancient Rome. Although the distinction was highly significant in the early republic, its relevance waned after the Struggle of the Orders (494 BC to 287 BC) and by the time of the Late Republic and Empire, membership in this group was of only nominal significance.

After the fall of the Western Empire it remained a high honorary title in the Byzantine Empire. Medieval patrician classes were once again formally defined groups of leading burgess families in many medieval Italian republics, such as Venice and Genoa, and subsequently "patrician" became a vague term used for aristocrats and the higher bourgeoisie in many countries.

Origin
According to Livy, the first 100 men appointed as senators by Romulus were referred to as "fathers" (Latin " patres"), and the descendants of those men became the patrician class. According to other opinions, the patricians (patricii) were those who could point to fathers, i.e. those who were members of the clans (gentes) whose members originally comprised the whole citizen body. The patricians were distinct from the plebeians because they had wider political influence, at least in the times of the early Republic. As the middle and late Republic saw this influence stripped, plebeians were granted equal rights on a range of areas, and quotas of officials, including one of the two consulships, were exclusively reserved for plebeians. Although being a patrician remained prestigious, it was of minimal practical importance. Excepting some religious offices, plebeians were able to stand for all the offices that patricians could, and plebeians of the senatorial class were no less wealthy than patricians at the height of the republic.

Status
Patricians historically had more privileges than plebeians. At the beginning of the Republic, patricians were better represented in the Roman assemblies, only patricians could hold political offices, and all priesthoods were closed to non-patricians. There was a belief that patricians communicated better with the Roman gods, so they alone could perform the sacred rites and take the auspices. This view had political consequences, since in the beginning of the year or before a military campaign, Roman magistrates used to consult the gods. Livy reports that the first admission of plebeians into a priestly college happened in 300 BC, when the college of Augurs raised their number from four to nine. After that, plebeians were accepted into the other religious colleges, and by the end of the Republic, only priesthoods with limited political importance, such as the Salii, the Flamines, and the Rex Sacrorum were filled exclusively by patricians.

Very few plebeian names appear in lists of Roman magistrates during the early Republic. Two laws passed during the fourth century BC began the gradual opening of magistrates to the plebeians: the Lex Licinia Sextia of 367 BC, which established the right of plebeians to hold the consulship; and the Genucian Law of 342 BC, which required that at least one of the consuls be a plebeian (although this law was frequently violated for several decades).

Many of the ancient patrician gentes whose members appear in the founding legends of Rome disappeared as Rome acquired its empire, and new plebeian families rose to prominence. A number of patrician families such as the Horatii, Lucretii, Verginii and Menenii rarely appear in positions of importance during the later republic. Many old families had both patrician and plebeian branches, of which the patrician lines frequently faded into obscurity, and were eclipsed by their plebeian namesakes.

Patricians vs. plebeians
The distinction between patricians and plebeians in Ancient Rome was based purely on birth. Although modern writers often portray patricians as rich and powerful families who managed to secure power over the less-fortunate plebeian families, plebeians and patricians among the senatorial class were equally wealthy. As civil rights for plebeians increased during the middle and late Roman Republic, many plebeian families had attained wealth and power while some traditionally patrician families had fallen into poverty and obscurity.

Plebeians
In ancient Rome, the plebs was the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census. From the 4th century BC or earlier, they were known as commoners (part of the lower social status).

Literary references to the plebs, however, usually mean the ordinary citizens of Rome as a whole, as distinguished from the elite—a sense retained by "plebeian" in English. In the very earliest days of Rome, plebeians were any tribe or clan without advisers to the King. In time, the word – which is related to the Greek word for crowd, plethos – came to mean the common people. In Latin the word plebs is a singular collective noun, and its genitive is plebis.

The origin of the separation into orders is unclear, and it is disputed when the Romans were divided under the early kings into patricians and plebeians, or whether the clients (or dependents) of the patricians formed a third group. Certain gentes ("clans") were patrician, as identified by the nomen (family name), but a gens might have both patrician and plebeian branches that shared a nomen but were distinguished by a cognomen, as was the case with the gens Claudia.

The 19th-century historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr held that plebeians began to appear at Rome during the reign of Ancus Marcius and were possibly foreigners settling in Rome as naturalized citizens. In any case, at the outset of the Roman Republic, the patricians had a near monopoly on political and social institutions. Plebeians were excluded from magistracies and religious colleges, and they were not permitted to know the laws by which they were governed. Plebeians served in the army, but rarely became military leaders.

Dissatisfaction with the status quo occasionally mounted to the point that the plebeians engaged in a sort of general strike, a secessio plebis, during which they would withdraw from Rome, leaving the patricians to themselves. From 494 to 287 BC, five such actions during the so-called "Conflict of the Orders" resulted in the establishment of plebeian offices (the tribunes and plebeian aediles), the publication of the laws (the Law of the Twelve Tables), the establishment of the right of plebeian–patrician intermarriage (by the passage of the Lex Canuleia), the opening of the highest offices of government and some state priesthoods to the plebeians and passage of legislation (the Lex Hortensia) that made resolutions passed by the assembly of plebeians, the concilium plebis, binding on all citizens.

Noble Plebeians
During the Second Samnite War (326–304 BC), plebeians who had risen to power through these social reforms, began to acquire the aura of nobilitas, "nobility" (more literally "notability"), marking the creation of a ruling elite of nobiles that allied the interests of patricians and noble plebeians. From the mid-4th century to the early 3rd century BC, several plebeian–patrician "tickets" for the consulship repeated joint terms, suggesting a deliberate political strategy of cooperation. Although nobilitas was not a formal social rank during the Republican era, in general a plebeian who had attained the consulship was regarded as having brought nobility to his family. Such a man was a novus homo, a "new man" or self-made noble and his sons and descendants were nobiles.

Marius and Cicero are notable examples of novi homines in the late Republic, when many of Rome's richest and most powerful men—such as Lucullus, Crassus, and Pompeius—were plebeian nobles. Some or perhaps many noble plebeians, including Cicero and Lucullus, aligned their political interests with the faction of optimates, conservatives who sought to preserve senatorial prerogatives. By contrast, the populares or "people's party", which sought to champion the plebs in the sense of "common people", were sometimes led by patricians such as Julius Caesar and Clodius Pulcher. (Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrici... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plebs)

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(no image) Patricians And Plebeians: The Origin Of The Roman State by Richard E. Mitchell (no photo)
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Aeneas


Aeneas flees Troy

In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (/ᵻˈniːəs/;[1] Greek: Αἰνείας, Aineías, possibly derived from Greek αἰνή meaning "praised") was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Venus (Aphrodite). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons of Ilus, founder of Troy), making Aeneas a second cousin to Priam's children (such as Hector and Paris). He is a character in Greek mythology and is mentioned in Homer's Iliad. Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome.

Greek myth and epos
Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite
The story of the birth of Aeneas is told in the "Hymn to Aphrodite", one of the major Homeric Hymns. Aphrodite has caused the other god Zeus, to fall in love with mortal women. In retaliation, Zeus puts desire in her heart for Anchises, who is tending his cattle among the hills near Mount Ida. When Aphrodite sees him she is smitten. She adorns herself as if for a wedding among the gods and appears before him. He is overcome by her beauty, believing that she is a goddess, but Aphrodite identifies herself as a Phrygian princess. After they make love, Aphrodite reveals her true identity to him and Anchises fears what might happen to him as a result of their liaison. Aphrodite assures him that he will be protected, and tells him that she will bear him a son to be called Aeneas. However, she warns him that he must never tell anyone that he has lain with a goddess. When Aeneas is born, Aphrodite takes him to the nymphs of Mount Ida. She directs them to raise the child to age five, then take him to Anchises. According to other sources, Anchises later brags about his encounter with Aphrodite, and as a result is struck in the foot with a thunderbolt by Zeus. Thereafter he is lame in that foot, so that Aeneas has to carry him from the flames of Troy.

Homer's Iliad
Aeneas is a minor character in the Iliad, where he is twice saved from death by the gods as if for an as-yet-unknown destiny, but is a warrior in his own right. Having held back from the fighting, aggrieved with Priam because in spite of his brave deeds he was not given his due share of honour, he leads an attack against Idomeneus to recover the body of his brother-in-law Alcathous at the urging of Deiphobus. He is the leader of the Trojans' Dardanian allies, as well as a second cousin and principal lieutenant of Hector, son of the Trojan king Priam. Aeneas's mother Aphrodite frequently comes to his aid on the battlefield, and he is a favorite of Apollo. Aphrodite and Apollo rescue Aeneas from combat with Diomedes of Argos, who nearly kills him, and carry him away to Pergamos for healing. Even Poseidon, who normally favors the Greeks, comes to Aeneas's rescue after he falls under the assault of Achilles, noting that Aeneas, though from a junior branch of the royal family, is destined to become king of the Trojan people. Bruce Louden presents Aeneas as a "type" in the tradition of Utnapishtim, Baucis and Philemon, and Lot; the just man spared the general destruction. Apollodorus explains that "...the Greeks let him alone on account of his piety".

Roman myth and literature
Aeneas and Anchises
The history of Aeneas was continued by Roman authors. One influential source was the account of Rome's founding in Cato the Elder's Origines. The Aeneas legend was well known in Virgil's day and appeared in various historical works, including the Roman Antiquities of the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus (relying on Marcus Terentius Varro), Ab Urbe Condita by Livy (probably dependent on Quintus Fabius Pictor, fl. 200 BCE), and Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus (now extant only in an epitome by Justin).

Virgil's Aeneid
The Aeneid explains that Aeneas is one of the few Trojans who were not killed or enslaved when Troy fell. Aeneas, after being commanded by the gods to flee, gathered a group, collectively known as the Aeneads, who then traveled to Italy and became progenitors of Romans. The Aeneads included Aeneas's trumpeter Misenus, his father Anchises, his friends Achates, Sergestus, and Acmon, the healer Iapyx, the helmsman Palinurus, and his son Ascanius (also known as Iulus, Julus, or Ascanius Julius). He carried with him the Lares and Penates, the statues of the household gods of Troy, and transplanted them to Italy.

Several attempts to find a new home failed; one such stop was on Sicily, where in Drepanum, on the island's western coast, his father, Anchises, died peacefully.

After a brief but fierce storm sent up against the group at Juno's request, Aeneas and his fleet made landfall at Carthage after six years of wanderings. Aeneas had a year-long affair with the Carthaginian queen Dido (also known as Elissa), who proposed that the Trojans settle in her land and that she and Aeneas reign jointly over their peoples. A marriage of sorts was arranged between Dido and Aeneas at the instigation of Juno, who was told that her favorite city would eventually be defeated by the Trojans' descendants. Aeneas's mother Venus (the Roman adaptation of Aphrodite) realized that her son and his company needed a temporary respite to reinforce themselves for the journey to come. However, the messenger god Mercury was sent by Jupiter and Venus to remind Aeneas of his journey and his purpose, compelling him to leave secretly. When Dido learned of this, she uttered a curse that would forever pit Carthage against Rome, an enmity that would culminate in the Punic Wars. She then committed suicide by stabbing herself with the same sword she gave Aeneas when they first met.

After the sojourn in Carthage, the Trojans returned to Sicily where Aeneas organized funeral games to honor his father, who had died a year before. The company traveled on and landed on the western coast of Italy. Aeneas descended into the underworld where he met Dido (who turned away from him to return to her husband) and his father, who showed him the future of his descendants and thus the history of Rome.

Latinus, king of the Latins, welcomed Aeneas's army of exiled Trojans and let them reorganize their lives in Latium. His daughter Lavinia had been promised to Turnus, king of the Rutuli, but Latinus received a prophecy that Lavinia would be betrothed to one from another land — namely, Aeneas. Latinus heeded the prophecy, and Turnus consequently declared war on Aeneas at the urging of Juno, who was aligned with King Mezentius of the Etruscans and Queen Amata of the Latins. Aeneas's forces prevailed. Turnus was killed, and Virgil's account ends abruptly.

Other sources
The rest of Aeneas's biography is gleaned from other ancient sources, including Livy and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Livy, Aeneas was victorious but Latinus died in the war. Aeneas founded the city of Lavinium, named after his wife. He later welcomed Dido's sister, Anna Perenna, who then committed suicide after learning of Lavinia's jealousy. After Aeneas's death, Venus asked Jupiter to make her son immortal. Jupiter agreed. The river god Numicus cleansed Aeneas of all his mortal parts and Venus anointed him with ambrosia and nectar, making him a god. Aeneas was recognized as the god Jupiter Indiges. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneas)

More:
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/ae...
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Aeneas
http://www.maicar.com/GML/Aeneas.html
https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/...
http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/A-Am/...
(no image)In Praise of Aeneas: Virgil and Epideictic Rhetoric in the Early Italian Renaissance by Craig W. Kallendorf (no photo)
by Rose Williams (no photo)
by Karl Galinsky (no photo)
by Philip Hardie (no photo)
by Virgil

Lucius Cornelius Sulla


Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Sulla, in full Lucius Cornelius Sulla or later Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (born 138 BCE—died 79 BCE, Puteoli [Pozzuoli, near Naples, Italy]), victor in the first full-scale civil war in Roman history (88–82 BCE) and subsequently dictator (82–79), who carried out notable constitutional reforms in an attempt to strengthen the Roman Republic during the last century of its existence. In late 82 he assumed the name Felix in belief in his own luck.

Life
Sulla was the son of a politically unimportant patrician family. He early showed a taste for luxury and aspired to a political career, which he began in 107 BCE, under the command of Gaius Marius, as a quaestor (financial magistrate) in Africa in the war against King Jugurtha of the Numidians. His spectacular capture of Jugurtha by trickery marked the start of his feud with Marius. Although Marius continued to use Sulla in the war against the invading Cimbri, in 103 BCE his jealousy became obvious, and Sulla transferred to the service of Marius’ co-commander, Quintus Lutatius Catulus.

After service as a Roman praetor (one of the chief magistrates) in 97 BCE, Sulla fought in the Social War (90–89 BCE), the struggle of Rome’s Italian allies to obtain Roman citizenship. He became one of the two consuls—the highest office in the republic—in 88 and was placed in command of the war against King Mithradates VI of Pontus in Asia Minor. By his marriage—his fourth—to Caecilia Metella, the widow of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, in 88 BCE, he formed important alliances. The Senate gave Sulla the command of an army against Mithradates, who was threatening Roman control of the east, but Marius, through his alliance with the tribune Publius Sulpicius Rufus of the popular party, succeeded in being appointed commander instead. Sulla marched on Rome and Sulpicius was killed, but Marius escaped.

In 88 Sulla set off for Greece in charge of the war against Mithradates. By the spring of 87 most of Greece was in his power, and after a long siege he captured Athens in 86. Mithradates’ general, Archelaus, was pursued into Boeotia and finally defeated in two battles in 86.

At a meeting in 85 between Sulla and Mithradates at Dardanus on the Hellespont, the latter accepted a punitive treaty. Order was restored in Asia and Greece, and Mithradates became a vassal of the Romans again. In the summer of 83, Sulla, after a lengthy stay in Athens, returned to Brundisium in southern Italy with 40,000 men and enormous plunder.

During his absence Sulla had been declared a public enemy by the ruling popular party. His laws were repealed, his house was destroyed, and his family and friends fled to join him in Greece. In 86 the former consul Lucius Valerius Flaccus was sent to replace Sulla in the Asian command. But Sulla’s luck did not desert him; Flaccus was murdered by his lieutenant.

From Brundisium, Sulla began his march on Rome, joined by opponents of the popular regime, including Marcus Licinius Crassus and Pompey. Through most of the ensuing civil war Sulla was opposed by the consuls Gnaeus Papirius Carbo and the younger Marius (whose father had died in 86). Sulla’s victory of Colline Gate in the northern environs of Rome and the fall of Praeneste at the end of 82 ended the war, which was followed by massacres and proscriptions.

Sulla was appointed dictator under the Lex Valeria (Valerian law), which vested constituent, legislative, military, and judicial power in him, without, however, for the first time in Rome’s history, limiting the duration of his dictatorship.

The state was reorganized and the new legislation enacted in 81, at the start of which year (January 27–28) Sulla celebrated his victory over Mithradates. In the speech delivered at the close of the ceremony, he chose for himself the name of Felix (Epaphroditos in Greek documents).

By his extensive program of constitutional reform he intended mainly to reestablish the supremacy of the Senate in the Roman state, and his administrative reforms did indeed survive to the end of the republic. Of value were the increase of the number of courts for criminal trials; a new treason law, Lex Cornelia Majestatis, designed to prevent insurrection by provincial governors and army commanders; the requirement that the tribunes had to submit their legislative proposals to the Senate for approval; and various laws protecting citizens against excesses of judicial and executive organs.

At the beginning of 79, Sulla resigned and withdrew to the neighbourhood of Puteoli in Campania. This action caused a sensation in Rome; many different explanations have been given, starting with the classical writers. Most commonly accepted is the view that Sulla’s resignation was an act of honesty by a man who had pledged to step down as soon as his reforms had been carried out. Henceforth a private citizen, he continued to write his memoirs. Active to his very last days, Sulla was struck down by a fever in the spring of 78. He left behind two children by Metella and a posthumous daughter by his fifth wife, Valeria.

Assessment
Sulla, a soldier and a politician, a dictator and a reformer, and a man of contradictions in an age of contradictions, is the subject of contradictory opinions expressed by both classical and modern writers. The classical writers of Sulla’s time or shortly thereafter found it difficult to form an opinion of him; they noted the discrepancy of the Sulla “who follows up good beginnings with evil deeds.” Generally their attitude was a negative one, with references to despotism, slavery, cruelty, and inhumanity, and the absence of any principle of good government. The opinions held by modern writers cover a spectrum ranging from Sulla the enigma (because of his resignation), to Sulla the monarch, to Sulla the honest reformer.

Sulla was the exponent of a decadent patriciate that tried everything in its power to save itself by instituting reforms that, while not without democratic aspects, lacked inner vitality. From the long-term perspective Sulla’s actions seem meaningless; but viewed in their historical context they are justified by the transitional character—both in its military and political aspect—of his age. Inspired by a glorious past, interpreting an extremely volatile present, and heralding a future faithful to tradition, Sulla played a historical role, conclusively shaping and epitomizing the republican ideal shortly before it became submerged. But he was mistaken about the significance of his reforms: he was a temporary dictator because he wanted no one else who might follow him to become a dictator for life; yet by his example he unwittingly paved the way for Julius Caesar. (Source: https://www.britannica.com/biography/...)

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulla
http://www.roman-empire.net/republic/...
http://www.ancient.eu/article/818/
http://www.unrv.com/empire/lucius-cor...
http://www.yaggyslatin.com/Mariusands...
by Arthur Keaveney (no photo)
by Federico Santangelo (no photo)
by Lynda Telford (no photo)
by G.P. Baker (no photo)
by Plutarch

The History of Rome
By Mike Duncan

Description
A weekly podcast tracing the history of the Roman Empire, beginning with Aeneas's arrival in Italy and ending with the exile of Romulus Augustulus, last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Now complete!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

This YouTube Channel: Age of Antiquity
has two old History Channel shows on Rome

The Roman Empire
Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiiQ...

Thanks, Michele, for filling in the info for the History of Rome podcast. I have deleted my inadequate post. And thanks for the YouTube link.

Mithradates VI Eupator


Mithradates

Mithradates VI Eupator, in full Mithradates VI Eupator Dionysus, byname Mithradates the Great, Mithradates also spelled Mithridates, (died 63 bce, Panticapaeum [now in Ukraine]), king of Pontus in northern Anatolia (120–63 bce). Under his energetic leadership, Pontus expanded to absorb several of its small neighbours and, briefly, contested Rome’s hegemony in Asia Minor.

Life

Mithradates the Great was the sixth—and last—Pontic ruler by that name. Mithradates (meaning “gift of [the god] Mithra”) was a common name among Anatolian rulers of the age. When Mithradates VI succeeded his father, Mithradates Euergetes, in 120 bce, he was then only a boy, and for a few years his mother ruled in his place. About 115 bce, she was deposed and thrown into prison by her son, who thereafter ruled alone. Mithradates began his long career of conquest by dispatching successful expeditions to the Crimean Peninsula and to Colchis (on the eastern shore of the Black Sea). Both districts were added to the Pontic kingdom. To the Greeks of the Tauric Chersonese and the Cimmerian Bosporus (Crimea and Straits of Kerch), Mithradates was a deliverer from their Scythian enemies, and they gladly surrendered their independence in return for the protection given to them by his armies. In Anatolia, however, the royal dominions had been considerably diminished after the death of Mithradates V: Paphlagonia had freed itself, and Phrygia (c. 116 bce) had been linked to the Roman province of Asia. Mithradates’ first move there was to partition Paphlagonia and Galatia between himself and Nicomedes III of Bithynia, but next he quarreled with Nicomedes over Cappadocia. On two occasions he was successful at first but then deprived of his advantage by Roman intervention (c. 95 and 92). While appearing to acquiesce, he resolved to expel the Romans from Asia. A first attempt to depose Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, who was completely subservient to the Romans, was frustrated (c. 90). Then Nicomedes, instigated by Rome, attacked Pontic territory, and Mithradates, after protesting in vain to the Romans, finally declared war (88).

Nicomedes and the Roman armies were defeated and flung back to the coasts of the Propontis and the Aegean. The Roman province of Asia was occupied, and most of the Greek cities in western Asia Minor allied themselves with Mithradates, though a few held out against him, such as Rhodes, which he besieged unsuccessfully. He also sent large armies into Greece, where Athens and other cities took his side. But the Roman generals, Sulla in Greece and Fimbria in Asia, defeated his forces in several battles during 86 and 85. In 88 he had arranged a general massacre of the Roman and Italian residents in Asia (80,000 are said to have perished), in order that the Greek cities, as his accessories in the crime, should feel irrevocably committed to the struggle against Rome. As the war turned against him, his former leniency toward the Greeks changed to severity; every kind of intimidation was resorted to—deportations, murders, freeing of slaves. But this reign of terror could not prevent the cities from deserting to the victorious side. In 85, when the war was clearly lost, he made peace with Sulla in the Treaty of Dardanus, abandoning his conquests, surrendering his fleet, and paying a large fine.

In what is called the Second Mithradatic War, the Roman general Lucius Licinius Murena invaded Pontus without provocation in 83 but was defeated in 82. Hostilities were suspended, but disputes constantly occurred, and in 74 a general war broke out. Mithradates defeated Marius Aurelius Cotta, the Roman consul, at Chalcedon, but Lucullus worsted him outside Cyzicus (73) and drove him, in 72, to take refuge in Armenia with his son-in-law Tigranes. After scoring two great victories at Tigranocerta (69) and Artaxata (68), Lucullus was disconcerted by the defeat of his lieutenants and by mutiny among his troops. In 66 Lucullus was superseded by Pompey, who completely defeated both Mithradates and Tigranes.

Mithradates then established himself in 64 at Panticapaeum (Kerch) on the Cimmerian Bosporus and was planning an invasion of Italy by way of the Danube when his own troops, led by his son Pharnaces II, revolted against him. After failing in an attempt to poison himself, Mithradates ordered a Gallic mercenary to kill him. His body was sent to Pompey, who buried it in the royal sepulchre at Sinope, the Pontic capital.

Legacy

Mithradates was a man of great stature and physical strength, a brave fighter, and a keen hunter. He was also ruthless and cruel. But it cannot be denied that Mithradates was a ruler of astonishing energy and determination, or that he possessed political skill of a high order. That he was one of the few men to offer a serious challenge to the Roman Republic is sufficient testimony to his ability. He organized the forces at his disposal very effectively, and he had a good grasp of strategy. He was unlucky in having to face three exceptionally brilliant Roman generals; unlucky, too, in coming to power at a time when the Hellenistic world was in the final stage of its collapse. It is quite conceivable that had he been born a century earlier he could have constructed an enduring Greco-Asiatic empire. A cunning, brutal tyrant, he concerned himself solely with maintaining and strengthening his own power. He posed as the champion of Hellenism, but this was mainly to further his political ambitions; it is no proof that he was deeply imbued with Greek culture or that he felt a mission to promote its extension within his domains. Hellenism made advances in Pontus during his reign, as it had under his predecessors, but this was a natural process. He treated all alike; Greek, Roman, and Asian were welcome at his court provided that they could be of use to him (his military subordinates were mostly Greeks, though in later years he employed several Roman renegades), but he trusted no one. Just as it is impossible to speak of his favouring one religion or culture above another, so it is impossible to believe that he had any notion of bringing Greeks and Asians closer together in a new kind of political and social system. His posing as a liberator of the Greeks from Roman oppression and, later, his encouragement of social revolution in the Greek cities of the province of Asia can only be interpreted, in both cases, as the actions of an opportunist seeking immediate political advantages.
(Source: https://www.britannica.com/biography/...)

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithrid...
http://www.livius.org/articles/person...
http://www.ancient-origins.net/histor...
http://www.ancientpages.com/2016/03/0...
http://www.toxipedia.org/display/toxi...
by Jakob Munk Hojte (no photo)
by Philip Matyszak
by Adrienne Mayor
by Alfred Duggan

Roman religion


Some Roman gods

In many societies, ancient and modern, religion has performed a major role in their development, and the Roman Empire was no different. From the beginning Roman religion was polytheistic. From an initial array of gods and spirits, Rome added to this collection to include both Greek gods as well as a number of foreign cults. As the empire expanded, the Romans refrained from imposing their own religious beliefs upon those they conquered; however, this inclusion must not be misinterpreted as tolerance - this can be seen with their early reaction to the Jewish and Christian population. Eventually, all of their gods would be washed away, gradually replaced by Christianity, and in the eyes of some, this change brought about the decline of the western empire.

Early Beliefs & Influences
Early forms of the Roman religion were animistic in nature, believing that spirits inhabited everything around them, people included. The first citizens of Rome also believed they were watched over by the spirits of their ancestors. Initially, a Capitoline Triad (possibly derived from a Sabine influence) were added to these “spirits" - the new gods included Mars, the god of war and supposed father of Romulus and Remus (founders of Rome); Quirinus, the deified Romulus who watched over the people of Rome; and lastly, Jupiter, the supreme god. They, along with the spirits, were worshipped at a temple on Capitoline Hill. Later, due to the Etruscans, the triad would change to include Jupiter who remained the supreme god; Juno, his wife and sister; and Minerva, Jupiter’s daughter.

Due to the presence of Greek colonies on the Lower Peninsula, the Romans adopted many of the Greek gods as their own. Religion and myth became one. Under this Greek influence, the Roman gods became more anthropomorphic – with the human characteristics of jealousy, love, hate, etc. However, this transformation was not to the degree that existed in Greek mythology. In Rome individual expression of belief was unimportant, strict adherence to a rigid set of rituals was far more significant, thereby avoiding the hazards of religious zeal. Cities adopted their own patron deities and performed their own rituals. Temples honoring the gods would be built throughout the empire; however, these temples were considered the “home” of the god; worship occurred outside the temple. While this fusion of Roman and Greek deities influenced Rome in many ways, their religion remained practical.

Even though there were four colleges for priests, there was no priestly class; it would always remain a public office. This practice would even extend to the imperial palace. From the time of Emperor Augustus the emperor would assume the title of pontifex maximus or chief priest. Other than the pontifexes there were augures, individuals who read the entrails of animals and the flight of birds to interpret omens, or in other words, the will of the gods. Elaborate rituals were performed to bring Roman victory in battle, and no declaration of war or major event was undertaken without the clear approval of the gods. Dating from the time of the Etruscans, a diviner or haruspices, was always consulted, and it was considered dangerous to ignore the omens. Spurinna, a Roman soothsayer, read animal entrails and foresaw Julius Caesar’s death on the Ides of March. When Roman Commander Publius Claudius Pulcher ignored the omens - refusal of the sacred chickens to eat - before a battle during the First Punic War, he was defeated, as was his military career.

As the empire expanded across the Balkans, Asia Minor and into Egypt, Roman religion absorbed many of the gods and cults of conquered nations, but the primary influence would always remain Greece. With only a few exceptions, most of the Roman gods had their Greek counterparts. This Roman mythology would have a significant influence on the empire - politically and socially - as well as on the future of western civilization. One needs only to look at the names of the days and months (Tuesday, Saturday, January and June), the languages of European nations, and the names of the planets (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto) to realize this influence.

The Roman Pantheon
While the study of Roman mythology tends to emphasize the major gods - Jupiter, Neptune (god of the sea), Pluto (god of the underworld) and Juno - there existed, of course, a number of “minor” gods and goddesses such as Nemesis, the god of revenge; Cupid, the god of love; Pax, the god of peace; and the Furies, goddesses of vengeance.

However, when looking at the religion of Rome, one must examine the impact of the most important gods. Foremost among the gods were, of course, Jupiter, the Roman equivalent of Zeus (although not as playful), and his wife/sister Juno. He was the king of the gods; the sky god (the great protector) - controlling the weather and forces of nature, using thunderbolts to give warning to the people of Rome. Originally linked with farming as Jupiter Elicius, his role changed as the city grew, eventually obtaining his own temple on Capitoline Hill. Later, he became Jupiter Imperator Invictus Triumphator - Supreme General, Unconquered, and ultimately, Jupiter Optimus Maximus - Best and Greatest. His supremacy would be temporarily set aside during the reign of Emperor Elagabalus who attempted to replace the religion of Rome with that of the Syrian god Elagabal. After the emperor’s assassination, his successor, Alexander Severus, returned Jupiter to his former glory. Next, Jupiter’s wife/sister was Juno, for whom the month of June is named - she was the equivalent of the Greek Hera. Besides being the supreme goddess with a temple on Esquiline Hill, she was the goddess of light and moon, embodying all of the virtues of Roman matron hood - as Juno Lucina she became the goddess of childbirth and fertility.

After Juno comes Minerva, the Roman name for Athena (the patron goddess of Athens), and Mars, the god of war. According to legend, Minerva sprang from Jupiter’s head fully formed. She was the goddess of commerce, industry, and education. Later, she would be identified as a war goddess as well as the goddess of doctors, musicians and craftsmen. Although no longer one of the Capitoline triad, Mars remained an important god to Rome - similar to Ares, the Greek god of war. As Mars the Avenger, this son of Juno and her relationship with a flower, had a temple dedicated to him by Emperor Augustus, honoring the death of Julius Caesar’s assassins. Roman commanders would make sacrifices to him before and after battles and Tuesday (Martes) is named for him.

There are a number of lesser gods (all with temples built to them) - Apollo, Diana, Saturn, Venus, Vulcan, and Janus. Apollo had no Roman equal and he was simply the Greek god of poetry, medicine, music, and science. He was originally brought to the city by the Etruscans to ward off the plague and was rewarded with a temple on Palatine Hill. Diana, Apollo’s Roman sister equivalent to the Greek Artemis, was not only the goddess of wild beasts and the harvest moon but also the goddess of the hunt. She was seen as a protector of women in childbirth with a temple at Ephesus in Asia Minor. Another god brought to the Rome by the Etruscans was Saturn, an agricultural god equal to the Greek Cronus and who had been expelled from heaven by Jupiter. A festival in his honor, the Saturnalia, was held yearly between the 17th and 23rd of December. His temple, at the foot of Capitoline Hill, housed the public treasury and decrees of the Senate. Another Roman goddess was Venus, who was born, according to myth, from the foam of the sea, equal to the Greek Aphrodite. According to Homer, she was the mother of Aenaes the hero of the Trojan War. Of course, the planet Venus is named for her. Next was Vulcan, also expelled from heaven by Jupiter, who was a lame (caused by his expulsion), ugly blacksmith and the god of fire. Lastly, there was Janus who had no Greek equal. He was the two-faced guardian of doorways and public gates. Janus was valued for his wisdom and was the first god mentioned in a person’s prayer; because of his two faces he could see both the past and the future.

One cannot forget the Vestal Virgins who had no Greek counterpart. They were the guardians of the public hearth at the Atrium Vesta. They were girls chosen only from the patrician class at the tender age of six, beginning their service to the goddess Vesta at the age of ten and for the next thirty years they would serve her. While serving as a Vestal Virgin, a girl/woman was forbidden to marry and had to remain chaste. Some chose to remain in service to Vesta after serving their thirty years since, at the age of forty, they were considered too old to marry. Breaking the vow of chastity would result in death - only twenty would break the vow in over one thousand years. Emperor Elagabalus attempted to marry a vestal virgin but was convinced otherwise. (Source: http://www.ancient.eu/Roman_Religion/)

More:
http://www.roman-empire.net/religion/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religio...
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Roma...
http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/emp...
http://www.unrv.com/culture/roman-rel...
(no image) Vestal Virgins, Sibyls, and Matrons: Women in Roman Religion by Sarolta A. Takxe1cs (no photo)
by John Scheid (no photo)
by Eric M. Orlin (no photo)
by Jörg Rüpke (no photo)
by Mary Beard (no photo)

Social War


Italy during the Social War

The Social War (from socii ("allies"), thus Bellum Sociale; also called the Italian War, the War of the Allies or the Marsic War) was a war waged from 91 to 88 BC between the Roman Republic and several of the other cities in Italy, which prior to the war had been Roman allies for centuries. The war was begun by the Picentes because the Romans did not want to afford them Roman citizenship, thus leaving the Italian groups with fewer rights. The war resulted in a Roman victory and genocide against the Samnites. However, Rome gave most other cities the right to citizenship to avoid another war.

Origins
Roman victory in the Samnite Wars resulted in effective Roman dominance of the Italian peninsula. This dominance was expressed in a collection of alliances between Rome and the cities and communities of Italy, on more or less favorable terms depending on whether a given city had voluntarily allied with Rome or been defeated in war. These cities were theoretically independent, but in practice Rome had the right to demand from them tribute money and a certain number of soldiers: by the 2nd century BC the Italian allies contributed between one half and two-thirds of the soldiers in Roman armies. Rome also had virtual control over the allies' foreign policy, including their interaction with one another. Aside from the Second Punic War, where Hannibal had limited success in turning some Italian communities against Rome, for the most part the Italian communities were content to remain as client states of Rome in return for local autonomy.

The Romans' policy of land distribution had led to great inequality of land-ownership and wealth. This led to the "Italic people declining little by little into pauperism and paucity of numbers without any hope of remedy."

A number of political proposals had attempted to address the growing discrepancy whereby Italians made a significant contribution to Rome's military force, while receiving disproportionately small shares of land and citizenship rights. These efforts came to a head under the impetus of Marcus Livius Drusus in 91 BC. His reforms would have granted the Roman allies Roman citizenship, giving them a greater say in the external policy of the Roman Republic. Most local affairs came under local governance and were not as important to the Romans as, for example, when the alliance would go to war or how they would divide the plunder. The response of the Roman senatorial elite to Drusus' proposals was to reject his ideas and assassinate him. This brusque dismissal of the granting of rights that the Italians considered to be long overdue greatly angered them, and communities throughout Italy attempted to declare independence from Rome in response, sparking a war.

War
The Social War began in 91 BC when the Italian allies revolted. The Latins as a whole remained largely loyal to Rome, with the one exception of Venusia. The rebellious allies planned not only formal separation from Rome but also the creation of their own independent confederation, called Italia, with its own capital at Corfinium (in modern Abruzzo) that was renamed Italica. To pay for the troops, they created their own coinage that was used as propaganda against Rome. The coins depict eight warriors taking an oath, probably representing the Marsi, Picentines, Paeligni, Marrucini, Vestini, Frentani, Samnites and Hirpini.

The Italian soldiers were battle-hardened, most of them having served in the Roman armies. The 12 allies of Italia were originally able to field 120,000 men. The Italians divided this force according to their positions within Italy.

Quintus Poppaedius Silo had overall command of the "Marsic Group", as consul.
Gaius Papius Mutilus had overall command of the "Samnite Group", as consul.
Titus Lafrenius commanded the Marsi in 90 BC, when he was killed in action. He was succeeded by Fraucus.
Titus Vettius Scato commanded the Paeligni to 88 BC, when he was captured by the Romans and killed by his slave.
Gaius Pontidius probably commanded the Vestini, probably at least until 89 BC.
Herius Asinius commanded the Marrucini until 89 BC, when he was killed in action. He was succeeded by Obsidius who was also killed in action.
Gaius Vidacilius commanded the Picentes until 89 BC, when he committed suicide.
Publius Praesentius probably commanded the Frentani, probably throughout the war.
Numerius Lucilius probably commanded the Hirpini until 89 BC, when he seems to have been succeeded by Minatus Iegius (or Minius Iegius).
Lucius Cluentius commanded the Pompeiani in 89 BC when he was killed in action.
Titus Herennius probably commanded the Venusini throughout the war.
Trebatius may have commanded the Iapygii throughout the war.
Marcus Lamponius commanded the Lucani throughout the war.
Marius Egnatius commanded the Samnites until 88 BC when he was killed in action. He was succeeded by Pontius Telesinus who was also killed in action that year.

The Roman strategy focused on surviving the first onslaught, while simultaneously trying to entice other Italian clients to remain loyal or refrain from defection, and then meet the threat of the revolt with troops raised from provinces as well as from client kingdoms. One of the two separate theatres of war was assigned to each of the consuls of 90 BC. In the north, the consul Publius Rutilius Lupus was advised by Gaius Marius and Pompeius Strabo; in the south the consul Lucius Julius Caesar had Lucius Cornelius Sulla and Titus Didius.

Events in 90 BC:
Roman consul Strabo successfully besieged Asculum
Rutilius was defeated and killed in Tolenus Valley
Quintus Servilius Caepio was defeated and killed by Poppaedius
Marius was able to recover from these losses and was left in sole command
Besieged Aesernia — a key fortress which covered the communication between the north and south areas — forced it to surrender
Papius Mutilus burst into southern Campania and won over many towns and held them until defeated by Caesar
Other Italian commanders led successful raids into Apulia and Lucania
Despite these losses, the Romans managed to stave off total defeat and hang on. In 89 BC, both consuls went to the northern front whilst Sulla took sole command of the southern front.

Events in 89 BC:
Lucius Porcius Cato (one of the two consuls) defeated and killed.
Strabo (other consul) left in sole command – in a decisive engagement, he defeated Italian army of 60,000 men, after which success, he forced Asculum to surrender
Sulla moved to the offensive — he defeated a Samnite army, at Nola, and besieged the town of Pompeii
Recovered some of the major cities in Campania
By 88 BC, the war was largely over except for the Samnites, the old rivals of Rome, who still held out. It is likely that the war would have continued a lot longer had Rome not made concessions to their allies.

Roman concessions to the Allies
L. Julius Caesar sponsored the Lex Julia during his consulship which he carried before his office ended. The law offered full citizenship to all Latin and Italian communities who had not revolted.

However, the law offered the option of citizenship to whole communities and not to individuals. This meant that each individual community had to pass the law, most likely by a vote in assembly, before it could take effect. It was also possible under the Lex Julia for citizenship to be granted as a reward for distinguished military service in the field.

It is assumed that the Lex Julia was closely followed by a supplementary statute, the Lex Plautia Papiria, which stated that a registered male of an allied state could obtain Roman citizenship by presenting himself to a Roman praetor within 60 days of the passing of the law. This statute enabled inhabitants of towns disqualified by the Lex Julia to apply for citizenship if they desired.
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_...)

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by Christopher J. Dart (no photo)
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Pompey the Great


Pompey Magnus

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great, was a military leader and politician during the fall of the Roman Republic. He was born in 106 BCE and died on 28th September 48 BCE. His father was Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo.

Pompey’s life can be easily split into four phases: his early career (106- 71 BCE), his consulship until the triumvirate (70- 60 BCE), his later career in Rome (59- 50 BCE) and the Civil War (49-48 BCE).

Early Career
Pompey’s military career started in the Social Wars (91- 89 BCE) when he served under his father’s army at Asculum (89 BCE). In 83 BCE Pompey procured a private army of three legions, taken from his father’s veterans and clients, in order to fight for Sulla. After this Pompey was sent as pro praetor (a magistrate sent in place of a praetor) to Sicily and then Africa to put down dissidents. It was in 81 BCE that Sulla gave Pompey a triumph, on the 12th March, despite the fact that Pompey was still only an equites, and as such, not officially eligible for a triumph, it was also around this time that Pompey took the name Magnus, Great, which clearly echoed the great Macedonian general, Alexander the Great. After the death of his first wife Aemilia, Pompey married Sulla’s step daughter Mucia Tertia, which like most marriages of the time, was probably a political move. Despite this fact, Sulla still felt it necessary to remove Pompey from his will when in 78 BCE and he supported Lepidus for the consulship; it seems that by the next year Pompey had learnt his lesson, and instead supported Quintus Lutatius Catulus, this was also because Lepidus now spoke of revoking the Sullan laws. In 77 BCE Pompey was sent pro consule in order to assist in the struggle against Sertorius in Spain. Sertorius was an opponent of Sulla who had been active in that area since c. 83 BCE. Pompey returned from there in 71 BCE, wiping out the scattered bands of slaves who had fought under the now defeated Spartacus. In doing so, Pompey tried to take credit for ending the Slave War, when in fact it was Crassus who had been the main Roman protagonist in the war. As a result of Pompey’s victories he was granted his second triumph on the 29th December 71 BCE.

From Consul to the Triumvirate
Pompey, an experienced man by 70 BCE, was, however, illegible for the consulship since he was too young and had not held the positions of quaestor or praetor inline with the cursus honorum. Despite this, the rules were waived, and Pompey took the consulship for that year with Crassus. After his consulship Pompey did not take a province under his control, as was standard. Instead, the Gabinian Law of 67 BCE gave Pompey the power and authority to oppose and dispose of the increasing problem of piracy in the Mediterranean, which posed a threat to Rome’s corn supply.

Pompey successfully dealt with the pirates within his first three months of control, despite the fact that the Gabinian Law granted him command for three years, and in 66 BCE a further law was passed which gave him the command of the Roman army against Mithradates VI of Pontus. This law forms Cicero’s Pro lege Manilia, his first purely political speech which speaks in favour of the law, despite there being strong opposition towards the law from the optimate factions of Rome at the time. After defeating Mithradtes VI, Pompey turned Bithynia, Pontus, and Syria into Roman provinces, paving the way for Rome’s later advances into the East. It was in 62 BCE that Pompey returned to Italy, and disbanded his army, finally entering Rome on his birthday, 30th September 61 BCE. Upon returning, Pompey celebrated a triumph the likes of which Rome had never seen before, one that lasted a whole two days!

However, not all was as Pompey had hoped for, the senate denied his proposals for land-grants for his disbanded army and they denied ratification of Pompey’s eastern settlements too; this decision was headed by Cato the Younger (the great grandson of Cato the Elder). Then, with Caesar’s return from Spain in 60 BCE, Pompey formed the first triumvirate (which in itself is a modern, rather than ancient term) with Caesar and Crassus, arguably the three most politically influential and powerful men in Rome (especially when their efforts were combined).

Later Career
In 59 BCE Caesar was appointed consul, with the support of Crassus and Pompey, which enabled Pompey to fulfil the land-grants to his veteran soldiers and to also have his settlement in the east ratified. One of the most obviously political motivated events of Pompey’s life was the divorce of his wife Marcia in order to marry Caesar’s daughter, Julia. However, despite the political motivation of this marriage, Pompey did come to love Julia, and this is mentioned by contemporaries. Despite Caesar putting in place what Pompey had wanted, and the political marriage, Pompey's success was beginning to decline and in 58/7 BCE he was attacked by Publius Clodius Pulcher. In 57 BCE Pompey both managed to secure Cicero’s return from exile and secured the control of Rome’s corn supply (a very important role, that lasted for five-years and granted him proconsular imperium and fifteen legates, but no army was provided). It is interesting to note Pompey’s sudden shift to matters public and civilian, considering that he was primarily a military man; however, what this might suggest is his logistical skills as a general had been transferred to the organisation of corn supplies. However, also in this year, Pompey failed to restore the father of Cleopatra VII, Ptolemy XII Auletes, to power in Egypt. Nevertheless, the triumvirate seemed to work both ways for Pompey, and in 55 BCE, after the three men’s agreement had been reaffirmed at Luca, both Pompey and Crassus were appointed consuls again. It is interesting to note, that despite being given the two Spanish provinces to govern over, Pompey chose to have them governed by legates, so that he could stay at Rome. What becomes apparent is the sheer wealth that Pompey’s campaigns had brought to him and Rome, and this is embodied with the creation of the Theatre of Pompey just outside Rome, at the Campus Martius, which was opened with extravagant games. The theatre itself also consisted of a Temple to Venus Victrix, and a statue of Pompey himself.

However, the next two years saw tensions build within the triumvirate, firstly Pompey dropped out from any sort of further political marriage links with Julius Caesar after Julia died in childbirth in 54 BCE, and in 53 BCE Crassus was killed in Parthia, both of these events served to increase the tension between Caesar and Pompey that would eventually spark into Civil War. When Clodius was murdered in 62 BCE, Pompey was elected sole consul for the year, and was even backed by Cato. Pompey then went on to put Titus Annius Milo on trial and created new legislation with regards to violence, bribery, and the nature of magistracies. Whilst these actions would not have perhaps been seen favourably by Caesar; that is not to say that they were not directly enacted so as to do so. However, when Pompey increased his own imperium for another five years, he seismically affected the status quo. It was also around this time that Pompey married Cornelia, his political ally Quintus Caecilius Mettelus Piso Scipio’s daughter; again, as with Julia before her, whilst being a political marriage, it was by no means a loveless marriage. There were calls for Pompey to recall Caesar, and this led to Gaius Scribonius Curio in 50 BCE calling for either both of the men, or neither of them, to put aside their command.

Civil War
Pompey was unable to come to terms with this situation and took over the command of the Republic’s armies in Italy in 49 BCE, the year that Caesar crossed the Rubicon and uttered the famous words, alea iacta est (the dice are thrown). He then moved the army from Brundisium to Macedonia, where he mobilised his forces. In 48 BCE Caesar arrived, and, knowing that Caesar’s force was greater than his, Pompey retreated when Caesar tried to blockade him in Dryrrachium.

On the 9th August (the reason why he was persuaded to do so is unclear) Pompey met Caesar in pitched battle at Pharsalus in Thessaly and suffered terrible losses and a cruel defeat. Caesar had become a formidable general, having gained much valuable experience from his campaigns in Gaul. Pompey then fled to Egypt, but was stabbed to death as he disembarked at Alexandria on the 28th September 48 BCE. With the defeat of Pompey and the victory of Julius Caesar, the foundations of Imperial Rome were dug and any sentiment of a ‘democratic’ Rome was buried with it.

Pompey’s career was to some extent typical of a new type of Roman statesman that came to the fore in the late Republic, that of the ‘military dynast’, which could be seen to have had its origins in the careers of Marius and Sulla. However, in the end, Pompey tends to be seen by history as one of the great losers, which tends not to give true credit to his earlier career and what he achieved during it. (Source: http://www.ancient.eu/pompey/)

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by Patricia Southern (no photo)
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by Plutarch

Rome A History Of The Eternal City - Episode 1 - BBC Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVVUZ...

Rome : A History of the Eternal City - Episode 2 - BBC Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbl9r...

Rome : A History of the Eternal City - Episode 3 - BBC Documentary
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Thanks, Michele. Here's some by Mary Beard.

Meet the Romans with Mary Beard

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Marcus Licinius Crassus

Marcus Licinius Crassus

Marcus Licinius Crassus (115-53 BCE) was perhaps the richest man in Roman history and in his eventful life he experienced both great successes and severe disappointments. His vast wealth and sharp political skills brought him two consulships and the kind of influence enjoyed only by a true heavyweight of Roman politics. A mentor to Julius Caesar in his early career, Crassus would rise to the very top of state affairs but his long search for a military triumph to match his great rival Pompey would, ultimately, bring about his downfall.

Early Success
Crassus was the son of Publius Licinius Crassus, who was consul in 97 BCE and a commander in Iberia, even gaining a triumph for his victories in Lusitania in 93 BCE. In 87 BCE, on the losing side against the forces of Gaius Marius and Cornelius Cinna, he committed suicide and the young Crassus fled to Spain. Following Cinna's death, Crassus sided with Sulla against Marius, and, as one of his most able commanders, helped him gain control of Italy. Following victory, Crassus now also seized the opportunity to vastly increase his personal wealth from the confiscation of the assets of declared enemies of the state (proscription) which included property, riches and a huge number of slaves.

In private life Crassus was married to Tertulla and he had two sons, one of whom shared his name and the other - Publius Licinius Crassus - fought with him in Parthia. Marcus Licinius Crassus the younger enjoyed some military success, notably achieving the highest Roman military honour of killing an enemy king.

Crassus senior was embroiled in a scandal when he was accused of getting too familiar with a Vestal virgin, one Licinia. Crassus was acquitted, though, on the grounds that really he had only been interested in getting a lower property price for one of his development schemes and, as Plutarch put it, his reputation for respectability was saved by his reputation for avarice. He was not known as a mean man, rather, he was known as generous to his friends and his popularity with the people not only came from his offers of free parties and grain but also his polite manner and lack of snobbery. Crassus was also a good orator, no doubt a skill he honed via his many court cases and helped by his love of philosophy. Plutarch mentions that even Cicero would think twice before engaging in legal argument with Crassus.

The Spartacus Rebellion
The slave rebellion of the early 70s BCE led by Spartacus, the Thracian gladiator, would present Crassus, made praetor in 73 BCE, with an opportunity to flex his military muscle and gain further prestige with the Roman people. The slave army, numbering between 70,000 and 120,000, was a serious threat and had already defeated two separate Roman armies and two consuls. Now they were ravaging the southern Italian countryside and it was Crassus who was entrusted with finally removing this thorn from Rome's heel. In 71 BCE he unsuccessfully attempted to corner Spartacus in Bruttium where his lieutenant Mummius rashly disregarded Crassus' orders and openly attacked the slave army with two legions, was routed and even forced to abandon arms. In response to this setback Crassus employed the ancient punishment of decimation on a 500-man section of Mummius' force, where one in ten legionaries were killed by their fellows in full view of the whole army.

With eight legions at his disposal Crassus cornered Spartacus at Lucania, finally defeated the slave army, and crucified 6,000 of the survivors along the Appian Way. However, some of the prestige for suppressing the slave rebellion was also claimed by Crassus' great rival Pompey who, returning from Spain, mopped up those slaves who had escaped the battle. Further, back in Rome, it was Pompey who was given the honour of a triumph (in recognition of his other military successes) whilst Crassus was given the lesser ovation. Splashing his cash, though, Crassus won favour by hosting a long round of lavish celebratory feasts for the people of Rome and in response to Pompey's popular title of 'Great', Crassus would ask dismissively 'Why, how big is he?'

Political Manoeuvres - The Triumvirate
Settling their differences following the Spartacus episode, Pompey and Crassus pressurised the Senate and were made consuls in 70 BCE, an opportunity Crassus made full use of to further increase his wealth and influence. The pair overhauled Rome's political structure, overturning Sulla's constitution and expelling 64 senators. Politically, though, Crassus again lost ground to Pompey following the latter's string of military victories, notably his spectacular eradication of the Mediterranean pirates in just three months and the swift defeat Mithridates VI in the East.

Made censor in 65 BCE, Crassus' two most significant policies of granting citizenship to the Transpadanes (in the part of Cisalpine Gaul north of the river Po) and annexing Egypt both failed and he was forced to resign from the position. Also, his backing of Catiline failed to secure this dangerous and unscrupulous schemer the consulship of 65 or 64 BCE and the Senate, instead, went for the more conservative Cicero. According to Suetonius in his biography of Caesar and a lost work by Cicero (quoted in secondary sources), Crassus had actually planned in 65 BCE, in collusion with Caesar, Publius Sulla and Lucius Autronius, to make himself dictator by purging the Senate of opposition but the conspirators inexplicably lost their nerve at the last moment. The story is rejected as a fiction by most modern scholars.

Crassus continued to pull strings behind the political scenes, largely functioning as a patron of younger men such as Julius Caesar, whose debts Crassus guaranteed in 62 BCE. Caesar also persuaded Crassus to settle his differences with Pompey so that both would support Caesar's bid to become consul, which he achieved in 59 BCE. In return, Caesar passed a law which cancelled one third of the money owed by public contractors (publicani) in Asia, a move which further increased Crassus' now legendary personal fortune. According to Plutarch, Crassus had accumulated the vast sum of 7,100 talents, had extensive real estate interests, owned silver mines, possessed a huge number of slaves, and, of course, he was able to fund his own army.

The three men now formed an open alliance known as the First Triumvirate but it was at times an uneasy one. When Caesar left for Gaul, Crassus found a new protege in P. Clodius Pulcher but he turned out to be a dangerous and unreliable ally. In 56 BCE Crassus did warn Caesar that Cicero planned to politically isolate him from Crassus and Pompey. To reinforce their alliance, Crassus met Caesar at Ravenna and then all three met together at Luca. The plan was for Crassus and Pompey to be made consuls once more with the former given a 5-year command in Syria and the latter given the same position in Spain. In turn, they would both call for a renewal of Caesar's command allowing him another 5-year term as governor in Gaul and the consequent opportunity to expand his army. All going according to plan, Crassus left for Syria in 55 BCE where he was set on a lucrative invasion of Parthia.

Disaster in Parthia
Crassus' initial stay in Syria proved successful as he extorted enormous riches from the local population and won several military victories in 54 BCE. Crossing the Euphrates in 53 BCE, and accompanied by his son P. Licinius Crassus as a cavalry commander, the elder Crassus was confident of more success. However, already deserted by the Armenian king Artavasdes II and having lost his son in an overly-aggressive earlier attack, Crassus himself was defeated near Carrhae. Without sufficient cavalry and logistical support, hampered by the campaign's lack of planning in the harsh desert terrain, and suffering a little local treachery, the legions were unable to adequately face the 10,000 skilled mounted archers of Orodes II, the Parthian king. Consequently, the Romans were encircled, trapped and forced to surrender arms and their Eagle standards (a point which would rankle with Rome until their retrieval by Augustus). According to legend, Crassus was captured alive and killed by having molten gold poured down his throat, symbolic of his unquenchable thirst for wealth.

With the removal of Crassus from the political game to control Rome, Pompey and Caesar were left to fight out a bloody civil war which would lay the foundations for a complete overhaul of Roman politics and, ultimately, open the doors to dictatorship and the Imperial age.

Conclusion
Crassus was one of the old school politicians of Republican Rome. Hugely successful in his early years and acquiring vast wealth, he was, perhaps, left behind the times when Rome edged towards the new era of Imperial politics and a time when military prowess and might came to count far more than mastery of politics. Unable to match the victories of Pompey and Julius Caesar, Crassus died in his attempt to conquer Parthia, in what was his last and fateful throw of the political dice.
(Source: https://www.ancient.eu/Marcus_Liciniu...)

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(no image) Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic by Allen Mason Ward (no photo)
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by Plutarch

Cicero



Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman orator, statesman and writer. He was born on the 6th January 106 BCE at either Arpinum or Sora, 70 miles south-east of Rome, in the Volscian mountains. His father was an affluent eques and the family was distantly related to Gaius Marius. He is not to be confused with his son (of the same name) or Quintus Tullius Cicero (his younger brother). Cicero died on the 7th December 43 BCE, trying to escape Rome by sea.

Life
Cicero was sent to Rome to study law under the Scaevolas, who were the equivalent Ciceros of their day, and he also studied philosophy under Philo, who had been head of the Academy at Athens and also the stoic Diodotus. However, Cicero’s early life was not one that was sheltered behind books and learning, and at the age of 17 he served in the Social war under Pompey the Great’s father. It was during this period of political upheaval in Rome, the 80s BCE, that Cicero finished his formal education.

However, that is not to say that Cicero stopped his learnings! In 79 BCE he left Rome for two years abroad, with the aim of improving his health and studying further. In Athens he was taught by masterful Greek rhetoricians and philosophers, and it was in Athens that he met another Roman student, Titus Pomponius Atticus. Atticus went on to be Cicero’s lifelong friend and correspondent. Whilst in Rhodes Cicero went to the famous Posidonius. It was during this time that Cicero married his first wife, Terentia, and after he had returned to Rome in 77 BCE he was voted quaestor at the minimum age of 30; things were seemingly progressing quickly! But after having spent his quaestorship at Lilybaeum, he never gladly left Rome again. As such his refusal of provincial governorships led to Cicero concentrating on legal work, through which he prospered both monetarily and politically. A good example of this is the In Verrem, this speech has a message of interest that is relevant to current issues of cultural heritage and war. In 69 BCE Cicero was aedile and in 66 BCE Cicero became praetor, again, at the minimum age, which was 40.

It would be very difficult to overestimate the influence that Cicero has had on western literature and culture.

Between 66 and 63 BCE Cicero’s political views became more conservative, especially in contrast to the social reforms being proposed by Julius Caesar, Gaius Antonius, and Catiline. Cicero’s success is born by the fact that he received the consulship of 63- 62 BCE, once again, at the minimum age (42) and that he was consul prior, the consul who had won by the most votes, and further to this, he was also a novus homo. It was during this time that Cicero successfully exposed the Catalinian revolution, and under the power of the Senatus Consultum Ultimum put to death the revolutionaries who had survived up until that point. This led to Marcus Cato calling Cicero pater patriase, ‘father of his country’.

It was at the end of 62 BCE that Cicero first kindled Clodius' hatred against him; after Cicero's evidence had foiled Clodius’ alibi in a case which accused him of dressing as a woman to gain entrance to the Bona Dea, a mystery, female-only event. This case came back to haunt Cicero in 58 BCE, when Clodius, having been voted tribune of the people, introduced a retrospective law that outlawed any Roman who had put a Roman citizen to death without a trial. It is fairly certain that this law related specifically to Cicero’s actions during the Catalinian uprising five year before, when the revolutionaries had been killed without trial, due to the urgency with which the revolt needed to be put down. In March 58 BCE Cicero left Rome in exile. Any doubt over some sort of personal motive by Clodius is dispelled by the fact that he then went on to make a decree that specifically named and exiled Cicero and then confiscated his property on the Palatine Hill, which was then destroyed. However, the exile was short lived. Pompey, aided by the tribune Milo, pushed for a law of the people that would recall Cicero; the law was passed on 4th August 57 BCE.

Cicero had never been friendly towards the first triumvirate, specifically Julius Caesar and his radicalising policies. Despite this, Caesar had always been fairly cordial to Cicero, and seemingly, when the first triumvirate was originally founded, had made suggestions to Cicero with the possible view to include him in the alliance; it was Cicero’s principles that averted any such eventuality; he was unwilling to go into any political relationship with someone who’s views were so opposed to his own. In 56 BCE this sentiment can still be seen in letters to his friends which express how his pride had been crushed after having to accept the political situation (the first triumvirate had been renewed in April 56 BCE). As the politics of Republican Rome worsened in the 50s BCE Cicero turned to writing philosophy and rhetoric, perhaps as a way of escaping the worsened situations that he had to deal with. In 55 BCE Cicero wrote the De oratore, three books on rhetoric. In 54 BCE Cicero was further insulted by being bided by the triumvirs to defend those who were his enemies, Vatinus and Gabinius ( the Pro Vatinius was succesful but the Pro Gabinius was unsucessful), and he was devastated when his defence of Milo, the man who had been vital in Cicero’s return to Rome, failed, and Milo was sent into exile. There was only slight solace for Cicero when he was elected augur in 53 BCE.

From 51- 50 BCE Cicero was under duty to govern the province of Cilicia, when he arrived back at Rome, the city was on the edge of civil war, and when it finally toppled into that abyss, Cicero left the city once more. It was only in 47 BCE when Caesar and Pompey had finally settled their differences that he thought it safe to return to the city. However, things did not exactly get better for him; this time it was for private, rather than public, reasons. In 46 BCE Cicero divorced his wife Terentia, whom he had been married to for almost thirty years and then married Publilia, who had been his ward, shortly afterwards. The next year grief struck Cicero when his daughter Tullia died, and the lack of sympathy that his second wife showed led to her also being divorced. Matters were made worse for Cicero by the fact that it was becoming ever more apparent that Caesar was not going to reinstitute the republican constitution. Cicero then turned to writing, composing some of his greatest works, since his political career could not last; he had supported what was in the end a constitution that did not succeed. In 45 BCE Cicero composed the Consolatio, on the deaths of great men, and the Hortensius, which is a plea to study philosophy. A now lost panegyric to Cato was also written in this year, which Caesar himself replied to with the Anticato (again, lost). With the murder of Caesar in 44 BCE, there was once again great political upheaval in Rome, with the beginnings of Imperial Rome in the making, and it was this that eventually led to the events of Cicero’s execution.

When the second triumvirate had come into action between Octavian, Lepidus and Antony, as a result of Cicero’s propaganda against Antony in the form of his Philippics, Cicero's name was on the first list of people that Antony had put down for proscriptions. As Cicero tried to escape the inevitable he was caught by Antony’s men and boldly accepted his execution. Both his hands and head were put on display on the Rostra in Rome; a grim ending to a brilliant man’s life that emphasises the brutality of the politics at end of the Roman Republic.
(Source: http://www.ancient.eu/Cicero/)

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(no image) Cicero: A Study in the Origins of Republican Philosophy by Robert T. Radford (no photo)
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by Anthony Everitt

Catiline



Lucius Sergius Catilina, known in English as Catiline (/ˈkætəlaɪn/; 108–62 BC), was a Roman Senator of the 1st century BC best known for the second Catilinarian conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Roman Republic and, in particular, the power of the aristocratic Senate. He is also known for several acquittals in court, including one for the charge of adultery with a Vestal Virgin.

Family background
Catiline was born in 108 BC to one of the oldest patrician families in Rome, gens Sergia. Although his family was of consular heritage, they were then declining in both social and financial fortunes. Virgil later gave the family an ancestor, Sergestus, who had come with Aeneas to Italy, presumably because they were notably ancient; but they had not been prominent for centuries. The last Sergius to be consul had been Gnaeus Sergius Fidenas Coxo in 380 BC. Later, these factors would dramatically shape Catiline's ambitions and goals as he would desire above all else to restore the political heritage of his family along with its financial power.

Life before the conspiracy
An able commander, Catiline had a distinguished military career. He served in the Social War with Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Cicero, under Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo in 89 BC. During the regime of Gaius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Cinna and Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, Catiline played no major role, but he remained politically secure. He later supported Lucius Cornelius Sulla in the civil war of 84–81 BC. It was during Sulla's proscriptions that Catiline, according to accusations made by Cicero, maimed and then killed and beheaded his brother-in-law, Marcus Marius Gratidianus, at the tomb of Catulus; he then carried the head through the streets of Rome and deposited it at Sulla's feet at the Temple of Apollo. Catiline is also accused of murdering his first wife and son so that he could marry the wealthy and beautiful Aurelia Orestilla, daughter of the Consul of 71 BC, Gnaeus Aufidius Orestes. In the early 70s BC he served abroad, possibly with Publius Servilius Vatia in Cilicia. In 73 BC, he was brought to trial for adultery with the Vestal Virgin, Fabia, who was a half-sister of Cicero's wife, Terentia, but Quintus Lutatius Catulus, the principal leader of the Optimates, testified in his favor, and eventually Catiline and Fabia were acquitted.

He was praetor in 68 BC, and for the following two years was the propraetorian governor for Africa. Upon his return home in 66 BC, he presented himself as a candidate for the consular elections, but a delegation from Africa appealing to the Senate, indicting him for abuses, prevented this as the incumbent consul, Lucius Volcatius Tullus, disallowed the candidacy. He was finally brought to trial in 65 BC, where he received the support of many distinguished men, including many consulars. Even one of the consuls for 65 BC, Lucius Manlius Torquatus, demonstrated his support for Catiline. Cicero also contemplated defending Catiline in court. Eventually, Catiline was acquitted. The author of Commentariolum Petitionis, possibly Cicero's brother, Quintus Cicero, suggests that Catiline was only acquitted by the fact that: "he left the court as poor as some of his judges had been before the trial," implying that he bribed his judges.

First Catilinarian conspiracy
The first Catilinarian conspiracy was a plot to murder the consuls of 65 BC and seize power. Historians consider it unlikely that Catiline would have been involved in the First Catilinarian Conspiracy or, indeed, that the conspiracy existed at all.

Intervening years
During 64 BC, Catiline was officially accepted as a candidate in the consular election for 63 BC. He ran alongside Gaius Antonius Hybrida, who some suspect may have been a fellow conspirator. Nevertheless, Catiline was defeated by Cicero and Antonius Hybrida in the consular election, largely because the Roman aristocracy feared Catiline and his economic plan. The Optimates were particularly repulsed because he promoted the plight of the urban plebs along with his economic policy of tabulae novae, the universal cancellation of debts.

He was brought to trial later that same year, but this time it was for his role in the Sullan proscriptions. At the insistence of Cato the Younger, then quaestor, all men who had profited during the proscriptions were brought to trial. For his involvement, Catiline was accused of killing his former brother-in-law Marcus Marius Gratidianus, carrying this man’s severed head through the streets of Rome and then having Sulla add him to the proscription to make it legal. Other allegations claimed that he murdered several other notable men. Despite this, Catiline was acquitted again, though some surmise that it was through the influence of Caesar, who presided over the court.

Catiline chose to stand for the consulship again in the following year. However, by the time of the consular election for 62 BC, Catiline had lost much of the political support he had enjoyed during the previous year's election. He was defeated by two other candidates, Decimus Junius Silanus and Lucius Licinius Murena, ultimately crushing his political ambitions. The only remaining chance of attaining the consulship would be through an illegitimate means, conspiracy or revolution.

Second Catilinarian conspiracy
The second Catilinarian conspiracy was a plot, devised by Catiline with the help of a group of aristocrats and disaffected veterans, to overthrow the Roman Republic in 63 BC. Cicero exposed the plot, which forced Catiline to flee from Rome.

Death
The failure of the conspiracy in Rome was a massive blow to Catiline. Upon hearing of the death of Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura and the others, many men deserted his army, reducing the size from about 10,000 to a mere 3,000. He and his ill-equipped army began to march towards Gaul and then back towards Rome several times in vain attempts to avoid a battle. However, Catiline was forced to fight when Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer blocked him from the north with three legions. So, he chose to engage Antonius Hybrida's army near Pistoia, hoping that he could defeat Antonius in the ensuing battle and dishearten the other Republican armies. Catiline also hoped that he might have an easier battle against Antonius who, he assumed, would fight less determinedly, as he had once been allied with Catiline. In fact, Catiline may have still believed that Antonius Hybrida was conspiring with him—which may have been true, as Antonius Hybrida claimed to be ill on the day of the battle.

Catiline and all his troops fought bravely, with Catiline himself fighting on the front lines. Once Catiline saw that there was no hope of victory, he threw himself into the thick of the fray. When the corpses were counted, all Catiline's soldiers were found with frontal wounds, and his corpse was found far in front of his own lines. In Catiline's War, the 1st-century BC Roman historian Sallust gives the following account:

"When the battle was ended it became evident what boldness and resolution had pervaded Catiline's army. For almost every man covered with his body, when life was gone, the position which he had taken when alive at the beginning of the conflict. A few, indeed, in the centre, whom the praetorian cohort had scattered, lay a little apart from the rest, but the wounds even of these were in front. But Catiline was found far in advance of his men amid a heap of slain foemen, still breathing slightly, and showing in his face the indomitable spirit which had animated him when alive."

Legacy
After Catiline's death, many of the poor still regarded him with respect and did not view him as the traitor and villain that Cicero claimed he was. The aristocratic element of Rome, however, certainly viewed him in a much darker light. Sallust wrote an account of the conspiracy that epitomized Catiline as representative of all of the evils festering in the declining Roman republic. In his account, Sallust attributes countless crimes and atrocities to Catiline, but even he refuses to heap some of the most outrageous claims on him, particularly a ritual that involved drinking blood of a sacrificed child. Later historians such as Florus and Dio Cassius, far removed from the original events, recorded the claims of Sallust and the aforementioned rumors as facts. Up until the modern era Catiline was equated, as Sallust described, to everything depraved and contrary to both the laws of the gods and men.

Nevertheless, many Romans still viewed his character with a degree of respect. Well after Catiline's death and the end of the threat of the conspiracy, even Cicero reluctantly admitted that Catiline was an enigmatic man who possessed both the greatest of virtues and the most terrible of vices.

Catiline spoke with an eloquence that demanded loyalty from his followers and strengthened the resolve of his friends. Without doubt Catiline possessed a degree of courage that few have, and he died a particularly honorable death in Roman society. Unlike most Roman generals of the late republic, Catiline offered himself to his followers both as a general and as soldier on the front lines.

While history has viewed Catiline through the lenses of his enemies, some modern historians have reassessed Catiline, such as Michael Parenti, in The Assassination of Julius Caesar. To some extent Catiline's name has been freed from many of its previous associations, and to some the name of Catiline has even undergone a transformation from a traitor and villain to a heroic agrarian reformer. Thus, some view Catiline as a reformer such as the Gracchi who met similar resistance from the government. But many place him somewhere in between—a man who used the plight of the poor to suit his personal interests and a politician of the time no more corrupt than any other. Interestingly in parts of Italy up until the Middle Ages the legend of 'Catellina' continued to exist and was favourable to him. Still other scholarly texts, such as H. E. Gould and J. L. Whiteley's Macmillan edition of Cicero's In Catilinam, dismiss Catiline as a slightly deranged revolutionary, primarily concerned with the cancellation of his own debts, accrued in running for so many consulships, and in achieving the status he believed his by birthright due to his family name.
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catiline)

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(no image) Catiline, Clodius, and Tiberius by Edward Beesly (no photo)
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Second Catilinarian conspiracy



The second Catilinarian conspiracy, also known simply as the Catiline conspiracy, was a plot, devised by the Roman senator Catiline, with the help of a group of fellow aristocrats and disaffected veterans of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, to overthrow the consulship of Marcus Tullius Cicero and Gaius Antonius Hybrida. In 63 BC, Cicero exposed the plot, forcing Catiline to flee from Rome.

Composition of the conspiracy
Catiline had been an unsuccessful candidate in the consular election several times. His only remaining chance of attaining the consulship would be through an illegitimate means. So he started a conspiracy, winning the support of a great number of other men of senatorial and equestrian rank. Many of the other leading conspirators had faced political problems similar to his in the Senate. Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, the most influential conspirator after Catiline, had held the rank of consul in 71 BC, but he had been cast out of the senate by the censors during a political purge in the following year on the pretext of debauchery. Publius Autronius Paetus was also complicit in their plot, since he was banned from holding office in the Roman government. Another leading conspirator, Lucius Cassius Longinus, who was praetor in 66 BC with Cicero, joined the conspiracy after he failed to obtain the consulship in 64 BC along with Catiline. By the time that the election came around, he was no longer even regarded as a viable candidate. Gaius Cethegus, a relatively young man at the time of the conspiracy, was noted for his violent nature. His impatience for rapid political advancement may account for his involvement in the conspiracy. The ranks of the conspirators included a variety of other patricians and plebeians who had been cast out of the political system for various reasons. Many of them sought the restoration of their status as senators and their lost political power.

Promoting his policy of debt relief, Catiline initially also rallied many of the poor to his banner along with a large portion of Sulla’s veterans.[ Debt had never been greater than in 63 BC since the previous decades of war had led to an era of economic downturn across the Italian countryside. Numerous plebeian farmers lost their farms and were forced to move to the city, where they swelled the numbers of the urban poor. Sulla's veterans were in bad economic straits as well. Desiring to regain their fortunes, they were prepared to march to war under the banner of the "next" Sulla. Thus, many of the plebs eagerly flocked to Catiline and supported him in the hope of the absolution of their debts.

Course of the conspiracy
Catiline sent Gaius Manlius, a centurion from Sulla’s old army, to manage the conspiracy in Etruria where he assembled an army. Others were sent to aid the conspiracy in important locations throughout Italy, and even a small slave revolt which had begun in Capua. While civil unrest was felt throughout the countryside, Catiline made the final preparations for the conspiracy in Rome. Their plans included arson and the murder of a large portion of the senators, after which they would join up with Manlius’ army. Finally, they would return to Rome and take control of the government. To set the plan in motion, Gaius Cornelius and Lucius Vargunteius were to assassinate Cicero early in the morning on November 7, 63 BC, but Quintus Curius, a senator who would eventually become one of Cicero's chief informants, warned Cicero of the threat through his mistress Fulvia. Fortunately for Cicero, he escaped death that morning by placing guards at the entrance of his house who scared the conspirators away.

On the following day, Cicero convened the Senate in the Temple of Jupiter Stator and surrounded it with armed guards. Much to his surprise, Catiline was in attendance while Cicero denounced him before the Senate and it's been said that the senators adjacent to Catiline slowly moved away from him during the course of the speech, the first of Cicero's four Catiline Orations. However, some sources suggest that the Senate didn't believe Cicero at all. Incensed at these accusations, Catiline exhorted the Senate to recall the history of his family and how it had served the republic, instructing them not to believe false rumors and to trust the name of his family. He finally accused them of placing their faith in a "homo novus", Cicero, over a "nobilis", himself. Supposedly, Catiline violently concluded that he would put out his own fire with the general destruction of all.[ Immediately afterward, he rushed home and the same night ostensibly complied with Cicero's demand and fled Rome under the pretext that he was going into voluntary exile at Massilia because of his "mistreatment" by the consul; however, he arrived at Manlius’ camp in Etruria to further his designs of revolution.

While Catiline was preparing the army, the conspirators continued with their plans. The conspirators observed that a delegation from the Allobroges was in Rome seeking relief from the oppression of its governor. So, Lentulus Sura instructed Publius Umbrenus, a businessman with dealings in Gaul, to offer to free them of their miseries and to throw off the heavy yoke of their governor. He brought Publius Gabinius Capito, a leading conspirator of the equestrian rank, to meet them and the conspiracy was revealed to the Allobroges. The envoys quickly took advantage of this opportunity and informed Cicero who then instructed the envoys to get tangible proof of the conspiracy. Five of the leading conspirators wrote letters to the Allobroges so that the envoys could show their people that there was hope in a real conspiracy. However, a trap had been laid. These letters were intercepted in transit to Gaul at the Milvian Bridge. Then, Cicero had the incriminating letters read before the Senate the following day, and shortly thereafter these five conspirators were condemned to death without a trial despite an eloquent protest by Julius Caesar. Fearing that other conspirators might try to free Lentulus and the rest, Cicero had them strangled in the Tullianum immediately. He even escorted Lentulus to the Tullianum personally. After the executions, he announced to a crowd gathering in the Forum what had occurred. Thus, an end was made to the conspiracy in Rome. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_...)

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[bookcover:The Death of the Catiline Conspirators|25529707] by Glen Miles (no photo)
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Sallust



Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust (/ˈsæləst/; 86 – c. 35 BC), was a Roman historian, politician, and novus homo from an Italian plebeian family. Sallust was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines and was a popularis, an opponent of the old Roman aristocracy, throughout his career, and later a partisan of Julius Caesar. Sallust is the earliest known Roman historian with surviving works to his name, of which Catiline's War (about the conspiracy in 63 BC of L. Sergius Catilina), The Jugurthine War (about Rome's war against the Numidians from 111 to 105 BC), and the Histories (of which only fragments survive) are still extant. Sallust was primarily influenced by the Greek historian Thucydides and amassed great (and ill-gotten) wealth from his governorship of Africa.

Life and career
Sallust was probably born in Amiternum in Central Italy, though Eduard Schwartz takes the view that Sallust's birthplace was Rome. His birth date is calculated from the report of Jerome's Chronicon. But the New Zealander Ronald Syme suggests that Jerome's date has to be adjusted because of his carelessness, and suggests 87 BC as a more correct date. However, Sallust's birth is widely dated at 86 BC, and the Kleine Pauly Encyclopedia takes 1 October 86 BC as the birthdate. Michael Grant cautiously offers 80s BC.

There is no information about Sallust's parents or family, except for Tacitus' mention of his sister. The Sallustii were a provincial noble family of Sabine origin. They belonged to the equestrian order and had full Roman citizenship. During the Social War Gaius' parents hid in Rome, because Amiternum was under threat of siege by rebelling Italic tribes. Because of this Sallust could have been raised in Rome He received a very good education.

After an ill-spent youth, Sallust entered public life and may have won election as quaestor in 55 BC. However, there is no strict evidence about this, and some scholars suppose that Sallust did not become a quaestor — the practice of violating the cursus honorum was common in the last years of the Republic. He became a Tribune of the Plebs in 52 BC, the year in which the followers of Milo killed Clodius in a street brawl. Sallust then supported the prosecution of Milo. Sallust, Titus Munatius Plancus and Quintus Pompeius Rufus also tried to blame Cicero, one of the leaders of the Senators' opposition to the triumvirate, for his support of Milo. Syme suggests that Sallust, because of his position in Milo's trial, did not originally support Caesar. T. Mommsen states that Sallust acted in Pompey's interests (according to Mommsen, Pompey was preparing to install his own dictatorship).

According to one inscription, some Sallustius (with unclear praenomen) was a proquaestor in Syria in 50 BC under Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus. Mommsen identified this Sallustius with Sallust the historian, though T. R. S. Broughton argued that Sallust the historian could not have been an assistant to Julius Caesar's adversary.

From the beginning of his public career, Sallust operated as a decided partisan of Julius Caesar, to whom he owed such political advancement as he attained. In 50 BC, the censor Appius Claudius Pulcher removed him from the Senate on the grounds of gross immorality (probably really because of his opposition to Milo and Cicero). In the following year, perhaps through Caesar's influence, he was reinstated.

During the Civil War of 49–45 BC Sallust acted as Caesar's partisan, but his role was not significant, so his name is not mentioned in the dictator's Commentarii de Bello Civili. It was reported that Sallust dined with Caesar, Hirtius, Oppius, Balbus and Sulpicius Rufus on the night after Caesar's famous crossing of the Rubicon river into Italy on 10 January. In 49 BC Sallust was moved to Illyricum and probably commanded at least one legion there after the failure of Publius Cornelius Dolabella and Gaius Antonius. This campaign was unsuccessful. In 48 BC he was probably made quaestor by Caesar to re-enter the Senate. However, the last statement is based on the "Invective against Sallust" ascribed to Cicero, which is probably a later forgery. In late summer 47 BC a group of soldiers rebelled near Rome, demanding their discharge and payment for service. Sallust, as praetor designates, with several other senators, was sent to persuade the soldiers, but the rebels killed two senators, and Sallust narrowly escaped death. In 46 BC, he served as a praetor and accompanied Caesar in his African campaign, which ended in the decisive defeat of the remains of the Pompeian war party at Thapsus. Sallust did not participate in military operations directly, but he commanded several ships and organized supply through the Kerkennah Islands. As a reward for his services, Sallust was appointed governor of the province of Africa Nova — it is not clear why: Sallust was not a skilled general, and the province was militarily significant, with three legions deployed there. Moreover, his successors as governor were experienced military men. However, Sallust successfully managed the organization of supply and transportation, and these qualities could have determined Caesar's choice. As governor he committed such oppression and extortion that only Caesar's influence enabled him to escape condemnation. On his return to Rome he purchased and began laying out in great splendour the famous gardens on the Quirinal known as the Horti Sallustiani or Gardens of Sallust. These gardens would later belong to the emperors.

Sallust then retired from public life and devoted himself to historical literature, and further developed his Gardens, upon which he spent much of his accumulated wealth. According to Hieronymus Stridonensis, Sallust later became the second husband of Cicero's ex-wife Terentia. However prominent scholars of Roman prosopography such as Ronald Syme refute this as a legend.

Works
Sallust's account of the Catiline conspiracy (De coniuratione Catilinae or Bellum Catilinae) and of the Jugurthine War (Bellum Iugurthinum) have come down to us complete, together with fragments of his larger and most important work (Historiae), a history of Rome from 78 to 67 BC, intended as a continuation of Cornelius Sisenna's work.

The Conspiracy of Catiline
The Conspiracy of Catiline (Sallust's first published work) contains the history of the memorable year 63. Sallust adopts the usually accepted view of Catiline, and describes him as the deliberate foe of law, order and morality, and does not give a comprehensive explanation of his views and intentions. (Catiline had supported the party of Sulla, whom Sallust had opposed.) Mommsen has suggested that Sallust particularly wished to clear his patron (Caesar) of all complicity in the conspiracy.

In writing about the conspiracy of Catiline, Sallust's tone, style, and descriptions of aristocratic behavior show that he was deeply troubled by the moral decline of Rome. While he inveighs against Catiline's depraved character and vicious actions, he does not fail to state that the man had many noble traits, indeed all that a Roman man needed to succeed. In particular, Sallust shows Catiline as deeply courageous in his final battle.

This subject gave Sallust the opportunity to show off his rhetoric at the expense of the old Roman aristocracy, whose degeneracy he delighted to paint in the blackest colours.

The work probably was written between 44 and 40 BC, or between 42 and 41 BC according to Der Kleine Pauly. However, Louis MacKay proposed a different dating. According to him, The Conspiracy was prepared by Sallust in 50 BC as a political pamphlet, but was not published; after the Civil War Sallust reviewed and finally published it.

The work does not have any traces of personal experience, and the most common explanation is Sallust's military service during this period. The main source for this work is De Consulatu Suo by Cicero.

Jugurthine War
Sallust's Jugurthine War is a monograph recording the war against Jugurtha in Numidia from c. 112 BC to 105 BC. Its true value lies in the introduction of Marius and Sulla to the Roman political scene and the beginning of their rivalry. Sallust's time as governor of Africa Nova ought to have let the author develop a solid geographical and ethnographical background to the war; however, this is not evident in the monograph, despite a diversion on the subject, because Sallust's priority in the Jugurthine War, as with the Catiline Conspiracy, is to use history as a vehicle for his judgement on the slow destruction of Roman morality and politics.

Other works
The extant fragments of the Histories (some discovered in 1886) show sufficiently well the political partisan, who took a keen pleasure in describing the reaction against Sulla's policy and legislation after the dictator's death. Historians regret the loss of the work, as it must have thrown much light on a very eventful period, embracing the war against Sertorius (died 72 BC), the campaigns of Lucullus against Mithradates VI of Pontus (75-66 BC), and the victories of Pompey in the East (66-62 BC).

Two letters (Duae epistolae de republica ordinanda), letters of political counsel and advice addressed to Caesar, and an attack upon Cicero (Invectiva or Declamatio in Ciceronem), frequently attributed to Sallust, are thought by modern scholars to have come from the pen of a rhetorician of the 1st century AD, along with a counter-invective attributed to Cicero. At one time Marcus Porcius Latro was considered a candidate for the authorship of the pseudo-Sallustian corpus, but this view is no longer commonly held.
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallust)

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Tribune of the Plebs


The Secession of the People to the Mons Sacer, engraving by B. Barloccini, 1849

Tribunus plebis, rendered in English as tribune of the plebs, tribune of the people, or plebeian tribune, was the first office of the Roman state that was open to the plebeians, and throughout the history of the Republic, the most important check on the power of the Roman senate and magistrates. These tribunes had the power to convene and preside over the Concilium Plebis, or people's assembly; to summon the senate; to propose legislation; and to intervene on behalf of plebeians in legal matters; but the most significant power of these tribunes was the power to veto the actions of the consuls and other magistrates, thus protecting the interests of the plebeians as a class. The tribunes of the plebs were sacrosanct, meaning that any assault on their person was prohibited by law. In imperial times, the powers of the tribunate were granted to the emperor as a matter of course, and the office itself lost its independence and most of its functions. During the day the tribunes used to sit on the tribune benches on the Forum Romanum.

Fifteen years after the expulsion of the kings and establishment of the Roman Republic, the plebeians were burdened by the weight of crushing debt. A series of clashes between the people and the ruling patricians in 495 and 494 BC brought the plebeians to the brink of revolt, and there was talk of assassinating the consuls. Instead, on the advice of Lucius Sicinius Vellutus, the plebeians seceded en masse to the Mons Sacer (the Sacred Mount), a hill outside of Rome.

Panicked by this turn of events, the senate dispatched Agrippa Menenius Lanatus, a former consul who was well-liked by the plebeians, who considered him one of their own, as an envoy to the plebeians. Menenius was well-received, and told the fable of the belly and the limbs, likening the people to the limbs who chose not to support the belly, and thus starved themselves; just as the belly and the limbs, the city, he explained, could not survive without both the patricians and plebeians working in concert.

The plebeians agreed to negotiate for their return to the city; and their condition was that special tribunes should be appointed to represent the plebeians, and to protect them from the power of the consuls. No member of the senatorial class would be eligible for this office (in practice, this meant that only plebeians were eligible for the tribunate), and the tribunes should be sacrosanct; any person who laid hands on one of the tribunes would be outlawed, and the whole body of the plebeians entitled to kill such person without fear of penalty. The senate agreeing to these terms, the people returned to the city.

The first tribuni plebis were Lucius Albinius Paterculus and Gaius Licinius, appointed for the year 493 BC. Soon afterward, the tribunes themselves appointed Sicinius and two others as their colleagues.

Powers of the tribunes
Although sometimes referred to as plebeian magistrates, the tribunes of the people, like the plebeian aediles, who were created at the same time, were technically not magistrates, as they were elected by the plebeian assembly alone. However, they functioned very much like magistrates of the Roman state. They could convene the concilium plebis, which was entitled to pass legislation affecting the plebeians alone (plebiscita), and beginning in 493 BC to elect the plebeian tribunes and aediles. From the institution of the tribunate, any one of the tribunes of the plebs was entitled preside over this assembly. The tribunes were entitled to propose legislation before the assembly. By the third century BC, the tribunes also had the right to call the senate to order, and lay proposals before it.

Ius intercessionis, or intercession, the power of the tribunes to intercede on behalf of the plebeians and veto the actions of the magistrates, was unique in Roman history. Because they were not technically magistrates, and thus possessed no maior potestas, they relied on their sacrosanctity to obstruct actions unfavourable to the plebeians. Being sacrosanct, no person could harm the tribunes or interfere with their activities. To do so, or to disregard the veto of a tribune, was punishable by death, and the tribunes could order the death of persons who violated their sacrosanctity. This could be used as a protection when a tribune needed to arrest someone. This sacrosanctity also made the tribunes independent of all magistrates; no magistrate could veto the action of a tribune. If a magistrate, the senate, or any other assembly disregarded the orders of a tribune, he could "interpose the sacrosanctity of his person" to prevent such action. Only a dictator (or perhaps an interrex) was exempted from the veto power.

The tribunes could veto elections and acts of the Roman senate, and on rare occasions could impose a blanket veto over all government functions; this was done by the tribune Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in 134 BC, when the senate attempted to block his agrarian reforms by imposing the veto of another tribune.

Tribunes also possessed the authority to enforce the right of provocatio ad populum, a precursor of the modern right of Habeas corpus. This entitled a citizen to appeal the actions of a magistrate by shouting, ego te provoco! Once invoked, this right required one of the tribunes to assess the situation, and determine the lawfulness of the magistrate's action. Any action taken in defiance of this right was illegal on its face. In effect, this gave the tribunes of the people unprecedented power to protect individuals from the arbitrary exercise of state power, and afforded Roman citizens a degree of liberty unequalled in the ancient world.

Limitations
Although a tribune could veto any action of the magistrates, senate, or other assemblies, he had to be physically present in order to do so. Once the tribune was no longer present, the action could be completed as if the veto had not occurred.

Because the sacrosanctity of the tribunes depended on the oath of the plebeians to defend them, their powers were effectively limited to the boundaries of the city of Rome. A tribune traveling abroad could not rely on his authority to intervene on behalf of the plebeians. For this reason, the activities of the tribunes were normally confined to the city itself, and a one-mile radius beyond.

History
The tribunes in the conflict of the orders
The reconciliation of the patricians and plebeians brought about by the institution of the tribunate in 493 BC was temporary. In 462, the tribune Gaius Terentillius Arsa alleged that the consular government had become even more oppressive than the monarchy that it had replaced. He urged the passage of a law appointing five commissioners to define and limit the powers of the consuls. By threat of war and plague, the issue was postponed for five contentious years, with the same college of tribunes elected each year. In 457, hoping to deprive the law's supporters of their impetus, the senate agreed to increase the number of tribunes to ten, provided that none of the tribunes from the preceding years should be re-elected.

Beginning in 376, Gaius Licinius Calvus Stolo and Lucius Sextius Lateranus, tribunes of the plebs, used the veto power to prevent the election of any annual magistrates. Continuing in office each year, they frustrated the patricians, who, despite electing patrician military tribunes from 371 to 367, finally conceded the consulship, agreeing to the Licinian Rogations. Under this law, military tribunes with consular power were abolished, and one of the consuls elected each year was to be a plebeian. Although this law was occasionally violated by the election of two patrician consuls, Sextius himself was elected consul for 366, and Licinius in 364. At last, the plebeian tribunes had broken the patrician monopoly on the highest magistracies of the state.

Following their victory in 367, the tribunes remained an important check on the power of the senate and the annual magistrates. In 287 BC, the senate formally recognized the plebiscita as laws with binding force. In 149 BC, men elected to the tribunate automatically entered the Senate.

Erosion of the tribunician power at the end of the Republic
However, in 81 BC, the dictator Sulla, who considered the tribunate a threat to his power, deprived the tribunes of their powers to initiate legislation, and to veto acts of the senate. He also prohibited former tribunes from holding any other office, effectively preventing the use of the tribunate as a stepping stone to higher office. Although the tribunes retained the power to intercede on behalf of individual citizens, most of their authority was lost under Sulla's reforms.

Former tribunes were once again admitted to the annual magistracies beginning in 75 BC, and the tribunician authority was fully restored by the consuls Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus in 70, but a precedent had been established. The dignity of the office was further impaired when, in 59 BC, the patrician Publius Clodius Pulcher, who aspired to hold the tribunician power, had himself adopted by a plebeian youth, and renounced his patrician status, in order to be elected tribune for the following year. Although both illegal and absurd, Clodius' scheme was allowed to proceed, and he embarked on a program of legislation designed to outlaw his political opponents and confiscate their property, while realizing a substantial gain from his actions.

In 48 BC, the senate bestowed the tribunicia potestas (tribunician power) on the dictator Gaius Julius Caesar, who, as a patrician, was ineligible to be elected one of the tribunes. When two of the elected tribunes attempted to obstruct his actions, Caesar had them impeached, and taken before the senate, where they were deprived of their powers. Never again did Caesar face opposition from the tribunes; he held the tribunician power until his death in 44.

Although the office of tribune endured throughout imperial times, its independence and most of its practical functions were lost. Together with the aedileship, it remained a step in the political career of many plebeians who aspired to sit in the senate, at least until the third century. There is evidence that the tribunate continued to exist as late as the fifth century AD. (Souce: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribune...)

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Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger



The great-grandson of the legendary Marcus Porcius Cato (the Censor), the younger Cato, orphaned at an early age, received his education through his maternal uncle, Marcus Livius Drusus, and steeped his mind in Stoicism and politics.

As a good practitioner of Stoic philosophy, he subjected himself to the most rigorous of physical disciplines, ate sparingly, and lived simply.

Cato’s military career began with his service in 72 b.c.e. during the Servile War against Spartacus and his followers. As a military tribune in Macedonia in 67 b.c.e., he served alongside his men and shared in their hardships and sacrifices.

While in Macedonia, his brother Caepio died, and he journeyed to the Middle East, probably in an attempt to assuage his grief. When Cato returned to Rome in 64 b.c.e. he won election as a quaestor, dealing with the financial interests of the Roman state.

Known for his honesty and integrity, Cato discovered that former quaestors had participated in fraud and murder, and he responded to the revelations by promptly bringing the offenders to justice. He left office amid much public praise and gratitude.

In 63 b.c.e. Cato won election to the tribune of the plebs, an office devised to protect the plebeians (the less privileged) from arbitrary treatment by the patrician (privileged) class. Once in office Cato fought Julius Caesar at every opportunity, disliking Casear’s morals and actions.

Caesar, in turn, had Cato arrested for obstructionism. Once released, Cato attempted to stop Caesar from receiving a five-year appointment as a provincial governor, but to no avail.

Pompey also stood in opposition to Cato, but rather than continually battle his adversary, Pompey proposed an alliance through marriage to one of Cato’s relatives. Cato, believing it was simply a way for Pompey to gain political influence, would not permit the marriage.

It may have been, as Plutarch implies in his brief biography of Cato, a fatal mistake, because Pompey then married Caesar’s daughter, Julia, a union that cemented the relationship between the two leaders—a relationship that eventually destroyed constitutional government in Rome.

In 58 b.c.e. Clodius, a tribune, hoping to rid Rome of the troublesome Cato, appointed him governor of Cyprus. As governor, Cato was meticulous in his record keeping and was fiscally responsible.

He returned to Rome two years later amid great accolades for his service in Cyprus. In 54 b.c.e., as the First Triumvirate disintegrated, Cato became a praetor, an official in charge of judicial affairs, and used his office to halt Caesar’s schemes.

In 53 b.c.e. Cato lost an election for one of the two consulships and then retired from public service. When one of the consuls, Crassus, died at Carrhae that summer, Cato chose to accept Pompey as sole consul of the state.

Civil war ensued in 49 b.c.e., and Caesar’s army crossed the Rubicon bound for Rome. Cato took command of the Republican forces in Sicily, but outnumbered, he left the island without fighting a battle and then chose to follow Pompey to Greece.

Caesar defeated Pompey’s forces at Pharsalus on August 9, 48 b.c.e., and shortly after the debacle, the Egyptians assassinated Pompey as he disembarked on their shores. Cato and the military commander, Quintus Caecilius Metellius Pius Scipio, fled to Africa and continued to resist Caesar from Utica.

Caesar pursued Cato and his allies; in February 46 b.c.e., Caesar defeated Scipio’s forces at the Battle of Thapsus. When Cato received word of Scipio’s defeat in 46 b.c.e., he chose to commit suicide rather than live under the rule of Caesar.

Remembered for his Stoic lifestyle, integrity, and Republican ideals, Cato fought until the day of his death to preserve the Roman Republic and remains for many a model of virtue in public service.
(Source: http://earlyworldhistory.blogspot.com...)

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by Rob Goodman (no photo)
by Pamela Marin (no photo)
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by Plutarch
by Michael Parenti

Publius Clodius Pulcher



The Roman politician Publius Clodius Pulcher (died 52 B.C.) was one of the leading demagogues in the 1st century B.C. As tribune, he wielded nearly as much power as Julius Caesar or Pompey.

Clodius came from one of the most distinguished of Roman families, the Claudii, which later included Roman emperors. His early career showed signs of the turmoil that was a major feature of his later life. In 68 B.C. he preached mutiny to the troops of the aristocratic general Lucullus in Asia Minor. Clodius was also accused of collusion with the revolutionary noble Catiline in 64, although this was disputed. By these acts he established a reputation as an opponent of the entrenched aristocracy and also built a future power base for himself. In 64-63 he served on the staff of Lucius Murena in Transalpine Gaul but was accused of lining his own pockets at the expense of the provincials.

In 62 Clodius became a source of public scandal when, disguised as a woman, he invaded the exclusively female sacred rites dedicated to Bona Dea (the Good Goddess). Clodius was charged with sacrilege, and although Cicero demolished the alibis of Clodius, the latter managed to win acquittal by the extensive use of bribery. This produced a lifelong enmity between Clodius and Cicero.

In this period when Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus were struggling against the conservatives in the Senate, Clodius's talent as a political organizer and goon became increasingly useful. He was advancing through the usual progression of Roman offices, being quaestor in 61, but he soon saw that his talents and connections could best be used as tribune, a representative of the people. Unfortunately, as an aristocrat he was ineligible for this office. However, Caesar also favored Clodius for tribune and in 59 arranged for Clodius's adoption into a plebeian family, at which time his name was changed from the patrician Claudius to the plebeian Clodius. Thus Clodius was elected tribune for the year 58.

Tribune and Power Broker
As tribune, Clodius rapidly set to work to aid his and his patrons' interests. To curry favor with the people he instituted distribution of free corn. To strengthen his operating base he arranged for the legalization of guilds, which had been prohibited 6 years earlier. From these guilds Clodius could draw gangs of toughs to terrorize Rome. Finally, to hamstring the oligarchic senatorial officials Clodius introduced a law which limited the power of the censors to expel members of the Senate and another which restrained magistrates from using religious omens to block public business, a device much used against Caesar the previous year.

Clodius also settled private grudges. He struck at Cicero by means of a law which outlawed any official who had condemned to death a Roman official without trial. Cicero had done this in the case of supporters of Catiline and was forced to go into exile. Clodius tore down the house of Cicero on the Palatine hill, purchased the property himself, and dedicated a part of it as a shrine to liberty. Clodius also removed Cato, another senator dangerous to him, by securing him a special commission to organize Cyprus as a Roman province.

Clodius now emerged as one of the most powerful men in Rome. Caesar had departed for Gaul, and Clodius's gangs spread terror through the city, so that as prominent a person as Pompey was forced to spend the last period of Clodius's tribunate at home for fear of his life. But Clodius by his attacks united his enemies against him. T. Annius Milo, another demagogic politician of the type of Clodius, began to organize gangs with the support of Pompey and the Senate, and the return of Cicero was engineered.

In 56 Clodius was elected curile aedile, and he used this office to continue his attacks on Cicero, accusing him of sacrilege when Cicero repossessed his property on the Palatine. When Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus renewed their alliance at the conference of Luca, they agreed that Clodius must be controlled.

Clodius was aiming to be praetor when, in 52, his gang met that of Milo on the Appian Way, and in the ensuing brawl Clodius was killed. At his funeral in the forum his supporters started a fire which burned down the senate house.
(Source: http://biography.yourdictionary.com/p...)

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http://corvinus.nl/2017/03/27/publius...
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Julius Caesar


Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar was a Roman general and politician who overthrew the Roman Republic and established the rule of the emperors. Caesar used the problems and hardships of the period to create his own supreme political and military power. Roman Emperor Julius Caesar is regarded as one of the most powerful and successful leaders in the history of the world. His life and his violent death have been widely celebrated in literature and film.

Young Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was born on July 12, 100 B.C.E. to Gaius Caesar and Aurelia. His father had gained moderate political success and the family claimed a long and noble history, which therefore entitled Caesar's family to certain traditional privileges and offices. Caesar received the classic education of a young Roman at Rome and in Rhodes. Cicero (106–43 B.C.E. ), a Roman statesman and philosopher, considered Caesar one of the most cultured and literate of Romans. Caesar served as a young officer in Asia Minor and was quaestor (financial official) in Farther Spain (69 B.C.E. ).

Caesar's first important political success came in 63 B.C.E. , when he was elected pontifex maximus, the chief religious office in Rome that carried important political possibilities. Caesar was then elected praetor (an elected Roman official) for 62 B.C.E. and served his propraetorship in Spain. Caesar was quick to take advantage of his power by waging a successful campaign against some native tribes in Lusitania, a Roman province in western Europe. Meanwhile, his political enemies accused him of provoking, or starting, the war.

First Triumvirate
In 59 B.C.E. Caesar won an election to become consul, or an official ruling over foreign lands. The Senate, immediately moving to block his hopes of future political power, assigned him to lands that offered Caesar no possibilities for military glory. Caesar, who desired more glamorous political and military opportunities, saw that he needed allies to overcome his opponents in the Senate.

Caesar soon found the alliance that would become known as the First Triumvirate. He aligned himself with the Roman General Pompey (106–48 B.C.E. ), who brought wealth and military might, and Crassus (140–91 B.C.E. ), a powerful Roman politician who brought important political connections. The alliance was further sealed in 58 B.C.E. with the marriage of Caesar's only daughter, Julia, to Pompey.

Revolt in Gaul
Caesar was awarded the governorship of Gaul, a Roman province occupied by several tribes. While Roman control in Gaul was limited, Rome did have political relations with tribes beyond the actual border of the province. Caesar quickly took advantage of these connections and the shifting power position in Gaul to extend the realm of Roman control.

Caesar decided to undertake an expedition against Britain, whose tribes maintained close contacts with Gaul. These expeditions in 55 and 54 B.C.E. created great enthusiasm in Rome, as for the first time Roman arms had advanced overseas to conquer new peoples. Caesar probably thought that his main task of conquest was complete. In 52 B.C.E. , however, Gaul rose in widespread rebellion against Caesar under Vercingetorix, a nobleman of the tribe of the Arverni. This revolt greatly threatened Caesar's power base.

At the same time, the political situation in Rome was equally chaotic. The tribune (Roman official) Clodius had been murdered, and his death was followed by great disorder in Rome. Caesar had crossed the Alps to watch the changing conditions in Rome. When the news of revolt in Gaul reached him, he recrossed the Alps and rallied his divided army. Caesar's forces lost several battles to Vercingetorix and the Arverni. Vercingetorix made the mistake of taking refuge in the fortress of Alesia, however. Caesar used the best of Roman siege techniques and encircled the fortress to capture the enemy. Soon Vercingetorix was forced to surrender.

Dissolving the Triumvirate
Caesar's long absence from Rome had partially weakened his political power. At the same time Caesar's conquests were well publicized. His Commentaries, which described the campaigns, circulated among the reading public in Rome. Caesar sought to place his conquests in the best possible light, and the Commentaries stressed the importance of defending the friends and allies of Rome against traditional Roman enemies. He had made vast additions to the Roman Empire (about 640,000 square miles) at the expense of peoples who had long been enemies of Rome.

Pompey, on the other hand, had remained in Rome and strengthened his political position by appearing as a leader in a time of chaos. Other tensions in the alliance came with Julia's death in 54 B.C.E. , which removed an important bond between the two men. The death of Crassus in 53 B.C.E. further weakened the relationship between Pompey and Caesar.

Civil war
When Caesar returned to Rome in 50 B.C.E. , the Senate looked to put him on trial for acts he committed while acting as consul. Caesar now had two choices: he could bow to the will of the Senate and be destroyed politically, or he could start a civil war. Caesar chose war.

It the beginning the greater power seemed to rest with Pompey and the Senate, as Pompey had powerful resources with which to draw support against Caesar. However, Caesar had at his command a tough, loyal, and experienced army, as well as an extensive following in Italy. Most of all, he was fighting for his own interests alone and did not have to face the divisions of interest, opinion, and leadership that plagued Pompey.

Pompey quickly decided to abandon Italy to Caesar and fell back to the East. Caesar secured his position in Italy and Gaul and then defeated Pompey at Pharsalus on Aug. 9, 48 B.C.E. Pompey fled to Egypt and was killed by the young pharaoh (king) Ptolemy (63–47 B.C.E. ).

Caesar followed Pompey to Egypt and became involved in the struggle for power in the house of Ptolemy, a family in Egypt that ruled for generations. The main result of his time in Egypt was the affair that developed between Caesar and Cleopatra (51–30 B.C.E. ), Ptolemy's sister and joint ruler of Egypt. She would later give birth to Caesar's son, Caesarion.

Consolidation of the empire
Although his rival was eliminated, much work remained to make Caesar's position secure. He adopted a policy of special clemency, or mercy, toward his former enemies and rewarded political opponents with public office. For himself he adopted the old Roman position of dictator, a ruler with absolute power.

There has been much debate about what political role Caesar planned for himself. He certainly thought the old government was weak and desired to replace it with some form of rule by a single leader. Just before his death, Caesar was appointed dictator for life. About the same time, he began issuing coins with his portrait on them, something never before practiced in Rome up to that time. Caesar was planning major improvements to transform the capital of the empire he commanded. New colonial foundations were under way, and he reordered the defective Roman calendar.

Death and legacy
In Rome dissatisfaction was growing in the Senate over the increasingly permanent nature of Caesar's rule. A conspiracy (secret plan) was formed to remove Caesar and restore the government to the Senate. The conspirators hoped that, with Caesar's death, government would be restored to its old republican form and all of the factors that had produced Caesar would disappear. The conspiracy progressed with Caesar either ignorant of it or not recognizing the warning signs. On the Ides of March (March 15), 44 B.C.E. , he was stabbed to death in the Senate house of Pompey by a group of men that included old friends and allies.

With Caesar's murder, Rome plunged into thirteen years of civil war. Caesar remained for some a symbol of an over-dominant leader, and for others the founder of the Roman Empire whose ghost has haunted Europe ever since. For all, he is a figure of genius and courage equaled by few in history. (Source: http://www.notablebiographies.com/Br-...)

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by Gaius Julius Caesar
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The Roman army


Roman legionaries

The Roman army (Latin: exercitus Romanus) is a term that can in general be applied to the terrestrial armed forces deployed by the Romans throughout the duration of Ancient Rome, from the Roman Kingdom (to c. 500 BC) to the Roman Republic (500–31 BC) and the Roman Empire (31 BC – 395/476 AD), and its successor the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire. It is thus a term that may span approximately 2,206 years (753 BC to 1453 AD), during which the Roman armed forces underwent numerous permutations in composition, organisation, equipment and tactics, while conserving a core of lasting traditions.

Early Roman army (c. 500 BC to c. 300 BC)
The Early Roman army of the Roman Kingdom and of the early Republic (to c. 300 BC). During this period, when warfare chiefly consisted of small-scale plundering raids, it has been suggested that the Roman Army followed Etruscan or Greek models of organisation and equipment. The early Roman army was based on an annual levy.

The infantry ranks were filled with the lower classes while the cavalry (equites or celeries) were left to the patricians, because the wealthier could afford horses. Moreover, the commanding authority during the regal period was the high king. Until the establishment of the Republic and the office of consul, the king assumed the role of commander-in-chief. However, from about 508 BC Rome no longer had a king. The commanding position of the army was given to the consuls, "who were charged both singly and jointly to take care to preserve the Republic from danger".

The term legion is derived from the Latin word legio; which ultimately means draft or levy. At first there were only four legions. These legions were numbered "I" to "IIII", with the fourth being written as such and not "IV". The first legion was seen as the most prestigious. The latter being a recurring theme in many elements of the Roman army. The bulk of the army was made up of citizens. These citizens could not choose the legion to which they were allocated. Any man "from ages 16–46 were selected by ballot" and assigned to a legion.

Until the Roman military disaster of 390 BC at the Battle of the Allia, Rome's army was organised similarly to the Greek phalanx. This was due to Greek influence in Italy "by way of their colonies". Patricia Southern quotes ancient historians Livy and Dionysius in saying that the "phalanx consisted of 3,000 infantry and 300 cavalry". Each man had to provide his equipment in battle; the military equipment which he could afford determined which position he took in the battle. Politically they shared the same ranking system in the Comitia Centuriata; which ultimately vis-à-vis placed the men on the battlefield.

Roman army of the mid-Republic (c. 300–88 BC)
The Roman army of the mid-Republic was also known as the "manipular army" or the "Polybian army" after the Greek historian Polybius, who provides the most detailed extant description of this phase. The Roman army started to have a full-time army of 150,000 at all times and 3/4 of the rest where levyed.

During this period, the Romans, while maintaining the levy system, adopted the Samnite manipular organisation for their legions and also bound all the other peninsular Italian states into a permanent military alliance. The latter were required to supply (collectively) roughly the same number of troops to joint forces as the Romans to serve under Roman command. Legions in this phase were always accompanied on campaign by the same number of allied alae, units of roughly the same size as legions.

After the 2nd Punic War (218–201 BC), the Romans acquired an overseas empire, which necessitated standing forces to fight lengthy wars of conquest and to garrison the newly gained provinces. Thus the army's character mutated from a temporary force based entirely on short-term conscription to a standing army in which the conscripts were supplemented by a large number of volunteers willing to serve for much longer than the legal six-year limit. These volunteers were mainly from the poorest social class, who did not have plots to tend at home and were attracted by the modest military pay and the prospect of a share of war booty. The minimum property requirement for service in the legions, which had been suspended during the 2nd Punic War, was effectively ignored from 201 BC onward in order to recruit sufficient volunteers. Between 150-100 BC, the manipular structure was gradually phased out, and the much larger cohort became the main tactical unit. In addition, from the 2nd Punic War onward, Roman armies were always accompanied by units of non-Italian mercenaries, such as Numidian light cavalry, Cretan archers, and Balearic slingers, who provided specialist functions that Roman armies had previously lacked.

Roman army of the late Republic (88–30 BC)
The Roman army of the late Republic (88–30 BC) marks the continued transition between the conscription-based citizen-levy of the mid-Republic and the mainly volunteer, professional standing forces of the imperial era. The main literary sources for the army's organisation and tactics in this phase are the works of Julius Caesar, the most notable of a series of warlords who contested for power in this period. As a result of the Social War (91–88 BC), all Italians were granted Roman citizenship, the old allied alae were abolished and their members integrated into the legions. Regular annual conscription remained in force and continued to provide the core of legionary recruitment, but an ever-increasing proportion of recruits were volunteers, who signed up for 16-year terms as opposed to the maximum 6 years for conscripts. The loss of ala cavalry reduced Roman/Italian cavalry by 75%, and legions became dependent on allied native horse for cavalry cover. This period saw the large-scale expansion of native forces employed to complement the legions, made up of numeri ("units") recruited from tribes within Rome's overseas empire and neighbouring allied tribes. Large numbers of heavy infantry and cavalry were recruited in Spain, Gaul and Thrace, and archers in Thrace, Anatolia and Syria. However, these native units were not integrated with the legions, but retained their own traditional leadership, organisation, armour and weapons.

Imperial Roman army (30 BC – AD 284)
During this period the Republican system of citizen-conscription was replaced by a standing professional army of mainly volunteers serving standard 20-year terms (plus 5 as reservists), although many in the service of the empire would serve as many as 30 to 40 years on active duty, as established by the first Roman emperor, Augustus (sole ruler 30 BC – AD 14). Under Augustus there were 28 legions, consisting almost entirely of heavy infantry, with about 5,000 men each (total 125,000). This had increased to a peak of 33 legions of about 5,500 men each (c. 180,000 men in total) by AD 200 under Septimius Severus. Legions continued to recruit Roman citizens, mainly the inhabitants of Italy and Roman colonies, until 212. Regular annual conscription of citizens was abandoned and only decreed in emergencies (e.g. during the Illyrian revolt 6–9 AD). Legions were now flanked by the auxilia, a corps of regular troops recruited mainly from peregrini, imperial subjects who did not hold Roman citizenship (the great majority of the empire's inhabitants until 212, when all were granted citizenship). Auxiliaries, who served a minimum term of 25 years, were also mainly volunteers, but regular conscription of peregrine was employed for most of the 1st century AD. The auxilia consisted, under Augustus, of about 250 regiments of roughly cohort size, that is, about 500 men (in total 125,000 men, or 50% of total army effectives). Under Severus the number of regiments increased to about 400, of which about 13% were double-strength (250,000 men, or 60% of total army). Auxilia contained heavy infantry equipped similarly to legionaries, and almost all the army's cavalry (both armoured and light), and archers and slingers.

Late Roman army (284–476 AD) continuing as East Roman army (476–641 AD)
The Late Roman army (284–476 AD and its continuation, in the surviving eastern half of the empire, as the East Roman army to 641). In this phase, crystallised by the reforms of the emperor Diocletian (ruled 284–305 AD), the Roman army returned to regular annual conscription of citizens, while admitting large numbers of non-citizen barbarian volunteers. However, soldiers remained 25-year professionals and did not return to the short-term levies of the Republic. The old dual organisation of legions and auxilia was abandoned, with citizens and non-citizens now serving in the same units. The old legions were broken up into cohort or even smaller sizes. At the same time, a substantial proportion of the army's effectives were stationed in the interior of the empire, in the form of comitatus praesentales, armies that escorted the emperors.
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_army)

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Roman Engineering, part 1


Valens Aqueduct, Constantinople

The Romans are known for their remarkable engineering feats, be they roads, bridges, tunnels, or their impressive aqueducts. Their constructions, many of them still standing, are a testament to their superior engineering skills and ingenuity. Roman engineers improved upon older ideas and inventions to introduce a great number of innovations. They developed materials and techniques that revolutionized bridge and aqueducts’ construction, perfected ancient weapons and developed new ones, while inventing machines that harnessed the power of water. Roman engineering accomplishments generated much wealth and prosperity, improving the daily lives of Romans and helping Rome maintain its dominance in Europe and the Mediterranean for centuries.

AQUEDUCTS
Aqueducts already existed in the Near East for centuries before the construction of Rome’s first aqueduct, the Aqua Appia in 312 BCE. The Romans, however, introduced many innovations which allowed them to build aqueducts on an unprecedented scale. Aqueducts consisted of conduits, tunnels and pipelines bringing water from far-away springs and mountains into cities and towns. They supplied water to the cities’ fountains, latrines, public baths and houses of wealthy Romans. They were also used to power mills and other machines

Roman aqueducts used gravity, not pumps, with a slight downward inclination for the water to flow. Other innovations included the use of arcades to transport water over valleys and low-lying terrain, with the extensive use of concrete and waterproof cement linings. Another innovation was the use of settling tanks at regular intervals to regulate the water supply.

Aqueducts could be over 100 kilometers (62 miles) long. For example, the Aqua Marcia built in 144-140 BCE ran underground for about 91 km (57 miles) underground, and then 10 km (6 miles) aboveground on substructures and arcades before it reached the city of Rome.

Aqueducts had to be regularly maintained, as debris accumulated in their conduits, and leaks developed over the years. By the middle of the Principate, Rome had a large and complex water network with aqueduct cross-links that ensured a continued delivery of water even if one aqueduct was under repair.

BRIDGES
As soon as the second century BCE, the Romans built large and magnificent stone bridges such as the 135 meter (443 ft) long Pons Aemilius in Rome. The first stone bridges used stone blocks held together with iron clamps. By the mid-2nd century BCE, Romans made extensive use of concrete: bridges were often constructed with a concrete core and a stone-block facing. The use of concrete significantly increased the bridges' strength and durability. Concrete was also used to build strong piers. When piers could not be built out of rock, the Romans used “cofferdams”, which were temporary enclosures made from wooden piles sealed with clay. The cofferdams were driven into the riverbed and filled with concrete, in order to make piers.

Roman builders were also the first to fully understand the structural advantages of an arch. Bridges had arches consisting of individual arch stones (longer on one end than the other) called voussoirs, which efficiently distributed the bridges’ weight. Such arched structures made bridges stronger, and allowed for much longer bridge spans. For example, the Alcántara bridge, still standing today, is 182 m (597 ft) long, with arches 29 m (95) wide and huge voussoirs weighing up to eight tons each. The hundreds of Roman bridges still in existence all around Europe are a testament to their incredible strength and reliability.

TUNNELS
The Romans dug tunnels as well for their water aqueducts and roads whenever they encountered obstacles such as hills or mountains. Tunnel construction was challenging not only because excavation could take years, but also because surveyors had to make sure that both ends of a tunnel met correctly at the center.

The most common tunnel construction method was the qanat method, developed by the Persians in the early first millennium BCE. The tunnel was made straight by using a line of posts laid over a hill and by digging vertical shafts at regular intervals. The shafts ensured that the tunnel did not deviate from its set trajectory and provided ventilation to the workers.

The counter-excavation method was a method used to dig through high mountains. Workers dug the tunnel from both sides of a mountain and met at a central point. This method of construction required greater planning and a greater knowledge of surveying and geometry. Builders had to constantly check the tunnel’s advancing direction, for example, by looking back at the light that penetrated through the tunnel mouth. Ventilation, especially for long tunnels, was also an issue, as shafts could not easily be excavated down from the top of a mountain. The required construction times depended on the type of rock being excavated, and the tunnel’s type. Tunnels involving shafts, for example, could be built much more quickly.

When the rock was hard, Romans employed a technique called fire-quenching. This consisted of heating the rock with fire, and then suddenly cooling it with cold water so that it would crack. Tunnels could take years, if not decades, to be built, even with thousands of slaves. For example, the 6 km (3.7 miles) long tunnel that emperor Claudius built in 41 CE to drain the Fucine Lake (Lacus Fucinus) took 11 years to build and used approximately 30,000 workers.

ROADS
The Romans had an extended road network stretching from northern England to southern Egypt, with a total length of no less than 120,000 km (74,565 miles) during the Empire. Roman roads were made for travel, trade, and to maintain control over the Empire’s vast territories. They facilitated the rapid deployment of armies when needed.

A road's main objective was to connect in as straight a path as possible two cities often hundreds of kilometers apart. The Via Appia built from 312 BCE, connected Rome to Capua (190 km apart or 118 miles) while important cities along its path were only accessed through branch roads. The construction of Roman roads involved colossal works of engineering because not only bridges and tunnels, but also viaducts, had to be built wherever roads encountered major obstacles. Road construction also involved massive land excavation, the transport of materials for backfill and leveling over long distances, and huge hydraulic projects for water drainage and land reclamation.

Roman roads were built by first setting the curb stones, digging a long pit between them that was the entire width of the road, and then covering it with rocks or gravel. The layer of gravel was compacted and a layer of finer gravel was added. The road was then paved with large polygonal rock slabs. Because of the layer of gravel below, Roman roads were able to resist freezing and floods and required relatively little maintenance. Furthermore, the road surface had slight inclinations, so that rainwater could flow to the curbs on either side.

Milestones (from milia passum in Latin meaning 1,000 paces) were also placed along the road at intervals of one mile. They were 1.5 m (5 feet) high heavy columns which indicated the number of the mile, the distance to Rome, and names of the officials who built the road.
(Source: https://www.ancient.eu/Roman_Engineer...)

(Continued in Part 2)

Roman Engineering, part 2


Via Appia

ROMAN CONCRETE
One of the most important Roman contributions to building technology was the invention of concrete. Concrete allowed for the construction of impressive buildings such as the Pantheon and impacted bridge and harbor construction. Roman concrete or opus caementicium was invented in the late third century BCE, when builders added a volcanic dust called pozzolana to mortar made of a mixture of brick or rock pieces, lime or gypsum and water. Pozzolana which contained both silica and alumina, created a chemical reaction which dramatically strengthened the cohesiveness of the mortar.

Rome underwent a period called a “Concrete Revolution”, which saw rapid represented advances in the composition of concrete. For example, Roman builders discovered that adding crushed terracotta to the mortar created a strong hydraulic mixture which could be used as waterproof material for cisterns or other constructions exposed to the weather. Romans also mastered underwater concrete by the middle of the first century CE, which allowed for the construction of harbors such as the one in the city of Caesarea. Underwater concrete was achieved by mixing one-part lime with two-parts volcanic ash, and placing the mixture in volcanic tuff or in small wooden cases. The mixture would then be hydrated by seawater to trigger concrete’s heat-releasing / hardening chemical reaction.

We could ask whether Roman concrete was better than modern concrete or today’s Portland cement. Recent research by U.S. and Italian scientists has shown that Roman concrete was vastly superior. By analyzing Roman harbors in the Mediterranean, they discovered that Roman concrete remained intact after 2,000 years of constant pounding by the sea. By contrast, Portland cement begins to erode after 50 years of exposure to seawater. According to these scientists, Portland cement does not bind as well as Roman concrete and begins to crack after a few decades, because it lacks Roman concrete’s lime and volcanic ash mixtures.

MILLS & WATER DEVICES
The Romans had mills that they used to grind grain and produce flour. These mills generally had a horizontal axle attached to a shaft passing through a lower millstone and turning an upper millstone. The space between the millstones was carefully adjusted by a teetering mechanism so as to control the fineness of the powder produced. The most basic mills used human or animal power. For example, the mola asinaria dating back to 300 BCE was a basic rotary mill driven by slaves or blindfolded horses, donkeys, or mules.

The Romans also invented the watermill with either a horizontal or vertical water wheel in the mid-third century BCE. Watermills used a river or high-pressure water from a tall reservoir (or a nearby aqueduct). The power of the water hitting the wheels was often adjusted by a system of tanks and pipes. Vertical waterwheels were the most complex, as they converted the vertical rotation of the water wheel into the horizontal rotation of the shaft turning the upper millstone. The Barbegal aqueduct and mills built at the end of the first century CE, had water running through a 19-meter downhill path, driving 16 individual water wheels. The mill was able to process about 3 tons of grain per hour. It employed hundreds of people and produced enough flour to supply up to 40,000 people per day.

The Romans had other water devices used for sawing wood, stones, and for the crushing of metal ores. Sawmills had stone-cutting saws powered by waterwheels, by means of a crank and a connecting axle. Trip hammers, which used water wheels, cams and hammers, were used in mining regions for crushing ore into small pieces.

MINING TECHNOLOGY
The Romans were the first to use advanced technology in mining operations. Roman mining sites often had a number of aqueducts constructed around them with giant tanks and water-powered machines such as stamp-mills and trip-hammers. The giant tanks were used in a mining method called hushing. Hushing consisted of unleashing large quantities of water to wash away earth and expose valuable mineral rocks below. In another mining method such as fire-quenching, water from these tanks was released to fracture rock which had been previously heated.

Water-powered stamp-mills and trip-hammers were used to crush the extracted ore into small pieces before being further processed. Traces of the mining technology used by the Romans can still be found at sites such as Las Medulas in Spain and Dolaucothi in Great Britain. The Dolaucothi site had no less than five long aqueducts.

WEAPONS
The Romans had formidable weapons that for centuries gave them an advantage in the battlefield and allowed them to conquer vast territories. Artillery weapons such as the ballista and the onager, used in both defensive and offensive roles in siege warfare, were the most terrifying and technologically advanced weapons in the Roman arsenal.

The ballista (from the Greek word ballistra, meaning crossbow) originated in Greece, and consisted of two horizontal crossbow-like arms inserted in a twisted rope made of sinew, horsehair or gut, attached to a rectangular wooden frame. It had a slider attached to a vertical stand passing through the rectangular frame which soldiers loaded with lead darts or heavy spherical stones. The ballista was set to the armed position by pulling back the bowstring with a pair of winches.

Roman engineers significantly improved the ballista’s design by adding a number of metal components which not only made the ballista lighter and easier to assemble, but also improved its accuracy by increasing its power by approximately 25%. The largest ballistae were also the most powerful. They could have arms 1 to 1.2 m (3 to 4 ft) in length, and launch darts to a distance of approximately 450 m (450 to 500 yards). The ballista was very accurate, especially at a close range. It could easily pierce a soldier’s body armor with enough power to kill him instantly. Roman engineers also invented the carroballista, a ballista mounted on a cart that added mobility to the weapon. It gave each legion massive firepower on the battlefield, since as each legion pushed along 55 of these mobile ballistae into battle.

The onager was a one-arm torsion catapult which could launch much heavier projectiles than the ballista with precision, although with a lesser range (approx. 300-400 m). While the ballista had many moving parts that could break or fail, the onager had a simpler design, rendering it more reliable and easier to operate. It consisted of a large horizontal frame firmly placed on the ground, and a vertical frame with a padded buffer on the front. The horizontal frame had stretched, twisted ropes made of animal hair or sinew. An arm with a sling holding the projectile was placed on the twisted rope bundle and pushed down against the ropes’ tension with a windlass. The arm was then released by a trigger mechanism releasing the tension and hurling the large projectile (it could be a spherical stone of up to 25 kg in weight), usually set alight with a combustible substance. It’s impact and subsequent fires could smash into enemy fortifications and cause great devastation.

The Roman onager’s design is even considered by scientists to be more ingenious than the one-arm catapults of the Middle Ages because of its sling, which increased the effective length of the slinging arm without adding any significant weight. The Romans could not wheel these large onagers into battle because they weighed up to four tons. They were instead built on-site, on padded platforms, so that their recoil would not grind the earth underneath and render them unstable.
(Source: https://www.ancient.eu/Roman_Engineer...)

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_e...
http://www.ducksters.com/history/anci...
https://www.history.com/news/history-...
https://study.com/academy/lesson/roma...
https://science.howstuffworks.com/eng...
by L.A. Hamey (no photo)
by C.J. Brandon (no photo)
Ray Laurence (no photo)
by Don Nardo
by L. Sprague de Camp

Here are a couple of YouTube videos about Caesar's bridge across the Rhine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNPnB...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8feJu...

Some videos about Gaul.

Life Of Caesar #24 - The Siege of Avaricum & Gergovia (2 hrs 25 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXvhp...

Battle of Alesia (30 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMFiE...

Life Of Vercingetorix (8 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iGc_...

Vercingetorix

Vercingetorix statue in Clermont-Ferrand, France

Vercingetorix (/ˌvɜːrsɪnˈdʒɛtərɪks/ VUR-sin-JET-ə-riks, /-sɪŋˈɡɛt-/ -sing-GET-; Latin: [wɛrkɪŋˈɡɛtɔrɪks]; c. 82 BC – 46 BC) was a king and chieftain of the Arverni tribe; he united the Gauls in a revolt against Roman forces during the last phase of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars.

Vercingetorix was the son of Celtillus the Avernian, leader of the Gallic tribes. Vercingetorix came to power after his formal designation as chieftain of the Arverni at the oppidum Gergovia in 52 BC. He immediately established an alliance with other Gallic tribes, took command and combined all forces, and led them in the Celts' most significant revolt against Roman power. He won the Battle of Gergovia against Julius Caesar in which several thousand Romans and allies died and Caesar's Roman legions withdrew.

However, Caesar had been able to exploit Gaulish internal division to easily subjugate the country, and Vercingetorix's attempt to unite the Gauls against Roman invasion came too late. At the Battle of Alesia, the Romans besieged and defeated his forces. In order to save as many of his men as possible he gave himself to the Romans. He was held prisoner for five years. In 46 BC, as part of Caesar's triumph, Vercingetorix was paraded through the streets of Rome and then executed by strangulation on Caesar's orders. Vercingetorix is primarily known through Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War. To this day, Vercingetorix is considered a folk hero in Auvergne, his native region.

Name
Vercingetorix derives from the Gaulish ver- ("over, superior" – an etymological cognate of German über, Latin super, or Greek hyper), cingeto- ("warrior", related to roots meaning "tread, step, walk", so possibly "infantry"), and rix ("king") (cf. Latin rex), thus literally either "great warrior king" or "king of great warriors". In his Life of Caesar, Plutarch renders the name as Vergentorix.

History
Having been appointed governor of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis (modern Provence) in 58 BC, Julius Caesar proceeded to conquer the Gallic tribes beyond over the next few years, maintaining control through a careful divide and rule strategy. He made use of the factionalism among the Gallic elites, favoring certain noblemen over others with political support and Roman luxuries such as wine. Attempts at revolt, such as that of Ambiorix in 54 BC, had secured only local support, but Vercingetorix, whose father, Celtillus, had been put to death by his own countrymen for seeking to rule all of Gaul, managed to unify the Gallic tribes against the Romans and adopted more current styles of warfare.

The revolt that Vercingetorix came to lead began in early 52 BC while Caesar was raising troops in Cisalpine Gaul. Believing that Caesar would be distracted by the turmoil in Rome following the death of Publius Clodius Pulcher, the Carnutes, under Cotuatus and Conetodunus, made the first move, slaughtering the Romans who had settled in their territory.

Vercingetorix, a young nobleman of the Arvernian city of Gergovia, roused his dependents to join the revolt, but he and his followers were expelled by Vercingetorix's uncle Gobanitio and the rest of the nobles because they thought opposing Caesar was too great a risk. Undeterred, Vercingetorix raised an army of the poor, took Gergovia and was hailed as king. He made alliances with other tribes, and having been unanimously given supreme command of their armies, imposed his authority through harsh discipline and the taking of hostages. He adopted the policy of retreating to natural fortifications, and undertook an early example of a scorched earth strategy by burning towns to prevent the Roman legions from living off the land.

Vercingetorix scorched much of the land marching north with his army from Gergovia in an attempt to deprive Caesar of the resources and safe haven of the towns and villages along Caesar's march south. However, the capital of the Bituriges, Avaricum (Bourges), a Gallic settlement directly in Caesar's path, was spared. Due to the town's strong protests, naturally defendable terrain, and apparently strong man-made reinforcing defenses, Vercingetorix decided against razing and burning it. Leaving the town to its fate, Vercingetorix camped well outside of Avaricum and focused on conducting harassing engagements of the advancing Roman units led by Caesar and his chief lieutenant Titus Labienus. Upon reaching Avaricum however, the Romans laid siege and eventually captured the capital. Afterwards, in a contemptuous reprisal for 25 days of hunger and of laboring over the siegeworks required to breach Avaricum's defenses, the Romans slaughtered nearly the entire population of some 40,000 leaving only about 800 alive. The next major battle was at Gergovia, capital city of the Arverni and Vercingetorix. During that battle, Vercingetorix and his warriors crushed Caesar's legions and allies, inflicting heavy losses. Vercingetorix then decided to follow Caesar but suffered heavy losses (as did the Romans and allies) during a cavalry battle and he retreated and moved to another stronghold, Alesia.

Battle of Alesia
In the Battle of Alesia (September, 52 BC), Caesar built a fortification around the city to besiege it. However, Caesar's army was surrounded by the rest of Gaul, and Vercingetorix had summoned his Gallic allies to attack the besieging Romans, so Caesar built another outer fortification against the expected relief armies (resulting in a doughnut-shaped fortification). The relief came in insufficient numbers: estimates range from 80,000 to 250,000 soldiers. Vercingetorix, the tactical leader, was cut off from them on the inside, and without his guidance the attacks were initially unsuccessful. However, the attacks did reveal a weak point in the fortifications and the combined forces on the inside and the outside almost made a breakthrough. Only when Caesar personally led the last reserves into battle he did finally manage to prevail. This was a decisive battle in the creation of the Roman Empire.

According to Plutarch, Caes. 27.8-10, Vercingetorix surrendered in a dramatic fashion, riding his beautifully adorned horse out of Alesia and around Caesar's camp before dismounting in front of Caesar, stripping himself of his armor and sitting down at his opponent's feet, where he remained motionless until he was taken away. Caesar provides a first-hand contradiction of this account, De Bell. Gal. 7.89, describing Vercingetorix's surrender much more modestly. He was imprisoned in the Tullianum in Rome for almost six years, before being publicly displayed in Caesar's triumph in 46 BC. He was executed after the triumph, probably by strangulation in his prison, as ancient custom would have it.
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vercing...)

More:
https://www.ancient.eu/vercingetorix/
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/e...
https://www.britannica.com/biography/...
https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/h...
https://about-history.com/the-gallic-...
by Bob Carruthers (no photo)
by John Sadler (no photo)
by Gaius Julius Caesar
by Ludwig Heinrich Dyck
by Philip Matyszak

Theatre of Pompey



The Theatre of Pompey (Latin: Theatrum Pompeium, Italian: Teatro di Pompeo) was a structure in Ancient Rome built during the later part of the Roman Republican era. It was completed in seven years, and was dedicated early in 55 BC before the structure was fully completed. It was one of the first permanent (non-wooden) theatres in Rome. The building itself was a part of a multi-use complex that included a large quadriporticus directly behind the scaenae frons. Enclosed by the large columned porticos was an expansive garden complex of fountains and statues. Along the stretch of covered arcade were rooms dedicated to the exposition of art and other works collected by Pompey Magnus during his campaigns.

On the opposite end of the garden complex was a curia for political meetings. The senate would often use this building along with a number of temples and halls that satisfied the requirements for their formal meetings. This is infamous as the place of Julius Caesar's murder by the Liberatores of the Roman Senate and elite.

Origin

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus paid for this theatre to gain political popularity during his second consulship. The theatre was inspired after Pompey's visit in 62 BC to a Greek theatre in Mytilene. Construction began around 61 BC and the theatre was dedicated in 55 BC. It was the largest theatre the Romans had ever built at any time or place. It retained Pompey's name throughout its active history of more than 600 years.

The structure and connecting quadriporticus had multiple uses. The building had the largest "Crypta" of all the Roman theatres. This area, located behind the stage and within an enclosure, was used by patrons between acts or productions to stroll, purchase refreshments or just to escape to the covered porticoes from the sun or rain.

The Porticus Pompei contained statues of great artists and actors. Long arcades exhibiting collections of paintings and sculpture as well as a large space suitable for holding public gatherings and meetings made the facility an attraction to Romans for many reasons. Lavish fountains were fed by water purchased from a nearby aqueduct and stored. It is not known if the water supply would have been enough to run the water works for more than a few hours a day, or if some other supply allowed the fountains to run nearly nonstop.

The highest point of the structure was the Temple to Venus Victrix, Pompey's personal deity (compared to Julius Caesar's worship of Venus Genetrix as his personal deity). Some modern scholars believe this was not mere piety, but essential in order that the structure should not be seen as a self-promoting extravagance as well as to overcome a moratorium on permanent theatre buildings.

The remains of the east side of the quadriporticus, and three of four temples from an earlier period often associated with the theatre can be seen on the Largo di Torre Argentina. The fourth temple remains largely covered by the modern streets of Rome. This archaeological site was excavated by order of Mussolini in the 1920s and 1930s. The scarce remains of the theatre itself can be found off the Via di Grotta Pinta underground. Vaults from the original theatre can be found in the cellar rooms of restaurants off this street, as well as in the walls of the hotel Albergo Sole al Biscione. The foundations of the theatre as well as part of the first level and cavea remain, but are obscured, having been overbuilt and extended. Over building throughout the centuries has resulted in the surviving ruins of the theatre's main structure becoming incorporated within modern structures.

During the theatre's long history, which stretches from its dedication to approximately 1455 AD, the structure endured several restorations due mainly to fire. The theatre was still in use during the reign of Theoderic the Great in the late fifth century AD. The last recorded repairs were carried out in 507-511. Following the destructive Roman-Gothic wars of 535-554 there was no need for a large theater because the population of Rome had declined drastically. The marble covering material was used as a building material in order to maintain other buildings. Being located near the Tiber, the building was also regularly flooded which caused further damage. Nevertheless, the concrete core of the building remained standing in the 9th century, when it was listed as a theater in a German description of the ancient monuments of Rome. In the eleventh century the ruins were converted into two churches and houses. However, the floor plan of the old theater was still recognizable. Around 1150 the powerful Orsini family bought all buildings on the site of the theater and transformed them into a large fortress. Later in the Middle Ages the square of Campo de' Fiori was built and the remaining parts of the theater were quarried to supply stone for many newer buildings which still exist in modern Rome.

Architecture

The characteristics of Roman theatres are similar to those of the earlier Greek theatres on which they are based. However, Roman theatres have specific differences, such as being built upon their own foundations instead of earthen works or a hillside and being completely enclosed on all sides.

Rome had no permanent theatres within the city walls until the mid first century. Theaters and amphitheatres were temporary wooden structures that could be assembled and disassembled quickly. Attempts to build permanent stone structures were always halted by political figures or simply did not come to full fruition.

Pompey was supposedly inspired to build his theatre from a visit to the Greek theatre of Mytilene on Lesbos. The structure may have been a counterpart to the Roman forum. The completion of this structure may also have prompted the building of the Imperial Fora. Julius Caesar would come to copy Pompey's use of the spoils of war to illustrate and glorify his own triumphs when building his forum which in turn would be copied by emperors. The use of public space incorporating temple architecture for personal political ambition was taken from Sulla and those prior to the dictator. Using religious associations and ritual for personal glorification and political propaganda were an attempt to project a public image.

The use of concrete and stone foundations allowed for a free standing Roman theater and amphitheater. Creating vaulted corridors underneath the seating gave access to each section of the auditorium and allowed access to upper levels.

The stage and scaenae frons sections of the theatre is attached directly to the auditorium, making both a single structure enclosed all around, whereas Greek theatres separate the two. This created acoustic issues requiring different techniques to overcome.

This architecture was the model for nearly all future theatres of Rome and throughout the empire. Notable structures that used a similar style are the Theatre of Marcellus and the Theatre of Balbus, both of which can be seen on the marble plan of the city.

The entire theatre complex had multiple uses. The Temple of Venus Victrix was located directly across from the stage. The portico contained galleries, shrines, gardens and meeting halls. The location of the theatre is of historic significance in large part due to a single murder that took place in the complex, located in the large Porticus of Pompey behind the stage in a meeting hall called the Curia Pompeia. The structure, located in the far end near the sacred area, was being used on a temporary basis for meetings of the Senate at that time.

On the Ides of March (March 15; see Roman calendar) of 44 BC, Caesar was due to appear at a session of the Senate. Mark Antony, having vaguely learned of the plot the night before from a terrified Liberator named Servilius Casca, and fearing the worst, went to head Caesar off at the steps of the forum.

According to Plutarch, as Caesar arrived Tillius Cimber presented him with a petition to recall his exiled brother. The other conspirators crowded round to offer support. Both Plutarch and Suetonius say that Caesar waved him away, but Cimber grabbed his shoulders and pulled down Caesar's tunic. Caesar then cried to Cimber, "Why, this is violence!" ("Ista quidem vis est!").

At the same time, the aforementioned Casca produced his dagger and made a glancing thrust at the dictator's neck. Caesar turned around quickly and caught Casca by the arm, saying in Latin "Casca, you villain, what are you doing?" Casca, frightened, shouted "Help, brother" in Greek ("ἀδελφέ, βοήθει!", "adelphe, boethei!"). Within moments, the entire group, including Brutus, was striking out at the dictator. Caesar attempted to get away, but, blinded by blood, he tripped and fell; the men continued stabbing him as he lay defenseless on the lower steps of the portico. According to Eutropius, around sixty or more men participated in the assassination. He was stabbed 23 times, but, according to Suetonius, a physician later established that only one wound, the second one to his chest, had been lethal.

This single violent act was one of the most memorable moments in Roman history and set the stage for the end of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.

While history records this location as the place Caesar fell, it is often confused with other meeting spaces by the senate. The first senate building was The Curia Hostilia built in the 7th century BC by Tullus Hostilius and repaired in 80 BC by Lucius Cornelius Sulla. The Curia Julia was begun by Caesar before his death on a different site after the first curia was destroyed by fire.

Today most of the location of the curia at the Theatre of Pompey is covered by roadway; however, a portion of its wall near the Sacred Area was excavated under Mussolini. In October 2012 Spanish archaeologists claimed they had discovered the location of the concrete structure erected by Augustus over the site of Caesar's murder.

Associated temple complex

In order to build the theatre as a permanent stone structure, a number of things were done, including building outside the city walls. By dedicating the theatre to Venus Victrix and building the temple central within the cavea, Pompey made the structure a large shrine to his personal deity. He also incorporated four Republican temples from an earlier period in a section called the "Sacred Area" in what is today known as Largo di Torre Argentina. The entire complex is built directly off the older section which directs the structure's layout. In this manner, the structure had a day-to-day religious context and incorporates an older series of temples into the newer structure. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_...)

More:
http://www.didaskalia.net/studyarea/v...
http://www.pompey.cch.kcl.ac.uk/
http://www.csus.edu/indiv/o/obriene/H...
http://www.maquettes-historiques.net/...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2mOd...
(no image) The Remains Of Ancient Rome: Volume 2 by John Henry Middleton (no photo)
by Paul Kuritz (no photo)
by Samuel Ball Platner (no photo)
by Richard C. Beacham (no photo)
by Stephen L. Dyson (no photo)

Mark Antony


Mark Antony

Marcus Antonius (lived 83-30 BCE, known popularly as Mark Antony) was a Roman general and statesman best known for his love affair with Cleopatra VII (c.69-30 BCE) of Egypt. As Julius Caesar's friend and right-hand man, he gave the funeral oration after Caesar's assassination which turned the tide of popular opinion against the assassins.

As part of the Second Triumvirate of Rome, he ruled uneasily with Octavius Caesar and Lepidus, famously fell in love with Cleopatra VII of Egypt, and, after his defeat at the Battle of Actium (31 BCE), committed suicide in 30 BCE. With no other contenders for power, Octavius became Rome's first emperor and the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire.

Youth and Rise to Power
Antony was born 14 January, 83 BCE to Marcus Antonius Creticus and Julia of the Caesars (thus relating him to Julius Caesar). He was instructed in rhetoric by his mother and, by all accounts, was given to education and philosophy in particular, until he became friends with the young Pubilius Clodius Pulcher and another young man named Curio. Plutarch relates:

Antony gave brilliant promise in his youth, they say, until his intimate friendship with Curio fell upon him like a pest. For Curio himself was unrestrained in his pleasures, and in order to make Antony more manageable, engaged him in drinking bouts, and with women, and in immoderate and extravagant expenditures. This involved Antony in a heavy debt and one that was excessive for his years — a debt of two hundred and fifty talents.

This sum of two hundred and fifty talents would be the equivalent of five million dollars today and this he owed before the age of twenty. Dodging his creditors, Antony slipped away to Greece where he spent his time studying oratory and military exercises.

He was persuaded by the Roman general Aulus Gabinius to join an expedition against Syria, in which Antony proved an able commander of cavalry, and then continued on with Gabinius to put down revolts against Ptolemy XII in Egypt. At this time he may have first met his later wife, Cleopatra VII, who would have been about fourteen years old.

Rising quickly to prominence in Gabinius’ ranks, Antony was promoted and called by Julius Caesar to join his forces in Gaul in 54 BCE. Here, as in the east, Antony proved himself a brilliant commander but his appetite for luxury, drink and sexual excesses alienated him from Caesar and the other officers. The common soldiers, however, embraced Antony. Plutarch writes:

What might seem to some very insupportable, his vaunting, his raillery, his drinking in public, sitting down by the men as they were taking their food, and eating, as he stood, off the common soldiers' tables, made him the delight and pleasure of the army. In love affairs, also, he was very agreeable: he gained many friends by the assistance he gave them in theirs, and took other people's raillery upon his own with good-humour. And his generous ways, his open and lavish hand in gifts and favours to his friends and fellow-soldiers, did a great deal for him in his first advance to power.

In spite of his hedonism, Antony continued to be of great assistance to Caesar in the conquest of Gaul and, in 50 BCE, Caesar supported Antony in his election as tribune.

Antony as Tribune
In the senate, Antony was a fierce supporter of Caesar’s policies. Antony’s long-time friend, Curio, had moved away from the aristocratic party and aligned himself with Caesar’s populist party, using his eloquence in oratory to convince others to do the same. Antony and Curio faced constant frustration and rejection by the senate in anything having to do with Caesar and, in 49 BCE, they fled Rome for Gaul and Caesar’s camp, dressed as servants. Caesar took this affront to the young tribune and the orator as his excuse to march on Rome in defiance of the senate’s orders, instigated by Pompey the Great, that Caesar disband his army and return to Rome as a private citizen.

After taking Rome without a fight, Caesar turned his attention to Pompey’s forces in Spain and left Antony to rule the city. Though an effective military leader, Antony had little skill as a politician. Plutarch states, “He was too lazy to pay attention to the complaints of persons who were injured; he listened impatiently to petitions; and he had an ill name for familiarity with other people's wives.”

Although an incompetent administrator, Antony was still able enough to keep the supply lines open to Caesar’s forces and continually send reinforcements. In 48 BCE Antony joined Caesar in Greece, leaving Lepidus to care for Rome and, at the Battle of Pharsalus, commanded Caesar’s left wing of cavalry, helping to defeat the forces of Pompey the Great.

Following the battle, Caesar followed the fleeing Pompey to Egypt and Antony returned to Rome where he neglected his administrative duties regularly to the point of bringing disgrace upon Caesar’s newly-won rule. As a result, Antony was removed from his position upon Caesar’s return from the east, and power conferred upon Lepidus. Two years later, however, Antony was again a part of Caesar’s close circle.

Antony and Octavian
In 44 BCE, after Caesar’s assassination, Antony took the opportunity as speaker at the dictator’s funeral to turn the tide of popular opinion against the conspirators and drive them from Rome. Antony seems to have had no intention of pursuing or punishing Caesar’s assassins until the appearance in Rome of Caesar’s nineteen-year-old heir, Gaius Octavius Thurinus (Octavian).

Octavian’s arrival, and legal claim as Caesar’s heir, was an unpleasant development for Antony and two men were instantly at odds with each other. Octavian insisted that Caesar’s will be followed to the letter, including dispensing the monies which were to be given to the people of Rome; Antony disagreed with this as he also took offense at a `boy’ (as Antony would frequently call Octavian) offering him advice on anything.

Outmaneuvered by Octavian politically and intellectually, Antony fled with his legions to Gaul where his forces were defeated by Octavian’s. At a truce, Antony, Octavian and Lepidus formed what is known today as The Second Triumvirate and agreed to partitioning Rome’s holdings among them to rule jointly. Lepidus was given Africa to rule, Octavian the west, from Rome, and Antony the east.

Antony and Cleopatra
After defeating the armies of Brutus and Cassius at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BCE, Octavian returned to Rome and Antony went east where, at Tarsus in 41 BCE, he summoned the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII to appear before him. He planned on charging Cleopatra with sedition against Rome in order to fine her a substantial sum to help pay his army. Cleopatra, however, manipulated her entrance to Tarsus in such a way that she immediately cast a spell over Antony which he would never be able to break.

Antony and Cleopatra immediately began their famous love affair, though he was at that time married to Fulvia, and he considered her his wife even before legally marrying her. In 40 BCE, Fulvia died and, in an effort to try to cement the further deteriorating relationship between the two rulers, Octavian and Antony agreed that Antony would marry Octavian’s sister, Octavia (even though, that same year, Cleopatra gave birth to Antony’s children, the twins Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene).

The relationship between Octavian and Antony deteriorated further as the years passed and Antony continued his relationship with Cleopatra while married to Octavia. In 37 BCE, Antony sent Octavia back to Rome and, in 35 BCE, when Octavia came with troops, supplies and funds to meet Antony in Athens, he refused to meet her and had her again sent home.

Leaving Athens on campaign, Antony successfully subdued and annexed Armenia to Rome. Instead of returning to the city of Rome for his triumph, however, Antony held his parade and celebration in Alexandria with Cleopatra at his side. He formally ceded territories to Cleopatra and their children and proclaimed Caesarion (Cleopatra’s older child by Julius Caesar) the true, legitimate heir to Caesar, thus publicly challenging Octavian’s claim and right to rule.

The Battle of Actium and Death
Octavian, acting swiftly as usual, read a document in the senate, allegedly Antony’s will, which, he claimed, proved Antony was preparing to take over Rome and which gave away precious Roman resources to Cleopatra and her children. Wisely deciding to avoid declaring war on Antony (which could have alienated some members of the senate and the populace) Octavian had the senate declare war on Cleopatra.

The forces of Antony and Cleopatra met those of Octavian, under the leadership of the General Agrippa, at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE where they were defeated by Agrippa’s superior tactics and their own ineptness at waging war on the sea. For the next year, Antony would fight a series of small, futile battles with Octavian until, in 30 BCE, upon hearing that Cleopatra was dead, he stabbed himself.

The rumor was false, however, and, dying, he was brought to Cleopatra where he died in her arms. She killed herself shortly afterwards through poison. Octavian had Cleopatra’s son, Caesarion, murdered and also killed Antony’s oldest son. The two young twins were brought to Rome where they were raised by Octavia along with her own children by Antony, one of which, Antonia Major, would later be grandmother of the emperor Nero. Octavian was now the sole power of Rome and, in 27 BCE, took the name Augustus Caesar and initiated the birth of the Roman Empire.
(Source: https://www.ancient.eu/Mark_Antony/)

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_An...
https://www.britannica.com/biography/...
https://www.history.com/topics/ancien...
https://www.biography.com/people/mark...
http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat5...
by Arthur Weigall (no photo)
by Patricia Southern (no photo)
by Paolo de Ruggiero (no photo)
by Plutarch
by Adrian Goldsworthy

Cleopatra


Cleopatra VII ruled ancient Egypt as co-regent (first with her two younger brothers and then with her son) for almost three decades. She became the last in a dynasty of Macedonian rulers founded by Ptolemy, who served as general under Alexander the Great during his conquest of Egypt in 332 B.C. Well-educated and clever, Cleopatra could speak various languages and served as the dominant ruler in all three of her co-regencies. Her romantic liaisons and military alliances with the Roman leaders Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, as well as her supposed exotic beauty and powers of seduction, earned her an enduring place in history and popular myth.

Cleopatra: Early Life and Ascension to Throne
Since no contemporary accounts exist of Cleopatra’s life, it is difficult to piece together her biography with much certainty. Much of what is known about her life comes from the work of Greco-Roman scholars, particularly Plutarch. Born in 70 or 69 B.C., Cleopatra was a daughter of Ptolemy XII (Auletes). Her mother was believed to be Cleopatra V Tryphaena, the king’s wife (and possibly his half-sister). In 51 B.C., upon the apparently natural death of Auletes, the Egyptian throne passed to 18-year-old Cleopatra and her 10-year-old brother, Ptolemy XIII.

Soon after the siblings’ ascension to the throne, Ptolemy’s advisers acted against Cleopatra, who was forced to flee Egypt for Syria in 49 B.C. She raised an army of mercenaries and returned the following year to face her brother’s forces at Pelusium, on Egypt’s eastern border. Meanwhile, after allowing the Roman general Pompey to be murdered, Ptolemy XIII welcomed the arrival of Pompey’s rival, Julius Caesar, to Alexandria. In order to help her cause, Cleopatra sought Caesar’s support, reportedly smuggling herself into the royal palace to plead her case with him.

Caesar and Cleopatra
For his part, Caesar needed to fund his own return to power in Rome, and needed Egypt to repay the debts incurred by Auletes. After four months of war between Caesar’s outnumbered forces and those of Ptolemy XIII, Roman reinforcements arrived; Ptolemy was forced to flee Alexandria, and was believed to have drowned in the Nile River. Entering Alexandria as an unpopular conqueror, Caesar restored the throne to the equally unpopular Cleopatra and her younger brother Ptolemy XIV (then 13 years old). Caesar remained in Egypt with Cleopatra for a time, and around 47 B.C. she gave birth to a son, Ptolemy Caesar. He was believed to be Caesar’s child, and was known by the Egyptian people as Caesarion, or Little Caesar.

Sometime in 46-45 B.C., Cleopatra traveled with Ptolemy XIV and Caesarion to Rome to visit Caesar, who had returned earlier. After Caesar was murdered in March 44 B.C., Cleopatra went back to Egypt; Ptolemy XIV died soon after, and the three-year-old Caesarion was named co-regent with his mother, as Ptolemy XV. By this point, Cleopatra had strongly identified herself with the goddess Isis, the sister-wife of Osiris and mother of Horus. (This was consistent with the ancient Egyptian tradition of associating royalty with divinity in order to reinforce the position of kings and queens. Cleopatra III had also claimed to be associated with Isis, and Cleopatra VII was referred to as the “New Isis.”)

Cleopatra’s Seduction of Mark Antony
With her infant son as co-regent, Cleopatra’s hold on power in Egypt was more secure than it had ever been. Still, unreliable flooding of the Nile resulted in failing crops, leading to inflation and hunger. Meanwhile, a conflict was raging in Rome between a second triumvirate of Caesar’s allies (Mark Antony, Octavian and Lepidus) and his assassins, Brutus and Cassius. Both sides asked for Egyptian support, and after some stalling Cleopatra sent four Roman legions stationed in Egypt by Caesar to support the triumvirate. In 42 B.C., after defeating the forces of Brutus and Cassius in the battles of Philippi, Mark Antony and Octavian divided power in Rome.

Mark Antony soon summoned Cleopatra to the Cicilian city of Tarsus (south of modern Turkey) to explain the role she had played in the complicated aftermath of Caesar’s assassination. According to the story recorded by Plutarch (and later dramatized famously by William Shakespeare), Cleopatra sailed to Tarsus in an elaborate ship, dressed in the robes of Isis. Antony, who associated himself with the Greek deity Dionysus, was seduced by her charms. He agreed to protect Egypt and Cleopatra’s crown, pledging support for the removal of her younger sister and rival Arsinoe, then in exile. Cleopatra returned to Egypt, followed shortly thereafter by Antony, who left behind his third wife, Fulvia, and their children in Rome. He spent the winter of 41-40 B.C. in Alexandria, during which he and Cleopatra famously formed a drinking society called “The Inimitable Livers.” In 40 B.C., after Antony’s return to Rome, Cleopatra gave birth to twins, Alexander Helios (sun) and Cleopatra Selene (moon).

Cleopatra: Power Struggle
After Fulvia took ill and died, Antony was forced to prove his loyalty to Octavian by making a diplomatic marriage with Octavian’s half-sister Octavia. Egypt grew more prosperous under Cleopatra’s rule, and in 37 B.C. Antony again met with Cleopatra to obtain funds for his long-delayed military campaign against the kingdom of Parthia. In exchange, he agreed to return much of Egypt’s eastern empire, including Cyprus, Crete, Cyrenaica (Libya), Jericho and large portions of Syria and Lebanon. They again became lovers, and Cleopatra gave birth to another son, Ptolemy Philadelphos, in 36 B.C.

After a humiliating defeat in Parthia, Antony publicly rejected his wife Octavia’s efforts to rejoin him and instead returned to Egypt and Cleopatra. In a public celebration in 34 B.C. known as the “Donations of Alexandria,” Antony declared Caesarion as Caesar’s son and rightful heir (as opposed to his adopted son, Octavian) and awarded land to each of his children with Cleopatra. This began a war of propaganda between him and the furious Octavian, who claimed that Antony was entirely under Cleopatra’s control and would abandon Rome and found a new capital in Egypt. In late 32 B.C., the Roman Senate stripped Antony of all his titles, and Octavian declared war on Cleopatra.

Cleopatra: Defeat and Death
On September 2, 31 B.C., Octavian’s forces soundly defeated those of Antony and Cleopatra in the Battle of Actium. Cleopatra’s ships deserted the battle and fled to Egypt, and Antony soon managed to break away and follow her with a few ships. With Alexandria under attack from Octavian’s forces, Antony heard a rumor that Cleopatra had committed suicide. He fell on his sword, and died just as news arrived that the rumor had been false.

On August 12, 30 B.C., after burying Antony and meeting with the victorious Octavian, Cleopatra closed herself in her chamber with two of her female servants. The means of her death is uncertain, but Plutarch and other writers advanced the theory that she used a poisonous snake known as the asp, a symbol of divine royalty. According to her wishes, Cleopatra’s body was buried with Antony’s, leaving Octavian (later Emperor Augustus I) to celebrate his conquest of Egypt and his consolidation of power in Rome.
(Source: https://www.history.com/topics/ancien...)

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra
https://www.britannica.com/biography/...
https://www.history.com/news/10-littl...
https://www.biography.com/people/cleo...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histor...
by Duane W. Roller (no photo)
by Julian Morgan (no photo)
by Stacy Schiff
by Adrian Goldsworthy
by Joyce A. Tyldesley

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