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.