The Siege of Rome in 87 B. C.
IN THE year 88 B.C. Sulla had regained the coveted command against Mithridates by leading four legions to Rome and capturing the city by armed force'-a first in Roman history, surprising even to old Marius. This march aroused hostility to Sulla among all classes, even the many senators who shared the political profits of the march: the elimination of Marius and Sulpicius, the denial of equal suffrage to the Italians who had secured citizenship through the Social War, and the re-establishment of the ancient senatorial probouleutic power (App. BC 1. 59. 265-66). After Sulla's departure for the eastern war in early 87, one of the consuls of the year, Cinna, revived the Sulpician bill to distribute the novi cives among all the tribes, instead of restricting them to a limited number of tribes which voted last (in comitia with consecutive voting). Cinna perceived that bearing the banner of the irate novi cives as well as proposing recall of the exiles, including Marius himself, could pay high political dividends. His colleague, Octavius, however, took a staunch optimate line in defense of Sulla's arrangements, protecting the extremely oligarchic status quo. A bloody clash occurred between the followers of the two. Seeing the defeat, indeed, the slaughter of his partisans, Cinna fled the city. Soon afterward, the senate deposed Cinna from office (an unprecedented and illegal act) and his place was taken by Cornelius Merula, the flamen dialis. Cinna assumed the role of (live) martyr for the novi cives and champion of the people's rights (as a consul deposed without a vote of the people [App. BC 1. 65. 296-66. 300]). He easily collected money and men, including even the legion left behind by Sulla. The exiled Marius, long awaiting an opportunity for action (App. BC 1. 62. 281), joined Cinna in the attempt to repeat Sulla's military coup. Meanwhile, the regime in Rome, threatened by these activities, had been compelled to appeal to Pompeius Strabo,2 the only commander in Italy with a large regular armv; for, in general, the plebs urbana was an infrequent and unsatisfactory source of soldiers.3 Strabo had resumed control of his army in late 88, following the murder of the consul Pompeius Rufus, who had briefly superseded the proconsul. Although Strabo and the regime viewed each other with suspicion and distaste,4 he nevertheless brought his formi-
The Army and the Land in the Roman Revolution
The Roman revolution, which transformed an oligarchic Republic into the Principate of Augustus, had its origin, as Sallust (BJ, 41–2) saw, partly in the misery of the poor, in a social crisis, whose origins I cannot discuss here; it began with the Gracchi and with agrarian reform, and agrarian reform remained a leitmotiv in the turbulent century that followed. I need only mention the laws or bills of Lucius Philippus, Saturninus, Sextus Titius and the younger Drusus, the settlement of the Sullan veterans, the proposals of Plotius, Rullus and Flavius, the agitation of Catiline, and the land allotments of Caesar, the Triumvirs and of Augustus himself. Modern accounts tend to obscure or even deny the unity of this theme throughout the period. It is true that in the earlier phase reformers were more concerned to find remedies for social distress as such, and in the later to provide homes for veterans. But the Gracchan settlers and the veterans had two things in common: they were mostly countrymen, and they desired to obtain a secure livelihood by owning their own land. According to Appian (BC 1, 27), whose testimony we have no right to reject, the work done by the Gracchi was not lasting (cf. n. 1). Hence, the distress they had tried to alleviate persisted or revived; the governing class remained indifferent. Unorganized and unarmed, the followers of the Gracchi could save neither their leaders nor their own interests; men of the same class, with arms in their hands, were the essential instruments for bringing down the Republic.
The Lex Plotia Agraria and Pompey's Spanish Veterans
The Lex Plotia Agraria is known to us only by name through a single reference in one of Cicero's letters, from which we can extract nothing more than a terminus ante quern and a very general notion of its probable scope. Gabba in a short article, after reviewing the different hypotheses about this law, decided in favour of a suggestion put forward originally by Zumpt, that it belongs probably to the year 70/69 B.C.; and identifying it with a law referred to in a passage of Dio, he argued that the law was passed on behalf of Pompey's and Metellus Pius' veterans of the Spanish war. Following a suggestion of Niccolini he identified Plotius with the Plotius, tribune 70/69 B.C., who was responsible for the Lex Plotia de reditu Lepidanorum, and the date of his tribunate he put in 70 B.C. With Gabba's reasoning and general conclusions the present writer is in agreement, namely, that the law belongs to 70/69 B.C., and aimed at providing land for the veterans of Pompey and Metellus; the object of this note is to draw attention to a piece of evidence which has hitherto been strangely neglected, and to draw some possible inferences about the scope and fate of the law.