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

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

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

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-

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]