Drusus murdered
Beginning of Social War 90 Rebel Italians establish capital at Corfinium
Varian Commission prosecutes those accused of inciting Italians
Gaius Marius takes command of legions in northern Italy
Aquillius escorts Nicomedes and Ariobarzanes back to their kingdoms
Lex Julia extends citizenship to Italians not under arms 89 Lex Plautia Papiria extends citizenship to all Italians
Nicomedes of Bithynia invades Pontus
Mithridates invades Cappadocia
Pompey Strabo captures Asculum
Sulla wages successful campaign in southern Italy
Sulla and Pompeius elected consuls 88 Death of Poppaedius Silo
End of Social War
Sulpicius proposes equal suffrage for the Italians
Sulpicius gives eastern command to Marius
Sulla’s march on Rome
Marius flees to Africa
Mithridates invades Asia
Mithridates orders massacre of Italians 87 First consulship of Cinna
Sulla departs for east and besieges Athens
Cinna pushed out of Rome after proposing equal suffrage for the Italians
Cinnan army surrounds Rome
Death of Pompey Strabo
Cinnan army enters Rome
Marian reign of terror 86 Seventh consulship of Marius
Second consulship of Cinna
Death of Gaius Marius
Sulla sacks Athens
Sulla defeats Pontic army at Chaeronea
Flaccus and Asiaticus lead legions east
Sulla defeats Pontic army at Orchomenus 85 Third consulship of Cinna
Fimbria kills Flaccus
Lucullus lets Mithridates escape
Sulla and Mithridates conclude peace
Sulla forces Fimbria to commit suicide 84 Fourth consulship of Cinna
Cinna killed by mutinous soldiers
Sulla imposes settlement on Asia
Senate and Sulla negotiate his return 83 Sulla returns to Italy
Metellus Pius, Pompey, and Crassus join Sulla
Beginning of Civil War 82 Beginning of siege of Praeneste
Sulla addresses the Romans
Sulla wins Battle of Colline Gate
End of Civil War
Sulla appointed dictator 81 Sullan proscriptions
Sulla reforms the Republican constitution 80 Sulla resigns dictatorship and becomes consul 79 Sulla retires 78 Death of Sulla
AUTHOR’S NOTE
NO PERIOD IN history has been more thoroughly studied than the fall of the Roman Republic. The names Caesar, Pompey, Cicero, Octavian, Mark Antony, and Cleopatra are among the most well known names not just in Roman history, but in human history. Each year we are treated to a new book, movie, or TV show depicting the lives of this vaunted last generation of the Roman Republic. There are good reasons for their continued predominance: it is a period alive with fascinating personalities and earth-shattering events. It is especially riveting for those of us in the modern world who, suspecting the fragility of our own republican institutions, look to the rise of the Caesars as a cautionary tale. Ben Franklin’s famous remark that the Constitutional Convention had produced “a Republic… if you can keep it” rings all these generations later as a warning bell.
Surprisingly, there has been much less written about how the Roman Republic came to the brink of disaster in the first place—a question that is perhaps more relevant today than ever. A raging fire naturally commands attention, but to prevent future fires, one must ask how the fire started. No revolution springs out of thin air, and the political system Julius Caesar destroyed through sheer force of ambition certainly wasn’t healthy to begin with. Much of the fuel that ignited in the 40s and 30s BC had been poured a century earlier. The critical generation that preceded that of Caesar, Cicero, and Antony—that of the revolutionary Gracchi brothers, the stubbornly ambitious Marius, and the infamously brash Sulla—is neglected. We have long been denied a story that is as equally thrilling, chaotic, frightening, hilarious, and riveting as that of the final generation of the Republic. This book tells that story.
But this book does not serve simply as a way to fill in a hole in our knowledge of Roman history. While producing The History of Rome I was asked the same set of questions over and over again: “Is America Rome? Is the United States following a similar historical trajectory? If so, where does the US stand on the Roman timeline?” Attempting to make a direct comparison between Rome and the United States is always fraught with danger, but that does not mean there is no value to entertaining the question. It at least behooves us to identify where in the thousand-year history of the Roman Empire we might find an analogous historical setting.
In that vein, let’s explore this. We are not in the origin phase, where a collection of exiles, dissidents, and vagabonds migrate to a new territory and establish a permanent settlement. That would correspond to the early colonial days. Nor are we in the revolutionary phase, where a group of disgruntled aristocrats overthrow the monarchy and create a republic. That corresponds to the days of the Founding Fathers. And we aren’t in the global conquest phase, where a series of wars against other great powers establishes international military, political, and economic hegemony. That would be the twentieth-century global conflicts of World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Finally—despite what some hysterical commentators may claim—the Republic has not collapsed and been taken over by a dictator. That hasn’t happened yet. This means that if the United States is anywhere on the Roman timeline, it must be somewhere between the great wars of conquest and the rise of the Caesars.
Further investigation into this period reveals an era full of historical echoes that will sound eerily familiar to the modern reader. The final victory over Carthage in the Punic Wars led to rising economic inequality, dislocation of traditional ways of life, increasing political polarization, the breakdown of unspoken rules of political conduct, the privatization of the military, rampant corruption, endemic social and ethnic prejudice, battles over access to citizenship and voting rights, ongoing military quagmires, the introduction of violence as a political tool, and a set of elites so obsessed with their own privileges that they refused to reform the system in time to save it.
These echoes could be mere coincidence, of course, but the great Greek biographer Plutarch certainly believed it possible that “if, on the other hand, there is a limited number of elements from which events are interwoven, the same things must happen many times, being brought to pass by the same agencies.” If history is to have any active meaning there must be a place for identifying those interwoven elements, studying the recurring agencies, and learning from those who came before us. The Roman Empire has always been, and will always be, fascinating in its own right—and this book is most especially a narrative history of a particular epoch of Roman history. But if our own age carries with it many of those limited number of elements being brought to pass by the same agencies, then this particular period of Roman history is well worth deep investigation, contemplation, and reflection.
Mike Duncan
Madison, Wisconsin