CHAPTER XIII
THE RISE OF POMPEY THE GREAT: 78–60 B. C.
The extraordinary commands. For the period following the death of Sulla in 78 B. C. Roman history centers around the lives of a small group of eminent men, whose ambitions and rivalries are the determining factors in the political life of the state. This is due to the fact that neither the Senate nor the Assembly have the power to control the men to whom the needs of the empire compel them to give military authority. The generation of Marius and Sulla had seen the rise of the professional army which revealed itself as the true power in the state, and the disturbances of the Italian and Civil Wars supplied an abundance of needy recruits who sought service with a popular and successful general for the sake of the rewards which it lay in his power to bestow. As military achievements were the sole sure foundation for political success, able men made it the goal of their ambition to be entrusted with an important military command. The dangers of civil and foreign wars at first compelled the Senate to confer military power upon the few available men of recognized ability even when it distrusted their ulterior motives, and later such appointments were made by the Assembly through the coalition of the general and the tribunate. In this way arose the so-called extraordinary commands, that is, such as involved a military imperium which in some way exceeded that of the regular constitutional officers and required to be created or defined by a special enactment of the Senate or Comitia.
The man who first realized the value of the extraordinary command as a path to power was Pompey the Great.
I. Pompey’s Command against Sertorius in Spain: 77–71 b. c.
The revolt of Lepidus. It was not to be expected that Sulla’s measures would long remain unassailed. Those dispossessed of their [pg 152]property, those disqualified for office, and the equestrians who sought to regain control of the courts, were all anxious to undo part of his work. They found a leader in Lepidus, who as consul in 78 B. C., the very year of Sulla’s death, sought to renew the distribution of cheap grain to the masses in Rome, which Sulla had suppressed, to restore the Marian exiles, and reinstate those who had lost their lands. For the time he failed to carry his proposals, but in the next year, as proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul, he raised an army and marched on Rome to seize the consulate for a second term, since disorders had prevented the election of consuls for that year. However he was defeated by his former colleague, the proconsul Catulus, and Pompey, whom the Senate had appointed to a subordinate command in view of his military expedience. Lepidus crossed over to Sardinia where he died shortly after, and the bulk of his forces under Marcus Perperna withdrew to Spain, to join the Marians who were in revolt there.
Sertorius in Spain, 83–78 B. C. The rebellion in Spain was headed by Quintus Sertorius, who had been appointed governor of Hither Spain by Cinna in 83 B. C. Two years later he was driven out by Sulla’s representative, but, after various adventures, returned in 80 B. C. to head a revolt of the Lusitanians. His ability as a guerrilla leader, and the confidence which he aroused among the native Spaniards soon created alarm in Rome. Sertorius professed to take the field not against Rome but against the Senate. He regarded himself as the legitimate governor of Spain, employed members of the Marian party as his military and civil subordinates and organized a Senate among the Romans of his following. To crush the revolt Sulla sent out to Farther Spain Metellus, the consul of 80 B. C., but he failed to make any headway, and Sertorius was able to overrun Hither Spain also. In 79 B. C. the praetor of that province was killed in battle, and the same fate befell the proconsul of Narbonese Gaul who came to the help of Metellus (78 B. C.).