9
Rome and the East between Aristonicus and Mithridates: The Events
Now that we have surveyed various aspects of Rome's hegemonial presence in the East between the assignment of Macedonia provincia in 148 and the Mithridatic War, we can pick up the diachronic thread which we left off in the later 120s. Unfortunately, our information about the events between the wars with Aristonicus and Mithridates is scattered and highly fragmentary; but I hope that by bringing together the material for major Roman diplomatic and military activities on both the Asian and the European continents it will be possible to gain a sense of the historical development of the Roman imperium in the East in this period of roughly a generation, and to supplement the picture of its character sketched thus far.
The Balkan Frontier
The death of the praetor Sex. Pompeius (119) in battle against the Scordisci was,[1] it shortly became evident, a harbinger of severe difficulties on the northern frontier of Macedonia. Although no military activity is recorded for Pompeius's successor, Cn. Cornelius Sisenna (pr. 119; known to us only for his part in the dispute between the Isthmian-Nemean and Athenian Dionysiac artists), or for his immediate successors,[2] in 114 for the first time since 168 a consul, C. Porcius Cato, was assigned Macedonia provincia and sent against the Scordisci—who, however, inflicted a heavy
[1] Syll 700. See chap. 1.
[2] For the artists' dispute, see pp. 150-52. The Q. Fabius Maximus of the Dyme inscription (Sherk 43) is no longer to be identified with Eburnus, cos. 116, for whom a proconsulship in Macedonia had been posited: see Kallet-Marx, CQ 45 (1995).
defeat. The Senate then sent three further consuls in sequence against the Scordisci: after C. Caecilius Metellus Caprarius (cos. 113) and M. Livius Drusus (cos. 112) came M. Minucius Rufus (cos. 110), who stayed in the province into 107 or 106.[3] Although Metellus, Livius, and Minucius were all able to celebrate triumphs, the coincidence of the emergence of the Cimbric threat in 113 and the beginning of war with Jugurtha in 111 show that the consuls were not merely triumph-hunting but that the Senate regarded an extraordinary military effort in Macedonia as a stark necessity, of at least as great importance as shoring up the troubles in the West. While Metellus and Drusus appear to have concentrated on the Scordisci, whose natural invasion route was down the Axius River from the central Danube into northwest and central Macedonia,[4] Minucius Rufus claimed to have defeated the Bessi "and the rest of the Thracians" as well as the Scordisci.[5] However, report of a major winter campaign by the Hebrus[6] would seem to suggest that, despite the presence of consuls and consular armies in Macedonia between 114 and 107, the region firmly controlled by Rome had not grown eastward appreciably. Probably the Scordiscan incursions in northwest and central Macedonia had up to now rather monopolized Roman attention.
The imperium populi Romani depended on a consensus that Roman might was unchallengeable; it therefore was based in the last resort upon a perception of the inevitability of Roman victory. The defeat of Cato in 114 had to be corrected, not merely to hold the line in Macedonia but above all to confirm the Roman imperium in the East. Hence the extraordinary commitment of resources to the Scordiscan wars down to ca. 107. That this effort was not merely a matter of frontier security but concerned the hearts and minds of Greeks under Rome's imperium is shown by some curious evidence of what appears to have been something of a public-relations campaign launched by Minucius after he had fully erased the
[3] Papazoglou, Central Balkan Tribes , 294-304; Sarikakis, "ArconteV , 55-63, with quotation of major sources; cf. also MRR , 1:535, 538, 541, 543, 549, 554. For Caprarius, see also Morgan, Klio 55 (1973) 231-45.
[4] Florus (1.39.5), however, surely exaggerates Drusus's success in saying that he held the Scordisci to the line of the Danube: see Papazoglou, Central Balkan Tribes , 296-304. Drusus's triumph over "Macedonians" as well as Scordisci (IIt XIII.1, pp. 85, 561) is intriguing, but it would be unwise to draw any conclusions from such a bare reference about Macedonian support for the northern invaders.
[5] Kougeas, Hellenika 5 (1932) 5; Syll 710A, C. Cf. on the Latin inscription, and the probable existence of two separate monuments inscribed in Greek and Latin respectively, Vatin, BCH 91 (1967) 401-7.
[6] Flor. 1.39.5; Amm. Marc. 27.4.10; Festus Brev . 9.2.
shame of the defeat of 114. In the Panhellenic center of Delphi two equestrian statues of Minucius were erected in his honor by the citizens, celebrating in their respective Latin and Greek texts the victory over the Scordisci and Thracians.[7] Curiously, in 1932 an inscription from Europus in Macedonia was published that carried a text virtually identical with the Greek text from Delphi, a coincidence that can hardly be merely fortuitous.[8] A common source must lie behind these honorific texts, and its emergence at two places that had as little to do with each other as Europus in Macedonia and Delphi points to Minucius himself as author. Beyond this point speculation would be idle, but the affair is redolent of propaganda and suggests that the impetus for the Delphian monuments was not entirely spontaneous.[9] Of course Delphi in particular provided a fine opportunity for appropriation of the sanctuary's great mythology of the defense of Hellenism against the barbarians: the Scordisci were the new Gauls, last fought off from Apollo's shrine by the Aetolians in 279, and the Romans, by throwing them back, assumed a role appropriate to the champions of Hellas. Although there is no direct evidence that Minucius actually visited Delphi in person, we do know that his brother, serving under him as legate, came and offered a dedication to Apollo; and it is certainly tempting to infer that the proconsul did so as well in a tour of triumph that would have recalled Aemilius Paulus's visit to Greece in 168/167 after defeating Perseus.[10]
With Minucius the Scordiscan danger subsided; however, the immediately subsequent praetors sent to Macedonia continued the offensive
[7] Above, n. 5. The Latin text must have drawn special attention to the monument, like that on the column of Aemilius Paulus that rose up from the adjacent temple podium.
[9] So apparently Papazoglou, Central Balkan Tribes , 303-4; Schober RE suppl. 5 (1931) 78; Reinach, BCH 34 (1910) 3o4-5, all of whom stress Delphi's ancient terror of the Gauls.
[10] Q. Minucius's dedication: Syll 710D; cf. Frontin. Str . 2.4.3. Schober RE suppl. 5 (1931) 78, and Münzer, RE 15.2 (1932) 1962-63, assume a visit from his brother as well.
posture, in this case apparently eastward into Thrace. In 104 a significant victory was won over the Thracians, and not long thereafter (101 or 100) the praetor T. Didius conquered the "Caenic" Chersonese—probably the peninsula running down to the Bosporus—and earned a triumph.[11] The lex de Cilicia Macedoniaque provinciis , which immediately followed Didius's victory, evidently signals an end to the Roman offensive in Macedonia and Thrace. The consuls are ordered not to bring before the Senate the question of sending replacements and additional grain to Macedonia; this implies recognition that the war had been successfully concluded.[12] Furthermore, it seems clearly implied in the law that one of its provisions was to replace the current commander of Macedonia,[13] to whose successor also various orders are given: he is to travel immediately to the Caenic Chersonese, which is to be his provincia as well as Macedonia; he is to spend no less than two months there before he is succeeded, overseeing the legitimate collection of revenues and ensuring that Roman friends and allies are not driven from their borders or attacked.[14] The law dearly im-
[11] 104: Jul. Obs. 43. Jerome (p. 149a Helm) notes a Roman victory over Thracians in 100, but the date may well be displaced. Cf., however, Papazoglou, Central Balkan Tribes , 305, and Münzer, RE 5 (1905) 407-9. Didius's victory: Cic. Pis . 61, Planc . 61; Amm. Marc. 27.4.10; Festus Brev . 9; Jord. Summ. Rom . 219; JRS 64 (1974) 203, B, lines 28-29, and 204, IV, lines 9-10, for the Caenic Chersonese. Curiously, Florus, Ammianus, and Festus Rufus all put Didius too early in the sequence of Roman victors in Thrace; see Münzer, p. 408, and Papazoglou, p. 306. On Didius's victory see also Morgan, Klio 55 (1973) 215-31. For location of the mysterious toponym "Caenic" Chersonese, see Hassall, Crawford, and Reynolds, JRS 64 (1974) 213, for the Bosporan peninsula; Ferrary, MEFRA 89 (1977) 634 n. 58, against identification with the well-known "Thracian" Chersonese; and Walbank (Selected Papers , 2o6), who argues that it was "an extension inland of the Thracian Chersonese proper," "to the north and west of the Chersonese proper." Hatzopoulos and Loukopoulou, Two Studies , 75-79, suggest that the Greek translator misread Chersonesum Caenicamque in all three places. The Thracian tribe of the Caeni is unfortunately quite difficult to locate more precisely than generally north of the Propontis: cf. Livy 38.40.7; Diod. 33.14.2 (cf. Trogus Prol . 36); Ptol. Geog . 3.11.9; Pliny HN 4-47 (cf. 4.40); W. Tomaschek, Die alten Thraker , SB Wien, Phil.-Hist. Kl. 128.4 (1893) 84; E. Oberhummer, RE 10 (1894) 1505-6; and B. Lenk, RE 6 (1936) 406, 429.
[12] JRS 64 (1974) 201, II, lines 12-32. Cf. Livy 40.35.4.
[14] JRS 64 (1974) 204, IV, lines 6-31. Assessment of Martin's insertion of in line 30 (ZPE 35 [1979] 153-58) must await publication of the revised text; until then what the proconsul is to do regarding the boundaries of the Chersonese remains unclear.
plies a shift from offensive operations in Macedonia and Thrace; Rome's proconsuls in the north could turn to safeguarding the security of Rome's "friends and allies." There was no better place to advertise this expression of the benevolent use of Roman power pro sociis than from the pedestal of the monument of Aemilius Paulus at Delphi.
After Didius's conquests Macedonia is relatively quiet for nearly a decade.[15] But under C. Sentius, proconsul from 93 until at least 87, instability on the frontier was renewed, culminating in the catastrophe of the Mithridatic War. Sentius was defeated by the Maedi in 92 and forced to yield the province to their ravages. In 89 a Thracian king named Sothinus invaded the province and did much damage before being driven back.[16] The Thraco-Pontic invasion of Macedonia in 87 then swept away Roman authority in the region, which was not fully reestablished, despite a punitive expedition led by Sulla, until around 80.[17]
Cilicia
While Rome's main military effort in the East toward the end of the second century was indubitably centered upon Macedonia and Thrace, near the turn of the century and virtually contemporaneous with the last offensive push under T. Didius in Thrace came a naval expedition against the pirates of Cilicia whose significance for the story of the development of Rome's hegemonial presence surpasses its immediate results.[18] The measures that the Romans henceforth took—without great success until Pompey's massive campaign in 67-66 under the terms of the lex Gabinia —mark the assumption, however halting at first, of a much-expanded responsibility for maintaining security in the Greek world.
According to Strabo (14.5.2, C668-69), Scipio Aemilianus's famous embassy to the East, as well as other, subsequent embassies, already took note of the problem of piracy off Cilicia, which was flourishing due to the col-
[15] Victory in 97 over the Maedi and Dardani: Jul. Obs. 48. Against a Macedonian proconsulship for L. Iulius Caesar ca. 94 (MRR , 2:13 with 14 n. 3), see Mattingly, Chiron 9 (1979) 147-67 (not noted in MRR 3).
[16] On Sentius, see Badian, Studies , 73-74. 92: Jul. Obs. 53; Livy Per . 70. 89: Oros. 5.18.30; Liv. Per . 74, 76.
[17] See chap. 10 and appendix I.
[18] On pirates of Cilicia in general, see Ormerod, Piracy , 200-209; Ziebarth, Beiträge , 31-34.
lapse of the Seleucid monarchy and the strong Roman demand for slaves channeled through the nearby market on Delos. The Seleucid pretender Diodotus Tryphon encouraged the Cilician pirates' raids on his rival's base in Syria, while Cyprus, Egypt, and even Rhodes smiled upon the fomenters of trouble for the Seleucid house.[19]
Whether Rome made any concrete moves to reduce the anarchy in Cilicia is unknown but probably unlikely. That Antiochus VIII Grypos honored the proconsul Cn. Papirius Carbo at Delos ca. 116 may suggest no more than the currying of Roman favor in the internecine Seleucid struggle.[20] It is possible that Roman efforts at peacemaking in Crete ca. 114 as well as ca. 142 were at least partly incited by the traditional association between the spread of piracy and instability on Crete, in many ways a natural extension of Cilician waters, but that would have been a highly indirect approach to the problem at best.[21] Even on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, where the problem seems already to have become severe, the "free" cities that lined the coast appear to have been left to their own devices. Toward the end of the second century, for example, when some Ephesians were seized by pirates, the Astypalaeans intercepted the ships and saved the unlucky captives. The inscription that describes this event says nothing at all of Roman intervention.[22] There is no evidence, in short, for even a minimal attempt by Roman proconsuls to see to the security of the coast such as we glimpse occasionally after the First Mithridatic War.
Rome's long hesitation to take any significant measures against the pirates is sometimes explained as a result of its reliance on the slave trade whose demand they met.[23] Not only does this presume a rather crude economic determinism; it also assumes that piracy was all to Rome's benefit. In fact it must have been a considerable threat to the agents of the
[19] See now Marasco, RivStorlt 99 (1987) 123-30. For Tryphon, see also W. Hoffmann, RE 7A (1939) 718-19; Niese, GGMS , 3:278; convenient summaries of the Seleucid implosion in Will Histoire politique , 404-16; Habicht, CAH 8 (1989) 365-73. On the date of Aemilianus's embassy, perhaps 143/142 rather than ca. 140, see Mattingly, CQ n.s. 36 (1986) 491-95, against Astin, CP 54 (1959) 221-22, and Scipio Aemilianus , 127, 137-39, 177.
[20] IDel 1550. IDel 1603, an honorific inscription for the quaestor M. Antonius set up by Prostanna in Pisidia, sheds little light on Roman activities in Cilicia. This M. Antonius is usually identified as the consul of 99: see Holleaux, REA 19 (1917) 91-92, and Val. Max. 3.7.9. Thus the text would date not long after 113-112. Might he not, however, have been Creticus?
[21] Further on the connection between Cretan and Cilican piracy, see chap. 11.
[22] IGRR IV. 1029.
[23] Cf., for example, Ormerod, Piracy , 207; Maróti, Helikon 9-10 (1969-70) 25-28.
publicani and the negotiatores : in the famous lex de Cilicia Macedoniaque provinciis of ca. 100 the security of Romans, Italians, and Latins on the seas is given precedence.[24] But the question should be turned on its head. Rome had since 154 certainly enjoyed no surfeit of manpower and since 114 had seen its resources so stretched to meet the pressures exerted nearly simultaneously by the Cimbri and Teutones to the north, Jugurtha in Numidia, and the Scordisci and other Thracians in Macedonia that in 109, 107 and 104 it had appealed for military assistance in Numidia and Gaul from its allies abroad.[25] It can hardly have been eager, or indeed able, to take on new security commitments. To blame the Romans for not acting earlier is to presuppose that they had acknowledged a duty to ensure the general security of their Eastern allies,[26] but we have no evidence that suggests that contemporaries recognized this as an obligation before Antonius's expedition against the pirates. Prima facie, it was not Rome but the recognized sovereigns of Cilicia, the Seleucid monarchy, who bore the direct and obvious responsibility for controlling piracy based in its waters. Our surprise at the slowness of Roman reaction to the growth in piracy is based upon the traditional, exaggerated notion of Roman "rule" in the East. The defense of the Thracian frontier had been taken over by Rome after the disaster of Andriscus's coup showed that it was the linchpin of Paulus's settlement; no military functions had been assumed in Asia; and the assumption of administrative and governmental functions had been kept to the minimum. That the Senate did nothing about piracy before the end of the second century is only further confirmation of the limits of its role in the East.
The Senate was finally induced to act in 102, when M. Antonius was assigned after his praetorship a special command against the pirates in Cilicia.[27] Antonius's fleet was at least in considerable part collected west of
[24] JRS 64 (1974) 202, III, lines 31-35; 203, B, lines 6-7. Cf. Marasco, RivStorIt 99 (1987) 131-35.
[25] 109, 107: Sail. Iug . 43.4, 84-2. 104: Diod. 36.3.1. See Brunt, Italian Manpower , 433 (Table XIII).
[26] "the Roman crime" is Ormerod's phrase (Piracy , 207).
[27] For the date, and questions about the nature of Antonius's imperium , see Broughton, MRR , 1:568, 569 n. 2, and TAPA 77 (1946) 35 with n. 2, a position modified at MRR , 3:19. As Cic. De or . 1.82 and ILLRP 342, line 3, make Antonius pro consule at the beginning of his expedition, we should probably conclude that Antonius did not set out until his year as praetor was over; there is no good evidence that praetors in their year of office would be called simply pro consule , whatever the nature of the imperium . If so, there is no need to assume, simply on the basis of Livy's epitomator's reference to Antonius as praetor during his victories over the pirates (Per . 68), that Antonius had been given imperium pro consule in the year of this praetorship (so Broughton; Ferrary, MEFRA 89 [1977] 625); the summarizer—no constitutional expert—is surely simply employing the word in its looser sense (OLD s.v., 2.c., p. 1448). (See appendix A.) Since Livy (Per . 68) and Jul. Obs. (44) date Antonius's campaign in 102, his praetorship should probably be dated to 103. Against Sherwin-White's hypothesis that Antonius was the regular proconsul of Asia rather than assigned to a special command (JRS 66 [1976] 4-9; RFPE , 99-100), with its attendant argument that ILLRP 342 refers not to the consul of 99 but to his son, Creticus, see Ferrary, pp. 637-43.
the Isthmus of Corinth, for he had his fleet hauled across the Isthmus rather than brave the dangerous capes of the Peloponnese late in the sailing season. This we know from a boastful epigram that Antonius's legate Hirrus, temporarily in charge of the operation, erected near the site of ancient Corinth in order to assure his glory—among those who read Latin.[28] The collection of a fleet from west of the Aegean (likely assisted by Corcyra and the Greek and Illyrian cities and towns of the Adriatic coast) instead of relying on the considerable naval resources of the cities of the Asian coast and islands, especially Rhodes, shows that the Senate had decided to mount quite an extraordinary effort. While details of the campaign are lacking, it was evidently a success in the short run at least, and Antonius earned a triumph and the consulship for 99.[29]
What explains this shift from prior Roman indifference toward piracy in the East? It has been suggested that hordes of captives from the victories over the Cimbri and Teutones made Rome less reliant on the Eastern slave trade, which could now be put down with no damage to Roman interests. Chronology provides sufficient refutation: Antonius was sent out probably before the victory at Aquae Sextiae (102) and certainly before the decisive battle at Vercellae (101).[30] I should connect the campaign against Cilicia with other evidence we have already reviewed that indicates a nascent sense of imperial responsibility in the East. Nicomedes' rebuff to Marius's plea for military assistance against the Germans in 104 (Diod. 36.3.1), I have argued in chapter 5, demonstrated the tenuousness of Rome's im-
[28] ILLRP 342. Cf. lines 1-2: quod neque conatus quisquanst neque [- - -]av [it? ] noscite rem, ut famaa facta feramus virei . A harmless lie might go unnoticed among Romans. Best text in A. E. Gordon, Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy (Berkeley 1983) p. 90, no. 14; cf. Gordon, in Corinthiaca , 50-53.
[29] Livy Per . 68; Jul. Obs. 44. Triumph: Plut. Pomp . 24; cf. Cic. Rab. perd . 26, which Broughton understood to mean that Antonius had been elected consul in absentia and was awaiting his triumph still on 10 December 100 (TAPA 77 [1946] 35-40). The argument, however, depends on the controversial date of the death of Saturninus: see now Badian, Chiron 14 (1984) 101-21. Ferrary dates the triumph in 101 (MEFRA 89 [1977] 624-27).
[30] Harris, War and Imperialism , 81 n. 6, and Ferrary, in RCMM , 2:780-81, against Maróti, Helikon 9-10 (1969-70) 36.
perium in the East at the very moment that support from her Eastern allies was for the first time urgently needed. From this point through Mucius Scaevola's command in Asia ca. 98-97 a number of discrete pieces of evidence strongly suggest that the lesson was taken to heart and a real attempt was made by the Senate and its agents to restore Rome's good name in the East and thus shore up its hegemony.[31] Antonius's expedition against the pirates belongs in this context and was perhaps the most conspicuous of such measures.
The concentration of Roman attention on Cilician piracy specifically is not difficult to explain. Among the pirates' chief activities was, as noted above, the enslavement of seafarers and coastal dwellers to supply the burgeoning slave market at Delos; but the affair of Nicomedes in 104 had brought home not only the dangers of allowing the publicani to wreak havoc but also the resentment caused by Rome's toleration of the enslavement of free allied peoples. The Senate had decreed their manumission, although on Sicily at least the decree proved impracticable (Diod. 36.3). Nicomedes had complained about seizure by the publicani , and we have already reviewed evidence of stricter senatorial and proconsular supervision of their activities from this point; but the other leading practitioners of wrongful enslavement must have been the Cilician pirates. The devolution of state authority in the area had continued unchecked and evidently increased ca. 104, when the sporadic dynastic war between the Seleucid brothers, Antiochus VIII Grypos and Antiochus IX Cyzicenus, broke out with renewed intensity; according to Trogus (Prol . 39), the fighting took place in Cilicia as well as Syria.[32] At around the same time, the Ptolemaic naval command on Cyprus, which might have exerted some control over the growth of piracy in those waters, disappears from our evidence during a tumultuous period on the island.[33] Although Lycaonia and Pamphylia (?) were granted to Cappadocia for its help in the war against Aristonicus, it seems unlikely that its kings ever exerted any authority on the coast, and in any case now chaos had descended upon Cappadocia as well. As political instability became endemic the pirates became more aggressive than ever.[34] Rhodes, long the guardian of maritime security in the southern
[31] See pp. 139-47. There is no evidence that major grain routes were being harassed, however, despite the annonae caritas of 104 (Cic. Har. resp . 43), which Rickman (Corn Supply , 50) adduces to explain Antonius's expedition.
[32] Cf. E. Wilcken, RE 1 (1894) 2481-82. In general see Bellinger, End , 66-72.
[33] Mitford, ANRW II.7.2 (1980) 1234-36; Volkmann, RE 23 (1959) 1741.
[34] Trog. Prol . 39: ut Syriam Iudaei et Arabes terrestribus latrociniis infestarint, mari Cilices piraticum bellum moverint .
Aegean but no longer strong enough to face the problem alone, will have been urging Rome to take some action. An embassy from Rhodes was in Rome at the time of the passage of the lex de Cilicia Macedoniaque provinciis a few years later, and the (unfortunately somewhat vague) provisions mentioned there certainly suggest that the island republic had been cooperating closely with Rome against the problem of piracy.[35]
The Senate's acceptance of the need to take serious action against Cilician piracy is an important novelty in Rome's attitudes toward its Eastern imperium . But we must not overstate the case, for, notoriously, Rome was not yet prepared to commit itself on a scale and to a duration sufficient to put paid to the problem; that step was not taken until the lex Gabinia over three decades later. It is important that no immediate successor was apparently sent out, for at the date of the law on the praetorian provinces ca. 100 the only commanders abroad who were required to swear to the law were the proconsuls of Asia and Macedonia.[36] Evidently Rome evac-
[35] Cf. JRS 64 (1974) 203, B, lines 12-20: the Rhodian envoys are to convey to the kings letters calling for their cooperation against the pirates and are given a senatorial audience extra ordinem . Unfortunately the date of the Thasian inscription that reveals a Rhodian embassy sent to a proconsul of Macedonia named L. Aurelius (Dunant and Pouilloux, Etudes thasiennes , 5: 26-27, no. 172) cannot be narrowed within a very wide range (p. 31), although the editors opt hesitantly for 69/68 (pp. 31-34). See Broughton, MRR , 3:30. An embassy from Rhodes to Macedonia, however, makes best sense before the regular assignment of Asia provincia (cp. IGRR IV. 134); L. Aurelius Orestes, cos. 126, will have been praetor in 129 or before.
uated the Pamphylian-Cilician coast as quickly as it had come and had allowed the pirates to regroup. The lex de Cilicia Macedoniaque provinciis , a Roman law translated into Greek of which large but only partly overlapping fragments were found originally at Delphi, inscribed on the plinth of the monument of Aemilius Paulus, and quite recently as well at Cnidus, affords a glimpse of subsequent Roman measures, but it will require extended discussion for us to assess them.[37]
The lex de Cilicia Macedoniaque provinciis appears to have taken the important step of assigning a praetor (probably of 99) again to "Cilicia"—probably, as often, in fact Pamphylia and Pisidia. The consul is to announce by letters to various cities that "Cilicia has been made a praetorian province in accordance with this law" in order that Romans, Italian allies, Latins, and friends of Rome abroad might sail in safety.[38] The praetor assigned "Cilicia" is to assure that Roman citizens, Italian allies, Latins, and foreign peoples in Rome's friendship "may be able to sail safely and gain justice."[39] There is no need to conjure up the familiar images of "organizing provinces" or "imposing Roman rule," of which nothing is said in the preserved portions of the law.[40] There is certainly nothing in the preserved
[37] The Cnidus text, integrated with a revised version of the Delphi text, is presented with commentary by Hassall, Crawford, and Reynolds at JRS 64 (1974) 201-18. New readings of the difficult Cnidus copy are, I understand, forthcoming. The Cnidus fragments, with their extensive allusions to arrangements for Macedonia, showed how misleading the traditional name (lex de piratis persequendis ) had been. The one significant difference between the substantial extant fragments of the two copies is that nothing at Delphi corresponds to Cnidus's final column (V). Was this because Delphi "saw little point in inscribing all this" (so Hassall, Crawford, and Reynolds, p. 200 n. 11)? Or is Cnidus V simply a different law, perhaps the lex Servilia repetundarum Glauciae (cf. the many links noted by the editors [pp. 217-18] between Cnidus V and FIRA 7). On the minimal degree of control exerted by Roman authorities over the translation of the Delphi text, cf. especially Badian's study of the handling of the dolo malo formula: ZPE 35 (1979) 161-65.
[40] Lintott, ZPE 20 (1976) 81-82; Sherwin-White, JRS 66 (1976) 6; Ferrary, MEFRA 89 (1977) 623-27; cf. Hassall, Crawford, and Reynolds's comments at JRS 64 (1974) 211. Harris, War and Imperialism , 153 with n. 3, Badian, TLS , August 24, 1984, p. 952, and Crawford, in Storia di Roma , 2.1:106-8, claim that the law establishes, or presupposes the establishment of, a "permanent" or "territorial" province of Cilicia. But as Crawford acknowledges, this is not "facilmente delineabile" (p. 106).
portion of the law to suggest that any tribute was to be levied. The authors of the law are careful to state that the assignment of a praetor to Cilicia is to have no effect on the sovereignty of allied kings and peoples over communities subject to them;[41] thus Seleucid and Cappadocian claims to the south coast of Asia Minor are not to be invalidated. Further, the authors of the law took care to repeat clauses of the lex Porcia that forbade operations outside a provincia .[42] These provisions probably effectively prevented the praetor of Cilicia for 99 from pursuing the pirates too deeply into Seleucid waters—for example, to their stronghold Coracesium, whose capture was left to another age, when Romans acted with less circumspection. As for the fundamental source of the problem, the pirate nests in harbors of Cilicia proper to the east, which remained under Seleucid suzerainty, the authors of the law contented themselves with a diplomatic half-measure of highly dubious prospects, given the disintegration of governmental authority from the Orontes to the Nile: the consul first elected was to write letters to the Lagid and Seleucid rivals to request that they dose their harbors to pirates and cooperate with the Roman efforts.[43] The Cilician praetor was evidently to perform a police function along the southwest coast of Asia Minor; the inland rough country of Lycaonia, on the other hand, was to remain within the Asian proconsul's sphere of operation.[44]
[42] JRS 64 (1974) 202, III, lines 4-15. On the lex Porcia cf. also the lex de Termessibus, ILS 38, lines 13-17.
The lex de Cilicia Macedoniaque provinciis shows that Rome did not wash its hands of the problem of Cilician piracy after Antonius's expedition: Cilicia was again assigned as a provincia for 99 (probably), and polite noises were made about eliciting cooperation from the Eastern kings. The end of the Scordiscan-Thracian wars and return to a defensive posture in Macedonia and Thrace mandated in the law might roughly balance accounts and preclude the commitment of substantial new resources to the East.[45] But the limitations of these measures should be given equal attention. Only two years after Antonius's glorious victory the pirates were again a problem that needed attention; and no one can now have believed that Cilician piracy could be eradicated without full military assistance from the kings of Syria and Cyprus (which in turn would presuppose the arrangement of peace between the Seleucid rivals), and active campaigning against the strongholds along the coast east of Pamphylia. Instead the half-measure was taken of sending another praetor to "Cilicia," whose freedom of action was apparently restricted in just the area (eastward) where it was most needed, ostensibly out of respect for friendly and allied kings. While it is not unlikely that Cilicia provincia continued to be assigned at least sporadically after 100,[46] it is probably significant that no further naval campaigns are recorded in our evidence before the Mithridatic War; on the contrary, only land operations are reported for the two "Cilician" praetors known before the war.[47] It appears that Rome was simply not yet ready to commit sufficient resources to deal with a problem whose dimensions it was just now beginning to comprehend.
The lack of a decisive response to Cilician piracy remains conspicuous, and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the problem did not touch Roman interests very directly or acutely. It is worth considering whether the step of assigning a praetor to "Cilicia" in 100 was not taken above all simply for reasons of hegemonial prestige. That a Roman law is virtually the whole of our evidence may have distorted the picture by directing our attention almost exclusively to Rome. A Rhodian embassy was in Rome at the time of the drafting and passage of the law, which also provides for a senatorial audience extra ordinem for any future embassies from Rhodes. The consul's letters to the kings were to be given to the Rhodian envoys in Rome to convey to them.[48] These indications, taken together, suggest
[45] JRS 64 (1974) 201, II, lines 12-31. Cf. Sumner, GRBS 19 (1978) 225; Dahlheim, Gewalt und Herrschaft , 150.
[46] Cf. Ferrary, MEFRA 89 (1977) 660.
[47] Sulla ca. 95: see below. Oppius in 89: below, n. 139.
[48] JRS 64 (1974) 203, B, lines 12-20.
that the Rhodians were in the midst of a diplomatic campaign to organize a common effort against the pirates, of which the next step, after the mission to Rome, would be the dispatch of embassies to the Eastern kings armed with consular letters bearing Rome's imprimatur for the Rhodian initiative. The assignment of Cilicia provincia in 100 was of more concrete assistance, although, as we have noted, it is unclear in the state of our evidence how long Roman vigilance on the coasts persisted.
The evidence is consistent, then, with the hypothesis that Rome's interest in the campaign against Cilician piracy was not direct but derived chiefly from the need, in order to maintain its imperium , not to neglect the demands put upon it from its ally, Rhodes, and other cities of the coast and islands for the sake of their own security. To this end publicity of Roman solicitude for its allies' welfare was nearly as important as concrete action: hence the consul's letters, making the point that the Roman people's concern for the safety on the seas not only of Romans and Italians but also of foreign amici had induced Rome to assign Cilicia to a praetor;[49] hence also copies of the law are to be sent out by the proconsul of Asia to a host of cities and communities to be inscribed on bronze or stone or copied onto whitened boards and to be posted prominently either in a religious precinct or in the marketplace in such a way that they can be read from the ground[50] —an extraordinary effort to publicize in Greek cities what was, after all, a Roman law that was not legally binding upon noncitizens and did not mandate in its preserved portions action from anyone other than Roman officials.[51] That the intent was above all to publicize rather than to enforce is clearly suggested by the inscribing of the law as well on the most conspicuous Roman monument in the East, that of L. Aemilius Paulus at Delphi—a sanctuary that had little to do with the campaign against piracy but much to do with Hellenic public opinion.[52]
[49] JRS 64 (1974) 202, III, lines 28-37.
[50] JRS 64 (1974) 203, B, lines 20-26.
[51] Note that only Roman citizens can bring charges of disobeying this law: JRS 64 (1974) 205, C, line 23.
[52] Provisions for publication abroad appear at JRS 64 (1974) 203, B, lines 20-27. For the setting of the Delphi text, cf. Colin, ad FD III.4, 37. On Paulus's monument and its significance, see Kähler, Reiterdenkmal ; Jacquemin and Laroche, BCH 106 (1982) 207-18; Ferrary, Philhellénisme et impérialisme , 556-60; Hammond, History of Macedonia , 3:613-17; Gruen, Culture , 141-45. Sumner, GRBS 19 (1978) 224 (cf. 214), queries whether a proconsul of Asia could have been responsible for writing to Delphi; this is not hard to accept in view of his instructions to write to all to whom the consul prior had seen fit to write (lines 21-22; cp. 202, III, lines 28-30).
The publication of the law in Greek cities gave those under Rome's imperium concrete and explicit knowledge of what, according to Roman law, proconsuls were permitted to do or were responsible for doing.[53]
Much remains puzzling about the lex de Cilicia Macedoniaque provinciis . Who its authors were, why it takes the form of a law rather than a senatus consultum , and what role it played if any in the political crisis of 100 are questions that cannot be convincingly answered with the evidence at our disposal.[54] It is certainly dangerous to impute to it a markedly popularis character.[55] There is no suggestion in the law that a "great command" is being prepared for Marius or anyone else.[56] The Cilician command, which was after all merely praetorian, need not have been "greater" than Antonius's, and the Macedonian was positively to be downgraded. Traditionally, Saturninus and his friends are presumed to have been the authors of the law, because of its allegedly "antisenatorial" tone, and especially the oath of obedience required of magistrates[57] —hence the suggestion that, despite the publication of the law in the cities of the East, something not merely called for in the law but confirmed by the survival of our Delphi and Cnidus copies, the law was annulled with the rest of Saturninus's legislation.[58] But Saturninus's sanctio for his agrarian law was much stricter than this one, for it demanded an oath from all senators, not merely magistrates and officials—an argument against, rather than for, his sponsorship.[59] It was not, surely, uniquely popularis to assign a
[53] See Williamson, ClAnt 6 (1987) 179-83, for stress on the symbolic aspects of the publication of Roman legal documents abroad.
[55] As do especially, to confine myself to more recent discussions, Hinrichs, Hermes 98 (1970) 490-92; Hassall, Crawford, and Reynolds, JRS 64 (1974) 219; Ferrary, MEFRA 89 (1977) 656-60; with hesitation, Bulin, "Untersuchungen," 15-26. Contra: Sumner, GRBS 19 (1978) 222; Giovannini and Grzybek, MH 35 (1978) 40-46.
[56] Thus Hinrichs, Hermes 98 (1970) 492-99; contra: Hassall, Crawford, and Reynolds, JRS 64 (1974) 218-19; Ferrary, MEFRA 89 (1977) 654-55; Sumner, GRBS 19 (1978) 224-25; Giovannini and Grzybek, MH 35 (1978) 44-46.
[57] Cf. especially Hinrichs, Hermes 98 (1970) 490-92; Ferrary, MEFRA 89 (1977) 656-57; Sherwin-White, RFPE , 101.
[58] So, apparently, Bulin, "Untersuchungen," 15-26.
[59] Saturninus's ius iurandum in legem: App. BC 1.29-31. The inclusion of a sanctio binding on magistrates but not the Senate may not have been a popularis novelty of this age: see Giovannini and Grzybek, MH 35 (1978) 41; Sumner, GRBS 19 (1978) 222-23 n. 52; Sherwin-White, JRS 62 (1972) 92; and Mattingly, JRS 59 (1969) 142-43. Hassall, Crawford, and Reynolds, JRS 64 (1974) 219, suggest as author Servilius Glaucia—even more of a cipher.
praetor to Cilicia and to arrange for the succession of the proconsul in Macedonia,[60] or to give the force of law to instructions to provincial commanders that would normally have been contained in a senatus consultum ,[61] we will not set much store by the absence of senatorial legati for the settlement of the Caenic Chersonese.[62] If anything, the impression of solicitude for the welfare of the allies that the law conveys is far more characteristic of adherents to the traditional norms, such as Q. Mucius Scaevola, than of the popularis chiefs, who had since Ti. Gracchus openly advocated the use of the Empire's resources for the benefit of the Roman people; Saturninus in this very year proposed sending out Roman colonies to Macedonia and "Achaia" (presumably Corinth).[63] Conceivably the measures called for in the law were embodied in legislation rather than, as might be expected, a senatus consultum not because they contradicted the will of the Senate but because they were so comprehensive, and because a legal sanction for their enforcement seemed desirable. Saturninus, certainly, was not likely to veto a law before the assembly—usually an anti-popularis last resort, with unpleasant suggestions of suppressing the will of the people.[64] But this is of course only speculation.
Whoever the law's authors, however, and whatever its place in the domestic upheaval of 100, the lex de Cilicia Macedoniaque provinciis is invaluable evidence of a developing ideology of empire.[65] A theme that runs through the law is Rome's concern for the security and rights of its
[60] Contra Ferrary, MEFRA 89 (1977) 656-57, who also argues plausibly that the commander in Asia was to be succeeded as well (pp. 636, 644-45). That Didius was the current proconsul of Macedonia, to be replaced under the law, is not assured by the references to his recent conquest of the Caenic Chersonese.
[62] Rightly Sumner, GRBS 19 (1978) 222 n. 52, against Hassall, Crawford, and Reynolds, JRS 64 (1974) 219. The settlement of the Caenic Chersonese was hardly a major task, as it can be disposed of in only twenty-five short lines of column IV of the Cnidus copy.
[63] For the Gracchi and Scaevola, see chaps. 4-5. Saturninus: Vir. ill . 73; for ager publicus in Macedonia and Corinth: Cic. Leg. agr . 1.5, 2.50-51. Giovannini and Grzybek, MH 35 (1978) 40-46; cf. Sumner, GRBS 19 (1978) 222-23. Contra: Ferrary, MEFRA 89 (1977) 657-60.
[64] Cf. the lex de Termessibus (ILS 38) for an equally striking example, even less amenable to interpretation as a partisan measure, of legislation in matters that seem to require only a senatus consultum . On popularis tribunes and the legislative veto, note that Drusus's laws of 122 were apparently not countered with a veto (Plut. C. Gracch . 9; App. BC 1.35) despite the presence in the tribunician college of three Gracchan tribunes besides Gaius.
[65] Rightly noted by Hassall, Crawford, and Reynolds, JRS 64 (1974) 218-19.
allies in the imperium . Not only Roman citizens, Italian allies, and Latins are to sail safely on the seas and enjoy their tights, but also the foreign peoples in the friendship of the Roman people; for this very purpose a praetor has been assigned "Cilicia."[66] Rome will lend its good offices to help win the crucial cooperation of the Eastern kings.[67] Roman magistrates in the provinces are reminded of the provisions of a recent law that forbade their or their staff's straying outside their provinces except for mere passage through or in the Roman public interest;[68] the proconsul of Macedonia is to supervise the legitimate collection of Roman revenues and is to protect the territorial integrity and rights of Rome's friends and allies.[69] The copy at Delphi ends with an impressive series of provisions to ensure that Roman magistrates obey the law.[70] This positive image of empire was proclaimed from copies posted in markets and sanctuaries of various Eastern titles, but most strikingly at the "center of the world," on the very plinth of L. Aemilius Paulus's spectacular monument of his victory over Perseus. We have already noted how at Delphi only a few years previously the Roman victory over a new Gallic menace had been celebrated; now, on the very monument of the victory that gave Rome its Eastern imperium , was inscribed a text that not only advertised the successful pacification of the northern frontier but also expressed explicitly and implicitly the principles of Rome's benevolent patronage of its "friends and allies" in the East. It was opportune to attempt to restore a Hellenic consensus on Rome's right to power after Minucius Rufus, Didius, and Antonius had restored the Roman name in the East, closing an unpleasant chapter marked by inauspicious defeat at the opening of the Scordiscan war, demoralization inflicted by the German invasions, and an embarrassingly long and checkered struggle against Jugurtha in Numidia.
The Struggle for the Cappadoclan Succession
The Roman presence in western Asia Minor had no noticeable effect on the traditional rivalries and sporadic wars between the dynasts of the peninsula, especially the kings of Pontus and Bithynia, in their attempts to
[66] JRS 64 (1974) II, lines 6-11; III, lines 28-37; cf. B, lines 5-7.
[68] JRS 64 (1974) III, lines 1-15.
[69] JRS 64 (1974) IV, lines 13-18, 21-25.
[70] JRS 64 (1974) C, lines 6-30.
expand their influence to fill the vacuum caused by the collapse of the Attalid kingdom. Rome's passivity is indeed worthy of note in the face of what one scholar has called the "surprising antics and intrigues of the kings of Pontus and Bithynia,"[71] which were carried on without any apparent fear of Roman intervention. For a full discussion of these struggles toward the close of the second century and beginning of the first, I must refer the reader elsewhere.[72] The story is full of chronological and source problems that can only be touched on here. I shall give only a summary, with particular emphasis on Rome's reaction.
At some point perhaps shortly after the conclusion of the war with Aristonicus, Mithridates V Euergetes brought Cappadocia under his power by means of a military invasion and a marriage alliance.[73] We have no evidence that Rome took any interest in this affair. The notion that Rome was behind Euergetes' subsequent assassination, in the absence of any evidence for the allegation, has rightly been rejected.[74] At some time subsequent to Euergetes' death ca. 120, his successor, Mithridates VI Eupator, was by senatorial decree deprived of Greater Phrygia, given his father by Aquillius after the war with Aristonicus. The nature and timing of this event, however, need closer analysis.
The traditional view is that Rome now resumed possession of Phrygia; but Appian puts in Sulla's mouth the claim that the Senate declared Phrygia
[71] Sherwin-White, RFPE , 101.
[72] Especially now McGing, FPME , 36-42, 66-88; Sherwin-White, RFPE , 102-12; Glew, Athenaeum 55 (1977) 380-405, and ANSMN 32 (1987) 23-55.
[73] Invasion: App. Mith . 10. Daughter Laodice married to Ariarathes VI: Justin 38.1.1; Memnon, FGrH 434 F22.1. Cf. Glew, Athenaeum 55 (1977) 388-89, and McGing, FPME , 37-38, for differing views on the implications for relations between Cappadocia and Pontus.
[74] cGing, FPME , 41-42; against Reinach, Mithradates , 39; Rostovtzeff, CAH 9 (1932) 226.
[75] App. Mith . 56-57; cf. Justin 38.5.3, 37.1.2 (where Phrygia is meant for "Syria" ?). For the traditional view, see especially Reinach, Mithradates , 38; Magie, RRAM , 169,1058-59 nn. 35-37; Drew-Bear, Historia 21 (1972) 80-84; Liebmann-Frankfort, Frontière orientale , 154-59; Glew, Athenaeum 55 (1977) 354 n. 16, 385-86; Harris, War and Imperialism , 152-54. It seems arbitrary to accept the first half of Appian/Sulla's statement and reject the second, as does Sherwin-White, RFPE , 96. See Badian, AJAH 1 (1976) 122-23 n. 20, for skepticism about the traditional view on Phrygia; another reconstruction by Desideri, Athenaeum 51 (1973) 6-7 n. 19, developed and modified by Coarelli, in Epigrafia , 1:440-46.
evidence contradicts it, and such a decree is paralleled by a host of like senatorial declarations of "freedom" that functioned to deny possession to a third party.[76] An inscription found in Arizli, near ancient Synnada in Phrygia, records the Senate's ratification of the acts of a dead king whose name has confidently been restored as Mithridates, although only the final sigma—a rather common termination of Greek or Hellenized names!—was thought to be preserved on the stone. But the discovery of what appears to be a second copy of the text has had an embarrassing result: what was believed to be the final sigma of
The date of the "freeing" of Phrygia has been problematic, more so now in view of the uncertainty surrounding the inscription. It has nor-
[76] Cf. below on the Senate's declaration of "freedom" for Cappadocia ca. 96; in 96 too the titles of Cyrene were freed (Livy Per . 70). Among earlier examples, the "freeing" of Galatia (Polyb. 30.28), of Caria (30.5.12), and of Aenus and Maronea (30.3.7) might be cited.
[78] Note that at the conclusion of the First Mithridatic War he regards Bithynia and Cappadocia as provinciae that Mithridates must evacuate (83); and Macedonia was in provinciae formam redacta by Aemilius Paulus (45).
mally been supposed that our two sources contradict each other directly on the chronology: Pompeius Trogus, in a speech he composed for Mithridates VI Eupator, seems to assume that the king was still a young man at the time, for he is made to refer to himself as a pupillus ; the event would then have taken place not long after his accession ca. 120. On the other hand, Appian considered the event "recent" around 90 and appears to place it between Sulla's Cappadocian campaign of ca. 95 and the restoration of Nicomedes IV of Bithynia and Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia in 90.[79] It has not been noted that Trogus very likely chose pupillus here not as a chronological tag to indicate Mithridates' age at the time (adulescens would have been adequate for that rather mundane purpose) but to suggest rhetorically Rome's violation of the norms of behavior that governed the relationship between Rome and its friendly kings, often represented in authors from the late Republic onward as that between tutor and pupillus , "guardian" and "ward."[80] Trogus's word cannot be taken as a chronological indication, and Appian's implied date in the later 90s fits well in the context of other contemporary Roman attempts to block Pontic expansion.[81] The declaration of Phrygian "freedom," which belongs a generation later than where it is usually placed (ca. 119), does not affect the picture of benign senatorial indifference toward Pontus in the late second century.[82]
Eupator's youth, then the campaigns in Scythia, left Asia Minor in peace until 108/107, in which year both he and Nicomedes III of Bithynia invaded and partitioned Paphlagonia, whose king at the time of the war with Aristonicus, Pylaemenes, had assisted Rome, but about whose condition at this date we know nothing.[83] The Roman response, according to Justin, our only source, was to send envoys to both kings demanding that
[79] App. Mith . 11, 15; cf. 56. Trogus, quoted at Justin 38.5.3: nam bellum quidem iam tunc secure ab illis [sc. Romanis ] geri coeptum, cum sibi pupillo maiorem Phrygiam ademerint, quam patri suo praemium dati adversus Aristonicum auxilii concesserant etc.
[80] On which see especially Braund, RFK , 146-47.
[81] Pace McGing, GRBS 21 (1980) 35-42, who, accepting the traditional view on Phrygia, argues that Appian conflates the elder and younger Aquillius. More likely Appian's only confusion lies in thinking that Eupator himself bribed the elder Aquillius for Phrygia (Mith . 13, 57) rather than his father, Mithridates V Euergetes. Desideri, Athenaeum 51 (1973) 6-7 n. 19, implausibly posits two successive expulsions of Mithridates from Phrygia (cf. Coarelli, in Epigrafia , 1:440-46).
[82] See McGing, FPME , 41-42; Glew, Athenaeum 55 (1977) 383-86.
[83] Invasion of Paphlagonia: Justin 37.4.3-9; 38.5.4, 7.10. Pylaemenes: Eutr. 4.20.1; Oros. 5.10.2.
they return Paphlagonia "to its previous state." Mithridates claimed, however, that Paphlagonia was his father's by inheritance, and he wondered why no complaint had been made to his father at the time of the inheritance, but only now to himself. Far from complying with the Roman request, Mithridates went on to occupy Galatia as well (Justin 37.4.6). Nicomedes, on the other hand, said that he would give Paphlagonia to its rightful king, who, not very surprisingly, turned out to be Nicomedes' own son, given for the purpose the dynastic Paphlagonian name Pylaemenes; through him he controlled the kingdom (37.4.7-8). It appears that Nicomedes was eventually able to spread Bithynian control over all Paphlagonia.[84] "Thus made sport of, the Roman envoys returned" (37.4.9).
It is not unlikely that Justin has exaggerated the kings' arrogance in this account, but it is abundantly clear that Rome did nothing. Its response was in an old tradition: to send envoys registering disapproval, but to let the matter drop when words had no effect.[85] The intrigues and expansion of the Asian dynasts need not have concerned Rome unduly as long as their quarrels were kept more or less harmlessly to themselves and did not degenerate to an open challenge to Rome's imperium . Mithridates' subsequent conquest of much, if not all of Galatia elicited no known response from Rome; in fact we can be reasonably certain that he was not requested to give it up.[86] As for Bithynia, Rome's lack of serious concern about the usurpation of Paphlagonia is illustrated by its appeal for military assistance from Nicomedes in 104—which the king felt sufficiently confident to rebuff, with a pointed complaint about the violence done by publicani upon his people.[87]
Eventually, renewed Pontic intrigues in Cappadocia led to a long struggle between rival factions supported by Mithridates, on the one hand, and Nicomedes, on the other. From the evidence of Justin, it appears that a certain Gordius killed Ariarathes VI, Mithridates' own brother-in-law,
[84] Mithridates later claimed that he had evacuated Paphlagonia at Rome's command, if Justin 38.5.6 can be believed. Afterwards we hear only of Bithynian control of Paphlagonia down to the outbreak of war in 89: cf. Oros. 6.2.2; Eutr. 5.5.2; App. Mith . 58; and especially Justin 38.2.6, where only Nicomedes is commanded to withdraw from Paphlagonia. McGing would have Mithridates stay on in Paphlagonia until it was "freed" ca. 96, and assumes that he was ordered out along with Nicomedes at that time, though only Nicomedes is mentioned (FPME , 69).
[85] See Gruen, HWCR , 111-29, for earlier examples.
[86] McGing, FPME , 71, argues against the occupation of all Galatia, but this is only because Mithridates was evidently not ordered to give it up (see Justin 38.5.6).
[87] Diod. 36.3.1. Discussed above, pp. 139-41.
perhaps around 116 but possibly later.[88] Nicomedes invaded Cappadocia and tried to forestall Mithridates' reaction by marrying the widowed queen, Laodice, the Pontic king's own sister. Mithridates, however, was not to be put off so easily; expelling Nicomedes and Laodice, he installed on the throne as Ariarathes VII his nephew, Laodice's son. When Ariarathes resisted by force Mithridates' plan to allow his father's murderer, Gordius, to return, Eupator swiftly disposed of him as well and boldly placed on the throne his own eight-year-old son, now dubbed Ariarathes (IX), with Gordius as his regent and adviser.[89]
What was Rome's reaction to the anarchy in Cappadocia? If our evidence does not deceive, little or nothing. The purpose of an embassy from Mithridates to the Senate perhaps in 103 goes unstated in our only source (Diod. 36.15.1), but we may guess that it was an attempt to bolster the Pontic king's claims to Cappadocia against Nicomedes and other interested parties. Saturninus's abuse of the embassy and the prevailing belief that many senators were in its pay imply that if anything the Senate was perceived to be too favorable to Mithridates, an impression duly strengthened by subsequent harassment of Saturninus in retribution.[90]
There are tantalizing notices also of diplomatic contacts between Rome and the Temple of the Great Mother in Pessinus in western Galatia in the
[88] Justin 38.1.1. The date depends entirely on the assumption that the exergue letters of the Cappadocian royal coinage specify regnal years, in which case Ariarathes VII must be given a reign of at least sixteen years. On the numismatic problem, see especially Mørkholm, NC 9[7] (1969) 21-31, and McGing, FPME , 172-75. For the death of Ariarathes VI, McGing accepts the traditional date of 116 (p. 74); Mørkholm reasonably urges a later date, after Eupator was fully in control of Pontus. For a brief survey of the long and convoluted struggle for the Cappadocian succession, see McGing, pp. 72-88.
[89] Justin 38.1; Memnon, FGrH 434 F22.1. See McGing, FPME , 75, for a reconstruction of the events. Glew, ANSMN 32 (1987) 23-55, dates Nicomedes' invasion in 105 on highly speculative grounds. The death of Ariarathes VII cannot have been earlier than 102/101, when a heroon to Mithridates, honoring his nephew as well, was dedicated on Delos: IDel 1562, with Daux, BCH 57 (1933) 82, and the new fragment of the dedicatory inscription published by Sanders and Catling, ABSA 85 (1990) 330.
years on either side of the turn of the century. The Battaces, the priest of the Great Mother, undertook an embassy to Rome in 102; he brought tidings of a pollution of his goddess's temple and advised the Senate to order a public expiatory sacrifice on Rome's behalf. He also appears to have taken the occasion to report Cybele's prophecy of a Roman victory.[91] After his victory over the Germans, Marius in 99 or 98 duly traveled to Cappadocia and Galatia—according to Plutarch, "on the pretext of performing sacrifices which he had vowed to the Mother of the Gods" but really with the secret intention of stirring up the Eastern kings, and especially of inciting Mithridates to war, so that Marius might be chosen to lead an army against him.[92] On the face of it, our evidence seems to suggest that the priest at Pessinus had deftly exploited Rome's need for religious support at the moment of crisis against the Germans in order to gain honor and prestige for his goddess. The Great Mother had of course brought decisive assistance to Rome on the eve of victory against Hannibal; her intervention now, in Rome's darkest hour since the Second Punic War, recalled that occasion and will have boosted expectations of an equally felicitous result. Her efficacy was immediately demonstrated to the populace, whose religious sensibilities were at a high pitch on the eve of the war's derision: the tribune A. Pompeius treated her priest with disrespect, contemptuously dismissing him from the rostra, but paid for the sacrilege with his own death only three days later.[93] The embassy of 102, in short, makes sense on its own terms without any need to supplement our sources by introducing into the picture Mithridates' recent advance into Galatia. Furthermore, recognition of the importance for Roman morale of Cybele's intervention before the turning of the tide against the Germans induces us to give more credence than is usual to the stated purpose for Marius's visit to Asia Minor immediately after the German wars: to perform sacrifices he had vowed to Cybele, presumably for the victory she had promised. Inasmuch as her priest had called for a public sacrifice on Rome's behalf, and no source suggests that Marius was merely on a private mis-
[91] Diod. 36.13.1-2; Plut. Mar . 17.5. Note that according to Plutarch a temple of the Magna Mater (surely the reconstruction of the temple on the Palatine burnt in 111: Morgan, Kilo 55 [1973] 234 n. 95) was to be dedicated for the promised victory. See also Morgan, pp. 241-45, on the visit of the Battaces. Glew, Klio 69 (1987) 122-37, conjectures that the alleged pollution involved encroachment by Roman publicani . There is not a word of this in the sources, although Diodorus's own source, Posidonius, was particularly sensitive to such complaints.
[92] Plut. Mar . 31.1-2. Cic. Ad Brut . 1.5.3 confirms that Marius visited Cappadocia.
[93] Diod. 36.13.2-3; Plut. Mar . 17.5-6.
sion, it is possible that this was no libera legatio but resembled more closely in its formal character the embassy to Attalus in 205 that brought the Magna Mater from Pessinus.[94] The man who had saved Rome from disaster and was thus honored as its "third founder" (Plut. Mar . 27.5) now came east to perform a sacrifice of victory over the Germans—a powerful symbol of the revival of Rome's fortunes, and a fitting cap for the recent victories over the Scordisci, Thracians, and Cilician pirates.[95]
It is sometimes supposed that Marius had a further brief, unmentioned in any of our sources: to investigate the state of Cappadocia, or indeed to convey a senatorial order to Mithridates to evacuate Paphlagonia and Cappadocia.[96] We do know that Marius went to Cappadocia as well as Galatia, and also that he met with the Pontic king.[97] But there is no evidence of a prior senatorial order to Mithridates to quit Cappadocia, while Paphlagonia seems to have been in the hands of Nicomedes. It would be rash to suppose that Marius was expected to do more in Cappadocia than inform himself on the Senate's behalf of the nature of the recent dynastic conflict (Scipio Aemilianus's embassy to the Eastern kings again provides a useful parallel). Mithridates, of course, was now in control of Cappadocia, a fact that provides the appropriate context for his meeting with Marius. Possibly Mithridates tried to defend his adventures in Paphlagonia, Galatia, or Cappadocia to Marius, for we hear (if we can trust Plutarch) that Marius would not "yield" to his blandishments and bluntly advised him: "Either try to
[94] Cic. Har. resp . 28 surely refers to Marius's visit to Pessinus: ut . . . tamen nostri imperatores maximis et periculosissimis bellis huic deae vota facerent, eaque in ipso Pessinunte ad illam ipsam principem aram et in illo loco fanoque persolverent (cf. Val. Max. 1.1.1). Broughton, Historia 2 (1953-54) 210-11, rightly associated Marius's visit with the embassy to Rome of the priest of Cybele; Sherwin-White, RFPE , 108, stresses its religious nature. The notion that Marius undertook only a private journey derives above all from Plutarch's claim that Marius went east merely to avoid Metellus's triumphant return from exile (Mar . 31.1). The historian does well to reserve judgment on Plutarch's imputations of motive: Pelling, JHS 100 (1980) 131-35. See also Sordi, RendIstLomb 107 (2973) 371-72, 375, who, however, takes a very different view from mine about the nature of the mission (below, n. 96).
[95] We might compare the famous eastern tour of Scipio Aemilianus, another Western conqueror sent east after the defeat of Carthage, Andriscus, and the Achaean League.
[96] Investigation: McGing, FPME , 76; Badian, Studies , 171. Order to evacuate: Sordi, RendIstLomb 107 (1973) 370-79; Bulin, "Untersuchungen," 27-34.
[97] Plut. Mar . 31.1-2; Cic. Ad Brut . 1.5.3 (Cappadocia). A visit to Delos is in itself not improbable, although Mommsen's restoration of Marius's name in ILLRP 343 is quite uncertain. Cf. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria , 2:271 n. 192.
be stronger than the Romans, O King, or obey commands in silence."[98] Plutarch believes that Marius hoped with these words to provoke Mithridates to open war.[99] We may wonder how the Chaeronean knew not only Marius's words at this colloquium but his mind as well—very likely from the histories of Marius's bitter enemy P. Rutilius Rufus, a source that he certainly used for other discreditable details in this Life .[100] If this anecdote derived from Rutilius, we are entitled to wonder whether the retort deserves credence at all. But even if it is authentic, the interpretation Plutarch puts on it (or found in his source) is too obviously ex post facto, redolent as it is of the events of 89-88, to be accepted without question. With so much uncertain, including the precise context, we may as well conclude (resisting the temptation of hindsight) that Marius's intent was to ward off further adventurism with a blunt reminder to him of the meaning of Rome's imperium . It is dear that it would be dangerous to make too much of this story in reconstructing Roman policy toward the kings in the 90s,[101] particularly as Marius's standing in the Senate was quite uncertain at this time.
The next stage of the struggle over the Cappadocian succession finally induced Rome to intervene. The background is given by Justin (38.2.1-3.4): after the Cappadocian opponents of Gordius and Mithridates were defeated in battle while attempting to replace Ariarathes IX with a member of their native dynasty (an exiled brother of Ariarathes VII, thus another son of Laodice, Nicomedes of Bithynia's wife), Nicomedes derided to try his luck with the Roman Senate. Finding a third son of Laodice and Ariarathes VI, although previously only two had been known, Nicomedes sent Laodice to Rome to vouch for his legitimacy. Not to be outdone in the genealogical game, Mithridates sent an embassy led by Gordius that traced the descent of his Ariarathes (IX) one step higher on the dynastic
[99] Plutarch's view is taken at face value by Luce, Historia 19 (1970) 162-68.
[100] Cf. Sordi, RendIstLomb 107 (1973) 371. Rutilius is directly cited at Mar . 28.5, where Plutarch chooses to cast some doubt on one calumny against Marius; a contemporary account in Greek will have recommended itself highly to Plutarch in view of his difficulties with Latin. For Plutarch's collation of material, and his dependence on single narrative sources, cf. Pelling JHS 99 (1979) 83-91. For the nature of Rutilius's work, see especially Badian, in Latin Historians , 23-25. Posidonius may, of course, be the intermediary sours: Desideri, Athenaeum 51 (1973) 260-61; and below, n. 121.
[101] As do Badian, Studies , 171; Sherwin-White, RFPE , 108-9.
table, to Rome's ally in the war with Aristonicus, Ariarathes V. But the Senate concluded only that both kings were merely attempting to seize Cappadocia for themselves by championing usurpers,[102] as Nicomedes had already managed to do with success in Paphlagonia a few years earlier, and on the grounds that both native dynasties were defunct declared both Cappadocia and Paphlagonia "free."[103]
What was the meaning of this proclamation? In the first place, of course, it rejected the royal claims both of Mithridates' son in Cappadocia and Nicomedes' son in Paphlagonia and thus undermined the basis of their effective control of those areas (Justin 38.2.6-7). But this was only a pronouncement without any commitment to enforce it. Furthermore, even if it should be obeyed by the major parties, it ensured only further political chaos—as did the virtually contemporaneous declaration of the "freedom" of Cyrene in 96 after the death of Ptolemy Apion.[104] The Cappadocians themselves were not satisfied with this solution, which resolved nothing, and requested that the Senate name a king for them.[105] The Senate agreed to make king whomever the Cappadocians chose. The candidates with some claim to the throne were Ariobarzanes, who had fled Gordius's partisans and taken refuge in Rome, and Gordius; the choice fell, not surprisingly, given the venue, on Ariobarzanes.[106] But now the Senate was prepared to do more than merely assert Ariobarzanes' claim. It not only called upon Mithridates to evacuate Cappadocia and take his son with him but assigned L. Cornelius Sulla the task of escorting Ariobarzanes into Cappadocia and establishing him on his throne. Mithridates duly obeyed the demand, and Sulla marched into Cappadocia in 96 or 95, deafly expecting no substantial
[102] Justin 38.2.6: studio regum intellecto, aliena regna falsis nominibus furantium .
[104] Livy Per . 70; Jul. Obs. 49; Jerome p. 149e Helm (cf. Cic. Leg. agr . 2.51). On Cyrene's eventual assignment as a provincia , see appendix J. On the endemic stasis that plagued the Cyrenean cities after the date of "freedom," see Oost, CP 58 (1963) 16-19.
resistance, for he brought only a small Roman force supplemented by levies among the allies (presumably chiefly Cappadocians).[107] Nevertheless, Gordius, abandoned by Mithridates, put up some resistance, and "many" of his Cappadocian partisans and his Armenian allies were killed in order to make Ariobarzanes secure in his kingdom. Sulla took care in addition before departing to secure Ariobarzanes' southeastern frontier. He elicited, at a meeting on the Euphrates, Parthian recognition of the new king, apparently in exchange for Roman friendship.[108]
After years of limiting itself to mere pronouncements, Rome had finally intervened directly in the geopolitical ferment of central Anatolia. Cappadocian politics as such had never held great interest for the Senate; it seems evident that the imposition of a Roman-sponsored, rather than a Pontic, candidate on the throne of Cappadocia was no more than an attempt to roll back the recent gains of the energetic Pontic king. That Mithridates was the focus of Roman attention is dear enough from the fact that following the Senate's proclamation that both Cappadocia and Paphlagonia should be "free," implying as it did that the Pontic and Bithynian puppets who held the thrones had no valid royal claim, Roman action was taken only in Cappadocia; Paphlagonia appears to have been left under Nicomedes III's de facto control.[109] The expulsion of Mithridates from Cap-
[107] The main sources for Sulla in Cappadocia: Livy Per . 70; Plut. Sull . 5.3-6; App. Mith . 57; cf. Vir. ill . 75.4; Frontin. Str . 1.5.18; Veil. Pat. 2.24.3. The chronology and sequence of events are established in appendix H. For "Cilicia" as his province, App. Mith . 57, BC 1.77; Ferrary, MEFRA 89 (1977) 639-40, against Sherwin-White, JRS 66 (1976) 8-9. The order to Mithridates: Trogus ap. Justin 38.5.6; App. Mith . 10. Frontin. Str . 1.5.18 mentions an incident in which Sulla eluded Archelaus, Mithridates' general, in Cappadocia by offering a truce; if this is not merely a mistake (so Reinach, Mithradates , 169 n. 2) it may indicate that Mithridates did not entirely evacuate Cappadocia before Sulla's arrival. But note that Sulla "escapes" Archelaus, and fighting seems to be averted. (Contra McGing, FPME , 78 n. 46.) There may be indeed have been some tense moments, particularly if Sulla approached the Pontic frontier as he did the Parthian (below). Sulla's forces: Plut. Sull . 5.3.
[109] When in 89 Mithridates seized Paphlagonia he drove out Nicomedes IV and Pylaemenes, presumably the son of Nicomedes III mentioned above: Oros. 6.2.2; Eutr. 5.5.2. Magie, RRAM , 1098 n. 14; McGing, FPME , 69-70.
padocia was probably followed up by the "freeing" of Phrygia, depriving him of what had been a Pontic possession since the war with Aristonicus (above, pp. 240-42). It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Senate, drawn into the Cappadocian imbroglio by the contending parties, recognized that Mithridates' ambitions were the chief block to a resolution, and had now determined to make a point of demanding concrete demonstration of Mithridates' submission to the imperium populi Romani just as it had in previous generations with other too-independent agents, King Perseus of Macedonia and the Achaean League.[110] Rome obviously did not expect defiance: Sulla, as we saw, brought few Roman troops and relied on the military assistance of the allies. Mithridates, for his part, obliged: we have seen that he departed Cappadocia, taking his son with him, without a fight; similarly the Senate's pronouncement had sufficed to remove Phrygia from his patrimony. Having given a lesson in the meaning of imperium , the Senate had every reason to believe that Mithridates would now behave himself and that central Anatolia could once again be left to its own devices. The events of the middle 90s do not demonstrate the emergence of a new, actively interventionist Roman policy toward the region.[111]
The Coming of War With Mithridates
As it happened, Mithridates' submission to the Roman imperium was short-lived and perhaps specious from the beginning.[112] Perhaps in 92 one Socrates Chrestus, backed by Mithridates, wrested Bithynia and Paphlagonia from his half brother Nicomedes IV, who had succeeded to the throne upon the death of Nicomedes III with the approval of Rome against the claims of Socrates. At about the same time the young king of Armenia, Tigranes, now Mithridates' son-in-law, had Ariobarzanes expelled from
[111] Contra Badian, Studies , 171-72 (who also adduces M. Aemilius Scaurus's mysterious Asiatica legatio and Q. Scaevola's tenure of Asia, dated to 94: but see my CP 84 [1989] 310, 312, and Alexander, TAPA 111 [1981] 1-9); Sherwin-White, RFPE , 108-11.
[112] There is no reason, however, to suppose with Bernhardt PrH , 36, that Mithridates actually sponsored Thracian raids on Roman-controlled Macedonia at this time. The text he rites (Dio F 101.2) belongs no earlier than 88.
Cappadocia and Ariarathes IX reintroduced to the unhappy kingdom. Naturally, both dispossessed kings appealed to Rome, and the Senate's answer was to send in 91 or 90 a commission headed by M'. Aquillius to restore Ariobarzanes and Nicomedes to their thrones.[113]
From this point events lead in a fairly direct line to war with Mithridates. In such cases it is extraordinarily difficult to escape the distorting effect of our knowledge of the outcome, particularly when the outcome is a disaster that cries out for scapegoats. Our chief source for the origins of the Mithridatic War, Appian's Mithridatica , is dearly susceptible to both historiographic sins. In this account the Roman envoys, under the guise of neutrality, insidiously force war upon Mithridates: after restoring Nicomedes and Ariobarzanes to their thrones, they urge them against their will to start a great war with Mithridates in which Rome would come to their assistance; while Ariobarzanes does nothing, the envoys are able to prod the reluctant Nicomedes into action only by means of the huge debts he owed them for securing his restoration (11). In the subsequent discussions we are reminded again and again that the envoys were attempting to force war upon Mithridates and to assist Nicomedes directly in his developing conflict with Pontus (12, 14); finally, fearing (it is implied) Mithridates' imminent formal complaint to the Senate about their behavior (16), they attacked Mithridates without waiting for the authorization of the Senate to start "a war of such magnitude" (17:
[113] Justin 38.3.1-4; App. Mith . 10, 13, 58, cf. Memnon, FGrH 434 F 22.5; Licinianus 35.85-94 Criniti; Cic. De or . 3.229. The chronology of these last expulsions is uncertain; see appendix H.
[114] E.g., Reinach, Mithradates , 110-15; Magie, RRAM , 206-11; Luce, Historia 19 (1970) 186-90; McGing, FPME , 81; surprisingly, Glew, Athenaeum 55 (1977) 397-98. Desideri's historiographical study (Athenaeum 51 [1973] 3-29, 237-69) is a noteworthy exception (esp. pp. 266-69). Sherwin-White, RFPE , 112-20, makes many telling points against the Appianic tradition but appears to conclude by accepting it. Badian, Roman Imperialism , 56-59, while noting the inadequacy of the Appianic interpretation in general and rightly arguing that the war "arose (it seems) from a miscalculation rather than from deliberate provocation" (p. 58), is nevertheless eager to accept the allegation, which is part and parcel of the scapegoating Tendenz of the source, that Aquillius and his colleagues forced Nicomedes to attack Mithridates by pressure of his debts. For Badian indeed debt collection was precisely the object, and thus Aquillius "blundered into war while trying to satisfy his own greed and that of his associates" (p. 58). Badian seems loath to jettison the whole of the Appianic interpretation, inasmuch as it can be made to illustrate the "decline in the morality of the ruling class" (p. 59) that was, in his view, largely responsible for the end of a sober senatorial policy of resistance to expansionism and the emergence of the "new imperialists" of the late Republic.
Some preliminary considerations should give pause. It is now clear that the Mithridatic War began in 89 at the worst possible moment for Rome, while the Italian war was still raging; and the tiny Roman military establishment in Asia Minor had evidently not been augmented for action beyond its normal peacetime duties.[115] The scapegoating tendency of Appian's source is manifest but deserves a little closer attention. It has been pointed out that the holder of imperium , C. Cassius, under whose auspices the war with Mithridates actually broke out, is lightly passed over while blame is explicitly fixed on M'. Aquillius, "the man most responsible for the embassy and this war."[116] He quickly meets a punishment appropriate to an avaricious bribe taker: molten gold is poured down his throat after his capture by Mithridates.[117] Curiously, no other source singles out Aquillius's responsibility in this way; and while Roman sources beginning with Cicero imply that Aquillius ought to have killed himself rather than fallen into the hands of his enemies, there is no suggestion that he received harsh but condign punishment; in fact, Cicero once employs Aquillius as a contrary exemplum against the doctrine that the bonus is always happy, even when tormented—which suggests a rather different assessment of Aquillius than that given by Appian.[118] Indeed, doubt is cast on Appian's account of Aquillius's end by other evidence that in 85, as part of peace negotiations with Mithridates, Sulla demanded the return of Aquillius as well as of the proconsul Oppius.[119] At the very least, then, the story of Aquillius's death
[115] Both points made by Sherwin-White, RFPE , 114, 118-19. See pp. 122-25 for Sherwin-White's revision of Reinach's chronological scheme for the outbreak of the war: Mithridates' operations in Bithynia and the initial stage of his invasion of Asia provincia belong in 89, its completion toward the end of 89 and the early months of 88, followed by the campaigns in Lycia and against Rhodes. This is persuasive, if not supported by Cic. Leg. Man. 7, as its author claims. Livy's apparent difficulty in integrating the stages of the crisis in the East into his annalistic account is paralleled on other occasions: compare the dislocation of his account of Roman operations in Greece between 211 and 206: Walbank, HCP , 2:11-18.
[116] App. Mith . 21; cf. 112. Cf. Sherwin-White, RFPE , 120.
[117] App. Mith . 21; also Pliny HN 33.48 for the manner of death only. Note Mithridates' claim that the Roman envoys and generals had precipitated war with their appetite for bribes from the opposing parties: App. Mith . 56. This version of Aquillius's punishment is probably also connected with the story (in Appian) that his own father had given Mithridates (a mistake for his father, Mithridates Euergetes) Phrygia in return for a bribe. The grant had recently been cancelled by the Senate. (Cf. Mith . 12, 13, 57, and above, pp. 240-42).
[118] Tusc . 5.14. Cf. Scaur . 3.2; Val. Max. 9.13.1. Neither here nor at Cic. Leg. Man . 11 is there a hint of the story of the molten gold. Cicero's eyes were not closed to Aquillius's avarice, but he implies that his virtues in war were thought to outweigh it: Flac . 98.
has been moved forward chronologically in order to form an effective coda to the opening chapters, which indict him for causing the war; and whatever end Aquillius actually met, there can be little doubt why Appian's source prefers the draught of gold.[120] It has been argued with great plausibility that the ultimate source of Appian's chapters on the opening of the Mithridatic War was P. Rutilius Rufus. Rutilius, much embittered by his allegedly groundless conviction for extortion, will have been glad to pin the blame for the subsequent catastrophe upon a man who, despite a reputation for avarice, had escaped his brush with the extortion court shortly before Rutilius's disaster and was an associate of Rutilius's enemy Marius.[121] The portrayal of Aquillius we find in Appian is quite in keeping with Rutilius's historiographical style, well known for its indulgence in personal vendetta.[122] Something more than personal enmity may lurk under its surface. Aquillius took refuge after Mithridates overran Asia at Mytilene, but was seized by the Mytileneans and delivered up along with other Romans to the Pontic king. Rutilius, however, a resident of the same city since his conviction some years before, escaped disaster somewhat ignominiously by shedding his toga—not perhaps, to judge from his extended residency, to escape recognition but as a renunciation of Roman allegiance.[123] Pompey's Mytilenean friend Theophanes later went so far as
[120] Cf. Cic. Leg. Man . 11: vos eum regem inultum esse patiemini qui legatum populi Romani consularem vinculis ac verberibus atque omni supplicio excruciatum necavit? For what it is worth, the story of the molten gold was unknown to the Gronovian Scholiast (317 Stangl), and it is surprising that it is passed over by Valerius Maximus (9.13.1), who seems to imply that Aquillius's punishment was enslavement (Mithridati maluit turpiter servire ; cf. commisit ut privatum opprobrium publicus rubor exsisteret ).
[121] For the suggestion: Sherwin-White, RFPE , 117-18. As Posidonius used Rutilius (cf. Ath. 4.168d, 6.274c; Münzer, RE 1A [1914] 1277-80), it is unnecessary, with Sherwin-White, to attempt to distinguish these two (RFPE , p. 117 n. 77); Rutilius's account may well have come to Appian through Posidonius. See also Desideri, Athenaeum 51 (1973) 258-66, and Malitz, Historien des Poseidonios , 21, 90-96, 324, 332-40, 360-61, 368, 394-408. For Rutilius and his conviction, probably ca. 94, see my article in Phoenix 44 (1990) 122-39. Sources for the trial of Aquillius, multis avaritiae criminibus testimoniisque convictum (Cic. Flac . 98), in Alexander, Trials , no. 84; for the date, see now Badian, Chiron 14 (1984) 123 n. 50, 142.
[122] Cf., for instance, his description of L. Valerius Flaccus, Marius's consular colleague in 100: "more Marius's slave than colleague" (Plut. Mar . 28.5).
[123] Aquillius: Diod. 37.27.1; Livy Per . 78; Veil. Pat. 2.18.3. Rutilius in Mytilene: Dio F 97.3-4; Cic. Rab. Post . 27. Posidonius (FGrH 87 F 36 p. 246 = Ath. 5.213b) notes the attempt of many Romans to save themselves by shedding their togas and renouncing Roman citizenship.
to allege that Rutilius had urged Mithridates to order the massacre (Plut. Pomp . 37.2-3)—an absurd fabrication, but one that suggests that Rutilius's own escape was a sensitive point. It seems unlikely that Rutilius, writing his history, would have let the opportunity pass to explain the curious difference between his fate and that of Aquillius by diminishing the legate's moral standing as much as he dearly enhanced his own. Rutilius presented his exile as the voluntary undertaking of an innocent man disgusted at the moral turpitude of his contemporaries, and underscored the point by refusing Sulla's invitation to return to Rome after the war was over;[124] Aquillius could be made into precisely the kind of man he had turned his back on. We cannot pierce the fog of recrimination 2,000 years after the facts; what is important is to recognize its existence and to make allowance for it.
The immediate background of the crisis, in which Mithridates repeatedly retreated from direct confrontation with Rome, is a better due to contemporary perceptions than what lay still in the future: the Senate and the envoys it sent will have had every reason to expect that Mithridates would ultimately yield to Roman pressure rather than fight—hence the lack of formal authorization for war, and the failure to provide the legates with appropriate Roman forces. Aquillius may have been chosen to head the embassy precisely for his connection to Mithridates through their fathers, allies in the war against Aristonicus. Mithridates was even requested to cooperate; according to Appian, he declined, but in Trogus's speech for Mithridates at the outbreak of war he claims to have had Socrates Chrestus, Nicomedes' rival for the Bithynian throne, killed to please the Senate.[125] Aquillius and the other legates, with the cooperation of the proconsul of Asia, C. Cassius, whose small Roman contingent was supplemented with a "large" force of Galatians and Phrygians, successfully completed their mission to restore the kings in 90, clearly without meeting resistance from Mithridates.[126] Again Rome had been able to work its will without any
[125] App. Mith . 11; Justin 38.5.8; cf. Dio Fr. 99.1; Memnon, FGrH 434 F 22.5.
[126] App. Mith . 11; Livy Per . 74. Mithridates was still a "friend and ally of the Roman people" during Nicomedes' subsequent invasion of Pontus: App. Mith . 12 bis, 13, 15, 16.
great effort and without increasing its manpower commitment to the East, and once again Mithridates had submitted meekly.
But there were more than two players to this game. Nicomedes IV, who had been toppled from the throne after a very short reign, stood much in need of military success to validate and secure his claim to rule. Since Mithridates evidently would not directly challenge the Roman imperium , there could be no better time for a show of strength against Mithridates than before the Roman envoys departed Asia Minor. Nicomedes invaded eastern Paphlagonia, an old bone of contention with Pontus, and plundered territory held by Mithridates as far as Amastris, while the Pontic king, as expected, fell back before him.[127] The booty won in the campaign was a precious addition to Nicomedes' empty coffers, drained by his expulsion from the kingdom and further strained by heavy debts to Roman creditors and, we are told, bribes promised to the commanders and legates who had effected his return.[128] The insistence of Appian that a reluctant Nicomedes had been forced by the Roman envoys to take this course is both gratuitous, for Nicomedes' own interests sufficiently account for his action, and too closely connected with the scapegoating Tendenz of Appian's account to be accepted without question.[129]
Mithridates showed his habitual deference to Rome's power by taking care, before responding in kind to Nicomedes, to complain to the Roman envoys and commanders and to request at least Rome's neutrality in the coming showdown on the basis of their friendship and alliance.[130] They responded that they "would not wish Mithridates to suffer any harm from Nicomedes, nor will we allow war against Nicomedes, for we do not think that it is in the Roman interest for Nicomedes to be harmed."[131] In effect, this was a warning to Mithridates not to counterattack, sugared with insincere regrets for Nicomedes' aggression. If we view this response against
[127] App. Mith . 11, 12. Cf. Glew, Athenaeum 55 (1977) 397; McGing, FPME , 80 n. 52. Mithridates' envoy Pelopidas later alleged that Nicomedes had also dosed the Bosporus to him (App. Mith . 12, 14), but this is nowhere confirmed.
[128] App. Mith . 11; Dio F 99.1. Nicomedes' Roman debts may go back to the appeal to the Senate over the succession of ca. 94 (for the date, see appendix H).
[129] Instigation by the envoys: App. Mith . 12, 12. Roman historians made this one of Mithridates' propaganda claims against Rome: Trogus ap. Justin 38.5.10; Sail. H . 4.69.10. Badian's discussion in Roman Imperialism , 56-59, relies heavily on the allegation.
[130] App. Mith . 12, 14.
the background of Mithridates' repeated retreats from confrontation with Rome, rather than projecting it against the disaster that still lay in the future, it is difficult to accept the traditional view, based on Appian's hostile account, that it was intended to force Mithridates to fight.[132] On the contrary, it seems most probable that Aquillius and Cassius expected this expression of Rome's concern for Nicomedes to leave Mithridates no choice but to patch up his differences with the new king and thereby bring to an end the crisis over the Bithynian succession.
Mithridates, however, perhaps emboldened by the progress of the Italian war and Rome's great difficulties at home, for once would not back down. Avoiding direct confrontation with Rome over Nicomedes' aggression, Mithridates continued the game of brinkmanship by sending his son Ariarathes to drive Ariobarzanes from Cappadocia yet again (App. Mith . 15). It has been thought that this action committed him to war with Rome, and that thereafter Rome "had no option but to fight."[133] In Appian's account, however, Mithridates sends again to the Roman envoys, declaring that the seizure of Cappadocia was due to their complicity in Nicomedes' attack on him and announcing his intention to take the dispute to the Senate. The Roman envoys order Mithridates to keep away from Nicomedes and Cappadocia and announce their intention to restore Ariobarzanes, forbidding Mithridates from sending to them again if he did not obey their commands.[134] Then, without awaiting ratification from the Senate and people for "such a great war," they began military preparations (Mith . 16-17). We hear nothing more from Appian about Mithridates' stated intention to appeal to the Senate; and yet, inasmuch as Mithridates' friendship and alliance with Rome still persisted, since both sides had refrained thus far from a direct clash, it would indeed be surprising if Mithridates did not send to the Senate to complain of Nicomedes' invasion. As it happens, other sources do mention such an appeal. Dio reports that Mithridates sent envoys to the Senate to complain about Nicomedes' invasion, but the partes for their part demanded that he give back Cappadocia to Ariobarzanes and make peace with Nicomedes, refusing to hear another embassy from him until he obeyed them (F 99.2); and an appeal by Mithridates to the Senate over Nicomedes' invasion is described as well by other, less authoritative sources, although placed before the invasion of
[132] Rightly Badian, Roman Imperialism , 57.
[133] Cf. Badian, Roman Imperialism , 58. Magie, RRAM , 210.
[134] App. Mith . 16.
Cappadocia, rather than after, as in Dio.[135] It has been urged against the accounts of a senatorial audience on the eve of war with Mithridates that Roman legates would not normally refer back to Rome in the course of carrying out their instructions;[136] but what is at issue is not referral by the legates to Rome for "specific approval" of their actions but an appeal from a nominal ally for negotiation to avert a crisis, exactly paralleled by King Perseus's final appeal to the Senate in the winter of 172/171 while Roman legates in Greece were engaged in isolating him politically and making preparations for the eventuality of war.[137] Such an appeal is, then, probable a priori and specifically attested by sources other than Appian which have no obvious motive for fabrication, as the embassy effectively shifts responsibility for the disaster from Aquillius to the Senate. We are therefore entitled to suppose that Appian's source has suppressed the final appeal to the Senate in order to strengthen his charge that Aquillius had instigated a great war without authorization.
In either case, the point of Mithridates' invasion of Cappadocia emerges clearly. Avoiding a direct response to Nicomedes' aggression, which at this time would have left Rome little choice but to retaliate, he chose the indirect approach: the diversion to Cappadocia gave him an important bargaining chip for negotiation and put pressure on Rome to restrain its ally and alleged proxy in Bithynia; if it did not do so, Mithridates would not see himself bound to submit to Rome's will in Cappadocia, where he may now have brought home the virtual impossibility of continuously propping up Ariobarzanes, particularly under the present circumstances in Italy. In effect, Mithridates made the point that if he was to restrain his friends Gordius and Tigranes in Cappadocia, Rome would have to restrain its friend Nicomedes. But this would require Rome to back down from a position in which it had by this point invested its international prestige, and would suggest that Mithridates had emerged from sub imperio populi Romani . That could be a dangerous sign of weakness in the East, where the imperium had been upheld hitherto with a bare minimum of manpower and rested ultimately on general resignation to Rome's overwhelming power. Not surprisingly, Rome chose to reaffirm the imperium by forcing Mithridates back into the fold. It did so with a command: the response of the Senate, as I suggest, or of the envoys, if Appian's account be accepted, was framed as an order offering the choice between obedience
[135] Eutr. 5.5; Oros. 6.2.1-2.
[136] Sherwin-White, RFPE , 116.
[137] Livy 42.43.1-2, 46.1-2; Polyb. 27.6.1-4.
to Rome's will and treatment as an enemy. Mithridates was ordered to keep his hands off Cappadocia and Nicomedes, and his ambassadors were to be excluded in the future unless he obeyed. Mithridates had consistently backed down when directly confronted by Roman commands, and without clairvoyance Romans had no reason yet to think that, despite the escalation of tensions, he would not do so again when confronted with firm and decisive action.
The Roman plan, for which Aquillius, a general of some repute,[138] was probably responsible, can be divined from its field dispositions. Nicomedes was to renew his harassment of Pontic territory by invading the plain of the Amnias River, thus drawing Mithridates west, while Oppius, the proconsul of Pamphylia or Cilicia,[139] slipped into Cappadocia to restore Ariobarzanes while the Pontic king was otherwise occupied. The proconsul of Asia, C. Cassius, and Aquillius stood ready in reserve to assist Nicomedes if he required it with small Roman forces, boosted by a large native levy of Bithynians, Paphlagonians, and Galatians.[140] It seems most dubious that Aquillius expected a full-scale war against Mithridates;[141] rather, Nicomedes' invasion seems designed precisely to avoid a direct dash between Oppius and Mithridates in Cappadocia, while, on the other hand, the large reserves led by Aquillius and Cassius served as strong insurance for the Bithynian king. Even Appian concedes that Mithridates' victory over Nicomedes at the Amnias was paradoxical, for the Pontic king had been heavily outnumbered; indeed, at first the Bithynians had prevailed (Mith . 18, 19). On the other hand, Aquillius and Cassius had clearly not expected their native levies to see serious fighting. Only once Mithridates had already routed Aquillius's force did Cassius attempt briefly to train the raw, civilian recruits; but he soon gave up the idea of sending such men into
[138] Cic. Flac . 98, Scaur . 3.2.
[140] App. Mith . 17. A considerable number of Greeks in the army is surely also implied by Diodorus's story (37.26) of the effect upon the dries of Asia Minor caused by Mithridates' release of his captives (also App. Mith . 19). "Few" Romans: Memnon, FGrH 434 F 22.7; cf. Justin 38.3.8. The Cappadocians mentioned by Appian presumably formed the bulk of Oppius's force; at chap. 20 he also has some mercenaries. See Sherwin-White, RFPE , 118-19.
[141] So, among others, Sherwin-White, RFPE , 118 ("not merely an attempt to restore Ariobarzanes to Cappadocia, but a preparation for war on all fronts"); cf. JRS 67 (1977) 75. A different inference from the Roman deployment in McGing, FPME , 108 n. 95.
action and dismissed them before withdrawing.[142] The plan went all wrong; above all, Aquillius and his colleagues had contemptuously underestimated Mithridates' strength and decision. Mithridates threw back the Bithynian king, crushed Aquillius's reserve force, and pursued the enemy into Phrygia, whence he overran western Asia Minor and the coastal islands, except for Lycia and Rhodes, before year's end.[143]
The outbreak of war, therefore, was hardly the result of irresponsible adventurism launched by Aquillius and Cassius. Badian is closer to the mark in arguing that the war "arose (it seems) from a miscalculation rather than from deliberate provocation,"[144] although even he overestimates the resolution of the Roman legati to engage in a general war. Their actions were directed toward the successful completion of their mission to restore Nicomedes and Ariobarzanes, and they probably did not exceed their authority in attempting to drive Pontic forces from Cappadocia once again. The mission as a whole constitutes an unusually vigorous senatorial response against Mithridates' expansion, a new development perhaps born of exasperation, but not outright belligerence. Mithridates had not hitherto been a major concern in Rome. That was now to change.
Toward the end of the second century, Rome accepted some responsibility for the security of the Eastern seas. This burden was taken on only after the collapse of Seleucid authority made it dear that there was no alternative. A fleet was actually sent from the West in 102; but Roman actions in Cilicia remained sporadic and ad hoc in nature. Cilicia was probably not assigned again to a magistrate until 99, under the law on the praetorian provinces, and thenceforth perhaps only on occasion through the 90s. The Senate was not eager to increase its commitments in the East. The same attitude is apparent in its dealings with the kings of Pontus and Bithynia toward the end of the second century and the beginning of the first. The patres at first satisfied themselves with mere pronouncements, which were ignored or only speciously obeyed more often than not. After
[143] I accept Sherwin-White's chronology for the opening of the war, RFPE , 122-25, and in Miscellanea Eugenio Manni , 4:1981-85. Badian, AJAH 1 (1976) 109-10, 122-23 nn. 20-21, differs in dating the invasion of Phrygia to 88. Cf. McGing, FPME , 109 n. 96.
[144] Roman Imperialism , 58.
the problem of the Cappadocian succession came to a head again in the mid-90s, Rome added to its verbal blessings for Ariobarzanes the essentially symbolic gesture of a Roman escort headed by Sulla. Soon enough Ariobarzanes had been expelled again, and this time the new Bithynian king, Nicomedes, with him. The Roman legates sent to restore the kings, deceived by Mithridates' pliability in the past, determined this time to drive home a lesson of Mithridates' vulnerability, first by inducing Nicomedes IV to raid Pontus, then by preparing a punitive expedition against Mithridates for his renewed attack on Ariobarzanes; the result was a full-scale war that they, no more than the Senate which had sent them, did not want or expect. The final crisis does not reveal a significant change in Roman policy toward Mithridates but its failure. An ambitious and expansionist Eastern king could not be contained without a commitment of forces and resources that the Senate had hitherto refused to contemplate. The disaster of 89 brings to an end an era during which Rome's supremacy and relatively limited exploitation of the East rested on an almost negligible commitment of manpower and resources, solidly buttressed by the prevailing conviction, confirmed in all previous trials of force, that Roman might was unchallengeable.[145]
[145] W. Blümel's republication of the lex de Cilicia Macedoniaque provinciis (Die Inschriften von Knidos [Bonn, 1992], no. 31) appeared too late for his new readings to be integrated into the discussion above.