First Triumvirate

Naming

The term "First Triumvirate", while well-known, is a misleading one which is regularly avoided by modern scholars of the late republic. Boards of a certain number of men such as decemviri were a feature of Roman administration, but this alliance was not one of them. The term appears nowhere in any ancient source, refers to no official position, and is "completely and obviously erroneous". In the ancient world, the triple alliance was referred to with varying terms: Cicero, contemporaneously, wrote of "three men" (tris homines) exercising a regnum; a satire by Marcus Terentius Varro called it a "three-headed monster"; later historians such as Suetonius and Livy referred to the three as a societas or conspiratio; the allies themselves "would presumably have referred to it simply as amicitia".

The usage of the term "triumvirate" to describe this political alliance was unattested during the Renaissance. First attested in 1681, the term emerged into widespread use only during the 18th century; for some time, knowledge that the term was a modern coinage was unknown, "revealed" only in 1806. By the 19th century, usage was somewhat regular – mostly in English and French sources, though not in German ones, – usually prefaced with clarifications that the term did not refer to any official position.

More recently, scholars have started to avoid the term in publications altogether. Harriet Flower in Roman Republics writes that "First Triumvirate" is "misleading in equating the position of the 50s with the official triumvirate of Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian", preferring "alliance" and "Big Three". Books by Andrew Lintott and Richard Billows also have avoided invocation of "First Triumvirate". Others add more reasons to avoid its use, for example, Robert Morstein-Marx in the 2021 book Julius Caesar and the Roman People, "it is almost impossible to use the phrase 'First Triumvirate' without adopting some version of the view that it was a kind of conspiracy against the republic... Nomenclature matters... I eschew the traditional 'First Triumvirate' altogether".

Classicists writing for more general audience also have shied away from use of the term "First Triumvirate". Mary Beard, for example, uses "Gang of Three" in her 2015 book SPQR. Yet others, such as Adrian Goldsworthy, have not, staying with the traditional nomenclature while explaining that the term is inaccurate. The fourth edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary, for example, similarly says "the coalition formed between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus in 60 BCE was wholly unofficial and never described at the time as a triumvirate... 'First' and 'Second Triumvirate' are modern and misleading terms".

History

Formation

The alliance between Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar emerged due to their failure to pass various core portions of their programmes in the gridlocked state of Roman politics in the years before 60 BC. All three had wanted something but were stymied by their rivals in the senate and assemblies.

Pompey, having returned two years earlier from the Third Mithridatic War, wanted ratification of his peace settlements in the east. He also sought lands for his veterans to retire on. After Pompey's return from the Sertorian War from Hispania in 71 BC, he had been able to secure a similar bill distributing land to his veterans; he also had sent subordinates back to Rome to stand for the tribunate in attempts to bring the relevant legislation forward (an attempt in 63 BC was opposed by then-consul Cicero in De lege agraria). Further attempts in 62 BC had led to his allied tribune fleeing the city. While he was successful in getting one of his men, Marcus Pupius Piso Frugi Calpurnianus, elected consul for 61 BC, an intervening religious scandal had made it impossible for him to push forward the appropriate land resettlement legislation. Through massive bribes, Pompey also secured the election of more of his men to offices in 60 BC (Lucius Afranius as consul; Lucius Flavius as one of the plebeian tribunes), but they too were stymied. Cato the Younger and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, motivated in part by their dislike of Pompey's having previously and irregularly displaced their friend Lucullus from a previous command against Mithridates, Pompey's recent divorce of Celer's half-sister in a failed attempt to form a marriage alliance with Cato, and also by their fear of Pompey's power, led to an obstructive coalition. Lucullus returned from his semi-retirement to demand an in-depth review of every aspect of Pompey's eastern arrangements; "this would take a tremendous amount of time and would prevent passage of the bill for the foreseeable future". Without capable allies in the magistracies – both Piso and Afranius were ineffective – Pompey was forced to look elsewhere for allies.

Crassus was one of the richest men in Rome, having made his fortune by profiting from the Sullan proscriptions. He was a patron for Rome's equestrian businessmen. With Pompey, he had served as consul in 70 BC. Those public contractors had massively over-bid on tax contracts for the province of Asia (parts of modern western Turkey) because they failed to account for the devastation of the Third Mithridatic War. His clients demanded a reduction in the taxes they were contractually obliged to deliver to the treasury, a goal also stymied by Cato and Celer in December 61 BC. While senators such as Cicero personally believed "it was ridiculous for [the tax farmers] to seek to have their contracts renegotiated or cancelled simply because they had overestimated their potential profits", the senate had been on the verge of approving the legislation before Celer's intervention. Crassus, a personal enemy of Pompey, also opposed Pompey's settlements and land bills in 60 BC, successfully mobilising his support among the lower-ranked senators to defeat Pompey's proposals. His opposition to Pompey may have been in attempt to win over the senators blocking his own goals, but this was evidently unsuccessful. Passing renegotiation of these tax contracts was vital for Crassus: "his reputation and influence depended on his ability to act as a champion for the powerful equestrian order".

Caesar's consulship, 59 BC

It was well known prior to Caesar's assumption of the consulship with the new year that he would propose a lex agraria. With powerful and secret political allies, Caesar started his consulship of 59 BC relatively traditionally. After ordering that minutes of the senate's debates be published, he published a draft proposal for a lex Julia agraria and set it on the senate's agenda. He took a conciliatory approach, respecting the normal order of the senate and also writing a bill that rectified all the criticisms to Rullus' land bill in 63 BC (Cicero opposed that bill in De lege agraria): Caesar would preserve public lands in Campania, repopulate desolate areas of Italy, move citizens from Rome onto the land (reducing the chance of riots), distribute credit for the bill among twenty commissioners (of which Caesar was not to be one), purchase property for redistribution only from willing sellers based on censorial assessments, pay for the entire project from monies won by Pompey, and extend the land grants to Pompey's veterans in return for their service.

Caesar had the bill read out line-by-line and promised to make any changes needed to receive the assent of the senate. Little reasoned opposition emerged. In general, that an agrarian bill was desirable and "well justified... could not reasonably be denied... many senators must have felt that it was not high time to make good on the promise made long ago to the long-suffering veterans". Some ancient sources describe Caesar's conciliatory tone as a cynical plot to roll over the senators; Caesar's goal may have been to provide the senators an opportunity to "adopt symbolic leadership and demonstrate its solicitude for the interests... of the people... [giving] the body a chance to co-opt the cause of agrarian legislation in its own favour".

Whether a cynical ploy or not, the senate voiced little opposition until the speaking order eventually wound its way to Cato; Cato immediately started a filibuster, arguing instead that the people would be too gracious to Caesar for bringing the bill and that the current situation was fine. The extent to which Caesar's prestige during his first consulship was a topic of debate is unclear; the later sources may here be injecting their knowledge of Caesar's later victories into the narrative. Caesar, seeking to break the filibuster, therefore threatened to have Cato sent to the carcer, Rome's small jail, which elicited mass indignation from the senators. In doing so, Cato succeeded in provoking Caesar into giving credence to Cato's claims that Caesar was a would-be tyrant. Recognising the mistake, Caesar quickly had Cato released. After facing these hurdles in the senate, Caesar moved to bring the agrarian law before the people on his own authority, without senatorial consent.

Fraying of the pact, 59–55 BC

During the Caesar's consulship, the success of Cato and Bibulus' tactics at discrediting Caesar and Pompey made the two greatly unpopular during and after the summer: "[Caesar and Pompey's] public appearances were received coldly or with open antagonism... Bibulus, far from being a pitiable figure, had never enjoyed such wide repute". Cato and Bibulus, for their part, mobilised a large propaganda campaign seeking to brand Caesar a tyrant, with "dire warnings of the impending overthrow of the republican government" that discredited the alliance and forced senators to re-evaluate their tacit support. Crassus revelled in Pompey's discomfitures before the people; this unpopularity frayed at the alliance between the three men, which was meant only to secure for them aims which they could not achieve by themselves.

Upon the conclusion of Caesar's consulship, he left after a few months for his provincial assignment to Gaul. His legislative activity, however, came under immediate attack from Domitius and Memmius, who had been elected as praetors during Caesar's electoral comitia the last year, claiming that Caesar had passed the legislation against the auspices. These efforts were utterly unsuccessful – the pro-triumviral consuls allowed debate on the topic for three days – and the senate rejected the claims. In later years, Caesar's laws were accepted writ large (perhaps with the exception of Bibulus), disregarding any technical religious objections: "If Cicero and Cato both went along with the laws of Vatinius and Caesar, we can fairly assume the rest of the senators did so as well... For Bibulus, it was something of a personal campaign to seek to undermine... Caesar's legislation... but his protests in 59 and later hardly 'kept [it] technically invalid'".

Pompey had the most to lose. After alienating the Metelli by divorcing Mucia, Pompey's alliance with Caesar and Crassus alienated some former allies in the 60s as well, including the Cornelii Lentuli. The triple alliance also led to other formerly rivalrous families mending their relationships. The Luculli and Servilii, who had been rivals for decades, "combined to withstand the triumvirs". Similarly, the Scibonii Curiones, Cornelii Sullae, and Memmii switched from supporting Pompey into opposing him and Caesar. In general, "there can be no coincidence in the fact that, in almost every case, former amici of Pompey are first seen to be ranged with the opposition in the year 59... by maintaining a consciously moral posture, driving the triumvirs to extreme measures, and parading their own martyrdom, Cato and his associates ruined triumviral credit among the people and assembled aristocratic collaboration in resistance".

Renewal

Over the summer of 56 BC, Caesar met with the leaders of various factions across Cisalpine Gaul. He met with Crassus at Ravenna and Pompey at the town of Luca, the southern-most city in Cisalpine Gaul. The agreement emerged from three relatively compatible aims: Crassus and Pompey desired a joint consulship; they also wanted good provincial assignments. Caesar needed an extension in his command to prevent a possible usurpation by Ahenobarbus.

Some two hundred senators, mostly of lower rank, attended upon the three men, seeking to ingratiate themselves. The conference also forced a re-evaluation of alliances across the wider aristocracy: the Claudii – both Appius and Publius – and Gaius Cato switched sides back to the dynasts. Cicero, dependent on and indebted to Pompey for his return from exile, was also enlisted to lend rhetorical support. The alliance was renewed and expanded to include the Claudii Pulchri, turning Clodius from an opponent to a supporter. In return for their help, the allies would support Appius – whose chances of election to a consulship without their support was slim – in his goal of being elected consul for 54. The remaining opposition was also further reinvigorated. Cato had returned from a provincial assignment in Cyprus in late 56 and supported Domitius' campaign for the consulship. After 55 BC, when Pompey and Crassus assumed a joint consulship by violence, the political fortunates of the triple alliance quickly soured.

The development of the specific terms of their renewed agreement may have taken some time. Caesar responded to the threat of Domitius' consulship by asking Crassus to stand and veto any actions to take away his command. Pompey chose to stand for the consulship as well, possibly unilaterally, met with the support (if not entirely willing), of his allies. However, by the time this arrangement was decided, the current consul – Marcellinus – refused to accept their candidacy on grounds that they had passed the deadline. Faced with political disaster, they decided instead to "scuttle the whole election process" for 56 BC.

Election of Pompey and Crassus was by no means certain. By the time of the conference, to produce the conditions needed for victory, the alliance stoked mob violence and interposed a permanent tribunician veto – courtesy of Clodius' ally, Gaius Cato, who was tribune that year – to block elections until the following year. The terms of the consuls having expired, elections were conducted instead by temporary extraordinary magistrates, interreges, and with the arrival of Caesar's soldiers from Gaul on winter furlough, elections were held. Employing force to drive other candidates away and distributing bribes to ensure their victory, Pompey and Crassus were elected consuls. They then used their control over the electoral comitia also to secure the election of their allies to the praetorship (both Milo and Vatinius were returned) while excluding opponents (Cato was not).

Backlash

The new consul Appius Claudius Pulcher seemed an ally, but as the political winds blew against the alliance, he quickly defected. Early in the year, he cooperated with them in securing the appointment of a Pompeian ally as one of Caesar's tribunes and obstructed Gabinius' prosecution (for the bribes received to induce his invasion of Egypt), but seeing Pompey's support for one Marcus Aemilius Scaurus rather than his brother for the consulship of 53 BC, he broke with Pompey and launched a prosecution against Scaurus.

The alliance's opponents, led by Cato's coterie, also launched a broadside against their supporters in the courts:

Gaius Porcius Cato, the tribune in 56 who had vetoed elections to delay them for Pompey and Crassus, was prosecuted but acquitted. He was then brought on new charges but again acquitted.

Another tribune, Marcus Nonius Sufenas, who had helped Gaius Cato, was also tried. He was acquitted.

Also prosecuted was a Pompeian tribune from 57 BC, who was also acquitted.

In the case of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, tried before Cato's extortion court for extorting the Sardinians during his propraetorship, six leading defence advocates (Cicero, Hortensius, and Clodius included) and nine former consuls – including Pompey and Metellus Nepos – were enlisted in his defence. He too was acquitted.

Publius Vatinius was tried for giving bribes in his campaign for praetor. With Cicero's (begrudging) defence, he was acquitted.

Aulus Gabinius, one of Pompey's allies and former legates, was tried after his return from Syria in September 54 BC for receiving bribes to attack Egypt. He was tried first for treason but acquitted after Pompey bribed the jurors. In a second trial for extortion, Pompey's blatant bribes "had likely led to a surge of resentment" and Gabinius was sent into exile, the only major conviction of the year. By this time, consul Pulcher had switched sides, joining in the attack on Gabinius.

Pompey's sole consulship, 52 BC

In spring of 53 BC, while Rome dealt with its own political crisis, Crassus launched his invasion of Syria and Caesar was dealing with a military crisis as the Gauls rose up. From the perspective at Rome, news of ambushes in Gaul arrived first: Caesar abandoned his civil functions in Cisalpine Gaul to rescue his legions wintering in the Eburones' territory (near modern Belgium). A few months later, news of the disaster at the Battle of Carrhae arrived, reporting that Crassus and much of his army had been killed by the Parthians.

Still at this point, Caesar and Pompey were on friendly terms. Caesar praised Pompey, for example, for lending one of Pompey's Spanish legions to help against the Gauls, a private military arrangement which Cato criticised in the senate for usurping senatorial prerogatives on legionary assignments. The consuls immediately prepared to hold elections for 52 BC, which proved impossible when they were injured by stones thrown by the crowd.

As the year 52 BC started, the consuls stepped down without replacement. For the first 18 days of the year, tribunes continually interposed their vetoes against election of an interrex. Standing for the consulship in this year were Milo (supported by Cato and others), Publius Plautius Hypsaeus (one of Pompey's former lieutenants), and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio. Clodius, still warring with Milo's street gangs, supported Milo's competitors. Some ancient historians – including Plutarch, Livy, and Valerius Maximus – believed that this violence was all part of a plot to have Pompey appointed dictator. That Pompey desired a dictatorship is unnecessary to explain his opposition to elections; Pompey may have opposed the elections merely because they would have been elections that Milo would have won. On 18 January, at a chance counter between Clodius and Milo on a road near a suburb outside of Rome, Milo's henchmen killed Clodius after a short brawl between their two entourages. The next day, his body was brought back to Rome, where a mob then stormed the senate house and burnt it down – along with the Basilica Porcia – as part of Clodius' funeral pyre.

At the resulting senate meeting on the Palatine, the senate elected an interrex. This was in part because two of the men obstructing senatorial action – Pompey and one of the tribunes, Titus Munatius Plancus, – were not present. Shortly thereafter, the senate passed a senatus consultum ultimum which called for the interrex and Pompey, as proconsul, to raise troops and take them into the city to restore order. The following eleven interreges were unable to hold elections. However, some fifty-eight days after Clodius' death, with a sufficient force in the city, the twelfth interrex was able to hold elections. At the direction of the senate on motion of Bibulus and supported by Cato, only Pompey's candidacy was accepted, and upon his election, he became consul without colleague. The purpose of the decree was possibly to forestall a Pompeian dictatorship or as part of a compromise to restore normal government while also precluding Milo's likely election (allowing Milo to be brought to trial for Clodius' murder).

Collapse, 52–49 BC

The death of Julia did not mark an immediate collapse in the alliance between Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar. The view that her death made a confrontation inevitable is held by a number of ancient sources, but is no longer uncritically accepted by modern scholars. Nor did his election as sole consul in 52 BC mark an immediate collapse in their alliance. During Pompey's sole consulship, he married Cornelia Metella, the daughter of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio, but this too was not a break with Caesar (as implied by Velleius Paterclus). The death of Crassus in early 53 BC, however, did mark the conversion of a balanced three-person alliance into what would turn into a dyadic rivalry. Pompey's marriage in 52 BC and his other law reaffirming the requirement to declare candidacy for office in person "did not actually harm Caesar directly" but indicated his willingness to build alliances with other, formerly closed off, political groupings.

Cato stood for the consulship of 51 BC. But after running an honest campaign with little bribery and promises to recall Caesar from Gaul, his canvass was rejected by the people. Elected instead were Marcus Claudius Marcellus and Servius Sulpicius Rufus. The former was an enemy of Caesar and raised in 51 BC the question of stripping Caesar of his command, arguing that because of Caesar's victory at Alesia, his provincia (here meaning "task") in Gaul was completed. His effort was vetoed; Pompey, too, objected, arguing that removing Caesar before the summer of 50 BC would not respect his dignity.

At the elections for the magistrates of 50 BC, Caesar's ally Gaius Scribonius Curio was elected tribune; Gaius Claudius Marcellus and Lucius Aemilius Paullus were returned as consuls-designate. While Paullus was induced by a massive bribe (Caesar funded his renovation of the basilica Aemilia), Paullus remained only neutral. By late 51 BC, the coming showdown became clearer: Caesar would induce tribunes to veto discussion of his replacement in Gaul – leaving him in command – while Cato and his conservatives sought to enlist Pompey to defend against any Caesarian threats and deny Caesar any honours. However, Pompey did not immediately come around to breaking with Caesar: he needed Caesar's support to secure a possible command against the Parthians as concerns rose that year over a possible counter-invasion following Crassus' defeat.

In the new year, in March 50 BC, one of the new consuls, Gaius Claudius Marcellus, raised the question of Caesar's command again. His efforts were vetoed by Curio, however, and the consuls responded by putting a hold on all provincial discussions, in an attempt to force Curio to lift it. This veto, perhaps a mistake or possibly made with knowledge that Pompey was hostile to Caesar's standing for election in absentia with his army – which would have been seen as intimidating – started the crisis. Caesar, knowing that Pompey was reconciling with Cato and Bibulus, was unable to trust him to stick to his word, especially if giving up his command would open him to possibly having his candidacy and triumph rejected by the unfriendly consuls. Caesar rejected a senatorial compromise which would have had Caesar stand for the consulship in 50 without giving up his command or armies, likely because he did not trust Pompey and the consuls to uphold their end of the bargain.

Evaluation

The alliance was clearly successful in winning short-term political advantage for its members in Caesar's consulship of 59 BC. However, over the following years, it broke down: "cooperation was shaky and the disenchantment of former supporters proved.. to be debilitating". Moreover, its very success triggered "the coalescence of aristocratic groups in opposition" with greatly lessened success in the later half of the 50s. Overall, the alliance was "never entirely stable" and was marked by periods of renewal followed by a return to rivalries between the three members. The goals sought together were broadly opportunistic and self-interested. The alliance, however, was part of the thinking that went into the creation of the Second Triumvirate a few decades later.

The formation of the three-way alliance "has been seen as a momentous milestone in the crippling of republican institutions" since ancient times. The ancient historian Gaius Asinius Pollio chose to start his history of the civil wars with its formation; other historians, including Ronald Syme in Roman Revolution (1939), have taken a similar tact, viewing it as "the end of the free state". For example, Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg in the Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (2014), wrote:

Their friendship (amicitia) could have been a traditional alliance within the framework of what was usual in Roman political life. Yet their agreement that nothing should be done in Rome that was displeasing to any of the three... changed the rules of the game. There had never been a time when three men had conceived of the notion that their private arrangements should regulate what would happen in Rome. For there had never before been three men with the necessary resources and power to impose their vision on the state.

Others disagree. Erich Gruen, for example, writes "the union of political cliques in 59 was an information amicitia... [it was] no novelty in Roman politics and simply underlined the mobility of grouping that had been characteristic of previous decades". In this vein, the alliance can be seen as something similar also to "the kind of political deal the Saturninus and Glaucia were trying to organise in 100" BC. Amy Russell, writing in the Encyclopedia of Ancient History, similarly focuses on how the alliance failed to dominate elections, viewing instead the accusations of regnum from Cicero and lamentations of tyranny as "deriv[ing] from their opponents' rhetoric... [who] at the same time... were working to divide them [the allies]". Similarly, Mary Beard says the alliance "was not such a complete takeover as those comments [from Horace and Cicero] imply[;] there were all kinds of strains, disagreements, and rivalries between the three men ... the electoral process sometimes got the better of them and someone quite different, not at all to their liking, was voted in".