The Revival of the Eastern Imperium, 81-70
The clique of Sullan partisans and timeserving latecomers to the Sullan cause that swept into power with its victory in 82 has traditionally received low marks for its turn at the helm of state in the 70s: characterized by a vicious combination of indolence, inefficiency, and corruption, the "Sullan oligarchy" inevitably collapsed in 70 of its own internal failings and inflexibility. But the faults discerned in the Sullani are old acquaintances of the Roman historian that are not met here for the first time and have a long life ahead of them in Augustan or Trajanic splendor; their prominence in the 70s, one senses, is part of the script of an old morality tale that goes back at least to Sallust but possesses great power still for modern interpreters.
Not long ago, however, a sober reassessment presented a very different picture of the 70s, portraying it more plausibly in terms of a gradual and careful return to political normalcy after the grave disruption of civil war, rather than as a process of governmental decline and fall.[1] Among the achievements of the post-Sullan era, I wish to argue, must be counted the reassertion of Roman supremacy in the East after the catastrophe of the Pontic attack had demonstrated the weakness of Rome's imperium , and Sulla's too-hasty departure left the job of restoring it incomplete. The decade of the 70s saw an unprecedented commitment of Roman military resources to the East in a succession of campaigns, for most of the period in two, and finally in three, theaters of operations, which marks a watershed in the history of the development of Rome's Eastern empire. While
individual episodes in this massive military effort, notably of course the origins and events of the Third Mithridatic War, have received dose attention, no attempt has been made to put together a more general account of Roman activities in this period not only in Asia Minor but in Thrace, Moesia, and the west coast of the Black Sea, as well as in the Aegean, Crete, and Cyrenaica. The result has been a failure to recognize the full significance of this momentous period in the history of Rome's Eastern intervention. In the sketch that follows I shall attempt to give proper weight to the less familiar campaigns and avoid, except where significant for the broader picture, rehearsal of the well-known narrative of the conflict with Mithridates.
The Restoration of Roman Power in Macedonia, Greece, and Asia Minor
We have noted the rather unsettled state in which Sulla left the East toward the end of the 80s: Macedonia and Greece virtually stripped of defenders and pressed hard by Thracian incursions; Mithridates only moderately chastened and still ready to face Roman arms in the field; the Dardanus pact an embarrassment and not officially ratified; pirates continuing to flourish on the seas. Little could be done to improve the situation until Rome itself was returned to constitutional government and Sulla's "restoration of the state" was complete, although the assignment to Cn. Cornelius Dolabella, one of the consuls of 81, of Macedonia, which had not had a consular commander since Minucius Rufus three decades previously, indicates that the restoration of security in the southern Balkans was recognized as a high priority. Still, nothing is known of Dolabella's military activity, and it seems unlikely that he did much more than consolidate Roman authority in central and coastal Macedonia, where we find him involved in effecting the restoration of Thasian mainland territory seized recently by Thracians.[2]
However, in 80 Sulla laid down the dictatorship, symbolically returning the res publica to its normal functioning under the consuls.[3] Again, there is a dear sign of Roman military priorities: the consular provinces for 79 determined in 80 under the Sempronian law were both Eastern—Mace-donia and Cilicia. The West—so it appeared—was safe: Pompey had ruthlessly put down the Cinnans in Sicily and Africa, while Sertorius, the last remnant of significant opposition, was now a refugee, driven out of Spain
by Sulla's general C. Annius (Plut. Sert . 7), and apparently not long for this world. The maintenance of Macedonia as a consular province is a noteworthy and important sign that the damage done to Roman power by the Mithridatic invasion and Thracian attacks of the previous decade had not yet been undone; but the selection of Cilicia as the destination of a second consular army is perhaps a more surprising move, requiring further explanation.
Cilicia before the Mithridatic War had sometimes been in essence a "piracy command," sometimes a base of land operations in support of Ariobarzanes in Cappadocia, anticipating its later function in the 50s as "the highroad from western Asia to Syria."[4] The attempt to pin onto the year 80 or indeed any other the establishment of a "territorial" province—a concept not recognized in Latin usage—seems fundamentally misguided in its assumption that the creation of a province was an event rather than an incremental and gradual process.[5] Nevertheless, the dual threats of Pontic meddling in Cappadocia and piracy ensured that Cilicia provincia would continue to be assigned after Murena's departure: an ex-praetor, another Cn. Cornelius Dolabella, was in command there in 80-79.[6] But in 80 Cilicia was assigned to a consul of 79; both consuls would go east, an event whose importance has not been sufficiently noted. For the single precedent for operations by two consular armies in the East we need to go back as far as 189-188 at the conclusion of the war with Antiochus and the Aetolians.
What explains this extraordinary commitment of two consular armies, which recalled the height of Rome's military efforts in the East in the early second century? Piracy had once again achieved grave proportions, and operations against the Cilician pirate strongholds did indeed ensue. But a consul had never been sent out solely on an expedition against pirates. As it happens, there was much more than mere piracy to cause concern about southern Asia Minor. Mithridates had still not yielded up all of Cappadocia to Ariobarzanes, who was just now pressing his complaints against the Pontic king before the Senate.[7] Mithridates' son-in-law Tigranes, who had helped to set in motion the crisis of the later 90s by expelling Ariobarzanes, had conquered Seleucid Syria, taken the title "King of Kings," and had recently taken over much of Seleucid Cilicia (presumably Pedias), encircling further the exposed Cappadocian king.[8] The persistence of the Cappadocian dispute and Mithridates' resumption of empire building around the Black Sea must have given many Romans reason to think that the war had reached only a pause, not an end, and that the Roman position in Asia Minor needed to be reinforced in view of the possibility of a resumption of hostilities.[9] Yet, interestingly, the activities of P. Servilius Vatia, who received the province of Cilicia, would show that Rome did not desire war with Pontus. Perhaps a strong demonstration of Roman resolve would encourage Mithridates to yield up all of Cappadocia, which Sulla now ordered (
) him to do (App. Mith . 67).
Mithridates now became docile, recognizing Roman determination and sobered by the failure of his recent attempt to subjugate Colchis. A new Pontic embassy to Rome arrived in 78 to declare that Mithridates had now withdrawn from Cappadocia and asked for ratification of the terms of the agreement at Dardanus.[10] Roughly at the same time that this embassy was in Rome, the proconsul Servilius was crossing to Asia Minor with at least
two legions to add to the two already there.[11] Sulla, with whose prestige the terms of the agreement at Dardanus was bound up, was now dead and could not give direction. The consuls, distracted by civil discord, refused to admit the Pontic embassy on the grounds that there was more pressing business, in effect making the Dardanus pact a dead letter and leaving much to the discretion of the commander in the field, Servilius.[12]
The sequel is significant. Servilius turned his attention to operations against coastal strongholds of the pirates in Lycia and Pamphylia, which occupied him probably through 76.[13] However, in 78 or 77, while Servilius thus busied himself, the Armenian king Tigranes invaded Cappadocia and is said to have hauled off some 300,000 persons eastward to people his new capital Tigranocerta.[14] Although Appian alleges that Mithridates was behind the raid, Tigranes, King of Kings and at the height of his power, had sufficient reasons of his own for undertaking it. It is significant that we hear nothing of Ariobarzanes on this occasion, and that Servilius chose to make no retaliatory move against either Tigranes or Mithridates. The Armenian king's invasion of Cappadocia was not used as a pretext for war either with Mithridates, who apparently made no move himself, or with the Armenian king, despite this second attack in twenty years on the much-abused Ariobarzanes. Rome, therefore, was neither seeking another dash with Mithridates, nor had it accepted a brief to defend the territorial integrity of Cappadocia against all comers. There was good reason for caution: Sertorius had returned to Spain, had caught the Sullan regime off guard, and his rebellion had now turned quite serious. This was no time for a confrontation with Mithridates. Still, one did not want to give the impression of weakness either to a foe who, from Sallust's perspective, was
clearly perceived as still menacing Roman interests in Asia.[15] Therefore Servilius's attack in 76/75 on inland Isauria, on the north slope of the Taurus Mountains and far from the coast where he had previously been operating, probably had a higher objective than military glory for the commander and booty for the army. Isauria controlled the strategic route from Pamphylia on the coast—still the heart of Cilicia provincia —through to Cappadocia.[16] But if this was a response to Tigranes' attack, it was one that left no room for a direct dash. Servilius returned home probably late in 75 to celebrate a triumph, but Cilicia was assigned again to a consul L. Octavius (cos. 75).[17] Mithridates' mere presence, despite the absence of any hostile moves, demanded the maintenance in Asia Minor of a consular army.[18]
While the guarded peace in Asia Minor persisted under Servilius, his consular colleague, Ap. Claudius Pulcher, began in 77 a major Roman offensive in the southern Balkan region that would persist through the decade, the first extended military effort on the Macedonian frontier since the passing of the Scordiscan crisis in the last decade of the second century. Claudius was detained in Italy by illness and the seditio Lepidana , but once he had arrived in Macedonia provincia he had launched an offensive against the Maedi around Mt. Rhodope and levied tribute on the Dardani settled around the upper Axius River to the northwest.[19] In 76, however,
Claudius's fortunes were varied against the Maedi, and in the same year he succumbed to sickness. Despite the Sertorian rebellion and the heightened tension in Asia Minor, C. Scribonius Curio, consul in 76, was sent out to succeed him with no less than five legions.[20] While Sallust makes the consul C. Cotta in 75 declare that, among the other ills troubling the Republic, Macedonia was plena hostium (H . 2.47.7 Maurenbrecher), Curio's campaigns fully reestablished Roman power in the southern Balkans after the vicissitudes of the previous two decades. By 73 he had terrorized into submission the Dardani, whose subjection by Claudius had been rather incomplete, became the first Roman commander to reach the Danube, and received a triumph for his efforts, perhaps in 72.[21]
Yet, although by now Rome was already involved in renewed warfare with Mithridates, Curio too received a consular successor in Macedonia, M. Terentius Varro Lucullus (cos. 73), the natural brother of L. Lucullus. The continuation of the military offensive in Thrace after the victories of Curio may seem surprising at first; its explanation presumably lies in the resumption of war against Pontus. Mithridates held sway over much of the Black Sea region, the northwest and west coast of which was an important source of revenues, supplies, allied contingents, and mercenaries.[22] M. Lucullus probably took command of the province already in the course of his consulship, in 73, since his predecessor Curio returned in that year; from the Aegean coast near Aenus he appears to have marched up the Hebrus against the Bessi, whom he defeated severely below Mt. Haemus, then eastward to the Black Sea through the land of the Moesians, capturing their stronghold Cabyle on the way.[23] He then captured the Greek cities
of the Euxine coast from Apollonia in the south as far north as Istrus, near the mouth of the Danube, and seems to have shown the flag against the Scythians.[24] Returning from the wars already in 71, Lucullus celebrated a triumph de Macedonia .[25]
M. Lucullus's campaigns in the Dobrudja and Moesia were hardly intended to put the area under firm Roman control. Although the Greek cities of the western coast of the Black Sea were apparently recognized after their capture as "allies,"[26] the Moesians, who stood between them and the Roman-dominated portion of Thrace, were not fully conquered until the campaigns of M. Licinius Crassus in 29-28 B.C. , and firm Roman control effectively terminated at Mt. Haemus.[27] Nor, further west, did Roman power extend to the Danube: Cicero in 55 still emphasized the indeterminacy of the northern frontier of the province (Pis . 38), which existed only where it could be enforced militarily against peoples who were far from permanently pacified; much work remained for Augustus before the Danube could become a dear terminus of Roman power. But the Balkan offensive of the 70s convincingly reasserted Rome's imperium in Macedonia, restoring thereby the security of Greece that had been badly disturbed from the north twice in the previous decade; and by means of a series of deep thrusts into hostile territory, it gave a clear demonstration of the revival of Roman military vigor. It is remarkable that the post-Sullan regime attempted to do this, let alone managed it, while at the same
time maintaining a consular army in Asia Minor against the threat and subsequently the reality of war with Mithridates and the long operations against Sertorius in Spain.
The Occupation of Bithynia and Pontus
Until mid-decade Roman military efforts in the East had been concentrated on Macedonia provincia , where no less than five legions were active, while four legions in Asia Minor guarded against Mithridates and performed police duties on the Lycian-Pamphylian coast and the routes over the Taurus. Every year since 78 there had been two consular armies in the East. Never had the Roman presence in the East been so massive and persistent. But events in the year 74 escalated Rome's involvement in Eastern parts far beyond even this level.
In that year Nicomedes IV, king of Bithynia, died.[28] Nicomedes had named the Roman people as his heir, evidently in case of intestacy.[29] Upon his death, the claims of a supposed son by his wife Nysa were asserted before the Senate, but certain Bithynians, who, Sallust notes, came of their own volition, denounced him as a fraud;[30] it is clearly implied that a true heir would have blocked Roman inheritance. Nicomedes' reasons for leaving his kingdom to Rome in the absence of an heir are as obscure to us as those of Attalus III, but the guess may be ventured that since he recognized that the kingdom would pass from his line in any case, this seemed the only way to deter Mithridates from seizing it and to ensure that his tra-
ditional protector from Pontus, Rome, would determine its fate rather than his enemy.
The most recent precedents—Cyrene, inherited by the Roman people in 96 but apparently neglected for decades, and Egypt, which according to testamentary terms might have passed to Rome by now—show that the assumption of control by Rome at least in the near future was not by any means inevitable.[31] Even the Attalid legacy was hardly accepted with alacrity, as we have seen. In 74, however, no hesitation to commit resources more deeply to the East is evident. Quite the reverse. No sooner was the question of Nicomedes' supposed son taken care of than the proconsul of Asia, M. Iunius Iuncus,[32] was sent to establish the Roman presence in the former kingdom, while his quaestor, Q. Pompeius, oversaw the collection of the movable royal property and its transport to Rome, a process that was apparently completed by the time of Mithridates' invasion in the spring of 73.[33] (Iuncus was already in Bithynia and, we may suppose, had his hands quite full with more pressing affairs when, probably in the winter of 74-73, an impertinent graduate student named C. Iulius Caesar appeared before him to demand the immediate punishment of some pirates he had rounded up.)[34] As we shall see, Bithynia was made a consular province already in the course of 74.
Rome, then, moved with uncharacteristic speed and resolution to take up this royal inheritance. The circumstances that demanded such a firm response seem clear. Mithridates had remained a sufficient threat to require the maintenance in Asia Minor of a consular army of four or five legions since ca. 79. He had a history of meddling in Bithynia, while the news that arrived in Rome around this time of alliance with Sertorius was certainly ominous.[35] The Pontic invasion of Bithynia, which indeed came within a year of Nicomedes' death, may well have been regarded as almost inevitable. The Senate seems to have been inclined to ensure that Bithynia's wealth would benefit Rome, whose resources were stretched to the limit around mid-decade, rather than Mithridates—hence the speed with which the royal possessions were laid hold of and spirited out of the country.[36] Thus, although the war against Sertorius continued to drag on, dearly hampered by the demands of other theaters,[37] and a consular army was operating in Macedonia, it was in Rome's interest to extend its commitments in Asia Minor in order to prevent Mithridates from growing much stronger.
Iuncus's occupation of Bithynia upon Nicomedes' death was only a temporary expedient, and war with Mithridates over the kingdom was dearly expected. Already in 74, when L. Octavius, consul in the previous year, suddenly died in his province of Cilicia, L. Licinius Lucullus, the current consul, eagerly sought and received that province and was given as well not only Asia provincia but also overall command of "the war against Mithridates." His colleague, the pompous and inept M. Aurelius Cotta, was likewise sent east with Bithynia as his province.[38] As Cicero makes
clear in a speech delivered in 63, Lucullus was expected to make a pre-emptive strike against Mithridates from the south or southwest while Cotta held Bithynia.[39] But Roman plans to seize the initiative were foiled by the aged but energetic king of Pontus, who chose to fight the war on his own terms by invading Bithynia at the opening of the campaigning season in the spring of 73, rather than await Lucullus's strike.
A problematic passage of Memnon of Heraclea may suggest that even before the consular armies appeared early in 73 Bithynia was flooded with publicani , for it seems to say that the Heracleans murdered the tax gatherers among them shortly after the arrival of Mithridates' fleet early in 73 and the Cyzicus campaign.[40] This, if true, would be remarkable testimony to the eagerness with which the Romans laid hold of the revenues of Bithynia. However, Memnon probably implies nothing of the kind. It is impossible to suppose (as Memnon has been understood to say) that the publicani swept into Heraclea shortly after Mithridates' fleet had come through and the Romans in Bithynia were in full retreat! It seems fairly dear that Memnon, having mentioned the incident that brought to an end Heraclea's privileged status as free "ally and friend" of Rome (assistance to Mithridates' fleet in 73, despite alliance with Rome), simply moved forward in time in a short digression that traces the direct consequence of that act after the expulsion of Mithridates from Bithynia—the reduction of Heraclea to tributary status, the arrival of publicani , and their murder by the proud Heracleans. If this reading of the text is right, then it is not necessary to suppose that in the short time between Iuncus's occupation of the kingdom and Mithridates' invasion it was somehow decided just which Bithynian cities would pay tribute to Rome. Although some Bithynians at least had not viewed Rome's entry into the inheritance as a catastrophe for themselves, as the rejection of the alleged pretender's claims shows,[41] others no doubt were favorable to Mithridates (Plut. Luc . 7.5), or at least hostile to Rome.
For our purposes a detailed narrative of the Third Mithridatic War is unnecessary.[42] We need only observe the broad outline of Lucullus's recovery of Bithynia and conquest of Pontus, and to bring this campaign into relation with other contemporary Roman activities in the East.
Mithridates, bursting into Bithynia, took the Romans wholly by surprise. Having quickly blockaded Cotta in Chalcedon, he pushed on into the Roman province of Asia and laid siege to Cyzicus. By capturing Cyzicus Mithridates doubtless hoped to incite a general revolt against the Romans and repeat his successes of 89-88; but the stubborn resistance of its citizens and Lucullus's wise refusal to give battle drained the Pontic attack of its momentum.[43] In the winter of 73-72 the besiegers became the besieged, and Mithridates attempted to move off but was heavily defeated on land and sea as he did so. Mithridates swiftly relinquished Bithynia and beat a retreat to Cabira in Pontus, where in 71 he was again defeated by Lucullus, to all appearances derisively. Mithridates abandoned his kingdom and fled for succor to his son-in-law, Tigranes of Armenia. By the end of 70 the last Pontic strongholds at Amisus, Sinope, Amasea, and Heraclea fell, and Mithridates' kingdom was entirely in Lucullus's hands. In 70, returning briefly to Asia provincia , Lucullus threw a great victory celebration at Ephesus for the felicitous conclusion of the war.[44]
Lucullus, and we may suppose others, believed the war essentially over: only a bit of tough diplomacy (Lucullus's legate Ap. Claudius Pulcher was sent to Tigranes to demand Mithridates' extradition)[45] or, failing that, military intimidation would be required to encourage Tigranes to hand over Mithridates for the triumph and a glorious conclusion to a stunning victory.[46] It did not seem entirely premature for Lucullus now to inform the Senate of the victorious conclusion of the war, and for the Senate to respond with the appointment of a commission of ten senators to advise the
imperator in making the settlement.[47] Lucullus's ostentatiously traditional procedure here contrasted sharply with that employed by Sulla in 85-84 and advertised symbolically not only the dominant position of the Senate in the post-Sullan regime but also the restoration of Roman power in the East (by this time, as we have seen, the war in Macedonia had reached an equally triumphant conclusion). His decision almost immediately thereafter (perhaps already in the winter of 70-69) to invade Armenia, after Ap. Claudius failed to induce Tigranes to hand over the king, eventually undid almost all he had achieved and brought personal humiliation. But at the time he surely expected that some strong arm-twisting would quickly produce the desired result and that his Armenian campaign would only provide a splendid coda to his work. He may have anticipated some criticism by passing along a rumor that the two kings were preparing to invade Asia (Plut. Luc . 23.7), but, like the identical assertion of Cicero in his speech of 66 (Leg. Man . 4, 7), this was a rhetorical point, hardly to be taken too seriously. Only with the benefit of hindsight could it be claimed that Lucullus had begun a major war without proper authority.[48]
Crete and Piracy
There was one blot on the impressive record of conquest and consolidation in the East enjoyed down to 70: the Cretan campaign of M. Antonius, son of the commander sent against the pirates in 102 and father of the triumvir.[49] And yet its failure should not obscure the importance of the fact that despite Rome's heavy commitments in Macedonia, Asia Minor, Spain, and Italy itself after the outbreak of the Spartacus revolt, yet another major military effort in the East was undertaken. The "Sullan oligarchy" was hardly lacking in vigor.
Antonius was given in 74 a novel type of command against the pirates, whose spread throughout the Mediterranean now required an imperium that was not territorially restricted to any of the traditional provinciae (such as Cilicia, his father's province); hence it could be called, perhaps
invidiously, an imperium infinitum .[50] It is unclear how far we should take Velleius's vague statement that Antonius's imperium was like Pompey's later under the lex Gabinia (2.31.3). Like Pompey's command, it covered the entire Mediterranean, but we should probably not take Velleius's reference so literally as to conclude that, as (probably) was Pompey, Antonius was expressly given superior (maius ) imperium to that of provincial commanders in the coastal regions; such an extraordinary grant by the Senate without some opposition seems highly implausible.[51] Even so, Antonius's command was a striking novelty, and an important step by the Senate toward controlling the pirate epidemic.
As we have seen, the Roman Senate and its commanders had traditionally given only sporadic attention to the problem of piracy in Eastern waters, despite the brave words of the law of ca. 100 inscribed in various coastal cities and on the monument of L. Aemilius Paulus at Delphi.[52] Since the expedition of M. Antonius the Elder against the Cilician pirates in 102, they had more recently received attention from L. Murena and his lieutenant A. Terentius Varro and even, only a few years past, from a consular army and fleet under P. Servilius Vatia.[53] Still the Senate shrank from committing resources sufficient to solve the problem. Doubtless Roman commanders in Asia Minor were constantly called upon to make do with half-measures, as, for example, the governor of Asia in 80-79, C. Claudius Nero, who ordered up from Poemaneum a dubious guard of ephebes for the protection of exposed Ilium.[54] Greek inscriptions indeed leave us in some doubt as to whether Roman-directed efforts achieved more than those undertaken on Greeks' own initiative. The Ephesians received timely help from the Astypalaeans in one incident ca. 100; there is no mention of Rome. An inscription to be dated roughly to this period commemorates
a noteworthy Athenian campaign off Cilicia against the pirates, for which the demos received the gratitude of a series of communities, including the Lycian confederation, Phaselis, and Cythnos; we should not, in view of Rome's record, assume without evidence that the expedition was undertaken on Roman orders or carried out under Roman command.[55] Another series of texts of this time commemorates a Lycian expedition led on land and sea by one Aechmon against the pirates. There is no reference to Romans.[56] On the face of it, the epigraphic record suggests that local powers of the Aegean did not simply wait for Roman direction in seeing to their security against the pirates.
The record of the Roman Senate against Eastern piracy is one of abiding indifference only rarely punctuated by significant responses. The younger Antonius's mission in 74 is an institutional novelty in the extent of the command given the praetor, therefore implying that the Senate had awakened to the need to take unprecedented steps. But it would be hasty to assume that the Senate was overly concerned about piracy specifically in Eastern waters. For all the difficulties that piracy may have caused in the East during this period, what precipitated this extraordinary mission was rather the spread of rampant piracy to the West and the consequent interruption of Rome's grain supply, a problem that became acute precisely in 75.[57] And indeed Antonius's first moves (as Pompey's later) were made in the West and were surely intended to dear the major Roman grain routes in Western waters.[58] Yet after a year or two of operations in the Western seas, Antonius's efforts focused on Crete, an objective that was
probably anticipated from the beginning. (Some textual support, for what it is worth, comes from Lactantius, who believes that Antonius's mission was "to pursue the pirates and secure the entire sea," Div. inst . 1.11.32.) Already in 73-72 Antonius's legates were mustering supplies and troops in and from the coastal towns of the Peloponnese.[59] Antonius was afterwards blamed for having attacked Crete merely out of lust for conquest (Flor. 1.42.1). This looks like the usual moralistic scapegoating of failed commanders. Crete could not be ignored by anyone charged with the job of checking piracy in the Mediterranean, for the recent troubles had shown how closely linked the maritime security of the West was to that of the East. Antonius formally complained to the Cretans that they favored Mithridates and supplied him with mercenaries against Rome, and that they had supported and provided safe haven for the pirates, perhaps out of favor for Mithridates.[60] These charges are not likely to have been entirely fabricated. Cretan pirates in fact took second place in notoriety only to their Cilician neighbors;[61] Crete was indeed the richest source of mercenaries in the Hellenistic world (hired by, among other employers, the Romans themselves),[62] and, according to Memnon, who, however, has an axe to grind here, Mithridates had actually sent some forty or so ships to Crete early in the war, which were defeated by Lucullus's legate Triarius on their return trip in 71.[63]
The concentration of Roman attention against Crete in the later 70s needs also to be set against the background of a sudden revival of interest
in Cyrenaica. Cyrene had been left to the Roman people by the testament of its former king, Apion, as far back as 96; yet it was not until 75 that Cyrene was assigned as a provincia , probably in response to a revival of Ptolemaic claims on the traditionally Lagid territory and to the suddenly pressing question of Rome's grain supply.[64] One of the great cereal-growing regions of the Mediterranean could supplement the city's stores, but only if the route the grain would travel from Cyrene, across the Mediterranean to the Peloponnese before turning west, could be made secure from piratical attack.[65] Antonius's Cretan campaign was likely therefore also in part a consequence of the decision in 75 to act on the will of Apion and exploit Rome's old rights in Cyrene. It was not solicitude for Greek welfare, still plagued after all by Cilician pirates, or a high conception of imperial duty that brought M. Antonius east, but the demands of the center of consumption at Rome, which even the post-Sullan Senate could not ignore.
Two inscriptions from coastal Peloponnese connected with Antonius's preparations for the Cretan campaign illustrate how onerous a task it was, not merely for Rome but also for the Greek cities, to organize a major naval campaign against the pirates: the texts document severe exactions of soldiers, grain, cloaks, and money among other things, as well as Antonius's quartering of troops upon the cities.[66] The campaign was notorious even in Rome for the burdens it laid upon the allies: some claimed that Antonius was a remedy more harmful than the disease.[67] Gytheum, we know from one inscription, had to borrow the better part of a talent from Roman financiers to meet the demands made of it[68] —sobering evidence that even modest exactions might be beyond the capacity of local reserves—and in Epidaurus the introduction of a garrison and its presence over an extended period of time caused a severe shortage of grain, no doubt exacerbated by the requisitions of grain taking place elsewhere.[69]
Piratical operations out of Cretan harbors were probably beyond the capacity of the island's cities to control, even had they wanted to do so, and when the Cretan response to Antonius's complaints was found to be insolent, the Roman commander made war upon them. The campaign did not go well. Antonius, with significant naval assistance from Byzantium, suffered a heavy defeat against the Cretan Lastbenes, who captured his quaestor. A truce was patched up that Antonius was pleased to present as a victory before he succumbed to illness.[70] The Senate was less easily satisfied: rather than exploiting the opportunity to cut back its Eastern commitments, by August of 70 the renewal of war against Crete was being actively contemplated, and Crete may well have been decreed as a consular province for 69 in accordance with the lex Sempronia .[71] The Cretans in alarm responded by sending an embassy of thirty of their most eminent men to try to avert conflict and to restore past friendly relations.[72] Meanwhile, Creta provincia was assigned to the new consul Q. Caecilius Metellus, for Q. Hortensius, who had received it by lot on 1 January, had chosen to remain in Italy and relinquished the province to his colleague; Metellus was to proceed to Crete to accept its surrender and make war against the recalcitrant.[73]
The Cretan envoys, who evidently knew well how things were done in Rome, went about their business very effectively, first making the rounds of salutations at the homes of the leading senators and making personal appeals. So vigorously did they press their case that it was found necessary to ban by senatorial decree loans of money to them which were being used to finance bribes. They were finally brought into the Senate auspiciously, probably only in February of 69, the month when foreign embassies were
usually heard at this time.[74] The groundwork the Cretan envoys had laid at first paid off, for, reminded by the envoys of the Cretans' past services to the imperium , the Senate voted to absolve them of the allegations against them and restore to them the title of "friends and allies," presumably on the terms settled with Antonius.[75] It may be that with the (temporary) easing of the grain shortage in Rome in the later 70s the magnitude of the task of eradicating Cretan piracy had come to seem rather daunting in comparison to the benefits it might bring.[76] The wars in Macedonia were over, that in Asia Minor apparently so: a commission of ten was soon to travel east to advise Lucullus on arrangements for a lasting peace. The imperium populi Romani , whose prestige had suffered much in the 80s, was fully restored where it most counted, thanks to the efforts of no less than eight consuls and two consular armies in constant, simultaneous operation since 77; the pleas of the Cretan envoys despite their victory showed that little damage had been done even by Antonius's failure. It might have been an appropriate time to call a halt to Rome's greatest and most extended military effort in Eastern parts and celebrate the victories of the past decade. But at this juncture P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, the future consul of 57, "invalidated" the decree, most probably by a tribunician veto—perhaps the first important use of the restored power of the tribunate.[77] We are not informed as to whether Spinther's veto implies popular impatience with senatorial inaction toward Crete perhaps exacerbated by continued discontent over the grain supply or merely partisanship in Metellus's favor. In any case, the Cretans returned home without accomplishing anything, and they and their policy were immediately discredited when an ultimatum arrived from Rome demanding the delivery of 300 hostages as well as the victor over Antonius, Lasthenes, and another chief named Panares; 4,000 talents in indemnities; all pirate ships (how
these would be distinguished was doubtless left unclear); and the return of all Roman captives (presumably by now sold as slaves, for the most part). The attempt to appease Rome had failed miserably, and Lasthenes and his supporters were now able to persuade the Cretan people to fight for their traditional freedom.[78] The Roman demands went unanswered; finally, probably only early in 68, Metellus began operations against Crete with a force of three legions and quickly blockaded Lasthenes and Panares in Cydonia.[79] As during Antonius's campaign, the war on Crete impinged on the Greeks of the mainland: Metellus's legate L. Valerius Flaccus was active in Athens, Sparta, Achaea, Boeotia, and Thessaly.[80]
There we must leave him for now, noting that despite opposition within the Senate yet another consular army was now committed to a new theater of operations in the East. The hesitancy of the Senate is, however, significant and may reflect a still limited view of Roman Eastern commitments. The restoration of security in Macedonia and Greece had justified a series of vigorous, offensive campaigns; the threat of Mithridates had required an unparalleled military buildup in Asia Minor. These efforts had by 70 met with great success: the imperium had been powerfully reasserted. It appears that a senatorial majority was ready to declare victory and turn back from the offensive against piracy begun in 74. As a body the Senate was even now not ready to commit the necessary resources to a determined effort to dear the Libyan and Aegean seas of the pirates if a face-saving peace settlement could be arranged with the troublesome Cretans. But Spinther's veto of the settlement presages the laws of the tribunes Gabinius and Manilius in 67 and 66 urging novel and dramatic solutions to the remaining problems of the imperium .