Violence and Political Self-Help

The employment of private guards in the disruption of public business obviously lay beyond the legitimate confines of self-help. Such perturbation was plainly deemed an outrage, a sensibility made clear by the people's condemnation of the equestrian Marcus Postumius (Liv.

thus broken up, but later Postumius and several of his supporters were punished with exile.^{[811] [812]} Now in telling this story, Livy's concentration is focused principally on the shocking corruption of these publicani. Consequently, his narrative is less than fulsome in describing the personnel who disrupted Postumius' hearing, but it is obvious that turmoil so serious that it resulted in such extreme penalties cannot have owed itself simply to Postumius and his equestrian associates: clearly they mobilised bands of men, doubtless their retainers, who provided the muscle required to disrupt a popular assembly. Livy speaks of sedition and riot and, notwithstanding his emphasis on graft, makes it plain in his account that neither the public nor its leadership were willing to countenance violence on this scale when applied against the enforcement of public administration.

Legitimate self-interest, especially self-interest animated by compelling ideological justifications, was a very different matter.

The notion that an individual could organise popular violence blamelessly and put it to good use on behalf of the Republic, even against the grain of constitutional proprieties, received a sensational and influential formulation at the trial of Gaius Norbanus, which took place around 95 bce.^[814] As tribune of the plebs in 103 bce, Norbanus prosecuted Quintus Servilius Caepio, whose ineptitude while proconsul in 105 bce had led to the Romans' crushing defeat at Arausio. The tribunes Lucius Aurelius Cotta and Titus Didius attempted to interpose their vetoes on Caepio's behalf, but they were driven off by force, in the turbulence of which Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, a highly distinguished member of the Senate, was injured by a pelting of stones.^[815] Caepio was convicted, but years later Norbanus was hauled into court on a charge of maiestas (treason), an accusation predicated on the violence which prevented two tribunes from exercising their constitutional prerogative.

Norbanus' agitators were not limited to his clients or retainers. Cicero makes it clear that the violence at Caepio's trial, even if it was roused and directed by the tribune, originated in the people's grief at the loss of life at Arausio and the people's loathing of the man they held responsible (Cic. De or. 2.124). Public outrage served Norbanus' purposes, to be sure, but, from the people's perspective, there was more to their actions than gratifying a political figure. At the same time, Norbanus' following was not an extensive one: the popular disturbance at Caepio's trial should not be confused with an uprising on the part of the urban populace as a whole. It was routinely the practice in Rome to describe the crowd on the scene as ‘the people', or, from an antagonistic perspective, to denounce the same group as some form of mob.^[817] In other words, Norbanus, by stirring popular passions, was able to attract gangs from outside his own circle and put them to work in pressing his political attack on Caepio. These gangs, viewed with disapproval by Norbanus' prosecutors, were successfully accorded the status of the Roman people in Antonins’ defence, and it was Antonins’ defence that carried the day.

This same combination of ideology and opportunism recurred throughout the late Republic. When in 133 bce Tiberius Gracchus began to disclose the likely terms of his agrarian legislation, he found himself attended each day by thousands of adherents, presumably men who were attracted by the entitle­ments Tiberius’ law would create (Asellio, fr.

Several factors, practical and ideological, enabled Tiberius and Nasica to rally their violent followings. It is clear that, on each side, there were participants motivated by what they perceived to be the justice of their cause. Others, of course, were opportunists of some ilk. But none, it appears, were, in the immediate sense, profiteers.

Subsequent deployments of popular violence became increasingly complex - and exhibited enhanced levels of preparation. In the political turbulence of 121 bce, when reactionary politicians were endeavouring to undo central and very popular aspects of his legislative reforms, Gaius Gracchus surrounded himself with bodyguards illegally equipped with daggers, and his followers were illegally armed when they occupied the Aventine Hill.^[822] Doubtless they were convinced that, as Antonius would later argue, circumstances demanded boldness and that questions of strict legality were trumped by popular rights.^[823] In reaction, the Senate for the first time passed its so-called final decree (senatus con­sultum ultimum) entrusting the republic’s security to the consul, Lucius Opimius.

Later in the same year, however, Saturninus turned to more extreme measures: he murdered a political competitor, and he and his accomplices seized possession of the Capitoline Hill. To his supporters, Saturninus remained a champion of popular rights. But he was seen differently by his senatorial peers. Again, the final decree was passed, and Marius, as consul, became responsible for the suppression of his former ally. Like Opimius before him, Marius summoned senators and equestrians - and their retinues: gangs of men were even imported from the countryside. Few of Marius’ veterans were any longer available, nor were soldiers introduced to the city, but the consul supplied the urban population with weapons from the armoury and under his command they joined in laying siege to the Capitoline. In the end, Saturninus surrendered. Despite guarantees for their security, he and many of his associates were lynched.^[825]

The complexities of popular violence, including the deployment of gangs, receive clear illustration in the tactics of Publius Sulpicius, tribune of the plebs in 88 bce.^[826] After the Social War (90-89 bce), Rome’s former Italian allies became new citizens. But their enrolment into Rome’s tribal structure, the voting units that were fundamental in Roman electoral and legislative assemblies, put them at a disadvantage over against the old citizens. Sulpicius introduced a controversial bill that would distribute the new citizens fairly throughout the tribes. He also promulgated a separate bill that would rectify the disadvantages of Rome’s freedmen, whose votes were confined to the city’s four urban tribes. Thus he could claim to be a champion of the Roman people in their new, freshly expanded version.

Sulpicius’ distribution bill was strongly opposed by leading members of the senatorial order, including the two consuls of the year, almost certainly because they feared that such a radical extension of the franchise, however just in principle, would disrupt what they regarded as tried and true techniques for winning offices. These anxieties, events would later show, were misplaced. At the time, however, they saw in Sulpicius’ proposal a threat to their political supremacy. In addition, many will have envied Sulpicius the gratia which his measure, if successful, must surely earn him on the part of Rome’s new citizens.

Sulpicius’ bill also provoked intense hostility on the part of Rome’s urban population. Doubtless Sulpicius had hoped that his other proposal, designed to improve the constitutional situation of freedmen, who were a dominating presence in the city of Rome, would bring along lower-class voters among the old citizens. But whatever goodwill that measure generated, it was not enough to compensate for old voters’ fears that their role in Roman politics would be eclipsed by the new citizens. Again, this fear would later prove groundless. Still, in 88 bce xenophobia on the part of the city’s masses was a potent force in the public reaction to Sulpicius’ plans.

Confronted by the opposition of the consuls, the resistance of many leading figures in the Senate and the hostility of the urban masses, Sulpicius turned to other resources. He formed an alliance with Gaius Marius, for whom he promised to secure a prestigious military command if his distribu­tion bill were carried; Sulpicius would deprive a sitting consul, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, of his military assignment and award it instead to Marius. On this basis, Marius exerted his influence on the publicani and others in the equestrian order, with the result that many of these men became advocates of Sulpicius’ cause, not least because they were able to see advantages for themselves if the membership of their order should be expanded by the addition of rich Italians.^[827] Soon Sulpicius was supplied with a formidable equestrian following, one so extensive and devoted that the tribune dubbed it (perhaps using Greek) his ‘anti-Senate’. Their reliable attendance, a spectacle exhibiting the intensity of their commitment to his measure, naturally appealed to others, especially their dependants and associates, who joined in following their patrons. Sulpicius’ retinue soon included a crowd said by our sources to have numbered in the thousands (Plut. Mar. 35.2; Sull. 8.3-5). Still, the Senate and many urban citizens persisted in their opposition.

Sulpicius, and his wealthy supporters, also paid poor men to provide additional muscle to the effort of pushing through the distribution bill. We are told that Sulpicius seated himself in the Forum, where he counted out money to his hirelings (Plut. Sull. 8.2), a valuable reference to the reality of Sulpicius' payments even if the scene conjured by Plutarch derives from hostile caricature. Some of the men taking his payments and fighting for Sulpicius' bill will have originated in the city, either as old residents won over by equestrian generosity or immigrants already inclined to play an extra-legal role in securing the passage of the distribution law; others will have been imported from the countryside by men rich enough to pay the costs. Indeed, we should not assume that wealthy Italians failed to make their contributions to the expenses incurred by putting into the street men who were willing to fight for their voting rights.

Sulpicius' recourse to gangs created an environment so tumultuous that it stimulated legitimate fears that voters would be bullied into yielding to the tribune. Consequently, the consuls declared a temporary suspension of legislation, a legal delaying tactic that revealed their desperation. In reaction, Sulpicius chose to escalate the level of his intimidation. He and his followers, illegally armed with daggers, burst into an assembly that had been sum­moned by both consuls. Sulpicius demanded an end to the suspension. The consuls refused and turmoil ensued, in which Sulpician might prove superior: both consuls fled, and a nobleman, a kinsman of both consuls, was murdered. In the aftermath of such lethal violence, Sulpicius' measure was soon passed. Sulpicius went on, as he promised, to strip Sulla of his command on Marius' behalf. Sulla responded, not with gangs but with a Roman army: he marched on the city, seized control, and drove Marius into exile. Sulpicius was captured and put to death. His legislation was annulled.

Popular violence, and the use of gangs, persisted throughout the republic.^[828] Nor was the deployment of gangs a practice exclusive to tri­bunes. During his consulship in 59 bce, Julius Caesar pushed through an agrarian measure by way of popular agitation and only with the rough support of veterans supplied by Pompey the Great.^[829] During the same year, Pompey himself, a private citizen, when he was denounced in a public speech as ‘a usurping dictator' by a tribune of the plebs, had the man thrashed within an inch of his life (Cic. QFr. 1.2.15). Cicero described Pompey's action as an enormity, doubtless because, unlike violence in pursuit of a controversial political goal, it was a savage act against a fellow senator the motivation of which lay solely in the preservation of the great man's personal prestige. Self-help, possibly, but as a political act Pompey's recourse to thuggish tactics, which could hardly be dressed up as an expression of any aspect of republican political ideology, was simply another expression of the kind of self-interested violence that characterised the disruptive behaviour of Marcus Postumius and his supporters (see above). Even amid frequent outbursts of political violence, sometimes lethal and sometimes on a disturbingly large scale, putting a gang to work in settling personal scores between aristocrats could offend public sensibil­ities, as Pompey did. Popular violence, in Cicero's opinion at least, though far from a rarity in Rome, had not yet become routine or conventional - or commonplace.