The province of Illyricum had been formed about the same time as that of Macedonia (B.C. 146), but its limits had fluctuated, and it had not received much continuous attention. It included places, such as Dyrrachium, Corcyra, Issa, Pharus, which had been declared free after the contest with Queen Teuta in B.C. 228, but were practically under Roman control. Yet some of the most powerful tribes not only did not acknowledge Roman authority, but made frequent incursions upon Roman Illyricum. The most dangerous of these were the Dalmatians, with whom several wars are recorded. In B.C. 117 L. Cælius Metellus occupied Salonæ;[26] in B.C. 87-5 Sulla won a victory over them;[27] in B.C. 78-77 C. Cosconius, after a two years’ campaign, took Salonæ by storm.[28] But little was really effected in securing the province against its enemies. It was let much alone so long as its tribute was paid, and was put under the governor sometimes of Macedonia, sometimes of Cisalpine Gaul. In Cæsar’s case (B.C. 58) it was specially assigned, like the rest of his province, and he seems at first to have intended to go there in force and subdue the hostile barbarians. But the Gallic campaigns drew him away, and he only once actually entered Illyricum (B.C. 54) to overawe the invading Pirustæ. In the last year of his proconsulship (B.C. 50) some troops which he sent against the Dalmatians were cut to pieces. The result of this was that the barbarians, fearing his vengeance, adhered to Pompey in the civil war, whose legate, M. Octavius, with a considerable fleet, maintained himself there,[29] and in B.C. 49 defeated and captured Gaius Antonius, whom Cæsar sent against him.[30] At the beginning of the next year Aulus Gabinius, while trying to lead a force round the head of the Adriatic to join Cæsar, lost nearly all his men in a battle with the Dalmatians.[31] After Pharsalia Gabinius was sent back to assist Cornificius, who had been despatched to Illyricum as proprætor after the mishap of Gaius Antonius; but he was again defeated and shut up in Salonæ, where he died suddenly.[32] In B.C. 47, however, P. Vatinius, having joined Cornificius, defeated and drove Octavius out of the country.[33] After serving also in the African campaign of B.C. 46, Vatinius was sent back to Illyricum with three legions (B.C. 45) expressly to reduce the still independent tribes. At first he gained sufficient success to be honoured by a supplicatio,[34] but after Cæsar’s death he was defeated by the Dalmatians with the loss of five cohorts, and was driven to take refuge in Dyrrachium.[35] Early in B.C. 43 he was forced to surrender his legions to M. Brutus, who, however, in the year and a half which preceded his death at Philippi, was too busy elsewhere to attend to Illyricum.[36] Hence the expeditions of Pollio in B.C. 39,[37] and of Augustus in B.C. 35 were rendered necessary, and they for a time secured the pacification of the country and the extension of Roman provinces to the Danube.
(4) Spain.
At the death of Iulius Spain was also a source of great danger and difficulty. Since B.C. 197 it had been divided into two provinces—Citerior and Ulterior—separated by the Saltus Castulonensis (Sierra Morena), each governed by a prætor or proprætor. In B.C. 54 Pompey introduced a triple division. Of his three legates Afranius held Hispania Citerior; but the farther province was divided between Petreius, who held the district as far west as the Anas (Guadiana), afterwards called Bætica, while Terentius Varro governed the country west of that river with Lusitania. Having forced Pompey’s legates to surrender the country (B.C. 49), Cæsar seems not to have continued the triple division. Q. Cassius was sent to Hispania Ulterior, M. Lepidus to Hispania Citerior. But Cassius offended his own soldiers as well as the natives, and had to escape by sea, being drowned on his way home. Nor did his successor Trebonius do much better in B.C. 47; for many of his soldiers deserted to Gnæus Pompeius when he came to Spain after the defeat at Thapsus in the spring of B.C. 46.[38] And though Gnæus Pompeius perished soon after the battle of Munda (B.C. 45) his younger brother Sextus survived. At Cæsar’s death he was already at the head of a considerable fleet which enabled him to control Sicily and re-occupy Bætica, when its last Cæsarean governor—the famous C. Asinius Pollio—left it to join Antony in Gallia Narbonensis in the summer of B.C. 43. The upper province had meanwhile been governed by the legates of Metellus, who was about to return to it and Gallia Narbonensis with four legions when Cæsar’s death introduced new complications.[39]
(5) Sicily.
Sicily for eight years after Cæsar’s death was practically separated from the Empire. In B.C. 49 it had been easily won over to Cæsar’s authority by C. Curio, and after his success in Spain against Pompey’s legates Cæsar had nominated Aulus Allienus[40] as its proprætor. In B.C. 46 Allienus was succeeded by M. Acilius[41] (afterwards sent to Achaia), who in his turn was succeeded by T. Furfanius Postumus (B.C. 45). Finally, among Cæsar’s arrangements for B.C. 44 was the appointment of Pompeius Bithynicus to Sicily. His father had served under Pompey and had perished with him in Egypt; and Bithynicus seems to have feared retaliation from the Pompeians if they returned to power; for on the death of Cæsar we find him writing to Cicero in evident anxiety as to his position.[42] He failed to hold the island against Sext. Pompeius, who landed in B.C. 43, and after sustaining a slight reverse at Messene forced Bithynicus to yield him a share in the government, and shortly afterwards put him to death because he believed him to be plotting against him.[43] Sicily therefore had to be restored to the Empire by the triumvirs, a task which fell chiefly to Augustus.
(6) Sardinia.
Sardinia was important for its supply of corn. In B.C. 49 Cæsar’s legate Q. Valerius Orca occupied it without difficulty, its governor, M. Aurelius Cotta, escaping to Africa. In B.C. 48 Orca was succeeded by Sext. Peducæus.[44] But the arrangements made between that date and B.C. 44 are not known, for Peducæus appears to have been in Rome from the end of B.C. 45.[45] In the first division of the provinces by the triumvirs (November, B.C. 43) it fell to Octavian’s share,[46] though Suetonius remarks that Africa and Sardinia were the only two provinces never visited by him.[47] Meanwhile Sext. Pompeius occupied it,[48] and it was not recovered till B.C. 38.
(7) Africa. Numidia.
The province of Africa—the ancient territory of Carthage—may be taken with this western part of the Empire. It had long been a peaceful province, but in B.C. 46 it was the scene of the great rally of the Pompeians after the disaster at Pharsalia. Since their final defeat at Thapsus it had been farther secured by Cæsar’s colony at Carthage (B.C. 46-5), and had been governed by a fervent Cæsarean, C. Calvisius Sabinus. At the end of B.C. 45 Sabinus returned to Rome, and Q. Cornificius (once Cæsar’s quæstor) was named to succeed him. But affairs in Africa had been complicated by the formation of a new province from the dominions of Iuba, called sometimes New Africa, sometimes Numidia (B.C. 46). Of this new province the first proprætor was the historian Sallust, succeeded in B.C. 45 by T. Sextius with three legions. On Cæsar’s death, therefore, there were two men in Africa who might possibly take different views of the situation. Cornificius indeed—friend and correspondent of Cicero—shewed at once that he meant to stand by the Senate. A few months later he was confirmed in this resolution by the fact of his continuance in office depending on the senatorial decree of the 20th of December,[49] whereas Antony had commissioned Calvisius Sabinus (who had never withdrawn his legates from Africa) to go back to the province.[50] Accordingly, after Antony’s defeat at Mutina (April, B.C. 43), the Senate felt strong enough to order Sextius to transfer his three legions to Cornificius, who was himself under orders to send two of them to Rome.[51] This was done, and with the remaining legion Cornificius maintained his position in Old Africa, when the Triumvirate was formed in November, and was able to offer protection to many of the proscribed. But Sextius now claimed both provinces, as having fallen to Octavian’s share. He enrolled troops in his own province and obtained the help of Arabion, of the royal family of Numidia and chief of the robber tribe of Sittians; and though Cornificius had the stronger force, he was presently defeated and killed. Octavian, however, looked upon Sextius as a partisan of Antony rather than of himself, and presently sent C. Fuficius Fango to supersede him. Sextius seems to have foreseen that differences would occur between Antony and Octavian likely to give him a chance of recovering his province. Therefore under pretence of wishing to winter in a genial climate he stayed on in Africa. His opportunity came with the new distribution of provinces after Philippi (October-November, B.C. 42). Old or “Prætorian” Africa fell to Antony, New Africa or Numidia to Octavian. But upon the quarrel between Octavian and Fulvia (supported by Lucius Antonius) in B.C. 41, Sextius was urged by Fulvia to demand the prætorian province from Fango as properly belonging to Antony. After several battles, in which he met with various fortunes, Fango was at last driven to take refuge in the mountains, and there killed himself. Sextius then held both provinces till, in B.C. 40, the triumvir Lepidus took possession of them as his share of the Empire.[52]