The Struggle for Roman Citizenship: Romans, Allies, and the Wars of 91–77 BCE

959 Pages·2013·6.05 MB·English

by  Seth Kendall

The Struggle for Roman
Citizenship
Gorgias Studies in Classical and Late Antiquity
2
Gorgias Studies in Classical and Late Antiquity contains
monographs and edited volumes on the Greco-Roman world and
its transition into Late Antiquity, encompassing political and social
structures, knowledge and educational ideals, art, architecture and
literature.
The Struggle for Roman
Citizenship
Romans, Allies, and the Wars of 91–77 BCE
Seth Kendall
9
34
2013
Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
www.gorgiaspress.com
Copyright © 2 0 1 3 by Gorgias Press LLC
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the
prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC.
2013 ܘ 9
ISBN 978-1-61143-487-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Data
Kendall, Seth, 1975-
The struggle for Roman citizenship : Romans,
allies, and the wars of 91-77 BCE / Seth
Kendall.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and
index.
ISBN 978-1-61143-487-3
1. Rome--History, Military--265-30 B.C. 2.
Rome--History--Social War, 90-88 B.C. 3.
Citizenship--Rome. 4. Sulla, Lucius Cornelius.
I. Title.
DG256.2.K46 2013
937’.05--dc23
2013020623
Printed in the United States of America
To my beloved and beautiful wife Tiffany,
and to my wonderful son, Isaac, whom she made for me:
καί ποτέ τις εἴποι πατρός γ᾽ ὅδε πολλὸν ἀμείνων.
v

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents ................................................................................... vii 
Acknowledgements ................................................................................. xi 
Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 
Chapter 1: The Nature of the Evidence ............................................. 29 
1.The turbulent years of 91–77 BCE ........................................ 29
2.The histories never composed ................................................ 33
3.The histories that are lost ......................................................... 36
4.The histories that are incomplete: Diodorus ........................ 40
5.The histories that are incomplete:
Livy and what remains of him ............................................ 43 
6.Appian of Alexandria ................................................................ 55
7.Cassius Dio ................................................................................. 61
8.Other sources: biography, exempla, geography ................... 62
9.The Sources: a summary .......................................................... 66
Chapter 2: Causes of Italian Desires for the Roman Citizenship ... 69 
1.Allied desires for the civitas—the evidence .......................... 69
2.The nature of Italian alliances with Rome ............................. 76
3.The Drawbacks of Allied foedera:
costs of military service ....................................................... 88 
4.The Drawbacks of Allied foedera:
treatment of Allied soldiers ...............................................109 
5.Merchants, contractors, and overseas ventures ..................119
6.Romans and Allies in Italy .....................................................126
7.Citizenship as redress of grievances .....................................134
8.Dissatisfaction with Rome and the Road to War ...............138
Chapter 3: The Sparks to Light the Flame .......................................139 
1.The question of when: Why 91? ...........................................139
2.Tiberius Gracchus and the ager publicus ............................142
3.The year 125: Fulvius Flaccus, Fregellae,
and the lessons learned ......................................................166 
4.Caius Gracchus ........................................................................181
vii
viii ROMANS, ALLIES, AND THE STRUGGLE
5.An uneasy quiet and the strange career
of M. Livius Drusus ...........................................................200 
6.War ............................................................................................220
Chapter 4: The Ignition of Hostilities ...............................................223 
1.Secessio .....................................................................................223
2.The chronology of Allied actions .........................................233
3.Asculum and the end of 91 ....................................................241
4.The Winter of 91—Allied activity and its meaning ...........254
5.The Roman rejection and their decision for war ...............269
6.The Aims of the Allies before Asculum
and the changes in tactics for the sping ..........................284 
Chapter 5: War in Earnest, 90 BCE .................................................. 287 
1.The Allied army at the beginning of 90 BCE:
Commanders and Strategies..............................................287 
2.The Southern Theater ............................................................2 90
3.The Northern Theater ............................................................308
4.Fighting in other areas: the sea, Etruria, and Umbria .......328
5.Roman vulnerabilities
and the steps taken to correct them ................................340 
6.The downhill slope from the summit:
the end of 90 and the beginning of 89 ............................352 
Chapter 6: Imperfect Defeat and Incomplete Victory, 89–88 ......353 
1.The lex Julia ..............................................................................353
2.The battles of Asculum and the march down the coast ...366
3.The war on the other side of the Appenines ......................380
4.The developments of winter, and the spring of 88 ............397
5.The end of the war: what was reaped
and what was sewn by the extension of the civitas .......417 
Chapter 7: New Citizens: Marius, Sulpicius, Sulla,
and the March on Rome .............................................................419 
1.The “retirement” of C. Marius ..............................................419
2.The strange career of P. Sulpicius Rufus, the Allies,
and the unlikely partnership ..............................................431 
3.The spectacular rise of L. Cornelius Sulla ...........................442
4.The leges Sulpiciae, Sulla, and the unthinkable act ............452
5.Sulla, the laws made, unmade, and proposed,
and the end of 88 ................................................................466 
6.The shadow of Sulla ...............................................................478
TABLE OF CONTENTS ix
Chapter 8: Progress and the Promises of Cinna ..............................479 
1.Cinna, Sulla, and the Beginning of 88 ..................................479
2.Legislative proposals and their results .................................487
3.Preparations for the return ....................................................493
4.Bellum Octavianum and the real end of the Allied War ...501
5.The violent restoration of Cinna and Marius .....................522
6.The year 86 and the problem of unpaid balances ..............539
7.The year to come .....................................................................546
Chapter 9: The Return of Sulla and the Civil War ..........................547 
1.An uneasy peace ......................................................................547
2.Dealing with Sulla in the East ...............................................551
3.A war of words and the raising of armies ...........................563
4.Civil War, 83 BCE ...................................................................588
5.Civil War, 82 and 81 ...............................................................610
6.Sulla Victor ...............................................................................630
Chapter 10: The End of the Struggle—
the Dictatorship of Sulla and its Consequences .....................633 
1.Rome, Italy, and the Italians
and the End of the Civil War ...........................................633 
2.Proscriptions and their consequences ..................................635
3.The leges Corneliae .................................................................646
4.The Italians and Sulla ..............................................................666
5.The Persistence to the Sullan System ...................................673
Epilogue: Romans Old and New .......................................................675 
Appendices ............................................................................................681 
Appendix A: The Allied Embassy of 91 ..................................683 
Appendix B: The Debate over the inclusion of the Allies
in the redistribution of the ager publicus
by Tiberius Gracchus .........................................................694 
Appendix C: The date and purpose of the expulsion law
of M. Junius Pennus ...........................................................703 
Appendix D: The ius adipiscendi civitatem Romanum
per magistratum ..................................................................716 
Appendix E: M. Livius Drusus
and the outbreak of the Allied War .................................722 
Appendix F: Some questions concerning the investigators
sent by Rome into Allied territory, 91 BCE ...................730 
Appendix G: The chronology of the Periochae of Livy .......738 
Appendix H: The Italian commanders ....................................741