L. Quintus Sertorius
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Posts posted by L. Quintus Sertorius
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His inattention to the skill of his subordinates. He spent little, if any, time educating his Iberian and Roman officers about the conduction of military matters - and as a result was forced to be in command at all important conflicts. His campaign would have been much more successful had he been in command of a skillful officer corps, as his style of guerilla warfare would have been less haphazard and more in tune with the actual goals of his campaign.
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It is a true pity that a man of such valor and skill as Lucius Quintus Sertorius goes unknown by all but classical historians and those who chance to stumble upon his biography in Plutarch. So for the hopeful benefit of the community, I present an annotated version of Plutarch's Life of Sertorius.
And so to these instances let us further add, that the most warlike commanders, and most remarkable for exploits of skilful stratagem, have had but one eye; as Philip, Antigonus, Hannibal, and Sertorius, whose life and actions we describe at present; of whom, indeed, we might truly say, that he was more continent than Philip, more faithful to his friends than Antigonus, and more merciful to his enemies than Hannibal; and that for prudence and judgment he gave place to none of them, but in fortune was inferior to them all. Yet though he had continually in her a far more difficult adversary to contend against than his open enemies, he nevertheless maintained his ground, with the military skill of Metellus, the boldness of Pompey, the success of Sylla, and the power of the Roman people, all to be encountered by one who was a banished man and a stranger at the head of a body of barbarians. - Plutarch, I. SertoriusLucius Quintus Sertorius was born the scion of a noble Sabine family in the city of Nursia. His father died when he was quite young, and the young Sertorius was raised and educated by his mother Rhea. He was a keen student of oratory and managed to acquire some small fortune and influence in Rome by the means of his pleading in the courts (the custom being that a successful prosecutor was paid by the fines exacted from his plaintiff, and also acquired his rank.). However, upon the second invasion of Gallia Narbonensis by the Cimbri and Teutones (105 B.C.E.), Sertorius joined the consular army of Quintus Servilius Caepio and followed him north to confront the Cimbri on the plains of Arausio.
The two consuls for 105, Q. Servilius Caepio and Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, were bitter political opponents. Gnaeus Maximus, a homo novus (that is, a politician with no senatorial forebears), was the senior consul and thus held jurisdiction in command over Caepio. However, Caepio, due to his prejudice against Mallius, refused to cooperate with him or even to let their armies camp together. This refusal weakened the Roman forces' morale and strategic position (they were outnumbered by a large number, and the separation of their forces left them open to attack).
The Cimbri, discerning the infighting between the consuls during diplomatic negotiations, and prompted by an attack upon their camp by Caepio, utterly annihilated his legion. They then proceeded to sweep down towards the camp of Mallius Maximus, whose legionaries attempted to fight but were forced into rout and cut down. Sertorius, though wounded in many places, swam the Rhone River in full armor and managed to escape.
The second invasion of Italy by the Cimbri and Teutones prompted Sertorius to join with the army of Gaius Marius, and follow him north to Aquae Sextiae. In the weeks preceding the battle, Sertorius acquired a Gallic disguise, taught himself basic Gaelic, and managed to spy out the enemy camp undetected. He returned to Marius with valuable information about the leadership and situation of the enemy troops; and when battle was finally joined in 102 B.C.E., Marius utterly crushed the forces of the Cimbri and Teutones, to the extent even of capturing their king, Teutobod.
For his conspicuous bravery, Sertorius received military decorations from the hands of Gaius Marius himself, and was awarded a military tribunate in Spain with command of a thousand men (approximately three legions), under the Roman proconsul, Didius.
Sertorius wintered his troops in the country of the Celtiberians, occupying the city of Castulo. The soldiers, being accustomed to treat the Iberians as inferiors, came to be despised by the Castulones so much that they sent to their near neighbors, the Grysoenians, and attacked the Romans in their barracks. Sertorius, taken by surprise, rallied those of his troops who escaped the city and by circling the walls, discovered the gate by which the Grysoenians had entered the city. Posting a guard, he ambushed the Gysoenians as they left Castulo, and slew every man who was of an age to bear arms among them. After securing Castulo, he then ordered his men to put aside their Roman arms and accoutrements, and to take up those of the fallen Grysoenians. He managed to capture Grysoenia by leading the citizens to believe that his men were their returning warriors, and slew all of an age to bear arms at the city gates where they had gathered to welcome their warriors home. He then sacked Grysoenia and enslaved a great many people in retribution for his fallen soldiers. He gained great fame and renown in Iberia for this act, and as a result was appointed quaestor of Cisalpine Gaul on his return to Italy.
When Sertorius took up his quaestorship in 91 B.C.E., the Italian peninsula was about to enter into the throes of the Marsian War, also called the War of the Italian Allies (Socii). Sertorius was called upon to muster and train troops for Rome, which he accomplished with exceptional alacrity and efficiency. Leading from the front against the Italian forces, he lost an eye in close combat. Stories of his heroism reached Rome, and upon his return to Rome, he was so famous that he was applauded every time he entered a theatre. This popularity was not, however, enough to secure him a tribunate; mainly because he was a declared opponent of L. Cornelius Sulla, and all the formidable resources of this favorite of Venus were arrayed against him. Defeated in the election, Sertorius was greatly embittered and withdrew from politics until Sulla marched on Rome in 87 B.C.E.
After Marius and his partisans fled Rome for Africa, Sulla withdrew his forces from Rome and embarked for Pontus and the Mithridatic War. By the end of 87, Marius had returned to Rome and set up a pseudo-dictatorship with L. Cornelius Cinna. Sertorius had attempted to dissuade Cinna from summoning Marius back to Rome, as Plutarch relates:
Most were for the immediate reception of Marius, but Sertorius openly declared against it, because he feared that the violence of Marius would bring all things to confusion, by his boundless wrath and vengeance after victory. He insisted upon it with Cinna that they were already victorious, that there remained little to be done, and that if they admitted Marius, he would deprive them of the glory and advantage of the war, as there was no man less easy to deal with, or less to be trusted in, as a partner in power.However, Cinna was not swayed, and Marius became, in effect, the ruler of Rome. Cinna and Sertorius insisted that Marius divide his forces between the three of them, so that no one man should have supreme power. Marius assented to this, but raised in replacement an army of freed slaves, which committed such atrocities upon the Romans that they looked upon the evils of wartime as a golden age in comparison. Sertorius, despairing of Marius
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It's mainly Plutarch, but I added some bits to his account of Arausio and several other battles that I have from my books. If I can find the time today, I'll cite them in the thread.
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Sertorius had a good chance of defeating Pompey and Metellus militarily, had he survived. The more important question is whether or not the Iberians would have continued his reforms and continued to singly resist Roman aggression. The answer to this, sadly, is probably not.
Also, I'm working on an annotation of Plutarch's Sertorius that I hope to post on here within the next week or so.
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You're quite correct.
Pompey's command was given to him by an extraordinary law that specifically extended his proconsular imperium to include, as I recall, unlimited authority over all of the Mediterranean Sea, and also over all land within fifty miles of the shoreline.
Caesar's command was, ostensibly, a standard proconsular commission. However, the strength of his block of supporters in Rome enabled him to breach the legal standards restricting the abuse of proconsular power without facing any substantial opposition from anyone - save Cato, that is.
Pompey's breach of the restrictions on his imperium were slight and, in any case, there were few restrictions to begin with. Caesar's were much more perfidious for knowingly breaking the laws governing his power, and counting on the docility of his enemies to allow him to get away with it.
It is obvious that Caesar was counting on his enemies to let him get away with what he had perpetrated during his consulate of 60 B.C.E., and subsequently in his ten years in Gaul. It was their determination to uphold the rule of law that caused Caesar to launch the Bellum Civilis.
Even if comparisons to the current straits of American politics are for the most part baseless, I still dislike the idea of such a precedent.
EDIT - I think that when the article refers to a "special extended command" of Caesar's, he refers to the fact that no man would normally be alotted two successive proconsulates, except perhaps in times of dire need (Scipio in Spain and successively, Africa.).
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The study of Roman law and writings never really halted in Lombardia. In Society and Politics in Medieval Italy: The Evolution of the Civil Life, 1000-1350, J.K. Hyde devotes the better part of a chapter to an analysis of the status of Italian cities under the Lombardic and Frankish kingdoms (the latter being better known as the Holy Roman Empire, though there was not technically such a body at the time of the Frankish conquest). Under the Gothic kings, Italian cities were encouraged to continue the bureacratic traditions of the Romans. Civic legal codes became slightly differentiated, mainly because of the lack of a codified, readily available source of written law. The introduction of Justinian's Corpus Iuris Civilis led to a new interest in the study of Roman law. Indeed, by the time of the Lombard conquests in the late 6th century, Italian lawyers and bureacrats were operating under much the same conditions and with similar procedures as their counterparts of 100 or even 200 years before.
After the Lombards conquered Northern Italy, they made few attempts to learn the art of government needed to organize such a large kingdom as the one they now controlled. As such, they turned to the native Italians for legal and bureacratic advice. However, Lombard laws were slowly forced upon the cities, and the study of Justinian's Code became the enclave of specially designated advocates, or giudices. The Lombard system was even then sophisticated enough to stun the invading Franks, to whom the Lombards had been described as godless, uncultured barbarians.
Roman culture survived the fall of Rome, for the most part intact, in Italy. Indeed, the great Lombard League that threw down Barbarossa swore common ground with the Pope and the S.P.Q.R. (though really now only composed of aristocratic Roman families). Even classical allusions were quite commonplace, as Hyde referenced:
In the walls constructed by Leodoino (Modena) there was a chapel dedicated to Christ, St. Mary, and St. John, for which a cleric who knew his Livy and little and his Vergil well composed the most remarkable secular poem to come down to us from dark age Italy. O tu qui servas armis ista moenia is addressed to the watchmen on the walls, and may have been chanted by the chapel clergy in the evening at the time when the watch took up their posts.Oh you who guard these walls with arms
Sleep not, I charge you, but stay wide awake.
While Hector kept watch in lofty Troy
It was not taken by the crafty Greeks.
Only when Troy was sleeping quietly
Did false Synon ope' the traitor's door.
The poet goes on to remind the Modenese watchmen of the white geese who saved the Roman capital from attacking Gauls, and only after this does he invoke the protection of Christ and the saints...
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I don't live in Pennsylvania - Louisiana pride!
But I also have school next year, so it will have to be sometime in the summer. Preferably not too far west, I don't want to go bankrupt for two or three days in Vegas.
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When the infantry had thus clashed together in the centre and were fighting, Pompey's cavalry rode proudly up from the wing and deployed their squadrons to envelope the enemy's right; and before they could attack, the cohorts ran out from where Caesar was posted, not hurling their javelins, as usual, nor yet stabbing the thighs and legs of their enemies with them, but aiming them at their eyes and wounding their faces. They had been instructed to do this by Caesar, who expected that men little conversant with wars or wounds, but young and noble, and pluming themselves on their youthful beauty, would dread such wounds especially, and would not stand their ground, fearing not only their present danger, but also their future disfigurement. - Plutarch, Life of CaesarWhen Pompey had thus spoken the whole army, including the senators and a great many of the nobility who were with him, applauded him vociferously and told him to lead them to whatsoever task he would. - Appian II, DyrhacchiumThe losses of Italians on each side
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By it's end, they were probably equal, but if Caesar could have achieved his aims without killing any Roman he would have done so as clearly exemplified by his record. The Sullan/Marian revolutionaries saw murder of opponents as a viable political solution.
And so you postulate that, even if Sulla and Pompey had met no resistance in Italy, they still would have proscripted so many? I doubt that highly, and you're applying a varnish to Caesar's political tool of clemency that was not there at all times.
Caesar's hard-won war in Spain led him to execute 5,000 captured Roman soldiers after the battle of Munda, and kill Gnaeus Pompey and Labienus. Would Caesar have been so forgiving after a long, slogging campaign down the Italian peninsula, as surely would have occurred had Pompey mustered the forces he intended to in time? Again, highly doubtful. It's also probable that, given such a firm resistance in Italy proper, Caesar would have dropped all pretenses and lashed out against his political opponents - just as Sulla did.
I imagine that most of these people stayed in Rome or Italia and did not take sides, the same people who the Pompey camp considered to be an enemy of the Republic for not joining them, the same camp led by the Butcher, Executioner, whatever they liked to call him.The extent of those who stayed behind is greatly exaggerated. Almost all of the Senate and the Ordo Equester left with Pompey - there were so few Senators left that Caesar could barely muster a rump to hear his justifications when he reached Rome.
And Pompey's nickname during the 1st Civil War was adulescens carnifex - teenage butcher. A nickname earned for stupendously outrageous acts during Sulla's reign. So, we have a "teenage butcher" with the backing of the legitimate government of the People of the Imperium Romanorum, and a middle-aged butcher who, having drenched his sword with blood in Gaul, decided that he'd rather drench it in Italian blood than lay it down.
I don't think we are repeating much, we're getting into what was behind the minds of the Pompey camp, which was composed of many of the leading men in the senate who had considerable influence, but the majority of the senate did not want things to come to this as exemplified by their votes.Of course they didn't want a civil war - but when it came down to it, they had no choice. Caesar alone had the power to disband his legions, lay down his imperium, and answer for his crimes. It was his refusal to do so that prompted the Civil War, not any speech of Cato or Cicero's.
All of this leads to the concept that the Pompey camp was not such a noble cause for the republic in my opinion (that was mostly a brag to garner support), but more of a contest between Pompey, some stubborn and poor politicians who needed his protectionIf by "poor and stubborn politicians", you mean "the legitimate and near entire governing body of the Roman Republic", then you might be somewhere near correct. And if there was a greater general among the Senate to defend the legitimate cause of the Republic than Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, feel free to point him out. I'm having trouble seeing anyone else who had the slightest chance of victory.
and CaesarWhose fault the whole mess was in the first place.
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I wasn't familiar with that use (mainly because I plucked mine out of my New College Latin and English Dictionary), but yours is certainly easier to pronounce.
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Does latin have a word for 'smite'?
If so how do you say, (name) 'the smiter' ?
The verb is percutio, percutere, percutissi, percutissus
The noun for smiter would be percutissor.
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If you refer to the fight against Sullan dictatorship by Sertorius as a mere revolt, then I fear you have gravely misunderstood the motivations and reasons behind his actions.
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In the senate the opposition of men of the better sort gave him the pretext which he had long desired, and crying with loud adjurations that he was driven forth into the popular assembly against his wishes, and was compelled to court its favour by the insolence and obstinacy of the senate, he hastened before it, and stationing Crassus on one side of him and Pompey on the other, he asked them if they approved his laws. They declared that they did approve them, whereupon he urged them to give him their aid against those who threatened to oppose him with swords. They promised him such aid, and Pompey actually added that he would come up against swords with sword and buckler too.
As for Caesar's colleague, Bibulus, since he availed nothing by obstructing Caesar's laws, but often ran the risk with Cato of being killed in the forum, he shut himself up at home for the remainder of his term of office. Pompey, however, immediately after his marriage, filled the forum with armed men and helped the people to enact Caesar's laws and give him as his consular province Gaul on both sides of the Alps for five years, together with Illyricum and four legions. - Plutarch, Caesar, paragraph 14.
I'm not sure exactly what source details Bibulus baring his neck to Caesar, but I've read it in several works on the period (Meier and Holland among them), and so will continue to search for it.
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I pulled 5 million off the top of my head, should have verified it before posting. My apologies, I'll amend it.
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An old favorite:
"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away." - Shelley.
And also:
"The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning,
His fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air;
And him that stands will die for naught, and home there's no returning.
The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair." - A.E. Housman
And for a funny one, the last words of Vespasian - "Dear me! I think I'm becoming a god!"
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This looks like fun! I am compelled to indulge. Apologies for the long scrambles, my family is Irish-Catholic.
danenrb apktrci ealrclr
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Though the defense may rest, the prosecution sees no reason to halt its presentation of the case.
They could be negligible, or if you put in the right man as the praetor, and the right jury (perhaps surrounded by Pompeian veterans), a simple crime could turn into something more just for the sake of it. Perhaps you could only charge a man so far for a particular crime, but add up fines and it can ruin him just as much as anything else.Trying to end Caesar's career by prosecuting him for the breach of a negligible law is like trying to kill an elephant with a pellet gun. Besides, Caesar had many, more devastating charges to answer for - the breach of proconsular imperium, the wanton murder of approximately 5 million innocent Gauls [edit - a more accurate number would be 1 million], the unlawful imprisonment of diplomatic envoys, the destruction of a Roman ally, and threatening the life of a consular colleague.
This isn't Cato the Elder's Republic though, this is the corrupt late Republic filled with hate and disorder. In these days retroactive electoral laws (leges Pompeiae 52 BC) were all the rage when even the most lawful were not afraid to use bribes and clubs to get their way. Caesar hardly started this theme, but he did use it, like most others. He could have ruinously been charged with any of these even if he made it past the charges that would have been leveled against him during his proconsulship. Perhaps even one of Bibulus' ridiculous declarations of seeing ill omens could be used against him.Trying to support the position that the Late Republic was more corrupt than that of earlier generations is an impossible proposition. These breaches of electoral law had gone on since the days of Gaius Gracchus, Marius and M. Aemilius Scaurus, Cinna and Sulla; and it went on now in the days of Caesar, Cato, Cicero, and Pompey. Their violence was escalating, true, but the death of Clodius and the exile of Milo did much to calm the city in the years preceding Caesar's coup. In any case, the violence of the period is much exaggerated, mainly because the only primary source we have are Cicero's hyperbolic letters to Atticus - whereas we have little if any records from the participants in politics of earlier periods. I have no doubt that the letters of M. Aemilius Scaurus or M. Porcius Cato Maior would read much the same, save perhaps the difference in the purity of their Latin prose.
I don't really think there were any solutions, this is just another episode of the death of an unstable Republic, a Republic built for a city, straining under the weight of an Empire.I can think of a superb solution - Caesar comes back to Rome without a sword in his hand and answers for his crimes. That would have suited Rome perfectly.
If Pompey, Cato, and the boni are not the most capable then I don't know who is!My comment was in answer to your supposition that any small fry could bring down Caesar in the courts, as referenced here:
In Caesar's case, if he did not hold office, any list of two bit prosecutors could bury his life in endless prosecutions, even if he managed to make it past the more valid issues. Couple that with an ancient Republic that, for the goodwill of all and for the most expedient and sensible solution to serious problems, required the occasional bending of the rules. In such a way well meaning and heroic men can be brought down by the jealous and the incapable.If I may end with a quote from Sallust, a man who was there to see it all:"To bring you low these cowardly men would, if they could, give their lives...they would rather imperil liberty by your downfall than through you have the empire of the Roman people, now great, become the greatest."
--R.P. 2.4.3-4
Too bad you failed to mention that Sallust was a staunch Caesarian, and actually accompanied Caesar in his African campaign to fight against fellow Romans. In fact, Sallust was guilty of such gross oppression and extortion as governor of Africa that only Caesar's influence saved him from prosecution and exile.
He may have been there to see it all, but he certainly didn't see it clearly.
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I'm sure you can come up with a number of times when a senator was convicted of such heinous crimes as possessing too much silverware on his table, holding an iugra or two too much land, conducting 'business' on nefas days or any number of other insignificant crimes.
And I'm also quite certain that you realize that the penalties for such crimes were negligible, if they were even implemented at all. Usually, such prosecutions followed closely on the heels of various sumptuary laws (e.g., those of Cato the Elder), and were in no way, shape, or form career-ruining convictions.
It was a fundamental part of a man's political career to show his skill in the courts, and so when actual criminals did not present themselves, criminals would be made. Couple that with convictions depending heavily on the prosecutor -
What are forums for if not discussion of differing opinions?
One more lap around the cursus, good sir.
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Of course he stated facts and simply deduced a wrong opinion.
Then refute it with your own argument.
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Brutus followed Pompey because the Senate and the cause of legitimate Roman government chose Pompey as their champion. A M. Junius Brutus, descendant of the man who slew his own sons for conspiring against the consuls, could never take the standard of an outlaw opposed to the Roman state - even if that outlaw had the best chance of revenging one's own personal grievances. The Republic came before vendetta in any case.
For Brutus, much as for Cicero, "Caesar's cause lacked nothing but a cause.".
And it was that lack that determined Brutus' position.
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I was actually searching the house for my copy of Tom Holland's Rubicon, as he quotes Antony and provides a footnote and reference. But alas, I found it not.
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I searched in vain for the source of that quote, so that I could have the joy of posting it - "Who cares if I'm screwing the Queen? What does it matter where you shove your erection?".
But you beat me to it. I think that's one that really shows the character of Antony the man.
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You did ask a question, and I simply asked you to prune down your inquiry that I might better address it.
As the Republic grew richer and more powerful, the Best People became more avaricious and contemptuous.Do you have a measurement for this statement, or is it, as I suspect - naught but subjective opinion? The Roman aristocrats of the Late Republic did what the Roman aristocrats of the time of Marius and Sulla, Scipio and Cato had done before them. They squabbled and bickered and fought for offices like children over toys.
I assume by "contemptuous", you refer to an attitude toward the Ordo Equester? Or perhaps the Capite Censi? The Senate was by no means one united front - the Boni were but a loose faction among loose factions, albeit an extraordinarily wealthy and powerful one. Individual members had individual positions on individual issues - your greatest ally might have a different stance on the rights of Gallic nobility to attain the Roman citizenship, and would thusly vote and argue for a different position than yours.
Roman politics were never an exclusively party affair - individuals won offices, not parties. Individual ambitions, admittedly influenced by the politics of their allies, were indulged in. The Boni had no set stance - theirs was a policy colored by tradition moreso than law. And even then, what were the Boni? Those opposed to the populares? There were many who opposed the popularis tradition, especially after Sulla; but those who did so and worked as a group to suppress it did so on individual motives, not out of any sense of duty to a higher party.
The Senate, like Cicero, tried to play off both sides, i.e. Pompey and Caesar.The Senate stuck to politics as it had for centuries. If certain politicians closely aligned themselves with your interests, you scratched their backs in return for yours being scratched. You married their daughters, and their sons married your sisters. Politics did not change in the Late Republic, barring the tenuous argument that Clodius' agitation totally revamped the political scene. Marius had handed out largesse to the populace long before Caesar and Pompey were born - and other generals had done the same long before Marius. The distribution of largesse from a victorious war was a traditional feature of Roman warfare - why bother to expand at all if all you plan to gain is the cost of administrating just one more city?
What you see as placating two opposing parties fomenting civil war was, to the Romans, nothing more than catalyzing the continual hunt for offices and influence. No one except Caesar knew that there would be civil war as a result of their political games, at least until it was too late for anything to really be done.
Had the Republic been so strong and righteous, it might not have succumbed to Caesar.How many legions did Strength and Righteousness command that might have aided the Republic in throwing down Caesar?
The Republic had not changed - it had not decayed or rotted. What had changed was how far one man was willing to go to preserve his own personal political authority and reputation.
Caesar was the change.
A Question About A Famous Roman Quote
in Imperium Romanorum
Posted
I'm not sure about that one, but I remember a Polybios quote that reads something like this: "The welfare of the Roman state is based on ancient traditions, and the men who uphold them."