The 90s also saw dangerous developments in Italy. In the 2nd century bc, Italians as a whole had shown little desire for Roman citizenship and had been remarkably submissive under exploitation and ill-treatment. The most active of their governing class flourished in overseas business, and the more traditionally minded were content to have their oligarchic rule supported by Rome. Their admission to citizenship had been proposed as a by-product of the Gracchan reforms. By 122 it had become clear that the Roman people agreed with the oligarchy in rejecting it. The sacrifices demanded of Italy in the Numidian and German wars probably increased dissatisfaction among Italians with their patently inferior status. Marius gave citizenship to some as a reward for military distinction—illegally, but his standing (auctoritas) sufficed to defend his actions. Saturninus admitted Italians to veteran settlements and tried to gain citizenship for some by full admission to Roman colonies. The censors of 97–96, aristocrats connected with Marius, shared his ideas and freely placed eminent Italians on the citizen registers. This might have allayed dissatisfaction, but the consuls of 95 passed a law purging the rolls and providing penalties for those guilty of fraudulent arrogation. The result was insecurity and danger for many leading Italians. By 92 there was talk of violence and conspiracy among desperate men.
It was in these circumstances that the eminent young noble, Marcus Livius Drusus, became tribune for 91 and hoped to solve the menacing accumulation of problems by means of a major scheme of reforms. He attracted the support of the poor by agrarian and colonial legislation and tried to have all Italians admitted to citizenship and to solve the jury problem by a compromise: the courts would be transferred to the Senate, and 300 equites would be admitted to it. (To cope with the increase in business it would need this expansion in size.) Some leading senators, frightened at the dangerous situation that had developed, gave weighty support. Had Drusus succeeded, the poor and the Italians might have been satisfied; the equites, deprived of their most ambitious element by promotion, might have acquiesced; and the Senate, always governed by the prestige of the noble principes rather than by votes and divisions, could have returned, little changed by the infusion of new blood, to its leading position in the process of government. But Drusus failed. Some members of each class affected were more conscious of the loss than of the gain; and an active consul, Lucius Philippus, provided leadership for their disparate opposition. After much violence, Drusus’ laws were declared invalid. Finally he himself was assassinated. The Italians now rose in revolt (the Social War), and in Rome a special tribunal, manned by the Gracchan jury class, convicted many of Drusus’ supporters until the Senate succeeded in suspending its sittings because of the military danger.
The first year of the Social War (90) was dangerous: the tribes of central and southern Italy, traditionally among the best soldiers in Rome’s wars, organized in a confederacy for the struggle that had been forced upon them. Fortunately all but one of the Latin cities—related to Rome by blood and tradition and specially favoured by Roman law—remained loyaclass="underline" their governing class had for some time had the privilege of automatically acquiring Roman citizenship by holding local office. Moreover, Rome now showed its old ability to act quickly and wisely in emergencies: the consul Lucius Caesar passed a law giving citizenship to all Italians who wanted it. The measure came in time to head off major revolts in Umbria and Etruria, which accepted at once. Civil war and the rule of Lucius Sulla
In 89 the war in central Italy was won, and Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo celebrated a triumph. Attention now turned to the East, where Mithradates had taken advantage of Rome’s troubles to expel the kings of Cappadocia and Bithynia. A Roman embassy restored them, and he withdrew. However, when the envoys incited Bithynian incursions into his territory, Mithradates launched a major offensive; he overran the two kingdoms and invaded Roman territory, where he attracted the sympathy of the natives by executing thousands of Italians and defeating and capturing the Roman commanders in the area.
In Rome, various men, including Marius, had hoped for the Eastern command. But it went to Sulla, elected consul for 88 after distinguished service in the Social War. Publius Sulpicius, a tribune in that year and an old friend of Drusus, tried to continue the latter’s policy of justice to the Italians by abolishing the gerrymandering that in practice deprived the new citizens of an effective vote. Finding the oligarchy firmly opposed, he gained the support of Marius (who still commanded much loyalty) for his plans by having the Eastern command transferred to him. After much street-fighting, the consuls escaped from Rome, and Sulpicius’ bills were passed. Sulla’s response was totally unforeseen: he appealed to the army he had led in the Social War, which was still engaged in mopping-up operations in Campania, and persuaded them to march on Rome. He occupied the city and executed Sulpicius; Marius and others escaped. Significantly, Sulla’s officers left him. It was the first time a private army of citizens had occupied Rome—an effect of Marius’ army reform, which had ended by creating a “client army” loyal chiefly to its commander, and of the Social War, which had made the use of force within Italy seem commonplace. The end of the republic was foreshadowed.
Having cowed Rome into acquiescence and having passed some legislation, Sulla left for the East. Cinna, one of the consuls of 87, at once called for the overthrow of Sulla’s measures. Resisted by his colleague Octavius, he left Rome to collect an army and, with the help of Marius, occupied the city after a siege. Several leading men were killed or condemned to death, Sulla and his supporters were outlawed, and (after Marius’ death early in 86) another commander was sent to Asia. The policy now changed to one of reconciliation: the Social War was wound up, and the government gained wide acceptance until Cinna was killed by mutinous soldiers (84).
Sulla meanwhile easily defeated Mithradates’ forces in two battles in Boeotia, took Athens, which under a revolutionary regime had declared for Mithradates, and cleared the king’s army out of Greece. While negotiating with Cinna’s government, Sulla also entered upon negotiations with Mithradates and, when he heard of Cinna’s death, quickly made peace and an alliance with Mithradates, driving the government’s commander in Asia to suicide. After wintering his troops in the rich cities of Asia, Sulla crossed into Greece and then into Italy, where his veteran army broke all resistance and occupied Rome (82). Sulla was elected dictator and, while Italy and all the provinces except Spain were quickly reduced, began a reign of terror (the “proscriptions”), in which hundreds of his enemies or those of his adherents were killed without trial, while their property went to enrich him and his friends. Wherever in Italy he had met resistance, land was expropriated and given to his soldiers for settlement.